Contend

“They that forsake the law praise the wicked: but such as keep the law contend with them.” (Pr 28:4 AV)

To contend does not mean to vehemently oppose.  We do not need to strive in the same manner as the wicked.  We do have to contend.  To contend means to not make it easy.  It means to be in the ring and present an obstacle to victory.  To contend means to meet a force with an unmovable object that the aggressor is not successful, or at least hindered in their objective.  Contending does not require rage, anger, or pride.  To contend requires conviction and character.  The wicked are not our enemies.  They are God’s enemies.  If it were not for the grace of God, we would be right there with them.  And at some point in our lives, we were.  Praise the LORD for someone who contended with me.  If it wasn’t for his contentions, I would never have admitted to myself my condition and need.  It was his contention that turned the tide of being an enemy of God unto being a child of God.  We live in a lost and dying world and they need some contenders of the faith.  We are too busy contending with one another and not the lost.  The lost are in greater need than our erring brother.  Not that we should let errors slide.  But one wonders if we spent half the time we spent correcting a slight misinterpretation on contending with the wicked how different our world would be.

Like most males, I am interested in sports.  I am not obsessive, but I read a headline or two.  I may watch a game here and there.  I am from the Buffalo, NY area and so my home teams would be the Bills and the Sabres.  We are the perpetual second placers.  We will never win a championship.  It has to do with the culture.  But, we are often in contention.  Our teams perform to the best of their ability.  They contend.  Very rarely have I seen a team that did not contend.  However, there was one game that stands out to me.  It was during the years after our last president's cup.  That award goes to the team that amassed the greatest amount of points for a season.  After that year, the Sabres began a decade of rebuild.  To which they are still attempting.  Anyway, it was during those years that the Sabres played the Boston Bruins at home.  As usual, we were losing rather handily.  Now, there is an unwritten rule the goalie is untouchable.  This unwritten rule is respected by both teams.  The letter of the rulebook states that when a goalie leaves his crease, he is considered a regular player and can be treated as such.  But now one does.  At least until this game.  Our goalie went out of his crease to play a puck.  He was about a third of the way to the blue line.  Way out of his crease.  A Bruins forward was going for the puck but was beaten to it by our goalie by a good bit.  Good enough for the goalie to play the puck and clear it before the forward was on him.  There should have been no need to check the goalie let alone do it in open ice and after the puck had been cleared.  But he did.  He laid our goalie out.  Normally, that would result in a bench-clearing brawl.  But nothing!  No one did anything.  That dirty, but legal play, went unanswered.  I fear this is what saints are doing today. 

We have surrendered.  We accommodate a godless culture rather than preach and teach contrary to it.  I am not saying we need to have a throw-down.  We don’t need to come to blows.  We do not need to threaten, belittle, or ridicule the opposition.  But we cannot remain silent either.  We do not need to try to win an argument in one pithy reply.  We need to engage those who do not know nor love God.  We need to contend.  They cannot be convinced any other way.  Our silence is deafening.  Those contrary to God are vocal and extreme.  As a result, they are destroying lives.  It is time to contend.  Otherwise, there is no purpose for the church.  I would hate to be raptured and the reason Christ gives is our apathy or fear.  Let us leave while contending rather than be removed as we sit on our hands.

Tend The Tree

“Whoso keepeth the fig tree shall eat the fruit thereof: so he that waiteth on his master shall be honoured.” (Pr 27:18 AV)

Keeping a fig tree is no easy task.  The nature of these trees requires constant attention.  They have a shallow root system so frequent watering is a must.  They must be fertilized with one pound of fertilizer for each foot of growth or each year of life.  They do not survive in tightly compacted soil, so keeping the ground broken up and loose around the tree is imperative.  They must be planted twenty feet apart.  If the caretaker has an orchard, that is a lot of ground to cover.  Most fig trees are begun as sucker trees.  That means a shoot is grafted into an adult tree until the shoot begins to develop its own root system.  Fig trees do not like the cold nor can they tolerate frost.  If not planted in a tepid climate, they need to be in a portable container and brought in before the cold sets in.  In other words, the servant who is caring for the fig tree above is doing so daily.  At the very least, he is watering it.  He must mulch it regularly.  There wouldn’t be a day that goes by that the servant does not tend to the needs of the fig tree.  The promise is guaranteed fruit according to one’s labor.  This is the point here.  If we want to receive blessings from our Master, it would be best if we labored much for Him.

There is much that demands our time.  Our jobs, our families, and ourselves.  We are high maintenance.  There are a lot of things that demand our time.  We are spread thin.  It is hard to do one more thing.  As a consequence, unrealized blessings are waiting for us that go wasted because we simply do not have the time or energy to serve the LORD.  The other day, I remarked that in today’s churches, we hire staff to do what we once did ourselves.  There used to be a day when families signed up to clean the church.  We would each take a weekend and vacuum, dust, and polish.  Today, we have to hire janitors.  We used to visit one another and care for one another.  Now, we have to hire a pastoral staff to love on others.  It used to be we would minister to our own teens through the family.  Now?  We hire an assistant pastor who often performs the duty of a parent.  We have delegated the responsibility of serving the LORD to hirelings and as a result, we lose out on the blessings God has for us.  The fig tree simply takes more time than we can dedicate.  It takes energy best exerted for our own interests.  We simply cannot put aside time to take care of it.  What we do not have, we will not miss.  If we never knew the taste of figs, it is no big deal if we ever do.

Solomon promises his children if they diligently serve God, eventually, there will be sweet blessings that follow.  The investment is always on the front end.  Eventually, there will come a time when the blessings of God will shower down from heaven.  We will rejoice because it was through our efforts someone came to Christ.  We will take pride in the building we helped to clean.  If we spend time with our teens and invite others to our house, our teens understand someone loves them not because they are paid to, but because they choose to.  There are so many things we could do for the LORD but we have abdicated this privilege to others because we simply do not have the time.  I like figs.  In fact, I love figs.  They are very delicious.  Fig Newtons are my favorite cookie.  But someone took an awful lot of time that I might enjoy that fruit.  How sweeter would it be if I did it all myself?

Too Pessimistic to See The Obvious

“And Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die, because we have seen God. But his wife said unto him, If the LORD were pleased to kill us, he would not have received a burnt offering and a meat offering at our hands, neither would he have shewed us all these things, nor would as at this time have told us such things as these.” (Jud 13:22-23 AV)

 

This passage hits a little too close to home.  Manoah is a pessimist to the point he missed the obvious.  It is no wonder the LORD sent the angel to his wife and not to him.  He would have seen any visitation from the LORD and a bad thing.  Here, he assumes the angel of the LORD was God himself.  He may very well have been right.  The angel of the LORD could have been the Angel of the LORD.  In his mind, they had just seen the LORD face to face and scripture would dictate they would perish.  Yet the wise wife that he had, stated the obvious.  God would not have given word they would soon bear a child and that child would grow up to serve the LORD.  The angel of the LORD instructed Manoah on how to raise the child.  Why do that if he was going to turn around a slay them?  Manoah, for whatever reason, could not see God as benevolent.  He was a pessimist.  And his pessimism causes him to miss the obvious.

Manoah and his wife are my wife and me.  She is an eternal optimist.  Even to a fault.  Me?  I am the glass-half-full kind of guy.  In my defense, I am getting a whole lot better.  Since marrying my beloved, I have learned not all things turn out badly.  However, if there is some potential for disaster, especially at church, I almost expect it to happen.  Recently, I had a text and I automatically went to a church problem scenario.  I had no reason to go there.  This individual has never manifested any sign of discouragement to the ministry.  In fact, this person is nothing but a blessing to everyone who comes.  As I started going down the vortex of despair, my wife had to point out the obvious.  It wasn’t at all what my mind was conjuring up.  I had the dissolution of the church and failure as a pastor at the forefront of my mind.  She had to pull me back.  She was right.  Just like Manoah’s wife, my Lisa is an optimist and can see the obvious.  What a blessing she is to me.  If it wasn’t for her, no telling where I would be right now.

The application is simple.  We should control our hearts and stop overthinking things.  When we allow our hearts to have unfettered feelings not bound by the promises of scripture, whether as pessimists or optimists, we can go places we should not go.  Manoah made several mistakes in his parenting.  He, unfortunately, supported Samson in his choice of a wife, even though it was clearly not permitted.  Manoah let his guard down because he was pessimistic.  If we are habitually pessimistic, what we think will come to pass probably will.  Not that we knew beforehand, but our pessimism plays a part in what happens.  If Manoah was more like his wife, he would not have given up so easily in discouraging his son to marry someone he shouldn’t.  Every time I read about this event, I chuckle.  That was me.  Perhaps still a little bit so.  Not nearly as bad as I used to be.  But definitely not where I need to be.  By the way, my wife and I are a good balance.  I keep her feet on the ground while she pulls me up from the pit.  Together, we face life in a balanced way.  Praise the LORD He knows what He is doing.

Suffering With Second Best

Go and cry unto the gods which ye have chosen; let them deliver you in the time of your tribulation. Judges 10:14

Some very pointed words from the LORD to a disobedient Israel.  The book of Judges is the record of a young nation that struggled with commitment and devotion to the LORD.  The nation, at this point, is only a few generations old.  They came out of Egypt and wandered in the wilderness for an entire generation.  After they died off, God marched them over the river Jordan where they began to take possession of their inheritance.  After Joshua and those who knew him passed away, Israel began a pattern of walking with God and backsliding.  Upon the death of a strong and godly leader, Israel would be tempted to embrace the culture and religion of their neighbors.  In return, their neighbors would persecute and govern them.  This compromise usually took the form of worshipping the false gods of the world.  Each time they were oppressed, they cried out for the mercy of God.  At this particular time, God told them to put their faith in the false gods they worshipped and let them deliver the nation from oppression.  This is pretty harsh, but honest nonetheless.  God often lets us suffer from the choices we made so that we will learn a lesson.  Once that lesson is learned, often He delivers.  Sometimes it is good to sleep in the bed we have made.

My dad did not come to our rescue at the first sign of trouble.  Most of the time, anyway.  He let us deal with the mess we caused.  We wouldn’t learn any other way.  As children, we had paper routes.  Part of that job was to collect fees from our customers and then pay the paper company a certain percentage of what we had collected.  We had this stub book with the dates printed on it.  Each customer had a stub.  When they paid, we would rip off the corresponding stub and give it to the customer as a receipt.  Some customers were not good at paying their bills.  They would have us come back when they had the money.  They saw us coming and didn’t answer the door.  The thing is, some of our good customers were not home.  We assumed they were just like our least reliable clients.  Over time, these unpaid bills can get large.  However, with tips and a rate of reimbursement, we could always cover our obligation to the company.  It was going along fine until a couple of my customers called my father and wondered why I hadn’t been by to collect.  My father went through our stub book and noticed it was more than a few.  Terrified, he made us go to all our back-due customers, no matter how uncomfortable it was, and collect what was owed.  He wasn’t going to clean up a mess we had created.

We can replace God with many things.  We can replace God with many objects, goals, or relationships.  They may meet a temporary desire, but over time, they ring hollow.  They simply do not fill the bill.  This is when the LORD might hold back and let us learn a valuable lesson.  If we have replaced Him, He just might make us suffer with that which we have replaced Him with.  And it won’t be satisfying.  When the very thing that is causing us trouble has replaced God, He just might make us deal with it.  Like the children of Israel who cried out for more than Manna, and God sent them quail.  They had plenty of meat.  It was in their fields.  They had sheep and oxen.  They had all the protein they needed.  Yet, what God provided wasn’t good enough for them.  So, the LORD sent quail along.  While the meat was still in their mouths, they were sickened by it.  They ate it raw and it made them violently ill.  They would not be satisfied with what God gave, and as a result, they had to deal with what they wanted.  The best thing to do is be content with God and with what God offers.  He is the best that can and will ever happen to us.

His Faithfulness Demands Our Obedience

“That the LORD sent a prophet unto the children of Israel, which said unto them, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, I brought you up from Egypt, and brought you forth out of the house of bondage; And I delivered you out of the hand of the Egyptians, and out of the hand of all that oppressed you, and drave them out from before you, and gave you their land; And I said unto you, I am the LORD your God; fear not the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but ye have not obeyed my voice.” (Jud 6:8-10 AV)

God does not ask for our obedience and faith until He first proves Himself faithful.  God does not expect us to obey or trust Him blindly.  He gives the law.  He does things for us that only God can do.  He brings us through hardships.  He meets our needs.  Over and again, He proves Himself.  All He asks of us is to trust Him based on the revealed truth and the evidence He provides.  In our above passage, the reason the LORD was upset with Israel is not that they simply disobeyed.  Rather, He mentions all that He did for them.  He brought them out of Egypt and the house of bondage.  In doing so, He proved Himself to be the Almighty God in the plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, and the drowning of the entire Egyptian army.  He proved Himself by providing for their needs in the wilderness, and when it was time to overtake Canaan, He drove their enemies from the land, giving them peace and an inheritance.  After all that God did, they failed to trust and obey.  That was why it was so offensive.  It wasn’t that they disobeyed and feared because of ignorance.  Nope.  They did not trust and obey because there was something lacking in their understanding of God or a lack of evidence regarding that which God is capable of.  They failed because they chose to.  They failed because they wanted something different than what God was offering.  This is why God is so upset.

As a pastor, you go through times of proving.  You endure them.  You are glad to do it.  You face an onslaught of challenges that test your love for your congregation.  They will push you to the edge to see if you are faithful to them even when they make it hard on you.  You do this for years.  You take the slings and arrows because, in the bottom of your heart, you hope there comes a day when they will have enough proof that when you lead, they have learned to trust you and follow.  This is your hope, anyway.  It is not always the case.  I have seen many men of God devote their lives to a group of people, only to face a resignation several years down the line.  Let me say this, though.  In such a case there are two reasons why the man of God might resign.  He may resign because he does not have the compassion, dedication, and integrity to invest enough time to gain the trust of his congregation.  He isn’t willing to put in the years and remain committed for the long haul.  He sees any and all opposition as something that will never change when he hasn’t given his congregation ample time for change.  However, there are times when a congregation simply will not allow anyone to lead them.  These types of churches go through pastors regularly.  I was involved with a church years ago that had eighteen pastors in thirty years.  They would not trust anyone.  No matter how hard he tried, he would forever remain under the microscope and not be allowed to lead unless the people approved every choice or charge.

God is not a pastor.  He is not a man.  Men have faults.  We cannot be perfect.  But God can.  In the book of Judges, Israel repeatedly made the same mistake.  They placed their hope on human leadership rather than directly on God with the influence of human leadership.  This is the whole point of God’s words above.  He was the one who did all that.  He may have used Moses to help bring it about, but it was God who delivered them.  He has proved Himself over and over.  He is worthy of our worship.  He is worthy of our obedience.  He is worthy of our love.  His is worthy of our trust.  There is nothing more He needs to do to prove He is who He claims to be.  When we demand more and more, it offends God.  Our inclination should be complete trust.  Our first instinct should be to do exactly what the word of God says we should do.  When faced with an obstacle, we should not fight God on it.  We should not cower in the shadows because we think God is not able to overcome it.  This is why God is so upset.  He has shown Himself capable and faithful, yet we still balk at His commands.  Let us trust the God we see and He will show Himself in greater ways than ever before.

Not Just A Phrase

“And the people answered and said, God forbid that we should forsake the LORD, to serve other gods;” (Jos 24:16 AV)

This is a great statement to make and an even greater prayer to speak.  Let me explain.  We often say the phrase “God forbid” to mean we would hope whatever follows that phrase would not come to pass.  To us, it is a throw-off phrase.  It is wishful thinking.  It is the heart looking forward to a future free of what we fear might happen.  But this is not the biblical understanding of this phrase.  The phrase literally means, “may God forbid such and such a thing.”  On the face of it, we would agree.  May God forbid the saint from forsaking God and serving other Gods.  But forbidding here means more than declaring it is wrong and commanding the child of God not to do as such.  Webster's 1828 dictionary also defines ‘forbid’ as, “To oppose; to hinder; to obstruct.”  In other words, what the people of God are saying here is, “May God oppose, hinder, or obstruct” us from forsaking Him and serving other gods.  This is quite a statement.  In essence, the people of God are seeking God’s active hand to oppose, hinder, or obstruct their lack of faith or disobedience.  Putting it another way, they are seeking God to be proactive and keep them in every way from falling away and serving other gods.  The emotional nature of such a statement adds urgency and sincerity to the request.  So, the question we can ask is how much do we ask God to keep us from sin and what are we willing to endure that this comes to pass?

Many addiction programs have mentors whose job is to frustrate the designs of the addict making indulgence harder to accomplish.  Some programs have a residency opportunity where the addict checks into a hospital-like facility.  They receive medical treatment that helps deal with the cravings.  What some do is go far beyond the addiction at hand.  Knowing the addict’s personality is one of undisciplined consumption, any and all indulgences are controlled.  Most do not have cell phone or internet privileges until much later in the program.  They will replace substance abuse with the abuse of profane entertainment.  Their meals are planned and portioned.  Indulgence in food might replace the substance they are trying to conquer.  There are work details.  If the addict is busy, he has little time to think of his addiction.  To overcome sin, the patient must submit to someone who will control their lives until they learn self-control.  This is often inconvenient, challenging, or downright painful. These programs are voluntary.  The patient knows beforehand what to expect.  Yet, they have come to the point they know they cannot live as they should without intervention and help.  They willingly allow another to be over them for the sake of liberty from a greater evil.

When we use the phrase, “God Forbid”, do we really want God to forbid that which follows the phrase?  “God forbid that I should not be a soul-winner.”  Do we really want God to forcibly put us into a situation where we are required to give the gospel?  “God forbid that I should fall into such and such a sin.”  Do we really want God to make it near to impossible to fall if it means radically changing our lives for the duration?   “God forbid that I should fail as a spouse.”  Do we really want God to cause circumstances that force us to change into the loving and sacrificial spouse we are commanded to be?  All these things are good.  All these things should be desired!  The real question is: Are we willing to preface our prayers with the phrase, “God forbid”, seeking God’s active and challenging hand to bring about the changes desired?  To make the statement above was not casual.  It was a serious one. Perhaps more serious than they realized.  Are we willing to make the same statement?

Another Reminder

“That thy trust may be in the LORD, I have made known to thee this day, even to thee.” (Pr 22:19 AV)

I know I wrote about this verse in the recent past.  In that entry, the Spirit led me to expound on the context more than on this single verse.  Solomon gives the reason for his book.  All this wisdom in the universe would be useless if it didn’t lead to faith.  Rather than considering to broader context, let us yield to the Spirit as He encourages us to trust in the LORD.  This is hard to do.  But it is the way of life for all who call upon Jesus to save their souls.  Faith cannot be avoided.  We are constantly confronted with situations greater than ourselves.  Thus, we naturally place our faith in something.  Currently, we are under a winter storm warning.  A nasty little storm with freezing rain, hail, and snow is descending upon us.  There is a possibility we could eventually lose power.  We cannot control the supply of utilities coming to our home.  So, we place our faith in the power company to keep us warm and well-lit.  If the power goes out, we trust them to restore our power in a timely manner.  My wife and son and father-in-law are weather freaks.  The more severe weather there is, the more they come alive.  It’s a sickness, really.  Me?  I hate things I cannot control.  I despise living at the mercy of unpredictability.  No thank you.  Give me sunny days in the high sixties and I am all good.  Fear and anxiety are the opposite of faith.  The question becomes, in what do we place our trust?

This verse is a great one to memorize.  Short, succinct, and always applicable.  We are faced with a lot of large changes in life.  The small ones may be inconvenient, but the large ones can be often traumatic.  I have a thick head of hair.  Every time I get my hair cut, the barber remarks how thick it is and how much he wishes he had my hair.  I was told to expect to lose hair as I age, but I don’t see it.  That is until something happened last August that made me think I had a serious disease somewhere.  It was about a month after my wife’s cancer surgery.  I had thought that I lost her.  She was not the same person I knew.  Anyone going through a cancer diagnosis and all that encompasses understands it is one of the most traumatic things a person can go through.  Patient and caregiver alike.  To say there was a lot of stress and anxiety would be an understatement.  Starting the week of her surgery and for about a month after, I was losing a lot of hair.  I mean, a lot.  I had to clean the shower drain after each shower or the water would not go down.  I don’t know the percentage, but it was significant.  I thought I might be heading in a bad direction.  Then I did some research.  One of the causes of rapid hair loss is severe stress.  Well, there it was.  My trial of faith was causing baldness.  The problem with my hair loss was it was a manifestation of failure on my part not to trust the LORD.

We can trust hospitals.  We can trust doctors.  We can trust treatments and medicines.  But they are temporary.  Physical life is not forever.  All the LORD provides for our comfort and healing is appreciated and welcomed.  But we have to be careful to trust the LORD and not the things He provides.  Often, God’s answers have a way of replacing God Himself.  We can trust the paycheck to come.  God has provided employment that provides that paycheck.  In other words, our trust can become dispassionate and sterile.  Our faith becomes mechanical.  Our faith becomes a subject for theologians to argue.  I think Solomon meant more than a practical application to this verse.  I think he meant a very personal one.  All that God has given in His word is meant to accomplish one thing.   It is meant to establish a relationship of dependence and trust which we place in the person of God and not necessarily that which He does.  Our trust must be in the LORD no matter what He decides to do or not do.  Our trust must be in the LORD.

What He Really Wants

“To do justice and judgment is more acceptable to the LORD than sacrifice.” (Pr 21:3 AV)

My Dad used to have a saying. “Don’t tell me you’re sorry.  Just do what I ask.”  As teenagers, that didn’t sit well with us.  We felt our feelings of sorrow and repentance were not appreciated.  We came with broken hearts and we expected our father to tread gently on our broken hearts.  He didn’t say this all the time.  In fact, he didn’t say it a lot.  However, he did say it, especially when our error was a habitual one.  Our writer states the obvious.  If we had a choice, to do right would be better than offering a sacrifice after we have done wrong.  Which was my father’s point all along.  It would be much more pleasurable to him if we obeyed him than to apologize for failure afterward.

The Hebrew religion lost its way over time.  The sacrifices became a license to sin.  It is interesting.  One of the critiques of Biblical Christianity and the security of the believer, in particular, is it appears it gives liberty to sin.  Once saved always saved is seen as a blank check to do as one pleases without any fear of eternal judgment.  However, in the Old Testament sacrificial system, the liberty to sin was greater.  If the penitent knew he could offer a sacrifice after sin, then why avoid sin?  The same is true of any religion that offers atonement by the means of the penitent.  If I know that going to church would absolve me from sin, I can go out drinking the night before because the next day, it will be atoned for.  If I know that a sacrament or rite would atone for my sin, why not rack it all up and have fun?  I can simply do what my church tells me I have to do and it will all be wiped away.  Eternal security accomplished just the opposite.  Knowing I am eternally secure because all my sins; past, present, and future; are atoned for, then I will be sensitive to my choices not wanting to offend the one who paid the ultimate price.

The New Testament saint can get caught in the cycle of sin and repentance.  We can begin to think as long as we get right with God, then sin is not big deal.  But it is.  Our heavenly Father loves us more than we can ever imagine.  He is plenteous in mercy and grace.  He is always ready to forgive.  And if we ask Him for forgiveness, He does not withhold it.  Given the choice, though, He would rather have our obedience than our apology.  Repentance and forgiveness may cover the sin, but it would have been better if we didn’t sin at all.

Wait For It

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, Be not afraid because of them: for to morrow about this time will I deliver them up all slain before Israel: thou shalt hough their horses, and burn their chariots with fire.” (Jos 11:6 AV)

Joshua is in the process of cleansing the land of Canaan from those who would hate God.  Before we ruminate, we mustn’t forget Israel offered terms of peace to any nation whom they eventually displaced.  It is a misnomer that Israel went into Canaan and took land that was not their own by force, without mercy or justice.  We mustn’t forget this land was promised by God to Abraham and his descendants, and as far as God was concerned, those dwelling there were squatters.  They had no legal right to Canaan.  Be that as it may, Israel was required to offer terms of peace before they invaded.  Those whom they defeated refused to consider terms of peace, and thus were conquered.  Having said that, what stood out this morning was the stated delay in God’s intervention and the encouragement to Joshua to have faith.  For an entire day, Joshua had to look at a formidable enemy and consider all the possibilities that may occur in battle.  For an entire day, he was encamped against an enemy that could have, without divine intervention, conquer them.  It is hard to look at an impossible challenge and wait for God to give victory.  Many lose faith while waiting for God to move.

I am the kind of person that likes to face most challenges head-on.  Especially if I know there is a battle involved.  If I know I have to overcome, sitting and waiting is not my forte.  I find it hard to sit a wait to take on something larger than myself.  The little battles are what I tend to let slide.  But when faced with an impossibility, my mindset is to go big or go home.  I will climb the mountain and either conquer it or die trying.  The more impossible it might seem, the more I am all in.  In fact, the more it appears I will lose it all, I probably am going to rush right in.  I figure, if I am going to lose the battle, I might as well get it over with.  It’s the defeatism in me that rushes right in and gains the victory.  This served me well when I took a discovery flight, ate a bug taco, or took seven teens over to Ireland during the height of terrorist activity towards air travel.  When faced with such situations, I figure if the plane is going to crash, might as well dive right in and get it over with.  Or, the bug taco?  If I know it’s going to taste awful and make me sick, might as well take a huge bite and get it over with.  And, what of the missions trip?  Just do it!  What is funny is all that caused anxiety ended up not being the case.  We flew the plane without incident.  The pilot even complimented me on being able to fly IFR without ever flying a plane.  The bug taco tasted like sawdust.  And the missions trip was the greatest single experience in my entire years of service to the LORD.

However, staring at that mountain and waiting only increases anxiety.  We want to rip the bandaid off and get it over with.  Joshua had to stare at an enemy that could have torn them to shreds.  He looked at them and they looked at him.  He knew God was on his side and they would fall, but not being able to jump into battle had to be difficult.  It would have been for me.  Sometimes, we have to wait on victory.  God promises it.  It is coming.  In the meantime, we have to look the devil, the world, and ourselves squarely in the face and wait.  We know the end is only a matter of a short lifetime away.  We know victory is assured.  We know that no matter how large the odds are against us, God is greater,  We just want to get the stress and anxiety over with.  We want to jump all in.  Take the blows.  Bandage up the wounds.  And, get up to fight another day.  That is what we want.  But sometimes God requires we wait.  Wait for God to do what God will do and don’t let the mountain intimidate you. Difficult to do, for sure.  But not impossible.  God has this.  He always has.

Praise God For His Wonderful Hand

“And the LORD said unto Joshua, Fear them not: for I have delivered them into thine hand; there shall not a man of them stand before thee.” (Jos 10:8 AV)

Oh, what grace, when God can turn our mistakes into something great.  Joshua had been deceived by the inhabitants of Gibeon.  Hearing of Joshua’s success, these neighbors took pains to appear as though they had traveled from very far and were seeking a treaty with Israel.  Joshua asked them who they were and where they were from.  They never answered the first question and lied about the second.  Joshua, believing they were far enough away they would never encounter them anyway, decided to make a treaty.  They soon found out they were indeed neighbors and that the land in which they lived fell under the territory God promised to Abraham.  The kings of the Amorites; five of them; gathered themselves against Gibeon because Gibeon had betrayed their fellow Canaanites.  Gibeon sent messengers to Joshua for assistance.  Since there was a treaty between Israel and Gibeon, they were obligated to come to their defense.  This is where the above verse comes into play.  God encourages Joshua that He brought these five kings together against Gibeon and that in one single battle, Israel would be rid of the Amorites.  What the LORD did was take a mistake of Joshua’s and use it to ultimately defeat their enemies.  It doesn’t justify the choice.  It was wrong to make the treaty.  Yet, in His infinite mercy, God took a mistake of a leader and used it to further His glory.

This sort of thing happens to me all the time.  I am a very amateur cook.  I watch cooking shows and think that I can do what they do.  I learn what I can, consult the Flavor Bible, and dive right in.  Every once in a while my flavor combinations or technique are simply not working.  Perhaps I get a little bit cocky and add a flavor profile I think will work, but it does not.  Other times, I may make a mistake with texture.  Not enough or too much.  Trial and error are a good teacher.  However, rarely do we end up throwing out food.  There is usually something one can do with a mistake to turn it into something edible.  Perhaps a third or fourth flavor profile to mask the mistake.  Or, another technique or texture to fix a dull dish.  Unless the food is burnt beyond recognition, there is hope.  There is something we can do to turn a horrible experiment into something that won’t offend.

As a father, teacher, pastor, boss, and any number of other leadership positions, I have made my share of mistakes.  More than I care to admit.  In retrospect, I can say that God has been very good to me despite all my screw-ups.  He didn’t turn them all for good.  Some I have to live with for the rest of my natural life.  However, others were a miracle.  When this happens, there are not a few emotions you experience.  You experience great relief in that your mistake didn’t turn out to be as devastating as you thought it might be.  You also feel a sense of adulation that something good could come out of something bad.  There are often tears of joy that flow knowing that God can patch up our mistakes for His glory.  Most of all, you feel a sense of awe at how God can take something you thought was a disaster and turn it into something of a success.  Joshua and Israel had to live with the Gibeonites for quite a while.  God did not completely undo the mistake.  But He was able to use it miraculously.  This is more than he deserved.  And when the LORD does this for us, it is far more than we deserve, too.  So, do not give up hope because you made a mistake.  No matter how big it is, the LORD can use that lapse of judgment for His glory.  And when He does, I hope you are like me and chuckle with joy at what God can do with such flawed instruments as you and I.

Make It Hurt

“And ye, in any wise keep yourselves from the accursed thing, lest ye make yourselves accursed, when ye take of the accursed thing, and make the camp of Israel a curse, and trouble it.” (Jos 6:18 AV)

There are many points to be made here.  Being exposed to a cursed thing will naturally make one accursed.  It may not be the physical quality of something accursed, but the spiritual failure of refusing it that makes one accursed.  An alcoholic will receive in his or her body the consequences of such a vice.  But if someone steals and is never found out, the item itself may cause ho damage.  But the dishonesty or lust that motivated the theft will.  Secondly, sin is not enjoyed in a vacuum.  When Achan brought the accursed thing into the camp, it affected the whole nation.  They would lose their next battle.  The men would run away in fear.  God will not bless a nation or church or family where unrepentant sin runs unabated.  But I want to look at two little words here.  “Keep yourselves” implies much.  It implies the ability to withstand temptation lies mostly with the saint.  At least where we can avoid it.  A study of the phrase draws an interesting picture.  The two words put together have the sense of coming apart from that which would cause temptation and building a thorny hedge around oneself so the threat cannot invade.  The understanding is being proactive in one’s walk so what is accursed is not a problem.

I live in snow country.  We had a recent storm of about a foot of snow.  As is the case, many kids were outside having a ball.  Driving in the neighborhood, I noticed one particular group of kids that brought back memories.  In our childhood, we spent a lot of time out in the snow.  We lived near Buffalo, NY where snow is never measured by the inch.  It is measured by the foot.  By mid-January, there was an easy five feet that had fallen so far.  This made for rather large mounds of snow.  Our driveway was a triple-wide driveway.  This would naturally create three mounds of snow several feet high.  With eleven siblings, snowball fights were common.  We would often create teams.  These teams would choose a mound in which to make a fort.  We would dig out a pit, put some lumber on top, then pile more snow on top of the lumber.  We might use a sled or a toboggan (the one you ride down a hill on, not the one you wear on your head).  Then, in case of a fight that wasn’t going our way, we had a place into which we receded.  It was kind of impossible to hit someone with a snowball when they are hunkered in a snow bank.  Any threat was avoided by diving into our fort.

A hedge does many things.  It keeps a threat out.  But it is also designed to keep those inside from breaching it.  The idea above is a thorny hedge.  If temptation came near, it would perceive the wall and know it could not be breached.  But in the same manner, those on the safe side of the hedge must remember to breach it will leave scars.  It must be such a hedge that it would be difficult and uncomfortable to breach.  They say there is a medication one can take to overcome drinking.  It makes the user violently ill if taking this medication and having drinks.  That is a thorny hedge.  The question is, what kind of thorny hedges do we have in place that keeps us from being tempted after the accursed thing?  How much pain do we suffer when we go after something we know is wrong?  This is the intent here.  We should have in place hedges that make it difficult and painful to be in disobedience.

Treasure The Process

“The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold: but the LORD trieth the hearts.” (Pr 17:3 AV)

The word ‘but’ threw me.  There is a relationship between the purifying of precious metals and the trying of the heart.  Fire or heat purifies a lot of things.  It purifies water.  Heat can purify oil.  Heat purifies food.  Heat separates.  Heat kills that which is harmful while keeping that which is good.  In other words, Solomon deliberately chose precious metals to compare against a pure heart.  Why?  The little three-letter word above gives us a clue.

I have seen enough depictions of prospecting to understand what the prospector experiences when he discovers gold.  There is a process to make the gold market worthy.  He or she must first remove it from the ground or water.  It then goes through a separation process called sleuthing.  The gold goes through a sleuth box where finer gold dust is separated from lighter material.  The nuggets to the dust are then dried.  The next step is what I think Solomon is referring to.  The prospector would then take his gold to the refiner.  Usually, these are very small businesses that do their refining on a very small scale.  The furnace is heated to an enormous temperature.  The gold is poured into a stone vat that is then inserted into the furnace.  After a few minutes, the gold is poured into a cooling vat and rapidly cooled with water.  The sludge rises to the top.  What the prospector is left with is solid and pure gold.  What stands out is the look in the eyes of the prosecutor as his gold is purified.  He knows he has a treasure.  He just doesn’t know how much or the quality of it.  His eyes get really big as the refiner removes the metal and taps away the sludge.  A broad smile spans his face as he realized how blessed he is.

I think our wise king is sharing that the purification of the heart is only by the LORD and it is more precious than any purification process seen in the natural world.  Therefore, there is a great application here.  The process by which the heart is purified is not easy.  Just as heat is required to separate sludge from gold, the heat of correction or trials is needed to purify the heart.  The logistics here are not as important as how we should view the value of the process and product.  This is the comparison Solomon is making.  As a king, he would appreciate this.  His life was surrounded by gold and silver.  The beauty of these metals would be a daily part of his life.  The purification process would have been something with which he was very familiar.  But to him, as much as wealth was a part of him, he valued God’s purification process of the heart and the end result as far more precious than anything the world could offer.  The real treasure was a cleansed heart; not a full treasure chest.

Put Your Heart And Soul Into It

“This day the LORD thy God hath commanded thee to do these statutes and judgments: thou shalt therefore keep and do them with all thine heart, and with all thy soul.” (De 26:16 AV)

There are several ways by which we can obey the commandments of the LORD.  We can obey Him out of fear of consequences.  We can obey Him because it is the logical thing to do.  How we feel about obedience in general and the commandments specifically do go a long way in consistently walking in obedience and faith.  With all thy heart and with all thy soul goes beyond the mere will.  The will can be broken.  The will can comply.  The will can obey.  But that does not mean the heart and soul are involved.  The heart speaks to zeal and enthusiasm while the soul speaks to identity.  The heart sees the statutes and judgments as something wholly desired and pursued.  The soul sees them as the definition of who and what they are.  Without the heart and soul involved, obedience becomes a duty that soon becomes sparse.  If our hearts and souls are not in it, commitment will only last as long as we can tolerate the consequences of disobedience.  Without the heart and soul, obedience does not last long.

Something that strikes me as interesting is when I watch a professional sporting event and the coach or the manager is dressed head to toe in the team’s colors and logo.  This strikes me as odd because many of those coaches have coached for other teams.  I have to ask myself if I would do the same thing.  These men and women are all in.  When they get to a new city and coach a new team, it is like they have been there their entire career.  This loyalty and enthusiasm trickle down to the team.  Their heart and soul are one hundred percent vested in the team.  It is who they are.  It is their life and soul.  Whatever the team requires of them, they do.  There is no question of commitment.  There are no split loyalties.  If the coach requires extra reps or more time in the film room, they will do it.  Why?  Most are vested in the identity which they all share.  Every now and again, you witness a professional athlete who is in it for the paycheck or fame.  They are the ones who are quick to criticize those of their own team if they lose a game or championship.  Their heart and soul are not in it.  Their wills may be.  But their heart and souls are far from it.

Moses gives great advice here.  It is at the foot of Mounts Ebal and Gerazim.  The mountains of blessing and cursing.  The advice is to get the whole person involved in obedience.  Make it mean something.  Embrace it.  Make it who you are!  Obey the LORD.  Trust the LORD.  Don’t allow the adversary to rob you of the joy that comes with wholly following the LORD.  Make it your battle cry.  Pursue it with rigor.  When the LORD tells you to do something, say “yes, Sir” with a snap of the wrist and a spring in your step.  Without our hearts and souls vested in obedience, compliance will be temporary and a drudge.  It was seen as nothing more than obligatory commandments designed to control and manipulate.  Without our hearts and souls vested in the statutes and judgments, they are simply things that have to be done lest we reap the consequences.  Better it is to passionately want to comply than be forced to.  The whole heart and the whole soul are the keys to consistent godly living.