YOU and GOD

(The following article is adapted from one that I wrote originally in August of 2003, shared in this “You and God” installment with the prayer that someone who has been through, is going through, or soon will be in, a “valley of the shadow” experience, by one’s self or with someone, will be edified):

“As I write these lines, our daughter, Marti, is in the intensive care unit at St. Francis Hospital. She underwent an emergency surgery two days ago and she is fighting off infection which, if not checked by some high-powered antibiotics, could end her life on this earth.

I have seen hundreds of folks off to surgery, but this one Saturday was the most difficult ever.  We did not know what the doctor would find. It was suggested that there may be a mass that would be discovered. Unbridled, my mind raced from bad scenarios to scenarios that were worse. It was an agonizing two and one-half hour wait. The report from the surgeon was somewhat of a relief when we learned that an appendix was the culprit. The bad news was that it had begun to leak and thus Marti would have to fight off infection. As I write these lines her body is mounting a fierce struggle against foreign invaders. Many people far and near are praying for her recovery.

Times such as these provide us opportunities to learn. Not that we would ever choose such an opportunity, but they come our way and we have no choice but to live the experience and try to draw upon His grace to get us through. I have so much to learn. I am learning. Please allow me to attempt to put onto paper a few of the things I am struck with because of this nightmare:

1.  Our family is so much a part of the fabric of our lives. Others are very important, but one’s flesh and blood is your very life. We take each other for granted too much. We assume things will always be all right. When an earthquake rocks our foundations, then things become so trivial and people so crucial. We do not tell each other often enough ‘I love you.’
2. Things happen so fast. One moment you’ve got life on cruise control and then around the next corner there’s a major pile-up. It all comes so quickly and without time to prepare. The frames of our life freeze and everything has a different perspective.
3. Prayer is so important. Not only your prayers, but the prayers of anyone who believes in prayer. We can listen to or read prayer lists with detachment until our flesh and blood is one of the names. Then, the prayers of those who believe become huge. We can never overstate the privilege and power of prayer.
4. God’s ways are inscrutable. Bottom line must always and ever be, ‘Thy will be done.’ Don’t try to rationalize it or even understand or explain it. God loves us with an everlasting love and whatever He allows to come our way has to be seen though those lenses. And, we know there is a purpose for His glory.
5. A support group of people of like precious faith is of incalculable worth. What a blessing the dear folk of Thompson Road Baptist Church are to us. We are not alone but surrounded by a family which loves us. A hug. A handshake. And hand on the shoulder. A phone call. A card and word of encouragement. Our family doctor (Ellen’s and mine), Dr. Ruley, has visited Marti every day in intensive care.  He is a good, Godly doctor and though Marti and Dale are not under his watch care at this time, he cares enough to make a special trip to the hospital each day to check up on her. Besides that, God has placed there an ICU nurse that, shall I say, could have qualified as a doc. She keeps the physicians up to date and in some cases shares with them the approach she deems wise to take. She is a God send to all of us at this time. All are priceless.

As Marti was rolled into the operating room, I bent to kiss her cheek. After surgery she mentioned that to Ellen. I have never been very openly affectionate with my family. I feel very deeply for them and love them each more than I can tell. But hugs and kisses have never been part of my expression. In my heart, I have vowed that has to change. I can’t wait until my little girl is well enough to give her a great big hug and kiss. Too bad we are so slow to get it that it takes major crises to show us where we need to make some changes. I am sure there are many other lessons I will learn through this experience. Stay tuned.”

P.S. Today, September 30, 2021, I want to share with you, in case you are not already aware of it, that Marti did, by the grace of God, survive that experience that occurred eighteen years ago. She since has homeschooled or is homeschooling all of her children three of whom have graduated from college and/or grad school.  She and her husband of 33 years, Dale, are faithful members of TRBC where I was senior pastor until 2019. Sadly, an emergency appendicitis situation visited the Nye household four years after Marti’s ordeal, claiming the life of their precious son, David, who was eleven years of age at the time. What all of us experienced through Marti’s near-death battle, in no way prepared us for the passing of the sweet young lad that David was and the strong young man that he was becoming. We had learned that “God’s ways are above our ways,” and that always, “My grace is sufficient.”  “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.” It is true. Selah.

“Blessed by God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” (2 Cor. 1:3,4)

Our church is in the midst of another faith promise/world missions conference, our 40^th annual such missions endeavor. Every previous conference has always yielded lasting fruit for world missions and through the Biblical faith giving approach to supporting missions and missionaries we have enjoyed blessed relationships with hundreds of these choice servants, supporting with both prayers and finances some of them for 30, 40 and even 50 years. Every conference has been memorable and the highlight of our church’s yearly calendar. So, one might ask, why does a church go to the expense and effort of hosting a major missions meeting such as this every twelve months? Glad you asked! My answer is as follows:

1.  Matthew 13 records some interesting parables, beginning with one about a sower that went forth to sow. To understand this parable, in its greater context, one must review chapters 11 and 12. Jesus, like His forerunner John the Baptist, had been preaching that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. (Matt. 4:2) His message was pretty much rejected and He Himself stated that “the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence.” (Matt. 11:12) He concluded chapter 11 with that great invitation to “come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.” (11:28) In Matthew 12, the Pharisees rejected Jesus as their King claiming that what He did He did by the empowerment of Beelzebub, or Satan. (12:24) For the nation of Israel at that time, that was their official rejection of His offer to be their King and it set into motion the events that would culminate at Calvary.
2. In Matthew 13, Jesus outlined for His disciples what would happen in the light of this rejection, speaking in parables so that He could reveal to them that a period of sowing would ensue, followed eventually by a harvest at the end of the world. (13:30) The parables were spoken to reveal to His followers “mysteries of the kingdom,” while concealing from His detractors further accountability and thus further condemnation since “they seeing see not and hearing hear not, neither do they understand.” (13:13) More truth would only bring them under more condemnation for to whom much is given of him shall much be required.
3. These parables, eight in all in chapter 13, outline what the future of the kingdom will look like in light of the King’s rejection. The first one is called the parable of the sower, and one learns that there is going to be a sowing of seed, ending in a final end of the world harvest. The sower is the Son of Man; (13:37) the field is the world; (13:38-as revealed in a similar parable concerning the sowing of bad seed or tares by the wicked one, a counter sowing) the seed is the word of the kingdom, (13:19) and the result of this period of sowing will be that some of the sown seed will not bear any fruit as some is immediately snatched up by the wicked one, (19) some will wither having been sown on stony ground; some will not bear but will be overtaken by thorns, but some will bear good fruit, some 30, some 60 and some a hundred-fold. (13:23)
4. In the other parables in Matthew 13, Jesus would further unfold characteristics of this sowing period. There would be a counter-sowing by Satan that would produce tares which would have to be weeded out at the end of the age harvest; the kingdom during this phase which He would later (Matt.16) identify as the church-age would have a very small beginning, (the parable of the mustard seed) but mushroom like growth (the parable of the leaven) and would be like a treasure found in a field or like a pearl of great price and, in the end of the world, it would be like a net that having been cast into the sea when drawn in would be a full net comprised of both bad and good produce, the good being saved in a vessel and the bad being cast into a furnace of fire.  Thus, the church-age period of the kingdom of heaven was outlined in the parable of the sower and the ensuing parables in Matthew 13.  

So, Jesus had already exhorted the disciples to petition the Lord of the harvest to send forth laborers into this vast world harvest field. (Matt. 9:38) Paul would later teach us that we are co-laborers with God (I Cor. 3:9) and that one sows, one waters but it is God who gives the increase. Writing to the church in Corinth in his second epistle to that church Paul said that we should all be sowing and sowing bountifully because we shall reap even as we have sown. (2 Cor. 9:6-8) Jesus told the 12 in His final intimate teaching moments with them in the upper room that His desire for each of His disciples is that we would go and bring forth fruit, and more fruit and much fruit. (John 15:2,8)

The Psalmist, hundreds of years before Paul exhorted believers to sow bountifully, by God’s Spirit, establishing the universal truth that “He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him.” (Ps. 126:6)

With an eye toward future rejoicing over seed that would bear precious fruit, Paul wrote in his first epistle to the Thessalonian church, “For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing?  Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ at His coming?  For ye are our glory and joy.” (I Thess.2:19,20)

So, thus another world missions, faith-promise conference.  We cannot individually go to the uttermost part of the earth, but we can partner with and send Holy Spirit called and separated missionaries from our church and churches of like precious faith who are ready and willing to go to the field, the world, with the good news, evangelizing, baptizing, discipling the peoples of the four corners of the earth, then organizing them into local New Testament churches that will do the same.  Our job begins with “Go.” The commission has never been withdrawn so thus another world missions faith-promise conference, the 40^th annual at our church, in obedience to His commands.

“Every man according as he purposeth in his heart, so let him give; not grudgingly, or of necessity:  for God loveth a cheerful giver.  And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work.” (2 Cor. 9:7,8)

A pastor who pastors a church five years, fifteen years, fifty years may bear the burden of a church that is considered by many to be gasping for life. The “buck” does in most cases stop at the pastor’s desk. But any pastor that pastors a church for five, fifteen or fifty years and enjoys a measure of what appears to be genuine success would be the first to acknowledge that God blessed that ministry not because of what he did, though God’s hand may have been evidently upon his labors, but because of what a faithful team of co-laborers did week after week, month after month, year after year to make that pastor “look good” as it were or more plainly to support the ministry in such a way that the pastor was free to exercise his God-given gifts of “pastor-teacher” and other ministerial skills God may have blessed him with. I surely had a team of that caliber, some working alongside of me for the full forty years that I led as under shepherd the Thompson Road Baptist Church, most of whom are continuing their selfless labors under the able leadership of my successor, Pastor Joel Stevens.

It is something that I must do to the glory of God when I pause, from time to time, to tell something of the “story” of these unsung 21^st century heroes of the faith. Most every one of them assured me often of their love for me and my family. They spoke regularly of their prayers for us, asking if there was anything we might need. Their care for us as a family and for me their pastor went far beyond what might have been expected. They were quick to lend a hand in any way possible.

One Saturday night, actually early Sunday morning, I received a call from our security company that there had been a breech of security at the church. We lived next door so I was on site in a matter of minutes. A young man, later discovered to be inebriated, had smashed in a front glass door, gained entrance, quickly threw some of the sound system in our main auditorium into the back of his pick-up truck, then in a “parting shot” detonated a couple of fire extinguishers covering every square inch of the auditorium, pews, carpet and all, with a yellowish powder from the fire extinguishers. He was found a couple of blocks away trying to break into a corner drug store with all of our sound equipment still in the back end of his truck. At 3:00 a.m., Sunday morning, having put an emergency call in to a company that would come out and board up the front door, I called ten or fifteen of those people of whom I spoke earlier, asking them to come with vacuum cleaners and cleaning cloths. We had Sunday school that morning at 9:45 a.m. sitting in pews that were “spic and span.” Every pastor reading this can identify with those kinds of folk, yours merely having different faces and names but the same heart for God and His work.

In this post I want to mention one such co-laborer. He met me in front of the pulpit my first Sunday as Pastor of TRBC on September 9, 1979, and announced that as song leader he operated with one understanding: “Song leaders do not preach, and preachers do not lead singing.” Boy, was I relieved to hear Lonial reestablish those parameters. My two predecessors, Pastor Roy Julian and Pastor Fred Moritz were great preachers and it was with trembling that I stepped into the pulpit that both of them had so ably preached from for a combined total of 16 years or so, and I know Dr. Moritz, at least I was pretty sure, that he was not known for his great singing ministry, so I breathed a sigh of relief, shook Lonial Wire’s hand that felt like a paint brush was molded into it (he was a pro painter, his handiwork still testifies to his skill as seen in some of the ceilings and work that were his at the Indiana Statehouse), and we were the best of friends for the next 31 year until he joined that great heavenly choir of the ages, taking with him his signature song (he made a record or two) “But God Can.” His tenor voice was pretty much inimitable and his song leading like none I have ever seen. He was a pro-painter, but when he announced a number to turn to in the hymnal, he merely smiled a smile as wide as broad street and waved his hands with no apparent pattern and people sang while the rafters shook. It was never difficult to preach after Lonial finished leading the song service, except on Mother’s Day when he would, at my request year after year, sing “Tell Mother I’ll Be There, in answer to her prayer….” Often, I would intersperse the stanzas Lonial sang of that song with a poem about Mother which would begin “There she sits, the dear old mother,” and would in a verbal painted picture tell of the mother who kissed fevered brows, sang lullaby’s that quieted baby’s fears and with wrinkled hands soothed the troubled face of a child who needed that special touch of mother.

Lonial was not always a song leader. He served in the United States Army in the Pacific theatre and was acquainted at one time with General Douglas MacArthur. Maybe during his stint in the service Alcohol and Lonial got very close to each other and it took him to the bottom and left him alone on a dark street. He was not out of His Savior’s reach and was found, saved and transformed by the grace of God. He took courses at Indiana Baptist College when the college, founded by Dr. Ford Porter, was located in downtown Indianapolis. Great teachers such as Dr. Billy Forester, Dr. Leon Mauer and others impacted his life and he dedicated himself to serving Christ Jesus and did so until his homegoing in October of 2010. He was always on the front lines; never met a missionary he did not love and did not want to help (gave a car to one of our missionaries whose car broke down when he was in our church) and was as generous as he was adamant for truth. He gave me a little black book once with some sermon outlines that he had worked up and they were “preachable.” One of them was about Joseph and his coat of many colors and Lonial applied that passage to believers today saying that God, the great Weaver, fashions each of us a coat of many colors, some bright and beautiful swaths and some not so much, but all working together to make us special for Himself because He loves us so.

I wish upon every pastor who leads a flock that God will give you a Lonial and a team of all in volunteers for Jesus that will help you to do better than you are capable of doing and look better than you deserve to look. It’s all by His grace and for His glory “But God Can.”

The first sin God forbade His people in the timeless ten commandments— “Thou shalt have no other gods before me”—became the besetting sin of Israel and the sin for which they were ultimately and severely judged with captivity.

If idolatry was the sin that most plagued God’s people before the cross, is there any reason to think that people or times have changed so drastically that a new sin has replaced idolatry as the number one offence that separates man from God?

The last note of warning sounded to believers in the New Testament is found at the end of John’s first epistle: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.”

Idolatry is convenient; it appeals to the flesh. It is easy, relatively inexpensive and immensely popular as a form of religious experience.

It may have been all of the above that prompted Jeroboam, newly chosen King of Israel after King Solomon’s passing, to introduce idolatry during his reign to his people.  He sold the sin with the rationalization that “It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem to worship; behold thy gods,” he said. Never mind they were mere calves of gold which could not speak, see or hear. “Behold thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt.” (I Kings 12:28)

And thus, a standard was set for Israel which would govern the direction and the destiny of the 10 tribes of the northern confederacy which split off after the passing of King Solomon, separating from the southern kingdom of Judah where the capitol was still Jerusalem. This is the nation that witnessed the majestic and mighty power of God whose hand guided the kingdom under King David and King Solomon as it became one of the wealthiest and most powerful nations in history. And, the nation, leaving God for gods, became captive in 722 B.C. when the Assyrians destroyed their capitol in Samaria and took the people captive, followed by the Babylonians doing the same thing to Judah in 605 B.C when Nebuchadnezzar’s armies pillaged and plundered Jerusalem taking captive to Babylon the best and brightest of that southern kingdom.

Fast forward to today. Because of convenience, ease, rationalism and fleshly appeal, we too often have worshipped calves of gold! We’ve embraced idolatry just as surely as did God’s people of old.

God hates the sin and will not overlook the practice of it. He will judge it when and where it rears its ugly head. What are the gods at whose altars we worship in this 21^st century? What are our idols?

* The god of sex. Thirty years ago, newspaper columnist William Raspberry, writing in the Indianapolis Star, summarized the moral dilemma facing America. It has not changed: “Things that decent people used to shun—or at least feel guilty about—are now described in morally neutral terms as ‘alternative lifestyles.’” Pre-marital sex (1/2 of all girls 18 years of age have engaged in sexual intercourse); pornography, a multi-billion-dollar business yearly; explicit language and physical sexual activity can be viewed on any night on about any media medium in almost any home in America; divorce, alarmingly frequent; unwanted pregnancies terminated legally by abortion (each day the equivalent of a 9/11 occurs in the cumulative number of abortions, infanticide, performed in abortion clinics in America!). Nationally, we have an abnormal and unhealthy fixation on sex so that it might well be called a calf and we, the United States of America, worship at its altar.

  *  The god of sports. I live in Indianapolis, the “Amateur sports capitol of the world.” Nothing wrong with sports, BUT the heroes of our youth are not scientists or soldiers or doctors and educators or missionaries but, in most cases, ball players; the highest paid young adults of our country are not teachers or social workers or police persons or factory workers but ball players; the biggest crowds assemble regularly not to hear symphonies or to listen to preachers but to see a ball game. Sports, in truth, has become a god at whose altars America is worshipping today;

  *  The god of mass media. A professor at Yale said, “The greatest threat to the American family is television, not because of what it promotes but because of what it prevents.” In America today, if you are between the ages of 8 and 28, studies show that you will spend 44.5 hours a week before a digital screen. 23% of kids and teens feel they are addicted to video games The average American teen, pre-pandemic, spent 7 hours daily before a screen, and that is not altogether doing homework! Speaking in his day of the content of most media programing, the late Bible teacher and pastor, J. Vernon McGee said, “Each program tries to outdo the other in presenting the vulgar, uncouth, crude, rude, raw, violent, fierce, coarse, antisocial, insolent and meaningless…wrapped in vulgar dialogue, a manure pile in the barnyard has more appeal than most of the TV offerings.”

*  The god of pleasure.  New highs, more leisure, greater fun, bigger thrills. In California, some youths get thrills out of riding down mountain sides on bikes that will do 150 mph. One boy had been almost killed doing this, but after his recovery he planned to ride again. When asked about the danger, he said he really didn’t care, all he wanted was one more ride. Local churches have not escaped this “pleasure treasure” mentality either. More weeks away, more Sundays at the favorite camp site, more “toys” to occupy our time and attention; more theme parks to visit, so that church on Sunday, well, that too often happens on weekends that are convenient;

*  The god of materialism:  success is often measured by how much we have; or by how big what we have is, i.e., how big is our house, our car, our yard, our pool, our bank account. The lottery mentality has a grip upon America so that people are at a fever pitch to purchase their chance at becoming independently wealthy.

Rudyard Kipling spoke of certain moral principles which will endure when he wrote “The Gods of the Copybook Headings.” He refers to the universal principles which were formerly printed in the copybooks with which children learned to read and write. The last stanza reads:

“As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of man; there are only four things certain since social progress began: that the dog returns to its vomit and the sow returns to her mire; and the burnt fool’s bandaged finger goes wobbling back to the fire; And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins, when all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins; as surely as water will wet us, as surely as fire will burn, the gods of the copybook headings with terror and slaughter return.”

“That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else.” (Isa.45:6)

Former U.S. Vice-President Mike Pence was addressing a group of pastors in the Indiana Statehouse in February of 2016, months before he had any inkling of an idea that he would become by year’s end the next Vice-President of the United States, chosen by the would-be President-elect Donald Trump. To this group of 40 or so pastors gathered in a room of the Indiana Capitol complex, the then Governor Pence exhorted these pastors to “continue instant in prayer.” He shared an illustration that he had remembered from the time he went to serve Indiana in the United States House of Representatives in 2001. He met, in December of that year, for the first time, George W. Bush, known as “Bush 43.” He related how when introduced to the President he shared with him that “I want you to know, Mr. President, that my wife and I pray for you by name every day,” to which the President replied, “Keep it up, it matters.” The attack upon the United States had just occurred in September of that year and George W. Bush had begun serving his first term as president in January of that year. So, to have a U.S. congressman assure him of his daily prayers as President of a nation at war against terrorists who had waged a devastating attack upon our homeland must have meant a great deal to the President. Governor Pence wanted to encourage the Pastors who had met that winter day in the Statehouse to keep on praying for him and for all who are in authority because “It matters!”

Oh, how we must pray always because it matters! John Wesley knew the power of prayer when he thundered, “Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not whether they be clergymen or laymen; such alone will shake the gates of hell. God does nothing but in answer to prayer.”

E.M. Bounds reminded God’s host that “The preachers who gain mighty results for God are the men who have prevailed in their pleadings with God. The preachers who are the mightiest in their closets with God are the mightiest in their pulpits with men.”

Hear David’s pleading with the Almighty: “Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto Thee, when I lift up my hands toward Thy holy oracle…Blessed be the Lord, because He hath heard the voice of my supplications.” (Ps.28:2,6)

God has a storehouse of blessings awaiting ready to be meted out to those who will ask (Matt.7:7) Dr. J. Wilbur Chapman related a testimony of a man who stood in one of his meetings and said, “For one year I begged the streets as a tramp and one day I tapped a man on the shoulder and said, ‘Mister, could you please give me a dime?’ As soon as I saw his face, I realized it was my father. He threw his arms around me and said, ‘I have found you. All I have is yours!’ I stood there begging my father for ten cents while he had been looking for me to give me all he had.”

William Law reminds us that “It is not the arithmetic of our prayers, how many they are; nor the rhetoric of our prayers, how eloquent they are; nor geometry of our prayers, how long they be; nor the music of our prayers, how sweet our voice may be; nor the logic of our prayers, how argumentative they may be; nor the method of our prayers, how orderly they may be—which God cares for. Fervency of spirit is that which availeth much.”

Andrew Murray had studied the matter of intercession and devotion to God and rendered this profound conclusion: “Little of the Word with little prayer is death to the spiritual life. Much of the Word with little prayer gives a sickly life.  Much prayer with little of the Word gives an emotional life. But a full measure of both the Word and prayer each day gives a healthy and powerful life.”

Praying always with all prayer. Always. With all prayer. A lady asked G. Campbell Morgan “Do you think we ought to pray about even the little things in life?” Dr. Morgan, in his typical British manner answered, “Madam, can you think of anything in your life that would be big to God?”

Someone wisely noted that “Prayer is the closest you will ever be to God on this earth.”

Samuel Chadwick was quoted as declaring that “the one concern of the Devil is to keep saints from prayer. He fears nothing from prayerless studies, prayerless work, prayerless religion. He laughs at our toil, mocks at our wisdom, but trembles when we pray.”

That is no doubt why the Apostle Paul exhorted us to “Pray without ceasing.” (I Thess. 5:16)

I lost track of who said the following, but it is spot on: “The church has many organizers, but few agonizers; many who pay, but few who pray: many resters, but few wrestlers; many who are enterprising, but few who are interceding. Two prerequisites of dynamic Christian living are vision and passion and both of these are generated in the prayer closet. The ministry of preaching is open to a few. The ministry of praying is open to every child of God. Do not mistake action for unction, commotion for creation, and rattles for revivals. The secret of praying is praying in secret. A worldly Christian will stop praying and a praying Christian will stop worldliness. Tithes may build a church, but it takes tears to give it life. That is the difference between the modern church and the early church. Our emphasis is on paying, theirs was on praying. When we have paid, the place is taken; when they had prayed the place was shaken. (Acts 4:13) In the matter of effective praying, never have so many left so much to so few.”

When times were agonizing during the days of our founding fathers as they were trying to forge a constitution that would stand the test of times, Benjamin Franklin rose to the floor and spoke: “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth—that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid? We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred writings that ‘except the Lord builds the House, they labor in vain that build it.’ I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in the political building no better than the builders of Babel; we shall be divided by our local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and by-word down to future ages.”

“I therefore beg leave to move, that henceforth prayers imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations, be haled in this Assembly every morning before we proceed to business, and that one or more of the clergy of the city be requested to officiate in that service.”

And, I submit to you, dear friend, that the “reproach and by-word down to the future ages” that Mr. Franklin spoke of in that convention more than 200 years ago has come upon us it would seem. But God changes things through prayer. Brethren, let us pray.

Martin Luther was absolutely correct when he said that “a religion that gives nothing, costs nothing and suffers nothing is worth nothing.”

Perhaps because of what we know the Bible teaches concerning the grace of God and that salvation is a free gift, we’ve been led to believe that being a Christian costs nothing! Going to heaven is a “free ride” and it’s not only free, it’s profitable!

There is abroad today a current popular preaching known as the “prosperity gospel” that would lead one to believe that since God owns everything, His children are heirs to all things and can, therefore, expect to be well-to-do in material things. Good health and great wealth are to be expected prosperity preachers proclaim.

The truth is, that’s simply not the gospel Jesus preached; nor is it taught anywhere in the Word of God. There are, however, some elements of truth in the prosperity gospel. It is true, for instance, that God owns everything; and it is true that God’s children are heirs to all things. But to put those two statements together and come up with the conclusion that all believers can expect to be wealthy and healthy all the time is to embrace a flawed logic and a false gospel.

What Jesus did teach is that being a believer has never been financially profitable, whether this side of Calvary or the other!

While some of God’s people have known what it was to be very wealthy, they have been the exception rather than the rule. In fact, Jesus said that a wealthy person would enter heaven with great difficulty! He urged men to lay up treasures in heaven as opposed to on earth. James exclaimed that rich men should weep and howl for the miseries that would come upon them. Paul asserted that not many wise, not many mighty, not many noble were called…but God hath chosen the weak, the base, the despised…that no flesh should glory in His presence. (I Cor 1:26-29) Jesus said at His first public preaching opportunity that He had come to preach the gospel to the poor! (Luke 4:18)

So, the myth that all believers are and will be well to do in this world should be dispelled.

Also, the myth that says that since salvation is by the free, unmerited grace of God it costs nothing ought also to be dislodged from the minds of those who have believed that false teaching.

The fact of the matter is, salvation, though a free gift of God to all who will believe and receive Christ, did cost God His only begotten Son! It did also cost the only begotten Son of God the humiliation the Holy One suffered when He was made in the likeness of men, took upon Himself the form of a servant and temporarily laid aside the independent exercise of His Godhead attributes. Finally; He suffered infinitely while the sin of the world was put upon Him as He tasted “death” (eternal damnation) for every human being who ever had lived or would thereafter live. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16) Yes, salvation was unspeakably costly to the Godhead, but, thankfully, “He… spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all….” (Romans 8:32) 

Not only did salvation cost God, it cost others also. It cost Abraham his only son as well: “By faith, Abraham offered up Isaac and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, accounting that God was able to raise him up from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure.” (Hebs. 11:17) To be sure, God provided Abraham the lamb that was in the thicket so that Abraham’s knife was not plunged into the body of his precious son of promise, but in Abraham’s mind when he raised the knife, in faith believing and obeying God, Isaac was as good as dead. Abraham’s faith cost him his only begotten son.

And then Moses is cited in Hebrews 11 who “by faith, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharoah’s daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt….” (Hebs. 11:24-26)

So, from an earthly perspective, it “cost” Moses a fortune to stand for God and with God’s people. What has it cost you here today?

And then the prophets of old paid a price for their unashamed stand for God, giving in many instances their lives, their blood along with “mockings, scourgings, bonds and imprisonments; they were stoned, sawn asunder, tempted, slain with the sword; they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented.” (Hebs. 11:36,37) These were not only prophets but “others also,” i.e., men and women of old who “quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of aliens. Women received their dead to life again:  and others were tortured not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection.” (Hebs. 11:33-35) There was no hint of any prosperity gospel here in these “Hall of Faith” testimonies in Hebrews 11, stories of men and women of faith in yesteryears who paid the ultimate price for their faith standing forever as a witness to the fact that following God will cost you something!

According to the best traditions, it cost many key New Testament church planters and pioneers of the faith, including all of the Apostles, except the aged John who suffered banishment and exile, martyrdom after having been cruelly tortured. Matthew was slain with a sword in a distant Ethiopian city; Mark died in Alexandria after having been mercilessly dragged through the streets; Luke was hanged upon an olive tree in Greece; Peter was crucified in Jerusalem with his head downward; James the less was thrown from a pinnacle of the Temple and then beaten to death; Bartholomew was flayed alive; Andrew was bound to a cross from whence he preached to his persecutors until he died; Thomas was run through the body with a sword, Jude was shot to death with arrows, Matthias was stoned before he was beheaded; Barnabas was also stoned to death and Paul, after unspeakable tortures and persecutions, was said to have been beheaded at Rome by the Emperor Nero.

So much for the “prosperity” gospel!

What might being a follower of Christ cost you? “For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s foes shall be they of his own household…he that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me…he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.” (Matt.10:35-37) Songster C.F. Weigle having paid a dear price for his faith, losing a loved one to the world, wrote of it when he penned the song No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus writing “I would love to tell you what I think Jesus, how I found in Him a friend so kind and true….” It may cost you a fortune; or “friends,” or a future or fame or “freedom,” or “fashion,” or some other thing you had treasured, but know that following, loving, serving Christ, will cost you something, probably something dear.

“I had walked life’s path with an easy tread,

Had followed where comfort and pleasure led;

And then, by ‘chance’ in a quiet place,

I met my Master face to face.

With station and rank and wealth for my goal,

Much thought for the body but none for the soul,

I had entered to win this life’s mad race,

When I met my Master face to face.

I had built my castles, reared them high,

Till their towers had pierced the blue of the sky;

I had sworn to rule with an iron mace—

When I met my Master face to face.

I met Him and knew Him, and blushed to see

That His eyes full of sorrow were fixed on me;

And I faltered, and fell at His feet that day

While my castles vanished and melted away.

My thought is now for the souls of men;

I have lost my life to find it again.

Ever since alone in that holy place

My Master and I stood face to face.”

            By Lorrie Cline