‘VIEW from the POINT’ was the name I gave to articles that I wrote each month for the ‘Wesley Chapel UMC’ newsletter, ‘The Circuit Rider’… THIS explains where that name came from!

It was first published in the February 2000 edition, and again in the January 2005 edition… The ONLY article of mine to appear Twice in the Same publication!!

 

Considering all of the cities and states that this newsletter is sent to, some of you may not know that the ‘generic’ name for Wesley Chapel is ‘Point Church’, due, in some part at least, to the fact that it is in the middle of the intersection of Old 36 & Merritt Road. Since [my then wife] and I Live next door, ‘Point Church’ is the main thing I see out of my window as I sit and write this. Hence, the title of these articles.

Fewer still may realize that the collection of 8-10 houses some miles to our west is called Merritt. Hence, the name of our road.

Merritt was never very big, but sometime during the last one hundred years it did have a railroad. One morning recently, as the sun once again began its morning climb ever earlier, the light was just right as I drove through to highlight the old roadbed. The only thing left, actually, is a field road that runs diagonally to the road, and the remains of an old elevator, but on this morning the sun hit both just enough to remind one of what once was. Now, to the best of my memory, I have never seen any picture of Merritt, let alone a picture of the railroad, or of a locomotive in Merritt. But I had no trouble at all picturing in my mind a small, puffing steam engine working it’s way through town pulling a short freight, or maybe even a mixed train. After all, I know what a train looks like, and on this morning I could envision what the rail looked like. Only a small amount of imagination was required to ‘combine’ the two.

It usually isn’t hard to think about or picture in your mind things that have happened or been built, or people that have been a part of the last 1-2 hundred years or so. We have historical records, paintings, pictures, and accounts of many things. Sometimes we even have the actual physical evidence. An old barn and foundation may remain, or entire villages, such as New Salem, may be reconstructed. Complete battles and battlefields, such as Gettysburg, may be preserved and mapped out, while cities like Chicago and St. Louis have museums to show how they have grown and evolved. We can see pictures of the people, walk the streets and touch and study the buildings and tools of the people who built this country. It is not difficult to ‘see’ and believe how it was then! I don’t have to have seen a train in the town of Merritt to believe that there once was one!

However, if we go back, say, two thousand years, things become more difficult. Yes, some traces of buildings and cities remain, some artifacts can be studied and learned from, but for the most part we rely on any written records from that time to tell us what is was like. These can be few and far between, and may not always be complete. What we sometimes wind up with is only a very small window into that time.

We read and reread the Gospels and other books in our Bible and sometimes wonder why those people couldn’t recognize what was going on around them. What we sometimes forget is that, while these books focus on God and Jesus, Life was still going on all around the world, just as it was 200 years ago, and as it is today. These people were real people, living, working, providing for their families and their old age, doing all of the everyday things that we do today. Only the ‘how’ is different! “Who has time to pay attention to a wild man in the wilderness? And what was that about the Messiah? Well, the priests will sort it all out and let us know!” And, except for those who listened and understood, life went on as always.

We have the advantage, and disadvantage, of two thousand years. True, we have only written records of that time and place, but Oh… what records! The beauty and wisdom contained in all of the Bible but especially poignant in the New Testament books, is alone worth the study. But more than that, it tells us the story of God, and the love that He has for His people. And how those same people failed Him time after time. How Jesus became a Son-of-man for all of us, and how He was so much more! His wisdom and love flows from the pages. He is real!

Yes, the fact that I have actually seen a steam engine helps me to picture one in Merritt. But I do not have to have been in Jerusalem two thousand years ago to ‘see’ how it was. And I do not have to have met ‘Jesus-the-man’ to believe that He was real. He is real to me today. And though I try to imagine what God is, or might look like, and am incapable of it, I still know that He is very much real. I can see and feel His handiwork around me everyday.

Faith? Some might call it that. But I KNOW that steam engines once huffed through Merritt. And I KNOW that Jesus once walked the streets of Jerusalem. And I KNOW that God works in my life every day. How about you?

This was published in the September 2003 edition of the ‘Wesley Chapel UMC Circuit Rider’, the monthly newsletter that I put together up there, editing, arranging, and writing every month for some years.

The ‘Half-a-Century’ was my age at THAT time… A little Math will give you my Current age!?!  🙂

 

Half-a-Century!!! As of this month, that’s how long I have lived! And that has definitely given me cause to pause for a bit and reflect on some of the changes that I have seen in my lifetime.

Consider vehicles… the first car I remember my family having was a ’56 Ford w/short vertical tailfins. The next was our ’60 Fairlane w/huge horizontal tailfins. My ’67 Fairlane was pretty much a square box, as were most Fords during that time until they went retro with the ‘40’s upside-down bathtub look with the Taurus. And mileage? My ’67 got 23 mpg, my ’72 Thunderbird (Big car, BIGGER engine) got 16, and my ’85 LTD got 12.

School? I learned to read with Dick and Jane, and by the fifth grade I was the second fastest reader in our grade at Hartford. Today? I have hired and worked with many high-school graduates who were unable to read the directions in a manual.

Technology? Grandpa had a manual adding machine on his desk as I was growing up that fascinated me. There were rows and rows of buttons to push (1-9, 10-90, 100-900, etc.) and a large handle on the side to pull after entering your number. Electronic calculators came on the general market in the early seventies and sold for around $100 or more. There was great debate and disagreement over some colleges allowing them into classrooms. When the price dropped in the mid-seventies, I bought my first one for around $50. Today you can pick them up for around $3, depending on what you want.

I have recorded audio on reel-to-reel tape recorders, eight track cartridges, cassettes, and CDs. I have ‘lusted’ after reel-to-reel video recorders listed in the Allied Electronics catalog (now Radio Shack), have some hundreds of Beta video tapes, many more hundreds of VHS, and am now working on a DVD library!

Computers? I have unbelievably more computing power in the small box sitting next to me as I write this, that I built from scratch, than the computer MIT had in the early seventies that filled an entire building!

I can most definitely tell you exactly where I was when I heard of JFK’s assassination, as well as where I was when I heard about the Federal building being bombed in Oklahoma City. I watched on the evening news about Woodstock and Kent State… wondered how anybody could be so Un-American as to protest the decisions of their government… then gradually came to realize that when the ‘revolution’ came, I would be on the side that most adults considered wrong!
During Edwardsville’s race riots, I escorted people through the hallways of my high school when the halls were so filled with blacks protesting their supposed injustices that one had to literally force a pathway through. (At my school, they WERE supposed injustices! None of the issues being protested were present at that location.) And I volunteered my time to help clean up those hallways and fire-hoses the day after it was set on fire as a result of those ‘riots’.

I have seen women’s hemlines rise to scandalous heights and then drop back to the ankle as the bodice was opened up to public view. I have seen movies and TV shows go from being family oriented and meaningful to being no more than formats for enticing people to ‘prostitute’ themselves to a national audience.
I have seen men walk on the moon and I have seen our astronauts die as a part of our space program. I have seen hundreds-of-thousands die from hunger all over the world while I’ve watched the corn yields in this country grow from 50 to over 200 bushels-per-acre.

I have seen scandals and heroes. I voted for Nixon, then later watched Gerald Ford… a man who was in no way voted into the position… be sworn in as President. I have felt the shame of watching us pull out of Vietnam and the elation of seeing the Berlin Wall come down. I saw women burning their bras and peace activists burning our flag.

In short, I have watched and/or been a part of what may well be one of the most active and awe-inspiring half-centuries in the history of humankind. In fact, I can only think of one thing that has not changed in the last fifty years… indeed, it has not changed in over two-thousand years… nor will it ever… God’s Word!!!

Yes, the world has changed. Yes, people have changed. And yes, people’s ideas about the world and their relationship to it have changed! But in our attempt to prove how much we have changed… how contemporary our thinking has become… we have tried to reinterpret the Word of God to suit ourselves. But it doesn’t work that way!!! God’s Word is Law! God’s Word is unchanging! And ALL of those who profess otherwise will someday learn the truth and then have an eternity of torment to appreciate it!

Christ’s love for us is unchanged! God’s message to us is unchanged! And the expected… and required… response from us is unchanged! Accept Jesus as the Son of God… and…

…accept His words as the Law that they are!

This was written for and published in February 2002 issue of the ‘Wesley Chapel UMC’ newsletter, and so, Centers around the people living in that area. 

But the message Certainly applies to us ALL!!

 

One of the birthdays that we celebrate during this month of February is that of our sixteenth President, Abraham Lincoln. The occasion usually gives me cause to remember my first visit to his home in Springfield, IL.

The two fourth grade classes at Woodrow Wilson School, in Hartford, IL, would always combine for a field trip to visit the Lincoln sites in and around Springfield. If I’m counting right, I went in 1963. We all gathered early at the Illinois Central train station in Alton and rode to the ‘new’ station in Springfield where we boarded chartered school busses and took off. In one days’ time we went through Lincoln’s home, Lincoln’s tomb, the old State Capitol, the new State Capitol, and New Salem. Having been to each of these many times in the years since, I have often marveled at how that was possible! And yet I have the proof!

Somewhere in one of the boxes of ‘stuff’ stored from my youth, (yes I tend to keep everything, much to [my-then-wife’s] chagrin) are black-and-white pictures from two or three rolls of film that I took on that trip. Some of these are of several of my classmates posing in front of the bronze statue of Lincoln that still stands on the east side of the Capitol building today. I distinctly remember these because of the ‘faux-pas’ that the very young and inexperienced photographer (me) made…I cut off Lincoln’s head in every one! The pictures that I best recall, though, are from New Salem. I have pictures of the oxen yoked and pulling a wagon, various friends ‘posing’ in front of different buildings, and even of the mill down at the river. (Back then we had to ride on the bus to get to it.) But my favorite was one of my mother. She was standing on the porch of a cabin across the way holding the 8mm movie camera. When she saw me, she started filming in my direction. I hurriedly held up my camera and snapped one of her. So I have a picture of her taking a picture of me. But to make it more interesting, I also have the 8mm film! On it is a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me! So actually, my picture is a picture of her taking a picture of me taking a picture of her taking a picture of me!

I also bought a souvenir while at New Salem that I had for many, many years…a die-cast Civil War cannon! There were two sizes to choose from…the larger one was about eight inches and actually ‘fired’ little pellets… the smaller was about five inches and was totally static but very authentic. My finances dictated that I get the smaller one, but several others had purchased the larger, and as we waited in the station for our return train, a small but enthusiastic battle was occurring. And at some point during that battle my cannon was ‘taken out’…one wheel broke off at the axle. However, instead of moaning the loss, I dubbed it my “F-Troop” cannon and continued on. (For those who understand that reference, no explanation is necessary. For those who do not, no explanation would succeed!) For the thirty-odd years that I had and displayed that artifact it was always described as my “F-Troop cannon”.

I managed to return to some of these sites before graduating high school, and each time was a very special occasion. So it was only natural that when I moved to this area as an adult, going to any of them was still very special to me. And as many times as I have been to each over the years, I am still struck with a sense of child-like fascination and wonder each time I go!

 

Imagine, then, my amazement as I came to realize that very few people from around here had ever been to any of them! Indeed, some had never heard of New Salem ‘State Park’…they only knew of the little town over in Pike County! I just couldn’t imagine someone growing up this close to all of these very special things and never seeing any of them! I guess that with them this close, they just didn’t seem as special. But when I would take anyone to see for themselves, their excitement would be as great as my own, and they would bemoan the years that they had chosen to ignore something that close to them.

Many Christians are like that in their relationship with God. Some have grown up in Christian environments and don’t ever remember not knowing the basics about God. Others found Christ a little further down their life-path but have difficulty remembering how and/or why. And more, still, have only touched the surface of the great sphere of love surrounding God and never taken the time to submerge themselves in a deeper understanding of their relationship. The most exciting experience that anyone can have has been right there within easy reach. We just haven’t bothered to see what it was all about!

But occasionally our chains get rattled. Some newcomer comes in and is just so excited about the magnificent things that he is seeing and feeling! God is so Great! Jesus is so Wonderful! The whole story of Love and Salvation is just so Amazing! We sit there with our ‘yes, yes, we know’ attitude, and the newcomer begins to realize that we have never been where he has been…we have never seen and felt the things that he has seen and felt…and we have been this close to it all of our lives!

Sometimes we need to take stock of what’s around us. We need to recognize God’s love for us. We need to acknowledge the death of His Son for us. We need to hear God’s message to us. And we need to be open to His calling of us!

Yes, it would be nice to have someone infuse us with such excitement that we truly begin to see the same things that they are seeing. But those things are there now! They always have been! We have just been too acclimated to them to acknowledge them! Don’t let familiarity blind you to all of the Joy, Love, and Peace that God can provide! Open your eyes…open your Heart…and…

FEEL THE EXCITEMENT!

The Scripture for this is from the Gospel of John, chapter 2, verses 1 – 11… The first miracle of Jesus, turning the water into wine! I gave it at the Lynnville UMC on January 18, 2004.

It is one where, after my ‘story’ I seemed to quote-a-bit from a Commentary… But what IT says is Important! And After That, I get into the Real ‘Meat-and-potatoes’ of the message!!

 

This little red, white and blue card is proof that, at one time at least, I knew how to operate heavy equipment. As best I recall, it cost me just over two hundred dollars… and two hundred dollars back then was probably about like five hundred today! I mean, I was paying .08 – .10 cents a gallon for gas, and until I got this card, had been making $1.25/hour! The big letters at the top of it read ‘International Union of Operating Engineers’, and shows an initiation date of November 11, 1973. I didn’t necessarily remember the date, but I remember the day. You see, it wasn’t enough to just walk in to the business office, plunk down my money and say ‘I want to be an Operator!’ …I had to prove to them that I was an operator!
At that time, the government was sponsoring a training program through the union, and on the acreage behind the hall were a number of government-surplus earthmovers, dozers, cranes, etc., most of which were being operated by young men who were eagerly spending their morning loading dirt from one pile and moving to another, then spending the afternoon loading it from the second pile and returning it to the first. One of the instructors was called into the office, and I was taken back to where the dirt was flying.

 

We first of all stopped one of the earthmovers and he had me climb up into the operator’s seat. Most of this government equipment was equipped with second seats for the riflemen to sit and protect the operator, so the kid that was running that machine moved over and sat in that seat. Now, I had run a lot of machines in my day, even at that young age, but I had never been on an earthmover! He told me how to work the controls to make it move, and he reached over and operated the controls to load it… All I actually did was steer it across the field! OK.
Next, I was taken over to one of the large dozers spreading and leveling the dirt brought over by the earthmovers. Now, I had run several dozers over the years, but all of them were very old with cables, hand clutches and huge steering levers… this machine was all automatic power shift with a multi-function hydraulic blade and tiny steering controls… once I figured out how to make it move I could make it move dirt, but I wasn’t near as smooth as I might have been on a more familiar machine.
I had been told that I was to be tested on just three machines, and so far I wasn’t doing real well!
Finally, the instructor who was testing me took me over to an end-loader… now I was in my element! I had been running loaders of one kind or another since before my legs could easily reach the pedals. I climbed up, shooed everybody out of the way, and put that machine through its paces, loading up one bucketful of gravel out of one pile and dumping it on another, zip, zip, zip. As I climbed down off of it, the instructor just smiled and said, “Why did you go so fast?” I had proven myself… and got my card!
The Life Application Commentary says that until the time of today’s verses, “the disciples (those who had been called thus far) were following Jesus for their own reasons. Others may have been questioning who Jesus was and were following him to find out. John says that when the disciples saw the miracle, they believed in him. The miracle demonstrated Jesus’ power over nature and revealed the way he would go about his ministry — helping others, speaking with authority, and being in personal touch with people.”
“The six stone water jars were normally used for the ceremonial washing of hands as part of the Jewish purification rites before and after meals. According to the Jews’ ceremonial law, people became symbolically unclean by touching objects of everyday life. Before eating, the Jews would pour water over their hands to cleanse themselves of any bad influences associated with what they had touched. When full, each jar would hold twenty to thirty gallons.
The number six and the water jars have been allegorized by various commentators throughout church history. The fact is, Jesus did not make random choices of objects when they were used in miraculous actions. Even the miracles operate under a system of consistency. It is often enlightening to inquire about the reasons behind Jesus’ use of elements like mud, spittle, bread, water, fish, etc., in his miracles. In this case, the empty water jars may symbolize the emptiness of Jewish ritual when true faith is absent.”
Why did Jesus perform miracles? Again, quoting from The Life Application Commentary, “The Gospels record thirty-five miracles, or signs performed by Jesus. In the Gospel of John, each miracle was a sign intended to point people to the truth that Jesus is the divine Son of God come down from heaven. These signs were remarkable actions that displayed the presence and power of God.
The miracles recorded in John’s Gospel (and indeed all the miracles recorded by the other Gospel writers) demonstrated God’s great love for people and his concern for their individual needs. But on a deeper level, they also revealed Jesus’ glory — Jesus’ unique, divine nature portrayed in such a way as to claim our loyalty and reverence. The sign of turning water into wine was a partial unveiling of Jesus’ full identity. His power over nature, death, sin, and evil revealed him to be the promised Messiah. As Nicodemus said, “We know you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him”
What was that? “…no one could perform the miraculous signs you are doing if God were not with him”. So yes, this and all of His miracles were intended as a sign of proof that God was with Him! Where I had to climb up on and operate three different machines in order to prove my worthiness as a heavy-equipment operator, Jesus performed miracles to prove that He had the full support and backing of God, His father! Why, then, do we sometimes find it so difficult to accept these miracles as that proof?
Part of it, no doubt, is the fact that they occurred so very long ago… around two-thousand years! And with the passage of time comes an acceptance of amazing things, and with that acceptance comes a lessening in that ‘amazement factor’! I looked up the word ‘miracle’ on the internet… there were over 5 million listings!!! Everything from the Children’s Miracle network to Miracle Glue to Miracle software to the Miracle Theatre Group… it would seem to me as if we have lost just a bit of the impact of what a ‘miracle’ really is! I’ve talked before about how many ‘miracles’ occur around us everyday! Through so many ‘miracles’ of technology and modern science we can talk to, visit with, and sometimes even see anyone around the world anytime we want… we generally live longer and are more healthy than our predecessors… and yet, even though we live longer… and have more ‘disposable’ time… we have come to expect instant gratification or access on every level, from instant food to instant knowledge, to instant communication and transportation! What our ancestors might have considered miraculous has become not only commonplace, but an expected part of our lifestyle!
So it is that many of our generation… and certainly many more of the younger ones… become less and less impressed with the miracles listed in the Bible… after all, so many of them can be accomplished today by using our current technologies! And I’m going to stand here this morning and tell you that, for the point that I want to make right now, that’s OK… because WE shouldn’t need the proofs of His miracles to convince us that He is the Christ… we have the proof of the test of time!
Over that same two-thousand-odd year period of time, the story of Christ has prevailed and been proven over and over again… it has survived countless attempts by Satan and his minions to dilute it, distort it, belittle it, confuse it, or even eliminate it altogether! Even today there are those who try to call into question the teachings of Christ and distort His words to seem to support homosexuals… there are those who use the ‘feel good’ properties of Christ’s love to try to strengthen the individual and weaken the power of the Church… and there are those who have committed themselves to an outright war against Christianity and the elimination of all Christians. Some people do this in the belief that they are following their ‘god’… some have tried to ‘modernize’ Jesus’ words and have convinced themselves that they are doing what He would have wanted… but I put it to you that ANYTHING that disrupts or detracts from the actual message… the very words… of Jesus, and of His apostles that followed Him… can NOT be from followers and believers of Christ! And if that be the case, we must consider just who they are truly following and working for… whether they realize it or not!
One of my commentaries points out that Jesus had followers… people who believed in Him and His ministry… even before this incident, this ‘first miracle’. Would it help us if we were to walk with Him everyday? Would it help if we could reach out to Him, talk to Him, and listen to His words at every turn, just as those who followed Him then did? Is that a ‘trick’ question? Of course it is… because in everyway, we do walk with Him each day… we do talk and listen to Him at every turn… don’t we?!
All of these miracles are listed in the Gospels as a proof of Jesus’ birthright for the people of that day, and have been repeated throughout the centuries as a continued source of proof if and as needed. But I put it to you that the miracle for us… the very proof for the people of our time… is not in Jesus’ ability to change water into wine… but in His ability to change the very people who are looking for that proof… the ability to change us into the people He would have us be… the ability to change the very world… if WE just look at the truth of His words and accept them unconditionally AS His words!
After all… if He were to have come one thousand years ago, do you think His message would have been any different? How about five hundred years ago… or even one hundred? I say not! If Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, then His words are and must be truly eternal! If that be the case, how can anyone who claims to follow Christ claim that His message for today would be any different?!
I do NOT have a card in my pocket stating that I am a Christian… hopefully any who would chance to question me about that would just be able to tell. And unlike my old union card, which shows the last dues being paid sometime in 1975, there are no dues or time limitations on my being a Christian. God is the God of ALL time! He created the universe and all that is in it! He was there at the dawn of time… He was there to give the Ten Commandments to Moses… He was there during the reigns of David and Solomon… and He was there when His Son was nailed onto the cross and died on Calvary! This is and always has been His world. How can anyone think to improve upon His teachings?

‘Found this in my ‘Odds & Ends’ ‘folder’ today… I have NO IDEA when I wrote it, but it Has to have been more than 4-5 years ago… ‘Just ‘putting-it-out-there’…

 

Well, once again a ‘liberal’ ‘commented’ on one of my posts, This one on a conservative page… Though roughly 3-out-of-every-four words used were either misspelled, mis-used, or just plain ‘invented’, I Think he was declaring All Christians in General, and ME in particular, as having caused all of the ‘sin’ in the world because Somehow we refused to be ‘tolerant’… This was my reply, and it seems to have become my Standard one in these instances… I think I’ll just ‘Save’ and ‘Paste’ instead of rewriting it each time…

“It is NOT a question of what Christians ‘believe’… It is what the Bible says! If there is a God, then there is a Satan. If there is a God, then the Bible is His Inspired Word. ANYthing and EVERYthing that is Not of God IS of Satan! Therefore, ANYthing and EVERYthing that goes against, tries to change, or re-interpret the Inspired Word of God is of Satan! It REALLY IS just that simple! YES, there have been, and ARE, many things said & done in the ‘name’ of Christianity that are Certainly Not Christ-like… and, therefore, Also of Satan!! But the fact remains that the answers to Every question, every doubt, every fear that a human might have IS IN THERE!!! It Is True there have been far too many falsehoods spread throughout the ages since Christ was sacrificed and rose to live again! And Each of them come from only one source… Since we can safely assume that God has not been spreading falsehoods about Himself, there is only one option left!!”

I ‘found’ this little piece in the ‘Steve’s Stuff’ folder I have on my computer, ‘hiding’ in the ‘Odds & Ends’ file. 🙂

As it notes at the end, I wrote it in 2012…

One paragraph of it appears in my book, ‘What We Learn’.

 

IS GOD FALLIBLE?!?

Apparently millions of people, including some who call themselves Christians, think so! They seem to think that He somehow over-looked the passage of time when He arranged for His Words to be written and passed down through the generations. Why else would there be such disagreement, ‘interpretation’, and out-right denial of how certain passages read?

But the Truth is, God has Not changed! His Word has Not changed! And the Meaning of His Words have Not changed! Nor Will they!

What Has changed is man’s ideas and ‘moral’ concepts… but to where… or whom… do we owe these ‘modern’ thoughts? The answer, to me (and Should be to Everyone…), is simple… ANYTHING that is Not of God… is of Satan!!!

If we keep distorting and re-interpreting the Bible to ‘fit’ the things ‘we’ want to believe… If we keep declaring that ‘We’ are wiser, now, than God was then… If we can not get back to the fundamental truths that are So Obvious in the Bible and restore our social order and morals back to what God intended… Then ‘we’ as a People… and a Country… are very near the end of our existence as we know it!!!

No, I am no ‘John-the Baptist’, a ‘voice crying in the wilderness’! But what I say next I believe with EVERY OUNCE of my being… and it has Had to have come from Somewhere!

Unless we begin to accept and recognize that EVERYTHING around us that is Not of God is of Satan… then this country will not exist as it is for much more than 5-6 years!!!

I Pray that I’m wrong… but I Know that I’m not! Satan is Everywhere… and God will punish the United States Just as surely… and as completely… as He Ever did Israel!!!

MY God is Not fallible! He asks us to love Him above All others, and to love our neighbors as ourselves… He also gives us some guidelines of things To do, and some Definite things to Not do! However, MY God Is a Jealous God… He does not ask Much of us… But what He asks, He Demands!! It is NOT given to Any One of US to rewrite His Word on Any account… To do so is nothing short of the handy-work of Satan!

When that moment comes that each us stands before the Throne of God, we will Not be judged on how well we obeyed and followed the laws, concepts, and morals of society… But on how strongly we Believed in and followed Him!!!

Steven C. Luebbert
August 04, 2012

This is a ‘talk’ I gave at the Lynnville UMC on February 6, 2005. I also did a ‘rewrite’ of it and used it at the ‘Hartford East Maple Street Chapel’ on April 20, 2008. THIS is, obviously the Original version! 🙂

The basic Scripture is from 2 Peter 1: 16-21, and includes references from Exodus 24,12-18, Psalm 99, and Matthew 17: 1-9 …

(I Also ‘cut’ the last paragraph since it was a lead-in to Holy Communion!)

 

One thing that all of us who watched the original Star Trek series in the late ‘60’s learned early on was to never… never… ever… wear a red shirt when beaming down to a planet for the first time! You might have all of the salt sucked out of your body, or jump on an exploding rock, but however it might happen, you could just about count on being killed! The next thing that those of us watching learned was that that didn’t seem to matter… the red-shirt that was zapped by lightning in one episode was the same one that the Horta dissolved into a puddle of acid three weeks later! In fact, all of us who have ever watched television or been to a movie are well aware that much of what we see on ‘the screen’ is ‘film-maker’s magic’. And so it was with some air of disbelief that the twenty-odd students going through the training program sponsored by the Operating Engineers union sat to watch the safety film produced and provided by the Carpenter’s Union.

It was the winter of 1973/74, I was three years out of high-school and had been married for less than a year, and was about the average age of all those attending this eight-week training program. And the film we were watching was very graphic for its day… we saw one scene where someone came and distracted a man using a radial-arm saw and watched the blade slice off his fingers… another scene showed a guy holding a piece of wood with one hand and drilling with the other… you guessed it, he drilled through his hand… and scene after scene of things just like these, all intended to make one be aware of just how dangerous all of these things can be. And I must say that I, at least, learned something from it… to this day, every time I pick up a power tool I think of all of the things that I’m not supposed to do with it… and sometimes, I even pay attention and don’t do them!

Another aspect of our safety training during that program was listening to some of the stories of our instructors. Each of them had been an operator for many years and had seen many kinds of mishaps… some funny… some not so funny. One told of running a crane during the building of the Poplar Street Bridge across the Mississippi River into St. Louis. There was a radio tower near by that was surrounded by a chain-link fence, complete with barbed-wire around the top. The caretaker had a really nice watermelon patch he tended inside of that fence. On occasion, this operator would have somebody hang on the cable as he lowered him into that patch and come away with a watermelon… the caretaker would come out screaming and yelling for them to stop, but could never really do anything about it.

One day, while lifting concrete up to the bridge roadway, the operator heard a loud ‘snap’, and realized what it was… one of the struts in the boom had broken! As the boom began to collapse with the five-yards of concrete over the workers, he hung on and swung the unit away from the bridge, saving, undoubtedly, many lives… including his. In fact, the only actual ‘casualties’ were the crane, itself, and the watermelons… you see, that five yards of concrete landed right in the middle of the patch!

Another instructor told of running a small crawler carving a road out of the side of a mountain when the clutch linkage must have fallen off and he couldn’t stop… as it went over the edge one way he jumped the other! Luckily, he jumped towards the hill and survived with minor cuts and scrapes! Still another instructor told of the guy who jumped up on his big crawler after lunch one day and started backing, in high gear, into the pit where they were working. Distracted, he didn’t realize he had missed the road and had one track going down and the other one still on ground level… before he could stop, it had turned over on top of him! He didn’t survive!

Now, I tell you all of this to make a point… you see, for all of the gory effects that we saw in that film, we knew that they were just effects… they weren’t real! We knew that all of those things were possible… but the impact on us was just not as great as one might like. Yet the stories told to us by the instructors really did make an impression… because they were real! And we knew they were real because these men were actual eye-witnesses!!

And that’s the same point that Peter is trying to make in today’s verses! “We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.”

Today is what we term ‘Transfiguration Sunday’… our first reading, from Exodus, tells a small part of the story of Moses meeting God on Mt. Sinai, while our Psalm talks about that very event, and closes by shouting… “Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain, for the LORD our God is holy.”

And our passage from Matthew tells of the event itself… how Peter, James and John accompanied Jesus up a high mountain and watched as He was transfigured into Holy radiance and stood speaking with Moses and Elijah! And as they spoke, they saw Jesus enveloped in a bright cloud and heard a voice say, “This is my beloved Son, whom I Love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” And we learned that… “As they were coming down the mountain, Jesus instructed them, “Don’t tell anyone what you have seen, until the Son of Man has been raised from the dead.”

Which brings us back to this morning’s passage from 2 Peter! Already, there were numerous cults and false teachers trying to spread their version of the story of Christ and what they wanted it to mean. 2 Peter was written with the intention of debunking these false teachings and establishing the truth.

The Life Application Commentary says that, “Whether parents, coaches, professors, pastors, or friends, we hold our teachers in high regard. They have opened our eyes, provided counsel, broadened our horizons, solved mysteries, and filled our minds. We have benefited greatly from their wisdom and expertise.

That’s what makes false teachers so dangerous. Misusing their privileged position and betraying trust, for the sake of pride, reward, or ambition, they prey on the unsuspecting and lead many astray.

Knowing this powerful influence of teachers, the apostles and other church leaders continually warned against those who would twist the truth and lead believers astray. That was the purpose of 2 Peter. Written to strengthen the church to resist the internal challenge to their faith, this brief letter warns of false teachers who deny Christ and scoffers who mock his return. Believers are to beware and to keep their focus on Christ.

Our world, today, is filled with cult leaders, religious scams, and others who would lead people astray. Estimates of the number of cults worldwide run as high as ten thousand. Some of these cults and many false teachers have even infiltrated the church. Reading 2 Peter can help you determine what is truth… rejecting every type of false teaching.”

It is important to realize that all of the books we have in our Bible have been inspired by God. Erwin W. Lutzer, author of The DaVinci Deception, a book which thoroughly debunks all of the proffered fallacies contained in The DaVinci Code, says that, “As you read the Bible you will discover that the Word of God came down to us in different ways. Sometimes God spoke to the prophets directly, revealing things that could not be known in any other way. Sometimes God wrote the words himself, as in the Ten Commandments. However, God also used natural means, as in the case of Luke, whose book was written after painstaking research.

In the opening paragraph, Luke explained how his book came about:

‘Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. Therefore, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, it seemed good also to me to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.’”
And Peter says, in the last two verses of today’s scripture… “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

This… is… the Word of God… given to us… the people of God… Praise be to God!

Everything in this book is real! There are no special effects wizards hard at work trying to deceive us! There are no clever story lines designed to mislead us! There are no fiction writers in here intent on making some kind of name for themselves by fabricating outlandish fairy tales! What we have are eye-witnesses testimonies and/or carefully researched and documented accounts… all of which have been inspired by God… giving us the history of God’s work with His people Israel, and of the life… death… and resurrection of his Son, Jesus! And more than that, it this a road map of how we are to live our lives in His name… and why… the promise of an eternal life with Him!

And finally, there is this… Carl F. H. Henry says that… “There is only one real inevitability: It is necessary that the Scripture be fulfilled.”

This was first given at the Lynnville UMC on July 21, 2002, and again, with some minor rewriting, at the Indian Creek Church of Christ, up in Calhoun County. on November 27, 2016.. The Scripture is from Matthew 13:24-30 & 36-43.

 

In 1942 grandpa bought a brand new Farmall ‘B’. At the same time, he got the one-bottom mounted plow and the set of two-row cultivators that mounted on the front. For those who don’t know, the ‘B’ was a little 14 HP narrow-front-end tractor that had the operator’s area offset to the right of the engine and transmission. This put you almost over the furrow if you were plowing, and right over the row if you were cultivating. Since the war was on, hydraulic equipment was scarce, so most of these tractors came with a big, long lever to raise and lower the attachments, and ours was no exception. The left-hand side of the tractor had a flat spot cast into the axle housing which was just perfect for a young’un to ride along, as long as he was able to hold on tight and didn’t mind sitting on a hot piece of hard steel. I can just barely recall riding around the streets of Hartford with grandpa as he would plow gardens for people in the spring.
Through the years, I have told others how this tractor was what I learned to drive on. I was so small, when I started, that I had to get down off of the seat to reach the pedal for the starter with my foot! I would practice driving around the barns and backing up to implements like I was going to hook up to them.
One summer day, as my brother and I were at the farm, grandpa decided that he had about an hours’ window to do some cultivating in one of our beanfields. To make the most of that time, he decided to let me take the ‘B’ while he used our old Ferguson with the four-row three-point cultivators. I was probably about ten, and this was the first time I had gotten to do any ‘sensitive’ fieldwork on my own, and I was excited! My brother, who would have been around seven, rode along with me sitting on the axle. When we got to the field I lined up on the row, but grandpa had to come over to lower the cultivators into the ground. Letting them down was no problem, but to penetrate they needed down pressure put onto them, and this meant moving that lever up against four strong springs. (No problem for him, but I was skin-and-bones back then and just didn’t have enough ‘oomph’.) Then he went back to his tractor and started down the field.
Boy! Was I nervous! With the transmission in first gear, and the throttle as low as it would go, I eased out on the clutch and headed down the row. In the first one hundred feet I must have taken out at least thirty feet of beans. And I knew that if I was taking out the row that I could see I was also taking out the row on the other side! But by the time I got to the other end I was doing much better. No more than five or six feet at a time! At the end, Mike helped me raise the cultivators and I turned around. We found that by me getting off of the seat and standing on the transmission and him standing on his axle ‘seat’, the two of us could just get enough pressure put on the lever to make the shovels dig. By now I was into second gear and opening the throttle a little! At the end of that hour, as I turned around at the far end of the field, grandpa was almost halfway back to the road. Mike and I set the cultivators in the dirt, and off we went. Fourth gear and full throttle! Dirt was flying and the beans were a blur, but we passed grandpa! And I barely touched any beans down that whole row, proving once again just how quick I could learn to operate anything with a steering wheel!
Fast-forward a few years. Grandpa retired and sold most of that farm, and we had bought our twenty-three acres outside of Edwardsville. The ‘big farmer’ in that area was Albert. Albert lived in Edwardsville but farmed about two hundred acres of swampland that he had ditched and drained as a young man. I never knew just how old he was, but he always bragged about the matched set of white mules he had started farming with! By the time I started working for him I was more accustomed to working with machinery, and even though his two cultivating tractors were older than our ‘B’, I never really had much trouble with that part of it. It was after we were done with the tractors that I didn’t like!
As a teenager, I spent many hours moaning and groaning about which job I liked least…painting fence…or walking beans! It seemed that if I had to paint a fence, I’d complain that I’d rather walk beans, and if I was walking beans I’d swear that I’d rather be painting a fence! The truth is I detested both.
Now, today, as an adult, if I had to paint a fence I would settle into the attitude that it was a job that had to be done and do what I had to do to do it. But if there were beans to walk somewhere…
Each summer, Albert would hire a crew of teenage boys to walk the fields and cut out the weeds in each row. And as his regular employee, I was expected to set the pace. This did not happen! I didn’t like getting soaked in the morning dew and then sweltering in the heat of all of those dark green plants. I didn’t like the cuts that you could get just walking through them in shorts, or the bugs that could find a home on every part of your body. I didn’t like not seeing the ground where I was walking and not knowing if there might be snakes or other critters at my feet. And most of all, I didn’t like walking over the entire area that I had just covered several times on a tractor! Oh, I did it! I just didn’t like it! And I certainly wasn’t the one to have set the pace for the others!
So when Jesus tells of the servants asking the owner, in today’s parable, if he would like them to go out and pull up all of the weeds in the field…the first thought that runs through my mind is, “Are you CRAZY!” Who in the world would volunteer to go out and weed an entire field! Not Me!
The owners’ answer was entirely logical and well thought out. First of all, it’s sometimes hard enough to get into a row and take out a weed without also taking out one or more plants next to it. And this was a wheat field! Imagine how many plants would be destroyed by uprooting…and how many more would be trampled down just trying to get through! Then add to that this very important item…the “weed” Jesus referred to looks very much like wheat in the early stages of growth. It only becomes distinguishable when the heads of the wheat appear. In other words, it would be almost impossible to tell them apart at this stage! So the owner decides that the loss from the weeds would be less than the loss from trying to eradicate them now. In the end the harvester will be able to determine which is which, sort them out, and destroy the weeds. And what’s the best way to destroy a weed? Fire! And the hotter it is, the better! And this is what Jesus declares will happen to all that is NOT gathered into the barn.
Why would the people of that time relate to this story? This was a known practice in ancient warfare and feuds — destroy a nation’s agricultural base and his military might would also be destroyed. Since the appearance of these two plants were so similar, Jesus’ hearers would have understood how no one would have noticed the weeds until the plants came up and bore grain. Only then would the weeds appear. A heavy infestation of this weed would indicate it had been “sowed” among the grain, and would cause the roots of both plants to become entangled. In fact, to sow such a weed in a person’s wheat field was punishable by Roman law. This real-life situation gave Jesus’ hearers a picture of God’s kingdom growing and thriving alongside evil in this world. “How so?” you ask.
There are actually two parts to today’s Gospel reading. I only read the first part, verses 24-30, before. Now, let me read verses 36-43…

36 Then, leaving the crowds outside, Jesus went into the house. His disciples said, “Please explain the story of the weeds in the field.”

37 “All right,” he said. “I, the Son of Man, am the farmer who plants the good seed. 38 The field is the world, and the good seed represents the people of the Kingdom. The weeds are the people who belong to the evil one. 39 The enemy who planted the weeds among the wheat is the Devil. The harvest is the end of the world, and the harvesters are the angels.

40 “Just as the weeds are separated out and burned, so it will be at the end of the world. 41 I, the Son of Man, will send my angels, and they will remove from my Kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil, 42 and they will throw them into the furnace and burn them. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the godly will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Anyone who is willing to hear should listen and understand!

Barnes’ Notes points out that the bad seed had been thrown out onto the new-plowed field, perhaps before the good seed had been harrowed in, and adds… thus, in darkness, Satan sows false doctrine…in the very place where the truth is preached…and while the hearts of people are open to receive it.
He then adds that…(The enemy) knew the soil; he knew how the seed would take root and grow. He had only to sow the seed and let it alone. Satan knows the soil in which he sows his doctrine. He knows that in the human heart it will take deep and rapid root. It needs but little culture, (whereas) Grace needs constant attendance and care.
The Wycliffe Commentary proclaims that, “(Satan’s) children often masquerade as believers,” While Barnes adds, “Multitudes are persuaded (by Satan) that they are Christians, but they are deceived. (He may convince them of many things), and still there be no true love to God or Christ…no change of heart…and no real hatred of sin.”

It seems like I’ve been fighting weeds most of my life. From pulling and hoeing in the garden to cultivating with a tractor…from stomping on a dandelion with my heal to spraying Round-up all along the fences…in one form or another I’ve had a private little war against weeds. And when I see a cornfield taken over by morning-glory vines, or the acres of Kudzu growing over everything down south, I shudder to think what would happen if we lost all control over them. And yet, here is a case where the only thing to do is let them grow to the end.
The “servants” in this parable raise one of the toughest questions ever posed: If God is good and all-powerful, why are the weeds permitted? In other words, where does evil come from? The answer provided is a simple one: “An enemy did this.”
When sin and unbelief seem so strong, don’t try to figure out where they originated. We know Satan is our enemy. Instead, trust God and determine to follow him. Because we know that the harvest day is coming.
The Life Application Commentary says…
Jesus explained that the kingdom grows quietly and abundantly, yet evil still exists in the world. That the enemy came while everybody was asleep does not indicate neglect on anyone’s part; that he went away does not indicate his absence. Instead, these details merely highlight the stealth and malicious intent of Satan (the enemy, “the evil one”). (And, just as the presence of the weeds would weaken the wheat in the field,) the presence of Satan’s children among God’s people would also serve to weaken them.
The young weeds (unbelievers) and the young blades of wheat (believers) look the same and can’t be distinguished until they are grown and ready for harvest…they must live side by side in this world. God allows unbelievers to remain, just as a farmer allows weeds to remain in his field so that the surrounding wheat won’t be uprooted with them. At the harvest, however, the weeds will be (destroyed.)
Are you a wheat …or a weed? Are you producing the grain that your sower intended…or are you robbing nutrients from those who are? That’s the point that I would like for you to take home with you today! Is your Christianity real? How can you tell? Ask yourself this question…am I living my life for God by helping to support His church and spread His word to others…or am I just here? Because, if you are not out there actively participating in God’s work, then you may well be helping the devil to do his! Just how hot a fire does it take to destroy a weed, anyway?