Then Amos answered and said to Amaziah, “I was no prophet, nor a prophet's son, but I was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore figs, Amos 7:14.

Amaziah, the [false] priest at Bethel had just told Amos to go back to Judah.  They were tired of his scare tactics, what they viewed as rebellion against their king, Jeroboam II.  That is how we learn of Amos’s occupation.  While some view him as the owner of the sheep rather than the shepherd who actually slept outdoors watching his flock, you cannot get away from the humble position of fig picker.

Sycamore figs (also spelled sycomore figs) were not the figs of the upper classes, but a smaller fruit, slightly sweet, watery, and a little woody.  This is what the poor people ate.  The only way a sycamore fig would ripen was for someone to pinch it, causing it to bruise.  About four days later it was fit to pick and eat.  Can you imagine anything much more tedious than pinching every single fruit on every single tree in an orchard?  Then going to the next orchard and doing it all again?  And again?

As I was pondering this in our Tuesday morning class, I suddenly thought, “And isn’t that what happens to us?”  The only way for us to ripen as a disciple of our Lord is to be bruised.  In my ever increasing number of years, I have seen only those who reach their lowest point realize their need for God.  If I am proud, smug, self-reliant, self-righteous, all too sure of my own knowledge, I will never be able to prostrate myself before an Almighty Creator and commit my life, my belongings, MYSELF to Him.  I will never be able to take up the cross of self-denial and self-sacrifice and serve my Savior and my neighbor. 

Some people have a stronger spiritual sense and can recognize their need for salvation quickly.  Their bruising is a bruising of the spirit that occurs when they recognize their sin and remorse hits them like that proverbial ton of bricks.  Others need a physical bruising.  You see it often when tragedy strikes—a serious illness, a devastating accident, the loss of a loved one.  A bruising in this physical life may be necessary for them to see the need in their spiritual lives.  I have often heard it said by preachers that the best time to reach your neighbor is in a time of tragedy, and the scriptures bear that out as well.

Isaiah preached imminent destruction.  In the latter chapters of his book he tells those impenitent people that God will be waiting to take them back—not before the calamity, but afterward—after they have been bruised by a physical destruction the like of which they had never seen before.  That, after all, would be the time when they would finally listen.

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite. ​For I will not contend forever, nor will I always be angry; for the spirit would grow faint before me, and the breath of life that I made. Because of the iniquity of his unjust gain I was angry, I struck him; I hid my face and was angry, but he went on backsliding in the way of his own heart. I have seen his ways, but I will heal him; I will lead him and restore comfort to him and his mourners, ​creating the fruit of the lips. Peace, peace, to the far and to the near,” says the LORD, “and I will heal him. Isa 57:15-19.

Ezekiel says much the same: I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice,  Ezek 34:15-16.

And who does Jesus offer His invitation to:  Come all you who are weary and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart and you shall find rest for your souls, Matt 11:28,29.

And so each of us must face our bruising.  The more quickly we yield, the easier that bruising will be, not because trials will cease, but because our humble hearts will accept both them and the help we will have to face them.  We won’t be alone any longer, a state of affairs that only comes to the stubborn, who refuse to surrender to Divine love and protection.  Sometimes it takes a “fig-pincher” to help with the process, someone who, like the prophet Nathan, can stand before us and proclaim, “Thou art the man.”  And like the sycamore fig, we will ripen into the fruitful child of God each of us has the potential to become.

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint, Isa 40:29-31.

Dene Ward

Canning tomatoes is one of the more difficult garden season chores.  You wash each and every tomato.  You scald each and every tomato.  You pound ice blocks till your arms ache in order to shock and cool each and every scalded tomato.  You peel each and every tomato and finally you cut up each and every tomato.  How many?  In the old days about 5 five gallon buckets full, enough to make 40+ quarts.  Then you sterilize jars, pack jars, and process jars.  Only 7 jars fit in the canner at a time, so you go through that at least 6 times.

 And you will have more failures to seal with canned tomatoes than any other thing you can.  As you pack them in, pushing down to make room, you must be very careful not to let the juice spill over into the threads of the jar.  And just in case you did that heinous crime, you take a damp cloth and wipe each thread of each jar.  Tomato pulp will keep a perfectly good jar, lid, and ring from sealing.

 In order to have that many tomatoes you must be willing to cut up a few that are half-rotten, disposing of the soft, pulpy, stinky parts—and boy, howdy, can they stink!—in order to save sometimes just a bite or two of tomato.  Now that there are only two of us, I usually limit myself to 20 + quarts.  I still put one in every pot of spaghetti sauce, one in every pot of chili, and one in every pot of minestrone, as well as a few other recipes, it’s just that I don’t make as many of those things as I did with two big boys in the house.  Now I can afford to be a little profligate.  If I pick up a tomato with a large bad spot, I am just as likely to toss the whole thing rather than try to save the bite or two that is good, especially if it is a small tomato to begin with.  Why go to all that work—washing, scalding, shocking, peeling, cutting up, packing—for a mere teaspoon of tomato?

 But isn’t that what God and Jesus did for us? For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leads unto life, and few are they that find it. Matt 7:14.

 The Son of God, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Phil 2:6-8.  And he did that for a half—no!--for a more than half rotten tomato of a world.  He did that to save a remnant, a mere teaspoon of souls who would care enough to listen and obey the call. 

 Sometimes, by the end of the day, when my arms are aching, my fingers are nicked and the cuts burning from acidic tomato juice, my back and feet are killing me from standing for hours, and I am drenched with sweat from the steamy kitchen, I am ready to toss even the mostly good tomatoes, the ones with only a tiny bad spot, because it means extra work beyond a quick slice or two.  Aren’t you glad God did not feel that way about us?  It wasn’t just a half rotten world he came to save, it was a bunch of half rotten individuals in that world, of which you and I are just a few.

 But what is God's reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. Rom 11:4-5

Dene Ward

 Have you heard of the Spanish Armada?  The "Invincible" Armada it is sometimes called.  If you know much about history, you know that calling it that name doomed it to an ignominious defeat sooner or later.

 Spain and England had been allies for a good while.  It seemed a good deal for England who had no empire at the time while Spain was spread all over, including large holdings in the New World.  They were both leery of France and that's what drew them together in the first place.  They made several alliances through marriages, and then the religious problem rose up to bite them both.  Soon we see a Catholic Queen Mary and a Protestant Queen Elizabeth and that was the beginning of the end for the alliance.  King Philip of Spain put together a massive fleet of huge ships, 130 in number, manned by 30,000 sailors.  They headed for England to put things in order, that is, to reestablish Catholicism as the national religion in that country.

 The underdog surprised them in the English Channel where they docked at Calais.  It wasn't time for the battle to begin in their minds, but surprise can often be an excellent weapon.  The Spanish ships may have been large, but the English ships were more maneuverable.  They also used long range gunnery rather than close quarters fighting which kept the Spaniards off the English ships and many swimming in the sea.  English "fire ships"—old or otherwise repurposed ships that were loaded with combustibles, ignited, and set to drift into the Spanish fleet--scattered them and created confusion.  Then, as the Spanish tried to flee up and around the British Isles, storms and strong winds destroyed 24 of them.  Because of the turmoil, the Spanish soon began to run out of food, drinking water, and other supplies.  Before long, the "Invincible" Armada was defeated.

 For anyone who is familiar with their Bibles, this is not an unusual story.  We have heard it again and again as the children of Israel watched the Red Sea inundate Pharaoh and his army, in Joshua taking Jericho without a fight, in Jonathan's near single handed defeat of the Philistines, David's defeat of Goliath, and the angel of Jehovah destroying 185,000 Assyrians in one night.  We have seen God send a storm to defeat the chariots of King Jabin and send the army captain Sisera running to a woman who feared God.  We have seen Elijah praying for God to open the eyes of his servant so he could thousands and thousands of horses and fiery chariots ready to defend them against the enemy.  When God leads the army and they trust in Him, they are indeed invincible, and no one can beat them. 

 Christ has already won the battle for us.  He fought Satan by overcoming sin, by dying as a perfect sacrifice, and then by rising from the dead and ascending to his throne.  Storms may come but he will still them.  With his armor and the Word we can fight against anything Satan throws our way.  We will never run short of supplies because he gives us everything we can possibly need to win, in abundance.  And we have an innumerable army standing by to help us.  All we have to do is believe in him and his victory as we fight our way through life.  We are indeed invincible when he is on our side.

But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.  O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?  The sting of death is sin; and the power of sin is the law: but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.  1Cor15: 54-57

Dene Ward

 Let every soul be in subjection to the higher powers: for there is no power but of God; and the powers that be are ordained of God. Therefore he that resists the power, withstands the ordinance of God: and they that withstand shall receive to themselves judgmentRom13:1,2

 On July 30, 1619 the first elected legislative assembly in America met in Jamestown Colony, Virginia.  Known as the House of Burgesses, they met for a six day session.  According to historicjamestown.org, they were tasked with making “just laws for the happy guiding and governing of the people there inhabiting.”

 The first law passed was that tobacco should be sold for at least three shillings a pound.  Since they grew tobacco that one seems a little self-serving.  But they also passed laws prohibiting gambling, drunkenness, and idleness, and made Sabbath observation mandatory.  While we have learned over the centuries that one cannot legislate morality, it makes a pleasant change to read of that society’s values.

 God’s ordination of civil government certainly means that a Christian is supposed to obey the laws of the land, unless, of course, those laws stand in opposition of God’s laws (Acts 5:29). The verses quoted above tell us that anyone who disobeys the law of the land is disobeying God.  Period.  No matter what we might think about a particular law.  But, even understanding that, I think we completely miss the purpose of civil government in God’s Eternal Purpose.  Take a moment and look at this:

I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men; for kings and all that are in high place; that we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness and gravity. This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; who would have all men to be saved, and come to the knowledge of the truth1Tim2:1-4.

 Did you catch that?  We are to pray for our leaders so that they may lead us in a way that our lives are quiet and tranquil.  And why is that?  So that we can preach the gospel without fear and disruption, so that all may “come to a knowledge of the truth.”  Simply put, so that we can sit down with our neighbor on any given night and show him the gospel without having to worry about home invasions, rioters in the street, or enemies attacking from afar.  When criminals run rampant or we must be ready to run to a bomb shelter at a moment’s notice, we certainly can’t get much teaching accomplished!

 And so in our country, even before we were a country, there was law and order.  And we should pray every day that it continues.  Even more, we should take advantage of the peace we have to talk to our neighbors, the cashier at the grocery store, the waitress at the diner, the postman making his rounds—anyone we come in contact with.  THAT is why we have a civil government ordained by God.

 Be subject to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether to the king, as supreme; or unto governors, as sent by him for vengeance on evil-doers and for praise to them that do well. For so is the will of God, that by well-doing you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men:  as free, and not using your freedom for a cloak of wickedness, but as bondservants of God. Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king  1Pet2:13-17

Dene Ward

From my journal:

Monday, June 13, 2005.

This is the big day.  “Terrified” pretty well says it all.  We began it with a prayer and that prayer continued on silently through the day for both of us. 

Today I will undergo a surgery that has never been done successfully before, using a newly invented device that has never been used before.  If it works, my vision will be saved for awhile longer.  If it doesn’t, I will be blind in that eye.  If we don’t try it, I will be blind in both eyes, probably before the year is out.

We arrived early, expecting a wait, but they took me straight in, after I signed some special consent forms upstairs.  Since the FDA had not approved this, “you will have to sign your life away,” the doctor told me, but what choice did I have?  I signed page after page, and then initialed some handwritten lines added along the side of the form.  One of them said, “I understand that no one knows how this material will interact with human tissue.”  Finally they sent me back downstairs to the surgical floor. 

When the nurse called me in, Keith and I shared a long hug.  I am sure that no one else there understood why we made such a big deal out of this, but it was possible that I would never see him out of that eye again, and maybe not the other before much longer.

That was quite a day and quite an experience.  I was indeed terrified.  You don’t sign your life away like that unless you are desperate, unless the only other choice is a bad one.  I did it, and it gave my left eye another year and a half of vision before we had more difficult and painful surgeries to go through, which have spared me yet again.  Signing my life away has given me many more years of vision so far—vision, not good vision—years no one expected even if the surgery worked, and who knows how much more to come before the medications stop working and the surgeries are compromised. 

That level of desperation is the level you must feel in your spiritual life before you will “sign your life away” to God. 

And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison-house were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened: and every one's bands were loosed. And the jailor, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do yourself no harm: for we are all here. And he called for lights and sprang in, and, trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?  Acts 16:26-31.

Do you think that jailor wasn’t terrified?  Do you think he wasn’t desperate?  Imagine how that plea sounded coming from this trembling man who thought his life was over.  “What must I do to be saved?”

Desperate people do desperate things—like commit their lives to God.  If you never felt that desperation, chances are your commitment was not real.  Chances are you will fall when times get tough, when sacrifices are demanded, when you lose more than you bargained for.  Desperate people do not bargain.  They take the first offer and take it immediately.

How desperate were you when you were offered salvation?  If you “grew up in the church,” you may never have felt it.  Doing what everyone expects of you is not desperation.  Wanting the approval of others, especially one particular “other” is not desperation.  “Just in case” is not desperation.  You have to recognize a need and know there is no other way of taking care of that need.  You have to know what it means to stand a sinner before a holy God—and it doesn’t mean you feel guilty because you stole a cookie from the cookie jar. But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord, Luke 5:8.  That, standing a sinner before a holy God, is the recognition you must come to.

Signing your entire life away to God is exactly what He expects of you.  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple, Luke 14:33. Nothing and no one can be more important to you than Him.   I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, Gal 2:20.  Your entire life is no longer yours to do with as you please, but since you know that is your only hope, you do it gladly.

How desperate were you?  How desperate are you now?

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory, Col 3:1-3.

Dene Ward

I’m seeing a lot my brothers and sisters running around beating their breasts and wailing like the Little Red Hen, “The sky is falling, the sky is falling!” The world is about to end, they are sure.  All is lost for the people of God.  Nonsense.

And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. And now be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that you sold me here: for God did send me before you to preserve life, (Gen 45:4-5.

Would you have thought twenty years before that statement that God was doing anything?  Here is the one He has sent to preserve the chosen people of God, the forbears of the Messiah, and he is sold as a slave and then falsely accused and thrown into prison and forgotten by the man he helped.  And now those chosen people are in danger of death from a famine.  But yes, God was accomplishing exactly what He set out to do, using the imperfect and illogical actions of men.

Years later the people of God are under constant attack from marauding Midianites who regularly swoop in and take the produce of their farming and herding, leaving them barely able to survive and afraid to perform even menial day to day tasks.

Now the angel of the LORD came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor,” Judges 6:11-12.

O mighty man of valor?  A man so scared he is trying to thresh wheat deep in a hole?  A man whose first task he would only try in the middle of the night?  A man who needed sign after sign to reassure him?  And then he has only an army of 300 against a host of 135,000 (Judges 8:10)?  Yes, that was the man and the method God chose and that man ultimately came through, delivering the people and acting as judge for forty years after.

They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” For they conspire with one accord; against you they make a covenant— Ps 83:3-5.  Imagine how it looked to the few faithful throughout Israel’s history—the 7000 who did not bow their knee to Baal, the righteous remnant that watched as the city of God fell to invaders who performed sacrilege after sacrilege to prove that their god was more powerful than Jehovah.  And that is exactly how it looked.

And then think of those disciples as Jesus was carried away, tortured, and killed.  Here was the Messiah, they believed, and how could this be happening?  They had placed all their hopes in him and now that hope was lost.

But that too turned into the most unlikely victory—11 men standing on a mountain wondering how in the world they could fulfill the mission they had just been given.  Once again God managed, not to just eke out a victory, but to overwhelmingly conquer as Christianity swept the world. 

Did they give up when persecution hit them almost immediately?  Did they give up thirty years later when Nero tried it again? Or the next time, or the next?

Just who do we think God is?  He is not a loser.  He is in control.  His ways are not ours—surely you’ve quoted that verse yourself.  It may look like things are going south, but what has happened throughout history, over and over and over?  GOD WINS.  The victory is not always easy for His people.  Sometimes they are hurt.  Sometimes they die.  Sometimes they die horrible deaths.  When you committed your life to Him, what did you think you signed up for?  Comfort and ease?  Riches and popularity? 

Stop wailing and whining because things are bad.  The first century church came into a world every bit as bad—or worse!  It was a hard victory, but it was a victory.  Some of them celebrated it in another plane, and that may yet be our future too.  But do not ever doubt Who is in control and Who will win. 

Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and your dominion endures throughout all generations…Psalm 145:13.

Dene Ward

 On June 22, 1953, a newsboy in Brooklyn named Jimmy Bozart, dropped a nickel from the money he had made selling newspapers.  It broke in two which exposed the fact that the nickel was hollow.  Inside sat a tiny piece of microfilm.  I am assuming he contacted an authority of some sort because it eventually wound up in the hands of the FBI.  On the microfilm they found a coded numeric message containing 207 sets of five digit numbers. ”Mental Floss” tells me the case foundered after that.  Evidently there was no way to know who had paid for his paper with the hollow nickel, though everyone assumed it was a mistake. 

 Finally in May 1957, a Soviet KGB agent named Reino Hayhanen defected and provided the cipher key.  He also identified his “handler” (case manager/recruiter), Colonel Rudolf Ivanovich Abel, known by the alias “Mark”. He was arrested on June 21, 1957, and served four years of a 45 year sentence before being traded back to the Soviets in exchange for Francis Gary Powers, an American U2 pilot in1962.

 There was a time when spies were all the rage.  John LeCarre made a mint writing books about espionage.  Sean Connery and his subsequent brethren made the English spy James Bond come to life in film.  Even television went the route of shows about spies.  In the sixties and seventies we had Mission: Impossible, The Avengers, I Spy, The Man from UNCLE, and Secret Agent, the latter introduced with a song by the same name sung by Johnny Rivers.  We even had a comedic spoof of the genre in Get Smart and a Western version in the Wild, Wild West.

 Even the Bible has a few spies in it, though they had a decidedly different mission.  God’s spies were all about going to look and find out.  In Numbers 13 Moses sent 12 spies, one from each tribe, “to spy out the land.”  For forty days they traveled up and down the Promised Land and brought back the report of a beautiful and fruitful land.  But, they also brought back the report of a people who were large and strong and cities well fortified, and they lacked the faith to encourage the people to take it.

 Then, forty years later, we have the two spies who went into the city of Jericho.  Joshua charged them to “go view the land, especially Jericho” (Josh 2:1).  In both of these cases, God wanted the people to see the wealth and beauty of the land He had promised them, to become excited about taking that land and living there.  That was the result in only the second case.

 We have a Promised Land” in our future too, a city “whose builder and maker is God” (Heb 11:10).  God won’t be sending us there to “spy out the land” but He has certainly given us glimpses of that place in a life full of blessings sent because of His grace and mercy.

 We experience a little piece of Heaven when our marriages match His plan—when the two halves of His image become one.

 We see a piece of Heaven in a family that lives according to His plan, a home full of laughter and love.

  We have a view of Heaven in a garden that occasionally produces far more than the hundredfold one might expect, and feeds us with healthy and nourishing food.  We see it in a riot of color as the flowers bloom so much that they bend and nearly break the boughs they cover.  In those things we see the Garden we left and the one to which we hope to return.

  We get a little peek into Heaven in a church full of brothers and sisters who get along with one another, “each counting the other as better than himself.” 

 We hear a bit of Heaven when our brothers and sisters sing praises to God, not with a man-made instrument, but with the one God made, the one He most wants to hear, our voices blending in a harmony that matches the sincerity of our hearts and the harmony of our thoughts and goals.

 All these things and more give us just a small taste of what Heaven will be like, but only if they match God’s perfect design for them all.  Keep your eyes open to “spy out the land” God has in store for us, and encourage yourself to get there, not by your own might, but with the help and grace of the God who keeps it in store for us.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever Psalm 23:6

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

When the boys were almost teens or just beginning those years, I noticed that Nathan had posters on the ceiling of his room. I just presumed he ran out of wall space. After he left, we took them down and discovered all the water marks and holes they had covered. At a still earlier age, the roof leaked in that end of the house and I tried everything I could to fix it as I could not afford a professional. Then, I did not know how to fix the holes, but Nathan managed—he covered them up. Finances improved and it was not long after we discovered the problem that we had someone fix it.

Watergate may be the best known in our times, but corruption and coverups have been around since government was. God ordained government, but Satan corrupted it. Coverups were much simpler when kings could simply lop off the heads of any who objected. Now, in our republican form of government, often the coverup causes more trouble than the original corruption.

Imputation is certainly the most evil coverup of all time with the vilest consequences. The notion that when God looks at a sinner under grace, He does not see the sins but rather looks at the perfect life of Christ which he accounts to the sinner. God wrote no passage of scripture that even suggests such an odious coverup –that a sinner with all his rotten, vulgar evil is counted righteous just like he is?!  God wrote no passage that even suggests such a thing. Satan must have worked overtime to get that one accepted as a prevalent doctrine among those denominations that call themselves, "Christian." It certainly leaves the sinner comfortable in his sins while continuing them without change and believing the lie that God is looking at Jesus rather than his foul soul.

Passages can be multiplied that proclaim that we are cleansed, pure and holy because we are forgiven by Jesus' blood, i.e. His death, burial and resurrection (Rom 6:1-7; Heb 8:11-12; Acts 22:16; etc ) Paul makes clear that God chose us to be holy and without blemish and by his grace through Jesus and the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses i.e. sins (Eph 1:3-10). Forgiveness makes men holy, not some kind of mockery of holiness wherein God pretends that the sinner still in his sins has the righteousness of Jesus. We remain holy by finding the way of escape God provides and by seeking Jesus our advocate "IF" we sin (1 Cor 10:13; 1 Jn 2:1-2). Since God makes the way of escape, it takes a willful act by a man to return to bondage. A man overcomes temptation by God's gracious help.

"For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life"is expanded and explained when the apostle says a few verses later, "We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life…for he that has died is justified from sin." The whole matter of being saved by Jesus life is summed up, "I have been crucified with Christ and it is no more I who lives but Christ lives in me" (Rom 5:10; 6:4,7; Gal 2:20). You have no need to cover up the holes in your holiness, the ugly stains on your soul with pretend posters of Jesus taped up between you and God. Repent and live righteously by the power of the blood.

As Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

And such were some of you: but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

From almost the moment I knew I would survive, I resented that I was "the officer who got shot." I knew officers who treated their caseloads like they were not people at all. At the coffee urn, they referred to their probationers as "dirtbags," "lowlife's" or worse terms not suitable for printing. And, if anything, they spoke to them worse, harsh words and manner like decent people would not use on their dogs. And I was the one who was shot?!  As I watched such, perhaps even the majority of officers ruined any chance that people who had made a mistake had of building a life by their disdain. I felt like shooting some of them myself. Now, make no mistake, I was hard when necessary, firm at all times, demanding. But, the people who were making it, or even on the way, said I was the best probation officer they ever had. The ones that violated, made no effort, would not listen, had a different opinion. I often told them, "The only difference between me and you is that my sins are not crimes."

In my officer safety classes, the rule I pushed hardest was to treat the probationers like human beings. As a general rule, that will make one safer when he goes out among them; but the second part of my rule stated that doing otherwise changes who you are. Often, police officers develop an "us vs them" mentality. We live in the real world, these lowlifes are the problem and if you don't see it that way, you need to wake up, became their attitude.

Jesus ate with sinners; Paul said, "such were some of you" after a list of "lowlife" sins. Would you guess how many "such" would have been converted by the attitude once expressed to me in a business meeting of the church where I was preaching, "You are bringing the wrong type people to church?" Not said in many places, but palpable in every other way, the same attitude keeps many away from their salvation.

In a total reversal, many say, be accepting, one must show tolerance for other opinions and lifestyles. Thus, the gospel and the holiness of God lose all meaning. Jesus died to save us from our sins, not to save us in them. He arose to give the power to transform ourselves to be sons of God. How can a sinner renew his mind unless he is confronted?

With many, the confrontation is with so much grace that the sinner has no idea he has been reproved (corrected). He walks away thinking, "that was a nice conversation" (or sermon). Where is the salt? "You are the salt of the earth." A friend once read every occurrence of the word, "salt" in the Bible. Tedious! But he learned that not once is the word used in the sense of preservative. NOT ONCE. "Speak with grace seasoned with salt."  Without making a sinner feel like a lowlife, we recovering sinners can speak clearly enough to cause him to repent. Otherwise, we are false teachers, comforting the one mired in evil.

I charge you in the sight of God, and of Christ Jesus, who shall judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be urgent in season, out of season; REPROVE, REBUKE, EXHORT, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure the sound doctrine; but, having itching ears, will heap to themselves teachers after their own desires;  and will turn away their ears from the truth, and turn aside unto fables. But be  sober in all things, suffer hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfil your ministry (2 Tim 4:1-5).

Keith Ward

“Are you looking for a sign?  This is it!”

            We saw that on a highway somewhere when we were traveling, and under it the address of the local church.  I laughed then, but maybe it wasn’t a bad idea.  People are still looking for a sign, just as they were in Jesus’ day.

            I have heard a lot of talk about roadside signs in my lifetime, many of them negative, and I understand the concern.  The church is an undenominational entity and those signs, if they are not carefully worded, can teach things we are trying not to teach. But can I say this one thing about them?  Through the years, many people have shown up at various church doors where I worshipped because of the sign.  They remembered it from childhood.  Or maybe they remembered a neighbor who acted differently than their other neighbors, who helped their family when no one else did.  They remembered other neighbors, people who faced their own tragedy and came through it with a smile and faith intact.  Maybe they remembered the times that neighbor invited them to church and now they are in the middle of a crisis and they see a sign in front of a building that looks awfully familiar, one like the sign where their neighbor faithfully attended year after year no matter what was happening in their lives or in the world.

            That is certainly one benefit of those signs that people, including me, sometimes wish weren’t there any more, or were worded much differently.  But maybe this is what we need to concentrate on: that sign wouldn’t have done a thing in the cases I mentioned if the remembered people hadn’t been the kind of people they were. 

            Our lives are supposed to be the sign.  In a world where “Christian” can mean anything and everything, you should still be able to tell a genuine one by how he acts.  In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven, Matt 5:16.  If you really want people to be interested in your faith, then show them a faith worth being interested in.

            A lot of people in Jesus’ day wanted the other kind of sign.  What did Jesus have to say about that?  Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah, Matt 12:38,39.  Jesus knew that a miraculous sign would do no good.  He said as much in the parable where the rich man desired Abraham to send Lazarus back from the dead as a sign to his brothers, but was told, “If they will not hear the Law and the prophets, they won’t hear if someone comes back from the dead.”  The sign on Mt Carmel ultimately did no good either.  The next morning Jezebel was still in power, able to threaten Elijah and send him running.

            No, the signs that really matter are the ones we act out in front of our friends.  Those are the signs that spark their interest and lead them to ask questions, signs that will eventually start them reading the Word of God and finding their way to Him.  Miracles didn’t work for Jesus, and he steadfastly refused to send a sign at their request.  Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, John 12:37.  What worked were his words and the life he lived, and that’s what works today.

            You are the sign people are looking for.  Word it carefully.

Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ, so that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of you that you are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel, and not frightened in anything by your opponents. This is a clear sign to them of their destruction, but of your salvation, and that from God, Phil 1:27,28.

Dene Ward