I remember when they started, just barely, on July 1, 1963.  I was still in elementary school and never sent any mail myself, but I remember my parents having to memorize our brand new code—the US Postal Service Zone Improvement Plan, or ZIP code for short. 
            If you never knew it, those numbers do mean something.  The first number is the National Area.  The next two are the Sectional Center or Large City Post Office.  The last two are the Associate Post Office or Delivery Area.  It all came about because of the huge increase in mail and the new automated systems.  At first, using zip codes wasn't legally required, and actually, it still isn't, but if you want a relatively quick delivery, I wouldn't buck the system if I were you.  It works so well that it has become a model for other countries.  Imagine that (of something run by the government).
            Did you know that four people have their own personal zip codes?  The President of the United States (20500-0001), the First Lady (20500-0002), Smokey Bear (20252), and of course, Santa, who takes the Canadian postal code HOH OHO.  Not so in the US, where all his letters are sent to North Pole, Alaska, and he shares his zip code with that town, 99705.
            Although zip codes are supposed to help mail carriers and others find addresses more quickly, it doesn't always work that way.  In central Pennsylvania off interstate 80, the town of Conyngham, with the zip code of 18219, sits right smack in the middle of Sugarloaf, PA, with the zip code of 18249.  The residents of Conyngham, then, live within the zip code of 18249, but they don't live in it—like a hole in a doughnut isn't actually part of the doughnut.  You may not think this is important, but it can affect your insurance rates and property taxes, your voter registration, jury duty, and more seriously, emergency response time.  Conygham is known as the town that got swallowed up by a zip code.
            That's one thing you don't need to worry about with God.  He knows exactly where you are any time of day.  If you need Him, He can find you and your zip code doesn't make any difference at all.  In fact, His response time can beat anything man has to offer with or without the help of a zip code.
             Behold, the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love,  (Ps 33:18).
            ​When the righteous cry for help, the LORD hears and delivers them out of all their troubles,  (Ps 34:17).
            That can be very comforting to the faithful, but don't forget the negative aspect of this promise:  For a man's ways are before the eyes of the LORD, and he ponders all his paths, (Prov 5:21).  Not only can God always find you to help you, but He also knows exactly what you are doing, whether good or bad.
            But for today, ponder this comforting promise.  Not only will God never forsake you (Psa 37:25,28; Heb 13:5), He doesn't need a zip code for rapid response.  He will not become confused should you, like the residents of Conyngham, Pennsylvania, be lost in the middle of the wrong zip code.  In fact, it is not a matter of His "finding" you, because to Him you are never lost at all.
 
For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer. But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, (1Pet 3:12).
 
Dene Ward

On June 9, 1972, the Black Hills were struck by a severe thunderstorm that simply would not go away.  Over six hours it dropped twelve to fourteen inches of rain.  Rapid City, South Dakota, was hit the hardest.  It lies along the Rapid Creek, which is usually five yards wide and only a few feet deep but it rose steadily from late afternoon into the late night.  At 10:45 pm, local time, the dam at Canyon Lake, which is on the northern edge of the town, broke, sending a wall of water running as fast as 50 mph through the town.
            A deputy reported that he had to abandon his car because a two story house was coming down the street toward him.  A retired truck driver had left his pickup to try to help someone in a stalled car and wound up being swept away and pinned against a wall by a floating tree with his head barely above water for seven hours before being rescued.  His wife and two children managed to survive in the pickup all night, rescuing one man by grabbing him as he was swept by.  Another family lost four of their five children, including a two year old, when they tried to escape their vehicle.  The water was simply too strong for them to hold on or be held onto.  In all, 238 people died and more than 3000 were injured, over 1300 homes and 5000 vehicles were destroyed, and damages reached $165 million.  Multiply that several times for an amount in today's dollars. (latimes.com)
            I cannot imagine the terror those people felt as a wall of water 12 feet high came barreling toward them.  We have only a small inkling from our experiences.
            We live on a hillside.  You don’t really notice it when you first drive onto the property.  The hill is shallow as hills go, dropping about twenty feet in five hundred.  In another climate one would seldom think anything of it.  But in Florida, in the summer, torrential downpours are common.  Not too long ago we had two and a half inches come down in less than thirty minutes.  Two or three days before we had six inches, but it took all day to accumulate that.  When nearly half that much pours out of the sky in such a short time, you feel like ten have fallen instead.
            It was as if a giant bucket were being upended over us.  We could hardly see the blueberries only a hundred feet away.  The roar on the metal roof was deafening.  The rushing water overwhelmed the culvert in the drive and washed over the road and out to the garden where it ran against the berm in a narrow creek clearly visible from the house.  We had built that berm precisely because of rains like this one—we were tired of wading “downstream” to rescue washed away garden plants. 
            Eventually we left our viewing station on the porch which was not much shelter in a rain like that—the merest breeze left us damp and shivering, even in the summer.  So we stepped back inside and looked out the windows to the north.  Now you could really tell—we are definitely on a hill.  Water ran like a river across the entire width of the yard, from the front steps to the fence, ten to twelve inches deep.  We watched leaves, twigs, and moss float “downstream” to the run on the east side of the property.  After the rain stopped, it kept running, draining the whole hillside, for another two hours.
            A week after that rain, I walked the path the water had taken.  Leaves were washed into piles a foot deep along the runnel.  Limbs hung up on some of the bushes but others, dragged by the running water, lay piled up against the fence which had acted as a sieve as the water ran through it.  Channels several inches deep marked the dried mud, and the grass was still bent over in the direction the water had flowed.  Running water is powerful.  And that leads us to an even more powerful Flood.
            The flood continued forty days on the earth. The waters increased and bore up the ark, and it rose high above the earth. The waters prevailed and increased greatly on the earth, and the ark floated on the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed so mightily on the earth that all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The waters prevailed above the mountains, covering them fifteen cubits deep, Gen 7:17-20.
            The waters of the great Flood “prevailed.”  Those waters not only covered the earth, they drowned every living creature on it that was not in the ark or swimming in the newly created worldwide ocean.  Have you ever seen a flash flood?  Have you ever heard the stories of one like the one in the Black Hills?  No one can win against those “prevailing” waters.  If you try to hang on to something, you simply wear out and are washed downstream. 
            The same word is used in Ex 17:11: So Joshua did as Moses told him, and fought with Amalek, while Moses, Aaron, and Hur went up to the top of the hill. Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed.  We are talking about winning a war with that word; that’s the strength implied in its use.  It should be no surprise that “prevailed” is also translated “strong” and “mighty.”
            So why is that important?  Because the same Hebrew word is used in Psalm 117:2.  For great [that same Hebrew word] is His steadfast love toward us.  God’s love for us is strong; it is mighty.  It is like rushing water that carries along everything in its path.  It is like an army winning a war.  Sometimes we seem to doubt that.  “But I’ve been so bad,” we say, “how can God love me?”  He can love you because His love is great. It can prevail against the worst of sins.
            The next time you doubt it, think about flood waters.  Think about an army that can win a war.  God’s love is just like those things.  It prevails over all.
 
​I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand  John 10:28,29.
 
Dene Ward

When you come to enjoy baseball later in life as I have, you often take for granted things that were not part of the game in the beginning.  Pinch hitters are usually good hitters who are called upon later in the game to step in for a batter who has not hit well.  Often it is a pivotal moment in the game, two outs with two on, and a last chance to tie or win.  The pinch hitter then substitutes for that player he replaced for the remainder of the game either in his defensive position or in another as the team switches positions to accommodate the pinch hitter's abilities.
            The first Major League Baseball player to collect a pinch hit was 22 year old Jack Doyle of the Cleveland Spiders on June 7, 1892, as they played the Brooklyn Grooms.  He came off the bench for pitcher George Davies.  In spite of his hit, Cleveland lost 2-1.  Doyle had a 17 year career with ten teams.  His best years were 1894 with the New York Giants (.367) and 1897 with the Baltimore Orioles (.354).  He finished with a batting average of .299 in 1564 games with 516 stolen bases.
            There have been many times in my life when I would have loved to given way to a pinch hitter--some rugged health procedures, a few rough times economically, a speaking engagement or two that still haunt me because I did not feel comfortable with my delivery.  But we all know that won't work.  Life happens and the things we learn as we endure it are what make or break us as people, especially people of God.
            But it seems to me that some of us just expect a pinch hitter to step in here or there.  The preacher is often our batter of choice.  "It's the preacher's job to visit," we say, which is nowhere found in the scripture, just in our minds as we watch our denominational friends' "pastor system" and try to copy it and at the same time claim to know the true Biblical definition of a pastor.  Instead, the New Testament squarely lays the visiting obligation on every disciple as he ministers to those in need.  Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means visiting orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you (Jas 1:27).
            Others seem to think that it is the church's job to educate their children in the scriptures.  On two 45 minute sessions a week?  Assuming they bother to take their children to both, and assuming they help them get their Bible lessons and make sure they take their workbooks to class.  It has been my experience that the ones who want the church to do the educating are the same ones who won't do this other minimal requirement as godly parents.  You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates (Deut 6:5-9).  Fathers [bring up] your children…in the discipline and instruction of the Lord (Eph 6:4).
            I am sure you can think of other ways we depend upon a pinch hitter rather than doing what God requires of us individually.  But how about this one?  Another word for a pinch hitter might be "scapegoat."  Any time we refuse to take responsibility for our actions, blaming it on someone who "offended" us, or our culture, or the way we were raised, or anything else we can come up with, we think that that person or thing or system will now be held accountable by God (or society or the law of the land) and we are in the clear.  Simply by saying, "It's not my fault," we have admitted that we made a bad choice, and the one God will hold accountable is the one who made that original choice, no matter how long ago it was nor how many other events happened before or afterward.  If I have gotten myself into trouble, I am at fault.  Period.  That's the way God counts it.
            There are no pinch hitters on God's team.
 
I am the LORD. I have spoken; it shall come to pass; I will do it. I will not go back; I will not spare; I will not relent; according to your ways and your deeds you will be judged, declares the Lord GOD (Ezek 24:14).
He will render to each one according to his works: to those who by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, he will give eternal life; but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury (Rom 2:6-8).
 
Dene Ward

On June 6, 1933, Richard Hollingshead opened the first drive-in theater.  Camden, New Jersey, was its home and the price was twenty-five cents per car per person.  That night the movie was "Wives Beware."
I remember those theaters well.  Across the river from our small town, an only slightly larger town boasted one that offered a double feature for $1 a carload.   It was thirty years later so naturally the price had risen, but still, what a deal!
            Our family usually arrived about fifteen minutes early to procure the best spot.  If you were too close all we kids in the backseat could see were headless actors.  But you certainly didn’t want to end up on the back row or next to the concession stand amid all sorts of distractions.
            Once you found a decent spot, you checked the speaker before anything else.  If it didn’t work, and some did not, you went on the hunt again.  Once the speaker situation was in order you spent a few minutes edging up and down the hump to raise the front half of the car to just the right angle so the line of sight worked for everyone.  (That first New Jersey drive-in did not have the hump.  I am not sure how anyone actually saw the movie.)  Then you had to deal with obstructions.  Our rearview mirror could be turned completely vertical, but other cars had one you could fold flat against the ceiling.  Headrests on the front seat would have been a catastrophe, but no one had them back then so we avoided that problem altogether.
            Now that set-up was complete, we rolled down the windows so we could get any breeze possible in the warm humid night air.  Along with the chirping crickets, the croaking frogs, and the traffic passing on the street behind the screen, we also had to put up with buzzing mosquitoes.  My mother usually laid a pyrethrum mosquito coil on the dashboard and lit it, the smoke rising and circulating through the car all during the movies, the coil only half burned when the second “THE END” rolled down the screen.
            At that price we never saw first run movies.  Usually they were westerns with John Wayne or Glenn Ford or Jimmy Stewart, or romantic comedies with Rock Hudson and Doris Day.  Occasionally we got an old Biblical epic like David and Bathsheba or Sodom and Gomorrah, both about as scripturally accurate as those westerns were historically accurate, which is to say, not very.  The only Disney we got was Tron, but that was back when it was a bomb not a cult classic.  Still, we enjoyed our family outing every other month or so.
            And we got one thing that I am positive no one born after 1970 ever got.  When the screen finally lit up about ten minutes before the movie started, after the Coming Attractions and ads for the snacks at the concession stand—and oh, could we smell that popcorn and butter all night long—was the following ad, complete with voiceover in case you missed the point.  “CH__ CH.  What’s missing?  U R.  Join the church of your choice and attend this Sunday.”  And that was not an ad from any of the local denominations—it was a public service announcement!
            But this is what we all did—instead of being grateful that anything like that would even be put out for the general public, we fussed about its inaccuracy.  We were bad, as my Daddy would say, about living in the objective case.  When that’s all you see, you miss some prime teaching opportunities.
            So let’s get this out of the way first.  It isn’t our choice, it’s God’s.  It is, more to the point since he built it and died for it, the Lord’s church.  We should be looking not for a church that teaches what we like to hear, but what he taught, obeying his commands, not our preferences.  And you don’t “join” it.  The Lord is the one who adds to the church, the church in the kingdom sense, which is the only word used in the New Testament for what we in our “greater” wisdom call the “universal” sense.  But that’s where we miss the teaching opportunity because for some reason we ignore this verse:
            And when [Saul] was come to Jerusalem, he assayed to join himself to the disciples: and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple, Acts 9:26.
            Did you see that?  Immediately after his conversion, Saul tried to join a local group, what we insist on calling “placing membership” in spite of that phrase never appearing anywhere in the text.  (For people who claim to “use Bible words for Bible things” we are certainly inconsistent.)  The New Testament example over and over is to be a part of a local group of believers—not to think you can be a Christian independent of any local congregation or simply float from group to group. 
            Why do people do that?  Because joining oneself to a group involves accountability to that group, and especially to the leadership of that group.  It involves serving other Christians.  It involves growing in knowledge.  It means I must arrange my schedule around their meetings rather than my worldly priorities.  The New Testament is clear that some things cannot be done outside the assembly.  I Cor 5:4,5; 1 Cor 11 and 16, along with Acts 20 are the obvious ones.  That doesn’t count the times they all came together to receive reports, e.g. Acts 14:27, and plain statements like “the elders among you” which logically infers a group that met together.  Then there are all those “one another” passages that I cannot do if there is no “one another” for me to do them with.
            We are called the flock of God in several passages.  You may find a lone wolf out in the wild once in awhile, but you will never find a lone sheep that isn’t alone because he is anything but lost.  It is my responsibility to be part of a group of believers.  We encourage one another, we help one another, we serve another.  Our pooling our assets means we can evangelize the city we live in, the country we live in, even the world.  It means we can help those among us who are needy.  It means we can purchase and make use of tools that we could not otherwise afford.  It means we can pool talents and actually have enough members available for teaching classes without experiencing burn-out.  It means we are far more likely to find men qualified to tend “the flock of God among them.”
            So while God may add me to the kingdom when I submit to His will in baptism, it is my duty to find a group of like-minded brothers and sisters and serve along side them.  Serve—not be served.  Saul had a hard time “joining himself” to the church in Jerusalem because of his past, but Barnabas knew it was the right thing for him to do and paved the way.     
            CH__CH.  What’s missing?  Is it you?
           
Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing. We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all, 1 Thes 5:11-14
 
Dene Ward
 

At 6:03 pm CDT on May 31, 2013, a wedge tornado developed just south of El Reno, Oklahoma, and within a half hour grew to be the widest tornado ever measured at 2.6 miles across, with the damage swath spreading another mile further out.   The highest speeds recorded were 302 mph, and the fastest the storm traveled over land was 50 mph.  It dissipated at 6:42 pm CDT.  Eight people had been killed, all of them in vehicles, some trying to wait it out as it passed by, and three who were storm researchers whose white Chevy Cobalt was overtaken before they could get away.  I cannot even imagine being so close to a storm like that on purpose!  Once, about 40 years ago, we were closer than I ever want to be again, and it wasn't even that big.
          We awoke that Saturday morning to ominous gray skies and strong winds.  The forecast for the day made it dangerous to be out, so we called those we had invited for a singing that afternoon and canceled.  Instead of walking to the paper box, about a quarter mile down our driveway, Keith drove the car, and as huge, plopping raindrops began falling, parked it next to the front door when he returned so he would not get too wet.
            A few minutes later, he looked out the window by the table where he sat reading the paper and sipping a cup of coffee.  Something in his manner made me look too, but I didn’t see anything. 
            “Get the boys,” he said very quietly, “and go crouch down in the middle of the house.  Cover your faces.”  I did exactly as he said, unquestioningly.  He grew up in the Arkansas mountains, and he knew about things I had no experience with.  A few minutes later it was all over with.  What “all” was, I still did not realize.  The power had gone out, but we were still intact. 
            We stepped out of the house, and the hay barn across the field no longer had a roof.  Several water oaks and wild cherry trees were down on the long driveway to the highway.  A large chinaberry had fallen right where the car had originally been parked before he decided to drive for the paper instead of walking.  It would have been flattened if he had parked it there again.
            Then we edged around the corner of the house on our bedroom side, and saw the worst of it.  A huge live oak had split.  Half had fallen on the power lines, but the line was still alive, wiggling and sparking on the ground.  The other half, its roots mostly out of the ground, leaned right over our bedroom.  We had no idea how long it would hold before it too fell and demolished our house.
            We called the power company immediately and they rushed out to take care of the live wire, but they had too many other calls to send someone to handle the tilting tree.  We would have to wait our turn.  Word gradually spread down the highway, and within an hour, two men who worked timber drove up with cables and chainsaws, and those two men, who were complete strangers to us, took the tree down safely and with no damage.  We thanked them profusely.  “That’s what neighbors are for,” they said, and off they went.
            A preacher friend who had been invited to the sing never got the message to cancel.  He showed up amid the raucous roar of chainsaws, and heard the whole story.  It impressed him enough to include it in a lesson on prayer and providence.  The people in the audience were not impressed.  Afterward they took him aside and scolded him.  “God does not act in the world today,” they told him.  He was astounded, and so were we.
            When we become so intent on exposing false doctrine that we blatantly ignore the truth, swinging the pendulum so far back that we miss it entirely, something is wrong with our perspective.  If God had no hand in what happened that day, then why do we bother to pray at all?  Do we not believe James? 
            “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much,” 5:16. 
            Do we not believe the book of Esther or the last 14 chapters of Genesis?  “God sent me,” Joseph told his brothers who had thought it was all their idea, and God continued to “send” Joseph through Potiphar’s wife, the baker and butler, and eventually Pharaoh himself.
            God spent much of the prophets talking about how He would work through the enemies of Israel.  “Ho Assyrian! The rod of my anger!  The staff of my fury is in his hand,” Isa 10:5.  God sent those Assyrians to punish Israel, just as certainly as He sent those two lumberjacks to save my home.  He did it because of the prayers I started the moment I saw that look in my husband’s eye, the moment I crouched on the floor trying to shield my little boys with my own body, the moment we saw that tree clinging to the pitifully few clods of dirt left on its roots.
            I will never believe otherwise.  In fact, why do we bother if we don’t believe it?
 
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. Psalms 145:18-19
 
Dene Ward

Wives of probation officers learn to live with a lot of things, including fear.  As certified law enforcement officers their husbands regularly go alone into neighborhoods that well-armed policemen will not enter without back-up.  Yet they do it on a regular basis to keep track of their caseload, making sure they are where they are supposed to be and not out getting into trouble again.  Keeping the community safe by supervising convicted felons is their job.  They knock on doors every day, never knowing who might answer, or what condition they might be in (drunk, high, angry) and what they might be carrying with them.  Yes, it’s illegal for them to have a weapon, but they broke the law already, remember? 
            One of the other rules for the probationer is never to go near their supervising officer’s residence.  Most of them have no idea where their officers live anyway, and the office is not allowed to pass out that information, but when you live in a tiny rural county where practically everyone is related to or otherwise knows everyone else, they don’t even need a phonebook to find their officer.  Twice I have had one of those people knock on the door, once when Keith had already left for work. 
             Do you think we are just paranoid?  One time Keith came upon one of his people parked in front of a convenience store with a shotgun in the front seat next to him.  And among several other similar events, on Friday, May 18, 2012, probation and parole officer Jeff McCoy, who had gone to check on one of his people, was shot in the head and killed in Oklahoma City, when his knock on the door was answered.
             That is why I always lock my doors when I come inside, and why, since we had a fence put up, we lock the gate 24/7.
            It’s a habit now.  I come in the door and shut it with a twist of the wrist and it’s locked.  I don’t even know I’ve done it. In fact, one time I walked outside to do something and locked myself out without realizing it. 
            On the weekends when he is not at work, I regularly lock Keith out too.  He will be chopping wood or mowing the yard and I come back in from taking him a jug of water and—flip—it’s locked.  I don’t know it until I hear him knocking at the door.  He never gets angry; he always says, “Good job,” and goes about his business.  Now if I didn’t respond to his knock that might be a different story.
            Acts 6:7 tells us that many of the priests were “obedient to the faith.”  That word “obedient” is the same Greek word used in Acts 12:13.  Peter had been miraculously released from prison and went to Mary’s house, where the church had met to pray.  He knocked at the door and Rhoda came to “answer”—that’s the word “obedient.”  Just as a knock on the door requires a response, the gospel knocking on our hearts requires one too.
            First, let me praise poor little Rhoda.  This was a time of danger for the church.  Two had been arrested and one of those already killed.  The use of the word “maid[en]” or “damsel” tells me she was unmarried and therefore quite young.  Yet she is the one who was sent to answer the door.  What if it had been Herod’s soldiers?  Then she finds Peter standing there and is so excited she forgets to let him in—meaning it was somehow secured, which was probably unusual.  It takes others coming to respond to the continued knocking for Peter to actually get into the house.
            A lot of charlatans who claim to be preachers of the faith will tell you that all you have to do is look out the door and recognize the Lord and you will be saved.  Faith is merely mental assent, with perhaps a lot of excitement thrown in, too much to actually get the door opened to prove its sincerity, but this word requires some action.  Those priests in Acts 6 were “obedient” to the faith.  They responded completely and fully to whatever was asked of them.  “Mental assent” is not an appropriate response to the gospel, any more than me looking out the diamond-shaped pane of glass at my locked-out husband and waving, “Hi!”
            How many professional athletes have you seen wearing crosses and “thanking their Lord” before going out to live exactly the way they want to instead of the way He wants them to?  Too many.  But what about those of us who do not live with such public scrutiny?  How many times do we tell the Lord, even after having “obeyed the gospel” as if it were a one-and-done deal, I’m happy to serve as long as it doesn’t cost too much money or take too much of my precious time, as long as everyone does things my way (which is the only smart way), or calls me every day to check on me and take care of my every whim?
            The Lord is knocking on the door and He wants far more than your words.  He wants all of you, your heart and your life, your total submission to His way of doing things.  Don’t just nod at Him through the peephole.  Either answer the door and let Him in, or allow Him to go on to someone who really wants Him there.
 
As many as I love, I reprove and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. Revelation 3:19-21
 
Dene Ward

  May 8 is National Coconut Cream Pie Day.  You may wonder what this has to do with a history post.  Well, in 1895, a French-owned company in what was then called Ceylon, off the southeastern tip of India, began shredding and drying coconut meat for easier shipping.  That same year in Philadelphia, a miller received a huge shipment of whole coconuts from a businessman in Cuba as partial payment for a substantial debt.  The miller began shredding and drying the coconut meat and Americans, at least in that city, finally had easy access to a tropical treat most would ordinarily never taste.  Did either of these coconut processes occur on May 8?  No one really knows the significance of May 8.  But for this post, National Coconut Cream Pie Day is our focus.
           Many years ago we were in a discussion with a group of Christians about the word “temptation” when Keith mentioned that “tempt” by its very definition means a possibility of and a desire to give in to that temptation.  No one wanted to accept that statement, probably because we all want to believe that we don’t want to sin.  We happened to know a certain brother’s dessert preferences because we had often eaten with that couple, and suddenly the solution came to me.
            “Bill cannot be tempted off his diet by a coconut cream pie,” I said.  “He cannot be tempted that way because he hates coconut.  Maybe chocolate, but not coconut.”  Click!  The light bulb went on for practically everyone.  Suddenly they understood what it meant to be tempted. 
            That understanding can lead to all sorts of discussions and get you into some deep water, but consider this one thing with me this morning.  I was “raised in the church,” as we often put it.  I had parents who taught me right from wrong in no uncertain terms.  Frankly, I have never even been tempted by most of the “moral” sins out there in the world.  I know a lot of others in the same situation.  But that doesn’t make us any better than someone who has just recently given his life to the Lord.  I am afraid that sometimes we think it does make us better.  When a young Christian tells me that older Christians look down on him when he says he still struggles with sin, I know we think so.
            Yet how does the fact that you have never struggled with a certain sin make you stronger than one who does?  In fact, since you have never struggled with it, how do you know you could win the fight at all?  There may be other temptations that cause us to fall, and not needing to fight one doesn’t mean we would be any better at fighting others.
            It only shows how weak we are when we pride ourselves on the fact that we have never been tempted in certain areas.  Ironically, that very feeling is our weakness, the thing that tempts us, and the thing in which we usually fail--pride, self-righteousness, unjust judgment, and a failure to love as we ought.
            What is your coconut cream pie?  What distaste keeps you from even being tempted in one area, and as a result, makes you fail the test of humility?  I might have to have a piece of pie while I think about it.
 
 And he spoke also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nought: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say unto you, This man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalts himself shall be humbled; but he that humbles himself shall be exalted, Luke 18:9-14.   
 
Dene Ward

Keith mentioned a few weeks ago that Sonny James had died.  “Who?” I asked.
            “You know—‘Running Bear,’ and ‘Young Love’—the country singer.”
            Ah!  “Running Bear” I remembered.  It was on the radio nearly every day for a while when I was a young teen. 
           Sonny James was born on May 1, 1928.  Keith found an article and there it was all set out for us:  26 #1 hit singles and 16 #1 hits in a row.  He still holds the record for consecutive #1 hits by any solo recording artist throughout all musical genres.  And I couldn’t remember who he was!
            So, I got to thinking and, it being just passed, I looked up the Oscar winners.  Tell me, do you know who Warren Baxter was?  He won the 1930 Best Actor Oscar for his role in “In Old Arizona.”  I never even heard of the movie.  How about Paul Lukas?  He won in 1944.  Don’t tell me, “But that’s so long ago.”  It hasn’t even been a hundred years.  It certainly isn’t ancient history.
            How about nominees?  Let’s just sit awhile in the Best Actress category.  Ruth Chatterton?  Betty Compson? Jeanne Eagels?  They were nominated in 1928.  May Robson and Diana Wynyard?  They came along in 1932.  Martha Scott?  That was 1941, and Celia Johnson was nominated in 1945.  Okay, let’s make it easier.  How about 1966?  That was Ida Kaminska.  I still never heard of her.  Marie-Christine Barrault was nominated in 1976.  Surely you know her?  Here’s an easy one—1989.  Most of you were probably born by then.  Ever hear of Pauline Collins?  Me neither.
            I bet I could do the same thing with Emmys, Tonys, Grammys, and how about Heisman awards?  Do you see the point?  A huge percentage of these people will never be remembered by most people just a few years from now.  Acting is not that important in the grand scheme of things.  Touchdown passes, slam dunks, and home runs don’t really matter.  Why, oh why, do we lavish our praise and adoration on these people?  Why do we wear their colors and their uniform numbers, dress like they do, talk like they do, and want their signatures on hats and shirts and napkins?
            Think for a minute: who do we remember?  How about a widow who sewed for the poor in the town of Joppa?  How about a Christian couple who were chased out of Rome for being of Jewish extraction, but who kept traveling preachers in their home and even helped teach them and anyone else who came along, even at the risk of death?  How about a wealthy woman in Jerusalem who allowed the church to meet in her home in the midst of a dangerous persecution so they could pray for those in prison?  How about a disciple in Damascus who took his life into his hands to preach to one of the church’s worst persecutors?  How about yet another one who was known for his encouraging ways, who traveled and preached and took young preachers under his wing till they could grow to be mature servants of God?
            I bet you know every one of their names and can find their stories in your Bible.  These are the things that last.  These are the things that no one will forget.  These are the things that will make a difference to lives, and more than that, to eternal souls. 
            And most of these are things we can do, too.  Do you want to be remembered?  Put down the football.  Throw down the novel.  Turn off the DVD.  Pull out the earbuds.  Now go out there and do good to whomever you find, everywhere you can.  You will be remembered—by many, and especially by the One who counts.
 
​…Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. ​For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also…for what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.  Luke 12:33-34; 16:15.
 
Dene Ward

On March 9, 1831, King Louis-Philippe of France signed into existence the French Foreign Legion.  Many of us have seen old cartoons or black and white movies about the Legion—men in khaki with a white cap (kepi) and hanging kerchief covering the neck, especially in the desert campaigns.  They were considered "romantic adventurers" by the public.    Actually, they were all misfits:  refugees, illegal aliens, ex-convicts, down-and-out loners with nothing left to live for, and all from other countries, at least nominally.  While the majority were Swiss, German, Czech, Irish, Canadian, American, Algerian, and other nationalities, some were Frenchmen who listed themselves as Swiss or Belgian or Luxembourgers in order to gain admittance.  They got away with it because enlisting under an assumed name was required.  Their passports were confiscated to reduce desertion because Legion training was notoriously brutal, even cruel.  But gradually, over many years, the Legion became the most elite military unit in the world.
            Though it might be labeled "French," it was actually an army of mercenaries that could be hired by other countries.  It's most celebrated battle came on April 30, 1863, and not because they won.  62 legionnaires fought against several hundred Mexican soldiers in the Battle of Camerone.  At the end of the day, only five remained alive.  Even though they were offered a chance to surrender by an impressed, almost saddened, foe, they refused, and those last five died too, still fighting with sticks and anything else they could get their hands on because they had long before run out of ammunition.  That battle is still celebrated annually, a great source of pride for the Legion.
            The slogan for the French Foreign Legion is, "The Legion is our country."  That makes a lot of sense.  None of them were French, at least on paper, and many other countries were represented.  How much unity, how much loyalty to one another and the mission, would exist if all kept claiming their own separate nationality?  No, you could not be a Legionnaire unless you were loyal to the Legion and the Legion only.  This motto was repeated to the point that all would yell it out at the least provocation.  "The Legion is our country!"
            What country are you loyal to?  Paul tells us, But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ (Phil 3:20).  Certainly that did not mean that his Roman citizenship meant nothing to him.  He used it often to help him as he preached, to take advantage of the rights it gave him, not for his own selfish aims, but so he could continue to spread the word and accomplish the will of God.  He was never one to claim his rights for any sort of personal agenda and, in fact, would give them up for the sake of the gospel whenever it was needed.
            In the last several years, I have begun to wonder if we truly understand where we belong and to whom.  So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God (Eph 2:19).  The context there is the unification of Jew and Gentile in the kingdom, a divide that came close to ruining that early institution when one group insisted that the other needed to become one of their own race or they were not welcome.  Haven't we learned the lesson yet, after 2000 years?  Or does Paul need to come teach us as he did them?  Unity, Jesus prayed in the garden, would show the world who we are.  I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, ​that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17:20-21).  He was praying for us that night--"those who will believe in me through their word"—so we could understand the need for unity, for solidarity, for loyalty to the kingdom of God above all others.
            Learn it those early brothers and sisters did, and found the strength for their own Battle of Camerone in the Roman Coliseum and elsewhere through the centuries.  If we can't learn the lesson, I fear we will surrender to the enemy sooner or later instead of resisting to death.  If we won't preach the whole Truth from our pulpits out of fear, then where do we truly count our citizenship?
           The French Foreign Legion understood this, and so they instituted their slogan.  The Devil understands it too, and he will make you think your earthly country, indeed, your earthly existence, is the one that matters most.  Don't listen to him.  Heaven is our country.  The Kingdom of God is our country.  That is where our loyalty should lie, no matter what it costs.
 
These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city (Heb 11:13-16).
 
Dene Ward

Does anyone besides me remember Romper Room?  Romper Room was a program designed for preschoolers to teach them the elements of courtesy and character.  I was confused about it growing up.  It seemed that the "Romper Room" I watched was filmed in Orlando, where I lived for a few of my earliest years, but at the same time it was a syndicated program.  How could that be?    
            The show was actually an idea that was franchised across the country.  So yes, I was seeing a local version, but there were many others and they were exactly alike.  And if none was available in your area, you saw the syndicated version.
            Miss Nancy was the first hostess of the syndicated version.  I believe that my own hostess was also a Miss Nancy, but perhaps that was part of the franchise.  I am not really sure.  The part I remember most were the "bees."  There were "Do-bees" and "Don't-bees," all stated by someone in a giant bumblebee outfit.  He would always remind the children, "Do be kind," or "Don't be a tattletale," or any of several other characteristics.
            At the end of the show, Miss Nancy would pick up "the Magic Mirror," an empty frame, actually, and look through it, reciting along with the children, "Romper bomper stomper boo. Tell me, tell me, tell me do. Magic Mirror, tell me today. Did all my friends have fun at play?"  Then she would call out children's names as if she were seeing them through the mirror.  That original Miss Nancy finally passed away on April 26, 1997, three years after the show ended its 41 year run.
            I must have been channeling Miss Nancy when I thought up the title of this essay.  We’ve been studying faith lately in our weekly women’s class.  Part of that study involved looking up every passage we could find that contained the word, then categorizing the verses into some sort of sensible outline.  One of the categories we called “acts” of faith, all the verbs associated with the word. 
            That also had me looking up the original Greek word.  I have said before and constantly remind the class that I am not a Greek scholar.  I have enough trouble with English.  Yet looking at a Greek word can instantly bring another English word to mind and give you some insight into the word.  Here are some of the things we found.
            2 Cor 5:7 says “we walk by faith not by sight.”  That word is peripateo and you should instantly think of the word “peripatetic.”  Someone who is peripatetic is a pacer, constantly moving back and forth, usually talking at the same time.  Think ADHD and you have the picture.  We aren’t to be just strolling on this faithful walk of ours.
            Gal 5:6 mentions “faith working through love.”  The word for “working” is energeo.  That brings to mind the English words “energy” and “energetic.”  This is not a lethargic faith that simply assents to a belief, but one that works because of that belief.
            Paul says we are to be “striving for the faith” in Phil 1:27.  That word is sunathleo.  Don’t you see the word “athlete” there?  We are supposed to be working at it the way an athlete works out—hard enough to raise a sweat.
            “Fight the good fight of faith,” Paul says in 1 Tim 6:12.  “Fight” is agon and if you don’t see the word “agony” there, you simply won’t see anything.  Then there is this, which I have gleaned from years of crossword puzzles—an agon was the fight between two gladiators in the coliseum, a public fight, usually to the death.  Are you publicly fighting for your faith, and fighting so hard that you often find yourself in agony from the sheer effort you are putting forth, understanding that it could very well mean spiritual life or death?
            We found several other passages as well, all of them strong active words.  None of them had anything to do with mental assent, with saying, “I believe,” and thinking that would do.  Even such simple things as “Ask in faith,” took on a new meaning when we discovered that the word is often translated “beg” or “plead.”  This is not a casual request.
            No one should ever need to ask if you are a believer.  It should be evident every minute of your life.  They should see it in your service to others (Phil 2:17), in your morality (Phil 1:27), in your love (Eph 6:23), in your confidence (Heb 10:22).  Believers do work and they work hard.  Lazy people need not apply.
 
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:8-10
 
Dene Ward