William Shenstone

Anger is a great force. If you control it, it can be transmuted into a power which can move the whole world."

William Shenstone, English poet and one of the earliest practitioners of landscape gardening (1714-1763)

 

Howard Thurman

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Howard Thurman, American theologian and civil rights leader (1899-1981)

 

Exodus 19:18

We had heard the evening before that fires were burning in the woods surrounding my mother's house in Southeastern Kentucky, but it seemed that all was under control. When I learned the next morning how close those fires had come and how shaken she was, I cleared my schedule and rushed over. My sister also went, prepared to spend a couple of days.

 

Thankfully none of my mother's property was damaged, though forty feet from her house the woods were scorched. Dedicated and caring firefighters went the extra mile to make sure she was never in imminent danger.

 

As I drove away that afternoon, I saw smoke rising from many spots on Pine Mountain. Though I could not see the flames, I knew they were there and that they were consuming whatever lay in their path. We take for granted those who fight fires until it threatens us or those we love.

 

Incidents like these help us understand the reaction of the people of Israel as they gathered to hear God pronounce laws for their new nation. Exodus 19:18 describes the scene: "Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke, because the Lord descended upon it in fire. Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly."

 

The Israelites reacted as any of us probably would: "... when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off. Then they said to Moses, 'You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die" (Exodus 20:18,19).

 

The fears of the people were legitimate. As Moses later warned the people against turning from God to serve idols, he reminded them of God's powerful wrath: "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God'" (Deuteronomy 4:24).

 

There are many views of God, depending on whom you consult. Some see Him as a kindly old grandfather who would never speak a cross word. Others view Him as a stern "hanging judge" who doesn't have time to consider the details of our case. Some argue that God isn't even around anymore; He has wondered off to attend to other business.

 

Shouldn't our view of God be formed by what He has revealed about Himself?

 

An inspired author, writing hundreds of years after that encounter at Mt. Sinai, reminded his readers of the fact that "our God is a consuming fire", recalling details of the burning mountain (Hebrews 12:29). But we can have a different perspective of God, he wrote. "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels ... to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel" (Hebrews 12:22,24).

 

There is good reason to tremble at the thought of the wrathful God. But those who come to God through His Son Jesus Christ don't have to be terrified. They can see through the ascending smoke that God is their heavenly Father. How will you choose to approach God?

 

Timothy D. Hall

Howard Dean

"From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people."

Howard Dean, American politician (1948- )

 

José Saramago

"Some people spend their entire lives reading but never get beyond reading the words on the page, they don't understand that the words are merely stepping stones placed across a fast-flowing river, and the reason they're there is so that we can reach the farther shore, it's the other side that matters."

José Saramago, Portugese novelist (1922-2010)

 

The church is growing weaker

 

In a recent article, Tom Wacaster said a lady asked him, "How long do you think God is going to wait before He renders judgment upon this nation?"  He replied, "I am convinced that He is already bringing judgment upon the United States; unfortunately, the multitude of our political and religious leaders cannot see that it has already begun."

            Tragically, at the precise moment in our nation's history when this society needs the Lord's church so desperately, the church steadily grows weaker.  This is because in many areas it seems the church has lost sight of its eternal purpose. Many congregations seems to think that the mission of the church is to administer to their own physical needs, as well as the physical needs of those around us.  Have we lost sight of what constitutes Biblical authority? More importantly, do we even care?  Churches panic at the decreasing membership so they offer cheap meals to get people to come on Wednesdays; offer "giveaways,"  "drawings," "door-prizes,"  "aerobic and pottery classes,"  "Fun Daze,"  "Super Sundays,"  and just about anything else to try and entice people into some sort of an association with the church.

    It appears that most programs in the church today are designed, not to improve the spiritual man, but to address the needs/desires of the physical man.  The result is a path to self destruction. As churches turn their attention to the worldly needs/desires of its members, they will eventually lose their identity and fellowship with the One who is not of this world.   The Bible will become less important, evangelism will go by the wayside, and the congregation will be reduced to nothing more than some kind of social institution topped with religious syrup.  As we abandon God's Word,  we are abandoning God. In other words, "Stay Hungry." (Matt. 5:6) – Toby Miller

dancing under the gallows

                    "We didn't know it, but we were dancing under the gallows."

                                    (Words spoken by a Nazi "death camp" survivor)

I found the above statement, spoken by a woman who survived the Nazi death camps of WW2 to be fascinating. As I thought about those words I was reminded of a famous sermon preached by Jonathon Edwards ("Sinners in the hand of an angry God") way back in 1741 in Enfield, Conn. And, no, I wasn't present in the audience at the time. I've only read it and it's certainly one that fits the old "fire and brimstone" category. But, more about this later.....

I've mentioned this before, and I believe it to be true of most writers, that I find it interesting as to what inspires me to write the things, the lessons, that I do. I don't know how to explain it, but I see or hear something and before long, thoughts start congregating in my head and I see a way of connecting them into a spiritual lesson. I have no idea how this works and sometimes I'm not sure that the thoughts in my head successfully transfers to my fingers but, I try and I'm going to try again today.

What kicked my thoughts into gear for this lesson is a simple thing. I saw an ad for an art school the other day and immediately recalled two things related to art that I had seen before and, as previously stated, the editorial juices began flowing. I'll start this lesson by the use of two little stories about some artists.

Our first story is about a failed artist. I guess you could call him a "wanta-be" artist, but never made the grade. He wanted to be an artist so bad that he applied to the famous "Academy of Fine Art" in Vienna, Austria TWICE and failed the entrance exam both times. The reason given was, that he lacked academic skills. I just wonder what history might have been had he possessed the necessary skills to enroll.

The second story is relative to our beginning "dancing under the gallows" statement spoken by the death camp survivor. I heard it spoken while watching the story of a 106 year old woman named Alice Herz-Sommer, who is the oldest living death camp survivor. She lives in London, England and still plays classical music on her piano. It's because of her musical artistry that she survived the German prison camps. Very briefly, here is her story:

When Germany invaded her native country of Poland, she and several million others were imprisoned in concentration camps. Because she was a professional musician, a concert pianist, she was assigned to a camp housing other artists. It seemed that the main purpose for this particular camp was to provide entertainment for the Germans so they were allowed to continue playing, dancing, singing.....whatever their individual talents consisted of and their audience was their German captors.

However, they were not to stay at this camp for the duration of the war, they were transferred to the infamous Auschwitz death camp and, here again, because they were "artists," and could entertain, not all of them were put to death. It was while here at Auschwitz that the statement was made by another of the women artists, a friend of Alice's, that they were "dancing under the gallows." What a tremendous statement that is. What a great picture it paints in our minds.

Now I'm going to try and connect these two stories with the earlier mentioned sermon, "Sinners in the hand of an angry God." The scriptural basis for this sermon was a phrase found in Deut. 32:35 "....their foot shall slide in due time..." The entire sermon is a picture of the "divine justice" of God. It's the most graphic picture of the situation of sinners and evil-doers that I've ever read. Allow me to try and present you a very brief overview of this picture.

The picture is of an evil-doer hanging by a mere thread over the "fiery pits of hell" with an angry God, a "God of wrath" holding His mighty sword in His hand aimed at this thread. The sermon is designed to show how precarious a situation the unrepentant sinners/evil-doers are always in with the idea that death in that condition can bring about the slash of the sword and the parting of the thread. The sermon goes on to say that "it's only the hand of arbitrary mercy and God's mere will that holds it (the sword) back."

What a picture of the predicament a person can find themselves in. Here's a thought question: Do you think that man really sees himself in that precarious of a condition? In my opinion, I don't think so. I think that many people think that God is a "God of love" (2Cor. 13:11) and He certainly is that but, He is also a "God of wrath" (Psa. 78:31) but, above all else, He is a "just God." (Isa. 45:21)

The aim of the sermon is to show that mortal man's eternal life hangs in a precarious position, by a slender thread over the fires of hell, and that there is only one possible way of appeasing the "divine wrath" of the "just God." In the words of the sermon, the one and only deliverance from this terrible situation "is contained in the covenant of grace, the promises given in Christ." That it is only the being "in Christ" that provides salvation from the eternal fires of hell.

And think about this, there will come a time in everyone's life that the "thread" will be parted. That the "silver cord will be loosed." If that parting occurs while a person is an unrepentant sinner, an evil-doer, there will be only one place to drop. There's a verse that also speaks to the precarious position man needs to see himself in and that's found in 1Pet. 4:18 and it reads there: "And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear."

Let's see if I can bring this all together in a comprehensible closing. In my mind I see the survivors of the Nazi concentration camps as representative of the "righteous" of the world, in that, percentage-wise, few will be saved. I see them as "scarcely" saved from the hell of the death camps.

That the Nazi's represent the sinners and evil-doers of the world and history shows us that their "foot did slide in due time." That there is a place prepared "for the devil and his angels (Mt. 25:41)" and the architect of those death camps and his henchmen certainly fit in that category of evil-doers.

I see one other connection, one other picture here. I see a lot of people "dancing under the gallows" in a manner suggesting that they are not really aware of their actual situation. Not really aware of the precariousness of their lives.

And this brings us back to the little story about our first artist. It may not have seemed like our two artist stories had any connection, but in a real and horrible way, they do. Our "failed artist." The one that lacked academic skills and could not pass the test to get into the famous art school was none other than "the architect" of those Nazi concentration/death camps  -  Adolf Hitler.

Ron Covey