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June 05, 2011Doing Time

by Charles R. Swindoll

Read Exodus 24:12; 25:1–9

Now we know why God met with Moses. But what did He reveal? Verse 12 tells us: He revealed His written word. The first thing God gave to this man who met with Him was His truth in written form.

No one has ever had in his possession a more valuable document than this. Moses possessed the very autograph of Deity—the autographa etched in stone by God’s own finger.
 
God gave His people the Word of God that they might know His mind and obey. He gave them the design for the tabernacle that He might come and dwell among them. He didn’t want to remain aloof high up on a mountain. He wanted to make Himself accessible and available, but, in keeping with His own design, He would dwell in a sacred place within the tabernacle.

Moses is a man who met with God. He learned that it takes discipline and preparation to do so. It’s one thing to know what to do; it’s quite another to actually do it. How many of us take a course on prayer but rarely pray, or learn the techniques of evangelism but seldom share our faith? In this account of Moses’ life, we may have learned little new, but we have been confronted with some profound reminders from God’s Word. We do not need a creative new technique nearly as much as a swift kick in the pants. We need a rebuke from the Holy Spirit, because we are so slothful and slow and sleepy when it comes to climbing that mountain and meeting for half an hour with the Lord.

May He do a work in spite of us! Despite our bad track record, may He stop us this moment with the reminder that we could become far stronger men and women of God if we would only maintain a time of meeting with Him.

It may be on a craggy mountain peak, in a closet, or, as with my own mother, in a locked bathroom with a “Do not disturb” sign on the door. God isn’t particular in the least about the place you choose or the amount of time you spend. All He wants is you.

 

Excerpted from Charles R. Swindoll, Great Days with the Great Lives (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

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After reviewing the rise of the modern age, the Italian literary critic Piero Camporesi commented, “We can now confirm that hell is finished, that the great theatre of torments is closed for an indeterminate period, and that after 2000 years of horrifying performances the play will not be repeated. The long triumphal season has come to an end.” Like a play with a good run, the curtain has finally come down, and for millions around the world, the biblical doctrine of hell is but a distant memory. For so many persons in this postmodern world, the biblical doctrine of hell has become simply unthinkable.

Have postmodern westerners just decided that hell is no more? Can we really just think the doctrine away? Os Guinness notes that western societies “have reached the state of pluralization where choice is not just a state of affairs, it is a state of mind. Choice has become a value in itself, even a priority. To be modern is to be addicted to choice and change. Change becomes the very essence of life.” Personal choice becomes the urgency; what sociologist Peter Berger called the “heretical imperative.” In such a context, theology undergoes rapid and repeated transformation driven by cultural currents. For millions of persons in the postmodern age, truth is a matter of personal choice –- not divine revelation. Clearly, we moderns do not choose for hell to exist.

This process of change is often invisible to those experiencing it and denied by those promoting it. As David F. Wells comments, “The stream of historic orthodoxy that once watered the evangelical soul is now dammed by a worldliness that many fail to recognize as worldliness because of the cultural innocence with which it presents itself.” He continued: “To be sure, this orthodoxy never was infallible, nor was it without its blemishes and foibles, but I am far from persuaded that the emancipation from its theological core that much of evangelicalism is effecting has resulted in greater biblical fidelity. In fact, the result is just the opposite. We now have less biblical fidelity, less interest in truth, less seriousness, less depth, and less capacity to speak the Word of God to our own generation in a way that offers an alternative to what it already thinks.”

The pressing question of our concern is this: Whatever happened to hell? What has happened so that we now find even some who claim to be evangelicals promoting and teaching concepts such as universalism, inclusivism, postmortem evangelism, conditional immortality, and annihilationism — when those known as evangelicals in former times were known for opposing those very proposals? Many evangelicals seek to find any way out of the biblical doctrine that is marked by so much awkwardness and embarrassment.

The answer to these questions must be found in understanding the impact of cultural trends and the prevailing worldview upon Christian theology. Ever since the Enlightenment, theologians have been forced to defend the very legitimacy of their discipline and proposals. A secular worldview that denies supernatural revelation must reject Christianity as a system and truth-claim. At the same time, it seeks to transform all religious truth-claims into matters of personal choice and opinion. Christianity, stripped of its offensive theology, is reduced to one “spirituality” among others.

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Note: To listen to a radio broadcast of the text below go to KWON/KYFM http://www.bartlesvilleradio.com/caffeine/uploads/files/ON%20Demand/Ideas%20Matter/Ideas%20matter%2018%20complete.mp3

What would you think if I told you that eating broccoli has been proven to cause a number of maladies some of which are life threatening and all of which compromise human wellbeing and cost tax payers billions of dollars.

For example what would you think if I told you that the Center for Disease Control and Prevention says that one out of five men in your city who choose to eat broccoli will contract an incurable disease and suffer an early death?

What would you think if I told you that because the CDC knows of this risk that it has already put in place regulations that prohibit broccoli eaters from donating blood because their contagion risk is 60 times higher than the general population?

What would you say if I showed you that the FDA warns: Eating broccoli results in a 200-600% increase in the likelihood of contracting other diseases such as Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C?

What would you think if I laid in front of you a 2007 CDC study showing that those eating broccoli account for an epidemic 64 percent of all syphilis cases in the United States even though they comprise only 1-2% of the US population?

What would you think if I then turned around and, in spite of all the above, said:  But eating broccoli is not a choice.  It’s a lifestyle. It’s an identity. We need to open up our military to more broccoli.  We must educate our children to be more accepting of broccoli. We must create laws that promote broccoli.  Those who speak out about the dangers of broccoli are hateful and intolerant. They’re bigots.  We can’t discriminate against those who like broccoli!

Do ideas matter? Are some logical? Are some broken? Are some simply absurd? You be the judge.

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Dave Burchett is an Emmy Award winning television sports director, author, and Christian speaker. He is the author of When Bad Christians Happen to Good People and “Bring’em Back Alive – A Healing Plan for those Wounded by the Church.” Dave is available to bring his unique perspective to your conference, meeting, or broadcast. Dave and Joni, his wife of twenty-nine years, have three grown sons.

Today is a revisit of a “Christmas Classic” from earlier. How does a blog become a classic?  It is your blog, your site, you pay the server charge and you can call it whatever you want. So enjoy a classic from Christmas past…

One of my contributions with this modest little blog is to continually ask the tough questions.

While listening to  ”Away in a Manger” at a recent Christmas program my inquiring mind kicked in. You likely know verse three of the song.

The cattle are lowing
The poor Baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus
No crying He makes

As I listened an important series of difficult and probing inquiries popped into my head. What noise, exactly, were the cattle making when they started lowing? Was this normal cow talk? Did lowing just sound better than mooing in the lyric or is lowing a more spiritual and reverent cow sound? And then the most important question came to mind. What is wrong with me?

I can’t answer the last question but I can help with the others. Lowing is defined at dictionary.com as “the characteristic sound uttered by cattle; a moo”.

 

So little baby Jesus was awakened by the characteristic sound uttered by a cow. That would not have flowed well in the lyric so I understand using lowing. The next part of the lyric is disturbing to those of us who are parents. If any of the babies who grew up in our household were awakened by cattle lowing they would be squalling (the characteristic sound uttered by a ticked off baby; a scream).  During the course of my intrepid investigating I discovered that this verse was not original to the song. It was added in the early 1900′s by a Methodist minister named John T. McFarland for a children’s program. While verse three is not a part of the original Christmas carol canon it does create an image of Jesus that we need to rethink.

I remember as a child singing ”Away in a Manger” and picturing the baby Jesus with this beatific smile on his face and a little halo hovering over his head. In my imagination the animals were swaying and singing like the campfire scene from the movie “Three Amigos”. I pictured Mary and Joseph as awed spectators as the baby Jesus acknowledged the shepherds and welcomed them to his place (remember…the earlier lyrics told us he didn’t have a crib). My images of the baby Jesus were indeed childish. But I wonder if we don’t carry a little of that flawed perspective about the “Baby Jesus” into our adult Christian journey (like Ricky Bobby in the movie Talladega Nights…you bad Christians know what I am talking about).

This Christmas why not take a little time to think about the implications of the incarnation. That nice little theological word is used to denote when the second person of the Trinity assumed human form in the person of Jesus Christ and became both fully God and fully man. C.S. Lewis called the incarnation “the Grand Miracle.” He wrote: “The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation…. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this…. It was the central event in the history of the Earth-the very thing that the whole story has been about” (from Miracles, chapter 14).

By a miracle that passes human comprehension, the Creator entered his creation, the Eternal entered time, God became human-in order to die and rise again for the salvation of all people. “He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity; down further still … (to) the womb … down to the very roots and sea-bed of the Nature He has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him” (Miracles, C.S. Lewis).

Take a moment to meditate on the mystery of that. Fully God and fully man. I am sure the little Lord Jesus would have had the normal response to being awakened by any cow noise…lowing or other. His swaddling clothes had to be changed just like any baby. Chuck Swindoll described Him as diety in diapers.

How does that affect me this Christmas? Because God became flesh I can relate to a Savior that understands the frailties of my flesh. Because the Creator understands His creation I can be sure that God understands my pain, frustration and loneliness. It is difficult for me to relate to an invisible God. That is the miracle of God becoming man. I can relate to Jesus because He has walked in my sandals. Joni and I were always appreciative and blessed when people expressed love and care while she was battling breast cancer. But when a breast cancer survivor expressed that love it connected on a different level. They had been there, felt the fear, fought the tiring battle and traveled the long road. That is the sovereign genius of the incarnation. We can relate to God in flesh in a way that is different. When I suffer I know that Jesus understands. He has been there. When I am lonely or feeling betrayed I can know (in my finite ability) that He understands. When I am joyful and laughing He understands. By becoming like me I can believe that Jesus can empathize with me on a different level. Because I know He gets it then I also get it. God loves me and Jesus has my back.

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.   (I John 2)

Jesus became our advocate and our path to salvation when He arrived on earth. The miracle in the manger was not Jesus ignoring stupid cows. The miracle was God becoming flesh.

Dave Burchett is an Emmy Award winning television sports director, author, and Christian speaker. He is the author of When Bad Christians Happen to Good People and Bring’em Back Alive: A Healing Plan for those Wounded by the Church. You can reply by linking through daveburchett.com.  

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Chuck Swindoll’s Daily Devotional: Doing the UnexpectedChuck Swindoll’s Daily DevotionalReceive a daily devotional message written by Charles Swindoll that brings God’s Word to life.Left

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December 15, 2010Doing the Unexpected

by Charles R. Swindoll

John 1

There are various ways to describe it: turning the other
cheek . . . going the extra mile . . . doing good to those who hate us . . . loving our enemies. We may say it in different ways, but the action amounts to the same thing. By doing the unexpected, we accomplish a twofold objective: (1) we put an end to bitterness, and (2) we prove the truth of the age-old axiom, love conquers all. I've seen it happen over and over again.

Why are we so hesitant? What keeps us from doing the unexpected for the undeserving so that we might watch God accomplish the unbelievable? Because it goes against our human nature. Furthermore, it's a major risk. Of course, that is where faith comes in: to believe the Lord against all odds and to obey Him even if the action backfires. But some of you are frowning, thinking, Yeah, that sounds good, but nobody could pull it off.

Rabbi Michael Weisser did. It happened in Lincoln, Nebraska, where for more than three years, Larry Trapp, a self-proclaimed Nazi and Ku Klux Klansman, spread hatred through mailings and ugly phone calls. Weisser became one of Trapp's targets, receiving numerous pieces of hate mail and offensive phone calls. At first, the Weissers were so afraid they locked their doors and worried themselves sick over the safety of their family.

Then one day Rabbi Weisser decided to do the unexpected. He left a message on Trapp's answering machine, telling the man of another side of life . . . a life free of hatred and racism.

Trapp was stunned. He later admitted, through tears, that he heard in the rabbi's voice "something I hadn't experienced. It was love."

Slowly the bitter man began to soften. One night he called the Weissers and said he wanted out but didn't know how. They grabbed a bucket of fried chicken and took him dinner. Before long they made a trade: In return for their love he gave them his swastika rings, hate tracts, and Klan robes. That same day Trapp gave up his recruiting job and dumped the rest of his propaganda in the trash. "They showed me so much love that I couldn't help but love them back," he finally confessed.

Christmas is right around the corner. How about giving the gift of forgiveness, a cup full of kindness, a sincere phone call of grace to someone who would never expect it and might not deserve it . . . with no strings attached? It's risky . . . but you wouldn't be the first to try it.

God's gift to us came wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. Talk about doing the unexpected for the undeserving!

 

 

Excerpted from Day by Day with Charles Swindoll, Copyright © 2000 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. (Thomas Nelson Publishers). All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission.

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