Ezekiel – A Wheel In A Wheel

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Ezekiel – A Wheel In A Wheel

Sometimes a man comes along who is a true visionary, one who see things that no one has ever seen before. Ezekiel was such a man.

Ezekiel was in Babylon, in captivity with his people. He was thirty years old when he saw the thing that would define his life.

In the middle of a storm, he saw four winged creatures, each with a different face: one human, and the others an ox, lion and eagle. They stood in flashes of lightning shining like fire. Beside each was a tall wheel, shining like a diamond, with another wheel in it facing out. The creatures could turn in any direction. The wheels had eyes all around them. the creatures and their wheels flew around over Ezekiel. Their wings were like crashing waves or the voice of the Almighty.

Then the creatures stopped and lowered their wings and a voice began to speak from a throne of a single blue gem. The figure on it was shining and Ezekiel knew it was the Lord.

The Lord gave him a scroll of what he was to say and told him to eat it. He also told him to know that he would be with him as he told the Israelites what God wanted them to know and that he needn’t be afraid. But first, God said, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself.  Then he could go and preach what God said.

He abruptly found himself back in Babylon. He sat for seven days considering what God had said and had told him to do.

After seven days, God told him again that he had sent him. But he told him he would go as a watchman. It was he whose job it would be to tell the Israelites where they were going wrong. If they listened, that was good. If not, Ezekiel had done his job.

For years, Ezekiel made a spectacle of himself in front of the Israelites. They knew he was from God, they could see the presence of God in his life and his actions, yet they refused to listen to him.

He did everything he could think to do and all that the Lord told him to do. He used parables, object lessons. At one point he lay on his side for over a year to show them the time they would be in captivity.

He saw visions that were almost unbelievable. He saw a valley of dry bones being brought back to life by the power of the Lord. He saw a river of healing flow across the desert from the temple to the land of Babylon hundreds of miles away. He saw an angel measure the temple and its surrounding area meticulously to show God’s intimate knowledge of his people.

And yet his people would not listen. He wept over their loss and God’s separation from them. At one point his wife died and God would not allow him to mourn her death to show his feelings to the Israelites in their spiritual death.

So much happened to him. No other prophet saw so much. He remained faithful all of his life, always doing what was asked of him.

And it all started with the amazing vision of the wheels within a wheel and the glory of God.

Saul – You Get What You Ask For

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Saul – You Get What You Ask For

Everybody else had a king. Everybody. Except for poor, deprived Israel. They were a Theocracy, ruled by God under the direction of a judge. That meant that when all the nations got together for dinner, Israel alone was without a king. And they were embarrassed about it.

They came to Samuel, the current judge and high priest and told him how his sons were unacceptable to them as judges. They said: Give us a king to judge us like all the other nations have  (1 Samuel 8). Samuel went to God and told God that they had rejected him as judge. God said no, they had not rejected Samuel, but had rejected God himself.

God knew that they would want one. Moses had even told them how they were to treat him and how he was to act back in the book of Deuteronomy. But the Lord also told Samuel to warn them what a king would do. He will take your sons and draft them into his army. They will be serfs and servants to the king. He will take your daughters as servants. He will tax you beyond what you will be able to bear. He will not be fair.

But they wanted one. And they got one. Saul was his name, a modest, unassuming, tall young man who didn’t want the job. They pressured him into it and he became their king.

But what a king. He was cruel, manipulative and disobedient to God. He was just about everything Samuel had told the Israelites he would be.

His only real redeeming trait was his son, Jonathan. The Israelites loved Jonathan. And he would have been a good king except for the fact that Saul was so disobedient and arrogant towards God that God turned his back on Saul’s line. Saul became a single king, not the beginning of a line. He was bad enough that God cut him off immediately.

He started off well. He led his people into victory barely a month after his coronation. The Israelites were so happy about it that they were ready to kill anyone who didn’t think he was good. But Saul stopped them, showing mercy.

But Samuel was about to die. He was an old man. Saul knew that sooner or later, he would have to live without Samuel’s oversight. He began to flex his leadership muscles. A short time later, he was ready to go into battle. He had waited for seven days for Samuel to show up to give the sacrifice for the battle. When he didn’t show up, Saul decided to do it himself. When Samuel found out, he told Saul that God would take the Israelite kingdom away from him for his disobedience.

Saul disobeys one more time in a major way and Samuel turns from him, never to see him again. Instead, Samuel goes and finds David and makes him king, then he dies.

To make it worse, the people love David. He has become a mighty warrior himself.

Depressed and full of anger and jealousy, Saul tries to kill David so that God will let him keep his kingdom and give it to Jonathan, his son and David’s best friend.

But Saul dies, as Samuel said. And he loses his kingdom to David.

The people of Israel got a king. But with that king, they got strife, dissension, civil war and a king who not only abused them, but abused their relationship to God.

Sometimes, you get what you ask for. However, it is not always in the form you think.

Hezekiah – Live Long And Prosper

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Hezekiah – Live Long And Prosper

What if you were sick and about to die and God gave you ten more years?

He did this with Hezekiah, the last good king of Judah. Hezekiah was a good king who tried his best to do what God had wanted. He was one of a line of both good and bad kings. Some had tried to do what God wanted, some had not cared.

But almost all of them failed in doing the one thing God told them especially to do: get completely rid of all of the pagan altars. Only two kings did that and by the time the second one came along, it was too late for Israel. God had already decided to destroy them.

Hezekiah tried his best to serve God. He got rid of all of the pagan altars, all of the idol worship that so plagued Israel and he began again to give service and worship to God. He was, all in all, a good man and a good king.

But what made him so good was his absolute trust in the power of God.

The King of Israel, Uzziah, had brought Israel (the top ten tribes of the old nation Israel) to the brink of extinction. They had disobeyed God time and again and God was tired of them. on top of it all, Uzziah decided to thumb his nose at the emperor of Assyria, the world’s most dominant empire at the time.

Assyria invaded Israel and conquered them. Then he set his sights on their neighboring tribe Judah (the bottom two tribes of the old nation Israel). He sent a delegation to Hezekiah and told him in no uncertain terms that Hezekiah’s God had told him to invade Jerusalem just as he had invaded Israel. He was insulting and cruel in his comments.

Hezekiah took the letter to God, laid it on the altar and asked God what he was going to do about Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God (1 Kings 18). Sennacherib, the King of the Assyrians had even told him that his God, the Lord Almighty, was lying to him about delivering him.

But Hezekiah believed in the power of the Lord and, in many ways due to his belief, destroyed the Assyrian army.

But immediately afterwards, Hezekiah got sick. Isaiah the prophet even told him that the Lord said he would die. This filled him with sorrow and he turned his face to the wall and began to cry. He told God how faithful he had been and how hard he had worked for God.

Before Isaiah even got out of the house, the Lord told him to go back and tell Hezekiah he had ten more years. He even asked Hezekiah what kind of sign he wanted as proof. Hezekiah chose to have the shadow on the sundial to go back ten hours.

Hezekiah was a man of strong belief, of strong faith. He knew what God wanted of him and he did it. He made mistakes, of course. At one point, he took  the ambassador of the new empire, Babylon, through the palace and showed him all the wealth he had. Isaiah told him that because he did that, one day all he had would be taken from his sons and they would become captives.

His thought: at least it will not happen in my lifetime (1 Kings 20:19).

But even though he was a flawed human being, as we all are, he was also an example of the faith that says God will take care of us no matter what, and that we can count on him.

Hezekiah – Live Long And Prosper

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Hezekiah – Live Long And Prosper

What if you were sick and about to die and God gave you ten more years?

He did this with Hezekiah, the last good king of Judah. Hezekiah was a good king who tried his best to do what God had wanted. He was one of a line of both good and bad kings. Some had tried to do what God wanted, some had not cared.

But almost all of them failed in doing the one thing God told them especially to do: get completely rid of all of the pagan altars. Only two kings did that and by the time the second one came along, it was too late for Israel. God had already decided to destroy them.

Hezekiah tried his best to serve God. He got rid of all of the pagan altars, all of the idol worship that so plagued Israel and he began again to give service and worship to God. He was, all in all, a good man and a good king.

But what made him so good was his absolute trust in the power of God.

The King of Israel, Uzziah, had brought Israel (the top ten tribes of the old nation Israel) to the brink of extinction. They had disobeyed God time and again and God was tired of them. on top of it all, Uzziah decided to thumb his nose at the emperor of Assyria, the world’s most dominant empire at the time.

Assyria invaded Israel and conquered them. Then he set his sights on their neighboring tribe Judah (the bottom two tribes of the old nation Israel). He sent a delegation to Hezekiah and told him in no uncertain terms that Hezekiah’s God had told him to invade Jerusalem just as he had invaded Israel. He was insulting and cruel in his comments.

Hezekiah took the letter to God, laid it on the altar and asked God what he was going to do about Sennacherib’s words of defiance against the living God (1 Kings 18). Sennacherib, the King of the Assyrians had even told him that his God, the Lord Almighty, was lying to him about delivering him.

But Hezekiah believed in the power of the Lord and, in many ways due to his belief, destroyed the Assyrian army.

But immediately afterwards, Hezekiah got sick. Isaiah the prophet even told him that the Lord said he would die. This filled him with sorrow and he turned his face to the wall and began to cry. He told God how faithful he had been and how hard he had worked for God.

Before Isaiah even got out of the house, the Lord told him to go back and tell Hezekiah he had ten more years. He even asked Hezekiah what kind of sign he wanted as proof. Hezekiah chose to have the shadow on the sundial to go back ten hours.

Hezekiah was a man of strong belief, of strong faith. He knew what God wanted of him and he did it. He made mistakes, of course. At one point, he took  the ambassador of the new empire, Babylon, through the palace and showed him all the wealth he had. Isaiah told him that because he did that, one day all he had would be taken from his sons and they would become captives.

His thought: at least it will not happen in my lifetime (1 Kings 20:19).

But even though he was a flawed human being, as we all are, he was also an example of the faith that says God will take care of us no matter what, and that we can count on him.

Ezra and Nehemiah – Kingdom Builders

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Ezra and Nehemiah – Kingdom Builders

The people of Israel had finally pushed God too far and he allowed them to be conquered as a nation. Another great nation took them into seventy years of captivity. At the end of it all, they were ready to go back to Israel.

The problem was that they were just so scattered as a people. It had been so long since they were a nation and worshiped as a nation that they had forgotten how to do it. They wanted to rebuild the temple in Jerusalem and begin again as a people of God.

They needed some help. And God knew it. He set out two men whose job it would be to rebuild the nation of God. One was to rebuild the temple and the worship according to the law and one was to rebuild the city of David to its former splendor.

The first was Ezra, a priest and a scribe. He knew the law and what needed to be done to serve God. Not only this, but he also had the courage to say so, even when people didn’t want to hear.

The other was Nehemiah, the personal servant to the Persian King, who felt an strong affinity for his home city of Jerusalem. Even though he had never seen it, he knew of its former glory and loved it.

Both were commissioned by their kings and both came back to Jerusalem to do a job.

Ezra was a well-placed Levite and scribe who felt a strong call to go back to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple. He knew that worship of the Lord in Jerusalem was in shambles. The people, although seeking, were removed from God and needed to come back to him. He came to Jerusalem to not only rebuild the temple, but also to teach them the law.

The people of God had been given permission to come back to Jerusalem and to begin again, but the ability to keep on got lost in bureaucracy and mismanagement. So Ezra came with the Persian king’s blessing and began teaching. He faced almost insurmountable odds, yet persevered and brought the people once again to God.

Nehemiah had heard of the rebuilding and was glad. Then he heard that the city of Jerusalem, the mighty city of David, the capitol of the people of God, was a small unprotected city without even any city walls. It had become a poor hovel. His sorrow was so great that the Persian king  gave him permission to come back and rebuild. Not only that, but he would become governor of Judea for the king.

He worked and encouraged the people to work. He refused to take advantage of the people of God like the former rulers had and worked alongside them to rebuild the wall. He too came under conflict with many who were there in the land who didn’t want Jerusalem to be rebuilt, and who didn’t want the people of God to be restored to their land.

But like Ezra, he persevered. Together he and Ezra rebuilt the city of God. Ezra rebuilt the temple and worship, Nehemiah the physical facilities.

They worked together, the holy and the common, to bring the nation of God back to its former glory. And together, they pleased God.

Joseph, Captive to King

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Joseph – Captive to King
Joseph was the favorite of the twelve sons and he knew it. His father doted on him and in a lesser way, on his brother Benjamin. They were, after all, the sons of his favorite wife and she had died in childbirth with Benjamin. They were all Jacob had left of Rachel and he didn’t let anyone forget it.

He even made Joseph a special coat, one unlike anything the other brothers had. Joseph liked that. He liked being the favorite son, the fortunate son, the top of the heap.

And it made his situation worse when he would have dreams about being the chief sheaf of wheat to whom all the other sheaves of wheat bowed down to. Or the star the sun, moon and other stars bowed down to.

He liked those dreams. On the other hand, his brothers hated them. They hated that “Master-Dreamer.” Jacob, his father, just thought they were funny.

But then it all backfired. His brothers had gotten a bellyful of all of his posturing, his pretending to be the king of the sons and sold him into slavery. His life was over and his father thought he had died. He was now a slave and was sold to a man in Egypt named Potiphar.

His grief faded. He soon grew to be used to his new country and did well.

But after a false allegation of rape by the wife of his owner he was put in prison. There he used the one ability that no one had ever appreciated – his ability to interpret dreams – to good use. This brought him to the attention of the Pharoah who also had a dream he could not understand.

The dream was that Egypt would have a famine and the Pharoah needed to store up grain during the next seven years, which would be good years, for the seven after that, which would be famine years. Pharoah realized the value of this young man and made him second in command in the kingdom of Egypt.

The famine years affected Joseph’s family back in Palestine. His father sent his sons to Egypt, not knowing Joseph would be there to meet them.

The arrival of his brothers affected Joseph in a way he never dreamed possible. It made him want his family once more. After he had told them who he was, he sent for his father, Jacob, to come and live with him there in Egypt. The Pharoah was glad to see Joseph’s family and gave them a good place to live.

Joseph was a spoiled brat who became transformed to a strong leader through adversity. His move from the favorite son of a rich man to a slave humbled him. His refusal to give into temptation offered by the wife of his owner gave him courage, even though it put him in jail. And his allowing God to work through him in his interpretation of dreams made him a man of God.

His was a riches to rags to riches story that shows God working in a person’s life to his ultimate good even in the middle of extreme adversity.

Lot – Righteous in the Middle of Evil

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.


Lot –Righteous in the Middle of Evil

He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah and watched as columns of smoke rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace. But God had listened to Abraham’s request and kept Lot safe, removing him from the disaster that engulfed the cities on the plain. (Genesis 19:28-30)

Imagine being the only good man in your whole city. Everybody is bad. Everybody has turned from God. Everybody is evil and sinful and full of debauchery.

It seemed like such a good place when you first came. Abraham, your uncle, gave you the choice of where to go and your chose Sodom. It was a beautiful place, a place you could make a home in.

You stayed because you thought that you might make some difference. Maybe some day you could break through the barriers and bring the knowledge of God.

But you know now that you never will. And worse of all, you see your family corrupted by the ever-present evil, your daughters have married men that are no good and are rapidly becoming that way themselves. Your influence on them, while still strong, is waning. Even your wife is succumbing to the pervasive evil.

You don’t know what to do. You are at an impasse. On the one hand, Sodom is your home. Everything you have is here. On the other hand, it has ceased to be your home. Nothing you are is in common with what they are.

Then two men come to your door and you invite them in, just as you were taught to do. The men of the city find out they are here and want them to come out so they can destroy them with their perversions. You even find yourself offering your daughters to them, much to your shame, but for whatever reason, they want the two men.

What do you do? You can leave everything behind. All you have worked for and achieved you can just leave. Or you can stay and die with these people you don’t even like, these people you have grown to loathe.

The two visitors, men you are beginning to suspect are more than just men, pull you in just in time before the men of Sodom hurt you and break into your home. The men of Sodom are blinded and the two men tell you to leave. Take nothing with you except your wife and two daughters and leave the city. Don’t even look back. Just go.

You run. And your daughters and wife protest but they run with you. The Lord agrees that you can go to a small village nearby, but when you reach it, your wife looks back and turns into a pillar of salt.

In grief you stay there with your daughters. They are angry at leaving all their friends and their husbands and you are in grief over not only the loss of your home, but your wife.

And then to top it all off, your daughters, who are convinced that they are some of the few people left in the world decide to get you drunk and get pregnant by you.

Yet you retain your trust in God. All you know and love is gone, but you remain faithful to God.

Moses, the Law Giver

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.

Moses – The Lawgiver

There has never been another prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. The Lord sent him to perform all the miraculous signs and wonders in the land of Egypt against Pharaoh, and all his servants, and his entire land. With mighty power, Moses performed terrifying acts in the sight of all Israel. (Deuteronomy 34:10-12)

He never wanted to be a leader. He was content to be a shepherd in the desert, taking care of sheep until one day he died. But then he came into contact with God.

At the age of forty, Moses had tried leadership. As a Hebrew raised by Egyptian royalty, he had tried to take charge over his people from a preferred viewpoint: that of being royalty himself. He killed a man who was abusing one of his people. But it backfired when he realized that his people didn’t like him nor want him to help them.

And he ran, fearing retribution. He ran until he had lost himself. He married, had children, worked for his father-in-law, completely submerged his desire for prominence and leadership.

But one day forty years later he found the bush that was burning without being consumed. And the voice of God came from the bush telling him that he was to be a leader after all.

He tried everything he could to tell God that he wasn’t cut out, that he didn’t want to, that he was not equipped. Finally he said, just get someone else to do it.

It didn’t work and he found himself as the leader of a reluctant group of people. Not only that, but he found himself against the Egyptian royalty he had been raised with, who remembered him.

After ten demonstrations of God’s power to the Egyptians, each stronger than the last, and a miracle still talked about – the parting of the Red Sea – he led his people out of bondage to – somewhere. He knew it was the Promised Land, but exactly where, he didn’t know.

The people he was leading griped from the beginning. They wanted to leave, yet they wanted to stay. Bad as it was, it was home and they knew what was there. And at every opportunity they complained. They complained because there was no water, no food, boring food, lack of variety. They complained that he thought he was better than they. They complained about everything.

They were also afraid of him. At Mount Sinai when God gave them the law, they were so afraid that they sent Moses to talk to God for them. While he was gone, they tried to reduce God to a golden calf. He punished them by grinding it up and making the assembly drink it in water.

Their fear was compounded when he came back shining from having seen God. They demanded he put a sack on his head to cover up what they did not have: the radiance of the glory of God’s presence.

When finally they reached the Promised Land after two years of travel,  they rebelled again claiming that they were not strong enough to take the land. God punished them by making them wander for 38 more years, until everyone that had rebelled were dead.

But because he had disobeyed God in an unfortunate bit of anger, he could not enter the Promised Land himself. He stood on the mountain overlooking it and died. After all this work, his assistant, Joshua, took the people into the Promised Land.

A reluctant leader who became, as Deuteronomy says, the greatest man who ever lived, the Lawgiver.

Elijah, Prophet of Fire

The following is a character study, one of several, that I did for Firm Foundation Foursquare Church in Boonville, MO.




Elijah, Prophet of Fire

The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. Elijah was as human as we are, and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall, none fell for three and a half years! Then, when he prayed again, the sky sent down rain and the earth began to yield its crops. (James 5:16-18)

Elijah was a man who was so full of power and the Spirit of God that he was taken up in a chariot of fire rather than suffer death. He was one of only two people recorded in the entire history of the Bible who never died.

He was an odd man, one full of contradictions. He was full of the power of God, capable of bringing on great miracles by his faith, yet he was one who was profoundly depressed. He saw the people of God unite behind him, yet he felt he was alone. He was capable of great courage and strength of will, yet was afraid at the death threat of a corrupt queen.

What would make him so great? His strength of will was strong, his presence was powerful. He evoked fear in the king just by walking into the room. They could see the power of God in his life. But what made him so powerful that God wouldn’t even let him die?

It was his faith. He never doubted that God was with him. He may have been afraid at times, even felt in danger of his life, but he always knew God was with him.

He never had any doubt that God would answer his requests. He never entertained the idea that God was not there. He just accepted it. And he also accepted the fact that God was working through him.

You first see him in 1 Kings 17 when he pronounces a drought on the land of Israel. For a time, God fed him himself by having ravens bring him food. God even sends him to a woman who is on the edge of starvation. He demands that she feed him and then blesses her with unlimited food in the middle of the drought. Then he brings her son back from the dead.

After a miracle in which he calls down fire from heaven and personally causes the destruction of most of the pagan priests in Israel, he asks God for the rain back. And it comes.

He runs for his life after Queen Jezebel threatens him. He tells God that he is the only one left in all Israel who is righteous and has to be reassured by God that it is not true. He chooses a prophetic successor. He becomes the nemesis of two corrupt kings.

His life only takes up eight chapters in the entire Bible, yet his name is synonymous with all of the prophets. It was he, along with Moses, who appeared to Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration in Matthew 17. It is he who is spoken of as the greatest prophet. He is not really spoken of much in the rest of the Bible except that the Messiah would be announced by one with his spirit. The Old Testament ends with his name and his preaching.

He never wrote any books that we know of. He left no family that we know of. What he had was his faith. It was so strong that he accomplished mighty things in his life, great enough to earn him a place among the men of great faith. And great enough to cause God to take him rather than let him die.

And James says that he is like us and that we could be like him.

daily java

Daily Java:

As Jesus went with him, he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped. “Who touched me?” Jesus asked. Everyone denied it, and Peter said, “Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.” But Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.” When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees in front of him. The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed. “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” (Luke 8:42-48)

Jesus is surrounded by a couple of thousand people. They are pressing in on him from all sides. The dust is heavy. He and the apostles almost have trouble breathing at times for all the people pressing in on him.

Suddenly, he stops and says, “Who touched me?” A lot of them thought for a moment he was irritated at the press of the crowd and drew back from him so they weren’t touching him.

Peter said, “Well, Master, we are in a crowd of people.” Again Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.”

You can imagine Peter and the rest looking sternly at the crowd. “All right. Who touched the Master.” They probably felt foolish. They felt they were supposed to protect him anyway.

Jesus and the apostles looked around for the “toucher.” Jesus knew someone had touched him in a way that was different than anyone else. He had felt power go out of him and into that person. He wanted to know who it was.

Several layers of the crowd back was a woman who felt good for the first time in years. She felt good. Full of health. Clean. But now, everyone was looking for her. Had she done something wrong?

For several years, she had bled, a twelve year menstrual period. According to the law, she was unclean. No one would have anything to do with her, no one would even touch her.

She figured that it would be better if she could just touch Jesus, not involve him in anyway. He very likely could be angry when she touched him, because it would make him unclean too. But she also knew that he had the power to heal her. She was caught in a quandary. What would she do?

So she quietly touched him and was healed.

Jesus, on the other hand, didn’t want people quietly touching him and being healed. First off, he wanted to know who they were and second, he wanted an interactive relationship with people. His healing power was not just to heal, but to bring people to a knowledge of the power of God.

She came forward in tears, miserable. Would he take it back because she was quiet about it? Would he scold her in front of everybody? What would he do?

What he did was to tell her why she had been healed. It was not because he had a magic robe. It was because she had believed she could. She had accepted the power of God working through him and that was what saved her.

The point? Christianity is personal but it is not private. It is to be shared, not quietly done in the middle of the night or in the middle of the crowd.

The crowd heard her problem and heard his power. Then they heard about faith in him.

Jesus didn’t come to heal. He came to save. The healing was nothing more than a physical demonstration of that spiritual power. He showed them his power over the spiritual by his power over the physical.

Not only was the woman saved, she knew why. And so did everybody else.

daily java

Daily Java:

No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. (Luke 8:16-17)

I was reading an article about conservatives in Hollywood. It mentioned that, for the most part, they have to stay underground. Hollywood is hostile to conservatism and liberals rule almost everything. So the average conservative has to lay low.

I have heard of the same thing happening there with Christians. Christians espouse a lifestyle that Hollywood hates. So if they want to have work, they have to be careful.

I have problems with that. On the one hand, I can see the difficulty. It is like Christians in Muslim countries, or in the old Communist countries. They had to be careful if they wanted to stay alive, much less worship.

On the other hand, what good does it do to be a Christian if you cannot ell anyone? Jesus was very forceful with what he believed, as were the apostles and preachers in the book of Acts. They said what they believed and suffered greatly for it.

Of course, there is a lot to be said in living behind the scenes, changing things as you can. And someone living behind the scenes is better than no one living at all. There is that.

It does seem a shame to have to hide (or if not hide, then greatly diminish) your Christianity in order to survive. And I am not sure Hollywood is worth the sacrifice. I do know and have read often of Christians coming to Hollywood determined to make a big difference and then being turned.

And it is a shame. Not surprising, considering the influence Hollywood has on our culture, that it could turn some lowly actor or director.

I would hate to have to live like that.

daily java

Daily Java:

Soon afterward Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom of God. He took his twelve disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons; Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s business manager; Susanna; and many others who were contributing from their own resources to support Jesus and his disciples. (Luke 8:1-3)

There was an old man in my church a few years ago. He got to talking one day and told of how at the age of 17 he ran around on the carrier deck pulling bodies off as the Japanese strafed Pearl Harbor. Here this old man had participated in one of the watershed events of American history.

Another old man had walked across Europe following Patton in World War 2.

You are talking to someone at church, a rather sweet woman, and you realize that before she came to Jesus, she used to live a life of such depravity. Another had been in prison for murder. Another had been a drug pusher and addict and a consequent thief. Another person had almost starved in World War 2 and had eaten tulip bulbs and tried to bake grass into bread. Another had lived on the streets. Another …

There is a scene in a movie with Robert Mitchum as a preacher. He shoots something and the woman (Inger Stevens) says, You sure shoot good for a preacher. His answer I have always loved: Every preacher was something else before he was a preacher.

Every Christian was something else before they were a Christian. When you see people in the context of church, or after they get old or in their homes, it is hard to imagine what all they went through to get to where they are now. They were not always the nice person you see. Some of them came through immense adversity to get to where they are. What you see is the finished product, not the beginning.

The people with Jesus were no exception. The women who went with him were varied. They probably cooked and cleaned for the men (that was a strong part of their culture) and also helped Jesus minister to women who came up needing help.

One was a wealthy woman, Joanna. Others had a fair amount of money and helped Jesus and the apostles just in living expenses.

But there was also Mary Magdalene. Traditionally, she was a prostitute, but the Bible never says that. What it says, however, was pretty horrible.

from whom he had cast out seven demons.

Here was a woman with a bad past. She had been possessed by seven demons. She had been at the beck and call of the devil. Every waking moment was spent being inhabited by demons. What a hell her life must have been.

Whatever she was and whatever she had done in this situation (some in the Bible were used by their owners, or pimps, to tell fortunes), she probably was miserable.

Then one day she is standing there and there is a young man in front of her. He looks at her and says to the demons, Be gone!. And for the first time in many years she felt such peace in her soul.

She would have gladly died for this young man. She began to follow him around and do whatever she could to help him. Because of him, she was free.

I always like to hear people’s stories, the accounts of their lives. And I always ask. Sitting around the dinner table, having coffee, whatever, I say: Tell me about yourself. Tell me your story.

And many of them do. Some do it in astonishment. Here was where I was and here is where I am. I was crazy and now I am sane. I was out of control and now I am in control. I was lost and now I am found. I was hated and now I am loved. I was trash and now I am treasure.

It is only in Jesus that this can happen. And it does daily. Mary is not the exception. She is the rule.

Jesus frees. And people rejoice.

daily java

Daily Java:

Soon afterward Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The young man who had died was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.” Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother. Great fear swept the crowd, and they praised God, saying, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people today.” And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside. (Luke 7:11-35)

The woman was bereft. Her son was dead. Now she not only had the loss of her beloved son, she also had no one to support her. She was alone.

Her husband had tried to provide for her but he had died. Her other son had died, and now her last one was gone. Grief and fear ate her up.

If it had not been for the generosity of her neighbors and the little bit she had saved up, she would not have been able to even have a funeral for him. She just couldn’t bear to see him go out like a pauper. So she set herself to giving him this last token of her love: a decent funeral.

But it left her with nothing. Her son had been a good man and had tried to take care of her. He had never married and had always seemed so healthy. Now, he was gone.

And she was alone. And afraid. And full of grief. She didn’t know how in the world life could go on.

What really surprised her was the young stranger who approached the coffin as they carried it through the city to the cemetery. He walked right up to it and looked inside.

Then he looked at her. She didn’t think she had ever been looked at like that in her life. It was almost as if he saw right down to her soul. Tears were streaming down her face and she was sobbing almost uncontrollably.

It was such a surprise when she saw tears begin in his eyes. He said, “Don’t cry.” But how could she not? She had lost the center of her life. As a mother and a homemaker, she had lost both son and home. She had nothing left.

But he walked closer and touched the coffin. The bearers stopped, more in surprise at this odd move of the young man. Then – well, he said, and it is still so hard to believe, even now as she is an old woman and her son is outside playing with his grandchildren – the young man, whom she had never seen before, said, “I tell you, get up.” To her son’s body! His dead, stiffened body.

And he did! And started talking! “Where am I? What’s happening. Why am I in this box? Mom?”

She fell to the ground in fear. Then she felt such joy!. He was alive! Her baby was alive! Alive!

The bearers dropped the coffin, they were so surprised. How could it be?

The young man helped her son out of the box and brought him over to her. At first, she was almost too afraid to touch him. Then she grabbed him and hugged him. Oh, thank God! He’s alive!

People began to shout praises to God and praise to the young man – Jesus was his name! who had raised her son from the dead.

After profuse thanks, which the young man seemed to be almost embarrassed about, she took her son, her live son! home. She was going to fix him a supper he wouldn’t forget for a long time.

a blahg

Publish Post

daily java

Daily Java:

But to you who are willing to listen, I say, love your enemies! Do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who hurt you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, offer the other cheek also. If someone demands your coat, offer your shirt also. Give to anyone who asks; and when things are taken away from you, don’t try to get them back. Do to others as you would like them to do to you. If you love only those who love you, why should you get credit for that? Even sinners love those who love them! And if you do good only to those who do good to you, why should you get credit? Even sinners do that much! And if you lend money only to those who can repay you, why should you get credit? Even sinners will lend to other sinners for a full return. Love your enemies! Do good to them. Lend to them without expecting to be repaid. Then your reward from heaven will be very great, and you will truly be acting as children of the Most High, for he is kind to those who are unthankful and wicked. You must be compassionate, just as your Father is compassionate. (Luke 6:27-36)

Christianity goes against the grain. What we would think of as normal behavior, the Bible says don’t do. What we might consider foolish behavior, the Bible says to do.

Forgiveness is something that is against our nature. People do not naturally forgive. Naturally, they seek revenge. That is common.

And we tend to do good things to people who do good things to us. It is easy to be nice to people who are nice to us, to bless people who bless us. It is not easy to bless people who do bad things to us or our family. That is normal.

But Jesus calls us beyond normal. He calls us into the divine. He says that we are to transcend our human natures – revenge, jealousy, unreasoning anger, pettiness – and embrace instead his gospel of forgiveness.

And that is hard.

But, on the other hand, Jesus forgave those who were killing him as they were killing him. As he said, they really did not understand what they were doing. And he forgave them.

He calls on us to forgive also, like he did. But we cannot just decide to do so. It has to be a shift in the way we think, in the way we are made. And that shift has to come from God himself.

He said, through Jesus here, be like me. Any fool can be nice to people who are nice to him. What credit is there in that? He told us to go against the grain. In fact, not only go against the grain, but change the whole grain. Make it holy. Make it of God. And let God have charge of your life.

Unreasoning anger kills you. Unresolved conflict is physically damaging. And it does no good to hold a grudge. In fact, it begins to eat at you like a cancer and turns you bitter.

Let it go and let God take you over. Be forgiving. The idiot who did stupid things to you and your family will have to take care of himself. You take care of yourself and forgive him.

That doesn’t mean you have to make him your insurance beneficiary or something like that. But it does mean that you need to forgive him and be nice to him. He didn’t ask? So what? They didn’t ask Jesus either. But he did it.

Do it.

a comment on my blog

I just got a comment on my blog that was so ugly that it was amazing. I know where it came from, but what amazes me is that he reads my blog. Amazing, I say again.

And I forgive him. May the Lord bless him and his family and give him meaning and purpose.

daily java

Daily Java:

On another Sabbath day, a man with a deformed right hand was in the synagogue while Jesus was teaching. The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath. But Jesus knew their thoughts. He said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” So the man came forward. Then Jesus said to his critics, “I have a question for you. Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” He looked around at them one by one and then said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! At this, the enemies of Jesus were wild with rage and began to discuss what to do with him. (Luke 6:6-11)

There are people that are so desperate to catch you in an error that they will watch for even the most foolish things.

At a church meeting called by a pastoral dissenter a couple of years ago, there was a litany of complaints laid out. A list was made of the things the pastor had done wrong. It centered on the fact that the members in question feared that the new pastor would change the church somehow.

Now he hadn’t really done anything yet. It was all perception and fear of what might lie in the future.

After a bit of complaining, one member (who had ramrodded the whole thing) mentioned that he had heard that the pastor was going to move the pulpit, and that he didn’t like the fact that the pastor walked on the floor when preaching. And last, the pastor had put a table in the back of the auditorium.

He was livid with rage. And over what? Nothing really. Just a few small things that most people wouldn’t even notice. And not only would they not notice, many of them were in the future conceived of in this man’s mind.

The religious leaders watched Jesus like a hawk to see if  he did something they could pin on him as breaking the law. Working on the Sabbath was their big thing. Healing was sort of technically kind of work in that the  healer was doing something out of the ordinary.

Jesus knew this and really didn’t care if they liked it or not. He didn’t come to make them like it. He came to bring them back to God. And he recognized that, more than likely, these men were not going to come back to God. So he concentrated on those around him. They liked what he was doing.

He brings the man out in front and asks the leaders: Does the law permit me to do good deeds on the Sabbath? Does it permit me to save a life? Or is it a day for doing bad things by ignoring a present need to do good?

This is a dilemma for the leaders. The old law specifically said that you could save lives on the Sabbath if needed and that you could do good deeds if they needed doing. The Sabbath was primarily meant to keep employers from working their employees seven days a week and to give them time to come to worship. It was never intended to become a legalistic straitjacket.

So Jesus calls the man forward and heals him right in front of the religious leaders. He knew they wouldn’t like it yet he did it anyway. He really didn’t care what the establishment thought about what he did. He just did it anyway.

As it turned out in the church meeting, the one who had the complaints didn’t like the pastor in the first place. The pastor could have done anything and the guy still wouldn’t have liked him. The reason? A former pastor had raised him up as a leader and the new pastor didn’t seem like he was going to (the new pastor had been there two weeks). So he tore the church up.

The leaders knew Jesus was not going to do what they wanted so they tried to tear his church up. It didn’t matter that he was obviously full of the grace of God. He didn’t do what they wanted so they tried to kill him.

Pathetic.

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Daily Java:

They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. Stay away from people like that! (2 Timothy 3:3-5)

There is a blindness in some people that is set into them so strongly they cannot see any other points of view but their own. Sometimes it is just their own wishes made holy by theological association. Sometimes it is misapplication of scripture. Sometimes it is their own past ruling their present.

Whatever the reason, it will tear them up. It is not from God.

And it will not only tear them up, it will also tear up their families and their friends. People like this are so intent on their point that they slander, they will be cruel (most of the time to their own families in that they remove their families from fellowship with others). They are puffed up with pride in that they feel that their own opinion is so good and so holy that they will tear up a church to preserve it.

The Bible always speaks against division in the church. The book of Proverbs has a number of comments about people who cause division. And neither Jesus nor the apostles ever commended anyone for tearing up a church for any reason whatever.

Whether it be alcohol use or worship styles or the way we dress or any other reason, when we turn from the gospel of unity, we are wrong.

The Lord gives freedom and allows us to worship him as best we can. He never allows anyone in the church, no matter how well-meaning, to determine who we do so.

In fact, over and over, he condemns those who do.

And it hurts when it happens. When people sit at your table and eat your food and accept your hospitality and you find that it was simply because they were trying their best to convert you to their way of thinking.

The church is greater than people’s individual thoughts.

And there is nothing that the Lord made – nothing – that is wrong in and of itself. No food is sinful, no drink is sinful, no medication is sinful, no bodily function is sinful – unless it is used wrongly.

But it is foolish to consider that God would make something and then laugh at us and condemn us when we used it.

It is foolish to bind our own thoughts on others and try to tear the church up with it.


And it hurts.

daily java

Daily Java:

Everyone spoke well of him and was amazed by the gracious words that came from his lips. “How can this be?” they asked. “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” Then he said, “You will undoubtedly quote me this proverb: ‘Physician, heal yourself’—meaning, ‘Do miracles here in your hometown like those you did in Capernaum.’ But I tell you the truth, no prophet is accepted in his own hometown. “Certainly there were many needy widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the heavens were closed for three and a half years, and a severe famine devastated the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them. He was sent instead to a foreigner—a widow of Zarephath in the land of Sidon. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, but the only one healed was Naaman, a Syrian.” When they heard this, the people in the synagogue were furious. Jumping up, they mobbed him and forced him to the edge of the hill on which the town was built. They intended to push him over the cliff, but he passed right through the crowd and went on his way.  (Luke 4:22-30)

Jesus came home after preaching around for a while. When he did, he shared with them the passage from Isaiah 61 that promised the coming of the Messiah. When he got through, he began to speak to them. And he told them that he was the fulfillment of that passage.

They were all amazed at how well he spoke and marveled at the fact that here was the home-boy, Jesus, and his words were so gracious.

Then he said something they disagreed with and instantly, they were mad. He was fine as long as he said things that agreed with them, but when he departed from their ideas, they were through with him. In fact, they got so mad, they were ready to throw this son of Joseph, the one they admired just a few minutes ago, off a cliff.

I have talked to people who have told me this same thing. They were irritated by something I had said. And one in particular kind of summed it up for all those who came before and those who came afterwards. He said, “When you came here I thought you were smart. But then you begin saying things I do not agree with and now I don’t think so.”

As long as I agreed with him, I was smart. But if I ever got out into unfamiliar territory, I ceased being smart. Being smart involved toeing a company line perfectly. When you go outside the parameters they have set up, you are dead. And they will kill you, career-wise if no other way.

Jesus told them that God loved somebody in addition to them. That’s all. He reminded them that one of the prophets in the Old Testament healed someone who was not a Jew.

That small thing was too much for them. In many ways, the Jews of the first century share attitudes with the Muslims of the 21st century. They were crazy and demanded orthodoxy (their idea of orthodoxy, of course) from everyone. And if they didn’t get it the way they felt it should come, they would kill the messenger.

It was their way or the highway.

And it didn’t even matter that Jesus’ mother was standing there listening to them rant. He dared to say something they disagreed with and that was that. He deserved to die for his heresy.

Of course, what was his heresy? Simply pointing out what had happened in their own scriptures (1 Kings 17 and 2 Kings 5) and that made them mad. Yes, it had happened, but they didn’t like that it had and they didn’t want him to point it out to them.

The fact that is was true was beside the point. They wanted what they wanted and they would kill anyone who didn’t give it to them.

Jesus got away from them. I don’t think this was necessarily miraculous. There were a lot of them and he just kind of slipped away in the crowd.

But you know it must have hurt him to see them rabid like this against him. He had probably seen this once or twice growing up in that town, but the fact that it cold come to him and against him must have hurt him.

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Daily Java:

On the fourteenth day of the first month, you must celebrate the LORD’s Passover. On the following day—the fifteenth day of the month—a joyous, seven-day festival will begin, but no bread made with yeast may be eaten. The first day of the festival… (Numbers 28:16-29:40)

I have been reading now for quite a while on what all the Israelites had to do in service to God. And a lot of it was tedious and arduous. It would not have been fun in my estimation. Of course, if I had lived then, my idea of fun would be different than it is today. But, still.

But what must their festivals have looked like? As a human and possessed of human nature, I recognize a couple of basic things about people in general. And one of them is the fact that if it is to be a joyous festival, people had to 1) look forward to it and 2) have a good time during it.

It’s hard for me to imagine God saying, Well, aren’t we having fun? while everyone is laboring under a “joyous” festival where they can’t even eat normal food.

It must have been a good time. So what would it have looked like?

Maybe there were games and a general relaxing of the work schedule. People would visit each other and bring little gifts of food of some kind, maybe little things, crocheted potholders or something. Were there games and singing, maybe a community sing where they sang old favorite Israelite songs. Games for the kids maybe, talent contests, food contests to see who could make the best unleavened bread.

There had to be something to make it joyous. I know that a lot of joy is in your mind. If you decide it will be fun, it will. And if  you decide it will not be fun, it won’t, no matter how great it is.

Fun is a mindset. What is fun to one person is not necessarily fun to another. But there had to be something built in to this festival to make it joyous. It would not be joyous simply because someone announced it as such. Not even God.

God says, okay, have fun. And the people dutifully have fun. Okay, they say, yippee.

I am not sure what the point of this today is. For that matter, there may be no point to anything I write. But I was just wondering.

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Daily Java:

One day the LORD said to Moses, “Climb one of the mountains east of the river, and look out over the land I have given the people of Israel. After you have seen it, you will die like your brother, Aaron, for you both rebelled against my instructions in the wilderness of Zin. When the people of Israel rebelled, you failed to demonstrate my holiness to them at the waters.”  (Numbers 27:12-14)

Today Moses gets his walking papers. He is through now, ready to be retired. The Israelites have wandered for almost forty years. A whole generation has died because of their sin and disobedience – they refused to believe God cold help them take the Promised Land and rebelled against him and Moses.

Joshua and Caleb and their families are still alive (Numbers 26:64), but everybody else is gone. Their children are ready to claim this promise of God.

These are a people who have never known anything but nomadic existence and now they are ready to become land owners.

But Moses is not the one to lead them. For one thing, he is getting old and there needs to be someone younger and able to keep up with the upcoming battles.

And besides this, Moses is the only leader they have ever known. In their eyes, he is God and the absolute authority of God. There needs to be someone else come in to lead them to new places. He has been in charge for so long that he represents the old. There needs to be the new to bring them to the new land.

He chooses Joshua, a man that has helped him with what he has done for years now. Joshua was capable enough in the sight of God that he was even allowed to accompany Moses up Mount Sinai when everyone else was forbidden to even touch it. He has been there for all the major decisions and has acted as Moses’ second in command for almost half a century.

Moses is to lay his hands on Joshua in front of the whole assembly and appoint him their new leader.

You wonder how Joshua felt. For his whole life, he had been living in the shadow of the great Moses, the lawgiver and ruler of the nation of Israel. Now he will be the one in charge. And what is more, Moses will not be there to give him advice. Moses is leaving.

It would be a scary thing for Joshua and for the nation. Moses has been, for all practical purposes, their king for forty years. It has been his power and God’s power through him that has kept them in line for so long. Everything he said was absolutely the word of God.

And now he is going. As God tells him, he made a mistake and sinned at one crucial point. It seems small to me, but to God it made a big difference. Moses had taken it on himself to bring water from a rock instead of speaking to the rock like God had told him. God gave the water anyway, but it hurt Moses.

I don’t know why exactly. Moses was not sinless, but at the same time, he was definitely old guard. The Israelites needed new guard, someone who was younger, to lead them.

And he was Joshua. He would become their leader. And he would try his best to fill the sandals of what Deuteronomy called the greatest man who ever lived, who knew God face to face.

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Daily Java:

As the Scriptures say,
  “People are like grass;
  their beauty is like a flower in the field.
The grass withers and the flower fades.
But the word of the Lord remains forever.” (1 Peter 1:23-25)

Getting older is strange to one who is doing it for the first time. I suppose that is everyone. It isn’t as though you can go to a seminar on it and learn how to get older, or have some trial runs.

You just do it. And then you are older.

I mentioned last week that I had my hand operated on. This week, the doctor took out the stitches and I am going through the process of rebuilding the strength in that hand.

Just a warning: if you shake my right hand and squeeze real hard like Chuck does, I will probably scream like a little girl. It is rather tender. And I tend to favor it. I know that if I turn it hard, the incision will not pop open and all my hand guts go falling out on the table. I know that – most of the time. But, still.

I was always proud of the strength in my hands when I was younger. That was before the onset of carpal tunnel syndrome and all. There was a time when I could tear a telephone book in half. In college, I would buy a used paperback of a novel I had to review and didn’t like and would return the two halves along with my report. Of course, now, I can tear a sheet of paper in half as long as it isn’t too thick.

Ella had to help me open my thermos the other day. It had gotten a vacuum seal and I became frantic. There was coffee in there!! I needed to get to it. So I got out the vise-grips and she held the bottom while I turned and finally it came open.

A little embarrassing. But, I guess, part of life.

I remember seeing a picture of the old Johnny Weismuller. He looked so wasted. I mean, he was about 80 or so, but still it was surprising. There was a strong looking man when he was younger. But he got old.

It comes to everyone. I have read that Arnold Schwartzenegger had to quit his muscle roles after his heart surgery because he was no longer able to bulk up like he did before. And he is only a couple of years older than me.

Sooner or later these guys – Arnold, Sylvester Stallone, others – will have to lay down the barbells. They just will be too old.

Everybody gets old unless they die first. That is why James Dean and Marilyn Monroe are so young to us. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, others who died too early remain young in our minds.

But everybody who lives gets old. And there is nothing you can do about it. Of course, you can live in the past, remembering the glory days when you could bench press a Buick. But it does no good. All you can do is be the best you can be now. Older. With weaker hands. Gray hair. An old geezer drooling into his coffee.

It comes to everyone. But God remains forever.

boring

yap

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Daily Java:

Then the people of Israel set out from Mount Hor, taking the road to the Red Sea[c] to go around the land of Edom. But the people grew impatient with the long journey, and they began to speak against God and Moses. “Why have you brought us out of Egypt to die here in the wilderness?” they complained. “There is nothing to eat here and nothing to drink. And we hate this horrible manna!” So the LORD sent poisonous snakes among the people, and many were bitten and died. Then the people came to Moses and cried out, “We have sinned by speaking against the LORD and against you. Pray that the LORD will take away the snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people. Then the LORD told him, “Make a replica of a poisonous snake and attach it to a pole. All who are bitten will live if they simply look at it!” So Moses made a snake out of bronze and attached it to a pole. Then anyone who was bitten by a snake could look at the bronze snake and be healed! (Numbers 21:4-9)

Hezekiah son of Ahaz began to rule over Judah in the third year of King Hoshea’s reign in Israel. He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem twenty-nine years. His mother was Abijah, the daughter of Zechariah. He did what was pleasing in the LORD’s sight, just as his ancestor David had done. He removed the pagan shrines, smashed the sacred pillars, and cut down the Asherah poles. He broke up the bronze serpent that Moses had made, because the people of Israel had been offering sacrifices to it. The bronze serpent was called Nehushtan. (2 Kings 18:1-4)

When I go to a church, I always love to poke around the building, looking at all the old stuff that has accumulated. Some churches keep stuff for years, even when it ceases its effectiveness or usefulness.

The same is with committees in the church. They started for a good reason but now have lost the purpose they had at the beginning. They have become a sacred cow, a committee without any real meaning or purpose but a committee with seniority.

To get rid of it is to dig something which has become holy out of the church. It becomes like the eastern Indians killing a sacred cow. They can’t kill it, nor can they eat it, so it just wanders around, getting thinner and thinner until one day it just drops.

The Israelites were gripers and whiners. Every once in a while they would decide that they didn’t have a good life and would try to rebel against God. And he would punish them.

In this passage, God sent a plague on them for their foolishness. But he also sent a remedy, a rather odd thing for God who never liked statues of things. He had Moses make a bronze snake to hang on a pole. If they looked at it, they would be healed. So it necessitated a trip from the whole camp (over three million people) to where Moses put the snake. And they were healed.

This was about 1350BC. Almost 700 years later, a good king came into power in Judah (the small remnant of the Israelites). The first thing he did was to get rid of all the idols and shrines. The Israelites had a penchant for worshiping anything in sight like the people in the land where they settled.

One of the things that was still around was the bronze snake. Somebody had kept it for almost  700 years and little by little it became an idol. It even had a name: Nehushtan (which evidently meant either “snake,” “bronze,” or “unclean thing”). Whatever it meant, Moses is long buried, all the original Israelites and their children and their children’s children are long gone. And the bronze snake remains.

Some of the Israelites were worshiping it. They probably remembered the stories of how it had saved Israel from a great plague and if they offered  sacrifices to it, they would be healed. Maybe it was just one of a line of old things they worshiped, kind of an idol buffet.

Hezekiah got rid of it and there were people who were mad. They had that when they were a kid. They knew of a guy who knew a woman who had a cousin who was healed by it. Surely it was good to have.

Some of the committees in the church are like this. They have been around for a long time and even have a budget figured into the church budget each year. But it has been years since they did anything of value.

But woe to the pastor who gets rid of it. Once it was a great and vital committee. Now it isn’t, but if we could just get these young people interested, it would be great again.

Of course, the young people see it as a worthless waste of time (which it usually is) and won’t go near it.

And every church has a bronze snake somewhere.

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Daily Java:

And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. (Romans 8:28)

It is an absolute truth that bad things are going to happen to us. That is a given.

But there is also a choice we can make. We can become bitter and angry over them and let them rule us. Or we can allow God to use them to make us stronger.

The Bible says that the bad things do not come from God. God is a God of love and will not send things to harm us. But on the other hand, he will not always stop them from happening either.

It would be good if God had his hand over us in such a way that bad things didn’t happen. We would be protected.

But they do. they start early and go until we are dead. We can get angry at God and wonder why he doesn’t take better care of his people (the “why do bad things happen to good people” problem). It can make us bitter even.

Or we can accept the fact that things will happen and see what God has in store for us.

Now that sounds simplistic and Quite frankly Pollyanna-like. And sometimes even like that song from Annie: “The Sun will come out tomorrow.” We’re all singing and dancing thinking about all the good things that will happen to us.

And that is for the most part baloney. Nobody likes the bad things that happen and if they say they do, they are weird.

But God can use them to make us stronger. Just like exercise strengthens the body, so difficulty strengthens the faith we have. As Arnold and the other body builders would say, “No pain, no gain.” When bad things happen, we can allow God to use them. And like it or not, they make us stronger.

God does not send any bad thing to us. But he will use whatever happens to us that is bad to make us stronger. We may not enjoy it, but if we will let him, he will make us stronger.

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Daily Java:

Whenever Moses went into the Tabernacle to speak with the LORD, he heard the voice speaking to him from between the two cherubim above the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—that rests on the Ark of the Covenant. The LORD spoke to him from there. (Numbers 7:89)

It is hard to imagine a place, a physical place where God dwells. 1 Corinthians 2 tells us that God is in our hearts, that we are the temple. That is the whole idea of the New Testament, that God lives within us.

Jesus even gave that whole idea of change when he told the woman in John 4, God does not live in a temple made with hands.

She wanted to know of the place where she could go and see God, talk to God, experience God in a physical way. Jesus said, God is not physical that he can be contained within anything. He is Spirit.

In the Old Testament, however, it was different. God lived in the Holy of Holies, in the tabernacle at first, then in the temple. The people of Israel were even warned not to go too close to the tabernacle or they would die. That was God’s dwelling place.

In fact, Numbers says that God’s actual dwelling place, the place you could go if you wanted to see the actual presence of God, was between the two cherubim on top of the ark of the covenant.

Of course, you couldn’t do that. Only one man, the High Priest could do that. And he only once a year. When the Israelites moved about, as they did for forty years, living a nomadic life, that one man even had to cover the ark so that no one else could see it.

It was the presence of God.

But not now. When Jesus died, Mark 15:38 says: the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. It was God saying, no more will I live somewhere. Now, he says, I will live in you.

We don’t go to church to see God. We do not go to holy places or say holy things to invoke him. If we are his, he lives in our hearts. His earthly physical presence is in us, not in places.

No matter how good the church building may feel, or how you may hold it in reverence, it is not holy. You are holy. By your presence, you make it holy when you bring God with you. And by your presence, and him in you, your home is holy, your workplace is holy, your car is holy, you are holy.

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Daily Java:

The soldiers took Jesus into the courtyard of the governor’s headquarters (called the Praetorium) and called out the entire regiment. They dressed him in a purple robe, and they wove thorn branches into a crown and put it on his head. Then they saluted him and taunted, “Hail! King of the Jews!” And they struck him on the head with a reed stick, spit on him, and dropped to their knees in mock worship. When they were finally tired of mocking him, they took off the purple robe and put his own clothes on him again. Then they led him away to be crucified. (Mark 15:16-20)

One of the perks of being a Roman soldier was the entertainment of beating on prisoners. Unfortunately, soldiers have always been that way. I am not sure why. But soldiers tend to see their enemies as less than human, less than real. It was that case in the all of the wars America has fought.

Lately, there has been a lot of focus on this, but the thing is, as long as people are having to fight other people, it will be that way. It is easier to fight someone you have dehumanized than to fight someone you see as a real person.

It was the same in Jesus’ day. The governor gave Jesus to his soldiers to beat than he took him to be crucified. To the soldiers, he was nobody special, just another prisoner. He may have been a little more high profile than some, but now he was there, at least for a while, for their amusement.

They laughed at him, crowned him with a crown of thorns, dressed him in a purple robe, hit him, in general tortured him. Then they were through.

To these men, Jesus was no more than a momentary diversion. Chances are, they didn’t even think of him much that night when they went home. He was just part of their jobs (or at least part of the fun of their jobs).

To us he was the King of the Universe in human from dying for our sins, being beaten for our transgressions, bleeding for our failings.

To them, he was just part of the job of soldiering. That was all.

I suppose that is why the comment the centurion made at the foot of the cross in Mark 15:39: When the Roman officer who stood facing him saw how he had died, he exclaimed, “This man truly was the Son of God!” That soldier could see past all of the stuff and see that there was something special about Jesus, something, some spark of divinity that was lacking in the others.

To them, Jesus was part of the day’s trash, to be thrown away.

To us, he is the Son of God and our Savior.

What a difference in perspective.

my hand is in a cast

But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. (Matthew 6:3).

No problem for me this week. I had my hand operated on last Tuesday for Carpal Tunnel Syndrome and it hurts like crazy. And I have this rather large brace on it, so it is hard to make it work right. Between the swelling and the brace and all, I even have trouble pulling my pants up.

I knew you were concerned.

I have thought this week about the one-armed people I have known in my life that seemed to do a good job with just one arm.

One guy had just a little below his elbow that came to a point. However, I never saw anyone fold sheets faster than he could. He would whip them around somehow and push his stump into the sheet and hold it like that. You ceased to notice his disability after a while.

Another guy had part of one arm and I invented a way for him to play guitar. He never got around to it but it seemed like it would work.

Typing is also hard, as I can only use two fingers on my right hand. I am a very fast typist normally, but this slows me down considerably. It is surprising, however, what you can do if you want to.

On man on my Facebook page (my cousin Truette in Texas) did comment on how I could be long winded and still be crippled in my right hand. It takes a lot to put me down.

I have noticed some odd things. For one thing, bathing is real hard one handed. I put a bag over my right hand with duct tape (ouch coming off – I am a hairy guy) and that helped some but still.

Some funny things. Since I am right handed, I brush my teeth with my right hand. It is very hard with my left. The left hand doesn’t know how to move right. And what is funny is that my right hand will move with my left when I brush, kind of like a mother will smack her lips with her baby when she feeds it. Kind of a sympathetic movement.

And I have to use a tablespoon to eat with. My right hand will not yet hold a fork or anything since it has that brace in the way, and my left hand is extremely uncooperative. So I have to hold the plate close and kind of shovel.

Isn’t it sad? The poor little man is having trouble feeding himself. I notice that I have forced myself to get enough nutrition to stay alive.

But I am ready to be through and still have a few days left before they will take off the cast.

Don’t tell the doctor but I took it off and looked. Ella got mad that I “disobeyed the doctor” but I needed to look. He would have done the same. Needless to say, it is grotesque. Enough for now. My hand is tired.

daily java

Daily Java: 

But when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. (Matthew 6:3)

My right hand and my left are having trouble cooperating today because of the carpal tunnel surgery yesterday. So I will not be writing much today.

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Daily Java:

Jesus replied, “Your mistake is that you don’t know the Scriptures, and you don’t know the power of God.” (Mark 12:24)

In other words, you are ignorant and you are stupid and you are a teacher of the Word. No wonder your students never really learn anything.

Jesus is talking to a group of people who liked to argue insanely detailed points. They also had their talking points that were designed to trip others up. One of these was the discussion of a woman married seven times on earth; whose wife would she be in the afterworld?

It seemed that there was no answer to this conundrum. They brought it to Jesus so that everybody could see the great renegade rabbi brought low by useless philosophical discussion.

Instead Jesus turned it on them and asked his question: haven’t you ever read about this in the writings of Moses? Of course, they had read. They were doctors of religion. But yet, they were so blinded by their desire to see things a certain way that they were blind to anything good. And Jesus made them look stupid as a result.

Ignorance of the Scriptures can be excused if you know the power of God. There were times in history that people could not read as a general rule, yet the church still thrived and people were able to lead. The Middle Ages, for instance, was a time when in general, people were illiterate. Yet the church continued because God would give them what they needed.

There were also people who were schooled in the scriptures but had no real idea how to apply it to their lives. To them, the things of God were purely academic.

With the people Jesus was talking to, it was a matter of both. They had read what they wanted to read, that which proved their positions and they had read it in a way that presupposed an answer. And then on top of it all, they refused to pay attention to what they had read. They had already made up their minds and that was all there was to that.

When your mind is made up, it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, you won’t believe it. The denomination from which I came and that I was in for so long was like that. There were certain doctrines they held as sacred in spite of the fact that they were just about the only people in the world to interpret those scriptures that way.

Somebody years past had decided that a scripture meant a certain thing and for over 100 years the denomination held that to be inviolable. They even went so far as to get certain Greek texts and Greek interpretations that agreed with them and hold them up as authoritative. Anything that disagreed was considered suspect and dishonest. Scholars who disagreed were dishonest. Anyone who disagreed was heretic.

When we read, we read to find out what God says, not to tell God what he says. And when he tells us what he says, we accept it, whether or not we want it to say that. We have to read with our minds not made up, with no preconceptions.

That is a hard thing to do. All of us view things through our own personal filters. We cannot help it. But, on the other hand, it is what Jesus wants.

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Daily Java:

The next morning as they were leaving Bethany, Jesus was hungry. 13 He noticed a fig tree in full leaf a little way off, so he went over to see if he could find any figs. But there were only leaves because it was too early in the season for fruit. Then Jesus said to the tree, “May no one ever eat your fruit again!” And the disciples heard him say it. … The next morning as they passed by the fig tree he had cursed, the disciples noticed it had withered from the roots up. Peter remembered what Jesus had said to the tree on the previous day and exclaimed, “Look, Rabbi! The fig tree you cursed has withered and died!” Then Jesus said to the disciples, “Have faith in God. I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.”  (Mark 11:13-14, 20-25)

There are things that Jesus did that are strange, and some of them make no sense. Sometimes he will even explain them to the apostles but they still make no sense.

Jesus and the apostles are walking along and he is hungry and goes to get some figs off a tree. The tree doesn’t have anything on it to eat, so Jesus curses it. The next day when they come back from where they were Peter sees the tree and comments, rather amazedly , that it is dead.

Jesus goes into this long explanation of faith in God and in prayer, something that has nothing to do with the tree or his actions.

What does it mean? I will confess that I do not know.

Is it a comment that if you believe you can do something enough, even to the point of destruction, you can accomplish anything.

Is it that Jesus was human, too, and got irritated when something didn’t go his way? The Bible doesn’t show this anywhere else, so I don’t think it fits here. Jesus was not that kind of person to fly off the anger handle like that.

But he does temper it a bit. He says that no matter how strong your faith may be, if you are holding a grudge against someone else, you need to take care of it so you can get forgiveness, too.

How this fits into the tree thing I don’t know and have never read anything that satisfies my curiosity.

It comes out in the end that Jesus is not some person you can put into a box and say, “This is what he will do every time.” You just plain old do not know what Jesus would have done and neither do I.

And you can accept him and believe the Bible even though you can’t nail down everything in it. The mighty written word of God is not something you can read off the back of a cereal box. It is deep and strong and comes from the mind of the Everlasting God.

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Daily Java:

There is a path before each person that seems right, but it ends in death. (Proverbs 14:12)

Texas Independence Day was this past week. I’m sure you are as worn out from the celebrations as I am. You did go to Texas Independence Day celebrations, didn’t you?

It is kind of funny (in an ironic, relative sense, not in a ha-ha sense) that there is nothing stranger than a Texas historian and aficionado who lives somewhere else. In some ways kind of worthless.

But I suppose, no stranger than Civil War historians who choose the South when they live in Indiana or something like that. I have known some of those. Or Italian background people who choose an Indian way of life (that was the guy in the old litter campaigns – the Indian who had a tear in his eye over litter). Or a diabetic pastry chef, or an atheist who can quote great blocks of the Bible.

I have a fondness for classic rock and roll and like to know more about the people who performed it. A lot of them are dead now (Davy Jones of the Monkees died this week), but I enjoy it anyway.

The fondness, of course, is not bad. It is the obsession that gets bad. If all I did was listen to that music and grow my hair out and pretend to be a rock musician, especially at my age, that would be strange whether I thought it was or not.

The same goes with Texas history. If I were to walk around in period clothing and carry a flintlock rifle and pretend it was 1836, that would be weird whether or not I thought so. Ella sure wouldn’t like it. A smelly bearded guy in leather (think Davy Crockett, not Jim Morrison) would not be welcomed.

But then comes the difference. Just because you do something doesn’t make it right or normal. A pregnant woman who feels her baby kick and then goes and has an abortion. A heart attack victim with high cholesterol who cannot keep off the butter-fried pork chops. Or a guy with an oxygen machine smoking a cigarette.

That is not to say that a Texas historian living in Missouri is the same as a smoking guy on an oxygen machine. But just because you believe something is good doesn’t mean it is.

We are of course not talking about Christian opinion. That is different. Just because you think something is wrong does not mean it is necessarily wrong. But, on the other hand, just because you think something is right doesn’t mean it is right either.

I cannot for the life of me figure out how people who believe in abortion or euthanasia can justify their beliefs, much less think God would do so. It may seem right to you and you may call it that but it goes counter to all God said in his word.

Texas history, Civil War history, being a pretend Indian – nothing really wrong with those. You can call them historical reenactment and sound cool.

But just because you like it or think it is right doesn’t mean it is. You could be on a road to hell.

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Daily Java:

Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came over and spoke to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do us a favor.” “What is your request?” he asked. They replied, “When you sit on your glorious throne, we want to sit in places of honor next to you, one on your right and the other on your left.” But Jesus said to them, “You don’t know what you are asking! Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? Are you able to be baptized with the baptism of suffering I must be baptized with?” “Oh yes,” they replied, “we are able!” Then Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink from my bitter cup and be baptized with my baptism of suffering. But I have no right to say who will sit on my right or my left. God has prepared those places for the ones he has chosen.” When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. So Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be the slave of everyone else. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:35-45)

James and John had probably gotten this all figured out a few days ago and were waiting for the chance to ask Jesus for this special favor. The other apostles were off a ways and they were alone with Jesus and they thought they would go ahead and cement their relationship with him and also get ahead of the others in the process.

After all, they were part of the inner circle. And they already had an in with him. And if they could just get their place as his main leaders, the other apostles would be under them.

They were cut out for this anyway. Their mother told them so and encouraged them. In fact, it had been her idea (Matthew 20). They were a little worried about what the others would have to say, but she told them it would be fine and she would be proud of them.

When they asked, Jesus answered, Are you able to drink from the bitter cup of suffering I am about to drink? And, of course, they were. In fact all of the apostles were ready to do that. They just didn’t think of asking Jesus to let them be in charge.

They tried to look humble as they replied, Oh, yes, we are able. They were such humble little disciples. Leadership material, yes, even strong command material. But humble. Oh, yes.

Jesus response surprised them. He said, Oh, yes you are going to drink and suffer too. But then he told them that it was God who chose, not he.

It backfired on them. They didn’t get what they asked for, and the rest of the apostles got mad at them. They turned quickly from great leaders to goats. And the others told them about it, too.

But Jesus defused the situation. He said, Listen, guys. That is the way the world acts, not my followers. He told them, But among you it will be different. It is a different paradigm than before, a completely different thing. This new thing, this new kingdom is characterized by servanthood, not personal glory and honor.

It goes against all that people usually do. The leaders are the servants and the last is the first. Even Jesus himself is a servant. He came to die, so his followers have to die.

Needless to say, this didn’t sit well with the apostles. They just didn’t understand it. And it is hard to understand.

But it is part of what 1 Corinthians 1 calls the wisdom of God. To the world it looks like foolishness, but it is power to those who believe.

Hard stuff to understand, but power to our lives when we do. Strength through weakness and power through service.

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Daily Java:

While Moses was on Mount Sinai, the LORD said to him, 2 “Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. (Leviticus 25:1-2)

I am in the midst of reading the book of Leviticus right now and I am tired of it. As someone said the other day about something else, if God put it in there, he wants us to know it. And that is true.

However, it is not necessarily all that much fun.

The mandates from God in Leviticus are excruciatingly detailed. Every single thing on every single day at every single hour are lined out for the Israelites to do. Every little aspect of their lives is regulated to the nth degree.

All of this makes me grateful for the new law, the law of love. Paul’s comment in Galatians 5, the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. That is a long ways from the book of Leviticus. And I surely am glad.