YOU and GOD

A little girl whose family had just moved to a large city became lost.  She went to the corner policeman who began quizzing her but without success, trying to determine where she lived.  Finally, the child said, “If you will take me to church, Mister, I can find my way home.”

Church attendance has been on the wane in recent years, and the 2020 Covid-19 shut down has caused new patterns of church attendance that have not yet been subject to measurement.  Some church experts are projecting that when the pandemic is over, most churches will have 20% fewer people regularly attending Sunday mornings at one location than they had attending pre-corona virus days.  More people, it is assumed, will have adjusted to worshipping on-line and will not show up for on-site, in person worship.  But, church attendance has always been and ever will be for New Testament churches in line with the Biblical injunction to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together, and the promise of Jesus that “where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”

A local lumber yard sign read:  “81% of your customers will be lost ten years from now; 1% will die; 3% will move away; 5% will give their business to a friend; 9% will be lost to competitors; 14% will quit due to dissatisfaction with a product and 68% will quit because of an attitude of indifference on the part of an employee.”  Could it be that those statistics will reflect church attendance patterns too?

But faithful, regular attendance is so very important.  Biblical commentator John Stott in one of his commentaries said that Christians are players in a “cosmic drama.”  The stage, he said, is the world; the actors are the church; the writer, producer and director, God; cosmic beings are rulers and authorities in heavenly places.  Stott said that through the old creation God reveals His glory to men, and through the new creation (the church) He reveals His glory and wisdom to the angels, principalities and powers (I Cor. 11:10).  Thus, how we look at our responsibilities regarding the church and our relationship to it, even in matters of attendance to its regular services, takes on a new and elevated significance:  by our faithfulness we can teach angels, both the fallen angels that chose to follow Satan’s coup against God, rebelling against His authority; and the unfallen angels who chose not to follow Satan, but remained unfallen and confirmed in holiness.  We teach the former lot of angelic demons that they made a mistake in believing Satan’s lie and in sinning against their Creator, leaving their “first estate,” (I Pet. 1:10-12; Jude 6).  We teach the latter lot, unfallen angels, that they made a wise choice in bowing to God’s sovereign authority; and we are demonstrating by our faithful attendance and obedience to His command that we are “not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” and that we have made the same choice.

So, if we are His disciples, it is incumbent upon us to “show up,” if at all possible, when the Body meets for regularly announced worship together.  Like Mrs. Ellen Craig, reported by the Nashville Banner, who had perfect attendance in Sunday School for 1,040 Sundays, or twenty years!   “Doesn’t Mrs. Craig ever have company drop in on Sunday?  Does she never have headaches, colds?  How about week-end trips, family reunions, or times she would sleep in, or stay at home because of rain or snow; or, has she never gotten her feelings hurt by someone in the church?”  (Richard DeHahn)

The reasons for not attending church regularly were once parodied by a clever wag: “I never wash because I was made to when I was a child; people who wash are hypocrites—they think they are cleaner than everyone else; there are so many different kinds of soap, I could never decide which one is right; I used to wash but got bored with it; I still wash on occasions:  Easter and Christmas; none of my friends wash and they seem to get along all right and after all, people who make soap are only after your money!”

How is it with you?  Do you treasure times together with His family, meeting as one Body?  Don’t forsake it!  Joyfully embrace it.

I leave you with a humorous story a pastor friend of mine shared with an adult Sunday School class he was teaching one Sunday, stressing the importance of faithfully attending Church and its services.  He said:  “In the Puritan  churches they dealt with absences from church in this way:  miss one Sunday and you get no meals on Monday; miss two Sundays and you receive a whipping; miss three Sundays and you go to jail; miss four Sundays…NO ONE MISSES FOUR SUNDAYS!

“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another; and so much the more as ye see the day approaching.”  (Hebs. 10:25)

“I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the Lord.” (Ps. 122:1)

She and her husband have been serving on the mission field in the intermountain area of the United States for 31 of the 35 years they have been married.  We will call her Diane as that is her name.  She would have been, in her earliest years, the most unlikely candidate for a future missionary because of her home environment, but God!

Church bus workers knew how to draw children back week after week (with candy!) and Diane says she got hooked, but not only because of the candy but more importantly because of a loving church family that took her into their hearts and homes and nurtured her, after she became a child of God through her new birth following a gospel message at a Christmas Youth Group party.  Dr. Fred Moritz, then pastor of the church she was attending, baptized her and the rest is history.  She became the “adopted” child of a half dozen or more loving church families while cherishing Psalm 27:10: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.”  

In ways that only a sovereign God could have engineered Diane was able to enroll as a student at Bob Jones University after a wise youth pastor and his wife took her on a trip to BJU where she for the first time in her life got to experience “a little bit of heaven on earth.”  She did not know what she wanted to do but through her first semester “it seemed all I heard in chapel, in my Bible classes, and in my devotions, the Lord kept pointing me to missions. That summer, my pastor, Anthony Slutz, preached on John 15:16.  All I heard was Go!  I didn’t know where the Lord wanted me to go, but I was willing to go wherever He led me!  I went back to school in the fall and changed my major to missions.”

Tony Miller, leader of a missions team to the Intermountain West, spoke in a missions chapel that semester on John 15:16. Diane says, “I went to the team meeting to learn more about it.  I really believed the Lord wanted me on this team, but I had no idea how I was going to return to school next year, let alone go on a mission team!  I told the Lord I was willing to go, but He would have to provide.  A few days later, I learned that my Dad had money in an account that no one knew about at the time of his death.  It was enough for me to go on the mission team, as well as return to school in the fall!  My heavenly Father knew that the money was there when I would need it.”

The trip west sealed Diane’s burden for the Intermountain Mission field and she testifies that on that trip was a handsome young man that she was drawn to: “We’ve been married for 35 years and have been serving the Lord with Northwest Baptist Missions for 31 of those years.  God has always been so faithful and good to us!”

Most of Diane’s family have never professed faith in her Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, though by her life, love, letters and prayers she has wept over them and waited with hope of hearing that her Savior had become theirs through faith.  She had little or no encouragement from anyone outside of her church family and Christian circle of friends, including a Christian school, to attend church, continue in church, attend a Christian college, or to become a missionary.

It is not a stretch to say that Diane’s story, like others, is one of the grace of God, the skillful guidance of His hand and the loving care for a child pretty much “on her own” who was found by some faithful bus workers, evangelized by a faithful youth pastor, nurtured by a faithful church family and mentored by teachers whose sole interest in Diane was a soul interest in Diane.  May their tribe increase.  The host of believers whose lives have been interwoven with Diane’s for the past forty plus years can rejoice, praising our great God for a child whose heart was open to and drawn to our home mission field and who, listening through messages, testimonies and lessons would later testify that “All I heard was Go!”

“Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?  Then said I, Here am I; send me.  And He said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed….” (Isaiah 6:8,9a)

A Puritan writer once wrote: “The Christian’s armor will rust except it be furbished and scoured with the oil of prayer.”

Once again, our nation stands at a crossroad.  The issue before us:  a burgeoning, bustling land where freedom’s light shines as a bright beacon of hope, or on the other hand a bungling, blighting bureaucratic government of the powerful, by the political and for the privileged who live within the beltline and who have made a career of milking the deep state for every last lobbied dollar that could be had; all in the name of the United States of America.

The odds are against the few free brave men and women who believe in life and liberty for all and an equal field upon which to pursue one’s dreams.

One party platform espouses life for the unborn baby whose only home has ever been its mother’s womb; the other party believes that the fluid baby’s cradle is as much a death chamber as the butcher’s block ready to receive the bloody axe.

It’s a clear choice, and in just days Decision Day 2020 will be upon us; the “odds makers” give it to the “progressives” by a 74-33 margin as of 14 days out.

But God!  At a dark hour in our colonial history, a wise Ben Franklin, not known for his faith in God or in God’s Word, proclaimed to his fellow framers of the U.S. Constitution when their deliberations had come to an impossible impasse:  “We have been assured, Sir, in the sacred scriptures that ‘except the Lord builds the House they labor in vain that build it.’”  Franklin went on to entreat that “henceforth prayers (be made) imploring the assistance of Heaven and its blessings on our deliberations…every morning before we proceed to business….”  Following Franklin’s plea, it is said that the iceberg melted and safe passage through the once frozen political sea was achieved until at last, we had a Constitution that could only have been born through a special dispensation of the grace of God.  A lady hollered across the street to Ben Franklin as he was departing Constitution Hall one day: “What have you given us?”  To which Franklin replied, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”  Today, we struggle yet, as ever, “to keep it.”

We have the most earth-shattering weapon under heaven given to men in the instrument of prevailing prayer. Moses prayed and the sea was parted; Jonah prayed and God sent a great fish to spare him from a drowning death; Daniel prayed and the manes of the kings of beasts, which had been smitten with lock jaw, became Daniel’s pillow for a night’s sleep in a den of lions; Daniel’s three friends prayed and Jesus joined them in the fiery furnace; Joshua prayed and the sun stood still.

So, we join the Apostles in their petition, “Lord, teach us to pray.”  We can do much after we have prayed, but we can do nothing to advance truth’s triumph until we have prayed.  Herbert Lockyer told his ministerial students: “Let us not shun the College of the Wilderness, from which we graduate with the degree of Reliance upon God.”

And so, do not despair during this dark hour.  There is a God whose ears are never stopped, whose eyes are never closed, whose arm is never shortened and whose will is never thwarted.  So, PRAY!

“Prayer makes the darkest cloud withdraw; prayer climbs the ladder Jacob saw; and Satan trembles when he sees the weakest saint upon his knees.” (anon.)

“Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.” (Eph. 5:18)

Dear Mr. Irsay: Dear Mr. Reich:

As owner and as head coach of the Indianapolis Colts, I address you on behalf of the multitude of people whose lives are impacted every day by what “The Blue” does, not only on Sundays when game time rolls around but on every day of the year when, having eaten at a local restaurant we pay the bill which most often includes a “stadium” (Lucas Oil) tax or pick up the tab for an out of town friend staying at a local motel which adds on another tax for the three-quarter billion dollar stadium built for Colts games which only a few of us ever have the opportunity to attend.

We live here and we are glad that over the years, since the Colts moved here from Baltimore, we have been able to boast of a fine, competitive team that not only won the Super Bowl but has demonstrated, through the likes of Coach Dungy, Peyton Manning and others, class citizenship in community endeavors, representing well your organization as one that cares for our city and its citizens and contributes in many ways to our pride and progress.  For that, we are grateful.

That’s why, in your first game this year, when it was time for the National Anthem, typically signaling the beginning of the game’s play action, it was terribly disappointing, even disgusting, to see the entire team of players standing behind you, Coach Reich, while you put one knee to the ground and refused to respect “old glory” and our national song of appreciation for all men and women, past and present, who have sacrificed their own pursuits to serve in our armed forces to protect, preserve and to pass on to the next generation the freedoms that have been so unique to our great nation since those 56 brave colonial Constitution framers signed the Declaration of Independence pledging their lives and fortunes so that our republic could be one where “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” could be enjoyed by every American.  Most of those valiant men lost everything:  their lives, families, possessions because of their courage in signing that historic document; and from the inception of our nation, millions of mostly young, heroic, barely out of the stage of boyhood men have sacrificed their lives on foreign soil so that we could breathe free air today, choose our vocation and place of worship and rear our children and establish our homes in a country where there has been from our nation’s inception the opportunity to live free.  The ultimate price for this freedom has been paid by generations of patriotic men and women who freely forfeited their own dreams and desires so that we could, as we do today, enjoy this experiment of republican government, now 244 years old and counting, which has been unlike any ever known in mankind’s history, and which is the envy of the world’s masses most of which are still “yearning to be free.”

That’s why, sirs, when the Colts took the field for its season opener and our coach, with the approval of the team standing behind him, refused to stand in respect for our flag during the National Anthem, we were so smitten with disbelief, disappointment and disgust.  It is a football game.  We follow the news and agonize over what our great nation is now enduring.  We pray, we contribute in legitimate endeavors to make our city one where each person is treated fairly, equally and with dignity absent discrimination in the work a day world or in the halls of justice.  We get it.  We as a people can do better.  We protest with all our might any movement that is bent on destroying buildings, businesses and bodies because there has been an aberration of justice in our city, state or nation.  But when we go to a football game or watch our hometown team play on any given day, we expect the coaches and players to show respect for our country, its historic symbols of freedom and its men and women serving to preserve our freedoms.  You, sirs, have done your many fans and well-wishers a monumental disservice; we beg of you to find a respectable way, a patriotic way, an inoffensive way, to show your support of the United States, its citizens of all persuasions who are trying to obey the laws of our land and striving to live in peace with every fellow-American regardless of race or religion.

Please, stand in respect for the flag and all that it represents and for the millions of men and women now serving and who have in wars past or present served and shed their precious blood ensuring that you have a place to play your football games where there is life and liberty guaranteed for all.

“Remove not the ancient landmark, which thy fathers have set.”  (Provs. 22:28)

“Righteousness exalteth a nation:  but sin is a reproach to any people.” (Provs. 14:34)

On September 29, 1978, less than two months into his papacy, Pope John Paul I was found dead in his bed with the book Imitation of Christ, by Thomas A. Kempis, opened and his reading light still on, probably having died of a heart attack.

Paul the Apostle wrote to some first century saints in Philippi that he desired to know his Lord and specifically the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings (Phil.3:10).  He not only wanted to imitate his Savior, Paul wanted to commune with Him in such a way that his life would be a shared life, even in the manner of suffering.

Most of us want to know Him and we surely want to live a life of resurrection power, but that suffering issue is another matter.  We have read what Paul said to young Timothy when he reminded him that all who live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution. (2 Tim. 3:12).  And, Peter has caused us to give serious consideration to the matter of adversity when he wrote to suffering, scattered saints that they were “called” to suffer because Christ had left us an example that “ye should follow in His steps.” (I Pet. 2:21).  It is easier to relegate those instructions to believers living in the early church age; but to the 21^st century western world of Christ-followers, well, we’re not so quick to embrace that postulate.  Sure, we would love to know Him in a way that we’ve never known Him before; but to say “Amen” to Paul’s confession that “for whom I have suffered the loss of all things,” well, that would surely give us cause for pause.

But the “fellowship of His sufferings” entails such a work of grace in a believer’s heart that he/she will have a different mind-set about things past (reputation, comforts, respect, retirement, privileges, and possessions).  Paul affirms that he “suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in Him….” (Phil. 3:8,9).  That statement sums it all up for Paul, and becomes our mantra yet today.  To be found in Him, His will, His service, His fellowship, His blessing, so that He is the center and circumference of our being, our existence, means that Christ the Lord is our “All in all!”

What is your one wish today?  Riches, friends, success, security, fame, health?  Or, to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings?  There is no short-cut. We cannot pick and choose.  To have the resurrection power will not be realized apart from the fellowship of sufferings.  

That just may be the key to the timeless, perplexing puzzle: “Why do good people suffer?”  All of us know some “salt of the earth” folk who have been in and through the furnace of suffering to an unimaginable extent.  We can only wonder, sometimes, why.  Then Paul’s words echo in our heart’s chamber: “…and the fellowship of His sufferings.”  We do not need to know more.  It is part of the knowing, showing and growing as we “reach forth unto those things which are before.” (Phil. 3:13).

“Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect:  but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ.” (Phil. 3:12).

A few days ago, “You and God” addressed the subject of riches and the dangers of trusting in them; the sheer vanity of doing so as expressed by the very wealthy King Solomon who suffered from what some have called “destination sickness,” defined as a person “arriving” only to discover he is “nowhere.” (H.B. London)

Today, please consider the question “What are you doing with that with which you’ve been entrusted?”  We’ve already established the fact that Americans are a wealthy lot of people.  For example, one news outlet reported that in a recent Christmas season the average American family spent nearly 300 dollars per child on holiday gifts.  Some families in some countries do not make that in an entire year.  So, yes, we are “wealthy” by the standards of the world measured in dollars and cents.

Howard Hendricks once stated that “materialism has nothing to do with amount, but with attitude.”  So, let us ask ourselves, “Am I materialistic?”  Do you feel like you have “arrived” financially?  As someone put it, if an enemy took over your town and led you out of the city with nothing in your possession, would you say that you had “left everything behind?”

Readers Digest told of an anonymous writer who wrote that an American tourist visited a well-known 19^thcentury Polish rabbi.  The visitor was surprised that the rabbi’s house contained only a few books, a table, a chair and a bed.  The visitor asked, “Where’s your furniture, rabbi?”

“Where’s yours?” the rabbi replied.  “Mine?” asked the puzzled American.  “But I’m a visitor here—just passing through.”

“So am I,” replied the rabbi.

David had that attitude in his psalm of praise when he said, “For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers; our days on the earth are as a shadow and there is nothing abiding.” (I Chr. 29:15)

John Stott: “It is not that Christianity pleads for poverty.  There is no virtue in being poor…Christianity pleads that it is never in the power of things to bring happiness; happiness comes from personal relationships; and (2) it pleads for concentration on things permanent; things that a man can take with him when he dies:  himself and his relationship with God.”

Jesus exhorted His disciples to seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and “all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:33)

In Haiti, an elderly woman who was living in poverty had walked miles for a meal to share with a young girl.  A veteran missionary, learning of this kindness commented: “The very poor are more generous than the rich.”

A businessman gave away millions of dollars anonymously to several non-profit institutions.  When someone discovered his identity and pressed him as to why he divested himself of so much of his wealth, he simply said, “I decided I had enough money.”

So, assuming you are a believer and follower of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, how is it with you concerning stewardship?  Do you have a right attitude toward possessions?  Are you investing in Kingdom endeavors?  Are you a generous person?  Have you put to work the “talents” God uniquely equipped you with?  Every one of us will give an account of our stewardship.  The issue?  Faithfulness.  “In this world it is not what we take up, but what we give up that makes us rich.”  (Beecher)

Missionaries are prepared and planning to go with the life-changing gospel to the whitened harvest fields of the world.  Could you set aside a portion of your income to invest in the eternally rewarding work of world missions?  No one ever cast his “bread” upon waters but what it came back many-fold.  “There was a man they called him mad; the more he gave the more he had.”  Or, as Lonial Wire, now home with the Lord, would testify at our missions conferences: “I shovel it out and God shovels it back to me; but His shovel is a lot bigger than mine.”

A pompous lawyer, in a room filled with anxious relatives waiting to hear the will of a deceased family member read, opened the document up and read, “I, John Jones, being of sound mind and able body, SPENT IT ALL.”

How about spending it for the kingdom and laying up treasures where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt and where thieves do not break through and steal?  

When doctors discovered a cranial tumor in Kelvin before he was five years old, they did not give him much hope to live out a normal childhood.  His parents, trusting God and hoping help would come, transported their little boy to Mercy Medical Center where an extensive brain surgery would be undertaken, praying God would spare his life, yet doubtful that he would ever enjoy “normal motor skills.”  Even at this young age, Kelvin harbored hopes in his heart that he would one day be a missionary.  Those dreams seemed to be worlds away at the time the trip was made to Children’s Hospital in Boston, but Mom and Dad and many others were praying.  The surgery not only spared Kelvin’s life, but in time he would be able to walk, talk, eventually drive, attend college and live quite like anyone else.  

Kelvin graduated from college, still with a heartbeat for world missions.  He acquired a “dummy” he called Zeke and honed his ventriloquist skills well enough that he could entertain folks with his routine with Zeke.  He served for some time in New Zealand before coming back to America for further medical attention.

I met Kelvin when he appeared before Baptist World Mission for appointment to serve on the field of South Africa.  There was an instant bond between us when I heard his testimony and saw his heart for God’s mission field, and in a short time I had the privilege of becoming his sending pastor after his internship with us for several months at Thompson Road Baptist Church.  I gave him the nickname Kelvinator.  He drove his own car, lived independently, worked diligently, displayed a commitment to ministry with a love especially for children, and his time at TRBC was an encouraging time for all of us.  We learned that people who from birth have labored with serious physical handicaps cannot be sidelined from serving.  Kelvin was faithful in our choir ministry, our bus ministry, our children’s ministries including VBS and was always ready to serve.  I have no doubt we (I) learned more about ministry in those few months that Kelvin served alongside of our staff and members than Kelvin learned.  He was an inspiration every day of the world to all of us.

On September 26, 2010, we had a commissioning service for Kelvin, and he was ready to go to South Africa. His loving and devoted parents accompanied Kelvin to Johannesburg, SA, and helped him to get set up in an apartment and in necessities, then left him there to serve His Savior.  Kelvin made an adjustment or two concerning what church/pastor he would end up serving alongside, then began a faithful ministry of soul-winning, serving and visiting weekly an orphanage where dozens of wheel-chair bound boys and girls looked forward to his visits to cheer them and to tell them about Jesus.

In 2015, as Kelvin was serving and faithfully discharging his duties as a servant of our Lord, he suffered a disabling stroke.  He was flown home to the states and has since been not only fighting for life but learning to do basic movements in a rehab program.  Unless God would miraculously intervene, Kelvin will never be able to function again independently so his time as a “foreign” missionary has ended; but he will always have that missionary heart that beat in his boyhood breast compelling him, as a child with an incredible disability, to desire to serve as a missionary on God’s field, the world.

Some weeks ago, I wrote about a little girl who had the same heart for world missions who now serves in Africa as a missionary with her family.  What she did, as a single gal, crisscrossing America raising support to go, was an incredible story that was summarized in a single question she raised when told the field she originally wanted to serve on was closed.  She simply said, “Where Can I Go Then?”  

Kelvin’s story is not dissimilar.  When faced with herculean obstacles that would discourage most anyone from thinking of going to a foreign field as a missionary, Kelvin said, “What Can I Do Then?”  Well, it would have been easier to answer Kelvin with this question, “What Can You Not Do Then?”  He gave God his all, with impairments and crippled limbs, and he served well as one of God’s choice emissaries.  He is one of my heroes today.  He is on “R & R” now, wounded in the line of duty, as it were.  He’s the Kelvinator.  He enriches every life he touches.

As a tribute to TRBC’s missionary to South Africa, I wrote this poem in his honor for his commissioning service; it is entitled “Farewell, Dear Kelvin.”

“To ripe fields we send you, with our prayers you’ll go;
Telling folks of Jesus so His love they’ll know.
 
We’ve grown so to love you, love you in the Lord;
For your love of children, teaching them His Word.
 
You have served amongst us with a servant’s heart;
We are kindred spirits, have been from the start.
 
You’ve shown us Christ’s spirit by your words and deeds;
We have seen Him in you, meeting others’ needs.
 
You’ve taught us His virtues by your godly talk;
He has loved us through you by your humble walk.
 
So, to the field you go now, Africa the south;
Your words will be mighty—as if from God’s mouth.
 
You will reach His littlest, lovingly bring them in;
Their lives will be salvaged from a life of sin.
 
And when at the Bema we lay our worn tools down,
There’ll be great rejoicing when you get your crown!