Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-31-23

I have been thinking a lot about candles recently. Maybe it’s because it’s the wick-end. Maybe I’m just thinking of an old flame. Perhaps I am just waxing nostalgic…

OK. That’s out of my system. Honestly, I have been thinking about candles. I have a new friend who is “into” candles, for all the right reasons – in these hurried times, they represent serenity; they release fragrance; their glow is peaceful. And with other friends – and in my own moments of meditation lately – I have been longing for traditional, “older” forms of worship. Older for me; older in history’s unfolding.

Candles remind us of when churches were lit by candlelight. Of matins services, of Christmas-Eve candlelight worship, when the soft glow of many candles enveloped us in gentle light. I have been in cathedrals in Europe where the glow of uncountable candles is as central to the spirit of worship as the echoing strains of an organ, and the distant voices of a choir.

… complementing, of course the sharing of the Word, the message of a sermon, the presence of the Lord. No candles or choirs or architecture can substitute, only complement. But, oh, they do!

I increasingly yearn for quiet, reverent, may I say “glowing,” worship these days. I have been blessed by exuberance, unallayed joy, excited praise… but no less by seeking – and finding – the Lord in those quiet places.

There are some religious traditions that use candles in worship. Older faiths turn them into formal elements of service and even offerings. There are newer faiths that almost make fetishes of candles, creating “mystery” environments that are parts of multi-media experiences with video screens, smoke machines, and such. In both cases, worshipers ought be careful not to let candles or any other human-manufactured props substitute for the actual presence of the Holy Spirit; or the real, not symbolic, “mystical presence” of Jesus.

But let us return here to appreciate candles in all their variety and what they bring to our lives. What they can add! Yes, their moods and aromas and beauty; but what they represent too. For instance, it is not necessarily New-Agey to see tens of thousands of candles at a rally, or during a concert’s closing song, or during a patriotic moment, waving in unison. A single candle, placed in honor by a casket or during a memorial event, can be profound. Candles at home, or in a hospital room by a picture of a departed loved one, touch our hearts.

Moreover – you knew this was coming – we easily can see spiritual messages. Jesus told us, recorded in John 8:12, I am the Light of the world, and surely He is. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness.

You must know the verse too: Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:15,16).

I have always been impressed by this graphic truth: If you were in the blackest of black places, say the darkest night, no moon or stars – “pitch black” – you know that if a single candle, a dime-store candle, were lit, miles away, you would see it flickering, piercing the blackness.

But if you were in a place of blinding light – let’s say a parched desert under a midday sun – and you held up something dark, let’s say an open box on its side, you could not see its dark interior more than a few dozen feet away.

This little light of mine…

Remember that song? Yes, about candles… about light… and what we do with them. In the same way, about the flames of candles, another lesson:

As the wax melts away, candles might go out, but that is a function of the wax, not the flame itself. You can light candle after candle after new candle, “passing along” the flame of that first candle… and those acts do not shorten the life of that flame… nor dim the candle’s glow.

Be candles. Be light. Be the flames. Share your flames. Glow until others are lit too, and warmed. Be fragrant! Light the way for others. Pierce the darkness.

The Holy Spirit would have us do something more than just be lit, so to speak; or to shine only where we are. Step out of your candle-holder, climb down from your candelabra. Walk – no; run – into the darkness.

This world is a dark place, and growing blacker, darker, all the time. People are stumbling, lost; sometimes they simply cannot see. Light their way!

Carry your candle, run to the darkness

Seek out the hopeless, deceived and poor.

Hold out your candle for all to see it,

Take your candle, and go light your world!

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Click: Go Light Your World

7-24-23

Last week’s metaphorical garden walk evoked great response. Among the characteristics of pretty and seemingly fragile flowers are, frequently, a tenacity that can inspire us to persevere against life’s onslaughts.

Perhaps the most opposite of objects to a fragile flower that we can think of in nature is a mountain. A giant rock, a monolith, an “immovable object.” Oh, yeah?

When I was a young teenager I visited Italy. I was interested, who isn’t, in Renaissance art, and I was grateful to be able to visit the legendary marble quarries of Carrara. It is an area where primeval formations during the creation of the world caused a wide swath of mountains to be composed of marble. Marble has unique properties – it is a rock (metamorphic carbonate), to be sure, hard and heavy, but at the same time malleable and in some conditions, a virginal pure white.

Michelangelo coveted the marble from Carrara and Seravezza for his planned façade of San Lorenzo in Florence. Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici and Pope Leo X indulged him, but Michelangelo knew his marble, having sculpted the supernal “David” and “Pieta” several years earlier. He was so intent on moving that marble of Carrara to that city of Florence – hundreds of miles down the Mediterranean coast, thence east into the boot, through Pisa to Florence – that he put aside painting and sculpting and architecture to oversee the “quarrying” of marble and moving gargantuan slabs down the sea and across lands. He became like Leonardo during those many months, inventing rigs and carts and boats and bridges.

Allora. Yes, to get to my point. I was fascinated, as a teenaged tourist, to learn how giant pieces of marble were secured – separated from the mountains that held them. Dynamite existed at the time, and primitive explosions might have been tried… but were not. Many workers with sledgehammers? No. Beasts of burden strapped with great ropes affixed to peaks and outcroppings? Not at all.

The giant chunks of marble were instead separated from the mountains by mere modest slivers of wood.

Wedges. It is a property of some stone, especially marble, that it can crack under pressure (hmmm… like many people do, but that is not my message!). Small cracks were found, or made, in the great marble monoliths, and Michelangelo, studying and planning properly, had narrow wooden wedges tapped into those cracks. Then water was applied to the wood, which expanded slightly from the moisture.

On the next day, after the engorged wood had, unlikely as it seems, pushed the marble monolith apart ever so slightly, other wedges were tapped in – a little larger in size, and soaked again.

This process was repeated, day after day, until (again with forethought and examination for the planned “capture” of the marble that was figured to break free) eventually the marble broke free. Making sure the chunks of rock were “caught,” not to crash down, they were lowered, then to make their serpentine way to Florence. No easy tricks themselves… but compared to the separating and securing of tons of precious marble from a massive mountain?

Now, I made reference to people cracking under pressure. Surely that is a simile if not a metaphor. But the real lesson – a valuable and quite appropriate lesson to learn – is similar to that provided by tenacious little flowers! Can you picture what I described in the quarry-process? “Moving mountains”… The power of planning, patience, and persistence… Being content with slow but steady results… Accomplishing a seemingly impossible task… and using seemingly absurd ideas and tools in order to succeed greatly.

May I suggest further: as beautiful as those snow-white chucks of a mountain were, they still were only pieces of rock. But in a master’s hand (and in the Master’s Hand) they became stunning façades of cathedrals; and lifelike statues of Moses and David; and of Mary holding her crucified Son. Living, breathing, miracles can emerge from cold stone. “The rocks cry out!”

Finally, before we forget the mountain itself: We think of Sisyphus, his impossible task being to push an impossible rock up an impossible mountain. We recall Moses smiting the rock. We remember God’s promise that with prayer and in faith we can move the metaphorical mountains that stand in our way. We remember hymns like A Mighty Fortress and Rock of Ages – that God is our refuge and strength.

But we remember too the fissures in mighty rocks and mountains. Remember how Michelangelo utilized the cracks – the “clefts” – that certainly play their own roles.

When we need it, as God assured us in His Word, those rocks can provide refuges too. He provides safe havens when we need protection from the world, even for a spell. Mountainous rocks can provide hiding places from the world’s attacks and storms, where we may regain strength and courage.

What promises! Move those mountains… and, when needed, find those safe places where God invites you to pray “Hide Thou Me.”

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Since we shared much here about Michelangelo, I would like to close with lines he wrote toward the end of his life:

Neither painting nor sculpture will be able any longer to calm my soul, now turned toward that Divine love that opened His arms on the cross to take us in.

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Click: Hide Thou Me

7-10-23

My good friend Gordon Pennington, a remarkable and accomplished man, has moved on in his life from several successful careers — not abandoned but “graduated” — and today is a motivational speaker, conference guest, lecturer, organizer… and evangelist. In his latter role he is not connected to a ministry, nor associated with a movement – other than the movement to witness to people who have not yet accepted Christ. He is a recruit, a volunteer, and a worker in the pursuit Jesus would have us all to fulfill, the “Great Commission.” Winning souls.

Gordon has a remarkable gift for engaging people on sidewalks or waiting rooms or over coffee; comfortably making friendships; discussing their “situations”; and sharing the Gospel. Uncountable people have accepted Jesus – and most importantly have changed their lives and “stuck” with their Christian walk – because he exercises that gift. He does as all believers should do, in our own ways of course. The opportunities are always there.

How many of us respond to that prompting of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, to act on the command of the Great Commission? How many readers are yourselves in a good place because someone shared the Good News with you? How often do you feel that spiritual revolution in your soul that is as “new” today as when you first experienced it?

Have you had a “religious experience”? Experiential events are important in life, and often are vital parts of emotional, even intellectual, breakthroughs; but they also can be seductive. They can prove temporary. Life changes need to put down roots in our minds, hearts, and souls; not be mere refreshing breezes.

A challenge is the oft-stated and dispositive distinction drawn between Religion and Relationship. Christian denominations – and there are hundreds – can be caught up in divisions and disagreements, interpretations and inclusions (and exclusions!), rituals and rules. On the other hand, true Christianity (or “Mere Christianity” as the reliably brilliant C S Lewis defined it) is no more and no less than a relationship with Jesus.

That relationship – friendship, intimacy, trust – is all that is asked. A question posed not only by C S Lewis, but by Jesus Himself. No frills, no conditions, no membership requirements or quizzes! Belief that He is the Son of God, that He rose from the dead, that He loves you ineffably, beyond our ability to understand… but not beyond our ability to accept. And to embrace.

There are skeptics, or examples we know, of people whose faith wavered. Folks who have had bad experiences with religion (there’s that word again). Cynics because of religious experiences proven hollow, or religious people proven flawed. And there are hypocrites aplenty in, probably, every church we can visit.

But there’s always room for one more.

On the other hand, it is refreshing to discover new-born Christians (oh, yes: “Born-again Christians”) whose conversions and new lives, while genuine, did not change every single aspect of their old selves. It does frighten some converts – “Do I have to start wearing bow ties, mow a suburban lawn, and go to Sunday School picnics once a week?” Converts like Alice Cooper, Bob Dylan, Chuck Norris, and Robert Duvall looked the same and remained in their professions, even while the great Interior Decorator worked on the inside aspects of their lives.

Let us remember that Jesus “hung around” with some unsavory types — the people He most needed to reach. And remember that St Paul was determined to “be all things to all people” in order to interact with those who would not otherwise be in a place to hear the Gospel.

If you, or someone you know, has been curious to know Christ; or tempted to yield to cynicism about following Him – I invite you to think a little harder about the question, Have you had a religious experience?

And then I would remind you that Jesus Himself had a religious experience:

It was religious people who rejected, accused, tortured, condemned, and killed Him.

Keep in your mind the wide difference between joining a religion and becoming a follower of Jesus. Respect tradition, but always be open to questioning traditions and rules and social pressures that are empty or misleading.

We are well reminded to render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s. But never forget to yield to God the things that are God’s… and that includes your very soul.

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An example of a Christian’s change of heart being sui generis – important unto itself, not relying on arbitrary sets of external rules, or other peoples’ opinions – is the German punk queen Nina Hagen. After a life of drugs, rebellion, artistic experimentation, political extremes, and wild performance art… she met Jesus. She was baptized. She reads the Bible to audiences while on stage. Little changed in her outward self; she is however evidently much changed inside, where – after all – her Savior lives. Here is a clip from her Personal Jesus tour, singing an American Southern Gospel song.

NiNA HAGEN – This World Is Not My Home – Personal Jesus Tour, PARiS

7-3-23

I once made a deal with my late wife that we would split the duties facing us, the issues we had to deal with as a couple. I mean, it was a sort of a deal. My plan was that she would handle the minor things like utility bills, car payments, and house repairs. I would concern myself with larger issues like world peace, nuclear disarmament, and the energy crisis.

It seemed like an intelligent plan, to me.

The human mind, or in my case the “mind,” has an infinite capacity for self-deception. Beyond that, self-delusion. Even further afield… well, you see a pattern. And recently, here, we considered the matter of “Progress” as a false god, evanescent at best; a cruel chimera at worst.

I invite us to switch our consideration from material miseries to those pathologies of “self,” as we started listing above. Self-ishness can be a positive motive when it inspires prudence, protection, and preservation. As with airplane safety procedures, we can best care for others when we properly tend to ourselves.

In a Christian context, I frequently remind believers who are active, very active, in ministries and missions, that Jesus came to earth to save them… individuals… you and me… not (primarily) our programs, plans, and priorities. Those things will follow, but He died for our sins, not those of some committee or organization.

Is that “selfish” in the pejorative sense? No – especially if we identify it as Jesus’s point of view. Is it selfish, grabbing glory for ourselves? Heaven forbid. In fact when we truly consider who we are, it is, instead, very humbling.

Of all the things increasingly in short supply in the world today, I say that Humility is the most threatened of resources. Being humble. And the opposite of Humility is Pride. Ah, Pride – which I consider the deadliest of the Deadly Sins, and which to me is the wellspring of all other sins. From back in the Garden, down to every hour of every day in our own spheres.

Pride preceded rebellion against God: “We know better than Him.” Pride: “I can ignore God’s commandments; I’ll bet He spares me the punishment.” Pride: “If God is good, how can He keep me from Heaven?” Pride: “I am not as bad as a lot of horrible people around the world.” Pride: “I give to charities; I care about the poor people. Isn’t that enough?” Pride: “Why should I bother God with my problems?” Pride: “Thank God I am not like other people…”

To be filed under “Unconscious Irony,” Pride Month has just ended. By proclamations and the movement’s very flag, this Pride is not about academic achievement or conquered diseases or even material advances, but the celebration of sin. It is as if a month, or special holidays, were devoted to cheating on one’s taxes or betraying marriage vows or abusing children. Yes, my seat belt is fastened; these are incendiary remarks these days. But this new, branded Pride also encompasses choosing to ignore or overrule or endorse things that the Bible condemns, over and over.

Humankind’s Pride assumes many forms, many of which are not so obviously toxic; but sin is sin. I remember debates some short years ago when computers played chess matches against humans, and sometimes won. “Is this the end of humans’ dominance in the world?” people asked, with some prescience. My reaction was that if computers won such competitions… computers had been created and programmed by humans, so didn’t “we” win after all?

The same “long view” is needed in the current discussions about Artificial Intelligence. This bundle of Brave New World technologies (and projected consequences) has dominated a lot of research and development; is actually fueling some stock-market booms; and animates a lot of hopeful dreaming. But it is prompting apocalyptic fears, too.

It is my opinion that if “machines” become able to fool us, influence our decisions, steal our independence, and lull us into deadly slumbers… this will not be a perversion of liberty, but the natural consequence of unbridled liberty. The history of humankind – our natural tendencies; “human nature” – has been a chronicle of fooling each other, influencing unsuspecting people, and stealing goods and ideas. In the 21^st century we merely have better tools.

So the fault, dear Brutus, is not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

With the Bible as our road map, so to speak, throughout history, we can know the way forward. History’s second best-seller, The Pilgrim’s Progress, is a brilliant if thinly veiled metaphor of life – its pitfalls, detours, dangers, and its ultimate joy-filled destination. Some people “get it”; that is, wisely choosing between Pride and Truth. But even John Bunyan himself learned it after mistakes, failings, and persecution – he wrote The Pilgrim’s Progress from a dank jail. John Newton only was able to write Amazing Grace after almost suicidal remorse for being a slave-trader.

Those experiences qualify as major ingredients in Humility, as discussed above. It might seem unfortunate, but nevertheless true that Wisdom usually follows stupid decisions. Liberation cannot come except from bondage. Salvation is from sin. Joy is measured against misery. Are these paradigms in fact unfortunate? No, it is a way that Life works. Let us learn.

And let us pay attention to words, the way we express our understanding. Artificial Intelligence: we should be a little skeptical – humble – about what constitutes Intelligence. And we need to respect the qualifier, Artificial. Some things we don’t understand; some things we never will understand.

That is God’s way. There is “Intelligent Design” – I think God planned Life so that for all the manifold things we cannot understand, we seek Him.

For the Lord gives wisdom; From His mouth come knowledge and understanding; He stores up sound wisdom for the upright; He is a shield to those who walk uprightly (Proverbs 2: 6,7).

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A precious example of someone who has had a right to ask “Why?” and want to understand things in life is Joni Eareckson Tada, the talented singer, artist, speaker, and paraplegic. I interviewed her at Billy Graham’s retreat center The Cove a few years ago. Here, with Joni and her mom; and Cliff Barrows and George Beverly Shea of the Billy Graham Association. Please click on Joni’s brief testimony and song:

Farther Along, We’ll Know All About It

6-26-23

This is the Age of Grievance.

People these days are eager to assert claims about the hurts they suffer, the wrongs committed against them, the compensations they are owed. In this land of plenty. During this period of prosperity, despite blips on the economic graphs. “I know my rights!!!” yell protesters in street riots – even when most them do not know or understand the status of laws and statutes. “Rights” versus “wrongs” they might commit themselves.

People these days are not happy unless they complain. And, too often, about bogus complanints.

In this litigious society, lawyers stand ready to monetize the wrongs you think you have suffered, or have been convinced that you have suffered. Rather than moral palliatives, the “solutions” always translate to money, not explanations or apologies or corrections. Actual, direct damages cease to be legitimate justifications for picking others’ pockets.

The Slavery Reparations movement that first flourished in the Radical ‘60s has blossomed again in our day. Formulas for how much money contemporary Black people should be paid by White people – all non-Blacks, essentially – are calculated. Brazenly, the enormous sums are “due” to brothers and sisters who were not slaves (obviously) but also to those whose ancestors did not live in slave-era America. Or cannot substantiate their bloodlines. Or do not “suffer” any related effects. Proponents in California, with pens poised over other citizens’ checkbooks, dismiss these points as irrelevancies.

Similarly, the “Holocaust,” past which fewer and fewer people are alive, has partly become a Reparations movement. Dr Norman Finkelstein, whose parents survived Nazi concentration camps, has written a book, The Holocaust Industry, in which he documents his claims that “a repellent gang of plutocrats, hoodlums, and hucksters” routinely engage in virtual blackmail-by-PR campaigns. He documents the flow of money to “lawyers and institutional actors” instead of putative survivors. Yet TV commercials depict starving Jews today, even supposedly in Israel itself, pleading for money.

So forth and so on. It seems like every group on the landscape is aggrieved; every mendicant may choose a reason to whine — like “Pin the tail on the guilty,” down to virtual blindfolds. It begins with “hurt feelings” of invented groups and genders; and ends with threats of arrest if you do not surrender yourself to the Compassion Police. And it ends with transforming your value system, if you let them; and ponying up money. The paradigm is common these days. Every aggrieved person and every assembled group climbs aboard the bandwagon.

Almost every person and group, that is. It is still safe in America and the post-Christian West, to be prejudiced against Christians.

With increasing rapidity, followers of Jesus are proscribed, ridiculed, sanctioned, silenced, and discriminated against. By governmental laws and regulations and court decisions, Christians are becoming second-class citizens. In popular media they can be criticized as, say, Jews or Muslims or homosexuals cannot be. In government schools and on state media, many perverted ideas once regarded as taboos are endorsed, even encouraged – while Christian ideas, traditions, expressions, even innocent decorations are forbidden.

So forth and so on. Yet – unlike every other group of whiners across the spectrum – Christians are not seeking Reparations. Grievances are not new; for two thousand years Christians have been persecuted. The blood of martyrs has soaked many a soil; and still today there is prejudice and abuse of believers, all around the world. Have Christians committed sins too, through history? Yes, against some groups filing grievances today. But are Christians demanding Reparations for old grievances?

The answer, generally, is no; and the reason, specifically, is this: For all the promises of peace and the assurances of Heaven… the Lord Jesus Christ told His followers – us – that persecution will come. We are to expect resistance, opposition, and tribulation in this world. We should not be surprised by hatred. The world hated Him first, after all.

We have been told that believers might be “trouble” in their households. Friends and family might actually despise us. The Jesus you see in paintings, standing amidst the lilies? That same Jesus told us He comes with a sword. He told us about the things we must be prepared to put aside – to sacrifice, but also to endure – if we follow Him.

Jesus died on the cross to fulfill His mission, taking upon Himself the sin-punishments we deserve. But He did not free us from the rejections and persecutions He experienced. In fact He not only predicted such treatment… He virtually promised it. It will come. If it doesn’t… perhaps we are not doing our job as Christians.

Who will save us? Surely not the government: we are seeing that. The churches? No: remember that it was religious people who demanded that Jesus be crucified; the religious Establishment. Remember that.

The Christian’s “Reparation” will not come in this world, in our lifetimes. It cannot. We should be suspicious if it is offered. Our Reparation – our rewards – can be earned now (and only by His Grace, not our works) but realized only in Glory.

My sin – oh, the bliss of this glorious thought! –
My sin, not in part but the whole
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul!

Thus is Reparation paid. In full.

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It Is Well With My Soul

6-19-23

It will not surprise those who know me that I went through a rebellious streak in my younger days. I remember it well – it lasted 15 or 20 minutes back in the…

No – of course, no. Anyone with a pulse experiences certain changes. Winston Churchill supposedly said that anyone in his 20s who is not a liberal has no heart; and anyone older who is not a conservative has no brains. Well, I was never a liberal, but I get his point. We do evolve… because the world around us revolves.

I suppose, if “rebellion” has a cousin, I have always been a contrarian.

Back in my high-school days I did go through a cynical stage. Recently I recalled to a friend that when I was a high-school junior I memorized about a third of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, as beautiful but as cynical, worldly, and secular a group of quatrains one could find under this inverted bowl we call the sky. (Oddly, I then rattled off several dozens of them, despite not having thought of them in decades. “Oddly,” because half the time I go to the supermarket these days I forget what the heck I needed to buy…)

But during that mildly cynical phase of my life, it was time go off to college. I was allowing skepticism to creep into my faith, and I wanted to discuss it with my father. Our conversation is vivid in my “mind” because it was a Saturday afternoon, and he was flat on his back, a captive audience, fixing something under his bathroom sink.

“And why are you telling me this?” he asked.

Now I realize that I really wanted him to talk me out of my doubts, but I shared the other reason: “I have these thoughts on my own. I don’t want you think down the road that college filled my head with these ideas.”

Did he get angry? Did he laugh at my youthful foolishness? Did he sit up and reason with me?

No, no, and no. He hardly moved an inch, except to tighten the valve or something. “Oh, it’s a phase,” said. “You’ll grow out of it.”

I almost felt offended. Years later, I identified with Elaine Benes: “Don’t you care if I go to hell?” But at that moment, I asked, “Dad… Don’t you believe in Jesus?”That’s when he sat up.

“Of course I do. You know that. I believe you do, too, but if you don’t test your faith it won’t grow stronger. I’m not worried. I trust God, and I trust you.”

He asked if anything triggered my doubts. There was one book I recently had read, a disputed Mark Twain book that was anti-God, not funny, and featured a character named Satan. He had begun The Mysterious Stranger three times through his life, its final version (perhaps doctored by someone else after he died) written after his daughter’s death when Twain was more cynical than he routinely was.

I told Dad about the Mark Twain book. Then he chuckled. Despite my processing of its valid challenges to Scripture, Dad said, “I think you’re safe.”

Then he went back to the monkey wrench. And I went back to… my thoughts. I think I was insulted that he didn’t go full-bore and call the Scriptural Rescue Squad. We used to debate everything – politics, philosophy, literature, classical music. Why not this, I thought.

He trusted me.

And he let me know that God trusted me. Now, you might think that was a risky strategy. But it was a winning strategy. I felt respected; honored; trusted. That trust meant more, and stayed with me, than a weekend full of arguments, than a briefcase full of tracts, than weekly calls, tracking my behavior.

When it comes to it, our Heavenly Father trusts us too. He has revealed His Truth; He has sent teachers and prophets; He even sent His Son to die so that we might live.

He loved us first, before we loved Him.

In fact, He trusted us before we trusted Him.

Does that inspire love, and trust, in you?

Remember, on Father’s Day, that we should honor… love… and trust… our Heavenly Father too.

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Click: Like Father, Like Son

6-5-23

We know what we want; God knows what we need.

Jesus, your best friend, would ask – not how many friends you have of your own, but how many people cherish you as their friend.

Our society is doomed when Christianity becomes a habit instead of a passion.

God is not dead. He is merely unemployed.

Evil triumphs less when people hate the pure and holy, than when they are indifferent to such ideals.

God does not care that you are successful; He desires that you are obedient,

What matters more to God than your salary or your bank account – is how you acquired your resources, and what you do with them.

Men have forgotten God. That’s why all this has happened.

Equity is not Equality. Uniformity is not unity.

God fervently desires that we talk to Him. If you reach out to Him mostly when hard times come… I’ll let you finish that thought.

If the Lord does not wreak justice on America, does He owe an apology to Sodom and Gomorrah?

“All things work for good to those who love God…” does not mean that all things are good; but surely it means that nothing is good apart from God.

Never be in the position to say with regret, “I never had the chance…” when in fact you never took the chance.

The God of the mountain is still God in the valley.

If it were against the law to be a Christian, would there be enough evidence to charge you?

“Behold, I stand at the door and knock.” Jesus will never barge into your life. He knocks because He requires that we invite Him in.

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Click: When I Get to The End of the Way

5-29-23

The followers of Christ were frightened and confused. Their Jesus had been tortured, killed, and buried. On the third day He rose from the dead. He was with them for 40 days, then left them again. He ascended bodily to Heaven. But among the words He left were two specific things. He said it was “better” that He leave them, because “One would come” who would give them each, individually, “power from on high.” None of them understood. He also told them to “wait.”

In the meantime, for the harvest commemoration called Pentecost, Jews from “every nation on earth” were gathered in Jerusalem, many with the Apostles. They waited… for what? They were confused, nervous, choosing a replacement for Judas, anxious, wondering…

… until, suddenly, in an upper room of a house where they waited, a “mighty rushing wind” blew through. On their foreheads were strange sights – “tongues as of fire” appeared on those gathered. Then (some began to remember) as Old Testament prophesies and words of John the Baptist had foretold, the men and women were “filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

So this is what they were told to wait for. Was it merely a strange occurrence, a bizarre one-time event, with incomprehensible meaning? Some people, in subsequent generations, have attempted to obscure this event, but it was crystal-clear.

This was Jesus’s Promise fulfilled. The Holy Spirit – the next manifestation of God on earth; the third member of the Trinity – had come to reside in the hearts of believers in Christ. For that day, and for the rest of humankind’s history.

Many things changed, profoundly, that Day. The fear and confusion among the Disciples evaporated. Peter, who had always been an impulsive and sometimes foolish Follower, was suddenly mature in faith and leadership. He became the head of the newly organized church.

Yes, this was the birth of the Church.

Those who had gathered from other lands likewise were filled with Truth and Power, and returned home to spread the Gospel. Members of the Twelve became missionaries who visited them, and other lands, to establish groups of believers. So the acceptance of Jesus as Savior, and His Church, spread. Before the year 70 A.D., there were even Christian fellowships as far away as England.

The second chapter of the Book of Acts recorded these events of Pentecost; and so did secular reporters of the day, and contemporary historians like Josephus. But in ancient Scripture, it had been foretold. And in the last days, God says, I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; your sons and your daughters will prophesy; your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams.

All through the New Testament are accounts of how God subsequently poured out His gifts. St Paul listed them succinctly in his first letter to the Church at Corinth: Words of wisdom; Words of knowledge; the Gift of supernatural faith; Gifts of healing; the working of miracles; the Gift of prophecy; the ability to discern spirits; speaking in tongues; and the interpretation of tongues.

After two thousand years, these Gifts still sound strange to some people, but scarcely are stranger than Jesus, and His followers, making the blind to see; raising people from the dead; and – perhaps most audaciously – forgiving people of their sins in the Name of Jesus. Oh, that’s not for today? Then the Savior Who promised these things is a liar.

Further than that – if you might be someone to whom these things sound like fairy tales or delusional rants – I have experienced many of these Gifts. I have seen them exercised by others. I have seen healings; I have been at exorcisms; I have found myself praying over people things that I had no way of knowing – not in a trance; nothing like that, but just aware what God wanted me to share. My daughter prayed over my wife who was diagnosed with three types of cancer, somehow aware that God had healed her. Indeed the doctors found no cancers the next day. It was not my daughter’s prayer that healed, but she had an inspiration to share what God had done at that moment. That is a Gift.

Manifestations of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit – Pentecostalism; the Charismatic Movement; Holy-Ghost Revival – never died, but since around 1900 have exploded around the world. There are major denominations in America. The Underground Church in China is largely Pentecostal. There are more Pentecostals than Catholics in Africa and South America. The Assemblies of God has more adherents in Brazil than in the United States and Europe combined. Think of news stories you have recently heard of “revival” breaking out in Kentucky and elsewhere…

Readers, you might know and be already at home with many of these things. Or maybe they are foreign to you. Or are rumors you have heard; or perhaps are unknown to you. Your salvation does not depend at all on whether you accept or reject the Gifts. You might respond – or not – with ecstatic worship. There are no rules! My own “prayer language,” when exercised, is in private.

But just think about the Gifts of God He offers you through the experience of the Holy Spirit. I invite you think back on any Christmas morning, or birthday. How many wonderful gifts were given to you by your loving parents; how many times that you said… “No… not for me.”

Really?

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In the chance any of this intrigues you, please contact me and I can offer you information, and will prayerfully answer your questions.

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This is not a church service; just worship time:

Click: Cleansed / Look What the Lord Has Done

5-22-23

If you live in a city, you can see the moon and a few stars in the night sky. In suburbs on clear nights you can find Venus and Mars and maybe the famous constellations. In the Great Plains or on ocean cruises, look up at the night sky and you will never lose your wonderment at the blanket of planets and stars, twinkling like sparkles on a pretty date’s dress and shoes. If you are fortunate to have beheld the Milky Way, you know it more resembles a magical, glowing ribbon than a band of individual stars.

The James Webb Space Telescope is treating us to pictures of billions of stars; galaxies previously unknown; “events” in space calculated to have happened billions of light-years ago (or away, take your pick of terminology) – that actually might have “burned out” by now, despite their images traveling 187,000 miles per second and only coming close to our view now.

Whether you believe the universe is 6000 years old or sixty-skillion years old, your hair may start hurting now over such thoughts.

Speaking of stars. And hair. I got a chuckle this week from a review of a book called Observer by a “scientist,” Robert Lanza, co-written with a science-fiction writer. Not really a review; rather, a collection of quotations and self-congratulations on Lanza’s own website.

Breathless endorsements suggest that the authors have kissed the Face of Truth in their construction of themes – like the serious-sounding quantum-physics hoodoo – basically, that our thoughts can influence the physical universe. An MSNBC “Science Editor” claims that “special relativity and quantum mechanics have provided solid grounding for the idea that the act of observation has an effect on external phenomena.” (Why doesn’t he “visualize” better ratings? …but I digress.)

A few years ago Dr Jim Garlow and I co-authored The Secret Revealed in which book we took the New Age best-seller The Secret to task. Besides peeling back its absurd claims and century-old rostrums, we applied logic on one hand, and a little detective work on the other. For instance, the author’s blatant misquoting of supposed experts in “thinking and realization” like Winston Churchill. She quoted Martin Luther King, and we reached out to his niece Alveda who denied that Dr King ever meant, or said, the things attributed to him in that book.

Yet The Secret “spoke” to a million itching ears, promoted on Oprah and elsewhere. And today its author is working on a sequel, and, surprise, endorses Observer as a book of substantial import. She is cited as a “#1 New York Times bestselling author,” not a fabulist, but she says that Lanza “has taken the gigantic step of incorporating his ideas into a science fiction novel…. Often-complex concepts are illuminated through a riveting and moving story.” She claims that Lanza’s previous work has “backed up everything I knew to be true on a spiritual level…. It is the leading-edge scientists such as Dr. Robert Lanza who will help take humanity out of the dark ages and into a new world.”

The authors say about themselves that “if life and consciousness are really central to everything else, then countless puzzling anomalies in science enjoy immediate clarification…. The simplest [?] explanation is that the laws and conditions of the universe allow for the observer because the observer generates them.”

Obviously this book and its proponents and its promotion do precisely what the contemporary world does – blurring lines between science and fiction; intelligence and “Artificial Intelligence”; and truth and lies. The phrase I used above, “itching ears,” is from the Bible, about people who crave unreality. A country-music song title captured the impulse well: “Lie To Me.”

The extensive review and promotion, just as with The Secret and myriad other manifestations of today’s culture, addresses the most serious matters and questions about reality – existence; the physical universe; our roles in life – but never utters one word about God.

How we got here… why we are here… who created the billions of stars… who created, well, us? Forget science fiction or this book specifically: those questions, and their answer, are seldom addressed seriously any more in media, in schoolrooms, in education… sadly, less and less in churches. Hint: The answer is God.

Authors and movie-makers and Oprah can speculate – and even believe – all their nonsense all they want, but I am still thrilled by quotations from another Book:

When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars that You have ordained, what are mortals, that You should be mindful of them; mere human beings, that You should seek them out?

Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father seeing. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than sparrows!

I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb. Before you were born I set you apart and appointed you as my spokesmen to the world.

No two snowflakes are alike. We cannot survey the uncountable stars. We contemplate the numbers of grains of sand on the earth’s shores. And yet the Creator of all this, of the universe seen and unseen, has created us too… and knows everything about us.

More than that: He cares more about you and me than about everything else in His creation. That’s what He tells us. Is someone like Him going to lie? He cannot.

No fiction in His Book.

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Click: His Eye Is On the Sparrow

5-15-23

Traditional liturgical formations in worship are not universally followed these days. Their separate parts once represented the essential aspects of Christ’s ministry and significance, just as His life on earth was comprised of separate, meaningful acts. That is, lessons for us, to understand Him better.

When Mary conceived, it was the fulfillment of many prophecies. When Jesus was born, it was the long-hoped Incarnation, God in human form. When He preached, He explained the ways of God. When He healed, it showed the power of God. When He forgave people – how presumptuous, except as the Son of God – He shared the love of God.

When Jesus gave Himself up, He became the sacrifice for the penalties our sins should be ours to pay. When He was betrayed, He understood our sorrows. When He was tortured and He suffered, He understood our pains. When He died on the cross, He fulfilled His mission – “It is finished.” When He arose, it represented the promise that we too may overcome physical death and have life eternal.

Traditional church services similarly would focus on aspects – for instance, the “Agnus Dei,” the “Lamb of God” to remind us of the sacrifice of this Sinless Man. And so forth. Losing this structured reminder of the Savior’s ministry is a down-side of contemporary, free-form worship.

I invite you to see the life of Christ, even for only a moment, in perhaps a different light than you are used to.

All of the familiar events in Jesus’s life, even the uncountable prophesies fulfilled, even the powerful miracles, suggest that He was the Son of God. Suggest? Only suggest? Is this blasphemy? No… stick with me. Of course we know the prophesies, the signs, the wonders, represented His anointing. Of course we know and respect His claims. Of course we know the confirmations that He rose from the dead; let us remember that so did Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus; and they are not regarded as Saviors of humankind.

What I am asking us to remember is the half-forgotten holiday of the church calendar, Ascension Day.

“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be My witnesses, telling people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And after saying this, Jesus was taken up into a cloud while they were watching, and they could no longer see Him. As they strained to see Him rising into Heaven, two white-robed men suddenly stood among them. They said, “Why are you standing here staring into Heaven? Jesus has been taken from you into Heaven, but some day He will return from Heaven in the same way you saw Him go!”

This account is from The Acts of the Apostles, the very first chapter; the history of the Early Church. This was the confirmation – the final puzzle-piece, if I may – that Jesus was not only a teacher or a healer or a prophet; not merely a persecuted good man; not just one of history’s misunderstood and saintly persons. He was physically lifted to Heaven… reunited with His Heavenly Father… promising us that He will live in our hearts in the Person of the Holy Spirit of God. The heroes of faith of the Old Testament appeared at the scene to seal the event, and His promise.

The bodily Ascension of Jesus confirmed that He was indeed the Son of God. Messiah. God-with-us.

That act, Ascension, which is celebrated this week – 40 days after Easter – as well as the promise Jesus made, the Gift of the Holy Spirit (on Pentecost, soon to come) should not be forgotten by the church, or by His followers. For centuries, in fact, the Ascension Of Our Lord virtually was the most important observance-day in the church year. In some countries (do Americans know this fact?) it is still observed as a public holiday.

The sobering challenge we face in the 21^st century is not whether we identify as Christians. It is not how we justify our social views based on what we think the Church says (or used to say). It is not whether Christian traditions “inform” our life choices.

It is whether we believe Jesus is Lord. One with the Father, Creator God, Lord of all creation. If you don’t… stop playing around; be honest; and go over to the other side. If you do believe Jesus is God, has saved your soul, and will return again in Glory… act like it.

“I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.” These words of Jesus (Revelation 3:15,16) are what He will say when He returns.

Are you “standing here,” even “looking up to Heaven”?

He ascended. Now it is our turn, our time, to do His will on earth.

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Click: Hail the Day That Sees Him Rise

4-24-23

This weekend marks an anniversary in my family. Usually that word “anniversary” connotes a happy date but in this case it was associated with much sadness. My niece Liza died on an April 22^nd, after a difficult birth, a severe case of cerebral palsy, an eventual three-month mental maturity level, a prognosis of perhaps three years of life but ultimately well more than two decades of these conditions. Her sweet smiles masked the tragedy of her daily life.

My sister Barbara was a single mom who battled this situation bravely and lovingly. After some years, at a certain point she stumbled and sustained her own individual health problems and myriad other challenges, some virtually nightmarish. Many people might have thought her situation could not possibly have been worse. And then Liza died.

Recalling all this on the phone this week, Barbara, still facing challenges, spoke with perfect peace. So many past memories have been replaced, she said, by the joy and hope – no: the knowledge – that one day she will be with Liza in Glory. And they both will be whole. And that now, she knows, Liza is in the arms of my late wife Nancy, also the victim of many ailments in her own painful journey on earth. What a reunion that will be!

It can be an empty phrase, or a cruel joke, to say that we can choose joy despite life’s pitfalls. On the other hand, many people who know the truths of God’s promises nevertheless choose despair and depression and sorrow. Excuse me, but those choices are empty, cruel, and joyless.

Among the choices that my sister Barbara made along the way, and that made all the difference, was to accept Jesus. I quickly say that “accepting Jesus” is another phrase that we frequently hear, or say, but it has many deeper shades of meaning. Something so profound cannot be reduced to a phrase, and if you are a Christian who deals honestly with your faith walk (or even if you are not) you know how many steps there have been, and will be, on that “walk.”

Even a lightning-bolt conversion, the “road to Damascus” experience, is never the whole story. We all have progressive revelation… we see through glasses darkly, then with increasing clarity… we experience doubts… we learn lessons… we rebel and return… we hunger for the Word… we grow bold… we receive spiritual chastisement… we feel the peace that passes understanding… we “know that we know that we know”…

Sometimes these experiences are stretched out over years. Sometimes they can all seem to come in one day of spiritual yearning! And everything in between. Faith is a living thing, growing; almost breathing. In fact, the Holy Spirit does breathe into us the profound truths of God – literally in-spiration.

So Barbara cannot really be described as suddenly “accepting Jesus.” As her brother who prayed for her and with her, it has seemed to me more like she gradually realized Jesus had been there with her all the time. And then the realization that Jesus had accepted her, not just the other way around.

Then that “walk” didn’t seem so lonely anymore.

In all these ways a miracle can take place – for it is miraculous that amid horrible conditions and seemingly hopeless situations such as this mother and daughter experienced… joy and peace can come out of it. The world cannot give that, and the world cannot take it away.

And the devil cannot take away an anniversary that, somehow, is a Happy Anniversary after all.

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Click: What a Meeting In the Air

4-17-23

I cannot be surprised or critical or… anything other than empathetic when I meet Christians who are sincere, maybe lifelong churchgoers, even those who are secure and comfortable in their faith – but don’t know some of the bedrock truths of the Gospel.

I don’t mean knowing the “rules.” Or being familiar with the traditions. Nor creeds and hymns. I mean knowing Christ, that last and important step. I recently read a brilliant squib reminding us that all one of the thieves on the cross did was to acknowledge Jesus… who then told him, “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

And I cannot be critical of those who have “missed” important truths, in spite of knowing rules and rituals… because I was there too.

I have been in those “places,” and, thank God, still got through some crises of faith, and weathered some of them, but not all. Or not all well. Here are some things all believers should know up-front.

1. For instance, after years of being a Sunday-school boy and regular church member, even on committees, I was thunderstruck when I finally realized we can know now whether we will spend Eternity in Heaven, or not. No waiting to step up to St Peter at the Pearly Gates.

In fact, Peter cannot pull rank on us, much less issue passes, in Heaven, nor will he want to. Just as “all have fallen short of God’s glory” here on earth, all the saints will be equal in Glory. “Saints” includes us. Further, think of the title that R W Schambach used to use, which still blesses me – “our elder brother Jesus”! Think about it!

2. I don’t have to pray over and over (“without ceasing”) to be forgiven for this-or-that. When we are truly repentant, God forgives. And forgets (which is more than we are usually able to do! What a feeling of liberation)! Is there something God cannot do? — Yes, He tells us He cannot remember our forgiven sins and hold them against us!

3. We should lose the well intentioned attitude, seemingly humble, of many Christians – especially new or “baby” Christians – to pray with the attitude of “I am a miserable sinner, how can I approach You, I am not worthy…” etc., etc. No! When we have Jesus in our hearts, God sees the Jesus in us, not the “old” us anymore. Jesus died for us so when God looks at us, we are “covered in the blood” – He sees that, and not our flawed, finite, former, selves. This is an amazing fact that few believers realize or exercise. And is why the Bible says we can – we should – boldly approach the Throne of Grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

(Now. About prayer and forgiveness and the “burdens of our heart,” it is, still, a mystery. Yes, God casts our sins into “the sea of forgetfulness.” Yes, when we are saved, all is washed away, “all things are made new.” Yes, He has the power to know the future; He knows all. But… there are mysteries. The Bible says we should “pray believing”… so can we always say, “Done!” Or, do repeated prayers suggest our occasional lack of faith? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Through such mysteries we are led, when we rely on the Holy Spirit’s guiding. When the Bible encourages us at times to pray without ceasing, in our strong faith we will want to, and we do. The born-again believer knows when God wants to minister to our spirits… and prayer becomes a conversation, not a list of requests.)

This is one reason Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit, “who will lift our prayers to the high places… who prays for us in the Heavenlies and before the Throne… and [I love this] when we cannot find the words, will groan for us before God, on our behalf.” It is why I cherish the Pentecostal mode of the Early Church: we can access the Gifts of the communication with the Lord, the prayer-language of angels. The Spirit will approach God for us with groanings we cannot express; but God knows… and will be touched.

I grieve that some Christians do not know the full Gospel, do not avail themselves of the peace – and the power – that God has laid before us. As tools, sometimes. As weapons, frequently. As aids, all the time.

Does religion lie to us? Yes, it has lied; it has confused the Truth; it has obscured and hidden truths. Read your Bible. God does not lie; He cannot lie. It is not about religions; it is about Jesus. If you are on a figurative cross of sin, or doubt, of hurting – or even exercise smugness – turn to the Savior on His cross. He will invite you too to Paradise.

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Click: How Firm a Foundation, originally written in 1787.

Easter 2023, 4-10-23 message

There are many ways to think about Easter – including, I earnestly mean, ways for us to contemplate and meditate upon its significance.

Beyond its secular trappings and pagan associations, the eggs and candy and (once upon a time) Easter parades, and hunting for eggs. The bunnies. The “traditional” Easter menus.

Even, at our churches, the end of Lent with, for some Christians, its ashes and sacrifices, palms on Sunday and Good Friday observances. Even sunrise services and special hymns. Beyond all that…

I once had a Christian friend who was a faithful, lifelong churchgoer. An orthodox (but not Orthodox) Protestant. But to the extent he had a personal theology, he had some gripes with God. For instance, he always wondered how God could be a “God of love” who required that Abraham kill his boy Isaac as a sacrifice. Do you know the story? Neither did Abraham understand, but he obeyed. He took Isaac up on a mountainside and prepared to slay him. As we know, God intervened and told Abraham to let up.

The whole act seemed to my friend to be unbelievably cruel – from the strange command to the “tease” of calling off the bizarre command at the last minute. “God of Vengeance I understand,” my friend said about the “Old Testament” revelations of God; “Even a God of Judgment. But to torture a father in such a way, and to even present a scenario of preparing the boy to be killed… what kind of a God is that?”

Well, He is a God who evidently was not introduced to congragations over a lifetime of Sunday sermons. For between the lines of the Abraham-and-Isaac story is a God of love.

We can, perhaps, forgive my friend. Because despite the ancient Israelites always looking to the “coming Messiah” and receiving myriad signs and prophesies, very few of them understood the ways of the Lord. For that matter, even the Disciples who lived with Jesus for three and a half years, who witnessed miracles and listened to teachings, did not fully understand the message of the cross. Right down to the arrest and passion of Jesus; his crucifixion and death – even immediately upon His miraculous resurrection from the tomb – they did not fully understand what we are considering here: the meaning of Easter.

Jesus was God-Become-Man, the Incarnation. Not in order to live as much as to die.

His mission was only peripherally, however important, to teach and heal and bear witness to the Father. His mission was to be killed.

As the Christ he touched people’s lives as they happened to meet Him. But it was never meant to be that His life on earth would “draw all unto Me.” That was the purpose of His death, not His life – “If I be lifted up.”

The message of the cross and the meaning of Easter were in the sacrificial death of the spotless lamb, Jesus Christ. Unlike the sinless Jesus, all of humanity has sinned. And no one can stand sinless before a Holy God, “no, not one.” Rules, commandments, religious laws had not brought salvation to humankind. How many times a year (or a week, or a day) do you commit any sort of sin?

Jesus became that sin offering; His death is substitutionary. “Believe in Me,” Jesus told us, “and ye shall never die.” That is – life eternal, forgiveness of those sins, acceptance by God. We only have to believe it in our hearts, and confess it with our mouths.

After Jesus died for the punishment we deserve, He rose from the dead to show that, indeed, sin and death have been defeated on our behalf. Then He, 40 days later, ascended bodily into Heaven, to finally confirm His divinity. Then the Holy Spirit came to believers – as it does today – on the day of Pentecost, to be God-within-us.

It sounds simple. Maybe even crazy, but no crazier than Abraham being asked to sacrifice his son. It was picture, a foretelling, a prophesy, of the Lord God’s willingness to sacrifice His own Son. Indeed, it stood as His promise to do so.

“Life” was, perhaps, viewed a little differently in Old Testament days; infant mortality was common. And in today’s world (ironically, especially in “Christian” countries) life seems cheaper all the time, as our culture of death normalizes abortion and euthanasia, trafficking and abuse. Yet the slaying of one’s child, directly, or planning it, as God ordered the Passion of the Christ… is a different matter.

If God the Father ever wept, it was then.

And the meaning of Easter is not only Jesus’s death, but all He endured – for us. The unjust arrest, the false accusations, the mocking, the whipping, the physical abuse, the crown of thorns, the carrying of the rough cross through streets, the spikes through wrists and feet, hanging, bleeding, suffocating. And, in my imagination, the most painful aspect might have been the Savior’s realization of betrayal by His closest friends and followers.

“What kind of God,” as my friend might have asked, “would write such a script?”

The answer is the Easter message: A God who loves us to such an extent.

That Easter message, ultimately, is a love story. Nothing more; and surely nothing less. The hymns we sing are love songs back to God. The unified story of the entire Bible, its centrality the hours between the cross and the empty tomb, was God’s plan for His incarnate Son. And for us.

But it’s not over. Jesus does not “merely” live today. There is a lesson of a little boy playing Jesus in a Sunday School Easter pageant, in his bedroom robe, jumping from the cardboard tomb and yelling “Here I come, ready or not!!!”

In fact, that is close to what Jesus says. It’s our turn now. “What kind of God” has been answered. Now the question is – What kind of people will respond?

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Click: Were You There?

4-3-23

This time of year we focus once again on Palm Sunday, Holy Week, Good Friday, Easter, the Resurrection, the Ascension. In fact we should meditate on these events – and the truths behind them – more often than once a year. What was a miracle on the morning called Easter is a miracle to cherish in summer, fall, and winter too, and every day of our lives.

In the same manner also I have learned to look “beyond the familiar,” regarding the events of this season, and all events recorded in the Bible, all passages that speak to us. To know contexts is to enrich the truths.

For instance, the story of Blind Man Bartimaeus has always been compelling to me. The setting is just before Holy Week as we call it; just before Jesus entered Jerusalem. We know from the Palm Sunday story that His reputation preceded Jesus. Multitudes of people thronged about Him – happy mobs, really. They knew of His miracles, heard about His teaching; shared in the popular adulation. We read of His entrance to Jerusalem, the crowds, the palms laid in His path, the Hosannas. (We know too how the mob turned, as mobs often do; that is for another time.)

On His way to Jerusalem Jesus passed through the city of Jericho. We know a little bit about Jericho – a city of sin and resistance where “Joshua fought the battle” and destroyed the walls; where, also and perhaps significantly, Jesus named it in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Three Gospels describe the “celebrity tour” (if we can picture it in today’s mode) of Jesus, His entourage of Disciples, and the cheering crowds, as they headed for Jerusalem.

In the midst of this hubbub, a lonely street beggar, blind and poor, became aware that Jesus approached; the Miracle-Maker from Galilee. Here I have always wanted to “go beyond.” There is so much to “unpack” in this seemingly simple story of one more of Jesus’s miracles.

Join me in the various examples of symbolism. “The rest of the story” as Bartimaeus was made to see, his eyes healed.

We can meditate on the significance: Physical blindness being a “type” of spiritual blindness. Even the Disciples, knowing Scripture and prophesies and hearing Jesus’ own references to His imminent fate, were themselves blind to the reality of what was about to happen… and its spiritual importance. Yes, we all need our eyes opened.

We can realize that what Jesus heard was not the poor beggar’s cries, but what Bartimaeus called out: not Jesus’s name, but His title: Son of David. This was (and not from the mouth of a temple scholar) the Scriptural identification of the coming Messiah. This was not Ancestry.com trivia, but an acknowledgment that this Jesus, passing by, was indeed the Son of God incarnate. Yes, we all need to acknowledge the Savior.

In some translations, the cry of Bartimaeus is “Have pity on me!” but in the original Greek it reads, “Have mercy on me!” (Thus Kyrie Eleison, “Have mercy on us,” in traditional liturgies.) Of course, both pleas are appropriate. The cry for mercy, however, speaks as much to the longing of his soul – for forgiveness – as for pity, concern for his physical state. Yes, we all have serious spiritual needs, no matter the condition of our health or comfort in life.

To me, an important lesson has been the nature of the Disciples’ efforts, as we read, to make Bartimaeus shut up. I can almost imagine them saying, “Who are YOU? This is the Master wanting to move on! (Implying, ‘WE are important too!’) Stop yelling out! We are trying to keep this parade organized…” But Jesus had other priorities, and other ideas about order and dignity. Yes, we all need to respond to Jesus Christ as He would have us do… not as people around us – or even people around Him – do!

In contemporary context, I will recall my own experiences. Growing up in churches where prayers – even “Hallelujahs” and “Hosannas” – were sleepily mumbled by writ, with no hints or feelings of joy. Many churches discourage “amens” and raised hands from the congregation when Good News is shared. At the seeming other extreme, some churches order joy and dancing, but likewise discourage weeping in conviction, or expressing needs for forgiveness

“Shut up, blind man! We’re having CHURCH here!”

Thank God, Jesus heard Blind Man Bartimaeus. And He stopped. And He healed. May we all call out to Jesus, laugh with Jesus, cry unto Jesus. Praise Him in whatever circumstance, and wherever you are. He is always ready to call out to us, laugh with us, and cry with us.

Jesus will even stop parades to be there for us.

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That was a meditation on what happened just before Palm Sunday and Holy Week. Here is a song about what might have happened just before Easter itself:

Click: The Night Before Easter

3-27-23

The “issue” of crime is in the news these days. In some polls it is the major concern of citizens, at least as troubling as the virtual invasion of millions of illegal migrants and the rotten economy. Unchecked immigration is a literal crime (“il-legal”); and high prices are cursed as virtual “crimes” by every shopper making every tough choice every day…

But across international stages, to our nation, cities, and towns, on sidewalks and in schoolrooms, crimes are on the rise as an epidemic; crimes being ignored and therefore spreading. Ignored… except by the victims. Spreading… because lack of punishment encourages their proliferation.

Crimes and sins are related – maybe in the chicken-and-egg context – but essentially, crimes are legal questions and sins are moral questions. That’s how “legalism” would define the differences. But there are deeper distinctions.

A crime is an act; sin is a tendency. The moment you commit a crime, you are guilty. A guilty act, and formal verdicts of guilt, can be pardoned. Sins, however, often have worse consequences, whether they lead to actual crimes or not. And where crimes can be pardoned, sins cannot.

Sins can only be forgiven.

Weeks before Easter, this still is an Easter message. In fact it is the message of all Scripture, the whole Bible, all of life.

Jesus was condemned by “legalists” who accused Him of crimes, and He was charged, tried, sentenced, tortured, and killed for “crimes.” We know that He was, of course, sinless. His “crimes” were twisted accusations by haters – healing people on the wrong day of the week; showing compassion to the wrong ethnic groups; citing prophecies – and, much like today, the authorities ignored what they should have respected and were upset by things they ought to have ignored. Does this sound like today?

The eighth chapter of John’s Gospel, despite its events chronologically well before Holy Week, addresses the centrality of Easter’s message: Forgiveness. The stark contrast represented by Jesus’s death on the cross was on one hand the crimes imputed by both the state and religion, and the sins of humankind on the other. More so, between the connivance of the malignant forces of state and religion… versus the liberating peace, freedom, and salvation offered by God: Forgiveness.

John chapter 8 begins with the religious hierarchy of Pharisees – Legalists – hauling an adulteress before Jesus, demanding that He approve her imminent stoning as punishment for her sins. Their first priority was to trap Jesus in a legalistic argument. Their second purpose was to scorn, hate, condemn, and kill the woman. Their last thought was to counsel her and lead her to repent. Least of all, Forgiveness.

Scripture tells how Jesus was diffident during their rant, casually writing in the dust; it does not explain what He doodled. My idea was the numbers 1-10, because He then challenged, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone,” reminding them, perhaps, of the Ten Commandments. In any event, as they dropped their murderous rocks and silently walked away, Jesus said, “Go and sin no more.” The usual interpretation is that He spoke only to the woman, but the message was also to the “Holy” mob… and to us.

Today, too many in the Establishment of media, education, and the state – and, sadly, the Church – want us to confront sin, but find a “welcoming” way to meet it halfway. Jesus spent much time, we read, with sinners. But in the Gospels it was they who went away changed, not Him.

Then John 8 records how the Pharisees engaged in debates with Jesus over His claims about prophecy, and Father Abraham, and fulfilling the Law of Moses, instead of what He taught and how He lived. Legalism was deadly, being a convenient excuse for those who would not see.

And Legalism is no less deadly today, as a crutch for those who wallow in their own sins and errors, rebellion and destruction.

Legalism, so much a component of organized religion, has sent more people on paths of misery straight to hell, than have accumulations of sinning… because it enables sin.

What Jesus taught that day, and spoke through the Message of the Cross, and pleads with us today, is that sin is the problem; not the sinner.

Willingly deaf to His words, the Jews in this chapter did not relent; they peppered Jesus with challenges (“You are not yet 50 years old, and yet you say you have seen Abraham?”) and their logic about the Law of Moses (to which He replied, “I am the Law of Moses”). They found the stones again, to throw at Him… but He disappeared out of the midst of them. His time was not yet come. Holy Week, as we call it, Good Friday, the Cross, and the Resurrection, were yet ahead.

But in the meantime, as we read, when He beheld Jerusalem, Jesus wept.

Surely He weeps today over America and this world of sin and error. He weeps for an apostate Church and a culture that prattles about what is “fair”… but not as much about what is pure, and just, and holy.

Let us weep too. Not to respond and act would be more than a crime. It would be a sin.

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Click: When He Was On the Cross, I Was On His Mind

3-13-23

A friend recently asked about Messianic Jews and Christians who choose to observe the traditions of the ancient Hebrews. Festivals, dietary laws, customs of holy days. Should Christians, and “fulfilled” People of the Book, feel obligated or be encouraged to observe practices from centuries prior to Christ’s incarnation?

Those ancient traditions pointed toward the Messiah’s coming. Discernment was required with all prophesies, customs, ceremonies, and the most minute elements of observances. Things that inspired people of Old Testament times can provide reminders to Christians of our time: God’s sovereign and eternal plan; the unity of the full Gospel; the confirmation of His miracle workings.

To the extent that awareness of ancient observances can turn into obsessions into substitutions into replacements, we should discourage these things. Anything that takes our eyes from Christ Himself must be resisted. Christ and Him crucified, Christ risen and reigning – all else pales. Customs and prophecies become academic; signs and wonders are confirmations. Luke 12:30 warns us that “these things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers all over the world.” Turn your eyes upon Jesus.

Taking these thoughts further, I remembered one of the most powerful books of warnings, so to speak, in the Bible, and one of its most powerful chapters. Amos the Prophet speaks to us today.

The customs and observances of the Old Testament were for the times in which they were given by God. As I said, they are for our edification still today; all of Scripture is inspired. Laws and commandments are likewise of God, and yet we should remember that Jesus is the fulfillment of the law. However, the books of the Prophets are slightly different, in my view. Many of the prophecies, especially the Jeremiahs, were for people of the day – warnings to repent and return to God. And many of those warnings, as we know, were rejected… resulting in punishment, wrath, and exile.

Yet many prophecies were spoken and written to us, too. For us. About us. Not only in human-nature categories of advice, but specifically to our circumstances – our places is historical dispensation; our situations. The sixth chapter of Amos reads that way, as if Amos looked almost 3000 years into future and knew our society, reading our headlines.

And what he saw is not pretty.

We know things are not pretty today. And the more serious our crises are, contemporary life dresses things up to look pretty… taste sweet… and appear harmless. But don’t we know that these are perilous times? Problems barely beneath the surface? Amos did. God does.

Woe to you who are at ease…

Woe to you who put far off the day of doom, Who cause the seat of violence to come near; Who lie on beds of ivory, Stretch out on your couches, Eat lambs from the flock And calves from the midst of the stall; Who sing idly to the sound of stringed instruments, And invent for yourselves musical instruments like David;
Who drink wine from bowls, And anoint yourselves with the best ointments, But are not grieved…

The LORD God of hosts says: “I abhor the pride of Jacob, And hate his palaces; Therefore I will deliver up the city And all that is in it.”

You have turned justice into poison, And the fruit of righteousness into bitterness.

“Behold, I will raise up a nation against you…” says the Lord God of hosts; “And they will afflict you…”

“Woe to the complacent” is the thrust of this prophecy. It is a stark reality – a tragic truth – that America and the “Christian” West have arrived at a point where we are not only diverted by, but we put our trust in, bread and circuses. We look to wealth and armaments for protection. We believe we are privileged and secure. We think that because the world loves our rock ‘n’ roll and blue jeans, others are not jealous and lustful after our resources and blessings. We call good evil and evil good, fooling ourselves that it makes no difference. We have manufactured our own morality – believing that sin has no consequences; that we can exploit and abuse each other; that marriages, babies, and the “inconvenient” among us are expendable. Crimes are not crimes anymore; and substance abuse is assuaged by more and more substance abuse. We have become insensitive to beauty and truth.

We have come, on this mad journey of democratic license and self-indulgent capitalism, to a point of elevating Self – the deity of contemporary life. Human nature reigns supreme, the ultimate force to be trusted, a secular god that believes nothing, forgives everything, and demands our worship and trust.

All of this instead of trusting in the Lord.

How is this working out? How has it ever worked out, three thousand years ago or in any civilization, past or present?

We have turned the fruits of righteousness – to which we delude ourselves into thinking we are dedicated – into bitterness. And justice in contemporary life – whether regarding neighborhood crime, or respect for the sanctity of life, or international relations – we are turning into poison. And poison kills.

Thus spake the Prophet. The words are true, even if we ignore them.

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Click: Purcell Funeral March

3-6-23

Like the boy who cries wolf, the people behind the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists seldom are noticed anymore, or as much or as often as they once were. In 1947, at the dawn of the Atomic Age, the group’s “Doomsday Clock” was calibrated and publicized, meant to represent how close humankind was to obliterating civilization on earth.

Significantly it was issued at a time when nuclear weapons were a monopoly of the United States, and indeed the USA was the only nation, and remains so, to have unleashed nuclear weapons on people, military or civilian. To me that is a matter of shame, but my purpose is not to discuss wartime strategies.

Peacetime strategies of certain groups also deserve our attention. The “Doomsday Clock” – how close the world supposedly is to annihilating itself, “midnight” being the death-knell – was set at “seven minutes to midnight” as per the Bulletin’s first press release. Two months ago our current death sentence, so to speak, is calculated at 90 seconds away from doom. There are 86,400 seconds in a day, by the way, so we can see what the fuss is about. Since 1947 other nations have joined the “nuclear club.” (The Soviet Union in 1949; the UK in 1952; France, 1960; China, 1964; and at least five other countries.) The Bulletin of “scientists” has widened their list of threats to life on earth include over-population, green concerns, and global warming (or as it is known at the moment, “climate change”).

The United States is always cast as the boogy man in such alarums. I do not doubt the malign effects, both wanton and avoidable, of civilization and its discontents. It might even be the case that Chicken Littles in white lab-coats have inspired reforms. Yet there have been unseen consequences of Doomsday scenarios despite the absence of nuclear bombs being dropped during all the wars since 1947. My generation of schoolkids surely absorbed psychic poison from warnings about our homes being incinerated, and the necessity of hiding our little heads under desks during bombing-raid rehearsals in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Some day soon I believe we also will look back on the futility of two years of societal lockdowns over a relative of the flu.

I suggest that our problems with ticking clocks and last pages of calendars, of big bombs and little viruses, is “not in the stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.” That quotation is from Shakespeare, not the Bible; but there is wisdom in it. Another wise man wrote in the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.”

In these famous lines, the “Preacher,” acknowledged as the son of David, King Solomon, did not address “vanity” as being conceited or boastful, or chasing after fashion, except in the (much) larger sense – the contrast between substantial things and temporary concerns. The difference between the pertinent and the impertinent. The important things in life, and, yes, the futility of some things we humans chase after.

In that sense, things like atomic bombs and fossil fuels pale in significance to the many things the entire human race is doing in myriad other ways to kill itself. Yes, a bomb’s blast is palpably horrific: ask the many survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet the moral decay of hatred, prejudice, corruption, deceit, abuse, addiction, exploitation – of sin – is individual, widespread, and, unlike international treaties and federal regulations, within the power of each of us to remedy.

This human condition – vanity; the sense of futility we share in ever-increasing ways – can be addressed by humans. Spiritual crises require spiritual answers

Solomon, thousands of years ago, addressed the same challenges to “human nature” wherewith we contend today:

Says the Preacher, “Vanity, vanities, all is vanity.”

What profit has a man from all his labor In which he toils under the sun? One generation passes away, and another generation comes; But the earth abides forever.

The sun also rises, and the sun goes down, And hastens to the place where it arose. The wind goes toward the south, And turns around to the north; The wind whirls about continually, And comes again on its circuit.

All the rivers run into the sea, Yet the sea is not full; To the place from which the rivers come, There they return again. All things are full of labor; Man cannot express it. The eye is not satisfied with seeing, Nor the ear filled with hearing.

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us.

There is no remembrance of things past, Nor will there be any remembrance of things that are to come By those who will come after.

Does this mean we should do nothing about our manifold problems? No – I have listed the problems I believe ultimately are most important that face our species and our families. If we can solve those, the “larger” crises might sort themselves out, for we will be wiser, more responsible, more loving.

Does this suggest a new form of hyper-individualism, addressing our problems ourselves? To the extent we should rely less on scientists who cry wolf with Bulletins, or governments who intimidate us by claiming to have all answers to all things… yes.

Does it say that life is futile; we are doomed according to a ticking Doomsday Clock?

No. These thoughts remind us that God is in charge. We are not to look to the stars, be scared by clocks, or even rely, solely, on ourselves – but to Him.

Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap (Galatians 6:7).

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Click: The Great Judgment Morning

2-27-23

Ashes marked on the forehead in Ash Wednesday services, marking the beginning of Lent’s 40 days before Easter, is not mentioned in the Bible. It was not practiced during the first Holy Week, nor for the first thousand years of Christianity. It is an ordinance observed by Catholics and some other denominations, a tradition meant to focus on sacrifice.

For many centuries – indeed, back into earliest Old Testament times – the wearing of sackcloth (a coarse, uncomfortable fabric made of hemp or flax) and imposition of ashes (the modest reminder of dust, as in “dust to dust”) were symbols of humility, repentance, and willingness to do penance for sins.

When an association was drawn with the Message of the Cross, the mark on the forehead as a visible statement of sorrow and repenting of sins (in the manner that believers’ water baptism is regarded as an outward sign of spiritual cleansing) became a custom at the beginning of the Lenten season.

Soon the further practice of “giving something up” as Easter approached also became a custom, a sacrifice, reflecting the sacrifice of Jesus giving Himself up unto death. In time, the taking of sackcloth and ashes became the liturgical tradition of receiving ashes on the forehead as a symbol of absolution and forgiveness.

As many elements of liturgy and rituals can morph from rite to rote, so can the man-made tradition of “giving something up” for Lent morph, sometimes, into hollow customs. And too often a habit that is honored “in the breach.”

Not always, of course, but all too often such Holy Intentions dwindle into simple jokes. Contests of sorts – “who held out the longest?” or silly, insincere pledges to start with – like chocolates (when the person has been trying to diet, anyway) or smoking (what?… again?) having little to do with the suffering and crucifixion of Christ on the cross.

Too often, Lenten “sacrifices” are mere churchy versions of New Year’s resolutions – and just as meaningful.

A proposal: Why don’t we TAKE UP something up for Lent?

Perform, instead, some extra deed for 40 days.

Determine to help someone in a new way.

Reach out to a stranger… or a friend. Intentionally, daily.

Such actions, likely involving thought and effort, are as “sacrificial” as denying bad habits, giving up chocolates, or quitting smokes. The actions would lead to contemplation of what the Cross is all about – caring, serving, true sacrifice.

Instead of stopping something… we can start something.

And it might indeed start something… in our lives, our families, our neighborhoods, our nation, our world.

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Click: Create In Me a New Spirit

2-20-23

There are strange things happening every day.

For a change, not everything in the news seems Apocalyptic. At a small university in Kentucky, a religious revival has broken out. Stranger than its occurrence, perhaps, is the fact that it is being noticed by the news media. Social media, these days, cannot keep the lid on much.

Revival. It was only on February 6 that this blog made an argument that Christians stop praying to God to send revival – my point being that we should, ourselves, work to revive our faith, our churches, our communities, our nation; and then God will bless us. “Revive us again,” in the words of the old Gospel song: inspire us to do Your work that You may bless our land.

God does, after all, work in mysterious ways His wonders to perform. On February 8, in a morning chapel service at Asbury University in Wilmore, Kentucky, a seemingly routine message, based on Romans 12: 9-21, was delivered. Its message was love – one of Scripture’s most forceful presentations of the necessity to discern Christ’s love, to share love, to be love. Mostly students in attendance, the young campus speaker in a stained T-shirt; when chapel was over there was an invitation to pray.

Chapel did not end, however. There was prayer in the seats and in front of the stage. Students did not leave. Praying and singing grew more intense. By evening the auditorium was full, the balconies too, and praying and singing continued – singly, in groups; quiet and exuberant. A choir sang and individuals spontaneously preached. Everyone prayed and laughed and cried and hugged. Now adults joined the throng – faculty and neighborhood folk.

This did not stop at end of day. It continued overnight, into the next day. It continues still, more than 10 days later. As word spread (as the Word spread!) the university opened satellite locations around campus; people gathered and prayed and sang on lawns and elsewhere on campus. Social media accelerated the phenomenon – yes, clearly a revival – and there was news of similar occurrences on other campuses around the nation. People arrived from around America.

Besides the prayer and worship there have been testimonies, conversion experiences, healings, ecstatic gifts, demons cast out; and no less significant, profound private prayer and quiet fellowship, prophesies and revelations from God, and answered prayer requests. I have been to Pentecostal revivals that are more exuberant, but… God works in mysterious, and myriad, ways.

I want no one to think I am implying a connection between my little call for individuals’ need for revival, and the Asbury events a few days later. I should be struck down if I thought to imply such. However, if the Holy Spirit moved me, and others, to address the need for a proper understanding of revival in our land… well, that working of God is perhaps mysterious but not “strange.” The Holy Spirit might be motivating many people at the same time. And, I notice, a movie about the Jesus Movement has been released just now.

In fact an aspect of the current Asbury Revival (there have been others on that campus, most recently in 1970) was the “strange” story of a Christian couple from Malaysia, of all places, who were inspired to move to Kentucky, of all places, and wait for the falling of the Holy Spirit in a worship-revival setting. It did not come for years, and, discouraged, they moved to New York City. But they were inspired in their hearts to return to Kentucky, which they did… days before the current revival fell. After God moves, His timetable becomes clearer!

This had been my point. That we, as believers, cannot order God around with a wish-list that He “send” deeper spiritual experiences on demand. That is our job. But there is a holy synergy.

When His people work and wait… expect and believe… study and spread the Word… open their hearts and “till the soil,” so to speak – He will plant the seeds. And bring a harvest such as we see at Asbury right now. Remember: “Revive” means, literally, Re-Birth.

As I said, I have been in revivals like the famous one in Pensacola, the “Brownsville Revival” that lasted years. There have been others. In fact, what the Asbury chapel resembles is the early, first-century church after Christ’s ascension. Other experiences have included the four notable “Great Awakenings” between the Colonial days and the Civil War, as well as in brush arbors and camp meetings on the American frontier; but they have accelerated in the past century: Wichita in 1900; Asuza Street in L.A. in 1906; revivals in Wales and Scotland; the Toronto Blessing; etc. Their increase suggests that the End Times are approaching.

In the Second Chapter of Acts it is foretold: In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people; your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.

Regarding my recent message here: “Hasn’t God sent revival after all?” Yes. My plea, again, was for us, like watchmen at the wall (Isaiah 62:6) to wait, warn, and work. Also – there is Revival and there is Revival. A “revival” of the nation’s politics and morality is important. But even the most well-meaning Christian patriots must not confuse the priorities:

We must work for our own spiritual revivals, in our households and communities, before working for, and expecting, national policy-revivals. Any other order is futile.

And – this is so important to notice about the Asbury Revival! – this is happening among the youth!

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There are many, many cameras trained on the Asbury Revival right now. Search Google and YouTube and elsewhere; you will easily find video clips and news reports and even live streams. Experience it for yourself, even on the TV or computer screen… and maybe invite the Holy Spirit to your own community.

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Click: News report on the Asbury Revival

1-21-23

In this weekly blog I have been writing for almost 14 years I occasionally feel presumptuous on your attention as I attempt to share His messages. Eavesdropping, I consider it, on words that the Lord whispers and sometimes shouts to His children.

Today I will be more personal than I sometimes am. One more “share,” but with a lesson for others, I pray.

It was 10 years ago, January 21, 2013, that my wife Nancy died. She led a remarkable life, touching many people while she lived as she reflected joy, through her manifold sufferings; and since her death.

I had come home after college graduation and was promptly volunteered to be Sunday School Superintendent at my little church; I was introduced to Nancy the nursery-school teacher. She immediately struck me as the most beautiful girl I could ever meet, and that was a prophecy fulfilled – also her outward beauty.

Her nature can be illustrated by the first Sunday morning I visited her classroom. Utter chaos prevailed, kids screeching and climbing and doing everything possible. In their midst was gentle Nancy, urging, “Simon says sit down…”

Our first date was one month later to the day (a George Jones and Tammy Wynette concert) and one year later to the day I proposed. After we left the Chinatown restaurant Nancy called her family from a phone booth (kids, ask your grandparents what that is), and then I called a disk jockey I knew at WHN, the New York City radio station, and asked if he could maybe announce our news on the air. He did better, to our surprise. He invited us to the station. It was after midnight, and he instructed the guard in the lobby to let us enter, and he interviewed us on the air!

Fast-forward, another “to the day” anniversary.

A lot happened, of course, in between. We had a three-week European honeymoon. We had three wonderful children – Heather, Ted, and Emily – proud of them all; and four grandchildren. We lived in Weston, Connecticut; suburban Chicago; suburban Philadelphia; San Diego; and Michigan. We visited many national parks, had family vacations in Florida, Palm Springs, Europe, and points between. Many ups and a few downs.

Among the “downs” was her health. Diabetes had hit her at 13, and was the direct cause of eye troubles (virtually losing her sight twice), kidney failure, amputation of toes, and several strokes and heart attacks. She had heart and kidney transplants. She also endured celiac disease, was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, and when her new kidney was failing, early signs of dementia. Nevertheless she lived 16 years subsequent to the transplants, after being told she had “gained” possibly three to five years of extended life.

Nancy was not defined by her afflictions, however. She had a strong faith in God, and Jesus became her best Friend. Congenitally shy, she had a spiritual-heart transplant, so to speak, and became bold about sharing her faith. She started a family ministry at the hospital, all five of us holding services, visiting and praying with patients.

It is not true, nor fair to others with ailments, to say that she was never discouraged; eventually she grew sick and tired of being sick and tired. But, mostly, 15/16ths was a good record of defiance against defeat. She said, rather, that she would not choose to go through again what she had… but she wouldn’t trade her “walk” for anything. She inspired uncountable people.

Her Bible – well worn, full of highlights, notes, margin comments – has, underscored, Romans 14:8: “For if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord.”

I have claimed as a personal anthem of ours the words of the Gospel song The Far Side Banks of Jordan:

I believe my steps are growing wearier each day;
Still I’ve got a journey on my mind.
Lures of this old world have ceased to make me want to stay,
And my one regret is leaving you behind.

But if it proves to be His will that I am first to go,
And somehow I’ve a feeling it will be,
When it comes your time to travel likewise, don’t feel lost
For I will be the first one that you’ll see.

Through this life we’ve labored hard to earn our meager fare,
It’s brought us trembling hands and failing eyes.
So I’ll just rest here on the shore and turn my eyes away
Until you come, then we’ll see Paradise!

And I’ll be waiting on the far side banks of Jordan;
I’ll be sitting, drawing pictures in the sand.
And when I see you coming, I will rise up with a shout
And come running through the shallow waters, reaching for your hand.

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Click: Far Side Banks of Jordan

1-16-23

There is an old description of untruths or falsehoods – “Lies, damned lies, and statistics.” It is, of course, more of an accusation against statisticians than everyday, garden-variety liars; and my own assessments of that profession is: “Statistics don’t lie, but statisticians do.”

We see this proven most glaringly in politics and public-opinion polling, but it is everywhere, in every sphere, used at every possible opportunity. I will assert that 78 percent of people agree with me.

Having disposed of that, we are left with lies, a subject or at least a practice with which most of us are familiar. But I rather mean for us to think about “damned” lies, and I hope nobody is offended by the word, but it is chosen and should be considered carefully.

To employ the “D” word, as earlier generations liked to politely clothe it, involves one of the most serious matters, with the most serious consequences, of all things. There is a heaven and there is a hell, even if contemporary society denies the existence of both. Even modern – or I should say post-modern – churches tend to deny hell; at the least we can note that many denominations avoid the subject of hell; many churches ignore the consequences of hell; many preachers deny the existence of hell.

And when the Bible, when Jesus Himself, spoke of hell and its reality, the contemporary world in its denials, finds it easy, or in fact, logically incumbent, to dismiss heaven – the desire for heaven, the reality of heaven, the existence of heaven. Besides, contemporary life and paternalistic governments bring us heaven on earth, right? So what’s the need?

When people, much less denominations, say that they know more than the Bible, and better than Jesus, their “faith” is no faith at all.

But damnation is real. It is a severe caution, and it is a literal threat. To state the previous point another way, if there is no hell and no damnation, God had no reason to become incarnate, to have Jesus come to earth, suffer, and die. If there is no hell to be saved from, there is no heaven to hope for, and then God Almighty is flawed, and His Son Jesus was a fool – worse, a liar.

There’s that word – Liar. God cannot lie. It is not in His nature. But one of the Bible’s several names of Satan is “Liar.” Further, his job description, pictured most fully in the Book of Job but elsewhere too, is “Accuser.” We can say it is his job description.

Whether literally true – I believe it is true, but I mean whether every minute or daily or in a physical setting – we are not told and I do not care about such details. God knows all, but nevertheless it is written that Satan accuses the saints (us). As I said, God knows everything anyway, so there must be a point to our being reminded in the Word that our sins are seen in unseen places, known to God and the heavenly host and even the devil… perhaps as Satan’s final effort (his job description again, according to the Scripture) to “steal, kill, and destroy.”

Jesus told us, “If you believe in God, believe also in Me.” So as night follows day, what God said and Jesus taught about heaven and hell should keep us aware. Hell and damnation are not things casually to dismiss, and certainly not things to talk about lightly. “Damn this,” and “damned that,” and “Go to hell!” — when we say such things, we are playing with fire.

There is one more thought about lies, and the devil accusing us before the throne of God. Whether literal or Scripture’s way of helping us picture reality is not as important as this truth:

If Satan is a liar, I don’t care so much about him accusing us, lying about us, to God.

What we should be concerned about – tremble with fear, actually – is that the devil would tell the truth about us.

Why? If we are sinners, we have already condemned ourselves. If we have accepted Jesus, however, our robes are clean.

We must not be concerned with what the devil claims, but Whom our hearts have claimed.

And that’s no lie.

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Satan, the enemy of our souls, roams about and among us seeking whom to devour, as the Bible says. He might rant and roar against us before God… yet let us remember that softly and tenderly Jesus is calling.

Click: Softly and Tenderly

1-9-23

You probably have heard this acronym, a good prescription for getting through life and advising others. The fact that we seldom observe it does not diminish its wisdom.

Events in the news this week will live on, and on, as yet another political football: the election of a new Speaker of the House of Representatives. Reactions in chat rooms, on cable news and, because I frequently write (and draw editorial cartoons) about politics, outreach from friends who vented, asked questions of me, and unpacked angry comments of their own. There has been widespread frustration with the machinations on Capitol Hill.

It was confusing; it was messy; it was of interminable length. Rivalries were exposed; partisan divisions were highlighted; ambitions were on display. Why could not a simple winner-take-all vote prevail? Why the florid speeches and name-by-name roll calls? Why the horse trading and pledges?

… the answer to all this is: That’s the way it is supposed to work. The Framers of the Constitution (as in so many other ways, thank God) knew what they were doing. Such arrangements in the House of Representatives – designed differently than the Senate – is the closest the American government gets to democracy… which is in its purest forms, by the way, a system the Framers despised and distrusted. They designed a Federal Republic, at most a modified republican democracy.

They did not want to “keep it simple” in this case. Virtually automatic accession of leaders – which recently has prevailed in the House’s power-structure – were envisioned as exceptions, not routine. Changing rules… challenges to those in authority… factions… the input of lobbies (how that has been perverted!)… compromises… frequent elections (two-year terms instead of the Senate’s six)… apportioned seats on committees… and, yes, “deals”… were all meant to keep the House close to the pulse of the public. NOT simple; just the opposite.

So. We saw this week what is called “sausage-making”: when politics seemingly gets messy. Folks like me (and I believe the shades of the Framers) loved the aroma of a country breakfast – “sausage making” in the House’s Speaker contest. A great show. And was the House’s “business” on hold for four whole days? Folks like me sometime wish that parts of government could be on gridlock for four months.

Anyway, I regret that so many people are ignorant of our government’s structure – its original architectural design, really – and were further seduced by Svengalis of the media. (For instance, instead of “simply” and properly reporting events, TV hosts colored the process. The 20-or-so holdouts were characterized as insurgents, egoists, and even terrorists; but I think if they had been liberals they would have been called Profiles in Courage and brave souls with integrity…) A lone congressman traditionally was allowed to challenge a leader’s status, until a Pelosi-decade ago; but its restoration is likened to a lynch mob’s fervor. Horrors! Chaos!! A raucous caucus!!!

The holdouts were upset with decades of broken promises about balanced budgets, transparent writing of laws, term limits, earmarks, “regular order” (through committees instead of puppet-strings of the handful of leaders). Upset that 5,000-page bills are devised in secret and presented for voting immediately upon arrival. Upset that too many laws are written, really, by donors and lobbyists. Left-or-right IDs aside, elaborate complaints ought to have outlets for pushing back.

So, some things are not supposed to be simple. But – Spoiler alert: I will share how “Keep it simple, stupid” does pertain to one of life’s more important matters.

Throughout humanity’s history this matter invariably has been distorted to seem complicated. It has been festooned with uncountable conditions. The matter has been subject to additions and subtractions. Innocent people have been deluded by rules and exceptions and mumbo-jumbo and, too often, have been intimidated.

That matter is Salvation.

Religion – that is: humankind’s systems of translating and explaining and operating what should be the simple province of your soul and your God – has sent more people to hell than have demons. Religion is, at best, reaching up to Heaven. Christianity simply is God reaching down to humankind.

God did not want it to be anything but Simple: He sent His Son to be the substitution for the punishment we deserve as sinners. Simple.

Jesus did not add to laws and commandments and rules: Rather, He fulfilled the Law. Simple.

The Holy Spirit was sent to be God’s method of guiding believers – to comfort, inspire, and direct us. Simple.

The Gospel, explained many ways and many times, is the opposite of complicated:

God created us with free will. But as humans, we choose to sin and offend Him.

A just God, being Holy, cannot have those whom He loves continue our sinful ways, or approach the Throne and live in Heaven, unless sinless.

This Holy God provides a loving means for us to be forgiven, and to be reconciled with Him.

He sent His Son to take our sins upon Himself.

All that is required is that we accept in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God; that we confess with our mouths that He died to be our Savior; and believe that God raised Him from the dead.

That’s all? That’s all.

Keep.

It.

Simple.

That’s not stupid.

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Click: God On the Mountain

12-5-22

An old friend of mine is Mike Atkinson, although he is not that old. But about 20 years ago we both worked at Youth Specialties, the youth-ministry resource outfit founded by Mike Yaconelli. It seems like Old Testament days ago, and our “Promised Land” was around San Diego.

I was a “Director of Product Development,” which meant editing several dozen books a year for youth pastors and yoots themselves. Mikey was lord of all web matters, computer stuff, and e-outreaches. I guess. Among YS’s activities was arranging three youth-worker conferences a year, each attracting 5-6000 registrants. Many superstars of Christian music gratefully received their first exposure at those conferences.

Since those glory days, I resumed my “work” as author, speaker, cartoonist, and… well, blogger. Mikey and his wife Stacy have been crowned Prince and Princess of Pacific-Coast Plumerias. That makes them petal-pushers, surveying the lei of the land in East County San Diego. He also continues to be an “it” guy (I think he means IT work) and hosts the daily web blast of humor and encouragement, “Mikey’s Funnies.” It is free, clean, and indeed funny – except when it is not. That is to say, occasionally he dispenses wisdom, and it usually is of the sort you tape to the refrigerator or share with your friends: the symptoms of good stuff.

This week he posted a list. I love lists, especially those that dispense advice or wise counsel. If I am feeling confident about life one day, I will try to remember all the items. If too many of them make me uncomfortable, I pretend to think that it is a multiple-choice quiz.

Since I began this blog a dozen years ago or so, I have listed Mickey’s Funnies on the list of recommended links on the home page. I hope you will visit some of them.

There is another touchstone I have with Mr Atkinson. He is a kidney-transplant recipient; as was my late wife, although she bested him by glomming a heart transplant too. God has blessed his health and the entire challenge he came through, since the experience. Mikey is also related by the marriage of one of his sons to a precious friend of mine. All that said, I would never describe him as a “sorry” individual. In fact he is just the opposite, which enabled him to share a list of ways for us not to be sorry as we wend our ways through life. Wend a willing ear to this:

You will never be sorry…

… for thinking before acting.

… for hearing before judging.

… for forgiving your enemies.

… for being candid and frank.

… for helping a fallen brother.

… for being honest in business.

… for thinking before speaking.

… for being loyal to your church.

… for standing by your principles.

… for closing your ears to gossip.

… for bridling a slanderous tongue.

… for harboring pure thoughts.

… for sympathizing with the afflicted.

… for being courteous and kind to all.

… Seriously.

+ + +

I recommend listening to this message’s song. It is a great arrangement from the Baptist’s Redback Hymnal. Neither Mikey nor I are Baptists, but those folks sure make some good music. We are not Catholic, either, but the singers are the Nunn Sisters. If they can’t decide whether they are Nuns or Sisters, it’s their business, but they sure sing purty anyway.

Click Video Clip: I’ve Never Been Sorry

11-28-22

I was with friends for Thanksgiving, and one of the activities after the dinner was the teens getting their violins, violas, and cellos out, to play some Classical music and hymn tunes. Musical scores for choruses from Handel’s Messiah were passed out – one of the area churches will be performing it at Christmastime – and singing that supernal music.

Hmmm, I thought; not typical American teens, nor typical playlists of youth today. Another box checked in my mind: maybe there is hope for America.

But a thought came to my mind about that great oratorio Messiah, which I know quite well. I am like many people who know it and love it: we tend to play it, and hear it in malls, or on radio stations, or at church concerts… around Christmastime.

Yet Georg Friedrich Händel composed it (and Charles Jennens wrote the lyrics, incorporating Scripture) about the entire life of Christ. (In 45 days, be the way. A miracle on its own!) Not just His birth, but the prophesies. It closes not only with His death on the cross, nor the Resurrection, nor the Ascension, but promises of believers’ salvation, and the Millennium. The entire life of Christ; the entire scope, and point, of the Bible.

All of which would make it appropriate to listen to Messiah at Easter, too, or in August. In fact I sometimes think in these messages of posting some Christmas carols in Springtime or around the Fourth of July. Why not? Easter hymns around New Years!

My point is that the story – the Truth – of Jesus’s Incarnation is vital for us to think about every day of the year, not what Hallmark says. Even more, the Message of the Cross, and the power of the Resurrection, is essential to our faith, and should be in our thoughts every day.

This mode of thinking is really a plea for us as Christians, and also as citizens, to stop compartmentalizing everything in our lives!

Christianity is more than holidays!

Citizenship is more than elections!

Parenting is more than rules!

Education is more than quizzes!

Charity is more than tax deductions!

A profession is more than a job!

Marriage is more than a handshake!

Love is more than sex!

Life is…

Well, here, more than any other word in or out of the Bible, love has meanings, and nuances, and definitions, and suggestions, and poetic allusions, even more cynical aspects, than almost any other word. I cherish Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s reflection:

Life is real! Life is earnest!

And the grave is not its goal;

Dust thou art, to dust returnest,

Was not spoken of the soul.

To me, the point that suggests itself here is that we ought to appreciate everything we can in their larger contexts and fuller implications:

Remember that Jesus’s suffering, death, and Resurrection were not merely His duties, or His assignments… but so we don’t have to bear the penalty for our sins.

Martyrs of the Faith died not only for their beliefs… but so that we don’t have to suffer persecution as they did.

In an American context, those who have gone before – patriots and soldiers – sacrificed their “lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor”… for us. People they never would meet, to live as we do today..

… to live as we do today? Is America worthy, today, of those sacrifices? What would those patriots and military servicemen think of the America they died for? Corruption, crime, abuse, drugs, deviance, consumerism, selfishness, hate, abortion…?

America… is more than that.

Martyrs of the church suffered persecution, torture, and death, so that the post-Modern church can distort Scripture to please sinners, instead of converting souls to salvation?

Christianity… is more than that.

Jesus died on the cross so that humankind can be saved. He offers salvation, yet we can reject it, and millions, sadly, do. The Message of the Cross, and His Resurrection and Ascension, are not squares on calendar pages. Except when they prompt us to meditate upon these things.

Jesus… IS that living sacrifice.

So please do not be “glad that Thanksgiving (or Christmas, or Easter) is over for another year.” They are “evergreen” – relevant every day, every moment of our lives.

Timing is everything.

+ + +

Click Video Clip: He Took Your Place

11-21-22

Occasionally around this time of year I challenge friends, or groups to whom I speak, to take notice of something and keep informal tallies of something related to Thanksgiving.

Have you noticed that “thank you,” as a phrase, is on the way out? To say “thank you” is not quite formal or stuffy, so not yet obsolete; but listen for the numbers of “thanks,” “thanks a lot,” and substitutions like “I appreciate it,” are taking its place. We all do it; and on TV and radio a forced informality has taken hold. And that’s why it takes an effort to notice it.

But more interesting is how “You’re welcome” seems consigned to the Endangered Species list. See: say “thank you” – or even “Hey, thanks!” – to someone this week, and see how many of these replies are returned:

“No problem.”

“No prob.”

“You got it.”

“Sure thing.”

“You bet.”

So on and so forth. An odd thing, really. Personally, I would prefer replies that we often hear turned into jokes… but should not:

“Thank you!” “No… thank you!”

This little exchange – depending on what is being exchanged or acknowledged, of course – gets to the essence of what’s behind the social and conversational convention. Thanking someone, and saying so, indicates gratitude and praise, in fact a very civilized way of sharing outreach of some form. And “you’re welcome,” (and even more so “thank you”) in a little way seals a bond of mutual respect and good will. It is what we call a social grace.

And it has a spiritual aspect too. The origin and observance of Thanksgiving is peculiarly American as a national holiday. From the first days on these shores, Pilgrims who sought religious freedom designated a day to thank God for their protection and the harvests that sustained them. As part of the tradition handed down to us, Native Americans participated too, of course in a spirit of gratitude for provisions, but as well the spirit of amity that was established with the new settlers.

That spirit survived and thrived through the establishment of other Christian communities; the guiding principles of the foundation of the Republic, and – after Abraham Lincoln, who first named and proclaimed a National Day of thanksgiving, praise, and prayer – presidential proclamations until recently have sounded more like sermons than political documents.

In Lincoln’s first proclamation, he wrote: “I desire to be observed by all my fellow-citizens, wherever they may then be, a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent Creator and Ruler of the Universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow-citizens aforesaid that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the Great Disposer of Events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land which it has pleased Him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations.”

In my own prayerful study I have been moved to see Thanksgiving as more than a one-way path of rendering thanks to God. As with every Holy Day, commemorations are on particular days of the Church calendar, of civic anniversaries, etc. But without exception they ought be observed throughout the whole year, to be remembered on every day. Celebrated; contemplated; revered. Not allowed to become taken for granted.

Further, a thought about Thanksgiving in general and the first Thanksgiving that inspired all subsequent Thanksgiving Days. I have said it should not be a one-way affair. Giving thanks to God, of course, is essential. But I think we can have a richer appreciation of Thanks-giving as a concept if we consider that maybe God inspired Christian Pilgrims to receive thanks as well as the heavenward offerings.

That is, the bountiful harvests and safety and amity wherewith God blessed the Pilgrims might plausibly have been His grace and gratitude extended to a people who honored Him, who dedicated a new land and their individual communities, to Christ. To their burning desires to worship Him in a place of freedom. To the incorporation of Biblical principles into the early governing documents of the settlements, colonies, and country.

Isn’t it possible that the blessings for which the Pilgrims were grateful were bounties and gifts that were one of God’s ways of expressing thanks to His faithful people? It happens… when we serve and honor God.

“Thank You!”

“No… thank you!”

+ + +

Of many hymns and songs about Thanks, this classic Ray Boltz songs always brings tears to my eyes. Especially so because, mirroring the lyrics, my own daughter was around eight when missionaries visited our little church and she promised God that she would pursue missions work. She eventually served in Africa, Russia, and Northern Ireland.

Click Video Clip: Thank You

11-14-22

The history of humankind proceeds not on a straight line but in waves and bursts, progress and regress, prosperity and misery, exploration and stasis, freedom and… the yearning for freedom. It is interesting to trace history through topics and not calendar pages: the effects of history’s many epidemics, for instance. The search for gold, riches, a Fountain of Youth. The extent to which food and agricultural items have shaped the course of nations – the “routes” and wars over sugar, spices, tobacco, cotton, opium.

The cycles hold true for ideas, too. Do not dismiss this view. The imposition of mere loyalty to flags and rulers – changing peoples’ minds – has resulted in constantly changing borders and uncountable lost lives. The appetite for Communist hegemony among its police-state borders led Stalin to liquidate – he embraced the term – millions of people, including a virtual depopulation of Ukraine. The “Cultural Revolution” in China annihilated an estimated 60-million people. Pol Pot in Cambodia slaughtered an estimated million peasants, and he was proud of the mountains of skulls he displayed.

The battles for hearts and minds have been as consequential (and often bloodier) to “progress” than wars for riches and treasure.

Thank God, there have been intellectual movements that have proceeded more peacefully. Among these has been the spread of the Gospel. I will save correspondents their ink and electrons by noting that Christianity sometimes engaged in “imperialistic” and fratricidal conflicts. Often, doctrinal disputes morphed into persecution and death. Much of the spilled blood also was in defense of the faith against fierce attacks by such as Islam, Communism, and state-secularism.

But thanking God further, many of the Christian movements affecting world history have been bloodless. Missionaries to minds, bodies, and spirits were beneficial in many lands. During the Reformation, not every reformer was challenged by Catholic Inquisitions. With notable exceptions, the followers of Luther and Calvin, as well as Pietists and Anabaptists were unmolested. With exceptions, again, Methodists and Quakers in England increased their numbers of adherents.

… and when they were persecuted, at vital inflection-points in history, they said farewell to their fractious societies and sailed to the New World. Eventually in the Colonies and the United States, these faith traditions enjoyed for virtually the first time in human history freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. Freedom to worship.

These movements have labels: everything from conquest to imperialism to trade wars to military hegemony. And “the spread of Christianity.” In America, especially as we look forward to Thanksgiving, the unique exercise of religious freedom was not a static thing. Rather than retreating, liberty grew and reaffirmed itself. Some of those growth spurts resulted from revivals, evangelism, and missionary work.

But they often were labelled – and are better understood now because we need another wave today – Awakenings.

“Great Awakenings” were major factors in the establishment of the American nation. The nurture of civic virtue; patriotism in the early days of the Republic; the impetus behind the movement to abolish slavery; the inspiration of social-reform movements in the Industrial Age – all were not populated by leaders who happened to be Christians. They were, rather, by-products of massive waves of evangelism and revival, conversions and commitments to the Gospel — positive movements led by Christians.

In Colonial America a man named William Tennent established The Log College whose graduates spread into the frontier, converting red and white people to Christ. In his history The Winning of the West, Theodore Roosevelt described week-long revivals and camp meetings on the frontier.

The most famous person associated with any of the Great Awakenings was Jonathan Edwards. A powerful preacher (Yale graduate and eventually president of Princeton College), his sermons sometimes lasted four hours, delivered to rapt congregations and large assemblies. His many books influenced the Founders.

George Whitefield was a preacher who toured the Colonies in the years preceding the Revolution. It is arguable there might not have been the Declaration of Independence or a movement to secede from Great Britain without Whitefield’s effect on the population of American towns and cities. From the disparate strains of Christian faith, he wrought unity of fellowship and purpose. His listeners in the streets and parks of Philadelphia numbered as many as thirty thousand at a time. Among them, every time, was an admiring Benjamin Franklin.

The next Great Awakening commenced around 1803, led by Timothy Dwight, grandson of Edwards and president of Yale. He led half the student body to Christ, which inspired transformations at other colleges. Charles G Finney was an attorney who was converted to Christ and thereafter converted thousands of others. He held a revival in 1830 that spread and lasted, uninterrupted, for more than a decade. By many reports, where he preached, bars closed, churches opened, and crimes decreased.

These movements resulted in more than folks being nicer or changing their social customs. America practiced widespread piety and charity. When the Frenchman Alexis deToqueville visited America at this time he was astonished (by more than anything else) at the bedrock Christian faith, the number of churches, and the moral standards throughout American cities, towns, and frontier villages.

“America is great because America is good.”

The life-changing effects were of course manifested in social reforms, the conscience of a population. In 1857 the businessman Jeremiah Lanphier inaugurated weekly lunchtime prayer meetings near Wall Street. The sessions grew in attendance, and soon more than 10,000 people joined daily prayer meetings across New York City. A few years later the Civil War commenced, and it was widely acknowledged that the millions converted during this Great Awakening accelerated the urgency of Abolitionism.

Since then there have other waves of revival, evangelism, street preaching, media ministry, Pentecostal and Charismatic renewals; and popular, effective preachers like D L Moody, Billy Sunday, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Billy Graham. It is tempting, however, to see these latter-day movements as blessings somewhat more modest in scope than earlier Great Awakenings.

At a time when many believers behold a nation fallen far from its spiritual moorings and Biblical foundations, another Great Awakening is essential. Our society has become hostile to Christianity. Its new standards are sexual immorality, a drug culture, crime, abuse of children and women – and not only acceptance but the promotion of such.

The recent elections have exposed the unfortunate fact that many Christians have put disproportionate faith in the political system, and less in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Widespread apostasy in American churches has clouded the vision of well-intentioned Christian patriots.

Set your alarms. America needs less Woke and more Awake – a new Great Awakening. Everything, including politicians and elections, is futile without another such move.

+ + +

From a 1995 Promise Keepers event (my son and I were in attendance):

Click Video Clip: Amazing Grace

11-7-22

Revolutions come and revolutions go. Thomas Jefferson noted – and implicitly advocated – that political and social revolutions need happen every generation, and their Trees of Liberty be watered by the blood of patriots.

It was an extreme prescription, but his was an era of extreme distress; of discontents, panaceas, and actions in the New World, in France and other boiling pots across Europe. Oftentimes revolutions are followed by counter-revolutions, as in France but mercifully not in the United States; and those counter-revolutions often are as bloody as the initial revolts.

When historians look back in the “come and go” mode a cynicism may be inferred; or a discounting of the issues and import of violent revolts. But in truth we must avoid such attitudes, not the least because we might become inured to the legitimate urgency of imminent revolts in our own day.

There are two main reasons we tend to dismiss the earthquake-aspects of earlier revolutions. One, the passage of time dilutes the details of history-bending events: we tend to classify them in the same way we record floods and plagues and migrations. More important, the changes wrought by revolutions, good and bad, settle into the reality of subsequent eras. Old complaints seem less legitimate when revolutions succeed.

When revolutions succeed in varying degrees, when the contending forces do battle and either claim victory or lick their wounds, revolutions routinely are reclassified by history as Revolts. Another truth about history’s revolutions and revolts is that they never occur spontaneously, nor without a host of factors long fermenting and brewing.

But what we call these days “perfect storms” summon the inevitable flash-points. Such was the case in Martin Luther’s time (as we recently marked Reformation Sunday, the anniversary of his nailing 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Church)… and is the case today. Let us be aware.

+ + +

Some people think that the Protestant Reformation began when the monk Martin Luther, upset with the corruption of the Papacy and the heretical selling of indulgences (in effect, paying a priest to elevate the dead into Heaven) aimed his challenges at the entire structure of the Church. And that Germany, and much of Europe, spontaneously erupted in flames.

In fact it was no such thing, and Luther meant no such thing… but, given time, it was close to what happened. Theological opposition to Roman (Catholic) authoritarianism was at least 200 years old when Luther acted. Rebellion – sometimes as innocent as wanting the Bible to be translated into the language of their people – stamped out clerics like John Wycliffe in England. Jan Hus in Bohemia, and William Tyndale in England. By “stamped out” I mean excommunicated. But so rabid was the hatred of the Catholic Church that Wycliffe’s body was exhumed and burned; Hus was merely burned alive; and Tyndale was strangled to death and then burned.

As often happens in revolutions, those sorts of flames of immolation result in firing up further rebellion.

So Luther had the examples before him: of ecclesiastical dilemmas, an intransigent establishment, and examples of protest – and martyrdom. But those Theses he announced were meant as a call to debate. An agenda for meetings. Topics for discussion. Posting such notices was one of the traditional purposes of that church door.

On the other hand, Luther courted disaster by alleging (with increasing fervor) the sins of the papacy (popes and their edicts and their mistresses and such), and the corruption of the Bible (man-made rules that supplanted Scripture). The Vatican and the Holy Roman Emperor dug in their heels.

Finally, the eye of Perfect Storm settled over the city of Worms in Germany, on the occasion of a Diet (an assembly of religious and secular leaders). Luther was detained; called before it; and, with his many books and sermons spread on a table before him, was ordered to denounce and renounce all he had written.

A Perfect Storm? With the Trees of religious liberty, freedom of thought, and the rights of citizens and Christian individuals watered by the blood of martyrs, Luther’s defense was a thunderclap, a nexus of history:

Since your most serene majesty and your highnesses require of me a simple, clear, and direct answer, I will give one, and it is this:

I cannot submit my faith either to the pope or to the council, because it is clear that they have fallen into error and even into inconsistency with themselves. If, then, I am not convinced by proof from Holy Scripture, or by cogent reasons… I neither can not nor will not retract anything; for it cannot be either safe nor honest for a Christian to speak against his conscience.

Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen.

Luther assumed he would be tortured and burned to death. In Washington’s Museum of the Bible is a letter he wrote the night before his defense, calmly commending his soul to God and discussing the disposition of his worldly belongings. But instead, that Perfect Storm swept him away, “kidnapped” by friendly princes, hidden for a time (during which he translated the Bible – horrors! – into the everyday language of the German people), and finally emerging as the putative leader of many things.

Those things, across the landscape of Western Civilization, included personal relationships with Jesus; access to Scripture; literacy; the respect for individual liberty; political empowerment; the Enlightenment. Assisted by the invention of printing and a political revolt of princes against the Holy Roman Empire, Protestantism (Protest-antism) spread. To some things Luther disagreed, or would have. He chose to reestablish, not tear down. The Modern Age began with the Reformation, and Luther rejected Modernism. In fact he characterized Reason as the enemy of Faith.

Yet – contrary to many of history’s evolutionary moments – his Reforms, the Reform-ation, had truly revolutionary effects.

+ + +

I referred to “today” above. How is our time like Luther’s?

We are at an inflection-point in history. Viewed large, there has been a conflict brewing – across many “hot” and “cold” battlefields – between the Individual and the Establishment. Since the Reformation and then the American Revolution, it has been the Individual on one side, and the power of the State on the other. The State has taken many forms: the Church; “royalty”; finance capitalism (as opposed to Free Enterprise); dictators; Communism behind many masks.

“Macro,” the Individual has fought and survived by the devices of Republican Democracy in civic life… through the Free Market in social life… through fundamental Christianity (whose center of gravity increasing moves south of the Equator). And the oppressive Establishment has with relentless acuity and insidious subterfuge waged war upon us through seductive appeals to sinfulness and selfishness… through attacks on traditional values and standards… through arguments in favor of secularism.

“Micro”? The great storms and tides of history are mirrored in the lives of each of us individuals. The sanctity of our families and the protection of our children are the battlegrounds of today – they are not separate, but essential to, the preservation of our Republic. Our culture turns more rotten by the day.

No battlefield – no squall of that storm – is too little or too local. Martin Luther, after all, when he made that history-bending defense, still saw himself as a lonely monk wanting to register some complaints, hoping that the Establishment might mend its ways. He had little realization that he stood atop a volcano, much less called down that Perfect Storm.

In our own “assemblies,” even with few people watching (except angels of Heaven and God Himself, remember) we must see clearly… decide to fight… act with integrity… and embrace truth.

Here we stand. We can do no other. So help us, God. Amen.

+ + +

I never fail to weep at the power of Luther’s words in his “Battle Hymn of the Reformation”:

Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;

The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still –

His Kingdom is forever!

Click Video Clip: A Mighty Fortress

+ + +

An award-winning movie about the life of Martin Luther:

Martin Luther | Full Movie | Niall MacGinnis |

10-31-22

I was planning to write a message about Reformation Day, but this has been a week with many distracting events, some sad; and thoughts about reforming the church, confronting corruption, does not need an anniversary-day to assert its relevance. Next week.

Among the sad events of this week was the death of Jerry Lee Lewis.

Somewhat anticipated, even the subject of false rumors, Jerry had a stroke a couple of years ago and, with the lifestyle he led – often on death’s door; in some ways tempting death many times through the years – he was, in the words of one of his recent nicknames, the Last Man Standing.

That reference is to the class of talented Southern boys who burst on the American musical scene in the mid-1950s. They were all unique, with utterly distinct styles, yet their common roots and similar stories was a most astonishing coincidence. Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison… and others: all born in the mid-1930s; all dirt-poor Southerners; all of Pentecostal or Fundamentalist faiths; all attracted to, and amalgamating in their music, the traditions of country music, Gospel, white and black blues; all separately showing up on the doorstep of a small recording studio in Memphis, hoping to find an audience. Remarkable.

When I was a kid and rock ‘n’ roll was young too, it was Jerry Lee Lewis who caught my ear, so to speak, and I never looked back. Through the years I interviewed him maybe a dozen times; traveled over half the continent to attend concerts and see him backstage; and eventually met, and became friends with, some of his relatives – cousin Mickey Gilley; sister Linda Gail Lewis; other cousins like Rev David Beatty; band members like Ken Lovelace; associates like Jack Clement.

In his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana, I worshiped in the Assembly of God Church where the cousins grew up; and spent time with Jerry and Linda’s colorful other sister Frankie Jean. I became a follower of Jimmy Swaggart, I suppose first hooked by the “bait” of the music, and have worshiped and interviewed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, too. Closing the circle, I interviewed Mickey and other Gilleys, too.

I am in the process of putting all those meetings and interviews to work, and to share with the world a book that will profile them, principally Jimmy Lee and Jerry Lee – why I am putting aside thoughts on Martin Luther’s Reformation five-hundred years ago.

In a sense, however, there is a connection. The rediscovery of Bible-based belief and worship that Luther promoted has its current manifestation in Fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches. Of course many people will think this is unlikely – an affinity between nascent Protestantism of the 1500s, and the subsequent majesty of the Baroque master Bach; and the perfervid preaching in white-frame rural churches and the back-beat, three-chord exuberant music of Southern Gospel. But, Amen – so be it. The scarlet thread of redemption is actually a ribbon of many threads.

My book has found a theme beyond the blood relations (a gene pool the size of a teardrop) and family tree (more like a tangled vine!), and it can be found in the title: “Cousins – The Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings of a Remarkable American Family.” For, besides the abnormal, almost miraculous, musical talent and astonishing piano stylings that the Cousins possess, there is the common element of Pentecostalism.

Music and Christian salvation rescued and redeemed the branches of that family and many similar families in that region and that time. Of course the Pentecostal experience is as old as the Days of the Apostles, but has only reasserted itself in the past century. Now it is a worldwide phenomenon – to choose one proof, the number of Pentecostals in Brazil today is more than the Catholic population.

In Jerry Lee’s case, the preaching and music were part of his life. He attended Bible College in Texas until he was invited to leave because he would not (or could not, he told me) stop “juking” traditional Gospel songs like “My God Is Real.” Pastor Charles Wigley was a fellow student, playing sax in a little pickup band, and he told me that Jerry occasionally snuck out at night to listen to music at clubs in Dallas’s Deep Elem neighborhoods.

Jerry Lee’s virtually instant stardom when Sun Records heard his demos propelled him to what the public has known since then – TV appearances; multiple wives including one to his 13-year-old cousin; ups and downs; scandals; problems with drink, drugs, and taxes; movies and worldwide tours; and so forth. His cousins had somewhat similar experiences.

Yet all of the family, from the most casual church-goer to the world-famous evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, never rejected the “Sunday morning” component, no matter how many “Saturday nights” there were. You will understand the symbology.

The world might scorn (sometimes correctly) the repeated confessions of some folks; repentance, pleas for forgiveness, embracing the cross. Again and maybe again. But, we are all sinners. Some of us sin more loudly, or more colorfully, even more persistently, than others. But woe be to those who judge.

Many who sin never do desire to repent. Or never – God help them – feel the need for forgiveness; never really are conscious of their sin. Never knew, in the first place, a God who sees them and loves them and judges but has already provided a means of redemption in the cross – the shed blood of His Son.

Putting aside the massive talent and compelling music of Jerry Lee Lewis, his life on earth, now ended, can be seen as one hewing to the Gospel nevertheless, wracked with sin-consciousness when he strayed, having hundreds of conversations about his guilt; reforming, pledging, backsliding, interrupting some concerts to switch to Gospel music – working out his inner conflicts in public.

When he was training to be a preacher, he told me, a favorite theme was “the devil’s tail sticking out of houses” – when people had television antennas on their roofs. Ironic that his cousin Jimmy Lee Swaggart based a major portion of his ministry on televangelism. Ironic, too – or appropriate – that at the end of his life Jerry (once again… but clearly sincere) gave his heart to Jesus. Cousin Mickey Gilley did so, too, before his recent death. “Made things right with the Lord,” they each said.

Jerry Lee Lewis’s last recording project was a duet album with Jimmy Swaggart – long discussed over the years, but never produced. Traditional hymns and Gospel songs, it was released only months ago.

The world already is realizing that Jerry Lee was far greater than memorable hits and scandals and tabloid rumors. Even last month, before his death but after decades of snubs, the Country Music Hall of Fame finally elected him to its list of honorees.

Now he will be transformed from a popular personality to the true, exceptional icon he always was despite himself. His real story, as with many great figures in history, has come a full circle.

I pray that we can all have personal counterparts in our “walks,” and I don’t mean music or a particular lifestyle. Jerry Lee Lewis was taught the Truth of the Bible by his mother Mamie and Aunt Rene and in the First Assembly of God Church. He “hid the Word in his heart.” When he strayed he listened to the Holy Spirit, was troubled, and sought forgiveness. He shared his struggle with the world. In the end, it was not his new plaque in the Hall of Fame, but the old pew where he once sat, learning about Jesus and singing the songs of amazing grace, that was his real home. And where he was fulfilled.

“His” versions of those Gospel songs have prevailed after all. Whether there is a little more shaking going on in Heaven, we’ll understand it all by and by…

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Click Video Clip: In the Garden

Click Video Clip: Jesus, Hold My Hand

10-24-22

How often do you hear the testimony of someone who has “found Jesus”? Perhaps it is your own testimony, the feeling you had when you came face-to-face with your need for a Savior… and then face-to-face with the Savior Himself. I pray that this has been your experience, or will be soon.

“Finding Jesus” is a common way of describing Salvation – knowing Him; believing He is Who He says He is; surrendering to His Will for our lives.

We would do well, in terms of perceptions of reality, and “how we shall then live,” to see this blessed sweet communion with Jesus as, at best, a two-way street. More realistically, to think of it as Jesus finding you.

Yes, we all seek… for something. Every person in humanity’s long history was and is different, except for the common situation that we all sin; all need a Savior.

Yes, we all seek… for something. Is it happiness, security, forgiveness, acceptance? Most likely it is all of these things.

Yes, we all seek… for something. And what a menu the world provides: pleasure; sex; drink; drugs; entertainment; malleable standards; changing values. Lies.

God’s menu, however, offers only one item – one that will satisfy all needs, and Living Waters besides: Jesus.

And in that regard we should recognize that most of us – no: all of us – spend our lives seeking the wrong things. Empty calories of life, we might say. But the point is that we seek after so many things. Once we have checked the boxes of education and providing for family, we scurry about like mice on crack, seeking short-term and false goals.

The irony – astonishing, really – is that whether we also, at some stage of spiritual maturity, “seek” Jesus; or rejoice when we have “found” Him… we never had to seek, or look far, or wrack our brains somehow to seek and find Him.

First, He never was, or ever is, far from us. He is no stranger needing to be discerned, searched for, as if He somehow is hidden. Rather, He never leaves or forsakes us, but is a constant friend (not only “in times of trouble,” but always), and is closer than a shadow.

Second, too many of us have it backwards.

He seeks us.

But we hide from Him.

By our actions and inaction, by our inclinations, we avoid Him. We put Him off. We put other priorities before Him. We ignore Him when we sin. We do not study about Him, when the Bible always is open before us. We twist His commands. We dress Him up in our own wardrobes of excuses and distortions. We demote Him to a mere wise teacher. We assume His Words are not for today. We take His Name in vain. We recognize His form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. We reduce Him to a holiday figure, and not the Incarnation of God. We act like His miracles died in the tomb with Him; and did not rise for His followers today.

These are not the acts of people who seek Him.

We have many pictures, illustrations, and parables. Jesus Himself told us that He stands at the door and knocks. Get it? We are not knocking on His door, as much as He knocks at the door of our lives, asking to come in. Or maybe if we can come out and play, so to speak; for He is our friend.

He pursues, not merely seeks, us.

And I suggest that if that persistent, ever-present, inexorable, hounding, unrelenting, continual, Man of the Cross does not occasionally annoy you… you are not aware of your own situation. We hide so often, and in so many ways, that we cannot honestly say that we always seek Him.

… except, usually, in times of trouble and crisis. Bless His name, then we realize, in our mess, that we do in fact need Him. Ha, we call that “finding Jesus.” Well, fine. And by the way, if that is how humankind works, can we blame God for occasionally permitting crises to come into our lives… if that’s what it takes for us to “find” Him?

In another piece of irony – or maybe not, if it’s God’s plan – with all the seeking and hiding and finding, when we have become Children of God, one with Jesus, filled with the Holy Spirit, we play a new sort of “hiding” game.

We no longer will hide from God, but accept His offer to be our hiding place. From the storms of life, we will seek the shelter. He has formed a cleft in mighty rocks where we will be safe. “No other refuge can save, but Thee.”

At the end of this journey, who-found-whom is not really as important as the fact that we can “hide ourselves in Thee.” And we do not need to stand atop that Rock of Ages, shaking our fists at the world. What the Lord offers is refuge; happiness, security, forgiveness, acceptance.

The things we felt the need to seek all along.

You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; You surround me with songs of deliverance. – Psalm 32:7

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Click Video Clip: Hide Thou Me

10-17-22

Grace is something that has a special meaning for me.

It was my mother’s first name, and is my granddaughter’s middle name. More than that, and to be serious for a moment, grace is something we should practice more than we do, and that can be addressed to anyone in the world who has a pulse. Because Christians are the recipients of grace – as special a gift as any God bestows.

For by grace we are saved through faith, the gift of God; and not by works, lest anyone boast.

It is that passage from Ephesians that hit the monk Martin Luther like a thunderclap, and which understanding – and expository viewpoint, through sermons and writings – that changed the course of Western Civilization.

“Grace” routinely and properly is defined as “unmerited favor.” We sin against a holy God, and cannot redeem ourselves or “earn” our way to Heaven, even by good deeds or spiritual merit badges. The only “work” required of us is to believe that Jesus is the Son of God; that He died to take our punishment on Himself; that He rose from the dead and is One with the Father. If we believe in our hearts, and confess with our words, God’s Grace is upon us.

Salvation cannot be bought – it was paid for by Jesus at a great cost – but therefore is free to us.

That is amazing grace.

I read a story this week that explains Grace better than my poor words can. It appeared in the e-mail newsletter Mikey’s Funnies, a free and wholesome source of chuckles by my old friend Mike Atkinson. He shares one-liners, several-liners, and shelf-liners… no, no, I mean sometimes poignant messages. And wisdom. Great stuff to impress your friends; or slip into your own e-mails so you can pretend to be as funny as Mikey. Sometimes, however, you’ll need a Kleenex or two… as the story he passed on from another source:

[This is a true story that happened to one of our readers years ago in a Youth Ministry college course. — Mikey]

I left work early so I could have some uninterrupted study time right before the final in my Youth Issues class. When I got to class, everybody was doing their last-minute studying. The teacher came in and said he would review with us for just a little bit before the test. We went through the review, most of it right out of the study guide, but there were some things he was reviewing that I had never heard. When questioned about it, he said that they were in the book and we were responsible for everything in the book. We couldn’t really argue with that.

Finally it was time to take the test.

“Leave them face down on the desk until everyone has one and I’ll tell you to start,” our prof instructed.

When we turned them over, every answer on the test was filled in! The bottom of the last page said the following:

“This is the end of the Final Exam. All the answers on your test are correct. You will receive an ‘A’ on the final exam. The reason you passed the test is because the creator of the test took it for you. All the work you did in preparation for this test did not help you get the A. You have just experienced… grAce.”

He then went around the room and asked each student individually, “What is your grade? Do you deserve the grade you are receiving? How much did all your studying for this exam help you achieve your final grade?”

Now I am not a crier by any stretch of the imagination, but I had to fight back tears when answering those questions and thinking about how the Creator has passed the test for me.

Discussion afterward went like this: “I have tried to teach you all semester that you are a recipient of grace. I’ve tried to communicate to you that you need to demonstrate this gift as you work with young people. Don’t hammer them; they are not the enemy. Help them, for they will carry on your ministry if it is full of GRACE!”

Talking about how some of us had probably studied hours and some just a few minutes but had all received the same grade, he pointed to a story Jesus told in Matthew 20. The owner of a vineyard hired people to work in his field and agreed to pay them a certain amount. Several different times during the day, he hired more workers. When it was time to pay them, they all received the same amount. When the ones who had been hired first thing in the morning began complaining, the boss said, “Should you be angry because I am kind?” (Matthew 20:15)

The teacher said he had never done this kind of final before and probably would never do it again, but because of the content of many of our class discussions, he felt like we needed to experience grace.

Have you thanked your Creator today because of the Grace you’ve experienced?

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Click Video Clip: Grace Medley

The Happy Goodman Family was one of the great groups in Gospel music. Their talents, varied styles, and heartfelt messages through music – sermons in song, really – have touched uncountable people since the late 1940s. Brothers Howard, Rusty, and Sam, and Howard’s wife Vestal were icons; and Rusty’s daughter Tanya continues the tradition today.

Rusty was the group’s songwriter, and in fact some of his music has transcended Gospel shows and hit records, and found their way into many hymnals. But Howard, the front man for the family band, wrote one that summed up his life, the Goodman Family’s journey. And mine too.

Can you identify, at the end of the day in still, small moments, with the confessions and testimony Howard shared?

I don’t regret a mile I’ve traveled for the Lord,
I don’t regret the times I’ve trusted in His Word.
I’ve seen the years go by, many days without a song,
But I don’t regret a mile I’ve traveled for the Lord.

I’ve dreamed many a dream that’s never come true;
I’ve seen them vanish at dawn.
But enough of my dreams have come true
To make me keep dreaming on.

I’ve prayed many a prayer that seemed no answer would come,
Though I’d waited so patient and long;
But enough answers have come to my prayers
To make me keep praying on.

I’ve sown many a seed that’s fallen by the wayside
For the birds to feed upon.
But I’ve held enough golden sheaves in my hands
To make me keep sowing on.

I’ve trusted many a friend that’s failed me
And left me to weep alone.
But enough of my friends have been true-blue
To make me keep trusting on.

I’ve drained a cup of disappointment and pain,
And gone many a day without song.
But I’ve sipped enough nectar from the roses of life
To make me want to live on.

I don’t regret a mile I’ve traveled for the Lord,
I don’t regret the times I’ve trusted in His Word.
I’ve seen the years go by, many days without a song,
But I don’t regret a mile I’ve traveled for the Lord.

The italics here are mine.

I pray that they are yours, too.

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Click Video Clip: I Don’t Regret a Mile

10-3-22

There are many Holy Bibles “in the market,” in stores and online. It seems there are new translations every year. Actually there are, certainly if you count the world’s many languages and dialects. It is hard to comprehend, but the number of languages including sign-languages, and distinct dialects are more than 3300 that have translations of the Bible, in whole or in part.

There are approximately 1700 versions of the Holy Bible available online alone. Christians rejoice at this evidence of evangelism. Skeptics will suggest that the message of Gospel likely is diluted or manufactured during such processes. Are Bible translations like the parlor game of “telephone,” where mistakes are rife and misunderstandings endemic?

It is an odd word, “translation,” when I focus on new (and ever newer) versions in English. A very incomplete list of English-language “versions” of the Bible available today include:

King James Version, New King James Version, New American Standard Bible, American Standard Version, Revised Standard Version, The Holy Bible in Modern English, Young’s Literal Translation, Douay, The Geneva Bible (“Breeches”), Knox Translation, Today’s English Version, The New English Bible, The Moffatt Bible, New International Version, The English Standard Version, New American Bible, New Jerusalem Bible, Revised English Bible, Contemporary English Version, Good News Bible, The Living Bible, The Amplified Bible, Phillips Translation, The Message…

I am not including the plethora of Commentaries and Concordances like time-honored, multi-volume Strongs, or excellent study Bibles like Ryrie and the Expositor’s Study Bible.

For centuries the Roman church forbad any translation of Scripture from Latin; indeed it frequently opposed the personal reading or ownership of the Bible, even in Latin, to anyone but clergy. These policies were enforced under penalty of death, and the list of martyrs, both famous in history and anonymous, is long.

The honor roll of those who believed God wanted every believer to have access to God’s Word (and were cruelly persecuted) is long: Wycliffe, Tyndale, Hus; Luther’s offense was not only criticizing the corruption of the papacy, but daring to translate the Bible into German. He escaped the death sentence.

One of the first English translations followed Luther’s, that of the Frenchman living in Switzerland, John Calvin. It was his “Geneva Bible” that was standard in English and was relied upon by the King James translators – and was the Bible carried by the Pilgrims and read by the Colonists in North America; those who designed our government

I was honored to be on the editorial team that produced, after centuries, the first reprint (changing nothing but thees and thous and grammar) of the 1599 Geneva Bible.

Reverting to the inevitable carping of skeptics, the great number of translations, versions, and updates is not necessarily evidence of a diluted message, but rather the reinforcement of truth and integrity. How the Bible came to be, so to speak, is either a miracle, an implausible coincidence, or proof of Holy Spirit inspiration.

The Bible includes 66 books, written by many different people over different centuries and on different continents. Yet they have common themes and references; prophecies and predictions made and fulfilled; and – when you think about it, maybe the most profound distinction – this Book has affected millions of people. Changed lives. “Spoken” to multitudes from wildly disparate backgrounds, circumstances, and… languages.

It is a Miracle Book, a book of miracles, written in so many ways “under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.” Inspire means to “breathe into”; God whispered to the hearts and minds of those who wrote Scripture.

I will confess here that I am not a fan (not quite a rejectionist, but sometimes close) of recent translations. Some projects are so concerned with contemporary readers’ inability to understand big words; or they are so motivated by Political Correctness, that they corrupt Scripture. It is not yet the case that the Ten Commandments are being changed to the Ten Suggestions… but, for instance, “gender neutral” translations are dangerously close to claiming that “In the beginning, He, She or It created heaven and earth…”

No, the message is simple. The Eternal God created everything; His children incline toward sin and rebellion; we cannot be reconciled with a perfect and a just God without a remedy; He provided means of forgiveness, redemption, and sanctification by offering His Son as a sacrifice to put the punishments we deserve upon Himself; and by believing that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for our sins, rose from death, and ascended to Heaven… we are assured of eternal life with Him.

Yes, that is pretty simple. Humankind – those darn intellects and pride and jealousies – make it complicated. Denominations get in the way. Publishers need product.

In the 1930s, the Limited Editions Club published, unbelievably after several centuries, the first major Holy Bible in the original King James format – that is, without verse numbers, citations, notes, and superscripts. I read “that” Bible (there have been others since) and was thunderstruck. Study-formats can help us, yes; and bless us. But reading only the texts – God’s story; His conversations; in many places reading like a novel – was like reading some familiar passages for the first time. I recommend it!

I was a little snarky above about the motivations of Bible-revisionists. As with the Geneva Bible reprint project, it can be useful to have access to contemporary language and grammar. Of course. I have a set of Shakespeare’s folios, and the spelling and language of those times make them virtually inaccessible, requiring modernization. But, again, that is the language, not the message.

So. People try to change the Bible for a variety of reasons, some good, some bad; some sensible, some questionable. But I pray that we never lose sight of the very pertinent issue.

We are not meant to change the Bible. The Bible is meant to change us.

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Click Video Clip: Tell Me the Story / I Love To Tell the Story

9-26-22

God forbid, to coin a phrase, but sometimes I take for granted the love of God, the power of the Gospel, the New Life offered by Jesus. I don’t lose faith, although my faith loses its savor and blessings are forfeited, but I allow the “newness” of salvation to become “old.”

Have you ever been there? “The joy of the Lord is my strength”… and we become weaker when we lose that joy.

Knowing this is error, there are a couple things I turn to after scolding myself and beseeching the Holy Spirit to get me back on track. I will share one of these tools with you.

I fix upon a familiar (“too” familiar?) passage of Scripture and change the pronouns. No, this is not a grammar lecture. When holy lessons are given to us, they should not be seen as stories about Job or David or Peter… but Words spoken for us, about us, and to us, also.

Some of your Bibles will have certain words of Jesus, in the middle of a sentence, in italics. Have you ever wondered why? In some of those cases, the translators wanted to emphasize that the events were centuries ago, but Jesus speaks in the present tense to us today, whenever and wherever we are.

So in that way I feel secure that I am not violating Scripture or God’s intentions… and I read things in a new light, receiving fresh inspiration.

Here is an example. Many of us have memorized the comforting 23^rd Psalm. We hear it often, not always in worship situations. It is intoned at funerals and memorial services. But when I am alone on occasion, I marvel how the most personal set of loving promises of God can open my heart to a greater awareness of His loving comfort, when I change the object of the loving assurances… and see it in a new light.

It is almost like, instead of hearing David’s confessional prayer, I become aware of God’s focus on me, His promises, and my proper response. See if it might speak to you that way:

The Lord is your shepherd; you shall not want.

He makes you to lie down in green pastures: he leads you beside the still waters.

He restores your soul: he leads you in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

Yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadow of death, you will fear no evil: for God is with you. His rod and His staff will comfort you.

He prepares a table before you in the presence of your enemies. He anoints your head with oil; your cup runs over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life: and you will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

And I rejoice in the promise of “surely” as the Lord opens the eyes of my heart.

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Years ago when I was Director of Product Development at Youth Specialties, I proposed a book and video package, and training tracks, for instructional ways to approach the conducting of music worship; I approached some of the talent at our youth worker conferences, including Paul Baloche. The powers that be, or were, after Mike Yaconelli’s passing, nixed the idea, referring to Paul among others as being too old.

Well, Paul Baloche, neither then nor now, was too old. His song “Open the Eyes of My Heart” will always be a fresh call unto God… as fresh as the psalms of David himself, the Sweet Singer of Israel.

Click Video Clip: Open The Eyes Of My Heart | Paul Baloche

9-19-22

A recent dust-up on the Internet – or in “real” life, about the Internet – a pair of zillionaires addressed the evils that lurk in this new world of skewed values, formed and furthered by the Internet. They focused on the relatively sudden change in society’s standards, and the various dangers represented by “bots,” attractive lies, and the web’s seductive appeals to youth.

Charlie Munger, the Vice Chairman of Berskshire Hathaway, seemingly took a swipe at the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, who agreed with Munger’s premise but is fighting his own battles against bots and bias of sites like his targeted Twitter.

I am grateful for the subjects to be raised; the men are close to the truth – a disturbing truth that has malignant implications for Western Civilization. Munger said at a conference: “The world is not driven by greed, it is driven by envy.” Elon Musk, in a separate screen statement, responded about a specific site, “Instagram is an envy amplifier,” referring to its toxic temptations. He is getting warm.

Those temptations? They are common to movies, TV, Facebook, YouTube also – not only for people to feel pressure to look better, but if necessary to act differently. Changing one’s (web) personality is a step away from changing one’s real personality and standards, to some abstract web-defined perfection. Then, another baby-step to adopting alien values and standards to be acceptable to invisible judges on magazine covers, music videos, movies, and the web. Musk even admitted to being addicted to Selfies and the urge to Photoshop them.

Enough people are doing the same thing these days, so the willing victims feel safe and… welcome.

I keep myself from calling these human chameleons “kids,” because adults are dancing to the same tunes. With “itching ears,” as the Bible calls the willing dupes, they say to the culture, in effect, “lie to me.”

Yes, adults, too. I am astonished by how many teenage girls I see in malls trying to look like 40-year-old skanks; and how many mothers try to look like teenagers.

Munger and Musk are close to Biblical truth, whether they know it or not. Greed and envy are subsets of Pride. The Church has long warned against the Seven Deadly Sins. That list is not in Scripture itself, but is inherent in Commandments, proverbs, and church teachings. They are, generally:

Gluttony

Lust, Fornication

Greed

Despair

Anger

Sloth, Laziness

Pride

Few would argue that, deep down, prudent respect these anti-virtues for the poison they represent. Yet humanity continues on its way. For all of God’s warnings and laws – going back to the Garden, really – in my mind the chief of all these Deadly Sins is Pride.

I see all sins, all offenses against God, as flowing from Pride. Adam and Eve thought that they could evade God. Satan thought he could outmaneuver God. Rebellious souls think they are cleverer than God. Individual sinners think that God will give them a pass. Gnostics think they know more than God. Legalists think that good deeds will impress God, despite what He said. Secularists, when they grant the possibility of a God, think they will get brownie-points for “caring” and being nice people.

All of them think they know more than God, or have an “in” with Him, or can explain away their sins, which are, after all, not worse than those of their faulty neighbors…

It is all Pride.

C S Lewis said that Pride “leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…. Pride is understood to sever the spirit from God, as well as His life-and-grace-giving Presence.”

Benjamin Franklin said that none of our passions more than Pride, is “so hard to subdue…. Disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive and will every now and then peep out and show itself.” In his famous fashion, mixing humor and wisdom, he said, “Even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.”

And, famously, the Bible said that Pride goes before destruction (Proverbs 16:18). It sounds like a gentle warning, but it is a grim promise of what happens to people under God’s eyes, and reject His grace.

“Lovers of selves,” instead of God. Pride. Have you heard these words? Also not a warning, but a prophecy. You tell me: Are we in those End Times?

There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God – having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people. – II Timothy 3:1-5

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Click Video Clip: Who Am I?

9-12-22

Labor Day marked the end of Summer, no matter what our thermometers or gardens say. But we prepare in advance for the Fall things it conjures up by staging a rush on cable knit sweaters, wool jackets, and suede boots. We’re ready now for the ideals of the next season.

[A guest message from our friend Leah Morgan.]

It reminds me of the way a lady in her mid-fifties once introduced herself to me, “I’m old, fat, and ugly.” August’s ninety degree weather with its ninety-nine percent humidity hadn’t yet passed, but her words had her bundled up in scarf and gloves like February snow had avalanched her in.

I heard the message again today from another lady, “He’s too old to find another job. Who would hire him now at his age?”

What are they really telling me? Change is off-limits for anyone fifty and over? Settling for misery is delegated to a certain age bracket and becomes age-appropriate behavior? I’m not a participant in my health or life pursuits?

Should I book a double knee-replacement right away, find a good deal on a recliner, learn to watch more news, complain about the world, and strive for a sedentary existence? Is this an age-demographic persona we take pride in, while chiding the younger generation for not wanting to work?

We model the next generation into their current form more than we can lecture them into our ideals. Either our values are walked out, or they’re mere fantasies talked about.

I do a hard about-face. I reject these notions. This contrary outlook clarifies and solidifies my own convictions. The Maker of life does not grow bored with our days and turn His focus on a newer, shinier person to become engaged with, leaving us to putter aimlessly through a dull existence, shelved until death.

I step outside. My rose garden waves me over and dramatizes the truth.

Early June was its prime blooming window. Its strength and beauty shine brightest then. Yet, here we are, late in the season, on the brink of pumpkin-love with orange and brown on our minds, shades of pink so Yesterday. If roses were retail clothing, they’d be in the clearance section. They’re expired. Out of season. But we’ve had significant rainfall this summer. The consistent watering that roses really crave caused them to flourish beyond their stereotypical expectations. They’re outperforming themselves, growing at an unprecedented rate in an unlikely season.

They are still producing. Still beautiful.

Look how you’ve made all your devoted lovers to flourish like palm trees, each one growing in victory, standing with strength!

You’ve transplanted them into your heavenly courtyard, where they are thriving before you, for in your presence they will still overflow and be anointed.

Even in their old age they will stay fresh, bearing luscious fruit and abiding faithfully.

Listen to them! With pleasure they still proclaim: “You’re so good! You’re my beautiful strength! You’ve never made a mistake with me.”

(Psalm ‭92:12-15‬‬‬)

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Click Video Clip: Where the Roses Never Fade

9-5-22

An emotional week around here, capped by a funeral this morning. “We’ve gotta stop meeting like this” – I have attended too many lately, and occasionally I have been inspired to share thoughts, with your indulgence. They all are not “funereal” these days, as services do not have to be maudlin. When my family conducted a hospital ministry, we were introduced to joyous “home-going” services in Black churches; and they altered our various perspectives.

But today’s instance was about the hardest of all challenges to a family and friends, because 17-year-old Aaron – not his name, but it will be here – decided himself that it was time for his home-going. Permit me the euphemisms.

Hard enough, of course, but the act was more jarring because only hours earlier he was out with friends, laughing in diners, taking selfies. Only weeks before he decided to be baptized, and even presented his testimony of renewed faith in Christ and the joy it brings. Only months before he had “graduated” from a program that works with youth who experience episodes of depression, sometimes having attempted extreme measures to escape the anxieties they felt.

Yes, Aaron had for several years been in and out of ugly depression and occasional feelings of rejection, self-loathing, irrationality. The world saw the happy kid – intelligent, handsome, popular, and always (counter-intuitively?) faithful to Jesus. A daily Bible reader. Keeper of theologically introspective journals.

Questions. Of course there are questions.

Despite what our contemporary world insists we blithely believe, that “nothing matters anyway”… we need to ask questions, but there are no answers. Certainly not to everything; no Googling, no experts, not even – horrors, can I say it? – not even in the Bible. Listen: if we knew everything, we would be God. The Bible has answers for all that we need, but not every thing we want, or wonder about. And as soul-searing as some things are, even “sanctified” curiosity will remain mysteries until we gain Eternity.

That’s hard, but it’s true.

We ask, WHY?

And the world mockingly answers, Why not?

I think God answers, The important question is not Why, but What – in this instance, What did Aaron make of his life? What did he do in his life? What are the ways he touched people? What difference did he make?

The “why” questions involve a sort of permissible selfishness, as I recently discussed in this space. Of course we feel horrible for the soul who has “passed,” but the largest ingredient of Mourning is… mourning for ourselves. How we will miss our child, sibling, or friend. Mourning for the sudden hole in our lives. And that is OK.

But I had the thought during the service that every life means something. Every. Life. Modest people might think that’s true for others but not for them. No. That’s not life’s way. It’s not God’s way.

We all have meaning, we have effects. We can see this… or not. We can plan it… or not. It can be acknowledged… or not. Effects can live after us… No: they do live after us. Our lives matter; what we do matters. All of us, in little ways or big, actually want to make a difference.

So in that way, whether you live 17 years or 117 years, what you do matters. It matters to other people. It matters to God.

In that perspective, our friend Aaron packed a lot of “meaning” into 17 years. Impressing uncountable people with his good nature, adventurous spirit, and Christian activities. In a bizarre and seemingly cruel circumstance, it was precisely a year ago that his cousin and best friend, almost the same age to the day, was laid to rest after suddenly dying of a brain aneurysm; he also had packed an A+ personality and smarts and Bible study and social activity into a “brief” life.

I know it’s not a Bible verse, but we think of the phrase “Quality, not quantity” in the cases of young men like them.

In my own family’s hospital ministry mentioned above, the toughest questions we were asked by transplant-listed patients, families, or survivors was Why? Why me? Why my brother, why my son? I finally felt liberated – able better to minister in some small way – when one morning I answered, “I don’t know!!!”

The important and essential follow-up is, “Let’s pray about it. Let’s seek God.” Maybe we can cope a little bit better; maybe we can find peace; maybe there is healing indeed under the shadow of God’s wings (Psalm 36:7).

And maybe we can discern, and celebrate, and savor, the meaning of that person’s life… and as tough as it seems, choosing instead to look beyond only the length of his days.

If we can receive those blessings, we can start to make sense of things. And that’s a good road to travel when other paths lead to bitter tears and confusion and anger and resentment.

Life can be mean… but we must seek out the meaning. The seeking, itself, is a balm. And then we realize, as I asked above, that death can be a detail, but life is a fact.

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Video Click: Does Jesus Care?

8-29-22

Many physicists and indeed many average folk are agog over the first images from the James Webb Telescope. I personally have almost exhausted my supply of agogs, and I am not even sure what an agog is.

In fact, the more that the newest of humankind’s massive, far-flung telescopic cameras shows us… the more it does not show us. Quickly I explain: the pictures reveal more stars – indeed more galaxies and nebulae – than we knew existed. (“We,” meaning everyone from early humans Ug and Glug looking up at the night skies and scratching their heads, to egghead professors only months ago.)

But at the same time, scientists mix their astonishment and excited discoveries with questions. There are not only new pin-points on charts of the heavens, but anomalies, contradictions, challenges. More questions than answers? Maybe.

It is all galvanic, of course. I find it satisfying to see Americans revive a little bit of the amazement that spread across the land during those early space shots. What I do not see is what I am experiencing: the translation of these staggering mysteries – their scope, their extent, their significance – to increased confirmations of belief in God. Further proof, we might say.

The Creator God. In ancient tongues, among many names ascribed to God, Elohim.

The statistics and explanations, inadequate as they are, rekindle thoughts from the Ug-and-Glug stage of my own sentience.

• We have a new, seemingly tangible, awareness of how big the Universe is. But do we? What is beyond the farthest we can see? Where does it end? Can it end? What is on the “other side” of the end?
• We are told that the old estimate of the Universe having a sextillion planets might be a modest estimate (one sextillion is even larger than the latest inflation numbers). How, really, did the planets all form?
• We have measurements of the “farthest” galaxies – the newest discovery estimated at 13.5-billion light-years from earth. A light-year is the distance that light travels in one year; that is 186,000 miles per second or 5.88-trillion miles a year. If correct, that’s 13.5-billion x 5.88-trillion. Years. You do the arithmetic; my brain hurts. These are scientists’ numbers. How old is old?

You might see where I am sidling. It amuses me to hear scientists talk about the Big Bang (often omitting that is the Big Bang Theory) and I wonder why their brains don’t get cramps, as they invent and rely on elaborate denials of a Creator God. Certainly it is the case that the increasingly erudite explanations of the Big Bang increasingly resemble the first chapters of the Book of Genesis. Hmmm… The Webb’s snapshots incite in me, too, more questions. At random:

• If there was a “moment” of the Big Bang, Who or what caused it… and what was “there” previously? And for how long back in time?
• In every other aspect of life, something that has been created had a creator. Why does the scientific mafia think that life, itself, is the exception?
• Every one of the sextillion (give or take a skillion) planets in the perceived Universe is spherical (or generally so: oblate spheroids, given isostatic adjustments). Why? Friction? No, there nearly is no matter in empty space that would wear them down. “Gravity” is the agreed-upon culprit.

We have “theories” of Relativity and Evolution; and “laws” of Gravity… but I do not need the “what” of Gravity explained as much as the “why.” With virtual shrugs of shoulders, scientists call Gravity an “invisible force.” As a former Editor at Marvel Comics, I confess that this sounds more like the Silver Surfer than Albert Einstein.

Yes, Einstein postulated that Gravity pulls on light as well as mass. That’s the “meta” explanation; the “micro” evidence is the moon pulling on mighty oceans. Gravity pulls “downward,” essentially inward, which explains planets being spheres (but not why we have never observed an evolving “new” planet still in the shape of, say, SpongeBob SquarePants); but my brain hurts again. We still don’t know the How of all this. Or Why.

And that’s Okay.

The Big Bang Theory initially sounded silly to me; now it is discussed with gravity (sorry) by professors. The latest quest – to formulate a “Theory of Everything,” I kid you not – sounds sillier.

And yet the skeptics challenge us: “Because you can’t explain something you just say, ‘Oh, it’s God’.” (My friend Gary Adams has reminded me that Dr Frank Turek calls this the “God in the Gaps” argument.)

My response: Yes, pretty often. Now that we understand that, let’s move on.

My further response: “You folks, when you can’t explain something that generations of people have trusted, but challenges your ways of thinking… when your “accepted facts” of science are disproven, overturned, or superseded in the face of factors like architectural and anatomical discoveries… when things you dismissed as legends are revealed as actual history… you just say, ‘Oh, those are anything but God’.”

My final response: The Creator God, Elohim, has revealed Himself in uncountable ways. His fingerprints are on all of animate and inanimate creation. He has redeemed you through the Blood of His Son Jesus Christ, telling you that you are the most precious of His creations – including bright stars and colorful planets. With those photos from an outer-space telescope, He chooses to remind us of His sovereignty and majesty. I know these things because I see them; because He told us; and because I personally have been blessed by that Creator God. His Son, you see, is my best friend. And He reassured us: “If it were not so, I would have told you.”

We don’t need a “Theory of Everything” when the Bible already provides us the Answer to Everything.

I close with a quatrain I memorized as a kid, from the Rubaiyat, but that expresses my message here:

All the saints and sages who have discussed

Of the two worlds so learnedly are thrust

Like foolish prophets forth;

Their words to scorn are scattered; their mouths are stopped with dust.

It’s a big universe, after all. But there’s no place like Home.

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An old Gospel song with a spoken reference to God flinging the stars across Creation:

Video Click: When All God’s Singers Get Home

8-22-22

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

My high-school English teacher, Mr Edward-Peter FitzSimmons, occasionally reminded us of people’s curious reliance on (ultimately futile) ancient wisdom, time-honored sayings, and fortune-cookie guidance.

He pointed out that virtually every wise word of advice had an equally wise (-sounding) opposite. Sort of like a rhetorical version of Newton’s Third Law of Physics.

“He who hesitates is lost” contradicts “Look before you leap.”

“Strike while the iron is hot” is challenged by “Better late than never.”

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” is confronted by “To thine own self be true.”

When all is said and done, a stitch in time saves nine. Um, I know that has an origin, but it is lost on me, just as many proverbs – and, today, internet memes – are lost on me. I think the most reliable proverbs are the ancient Proverbs written by King Solomon. The passage above was from his book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3: 1-8.

Those paired sentiments, the apposites of each line, separated by semi-colons, are not contradictory, as in Mr FitzSimmons’ examples. They remind us of the “both sides of life”; the unity of all the circumstances that God has charted for our journeys; the “turn, turn, turn” of the folk-song lyrics that were inspired by this passage.

We savor – or we should – every time of life, because every time has its unique blessings; youth, middle age, old age. When my three children were growing up and I was asked by someone how old he-or-she was, my stock answer was to cite the age and then say it was my favorite year for children. I’ll admit I was trying to sound a little Solomonic, if not solemnic; but I believed it, and do believe it.

At the recent funeral of a good friend who died in his 80s, there were many church friends and neighbors, and many of his family members who had moved to Texas through the years. Two who could not attend were on their honeymoon; recently married! The only factor making the scene more life-lesson symbolic would have been the birth of a grandchild on the day of the funeral.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Much of the small-talk I overheard in the Fellowship lunch afterward centered on children, being the end of Summer – going back to school, leaving for college, even going into the military. These happy, exciting, or melancholy events also are locations on that wheel of life. “Seasons.”

I have written these weekly messages now for about a dozen years, and I seldom repeat messages or music videos, but this is one song I love to share every few years at this time. (As you go through life, you realize that a few things tend to repeat themselves: history; bad sauerkraut; and old bloggers).

I hope you will take a moment to watch the little video. It is a secular song about a mom “sending” her daughter off to college. I first heard it before my first daughter left for college almost 25 years ago; and it made me weep. Now… she graduated… my other children two subsequently went off to college… all have careers… and ol’ Pop has four grandchildren. I still weep because every Good-bye is never fully nullified by the occasional Hello.

Parents, of course, can never “regret” any empty-nest situation. It is a part of being a parent. “Seasons” – as the days drag on, the years speed by. Bittersweet, we say, sometimes forgetting the “sweet” part of such moments. If our tears seem bitter, we are reminded in Scripture that God provides a “balm in Gilead” — healing reminders of his sovereignty, His will for our lives, His love.

And His Seasons.

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Video Click: It’s Never Easy Letting Go

8-1-22

If a poll were to be taken, for instance at ComiCon International, whose annual fest just concluded in San Diego; and let’s say especially in such a control-group sample of geeks and nerds (take it easy, I spent a portion of my career serving them) – and the question was about superheroes…

Let’s say, Who is the greatest superhero of them all? or Who has the greatest powers? Whose conflicts, challenges, victories are the most impactful? Who can endure anything, from bombs to betrayal, and maybe come back stronger? …The answers would be many, and even cosplay attendees might start shoving each other around.

The questions do not arise from preconceived habits or childhood favorites, but rather the intricate premises of the Marvel and DC (etc) “universes,” and the passionate investment that young fans (and older college students) (and adults) make in the worlds of these characters and the consistently maintained cocoons of comics and movies.

When I was an editor at Marvel Comics (and generally regarded as someone who was always bewildered by such things) there were periodic bullpen, or bull, sessions, brainstorming new ideas, directions, stories, and costumes. More than once I proposed a concept and was shot down. “That’s not logical!” “That could never happen!” – as the editors returned to discuss piercing the Sixth Dimension or stealing the appearance of a villain after drugging some interplanetary potion.

“OK, I understand,” I said. But I didn’t. When I left Marvel I spent a few years writing comic-book stories for Disney. Somehow, talking mice and half-naked ducks seemed closer to reality.

Stan Lee used to talk to us about comic books and superheroes being reliant on the “suspension of disbelief.” That basic formula (actually promulgated centuries ago by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, not Stan Lee!) has provided an appeal to young readers since the 1930s. As I wrote last week, it seems to me that the well has been a bit poisoned. In comics and spun-off movies, good versus evil is obsolete, or at least superseded and made somewhat nuanced by political correctness, a desperation for newer premises, and the culture’s general decline in values that I think propels the increase in sex and violence.

All while art imitates life imitates art in society. But in one corner, there is a growing active and fertile group of creators staking a claim – not only for traditional values and wholesome storylines… but for Biblical Christianity. Good guys who are good guys, and who win.

I call this new corps of Christian cartoonists “disciples,” maybe more numerous than Jesus’s original gang, but spreading the Good News nonetheless. Al Nickerson (The Sword Of Eden) is one of the best, and a favorite of mine. Daniel Hancock is part of the creative ferment at Terminus Media (https://www.terminusmedia.com ) where he collaborated with Daryl Peninton and Matt Baker as editor on “Samson: Rise,” and works closely with Dr. Barron Bell as story/scriptwriter of the sci-fantasy graphic novel series Dominion: Fall of the House of Saul. He is also founder and director of Bible Actors Productions, creator of End Of Darkness, a full-cast audio drama on the life of Jesus.

Daniel shared a statement from Terminus: “We want everything we do to honor the Creator who has authored the greatest true story of love and redemption that the world has ever seen. We want to love our neighbors (all our neighbors) by using our gifts and talents to entertain and equip them to live abundant lives.”

Outside the traditional comic-book realm everyone remembers the ubiquitous Veggie Tales, all Bible-based. Tom and Tony Bancroft, Barry Cook, and Jeff Keane, are superb animators and committed Christians. There are groups and studios of creators but probably the largest – a fellowship of very professional business minds – is the Christian Comic Arts Society (https://my.christiancomicarts.com )

This group deserves a careful look, at least at their website with its impressive mission statement; and the roster of member cartoonists, including aspirants. The members produce all sorts of stories – yes, also serving kids who were weaned on gritted-teeth fights and explosions and breathless rescues – but it is refreshing to read the creators’ testimonies and visions; their commitment to Christ; and – my view, speaking from the outside – their efforts to redeem the culture.

I will mention other Christian cartoonists of the day, wanting to give honor to those who honor God through their work. They additionally include Eric Jansen, Chivas Davis, Art Ayris, Doug TenNapel, Scott McDaniel, Steve Crespo, and Paul Castiglia.

Al Nickerson (The Sword Of Eden – www.theswordofeden.com ), was an artist for DC Comics, Archie Comic Publications, Marvel Comics, and Warp Graphics. He has been a designer and animator for Sesame Street, MTV Animation, and Nickelodeon. The Sword Of Eden is an inventive series, arrestingly drawn, and revolving around retrieving the legendary sword used by angels to keep Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. The speculative adventures includes demons (which, of course, do exist in Bible narratives), villains, and a possible detour to locate Noah’s Ark.

“Comics, sequential art, is a powerful literary art form,” Nickerson said; “a wonderful medium through which to share the Gospel message…. I have the opportunity to create Christian comics that Christian readers can enjoy without feeling attacked.

“There is a bias [against Christianity] in entertainment. Modern Western culture promotes a godless woke agenda. The world hates Jesus, Christianity, and Christians. Therefore, it is vital to support true Christian entertainment. Don’t let the liars and people who are filled with hate influence your work or what you have to say. We live in a broken and sinful world in need of the Savior. The message of repentance and belief in Jesus the Messiah unto salvation should always be shared.”

My new best friend, introduced by the amazing facilitator Gordon Pennington, is Jim Krueger. He wrote the story script for Midway Games’ Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks video game, which won the Satellite Award for Best Action/Adventure Video Game. In the comics field, his main focus, Jim wrote the 12-issue miniseries Justice with Alex Ross for DC Comics. It was a New York Times Bestseller, and won an Eisner Award for Best Graphic Novel. About a decade after I left Marvel, Jim became its Creative Director.

His original works include The Foot Soldiers; Alphabet Supes; The Clock Maker; The Runner; The High Cost of Happily Ever After: and The Last Straw Man. Jim’s other work for Marvel Comics includes the Earth X trilogy with Alex Ross; Avengers; X-Men; and Avengers/Invaders. His comics work for other publishers includes Star Wars; The Matrix Comics; Micronauts; Galactic; and Batman. Jim’s company is “26 Soldiers,” where he serves as president and publisher.

Jim is a committed Christian, even now working on new projects, and will guest on this blog soon.

Good and evil, in mainstream commercial comics and movies, have become tokens, not gems nor compasses. I was invited to write for the animated TV series ThunderCats years ago, and the creator emphasized that there were to be “lessons” at the end of every episode. In fact he called them “morals,” but they were neither (to my emerging conscience) – the template sounded good, but the “story bible” forbade spiritual messages or, certainly, Biblical values even sanitized. Empty clichés: the way of contemporary society.

Christians must realize and act on the premise that any values divorced from Biblical truth are counterfeit. Viewers and readers being presented, say, “New Gods” while the old God was ignored, dismissed, and, most tellingly, disbelieved are enabling evil. Innocent people are encouraged to find comfort in the saying that believing something… is enough. A false choice when Revealed Truth is available to us.

A society with no core beliefs cannot, by definition, operate on any positive standards or values. A culture that does not recognize right and wrong; practices Relativism; and rejects Absolute Truth… will die at the hands of forces that create their own rules. If you doubt me, check out the nightly news.

People who follow horoscopes and read tarot cards usually dismiss the Bible as mumbo-jumbo. Kids who are obsessed with superheroes don’t want to think about the Jesus Who walked on water and through walls, made the blind see and could read minds, and conquered death. Victims of terminal illnesses will grasp at copper bracelets and expensive herbal remedies and the Power of Wishful Thinking… but too often reject documented cases of real miracles by the “Lord Who Healeth Thee.” Tragic.

In the parlance of today’s comics culture, Jesus was the greatest superhero of them all. He was sent to earth; He knew the past of prehistory and could foretell the future; He turned water into wine; He fed a multitude by praying an increase over a basket of fish and bread; He raised people from the dead, and rose Himself despite agonizing torture and putrefaction in a tomb. He changes lives like mine, maybe the grandest miracle I know.

His costume was a simple robe, except for the holy Blood that covered Him in line with uncountable prophesies and predictions. And He did this all for us sinners while we were yet in our sins.

And Jesus was not a fictional character, but indisputably a historical figure.

I knew Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who invented Superman as teenagers in Cleveland. “It seemed like a fun character, a fun story to think about.” I asked Bob Kane how he came to create Batman. A similar story – at least no high-culture or pop-culture babble about cosmic forces of evil and revenge. “A fun idea,” he claimed.

Christianity is nothing if not about the supernatural. Welcome to Reality, not Fantasy!

All hail the POWER of Jesus’ name!

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Video Click: Power In The Blood 🎵 The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir

7-25-22

It is almost impossible lately, during at least one week in July or August, not be aware of costumed heroes, red-carpet interviews, breathless announcements of new video games, and outrageous prices being paid for ancient, fragile comic books. It is the week of “ComiCon,” the San Diego International Comic Convention.

Even if you are not (in order) a fan of superheroes, celebrities, new movies and games, or collectible comic books… it is difficult to avoid cable-TV coverage, entertainment-show stories, news packages, and internet views of scholars and nerds, 135,000 of them, crowding the aisles of the Convention Center in otherwise placid San Diego.

It holds my interest for several reasons. I was in that world – and of that world – for much of my life. Actually more than one career, for I have been a political cartoonist, scenarist of strips and graphic novels, syndicate comics editor, editor of Marvel Comics magazines, writer for Disney, comics anthologist and historian, etc.

More, I have attended many of the comics festivals around the world, usually as a speaker or guest. Many are larger, and at one time more scholarly, than San Diego. But my first ComiCon was in 1976, and in those days they were small affairs, held in old halls or hotel basements. In fact ComiCon basically was a collectors’ swap meet with celebrity panels. As Editor at Marvel, I arranged for us to be the first major publisher to rent space and display new releases there. (I humbly confess that a strong motivation was to have Stan Lee sign off on 10 fun days with my staff in sunny California…)

Before the Con was largely subsumed by films and games I was kind of tight with board members of SDCC, so I was in its orbit. But these days it takes the James Webb Telescope of the Comics Universe to spot me. My interest in the art form has not waned at all – I am deep in a couple projects about comics history – but, as I said, SDCC is more about movies, games, and toys than strips.

But superheroes still stalk the halls, the representatives of comic books and their Hollywood spin-offs.

I have never fully understood America’s fascination with superheroes – before, during, and after my tenure at Marvel. We are too deep in the forest to see the trees; if the world survives, it will take analysts of the future to explain America’s obsession with violence and sex; protagonists who rely on muscles, weapons, and absurd powers to pursue justice. Other civilizations built the heroes of their myths (commonly agreed standards and values) on integrity, courage, and wisdom. Many of their heroes failed, the source of literal “tragedy,” a term that is, significantly, misused these days. But in contemporary America, every “hero,” every sketch drawn for fans at ComiCon, employs grimaces, knotted brows, bleeding scratches, clenched teeth, and, usually, a ravished buxom woman at his feet.

Why has America developed this conception of a hero, and why has an audience demanded or welcomed such characters, for surely they are synergistic factors.

Having worked in the “forest,” as I said, all my career, I can discern the trees but cannot identify them, nor explain their sustenance. Even my cherished Disney characters, whom I cast in countless scripts as I wrote premises and stories, have been transformed. I no longer recognize the denizens of the Magic Kingdom; No: I do recognize them, and I don’t like them. They don’t like me. Walt must be turning his grave like a rotisserie chicken. (I recently wrote about this for a national magazine.)

There are signs of hope, reasons for optimism, evidence of some redemption. Not only for desperately needed diversity of content, but as push-backs against the troubling vortex of thematic rot. Villains, and even heroes, I knew as a kid and during my time at Marvel, have now engaged in serial excess – demonology, satanism, perversion (“oh, we must give the good guys something to oppose”), rougher violence, and bloodier graphic representations of it all.

But subcultures of Christian cartoonists are creating stories and inventing heroes with positive virtues; self-publishing, when necessary, and with… happy endings. Or, for discerning readers, pointing to the Truth. Among these creators are very talented artists and writers. Many of them are at the ComiCon, and many are exhibiting, offering their work to the public, and… well, evangelizing. Missionaries in a hostile world – America, not only fan conventions.

When I was young I knew Al Hartley, who was permitted to draw a line of Archie comics for the Christian market; Hank Ketcham did the same with a line of Dennis the Menace comic books. Today’s new breed has taken the fight as St Paul did: “all things to all people” — there are series of heroes; fantasy themes; humor; adventure. The creators do not hide their faith, hoping to lure unsuspecting pagans… but rather, they share their witness boldly and cleverly.

Once there was Jack Chick, who published controversial comics as tracts. There was political cartoonist Wayne Stayskal, who also drew for religious publications. There is the Australian pastor Ian Jones, for whose anthology of Christian strips Pearly Gates I wrote an Introduction. I had many conversations with Charles Schulz who, early in his career, evangelized on street corners; he grew weary and wary of organized religions but always discussed Christian faith.

Of the “rising generation” there are many. And many of them are at ComiCon, individually and as members of the Christian Comics Society. This activity might surprise some Christians; but if the work was more widely read and discussed, the whole world might – and should – know of it. In the next blog message I will highlight some of the cartoonists and their work.

In the meantime, I will note that it is inspiring that some cartoonists are working not to impress each other or attract fans by whatever means they can use… but are conscious of the One Reader they seek to please.

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Video Click: It Is No Secret

7-18-22

Almost all of us know the story of the adulteress brought before Jesus. Almost all of us have not considered the myriad aspects and many lessons, nor asked – much less answered – the questions it presents.

From The Gospel of John, Chapter 8.

Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning, He came again to the temple. All the people came to him, and He sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in adultery, and placing her in the midst they said to Him, “Teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the Law, Moses commanded us to stone such women. So what do you say?” This they said to test Him, that they might have some charge to bring against Him.

Jesus bent down and wrote with His finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask Him, He stood up and said to them, “Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” And once more He bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they heard it, they went away one by one, beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before Him.

Jesus stood up and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “Neither do I condemn you; go, and from now on sin no more.”

And Jesus spoke to the Pharisees, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life”…

I will share some thoughts I have, among many, from this story about that scene. I trust you will have more. Needless to say, I discern messages for our time, and for our lives, my life directly, as always happens when the Bible opens itself.

• Jesus did not minimize the woman’s sin. He maximized repentance and forgiveness.
• Religious leaders sought tricks to corner and twist and block the righteous. (They still act the same way today.) It is clear that the Pharisees, the professional religious hypocrites, were less concerned with the Law of Moses or even the woman acting justly, than trying to trick and discredit Jesus.
• Jesus FULFILLED the law, and did not seize upon it to condemn people. The harsh punishments of Old Testament rules were abolished by the Person and the Ministry of Jesus the Christ. Adherence to those laws was impossible, and righteousness is now found in true fellowship with Jesus.
• Jesus was writing in the sand with his finger. What was He writing? The Bible does not say. I believe He was not drawing doodles nor scribbling nonsense. In my mind’s eye He was writing the numbers 1 to 10 for all to see. Why? So the people might begin thinking about the Ten Commandments… and how many of those laws each of them had kept… or broken.
• The woman was face-to-face with her Savior. As He freed her, forgiveness flowed. How powerful is God’s forgiveness, and its “reach” into our lives? Jesus forgave before she asked… just as Christ gave His life for us while we were yet sinners! Our response then is to resist the sin nature, working to “sin no more” in life as the Holy Ghost enables.
• When He said, “Go and sin no more,” it closely followed the absolution… but the next verse indicates that the hypocritical Pharisees remained close by, and that message was directed to them too. And to us: Go and sin no more.

You might think I will relate this incident and its lessons to events that swirl around us today. You might be right.

I don’t have to do this, because the messages of the Holy Bible, and the Words of Jesus, stand on their own with applications for all people in all places at all times. Yet we are commanded to apply these truths.

Contemporary debates about abortion, and court decisions, and laws, relate to the incident of the woman… as well as to the attitudes of those who condemn her. Deeper is the motivation of the religious hypocrites: they hated Jesus and schemed to silence His message; and they had no compassion for the woman or her situation.

Her dilemma (and many Bible scholars believe that she specifically was unmarried and pregnant) is described as a consequence of her adultery. Jesus did not criticize her past actions, but lovingly sent her back to her home with the admonition to change her ways.

The abortion “debate” today is clothed in everything from cries for freedom to love for babies not yet born. Freedom and love somehow morph into violence and hate. Myself, I am not equating the two sides, like people who say “at least they’re sincere”: I believe abortion is murder.

Yet I see some sort of resolution to the current maelstrom of malice by returning, if we can imagine it, to that spot in the shadow of the Mount of Olives where the religious leaders tried to corner Jesus, and used the woman as a pawn.

Jesus identified the crisis of that confrontation. It was not mere adultery; it was sin. To the crowd, He defused their fury by confronting them with their hypocrisy. After her encounter with the Savior, she could not undo her sin… but she could repent, and she could change her life.

That is all Jesus asks when we accept Him.

And those numbers 1 to 10? If that’s what He wrote, it is significant that they were written in the sand. Irrelevant? No! But written by, explained by, and fulfilled by, Jesus Christ.

Let us go and resolve to sin no more.

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Video Click: Take My Life and Let It Be

https://youtu.be/qQfxc_zhlvA

7-11-22

At times all believers wonder – no differently than do secular folk – Why do the “good” suffer? Indeed, why do sinners prosper? Where is God? Why is it necessary to go through trials at all? Why did my spouse die? How can I survive this economy? Can a blessing please come my way?

God answers prayer, yes; but why is the answer so often No? Why does God seem to delay His answers… or seem seldom to answer a specific pleading?

… Why does an all-powerful God, who loves us so much – and which we hardly doubt – where is He when we cry? Why must we suffer anguish? We feel we are not selfish, but why, God, are You so often late??? Have you cried out with such questions?

I have friends who have been in that place lately, and so have I. Our souls cry out, even as we know the truths, and we know His word: we don’t need Bible college to know that He is sovereign. Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, as Hebrews Chapter 11 states. “Trust and Obey,” the old Gospel song assures us. There are hundreds of Bible promises. “Father knows best!” Even that has spiritual application!

But yet we hurt. And wait. And listen. And, sometimes, our spiritual shopping-list seems to have been ignored.

Among many clues to these questions in the Bible, I think today of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and Martha, and a special friend, we read, of Jesus. Lazarus was sick… Jesus was sent for to pray healing over him… Jesus was “late,” arriving four days after his friend died and was entombed. Why, why, cried the women and many other followers, Why were you late, Jesus?

Jesus wept (the shortest verse in Scripture), we are told. He prayed to His Father that His divinity might be manifest in that moment, to assert (once again) to witnesses that He was indeed sent by God. He instructed mourners that the stone over the tomb’s entrance be rolled away… despite protestations that there would be ugly putrefaction from a four-day-old dead body.

But Lazarus walked out. He was whole and healed.

Jesus directed that the remaining burial cloths be removed. The Lord was, we see, not the only example of a resurrection recorded in Scripture… and neither the last. (Many are to come!)

The lessons are many. First, regarding timely prayer requests: Was Jesus “four days late”… or was He, rather, precisely on time? I urge you to watch the short music video below, enacting the scene but sharing the Truth better than I am doing.

And we ought to practice humility. Our agenda is not God’s; our urgency is not His. My comment about a shopping-list is too often how we approach the Lord. That is not communication as God desires.

Also there is the point about God’s sovereignty. Jesus’ timing was perfect… but we need to learn that Jesus did not raise everybody from the dead. He might have healed everyone He met, but the Bible does not claim that. He loves us, but His ways are not our ways.

Do you begin to see the “problem” we sometimes have with prayer? The problems can be with our approach, not His hearing. The ultimate lesson is to have faith. “Be still and know that I am God,” He tells us.

I was persuaded, years ago, to have an all-in belief in Divine Healing, close to the “name it and claim it” theology we hear discussed. Then one day I realized that an evangelist I fervently followed… wore glasses. And his wife talked about sharing Jesus… during her physical therapy sessions. Hmmm.

My late wife underwent heart and kidney transplants despite praying that she be supernaturally healed instead. A year later she was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, was “prayed over” but underwent surgery, after which the doctors “couldn’t explain it,” but there were no traces of cancer cells.

God is sovereign. Why do we always need reminders?

I take away one more lesson from Lazarus. He was from Bethany, but he is also a Metaphor, if you will forgive me. Lazarus was dead… and before Jesus shows up in our lives, we too are dead in our sins.

And others might pray for us… but only a personal encounter with the Savior will bless us.

Also: instead of thinking of yourself as a Mary or Martha or an onlooker… imagine yourself as Lazarus. He was not only dead by all the ways they could measure. But, remember Jesus ordered that the bandages and burial cloths be removed? Let us think about that: we often, and in many ways, are encumbered, and bound, by our sins. Burial cloths, in a way of thinking, restraining us.

Death accompanies such restraints – sins – on our lives. Jesus looses and frees us from them. And like Lazarus, we may be born again.

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Video Click: Four Days Late

7-4-22

When my children were young, my wife and I had them memorize our family’s address, in case they ever strayed from home or lost their way. To orient themselves or assist those who would help.

In these times, we would do well – all of us, adults as well as children – to memorize another Address ourselves. We have, in many and substantial cases, strayed from Home as a people. Our culture seems to have lost its way.

On the Fourth of July we observe a national birthday, commemorating the date affixed to the Declaration of Independence. With the Constitution and other founding documents, speeches, and sermons, it is testimony that the nation and the very “idea” of a Republic were endowed by our Creator.

Many Americans have grown cold or indifferent to those ideals, and we see examples of citizens taking their rights and blessings for granted At the other extreme, radicals denigrate those ideals and besmirch the Founders and Framers.

However, elsewhere in the world there remain lonely and courageous freedom-seekers who are inspired by those words. There are young and fragile governments who model their struggles on those words.

There should be American children and, yes, adults, too who commit to memory some of the ringing words of our heritage.

July Fourth is a unique day for several reasons. Among them, the Declaration was signed; it was when Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders secured San Juan Hill in a bloody battle; and it was the day (actually one of three days) that the consequential Battle of Gettysburg was fought.

There are some people today who reject the idealism of statesmen and soldiers of our past. They dismiss the sacrifices and hard-fought benefits of our difficult civic evolution. They reject the blessings of God; His working in a land when His guidance was sought; they deny God Himself.

Among other heresies, people claim that the conscience of a nation was not roused by the cancer of slavery; that other motives animated a civil war. But I have archives newspaper and magazines of the era, and it is striking how simple citizens – even newly arrived immigrants – affirmed and reaffirmed allegiance to a nation they could not abide splitting apart. And there was a burning determination to end slavery. As President Lincoln said, “If slavery is not wrong, then nothing is wrong,” and hundreds of thousands died so that bondsmen they did not know would be free.

When I was in grade school I chose to memorize Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. I am still moved when I recite it, or read it, or hear it spoken. It is only about 250 words long, and when Lincoln delivered it, the address followed a two-hour speech by that event’s “main” speaker. Witnesses say that the assembled crowd had barely settled, after stretching their bodies and routinely applauding, when it ended!

But its words – Lincoln’s message and meaning – were soon regarded as profound. It is now regarded as one of the great orations, great essays, of humankind.

I am afraid, to use Lincoln’s invitations, that if we cannot re-dedicate ourselves to what constitutes “this nation, under God,” we are lost as a people. The world might indeed little note nor long remember whatever it was we have done here in America.

We need to be reminded of our home addresses, so to speak, for we have lost our way.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But in a larger sense we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us, that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion, that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

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Video Click:

6-27-22

Certain events in my life have caused me to dread headlines – not every day; and for years as a newspaperman it was my business to write headlines – but we all have been conditioned to expect surprises. Weather, wars, assassinations, disasters. I was just beginning a new job in San Diego, living amidst boxes in my new home, when the TV showed the breaking news of what we now call 9-11.

That I knew that Manhattan neighborhood well, and had been to the top of the Towers, added but little to the shock. Even today, almost every time I turn on the TV news in the morning, I wonder whether a similar headline will confront me.

In a similar way, and not only as a student of history, there are events that I would happily anticipate as headlines – hopes and dreams that might be fulfilled some day. Usually these thoughts are futile. But sometimes they happen: dreams do come true.

I was astonished, for instance, that “the Wall fell,” and Communist governments not only collapsed across Europe – one after the other, like dominoes – but that hardly a drop of blood was shed! Oh, maybe someone hurt themselves as the Berlin Wall was razed; and excepting the Romanian thug Nicolae Ceauşescu and his immediate family there were no fatalities, either by regimes’ defenses or by freedom fighters. (Strangely, in college I briefly had dated the daughter of the government minister who fleetingly tried to assume power in the dictator’s wake.)

My point is that a headline, “Communist Governments Overthrown, Bloodlessly; Democracy and Capitalism Come to Europe,” was one I never expected.

A similar headline – “Roe vs Wade Overturned and Invalidated by Supreme Court” – is one I dreamed of for half a century, and simply never believed would happen. Indeed as with the subsequent “Casey” ruling, I was certain that America would continue down (!) the path of disrespecting and dismantling our cultural heritage. Declining. What I have called “The Culture of Death.”

My friends know that in the days of “Roe,” those almost nihilistic times, I was untroubled by the idea of abortion… unpersuaded by opposing arguments… and approving of its legalization. Those views and actions are never merely abstract in debates and events; when you choose sides in such matters you become a complicit enabler. There are few things from which I have reformed that have caused such bitter tears and prayers for forgiveness. So I became an activist on the “pro-life” side.

… and therefore I was, frankly, astonished to learn that Roe vs Wade has been overturned. And without violence or bloodshed (except, that is, for the 63-million babies that have been killed since the Court decided it).

Growing from my concern and activism, in 2005 I managed to secure a magazine interview with Norma McCorvey, the “anonymous” Jane Roe (a female “John Doe”) of the landmark case. She was famously reclusive and granted few interviews. Her own baby (of the case’s focus) in fact never was aborted, but was given for adoption. After her “win,” she worked in abortion clinics… was disgusted by what she witnessed… became a Christian… and then worked to counsel other women.

That interview will soon appear in a national magazine, and I will share it here, too, in coming weeks.

But let us not celebrate too soon or too enthusiastically. Just as Communist governments fell, but Communism lives on – in other governments; in academia; in the media; in “progressive” politics – so abortion will continue. Sobering facts to realize and remember:

• Overturning Roe and Casey does not end abortion in the United States. It merely lets states accept or reject the practice. Some do, some don’t; more will, more won’t. Just as drug laws are local, so will legal abortions be available here and there. I have been to “dry” counties and towns in Kansas and even California – where alcohol is outlawed – but people drive a little bit; and they will for abortions too. Vacation packages might be designed around abortions.
• Abortifacients will abound; “morning after” drugs probably will become more common than weed; and even in proscribed locales, “procedures” likely will become as common as Botox treatments. They always were, of course: what has really changed in our lifetimes is this: what people once whispered about, many people these days brag about. Savage, but true.
• Is the Court’s decision, therefore, futile? No. Societies define themselves by laws, art, and literature. So the “overturn” might in a larger sense be a codification of our nation’s essential standards. IF it stands, or holds. No sure thing.
• So the “fights” will continue, but in state capitals, in town councils, in local elections. That is the point of the Court’s reversal: the Framers meant that some matters (not only concepts and technologies they could not anticipate) are best decided in communities. Of, by, and for communities. We might not be perfectly united, but we are states.

There is another point that might not be appreciated going forward… but it is a lesson in democracy. For all the tumult and shouting about guns and abortions, and about election frauds and discredited stories about Russian collusion, “impossible” dreams do come true. Communist dictatorships did collapse. The guarantee of self-defense according to the Second Amendment finally seems secure. And contrary to social drift in America, and standards in other countries (our abortion policies are generally more permissive than dozens of other countries’ around the world)… we are in fact reading headlines that bring hope on the issue of infanticide.

Other battles remain to confront us: crime; abuse; drugs; the breakdown of the family; education reform… but we can sense redemption from pessimism!

And perhaps the most unlikely surprise among startling news is the “vessel” who successfully carried water on these issues. The Bible has many examples of unlikely or unknown or untested people who God used to exercise His will. In a future generation, Americans will read in history books, not only newspapers, the headline: “Orange Man Good.”

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Music Video Click: Unplanned

6-6-22

Prayer. It is a mysterious thing, really. A gift proffered by the Creator of the Universe to every one of His children – the invitation to have a conversation.

It can be a chat, for it is not supposed to be a one-way street. We let the burdens of our hearts be known; we lift our praise and gratitude; we sometimes cry in helpless confusion.

Other “gods” and figureheads of various religious traditions do not converse. How were they portrayed? They dispensed wisdom or rules. They demand tribute. They have no counterparts of the Holy Spirit, the aspect of God who lives in our hearts and is our Advocate before the Throne.

We are assured that God covets our prayers, and hears the prayers of the righteous; that His Word never comes back void; that the Holy Spirit – when we are unable to pray or might feel inadequate – will nevertheless “groan” on our behalf.

We often list our desires… but the Lord knows our needs. Thank God.

And that is part of the mystery, beyond the miracle that God knows even the number of hairs on our heads: He knows our needs. In fact He feels our pains and joys and burdens and petitions before we organize them in prayer. He knows, already. And He knows the answers.

So why pray? Why does He need for us to approach Him? Why does He “communicate”?

In prayerful communication, He speaks to our hearts; He sometimes speaks audibly; He brings “the peace of God, which passes understanding,” as is promised about prayer; He has assured us that fervent prayer “avails much.”

Part of the mystery should be clear – we are blessed by the act of praying, even before the answers come. Further, prayer is the most palpable form of obedience we can exercise: believing, approaching, trusting – the essence of faith. Prayer is the “key to Heaven, and faith unlocks the door,” as the Gospel song says. We are encouraged to pray for one another: such is our duty, and it pleases God that we fellowship with the saints. The Gifts of the Spirit, enumerated throughout the New Testament, include praying “in the Spirit,” surrendering our tongues and hearts to the language of angels, clearing worldly impediments to conversation with God.

Yet our natural minds still have natural questions.

Frequently asked by skeptics, and sometimes in corners of our own hearts: When we pray “fervently,” when we are “righteous” according to scriptural verses on the matter, when we “pray believing” as commanded, when we seem to be in accord with His Word, when we pray selflessly as we know how…

Why does God sometimes seem to be silent? Why does He sometimes say “no”? More – why does He sometimes seem to say “NO!!!”

An answer, as hard as it often is to accept, is that “no” is an answer. Prayer is not a magic wand. God is not an errand boy. But our response must encompass a deeper understanding than this. God is sovereign; He knows best. He knows better than our want-lists, even when our requests are sincere and righteous. As we agreed, we have our desires; He knows our needs.

Further, as obedient children of a loving God, we have to know that a “no” can really be a “not yet.” Or, “not in your way, but Mine.” Thus saith the Lord.

To reassure ourselves, let’s look at some notable things God did not do… yet, still, were answers to prayer, and examples of how He works His loving will toward us.

• Moses was leading the Hebrew children from the wrath of Pharaoh’s army. The Promised Land was far ahead, but the multitude was stopped at the Red Sea. A miracle-working God could have answered prayers by drying the waters. But God’s answer was to part the waters. There is a message for us in the way those prayers were answered: God makes a way.
• Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were condemned to death, to be cast into the dreaded “Fiery Furnace.” To honor their faith, God could have struck the King dead, or scattered the guards, or extinguished the flames. Yet prayers were answered when they survived unharmed (and in the presence of that “fourth man” appearing at their side). There is a message for us in the way those prayers were answered: God protects us.
• In the well-known Psalm of comfort, we are told to prepare for the “valley of the shadow of death.” If God chooses, He easily could set our paths on the mountaintops above such a valley. Yet we are encouraged to “fear no evil” because His rod and staff will comfort us… in the presence of our enemies. There is a message for us in the way those prayers were answered: God will be by our side.

In these examples, I think we all might have prayed urgently, probably expectantly, surely hopefully.

Naturally. But, hard as it would be to realize, those prayers would not be conversations. God’s lessons would be lost. Yet they happened, and were recorded, for reasons. We were the reasons; to learn the ways in which we can draw closer to God.

And to pray “Thy will be done” at the end, as well as the beginning, of our chats with God.

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Click: In the Night Shadows

5-30-22

America has become so secularized that we are stripping our traditional religious observances – Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving – of spiritual distinctives, re-branding them in schools, public squares, and the media as Winter, Spring, and Fall Fests, and more innocuous labels when they can be found.

Even worse, our secular solemnities also are being neutered. The greatest of presidents whose lives are inspirations have been consigned to virtual snow-globes and shaken up as flakes in a generic “presidents day” flurry, lost among unfortunate and forgotten nonentities. Fireworks and parades on the Fourth of July are symbols that largely have yielded to barbecues and reunions. All of those former commemorative days have morphed into excuses for long weekends and cheesy TV commercials.

Suffering not the least in this rush to homogenize our cultural heritage is Memorial Day. I thank God that some people still recall and honor the origin of the patriotic day, originally “Decoration Day,” established for visits to graves and monuments of fallen heroes.

We can be thankful for small favors, but I generally curse the impulse that kidnaps Memorial Day and uses it as an excuse to “mark the beginning of summer” and inspire weekend sales at furniture outlets and used-car lots.

My dad served in World War II (he overflew D-Day in a Weather Squadron) and came home; so “his day,” as with millions of others, and from other wars, was Veterans Day. Memorial Day honors those who sacrificed their lives.

Military service always incurs sacrifice, whether men were drafted or men and women who volunteer. And no less (to the nation’s shame) spouses and children who often sacrifice greatly too. From my perspective, and what inhabits my desire to memorialize and hold these dead in awe, is what motivated those service personnel whom we honor.

In every war through history, combatants sometimes have been motivated by hate. It manifests itself in all sorts of ways, from summoning bravery… to action “beyond the call of duty”… to, occasionally throughout history, savagery and atrocities. The range of motives and performance is wide – but I have always believed that the essence of hatred, if it could be distilled and measured, routinely is stronger in civilian leaders than in the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines.

Largely this is due to the underlying causes of many wars. As a historian and as a Christian, I will unfurl the flag of my cynicism. Wars have been fought for noble reasons, including defense and rescue operations. Many also have been fought for territorial gain or commercial advantages – often brutal, yet arguable extensions, as von Clausewitz wrote, of politics and diplomacy.

Cynicism joins the battle, so to speak, when we recognize how many wars have been fought, and lives lost, over hollow objectives; futile suicide missions; changing war goals; civilian slaughter; friendly embraces of recent enemies; abandoned rationales for “why we fight”; and neglect of gold-star families and veterans’ needs.

Should I mention such things on a Memorial Day? I cannot help it; but in my mind such memories inspire a greater motivation – indeed, a necessity – to honor the dead. If not the wars, memorialize the dead.

Most fallen soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, I believe, have not fought and died out of hatred, even against malign enemies… but more out of love.

They love their homeland. They love their families, their Main Streets, their heritage. They love their flag. They love peace, the ultimate goal. More – and here is what leaves me awestruck and deserves our “memorialization” – they love service. They love serving. They love and accept and embrace sacrifice.

How many people have that “DNA” any more? Thank God for the “few and the proud” in all military branches… and we surely can wonder whether the “few” are growing fewer in society. If America’s shores and cities and towns were invaded, would regular citizens be willing (or able, if guns are confiscated) to rise up in defense?

I truly wonder whether the ghostly echelon of the fallen – whose graves I hope we all will visit on Memorial Day, even if the cemeteries and the gravestone names are unfamiliar – would have been so dedicated if they could have looked ahead and could have seen what has America has become. I won’t start a checklist of horrible transformations in our society, but if you have read this far, you probably agree with me. If not… well, the right publicly to disagree, which is threatened, remains one of things our fallen heroes died to protect.

Salute. Shed a tear. Raise a prayer. We honor fallen heroes for wearing the uniform, embracing the flag, and sacrificing “their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor.” Let us honor them too for America’s dwindling (God forbid) spirit of service and sacrifice.

Let us pray that not one of them, after all, did not die in vain.

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Click: Memorial Day – Taking Chance

5-23-22

It is one thing that you and I occasionally ignore God’s Commandments; too frequently we break the laws of God outright and defy His will. We will sin and rebel and disobey, even in our “best” times and despite good intentions. Occasionally? Actually, countless times; but who’s counting? (Oh. God is.)

We have sin natures. Accepting Christ’s atoning work on the cross – that He accepted the punishment we deserve as sinners before a Holy God – will not completely erase our tendencies to sin, nor acts of sin.

A mighty change in the situation, however, is that we are forgiven when confessing the finished work of Jesus, the Message of the Cross.

But I wonder: It is one thing that we tend to defy His will for our lives and ignore Jesus’s teachings about duties as devoted believers in Him…

We might ignore His commands. But how often do we ignore His blessings?

This is a serious question, because it is a serious matter. As sinners, we need forgiveness, and that is why God became Incarnate. He became flesh, dwelt among humankind, knew our temptations and sorrows and pain; He suffered death but overcame it that we might live as He did, and does.

That is theology: We all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Jesus redeemed us.

Jesus did not come that we learn Gratitude. He did not die in order that we break out in Thanksgiving. It was not necessary that He go to the cross as the way for us to voice Praise.

… those attitudes will follow the saved sinner, born-again Christians. But our focus should be Jesus’s focus: the remission of sins.

However.

I believe that God is grieved when we do not experience Gratitude, or express Thanksgiving, or sing praises to Him. We do not want to grieve God. But it always amazes me when Christians do not exhibit unbridled joy when considering Who God is, and What He has done!

… perhaps it is because we simply do not think about it? Do we take His gifts, and His love, for granted? God forbid!

It is not that He has been shy on the matter! Give thanks to the Lord for He is good… He promises joy unspeakable and full of glory… The JOY of the Lord is my strength… Praise the Lord, o my soul; and all that is within me!… Praise the Lord in song!… Let the redeemed of the Lord say so!… Give thanks to the Lord for He is good; His mercy endures forever… Come before His presence with thanksgiving!…

…Through Jesus, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise.

You know the Bible verses, and many others. If these are not commands, they are recommendations! Seriously, they are, even more then recommendations, a checklist of natural responses we should have to the Love of God.

We all have been where I have been lately. There are times when believers – who know the truth, who have accepted Jesus – just get to places where it somehow is difficult to summon that gratitude, and thanksgiving, and praise. The world closes in; circumstances oppress us; the enemy taunts.

Well, that is the time to do what that verse says: offer a sacrifice of praise.

You don’t feel like doing it? That’s why it’s called a sacrifice: it’s not supposed to be easy… and would not be worth much if it were easy. There can never be a moment, or something that you can think of, that you can not thank God for. Begin: A minor thing; a silly thing; a little thing.

Your mind will move to bigger things. Fuller blessings. Greater thanks. The devil will stop taunting and the Holy Spirit will start whispering to you; then, shouting. You will move into a place where your attitude is adjusted. You will not only be praising; you will be happy; you will be joyful, a different thing; you will be grateful. And so will God.

He is worthy of all praise. And you will sense that you have entered the Courts of Praise with thanksgiving!

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Click: Thank You

5-16-22

According to the calendars, Winter is long past. Yet around these parts I was still turning on the heat overnight, and across swaths of the continent there have been strange late-season snowstorms. Where it hasn’t been chilly or snowy, we have had rainstorms and floods and, devastatingly, postponed baseball games.

Only last week a friend and I were walking, noting the lack of flowers and leaves and even buds on trees in the neighborhood. One of the joys of Spring is to see the light-green fuzz that appears like mists on seemingly dead trees and bushes. Spring fragrances in the air are overdue, too; like half of America perhaps they, too, have moved to Florida.

Winter has its charms, of course; but when it overstays its welcome it can affect our moods.

Perhaps my own mood is really affected by a confluence of events. Occasionally in these essays I have been inspired by coincidences: several friends enduring similar crises or illnesses; odd similarities in news stories; prayer needs for health or finances or family matters addressed to me.

Neither God nor the cosmos is trying to tell me something; certainly not at the expense of others’ lives. Sometimes, I believe, we all simply happen to notice things we otherwise overlook. And of course there are coincidences. So it is not morbid, but merely clinical, to mention that I recently have been aware of people dying, including more than during a typical week.

I am writing a book about the cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart, and Mickey Gilley, and conducting interviews. This week Mickey, 86, died. A situation shared with me, a friend diagnosed with a brain tumor previously regarded as an eye affliction. The father of a close friend died this week, a few days after my friend and I had dinner. An old, dear friend who has devoted her life to caring for a daughter who was suddenly disabled decades ago shared that she faces her daughter’s seriously declining health. My sister called and urged that we discuss our wills, for logical reasons.

And so forth. There are other reminders. One becomes more aware of, not desensitized to, stories of homicides and suicides in the news; body-counts in foreign wars and breached borders; of statistics of aborted children.

But we have just come through a season where we contemplated death… and life. Easter, that is. Jesus’s willing sacrifice of His life, something fairly overwhelming to comprehend, was immediately assuaged two thousand years ago — and each moment we meditate upon it today: the affirmation of life.

He overcame death. He rose from the dead. He lives today.

We need to contemplate; we need to meditate. Do not “check the box” – “Yes. Son of God. Died. Rose. Miracle. OK, is Easter over?” How often do we miss the lesson of the Resurrection?

God planned this scenario not merely to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The miracles suggested that, and His Ascension would confirm that.

The Resurrection of Christ occurred not only to show us that He overcame death… but to illustrate the promise that we can overcome too. Accepting Christ as your Savior promises that you, too, will “conquer sin and death.” Those who believe “will have eternal life.” More than life in Heaven’s Paradise, you will live in virtual mansions; Jesus promised, “If it were not so, I would have told you.”

Life is not the negation of death, but triumph over it.

The horrible aspects of this world will be left behind. And what awaits? Our loving Father; eternal peace; joy unspeakable. Also awaiting us will be the people we love. And have “lost.” Those loved ones, the Bible promises us, who suffered pain and disease and infirmity, will be whole again.

When we gain Heaven ourselves, we will not only see the King… but we shall see our loved ones too. In perfect bodies. Well, and whole.

People on earth, even His children, do not live forever. And, because there is sin in the world, there is disease. And corruption. And affliction. And suffering. Some of these problems brought on by ourselves; some because the physical realm which includes sickness, cruelty, and sorrow, makes war upon us. These are other reasons to look upon our great Hope and to trust His promises.

So we look to the Life ahead. We trust in God’s mercy and, as my friend I mentioned above reminded me, grace. It is a gift we cannot manufacture ourselves, but we can seek it and accept it. Grace, grace, God’s grace. What do some people call it?

Oh, yes; amazing Grace. Even the angels do not know Grace, for they have not overcome the trials of this life nor the bonds of death. But we can savor it!

Suddenly, today, I realized I heard birds chirping this morning at dawn. Nature’s alarm clock! I took another walk, and the air had that special fragrance of renewed life. There was green fuzz on trees and bushes. Welcome back! The grass will need mowing soon! Seemingly overnight, the dogwoods burst forth in their brilliant flowery branches.

Death might seem to surround us, but life always returns, life prevails, life embraces us. Like seedlings that emerge from cracks in giant rocks, life wins – examples of the promise we have, as that old Gospel song says…

“There ain’t no grave gonna keep this body down!”

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Click: Ain’t No Grave

5-2-22

The Shroud of Turin is back in the news. New scientific tests and findings; new “expositions” – displaying of the actual cloth and exact replicas; 3-D formations; analyses of the cloth, even minerals and pollen found in the fibers.

Old mysteries, new debates; old debates, new mysteries.

A summary for those who have not heard of the Shroud or followed its occasional appearance in news stories. The lengthy piece of cloth (approximately 14.5 feet by 3.5 feet) is reputed to be the burial cloth of Jesus, or in any event a man who was laid upon the cloth which then was brought forward to cover the front of the body. That is, not wrapped like a mummy.

The Shroud was imputed to be that of Jesus because there is a faint yet detailed image of a man fitting the details of a body abused as described in Bible accounts.

Mysteries immediately present themselves:

Why have people thought the man was Jesus? First, the man’s features are that of a Palestinian Jew, with beard and hair in the style of Jesus’s time.

Further mysteries: there are apparent bloodstains and wounds and hematomas, and many of them. That the Shroud did not hold an average prisoner or random tortured criminal (besides the fact that the condemned would not have been afforded careful and honored burials in such shrouds) is another evident mystery: a great number of the evidences of the man of the Shroud correspond to Jesus’s Passion and death.

The mysteries of those bloodstains: Bloodstreams from thorns thrust on the head. A wound on the side (Jesus was pierced with a spear between the ribs). Other “stripes” – evidence of whippings and scourging as recorded in the Bible. Bruises, particularly on the face, correspond to the accounts of how Jesus was beaten.

There have been accusations and suspicions of forgery which skepticism is a reason the Shroud is frequently in the news: the wounds where spikes would have held the body on a cross are through the wrists, not hands. For centuries, Christians traditionally assumed that nails pieced Jesus’s hands – which is only the case in a general or poetic sense, but not by correct anatomy. Relatively recently, researchers nailed corpses to crosses; through the hands, the body’s weight ripped through the hands and the bodies fell. But because the wrist has many bones, the bodies were upheld. The man of the Shroud shows nail wounds through the wrists. Ancient forgers, if there were, did not depict that; innumerable artists  of ancient times depicted the crucified Jesus with nails or scars in the hands.

The biggest mystery is the image itself. It is faint; it shows a man as described in the Gospels, brutalized and naked. Through the centuries, people wondered, however, why the image appeared in sepia tones and “almost” real. But somehow “backwards” or reversed. Why? When the Shroud was first photographed in the late 1890s, its photographic negatives startled the world: HERE was a virtual photograph of a man fitting the Bible’s descriptions.

A mystery: the Shroud was a virtual photographic negative! What? Why? How?

Books have been written, and will be; but I will try to condense and summarize the facts, doubts, proofs, tests, and… mysteries. Ownership of the Shroud could be traced back only to about 1300. It was either forged then, or, as claimed, was hidden, cherished, then kept from Moslem invaders of churches in Turkey that claimed to possess such a relic.

How was the image made? It is not of paint or dyes; the image does not permeate the cloth; and (years before the atomic age) the idea was advanced that at the moment of Resurrection, a supernatural burst of some sort scorched the Shroud, transferring the image we see.

There are strange patches on it today. They were sewn when a fire occurred in a church where it was housed centuries ago, and its silver reliquary melted and burned in the folded cloth. Speaking of its being folded, the Shroud might explain the mystery of “Veronica’s Veil,” an ancient legend of a cloth that mysteriously took on the face of Jesus when a sympathetic woman wiped his sweat as the cross was carried to Golgotha. The Shroud in ancient times evidently was displayed in folded form, showing only Jesus’s face… perhaps inspiring that legend.

So the Shroud evidently was seen and venerated for decades after the Resurrection… went missing through persecution and wars… and for a thousand years has been traced in castles and churches, now residing in a basilica in Turin, Italy.

Skeptics have demanded proofs; and even the Vatican is neutral about its authenticity. Historians, doctors, experts in geography, agronomy, fabric analysis, and forensic science have debated. On both sides. Mysteries arise and are stoked: disagreements on the types of cloth weaves… the explanation for pollens on the Shroud from the area around Jerusalem (that is, not in a European forger’s studio)… measurements of the anatomy of the man of the Shroud… explanations for the absence of paints and the presence of blood serum. And so forth.

Back in the 1970s, when many discoveries were made and hotly debated, I became very interested in the Shroud, and researched all I could. I acquired rare publications from the 1890s, when the world became curious; I purchased documentary materials and even delivered lectures with a slide show. “The Mysteries of the Shroud.”

The church’s handlers allowed for a small portion of the Shroud to be cut, and undergo Carbon-14 dating analysis… whose conclusion (without explaining the manner of the image’s transfer and other mysteries) was that the Shroud was about a thousand years old, not 2000 years. Yet mysteries were compelling.

For instance, new technology has enabled the formation of 3-D models based on scans of the image on the Shroud. I was present at its display – a perfectly formed body of a man, every aspect in perfect proportions. Imagery even identified details on the coins placed on the body’s eyes… but that are disputed by others. Pollen, tiny seeds, the fabric composition, so much more, was explained… or explained away.

Meanwhile, Carbon-Dating has been found often to be unreliable, and easily contaminated. Some mysteries might have been answered this week, from a new technology that has dated the Shroud as from the time, and place, of Jesus’s life. Specifically, almost an exact match with fabrics from the siege of Masada, 74-55 B.C., in Israel.

“Wide-Angle X-ray Scattering,” or WAXS, measures the natural aging of flax cellulose. A scientist from Bari, Italy, described its superiority to carbon-14 spectrology: “Molds and bacteria, colonizing textile fibers, and dirt or carbon-containing minerals, such as limestone, adhering to them, in the empty spaces between the fibers that at a microscopic level represent about 50 per cent of the volume, can be so difficult to completely eliminate in the sample cleaning phase, which can distort the dating.”

As I said above, we have old mysteries, new debates; and old debates, new mysteries.

I invite you to think about the mysteries as much as about the Shroud, compelling as that is. Whether old or half-old, authentic or forgery, plausible or impossible… it is a matter of faith. And what is that “matter” of faith? – only something that can excite our curiosity and engage our interest.

At best – and I write as someone who is quite persuaded that this actually held the body of Jesus Christ – the Shroud is a relic. An object. As a relic, let it not persuade you (as relics have, sadly, throughout history, persuaded people) that it is holy; that it can save your soul; that it can heal you; that you should venerate or pray to it.

I have been to many sites in Europe where relics are housed and displayed: fingers of saints; locks of hair; skulls of martyrs. A favorite church near my favorite hotel in Rome, the Basilica of St-Paul-Outside-the-Wall, as it is known, has a wall of boxes and shelves with many of these “holy objects.” If all the “pieces of the True Cross” in European churches were put together, it would look like a redwood forest…

If I am dismissive, why have I pursued and maintain an interest in the Shroud? Very simply, because it is a graphic display, miraculously detailed, of what our Savior endured for us. It illustrates how He was tortured. It reveals everything He experienced. It documents, life-sized, every detail of humiliation, rejection, suffering. Eyes closed, somehow at peace – released – it visually explains what He allowed Himself to go through…

… to suffer and die as a substitute for the punishments we deserve as sinners. I cry when I think about what Jesus did for us; I cry when I look into the face of the Man of the Shroud. I rejoice that it exists – to remind me of the Cross and what He did for us.

I believe the Shroud survived to be that Holy Reminder for us. It explains what the Bible’s words tell. A Forgery? If so, why, then, didn’t forgers manufacture dozens of fake shrouds, instead of only one? Skeptics says that the image on the Shroud must have been “borrowed” from the way Byzantine artists depicted Christ – meanwhile never considering that, on the contrary, those countless painters depicted Jesus according to what they saw on the Shroud. Mysteries, yeah.

The real mystery? To me, it is that people can keep themselves from being moved by the story of His death on the Cross. And it is a mystery that people venerate relics instead of the Truth behind them.

In these days between the observances of the Resurrection and Jesus’s Ascension to Heaven, contemplate what is not a mystery – that the Creator of the Universe loved you so much that He sent His Son to live among humankind to suffer like this, and miraculously rise to life again. And all of which we can understand more powerfully through the Shroud. It is, literally, the Message of the Cross.

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Click: Rise Again

4-25-22

It is commonly asserted that religion is on the decline in the United States, in the West, and indeed around the world. The polls affirm this; Christians decry the figures; and the growing numbers of secularists in established centers of power and influence celebrate.

The trend is noted about Christianity, but is widely applied to other faiths as well. Islam’s imperialism often is as much military as militant, and of repressive, societal goals. Eastern religions often have faded into traditionalism, and the billions of people who live under Communism endure the illegality of religious practice.

Yet I maintain that the 21st century is one of the most religious eras in the history of humankind.

It is not a word game to invite you to understand the distinctions. Words and definitions are important in an essay, and vital to proceed in our daily lives. Approximately 2.5-billion people in the world are Christians. Roughly one in three souls in the earth’s population profess a belief in Christ. Islam is second in total numbers.

Many people assume that Islam is “on the march” in places like Africa, and Christianity is in retreat. But in fact Christianity is gaining adherents at a faster rate throughout the continent, and it is no coincidence that Mohammedans have turned many areas into bloody battlegrounds. Frequent attacks on Christian schools, Black girls kidnapped and raped, is part of the campaign to intimidate and stifle the spread of Christianity.

There would not be such savagery – or similar attacks in India, Southeast Asia, and China – if Christians were docile, if the faith was in retreat by itself.

… like it is in America and Europe.

Numbers of professing believers in Christ have declined annually for years. Many mainline denominations, churches, and colleges increasing deny the Divinity of Christ. The inerrancy of the Bible is widely renounced. In the view of government, courts, and schools, Biblical standards are rejected – a steady secularist evolution from the beliefs and practices of the Founders.

And so forth. Consistently, people who argue against these points do not defend our spiritual foundations and heritage – they largely and happily welcome the changes; but rather maintain that the trends should cause joy throughout the land.

They are, of course, doomed to repeat the lessons of history, as per Prof. Santayana’s dictum about those who do not learn. It is arrogant nonsense, indeed suicidal foolishness, to think that we have become the first society to successfully experiment with licentiousness, toleration of greed and dishonesty, sexual laxity, corruption of youth, imperialism, and rejection of spiritual values.

Why, then, do I claim that we live in a high-water period of religion?

The distinction I invited early concerns the difference between religion and Christianity.“Religions” are systems of human creation – systems, rules, customs, patterns, laws, inclusions and exclusions. I believe that religion possibly has sent more people to hell than any other external forces.

The difference with Christianity is that (despite the lazy terminology we all employ) it is not a religion. It sounds like a bumper strip, but Christianity is not a religion – it is a relationship. Christ had few “rules”; in fact He was quite clear that the way to find salvation, acceptance by God Almighty, was to believe that Jesus is His Son; that He paid the price, the punishment we deserve before a Holy God; and that He rose from the dead. Believe in your heart, confess with your mouth. That’s it.

Rules, robes, memberships, committees, sacrifices, tithing, memorization, candles, doctrines, all count for nothing in terms of being accepted by God – being a follower of Christ. Oh, we will be motivated to do and share many of these things… but in their proper order! “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God.”

So – again – why do I call this era the most religious of times?

Because of what religion is. As true Christianity declines in America and Europe, religion – remember my definition: belief in human-created rules and regulations – has risen. In this sense, America and Europe live in a post-Christian Age.

But a religion of Secularism has supplanted Christianity. We have secular popes. We have worldly commands and “Thou Shalt Nots” aplenty. There is a common “salvation” according to secular views. Some people anointed – the new “saints” and others are demonized.

The new gospels are agreed upon and advances by Hollywood, Big Media, the Educational-Industrial Complex. Political Correctness provides the new Ten – or more – Commandments. Surely, more and more, people (those with traditional values and Christian standards) are excommunicated: from jobs, schools, neighborhood associations.

It is surprising, really, how the new Secular Religion is counterfeiting many aspects of Christendom. Greta Thunberg is cast as a contemporary Joan of Arc. Activists who discern sudden rights to indoctrinate children act like they have divine revelations; those who resist are cast as heretics. Books are burned by the Politically Correct – an up-to-date Inquisition. Those who impose mandates, or assert that men can declare themselves female, and who legalize abortions and euthanasia… are frankly, declaring themselves gods.

As the Bible prophesied, we live in a time when humankind practices a form of godliness, but denies the power thereof. New England, for instance, is still dotted with beautiful old churches, but many have become literal whited sepulchres – community centers of feel-good and do-good. Maybe people do feel good and do good… but how many throughout America and Europe still preach the Gospel? Accountability for sin? Personal encounters with the Risen Savior?

I am not worried about Jesus – I am not being flippant – but I am worried about His People, His church, the precious heritage we squander. I have peeked ahead to the end of the Book, and… God wins. But that does not at all mean that America wins. Or survives. At the current pace, we don’t deserve to.

We are doomed unless revival comes to the land. I have heard many Christians pray for it, but it is not in God’s nature to bless a wayward generation, the willfully sinfully, so to speak.

Rather it is our task to bring revival, “going forth into all the world,” which in these times means our very neighborhoods. Then we plead for His blessing on the revival we spark. It is useless and false otherwise, much like the charade of godliness this nation has adopted.

Who shall prevail? Is it too late? Is the coming generation too uninformed and misinformed? Is it drugged in bodies and minds? Are the powerful too powerful? Do we have the will to fight – do we know Scripture; do we seek the Lord – in order to defend and counter?

For Christ’s sake, it is all too important.

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A musical allegory of the grief we face. From the 1600s, but regard it as a dirge for Western Civilization, if we do not redeem ourselves.

Click: Dido’s Lament