Best Bethel Poems
God raises His men for the hour
even after earthly life has ended
their writings God uses for good
to make us as the Lord intended
One of particular benefit to myself
Charles Hodges 'systematic theology' masterful!
pointing to God's ever living truths
showing the majesty of God's sovereign rule
Another great influence Jonathan Edwards
a man of great insight and mind
his 'religious affections' opens up one's heart
warming it with God's fire that shined
A fellow Scot with devotional humility
such a benefit is Samuel Rutherford 'letters'
one for each day of the year
for such uplifting counsel we are all debters
God's salvation always points to the cross
where my saviour died in my place
John Owen's 'death of death' goes to the core
revealing depth of Jesus love and grace
(Thank God for my men of bethel that grounded me in His holy truth shows His presence promise provision and power for one before eternity God mercifully chooseth At my various points in my early Christian life God used these men's writings to keep me grounded in the faith pointing me to Jesus for the need of my hour and keep walking tall holding on to the faith once delivered to the saints, I'll always be grateful to God's mercy at these precious times.)
I sit, in torment, striving to succeed in a world that would not have me,
I am the battered women of old, I am the persecuted Jeremiah, I am
schizophrenic soldiers
tormented by their own insight into unseen realms of beauty,
But in the darkness, I sit in the season of Bethel,
And see Jacob’s ladder, Angels descending and ascending on the Son of Man,
Free to roam and explore,
Sheep and Goats together in profligate euphony,
I am a woman, forsaken, who would not stop believing in beauty,
I am a man, in a world that could not understand him,
Raging against the fire of my own fear, to transcend to unseen lightning,
When you see the sign of moon and star,
Know that the Earth’s redemption is at hand,
And imagine.
What place is this that gives me peace
Amidst the haunting of the world's disease
Where on a stony pillow I find release
Guilty shadows flee, and I am at ease
What place is this that between a vision
And a dream, show me heaven still is real
And angels in their bright succession
Walk up and down the sacred ladder in zeal
O let me with my pillow make an altar here
Mark this indestructible rock of my faith
This must be heaven's gate, let me bare
My selfish desires, that you may consecrate
This worthless vessel, once of precious gem
Was wrought, for I have fled my kindred
Hound, but cannot flee this surge of mayhem
That holds me captive with its silent dread
O Bethel, now I return again, remember me
The trickster from the crossroad turned. Here
Once more my better name that favors mercy
To claim from my children's shame. How dear
To me this Rock, before whom once ago I kneel
When in ignorance that long night he gave rest
And moved my heart like a ship to turn its keel
To the harbor of his love, to the shelter of his breast.
And yet, despite my experience, how do I tell
What is the gate of God in the sinner's earth
This little spot that shuts out our guilty hell
And like a womb provide us with a second birth
What place is this, self replenishing, multiplies
The blessings channeled through absent doors
My cup runneth over here, and none denies
In this place the heart a laddered angel soars
Bethel, House of God, where Jacob knelt in thy awe
Evoke again that Hamitic vision here sweet,
Templing angels to the sky. Invoke in us thy law
Holy, just, good and true, rolling back waves of defeat
Emanuel, uprise from Mercy's throne to lead
Lambs of God where in green pastures by faith we feed.
Bethel Island nine and nine, the twins splash
and race the motor boat - the owner was rash.
The parents of nine and nine found this crappy.
Until excitement was overruled, twins were happy.
The restaurant but rubble on return tour.
No longer nine and now towing a contour.
His wife at nine years old, his golden days -
she was a twin of the same age. Replays
in his head, if they had grown up together.
Oh how he’d accept a side by side tether.
The other boy would have to speed the boat,
splash in the sun, with his sister, to stay afloat.