There are some things in life that are just so tempting that I find myself irresistably drawn to them.  Take Mrs. Wheat’s regular contributions to the faculty snack bar, for example.  This kind substitute teacher retired from some fancy job with the University a few years ago, and now she almost donates her time to the school as a substitute teacher.  I say donate because the pay is exceptionally low and the mad-house atmosphere in the modern classroom hardly makes it worth getting out of bed in the morning.

But she dutifully and joyfully heeds the morning call from the new automated system that wakes subtitutes with a voice not unlike that of Darth Vader. 

But her most enduring (and endearing) contribution to our school is that she never fails to bring one of her famous desserts to the faculty lounge for all to enjoy.  And I am drawn to them in a way that I cannot explain.  When she exits her van and reaches into the back seat for the confection of the day, I vow to cut my flesh with sharpened rocks if I eat a single bite of whatever it is she’s bringing.  And with every step I take on my way to the lounge to sign in and get my paper work for the day, I repeat the following phrase: “Today, I will not eat Mrs. Wheat’s dessert.  Today, I will not eat Mrs. Wheat’s dessert.”  I follow this with a pleading prayer that God will give me the strength to stay out of her chocolate whatever.

Unfortunately, the score stands at: Mrs. Wheat’s desserts, 155 – my personal victory over temptation, 1.  That’s 155-1.  In other words, I’m losing the war.  Shoot, I’m doing more than that, I’m losing every single battle save one. 

To be honest with you, I’m one of those guys who has a lengthy rap sheet when it comes to violating all of life’s convential rules.  Worse yet, I’m really inept when it comes to keeping God’s commands.  Never mind that I’m far better at it than Curtis, the town drunk in my home town who never could seem to put together two straight sober days for as long as I knew him.  If I’m looking like I’m doing a great job keeping the commandments, it’s only because you would be comparing me to someone like Curtis.

But in the end, even comparing myself to Curtis won’t do me any good.  I know my record.  I’ve got a rap sheet with God a mile long.  At least I used to have one like that.  Truth be told, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between me and all the other Curtises in the world.  We are everone of us complete moral failures when you stack us up next to someone like, oh, let’s say, “Jesus.”  Righteousness by comparrison only works when you are comparing yourself to other flawed human flesh.  When you position yourself next to the creator, your bejeweled crowns rapidly morph into dunce caps. 

It’s not like I haven’t made any progress over the past forty years, I have.  And a lot of the changes that I’ve made in my walk with God have been because I’ve submitted myself to obedience to him – it was a conscious decision on my part to surrender my will to his.  But just as often, I have modified my behavior only because I rationalized that continuing to live the way that I was living would emperil my pursuit of happiness in this life: it didn’t have anything to do with my affection for the Father at all.

Now, you might be thinking at this point, What a mess his life is.  And you would be right.  One of the gifts I was given from my earlier encounter with legalistic religion is the ability to not think of myself more highly than I ought.  But I’m also being realistic.

A few years ago, I got turned on to grace.  I got so excited about it that it was all I talked about for a long time.  As a matter of fact, I still get pretty fired up when I think about the irrational love of God, that he would, in his perfect holiness, actually like someone like me. 

To tell the truth, the last church I actually worked for full-time asked me to either stop talking about grace so much or find the back door and leave.  Even then, I couldn’t stop talking about it.  I was possessed.

But somewhere along the way, I got more focused on his grace than I did my own unworthiness.  To be sure, I should be more attuned to his mercy than I am to anything about me.  I mean, who am I?  I’m only one of eight billion souls walking the planet Earth today, and only one of many billions more who once inhabited this world in ages past but have gone on to other environs.  Talk about being reduced to irrelevance…

But the power of grace is only powerful because of the gulf that exists between my performance and his.  Until now, I have been unable to accomplish much in the way of righteous living.  In spite of my best efforts and even better intentions, I have been an abysmal failure when it comes to keeping the law.  If we were talking about the laws of any state in the country, I would have violated so many of them that no judge would allow me to ever walk the streets again. 

Unfortunately, we aren’t dealing with Judge Wapner here.  We’re talking about the Almighty, the creator of the universe.  He is righteous and holy in a way that I can never comprehend.  And he is dead serious about sin.  So serious that in some way his own sacrifice was a final statement about his hatred of iniquity.  And to be sure, his grace is no compliment to my worthiness.  In fact, the only thing his grace says about me is that I am so despicably and hopelessly bankrupt that my creator had to pay a terrible price to put me in a right relationship with him. 

The sad thing about his hard work on my behalf is that I am hardly appreciative of it.  Oh, I want to be.  I often pray that God will touch my heart and that I will “feel” his mercy in a way that will transform me into a more apostolic creature.  I want to be more like Paul and Peter.  I want to be more like those faith hall-of -famers in Hebrews chapter eleven.  I want to be someone whose life so clearly represents the love of God and the transformational power of his son’s blood to a lost generation that everyone sees it in me. 

At the end of the day, however, in spite of wanting to be a competent ambassador for him, I still fall far too short for me to have any credibility in that department. 

Yet, in a way I cannot understand, he still loves me – even likes me.  For some reason I don’t know, he desires me, even pursues me.  He seeks me out, a ruluctant disciple, and tells me that I’m okay in his eyes – not because of any good thing I’ve done (too many violations for that) but because he has already done the hard work for me and freed me from the penalty of my own wrong-doing. 

I’m tempted to say, “Oh, but you don’t know about my shortcomings, God.  Surely, you can’t be serious about adopting me.  I’m a flawed child.  My past and even my present are too seedy for a God like you to want me.  Worse yet, I’m confident that my future will be at least as bad as my past.  Why would you want me?  Why do you seek me out to be a member of your family?”

And I hear God say, “Don’t be confused: there is nothing in your character that warrants my affection for you.  You can be sure of that.  The only inherent value you have is that I made you in my image.  Your purpose from the day you were conceived has been to love me and to love your neighbor at least as much as you love yourself.  Gordo, I know it doesn’t make sense, but I just love you for no good reason.  It’s just who I am.”

The only experience I’ve ever had that would give me any insight to his grace is the relationship I have with my own children.  The apple doesnt’ fall far from the tree: my children are as flawed as I am.  They disappointed me.  They rebelled against me.  They argued with my house rules. They stayed out past curfew.  One of them drank and used drugs for a time.  I’ve had a couple of them even curse me.  But you know what – I never stopped pursuing them.  I never ceased to love them and plead with them to return to the family and bask in the love their parents had for them.  You see, they were my offspring, my progeny.  They were so much a part of me, that I could never envision life without them.  To make a long story short, I would have done anything, made any sacrifice, and paid any price to bring them back into the house I had prepared for them. 

In my opinion, that’s the story of God’s grace.  It doesn’t make sense, but it’s what parents do.  Surely, you can understand that.

   I guess it’s become almost cliche’ – the old joke about the girl who asks her husband, “Does this make me look fat?”  Sometimes, there just ain’t no way out. 

I had one of those moments tonight.  My beloved wife and I were returning from our house church meeting.  It was an idyllic evening in many respects.  She was laughing at my stupid jokes.  I was feeling all manly inside especially since I’d just read that reasearch article that said the one thing women were attracted to most in men was a sense of humor. In fact, women are willing to take an ugly man if he’s able to make people laugh.  Something about it being seen as an indicator of higher intellect or something.  And since I’m not all that attractive in the physical sense, I’m going with it as the truth. 

Like I said, it was one of those perfect nights.  Driving through the dark night, taking the detour around the flooded bridges that we normally cross to go home.  Me cracking jokes – her giggling like a little school girl.  I must have been in the zone because it didn’t matter what I said, she was laughing.

“Hey, would it be funny if deer had their tails on top of their heads?”  I asked as a large doe ran across the road in front of us.  “Hahaha!” (as they say on facebook).

I should have known better.  Out of the clear blue sky, she asked me the most random question.  You see, she’s going through this year long study with a bunch of other women about how to walk more closely with the Lord.  One phase of the study calls for the participants to take spiritual inventory – you know, sort of finding out how your relationship with God is going.  The best I can determine, it’s stuff like how much time you spend in God’s word, how often and how fervently you pray, and how readily you confess your faults.

I guess one of my jokes made her think about the one question she had been pondering for some time because she just came right and asked me what I thought.

“Baby, if you were to list my sins, what would you say they are?”

I cringed.  My fingers wrapped more tightly around the steering wheel.  Small droplets of sweat began to collect on my forehead, and my armpits began to itch.  “Oh, I’m sure I’m going to answer this one.  Do you really think I’m nuts?  You’re not catching me in that trap – no ma’am. ”

She reached over, ever so gently, and touched my arm.  “I’m serious.  I won’t hold it against you, I promise.”

I heard what she said, but I know enough about the feminine mystique to be able to smell this rat from a mile away.  No way was I going to answer.  I tried changing the subject – “Hey, was that a coyote that just ran into the woods up ahead?”  It didn’t work.  She was on a mission.

“Stop foolin’ around, and just answer the question: What are my sins?”

I tried the standard, “You give too much” and “You’re too loving,” but she wasn’t buying.  She wanted to know.

Even thought I’m not going to tell you what I think my wife’s sins are (she can start her own blog), it did get me to thinking once again about how infrequently we open up about our sin.  Personally, I would much prefer a theological discussion to spilling my guts about my innermost thoughts.  I don’t particularly relish the idea of someone else knowing about who I’ve envied, or what I’ve lusted after, or who I resent.  I don’t want you to know about any impure thoughts that might have passed through my rather large head recently.  I would rather keep quiet about my thirst for recognition and attention. 

But that’s sort of the point of confession, isn’t it?  I mean, those things are there whether or not we share them with another human being or even with God himself.  Just because I am silent about my sin doesn’t mean that it went away somewhere.  As a matter of fact, it might mean just the opposite – that because I refuse to be open about my sin, it grows like mold inside my heart.  It never sees the light of day which results in it having an opporunity to grow and fester until it becomes much bigger than it would have had I simply aired it out. 

There are plenty of things I’ve done that I’m now ashamed of.  The women I used years ago for my own gratification who I now wish I could share the true love of God with.  The people I engaged in drunkeness and debauchery with, I wish that I could go back and tell them of my loving God who will wash all of the guilt that is polluting their souls and preventing them from having true life – abundant life.  And I have done that when I was able to contact them.  Unfortunately, I can’t even remember some of their names. That’s how it is with sin – sometimes the victims are anonymous.

But then there are those things I am struggling with now – the things I”m tempted with right here and now thirty-five years after becoming a follower of Jesus.  I still want your approval, and sometimes it rivals my desire to have God’s approval.  And even though I’m married to a beautiful woman of God, I am still tempted in the flesh.  I want to be seen as someone who has the answers even before the question is asked.  I want credit for what I do (at least the good stuff).  I tend to pass judgement rather than dispense God’s grace to those who need it most. 

I don’t know what your sins are, but it doesn’t matter.  The point is that before God can lead me on to greater maturity in him, I must be willing to let anyone who cares to know what my sins are.  I need to knock the props out from under Satan who whispers in my ear, “If they knew what you are really like, they wouldn’t respect you or even love you.”  And so I continue to hide my sin in order to keep from being seen as weak and hypocritical.  Ironically, it is when I refuse to confess my sins that I become a hypocrite.  I am wearing a mask.  What you see is not the real me. 

I hope to be more open in the future – starting tonight.  And I thank Jan for asking me.

“

I have one recurring dream – that I am in some way surrounded by floodwater.  One night I might be driving down a perfectly dry highway only to round a sharp curve and head straight into a raging river that has overrun its banks and engulfed the road.  Another night, I am sitting by the banks of the river when out of nowhere, a wall of water washes me away downstream.

In my dreams, I am never in peril.  I have, however, lost a great deal of personal property in my nocturnal encounters with the mighty power of water.  It’s weight is 8.33 pounds per gallon or about 62 pounds per cubic foot, depending on its temperature, so when it joins forces with billions of other gallons of water, it can do what it dang well pleases.   Over the years, I’ve lost car and pickups.  I’ve lost computers and houses.  Furtunately, I’ve never died in one of these dreams.  No one ever dies.  The floods just wash away important stuff.

It’s ironic that my only recurring dream is being surrounded by floodwater becuase I live on the Ouachita River in North Louisiana.  Fortunately, I actually live on a small bayou that empties into the Ouachita, so any floodwater from the bayou only rises and falls depending on the level of the river – there is no current to wash away the foundation of my house during floods. Even still, there ain’t no stopping it once it decides it wants to rise.

And right now, as we speak, the Ouachita River has crested at almost 48 feet.  To give you an idea of how much it has risen over the past month or so, it’s normal pool stage is almsot 26 feet below where it is right now.  So, as you can see from the grainy photo I took with my cell phone, the water is lapping at the foundation of my house.  All access by motorized vehicle is cut off, unless you consider a 25hp Honda outboard a motorized vehicle.

I don’t know why I dream about floodwater so often.  But I do – in fact, I dream about it almost every night. 

My wife (she fancies herself as an enterpreter of dreams) says that it’s because I’m so disorganized that I sense life closing in on me.  At least that’s what I think she said.  I wrote it down exactly as she said, but I can’t find that note for the life of me.

The truth is that I am often overwhelmed by life.  I am tormented by school shootings and child rapes and murders.  I agonize over broken homes and unfaithful spouses.  But mostly I am disturbed by my own failings that I repeat year after year in spite of the fact that I detest the millions of areas (it seems like millions) of my life where I simply fail to perform up to my own standards, much less the standards of my father in heaven. So I figure that my haunting dreams are a metaphorical representation of my own inability to consistently live right, do right, think right. What my wife doesn’t understand is that being disorganized is only one small tentatcle of my cancer of failure.

Hopefully, you will find my blog helpful to you.  Sometimes, I have a lot of visitors, some days I don’t.  I always have a few.  But I’m mostly writing to myself.  Venting about the conflicts between what I believe and what I do. And I’m looking for a hero to step in and fix what’s wrong with me.  I think I’ve found him. Truth is, I don’t think he’s promised me that he’ll “repair” all the chinks in my veneer.  He has promised to redeem me and restore my broken relaitonship with our father.  I just want to get to know him better.

It is amazing, even baffling, when you think about it. When you boil the Christian message down to its essential points, it amounts to something as simple as this: God created man.  God hates sin.  But because God created man in his own image, with the freedom to chart his own course, man rejected God and sinned.  But God knew ahead of time that he would rebel in this way, so he planned to atone for man’s transgression by sending one final emissary – the man Jesus Christ – his own son.  But with the foreknowledge of God, wicked men brutalized him and finally killed him.  God, however, because he loved his son and because he loved man, raised his son from the tomb.  And in the final day, God will send him once more to redeem those who have recognized Jesus as the son of God and have loved him. 

So to the believer, nothing matters from birth to death except whether or not he has embraced a loving God and has committed himself to live out the rest of his days for him. 

The baffling part is, why all of the opposition?  The Christian’s message is nothing like the Moslem’s, for example.  No kill the infidel.  No jihad or holy war.  Not in all of the New Testament will you find language remotely akin to that.  In fact, you find language that admonishes you to turn the other cheek, or not to repay evil.  We are told to let the Lord take vengeance instead of doing it ourselves. 

Maybe, I’ve already answered part of the question – the message of the gospel is one that turns the world’s value system on its head.  While Jesus is saying, turn the other cheek, the world is quoting Old Testament scripture, an eye for an eye… We want to teach our offenders a lesson – to make them writhe in agony for what they’ve done to us, yet Jesus tells us not to pay back people for the wrong they’ve done to us. 

Still, I don’t think this explains the ridicule and jeering of those who live by the world’s value system toward believers.  In a sense, these are all surface indicators of whether or not we belong to God.  It would be an easy thing to live a “righteous” life but inside be full of death and decay.  Some in Jesus’ day missed the point on this as well.  They thought that because they gave a tenth, kept the Sabbath, and kept the external rituals and commands, that they would be okay with God. 

What they failed to understand, I’m afraid, is that no one comes to God with anything in his hand.  In other words, when you come to God, you come to him empty-handed, with nothing of value to exchange for his love and acceptance of you as one of his sons or daughters, or you do not come to him at all. 

Coming to Christ is a freely given admission that you, in your flesh, have no inherent value, that you are not loved by God because you have merited his love in some way, but that you are loved by God because he has chosen to do so.  He doesn’t love you because you are better at keeping the external rituals of faith than the other guy.  He doesn’t love you more because you don’t commit adultery like the next guy, or because you don’t drink like the fellow across the street. 

He loves you for one reason only – he created you for eternity and he created you in his image.  You are, in that sense, like God – his spitting image, if you will.  That has nothing to do with you.  It doesn’t compliment you since you were so morally bankrupt that you were unable to do anything for yourself.  Nor does it degrade you since it elevates you by making you an object of God’s affection and love.

Are you beginning to understand why the world hates the true disciples of Jesus – Those radical ones who hold out the world’s system to scorn?  Think about it! When you accept the son of God as your Lord, you are rejecting what almost everyone else in the entire world says is important. You are kicking the supporting props from underneath the world’s very foundation.  Everything changes when you return to the family of God. 

Vengeance?  Out the window!  The Lord will take care of that.

Sleeping with your neighbor’s wife?  Not in this lifetime; I love my neighbor as I love myself.

Eighty-hour work weeks trying to get rich?  Nope!  People who want to get rich fall into all kinds of traps.

Getting stone-cold drunk?  Not me!  God’s spirit is dwelling in me. 

Cheating?  Lying?  Swindling?  Please, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.

As a matter of fact, believing in (trusting in, depending on) Jesus doesn’t just change how I live my life – it changes my identity.  It changes who I am.  And because I believe Jesus, I am free to have hope for marriages, for those suffering from addictions, for the self-righteous hypocrites, and for homosexuals.  I’ve seen God work in the lives of those who trusted him to repair broken marriages, to overcome the slavery of drug and alcohol addictions.  I’ve seen the miraculous work of God in those whose lives were so broken, that no one would have given them of a chance of making it.  But God gave them a new identity – a new name, and they were never the same person.  I guess it’s sort of like  a Celestial Witness Protection Program, if you will.

And sometimes, people under the control of the world’s value system rant and rave.  They mock and jeer.  And 160,000 times this last year alone, people who adhered to the simple story of Jesus were put to death by those under the control of the Evil One. 

Make no mistake about it – when you take the gospel to the streets, there is no amount of kindness and gentleness that will assuage the hostility of those have spent a lifetime building their castles on the sands of the world’s value system.  They will rise up against you.  Do you think that you can be kinder than Jesus?  Would he have avoided the cross if he’d just been a little more politically correct?

But it’s all okay because we know whom we have believed and are persuaded that he is able to keep that which we’ve committed to him for that day.

In the grand scheme of things, it’s minor – hardly worth mentioning.  What happened is, I have been struggling with this horrible cold for a couple of weeks.  I told everyone it was nothing, that I didn’t feel sick, only that I was tired of breathing through my mouth and coughing up stuff that could be used by terrorists as a biological weapon.

Then yesterday, without warning, the fever and chills began to assault my weakened body.  You know full well what I was thinking – Swine Flu, H1N1, the dreaded pandemic flu.  But I’ve been fairly rational about this whole epidemic thing, thinking that it was just something Obama cooked up to scare folks into supporting nationalized health care.  Of course, the irony is that the government has made such a mess of the swine flu vacine thing that nobody in their right mind would think we need the government taking care of our healthcare. 

But that’s not my point.  My point is, it all came on me in the middle of the night.  One minute I was sleeping soundly, the next I was burning up with fever.  Oh, and that coughing that I thought was bad before had found a vial of stroids somewhere and pumped itself up into an MLB type cough.  I couldn’t breathe. 

Still, I wasn’t thinkng death or long hospital stays.  I had the flu a few years ago – it was bad enough, but I got over it in a few weeks.  If I did it then, I could do it again, right?

Then while I was searching on-line for the kickoff time for the Florida-South Carolina game, I came across this article in the Spartanburng, S.C. newspaper that simply floored me: 54 Year Old Teacher Dies From Swine Flu!

You know how stuff gets in your head.  I’m around the same age as the poor victim.  I’m a a teacher.  Therefore, I’m going to die too.  So I spent the morning calling all my doctors trying to figure out what I could take to keep me from dying.  Truth is, when I told ‘em my temperature was only 100.2, they just laughed and hung up the phone. 

But who knows, right?  It could happen, couldn’t it?  One day you’re feeling fine, the next you are dead and gone. 

 Even under the best of circumstances, life is over in a flash.  Psssst! Like a burst from a can of hairspray, you are here then you’re gone. 

And so we are left with two possibilities: either Jesus was telling the truth about who he is and what he was doing here (in which case we are in good shape), or he was not – in which case everything is pretty meaningless.  There is only one certain thing in life and that is death – we all do it.  But to those of us who have chosen to believe the story of Jesus and have put our faith in him, we are certain about something else – something that makes drawing our next breath worthwhile.

The original question was, Why do the heathen rage? This quote comes from Psalms and was later quoted by the disciples after Peter and John were released from prison.  Their prayer was rhetorical – Since you made everything in the universe, why do the heathen rage against you?

A good question, I might add.  When you think about the futility of the world’s system – that it never offers hope beyond today, much less for eternity, you would think that the hopeless would grasp at any bit of good news that offers something of substance beyond the grave. 

And for the first time in the history of the world, God has intervened on man’s behalf and made post-grave hope the centerpiece of his message to mankind.  You don’t have to despair – this life isn’t all there is.  I am offering you eternity, the opportunity to live forever without pain or suffering.  I simply want you to love me and to love your fellow man.  I only want you to imitate me as I love you.  And in the process, I will give your life more purpose and meaning than you could have ever imagined.

While, from a logical point of view, this is a no-brainer, the truth is that the old man dies hard.  Maybe that’s why the Bible continues to emphasisze this theme over and over:

“…if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”

“Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature.”

“For we know that our old self was crucified with him…”

“I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me…”

“Those who belong to Christ have crucified their sinful natures with its passions and desires…”

Putting to death – a metaphorical reference to the act of making a decision to stop following the system of the world as a guide for how to live my life – that is the point here.  I no longer live by the principles of the world, but because of my belief that Jesus was killed and raised AND that he is returning to take me home with him – that is the hope I have.  As a matter of fact, it is the only hope offered by the father.

In spite of my own desire to make something of myself in this life, I have no such promise from God.  He never promises me full retirement (or that I will even live to retirement age), or a comfortable house, or nice cars, or a happy marriage, or to be free from the temptation to feed my addictions, or anything else in all this world that would make me uncomfortable.  The only thing that God has put on the table for me is the promise that, if I am faithful until the end and never give up, I will spend eternity with him and that it will be beyond my wildest dreams.  And the only thing standing in my way is the promise of the world’s system that it really does have something of substance to offer me – that it truly can give my life a purpose and meaning that has lasting value.

A short survey of the world system’s track record, however, will reveal its failure to live up to its promise.  As we mentioned before, people die, retirement funds are eaten away by forces way beyond our control, and everything else in the physical realm deteriorates over time – sometimes right before our very eyes.  And one day we wake up, our youth is gone, our flesh is beginning to slip off the bone, we take note of all our broken dreams and failed plans, and we wonder where the time went. 

At that point, Satan reverses course on us and reminds us of our failures.  He points to the holiness of God, and taunts us with the notion that a God like the one who created the universe could never be comfortable having a loser like you in his kingdom.  Now, you’re between a rock and a hard place.  To the left is your life’s history – one failure after another.  And on the other is a God so righteous that he must be disgusted with the likes of you.  So rather than taking the plunge into despair or reliance on him, you remain straddled on the fence of life.

But think about this:

 
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. 

 Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

So you see, you are NOT hopeless.  And the good news for you is that, even though you may suffer in the flesh, you will reap a harvest of joy and peace that will make your suffering seem as nothing.  You, my friend, are the object of God’s affection.  And yes, the heathen rage – the old man dies hard, and we often go down kicking and screaming because the desire to preserve our lives (no matter how worthless) is embedded in our DNA. 

I say let ‘em rage because of my faith in the promise of God.  I believe!

 

In case you missed it, here’s the story of the world’s opposition to men and women of God:

 Man hears story of Jesus and believes it.  He repents of his sin, and gives his life to the care of the Father.  The system that governs the world takes notice that he has rejected its value system and begins to jeer him. 

“So, now you’re worshipping the big spook in the sky?  Ooooh, that’s scary!” 

“I guess you think you’re better than us now.”

“You narrow-minded fundamentalist!”

Nobody likes to be called names, but the man takes it for his share and goes on.

Before too long, it (the world) realizes that its efforts to dissuade the young believer are coming to naught, so it begins to make life a little more difficult by putting physical obstacles in his way.  Mild opposition, slander, discrimination at work or school.  Maybe the opposition targets the believer’s kids. 

Still, he remains firmly resolved to follow what he now knows about God.

The persecution intensifies, but the man refuses to return to seeing life the same way he saw it before.  Now that he knows about Jesus and the promises he has made to him, he could never go back.  Not ever!  But the world sees his resilience as rebellion and defiance, a personal attack on it and everything it considers to be important, so it intensifies even more its attempts to get him to change his mind. 

Ironically, he isn’t a threat to them.  At least he isn’t a threat in the sense that he never once demands that the world drop what it’s doing and follow his Savior.  Yes, he appeals and pleads, but he never attempts to coerce.  He is now a man loved by the father, and he is trying with all his being to love his fellow man in the same way – without hesitation or precondition. 

Still, the world system really turns up the heat, because it knows that if he is successful, the world system will be destroyed.  In fact, the world knows that the final solution for the system is destruction.  No one could deny that.  Everyone knows that everyone dies.  Everyone knows that nothing lasts forever.  Stupidly, but sadly, it hangs on until its dying breath. But it sweeps the reality of its own mortality under the rug and continues to act as if it is the only thing that matters – the only thing that means anything.

You would think that it would be a welcome relief to know that the futility of this life has been exposed and that life with true purpose and meaning had replaced what once stood as the only way to live.  But that is not the case.  The man’s faith has been perceived as a threat to the meaningless and it is rising up to defeat that threat. 

The man?  He continues to love.  He knows, however, that ultimately this strengthening and growing assault will probably consume his physical being – he will die for what he believes.  In spite of it on, he goes on.

But it’s not easy.  Almost every waking moment is spent in prayer pleading with his father in heaven to lessen the pain.  He worries what will happen to his wife and children.  Then there are those brothers and sisters that he has allied himself with.  What about them?

He reads in the Bible about Daniel closing the mouths of the lions and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego enduring the flames without so much as a singed hair. And he wonders, sometimes aloud in prayer, why God won’t deliver him too.  And he’s heard others share about God’s healing grace, how he cured them of cancer or delivered them from financial ruin, and he thinks to himself, “I don’t want any of that; I just want to stay alive.  I’m just trying to keep my family safe – away from the firing squad.  Why won’t God help me?  Why won’t you deliver me, God?”

And to be honest with you, it’s a good question.  Maybe you’re one of the fortunate ones who’ve never questioned where, or even if, God is leading you.  Even though you never thought it could happen to you, your spouse leaves you for someone else.  A child announces that he is “gay,” or a daughter dies after overdosing on drugs.  Your company fires you or you lose all of your worldly possessions in a flood.  And all the while, you pray to God.  But God doesn’t seem to answer.  Nothing changes, unless you call things getting worse “change.” 

Is there any comfort for my suffering friend? 

More on that later.

I know how it is, you get all fired up about how your church isn’t “meeting your needs,” that you just aren’t “being fed,” so you go on the prowl looking for a new one – one that is what you “need.”  And you hear about one down the road from your subdivision that has a new family life center and an awesome youth and children’s ministry, and you think to yourself that your kids really need something more than what they’re getting.  They need “Christian” activities just like the ones the other church is offering.  Besides, the Bible classes for the adults are more laid back with donuts and coffee and the preacher’s messages are more positive and less judgmental than the one at your current church. Or maybe the opposite draws you, it’s more structured and traditional.

So you give it a shot hoping that you can feel good about yourself at least once a week.  You know, like you’ve done your duty and actually enjoyed it.

Nice shot, but maybe you ought to have a more First Century perspective.  You know, like which first century churches caught the Lord’s attention – in a positive way, I mean?  And mind you, not all first century churches caught the Lord’s positive attention.

Two churches discussed in John’s Revelation where what you might call “happening” churches.  At least they had reputations for being affluent and busy.  Perhaps church seekers might have been drawn to Laodicea and Sardis.  Laodicea had an attitude of self-sufficiency, reveling in their wealth.  I don’t know this for a fact, but maybe they had a first century version of a new family life center.  Maybe they had great programs for the kids and cool Bible classes for the grown-ups.  Just the kind of comfortable place one might be looking for if he were looking for a church.  No pressure, just come as you are and enjoy.

Sardis also had a reputation for being alive.  “Have you tried the Sardis church?” some well-intentioned advisor might have asked.  “I hear they are having over four thousand on Sunday mornings. A regular mega-church, I’m tellin’ you.”

An alive church, at least in the estimation of those who think about such things from a worldly point of view. 

But about both of them, Jesus was plain – You two churches aren’t what I’m looking for.   Laodicea is so morally ambivalent that I’m about to spit them out of the kingdom, and Sardis is just plain dead.  Ironic, isn’t it?  Two groups of believers known for having things together disgusting the one they are supposed to be serving. 

On a slightly less challenging note, there were three other churches mentioned by John.  Sort of a good news/bad news kind of thing.  They too were happening churches.  Lots of good deeds! Zeal!

Take Ephesus, for example.  They worked hard.  They persevered and didn’t tolerate wickedness in their congregation – in fact, they hated it.  They were vigilant and faithful.  But they had tended to every detail except one – they had forsaken their first love.  Faith, to these faithful brothers, had become rote – a going through the motions kind of gig.  Like a husband doing all of the right things for all the wrong reasons.  He takes out the trash.  He brings her flowers and remembers her birthday and their anniversary without fail.  He gives her a kiss before he goes off to work in the morning and as soon as he comes home at night.  She washes – he dries.  Once a week, he hires a babysitter and takes her out on a date.  But he’s not in love with her any more.  And she knows it. 

A marriage like this might endure – in name, at least.  But its passion is gone.  It has become almost meaningless.  Comfort and routine have replaced fervor. 

Then there was Thyatira and Pergamum.  They too were passionate. They had deeds, love, and faith.  As a matter of fact, they were known for doing more and more for the sake of the kingdom.  They had remained faithful.  But they had lost their zeal for moral purity; they had become morally ambivalent.  Like many Christians in the 21st Century, they had sort of slouched into a tolerant mode – the world’s value system, by the way.  Just get along to get along.  Don’t rock the boat.  Don’t make waves.  I’m not your judge.  You do your thing, and I’ll do mine. 

Sound familiar?  It is the way to make it in the world today, isn’t it?  But tolerance and compassion, two qualities all believers should strive to have, should never lead us to a point where we would be comfortable watching other people behave in a way that would lead to their destruction.  Furthermore, we would never, if we are aiming to please God, allow anyone to assimilate into our fellowship who wants to lead others to behave in a way that we know full well will destroy relationships, families, and lives.  Not even a hint of sexual immorality – that’s our goal. 

But not in Thyatira.  In spite of their good deeds and love and faith, they had opened a portal for the evil one to reincarnate Jezebel.  She’s baaaack!  Up to her same old tricks. 

The Lordly prescription was plain – get rid of her!  Expel her!  Do not tolerate her!

Finally, we hear about the two churches that truly are worthy of our membership.  Maybe they weren’t mega-churches, but they had the Lord’s attention.  Maligned, persecuted, weary, and poverty-stricken, they still loved God.  They weren’t just going through the motions, unless you count their running from the law.  But in spite of it all, they remained faithful to their first love.  They retained their moral purity.  They weren’t confused about right and wrong – they simply trusted God that he knew what he was talking about.

And for them, God’s door was always open – 24/7.  They had his ear, and more importantly, they had his heart.  He promised to give them a new identity as his children, his offspring.  He would emblazon his name on their flesh and make them priests in the new kingdom.  And finally, he would give them the crown of life making them royalty.

Maybe this isn’t the church you were looking for, but it seems like it was the one Jesus is looking for.

It’s a funny thing how one message can mean two completely diverse things to two different people.  Revelation, as is true with most biblical revelations, was at once good and bad news. 

To some John’s Apocalypse was good news indeed, a comforting narrative, a word picture of things to come.  If you were one of John’s persecuted readers and you found his message to be one of hope, you would have certain things in common with others who viewed it the same way you did.  For example, you would be someone who:

• had rejected the world’s value system which states, “I am worthy because of what I have accomplished.”  Just think of how the world rewards its inhabitants.  Those whose portfolio includes deeds benefiting others in some profound way are generally rewarded with adulation, praise, and money.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but when it comes to finding personal worth in the presence of God, it is simply an impossible task – to do enough good to make the team.  And while we capitalists applaud a system that rewards the entrepreneurial spirit, the world’s system of rewarding the valuable has its downside too.  A young child might have value to his molester.  Or an abusive husband might find his wife to be of great value to him in that he has someone to physically abuse.  A system that attaches value to others based on how well they meet its needs is one fraught with perils. 
•  embraced the values of our Lord; namely, that I am worthy only because of what God has done for and in me.  I have no lasting value except that God rescued me from the world’s value system (which, by the way, always ends in disappointment in the end) and has brought me into the kingdom of his son.  God did the work, paid the price, and made all of the arrangements; all I did was believe that his work was sufficient to make me right in his presence.
• possessed a thirst, a craving for God that was so intense that it consumed you.  Everything else is overshadowed by this longing to know God. Nothing else matters. You live a life that reflects your committment to have this relationship with God. You are willing to pay any price, to give up anything and everything for the sake of knowing him. 
• accepted the reality of persecution for those who challenge the world’s system.  If you proclaim Christ, you will be opposed.

On the other hand, the Revelation is a disheartening message to those who do not possess the above qualities.  If your aim in life is to maintain the status quo, to be a marginal believer who seeks to avoid opposition, you have placed yourself outside the kingdom of God.  Saving faith isn’t for the weak-hearted but for those who love their lives so little that they are unwilling to shrink away from any peril – even death.

All of this matters because of the reality of the Evil One’s mission – he seeks the destruction of your faith, and his is prepared to do whatever it takes to bring about that result.  Whatever obstacle, whatever temptation he can place in your way to discourage you from giving testimony to the saving power of God’s grace, he will do it.  And if that doesn’t work, he will attempt to destroy you by killing you.  And to be perfectly honest, that’s his desired result – with him it is always about death.  

No, he isn’t finished with his work.  As a matter of fact, over 160,000 Christians were killed for their faith last year.  Many were given the opportunity to save their lives by denying Christ, but they chose to die with his name on their lips.  Just this last August, one family was burned to death in Pakistan because they wear the name of Christ http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,536238,00.html.  But it isn’t just Muslims persecuting Christians http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5ig1ayurEg.  In fact, it’s happening all over the world.  The Voice of the Martyrs (www..persecution.com) is a group dedicated to chronicling persecution and giving assistance to those who are persecuted.  Apparently, it is a problem that is growing in its scope and intensity. 

 Who knows if persecution is coming to your neighborhood.  The point, however, is that we should be prepared for the rage of the ungodly.  Make a decision now!  Whose side are you going to be on if it does come your way?  One sure way to do that is by rejecting the world’s values and putting on Christ.  Long for him.  Thirst for him.  And overcome the evil one by the word of your testimony.  Let the world know who your lord is.