February 23

EXODUS 6
In the midst of pain and hardship, it is hard to experience anything good. Once when I was a volunteer chaplain to a hospital a patient requested a chaplain visit. He had been shot in both legs shattering both shinbones. His younger brother had called all his friends to their house for a party while their parents were out of town. A young man was behaving badly, so the older brother instructed him to leave. He did leave, but he was a gang member. He came back a little later with his gang. Well, you get the picture. I met with the young man for a week or two at the hospital. Our church helped the family with some groceries. But the pain was constant and strong for the young man. He was not assured that he would ever walk normally again. Eventually, he came to a crisis point. In the midst of his pain, he could not see that God was real, or if he was real, that He cared about his pain. The young man told me to not come see him again. Pain is like that. It screams so loud in our minds that we can no longer see the glory of God even when it is about to be experienced.
God spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the LORD. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty, but by My name LORD I was not known to them.” One of the things that the Name of the LORD tells us is that He cannot be fully known. He is. He can be known truly but not fully. He is. He can be experienced, but not completely. He is. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob experienced the LORD, but not completely. He appeared to them but not completely. The name, “He is,” was unknown to them. They experienced “He is” in their pain but not completely. Now 400 years later their descendents are experiencing Him. However, their pain was great. Listen to what the text says,

‘I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. Then you shall know that I am the LORD your God who brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. 8‘And I will bring you into the land which I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and I will give it to you as a heritage: I am the LORD.’ ” 9So Moses spoke thus to the children of Israel; but they did not heed Moses, because of anguish of spirit and cruel bondage.

They could not hear Moses because of their anguish. This God, who spoke the universe into existence, spoke and told them that He was about to act on their behalf and that they would know Him. Yet they would not hear it because of the anguish of their spirit and cruel bondage. I wonder how many times I have missed hearing the voice of God because I focused on my pain. I wonder how much of the Glory of God that I have missed because I was focused upon me. His glory is still there. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

PSALM 54
He had been “on the lamb” for quite some time now. Having escaped Saul, then Achish, he returned to the cave of Adullam. The discontent of the land heard about his whereabouts and began to join him. Within a few months he had a small army of 400. David removed himself to Moab. He asked the king of Moab to let his family stay in Moab to protect them from Saul. The Moabite king granted it. David returned to his stronghold in the desert, and then under the instruction of the Spirit of God, he removed himself into the fields of Judah. There Abiathar the son of Ahimelech found him and informed him of the treachery of Doeg and the murder of the priests. Then David wrote Psalm 52. By this time at least a year must have passed for all these events to have taken place.
It was reported that the Philistines were raiding Keilah. David enquired of the Lord and took his men and did what should have been the job of the king. He delivered Keilah. One would think Saul would recognize David’s loyalty. Mental illness always prevents one from recognizing the truth. (I am convinced that we are all mentally ill to some degree.) But Saul had a severe case of it. Saul took his troops to destroy David. David fled to the wilderness of Ziph.
David meant to be a stabilizing force in the area of Ziph. He had solid control of his men, and they could act like a police force protecting the inhabitants from bandits, rustlers, raiders and invaders. But the residents of Ziph saw him as a destabilizing force. They knew that he was Saul’s sworn enemy. The last thing they needed was to get caught between the forces of the king and this upstart young officer. Naturally, they reported his presence to Saul, and Saul came to kill him. Judging by the shortness of this Psalm, I would judge that David wrote this on the run. The outcome is still unknown. All that David can say in the Psalm is to declare that God is his helper and deliverer, and He has delivered David in the past. After at least a year of running, David had to be tired of all of this, yet he still pens a song to the praise of God for His deliverance.
The story continues for years. David is delivered from the hand of Saul time and again. What can we learn from David’s Psalm? When the negative influences of life multiply upon us to destroy us, we can rejoice in the strong name of our Lord. The Lord may or may not deliver me immediately, but He will deliver me ultimately. The Lord will eventually cut off all of His enemies. If His enemies are my enemies, then I can rest in what He will do. He will one day rule supreme for He is God. I can trust in that fact alone. So, do I understand His strong name so that I can rejoice in it when I am about to be destroyed? That is why I must daily focus upon His glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

JOB 23
My youngest son and his friend love to play hide and seek in our house. I think that they are beginning to get close to the age where hide and seek indoors is not going to be much fun any longer. Their powers of observation are getting much better, and the time that it takes to find the hider is getting much shorter. I suspect that finding the hider will soon become so simple that it won’t be much fun anymore. Hide and seek can be fun when you are successful. It gets really frustrating if you are not successful or if there is no challenge.
Job feels like God is hiding from him. I should think that all of us feel like that at some time or another. In a very real sense God is playing hide and seek with us. Only, it is not necessarily a game. We are commanded often in Scripture to seek Him. We are given the promise that if we seek, we will find. But He puts one basic stipulation in our seeking. We must seek Him with all of our heart. For someone with a crooked deceitful heart like mine, that is very difficult to do. Often my heart does not want to be made well.
For someone Who is omnipresent, sometimes He is surely hard to find. If He is omnipresent, shouldn’t He be easily found? If His glory is the most important thing in the Universe, should not He be easily found? The mere fact that He is hard to find indicates that obviously the answer is no. That begs the question, “Why is He hard to find?” Maybe He uses the pursuit to change us. Perhaps without being changed, we end up being terrified in the hands of an angry God. Perhaps by being changed we end up being embraced in the arms of a loving Father. So it is all about seeking His glory, and in the process we are changed so that we may enjoy His glory more fully. Lord change my heart that I might find you and be ever delighting in Your own glory. Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor john

MARK 4:1-20
From time to time I have grown a garden. I am not too good at it. But my dad is. He loves doing it. When I was in Oregon in Seminary, Laura and I planted a garden one of the years. I put in some silver queen corn, broccoli, lettuce, tomatoes, and beets. The silver queen was some of the best corn that I have ever tasted. Everything did quite well. When I moved to Oklahoma, about the only thing that I could get success out of was okra. But then, okra will grow in just about any conditions. The soil in my yard in Oklahoma had a lot of clay in it and it was very dry and I had to be consistent in watering which I wasn’t. I am not really very fond of okra, except when breaded and fried. We moved to another house, and I planted cantaloupe, watermelon and squash. Either the slugs ate them, or for whatever reason the vines would die before the edible part was close to ripening.
In North Carolina the only thing that I really missed from a garden was vine ripe tomatoes. I tried planting tomato plants. Every time the tomatoes started growing and started looking good, they developed a black spot on the bottom and died before they began to ripen. I’ve been told that either the soil needs more calcium or the plants have too much water on their roots. Knowing the soil and the climate, it was probably both. Was it ever a problem with the seed? Was it ever a problem with the sowing? No, it was mostly a problem with the soil. So I guess I gave up gardening. I just didn’t have enough interest to tend to the soil to change it in order to get the results I desired.
Have you every wondered why the word of God just doesn’t seem to have the effect upon some people as it does upon others? Is it something wrong with the word? No, it is the word of our Lord, the Lord of glory. Is it the sower? No, the Holy Spirit is the sower as we speak His word. It is a problem with the soil. His word always produces the effect for which it was sown. What then is the problem? It is the soil, the hearts of people. Are the hearts hard so that Satan can carry the word away before it germinates? Are the hearts shallow so that the roots die with a little lack of moisture? Are the hearts surrounded by weeds or slugs, the cares of the world which eat or choke out the germinating plant? Are the hearts good soil which produce good plants?
Sometimes we get our focus on the garden rather than the glory of the seed. Consequently when we see no results, we quit sowing. Have you ever considered the awesome changes that take place when a seed germinates and turns into a plant? Have you ever considered the awesome changes that take place when the word of God germinates in the heart of a person? It is not about the results we see in the garden. It is about the glory of the word of God as it germinates in the hearts of people. We quit because we focus on the results in the garden not the glory of the one who brings the results. Let’s keep sowing the seed. Eventually we will find good soil, and in due time we will reap a harvest. Why? Because of the glory of the seed! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today!
--Pastor John