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!
“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
“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.”
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.
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 todespise 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.
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.
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.
Brad’s physical disability had typically kept him from attending church. Born with Spina Bifida, his paralyzed legs had kept him wheelchair bound and made him a routinely solitary individual. Until one day he noticed a church which was quite different; its beautiful entrance had no stairs; just one big, beautiful, non skid, granite ramp. He was further intrigued when he noticed that every parking space had a handicapped sign. After weeks of internal debate he decided to attend one Sunday.
Nothing could have prepared him for what he experienced…when he arrived he found that everyone there was in a wheelchair. He fit right in! The pastor, the choir, everyone was disabled! After attending for a few months he felt he was ready to commit to this; so he wheeled down the aisle, made a profession of faith, and was welcomed as a convert. For years he attended and enjoyed himself, and became very involved with the meals on wheels ministry. But reading his bible one day, he began noticing verses that troubled him. He scheduled an appointment with the pastor right away. Four o’clock Friday afternoon. He was there at three-forty-five.
Entering Pastor Steve’s office he was reassured, spiritual sounding books lined the mahogany shelves, spiritual artwork graced the walls, the decorum somehow even made the houseplants look spiritual. Steve would have the answers that would be able to set him strait.
“Pastor Steve,” Brad began, “I’ve been reading in my bible and found some things that are troubling me deeply.”
After a long pause, “Go on.” He replied.
“Well the bible talks about Jesus healing people, crippled people, so that they could walk . . . but none of us are walking…is there something wrong with that? Steve smiled, a reassuringly father-like smile, then softly chuckled, “I remember when I was your age, asking my pastor this same question. But you need to understand we are healed, we are walking.”
“What do you mean?” Brad wondered.
The Pastor continued, “We are healed positionally, we are walking positionally.”
“Positionally?”
“Yes positionally son. Take a look at this cookie.” Steve pulled an Oreo out of a bag in the drawer, “What do you see?” Steve asked with a sympathetic glimmer in his eyes.
“An Oreo cookie!” Brad stated the obvious.
Steve shoved the cookie in his mouth and made short work of it. “Now son, where is that cookie? Do you see it?” Steve questioned.
“No it’s in you.”
“Exactly” Steve said with a big grin, “The bible says that if any man be IN Christ he is a new creation, isn’t that right? Well…just like that cookie is in me, we are positioned in Christ, so when he walks, we walk. His health is our health. So don’t worry about trying to walk physically, because you already are walking in Christ.” Steve trailed off.
Rather confused, Brad looked down at his lap and nervously toggled the break on his chair repeatedly. Suddenly Pastor Steve’s iPhone rang, blaring out I can only imagine, “Hang on son, hello…oops I forgot, I’ll be right there!” I gotta run, I was supposed to meet someone at Starbucks half an hour ago.” Pastor Steve accompanied Brad to the door, sped through the sanctuary and left Brad brooding in a thick fog.
Positionally healthy? Positionally walking? He was more confused than before, the scriptures ware calling him to walk, while his pastor assured him it was unnecessary. Late that night, sitting in his wheelchair, reading the Bible he read where Peter told the beggar, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” He could not shake the feeling the words were speaking to him; he set the brakes, grabbed the arm rests and began to push himself up, he instantly felt dormant vitality flowing into his legs, and suddenly he was on his feet, his spine had even straitened. Standing for the first time in his life! Hot tears streamed down his face, he stood triumphantly erect! Never would he forget this night! He gingerly took his first steps, walking around the room, then jumping, all this for the first time in his life. Falling to his knees in prayer, he profusely praised God for His mighty grace. He couldn’t wait for Sunday; he would tell everyone it was true, you can walk, not just positionally, not just metaphorically, but really.
Instead of driving his lift van he decided to walk to church. He excitedly pushed his wheelchair to with him (without non-handicapped seating, he had to sit somewhere.) He was completely unprepared for his reception. As he approached the parking lot he noticed no expressions of joy those who saw him walking; some looked confused, others gaped at him with a smoldering anger. Eugene, the head Deacon, hesitantly wheeled up to him…”Hey what’s going on with you?” Eugene asked with an untrusting tone in his voice.
“Jesus healed me last night, I can walk now.” Brad jubilantly exclaimed.
“We’re all positionally healed. Either that or you have been a fraud all along!” Eugene snarled, with a noticeable change in his tone.
“But I really was healed; Jesus is still at work today and…” The old deacon didn’t wait for Brad to finish; he was wheeling toward Pastor Steve’s office as fast as he could, shaking his head and grumbling. Brad was completely blindsided, he had come to share great news but no one wanted to hear it, with butterflies in his stomach and a knot in his throat he had no idea what to do.
He began to feel out of place standing, as hostile eyes watched his every move, he decided not to stumble a weaker brother, and so he slowly, and with great hesitancy, walked in front of his wheelchair and sat down. Then he wheeled himself to his normal spot in the sanctuary. When the time came for Pastor Steve to speak, he seemed stressed, and unusually disorganized; almost as if he had discarded his original sermon, and hastily thrown together a new one. The first words he said were “we believe in grace,” and it went downhill from there. As he spoke he kept talking about walkalism, and divisive people being walkalists. He attempted to build a case that those who try to walk on their own are insulting Christ. After all, “Didn’t He walk well enough?” Pastor Steve kept asking questions like. . . “Do you think you can walk better than Jesus walked? Why would you even want to walk? Most Believers don’t even try to walk and those who do walk only end up falling eventually.”
After the service Brad was too emotional to talk to anyone. As he slowly wheeled out, he noticed his friends and acquaintances muttering “walkalist,” and “once walking always walking” under their breath. After putting a few blocks between him and the church he stopped and began to think. . . “I have two choices, I can walk and be misunderstood, or I can live like a cripple. He sat there for a long time, if he chose to walk there would be no going back. The midday sun was beginning to cross set, and still he had not moved. Then slowly and deliberately, he set the brakes, leaned forward and stood. As it happened he had stopped half a block from a large dumpster. He pushed the chair to the dumpster, carefully folded the chair, opened the dumpster’s lid, threw it in and walked away, never to look back. All the while a verse was echoing in his head, “Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”
Take heed that you do not do your charitable deeds before men, to be seen by them. Otherwise you have no reward from your Father in heaven. Matthew 6:1
There are fundamentally only two types of active Christians; Bible Notchers and Walkers. By “Active Christians” I mean those who do more than just warm pews; those who read the Bible (not Your Best Life Now ), pray, and are involved in some type of ministry.
I’m not entirely sure Bible Notchers is the best term, but for now it will suffice, it is something of an allusion to hunters who put a notch in their belt each time they kill something. I’m talking about someone who does things for God, of which they are quite proud. They will often keep careful track of how long they pray, how many times they’ve read the Bible, how many church services they attend, etc: Then they find subtle ways to let others know what their up to. When they receive the desired applause for their efforts they humbly say, “It’s not me, it’s Jesus”. I have spent the majority of my Christian life in and out of this group.
The group I call “Walkers” are a breed altogether, fewer in number but greater in power. These don’t spend their time boasting, or counting up their good works. Do they do good things? Yes! But their motive for doing them is not to gather attention and praise, their motive is to glorify Christ, and demonstrate their motive through action. Have they stopped counting their good deeds in order to look even more spiritual still? No! They have stopped counting because it does not matter to them. Their relationship to Christ is not one of Boyscout to Troop Leader, doing good deeds in order to receive merit badges: Their relationship to Christ is one of Saved to Savior, they have grasped something of the enormity of his suffering, sacrifice, and death, and this knowledge motivates them to lay down their lives in love. For them taking up the cross and following Christ is not an obligation, it is their greatest pleasure and highest honor. To them the pleasures of this world have become empty and unsatisfying. They do not walk in holiness to avoid punishment, they take pleasure in it. For them counting the number of times they’ve read their Bible is as ridiculous as counting the number of times they’ve kissed their spouse, or taken out the trash. I would never go to a friend and tell them, “Yeah I’m a pretty good husband. I kissed my wife twelve times yesterday, and said I love you fourteen times.” If we don’t boast to others about our marriages this way, why would we tell others about these elements in our walk with God? Maybe it’s because we’re not really doing it for him at all?
Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Galatians 5:16
. . . Who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Romans 9:20
Why does modern man consider himself in a position to judge God? Let me explain what I mean…when I attempt to dialogue with unbelievers, they will often point to something about the Christian Faith, that seems unfair or illogical to them (such as God sending anyone other than Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and George W. Bush to hell) and then they will say something to the effect of . . . Aha! This does not make sense, therefore God doesn’t exist, and you are a fool! They suppose that because something seems unfair or illogical to them, it cannot be true. This is a giant leap indeed, very little in the world is fair, or logical. Some men grow tall, others stay short, is that fair? Some women are born beautiful; others are not, is this fair? Some children in Africa, born to mothers with AIDS become orphans shortly after birth, others are born to rich Americans, and are doted upon and spoiled from birth, is this fair? No! None of these things are fair, but they are all true. Fairness and truth have no necessary relationship. In other words just because it isn’t fair doesn’t mean it isn’t so.
There are many things modern science has no explanation for, last I checked there is still no reasonable explanation for how bumblebees take flight. The wings are too small to create enough thrust to get off the ground, yet it flies nonetheless. In an atom the nucleus is composed of tightly packed positively charged protons squeezed together with some neutrons, while negative electrons spin around it. The electrons are not attracted to the protons, and the protons do not repel each other. Why does the atom appear to violate understood scientific law? Could it be obeying some sort of higher law that we have yet to discover? Science’s lack of explanation for these phenomena does not mean they do not occur, it only means the explanation is beyond us. If we cannot explain these mysteries on earth, how can we presume ourselves qualified to judge God? How can we with finite brains, containing limited knowledge confidently declare God nonexistent, or the Bible untrue?
“Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? -Job 38:4
