Editorial - Watching For The Morning

Looking to our so-called friends, even to our most trusted friends – people whom we've proven in the past – may not be our safest decision when we are in danger or trouble. And nations can make alliances with other nations, and hope thereby to receive support and clout for future eventualities, but even these agreements are often flimsy.

Worldly alliances can be as unreliable as was the case when the Assyrian general taunted God's people Israel: "You are trusting in the staff of this broken reed, Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his hand and pierce it" (2 Kings 18:21).

The Big Powers in the world today – not one of them – can be counted on to counsel Israel wisely, much less to be sympathetic to this minuscule nation, understand her fragile position, and be a support to her against neighbours with an implacable hatred against her, even to destroy her completely.

Israeli leaders and people alike need to trust in a reliable source of help, the only reliable help available to them – the God of Israel as He is to be found portrayed in His Word. The Psalmist exhorted the nation in his day: "O Israel, hope in the LORD; for with the LORD there is abundant mercy, and with him is abundant redemption . . . O, that my people would listen to me, that Israel would walk in my ways! I would soon subdue their enemies, and turn my hand against their adversaries" (Psalm 136:7; 81:13,14).

The message of God's Word is a challenge to us all to look to Him as the source of all our help, and we will be genuine in our approach to Him if we are in desperation and at the end of our tether, as if to say: "I wait for the LORD; my soul waits, and in his word I do hope. My soul waits for the LORD more than those who watch for the morning – I say, more than those who watch for the morning" (Psalm 136:5,6).

The concept here has to do with the relief of morning after night as set out by King David in Psalm 30:5: "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning" and by God's servant Malachi: "But to you who fear my name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in his wings" ( 4:2).

This is the kind of morning for which we instinctively watch and yearn, and it is to be found in none other than Almighty God Himself and in His Son, "the Sun of Righteousness", even the Lord Messiah.

• < Prev
• Next >