Insight for the Journey

We do not pray because we really don’t think it important enough.

What do you think?  Agree?  Or, disagree?

As I think of my own deficient prayer life and the dearth of it I see in others, this is my only logical conclusion.  I do not say it with a pious, high brow attitude.  I simply state it as a self-evident fact.  If we believed it was more important, we would practice it more.  Period!

We believe in hustle and bustle.  Ours is an age of human confidence and self promotion.  We follow the ‘do it yourself” philosophy of human push and human scheming.

The church of Christ has never had more resources at our fingertips, more money to back us, more savvy technology to aid us, and more knowledge to inform us, than we do today.  But without the animating presence of God to energize us, all these things fall flat.

We need to pray.

What do you think?

Prayer is the most powerful act in which a true Christ-follower can engage. Do you believe that statement? Or is it just the kind of rhetoric a preacher would use?My sense is that there are very few people, at least in the western world, who really think of prayer as a powerful activity. It is more often seen as the work of the elderly, the physically challenged, or children; those who can’t do for themselves.

But it has not always been that way. Consider these words from R.A. Torrey, a Christian leader from about a century ago:
“Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power. All that God is, and all that God has, are at the disposal of prayer. But we must use the key. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent. No one can stand against the one who knows how to pray and who meets all the conditions of prevailing prayer and who really prays. “The Lord God Omnipotent” works from him and works through him.”

Those words touch places in my soul that seldom get stirred. I long to experience that kind of power from God. What would Moses, David, Elijah, Daniel and other Old Testament leaders have done without the powerful intervention of God? Without that same divine interjection of power, how would the early, first-century church have even gotten off the ground? More personally, how will we stand for God in an increasingly complex society without power from above?

Can I be blunt? Without the “storehouse of God’s infinite grace and power” being unlocked by prayer, we may be exhausting ourselves with religious activity while bearing no lasting fruit.

Have you turned the key lately?

Socrates once said, “The truth is in the mean.”  By that he meant that the truth is often found only by holding two things in tension.  The best path is often between the two extremes.  For instance, good parenting is keeping your balance between being too strict on one hand, or being overly lenient on the other.  Good parents know how to discipline in love, because both extremes exasperate the child. 

This weekend at Grace Fellowship we are talking about water baptism.  Most of the people who attend Grace were baptized as infants.  Their parents made that choice for them.  Yet, we encourage people who have consciously chosen to put their faith in Christ to be baptized by immersion, whether they have ever been baptized before or not.  Sometimes that is called “believer’s baptism” because you believe and then choose to be baptized.

This raises all kinds of questions about the nature, purpose, and affects of baptism in a person’s life.  For instance, people ask me sometimes, “Are you saying that if I’m not baptized by immersion I’m lost?  Are you saying that my godly grandmother who was sprinkled for baptism is not in heaven?”  No.  I’m not saying that.  God judges each individual, individually.  He knows our heart, our motives, our opportunity, and he knows our response.  It was a glorious day for me when I realized that I wasn’t suppose to play God and determine everybody else’s salvation.

I’ve known people who were baptized by immersion and went on to live like the devil.  And I’ve known people who were sprinkled as infants, later committed their lives to Christ and demonstrated the fruit of the Spirit, and were never baptized as a believer.  I am suggesting that each of us is responsible for responding to the light that we have.  If there is something that you clearly understand the Bible to be teaching, you are responsible for obeying what you know to do.

Let’s say you own a grocery store and your parents owned the same grocery store, and your grandparents owned the same store before them!  And they are as honest as possible.  But the State Inspector comes in one day and says, “Did you know your scales are off?”  You say, “Well sir, we’ve been using that old scale to weigh meat for over 40 years now.”  And he says, “Well, it’s off!  You say you’re giving people a pound of meat and your giving them only 15 ounces.”

Is he calling your parents and your grandparents crooks?  Are your grandparents and your parents dishonest?  No.  But you would be if you didn’t change.  The Bible says, “To him who knows to do good and then doesn’t do it, to him it is sin.”

We are responsible to obey what we know God is saying.  Rather than do as little as possible to be obedient to Christ, we ought to do as much as possible.

Are you responding to the light you have?  Are you obeying what you know to be true?

  Some time ago an inquiring photographer stopped six people on the streets of New York and asked them this question: “What is the most important event in history?”  He got some interesting answers.  Someone said that1)         They thought the most important event in history was the settlement of Jamestown by the English.

2)         Someone else thought it was the defeat of the Saracens at Tours.

3)         The defeat of the Japanese at the end of World War II.

4)         Someone else said it was the invention of the wheel.

5)         The invention of the atomic bomb,

But the sixth answer was given by a 14-year-old schoolboy.  He replied that the greatest event in human history

6)         Was the life and ministry of Jesus Christ.

That young man revealed keen insight.  I don’t know how you look at Jesus; whether you look at Him from the viewpoint of a skeptic or a believer.  But of one thing I am certain:  Jesus has influenced the thinking of the world in a way that no other person has.

He is central to the centuries.  He never wrote a word that we know of, yet His words fashion our laws.  We date all time, forward and backward, from the date of His birth.  We say that something happened so many years B.C. — that is, before Christ. Or so many years A.D. — Anno Domini, “The Year of Our Lord,” or since the time of Christ.  Every time you date a document or consult a calendar you pay silent tribute to the centrality of Jesus.

It’s not just at Christmas that we are reminded of Him.  Browse through an art museum and you find that artists through the ages have been captivated by Him.  The greatest music ever written was written by men and women influenced by Him.  More books have been written about Jesus and His life and ministry than about any other person in history.  His impact is monumental!

This Christmas, don’t just celebrate His birth; celebrate His positive influence on this planet.  His birth, life, death and resurrection is the greatest event in history!

I’m coming home from teaching at a School of Evangelism where we had over 400 Pastors, evangelists, and other Christian leaders, representing dozens of different denominations and states in the U.S.  For three days we laughed, cried, sang, prayed, talked, ate, listened, learned and rejoiced together.

I was struck by the diversity of evangelistic methods I heard discussed.  Let me list a few:

I met one young man who used to work for Ringling Brothers Circus.  He is a stunt bike-rider who does death defying leaps through fiery hoops to hook interest and then he shares a clear, hard-hitting gospel message about the “leap of faith.” 

I met another young evangelist who has “crusade-type” meetings in large gymnasiums and seeks to reach basic middle-class people.

I met a woman who sings professionally and seeks to win people to Christ through musical concerts.

I met a man from the mid-west who still believes in door-to-door evangelism.

I met a church-planter from Kentucky who is seeking to reach marginalized people groups from many nations who are the poorest of the poor.

I met a businessman who uses his successful business as a platform to share Christ.

The list goes on and on…

An evangelist to native Americans…

A Christian professor…

A farmer who also pastors and gives altar calls…

A member of a rapid response team that responds to people in crisis and shares the gospel and hope…

A woman who leads people to Christ through a phone counseling ministry…

Wow!  I could keep going.

My point is that effective evangelism is not about methods.  It’s about universal principles that God blesses all over the world.  All of these people I met this week are seeking to first live the gospel, and then share the unchanging message in a way that is relevant in their context.  If you tried to take the farmer and make him do motorcycle stunts…he would fail miserably.  If you took the door-to-door guy and forced him to preach in large gymnasiums, it wouldn’t work.

Rule number #1 in evangelism: take the unchanging gospel and deliver it in a style that makes it interesting and accessible to the hearers.  What would that mean for you?  What does that mean for you?

I believe that gratitude is the mother of all virtues.  And, quite frankly, I have a lot to be grateful for.  But I am most grateful for the fact that nothing can separate me from God’s love, and that His grace keeps reaching out to me.  The security and comfort that brings keeps my heart singing even in my worst days.

When the Golden Gate Bridge was being built back in the 1930s, during the first half of construction, over a dozen men fell to their deaths.  So they stopped construction, and suspended a huge net under the superstructure.  During the last half of construction only six people fell, but none of them died.  Amazingly, the supervisor said that the work proceeded at 25% greater efficiency.  Having the net under them did not make the men careless.  It made them more confident.

When we understand there is a net under us called grace, we become more secure, more joyful, more courageous and effective in the Christian life.  I guess it’s possible for some demented man to fall down into that net, and then crawl over to the edge, and push aside anybody who wanted to rescue him, and then jump over the edge.  And it certainly is possible for people to keep exploiting God’s grace but even then, God’s love is reaching out to lift us up.  Even then, he is waiting lovingly for us to return.

When Jesus wanted to paint a picture of what God was like, he didn’t picture a tyrant with a whip in his hand.  He said, “Let me tell you a story.  A certain man had two sons, and one of them rebelled against the father’s love and went away.  The father did not restrain him.  He didn’t go into the far country, where he was living a sinful life, and yank him back.  But when the boy repented and returned, the father saw him when he was far off and ran to meet him.  And he smothered his repentant talk on his shoulder and he called out to the servants, ‘Get the robe and the ring and the shoes.  Let’s have a celebration.  My son was dead and now he’s alive.  He was lost, but now he’s found.’”  Jesus’ picture of God was not a tyrant with a whip, but a father running to forgive.

There’s an old song that chokes me up every time I hear it: 

“The love of God is greater far

than tongue or pen can ever tell. 

It goes beyond the highest star

and reaches to the lowest hell.” 

And I just love the third stanza that goes like this:

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,

and were the sky of parchment made,

and if every stalk on earth a quill,

and every man a scribe by trade,

to write the love of God above

would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll

Contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky.”

The word of God promises that nothing-nothing-nothing-in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  That, my friend, is reason to give thanks!

Since preaching on the Antichrist last weekend I’ve been inundated with comments and input.  Some of it is serious, and some intentionally silly.  But this whole discussion sure hits a nerve in people!  One friend suggested that he suspicions it might be Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose face graces the cover of the current U.S. News and World Report.  Another suggested Hilary Clinton.  Another, a popular American pastor.  People’s guesses keep coming in!

This kind of speculation about Antichrist’s identity is nothing new.  The list of persons once confidently declared to be the Antichrist stretches back at least 1900 years.    Michael Holmes, a commentator on 2 Thessalonians, says the list includes, “…various Roman emperors, the leader of the Vandal invaders who sacked Rome, Mohammed, various popes, the papacy itself, Emperor Frederick 11 and Pope Gregory IX (each of whom viewed the other as the Antichrist), Martin Luther, King George II of England, Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon III, each side in the American Civil War, Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, the League of Nations, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the United Nations, Khruschev, the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev (the birth mark on his forehead allegedly being the mark of the beast), King Juan Carlos of Spain, Pope John Paul 11, Anwar Sadat, the Aya­tollah Khomeini, Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, the New Age Move­ment, theologian Matthew Fox, Henry Kissenger, and former presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Wilson Reagan (six letters in each name = 666 [cf. Rev. 13:18], and Reagan recovered from a serious wound [13:3]).”  Are you tired yet?  I am.

What can we learn from this?  I’ll suggest three things for you to ponder, and possibly dialogue about among yourselves. 

• 1. Our candidate for Antichrist probably suggests more about us (our fears, jealousies, and biases) than about him/her.
• 2. There will continue to be interesting and/or evil people who approximate some of Antichrist’s characteristics before the real one is revealed.
• 3. It is highly unlikely that the Master of Deception (Satan) would make it obvious enough for us to figure out.

Yet, knowing human nature, we will go on guessing.

Jesus told a story, or parable, in Matthew 25 that illustrates what His Second Coming will be like. One of His main points was that there comes a time when it’s too late to prepare; too late to get ready.

Matthew 25:10 “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.”

The door was shut. Can you appreciate the finality in those words? There comes a time when it is too late to find eternal life. Some people have trouble believing that a gracious God would make deadlines, but Jesus talked repeatedly of them. The Lord talked repeatedly of the unbridgeable chasm between heaven and hell. The finality of it all is awesome!

Doesn’t life itself testify to the fact of deadlines? Husbands or wives can betray their marriage commitment and perhaps be forgiven by their spouse. But if that husband or wife repeatedly breaches trust, there will come a time when it’s too late to repair. It’s too late to reclaim it. It is gone!

Or picture a parent and child. The parent says, “One day when my business responsibilities lighten-up, I’m really going to spend some quality time with my kid. One of these days we’ll go hunting, fishing, camping, hiking, etc. Just let me get the business on a little better footing.” But there comes a time when it’s too late; when that child has structured his world not to include a meaningful relationship with the parent. And often the parent can’t go back then and build it.

Life witnesses to the fact that there are deadlines. Jesus taught that today is always the proper time to claim the gift of eternal life. God respects our right to say no to His offer of eternal life. He also respects our right to say, “Not yet.” But beware. One can wait until it’s too late.

A couple weeks ago I made the statement, “If your eschatological view causes you to check out on life, it’s the wrong view!” I stand by that statement. If there is one thing I want to convey through our study of eschatology, it is that any proper understanding of end-times should lead us to more responsible living; not less.

Many years ago the North Eastern states experienced a dramatic blackout at midday. For some reason it became dark at noon. Chickens went to roost, cows headed for the barn, people began to light lamps. The legislature in Connecticut was in session and everybody thought it was the end of the world. It was dark at noon! One legislator stood and moved that they adjourn so that they could go home and prepare to meet God. Another legislator stood and said, “Men, it either is or it is not the Day of Judgment. If it is not, there is no reason for adjournment. If it is, I choose to be found doing my duty.”

The Lord may come back very soon or He may not. Regardless, we should not go out and sit on a hillside and eat birdseed and watch for His coming. He doesn’t tell us to get panicky and wear big signs that say, “The end is near.” He just says, “Keep doing what you ought to be doing, but do it more intensely.”  Think clearly.  Love deeply.  Serve with your whole heart.  One day you will hear Him say, “Well done.”