The Fundamental Blog

The feeling of having one’s sight restored, of emerging from the haze of a fog bank is one of relief, security and that of restoration to a sense of truthfulness. The problem is that when all you have ever known is the dim mist of a dense fog, you never realize that you are seeing less than you should. It’s been almost 9 months since I turned in my keys and left the world of truck driving but I still remember, as if it were only yesterday, the feeling of waking up early to begin driving in a thick fog. There is a lot of pressure on professional drivers under normal circumstances, and more so when trying to accomplish their tasks in unfavorable weather conditions.

What a lot of people do not understand is that most of the company drivers, (Swift, CRST, Maverick, J.B. Hunt, Schneider, etc…), are ALWAYS at fault whenever there is an accident. It doesn’t matter how unavoidable it seems to be, (with the possible exception of deer hits), the professional driver is at fault. They have federal driver’s licenses and are held to a higher standard of excellence in all things road related. They are supposed to know better. They are always driving too fast, following too close or simply in the wrong place at the wrong time and they should have been somewhere else so that the incident didn’t occur. This doesn’t change the fact that deadlines have to be met and loads have to be delivered on time. When the fog rolls in and you wake up to, “ground-clouds,” there is no respite.

I remember a time when I woke up in southern Ohio in the wee hours of the morning on my way to an early delivery in Tennessee and hitting solid fog as soon as I got to the Kentucky state line. All morning I drove through the thick haze not being able to see more than a few car lengths in front of me. I slowed down so that another vehicle would pass and give me a tail light beacon to follow; I was teetering between having to slow down for safety’s sake and driving at a near-normal speed to get to the delivery on time and not be a hazard on the interstate. Driving in fog is a very tiring thing too. Your eyes start to glaze over and it is almost as though you are in a waking dream; it’s not real – except that it is! The scary part is that you reach a point where it becomes normal. You become OK with not being able to see, the road isn’t going to do anything radical and the odds of hitting anything becomes deceivingly small.

The fog thickens and you realize that you are going too fast, you slow and worry that you have become an obstacle to traffic. You can become comfortable in your ability to navigate a road that you cannot see. You find yourself thanking God that a deer, that you couldn’t see until your front bumper reached the point where it suddenly emerged from its invisibility, thankfully stood still on the shoulder. That’s how the world lives their lives; how we all lived our lives, before we were found in the Lord. We were all born into a fog and learned to understand it as normal. We were lost but didn’t realize that we didn’t know where the road we were on led.

We go through life as though the swirling mist is the only thing we will ever know. We come upon dangers and confusions and can’t see them until they are right in front of our faces. The clouds thin and we pick up speed, thinking that we are the masters of our destinies and then we hit the next dense pocket that blinds us and slows us to a crawl. We are truly lost. There is no GPS to guide us through the twist and turns that are beyond our ability to read as we look out of our filthy windshields. Not a map in the world can explain the route that will lead to a clearer path. God places road signs to guide us but we see them too late to act, or not at all. All we know is that what we have been doing seems to have been working so far, so we keep on doing what it is that we have done before.

When God speaks into our lives we are given the ability to see the road signs in time to act, the milepost that tells us there is another way to go. We decide that any path must be at least as good as the one we have been on, so we heed the call and turn off to try a new direction. We may reach an epiphany, the death of someone close to us, a surgery, accident or illness that stops us cold, we have something so transforming in our lives that it is like a shaft of guiding light so brilliant that it pierces the fog. Sometimes we are given something so undeniable that we are compelled to follow the beacon to the place where the clouds part and we can see clearly for the first time. There is nothing to compare with the feeling of coming out of the fog.

I have broken out of fog banks so suddenly that the brilliance of the daylight was blinding, where I could look in the rearview mirror and see a wall of white standing across the road I was traveling as though it was a fortification of solid stone. The realization that our sight has, for years, been obscured and diffused; the appreciation for the ability to see the colors of a true landscape, can bring us to our knees. We can see the error of our selfish ways and lament the time we wasted insisting that we remain in the fog. We should also see that we have a debt that we can never repay. We have an opportunity; we can do something for those we left in the fog.

We must not be afraid to shine, to proclaim the grace which saved us and the need for the only Saviour that can bring us to the destination we desire. We can be the beacons that lead others out of the same fog we once were lost within. God alone touches us, enables us to hear His call to accept and follow Jesus, but He does more; He gives us tools and allows us the opportunities to use them in His service. Oswald Chambers wrote, “It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us.” The sweetness that God squeezes from us is not simply to fill His own cup, it is to share with others, with the lost, to refresh and encourage them in their quest toward a thing they cannot yet understand. We are squeezed, pressed, if you will, into His service.

How can a people, a people of God, at once hear and respond to the call of God and then turn and refuse the mission to which He called us. It is as though we are offered a job, as if we accept the position, and then say that although we are grateful for the employment, we aren’t going to do the job. It has been said that with great power comes great responsibility, and I believe that to be true. We have been saved and indwelled with the greatest power, the ultimate power, and so it is our lot to also accept the responsibility, the ultimate responsibility, to help those who we have left behind in the lives we used to live.

Coming out of the fog is only the beginning. To have our eyes opened to a reality that was before hidden from us is the starting point from where we begin the greatest work of our lives. Everything else we ever hope to achieve pales compared to the work God has prepared in advance for us to do. We all have a role to play in the purposes of God and we dare not ignore the responsibility entrusted to us. The responsibility is huge but it is not a chore. God empowers us by His Spirit to accomplish all that He has in mind for us. We are given everything we need to accomplish our tasks and we must always remember that the outcomes are never to make us look better; they are to show the world that the things of God are always given…


All for the Glory of Christ

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Not so long ago I was having a discussion with my best friend about all manner of things and the comment was made, “Why can’t people treat each other the way they treat Jesus?” After a little thought it struck me, we do! In Matthew 7:12, Jesus tells us, “So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets.” Most of us recognize this as, “The Golden Rule.” This universal code of interaction between people appears in nearly every theology, every society throughout time as an overriding truth which is true for all people. But looking at society today; our implementation of this axiom is nothing to be proud of.

My view may be somewhat cynical but I think that when people think that we should be treating one another like we would want to be treated, what we really mean is that we should be being treated like Jesus would be treating us. We are horrible people in our hearts. We carry malice toward many and ambivalence toward the rest. Sure, we love our families but even so; after a certain amount of time we wish they would go home, or hang up the phone or at least have the decency to not call when our favorite TV show is on. I know plenty of folks who call and have the same list of complaints, the same list of problems and the same list of excuses that I’ve heard for 10 years. It can leave a person wondering, “What was I thinking?” when you realize that you just asked, “How are you doing.”

I may be making a mistake by thinking that everyone reasons the same way as I do, or that what passes for the normal human condition in my life is parallel to that of everyone else, so if that’s not the case, then I may have offered more information about myself than was prudent; still, I look around and it seems to me that we do treat each other the way we treat Jesus. We promise anything to get something we need but then forget about what He has done for our sake. We plead for the mercies of the Lord and then neglect to give them to others. We tell the Lord that He is the Master of our lives and then set out to do everything on our own. How often do we say that we repent of a thing and then turn back to it in the next moment?

Isn’t it common today to say, “Let’s get together sometime,” knowing that we’re not going to follow through? We make commitments that we don’t keep and offer help that we’re not prepared to give. We politely lie to one another because it’s, “kinder,” than saying that those spandex shorts DO make you look fat. People are taking credit for work that is not their own and shifting blame for bad outcomes that they are responsible for creating. Our words and outward appearances shine like the sun but our hearts and the fulfillment of our intent sucks the life out of the universe of our existence like a black hole. We say that we want a kinder, gentler world but mean only that we want a world that’s kinder and gentler to us.

In a world of, “What goes around, comes around,” our, “goes around,” feeds our selfishness and then we duck to miss the, “comes around.” This is a phrasing found in much of the New-Age thought but is biblically valid as being the principle of sowing and reaping. We sow cheap seed with weeds mixed in, take the payment for sowing and then vanish before the crop comes up showing the substandard quality of our work. We go to church and pray for forgiveness with the full knowledge that we still have tons of bad seed that we need to get rid of, seed that we know we are going to start planting again on Monday morning.

We want others to treat us like Jesus would, (that’s if Jesus turned a blind eye to the evil we do), and then ask His blessings as we venture out to do the same things over and over again. We all want mercy and grace, we want to not be punished for the things that deserve it and we hope for the abundance of things we have not earned. We want to be able to tip the scales in our own favor because, “That’s the way business is done,” but expect everyone else to trade fairly with us. We want to be treated better than we are willing to treat others and somehow think that it’s normal; that it’s expected, that we’re entitled to get by with it.

We are not getting by with anything. God knows how we are dealing with one another. One day the false prophet will stand before God and have to answer for the fleecing of the flock. How can they justify taking money for the promise of a false salvation? How can we swing our foot in the dust with a downward glance and say, “Shucks Lord, it’s just the way business is done?” When we wonder why we don’t treat each other the same way we treat Jesus, consider that we do; consider also that He may well treat us the same way too.

To some He will say, “Away from me all you evildoers, I never knew you.” The Bible is full of warnings that as we judge, so shall we be judged, and the measure we use will be the measure used against us. This is not to say that some who are saved do not still make some of these mistakes; I know I am saved, and am sure of my salvation and yet there are still some that I murder, (if my thoughts are ill toward any). I love my wife more than anything on this earth but I have cheated on her, (If I have ever looked at a woman in lust). These are not moments that I take any pride in sharing; they are the moments that too often are dismissed as unimportant because we have come to accept them as ordinary failings. Christian, an ordinary failing is still a failing and any failing is less than ordinary when we are brought before the bar of justice in the heavenly courts.

The way we treat one another is not necessarily an acid test on the state of our salvation but if we can treat one another poorly and not be bothered by it, if we are not consumed with regret by the Spirit dwelling within us, then we had better check to see if we were ever set apart in the first place. The Spirit of God will not abide the willful sin nor will it leave us without conviction for the fallen errors we commit. Do unto others as we would have them do unto us? Are we sure that we’re ready for that? Perhaps we should update that to say, “Treat others far better than you have any reason to expect that you’ll ever be treated.”

The day is coming when we will all treat one another the way we treat Jesus but I fear that it will have to wait for the new heaven and the new earth. If we start treating the Lord Jesus with the reverence, the respect, the undying gratitude and the thankfulness that He is entitled to, maybe then we will start treating each other better. We need to get to the place where we’re more interested in giving the love and blessings of the Lord than we are in receiving them. The lives we live for the sake of the Lord need to be as important to us as the sacrifice that the Lord offered for us. Of course; our actions can never be considered as anywhere near equal to those of the Lord but our minds need to be changed. Our actions need to be moving ever closer to the point where we display the saving grace that has been poured into our lives. Just as the glory of the Lord is the outpouring which has changed us; our heart’s outpourings need to be…


All for the Glory of Christ

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A Cup?

Have you ever seen counterfeit products? On the streets of a big city you may find someone selling Rolex watches at unbelievable prices or you may happen by a kiosk selling discount Gucci handbags and think, “This is too good to be true!” There is wisdom in the adage, “If it seems too good to be true, then it probably isn’t.” But how do we spot the fake? It isn’t because the knock-off doesn’t have the signature stitching as much as it is that the genuine product does! Only by knowing what’s real can a person identify what isn’t. It’s an axiom that’s as true for products and money as it is for faith.

Last week in Sunday School the leader passed around some play money to have us glance at and then asked if it was real. Everyone immediately responded that it wasn’t; then he asked how we knew. OK, the fact that it had printed, right on the face of the bill, “Play Money,” was a dead giveaway, but it was obvious, the colors were wrong, the paper was wrong, the images were wrong, even the size of the bill was wrong. The only way to know that something is wrong though is to know what’s right. Treasury agents do not study counterfeit money to be able to recognize it; they study genuine currency so they can identify the real deal. It is impossible to learn the truth by studying lies, in order to spot lies a person must first know the truth.

A boy once said to me that he wanted to study all of the world’s religions before committing to one. I told him that, that was fine, but added that he should start with Christianity before searching out the others. A few months later he accepted the altar call and devoted his life to Christ. It was not because he had disproved every other faith system in the world; it was because he had been confronted with an undeniable truth. The Holy Spirit proved to him that there was no other God, there was no other doctrine and there was no need for further exploration of other theologies. When a French monarch once proposed the persecution of Christians in his dominion, an old statesman and warrior said to him, “Sire, the church of God is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.”

There is a car called the Excalibur. The Excalibur came from Milwaukee Wisconsin and was created in the 1960’s. It was very cool and very pricy. The remaining cars today can still fetch over $60,000.00 and as much as I would have liked to have owned one, I knew that I never would. Then came the invention of Kit-Cars. These were fiberglass knockoffs of very expensive cars made to fit on Volkswagen frames. These made the unreachable, available to everyone. Sure it was a fake but then even an original Excalibur was modeled after the 1928 Mercedes Benz SSK! People bought these kits because they wanted the impression of originality without the cost. In the same way we can find sects today that are cheap imitations of erroneous theology which promise the luxury of eternal bliss without the cost of Jesus’ life at Calvary.

Today, any comfortable counterfeit is acceptable. “Don’t want to accept Jesus as the ONLY way to Heaven? – No problem! Can’t agree with the doctrines of Hell? – You don’t have to! Want to be saved without investing anything of yourself? – We’ve got you covered! We are the largest dispensers of eternal promise at the very best prices anywhere. Come on in to Sal’s Discount Religion and see what we have to offer. In just under an hour, you can sit in the seats, walk the isle, and have your eternal destiny assured, and all for the ridiculously low, low price of; how’s $100.00 sound? Too high? We can work out an installment plan. Now you can have prayers answered, heaven guaranteed and hang out with a great bunch of friendly folks for next to nothing! Come on in and see what a difference we can make in your life and remember; ‘You can’t spell salvation without – Sal!’ Family rates available and – se habla espanol.”

People eat this stuff up because they don’t feel the need to do the work required to know that something is real. It isn’t like this is the most important thing they will ever do; oh wait – IT IS! Someone says we need religion so we find someone who is selling religion, we buy a slice and we’re done. What really happens though is that the religion we buy is not the religion that we heard we needed, nor is the religion that we heard we needed, that which leads to genuine salvation! Madison Avenue can never dispense salvation; salvation starts with the Holy Spirit drawing us to the call of God in our lives, the knowledge that we have correctly received the truth of God and the quickening of our souls which allow us to understand and follow the Saviour.

Nearly everyone we encounter on a daily basis has heard enough of something to enable them to accept anything as all they need to satisfy their requirements with God. True, there are still untold millions who have never heard anything, but most of the folks we encounter have an inkling. Who are they? They are everyone, everywhere, and they are even sitting in the pew night next to us each week. There is no substitute for the right knowledge of Jesus Christ. Every aspect of who He is, what He did, why He did it and what is to come in the future as a result of it is critical if we are to ensure our home in Heaven. We cannot accept a counterfeit without running the risk of hearing, “I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers.” Matthew 13:27.

The decision we make concerning Jesus Christ is the single most important thing we will ever have to wrestle with. We have to realize our standing in the plan of God, understand the instruction that God has provided in Christ Jesus and make the decision to either accept Him, or reject Him. Once we die there is no further opportunity to appeal, the lot is forever cast. No prayers for the dead can help those who sleep in their lost-ness; no warnings can be sent from those who realize too late the mistake they made. Hebrews 9:27 plainly states that, “… man is destined to die once, and after that to face the judgment.” While we are alive we have the chance to do right, to make mistakes and correct them, to confess Christ as Lord and King and thereby ensure our position in the heavenly courts. If we fail to take care of this most important business, than that will stand as the decision we made.

We are sure to be kicked around for our faith; Jesus told us we would be persecuted. Our walks of faith are battered and worn, abused and renewed and crumpled and beaten about but it’s alright as long as we have that genuine faith in Jesus. The old song says to, “Give me that old time religion,” and that’s what we all need. That old time religion is the one that Jesus brought with Him as He walked the earth and gave us the truth of the Father by which to walk. There truly, “Ain’t nothing like the real thing.” But just as we can easily recognize a genuine dollar bill even though it may be wrinkled, crumpled, battered and faded, so too will others recognize a genuine faith burning in us as long as it’s a faith that’s…


All for the glory of Christ

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A Cup?

As Jesus was being crucified He prayed for His oppressors saying, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus was stating that the men who were in the process of taking His very life had no idea that they were murdering the earthly presentation of God. They thought that they were being faithful because their priests and elders had ordered the death of just another heretic, a public blasphemer, and that it was the right thing to do. In this situation Jesus asked that God, the Father, not hold against the men who were charged with the execution order, the additional sin of the death of the Son of God; the taking of a life under Mosaic law, (that which condemns the blasphemer), is one thing; the murder of the earthly vessel which was the dwelling place of God Himself, well, that would be quite another.

What about the situation where a person is looking straight at the answers? What defense is there when the plan of God is right in front of a man and he ignores responsibility for trying to understand what he has been given? We are extremely fortunate to have access to the Bible, and yet; very few today take the time to actually read what it has to say. We are satisfied to be lemmings who accept what someone else tells us the Bible says without ever opening one for ourselves. If you know me at all, you know that this is a recurring theme with me: we must read the Word of God for ourselves and allow the Spirit of God to teach us the things which God would have us know. The alarming part is that we, being so blessed in this country as to not be restricted from reading the Word, forego our liberty as though it is ordinary.

Today, we hear accounts of places where Christians are reviled and severely persecuted for their faith, even to the point of death. This happens in other places and by certain extremist sects of otherwise peaceful religions, right? It was not always so. Yes, other faiths have always had a problem with Christians, but even within the fold of Christendom, we have been at war with one another. I rarely promote material in these columns, except the Bible, but I want to make an attempt to make everyone aware of a book that should be on everyone’s reading list. I am referring to, “The Book of Martyrs,” by John Fox, [Foxe], (1517-1587). I found this book years ago when I was trying to figure out what happened to the Apostles after the writings of Paul stopped, and I have been drawn back to it as it cried from my shelf to be revisited over the past several weeks.

The Book of Martyrs was, for almost 100 years, the only literature available to the Christian that served to mold the character of the faithful besides the Bible. Prior to the publication of, “A Pilgrim’s Progress,” by John Bunyan in 1678, the faithful follower had only the Bible, The Book of Martyrs and the interference of the Roman church to use as frameworks in which to build a Godly life. I want there to be no mistake here. I am not elevating any other book to the equal status of the Scriptures; the Bible stands alone in its authority as the Word of God. But we, as Christians ought to be aware of the sufferings of the faithful over the past millennia. The early church had the Bible, God’s Word; The Book of Martyrs, which chronicled the fate of those who tried to live by the Word of God; and the oral tradition of Rome, which was often in conflict with the Word of God.

We cannot appreciate the gift we have in having a Bible to study in our homes unless we can understand what that gift cost so many of our predecessors. We need to be aware of the torment, the persecution and the torture that the early believers endured in order to understand the importance of what we so freely take for granted today. The same 66 books of the Bible that so many write off today as mere fictitious fables developed for those who are weak in their self-sufficiency, are the same 66 books that comprise the same Bible that thousands gave themselves to the martyr’s pyre for by their refusal to renounce. The steadfast refusal of so many valiant pillars of the faith to buckle to the demands of outside forces is a testament to the truth that is revealed in the pages of Scripture.

This book taught me things that I never knew before. Most of us know about the three friends of Daniel who were thrown into the fiery furnace, but did you know that John, “the Apostle that Jesus loved,” was boiled in oil with no ill effect prior to being sent into exile on the island of Patmos? I didn’t. I had heard that Peter was crucified up-side-down before, and as bad as that was, the persecution of the followers of the, “Way,” has been far more extensive than most of us can imagine. Did you know that reading the Bible used to be a capital offense and the selling of a Bible could cost the bookseller his life? In 1546, Peter Chapot brought a number of Bibles, in the French language into France and openly sold them on the streets. For this offense he was arrested, sentenced and within just a few days thereof, executed.

In the early 1600’s, during the persecution of the Albigenses under Pope Alexander III; an express order was issued that the laity should not be permitted to read the sacred Scriptures. People, good people, died for doing something that we don’t even think worthwhile today. If people refused to renounce their religion, risked torture and death for the sake of owning a Bible, does it make sense that we should dismiss such a book without even reading it? If we are planning on letting our children drive in traffic shouldn’t we, as responsible citizens, demand that they read the DMV regulations and get a driver’s license first? If we are going to foray into life on this planet, shouldn’t we at least be aware of the plan God has for us before we begin to mess it up?

People will tell us that the Bible is not reliable, that it’s dated or irrelevant in an enlightened society, such as the one we enjoy today. Why listen to people concerning the potentially most important aspect of our lives when we wouldn’t trust these same people to pick out our clothing? We owe it to ourselves, our children, our God to read His Word. Just as the new driver may read the DMV manual and then decide to go out and act in ways that indicate that they have no regard for its content, many people may read the Bible and still decide that it doesn’t apply in their lives. But we need to at least read the book before dismissing it.

The world is our, “Great Congregation.” We are all God’s creation and we all have, set before us, ample evidence of the greatness, the affection and the sovereignty of God. Our evidence begins with the glory of God which is displayed in all of creation and continues through the truth revealed to us by the power of the Holy Spirit within the pages of Scripture. In Psalm 40:10 David shares with us, “I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy loving-kindness and thy truth from the great congregation.” King David is not patting himself on the back here; he is acknowledging to God that he is doing what the Spirit is driving him to do. David is boldly carrying the Word of God as God has directed him through His Word. David has read God’s Word and is acting responsibly with it.

We cannot act responsibly with the Word of God, we cannot hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, we cannot know what God would have us do unless we open the book and give God a chance to thaw our hearts toward Him. Between the extremes of doom and damnation, and wealth and prosperity preaching is the truth of God’s Word and we have no excuse for not searching it out. We have the blessing of being able to read, to own our own copy of God’s Word as never before in the existence of man. We can hold, in our hands, a book that others suffered torture and death for simply reading, without fear of reprisal; but we don’t bother.

We don’t care about our lives, we don’t consider the destinies of our children, we discount the value of the life of Jesus, a life that He gave up for us to provide the only possible path to the Father, we don’t care about anything anymore besides what’s for dinner and who is going to be the final pick on, The Bachelor.” We care only slightly more about the cost of our soldier’s lives in the pursuit of America’s freedom than we do about the cost of our Saviour’s life on Calvary in the pursuit of our freedom from sin and the things that are destined to keep us from God for all eternity.

God bless those martyrs who stood fast in their faith and paved the way for us to freely follow the way of the Lord. God, give us the resolve to carry on the work so that millions of those who come after us may find the narrow gate and the straight path to you. God, help us to realize that we have a responsibility to learn and to hear the message that You have provided for us and to appreciate the ease we are afforded in being able to know you. God, forgive and enlighten those of us who know not what we do not do. God, open our eyes and ears that we may come to know You, and to know You better. God, let our desires be those which are…


All for the Glory of Christ

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In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth; shortly thereafter, God instituted His set of laws by which all people were to live and honor Him. It started with just one restriction; “You are free to eat of any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die.” Genesis 2: 16-17. So what did man do? He ate of the one tree which God had said not to eat from. Paul describes the principle in Romans 7 where he explains the nature of our struggle with sin by saying, “For I would not have known what coveting really was had not the law said, ‘Do not covet.’ But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire. For apart from the law, sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from the law: but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.”

So from the very beginning, we were unable to do the only thing that we were given to do; to be obedient to God’s Word. Then came the, “Big Ten,” and then all the rest of the Mosaic Law which was dictated to Moses on Mount Sinai, directly from the mouth of God. Apparently God decided that if we couldn’t manage one commandment, that we needed further instruction. Well, we didn’t fare much better with those laws and eventually the system was reduced to a, “Pass-Fail,” program. Just believe in Jesus Christ and be saved. But we’re not doing much better with this last option than we did with the first. Our free will linked with the principles of Romans 7, rears up so that the commandment that is intended to bring life creates in man every desire to find ways to dis-believe and strike out on our own.

We are commanded to, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Matthew 5:48. Since this is pretty much out of the question for us, we can thank God that our human perfection has been replaced by the perfection of Christ as bestowed upon us at our conversion, it’s a thing that we could never do on our own. God can lower the bar because He had it planned from the beginning and had good reason to teach us in the manner He chose to teach. Here in the society of the 21st century, we too are lowering the bar. The difference is that when God did it, it was for our betterment; when we do it, it is for our destruction.

There was a day when we sat in classrooms and studied hard to earn as high a score as possible on the exams that the schools had us complete. If we knew 60% of the material we passed, 70% was good for a, “C,” 80% was a, “B,” and if we scored 90% or better we came away with an, “A.” But we got lazy. It didn’t take long for the test scores to slip and so a new plan had to be thought up. In order that the schools didn’t appear to be losing their effectiveness, the curve appeared. Instead of needing to know 60% of the assigned material to pass, now the student only needed 60%, of the highest score awarded to the group to pass. If the highest score was 50% of the assigned material, then 45-50% becomes the, “A.” We have lowered the bar.

Instead of needing to know 60% of the assigned material to pass, when the highest score is only 50%, we only need 30% to get by. The Pass-Fail threshold becomes based on a subjective, lower percentile because otherwise, the highest score achieved would be a fail on an objective scale. God does not grade on a curve. He has set an absolute threshold for what is passing and that is our faith in Jesus Christ. We believe, we pass; we don’t, we fail. There is a lot of room for us to flourish in faith or just eek by based on the strength of our faith, the outward evidence of the works that our faith produces and the changes wrought in our lives by our faith, but the Pass-Fail stays the same.

Society has adopted the curve in a big way. Society has decided that rather than hold itself to absolute standards set out for us by our holy God, that we can achieve eternal bliss by traveling any number of paths. No longer do we have to limit ourselves to the archaic idea that Jesus is the only way, we can lower the bar and say that there are many paths to heaven. Even the Atheist has the God-given right to eternal happiness and anyone who thinks differently is a bigot that deserves to be ignored, or better yet – silenced! If we wish that we could marry a water heater or develop an intimate relationship with a garden plant, all we need to do is ignore Godly precepts and simply redefine marriage. Let’s lower the bar.

Society has even begun to look at the necessity of re-defining the Pass-Fail threshold. Let’s say that all gods are equal. Since Christians cannot prove their supernatural God by natural means, then no god has any greater authority than any other, and all gods must be considered equal in their power, or in their ineffectualness, depending on one’s particular point of view. In fact; let’s say that God is not only irrelevant, but evil. Let’s decide among all of us as civilized, intelligent beings that no longer do we need to meet an artificial standard to pass, let’s rather conclude that if anyone exceeds the now-lowered bar, that they actually fail! Let’s say that rather than promote the biblical truth that Jesus is the only way to salvation; that either a need for salvation is mere fallacy or, better yet, that if one believes in Jesus and/or the Bible, that they are the decided losers!

Society has not only lowered the bar but insisted that anyone who might inadvertently exceed the placement of that bar is derided and abased into submission. The truth of the Gospel is now an assault on humanity. It is not enough for some to think that the Christian is misguided in their theology, we must persecute the Christian above all other faithful followers because it is only bigoted exclusionism; or at least as exclusive as is every other false faith in the world, but somehow more dangerous. In a world of lies, the biggest lie is the winner; the truth is reviled in a world that wants to believe lies.

The bar seems to have been thrown on the ground and the world is requiring that we all live in the dirt to stay below it. Rather than setting the bar as a minimum standard which needs to be met, the bar is now a limit that we are expected to remain below. We, as faithful believers, need to pick the bar up off of the ground and return it to its rightful place. We need to hang it, not at the 60% of the highest score received, but at the 60% of the material taught. The bar must be maintained at the bare limit of Jesus being, “…the way, the truth and the life;” the understanding that, “…no one comes to the Father but through Me [Jesus],” and that Jesus is the ONLY way to our eternal home with God.

God does not grade on the curve. We have been given the truth and we are going to be held responsible for not only meeting the bar, but exceeding it to the best of our abilities. If every student fails, then lowering the standard to a sliding scale is not going to make any of them any better educated. Lies do not make other lies true and lies do not make the truth any less true; lies only make some feel better about their inadequacies. Jesus is God’s final revelation to us, we have all erred and fallen short of the glory of God and Jesus is the only name under heaven by which we must be saved. There is a definite separation given between the goats which fail to reach the bar and represent the non-believer and the sheep, (the believers), which represent those who are striving…


All for the Glory of Christ

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There’s an expression, the one where someone is telling about their woes and then at the end they say, “…but it beats the alternative.” The implication is that the alternative is being dead. To the Christian, the prospect of being dead isn’t that bad of an alternative though, it draws a sharp contrast between the believer and the non-believer. To the non-believer, death is the worst thing imaginable but not to the believer. To the believer, the day that they are called home to be with the Lord is the day when glory begins and the pain stops.

We’re able to look forward to being in the presence of God; we will step out of time to begin our new lives in eternity, lives promised to those who believe. No more tears, no more suffering, no more illness, no more of the bad things of earth to keep us from the blessings that we were supposed to have been able to enjoy when creation began; finally life will have the chance to be as it was intended. As wonderful as the day will be when we are finally allowed to enter into the kingdom of Heaven, the part that I am most looking forward to is the prospect of getting a new body. Granted, this is coming from an earthly point of view; I’m sure that gazing upon the face of our Lord will be so incredible that our new body will seem like an afterthought, but from my current, limited perspective, a new body sure seems appealing.

Just this week, I was doing simple things around the house that ordinarily would have been easy and I found, (much to my amazement), that I have suddenly become almost frail! I started out pruning some trees so that I wouldn’t have my head knocked off as I passed under them on the lawn tractor. That turned into thinning some saplings that were growing up in a hedgerow and then that became the removal of the old pear tree that died a season and a half ago and was simply waiting for the right wind to blow so that it could fall over. None of these things were such, that extraordinary effort was required, but once I quit for the day I realized that the toll had been taken. Muscles ached, that I had forgotten I had, and bumps were turning into bruises and scrapes became open wounds that opened as though my skin had suddenly become tissue paper.

I don’t remember getting older. In my head I’m still 20-something, it was only yesterday that I was leaping tall buildings in a single bound, (OK, maybe two bounds and it might have been the day before yesterday – now that I think about it), but I cannot for the life of me remember when the simple things got un-simple. When did rolling over in bed turn into an event that required a rest half way through? When did getting out of the recliner begin to require a pause to re-establish balance and locate my center of gravity before moving on? As a child I could go full steam all day and while I never had endless stamina, it was never like this!

Now then, a new body! A body that can run and not get weary, that can work and not faint – that’s something to look forward to. Better than the alternative? I don’t think so. The alternative seems pretty appealing to me. I would love to be able to lie in bed and not listen to lungs abused by years of tobacco, wheezing and crackling before drifting off into broken sleep. To not wake up with new lumps and bumps and spots that have me torn between running to the doctor to see what they mean and preferring to rather not know; that would be amazing. A new body? – Sign me up!

Some people really can’t wait. They end their own lives because they can’t bear the pain they are called upon to suffer and think that anything is better than what they are finding themselves forced to endure. Suicide is never the answer. I am firmly convinced that unless you are able to create a life from nothing, you don’t have the right to take one, not even your own. So I am in NO WAY advocating that we should try to hasten the coming of our entrance into the life to come, but it can be a nice thing to ponder upon. Heaven can wait, should wait and must wait until the time when the Lord decides our time is come. Besides, we have work to do right here.

Every day the Lord lets our eyes open in the morning is another day that we are to keep working on the plan He has set out for us. God’s purposes are perfect. This one realization is the impetus for the Christian to carry on, to go forth each day and show the world the banner we carry proclaiming that Jesus is the only way to God, and just how important it is that we all do everything we can to find that one way. Our ability to withstand the daily grind is the witness that the world has to see. Even though we may not see the immediate results, or understand the part we play in God’s master plan, we are being used each day to further the glory of the kingdom of Christ. Nothing is wasted in God’s hands, so as long as we draw breath we are to pick up our crosses daily and follow Him.

But we can dream. We, as believers, have the comfort of knowing that there is something better coming. We can turn to God’s Word and bask in the promises of eternal glory in Heaven with the Lord. A biblical view of the eternity ahead tells us that we can expect a bounty beyond our capability to imagine. Receiving our new bodies is only a part of the picture. Our satisfaction, in every imaginable area, (and more areas that we can’t begin to imagine), will be satisfied fully. We will experience joy and contentment at levels so great that we cannot, now in this life, conceive that such levels could ever exist. The Bible tells us that we cannot begin to understand the wonders which God will have in store for us on the day when we enter Heaven.

So, does our suffering today beat the alternative? Absolutely not. But we are called to endure the trials, to withstand the pressures of this world until the day when God calls us home. What we are called to do is to be the light that shines before the world showing them that there’s a different response to everyday trials, that we are not consumed with the fear of death and that we are here to serve the Lord in whatever capacity He desires. We should be thankful for the opportunity to be able to store up our treasures in Heaven, for the time we have to work toward hearing the words, “Well done good and faithful servant…”

When I was a kid my father didn’t want us riding around on the lawn tractor for kicks, he would explain that every machine has a limited number of hours built into it and they are not to be wasted. We are, “eternal machines,” with a limited number of hours to be used while we are here on earth. Our earthly hours are not to be wasted either, but used to be the best ambassadors we can be for the God who saved us, the God who gave us everything He had to bridge the chasm which our sin caused. Our lives are not our own, we were bought at a price and we are to use those lives to spread the Gospel, to share the good news we have received freely with a dying world. As troubled as our times may be, as weary as we may get on life’s path we should never accept that, “It beats the alternative.” Especially since the alternative is…


All for the Glory of Christ

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Many people are convinced that the United States is a country favored by God; that we are, somehow, blessed above the rest or for some reason more deserving than are other nations; that we are the chosen people of God. Some theologies even promote this idea as a part of their core beliefs, elevating America as a jewel in the eyes of the Lord. While God may allow a nation to be fruitful, may allow a country to prosper for a season, I lean more toward the idea that it is individual people that are the primary beneficiaries of God’s blessings.

God does speak of blessing a nation and of healing the land, but those things seem to me, to be more of a means to an end than an end in themselves. This is not, however, a statement of dogma, nor is it the underlying thread that I intend to follow. I find myself considering the actions taken by, and fate which befell, Babylon. The bulk of the book of Jeremiah deals with the pronouncements against Israel and Judah brought on by the backslidings on God’s chosen people. The rest of the book makes pronouncements against various nations and also against the very nation that God uses to bring down Israel.

God had pronounced destruction coming from the north and He used Nebuchadnezzar and the might of Babylon to accomplish that goal. So one might think that the useful tool in the hand of God, the means by which God chose to carry off a rebellious Israel into captivity; that such a nation would surely be blessed for their achievement, right? Not so. Not long after the Israelites were taken into captivity the destruction of Babylon was at hand. It appears that God, having His will exercised against His chosen people, turned and bit the proverbial hand that fed Him. Babylon did what God intended and then God struck them down anyway.

Babylon was a nation of idolaters and God haters; a nation that did things that fueled the wrath of God. Though Babylon did the will of God, God did not ignore the punishment of a nation that was evil; He put off the destruction until the time was right. God used the evil nation of Babylon to do His will but did not allow that to alter the ultimate outcome that was due to fall upon the wicked. The nature of the Babylonians remained, and the king was as prideful, if not more so, in the end. In the book of Daniel we see king Nebuchadnezzar erecting a golden statue; an image which was to be worshipped by all the people whenever they heard the sound of music. By defying the king, Daniel’s three friends were cast into the furnace. This happened AFTER Daniel told the king the secret dream that troubled the king along with its interpretation. The king said to Daniel, “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries…” Daniel 2:47.

Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged the true God but then thought it would be alright to build an image of gold, ninety feet tall, and command the people to worship it. The king went from being the most fearsome king in the world, the king who was used to bring about the captivity of God’s people, and ended up with the mind of an animal, living as a beast of the field and eating grass. So the Proverb is true, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” 16:18. Even so: God wastes nothing and can use even the most disobedient to accomplish His ends, but that does not mean that He will not exact His vengeance upon those for whom it has been reserved.

Fast-forward a few thousand years and consider where we stand today in the grand scheme of God’s will. The United States has slid willfully into the mire of things which God has told us He despises. In the name of tolerance and political correctness we have taken the road that leads away from God’s will. Are we Babylon? Is it too late to turn, like Nineveh, and have God stay His hand? God may use the United States to do great things, we may be invaluable when it comes to stopping the nuclear threat that some countries pose or ending genocide in foreign lands but that will not excuse the damage caused by our silence on the issues that have brought God to anger. While our good works may further the will of God in many situations, we are not guaranteed that our acts can deflect the judgment that may follow for the things we have allowed and show no indication of correcting.

I have no startling revelation from God and I am no prophet but I would not be surprised if God were to deal with America as He has with so many other nations that decided that He was irrelevant. In April of 1966 Time magazine’s cover asked, “Is God Dead?” Thanks to scientists who are so highly evolved in their thinking and others who live for the possibility of relegating God to the confines of superstitious fiction, we have been diligently working since then to eliminate the idea of God in every area of our lives. Will God favor a nation that does these things? It can be tempting to think that God will bless us all, all the time, but we are each individually held accountable for the holdings of our hearts. The country may seem to be prospering as a whole but do not forget the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:45. Speaking of the Father, Jesus says, “He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”

God will save every one of us who are His. That does not mean that we will never die or face cruel hardships in life. Our salvation is the assurance that when we come to the end of our days, we will be reckoned as those who trusted God and stood fast in our faith in Jesus, and as a result, were as obedient to the Word as we were able. In these times it can be difficult to maintain the position that there is a God who loves us, a Saviour that died for us and a faith that saves us. We are individually saved by our faith in the work Jesus did on our behalf. It’s a mistake to think that there’s a collective salvation that we are owed simply because of the country that God allowed us to be born into.

Society does all that it can to make us feel foolish for believing the things we know to be true. We must live for the truth and not let anyone tell us that we are wrong. Correctness, tolerance and the evolution of acceptable societal norms are only excuses used by those who are looking for any possible excuse to discount God. They demand the acceptance of a moral standard which is really no standard at all. We are being pressured to thank God for our blessings privately, and worship at the ninety foot golden image in public. We are not, as a nation, exempt from the consequences brought on by the agreement with a world that hates God, but neither are we favored because of the good things that we may do. Israel was the nation of God’s chosen people, not us. And just as God did not spare His chosen people, just as God did not spare His only Son, we will not be spared because of our political affiliations, our social tolerance or our willingness to sit idly by as God’s morality is openly mocked.

We are fortunate that God’s chosen people are not located in a particular country but are rather, connected by the convictions of our hearts though we may be scattered across the globe. God chose us and we owe everything to God. We would have no relationship with God except that He allowed us to hear His voice. God does not necessarily prevent distress among His people; He promises to go through it with us. The chosen people of God are not exempt from suffering, they are not chosen because of the nation in which they live, the chosen people of God are chosen…


All for the Glory of Christ

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There are a lot of people who would insist that though Jesus may have been a good moral teacher, they cannot accept Him as God. But what if they could? What if logic and common sense could do what our witness can not? If Jesus was shown to actually be God, what then would be the excuse for denying Him? C. S. Lewis, a highly regarded Christian writer who was a professor at Cambridge University and once an agnostic, understood this issue clearly. He writes: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

But even these things aside; it can be reasoned from the Scriptures that Jesus was never just an ordinary anybody. Let’s pretend that we can believe what the Bible says for a moment, and look at what it tells us about this supposed, “good moral teacher.” Nowhere in the pages of God’s Word is it recorded that Jesus ever said, “I am God.” He didn’t have to! The evidence is implicit and the inference easy to compile. Normally the argument begins in John 1:1 and adds v 1:14; I want to try a different approach. Beginning with the character of God as revealed to us in the Bible, I want to consider the things that Jesus did, (or didn’t), do and see if we can come to a mutual understanding that Jesus of Nazareth, while existing as fully human on earth, is fully God.

What do we know about God’s character? Nahum 1:2 tells us, “The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord takes vengeance and is filled with wrath.” Ouch! We might think of these things as negatives, but since God can be jealous and vengeful and loving and merciful and all the other things He is, at the same time and in perfect balance – He gets a pass, OK? In Exodus 20:3-5, God starts off His hit list of the, “Big 10,” with: “You shall have no other gods before Me. You shall not make for yourself an idol… You shall not bow down to them or WORSHIP THEM; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God…” Deuteronomy 6:13 tells us, “Fear the Lord your God and SERVE HIM ONLY.” Isaiah 42:8, “I am the Lord; that is my name! I WILL NOT GIVE MY GLORY TO ANOTHER, OR MY PRAISE TO IDOLS.”

This is but the tip of the biblical iceberg that kind of beats around the bush, hinting at the idea that God knows what’s His, and that He isn’t likely to sit idly by while anyone who isn’t Him, tries to take the credit. God has, in other places, revealed that He isn’t above sending down raining fire from Heaven or immense hailstones or blackening the sky with locusts and the like; so if He has a problem with anyone claiming the things that only rightfully belong to Him, He is certainly able to squelch any usurpation that confronts Him. So would a, “good moral teacher,” do such a thing? Setting aside the evidence of the miracles, (acts which Jesus said to consider as proofs of who He claimed to be), would the self-proclaimed, “Son of God,” spit in the face of the Father by taking from Him, things which He had no right to take? Even the angels know better!

In Revelation, when John falls at the feet of the angle to worship; the angel rebukes him saying, “Don’t do that! I am a fellow servant with you and with your prophets and with all who keep the words of this scroll. Worship God!” Jesus didn’t seem to be bothered by claiming, doing or allowing things to happen that were rightfully only due God. Jesus forgave men their sins on earth which is exclusively the providence of God. In Matthew 28:9 we find, “And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and WORSHIPPED HIM.” Jesus accepted worship, (that which is deserved by God alone), and did not rebuke them.

If the ones looking for biblical contradictions show up we might need to look at the problems in John 14 and 15. In 14:26 Jesus says, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the FATHER WILL SEND…” How then is it that He says in 15:26, “When the Counselor comes, whom I WILL SEND…?” So who is really doing the sending? Is Jesus confused? Were the inspired writers over-indulged in the sacramental wine? What gives? Have we finally come upon the proof that the Bible cannot be trusted? Some might think so, but it isn’t so. Jesus even goes one step further in 16:15 and declares, “All that belongs to the Father is mine!” What arrogance! What we must remember is that a God complex is only a God complex if the person having it is not God! If it’s God, then He is only revealing the true nature of His character.

How God can be on earth as a man and still reign in Heaven, how God can create at the sound of His voice, how God can be everywhere at the same time, how God can make the sun stand still in the sky for a full day, how God can hear and answer all the prayers that come up to Him and not miss a beat; these are all mysteries of God and we do not need to be concerned with the, “How can He…,” parts of His existence. We need only to accept that God is, because He is, and be grateful that He has chosen to reveal as much of Himself as He has in order that we might know Him at all. It is ridiculous for anyone to demand that a supernatural God reveal Himself by natural methods so that our natural intellects can decipher the nature of God.

Scientifically, a bumblebee may not be able to fly. Wing area to weight and aerodynamics all converge to prove that it is impossible for that insect to get off the ground but still it flies. We don’t have to prove how it’s able to do it; we only need to accept it. God is not required to prove Himself to us through natural laws and scientific equations; He is, because He is. Since Jesus made Himself equal to God, (the thing for which He was crucified), we can accept that He is God by His word. He came by way of miracles, gave proof through miracles and departed by a miracle. Why do we have to have to insist on explanations? Why does the unbeliever have such a problem believing that Jesus is God and never raise a question about how He was taken up into the clouds? Are we to assume that the Sanhedrin was handing out jet-packs, but deny that Jesus is God?

Who are we to say to an infinite God, “Unless You condescend to explain yourself to us, (an explanation we could never possibly understand were we to get it), You do not exist!” Just because we cannot understand God does not mean that God isn’t God. Just because we may be at the top of the food-chain doesn’t mean that we are God. God Is God, Jesus is God, The Holy Spirit is God and everything that is, is, because of God. Everything we are, we are because of the power of God; everything God is, is …


All for the Glory of Christ

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When I identify myself as a fundamental Christian some people raise an eyebrow thinking that I am extreme in my views. Perhaps, (to them), I am, but not in the ways they might think. Some people think that a fundamental Christian is one who still feels justified in, “An eye for an eye,” mentality; I do not. Neither do I think that a person is to be stoned for cursing their parent, adultery or checking their horoscope in the daily paper. I am not saying that any of these things are to be sought out but there is not a biblical mandate that states we are to apply the Old Testament remedies to the problems we encounter in our daily lives today.

The Bible tells us, “He that spareth his rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him chasteneth him betimes.” Proverbs 13:24 KJV. A lot of people take this to mean that they are required to spank their children whenever they err. I don’t. While I was spanked when I was young, and while I now understand that I probably deserved it, I don’t think that corporeal punishment is the best way to handle things. Does this mean that I disagree with God? Not at all. I think, (even as a fundamental Christian), that the rod conveys discipline, not necessarily a beating. There are effective ways to discipline without getting physical and I would not be surprised to learn that the primary lesson conveyed through spanking is that to get someone to do what you want, you hit them.

This is not meant to pass judgment on whichever form of childhood punishment is selected by a parent. In the common vernacular; “It is what it is.” The point is that being a fundamental Christian does not mean that every account in the Bible is to be taken literally in every situation today. Yes, we are to discipline our children and teach them right from wrong but no Christian I ever met was organizing the community to build stone-a-toriums next door to divorce courts. The definition of what it means to be a fundamental Christian is skewed by the population today. The fundamental Christian today does believe that the Bible is God’s inerrant Word, that God reigns supreme through His only begotten Son, Jesus. We believe that there is ONLY ONE WAY to the Father which is through faith in Christ and the completed work He did on the cross at Calvary.

These are things which the world sees as intolerant and bigoted. It is intolerant for anyone to have the thought that one way is any more valid than another, that one version of so called truth is any less truthful than the next or that there is a moral absolute which cannot be altered. But to the Christian, the fundamental Christian, these are things we hold fast to, things we base our life’s decisions upon. The fundamental Christian understands that there is only One God and thrives on learning an ever deeper knowledge of the nature of God and the ways which are His. Realizing that God cannot lie and is incapable of mistakes allows the fundamental Christian to accept the Bible as the roadmap to eternal life.

When we accept the Bible as the truth of God we are given the basis for understanding the ways of the world. Not that we are to accept those ways as correct, but we can begin to see how the pieces fit together, we begin to understand that the image man has made of himself is deluded and counterproductive to the wellbeing of the species. We can see that when what is evil begins to be called good and good evil, and when man in his self-appointed grandeur demands that society accept and glorify the things which are abhorred by God, that mankind is dragged deeper into a pit. If the moral compass can be set in any direction that suits the passing fancy of the individual then there is no moral compass at all. If everything is right then nothing can be wrong.

When the Word of God is understood and used as the plumb line that governs our lives, we have a chance of acting in ways that are approved by God. Jesus gave up His life to give us a path to the Father. By faith we can pass through the narrow gate and begin our journey along the narrow path toward the only salvation which is given to men. And for this, the world hurls its insults against us. We are called intolerant and bigoted because we insist on the truth contained in God’s Word. We are called names as though we are to be more afraid of being looked down upon by society than to hold fast to the truth of God in Christ Jesus. We should be pleased to have the world call us names; to disapprove of the things we hold to as truth.

In Acts 5 we find the account of the apostles being persecuted and when they are brought before the Sanhedrin for teaching in the name of Jesus they said, “We must obey God rather than men.” Acts 5:29. We have an assurance though only a few verses later, (5:38-39); Gamaliel warns those who sit in authority, “Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.” This is given to us also! If we profess Christ as the Bible instructs us, if we stand firm in the conviction of the Holy Spirit and if the basis we use to stand against those who would slander the message we carry is based on sound biblical doctrine then no-one can stop us.

I used to be in the world not so long ago. I have only been saved for a handful of years but though I was in the world, I now see clearly the truth which was always right before my eyes. It can be hard to admit that we were at one time as wrong as wrong could be, but it’s foolish to continue in that error when we have been shown the more perfect way. I was once very liberally minded and didn’t think it mattered what anyone believed as long as they left me alone; I was wrong. Now, apparently, I’ve become an intolerant bigot and I thank God for that! Standing idly by as the world drags what’s left of our society into something so evil that it defies description is inexcusable. But while it may be as inevitable as the coming of the sun in the morning, we need not be a part of the destruction; we can not accept the evil that the world uses to chip away at the goodness of what God would have for His children, to pass as acceptable.

Morality may slip and laws may pass to ensure a people’s rights to act in any perverse or decadent manner they wish to pursue but we can stand in our bigoted intolerance against such things. This is not a call to arms, not a rally cry to decimate the infidel; this isn’t intended to drive the fervent to rage – no – this is intended to be an encouragement so that none of us give up! Get into the Bible to be sure that what we think we know is that which God intends for us to know and then dig in! As Paul writes in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, “Do not put out the Spirit’s fire; do not treat prophesies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.” And in Romans 8:31 we are given the ultimate encouragement, “If God is for us, who can be against us?”

We must get into our Bibles and learn what God says is the right way, not bend to the whims of the world. We must embrace our inner bigot and firmly insist on the intolerance that says there is only ONE WAY to everlasting life. We must pick up our crosses daily and plant our feet to do that which ultimately is…


All for the Glory of Christ

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In 2 Kings we find the account of the prophet Elisha. As the prophets go; Elisha is one of my personal favorites, especially in the account where he prays that the Lord would open the eyes of his servant so he could see the army of the Lord with the horses and chariots of fire. (2 Kings 6: 15-17). But as I was reading through the book of 2 Kings, I came upon a verse that made me stop and ponder over the reasons why God would have included it in His Word. I have said elsewhere that I am firmly convinced that God is not capricious, nor will He waste anything, so that says to me that if God has given us something in His Word, then it has value. God does not give to us things that are unnecessary or that can be disregarded out of hand.

The account that stopped me cold was an event that occurred after Elisha died and was buried. “Elisha died and was buried. Now Moabite raiders used to enter the country every spring. Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man’s body into Elisha’s tomb. When the body touched Elisha’s bones the man came to life and stood up on his feet.” 2 Kings: 20-21. This is given as barely a footnote; a farewell mention to the life of Elisha. Prior to this account we have Elisha prophesying to Jehoash, king of Israel, regarding the outcome of his battle with the Arameans, and afterwards the Bible goes immediately back to the affairs of what was going on with Aram and Hazael, their king.

It takes only 1 verse, (2 Kings 13:21), to tell us the account of Elisha’s bones and the restorative effect on the dead man who was thrown into the tomb with him. Why is it there? There is no account of the life this man lived before he died; nor, of the things he went on to do after he came back to life and, “…stood up on his feet.” In less than one paragraph we are given a miracle of resurrection and then nothing else! I wondered at the brevity of the telling of this miracle and the importance that God placed upon it so as to include it in His Word. From here on out; speculation guides my hand.

I went to all of my resources and was left wanting; the online information gives some subjective interpretations but nothing which was able to lead to other Scripture references which gave a definite explanation of the reason God gives us this account. I went to the Lord in prayer and asked that I might gain understanding from this verse and I came away with something that made some sense, but still not anything that I can call conclusive. There was no flash of light or anything like the chorus of angels in my ears to say that God was speaking, rather; just enough to start a discussion. Everything that follows must be understood as merely opinion, intended to foster deeper consideration and initiate discussion into the deeper meanings of God.

This is the kind of thing that some can use to build a cult of misdirected worship. To say that there is power in a dead man’s bones is entirely inaccurate. ALL power belongs to God and any observation of that power is only by His will. It is equally incorrect to assume that because of the righteous acts of the prophet, (or by extension; any man), God attributes power to us. We do not earn God’s grace by our works. If there were a man who claimed to have rust flecks from the nails used to crucify Jesus and that they contained miraculous powers for the faithful who would follow him; he could amass quite a congregation but he would be a liar. Power is not due to an amulet of rust, a splinter of wood or a vial of water; power is given by the will of God, and by the will of God only.

So what lesson can we take away from this resurrection account involving the magic of Elisha’s bones? Obviously, there is the potential for proving that there is more to life than death. But what came to me is that the impact; the power that we might be able to use in confirming our faith, does not necessarily die with us. As we age, (and evidently end up with too much time on our hands), a lot of folks turn to genealogies. It could be that great-grandchildren we never knew in life may one day find us and look into the kind of people we were, the lives we led, and learn of our commitment to our walks of faith. This might inspire them to consider God, Jesus and the grace through which our salvation is offered more seriously. It could be that a few generations down the line, we still influence the decisions of people we never knew, concerning the need for Christ.

I am no prophet. I would never claim that the words I speak are the literal commands of God. I have never worked a miracle like calling down fire from Heaven or having an ax head float. What I can do though, is to strive daily to live the most Godly life I can, (warts and all), and leave a legacy that could very well outlast my days on earth. Is this the message that God intends for us to understand from the story of Elisha’s bones? I can’t say. All I know is that this is what came to me after praying and meditating on God’s Word in this regard. Our lives do not end in death. We are destined to live forever, either in paradise, or in condemnation. Just as our lives will go on beyond the earthly grave that takes us all, so too may the importance of the lives we live here go on in ways we cannot imagine.

One other thing that this occasion has shown me is that we can never finish reading the Bible. God’s Word is alive and we are able to be reached by something in one reading that we simply read right by in an earlier reading. I have been through the Bible many times but until today, 2 Kings 13:21 never spoke to me. Today it was if I hit a stone wall and could go no further until I grappled with it. Sometimes it is helpful to read a familiar passage from a translation that is new to us, sometimes it happens when we re-read the same text we always have; the Bible never reads the same way twice.

It is also not enough to simply read the words as though we will be blessed be the act of reading. True; we are told to be always in the Word but it is not by reading the words on the page only. In the parable of the wise and foolish builders Jesus tells us, “I will show you what he is like who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice. He is like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock… But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation.” Hearing the Word may be enough to save us. We may be convicted of the truth by hearing only.

It is by doing; through the practicing of the commands, (not that we are saved by doing), that our character is made known and that we build a lasting legacy for others to follow. The Lord is glorified by our commitment to the saving grace we are offered and accept today; He is glorified all the more, through the witness we leave for others in the days to come. We may never become Elisha in this life but we can certainly follow an example set for us and who knows; perhaps someone will stand up on their feet as a result of coming in contact with our bones, our legacies, and as a result of standing up on their feet, make the decision to walk the aisle and make the confession for the Saviour; a thing which is…


All for the glory of Christ

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