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JD Wetterling |
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God's Truth Expounded
TRUTH
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The
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The Isaiah 6:3 Tour
JD &
Karen Wetterling Position Report June 27, 2009 The Grandeur of the Tetons
It’s a grey day in paradise today, with melodious raindrops falling on the RV roof, but grey is beautiful, too, in God’s creation scheme. I’ve gotten so frustrated with national park visitor center movies and park ranger lectures that I’d urge all visitors who love the Lord to skip them. If I hear one more preposterous multi-billion year assumption, wild guess or bald-faced lie put forth as fact about how this beauty all came to be…. Not once have I heard the truth: In the beginning God created…. But God’s children know, and we are grateful for our God-given eyes to see that …the whole earth is full of his glory.
Tour Position Report
Not! You might think that after beholding rocks for the last month,
from the Grand Canyon to Zion to Bryce Canyon to Capitol Reef to Arches
to Canyonlands National Park we’d be overdosed on rocks, but you’d be
wrong. Such divine sculpture does not weary the eyes of this beholder.
We’re still marveling at rocks, but now also with lots of green
Ponderosa pine and grass and riotously blooming wildflowers and billions
of acre/feet of water at Flaming Gorge National Recreation Area on the
Utah/Wyoming border. A dam built on the Green River in the last century
changed the scenery from what it was when the one-armed explorer John
Wesley Powell first saw it in 1869. He thought it was spectacular then
and named it Flaming Gorge after the 1,000-1,500 foot-high red rock
cliffs on either bank. Now it’s a 91-mile long reservoir teeming with
world record-sized trout (over 50 pound lake trout and over 25 pound
rainbows). It’s a perfect sunny day in NE Utah and this campground up on
the rim is nearly empty, probably because the campground host says it’s
the first nice day they’ve seen this summer. The only sounds are the
breeze in the ponderosa tops and bird calls. In the picture, even the
roar of the few motorboats making Speaking of wheels, here is a little vignette on Amazing Grace. We were headed up to this lovely place Thursday, but it just happened to be raining and I just happen to be opposed to towing a travel trailer on steep, snaking mountain roads in the rain. So mid-day we just happened to choose a delightful shady and green little RV park in the middle of Vernal, Utah, for the night. As we were setting up, the front wheels of my truck just happened to be turned sharply where it was parked. Karen never before had a reason under those circumstance to walk around the left front corner of the truck, but she just happened to then. The tire just happened to be stopped in its rotation in such a way that Karen just happened to notice a screw in the tire, though it was not leaking air. The stress on that tire from all the steep switchbacks on the mountain road ahead almost assuredly would have caused a flat or maybe much worse and the likelihood of enough room to pull off the road was nearly nil. There’s more. The RV park just happened to be located adjacent to a tire dealer. I got in the truck and drove over to the open overhead bay doors of the tire dealer. Business just happened to be a bit slow for them at that moment and a smiling Mormon lad, not me, got to pull it off and fix it in less time than it has taken me to type this amazing witness. “Just happened” is a pagan term for the providence of God.
And we know that for those who love God all things work together for
good….
Tour Position Report
Utah State Route 12, the two lane highway (my favorite kind) between Bryce Canyon National Park and Capitol Reef National Park is the most extraordinary 115 miles I’ve driven. It descends down into verdant valley farmland from the 8,400 foot rim of Bryce Canyon, then skirts the Northwest side of the thousands of acres of the hauntingly beautiful desolation of Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument. From there it turns north, descending steeply via 20 mph switchbacks into a narrow canyon just wide enough for two lanes of concrete and no shoulders or sunshine. It climbs out in the same manner, then winds along a narrow rolling ridgeline, still with no shoulders and a bottomless drop-off on both sides. It was sorta like flying—pulling over to stop and lower the blood pressure was not an option. Karen prayed without ceasing that my heart would not chose this time to go into cardiac arrest. Then the road dropped down into another verdant valley of farmland before beginning a very long and increasingly steep ascent to Boulder Pass at 9,600. The last two miles were a 12% grade. It will test your driving skills and the advertised promises of the manufacturer of your tow vehicle’s engine and transmission. I am happy to report that my truck is indeed “Ford tough.” That is probably why Ford Motor Company is the only major American automaker who is not now a ward of the government. My nifty little add-on digital ScanGauge II, with its 27 engine and transmission performance real-time readouts tracked the flawless performance of my F-150 (not related to the F-100 that also served me mostly flawlessly many years ago). At the end of that spectacular white-knuckle drive was yet another visual delight. Descending down into a red and tan and white canyon at Capitol Reef, we came upon Fruita Campground, set in “a sudden intensely green little valley among the cliffs of Waterpocket Fold, opulent with cherries, peaches and applies in season” (Wallace Stegner). We parked under a giant ash tree in a grove of tall ashes, hackberries and maple trees surrounded by an orchard. It is a lush Midwestern oasis in the middle of the Western desert, reminiscent of the city park along the Mississippi River where our family attended an annual family reunion every summer in my youth. Mormon settlers planted these orchards in the late 1800’s and irrigated them with water from the Fremont River that winds through this valley. What a delightful green haven it is. Last night we drove out of the canyon about 3 miles, to a mountaintop called Sunset Point, and climbed the highest pile of massive rocks there to watch the setting sun shine on this 100-mile-long red and white and tan cliff called a Reef. No living creature sound, except for two awestruck/dumbstruck sinners breathing, interrupted a video extravaganza that could only be choreographed in the throne room of God. There is one more visual delight here. Capitol Reef claims to be the best National Park in America for stargazing, and for good reason. The canyon walls shut out the ambient manmade light, of which there is very little to start with. If you look at a map of Utah and Capitol Reef, you will note the few towns within a 75 mile radius in all directions are all denoted with the smallest font and the tiniest dot. If you like remote this is the place. The birds appreciate it, too. The sound of jubilant robins, cowbirds and orioles in our intensely green oasis singing their predawn hymns of praise in fortissimo easily penetrates the RV walls and the soundest sleep. If there is a better way to awake this side of the river, I have not found it. The more we travel, the more of God’s majestic creation we see, the louder the throne room seraphs’ praises echo in my head: Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory (Isaiah 6:3)
Position Report
The LORD roars from Zion….
From the peak of the world’s largest sandstone monolith rising 3,500 feet above the canyon floor, from the hanging gardens of Golden Columbine cascading from weeping sandstone canyon walls, to the tiny snails the size of a pinhead that live only in this canyon, the LORD roars from Zion National Park: I AM. Cliff-hugging hiking trails take your breath away three ways: by exertion, by the sheer beauty of God’s creation, and by one step in the wrong direction. When the new creation comes, God will not have much more work to do in Zion. If I could live my life over in another era, I’d be a 19th century pioneer farmer in this fertile canyon floor, where I could awake alone with God in this stonewalled Beulah Land, listening to the sound of the rushing water of the Virgin River that irrigates my fields, the birds whose melodic voices are amplified by the canyon walls, and where majestic cottonwood trees add a riotous green to the earth tone canvas of God’s canyon creation. One of those cottonwoods, a hundred feet tall and a hundred feet wide with an 8 foot diameter trunk, thrives today in the center of the massive lawn of the Zion Lodge, half way up the canyon. A bed there costs $160 a night, vs $8 a night (Senior Pass) to sleep in my own bed in the RV campground three miles down the canyon. Three mornings, after our hikes in the canyon, I bought coffee, sat on a shady bench and rejoiced in the beauty of that tree. Joyce Kilmer said, “I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree.” I’m with Joyce. I have not, nor do I anticipate ever seeing anything made by the hand of man—poetry, prose, art or architecture—as lovely as a tree, or the great Divine sandstone sculpture of Zion’s wall behind it. And yet, and yet I am in complete agreement with John Calvin, who said (when he was feeling magnanimous), that only one human in ten hears the roar of the LORD in a place like this, though “all are without excuse.” Paul told the Romans, that God …has mercy on whomever he wills (Romans 9:18a), that is, he performs a miracle of spiritual rebirth in chosen hearts, gives them eyes to see (John 3:3) and the amazing gift of faith (Ephesians 2:8), and whomever he wills he hardens in their unbelief (Romans 9:18b). We have some dear sweet family members whom we love in that latter category. They think we are nuts. They think nobody times nothing equals all there is to see in Zion. They actually think that time and chance have creative power that trumps intelligent design of mind-boggling complexity. They take at face value “scientific facts” based on unprovable assumptions. We pray for their enlightenment and salvation: LORD, please perform a miracle of rebirth in their hearts, that they may see what you have allowed us to see, the whole earth full of your glory. And the kingdom of God to come. May they know the mercy we know, unworthy sinners that we are. And may they hear the roar of the LORD from Zion. Position Report
…on your wondrous works I will
meditate. They shall speak of the might of your awesome deeds, and
I will declare your greatness
(Psalm 145:5b-6). It is possible, with so many miles of canyon rim, to find a quiet spot like this one and be alone in the midst of throngs of tourists from all over the world. In the deafening silence and overpowering visuals it is like no house of worship built by hands. Be still, and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted on earth. (Psa. 46:10)
God speaks to me through this awesome witness to the Genesis flood: Behold the wrath of God. Pagan scientists, using unprovable assumptions, put the age of these rocks at 840 to 1,375 million years old, depending on which of four radioisotope formulae they use, none of which come close to agreeing with each other, as you can see. And when their theory cannot explain a particular strata of rocks, rather than throw away the theory they give the mystery a fancy name, the “Great Unconformity,” as if that were a scientific explanation. And yet any child of Scripture can see the Grand Canyon was caused by a catastrophic flood. The Colorado River drains the Colorado Rockies and surrounding area. The flood waters were 15 cubits (20 feet) higher than the highest mountains the world over (Gen. 7:20). And when it began to recede that incomprehensible volume of water cut the Grand Canyon from flood-accumulated silt a mile deep in a matter of weeks. Karen and I have hiked many dry mountain and desert washes this winter, and have often seen boulders strewn about the dry river bed larger in diameter than we are tall. The hydraulic power of water, even in a local flood, is astronomical. Consider how a global flood that covered every mountaintop on the planet would have reshaped this planet. The Grand Canyon rock strata and fossil record overwhelmingly point to the same conclusion an unbiased casual observer would reach, a catastrophic flood. Don’t take my word for this. I urge you to read Grand Canyon: A Different View, compiled and written by Tom Vail with the help of two dozen scientists contributing evidence and explanations, all pointing to a great flood. Then read my friend’s 10 part blog series of a rafting trip in the Grand Canyon last summer with the author of that book. Blogger Dr. Del Tackett is President of Focus on the Family Institute and Adjunct Professor at New Geneva Seminary in Colorado Springs. He’s an astute observer and a passionate man of God. In the midst of our Lord’s passion, less than 24 hours before he was crucified, he instituted the sacrament of The Lord’s Supper with these words, This do in remembrance of me (1 Cor. 11:24b). It is a profound remembrance that he died in the place of his elect, that they might live with him forever (John 3:16). And in The Great Flood, in the midst of his vengeance on every living creature, save a few chosen pairs on a boat, in a sin-saturated world, he sculpted a monumental work of art that by its magnificence draws the world to it. No reminder is needed at the Grand Canyon to remember that God is a promise-keeping avenger of his holiness. A trillion tons of divinely sculpted rocks cry out. The message echoes through a thousand ragged canyons within the Canyon. It reverberates to the rim for those awe-struck spectators from every nation and tribe and language and people who have ears to here:
Vengeance is mine. I will repay. Position Report Oak Creek Canyon, on Highway 89A between Sedona and Flagstaff, AZ, lived up to its billing as Arizona’s second most visited site after the Grand Canyon. The scenery is just drop dead gorgeous, and the sun sets 2.5 hours early down in that canyon. We found the best hiking/birding trail we’ve ever hiked in the Southwest—West Fork Trail. About half way up the Canyon, West Fork Creek joins Oak Creek from a canyon of its own, about 150 yards wide on average with 800-1000 foot high red walls and lush oaks, cottonwoods, and ponderosa pine growing alongside the stream. The trail along the creek is rated moderately difficult. I’d call it piece of cake easy, not at all steep and treacherous as so many mountainside trails that follow streams can be. As such it was bird heaven, and the farther up that canyon we hiked the more beautiful it got and the happier the birds were, judging from their singing. Today we are parked about 50 miles north of there and 60 miles south of the Grand Canyon, in a national Forest Campground at Sunset Crater Volcano National Monument. The ground is volcano cinders and the only thing that grows in it are ponderosa pines—no bushes, no grass. The forest floor looks like it has been paved with asphalt that has all crumbled. But tranquility abounds. We took a hike in the lava fields this morning and this afternoon are just chillin’ in the shade of the ponderosa, listening to the breeze in the treetops. The visitor center literature I just read says the volcano blew in 1064 A.D., and it is a statistical certainty it will one day blow again. God laughs at such godless assurance. It reminds me of Jimmy Buffet’s musical dilemma, “I don’t know where I’ma gonna go when the volcano blows.” I have no such dilemma. If it blows tonight, not half a mile from our home on wheels, I know where I’m going. And the guvment won’t have to waste a plot on me at Arlington. Life is so good. God is so gracious. Position Report Have you ever been to Sedona, AZ? They call it Red Rocks Country. An inn keeper a century ago made a terrible mistake making a city out of that real estate (and naming it after his wife), even though the zoning board has tried hard to make all construction blend in with the countryside. Even McDonald’s and Burger King are housed in adobe facades that match the soaring red cliffs and rock formations. The scenery is so breathtakingly beautiful it should have been declared hallowed ground, reflecting the glory of its Creator, or at least a national park. Try as I might I could not capture its essence with the camera. The above photo is a poor representation of one small arc of a horizon over 50% filled with towering red rock columns and cliffs. In words, an even sorrier substitute for being there, it’s something like living at the bottom of the Grand Canyon…if it were wide enough to accommodate a city. Highway 89A, running NE out of town, passes through Oak Creek Canyon, the second most visited geography in Arizona after the Grand Canyon. It is federal government land, part of the Coconino National Forest. Deep in the canyon are two campgrounds that required reconnaissance without the rig in tow to be sure we could get in and out without blemishes to our little house on wheels. It passed our inspection and next Monday we will be there. Meanwhile we’ve spent the week at Dead Horse Ranch State Park, an odd name for one of Arizona’s finest state parks. It seems the family who sold the ranch to the state for a park insisted the the name remain as part of the deal. It’s a beautiful northern Sonoran Desert oasis, lush with majestic cottonwoods along the banks of the Verde River. The birds love it too and are here in brilliant abundance. The stars of the show have been the Summer Tanager, the Bullock’s Oriole and the Yellow-Breasted Chat. The resident Bald Eagle failed to make an appearance.
Another pleasant surprise about this place: Just outside the front gate of this park, in the town of Cottonwood, is the sister church to the one we attended last Sunday in Prescott, just 40 mountainous miles from here. The same preacher, Pastor Charlie Perkins, serves them both and we will end up having communion two weeks in a row in two different churches with the same preacher. And just to cement the providential aspect of it all, I have spent the week in my morning devotions studying Calvin’s writing on the means of grace, specifically holy communion! Amazing grace! Here’s the line that keeps echoing in my head: “…[God] nourishes faith spiritually through the sacraments, whose one function is to set his promises before our eyes to be looked upon, to be guarantees of them.” (IV.xiv.12, underline my emphasis) No magic, no miracle performed by the preacher, no power in the act—in fact worthless—apart from the truth it signifies and seals, just a guaranteed, astounding promise set before our eyes. And it is not a frivolous ritual to be taken lightly. Calvin quotes Augustine: ‘…the Lord’s morsel was poison to Judas, not because he received evil, but because an an evil man evilly received a good thing.’ (IV.xiv.15). And for the impious partaker, Augie warns, ‘…it does not cease to be spiritual, but it is not so for you.’ (IV.xiv.16) That truth will be come to mind tomorrow when the preacher “fences” the table, and hopefully every time thereafter. line-height: 150%; margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: 0"> There’s nothing better than an unbreakable promise guaranteed by the highest level of authority, that we are possessors of paradise, eternally, with the loving God who created, for his glory and our enjoyment, all this beauty, which is but a tantalizing taste of what is to come. What could be more astounding than that? |
God's Truth Applied
"...captures
the [Vietnam] experience better than anyone I've read or heard."
"...exciting
journey into the soul of a Top Gun fighter pilot."
"...right
on the mark "...JD
passionately reflects his combat missions, his rage...and his humanity,
quite a combination for a Top Gun." F-100D Super Sabre 
Memorial Day Address
Published Work in Periodicals
A Different Sort of Retirement
A Different Breed of Cat
High-flying Standards
Arrogance and Airplanes
God, Country,
Forgiveness
Thank God for Fighter Pilots
Greater Love Has No Man
The Warrior's Prayer
Salute to a Veteran
An Excellent Adventure
Walking Furrows with Father
Sinners in the Hands of
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