Confidence
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The alarm went off on Wednesday morning, Maria got up first to get herself ready for her train ride in to the city. I filled the coffee machine with water from the TAP and made her a coffee with her breakie.
All was good, all was normal.
Well, there was that issue that struck a week earlier with a war in a distant land.
Fuel prices rose on the rumour that fuel prices would rise, but Maria goes in by train and I work largely from home, besides, I have enough fuel to get by for a while.
I turned the tap to rinse breakfast but the tap did not respond.
It didn’t release that life giving substance I took for granted 15 minutes earlier.
I would address the billions around the world who don’t have the privilege of a water-releasing-tap, but they don’t necessarily have a way to hear my words either.
Even if they did they would be spending far too much time walking a distance to fetch water by bucket if they don’t have a well or cistern close to home.
Turned out the mains water burst down the street and the water was off all day.
I got some supplies from the supermarket, kicking myself that I had not yet fitted the pump to my tanks and came home with enough supplies to brush teeth, have a shave and a sponge bath for a month if needed.
(Today you just don’t know how long a crisis will last: two weeks to stop the spread lasted two years and who knows what “Four days” now means)
I took water from the pool to fill the toilet cisterns so they can flush.
Yes, I have a swimming pool.
That’s the thing about trouble and uncertainty, it hits those with relative wealth as it does the poor.
Though not as perfect as the grave, uncertainty and trouble are good equalisers.
One of the great examples of “equalisation” is hyperinflation.
Everyone becomes equally poor quickly.
Hyperinflation is a sudden change in prices where the value of a given currency collapses so quickly that you need to spend it before the prices change.
The Weimar Republic of Germany in the early 1920’s had wives coming to receive the wages of their husbands twice per day so they could spend it quickly enough to get groceries for their households.
Those who had relative wealth, lost it all in a matter of months, some in days.
Recently in Venezuela; employing the paper notes you needed to cover the price of toilet paper would last at least three times longer than roll of paper purchased.
Unlike our Covid experience in 2020, in 2018 you had better luck going to the Bank than the supermarket to stock up on Venezuelan toilet paper.
My brother in law is from Argentina, in the 1980’s inflation averaged 700% for the decade peaking at 5000% in 1989.
He recalls rushing home when he was a boy to get money from his father for a record he’d seen at the shop, by the time he got back to the store the price had gone up and he did not have enough.
This is UNCERTAINTY.
This is NOT what Jesus offers us beloved;
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Matthew 11:28–30
Trouble and uncertainty become a great equaliser. Not as perfect as the grave, but nor far off.
The comfort offered by Jesus Christ is UNEQUAL, it is only available for those who want it.
Jesus Christ offers a CONSTANT AND A CONFIDENCE for many to live in, the world cannot.
Contentment is possible when things are stable, when life is predictable.
Anxiety rises dramatically when life is uncertain.
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Jesus here promises certainty, a CONSTANT that would not change…. “And I will give you rest.
Rest from the stresses of life, rest from the uncertainty of tomorrow, and yes, even rest from our fear of the grave.
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
In Life
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
The “Rest” which Jesus speaks of is not a rest free from trouble.
It is not a rest that is free from persecutions, from trials, from living in a mad, mad world or the tragedies of life in general, it is a rest that no longer needs to suffer the anxieties of life, it is an UNEQUAL rest because it is ONLY available to those who have faith in his provision.
There is that fear of the ever-changing, the unpredictability of life, even death.
When the fear of death itself is overcome, life itself has changed both in value and understanding.
Boldness now replaces fear.
Courage replaces anxiety,
Wisdom replaces indifference.
Hope and Joy replaces doubt.
There comes a Courage In Life Temporal.
Something changes in a man or a woman when they find their rest in Christ, when they have taken him at his word and truly believe that HE will “give you rest”.
We begin to life life WITH FAITH.
CON-FIDENCE
We live life with CONFIDENCE. Confidence is a Latin word beloved, it is a compound word; CON = ‘With’ & FIDE simply means “Faith”.
When you life your life with confidence you are literally living you life WITH FAITH.
Not faith in YOU, but faith in the one who gave his life for you and now sits at the right hand of the father and is soon to return.
Life now takes on a new endeavour, a new fervour, a new confidence where TRUTH and VALUE is more vital to you than simply playing along.
You understand that all that you do has now gained an eternal perspective, life is lived BOLDLY, no longer in fear of what others say or think.
SABINA
Reading history can take many forms, one of which is that of biographies.
People tell of their own lives through their own trials, through living in times of GREAT uncertainty, times of trouble.
“The Pastors Wife” is a book written by Sabina Wurmbrand, the wife of Pr Richard Wurmbrand during a time of great trial to any who were Christians or Jews.
Richard and Sabina were both.
They had endured the trials of the National Socialist evils of Hitlers NAZI regime during the second world war.
Romania, Sabina’s home country, was aligned with Germany during the war and equally hated the Jews.
Being both a Christian and a Jew helped nothing at all.
A Pogrom is a State Sanctioned riot aimed at “Cleansing” a city or town of certain people groups largely through a murderous rampage.
The word Pogrom comes from the Russian word for “devastation, violent demolition”[1].
Everything in life can be going well. Plans can be made when things change slowly, but when things change quickly, everything changes.
A Pogrom was schedule In the town Jassy, on the 27th of June, 1941. Pr Richard Wurmbrand’s friend lives there.
In one single day Soldiers, Police and mobs savagely killed 13,266 Jewish people including Richard Wurmbrand’s friend and college Pastor Feinstein. Not a man from the Jassy Church congregation survived, only a few girls escaped.[2]
While the grave equalised all who were a part of that congregation, the uncertainty of the times caused many to flee for survival.
The 2nd World War came and went, concluding not without trouble in September 1945.
But then the Communists Came to Romania.
The year the war came to a close was where Sabina begins her story as The Pastors Wife.
An account is told in chapter 2 of her book where, the mad ideology of the previous few years had come to dominate the culture, not necessarily in majority form, but in a form where it was illegal to question it.
MUCH LIKE WHAT WE ARE NOW EXPERIENCE IN THE COMMONWEALTH.
SPEACH WAS NO LONGER FREE.
SPEACH HAD DIRE CONSEQUENCES, AND FEW HAD THE COURAGE TO SPEAK.
The Government of Romania was summoning what it called a Congress of Cults in 1945.
Every confession, every religion, was asked to send a big delegation. And the conference is to be held in the Parliament building!
“Many churchmen believed what the Government had said about “full religious freedom.”
It was Pr Richard Wurmbrand, Sabina’s husband who recalled some history of Lenin’s Russia.
“Is it not happening here as it happened in Russia? Lenin strongly defended the persecuted sects, until he came to power. Then tens of thousands of them died in concentration camps. First the church is lulled into acceptance. Then the blow falls.”
korisne budale is the Yugoslav Communist term translated “Useful Idiots”, which is what Vladimir Lenin was relying on.
“Innocent although well intentioned sentimentalists or idealists who aided the Soviet Agenda” was the gentler explanation of American diplomat Spruille Braden in 1965.[3]
Both Richard and Sabina determined to go to the meeting and to speak out.
On the chosen morning we climbed Parliament Hill. There they all sat, crowded into the galleries and on the floor of the great hall, Muslim and Jew, Protestant and Orthodox, some 4,000 bishops, pastors and priests, rabbis and mullahs. Red flags hung everywhere. Stalin was formally chosen as honorary president of the Congress. Up on the dais were all the top Communists: … The Communist leaders crossed themselves. They kissed the icons. They kissed the Patriarch’s hand. The speeches began. It was announced that the new Romanian Government was in favor of faith
—any faith—and they would continue to pay the clergy. In fact, they planned to raise stipends. Warm applause greeted this news.
TRUTH compromised for popularity and MONEY is not only todays problem in Churches.
Far too many will be greatly ashamed in the day of Christ.
What about you? Are you living life with such trust in the Lord that you have the confidence to stand when the time comes? It is coming beloved, if it is not already here.
Have you yet identified the price of faithfulness?
Priests and pastors replied. One after another, they said how happy they were about this appreciation of religion. The State could count on the Church if the Church could count on the State. A bishop remarked that streams of all political colors had joined the Church in its history. Now Red would enter, and he was glad.
Everyone was glad. All their gladness was broadcast to the world over the radio, direct from the hall. It was absurd and horrible. Communism was dedicated to the destruction of religion. It had shown its true face in Russia. They spoke out of fear for their families, for their jobs, for their salaries. They could at least have kept silent, instead of filling the air with flattery and lies.
It was as if they spat in Christ’s face. I could feel that Richard was boiling.
So I told him what was already in his heart and said, “Will you not wash this shame from the face of Christ?” Richard knew what would happen: “If I speak, you will lose a husband.” At once I replied—: “I don’t need a coward for a husband.”
The account goes on, Pr Wurmbrand spoke and spoke clearly, rejecting that which was proposed, they cut his mike but not before the entire nation got to hear what he said.
Great applause was made for him. Many called him “The Pastor”. But the adulation and admiration would not last long.
It was not long after this that they came for him.
More than a decade he spent in a torturous cell buried three meters below the surface of the earth, never having seen the sun in those years and let out only for one hour each night.
Why do I tell you this story?
Because the trust in God and in the words of Christ, not only takes away our fear, but gives us the courage to live this life WITH CON-FIDENCE and to stand for the truth.
THIS Life is lived boldly when uncertainty and the unpredictability of the natural life is wiped away by the CONFIDENCE WE HAVE IN Christ;
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
In Death
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Confidence In Death.
Nothing in life compares to the level of uncertainty people experience around the entire concept of death and what, if anything, that brings.
The famous quip that “there is nothing certain in life but death and taxes”, ignores the fact that taxes can be avoided while death cannot.
It comes, ready or not.
Even those who have confidence (live with faith) believing that death simply ends existence, live their lives in a constant recognition of the uncertainty of when it should come,KNOWING IT WILL COME, and having all the evidence in the world in recognising it will come most often at a time not expected.
There are few people alive who were not making plans for tomorrow the day that death took them.
To many, this is a fearful thing.
And indeed it is,
Hebrews 10:31
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
While death is the ultimate equaliser, for all men die, it is also the ultimate uncertainty, not respecting when it comes, but that NOTHING CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT AFTER IT COMES.
The present crisis comes and we look for solutions after it takes us by surprise, THAT IS NOT THE SAME FOR DEATH.
You can keep your tanks topped up to ensure you don’t get caught short.
You might buy some jerry cans if you’re not too late, just in case the fuel crisis lasts longer, but DEATH is final, when death comes, ITS TOO LATE.
No opportunities ARE AVAILABLE THEN.
ONLY NOW, before death comes, can you alter the outcome.
Because DEATH is not the full stop at the end of a sentence, or the end of a paragraph, nor is it the full stop at the end of a chapter in life, DEATH IS THE END OF LIFE, it is the final full stop at the end of your book.
There is no river Styx to cross, no Acheron of the underworld, nothing to “pay to the ferryman” to get you to the other side of.
No labyrinth to navigate.
It is final.
Paul wrote a little of the hopelessness of those who face death apart from their rest in Christ;
Turn to;
1 Thessalonians 4:13–14
13 But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.
There are many today which live their lives without hope, even if they convince themselves that there is hope, some chance of getting out of life alive, but this is a false hope;
Proverbs 14:12
12 There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.
The very means they search for hope apart from Christ will become the very source that leads them to hell, “even as others which have no hope”.
These cannot have any confidence in death and it is such a trial to consider that the very means they are working to gain life after their death becomes the very means by which they will assure their damnation.
They are like the gold diggers of old who suffered with such a fever believing that Gold and a good life is to be found with just another three feet of digging, not realising they where digging their own graves.
This is the vanity many live by today. “even as others which have no hope”.
Yet we still hear Jesus plea to those heavy laden;
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
For Life Eternal
Matthew 11:28–30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
?? Ephesians 2:11-13 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: 13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
IT was the year of our Lord 1556 with the date recorded of the 17th of September in the city of Islington, near London England.
It was a part of the persecutions that came under the reign of Queen Mary Tudor in 1553.
Her father, Henry VIII and her brother, Edward VI, together with her younger half Sister Elizabeth, who would succeed her and become Elizabeth 1st, trusted in Christ as far as the reformed Protestant tradition led them, but Mary was a staunch Roman Catholicand longed to revive the Papal decrees and destroy the protestant religion from England.
Her short five year reign until her death at 42 yrs of age in 1558 was a literal reign of terror in England, and she has come down to us through history known as “Bloody Mary”.
It was under her reign that we see the most incredible faith of the saints with such CONFIDENCE in the comfort and rest of Christ, gave to the world some of the most incredible accounts of faith and rest and trust, even in the face of the most cruel of deaths.
There is no graphic imagery in the account I will give of a man named Richard Roth, he wrote simply to encourage his brethren while he himself awaited the penalty of his faith in Christ, pen and paper he took to write with ink ready at hand.
His was one of four people who would be suffer the flames at Islington, on the 17th of September 1556, and this is his writing, a testimony of his trust and rest;
O dear Brethren and Sisters,
How much reason have you to rejoice in God, that He hath given you such faith to overcome this bloodthirsty tyrant thus far! And no doubt He that hath begun that good work in you, will fulfill it unto the end. O dear hearts in Christ, what a crown of glory shall ye receive with Christ in the kingdom of God! O that it had been the good will of God that I had been ready to have gone with you; for I lie in my lord’s Little–ease by day, and in the night I lie in the Coalhouse, apart from Ralph Allerton, or any other; and we look every day when we shall be condemned; for he said that I should be burned within ten days before Easter; but I lie still at the pool’s brink, and every man goeth in before me; but we abide patiently the Lord’s leisure, with many bonds, in fetters and stocks, by which we have received great joy of God. And now fare you well, dear brethren and sisters, in this world, but I trust to see you in the heavens face to face.
O brother Munt, with your wife and my sister Rose, how blessed are you in the Lord, that God hath found you worthy to suffer for His sake! with all the rest of my dear brethren and sisters known and unknown. O be joyful even unto death. Fear it not, saith Christ, for I have overcome death. O dear heart, seeing that Jesus Christ will be our help, O tarry you the Lord’s leisure. Be strong, let your hearts be of good comfort, and wait you still for the Lord. He is at hand. Yea, the angel of the Lord pitcheth his tent round about them that fear him, and delivereth them which way he seeth best. For our lives are in the Lord’s hands; and they can do nothing unto us before God suffer them. Therefore give all thanks to God.
O dear hearts, you shall be clothed in long white garments upon the mount of Sion, with the multitude of saints, and with Jesus Christ our Savior, who will never forsake us. O blessed virgins, ye have played the wise virgins’ part, in that ye have taken oil in your lamps that ye may go in with the Bridegroom, when he cometh, into the everlasting joy with Him. But as for the foolish, they shall be shut out, because they made not themselves ready to suffer with Christ, neither go about to take up His cross. O dear hearts, how precious shall your death be in the sight of the Lord! for dear is the death of His saints. O fare you well, and pray. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen, Amen. Pray, pray, pray!
Written by me, with my own blood,
RICHARD ROTH[4]
Imagine for a moment that such confidence in life can bring such joy in the expecation of death.
When Jesus spoke of “REST”, he spoke of it in reality and in totality.
We can rest when the world turns upside down, when uncertainty is the only certainty in our lives, we can rejoice all the more knowing the certainty of Christ and the CONFIDENCE we can live by.
Three adults and one small child are going to enter the waters of Baptism today, a testimony of lives who have placed their faith in the one who said;
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.Matthew 11:28–30
{$NOTE_LABEL}. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogrom
[2]. Richard Wurmbrand, Christ on the Jewish Road (Middlebury, IN: Living Sacrifice Books, 1975), 32.
[3]. Wikipedia “Useful Idiot”
[4]. John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2000).
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