Practical applications of this four-part blog. Remember the theme: appearances can deceive and things aren’t always what they seem.
We have world driven by glitz, gold and greed...AKA education, money, ambition. They are illusions. Don’t pursue them. Don’t even flirt with them. They will trickle through your life like grains of sand through your fingers. Then, too, we have the environmentalists, with their siren call of preserving the environment/nature. But things aren’t always what they seem. For creation wants to be destroyed, not preserved—Romans 8:22—and looks with “outstretched neck” for Christ’s return. It knows that his return brings its renewal as the New Heaven and Earth of God’s people. Still another deceptively appealing mantra is “communing with nature” as an advertised way to personal peace. Creation/Nature is God’s possession, not our equal. Watching moon rises and sunsets may temporarily titillate the senses but they’ll never bring forgiveness of sin or peace of mind. Furthermore, remember that nature is our friend only as we keep our distance from it—looking at it, admiring it. Out in the wilderness, away from “civilization”—where we think nature is at its best and our compatriot—if we break a leg or suffer snakebite, nature is uncaring, deadly and won’t CARE! Things aren’t always what they seem. But one day Jesus will return from Heaven. And when he does...on that day, and ever-after, everything will be exactly as it seems. For God’s Reality will eliminate all the illusions that now deceive and introduce his COMPLETE TRUTH that enlightens, uplifts and inspires his people forever! Let us be sure to say, “Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for you.” Indeed, let us declare, “Lord Jesus, I make a throne room of my heart from which YOU can rule over me in your truth.” Fini
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The preceding blogs illustrate the truth of the Master’s birth in Bethlehem: things aren’t always what they seem; or, appearances can deceive.
If we didn’t know scripture, would we expect a virgin’s womb to produce a child? When it had never happened before, and wouldn’t ever again? Proving that God will always do the Impossible where we think even the usual isn’t expected. If we didn’t know scripture...would we expect the Jewish Messiah to be born in non-descript-Bethlehem; not Jerusalem the Golden? Proving that God often chooses humble places and unknown people because HE is History’s Ruling Royal! If we didn’t know scripture, would we choose Galileans, not Judeans, and peasants, not aristocrats, as caregivers of the greatest person ever to live? But appearances deceive. For, so far from needing the advantages of social standing, Jesus from the first possessed Princely Quality. So far from needing an education, he from fountains of wisdom and knowledge in himself would be EDUCATOR of all. If we didn’t know scripture, would we have the Savior’s birth in a stable, among animals, with maybe a mid-wife helping, not in a palatial bedroom, with royal physicians attending? Proving that it didn’t take a crown to make Jesus a King: not at birth, not two years later when Wise Men came; not as a man wearing peasant clothes. Jesus Christ alone: the only Reverend of all persons ever to live and teach and heal and love as only God in the Flesh would! End Part III As the Corps of Discovery, captained by Lewis and Clark, toiled up the Missouri River in 1804, they anchored at many Indian villages. In the councils that followed they harangued the natives to behave; gave medals to men they considered influential; and spoke of the new Father in Washington who would provide for his red children. They then boarded their keelboat and sailed away—while the Indians returned to their centuries’ old way of life, as if nothing had happened. But appearances deceived. For in those lonely meetings, with those numerous natives, a new nation began developing awareness of what four decades later would be known as Manifest Destiny—that the nation, then but a handful of states east of the Mississippi, was destined to become a coast to coast empire of many states. Early morning, 1 July, 1863, Confederate infantry under General Hill collided with Union cavalry under General Buford. Their conflict catapulted the two armies into the full-scale battle neither Generals Lee nor Meade wanted at that place, at that time. The result favored the North and doomed the South. Things aren’t always what they seem. Small events can have exponential results. We know that the Dionne identical quintuplets were born two months premature 28 May, 1935—at the time the only known quints to survive infancy. The five together weighed 13 pounds, 6 ounces—an average of 2.7 pounds each—but not evenly distributed. The attending physician had them wrapped in cotton sheets and old napkins at birth. And for the critical 24 hours after kept their flickering bodies alive by keeping them in a borrowed wicker basket, placed by the open door of the kitchen stove. By removing them one by one every two hours to massage them with olive oil; and by feeding them a spoonful of water sweetened with corn syrup, later strengthened by a drop of rum. Who was the famous city doctor with advanced medical credentials to respond to the greatest challenge of his career, knowing exactly how to save quints who really had no chance to survive? Well, it was no famous city doctor from a famous city hospital. It was a country doctor who had spent 25 years in the backwoods of Ontario, Canada, ministering to mill workers and lumberjacks: a shy man, who stood barely 5 feet tall, with a large head that wore a 8 ½ sized hat. The day preceding his burst into fame he hit the wall in a personal crisis, realizing that 25 years of medicine, in primitive conditions, had left him unknown, financially bereft and in poor health. Only to find himself, 36 hours later, famous Dr. Allan Roy Dafoe, renowned for his superhuman effort in keeping five premature infants alive in the first critical 48 hours so they would all live to adulthood. Reader’s Digest, 70 Most Unforgettable, 288-295 Things aren’t always as they seem. Dr. Dafoe proved: you can be significant without being famous or popular; you can be highly-skilled though only modestly educated; and your life-experiences can often grant the equivalent of a Post-Doctorate in crisis management. End Part II More than 1500 died when the “unsinkable” Titanic sank in some two hours after hitting the iceberg, April 14, 1912. If all 20 lifeboats aboard could have been filled to capacity, nearly 1200 instead of the 700 would have survived. Unfortunately, many of the boats dropped into the sea early in the evacuation held few people. Significant criticism has been made of crewmen, who weren’t altogether to blame. The terms dockside and at the rail may help explain.
Lowering filled lifeboats 70 feet above the water at the rail—proved perilous as the ship sank ever deeper at the bow. The strain on block and tackle proved so great the crewmen feared to subject them to unbearable stress. To prevent THAT failure—which would have instantly killed hapless passengers—the crewmen chose what, at the time, seemed a safer solution. As events proved, it only multiplied the number of casualties! Appearances deceived. Things weren’t always what they seemed. Which is the theme of this blog, as seen in a series of illustrations. In 1934, Ralph Lankler began a ministry in Pawling, New York. A marked increase in Sunday attendance soon followed. He naturally thought his sermons had been one of the reasons. Preachers like to think that, usually mistakenly so. Only later did he learn that one of his members had been responsible. Famed radio personality Lowell Thomas had his secretary phone people each week, saying, “Lowell Thomas would like to meet you at the church on Sunday.” Appearances can deceive. Henry Kissinger wrote a book titled The Troubled Partnership, a study of the NATO alliance. His authorship prompted modest sales in most cities, but one bookstore manager had a bright idea that prompted outstanding sales in his store. For he placed Kissinger’s The Troubled Partnership on the shelf under Marriage Manuals. That effective, if deceptive, marketing proved that things aren’t always what they seem. We might be surprised to learn that, because its frigid air contains little water vapor, very little snow falls in the heart of Antarctica. The heart of the continent is not unlike the Sahara in terms of precipitation. Which means that most of the thousands of feet of ice over Antarctica occurred almost instantly with the end of Noah’s Flood. Which is logical; the earth’s poles, with their colossal frigid waters, would be the first to freeze. Contrary to evolutionary dogma, it didn’t take millions of years. End Part I |
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