Revelation reflections part 1

I worked for a Maryland Pepsi plant every summer of my high school years in order to earn some money for college. We were among a pack of store vendors who would travel throughout the Eastern Shore of Maryland andDelaware, dispensing our wares to stores ranging from Safeways to 7-11s. Rick was the Pepsi driver and I was the grunt-guy ...you know, the helper who hauled the cases of drinks up the steps and through the aisles.
During our route trips, we often ran into a buddy named Derrick who played softball for our team in the summer industrial league. He was a massive guy, with forearms like titanium pistons. We had a fantastic cleanup hitter with Derrick, but he had a really bad habit of forgetting when and where the games were. Because of that, every time we saw him in a parking lot or store counter, we’d remind him of the upcoming game.

Well, we had a big game coming up the following Friday. Sure enough, the moment we saw Derrick puttering across the Pizza Hut parking lot, we stopped him.

"Gonna make the game?" asked Rick. "We sure need you next week."

"Um, I’m not sure I can make it," answered Derrick. "I definitely want to play, but I got something coming up although I’m not sure what it is. I’ll check back with you later tomorrow afternoon." The next day we saw Derrick, he was still puzzled.

"I know next Friday will be busy, but I can’t remember what it is," he said. "Look, I’ll get some kind of an answer for you by Wednesday."

On Wednesday we got our answer. "I can’t make it next Friday, boys," Derrick said, " because I finally figured out what it is. I’m going to get married that Friday." Within ten days Derrick was going to get married and he almost forgot about it.

Let me tell you, our buddy Derrick was a textbook case of getting confused with priorities.

A good number of people who read the book of Revelation have the same problem with getting priorities mixed up. They think of it as an adventure book with dragons, demons and prophecies, but miss the main point. They jump right into trying to decipher the "code words" but don’t look at the rest of the Scripture to get the proper picture.

Listen, friend, Revelation is a fantastic book. It’s a shame to see it being considered confusing or frightening, so I’m going to attempt to make it as clear and understandable as possible. My hope is, by the time you finish going through this study, you will be able to clearly see what the passages are all about and that you will be able to really enjoy this majestic and exciting book.

I think too many people look at the book of Revelation the way they look at their first attempt at getting their driver’s license. They really, really want to get to know the whole matter right down to the details, but are pretty scared at the immensity of the whole project. Well, relax. We’ll take our time and break this book into an easy-to-digest series of lessons.

Let’s get right into our study. Please turn to Revelation chapter 1. I’m going to give you a hint, right away: You’ll get the idea of the whole book condensed into the first eight verses.

Rev 1:1 - The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated {it} by His angel to His bond-servant John,

Rev 1:2 who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, {even} to all that he saw.

Rev 1:3 Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

Rev 1:4 John to the seven churches that are in Asia: Grace to you and peace, from Him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne,

Rev 1:5 and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. To Him who loves us and released us from our sins by His blood--

Rev 1:6 and He has made us {to be} a kingdom, priests to His God and Father--to Him {be} the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Rev 1:7 BEHOLD, HE IS COMING WITH THE CLOUDS, and every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him; and all the tribes of the earth will mourn over Him. So it is to be. Amen.

Rev 1:8 "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty."

Look at verse 1 again: Revelation is an apokalupsis (we know it as "apocalypse"). It means a revelation, an unveiling, a lifting the lid and seeing the contents. Just like when I would come into the house after school, smelled my mom’s great cooking (she was a dynamic Russian woman who felt the holiest room in the house was the kitchen - how I love that type of thinking) and discovered what joyous feast awaited us by taking the lid off the huge pot at the back of the stove. That’s apokalupsis, friend, and this book does the same thing. It’s is not a hidden book - that word "hidden" is apocrypha, not apokalupsis.

Okay, then.

What does the book reveal?

Jesus Christ. He is the object of the entire reading. He is the one revealed by the book. Miss Jesus as you read this and it’s like reading Moby Dick and leaving out the whale. It’s like reading War and Peace and forgetting to read the passages about the battles. It’s like reading the Lord of the Rings and never seeing the quest to destroy the ring.

Jesus is at the center of this. Jesus is the marrow and the meat of this entire book. Don’t let that fact get away from you.

Solo deo gloria - "To the glory of God alone."

Debate results

I am sorry that I haven't contacted you lately. School exams are this week and I have been overloaded, plus I am trying to get final details about a novel for Breakaway magazine resolved. That, combined with Christmas holiday, and you see how things are.

Many of you have asked about the debate with the atheist last week. I really must tell you that I left with a very odd feeling. There was really no battle at all...the atheist side had nothing to give! Wihtin the forty minute debate, I presented at least twenty facts on creation, prophecy, miracles, philosophy and religions and my opponent answered none of them. In fact, those who watched the debate on in-school television agreed that he gave no facts whatsoever. I quoted not only from the Bible (Isaiah 1:18, Mark 12:30) but also from Nietszche, Kierkegaard, Kant, Stephen Hawking and others. I gave facts from both sides of the fence and answered them carefully, but there was no response to my assertions, just opinions and feeling.

This, my friend, is postmodernism.

Let me give you an idea of the society around us which is postmodern. Here are some characteristics:
"- there is no objective progress, simply a 'playful celebration of chaos'..." (Hewitt sociology website) In other words, it's better to kick over a construction that to build one.

"...society is based instead upon the decline of absolute truths, and the rise of relativity." (Ibid) Relativity is the belief that there is no real right or wrong... you can make up your own right and wrong. Absolute truths like sin, purity and obedience are outmoded to the postmodernist.

The pbs.org website offers it best:
"...postmodernism is highly skeptical of explanations which claim to be valid for all groups, cultures, traditions, or races, and instead focuses on the relative truths of each person. In the postmodern understanding, interpretation is everything; reality only comes into being through our interpretations of what the world means to us individually. Postmodernism relies on concrete experience over abstract principles, knowing always that the outcome of one's own experience will necessarily be fallible and relative, rather than certain and universal."

Note that it is up to interpretation of the individual as to whether something is true or not.
THAT is the way the debate went. The atheist answered no questions but plowed ahead with his own questions...yet when I answered them cleanly, he registered no response but merely went off on another trail.

I send this to you so that you may be aware of the thick postmodern thinking about us in the world today.

People are trying to invent their own truths, but may I encourage you with one clear picture...
...after the debate I met him again in private at a Starbucks for a one-to-one. In showing him the prophecies of the Bible and their fulfillments (Psalm 22:1,16, 18 ; Isa. 9:6 and Micah 5:2 for example), he was genuinely shocked.

Please pray for this man, and please study to be ready for a postmodern challenge that may come your way.

Thankful

"Thanksgiving is the language of heaven, and we had better start to learn it if we are not to be mere dumb aliens there." ... A. J. Gossip

What have I to be thankful for? Ah, this list is a long one, but I'll condense it for the sake of this blog:

A wonderful, wonderful wife name Jill who puts up with my many faults and encourages me in times of stress and grief. Jill is my very best friend here on earth.

My two boys, Nicholas and Peter, who are growing and learning. I see them take steps into manhood in a careful yet serious way, observing and studying, motivating and showing examples...and just plain learning to love the Lord more! I enjoy every moment I have with them.

My littlest one, Julianne, who is now 14 months. She's starting to walk. A baby in the house at my age (46 yrs) has made our place into a circus once again.

My dear, dear Lord and Savior Jesus the Messiah. He has been everything I could hope for and more. This Wednesday I debate an atheist in a public setting. Outside of the clear facts, how can I reach this man to let him know of the incredible love he is missing in his life?

Faith

Ah, it's good to hear from my very precious friends from England, the Hyde family. In all reality, our hearts ache to see you again and laugh with you. How we miss staying at the "castle" in Steelton! What wonderful memories of precious Bible studies and the church in Bradford.

God bless you, Jeremy, Barb, Oscar, and Ou-Pa ... you will always be beloved in the Zockoll household.

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Two gentlemen boarded a coast-to-coast flight and were seated next to each other on the commercial plane. After breezing through the on-flight magazine, the first man turned to the other and asked, "What do you do?"

The gentleman replied: "I am a pastor of a church."

"Oh," said the first man quickly. "I don't believe in this religious stuff. It's for kids, you know, like the song 'Jesus Loves Me This I know, for the Bible tells me so...."

The minister politely laughed and asked the other man what he did for a living.

"I am an astronomer," said the first man.

"Oh, that stuff," said the minister. "I thought it was just for kids, you know - 'Twinkle, twinkle little star....'"

Relationship with Dad

My knees shook.

I was only nine years old. I was frightened and frustrated by the slowly unfolding scene before me. Nine year olds aren’t supposed to deal with this kind of fear. But there I stood, next to my four brothers and one sister, the oldest thirteen and the youngest six. We were all shoulder-to-shoulder in line, a sort of tragic/comedic pose that none of us had planned.

We stood in the small kitchen of our rural house in the outskirts of Hershey, Pennsylvania, carrying the same child-like feeling that this shouldn’t be happening. The six of us were openly crying, sobbing in children sobs, the racking kind that make little noises with each breath. My mom stood in the doorway of the room, staring across the room at my dad, arms folded and her jaw set.

This is summer time, and summer is supposed to be fun.

Yet there stood my father, hand on the doorknob, wearing sunglasses even though he was inside the house. He wore Bermuda shorts and a short-sleeve shirt and looked for all the world like a man about to pack his kids off for a day at the amusement park.

Except he was going, and we were staying.

“This is it,” my mom said, folding her arms. “Tell them, all six of them. You make your final choice. It’s either your mistress, or it’s your children. Make your choice. But tell it to their faces.”

I looked over for support from my older sister. Her cheeks were red and a tear rolled down the side of her nose. One of my brothers was crying so hard that he was gagging.
My dad looked at us, raised his hand slightly, waved and walked out the door.

There. It was done.

Except for the crying.

The dad that I had known all of my life, the man that brought home candy from business trips, the one who sat in a chair reading the newspaper and chuckling while we colored cartoon faces on his white socks, the father who taught me how to throw a football – that same man had closed the screen door, hopped into his Volvo and had gone to live with another woman. A night club musician, at that. He left my diligent Russian-heritage mom (who knew how to make incredible pierogis and kapusta) for a bespangled xylophone player who didn’t even know how to cook a Thanksgiving turkey.

As a nine-year old boy who was still learning the nuances of catching a baseball in a leather mitt and of trying to understand the necessity of Sunday School, this was the bulldozer that leveled everything. I didn’t realize it, but my childhood had been largely built around the safety and protection and character of my dad.

And now he was gone.

I sit and type this memory during a break in the classes in a private academy where I teach (the students are taking aptitude tests today, so I have a little bit of time on my hands). I feel a deep grieving within my chest that rises up and pushes tears to my eyes. This is still too fresh for me.

I take a break and leave the computer to take a quiet walk down the school hallways to get a coffee and try to compartmentalize this pain, push it back in the proper slots that all adults are supposed to have. I’m a teacher. I’ve been a pastor. I should be over this, right? This incident was over thirty years ago and yet I still feel as if someone had pushed me down and stepped on my chest with both feet.

How could anyone think that this was okay? Who makes the rules?

It reminds me of another childhood memory where, as a spectator at a local baseball game, I was hit with a batted ball, a looping shot that smashed into my skull and knocked me from my seat. As I fought the pain in my skull and spit the aluminum-like taste from my mouth, I noticed groups of teenagers doing a poor job of trying to hide their laughter. What could possibly make them think this was funny, I asked myself in more anguish than the pain brought, why can they not see that I am hurt?

How could anyone think this is okay? Who makes the rules? Why am I such a small player in the scheme of things?

At six-fifty this morning I sat at a local coffee shop and drank some dark roast, reflecting on the brutal childhood years of trying to deal with this rejection. I finger a small card that has a Latin phrase I’ve been studying while preparing my doctoral dissertation:

Coram Deo: “before the face of God. I suppose I should come up with a pithy saying that tells the reader of this magnificent God who watches over all, but I don’t get that out of this phrase …nope, not at all.

I don’t think of Him as being a God on a tower overlooking the football field of players. I see Him as the personal God who sits and has coffee with me. He wakes me in the morning with a quiet hello when I know He could just as easily send a splitting thunderclap or a jangling emergency.

I never remember my dad coming into my room – day or night – as I lay in bed as a child. I don’t remember him sitting and playing very many games with me. Once, as a ten year old, I sat with him and played a round of Scrabble, beating him on the last word. I could see in his eyes that he was upset. Dad, I want a partner to enjoy, not a competitor. And so went my post-divorce childhood life, filled with uncomfortable visitation trips and half-hearted holiday presents.

My dad didn’t watch over me in a living-room-and-kitchen kind of way. He made occasional visits in a mall-and-theater-type of way. Some kids would enjoy this. I detested it. But I didn’t detest Dad. I wasn’t mad at him…but I wasn’t happy with him either. He was sort of there, and I was sort of here, and it was just as much my part to go out to the car and get in for visitation as it was for him to drive down from Pennsylvania to pick me up. He initiated a scene by buying a gift that he assumed I would enjoy, and I finished the act by smiling and promising to play with whatever it was, even though I would probably have no use for the item. That’s the way it was – a balance between parent and child. That was normal, wasn’t it?

Well, that’s the way I saw God, too. He was polite, yet indifferent. That’s okay, I thought. I can work this out as well. God will initiate the scene by showing me a nice time in a large building with well-mannered adults who sang, listened to a long message, and had a nice pot-luck dinner once a month. My job was to sit still, listen to whatever sounded interesting, and make sure I ate enough of the main course so that I was allowed to have a generous hunk of Shoo-Fly Pie.

I think back on my childhood reflections and smile to myself, drawing a curious stare from a man sitting two tables away. How could I fully explain to him the quiet excitement I’ve felt in recent years, knowing that I made friends with a wonderful God who shares my joy and invites me to enjoy this Him for all eternity? I’d love to pull up a chair and start chatting, but I glance at the clock. I have seven minutes to get to school.

Secret code for Psalm 118

My back injury is hurting worse, and I have been wearing this brace for about three weeks.

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Maybe you have heard someone sing or recite the passage in Psalm 118: "This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." It has more than one meaning!
There is more to it than just speaking about a nice day that the Lord is blessing us with.

Let me explain:
Psalms 113-118 are called the "Egyptian Hallel" which loosely comprises a treatise on God's redemptive work.
In other words, these Psalms are great reading not only for an uplifting praise of the Lord but also to tell of the freedom Christ gave to us when He went to the cross. Look at the following passage and see the problem facing the sinner who has no help and no hope, and then see what Christ does... (note: this is a prophetic Psalm!)

We can see Christ clearly first in Psalm 116:
"3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell got hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow."

And again in 118:
"22 The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner. 23 This is the LORD's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes. 24 This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it."

In other words, the day that Christ made the step to sacrifice Himself for our sins is the day in which we rejoice!
Wow - great prophetic truth. May we not only thank Him for the day we have right now, but the day He allowed Himself to be put to death in order to make our salvation real!

Dinosaurs?

Just a quick thought...

among the many e-mails I have been receiving from students, one stood out to me, and I had not spent that much time in the classroom in past years discussing this:

Are there any verses describing dinosaurs in the Bible?

The answer is "yes" and if you would turn in your Bible to Job 40 and look at verses 15 through to the end of the chapter, you will see a very clear description of what scientists would call a Brachiosaurus - note especially the reference to the "tail like a cedar"...

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A quick note to my athesit friends: a statistician came to me the other day and told me, when confronted by atheists about the knowledge of a non-existence of God, he simply quotes them the Null Hypothesis, as known by statisticians.

The Null Hypothesis, in laymen's terms, states that nothing is false until you can disprove it. INTERESTING! The atheist's claim that there is no God must be followed by the proper steps of showing that by fact that it is not so. In the statistician's world, this has not been achieved, and he told me that no atheist has ever been able to overcome the Null Hypothesis as a challenge.

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Thanksgiving Psalm

It's been a rough time lately here in the household. An old injury acted up and as I was preparing for school on Friday, it felt as if a grenade went off in my back. The spasms on my right side sent me to the floor and I lay groaning in pain. No school for me on Friday. I'm not sure if it is a severe sprain or what it might be ... but other than catching up on some of my novels and watching some old episodes of Twilight Zone, I have been flat on my back.

God is telling me it's time to slow down. As a matter of fact, I have been taking blocks of time throughout the past days and am simply reading through the Bible. It's great fun, and if you don't agree, then you need to set some time aside and start with Genesis 1. I mean it.

(Note: In my opinion, few shows in the history of TV match the consistent quality of the scripts written for the old Twilight Zone series of the 60s.)

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Here's something to think about as we come upon the Thanksgiving holiday... let's start with a piece of Psalm 116:

1 I love the LORD, because He hears My voice {and} my supplications. 2 Because He has inclined His ear to me, Therefore I shall call {upon Him} as long as I live.

It's a Thanksgiving Psalm, and in the Hebrew tongue the word is todah. This powerful type of psalm is an exclamation of praise as well as a confession of gratitude.

Psalm 18: 17 He delivered me from my strong enemy, And from those who hated me, for they were too mighty for me. 18 They confronted me in the day of my calamity, But the LORD was my stay. 19 He brought me forth also into a broad place; He rescued me, because He delighted in me.

In a Todah Psalm, you praise God for something He has done for you, and then you to offer thanksgiving in the form of worship.

In a Todah Psalm the wild and cheerful celebration in worship is based on some immediate experience of God’s goodness and grace. It's kind of hard to explain, but the word "todah" that we find in these psalms (and other Psalms like 21, 32, 65, and 100) is in Hebrew much fuller than the English word "thanks." It summarizes the singer's explanation of the direct response to prayers of need ("God, please heal my baby", "Father, please help me to finish this work by the deadline", "Lord, please help me to confront the wrongdoer and show love", etc.) It's kind of like an explanation not only of WHAT God has done but WHY He did it and WHAT AUTHORITY He has to do it. Todah pinpoints the fact that God is the source of all the great stuff in life. This is a "billboard ad' of who He is, and it comes from personal experience as in "I WAS THERE AND I SAW IT WITH MY OWN EYES."

Todah Psalms! Psalm 124: 2 "Had it not been the LORD who was on our side When men rose up against us, 3 Then they would have swallowed us alive..."

In other words, your thanks and testimony should not only be for what He has done for you but Who He is in the first place, overall in your life and what He means to you! Will you share that with people today? Direct the thanks and praise to God and let others hear your gratitude and worship.


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A refelction: American Express shows me a TV commercial of an actor who spent most of his life filming in New York and concludes the ad with a line that says something like "My city: New York. My card: American Express.

Let me think this out: Am I supposed to take this credit card because I want to emulate a citizen of New York? Or am I supposed to apply because I admire the actor, whose whole career is not of being himself but of portraying other people? Let me get this straight then...I am to make a business transaction based on the admiration I have for the integrity of an actor?

I look up the etymology of the word actor through through its original presentation in the Greek language and I find it's from hypokrisis "acting on the stage, pretense," and from hypokrinesthai "play a part, pretend."

So if I follow this correctly, I am to be persuaded to get a credit card based upon the reputation of a hypocrite?

He doesn't change

I can remember it well.

One of the men at church "Gabe" had obtained a pass for me to join him ON THE SIDELINES of the Tennessee-Notre Dame game in Knoxville. We would be handling the cables for ESPN TV. My friend had been working with the college and had some inside favors owed him - "Gabe" invited me to help haul cables and get the best view anyone could get in the stadium - right on the sideline!

At the same time, I was being offered seats on the ten yard line by another friend. I was nervous, now...I had already promised Gabe that I was going ...but I knew he had a problem of not following through with his promises. I sat and sweated it out. Would I be able to get on the sidelines.

The day of the game came and I got the call that upset me greatly. True to form, Gabe had fallen through...I not only lost a chance to be on the sidelines, I had lost the other seats, because the tickets were given away. Gabe never apologized, but simply hid out from me for a few months.

Although I forgave Gabe and it's not such a big thing, I was quite upset with the fact that it would be hard for me to trust this good friend. It wasn't the first time he had let me down.

I delight in the immutability of God. He doesn't change, and so I can sompletely trust Him and His Word:

I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. MAL 3:6

Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. 18 He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created. JAS 1:16

But what the LORD has planned will stand forever. His thoughts never change. Psalms 33:11 (CEV)

You are always the same. Years cannot change you. Psalms 102:27 (CEV)

Gabe will always be a good friend to me. God is even more than a friend. He is a confidant. He is my Father. He is my Strong Tower, One who will never shake in His foundations.

Wearing down

It's been a hard week, very tiring. To paraphrase Bilbo Baggins, I feel like butter that's been spread too thin on a piece of toast. The teens within my ministry are awakening to new insights in the Bible, exciting them to take great leaps forward for Christ. Yet I am TIRED. I've been facing problems that try to take away my joy. My prayers lately seem to be more crying and asking than thanking and applauding.

God is all around me but I fall into the problem of fogetting that holy fact.

How stupid of me!

The devotional ministry Our Daily Bread ran this story that tells me a clear story of a father’s unnoticed protection:
“The early American Indians had a unique practice of training young braves. On the night of a boy's thirteenth birthday, after learning hunting, scouting, and fishing skills, he was put to one final test. He was placed in a dense forest to spend the entire night alone. Until then, he had never been away from the security of the family and the tribe. But on this night, he was blindfolded and taken several miles away. When he took off the blindfold, he was in the middle of a thick woods and he was terrified! Every time a twig snapped, he visualized a wild animal ready to pounce. After what seemed like an eternity, dawn broke and the first rays of sunlight entered the interior of the forest. Looking around, the boy saw flowers, trees, and the outline of the path. Then, to his utter astonishment, he beheld the figure of a man standing just a few feet away, armed with a bow and arrow. It was his father. He had been there all night long.”

Much like the unseen but protective father, my Heavenly Lord may not be noticed by me many times... but He is there, watching and protecting. It is to my shame that I don’t give Him more credit for the shielding He provides for me, in events big and small.

"Covenant Renewal Liturgies"

I absolutely love the Psalms, and even moreso when I see the history behind each one.

I especially love the Psalms known as the "covenant renewal liturgies", which are found in places like such as Psalms 50 and 81. I challenge you to read them tonight. They are designed to lead God's people to a renewal of the covenant he first gave to them at Mt. Sinai.

They express a joy that God is faithful, and also remind me that I can enjoy His blessing whenever I give my life over to Him. It's not as dramatic a thing as my childhood thinking imagined.

Fred Craddock, in an address to ministers, brought this dedication idea down to earth for our day-to-day consideration:

"To give my life for Christ appears glorious," he said. "To pour myself out for others. . . to pay the ultimate price of martyrdom -- I'll do it. I'm ready, Lord, to go out in a blaze of glory. "We think giving our all to the Lord is like taking $l,000 bill and laying it on the table-- 'Here's my life, Lord. I'm giving it all.' But the reality for most of us is that he sends us to the bank and has us cash in the $l,000 for quarters. We go through life putting out 25 cents here and 50 cents there. Listen to the neighbor kid's troubles instead of saying, 'Get lost.' Go to a committee meeting. Give a cup of water to a shaky old man in a nursing home. Usually giving our life to Christ isn't glorious. It's done in all those little acts of love, 25 cents at at time. It would be easy to go out in a flash of glory; it's harder to live the Christian life little by little over the long haul."


What a great way to explain it!


Clarence Jordan was a man of unusual abilities and commitment. He had two Ph.D.s, one in agriculture and one in Greek and Hebrew. So gifted was he, he could have chosen to do anything he wanted. He chose to serve the poor. In the 1940s, he founded a farm in Americus, Georgia, and called it Koinonia Farm. It was a community for poor whites and poor blacks. As you might guess, such an idea did not go over well in the Deep South of the '40s. Ironically, much of the resistance came from good church people who followed the laws of segregation as much as the other folk in town. The town people tried everything to stop Clarence. They tried boycotting him, and slashing workers' tires when they came to town. Over and over, for fourteen years, they tried to stop him. Finally, in 1954, the Ku Klux Klan had enough of Clarence Jordan, so they decided to get rid of him once and for all. They came one night with guns and torches and set fire to every building on Koinonia Farm but Clarence's home, which they riddled with bullets. And they chased off all the families except one black family which refused to leave. Clarence recognized the voices of many of the Klansmen, and, as you might guess, some of them were church people. Another was the local newspaper's reporter. The next day, the reporter came out to see what remained of the farm. The rubble still smoldered and the land was scorched, but he found Clarence in the field, hoeing and planting. "I heard the awful news," he called to Clarence, "and I came out to do a story on the tragedy of your farm closing." Clarence just kept on hoeing and planting. The reporter kept prodding, kept poking, trying to get a rise from this quietly determined man who seemed to be planting instead of packing his bags. So, finally, the reporter said in a haughty voice, "Well, Dr. Jordan, you got two of them Ph.D.s and you've but fourteen years into this farm, and there's nothing left of it at all. Just how successful do you think you've been?" Clarence stopped hoeing, turned toward the reporter with his penetrating blue eyes, and said quietly but firmly, "About as successful as the cross. Sir, I don't think you understand us. What we are about is not success but faithfulness. We're staying. Good day." Beginning that day, Clarence and his companions rebuilt Koinonia and the farm is going strong today. ( the Clarence Jordan story comes from from Tim Hansel's book, "Holy Sweat", Word Books Publisher, 1987, pp. 188-189.)

Rapture

People ask me, "do you believe that Jesus will come back and take His children away at some point, in what many call the Rapture?" And I answer, yes, I definitely do. I think that Jesus Christ has offered us an exciting event, explained in 1 Thessalonians 4:17:

Then we who are alive [and] remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.

...hey, I'm not here to start a weeks-long argue with people about pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib and all that. I think the Bible makes it obvious what God is teaching. I'm telling you what I see in the Bible, and it makes it pretty clear. We call it the Rapture - that time when Jesus pulls His children into Heaven - and we get the English word from the Latin word rapto, meaning “to seize" or "be carried away" whether in spirit or body, and the dictionary explains that it means to be transported quickly from one place to another. The Greek word is harpadzo and is translated “caught up”. The Latin translation uses the term rapto, but the Greek translation says it is harpadzo, and it used 13 times in the New Testament. Harpadzo is translated “caught up” 4 times, “take by force” 3 times, “catch away” 2 times, “pluck” 2 times, “catch” once and “pull” once. (Here are some of the references in case you want to look: Acts 8:39, 2 Cor. 12:2-4, Rev. 12;5 and Matt. 11:12) I am truly looking forward to the opportunity to escape death if God so chooses (who wouldn't like to bypass the pain of death - it sounds like a mighty nice option, believe me) and I try to live my life as if Christ would come today and make harpadzo a reality.


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I truly love the students in my classes at Christian Academy of Knoxville. What an enthusiastic group of learners. I constantly tell them that they are the rebels of this generation because they are thinkers. Thinking has gone by the wayside in this world. These students are the revolutionaries.

Talking to an atheist

I had an interesting interchange last week. A teacher from another school - an avowed atheist, I am told - sent word through one of my students that he questioned how I could possibly believe in creation by God rather than evolution. He was a committed Darwinist., and how could anyone believe otherwise. I asked him to explain the guilt feeling we all get when we do wrong - where would that arise, if we were truly to follow the "survival of the fittest" thinking?

He replied by saying that evolutionists believe that guilt was an adapted (may I say adopted?) trait in order to make us a superior species.

Not so, I replied. If that were so, then the Darwinist has taken a backward step. The lion would not be king of the jungle if he carried guilt. We could not be the superior being (in Darwin's logic) if we carried remorse or regret for what we do. The evolutionist has gone against his own philosophy. Survival of the fittest, with no hesitation.

Furthermore, if the universe has no meaning...why do we as humans keep looking for meaning?

The atheist has yet to reply.

"chesed" - lovingkindness

If I'm going to worship God, I want to know more about Him, and let Him reveal Himself to me. So, in searching, I come across this great word about God. It's a hebrew word: "chesed" and it means lovingkindness. Honestly, that's the way the word is displayed - as two words welded into one.

Lovingkindness.

Psalm 36:7 - "How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! And the children of men take refuge in the shadow of Your wings."

This is a fiercely loyal but personal love the Father has for us. Three examples show up in the book of Ruth in the Old Testament...

First, I find it in 1:8. Naomi faces a great tragedy, with the death of her husband and two sons Naomi and her daughters-in-law are mourning and must figure a way to survive in a land that was harsh to the widow. Naomi directs her daughters-in-law that "each of you return to your mother's house," but she gives a chesed blessing: "May the Lord show faithful love to you, as you have to the dead and to me."

The chesed is used again when Naomi realizes the meeting of Ruth and Boaz is an example of God's faithful love (2:20) .

In the third chapter, Boaz is awakened in the middle of the night, finding a meek yet determined Ruth at his feet. He declares her blessed, paralleling her faithful love to the Heavely Father's.

I praise God for His faithful love to me, not only protecting me from panic and overburdening stress, but also in the words to say int he classroom, the ways I can learn to rightly run my family, and the words to read for comfort.