Psalm 122:1. I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.
It’s the Lord’s Day my fellow believers! Time to gather in worship to celebrate and give praiseful thanks to the Lord our Creator and Provider, either by our physical presence in His sanctuary, or through technological means. Let’s not forget the Lord’s commandment re this day: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.’ (Ex. 20:8) We break enough of them, and this one is fairly easy to keep, compared to some of the others. And Bruh David puts it ever so nicely when he writes in the opening verse of Psalm 122: ‘I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.’ (Ps.122:1)
Yes friends, it ought to be a pleasure, a privilege, a duty to enter into God’s house to praise and worship Him with other believers. And there are several other passages of scripture that invoke the same sentiment, as Isaiah 2:3, Micah 4:2, and Zechariah 8:21. That means going to the Lord’s house to worship is extremely important. And so, as the ole people would say: ‘Matter fix!’ (smile) We’ve proved our point. But many around the country will be late and inconvenienced with the turning back of the clocks one hour last night to be in sync with the unnecessary daylight saving time ritual.
Now, let’s turn to today’s song of worship, one titled ‘Heaven Help Us All, originally written as a soulful ditty, but with a gospel-infused sound, by Ron Miller in 1970 and made popular by Stevie Wonder. Today though, we’re going to do the Ray Charles/ Gladys Knight version. So it’s time to open up our harmonious vocal pipes in soulful sacrificial praise and let heaven know of our earthly plight.
Singing: ‘Heaven help the boy who never had a home Heaven help the girl who walks the street alone And Heaven help the roses if the bombs begin to fall Lord, won’t you help us all? Heaven help the black man if he struggles one more day Heaven help the white man if he turns his back away Heaven help the man who kicks the man who has to crawl Heaven help us all. (Chorus: Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all, help us all Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call)
Oh, yeah Heaven help the boy who won’t reach twenty-one And Heaven help the man who gave that child a gun And Heaven help the people with their backs against the wall Lord, won’t you help us all? (Chorus: Heaven help us all…when we call) Gladys – monologue: ‘I want everybody within the sound of my voice this evening to fall down on their knees and say a prayer; asking for His guidance, His grace, His mercy. You might want to say: Lord, Lord, Lord, have mercy!
Now I lay me down before I go to sleep In a troubled world, I pray the Lord, the Lord to keep. Keep hatred from the mighty and the mighty from the small Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all, help us all Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call. We need You Jesus so won’t you hear us when we call. We can’t do without You, so please hear us when we call. Heaven help us all, Heaven help us all, help us all Heaven help us, Lord, hear our call when we call.’
Ah mih people, we were so serious and sincere that I’m sure heaven heard our call! And do we ever need plenty of heaven’s help to handle the numerous heart-breaking and gut-wrenching problems we have down here on earth. But since it takes two to tango, it means that heaven alone can’t fix our many problems, we also have to be a major part of the solutions, just as we are a major part of the problems. That entails first of all getting ourselves right with God through prayer, repentance and thanksgiving, then LOVING each other as Christ said when He detailed the two greatest commandments.
‘Thou shalt LOVE the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt LOVE thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matt. 22:37-40)
And that’s the gospel truth people! Until we start showing a li’l more reverence and LOVE to our great God, and also to our fellow human beings, none of the problems listed above will ever go away. Our world will always be filled with lots of strife, envy, greed, advantage, poverty, sickness, oppression and evil doing; all deeds espoused by our enemy Satan. And it’s not like we don’t know it, because many more of us are suffering from the negative effects of those things than are prospering from them. But it seems like the lure of sin in these disaster-filled times is greater than the appeal of godliness.
So the majority of us continue to wallow in Satan’s mire of sin and evil, while only a relative handful fight the good fight on God’s behalf. The sad part is that there are many supposed believers who are not doing their part, either through fear or simple apathy, and thus are allowing the enemy to have his way with their lives. But if the billons, or even millions of us who call ourselves Christian were to truly stand up for Christ, get some belly and backbone, and fight the good fight, our world would never be in the shameful, evil state it’s now in.
Ah friends, as I keep reminding us, the evil-doers, the iniquity workers are not going to improve our world because they have a vested interest in seeing it fall apart and sink into the devil’s quicksand. It’s only through us supposed believers that our world will ever get a chance to improve. Our generation has already made a mess of it, we can’t allow things to get any worse, otherwise our descendants will certainly end up living in a veritable hell right here on earth. If you think it’s bad now, just wait and see.
In any case, many of us won’t be around to experience it, we might just be experiencing the real thing, like Jesus’ story of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar, found in Luke 16:19-31. While here on earth the rich man enjoyed the good life but Lazarus sat poverty-stricken at the rich man’s gate. However, in the after-life, the rich man is in hell feeling the heat, begging Abraham to send Lazarus, now up in heaven, to dip his finger in some water and wet his tongue. But Abraham informs him that there is a great chasm or gulf between the two worlds, so no one can get from one place to the other.
Then the rich man begs Abraham to send Lazarus back to earth to his five brothers, for maybe they would listen to one who rose from the dead and change their ways. But Abraham also nixed that request telling him that they have Moses and the prophets and if they would not listen to them, then they wouldn’t listen to one who rose from the dead either.
My friends, that story ought to give us pause for thought. It came from Jesus’ lips, and He doesn’t make jokes over serious stuff. So, I would strongly advise that we all take it seriously and closely look at our lives in light of that tragic tale. It certainly can’t do us any harm, but it might just do us all a lot of good in the long run. Much LOVE!
…stand up, stand up for Jesus…the trumpet sound obey…till every foe is vanquished…and Christ is Lord indeed…
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