Author Archives: reveds

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About reveds

Occupation: Pastor, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Lennox, SD Education: BS - Christian Education, Sterling College; MDiv. - Princeton Theological Seminary Family: Married, with Four children. Hobbies: Running (will someday run a marathon), Sci-Fi (especially Doctor Who and Sherlock), Theater, and anything else my kids will let me do.

Jehovah Tsidkenu

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Having just returned from the 2011 Desiring God Pastor’s Conference, I am tempted to try to cram everything I heard into my blog for the day or my sermon on Sunday.  Instead, I thought I share this with you.

John Piper gave a biographical sketch of 19th century pastor Robert Murray McCheyne (pronounced Mc-Shane).  He pastored a church in Dundee, Scotland for seven years until he died at the age of 29.  His sermons, poetry, letters, and biography were preserved by his good friend Andrew Bonar. 

Below is one poem that Piper shared:

Jehovah Tsidkenu (sid-kay-new)
“the lord our righteousness”

I once was a stranger to grace and to God,
I knew not my danger, and felt not my load;
Though friends spoke in rapture of Christ on the tree.
Jehovah Tsidkenu was nothing to me.

I oft read with pleasure, to soothe or engage,
Isaiah’s wild measure and John’s simple page;
But e’en when they pictured the blood-sprinkled tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu seem’d nothing to me.

Like tears from the daughters of Zion that roll,
I wept when the waters went over his soul
Yet thought not that my sins had nail’d to the tree,
Jehovah Tsidkenu—’twas nothing to me.

When free grace awoke me, by light from on high,
Then legal fears shook me, I trembled to die;
No refuge, no safety in self could I see—
Jehovah Tsidkenu my Saviour must be.

My terrors all vanished before the sweet name;
My guilty fears banished, with boldness I came
To drink at the fountain, life-giving and free—
Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.

Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast,
Jehovah Tsidkenu! I ne’er can be lost;
In Thee I shall conquer by flood and by field—
My cable, my anchor, my breastplate and shield!

Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,
This “watchword” shall rally my faltering breath,
For while from life’s fever my God sets me free,
Jehovah Tsidkenu my death-song shall be.

 SDG

While the Pastor’s away (Part 2)

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From Charles Spurgeon:

Our Ultimate Inheritance

He will choose our inheritance for us. (Psalm 47:4 KJV)

Believer, if your inheritance is a lowly one, you should be satisfied with your earthly portion, for you may rest assured that it is the fittest for you.  Unerring wisdom ordained your lot and selected for you the safest and best condition.  A large ship is to be brought up the river; now in one part of the stream there is a sandbank.  Should someone ask, “Why does the captain steer through the deep part of the channel and deviate so much from a straight line?” his answer would be, “Because I could not get my vessel into harbor at all if I did not keep to the deep channel.”  So, it may be, you would run aground and suffer shipwreck if your divine Captain did not steer you into the depths of affliction where waves of trouble follow each other in quick succession.  Some plants die if they have too much sunshine. It may be that you are planted where you get but little; you are put there by the loving Husbandman because only in that situation will you bring forth fruit unto perfection.  Had any other condition been better for you than the one in which you are, divine love would have put you there.  You are placed by God in the most suitable circumstances.  Take up your own daily cross; it is the burden best suited for your shoulder and will prove most effective to make you perfect in every good word and work the glory of God.