Archive August 2009
X Marks the Spot
Directions can be different from place to place. In Kansas City we don’t say 
Highway 40, we say 40 Highway. In some cities you might look for an address like 13488 West Elm Street, but when we lived in San Jose, Costa Rica years ago we lived 200 meters south of the Shell station and 50 meters to the east next to the green gate.
A week ago I was sharing some thoughts about a specific address in the Bible. Several commented on my remarks and I thought I would put my thoughts down for all to see.
In the days of the divided kingdom in Israel, the ten northern tribes had formed an alliance with Syria to attack the two southern tribes called Judah. Judah’s king Ahaz was in a panic and had already sent money to the regional superpower, Assyria, to buy protection.
God sent Isaiah on a mission to confront Ahaz for his lack of faith and gave him explicit instructions.
Then said the LORD unto Isaiah, Go forth now to meet Ahaz, thou, and Shearjashub thy son, at the end of the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field. (Isaiah 7:3)
There is no mistaking this address and there is no mistaking a word play in Hebrew, as the adjective upper is also translated as most high. Isaiah is to stand at the end of the conduit, or aqueduct, bringing water from the pool of water that supplied the blessing of water to the city of Jerusalem. In other words, he is to stand where the blessings from the Most High empty out.
This spot converges with the highway of the fuller’s field. A fuller is one who makes raw wool white. Isaiah speaks of a Messianic Highway that leads to the way of holiness, where our sins are washed white as snow by the cleansing power of the blood of Jesus Christ.
And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein. (Isaiah 35:8)
From other places in scripture, we know this highway led up out of the city. The aqueduct flows downward into the city. At the point where these two converge, the highway that leads to the righteousness made possible by the one who makes our sin white as snow, and the place where the blessings from the Most High pour out is where Isaiah was to confront Ahaz – X marks the spot.
Can you think of a better place to confront a man whose fear caused him to trust in a human alliance rather than in God? Even the name of Isaiah, Jehovah saves, and his son Shearjashub, a remnant will return, meant for a clear message before Isaiah ever opened his mouth.
But Isaiah did open his mouth and told Ahaz to trust in God alone. Isaiah told the king to ask God for a sign to confirm his power to protect his people. Ahaz piously said that to ask for a sign would be to tempt God. What he did not confess, however, was that he had already struck a deal with Assyria for protection.
Isaiah called his bluff and said that God would give him a sign anyway. And what a sign it was!
Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)
We know that the final and literal fulfillment of this prophecy is the virgin birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. This is so huge we often forget that the prophecy had an immediate fulfillment, too, as is so often the case in biblical prophecy. Isaiah’s wife would have a baby.
In that period of history a man often affectionately called his wife his “virgin,” just as today a man might lovingly refer to his wife of 27 years as his “bride.” The point is that before this child was old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, the two enemies Ahaz feared would be gone. The real enemy, Isaiah went on to say, would be the very nation Ahaz has just hired for protection!
Years passed. The kings of Syria and of the ten northern tribes had ceased to be a threat. Ahaz himself had died and good king Hezekiah was now on the throne. Once again an enemy marched toward Jerusalem, not the two Ahaz had feared, but Assyria – the very power Ahaz paid to protect him.
Hezekiah has not caused this current crisis, but it is very instructive to see where he is standing.
Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them. And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field. (Isaiah 36:1-2)
Hezekiah is standing in the very same spot where his father had said no to God. This is a powerful lesson. At the very spot where you tell God no, one day, sooner or later, you will stand face-to-face with your enemy, who will turn out to be the very thing or person that you trusted instead of God. It may be sooner or later, or it may even be your children who have to face the enemy that you have courted. But it will happen, and God needs no GPS to find the exact address. X marks the spot. Don’t say no to God.
Milestones
I had a conversation with my assistant Emily the other day about life’s milestones. Observing her these past couple of years, one of the things that fascinates me about her is her zest for milestones.
She loves to celebrate special life events by combining her gift of creativity with her sensitivity to life, circumstances and those around her. I’m the type of person who can forget key dates and blow right by them at 100mph.
Recently she mentioned that a certain day marked so many years since she and her family had moved to Kansas City. She had a special night planned to celebrate with her mother. Not long ago she celebrated a milestone birthday and gave serious thought to how to make it special. One of several things she did was to mark the occasion by purchasing a new, wide-margin Bible that would launch her into a new phase of life and would constantly be a reminder to her of the good things before and the hope of things to come.
Truly, I admire that type of sensitivity to key moments in life. Life is too short not to savor special moments and I should learn to do much better. Come to think of it, I usually snarf down my food, too.
Have you noticed that many cultures give special attention to milestones? For example, notice how many streets, neighborhoods and other key elements of society in Latin America are named for key dates of history. The main boulevard in Buenos Aires is the 9th of July.
Biblical cultures are given to celebrate milestones. Think about the purposes of the feasts of Israel. Proverbs 22 and 23 mention twice the danger of removing old landmarks. That admonition had great practical value in a society with few main roads and not many fences, but it also has great symbolic application for us to pay attention to landmarks of life. Once you start thinking about it, the examples of remembering landmarks in the Bible begin to flow – the Lord’s Supper and baptisms to name just a couple.
Maybe we should give more attention to remembering life’s landmarks and milestones. We are good to snap pictures of our kids on the first day of school, but not so good sometimes to go back and celebrate those moments years later. Milestones can have great value to remind of key lessons and blessings, to reinforce good decisions, to teach our children and grandchildren and to simply thank God for his provision and grace.
How do you celebrate life’s milestones?
Who’s Praying for You?
“Pastor, please pray for me.”
I hear something like that with great regularity.
“Of course I will,” is a pretty standard response. However, it grieves me to think of the many times I have said something like that only to forget later. Often those words are spoken in the moments following a church service and, by the time I get through talking to 50 other people, I must confess that I do not always remember the prayer promises I have made.
Over the years I have learned that whenever someone asks for prayer the best way to handle that is to pray for them right then and there. That’s not always possible, of course, but most of the time it is.
Yesterday I was reading through Romans 8 and saw two phrases that never cease to flabbergast me.
Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. (Romans 8:26)
Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. (Romans 8:34)
The Holy Spirit makes intercession for us. Jesus Christ makes intercession for us. Imagine that! God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are praying to God the Father for us!
So, even in those moments when I let people down, or you let me down by not praying for me – God has us covered. We need to pray for each other and with each other. We are instructed to do that and we must do that. But, is it not great to know that Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit are on our prayer team and they never forget to pray for us?
Flying High
In response to our study this morning, a Facebook friend just reminded me of an old but very effective illustration used by Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ. I thought it would be good to pass this on because it really is a good.
Bright compares our spiritual walk to an airplane where one wing represents the word of God and the other wing the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christi is our pilot. If all three are not in place, our holy lives are not going to fly. So true! That’s an image we can all understand.
In our Nehemiah study we looked at the Water Gate. Last week it was the Fountain Gate. Using common symbolism in the Bible, I took advantage of these two studies to point out our need for both the Holy Spirit and the word of God in our lives. We don’t have to choose one or the other; we need them both. In case you missed it, you can see it here. As of Sunday evening it is last week’s study on the Fountain Gate that is featured, and by tomorrow sometime the Water Gate study from this morning will be up on the site (both studies will continue to be available online for quite sometime).
I also use an airplane illustration to illustrate what it means to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. In Romans 7 Paul has cried out asking who or what can deliver him from the law of sin. He expresses the frustration we have all experienced of knowing what we ought to do, yet doing the opposite. Romans 8:1-4 gives the answer. There is another law, the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus, that supersedes the law of sin and death, enabling us to live in God’s power.
The airplane comes into play by thinking how remarkable it is that a big hunk of metal weighing many tons can actually fly. The law of gravity never stops tugging on an airplane. We can fly, however, because the laws of aerodynamics supersede the law of gravity. In the same way, the law of sin and death never stops tugging at our carnal body, wanting to pull us back down to a life that is tied to sin. We find victory as we allow God’s Spirit to control us. It’s not that our fleshly tendencies disappear, they are superseded by the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus.
Thanks, Angela, for the memories. I first learned how to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit from Campus Crusade’s famous blue booklet with the white dove on the cover. It’s been around for decades but is still as true as it ever was.
Bill Bright 1921-2003
One of my special memories is sitting in the RAI Center in Amsterdam in 1983 with 10,000 itinerant evangelists from all over the world and hearing Bill Bright speak on being filled with the Spirit. He was a unique individual and greatly used of God.
By the way, did you know that Bill Bright (and other well-known evangelical leaders of the past generation) is the fruit of woman by the name of Henrietta Mears? She was the Christian Education Director at First Presbyterian Church in Hollywood, California, and for many years hundreds of men and women flocked to her Bible studies and lives were forever transformed. They simply and lovingly called her “Teacher.” She wrote the book What the Bible is All About. Hundreds of thousands of copies of that book have been passed out by the Billy Graham Association, another leader greatly influenced by Mears.
Henrietta Mears 1890-1963
Henrietta Mears died in her sleep in 1963 at her home near the UCLA campus. She never married and never had children. However, her spiritual children literally have helped to shape the world. Hundreds of her disciples went on the serve God in some sort of leadership capacity just like Bill Bright.
Can’t Get No Satisfaction?
For many people satisfaction remains an illusive dream. I wonder if they are looking in the right places.
Some look for satisfaction in fame, power, possession, money or a career. Others seek to be satisfied in personal or romantic relationships. For others, satisfaction is something to be found in hobbies, athletics or outdoor activities. Almost everyone has an idea about what would bring satisfaction. It just seems that very few are really satisfied.
I think the psalmist David had it right.
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. (Psalms 17:15)
So what has really changed since David’s day? David’s desire is the very objective of being a disciple of Jesus Christ – to be conformed to his image.
This is essentially what I have been talking about to groups of pastors over the past two weeks in South America. There is no program, class, study, course, seminar, workshop, method or book (even mine) that can make disciples of Jesus Christ. Making disciples is a biblical command given by Jesus to those of us who are his followers. Making disciples is therefore a lifestyle and a lifelong process. The objective is deceptively simple – to one day awake in his likeness.