Monday Morning Music Ministry

6-29-15

As sure as there are troubles in our lives, there is deliverance. Not always, or so it seems to some of us. Not immediately: that is certain. It can come. When it comes – any manner of relief, answers, healing, comfort, understanding, peace – we often to pray thanks to the God whose pity and mercy we so recently sought. Or, we do give thanks or do penance or share with the world what God has done.

It is a tempting thing to suppose, especially when the Creator of the Universe wonderfully has intervened in our affairs, that the crisis is settled, that God has done His work. We adjust our sandals and move ahead, refreshed, toward the next goals in life.

But that is not exactly God’s way, not the Bible way. It is more the case, when He has delivered His people, His children, that He not only saves us from something… but for something.

St Augustine, before the year 400, preached the following words in a sermon. This important man is an essential figure in the theology, cosmology, and philosophy that is a continuum that includes Plato, other early church fathers, and Martin Luther, as readers of this column know (or at least know of my sympathy and wellsprings). It is a miracle that so many of Augustine’s sermons, lessons, and books have survived, lighting our paths through the centuries.

Anyway, he wrote about the idea of deliverance, and God “bringing His people through”:

Brothers, look and see: The Judeans [Jews] were liberated in the sea, the Egyptians were destroyed in it…. The Judeans go beyond the Red Sea and walk through the desert. It is the same way with Christians after baptism: they are not yet in the land of promise, but they live in hope….

The Egyptians who chased the Judeans out of Egypt were not their only enemies – but they were their old enemies. In the same way, our past life and our past sins… continue to haunt us. There are enemies in the desert as well…

Interesting! We know the story of Exodus; and we think of other examples in the Bible of God saving His people. When we think of it, many individuals and populations were saved… only to face greater challenges. Is these the acts of a kindly God? Yes! God is love! We remember the “Hall of Fame of the Heroes of Faith” in Hebrews chapter 11: the Bible’s greatest champions of faith and obedience are there honored.

And every one of them came short of his goal, never making it to each one’s “promised land.” Also interesting, and instructive. The Promised Land, the Land of Milk and Honey, the desert after captivity, “over the Jordan,” Canaan Land, Beulah Land – have you heard these terms?

Exodus 33 has the account of God speaking to Moses:
‘Go up to a land flowing with milk and honey; for I will not go up in your midst, lest I consume you on the way, for you are a stiff-necked people.’…  And when the people heard this bad news, they mourned, and no one put on his ornaments. For the Lord had said to Moses, ’Say to the children of Israel, You are a stiff-necked people. I could come up into your midst in one moment and consume you.’… [But] He said, ‘My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.’

Rest? These people yearned for even more, and more, and more, deliverance. Free of the Pharaohs, they wanted also to be free of… God. They wanted to live as they wished – to sin and be rebellious – and not merely trade metal shackles for moral restraints. They were free of the bondsman’s lash, and thought they deserved license to revel in decadence and debauchery. (If this sounds to you like a description of America-up-to-date, we share the same shrinking desert island…)

But God knew the basic natures of His children; He knew the desires of their hearts; and He would not answer those prayers to be free of responsibilities as well as actual chains.

The Promised Land, the Land of Milk and Honey, the desert after captivity, “over the Jordan,” Canaan Land, Beulah Land… many people believe these were earthly symbols of Heaven in the Bible, poetry and hymns. But they were not, never were. Heaven is… Heaven. If there were a physical Promised Land with miracle blooms, and flowing milk and honey, why should any inhabitants desire the real Heaven?

“Beulah,” in the Bible and in many hymns through the years, refers to “marriage,” a word, and a land, where believers might commune with God, even be in a relationship akin to marriage with the Son. But. That all precedes Heaven. Paradise, Eternity, Heaven is our final home.

As sweet as God’s promises, His deliverances, His dwelling-places of communion on earth, are… Heaven will be sweeter. A wise-guy skeptic friend of mine once challenged me: “If Heaven is so wonderful, why don’t you end it all, and go straight there for eternity?” Apart from the proposition that God hates murder, including of one’s self (and, by the way, that includes morally, not just physically), that is not in His plan, either.

We stay on earth, and should desire to, to serve Him. We cling to this life in order to fulfill whatever plans He has for us. We embrace life so that we can share His glory, bring others to saving grace, to minister to a hurting world as “imitators of Christ.”

In that perspective, we need to see, first, that the mercies He offers us here – in ways represented by Beulah Lands, “milk and honey,” Promised Lands – are havens of rest, foretastes of Heaven, gifts to make our days here sweeter as we work for the Master. Not Heaven… but on the way! We have jobs to do for Him, and they become easier, perhaps; or maybe more challenging. But the Hope, and Victory, are within view.

Truly – and always – when God saves us from something, He saves us for something.

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An old hymn, Is Not This the Land of Beulah, and a more recent gospel song, Sweet Beulah Land, share the distinctions and the reality of that place we may all seek. Wonderful words. Here, the two are explained and performed by the composer of the latter song, pastor and singer Squire Parsons. “I’m kind of homesick for that country, where I’ve never been before…”

Click: Beulah Land

10-14-13

I’m going to conduct a little tour today. To a place called Beulah Land. It is a place of relationship, though not actual geography, mentioned in the Bible. It appears in John Bunyan’s “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” It is the subject of more than a dozen well-known hymns and gospel songs. Our brief journey here will look over that land as much for what Beulah is NOT, as much as what it is. A clearer picture of the Bible’s message is never a bad thing.

Many people, including some teachers and many hymn-writers, have assumed that Beulah Land is a picture of Heaven – if not an alternate name, then a poetic allegory. Such connections are also frequently ascribed to “Canaan Land,” “The Promised Land,” and other terms. They all point forward, spiritually, and are meant to encourage God’s people to persevere. But they are not literal nor allegorical nor biblical pictures of Heaven.

The reference to Beulah Land appears only once, actually, in the Bible, and only in earlier translations. Isaiah 62:4: “Thou shall no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate: but thou shall be called Hephzibah, and thy land Beulah; for Jehovah delights in thee, and thy land shall be married.”

At a certain point in the history of Israel and Judah, those nations were apostate and they “married” themselves to foreign gods. The Lord had in fact briefly abandoned His people (Desolate, Forsaken) in response (Isa. 54:7), but the verse of chapter 62 refers to God later bringing them to the Holy City, called Hephzibah in this reconciliation. And the picture of a full, restored relationship with God – as a marriage would be – is called a state of Beulah.

Hephzibah means “My Delight Is in Her.” The word “Beulah” means “Married.” Neither, however, means Heaven. The recent English Standard Version translation is more literal: “You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married.” A wonderful place to be… a blessed relationship there… a Land to strive toward… but not Heaven.

Many believers through the centuries have prayed to attain Beulah Land as Heaven, to live at least at in Beulah land as Heaven’s border region. The idea was propelled by the allegorical writer John Bunyan in “Pilgrim’s Progress” – “The Enchanted Ground is a place so nigh to the land Beulah, and so near the end of their race”; the place “where the sun shineth night and day.” A wondrous place, but… not Heaven.

Why do I think it is important that we recognize the distinction? What could be so bad about all the depictions of Beulah Land, a marriage relationship with the Lord?

As beautiful, paradisiacal, fragrant, pleasing, the Land of Beulah is – described by the most fervent writers, poets, and songwriters – and for all the images our spirits can summon, all the pictures of Beulah Land are NOTHING compared to what Heaven will be!

The Land of Beulah is wondrous because we compare it our lives here on earth. Having a relationship with God akin to a marriage is amazing. Yet Heaven will be all the more wondrous – superlative – and there we will have an eternal lifetime of joy with Him.

Is “the Good the enemy of the Perfect”? Sometimes. But our recognition of a Land of Beulah, the most beautiful place we can imagine, should not be substitute for seeking Heaven, the most beautiful place we can scarcely imagine. A Wedding is a happy day. A Marriage is a joyous life.

“I can see far down the mountain, Where I wandered weary years,
Often hindered in my journey By the ghosts of doubts and fears.
Broken vows and disappointments, Thickly sprinkled all the way,
But the Spirit led, unerring, To the land I hold today.”

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We closed with lines from what is probably the most familiar hymns about Beulah Land. This version is sung by Squire Parsons, who also wrote another song that is beloved in the contemporary church, “Sweet Beulah Land.”

Click: “Is Not This the Land of Beulah”