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SOME THINGS NEVER CHANGE
Kaye and I just returned from England where I spoke at the famous Keswick Convention. Keswick is a little town in the extraordinarily beautiful Lake District of northern England. The Convention has been meeting every summer since 1875, except for a couple of war years; its theme is ALL ONE IN CHRIST. When I was a young preacher I looked forward to getting every year The Keswick Week, a book containing messages of that year’s convention. It was also filled with pictures. My favorite picture was the Speakers’ Picture, which was the first one in the book. Picturing both the speakers and the committee members it showed three rows of stuffy-looking old men, most wearing the collars of the Anglican Church. They looked serious, formal and stiff upper lipish.
And I was thrilled to be invited to speak in 1978, then in 1980 and 1982 and 1987. So this was our first visit to the Convention in twelve years. When we last attended in ‘87 there were already some changes being made and so we were anxious to see how much it had changed. And it has changed. Like most conventions of its type it is appealing more to the younger generation. Gone is the organ and piano, replaced by a small praise band, with singing being led by a couple of young people. The hymnbooks have been removed and replaced with TV monitors. It was much less formal—I saw only one clerical collar! And the man who led the Bible Readings, the most prestigious part of the Convention, wore an open collar sport shirt without a coat! It was certainly not the same Keswick I first attended in 1978, but it was great and we had a wonderful time. One thing that has not changed is the hunger to hear the Word of God.
They are the best listeners in the world.
Basically, I’m not a great lover of change, but change there has to be. And some of us older folks often feel like we’re living in a foreign country. I remember some years ago when my youngest son and I were having a, uh, a disagreement about something, he said, "But times have changed!" I answered, "But that is all that has changed. Just the times! Nothing important has really changed."
And so in a rapidly changing world, I am grateful for some things that never change—like God, for instance.
God Does not Change: In Malachi 3:6 we read, "For I am the Lord, I do not change." And James tells us, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning" (1:17). God never changes—if He was good last year, He is still good this year, regardless of what may have happened in your life. If He loved us 2000 years ago, He still loves us. If He watched over the saints of old, He watches over the saints of new.
Jesus Does not Change: The writer of Hebrews tells us that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" (13:8). In verse 7, the writer speaks of former leaders who are gone; their memory lives on, but they can no longer guide us. But Jesus Christ is always available to us for counsel and guidance. Human leaders upon whom we lean for counsel may be carried by death beyond our reach. But Jesus remains the same through every generation. And then in verse 9 the writer warns us not to be carried away by all kinds of strange teaching, for Jesus is God’s last and unchanging message to man. Since He is sufficiently the same, no other teaching can supercede or supplant Him.
Human nature has not changed: It is a testimony to the fallen nature of man that with all the advances made in the human race, we are still barbarians at heart. The same evils stalk us—parents kill their children, children kill their parents; cheating, lying, greed and envy continue to be traits of human nature, both educated and uneducated. And human nature still doesn’t understand! Last week after the killings in Atlanta, Georgia, the mayor of Atlanta said, "There is a cancer eating at the heart of our society. We need a debate about guns." I thought he would have said, "We need a debate about the human heart." We still don’t get it.
The Word of God has not changed: Peter tells us that we have been born again through the incorruptible seed of the word of God which lives and abides forever, and then he quotes Isaiah 40:6-8:
"All flesh is as grass,
And all the glory of man
As the flower of the grass.
The grass withers,
And its flower fall away,
But the word of the Lord
Endures forever."
I Peter 1:23-25
I remember when William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for Literature— not a single book of his was in print! How quickly does the glory of man fade and vanish.
There are many people who rush after every preacher who claims to have a new revelation from God. But John, in his first epistle, says that when false teachers come around, we should ABIDE IN THAT WHICH WE HEARD FROM THE BEGINNING. We do not need a new revelation; we just need the affirmation of the old—and only—revelation.
I recall someone asking me when I first went abroad to speak, "What will you preach to them?" They asked this because my congregations were not going to be Baptists. I said, "All sheep like sheep food, so I’ll just give them sheep food—the Word of God."
Thank God some things never change.
ANOTHER KENNEDY TRAGEDY
Like many of you I have watched on TV the drama of John F. Kennedy, Jr. being played out, saddened to see it end in tragedy. JFK, Jr., his wife and sister-in-law, it was confirmed, had indeed died in the plane crash just off Martha’s Vineyard. And every TV network stood by and millions watched and waited. Why is America so fascinated with the Kennedy mystic? Among many reasons, I think one is because our country has rarely witnessed a public family so besieged by tragedy. Reporters work hard to avoid the word "curse", but occasionally the phrase "the Kennedy curse" slips out. How much devastation can one family absorb?
Death is always tragic, more so when it comes to the young—and more so, at least to Americans, when it comes to a young man who has everything: a beautiful wife, wealth, exceptional good looks, respect, prestige and worldwide celebrity. When someone like that suddenly dies, it makes us all feel that much more vulnerable, reminding us of our fragile hold on life.
Sitting in an Atlanta airport today, I watched on TV the ashes of the three young people returned to the sea that took their lives. When I thought about what I would have said to the Kennedys, had they asked me to speak at the ceremony, my mind went to I Corinthians 15, that wonderful chapter on Christ’s resurrection and our own. Three things I would have said.
1. There is something beyond this life. Paul says in verse 19, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first fruits of them that slept. . . . For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."
James McGranahan wrote:
Not now, but in the coming years,
It may be in the Better Land.
We’ll read the meaning of our tears,
And there, sometime, we’ll understand.
We’ll catch the broken thread again,
And finish what we here began;
Heaven will the mysteries explain,
And then, ah then, we’ll understand.
t.2. There is something better than this life. If you read the rest of the chapter beginning with verse 23, you’ll find what is better about the life to come. The Savior will be crowned, Sin will be conquered, the saints will be changed, and our salvation will be complete.
3. There is something blessed about this life. Paul ends this chapter with these encouraging words: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
"Your labor is not in vain in the Lord." Whatever you do for the Lord, whether it attracts the attention of others or not, will not be worthless or wasted; it will never be thrown away.
Only one life.
Twill soon be past;
Only what is done for Christ
Will las
DYING TO LIVE
John 12:24: "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."
Sigmund Freud, the father of modern psychiatry, had a favorite story of a sailor that had been shipwrecked onto a tropical island. The natives of the island made him absolute ruler—for a year. At the end of that year he would be banished to a deserted island. The sailor had two choices: either take everything they gave him and consume it, spend it for the moment, enjoy the one year to the fullest—or store it away for the future. Consume it on the present or conserve it for the future.
In addition to the application to His own life and death, Jesus says that we are a seed, a corn of wheat. And there are only two things we can do with it—there is no third alternative—we can consume it in the present or conserve it for the future. We can enjoy our lives right now to the fullest, spending it all now, or we can sow it, bury it in the ground, let it die, then eat of the harvest for the rest of our days.
Right now you are the monarch on the throne, the absolute ruler of your life, and you can do with it as you please. God will not force you to do one or the other.
In the following verses Jesus explains what He means by this dying:
"Those who save their life, lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will save it for eternal life." The first two words translated life are "psyche"; the other word is "zoe", which is the general word for life. The "psyche" that we are to lose and hate refers to the life of the mind. We call it the ego. It means the human personality that thinks, plans for the future and charts its own course. This is what a man must die to—his own independent will. Dying to self, to this life, means forgetting ourselves and forfeiting our rights.
The word "lose" which Phillips translates as "destroy" is a present tense verb that mean it is happening right now. This person is even now in the process of losing or destroying his life.
Do you know who the Inuit Indians are? They are the Eskimos of Canada and Greenland who in the 1970’s changed their name to Inuit. They have a very special way of hunting bears. The Inuits take a wolf bone, whittle both ends till they are pointed, then coil it and freeze it in blubber and lay it in the bear paths. When a bear passes, he is attracted to the blubber and swallows the bone—killing himself. Every step he take, each movement, causes the bone to slice and gouge and cut. Soon the bear dies of internal bleeding.
In the same way when a person tries to save his life for himself, to consume it on himself alone. he is already losing it.
But if we follow Christ’s way and "die to ourselves" we will bring forth much fruit in our lives. But if it does not die it "abides alone." The old KJV here sounds ominous. It abides alone. Think of standing before the judgment seat of Christ. "Have you any fruit to show for your life?" He might ask. "I’m here—alone." Are you abiding alone? Do you have any fruit to present to Christ?
Right now your life, my life, is a seed, not a developed plant, and it can only become developed and bear fruit by casting it from ourselves into the fertile soil of other men’s needs.
IN PRAISE OF SOLITUDE
"For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; in returning and rest shall you be saved; in quietness and confidence shall be your strength...." Isaiah 30:15
This week Kaye and I are on the mountaintop—literally. We have a friend who loans us his cabin on top of a mountain in North Carolina each year for a little R & R. My brother and his wife join us and we spend a week high above the commotion of civilization. What strikes me every year about this place is the SILENCE.
We are very busy and noisy people. Our calendars are filled with appointments, ours days with projects and plans and our years filled with the dread of more of the same. Try to catch a family where every member is at home at the same time—maybe 4 AM. Families don’t have time to visit unhurried with each other—too much work demands too many school activities. Silence is a forgotten noun. Noise is everywhere; canned music in the waiting room, Muzac on the elevator, in the mall, on the airplane waiting for takeoff. Go to the park or beach for some quiet and the fellow next to you has a boombox. We are, as Neil Postman put it, "Amusing ourselves to death. Actually, we’re afraid of silence. I had a preacher say to me, "You Baptists are afraid of noise in your worship services!" I replied, "And you are scared to death of silence in yours." For most people, silence creates itchiness and nervousness.
We so constantly bombarded with the noise of the TV and radio and civilization, we have no time to think for ourselves. We never get still enough or quiet enough to contemplate the deep things of God or ourselves. And perhaps that’s why we flee from silence—it forces us to think. And God forbid, we should be forced to think!
We are like the people of Isaiah’s day. They were busy trying to win Egypt’s favor, trying to save themselves. Frantic messengers rushed back and forth. Caravans of beasts of burdens laden with goods to procure the favor of Egypt jammed the roads. They were busily engaged, trying to save themselves.
But Isaiah says that is not the way of deliverance. Rather than all this busy, frantic activity, salvation is to be found in returning to God and rest, in a ceasing from human activity and resting upon the grace of God.
Strength comes not from boisterous activity and flexing our muscles but in quietness and confidence in the Lord. "In quietness": T.S. Eliot asked, "Where can the Word be found? Not here. There is not enough silence." But it only as we find a still place and quieten our hearts and minds that we can really hear God speak to us. The goal of our life is not people. It is God. Why then do we listen more to people than to God? Do they have something better, wiser, to say to us? Sadly, many of us who preach spend more time looking for outlines that listening to God.
I didn’t quote the last sentence of that verse. It is disheartening— but it is there: "and ye would not." Will that also be our response to God’s Word. "Be still!" But you would not. "Be quiet!" But you would not. Why would they not? Because they trusted more in the chariots of Egypt than the promise and power of God.
We would do well to listen to the warning of Isaiah, "Therefore shall the strength of Pharaoh be your shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt your confusion" (30:3).
"I have discovered that all human evil comes from this, man’s being unable to sit still in a room." Blaise Pascal
WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT TO SAY
"Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say?" John 12:27
Jesus spoke these remarkable words when the Greeks came asking to see Jesus. Why would this cause the Son of God to be troubled, vexed, in his soul? I call them remarkable words because they come from the mouth of the One who spoke the worlds into existence, who was adored by the angels, who had all authority over death, disease and the devil. What could possibly "trouble" this soul who had perfect faith in the Father.
Jesus was "sore vexed" in His soul. Here we see His soul laid bare, here we see a glimpse into His humanity, here is another affirmation of His identity to us. For, sooner or later, we are all troubled in our soul, so deeply vexed that we do not know what to say. Jesus suggested that He could say, "Father, save me from this hour." That is what we would say. When we taste trouble beneath which the heart threatens to break and our courage verges on collapsing, yes, that is what we would say. How many times have we said it: "Father, save me from this hour!"
But Jesus could not, would not, utter those words because this hour was appointed by the Father, it was the hour for which He had been born. When the Greeks came seeking Jesus, Jesus knew that the hour of His death had come, for the Greeks were symbolic of all the world coming to seek Jesus. When this event occurred, Jesus knew His hour had come.
We have our hours that are appointed by God, when we must fall into the ground, as it were, and die. When these hours come and our soul is troubled, what shall we say? When we don’t know what to say, there is always one thing, the right thing, to say: "Father, glorify your name."
There is security in this. "Father." We have a heavenly Father who bears in His hand the scepter of sovereignty and controls the affairs of our life. There is nothing to fear because nothing can touch us except it be filtered through His divine will.
There is submission in this. If this is the hour that God has ordained for me, so be it. Our soul may be troubled now, but nothing to compare with the troubling that comes from resisting God’s will. Some things are easy to submit to; but there are other things that may cause us to wonder if God truly loves us. But "I am the Lord; I changeth not," says our Father. If He was good last year, He is good this year. If He loved us yesterday, He loves us still.
There is significance in this. "Glorify your name." The tiniest hurt, the smallest disappointment, the least incident takes on significance when the Father is glorified. This prayer makes the smallest thing, the greatest. It transforms "bad luck" into the hand of God. If we live with this attitude, "Father, glorify thy name," everyday and everything becomes of eternal significance. The Westminster Confession says, "The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever."
Say it now. Say it about the very thing that is right now troubling your soul, rendering you frustrated, confused and speechless. "Father, glory your name."
LYING ON OUR "LEES"
This is a historic time in our country. We are witnessing the folly and futility of man trying to create a civil society without God. Since the Colorado school shooting, a frustrated and fearful nation is trying to figure out what is wrong with our society, and how to correct it. Seemingly all self-restraint has disappeared. Civility is a relic of another age. Some blame guns, others accuse the parents, television, movies, arcade games—and the list goes on. The solution?
More laws. If people will not restrain themselves, then law must do it. Personal morality, a sense of right and wrong and absolute standards of behavior, used to be the restraining power in society. But now law is taking the place those things -- because those things no longer exist. We have swept them away in a flood of relativism.
For example, in 1995, the University of Massachusetts, following the lead of other universities, proposed (an unconstitutional one) a policy on harassment. The policy was designed to prohibit certain kind of speech with respect to women, ethnic groups, pregnant students, those who had the HIV virus, and those who were gay. No one could make derogatory statements about a students cultural practice, the language he or she spoke, or his or her political affiliation. But the law is a two-edged sword. While it may prevent the abuse of others, it also curtails free speech. It would mean that a student could not voice his views about the morality of homosexuality, a politically conservative student could not critique political liberalism and he could certainly not express his belief that Jesus is the only way to salvation. As David Wells says in his book, LOSING OUR VIRTUE, "Surely it is only in Marxist countries that the thought police have been allowed a presence on campuses?" But the point is, since the students lack the moral fiber to restrain themselves, the law must do it. And so we place our hope in more laws.
In trying to save our society and create a kinder, gentler America, we have doomed our efforts by leaving God out of the equation. What does He have to do with anything, if He exists at all? We do not believe God will do anything, good or bad. And a civilization minus God equals chaos.
Like the people of Zephaniah the prophet’s day, we have settled on our "lees." In Chapter one, verse twelve, he says, "And it shall come to pass at this time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men that are lying on their lees, that are saying within their hearts, No good does the Lord do, nor does He do evil."
"Lying on their lees." What in the world does that mean? The expression comes from the fermenting of wine. The fermented wine was left on the "lees," the solid matter which had settled to the bottom, for a while to acquire greater strength and better flavor. But if the wine remained too long on its lees, it turned into a syrupy, bitter, unpalatable liquid. The word "lying" is literally thickened or hardened. It is a graphic picture of a prosperous people, comfortable and complacent, hardened in their indifference to God, to who He is and what He does in the world. They have become so hardened, they no longer believe God plays any role in the affairs of earth. They have rejected the sovereignty and providence of God.
If there is no longer a belief that God is active in the world, and that, in punishment, he will come searching for us with a flashlight, looking into every nook and cranny of our existence, there will no longer be any moral self-restraint in our lives. And we will end up—with what we have.
LifeStyle Ministries
P.O. Box 153087
Irving, TX 75015
İRon Dunn, LifeStyle Ministries, 2001