Psalm 11:3 is a rhetorical question. “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” It was never intended to evoke a response of despair and abandonment. Francis Asbury wrote in 1815, “We will not give up the cause—we will not abandon the world to infidels.”
Psalm 92 describes the righteous flourishing and in verse 14 we have the promise that we will still bear fruit in old age. We can be fresh and green, regardless of our chronological age. May God continue that work in all of us and through all of us. “Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, my God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your mighty acts to all who are to come” (Ps 71:18).
George Whitefield was once among a group of ministers and recognized William Tennent among them. Whitefield turned to Tennent and asked, “Well! Brother Tennent, you are the oldest man amongst us, do you not rejoice to think that your time is so near at hand when you will be called home and freed from all the difficulties attending this chequered scene?”
Tennent replied, “I have no wish about it.” Whitefield pressed him. Tennent responded, “No sir, it is not pleasure to me at all, and if you knew your duty it would be none to you. I have nothing to do with death; my business is to live as long as I can—as well as I can—and to serve my Lord and Master as faithfully as I can until he should think proper to call me home.”
The term Puritan was coined in the 1560s. Iain Murray described the Puritan hope by writing:
it concerned him little whether he was called to sow or to reap; what mattered was that the final outcome is certain. So persecution could be faced; or the appalling darkness of entirely non-Christian nations. For the men of this noble school neither promising circumstances nor immediate success were necessary to uphold their morale in the day of battle.
Luther wrote:
And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
“And He must win the battle.” May we ever live and serve with this quiet confidence.