Blog Archives

March 31 - Psalm 134

3/29/2015

Photo ©2015 Rebekah Hamblett

Of the fifteen Songs of Ascents, Psalm 134 is the last and shortest sung by the priests attending to the Temple in Jerusalem during the evening. First, the priests were to bless God and declare to God all His eternal goodness. Next, the priests blessed all the people by declaring God’s goodness because God cares about each one of His people. Lastly, God will also show them His goodness ‘from Zion’. The temple was a special place because of God’s special relationship with Israel which was continuous.

In our time, many name this occupation as being on the “Night Watch” or “Evening Shift”. This identification immediately can conger up a variety of assumptions of what one “really” does during those hours when no one is watching. Along with this come many dreaded emotions such as “loneliness” and “many boring hours.” (And for some, an easy way to get paid while sleeping on the job!) Yet there are others who trudge through the dusk to dawn hours by walking the floor with a screaming, sick baby in their arms; or who have illnesses that afflict and prevent them from much needed sleep. And then there are those, not unlike us, who are so burdened with life issues that sleep is not an option until our concerns are miraculously resolved.

As a pastor and shepherdess guiding one of God’s special flocks, this Psalm speaks to me directly and may-be to others as well who may need a “good ‘ole turnaround”. Our lives can be considered both prolific and inexhaustibly full of needs and wants. Often we come to prayer spilling forth to the Lord all those concerns and more. Sadly, praise and thanksgiving to God may not be our first act of prayer. Just for a moment or two, reflect on this suggestion – let’s all memorize Psalm 134. Learn and meditate on the words and the order in which they are spoken. How glorious it will be to thank God for all the wondrous things He has created and provided. All Christians are like the priests in Israel: We all have a special duty to praise God. Name them one-by-one – people who lay heavy on your heart or those who brought joy into your day.

Lastly, there is the sanctuary within our churches or that special place in our homes where God promises always to be present. “Where”, according to Jesus, “two or more are gathered in my name….” Imagine how full our lives can be when we lift-up in song the praises of Psalm 134 that are plain, simple and spiritually complete – anytime and anywhere!

- Karen Heavey

Click Here for Psalm 134

Today pray for:
The Madison Church and their pastor Sean Dunker-Bendigo
First Baptist Church, Manchester, NH and their pastor John Cerrato
French Speaking Baptist Church, Manchester and their pastor Renaud Dumont

March 30 - Psalm 133

3/29/2015

Photo ©2015 Rebekah Hamblett

Scripture’s formula for strength and comfort among God’s Kingdom people is simple. UNITY = a good and pleasant and secure existence. It is interesting that in so many areas God’s spiritual laws mirror the laws God has embedded in the physical world.

The old camp consecration service object lesson teaches us that when firewood is in direct contact with other firewood the fire blazes and light, warmth and energy are produced. But when they are separated, the fire quickly goes out and the light, warmth and energy fade and die. This simple object lesson speaks profoundly to our life together within our individual churches and within our historic fellowship of churches. The small sticks and the big logs need each other to sustain power. We need to be together physically in order to grow together spiritually. We have strong empirical evidence of what happens when laypeople, pastors and churches elect to go it alone. The “Lone Ranger” may be a great western movie but it is a fatal story when applied to our life together as Christians long-term. We must affirm our responsibility as family. The more we get together the happier and more effective we will be.

We need to prioritize our face-to-face contact in order to keep the fire burning. So take advantage of association gatherings, Christian camp and conference events, and interchurch hymn sings; visit other church suppers and yes, attend the ABC/VNH Annual Gathering. Every time there is an opportunity to be in touch with other Christians make it your top priority. Then you will find the secret to a good, pleasant and powerful Christian journey. Hiking together makes the climb less arduous and more enjoyable. No one can summit Mt. Everest by themselves.

May the Lord bless our commitment to unity and give us love for each other so that God’s Message may influence the world He has given to us.

- Peter Bolster

Click Here for Psalm 133

Today pray for:
First Baptist Church, Lyme and their interim pastor Lloyd Wiley
United Church of Lyndeborough and their pastor Paul Lemire
ABC/VNH Board of Trustees

March 29 - Psalm 132

3/29/2015

Photo ©2015 Esther Martindale

I’ve been asked a lot of things in my life, but never what someone inquired of me last October. My three year old granddaughter asked, “Grampy, can you walk on water?” While I was a bit taken aback, I assured her I could not walk on water, but that it was nice to know someone thought me capable of doing so.

We all give and receive adulation in different ways. I remember seeing rock ‘n roll legend Bo Diddley perform at Sienna College in November 1960, wearing his signature black cowboy hat, and playing his custom (his own design), rectangular solid-body Gibson guitar. I was fourteen years old and walked away from that con-cert believing I’d had the greatest night of my life. What public figure receives your adulation? Whoever it is, probably doesn’t know you any better that Bo Diddley knew me.

In the Psalm before us, the congregation prays that God would remember David’s vow to build a house for the Lord to dwell in, (vv. 2-5). In doing so, the psalmist and congregants singing this song of ascents are reminded of David’s capturing the Ark of the Covenant, which had been taken from the Israelites by the Philistines, and bringing it to Zion, (2 Sam. 6). As they remembered the history of the Ark of the Covenant, they would remember God’s covenant with King David, to build his throne “for all generations” (Ps. 89: 3-4).

This song would be used to prepare the hearts of these pilgrims before and during worship at the Temple. It is not too hard for us to imagine them singing this song on their journey back to their homes.

Like the Israelite pilgrims of old, we must understand there is but one person worthy of our adulation, praise, and worship: God in Christ. God alone is worthy of our praise. Celebrities, musicians, athletes, and politicians may “wow” us with their talents, brains and skills, but in reality they don’t even know us, much less care about us. God knows us more fully than even our deepest and most intimate human relationships. We don’t have to chase Him, log on, find a wireless “hot-spot,” or anything else. He’s right there. Always.

As C.S. Lewis once noted, let us “press further up, and further in,” to God. Remember that every day!

- James Harrington

Click Here for Psalm 132

Today pray for:
Loon Mountain Ministry, Lincoln, NH and pastor Marcus Corey
Lochmere Free Baptist Church and their pastor David Daley
Loudon Center Freewill Baptist Church and their interim pastor John Young

March 28 - Psalm 131

3/29/2015

Photo ©2015 Rebekah Hamblett

This Psalm, only 3 verses in length, in essence encapsulates aspects of what a spiritual walk with God looks like when we are dependent on Him, as opposed to being independent of Him.

The person who is dependent on God tries to be balanced. As it states in verse two, “I have behaved myself” (KJV). The word in Hebrew for behaved is shavah, meaning “to level, equalize or counterbalance.” The meaning of this word denotes the idea that something is or was unbalanced at some point; or, that something needs to be continually balanced. That something is the human heart and this shavahing towards God is how we begin to find continual balance.

In verse 1 we also see aspects of the human heart that is independent of God, the opposite of a dependent heart. This heart is haughty, proud, lifted up. It is concerned with great matters or things too difficult for a person to handle. It is this heart that does not recognize the futility of and strain on their lives which comes from not practicing shavah, from not being dependent on God.

Conversely, the heart that is dependent on God, the heart that has shavahed or is shavahing itself, is described in verse 2 as being the direct opposite of the independent heart. It is not proud, concerned with great things, or things too difficult for one to handle. It is a heart that has been calmed.

Additionally in verse 2, we are given the reason for the calm or stillness of a person that is shavahing him– or herself. It is because of spiritual sustenance that has been transferred to the individual by God as they quiet-ed their soul in Him. In the verse, the transferring of spiritual nourishment is likened unto a mother breast-feeding her child, the mother being God, and the child being the person dependent on God.

Thus, as we quiet ourselves and look to God in prayer, as we hope in Him, we, as hungry or crying children, receive from the Lord eternal sustenance that balances and calms our hearts and satisfies our souls.

In verse 3 the psalmist solidifies the message of the passage by encouraging us to hope in Him, our stability, our heart’s sustainer, our soul satisfier, our great and wonderful God.

- Jeremy Pataro

Click Here for Psalm 131

Today pray for:
First Baptist Church, Lebanon and their pastor Eliot Fay
United Church of Lincoln and their pastor David Wood
Camp Sentinel Ministries and Executive Director Kevin Van Brunt

March 27 - Psalm 130

3/24/2015

Photo ©2015 Stephen Payne

Over the years of my ministry, I've had people both inside and outside of the church say to me that their sin is so great that God could, or would, never forgive them. How sad. It's as if they believed that some-thing they had done or not done was too big for God to handle.

Reading Psalm 130 in any version should set the matter straight. Read the Psalm slowly and reflectively. Let your imagination get caught up in the words.

On pilgrimage to Jerusalem for one of the high holy days, as he ascends toward the city and the cries of praise from the other pilgrims resound in his ears, the psalmist looks deep within himself and recoils as he realizes the depths of his sin. But he doesn't give up because he knows and trusts God. Even from the depths of despair the psalmist assures us that we can call upon God who will hear us and forgive us, not because of anything we do, but because God is God whose very nature is to forgive. God's love is constant, unlike ours.

In God's way and in God's time, God will save God's people from their sin if they truly want to be saved. That is our hope. That is God's promise. Thanks be to God!

- S. Benjamin Hamblett

Click Here for Psalm 130

Today pray for:
Joliette Word of Life Church, Montreal, Quebec and their pastor Oscar Wakenge
First Baptist Church, Keene and their pastor Mark Ferrin
United Baptist Church, Lakeport

March 26 - Psalm 129

3/24/2015

Photo ©2015 Malcolm Hamblett

This song of ascent reveals the work of a righteous God using agrarian imagery as one who “cuts me free from the cords (or yoke) of the wicked” (v.4). The “me” in this passage is Israel, God’s holy people, who have been, and are being, delivered and set free from their oppressors. The psalmist harkens back to the time of Israel’s youth (v.1) as a new nation, most likely referring to the deliverance from Egypt and the oppression of slavery under the yoke of Pharaoh. However, this deliverance from oppression by Israel’s enemies has not yet reached its full completion and appears to take center stage in this song. The psalmist appears to speak a word of judgment over Israel’s oppressors asking that first, “they be turned back in shame” (v.5), second that “they be like grass that withers” (v.6), and third “let no one say to them a blessing in the Lord’s name” (v.8).

In this journey up to Jerusalem, also referred to as “Zion”, these travelers are moving closer and closer to a celebration or feast in God’s holy city. The author’s rich use of agrarian imagery most likely ties this song to the fall harvest time, during the Feast of Tabernacles which also correlates with the Exodus from Egypt already mentioned above (v.1). The celebration here is tied to the proclamation that Israel’s oppressors have no part in the blessings of God (v.8). This spiritual and physical journey is only for a sacred and holy people who belong to God and who have been freed from the wicked (v.4). The destination here is God’s Holy City, Zion, which belongs to a God who is Righteous and Holy. Thus Zion would not be a destination for the wick-ed or those who “hate Zion” (v.5) or who have “made long furrows on Israel’s back” (v.3). The author of this Psalm describes God as Righteous and one who acts on behalf of His people Israel, where God’s Holy peo-ple have been separated from those who seek to oppress and harm them by God’s own hand of deliverance and providence (v.4).

The apex of this Psalm is the realization that the destination for these travelers singing this Song of Ascent is related to the very freedom they sing about. Their destination is into a place free from oppression and into the very presence of the righteousness of God. Because God is Holy, it makes perfect sense that God’s city would also be a place that is Holy and sacred, a place where the wicked “turn back in shame” (v.3) and are not welcome, and a place where only God’s people belong.

As we reflect on a righteous God who is our own agent of deliverance from the wicked, let us also be remind-ed that our own spiritual destination is free from the oppression of the wicked and where we gather together with God’s holy people, rejoicing in the Lord’s deliverance. Amen.

- Daniel Ward

Click Here for Psalm 129

Today pray for:
Community Church of Huntington and their pastor Larry Detweiler
Jamaica Community Church and their pastor Norma Drosky
Rev. Vivan Martindale, Representative to the ABCUSA Board of General Ministries

March 25 - Psalm 128

3/23/2015

Photo ©2015 Rebekah Hamblett

A Secret to a Happy Life

Who is it among us that does not desire a happy life? Having read this Psalm from several different versions, I find myself attracted most to Eugene H. Peterson’s paraphrase because he, perhaps more than others, focuses upon the happy life that God desires for all of us. I invite you to catch some of Peterson’s phrases:
…All you who fear Yahweh, how blessed you are!
…How happily you walk on his smooth straight road!
…Enjoy the blessing! Revel in the goodness!
…Stand in awe of God’s Yes.
…Oh, how He blesses the one who fears Yahweh!
…Enjoy the good life in Jerusalem, every day of your life.

I had the fortune of being raised in a wonderful Christian home. My father, who passed away when I was a child of ten years, was a deacon in our home church and was highly respected in our small town. My mother, who never remarried, was a godly woman who instilled in her five children a love for the Lord. I often think of a plaque that hung on our dining room wall as I was growing up that contained that familiar saying, “The family that prays together, stays together.” In my childhood growing up, mother set the example of prayer for her children to follow. Despite the fact that we often lacked all of the material blessings enjoyed by some of our neighbors, we had a spirit of joy, peace and happiness in our home that seemed lacking in the lives of many who lived around us.

I love the words of Thomas Merton when in his work entitled “The Silence of the Psalms, he observes:
“We bring the substance of our own lives to the Psalter and offer it to Christ to be transformed by Him…. Since life on earth is what it is, we all have plenty of trouble, plenty of suffering, plenty of misery. We have our joys too. And we should not omit to offer them to Christ and unite them with His joys. But I insist on the importance of bringing our sufferings because it is precisely these that He wishes to transfigure into His purest joys.
(After all, the real joys of life do not come when we super-naturalize our trifling little human successes with an act of pure intention. We enter into true joy through the center of our own nothingness. We find true happiness by dying, because our truest happiness belongs to heaven and we can only enter heaven by dying to the things of earth.”

Yes, I am learning that happiness in life comes when in the words of Peterson; I can “stand in awe of God’s yes.”

- Louis George

Click Here for Psalm 128

Today pray for:
Hinesburg United Church and their pastor Jared Hamilton
Holderness Community Church and their pastor Dan Ward
First Baptist Church, Hudson and their pastor Moa Imchen

March 24 - Psalm 127

3/23/2015

Photo ©2015 Rebekah Hamblett

The LORD is ever-present and always to be acknowledged. We may build our homes, our communities, our cities to dwell within, but they are not safe nor invulnerable if we do not acknowledge the sovereign oversight of Almighty God. (The “LORD,” printed in upper case letters in English translations, is the common rendition for YHWH, or Jehovah – the one and only true God, builder and sustainer of all Creation.)

Apart from the LORD, all our endeavors are ultimately fruitless, no matter how sincerely we may labor to satisfy the needs and wants of a godless humanity. Regardless of our own efforts – even while we sleep – the LORD causes our crops to grow, our flowers to bloom, our plants to produce, our economies to thrive, if we live and work in full regard of “the laws of nature and of nature’s God.”

Each and every child, a blessing from God, is in fact our next generation, collectively to be duly responsible for the wholesome vitality of our future as a nation and ultimately as a civilization. They are to be entrusted with the civil structure and applicable laws that determine the direction of the changing culture each generation experiences and weaves into the fabric of an exceptional people who acknowledge the sovereign rule of Almighty God – the LORD of all Creation. Each generation needs to be armed with solid knowledge of how God works within our lives and relationships, and be able to contend with the errant ideologies that reject eternal truths and the LORD of all Truth.

- David Garrecht

Click Here for Psalm 127

Today pray for:
United Church of Hardwick and their pastor Evelyn Lavelli
Community Church of Harrisville/Chesham and their pastor Carol Shelton
Region Staff: James F. Smith, Placement Consultant

March 23 - Psalm 126

3/23/2015

Photo ©2015 Esther Martindale

“Sow in tears … reap in joy.”

At first glance, the setting of this Psalm appears to be the return from the Babylonian exile. However, the description is so general that it could refer to any number of events recorded in the historical books in which Israel was under pressure from foreign powers. In fact, two captivities seem to be in view in this Psalm; one that was ended by God’s intervention (vv. 1-3), and the present one, the subject of the psalmist’s petition (v. 4).

The Psalm may be thus outlined: praise for a past restoration (vv. 1-3), petition for restoration for the present (v. 4) and confidence in restoration in the future (vv. 5, 6).

This Psalm, written perhaps by King Hezekiah to mark the deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrian siege (Isaiah 37:36), may have also been the theme song for the returning remnant who left Babylon for Jerusalem after the 70 year captivity. (See Ezra 1.)

Psalm 126 should be contrasted with Psalm 137, which records the soul agony of those Israelites whom Nebuchadnezzar carried unto Babylon at the beginning of the 70-year captivity period. Note in verses 1-6 the despair at that time.

- Henry Frost

Click Here for Psalm 126

Today pray for:
First Baptist Church, Hampton Falls and their pastor Ken Lawrence
First Baptist Church, Hanover (Etna) and their pastor Ted Brayman
Trinity Baptist Church, Hanover and their pastor Ken Hale

March 22 - Psalm 125

3/19/2015

Photo © 2015 Esther Martindale

Mountain Faith

We in ABC/VNH know about mountains – the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Green Mountains of Vermont. Many of our churches stand within sight of mountains. My town of Sandwich, NH, is nestled up against the White Mountain National Forest. Every day as I drive through the town I can glimpse Mount Israel, Mount Whiteface, and Mount Chocorua, among others. One of my favorite short hikes is just over the Sandwich line in Holderness. A half hour walk up Mount Rattlesnake is rewarded with a fabulous view of Squam Lake. Yes, we live in a beautiful part of the country.

The Holy Land also has mountains, both in Galilee and Judea. Jerusalem is constructed on seven mountains, one of which is called Mount Zion, so it is not surprising that the psalmist would think of God and his relation-ship to his people Israel in terms of mountains. Psalm 125 starts out with two statements. One describes the person who trusts in God.; the second describes God dwelling with his people.

The Psalm begins: “Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides for-ever.” Can you imagine humans trying to move Mount Washington? It cannot be done! The winter storms buffet it and the rains pound against it, and yet it stands … seemingly forever. Only God, working through erosion over the eons, can bring mountains down. In the same way, we cannot be moved by the storms of life when we trust in God.

The Psalm continues, “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds His people from this time forth and forever.” If you have ever been to Israel, you know that the city of Jerusalem is not only built on mountains, it is also surrounded by mountains. Among them is the Mount of Olives from which one can see a beautiful panorama of the city and the surrounding area. The mountains that surround the city have served as a natural defense for Jerusalem in times of war.

In the same way, the Lord surrounds his people. The prophet Isaiah says, “For the Lord is my stronghold and my sure defense.” As the walls of a fortress protect us from enemies, so does God protect us.

David says in Psalm 18, “The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust.” God surrounds us as the mountains of New England surround our churches. And like the mountains, we will never be moved when we place our trust in him.

- Marshall Davis

Click Here for Psalm 125

Today pray for:
The Grafton Church and their pastor Christine Dyke
First Baptist Church, Hampton and their pastor Mark Lowe
Al Hall, Treasurer, ABC/VNH