Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.
 
            The book of Deuteronomy is a collection of the last few times Moses spoke to the Children of Israel before he died and they entered the Promised Land.  It ends with two songs and a farewell address, but the majority of the book is a series of sermons encouraging the people and re-giving the Law.  When I started seriously studying it to teach it in Bible class, I was amazed at just how much these sermons resemble sermons we might preach today.
            For example, the first sermon (chapters 1-4) begins with a quick recap of how their fathers had rebelled against God and refused to take the Promised Land.  They had been too afraid to go into the land.  Deut. 1:28 "Where are we going up? Our brothers have made our hearts melt, saying, “The people are greater and taller than we. The cities are great and fortified up to heaven. And besides, we have seen the sons of the Anakim there.”’ Looking back on this, we shake our heads at their lack of faith but in reality, their fears were reasonable.  1)  The people in the land out-numbered them and were generally bigger.  2) The cities were huge and strongly fortified.  3)  In addition to the populous generally being bigger, there were actual Giants living in the land. (In Josh. 11:22 it states that the few Anakim who survived the conquest settled in Gath.  Now, who was the most famous resident of Gath?)  These fears were completely reasonable except for the fact that God was on their side.
            Moses then uses the history of his listeners to show just how ridiculous this fear was.  In chapter 2 he recounts the march to their current camp just east of the Jordan River.  On the way, God told them not to bother the Edomites because He had given them the land they occupied.  There had been other people there before, but when God decided to give the Edomites the land, they had no trouble occupying it (vs 5,12).  Then they were told not to bother the Moabites, because God had given them their land.  There used to be Giants there, too, called Emim, but the Moabites had no trouble driving them out when God gave them that land (vs 9-11).  This was repeated with the Ammonites (vs 19-22), who drove out another Giant race (the Zamzummim) to take their land.  The Israelites would have remembered God's instructions through Moses concerning these nations, and Moses uses that knowledge to refute two of the fears.  When God decided to bless these pagan peoples who had no relationship with Him, it didn't matter that there were people already living there nor did it matter how strong they were, God gave them that land.  So, what would He do for His people?
            Moses then uses the victories of Israel over the Amorite kings Sihon and Og to dispel with the third fear (2:32-3:6).  In defeating these kings, the Israelites captured all their cities, many of which were strongly fortified.  Moses graphically displays that if God is on their side, nothing could stand in their way:  "And I commanded Joshua at that time, ‘Your eyes have seen all that the LORD your God has done to these two kings. So will the LORD do to all the kingdoms into which you are crossing.  You shall not fear them, for it is the LORD your God who fights for you.’" (Deut. 3:21-22)
            Is it ever scary to be a Christian?  Be honest; sometimes it is terrifying.  To be different from everyone around you all the time, to be accused of self-righteousness or mean-spiritedness because of taking a stand for the truth can be pretty frightening.  To miss out on promotions because you won't work Sundays or because people think of you as judgmental can be scary.  To be attacked on social media and needing to erase your accounts because you declared that some things are right and some things are wrong can be unnerving.  Nowadays, some people are losing their businesses which they worked their lives through to establish because they won't' accommodate sin or are even being thrown in jail for refusal to follow immoral government mandates.  That can be terrifying.  These are all reasonable fears, from a worldly perspective.  But as Moses used the example of pagan kingdoms God wished to bless to encourage the Israelites, we can use the example of God's blessings on His earthly kingdom to find strength to carry on (Col. 2:17, Heb. 8:5; 10:1).  Joshua was told not to fear because God was fighting for them.  How much less reason do we have to fear as part of the Kingdom God established by the sacrifice of His Son?  Won't God fight even harder for us? 
            Fear is natural when Satan's forces are arrayed against us, but remember who fights on our side and keep marching forward to the Promised Land.
 
Luke 12:32  “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."
Heb. 13:6  "So we can confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?'” 
 
Lucas Ward
 

A few weeks ago Keith took the garbage to the dump in the pickup as he has done out here in the country for over forty years now.  It's one of the perks of our rural existence—no Waste Management bill, but that means we take care of it ourselves.  So, since the truck hadn’t been driven in a while, he took it down the straightaway on the way home, a couple miles past our turn-off and back, at highway speed.  A mechanic friend said it was the only way to blow out the pipes, so to speak, and would make the already twenty-four year old truck last longer.
            When he got home he muttered something about "those pesky wrens" and pulled a nest out of the grillwork on the front of the truck.  It was well past nesting season, even for birds that do so more than once, so he assumed the nest was empty.  As he pulled it out and tossed it, two small wrens fluttered to the grass, then half hopped, half flew to the nearest thing off the ground, the big shop fan on the carport.  Almost immediately the mother wren found her babies and shepherded them to the azaleas.  For a day or two we watched as they learned of necessity to fly a little sooner than they had planned, and called Chloe off of them more than once.
            Wrens are known for building nests practically anywhere.  This one may have learned a lesson.  In fact, we wondered between us what must have happened as Keith left the dump and headed down that rural highway, gradually picking up speed.  Somehow I can see two little heads peering over the edge of the nest, looking down the road as the wind tore at their feathers, glancing at one another with eyes wide and mouths agape. 
            "What's going on, Ethel?"
            "I don't know Lucy, but hang on!"
            The sad part is that most Carolina wrens lay four to six eggs.  Even supposing that some of the others had already flown the nest, it's quite possible that a one or two were actually blown away in that wild ride.
            Life can be a pretty wild ride, too.  It's that way because we messed it up several thousand years ago.  God told Adam and Eve they would face hard work, and lots of sweat, pain, and anguish because of their error.  We face the same things, and our part in sin makes it only just. 
            ​You lift me up on the wind; you make me ride on it, and you toss me about in the roar of the storm. (Job 30:22)
            Sometimes the winds of trial blow so hard we have to hang on by our toenails.  Some don't make it down the highway as far as others, being blown aside by disease or accident or simple wear and tear on a fragile, physical body.  And all of that is a blessing, really, even if we do have a hard time seeing it that way.  When God kicked the first couple out of Eden, their access to the Tree of Life ended.  But who would want to live forever in a sin-cursed world when we can move on to something so much better?
            I think we often get too involved in trying to find a reason when the ride gets rough.  It seems to be the only way we can handle a misfortune.  But sometimes it is not about a bad decision we made.  Sometimes it's because someone else decided to go warm up the tires and exercise the engine and we just happened to get caught in the grillwork.  Time and chance happen to all, the Preacher tells us and that may just be the only "why" there is.  Make the most of it.  The other day Keith came across those two little wrens, hopping, flitting, and flapping in the dust of the dirt floor equipment shed.  They had survived their ordeal and gotten on with life.
            When you reach my age, you find yourself looking back on that daredevil ride you have taken.  You hope you can take a little solace in how you faced it—resolutely, courageously, determined to see it through without whining or complaining too much, without being too embarrassed to look in the mirror and see what you were made of.  Even when the ride is over, the Devil may yet come along and yank you out of the last comfortable place you call home and then what?
            Then you live on the thing that God's people have always survived on—hope.  We seem so busy trying to make this life the reward—when it isn't and never has been for any but the unbeliever—that we seldom talk about hope any longer.  When did you last hear a lesson on Heaven?  Not on what happens after death, something no one can say with any assurance at all anyway, but on what happens when the Lord comes again—the reward for our faithfulness despite the difficulties of this life, despite the roaring winds, the monster of a revving engine trying to gobble us up, the potholes and the bumps in the road.  That reward should be our focus, not this wild ride of a life.  Someday very soon, it won't matter at all.
            "Hang on Ethel!"  Making it through the ride is worth it.
 
When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more, but the righteous is established forever. (Prov 10:25)

Dene Ward

I will think I have it figured out. 
             I will say, “Yes, life is hard, but God never promised otherwise (despite Joel Osteen).  I can do this.” 
            Then suddenly something happens I did not expect, something that seems the opposite of everything I have prayed for, and I wilt.  That’s when it is all too easy to fall into the “Why me?” trap.  The “I’ve done all this for you and look what I get in return,” con.  Jeremiah fell too.
            The prophets never had easy lives.  Hosea, Ezekiel, Amos, and Jeremiah are prime examples, and maybe Jeremiah more than any of them.  Check out 15:10-21.  Because of the poetic and figurative language it can be difficult to get the full impact, so if you will allow, I am going to paraphrase for you.
            In many versions this is labeled “Jeremiah’s Complaint.”  That ought to give you a clue about what’s going on.
            Jeremiah says, “Everyone hates me [because of what I’ve preached on your behalf, which is implied not spoken] v 10.
            God says, “Haven’t I delivered you?” v 11.
            Jeremiah says, “I did just what you told me to and YOU have deceived me” vv15-18.
            Uh-oh, Jeremiah has gone a step too far.  God will always hear His children’s cries.  Elsewhere on this blog we studied the Psalms and discovered that there are far more lament psalms than any other kind (including praise psalms)!  But Jeremiah has accused God of sin against him.
            How do I know?  Because God tells him, “If you repent, I will restore you.  Do not become like the very people I have sent you to” v 19.
            There are two lessons in this conversation that we need to hear.  First, other people’s bad behavior never justifies bad behavior in us.  Somehow we think that we can get away with anything as long as we can say, “But look how he treated me.”  No, we can’t, and if we claim to be Jesus’ disciples, the one who When…reviled…did not revile in return; when he suffered…did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. (1Pet 2:23), then we should know that.
            And that last phrase, “entrusting himself” to God segues nicely into the second lesson.
            “I delivered you,” God told Jeremiah.  Somehow, Jeremiah missed it.  Maybe it’s because he kept winding up imprisoned or thrown into a muddy cistern and left to die, and threatened with death almost constantly.  But God did deliver him.  Someone always came to the rescue providentially, people who just happened to be there with memory and logic, or on one occasion a foreigner who somehow had influence over the king.
            Jeremiah’s problem was that God’s idea of deliverance didn’t match his.  Here I am up to my armpits in a filthy, dank well and this is deliverance?  Yes, it was.  Instead of being killed instantly, he was left to die, which gave his rescuer an opportunity to save him.  Eventually he was pulled out of that hole to relative safety so he could preach even more.  Do you see that?  He was delivered so he could continue a hard and dangerous mission, not so he could live in luxury.
            And for us, deliverance may not look like our version of deliverance.  It may not match what we have prayed for, but that’s because God’s version often involves things we haven’t even been spiritual enough to think of.
            Do you want an example?  If you know my eye story, you know it has been going on a long, long time.  Longer than any doctor thought possible.  No, my vision is not what it used to be, but I still have some!  And what has that done for me?  It has taken away a lot things that used to take up my time, and suddenly, I am able to write, to teach, and to speak.  I have done more of that in the past fifteen years than in the thirty years before combined.
            And even now, it appears that my remaining vision is dimming.  But with the aid of lenses and large print, I can still manage the close things.  I can still study.  I can still type.  I may not be able to see the individual features of the crowd of faces in front of me, but I can still see my notes and my mouth works just fine.
            God’s idea of deliverance cost me a few things, like a music studio and some independence.  But it also delivered me to do so much more.
             Don’t whine when your deliverance is not what you hoped.  Don’t mope when your plans don’t work out, when you feel used and abused, when you think all is lost.  You may be shoulder deep in the mire right now, but that will make the deliverance even more amazing when it comes.  Just stop expecting your version and look for God’s.  In the words of the old joke, “I sent a boat and I sent a helicopter.  It’s not my fault you didn’t take me up on it.”
 
Therefore thus says the LORD: “If you return, I will restore you, and you shall stand before me. If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth. They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them. ​And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail over you, for I am with you to save you and deliver you, declares the LORD. ​I will deliver you out of the hand of the wicked, and redeem you from the grasp of the ruthless.” (Jer 15:19-21)
 
Dene Ward

If the wicked really are stronger than the forces of righteousness, as they think, and if the wicked really go unpunished more often than not, as we think in our gloomier moments, then how is it that wickedness has not won the day long before now?  Why does not the completely unscrupulous use of power wipe out the scrupulous, if that kind of power and that lack of moral restraint is really so unbeatable…Why haven't the forces of evil wiped out all resistance long ago?  Why are there any righteous left?  The answer must be that there really is something else going on in this world.  There really is a force—and we know who it is:  Yahweh, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ—greater than armies, bombs, bribery, and torture, and it is he who thwarts the efforts of the wicked and gives to the righteous another kind of power (not of this world, the New Testament says) to enable them to resist and endure.

Donald E Gowan, The Triumph of Faith in Habakkuk

Hide not your face from me in the day of my distress: Incline your ear unto me; In the day when I call answer me speedily. Psalm 102:2.
 
            I don’t know how many times I have said that to God, or at least something similar.  “Now, God. Please take care of this now!”  Yet another sentence in the same prayer was probably something like, “Please be patient with me, I’m really trying.”  Avenge me of my adversaries immediately, but don’t avenge my sins for Yourself until I have had time to repent—a self-serving double standard if there ever was one.
            God does not operate on my timetable.  He does not operate on yours.  Because He inhabits eternity (Isa 57:15) He sees and knows when the time is right.  He is not limited by living only in the present.
            Can you explain the fact that God did not send Nathan to David for about a year after his sin with Bathsheba?  Uriah was dead, David had married Bathsheba, and the child they made together had been born.  Perhaps God knew it would take that long for David to be receptive to Nathan.  Perhaps He knew that holding his small son in his hands would make David’s heart softer.  Who knows why, but that is the way God chose to do it, while in a similar circumstance the Corinthian church was commanded to withdraw from an adulterous brother the next time they met together.
            As for us, sometimes we cannot know why God allows things to happen when and as they do.  I can often see later on that things turned out better than if they had happened on my schedule instead of God’s, but nearly as often I cannot.  I am left to wonder.  The good that has been accomplished may not become evident until I am dead and gone.  I simply must trust that God knows best.
            Patience in the Bible is not about waiting quietly.  The patience of Job was noisy indeed.  Patience in the Bible is about endurance, about keeping on till the end, about being steadfast even when you don’t understand, and about trusting God’s timetable when your own makes a lot more sense to you. 
            Think of Noah who built that ark waiting for God’s promised flood for 120 years.  I wonder what his neighbors were saying after just one year, or how much they sneered after ten, much less 120.  Think about Abraham, who received a promise that was not fulfilled in his lifetime, or for a thousand years afterward.  Think about Sarah and Elizabeth, women who wanted children more than anything else, but did not receive them until old age had made it seem impossible.  For a Being who inhabits eternity, “impossible” does not apply, and time is immaterial.  Remember them and wait on the Lord.  He will save you, in His way, and in His time.
 
I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living!  Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!  Psalm 27:13,14
 
Dene Ward

Today's post if by guest writer Lucas Ward.
 
Lev. 23:2  “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, These are the appointed feasts of the LORD that you shall proclaim as holy convocations; they are my appointed feasts."
            When I reached this passage in Leviticus, I realized that I didn't know what convocation meant.  I had always read past the passage, assuming it meant "worship service."  I decided to look it up to be sure.  It turns out that convocation means "the act of convoking" according to Webster's Dictionary.  Sighing, I then looked up convoke.  It doesn't mean worship service at all.  A convocation is when people come together, a time of coming together.  So in Leviticus 23, when Moses is giving God's instructions on all the feast days, he is emphasizing that these are times when the nation was to come together and worship God as one.  The Sabbath was a holy convocation for each community.  On the Passover they came together to remember being freed from slavery in Egypt.  On the feast of weeks they came together to offer the first fruits of their harvest to God.  On the Day of Atonement they came together to fast, instead of feast, as they remembered their sins against God.  On the Feast of Booths they came together to celebrate God's care for them.  Ever—single—time--God ordered a day of worship, He wanted His people to come together to worship as a group.
            This is a principle that clearly carries over to the New Testament.  The early church "attended the temple together" to hear the Apostles' teaching (Acts 2:42, 46).  They "gathered together to break bread" (Acts 20:7).  We are told to exhort one another (1 Thess. 5:11) and admonish one another (Rom. 15:14), which clearly implies being together enough to know what exhortation and/or admonishment is needed.   As Christians, we are called the family of God and the word "brethren" is used of Christians at least 135 times in the New Testament.   A family defined by how we love each other (John 13:35) will naturally be together as much as possible, especially when worshipping the Head of that family. 
            Simply put, we cannot be the church that God intended, nor worship in the way He demands, if we never come together.  Streaming services may be a wonderful way to help those who are legitimately homebound, but if we are able we need to be getting up and joining our brethren in "holy convocation" as we worship together.  After all, how can I stir my brethren up to love and good works (Heb. 10:24) if I never see them?  The early Christians came together to worship even though if caught the Romans would put them all to death.  Surely we can brave a pandemic with a 98% survival rate!  And if we do wind up being part of the unlucky 2%, aren't we really the more fortunate for the chance to go home early? 

Hebrews 10:24-25  "And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near."
 
Lucas Ward

Charles Edward Coughlin was one of the first to broadcast religious programming over the radio, beginning in 1925.  He eventually had up to thirty million listeners in the 1930s.  He was a Roman Catholic priest, but his programs were more about politics than religion.  He began with a series of attacks on socialism and Soviet communism and moved on to American capitalism.  He even helped found a political party—the Union Party.  Finally, due to some not-so-latent anti-Semitism, he was forced off the air, announcing it in his final program on September 23, 1939.
            Others have stuck with religion and fared much better, Vernon McGee, Oral Roberts, and Billy Graham among them.  Many went on to television, but for a couple of generations, a lot of folks got their weekly dose of religion from the hump-backed radio they carefully tuned in amid high-pitched whistles and static.
         When I was young, radio evangelists were fond of ending their broadcasts with the directive to “put your hand on the radio and just believe.”  That was supposed to instantly transform the person who did nothing but sit in his recliner with a cup of coffee (or a can of beer?) into a Christian, a true believer, a person of “faith.” 
            Most mainstream denominational theologians believe in this doctrine of “mental assent.”  Faith is nothing more than believing, no action required.  Surely that must be one of those things spawned by the itching ears of listeners who wanted nothing required of them.  Just look at a few scriptures with me.
            For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love. Galatians 5:6.  What was that?  “Faith working…?”  Faith isn’t supposed to “work,” or so everyone says.  Did you know that Greek word is energeo?  Can you see it?  That’s the word we get “energy” and “energetic” from.  I don’t remember seeing too many energetic people sitting in their recliners.
            Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, Philippians 1:27.  Striving for the faith?  Even in English “striving” implies effort.  In fact, the Greek word is sunathleo.  Ask any “athlete” if mental assent will help him win a gold medal or a Super Bowl ring and you’ll hear him laughing a mile away.
            Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all, Philippians 2:17, ESV.  Now that can’t be right.  Everyone knows faith has nothing to do with outward observances of the law like sacrifices.  Well, how about this translation?  The ASV says “service of faith.”  Anyway you look at it, whether sacrifice or service, it requires some sort of action on our parts.
            Fight the good fight of faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses,1 Timothy 6:12.  Faith is a “fight.”  That Greek word is agon from which we get our word “agony.”  If you are a crossword puzzler, you know that an agon was a public fight in the Roman arena.  Anyone who did nothing but sit there, with or without a recliner, didn’t last long.
            To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12.  And there you have it in black and white:  “work of faith.” 
            Nope, some say, the trouble is you keep quoting these men.  Jesus never said any such thing.  Jesus answered them, This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent, John 6:29.  If faith itself is a work, how can we divorce the works it does from it? 
            We do have examples of mental assent in the scriptures, three that I could find easily. 
            You believe that God is one; you do well: the demons also believe, and shudder. James 2:19
            But certain also of the strolling Jews, exorcists, took upon them to name over them that had the evil spirits the name of the Lord Jesus, saying, I adjure you by Jesus whom Paul preaches. And there were seven sons of one Sceva, a Jew, a chief priest, who did this. And the evil spirit answered and said unto them, Jesus I know, and Paul I know, but who are you? Acts 19:13-15
            Those first two examples are powerful.  The devil and his minions believe in the existence of God and the deity of Jesus.  In fact, they know those things for a fact.  They even, please notice, recognize Paul as one of the Lord’s ministers.  So much for not paying attention to his or any other apostle’s writings.  Then there is this one:
            Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; John 12:42.  Those men believed too.  They would have been thrilled to know they could put their hands on something in the privacy of their homes and “just believe.”  They could have had their cake and eaten it too—become followers without actually following.
            And therein lies the crux of the matter.  It’s easy to sit in your recliner and listen.  It’s too hard to work, to strive, to sacrifice and serve, and way too hard to fight until you experience the agony of rejection, tribulation, and persecution.
            Guess what?  Some of us believe this too.  We just substitute the pew for the recliner.  It doesn’t work that way either.  God wants us up and on our feet, working, serving, sacrificing and fighting till the end, whenever and however that may happen.
 
Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?--unless indeed you fail to meet the test! 2 Corinthians 13:5
 
Dene Ward

Joseph Lodge opened his first foundry in South Pittsburg, Tennessee, in 1896, naming it after a friend:  The Blacklock Foundry.  In May 1910 it burned to the ground, but he opened again a few blocks south with an initial filing date as a For Profit Corporation on August 19, 1910, naming it the Lodge Manufacturing Company.  It has been going strong for over 100 years, and my own skillet came from that company.
          I grew up watching my mother use her cast iron skillet.  She fried chicken, hamburgers, eggs, country fried steak, pork chops, and hash in it.  I suppose I began with grilled cheese sandwiches, something I still love but have to limit now.  Some days, though, a crisp on the outside, gooey on the inside, hot all over, buttered pair of bread slices (usually multi-grain in a nod to health) is the only thing that will satisfy.
            When I received my own cast iron skillet as a wedding present I was confused.  My mother’s was deep black, smooth and shiny.  This thing was the same shape, the same heft, but gray, dull, and rough.  “You have to season it,” she told me, and even though I followed the directions exactly, greasing and heating it over and over and over, it was probably ten years before my skillet finally began to look like hers.  Seasoning cannot be done quickly, no matter what they say, and in the early stages can be undone with a moment’s carelessness—like scrubbing it in a sink full of hot soapy water.  A good skillet is never scrubbed, never even wet, but simply wiped out, a thin patina of oil left on the surface.            
            Faith is a little like a cast iron skillet—it has to be seasoned.  Let me explain.
            In the middle of some study a few weeks ago I made a discovery that made me laugh out loud.  “…the churches were strengthened in the faith,” we are told in Acts 16:5.  I am not a Greek scholar, but sometimes just looking at a word gives you a clue.  The word translated “strengthened” is stereoo.  “Stereo?” I thought, automatically anglicizing it, and a moment later got the point.  Faith may begin as “mono”—undoubtedly the Philippian jailor who believed and was baptized “in the same hour of the night” had a one dimensional faith.  He hadn’t had time to develop beyond the point of “I believe that Jesus is the Son of God,” but I imagine after awhile he had seasoned his faith with layer after layer of growth.  It had become a “stereo” faith.
            Think about it.  The Abraham who left Ur at the word of God, giving up far more than we usually realize in worldly goods and prominence, was not the same Abraham who offered his son over forty years later.  That first Abraham was still so timid he would willingly deceive people about the woman traveling with him.  Yet God did not give up on him, and he did not give up on God.  He grew, adding layer after layer to a faith that eventually made him the father of the faithful.
            The Peter who tried to walk on water may have shortly thereafter confessed Christ, but he wasn’t the same Peter who sat in Herod’s prison in Acts 12, and he certainly wasn’t the same Peter who ultimately lost his life for his Lord.  He used all the earlier experiences to season a faith that endured to the end.
            It isn’t that God is not satisfied with the faith we have at any given moment, but He does expect us to grow, to season that faith with years of endurance and service.  Seasoning takes heat, and the heat of affliction may be the thing that seasons us.  We never know what may be required, but God expects us to keep adding those layers, to get beyond the “mono” faith to a “stereo” faith, a multi-faceted, deeply layered condition, not just a little saying we repeat when we want to prove we are Christians.
            How does your skillet look today?  Is it still gray and rough, or have you taken the time to season it with prayer and study, enduring the heat of toil and affliction, and turned it into an indispensable tool, one you use everyday to feed and strengthen your soul?
 
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me! Job 19:25-27
 
Dene Ward

Man has been using tents since the dawn of civilization.  The oldest one found was in Moldava, a mammoth skin draped around mammoth bones.  Mammoth—that's the Ice Age, people.
            How did they make those ancient tents waterproof?  With animal fat, which made for a very stinky domicile.  Teepees and yurts were the next phase, and they were still stinky.  Finally nylon was invented in the 1930s and that became the material of choice for a long time.
            You can find all sorts of patents on tents, each claiming to be the next big step in comfort, ease in assembly, portability, size, whatever it is you want.  For this topic I chose the patent that was published on August 4, 1959 because of this phrase:  the said tent was "quite capable of standing up to any weather even without anchoring or reinforcement."  Remember that for a few minutes.
            Our first tent was a Camel dome.  The box said 10 x 12, which I never really understood since it was a hexagon.  It said “sleeps 6” so we thought two adults and two small children would fit just fine.  We learned to look at the fine print.  A diagram did indeed show six sleeping bags fitting in the tent floor—like sardines in a can, and the sleeping bags like mummy wrappings.  The only place even I could stand up straight was the direct center of the tent, where you could never stand because of the sleeping bags covering the floor, so you always stood bent over.
            Before long, the boys received a smaller dome as a gift and Keith and I had the larger one to ourselves.  Now that we are alone, and camp “in style” as our boys accuse, we have a 16 x 10.  A queen-size air mattress fits nicely and we can still stand up in more than one place inside.
            But tents are not houses.  The paper-thin walls mean you hear your neighbors all too well, and they would be absolutely no protection from wild animals.  So far we have only had to deal with raccoons, but if a bear came along we might be in trouble.
            Those walls also mean that in cold weather you are going to be cold too.  We have learned that with a waterproof rainfly overhead, we can plug in a small space heater and raise the temperature as much as 15 degrees inside—but when the temperature outside is 30, that’s not a lot of relief.
            Usually our tents are dry, but on our last trip we were suddenly leaking.  When we got home we found out why.  The seam sealer tape had come loose.  Rainwater simply rolled down the fly till it found a place where the tape hung unfastened.  Then it dripped through--on the floor, on the boxes we were trying to keep dry, and on our bed.  So much for "standing up to any weather," as that 1959 patent claimed.  As comfortable and advanced as they make them these days, there is no confusing a tent with a house.
            The Bible has a whole lot to say about tents.  Abraham and Sarah were called away from a comfortable home in a large city to live in tents for the rest of their lives.  Though God promised them that their descendants would someday own that land, they never owned any of it until Abraham bought a cave to bury Sarah in.  But one of the tests of their faith was those very tents they lived in.  Did they really believe God enough to stay in them?  Yes, they did, the Hebrew writer makes it plain.  They understood perfectly the temporary nature of those tents and the promise they stood for, Heb 11:8-16.
            The Israelites lived in tents for 40 years.  Their tents were punishment for a lack of faith. Yet even after they finally received their Promised Land, God insisted they remember those tents during the harvest feasts, to remind them who had given them the land and the bounty it produced, Lev 23:42,43.  But the people refused, until once again they were punished for refusing to rely on God. That feast was not observed until the return from captivity.  And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Jeshua the son of Nun to that day the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. Neh 8:17. 
            Paul calls our bodies tents in 1 Cor 15.  As amazing as the human body is because of its Creator, it is still a fragile thing compared to the immortal body we hope to receive.  We are often too wrapped up in the physical life those tents represent to remember that.  It seems like a long life.  It seems like everything that happens here is important.  It even seems like we can take care of ourselves.  WE make the living that feeds us and houses us and clothes these bodies.  We live on the retirement WE have carefully put away for the future.  Just like Israel we forget who really supplies our needs. 
            On several occasions I have wakened in the middle of the night on a camping trip to a storm blowing outside.  The wind billows the sides of the tent and the rain pours as if someone had upended huge buckets over our heads.  The lightning flashes and you suddenly wish you hadn’t so carefully chosen the shady spot under the big tree. 
            Once, in the middle of one of those storms, I suddenly heard a loud crack followed by a WHUMP!  The next morning, we crawled out of the tent and saw a huge limb lying on the ground about thirty feet away.  If that limb had fallen on our tent, we might not have survived it.  A tent would certainly not have stopped its fall.
            What are you trusting in today, the feeble tents of this life, or the house that God will give you?  A mortal body that, no matter how diligently you care for it, will eventually decay, or a celestial body that will last for eternity?  The things that "tent" can do for you, or the protection that God’s house provides?  From the beginning, God has meant a tent to symbolize instability and transience.  He has always meant us to trust him to someday supply us with a permanent home, one we will share with him.  Tents, even the Tabernacle itself, have always symbolized a glorious promise.
            Don’t choose a tent when God has something so much better waiting for you.
 
For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, 2 Cor 5:1.\
 
Dene Ward

“Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."
            The above sentence is not the official motto of the United States Postal Service.  Yes, it does appear on the James A. Farley Building—the New York City Post Office—in Manhattan.  But the line came from Book 8 of The Persian Wars by the Greek historian Herodotus.  The Persians had created something similar to our Pony Express and it was said that a message could go from one side of the empire to the other—roughly India to Greece and Egypt—in a week's time.  The architect for the New York Post Office Building was the son of a Greek scholar.  He read Greek just for fun, and he was the one who decided to have the line placed on that particular post office.
            Still, it was the line I thought of that December of 1989 when we had ice on the roads and an inch of sticking snow on the ground—here in north Florida!  That particular Saturday we tromped through the white stuff to the highway where our mailboxes were all lined up to save the letter carrier some time.  While we waited, my three guys got a kick out of running down the road then stopping and sliding as much as ten or fifteen feet on the icy patch in the middle of it.  It was a cold, gray day, never rising above 30 as I recall and the sun never peeking through for an instant.  Our lightweight jackets, by Northern standards, barely kept us warm.  Finally we gave up and went back home, freezing feet, runny red noses, chapped hands and all.  The mail never did run that day.  So much for "Neither snow…"
            As I was doing all this research on the "motto," I came across another interesting tidbit.  During the Cold War of the 80s, the public was understandably worried.  People believed that nuclear war would destroy the world as we know it, that it was not survivable at all.  They were probably correct, but the administration of the time did their best to dispel that idea. 
            Nuclear war is not nearly as devastating as Americans have been led to believe, said Thomas K Jones, Deputy-Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.  To that end, the Federal Civil Defense Administration began their campaign to show people how to survive the Bomb.  They created scenarios for ways they would care for "all the survivors," tacitly promising that there would be a great many of them.  Two of their more ridiculous promises were:

1) Nuclear war would not prevent checks from clearing banks—including those drawn on destroyed banks—or their credit cards from being accepted. 
And, the one we are most interested in,
2) Postal employees would be moved to remote areas in order to maintain service.  They would have in reserve millions of emergency change-of-address forms, including a line to complete if the recipient were dead.  Imagine that.

            Most people who are aware of this inanity know it like this:  On July 12, 1983, FEMA promised that survivors of a nuclear war would still get their mail!  (If you want to read more on this, look up "Thinking the Unthinkable" by Professor Jon Timothy Kelly, Ph. D., West Valley College.  The original paper should pop up.)
            Talk about outrageous promises.  But understand this, that is exactly what many of your friends and neighbors think about you and your faith in God's promises.  What they do not understand, and simply will not see, is all the evidence we have of God keeping His promises for millennia. 
            Abraham waited twenty-five years before he began to see even a shadow of the promises God had made come true in the birth of Isaac.  His descendants waited another 430 years before they received the land.  The Jewish nation waited another millennium and a half for the Messiah, and are waiting still, while we enjoy being in his kingdom and under his watchful care and leadership. 
           Then there are the many instances of fulfilled prophecy.  Nation after nation came and went as God said they would, again and again.  "The most High rules in the kingdoms of men," Daniel says four times, and then proves it.
But those are only the big promises.  God makes us promises every day—and keeps them.  If we don't see them, we simply do not want to.
            No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it. (1Cor 10:13)
            Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name…Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. (1Pet 4:16-19)
            Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Heb 13:5-6)
            For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38-39)
            But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2Cor 12:9-10)
            I could keep going, but do you know what the problem is?  We don't like the things these promises imply.  In order to receive these promises we have to suffer for His name's sake.  We must be tempted, we must endure hardships, we must be content with a life that may not be what we had imagined, especially in this wealthy country.  We must be willing to be persecuted.  We must face tragedies.  That is when we see His promises come true.
          I no longer have absolute faith in the postal system—I saw it fail that December of 89.  But I have never seen my God fail me in a lifetime of ups and downs, good and bad, happiness and sorrow.  My neighbors have sometimes failed me.  My government has failed me.  Even my brethren have failed me.  But never God. 
          Maturity has helped me see that.  A growth in spirituality has made it easier.  Knowledge of the Word has been the greatest help.  You will never understand His help, nor will you even recognize it, until you learn about Him and how He works, until you become more like Him and see things as He does—not in a carnal way, but in a spiritual way. 
           For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised. For, “Yet a little while, and the coming one will come and will not delay; ​but my righteous one shall live by faith, and if he shrinks back, my soul has no pleasure in him.” (Heb 10:36-38)
          God has yet more promises waiting for you.  Nothing will stop Him from delivering them.
 
In hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began (Titus 1:2)
 
Dene Ward