“O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.”
~ Psalm 7:9
Hi James and Ellen,
Have you ever felt like everyone is against you? Have you ever been verbally attacked? Have you ever had to literally run for your lives? What do you think that life is like for a kid who lives in a country where the leader of the country – who has been the President of this country for 28 years, is condoning having an arm or a hand cut off of a guy who is an opposition political party member? Your grandmaa and grandpaa received an e-mail today from a missionary who just spent a couple of days in the country of Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe’s land mass is about the size of Montana. The country of Zimbabwe – which once had the name of Rhodesia, is located in the southern region of Africa. John traveled with a couple of other missionaries – who your grandpaa and grandmaa know, from where they live in Johannesburg, South Africa to Gweru, Zimbabwe to teach in a three day church growth workshop that was scheduled for Zimbabwean church leaders who could make it to the sessions. Zimbabwe has been suffering through an inflationary period which has made it a challenge for most of the Zimbabweans to survive. Ever since Great Briton gave Zimbabwe their independence, Robert Mugabe and his SANU-PF political party have retained control as Zimbabwe’s governing party. In a election that took place earlier this year, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC political party had a larger percentage of the popular vote than Robert Mugabe’s political party but because his total vote was not over 50% of those voting, he and Robert Mugabe agreed to do power sharing. Per the e-mail that your grandmaa and grandpaa received today from their missionary friend, Robert Mugabe and his political party are resorting again to intimidation and brutality – which has been the history of Robert Mugabe and his political party to do in an effort to exert control once again over all the guys, gals and kids who are living in Zimbabwe.
Your grandpaa recently was asked to read a book that is entitled ‘The Forgotten Ways’ that was written by Alan Hirsch. The book’s premise is about the organic growth of the number of guys and gals who have become Christ-followers. Historians estimate that in 100 A.D. there were as few as 25,000 Christ-follower guys and gals but that in 310 A.D. it is estimated that there were somewhere around 20,000,000 Christ-follower guys and gals. When Mao Tse-tung and his Communist Red Army took over power in 1949 in China, it is estimated that there were about 2,000,000 Christ-follower guys and gals who were living in China. After Mao Tse-tung initiated a systematic purge of Chinese Christ-follower guys and gals – killing the primary Christ-follower leaders, imprisoning the next levels of Christ-follower leaders and banning all meetings of Christ-follower guys and gals, the number of guys, gals and kids who are presently living in China who have become Christ-followers has grown to over 60,000,000.
What do you think a guy, gal or kid who is a faithful, true Christ-follower will do when the going begins to get tough – such as when there is governmental oppression? What do you think that some guys, gals and kids who are not Christ-followers will do when the going begins to get tough – such as when party loyalists become Gestapo like? What did David do when a guy by the name of Cush – who was from the Benjamin tribal clan and who was a Saul supporter, decided that he was going to take on doing in David? David wrote a psalm song that is called a shiggaion as a prayer to God to intervene for him against Cush. Because of Saul’s jealous loathing of him, David ended up having to spend a number of years living a nomadic life. In a prayer psalm song that David scribed to God – which is now Psalm 7, David begins by pleading to God – reminding God that he is taking refuge in Him, to save him and to deliver him from the guy who were trying to find him to kill him. David knew that if the guy who were looking for him found him that he would be killed similar to a lion ripping apart prey. Before David continued in his psalm song prayer, David told God that if he was guilty of some kind of evil that had caused a friend to become an enemy resulting in this at one time friend to want to hunt for him to kill him that he understood why his life needed to be trampled into the dust. David then in this prayer psalm song began to really lean on God to wake up and to level His anger against all the guys who were trying to kill him and who were His enemies. David in this prayer psalm song asked God to judge his integrity against his righteousness and against the guys who were trying to kill him so that what verse 9 says would happen, “O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.” David’s real heart desire is clearly heard when he asks God to drop the guys who were born to conceive trouble and to do evil and who were looking for him with deadly weapons and with flaming arrows into the pits that they had dug and to have the violence that they were creating to recoil on their own heads. What do you think the future is going to be like for a guy, gal or kid who is living in the United States if the political party who has a Marxist driven ideology – which promotes guys and gals to choose to live immoral lives, which defines a fetus as a disease and which advocates socialism, has a plurality? Do you think that the David-like Christ-follower guys and gals will finally take seriously their faith and faithfully live out God’s truths in their lives?
Psalm 7 (945)