Sometimes... A Prayer Narrative

Following the pandemic shutdown, the number of people returning to the church building in person for worship has dropped significantly. At least in mine and other mainline faith communities I know about. People have become complacent, dare I say lazy, and prefer to have Zoom turned on, cameras turned off, so that they can stay in their bed clothes to 'attend' worship service. This is not secret information nor privileged secrets - folks have talked about these gaps over social media pages for a while. Persons who must have forgotten about how God wants to be worshiped - compare Exodus 19:9-11,17 and Nehemiah 8:1-8; Romans 12:1-2; 1 Corinthians 11:17-22; Ephesians 5:18-20; Hebrews 10:25. We praise God that He had made available the telecommunications that allowed us to worship remotely when everything was shutdown and person-to-person contact was dangerous. We did not have to 'skip a beat' in our worship. However, that was not to be a permanent situation; that situation has been suspended. 

And here we are. Kind of like the African Americans in remote places of the south who did not know that the Civil War had ended and slavery abolished - they believed that the status quo was to be the status quo forever. That slavery would never end. Some believed they were still slaves even throughout the remainder of the 19th century. That's the locked mindset of some professing Christians. 'I'm used to being a remote 'worshiper' having only myself to deal with. Getting washed up, dressed and traveling to a building is not necessary in order to worship.' Worshiping in person has become more of 'I'll worship when I get there - if I choose to come. Who knows? Zoom is so easy - all I have to do is click some keys and 'I'm in'. 

Not only has in-person worship become distasteful, Bible study has become less of a priority so that it is no longer on the menu for too many persons who profess to follow Christ. There is no longer the appetite for it to the extent it once was. I'm not talking the kind of Bible study that is lecture-driven and that are one-way orally so all you do is sit back and maybe look up a scripture during the talk or view it on the mag screen. Or online studies where you are the only participant - where there is no 'iron sharpening iron'. Nor am I talking about personal study and Bible reading time which are essential daily disciplines. These are commendable for the purpose they serve, but is not the same as small group Bible study. I'm talking about members of a faith community coming together with Bibles open and discussing together what the Spirit wants us to learn during that session. Some churches are able to do a hybrid type of group Bible study so that some meet in person and also accommodate via Zoom members who cannot drive, who may be using their work break to participate, are at home with their young ones and might be able to listen and engage in discussion a little at a time, etc. Other churches may do Bible study solely on Zoom where vibrant discussions take place.  Many church leaders have sought ways to engage their members in this vital spiritual discipline through as many practical means that are available, and yet, participation has either decline or has become almost nonexistent. I may be out of line, but I have to ask myself, how can we legitimately refer to ourselves as followers of Christ, if we do not study the scriptures together? How will we come to a knowledge of the truth? When a person of 50 has attended church services for all of his or her life, and is unable to grasp who the "Let us" of "Let us create mankind in our image" is - which is fundamental/foundational truth, how has such a person been using their Bible? Is it truly an open book, a place to seek God and determine His will, or is it on the shelf? What has happened to the desire to see the treasure God has given us in His Word, to taste and see the goodness of God throughout His Word? Do we even consider it to be God's Word, to even consider that it is meaningful for all who consider themselves human, created in God's image? Christ values every utterance from the mouth of the Father, so much so that He is called The Word! That He is the wisdom that we are to seek in scripture. He shared scripture amongst His disciples in an interactive way all during his ministry. Sometimes, it seems that we have recreated worship to please ourselves so that it is just enough 'Christian' in it to get by. What god does a person with that mindset serve? When will a person who belittles the gift of God's Word realize that with such distaste, how can you be saved? What would you even be saved for if worshiping God in the way He wants to be worshiped has no appeal for you?

'Thus saith the Lord:'  (Hebrews 2:1-4)   1)Therefore we must pay greater attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away. 2)For if the message declared through angels proved valid, and every transgression or disobedience received a just penalty, 3)how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? It was declared at first through the Lord, and it was confirmed for us by those who heard him, 4)while God added his testimony by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit, distributed according to his will. 

Sometimes, only a very small percentage of a congregation may gather for Bible study. Where are those who bend the knee to commune at the Lord's Table, for it is the same Word who commanded the observance of this New Covenant? I ask God will it always be this way? Am I doing enough to engage others? Please tell me what more I should be doing! [I want to say to those who give the excuse - "well, I don't want to seem ignorant because I don't know all the answers and embarrass myself! So maybe later." -- I want to ask them, "Be sure to rehearse that excuse convincingly well, because Judge Jesus is coming soon and He will be asking."] 

But a recent small group study completed, and after the closing prayer, the picture that came to my mind was Abraham speaking to God, who was angry with the people of Sodom and Gomorrah: "How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin!" and who was poised to destroy completely every human in those places. Read the account in Genesis 18:22-33 in your own Bible. Abraham began to plead with God because his nephew Lot and his family lived in that wicked place. Lot would go to the gate - which in those times was like the convening place for conferring with the leaders of the city or town and where they held their town meetings. In that way, he figured he had bought time or some kind of favor to be relieved of any unwanted assault or attention, for the people were aggressive with their sexual immorality and lusted with heat - seeing any and everyone as someone to be joined with regardless of gender or species. Lot thought that he had made peace enough with the people so that they would not prevail against his family. The money and illusion of power and importance Lot enjoyed took precedent over hating the very thing that God hated, and instead, deluding himself into justifying his continued presence in that wicked and evil city was not an issue for him.

And Abraham, some distance away, knowing that God was going to wipe out completely both cities, kept asking God these 'what if' questions: what if like 50 people might be righteous in the city, will you still destroy everyone--what if forty-five are in the city, will you still destroy everyone--what if, what if, what if, and Abraham, sensing that he's walking a thin line here, stops at what if ten - hoping that would cover Lot's situation. I was thinking, what if, Lord, our study group was only 30 people, would you still show us your favor and blessing? What if there were only twenty-five of us, would you still show us your favor and blessing? What if, what if, what if, what if, what if there are only 4 of us studying your Word together regularly, would you still show our congregation favor and blessing?  

Lord, not only am I praying for the 100, or the 30, or the 4, but Lord I am asking you to please send more laborers into this harvest, persons who believe Bible study is a vehicle to open our minds, hearts to the revelation of You, to knowing You, to growing closer to You, to living in this wicked world and yet not being of the world, that it is within your Word the stuff to teach us to pray and to shape and inform our prayers so that they will be in alignment with your will, to understand your will for each of us? I should be praying, What if our congregation could be a congregation that studied your Word zealously and applied it? What would our congregation look like?  What if we choose not to neglect so great a salvation, so great because your only Son was hanged on a cross to make a way for us to know you, to commune with you, to worship you and serve you and each other? What would our congregation look like then? What if we obeyed Christ's commandments - for which we must open His Word to find - with our whole hearts, minds and souls - what would our church community look like? What could we accomplish in our surrounding neighborhoods? What gifts could we employ that You have or would graciously be giving us to use to your glory and to serve others which will bring people to Christ? 

Sometimes, I wonder what if and pray, like now, to see such faith in action before I leave this earth, to see more congregations become on fire for Christ and what He would have us do. That we would be the community of love, that we would enjoy learning more and more about our Lord so that we can effectively lead our households to become lovers of righteousness? Lord, what if we prayed your Word together regularly? What if what we do daily will cause you to say, 'Well done, good and faithful servant'? 

Why would you let us build a house for you if we are not worshiping you now in the way you would have us do? If we fail, would You not be justified to take that house from us and give it to those who have a zeal for you and who sacrificially serve you daily? 

Father, I beseech your mercy, I offer up confession that we have forsaken what identified us as your children. Like the prodigal, we left well dressed, full of life, eager to be independent. We are now in tatters, unsure of where we are in your plan, unsure of our ability to do anything, and with our faces pressed into the mire. If it is what it would take, please chastise us, also, so that we can be shocked back into spiritual sanity and return to you without question, without hesitation. Lord, for the sake of your name and in the power of the Holy Spirit may He saturate us in awareness of what we must do now, rather than choosing to wait "for just the right time, sometime." Today is the day of salvation, now is the time to return. Praying for that miracle, Lord, praying and trusting that our sometime has come to fullness and our what ifs into faith in action. In Jesus Name. Amen.

The Ten Plagues on Egypt - Why and on Whom

Almost every Sunday School curriculum - at one time or another - has covered the 10 plagues on Egypt, as it covered the narrative of God's rescue of His people from Egyptian bondage and slavery. Let's refresh our memories on what they were, and then we will attempt to answer the "why and whom": turn in your Bible to Exodus chapter 7, beginning at verse 1 for context and read of the plagues through chapter 12. As you read the account, try to immerse yourself into the story, either as an eyewitness or better yet, in the land of Goshen where the Israelites lived so that you would have experienced what they experienced.

As a serious Bible student will know, the deliverance from Egypt is only one part of the full story. And the full story is only one part of God's overarching plan of salvation (see John 3:16-21). So we start in the Garden of Eden, we witness the betrayal by Adam and Eve and the devil's deception as he poses/speaks through a snake (sidebar: satan the devil has now had several thousand years to "perfect" his evil intention of turning all of mankind against God - and he is really good at it). Being ousted from the perfect Garden, Adam and Eve are in the wilderness suffering from the sin condition that has come upon them physically, mentally, and spiritually. This condition settles into their "DNA", i.e., it is a permanent characteristic of humanity, so that it is passed on from generation to generation. Yet, it was not only impacting humans, but every living thing over which God had initially given them dominion (Genesis 1:26-28; compare Romans 8:19-22) 

In only a handful of generations following the fall in the Garden, the wickedness of human mindsets, morals, and a seeking after other gods had spread throughout the entire inhabited earth; God was grieved over what sin had accomplished in humans so quickly, and how the earth had fared under the 'supervision' of mankind and, justifiably, because of the ravage that sin had caused, God sought to remove that wickedness from the earth. (see Genesis 6:5-8) He would call a faithful man, Noah, to be a witness and to forth-tell as he built the ark of salvation according to God's specific criteria that God's wrath had declared a destruction of sin and those who rejected Him in due time. For 100 or so years, the opportunity was there; however, only Noah and his family - 8 human souls, along with the God-directed collection of land and winged animals would survive the punishment (Genesis 6:8-8:22).

In time, God calls Abram from Ur of the Chaldeans to serve Him. He was to go to Canaan and settle there to fulfill another step in God's salvific plan - the raising up of a people with whom He would come into covenant relationship with. God promised Abram, whose name would be changed by God to Abraham, that he would have offspring more numerous than the stars of heaven. The LORD promised the land of Canaan to Abraham as the place where his descendants would dwell (Genesis 12-17). God would, at the appointed time, open Sarah's womb so that she would bear a son, Isaac, who would be Abraham's promised heir. God also prophesied through Abraham what He would do at an appointed time - offer up His own Son (Genesis 22). Isaac would eventually marry, and would become father to Jacob who, through Divine intervention, would come to be known as Israel. Jacob would become the promised heir, would have 12 sons. One of his sons, Joseph, would be sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, and eventually come to be in Egypt. Through a series of Divinely-willed events, Joseph would become the vice regent of Pharaoh, with the authority of a ruler over Egypt. A famine was foretold that would overtake the region from Canaan to Egypt and surrounding areas. Jacob (Israel) would take his entire household - family, servants, slaves - and relocate in Egypt to join his son Joseph. Years later, Joseph would die; however, the Israelites would be fruitful and multiply in the land of Goshen in southern Egypt. Because Joseph had garnered through the grace of God favor of the Pharaohs, the Israelite people lived well and flourished for about 400 years. However, a new Pharaoh would arise who developed a hatred for the Israelite people, eventually enslaving them and relegating them to captivity in the land. 

And so we now come to the appointed time for God's deliverance of His people. God raised up for Himself an unlikely prophet named Moses, whose life God had preserved despite Pharaoh's mandate for all male Israelite infants to be killed. Moses would come to live in Pharaoah's household until he was 40 years old; Moses would kill an Egyptian who was beating an Israelite, news of which spread like wildfire. Moses escaped to the land of Midian, where he would remain in hiding for 40 years as a shepherd. God was ready to use Moses, even though Moses was reluctant to be the leader and God's agent to deliver His people. God would call Moses' brother, Aaron, to join him for this amazing calling. They were to go to Pharaoh and deliver the message from The LORD, the I AM: "Let My people go." God told Moses that He would harden Pharaoh's heart, i.e., would leave Pharaoh to his own arrogance and rejection of Israel's God, never to relent of his choice to go against the will of The LORD (Genesis 3:19; Exodus 4:21). 

The Israelites were at first very skeptical of Moses' authority and mission, and blamed him for the added labor punishment that Pharaoh had chastised them with. Even Moses became discouraged when Pharaoh immediately rejected God's demand and the people railed against him! God would respond to Moses complaint by using Moses to reveal more fully to the people who the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is, and what He was about to do. God would tell Moses that He was making Moses like God to Pharaoh, and that Aaron would be the prophet / spokesperson. God confirmed again that Pharaoh's heart would grow harder with each successive sign, until God forces His hand and causes Pharaoh to surrender. 

THE PLAGUES

God had ordained 10 plagues to befall Egypt, chiefly to glorify Himself before the human leader Pharaoh and confirm His Sovereignty, His claim to the people of Israel  The people of Egypt would suffer greatly because of the rejection by their god, Pharaoh, of the I AM's demand to release all of the Israelites. These plagues would be unlike anything Egypt had encountered before, impacting both man and beast and the very land itself - defying the Egyptian gods of land, water and creation -- Geb and Khnum, Aker, Amun, and leaving even the war god Anhur, weak and impotent. They would befall the people in succession - one after another, even though the intervals between each varied. They would come to fear the Almighty God of the Israelite people and eventually do all they could to placate their God and turn his wrath away.

What is as interesting to a Bible student is the fact that not only did the Egyptians need to witness the revelation of the God of Israel, but also God's people, the Israelites, needed to know who the I AM, the LORD was. They had not had a personal relationship with this God about whom they spoke about from generation to generation. They did not know him aside from being the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob," their forefathers. They did not know Moses aside from the couple of times they interacted with him; the older Israelites who were still alive would remember Moses as a prince of Egypt until he fell out of favor, which would have cut off any authority he may have had until that time. They have only heard the words that Moses told them were from the I AM; they did not have intimate knowledge of who this "God" was. They lived as a people in a land of multiple gods for every experience in life in the culture of Egypt. The descendants of Israel enslaved in Egypt needed to believe in a God who was great, who was powerful, and who would come to their rescue. They needed to know Him as Sovereign over all creation - not just a favored deity of their forefathers. God would show them who He was, and what His power and authority were: He would allow the Israelites a taste of that power and authority by permitting them to know and even be exposed to the first three plagues that God would pronounce against Egypt!

There is a point upon which not all Bible scholars agree, based on how they interpret Exodus 7:19-21, 8:2-6, 16-18 and the reference to the "whole country of Egypt." But, as we approach the account of the fourth plague - the flies, notice this new statement in verses 21-22, which is not found in the first three plague pronouncements: "21Otherwise, if you won’t let my people go, I will send swarms of insects [flies] on you, your servants and your people, and into your houses. The houses of the Egyptians will be full of swarms of insects, and likewise the ground they stand on. 22But I will set apart the land of Goshen, where my people live — no swarms of insects will be there — so that you can realize that I am Adonai, right here in the land."  A similar statement would be repeated for the next five plagues. The final plague, the tenth plague, God would spare the lives of the firstborn only within the homes where there was sacrificial blood on the lintel. Placing the blood on the lintel was a matter of obedience and faith; by the tenth plague the Israelites should have developed a saving faith and thus obeyed the command. The command was given to the Israelite people so that they would not experience this final plague; if they chose not to follow the commandment, their firstborn would die just as surely as the Egyptians who were not included in this 'salvific' act of faith.

I encourage us to read and re-read these accounts. The reason for doing so: if you have lived in Christ for any amount of time, you will have experienced suffering - not because God does not care for you or has abandoned you, nor necessarily because you/we have done something wrong (John 10:27-28). We may -- not everyone of God's people, but there may be some among those who will, for example, be impacted by extreme weather events and lose materials things as their neighbors around them have, or who may be the victim of an automobile accident like others have suffered who may not be children of God, or other set backs - even unexpected death (Romans 14:7-9; Philippians 2:25-30). Why would God allow these things to befall those whom He has called to be His children? No doubt, the Israelites may have asked the same question, or began to doubt on the deliverance that had been promised. 

We may never know the exact, primary reason. But we will experience, by God's grace, a newer intimacy with God, a new revelation of who He is even in the throes of something negative. God does not promise us that He will make us live forever in these damaged bodies and souls (Romans 7:23-24); He promised to never leave us. He uses the hard things and turns them into something good for a reason that has to do with our eternal souls and eternal relationship with Him (Romans 8:28). While the Israelites would have been pained for a short period of time, their experience nevertheless gave them a new understanding of who the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob was. That He was not some mythical person, nor far away unsympathetic god type, or the god of cultural lore. He is real, He is Almighty, Creator, Sovereign, and Deliverer (Exodus 15:1-18). The Great I AM wants us to know Him as such also; in the new covenant that we are blessed to be under, our future is one that would have been hard for the Israelites of Moses' day to understand. Because our future is founded in the blood of Jesus and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Yet, in both cases, RELATIONSHIP is at the heart of the matter. 

Is our relationship with God beyond stories, Christmas and Easter, good times and material blessings? Do we seek to obey Him by knowing His word and keeping it? Do we long to live a life of sacrifice to Him, or do we long for the days before we knew God when we felt free to live our lives to please ourselves? Have we engaged in relationship with God to know all that He has revealed about Himself, or do we 'engage' with God long enough to get the rewards? These are tough questions; these are tough times. As God shows us in His Word: Today is the day of salvation; do not harden your hearts in rebellion and suffer a death that one can never rise from.

Blessed Are The Pure in Heart, For They Will See God

 

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. What is a pure heart? Does it mean that we must have not one iota of “bad stuff” in our heart? No! Otherwise, no one could meet this requirement! God describes the human heart, shaped by Adam’s sin DNA, as deceitful above all things. (Jeremiah 17:9)  Ouch! Our All-Knowing God also informs us that we are not able in our humanity to fully escape the effects of that damage; Psalm 51:5 tells us that we, like God’s servant David, are born with sinful hearts. Even as babies we cannot have pure hearts!

Do you know the Abraham of scripture, whom God called out of the land of the Chaldeans to become the father of a nation that would be called Israel? Guess what – he messed up. Yep, he messed up kind of big time; his heart chose not to wait on God and instead chose to go where God said not to go. He temporarily stepped out of God’s will, the consequences of which fell hard on him and his nuclear family, and even continue through to our times and actually impacts us! Despite his serious disobedience in that instance, though, God would still come to call him friend! Similarly, those disciples who were considered close to Jesus, his traveling buddies so to speak – who even set aside their regular work and income, and personal schedules to follow Him all throughout Judea, parts of Samaria and Galilee for three years, even they had issues. Some of them were doubters, some had a militant edge, a number of them by their actions told Jesus, “I’m out!” when He was arrested. Still, Jesus would call them His friends – and Jesus does not pick friends willy-nilly! And look at what the apostle Paul says about himself, he who is considered one of the great apostles, faithfully carrying out God’s will to spread the Gospel to the Gentiles, risking his life to do it, so that even to this day, we are experiencing the benefits of Paul’s faithful evangelism: this faithful person who, in God’s grace, saw Divine things that no one else in scripture experienced in that way -- even he struggled with sin!)

So, then, how is it that these faithful persons can be said to have “pure hearts” and see the God of their salvation, the God of promise? How is such a thing possible? It is only through Jesus’ sacrifice for our sins – His death on the cross, a single act – that could make it possible. Jesus’ sacrifice – the Blood He shed for us – had the power of canceling our sin debt, wiping out the condemnation of our souls and protecting us from the wrath of God, because He, Jesus, would cover, i.e., take the guilt of all our sins on Himself. His sacrifice not only liberated us from the body of sin, as Paul calls it, but also opened up the way to God for us, to “see” God as He reveals Himself in His Word, when we repent and accept the invitation contained in the Gospel to believe Jesus is our Lord and Savior. It is possible because when we allow Christ’s blood to “operationalize” in us, when we surrender our hearts – i.e., our wills and presumed right to be boss of our souls, the Holy Spirit, placed in us by God, cleanses or takes away the power of sin in believers’ lives. Then, when we submit to His cleansing work, our hearts will be shaped and trained in righteousness. We will be able to “see” God with spiritual eyes as noted above and experience Him in ways that persons without the Holy Spirit cannot (Psalm 51:1-2,10-12; Romans 6:9-11,17-19; Galatians 5:16-17,19-25; Ephesians 1:3-19). The Holy Spirit enables us to choose obedience – both to repent of sins we know we committed, and those that the Spirit has to reveal to us; to seek and do those things that please God. The process to make us pure before God is called sanctification[1] , which begins at the moment of salvation, and continues throughout our earthly lives until we look like Christ. So how else does the Holy Spirit cleanse and purify our hearts? He works in us through the Holy Word of God, prayer, and circumstances – along with faithful believers in community – to gradually ‘knock off the dirt’ of a life once controlled by a sinful nature. He motivates us to live a clean, moral life, to be “living sacrifices”, and to pursue God’s will in our lives. A pure heart is a heart like Christ’s. This world and our sin nature makes keeping our hearts pure hard work. We must work and submit to what the Spirit is doing for us per above in shaping us like Christ - that’s the purity God seeks. Nothing else this world has is going to shape our hearts in a way that pleases God! If we are to be living sacrifices to God, then our hearts are to be a temple to God. The pure in heart delights in all things God and seeks above all things to please Him. (Psalm 1:1-3; 37:4; 112:1; Ephesians 5:8-10)

For they shall see God. Can we see God with our natural eye? No – no one can. So why does the scripture say that if we live purely before God that we will see Him? Well, the answer to that question is two-fold. First: As the Holy Spirit begins changing us to be like Christ, as our hearts grow in obedience to Him, we begin to spiritually “see” God through Christ and how He has revealed the Father in scripture.  We see Him spiritually by faith as we grow closer to Him. As we continue submitted to God, we will come to see the image of God in others and in the glory of God. As noted in Ephesians 1 above, we are adopted by God as His children at the time of our salvation; the child can see his/her Father!! Secondly:  When we are ‘translated’, that is, when God exchanges our human form for one that is incorruptible, we will be able to gaze on the full beauty of the Lord our God, we shall see Him face-to-face and fall at His feet in worship! For only the pure in heart will gain the heavenly kingdom of God and see Him.  

 

Explore

·       Has anyone experienced this: the water company (in my area it is the Washington Suburban Sanitary Commission, aka WSSC) is doing work on your street and needs to shut the water off for several hours (yikes! But it happens). When they have completed their work, they notify the residents in the area that for the next several hours they should boil their water. Why do you think that is? What could happen if you choose not to follow that recommendation?

·       Again, the foregoing discussion is a lot of meat to chew on. As you go through it, what part(s) stand out for you in a way that you had not thought of before?

·       Lastly, an audit: When we consider the purity that we are called to,  

o   what do we allow into our hearts – the “throne” God’s temple, for a temple is a place where God is worshiped? What kind of media and gaming do we participate in? Does it honor God and His character? Does what we read and what we view with our eyes honor God and His moral standards for us?

o   See our bodies as God sees them – as sacred. Sacred things are treated modestly and honorably. Does how we intentionally dress or not dress, exposing certain body parts – does it honor God? That is, when a person looks at how we dress or expose certain body parts, does it draw him/her toward Christ so that our outsides reflect who we are to be in Christ?

o   Does our conduct toward one another align with God’s Word?

o   What is worship? Do we worship God daily? 

o   The big question is: Do we really want to see God?

Bonus: Let Praises Rise - Trey McLaughlin & SOZ; Open the Eyes of My Heart, Lord - Michael W. Smith

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[1] Sanctification: a process of being transformed into Christ’s image by the work of the Holy Spirit in you. He directs you into the things of Christ - His words, His character, His lifestyle; when we submit to His work in us, not only will we see His transforming power in us and over us, but also will the angels in heaven, and the world around us. Sanctification is a life-long process -- beginning at the time of our salvation until we are raised up by Christ to be with Him.