Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Living Without Honor? | The Writings | Psalm 126

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. Plenty of people are fans of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. But few people know the story of Tolkien's life. It may not surprise you to learn that he wasn't a totally normal person. He did some strange things and made some choices that might surprise you immensely. A friend of mine, Jake Meeter, recently wrote an essay about a story from Tolkien's younger years. and that story has now become one of my favorites. I've pulled a lot of today's episode from his essay in Comment Magazine.

Starting point is 00:00:42 It's called The Long Defeat of History. So giving credit where credits do, I suggest you go check that out. With that said, let's get to the story. Tolkien was an orphan, if you didn't know that. And this meant that he lived under the custodianship of a Catholic priest. As a teenager, he fell in love with a young woman named Edith and brought the idea of marrying her to his priest, and the priest told him that he shouldn't pursue her at all.

Starting point is 00:01:06 Now this was incredibly disappointing, but Tolkien was a strange man. So rather than doing what most of us would do and ignore the priest, Tolkien listened. He gave up contact with Edith and he obeyed. It wasn't until the guardianship ended at age 21 that Tolkien once more sought out Edith. At the time, she was engaged to another man, but Tolkien convinced her to break off the relationship and to marry him instead. For Tolkien, obeying the priest was simply the first. right thing to do. And in his view, one must do the right thing regardless of the consequences.

Starting point is 00:01:40 For Tolkien, this was at the heart of living an honorable life. Now, I think as a concept, honor has fallen on hard times. But it's an idea as old as the Bible itself. It's the belief that goodness does not bend with history or circumstance, right and wrong or unchanging, and honor says we must do the right thing. This idea plays out in Tolkien's story. For example, at the end of his first book, the story's heroes must decide whether to chase down a ring of power immediately so they can stop it from doing great evil, or they can slow down to honor a friend with the proper burial. The choice is obvious for the heroes. Legless says, we must do what we must do. And so they bury their friend and risk losing the ring. Later, there's a conversation

Starting point is 00:02:29 between two characters, and the first is wondering whether the dark changes in the world around them will require good men to make dark choices. He's saying that circumstances may change his concept of the good. This is what he says. It is hard to be sure of anything among so many marvels. The world is all grown strange. How shall a man judge what he ought to do in such times? To this, Erdogan responds, as he has ever judged, good and ill have not changed. changed since yesteryear, nor are they one thing among elves and doors and another among men. It is a man's part to discern them, as much in the golden wood as in his own house. Erdogan is clear. What's right and what's wrong don't change depending on one's circumstances.

Starting point is 00:03:18 It doesn't matter whether one is at home or out. They don't change based on time. They don't change based on your position or based on anything at all. But in our world, if you dare say something like this, you'll be met with the same comment. That's foolish. Don't you know what time it is? And when someone says something like that, the person is assuring you that because of our political or cultural moment, we need to ignore what the Bible says about how we treat our enemies, about our character, about forgiveness, about mercy, about humility. The times have changed and so we must change too. But there's another comment people will make when we say we should just do the right thing no matter the circumstance. They'll say this, well, don't you worry that you'll be on the wrong side of history? Now, this person is making a very

Starting point is 00:04:03 different argument. They're saying times have changed and so should your morals. If you don't, you'll be viewed as backwards and bigoted. Both of these people suggest to us that changing circumstances should change our character and our morals. But Tolkien's life and Tolkien's heroes show a different path, the path of honor. To take this path is to risk defeat. It's true that if we don't change our morals, we may be looked down upon. It's true that if we don't change our morals to fight our enemies and become vicious, well, we may be defeated. But God has not called us to worry about outcomes. He's called us to live with honor, to live with virtue, to trust his definition of good and evil, and to trust that if we follow his definition, all things will work out in the details to come.

Starting point is 00:04:53 Tolkien wrote this about himself. I am a Christian and indeed a Roman Catholic, so I don't expect history to be anything but a long defeat, even though it contains some samples or glimpses of final victory. He's saying that in the short term, doing the right thing may mean defeat in the short term. Indeed, it may mean a long defeat throughout the ages. But he also knows that we have glimpses of future victories. And I would argue that without those glimpses of future victories, we will lack the strength we need to live with honor in the present. Psalm 126, today's passage is a song designed to do precisely that. It is a song sung by those who know the pain of exile. They know the pain of defeat. And yet they're looking forward to the restoration of Jerusalem, a city which the song calls Zion,

Starting point is 00:05:45 And of course, the Restoration of Jerusalem is a picture of the restoration of the whole world. This song, for those who know the pain of defeat, the pain of choosing honor, even when it costs, it acknowledges the pain of weeping, it acknowledges the poor fortunes we may face in the present, but it points forward towards victory. It points forward towards renewal for all who live with honor. Psalm 126, verse 1. When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dreamed, Our mouths were filled with laughter, our tongues with songs of joy. Then it was said among the nations, the Lord has done great things for them. The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.

Starting point is 00:06:28 Restore our fortunes, O Lord. Now I need to pause here for a moment and say that they're imagining a future event. They're speaking about it as though it's in the present, but it's not in the present. It's something they know they've been promised. It's something they know they look forward to. So they speak about it as though it were a reality now, even though it's not. And that becomes clear in the next verses when they call on God to do what they've already seen. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams and the Negev.

Starting point is 00:06:59 The Negev was a desert region, and there would be streams that would periodically run through it. For the most part, they'd be dry. But when it rained, they would run with water again. And so that's the picture here. We're dry. Bring the rivers back. Verse five, those who sow it tears will reap with songs of joy. Those who go out with weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy,

Starting point is 00:07:22 carrying sheaves with them. When you find yourself tempted to live without honor, to live without character, or to join those who do evil for the sake of the greater good, remember this psalm, we may go out in tears, but we return with songs of joy. The dried streams in the desert will flow with water. Seeds scattered on broken ground will spring into life, but not before they die. Don't give in to the voices saying that good and evil change with circumstances. They do not, they have not. Why? Because good itself is rooted in the unchanging character of the unchanging God. And evil is always the unchanging rejection of his very goodness. So trust in him. Learn to be okay with the long defeat of history in the present. Live with honor and do it because you

Starting point is 00:08:14 know that your future victory is secure.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Living Without Honor? | The Writings | Psalm 126

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