From the April-June 2007 Issue
GIVING GLORY TO HIS NAME
Joao and Celeste Nunes
Lisbon“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake” (Psalm 115:1). Thus the psalmist expresses his profound desire of extolling the Almighty God in all He is and does on behalf of His own people. When we think of the measure of light the saints then had, and to see the psalmist express himself that way, we can but say that the Lord was leading him in his thoughts regarding what he was saying about God. Whoever the writer was, his mind might be reviewing so many instances in which he could see God’s hand at work, giving victory to His children. Perhaps now he was perplexed, looking around him and seeing the way God’s people were acting regarding God and His commandments. Where was that faith of old, where the examples they read about, where the heroes to follow and listen to? Around him and as far as he knew, there was but a vast and arid spiritual desert – probably with an oasis of blessing here and there, but nevertheless a desert.
Yet, in spite of all that, he strikes another key. He prays the Lord to glorify His own name, so that God’s enemies and the enemies of God’s people would not have any reason to feast and glory. The psalmist was resting on God’s mercy and faithfulness towards his chosen ones showing His power once more, visiting them once again, and coming amongst them anew. He knew of the comfort, assurance and encouragement it was to have God acting on behalf of His people, so he pleads for the renewing of that blessing, for the Lord’s glory!
The world today
As we look around in our world we have good reason to be apprehensive and get more and more worried. No matter what our needs are, or what we are looking for, we shall never have those things met by the rulers of this world. We face a certain amount of disappointment but we know it’s like that, and there will not be any improvements. And what shall we say about our evangelical world? What about our churches? What shall we say of our missionary work? Again, though we know of oases here and there, we all long for better times, when the Lord shall come to glorify His name in a mighty way. Only then will we be blessed in a way that will last, giving us the opportunity of enjoying it.
Our churches are greatly secularized and materialistic, so that only God’s intervention in our routine is powerful enough to override the trends of the day. We work and labour hard to gather a handful of worshippers that come and seem to appreciate the teaching and all that is involved in the Gospel presentation. All is well till the day when, naturally, the Gospel touches critical areas of our daily life, such as relationships, business, and ethics and so on. People are prepared to go quite a long way, provided they are not faced with such issues, provided the teaching they hear in church does not go to the “extreme” of revolutionizing their life or stand. People want a gospel that is accommodated to the standards and new habits of society. To start with, they want that even in the way we must conduct our public services, so that people are attracted by the “show” we have to present to them, at the expense of what the Bible teaches. “We should give people what they want and look for”, is the general excuse, not what is right and is the requirements of “the faith which was once delivered to the saints” (Jude 3).
Traditional beliefs
In our work here, we have faced a little of all that in church life. We tend to think that owing to the fact that the entire area has always been under the grip of Catholicism, certain teachings are so engrained in people’s minds and habits that it is rather difficult to get rid of them or, at least, of their influence in people’s culture. To a certain extent we see that in some of the New Testament churches. The Apostles wrote against that and we do profit from their teaching on the subject. Let me give you some examples: In short, we preach that salvation is a free gift from God, through faith in Jesus Christ, Who, by His sacrifice on the cross, has fulfilled all God’s requirements regarding our salvation. Well, to many people it does not sound all that good, simply because there is no room for their “good works”, as it is the teaching propagated by the Catholic Church that somehow still permeates their minds. They feel the need of doing something towards their salvation. The New Testament good works are not only a result of our salvation, but somehow we must contribute to it – or so some of them still tend to think.
These are but tokens of the different situations we face in the course of our work. We think it does not vary much from what our colleagues have to face in their fields of labour, be it near or far. Surely it is very similar to what our readers face as well, as they endeavour in their different situations to witness about our faith, whenever they share the Gospel. The exposition of the truths, as we find them in God’s Word, meets a wall of traditional beliefs that, of themselves, can be a hindrance for someone to grow stronger and stronger in the faith, as our people are, culturally, much affected by those things.
God’s work
Seeing that by ourselves we cannot do a permanent work in the hearts of those that hear, we constantly turn to the Word and to the Lord and look for Him and for His coming amongst us. Only He, by His Holy Spirit can do a work that lasts, a work that brings blessing and salvation and, consequently, a work that adds honour and glory to His name. That’s why we ask Him to honour and glorify His name, which amounts to seeing Him at work amongst us, knowing that when that happens people will come, will hear, and will stay. When that happens people will grow in knowledge in those things pertaining to God, thus being better prepared to face the world, as well as every attack that might come from the enemy of our souls. And we know that (together with the ones that serve him) the devil disguises himself in such a way that “…if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24).
We ask our readers and friends to pray with us and for us, for our people, as well as on behalf of those that come to listen, that the Lord will speak to them, bringing deliverance and salvation to their hearts. “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake”.