Short Thoughts

I was reading Psalm 119:136 and was touched by these words:

Streams of tears flow from my eyes, for Your law is not obeyed.

The Psalmist felt grief when he witnessed God's law being disobeyed.

Christ mourned over the fate of Jerusalem, the direct result of the sins of the Jews. We can read His words that reveal His pain and sorrow.

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings, but you were not willing.
Matthew 23:37

Sometimes Christ was angry over sin, as God is often angry in the Old Testament. But more often we see God's sorrow in both Testaments.

The Sin Out There In The World....

I wonder about my own reaction to sin. When I hear a news item that reflects man's evil deeds -- do I sorrow, or am I angry? I think usually I am angry. But not always a 'godly, righteous anger,' but an angeroften tinged with my own pride....like the sinner has committed an affront to my own standards, my own comfort zone. Maybe it has infringed on my own sense of security and well-being. I don't know exactly, but I do know that my own anger at sin is sometimes (often?) concealing some of my own pride and self-righteousness.

I think it would be better if my initial reaction to the evil and sin in this world were more of a sorrow -- a sorrow that the ones who commit the sins are disobeying God's own righteous standards set up for all mankind and so are grieving Him; and a grief for them because they "know not what they do."

The Sin Right Here In My Own Heart....

My own sin -- I am sorry more than angry. I am compassionate and seeking mercy and forgiveness from God. "Forgive me, O God, even though I know what I do."

So I tend to feel sorry for myself for my own sin and feel anger when I see sin in others..... an example of my own double standard.

C. S. Lewis talks about this -- how we can say we 'love the sinner but hate the sin' -- and how that seemed hard for him to understand -- until one day he looked in the mirror and it dawned on him. "Yes," he said, "I am a perfect example of that idea.
I hate my sin, but I love myself."

Thoughts from Acts 2

What a great service today! (Dec 19)

Carolyn Anderson played Simple Gifts for the offertory and Emily Valdez sang I Wonder as I Wander...she did a super job. And it all started with the Jubilaires singing What Can I Give to the King?

Bro. Mike took us back to Acts 2. He began with an illustration from air flight - about how course adjustments have to be made during a trip. Sometimes we need to do that in our church, also, checking to see that we are being led, directed, motivated, fueled and defined by the Holy Spirit. This applies to everything we do.

On the Day of Pentecost described in Acts 2, God was making a major course adjustment. He moved to a new address. Away from the temple in downtown Jerusalem to the residences of the human hearts. He used the miracle of tongues to get the people's attention.

But many, in verse 13, mocked the whole scene and blamed the event on 'too much wine.'

I guess to them it was just gibberish. The text says the disciples were talking about the wonders of God. So the unbelieving, disbelieving mind would not hear the words.

What would it take to get their (the mockers and scorners) attention? The obvious miracle of the tongues did not do it. (When you think about it -- how could any of it be related to drinking too much? Over drinking does not make people speak in actual foreign languages -- or we would have a new Berlitz course -- how to learn Spanish by drinking tequila or French by speaking Bordeaux).

This was not a marketing ploy. Not a special meeting to determine how to reach people with the gospel. Not a media survey on 'felt needs.' (It was 'seeker friendly', though!)

It was a God-thing.

How does God work?

1. God chooses to work in ways that reveal the condition of people's hearts.
His ways are not our ways. God's work at Pentecost revealed the condition of the hearts of the listeners and observers. Some marveled and some mocked.

2. Unbelief can be the result of optimum circumstances of life. Deuteronomy 8 warns the Israelites about this pitfall. Moses reminds his people that God had humbled them in the desert during the long years of wandering. Now they were getting ready to enter the promised land -- the land of plenty.

When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land He has given you. Be careful that you don't forget the LORD your God, failing to observe His commands, laws and decrees....then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God.

Some people have fortunate lives. But they refuse to acknowledge that God has blessed them. Sometimes it's dangerous to be blessed too much. It may mean we do not feel the need of God. We need some place in our lives where God can reach in and speak to us. Something that needs to be 'fixed.'

3. Unbelief must be approached from the perspective of spiritual deadness.

If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this world has blinded the eyes of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
2 Corinthians 4:3-6

People don't require a smart, witty, popular evangelist. They don't need an intellectual giant or an entertaining singer. It is God who commands the light to shine out of the darkness. It is His Holy Spirit that bring us to Him.

Illustration: Luke 16, when the rich man died and cried out from hell for Father Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers so that they would repent and not come to that place of torment.

Abraham said, "They have Moses and the Prophets." The rich man said, "but if someone comes from the dead they will repent."

Abraham says "If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced, even if someone rises from the dead."

Bro Mike's last question: Does God have a trick up His sleeve for my friends, family, loved ones who reject Him? (My hearts cries out "Yes, God, have something up Your sleeve!"

But Bro Mike points out....the answer is usually No...there is nothing else "up His sleeve." The evidence is already here. (However, we can't predict God's sovereign ways -- like the children in Narnia tried to describe Aslan -- He is not a tame lion!)

The key is God's Word -- it's all there. And all our activities at church must reflect the treasure of God's Word. Worship services, prayer meetings, choir, Sunday School, Awanas, the outreach ministries of Lighthouse and Basketball --it is the Word of God that we must keep proclaiming. Even if our loved ones are mockers and scorners...we must keep sowing the seed of God's Word.

God's Word is for us the knowledge, the Truth, and the power of God. To the mockers it is just foolishness. We must keep sowing the seed and praying that God will work on the soil.

Acts

More from Bro. Mike's sermons on Acts.....

On the 12th of December, Bro. Mike concluded his sermon with thoughts about the goings-on at that Pentecost (Acts 2). What was the commotion really all about?

About a loving God reaching down to bless the whole world with a gift He desired to give.

It was the reversal of what happened at Babel thousands of years before (Genesis 11)

Here at this Pentecost, in Jerusalem, Jews and Jewish converts from all over the world were hearing the disciples in their own languages. "Utterly amazed, they asked, 'Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappodocia, Pontus and Asia....Cretans and Arabs--we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!'" (Acts 2)

It was about a loving God reaching down to bless the whole world with a gift He desired to give.

In order to give it, He had to get their attention! And so He did!

Grace is truly amazing. Just a few weeks before these people had condemned Christ and demanded His crucifixion. The same Peter who had denied even knowing Christ was now speaking to this crowd and proclaiming that Christ was, indeed, the promised Messiah.

God is finished filling His temples. He is now filling us with His Spirit. Do we focus on that? Do we reveal that in our daily lives?

(Personal Note: I have been thinking a lot lately about God's sovereignty. In Isaiah 46: 10, He reminds us, "I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient time, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please." I love that -- it makes me feel great joy -- He will do exactly what He pleases!

Then the Psalmist, in Psalm 135, says "I know that the LORD is great, that our Lord is greater than all gods. The LORD does whatever pleases Him, in the heavens and on the earth, in the seas and all their depths." He does whatever pleases Him.....not me, but Him!

I enjoy these reminders that our God is up there watching over us all and sometimes reaching right down into history and turning things all around and upside down! Just like at that Pentecost. God is good. All the time. All the time God is good. And God can surprise us!

Then this morning in Chuck Colson's Breakpoint article he talked about the invocation given during the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Cancun. In the woman's invocation she invoked the Mayan goddess, Ixchel, a deity who demanded human sacrifices, and "prayed" that the deity would "inspire" the delegates!

Is this for real? I don't think we could make up a story any funnier! And they get paid for that?
So is global warming related in some way to the pagan sacrificial fires they threw their prisoners, and even their own children, in? Sorry, I know that's not funny. It was, and is, horribly real.)

Notes on Acts

My Journal notes from Bro Mike's series on Acts...December, 2010

Acts 2:1-4

When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

They were waiting for the promise of the Father. Waiting as Christ instructed them to. This event in Acts 2 marks the end of the Old Testament.

There was no preaching, no teaching, no youth group, no Sunday School, no VBS. They were just waiting.

The main action in town was over at the temple. Many thousands of Jews had arrived at Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover. But this group of 120 or so were at an unimportant room, waiting for God's promise.

God had an appointment there no one else knew about. God was looking down on that upper room, not on the temple mount.

Ezekiel 37. The Valley of Dry Bones. This valley full of dry bones; hopelessness.

God told Ezekiel, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will now that I am the LORD.'"

Earlier, in Ezekiel 36:26, God had said

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep My Laws.

Back to Acts 2:3.
Sound - temporary
Flames - momentary
What stayed? The Holy Spirit.

They were all filled -- all who had waited.

What does it mean to me?

Romans 8:9-10. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.

Do you know if the Holy Spirit is in you?
When was the last time you were aware that the Holy Spirit was in you?
What evidence of the Holy Spirit is in your life?
See Galatians 5: But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.

Has the Holy Spirit taken residence in you?

Notes on the Acts in Acts

Bro Mike has been taking us into Acts these past weeks. I know I have read the book numerous times before, but this study is opening my eyes to see much more

This series (he is calling it a short series, a 'mini-series') he began on November 21.

The first decision to be made by the disciples after the ascension of Jesus was the choosing of Matthias to replace Judas in the group of "Twelve." (Acts 1) This would be the first decision of the church.

In doing so, they

1. Acknowledged God's Word as the ultimate authority for all decisions. Peter quoted from
Psalm 69, "it is written." We believe in the existence of "absolute truth." Most of our culture does not. Sometime ago the idea of relative truth began to emerge in our culture. Now it is not that truth is "relative," but that there is no truth at all.

2. Acknowledged God's standard for apostolic leadership

3. Determined a procedure for discovering God's Will

Bro Mike also emphasized the importance of "waiting" -- as Christ commanded -- for the "gift My Father promised and which you have heard Me speak about." They waited and were empowered by that gift of the Holy Spirit.

How about us?
1. What place does God's Word have in our lives?
2. Are we continuing steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine?
3. Have we personally determined a procedure for discovering God's Will?
Faith? Prayer? How do we make decisions in our own lives?


The next week (November 28) he started out by talking about dates and why they are important. We all know what happened July 4, 1776, December 7 (which is today, by the way), 1941 and September 11, 2001.

But do we know what happened October 16, 1846? (anesthesia was 'invented' -- by the way, the word was coined by Oliver Wendell Holmes -- I didn't know that -- I just found out when I looked up how to spell anesthesia). What about April 22, 1955? (Salk vaccine)


What about Pentecost? An important date for Jews all over the world and now an important date for all of us Gentiles.

Jerusalem would have been crowded as Jews from all over the Empire came to celebrate this feast. It was 50 days after Passover.

This particular Pentecost was observed by the 120 followers of Jesus in an unknown, unimportant upper room. There, at that time and in that obscure place, God brought His Spirit and changed the lives of all those present who were witnesses to His wonderful gift.

What happened?
1. God honored His Word to Abraham (Genesis 12)
2. God honored His Word to His disciples (John 14:12ff)
3. God honored the favorable atmosphere -- all together in one place -- how can we form a favorable atmosphere that God can honor is a special way?

This is great series --right where the "rubber hits the road"...

More later...stay tuned...tune in again next week....(film at 11?)

Stop and Feel the Awe - Thanks, Phyllis

Art's sister, Phyllis, sent us this thought-provoking email:


A cold January morning in 2007 at the Metro Station in Washington, D.C.
A man with a violin played 6 Bach pieces for about an hour. During that time about 2,000 people went through the station, most on their way to work.

After 3 minutes a middle-aged man noticed there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried to meet his schedule.


4 Minutes later the violist received his first dollar; a woman threw the money in the hat, and, without stopping, walked away.

6 Minutes: A young man leaned against the wall to listen, then looked at his watch and walked away.

10 Minutes: A 3-year-old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The child stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head all the time. The action was repeated by several other children. Every parent, without exception, forced their children to move on quickly.

45 Minutes: The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money, but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.

1 hour: The musician finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this -- but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, on a violin worth $3.5 million dollars.

Two days before, Joshua Bell sold out a theater in Boston where the seats averaged $100.



This is a true story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and people's priorities.

The questions raised?

(1) In a common place environment at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
(2) Do we appreciate it?
(3) Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?



Possible conclusion: If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the finest musicians in the world, playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made...

How many other things are we missing?



And for us: A lowly stable in a small insignificant village, a life lived and cut short in a distant unimportant corner of the world.....The most important event in all history...How do people miss it?

Every day -- what do we miss? What do we ignore? What do we neglect? The joyful presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives? A heart of gratitude that brings pleasure to God?


And what about those children who wanted to stop? Christ told us to be like children -- is this part of what He meant?

The song of a bird singing in the rain and storm....the gambling lambs in the field...the gathering of the cows along the fence...the rainbow...the colors around us....the smiles of people we know and love....the music of Bach...the Hallelujah Chorus...a really big American flag flying from a business in a small town....a fawn and mother deer in the meadow...words like "The Lord is my Shepherd"......A changed life, like Chuck Colson....and like me.
... .Sometimes we need to stop and feel the awe.





In the little village of Bethlehem

There lay a Child one day.

And the sky was bright with a holy light

O'er the place where Jesus lay.

Twas a humble birthplace, but

O how much God gave to man that day

From the manger bed what a path was led,

What a perfect, holy way.

..'Twas the birthday of a King!

More Haiku & Expiration Date

The troub'ling rain comes
In the rainbow of God's love
It searches for me.


The warmth of your smile
Tells me I can share my heart
It's your gift to me.


His showers of grace
On the wasteland of my heart
Unspeakable joy


You feel that way, too?
So I'm not the only one?
A friendship begins.





No Expiration Date, from

Charles H. Spurgeon



Whoever comes to me I will never cast out.

John 6:37



There is no expiration date on this promise. It does not merely say, "I will not cast out a sinner at his first coming," but "I will never cast him out."



The original reads, "I will not, not cast out," or "I will never, never cast out." The text means that Christ will not at first reject a believer, and that as He will not do it at first, so He will not to the last.



But suppose the believer sins after coming? "If anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." (I John 2:1).



But suppose that believers backslide? "I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely, for my anger has turned from them." (Hosea 14:4).



But believers may fall under temptation! "God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide a way of escape, that you may be able to endure it." (1 Corinthians 10:13).



But a believer may fall into sin as David did! Yes, but He will "purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." (Psalm 51:7).



Jesus said, "I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28).



What do you say to this, O trembling feeble mind? This is a precious mercy. Coming to Christ, you do not come to One who will treat you well for a little while and then send you about your business, but He will receive you and make you His bride, and you shall be His forever!



Live no longer in the spirit of bondage to fear, but in the spirit of adoption, which cries, "Abba, Father!" Oh, the grace of these words, "I will never cast you out."

More Haiku from Rex Moore.

High King of Heaven
Keep them both in Your watchcare
Your grace free-flowing
--Rex Moore


What He Intends,
from Mere Christianity, by C. S. Lewis

The question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us. He is the inventor, we are only the machine. He is the painter, we are only the picture....We may be content to remain what we call "ordinary people," but He is determined to carry out a quite different plan. To shrink back from that plan is not humility; it is laziness and cowardice. To submit to it is not conceit or megalomania; it is obedience.


Small Prayers, from Letters to Malcolm,
by C. S. Lewis

And perhaps, as those who do not turn to God in petty trials will have no habit or such resort to help them when the great trials comes, so those who have not learned to ask Him for childish things will have less readiness to ask Him for great ones. We must not be too high-minded. I fancy we may sometimes be deterred from small prayers by a sense of our own dignity rather than of God's.

Haiku from Rex Moore

High King of Heaven
Keep them both in Your watchcare
Your grace free-flowing

The troub'ling rain comes
In the rainbow of God's love
It searches for me

Haiku from Molly (Tony Wells' aunt)

Wonderful full moon
Will be shining bright tonight
What a gift from God.

-- Molly Pirtle



Too Proud to Know God

-- by C. S. Lewis


The Christians are right: it is Pride that has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.

Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people.

But pride always means enmity--it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.


In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that--and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison--you do not know God at all.

As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

from Mere Christianity

Note: So pride is a lonely, alienating sin. It separates people from each other and from God -- other sins at least bring people together!

Haiku from Linda Krix

God's love evermore

Blesses His flock day and night

Thankfulness to Him.

-- Linda Krix





Is It Wrong to Want Heaven? By C. S. Lewis

We are very shy nowadays of even mentioning heaven. We are afraid of the jeer about 'pie in the sky,' and of being told that we are trying to 'escape' from the duty of making a happy world here and now into dreams of a happy world elsewhere. But either there is 'pie in the sky' or there is not.

If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric. If there is, then this truth, like any other, must be faced, whether it is useful at political meetings or not.

Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. It is safe to tell the pure in heart that they shall see God, for only the pure in heart want to. There are rewards that do not sully motives. A man's love for a woman is not mercenary because he wants to marry her, nor his love for poetry mercenary because he wants to read it....Love, by definition, seeks to enjoy its object.

How to Fix it....Continued from I Love How This is Worded....

Larry McCall offers some counsel about keeping our hearts from freezing over, based on Hebrews 3:12-14:

See to it, brothers; that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first.

First, we need to wake up to the reality that unbelief can overtake the heart of any professing Christian--including our own. We must not be lulled to sleep by false assurance in some "decision" made or prayer prayed in times past. As we see in Hebrews 3, two key marks of a Christian are faith and faithfulness.

We must "take care" that both faith and faithfulness are being cultivated and evidenced in our own lives and in the lives of our fellow church members. The sin of unbelief can overtake a heart so gradually that we don't notice it until a professing Christian is living a life of blatant unfaithfulness to Christ. In love we must resist spiritual naivete. We must "take care."

Second, we must realize that the fight against apostasy is every Christian's concern, not just that of the church's pastors. The author of Hebrews says, "Take care, brothers." The battle against apostasy and the quest for ongoing faith in Christ and faithfulness to Christ is a "community project." Every Christian should be mustered and trained for this battle for souls.

Third, our churches must develop a "culture" that values the daily care of one another's souls and provides practical ways for that to happen. Hebrews 3:13 instructs us to "exhort one another every day." While we continue to hold out the primacy of preaching in the life of the church, the battle against apostasy must be fought beyond our Sunday morning events.

The members of our churches must be given opportunity to move away from isolation and toward loving, deep involvement in one another's lives. Church leaders must teach church members the crucial importance of faith-building relationships. No one can intimately know everyone in their church. But we must be involved very personally with some of the church body.

And these interpersonal relationships in small groups must move beyond trivial, superficial conversations if we are going to carry out the directive to "exhort one another every day."

Church leaders need to model and teach a mutual "soul care" that, over time, begins to get traction in the normal life of the church. Church members can fight against the cold winds of unbelief that threaten to ice up the souls of their friends by reminding themtof the dangers of sin and the joy, hope, and satisfaction we have in Christ alone.

Overtime the conversations should become gospel-saturated, Christ-exalting, Spirit-empowered, and faith-building.

The battle against apostasy in our churches is fought as one Christian exhorts another Christian to treasure Christ above all that Satan, sin and the world have to offer.

Last, Hebrews 3:12-14 teaches us that this ministry is urgent: "as long as it is called 'today'". 'The day of Christ's return and subsequent judgment is coming. We must not carelessly assume that "someday" our church will take up battle against apostasy. While we say "someday," God says "today." For the glory of Christ and the care of souls, let us all take up the battle against apostasy.

This article taken from Tabletalk, Logonier Ministries and R. C. Sproul, October, 2010.

And We Have Trish Farned at the Organ

The first person described in Scripture as being "filled with the Spirit" was not a priest or prophet. He was an artist and craftsman (Exodus 31:1-6).

And the LORD said to Moses, "See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts--to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover I have appointed Oholiab, son of Ahasamach of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you...."

In earlier chapters God gives special gifts of wisdom--like to the garment makers in Exodus 28. But here we read for the first time about someone being filled with the Spirit of God, in order to do special work in God's House.

This side of the cross, and with the insight of the Holy Scriptures, we have a more complete understanding of God's gift of His Spirit and the way He enables all of us to function for His honor and glory in His holy family.

I think about this on many Sundays during worship. We have been given a priceless array of artists in our church family. One of our organists is Trish Farned. This is what she says:

One of the first things I was taught as an organist was to make my settings to match the words of the hymns. I try really hard to do that and to play in a way that will have meaning to the congregation. I truly enjoyed playing the Almighty Medley last week. I tried to play with everything I had because when we are singing the words: Almighty, Most Holy God, Immortal, Invisible God Only Wise, and Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, there is no playing it halfway. I give it everything I've got!

That is pure worship and He deserves everything we can give.

The offertory (My Jesus, I Love Thee) is one of my favorite hymns, and again when you play the words If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus tis now we have to play it like we mean it. To me music is a very important form of worship and I ask the Lord to use me as an instrument to help reach someone every time I play.

Bezalel was goldsmith, silversmith, jeweler and a carpenter, He probably even made some of the musical instruments used in God's House for His worship -- the text says he was skilled in all kinds of craftsmanship.

We have things to do for God, too. He created us and enables us to do kind and thoughtful things for others and to perform acts that bring pleasure to God's family.
In addition to those general random acts of kindness, He has also given all of us special tasks to do -- special positions of service that are reserved just for us.

We need to pray for His wisdom, to open our eyes and ears and hearts, to seek out those opportunities and then to, like Trish, give them all we've got!

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:4-6).

Rambling Roads

Last Sunday in church we had such a great time! Coming to God's house and meeting with His people brings unspeakable joy. When you think about it, the fact that we come eagerly and with joyful anticipation is in itself a gift from God!

Everything we feel and experience in worship comes from Him. "Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to Thy Cross I cling" is a picture of us. Even our repentence is a gift from Him.

The music was especially good -- the offertory was an amazing arrangement of My Jesus, I Love Thee with Virginia at the piano and Trish at the organ. I turned to Patrice and Kelly and asked: Is it just me or is this whole service aglow with the Holy Spirit? They agreed.

Then the choir sang a sort of musical medley featuring songs about God's Almighty Power and Holiness: Part of it included Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise...and Holy, Holy, Holy...


I wanted to cheer and clap -- we did the clapping OK but I am hesitant to cheer. I think God would love it if we cheered! I guess we need more practice at that part of our worship --

Bro Mike's sermon was on John the Baptist and how he had periods of doubt. When he first saw Christ he was confident and energetic in his acceptance of the Messiah. He must increase and I must decrease, he declared. After being in prison a while, though, he had some doubts and disappointments.

Bro Mike talked about disappointments: Disapointments come when we realize that God's plans are different from our plans.

(1) Disappointment is always tied to expectations -- (sure is for me)

(2) Expectations are dangerous when they are based on false assumptions

(3) Disappointments can result in an appointment with God -- (And that's an appointment we sure don't want to miss!)

The whole service was so packed with meaning -- with challenge, with inspiration, with yearning for more of God.

Anyway, we also sang Standing on the Promises...and that reminded me of Psalm 1 and what I have been learning this week:

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly,
nor stands in the path of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of the scornful. (Psalm 1:1).

And here's the way our ancestors sang it (from the Bay Psalm Book):

O blessed man, that in the advice
Of wicked man doth not walk
Nor stand in sinners' way nor sit
In chairs of scornful folk.

We don't know for certain what tune they used, but it sort of fits I Love To Tell The Story...sort of....

And here is my own (mis)intepretation of how we as Christians should walk, stand and sit:

Blessed is the Christian who will walk in the light, as He is in the light...and so have fellowship with one another... (I John 1:7)

and who will put on the full armor of God, so that he may stand against the devil's schemes.... (Ephesians 6:11)....

and then after all of that He will raise us up together to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:6).

And that's when we can sing more joyfully than ever: If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus tis now and that will be the first day of the rest of our lives!

P.S. I did have to go back and reread the words to Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise....every verse is perfect and splendid in its adoration of God's perfect holiness....and the fourth verse is impossible to forget:

Great Father of glory, pure Father of light,
Thine angels adore Thee, all veiling their sight;
All praise we would render, O help us to see
'Tis only the splendor of light hideth thee!

The whole hymn sparkles with brightness. And that brightness is so brilliant and celestial that we can't even see God's face for it. Someday we will be able to.

When I was a child my father gave me special glass to use when looking at solar eclipses. "You must use this glass," he commanded me, "Or you will hurt your eyes and go blind!"

And you know what? I still have that glass plate--and someday I won't even need it!

Is it Sin or is it Sins? Are we doing it wrong?

[Have we been doing it wrong?]

From Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God by J. I. Packer

The Gospel is a Message About Sin. It tells us how we have fallen short of God's standard; how we have become guilty, filthy, and helpless in sin, and now stand under the wrath of God. It tells us that the reason we sin continually is that we are sinners by nature, and that nothing we do, or try to do, for ourselves can put us right or bring us back into God's favor....Thus it leads us to self-despair. And this is also a necessary step. Not until we have learned our need to get right with God, and our inability to do so by any effort of our own, can we come to know the Christ, who saves from sin.

There is a pitfall here. Everybody's life includes things which cause dissatisfaction and shame. Everyone has had a bad conscience about some things in the past, matters in which he has fallen short of the standard which he set for himself, or which was expected by others.

The danger is that in our evangelism we should content ourselves with evoking thoughts of these things and making people feel uncomfortable about them, and then depicting Christ as the One who saves us from these elements in ourselves, without even raising the question of our relationship with God.

But this is just the question that has to be raised when we talk about sin. For the very idea of sin in the Bible is of an offense against God, which disrupts man's relationship with God.

Unless we see our shortcomings in the light of the law and holiness of God, we do not see them as sin at all. For sin is not a social concept; it is a theological concept. Though sin is committed by man, and many sins are committed against society, sin cannot be defined in terms of either man or society. We never learn what sin really is until we have learned to think of it in terms of God, and to measure it, not by human standards, but by the yardstick of His total demand on our lives.

What we have to grasp then, is that the bad conscience of the natural man is not all the same thing as conviction of sin. It does not follow then, that a man is convicted of sin when he is distressed about his weaknesses and the wrong things he has done.

It is not conviction of sin just to feel miserable about yourself and your failures, or would it be saving faith if a man in that condition called on the Lord Jesus Christ just to soothe him, cheer him up and make him feel confident again.

Nor would we be preaching the gospel (though we might imagine we are) if all we did was to present Christ in terms of a human's felt-wants ("Are you happy? Are you satisfied? Do you want peace of mind? Do you feel you have failed? Are you fed up with yourself? Do you want a friend? Then come to Christ--He will meet your every need--as if the Lord Jesus Christ were to be thought of as a fairy godmother or a super-psychiatrist).

No; we have to go deeper than that. To preach sin means not to make capital out of people's felt frailties (the brain washer's trick), but to measure their lives by the holy law of God. To be convicted of sin means not just to feel that one is an all-around flop, but to realize that one has offended God, flouted His authority, defied Him, gone against Him, and put oneself in the wrong with Him.

To preach Christ means to set Him forth as the One who, through His cross, sets man right with God again. To put faith in Christ means relying on Him, and Him alone, to restore us to God's fellowship and favor.


[How do we know we are doing it right?]

Conviction of sin is essentially an awareness of a wrong relationship with God.

It is not just a wrong relationship with one's neighbor, or one's own conscience, but with one's Maker, the God in whose hand one's breath is and on whom one depends for existence every moment.

To be convicted of sin is to be aware of one's need of what Ezekiel called a "new heart" (Ezekiel 36:26) and of a "new birth" as Christ told Nicodemus in John 3:16.

J. I Packer goes on to say:

Perhaps the shortest way to determine if a person is convicted of sin or not, is to go to Psalm 51.

V. 1. Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your unfailing love;
according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

V. 2-3. Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.
For I know my transgressions,And my sin is always before me.

V. 4. Against you, you only, have I sinned
And done what is evil in your sight, so that you are proved right when you speak and justified when you judge.

V. 5. Surely I was sinful at birth,
Sinful from the time my mother conceived me.

V. 6. Surely you desire truth in the inner parts;
You teach me wisdom in
the inmost place.

V. 7. Cleanse me with hyssop,
and I will be clean.
Wash me, and I will be whiter that snow.

V. 8. Let me hear joy and gladness.
Let the bones you have crushed
rejoice.

V. 9. Hide your face from my sins
And blot out all my iniquity.

V. 10. Create in me a pure heart, O God,
And renew a steadfast spirit within me.
-- Psalm 51: 1-10


In this psalm David is confessing not only his specific sin (with Bathsheba and Uriah) in verses 1-4, but also the depravity of his nature in verses 5-6 and seeks cleansing from both in verses 7-10.

Probably the best way to find out if a person is convicted of his sin or not is to take him right to this psalm and see if his heart is speaking anything like the psalmist is in these words.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just
to forgive us our sins and purify us from all
unrighteousness.
I John 1:9

My Funeral

Some years ago Art and I both made our funeral arrangements -- what they call "pre need" -- and they are paid for--"pre-paid pre-need."

Art actually has two paid for: one for a cremation and the other for a casket burial. Here's the deal about that: I don't approve of cremation, so if he goes first, I will bury him in casket in a grave. If I go first, people can follow his wishes for cremation, or do anything they want!

I originally wanted all the traditional service arrangements -- embalming, viewing, etc.

And I wanted the song, "What a Wonderful World," to be sung by a soloist.

I don't really like that song anymore. The first few verses are about God's beautiful nature and that part is great. But then he starts talking about people -- seeing friends shaking hands and saying 'How do you do?' -- they're really saying 'I love you!'

No, that's not what is happening a lot of times. Often people are saying, "Hurry and get out of my way," or "I don't really care how you are doing, I just want to appear polite and interested, which I am not, either of those, in fact."

And sometimes the people we are saying hello to are selling drugs to kids, or serial killers!

Some time ago I became cynical, I guess. I don't remember when it happened. Life has become like a 'pop-up' book and all the pop ups are unkind and evil. (Not always)

So I feel differently now. I just want a graveside service. Closed casket. Nothing more.

I want the officiant to read some scripture -- not about grass withering in the field -- but about the certainty of God's love.

And then I would like everyone to hold hands and repeat together the Apostles Creed:

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth.

And in Jesus Christ, His Only Son, our Lord,
Who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary,

Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;

He descended into hell. The third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty, from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
The holy Christian church,
The communion of the saints,
The forgiveness of sin, the resurrection of the body
And the life everlasting.

Amen

The part about Jesus descending into hell bothers us sometimes. Some people say it was translated incorrectly when the Creed was translated into English -- that it should be "Hades," and that is what Bro. Mike was talking about a few weeks ago.

I heard Tony Evans today talking about Christ having the "keys to death and Hades" as recorded in Revelation 1:18. I've been thinking about that. In the Old Testament, in Job and other places, we see Satan running "to and fro" over the earth and even before God's heavenly Kingdom! And accusing Joshua the High Priest in Zechariah.

Then later in Revelation we read about an angel who has the key to the Abyss and the angel locks up Satan for 1000 years in that Abyss and then lets him out again for the last battle.

I don't know if that is to be taken literally or not. But it does lead us to speculate that when Jesus died He did descend into Hades and took the keys from Satan, because, Christ, at the cross, defeated Satan and death, and proclaimed victory!

But if you want to leave out the line about Christ descending into hell, it's OK with me.

It's an old creed -- some of the lines date back to 100 A.D. And it defines very clearly what I believe, and so that defines were clearly who I am (or was.)

I don't think there is anything else that needs to said at my graveside service.
Maybe a bagpiper playing Amazing Grace would be nice. But not necessary.

After all, I won't be there! And being safely with our God sure beats the alternative!

(US) Providence - Part #2 - Also A City in Rhode Island

Just a few years before the Westminster Catechism was written (in the 1640's, by English and Scottish Christian theologians) Roger Williams was over here, in colonial New England, having disputes with the leaders of Massachusetts Bay Colony.

He was politely asked to leave and go elsewhere to start his own colony, which he did. About 1636 he settled at Narragansett (Rhode Island). It was a beautiful area, and appeared to be very productive. He made a treaty with the Narragansett Indians and purchased the area, naming it God's Merciful Providence.

We call it Providence today.

Remember Squanto? Well he was from one of the local tribes and helped Roger Williams and the settlers who were flocking to the area. Roger Williams directed that this area have complete religious freedom. With Squanto's help, he compiled a partial dictionary of the Indians' languages. Today it is the only key to those historic local languages.

The Indians and the settlers in that area had a strong, friendly relationship. Later, when other settlers began moving in and the religious nature of the colony began to change, the friendly climate also changed.

Anyway, Roger Williams was acknowledging the 'merciful providence of God' when he named his settlement.

The Westminster Catechism was not the first such document. In the 1570's (about 70 years earlier) some German theologians wrote The Heidelberg Catechism. It used the same "Question and Answer" format as the Westminster (and Socrates), but was divided into 52 parts so that churches could use it every Sunday afternoon to teach the individual lessons.

The popular Westminster Catechism begins:

Q. What is the chief end of man?
A. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.

(Bro Mike talked some about that last Sunday in his message on Heaven -- what a great day that was -- and what a great day that will be -- When we all get to heaven -- that will be the first day of the rest of our lives!)


The Heidelberg Catechism starts differently:

Q. What is your only comfort in life and death?

A. That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with His precious blood and has set me free from all the power of the devil. He also preserves me in such a way that without the will of my heavenly Father not a hair can fall from my head; indeed, all things must work together for my salvation. Therefore, by His Holy Spirit He also assures me of eternal life and makes me heartily willing and ready from now on to live for Him

.

Later, in questions 27 and 28, the Heidelberg document talks about providence.

27. Q. What do you understand by the providence of God?

A. God's providence is His almighty and ever-present power, whereby as with His hand, He still upholds heaven and earth and all creatures, and so governs them that leaf and blade, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, indeed, all things, come not by chance but by His fatherly hand.

28. Q. How does it benefit us to know that God has created all things and still upholds them by His providence?

A. We can be patient in adversity, thankful in prosperity, and with a view to the future we can have a firm confidence in our faithful God and Father that no creature shall separate us from His love, for all creatures are so completely in His hand that without Him, they can not do as much as move.

All things come, not by chance, but by His fatherly hand.... That's the best news I've heard in a long time! Call Katie Curic! Call Dan Rather!

Isn't it beautiful the way God's title of "Father" and "Providence" are linked together?

Help me, Lord, when toil and trouble meeting
E'er to take, as from a father's hand,
One by one, the days, the moments fleeting
Till I reach the promised land.

Day by day and with each passing moment
Strength I find to meet my trials here
Trusting in my Father's wise bestowment
I've no cause for worry or for fear

He whose heart is kind beyond all measure
Gives unto each day what He deems best....

Help me then, in every tribulation
So to trust Thy promises, O Lord
That I lose not faith's consolation
Offerd me within Thy holy Word.

DOXOLOGY......Praise God from whom ALL blessings flow!

Providence --not just a city in Rhode Island

When we drive to church we take CR 521 from our home on the San Bernard River about 12 miles to Cedar Lane, where we take FM 457 into Bay City.

It is a lovely route, almost no traffic, just lots of beautiful cows, goats, sheep, birds, and deer, and sometimes roseate spoonbills. I love that ride. In the winter it is just beginning to dawn (And I think of Emily Dickinson's words --

I'll tell you how the sun rose,
A ribbon at a time
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran....)

Often the colors of the sunrise are like "ribbons" unfurling in the sky. And our "steeples" are tall trees....but it works anyway!

Last week I noticed all the hay bales dotting the meadows (fields?). It was a truly beautiful sight.

I didn't always think hay bales were beautiful.

Once we visited an art museum to see a special exhibit of Impressionists' Paintings. My favorite is Monet, and I was looking forward to seeing some of his original works -- his gardens at Giverceny, the pond with the bridge over it, the flowers -- all those almost unbearable vibrant colors -- the ethereal light that transforms his glimpses of nature into radiant images.

But when I got to the museum, I realized that at least half of Monet's paintings on display were of hay stacks and hay bales! Some of the visitors gasped in delight at the detail and perfection of the scenes, at the golden light that touched the hay at just the right angles...but not me!

I came to see the FLOWERS! The POND!

But now I am a different person and so I see the bounty of God's goodness whenever I see bales of hay! It is what our ancestors called providence.

It refers to the way God's perfectly formed creation itself is designed to provide for the needs of His creatures, with or without our help. So when I see the hay bales now I praise God for the way He provided for all of His creatures!


The hay bales are beautiful to me now. As I see the golden light transforming them into perfect symbols of His goodness I hear a voice in my head reminding me that we should be a more thankful people.


Come, ye thankful people, come
Raise the song of harvest home!
All is safely gathered in
Ere the winter storms begin

God, our Maker doth provide
For our wants to be supplied
Come to God's own temple come,
Raise the song of harvest home.

Our ancestors all understood providence.

In the Westminster Catechism, which we studied as children:

Question 11. What are God's works of providence?
Answer: God's works of providence are: His most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all His creatures and their actions.

The Scriptures we learned to support the answer were:

1. Psalm 145:17 - The Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works.
2. Psalm 104:24 - O Lord, how manifold are Thy works! In wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy riches.
3. Hebrews 1:3 - Who being the brightness of His glory, and the express image of His person, and upholding all things by the word of His power, when he had by Himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high.
4. Psalm 103:19 - The Lord hath prepared His throne in the heavens; and His kingdom ruleth over all.

Matthew 10:29-30 - Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Job 38-41 (All of the verses of these chapters)

Maybe we should talk about God's providence more. It does clash, though, with today's popular world view that does not recognize God's sovereignty
(or most often God Himself) and His concern with His creatures.

Sometimes I get tired of it all -- all the humanistic proclamations about our society and where we are, or should be, going -- from people who have 'eyes but see not' and 'ears but hear not.'

When I get really tired of all the "garbage" being touted around me, I turn back to

Even so, Lord quickly come
Bring Thy final harvest home
Gather Thou Thy people in
Free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified,
In Thy presence to abide
Come, with all Thine angels,come,
Raise the glorious harvest home!

Therefore, comfort one another with these words!

US: I have to take a break

Founding Fathers.

I need to move on from this......I am getting obsessed. I do that sometimes -- just keep on wringing it out until either I am worn out or the material is. BUT
I always come back, because American history is so important to me.

So why am I so obsessed with the Founding Fathers, especially, right now, Thomas Jefferson?

Does it matter if our Founding Fathers were beginning this nation on Judeo-Christian philosophy? Does it in any way affect my own faith?

No, it doesn't affect my own worldview in any way. But it does affect my understanding of our nation's history--especially its beginning and its early years.

I can understand our nation's history so much better if I can view it as much as possible through their eyes, through their minds.

There are nations in the world today who are cruelly hostile to the message of Jesus Christ. And the church in some of those lands is growing fast. So having a government favorable to our faith is not a prerequisite for letting our light shine.

I guess what bothers me the most is why historians and teachers would lie about our history -- is it to promote their own agenda? Is it specifically to discredit our Christian faith and its influence on our leaders? Is it ultimately to destroy Christianity? Is it to internationalize our nation and lead us to involvement in a one-world government?

Remember John Lennon's song Imagine?

I think too many of our leaders today grew up on those words and have never yet really thought them out.

Imagine there's no heaven. It's easy if you try.
No hell below us, above us only sky.
Imagine all the people living for today...

[is he nuts? if everyone lived only for today?]

Imagine there's no countries, it isn't hard to do.
Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion, too.
Imagine all the people living life in peace.

[a world where nothing was important enough to die for -- everything trivial -- and they would live in peace -- only if they are all stoned out of their heads!]

Imagine no possessions, I wonder if you can,
No need for greed or hunger, a brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people sharing all the world

[oh yeah, like that's what will happen! People do not share! They hoard! Did he just sleep through history class? Did he ever look around at society?
Doesn't he understand that the purpose of government is to restrain the evil that men do to each other? Did he ever read Shakespeare? What kind of zombies did he live around?]

Here's the clincher:

You may say that I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.
I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will live as one.

Looks like some of our leaders did join him...

We have been taught so many lies.

Thomas Jefferson was not a deist. He deplored deism. He criticized some Jews of his day because they were deists. He did not mean the Jews of the Old Testament -- he cherished the Jewish scriptures -- he meant the Jews he knew -- and most Jews then, as now, are atheists or agnostics as far as religion goes. They are ethnic Jews and proud of their heritage, but most have given up their faith. (There are groups of Jews of course who still read and study the Torah and worship God, but that is a minority).

Was he a Christian? I don't know. He claimed to be, often. All of that is between him and God.

Jefferson did not like John Calvin. He did not believe in the Trinity -- he considered that heresy. But in his later years he began calling Jesus "Our Savior."

It appears he considered God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as one God with just 3 forms, or faces. He did not think they had distinct personalities.

Did he cut up the pages of his Bible and remove all the miracles of Christ from the gospels? What he did was to take out all the words of Christ from the evangels (the gospels) and arrange them chronologically -- he said it was the words of Christ that were of supreme importance, not the miracles. I don't know whether he believed the miracles. It appears he did. But he felt the words were far more important and said on several occasions that if Christians went back to the words of Christ and taught them all over the world there would be peace and liberty for everyone. He said often that the words of Christ could change the whole world.

He wrote the words of Christ in the chronological order he favored in Greek, Latin, French and English. It was this small booklet that he read every night, his family said. They didn't know what was in the book until he died. He was generally very private about his faith.

Much of our information about him comes from his correspondence. It is estimated, based on his journals and existing letters, that he wrote and received at least 40,000 letters in his adult life. And remember these were all by hand, with pen and ink.

Often he says he wrote 10 to 11 letters a day. He answered every letter he received. (Remember, he invented a copying machine he called a polygraph -- it was strapped to his wrist and when he wrote a letter it would form one or two copies, using its "arm" and "pen.")

So why try to remove all of this from history?

I can't really think of any reason except this: Secular humanists are so frightened of the power of God and His Word and the reality of the gospel message and its influence on human culture that they have to try to destroy it -- is it the same lie as always -- the one that begins in Genesis 3 and ends in Revelation?

Those who look toward a one-world government are partially right: in the future there will be one nation/world under One Sovereign Lord and King -- but it doesn't happen at all like they "Imagine."

No temple could be seen in the city, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. And the city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light.

The nations of the earth will walk in its light, and the rulers of the world will come and bring their glory to it.

Its gates never close because there is no night. And all the nations will bring their honor and glory into the city.

Nothing evil will be allowed to enter--but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.

Revelation 21

And praise God that the grace of the Lord Jesus is with us all......

US : The Myth of Deism

Back in the 50's and 60's we heard people beginning to refer to our Founding Fathers as "deists." I remember thinking how strange that was and how those folks didn't seem to even know what deism was, and certainly they didn't know much about our Founding Fathers.

Sometimes trendy errors eventually get obliterated and there is no trace of them left in the following decades. But not this one. It is even more popular today.

What is deism?

Deism is a belief in a Creator God who, after completing His Creation, turned away from it and renounced any contact or intervention in its affairs. A popular illustration from deists is the picture of a well-made watch, in perfect order, left ticking away the hours in a forest.

Someone comes across the watch and assumes someone made it and left it there, but there is no evidence of who that person might be and certainly he never returns to reclaim (or re-wind or replace batteries). It just lies there ticking away til "time runs out."

Deists do not pray. There is no reason to waste the time since their god is not listening, and if he were, he would not answer. He will never intervene. He is an "absent god."

Daily life for deists is the same as daily life for atheists.

Sometimes deists engage in a form of meditation in order to "cleanse their minds" and "suppress negative thoughts." But they do not pray.

That certainly settles the question of our Founding Fathers. Even Benjamin Franklin, probably the least "spiritual" of the group prayed, and insisted on prayer during the various meetings of our early government. Thomas Jefferson, probably the one most referred to as a deist, considered prayer important.

And we all know about most of the others.

Some were active, out-spoken Christians. Some were not. But probably few of them, if any, were ever deists for any length of time.

Do why does our culture still place this tag on them?

Answer: Popular culture wants to reject all thoughts of a powerful God who exercises authority over them. People today pride themselves as being totally independent - all answers and all control lie within human beings themselves.

It is all so profoundly simple - we don't want a God because we don't want His authority to interfere in our lives -- we are humanists today. We don't need, nor want, God in our lives! Charles Darwin was, at least, honest when he explained the real importance of his theory of natural selection was that without it we would have to go back and put God in the picture!

And since the heritage of our Founding Fathers is so important to us, humanists must, in every way possible, reduce, deny, and trivialize their legacy.

That legacy to us was the belief in a powerful Creator God who endowed His creatures with dignity and stamped on them His own image. The purpose of government is to restrain evil and allow its people to hold on to their God-given rights.

But that means God has some authority in our lives. And that can't be allowed!

Another thing bothers me: how can we, many years after the fact, take a slice of a few moments (or months or years) of a person's life, and based on those instances, categorize that person permanently as one thing or another?

Do any of us believe exactly as we did while in college? Or when first married? Or as teen-agers?

I would hate for someone to say at my funeral that I believed in universalism, which I did for a short time. But I don't now and feel certain that I will never return to that philosophy because I have more information now. I have a certain amount of wisdom and discernment which comes with age and I can see how illogical universalism is.

Labeling people, placing them in a fixed category permanently, does make studying history so much easier. We don't have to give careful thought to their writings or evaluate their positions based on the culture in which they lived. We don't have to ponder their words and actions. We don't have to search for primary sources. We can just call them a name, put them in a box, and move on to something else. It is all so superficial. It is unproductive. It is such a sad and uninteresting way to study history. It is truly dishonest, also.


What's the Answer to Deism?

Well,that's easy....Try the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation....one continual story of God's sovereign rule over His Creation. Of His intervention into human history. Every book whispers the story of God's holiness and grace.

With the Bible as our Sword, we can sever all false ideological tags that corrupt its story.

Everything in the Bible involves God's self-disclosure. It tells us about His nature, His purposes, and His activity. Happily for us, God has not left us on our own to figure things out, especially since our imaginations are "idol factories." He has taken the initiative to speak to us and to show us what He is like. He has given us a generous revelation of Himself.

A good place to start would be Hebrews 1:1-3:

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, and through whom He made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After He had provided purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.

Slingshots - Part 2

When Paul wrote his letter to the churches around the city of Ephesus he was serving a two-year sentence under "house arrest," chained to a guard. In the 6th chapter of Ephesians, verses 11-20 he cautions us:

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.

Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the gospel of peace as a firm footing.

In addition to this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Paul's guard while he was under arrest would have been a Roman soldier. Maybe Paul was looking at his captor while he was writing this letter. Probably the guard would not have been clothed in his full suit of armor, but Paul would have been very familiar with all it would include.

Paul lists the items of armor in the same order a soldier would use to prepare himself for battle. It is a complete outfit, providing protection from head to foot.

Stand is a key word in the passage. The armor provided protection from the assaults of the enemy. But it would not be very easy to run with it all on. The men wearing armor like this were expected to stand, to hold the line, to form a barrier.

THE BELT OF TRUTH

The belt would be first. It would be tied snugly around the waist. The belt was not a fashion statement--its purpose was to gather in the short tunic and help keep the breastplate in place. And from it he would hang his scabbard, the sheath for his sword. When a soldier loosened his belt, he was "off duty." When it was tied tightly he would be prepared to face the enemy.

Paul referred to this belt as the belt of truth. What truth was Paul talking about? The truth that is in Jesus, he wrote in the fourth chapter of this letter; and the fruit of the light, in the fifth chapter. It's the whole body of truth we find in God's word.

There are many "false truths" in our culture today. That makes sense when you think about it. If there wasn't a real truth, there would be no need to counterfeit it. How do bankers detect a counterfeit bill? By comparing it to a legitimate one.

These false claims to be truth, or claims that there is no truth, are hurled at us every day from the foes that surround us. We need to tighten our belt of truth, secure it, and stand against the enemies of the gospel.

THE BREASTPLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

The breastplate covered the soldier's body from his neck to his thighs. It was sometimes called a heart-protector. Sometimes they were bronze and sometimes actual
chain-mail (like we see in movies about the knights in the Middle Ages.) It always covered the soldier's front (the actual breast-plate); but sometimes there was another separate piece that covered the back. That was not "standard issue."
Probably the Roman military leaders did not want their soldiers to have back protection.

Isaiah 59:17 tells us that the LORD put on righteousness as his breastplate and the helmet of salvation on his head.

Our breastplate is Christ's righteousness. We are clothed in His goodness. All our own righteousness is no better than filty rags.

Our protection cannot be found in any works of our own, but only in what Christ has done for us and in us. He did for us what we would not, and could not, ever do.

THE BOOTS OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE

The boots came next. They were heavy-duty, with thick soles studded with sharp nails.
They helped ensure a good grip on the rough ground. Alexander the Great's men wore similar shoes. The Greek and the Roman armies actually made good time on long marches in this type of footwear. And having one's feet shod this way meant the soldiers were ready at any moment to be called for duty.

We must be "ever-ready" also.

THE SHIELD OF FAITH

After the boots, the soldier would take hold of his shield. This was a large oblong or oval piece, with a handle inside, for the soldier to hold in front of him.

It was usually two layers of wood glued together, covered with linen and hide, and bound with iron. When soldiers fought side by side, as they often did, they would form a solid wall of protection.

In the Roman wars the enemies sometimes dipped their darts in pitch and then ignited them. These darts could be stopped by the wall of shields.

When we stand together we can fight the arrows and slings of Satan easier. With that wall of faith in front of us we can withstand his assaults. It's much more effective than trying to stand alone.

All these parts of the armor were laid out for the soldier to put on.

THE HELMET OF SALVATION

The helmet had to be placed on the soldier's head by an attendant or armor-bearer.
(The soldier was holding the shield. He could not put it on by himself.)

The helmet was made of bronze with leather attachments. It had to be adjusted to fit properly.

If we look back again at Isaiah 59:17, we are told that God wears the helmet of salvation, as well as the breastplate of righteousness.

The salvation Paul is talking about here is full salvation to be obtained when the final war is over. Someone has said this salvation is a present deliverance from sin to be consummated in eternity by complete deliverance from every kind of evil.

In 1 Thessalonians 5:8 the helmet is identified with the hope of full salvation.

We have been saved from the guilt of sin. (Past)
We are being saved from the power of sin. (Present)
We will be saved from the very presence of sin in heaven. (Future)

Salvation has a past, present and future meaning.

We have been saved; we are being saved; we will be saved.

And, like the Roman soldier, we cannot put the helmet on ourselves.

THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT

Finally, the sword. Paul does not mention a spear, which would have been part of the equipment. Probably his guard's spear was not there, because there wouldn't be much reason to have a spear inside.

His sword would be a two-edged thrusting sword. It is the only offensive piece of equipment mentioned. ...the sword of the spirit which is the word of God.

Just as Jesus used the word of God to dispel Satan in the wilderness, so we use His words to fight our battles against the enemy.

Jesus answered Satan

It is written, 'Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'

Jesus was claiming God's word recorded in Deuteronomy 8:3.

Swords have not changed much over the years. In the Texas Revolution men had swords. But they were used a little differently. Usually they were used as a machete to clear dry brush from around the cannons. Firing a cannon caused sparks that could cause a grass fire, which would ignite the cannon and the ammunition. So the men first cleared the area with their sword-machete. (There were still a lot of accidents.)

Using God's words enabled Jesus to withstand temptation. We, too, can "thrust" it out and make ineffective Satan's assaults on us. God's word gives us power, and makes Satan powerless.

Using all the armor and the sword we can stand fearlessly in our stand against evil.

Paul finishes this section with:

Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given to me so that I can fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I may declare it fearlessly, as I should.

Ephesians 6:19-20.

Pray that we all will declare the gospel fearlessly.

Beautiful Christian Women

My friend Bertha Wells sent this:

A woman's heart should be so hidden in Christ that a man should have to seek Him first to find her.

When I say "I am a Christian," I am not shouting that 'I am clean living.' I'm whispering 'I was lost, but now I'm found and forgiven.'

When I say "I am a Christian," I don't speak of this with pride. I'm confessing that I stumble and need Christ to be my guide.

When I say "I am a Christian," I'm not trying to be strong. I'm professing that
I am weak and need His strength to carry on.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not bragging of success. I'm admitting I have failed and need God to clean up my mess.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not claiming to be perfect. My flaws are far too visible, but God believes I am worth it.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I still feel the sting of pain. I have my share of heartaches, so I call upon His name.

When I say, "I am a Christian," I'm not 'holier than thou.' I'm just a simple sinner who received God's good grace, somehow!

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