Thistletown Baptist Church

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear though the earth gives way,
though the mountains be moved into the heart of the sea,
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble at its swelling.

4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved;
God will help her when morning dawns.
6 The nations rage, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

8 Come, behold the works of the Lord,
how he has brought desolations on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the chariots with fire.
10 “Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!”
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.

I just read this post regarding the recent passing of Dallas Willard. I have only read a little of Willard’s writings. I have read a few criticisms but have not yet found them justified. This is good stuff and it makes me want to read more. I know I need more of the Sabbath type rest that his writings speak about.

Our culture and we are far too hectic and I believe that the hectic pace of the average evangelical church is one of the major ways that we are conformed to the world and not transformed by a renewed mind. We seem to get some perverted sense of importance and exude an attitude that says “I am doing something for God” out of our busyness that is not only self-centered and self aggrandizing, but self-destructive. I have been a pastor long enough to know that too many of us love showing off our far too full daily calendars. Why should we brag about what appears to be a poorly veiled attempt at earning favour?

Just a few thoughts as we head into the weekend. Be still and know this weekend. Worship the Lord in the beauty of his holiness. Get away, if not physically, then spiritually – and rest a while.

Have a good one

Pastor Ken

Luke 23:26-31 – 26 And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross, to carry it behind Jesus. 27 And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who were mourning and lamenting for him. 28 But turning to them Jesus said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. 29 For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never bore and the breasts that never nursed!’ 30 Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’ 31 For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?”

Jesus is making His way to calvary to be crucified. Simon of Cyrene has been press ganged into carrying the cross for Him. Jesus is, no doubt collapsing from exhaustion due to fatigue, the beatings and the stress of events. Then He notices that there are a group of women mourning and lamenting for Him and He addresses them. The address is simple enough. “Don’t weep for me. Weep for yourselves and your children”.

Who are these women?

Daughters of Jerusalem – These women represent the Jewish nation (Isaiah 3:16-17; 4:3-4; Zephaniah 3:14; Zechariah 9:9). Jesus is not just talking to these women. He is giving a prophecy about a great tragedy coming upon the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel.

Jesus is warning them about terrible things coming to the city of Jerusalem and the nation of Israel. And it did. In 70 A.D. Jerusalem was besieged by Rome and there was suffering that was unheard of. Verse 29 refers to the fall of Jerusalem. Better to have no family at all that to be alive with a family when that terror starts. Children are always considered a blessing in the Scriptures – until this. Children will only add to your heartache – because nothing tears at a mothers heart more than seeing her children suffer.

Tough days are coming, Jesus is telling them, much worse than what they are witnessing right now. But He is not just talking about the city falling in A.D. 70. These women represent the city of Jerusalem and the Jewish nation. But that is not all. They represent humanity.

Jesus says to them “Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’” What piece of Scripture does this remind us of?

Revelation 6:12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?”

Jesus is talking about the fate of those who do not know Him when He comes to judge the world. These women represent the human race from all the peoples of the world.

It was not wrong for these women to be weeping over what was about to happen to Jesus. What they were doing was good. Let us not condemn their compassion and hearts here. But Jesus wants compassion for other things too. There are more important things than grief for pain and suffering. This world is one big massive putrefying sore that oozes pain and suffering. But there are greater things to weep about than physical suffering. And that is what Jesus is getting at here. Of course we should be saddened at the innumerable ways in which people suffer in the world today. But believers have an additional crying to do. They should cry over the souls of lost people.

What makes us weep? What made Jesus weep?

Luke 13:34 – O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!

Matthew 9:36 – 36 When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.

Jesus called these women, and He calls us, to weep for those who will not turn from sin and who will be numbered among those who will call upon the rocks to fall on them rather than face the judgement of God. Dear ones – do we weep for the lost? Do we believe they are lost? Do we believe that if they do not repent it is better for them if they were never born? Well, no one can go through the world with that load bearing down on them all the time, so what do we do? We suppress it. We convince ourselves that it isn’t true. We convince ourselves that it isn’t true for our loved ones.

Should we not weep over the children? Do we weep for what they are taught at school? Do we weep for their rejection of the Gospel? Do we weep for their souls? Do we weep for the ideas about life that they are being taught? Do we weep for the lies they believe? Do we weep for the culture that believes the lies they teach? Do we weep when we give people the Gospel knowing that their souls hang in the balance? Do we weep when people scorn and refuse the Gospel or say that it is fine for us but it’s not for them. Do we weep when faith in Jesus is sometimes seen to be the problem and not the solution?

Don’t weep for Jesus. Jesus is the ruling sovereign over all that is. No. Weep for those who will call on the mountains to fall on then rather than face the wrath of the Lamb. And pray for workers. The harvest is plentiful. The workers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest to send out workers. Then get up form the place of prayer and be that worker.

The theme this year for our Equipping Verses is The Believer’s Delight. So far we have memorized Psalm 1:1-2

Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
2 but his delight is in the law[b] of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

and Mathew 6:19-21

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

For May we are working on I Timothy 6:11

11 But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.

“flee these things” refers to verse 10

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs

We are to flee from the love of money and all the evils that such love will give us. Believers can do so much better than chase after money. It is a cheap, temporary thrill. God offers us so much more, beginning with the forgiveness of sins and ending with eternity in glory with Him. Let’s not rob ourselves with money.

Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 33 Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” 34 Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”…

54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. 56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly.

What in the world happened to Peter to stand so sure and claim that he would never deny Jesus and then a few hours later do just that very thing?

Self confidence – That’s all. Peter was confident in himself. He just knew he would never do that. Everything related to Peter’s denials will go back to this. When we are self confident we need nothing else. Note it well – knowing that a sin is very grievous did not stop Peter from committing it. What caused Peter to fall was not that he didn’t know about it – he did. It was not that he thought it was no big deal. We can see that he knew it was a great big deal “I will never do this horrible thing!!”. What caused Peter to fall was his certainty that he would not.

“I would never do THAT”. Do you have anything that you can confidently say that about? “I’m not perfect, but …”.

Can you envision yourself denying Jesus Christ? Can you see yourself saying “I do not follow, nor do I think it is a good idea to be a follower of Jesus Christ”? NEVER!! Well – a better man than you thought that too. And within a few hours he was doing the very thing he said he would never do. And if you can deny him in the same way that Peter did, you can deny him in ways that you think are no big deal and deny him in ways that Peter never did.

The thing about Peter’s self confidence is that he is maintaining to know better than Jesus. It is Jesus who says that he will deny him. It is Jesus who later tells him to pray so that he will not fall into temptation. But Peter knows better. He knows better than God. Adam and Eve knew better than God. And whenever we see a text of Scripture that warns us and we do not heed the warning, we know better than God too.

Colossians 2:8 See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

I have been quoting Colossians 2:8 in my preaching and teaching for years. I quote it much because I am concerned about young people who are going there. It is not wrong to get educated. God made the mind and He calls us to use it well. The Bible is true and tells us that in wisdom people can became fools. This happens in the minds of those who think that education is all about being right and knowing more and being able to make the right decisions and being able to analyse properly and decide accurately. And there is nothing more stupid than an educated person who replaces his moral compass with a degree. So when Jesus says to us – Colossians 2:8 … do we, whoever we are and whatever our level of education, much or little, really look at the verse and say “This tells me that I am able to be deceived by the various philosophies and cultural ideas and popular ways of thinking that mark our times? This tells me that if I am not careful I too will become like others who used to be so full of faith and vibrancy and now have no use for anything that smacks of evangelical faith”. Do we read these texts and say – “I sure hope THEY pay attention to this”? Do we look at this and say “This is for the poor uneducated masses”?

This is serious and we need to be in dead earnest about how we guard our souls. Peter wasn’t.

Romans 12:16 – never be wise in your own eyes
James 4:13-15 – don’t even say that you will go someplace tomorrow.

The Lord’s prayer – O God do not allow me to be tempted beyond my ability to bear. For if you do not protect me I WILL FALL.

This is to be our attitude.

The Pretender
by Jackson Browne

I’m going to rent myself a house
In the shade of the freeway
I’m going to pack my lunch in the morning
And go to work each day
And when the evening rolls around
I’ll go on home and lay my body down
And when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and do it again
Amen
Say it again
Amen

I want to know what became of the changes
We waited for love to bring
Were they only the fitful dreams
Of some greater awakening
I’ve been aware of the time going by
They say in the end it’s the wink of an eye
And when the morning light comes streaming in
You’ll get up and do it again
Amen

Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender
Where the sirens sing and the church bells ring
And the junk man pounds his fender
Where the veterans dream of the fight
Fast asleep at the traffic light
And the children solemnly wait
For the ice cream vendor
Out into the cool of the evening
Strolls the pretender
He knows that all his hopes and dreams
Begin and end there

Ah the laughter of the lovers
As they run through the night
Leaving nothing for the others
But to choose off and fight
And tear at the world with all their might
While the ships bearing their dreams
Sail out of sight

I’m going to find myself a girl
Who can show me what laughter means
And we’ll fill in the missing colors
In each other’s paint-by-number dreams
And then we’ll put our dark glasses on
And we’ll make love until our strength is gone
And when the morning light comes streaming in
We’ll get up and do it again
Get it up again

I’m going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Thought true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender

Now then. What is this poem/song doing on an evangelical church web site?

This.

As far as I can tell it is about people who start out with great dreams and get to a point in life where they understand that they really haven’t accomplished much of anything that really matters in the long run. Because they are co-opted by a meaningless culture with meaningless values. They are pretenders. Buy a house, start a family,  get a job, go to work everyday, come home tired, and the next day do the same thing. And the next. And the next …

There was a day in the song writer’s life when he thought that all the world needed now was love, sweet love. That was the only thing there was just too little of. But now he is wondering why it did not bring the changes to the world that he was sure it would.

Veterans dream of days gone by when life was dangerous and they were fighting for things that mattered and now they are barely able to stay awake at a traffic light and no one knows and no one cares who they are or what they did. And others do not know that the man sleeping behind the wheel put his life on the line so they could have the privileges, freedom, and peace they now enjoy.

Little boys and girls live for the sound of the ice cream truck coming. Their joys are simple and they are easily satisfied. And who can say that they are more transient or more immature in their pursuits than the rest of us? The only difference between men and boys is the price of their toys.

Happy lovers bask in the excitement of each other and know that they can make the world a better place, while a ship sails away with all their dreams on board.

And so the song writer decides to bask in the temporal pleasures of sex with his gal and surrender to the meaningless pursuits of a meaningless culture with meaningless values. Just be a happy idiot, live for the accumulation of money, and believe the lies that the ads throw at us.

And the poem ends with a final plea, born out of a final hope that maybe, just maybe, true love can compete with the love of money. “Would you pray for me?” he asks. “I started out a true believer, but I surrendered”. No happily ever after here. The song is dark and depressing. And for far too many – true.

What now should be the Christian response to such a bleak view of life? A happy-smiley-kissy-face approach where we say “just come to Jesus and such bleakness will all disappear” will not do the trick. Anyone who holds to the view in the song needs to see that the hope of the faithful is real and not just pie in the sky when you die by and by. They need to see that we agree with them that life seems abundantly meaningless. Perhaps the first place to take them would be to the Book of Ecclesiastes. Omit the last couple of paragraphs from Ecclesiastes and you have this song. Maybe we need to be honest enough to admit that we  too, sometimes feel like all our efforts at making the world a better place don’t really matter at all. Maybe we need to make sure all our smiles are genuine. And then show them real, life giving, purpose creating, God given hope, that does not disappoint (Romans 5:1-5), that sustains and is based on a Person, not on our ability to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.

It is hard to witness the Gospel in the face of such pessimism, in part, because of the cynicism that surrounds the Christian faith. People believe a lie about the Gospel and those who cling to it. But they believe it because there are so many who give evidence that the caricatures of Christianity are true. This song was written, after all, by the same man who wrote:

Well they call him by the prince of peace
And they call him by the savior
And they pray to him upon the seas
And in every bold endeavor
As they fill his churches with their pride and gold
And their faith in him increases
But they’ve turned the nature that I worshipped in
From a temple to a robber’s den
In the words of the rebel Jesus

The Christian faith is a faith of hope, as all religions are. Of course, many believe that the hope for future bliss is nothing more than wishful thinking, although it seems to me that it is better in any case than the view that states “life is hard, and then you die.” But Christian hope is different from any other, most importantly in this: it is based, not on our performance but on the performance of God himself. We have hope because God came down, lived and died and rose from the dead. He makes us His children on the basis of faith in Him, not on our goodness, or effort, or performance. We are helpless, hopeless, pretenders, no different from the man in the song. And God came and picked us up and gave us life and gave us hope. He enables us to erase pretense.

But then, as the Apostle John points out, all who [by faith] have the hope of seeing Jesus as He is, will purify themselves, even as Jesus is pure (I John 3:1-3). We will grow in conformity to Jesus Christ, from the heart and in our actions. This is what a cynical, depressed, hopeless people need to see. Grace that takes away our boasting and at the same time pushes us into the good works that God has planned for us to occupy ourselves with (Ephesians 2:8-10). And they need to see that we too know that life is full of pretense and disappointment and discouragement and failure. And that the only difference is Jesus Christ.

Here is Jackson Browne singing the song alongside of Crosby, Stills and Nash. I chose this particular version because all the guys are  nearing the end of their careers and one can only guess how much of the song rings truer to them now than it did when it was first written. Browne wrote the song when he was twenty-eight. He turns sixty-five this year.

I am so glad that he wrote this. It resonates with me. It is true and it is real. It is just incomplete and I want me and the church to demonstrate that life need not be made up of pretenders.

Luke 22:31 “Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, 32 but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.” 33 Peter said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.” 34 Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me.”

39 And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. 40 And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, 46 and he said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

54 Then they seized him and led him away, bringing him into the high priest’s house, and Peter was following at a distance. 55 And when they had kindled a fire in the middle of the courtyard and sat down together, Peter sat down among them. 56 Then a servant girl, seeing him as he sat in the light and looking closely at him, said, “This man also was with him.” 57 But he denied it, saying, “Woman, I do not know him.” 58 And a little later someone else saw him and said, “You also are one of them.” But Peter said, “Man, I am not.” 59 And after an interval of about an hour still another insisted, saying, “Certainly this man also was with him, for he too is a Galilean.” 60 But Peter said, “Man, I do not know what you are talking about.” And immediately, while he was still speaking, the rooster crowed. 61 And the Lord turned and looked at Peter. And Peter remembered the saying of the Lord, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows today, you will deny me three times.” 62 And he went out and wept bitterly.

The Christian life is not for the faint of heart. It is full of dangers, hardships, sufferings. And it is full of temptations to quit, to go the way of the world and to give in to fear, greed, hatred, anger, worldliness … It is through many tribulations that we must enter the Kingdom of God, Paul told the church in Antioch (Acts 14:23). But God has given us everything we need not to give in to these things.

Because of this, at least in part, the Scriptures are full of warnings. Warnings from God about falling away, becoming like the ungodly, going our own way, doing our own thing, pride, self-righteousness, self-confidence, self-centeredness, lovelessness, faithlessness, hopelessness, worldliness … . The list is very long of the things that we are tempted to do to forsake the faith.

Colossians 2:8 – See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ.

Hebrews 3:12 – Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God.

I Corinthians 10:12 – Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

I Timothy 6:20 – O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid the irreverent babble and contradictions of what is falsely called “knowledge,

Ephesians 4:14 – that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.

Philemon 1:24, Colossians 4:14 – II Timothy 4:10

Jeremiah 17:9 – the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked

I Corinthians 9:24-27 – 24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. 25 Every athlete exercises self-control in all things. They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. 26 So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. 27 But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.

II Peter 3:17 – You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.

We are warned about the sins that lie in wait to trap us and cause us to fall because we are so liable to be trapped and fall away. We can look at Peter, in the Gospel accounts of the events leading up to his denial, and shake our heads in amazement regarding his pride and arrogance in light of the warning that Jesus gave him. Just a few short hours before Peter would deny that he even knew Him, Jesus told Peter that he would do it. Peter just did not believe that he was capable of doing such a horrible thing.

But if Jesus now speaks to us through the Scriptures, are we doing any better than Peter if we do not read the Word, memorize Scripture, get in a Bible study, attend to the preaching of the Word and take painfully seriously all the warnings that He, out of His love for us, gives us in His Word? These things are not about us just knowing more stuff or being able to confound others with our wisdom. They are about keeping us from apostasy.

Why does God keep doing this? Why does He so repeatedly hammer on us about our weakness and proneness to fall? If you read your Bible at least one or two days a week, you are going to encounter some hero of the faith who fell, some warning from God to be careful. And God, in His love for His children gives us these warnings because we need to be reminded. Because without these constant warnings we will forget to take stock. Because without them we will run away from Him. We need to be warned. We need to be yelled at. We need to be told that we cannot make it on our own. These texts are written to us. They are written to us because we need to be warned.

I Corinthians 10:1-11 – For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, 2 and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, 3 and all ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. 5 Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness.

6 Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. 7 Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, “The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play.” 8 We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. 9 We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, 10 nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. 11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

Are we the exception to this reason why God preserved the Old Testament? We are not. You are not. Peter had the stories of Israel in his head. He knew about the failings of Israel in the wilderness. He knew about the sins they committed and the judgements of God that came as a result. But he fell anyway. Jesus warned him a few short hours before the event. And he fell anyway. We should not think that we are better. We are not.

Say all you want about the Holy Spirit not yet being given when Peter was tempted, the fact is, that there are an awful lot of ways that we are like Peter. If the giving of the Holy Spirit meant that we could not fall into grievous sin, then we would have the warnings that permeate the New Testament.

Heed the warnings – today.