The New Bereans

But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you . . . for I have no man like minded, who will naturally care for your state. For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ’s.  ₁

But when he (Jesus) saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. ₂

Truly those who want to care for the sheep purely out of compassion, without self interest are quite rare.  For most of my walk I have struggled with this very issue, having a motive to do God’s work partially to gain approval from others.  It is totally biblical to do things for God to be seen by him, and be rewarded by him for it i.e. the Sermon on the Mount; but the exact same verses condemn doing the same things to be seen by men.  On the face of it, the situation can seem hopeless, is it possible to purify our motives?  We find that “The heart [is] deceitful above all [things], and desperately wicked: who can know it?” ₃ Is there someone, or something else that can purify our hearts?

Proverbs tells us the refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the LORD tests the hearts. ₄ In the same way that gold and silver are purified, our hearts can be purified, but instead of being melted in a hot furnace or crucible, they are refined by God himself.  He does the work of purifying.  How does he do it?  The answer is found in scripture once again.  You have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, [being] much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ. ₅ The scripture declares that God refines and purifies us through trials.

God often gives young believers a vision for serving God, before they have the character necessary to do it faithfully; then God begins leading them through trials and testing so that the dross of self interest is gradually removed, our hearts begin to resemble his, and we begin to find ourselves motivated by compassion rather than ego.

1. Philippians 2:19-21

2. Matthew 9:36

3. Jeremiah 17:9

4. Proverbs 17:3

5. I Peter 1:6-7

“In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him.  Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you which is your glory. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named.  That he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in you hearts by faith; that ye being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.  Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that worketh in us.  Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus through out all ages, world without end.  Amen.”

-Ephesians 3:12-21

Having been given unrestricted access to the throne-room of God, through the confidence of faith in Christ, Paul prays a prayer that proves he is being conformed to the mind of Christ.  This is not a Diet Prayer, nor is it Christianity light.  This prayer is thick with the sentiment of the Apostles greatest understanding, thicker than the thumb of Rehoboam’s wrath, and higher in spiritual stature than the cedars of Lebanon.   Paul’s prayer transcends pathetic human felt need.  His prayer is a rock to climb on, a runway to land on, a sail with which to catch all the wind of the Pacific.

Tapping into the greatest wealth of resources known to man (i.e. the glory of God) Paul does not pray for the healing of physical maladies in the church, he does even pray that the church at Ephesus would experience great growth, and flourishing discipleship, neither does Paul pray that the Temple of Diana would fall over, or that the body in Ephesus would receive enough financial backing for their next big ministry idea.

No, that would all be too carnal, too earthy, to much out on the limb so to speak, and not enough down in the nutrients of the earth.  I think Paul prayed for the greatest possible thing he could.  He prays for the roots of the tree, to be first nourished with an understanding of love.  This was an understanding to be comprehended.  We must think about, and attempt by the Spirit of His might, to get it.

God I pray you would make us, your current living pilgrims, root-fertilizer’s in prayer.  It does me little good to pray for others that fruit would burst forth from trees that could not support your bounty.  Lord grant us, I beg, deep strong gnarly roots flourishing in the soil of your love, that a mighty tree would burst forth, salient to the principalities, spreading leaf and limb as broad, deep, and tall as the understanding you grant us.  May these branches be filled with all thy fullness in order to display your capacity for your glory.  May this be the affect upon all the saints today.

Aiden W. T.

My heart a grove of trees so tall
So tightly packed in concentric rings
I long them felled each one and all
Fly thine axe with silver wings
Pine of pride, Ponderosa of pity
Pity me O’ Pity me…
Sawtooth Oak your acorns spread
A canopy of earthbound salient dread
Agile and quick thou art when I
Forget His axe and plead thee die…

The handle hewn from Cross-Tree heart
Hard as ages and agile in hands
Whom never time touched yet I pierced through
You have an axe whilst I held a hammer
Hew them down I plead thee my banner

Fell them, fell them, into the ponds
Of water released after piercing thee in thy bonds
Trunks and branches so knotty and old
Gnarled and twisted, linked and enthroned
Elbows embraced in moss bearded bone

The hatchet head sharpened from words in thy book
Hardened and smelted thy shape it took
Fashioned through love and weighted with grace
Bound to the haft with Yahweh’s embrace
The hand which wrote on Bab-el’s walls
Mightier than the mightiest kings halls
Grip thine handle with all thy strength
I invite the accelerating arc of thy sovereign arms length

Hew them down, Hew them down
Till miasmic leaves blanket this earthen floor
From which I shall behold thy cities pearly doors…

This forest O Father is kindling to thee
Scattered among the dirt and the scree
Fallen like lost sons of ancient Anak
Through whom ran Caleb and Joshua’s attack
They seemed so mighty and loomed so strong
But thou makest giants lie where they belong

By thy redemptive grace I now implore
With head rested on Beth-El’s rocky pillow core
All around fallen timber this timber is yours
Thy path now lies straight through what once was detour
The corner stone upon thee now, I rest my head and look ‘round
Pillars erect thee upon this foundation (was once a seed from humble a nation.)

Build me with thy house of promise
Work and fashion for good I plead
Though doubt looms after the fashion of Thomas
Knit together I will be, fashioned for loves urgent need.
Now part of a tabernacle so large,
A Jerusalem of stone thy own reward.
This wooden heart thou regenerate,
As the Fathers required wrath,
Upon Salem’s hills, the Son did abate!

-Jeremiah Dusenberry

“Why do you seek the living among the dead?  Luke 24:5

Looking over much of what we label Christianity.  I see multitudes of walking dead.  An army like the one spoken of in Ezekiel, which was built of bones covered in sinew but utterly destitute of life.  Long ago Jesus told the Pharisees “You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me“1. And many are erring in the same ways today.  Going to Bible studies yet lacking any real relationship with Christ.  In our preaching the fire and the passion are gone; in our congregations purity is the exception and rarely the rule.

Don’t get me wrong there are scattered saints and, passionate preachers throughout the land; but when you look at your average person identifying themselves as Christians, you rarely see anyone resembling an early church believer; and when you listen to your average Pastor, you often find someone sounding a lot more like Dr. Phil than John the Baptist.

Where is the fire?  Where is the purity? Where are the transformed lives? We have substituted entertaining for exposition, comedy for conviction, and principle for pragmatism.  We have built the church we desired, and we have the church we deserve.

What is the answer?  Repent!  Turn from your wicked ways.  Stop supporting pastors who make you fell comfortable living in sin.  Read your Bible, burn “The Prayer of Jabez,” and “The Shack,”.  Stop drinking from the fountains of Babylon, drink your tears instead.  Let the words of the Lord spoken through the prophet Joel be our guide. . . “Return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; “and rend your hearts and not your garments.” Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.” Joel 2:13

“if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. II Chronicles 7:14

1. John 5:39 NKJV

“Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.  Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are children of Abraham.”

-Galatians 3:6-7

Who was the hero of Abrahams terrifying sacrifice?  Was it willing Isaac?  So supple, so submissive to his Father’s purpose?  He so willingly ascended that mountain of fire and death.  Each step was one closer towards his inevitable doom.  The heart of this young man must have been sublimely terrorized, yet his heart failed him not.  The trust Isaac had in his father is absolutely irreconcilable to my fallen mind.  I am therefore tempted to tip my hat to Isaac, and proclaim him to be the hero.

I would be doing Father Abraham a very serious injustice were I to exclude his side of the account.  How is it possible that God could work so much through a man that he would be willing to plunge a dagger into the heart of his laughter?  Isaac was that life, that joy, the bright beginning to his every morning.  He had been the cheer of promise whence comfort nursed his heart upon every setting of the sun! What color is the blood of laughter?  What would be the scent and fragrance of its burning upon Gods required altar?   This is resolve, this is tenacity…I can imagine the sweat of purpose and effort dripped from the tip of the blade as it hung precariously over the heart of his joy.  This sweat must not be perceived to be induced by fear, but rather the sweat of effort.  The fragrance of which must have been tinged with trust.

With blade raised, ancient muscles were taught, burning and flexing with the fire of submission.  This old mans eyes focused intensely upon the destination of his resolve.  No mechanical device of death would have sufficed.  Visceral contact with the subject of promise was essential.  The hand that was to deal laughter’s death blow, was required to feel the blade extract the life from his most cherished hope.  The heroism, the passion, the zealous affection, the power of this moment in history is only rivaled by what this story was intended to foreshadow.

This same faith whence Abraham was declared righteous dwells in us if we are in Christ.  How is that working itself out?  The fact of this whole matter is…God was the hero because He led these men to this point.  Are we trusting Him to perform His radical authorship in our lives?  Or are we so self absorbed that we just don’t care?

We endorse this message with all of our hearts.  All true Bereans should.  For within this message is the heart of Christ.  And the heart of Christ is trampled under the foot of men when his heart-rending sacrifice is turned into debauchery.  Knowing the grace of God, I pray His people would repent and He would forgive us, I pray that God raises a generation of young men and women who are willing to contend for the faith, rather than rolling over and letting this misrepresentation continue.  Please consider the heart of what Pastor John Piper is saying here.   With a sword in one hand, and a trowel in the other, Pastor John defends the faith and builds upon Paul’s foundation well.   My prayer is that this will inspire and bless you at the same time.  Praise God for the people who put this video together.

“For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, (debauchery) and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

-Jude 1:4

And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. Matthew 24:12

“She needs to die.”  With a slack jaw I sat in stunned silence unable to fathom what I was hearing.  I work in a nursing home and our staff had just learned how a patient was, once again, in critical condition and had been hospitalized.  As a patient in our nursing home for years, she had spent the time bedridden and needing dialysis twice a week.  She enjoyed her routine however, talking to the staff and regularly watching the Beverly Hillbillies.  “She has no quality of life,” my co-worker continued, “She needs to die!” I then retorted, “No she enjoys her routine, drinking her cranberry juice, and…”  “No,” she interrupted, “She has no quality of life and she needs to die!”

I know on a theological level how wicked and lost our world is, but hearing a statement like this is deeply unsettling.  To say someone who enjoys their life, and has learned contentment in the midst of seemingly unbearable circumstances, is somehow unfit to live, truly appalls me.  Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!1 This is what the Prophet Isaiah speaks to his own wicked generation.  To say we know who should live, and who should die is essentially to say, “I am wiser than God, “I could do better than that fool in the sky!”  Jesus declared, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts…“2  We have rejected God, and rejected His law,  every man doing what is right in his own eyes, is the inevitable outcome of this and it is a bleak picture indeed.  Although I dislike rampant speculation and careless proof-texting about the Last Days, seeing the increasingly evil hearts of my fellow man, gives me hope that the Lords return will be soon.

1. Isaiah 5:20

2. Mark 7:21-22

Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered; Hebrews 5:8

Even for Christ, suffering was necessary to learn obedience.  He was obviously not disobedient, so there must be something more to learning obedience, than merely correction of rebellion.  How do we learn obedience?  We are told Jesus learned by suffering.  In my limited experience this learning is a process always stressful, and often painful.  I am reminded of the gold furniture in the tabernacle, the gold for the lamp-stand had to be beaten into shape, the olive oil that fueled it had to be beaten, and even the cherubs atop the Ark of the Covenant were made of beaten gold.  The gold was not to be cast; it had to be beaten into the right shape.  Why?  God was clearly illustrating that breaking down and reshaping raw materials, into objects fit for use in the worship of God, is a long and difficult process.

As Christians we are predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ. ₁ The word conform is summorphos in the Greek, it speaks of changing the shape or form of the object until it is the same shape as the model.  The Greek word for image is eikōn, of the 23 times it is used in the Bible, it usually describes a three-dimensional image.  It is used to describe relief of Caesar on a denarius.  In this example of the coin, a piece of metal was conformed to the desired image by taking a die, which is a big heavy piece of hard metal with the reverse image of the coin on the bottom.  The die is then placed over a little round piece of soft metal, and then struck with a heavy hammer this would violently force the metal up into the image void; the image on the coin would then be conformed to the image on the die.

I believe this is why we are told not to despise the chastening of the Lord₂ because, Afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.₃ Suffering, chastening, discipline, prepares us for use by God.  We often view discipline wrongly, assuming it is always punitive.  But the Bible clearly states that the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.₄ We are of no use to God when we are full of ourselves, reeking with pride and ego.  Once we have been conformed to his image, we are able to let God use us without getting in the way or contaminating his message.

1. Romans 8:29

2. Hebrews 12:5

3. Hebrews 12:11

4. Hebrews 12:6

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.

-Psalm 90:12

Psalm ninety is likely to bring out the dispensationalist in most of us, and how can it not with statements like, “For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told…”₁ This psalm is arguably unique in that it was written by Moses.  It asks open ended questions like, “Who knows the power of thine anger?”  Moses states in verse ten “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”  The first eleven verses are somewhat gritty to the grace-oriented mind.  Yet without them, the conclusion of the Psalm makes no sense.

In learning to number our days, we must first be told our years, as Moses does.  For emphasis on establishing a need for numbered days he articulates the importance of the meaning of life, contingent upon the wrathful aspect of Gods divine nature. Arthur W. Pink in his book on the Attributes of God says, “It is sad indeed that many professing Christians who appear to regard the wrath of God as something for which they need to make an apology, or who at least wish there were no such thing.”  (Page 82)  We cannot disconnect this important concept of numbering our days from a healthy fear of God, a fear for which I am learning more and more to embrace.   Without a firm solid understanding of the wrath of God, there can be no thorough understanding of His grace.

Chuck Missler made a comment on this concept of numbering days, which compelled me to write out an excel spreadsheet to help me in a very practical way.  I am thirty-one years of age so these numbers apply to me were I to live to the age Moses describes, eighty.  I have 2,557 weekends left.  I have 5,114 days on weekends left.  If I live for God three days out of each week I have 7,670 days left.  If I serve Him four out of seven days each week I have 10,227 days left.  If I serve Him every day during the work-week only I have 12,784 days remaining.  If I dedicate myself to the penultimate and give every day of my remainder to this God I serve I have 17,897 days remaining.  Now in your mind place a dollar sign in front of each of those numbers and think about how quickly you could spend that money if someone just gave it to you contingent upon you spending it all.

“Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men: but we are made manifest unto God; and I trust also are made manifest in your consciences.”₂ The wrath of God was something that motivated Paul heavily in his evangelism.  May a combination of knowing His wrath and a numbering of our days persuade us to evaluate our lives this day.   Just remember, Gods attributes are not bound by dispensations, he is the same yesterday today and forever…wait I think that was a biblical statement!

We need to simply recognize the brevity of life.  We get only one shot.  We are only one bullet leaving the chamber of the womb.  Our vector is unrelentingly directed toward death.  A healthy recognition of this fact may help us consider how then we ought to live.

1. Psalm 90:11

2. II Corinthians 5:11

Days Well Numbered

The above link is the Excel Spreadsheet I used to calculate the remainder of my days.  To use just input your age into the appropriate cell and you will quickly learn how much time you have left to serve the Lord.