Flight Paths

I am constantly shocked by the way people, including Christians, treat the Bible.  We act like God wrote it in some way other than normal communication.  I have actually heard these things come out of the mouths of believers:  “Jesus never used figurative language.”  “You won’t find irony in the Bible.”  “Sarcasm is neither present nor allowed in the scriptures.”  And because of that you will hear some of the weirdest interpretations of scripture imaginable.

We knew a man once who said that since Jesus said you should not “let your right hand know what your left hand doeth,” that you should reach into your pocket before the plate is passed and take out whatever you find without looking at it.  I wonder how he got whatever was in his pocket in there that morning without knowing what it was, or did he make sure nothing over $10 was lying on top of his dresser?

But you will also find those who deny there is any literary aspect to the scriptures at all.  Try studying the psalms in detail and see if you think that’s so.  The psalms are poetry.  Like all poets, those inspired poets used poetic elements to make them catch our fancy, speak to us more keenly than prose would, and make us think deeper thoughts than we might have otherwise.  You have fed them with the bread of tears and given them tears to drink in full measure.  Doesn’t that say more to you than, “These people are really upset”?

One place this is obvious is the fifteen Psalms of Ascents.  Psalms 120-134 are presumed to have been sung while the Jews traveled up the hill to Jerusalem to worship on the various feast days.  The word for “ascents” is the same Hebrew word translated “steps” in Ezek 40:26 and 31, as in the steps of a staircase.  One psalm in particular uses words to show these steps.

Out of the depths I cry to you, O LORD! O Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared. I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with him is plentiful redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities.  Psalm 130.

Imagine each of the following words, taken in order from the psalm above, sitting on the steps of a staircase from bottom to top:  depths, pleas, iniquities, wait, hope, steadfast love, plentiful redemption.  Now add this to the mix:  the word for “depths” is used several times in the scripture for the deepest places on earth, including the very bottom of the ocean.  And that implies a man’s complete inability to get himself “out of the depths.”  All through this psalm we see the literary devices of the poet, gradually pulling us out of the mire we are stuck in and up the staircase to the place of full—and even more than necessary, “plentiful”—redemption.  God didn’t barely save us, He pulled us up on top of the mountains.  Read through that psalm again now.  Can you see it?  Can feel it? 

God is the one who made us able to appreciate art of all kinds, including literary art.  He gave us the emotions that a good artist of any type can evoke.  It’s one of the things that makes you different from your dog!  God wrote the Bible.  He made you and made you able to communicate.  He speaks to us the way He knows is best for our understanding.  Who am I to say otherwise?

The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person discerns all things…1Cor 2:14-15.

Dene Ward

 We have always tried to be mindful of the widows and those whose husbands abandoned them every place we have lived.  That often meant extra visits and calls to make sure they were not in need in any way at all.  Usually it also meant having them over for a meal, sometimes separately, sometimes as a group.  In one place Keith made the rounds one morning, picking up all these lonely women and bringing the carful to our home for lunch, since none of that particular group could drive any longer due to vision and other health issues.  You would have thought we were taking them to visit the President they were so excited.

 At another place we had only two widows and we invited them over for Sunday dinner.  These two white haired lovelies stood with me in the kitchen while I finished up the last minute prep.  I reached into the pantry only to find an empty canister. “Well, I am out of rice and hadn’t noticed,” I told them.  “I guess potatoes will have to do.”  You see, pork chops were on the menu and, even though Keith much prefers mashed potatoes to rice, with pork chops and thick, brown pork chop gravy, he wants rice.  “Just wait,” I added. “When he looks at the table he will say, ‘Where’s the rice?’ “

 So I quickly peeled, boiled, and mashed the potatoes, finishing the table setting and putting the biscuits in the oven while they boiled.  Everything hit the table within 20 more minutes and we sat down to eat.  Keith asked the blessing on the food, then, as he lifted his eyes toward the table he said, “Where’s the rice?”  We three women burst out laughing—then I had to explain that to him.

 Now let me ask you something.  Did I cause Keith to ask, “Where’s the rice?”  Of course not.  What we had there was a woman who knew her husband so well (and after less than 10 years, I might add) that she could predict his reaction and even the very words he would say.  Now, why is it that people cannot understand that God, who certainly knows his creatures far better than any woman anywhere knows her husband no matter how long she has been married, can predict what one will do without causing that person to do that predicted thing? 

 Let me ask you another question.  Did you listen to the weather forecast last night?  Did the weatherman get it right this time?  Does that means he caused the rain or the sunshine or the cold front or whatever it was he predicted?  Of course not.  It just means he knows his subject so well that he can predict things with a fair amount of accuracy.  So why can’t God, who created weather patterns and climates and metereorology long before it ever became a recognized science, predict what will happen in the world?

 Are you getting my point this morning?  Do not let those who believe in unscriptural doctrines like individual predestination entangle you in arguments that are not valid and cannot stand up to reality.  God does not cause anyone to sin and, in fact, will not even tempt you to sin (James 1:13).  When people start causing you consternation over Pharaoh, for example, just open your Bible and read it yourself.  Then apply a little logic.  Pharaoh was stubborn from the beginning.  I bet even his wife could have told you what he would say.  Yet she certainly did not cause it, and neither did God.  There are too many passages in the Bible telling us to make a choice for it to be any other way.

 I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before thee life and death, the blessing and the curse: therefore choose life, that thou mayest live, thou and thy seed;Deut3019 to love Jehovah thy God, to obey his voice, and to cleave unto him; for he is thy life, and the length of thy days... Deut30:20

Dene Ward

We talked a few weeks ago about that difficult conversation you must have with your spouse—about how he wants to be cared for should he become unable to make those decisions himself, about what treatments he does and does not want, and even about the handling of his physical tabernacle after he is called home.  It is not an easy subject and the longer you wait the more difficult it will become.  But God expects this of a wife who "does him good and not evil all the days or her life.”

A few have asked and yes, we have had that conversation.  At this point it is still just a “someday” so it was relatively easy.  We even managed a joke or two to relieve the tension. Another ten years and that might not have been the case.  Give yourselves the same gift.

There is another conversation you need to have, the one with your parents.

First we are going to presume that those who bother to read this already understand their obligation to their parents and are willing to take care of it.  Jesus seemed to presume that God’s people understood that responsibility himself (Mark 7:9-13).

The difficult thing in this case is recognizing the time when the roles have made a complete reversal, when you might need to make the decisions for your parents instead of allowing them to make them.  It will not be easy.  They may even resent it.  But think about this:  at one point in your life, they made all the decisions for you and many of them were difficult.  You ought to know from your own parenting experience that children change your life and your schedule, that they become the first and last things on your mind day and night, that you sometimes cry long and hard as you decide to do things you know they need but will not like, and that may even effect your relationship with them.  It comes with the job.  That’s what parental responsibility is.

Now take every one of those things and turn it toward your care for your elderly parents.  It may change your life, your schedule and your priorities.  That’s the way it is and as it should be—you did the same thing to them the day you cried your first lusty little cry.  You may have to give up parts of your life for them—just the way they gave up things to raise you.  And you may need to go against their wishes for their own good, even if it makes them angry.  That is NOT disrespecting your parents.  That is taking on the responsibility of their care.

A few suggestions.  If your parent is the independent sort, you may need to be the one who says, “You can’t live alone any longer.”  She may beg you not to take her into your home or put her into assisted living or whatever option is best, but if her balance is poor, if she can no longer see to her basic needs, if her mind is not clear enough to take her medications properly, then it may just be that difficult time.  It is not a sign of respect to allow her to live in filth because she can no longer clean up after herself—it is actually a danger to her health and the ultimate indignity.  If she falls easily, who will be there to call for help, or will she lie there for hours until you come to make your regular check on her?  If she cannot cook any longer, how will she get the proper nutrition?  Would your parents have allowed any of that to happen to you as a child?  Then why would you allow it to happen to them and call it “respecting their wishes?”

Go to her doctor’s appointments and find out exactly what the doctor says, not what she reports that he has said.  She may forget something or simply get the information wrong due to an unclear mind.  AND TELL THE DOCTOR EXACTLY WHAT IS HAPPENING AT HOME.  He may make a decision based on seeing her for a five or ten minute appointment that would be completely different if he talked to her for twenty or thirty minutes.  You need to tell him if she doesn’t take her medicine as he prescribes.  You need to tell him if she repeats the same thing every thirty minutes.  He needs to hear that she can no longer perform simple tasks like putting toothpaste on her toothbrush or deciding whether she needs a spoon or a fork to eat soup.  You are not tattling—that’s a playground term.  You are taking on the responsibility God expects of you to care for a parent, and you are doing it even when it might cost you that parent’s goodwill for a while.  Someone has to be the adult when she no longer can be, and that someone is you.

Get a list of her medications.  What will happen if you make an emergency run to the hospital and you cannot tell them what she is taking?  If she is unable to do so, the proper care may be delayed or the wrong care may result in disaster because no one had that information.

So talk about it now.  Ask her (or him) if, when the time comes, she might like to live with you or another sibling, or whether she would prefer assisted living.  And recognize that things can change.  My grandmother lived 98 years.  By the time she needed that care, my father was ill and my mother was his caregiver 24/7.  She could not take her mother in, too, so assisted living was the only way to go.  When the time came for my mother, we lived way out in the country where she would have no visitors and no place to walk for exercise on uneven ground, plus a home with steps and doors too narrow for her walker to fit through, and where her doctor and the nearest hospital was nearly 30 miles away.  We could not afford to move and the doctor said she needed to be close to him.  So, once again, assisted living was the answer.  She was not left alone.  We saw her between 1 and 3 times a week, took her to all her appointments, had her out to our house for every holiday and many times for a meal in between, and called every day we were not there.  Our church family was marvelous about visiting, and even taking her out for lunch.  Of course, she was a pretty marvelous person to visit with too.

Talk about possibilities now, before the decisions are hard. The longer you wait, the more heartbreaking it will be.  And since when has God ever accepted ignorance as an excuse? 

But if a widow has children or grandchildren, let them first learn to show godliness to their own household and to make some return to their parents, for this is pleasing in the sight of God, 1Tim 5:4.

 

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward, who begins a new series below.

 You might be surprised at which ones I am choosing:

Rom. 12:15  “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

Gal. 6:2  “Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

James 5:16  “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another”

How can anyone pray for my sins if I am not willing to confess those sins?  How can anyone help bear my burdens if I am not willing to admit that anything weighs me down?  No one can weep with me if I refuse to tell them I am sad.  Conversely, I can’t do any of these things for others if no one will admit problems to me.  So, often, the problem is not that no one is willing to help, but that no one admits to needing help. 

 Why do you think that is?  I think it likely comes down to three things:  too much pride, not enough humility, and fear.  Too much pride in our supposed status within the church risks our reputations by admitting being human.  For instance, “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.” (Luke 18:11)  This man never admitted that there ever was a burden, much less that he might need help carrying it.  Then there is too little humility because we are used to handling problems on our own.  Too much dignity, too much self-sufficiency (“I can handle it myself!), too much sense of identity to be willing to ask for help.  What did Jesus say about this?  ““If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”  (Luke 9:23)  Finally, there is fear.  The fear that if we open ourselves up to the church, admit our failings and weaknesses and ask for help, the other church members will be horrified.  They will reject and ostracize us, and so we keep quiet out for fear.

 I want to address this last problem first.  This fear of rejection comes from a misunderstanding of the purpose and nature of the Church and its members.  Yes, the New Testament consistently refers to active disciples of Christ as saints, or those sanctified (Rom. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:2; 1 Pet. 1:15-16), but how did they become sanctified?  In Revelation 7, the innumerable host in heaven dressed in white robes are those washed in the blood of the Lamb.  In Isaiah 1:18 the Lord says, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become like wool.”  We were all filthy in our sins and are only clean by the grace of the Lord.  We all have pasts.  A sister once said that the Church is like Sinners’ Anonymous.  That seems exactly right to me.  Just as A.A. won’t allow someone to bring a six-pack of beer to their meetings, the church cannot allow those who choose to continue a lifestyle of sin to be a part of the local body.  However, just like A.A. is a safe place to discuss struggles, doubts, and failures in a life of sobriety, and a place where we receive help and support from others who have walked the same path, the church should be a safe place to confess struggles, doubts, and failures to walk in the light, and to receive support and help from those who have and are walking the same path. 

 How do we convince people that our local families provide this kind of support, help and acceptance?  The answer is love.  The more obvious that each local congregation loves each other with a Biblical love, the more people will be willing to ask for help.  If we are loving well, remember we can always do better (1 Thess. 4:9-10).

1 Pet. 4:7-9  “But the end of all things is at hand: be therefore of sound mind, and be sober unto prayer:  above all things being fervent in your love among yourselves; for love covers a multitude of sins:  using hospitality one to another without murmuring”

 Peter says the most important thing to do to get ready for the end is to be fervent in our love for each other.  He then describes love as being hospitable. 

 Hospitality in the ancient days was taking in strangers who were traveling and stopped in your town.  It was considered an honor to be allowed to do this.  The self-sacrifice of hospitality was the basis for Job’s defense of his righteousness (Job 31).  According to the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia there were four major requirements for proper hospitality.  1)  The guest becomes the master of the house.  2)  The host performs the most servile offices for the guest.  3)  The guest is given access to all the host owns.  4)  The host is duty-bound to protect the guest from all dangers.  Peter says to be hospitable to each other.  So we are to adapt the principles of hospitality to our brothers and sisters in Christ.  So, according to the first requirement, all of my brethren are my masters.  They are the priority.  If they need help, I drop what I’m doing and help.  Oddly, there are others passages that support this:  Gal. 5:13“through love be servants one to another.” and Phil. 2:4“Do not be concerned about your own interests, but also be concerned about the interests of others.”  The second principle of the host performing menial service for the guest was demonstrated by our Lord when He washed the Apostles’ feet.  Afterwards, He said, “You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right because that is what I am. So if I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you must also wash one another's feet.” (John 13:13-14)  To sum that up, there should be nothing my brother might need from me that I am too important to do.  We also don’t hold anything back from our brethren in need.  1 John 3:16 says we should be willing to die for each other and Rom. 8:32 says that God, having sacrificed His Son for us, would hold nothing else back.  Combining those two principles, if we are willing to die for our brethren, is there anything else they might need that we would withhold?  Finally, we protect each other from all dangers, especially that roaring lion looking to devour us.  We help. We hold. We cry. We pray.  The better we get at these things, the more obvious it becomes that we won’t reject those confessing a need for help.  That gives us even more opportunities to show the love God taught us (1 John 4:19) and makes it easier for those with heavy burdens to ask for help.  And we become the family God always wanted us to be.

Lucas Ward

Dear TV and Movie Producers and Advertisers of same,

I grew up watching television.  But now I find myself completely disgusted by what you are giving me as entertainment.  May I please offer a few suggestions?

I am not a prurient adolescent, so please dispense with the sexual innuendo and bathroom humor.  I am far more mature and sophisticated than that.  Most of the people I know are.  I am relatively well-educated, so please come up with words with more than four letters.  They have already worn out their shock value, and what other use are they?  All they do is turn me off, which means I turn the knob off.

Please give me role models I can identify with, admire, or aspire to.  Give me a father figure who is not an idiotic doofus, one who can make rational decisions and does not need his wife, and certainly not his children, to pull him out of the messes he makes of their lives week after week.  Give me a mother figure who does not treat her husband like a child or demean him to her friends, but respects him; who is not a preacher for the ultra-liberal left, who understands that selflessness and sacrifice for her family is not a fault to be overcome, and can communicate with her family without a martyr complex.  Give me children who respect their parents and obey them without eye-rolling, sass, and deeply heaved sighs of frustration. 

Tell my children the truth not the fairy tale of “happily ever after.”  Show my children that one talk about condoms does not make teen pregnancy a breeze.  Show them that drugs are not that easy to overcome once they are hooked.  Tell them that there is no such thing as “safe sex” outside of heterosexual monogamy, that AIDS is not the only, or even the most common, sexually transmitted disease out there, and that they could easily end up living the rest of their lives in relentless pain, unable to marry and have children till the day they die.  Tell them that the same self-control we expect of them in regard to stealing and murder is just as viable when it comes to sexual self-control.

Teach them something called integrity and character instead of looking out for number one and doing what you can get away with.  Teach them that whatever they do affects someone else.  Do you know how many times my probation officer husband has sat across the table from inmates who were shocked to hear that their shoplifting raised the prices that their dear old grandmothers had to pay?  No one taught them simple economics.  No one told them that what they did was a reflection on the women who raised them.  “I don’t know your mother,” he often says to them, “except what I see in you.”  You would be surprised how many hardened criminals sit there with tears running down their cheeks at those words.  Too bad you didn’t say any of those things a long time before he did. 

And tell me this—would you ever pepper dialogue with the phrase “Oh my Allah!” or “Oh my Buddha!” or “Oh my Vishnu!”?  Or would you never dare in this age of political correctness to cause offense to someone’s religious beliefs?  So why must I listen to you disrespect my God?  Or is it, as seems to be the case over and over, that discrimination against Christians doesn’t count?

Speaking of Christians, show me practicing Christians who are neither fire-breathing, insane radicals nor hypocrites.  Show me people who live what they believe—quietly and selflessly serving others and living moral lives.  I can show you hundreds of families in just my limited circle who do.  Why can’t you find any?

I am not the only one out there who would like these things.  A good many of us are tired of seeing sex used to advertise hamburgers and shavers, and suave urbanity to advertise liquor and beer.  Let me tell you—the most interesting man in my world is not an arrogant, beer-swilling womanizer and no man should expect me to come running just because he gave me the eye across a boxing ring.  My standards are much higher than those.  My friends feel the same way.  We’re tired of having to battle an entire culture in order to teach our children how to be decent people.  Not a few have turned their TVs off.  They have made the decision to boycott businesses who promote themselves in such irresponsible ways, businesses whose only interest is the bottom line. 

And to those who are saying amen, I am calling on more of you to do something tangible to show your displeasure--not violent, not illegal, but something that will make an impact that businesses care about—their profits.  Write a letter, using calm words, good words, not indecent ones.  Don’t become what you are opposing.  Then follow up.  Turn off that television, stop watching those movies, don’t buy those products or patronize those establishments.  You know who and what they are as well as I do, you’ve just been ignoring this issue because it would put a crimp in your style.  Maybe it’s time you sacrificed something.  You know who it’s for.  Aren’t they worth it?  Isn’t HE worth it?

 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead reprove them.  Eph 5: 11.

Dene Ward

It must be plainly said that the parables were designed to put some people's light out…As we have already noted, Jesus' parables never appealed to people who knew it already.  They simply served to put out the little light that such folk had, but that was all right because the Lord was not calling them anyway, and the time had come by the third year of his public ministry to drive off the eternal critics, the curiosity seekers, the unthinking hangers-on who had no real interest in the kingdom of God.

Glimpses of Eternity—Studies in the Parables of Jesus by Paul Earnhart

From my journal:

Monday, June 13, 2005.

This is the big day.  “Terrified” pretty well says it all.  We began it with a prayer and that prayer continued on silently through the day for both of us. 

Today I will undergo a surgery that has never been done successfully before, using a newly invented device that has never been used before.  If it works, my vision will be saved for awhile longer.  If it doesn’t, I will be blind in that eye.  If we don’t try it, I will be blind in both eyes, probably before the year is out.

We arrived early, expecting a wait, but they took me straight in, after I signed some special consent forms upstairs.  Since the FDA had not approved this, “you will have to sign your life away,” the doctor told me, but what choice did I have?  I signed page after page, and then initialed some handwritten lines added along the side of the form.  One of them said, “I understand that no one knows how this material will interact with human tissue.”  Finally they sent me back downstairs to the surgical floor. 

When the nurse called me in, Keith and I shared a long hug.  I am sure that no one else there understood why we made such a big deal out of this, but it was possible that I would never see him out of that eye again, and maybe not the other before much longer.

That was quite a day and quite an experience.  I was indeed terrified.  You don’t sign your life away like that unless you are desperate, unless the only other choice is a bad one.  I did it, and it gave my left eye another year and a half of vision before we had more difficult and painful surgeries to go through, which have spared me yet again.  Signing my life away has given me many more years of vision so far—vision, not good vision—years no one expected even if the surgery worked, and who knows how much more to come before the medications stop working and the surgeries are compromised. 

That level of desperation is the level you must feel in your spiritual life before you will “sign your life away” to God. 

And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison-house were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened: and every one's bands were loosed. And the jailor, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do yourself no harm: for we are all here. And he called for lights and sprang in, and, trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?  Acts 16:26-31.

Do you think that jailor wasn’t terrified?  Do you think he wasn’t desperate?  Imagine how that plea sounded coming from this trembling man who thought his life was over.  “What must I do to be saved?”

Desperate people do desperate things—like commit their lives to God.  If you never felt that desperation, chances are your commitment was not real.  Chances are you will fall when times get tough, when sacrifices are demanded, when you lose more than you bargained for.  Desperate people do not bargain.  They take the first offer and take it immediately.

How desperate were you when you were offered salvation?  If you “grew up in the church,” you may never have felt it.  Doing what everyone expects of you is not desperation.  Wanting the approval of others, especially one particular “other” is not desperation.  “Just in case” is not desperation.  You have to recognize a need and know there is no other way of taking care of that need.  You have to know what it means to stand a sinner before a holy God—and it doesn’t mean you feel guilty because you stole a cookie from the cookie jar. But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord, Luke 5:8.  That, standing a sinner before a holy God, is the recognition you must come to.

Signing your entire life away to God is exactly what He expects of you.  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple, Luke 14:33. Nothing and no one can be more important to you than Him.   I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, Gal 2:20.  Your entire life is no longer yours to do with as you please, but since you know that is your only hope, you do it gladly.

How desperate were you?  How desperate are you now?

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory, Col 3:1-3.

Dene Ward

If you have been with me awhile, you know I have been teaching a Psalms class with lessons I compiled after a long, hard summer of study.  {You can read snippets from those lessons in the category “Psalms.”}  I am still reading books about the Psalms and the last couple have brought a new idea my way that I would like to share.

Of course, the early church, the apostolic church, as scholars often call the first century Christians, sang the Psalms.  The practice came from the Jewish heritage of the first congregations of Christians in Judea.  In fact, one of the books I read said this:  “…in the English-speaking world use of the psalms has often languished as hymns and worship songs with catchy tunes have tended to displace the psalms…This trend would have appalled the apostolic church…one may hope this modern failure to appreciate the psalms…to be a blip,” Gordon J. Wenham, The Psalms as Torah.  I find myself agreeing with Mr. Wenham.

But here is something I had not realized:  The Psalms were often prayed by the early church and that practice lasted for centuries.  Mr. Wenham devotes a whole chapter to the affect that praying the Psalms would have on us if we did it.  Try this today.  Read the following verses from various psalms out loud.  All right, wait until you are alone if you want to, but don’t forget to do it.

I said, “I will guard my ways, that I may not sin with my tongue; I will guard my mouth with a muzzle, so long as the wicked are in my presence,”  Ps 39:1

I will give thanks to the LORD with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High, Ps 9:1-2.

I will pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the LORD, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the LORD! Ps 116:18-19.

I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. — Selah.  Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. — Selah Ps 32:5-7.

I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house; I will not set before my eyes anything that is worthless. I hate the work of those who fall away; it shall not cling to me. ​A perverse heart shall be far from me; I will know nothing of evil. Whoever slanders his neighbor secretly I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an arrogant heart I will not endure. I will look with favor on the faithful in the land, that they may dwell with me; he who walks in the way that is blameless shall minister to me. No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house; no one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes, Ps 101:2-7.

That should be enough for you to get the point.  Many of the psalms are written in first person.  When you pray it, you are praying for the same things the psalmist prayed for, and allowing the psalmist’s attitude to become your own.  You cannot pray these things without it affecting how you live—unless you are a hypocrite. 

But shouldn’t we read all scripture that way?  Shouldn’t we read the epistles in such a way that we are praying to be what we are told to be, to speak as we are told to speak, to live as we are told to live?  Shouldn’t every recitation of a memory verse be a phrase we are willing to live by?  Yet how often do we quote what we have learned by rote and then continue to live as we always have, never taking to heart the words that have just left our lips?

Maybe if you start with these few verses from the Psalms today you can train yourself to pray the prayers of the saints gone by instead of the selfish carnal prayers we usually pray—for physical blessings and physical convenience and physical health--and maybe, just maybe, we can start to be the people we talk about being every time we read our Bibles.

Dene Ward

Guest Writer Christ versus Culture -- Ed Harrell

Christianity Magazine, June 1988, p. 11

Reinhold Neibuhr, along with others, argued that all religion tends to be captured by its culture. Rather than standing in judgment of the world around them, most religious people find ways to give divine sanction to their society.

I have no difficulty in seeing that in others. Having spent a lifetime being a religious historian, it is all too obvious to me that the religious beliefs of most people are thinly veiled rationalizations for their conduct rather than a transforming influence upon it. While I see that in others, I fear it in me.

The challenge of the Christian calling, as I have frequently written before, is to be in but not “of the world.” Jesus did not ask His disciples to withdraw into asceticism; rather He sent them to be a leavening influence in a wicked world. The result of this calling can work revolutionary experiences in individual lives.

Yet, in the midst of revolutionary life experiences, Christians are not revolutionaries….Christians are meek and peaceful citizens and inoffensive and helpful neighbors. But there must be a prophetic potential in our lives. We are subject to a “higher law.” We must be prepared to stand against the crowd, to be viewed as odd, to be characterized as threats to society.

The extent of a Christian’s alienation from society has often led to doctrinal debates among believers. Can Christians serve in the military and fight in wars? Can Christians pledge allegiance to the flag and take oaths? Those are legitimate and important questions… [as is] “Exactly how is it that I am to differ from those around me?” If the essence of my eccentricity is not in dress, or food, or the daily duties of citizens, then how is it that I am at odds with my culture? The answers have to do with thoughts and actions.

If we are to lift ourselves above the world, we will first have to purify our minds…to think about things that are pure and holy, to focus our minds on spiritual values rather than worldly possessions, and to learn to think wholesome thoughts in the midst of life’s trials and tribulations.

If your mind is filled with such righteous thoughts, your actions will reflect that… {as will] the language, behavior and worship that flows from the otherworldly mind of the Christian. It is those actions that make us identifiable—that put us at odds with our culture.

I have returned to this theme both because of its repetition in the Scriptures and because of a brooding fear that I fall into the same ease in my culture as those around me. Few themes in the Bible recur more often than the plaintive plea to “come out from among them, and be ye separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17).

And few things trouble me more than seeing churches filled with good people being sucked into the maelstrom of a decadent culture—listening to the world, reading its books, watching its television and swallowing its values. They go to church and I see them there. But their message has become “Christ and Culture.”

In the gravest terms I tell you—that cannot be. Let us purify our minds and walk circumspectly.

The world is full of people claiming to be prophets.  Just as in Bible times, God expects us to check these people out before falling for everything they say.  Deuteronomy 18 has long been the place to hang one’s hat when determining a true prophet of God.

 Open your Bible and look through these verses in that chapter. 
 1) A true prophet of God will claim to speak in God’s name, v 20.  Certainly that isn’t all that matters but you can weed out a lot from the get-go with that one simple rule.

 2) A true prophet of God will not use “abominable practices” like augury, astrology, and necromancy.  He will not claim to speak to the dead or read animal entrails or tea leaves or anything else a sane mind knows is illegible, 10-14. 

 3) The predictions of a true prophet of God will always come to pass, not 90% of the time, not 95% of the time, but every time, v 22.

 On the other hand, God does not make it His business to run around making sure everything a false prophet predicts doesn’t happen.  Let me take you to another passage.

  “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, Deut 13:1-5.

 Sometimes these people get it right—not all the time by any means, but enough to fool some people.  They get it right because they are observant, because they know how to get you to tell them what they need to know—we give away far more than we realize.  So then, how do we tell? 
 4) If a prophet tells you to do anything contrary to God’s law, he is not a prophet of God, no matter how many times he seems to “get it right” with his predictions.  That puts a burden upon us to know that Law, but God expects that of us too.  Even in the New Testament we are told to “prove the spirits.”  It is my responsibility not to be fooled.

 5) And hand in hand with that we can look at Gal 1:8,9.  If anyone teaches a gospel that contradicts the revealed word of God, we are not to listen even, as in that passage, to an angel from Heaven.

 6) Now take one more step back to Deuteronomy 18.  It isn’t just what the man teaches, it’s how he lives.  If his life does not match the righteous life God expects and teaches in His word, he is not a true prophet of God, v 9-14.

 Just imagine if people had followed these rules when false prophets came along.  Just imagine the difference in Bible history.  Just imagine the difference in more modern history.  Would David Koresh have caused the tragedy at Waco?  Would Jim Jones have persuaded people to not only “drink the Kool-Aid,” but give it to their children? 

 We live under a government that tries to protect people from their own stupidity.  That’s why you see those strange warnings on things. 
 Do not put any person in this washer.
 Do not use lighted match or open flame to check fuel level.
 Use care when operating a car (on a dog’s bottle of pills).
 Danger: do not hold the wrong end of a chain saw.
 Warning:  this product moves (on a scooter).
 (On an iron-on patch)  Do not iron on while wearing shirt.
 If you cannot read warnings, do not use this product.

 God gave you His warnings in His book.  He figures you are smart enough to read it and figure it out.  And if you do, that should take care of most every modern “prophet” you happen to run into.
 
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love 1 John 4:1-8. 
 
Dene Ward