Do you ever get bored in history class? Have you ever gotten bogged down in all the history God chose to include in the Old Testament?
I remember little boys who sat in our church years ago here in Texas, went to our Sunday school, and learned all the verses in Awana. All those weird names like Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, and Antiochus Epiphanes who believed he was great came up in the old bible stores. As boys it was easy for them to care less. Who cares about all those ancient kings, about their plots and assassinations, and about their campaigns to decide who would be king of the mountain for a few years?
Then some of these little boys grew up and found themselves at Paris Island. Before they knew it they were standing on the border between Syria and Iraq with a M-16 in their arms trying to keep insurgents from penetrating the border. It was disillusioning to find out that even some of the political leaders who made the decision to send them into the Middle East didn’t know much about history or about Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds.
Some of the boys and girls who grew up in our church have now returned from seeing their buddies killed in family and tribal feuds that they still don’t understand and what was supposed to be an easy planting of an American style democracy in the heart of ancient Babylon has turned into a police operation trying to keep tribal lords, modern politicians, Islamic sects, and a tiny minority of Christians from murdering and being murdered.
After seeing the horror, the ceaseless fighting, the victories, and the defeats, it’s easy to come back to the U.S. and forget what you learned about Jesus, the Promised Messiah, and instead try to find a little comfort on the weekend watching the Super Bowl with frequent shots of Jack Daniels to dull your memory.
Before you resort to this false remedy, take a look at just one Old Testament passage--Daniel 11. It reminds us that God wants us to learn about the world and its history. It also tells us that the God and Father of Jesus Christ knows all about the blood on battle fields, the promises of diplomatic peace, the breaking of promises and the renewed warfare. God also tells us that He has the last word. Alexander, Antiochus the Great, and Antiochus Epiphanes strut their stuff briefly on stage, but then they die and are forgotten. So will the world leaders of today.
You've got to decide whether you will be among the wise (Daniel 11:33) –among those who listen carefully to Daniel’s predictions and who believe his promises of a future resurrection (Daniel 12:2).
The wise live for God’s promises, obey His instructions, and submit to His Lordship. They are willing to be teased by their friends, lose jobs because they will not cheat, and even die because of their commitment to Daniel’s God. The book of Revelation, like the Book of Daniel, promises that there will be those who come out of tribulation. There will be those who wash their clothes in the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 7:14), those who allow the forgiveness of Christ’s death and the power of His resurrection to transform their character.
In the midst of our disappointments, crises, and struggles against human pride, duplicity, murder, and death, let’s join Daniel and trust the Messiah. I guarantee that the Spirit of Jesus will sustain, comfort, and guide us through all the battles and land us safe in God’s kingdom of peace in the end.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Saturday, January 10, 2009
HAMAS VS ISRAELIS--IS THERE A SOLUTION?
Israeli vs. Palestinian--The Core Problem
January 11, 2009 Daniel 9:20-27
Imagine that instead of arguing over the NCAA Football championships Oklahoma and Texas were engaged in hot combat. Sirens constantly screamed in Mckinney—not warning of tornadoes but of incoming Katyusha rockets from Norman. Children huddled underground in shelters and tried to learn their ABCs.
How long do you think Texans would allow this kind of assault to go unchallenged? So we invade and discover that this is exactly what our enemies wanted. As we counter their rockets with our jets, the escalating civilian deaths move world opinion against us. Our enemy is a terrorist organization that shoots rockets at civilians and uses human suicide bombers. They are also a humanitarian social organization feeding and providing medical supplies and a court of justice in a formerly bribe invested, hopeless population.
This gives you only an initial feel for the issues that fuel the present Gaza War as Israel and Hamas lock down in deadly struggle. Anyone want Clinton’s job as the next Secretary of State with this as the first item of business on the table?
The economic analyses describe the stench of poverty and corruption that plagues Gaza. Political analysts sift through the history and catalogue the attempts at peace in the Middle East, but the angry cries to fight to the death continue. Few ask the deeper question raised by a first century Jew named James, “What causes conflicts and disputes among you? Where do they come from?”
The prophet Daniel answered this question in Daniel chapter 9. He knew all about threats against Israel. He saw his land and Temple destroyed. He himself lived in Captivity, yet as he prays, he does not look for political or economic solutions. He agrees with the answer that Jesus’ step brother James gave. ““ Do they not come for your cravings that are at war within you? (James 4:1)
Down on his face Daniel confessed his sin and the sins of his people. God responded and sent Gabriel, a powerful angel, to reveal God’s answer to the problem of Jerusalem and His Jewish people. If you want to discover what God revealed to Daniel about who would actually do something about the core issue that causes humans to murder each other, listen to the message of January 12th at www.truthencounte.com.
January 11, 2009 Daniel 9:20-27
Imagine that instead of arguing over the NCAA Football championships Oklahoma and Texas were engaged in hot combat. Sirens constantly screamed in Mckinney—not warning of tornadoes but of incoming Katyusha rockets from Norman. Children huddled underground in shelters and tried to learn their ABCs.
How long do you think Texans would allow this kind of assault to go unchallenged? So we invade and discover that this is exactly what our enemies wanted. As we counter their rockets with our jets, the escalating civilian deaths move world opinion against us. Our enemy is a terrorist organization that shoots rockets at civilians and uses human suicide bombers. They are also a humanitarian social organization feeding and providing medical supplies and a court of justice in a formerly bribe invested, hopeless population.
This gives you only an initial feel for the issues that fuel the present Gaza War as Israel and Hamas lock down in deadly struggle. Anyone want Clinton’s job as the next Secretary of State with this as the first item of business on the table?
The economic analyses describe the stench of poverty and corruption that plagues Gaza. Political analysts sift through the history and catalogue the attempts at peace in the Middle East, but the angry cries to fight to the death continue. Few ask the deeper question raised by a first century Jew named James, “What causes conflicts and disputes among you? Where do they come from?”
The prophet Daniel answered this question in Daniel chapter 9. He knew all about threats against Israel. He saw his land and Temple destroyed. He himself lived in Captivity, yet as he prays, he does not look for political or economic solutions. He agrees with the answer that Jesus’ step brother James gave. ““ Do they not come for your cravings that are at war within you? (James 4:1)
Down on his face Daniel confessed his sin and the sins of his people. God responded and sent Gabriel, a powerful angel, to reveal God’s answer to the problem of Jerusalem and His Jewish people. If you want to discover what God revealed to Daniel about who would actually do something about the core issue that causes humans to murder each other, listen to the message of January 12th at www.truthencounte.com.
Friday, November 7, 2008
The Ultimate Candidate
What do you do the day after you have been elected to become the next president of the United States? You’ve been campaigning for almost two years. The evening’s celebration left only a couple of hours of sleep. Certainly it’s time for a round of golf or at least a day off with your family?
No matter what your political persuasion you have to admire the fact that Obama got up, went for his routine work out at the gym, and then went to the office to spend a full day beginning to prepare for the most influential government position in the world.
What does it feel like to shoulder this kind of responsibility? What does it take to prepare yourself for this position? What are the top priorities that must be met to begin to meet the hard task of not just running and winning the Office but actually governing?
Are you thinking—“Those are Obama’s questions, not mine?” That’s what I was thinking earlier this week after the Tuesday’s late nighter waiting for the returns and the results until I read Daniel 7:18 again, “But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever.”
Obama's preparing to be the President for the next four years.
Are you preparing this week to rule with Christ in His Administration?
It lasts forever and ever!
No matter what your political persuasion you have to admire the fact that Obama got up, went for his routine work out at the gym, and then went to the office to spend a full day beginning to prepare for the most influential government position in the world.
What does it feel like to shoulder this kind of responsibility? What does it take to prepare yourself for this position? What are the top priorities that must be met to begin to meet the hard task of not just running and winning the Office but actually governing?
Are you thinking—“Those are Obama’s questions, not mine?” That’s what I was thinking earlier this week after the Tuesday’s late nighter waiting for the returns and the results until I read Daniel 7:18 again, “But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever—yes, for ever and ever.”
Obama's preparing to be the President for the next four years.
Are you preparing this week to rule with Christ in His Administration?
It lasts forever and ever!
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Sleeping with the Lions
“I can’t sleep.” Have you ever pulled up the sheets, put your head on the pillow and yet four hours later you’re still wide awake? If you’re getting to play in the Home Coming game, you’re getting married the next evening, or you’re heading for Colorado for your first elk hunt, the sleeplessness is sweet. You’re anticipating joy and happiness. But some of you couldn't sleep last week for hard reasons.
Some of you lost 30 % of your retirement savings in hours, and you couldn’t move a finger to try and stop the bleeding. Some of you lost your jobs, like the school teachers in Dallas, because someone underestimated salaries by two or three thousand dollars. Multiply this over hundreds of employees, Voila! It adds up to over 60 million and hundreds get their pink slips. No wonder you can’t sleep.
For some of you the loss of savings for retirement or the loss of a career means absolutely nothing. You’ve lost your health and face the big peace destroyer—death. Loss, uncertainty, and fear-- it all adds up to sleepless nights.
For many children Daniel in the lions’ den is one of their favorite bed time Bible stories. Maybe your parents used this story to help you calm down and go back to sleep in the midst of a scary thunder storm. I believe God’s Spirit wants to use this story in the midst of some of the storms we are facing as adults to remind us how Daniel learned to sleep with the lions.
His first step was not to hole up in his mid-eighties. He could have easily retired after the Babylonian Empire collapsed. (That's even bigger than a Wall street Collapse.) He was plenty old enough to settle in to his condo on the Persian Gulf. Instead, when you open to chapter 6 of his book, he is ruling the new Persian Empire with two other guys, and the king is considering the possibility of making him the Prime Minister. It was this total involvement with the new regime that created enemies—enemies that wanted to throw him to the lions.
If our enemies decided to bring us down, if they did extensive research on our daily conduct, evaluated whether or not we carried through and actually did what we said we would do on the job, if they searched for corruption, laziness, or negligence, would they be able to take us out because we are talkers, not doers? The Spirit of God who lived in Daniel lives in us and He is working to create in us the character that he created in Daniel. Daniel could sleep, even with lions, because he had integrity in his career.
The only vulnerability that his enemies could detect was that he practiced what he believed. Three times a day he connected with the great I Am, the true God. He had done this for years, and when the decree went out from Darius, Daniel didn’t protest with a placard in the streets, he simply went right on praying. He continued to have his time with God early in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.
If we want to sleep with the lions of economic decline, a job loss, or illness, we need to follow Daniel's example and spend time listening to God and talking to Him every day. If we connect with Daniel’s God, we connect with the King who never dies, whose kingdom never collapses, and who has the final say over any "lion" who wants to chew on us.
Here are three questions I ask myself after watching Daniel in action:
What changes do I need to make in my conduct this week so that enemies of Jesus will not be able to find any ground for accusing me?
Will I defeat the lions of laziness, procrastination, and coldness of heart, and commit myself
to connecting daily with God in His Word and in prayer?
Will I ask someone to hold me accountable for my daily time with God?
Some of you lost 30 % of your retirement savings in hours, and you couldn’t move a finger to try and stop the bleeding. Some of you lost your jobs, like the school teachers in Dallas, because someone underestimated salaries by two or three thousand dollars. Multiply this over hundreds of employees, Voila! It adds up to over 60 million and hundreds get their pink slips. No wonder you can’t sleep.
For some of you the loss of savings for retirement or the loss of a career means absolutely nothing. You’ve lost your health and face the big peace destroyer—death. Loss, uncertainty, and fear-- it all adds up to sleepless nights.
For many children Daniel in the lions’ den is one of their favorite bed time Bible stories. Maybe your parents used this story to help you calm down and go back to sleep in the midst of a scary thunder storm. I believe God’s Spirit wants to use this story in the midst of some of the storms we are facing as adults to remind us how Daniel learned to sleep with the lions.
His first step was not to hole up in his mid-eighties. He could have easily retired after the Babylonian Empire collapsed. (That's even bigger than a Wall street Collapse.) He was plenty old enough to settle in to his condo on the Persian Gulf. Instead, when you open to chapter 6 of his book, he is ruling the new Persian Empire with two other guys, and the king is considering the possibility of making him the Prime Minister. It was this total involvement with the new regime that created enemies—enemies that wanted to throw him to the lions.
If our enemies decided to bring us down, if they did extensive research on our daily conduct, evaluated whether or not we carried through and actually did what we said we would do on the job, if they searched for corruption, laziness, or negligence, would they be able to take us out because we are talkers, not doers? The Spirit of God who lived in Daniel lives in us and He is working to create in us the character that he created in Daniel. Daniel could sleep, even with lions, because he had integrity in his career.
The only vulnerability that his enemies could detect was that he practiced what he believed. Three times a day he connected with the great I Am, the true God. He had done this for years, and when the decree went out from Darius, Daniel didn’t protest with a placard in the streets, he simply went right on praying. He continued to have his time with God early in the morning, at noon, and in the evening.
If we want to sleep with the lions of economic decline, a job loss, or illness, we need to follow Daniel's example and spend time listening to God and talking to Him every day. If we connect with Daniel’s God, we connect with the King who never dies, whose kingdom never collapses, and who has the final say over any "lion" who wants to chew on us.
Here are three questions I ask myself after watching Daniel in action:
What changes do I need to make in my conduct this week so that enemies of Jesus will not be able to find any ground for accusing me?
Will I defeat the lions of laziness, procrastination, and coldness of heart, and commit myself
to connecting daily with God in His Word and in prayer?
Will I ask someone to hold me accountable for my daily time with God?
Friday, October 3, 2008
The Writings on the Wall
At our Wednesday night prayer and study time Sam Rodgers shared with our group a riveting story about the time he almost drowned in a Tennessee river.
The swimming hole was the perfect place to escape the Tennessee heat and the hours of fun with friends was free.
“Sam, see this place in the river? It looks shallow, clear, and the sandy floor looks like it would be soft on your feet.”
From the safety of the bank Sam’s rugged, powerfully built dad looked his son in the eye, “Whatever you do, son, don’t swim in that spot. The current will sweep you away and you could drown.”
“Yes, Sir!”
A part of Sam wanted to be a good boy, but often when swimming in the river near the spot, he found himself thinking, Looks pretty safe to me! It’s only a few inches deep! A foot at the most!
One day Sam crossed the line and got into the forbidden spot.
The current grabbed him, threw him down stream, and into some underbrush near the river’s edge. His neck braced itself against the current as the river wrestled to pull him under. His mouth was barely above the water and he was losing the battle.
“Help! Help” It was all he could get out as he went under.
Somehow his father skirted the dangerous current, got to his son, and grabbed those upraised hands crying for salvation. Sam was scared silly, but safe on the bank in his dad’s hug.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. Then Sam added, “The sad thing is that I just read about a young boy from my home town who drowned because of that same deceptive spot.”
Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. He should have learned that his grand dad’s pride and defiant idolatry against the true God and it cost him seven years of sanity. Instead, in Daniel 5 we enter a Babylonian party where the sacred goblets from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem are being used to drown the fear of the Babylonians and to praise their impotent gods on the very night when the Persian army was poised to end their revelry forever.
Belshazzar’s story stands recorded on the pages of sacred scripture. He died because the gods of materialism, power, and pride could not save him. In contrast Daniel kept trusting in the true God.
Sam’s father was there with strong arms to deliver him when he was a boy. Your heavenly Father is here today with strong arms to deliver you from Belshazzar’s tragic fate through the forgiveness and the resurrection power that only Jesus can provide.
The swimming hole was the perfect place to escape the Tennessee heat and the hours of fun with friends was free.
“Sam, see this place in the river? It looks shallow, clear, and the sandy floor looks like it would be soft on your feet.”
From the safety of the bank Sam’s rugged, powerfully built dad looked his son in the eye, “Whatever you do, son, don’t swim in that spot. The current will sweep you away and you could drown.”
“Yes, Sir!”
A part of Sam wanted to be a good boy, but often when swimming in the river near the spot, he found himself thinking, Looks pretty safe to me! It’s only a few inches deep! A foot at the most!
One day Sam crossed the line and got into the forbidden spot.
The current grabbed him, threw him down stream, and into some underbrush near the river’s edge. His neck braced itself against the current as the river wrestled to pull him under. His mouth was barely above the water and he was losing the battle.
“Help! Help” It was all he could get out as he went under.
Somehow his father skirted the dangerous current, got to his son, and grabbed those upraised hands crying for salvation. Sam was scared silly, but safe on the bank in his dad’s hug.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. Then Sam added, “The sad thing is that I just read about a young boy from my home town who drowned because of that same deceptive spot.”
Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson. He should have learned that his grand dad’s pride and defiant idolatry against the true God and it cost him seven years of sanity. Instead, in Daniel 5 we enter a Babylonian party where the sacred goblets from the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem are being used to drown the fear of the Babylonians and to praise their impotent gods on the very night when the Persian army was poised to end their revelry forever.
Belshazzar’s story stands recorded on the pages of sacred scripture. He died because the gods of materialism, power, and pride could not save him. In contrast Daniel kept trusting in the true God.
Sam’s father was there with strong arms to deliver him when he was a boy. Your heavenly Father is here today with strong arms to deliver you from Belshazzar’s tragic fate through the forgiveness and the resurrection power that only Jesus can provide.
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Is eat, pray, love the truth about discovering God?
Elizabeth Gilbert's book eat, pray, love is a New York Times bestseller. She's an ace New York journalist, and her tale of a year spent in Italy learning to speak Italian and eating the best pasta in the world, then months of meditation at an Ashram in India eating vegetables and pursuing spiritual devotion in hours of meditation, and culminating in gorgeous Bali where an ancient Yoda-like medicine man and a beautiful medicine woman guide her to balance the extremes of pleasure and austerity encourage a lot of wives in their thirties in unhappy marriages to at least dream of liberating themselves from their husbands and flying away to exotic places. Of course the romance heats up at the end when Elizabeth meets a mature, gorgeous Brazilian business man.
Elizabeth pours out a powerful, witty, and revealing personal testimony. She is definitely open. She hears the voice of god in the midst of her meaningless. She divorces, has an affair, plunges into depression, and then begins the long salvation journey to self discovery. Through meditation she connects with the great transcendent supernatural powers that teach her the spiritual truths that everyone can accept:
Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple--get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. (P. 175).
If faith were rational, it wouldn't be --by definition--faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. (P. 175).
I knew then that this is how God loves us all and receives us all, and that there is no such thing in the universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds. (p. 328).
She admits at the beginning of her book that she's only culturally a Christian. She does love "the great teacher of peace who was called Jesus." She reserves the right to ask herself in trying situations, What would Jesus do? But she can't swallow "that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God." (P. 14)
Before you rush full-speed into the dark and join your local meditation class or take off for an Indian Ashram, it might be wise to read carefully in the historical documents from the first century about the one who referred to himself as the Light of the World. As you read the first four books of the New Testament ask yourself what the historical Jesus actually did do--things like giving sight to the blind, enabling lame legs to walk, and raising dead people. After an agonizing death on the cross, all four Gospels claim that he rose again--a feat that none of the other religious leaders that Ms. Gilbert lumps Jesus with were able to pull off. Jesus was hardly just another great teacher of love.
It always bothers me when Jesus is presented as this hippy like guru of love potient number nine. Why would the Romans crucify a Mr. Rogers wearing first century Jewish clothing? Now someone generating a messianic movement claiming he was God's Son, the promised Messiah from the Old Testament Scriptures, and backing it up with some wondrous divine miracles--now that's a cause that could effect a Roman response.
Speaking of eating, the historical Jesus did quote Moses, "Man shall not live by bread alone," and then went on to claim to be the Bread of Life. Prayer? Jesus didn't give us a mantra to get us out of our conscious mind. He taught us to ask the Father to forgive us our debts because things like breaking our marriage vows, fornication, and the idolatry of thinking that we can get our lives together through our own devotion and discipline do make us guilty enough to face a deserved judgment. Jesus challenges us to face the true guilt because of real personal evil that has infected all of our lives.
I heard on the Internet that Ms. Gilbert is going to marry her Brazilian lover. I pray that the Son of God who turned the water to wine at the marriage of Cana of Galilee will pour His real wine of amazing grace into her life and her husband's. Sexual, human love can only take us so far, then we need the life and love that only the true Lover of our soul can give.
"In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loves us and sent his Son to be the propitiation ( Look it up) for our sins." 1 John 4:10
Elizabeth pours out a powerful, witty, and revealing personal testimony. She is definitely open. She hears the voice of god in the midst of her meaningless. She divorces, has an affair, plunges into depression, and then begins the long salvation journey to self discovery. Through meditation she connects with the great transcendent supernatural powers that teach her the spiritual truths that everyone can accept:
Every religion in the world operates on the same common understandings of what it means to be a good disciple--get up early and pray to your God, hone your virtues, be a good neighbor, respect yourself and others, master your cravings. (P. 175).
If faith were rational, it wouldn't be --by definition--faith. Faith is belief in what you cannot see or prove or touch. Faith is walking face-first and full-speed into the dark. (P. 175).
I knew then that this is how God loves us all and receives us all, and that there is no such thing in the universe as hell, except maybe in our own terrified minds. (p. 328).
She admits at the beginning of her book that she's only culturally a Christian. She does love "the great teacher of peace who was called Jesus." She reserves the right to ask herself in trying situations, What would Jesus do? But she can't swallow "that one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the only path to God." (P. 14)
Before you rush full-speed into the dark and join your local meditation class or take off for an Indian Ashram, it might be wise to read carefully in the historical documents from the first century about the one who referred to himself as the Light of the World. As you read the first four books of the New Testament ask yourself what the historical Jesus actually did do--things like giving sight to the blind, enabling lame legs to walk, and raising dead people. After an agonizing death on the cross, all four Gospels claim that he rose again--a feat that none of the other religious leaders that Ms. Gilbert lumps Jesus with were able to pull off. Jesus was hardly just another great teacher of love.
It always bothers me when Jesus is presented as this hippy like guru of love potient number nine. Why would the Romans crucify a Mr. Rogers wearing first century Jewish clothing? Now someone generating a messianic movement claiming he was God's Son, the promised Messiah from the Old Testament Scriptures, and backing it up with some wondrous divine miracles--now that's a cause that could effect a Roman response.
Speaking of eating, the historical Jesus did quote Moses, "Man shall not live by bread alone," and then went on to claim to be the Bread of Life. Prayer? Jesus didn't give us a mantra to get us out of our conscious mind. He taught us to ask the Father to forgive us our debts because things like breaking our marriage vows, fornication, and the idolatry of thinking that we can get our lives together through our own devotion and discipline do make us guilty enough to face a deserved judgment. Jesus challenges us to face the true guilt because of real personal evil that has infected all of our lives.
I heard on the Internet that Ms. Gilbert is going to marry her Brazilian lover. I pray that the Son of God who turned the water to wine at the marriage of Cana of Galilee will pour His real wine of amazing grace into her life and her husband's. Sexual, human love can only take us so far, then we need the life and love that only the true Lover of our soul can give.
"In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loves us and sent his Son to be the propitiation ( Look it up) for our sins." 1 John 4:10
Friday, May 2, 2008
Burned at the Stake
I finished teaching a mixture of Polish and Czech young people at the Word of Life Camp north of Brno in the Czech Rebublic by 10:30, Sunday morning (April 27th). The next morning I needed to be back in Hungary to teach Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. This left only the afternoon to try and see where Tom Cruise was sitting in Prague when the entire front of the restaurant blew up in Mission Impossible.
Joseph Baucum, one of our Midlothian young people teaching ESL north of Prague, met us at the base of the Charles IV statue, and we began our walking tour. Of course we needed to see the astronomical clock on the South wall of the Old Town Hall in Old Town Square.
Built by Mikulas of Kadan in 1410, the clock brings in every hour with statues of the Twelve Apostles making their appearance in the windows, a skeleton, representing death , shakes an hour glass at an angry Turk. "Vanity" is a statue of a man with a mirror, and "Miserliness" is a man with a money bag shaking a stick. After the Apostles complete their tour, a golden rooster crows and gathers its wings at the top of the clock, the bell rings, and then finally the chimes record another hour. Down the street only a brief walk away is Bethlehem Chapel. It's foundations were laid 19 years before the clock, and it's the place where Jan Hus began to preach in 1402 more than 100 years before Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Wittenberg door.
As I sat in the large, but plain rectangular structure, and looked forward to the center of the church-- a pulpit instead of an altar-- I thought about a humble Charles University professor who, after reading the writings of John Wycliffe, was enflamed to preach in his native language. He encouraged Czechs to read the bible in their own tongue. He stressed the priesthood of all believers, and he attacked a professional clergy decaying in immoral materialism and wordly power. It didn't take long for the religious authorities to rise up to silence Jan Hus.
On December 20, 1409 the Pope issued a bull committing all of Wycliffe's books to the flames and his teachings declared to be heresy. He excommunicated the entire city of Prague, and on October 14, 1414 Hus, surrounded with thirty riders, began his journey to Constance in what is now Germany. Emperor Sigismund had promised him safe passage, but after only three weeks in Constance, Hus was arrested, thrown chained into a prison next to the sewer. He neared death in the stench.
Thirty charges threatened his life and in a Franciscan monastery he was asked to recant. "Unless I am convinced from the scriptures of my errors, I will not recant." Remember Luther's words later at the Diet of Worms--powerful words of trust in Scripture and not religious tradition or human authority. Hus did not recant. He was stripped of his priestly vestments, and burned at the stake.
Today he is a national hero in the Czech Republic. His statue was just refurbished and rules the large square just a stone's throw away from the clock, but today less than two percent of his people believe in the need to trust in the cross that he preached or read the bible he died to proclaim.
I sat in His Bethlehem church and prayed that I won't become weary in opening the Scriptures and teaching them in the power of the Spirit. I prayed that I would not become a professional churchman who inhibits the gifts of all my brothers and sisters, and I prayed that I will never believe that politial power and Jesus' power should be mixed as one. Finally, I prayed that the young people that just heard me teach about wise living from Proverbs would allow the Spirit of Jesus to help them create another movement for evangelical faith in this land that now worships materialism.
As we drove back through Moravia toward Hungary, my friend said, "Communism couldn't force atheism on this people in over fifty years, but western materialism as done it in less than ten.' On Truth Encounter the next few weeks we are going to be teaching a series titled "Dethroning the Goddess of Money." Pray with me that the Lord will help all of us, including myself, to internalize and then practice what Jesus told us, "You can't serve God and Mammon."
By the way the restaurant that blew up in Mission Impossible was created just for the movie. Everything looks fine in Old Town Prague, although a horrible flood did threaten the Medieval buildings. With the Spirit's power it is not a Mission Impossible for us to see a fresh movement of the Gospel throughout Eastern Europe. Pray!
Joseph Baucum, one of our Midlothian young people teaching ESL north of Prague, met us at the base of the Charles IV statue, and we began our walking tour. Of course we needed to see the astronomical clock on the South wall of the Old Town Hall in Old Town Square.
Built by Mikulas of Kadan in 1410, the clock brings in every hour with statues of the Twelve Apostles making their appearance in the windows, a skeleton, representing death , shakes an hour glass at an angry Turk. "Vanity" is a statue of a man with a mirror, and "Miserliness" is a man with a money bag shaking a stick. After the Apostles complete their tour, a golden rooster crows and gathers its wings at the top of the clock, the bell rings, and then finally the chimes record another hour. Down the street only a brief walk away is Bethlehem Chapel. It's foundations were laid 19 years before the clock, and it's the place where Jan Hus began to preach in 1402 more than 100 years before Luther nailed his 95 theses on the Wittenberg door.
As I sat in the large, but plain rectangular structure, and looked forward to the center of the church-- a pulpit instead of an altar-- I thought about a humble Charles University professor who, after reading the writings of John Wycliffe, was enflamed to preach in his native language. He encouraged Czechs to read the bible in their own tongue. He stressed the priesthood of all believers, and he attacked a professional clergy decaying in immoral materialism and wordly power. It didn't take long for the religious authorities to rise up to silence Jan Hus.
On December 20, 1409 the Pope issued a bull committing all of Wycliffe's books to the flames and his teachings declared to be heresy. He excommunicated the entire city of Prague, and on October 14, 1414 Hus, surrounded with thirty riders, began his journey to Constance in what is now Germany. Emperor Sigismund had promised him safe passage, but after only three weeks in Constance, Hus was arrested, thrown chained into a prison next to the sewer. He neared death in the stench.
Thirty charges threatened his life and in a Franciscan monastery he was asked to recant. "Unless I am convinced from the scriptures of my errors, I will not recant." Remember Luther's words later at the Diet of Worms--powerful words of trust in Scripture and not religious tradition or human authority. Hus did not recant. He was stripped of his priestly vestments, and burned at the stake.
Today he is a national hero in the Czech Republic. His statue was just refurbished and rules the large square just a stone's throw away from the clock, but today less than two percent of his people believe in the need to trust in the cross that he preached or read the bible he died to proclaim.
I sat in His Bethlehem church and prayed that I won't become weary in opening the Scriptures and teaching them in the power of the Spirit. I prayed that I would not become a professional churchman who inhibits the gifts of all my brothers and sisters, and I prayed that I will never believe that politial power and Jesus' power should be mixed as one. Finally, I prayed that the young people that just heard me teach about wise living from Proverbs would allow the Spirit of Jesus to help them create another movement for evangelical faith in this land that now worships materialism.
As we drove back through Moravia toward Hungary, my friend said, "Communism couldn't force atheism on this people in over fifty years, but western materialism as done it in less than ten.' On Truth Encounter the next few weeks we are going to be teaching a series titled "Dethroning the Goddess of Money." Pray with me that the Lord will help all of us, including myself, to internalize and then practice what Jesus told us, "You can't serve God and Mammon."
By the way the restaurant that blew up in Mission Impossible was created just for the movie. Everything looks fine in Old Town Prague, although a horrible flood did threaten the Medieval buildings. With the Spirit's power it is not a Mission Impossible for us to see a fresh movement of the Gospel throughout Eastern Europe. Pray!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
