In Chicago, over Memorial Day Weekend, 2022, police received 32 gunfire reports, 47 people shot, 9 dead. Just another weekend in the Windy City. But the report from Uvalde, Texas, 19 children and two teachers as statistics, rattled the nation’s nerves. San Diego U/T, 6/1/22
Strident demands immediately called for gun control, adding to the backlog of laws already on the books and enforced. Gun stores, meanwhile, have seen an increase in sales since Covid-19. The apparently incompetent response of police to persistent appeals from children inside the school in Uvalde undoubtedly increased the causality list. Now…under public pressure, will every school build fences around their property and secure entrances with lock and key? And how did anyone get on the school grounds in Uvalde with a gun without being challenged before entering the classrooms? In an ongoing efforts of self-diagnosis, we blame poverty—that catch-all excuse for crime; lack of jobs—despite the multiple numbers of companies HIRING; the lack of government programs—despite multiple layers of bureaucracies devoted to social programs; the “gun culture”—as if guns and knives shoot and throw themselves as weapons. We certainly wear T-shirts displacing victims names and faces. We build makeshift memorials and place teddy bears and flowers as peace offerings to the dead. We weep and mourn and hug each other, seeking comfort in our loss. And so on. Count on it. Americans will do everything BUT Repent of our self-will, our hubris, our base instincts that invariably drive us to lust and violence, greed and pride. Indeed, everything BUT repent of our rejection of God in Christ! That we will not do…YET. We’re still trusting politicians to devise programs that turn us all into model citizens…YET. And trusting technology to devise lifestyles that inspire the love we know we cannot live without, while refusing to accept it in God’s Christ…YET. But GOD has yet to hit us with blows that bring us to our knees in his Son’s Presence. And all who REALLY want the solution to our moral depravity—where every effort without God is praised and every effort for God is condemned—should pray they will speedily fall. For that will be God’s opportunity to turn us TO HIM, From Ourselves, our Degrees, our Pride, our Materialism and Secularism, etc. And should anyone spit in God’s face by saying he’s unjust to reduce us to helplessness just to have occasion to reach us:
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Philosopher David Hume declared it as impossible for God to create a miracle as for any mortal to believe in it. Yet, that deluded humanist glibly spoke of such universals while living a restricted number of years, in a restricted country, unable to declare universals by the nature of his limited humanity. He declared God the prisoner of his own laws, of the creation he made, of the limitations he placed on humanity, while ASSUMING authority to determine that God COULD be limited in any way.
Poor, ignorant mortal to think his 65 years of skepticism enabled him to remove the Everlasting God’s governance over humanity and history. Spare no sympathy on those who consider themselves capable in a short lifetime of small intelligence to displace the POWER, INTELLIGENCE, WILL, WORD and AUTHORITY of God. Who spins the earth daily on its axis around the sun and in its orbit around the sun 365 days every year, while continuing earth’s daily rotation. How absurd of mortals to claim intelligence that merely uses the resources of creation while denying the Creator of the resources. We fly planes around a globe already in place before any of us were born, yet boast of our successes while ignoring God’s creative genius. Or blast International Space Stations into a SPACE we had no part in expanding majestically to hold ALL we could send OUT THERE! Well…on and on. “In the beginning GOD….” Genesis 1:1. “Then God said, ‘Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over all the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground’” Genesis 1:26.4 Note: in all that GOD gave man to rule, he exempted him from sovereignty over life, nations, history and…ETERNITY! Only fools claim the right to assume God’s Place Psalm 14:1, Psalm 2:1-6. This short series could be expanded by considering negative life experiences the apostle Paul had. Among them are II Corinthians 1:8-11, 2:1-4, 2:12-17, 11:16-12:10 and Acts 27:20. Those, with other Bible personalities would make messages profitable for Christians today. What life experiences do we have that rival those in the Bible? And what can we learn from them to encourage a bolder discipleship than we now offer?
However, to finish this series, read Acts 4:5-22, especially verse 13. Jesus offered himself to the Sanhedrin—Israel’s ruling body—in Peter and John (the same in 5:17-42 for the entire Twelve) as the Person empowering the formerly demeaned, despised men-of-their age, before them bold, daring, courageous and authoritative, responding to the very people who forbade their witness with declaration of their intention to keep bearing it! Contrast that with their fear of leadership in Matthew 15:1-14, especially verses 13-14 to see the change the Holy Spirit made in them. What the men couldn’t imagine doing as disciples they found themselves quite willingly doing as apostles—staring down the most powerful men in the nation. Leaving only this question for us as heirs of the Christ; as repositories of the Holy Spirit, as students of the Bible, what life experience do we use as excuses not to serve Jesus that Bible personalities used as reasons they could bear a witness for God and Christ? Fini Disaster, that old imposter, humbled John the Baptist. Triumph, that old imposter, humbled Elijah the prophet.
In this Finale, consider Jesus. He met both the imposters with an equanimity that defied their ability to sidetrack him into either depressive or manic behavior. To appreciate that, we must understand the burden God imposed on Jesus when he came, the cost he paid from his first recorded awareness of his mission Luke 2:49. (Though we can’t honestly determine exactly when he KNEW his destiny, Mark 10:45, but at least by age 12.) We can fairly say that his awareness of the Cross shadowed him throughout his ministry. He came to die. He intended to die. He fixed his mind on the Cross. He never deviated from dying on the Cross. The severest challenges to his intention came at the start of his ministry, Matthew 4:1-11, and at the end, Luke 22:39-46. And, as a human being, he LONGED to have it completed for the JOY that followed. That’s why Hebrews 12:2 never fails to challenge us with Christ’s priority in daily life. Hebrews 11 records the successes of earlier believers to serve God. But after mentioning all that space allowed the writer, he insisted that Christians “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfector of our faith”, 11:2a, b. On Jesus, not on the heroes of faith, since only his example overcame the Doubt that humbled the Baptist, the Success that humbled Elijah and the innumerable sins that humble all of us. If we have them, any ONE else, or any PURPOSE as our model for life, we’re certain to fall into the temptation to fault God or doubt our ability to continue in faith. If we fix our attention on Jesus, we escape all sins by the Perfection in God’s will that Jesus embodied. We dare not try to fathom the Master’s suffering in Gethsemane. We can only stand afar and wonder at its majesty. We can, with reservations, appreciate his DESIRE to celebrate the last Passover with the Eleven Luke 22:15a, because you “stood by me in my trials” Luke 22:28. Of which we have no clue, other than the rejection everywhere facing him. For how could those men have received such commendation, having failed him so much? Only the Grace of God could be so kind. But then, the Grace of God we experience in forgiveness, patience, mercy, kindness and compassion empowers us to be generous with the Eleven. End Part III And now, guys, this may be the Finale. Or I may write one more part. V Rudyard Kipling wrote a great poem called IF…well worth memorizing. One of its stanzas says,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two imposters just the same…. Yesterday’s blog stressed the pessimism befalling John the Baptist when:
In short, God’s answer to John’s prayer brought him temporary doubt. BUT…God’s answer to Elijah’s prayer resulted in his longer-lasting manic-depression. In this blog, consider Elijah. Read I Kings 17-19 to absorb the high and low of Elijah’s emotions. Only a summary follows. God exalted Elijah’s ministry in one day at Mt. Carmel:
Only to see Jezebel’s always-hard eyes narrow into slits of hate for the man responsible:
Just time enough for the fearless man of God to feel his knees buckle and his spiritual courage drain away into:
Only those experiencing soaring spiritual victories punctured by a failure of courage and commitment can understand Elijah's manic-depressive nature at the time. End Part II Read “There came a man….,” John 1:6, and I Kings 17:1, “Now Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead” as texts. Understand the men as mortals called to God’s service in crisis. Consider how life-experiences dismayed them, led them to disappointment that led them to temporary depression.
In this blog, consider John the Baptist. Read Matthew 3:1-12, 3:13-17, John 1:19-28, 1:29-34, and 3:22-30 as representative scriptures that prove his instinctive fearlessness when confronting leadership questions, his ready compliance with Christ’s requests, his bold demand for repentance to every inquirer and his clear understanding of Jesus as “God’s Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world”. Nevertheless, Luke 7:18-23 reveal the Baptist questioning all he previously said about the Nazarene. Note: this short series offers but an introduction to the subject. The writer has extensive studies on both mortals. In essence, John became the victim of his OWN MINISTERIAL EXPECTATION. He had appeared from the desert long on denunciation and short of compassion. God sent him to awaken Israel to her sins. A society very much like ours, Israel rejected such nonsense since Abraham guaranteed their place with God. John replied with specific ways they could repent Luke 3:13-18. And that mild list pertained only to those wanting to know. True to God’s call on his life, John vigorously denounced the human egotism that took refuge in morality. He threatened damnation if they remained impenitent. He saw himself as the first in a tandem of wrecking-crew prophets. Israel would either repent under his preaching or the ONE following him would finish the job of demolishing the religious legalism that rendered Mosaic commands impotent. End Part I |
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