November 2, 2000
Not long before his death, Henri Nouwen wrote a book called Sabbatical Journeys. He writes about some friends of his who were trapeze artists, called the Flying Roudellas.
They told Nouwen there is a special relationship between flyer and catcher on the trapeze. The flyer is the one that "lets go", and the catcher is the one that "catches". As the flyer swings high above the crowd on the trapeze, the moment comes when he must let go. He arcs out into the air. His job is to remain as still as possible and wait for the strong hands of the catcher to pluck him from the air.
One of the Flying Roudellas told Nouwen, "The flyer must never try to catch the catcher. The flyer must wait in absolute trust. The catcher will catch him, but he must wait."
Are you ready to be caught? Will it be in mid air with no solid ground close? Will you wait or be grabbing?
I'm guessing that the most difficult thing to learn is the wait! The catcher may have a great record of catches. You may have plenty of confidence in his strength. You may trust his willingness/desire to catch you - but the first time you are 50 feet in the air with your own trapeze long gone and gravity is starting to pull - the urge to panic would be very powerful as you "wait" for the catcher to swing near.
That tension between panic and trust is part of life with Jesus. When you become good at it, you can say with Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:7, "We live by faith, not by sight." Frankly everyone, regardless of religious convictions, lives by faith, more than sight. Faith in something has more to do with everyday life than all the facts and figures of science, even in this technological age.
The core of what we know for sure (without doubt) is only a small part of the full measure of what makes up our world. We live our daily lives, to a significant degree, more by what we believe to be true than by what we know to be true. Truth be told, if we are to be truly alive we need more in our lives than what we can explain or comprehend in scientific sense. Think of all the people that you have to "trust" in a weeks time. Outside your family, are all the food preparers, medical personnel, child care givers, legal advisers, mechanics (I have a great story about fixing my own master cylinder and then driving Hwy 49 - now there is some faith). It would be impossible to live very long or very significantly if you eliminated trust from your life.
If every risk had to be scientifically calculated and answered, life would be too burdensome to live. The Bible teaches that faith is a core issue of life. Hebrews 11:1 states: Faith is "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." And what we do not see is, nine times out of ten, more important than what we do see. Do you know how much of an alligator you see in the swamp? This is an appropriate comparison because faith is for the struggle - the battle with alligators - mostly unseen.
God wants us to live in an atmosphere of faith and great expectations. The Bible says, "without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews 11:6). If our confidence in God is growing, impossibilities start to become probabilities. Impossibilities are the places of conflict and struggle . . . the battles. And faith is for the battle. The most intense battle is in the invisible realm.
Job, of the Old Testament, fought circumstances he could never lay a hand on. How do you wrestle with grief? It is an invisible enemy. New believers trying to understand God's world wrestle with an enemy they can not touch. Alcohol and drug addicts battle urges beyond the reach of their five senses. Faith is for these battles.
What happens when we live outside a climate of faith in God? Let's look at several passages in Mark.
Read Mark 6:1-6, 9:14-50, 11:20-33
Why does God want us to live in an ambiance of trust and big expectations? Trust is an expression of your will or voluntary submission. God lives by the same moral code He asks of us. One of the most important elements of that code is a proper respect for a person's free will. In other words, God will not bless you against your will.
The problem in Nazareth was lack of faith in Jesus. The problem with the nine disciples at the bottom of the mountain was lack of an up-to-date faith in God. Trust is essential for salvation. If you choose not to trust Jesus and follow Him, God will not save you against your will. Just as trust opens the door to salvation, faith would have opened the door to the possibilities of the miraculous in Nazareth.
The people of Nazareth chose to believe their doubts about Jesus. These Nazarenes had built up a level of expectation based on information - in their case it was misinformation. Expectations come from several sources. One is personal observation. For example, can I tell by the way you wear your hat that you are a druggie? How reliable are my powers of observation?
Some of us rely on past history as an indicator. We also depend on personal relationships to develop expectations. These Nazarenes put their trust in their own "instincts" rather than the actual ministry of Jesus.
What is your typical mindset about God's daily involvement in your life? Do you expect great things? You do have a level of expectation that you cannot get away from. It may be negative or positive, but you can't get away from the fact of your expectations of God. The bad news is negative expectations close the door to God's involvement in your life.
The good news is that faith opens the door to the possibilities of God's positive involvement in your life. Jesus told the beat up father of the demonized boy, "Every thing is possible for him who believes" (9:23). He told the disciples, "Have faith in God . . . believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."
However, The key is not faith itself. Remember: Everyone has faith. Some of you have faith in your doubts. Some of you have faith in your intellect. Some of you have faith in your lucky charms. Some have faith in God. The object of your faith makes all the difference.
Eve trusted the lie of Satan that she would be like God. The nine disciples trusted their successful history of victory over demons (Mark 6:13). They thought they had the gift in themselves. But miracles happen when we put our faith in God. Part of faith is an expression of dependence. The nine were depending on their past success. This is why Jesus chastised them for not praying. They did not fail because they forgot the magic words. There are no magic words or formulas. They failed because they trusted in someone other than God.
Listen to Jesus' testimony: "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can only do what He sees the Father doing. . ." (5:19). Later, "By myself I can do nothing . . ." (v30). Later, ". . . I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me" (8:28). Jesus depended on the Father and submitted to Him.
What if the nine had started the exorcism by telling the Father, "'By ourselves we can do nothing,' let's open our hearts to God's active will and see what He will do."
Gladys Aylward, missionary to China more than fifty years ago, was forced to flee when the Japanese invaded Yangcheng. But she could not leave her work behind. With only one assistant, she led more than a hundred orphans over the mountains toward Free China. In the book The Hidden Price of Greatness, the authors tell what happened: "During Gladys' harrowing journey out of war torn Yangcheng . . . she grappled with despair as never before. After passing a sleepless night, she faced the morning with no hope of reaching safety. A thirteen year old girl in the group reminded her of their much loved story of Moses and the Israelites crossing the Red Sea.
"But I am not Moses" Gladys cried in desperation.
"Of course you aren't" the girl said, "But Jehovah is still God!"
Who you are trusting makes all the difference. The first step in creating a climate of faith is to make sure your confidence is in God, not yourself or a homemade belief system that conflicts with the Bible, nor an expectation that God no longer gets involved. Put your confidence in Jesus.
The second step is especially important for the person with doubts. Do an honest evaluation of your doubts. Some folks prefer their doubts because of moral issues. Frequently, unbelief and disobedience are the same word in the original text. You may have to admit to an emotional involvement with sin that gives you pleasure. This makes unbelief more attractive for you. You do not believe because you would rather not believe.
When doubts challenge your faith consider the alternative. Extreme example: Atheism is a commitment to a belief that there is no God. Consider what the salesman for atheism has to prove, how many doubts they have to overcome. Agnosticism: Even if there is a God it is impossible to know for sure. What are the foundations of this belief system? Are there reasonable assumptions to make? Is the truth source consistently reliable? You must realize that both faith and unbelief involve a commitment. Belief involves trust. Unbelief has a conviction that the Biblical record and evidence of God and the person of Jesus are irreparably wrong. Are you more comfortable trusting your unbelief or your belief?
Third, keep the climate of faith and expectation alive through prayer. Jesus said, ". . . whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours." Prayer is the channel of relationship. It is where confidence is developed. It is were you tune in to the voice of God.
Frankly, faith involves a risk. So does unbelief, but people don't seem to realize it. Consider the risk that an unbeliever takes as they plan on purpose (or maybe just carelessly) to not think about eternity. We all want a sure thing. Faith realizes that many situations look improbable, but the confidence is present to say, "With God the possibilities are endless."
Risk is at the very core of the Christian life. No Christian has received a call to be safe from all life's dangers. It may be that the greatest danger for a Christian is to never take a risk, to never let go of the trapeze. In tough situations you can face the facts or trust God. Every advance for the Kingdom of God has come when someone saw the facts (dangers) but risked their confidence in God anyway. God seems to relish that kind of faith.
Our District Superintendent has challenged us to plant 25 churches in five years: That is humanly impossible. I told one of you about this vision and you wrote out a check for $100. Others might be thinking all kinds of nice to not very nice thoughts concerning this dream. One thing God and real Christian leaders know is that life is not meant to be a spectator sport. The sidelines look safer and more comfortable. Trusting God isn't much of an issue on the sidelines! But if you will ever know what it means to see God involved in your life personally, to experience the powerful presence of God in your acts of service - then you will have to involve yourself to the degree that you will reject your doubts and choose to believe and act on your confidence in God. As you do that you will begin to live in an atmosphere of faith. The thicker that atmosphere becomes the more joy you will have and the more risks you will accept.
Are you trying to build a risk free life or a life filled with God-sized expectations?
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Thursday, January 13, 2011
From the files
Editor's Note: This week threw a few more curves than normal (We closed on a house and are moving this Saturday; Quinn got pneumonia; Myla got the flu; I started a new job and had huge test on Saturday; and my mom who often helps type sermons, was out of town). With all the chaos, I didn't have time to type out a sermon this week, but I thought it might be fun for you all to see what we see when we're typing them up for you so I scanned one. I know the font appears small, but if you click on each picture it should fill up your screen and be easier to read. Enjoy!
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Faith 101
April 25, 2004
Henri Nouwen tells a parable of faith. He imagines twins - brother and sister - talking to each other in their mother's womb.
The sister said to the brother, "I believe there is life after birth." Her brother protested, "No, no, this is all there is. This is a warm cozy place, and we have nothing else to do but to cling to the cord that feeds us."
The little girl insisted, "There must be something more than this dark place. There must be something else, a place with light where there is freedom to move." Still, she could not convince her twin brother.
After some silence, the sister said, "I have something else to say, and I'm afraid you won't 'believe' this either, but I think there is a mother."
Her brother became furious. "A mother?" he shouted. "What are you talking about? I have never seen a mother, and neither have you. Who put that idea in your head? As I told you, this place is all we have. Why do you always want more? This is not such a bad place. We have all we need, so let's be content."
The sister was quite overwhelmed by her brother's response and for a while didn't dare say anything more. but she couldn't let go of her thoughts, and since she had only her twin to speak to, she finally said, "Don't you feel these squeezes every once in a while? They're quite unpleasant and sometimes even painful."
"Yes" he answered, "but what's special about that?"
"Well," she said, "I think that these squeezes are there to get us ready for another place, much more beautiful than this, where we will see our mother face to face. Don't you think that is exciting?"
The brother didn't answer. He was quite fed up with his sister's foolish talk and felt that the best thing would be to simply ignore her and hope that she would leave him alone.
Read Hebrews 11
In this passage the writer makes it clear that God wants His people to live in an atmosphere of faith. God is not honored and our souls do not grow, if we live in a cloud of cynicism or suspicion about God's character. But we also know that God is not honored by our wishful thinking and ungrounded speculations. That kind of faith is not helpful because faith is not unreasonable or illogical.
This passage defines faith as a firm conviction based on helpful amounts of evidence. There is enough evidence to motivate action: offering a sacrifice (Abel), building an Ark (Noah), and resisting a torturers offer of freedom (Christian martyrs).
Faith is what helps us treat the things we cannot see as real. Faith is the referee, or umpire, for us between the visible world and the invisible world. The believer's faith has conviction informed by evidence, that God's invisible order is the far more real of our two worlds. For this reason faith is the essential link between God and man.
Physical eyes help us see visible objects. Faith helps us get around in the invisible world. How do we "know" that the things we see and call creation have had their source in the invisible God? Faith has looked at the evidence. Evolutionists claim the world came from pre-existing material by blind chance. Admittedly, their conviction is based on faith that has looked at evidence. The Intelligent Design movement has the Darwinists in a bit of a panic (Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe). The Tip of the Spear reminds us that the thing that makes your faith reliable is the reliability of what you are believing.
How good is your evidence? Or more basically: What is your truth source? How reliable is it when you test it? Much of what we call "knowledge" is really faith or trust in an authoritative person or source of information. I dare say, you never verify the chemical properties of your prescription drugs through personal experimentation with a home lab. You never ask to see the certification of your commercial pilot. If you regularly challenged the pharmacists and airlines they would not be pleased with you. Likewise, "without faith it is impossible to please God."
Faith is only possible in a relationship. It may be a formal relationship - as with your druggist or pilot -- or anything but formal, as with your spouse. As you get acquainted with people, instinctively you adjust your trust to their level of fidelity or integrity. This is why faith is more than a mental conclusion. It is something you rest your life on! Our faith in God is based on our evaluation of His fidelity.
Of course, pharmacies have made mistakes. And people have impersonated airline pilots. Sometimes we mistakenly misplace our trust in a person or we distrust an honest person. Eve believed the lie of Satan. Eve's misplaced trust caused her to be deceived. What if she had exercised full confidence in God's instructions and distrusted Satan? What if she had trusted the honest one? What if you did? Why is this so difficult? The short answer is: Complete confidence in God is difficult because we are living in the middle of a great rebellion against God. There is a spiritual battle raging.
This is precisely why "faith" is so important. The conflict is, for the most part, invisible. We need eyes that help us operate in the invisible realm. The Bible says "Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (Ephesians 6:16).
Faith is essential for the battle. If you wander through this world without a studied confidence in God, Satan is already shaping you into a being he can use. How can I say that? Because the Bible warns that Satan can do that even with people who have a minimal faith in God. If you are casually going about your life without even the basics of a God-shaped faith, you're not only damaging your own soul, you will be an unwitting agent for the enemy with your family, those at work and in your neighborhood. Your belief or unbelief is influencing everyone you touch, in a semi-significant way.
Faith is for the battle - it is not for the tether ball pole or video games. Satan will constantly challenge your trust in God. In Luke 8 Jesus interprets one part of the parable of the soils saying, "Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe" (or have faith).
This explains why you can sit down and read the Sunday paper and breeze right through, but trying to concentrate on one short chapter in the Bible feels like a mind-numbing exercise. Nominal believers seldom bother with the Bible for this reason. It is too much of a struggle. If they pick up a Bible their eye lids become two massive weights.
Satan's hatred for faith explains why secular sophisticates are so uncomfortable with trust in God. They let you know you're a little out of plumb if you exercise your faith in their presence. Mike Wallace, on the recent 60 Minutes, belittled President Bush in his interview with Bob Woodward because President Bush believes God is willing to guide him if he can listen properly. We know it is possible to be deluded into thinking that God is guiding. Schizophrenics are real. But most of us have read accounts of Abraham Lincoln on his knees seeking divine guidance in very troubled times. Just because terrorists have used planes in a very evil way does not stop the rest of us from using them for the good they provide. Prayer is not just a pious pose. Is our President automatically schizophrenic because he believes in God and prayer? That thinking would make us all pretty weird!
Secular sophisticates think faith is defined as "a profession of something that you strongly doubt to be true but wish were true." It is primarily concerned with a nice after life. Naturally this is not something that should be used to guide a country or a company or a family. This is why some politicians bend over backwards to assure the country that their faith will not interfere with how they lead. That is because their faith is only for show -- to win a few votes from the truly ignorant masses. They pretend to have gone through "spiritual agony" for the country's good, saying things like "I am personally opposed . . . but support _____." They find abortion morally reprehensible, but they won't use their leadership influence to oppose it. Why seek to be a leader if they are that big of a coward?
They forget that everyone has faith and lives by that faith. An atheist has a faith that there is no God. Every time you make an important decision it is based on what you believe to be true or not to be true. Unbelief is a belief that a certain set of claims are false.
It is irrational to think, before the evidence has been studied, that disbelief is a better world view than belief. But there is a contemporary prejudice in some circles that the person who is doubtful or skeptical is automatically smarter (has gravitas - transliterated into English from Latin). The facts of the case often are that they have an emotional preference for unbelief because of a lifestyle choice. These are usually the folks who are the first to call Christians hypocrites while they say one thing and do another.
Unbelievers typically keep the standards for disbelief very low. They rarely require a reasonable explanation for the existence of the universe (ignore all the evidence for design/designer); they rarely listen to the claims of Jesus (liar or lunatic?); or research the testimony of answered prayer or the ethical claims of Christianity. For some unreasonable reason an unbeliever is not required to make sense. Most unbelief today (evolution for example) would be recognized as nothing more than superstition if it were not endorsed by the academic world.
Faith in Jesus is a confidence in the reality of the invisible world as it is described in the Bible. The five senses say "take what you can touch, taste, handle and enjoy." Faith has a conviction that these things are good - they are from God - but there is something much better beyond these things: The Giver! The faith life is much larger than your audio-visual-tactile life.
Faith in Jesus says the future is more important than the present. In fact, momentary pleasure, if God has not blessed it, will bring long term pain. Whereas momentary pain, when it is God blessed, will bring long term wholeness and joy. The world says, "Why should I refuse the pleasure of the moment for an uncertain future?" The Christian has confidence to see that the future is not uncertain. It belongs to God.
God is pleased when we trust Him. Trust that He knows better how to live this life than we do. Trust that His revelation about the larger invisible world is true. Trust that His promises concerning the future are more reliable than yesterday's news.
"Without faith it is impossible to please God."
Henri Nouwen tells a parable of faith. He imagines twins - brother and sister - talking to each other in their mother's womb.
The sister said to the brother, "I believe there is life after birth." Her brother protested, "No, no, this is all there is. This is a warm cozy place, and we have nothing else to do but to cling to the cord that feeds us."
The little girl insisted, "There must be something more than this dark place. There must be something else, a place with light where there is freedom to move." Still, she could not convince her twin brother.
After some silence, the sister said, "I have something else to say, and I'm afraid you won't 'believe' this either, but I think there is a mother."
Her brother became furious. "A mother?" he shouted. "What are you talking about? I have never seen a mother, and neither have you. Who put that idea in your head? As I told you, this place is all we have. Why do you always want more? This is not such a bad place. We have all we need, so let's be content."
The sister was quite overwhelmed by her brother's response and for a while didn't dare say anything more. but she couldn't let go of her thoughts, and since she had only her twin to speak to, she finally said, "Don't you feel these squeezes every once in a while? They're quite unpleasant and sometimes even painful."
"Yes" he answered, "but what's special about that?"
"Well," she said, "I think that these squeezes are there to get us ready for another place, much more beautiful than this, where we will see our mother face to face. Don't you think that is exciting?"
The brother didn't answer. He was quite fed up with his sister's foolish talk and felt that the best thing would be to simply ignore her and hope that she would leave him alone.
Read Hebrews 11
In this passage the writer makes it clear that God wants His people to live in an atmosphere of faith. God is not honored and our souls do not grow, if we live in a cloud of cynicism or suspicion about God's character. But we also know that God is not honored by our wishful thinking and ungrounded speculations. That kind of faith is not helpful because faith is not unreasonable or illogical.
This passage defines faith as a firm conviction based on helpful amounts of evidence. There is enough evidence to motivate action: offering a sacrifice (Abel), building an Ark (Noah), and resisting a torturers offer of freedom (Christian martyrs).
Faith is what helps us treat the things we cannot see as real. Faith is the referee, or umpire, for us between the visible world and the invisible world. The believer's faith has conviction informed by evidence, that God's invisible order is the far more real of our two worlds. For this reason faith is the essential link between God and man.
Physical eyes help us see visible objects. Faith helps us get around in the invisible world. How do we "know" that the things we see and call creation have had their source in the invisible God? Faith has looked at the evidence. Evolutionists claim the world came from pre-existing material by blind chance. Admittedly, their conviction is based on faith that has looked at evidence. The Intelligent Design movement has the Darwinists in a bit of a panic (Phillip Johnson, William Dembski, Jonathan Wells, Michael Behe). The Tip of the Spear reminds us that the thing that makes your faith reliable is the reliability of what you are believing.
How good is your evidence? Or more basically: What is your truth source? How reliable is it when you test it? Much of what we call "knowledge" is really faith or trust in an authoritative person or source of information. I dare say, you never verify the chemical properties of your prescription drugs through personal experimentation with a home lab. You never ask to see the certification of your commercial pilot. If you regularly challenged the pharmacists and airlines they would not be pleased with you. Likewise, "without faith it is impossible to please God."
Faith is only possible in a relationship. It may be a formal relationship - as with your druggist or pilot -- or anything but formal, as with your spouse. As you get acquainted with people, instinctively you adjust your trust to their level of fidelity or integrity. This is why faith is more than a mental conclusion. It is something you rest your life on! Our faith in God is based on our evaluation of His fidelity.
Of course, pharmacies have made mistakes. And people have impersonated airline pilots. Sometimes we mistakenly misplace our trust in a person or we distrust an honest person. Eve believed the lie of Satan. Eve's misplaced trust caused her to be deceived. What if she had exercised full confidence in God's instructions and distrusted Satan? What if she had trusted the honest one? What if you did? Why is this so difficult? The short answer is: Complete confidence in God is difficult because we are living in the middle of a great rebellion against God. There is a spiritual battle raging.
This is precisely why "faith" is so important. The conflict is, for the most part, invisible. We need eyes that help us operate in the invisible realm. The Bible says "Take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one" (Ephesians 6:16).
Faith is essential for the battle. If you wander through this world without a studied confidence in God, Satan is already shaping you into a being he can use. How can I say that? Because the Bible warns that Satan can do that even with people who have a minimal faith in God. If you are casually going about your life without even the basics of a God-shaped faith, you're not only damaging your own soul, you will be an unwitting agent for the enemy with your family, those at work and in your neighborhood. Your belief or unbelief is influencing everyone you touch, in a semi-significant way.
Faith is for the battle - it is not for the tether ball pole or video games. Satan will constantly challenge your trust in God. In Luke 8 Jesus interprets one part of the parable of the soils saying, "Those along the path are the ones who hear, and then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe" (or have faith).
This explains why you can sit down and read the Sunday paper and breeze right through, but trying to concentrate on one short chapter in the Bible feels like a mind-numbing exercise. Nominal believers seldom bother with the Bible for this reason. It is too much of a struggle. If they pick up a Bible their eye lids become two massive weights.
Satan's hatred for faith explains why secular sophisticates are so uncomfortable with trust in God. They let you know you're a little out of plumb if you exercise your faith in their presence. Mike Wallace, on the recent 60 Minutes, belittled President Bush in his interview with Bob Woodward because President Bush believes God is willing to guide him if he can listen properly. We know it is possible to be deluded into thinking that God is guiding. Schizophrenics are real. But most of us have read accounts of Abraham Lincoln on his knees seeking divine guidance in very troubled times. Just because terrorists have used planes in a very evil way does not stop the rest of us from using them for the good they provide. Prayer is not just a pious pose. Is our President automatically schizophrenic because he believes in God and prayer? That thinking would make us all pretty weird!
Secular sophisticates think faith is defined as "a profession of something that you strongly doubt to be true but wish were true." It is primarily concerned with a nice after life. Naturally this is not something that should be used to guide a country or a company or a family. This is why some politicians bend over backwards to assure the country that their faith will not interfere with how they lead. That is because their faith is only for show -- to win a few votes from the truly ignorant masses. They pretend to have gone through "spiritual agony" for the country's good, saying things like "I am personally opposed . . . but support _____." They find abortion morally reprehensible, but they won't use their leadership influence to oppose it. Why seek to be a leader if they are that big of a coward?
They forget that everyone has faith and lives by that faith. An atheist has a faith that there is no God. Every time you make an important decision it is based on what you believe to be true or not to be true. Unbelief is a belief that a certain set of claims are false.
It is irrational to think, before the evidence has been studied, that disbelief is a better world view than belief. But there is a contemporary prejudice in some circles that the person who is doubtful or skeptical is automatically smarter (has gravitas - transliterated into English from Latin). The facts of the case often are that they have an emotional preference for unbelief because of a lifestyle choice. These are usually the folks who are the first to call Christians hypocrites while they say one thing and do another.
Unbelievers typically keep the standards for disbelief very low. They rarely require a reasonable explanation for the existence of the universe (ignore all the evidence for design/designer); they rarely listen to the claims of Jesus (liar or lunatic?); or research the testimony of answered prayer or the ethical claims of Christianity. For some unreasonable reason an unbeliever is not required to make sense. Most unbelief today (evolution for example) would be recognized as nothing more than superstition if it were not endorsed by the academic world.
Faith in Jesus is a confidence in the reality of the invisible world as it is described in the Bible. The five senses say "take what you can touch, taste, handle and enjoy." Faith has a conviction that these things are good - they are from God - but there is something much better beyond these things: The Giver! The faith life is much larger than your audio-visual-tactile life.
Faith in Jesus says the future is more important than the present. In fact, momentary pleasure, if God has not blessed it, will bring long term pain. Whereas momentary pain, when it is God blessed, will bring long term wholeness and joy. The world says, "Why should I refuse the pleasure of the moment for an uncertain future?" The Christian has confidence to see that the future is not uncertain. It belongs to God.
God is pleased when we trust Him. Trust that He knows better how to live this life than we do. Trust that His revelation about the larger invisible world is true. Trust that His promises concerning the future are more reliable than yesterday's news.
"Without faith it is impossible to please God."
Thursday, November 4, 2010
A Heart of Gratitude
Thanksgiving 2003
If I were Paul writing my memoirs I would've included Acts 13:8-12 (sorcerer - down!); or Acts 16:18 (fortune teller - exorcised!); or Acts 16:26 (jail break!). We only know these stories because of Luke.
When Paul looked back on his missionary career he listed some of the significant events, such as his stays in prison, the times he was flogged (five times by lash and three times by rod), when he was stoned, shipwrecked (three times) and betrayed by a false brother on several occasions.
I'm thinking if anyone has the credentials to write a statement like I Thessalonians, it is Paul. He said, "Give thanks in all circumstances (not for them), for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Paul was not a masochist. And he wasn't writing a Thanksgiving sermon. He did not thank God FOR the flogging - but he allowed gratitude to bubble back to the surface of his heart when the pain gave his mind room to think.
This passage challenges each of us to understand that even serious griefs and aggravations are temporary in the context of God's over all plan for our spiritual well being. No matter how bad circumstances become, we can be grateful and confident that Satan has not blind-sided God. For the follower of Jesus there is always one issue more significant than life or death. Your relationship with Jesus tomorrow is more important than whether you live or die today.
Unless life makes a radical change, or you move to Utopia, circumstances will eventually become grim. I trust you are living in the glow of a recent success and I hope that glow lasts a long time. But the light will eventually dim and the shadows of the enemy will start dancing on the walls of your safest room, your sanctuary. At that point, the way back to fresh victory is by re-establishing a heart of gratitude to God for what He has done.
King Jehoshaphat had been energetically doing God's will. And enjoying some success. He had diligently been re-establishing a proper respect for God and justice in Judah. He might've expected some help from God. At the beginning of 2 Chronicles 20 it appears that the king is not going to get that help. It appears circumstances are pointing to disaster.
Read 2 Chronicles 20:1-30
If you had an enemy closing in on you, what song would you sing? I don't know all the words but "Raindrops Keep Fall'n on My Head" sounds appropriate. When a vast army is coming to pillage my home and dance on my grave, the doxology does not immediately spring to mind.
Jehoshaphat is naturally alarmed. But he calls a congregational meeting and they go to prayer. They remember God's faithfulness in Joshua's day. They confess their weakness and they ask for help.
The enemy of your soul wants to use adversity to drive you away from God. Truth be told, he wants to crush you up into his own version of a protein drink and devour you as calories for his ravenous ego. Satan doesn't feed his stomach, he feeds his ego and you're his favorite meal. But before he can do that he has to put a wedge between you and God. So with every crisis he whispers that God has mistreated you: "If God were good this horrible thing would never have happened."
The facts of the matter are never fully put forward. In some cases we may be completely to blame, but we still blame God for not "catching us" after we got drunk and drove the car into the canal.
At times we are relatively innocent but the drunk in the other car runs us into the canal, and instead of holding them responsible we blame God. "If God were so wise, why did He give that idiot freewill?" Forgetting how often that idiot is us. . . well, probably not you.
The point is, adversity presents a temptation to slander God. At that moment a heart of gratitude to Jesus defeats Satan just when he thinks he is strongest. In Jehoshaphat's day the people of God overcame the enemy by committing themselves - even in the storm - to being a worshipping community.
Their fight song (battle cry) became "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever," through sickness, loss, good health, success. "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever." Notre Dame will probably keep theirs -- but that is their problem.
Where is your biggest battle right now? Can you picture the enemy puffing himself up at your weakness? Getting excited about your adversity? Try the fight song once more: "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever." The enemy thinks that you are ready to give up! Just say it again with a little more conviction.
We like to think that when we sign up to be on God's side our dreams and plans take "ten giant steps forward" and we're almost across the finish line in the game of "Mother May I."
Faith is a forward journey, for sure, but rarely do we see more than one step at a time. And faith always includes risk. "Harmless risk" is an oxymoron. If there is no potential harm, there is no real risk, and no heroes of the faith.
We can be certain that when we are on God's side the final chapter will be victorious. The last chapter in God's book tells us about a new city, and the river of life and the reversal of sin's curse and the bright presence of Jesus. And every committed follower gets to share in that victory. But we should never presume that because the last chapter is such a wonderful success that each chapter between now and then will be equally delicious.
If you need a miracle on this side of heaven, it is because you are in a bad way. We all want miracles, but we try as hard as we can to avoid needing one. Only sick people need healing.
Only the person with puss infected sores and body parts so eaten away with leprosy that the next time he picks up a piece of wood for the fire he'll lose a finger is the person who needs the healing touch of Jesus. It would've been awesome to have been the person who experienced the power of Jesus restoring two dead legs. The downside is that your legs had to die first: No walking, running, climbing, playing, dancing!
In the mean time, the time before the miracle, the time when the path is dark and your steps are motivated only by faith -- in that time know this: God did not send the dark, but He will use it to shape your character in profound ways.
The information in God's Word is given for the purpose of transforming your heart. Faith is informed by the Word of God and when information has done its transforming work, you are ready to walk into the dark places.
Every leader of warriors has learned that victory is on the other side of (in Churchill's words) "blood, toil, tears and sweat." Or in Garibaldi's words, "Hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, and death." Victory is through the dark.
Jesus knew that victory was on the other side of the cross. "And for the joy set before Him He endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:12). Jesus has been to the darkest places a man can go. He has faced the most ferocious enemy a person can battle. He has experienced the deepest humiliations. And He has won.
And by faith in Him He will share the victory with you. The steps may be dark, the threats may be loud, but His presence will be your guide and counselor. So when you hear reports of an approaching enemy with a vast army you can remember where Jesus has been and how He has been victorious. You can join a worshipping community that precedes Jehoshaphat, and that community will continue on after you have found your rest. Today you can sing, "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever."
A day is coming when you will join a throng of people starting at Adam and including your distant grandchildren, and angels that so impressed John the Revelator that he recorded the impact of that victory song this way:
"Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude,
like the roar of rushing waters
and like peals of thunder, shouting:
Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory!"
(Revelation 19:6,7)
"Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever!"
If I were Paul writing my memoirs I would've included Acts 13:8-12 (sorcerer - down!); or Acts 16:18 (fortune teller - exorcised!); or Acts 16:26 (jail break!). We only know these stories because of Luke.
When Paul looked back on his missionary career he listed some of the significant events, such as his stays in prison, the times he was flogged (five times by lash and three times by rod), when he was stoned, shipwrecked (three times) and betrayed by a false brother on several occasions.
I'm thinking if anyone has the credentials to write a statement like I Thessalonians, it is Paul. He said, "Give thanks in all circumstances (not for them), for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Paul was not a masochist. And he wasn't writing a Thanksgiving sermon. He did not thank God FOR the flogging - but he allowed gratitude to bubble back to the surface of his heart when the pain gave his mind room to think.
This passage challenges each of us to understand that even serious griefs and aggravations are temporary in the context of God's over all plan for our spiritual well being. No matter how bad circumstances become, we can be grateful and confident that Satan has not blind-sided God. For the follower of Jesus there is always one issue more significant than life or death. Your relationship with Jesus tomorrow is more important than whether you live or die today.
Unless life makes a radical change, or you move to Utopia, circumstances will eventually become grim. I trust you are living in the glow of a recent success and I hope that glow lasts a long time. But the light will eventually dim and the shadows of the enemy will start dancing on the walls of your safest room, your sanctuary. At that point, the way back to fresh victory is by re-establishing a heart of gratitude to God for what He has done.
King Jehoshaphat had been energetically doing God's will. And enjoying some success. He had diligently been re-establishing a proper respect for God and justice in Judah. He might've expected some help from God. At the beginning of 2 Chronicles 20 it appears that the king is not going to get that help. It appears circumstances are pointing to disaster.
Read 2 Chronicles 20:1-30
If you had an enemy closing in on you, what song would you sing? I don't know all the words but "Raindrops Keep Fall'n on My Head" sounds appropriate. When a vast army is coming to pillage my home and dance on my grave, the doxology does not immediately spring to mind.
Jehoshaphat is naturally alarmed. But he calls a congregational meeting and they go to prayer. They remember God's faithfulness in Joshua's day. They confess their weakness and they ask for help.
The enemy of your soul wants to use adversity to drive you away from God. Truth be told, he wants to crush you up into his own version of a protein drink and devour you as calories for his ravenous ego. Satan doesn't feed his stomach, he feeds his ego and you're his favorite meal. But before he can do that he has to put a wedge between you and God. So with every crisis he whispers that God has mistreated you: "If God were good this horrible thing would never have happened."
The facts of the matter are never fully put forward. In some cases we may be completely to blame, but we still blame God for not "catching us" after we got drunk and drove the car into the canal.
At times we are relatively innocent but the drunk in the other car runs us into the canal, and instead of holding them responsible we blame God. "If God were so wise, why did He give that idiot freewill?" Forgetting how often that idiot is us. . . well, probably not you.
The point is, adversity presents a temptation to slander God. At that moment a heart of gratitude to Jesus defeats Satan just when he thinks he is strongest. In Jehoshaphat's day the people of God overcame the enemy by committing themselves - even in the storm - to being a worshipping community.
Their fight song (battle cry) became "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever," through sickness, loss, good health, success. "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever." Notre Dame will probably keep theirs -- but that is their problem.
Where is your biggest battle right now? Can you picture the enemy puffing himself up at your weakness? Getting excited about your adversity? Try the fight song once more: "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever." The enemy thinks that you are ready to give up! Just say it again with a little more conviction.
We like to think that when we sign up to be on God's side our dreams and plans take "ten giant steps forward" and we're almost across the finish line in the game of "Mother May I."
Faith is a forward journey, for sure, but rarely do we see more than one step at a time. And faith always includes risk. "Harmless risk" is an oxymoron. If there is no potential harm, there is no real risk, and no heroes of the faith.
We can be certain that when we are on God's side the final chapter will be victorious. The last chapter in God's book tells us about a new city, and the river of life and the reversal of sin's curse and the bright presence of Jesus. And every committed follower gets to share in that victory. But we should never presume that because the last chapter is such a wonderful success that each chapter between now and then will be equally delicious.
If you need a miracle on this side of heaven, it is because you are in a bad way. We all want miracles, but we try as hard as we can to avoid needing one. Only sick people need healing.
Only the person with puss infected sores and body parts so eaten away with leprosy that the next time he picks up a piece of wood for the fire he'll lose a finger is the person who needs the healing touch of Jesus. It would've been awesome to have been the person who experienced the power of Jesus restoring two dead legs. The downside is that your legs had to die first: No walking, running, climbing, playing, dancing!
In the mean time, the time before the miracle, the time when the path is dark and your steps are motivated only by faith -- in that time know this: God did not send the dark, but He will use it to shape your character in profound ways.
The information in God's Word is given for the purpose of transforming your heart. Faith is informed by the Word of God and when information has done its transforming work, you are ready to walk into the dark places.
Every leader of warriors has learned that victory is on the other side of (in Churchill's words) "blood, toil, tears and sweat." Or in Garibaldi's words, "Hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles, and death." Victory is through the dark.
Jesus knew that victory was on the other side of the cross. "And for the joy set before Him He endured the cross" (Hebrews 12:12). Jesus has been to the darkest places a man can go. He has faced the most ferocious enemy a person can battle. He has experienced the deepest humiliations. And He has won.
And by faith in Him He will share the victory with you. The steps may be dark, the threats may be loud, but His presence will be your guide and counselor. So when you hear reports of an approaching enemy with a vast army you can remember where Jesus has been and how He has been victorious. You can join a worshipping community that precedes Jehoshaphat, and that community will continue on after you have found your rest. Today you can sing, "Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever."
A day is coming when you will join a throng of people starting at Adam and including your distant grandchildren, and angels that so impressed John the Revelator that he recorded the impact of that victory song this way:
"Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude,
like the roar of rushing waters
and like peals of thunder, shouting:
Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory!"
(Revelation 19:6,7)
"Give thanks to the Lord, for His love endures forever!"
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Daniel
February 8, 2004
Words can be powerful -- ideas have influence. Anyone who has been the target of a gossip campaign knows this.
Three notorious atheists from the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century Germany unleashed a firestorm on Christians in the later parts of the Twentieth Century. All they had were ideas! Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx were the least hateful. They considered religious belief a mere fantasy, a delusion to help the grief of death. Of course, Marx' influence on communism indirectly lead to the martyrdom of millions of Christians.
But the worst of the three Germans was philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He considered Christianity to be something much worse than a fairy tale. He wrote, "I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous . . . perversion -- I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind" (from The Twilight of the Idols, 1888). Physically, he was sickly, unimpressive, but he continues to have a powerful influence on philosophers and university professors to this day with his ideas. With Marx and Freud he would have to take much of the credit for more Christians being killed for their faith in the Twentieth Century than in the previous nineteen combined.
Nietzsche continues to impact us through main stream media types and academics who have been educated by university professors enamored with him. This helps explain how Dan Rather could write in the April 1994 issue of The Nation, "Gays and lesbians are beaten to death in the streets with increasing frequency in part due to irrational fear of AIDS but also because of hate mongers . . . of the Christian right."
I see no evidence of what he has written and what he continues on a regular basis to imply, but none of his peers have suggested he was even a little biased. Instead they join the chorus, as did the editor of the Washington Post who wrote that Christians are "largely poor, uneducated and easy to command." This is typical of what media and entertainment celebrities think. If they said the same thing about any other minority group or ethnic class they would be publicly castigated and lose their jobs. We live in an age when most leaders consider it helpful to the culture to fire on Christians. It is not the first time people of God have been hated. If you have your Bible turn with me to Daniel.
The book of Daniel is a record of Israel/Judah in exile. Exile is an important event or concept to understand in terms of the impact it had on the Jews. The people of Israel-Jacob were formed into a nation with a theocratic constitution at Sinai (Exodus). God had been growing and preparing some of the offspring of Abraham for this event. After rescuing them from Egypt they were officially organized by God to be a "kingdom of priests." Bridge builders.
In Moses' last message, he reminded them of their privilege and responsibility as God's priests. In Deuteronomy 29 he reviews the terms of their covenant - including God's promise of blessings for faithfulness and curses for infidelity.
As a nation they struggled with faithfulness. They consequently went through a long cyclic period of degenerated paganism, followed by judgement, followed by revival. Around 922 BC the kingdom divided. The northern ten tribes experienced almost continuous rebellion until 722 BC when Assyria destroyed them - in a way that they would never recover.
The southern two tribes escaped this disaster with Assyria, but they also degenerated spiritually to a place where God was forced to bring judgement. It started in 605 BC (after the Battle of Carcamesh). God spoke through Jeremiah to say - don't depend on Egypt! Babylon began to dominate and control Judah. In the first siege Daniel and his three friends were taken into exile. By 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the Temple built by Solomon and its furnishings, and all Jews were taken to Babylon.
The southern kingdom maintained its religious and ethnic integrity - even in exile - through the ministry of men like Ezekiel and Daniel. Ultimately a small percentage of the exiled Jews were allowed to return under the liberal policies of Cyrus the Persian ruler who defeated the Babylonians in 515 BC.
However the exile marks an important bridge for the Jews. Never again would they be a fully independent nation with their religious rituals as the core of their life. In fact the rebuilt temple was so uninspiring it caused weeping at the completion of its foundation. The Ark of the Covenant was lost forever (Day of Atonement - blood) and the Spirit of God never filled the Holy of Holies (Exodus 40; I Kings 8).
Yet exile for Judah was not totally destructive in the way it had been for Israel. The Jews seemed to have learned their lesson, in terms of compromising with paganism and idolatry. When they did return - unlike the ten tribes, much smaller and weaker - they were purer in their faith.
Some of this change can be credited to the example of Daniel. Daniel was part of a hated minority, initially with very little influence. But he and his friends determined to be faithful to God whatever the circumstances and whatever the consequences. The first six chapters of Daniel recount six moral challenges to this determination.
The challenge in the first chapter was to maintain faith in God while being encouraged with everything desirable to become Babylonian pagans. He was given a new name, a new status. He was given an extensive Babylonian education in writing, math and the sciences, making him equal to a magi. But he drew the line at a new diet. This seems strange to us, but accepting the diet was the same as accepting the Babylonian religion. The food and drink was only consumable after going through a worship service to the pagan gods, and by consuming it you were accepting the spirit of these gods! Daniel was asking for a simple diet untainted by pagan rituals. He maintained his loyalty to God. And because of that God blessed him with significant influence - even as a minority - in his new land. He was beginning to be a priest to the world!
When we come to chapter six a historical change has occurred. Chapter five records the fall of Babylon and the rise of Persia. Daniel is now a very old man, essentially working for a new empire. He is respected as intelligent and a person of integrity -- two qualities hard to find an any bureaucracy. Yet he is at the mercy of the majority people-- those in charge. And a few significant "wanna be" leaders are filled with malicious jealousy.
Remember that Daniel is about Caleb's age when Caleb asked Joshua for his mountain, not the time to begin a career fighting lions. It is also important to notice that Daniel never went out looking for trouble, but when it came he never let it chase him away from God.
Daniel 6
Would it come as a shock to you if I suggested that American culture does not belong to Christians? If you want proof I would suggest as exhibit A: Super Bowl commercials. So many of them were grossly stupid in a pagan sort of way. The half time entertainment was appropriate to a pagan ceremony of ritual prostitution; and that was long before the Janet Jackson climax. That episode was only shocking if you missed what the entertainers were trying to suggest in the scenes leading up to it. Apparently this is typical of everyday programming for MTV -- a kind of Baal worship for agnostics. The whole Super Bowl experience - outside of the game itself - was of such a nature that "a degenerate could be proud."
But please don't get distracted by the current state of entertainment. In so many far more critical areas our culture is experiencing spiritual death tremors. The horrors of abortion are getting worse as one of the Democratic candidates suggests that babies have no right to life until the mother gives the okay. Wesley Clark told the Manchester, NH, Union Leader, "Life begins with the mother's decision." This potentially advances abortion to the level of infanticide! Then there is the rewriting of history and politics to take God out of government and education. And as of today we are witnessing the collapse of the basic trans-cultural concept of marriage. I refuse to modify marriage by hyphenating it as hetero-sexual marriage.
Followers of Jesus live in a darker world today than the one we were born into. Many of the academic elite consider "us" the enemy. And the culture is becoming more comfortable disposing of unwanted life in all forms. We must wonder -- where will this attitude leave us?
Among the very last written words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3: 12-13 were, "everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse."
Most of you have avoided the lions den. Yet we can sense the restlessness of "our enemy the devil . . .." If this "roaring lion" were to try to eat you tomorrow, where would he attack first? At school? At work? In your neighborhood? At home?
What are your resources for defense? Do you try to blend in so that you're not noticed as a Christian? Or do you run off in a panic and try to bring the Kingdom of God in by human effort? Or do you depend on the resources of Jesus?
Daniel continued to be faithful to prayer and his time alone with God. He found resources of grace in his relationship with God. He continued to abstain from compromise with a godless lifestyle, and he lived a life of integrity to the point that his enemies could not arrest him for anything hinting of scandal. They could only attack him for his faithfulness to God. And God rescued him. One way or the other God always takes care of His faithful followers.
The final words of Paul written from his cell on death row may someday be important to us: "The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen" (2 Timothy 4:18).
Words can be powerful -- ideas have influence. Anyone who has been the target of a gossip campaign knows this.
Three notorious atheists from the Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century Germany unleashed a firestorm on Christians in the later parts of the Twentieth Century. All they had were ideas! Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx were the least hateful. They considered religious belief a mere fantasy, a delusion to help the grief of death. Of course, Marx' influence on communism indirectly lead to the martyrdom of millions of Christians.
But the worst of the three Germans was philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. He considered Christianity to be something much worse than a fairy tale. He wrote, "I call Christianity the one great curse, the one enormous . . . perversion -- I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind" (from The Twilight of the Idols, 1888). Physically, he was sickly, unimpressive, but he continues to have a powerful influence on philosophers and university professors to this day with his ideas. With Marx and Freud he would have to take much of the credit for more Christians being killed for their faith in the Twentieth Century than in the previous nineteen combined.
Nietzsche continues to impact us through main stream media types and academics who have been educated by university professors enamored with him. This helps explain how Dan Rather could write in the April 1994 issue of The Nation, "Gays and lesbians are beaten to death in the streets with increasing frequency in part due to irrational fear of AIDS but also because of hate mongers . . . of the Christian right."
I see no evidence of what he has written and what he continues on a regular basis to imply, but none of his peers have suggested he was even a little biased. Instead they join the chorus, as did the editor of the Washington Post who wrote that Christians are "largely poor, uneducated and easy to command." This is typical of what media and entertainment celebrities think. If they said the same thing about any other minority group or ethnic class they would be publicly castigated and lose their jobs. We live in an age when most leaders consider it helpful to the culture to fire on Christians. It is not the first time people of God have been hated. If you have your Bible turn with me to Daniel.
The book of Daniel is a record of Israel/Judah in exile. Exile is an important event or concept to understand in terms of the impact it had on the Jews. The people of Israel-Jacob were formed into a nation with a theocratic constitution at Sinai (Exodus). God had been growing and preparing some of the offspring of Abraham for this event. After rescuing them from Egypt they were officially organized by God to be a "kingdom of priests." Bridge builders.
In Moses' last message, he reminded them of their privilege and responsibility as God's priests. In Deuteronomy 29 he reviews the terms of their covenant - including God's promise of blessings for faithfulness and curses for infidelity.
As a nation they struggled with faithfulness. They consequently went through a long cyclic period of degenerated paganism, followed by judgement, followed by revival. Around 922 BC the kingdom divided. The northern ten tribes experienced almost continuous rebellion until 722 BC when Assyria destroyed them - in a way that they would never recover.
The southern two tribes escaped this disaster with Assyria, but they also degenerated spiritually to a place where God was forced to bring judgement. It started in 605 BC (after the Battle of Carcamesh). God spoke through Jeremiah to say - don't depend on Egypt! Babylon began to dominate and control Judah. In the first siege Daniel and his three friends were taken into exile. By 586 BC Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the Temple built by Solomon and its furnishings, and all Jews were taken to Babylon.
The southern kingdom maintained its religious and ethnic integrity - even in exile - through the ministry of men like Ezekiel and Daniel. Ultimately a small percentage of the exiled Jews were allowed to return under the liberal policies of Cyrus the Persian ruler who defeated the Babylonians in 515 BC.
However the exile marks an important bridge for the Jews. Never again would they be a fully independent nation with their religious rituals as the core of their life. In fact the rebuilt temple was so uninspiring it caused weeping at the completion of its foundation. The Ark of the Covenant was lost forever (Day of Atonement - blood) and the Spirit of God never filled the Holy of Holies (Exodus 40; I Kings 8).
Yet exile for Judah was not totally destructive in the way it had been for Israel. The Jews seemed to have learned their lesson, in terms of compromising with paganism and idolatry. When they did return - unlike the ten tribes, much smaller and weaker - they were purer in their faith.
Some of this change can be credited to the example of Daniel. Daniel was part of a hated minority, initially with very little influence. But he and his friends determined to be faithful to God whatever the circumstances and whatever the consequences. The first six chapters of Daniel recount six moral challenges to this determination.
The challenge in the first chapter was to maintain faith in God while being encouraged with everything desirable to become Babylonian pagans. He was given a new name, a new status. He was given an extensive Babylonian education in writing, math and the sciences, making him equal to a magi. But he drew the line at a new diet. This seems strange to us, but accepting the diet was the same as accepting the Babylonian religion. The food and drink was only consumable after going through a worship service to the pagan gods, and by consuming it you were accepting the spirit of these gods! Daniel was asking for a simple diet untainted by pagan rituals. He maintained his loyalty to God. And because of that God blessed him with significant influence - even as a minority - in his new land. He was beginning to be a priest to the world!
When we come to chapter six a historical change has occurred. Chapter five records the fall of Babylon and the rise of Persia. Daniel is now a very old man, essentially working for a new empire. He is respected as intelligent and a person of integrity -- two qualities hard to find an any bureaucracy. Yet he is at the mercy of the majority people-- those in charge. And a few significant "wanna be" leaders are filled with malicious jealousy.
Remember that Daniel is about Caleb's age when Caleb asked Joshua for his mountain, not the time to begin a career fighting lions. It is also important to notice that Daniel never went out looking for trouble, but when it came he never let it chase him away from God.
Daniel 6
Would it come as a shock to you if I suggested that American culture does not belong to Christians? If you want proof I would suggest as exhibit A: Super Bowl commercials. So many of them were grossly stupid in a pagan sort of way. The half time entertainment was appropriate to a pagan ceremony of ritual prostitution; and that was long before the Janet Jackson climax. That episode was only shocking if you missed what the entertainers were trying to suggest in the scenes leading up to it. Apparently this is typical of everyday programming for MTV -- a kind of Baal worship for agnostics. The whole Super Bowl experience - outside of the game itself - was of such a nature that "a degenerate could be proud."
But please don't get distracted by the current state of entertainment. In so many far more critical areas our culture is experiencing spiritual death tremors. The horrors of abortion are getting worse as one of the Democratic candidates suggests that babies have no right to life until the mother gives the okay. Wesley Clark told the Manchester, NH, Union Leader, "Life begins with the mother's decision." This potentially advances abortion to the level of infanticide! Then there is the rewriting of history and politics to take God out of government and education. And as of today we are witnessing the collapse of the basic trans-cultural concept of marriage. I refuse to modify marriage by hyphenating it as hetero-sexual marriage.
Followers of Jesus live in a darker world today than the one we were born into. Many of the academic elite consider "us" the enemy. And the culture is becoming more comfortable disposing of unwanted life in all forms. We must wonder -- where will this attitude leave us?
Among the very last written words of the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 3: 12-13 were, "everyone who wants to live a Godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil men and impostors will go from bad to worse."
Most of you have avoided the lions den. Yet we can sense the restlessness of "our enemy the devil . . .." If this "roaring lion" were to try to eat you tomorrow, where would he attack first? At school? At work? In your neighborhood? At home?
What are your resources for defense? Do you try to blend in so that you're not noticed as a Christian? Or do you run off in a panic and try to bring the Kingdom of God in by human effort? Or do you depend on the resources of Jesus?
Daniel continued to be faithful to prayer and his time alone with God. He found resources of grace in his relationship with God. He continued to abstain from compromise with a godless lifestyle, and he lived a life of integrity to the point that his enemies could not arrest him for anything hinting of scandal. They could only attack him for his faithfulness to God. And God rescued him. One way or the other God always takes care of His faithful followers.
The final words of Paul written from his cell on death row may someday be important to us: "The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen" (2 Timothy 4:18).
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