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NOW, OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES, SMYRNA AND PHILADELPHIA ARE THE ONLY TWO, THAT JESUS DOESN’T SAY ANYTHING NEGATIVE ABOUT. IN THOSE DAYS, PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN ASIA MINOR, HAD TO BELONG TO A LABOR UNION, TO GET WORK, AND TO BELONG TO A LABOR UNION, YOU HAD TO BURN INCENSE AND BOW BEFORE THE GOD OF THAT LABOR GUILD, EVERY YEAR, BUT MANY OF THESE CHRISTIANS SAID, “NO! WE’RE NOT GOING TO BOW OUR KNEE BEFORE ANYBODY BUT JESUS.”
K. TERTULLIAN OF CARTHAGE WAS THE PASTOR OF A CHURCH IN NORTH AFRICA ABOUT 200 YEARS AFTER JESUS WAS BORN, AND SOME OF HIS MEMBERS SAID, “TERTULLIAN, WE MUST BURN INCENSE TO THIS PAGAN GOD EVEN THOUGH WE ARE CHRISTIANS, BUT WE WON’T MEAN IT.” AND TERTULLIAN SAID, “WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?” AND THE PEOPLE SAID, “BECAUSE WE HAVE TO WORK TO BUY FOOD TO EAT!” AND TERTULLIAN SAID, “WHY DO YOU HAVE TO EAT?” AND THEY SAID, “BECAUSE WE HAVE TO LIVE.” TERTULLIAN LOOKED AT THEM AND SAID, “NO!! YOU DON’T HAVE TO WORK, OR EAT AND YOU DON’T HAVE TO LIVE.
THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO DO, IS BE FAITHFUL TO GOD!!”
From Gene Edwards’ Sermon: The Road Less Traveled: Perseverance
THE WEAK WILL SHAME THE WISE
We have to come to the realization that life is much more than brokenness. According to God’s word, we are vessels of honor which contain the power and glory of the Christ. I, too, have had a problem with such thinking throughout the years. How can I, a vessel of honor for God, be fractured and imperfect?
But then I recall biblical characters such as King David. Truly he was a vessel of honor. He was a man after God’s own heart. He embodied the tenacity and fortitude to lift honorable praise and adoration to his fortress and shelter, God. But yet I can also recall that even David had his failures and his times of disgrace. He, too, was known for his immorality in the forms of adultery, conspiracy, murder and concealment of the facts. Even so, God still used David for his glory and honor by allowing him to pen such beautiful words as the Psalms. Beyond that, after seeking forgiveness and repenting openly, God permitted him to continue as Israel’s greatest leader of all times.
Then there was Moses, a mighty man of valor. A man that took great thought towards his leadership capabilities and the responsibility he had as a caretaker. So overwhelmed with his job that he, too, overstep his bounds and crossed the line. Through a moment of anger he slew the life of a fellow human being and then ran to hide from his crime. Yet, God saw fit, after years of softening his heart in the fields of shepherding, to call him forth as a powerful deliverer of his own people, Israel.
Even during that journey from Egypt to Canaan, along with those he was leading, was disobedient to a gracious God and still had to suffer a few consequences for those choices. Yet, God never left them helpless and alone.
There is also the Saul who thought that he was confident he was doing God justice by persecuting the early church and its leadership; sometimes even leading to stoning to the death those who called themselves “Christians,” followers of the Christ. He felt warranted to do such inhumane mistreatment by God’s mandate to sustain his cases of harassment against these so called “perverters of the Law of God.”
But once blinded by the light of the Christ on the road to Damascus and a definite change of heart, Saul became Paul, one of the greatest apostles of all times. He was encouraged to found numerous churches throughout Asia Minor and credited for such, even in Spain. He also was granted the right to author several letters that made their way into the canon of writings that now make up the New Testament.
And we certainly can’t overlook the ladies either. Mary Magdalene, even though her life apparently started out on the wrong foot and she most likely had chosen a questionable livelihood, she still became one of the most prominent disciples of Jesus. She was so thankful for his life-giving and life-changing teachings, that she relinquished her past and became a new person in and through him. And then she finally was privileged to be one of the first evangelists that early Easter morning after speaking to her Lord in the garden.
Listen carefully again to a portion of our text for today: “God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen.”
Yes God has always used worn, broken clay vessels for his honor and glory and still does. God has not changed, he still takes what we given him, our imperfections and flaws and remakes us into useful earthen pots that contain the precious gospel on the Christ. He then grants you and me the tenacity and fortitude to lift honorable praise and adoration to his fortress and shelter, God. He has given to us the call to be deliverers of those bound in the chains of sinfulness through the use of the message of salvation entrusted to us. In His fullest of intentions, God also wants you and me to be great messengers of the faith, telling all those about us of the justifying acts of God through his own Son, Jesus, the Christ. He has privileged us with the ability to become evangelists beginning in our own homes, families and neighborhoods, sharing the Good News that Jesus is alive and well and that he still wants to be their and our friend, no matter where we may have come from or what kind of life we have lived.
Remember, God is still using our foolish lives to discredit those who are pretentious and haughty. He has selected those who think of themselves ineffectual and inadequate to amaze those who believe they are immovable and invincible. He elects to use those the world often classifies as infamous and unlovable.
A CALL TO DIE
The story is told of the military legend Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia (336-323) and conqueror of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia, almost all of the known world.
One day on the warpath, Alexander and small company of soldiers approached a strongly fortified walled city and Alexander raised his voice and demanded to see the king. When the king arrived, Alexander ordered him to surrender the city and everyone inside.
The king laughed, “Why should I surrender to you? You can’t do us any harm!”
But Alexander offered to give the king a demonstration. He ordered his men to line up single file and start marching. He marched them straight toward a cliff. The townspeople gathered on the wall and watched in shocked silence as, one by one, his soldiers marched without hesitation right off the cliff to their deaths!
After 10 soldiers died, Alexander ordered the rest of the men to return to his side. The townspeople and the king immediately surrendered to Alexander the Great. They realized that if a few men were actually willing to die at the command of this leader, then nothing could stop his eventual victory.
WHAT I'LL BE DOING FOR MEMORIAL DAY
Memorial Day is a rough day for me. It’s a day of remembering.
Remembering can be curse when you’ve spent years trying to forget. It’s even worse when you get mad at yourself for not being able to remember. It’s strange that you forget so many things you want to remember and remember so much that you really want to forget.
I spent 11 months, 28 days in sunny Southeast Asia. I came back physically whole. "No members missing" tag on this Marine. By the Grace of God, good training, and just plain pure dumb luck, I suffered no more than a slight hearing loss, a concussion or two, and 25 years of mixed-blessing memories.
Memorial Day is not a day for self-evaluation or selfish thoughts. So I turn my remembrances to other people, places, and things.
I remember heat. Heat that kept you from getting a full breath for weeks. Heat that sapped your strength so that you were beyond exhaustion after a minor exertion. Heat that made you tired and kept you from sleeping. Heat that made you sweat buckets. Heat that made you freezing cold at 70 degrees.
I remember rice paddies. They could get you killed or save your life. Dikes stop bullets but can leave you exposed if you’re dumb enough to walk on them. The water smelled of feces but was better than not drinking at all.
I remember rain. Rain that broke the intolerable heat then never stopped. Rain that was as gentle as silk or as stinging as a nest of bees. Rain that let you get a good clean shower and rotted your feet ’til they bled.
I remember the sun. The sun that created the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets I’ve ever seen in my life. The sun that you couldn’t look at...if you ever wanted to see again. The sun that you could feel without touching it.
But above all this, I remember people. Faces, personalities, and human events still crowd my days and nights with pleasure and pain. I can remember entire conversations and events in explicit detail. I cannot remember the names of more than a few, and I don’t know why. Shouldn’t this be the other way around?
I remember the parting face of the Huey jock, who took an RPG in the nose 100 yards after he lifted off from leaving me in a clearing. I remember every detail of the guy who hung himself 2 weeks before he was going back to the world. I remember the guitar songs taught to me by the kid from Boston, who drove a jeep over a 105 shell buried on a dirt road and tripped the trap. Of the hundreds I knew, I kick myself f...
SIR WILLIAM RAMSEY AND THE ACCURACY OF LUKE
Late 1800's/early 1900's Sir William Ramsey was a well-known archaeologist and historian. He was professor of humanities at Aberdeen University. He was considered to be the world's most imminent scholar on Asia-Minor, and it's geography and history. He read the book of Acts and said, "The book of Acts is a highly imaginative and carefully coloured account of primitive Christianity" (in essence, "of my knowledge of history, I have no respect for Luke as a historian").
Then he went to the Middle East for the express purpose of proving the Bible wrong in its history. He came home and wrote the book, "Luke, the beloved physician" in which he proclaimed Dr. Luke to be one of the worlds foremost historians.
Here's a quote from Sir William Ramsey...this was after looking carefully at the evidence: "I take the view that Luke's history is unsurpassed in its trustworthiness. You may press the words of Luke in a degree beyond any other historian, and they will stand the keenest scrutiny, and the harshest treatment."
(From a sermon by Dean Courtier, Consider the Word of God, 11/4/2010)
Although little has been written about him in scripture, tradition has said that Andrew took the gospel to Russia, Greece, Asia minor, and Turkey. So he had missionary zeal also and could relate to a variety of people. It is said that he lived to a very old age and died a martyr’s death. When he went to Greece in the town of Patras, Maximillia, the wife of the governor, was at the point of death. Because of his ministry to this family during a time of crisis, the governor’s wife and brother became Christians, but the governor remained hostile to the Christian faith. In fact he was so upset about this that he had Andrew arrested and condemned to death. He was bound, not nailed to a cross to prolong his death and he died of hunger and thirst. When faced with the cross, Andrew prayed: "Hail precious cross, thou hast been consecrated by the body of my Lord. I have ardently loved thee. Receive me into thy arms; and present me to my master that he who redeems me on thee may receive me by thee."
Illustration: My Son Died, Don’t You Care
An Unknown author wrote this story:
The day is over, you are driving home. You tune in your radio. You hear a little blurb about a little village in India where some villagers have died suddenly, strangely, of a flu that has never been seen before.
It’s not influenza, but three or four fellows are dead, and it’s kind of interesting. They’re sending some doctors over there to investigate it. You don’t think much about it, but on Sunday, coming home from church, you hear another radio spot. Only they say it’s not three villagers, it’s 30,000 villagers in the back hills of this particular area of India, and it’s on TV that night.
CNN runs a little blurb; people are heading there from the CDC disease center in Atlanta because this disease strain has never been seen before.
By Monday morning when you get up, it’s the lead story. For it’s not just India; it’s Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, and before you know it, you’re hearing this story everywhere and they have coined it now as “the mystery flu.” Everyone is wondering, “How are we going to contain it?” That’s when the President of France makes an announcement that shocks Europe. He is closing their borders. No flights from India, Pakistan, or any of the countries where this thing has been seen.
That night you are watching a little bit of CNN before going to bed. Your jaw hits your chest, when a weeping woman is translated from a French news program into English: “There’s a man lying in a hospital in Paris dying of the mystery flu. It has come to Europe.”
Panic strikes.
As best they can tell, once you get it, you have it for a week and you don’t know it. Then you have four days of unbelievable symptoms. Then you die.
Britain closes it’s borders, but it’s too late. Southampton, Liverpool, Northhampton, and it’s Tuesday morning when the President of the United States makes the following announcement: “Due to a national security risk, all flights to and from Europe and Asia have been canceled. If your loved ones are overseas, I’m sorry. They cannot come back until we find a cure for this thing. Within four days our nation has been plunged into an unbelievable fear.
People are selling little masks for your face. Some are talking about what if it comes to this country, and preachers on Tuesday are saying, “It’s the scourge of God.” It’s Wednesday night and you are at a church prayer meeting when somebody runs in from the parking lot and says, “Turn on a radio, turn on a radio.” While the church listens to a little transistor radio with a microphone stuck up to it, the announcement is made, “Two women are lying in a Long Island hospital dying from the mystery flu.” Within hours it seems, this thing just sweeps across the country.
People are working around the clock trying to find an antidote. Nothing is working. California, Oregon, Arizona, Florida, Massachusetts. It’s as though it’s just sweeping in from the borders.
Then, all of a sudden the news comes out. The code has been broken. A cure can be found. A vaccine can be made. It’s going to take the blood of somebody who hasn’t been infected, and so, sure enough, all through the Midwest, through all those channels of emergency broadcasting, everyone is asked to do one simple thing: “Go to your downtown hospital and have your blood type taken. That’s all we ask of you. When you hear the sirens go off in your neighborhood, please make your way quickly, quietly, and safely to the hospitals.”
Sure enough, when you and your family get down there late on that Friday night, there is a long line, and they’ve got nurses and doctors coming out and pricking fingers and taking blood and putting labels on it.
Your spouse and your kids are out there, and they take your blood type and they say, “Wait here in the parking lot and if we call your name, you can be dismissed and go home.”
You stand around scared with your neighbors, wondering what in the world is going on, and that this is the end of the world. Suddenly a young man comes running out of the hospital screaming. He’s yelling a name and waving a clipboard. What? He yells it again! And your son tugs on your jacket and says with a grin, “Daddy, that’s me.”
Before you know it, they have grabbed your boy. “Wait a minute, hold it!” And they say, “It’s okay, his blood is clean. His blood is pure. We want to make sure he doesn’t have the disease. We think he has got the right type.”
Five tense minutes later, out come the doctors and nurses, crying and hugging one another - some are even laughing. It’s the first time you have seen anybody laugh in a week, and an old doctor walks up to you and says, “Thank you, sir. Your son’s blood type is perfect. It’s clean, it is pure, and we can make the vaccine.”
As the word begins to spread all across that parking lot full of folks, people are screaming and praying and laughing and crying. But then the gray-haired doctor pulls you and your wife aside and says, “May we see you for a moment?
We didn’t realize that the donor would be a mino...
WHY SHOULD I SURRENDER?
The story is told of the military legend Alexander the Great, King of Macedonia (336-323) and conqueror of Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, and Persia, almost all of the known world.
One day on the warpath, Alexander and small company of soldiers approached a strongly fortified walled city and Alexander raised his voice and demanded to see the king. When the king arrived, Alexander ordered him to surrender the city and everyone inside.
The king laughed, "Why should I surrender to you? You can't do us any harm!"
But Alexander offered to give the king a demonstration. He ordered his men to line up single file and start marching. He marched them straight toward a cliff. The townspeople gathered on the wall and watched in shocked silence as, one by one, his soldiers marched without hesitation right off the cliff to their deaths!
After 10 soldiers died, Alexander ordered the rest of the men to return to his side. The townspeople and the king i...
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