daily java

Daily Java:

One day as we were going down to the place of prayer, we met a demon-possessed slave girl. She was a fortune-teller who earned a lot of money for her masters. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, and they have come to tell you how to be saved.” This went on day after day until Paul got so exasperated that he turned and said to the demon within her, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And instantly it left her. Her masters’ hopes of wealth were now shattered, so they grabbed Paul and Silas and dragged them before the authorities at the marketplace. “The whole city is in an uproar because of these Jews!” they shouted to the city officials. “They are teaching customs that are illegal for us Romans to practice.” A mob quickly formed against Paul and Silas, and the city officials ordered them stripped and beaten with wooden rods. They were severely beaten, and then they were thrown into prison. The jailer was ordered to make sure they didn’t escape. So the jailer put them into the inner dungeon and clamped their feet in the stocks. (Acts 16:16-24)

Sometimes things you think are good backfire on you.

This woman was following along behind Paul and Silas proclaiming them to be from God. The only problem was, she was demon-possessed and she was the last person they wanted to have advertising for her.

It would be the same as having convicted felons handing out advertisements for you as you ran for office. They are not the people you want to be identified with.

It makes you wonder why she did this. The demon side of her would not want the gospel of Jesus to be preached. Maybe that was why she did it: just to spite the apostles, knowing how they would hate it, having a demon advertise for them.

Maybe the human side came out and she thought that if she would make enough fuss, maybe the apostles could do something to free her. She would, of course, not want to have this thing in her.

Whatever the reason behind what she did, two things were accomplished. One was that the woman was set free from her demonic tormentor and two, Paul and Silas fell into a world of hurt.

The smallest thing can lead to ramifications like you wouldn’t believe. You help a stranded motorist on a lonely road and they end up robbing you. You give some money to a street person and then you get in a real emergency and need it. You give away an extra guitar and then yours breaks and you need it.

Paul did something that was a combination help thing/get off my back thing when he delivered this woman of her demon possession. He helped her and he got her to shut up about him.

But it backfired. Her owners/keepers/masters made a lot of money off her fortune telling abilities that came with that demon possession. When Paul healed her, he took that money – a lot of money the text says – away from them and they were mad. They trumped up some charges against him and had them whipped and jailed.

You wonder what Paul thought the next time something like this happened. That deliverance from demon possession was the catalyst that caused him to be whipped and jailed. A favor gone bad.

But ultimately, he probably – it doesn’t say so, but I would imagine – brought this girl to Jesus. And later on, he also brought the jailer and his family to Jesus. Good things came of this.

But that is a rough way to evangelize.

daily java

Daily Java:

One day Jesus called together his twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all demons and to heal all diseases. Then he sent them out to tell everyone about the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. “Take nothing for your journey,” he instructed them. “Don’t take a walking stick, a traveler’s bag, food, money, or even a change of clothes. Wherever you go, stay in the same house until you leave town. And if a town refuses to welcome you, shake its dust from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.” So they began their circuit of the villages, preaching the Good News and healing the sick. (Luke 9:1-5)

Jesus got the twelve together for a kind of a trial run on preaching. He wanted them to have a taste of what it was like to go out and actually do all of the stuff he had been doing themselves.

After all, he was not going to be there forever, so they needed to know what it was like.

In seminary, we did this. We went door to door (not as unwelcome in those days) and had our Bible tracts and Bible studies that we did. Jesus knew, as did our teachers, that it is a lot different doing it than talking about it.

In their case, they went for a few weeks. Jesus told them that they would be taken care of while they were doing this. God would see to it. But they had to have faith themselves.

His instructions: take no money, not even a walking stick or extra clothes. All they needed would be given them.

He also told them not to upgrade when they went somewhere. Whoever it was that invited them first, that was where they stayed. Even if some wealthy person was grateful and offered them his mansion, they stayed put where they were. He wanted them to avoid the appearance of profiteering. They were not in this for the money, they were in it for the teaching.

And one thing for sure, if a town didn’t want them, they left. They shook the dust off their feet and they left. There were too many people and not enough time for them to sit around and beg the people to listen to them. Not only that, but he wanted the leaving to be public, to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.
One thing came to mind, though, while I was reading this. It is the first time I ever thought of it. What did Jesus do while they were gone? He had already been preaching non-stop for several years. Did he rest? Go visit his mother? Go back into the wilderness and fast again?

It really doesn’t matter, I suppose, but you know he had to do something. He evidently didn’t go with them, since he knew they needed the experience.

But they were excited when they got back. You know they had to be. Nothing is more exciting to a young preacher than going out and doing a good job.

But he teaches them faith, and at the same time, a certain self-reliance. I don’t know if they went out in pairs, or one big group, or little groups or singly. It doesn’t say. The next group Jesus sends out, in the next chapter of Luke, is sent out by two’s. The too come back excited.

They don’t know that soon it will be like this permanently. Jesus will be gone and they will be doing this all the time.

Jesus wants them to know that God will take care of them as long as they are in his will teaching his message, and that they are not in it for the money nor the glory.

They are in it for the kingdom.

God is better than zombies

In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, 16keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. (1 Peter 3:15-16)

Tonight we were at the mall and I went into a new store that just opened. It’s a costume store that will be open until after Halloween.

There are costumes of every kind there, including some that are really ugly. Not in the aesthetic sense, but in the moral sense. Much of what passes for culture today doesn’t jibe with my moral sense. However, I must not be in the majority.

At the back of the store was a big box, room-like thing with shredded fabric at the door. Behind the fabric was a black sheet. I saw it the other day, but there were several people waiting so I left.

Today I came in and saw there was no one there. I walked to the back of the store – quite a large one – toward the box. The woman at the desk said, You sure are walking with a purpose.

I felt rather embarrassed. At my age, it felt kind of goofy to be excited about something, but I had seen people come out of there with surprised looks on their faces.

I was by myself today. I walked in and went up to where there was an X on the floor.

There was a screen at the back. On the screen there was a zombie eating somebody’s brains. When I got to the X the computer program engaged.

The zombie saw me and ran toward me. It got quite large in the screen when a man came up and blew its brains out with a rifle.

When he did, the zombie’s head exploded and his brains went everywhere.

Now here is the strange part. When he blew the zombie’s brains out, I felt the brains blow all over me. On my arms, on my face, my hair. All over me. And it was cold, like a zombie’s blood probably would be. Since he was dead of course. Never having met a zombie, I am not sure, but it seemed that way to me.

Needles to say, it surprised the daylights out of me. I came out of the box with a really shocked look on my face. I fully expected to see blood on my arms. There was nothing there. I suppose there was a jet blowing cold water droplets on me.

But it felt like the brains of the zombie were on me.

When I came out I must have looked surprised, because there was a young man and his mother standing there.

The young man said, How was it. I said, Wow. Go see it, but be sure to go forward and stand on the X.

He said, On the X? Like it was a secret formula. I replied, Yes. Go stand right on the X.

They went in eagerly. I came over to Ella and said, again, Wow! I kept looking down, still expecting the blood on me. But there was nothing there. So we left.

There was an evangelistic fervor in what I had seen and I wanted that young man to experience it. It had been one of the most interesting experiences in my life and I wanted to share it.

When we feel that way about the grace of God and the knowledge of salvation, we are in the will of God. When we feel that eager to share what God has done for us, it makes us happy to tell others about him.

He is a fat lot better than zombies, after all.

strippers that protested the church – turn-a-bout is fair play.

I read an article yesterday about some strippers who were protesting a church during its Sunday morning service. They sat outside in front of the church, had hamburgers and waved at the traffic.

They did it because the church had been coming to the strip club, standing around outside and videotaping customers. They got tired of it and turned it around.

The church was surprised. According to the story, one member came out and prayed with a woman. The rest ignored it.

I would hate for this to happen to the church at which I preach, but on the other hand, this could be one of the best things that ever happened to that church.

That strip club had the right to come and protest that church as much as that church had the right to come and protest that strip club.

Of course, the church wouldn’t see it that way. They see it as those mean strip club people. Or at least I am assuming the church would do that. Having been in the ministry for almost four decades, that is what I would have thought.

That church saw itself as a beacon of hope and didn’t see the women in that strip club as real people. Yes, they had a mission and they did what they felt was right – and it was – but there was a turnabout at work here.

All they had done was protest the club, they had never really engaged the people in the club and shown them the kind of love Jesus would have shown.

Yes, the strip club was wrong and a blight on the community. But what that church didn’t realize was that the club had as much right to come and protest them as they did to protest the club.

It is easy to forget that there are people at stake here, that those people are loved by God as much as we are. When we show them our face of anger, we are not showing them the face of God. True, they are doing wrong and need to be told. But just confrontation will not do it.

What will do it is to quit services and go out on the church yard and begin talking with those people, those women, that guy who owned the club that organized the protest. That church needs to engage them in real life evangelism rather than just condemnation.

That is hard to do. A pastor friend of mine stood opposite his church parking lot one Sunday night with another member disguised as a pair of drunk drifters. They wanted to see if anyone would talk to them. One man did. He invited them into church. They were disguised enough that no one knew it was them. No one else did anything except drive by quickly and ignore them.

The world will only be brought to Jesus if we engage it in love. Jesus said it in John 13:34-35: A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.

There is a time for standing up to wrong. But there is also a time for reaching out, even to people you don’t want to talk to.

Because after all, God reached out to you.