Accepting Our Times

“And seekest thou great things for thyself? seek [them] not: for, behold, I will bring evil upon all flesh, saith the LORD: but thy life will I give unto thee for a prey in all places whither thou goest.” (Jer 45:5 AV)

These words are spoken to Jeremiah’s secretary, Baruch.  Baruch was tasked with writing down the words of Jeremiah and publishing them to the leadership of a failing nation.  Jeremiah was a celebrity, so to speak.  He lived in the favor of a few kings.  He was also treated well by the Babylonians.  Jeremiah was the premiere prophet at the time of Judah’s fall.  He was the go-to man for the word of God.  As such, it might have been expected that some perks would trickle down to the scribe who served him.  Or, at the very least, some of life’s necessities.  The ‘great things’ Baruch sought would be normal things to us.  The ‘great things’ are not luxuries or things of social status.  All Baruch wanted was a home and a life of relative stability.  These are not necessarily wrong things to desire.  We should all work to that end.  However, in the case of Baruch, Babylon was coming, and when they came, everything would be burned to the ground.  The people of Judah and Jerusalem would only possess the body in which they inhabited.  Baruch was promised more than most would receive.  When the enemy comes, most will lose everything, including their lives.  At the very least, Baruch would be spared a horrible death.  He was not covetous.  Baruch did not desire what others had because he was envious.  He simply didn’t comprehend the full implications of his times.  It wasn’t that God would deny Baruch the necessities of life while others prospered.  No.  All would suffer.

There is a great societal change occurring.  One that our current generation is unaware and one that my generation is having a very difficult time adjusting to.  I have a good friend who worked for the railroad for decades.  He retired a while back and is living off Social Security and a very good pension.  My father retired from a global company many years back.  He received a severance package and partial retirement.  I had a brother who served in law enforcement and was looking to retire on a full pension in middle age and start a carpentry business afterward.  Still another friend of mine is drawing several pensions from global companies he worked for as well as a military retirement and healthcare.  This has all changed.  There used to be a day when companies vied for your labor by offering benefits packages that one could plan on for their old age.  You would learn a trade or go to college and remain with the same one to three employers for your entire working age.  Stability in old age was a given.  Not anymore.  We can argue about why this changed and who is to blame, but that is not the point.  The point is that times change.  They always will.  Before our modern age of medicine, it was far more common to pass away in one’s working years than to retire and live several decades afterward.  Times change.  Expectations must, too.

Serving the LORD in full-time Christian service means that more than likely, full retirement is not possible.  Most preachers have to work well beyond their years of effectiveness.  Most step away from important responsibilities and take on positions of support.  But to walk away from earning a living wage is simply not in the cards.  Most of us pastor small churches that cannot supply any kind of retirement planning.  Some serve in churches that cannot provide basic healthcare.  We could lament what we don’t have.  We could desire what is not possible.  Or, we could be grateful that God uses us for His glory.  We could stop and understand that what was the norm in days gone by is not the norm today.  We can admit that our best-laid plans may not come to pass because there is no way to predict the times in which we find ourselves.  Eternity will even the scales.  What we do have in this world, which we will never have in eternity is opportunity.  Last week, we had a soul saved!  Glory!  As long as we have breath in our lungs, we have opportunity.  Baruch would scribe the largest (per word) book of the Bible.  Baruch would see miracles provided from himself and his boss.  They would never starve.  They may not have had a permanent address, but they always had food on the table and a roof over their heads.

No Need To Fear Sin

“Wherefore should I fear in the days of evil, [when] the iniquity of my heels shall compass me about?” (Ps 49:5 AV)

This may seem like an odd question.  But I understand exactly what David is asking.  Of course, the saint and sinner alike should fear our Creator when sin is our desire.  David is not professing boldness in the day of sin to continue therein.  Absence of fear while in the act of sin is not his pursuit.  Rather, those who hate sin and wage a never-ending battle against it understand exactly what David is saying.  Those who hate sin understand the captivating force that it can be.  Sin is enslaving.  Sin is a pit from which it is impossible to escape.  It is a monster residing just outside our hearts that we cannot tame.  The power of sin becomes more frightening than the consequences from it.  So, David asks a question to put into perspective the power of sin compared to the power of God.  There is no sin from which our God cannot deliver.  Period.  We are not hopeless.  We are not helpless.  Our God can and will deliver!  This is David’s point.

Last night I had a dream.  A rather vivid one.  I walked into what I thought was an elevator, and the elevator was below my feet.  It was quickly descending, and I was falling after it.  I had the thought to stretch out my body to slow my descent. (Hey, it’s a dream.  Don’t judge!)  I slowed myself enough to grab a ledge and pull myself into a room.  There were a few people in that room, so I yelled for them to help me.  They pulled me into a room only to discover it was a zero-gravity room.  The more the dream progressed, the more I was pulled into circumstances which I could not control.  The odd thing about the dream was I never panicked.  There was no fear.  It was an experience where one circumstance was replaced by another impossible situation.  But there was always a way out.  I could do very little to actuate my deliverance.  The only thing I could do was to react with that which was provided me.  There was no terror.  There was no anxiety.  It surprised me how logical I was and how calm my demeanor.  It was a situation that was completely out of my control, yet all things were in control.

That is how we need to see sin.  Every night I go to bed begging the LORD to deliver me from sin.  That is my number one wish!  I want to be rid of the old man once and for all.  I want to be free from temptation.  God will provide a way.  We simply have to look for it.  Sin is a horrible enemy.  Far worse than the devil himself.  More damage to mankind has been done because we ate the forbidden fruit than could have ever been done by Satan and his demons.  Sin should be feared.  But it should not be feared to the degree that our joy is gone and our fortitude to fight it is absent.  David was asking a great question.  In that question, he was also making a statement.  We can hate sin.  We can fear sin.  We can wish for the day that sin no longer has any presence in our existence.  Our hope is not in our ability to resist.  Our hope is in the God who desires to deliver us from it more than we want to be delivered!

The Best is Where God Is

“Saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war, nor hear the sound of the trumpet, nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell:” (Jer 42:14 AV)

Jeremiah is warning the remnant of Judah to remain in the land and submit to Babylon.  Their inclination was to flee to Egypt with the false belief that they would be better off there.  Note that which Judah sought.  They looked for the absence of war.  They looked for food enough to eat.  They looked for a stable life.  All of which they would have had if they stayed in Palestine.  Staying put was a better bet.  They would have been under the rule of a pagan kingdom.  But at least the threat of war would be over.  They would have enjoyed the protection of Babylon from that day until the Medes and Persians assumed control.  The temple was destroyed, yet Babylon left priests in the land to teach the people the ways of the LORD.  In other words, their liberty may have been constrained, but there was no reason to fear what had just transpired.  As long as they submitted to Babylon and paid their taxes to the crown, life could go on.  By fleeing to Egypt, they would repeat the circumstances they had just suffered.  Egypt was still free.  Egypt would become a prize for a hungry Babylon.  That which Judah sought to escape would follow them there.  It is interesting what people will do to have the perfect life only to bring with them that which they are trying to flee.

If learned over the years that life is full of trouble as the sparks fly upward.  There is no escape from life.  Life will happen.  There is no perfect ministry where all the problems go away.  There is trouble and challenges no matter what path is chosen.  It is like trying to find the path of least resistance when exiting the deep woods.  We seek the game trails that show us the easiest way to get from one point to the next.  We follow those game trails and take the ones that are heading in the direction of our exit.  What we don’t know are the hazards that lie ahead.  Wildlife will act one way while mankind may think there is a better way.  There are no paved roads in the middle of a forest.  There is no lime service in the middle of a desert.  There is a best way out.  That way will still have challenges to overcome.  There are fallen trees, poison ivy, and a creek or river to cross.  There are mountains to climb and rockslides that need avoiding.  The general way out is the safest.  But it is not easy.  I watch a Youtube channel called Modern Mountain Man.  He is an Alaskan Big Game guide from Wisconsin.  They cover some very rough terrain.  One particular adventure found them on the side of a mountain covered in shale.  It was a project getting out of there with their trophy on their backs.  To double back was out of the question.  Their plane was on its way.  The mountain of shale had to be navigated.  It wasn’t easy.  But it was necessary.

The world wants us to think that life can be relatively easy.  The world wants us to chase a dream that doesn’t exist.  They sell many products or opportunities to make life ‘perfect’.  But it isn’t.  It never will be.  To compromise the things of God for the sake of an empty promise is not wise.  That which we fear the most will still come upon us.  Judah fled to Egypt thinking they would escape the sword.  All they did was to show the enemy the best way to bring the very sword which they feared.  Trusting God in our circumstances is always better than to seek an escape that will never come to pass.  Judah learned the hard way that life stinks.  Judah learned the hard way that God’s way, although not always easy, is still the best.  Life with God has its ups and downs.  Life without God will still have them, but they we be far worse.  It would have been better for Judah to trust the LORD than to seek their own escape.

Imperfect People and Perfect Friendship

“So Zedekiah the king sware secretly unto Jeremiah, saying, [As] the LORD liveth, that made us this soul, I will not put thee to death, neither will I give thee into the hand of these men that seek thy life.” (Jer 38:16 AV)

Note the plural ‘us’ and the singular ‘soul’.  No doubt my writing assistant will have a field day trying to understand that grammar.  Zedekiah was a king appointed by Nebuchadnezzar.  His authority to act was limited.  Jeremiah was thrust into three different prisons.  There was nothing the king could do about that.  It seemed there were other princes who had more authority than he did.  But one thing he could do and that was to protect the life of the prophet.  Zedekiah may not have been the perfect friend, but he was an adequate one.  Being grateful for friends is important.  Regardless of their flaws, they have the means to be a blessing.  I am sure Jeremiah did not lament the fact that Zedekiah failed to act courageously and simply lose Jeremiah completely.  No, I am sure he was grateful that Zedekiah took Jeremiah from the pit of mire and set him in the court of the prison.  It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was what Zedekiah could do.

Close friendships look beyond flaws.  After all, we all have them.  It is not that we ignore the flaws.  Rather, we value friendship far more than we resent flaws.  Zedekiah had his issues.  He ignored the advice of his friend Jeremiah and fled from Nebuchadnezzar.  As a result, he went into Babylon with his eyes put out.  Having seen his children murdered, it would be the last thing he saw.  The city was burned to the ground.  If he would have listened to his friend, he would have been treated with honor and the city would still stand.  In spite of all this, Jeremiah and Zedekiah were still one soul.  They had enough in common to warrant a close relationship.

There is something that also struck me as worthy of more consideration.  The one with the flaws saw the stronger as a closely knit soul.  Yet Jeremiah never disputed his characterization.  The stronger accepted the characterization as genuine.  The man of God did not roll his eyes at the emotional bond which Zedekiah described.  He accepted it as the real deal.  We may be the stronger of the two.  Accepting close relationships may not be as beneficial to us as it is the weaker.  As Paul so eloquently described such a situation in Romans 14, there is a mandate to love the brethren no matter what we may think of ourselves of the benefit we may or may not receive from such a relationship.  Jeremiah and Zedekiah were knit together as one soul because of their separated relationship with God and their love for Israel.  Each had their own set of baggage they brought to the relationship.  That didn’t stop them from being knit as one.  I think the reality of close relationships is fleeting.  The more private we become, the more comfortable we are in our aloneness.  Our standards are too high.  We have all we need in the privacy of our own minds.  That really is too bad.  Somewhere out there are people who need you, and we need them.  We just have to learn to accept their imperfections as they accept ours.

The Reality of an Unseen Battle

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high [places].” (Eph 6:11-12 AV)

We forget that our warfare is real and often unseen.  The things that are seen tend to get far more attention.  The spiritual realm around us is often ignored.  When someone makes it a major concern, we tend to think it an exaggeration.  But the spiritual warfare around us is far more real than we realize.  Paul suggests that if we do not acknowledge this war nor defend against it, this war will have the better of us.  A study on the armor of God is warranted.  But unless the warfare on that which is not seen is ignored, the armor of God is meaningless.  Life gets so busy that we forget there are demons and devils that wish to do the child of God harm.  We cannot see them.  So, we think they are less than real.  But they are not.  They are no less real than the air we breathe.

There is a saying that describes an early warning against something deadly.  It is called a canary in the coal mine.  In other words, if there is a sound coming from the engine of your car but no lights are warning of pending faults, the sound would be a canary in the coal mine.  Or, perhaps a scan shows a small spot, but all the blood work and other labs show no problem.  That spot might be a canary in the coal mine.  If prices continue to climb and our wages stay the same, the rising grocery bill is a canary in the coal mine.  The phrase comes from the practice of using caged canaries in coal mines to warn of dangerous levels of gases rising before it affected the miners.  “Proposed by John Scott Haldane in 1895, canaries were used because their rapid breathing rate and small size made them more sensitive to carbon monoxide and methane than humans…Miners carried the birds into shafts; if the canary became distressed or died, it signaled the presence of invisible, odorless toxins, giving workers time to evacuate…The practice began in the early 1900s and continued until 1996 in Britain, when electronic sensors officially replaced the birds.” (AI generated information) The point is, there are hazards all around us of which we are unaware until it is too late.

This doesn’t mean we are without indicators.  A sour disposition.  A hopeless mind.  A relentless struggle with persistent sin.  A heart of frightful doubt that debilitates and paralyzes.  These could all be indicators of a spiritual war.  The indicators are subtle at first.  Gone unchecked, they can become spiritually disastrous.  Spiritual warfare should never be taken lightly.  That is why the beloved Apostle gave us the means to overcome.  The armor of God is our defense.  It begins with a relentless commitment to the word of God and prayer.  It all starts there.  Although our entry today is not the cure, but rather, being made aware that the battle exists in the first place.  The canaries nor the miners could see the methane or carbon dioxide.  They could not smell them.  To light a match would explode the mine.  Working with flames for light, this was important.  The canary was a life-or-death tool.  But there would be no canary unless the mining company acknowledged the existence of deadly gas.  It started with admitting that a potential danger existed.  That is where we are today.  We have to admit there is a battle that rages all around us, and we are the chattel.  We are the object of this battle.  As the forces of evil and righteousness battle it out for our souls, we are in the middle.  We have to open our eyes to the reality of that which we cannot see so that it cannot end in disaster.

Joy From Our Words

“A man hath joy by the answer of his mouth: and a word [spoken] in due season, how good [is it]!” (Pr 15:23 AV)

One has to wonder how much misery we live in because we do not know how to tame the tongue.  There are two ideas here.  Solomon, the wise king, shares that joy comes through our verbal responses and the quality of our response is measured by appropriate timing.  It is that first idea upon which I need to ruminate.  If there is joy lacking in my life, it could be a lack of verbal skills that is the cause.  If joy does not rule my life, maybe it is time to look at how I verbalize my thoughts.  Or better yet, if I should verbalize them at all.  The issue we have as preachers is that we muse more than most.  This is how we learn.  We ruminate over our observations.  We meditate upon the word of God.  We watch, we learn, we investigate, and we conclude.  Wisdom comes in knowing what to say, when to say it, or if it needs to be said at all.  Humility is needed to understand that we may not be right.  Even though we have turned it over again and again, it might be that we will never have all the information needed, nor does it mean that even if we did, we simply do not have it right.  There might be more than one possibility.  Joy is the result of a wise tongue.  At least in the example above.

There are a lot of life changes that occur as one ages.  They happen faster than at any other time of life.  Learning and adjusting is difficult at best.  Given the time constraints, it is almost impossible.  The marriage relationship changes.  Parents age and pass away.  Children grow up, get married, have children, and move away.  Health issues arise that will never be completely resolved.  Financial pressures, retirement (if possible) looms, and a sense of purposelessness sets in.  Survival is about the only thing that motivates the aging adult.  Along life’s path, I have met two types of aging people.  There are those who can find joy no matter their circumstances, and there are those who are constantly complaining and can never have a happy day.  It is the rare person who can find the balance between the two.  One wonders why that is.

Perhaps it lies in how we choose to respond.  Solomon says that joy is a result of a wise tongue.  An answer is nothing more than a verbal response to a question or situation.  Solomon is not suggesting that reality cannot play a part.  We have hard days.  No one is suggesting that in the battle of your mind you have to be naïve toward the unfortunate.  No one is saying that if the sky falls, you have to hold your arms out and wish for it to crush you.  There needs to be some thought.  There needs to be some consideration.  One has to understand his or her circumstances to the best of one’s ability.  We need to know the choices that we face.  We need to know what might be or what might not be.  We cannot go through life with blinders on just because we want to be happy.  That is not what Solomon is suggesting.  Rather, our response to all that we see or know is the source of our joy.  We can either verbalize the obvious and bring ourselves and others down, or we can know the obvious and choose to react with joy.  In spite of it all, we can respond with a positive outlook because we have heaven as our home and the Father as our unchanging relationship.  We can choose to either become a victim of life or a victor over it.  The choice is ours.  Response is everything.

Soundly Defeating Envy

“A sound heart [is] the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.” (Pr 14:30 AV)

Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines envy as, “To feel uneasiness, mortification or discontent, at the sight of superior excellence, reputation or happiness enjoyed by another; to repine at another's prosperity; to fret or grieve one's self at the real or supposed superiority of another, and to hate him on that account.”  Envy is the resentment over what others have which is lacking in the life of the envious.  Envy does not stop at lust.  Envy goes further.  Envy becomes personal.  Envy strikes at the blessed because the envious deem it unfair, unjust, or simply bad luck that the blessed prosper.  Envy is also delusional.  All it can see is the surface.  It cannot see what is beneath it.  What seems like a blessing may not be as it seems.  Envy is also distorted.  It cannot see what one has.  Only what one does not have.  The cure is a soundness of heart.  The definition of ‘sound’ here means healthy.  A healthy heart is the joy of the flesh and not attaining what the envious desires.  The problem with envy is that it is never satisfied.  Even if it attains what another has, the eyes shift onto something else.  The cure for envy is faith and contentment.  Believing God has granted the best for the soul and being content regardless of what others have is the life of the flesh.

Have you ever seen two toddlers play with the same set of toys?  Eventually, one wants what the other has.  What is fascinating is when one rejects a toy because they are bored and then sees the other gleefully playing with it, he wants it back.  What he cannot see is the attitude toward the toy and not the toy itself.  He cannot see that his rival is content with it.  It wouldn’t matter what toy the second had.  He would be content with it.  This doesn’t compute with the envious toddler.  I was sitting with my grandchildren as they were playing with various sets of toys.  One set was a foodservice set.  It had many plastic, toy restaurant-themed objects.  The first child had moved on to something else.  After about fifteen minutes another child was using one of those foodservice toys completely differently.  The first child would have none of that.  It didn’t matter that she was done playing with it.  Rather, she was more concerned that her sibling found a unique way in which to apply that toy, and she was not happy.

Envy is not a comfortable state of mind.  Envy is not peaceful.  Envy will tear a soul to pieces.  It often ends in choices of self-destruction.  Envy strives to attain what it should not have.  It doesn’t matter if damage ensues along the way.  What the envious wants, it has to have.  An over-charged bank account.  Misplaced priorities resulting in a broken home.  A sour disposition in life that eats away at the soul.  They are all a result of unconfessed envy.  The saint needs to be on guard for this.  He or she needs to realize that God loves them and knows what is best for them.  It doesn’t matter what others have.  It doesn’t matter that we think we lack.  The truth is that we have exactly what God knows is best for us.  Nothing less.  Nothing more.  Believing and trusting are the answer.