BINDING THE STRONG MAN

I was talking with a friend of mine and he said what this world needs are some real men. Men who will lead their homes. Men who will do their part to build the home. Men who will follow God, honor Him, and take their family to church. He then went on to quote Mark 3:28 “No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.”

When he said those words I couldn’t help but think of the old slogan for Toys R Us, I don’t want to grow up, I want to be a Toys R Us kid. It saddens me to think of how many are content to live their lives as a manchild. Playing video games and living for sports, bars, and leisure activities only. We have ripped out the study and turned it into the man cave. Inside those walls are the toys and desires of the heart.

Maybe some have been able to practically balance life and career but far too often there is nothing there about God. He has been left out of the equation. This has lead to more and more people leaving church because the man of the house is busy being a child than a leader leading his family in paths of righteousness.

Our churches are hurting because attendance is down. The ball parks don’t seem to have that kind of trouble. Video games fly off the shelves whereas Bibles need to be dusted off. Families are being torn apart if not dissolved before truly forming because he has to do his “thing”. Even advertisements are trending in this way, showing a mother and her kids but no father in the picture.

Why? Because the strong man has been bound. It didn’t require ropes or chains to do it. No, all it needed to bind him was his will to be focused on himself. Such weakness has allowed society to marginalize the dad in the family unit. To make fun of dad at practically every turn in sitcoms. To make women think they don’t need no man and boys to grow up thinking they don’t need to be that kind of man.
Where have all of the good men gone? They are bound up. Some think that they have to prove that they are the man by hurting others in some way. While others just don’t want to get involved, not my circus not my monkey’s. However, it is our monkeys because we have let the men be bound up by the cares of this world instead of letting God set us free. We have undermined godly principles in order to just get what we want.
It is like the kite. It thinks the string is holding it back, but in actuality the string sets it free. No matter how physically strong one is, we need God and His statutes in our lives to be truly strong. Without them, we are cut lose and will sooner or later crash and burn. Satan will destroy all that we held dear because we bound ourselves with the cares of this life.

In Memorial

There is a scene in the book Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (published in 1952) where the hero (the unnamed narrator) of the book memorializes a young man he had known years before. They had both been powerful speakers for the cause but circumstances had separated them. The narrator came upon his friend’s dead body and knowing what he was supposed him to be the same still and gave him a hero’s eulogy. To his surprise this greatly angered the higher ups in the cause. It seems that the dead friend had lost his way and turned his back on them, he was no hero any longer.

Things change over time. Sometimes they change for the best and sometimes for the worst. I myself found I was thinking on these things the other day. Specifically about preachers and where they are now. 

Most of the preachers, I have met, it seems are still highly active in the ministry. Some like myself are pastors, some have become missionaries or even evangelists. There are a number of these men who were called to preach that are pulpit supply, available when the pastor has to go out of town, is sick, or is just giving them the opportunity to preach. As of this writing one young man is seminary while another got married and moved away.

There is a scripture in Acts I would like to reference here, Acts 6:5 “And the saying pleased the whole multitude: and they chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Ghost, and Philip, and Prochorus, and Nicanor, and Timon, and Parmenas, and Nicolas a proselyte of Antioch“. This is about the first deacon board, but that is not my interest here. It is the names and what we know about them. Two of these men went on to be preachers. Mind you not every man who becomes a deacon will become a preacher. Stephen was famous for his only recorded sermon in the following chapter before being martyred. Philip would become an evangelist reaching the people in Samaria and Caesarea as well as the Ethiopian eunuch. Then there are those last five names. Those men had something about them to warrant such a call by the people to this position. For whatever the reason though they dissappeared into the pages of history.

There those young men who have made the annoucement that God has called them to preach who have also faded in like manner. Some saying they never were called, they just got caught up in the moment. Some have passed away do to sin in their lives, and a few have simply walked away for various reasons. I think about this group far more often than the ones still fighting the good fight. I wish I had some answers or a way to get through to them to get back behind the pulpit. I was there in that same position myself years ago but God had mercy on me and has allowed me to serve Him again. With this in mind I know He would do the same for them, Romans 11:29 “For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.”

I won’t memorialize those who have walked away or denied their call and talk highly about them. What I can do is pray they come correct while there is still time for them. Even if their ministry will not be as big as it could have been they can still do something for the cause of Christ IF they will obey His calling.

He keeps running

Luke 15:20 And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him.

There are three sections to the parable of the lost in this chapter. Jesus was driving home the point of the value of a soul. The third part is a narrative not a made up story. We know this because Jesus said “a certain man” in v11, telling us this man actually lived and these events really did take place.

This certain man had had his youngest son ask for his inheritance before it was time and then left to go do his own thing in a foreign country. He had wanted to party and enjoy life to the fullest. However, he made no investments to speak of because soon his money had run out and now he was homeless, hungry, penniless, and broken.

Now that father still had his older son. The older son woud get double the inheritance of the other heir but in this case dear old dad was still alive. This meant the fortune was most likely able to eventually recover the funds already handed over to the younger boy. That also meant the older brother had the potential to become very wealthy. He in essence had the world in the palm of his hand.

All of this though largely ignores our text though. In the text we are told that the father one day saw his younger son finally coming home. When that happened daddy had compassion for his son and ran to him. In that society and that say for a Jewish man to run anywhere for any reason over the age of 40 was a serious disgrace and terrible humiliation for the family, yet he ran.

We can only speculate why he ran. Some say he ran because he loved his son and wanted to take him back. Others site the shame the boy brought on his family and according to a reading of the Mosaic law the boy must be stoned for being unruly and his dad was going to shield him. Other possibilities may exist and it could be a combination ofreasons or even all of them. Whatever the reason this very human father was in that moment only concerned for his boy.

We should circle back to an earlier statement, the one that spoke of how Jesus was trying yo get people to understand just how valuable God finds a human soul to be. That this narrative in fact typifies how God feels and was willing to do what was necessary to save the souls of mankind. To be blunt the father here parallels God the Father. God humiliated Himself by sending sinless Jesus to die on the cross for sinful man.

In that act and every time God forgives our sins when we confess them God is essence is running again for us. We are not going to find an instance when we have gone too far and He says ‘Not this time‘. He ran for us to protect us from the consequences of our sins. All that is required is that, we like younger son, come to our senses and come to Him and confess our sins.

Celebrities

The Bibles in Acts 21:38″Art not thou that Egyptian, which before these days madest an uproar, and leddest out into the wilderness four thousand men that were murderers?”

What has happened here is that the captain of the local garrison in Jerusalem had been informed of a riot taking place in the outer court of the Jewish temple. The crowd was attempting to beat a man to death. As it turned out this man was the apostle Paul. It was his job to maintain law and order so with that he had his men wade into the mass of people and take Paul prisoner.

This Roman centurion didn’t know who he had on his hands now but he knew he had some notable person (a minor celebrity) to be sure. As it turned out he had confused Paul for an Egyptian insurrectionist and as such had arrested him simply because the Jewish mob was trying to kill him. The Egyptian who he had confused Paul with had a one time thousands who followed him into the wilderness because of his promises. Among those promises was that he would soon have the power to knock down the walls of the Roman castle that stood next to the Jewish temple so that the people could take the soldiers by surprise and kill all of their oppressors.

Before that could happen the regional governor had caught wind of this and sent troops to capture and or kill the renegades. So when this false prophet couldn’t deliver on his promises the people turned their backs on him and he ran away. Some time had now passed and the sudden uproar convinced the centurion that this man had returned and his former followers were still mad at him and were now trying to kill him for his failure.

It is interesting that this Egyptian was noteworthy enough for his rebellion against Rome to get a brief mention in the Bible. That there was enough known about him for this tribune to suspect that Paul was this very man and based this conclusion solely on the reaction of the Jews he arrested Paul. Yet when it comes down to it in a day and age where ones name seemed to tell everything about them we don’t know the Egyptian’s name, Josephus mentioned him in his book but he didn’t even write this guys name down. Just because you do something big doesn’t mean you actually become somebody important for it. Our modern celebrities are celebrated for being good looking, having some talent, or being in the right place at the right time. Yet the vast majority will be forgotten quicker than their rise to fame took. They’ll make some one mad, be shown to be a phony, the good looks will fail, or some thing else will come along and they will be has-beens.

In this life fame is fleeting. The real question is this, does God know your name?

Revelation 3:5″He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.”

When the day comes

In both 1 Samuel 30:7 and 1 Chronicles 10:7 we are told that Israel knew that Saul was dead. Because the king and his son’s who had gone into battle with him were now all dead the Isrealites fled from their God given inheritances and allowed the enemy to take over. Here is the kicker though, that same enemy which hated king Saul with a passion was so quick to react to the retreating people of God and to move into what they had abandoned that they didn’t even know Saul was dead until the next day, v7c-8 “then they forsook their cities, and fled: and the Philistines came and dwelt in them.  And it came to pass on the morrow, when the Philistines came to strip the slain, that they found Saul and his sons fallen in mount Gilboa.”Saul gave up before it had been his time. Yes, he had been told back in 1 Samuel 28:19 that he was going to die the next day, “Moreover the LORD will also deliver Israel with thee into the hand of the Philistines: and to morrow shalt thou and thy sons be with me: the LORD also shall deliver the host of Israel into the hand of the Philistines.” However no where was he told who would kill him. As king it was his job to defend to the death his people. He had been chosen to be the undershepherd for God’s people. Jesus said in John 10:11 that the good shepherd would give his own life for his sheep. A good death is a thing to be honored. Saul could have redeemed himself a little bit by dying in battle at the hands of his enemies. Instead he was afraid to be captured alive and humiliated thus leading to he himself ending his own life. He had a choice and why I believe he wasn’t expressly told how he would die.By ending his own life he short changed himself. No doubt seeing his body slumped over his own sword caused the Philistines to have a good laugh at him. One could imagine them making jokes about how big of a chicken Saul was for not facing them in battle. They probably laughed at how he took the easy way out instead of being a man. Let me pause right here and say I am not mocking his suicide, suicide is a terrible monster that I have written extensively about in my book “Suicide: The Bible and Today”. I am merely expressing what the enemy can and often times does say to make things worse.Things may be bad. It may seem as if God has forgotten you. That voice in your ear will say anything to cause you to doubt everything you know and point out that there is another way. It does get hard, I’ve been there many times, don’t give up. If it is your time than let God get His glory from it. There tends to be more going on then we know, Romans 8:28.

Gathering for the feast

If I were to ask you what are Baptists best known for, what would you say? Some might immediately point out our love of food and Homecoming supper. Others might stay with that thought and bring up how much the preachers love their fried chicken. There will be those who will bring up that we have our baptist assigned seats, where we will sit every time we walk through those doors. Some might even be honest and speak about how good baptist have over the years moved their arrival time to five minutes before church starts. To go with that how we will run out those doors as soon as the last Amen has been said.The other day i was going through my facebook memories and came across some photos from nine years ago. They were from our annual jubilee at Sonrise. I had forgotten how I had arrived a couple of hours early to get a few things ready for that.night and had even took a dew pictures of the place before anyone showed up. Before six, a full hour before service was to start, a couple of people showed up to stake out their seats. By six several people were now inside. Shortly after more people began to show up and I just kept taking pictures and posting them noting the time. Once six thirty had rolled around the place appeared to be close to two-thirds full and even the folding chairs we had already set out were being occupied. We ended up having to have all the preachers present to sit up on stage to try to have enough room.That meeting featured two great preachers and a talented family who sang gospel songs every night that week. While the crowd wasn’t as heavy come Wednesday due to people going to their own home church our meeting was packed pretty much every night. Each sermon was on point, songs spot on, the altars filled, and the Holy Spirit had freedom to move. Spiritually we dug into the meal and were well fed. This wasn’t decades ago it was only 2011. The same God we served back then and who moved back then is still here. We just don’t gather like we should want too. The feast is still there for the taking but we still need to make the effort on our part to dig in.

The fire in your soul

Psalms 39:3 “My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue”

Recently I preached back to back sermons out of this verse. The first sermon looked at the word “musing” or more specifically the root word “muse”, which means to think. Even more to the point is that if you add the letter “a” in front of it you get the word “amuse” and this word basically means to not think. We are detaching ourselves from our daily lives by some means that really when it comes down to it doesn’t require that much in the line of thought from us. Perhaps we go to some sort of concert, theme park, play video games, watch movies, or whatever excites you regardless of what it is, it is a means of escape. Our minds are on autopilot and even if it is something that seems to require us to think it is little more than our hearts being required to beat or our lungs being required to breathe. However one slices it, we are being amused or entertained if you will. No effort on our part when it comes right down to it.

Yet here David is thinking, or at least trying to because back in the previous verses he confessed to trying so hard to ignore the people around him that caused him to dread his day that he also started ignoring those who were there to help him. He had been so good at what he was doing he had shut himself off, even from God.

Which brings me to the second sermon. David was now musing, the sorrow of his realization had stirred his heart and that stirring was shifting the ashes around down there. Those ashes being moved around allowed the fuel that laid buried underneath to catch it’s breath and the fire begin to glow. The more stirring that took place the stronger the fire became in his soul, thus he could say “ while I was musing the fire burned”. You see the more he thought about God and His goodness and how he should be acting in accordance with God in both doing and saying the right things the more that old familiar flame grew. Dare I say the warmer he became. Such a stirring can be so beneficial.

That actually brings me to my point for today. Those sermons were written a couple of weeks after I had had a fire in my fire pit out back. A week after preaching them I went to start another fire there but I rally had no luck. There was plenty of fuel but a little stronger wind than I would have preferred, that really was neither here nor there. The trouble was I was starting it late in the morning and there must have been something of a frost or condensation or something, nothing would stay lit. I tried everything I could think of but nothing lasted and finally the what little smoke was being generated died out and was gone. Here is the realization though, it is very true what they teach you in scouting. Always make sure to extinguish the fire, pour water on it. I gave up and put my garden hose away for the winter. Twenty four hours later I went into that same back yard to load some logs into the back of my truck for dead weight. When I went back there I saw smoke rising from where the last of the fire had been the day before. It was out but yet it turned out that it wasn’t.

No one had been back there to reignite that fire. Not me, my wife, or my neighbors; simply the events of the previous day. God was there though. He was reminding me that until the fire has been truly extinguished it can still catch again! This world and all of it’s influences will strive to smother you. Sin will bury you. Laws will outlaw your desires to serve God His way. Amusement of all sorts will pop up to occupy your mind and siphon your talents and responsibilities. Just remember, until He has put out the flame and called you home you are to burn for Him. Maybe today you are nothing more than an hiding ember, tomorrow you could set a forest on fire for God! Keep doing what He has told you to do, He will make a way for you (1 Corinthians 10:13). It may not seem like much now but that little bit could be all the difference in the world for someone else.

Did He ever have a choice?

The other day I went to witness to a guy that the Lord laid on my heart to go talk to about Jesus. When I finally got the chance I told him I have a message for you. His looked at me in total seriousness and I said Jesus told me to tell you He loves you and He died for your sins on the cross. This fella started laughing when I got to the part about the cross and replied “nah, I think if He had any choice He would have put me up there instead. Hey can you do me a favor and hang here over the weekend!” It certainly caught me off guard because that was the first time that I have ever gotten that response, usually it is “I don’t believe that” or something to that effect. I tried to tell him that Jesus did have a choice but he was just to busy.

So did Jesus have a choice? After all wasn’t it the plan before there was even a concept of creating a world full of people as Paul said in Ephesians 1:4 “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world”? That before time even began He was already predestined to die?
The very first time we see Him having a clear choice about dying for us is in Genesis 1:26 where He said “Let us make man in our own image”. He wasn’t speaking to the angels there this was an agreement between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. He could have made this world and left out the very people who would betray Him, but He didn’t. In the garden after the fall we see in Genesis 3:8 “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day” Jesus didn’t come walking in there (and yes that is Him listed solely as the voice of God, 1:3) in the heat of the moment, right after Adam and Eve ate that fruit. At that point He had every right to be angry and to kill them then and there, but instead He ‘waited’ till what we would call a cooled off period of time and then went to them. It wasn’t that He had to cool off or calm down He simply demonstrated His love and choice by waiting and thus set an example for us not to react in the heat of the moment.
Time and time again God showed He had the choice. The famous temptation scene found in both Matthew 4 and Luke 4 have Satan trying to get Jesus to chose to walk away from His mission. While Satan may not have known how salvation would be accomplished he knew Jesus had come for that very purpose and he had to stop him. In fact the very last of the recorded temptations (Luke says this incident occurred after forty days of temptation) Satan’s was basically, fall down and worship me and you won’t have to do whatever it is you plan on doing because I will give you everything on this planet. Satan was offering what he did not possess, at a cut rate price because it meant nothing. Had Jesus taken that deal it basically would have been for only the existing generation to be okay with Satan, but still end up dying and going to Hell, all those who died in faith end up being transferred to Hell from paradise and all future generations would die and go to Hell all so Jesus wouldn’t have to endure the cross and the shame and suffering involved with it.
In the other garden where Jesus lead the disciples to pray, Judas came along to betray Him with a kiss a simple sign to show the soldiers here at night which one of these unassuming Jews was the man they were seeking. That was because Jesus didn’t really stand out from the crowd with His appearance. John 18 tells us that twice Jesus had to ask who these men were seeking and twice He had to tell them I am the one you are after. A kiss and twice flat out telling them I am the one you are looking for to arrest, put on trial, condemn, and hang on the cross to die. That my friends sounds like a pretty big choice to me. To put emphasis on it would be to add that He told Peter in Matthew 26:53 that if he wanted to He could ask for help from God the Father and He would instantly send twelve legions of angels to defend Him, but that wasn’t the choice He was making.

I’m glad He had the choice to give me a choice because if God the Father made God the Son go and die without a choice then I would have to question if He really loved me or just did what He was told. Not only that, I’m even happier still that He chose to die on that cross so that I could have the choice. It proved that, yes Jesus does love me and you. Before we are saved by His grace we cannot truly love Him but once we are saved we can grow more in love with Him every day. One way we can show that love is by going to those who don’t love Him and telling them He had a choice.

Overcoming a mistake

1 Samuel 24:18 “And Gad came that day to David, and said unto him, Go up, rear an altar unto the LORD in the threshingfloor of Araunah the Jebusite.” The very last word of that verse is key. This event takes place at the end of a pestilence that came upon the nation for king David’s great sin of relying on the strength in numbers (he took a census for reassurance) instead of trusting God. They have seen the angel that brought the pestilence standing on this threshingfloor. And God has instructed David to build an altar right there. This place would be the future home of Solomon’s temple.
Here is why the word “Jebusite” is so key. Had this man been a Jew, even though he sold the property (v24) to the king, in the Jubilee year it would have gone back to him. Even if the temple was standing there the land and everything now on it would have belonged to Araunah by God’s law. Because he was a Jebusite, an outsider living in the land, he could sell the land and ownership would stay with the new owner.
Here is the kicker, he was supposed to be dead! The Jebusites lived in Jerusalem when the Israelites first crossed over Jordan and they had instructions from God to kill all the Canaanites (general term for everyoneliving in the land at the time) but they didn’t. In fact David had to drive them out of Jerusalem so he could make it his capital.
So what does that mean for us? Well, if we are saved then you and I are supposed to be getting rid of our old sinful ways (the native inhabitants) drive them out and kill them off or as Paul said we are to bring our body under subjection (1 Corinthians 9:27). But we are human still and we will mess up. What we need to do is own our mistakes (confess them to God) and build a testimony for God’s glory with them. We don’t have to repeat those same sins, we can get our joy back. David did once he got right with God and so can we.

A day

Paul wrote in Philippians 1:5,6 of 3 days in the life of a believer. V5 “the first day” that is the day you are saved. V5 “now” the present day, this very moment. V6 “the day of Jesus Christ” the day you go to meet Him face to face.
That you are saved matters. What you are doing for Him TODAY matters. That He IS coming one day for you matters.