Tom Baker, Ebbw Vale

Some wonderful Christians have already written here, perhaps you feel so unworthy in comparison! Well, that’s exactly how I feel as I write this but by the grace of God I am what I am; a sinner still, but a saved sinner. No more, no less, a dirty sinner saved by God’s grace and made clean by the blood of His beautiful Son.

Which verses would you take to the desert island?

O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up…How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How great is the sum of them! If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; When I awake, I am still with You… Psalm 139

I’m often quite aware of my own sinfulness. I wallow in guilt most days. And so I should, shouldn’t I? I mean, my behaviour is hardly good enough. My thoughts are bad, and they are often followed by bad actions. My heart is wicked, and I feel so dirty. And the holy God, has searched me and known me (v1). Gutted. In fact David goes on to tell me that God knows everything there is to know about me. When my own sinful heart can tell that I’m a sinner, what will a holy God think of me? But rather, His thoughts to me are precious (v17). Though I sin constantly, the Lord thinks about me! In His sight I am blameless because His own Son has carried all my sin, guilt and shame and been punished in my place. So often my last thought as I drop off to sleep at night is, “I must have gone too far this time, I must have failed too many times to be a real Christian. I’ve sinned unforgivably, surely God will leave me now.” I fall asleep fearing that I have no hope of being right with God. Then I wake up, and find that He is still with me (v18). He’s not left me yet and He never will. What a patient Saviour He is!

Have mercy upon me, O God, according to Your lovingkindness; according to the multitude of Your tender mercies, blot out my transgressions…Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow…Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me…The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart—
These, O God, You will not despise… Psalm 51

This Psalm is said to follow a particularly low point in the life of David. You know the story, He gets another man's wife pregnant and has him killed to cover it up. He knew that what he’d done was wrong, and he knew that God was angry with him. More often than not, my own feelings of shame come after I’ve done things that I know are bad. My only hope is that God would be merciful to a sinner like me (v1). I feel dirty, I must have Him make me clean (v7). My heart is battered and broken, and it’s my own stupid fault. I really hate myself sometimes. But God doesn’t. He doesn’t despise people who are broken hearted over their sin (v17). I sometimes believe the lie that He does hate me for what I’ve done, or rather that He must hate me! But seeing me in this sorry state, He is driven to the deepest compassion. “Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and has shed His own blood for my soul!” He creates in me a clean heart (v10), He changes my sinful, broken heart into a clean, whole one. He’s doing that in me every day, even on the days when I really can’t feel it.

Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently; He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high…But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed... All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all…Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul unto death, and He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. Isaiah 52:13 – 53:12

It’s refreshing to often remind myself of how Jesus Christ has dealt with my sin. God hasn’t just overlooked it, He’s dealt with it. My sin has all been punished in Jesus, and this chapter is my favourite description of that. Jesus Christ, the holy Son of God, King of the Universe, Glorious God, has become a Man and in His body has carried all my sins and sorrows! He endured shame, accusation, trial, punishment, and death, all of which should have been mine. He bore the anger which His Father had towards me and my sin. By Christ’s wounds, I am healed (v5). The Lord has laid on Christ all of my sin (v6). No wonder the apostle Paul would say later that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:1)! Even now, when I feel quite sinful in myself, Jesus Christ makes intercession for me (v12).

Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me… And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also… John 14

This wonderful Saviour has risen from the dead and gone to heaven now. Though I know Him, and He is always nearby His Spirit, I look forward to the day when I see Him face to face. Before He left, Jesus told His disciples that He would go and prepare a place for them, and therefore would be coming back for them to take them there (v3). Likewise, Jesus is preparing a place for me, so one day I know He’s coming back to take me there. While still on earth I often feel distant from God, but then I will be “forever with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17). So much of my life bears so little resemblance to His, but when I see Him as He is I will be made completely like Him (1 John 3:2). On that day I will have already had my last bad thought, my body will be glorified, my heart will love Christ purely and my soul will know how clean it really is. I do hope He comes back soon.

Who would you like to find on the island for company?

If I may break the no-Bible-characters rule, I’ll go for the apostle John. First of all he must have picked up some desert island skills on Patmos. But more than that, it would be so good to sit and listen to him talk about his friend, the Lord Jesus, whom he loved so much. I believe the thing that never stopped amazing him was that Jesus loved him, and that’s the kind of company I’d like to keep.

Which song would you take to the island?

Do I seriously only get one song? Dear me. I’ll answer for now with a 1738 piece by Charles Wesley but next week my answer will probably be different.

And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior's blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain?
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! how can it be
That Thou, my God, should die for me?

'Tis mystery all! The Immortal dies!
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine!
'Tis mercy all! let earth adore,
Let angel minds inquire no more.

He left His Father's throne above,
So free, so infinite His grace;
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam's helpless race;
'Tis mercy all, immense and free;
For, O my God, it found out me.

Long my imprisoned spirit lay
Fast bound in sin and nature's night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray,
I woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
My chains fell off, my heart was free;
I rose, went forth and followed Thee.

No condemnation now I dread;
Jesus, and all in Him is mine!
Alive in Him, my living Head,
And clothed in righteousness divine,
Bold I approach the eternal throne,
And claim the crown, through Christ my own.

Esther Hoole, Columbo, Sri Lanka

Having lived most of my life on an island that often feels like a spiritual desert, I’m so grateful for a Bible full of verses, books full of hymns and a huge family to pray and sing with. I know that were it not for these, life here would have been hard. But I also know that even if I had no one with me and had somehow forgotten all my verses and hymns, my Lord would still be with me, and that He would be sufficient. That said, I’m so glad the prescribed situation allows for a little more.

Which verses would you take to the desert island?

What if some were unfaithful? Does their faithlessness nullify the faithfulness of God? By no means! Romans 3:3-4

I walked away from God for two awful years. At the end of them, I hated my sin, but felt it would be an insult to His holiness to ask Him to take me back. This verse put all those fears to rest. It showed me that the insult was in assuming that His faithfulness was the same as mine. But unlike mine, His love was faithful and Christ would save again and again. That day, I repented and He saved. The fear of offending Him by my repeated pleas for forgiveness remains, along with my sin, but this verse continues to comfort and correct.

Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands. Isaiah 49:15-16

I don’t think everyone would forget me once I was on the island (one can always hope). However, I think it would be too easy to feel forgotten. This verse reminds me that on my Saviour’s palms, two nail scars spell out ‘Esther Hoole’ along with the names of all the other saints. And on the island, I’d remember that the One who really matters, will never forget.

Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her. And there I will give her her vineyards and make the Valley of Achor a door of hope. Hosea 2:14-15

I love the book of Hosea. It convicts, comforts and makes me understand and rejoice in the love of Jesus so much more. This verse would remind me to be grateful for the island because God will have brought me there for a purpose. The island is part of God’s kind providence, it is far sweeter to be there with Him, than to have the best the world can give without Him.

Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Job 38:4

(This verse represents Job chapters 38 – 41) I hate that there are wars and unpunished criminals in the world and that people are suffering and dying.  In my arrogance, I then fall into thinking that God needs me to make this right. That my abilities and accomplishments are necessary for Him to win. I think I’d struggle with this on the island as well. These chapters have always put things into perspective. They remind me that God does not need me to run the world. He never has. On the island, I’d find this convicting, and immensely comforting. The burdens of the world are God’s and He who spared not His only Son will do all things well, whether I am working to help or stuck on an island.

Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. Hebrews 11:16

I don’t think the Christian life is very different from being on a desert island. We struggle to survive, nothing is certain, we’re often lonely and hurting except for when we’re spending time with the Lord and we’re all longing for a better country. Being stuck on an island would just give me more time to think of and long for the better country, the city that God is preparing for us. Think of all the people I want to meet, of all the questions I want to ask, of all the things I want to do, more than anything, of finally seeing my Lord and being in His presence for all eternity. A few decades on a desert island isn’t much compared to all that!

Who would you like to find on the island for company?

It feels a bit mean to drag someone into this situation, but as long as it’s hypothetical, I’d pick the Apostle John. He’d have the necessary how-to-not-die-on-a-desert-island knowledge and he knew what it meant to rest and rejoice in Christ’s love. His identity was in being the “disciple whom Jesus loved”. That’s something I’d like to learn while I’m still on this earth, and he sounds like a patient teacher. John knew Christ and He saw something of Heaven, I can’t think of better subjects for desert-island-conversation.

Which song would you take to the island?

God’s plan for my family has always involved a lot of moving between contracts and countries. The constant moving is painful, especially when it involves being separated from one another. Before one of these particularly hard moves, I remember hearing my father sing this hymn, and I was as comforted in hearing it as I think he was in singing it. Since then, I’ve found myself singing it when things were most uncertain, when I’ve been most afraid and when I’m far from those I love.

Could I only remember one hymn, it would be Jane Borthwick’s 1855 translation of Kathrina von Schlegel’s 1752 hymn. I’ve sung it in every change, and in each of those changes He has remained faithful. It reminds me that God is sovereign, that His will is good and that really, the island bit doesn’t matter because I’m going home at the end of it all.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side.
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.
Leave to thy God to order and provide;
In every change, He faithful will remain.

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heav’nly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end.

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know
His voice Who ruled them while He dwelt below.

Be still, my soul: the hour is hast’ning on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief, and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.

Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past
All safe and blessed we shall meet at last.