Archive for July, 2009

4:18 Spiritual Dawn

Wednesday, July 29th, 2009

Sunrise in space, NASA photo.

Sunrise in space, NASA photo.

The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day.

I once observed a dawn from an airliner 25,000 feet above the sea. The sky grew grey in the east and then an orange arc appeared between the grey sky and the black ocean, tracing the horizon as far as the eye could see. Soon the wrinkled water gleamed, and before long everything shone with a fiery glare.

In literature and in history, dawn is a powerful metaphor. Homer makes “her” a goddess with rosy fingers. Columbus anxiously peers through the darkness, awaiting the dawn which will decide if he and his men turn back, the new world undiscovered. The men of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings wait for a dawn that may bring the final battle for Middle Earth; Mr. Vane, longing for the sun as he attempts to revive a mysterious woman he has found in a field in George MacDonald’s Lilith, says, “Beneath the sad, slow-setting moon, I lay with the dead, and watched for the dawn.”

Solomon employs dawn as a metaphor for the life of a child of God. The image finds its fullest expression in the New Testament. When Christ, the Light of the World, shines upon the spiritual sleeper, a spiritual dawn begins. The sleeper awakens from the dead (Ephesians 5:14). As a child of God, made righteous by Christ (who is our righteousness, 1 Corinthians 1:30), he awaits the full daylight, not certain what it will bring, but knowing that “when He is revealed we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2).

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11:30 Soul-Winner Wisdom

Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009

A. T. Pierson, soul-winner.

A. T. Pierson, soul-winner.

The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life; and he who wins souls is wise.

This morning I was looking through a local college catalog. One of the new business courses being touted is Opportunity Analysis. Its purpose is to teach students to assess economic and social conditions for business ventures.

This set me to thinking. Business is indispensable, but its fruits, or profits will ultimately perish. The only business with eternal profits is the Father’s business. Each of us has only a limited opportunity to demonstrate our love for Christ and to win others to follow him. Would we enroll in a course whose purpose was to assess economic, spiritual, and social conditions for spiritual ventures?

Strategically-minded Christians have long thought in these terms. William Carey prepared a careful analysis and heart-felt appeal for missions in a day when Protestants paid little attention to the subject; A. T. Pierson and John Mott showed students how they might win the world in a generation through methodical efforts; and, like a general, Robert A. Jaffrey studied maps and demographics to plot the next advance of his work in the Far East. According to Solomon, such men are wise.

Wiser than all was God himself, who prepared Christ before the world was formed, and in the fullness of time sent him to be born of a woman. Christ redeemed and won untold numbers of souls. The profits of the Father’s wise strategy implemented through the Son are eternal and incalculable. Would God the righteous could do more to imitate their Lord.

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17:7 Lying Leaders, Truthful Leaders

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

Charles I on the scaffold.

Charles I on the scaffold.

Arrogant lips are unsuited to a fool—how much worse lying lips to a ruler.

King Charles I of England had great difficulties with Parliament and his people. Eager to accept those Bible verses which seem to promote divine right of kings, he showed little regard for verses such as Proverbs 17:7 which would have restrained his dishonesty. Most of his problems were the result of two errors: his determination to be an absolute monarch and his disregard for truth. He seemed incapable of keeping his own word, and in the end perished on a scaffold at the hand of a rebellion which would never have succeeded had he been honest in his dealings.

By contrast, Jesus, who truly had divine right, became a servant of his people and died for the truth. He introduced many of his deepest sayings with the words “Truly I tell you…” or “Truly, truly I tell you….” He even asserted that He Himself was the truth, and at his trial declared to Governor Pilate, “for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”

Both Charles and Jesus perished, but Jesus for the nobler sake of truth. Because of this and his vindication in resurrection, he still appeals to us with the words, “Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice.”

Solomon presented to us two kinds of leaders: the first arrogant and lying, the second humble and truthful. Which are you following?

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13:7 Great Fake Out

Sunday, July 12th, 2009

String of pearls, Zales store.

String of pearls, Zales store.

There is that maketh himself rich, yet hath nothing: there is that maketh himself poor, yet hath great riches.

When I worked as a librarian at Michigan Reformatory, I had to take law books to the protection cells and help with shakedowns of general cells. This gave me opportunity to observe three ways in which prisoners handled possessions.

The first group simply had what they had and made no effort to exaggerate or conceal what they owned.

The second group, to prevent extortion or theft, took pains to conceal any useful item they owned, whether by hiding it where it could not easily be discovered, or by putting a sham front on it.

A very few—and this third group interested me the most—ostensibly stacked boxes of toothpaste, soap, cards and other small items of prison value for all to see, pretending a wealth they did not have. Every box was empty.

Jesus was their opposite; he came to the earth with real treasure (he likened it to a pearl of great price, or a buried treasure) but, like the second group of prisoners, he cloaked what he had. Although higher than any earthly king, he came as a the poorest of commoners, and forbade his disciples to reveal who he really was. The greatest of philosophers, he spoke in parables. The purest of men, he mingled with thieves, prostitutes, revolutionaries and extortionists. A healer of the first rank, he admonished those he cured to say nothing.

Jesus cloaked who he was and his message so that only those who were serious about following God would penetrate to the reality of himself.

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21:5 Diligence vs. Haste

Saturday, July 4th, 2009

Microwave ovens were one result of an unhasty financial policy.

Microwave ovens were one result of an unhasty financial policy.

The plans of the diligent tend only to plenty; but of every one who is hasty only to want.

When Ronald Reagan took office, he inherited the worst economy of fifty years. Inflation was in double digits. Production was stagnant. Gasoline prices were soaring.

Hurting people shrieked for the government to do something—anything. His fearful advisors also urged government intervention in the economy. Reagan refused quick fixes. Firmly committed to private enterprise, he cut taxes, reduced government spending, and condensed or removed regulations. The results were months in coming, but restored the American economy.

What is more, his tax cuts and deregulation freed private capital to fund production of new goods, such as microwaves and personal computers. Over the course of fifteen years, his supply-side economics resulted in the huge tax surpluses which Clinton inherited.

The panic-stricken “do-something” people with their hasty plans only make matters worse, as Roosevelt’s unsuccessful alphabet agencies, Nixon’s gasoline rationing, Bush’s bank bailouts, and Obama’s huge stimulus packages demonstrate.

Sins are like economics. They are often an attempt to get quickly what we should obtain slowly by prudence and forethought.

Jesus never went for the quick fix if it meant sinning. On the contrary, his death was pre-planned before the creation of the world. Since all of the evidence shows our universe is at least twelve and a half billion years old, it is fair to say there was nothing hasty about God’s plan of salvation. It was a plan over twelve billion years in implementation.

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