The Integrity to Wait

“And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle, and saith unto them, Why stand ye here all the day idle?” (Mt 20:6 AV)

Like most, the common reader will see these workers lacking character.  It is quite the opposite.  They remained in the marketplace, looking for work for the entire day.  They were hired with one hour of sunlight left.  These men remained the entire ten to twelve hours or so.  They remained well past what would be considered prudent.  Who would hire them to work the fields with only one hour remaining?  It took a lot of character for them to stay there the entire day.  The owner of the fields rewarded them for their character.  He didn’t have to.  The labor they would provide for only one hour could have been made up the next day.  Rather, he arrived and hired them to work one hour because they had enough character to remain for an opportunity.  Those paid the same never saw what the husbandman saw.  The husbandman saw diligent character that was not being rewarded by opportunity.  Unlike those who complained about the wage, I admire these men and think they deserved a full day’s wage.  I know, because I have been there.

Many years ago, I worked at a golf course as a caddy.  My sons and I would arrive before daybreak.  Sometime around 5:30 am.  As the caddy shack goes, you sit there until your name is called.  Many days, it does not.  Either because there are too many caddies waiting for a loop, the weather is bad, or it is a holiday weekend.  We sat there many days.  Just sat.  There were some days we sat until we were the last ones left.  Many would give up and go home around 3 or 4.  By then, a four-hour loop was not possible.  One afternoon, I decided to stay.  The boys had another obligation, so I stayed.  Around 4 in the afternoon, being one of the few caddies left, the caddy master called my number.  It was the course champion and his father.  I doubled that afternoon.  They were expert golfers.  They knew their yardage before they approached their ball.  They knew what clubs then needed.  Their balls were always in play.  They had me walk without stopping.  They would tend their own flag.  As soon as they were on the green, I started walking.  By the time I reached their balls, they had caught up, and we swapped out clubs.  I kept walking.  They would make their approach.  Having hit on the green, they would walk past me as we swapped out their club for their putter.  The only time I stopped walking was waiting at the next tee box.  They would swap out their putter for their driver and I would start walking again.  What should have been a four-hour loop took only two hours.  They paid me very well.  I think I made $120/hour that day.  That would not have happened had I not stayed.  I stayed because I needed to work, no matter what it might be.  I stayed because I needed opportunity.  Laziness was not my problem.  Lack of opportunity was.

There is a great application for those who seek to change the world.  Sometimes, it is a matter of staying and looking for any opportunity, no matter how late in the hour or how small it might be.  I think it takes tremendous character to stay in that marketplace when the longer the day goes, the less one will get paid.  It takes a man of deep principles to stick with it.  It takes a man of integrity to serve for a little than not serve at all.  I think of our rural pastors who pastor churches too small to provide a comfortable income for the pastor and his family.  He serves in such a rural place that within a few years; he has met everyone in his community.  There is no hope of growing that church into a big work.  There will be no memory of him every serving there.  No plaque.  No building named after him.  If there is a history of the church, his impact will probably be only a sentence or two.  They labor.  They have little opportunity.  But their integrity will not let them quit.  They are there.  They are there all day long.  They are there because one little girl or little boy needs to hear about Jesus.  They are there because one family needs help lest their family ends in a broken home.  They stay through the same set of circumstances their entire life with little numerical effect to show for it.  These men are my heroes.  It is easy to stay faithful when you are busy.  It is easy to work for Jesus when you have more work than any one person can do.  But being asked to serve faithfully when opportunity is limited takes integrity which few can understand.

Forgive or Be Not Forgiven

“So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses.” (Mt 18:35 AV)

Every time I read this, my mind goes back to all those times I was injured.  Rather maliciously, ignorantly, or randomly, the question of forgiveness sticks in my mind.  Have I forgiven all who have caused injury?  In grade school, I was brutally bullied.  It is only by God’s grace I survived to adulthood.  Many times my life should have ended by my own hand.  Of course, serving in the ministry leaves one open to all sorts of abuse.  Most of it is understandable.  The hardest to endure are those injuries caused by one’s peers.  Those who, in the process of serving the LORD, allow their old man to inflict injury on their peers.  We’ve all suffered at the hands of authority figures.  As one who manages others, I can only imagine how much harm I have caused.  Most of which I was unaware.  Offense is a part of life.  No one suffers more than all others.  We all suffer at the cruelty of others.  And we all cause suffering for others.  So, getting back to our verse, one has to wonder if we have forgiven, and if we are forgiven.

I have seen too much bitterness in my time.  Unforgiveness is a horrible prison.  Many years ago, I watched a TV series on the Hatfields and McCoys.  For those not in the know, these two families began a deadly feud that lasted many years and cost several lives.  It is stated the feud began over a stolen pig, but that only serves to make the feud seem more foolish than adversarial.  In fact, it spilled over from the Civil war.  One family fought primarily for the South while the other for the North.  After the war ended, hard feelings remained.  It could be said the stolen pig was the fuse, but the barrel was resentment over the Civil war.  One of the opening scenes shows a returning soldier being shot by the other family.  The pig incident happened a bit later.  Resentment was allowed to fester.  No doubt, regardless of one’s convictions at the time, there were moral failures on both sides.  It was a war that had to be fought.  The slaves had to be freed.  However, their agents of freedom did not always act with the utmost character themselves.  No doubt, there were offenses on both sides of that fence.  The thing is, unforgiveness is what started the feud.  It wasn’t the Civil war, or the stolen pig.  It was the inability of two families to forgive one another.  In the process, several died.  Depending on which source you reference, the fatalities were anywhere from 12 to 60.  The feud lasted twenty-eight years.  It took a threat from two governors and the federal government to finally stop this senseless killing.

There is a warning above.  The LORD will not forgive His children of their faults if they harbor resentment toward any who may have offended them.  This is quite a wide swath.  There is no differentiation here.  Lost or saved, if we do not forgive those who have offended us, then the LORD may be apt to hold on to our faults as well.  That is pretty serious.  Perhaps one of the reasons the body of Christ needs revival is we have not learned to forgive.  The above verse brings a somber demeanor to my heart.  Unforgiveness is a horrible state in which to exist.  When I think upon this verse, I have to search my heart to seek any dark alley of unforgiveness that may exist.  Have I forgiven?  Have I forgiven completely?  Do I harbor ill feelings no matter how long ago the injury occurred?  Do I still carry resentment?  This examination must occur, otherwise, the divine grace of forgiveness cannot come from the Father?  Have you forgiven?  Are you holding a grudge?  Are there memories of others that still bother you?  If we will not forgive others, then the LORD will not forgive us.

The Unfortunate Truth

“For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: These are [the things] which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man.” (Mt 15:19-20 AV)

We don’t like to think of ourselves this way, but that is what we are.  We are losing our sense of how evil sin is.  For the last few decades, we have focused on the emotional needs of the saints.  What we have failed to do is to keep the LORD and His righteousness front and center.  Almost all of our trouble can be traced back to sin.  Some of it, perhaps not.  Sin is not always the cause for unfortunate circumstances.  But it is the major factor.  We don’t like to think of ourselves as inherently wicked.  We want to be affirmed.  We want to be loved.  We want to be accepted just the way we are.  We don’t want to be told we are wrong, that we have done wrong, or that we deserve divine judgment.  But the ugly truth is stated above.

I know this example is probably going to stir a pot, but it is true nonetheless.  Many years ago, I had this fox hound that we tried to domesticate.  Fox hounds are hunting dogs.  That was what they were bred for.  We tried to raise him as a house dog.  This only frustrated our poor dog.  He would sit for endless hours staring out our back patio doors at the birds and squirrels at the bird feeder.  One particular time, we had a flock of guinea birds in the back part of our yard.  He was fascinated.  This dog was intense.  He was super focused.  We socialized him.  We got a second dog thinking the laid-back nature of our blue healer would tame this fox hound a bit.  Not so.  Our fox hound bit a couple of people who did not know how to approach dogs.  Breeds have characteristics.  Sometimes the owner is successful in training those instincts out of the dog.  But they still remain.  The Dog Whisperer is as successful as he is because he understands breed types.  He trains them to refocus their natural instincts in a constructive way.  But the characteristics of the breed still remain.

Mankind is not basically good.  We are basically evil.  The verse above is Jesus’ rebuke of those who think conforming to godliness on the outside makes one godly on the inside.  The reason this was so hard for the Pharisees to hear was that they considered themselves righteous people.  Not so.  There is none righteous, no not one.  We have all come short of the glory of God.  Our wickedness is by nature and by choice.  We are what we are because we choose to be.  The condition of our hearts is fallen and terribly wicked.  That is the cold, hard truth.  Only by the grace of God and the blood of Christ can that change.  And that is the good news.  We can be discouraged at the condition of our hearts.  But we are not without hope.  We have hope that we will not remain so.  There is change.  It starts at the moment we receive Christ.  It continues our entire lives and culminates in heaven.  Our wicked hearts will be no more.  Until then, avoiding what we are thinking we never have to deal with it is not wise.  That is what we are.  It is time to fall before the throne of God and seek His converting power.  Time to plead the blood of Christ as yield to the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  It would be one thing to admit to our evil.  Quite another to ignore it.

Among Wolves

“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Mt 10:16 AV)

Sorry, but the LORD is not going to remove all wolves, so the preaching of the gospel becomes easier.  Nor is He going to withhold you from the wolves.  Whether we like it or not, the LORD sends us among those who would do us harm in search of those who need saving.  That is the way of the great commission.  The answer is not in escape.  Nor is it in accommodation.  Wolves are wolves.  They will always be wolves.  They will not adjust.  There will be a harm to us.  There is no sense is wishing the world was different.  It will always be adversarial.  There is no changing this.  Our job is to be wise and aware.  That is the meaning of the illusion to the serpent and the dove.  The serpent moves and maneuvers.  He thinks ahead.  He becomes a threat if a predator gets too close.  The dove is very weary.  He watches for everything.  He does not escape to a new field.  The covey simply removes itself from immediate harm and continues what it was doing before the wolf arrived.  The gospel is fraught with common threats.  It is a dangerous pursuit.  We are not to leave our field.  We are to figure a way to be effective.  We are not to resent the threat.  We are to come up with a work-around.

Wolves are spooky creatures.  I just saw a short video of a black wolf crossing the road.  I didn’t realize how big they were.  This creature was as tall as the hood of the car and as long as the car was wide.  Frightening.  However, the first encounter I had with these fearsome beasts came while deer hunting in Wisconsin.  Other than the zoo, I had never heard nor seen one of these creatures.  It was many years ago.  My oldest had just turned old enough to have a hunting license.  My pastor was in the hospital with appendicitis and his son needed an adult chaperone.  I was charged with keeping to teenagers safe.  What made this even more difficult was the place we went hunting was unfamiliar to me.  I had only hunted it twice before.  It was a flat area of overgrowth and marshes.  If the hunter could not discern direction, he would be lost forever!  What made this experience even more unbearable was the meal we had the night before.  We had a roast with onions and carrots in the pot.  Not for me!  Too much acid.  I was sick for a good twenty hours.  We got up early enough.  As we dressed, we went over some safety rules.  Then the entire party went outside to head off into the unknown.  Because these teenagers move like snails, we were left alone.  It was me and the two boys.  Waiting for my pastor’s son to finally make his arrival, my eldest and I were outside.  Then I heard it.  I heard the howls of wolves.  If you have never heard this sound, it is eerie, to say the least.  Their howls go right through you.  There is no other way to describe it.  It was worse than all the horror films have depicted it.  But off into the woods, we must go.  My two young charges had no idea.  Nor did they care.  They wanted to go out there and fill the freezer.  That pack of wolves was all I cared about.  There was no other choice.  We had to go!  It was our duty to feed our family.

Evangelism is tough.  The vast majority of those with whom we converse are antagonistic toward the good news.  We are faced with slammed doors, insults, and outright attacks.  It is only going to get worse.  We may think we have won the war, but we have only won a battle.  If the saints think for a minute, the devil feels defeated; we have better wake up.  The adversaries of God will double down.  They will come after the saints harder than they ever have before.  The time of persecution is coming.  The Bible tells us the AntiCHrist will wear out the saints.  The wolves will regroup.  They will come up with a different strategy.  What they will not do is recede into their dens and wave a white flag.  When Jesus comes, the vast majority of the world comes out against Him.  They will fight and lose at the battle of Armageddon.  After the millennial reign of Christ, the devil is loosed from hell and stirs the vast majority of mankind against Jesus again.  This time at the final battle of God and Magog.  They will lose there, too.  The point is this.  The wolves will never stop.  This is part of God’s plan.  The Great Commission will be conducted while surrounded by adversity.  There is no peace.  That is why the gospel of peace has relevance.  There is contrast between the peace God offers through forgiveness and the turmoil caused by the wolves.  Christian service is troublesome.  It always will be.  If we are going to be effective, we have to accept the conditions of service.

The Miracle of Forgiveness

“For whether is easier, to say, [Thy] sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?” (Mt 9:5 AV)

Both are equally impossible.  That is, impossible for mortal man.  Jesus is equating the healing of a lame man equal to that of forgiving a guilty man.  It is sometimes read as though saying the words of physical healing would be easier than saying the words of divine forgiveness.  This is only true if both were impossible.  Sometimes it is thought it would be harder to say to a lame man that he is healed than a guilty man that he is forgiven.  We assume this because of the limits placed on our material world.  After all, how much effort would it take to forgive sin?  Yet, that is not how the Pharisees saw it.  They saw the divine forgiveness of sin just as impossible for the healing of a lame man by the mere spoken words.  The question goes to the root of the problem.  The Pharisees refused to concede Jesus as divine.  They would not admit that God came in the flesh.  For those of us who are saved, may we never cease the wonder of divine forgiveness.  It would be just as impossible to forgive sin as it would to make a lame man walk.  So, when God forgave us of sin, He did the impossible!

There was an old farmer who lived in a remote part of Siberia.  He had no contact with the outside world.  He was a cattleman and owned vast amounts of land.  Over the decades, laws and regulations were passed that were averse to his way of farming.  There was no electronic information available at the time and mail almost never came.  For decades, this old farmer was running his farm contrary to the law of the Czars.  One afternoon, a governmental official came trotting up his driveway.  Dismounting, he handed the old farmer a summons.  Because of a lifetime of violations, he owed more than he was worth.  Even if he sold all that he had, it would only satisfy a fraction of what he owed.  Off this official rode without offering any counsel or comfort.  Beside himself, the old farmer started off toward St. Petersburg.  Seeking help any way he could, he could raise a few more funds.  Armed with the generosity of others and the deed to his farm, he appeared before the Czar.  Listing all his assets down to the last rubble, he was so far short of what was owed, there seemed no help was coming.  Humanly speaking, there simply was no way this debt could be paid.  Taking pity on this old man, the Czar simply forgave the entire debt.  Nothing had to be paid.  He could keep his farm, and he donated all charity bestowed to him to the nearest orphanage.  Able to return to his farm, this faithful man died a clear man, free from all debt once incurred.

This is what happens to the sinner who places his faith and trust in Jesus Christ for His atonement.  All sin is forgiven.  Past, present, and future are covered by the blood of Christ.  When the Father looks upon us, He sees the righteousness of Christ.  He does not see the record of failure and filth amassed over the years.  This is impossible with man.  There is nothing we can do to absolve our sin.  We cannot work it off.  We cannot repent it away.  It must and is forgiven by the divine heart.  This is why the Pharisees had an issue.  Rightly so.  If Jesus is not God, forgiving sin is just as impossible as the greatest of all miracles.  If Jesus Christ is not our Savior, it is just as impossible to pass from death to life.  The impossibility of man to wipe away sin is just as great as healing all sickness.  Praise be to God, who forgives more than we will ever realize.

Focus

“The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great [is] that darkness!” (Mt 6:22-23 AV)

Very interesting passage.  Information comes by our senses.  We learn by what we experience.  We smell, touch, hear, taste, and see.  The most influential of all senses is sight.  We learn more by what we see than any other sense.  In fact, what we hear, smell, touch and taste is defined by what we see.  More than one sense is involved in order to comprehend what has just been experienced.  Sort of like triangulating.  In order to come to a fuller understanding, there needs to be more than one point of reference.  Therefore, when the LORD tells us that sight is the light of the body, He is being far more scientific and accurate that we might at first realize.  Having said all this, the implications of what we observe matters much.  The LORD is preaching a singularity of observation and focus.  This does not mean we cannot scan or take in more points of view.  Rather, what we observe must be seen through a single lens.  That lens is the Biblical world view which Jesus is trying to show those assembled for his sermon.

I grew up with photography as a hobby.  I graduated from a single focus lens in 110mm to an SLR using 35mm.  Digital photography had just dawned by the time I put my camera aside.  The thrill of an SLR is a single point of focus.  The single focus lens took the picture we a single depth of field.  Everything was in focus, regardless of how far the subject was to the lens.  Something miles away was just as focused as the person in the foreground.  When SLR came out, the photographer could focus on his subject, which caused foreground and background to blur.  What a revolution!  This opened a world of photography that had not existed before.  Now, we could take all the information available but focus on that which drew our attention. The subject became the primary concern and all other information was secondary or complimentary.  With the advancement of digital photography, 3D is not available.  This enhanced depth of field takes SLR focus to a new level.  Now, the subject is even more in focus.  All other information may or may not be pertinent.  It may enhance or detract from the subject depending on the photographer’s intent.  Secondary information is often unavoidable.  It can be edited out later, but at the time of the photo, it is there nonetheless.  One thing is for certain.  When the photographer is taking his or her picture, he or she has in mind what is the center of the photo and what is unimportant.

This is the point of the passage above.  We cannot control everything we see.  One trip to the grocery store will verify that.  One cannot avoid immodesty.  Not completely.  Unless we live in a remote area with no other human beings, we will see things that are unfortunate.  What we can do is define what we see with the single lens of God’s holiness.  If we see wickedness, we can interpret these unfortunate sights by the lens of God’s justice and mercy.  We can use our eyes to complement the point of God’s righteousness, or we can consume what we see upon our own lusts.  The choice is ours.  Jesus is not saying we need to close our eyes and only open them when we are guaranteed nothing will offend.  Rather, Jesus is telling us to put on the single lens of purity, righteousness, virtue, or praise.  How we chose to observe the world is just as important as what we choose to observe.

Complete Repentance Requires Help

"Forsake me not, O LORD: O my God, be not far from me. Make haste to help me, O Lord my salvation.” (Ps 38:21-22 AV)

These words were uttered by David at a time of sinful failure.  At least, that is how he felt.  We don’t know exactly what the occurrence was.  In reality, it doesn’t matter.  The fact David feared God’s abandonment over his sin is what matters.  We have all been there.  God has promised never to leave nor forsake us.  And He won’t.  But that doesn’t mean our relationship will be intimate.  God doesn’t abandon as much as He can become distant.  I don’t blame Him.  We hear His word and then do the opposite.  Why wouldn’t He be a bit distant?  This might be proven by that second phrase, “be not far from me”.  God doesn’t leave.  He simply retires to a distance.  What is important here is the conclusion of David’s prayer.  He seeks help.  Earlier in the psalm, David confesses his faults.  Rather than confess and forsake, leaving it at that, he seeks God’s help to overcome whatever ails him.  It is not enough to confess and forsake.  If we are serious with God, then we must seek His help to overcome the sin that has estranged us.

To be able to rely on someone whom we have failed to overcome is something special.  Most would reject such a request.  If I am injured by another, helping them to overcome their habit of injuring me might not be something I would be willing to do.  There is a common tragedy that plays out in many of the addicted.  They seek help from their loves ones to overcome their addiction, but many times, it is manipulation for more resources so they can continue in their addiction.  Those addicted lie and steal to feed their addiction.  When loved ones do try to help, more times than not, they are used and discarded at the hands of the one whom they are trying to help.  Often, the only answer is to let someone like that hit the wall.  They have to come to the end of themselves before any escape can be had.  I have counseled many families who have an addict in their lives.  Resentment and anger are often the result.  Abandonment is not too far off.  They simply do not want anything to do with an addict, even if they fully recover.  Their patience is limited.  Their love has constraints.  They give and give, but there comes a time when there is nothing left to give.  They become emotionally distant and unreconcilable.  It is rather sad.

God is the ultimate victim of addiction.  His creation is addicted to sin.  We do as we please and then seek forgiveness afterward.  We use Him when we need Him, but if the flesh is greater, then we abandon Him.  David is seeking help.  He knows he has offended God.  He knows he doesn’t deserve God’s love.  He knows he has injured God.  He knows God is offended.  But he has the sense to know God is his only help.  He is seeking the LORD’s help, not that he might cease for his own sake.  Rather, he seeks God’s help because he has offended God.  He wants liberty from sin for God’s glory.  Seeking the help of God is a big step in overcoming sin.  Knowing we cannot do so ourselves, seeking the LORD’s help is both wise and humble.  David is showing us the way, here.  He is teaching us that if we are to live for the LORD, we can only do so with His help.  So, repentance is more than confession and forsaking.  It is concluded in seeking and gaining the LORD’s help to overcome.