Semper Fidelis

Monday, November 27, 2023

Always remember that Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David, was raised from the dead.  This is the Good News I preach.  And because I preach this Good News, I am suffering and have been chained like a criminal.  But the word of God cannot be chained.  So I am willing to endure anything if it will bring salvation and eternal glory in Christ Jesus to those God has chosen.  This is a trustworthy saying:  If we die with him, we will also live with him.  If we endure hardship, we will reign with him.  If we deny him, he will deny us.  If we are unfaithful, he remains faithful, for he cannot deny who he is.  

2 Timothy 2:8-13

United States Marines greet each other with the motto, Semper Fi, a shortened version of semper fidelis.[1]  The phrase means always faithful, and is indicative of the character of those who serve a higher guiding principle than self-interest.[2] 

Long before the assembling of U.S. fighting forces, the Apostle Paul wrote to his protégé, Timothy, an aspiring preacher of the Gospel, to encourage and admonish him to serve Christ’s Kingdom with an unswerving loyalty.  Paul described the resurrected Jesus as “faithful.”  Dying with Him, we are raised to newness of life by Him.  Enduring hardship, we will reign with him.  Denying Him, we will be judged by Him.  And, in His supreme compassion, when we are less than semper fi He is still faithful.  This could be summed-up in one short verse:

“I am the Lord, and I do not change.  Malachi 3:6a

By comparison, human beings can be remarkably un-loyal.  Our lives typically begin in one direction and, influenced by any of the seven deadly sins,[3] we change our employment, spouse, promises, gender, and a host of all other possibilities.  Despite the call to be faithful, human allegiance is usually sold to the highest bidder.  

I’m reminded of an elder statesman in the Southern Baptist tribe I met in 1981, Vance Havner, who said:  Faith that Fizzles at the Finish was Fickle from the First.  

It’s true!  Most mottos sound wonderful, even noble; most human attempts to live-up to those mottos have holes like Swiss cheese.

So what is the Rx for our Fickle Faith?

I’m glad you asked…and let me point us back to the Apostle’s opening line to Timothy: 

Always remember that Jesus Christ, a descendant of King David, was raised from the dead.  This is the Good News I preach.  2 Timothy 2:8

If there is anything that can keep us close to Jesus it is the resurrection of God’s perfect lamb, crucified for our sins, raised to conquer death and the grave.  In staying faithful to proclaim that, we also preach Good News to our own souls.

For You Today 

Find a way to proclaim His resurrection every day, in every circumstance, and, as many have said…always preach the Gospel…even use words if necessary.  What that means for each of us is:  nothing will help keep you faithful like engaging in the work of He Who is Semper Fi.

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

Go to VIDEO

For another post on this text read here:  Gospel Unchained

There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Today’s title Image from Pixabay.com  

Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©  

---

[1] Wikipedia

[2] See Merriam-Webster Dictionary

[3]  pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, anger or wrath, and sloth – see The Seven Deadly Sins - LIst

There...In the Darkness

Tuesday, October 17, 2023

“There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him.  But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son.  And the judgment is based on this fact:  God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.  All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed.  But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.”  John 3:18-21

I should have known better.  It was this past Saturday evening that I stood in front of my wife’s new dresser, my hand full of the pills I take each day.  I’ve never had the best aim, but, good grief, how can you miss a preacher’s mouth from one inch away?  One of those little white pills bounced off my chin, hit my shoe, and devilishly-rolled under the dresser.  I got down on my knees in the dimly-lit room, and regretted it immediately, knowing I’d have to get up, get the flashlight, and ease those aging bones down on all fours a second time.  I laid my aching body level to the ground, right in front of the dresser, praying the bones would let me get up again without calling 911.  The flashlight found the pill…just out of reach! 

It was no surprise about the painful relocation of bones, joints, and marrow, or that I’d have to stretch those arm-bones to lengths they’d never known to retrieve that wayward pill.  What shocked me was the floor under that recently arrived dresser; it was covered in more dust bunnies than you’d see chocolate bunnies at Easter.  Now you need to know one thing – my wife’s middle name is White Tornado.  Our kids dubbed her that, because she does pre-emptive strikes on dirt 32-days in the average week.  She moves furniture every time she dusts to clean the unseen (this despite my theory that bugs unseen are not problematic!).

Call it her blind side, but Elizabeth cannot move that dresser…and the malicious dust-bunnies know it; they go there to hide, reproduce, and plot.  I am convinced the dust bunnies have finally unionized and targeted our home because of my bride’s unflinching commitment to dusticide…defined as the systematic, relentless effort to eliminate all that dusty-particle-scourge from the face of the earth. 

Apostle John holds that we humans know about light and darkness, but we more often choose darkness over the light.  A quick glance at our world’s moral/ethical state, and you have little problem agreeing with John.  We are in a darkness stronghold, more than the dust-bunny situation under the dresser.  (Yeah…get that picture of Elizabeth’s dresser out of your mind; yours ain’t any better!)  But here we’re talking about our moral dresser.  For us, it’s a whole lot easier to live with that puppy in the darkness.  Why is that, preacher?  (For the second day in a row…I’m glad you asked).  We like the darkness, because we really don’t want to find anything…and we know there are those things down there. 

·       Attitudes we should have stifled

·       People we wanted to stifle instead of love

·       Good advice we stifled all too often in favor of the bad stuff we craved

·       Things we shouldn’t have done, including the bad stuff we wanted to do, but never had the time…and the list goes on.

We like darkness…full-stop!  And it’s because that spot under cover of the dresser-bottom’s darkness hides a multitude of stuff you can’t see if you don’t look closely.  That is precisely why Apostle Paul, giving advice about how to come to God in worship says we should examine our lives…use a flashlight if necessary to find that bitter pill among the dust bunnies, and bring it out in the light of confession….and then watch God’s light of grace shrivel it up and blow it away!

For You Today 

The old time Gospel-preaching evangelist, Vance Havner used to put it this way:  

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

Go to VIDEO

There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road library.

Title Image Russell Brownworth (own “dusty” work) Images without citation are in public domain or cited via weblinks.  

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT^©   

The Second Fall

 

Thursday, November 19, 2020

Then another angel followed him through the sky, shouting, “Babylon is fallen—that great city is fallen—because she made all the nations of the world drink the wine of her passionate immorality.”  Then a third angel followed them, shouting, “Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand must drink the wine of God’s anger.  It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath.  And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb.  The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night, for they have worshiped the beast and his statue and have accepted the mark of his name.”                    Revelation 14:8-11

In Revelation so much is in apocalyptic language, messages of the end of times, and the completion of the Bible’s prophecies, and God’s final judgment over evil.  It’s easy to get lost in the imagery and shadows.  Generally accepted scholarship is that “Babylon” stands for the worldly system which opposes God’s will, including everything from elevating human power to greedily control people and governments, all the way to the basest of ignoring the basic human needs of food and shelter for the poor.  In the end all the grandiose schemes and manipulations of the powerful, controlled by Lucifer’s darkness, will be exposed, humiliated, and defeated.  The image of sulfur, fire, and smoke of torment forever is not lost on our internal compass of God as final justice, and recompense for transgressions.  

This image of the moon passing in front of planet earth is part of a NASA animation of an event which does happen in real life, when the “dark side” of the moon is illuminated by the sun.  You still can’t see it from earth, but the position of the “EPIC” telescope onboard the DISCOVR satellite a million miles into space captures it!  ^(NASA/NOAA) 

Exposing the dark side of this world’s systematic error is Revelation’s purpose in unveiling the Son of Man, Jesus, the one who will stand in judgment of those who give worship to anyone or anything other than the one, true, living God, Jehovah.  The righteous Son of God is alone worthy to judge the nations of all times. 

So, when Babylon is the label, it is evil that is exposed to the light.  It is a picture of an event I once heard (and cannot forget) described by evangelist Vance Havner in a sermon delivered to about 1200 students at New Orleans Baptist Seminary.  He was picturing the classic struggle between light and darkness, or good and evil.  He asked us to imagine a dark room behind the door.  The room is filled with little creatures, roaches.  When you open the door, they’re on high alert; you switch on the light and you know what happens, the creepy, crawly critters scatter!  Light does have that effect.   

As our first parents, Adam and Eve fell from innocence in Eden, so we all follow this inherited nature of sin.  The grace of God was offered to all of us as forgiveness, a gift of Christ’s blood on the cross.  In the end, as Revelation so dramatically depicts, those who reject that grace by clinging to this world’s evil system of power, greed, and estrangement from God, will fall a second time…this time, eternally…into a judgment of suffering, too terrible, unending and unquenchable to imagine.  That suffering has little to do with the fire; it has everything to do with being separated from God our Creator forever.  No light…only dark side.

For You Today

There is not a prophecy of Scripture that has missed the mark…they all come true.  Even this promise of judgment on the darkness.  But God has offered us the choice to reject the darkness and move into the light:

If you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  Romans 10:9

Don’t delay; accept Christ and be saved from the darkness of the second fall.

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

GO TO VIDEO

Title image, Pixabay.com and    W   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©

For other posts on God’s Judgment see:  Harvest of the Earth  and  Creator Savior Judge

 

I AM; You ARE

[1] 

Wednesday, January 15, 2020

“I, yes I, am the one who comforts you.  So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear?  Yet you have forgotten the Lord, your Creator, the one who stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth.  Will you remain in constant dread of human oppressors?  Will you continue to fear the anger of your enemies?  Where is their fury and anger now?  It is gone!  Soon all you captives will be released!  Imprisonment, starvation, and death will not be your fate!  For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea, causing its waves to roar.  My name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.  And I have put my words in your mouth and hidden you safely in my hand.  I stretched out the sky like a canopy and laid the foundations of the earth.  I am the one who says to Israel, ‘You are my people!’”  Isaiah 51:12-16

When God spoke to Moses out of the burning bush[2] it was in answer to Moses’ question as to the Lord’s name; God answered, I AM.  A name presupposes and proclaims existential character.  If I say I am carpenter, you already know I build things, and probably have leathery hands from doing battle with wood.  You know my eye will run to the plumb and level of things and I’ll take the time to measure twice and cut once.  In the same way, when you hear I AM, the existential nature of God revealing God sets up a battle of faith.  God’s name declares eternality.  He was before anything (in any sense of linear thought).  He is above all in any sense of moral or ethical consideration.  His sovereignty over the universe and all it holds is not bought, grabbed, or coronated by grant or permission; He simply IS!  And with that simple declaration, the struggle for faith is on; you either believe…or you don’t!

Enter Isaiah, a prophet to a disobedient Jewish nation.  They were a people who declared faith in that I AM God as their God, yet, they kept wandering away from Jehovah.  Their faith was (as Vance Havner used to say) fickle at first and fizzling at the finish.

And yet, God wasn’t done with them.  As the nation languished in the shame and pain of a national thrashing at the hands of enemies who would brutally massacre many thousands and enslave the rest in cruel bondage, God speaks through the prophet words of comfort; The I AM says to them, You ARE.  To a disobedient, sinful people God speaks existential reality of unbroken relationship.  They may have been facing an extinction event politically, but their God would hold true to His promises, that they would never be exterminated; punished, yes…but always held fast in the grip of I AM’s love.

For You Today

Sometimes you might feel like Israel, abandoned to the predators of life.  And, truth be told, you sometimes might BE Israel, having had a crisis of faith, punctuated by wandering in the far country.  But you always ARE; you are His creation and the object of His unfailing love.  The I AM says so!

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

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image:  Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

[2] Exodus 3

Faith-Wreck

[i]

Monday, September 12, 2016

Cling to your faith in Christ, and keep your conscience clear.  For some people have deliberately violated their consciences; as a result, their faith has been shipwrecked.  1 Timothy 1:19^(NLT)

More than thirty five years ago I met evangelist Vance Havner.  Born and raised in the mountains of North Carolina, this Southern Baptist legend oozed wisdom couched in down-home sayings and sermonic gems.  He spoke on this passage that day, about faith that gets shipwrecked.  The gem that stuck in my mind all these years was:

Faith that Fizzles at the Finish 

was Fickle at the First

What makes for fickle-ness at the first?  According to the advice Paul gave Timothy it is tied to a failure to consistently filter your actions, words and even intentions through a conscience that is governed by the constraints of Jesus.

A number of years ago the WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) movement tried to highlight this important aspect of Christian discipleship; keeping our conscience clear has to do with measuring everything we think, say and do against the life and example of Jesus.  While that “movement” devolved into cult status, the seminal thought stands well in passing the Biblical test.  Imagining Jesus doing what we are about to do is not a bad way to check our motive, and what it might reflect on the Kingdom of God.

A shipwreck of faith can happen quickly; and picking up the pieces can be like trying to gather the feathers of a pillow torn open in the wind!

The most worrisome part of Paul’s warning to the young preacher, Timothy, is that part about those who deliberately violate their conscience.  In the ancient language of the Bible, the word used means to push away, like intentionally giving a shove to something you no longer wish to have close to you. 

There are many possibilities to offer as to how people wind up in this condition, where they find a way to silence their inner voice of reason and conscience just so they can do what they want.  But one thing is certain; that condition is always born of a failure to cling to faith in Christ.  When, out of carelessness, or calculation we choose to leave off daily communing with Jesus, we are cutting the anchor line that holds our ship of faith to Christ’s kingdom.  And when you cut a ship loose to drift, it will not be long before it is in deep trouble!

For You Today

Before you hit the road today, check the anchor lines of your devotional life.  And when you find what you find, ask the question:  What would Jesus do? 

Then ask another:  Am I really satisfied with Faulty Faith that will Fizzle at the Finish?

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

Go To VIDEO

NOTES

---

[i] Title Image: By United States Coast Guard, Richard C. Kelsey, via Wikimedia Commons

So...Why Didn't the Apostle Paul Have a Bodyguard?

[1]

                                                                                  

Tuesday, June 14, 2016

I have worked harder, been put in prison more often, been whipped times without number, and faced death again and again.  Five different times the Jewish leaders gave me thirty-nine lashes.  Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.  Three times I was shipwrecked.  Once I spent a whole night and a day adrift at sea.  I have traveled on many long journeys.  I have faced danger from rivers and from robbers.  I have faced danger from my own people, the Jews, as well as from the Gentiles.  I have faced danger in the cities, in the deserts, and on the seas.  And I have faced danger from men who claim to be believers but are not.  I have worked hard and long, enduring many sleepless nights.  I have been hungry and thirsty and have often gone without food.  I have shivered in the cold, without enough clothing to keep me warm. 

2 Corinthians 11:23b-27^(NLT)

I’m not sure the Apostle Paul would have had a bodyguard standing over him at his book signing at Barnes & Noble.  Well, he did write a considerable chunk of the New Testament, which certainly has been a best-seller for quite some time.  But Paul’s royalties were never deposited in earthly banks.

When you read Paul’s account of what life was like on the missionary trail of the first century it is somewhat different than that of “American” Christianity.

In the 21^st century there is severe persecution happening in parts of the world most of us have never/will never visit; we read about it or see news clips of the violence.  But in the good ol’ U.S. of A. our brand of persecution centers around whether or not you can stand in the pulpit on Sunday morning, or if the music is too loud, and not what you are accustomed to hearing.  Heaven forbid the temperature in the sanctuary is too hot or cold.

It’s quite different from the beatings, shipwrecks, dangers, toils and snares Paul faced – to the advent of American rock-star pastors with bodyguards.

It is little wonder the sheep wander from the fold.

But Paul predicted this too:

For a time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear.   2 Timothy 4:3^(NLT)

I believe what Jesus had in mind for his followers was going a little farther-in than the itching ears…all the way to the heart and will.  This is what must be bent in the direction of Christ’s sacrifice.  Genuine sheep-followers of the Great Shepherd don’t wander…they serve.

For You Today

When tempted to complain about your church, pastor, fellow parishioner, or even the temperature setting in the sanctuary, remember what that old time preacher, Vance Havner once said:

Faith that is fickle at the first will fizzle at the finish!

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

Go to VIDEO

---

[1] Title Image: By cliff1066 @ flickr, via Wikimedia Commons