What Stuff?

On or near September 1, 2015 my daughter Angela’s birthday, she texted me and asked me what I thought about the days of God’s judgment and how did I feel about all the September 23 stuff.  My reply was, “What stuff?”

September 23 has something to do with the start of the days of atonement.  Angela said it was all over the news.  I refuse to watch much news.  It is always twisted and perverted in the eyes of those reporting it.  The 23^rd has something to do with the Pope coming and something the author of the book The Harbinger wrote.  I read the book and it was very entertaining.  I told my daughter that we had been in the “last days” since Jesus came, died, and ascended.

Last days have always been good for book sales because most Americans are afraid to lose their material possessions.  In my way of thinking, if people are worried about the end of time, to me is an expression of a lack of faith.  GOD IS STILL ON HIS THRONE!  Americans have not faced what Christians worldwide have already suffered.  According to God’s Word, it’s gonna get pretty bad before He raptures the church.

Second, if there is a genuine expectation of God’s coming judgment, we would be wise to share our faith with those who are lost.

I remember in the late 1970’s that the End of Time theme was everywhere.  People had identified the Antichrist, and all was doom and gloom.  I thought I would never pay off the loan on our house because the Lord was coming back any moment.  Well, we paid off the home and it burned to the ground a couple of years later.

During this period, my dad was lost.  Knowing the imminent return of Jesus was near I was burdened for dad.  I could not stand the thought of dad dying lost and we would be eternally separated, he to hell and me to heaven.

I talked with dad and for some reason he believed he was beyond the saving of Jesus.  I told him I knew God could save him, that I was praying for his salvation, and that the Holy Spirit would draw him to Jesus.

The Sunday morning that dad publicly confessed Jesus as Lord, brought tears of joy and shouts of hallelujah to Union Springs Baptist Church.  Dad’s conversion was, a cousin of mine said, a Saul to Paul Damascus Road conversion.

One week after dad’s salvation, doctors diagnosed him with inoperable brain tumors.  One tumor, the size of lemon was in the frontal lobe of the brain and a second the size of small pea at the base of the brain stem.  The prognosis was not good.

Doctors said the operation could leave him blind, paralyzed, and loss of memory.  The morning of his surgery, he asked me to pray for him.  This is before my call into the ministry.  I read from Psalm 55 and prayed.  All of Union Springs Baptist Church and many others were praying that this new convert could live and show the world that his salvation was real.  There were those who did not believe his salvation.

When the doctors talked to our family, they said they felt the presence of God guiding them as they operated.  They were able to get ninety percent of the large tumor and treated the rest and the smaller tumor with radiation.  Everyone waited in anticipation to see dad’s response.

Dad scared the recovery room nurses. Being cold, he got up to move his bed away from the air-conditioner vent.  Nurses thought he was going mad.  Nope, dad was just cold.

A few days later, I was hosting a cottage prayer meeting for revival at our home.  About thirty-five folks showed up.  To everyone’s surprise, dad entered the room.  I will never forget the way he looked.  He always wore a blue uniform from his job.  Tied around his head was the bandage from his surgery.  The hospital released him that afternoon and he came to prayer meeting.

Joy filled the room because of his presence.  We started to pray.  I sat on the hearth of our fireplace with our pastor and I began the prayer time with the pastor to close it.

I remember where dad was seated.  Closer and closer the prayer moved toward dad.  Faster and faster my heart beat.  Suddenly, dad started to pray.  I had never heard him pray.  He always called on my brothers, sister, or me to pray.  Remember he thought he could not be saved.  Dad was fifty-eight.  As dad prayed, tears of joy and the presence of the Holy Spirit filled the room.  For two years dad demonstrated what being a new creature in Christ is.

 

Want to change America?  God’s judgment is certain, Christ’s coming is imminent, and our mission is urgent.  Stop worrying and start praying and sharing God’s plan for salvation.

 

And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much (James 5:15-16 KJV).

 

Oh!  Many of you will be reading this on September 23^rd , which is seven years past when all the End Times Stuff did not happen.

My Friend Ray

When I received a call about Ray, an old friend, dying in the hospital, I immediately went to see him.  While in route to Shelby Baptist Hospital, my mind raced with all kinds of scenarios concerning his demise.  I had not heard from Ray in a while.  You, as well as I, sometimes let valuable time slip away without talking with old friends.  You do not mean for it to happen, but it does.  We get busy and time flies.

Ray and I made friends when his wife, Jodi, and he started attending my home church.  We were the same age and our children were the same age.  Jodi was a childhood friend of mine.  Ray accepted Christ as his savior because of a revival that started with a study of the Book of Revelation.  Brother Cecil Swell, pastor of West End Baptist Church in Clanton led the study.  I wish I had his notes because it was a wonderful study.

Someone had invited Ray’s brother-in-law and Jodi’s brother, Bobby, to the study.  When Bobby heard the teaching of Brother Cecil, he was scared to death.  Bobby was one of those guys that was scared into the kingdom of God. 

Because of Bobby’s salvation, most of his family became Christians.  It was reminiscent of the Philippian jailer in the Book of Acts were the jailer and his whole family were saved and baptized.  Ray was one of Bobby’s family members, but the range of Revelation spread well beyond Bobby’s extended family.

Ray was eager to hear, study, and learn God’s Word.  I remember spending hours in Bible study with Jodi and him.  Our friendship grew as he grew in the Lord.  He lived nearby so we jogged together; lifted weights together, ate meals together, and visited together.

I never will forget a Thursday night visitation.  Ray and Gary (Scooby) went on visitation with me.  Ray witnessed Scooby as they worked together, and Scooby became a believer.  Both of them were what we term “on fire” for the Lord and they could not wait to share their new faith.

I led them to the house of a fellow that we all knew.  I had been there for several visitations but had no luck.  I thought that these “new boys” might have a great influence knowing that they used to drink together.  When our acquaintance opened the door, he started cussing, ripping, and tearing into us.  I knew he meant no harm, but Ray and Scooby ran as if they met the boogieman.  Suddenly, I found myself all alone.  Our friend had been snorting a few ounces of alcohol, so I said I would come back later and went to retrieve my two new converts who were hiding behind a car.  I reminded them that they were like that at one time.

This was before I surrendered the call into the ministry.  I firmly believed that Scooby and Ray were being called into the ministry, not me.  They had wonderful testimonies and were growing spiritually by leaps and bounds.  I could see God at work in their lives.  Even their wives expressed that they did not know if they could be “preacher wives.” 

I did become a deacon and I realized later that I was the one being called into full time ministry.  Scooby later became our Sunday School director and Ray became a deacon.

Ray eagerly learned and understood the ministry of being a deacon.

Ray and Jodi’s marriage had started on shaky ground having divorced and remarrying about the time of their salvation.  Their commitment to the Lord temporary healed a strained relationship.

As time slipped away, about ten years, the pressure of marriage, kids, and ministry increased.  Ray and Jodi separated a second time.  Ray volunteered to resign as deacon.

With the divorce final, Jodi married another man and Ray started drinking and slowly slipped back into his old ways.  He dated a younger woman, and she became pregnant.  Ray unfortunately chose alcohol for relief and overdosed trying to escape.  With no one to help him, Jodi, with the encouragement of her new husband, stood by Ray’s side in the hospital until he died.  Jodi is the one who called me thinking I could encourage Ray.

Jodi met me and gave me the bad news that he would not live very long.  I will never forget the look in Ray’s eyes as I tried to communicate with him.  He acknowledged me with a penetrating stare from his lifeless body.  He was dying with alcoholic chronic pancreatitis or alcohol poising.  His body could not digest the excessive overdose of alcohol.

I spent as much time allowed by the hospital that afternoon with Ray and Jodi.  Jodi lost the father of her children, and I lost a dear brother in Christ.  There was some much that Ray and I needed to catch up on.  I do not know how much Ray comprehended, but one last time our eyes focused on each other as I told him I loved him.  I thank God for having known Ray and regret I could not help him.

It has been almost thirty years since Ray died the way he did and I have been asked, “Do you think Ray was saved?”  I know he was, but he lost his vision and gave up.  Eugene Peterson expresses it in The Message, “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; but when they attend to what God reveals; they are most blessed.”

The King James Version says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he” (Proverbs 29:18).

"Sin Too Great?"

J M’s eldest son asked, “Dad, why don’t you give your heart and life to Christ?”  J M answered, “Son you don’t know what all I have done.”

J M had an intriguing past.  As a five year-old he, along with eight siblings, felt the impact The Great Depression.   Six years later, he witnessed his dad’s suicide.   At eighteen, he left for WWII.

While serving in North Africa and Italy, he had a machine gun and a grenade wound.  He was left for dead in a foxhole, taken prisoner, eventually escaping, and missing in action for a short time.  J M’s mom received word that he had been killed in action.  She responded, “No, he is not because I am praying for him.”  Yes, J M had a praying mother.  Her last plea before her death was that all her children be saved.

Somewhere in J M’s past, he learned his sins were so bad that he could not be saved.  He attended church on Christmas, Easter, and funerals without any persuasion, but had to be begged on other occasions.  He wanted his children to be Christians, but he knew there was no hope for him.  J M always made sure that someone offered the blessing before a meal.  J M acknowledged that God was in control, but could not accept the fact that God could forgive him.

His eldest son could not bear the thought of eternal separation from his dad.  He would say, “Dad, if you ask God to forgive you, Psalm 103:12 says, ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.’”

J M was confident that his sin was too great.  He understood Romans 3:23, for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, but did not understand Ephesians 3:20, now unto him (Jesus) that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.  The Holy Spirit was working in J M.

Finally, J M could not resist the prayers and pleas of those who loved him.  At fifty-eight, J M asked Jesus to forgive him.  Dying two years later, J M had lived an abundant life as promised in John 10:10b, I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Cost of Freedom

You and I live in a time when TV commercials receive higher ratings than regular programming.  Vendors and Madison Avenue Marketing compete for airtime during the Super Bowl.  The network that carries the Super Bowl charges an unbelievable $2.6 million for a 30-second ad slot.  Our government paid $2.5 million dollars for the 2010 census ad.  The bottom line is the record number of viewers for the Super Bowl.

The commercials can be funny.  A Snickers ad that shows Betty White being tackled is funny and continues to be a hit.  Budweiser beer usually has some very humorous ads.  They have enough money in their coffers to do so to make them funny.

One night several years ago as my son Aaron and I were watching TV, Budweiser aired an ad for the Fourth of July.  The ad shows Ben Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, and other men of that era at a backyard barbecue.  It tries to be humorous, but it was offensive.  It shows our founding fathers as bumbling idiots drinking beer and partying, something typical of today.  Ben Franklin’s character accidentally tilts a cannon creating fireworks when it discharges.  They say that we should do this celebration every July 4.  Aaron commented on how disrespectful the commercial was about our founding fathers and the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 

The men that signed the Declaration of Independence did so at great cost.  Some lost their fortunes, some lost their property, and some lost their lives for signing their names on that document.  A document and freedom we make frivolous today as evidenced in the Budweiser commercial and actions of many citizens.

Snickers went through a fiasco a few years back when they aired a commercial that was considered inappropriate by many viewers.  They withdrew the ad, as have many other brand name products when there was public outcry against them.

We live in a nation where public outcry is changing.  Isaiah reminds us, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”  We see that unfolding before our eyes.  We have a tendency to forget.  Most people do not like history, but without knowing where we have been, we might have the tendency to repeat our past mistakes.

How did my young son determine that the beer commercial was disrespectful?  Many his age would have never considered that thought.  I would like to think that it is because I have tried to teach him the real meaning of the Fourth of July and the great sacrifice that our forefathers paid for us to enjoy a grand holiday.

I think that it is important to tell our children about real people and kinfolk that have gallantly served our nation to preserve our great freedoms.  Millions are enjoying the fruit of the work of those gone before us.

The Bible tells the story of Moses and the Exodus over and over.  Spanning centuries, the Exodus and God’s love for the nation of Israel in caring for them until they entered the promise land is as one of my professors put it, “a watershed event in history.”

When the nation of Israel would forget and stray, God, or His representative, would remind them of the great cost and victory of the Exodus.

When we make frivolous those events of great sacrifice and great significance, there needs to be condemnation.  Freedom comes at great expense.  Once, an old friend and I were discussing Salvation.  She enjoyed needling me, especially about me being a Southern Baptist.  She was bragging about her salvation not costing anything.  I reminded her that it might not have cost her, but the cost of our salvation bankrupted heaven.  It cost God everything.

Could it be that we are not teaching our children about the cost of our freedom?  Are we profaning the sacred?  When do we draw the line with humor?  Will our freedom without remembrance keep us free?  I think the Psalmist says it best.

Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.  I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:  Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.  We will not hide them from their children, shewing to the generation to come the praises of the Lord, and his strength, and his wonderful works that he hath done. For he established a testimony in Jacob, and appointed a law in Israel, which he commanded our fathers, that they should make them known to their children: That the generation to come might know them, even the children which should be born; who should arise and declare them to their children:  That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments:  And might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation; a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God (Psalm 78: 1-8 KJV).