(This blog was intended to be posted on Friday morning, but I suddenly came up without internet. Better late than never.)

    A late, cold October day. Wind coming out of the north. A misty rain. In spite of being wet, leaves are blowing around their feet from the wind blowing off the Lake. Two people walking along a path. Forty feet below, the waves of Lake Erie are striking the shore. Talking is difficult because of the noise, so the two walk mostly in silence. The one, buried in a coat that isn't warm enough, walks head down, wondering when this torment will end. The other, the older, in a light jacket, walks with head up, relishing the sounds, the smells, all the sensations. The younger turns to the older and says, raising a voice over the wind and surf, "You know, you could retire and enjoy this stuff all the time."

    My son hates this stuff. Why would anyone in their right mind want to go out on a cold, wet day to walk along a path so far above the Lake? And who really cares about the Lake, anyway? I, on the other hand, love walking along the lake on a cold October day. A little rain makes it perfect. My son grew up about twenty miles from where I grew up. Close in geography, but another planet as far as interests. To my son, electronics hold great fascination. He didn't watch much TV growing up. His nose was buried in a tech manual or in the guts of a computer. To me, big water was always the thing. The Great Lakes, the ocean, a great and mighty river rushing towards its mouth where it empties into a massive body of water. Two different fascinations. When Adam was growing up, I took him to electronic shows, which was so boring, and now he will go with me to the water, but it is more out of duty than anything else.  

    But the words spoken into my ear mixed with the sounds I love..."You know, you could retire and enjoy this stuff all the time." Those words stayed with me the rest of the day. I could drive down to the Lake very early in the morning. I could sit there and talk to God. I could spend time with old friends. I could watch my granddaughter grow up. I could go to a restaurant and not have to quiz the waiter or waitress on what foods contain pork. Thomas Wolfe said that you can't go home again, but I could.

    Yes, I could retire and enjoy this stuff all the time. Except, I don't want to do this thing. You folks of the Yoke no doubt feel that Wabash County is God's little slice of heaven here on earth and therefore cannot understand why someone would be drawn to somewhere else. But Northeast Ohio is home to me. Yet, I don't want to be home. I want to serve the Lord where He wants me to serve Him.

    Serving the Lord means getting out of your comfort zone. My comfort zone is Northeast Ohio. However, over twenty five years of my adult life have been elsewhere. Home has been where the Lord has put us. In the ministry, you can't plan on living in your comfort zone. If you are going to be serious about it, you have to be ready and willing to go.

    But that is the ministry. Full time service. What God has called me to do.

    So, does that mean I am called of God and you aren't? Do you have ministry? What are you called to do?

    What I have done with my life (and Marsha, too, for the great majority of it) is unusual. Think of the pastors and preachers you have known who have never served more than fifty miles from where they grew up. Yet, they also had to step out of their comfort zone in some manner. A comfort zone is that place where you feel at ease, a place where you can be content. The truth is, though, we do better work when we have to think and react and be alert. These are things we do outside the comfort zone.

    Well over half a century ago, two churches came out of their comfort zones and worked out a plan for the churches to survive. As time went by, the two congregations further went out of their comfort zones and drew closer together. Then, with a huge leap, the two congregations set the comfort zones aside and became one congregation. In one last act, the congregation settled into one worship center. Now the congregation could create a new comfort zone. First, though, it made sense to upgrade the worship time. Now the sweet rest of a comfort zone could happen. Except the pandemic came and it was necessary to go on line with worship videos. Now we can have that comfort zone! Whew! Quite the struggle! Only there is a new need. The comfort zone will have to wait. The life of the church is at stake again! The congregation has to react.

    (This next part I wrote early on Sunday morning.) 

    I drove too fast coming back from Ohio on Saturday. I constantly had to back away from 80 mph. I needed to get back. I wanted to get back. The church overwhelmingly voted to step out of their comfort zone yet again and do something that would have been unthinkable a short while ago. I really, really like being with people who respond to the Lord rather than what they think can be done.

    You know what? I think I am home!  

     

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Acts 2:17; And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and you daughters shall prophesy, your young me shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

    Here, Peter is preaching to the Jews immediately after the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples on the day of Pentecost. It is still Pentecost, and the disciples are preaching in the boldness of the Holy Spirit. Because they are preaching to Jews, Peter quotes a passage out of the Old Testament book of Joel. To the disciples, they were in the last days. What we know as the 'church age' was beginning right then, so it really was the beginning of the last days. The fact that the last days have gone on for nearly two thousand years is not important. They were looking for it then, but it pleased the Lord to wait till the end. That may seem odd, but remember that from the first prophecy of Jesus until His birth was four thousand years. God does not see time as we do.

    BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT!

    I want to look at three words: prophesy, visions and dreams. 

    "Prophesy" is the Greek word "propheteusousin" which means to 'divinely speak.' Basically, to preach and to share the Gospel. "Vision" is the Greek word "horaseis" and means to 'gaze forward.' To look to the future. Then, the Greek word for "dream" is "enyphiasthesontai" (aren't you glad we speak English?) which means 'to see visions in your sleep.' I find all this fascinating and most people do not, I know. However, I just want to dwell on one little piece here, and that is DREAMS.

    I love to dream. I had a bad dream about a year ago, but I also had a bad infection, so that was probably the cause. Other than that, except for a morphine generated hallucination, I cannot tell you the last bad dream I have had. Some of them are mundane, like mowing the yard, but most are just fun. Revisiting old faces and old locations, walking into new places, doing things I used to do. I very, very seldom have a person in my dreams I haven't known in real life. For me, mostly, dreams are a way for the sub-conscious to unwind. In school we had to study dreams in psychology. We found that there were elements in dreams that are universal across the globe. Being able to fly, being in water, being in a fire, etc. A person in Bejing who has the element of flying like a bird in the dream is having the same thought with the same meaning as someone in Dallas who is flying. Fears, desires and uncertainties are common to every human. There are those who believe every dream has a deep, deep meaning. Many do, but I also think many dreams are just the sleeping brain having a good time.

    But then there are the dreams that seem to tell us something. Back in 2005 a young lady in our church was going to get married. Her mother, Denise, was my secretary. The daughter was Jennifer. One day a couple of months before the wedding, Denise came in to the office with a troubled look on her face. I asked her what was wrong and she said she didn't really know. She had a weird dream in which her family was sitting on the front pew of the church. Everyone was dressed up, so she assumed it was the wedding. Frank, her husband, wasn't there, but he would have been with their daughter. But then she noticed that Jennifer was sitting on the pew, as well, and everyone was wearing dark clothes. She was really bothered by it, but I told her that she was so worked up about the wedding that it was really starting to affect her. Then, a month later, Frank had a heart attack. Frank died and the funeral was in the church. I was sitting up in the pulpit area waiting to start and I looked down at Denise and her family. It struck me then that it looked like the description of the dream. Denise was looking at her family and her head swung around and looked at me. She was shocked. We both realized at the same moment that this was what she had seen in her dream.

    I have had a few dreams such as this myself, but very rarely. They have, however, been there. Does God use dreams to communicate with us? If He chooses. That is up to Him. Some people take this too far. A year or so ago I had a dream with someone I had not seen in a long time, and it was just really nice to see her. She was on my mind so I called her to tell her that she had been in a dream and it made me think of some old days. All I got out was that she had been in a dream and she said, "Oh my gosh, what's going to happen?" Later in the day she was talking to her daughter and told her I had called and the daughter said, "Geez, mom! What's going to happen?!?" A few months back I dreamed my father, mother, sisters and myself were sitting down to eat at the old farmhouse. The parents were young, the sisters were no more than junior high, but I was in my sixties. Since my parents have passed away and my sisters are well past junior high and the farm house has been gone a very long while, I accept it as a blessing from the Lord at seeing the family before everything fell apart.

    All this about dreams is because I had......a dream! Tuesday night I dreamed we were in a large barn, maybe a pole barn structure. All the folks from the church were there and they were all of their present age. A variety of chairs were set up and we were getting ready to have a regular service. But it was a barn and so people had coffee and donuts and such and there was a lot of talking and laughing. My feeling was something had happened to our building and we were meeting in this barn. Everyone was relaxed, so whatever had happened was well behind us. I felt we would soon have a new building. I looked around and saw the different faces and felt contentment.....Then my alarm went off. I rarely sleep until they alarm, but I did that morning. 

    So, what does the dream mean? I don't think it meant anything. It was just so good to see everyone happy and expectant and the coffee was really, really good. 

    But if something does happen and we start meeting in a barn, you folks need to give me a raise!                                                        

; 

 Revelation 10:2-4---He had a little scroll open in his hand. And he set his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and called out with a loud voice, like a lion roaring. When he called out, the seven thunders sounded. And when the seven thunders had sounded, I was about to write, but I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Seal up what the seven thunders have said, and do not write it down."

    The seven stars, the seven golden lampstands, the seven seals, the seven trumpets, the seven plagues, the seven bowls of wrath, lots and lots of sevens in the Book of the Revelation. From all of the prophecies and all the sevens, many 'scholars' have arranged and outlined the exact sequence of events that will come at the end times. All of it written down, explained and affirmed as truth.

    Except for those seven thunders that John was not allowed to write about. The Book of the Revelation is vibrant and scary and exhilarating and heart stopping. But is not actually complete because there is the issue of the thunders. 

    Most writers ignore the thunders when they write their narratives. It is only three verses. Hardly there at all. But without the thunders it is impossible to put together a complete timeline. That does not take away from the truth of the rest of the Book, but it does leave, in its wake, a mystery. Given the scope of the other sevens, the lack of knowledge of the thunders leaves a BIG mystery. 

    And that is OK.

    For those of us who are believers, all things will eventually be revealed. There are mysteries in the Word and those mysteries spice things up a little more than they already are.

    We know the things we need to know. We know how to share the Gospel. We know how to share God's love. We know how to live Godly lives. We know how to share the Gospel, but we mostly don't. We know how to share God's love, but we mostly want to see the cost first. We know how to live Godly lives, but we are mostly too deep in the world to do so. Yet we want all the answers to the mysteries. 

    The mysteries of our Bible set it apart from other bibles of other faiths. Other faith books were written to explain everything. Our Bible holds back some things. They are held back because they have no bearing on our one job. On the Mount of Transfiguration, how did it actually happen? We know why, but how did it come about? All kinds of mysteries surround Moses. The plagues, the burning bush, the parting of the sea. Did God send all the crocodiles to the other side of the Nile when the baby Moses was set into that river? Why did bad things happen to good people in the Bible? Why did Paul suffer as he did? If you just look, you will find all kinds of mysteries.

    And mysteries are fun.

    Years ago, at a pastor's retreat, an older pastor came up to me. He looked to be in his 60s, deep lines creased his face, he looked haggard and worn. He asked a series of Bible type questions, but they were of the type I mentioned above. Then, without taking much of a breath, he started presenting hypothetical questions about possible situations in a church. He was actually frantic. 

    When I could break in, I said, "Whoa, guy, there are no answers to most of the Bible questions and the church situations depend on a lot of variables. What is the problem? What's going on." His eyes were big and he was shaking. I was thinking he was on the verge of a breakdown or had already had it. Later, it occurred to me that he might have been on a drug of some type. But he looked at me with those big, desperate eyes and said, "If I don't have the answers when they ask, they are gonna fire me!" Then he turned and shuffled off to someone else. 

    I felt a huge sadness for that man. I found it hard to believe that the church would fire him, but you never know. 

    This I do know; never feel you know everything about the Bible, because you don't. And never think you have the Book of the Revelation all figured out, because you don't. And that is fun.

    We are told to study to show ourselves approved, a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth. The search is fun, the discovery is enthralling and the mystery is amazing.

    Read the Word daily!     

               

" 

     As I begin this week's blog, I have to preface this with a statement. I am very, very smart. I have a doctorate degree to prove it, and they don't give those out in Cracker Jack boxes. Well, maybe they do, but it is not like you can print them off on your home printer. Well, actually, you can....BUT I DID NOT PRINT MINE OFF! I ARE SMART!

    So, having established my intellect, I would like to share with you something my amazing brain figured out.

    I was at the pharmacy and a mother was pushing a little girl in the shopping cart. At least I thought it was a little girl. It may have been a little boy who had realized in the womb that he was a she. For that matter, the one pushing him/her may have been the birth parent, but even though I perceived her (with my amazing brain) as a woman, it could have been his/her father who had gotten pregnant (I am old fashioned enough to hope he/she was married) and had born this child. As they walked by, the child was making sounds like a cat. Meows and hisses and YEOWs. The child was also making swiping motions like a cat does when you hold it by the tail. The mother/father was smiling, and it was sweet little moment between parent and child. And it was at that moment that it hit me! So hard did it hit me that I nearly fell backward. I heard another child whisper to his/her mother/father, "Look, mommy/daddy, that old man/woman almost fell!" Fortunately, a display of Blistex kept me from going to the floor. But I didn't even notice. It was all so clear! And no one else has even mentioned it!

    This whole thing of gender identification is all well and good, but I think the story is species identification. THE CREATURE, IN THE WOMB, KNOWS ITS ACTUAL SPECIES AND IS DISAPPOINTED AT BIRTH TO SEE IT IS HUMAN!

    Think about it...scientists, who are smart like me, tell us that our DNA differs only in the tiniest little bit from a cucumber. When we think about our DNA compared to, say, a cockroach, the DNA strands are much closer. (This is all hard science, by the way.) Between ourselves and other mammals it would be much closer still. Between us and apes, it is so close as to be barely discernable. Now, the smart scientist people are telling us that a baby (sorry; a fetus) in the womb already knows its gender. (An unrelated thought here, but these smart scientist people tell us that abortion is OK because the fetus is an unviable tissue mass, like a tumor. So, how can that unviable tissue mass be able to think of its gender?) Why, then, can't the fetus also know its species? It kicks out like any animal does when they are trapped, it recoils to loud noises like any animal does, it spends most of its time sleeping, like any animal does. It all makes such perfect sense!

    And it would explain so much in my own life. When I was wee tiny and my sisters played house, I was the family dog. I have always had a knack with dogs. I can stare into a dog's eyes, and we communicate on a telepathic level. I can sit with a dog and howl until the dog howls. I love to be scratched behind the ears. I don't much like cats. What more proof is needed? I am thinking that my species was supposed to be dog. A big, slobbery St. Bernard.

    It would explain other aspects of the population. Naturally mean people were meant to be badgers. Ballerinas were meant to be swans. Seemingly uninterested people were meant to be cats. Rappers were meant to be chimps. We were meant to be one species, but we were born human. And the reverse would be true, as well. A particularly smart dog might have been meant to be a person. 

    I believe that sometime, in the next few years, this will be deemed as true by the smart scientist people. Then we will have to go around on a leash. 

    Think of the implications! People/animals roaming the streets can finally be rounded up and taken to the pound and humanely put down. The problem of the old and infirm, the mentally deficient, the handicapped, any who oppose, all taken care of in a racially just and humane way. Our society will at last achieve our highest destiny.

    I know some of you will think I am making fun of serious science. But you are wrong. I am making fun of stupid science. Science with a political agenda, science with a humanist bent, science filled with people who don't have the intelligence to even pass the entrance exams of a college a generation ago, back when a degree actually meant something. I sat in a hospital waiting room this morning and looked around and everyone had a mask on. Two years after the pandemic. Thank you, modern science.

    Stop and rationally think how stupid it is to say a child in the womb already knows its gender. Stop and think how stupid it is to say a five year old can make the decision of what its gender is to be. Stop and think how stupid, and scary, it is to say that the school can determine the true gender of a child whether you want them to or not. How stupid is that? Just about as stupid as species identification.

    Somewhere the Lord God got lost in the shuffle. The horror of our age.             

 

 

     Who is this man in the picture? Not a particularly handsome man, at least in my judgement. He has a face that looks weather beaten, a face used to hard work. If you were on a busy sidewalk, you wouldn't even look twice at this person. Nothing really sets him apart.

    Who is this man in the picture? Wait! This is a Pastor writing this, someone who is in the Word daily. It's probably Peter or one of the other disciples. He has a Jewish look about him and the disciples were, mostly, men who worked hard. Judas! That's it! It is Judas! You can see it in his eyes. So, what's the point?

    Who is this man in the picture? He is Jesus. 

    The Jews didn't allow likenesses of themselves to be drawn or painted. The image of someone was strictly forbidden. You could describe someone, but you couldn't draw or paint their likeness. In the case of Jesus there were descriptions. Our view of the past is that it is hazy with most things lost to time. But the Romans were record keepers, as were the Jews. Over the years various sketch artists, like a police sketch artist, have sat down with the descriptions available to them and have come up with pictures very close to this one. In addition, in a cave that was used as a gathering place for early Christians in Jerusalem, there was a drawing on the wall, back towards the end of the cave, that looked exactly like this man in this picture. Just the drawing. No identification. Just a picture.

    Of course, this cannot be Jesus. What foolishness! He had long flowing hair, much finer features, a holy look about Him. This man looks nothing like Jesus!

    Our mental image of Jesus comes from the great, medieval painters we know and love. However, they painted what they knew. A Dutch painter might put wooden shoes on the people, an Italian painter would make people look Roman, a French painter would put flowing robes on people. In reality, men wore a rough kind of pants, or leggings, a long shirt and, at times, a robe-like cloak. This the oldest known painting of Christ, hanging on a wall in a monastery on Mt. Sinai and was painted in the sixth century after Christ. 

    This looks more like the first man at the beginning of this post because it would have been painted from descriptions. I am guessing that the large book He is holding is the Book of Life. But this does not look much like the later portrayals of Jesus.

    All of this is interesting, I know, but what is the point? The point is, we have a picture in our heads of what Jesus looked like, and that picture is wrong. Whether the first picture actually looks like Jesus looked or not, our mental picture cannot be right because there were no pictures from the time. So, if we are wrong about what He looked like, are we clear on what He means to us?

    He gives us comfort, He gives us peace, He gives us joy. That is right. But what do we give Him? Matthew 10:32-33; So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven. Do we share the Lord with others? We can soak up His goodness, but can we do our one job? 

    We are to plant seeds. We are to tell others. We aren't supposed to beat people down with the Bible, but we are to tell others of His saving grace and His love for us.

    Who is the man in the picture? Doesn't really matter. What is more important is the face you see looking back at you from the mirror. Who is that person in the service of the Lord?