Part 5 in a 6 part series
 
              I have never discovered I was so wrong about so many things in such short a time as I have since we started this Psalms study.
 
            The Psalms are mainly poems of praise to God, right?  Wrong.  Only 20% of the psalms are classified as psalms of praise.

              All Biblical psalms are collected in what we know as the “Book of Psalms” or “The Psalter.”  Wrong.  Psalms are scattered throughout the Old Testament from Exodus through the Minor Prophets.

              The Psalms were written by David.  Wrong.  Nor even the majority but only half the Psalms (in the psalter) are attributed to David.  That leaves 75 in the book of Psalms written by someone else, and most of the others scattered throughout the Bible as well.  Some were written hundreds of years before David and some hundreds of years after.  In fact, the book of Psalms covers roughly a thousand years, 1500-500 BC.

              Yes, the Psalms were inspired, but it is poetry, not something important.  Oh my, what an error that was.  The book of Psalms is quoted in the New Testament more than any other book of the Old.  Jesus himself places it right alongside the Law and the Prophets as authoritative and instructive scripture (Luke 24:44-47).  If you want a slap-in-the-face shock, read every place those psalms are quoted in the New Testament and note how the writer or the passage is described:  David was “in the Spirit.”  David wrote “by the Holy Spirit.”  Those psalms are “scripture,” “fulfilled prophecy,” and God-given “definitions.”  Then you can re-read that earlier Psalms article (Part 4) on Bible study and see once again exactly how important these passages are precisely because they are poetry.

              Misconceptions about the scriptures abound.  All you need do is talk to some skeptic for awhile.  They think they are so smart, and when it comes to worldly knowledge perhaps they are.  They would certainly outdo me on an IQ test.  But they are woefully ignorant of the scriptures, and if you ever want to look foolish, try expounding upon something you know nothing about in front of people who know quite a bit about it.  My husband, the former law enforcement officer, can hardly stand to watch crime dramas any more.  All he sees are the errors about guns, about evidence, even about the law and police procedure.  When it comes to ignorant people scorning the scriptures we should be exactly the same way--seeing their ignorance instead of falling for it.  If we aren’t, maybe it is because we are ignorant.  How can we expect to defend the Truth if we don’t know what we are talking about? 

              But for now, just consider your own misconceptions about the Psalms.  Surely I am not the only one.

              If you think the book of Psalms is nothing more than Israel’s songbook, you are mistaken right off the bat.  But for the sake of argument, if we were to pattern our own singing on this inspired work, what would we be singing?  Lately we seem to be singing nothing but hymns of praise.  At the risk of sounding irreverent let me remind you:  only 20% of the psalms are praise psalms.  What percentage do you sing?  Would you be shocked to discover that the largest group of psalms is psalms of lament?  Then we have psalms of thanks, psalms of trust, wisdom psalms, and even psalms about our earthly government—boy, do we need those these days! 

              We have instructive psalms, historical psalms, and psalms about the Law.  Sadly, many Christians today need to be reminded of the importance of following God’s law.   In fact, the theme of the whole Psalter is the covenant between God and His people, usually stated in words like, “You are my people and I am your God, therefore…”   It is the “therefore” that people do not want to deal with, including some of my brethren. Maybe we sing nothing but the new praise psalms because they demand so little of us.  Those old hymns everyone seems to be tired of make you look at yourself in painful ways.  They call for change in our character and attitudes. If we cleared up our misconceptions about the Psalms, I wonder how our singing would change.   I wonder how our approach to authority would change.  I wonder how our lives would change.

              Or are we no better than a so-called religious person who believes he can pick and choose among the passages in the Bible and still be considered one of God’s people?  Are we ignorant and happy to remain so?  God expects more from his covenant people.  He always has and He always will.
 
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.  Hebrews 12:22-25.
 
Dene Ward
 
 

Part 4 in a 6 part Series
 
              I have told my class several times as we go through these first five lessons, “Yes, you can understand the Psalms without all this specialized knowledge.  You can read a psalm and make sense of it without knowing its genre, without understanding Hebrew poetry, certainly without knowing the difference between a miktam and a maskil.  But guess what?  You will not get as much out of that psalm as you will if you go to the trouble to do the research and learn a little about a foreign culture and its poetry.”
 
             In the past I approached Psalms the same way I approach poetry, which is seldom.  I am not a poetry person.  I much prefer reading and writing prose.  To me, and to anyone from our culture, poetry is about emotion, about attitude, about the “better felt than told.”  Because of that you are not going to find pure fact in poetry.  Poetry is “feel-good-fluff” to me and I really don’t have much use for it.

              Now re-read that last paragraph and insert the word “Western” ahead of every reference to “poetry.”  You see, our attitude toward poetry is the opposite of the Oriental’s.  Orientals believe that the function of poetry is to instruct.  Did you hear that?  Poetry is a teaching method.  Its very form aids in memorization—short lines of roughly equal length and abbreviated word count.  Their poetry is reserved for subjects of the highest order, especially the Divine. 

              My Western view may say, “This is poetry.  It’s all emotion, very little, if any, fact.  Don’t take it too seriously.”  But the Oriental mind says, “This is poetry.  These are the most important, most profound subjects you will ever read.  Pay attention and think about it.”

              Do you think that hasn’t changed my approach to the Psalms?  And how do you think I learned that?  From taking the time to research a foreign culture.  From going beyond the minimum in my Bible study.  Because of that I now know even more about the Word that is supposed to be guiding my life.

              How much time do you spend in the Word of God?  How much extra effort do you go to?  If the doctor told you that you have a disease, would you spend time looking it up?  Would you care enough to know as much as possible, instead of being satisfied with the doctor’s explanation?  Would you want to have hands-on control of your life, or would you just sit back and be happy with the briefest scan of a medical dictionary?

              You do have a disease—sin.  You do have dangers in your environment, things just as deadly to your soul as secondhand smoke to your lungs.  You need to be aware of every aid, every pitfall, everything that can possibly affect the outcome of your life. 

              Do you care enough to learn the Word of God as completely as possible, or will you trust someone else with your soul and hope a verbal vitamin a day will take care of it?
 
Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stands in the way of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of scoffers:
But his delight is in the law of Jehovah;
And on his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also doth not wither;
And whatsoever he does shall prosper. Psalms 1:1-3                              
 
Dene Ward

Part 3 in a 6 part series
 
              Lately I have felt swamped.  When I had to close my music studio doors because concerti and German lieder accompaniments do not generally come in large print editions, I thought I would sit here and die of boredom.

              Not so.  Between a husband who keeps making suggestions about things to do—like blogs—and women who are no longer satisfied with canned Bible class materials, and other women who want weekend studies and lectures, and an editor who wants one or two devotional books a year, an elderly mother to care for, and grandchildren who need my companionship and wisdom, I have plenty to do.  I am thankful for it.  God demands work from His people, and despite a growing disability, I still have much to do.  So do you.

              So how did I get this from the psalms study?  Think for a minute.  What did God ordain the Levites to do?  Just because they could not all be priests did not mean some were free to pursue other activities.

              Levites were assistants to the priests.  They did the clean-up after the sacrifices, some of the nastiest cleaning you can imagine, including hideous laundry stains.  They took care of the animals.  They baked the shewbread.  When the tabernacle was moved, they did the setting up and tearing down, packing and unpacking.  You can read chapter after chapter in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy and see these men working.  None of them were idlers.

              So what happened after the Temple was built?  Some of the original duties were no longer necessary and new ones developed.  Now you can read chapter after chapter in 1 and 2 Chronicles and see new duties, ordained by God just as the original ones were.  They were musicians, every bit as professional as a symphony orchestra member today, every bit as trained as a singer on the operatic stage.  They were security guards.  I even found a passage stating they were to unlock the Temple every morning, which I suppose means they made the rounds and locked it in the evening too.  Many of the other duties were the same.  They still needed bakers.  They still needed launderers.  They still needed metal smiths and janitors and husbandmen.  I doubt that covers it by any stretch of the imagination.

              The same frame of mind that causes us to work for God provokes work in the earthly realm as well, because that, too, is working for God.  He ordained work in this physical world from the time He made man:  The Lord took the man and put him in the garden to work it and keep it, Gen 2:15.  The only thing sin changed was how difficult that work was going to be, not the fact of it.

              The scriptures say that we are to work for our employers (“Masters”) heartily, as unto the Lord, Col 3:23.  It says whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, Eccl 9:10.  It calls those who do not work lacking sense (Prov 24:20), disorderly (2 Thes 3:11), brother to a destroyer (Prov 18:9), and wicked (Matt 25:26).  It says that a man who will not go out and work is “robbing his parents,” (Prov 28:24).  It says if we don’t work, we shouldn’t be allowed to eat (2 Thes 3:10).

              God reinforced all of that when He gave the Levites their duties in his Tabernacle and then when He changed those duties to suit the Temple.  He didn’t tell one group, “Since there is no longer any need to pack and unpack, to set up and tear down, you no longer need to work.”  He simply gave them new work to do. 

              And who are the priests and Levites today?  We are (1 Pet 2:9).  Peter said it was right for him to continue to teach “as long as I am in this body,” 2 Pet 1:13.  The same applies to us.  As long as we are above ground, as long as we are breathing, we serve God.  The duties may change, just as they did for those Levites, but the requirement to work does not.  You do what you can as the opportunity arises—that’s what those talents in the parable represent—opportunities--not your personal perception of your own “talent.”  God knows exactly what gift He gave you and the opportunities He gives you.  Use them.
 
We must work the works of him who sent me while it is day; night is coming, when no one can work. John 9:4.
 
Dene Ward

Part 2 in a 6 part series
 
              Any time even a good translator tries to translate poetry from one language to another it presents many more problems than translating prose.  How do you find words that keep the meter of the original, that rhyme if the original poem did, and that still translate the thought of the foreign poet?  Words that rhyme in one language do not rhyme in another, and words with two syllables do not always have two in the second language, and you certainly cannot count on the accents being in the same place.

           But God in His providence chose a culture where “rhyme” and “meter” have nothing to do with the poetry.  Instead of words sounding alike, each line of a Hebrew couplet “rhyme” in thought.  In their culture, each line restates the first in a more emphatic way.  The point of the “accent” is not the way word sounds, but in the gradual intensity of meaning.  That way the translators from any culture could translate without worrying about rhyme or meter and simply translate the words, giving us exactly the same meanings as the original, just as we would ordinary prose.  The imagery is still there word for word so the effect of the poem is not lost, and the psalm can do exactly for us what it did for those people thousands of years ago.

              Imagine if it had been the other way around.  Imagine if the original psalms were written in Occidental mode—rhyme, meter and all.  I spoke to a woman who had done some translating once from Spanish to English.  She said it was an overwhelming task because in her case she had to find those words that rhymed, that had the same singsong sort of meter, yet still meant the same thing.  Even with three dictionaries in front of her, the job was long and arduous.  If we were Hebrew-speaking people trying to make sense of Western poetry, could we even be certain we had the right words?  If that were important, as it certainly would be, the whole effect of the original would be lost.

              But we can be sure, because God’s providence works in amazing ways we probably never thought about before. We can know that we have the exact wording of the original psalms, the exact meaning of those heartfelt phrases because of the nature of Oriental poetry. 

              If God takes such pains in such detailed items, surely His providence will work in other ways.  Surely He knows what we need when, and how to make it come about even by ordinary, everyday means; just as He made Joseph second in command to Pharaoh and supervisor of the stores just when the family of the future Messiah would have starved without them; just as He had a Jewish girl declared Queen of Persia just when an anti-Semitic Persian came to hold sway over the king; just as He had Caesar declare a census just when a certain Jewish maiden was about to deliver so she would be in the town prophesied in Micah.

              Don’t ever doubt that God works in the world today.  We may not understand exactly what is going on.  We may, in fact, never see the results of things set in motion during our lifetimes.  But I know He is working by this one simple example: God has taken pains to give me a Word I can trust. 

              Go find Peter, the angel told Cornelius, who will teach you “words whereby you shall be saved,” Acts 10:14.  Those same words can save us too, and we can have the utmost confidence in them.
 
And for this cause we also thank God without ceasing, that, when you received from us the word of the message, even the word of God, you accepted it not as the word of men, but, as it is in truth, the word of God, which also works in you that believe, 1 Thess 2:13.
 
Dene Ward

The first of six articles in a series, ending next Friday.

Last year I created a new study for the women I worship with, a study in the book of Psalms.  The first five lessons have been prep lessons, studies in the history of the psalms, the nature of Hebrew poetry, the types of psalms, and the place of music in Old Testament worship.  What has amazed me are the little asides we have come up with—incidental lessons one can draw from hard facts.  We forget that sometimes, and ridicule those who insist on fact learning as being somehow less than spiritual in their outlooks.  Not so, my friends, for those who ignore the facts often make mistakes deadly to their souls.  God had a reason for recording these things so it would behoove us to learn them.
 
             Here is one for you.  David spent chapter after chapter telling Solomon how to build the Temple.  His instructions were detailed and specific.  Do you think he came up with this all by himself?  I have heard it said so, but David said otherwise.

              Be careful now, for the LORD has chosen you to build a house for the sanctuary; be strong and do it." Then David gave Solomon his son the plan of the vestibule of the temple, and of its houses, its treasuries, its upper rooms, and its inner chambers, and of the room for the mercy seat… All this he made clear to me in writing from the hand of the LORD, all the work to be done according to the plan. 1 Chron. 28:10, 11, 19)

              Even in the disposition of the music and the musicians, David says the command came from God, not his own preferences.  And he stationed the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, harps, and lyres, according to the commandment of David and of Gad the king's seer and of Nathan the prophet, for the commandment was from the LORD through his prophets. 2 Chronicles 29:25.  May I just say this about that?  When God wanted instrumental music in the worship, He knew exactly how to command it, and he was quite specific about when, how, and what was to be used.

              When I was a music student at the University of South Florida, several of my professors expressed amazement at my religious beliefs concerning music in the services.  “You are a pianist,” they said.  “Don’t you want to use your talent in service to the God who gave it?”

              When I explained as patiently and respectfully as I knew how, “What I want is to give God the service He requires, not the service I prefer,” they were dumbfounded.  It had never crossed their minds, evidently, that the One being served had the right to demand a certain kind of service and would not accept anything else, in fact, would count it as rebellion.

              David never decided what he liked and imposed it upon God.  This is the man who said, “I will not offer to God that which cost me nothing.”  He knew that service to God involved sacrifice, including the sacrifice of what he liked and did not like, what he preferred and did not prefer.  David was truly a servant of God, not a servant of himself. 

              In every aspect of life, which are you?
 
They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things. For when Moses was about to erect the tent, he was instructed by God, saying, "See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain." Hebrews 8:5.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.
 
On my tenth birthday, my parents gave me The Complete Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. I’ve always been a bookworm. I can’t claim to have read every single tale in the book, but I did read a great deal. There is one that I vaguely recall, in which a king needed some great thing to be accomplished, the Roc’s Egg brought back to him or some such. He decreed that anyone who did this would be given his daughter’s hand in marriage. A peasant boy who had always dreamed of marrying the princess, undertook the quest. He braved mystic forests and foreboding mountains, fought ogres and elves, and returned, having been successful. He married the princess and became the hero of the kingdom.

Stories like this pervade most, if not all, cultures. Heracles went mad one night and killed his wife and children. Regaining his senses and overcome with grief, he undertook his famous 12 Labors to try to win redemption. Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table spent their lives looking for the Holy Grail. The Asian cultures also have their stories of quests and epic feats in the search of riches or immortality or redemption. Our culture is not without such stories: to save Middle Earth, Frodo goes on a long quest to return the One Ring to Mount Doom. Again and again, great treasures require monumental feats to acquire.

This teaches us good things. Get rich quick schemes rarely, if ever, work. If we want to accomplish something in this life, we have to put in the work, the effort, and the time to achieve it. However, this reinforced belief does leave us suspicious of any easy answer and that sometimes is a detriment.

The Bible contains a story about this. The first half of II Kings 5 will be our text. The first verse:

“Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Syria, was a great man with his master and in high favor, because by him the LORD had given victory to Syria. He was a mighty man of valor, but he was a leper.”

Who was Naaman? He was the general of the Syrian armies. He was very well thought of by the king. He was a “mighty man of valor”. This was an important man, a proud man, a celebrity and hero in his country. He was SOMEBODY. But he had leprosy. Leprosy in the ancient Middle East was probably not the flesh rotting disease known in Middle Ages Europe. It was a skin disease that made the skin white and scaly. Often, it caused odors. Basically, it made the sufferer look, and even smell, like a corpse. Under the Law of Moses, lepers were to be quarantined away from the general population, but even in countries that did not follow the Mosaic Law, lepers were generally shunned and became secluded. Naaman, a proud man in a public career, was looking at losing all he had because of this disease. Do you think he was desperate for a cure? I imagine that he had tried every potion offered by every quack in Syria. To no avail. Keep reading with me:

“Now the Syrians on one of their raids had carried off a little girl from the land of Israel, and she worked in the service of Naaman's wife. She said to her mistress, "Would that my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy." So Naaman went in and told his lord, "Thus and so spoke the girl from the land of Israel." And the king of Syria said, "Go now, and I will send a letter to the king of Israel." So he went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten changes of clothing.” (vs 2-5)

Can you feel the desperation here? This small child, prattling on like small children do, mentions the prophet in Israel and his God-given abilities. Seizing on this last hope, Naaman goes to the king for permission to enter Israel and, receiving it, takes a huge gift with him to entice the prophet into helping him. The size of this gift is instructive. Ten talents of silver is 30,000 shekels of silver, which tells you nothing until I explain that the average ANNUAL salary of a laborer at that time was 10 shekels of silver. The silver alone that Naaman brought was the equivalent of 3,000 years pay for a common man! Or, another way to look at it, the silver would have weighed 750 lbs in modern measure, and the gold 150 lbs. I haven’t checked the spot price today, but one fairly recent book estimates the value at $750 million in modern buying power. Plus, ten really nice suits of clothes. How badly did Naaman want to be clean? Look at what he was willing to pay!

After some confusion as to where to go, Naaman arrives at Elisha’s house in verse 9:

“So Naaman came with his horses and chariots and stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, "Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean." But Naaman was angry and went away, saying, "Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?" So he turned and went away in a rage.” (vs 9-12)

Naaman, great man of Syria, mighty man of valor and general of the armies, comes to Elisha’s modest house and . . . Elisha doesn’t even bother to come out to see him. He sends a servant. That had to have punctured Naaman’s ego a bit and then the instructions given are just ridiculous. ‘If it was as easy as washing, don’t you think I’d have done that?!’ He had expected an impressive display, chanting and arm waving and hocus pocus. Instead he is told to wash in the Jordan. ‘Our Syrian rivers are better for washing than that muddy stream.’ He goes away angry precisely because the answer was too easy. If there is any doubt on that, read on:

“And his servants came near, and spoke unto him, and said, My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? how much rather then, when he says to you, Wash, and be clean? Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God; and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean.” (vs 13-14)

The servant points out that if a great feat had been prescribed, Naaman would have been all in for that. Remember what he was willing to pay; would there be anything he wouldn’t do? Imagine if Elisha had said ‘Bring me the heads of 100 lions’ or ‘Climb to the top of the tallest mountain’ and he’d be clean. You know that Naaman, mighty man of valor, would have been on his way with zest to complete such a quest. That wouldn’t have upset him at all. But washing was too easy. His servant finally convinced him that if he were willing to undertake the difficult thing, he ought to do the easy as well, and he washed and was cleaned.

Many people today make the same mistake Naaman almost did. We, too, have a problem. He had leprosy, we are disfigured by sin. Leprosy affects the body, sin rots the soul. If Naaman was willing to pay hundreds of millions of dollars and go on exotic quests to be rid of leprosy, what should we be willing to do to be rid of sin? It can’t be something easy, right? That thought is why many modern denominations teach that forgiveness isn’t something that we can reach, but that it takes the direct working of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must overcome you and lead you to forgiveness. How do we know that has happened? We begin babbling in “tongues” or fall into the aisles in religious fervor. Surely it takes big things like that to be rid of sin, right? Well, what does the Bible say?

Rom 10:9 “because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
Rom 10:14 “How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?”

Combining these verses, we must hear the word taught, believe in our hearts that Jesus was raised from the dead, and be willing to confess Him as Lord. What’s interesting is that we have an example of people just like that in Acts 2. They had heard the Gospel preached by Peter, including that Jesus had been raised from the dead – vs 32 “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.” – and that He was Lord – vs. 36 “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” They believed, being pricked in the heart (vs 37) and asked Peter what they should do. His answer? “And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’”

Understanding all of this, then, means that we must hear the word preached and believe it. Believe in our hearts the gospel of the resurrection and be willing to confess Him as Lord. Then we repent of our sins and are baptized for the remission of those sins and we will be saved, have our sins removed, and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. There is no mention of the Holy Spirit overwhelming us or of babbling in “tongues” or religious frenzies. It is much simpler than that. Too simple, in fact, for many people to believe in it. Like Naaman, they turn away.

But having achieved so great a salvation from so merciful and loving a God, how are we to worship Him? Surely so great a God demands extravagant, awe-inspiring worship. We need rock-and-roll bands combined with shouting, dancing, and rolling in the aisles, right? Or perhaps we need to build monumental temples to Him filled with statuary and decorated by beautiful artworks in which imposing priests in impressive robes conduct ancient rites in a dead language? Again, our great God deserves such impressive worship, right? Well, what does the Bible say?

Col. 3:16 We are to sing praises to Him and teaching to each other.
1 Tim. 4:13 We are to teach and preach God’s word.
Eph. 6:18, 1 Thess. 5:17 We are to pray.
1 Cor. 11:23-25, Acts 20:7, We are to partake in His supper on the first day of the week.
1 Cor. 16:1-2 On the first day of the week we are to take up a collection.

And that’s it. It is simple. Too simple for some to accept, but we don’t apologize for the simplicity of our worship to God because it is precisely what He asked us to do.

Paul warns us in 1 Cor. 1:21-23 that many will be turned away by the simplicity of the Gospel and the teaching of the New Testament. Like Naaman almost was, these will be turned off because it is just too easy. They can’t grasp that something so great can be achieved in such a simple manner. So they turn away.

Don’t be like them. For once, take the easy way out.

Lucas Ward

Every three months we go through the same thing—trying to get the flea pill into Chloe.  The vet can talk all day about how good it tastes—why, it's beef flavored—but so is a bouillon cube and I wouldn't eat one of them either.  Besides, I wonder if she has actually tasted this pill—this HUGE pill that somehow I am supposed to get not only into my dog's mouth, but actually down her throat.

           We've tried the peanut butter trick.  She somehow sucks it out of the peanut butter and spits it out without losing one smear of the good stuff.

              We tried stuffing it into a block of cheese.  Same thing, and not only that, but getting a block of cheese big enough for that horse pill is pretty expensive.

              So one time we tried the mean way.  We grabbed her, pried open her mouth and stuffed it in.  Keith held her muzzle, stroked her throat to encourage swallowing, and talked as sweetly as he could to calm her down and get her to accept it.  Even with her mouth clamped shut, out it came—like a watermelon seed spitting contest.

              I am certain that you have seen people spit out the parts of the gospel they don't like, just like Chloe did her pills.  I am just as certain you have seen Christians do the same thing.  I actually had a woman tell me in a Bible class, "But I don't like reading those passages," as if that would make what she deemed objectionable go away or at least excuse her from having to look at it.  Because of those attitudes we have people in the world who think God changes with the Testaments, that Jesus will accept their continuing sin because he loves them, and that the church is only there to take care of them and make them feel good.

              This isn't new.  One of Hosea's themes is that God's people did not know him.  Oh, they knew his name, they knew he existed, but if they had really known what he was all about, do you really think they would have been so unfaithful?

              ​Were I to write for him my laws by the ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing. Hos 8:12.  They were so ignorant of God and his law that it was practically a foreign language.  It's the same attitude that, when confronted with their sin today, people dare to say, "But God wouldn't want me to be unhappy."  When you really know someone, you understand their likes and dislikes, their opinions, their preferences, the things that are most important to them.  We cannot claim to know God yet neither know nor even care about those things with him.

              I recently came across the following quote:  "The modern church is producing passionate people with empty heads who love the Jesus they don't know very well."  (Voddie Baucham)

              Because of his background, I believe the speaker is referring to the modern church in denominational terms, but I have seen enough ignorance among my brothers and sisters to know it applies here as well.  The hunger for knowledge has been lost in a society that is too busy with "stuff" to even have time for it, much less think it is worth the trouble.  And because we convert people by emotion alone, they have no real knowledge of God and what he requires of them in holiness, purity, and obedience.  When they finally hear a sermon they don't agree with, regardless of the Biblical evidence, they leave because it no longer makes them happy, or it requires a sacrifice in their lifestyles, or they are "uncomfortable" with what it means.  If we manage to chase them down and make them stay, don't expect them to go ahead and swallow that nasty pill they don't like. 

              Finally, out of sheer desperation one day, I called Chloe and told her I had a treat for her, using the same silly tone of voice and the same excited body language as for a real treat.  Then I put it on the steps, right where I put all her other treats.  She gave it a sniff and looked at me sideways.  "Eat your treat!" I said, even sillier sounding than before.  She sighed, leaned down, picked it up and, after rolling it around in her mouth for a while, ate it.  Then she walked away, looking over her shoulder at me as if she were very disappointed in such a naughty child. 

              Somehow we must start getting the Word into people, whether they think they want it or not.  Somehow we must show them that it is indeed a "treat."  Learning God's Word can be fun.  Learning about God can be exhilarating.  Learning about everything he did to bring us into a saving relationship with him can spark a real desire to learn more, to become more like him, changing and growing each day.  That's how you develop a faith that will stand the trials of life and prepare you for an Eternity with a Father you finally know.
 
I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD. Hos 2:20
 
Dene Ward
 

Keith was counting out pennies the other day and suddenly he called me to the table. 

"Have you seen these?" he asked, and lying there were four fairly new pennies with different images on them than we had grown up with.  One had a log cabin.  Another had a young rail splitter, taking a rest to read a book.  A third had Lincoln standing in front of the state capitol in Springfield, Illinois, and the fourth the US Capitol.

We wondered if they were real, so I looked it up and yes, indeed, they are real, minted in 2009 to celebrate the 200th birthday of Abraham Lincoln on February 12, 2009.  The four images show the various stages of his life, from childhood to the presidency.  Then I found another article about a new Lincoln penny minted the next year, a union shield with a draped scroll to celebrate Lincoln as the preserver of the Union.

But tell me this, when was the last time you even looked at a penny?  Most of us don't even pay with them anymore.  We hand the cashier a bill and take the change, and maybe that change gets thrown on the dresser or in a jar, and maybe every year or so you throw them in a change machine and replace them with bills again.  While I would not want anyone to do away with pennies—everything rounded up to the next nickel could get expensive, and don't for a minute believe that a merchant is going to round down—I really don't find much use for them.

A favorite tactic of the atheist is to talk about the little blue dot, which is what they call Earth, a mere "penny" in the vastness of outer space. 

"Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.
“The significance of our lives and our fragile planet is then determined only by our own wisdom and courage. We are the custodians of life's meaning. We long for a Parent to care for us, to forgive us our errors, to save us from our childish mistakes. But knowledge is preferable to ignorance. Better by far to embrace the hard truth than a reassuring fable."  Carl Sagan, A Pale Blue Dot:  A Vision of the Human Future in Space.

The atheist believes that since this earth is such a tiny spot in this immense universe that we don't count for anything.  How, he asks, can a Deity, if there is a one, even take notice of us when there is so much more out there?  Really, he says, we need to grow up and stop believing myths.

I am here to tell you, that you may be just a penny on a pale blue dot, but God does care about you.  He does know what is going on in your life, the sorrows, the pain, the misfortunes, and the joys as well.  If you can tear yourself away from their fables long enough to examine the evidence around us and in the Word, you will see the proof of our importance to him in his constant dealings with man through the centuries, and the sacrifices he made to save us.  Why would he have done that if he didn't care, if you didn't matter, if he had so much more on his mind than this pale blue dot? 

The fact is the atheist cannot conceive of a God so much larger than himself, so much more compassionate, so much mightier and awesome.  When all you rely on is your puny little human mind you are kind of stuck that way.  Evidences and apologetics may never convince the skeptic, but you are not one of them or you wouldn't even be bothering with this tiny little blog in a huge cyberspace. 

When you open your mind and your heart to a revealed Word, and a Savior who knows exactly what living on this pale blue dot is all about, you can accept the infinite possibilities a whole lot easier.  And you can be sure that God looks at even his seemingly worthless pennies, and does so constantly.  You matter to him.

Think about that the next time you pull out a pocketful of change.
 
For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. (2Chr 16:9)

“For his eyes are on the ways of a man, and he sees all his steps. (Job 34:21)

Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, (Ps 33:18)

The eyes of the LORD are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. ​ When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. (Ps 34:15,17)

For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths. (Prov 5:21)

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. (Heb 4:13)

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. (1Pet 3:12)

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1Pet 5:6-7)
 
Dene Ward

Since Keith has retired we sit on the carport nearly every morning with a final cup of coffee, talking and tossing treats to Chloe, watching the hummingbirds dogfight, listening to the squeaky whine of titmice fussing over the feeders, counting blooms on the Mexican petunias, and trying to decide if the clouds bode well or ill for the day.  Even in the summer, we enjoy our time, but in the summer one thing changes—the quiet of the country becomes the roar of the big shop fan.  That fan makes it comfortable enough, as it blows away the gnats and mosquitoes, and turns the early morning humidity into a cool breeze instead of a heavy and suffocating blanket.

             I was looking up the history of fans and discovered in a patent office publication some interesting ideas for fans:  a centrifugal fan, a horse fan, and a rocking chair fan among them.  Then I came across the patent filed on February 10, 1926, not for the original oscillating fan, but improvements upon it.  I suppose we have a tendency to think the idea was invented in full form, but such was not the case.  This patent applied for by Harve Stuart, would allow an oscillator on the fan to be connected or disconnected while the fan was in motion, and hold firmly stationary during operation without set screws.  Imagine what that fan was like before then.

              As a born and bred Florida girl, fans were a large part of my childhood.  We did not have air conditioning until I was a teenager, and central air did not come along until Keith and I had been married three years.  Not that it wasn’t invented, but it had not yet reached our income level.

              I remember summer afternoons at my grandmother’s house, sitting on the porch under the shade of oaks and chinaberries, listening to the soft whir and tick-tick-tick-tick as her old oscillating fan swept back and forth across us, evaporating the sheen of sweat and cooling us in the process.  That fan felt wonderful.  In an air conditioned world, I doubt many but my generation have known that feeling.

              This morning I came across Genesis 3:8 and saw a margin note I had never noticed before.

              And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…

              Did you know that word “cool” can also be translated “wind” or “breath?”  God created everything, including the cooling effects of wind and, thus, an evening breeze to cool off His earth.  So even the perfect garden must have become a bit warm during the “heat of the day.”  Surely God had already created the ability to perspire, as well, since that is essential to the function of the body.  Man, as he worked in the garden (Gen 2:15), must have become warm and must have sweated.  Then God sent the evening breezes to cool him off.  It wasn’t until after he sinned that the work became difficult and the heat and the sweat became intolerable, just as it wasn’t until after then that conception, which I view as the whole of the female condition, became painful.

              You can find that word again in Prov 17:27:  He who spares his words has knowledge, and he that is of a cool spirit has understanding.  “Spirit” is “wind” is “cool.”  So now I have fans and breezes and dispositions in my mind, and it all came out this way: 

             If I have a hot nature, I need the cooling effects of the Spirit, and what better way than to read the word he “breathed” to cool me off?

              Many of us are foolish enough to put ourselves in situations where we know we will be tempted to anger, where we know we will be pushed and prodded and even shoved right in its path.  Why?!  We tell our children to avoid situations of temptation.  We tell them it’s downright stupid to go certain places and not expect trouble.  But we sometimes even contrive them, almost as if to flaunt our freedom to do so.  Then we shout out, “That shouldn’t have been so hard,” as we fall, flailing our arms for some sort of lifeline that isn’t there.  We decided we didn’t need it.

              This might be more motivating:  Not only can God cool us, but with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked, Isa 11:4.  One word seems to say it from every angle, just as the old oscillating fan hit from every angle.  Cool yourself off with the Word of God, and don’t go near the torrid zones.
 
​Whoever is slow to anger is better than the mighty, and he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city, Prov 16:32.
​Good sense makes one slow to anger… Prov 19:11.
​Be not quick in your spirit to become angry, for anger lodges in the heart of fools, Eccl 7:9.
 
Dene Ward

It has happened again.  We have lost another old friend.  This one fired up his tractor and pulled us out of the mud half a dozen times the first month we lived here.  We were young, 38 and 31, and still new to North Florida—though I am a Central Florida native, it is not the same.  We had never lived half a mile off the hard road, across a field, up over a rise, and through the woods.  No real road meant we were subject to the weather far more than we had realized we would be.  Wayne Smith never said a thing except, "I'll be right there," when we called, and he was, his tractor roaring across the ground, heedless of the mud.
 
             He never will be again.

              And so we have lost our "bookends."  Wayne and the other neighbor we met before anyone else, Tom Hill, are both gone now.  We still find ourselves thinking, "We need to ask Tom about that," or, "Let's go see what Wayne knows."  Habits, even of thought, die hard.  Unfortunately, people do not.  Life is fragile, and we have been slammed with that truth far too often lately:  a good friend and brother in the Lord, one you could talk to about anything, one we raised pigs with, and with whom we raised our children; a sister who carted me back and forth to the doctor after my worst surgery—a trip that put 100 miles on her car every time she did it, over and over again, who advised me on these posts—"Make them challenging," she told me, "That's what we need"—who supported me in my classes, who advised me in cooking, cleaning, sewing, and hospitality; and now our two best neighbors, the first two we met here, who never let us down, and were the epitome of "a good neighbor."

              I noticed this morning as I walked Chloe that even the property looks different now.  Instead of the warm fuzzy feeling of home, it seemed unfriendly and almost unfamiliar.  That's what happens when someone you have grown to count on is no longer down the drive or across the field, when you realize you will never have the pleasure of their talk, the security of knowing help was just a phone call away, nor the benefit of their common sense advice again—for not all of these people we have lost were believers.  That fact makes the hurt so much worse.

              And all of these losses also brings home the fact that our turn is coming.  ​What man can live and never see death? Who can deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? — Selah, Ps 89:48.  It may be quite a few more years; but then, it may be tomorrow.  And though we have known that all our lives, suddenly it seems so much closer.

              Now is the time we lean on those promises. 

              Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Ps 23:4

              ​For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive…The last enemy that is abolished shall be death.  1 Cor 15L21,22,26

              But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope.  For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.  For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words. 1Thess 4:13-18

              And so as this world becomes less and less hospitable, as it seems more and more alien to us, it becomes easier to imagine that day, whenever it may come, however it may come, as a blessing.  And just as losing these people has left us with a hollow, empty feeling, may we strive more and more to be that to others—someone they will miss, someone they will wish to see again, and maybe in that desire, they will find it easier to overcome that old Serpent, so they can see us again someday too.
 
Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.  You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Ps 73:23-24
 
Dene Ward