The Rev’s Blog

Here’s a guest post from a dear friend, Ed Kaiser, who both loves the Lord and loves turkey hunting! Enjoy Ed’s insights from “the empty chamber”!

 

Yesterday I had an incredible experience. It was a beautiful morning the sun was turning the eastern horizon a brilliant flaming red while a slight breeze gently moved my turkey decoys. I was sitting under a large cedar tree talking to a big ugly bird. We chatted for an hour and a half while he closed the distance. He suddenly stopped talking giving me no idea where he was. I was listening intently when he magically appeared twenty yards in front of me. He had slipped in crossed the fence and arrived unannounced. I placed my gun sight on his big ugly head and squeezed the trigger nothing happened he just stood there. I had failed to load a shell into the guns chamber. As I frantically tried to chamber a round, the gobbler walked off to live forever in the recesses of my memory. It doesn’t really matter to me that he walked off I had won the battle by getting him to come within range. I would like to have killed him but it is not the end of my world that he got away.

My favorite movie is “McClintock” John Wayne. In one scene he turns to Bunny and says “I’ve been doing some thinkin drinkin Bunny,” last night I was doing some sleepin thinkin. The events of the day were fresh in my mind but soon took a parallel track. I really enjoy when that happens.

I thought I was prepared to harvest that turkey. I was in the right place wearing the proper attire with a working knowledge of turkey hunting. I am respected in the turkey hunting community as a successful hunter having filled many tags. How could I not have chambered a round? I thought I had but I was wrong. Lack of preparation met opportunity and I failed.

The parallel thought line relates to the spiritual realm. How often do we attend the “right” church wearing the proper attire with a working knowledge of spiritual things with which we are respected among our peers because of these things. Then the opportunity to help someone spiritually walks into our life and our hammer falls on an empty chamber. We are instructed in 1 Peter 3:15 — Always be ready to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have.

Can you do that? Can you look someone in the eye and say with absolute confidence that you don’t fear the future because your hope is in Jesus Christ?

It wasn’t the end when that big turkey walked away from me but it is the end when a soul walks away from Jesus Christ. Unlike the bird each person must accept Jesus as their Lord and savior or spend eternity in hell.

If you are not prepared to “give an answer” get with someone who can disciple you to fill your empty chamber!

If there are “least likely” locations, one of them would certainly be the book of Numbers in the Pentateuch. Those who set out to read through the Bible often think they find reason to jump ahead when they hit Numbers.

This “least likely” place recounts the movement of the nation of Israel following their redemption from Egypt by the might outstretched arm. While there is considerable detail in Numbers, it is part of an even bigger picture taking us back to the Promise of God made to Abraham, repeated to Isaac, repeated to Jacob and his descendants (Ex. 2:24–25; 3:15–17).

While Israel struggled with their rebellion against God, God did not deter in His Promise.

Fast forward to the nation preparing to enter the land, camped in the Plain of Moab on the east side of the Jordan River, across in the distance was Jericho. Prior to their entry, God instructed Moses, Num 34:2.

² “Command the sons of Israel and say to them, ‘When you enter the land of Canaan, this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance, even the land of Canaan according to its borders.

Imagine being at that place, at that time, after those desperate years of disobedience, and hearing “this is the land that shall fall to you as an inheritance”!

God’s Promise has never faded! They were the very generation to enter God’s Promised Land!

Centuries have passed! Sin has raged! Yet, we learn, in a very “least likely” place, that God has been divinely involved, has divinely moved, greater than time, greater than nations, greater than my own sin!

God can be relied on! He makes good on His Promise! May our persistence in the pursuit of His provision be firm!

Life is filled with a myriad of events, happenings, hills, valleys, highs, and lows — all of which we remember, and rightfully so. There are numerous lessons we’ve learned here!

God also marks things we should remember and there are definitely lessons to be learned. One of those things worthy of remembering is frequently passed by yet a closer look at the Tabernacle points us to God’s mark for our memory.

Within the Holy of Holies, according to God’s design, there was the Ark of the Covenant.

If you’ve not read of its construction for the Tabernacle, you can find this in Exodus 25.10 ff. This “chest” was the crux of the Holy of Holies, the most holy place! Its vital position is stated in Exodus 25.22.

²² “There I will meet with you; and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the sons of Israel.

{Some notes on Exodus 25.22 —

The Proper Place to Worship – Ex 20.24-26; 25.1-26.37; Deut 12; cf. Ezek 40-48

People have ignored the Lord, established their own idols. N.B. Lev 17.7, the prohibition for sacrifice to goat-demons outside the place of worship! Cf. 2Chron 11.15 for the acts of Jeroboam I for his own idolatry!}

 

Far more than just a piece of furniture, here is where God would meet with His people. As Scripture unfolds God’s revelation, three things are placed within this “chest,” i.e., the Ark of the Covenant.

Exodus 25.16 tells us the two tablets of the Decalogue given to Moses on Mt. Sinai were placed inside the Ark. These tablets, the preamble of the covenant, confirmed that it is God’s Word alone which sets the standard, pattern, practice for life. Our first thing to remember!

Exodus 16.32-34 tells us an urn containing some of the manna God provided to sustain His people was placed inside the Ark. This supernaturally given, daily sustaining provision of God, while furnishing sustenance for life, is not understood by man! It was called “manna,” i.e., “what is it”? It is God’s provision until His place of blessing is reached! Our second thing to remember is that God divinely provides, even though we typically don’t understand it, yet, His provision will sustain us!

Exodus 17.10f tells us that when God’s way was challenged, the account of Aaron’s confrontation through the grumblers, when leaders from the twelve tribes were instructed to place their rods before the Lord, only the rod of Aaron spouted as fruitful! We don’t want to miss that, Exodus 17.10, this is “a sign against the rebels”! Our third thing to remember is God’s way is not one of many ways, it’s the only way which will bear fruit! All other ways perish, fruitless, and faithless in their rebellion!

Three things worthy of remembering . . .

• God’s Word alone is the standard for life, faith, and practice! Yield to no other word!
• God’s divine provision, supernatural sustenance, which we will not understand, yet it will sustain us! Find no other sustenance for your life!
• God’s way, alone, bears fruit! No matter how or what someone puts forth, their way is fruitless and perishing! Find no other way for your life!

 

“Practical atheism” may not be the most common expression but it is a most common practice in the community of believers in Jesus! Good feelings have captivated the church of Jesus. The common commodity among today’s churches is the ever increasing focus on our “felt needs” amidst “fun experiences.” Church has frequently become a rock concert designed to put a rush in my self-sufficiency so I can “feel better”!

While there’s nothing inherently wrong with feeling better, when they have become the end in themselves, something is missing! That “something” is God! He is too often simply a residue lining the container, leaving the slightest aftertaste on the consumer!

While many would contend they are not practical atheist, the fact is their focus is on a health-and-wealth message of a more successful family life, personal life, retirement life.

David Wells well summarizes, “The fundamental problem in the evangelical world today is that God rests too inconsequential upon the church. His truth is too distant, his grace is too ordinary, his judgment is too benign, his gospel is too easy, and his Christ is too common.” (David Wells, “God in the Wasteland: The Reality of Truth in a World of Fading Dreams” (Eerdmans, 1994) 30.)

Our mediocrity of faith is quickly exposed when we encounter obstacles in life. Our rock concert and rush of self-sufficiency don’t bring the feel-better we’d believed they would! Obviously, God has abandoned us!

Really? Our obviousness is from our spiritual anemia which has played well into our pursuit of practical atheism! The Cross of Jesus stands firmly in the face of all anxiety! God may well be allowing our obstacles specifically to draw us back to the Cross and away from our present course!

My recent study and teaching in God’s Word has taken me to the Letter of James. This earthy, pungent, penetrating, and most practical letter has been and continues to be a personal blessing.

James is writing to some of the earliest believers in Jesus. It’s suggested these Jewish readers came to faith following Jesus’ resurrection. Because of the persecution of these early believers, they fled Jerusalem. Acts 8.1b well describes what followed on the death of Stephen!

There is no room for practical atheism in the midst of persecution! James well knows this and presses us to a fresh view of God! God’s work in our lives in the places we seem to suffer will teach us a fundamental truth! It’s that God is all we need, in life, in difficulties, in death, in eternity!

God is destroying our self-confident atheism and declaring He is sufficient!

Jas 1:2–3.

² Consider it all joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces steadfast-endurance. (translation my own)

Steadfast-endurance is remaining under God, His Word, and His Ways, “knowing” He is working to grow us in faith!

To many times our confrontation with trials finds us where — we complain! We stress! We fuss! We fume! We do everything we can to avoid, deny, mask, or bury under the numbness of activity or entertainment or busyness or buying things or ?????.

So what needs to be purified from us? Selfish motives, incorrect perceptions, distorted understanding of what is really happening, all of which are impure faith, weak faith!

God has never worked to destroy us! He won’t let anyone or anything have a complete victory over us! He will never forsake us!

Rom 8.31-39

³¹ What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? ³² He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? ³³ Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies; ³⁴ who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. ³⁵ Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? ³⁶ Just as it is written, “For Your sake we are being put to death all day long; We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.” ³⁷ But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, ³⁹ nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Heb 13.5

⁵  . . . “I will never desert you, nor will I ever forsake you,”

The only thing God destroys is our self-sufficiency!

Jas 1.2-4

² Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, ³ knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. ⁴ And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Life‑Lessons from James

Stability in life comes from steadfastness in faith, faith always bathed in the grace of God!

Steadfastness in faith comes from our foundation of knowing and trusting God’s amazing grace in Jesus who died for us and rose victorious so we can have His New Life through faith in Him!

Steadfastness in faith comes from our future through knowing and trusting Jesus for His glorious return for us as part of His eternal kingdom!

Steadfastness of faith comes from knowing and trusting the trials we encounter are never fate but are used of our God for His perfect, full, completing work in our lives to mature us and testify of Him!

Steadfastness of faith comes from remaining under God’s sufficiency, knowing and trusting that He is working in our lives, here, now, always!

 

One of the blessings of being spiritually sensitive, spiritually astute, spiritually mature is having “insight” into the myriad of things which come into our lives. It virtually goes without saying that we are overwhelmed with “stuff”! From images to messages, playthings to politics, fanfare to Facebook . . . it’s an unrelenting flow!

How can you have “insight” to slice it up. There is not only the challenge of good and bad, and bad is our culture is often masqueraded as good, there’s the larger challenge of good and better, or really, the best.

Reading this morning in Isaiah 2 may well have set some serious wisdom for “How you can have insight in life.” While Isaiah was a prophet of God’s people, what distinguishes him is he is in touch with what God says, i.e., His Word.

In a very brief overview of Isaiah 2, it opens with a view of what is ahead. Isa 2:2ff.

² Now it will come about that In the last days
The mountain of the house of the LORD
Will be established as the chief of the mountains,
And will be raised above the hills; And all the nations will stream to it.

When you see this phrase “in the last days,” is almost always a look at the coming days of the Messiah, His reign, His kingdom. Isaiah declares the coming triumph of the Kingdom of God! Now, Isaiah was used of the Lord, Holy Spirit enabled, to have spiritual foresight into future things.

God hasn’t given this prophetic foresight to us, but, His clear Word now unfold this same revelation.

Isaiah’s foresight is of God’s coming glory, blessing, purification, and restoration, His Messianic Kingdom!

In Isaiah 2.5, Isaiah turns to his generation, guided by God’s foresight, now having and giving “insight” into the spoils of materialism, selfishness, and indifference to God which is rampant among God’s people!

While Isaiah 2 is well worth much more time and study, let’s learn that “insight” into today comes from “foresight” into what God is doing and that, by grace, through faith in the Messiah, now fully revealed in Jesus, we are part of God’s coming glory and reign!

If you’re floundering or wandering in the overwhelming flow of “stuff” today, take some moments and refresh in your heart your heading . . . by faith, it’s the things of God, His Word, His Ways, His Blessings which are ours in all fullness!

This really puts gold and silver, politics and power, pomp and parties in another light! Yes, that’s called “insight” into life based on my “foresight” in the truth of God’s Word!