In spite of singing those words with our lips Sunday morning, how many Christians live their lives day in and day out for all intents and purposes as if the resurrection never happened –– as if Jesus Christ never arose from the dead, as if He is not a Victor, as if our Lord is not ascended into heaven and living forever and reigning today at the right hand of Majesty and making intercession for all the saints?

When faced with trials, do you act as if ... God was dead?

When faced with trials, do you act as if God was dead? ... Do you react as William Roberts did – does your trust in the sovereign rule of God begin to waver? Or, are you fully assured of and resting in God's good and perfect providence for all His elect (including yourself) – no matter the circumstances? With the apostle Paul, are you persuaded that God is working all things for your good (including each and every trial), that God is for you, and that nothing at all can ever separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord? (See Romans 8:31-39.) Or, like Roberts, are you guilty of forgetting the Scriptural teachings and examples? Are you distrusting of God in times of your Father's loving chastisement?

Is your happiness so tied up in and dependent on fleeting, earthly blessings that your professed joy in Christ is shown to be defective and deficient in times of loss? Or, are you able, like the early Christians, to joyfully accept the plundering of your property, since you know that you yourselves have a better possession and an abiding one? ~ see Heb. 10:34b.

In his commentary on Psalm 84, J.A. Alexander wrote that God is "the Living God, really existing, and the giver of life to others." Do you know God to be the living God? Do you believe that the God who breathed life into you and raised you from the dead is able to supply daily bread to your soul to strengthen, sustain and refresh you at all times, including those times when Providence appears to be frowning upon you? Deut. 33:25b ... as your days, so shall your strength be.

Do you currently find yourself slipped in your mind as if God has forgotten you because you've fixed your eyes upon the current trial rather than upon the Good Shepherd? Have you been unable to submit to God and let the peace of God rule in your heart because you've lost sight of the LORD of hosts who is seated on the throne of glory and is sovereignly reigning forever and ever? Is your soul wasting away because you've neglected to ask for and to feed upon the Living Bread from heaven as you ought, so you might be nourished to trust God and be joyful in Him at all times – "though bereft of the things of this world"?

Luke 13:33
I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following,
for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.

Zechariah 9
9  Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion!
Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem!
behold, your king is coming to you;
righteous and having salvation is he,
humble and mounted on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10  I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim
and the war horse from Jerusalem;
and the battle bow shall be cut off,
and he shall speak peace to the nations;
his rule shall be from sea to sea,
and from the River to the ends of the earth.
11  As for you also, because of the blood of my covenant with you,
I will set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
12  Return to your stronghold, O prisoners of hope;
today I declare that I will restore to you double.

Isaiah 49
3  And he said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, in whom I will be glorified.”
4  But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity;
yet surely my right is with the LORD,
and my recompense with my God.”
5  And now the LORD says,
he who formed me from the womb to be his servant,
to bring Jacob back to him;
and that Israel might be gathered to him—
for I am honored in the eyes of the LORD,
and my God has become my strength—
6  he says:
“It is too light a thing that you should be my servant
to raise up the tribes of Jacob
and to bring back the preserved of Israel;
I will make you as a light for the nations,
that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”

Matthew 28:20
... the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Romans 3
21  But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— 22  the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24  and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25  whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26  It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

27  Then what becomes of our boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? By a law of works? No, but by the law of faith. 28  For we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law. 29  Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also, 30  since God is one. He will justify the circumcised by faith AND the uncircumcised through faith.

Palm Sunday
(To Jerusalem ... For All Nations)

To Jerusalem, Lion of Judah must go
To acquit His flock, render them white as snow

Last Adam lifted up on Calvary's tree
In our place, to suffer, die, and bleed

To become a curse, burnt offering for sin,
Spotless Lamb, all our iniquities laid on Him

Set His face like a flint, endured the cross,
Not one the Father gave Him will be lost

Zealously labored to bring His Father fame,
Endured the cross, despising the shame

The gladness of His seed He kept in full sight,
His Father's will was His desire and delight

To bruise Him was the Father's pleasure
To redeem His elect, His peculiar treasure

Covenant mercies flowed through His precious blood
O! Just and Justifier! How great a salvation!

Rejoice greatly, O! daughter, shout aloud!
Salvation revealed, make a joyful sound!

Fear not, hear Him, God's only begotten Son,
Christ, our Passover: "It is finished! It is done!"

Behold! Your King has come, lowly and meek,
To ransom His bride, set His prisoners free

Jesus Christ, a servant of the circumcision,
Yea, from the Jews, redemption sprung

Hidden mystery for ages, since before creation,
Yet now to all nations, glad tidings are sung

The evangel to be published by beautiful feet,
God's dominion and glory advancing from sea to sea

Grace given to preach to ev'ry tribe and tongue,
Peace through His cross –– O! reconciling blood!

This morning, as you raised your voice and palm in exaltation,
Did you recall God's plan to gather a people from all nations?

In Sunday worship, with your uplifted hands,
Did you plead for the unreached in many lands?

Today, according to the Joshua Project (http://www.joshuaproject.net/):

Total People Groups: 16,594
Unreached People Groups: 7,162
% People Groups Unreached: 43.2 %

World Population: 7.03 Billion
Population in Unreached Groups: 2.87 Billion
% Population in Unreached: 40.9 %

"People say I'm strange, does it make me a stranger,
my best friend was born in a manger?"

~ from "Jesus Freak," by Toby McKeehan & Mark Heimermann

Song of Solomon 5:16 His mouth is most sweet: yea, he is altogether lovely.
This is my beloved, and this is my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Matthew Henry on Song of Solomon 5:16:

His mouth is most sweet; it is sweetness itself; it is sweetnesses (so the word is); it is pure essence, nay, it is the quintessence of all delights, 16. The words of his mouth are all sweet to a believer, sweet as milk to babes (to whom it is agreeable), as honey to those that are grown up (Ps. cxix. 103), to whom it is delicious. The kisses of his mouth, all the tokens of his love, have a transcendent sweetness in them, and are most delightful to those who have their spiritual senses exercised. To you that believe he is precious.

She concludes with a full assurance both of faith and hope, and so gets the mastery of her trouble. (1.) Here is a full assurance of faith concerning the complete beauty of the Lord Jesus: "He is altogether lovely. Why should I stand to mention particulars, when throughout there is nothing amiss?" She is sensible she does him wrong in the particular descriptions of him, and comes far short of the dignity and merit of the subject, and therefore she breaks off with the general encomium: He is truly lovely, he is wholly so; there is nothing in him but what is amiable, and nothing amiable but what is in him. He is all desires; he has all in him that one can desire. And therefore all her desire is towards him, and she seeks him thus carefully and cannot rest contented in the want of him. Who can but love him who is so lovely? (2.) Here is a full assurance of hope concerning her own interest in him: "This is my beloved, and this is my friend; and therefore wonder not that I thus long after him." See with what a holy boldness she claims relation to him, and then with what a holy triumph she proclaims it. It is property that sweetens excellency. To see Christ, and not to see him as ours, would be rather a torture than a happiness; but to see one that is thus lovely, and to see him as ours, is a complete satisfaction. Here is a true believer, [1.] Giving an entire consent to Christ: "He is mine, my Lord and my God (John xx. 28), mine according to the tenour of the gospel-covenant, mine in all relations, bestowed upon me, to be all that to me that my poor soul stands in need of." [2.] Taking an entire complacency in Christ. It is spoken of here with an air of triumph: "This is he whom I have chosen, and to whom I have given up myself. None but Christ, none but Christ. This is he on whom my heart is, for he is my best-beloved; this is he in whom I trust, and from whom I expect all good, for this is my friend." Note, Those that make Christ their beloved shall have him their friend; he has been, is, and will be, a special friend to all believers. He loves those that love him; and those that have him their friend have reason to glory in him, and speak of him with delight. "Let others be governed by the love of the world, and seek their happiness in its friendship and favours, This is my beloved and this is my friend. Others may do as they please, but this is my soul's choice, my soul's rest, my life, my joy, my all; this is he whom I desire to live and die with."

* * *

HYMN 300
in John Berridge's "Sion's Songs"
(emphasis mine)

Glory to God in the highest, and
on earth peace, good-will towards men,
Luke ii. 14.

On the birth of Christ.

An heavenly host triumphant bring
The news of Jesus' birth,
They sing and say the heavenly King
Is come to dwell on earth:

Is come to save a guilty race,
By opening mercy's door;
Is come to purchase stores of grace,
To set up sinners poor.

So God's good-will to man is told,
And friendship is begun:
What can the Father now withhold,
Who freely gave his Son?

Lift up a song to God most High,
For love so free, so dear;
Exalt his praise above the sky.
And make his angels hear.

And thou, most precious Prince of Peace
Accept my homely heart,
Thy name I love, thy feet I kiss,
For pleasant sure thou art!

A manger I have got for thee,
It is my bosom, Lord;
And if the Lord can dwell with me,
It will be richly stor'd.