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.

The proper battle, well fought

The Charlotte, NC, police department has joined the ranks of the PC, at the urging of our good friends at the ACLU.  The officers that volunteer as chaplains at public events have been told not to pray to Jesus at invocations.

A pastor/officer named Terry Sartain got the phone call from Major John Diggs, who said it was a matter of respecting "all denominations".  Terry asked, then, how was he supposed to pray?

"Pray a secular prayer," he was told.

sec·u·lar

   /ˈsɛkyələr/ Show Spelled[sek-yuh-ler] 

adjective

1.

of or pertaining to worldly things or to things that are not regarded as religious, spiritual, or sacred; temporal: secular interests.

2.

not pertaining to or connected with religion ( opposed to sacred): secular music.

 

 

“Even when I wasn’t a Christian – in my past – I didn’t even know what a secular prayer was,” he said. “Why even pray if it’s to the one who’s in the room? That could be anybody.”

 

How easy it would be just to comply- to avoid naming names.  To put in phrases that convey the meaning without saying.

 

The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart”(that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9 that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:8b-10)

 

Do you think that the atheists and the ACLU don't know this?  This is another attempt to get Christians to gut their own faith in order to "conform".

 

When the Tao is lost, there is goodness.
When goodness is lost, there is morality.
When morality is lost, there is ritual.
Ritual is the husk of true faith,
the beginning of chaos. (Tao Te Ching 38)

 

You can look at the ACLU's attack on Jesus as "the defense of unbelievers against the society's dominant religion" if you want.  Or you can say, well, the Jews will just ignore them and the Muslims would kill them, so the Christians are the only "good target".

Or you can look at it as Satan manipulating the faithless to attack the one true faith.  Why else is it so important to remove the Name of Jesus?

 

So Sartain asked the police department to withdraw his name from consideration for future public prayers.
“I didn’t really need to do that as a chaplain,” he said of the public prayers. “I still wanted to have the influence with the police officers and their families.”

In other words, better to serve Jesus Christ with integrity than to bow to those who want a faithless faith.

No protests, no banners.  No lawsuits, no scenes.  Just a decision to serve God as God wants to be served.  It's a skill, as I've said before, that we have lost to the TV generation.

We burn Korans rather than teach the Bible.
We defy the government to put nativities up, and string our houses with colored lights surrounding a tiny ceramic creche.
We mail death threats to doctors and stand with pickets at abortion clinics rather than teaching our children the value and meaning of human life.
We pour Holy Water on roads rather than pouring prayer upon the travellers.
We keep one eye on the dates some "christians" give for the end of days rather than opening the Book and seeing that no one knows the date, only the Father. (Matt. 24:36)

Our weapons are not, nor were they ever supposed to be, protest signs, cigarette lighters, hateful letters, or ceramic dolls.  Our weapons are to be poorness of spirit, sorrow for others, meekness, a taste for righteousness, mercy, pureness of heart, peacefulness, and the ability to take insults and persecution in serving Jesus.

 

Sartain said it’s apparent that “Christians for the most part are targeted in these days that we exist in.”
“As Christians in the United States of America – what we are saying as believers – is we want the same rights and privileges as everybody else,” he said. “Let the playing field remain level.”

Sunday message

I got to thinking the other day:  Which Apostle would you rather be- James, John, or Peter?

These were the three that had entry everywhere Jesus went.  They were with Him at the Transfiguration, in the garden, where ever Jesus just needed the “two or three”.  James, the first to die for the Gospel.  Peter, the rock on which the Church was built.  John, who passed the torch onto the next generation.  Which one would you be?

Now, flip the question- which Apostle are you?    Would you be James? James was not mentioned after the arrest; he was one of those who fled when Jesus surrendered.  When the heat came down, he disappeared.

Would you be John?  Remember, John had an in with the High Priest (John 18:15) and thus was right there when the trial of Jesus took place.  And though he was right there, he said not a word.  After it was almost all over, he came back to help pick up the pieces (john 19:26-27), but he spoke not a word when it might have altered the course of events.  (Note that while God might not have wanted him to alter the events, he in his mortal, pre-Pentecost mind couldn’t have known that.)  When the heat came down, he stood by, silent.

Would you be Peter?  Peter stood a ways off, concealing his Identity; even lying about it, saying he wasn’t involved, when confronted.  When the heat came down, he denied being involved.

Now, I’m not saying that what they did after that dark night wasn’t important.  But without Christ’s victory over sin and death, they had not the faith and courage to stand up and be counted.  And why not?  Go back to the last time Jesus took the trio with Him;  into the garden Gethsemane to pray.  Three times He asked them to pray, “Lest they fall into temptation”.  Three times He found the pillars of His Church asleep.  And sure enough, they fell into the temptation of fear; One ran off, one stood by silent, and one denied involvement.

And this is what that lesson tells me.  The disciple Jesus wants, the one I need to be, isn’t any of these three.  When Jesus needs me to pray- for my kids, my friends, anyone- I need to put the knees into it and actually pray.  Not just, “…and God bless Aunt Martha, and Joe at the factory.. and… ZZZZZZ…”  Focus on the prayer, pray for God’s will, pray that I can withstand it when the heat comes down. The kind of Disciple I need to be is the one who stays awake and prays at Gethsemane.

The Parable of the national park

And Christ gathered His disciples and said, “ The Kingdom of God is like a National Park.  In the morning the park ranger came to lead the people on a tour. ‘Come, see things as I do,’ He said, and took them down smooth trails to the beauty of the world.  He showed them the majestic mountains, the mighty trees, the gentles animals with their babies.  He led them into green valleys and stopped beside clear running waters for them to drink.  And He took them to a special meadow, filled with the most magnificent of cabins, where there was a great fountain, and gardens of all manner of good food.  But He turned to the group, for He was going to give them the cabins in which to live forever, and there were but a handful of all the people who had followed.  And He said to them, Where are your fellows?  And they said, They remained behind at the gift shop.”

So the Ranger returned to the gift shop; evening was well nigh.  And indeed, the people were still in the gift shop.  When He entered the shop, he who was at the cash register set up his “closed” sign and disappeared out the door.  The Ranger turned to the other workers and said, ‘Why did the people not come with me?  Did they not know?"’  And the workers said, ‘We tried to tell them.  We showed them the signs inside and out, which said to meet the tour guide at the appointed place and time.  And we reminded them, saying, the day grows late, you’ll miss the tour.  But they busied themselves buying food and drink, and the baubles money can buy, and the t-shirts that are far too expensive that read, “I have been to the National Park”, when in fact they have seen nothing.  Some have reasoned, “as long as he who is at the cash register remains, we have time.”  Others said, “I will catch the tour later; these baubles merit my attention now.”  Some have even said, “If there is really a tour guide, he will certainly show himself to me and bring me along.”  And when we pointed out the signs, they merely said, “You read it; I am busy.”

“So, the Ranger said to the workers, ‘Go then to your homes in the meadow, while I put these out and lock up the shop.’  And the people protested, saying, but we’ve not had the tour yet?  How shall we return to our cars in the dark?"’ And the Ranger said, ‘If you had followed Me in the day, you would not only have known the park as I do, you’d have a home here.  But now is the darkness; your day is done, and so My job.’ “

Simon Peter turned to Jesus and said, “Master, please explain this parable to us.”  And Jesus said, “The Kingdom is like the park, full of mighty wonders, as well as a home. I am the good Park Ranger.  The gift shop is this world, with its meaningless baubles and souvenirs of a moment.  The signs are the Word of God, and you are the workers.  The one at the cash register is the deceiver; and the moral of the parable is, you have to step outside the concerns of the world to see things in My perspective, and reach the home I prepared for you.  Otherwise, you will find yourself lost to the outer darkness, with naught but a t-shirt that says, “I went to the National Park and all I got was this lousy t-shirt.”

Sunday with the disciples

Today I listened to Pastor Jeremiah talk about doubt, and how it can be a positive if you a) articulate the doubt into a question, and b)take the question to God in prayer.  Naturally the subject got me thinking about Thomas, as it did the Pastor.  Yes, he was the one who doubted, who required evidence.  But what was it that made him thus, and was it part of his character?

I began realizing that there are only five of the 12 that we got any real inkling into their character- Peter, John, Thomas, Nathaniel, and Judas Iscariot.  As usual, I discovered that there is a theme in that.  Now you may interrupt with, “What about Andrew and James?”  Ask yourself, where did we ever see them that they weren’t in the shadow of their respective brothers, and you’ll see why I left them out- and why they’ll become important later.

Peter and John are like flip sides of the same coin in two very important respects.  The first is the picture of faith that they had.  Peter was what I would call a “small picture” believer.  He was the one who stood up and named Jesus “The Christ of God,” so he got IT.  However, in the next breath, he found Jesus in need of not only instruction (about NOT talking about dying), but also defense, even to the point of taking the sword to Malchus, who basically amounted to an “innocent bystander” in Gethsemane.

This was because of the second respect- for Peter the important thing was that he loved Jesus. Because of that, his faith was so personal, and Jesus so much the friend, that he felt the need to defend Him despite his knowledge that Jesus was divine and really didn’t need the defending.

Contrast with John, who is the “big picture guy”.  John and his brother were nicknamed the “sons of thunder” because of their zeal, and sometimes it drifted into “You and me against the world”.  To them, God was a given, a respected and honored force that everyone should be ready to bow to and worship.  Remember, Jesus had to remind them “You do not know what kind of spirit you are,” when they suggested that Jesus “nuke” the unbelievers.  John saw more of the divine nature, whereas Peter saw more the personal.

And like Peter, John saw it this way because his focus was on God loving him- hence his constantly describing himself in his Gospel as “the one Jesus loved”.  And this carried through their ministries.  Where John concentrated on the esoteric, writing epistles describing the nature of God and love, Peter was out there converting people.  Both of these jobs are vastly important.  Without those like John, the people that those like Peter convert will never be able to deepen the faith they are called to.  These are the two bedrock personalities of the Church.

And, I might note, they cannot be done alone.  You need fellow travellers to sharpen you, “as iron sharpens iron”.  Thus Peter has an Andrew, and John has a James.

Nathaniel’s story is different.  When Phillip comes to him with news of Jesus, Nathaniel questions.  But when Jesus comes to him and proves Himself, he doesn’t demand further evidence, he simply believes.  Jesus calls him two things. First, He calls him “an Israelite indeed”- another words, one who is not a child of God through birth or ritual, but through faith and action.  Then He calls him one “in whom there is no guile”- in other words, not someone who’s in it for what he can get.  He is simple, honest, a man of integrity, and the presentation of Jesus is enough to convince him.  Note also that he has a Phillip, one whose zeal will move him to ask his questions, and find Jesus as the answer.

Thomas has to be hit over the head to have faith.  It’s not that he doesn’t BELIEVE; In John 11, it’s not that he isn’t ready to die with Jesus, but he let Jesus’ words saying not to worry go through one ear and out the other.  Despite the fact that Jesus has told them not to worry it, and despite that he has belief enough to follow him to Bethany, he EXPECTS to die on the trip.  Then go to John 14, where Jesus has just explained about His going to heaven, and that He would come back for them, and they would know the way.  And Thomas, who believes what Jesus says but   hasn’t the faith yet to understand it, says, “Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? “  To which Jesus explains that He is the way and “If ye had known Me”, he’d know the way.  Then we tack on the upper room story, where he demands evidence to believe.  Actually not to believe, but to have faith; Atheists demand evidence too, but have no intention of accepting any.  Thomas’ believe was such that, once he had his evidence, it created faith. 

But this isn’t doubt that actually helps; it was doubt that insulated him from faith, where Nathaniel’s caution led him to faith.  Not surprisingly, Thomas didn’t have an Andrew or James for support, or a Phillip to urge him on.

That brings us to Judas, who had the most different focus.  His focus in following Christ is what good it would do for HIM.  Thus it was, practically the only times (other than the betrayal) that Judas gets ink is in regards to money, or valuable possessions.  When Jesus allowed himself to be anointed, rather than saving the perfume so that it could be sold and Judas get his cut, it was the last straw for him.  He’d go to the priests and make the money back by selling Jesus to them.  But he only got offered a fraction of what he wanted!  By this point, Judas said, Screw it, I’ll get what I can out of Him.

And that is why people WON’T believe or have faith in Jesus- because their attitude is what can I get out of Him.  When they find He’s not a magic lamp or a lottery ticket, what good is He?

One of the points Pastor Jeremiah made today fits in here.  “The Bible is the inerrant Word of God; everything contained in it is truth.  But it does not contain ALL truth.”  The Bible gives us what we need for faith and leaves trivial curiosity to the imagination; in other words, what it DOESN’T say is as informative as what it does.  Why don’t we get info on the other disciples?  Because Jesus needed them to spread the Gospel; we don’t need them to understand our faith.  The lessons of the disciples we know- Peter’s personal faith, John’s grasp of the “big picture”, Nathaniel’s integrity and objectivity, Thomas’ ability to accept evidence when presented, and Judas’ failure do to focus on himself- are all the lessons from their lives that we need.

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!

------------------------------------------------------------------

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.

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.

He Who Has Ears, Let Him Hear

This was the phrase that stuck with me in the morning message, along with the observation about Christ using it many times in His ministry.  As I always seem to get the most from a message when I latch onto some one thing and break it down, I researched the phrase.  I found it in a limited number of places, always said by Jesus, and in a very specific order with only two instances repeated for emphasis.  I t seemed that these instances provided an "if" followed by the phrase, to wit:

"If you want to believe.."
"If you want to bear fruit..."
"If you want to know why..."
"If you want to share..."
"If you want to deal with your sin..."
"If you want to be a disciple... He who has ears, let him hear."

The first instance (and as usual, I'm not reprinting text, to encourage you to look it up) was in Matt. 11:13-14.  This is where Jesus deals with the prophecy of Malachi 4- the return of Elijah.  But like the other spots we'll visit, it also has two complimentary messages.  The first is in the first line-  "All the Prophets and the Law prophecied UNTIL JOHN (the Baptist)."  The lesson here is, that everything in the Bible from the OT to John  LEADS UP TO this moment in time- when Christ manifest on earth begins His ministry.  AKA all you need to know is in the Bible; and everything in the NT is backed up by everything in the OT.  The second half of the meaning is carried in the second line:  "AND IF YOU ARE WILLING TO RECEIVE IT, he is Elijah who will come."  The complimentary lesson is- you have to be willing to receive it.  Joshua, our friend, often says how he's read the Bible "and knows it as well as I do."  What he never understood, is that he was never willing to receive it.  You need both to move on to the next step.

And the next step comes in Matt13: 4-9. as well as in Mark and Luke- the parable of the sower and the seeds.  First half of this lesson is, you need good soil to bear fruit.  But what constitutes good soil?  It's all right there.  First, you have to get past our first part, being willing to receive it.  If you are unwilling, you are the seed on the wayside.  Second, you have to let it take root.  We've discussed this before.  Read.  Apply.   Listen.  Without this long and constant process, you are doomed to wither.  Third, avoid the thorns- don't let everyday life distract you from the first two.  This was the one lesson important enough to be repeated in all three "synoptic" Gospels.

The next of our stops is just over a bit in Matt 13: 43- the parable of the wheat and the tares, as well as its later explanation.  Jesus answers two of the most asked questions in all Christianity.  First, why does He allow a world so messed up?  Why it's messed up we've covered before.  Why he allows it, according to this, is so not to harm the wheat.  Before you say, "Huh?", consider:  Each person is allowed to reach their ultimate fruit, whether it be good or bad.  To pull bad fruit out before its life is over would remove its chance to become good.  We live just as long as our opportunities to repent hold out.  Once we exhaust all those God-given opportunities, we're done.  You wondered why they say "the good die young?" There you go.  Second, Is there really a judgement/hell/punishment? Yes, and it waits for the end of the age for this very reason.

Next comes Mark 4:23- the light under a bushel passage.  This gives us two lessons.  The first- if we have that light of faith, we are meant to share it.  The second comes from the line that follows- there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.  I know I have hidden things, things that corrupt me and makes me less than what I could be.  But I do not delude myself that they are hidden from God.  I confess them- constantly, it seems- and He allows me to deal with them so that I will remain dependant on Him.  Some "ministers of Light" hold these secrets in hope that they'll never be exposed.  But they poison their ministry, and God makes sure that, in the end, they always come out.  So the second lesson is a constant call to repentance- and a warning.

Which brings us to Mark 7:16- That which enters a man does not defile him, only that which comes out of him.  The Disciples didn't get it.  What it is is a lesson on responsibility.  In this morning's message Ed Bousman quoted a missionary who said that he never wanted to return to the USA for fear of losing his soul.  Yes, temptations are everywhere, the more as the Day approaches.  But in the Wheat and tare parable, we saw that God does not intend us to live apart.  Rather, in this passage we should see that the temptation is not the sin- the CHOICE is.  And the choice leads to sins of thought (evil thoughts, adulteries-in the sense of "mixing" doctrines- ,ccovetousness, pride, and foolishness) and deed (fornications, murders, thefts, deceits, licentiousness, the "evil" or roving eye, and blasphemy).  In other words, if we want to deal with our sins, we have to take responsibility for them.  Is it any wonder this world is full of, "it's not my fault, it's the way I was brought up," and "I was born this way"?  To deal with sin, we need to accept that the only way "we were born" was sinful.  Everything else- EVERYTHING ELSE- is a choice.

And the final stop is at Luke 14:33, the salt losing its flavor passage.  Most people have trouble with this for two reasons- a) they don't read the passage prior, and b) they can't figure out how salt can lose it's flavor.  First, look at what goes before- the things that can occur that can disqualify one from being a Disciple.  Now, I'm figuring that while this passage applies at varying levels to all of us, it is specifically directed at those who believe they have a call to ministry.  And it gives a set of rules that need to be in place before you serve.
#1. You have to be willing to put relationships- family, friends, lovers, whatever- on the back burner and make that ministry your focus.
#2. You have to put thought of your own comfort out of your mindset.
#3. You have to impartially count the cost to you of what you intend to do- financial, societal, spiritual, and physical.
#4. You have to look within yourself to see if you have the emotional and physical resources to do the job.
Secondly, if you can't figure it out that way, consider this- a spice is added to food because it is able to stand out from the food and change it for the better.  A spice with no flavor would be like a sprinkle of, say, flour.  If you cannot stand out- and you can't if concerns of friends and family, desire for a comfortable life, a worry over the cost, or inability to hang in there get in the way- then you are no good as a minister.    The higher the commitment you're called to, the more extreme these restrictions become.

So, if you see the title of this piece and say, "Hear what?", here are your answers:

How to believe and receive;
How to bear fruit of that belief;
How to understand why things are the way they are;
How to effectively share your faith;
How to deal with YOUR sin;
How to be a Disciple.

And if you don't wish to hear, that's your right.  Don't listen. A bird will be along shortly.

Independance Day

On this day in 1776, a document was published, a declaration of the undersigned to freedom from an oppressive and distant government.  At the time, though, several of the men who signed this document were, in a larger sense, already free- among them William Ellery, Francis Lightfoot and Richard Henry Lee, William Paca, Benjamin Rush, Matthew Thornton, William Williams, and Oliver Woolcott.  Not present among these was another man who, like them was free in a higher sense- a man who led the forces of this group against the forces of temporal tyranny, a man who would become Father of this country.

In 1863, a man named Lincoln freed the negro slaves of the South in a proclamation.  In a larger sense, though many of these slaves were already free- a bond they shared with the man who made the proclamation.

On this day, today, we celebrate the Independence of our great nation.  I appreciate to the depths of my being that I am a part of this nation, and heir to the freedoms that so many died to give me, that so many misguided "civil libertarians" want to strip from me.  That so many hate-filled Jihadists want to kill me for having.  That so many socialists/communists would love to channel into subservience to the "state"- while those who make up the "state" laugh at them for turning all power over to such as they.  But in a larger sense, even though I was born into this great free nation, I was not always free.

I was a slave in invisible chains, though I could feel them.  I could feel them in the guilt my sins caused in me.  I could feel them in the fear over what would happen to me when I died.  And I could feel them when I tried to be good enough, whatever that was, only to fail time and again.

On night on my knees, I verbally "signed" my declaration of independence, as Washington, Lincoln, et. al., had done before me.  In doing so, I no longer required a general to muster forces to battle for my freedom, because the battle had been won on a hill in Judea  two thousand years before.  And to this day, some three decades later, I am still- and still remember- my appreciation as I felt those invisible chains slide from my arms.

So today, I celebrate what those wonderful men did two centuries ago.  And in my soul, I also celebrate the thing that links me to them- what one wonderful Man did so much longer ago.

The girl without a brain

Last week my son KC asked me to have a Bible study on Saturday.  He also asked me to do the preparing, which God is a constant guide in for me but I hadn't actively done in a while.  So in the course of the week I got one of my daily insights from Charles Swindoll that triggered a very good lesson.  As typical with me, I go a long way around the barn to get to a main point, and this time we discussed, among other things, how God has previewed everything in the New Testament in the Old Testament; a bit about the nature of Jesus and how it deepens and expands the concept of His sacrifice; and the three phases in life that were shared by Moses and Jesus.  All of which got to the main point of the Swindoll message:  Moses had just come from being a Prince of Egypt into exile; and the historical trend here would have been to gather an army of band of followers, and attempt the overthrow of the regime that sought his life.  The personal trend here would be to find a place and a patron to allow him to live approximately how he had in Egypt.  But instead he accepted the offer of Jethro of Midian to come live with him in obscurity in the desert.  Get it?  He accepted obscurity.  Just as Jesus had.  Not by being born a man, mind you, but in learning His stepfather's trade, and supporting His mother and siblings with it, until the time of His ministry- a 2 1/2 decade long period of which the Bible says ABSOLUTELY NOTHING- just as the 40-year period Moses was about to go through.  And it was not in the Bible not just because it was irrelevant to God's story, but because its irrelevance was relevant.  They had to be willing to irrelevance before God could use them relevantly.

All of which either has a tie or no tie to the title of this piece, which I am slowly getting to.  I tried to listen to Ed Bousman on the internet this morning, only to be frustrated by whatever it is in my security that blocks his broadcast.  I've been through these things with God enough to know that it means one of two things (outside of my own computer incompetence): either I haven't been paying attention to Him lately, and He's in no mood to let me off for free; or, He has something to tell me through another media.  Rather than seek glory by muscling my way through whatever the "Bousman block" was (see Martin rule #3), I went to the alternate media of the Blackhawk Hour on TV.

Before he began his sermon, the pastor tied into it with a sad story for his congregation.  A song leader's wife had had an ultrasound early in the week, and a comfirming follow-up a few days later, which showed that the little girl she was carrying would be born without a brain.

Wow, how do you deal with something like that?  Their story is between their congregation and them.  For me, I look at it that everyone's first thought is, WHY?  "How does a loving God allow such things to happen?"  People ask this all the time, whether it be about the shattered lives in Tuscaloosa or Rikuzen-Takata, or about the presence of crime, disease, or ticks and mosquitoes in this world.

Our human minds and human pride tell us to say to God, "How dare You allow something like that?"  Or those who are never-believers say, "There is another proof that God doesn't exist."  But I decided to humble myself at this news- which pulled at my heart, though I don't know and quite possibly will never meet the principals- and this is what God gave me to understand. 

We as mortals have always had and always will have a flawed perception of God's interaction with our world.  And that began at the beginning.  Adam and Eve are said to have "realized that they were naked" after the fall, but what does that mean?  That it suddenly went from right to wrong to be nude?  Not quite, my friend.  Adam was told that because of his sin, he would die.  What we forget is, that the body he had at the time of the fall WOULD NOT HAVE DIED.  It was immortal and glorified, like an angel of flesh; but sin physically changed that body to one like we wear now.  Flawed, mortal, and subject to all these hardships.  And all creation was changed as well; where once it served the couple and and was glorified with them, it too was now a mortal world, bounded by death, working against them as it had once worked for them, and as Paul said in Romans 8, groaning right along with us to get back to that original state we threw away.

(oh, wait, Adam and Eve did that, you say?  The reason why it happened to Adam, that it was allowed to be the defining moment, is that EVERY ONE OF US WOULD HAVE EVENTUALLY DONE THE SAME THING.  Adam was the forerunner, he was all that we are and could've been.  Thus his original sin was ours as well.)

And because of that, babies are born without brains, and tsunamis sweep away lives, and tornadoes destroy the fabric of communities.  Because this is a mortal world- and that's what mortal worlds do.  God did not make it flawed; He made it so well that, even changing from glorified to mortal, it took from Adam to Moses before a man went from living 900+ years to a more modern 120.  And in a mortal world, which we chose by Adam's/our original sin, babies are born without brains.

But to those of faith, this is a tribulation where you humble yourself before God- the kind of humbling that gives up all your dreams and all your future plans- and come to Him for help.  Which is what this couple is doing, as they continue to attempt their ministry even as the sad story lurches towards its denouement.  At the end of my Bible study we looked at the verse where Paul explains that we should work our everyday jobs without complaining, working as though we work for Christ rather than our bosses.  And for some of us, that's a hardship and a challenge.  And this couple faces a far bigger challenge, but its basic nature is the same- a hardship made necessary by the fallen nature of the world.  And to face it, they will have to do the very same thing- work through it as one works for Christ.

april stuff

Ah, where to start.  Scrappy and I just got back from an after-work walk that involved a "Scrappy's choice " tour of the woods along the greenway.  In this escapade, I give him a lot of leeway about the trail to be taken, as long as A) I can get through reasonably safely, and B) we keep out of the muck.  This is rarely all that good a thing for me.  Scrappy is pretty good at obeying "no" and will divert to "Doofus, what are you doing?", but "wait a minute " and "let Daddy get through " might as well be "kjyrfihgvkyhufjth do."  Still, he found us yet another orphaned golf ball in a spot I would have never gone to, and was a real good boy on the way home.  We cut back over into civilization at that point, and he was very good at not only stopping at all the crossings and sitting as I trained him ( his "sixth grade ejication"), but waiting for me to tell him to go again- which is typically hit and miss.  At least until we passed a puppy and his mistress, and the rest of the trip was "where did he mark?  I have to find where he marked so I can mark over it!"  He never did find any, despite a thorough effort.

Last night I think Laurie broke my record for passing a kidney stone.  My first stone began its journey about 8 am one day and passed sometime around 12:30 pm.  Laurie told me afterwards that she had felt a twinge on the way home from work (after the fact, so not too bad), but we had company last night and everything was fine until about 45 minutes after everyone left.  She came down in tears or close to them to inform me of the little darlin's approach.  I spent about 15 more minutes finishing what I was doing and giving Mr. Dog a last trip outside for the night, and when I went up to check on her, THE WHOLE THING WAS OVER.  My sister the human stone machine would kill for stones like that.  She gets one per kidney every six months- on a staggered schedule so that she's almost never without something on the way.  They put her on an experimental drug a few years back, and it worked good- for a little under a year, then it was back to the quarry.

And now, we bring you Martin's second and third laws, both based on work- one on a really rotten day and one on the realization that I tend to force my way through things that just don't work. Law number II:  Every person has the potenial to go to hell exactly once.  Therefore, the more of it you give me on earth, the less likely I am to give much of a damn.  Law number III: Nowhere in the Bible did Jesus say to move the mountain by pushing.

On the subject of Jesus, I was hit with a thought this morning about His words on the cross.  Specifically, "My God, my God, why have You abandoned Me?"  We all (?) know He was speaking to His father, who withdrew His grace from Him as He took upon Himself the sins of the world.  Now, flip it.  Say "My God, my God" like we usually do- as an exclamation and not an address.  Put that way, He's talking to US, the sinners whom He's going through all this for.  Why have we abandoned Him?  That puts a more personal spin upon the crucifixion, doesn't it?

Laurie's family is having an estate sale this weekend at her late father's place.  Lots of tools, some radio equipment- Bob was a big ham guy, although I think Chuck's already gotten shed of the big stuff on e-bay- and enough stuff that Laurie and her sister Mary have spent the last three weekends prepping it.  Location is in  New Haven on Dawkins Road (the former Indiana 14 east) right across from Robinson's Wrecker place.
Friday-Saturday, I believe is the plan.  I've stayed pretty much out of the way, because I'm a lazy cuss and have no real desire to work on my weekend, but I will be there at least Saturday depending on work schedules (now, how's THAT for a draw!  Meet the Tilting At Windmills guy!)

Oh, and just over the wire- UN is going to put Syria on the human rights committee!  Yep, right there with Iran!  Talk about that UN credibility.  Word is that Sec-Gen Ban the Moonie is a) too busy getting re-elected to give a hoot about Human Rights, and/or b) doesn't want to piss off the 56 votes he'll need from the UN's Islamic conference. IDK about you, but in a world where I can't say a prayer at my graduation or enjoy a nativity scene on the courthouse lawn, I'm a bit fed up with people telling me I need to kiss the Muslim butt.  You want to cut some waste out of the budget? Tear up that IOU the UN holds from us for $1.3 billion in dues, and tell the beggars "Don't let it hit you on the way out". That building would make a kickin' 39-story homeless shelter!

And Finally, we say goodbye to Phoebe Snow. Circumstances prevented her from having more top 40s than the #5 Poetry Man and the duet we had on TM a month or three ago with Paul Simon, Gone At Last.  With a voice like that, she should have undoubtedly had more.  I salute her courage when it became more important to her to take care of her daughter than to pad her Billboard stats.

Okay, guys, I think that's it for now. Enjoy you evening and watch the weather just in case.

Easter sermon

I've been debating on how to do this post and what to say for a good long while this morning.  A lot of times, I come into these things thinking, how do I present this to the non-believers who so desperately need to hear it, and I think it might distract me from being able to help those who aren't "seeds cast on the hard path".  So bear with me as I ramble a bit.

Despite the fact that we celebrate the Resurrection today, I find myself drawn to the story of the Exodus and its parallels to the life of a Christian.  For example:  It was only after 400 years of gradually increasing slavery that the Hebrews realized that they should seek God's help.  They called out to Him and He answered in HIS TIME- a journey that took 40 years to make Moses a prince of Egypt, 40 years more being humbled.  Similar to Jesus, who left one life in the Glory of Heaven for another as a humble, inconspicuous carpenter, before finally assuming His ministry of freeing the people.  Somehow, though, Moses does not exactly play Jesus in the allegory- more like a pastor of influence, or the section of the soul that knows instinctively to seek and follow God.

By signs both miraculous and disputed, the people- representing the proto-Christian- work their way to the step of faith needed to cross the Red Sea so that God can slam the door of slavery to sin behind them.  From this point on, sin becomes a choice, not an ingrained, hardwired part of one's DNA.  But does it prevent sinning? HA!

Time has to go by (again, God's time) as the "old man" (represented by Moses and his generation) is replaced by the "new man" (represented by Joshua and his single-minded pursuit of God's mission).  Only once the "new man" is completely in charge is the Christian able to enter the Promised Land.  Neat, huh?

But along the way, we hit the golden calf.  And that is something I've always struggled to figure out until lately.  First, let's look at what is driving the Hebrews at this point, and see how they are things the proto-Christian also faces. One, they are driven by their needs and wants.  Instead of going to God for their needs, it was constantly, "We have no water! We have no meat! Moses, you suck!"  They were more concerned with the perceived need than trusting in God to deliver, even when God showed them (through the quail that made them sick) that sometimes what we don't get isn't any good for us.  Two, they are driven by impatience.  God takes time to set things up for our lives- and boy, has my life been a continuing example- and they were not inclined to wait.  "Aaron, do something!"  And Aaron, like many pastors today, did something- he began to shape the concept of "God" to the demands of the people instead of remaining faithful to WHAT HE KNEW TO BE TRUE.  Third, they were driven by incomplete knowledge of the situation.  "As for THIS FELLOW MOSES, we don't know what has happened to him" (Exodus 32:1).  It was only through their relationship with their leader that they maintained contact with God, and so if the leader falls, the sheep are scattered.

And so, Aaron, led by a misguided emphasis on what the people wanted, designed what they wanted.  The calf was not a false idol; he designed them to be an "artist's conception " of God.  And it satisfied the demands that people had of God-  it was real and tangible; it fit their limited conceptions; and, as the later revelry proved, it allowed them to do what they wanted.  How like many of man's religions, including the teachings of some "Christians" (examples:  Dove Outreach's insistence on provoking the Muslims, Westboro you-know-who's insistence that God hates people instead of sin, and this new gig about "a loving God would have no need for a Hell".), as well as the atheist mindset that has to have a tangible in front of them, that they can conceive without the dilemma of accepting that some things are beyond their conceptions and always will be, and frees them up to be "free thinkers" who can find random aberrant examples to explain why it is natural to be a homosexual.

But what did Jesus bring us?  First, He brought us something that had to be accepted by faith.  Despite the fact that He showed them all along what the scriptures said must happen, and explained it to them over and over, they were unable to immediately accept the impossible happening right before them.  His resurrection was not a "tangible", not at first.  Second, it was beyond their conception, and like the early Hebrews, remained that way in spite of evidence, until the Spirit came to them at Pentecost.

 Moses, God bless him, was involved in the politics of the day.  Despite his devotion to God, he was dealing with the complaints of the people, the infighting with other "leaders" even the family squabbles with Aaron and Miriam.  It was only under the focused on God leadership of Joshua that they moved forward.  We too, have to accept the "impossible" on faith, wait on God's timing, and unchain our relationship with God from our ability to "conceive" Him, if we want to move forward.

Here's an example of that.  I was tuned into Redeemer radio  (the Catholic station) on Good Friday, when I heard a q-and-a show where a lady described that her nephew and his wife had become evangelicals, and had been talking to the couple's daughter about Christ.  The lady and her husband were a Catholic/evangelical split, but had formed an agreement not to press the issue.  The nephew's evangelism was causing a schism in the family, and she wondered what to do about it.  The host told her it was "unfair" for the nephew to do as he was because Jesus came to bring peace and unite us.  To which I said, "That is a golden calf; it is man's conception of God."  In Luke 12, Jesus says, " Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division. ⁵² From now on there will be five in one family divided against each other, three against two and two against three. ⁵³ They will be divided, father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.”  And this is PRECISELY the situation for which He said it.  Too many Christians want that golden calf, letting them be huggy-feely with sin, and not responsible for doing what they know they ought to (like Aaron).  But that was the OTHER thing that Jesus brought with Him out of the grave- the elimination of the ability to say "what do we do now" in the face of your responsiblities.

I PRAISE JESUS CHRIST

SO THE ROCKS DONT HAVE TO!!!!

(Luke 19:40)

Hosana! Happy Palm Sunday, everyone!



Sunday sermon

Today, Ed Bousman talked about Acts 3-4, where Peter healed the lame beggar. It was interesting to me that he pointed out the two groups of people who questioned the miracle. One was the Saducees, and the other the priests (Pharisees). The Saducees, he said, were those who only believed what was in the books of Moses, i.e. Genesis through Deuteronomy. What he didn't mention- at first, was that they were also distinguished as not believing in the ressurection of the dead. This is tantamount to no faith at all, because Paul in I Cor. 15 says:

If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.

If they believed in God, it was a god they might as well not have. If God created us only to have us live this life, and upon having faithin Him, to then die and that's all she wrote, then there IS no point to it. Atheists believe faith is the presence of self-delusion. If there was no ressurection, they would be right.

The other group, the priests, they believed in the entirety of the Word of God ( the Old testament) but they failed to grasp the point of it. God gave the law to show man that, because he was incapable of keeping it (James 2:10- For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it.), he had to depend on God for salvation. Their take was that it COULD be kept, and if one didn't it was because it wasn't explicit enough. So they expounded and expanded the law, to the point where you were breaking the law by accidentilly kicking a seed into a crack on the Sabbath since you "planted a seed" which was "work". So they worshipped God, but it wasn't right worship because they didn't understand Him.

This is much the situation that exists today. Unbelievers who reject the ressurection and thus God, and followers of false beliefs, seeking a way to earn their place in eternity. In between was the man who was healed, called into question by the priests and Saducees because his healing brought into question their beliefs. I should phrase that differently; they did not question their beliefs even then, even exposed as flawed. They merely worried at the effect on the beliefs of those who listened to them. And so it is today. In Acts 4:14 we see the same attitude of the atheists out there:

But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. 15 So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. 16 “What are we going to do with these men?” they asked. “Everyone living in Jerusalem knows they have performed a notable sign, and we cannot deny it. 17 But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn them to speak no longer to anyone in this name.”

If you can't beat them, shut them up. Ban the Bible was a popular way of expressing this years back when I went to Promise Keepers with a friend. He wisely kept me from tilting with the protesters, but I asked myself, why does God let these people even show up here? Then we went into the arena, and the echoes of the entire crowd singing How Great Thou Art thundered down the hallways. And I understood: where else could He put these protesters and have 10,000 men right there to PRAY for them?

Just like He put the beggar at the Temple- where His men could find him. What is hard to understand is that between the beggar and the priests and the Saducees and the protesters, there is NO difference. The crowd of protesters had among them Pharisees who had thought out but mistaken ideas; Saducees, whose commitment was to have everyone deny the existance of God as they do; and perhaps, somewhere in the group, a beggar, spiritually lame, looking for "money" from the masses, who through our prayer got something far more precious- the ability to walk. The Saducees would try to pass him off, run him out; it would be easy for them to say he was just suffering from a delusion- they weren't the ones who suddenly were healed.

To close, as I read in Isaiah, I found a marvelous 1,200 year old description of today's intellectual elitists. From Isaiah 41:

21 “ Present your case,” says the LORD.

“ Bring forth your strong reasons,” says the King of Jacob.
22 “ Let them bring forth and show us what will happen;
Let them show the former things, what they were,
That we may consider them,
And know the latter end of them;
Or declare to us things to come.
23 Show the things that are to come hereafter,
That we may know that you are gods;
Yes, do good or do evil,
That we may be dismayed and see it together.
24 Indeed you are nothing,
And your work is nothing;
He who chooses you is an abomination.

Seeds, machine guns, and pride

This morning, I awoke to go pee about 3:30 and found myself in the middle of the oddest conversation with myself. It was like a series of questions and answers designed by someone trying to make a point against America as a Christian nation. "is it within a President's purview to name a holiday?" I guess so. "What if it was a religious holiday?" I don't know... "What about Christmas? or Hanukkah?" Uhhh... "What about Thanksgiving? Was the President within his purview to name Thanksgiving a holiday?" No, because you can be thankful in many ways, and I'm sure my atheist acquaintances can find some reason to be thankful. "And what about Christmas?" What about it? It's become a celebration of giving. Even the atheists can get behind that. 'Tis the season, celebrate reason,' they say. "So what about being a Christian nation? How could he declare Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, if it's a Christian nation?" Well, let's see. First of all, a lot of people talk about the Christian values that the constitution was built upon. But if you think about it, a lot of what could be termed Christian values are also Jewish values, probably Muslim values, perhaps Buddhist values. Many of the founding fathers were Unitarians, which isn't exactly Christian and wouldn't meet the common definition of "being saved". Thomas Jefferson declared himself "a cult unto myself", despite what many Christians, atheists, and deists try to claim (in fact he said that to silence just such debates). So we were founded on principles of the God of the Bible, perhaps even on the philosophy of Jesus Christ. But to say we were founded a Christian nation might be a bit strong, especially considering the philosophy of "all men are created equal". Given that, I imagine any President would be within his personal purview to invoke holidays of a religious nature as long as ANY president could invoke a holiday for ANY religion (or anti-religion, in some people's cases).

So what brought this up? A couple of things, really. One of which was on Susan Wise Bauer's "History of the Whole World" blog. She was a speaker at a home schooling- publisher's event and was apparently taken to task by an author in the realm that accused her of being anti-christian in her writing. (Which, having read the first 2 installments of her history, I had to wonder what he was smoking.) She said she gets a lot of that in her business- from secular historians who attack her for using the Bible as a historical source, and home schoolers who consider her professionalism as "doing nothing for the cause". In her lengthy defense of herself, she made this very salient point:

To be a Christian in America, particularly a Christian with any evangelical associations, is to be associated with a specific form of Christianity. Allow me to oversimplify (I highly recommend this and this for un-simplification, should you be interested). This form of Christianity has long been focused on one particular calling: converting other people.

Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,tell them of Jesus, the mighty to save.Rescue the perishing, care for the dying;Jesus is merciful, Jesus will save.

–Fanny Crosby, 1820-1915

Of course, it has long been part of the Christian faith that Christians should tell others what they believe. Early Christians did a lot of it. But then came nineteenth century revivalism, in which “telling others what you believe” was transformed into “convert as many people as possible as quickly as possible because that is what God wants.” And in order to convert as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, you have to use the proper methods.

In other words, We Christians are doing a lot of getting the concept of Christian soldiers wrong. Paul himself said, I plant the seed, Apollos waters it, but God gives the increase. A lot of us are out there with placards and attack points and petitions and such, trying to machine-gun in the seeds and then liberally soaking in fertilizer until we've washed away the point we should be making.

I hope those whom I'm speaking of will forgive me, but among those who drop by TAW are atheists who consider their mission to attack the concept of god wherever they find it; heathens who worship the "nature" that basically allows them to do whatever; agnostics, whose soul is their own business and not mine (and that is very true); and Christians that are probably scratching their heads wondering where I'm going with all this. If I try to employ the machine gun method to the first three categories here on my blog, I'd probably be speaking to each of them for the last time. My job is to plant a seed; to occasionally talk about my faith, once in a while comment on their posts with my thoughts, yank a chain or two when worthwhile, and then go to prayer and let God bring the increase.

I've been struggling with attending church for a good long while, for what at base seems a very good reason- which I will not go into here. But in bringing the thought to the fore again recently, I saw that underneath the surface is a thread of pride- pride that cost me a ministry and a home church, along with the friendship of a pastor I miss. Pride that bothers me because I try to return to church and find myself torn between wanting to serve as I did (and knowing God's not going to allow that) and being humble and silent when confronted with a teaching (not a salvational teaching, mind you) that I know to be wrong. Pride keeps me from serving- fear of pride keeps me at home. I'd like to talk to someone about it, but when I do, I always find something else in my bag of motives I cannot well defend.

So, no, I don't feel myself perfect. And I don't feel myself to be delusional (as I've been told). And I realize that the only soul I'm truly responsible for is my own. So I hope that those of you who do not believe as I do will accept this as another attempt to plant a seed- as much in myself as in you- and know that I pray for each of you no matter who. And those that do believe as I do, please keep me in your prayers. It means more to all of us than we can know.

A little faith, a little sadness

One of my favorite radio preachers is Ed Bousman, who broadcasts on the God Is Just A Prayer Away radio network and I get it on WLW Cincinnati 700 AM (right now at 6:30 Sunday am). This is a tough, no nonsense, "get-wet-or-not-yet" preacher who has an artistic way of putting the broadcast together. First, the theme hymn begins; then he introduces himself and the ministry, followed by "It is written: all the Churches of Christ salute you; " followed by a series of "it is written"s that feature the key verse for the sermon. Then the music stops and he reads the key verse, followed by a recitation of an appropriate hymn, during which the theme hymn restarts and comes to a conclusion. At which point he says, "And now..." followed by the sermon title and sermon. I've listened to this man since the 1980s (he started in 1962) and in trying to see if the old boy was still kicking or just getting replayed (At least as of 2007, still kicking) and learned that he took up the radio gig when he asked his congregation to "pray for something impossible" and this was his answer. Though this is all interesting, I have digressed.

This morning he was preaching on John 14: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me. 2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going.” To put this in context, he said you have to go back to the last verse of the last chapter to see what they weren't to be troubled about. That verse is the one where Peter is told before the cock crows he will deny Jesus 3 times.

He goes on to the denouement of that scene, when the cock crows the second time, and Peter looks up and sees Jesus looking at him. (Luke 22:60-62). I have always found this, to me, the most chilling verse of the Bible. But Ed goes on to say, "But I do not have time to spend on sympathy for the great Apostle..." And my mind says, wait a sec. How can you not have sympathy for Peter here? Then I let him finish.

"...for that rooster has crowed for me, many times." OUCH. Don't you just hate proper perspective?

Then he goes on to talk about the reasons why not to lets our heart be troubled, and he breaks it down this way. "In My Father's house there are many mansions." Mansions=really nice rooms in Our Father's House. When did you feel safest? In most lives, a room in your father's house means a) you are a child; b)you are being taken care of; c) you have no real worries about the outside world- no bills, no maintenance, no 9-to-5. d) even in the worst of times, it is an oasis of safety. Sometimes, perspective is a blessing.

Which brings us to the second part of this post. Yesterday, we visited Laurie's dad at the hospital. Trying to describe this man without hurting feelings is nigh onto impossible, so let me just say this: He is a man who has had ample opportunities to truly bond with each of his five children, even after his military style treatment of them as kids; invariably, he has purposefully said something hurtful to each one when they got the closest to them in order to (or at least succeeding in) driving them away. Laurie had been the latest recipient of this: she had been making a point to call him once a week until a very hurtful- and untrue- thing he said ended all contact several months ago.

Flash forward to Friday. The man has a plethora of health problems and, sick to death of doctors, takes very little care of them. Brother Chuck ( a bigger man than I would be, BTW) assumed the mantle of checking up on him every day as he has regressed. He was found unconscious on the floor Friday and we got the call he was in bad shape. It took Laurie a real effort, but realizing that she had to do now what she could live with later, we went up to see him.

This morning, about halfway through the sermon, Chuck called again and said his respiration is down to 5. He won't eat, and hasn't in 2 weeks apparently, has pneumonia in both lungs, and his gall bladder is "basically a ball of muck." All his organs are failing (the kidney specialist came in as we were leaving) and he has had congestive heart failure for years.

I wonder how troubled his heart is. He has at least 4 Christian children (Paul and Chuck both have Minister's licences), but when you spend your life alienating everyone who should care about you, what good has it done? I told Laurie, "It's a shame to live your life so you get to this point and your kids don't even want to see you."

I wasn't unwilling to see my dad when he died; I WAS unwilling to watch it happen. It had been just him and me for the last 8 years, for better or worse. He was a dutiful Catholic insofar as going to Church every week and putting his money in the envelope; like most old-time Catholics (myself included for years), the "born again" concept was just part and parcel and not talked about. I don't pretend to know what the relationship is between Jesus and someone like that; I do know that Matt. 7:21 (21 Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.) scared the HELL out of me until I was saved. That was when MY heart ceased being troubled (on that end, at least).

Where was my dad? I don't know, and he wouldn't discuss it. At the end, long after it should have been discussed, he was only lucid about 2 minutes out of every hour. Where is Laurie's dad? Now that he might be at that same spot? Only God knows for sure.

All I can say for sure is, the opportunities were there.