Did Your heart break
As on the cross You hung
Knowing many lambs will go astray?
Did You know they will reject
Your blood and all You had to pay?
And still You hoped
And still You sorrowed
Over Your godly fears
For all they’ll have to suffer
To pay the ransom for
Your sacred tears.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
“Our
God shall come, and shall not keep silence: a fire shall devour before him, and
it shall be very tempestuous round about him. He shall call to the heavens from
above, and to the earth, that he may judge his people. Gather my saints
together unto me; those that have made a covenant with me by sacrifice.”
(Psalms 50:3-5)
Psalm
50 reads more like a revelatory instruction to Jehovah’s saints than a song of
praise. It accentuates thanksgiving and praise of God above the animal
sacrifices of the day. Psalm 51 goes further to explain that the sacrifice God
wants from us is that of a ‘broken and contrite heart’ (vs 15-17).
Psalm
51 was written by King David following that fateful visit of Nathan the prophet
who exposed David’s sin with Bath-Sheeba. It is one of the most heart wrenching
story of the Old Testament. After giving David a touching story of a poor man’s
lamb being taken away by a rich man to sacrifice for a single meal of a
traveller, David was outraged and claimed that the rich man needs to be put to
death but Nathan simply replied ‘thou art the man’ and outlined the seriousness
of what David had done despite all the blessings he had received at God’s hand (see
2 Samuel 12:1-14). It humbled David to the dust.
The
word (Hebrew root dkh) translated as “contrite” means “to crush”,
therefore, “a broken or contrite heart or spirit is one that is crushed,
smashed, broken to pieces…The symbolism of our smashing or breaking or crushing
our hard, wilful heart into pieces and offering the result to God is significant,
because a smashed heart no longer exists in a recognizable or retrievable form….It
is at this point that the Lord can replace our now broken, offered heart with a
new one” (see Ezekiel 36:26). (Dana M. Pike, “3 Nephi 9:19-20: The Offering of
a Broken Heart” in Third Nephi: An Incomparable Scripture)
I
think David understood this principle well when he pleaded with God: “Hide thy
face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean
heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:9,10)
When
the Saviour comes to judge His people, He will require the spirit of repentance
from us. Placing our sins on the altar of sacrifice is the ultimate we can give
and if our hearts are pure and sincere, forgiveness will be HIS to give and He
will be glorified for the salvation of our souls.
Before
the birth of Christ, animal sacrifice was required in expectation of His
sacrifice. The sacrifice of Christ fulfilled this requirement and in itself
denotes a broken and contrite heart offered in the Garden through His submission
and humility and upon the cross through His willingness of extreme suffering. How little is asked of us
in comparison to the greatest sacrifice of all!
I gave you my all:
My heart, my body, my soul.
I paved the way
And conquered death.
Come and take my hand;
Eat and do not hunger,
Drink and do not thirst.
I am in your midst;
I am the only,
I am the last,
And I am the first.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
You assure me
As your potter hands keep moulding me
Of who I will one day be,
But I see the kiln burning
And the heat of it is frightening me.
The exacting fire of faith
Is asking too much of me
I tremble at the grand design of life
And all that it wants from me.
I want to be spared,
I want to believe In Your faith in me,
But I am so weak in this doom of humanity
I want to escape the fires awaiting
me.
You tell me You endured
The hell fires of suffering;
As the clay in me begins to burn and
I am sacrificed as Your holy offering.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
Book
Five (Psalms
107-150): Celebrates restoration, features the Songs of Ascent, and ends in
massive praise.
“O
give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.” (107:1)
“Christ
has, on occasion, been rightfully angry with backsliding Israel, but that has
always been brief and temporary – “a small moment”. Compassion and mercy always
return and prevail in a most reassuring way. The mountains and the hills may
disappear. The water of the great seas may dry up. The least likely things in
the world may happen, but the Lord’s kindness and peace will never be taken
from his covenant people. He has sworn with a heavenly oath that he will not be
wroth with them forever.” (Jeffrey R. Holland, Christ and the New Covenant [1997],
290)
The
final chapters of the book of Psalms gives a clear understanding to the reader
that Judah had learnt well about sorrow in its’ captivity: “By the rivers of
Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion” (137:1).
These chapters are grounded in God’s mercy and
hope of the nation’s restoration: “Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the
Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem
Israel from all his iniquities” (130:7,8). In remembering past deliverance from
their enemies and bondage, the reliance on the Lord’s mercy became foremost in
their minds. Psalm 136 is so heavy on gratitude that every one of 26 verses
ends in “for his mercy endureth for ever”.
Judah
was delivered from the Babylonian and Persian captivity in two colonies between
515 B.C. and 458 B.C. The temple was rebuilt and Jerusalem’s restoration began and
became what it is today. Not all the Jews chose to return to their land,
however, and so began a voluntary world-wide dispersion referred to as diaspora
which endures to this day.
“The
Lord never intended for Israel and Judah to remain scattered. Isaiah prophesied
that “the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant
of his people…and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together
the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:11-12).
Psalm 147:2 reads: “The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the
outcasts [diasporai] of Israel.” Nephi added this significant idea to
the teachings of the restoration of the Jews: “After [the Jews] have been
scattered…even down from generation to generation….they shall be persuaded to
believe in Christ, the Son of God, and the atonement” (2 Nephi 25:16).
“Elder
Wilford Woodruff, issued an epistle to the world on 22 February 1879 and, in
part, addressed himself to the dispersed of Judah: “For the fulness of the
Gentiles has come in, and the Lord has decreed that the Jews should be gathered
from all the Gentile nations where they have been driven, into their own land,
in fulfilment of the words of Moses their lawgiver. And this is the will of
your great Eloheim, O House of Judah, and whenever you shall be called upon to
perform this work, the God of Israel will help you. You have a great future and
destiny before you and you cannot avoid fulfilling it; you are the royal chosen
seed, and the God of your father’s house has kept you distinct as a nation for
eighteen hundred years, under all the oppression of the whole Gentile world.
You may not wait until you believe on Jesus of Nazareth, but when you meet with
Shiloh your king, you will know him, your destiny is marked out, you cannot
avoid it.” (Old Testament Student Manual Enrichment: The Persian Empire, the
Return of the Jews, and the Diaspora; In Matthias F. Cowley, Wilford
Woodruff, pp 509-10)
The
Messiah will come. He will descend on the Mount of Olives with the nail prints
in His hands and His feet and the Kingdom of Judah will come to know that there
is no Saviour beside Him; none else in heaven
above, or earth beneath, or waters beneath the earth, nothing, nobody, nowhere,
there is none other name given under heaven save it be this Jesus Christ
whereby man can be saved (Isaiah 43:10-11; 45,5,6,14,18,22; 46:9; Deut 4:35,39;
5:8; 1 kings 8:60, 2 Nephi 2:8; 25:20; 31:21; Moses 6:52; D&C 76:1)
Then they
will say:
We are Israel, Thy chosen seed
Who in times past disregarded Thee
But now through Thy infinite love
We are gathered to Thee.
In Thine mercy Thou has sought to gather
us
In Thine heart Thou hast chosen to
cherish us;
In Thee is deliverance from our barren
years
In Thee is mercy for our penitent tears.
All that is unspoken
And all that is unseen
All that I feel
In the depths of my soul
I long to give to Thee.
And all that You ask of me
And all that I am
I will place
On the altar of sacrifice
for Thee.
I give You my all
Like You gave Your all
Because hearts
Can give no more.
-
CATHRYNE
ALLEN
Book
Four (Psalms
90-106): Shifts focus to God’s eternal reign and comfort during hard times.
For
the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all
generations (100:5)
The
Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy (103:8)
For
as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that
fear him (103:11)
But
the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear
him…(103:17)
I
have noticed that the scriptures focus a lot on Christ’s greatest attribute,
that of mercy. I have also noticed that the medium the prophets have used for
this is the tradition of ‘remembering’. Even Psalms bring this to light. They
remind Israel to remember the Abrahamic covenant (105:9; 42) and their
deliverance from Egypt’s captivity (106:7,21).
God’s
admonition to ancient Israel to remember their deliverance from ‘the house of
bondage’ was so engrained in them that they took it to the new promised land in
ancient America. Some
notable references to this important part of their history in the Book of
Mormon are: 1 Nephi 4:2,3; 17:23-42; Mosiah 7:19; Alma 36:28-29. Remembering
became a legacy amongst God’s people. King Benjamin spoke of ‘remembering’ 15
times in his farewell speech to motivate his people to obedience to God (Mosiah
1:3,4,6,7,17; 2:40 twice, 41 twice; 4:11,28,30; 5:11,12; 6:3).
Remembering
God’s mercy in our lives brings us to accept His most notable role, that of
being an Advocate before the judgment bar of God: “…for he cometh to judge the
earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity.”
(98:9)
When
we come before that judgment bar, we will need mercy more than ever before. This
mercy will be offered only to the penitent and is not to be used as excuse for
our lack of repentance, as a lot of people tend to do (see Alma 42:24,25; Ether
12:24; D&C 38:14; 50:16; 101:9)
I
used to think, through my study of the scriptures, that the Saviour was overly
merciful, especially to the House of Israel which He called the ‘backsliding’ ‘rebellious
house’ (see Jeremiah 3:6,8,11,12,14,22; Ezekiel 12:2,3,9,25). Then one year I
had a great insight into the Saviour’s mercy. I realised He could have never endured
the cross if it wasn’t for his abundant mercy towards those lesser than Him. It
was that mercy in Him that drove Him through the last leg of His suffering
journey.
“I
will sing of the mercies of the Lord for ever……” (89:1)
Will
You come and carry me
When
all my strength is gone?
Will
Your mercy spill from You
When
I can walk no more?
Will
Your mercy lift me higher
To
glimpse my eternal home?
Will
I see my soul there
Before
Your gilded throne?
When
the sum of my life is done
Will
You bring me home to keep?
I’ll
want to kneel and honour You
Before
Your Mercy Seat.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
I
long to reside in Your presence;
To
never know sadness
Or
the wretched heat of my tears.
I
know I will be safe there
Where
fears cannot find me
And
trials cannot scar me.
I
know there will be safety
In
the shadow of Your wings
My
burdens You will lift
And
wipe away my sins.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
