I first had one thirty-nine years ago in a rural community southwest of here.  The farm wife put them on the table in a clear gallon jar and we dug into the neck with a long skinny fork she must have found just for that job.  They were sweet, thin, crisp, gave a crunch as loud as a kettle-cooked potato chip and left a small twinge in your jaw right under your ear from the perfect amount of vinegar.  It was the first sweet pickle I had ever liked—I am more of a dill fan myself--but I was becoming more and more adept at canning and preserving and wanted to give this one a try since the whole family liked them.
 
             "Could I possibly have the recipe?" I asked her.

              She hesitated and I presumed it was one of her "secret" recipes that she did not like to share, but no, that was not the problem at all.

              "It's a really old recipe with strange directions," she said, "but if you can figure out what they mean and follow them carefully, it does work.  It is very important that you follow the directions carefully and don't change anything."

              My first thought was that she could easily write it so I could understand it, whatever the problem was, but when she handed it to me to copy for myself, I saw the issues right away.

              The recipe called for "a gallon of water and enough salt to float an egg." 

              "I've never measured it," she said.  "I just keep adding salt to a gallon of water until an egg floats."

              Oh, well, all right. 

            The next ingredient was "a ten cent tin of alum."  If you have bought any groceries lately, you have probably not seen anything for ten cents, and you probably haven't seen a tin of alum either.

              "Just find a small container of alum and buy it," were her not so helpful instructions.

              At least the rest of the directions were clear—sort of.  On day four when you layered cucumbers and sugar, you assumed it was granulated sugar and you also assumed that it needed to be enough sugar to form a real layer, not just a mere sprinkling.  She didn't really help me with that one.  "Until it looks right," doesn't help if you've never seen it before.

              But I took that recipe home and went at it.

              Day 1—Wash and slice enough cucumbers to fill a clear gallon jug.  Dissolve enough salt to float an egg in a bit less than a gallon of water, and pour over the cucumbers.  Put on the lid and set aside for 24 hours. 
              It must have taken me 15 minutes to get the salt right.  I kept adding it by the tablespoonful, determined to find a set amount and that stupid egg kept sinking right to the bottom of the pot.  Finally I tossed the tablespoon measure aside and just poured it in.  At something just over a cup, the egg sank under the water, then slowly rose so that a piece of shell the size of a quarter showed above the surface and the egg bobbed up and down freely when I jiggled the pan.

              Day 2—Pour out the salt water and rinse the cucumbers.  Dissolve the alum in the same amount of clean water and pour it over them.  Cover and set aside for another 24 hours.  I had finally found the alum at a small town grocery store just ten miles up the highway.  Even all those years ago, its price had risen nearly 700% to 69 cents.

              Day 3—Pour out the alum water and rinse the cucumbers.  Pour distilled white vinegar over them until covered.  By that third day, they had shrunk enough that the cucumbers no longer filled the gallon jar, and you needed nearly a gallon of vinegar to cover them.

              Day 4—Pour out the vinegar.  DO NOT RINSE.  Sterilize either a gallon glass jar or several pint jars.  Add a layer of pickles and then a layer of sugar, again and again until you fill the jar(s).  Put on the lid and set it in your pantry.  By this time, the pickles are so preserved, you don't even have to seal them!  In a week or two, the sugar will have dissolved and mixed with the vinegar that remains on the pickles and make the sweet pickle juice.  Chill before serving.

              My family loved these pickles.  Some days I put a new pint jar on the table with a meal and it was emptied by the time we finished eating.  And here is the thing I want you to think about today:  it was an old recipe.  It sounded a little odd.  In fact, I had to translate it here and there into something that fit today's ingredients.  But I still had to follow the recipe for it to turn out right—nothing was intrinsically different about what I did.  And it still worked.  Never have I seen another recipe like it.  No other pickle recipe tells me I don't have to seal them in a canner so that we don't all get botulism.  The procedure preserves them that well.

              God has a recipe too.  People today think it's odd.  They look at it and think it won't work anymore.  They think they can change it and it will still turn out fine.  Certainly no one's spiritual health will suffer if we just change this one little thing to suit us.

              Botulism is a pretty nasty disease.  So is sin.  So is disobedience.  Be careful when you decide that God's old recipe is too much trouble, too hard to understand, or no longer relevant.  I'd hate for you to get fatally ill over it.
 
Thus says Jehovah, Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way; and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls: but they said, We will not walk therein.  And I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet; but they said, We will not hearken.  Therefore hear, you nations, and know, O congregation, what is among them.  Hear, O earth: behold, I will bring evil upon this people, even the fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened unto my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it. (Jer 6:16-19)
 
Dene Ward

My brother-in-law has finished his long journey.  Maybe it was because both of us were the in-laws, but for some reason he was especially kind to me, and I felt comfortable with him.
 
           Mike came a long way in his life, all the way from atheism to Christianity.  Keith had a special hand in turning him around.  Unfortunately, discouragement set in and he lost his way again for awhile.  When this illness hit him, with some words from his wife and Keith, he made the determination to come home.  Unfortunately, he never had the chance to sit in a pew again and commune with his spiritual family after he made that decision.  Things progressed too quickly and he was gone far sooner than anyone expected, including the doctors.

            When I read the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, I notice something important.  The Father was out there looking for his lost son.  It wasn’t just a casual glance—he saw him “afar off.”  This was a Father who wanted to see his son coming home, who wanted to welcome him back.  He stood there looking long and hard for the first sign of that figure trudging down the road.

            Mike’s Father was looking for him too.  Mike had made that determination—he was well on the road home, even having mentioned it to some brethren who visited.  Who is to say that he wasn’t close enough for God to see him coming?  Who is to say that God hadn’t already started running down the road to welcome him home?

            Probably some older brother, that’s who.  I have some of those—brethren who not only expect that long march down the aisle (as if there is a verse requiring that in the New Testament) before they will even consent to forgiving, but who won’t even look down the road in the first place.  I have brethren who are not thrilled with the return of a lost brother but just as grieved as the prodigal’s older brother was.  I have brothers and sisters in Christ who actually seem to enjoy being cynical—“it’ll never last.” 

            But I praise God that He is a Father who is merciful, who wants to forgive, who actually looks for reasons to forgive, instead of reasons to condemn.

            None of us deserves God’s mercy.  Perhaps if we remembered that, we would be eagerly looking to forgive too.
 
Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful, Luke 6:36.
 
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:9.
 
Dene Ward

It must be a sign of age.  I find myself reminiscing a lot more lately.  When we walked the property with Lucas last Thanksgiving we talked more about the past than the present.  Certainly more than the future—which for us is suddenly so much smaller than the past.

              “Remember the wild myrtles by the fire pit?”

              “Yes, we sometimes hung a tarp on the branches so we could scoot under it and have a hot dog roast even in a drizzle.”

              “Remember the pine tree in the field?”

              “Yep.  That was first base.”

              “Remember how small these oak trees used to be?”

              “Yes.  I used to climb up limbs that are too rotten to trust any longer, what there are left of them.”

              I remember wondering what it would be like after the boys were grown, when we were living here alone in a quiet house and an empty yard.  No more wondering, only remembering.

              I have said to more than one who came seeking advice that looking back on our past can be helpful.  If you despair at ever becoming the Christian you ought to be, look where you were ten years ago.  Can you see any improvement?  Can you say to yourself, “I don’t act that way now,” about anything at all?  God meant for us to be encouraged, and I find nothing in the scriptures telling me I can’t take a moment every now and then to check my progress and use it as a gauge, both to spur myself on if I see none, and to invigorate my growth with any positive impetus it gives me.

              Many times we quote Paul’s comment to the Philippians, “Forgetting the things that are behind…” (3:13). In fact, I have heard preachers say we shouldn’t think about the past at all.  But Paul didn’t believe that.  He remembered all his life where he started, “the chief of sinners,” 1 Tim 1:16.  He used that memory to keep himself humble before others and grateful to God for the salvation granted him. It bolstered his faith enough to endure countless hardships and persecutions.  As a “chief sinner” he could hardly rail against God for the tortures he suffered when he knew he deserved so much more.

              God has always wanted his people to remember the past.  I lost count of the passages in Deuteronomy exhorting Israel to remember that they were slaves in a foreign country, and that God loved them enough to deliver them with His mighty hand.  Here is a case, though, where the reminding didn’t work as it did for Paul.  Still, God tried.  What is the Passover but a reminder of their deliverance from Egypt?  What is the Feast of Tabernacles but a reminder of His care for them in the wilderness?  What was the pot of manna in the Ark of the Covenant, the stones on the breastplate of the ephod, and the pile of rocks by the Jordan but the same?  “Remember, remember, remember!” God enjoined.  It’s how we use that memory that makes it right or wrong.

              Paul says we are to remember what we used to be.  “And such were some of you,” he reminds the Corinthians in chapter 6, after listing what we consider the worst sins imaginable.  You “were servants of sin” he reminds the Romans in 6:17.  You once walked “according to the course of this world,” “in vanity of mind,” “in the desire of the Gentiles,” and in a host of other sins too numerous to list (Eph 2:2; 4:17; 1 Pet 4:3; Col 3; Titus 3.)  Those memories should spur us on in the same way they prodded Paul.  Nothing is too hard to bear, too much to ask, or too difficult to overcome if we remember where we started.  Be encouraged by your growth and take heart.

              And then this: let your gratitude be always abounding, overflowing, and effusive to a God who loves us in whatever state we find ourselves, as long as that growth continues.
 
Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, Ephesians 2:11-13.
 
Dene Ward

We planted them late by Florida standards, so I was just pulling carrots the first week of June.  It wasn’t difficult; I pulled the whole row in about 15 minutes.  Still, it was disappointing—a twenty foot row yielded a two and a half gallon bucket of carrots that turned into a two quart pot full when they were cleaned and sorted, cutting off the tops and tossing those that were pencil thin or bug-eaten.
 
             Then I thought, well, consider the remnant principle in the Bible.  Out of all the people in the world, even granting that the population was much less than it is now, only eight were saved at the Flood.  Out of all the nations in the world, God only chose one as His people.  Out of all those, only one tribe survived the Assyrians, and out of all those, only a few survived the Babylonians and only some of those eventually returned to the land.

              Jesus spoke of the wide gate and the narrow gate.  Surely that tells us that though God wishes all to be saved, only a few will be.  So out of a twenty foot row of carrots, I probably threw out half.  Then we threw out a third of those that were too small to even try to scrub and peel.  Yet, we probably did better with our carrots than the Lord will manage with people!  And I learned other principles too.

              When I pulled those carrots some of them had full beautiful tops, green, thick-stemmed, and smelling of cooked carrots when I lopped them off.  Yet under all that lush greenery several had very little carrot at all.  They were superficial carrots—all show and no substance.  Others were pale and bitter, hardly good for eating without adding a substantial amount of sugar.  Then under some thin, sparse tops, I often found a good-sized root, deep orange and sweet.  Yes, they were all the same variety, but something happened to them in the growth process.

              Some of us are all top and no root.  It always surprises me when a man who is so regular in his attendance has so little depth to his faith.  Surely sitting in a place where the Word is taught on a consistent basis should have given him something, even if just by osmosis.  But no, it takes effort to absorb the Word of God and more effort to put it into practice, delving deeper and deeper into its pages and considering its concepts.  The Pharisees could quote scripture all day, but they lacked the honesty to look at themselves in its reflection.

              And there are some of us who have little to show on the outside, but a depth no one will know until a tragedy strikes, or an attack on the faith arises, or a need presents itself, and suddenly they are there, standing for the truth, showing their faith, answering the call.  I knew one man who surprised us all with his strength in the midst of trial, a quiet man hardly anyone ever noticed.  Yet his steadfastness under pressure was remarkable.  I knew another who had been loud with his faith, nearly boasting in his confidence that he was strong, yet who shocked us all with his inability to accept the will of God, his assertions that he shouldn’t have to bear such a burden when he had been so faithful for so long.  Truly those carrot tops will fool you if you aren’t careful.  “Judge not by appearance,” Jesus said, “but judge righteous judgment.”  Look beneath those leafy greens and see where and how your root lies.

              Evidently the principles stand both for man and carrots.  Don’t count on your outward show, your pedigree in the faith.  Develop a deep root, one that will grow sweeter as time passes and strong enough to stand the heat of trial. 

              And don’t assume you are in the righteous remnant if that righteousness hasn’t been tested lately.  God hates more to throw out people than I hate to throw out carrots, but He will.  Don’t spend so much time preening your tops that your root withers.  And finally, only a few will make it to the table; make sure you are one of them.
 
Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:20           
 
Dene Ward      

Charles Richard Drew was a renowned surgeon who developed a method for storing blood plasma and transporting that blood to the people who needed it.  He was also the father of America's first large scale blood bank.
 
             A native of Washington, he was a gifted athlete who was recruited to Amherst College, one of only 13 African-Americans in a student body of 600.  He earned his medical degree in 1933 at McGill University, one of few schools open to black students, winning several prizes along the way and graduating second in his class.

              Despite constant roadblocks because of race, Drew did his internship and residency at Montreal Hospital, and joined the faculty at Howard University School of Medicine, teaching pathology and surgery and eventually becoming chief surgical resident at Freedmen's Hospital.  While working on a doctorate at Columbia, he won a fellowship to train at Presbyterian Hospital with John Scudder, who called him, "naturally great," and, "a brilliant pupil."  While working with Scudder his interest in transfusions and blood typing grew.  His dissertation was called a "masterpiece" and "one of the most distinguished essays ever written."  Eventually his procedures and standards for collecting and storing blood led to the Blood for Britain Project, which saved thousands of lives in World War II.                

              Drew went on to a brilliant, but short, career.  On March 31, 1950, he drove to a conference in North Carolina.  It was late and he was tired.  He fell asleep at the wheel and the automobile crashed.  Drew was rushed to an all-white hospital.  He needed a transfusion.  Because it makes for a much more titillating story, word went around that he was refused the transfusion because he was black.  I found that in several places, including a printed book.  But later, the correct story finally made the light of day.  He did receive the transfusion he needed just like any other patient, but it was not enough to save him.  He died on April 1, 1950.

              I suppose the comparison here is obvious.  Blood will save lives.  My own mother had to have 2 pints of it once because one of those many numbers they count had gone from a normal 13 to 5.  But even that will not save everyone, and it will not save forever.  Only one blood will do that—the blood of the sinless Savior.  No matter your race, no matter your sin, it can save you.  It does not need special processing or equipment to store it.  It is right there, always available.  Paul even tells us the proper procedure:

               Or are you ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?  We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life.  For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he who has died is justified from sin. (Rom 6:3-7)

              Do you need a transfusion?
 
Dene Ward

It happens every time Keith and I walk the property.  Suddenly I find myself pushed into the rough while he walks the path.  I learned a long time ago to just push back and he immediately realizes what he is doing.

              Keith was raised in the Ozarks, born in a farmhouse in the back country, down a rocky lane and across from a cow field lined with wild blackberries, a steep hill rising straight from the back porch.  As a boy he walked the woods, his feet naturally finding the easy way among all the stones, limbs, and golf ball sized black walnut hulls and acorns as he gazed upward into the trees.  If he doesn’t actively think about what he is doing, his feet still do that from long ingrained habit.  He’s always embarrassed and aggravated with himself when he realizes what he’s done to me, and he appreciates the nudges when I find myself knee high in briars. 

              Life is a little like that.  Most of us live everyday muddling through as best we can, oblivious to anything but our own cares, our own needs, trying to make things run as smoothly as possible.  What makes “a bad day” for us?  When things don’t go smoothly—a malfunctioning coffee pot, a stubborn zipper, a flat tire on the way to work, a traffic jam that makes us late when we had left in plenty of time, a spouse or toddler who had the ill grace to wake up in as foul a temper as we did. 

              It takes active thought to control your selfish impulses and consider others.  It takes effort to accomplish the difficult—self-control, self-improvement, compassion for people who, like us, don’t deserve it.  But that’s exactly what our Lord expects of us.  This is exactly the example he left us.

              Even under a weight of responsibility none of us can imagine, he gave his disciples his careful attention and encouragement.  Even in tension-filled situations he showed compassion to both the sick and the sinner.  Even in tremendous pain and weakness, he remembered his mother and forgave the pawns of a murderous mob.

              If Jesus had looked for the smooth way, none of us would ever have hope of one.  But if all we look for now is the smooth way, we may as well enjoy it while we can.  It’s the only smooth way we will ever have.
 
Enter in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leads to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leads unto life, and few are they that find it. Matt 7:13,14.
 
Dene Ward
 

I still have fond memories of Silas’s first solo visit with us out here in the country.  He was not quite four and stayed three nights alone, no mom and dad to get in the way and spoil the fun!  The first morning we had to assure him that walking outside barefoot was not a capital crime, but once his toes hit the cool green grass, he giggled delightedly.  “I like bare feet!” he instantly proclaimed, and took off running. 
 
             He was used to being inside all day, playing with his Matchbox cars, putting together puzzles, reading books, and watching his “shows,” educational though they might be.  Yet he found out there were a lot of fun things to do outside, especially when you have five acres to romp around in instead of a postage stamp-sized yard.  That’s all they give you in the city these days. 

              He and Granddad whacked the enemy weeds with green limb “swords.”  They pulled the garden cart up the rise to the carport and rode it down.  They dug roads in the sandy driveway and flew paper airplanes in the yard.  They played in the hose and threw mud balls at one another.  Every night this little guy went to bed far earlier than he usually did at home—it was that or pass out on the couch from exhaustion as we read Bible stories.

              My favorite memory is watching him as we walked Chloe every morning.  He begged for one of my walking sticks and I adjusted it to his height.  Then he ran on ahead, hopping and skipping along, holding granddad’s too-big red baseball cap on his head with one hand so it wouldn’t fall off, the walking stick dangling from the other upraised arm, singing and laughing as he went.  That picture of sheer joy will forever be etched in my memory.  He may have been too little to remember it himself, but someday I will tell him about it, someday when he needs a reminder of joy at a not so joyous time. 

              I remember that time nearly every morning when I walk Chloe, especially when we reach the back fence where Silas’s little feet suddenly took off on the straightaway and his laughter reached its peak.  And I wonder if God has anything etched in His memory, anything from that time in Eden when everything was perfect and his two children felt joy every day in their surroundings, in each other, and in Him.  Surely, the God who knows all has special memories of how it used to be.  Can you read the end of Revelation and not think so? 

              Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever, Revelation 22:1-5.

              Maybe God has recorded that so we, too, can be reminded not of what we have lost, but of what we have waiting for us.  Maybe He put it there for the times when life here is not so joyous, a picture of hope to carry us through.  It may not be etched in our memories—not yet—but the fact that He still remembers it and wants it, means someday we won’t have to count on etchings any longer.  Some day it will all be real once again.
 
Dene Ward

“I enjoyed my dinner.”  Did your parents teach you to say that to the hostess every time you went to another home for a meal?  Mine did, and I am sure that the hostess knew that’s why I said it.  Some things are done just to be polite, like asking, “How are you?”  Everyone knows it is a greeting not a question to be answered.  It’s semantics, and part of our culture.

             But there are other times when the compliment is sincere.  Keith learned early on when someone was saying, “Good lesson,” to be polite, and when it was really meant, and the latter were precious to him.

              If we can know these things, why do we think God won’t?  Why do we think we can go through the motions without going through the e-motions? 

              There they cry out, but he does not answer, because of the pride of evil men. Surely God does not hear an empty cry, nor does the Almighty regard it, Job 35:12-13.  If the only time God hears from me is when I cannot fend for myself, why would He come to my aid then?  If I expect help, I must offer something myself—like love, devotion, worship, and obedience.  That’s why it is called a covenant—both parties agree to give something.

              They utter mere words; with empty oaths they make covenants, Hos 10:4.  Undoubtedly, the covenant Israel made with God fit this condemnation.  Instead of loving God “with all their hearts,” they did what they thought necessary to get along with Him, imagining that outward rituals mattered more than sincere hearts.  It has never been so with God, and never will be.

              You cannot give God ritual obedience and think you have offered sincere worship.  You cannot follow the Law to the letter and leave undone its “weightier matters” Matt 23:23.  Israel tried it and God said, “I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies.  Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them…” Amos 5:21,22.  Jesus echoed that comment when he said, “Go and learn what this means—I desire mercy and not sacrifice…” Matt 9:13.

              God has always required sincerity and truth; He has always wanted those who “obey from the heart” Rom 6:17.  He has always sought a people who will be His in more than name only.  God knows when, “I enjoyed my dinner,” comes from a thankful heart and when it is just a courtesy. 

              When you pray tonight, will He recognize your words as sincere compliments, or just more formulaic nonsense meant only to salve a hypocritical conscience?”  He knows the difference.
 
This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules.  You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul, Deut 26:16.
 
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

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