daily java

Daily Java:

Then a loud wail will rise throughout the land of Egypt, a wail like no one has heard before or will ever hear again. But among the Israelites it will be so peaceful that not even a dog will bark. Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites. (Exodus 11:6-7)

I had to put down a dog today. And on top of it all, I have never killed an animal before.

My son-in-law’s dog was over 16 years old and had gone completely infirm. In fact, yesterday she couldn’t even stand. It has been a bone of contention between him and my daughter for a while now, and the obvious suffering of the dog has affected us all.

But he couldn’t bring himself to put her down. She had been with him through some difficult times for most of her life. And he loved her.

She was a Jack Russell terrier, a good-looking dog. And she had been a faithful companion to him through some rough times. But when it came down to it, he just couldn’t bring himself to put her down, even though he knew it was past time.

So I did, using his 22 rifle, and then I dug the grave for him and filled it in.

It is odd, not having her here. She was so bad off at the last that she would just walk in circles and give a breathless howl. She really didn’t even have the wind to howl, but she tried.

I cried myself, but mainly from the sadness of him losing a friend.

daily java

Daily Java:

Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor. (Romans 13:7)

When I came home on leave from the army in 1969, my mother wanted me to wear my uniform to church.

I didn’t want to. For one thing, I had been wearing a uniform places for several months and was looking forward to wearing my civilian clothes. I was in great shape from basic training and looked pretty good. Really, the last thing I wanted to wear was my uniform.

The other reason was that uniforms were not very welcome in the age group in which I was. It was the height of the Vietnam war. Protesters were everywhere. There were rumors (unfounded, for the most part) that people had spit on soldiers in uniform and called them “babykillers.”

I just didn’t want to wear that uniform.

Unfortunately, my mother is the person who when she gets an idea in her mind, she considers it absolutely right, and she almost demanded that I wear it. It was easier to do so than to fight it, so I wore it.

I will have to admit, I was striking in my uniform. One of my friends told me that I looked like a recruiting poster. I was 6’3” tall and 185 pounds of mostly  muscle. I have always stood straight anyway, so I stood tall and straight. She was proud.

I did what millennia of young men did and gave in to my mother. So everything was fine. I was put out for a moment, but she got what she perceived of being the  glory of having a son in the army. People commented on it. And I came home and changed clothes afterwards.

You figure, I was in good stead. Even Jesus gave in to his mother. In John 2, he performed his first miracle because his mother forced him into it.

She saw me as a representative of the government in the honorable age-old class of warrior. I saw a uniform that my generation wanted to eschew. She saw a symbol of freedom. I saw what the music I listened to considered a symbol of oppression. She saw honor and I didn’t.

But she was right and I was wrong. Just like Jesus giving in to his mother’s wishes that he make some wine miraculously at a party, I was right for giving in to the wishes of my mother.

She wanted to show me honor for my sacrifice, and, of course, reap some of the honor from others for her sacrifice of me to the protection of her country. It didn’t hurt her any that she was standing beside me while I was in uniform and got reflected glory.

We have become a nation – and we began with my generation – of people who disparage more than honor. We denigrate, we put down, we lessen others when we should be giving them honor.

Whatever I felt about the war in Vietnam – and I have to admit,  I was a sheep of my generation with no real convictions beyond the cool philosophy in the music of the time – people owed me a little honor for my sacrifice.

And I owed other young men honor for theirs. I owe people honor for any time they give their lives to a nobler cause than sitting around, eating chips, watching movies. I owe honor to anyone who serves his country.

And I will give it.

the end of the world and the second coming of jesus

However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows. (Matthew 24:36)

The other day, a preacher predicted the end of the world. He has done so four or five times in the past. The time before the last, a lot of people were scared. This time, it passed with just a brief mention.

There are those who will tell you that they know the end from codes in the Bible. There are those who tell you that they know the end by the things that are happening in the world right now. There are those who will tell you that they know the end because of some divine revelation or some way they have figured out or something else.

But the truth of the matter is no one knows when it will happen. Not only that but the Bible is not all that specific as to what will happen at the end, and there are 10,000 different ideas, from the sublime to the absurd.

We cannot know when Jesus is coming back. The Bible says that God didn’t even tell Jesus. And if he didn’t tell his own Son, repository of the fulness of deity in bodily form, why would he tell anyone else?

People say they can tell by the condition of society, that the Bible says in the last days bad things will happen. But bad things have always happened, from the time of Jesus’ death until now.

As bad as our society is at times, the Roman empire of the first century had open homosexuality, open immorality, public nudity, government corruption and slavery. It is hard to get much worse than that.

Someone once said that the American churches were fine with their theology until bad things started happening to them. Then it was the Apocalypse.

Things have happened all over the world for the past 2000 years and suddenly they start happening to us, the favored people of God, the US church, so the end has to be near.

Jesus said, in Matthew 24:5-7: For many will come in my name, claiming, ‘I am the Messiah.’ They will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. Nation will go to war against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in many parts of the world.

In other words, bad things will happen but that is not the sign. What is the sign? There is none. The apostle Paul said that he would come unexpectedly, like a thief in the night (1 Thessalonians 5:2).

He is not going to tell you when no matter how badly you want to know. And he isn’t going to tell some preacher. He didn’t even tell Jesus. Why should he tell somebody else?

Worrying about it never did any good. Just live your life like the second coming will be tomorrow and you will be fine.

daily java

Daily Java:

I appeal to you to show kindness to my child, Onesimus. I became his father in the faith while here in prison. Onesimus hasn’t been of much use to you in the past, but now he is very useful to both of us. I am sending him back to you, and with him comes my own heart. (Philemon 10-12)

A slave stole some of his master’s things and then ran away. Then he found Jesus and knew he had to do what he could to make up for it. But in the meantime, he had also found the apostle Paul. Paul had made him a child of God, but more than this. God had changed him. He was now what his name meant in Greek: Useful.

He had been useless, now he was useful.

He had probably been a lousy worker, always griping, sullen, hiding from the people he was supposed to be working for. He had probably stolen other things, but one day he saw a chance to make a big score and with it, gain his freedom.

The man he worked for was a good man and kind. But it didn’t make any difference. Onesimus wanted want was “his” and was willing to steal to get it.

But contact with the apostle Paul changed him. He saw how he could be better, how he could serve God. However, he had to not only change his heart, he had to change his relationship with his old boss.

Paul wanted him for an assistant in his ministry, but he also knew things had to be made better between the two. So he sent him back.

We don’t know what happened, if Onesimus came back or if Philemon, his old master, had him put in jail or what.

But it is absolutely true that, if you can change what you have done, you need to. If you have stolen, and you can repay, you need to do so.

Sometimes, the amount of things you have done and the distance involved make it impossible to repay. There was a classmate of mine in the seminary I attended that was told by our teacher, who was a rather black and white man theologically – no room for any variance, that he had to repay anything he had stolen. The man said it would be almost impossible.

The teacher asked, well, how much money are we looking at here. The young man replied, hundreds of thousands of dollars. As it turned out, in his former life, he had stolen to feed a drug habit. And there was no way he could repay it all back. If he could even have found out who he had stolen from, he would have worked the rest of his life and more just to repay. He could not.

But he had changed and would steal no longer.

Some things you cannot repay. But you can quit doing what you were doing and become useful for Christ.

Then and only then he can use you.

daily java

Daily Java: 

Remind the believers to submit to the government and its officers. They should be obedient, always ready to do what is good. They must not slander anyone and must avoid quarreling. Instead, they should be gentle and show true humility to everyone. (Titus 3:1-2)

The Occupy Wall Street movement and all of its branches are in full swing. Sixties style rebellion is coming back, complete with unwashed hippie like people and citizen occupation forces commandeering large sections of public property.

But is it right? I saw one sign saying Who Would Jesus Occupy? Lots of people quoted Bible passages about wealth and selling everything you own and riches and all.

But what does God think of all this? If the Bible is true, and I think it is, he doesn’t like it.

What does he say? He says submit to the government and its officers. Be obedient and do what is good. Don’t slander or quarrel. Be gentle. Show humility.

None of those things are evident at the occupations. For that matter, none of those things are evident in the election in general. In fact, the absolute reverse is displayed.

We walk a fine line in our country. On the one hand, we have the freedom to choose who we want to be our leaders. On the other hand we have to live with the majority vote.

If someone is elected that we like, we are happy and things are great. If someone else that we do not like is elected, we are miserable. And we have the right to choose who will lead us and the philosophy that leads us.

But the thing is, when we have elected leaders, whether we have voted for them or not, they are our leaders. And we have to respect them. It is hard to respect a man who you feel is hurting more than helping, but it is what God wants.

When the apostle Paul wrote this, it was the Roman empire and there was an emperor. The one who was around when Paul wrote these comments encouraging people to submit was the emperor Nero. He was bad, cruel, vain, everything you can think about and not like in a political leader. In fact, one of his main missions was to stamp out Christianity.

And what is more, he had absolute contempt for Christians and didn’t care that they submitted to him or prayed for him.

Yet, Paul said to submit and be obedient. And 1 Timothy 2 says to pray for them.

Why do we submit? Why do we not slander? Mainly because of attitude. Christians are the ones that a government ought not to worry about. God tells Christians just to live their lives in a way that others can see the love of God.

That doesn’t mean we cannot participate in the political process or vote or things like that. But the rancor that so characterizes the political process today should be absent from a Christian’s life.

There is no place in the life of a Christian for calling others liars or any of the other pejorative labels used so often. We are not called to foam at the mouth at political rallies. We are called to bring Jesus to this world.

There is nothing wrong with politics and I read about it daily. But we walk a fine line between political participation and sin when we refuse to submit to our leaders, whatever we may think of them.

daily java

Daily Java:

“We are ashamed,” the people say.
      “We are insulted and disgraced
   because the Lord’s Temple
      has been defiled by foreigners.” (Jeremiah 51:51)

There are some things I have always liked to do that seem to be cast in a bad light, some words that I have always used that now have been ruined. This is primarily because the world hijacks them and uses them to their own ends, destroying them forever.

The word “gay” has been gone for a while now, co-opted by the homosexual society. Where once you could refer to people as being gay, no you cannot. The same with the word “bright.” The atheists have tried for a while to use that word for themselves. I am not sure yet if it will catch on. If it does, it is another word down the tubes.

Certain things I used to do with no problem now take on a veneer of ugliness.

I was in Fort Gordon, GA, in 1970. When I went back to Georgia after Christmas leave, I drove my car. On the way I picked up a friend in Shreveport, LA, and we went together. on the way, we stopped at a motel and shared a bed for the night. That was not an uncommon occurrence, as many hotels had only one bed.

But I wouldn’t do it now. It has been slimed with ugly associations.

In 1980, I went to Ephrata, WA, to speak on a Sunday morning. I took a teenaged boy with me and we spent the night in a motel before getting there. I would never do that today. It has been slimed with too much bad association.

So many things that were totally innocent have been ruined but our allowing others to co-opt them for their own ends.

In church, it is hard to use certain words because of connotations. Certain songs are hard to sing because they mean something different now than they did when written.

It is all because the Lord’s temple has been defiled by foreigners. When we allow others to determine how we talk and to determine what we say means, we do damage to the Lord’s temple.

Not sure what we can do about it, but sometimes it is hard to look at the wreckage we have allowed to be made of society, both in and out of the church.

daily java

Daily Java:

The Lord is king!
      Let the earth rejoice!
      Let the farthest coastlands be glad.
Dark clouds surround him.
      Righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire spreads ahead of him
      and burns up all his foes.
His lightning flashes out across the world.
      The earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
      before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
      every nation sees his glory. (Psalm 97:1-6)

Ella and I had our first apartment in Europe. I was in the army and had six more months to go when I came home and got her to go back with me to Darmstadt, Germany. And we had a great time.

The apartment was small, no more than 120 square feet, the entire two room apartment. It was on the third floor of a doctor’s house, on a floor with three other apartments.

The kitchen was a tiny sink and two hot plates inside a cupboard, a small dorm sized refrigerator underneath.. The cabinets and closet were free standing units, as is common in Europe. In the corner of the main room there was a banquette with a bench and two chairs. The bedroom was just big enough for a bed and chiffarobe with a footlocker at the end of the bed.

We did have our own bathroom. The other apartments shared one down the hall.

We had to park down the street and around the corner. But we had the most marvelous view out our windows.

Down the street was a Russian Orthodox church that was used by Czar Nicholas of Russia when he came to Darmstadt to visit Alexandra’s relatives. In front of the church and the university that was beside it was a large park, filled with students and people of all ages in any good weather. Flowers were everywhere. The street was cobblestone with a fountain at the end of it.

There were complications, of course. One month, someone came in and stole our rent money and we had to scrabble for that month. We had to go a ways to get the car.  The nearest laundry facilities were at the base a couple of miles away.

But it was great. When I came home from work, Ella would be sitting in the window like all of the other hausfraus, watching the traffic and the world go by.

It was our place, our apartment. We were newlyweds with Europe just outside our door. And we took advantage of it. We walked a lot of places, even though we had a red 1962 VW beetle. We rode the buses (which were electric) and took the train to distant places.

We drove up the Rhine River and saw castles and other great things. We looked and we loved it.

We went to church on base. There was a Church of Christ meeting on Sunday afternoons and we soon made a lot of friends in it.

And our marriage was made stronger by it. When you live 5500 miles from the in-laws, you learn to depend upon yourselves and be your own people.

It was the best thing that could have happened to us and I thank God for it. I also thank God for my wife.

Nothing to do really with the scripture above, but I like it.

daily java

Daily Java:

Sing a new song to the Lord!
      Let the whole earth sing to the Lord!
 Sing to the Lord; praise his name.
      Each day proclaim the good news that he saves. (Psalm 96)

I was about ten years old and was sitting in the living room of our house on West Eighth Street in Freeport, TX. I looked out the front door in time to see a man drive by. He sneezed directly in front of our house, never stopping.

I remember that to this day, and the memory is so strong that it could almost seem like yesterday.

I have no idea of who the man was or where he was going, what kind of car he was driving, even what color it was. But I remember him sneezing directly in front of our house.

It’s strange what you remember, and how absolutely trivial the memory is.

Others come to mind that were almost instantaneous, yet they are so sharp. And they remain in my memory banks for more than fifty years.

Then there are things that I do not remember. My wife was telling me something the other day that I have no memory of. She remembers it as being important, but I do not remember it at all.

Why does one thing stick and another doesn’t? I don’t know, but the memory of that man sneezing in front of our house over fifty years ago is still strong.

I do remember the time when I acknowledged that I needed the Lord. I accepted Jesus December 13, 1959 at the Freeport Church of Christ in Freeport, TX. It was a Sunday night and I was baptized that night. I came out of  the water and felt like there ought to be angels singing or something.

After I had dried off and changed clothing, I came out into the auditorium and took communion. It had been left until after my baptism so everyone could take it with me. I was wearing a white shirt and dark slacks. That memory is also strong.

Others crowd in.

This blog post really doesn’t mean much I suppose, and the scripture really doesn’t have much to do with it. But I like it and wanted to use it.

I want each day to make new memories and for those memories to be in him.

hurricanes when i was growing up

He decided how hard the winds should blow and how much rain should fall. (Job 28:25)

I grew up in south Texas on the coast. We lived in a town called Freeport for much of the first years of my life. Freeport was well below Houston and right on the Gulf Coast.

Because of the proximity to the Gulf of Mexico, we had a lot of hurricanes. They would blow in and we would hunker down in the house to wait them out. My father worked for Houston Lighting and Power so he had to go out into the storms to repair electrical lines as they broke.

This was a bruising job in that he climbed 100 foot poles in hurricane force winds. I was told that the poles would sway quite a bit and occasionally someone would fall off.

But people want their electricity so out they would go and work sometimes for days before coming back home.

And when they came back home, sometimes they came back to homes that had been destroyed by the storms.

We only ran one time. That was Hurricane Carla in 1961. We went inland about fifty miles and stayed in a garage apartment during the storm. Carla was a particularly bad storm, a Category Five hurricane so a lot of damage was done.

In a storm like this, the power of raw nature is so apparent. Whole houses were gone, whole subdivisions wiped out, many families left homeless having lost all their possessions.

We never did. There were a couple of times we had mildew from the water lapping against the bottoms of the floors or meat ruined when the electricity went out and the freezer was off too long in the South Texas heat, but in general, we were blessed.

But it was funny. We never ran except from the Category Five Hurricane Carla. That was a bad one and it was good we did. Freeport was hurt badly in the storm. In general, we rode them out.

We would sit and do something, reading, or playing games. My mother would try her best to keep us from worrying while she herself was consumed with worry about my father working in the storm. When the lights went off, as they always did, we would light candles.

I really do not remember what all we did in the storms, while the hurricane raged outside our home, but I do remember the strength of my mother, keeping her family from harm. And I remember that I was never afraid.

When I hear people today gibbering in fear from the small storms that hit, I remember her and her strength. And I remember us sitting in the dark with candles lit, doing whatever it was we did, waiting.

daily java

Daily Java:

Avoid godless, foolish discussions with those who oppose you with their so-called knowledge. Some people have wandered from the faith by following such foolishness. (1 Timothy 6:20-21)

The young preacher, not long out of school, stands in front of a group of people. He is the Bible class teacher and he is going to teach them something out of the Bible.

He reads the pertinent scripture and starts to talk about it. He would love some discussion but doesn’t really know how to get it, so he just talks.

A guy near the back speaks up with a contrary opinion. After what almost comes to an argument, the guy says, well, I just wanted to be the devil’s advocate. I really didn’t believe that.

Visions of guns, public whippings, the like come into the new preacher’s head. The whole thing was so useless. All the guy wanted to do was argue.

And each week he does. He has a contrary point to make. After a while you get to dislike him. And he tears up the class.

The apostle Paul says to avoid people like this. He says that there is nothing worse than people who talk for the sole purpose of hearing themselves talk. Their knowledge is not real, their faith is not strong, all they want to do is oppose you and somehow build a following based on their own “wisdom.”

They feel somehow that by opposing everything you say, they seem open-minded. What they are is just opposers. No real wisdom, no real discretion, no real sense of the proper place for this sort of thing.

I’m not sure there is a place for this sort of thing. We did it in school to figure out why we believed things. We would take different viewpoints so that we could try to understand why people thought the way they did. That is a good learning tool if used right.

Debating was big for a while in my world. And I found that I could take a contrary side almost easier than taking a side I believed in. I think that is because the devil likes to confuse things, to make things harder, to stir us up.

The more opposition he can bring in, the easier it is to find someone who will believe one of the oppositional ideas. Before long, people don’t know what they believe.

And it is all because some person (other words come to mind) will decide to be the devil’s advocate.

I may take contrary views in my life to discuss things or to talk about things. People need to know that there is not just one viewpoint on everything. And sometimes it is good for discussion to remind them that they are not the sole repository of all great and wonderful thoughts and ideas.

But one thing I never want to be is the devil’s advocate. That is for sure.