Carried to His Sanctuary

Tuesday, April 18, 2023

“Who is like you among the gods, O Lord—glorious in holiness, awesome in splendor, performing great wonders?  You raised your right hand, and the earth swallowed our enemies.  “With your unfailing love you lead the people you have redeemed.  In your might, you guide them to your sacred home.  The peoples hear and tremble; anguish grips those who live in Philistia.  The leaders of Edom are terrified; the nobles of Moab tremble.  All who live in Canaan melt away; terror and dread fall upon them.  The power of your arm makes them lifeless as stone until your people pass by, O Lord, until the people you purchased pass by.  You will bring them in and plant them on your own mountain—the place, O Lord, reserved for your own dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, that your hands have established.  The Lord will reign forever and ever!”  Exodus 15:11-18

This text is part of the victory song Moses and the Israelites sang after God saved them from the pursuing Egyptian army.  Earlier, the former slaves, numbering perhaps six-hundred-thousand, had left Egypt and were contemplating updating their wills at the edge of the Red Sea.  There were impassable mountains to the left and right of them, death by drowning in front of them, and death by Egyptian swords behind.  They were (literally) between two rocks, a watery grave, and an angry army.  One raised staff later, they crossed that sea on dry land, saved by the breath of God.  Pharoah’s army…not so blessed.

This account of Israel’s rescue and open doorway to the Promised Land, is a foretaste of your journey.  As Moses and the children were carried by God’s loving hand to Canaan, so we are bound for the Promised Land of New Jerusalem.

The world’s libraries are full of stories of victory snatched from the jaws of evil and defeat.  Every one of them is a reminder of God’s strong right arm.  The bad guy is holding all the power, and the innocent ones are about to be toast.  At the last second the one wearing the white hat shows up to rescue the powerless.

Why, do you suppose, that plot is so familiar?  Why is every suspense movie built around the sinister plans of a despicably vicious madman?  I believe it is God’s way of keeping us connected to the world we cannot see.  There is, and always has been, a spiritual war raging for the souls of human beings.  Ever since the day Satan walked into God’s throne room and laid-down the challenge gauntlet over the soul of Job[1], Satan has craved control of every man, woman, and child.  God has offered his strong right hand of support to each of us to resist.  And God gives each of us the free will to choose to accept His help, or not.

For You Today 

Today, in some small (or large) way, a subtle (or fully-disclosed) way, you will face a temptation to step away from God, or God’s open invitation to His waiting arms.  Satan will pave a highway with gold and ease to an eternity of suffering and shame.  God will offer you the nail-scarred, rough hands of a carpenter/shepherd to lift you over the temptation and carry you all the way to His sanctuary.

The words echo eternally – choose carefully.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   Yahweh  and  Fountain Joy  

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] Read the oldest Biblical account of Job as the center of the contest here:  Job 1:1-2:10

Devilitis and the Piano

[1]

Monday, February 1, 2016

VIDEO

So humble yourselves before God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  James 4:7^(NLT)

My friend, Fawnie used to talk about “devil-itis” sometimes; once she explained to me what she meant[2]. 

Fawnie lived only a quarter mile from the church she attended all her life.  As a young girl she took piano lessons and was told someday it would be her turn to play for the Lord in worship services.  In those days, this country Methodist church was the center of community life and therefore, playing the piano for the congregation was a big responsibility. 

One Sunday the inevitable happened, the preacher came to Fawnie in Sunday School, which was held in the little room just off the sanctuary, to tell her today’s the day!  The regular piano player was sick, and in a little bit they would gather for worship. 

Well, nerves being what they are in a pre-teen, as soon as Sunday School class was done, Fawnie exited the side door running, and didn’t stop until she’d found the safety of her room at home. 

When asked later what possessed her to duck out like that, she simply replied:  I guess it was just devilitis. 

Fast forward a half-century and you find the postscript – or, as Paul Harvey used to say, the rest of the story.

It was the first year after I became pastor at that little church.  Sometimes (when we had a pianist) our Wednesday evening Bible study and prayer time began with a song.  If we didn’t have a pianist, we would begin with prayer, and the standing joke was that the preacher would call on the last one to arrive.

One Wednesday night our regular pianist (my bride, Elizabeth) was under the weather, so I joked to the gathering group, the next one through the door will play our hymn so we can start. 

Well – God’s humor being what it is…my words had hardly settled down when, on cue, Fawnie walked through the door.  I had no clue she could play the piano, so I said it jokingly, expecting a quick, declining growl):  Ahh…Fawnie’s the last one through the door; she’ll play Shall We Gather at the River.  Let’s turn to #723 and sing.

Without batting an eye, or breaking stride, or melting under the spell of “devilitis”, Fawnie walked past the group to the piano behind me, sat down and began to play a hymn that had been longing to move through her fingers for over fifty years.

One of the truths about the Christian life that is my personal favorite about the grace of God is that it is more important how you finish than how you start! 

Fawnie told me she regretted many times the failure she experienced as a child, intimidated at the thought of performing in front of all those people.  Mostly we would explain it away, or dismiss it as stage-fright, or a simple case of shyness; after all, children will be children.  But, perhaps Fawnie labelled it more correctly – devilitis – the pain brought by our adversary as he tempts, accuses and generally works on disrupting our lives so our service to God is diminished and sometimes disappears altogether.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, advised us to resist the devil and we would find the bully fleeing out the side door of the Sunday School room.  That’s Godly advice; he can’t bring you devilitis when he’s running away.

For You Today

Decide before you leave the house that this day’s temptations and trials will be resisted with all that is in you.  God promises to join you in that fight; all Satan can do is flee – heels and elbows is all you’ll see.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today…and have a blessed day!

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[1] Title image: By W. Endicott & Co. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (modified)

[2] My good-natured friend has given me permission to share this story.

Adversary

Title image Illustration for John Milton’s “Paradise Lost“ by Gustave Doré, 1866.via Wikimedia Commons

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

For we wanted to come to you—certainly I, Paul, wanted to again and again—but Satan blocked our way.   1 Thessalonians 2:18 (NRSV)

It’s not exactly clear what it was that “hindered” Paul from going to Thessalonica; it is abundantly clear who did it – Satan, the adversary.  He uses many tools. 

In this case it might have been the opposition of the Jewish officials.  They were opposed to Paul’s preaching of Christ. 

It may have been Paul’s health, that “thorn in the flesh”. 

Whatever the instrument, we can be certain who was instrumental in causing the hindrance.  Ever since the Garden of Eden Satan’s greatest enemy and target has constantly been those who would spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  Satan has always known God would send a deliverer from sin and death; he has always hated man and God…

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Genesis 3:15 (NRSV)

The adversary is still doing his best to hinder; sometimes he does quite well!  And that hindrance is still taking its toll on the church because most of us get distracted, and that keeps us from giving our most excellent best to serving where God has planted us.

The antidote for hindrance as you serve Jesus is to keep fighting and leave the scorekeeping to God.  

A fact:  

You don’t really know what the score is anyway – God does!  And as long as He is the One orchestrating the final outcome, you needn’t worry about what others are doing.  Just keep serving!

The early church was a dismal failure in the eyes of the world.  They preached Christ unashamedly, many of them dying for their faith, and the blood of the martyred saints was the seed of the spread of the Gospel.  The score on earth may have been Christians “0” and Lions “many”; but it was the other way around in the Throne room above! 

The Dark Ages saw a reversal.  The church was infiltrated by darkness and evil; a corrupt clergy would not allow the average man to even see a Bible, much less hear the Gospel.  The church was prosperous in gold and silver, but devoid of the Spirit. 

Then, Martin Luther and the Reformation cast the light of holiness to dispel the dark ages; true Christians were once again guerillas, outlaws of an apostate church, hunted and poor, but preaching the true Gospel. 

Today the church is ripe for another “underground takeover”. 

With apostates creeping into every denomination, the adversary, Satan is at work obscuring the truth of the Gospel. 

But we can never tell the score by reading the polls, or who is in the White House, or what programs this or that church uses to draw a large crowd. 

The score is kept in a different set of books that belong to the Lamb. 

For You Today

You keep fighting the good fight – leave the score to the Lamb. 

How To Be God's Enemy

¹Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from?  Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you?  ²You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder.  And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts.  You do not have, because you do not ask.  ³You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.  ⁴Adulterers!  Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God?  Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.  ⁵Or do you suppose that it is for nothing that the scripture says, “God yearns jealously for the spirit that he has made to dwell in us”?  ⁶But he gives all the more grace; therefore it says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”  ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.        James 4:1 - 7  (NRSV)

Linus and Lucy are talking:  

Linus:  It says in my science book that the world revolves around the sun.   

Lucy:  I thought it revolved around me.  

For the Christian there are really only two choices when it comes to attitude – selfish or servant.  Let’s consider both:

The Price of a Selfish Attitude

     All choices incur consequences.  To choose a selfish attitude brings certain consequences that are set as a matter of God’s unchangeable nature.  Here are three basic prices you pay when you opt to be selfish:

1.      Distorted Personal Relationships.

¹From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

James 4:1 (KJV)

Wars and fightings – what a profound way to describe the human conflict caused by selfishness.  I immediately get images of the daytime shows, Jerry Springer, Ricki Lake, Jenny Jones, with all the in-your-face antics.

These, according to James, are the symptoms which appear when our inner desires are out of balance.  God gave us desires for food, sex, breathing and even to possess – these are necessary to life.  But, when the desire becomes so overwhelming it takes over, it is out of balance – it is then lust.  It controls, rather than doing what it was intended – to remind of our basic needs.  It can cause life to spin out of balance.

Bedouin camel drivers in the mid-East understand how relationships can get out-of-balance this way.  Camels are notoriously moody.  Their selfish ways are legendary. 

From time to time a camel-driver senses his camel is fed-up with the owner.  Wanting to head-off an explosion, the owner will hand his own outer coat to the camel.  The camel will bite, spit-at, and trample the coat into the desert floor, until all that is left is a thread or two.  Once the camel’s anger is spent, the relationship can get back on balance.

Listen to how another translation describes the problem:

Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves.        James 4.1  The Message New Testament

The price of a selfish attitude includes distorted personal relationships – wars, fightings.  And,

2.      Personal Unhappiness.

²Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain:  ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. James 4.2  (KJV)

Last week James told us (3.17-18) that if we are truly seeking peace, giving in to God was the path we need to walk (Let Go; Let God).  The opposite here – selfishly wanting things so badly you’re willing to go to any length to get it – is the foundation for the opposite of peace: FRUSTRATION!

James also says we don’t ask God (or pray) because instinctively we know our hearts are selfish.  Did you hear about the two guys who were marooned on a desert island?  After a year they couldn’t stand each other.  One day Rufus found an old green bottle washed up on the shore.  He rubbed it, and, voila! – a genie appeared.  George saw what was happening, and grabbed the bottle – Gimmie a wish, genie. 

The genie refused, saying, Rufus found me, he gets to make a wish.  But, I tell you what – whatever he wishes for, money, women, power – I’ll give you twice what he gets. 

George said, Sounds good! 

Rufus just smiled and said, Okay, genie, beat me half to death!

You cannot ask a God of mercy and grace for blessings when you’ve got murder in your heart.  That is what Jesus meant when he said,

²³“So if you are standing before the altar in the Temple, offering a sacrifice to God, and you suddenly remember that someone has something against you, ²⁴leave your sacrifice there beside the altar.  Go and be reconciled to that person.  Then come and offer your sacrifice to God. Matthew 5:23-24 (NLT)

     The personal unhappiness, which is caused by a selfish attitude, is going to be most evident in the lack of peace you have in your relationship to others.  But it will also show up in…

3.      Alienation from God. 

³Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.  ⁴Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?  whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.   James 4.3-4  (KJV)

There is another passage in the New Testament that is very familiar, which says the same thing.  The context is about money, but it applies, because the concept of a selfish attitude is in view:

²⁴“No one can serve two masters.  For you will hate one and love the other, or be devoted to one and despise the other.  Matthew 6.24a

The bottom line about selfish attitudes, and the price you pay, is that sooner or later you come to the place where you don’t even pray, because you know God won’t answer.  He hasn’t given you favorable answers to the prayers you did pray, because they were self-serving; YOU were in charge. 

You weren’t praying; you were shopping!  That’s too much of a price to pay!  Besides the price for that selfish attitude, see:

The Profile of a Selfish Attitude

     What are the characteristics of selfishness?

1.      It is Powerful.

Paul describes the power sin holds in a selfish person…

¹⁷But I can’t help myself, because it is sin inside me that makes me do these evil things.  ¹⁸I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned.  No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right.  I want to, but I can’t.  Romans 7:17-18 (NLT)

If you say yes long enough to sin and selfishness, there comes a time when you will not be able to say yes to God.  I have some wild grapevines in my yard.  They have grown to immense sizes, wrapped around large pine trees – well, they used to be pine trees – now they’re termite food…dead! 

Those vines would have been easy to pull out by the root a few years ago.  Now they are like trees, themselves.  Selfishness allows sin a strength in you that – sooner or later – you won’t be able to defeat!  It is powerful, and…

2.      It is Personal.

Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from?  Do you think they just happen? Think again.  They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves   James 4.1  The Message New Testament

Notice the emphasis added on the personal pronouns.  Selfishness is a personal thing.  This is the self-contained life lived without Christ.  That’s the attitude that hears a sermon and thinks, Wow, the preacher really told ‘em that time! 

A preacher once had a member who was like that.  He always had the same comment after the sermon, You sure told ‘em today, Preacher!  This dear fellow was the most faithful member, always attending every time the church doors were open.  But, somehow he always seemed to think the sermon was for everyone else, and not for him.  The pastor prepared a sermon to speak to the issue. 

One day the pastor’s opportunity came in the form of a terrible snowstorm.  Nobody showed up except for – you guessed it – Brother Told ‘EM was the only member of the congregation.  The pastor hauled out his sermon and pulled every trigger available.  At the end of the two-man worship hour, guess what was heard going out the door?  Preacher, if they’d-a-been here you sure woulda’ told ‘em this time! 

The profile of selfishness is powerful, personal….and,

3.      It is Public.

Sooner or later, no matter how you may attempt to hide a selfish attitude, it WILL become public.  I went to serve a church where they had fired or killed the last several preachers.  Do you know the biggest problem I had in reaching people as I personally witnessed in that community?  It was the reputation of the church for being mean and cold. 

People couldn’t believe anyone representing that church had something healing to offer when the only thing that ever came out of it was gossip, hatred and murdering of reputations.

¹⁵But if instead of showing love among yourselves you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.   Galatians 5:15   (NLT)

I am thankful for the genuine sweet-spirited ways of this congregation.  But you need to know the seeds are there, because we are human – the seeds are always there, and we should guard against the selfishness.  It will hurt in private, and also cripple the ministry when it is public.  The profile of a selfish attitude is powerful, personal, public, and…

4.      It is Perverted.

³And even when you do ask, you don’t get it because your whole motive is wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure.   ⁴You adulterers!  Don’t you realize that friendship with this world makes you an enemy of God?  I say it again, that if your aim is to enjoy this world, you can’t be a friend of God.  ⁵What do you think the Scriptures mean when they say that the Holy Spirit, whom God has placed within us, jealously longs for us to be faithful?  James 4:3-5 New Living Translation

Do you know what the worst kind of lie is?  A self-lie; it is the kind with which we create a kind of fantasyland in which we can live without God’s control.  

There is an old story about a happy little boy who went out into the field.  He had on his baseball cap and was carrying a baseball and bat.  And on his face there was a look of tremendous confidence.

Cocking his bat, he tossed the ball into the air, saying, I’m the greatest batter in the world!  Then he swung and missed. Strike one, he said.

He picked up the ball, examined it, and then threw it into the air again.  As he swung, he repeated, I’m the greatest batter in the world.  Once again he missed.  Strike two, he said.

This time, he stopped to examine his bat to make sure there wasn’t a hole in it.  Then he picked up the ball, adjusted his cap, and tossed the ball into the air for the 3rd time.

He repeated again, I’m the greatest batter in the world, and swung with all his might - and missed for the 3rd straight time.  Wow he cried, What a pitcher. I’m the greatest pitcher in the world![1]

We may tell ourselves many things, but selfishness is a hard pill to swallow.  However, if the stakes are big enough, we may be convinced.  Have you seen the movie, The Matrix?  I can’t really recommend it because of the violence and language.  However, the point is made about how perverted the human mind is willing to go for personal comfort:

In the movie computers (called the Matrix) take over the world. The computers keep their human slaves in bondage by plugging wires into their minds and creating for them a false reality. The humans think they are free, but they are actually entombed in little pods where the computers feed off their energy.

A few humans have escaped and are battling the machines, but life is hard in the real world.  Instead of the dreamland of the Matrix, the world is full of sweat and stress and combat with the computers at every turn.

In one scene a human, named Mr. Reagan, who knows the truth and has spent nine years on the side of freedom, considers going back over to the side of the Matrix.  Even though he knows it's not the real world, it is an easier life.

Sitting at a table in a fancy restaurant, Reagan negotiates with a computerized agent about the decision.  The Matrix agent, dressed in a suit and not eating a thing, asks, Do we have a deal, Mr. Reagan?

Reagan, looking like a balding motorcycle gang member and eating a juicy steak, says, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize? — he bites the steak and sighs — Ignorance is bliss.

Then we have a deal, says the agent.

I don't want to remember nothing, says Reagan, nothing! You understand? And I want to be rich. You know, someone important…like an actor.

Whatever you want, Mr. Reagan.[2]
            The biggest self-lie is the lust for comfort, power or things.  That is because lust is never filled.  Jesus told that to the woman at the well:

¹³Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:  John 4:13 (KJV)

Howard Hughes, the first of the billionaires, was asked one time, How much money is enough?  His answer described the profile of selfishness:  Just a little more.

Choices, like living in airports, are like friendships.  You can get on the plane – or not; you simply cannot do both. 

The same can be said of Christ – you can go to Him, or you can live a worldly, comfortable, selfish life…you just cannot do both!

If you choose Christ and His way, the next part is for you…

The Priority of a Servant Attitude

I want to share with you a few principles about how to have a servant attitude…, which is about as far opposite from a selfish attitude as you can get:

1.      Conflict is normal

Genesis to Revelation is all about conflict.  From the time Cain killed his brother…to the Corinthian Christians who sued each other in the courts…to Euodia and Syntyche, sisters in the Philippian church who were constantly sniping at each other, probably over who was going to wear the purple dress on a given Sunday…right down to today…conflict is normal.  The question is, How are you going to deal with the inevitable conflicts in life?

2.      Conflict management is critical

In God’s economy there are only two ways to deal with conflict, selfishly or as servant.  Cain was the selfish example.  He didn’t like the approval his brother got from God, so Cain got rid of Abel.  He killed him – the first murder in the history, recorded on the pages of Genesis.

The servant model is found in many places.  The prototype for us, however is Jesus.   In John’s Gospel (Chp 13) we find Jesus dealing with the selfishness of the disciples.  Jesus was preparing to go to the cross, and preparing the disciples for life without his physical presence to comfort and guide them. 

What were the disciples doing?  They were dividing up the executive perks – arguing over whom was going to sit in the seats of power in the kingdom.

Jesus got up from the table, put on a towel and – to the amazement of his followers washed twelve pairs of dirty, stinky feet – even the feet of Judas!

You say, I can’t do that!  I say, You’re plumb on target!

3.      You need GRACE to live like that,                                                                      and grace only comes to the humble.

⁶But he giveth more grace.  Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.  ⁷Submit yourselves therefore to God.  Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.  James 4.6-7

Humility isn’t an easy thing.  The word humble in the language of the New Testament comes from a few words linked together which mean, literally, face in the dust.

When Harry Truman was thrust into the presidency, by the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Sam Rayburn took him aside.

From here on out, you're going to have lots of people around you.  They'll try to put up a wall around you and cut you off from any ideas but theirs.  They'll tell you what a great man you are, Harry.  But you and I both know you ain't.[3]

There’s a human tendency to hide our low-down ways, and exalt our more noble attributes.  Where I was raised we had a good, old fashioned term for that – braggin’. 

To receive grace is to put your face in the dust.  It is to turn everything upside down from the way the world gives its approval.  It is to recognize the truth about you and sin…and agree with God.

Thomas Linacre was king's physician to Henry VII and Henry VIII of England.  To say the least, he was among the most respected men in all of English society of that time.

Late in life Linacre decided to enter the Catholic priesthood.  In those days the common people did not read the Bible – only the priests were allowed to read.  As Linacre entered the monastery, he was given a copy of the Scriptures.  He began reading the four Gospels for himself. Linacre was amazed and troubled.  His remark:

Either these are not the Gospels, he said, or we are not Christians.[4]

So, the question before the house, then, is, am I ready to follow Christ all the way?  Am I ready to exalt my low ways (confess my sins), and hide my good points (not depend on my self-goodness)?  Am I?

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[1] MELVIN M. NEWLAND, in a sermon, SermonCentral.com

[2] The Matrix (Warner Brothers, 1999), rated R, written and directed by Andy and Larry Wachowski; submitted by Bill White, Paramount, California, PreachingToday.com

[3] Fresh Illustrations for Preaching & Teaching (Baker)

[4] Citation: Os Guinness, The Call (Multnomah, 1998), pp. 109-110