I’ve always found a certain measure of comfort in 1 Tim 2:14:  for Adam was not beguiled, but the woman being beguiled has fallen into transgression.  Comfort, you ask?  Sure.  At least Eve had to be tricked into sinning.  Adam knew it was a sin and did it anyway.

            But I think the bigger point is this:  no matter what our culture tries to tell us, men and women are different.  We have different strengths and different weaknesses.  As you age, dealing with more people in all sorts of situations, it becomes more and more obvious.  In fact, I have come to believe this:  there is nothing worse than a bad woman, but there is nothing better than a good woman.  Women seem to have the capacity for both infinite cruelty and infinite compassion.

            It should also be comforting that most of the oracles in the prophets are aimed squarely at men—they were the ones in control, the leaders who bore the responsibility for how a nation behaved.  So I found it interesting when one commentary pointed out that we do have four oracles specifically to women, and I thought it might be good to explore those oracles and make application to ourselves.  After all, people really haven’t changed.  We are still men and women with the same strengths and the same weaknesses. 

            For the next four Mondays look for “Oracles to Women 2 through 5” here on the blog.  Let me warn you:  this will not be comfortable.  In order to make an application we can relate to, I will be specific and sometimes brutally honest.  I guarantee you will recognize these women.  You see them around you every day—sometimes in the mirror.  Yet I hope we can all learn to be better by these inspired words from God’s prophets.
 
Every wise woman builds her house; But the foolish plucks it down with her own hands, Prov 14:1.
 
Dene Ward

One of my classes is studying the prophets now, an overview class that hits the highlights, beginning with the Biblical definition of a prophet, the history and the genres.  I will probably wind up sharing some things that I hope will help you.

            The world is full of people claiming to be prophets.  Just as in Bible times, God expects us to check these people out before falling for everything they say.  Deuteronomy 18 has long been the place to hang one’s hat when determining a true prophet of God.

            Open your Bible and look through these verses in that chapter. 
1) A true prophet of God will claim to speak in God’s name, v 20.  Certainly that isn’t all that matters but you can weed out a lot from the get-go with that one simple rule.

            2) A true prophet of God will not use “abominable practices” like augury, astrology, and necromancy.  He will not claim to speak to the dead or read animal entrails or tea leaves or anything else a sane mind knows is illegible, 10-14.

            3) The predictions of a true prophet of God will always come to pass, not 90% of the time, not 95% of the time, but every time, v 22.

            On the other hand, God does not make it His business to run around making sure everything a false prophet predicts doesn’t happen.  Let me take you to another passage.

            “If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’ you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him. But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, Deut 13:1-5.

            Sometimes these people get it right—not all the time by any means, but enough to fool some people.  They get it right because they are observant, because they know how to get you to tell them what they need to know—we give away far more than we realize.  So then, how do we tell?  4) If a prophet tells you to do anything contrary to God’s law, he is not a prophet of God, no matter how many times he seems to “get it right” with his predictions.  That puts a burden upon us to know that Law, but God expects that of us too.  Even in the New Testament we are told to “prove the spirits.”  It is my responsibility not to be fooled.

            5) And hand in hand with that we can look at Gal 1:8,9.  If anyone teaches a gospel that contradicts the revealed word of God, we are not to listen even, as in that passage, to an angel from Heaven.

            6) Now take one more step back to Deuteronomy 18.  It isn’t just what the man teaches, it’s how he lives.  If his life does not match the righteous life God expects and teaches in His word, he is not a true prophet of God, v 9-14.

            Just imagine if people had followed these rules when false prophets came along.  Just imagine the difference in Bible history.  Just imagine the difference in more modern history.  Would David Koresh have caused the tragedy at Waco?  Would Jim Jones have persuaded people to not only “drink the Kool-Aid,” but give it to their children? 

            We live under a government that tries to protect people from their own stupidity.  That’s why you see those strange warnings on things. 

            Do not put any person in this washer.

            Do not use lighted match or open flame to check fuel level.

            Use care when operating a car (on a dog’s bottle of pills).

            Danger: do not hold the wrong end of a chain saw.

            Warning:  this product moves (on a scooter).

            (On an iron-on patch)  Do not iron while wearing shirt.

            If you cannot read warnings, do not use this product.

            God gave you His warnings in His book.  He figures you are smart enough to read it and figure it out.  And if you do, that should take care of most every modern “prophet” you happen to run into.
 
Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them, for he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore they speak from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the Spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love, 1 John 4:1-8                          
Dene Ward

We tend to think that legalism and emotionalism are the only dangers we need to be wary of in our worship to God.  We must be careful that the ritual aspect of our group worship be neither heartless in thought nor perverted by passion.  But in 1 Samuel 4-6, God’s people found yet another way to distort their spiritual worship.

            As was so often the case, the Philistines once again troubled them.  They went to battle and promptly lost 4000 soldiers.  What should they do?  Talk to God about it?  No, they said.  Instead, Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord here from Shiloh that it may save us, 4:3.  Not that God may save us, but that IT may save us, treating it like some sort of magic charm.

            When the ark was brought into the camp, the people roared with such a shout that it scared the Philistines.  A god has come into the camp, 4:7, they said.  Note that there was little difference in the way these pagans thought about the ark and the way the Israelites did.        During the next battle 30,000 Israelites lost their lives and the Ark of the Covenant was captured.

            The story of how the ark was returned to Israel is an interesting one that would take too much time for this little essay.  Suffice it to say that when it found its way home, the Israelites who greeted it said, Who is able to stand before the Lord, this Holy God? 6:20. At least a few people had learned a lesson.

            Surrounded by paganism on all sides, they had become tainted by its beliefs, many of which were bound up in sorcery and witchcraft.  They equated Jehovah with the idols, and the rituals of His worship with the rituals of the heathens.

            Do you think that cannot happen to us today?  I have lost track of the number of times I have heard a fallen Christian end his litany of faults with the disclaimer, “But I’ve been baptized!”  Somehow that is supposed to keep him safe from the wrath of God, no matter how much he has deliberately provoked that wrath and willingly continues to do so with no intention to change.  Baptism, instead of a union of the believer with the sacrifice of his Lord and the resurrection to a new life, has become to such people a ritual performed to break a curse.  “Pour the ashes of a rat’s tail on a bird’s wing, and hop on one foot three times with your eyes closed,” would have had as much meaning.

            Then there is the matter of the Lord’s Supper.  Rather than a memorial feast we celebrate with the Lord and our spiritual family, it is treated as a magic potion.  “At least I got there in time for the Lord’s Supper,” is uttered with a “Whew!” and a sigh of relief.  Visitors come in late and demand to be served even if the assembly worship is finished.  Some members show up only for those “magical” few minutes as if nothing else were worth their trouble.

            The same sorts of things happen with prayer, as if it were some magic formula that can only be repeated in certain ways, rather than a pouring out of the heart to a loving Father.  And we think we don’t have the same problems as those Old Testament Israelites?

            Treating God as if He were on the same level as a pagan deity and could be appeased the same way earned those people some of the most scathing indictments in the Old Testament.  The danger is that one will think Jehovah can be swapped out in a fair trade.  God took care of that notion in the book of Hosea.  Israel actually thought that those pagan gods were her source of blessings, 2:5, and so God said, For she did not know that I gave her the grain, and the new wine, and the oil, and multiplied unto her silver and gold, which they used for Baal. Therefore will I take back my grain in the time thereof, and my new wine in the season thereof, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness, 2:8.9.  Suddenly, she figured out where it really came from.

            Attitudes that treat God and His worship in such a pagan manner are no better.  Rather than reverencing God they demean Him.  Rather than showing awe for an all-powerful Creator, they minimize that feeling into nothing more than pacifying a petty, capricious tyrant.

            Serving our God is a duty certainly, but not one we can fulfill in a slapdash, haphazard fashion just so we get it done in time to avoid the consequences.  It is a service He wants us to willingly offer in a careful, obedient, heartfelt manner—an obligation certainly, but also a privilege.

For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (he is God!), who formed the earth and made it (he established it; he did not create it empty, he formed it to be inhabited!): "I am the LORD, and there is no other. I did not speak in secret, in a land of darkness; I did not say to the offspring of Jacob, 'Seek me in vain. I the LORD speak the truth; I declare what is right. "Assemble yourselves and come; draw near together, you survivors of the nations! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the LORD? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior; there is none besides me. "Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn; From my mouth has gone out in righteousness a word that shall not return: 'To me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear allegiance. "Only in the LORD, it shall be said of me, are righteousness and strength; to him shall come and be ashamed all who were incensed against him. In the LORD all the offspring of Israel shall be justified and shall glory," Isa 45:18-25.

 

Dene Ward

Then Shemaiah the prophet came to Rehoboam and to the princes of Judah, who had gathered at Jerusalem because of Shishak, and said to them, “Thus says the LORD, ‘You abandoned me, so I have abandoned you to the hand of Shishak.’” Then the princes of Israel and the king humbled themselves and said, “The LORD is righteous.” When the LORD saw that they humbled themselves, the word of the LORD came to Shemaiah: “They have humbled themselves. I will not destroy them, but I will grant them some deliverance, and my wrath shall not be poured out on Jerusalem by the hand of Shishak. Nevertheless, they shall be servants to him, that they may know my service and the service of the kingdoms of the countries,.” 2Chr 12:5-8.

            It’s easy, when you find yourself in a trying situation, to make excuses for your behavior; to say, “Woe is me,” and expect everyone to sympathize with you and pat you on the back, not just occasionally or even often, but almost as if it were a daily penance on their part because you have to deal with the difficult and they don’t—at least in your mind.

            “Why is this happening to me?” can become a mantra if you aren’t careful.  Maybe God, in the passage above, answers that question.

            Judah repented when they learned the consequences of their disobedience and God repented their destruction.  But He did not stop their servitude to the king of Egypt.  “This way they will learn how to serve me,” he told the prophet.

            Did you ever think that maybe that “unjust” master (boss) was there to teach you service?  Or that difficult spouse? 

            Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the unjust. For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly, 1Pet 2:18-19.

            Likewise, wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct, 1Pet 3:1-2.

            Did you ever think that maybe that obnoxious neighbor or ornery brother in the Lord might be there to teach you patience and forbearance?

            Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary, bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing, 1Pet 3:9.

In fact, doesn’t God expect us to use every situation, whether blessing or trial, to improve as His servant?  The sufferings we endure are meant to be opportunities for growth, not merit badges on a boastful sash.

            Suffering does not make us exempt to the call to service.  People in all situations of life have been serving God as hard as they can for as long as they can, whether rich or poor, sick or healthy, hungry or full, old or young, even in slavery, for thousands of years.  The place God puts us is not only the test of our faith, but the textbook from which we learn our service.  What lesson would God have you learn today? 

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you, 1Pet 5:10.

Dene Ward

A lot of folks think that there is no place for “order” in their religious lives, nor for orders, either.  Order, though, is an important concept in the scriptures beginning as early as Genesis.

            One would ordinarily think that when he reads, “Noah was 500 years old when he begat Shem, Ham and Japheth,” that the order in which the sons are listed is birth order: Shem was the eldest, the first of Noah’s “begetting.”  In fact, whenever Shem is found in any crossword puzzle I do, the clue is invariably, “Noah’s eldest.”  Not so fast—I can prove he was not. 

            Gen 5:32--And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begat Shem, Ham, and Japheth.  Noah had his first son at the age of 500.

            Gen 7:6--And Noah was six hundred years old when the flood of waters was upon the earth.  That means his eldest son would have been 100 at the time of the flood.

            Gen 11:10--Shem was one hundred years old and begat Arpachshad two years after the flood.  That means that Shem was only 98 at the time of the flood and could not have been the eldest.

            Then we have the case of Terah’s three sons, “Abram, Nahor, and Haran.”  Was Abram the eldest? 

            Gen 11:26--Terah lived seventy years and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.

            Acts 7:4--Then [Abram] came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran, and from there, when his father was dead, God removed him to this land, wherein you now dwell.

            Gen 11:32--And the days of Terah were 205, and Terah died in Haran.  That means his oldest son would have been (205 minus 70 equals) 135 years old when he died.

            Gen 12:4--So Abram went as Jehovah had spoken unto him…And Abram was 75 years old when he departed out of Haran.  So since he left Haran after his father’s death, he was only 75 when the eldest son would have been 135.  Abram was certainly not the eldest son.  In fact, he could well have been the youngest.

            In the New Testament order is important as well.  We have “Barnabas and Saul” in Acts 12:25 and 13:2 and 7, until suddenly in 13:13 we have “Paul and his company,” and “Paul and Barnabas” from 13:43 on.  I think all those are enough to show us that in the Bible, people are listed according to their importance, and their amount of involvement in the activity in question.  Shem and Abraham, the ancestors of the Christ were certainly more important than their brothers, and Paul gradually took over as the leader of the missionary journeys.

            So why might that be important?  For one thing look at Acts 18:26, where we have a man named Apollos who was taught better by “Priscilla and Aquila.”  If the principle about order means anything, it means Priscilla did much more than just sit there and nod in agreement, and that of necessity means that it is possible for a woman to teach a man, at least in private, without violating the principle not to teach “over” a man, 1 Tim 2:12.

            “Order” meant a lot of things in the New Testament church.  They were commanded to do things “decently and in order,” 1 Cor 14:40.  Yet in the same context we find that they were shouting out hearty amens, 14:16.  That tells me we should be careful about imposing our own culture’s sense of order upon an order which God plainly approved.  If one reads the chapter carefully, we are once again talking about doing things in sequence—don’t let two talk at once, take turns; don’t let someone speak in tongues unless there is someone who can interpret afterward.

            Paul left Titus in Crete to “put things in order.”  Among other things that meant to appoint elders, Titus 1:5.  Think about this:  He had told Timothy that a new Christian was not suitable material for an elder, and he did not appoint anyone immediately upon that man’s baptism.  Yet, here is another sense in which “order” is important:  these men obviously set their lives in good order because in a relatively short amount of time, they had matured enough to take the leadership position.  Maybe the reason there are churches without qualified men today is that those men do not have their lives in a godly sort of order.  Everything—career, recreation, physical fitness, education--everything seems more important than time spent on spiritual growth, and that is the wrong order.

            Funny how many tidbits you can pick up by simply studying one word or concept in the scriptures, isn’t it?  Perhaps the most important tidbit today is this:  God expects us to put our lives in His order, to run our families in His order, to put the church, the body of His son, in His order; always His order, not ours.  Anyone who is “out of order” will be found in contempt of that righteous Judge.

For though I am absent in body, yet I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good order and the firmness of your faith in Christ.  Therefore as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving, Col 2:5-7.

Dene Ward

Shortly after we got Chloe as a 9 week old puppy, we had a pile of dirt delivered.  Eventually it became the base for our carport slab, but for several weeks it sat there as we dealt with one problem after the other, most notably eye surgeries.  Chloe loved that pile of dirt.  She sat on top of it every day.  I suppose because she was little, it made her feel bigger, especially with an older dog who was not too friendly at the beginning.

            But she has continued to love sitting up high.  We often catch her perched on the landscaping timbers surrounding our raised flower beds, surveying her domain.  It may only be six inches higher than the field, but that is enough for her. Chloe will always love to be on top of her world.

            But even the highest she can sit does not help her see through the woods to the next property.  All she knows of the world is our small five acres.  She cannot comprehend that other dogs live in other places far, far away.  Sometimes she hears the neighbor’s dogs barking across the fence, through the woods and over the creek, and she sits up to listen, but when they stop, she forgets they are even there.

            Chloe’s world is Chloe-centric.  Despite the fact that we have a consciousness of others, we are much the same.  What happens to us is what matters to us.  How my life goes is the important thing to me.  That can cause us big problems when things begin to go wrong, just as it did for Rebekah.

“Why am I even alive?” she asked God when she began to have trouble with her pregnancy.  For twenty years she had been barren.  It was almost cruel of God, she must have thought, to give her what she had asked for and then make it seen that he was taking it back.  But God told her that she was not losing her baby.  Far from it, she was carrying twins, and this pregnancy was more far reaching than just fulfilling her desire to have a child.  Two nations would come from her, he said, and the older would serve the younger, Gen 25:23.  Yet even with those encouraging words, Rebekah still got it wrong.  She thought the prophecy was about her children themselves, not the nations that would come from them, and in her zeal to help God make it happen, she deceived her husband when the time came to bless those sons.  She forgot something as basic as this—maybe blind Isaac could not see whom he was blessing, but God could.  He did not need her help to accomplish his purpose, and his purpose is what mattered.

            We cannot see over the fence to know God’s purposes.  What happens to me, no matter how large it is to me, may be completely insignificant in the plan of God.  That does not mean He does not care about me.  It does not mean He is not listening to me and answering my prayers.  But it may very well mean that I will not understand the answer I get, or even like it much.  Sitting on top of my little dirt pile will not give me God’s perspective.  I simply trust, believe, and obey.  God knows what is best.  He really does sit on high.  He really does see it all.  That should be all that matters.

Who is like unto Jehovah our God, who has set his seat on high, who humbles himself to behold the things that are in heaven and in the earth? Psa 113:5.

Dene Ward

            Now Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lappidoth, she judged Israel at that time, Judg 4:1.

            Do you know anything about Lappidoth?  I know he was Deborah’s husband and that is all.  He is mentioned nowhere else in the entire Bible.  Yet because of his amazing wife his name was written down for everyone to read for thousands of years.

            No, it was not because God ordained that a wife have no identity without her husband, as some feminists might try to argue. Have you ever googled your own name or simply looked it up in your city’s telephone directory?  Somewhere in the world there is someone else with the same name as you, first and last.  Imagine how many there are with just your first name.  I can find six Marys in the New Testament alone. 

            It was necessary to identify people in the scriptures by their parents or spouses or children in order to make it plain who was being talked about.  There was at least one other Deborah in the Bible, the nurse of Rebekah, in Gen 35:8.  I imagine there were many other little girls named Deborah throughout Israel, especially after the time of Judges 4.  Miriam, after all, is the Hebrew for the Aramaic Mary, of whom we have so many in the first century AD.  Surely the great woman judge was a worthy namesake too.

            So what is the big deal about Lappidoth?  Just this—he was mentioned because of his wife, and he is respected because of his wife.  Whom you marry can make or break you in your career, in your reputation in the community, and most important, as a servant of God.

            How many times have you heard it said, or even said yourself, “He would make a good (elder, preacher, Bible class teacher, deacon) if not for his wife?”  God made woman so man would not be alone and so he would have a suitable helper in life.  David says, “[Jehovah] is our help” in Psalm 33:20, using exactly the same Hebrew word describing God as the one God used of woman in Gen 2:15.  Part of the help God gives men is the women who stand beside them.  There is nothing demeaning about being a tool in the hand of the Lord.

            Maybe the problem is men who do not recognize their duty to spiritually lead the family, “nourishing and cherishing” their brides, as Christ did the church.  Keith is the one who taught me how to study.  “And created a monster,” he always adds.

            Inevitably though, the onus falls on women who will not be led, who will not grow, who use their freewill instead to rebel against God.

            Jesus told a parable in Luke 14 about people who would not follow Him.  The point of the parable was the lame excuses people will make, but I can read at least one of those excuses in a different way.  When the Lord presents him an opportunity, I would hate for my husband to have to say, “I have married a wife and therefore I cannot come.”

A worthy woman who can find? For her price is far above rubies.  The heart of her husband trusts in her and he shall have no lack of gain.  She does him good and not evil all the days of his life.  Her husband is known in the gates where he sits with the elders of the land.  Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears Jehovah, she shall be praised, Prov 31:10-12, 23,30.

Dene Ward

We have a tendency to think of ourselves as far more enlightened than those who lived under the Old Law, far more knowledgeable, certainly, of things like the grace of God.  Nonsense.  Just listen to what Daniel had to say in 9:18.   For we do not present our supplications before you for OUR righteousness, but for your great mercies’ sake.  Can you think of a better definition of grace?
 
   Those folks also understood that here and now is not what matters, it is only a temporary stop on a journey to the Eternal.  

    Abraham and Sarah certainly understood that despite their relative wealth in their day and time, it was nothing to compare with what God had in store for them, even far beyond the Promised Land they wandered in.  They died in faith, not having received the promises but having greeted them from afar, and having confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on this earth, Heb 11:13.  

    And Moses, who could had the wealth of Egypt at his disposal, [chose] rather to share ill-treatment with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, accounting the reproaches of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt, Heb 11:25,26.  The “reproaches of Christ?”  But he was an Old Testament character!  Of course he was, but he still “got it” better than many of us on this side of Malachi.

    Even Hannah, a humble woman of Ephraim, was able to recognize in her song of thanksgiving in 1 Samuel 2, Jehovah makes poor and he makes rich, he brings low and he lifts up, he raises up the poor out of the dust, he lifts up the needy from the dunghill and makes them sit with princes and inherit the throne of glory.  For the pillars of the earth are Jehovah’s and he has set the world upon them…not by his [own] might shall a man prevail.  Hannah knew that the circumstances of this life were not what counted—her God was in control and He would reward her.

    We could go on and on.  Ruth, who left home, family, familiar customs and language—her comfort zone, we might say today-- to go to a place where she had nothing to expect but a life of poverty and loneliness, not only as a widow, but also as an alien among God’s people.  Forget for a moment what actually happened to her.  She expected nothing but a hard life.  Yet she thought that being able to worship and serve this Jehovah she had learned of with the people He had chosen, was worth giving up any chance at an easier life in her native land.  She knew that it was not that physical land that mattered.

    So what about us “enlightened” folks?  Are we willing to give up anything and everything in this world, willing to endure anything and everything, willing to be different, to think differently, to act differently from everyone else no matter how uncomfortable that may make us, because we understand the importance of the Eternal, or do the tangible things of life tether us to this side of Eternity?  To which side of life are you tied today?

In this we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up in life.  He who has prepared us for this very thing is God…So we are always of good courage.  We know that while we are at home in the body, we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight.  Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him, for we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done while in the body, whether good or evil, 2 Cor 5:2, 4-10.

Dene Ward