Sunday Message

Once upon a time I studied runic magic.  The runes are a way to study the world around you through both the trinities that God has built things around and the dualism in them.  One of the most powerful dualisms is that between the symbols Algiz (top) and Sowelo.  As I was taught, you learn a general meaning and then let it grow into your application; and at least for me, the symbol Algiz was man reaching for God, though he can never touch Him physically; Sowelo, the lightning bolt, is God touching man.  Turned on its side and doubled, the Nazis used it (the swastika) to symbolize man ruling over men as if he were god.

Reaching by man and touching by God is the subject of this week's study- how do we get touched by God, and what do we do to prevent it.  God allows Himself to be found by those who dilligently seek Him.  What blocks us on that search?

Day one:  Our own knowledge.  In Galatians 1, Paul is scolding them about "hearing a different Gospel than the one I preached".  He goes on to use himself as an example.  He was a zealous Jew, a pharisee "beyond many of my contemporaies in my own nation."  He knew the Law inside and out, and persecuted those who did not believe as he did.  But when Christ touched him, there was no knowledge or booklearning involved; he went into the desert and learned from Christ's revelation, apart from the Apostles or anyone else who had known Jesus.  It was when he ceased to believe he knew it all that Christ was able to use him.

Day two: Fear and guilt.  In Genesis 50, Jacob dies in Egypt, and even though some time has past, the sons of Jacob are worried at their future.  You see, they had betrayed their brother so many years ago by selling him into eventual slavery in Egypt, and they still lived with the guilt.  Moreover, Joseph had become powerful in Egypt, and they feared that their father's death removed the only thing keeping their brother from his revenge.  Joseph never saw it that way; he was bringing them into the blessings he had been given.  Their fear and guilt kept them from enjoying those blessings, and they even invented a story that Jacob himself had given word not to harm them.  But Joseph had only love in his heart, because everything that had happened to him was part of God's plan to bring them right where they were. It was only fear and guilt keeping God's blessings from them.

Day three: Failure to apply what you learn by asking questions.  God wants us to come into His word with questions.  I listened to a sermon Wednesday in which the pastor told a story to illustrate this point.  A young man named Glenn Chambers was killed in the crash of a plane headed to Quito, Ecuador.  He was going to fulfill his calling to work for the Christian radio station Voice Of The Andes, but the plane crashed on February 15th, 1947.  Before leaving the Miami airport that day, he had wanted to dash off a quick letter to his mother.  Having and finding no paper, he wrote it on a pice of advertisement in a newspaper he found lying on the floor.  The next day, his mother received both the news of her son's death and the note, which was written around the one bit of printing from the ad on the section he'd torn off.

One word: "Why".

To find her comfort, she would have to go to God with the "why" of what had happened.  And we as well, especially me, we're more likely to be hit with disaster and go to God with vitriol, anger, even hatred, and if we ask why, we're not really looking for an answer.  Or we go there, and don't understand that the answer is, "It is not for you to know yet."  What did Mrs. Chambers find when she asked?  From the story:

God is too kind to do anything cruel…Too wise to make a mistake…Too deep to explain Himself.

Mrs. Chambers stopped asking Why?…when she saw the Who behind he scene. All other sounds are muffled when we claim His absolute sovereignty. Even the deafening sound of a crashing DC-4.
Day four: We stop "being Algiz".  In Phillipians 3, Paul gives his famous discourse about not acting like we have already attained what God wished for us, but "forgetting those things which are behind and reaching foreward to those things that are ahead."  Sometimes we expect God to do the touching all on His own, with out our reaching.  But look at it this way.  Say you, in your struggles, are a drowning man in the water.  God is at the shore, and He tosses you a rope.  If you stop reaching once the rope is tossed, what happens?  You drown, because you didn't keep reaching foreward until you were pulled ashore. 

And how does one keep reaching?  Paul looks at it as running in a race.  Another way that I've always tried to keep in mind is in Psalm 107:23-32.  Our life's storms are like being trapped on a ship in a storm.  Step one, we call out for God's help (VV28-9).  But you know, anyone can call out when the storm is bad- what happens when the waves are stilled?  You are still at sea, and the storm can come back at any moment.  Look at what happens in verse 30:  "Then they are glad because (the storm) is quiet; so He guides them to their desired haven."   So you see, there are four elements here- call, response, thankgiving, deliverance.  It's not just what you do in the storm, but what you do after.  Heres another example, from Luke 17:
¹¹ Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy^[a] met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.

Notice that some of them were healed, but only the one with praise and thanksgiving was MADE WELL.  The difference?  God, as they say, brings sunshine to the good and the evil, the loved and the unloved.  But the true healing- salvation- only comes with appreciating what was done with the rest of your life.

Day five:  Just like last week, day five is reserved for those under judgement.  In Ezekiel 4, we see how Ezekiel is told to make himself a human sign for falling Jerusalem.  He makes a clay model of the city, complete with the siegeworks that surrounded the city at that time due to the Babylonian army.  He then puts up an iron plate between himself and the "city", representing that the city will have no recourse to God to turn aside His wrath.  Finally, he is told to lie on his side facing the city, 390 days on one side to represent the years of sin that Israel will pay for, and 40 on the other to represent the years of Judah's sin alone.  And God finishes this instruction in verse 8 with:  "And surely I will constrain you so that you cannot turn from one side to another until you have ended the days of your siege."  Simply put, there are those who have consistantly refused the touch of God, who have refused to reach out to Him.  And they will be kept from doing so.

Day six:  The last reading this week came from the second chapter of Nehemiah.

1In the month of Nisan in the twentieth year of King Artaxerxes, when wine was brought for him, I took the wine and gave it to the king. I had not been sad in his presence before; 2so the king asked me, “Why does your face look so sad when you are not ill? This can be nothing but sadness of heart.”

I was very much afraid, 3but I said to the king, “May the king live forever! Why should my face not look sad when the city where my fathers are buried lies in ruins, and its gates have been destroyed by fire?”

4The king said to me, “What is it you want?”

Then I prayed to the God of heaven, 5and I answered the king, “If it pleases the king and if your servant has found favor in his sight, let him send me to the city in Judah where my fathers are buried so that I can rebuild it.”

 

Notice before Nehemiah explained what he wanted, he PRAYED.  That is how we reach, and if we want to be touched by God, that is where it starts.  Putting aside our pride and knowledge, setting aside our fear and guilt, opening ourselves to hear God's answer, and ready to reach for what He gives us.  Using prayer and praise and faith to remove the iron plate before us, that His touch can come through, and continuing to reach so He can pull us home.

Monday message.

Yesterday I heard a sermon on the Prodigal Son.  Now, the first thing we need to look at here that we might well not realize is the meaning of the word "prodigal".  I have been guilty of using it the wrong way myself, even after I knew the true meaning.  Many who don't look into things think it means one who has left and come back, but it doesn't go that far into the story.  It means wasteful.  As in the younger son went out and wasted everything.  But he wasn't the only one wasting.

The story began with Jesus defending His work with the tax collectors and other downtrodden, whom the pharisees, self-appointed judges of righteousness, wouldn't touch.  The Pharisees looked down on Jesus for His association with them, for wouldn't a prophet rather be with the "holy"?  So Jesus first told them two stories that pointed out that His job on earth was to seek out such as these, the lost children of Israel, that their repentance would be the thing that brought God joy.  But it wasn't getting through, because the Pharisees couldn't get past that "fact" that they were "better" than these.

So Jesus told a third story, and for most of us, this story starts with a son who left home, hit bottom, and ends with his father forgiving him.  But that's only half the story.

At the younger son's (the so-called prodigal) request, the inheritance was divided in thirds, because by Jewish law, the elder son got two-thirds.  I think we get the impression that the father tallied everything and "cashed out" the younger son, but actually he was given his share of everything- sheep, cattle, etc.  And after he sat there on the family plot for a while, he gathered all his possessions and left.So he didn't just go out on some bender, he truly was starting a new life, with no intent of going home.

But he mismanaged his assests, blew all that he had, and soon was at rock bottom, working for (of all detestable things to Jews) a hog rancher- and he wasn't making much more than room and board.  He got so hungry that he was slobbering over the food he gave the hogs.

This was, in Jesus' story, the tax collectors.  They had taken on a reprehensible job.  Not only were they scorned (with good reason) by their countrymen, but their means of existance required them to extort from their neighbors to earn a living.  Wonder why the Bible never talked about rich tax collectors?  Because the actual taxes went to Rome (or who passed for Rome in the area) and their living was based on whatever they collected OVER the fair taxes.  You had to sell a bit of your soul everytime you ate your crust of bread in such an arraingement, and they had to feel themselves the lowest of the low.

So finally the younger prodigal decided, "I need to go back to my father and beg forgiveness.  Being a servant for him is better than being a slave here."  IOW, he had to ADMIT he'd been wrong, and ask for forgiveness with full knowledge of the Asshat he had been.  He left in pride of place; now he would have to go back humbly, seeking no more than a servant's job- and realizing he didn't deserve THAT much.

But not only did his father forgive him, he'd been waiting for him to come home.  He had him cleaned and put his own robe on him; gave him the signet ring that indicated he had returned to the position he had rejected- that of "son"- and put sandals on his feet, which servants didn't get to wear.  IOW, he was "re-adopted" back into the family.  I don't think I have to spend a lot of time on the analogy that this is of our process of forgiveness.

But then go on, and read Luke 15:25-32.  Here we see our other prodigal- the elder son- getting upset over the "salvation" of the younger son.  He points out to dear ol' dad that he never left, he's been right here with him all these years, and he "never gave me a young goat to make merry with my friends".  And isn't it funny that this son, who was given 2/3 of everything, still wants dad to supply his goats? Oh, it's not that, you say, he just wanted to be TREATED the way the younger is getting treated.  Never stopping to think that by allowing him to stay and serve him, the father made it so he never had to go through what the younger son did.

This is where the elder son was prodigal as well.  He had all the advantages of being with this kind loving father- but was still stuck on possessions and position, and apparently never once appreciated his father, or learned the traits of love, patience, and above all forgiveness that his father possessed.  Or to put it another way, he WASTED the good things he had by not using them to become more like his father.

And these were the Pharisees- so blinded by pride of position that they failed to use the gifts of the knowledge of God that they had to benefit anyone but themselves.  In our minds, we usually think of the elder son as the good son, and the younger as the bad son.  But in reality, Jesus was painting a much different story.  The coda to this parable can be found in two spots-the first in Luke 18:10-14 when he tells the difference between the Pharisee's "devotion" and that of the tax collector ("Be merciful to me, o Lord, a sinner"); and the other in Matt. 23:15 where Jesus aptly describes the lessons they "learned" from their father ("woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you travel land and sea to win one proselyte, and when he is won, you make him twice as much a son of Hell as yourselves!").

Now it took me till last night to get to the application, because of trying to add things I thought important to a simple lesson.  A fellow blogger, Elise, has been posting about what I would call extreme forgiveness.  Another has been struggling with her faith as she watches her mother go through cancer treatments.  I wanted to find a way to salute Elise's forgiveness, as it is at a level I would think a lot closer to the prodigal's father than my own.  And to the other, I wanted to express how even the great gifts of God on earth are ephemeral; even those Jesus brought back from the dead, such as Lazarus, eventually died.  It is the gifts of forgiveness, such as the father gave the younger son, that in the end were more important to him than all the possessions he was given beforehand.

But application has to start with me, and with me that application is to appreciate the things God has given me.  I've been posting about the new job and the lack of doing things that has gone on with it (Hopefully it has been "humourous" and not "whiney").  But, it is a job I can do.  And it is a job that I have.  And it is a job I can come home from after 8 1/2 hours, instead of say being a solider in Afghanistan where there is no coming home to the barcolounger and a cold one at the end of a hard day.  And I come home to a home that has my two best friends, rather than a one room shack for one person, or a mat at the shelter, or just to an empty house.  Application means not whining to God about "the goat to share with my friends" that I don't have.

Most of all, application means learning from My Father the spirit of love, patience, and forgiveness that He has.  Being the younger son, the so-called Prodigal, was never the problem.  Being the elder son is.

Sunday message

With a new job and a new schedule come adjustments, especially in sleep patterns.  Thus I woke up just for the tail end of David Jeremiah's sermon this morning (though I didn't stop there), but it was the most important part for me.  Dr. Jeremiah was talking on the subject "God is Love", and how He loves everyone- even those who haven't accepted His Son and found their salvation. He reminded us of Romans 6:23:  "For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."  You see, God loves us even though we haven't accepted this gift; the rub being we cannot enter heaven without it.  But because He loves us, He will wait a LONG time before giving up on us.   "The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance."  2 Peter 3:9.  And because of that, I had to review how I pray.

You see, I have never been slack myself about engaing with atheists.  But whether it is responding to the infinitely silly question from one blogger:  "Okay, Creationists, why didn't God give us the ability to travel in space?" (Yup, actual question asked); or  trying to get past the notion that a "real" God should think and reason as we do, it is hard to get an atheist to really listen.  Many consider that they "already know it all", claiming "I've been brought up in a church/I've read the Bible, along with the Quran, etc." and refusing to believe that there is more to it than that.  Because you cannot get them to understand that God wants more than that, He wants a personal relationship.  That's when they go into "Easter Bunny mode" generally.  And even if you are willing to play the "what if" game with their beliefs, they will not extend you the same courtesy; any reasoning you use, they will dismiss without even hearing, "but if God exists", and tell you they won't continue the conversation because you are deluded.

And yet I try, not trying to make a point, but because God cares about them- and so should I.  I don't know how many times I have said, "I do this because I care about you," only to be met with the attitude, "I don't need your caring because God doesn't exist.  If I gave them a gift they didn't need at a birthday party, a reasonable person would say, "That's okay, thanks for the thought." Because they would accept the caring that went into it, whether it was the right gift or not.  Care about an atheist this way, and because God is in the equation, you get, "You've done nothing for me."  But they are the free thinkers.

And I bring this up not to attack them, but to explain my state of mind during these set-tos.  I don't get pissed for myself (though I do get mad for God's sake at blasphemy), or get a case of hurt pride.  But I get frustrated, and depressed.  Because Satan has chosen to erect a wall of "I can't hear you" in these people, and they will not listen, even when you use the same rules of logic they profess to follow.  It hurts.  And I am confessing right here that, in times when you are constantly barraged with groups putting up anti-God billboards, when our President tells us Muslims kill Americans because Christians are evil, when it seems half our population lives to kill and rob and rape before they can be killed or robbed or be raped,   it just doesn't seem worth it to care about these people anymore.  And you begin to pray that God finally gives up on them and brings His judgement this day, this hour.  "Look at them, God, you can't save them if they won't hear.  Isn't it time to just bag it all?"

I'll admit to that prayer at least once a month.  But when I put together my golden, logical case for ending it all, what God hears is,  "God, you are being foolish.  You love these people but they will never love you.  Why waste your time?"  Which is me making three mistakes.

First, God is never foolish.  And He's certainly not foolish because He " is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness".  He waited 2,000 years on my undeserving ass.  Was that so foolish?
Second, I am judging others as irredeemable.  If God wants to send out both combines to get the masses and gleaners afterwards to get the bits and pieces, who am I to judge how He tills his farm?  It's not like I'm the choicest ear off the stalk.
Third, it's not a waste of time if one person gets to avoid eternal damnation.  Ask the person who doesn't avoid it.

Lately, I have prayed keeping in mind the story of the widow and the corrupt judge from Luke 18.  For those who don't remember, it goes like this:

"1Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up. 2He said: “In a certain town there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared about men. 3And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea, ‘Grant me justice against my adversary.’

4“For some time he refused. But finally he said to himself, ‘Even though I don’t fear God or care about men, 5yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice, so that she won’t eventually wear me out with her coming!’”

6And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. 7And will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off? 8I tell you, he will see that they get justice, and quickly. However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?”

 

 

Another way the bold verse is put is "Avenge me against my Adversary", and that is the prayer I have been praying for myself and others.  Because the Adversary is Satan, and this prayer, to me, is the same as the line from the Catholic Prayer to St. Michael, "...defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil."  When I pray for the judgement day, I have to make sure it is because I am asking God's will be done, and not because I have mistaken the people around me for the Adversary.  Better then to pray, "Avenge them, Lord, against THEIR adversary."  I don't have to heap hot coals on their heads.  I just desire for them to hear.

 

Sunday message

Whenever I get on my dashboard, being a statistic-minded person, I check to see whether I have any new followers or not.  And if I do (And if you look at the current count, you see it doesn't happen all THAT often), I make a point of visiting their profile and/or their blog page.Because I think it's the honorable thing to do, and plus, I am curious about them and why they showed up on my shores.  Many times, it's because I've commented on their blogs; sometimes, I can only assume, it's because they want me to follow them. Because they like statistics, too, or they have something to sell.

A few days ago, I acquired a new follower, and I dutifully went to their site.  And really, I'm still scratching my head over what I found.  Because their blog was basically taking ideas or characters from the Bible, putting a negative spin on them, and writing it up as a "humourous" news story.  Honestly, I don't know if their just trying to have fun, or they are a closet atheist trying to grind their axe.  Either way, it was uncomfortable to me because respect for God and respect for Jesus was one of the first lessons I learned in life.

When I was little, my mom read her Catholic prayer book every morning after dad left for work.  Her first silent 15 minutes to 1/2 hour every day was spent with God.  From her I learned ironclad faith that God is real, and He is what He says.  And, I learned the reverence in which He deserves to be held.

Mom sent me to Catholic school,  which taught me to have God in my life every day.  I felt bad for the CCD kids for whom God was a "Crap, I have to go to class on Saturday" experience.  And I learned what sin was, and its terrible consequences.

Along about seventh grade, the Gideons came to our school and gave us all New Testaments, which for most of us was our first real exposure to the Bible.  There I learned how Jesus told us not to pray in vain repititions, and questioned the Rosary for the first time.  I learned that we were to rely on Christ alone, pray to God alone, which threw everything I'd been taught about Mary and the saints out of whack.  Thus I got a Bible of my own, and learned to question.  And I learned that mom's answer, "Because it's in the Bible!" (e.g. when I asked her about life on other planets) wasn't good enough- unless I could find the verse that backed it up.

Later, I learned the concept of being born again, which was a rough one to come to terms with because of all that Catholic training I was beginning to question.  It took coming to the dead end of a dark road to get past the fear of Hellfire and casting out in an entirely new boat and make that step.

I would learn the concept of service and doing it His way the very hard way.  I was scared when I was asked to teach a Sunday School.  But God directed me, against my own will and fears, and walked with me every step of the way for some time.  But then I was asked to be a Deacon.  Unlike SS, where it was just my fear in the way, I had a pretty good idea that this was NOT the way I was supposed to go.  But I was told that my convictions were baseless and that I would do fine, and I told myself that hey, SS worked out.  Maybe this is just God's way of pushing me.  It was not, and it started a chain of events that culimnated many months later with my leaving the church, the pastor leaving the church, and seven in ten regular attnders going elsewhere.

In a hellish season in a trailer park on Moeller Road, I learned that I had a huge problem with controlling situations.  I had to learn the hard way that some things work better when you put them in God's hands, or even someone else more knowledgable (than me, not God!) These last two, I wish I would have learned MUCH earlier, how much better my life would have been!

And finally, over the years on this blog, I am learning what fights are worth fighting, and which are not.  Napoleon fought only when he had to for success; so, too, in WWI, the Germans finally learned (too late) that the only way to overcome the trench war they found themselves in was to Keep advancing, go around the rough spots, and clean them out afterwards, once their connection with their fellows was cut.  Progress didn't mean fighting for every square inch, but steady moving forward, and relying on the reserves to clean things up afterwards.  Two lessons come from this:  Knowing which is a fight you're called to battle, on the idea of reaching the goal being more important; and making sure that you have a well trained force in reserve.  The other combatants treated the reserve as those either to untrained to be of value, or those too shell-shocked to be good in a firefight.  Thus, even if they had done it this way, they would have gotten nowhere.

What does this have to do with God? Consider:  Most of us fight the battle loudly, across a wide swath- and only on Sunday. We thunder our Sunday guns, go charging out to overwhelm the enemy.  Monday comes, the counter-attack begins, and we run back to the trench until Sunday's guns fire once more.  The "German model" would be: Establish a strong reserve through prayer, discipline, reading the word, contact with fellow-travellers; Don't concentrate on moving the whole line, just the part you're assigned; Leave the rough spots to God (Martin's Second Law:  Jesus said tell the mountain to move, not go out and try to pick it up yourself);  and keep moving foreward, step by step, every day.

And what does this have to do with this "new follower"?  Just that, whatever the deal is, it's not a fight worth going on her blog and fighting.  My part is not to battle him/her, but to share what I learn as I move foreward every day.  And to keep in mind the lessons I have already learned, especially in this case, the lesson of the respect and reverence God should be held in.

Sunday message

As you might have noticed, I get the most out of sermons when I isolate the one thing that resonates with me.  Sometimes it has to do with the sermon being preached, others not so much.  This morning, Ed Bousman was speaking on the "service" that brought the Phillipian jailer to faith.  Along the way, he told this story:

"... a man came to me and said, 'Do you mean to tell me that my parents are in hell, just because they were never immersed?' "
 
At this point I must interject that Bousman is a strict immersionist; IOW, he believes in baptism, and that said baptism is full body dunking in the water.  For years, I've had problems with that.  After all, the thief on the cross wasn't baptized; and the Egyptian eunuch that Phillip the Evangelist led to Christ, when he said, "Here there is water", could have just as well been pointing at a puddle as a pond.  But now, let me get to Bousman's answer:

" I told him, 'It's none of my business; we are told to preach the gospel of Christ- and Christ will do His own judging.' "

And this got me to thinking of the various way that this statement applies.  I have heard people say, "I can't believe a loving God will send anyone to hell."  I equate them with people who don't believe in punishing their children, and then wonder why there is so little discipline in the schools anymore.  But you can focus on the phrase, "loving God."    He is a loving God, but is also a God of Judgement.  There are people out there who say that the Catholic church, by skirting the Bible, adding tradition, and ignoring the concept of being saved (along with the thing about infant baptism), leads people to hell.  And yet, my mother had faith in God.  Every morning she was with her prayer book before she started her day.  And at least four of her five children have come to knowledge of Christ.  My dad never missed a week's mass, even after mom died.  Were they saved by the "classical definition"?  Probably not.  Are they in heaven? Maybe.

Because here is my point this morning- many people who say "I believe in God" but not organized religion don't believe in strict judgement, that good people might still go to hell, and use that as a reason to keep a deeper faith at arms length.  That concept of judgement they TAKE INTO THEIR OWN HANDS, and use it to define their concept of God.  By focusing on the "I'm good enough, I lead a good life," they don't bother to dig any deeper.  And I say to you this morning, whether you are good enough or not is none of my business, and IT'S NOT THE POINT!

What is the point, then?

Bousman had mentioned somebody who died outside the faith because "He told me he would believe and be baptized if I could tell him who Cain's wife was.  I told him what I knew, but it wasn't good enough for him."  IOW, the guy challenged him to answer an unanswerable question.  Off the track here, but it made me think about Cain.  God never spoke to Cain about judgemnt.  God told Cain, in Gen. 4:7:

"...If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door.  And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it."

And with this, God gives us the two things that we REALLY need to focus on.  First, we should be about finding out God's definition of "doing well".  And second, we need to learn how to "rule over" our sinful desires.

So, my friends out their who are depending on "living a good life" to secure your afterlife, I ask you- stop doing God's job of judgement, and do your job of learning of what "doing well" consists.

Sunday With Whitney

A couple of weeks ago, I began a pretty good message about a thought I had concerning the parable of the seeds and the ground. It would have involved an attempt to prick the hearts of those who say, “I’m a good person, that should be enough for God.”  A noble thought on my part, for sure.  But before I went down to type, I saw Proverbs 26:12:

Pro 26:12  Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.


And I said to myself, I need some self-examination before I give a message on anything, boyo.  So I tried to give just a hint of the message, to which I’d suddenly append, “But here’s the thing, “ and then put in my own confession.

Kinda like I’m doing here.

But then, I soon found myself typing out the whole first idea, and telling myself, I’m just setting up for the real message.  Five or six paragraphs- ooops!- into this attempt, with my conscience doing battle with my intentions, my son showed up, I said, “See, God TOLD YOU not to do it this way,” and put it aside.  After “saving “ what I had written, of course.

Since then, I’ve been weighing subsequent messages I’ve heard in my mind.  One was about that “secret sin” that we all have, that we keep aside from God and pay lip service in our confessions, because we”know” we’ll end up going back to it, as if God gives us a mulligan on that one thing.  I’ve been “giving” my version of this sin to God for years; but I realize that if I want God to use me effectively, I’ve got to get serious about giving it to Him.  Net result?  About 4 days of success.

I think about Whitney Houston here, because the topic, “Why is everyone blaming her death on Bobby Brown”, keeps coming up.  It doesn’t take a lot of common sense to realize that the path she was on was of her own choosing; Bobby Brown likely never did more than encourage her on that path, and if not him, there’d have been another.  Because the ultimate decisions on the life she chose to live was hers.  I don’t think that it is coincidental to her moral compass at the time that her first hit was Saving All My Love For You, the ultimate expression of the opposite of good and decent and marriage, a song I constantly change to “I’m Just A Big Ol’ Slut, It’s True”.  If that’s not an irony enough, I keep looking over to the verse just before the one I printed at the start here:

Pro 26:11  As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool returns to his folly.

Am I condemning Whitney here?  Not my job.  But I have to point out that 26:12 points out that if I publish that first message I talked about without looking at my own life first, I’m worse off than she was/is.

Today I heard a message whose crux point was that to ask for forgiveness, we have to do it in a way that emulates David’s plea to God over the Bathsheba incident.  And that starts with “Recognizing the sin the way GOD SEES IT.”  The message then went on to look at just how God does see it, and it doesn’t involve our rationalizations, our statutes of limitation time-wise, or our estimation on if anyone got hurt by it, or the deserving-ness of whoever got hurt.

So I went to prayer in that mindset, and the first thing I realized is that I don’t have the first grip on what my sin means to God.  David looked at it in Psalms 32 at 3 levels.  The first is “sin”, which means an offense.  Doesn’t sound all that bad, does it?  The second is “iniquity”, which means perversity, or moral evil; a bit darker there, huh.  Add in the fact that both translations involve the concept of punishment being involved.  The third word David uses is “Transgression”, which at its core means revolt against God.

I don’t know about you, but while my mind usually looks at confession from a “sin” point of view, and occasionally from an “iniquity” level if what I’m confessing is “bad enough”, I don’t often find myself looking at it seriously from the “transgression” level.  Thus I’m learning that the first part of any confession is going to have to be a prayer to see my failings from God’s perspective, and not my own.

And that original message?  Maybe I’ll share it to someone who feels they need to hear it.  But if I’m going to do Sunday messages in the future, I’m going to have to use Proverbs 26:12 to remind me that God gave me this pulpit not to necessarily remove the splinter from your eye, but to discuss the removing of the plank from mine.

Sunday message with a lot of +

This morning I listened to 2 messages, both centering around Abraham.  The first, from Chuck Swindoll, focused on the story of Isaac’s near-sacrifice and the concept of this year’s theme being “letting go.”  The second was by the late Ed Bousman and was more about the calling of the bride of Isaac contrasted with the calling of the bride of Christ.

It has always struck me that Abraham was the prime human servant of God, because he was the only one specifically chosen to make the same sacrifice God did- the life of His Son.  But I’ve learned that God doesn’t start anything in the middle.  Consider that Abram started out not an image of God, but an image of Adam.  He was given the fellowship and the promises of God, and then (don’t get mad at me) through the encouragement of a woman, tried to do things his own way.  This led to disastrous effects down through all of mankind’s history- though it did not disqualify him from God’s attention and concern.

Abraham recovered from his setback by striving to become more obedient to God.  He had been given two conditions- have faith and obey; upon doing these were hung the promises of God.  He succeeded so well that He was given the privilege of Isaac’s sacrifice- the privilege of becoming as close to God as possible.  While I saw this as an event, I hadn’t thought about that progression he needed to go through to get there before today.

Bousman took it a step further.  Abraham (now an image of the Father) sent out his servant (played by us)  to find a bride for Isaac (who becomes Christ in the analogy).  Isaac was to remain with Abraham while the servant went out to find His bride, just as the risen Christ abides in heaven awaiting our gathering of his bride (the Church).  He also reminded us of the servant’s question about, “what if she won’t come”, to which Abraham replied he was off the hook.  Not, “kidnap her”, “Take her by force”, or “Bribe her.”  The servant’s duty is done in presenting the invitation.

Swindoll’s though, was the part that hit application for me.  The part about being willing to let go; and he went in detail about giving up something near to your heart that might be in the way.  For me, though, it’s not quite like that.  If you go back to my “24 hours give or take” post, you’ll see an entry about wanting to meet with a former pastor, to apologize.  This has been an issue of forgiveness with me.  Without going into details, I can say that every time I think I’m there, I rehearse the meeting in my mind, and it always devolves into “my fault, your fault” and I realize I’m not there yet.  Today I realized that the reason I’m not “getting there” is that instead of letting go of what was done to me, I use it as a shield to protect me from dealing with the shame that I brought on myself in the situation.  Today I realized that obedience= forgiveness= letting go of that shield and accepting my own shame.  Not easy, not there yet- but at least now I know where the problem lies.  Not everything God wants us to let go is a prized possession or opportunity.  Sometimes, it’s a defense mechanism protecting something God says I don’t need.
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Snow update:


about 5 inches.
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Here’s a funny story.  I was texting my son about the news that a pitcher on his Indians, Fausto Carmona, got busted in the Dominican for using a false name.  His reply:  Geez what else could go wrong  ohhh I know having a squirrel invade ur apartment!
Okay, so I asked if his “party cat” Porkchop had let this squirrel in.  His reply:No he chased it all over destroying everything in there path now I have to clean up when I get home my closet is destroyed.

Turns out that KC is trying to train Porkchop to stay inside.  To do so, he leaves the door open when he takes his trash out, making sure ‘Chop stays at the door.  Well, this time, the cat didn’t bother to get up from his nap- until the squirrel entered the premises.  The squirrel made a bee-line into the bedroom, whereupon the cat chased him into the closet and there they began their remarkable simulation of Armageddon.  Could only happen to my son.

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Two things yet from last night.  I was watching an all-star football game when the news came down that Joe Paterno was taken off the respirator and was near death.  By the time I got on CBSSports.com to look into this, they had a “Breaking News” banner that he had indeed died.  Turning back to the TV, they were still saying he was “off the respirator;”  and within 10 minutes, the banner had disappeared.  ESPN.com reported (and CBS soon confirmed) that the mistake had come when the Penn State student paper announced that an e-mail had went out to all the football players that JoePa had passed.  Apparently neither the paper nor CBSSports did their due diligence before releasing it.  This morning, without commenting on how the false story had come about, the editor of the school newspaper apologized and resigned from the paper.  Nice to see he was big enough to admit the mistake and take responsibility.  Once upon a time, that would have guaranteed him a future job in the news.  Too bad nowadays integrity means nothing to the media.

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And that brings me to today’s last item- I flipped over to msnbc (don’t hate me) to see how the South Carolina primary turned out, and was happy to see that Newt had won an overwhelming victory.  Of course the shills that pass for reporters on that network were busy scoffing at what they thought Newt’s next move would/should/could be.  I wondered how we had gotten so far away from the days when news reporting meant news reporting, instead of giving the liberal opinion as if it was everyone’s opinion and, damn, you’re dumb if you don’t have the same opinion.  The msnbc  crew were 4 of the most childish, irresponsible, and condescending excuses for journalists I’ve ever witnessed.  But, that’s today’s liberal elite for you.  Patting themselves on the back that they speak for the “99%” (which was down to about 33% in late November, after which the media quit tracking it’s support) and sneering at anyone that would gainsay them.  You know, I actually can see how the people who think Occupy had a point, uh, had a point.  But if I had to rely on snakes like msnbc, George Souros, and Harry Reid and li’l Jimmy H to lead me…
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Just for the record, yes, I’m finally throwing my support to Gingrich.  Why?  Because to me one of the biggest problems is nobody wants to work with anyone, make a deal, to get something done.  Obama is ineffective because he’s a Chicago threaten-you –with-a-stick politician who can’t find anyone he can bully at this level.
On the continuum of candidates out there right now, you start at one end with Ron Paul, who I doubt ANYONE will work with;  move to Santorum, whom I like, but is a “tea partyer “ in the sense that he will stand his ground come hell or high water, and that’s been part of the problem.  Bachman, Perry, and Cain were to varying degrees in that category as well.  Far to the other side we have Romney (and perhaps Huntsman) who would have been willing to compromise to get deals done, but I’m afraid would have given away the keys to the car.  I believe that Newt is smart enough to make a deal, connected enough to work with people, and tough enough not to get walked all over doing it.

Sunday message +

Last night as we prepared to watch New England’s 45-10 dismantling of Denver, there was an ad that came on featuring a group of children reciting John 3:16.  Some read a verse, some interjected things like, “that’s a lot of people”.  I’m not here to pontificate about the ad, but about mine and KC’s reactions to it- and how we were both off base a bit.

KC, being in a cynical time in his life, immediately said, “It’s just a shame that they have to have kids come on and say what grown men are ashamed to.”  Which is true, but it really didn’t apply here, and I admonished him with, “I don’t think it’s about grown men being ashamed, but about kids being cuter.”  KC’s right, in a way, though; but the shame might lean more toward the fact that we need something “cute” to draw our attention to the message.

Where I jumped the track was in attitude; as I watched, I was all about wondering who sponsored the ad (Focus on the Family, as it turned out).  I’m thinking, who’s going to catch the wrath of all the “civil libertarians” out there this time?  The UMC?  The Catholic Church? Perhaps the Mormons, as that is a) Tim Tebow’s church, b) the Bible verse the world is currently attaching to Tebow, and c) it is his team getting pummeled at the moment.  And of course, the answer here is, what of it?  Mormons are in the spotlight lately what with Mitt Romney’s campaign, Tebow’s successes (or lack thereof), and the recent “I am a Mormon” ad campaign.  And it would seem the “proper” evangelical take on this “should be” “Pay no attention to them, they are a cult”.  That is what we’ve been taught, but I’ve been thinking about that.  I don’t know what goes on either inside their church or in their hearts;  I don’t know if they consider Joseph Smith a prophet or a nutball that just happened to start their church (from what I’ve HEARD, I lean toward the second).  But I do know that their ad campaign features the redeeming effect of the love of Christ in their lives, and then I look at Mark 9:38-40:

Mar 9:38  And John answered him, saying, Master, we saw one casting out demons in Your name, and he does not follow us. And we forbade him, because he does not follow us.
Mar 9:39  But Jesus said, Do not forbid him. For there is no one who shall do a work of power in My name who can lightly speak evil of Me.
Mar 9:40 For he who is not against us is for us.


And yet, all of that was off the point that God made to me this morning.  The point was the children themselves.  Now, it’s easy for us to think, “Will they still believe this when they are older?”  And with the hordes of FFR chomping at the bit to “evangelize” such kids for atheism (which “isn’t a religion”, I am told), It’s easy to be discouraged on the subject.

But then, it hit me, as I prayed that God would keep each one of them in this faith they show now.  It hit me that I can PRAY for them, and be confident that my Loving God will do His will in their lives.

And conversely, FFR can spread their hate far and wide, but… they have nobody to PRAY TO to prevent the saving of these children’s souls.

Which brings us back to KC’s cynicism, and my own pessimism about this world.  It’s so hard to watch every day the evil that people run after, the bad choices made, and those who actively (whether they realize it or not) work to see Satan’s will done on earth.  But we forget the HUGE ADVANTAGE we have in that WE CAN PRAY!  And those prayers put the Creator of the universe on our side.

Now I don’t have to harass FFR to know what their response to that is- “Go ahead and talk to your imaginary friend and see what good it does.”  They have a limited conception that would only accept a God who performs like a genie in a bottle.  Say a prayer, and “Poof” comes the answer.  Sorry, Jafar, it don’t work that way.  God’s goal is not one of this earth, and often can’t be seen on this earth.

So this morning, I praise my “Imaginary Friend” because He is the Big Advantage- and all that I need to get through.  And thank you for those children.  It is not surprising to me that the verses immediately BEFORE the ones I quoted go like this:

Mar 9:36  And He took a child, and embraced it, and set him in their midst. And He said to them,
Mar 9:37  Whoever receives one of such children on My name receives Me. And whoever receives Me does not only receives Me, but Him who sent Me.

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And now on to the “+”.  Lokomotiv played Mechel Chelyabinsk yesterday morning.  Mechel blew out to a 3-1 lead by 11:55 into the game on goals by Dmitry Tsybin (4:28), Nikita Panasenko (7:57), and Sergei Topol (11:55).  Rafael Akhmetov got his 4th to tie things at 1-1 for about 2 minutes before the deluge hit.  But we weren’t rolling over just yet; Kirill Kapustin got his 3rd at 17:08 to cut it to a 3-2 game after 1 period.  Youngster Nikita Lozhkin got pulled after Panasenko’s goal- having given up 2 scores on 5 shots- and Pavel Shegala came in.
  But the real star was Mechel goalie Vladislav Fokin.  Despite a 14-6 barrage against him in the second, the score did not change.  Dmitry Kostromitin gave Mechel back a 2-score advantage just 23 seconds into the third, on one of their 6 shots they got in the period.  Again Lokomotiv terrorized Fokin, out shooting Mechel 17-6 ( and thus 31-12 over the last two periods), but could not beat him again until Emil Galimov tallied his 4th with 3:11 left.  But even with Shegala on the bench the rest of the way for the sixth attacker, Fokin would not be moved, and Lokomotiv had lost its third straight game.  Mechel, perhaps, won a pyrrhic victory, with 4 players going down with injuries- two with fractures- in the course of the game.  For our part, coach Petr Vorobiev said that while they team played well, “The goalies played poorly, and this is the result.”

Monday, the boys will face off against Yuzhny Ural (South Urals) out of Orsk, a city located where the line between Europe and Asia reaches the Kazakh border.  The ticket office opened for this game Saturday morning and sold out all 4,500 tickets in 3 hours!  If nothing else, Lokomotiv really brings out the crowds across the league to see them.  For example, 2,500 turned out for Saturday’s game in Chelyabinsk; the Game Mechel had Thursday against Yuzhny drew 750. ( the caveat being that Orsk draws well normally, and the night after Mechel drew 750 the big team-KHL leading Traktor- drew ten times that to watch their team get beat 2-1 in a shootout by… wait for it… Avtomobilst!)

Nativity Scenes

Since this seems to be the hot topic of the season, as usual, and with a monstrous week of shipping, OT, and probably not a lot of hanging out here (at least coherently), I thought I'd briefly hit on the subject.

Just got done with a "discussion" on the subject on another blog.  Actually, the whole thing started with the host posting a link to a response to Rick Perry's blundering campaign ad about "we can have gays in the military but can't have God in school, etc.  Another fellow chimed in after me, and brought up at the end of his post the nativity topic.  I stated:

" I think that when a town OVERWHELMINGLY wants a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, they have a right to do so. If a minority doesn't like it, they have the right to do just as you did- drive on by. This is supposed to by a government of the PEOPLE (i.e. the majority of the people) where the rights of minorities are RESPECTED- but not minority rule. I've had atheist pseudo intellectuals tell me that the government is there TO elevate the minority in the face of the majority (not surprising seeing the side of the fence they're on), and I will disagree to my last ounce of freedom with that."

I thought I made my point clear- if a town is united in its desire for a Nativity, they should have that right.  Here's the responses I got.

The Toledo phone book yellow pages lists churches on EIGHT PAGES! Toledo has HUNDREDS of Christian churches! And you still need a religious display on government property to affirm your faith? How profoundly sad!
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My faith does not require religious scenes to be constructed on public lands. I feel sorry for you that your faith is so weak. There are not enopugh Christian churches to affirm your belief. That is profoundly sad!
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Religious displays belong at religious facilities, not on government land. Period.

So, I am profoundly sad and weak in faith because I think that a town that agrees to put up a scene should not be deterred because of one or two objectors.  There are plenty of things I object to that I have to drive by, and I don't call the Wisconsin chapter of Freedom From Spinach (for example) and get them to sue the crap out of the 95% of the populace that doesn't object.  Because it's NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS and I can always drive on by.  So here are my clear and concise opinions on the topic.

#1. In most towns, There shouldn't be any problem with NOT putting a scene on Gov't property.  After all, The Great Commission doesn't get accomplished by nativity scenes.  Mind you, this does NOT apply to football games and high school graduations.  I don't care how you want to slice it, those are extracurricular activities, and if a graduate wants to speak from the heart, that should be allowed.  Faith in God does NOT abolish free speech.  But as far as displays, etc, I'm easy.

#2.  HOWEVER, if a town has a long standing tradition of Christmas displays on public ground, I do not think that it is fair, reasonable, or constitutional to abridge that right in the name of a handful who think their eyes will dissolve or whatever.  If they want to fight it, have a referendum.  If the objectors total, say 20%- and NONE of them are protestors from out of the community- then, move it.  Otherwise, get a life.

#3.  We must keep in mind that there is a difference between the casual skeptic or agnostic, or even the honest atheist, and the evangelical atheists who run things like Freedom From Religion, who will give you all sorts of excuses like, "All the bad things, wars, persecutions, etc., are because of religion, and I want to eliminate it altogether so that my children can build a utopia a la John Lennon".  Never you mind that there is a big difference between faith and religion (which I've argued with these people a million times and they REFUSE to acknowledge it), nor how the world has changed- and not for the better- since God was "taken out" of our schools.  You cannot argue with this mindset, because they have invested too much of themselves in denying God to cover their own sinful lifestyles.

 Sometimes, you HAVE to stand up and fight;  but I have to agree with my opponant on the other blog- if you've got churches galore within a stone's throw of the court house, this is probably not a fight worth picking.  Too bad he was too busy calling me "profoundly sad" to see that agreement.  But that wass because, despite the other things he said in his posts, the honest truth of his point was, he wants NO God on NO government property whatsoever.

I often think of how these people will fare before God at the Final Judgement.  Sometimes I think it would be entertaining to watch them stand before God and try to convince Him that He doesn't exist.  But then I stop myself and say, remember what happens to the loser in that argument.  And that, my friend, is profoundly sad.

Sunday Message

So the last three weeks, in preparation for Christmas, I've been looking at the prophecies concerning the Messiah, and seeing what they say to us.  In Gen. 3:15, we got the concept of the big picture, the battle between Christ and Satan.  In Deut. 18, we saw that, like Moses he had two ministries- leading the people and setting them free.  In Ps. 2, we explored His nature- how it was that He is both human and Divine.  This week's passage sheds light on what that really means.

Psalm 110 addresses what I will call the Thomas Jefferson problem- believing that Jesus was a historical figure, yet not Divine.  There are two key verses here.  V1 says:

"The LORD said to my Lord,
“Sit at My right hand,
Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.”

Jesus specifically questioned the pharisees about this very verse in Matt. 22:41-6.  His point being that the Messiah could be no mere descendant of David alone. ⁴⁵ If David then calls Him ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” ⁴⁶ And no one was able to answer Him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare question Him anymore.  His point being, David would not call a descendant "Lord".  This puts Messiah beyond being a flesh-and-blood descendant, which is what the Jewish priestly elite were looking for.

The Psalm goes on to expand upon that separation in v4:

⁴ The LORD has sworn
And will not relent,
“You are a priest forever
According to the order of Melchizedek.”

Now who, you might ask, is Melchizedek?  There are only two places to learn about him.  The first is Gen. 14.  Those of you that have read the Prayer of Jabez know the power of one expanded verse in the midst of a string of dry reading that illuminates the whole chapter, and we have a similar here.  Five named kings of five named cities went to war in Abram's neighborhood with 4 other kings of 4 named cities, and he got involved because the one bunch kidnapped his nephew Lot and his people.  So Abram gathered his people, chased down the scoundrels (a king in those days probably wasn't in charge over much more than the mayor of Woodburn), and saved the day.  And as he returned with the spoils of victory, Melchizedek appears.

¹⁸ Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine; he was the priest of God Most High. ¹⁹ And he blessed him and said:

“ Blessed be Abram of God Most High,
Possessor of heaven and earth;
²⁰ And blessed be God Most High,
Who has delivered your enemies into your hand.”
And he gave him a tithe of all.
And that's it.  But there's a lot here.  Melchizedek  translates to "king of right (or righteousness).  And Salem, from the same root of  Shalom, means "peace".  Both of these are used in the prophets to describe Messiah.  Note next that he brought bread and wine, the very elements of the Lord's Supper.  Note third that he blessed Abram; and fourth that here the tithe is established.  I am not the first writer to note that this would seem to indicate that Melchizedek was a manifestation of Christ- nor would it be the last time Abram/Abraham would encounter Him.  But if you're not convinced, see what the writer of Hebrews says about Him.

 ¹ For this Melchizedek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, ² to whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all, first being translated “king of righteousness,” and then also king of Salem, meaning “king of peace,” ³ without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God, remains a priest continually.
⁴ Now consider how great this man was, to whom even the patriarch Abraham gave a tenth of the spoils. (Heb 7: 1-3)

Remember the point being the difference between the Messiah and a mere flesh and blood descendant?   without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life.  Inserted independently into the world, Superior to any human priesthood.  The "order of Melchizedek" is no flesh and blood priesthood, and it's high priest no flesh and blood priest.  THE MESSIAH WAS NEVER TO BE A MAN OF ONLY FLESH.  But the Jews of Jesus' day, the intellectuals of Jefferson's type, and the atheists of today cannot cope with the uniting of Flesh and God in one being.  They claim to be all about discovering the undiscovered, examining the unknown, but look at this most primal of mysteries- the "mystery of Godliness" of I Tim.3:16- and throw up their hands, saying, "We cannot prove it, ergo it does not exist."  All the while conveniently forgetting they have just as much direct proof of the Big Bang, which still doesn't make sense unless SOMETHING brought it into existence.

We cannot know the beginning of God.  Any lead scientists trace down has to lead to another beginning.  Every philosophical debate has to come to a point where something is eternal.  Every religious conversation has to come to a point of believing in something beyond understanding.  And the division of mankind we discussed in our first message comes down to those who say, "But the answer CANNOT be God," and those who have said at some point, "Why can't it be God?"

Sunday message +

This week, in my looking at the propechies of Christ's coming, I am at Psalms 2. Specifically, vv 4-9:

⁴ He who sits in the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
⁵ Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His deep displeasure:
⁶ “Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion.”

⁷ “I will declare the decree:
The LORD has said to Me,
‘You are My Son,
Today I have begotten You.
⁸ Ask of Me, and I will give You
The nations for Your inheritance,
And the ends of the earth for Your possession.
⁹ You shall break^[a] them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to pieces like a potter’s vessel.’” 
        
Okay, the big thing I want to look at here is the term "Begotten".  When I was a wee lad in Catholic school (for which I forever praise God for putting me there), The explanation of begotten was a little bit difficult, because we could recite in the Apostle's Creed, "begotten, not made, one in being with the Father".  Hence it became tied up in a concept of being BEYOND born or created.  A magical, mystical genesis, if you will.  So then we read Psalm 2 and became all confused.  If begotten meant this magical, mystical, always been sort of thing, then what did Psalm 2:7 mean?

So look up the concordance version of "begotten".  It simply means born, creating an offspring.  Nothing magical or mystical.  So just what is going on?  Well let's backtrack by going forward.  The first chapter of John's Gospel explains that Jesus is the Incarnate Word of God.  Always in existance, always part and parcel of who and what God is.  But then, an evolution was made- "and the Word became flesh."  How is this so? Look to Luke 1:35, where the angel describes to Mary that flesh and God are going to combine in her womb; "Therefore, also, that the Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God".

Confusing?  Then cast off human perception and follow me.  Who we know as Jesus Christ is and was an always-existant facet of God.  But at a point in time, this essence took on flesh, becoming both God and man.  Thus, God tells Him, "(Now) You are my Son- this day, I have begotten You."  So now, not only is Christ a part of and wholly God, but also has become as flesh the Son of God.

So the way we were taught begotten wasn't exactly on-beam; but it was probably about as close as you could get it to first-through-eighth-graders. Come to think of it, it's not much easier now.  But guess what? We're dealing with a being that is beyond our concepts of time and space, who wove both atoms and galaxies out of the same cloth.  Scientists reject God for this very reason, saying they need "proof" of His existance, and yet to have that proof  would remove God from the very concept of "God".  IOW, some things aren't meant to be understood in this life.  But God gives us enough understanding with which to have faith.  Not to mention , He gave us that understanding in a form that could serve both as a propechy when He gave it 3,000 years ago, and as in instruction 2,000 years after He accomplished it!

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Now for the "+" in our story.  First off, be sure to click on that "Chris' Cap Collection " link to see the prizes I got at the 37th annual "Turkey Trot" beer collectables show yesterday.  I assure you, the posts on CCC aren't just dry figures and pictures, but I fill in actual interesting stories, both about the caps and the people who made the beer, as well as how I got them.  (And if that still seems boring, then just humor me!)

Next, a look at the FCS playoffs.  I didn't get a "thromp" of JMU over Eastern KY, but I did get a win.  I said ODU shouldn't (actually, I said "shopuldn't", but since Blogger's spell-check likes to excise whole paragraphs for no apparent reason, that's the way it goes) have any problem with Norfolk St., and they didn't.  I said Central Ark. should beat TennTech, and they did; and I thought I was going to mess up giving Stony Brook the edge over Albany.  But the Seawolves stormed back from 28-10 down to win 31-28 to make me a perfect 4-0 in round one.  So let me try round 2.

Stony Brook gets #1 seed Sam Houston State.  Now, I'm not convinced how much that 11-0 record means in SHS's conference, but I'm pretty sure it means more than what it would in SB's Big South, so Sam I am.  Montana State meets UNH, and I would've had no problem going with State- until they lost their rivalry game to Montana so badly.  I, with severe reservations, will take... UNH.  Next up is Northern Iowa vs Wofford, and neither of these teams were just lighting the world on fire at season's end.  But since I went with them all year, I'll take Wofford for the upset in Iowa.  Montana will be hosting Central Ark., and I will take the home team here.  Then it's Georgia Southern against ODU.  Actually, you have Southern Conf. vs CAA the next two stops, because the next bracket is Appalachian State vs Maine.  I'm pretty confident that the two conferences will split thes games; not so confident on which wins which.  Let's say GaSo and Maine advance.  That brings us to Towson and Lehigh.  Cautiously, he looks around the room and says, "Lehigh".  Which brings us to next week's final game, JMU and North Dakota State.  I've said all along that JMU had no business getting this spot, and NDST was the #1 team for a while, and they're playing in the great plains.  Give me JMU.

Thankfulness

Okay, so we are all thankful.  For friends, for food, for a wonderful country.  But, you realize that to be thankful, you have to be thankful TO SOMEONE.  Other wise, you're just glad you have something.  Sentence requires subject (I/You), verb (am/are thankful), and object.  For me the Object is God.

Psalm 136 gives us a lot of good reasons to be thankful to God.  Vv 4-9 speak of the creation He has made.  10-22 give a rehash of what He did for Israel, true, but look deeper.  Dig and you will find His deliverance, His power, His ability to lead us through obstacles, His protection, His control despite the mighty of the world, the possessions He has given us.

Verse 23-6 reminds us of His remembrance of us in our lowliness; our rescue from our enemies; and the requirements of life.  But the main reason to be thankful is in every other line of this Psalm:

"For His mercy endures forever."  What is mercy?  The definition is "unmerited favor".  Mercy is getting up each morning to a new day of possibilities. It is the breakfast we start the day with, the job that pays our bills, the roof over our heads.  It is the friend who sends a greeting card, or calls to wish us a happy day.  It is the dog who takes me for a walk, and the friend who is there when we get home.  It is the children who call me "dad", the doctor who calls me "patient", the governor who calls me "constituent."  And it is the Savior who calls me "child".

And lest I forget, it is all of you reading this.  I have made friends here that I am very appreciative of. For those I contacted yesterday, to those I didn't or couldn't get ahold of, Happy Thanksgiving.  I (subject) am thankful (verb) to God (object) for you (you prepositional phrase, you!)

sunday message

Last week, I started a look at the prophecies of Messiah leading up to His birth which most of us celebrate at Christmas.  Today I go slightly out of order to Deut. 18, where Moses describes what God told him on the subject:

¹⁵ “The LORD your God will raise up for you a Prophet like me from your midst, from your brethren. Him you shall hear, ¹⁶ according to all you desired of the LORD your God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God, nor let me see this great fire anymore, lest I die.’
¹⁷ “And the LORD said to me: ‘What they have spoken is good. ¹⁸ I will raise up for them a Prophet like you from among their brethren, and will put My words in His mouth, and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. ¹⁹ And it shall be that whoever will not hear My words, which He speaks in My name, I will require it of him.

Okay, so this tells us that we will find similarities to Jesus in His servant Moses- a subject I have brought up before, so I'm only going to hit some very specific things here.  But first, some of you might say, "Moses was a prophet?  Jesus was a prophet?  I thought prophets were the guys that sat around and predicted the future?"  Not so fast, my friend.  The word "prophet"  means "someone inspired by God".  And as you see, the phrase in v 17 "(I) will put My words in His mouth" covers that.

What I do want to look at are 4 similarities between the ministries of Moses and Jesus.  First, just as Jesus died and returned resurrected on the third day, Moses was seemingly dead- he'd been MIA for 40 years- when he returned with his message.  Concurrently, just as Jesus was betrayed by His own people, so was Moses:

¹² So he looked this way and that way, and when he saw no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ And when he went out the second day, behold, two Hebrew men were fighting, and he said to the one who did the wrong, “Why are you striking your companion?”
¹⁴ Then he said, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you intend to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?”
So Moses feared and said, “Surely this thing is known!” (Exodus 2:12-14)

And if no one else was around when he did it, that means it was a Hebrew who spread the rumor.

Second, Moses, like Jesus, had two main messages.  Moses had one for the Hebrews, (Rise up, leave Egypt, follow God to a land of milk and honey) and one for Pharaoh (Let my people go).  Jesus, also, had two ministries- leading the people to repentance and salvation and breaking Satan's hold on us.

But like them, we have these things that, in our minds, hold us back.  We have the unwillingness to let go of  what we see as the pleasures of this life (³ And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”, Ex. 16:3); the fear of what serving God entails (³⁰ Then Caleb quieted the people before Moses, and said, “Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it.”
³¹ But the men who had gone up with him said, “We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.”, Num: 13:30-1); and the desire to "do it ourselves" (⁴² Do not go up, lest you be defeated by your enemies, for the LORD is not among you. ⁴³ For the Amalekites and the Canaanites are there before you, and you shall fall by the sword; because you have turned away from the LORD, the LORD will not be with you.”
⁴⁴ But they presumed to go up to the mountaintop. Nevertheless, neither the ark of the covenant of the LORD nor Moses departed from the camp. ⁴⁵ Then the Amalekites and the Canaanites who dwelt in that mountain came down and attacked them, and drove them back as far as Hormah., Num. 14:42-45).

Third, They both plead for us.  When God was desirous of destroying Israel for their sin, Moses stood up for them (Ex. 32:11-14), just as Jesus does before the Father (Matt. 10:32-3).

And a sad fourth, we have trouble waiting on them both.  When Moses was on the mountain with God for 40 days and nights (Ex. 32 again), the people declared him lost, urged their priest to "create a God they could see", one that would guarantee them the pleasures of life (¹ Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”
² And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” ³ So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. ⁴ And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf.
Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”
⁵ So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the LORD.” ⁶ Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.   

Note here the word "play", which translates to laughing out loud, making sport... MOCKING.  And note more importantly that we have no idea when in the process that the people began this slide in to outright disobedience.  Those that like to play with numbers to prove "when Jesus is returning" , pay attention here.  One thing I've never heard in all their misuse of "one day is as a thousand years to God" is that  if Moses "delayed" 40 days on the mountain, then by that logic  it might still be another 38 THOUSAND YEARS before Christ returns!  (Do I believe it will be that long?  Of course not.  What I do believe is that Jesus has a LOT of wiggle room.)

To demonstrate that point, let's go to the Messianic prophecy that chronologically comes second... the one inspired by God in the pagan prophet Balaam:

¹⁷“I see Him, but not now;
I behold Him, but not near;
A Star shall come out of Jacob;
A Scepter shall rise out of Israel,
And batter the brow of Moab,
And destroy all the sons of tumult.^[b]
18“And Edom shall be a possession;
Seir also, his enemies, shall be a possession,
While Israel does valiantly.
¹⁹ Out of Jacob One shall have dominion,
And destroy the remains of the city.”    

That was spoken around 3700 years ago.  2000 years ago, we were told that the time was fast approaching.  The trick is not in knowing when He returns- but to be waiting, not PLAYING, when He does.

 

Sunday message

First, though, to my amigos in the Great Postcard Campaign, they are on their way!!!

Anyway, I got up this morning thinking it would be a great idea to lead into Christmas by looking at the prophecies about the coming Messiah.  Now, I'm really good at taking my concordance and beating raw facts from it.  Putting moving meaning to it is what separates me from effective preachers.  So I looked up my facts and then got dressed, hooked up my earphones to Turning Point with David Jeremiah, and off Scrappy and I went.

Along the way, Dr. Jeremiah read from a poem that got to me.  The basics are, the speaker is a sorrowing sinner, looking for a means to lift the burden from their soul.  This person fashions "a lash of remembered sin" to whip themselves with.  But it does them no good; and in desperation they turn again to Calvary.  Looking into the eyes of the dying Jesus, He says to them, "What you see as scarlet, I see as white as snow."  With that, the lash disappears and the burden is lifted.  Just for a moment, that spoke to me and my throat choked up.  And I was reminded that dry facts are great, but it's how God sees them that is important.  Dry facts hand me the lash; His mercy evaporates it.

Gotten that far, let me try the "dry facts " portion.  The first prophecy of the Messiah is in Genesis 3- the judgement God proclaims on the serpent.

 ¹⁵ And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.”   

The first thing we pull from this is that, at the moment of Eve's sin, the world became divided.  "Enmity between you and the woman" does not mean everybody hates snakes.  The serpent is Satan; the enmity is between humankind and Satan.

Second thing is "and between your seed and her Seed".  The "seed" of the serpent, Satan's "offspring", are not a race of serpents, nor are they demons.  The serpent's seed are the unrepentant of humankind.  However, the Seed of the woman (note the capitalization) is Christ.  The enmity is between sinful man and Christ.  Thus, Joshua, we explain your hatred of all things Christian.  You see my friends, I have an atheist acquaintance who feels that, as an atheist, it is not only his choice to disbelieve God, but his duty to fight against, tear down, and mock Him (or if you prefer, the "belief" of Him) at every opportunity.  I posit that someone who simply doesn't believe in a god should have no real drive (other than to be left alone by preachers) to attack the belief in others.  But that is not the case, and it is the enmity of God's curse so long ago that makes it so.

So where do believers fall into this?  At the "heel."  You see, a "serpent" cannot strike the Head; it is beyond his reach.  So he has to strike at the heel.  What is the "heel" of Christ?  The word for heel is the same one that we draw the name Jacob from.  Jacob, the birth name of Israel, the name taken on by God's People.  So in the battle of enmity between Christ and Satan, we are the "heel " which he strikes- because it is the only means to strike at Christ that he has.

And Christ Himself?  He strikes at the "head" of the serpent- Satan himself.   The verse never says that the head removes the heel from the field of danger.  His perspective is the destruction of the head- by the salvation He brings.

A quote Dr. Jeremiah uses is, "God whispers to us in good times, talks to us in trouble, shouts at us in pain.  Pain is God's megaphone for a deaf world."  So many times I hear, "A loving God wouldn't do this or that". Sometimes I say it myself.  But, the catch is, he would allow it.  Because the making us white as snow for the next life is more important to Him than anything in this one.  He won't reverse the enmity.  He won't remove the heel from the serpent's bite.  But He will take the lash from our hands.  Atheists like to think we're the end product on earth of evolution, the peak of what is and thinks.  Jesus wants us to be the heel.



Signs... or not signs

When I turned on the radio prior to the sermon I was going to listen to, another preacher was finishing up and mentioned natural disasters as "signs" from God.  Now I know we've all heard this or that was a sign from God.  9-11 was a sign to America.  Katrina was a sign to New Orleans.  Even the Prime Minister of Japan mentioned that their disaster was a sign, that they had gone too far down the path of worshipping mammon or whatever.  But were they?
My opinion is that MOST natural disasters are a sign, if the people affected believe it is and believe they needed one.  Kind of in the way that Jesus said of John the Baptist in Matt. 11, " And if you are willing to receive it, he is Elijah who is to come.  He who has ears, let him hear!"  But as far as, did God cause, say, Katrina to hit an unmoving target because of its sinfulness? Let's reflect on this.

It seems tome that man's logic can take you two directions here.  The first says that God is the cause of everything, and if it happened to you, there was a reason.  Which may be true, but to think the only reasons are your sinfulness is to make the same mistakes as Job's three "friends"  who said he HAD to have sinned because look at the mess he was in!  The other side says that God made the world, but man corrupted it, and whatever happens is a result of man's fallen state and God just helps dig us out when it's over.  Again, this is too simplistic by far; in that same book of Job, Elihu describes some of the many reasons God CAUSES- not "allows", causes- the storm: for correction, or for His land (to provide nature with its needs), or for mercy (Job 37:13).  God does cause things, and He does have His reasons, and sometimes He allows it to correct you- and sometimes He does it to heal you, put you on a righter path, or to give you opportunity to serve- and sometimes He does it just because it is the natural course of the world He made.

So are all signs subjective? There is a whole lost of difference between the day to day, and God's clear signs.  Take a look at Matt. 24.  Jesus describes false teachers, earthquakes, and wars and rumors thereof.  As well as famines and diseases.  But those are not the signs of God's wrath.  In v 9, Jesus says the critical word- "Then..."  And when "then" occurs, it becomes a spiritual trial, with persecutions, lawlessness, and the rising of the true enemy.

Now look at the parallel to this in Revelations 8-11.  The first four trumpets blew, and hail fell, nature was decimated, and a pall from the falling of what would seem to be meteors descended.  But then 8:13- "And  looked, and I heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe to the inhabitants of the earth, because of the remaining blasts of the trumpet of the three angels who are about to sound!"  This tells us you are about to see the differentiation between the run of the mill disaster and God's wrath.  And the the thing that separates them, is that there is no way to explain them except in the realm of the supernatural.  The 5th horn brings the super-locusts of Abbaddon the Destroyer; the sixth brings  a seemingly nuclear war with a demonically led 200 million-man army; and the seventh, the last thing the remaining people on the earth want to see- the opening of heaven.

As for myself, I'd love to sit here and expound all day on my theories of what happens next. But it misses my point. I have a hard time with preachers that say this or that is a sign.  The world has turned many times and will turn many times more.  And yes, the current world and its evils, its secularism, it sucks; but there's no sure sign telling us it CANNOT change.  Nineveh repented, once. BUUUUT... the point is this- there are signs from God.  Some of them are basically personal, if you have ears to hear.  Some of them will be so big, so supernatural, that even those who turn their whole hearts against God won't be able to deny them.  (So, I guess as long as we have atheists, we still have time.)  But the biggest sign from God?  Jesus told us that one:

 “An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. ⁴⁰ For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. ⁴¹ The men of Nineveh will rise up in the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and indeed a greater than Jonah is here." 

In other words, Jesus is the only sign to concern ourselves with.