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JD Wetterling’s MIDWEEKLY REALITY
CHECK
A
Memorial Day Lamentation
As I write
this on a Sunday afternoon, 4-500,000 motorcycles are making their way
slowly
My thirty-something son, who accompanied me, allowed me to wrestle with my demons in silence as we shuffled in respectful procession, amid that flowing river of humanity, along the overwhelming black onyx wall. I rubbed my fingers over the names of three friends indelibly engraved on that wall: Lance at panel 57W, line 037, Lynn at panel 51W, line 032 and Vince at panel 27W, line 103. It warmed my soul with electrifying, gut-wrenching gratitude to God for such courageous patriots. The sky that day was a dirty galvanized tub inverted over the seat of the world’s greatest superpower. It matched the mood of the hushed cortege while anointing bowed heads with drizzle. Cool drops diluted hot salty ones on ruddy cheeks of middle-aged vets, mine included, for whom the Vietnam War was the watershed event of our lives, perhaps our post-modern culture. It was the first time in our nation’s history that we abandoned an ally on the battlefield, compounding the grief of 58,200 lost lives. On this Memorial Day, 2007, it appears we are about to do so yet again. Mitt Romney, a Republican candidate for President, this week summarized the liberal strategy of political-posturing-over-patriotism better that any I’ve read: “Voting against our troops during a time of war shows the American people that the leaders of the Democrat Party will abandon principle in favor of political positioning. Their votes render them undependable in the eyes of the men and women of the United States military and the American people.” I would add “unworthy” to “undependable.” The liberals’ push for surrender by the world’s greatest nation to tenth rate despots and stateless Muslim terrorists is the most despicable form of cowardice, even treason. How long, O Lord, will we continue to squander the lives of our nation’s brave young men by walking away from wars we start with the noblest of intentions? Every terrorist tortoise in the world knows he can win the race over the Yankee hare, who can’t sprint past the next election. The only help the turtle needs is a cohort of suicidal dupes and a press agent. Until and unless we elect politicians with the selfless courage of our soldiers, America will go the way of every other world power in history, doomed by its political leadership’s own hell-bound hubris. My fears, expressed to my son at The Wall that day, have grown enormously in the intervening eight years. We have an enemy now that has vowed to destroy us, has demonstrated its ability to wreak havoc on us with nothing more than evil ingenuity, with a rabid development program for weapons of mass destruction. The enemy’s advance party is now among us, awaiting orders, with reinforcements clamoring ominously at the gate, and the majority party on the Potomac ties itself in knots over…the weather. It makes Nero’s fiddling while Rome burned seem sane. God help us. I told my son I could envision that awesome granite wall as radioactive lava just a few blocks from ground zero and some old soldier somewhere repeating Jerome's shocked cry for an earlier world superpower—Rome—1600 years ago: “My voice falters, sobs stifle the words I dictate; for she is captive, that city that enthralled the world.” Another ancient eyewitness lamented over another fallen city, Jerusalem in 586 B.C., its sins so similar to 5th century Rome and 21st century America—blatant God-defying sin and covenant breaking rebellion—that this Christian is driven to his knees in fear for his country and his grandchildren. But the prophet Jeremiah, witness to Jerusalem’s fall, after some of the darkest poetic lamentation in all the Bible, expresses the only hope of depraved mankind: Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." The LORD is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him (Lamentations 3:21-25a). This Memorial Day I am grateful to my pastor, Dr. H. Andrew Silman, who preached so powerfully on this passage precisely on the national holiday weekend when my grief for my heroic friends and fears for my country peak, and every annual summit seems higher than the one before. With my namesake, Jeremiah, I have no hope in man or governments in this wearisome, sin sick world, and I groan for the holiness of heaven. My hope is in God’s faithfulness, and biblical hope is hope with assurance based on a sovereign God’s promise that it will come to pass. As Dr. Andy says, “Life is hard, but God is good.” His compassions never fail. Thereon I stake my eternal soul.
Adopted North Carolina native Charles Kuralt said, “If a fella is a mountain man, he’ll tell you. If not, why embarrass him by asking?” I saw his quote printed on a beautiful poster of these mountains in my cardiologist’s waiting room in Asheville this week. I was there proving to the doc, via a nuclear stress test, that I had the “heart of a thirty-year-old,” to quote a smiling nurse. That’s less than half my chronological age, for those who don’t know. I attribute that diagnosis to these mountains, the God-breathed mountain air I inhale, the exercise I get on this topsy-turvy topography, and the serenity my soul absorbs by grace in this Blue Ridge wilderness cathedral. Above all I owe it to the providential God who made them and me and everything else I see here. If you ask, you won’t embarrass me—I’m a recovering flatlander and I’ve adopted these mountains. This was the last free weekend till sometime in August and my bride and I took advantage of the freedom, severe clear blue skies and a perfectly moderate temperate to explore this suburban heaven, something we never tire of. We began by tying a bright red table cloth among the trees of our eagle’s nest, shot a compass heading on the Devil’s Courthouse (352°), a famous rocky promontory on the horizon, then spent the next 40 minutes driving up to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Courthouse to see if we could see our eagle’s nest as clearly from the opposite direction. I know, you’re thinking I have too much time on my hands. But, if I may paraphrase Voltaire’s rhymes in response, it is in every respect / a luxury fit for the elect (The Man of the World). The 4th Commandment requires us to worship and contemplate God one day in seven. The glory of these mountains generates a spontaneous Sabbath in me much more often than that. If there is a better way than this to prepare for the next (eternal) life while gratefully enjoying the God-given gifts of this (transitory) one, I don’t know it. Anyway, we could not see the bright red cloth from 12 miles away, but I was able to just make out, with binoculars from the devil’s overlook, using the reciprocal of the compass heading, a couple of neighbors’ houses. After our picnic lunch we went exploring mountain byways unknown to us and discovered a delightful place (it’s a pdf file and the pics are worth the wait!). It was a house on a hilltop overlooking a small trout-filled lake (minus a dozen or so on a fisherman’s stringer), with a near and far horizon view to die for—gaze down on the lake, up on the mountaintops—well away from humanity and perfect for a family reunion getaway (sleeps 16). I had actually discovered the lake from Wolf Mountain Overlook on the Parkway an hour earlier, a few miles west of the devil’s place as I swept the mountains below me with my binoculars. It wasn’t on my map, but the lakeside sign read Balsam Lake. It appears a landowner bequeathed it all to the guv’ment. It’s now part of the Nantahala National Forest and the house—Balsam Lake Lodge—can be rented out for overnights or weekends. These mountains are full of surprises like this. We also took a trip up over the spine of the Appalachians from Asheville on the southern slopes to Johnson City, Tennessee on the northern, one of the most beautiful one-hour freeway drives (US 26) in America. Kuralt, a lover of 2-lanes for 25 years for CBS, said freeways are a means of getting across America without seeing it, but this freeway was not completed when he was on the road. It took years and millions to drastically rearrange some mountains to carve out four lanes and a wide green median, but it’s been completed long enough now that the non-granite scars have all healed with fresh green. It is so spectacularly gorgeous you need to swap designated drivers periodically to absorb it all and not run off the road, which in some places would result in a freefall to terminal velocity. When I lived in Florida I used to scoff at northerners who claimed to prefer four seasons. Well, now that I am back among them, yet significantly further removed from the North Pole than in my earlier years, I apologize for my arrogant apostasy. A great part of the thrill of the resurrection green of spring is the winter of dormant non-green that preceded it. New life every spring is a soul-stirring form of Blue Ridge typology. I’ll have a new life of my own one bright day, in heaven with God who graciously adopted me, through Christ who makes all things new. It will be a shorter trip than for non-mountain men.
Quiet Beauty Summer arrived this Sunday just past. We spent the Lord's Day afternoon at our mountaintop aerie, basking in the holiness of His Blue Ridge glory. The hymnist said it best:
Heaven above is deeper blue,
Only about 20% of the mountain laurel buds
have opened thus far to accent my favorite color—the new green of spring.
And There was even more to make this particular worship time special—stillness, as in, be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10), another of my favorite things. I have been disappointed to discover that mountaintops and mankind don’t usually make for heavenly quietude. All sounds seem to float to the top—dogs barking, ATV’s defiling the tranquility of the woods, trucks grinding up steep grades in the distance, or guns being fired. Even loud voices carry surprisingly far in the mountains. Perhaps all the noisemakers were inside honoring mama on this special day. The loudest noises we heard were nature sounds—a squirrel high overhead in an oak, chastising us for disturbing his tranquility, (but we outlasted him) and a brief outburst from a crow fussing over something. The only other sound was the baritone buzz of a bumble bee as he feasted on the mountain laurel blossoms all about us, his leg sacs bulging with pollen. Unbeknownst to that aerodynamic anomaly, he was guaranteeing a bountiful crop of mountain laurel blossoms for next season, just one of a billion similar serendipitous scenarios in nature that proclaim the glory of the Divine Designer to all but Christless eyes.
Grace and
Good-by’s
It was two-and-a-half years ago that Brother Jack and I said good-by for the last time. If you don’t know about my dear friend, Annapolis grad, WW II hero, nuke sub commander, Reagan staffer and born again child of God at age 79, then please go here first. He was living in an apartment in one of southern California’s most elegant retirement communities at the time and it was a profoundly moving good-by. But God had other plans. Jack Bennett is still with us, as you can see. As I write this I’m at 33,000 feet eastbound over Texas, (If this were an F-22 I’d be home by now.) returning from a wonderful weekend with Brother Jack, now age 89. He’s proving what I already knew—he’s one tough sailor. In the last two-and-a-half years he has progressed through all the standard stages of retirement community life, from independent living to assisted living to the skilled nursing section, “the last stop,” he said with a smirk. He now needs assistance for everything except thinking and talking, his towering intellect trapped in a languishing body. He’s been unable to communicate via email the last few months, and even phone conversations have been a struggle. Hearing aids just don’t hack it when talking on the telephone. But man to man in the flesh it was like the good old days, though in slow motion. We spent the weekend studying the 14th and 17th chapters of the Gospel of John, interspersed with war stories from WW II and Vietnam. I had some help on my side from our mutual friend, Paul Otto, a retired Navy fighter pilot who lives nearby and dropped in. Brother Jack still insists he wants to be a fighter pilot, probably the only lifelong dream he has not fulfilled. I think he’d be bored after what he’s lived through. God willing you’ll be able to read all about his amazing life in a memoir in search of a publisher, entitled No Time to Waste, about God’s amazing grace in our lives in two wars and His providence in bringing us together. We discussed plans for his memorial celebration. A Navy Captain may retire, but he never quits planning. He has asked me to officiate at his funeral, and I offered to handle the graveside service as well. It will be at the opposite end of the country, the cemetery at Annapolis, where he’ll be interred with his beloved wife, who predeceased him many years ago, and his classmates (USNA Class of ’41). It’s an honor for which I am unworthy but joyfully eager to do. It was such a blessing to witness this self-described “poor student” of the Bible calmly discussing such grim details with all the assurance of a born again child of God. There were bountiful blessings this weekend. Between the San Diego airport and Jack’s place, on Friday, I had lunch with Tim Lickness, an attorney, Vietnam vet, and likewise brother in Christ. We have been email friends for nearly 11 years and this was our first face-to-face meeting. Tim ministers to the Marines in basic training at Camp Pendleton near his home. Sunday morning I addressed the adult Sunday School class and worshiped at Grace Presbyterian Church (PCA) in Orange County, where my friend, Dr. Ron Gleason, shepherds a thriving flock. Brother Jack, Tim, Paul, Ron and the family of God at Grace put the lie to Gallagher’s old joke that SoCal is a bowl of granola. I never met a single fruit, flake or nut all weekend, but I sure met a lot of folks who love the Lord. I still prefer the blue of the Blue Ridge to SoCal’s occasional yellow/brown haze, and dirt under my feet rather than all that concrete, and 2-lane roads over 16-lane parking lots, but God is building his church in sunny SoCal, and the gates of hell will not prevail. As Tim tells his young Marines, “There’s a cosmic battle going on, too, you know. Why not enlist on the side we know is going to win [no matter which way Congress votes]?” Monday morning Brother Jack and I once more said good-by for the last time on earth. “You're blessed to be able to live in such a beautiful place with such a caring staff, Brother Jack.” “I'm blessed for a whole lot more than that.” I concluded with, Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:1-3). That will be a wonderful day, Brother Jack, where…no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Corinthians 2:9 ). “I…am…so grateful.” “And the best, by far, is yet to come! I will see you there, if not before.” My flip response, as I gripped his shoulders, belied the anguish within. I found my way out of my brother’s room and navigated down the wide, carpeted hallway on autopilot, blinded by the Amazing Grace of the Light of the World. Our God reigns.
A Teacher in Word and
Deed
He’s a southern gentleman in the classic sense of the word, right down to
referring to his wife as Miss Lois. In his ninth decade of life he’s a
walking lexicon of comparative religion and a passionate professor of
reformed theology. Sitting in his Sunday School class these last
five-and-a-half years has been like attending seminary without having to
pay tuition. There’s a good reason for that.
Dr. Morton H. Smith is a founding professor of two seminaries. After
studying under
John Murray at Westminster Theological Seminary and earning his
Ph.D. under
G. C. Berkouwer at the Free University of Amsterdam, he helped
start
Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, where he taught for 15
years, and then
Greenville (SC) Presbyterian Theological Seminary, where he still
teaches one day a week. Between those two professorships he sandwiched 16
years as Stated Clerk (Chief Administrator) of the Presbyterian Church in
America (PCA),
where he was intimately involved in writing the Book of Church Order. It’s
been quite a productive life for a World War II throttle jockey—he was an
Dr. Smith is currently teaching through one of his many books, entitled Harmony of the Westminster Confession and Catechisms. I believe it is the best of the many classes I have heard him teach. What a blessing it is to sit under a theologian in the twilight of his years whose inner light burns brighter than ever after a lifetime of teaching God’s word and mentoring men to teach it. To the extent mere man can model Christ as he teaches God’s truths, Dr. Smith comes the closest of any “preacher man” I know. One of his students from seminary long ago, my friend, Rev. William H. Smith (no relation), had this to say in a tribute to Dr. Smith on his 80th birthday surprise dinner: I thank you for your teaching me as a seminary student over thirty years ago. You grounded me in a system of doctrine that has been the foundation of my ministry since I was ordained in 1972. I have told several seminary presidents, as well as others, that, while other professors have their distinctive gifts and contributions, the remarkable thing about your teaching is that you have been able to get across to students a theology they understood, believed, and used in ministry. I am never embarrassed to say, “Morton Smith gave me my theology, and it is that theology that has guided me and that I have preached and taught in every place that I have served as a minister of the Gospel.” I am appreciative, as well, that you have modeled before many of us and encouraged us to have the courage of conviction. You have stood for what you believe in all the seasons of your life and without fear or favor in the life of the Church. All this you have done as a godly man and a Christian gentleman. This grateful elder/Sunday School student can only add, “Amen.” But you don’t have to take Rev. Smith’s word or mine for it. Go here and listen to Dr. Smith yourself. The last lesson this past Sunday, April 29, 2007, from Chapter Nineteen of the Westminster Confession (with questions 98-105 of the Larger Catechism) was profoundly moving. This 350-year old Confession, created by 151 godly Englishmen over a five year period beginning in 1643, at the direction of Parliament, is the doctrinal standard of my denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). It is subordinate to God’s Word, but it is a guide, a roadmap, a scintillating summary of scripture that by God’s grace changed my life a few decades ago. It turned on lights, put puzzle pieces together, and brought coherence to all of God’s Word, with abundant scriptural proof-texts, and I have referred back to it with regularity ever since, both in private study and corporate worship. So it’s not that I am hearing new information in Sunday School class these days, rather I am basking in old truth presented afresh after a lifetime of study by a fellow aviator—convicting, inspiring, sanctifying—delivered with all the passion and plain English an octogenarian seminary professor can muster. And its mega-wattage enlightenment from one of the greatest living reformed theologians, my Sunday School teacher, Dr. Morton Smith! I'll fly on his wing anywhere.
A Little While… Gone is that demonic device, called a TV, from our gatekeeper’s cottage. According to my pastor you could call that a form of fasting (hear his sermon on Matt. 6:16-18) , but I think that would imply there was some want and willpower involved. There is none on my part, only a sense of freedom from revulsion. Thanks to the antidote of Willy and OJ’s transgressions dominating the evening news at the tail end of the last century, I easily, joyfully overcame that addiction. A few months ago my wife realized she hadn’t turned her TV on in her office for several months. She cancelled the satellite service and now only raindrops bounce off our rooftop dish. The only tangible link left to my former life is a hard copy subscription to The Wall Street Journal, going on 38 years now, and that’s in addition to an online paid subscription. I pay serious bucks by periodical standards, even more so measured against the income this “job” provides, and it is not just because, twisted tightly, it make great fire starter, be it campfire or fireplace. I cannot envision ever opening my mailbox to the sound of rushing water and not seeing it folded up there. It’s the only MSM voice of reason left worth real money. It has the only editorial page that is not afraid to quote Scripture and unashamedly espouse biblical principles. God bless ‘em. (In the interest of full disclosure, they have paid me for my scribblings twice in my life.) A few months back they added a Saturday delivery, and that 118-year-old world-leader newspaper got even better. The Saturday edition seems to focus more on the business of life than the business of business—soul food versus money and manna. That is something I desperately needed back when I was trying to corner the world’s money supply and found a two-day weekend a hindrance to achieving my goals. Last Saturday’s edition (April 21, 2007) was a case in point. There were two front-page case studies on the wages of sin in business and politics, and, in one of them, a modicum of redemption. But what most grabbed my attention and caused me to ponder long was a front page article about a 61-year-old high-tech tycoon who cashed in a few years ago. He pierced his ears, spiked and frosted his hair, got tattooed with his friends on an impulse, acquired a 23-year-old girlfriend and now spends his time with his friends flying around the far Southwest US desert in an ultralight airplane. That’s when he’s not building himself palatial homes. I was drawn into the story by the picture of the ultralight because in truth I do miss my flying days, which predate my business days, which I’ve never missed for a microsecond. I confess I lusted over his ultralight—I watched the online video (subscribers only) several times—but by the time I finished the article I had tears in my eyes. I think I would genuinely like this guy—aviators do have a unique rapport. Perhaps one day we’ll meet and get to fly together. But…I felt an overwhelming sadness. When I took early retirement at 57, with far less than a tycoon-class net worth, so that my wife and I might flee to the mountains and Ridge Haven, we discussed at length how these years working not for money but for the things that last were a God-given opportunity to prepare for the life to come. I’m in the middle of a wonderful book by Iain H. Murray entitled A Scottish Christian Heritage. One of the spiritual titans featured in the book is Dr. Thomas Chalmers, the Scottish preacher/professor who’s statue in Edinburgh calls him, “the greatest spiritual force Scotland saw in the nineteenth century.” Chalmers believed that a man in his sixties should give himself chiefly to preparation for heaven, likening the seventh decade of life to the Sabbath rest from worldly pursuits. He prepared right up to the last evening of his life, mentoring the generation of young preachers (M’Cheyne, Burns, Bonar, Summerville, et all) who were used by God to lead the early 19th century Scottish revival. The providential juxtaposition of my preparation-for-the-next life reading with the secular reading is becoming so commonplace it is no longer remarkable. My food for thought, as I hiked these woods these last few magnificent spring days, has been comparing and contrasting a man like Chalmers with a man who “has it all” by worldly standards and is playing his life away. Now it is possible the tycoon knows the Lord, but, if so, it is atypical of the WSJ not to comment on such an important aspect of who he is. Aside from using the word “heaven” to describe a flying scene, the fruit that he bears, as reported in the story, would not be classed as good as the Bible defines good fruit. C. H. Spurgeon said, “A little while—a little while, and then glory forever.” Natural man is not a rational man. How sad that a brilliant man in a position of complete freedom from material want would spend his most precious wasting commodity—the dwindling minutes of his life—focused on maximizing pleasure in the decreasing “little while” rather than infinite joy for eternity. Christ’s warning is crystal clear:
“Even now the axe is laid to the root of
the trees.
For this Reason…? It’s 7 weeks till the first of 7 weeks of Summer Camps at Ridge Haven, when the woods of this wilderness cathedral come alive with the joyful sounds of covenant children. Deadlines loom in all directions for our new Ministry Director as he strives to find and hire all the key people needed and makes decisions on a hundred other critical planning issues. Generally summer is a slothful time for me, as camp counselors pick up a lot of the guest services duties that fall to the Resident Manager the rest of the year, but this summer will be different. The theme of Summer Camp is “No one…” based on a little introductory apologetic book I wrote that was published by Christian Focus Publications last year. I will be the teacher of all age groups—800 to 1000 kids from age 8 to 18, four times a week for 7 weeks. I have done a lot of public speaking all over the country in my life, before a variety of groups, and taught a lot of Sunday School classes and preached a number of sermons (I’d rather write and speak than eat.), but none of them ever excited me like the prospect of this. Since this decision was made, far above my pay grade at Ridge Haven earlier this year, I have been consumed with the prospect of presenting God’s plan of salvation, in Christ’s own plain and simple words, to young hearts and minds. Virtually every passage of Scripture I read these days I see a connection to one of Jesus’ six quotes beginning with “No one…” in the Gospel of John. Memories from my out-of-the-ordinary life come to mind at any hour of the night or day that demonstrate one of these quotes and I ponder ways to tell the story to our campers in a winsome way that drives home our Lord’s truth. I have scribbled notes to myself in a dozen places—notebooks, scraps of paper, margins of books. I wrestle with ideas for visual aids that will help engrave God’s Word for the ages in young minds. I awoke at 3 a.m. this morning, early even for me, with ideas I just had to get recorded in my computer. It is by grace alone that I’m still breathing, let alone planning such a summer. Thirty-eight years ago last night I got into a hellish post-midnight gunfight as a young fighter pilot in Vietnam. I dove through a fire hose of glowing red bullets in my face that looked far too thick to fly through…and survived unscathed. My soul brother wingman did not. I watched him die in a massive fireball, and plane and pilot have never been found. Few days have passed since then that I have not wondered why God spared me and not my friend. There were other survival-by-the-grace-of-God-alone battles, like this one. It doesn’t take much thought for me to come up with some wonderful possible divine reasons to every combat survivor’s question, “Why me?” There have been 38 more years of wedded bliss to the beautiful bride of my youth, two God-fearing adult children married to God-fearing spouses, and 5 grandchildren who are my life’s breath because He chose to spare me. I doubt I will ever know how God prioritized His reasons (if He does that kind of thing) when he planned my life. Perhaps, just perhaps He brought me through it all so that one summer in the autumn of my years I might witness to His Amazing Grace, that I might preach His truth with all the passion and plain English He is pleased to provide me, before 1000 spiritual grandchildren. And one day, long after the “No one…” summer camp T-shirts are worn out, when they are grandparents themselves, they will look back with gratitude on their life and remember the summer of ’07 and that codger with a scruffy beard at Ridge Haven who taught them God’s plan of salvation in Jesus’ own words. Lord willing, they will think, “That man pointed me in just the right direction—the gospel according to Jesus—and “‘No one’ has and no one will take away my joy!” Dear Lord may it be so for Your glory alone.
An
Easter Always Strategy My bride is in Colorado helping her mother move from a beautiful home on Cheyenne Mountain into a condo with a magnificent view of Pike’s Peak. I spent Easter afternoon alone, pondering what I could do, by God’s grace, to make this spiritual mountaintop of Resurrection Day into a plateau that stretches all the way to the horizon. How can an adopted child of God, redeemed with the Son of God’s own blood, sealed unto eternal life with Christ’s resurrection, maintain the passionate joy of Easter morning all year long? With such a list of amazing grace-filled accomplishments by the Son of God, how can I not? I disgust myself. Why do I let the minor irritants of life in this fallen world, the spiritual skirmishes that are in reality just mopping up patrols against an enemy in his death throes, bring me down off this mountaintop? The truth is the old man and the devil in his death throes are still formidable foes—in fact, my old man rarely needs the devil’s help—and with John Owen I must work to mortify the sin still in me. It’s that God-is-providential-but-I-am-responsible truth that seems like such a conundrum to natural reason. But rather than share any more of my post-Easter angst with you, I’d rather offer some practical helps that I’ve discovered and am endeavoring to employ to level the mountain without reducing its altitude. God in his providence has put some great words from my favorite icons of the faith before my eyes this past Holy Week. Phil Johnson at Pyromaniacs quoted one my favorite Baptist preachers of the 19th Century, Charles H. Spurgeon with some help-for-the-ages in this regard:
O blessed morning! not to be celebrated by an Easter once in the year; but to be commemorated on every first day of the week, more than fifty times in each year. Every seven days that the sun shines upon us brings us a new record of his resurrection…. The first day of the week stands for ever as the remembrance of our risen Lord, and on that day he renews his special communings with his people. We believe in him; we rise in him; we triumph in him….
The Christian Sabbath became the Lord’s Resurrection Day, the first day of the week instead of the last, as in Old Testament days, out of the sheer joyous spontaneity of the disciples, the joy that Christ promised them could never be taken away (John 16:22). It was the fulfillment of the Psalmist prophesying, in the present tense to emphasis the certainty of it: The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is the Lord's doing; it is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it (Psalms 118:22-24). By the time the Apostle John was an old man imprisoned on Patmos this day was enshrined till Christ returns as the “Lord’s Day” (Rev. 1:10). The Puritan sage, Matthew Henry, explains it best:
…it may very fitly be understood of the Christian sabbath, which we sanctify in remembrance of Christ's resurrection [my emphasis], when the rejected stone began to be exalted [He arose!]; and so, (1.) Here is the doctrine of the Christian sabbath: It is the day which the Lord has made, has made remarkable, made holy, has distinguished from other days; he has made it for man: it is therefore called the Lord's day, for it bears his image and superscription. (2.) The duty of the sabbath, the work of the day that is to be done in his day: We will rejoice and be glad in it, not only in the institution of the day, that there is such a day appointed, but in the occasion of it, Christ's becoming the head of the corner. This we ought to rejoice in both as his honour and our advantage. Sabbath days must be rejoicing days, and then they are to us as the days of heaven…. Thus highly has God exalted [Christ], because he humbled himself; and we, in compliance with God's design, must make him the foundation of our hope, the centre of our unity, and the end of our living. To me to live is Christ. (3.) The hand of God in all this: This is the Lord's doing; it is from the Lord; it is with the Lord; it is the product of his counsel; it is his contrivance. Both the humiliation and the exaltation of the Lord Jesus were his work, (Acts 2:23-4). He sent him, sealed him; his hand went with him throughout his whole undertaking, and from first to last he did his Father's will; and this ought to be marvelous in our eyes. Christ's name is Wonderful; and the redemption he wrought out is the most amazing of all God's works of wonder; it is what the angels desire to look into, and will be admiring to eternity; much more ought we to admire it, who owe our all to it.
One cannot savor Henry’s thought and be anywhere but at the pinnacle of the mountain. I had been attending church for many years before I realized I went to church on Sunday instead of Saturday as in Old Testament times because it commemorated Easter. Now, too often I forget it. Too often, as a Ruling Elder, I drive to church as if it were a business meeting. I mentally itemize my to-do list—must talk to so-and-so between Sunday School and worship…must tell whathisname thus and such, must not forget to drop memo in pastor’s inbox…ad nauseum. It’s some of the old man’s best work. Lord, have mercy. By your grace may I celebrate your resurrection, honor you alone the first day of every week until you return. I have proven my solo incapability repeatedly, to my great shame. How then to stay rooted at the summit from Monday to Saturday? This Holy Week I read a biography of a man who appeared to do just that. Alexander Smellie has written an excellent biography of Robert Murray McCheyne, a nineteenth century Scottish Presbyterian pastor. McCheyne “…was enrolled among the volunteers and athletes of Christ who have prayed for ‘a short life in the saddle’ rather than a ‘long life by the fire,’ and to whom their Lord has granted their request.” He “burned out for God” with an intense flame two months shy of his thirtieth birthday. At the risk of offending some dear friends, I don’t think they don’t make preachers or laymen like McCheyene anymore. At age 23 he planted (in modern terminology) a church in Dundee that had over 1000 Scots in the pews for the first service, and it grew from there. He had wanted to be a missionary, but in 1830’s Dundee “there was a paganism as dense as that of Central Africa (Does that sound at all like 21st century America?), and early and late he strove to dissipate and vanquish it.” He was driven—“haunted”—by Paul’s admonishment to the Corinthians, Behold, now is the favorable time; behold, now is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2b). He even paraphrased Shakespeare with a better choice of words than the bard’s. “‘There is a tide in the affairs of grace, which, taken at the flood, leads on to safety; omitted, all the voyage of our souls is cast in shallows and in miseries.’ As much as in him lay, he persuaded men to take advantage of that blessed tide.” Here is his practice that resonates most with me, and I am striving to emulate him. “…he waited; he expected; he thirsted [italics mine] for more holiness, more illumination, more fitness for obedience and service. So prayer became the initial necessity of the day. ‘I feel it far better to begin with God,’ he said, ‘to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another.’ And as habitually, he listened to hear what Christ revealed and commanded. His acquaintance with the Bible grew rapidly into a singular intimacy.” I start my day in the Word long before sunrise, my favorite time of the day, and with my weekday schedule it can be pretty open-ended, and often is—an enormous blessing! I have assembled the best devotional reading ever (here and here) this year to accompany my Bible reading. I hear McCheyne saying I must make prayer the “initial necessity,” I must request the enlightenment that comes when the Holy Spirit applies Scripture to my heart before I open the Word to read it—I cannot receive if I do not ask (James 4:2). Then I must listen and strive for singular intimacy with God’s Word, a noble goal indeed that will take much grace. In my Berean proof-texting of the ideas of these great but fallible men of God, with the invaluable (free with a paltry fee for nifty add-ons) productivity enhancing help of Instaverse and e-Sword Bible software, I followed the electronic cross-references to the last book of the Bible, where I found the Son of God’s powerful “altar call” to the Easter mountaintop. In perhaps Holy Spirit’s favorite modus operandi, old familiar Scripture reveals enhanced meaning in the context of my study. In the seventeenth verse of the last chapter of the last book of the Bible, after 66 books of God-breathed revelation of absolute truth, the Son of God says, Come…come…come (Revelation 22:17). Repetition is a common method of emphasis in God’s Word, but here is the unprecedented urgency of triple emphasis. …“Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. How can words be more magnetic than this? Lord, make me always thirsty on your mountaintop. In your Grace make me thirsty 24/7 for that water of life that is free. Sanctify me, that I may come closer and drink more of your life-giving water every day. And please make those I love who do not know you thirst also. Now is the favorable time; now is the day of salvation. Make them to thirst sooner than soon, that they might come and be with me on this Resurrection mountaintop before your Word’s concluding thrice-over promise is fulfilled: Behold, I am coming soon (22:7). Behold, I am coming soon (22:12). Surely, I am coming soon (22:20). With the Apostle John, I pray to my risen Savior, Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!
“…twenty-nine Messianic prophecies [in the Old Testament] were fulfilled in the final 24 hours of [Jesus’] life alone,” according to John Blanchard in Does God Believe in Atheists? The statistical probability of these prophecies coming to pass, made by various men over a thousand-year period ending 400 years before the Son of God came into the world as a babe, is 1 in 1 followed by enough zeroes to make it impossible, absent God’s Providence. Various Bible scholars put the total Old Testament prophecies fulfilled by Jesus in his brief life as high as 425. No other religion makes such an extraordinary truth claim. There is more written about the historical Christ, both before and after he lived, by more people than any other person of antiquity. No other Holy Book details so many eyewitness accounts of miracles. No religion proclaims a Triune God, incarnate by a virgin peasant girl, who raised people from the dead and himself rose from the dead. That the Bible is not fiction is evident from the sheer impossibility of the human imagination to create such a story. At least 10 of Jesus’ closest friends, whose lives he dramatically changed, died horrible deaths themselves because they could not be forced to deny the truth that Jesus was the Son of God. In 1973 a dozen men surrounding the President of the United States, “some of the most powerful politicians in the world,” couldn’t keep a lie for more than three weeks, though none were threatened with the fate of the common men who were Jesus’ disciples (Chuck Colson, in A Dangerous Grace). There can be only one explanation: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8-9). The antithesis is to call a lot of authors liars, indeed calling God himself a liar (1 John 5:10). It takes willful denial to call Christ a myth, willful suppression of the truth (Romans 1:18). The fool says in his heart, “There is no God” (Psa. 14:1). Such brazenly unrighteous rebels will reap what they have sewn in everlasting anguish—God is not mocked (Gal. 6:7). At Jesus’ trial, Pontius Pilate said to him, “You are a king, then!” Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth” (John 18:37). And what is truth? Just a few hours earlier, in the Upper Room, Jesus had explicitly defined truth for his disciples, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6)—the ultimate in extraordinary, exclusive truth. As Matthew Henry said, “…greater, better, surer, sweeter truths can nowhere be found than are found in Christ, by whom grace and truth came.” One of Jesus’ closest friends on earth said in the introduction to his gospel, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). Any other worldview is a lie. And yet many of those first century Israelites who witnessed Christ’s miracles firsthand obstinately refused to believe in the testimony of God’s own Son. On that day when God the Father sacrificed God the Son for ...the iniquity of us all, (Isa. 53:6), the pitch blackness at midday as …the Lamb of God (John 1:29) died meekly on the cross, the earth quaking, rocks splitting, the massive curtain in the Temple’s Holy of Holies audibly tearing within hearing of thousands, and dead men coming to life and walking about the streets of Jerusalem did not convince the masses the way it convinced the centurion—“Truly this was the Son of God” (Matt. 27:35-54)! Not even Christ’s resurrection, which defies any explanation other than divine intervention, witnessed by hundreds, was convincing to those who refused to believe what their eyes and ears were telling them. This onslaught against the truth, this denial of the real with great zeal, is undiminished this Passion Week, 2000 years after the cosmic battle was won. How can this be? God’s truth is unreasonable, the cross offensive—a stumbling block and folly (1 Cor. 1:23)—to natural man, but Christ explained how his plan of salvation deals with willful skeptics, blinded by their presuppositions, early on in his ministry: Jesus told Nicodemus, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). Of all the miracles that Christ performed on earth, none are greater than the miracle of spiritual rebirth the Holy Spirit performs in those God has chosen to adopt, the same ones whose sins Christ atoned for in his death on the cross (Romans 8:28-39). The same power that raised Christ from the dead that first Easter morning likewise still creates new life in those who are spiritually dead, unable and unwilling to come to Christ on their own, giving them sight and insight, a new repentant heart, a will inclined to Christ, and the gift of faith in action unto eternal life. Therefore, I say with the Apostle Paul this Holy Week, ...far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ (Galatians 6:14). It is all of God, all of Grace, from first to last. The closer to glory I get, the more sanctifying, soul-stirring Passion Weeks I am allowed to experience, the more the Holy Spirit enlightens my feeble mind with the profound meaning of this pivotal event in history, this voluntary act of no greater love by our Creator, the more stunningly, self-evidently awesome this reality becomes.
Amazing love! How can it be, Charles Wesley
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