May 10

NUMBERS 19
I could smell him before I even saw him. My office was in the SE corner of our 40X80 building. The front doors were near the NE corner of the building. When he opened the door, a blast of air swept past him carrying his smell all the way into the office. It is not uncommon for homeless people to have a distinctive ‘human’ smell, but this was overpowering! I struggled the whole time that I talked with him with the physical nausea which was evoked by his presence. It was supposed to get cold that night, and he wanted shelter. One of my elders was on the governing board of the City Rescue Mission. So as a church, we supported the ministry of the Rescue Mission financially, emotionally, prayerfully and with our acts of service. I offered to take him to the shelter. He would have none of it. He said that He did not feel safe there. I thought to myself, “With a smell like this, no one would want to be near him. He would probably be the safest person there.” When he realized that the only help which he would get from me was to take him to the shelter, he left in disgust mumbling something about, “Jesus wouldn’t have done that.” I walked back to my office. I could still smell him. Fifteen minutes later, I could still smell him. Although it was cold outside, I propped open the doors and slid up the windows. After an hour I could still slightly smell him, but it was cold inside the building. I shut the doors and windows. The next morning his lingering odor was still there when I walked in. I drove to the store and bought some air freshener to mask the smell. It was a full week before I could no longer detect his residue. I wonder, “Could he smell himself?”
In 17:13 the people had expressed their terror at coming to the tabernacle lest they all die. Matthew Henry speaks of it as:
They seem to speak despairingly, as if God was a hard Master, that sought advantage against them, and took all occasions to pick quarrels with them, so that if they trod every so little awry, if they stepped ever so little beyond their bounds, they must die, they must perish, they must all perish, basely insinuating that God would never be satisfied with their blood and ruin, till he had made an end of them all and they were consumed with dying.
Here the Lord continues to provide a remedy for their unclean state. Their rebellion was a stench in the nostrils of God, our merciful and gracious God chose to cleanse them and us of the stench. Before the priest could minister, a ceremonial cleansing needed to take place so that stench of rebellion might not nauseate the LORD God as the representative of the people came forward to intercede for the people. I wonder, “Could they smell their spiritual stench?” That question leads me to a more personal question, “Do I have a spiritual stench before God? Is it a distinctly ‘human’ smell that is nauseating to Him?”
In order to remove a smell it is best to remove the cause. The French are famous for their perfumes because they developed them in an age when bathing was considered unhealthful. The perfumes effectively masked that distinctively ‘human’ smell. Today the most effective way to remove the smells is to bathe regularly. It is interesting that the invention of soap probably comes from the ancient practices of sacrifice. The major ingredients of soap are lye and animal fat. Lye is obtained by running water through wood ashes. As the water travels through the ash, it leaches out lye (sodium hydroxide). Pure lye is a dangerous chemical because its strong alkali ph level eats just about everything. That is why it makes such a good soap. To make soap, the animal fat is rendered, and lye is added at a proper ratio. The concoction is allowed to cool and becomes soap. Lots of soap and water is usually a good way to remove the cause of bad odors.
Is it not interesting that God’s solution to the uncleanness of the high priest and the people is to burn a red heifer and to mix its ashes with water and then to sprinkle that water on the object being cleaned as part of the cleansing ceremony? But why a red heifer? A pure red heifer was indeed a rare thing. The rabbis used to say, ‘If but two hairs were black or white, it was unlawful.’ The purity of the heifer speaks of the purity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The water poured through His ashes is strong enough to purify the worst stench. That is His glory! He is strong enough to purify the most defiled stench upon us. He not only forgives us, but He also cleanses us of our stench, if we let Him! But we like the homeless man, often turn and walk away preferring our stench to His cleansing water. Does that over power His glory? No, it only makes it more difficult for us to see it. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

* *

PSALM 129
The amount of persecution against the cause of Christ in this world is truly staggering. This morning I noted that the president has come out clearly in favor of promoting and supporting same sex marriage. To me, the timing would appear to be a reaction to North Carolina passing the marriage amendment. The current president has repeatedly made comments and supported actions that repudiate his alleged profession of being a Christian. Consider this paragraph from the Manahattan Declaration of Oct. 2009:
We see this, for example, in the effort to weaken or eliminate conscience clauses, and therefore to compel pro-life institutions (including religiously affiliated hospitals and clinics), and pro-life physicians, surgeons, nurses, and other health care professionals, to refer for abortions and, in certain cases, even to perform or participate in abortions. We see it in the use of anti- discrimination statutes to force religious institutions, businesses, and service providers of various sorts to comply with activities they judge to be deeply immoral or go out of business. After the judicial imposition of "same-sex marriage" in Massachusetts, for example, Catholic Charities chose with great reluctance to end its century-long work of helping to place orphaned children in good homes rather than comply with a legal mandate that it place children in same-sex households in violation of Catholic moral teaching. In New Jersey, after the establishment of a quasi-marital "civil unions" scheme, a Methodist institution was stripped of its tax exempt status when it declined, as a matter of religious conscience, to permit a facility it owned and operated to be used for ceremonies blessing homosexual unions. In Canada and some European nations, Christian clergy have been prosecuted for preaching Biblical norms against the practice of homosexuality. New hate-crime laws in America raise the specter of the same practice here
It would appear that the president has added one more link in the chain that will eventually, if left unchecked, lead to further curtailment of religious liberty and eventual persecution of believers in the USA. Perhaps a good dose of persecution is what the Laodicean Church of the USA needs in order to cure it of its carnality.
“Let Israel now say, . . .” This is a corporate song referring to the corporate experience of God’s people. We really do not know when it was written. Quite probably it was around the time of the return from Babylon. The Babylonians cruelly treated Israel in her destruction by them. In cruel circumstances many are prone to respond by asking, “How could a righteous, loving God allow this to happen to me/us?” Clearly the implication of the question is that God is either not righteous or not loving. But in contrast Israel is called to declare that the Lord is righteous, because He does bring deliverance by cutting the chords of their captors. Israel then asks for equity upon their non-repentant persecutors.
What a contrast with the attitude of Jesus upon the cross and Stephen while being stoned, when they asked God to forgive the ones killing them! Or is it? When Jesus and Stephen uttered those words, they were in the process of dying. Jesus and Stephen died in shame as criminals. Israel was kicked out of the land in shame as criminals. If this Psalm was written upon their return to the land, then their persecutors are long since dead. Their persecutors no longer have a chance to repent. Within the watching crowd of Jesus’ and Stephen’s death were persecutors who would one day repent. Notably, Saul was among the Stephen crowd. Their prayers were literally answered. Many in the crowd later repented and found forgiveness.
But one day, Jesus will return. He will not return in shame as a criminal. When He returns, He will bring with Him Stephen, those who were persecuted and all those who have believed. At that point there will be no more opportunity for repentance and forgiveness. There will be no more opportunity for blessing from the Lord. Only righteousness and justice will be dispensed. Fortunately for me and hopefully you, I have already claimed the righteousness of Jesus, which He has so freely given me. Consequently for me, the justice of the Father and Son will have already been carried out upon the cross. But those who refused the forgiveness of the cross will be condemned. They will receive the curse laid out at the end of this Psalm, and rightly so for they rejected the offered sacrifice and forgiveness of the King. He would be unrighteous not to condemn them. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

* *

ISAIAH 40
The last four years in Oklahoma have been very dry. We had back-to-back years that were drier than any two successive years in the dust bowl days. Last year brought rains and a little relief, but it still was not enough to restore the two previous years. Since the first of the year, Stillwater has had only 2.73 inches of rain. We had .19 inches two days ago. The grass immediately began turning green. But now it is already turning brown. It is amazing how quickly the grass withers when the dry hot wind blows upon it.
It has often been said that ‘history’ is ‘His-story.’ How could we sum up history? Maybe one way to put it is:

It is the work of God whereby He created free-moral beings in His own image. Those beings chose to reject His rule over their lives. As a result, those beings spiraled down into separation from Him which resulted in their utter moral and spiritual degradation. However, in His great love for those beings, He devised a plan for their restoration by becoming one of them and taking the just penalty of their separation, dying in their place, yet rising again from the dead to bring them with Himself. He will one day bring and end to history and judge all men through the God-Man, Jesus, who died and rose for them. Those who have placed their faith in Him will enter eternal life. Those who have refused to trust Him will have their separation from Him made permanent.

His glory is revealed in history. Israel’s history is a microcosm and an integral part of the history of the world. As a microcosm, she sinned against God and received double for her sin being destroyed twice, once by the Babylonians and once by Rome. But the glory of the Lord is revealed in that He restored her through the Messiah. Thousands of years have transpired in this history. Those years demonstrate that all flesh is like grass. We are dry for the glory of the Lord. We seek Him and catch a glimpse of His glory, and our lives green up a little bit like the grass. But the hot dry winds of our sin begin blowing and suck the life right out of us. We wither like grass. But Jesus, the Living Word of God, stands forever. When we return to Him, He infuses us with His life! It is good news that needs to be shouted from every mountain top! Like a shepherd He will led us to Himself. His presence restores our withered lives.
He looks over the span of history, past, present and future and sees it as all one eternal now. Thus the machinations of the nations that rise and fall are just a drop in the bucket to the Lord. To think that He could ever be represented by an image carved by the hands of a man or even our own imagination is simply ludicrous. He cannot be compared to anything for He created all things. Thus when we are like the grass that withers so easily, we need to come to Him seeking His glory. He raises up those who wait upon Him. He refreshes them like the rain that replenishes the dry grass. He renews strength that was sucked out of us by the dry winds of life and of our own sin. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

* *

JOHN 1:29-51
About a year and a half after Laura and I married, we needed to get a different car. I eventually bought a Toyota Corolla from a pastor (from a church of a different denomination than ours). The car seemed okay. It ran decent. The interior was alright. The price range was perfect (at that time I operated on a cash only basis). The pastor also assured me that he had just rebuilt the engine and in his opinion the engine should be good for another 80,000 miles. He said he was selling it for financial reasons and no longer needed the car. I do not have the ability to look into the interior of an engine and determine how sound it is. But I trusted the word of the pastor. It sounded like a great deal. After all, if he had just rebuilt the engine, we should be good to go. So we bought it.
Not many months later we began having problems. I had to rebuild the carburetor. A mechanic informed me that I needed a valve job. And there were a host of other things that happened. At one point I was pulling the back seat out of the car and found an old receipt. It was for having the cylinder heads machined (a process one usually does when you have a valve job done-usually in the process of rebuilding the engine). The receipt recorded mileage and date of when the procedure was done. It was about 60,000 miles earlier than what the pastor had told me. I guess his definition of having "just rebuilt" the engine was a lot looser than my definition. I wished I had the ability to look into an engine to see what it was really like before I bought the car. I would have walked away from it.
Part of the glory of Jesus is that He sees right into our hearts and pursues us anyway. He came along side us in the auction market of sin. We were up for sale. He looked down into our hearts, our engine so to speak and He saw what was defiled and broken. He purchased us to take away our sin and rebuild the broken engine inside. He is just in removing our sin because He shed His own blood in our place. Once our sin is removed and our engine repaired, He fills us with the oil of His Holy Spirit who is able to lubricate all our parts to keep us working. He also fills us with the gasoline of His Holy Spirit who provides the fire to run our engine in a way that delights Him. He is the master mechanic who sees right to the depths of our being. He repairs us and empowers us to please Him. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john