JOY "Jeremiah and Lamentations / Jeremiah: The Weeping Prophet" March 11, 2015

March 11, 2015

Jeremiah and Lamentations

Jeremiah:The Weeping Prophet

Jeremiah 18:1-11

I    Who Was Jeremiah

II    We Are Spoiled Clay

III    Still In The Potter’s Hand

Jeremiah and Lamentations are fitting companions for each other…Jeremiah spent his life warning Israel of what was going to happen to them if they didn’t repent---and Lamentations is a collection of the heart-cry of a repentant Israel after they were taken into captivity. Lamentations is an honest and forthright depiction of both individual and community despair over the plight of Jerusalem and Judah…..from the bittersweet remembrance of the greatness of the nation, to vengeful words for the conquerors of those brought about their fall…this book laments what once was and is no more.  Lamentations reminds us of the appalling consequences of sin and that God doesn’t treat sin lightly----and that we are responsible for our own sins, just like we’re responsible for answering to the Lord for our own salvation. The good news is that none of us is beyond help----the Lord Jesus  is our hope, He is always our hope…..if we will repent and confess our sins, no matter what they are…then our good gracious God will come to us and forgive our sins and restore our right relationship with Him….

“Story of the Teacup
There was a couple who used to go to England to shop in the beautiful stores. They both liked antiques and pottery and especially teacups. This was their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary. One day in this darling little shop, they saw a beautiful teacup. They said, "May we see that? We’ve never seen one quite so beautiful." As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke. "You don’t understand," it said. "I haven’t always been a teacup. There was a time when I was red and I was clay. My master took me and rolled me and patted me over and over and I yelled out, ’Let me alone’, but he only smiled, ’Not yet.’ "Then I was placed on a spinning wheel," the teacup said, "and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. Stop it! I’m getting dizzy? I screamed. But the master only nodded and said, ’Not yet.’ Then he put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I wondered why he wanted to burn me, and I yelled and knocked at the door. I could see him through the opening and I could read his lips and he shook his head, ’Not yet.’ Finally the door opened, he put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. ’There, that’s better’, I said. And he brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. ’Stop it, stop it!’ I cried. he only nodded, ’Not yet.’ Then suddenly he put me back into the oven, not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I knew I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. All the time I could see him through the opening nodding his head saying, ’Not yet.’ Then I knew there wasn’t any hope. I would never make it. I was ready to give up. But the door opened and he took me out and placed me on the shelf. One hour later He handed me a mirror and I couldn’t believe it was me. ’It’s beautiful. I’m beautiful.’ ’I want you to remember, then,’ he said, ’I know it hurts to be rolled and patted, but if I had left you alone, you would have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I knew it hurt and was hot and disagreeable in the oven but if I hadn’t put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad and when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn’t done that, you never would have hardened; you would not have had any color in your life. And if I hadn’t put you back in that second oven, you wouldn’t survive for very long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. You are what I had in mind when I first began with you.)
(David, a 2-year old with leukemia, was taken by him mother, Deborah, to Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, to see Dr. John Truman who specializes in treating children with cancer and various blood diseases. Dr. Truman's prognosis was devastating: "He has a 50-50 chance." The countless clinic visits, the blood tests, the intravenous drugs, the fear and pain--the mother's ordeal can be almost as bad as the child's because she must stand by, unable to bear the pain herself.  David never cried in the waiting room, and although his friends in the clinic had to hurt him and stick needles in him, he hustled in ahead of him mother with a smile, sure of the welcome he always got. 

When he was three, David had to have a spinal tap--a painful procedure at any age. It was explained to him that, because he was sick, Dr. Truman had to do something to make him better. "If it hurts, remember it's because he loves you," Deborah said. The procedure was horrendous. It took three nurses to hold David still, while he yelled and sobbed and struggled. When it was almost over, the tiny boy, soaked in sweat and tears, looked up at the doctor and gasped, "Thank you, Dr. Tooman, for my hurting." )

God knows what He’s doing for all of us. He is the potter and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us, so that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

I   Who Was Jeremiah

What if some present-day preacher stood in his pulpit and persistently declared that God was on the side of the Taliban? That God was against America and that he was raising up the Taliban, to be his people and his servants? That God cared nothing for the Declaration of Independence or the American Constitution or the long heritage of religious worship that our nation has had? In fact, that the things we emphasize were an offense to God?

And what if this preacher even advocated that Christians renounce their loyalty to their country and join the Taliban? And what if the preacher -- subjected to house arrest, or flung into prison, or slapped in the face in public and his writings burned, or half-drowned in a pit of slime -- would not only stubbornly refuse to take back one word of what he had said but would only repeat it again? Well, this is something like the situation that is recorded in the book of Jeremiah. This is exactly what Jeremiah was called to do. Except he was called to preach God to a nation who had turned its back on Him…

Imagine yourself as that preacher. Imagine how you would feel when no one listens to you and persecution hounds you every step of the way. You are unable to seek comfort in marriage because the days are too difficult and God has said to remain unmarried. You feel abandoned, and alone; all your friends turn from you.

And if you try to quit, and refuse to be this kind of a preacher, you find that you cannot quit -- that the word of God burns in your bones and you have to say it whether or not you want to. And despite the message that you are called upon to deliver, your love for your country is genuine and deep -- as you see it surrounded by its enemies and ravished and conquered and despoiled, you are overcome by a deep sorrow that breaks out in grief's lamentations.

Now, perhaps, you can understand why Jeremiah, of all the prophets, was unquestionably the most heroic. Isaiah wrote more exalted passages and perhaps saw more precisely the coming of the Messiah and the fullness of his work. Other prophets speak more precisely concerning some of the future events that were to be fulfilled, but Jeremiah is outstanding among the prophets as a man of heroic, dauntless courage. For many years he endured this kind of persecution in his life without quitting. That is an amazing record, isn't it? As you read through this book you can see that here indeed is an amazing man, and you can understand why he was called the weeping prophet…..

Jeremiah lived in the last days of a decaying nation. He was the last prophet to Judah, the southern kingdom. Judah continued on after the ten tribes of the north had been carried into captivity under Assyria. (Isaiah prophesied about sixty years before Jeremiah.) Jeremiah comes in at the close of the reign of the last good king of Judah, the boy king Josiah, who led the last revival the nation experienced before it went into captivity. (This revival under King Josiah was a more of a superficial matter; in fact, the prophet Hilkiah had told him that though the people would follow him in his attempt to reform the nation and return to God, they would only do so because they loved him and not because they loved God.)

Jeremiah, then, comes in, right in the middle of the reign of King Josiah and his ministry carries us on through the reign of King Jehoahaz, who was on the throne only about three months. And then came King Jehoiakim, one of the most evil kings of Judah, and then the three months' reign of Jehoiachin who was captured by Nebuchadnezzar and taken into captivity in Babylon. And Jeremiah was still around at the time of Judah's last king Zedekiah, at the end of whose reign Nebuchadnezzar returned, utterly destroying the city of Jerusalem and taking the whole nation into Babylonian captivity.

Jeremiah's ministry covered about forty years, and during all this time the prophet never once saw any signs of success in his ministry. His message was one of denunciation and reform, and the people never obeyed him. The other prophets saw in some measure the impact of their message upon the nation -- but not Jeremiah. He was called to a ministry of failure, and yet he was enabled to keep going for forty long years and to be faithful to God and to accomplish God's purpose: to witness to a decayed nation.

Two important things are woven into the fabric of this entire book of prophecy. One concerns the fate of the nation, and the other concerns the feelings of the prophet. And both of them are instructive.

First of all, the prophecies of Jeremiah that have to do with the fate of the nation, reflect the familiar theme of all the prophets. Jeremiah reminds this people that the beginning of error in their lives was their failure to take God seriously. They looked lightly upon what he said. They did not pay much attention to what he had told them, and they did what was right in their own eyes rather than carefully examining their behavior in the light of God's revelation and word.

As we read ,in the historical books, the Israelite people, had sunk so low in the early days of Josiah's reign that they had actually lost the copy of the law. As far as we can tell, no one in the land of Judah any longer had access to the word of God, and the copy which was in the temple -- and which ought to have been in the central place of worship -- was lost somewhere in the back room. Only by accident was it finally found, and its discovery stimulated the revival led by Josiah.

But that is how far off base the nation had gone. They had actually lost contact with the word of God. They had adopted the dangerous principle of doing what was right in their own eyes. What they thought was right. Many people do what they know is wrong in the sight of God. That is bad enough. But it is equally dangerous to judge for ourselves what is right for we have no ability to judge properly -- and this is what was happening in Israel.

As a result, they adopted the values of the world around them and ended up worshipping the gods of the other nations. This brought on, as it always does, a torrent of bickering and strife and lowered morals and perverted justice. They made military alliances with godless nations around them, and the country gradually sank deeper and deeper and lower and lower on the moral scale.

It was to this people that Jeremiah came. And the message that he was told to proclaim was judgment: that the national rebellion would lead to national ruin. Throughout this whole book you find these prophecies building up to become reality, as Jeremiah told exactly how God was raising up a terrible and godless people, a fierce and cruel people, who would sweep across the land and destroy everything in their path. They would be utterly ruthless; they would break down the walls and destroy the temple and take all the things that the nation valued and Israel would be carried away into captivity. And that that would be how God  God would judge Israel.

But Jeremiah also makes very clear throughout these passages of judgment that God judges with a sorrowing heart, a weeping heart, and then the prophet looks beyond the 70 years of captivity he predicts. (Later on, while reading this very book of Jeremiah, the prophet Daniel realized that God had predicted that the captivity would last exactly 70 years. That is how Daniel knew that the end of the time was coming and he could look forward to seeing the nation restored again to the land.) Jeremiah looks beyond the captivity to the restoration of the people and then, in that peculiar way that prophets suddenly extend their view from immediate to far-distant events, he looks even further beyond -- to the ultimate dispersion of the peoples of Israel, and then to the final regathering of the nation into the land. He looks to the days that will usher in the millennial reign when Israel -- restored and blessed and called by God -- shall be the world's center.

In the middle of this book, in chapters 30 through 33, is an amazing and beautiful prediction written when Jeremiah was in a dungeon. He was in a deep slime pit, the mud two or three feet thick on the bottom and only a little bit of daylight trickling through from above. In the midst of those depressing and deplorable circumstances, the prophet was led of the Spirit of God to write the flaming vision of the days when Israel will be called back again, and God promises to be their God and to walk among them and put away their sins. There in the middle of chapter 31 is the great promise of the new covenant, which will be made with Israel.

These words are picked up by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews (Hebrews 8:8-12) Also, our Jesus himself referred to this same prophecy when he gathered with his disciples on the night before the cross and instituted the Lord's Supper. As he took the cup after the bread and held it up to them, he said, "For this is my blood of the [new] covenant." (Matthew 26:28) He was referring back to the days of Jeremiah's prophecy of the covenant that God would make with his people in that far-off day yet to come.

And even Now, in the ultimate sense, the fulfillment of that covenant is still in the distant future. God is fulfilling it today among the Gentiles in the church (which is made up of both Jew and Gentile) but the ultimate fulfillment of it for the nation Israel remains in the future, as Jeremiah predicted:

What a wonderful picture that is. This is the fulfilling of the vision that was given to Jeremiah, in chapter 18, when God told him to go down to the potter's house. That is a strange place for a prophet to go but that is where God sent him.

As Jeremiah watched the potter at work, he saw him making a vessel on his wheel, and as the wheel turned the potter shaped the vessel. And as Jeremiah watched, the vessel in the potter's hand was marred and broken. Then the potter took the vessel and once more pushed it all down into a lump of clay, and shaping it the second time, made it into a vessel after the potter's heart.

All through this book you will find visual aids, or object lessons. The prophets are good at giving such lessons, and Jeremiah does that here. This is God's great object lesson of what he does with a broken life. He takes it and makes it over again -- not according to the failures and foolish dreams of an individual, but after the potter's heart, for the potter has power over the clay to shape it as he wishes. Jeremiah speaks a prophecy of ruin -- of desolation and destruction and judgment -- but beyond that is the hope and glory of the days when God will reshape the vessel. And this applies not only to the nation but to the individual as well.

Now, the second theme in Jeremiah relates to the feelings of the prophet. There is a great lesson for us in Jeremiah's honest reactions to the situations he faces. We find that he constantly fights a battle with discouragement. Who wouldn't with a ministry like his? He sees absolutely no signs of his ministry's success and the grim specter of discouragement and depression dogs his footsteps through all those forty years.

One of the amazing things about this prophet is that when he is in the public eye, he is as fearless as a lion. He speaks to kings and murderers and captains who hurl enraged threats against him, and he is utterly fearless. He looks them right in the eye and delivers the message of God that speaks of their own destruction. But when he is by himself, all alone with God, he is filled with discouragement and depression and resentment and bitterness, and it all comes flooding out. The prophet turns to God and cries out…..

He accuses God of being a liar and undependable. Strong words? Undoubtedly. Honest words? Absolutely. He is pouring out exactly how he feels. He has begun to wonder if the trouble might after all be with God that he cannot be depended upon. As we look through this brief account, we can see that what is bothering the prophet , personally is persecution….and lonliness

And Aren't these usually the ingredients of discouragement for us? We feel put upon. We feel persecuted. We feel that we have tried to do the right thing but everybody either just disregards it or comes back to make trouble for us. Or they mock and ridicule us and we are weighed down by loneliness and depression of spirit. We feel forsaken. (tell the story of my isolation last night)

Reading about Jeremiah’s reaction, our first thought is "I know the trouble with this man. He's obviously permitted himself to backslide." Disobedience -- that is the quick and easy answer that we glibly assume about somebody who is suffering like this. But that isn't the case with Jeremiah. We can see that he was a man who was praying: And was feeding on the word: And was witnessing. 

This was not a backsliding man, is it? These are the very things we need to do if we get discouraged and depressed. We need to pray and read our Bible and witness to others and keep away from evil. Isn't that the answer? Isn't that the formula? But here was a man who was doing all these things and he was still defeated, still discouraged. Well, what was the problem?

The problem was that he had forgotten his calling. He had forgotten what God had promised to be to him. So God called him back to it:

That is what God said to him at the beginning. Notice this man's call back in chapter 1, “Now the word of the Lord came to me saying,
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
and before you were born I consecrated you:
I appointed you a prophet to the nations." (Jeremiah 1:4 RSV)

And Jeremiah said:

"Ah, Lord God! Behold, I do not know how to speak, for I am only a youth."[He was probably about seventeen years of age when this call came to him.]

But God called him back from a mire of depression and discouragement, He  called him back to the promise of God; where He was reminded that God is greater than circumstances and that no matter how depressing they may be, or how negative they are, the God woo calls him ,is the God who is able to sustain him, in the midst of it; when he get his eyes off of himself and back on to God (like Peter walking on the water), he began to walk again.

And in the strength he received through this lesson he continued with his ministry, through all the discouraging circumstances, to at last, be taken as a prisoner to Egypt, where he died. We have no record of his death, but Jeremiah was faithful to the end as he learned to walk in the strength of the Lord, his God. And he gives us this wonderful prophecy of the grace of God in restoring lives and taking broken, battered, wounded, defeated spirits and making them over again, into vessels pleasing to him….

II      We Are Spoiled Clay
 There are sermons in front of us every day, if we will just open our eyes and pay attention. If we walk through this life attuned to the spirit, listening for God’s voice we will be able to hear those sermons preached. 

That was how it was with Jeremiah.  In chapter 18, v. 1, “The word of the Lord came to him, and said, ‘Come, go down to the potter’s house and there I will let you hear my words.” So, Guided by the Spirit of God, Jeremiah obeyed and when he got to the potter’s house, he saw a very common sight – an artisan working at his wheel. Potters were as common in the time of Jeremiah as landscape workers are in our time. In a time before Tupperware, these craftsmen provided the people with the essential containers they used to carry, to store, to serve and to cook. The potter was as much a fixture in the communities of ancient Israel as bankers, grocery clerks and auto mechanics are in our day. 

The potter also happens to be a common biblical image used for God in the Old Testament. From God kneeling on the earth to form and fashion humankind from the dust and mud in the book of Genesis, to the creation theology of David in the Psalms and prophets like Isaiah and Amos, who proclaimed God to be a potter. The word potter actually means, “One who shapes and forms.” There’s no better metaphor, for what God does in relation to His creation, than this. He is a master artisan. God takes the raw materials of life and humanity and molds them - shapes them- into something beautiful and useful. God is the master potter in whose hands Israel and its people were fashioned to be a blessing to the whole of creation. And it’s still the image that we can hold in our hearts and minds… in the times that we live in….  – of God as a potter. 

So it makes sense that this this was the image that Jeremiah used to try and get God’s message across to the people of Israel, and to us too…. The first part of the message is simply this: We Are Spoiled Clay. …..Jeremiah obeys the Lord and goes to the house of the potter and begins to watch him, working at his wheel. He notices how the craftsman takes his lump of raw clay and throws it up on the wheel. And then Jeremiah watches as the potter begins to knead it, and throw it down again and again on the wheel. He watches the potter mold it to a desired shape. But then, Jeremiah notices something that becomes a visual sermon for him. In the words of verse 2: “The vessel he (the potter) was making of clay was spoiled…and he reworked it…” One of the first messages we might hear from this ancient allegory today is that we are clay– we are lumps of dust and mud that the potter is fashioning. But sometimes we do not turn out as the potter intends. The Hebrew word in verse 4, that is translated “spoiled” also means, “marred or ruined; corrupted or perverted.

 Both Jeremiah and we understand this sermon. We are that spoiled clay. Sometimes, the potter has some pretty raw material to work with, in people, and sometimes the master potter just has to begin again and reshape and remold us for His use. We, all of us, are in one way or another marred clay. Another way that the Bible says it, is that we are “sinners.” We fall short of what God’s intentions are for us, most often, by our own choices. 

We are, incomplete works of the Master Potter. We’ve all heard the phrase, “God is not finished with us yet.” While it may sound cliché, it is profoundly true. God is NOT finished with me yet. nor is God is finished with you yet. And it only takes a daily self-examination to know, that that is the truth. We are good creations of God – clay that has tremendous potential – but the Potter is not finished with us yet.  

(The story is told about Ruth Bell Graham, that once she was in an antiques store… and she rummaged around for an hour----when she finally went up to the counter to pay for her purchase of a delicate little tea cup---the proprieteor said,”Mrs. Graham, I’m sorry but there’s a chip in this cup” and her reply was, “I know it but I still want it so that  can remind myself, that God’s not through with me yet…” )

The same could be said of everything in God’s creation. Genesis 1 says that when God looked at all that He had made in the 6 days of his labor of love, called creation, God said, “It is very good!” But then we look around us and we see all manner of ills that exist in creation, because of sin –---like poverty, terrorism, drugs, war, disease and greed. And when we see those things, we know not only, that God is not finished with US yet, but God is not finished with his world yet either. Now, we have two choices in response to the “unfinished-ness” of our lives and the world . We can face the reality of being spoiled clay in a corrupted creation and just become hopeless. Or we can face the reality of being spoiled clay in a corrupted creation and become hopeful. I believe God, in Jesus Christ, has called us to the latter choice. Look at all the ways, that despite our corrupted creation, God has chosen to use us people – ordinary messed up people – “spoiled clay” - to do his will in this world.   

(Another of Ruth Graham’s simple, but honest, faith understanding and wisdom, is that )No matter how messed up, you think you might be, God can use you Mrs’ Graham said to and will use you, to do good for Him…  and for his creation, that He so longs to redeem. Mrs. Graham said that “whenever we feel bad or useless, dwelling on the fact that we are spoiled clay, and of no use to God or anyone else. We need to remember that… …

Noah was a drunk, Abraham was old, Isaac was a daydreamer, Jacob was a liar, Leah was ugly and Joseph was abused, Moses has a stuttering problem, Gideon was afraid, Sampson was a womanizer, Rehab was a prostitute, Jeremiah and Timothy were too young, David had an affair and was a murderer, Elijah was suicidal and Isaiah preached naked, .Jonah ran from God, Naomi was a widow who was bitter, Job went bankrupt,

John the Baptist ate bugs, Peter denied Christ, the disciples fell asleep while Jesus was praying. Martha worried about everything, Mary worried about nothing, the Samaritan woman was divorced, more than once, ,Zaccheus was a very short man, Paul was a religious fanatic, Timothy had an ulcer…AND Lazarus? That poor guy, was dead!)

II    Still in the Potter’s Hands

No matter who we are, or what we’ve done, the Lord can use us. Why? Because, just like in Jeremiah's visual sermon, we may be spoiled clay, but we are……Still in the Potter’s hands!

That is the second part of the message Jeremiah saw in his visual sermon that day. We

may be spoiled clay, but we are still in the potter’s hands. Never forget… He is not finished with us yet, and can still make something beautiful of our lives. That wonderful hymn by Bill Gaither is true: “Something beautiful, something good. All my confusion, He understood. All I had to offer Him was brokenness and strife. But He made something beautiful of my life”  The truth of the matter is that God the Master Potter, is always looking to remake us, reform us, reshape us more and more in the image of his Son Jesus Christ. He loves us – spoiled clay that we are. 

In fact, He loves us so much, that in the person of Jesus, he actually humbled Himself to become a part of His created  humanity. And He entered into our marred ness – and our corruption and He understood our fragile incompleteness. So, that gives Him the right,   with tender and loving care, to fashion us into something beautiful and new. One writer says it like this: “God is not the Lord of the landfill, anxious to get rid of anything that is ruined, spoiled, damaged goods. Instead, God wants to rework us, recycle us, and turn us into something that is pleasing and useful and good.”  As long as we are in the Potter’s hand, there is hope for this clay. However, one question does arise. 

How can we make sure that we stay in the hands of the master potter? And it seems that the answer in Jeremiah 18 is that we will remain in the master’s hands… …Through repentance and willingness to change. In the middle verses of this passage, the Lord uses covenant language to talk to Israel. He uses a lot of “if this…then that” language and in the process essentially tells the people of Israel that they have a role to play in becoming good vessels. They have the free will to choose to submit to the will of the potter. And if they do, then the Master artisan can make something beautiful of their lives. But if not, then He cannot. I like the way one commentator on this wonderful passages puts this thought: “It is not just the skill and determination (of the potter) that makes these pieces of art; the consistency of the clay makes a big difference. If the clay starter was mixed with too much water, it will slide around on the wheel; if there wasn’t enough moisture in the mixing process, the clay will crack. 

The clay has to be malleable and flexible enough to work with – in a sense, it has to ‘cooperate’ with the potter.”  And how do we cooperate with our Master Potter? Through repentance and willingness to change. Where are we, as we hear this story today? Are we recognizing what spoiled clay we are? Are we keenly aware of our shortcomings and what a shoddy looking vessel we are for the one who fashioned us? We don’t need to despair. It’s the guilty and the imperfect that God has used more times than not in this world, to fashion something precious and useful in his sight. Are we uncooperative clay today? Do we find ourselves, working at odds with the Master Potter, resisting His reshaping and remolding work in our lives? The answer is a simple but difficult one…. we need to submit our hearts and our attitudes and our abilities, and our disappointments, and our joys, and our hands and our feet and our mouths and our ears and our intellect-----the whole of what we are, to the Lord today. 

(I was watching little Leona yesterday sleeping first in her mama’s arms and then in her daddys’s, totally relaxed, totally submissive---her face turned up, and her arms flung over her head-----the picture of total trust ,in the ones, in whose hands she was resting…)

.We need to let go and let God work on us! We need to trust Him totally…We need to be malleable in the Master’s hands. If we learn to surrender ourselves to Him, there is no telling what priceless treasure the potter will craft from the raw material of our lives. (Way back in the 2nd century, one of the early church father’s Irenaeus, gave us the words we should live by….he said, “If then thou art the work of God, await the hand of thy maker, who fashions everything in due course…Keep thy heart soft and pliable for Him; retain the form in which the artist fashioned thee, have moisture in thyself, lest becoming hard, thou

shouldst lose the mark of his fingers”

May the divine fingers that fashioned all of us from the dust of the ground, continue to

remake us more and more into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior and King Amen and amen……

                                                Have Thine Own Way Lord

Have thy own way,,,

Thou art the potter, I am the clay

Mold me and make me after thy will 

While I am waiting

Yielded and still

prayer….

Our Father, thank you for the encouragement of this great prophet as we see the decay in our own nation, and the defeat of so many endeavors undertaken for your name's sake. We see the scorn and contempt for your word and for the things concerning you. We pray that you will help us to realize and remember that you are the God who opens and no man shuts and who shuts and no man opens, who does your will in the nations, who sets up and overthrows, who builds and plants, and who accomplishes all your purposes. May we get our eyes off ourselves and our circumstances and on to you and to your great purposes and be strong in you and in your power. We ask it in your name. Amen.

JOY "God of Comfort" Isaiah, particularly Isaiah 40:1-11; 28-21; 29-30 March 4, 2015

March 4, 2015 

God of Comfort

 Isaiah 40:1-11, Isaiah 40:28-31, Isaiah 40:29-30

I     Everlasting Comfort

II    Everlasting Word

III   Everlasting Strength

An eagle chick got thrown out of its nest as a very young eaglet. A farmer found the chick and decided to give it to a mother Turkey, on his farm, who then raised it.

As the young Eagle grew, it behaved just like all the Turkeys. It ate grain, it lived in a small enclosure and it didn’t fly, because Turkeys don’t fly well.

As time went by, the young Eagle began to flap his wings a lot, much to the consternation of the others in the compound!

Then one day a strong wind blew, just as the Eagle spread his wings. The wind caught the young eagle’s wings and lifted him out of the compound, into the open spaces. The uproar from the compound was very loud, which caused the Farmer to come running. And he said, “Ï wondered how long it would be before you discovered the truth. After all, you are an eagle! You are designed to soar high in the sky! “

He took the young eagle to a high ridge, and as the wind blew, the eagle again spread his wings. Soon he was flying,,,,, and as he flew, he went higher and higher into the heavens, where he belonged. He had, at last, discovered his true home.

And as believers, we were divinely designed, to live in the supernatural realm; we were created to soar in the spirit and to fellowship in the heavens….. but way too often, we just live in the turkey pen.

Unfortunately, we have a hard time seeing beyond our experience in the natural world. Because, if it doesn’t happen in the Turkey pen, then, most of the time, it just doesn’t happen. 

Because, If anyone tries to tell us something different, or show us something different, most of the time, we have a hard time believing the difference…  How its been done in the Turkey pen for generations, is how we think it always has to be done. We eat till we can’t eat any more. Good wholesome grains, we peck at, ourselves, most mornings. Sometimes in the evening we go to other pens and get more grain, On Sundays we go to the big pen with all the others, and we get extra helpings of good grain. We get so full that we can hardly walk! But we think that’s how it’s supposed to be….we think we’re satisfied, and all is right with the world, if we have lots and lots of good wholesome grain.

Then, suddenly, we feel a gentle breeze on our shoulders or in our face and we love how it feels. Sometimes, it seems just like we could take off and fly into the heavens. But then, we remember we are just Turkeys, or the others in the pen remind us, that we are just earth-bound, grain eating, big fat, flightless birds.

Our heavenly Father wants to take us out to the ridge! But it’s not comfortable for us out there…it’s scary and it’s big and is beyond comprehension, so not many of us will leave the pen….. But when we do, it’s a glorious thing and our hearts and lives, are transformed forever!

There is so much more for us to experience, spiritually, in this world, than we can even imagine….(I  can remember the firsti day that Mary Kathryn went to kindergarten…. I ran into Kay Prince at the Hallmark store at North Hills, her daughter, Mary Mack had just gone away to college…we were commiserating with each other, in the checkout line----when the sweet lady behind the counter, chimed in our discussion…. with a story of her own, that I’ve never  forgotten…..she said that she had two little girls, ages 11 and 13, and she had gotten pregnant with a little boy----she said she worried for 9 months about how it would affect her girls, especially the younger one, since she had been the baby for such a long time…..but she said that her worry was transformed into amazed joy, when, about two hours after they brought him home from the hospital, the 11 year old came running into her bedroom and said, “Oh Mommy, I never knew there was so much love we were wasting….”) 

That’s how we are… if we don’t step outside the turkey pen and go up to the ridge, and let the breeze ruffle our feathers, we will never know , all the glorious wonders that the Lord has intended for us to have, that we’re wasting…..

I       Everlasting Comfort 

Isaiah was the greatest of the prophets and a superb master of language. He wrote beautiful literary passages, with wonderful imagery which paint clear pictures in our minds.  

Isaiah is the fullest revelation of Christ in the Old Testament -- so much so, that it is often called "the gospel according to Isaiah." Studying these magnificent, prophetic passages about the 1st and 2nd coming of the Lord Jesus and the comfort that they bring gives us a taste of the richness and the depth of the Scripture.

Also, the prophetic nature of the book of Isaiah is one of the great proofs that the Bible is the word of God, because Isaiah lived about 724 years before Jesus did. The many passages describing the Messiah, point so clearly to the Lord Jesus as the Christ and are fulfilled in him, that there’s no doubt that Isaiah was led by the Holy Spirit to write it .

(Ray Stedman says that the great books of the bible are like national parks…… They are open to everyone to roam in, and are a delight to explore all by ourselves. And each park has a characteristic peculiar to itself, that distinguishes it from all the others; and we appreciate the park better if we know what that characteristic is. He compares the books in scripture to the distinct characteristics of the great national parks in the West. For instance, if you want to see nature's various moods, go to Yellowstone Park. There she pulls all the tricks out of her bag and throws everything together. If you want to see mountain grandeur and cool lakes, Glacier Park in Montana is the place to go. If you want to be awed and humbled and stirred, then go to the Grand Canyon. If you are looking for a quiet valley in which to rest and reflect, Yosemite is the place….. –

He says that the book of Revelation is very much like Yellowstone National Park. It is full of spouting geysers and all kinds of weird symbolism and a variety of formations. The Gospel of John is more like Yosemite; quiet and deep and reverent. But there is no question that the book of Isaiah is the Grand Canyon of scripture. Geologists tell us that the Grand Canyon is a miniature history of the earth -- a condensed history, a pocket volume of the past -- just like, the book of Isaiah has often been called a miniature Bible.

Visitors to the Grand Canyon are always astonished by one thing when they go there. They stand at the rim and look out over the vast. jumbled, silent canyon -- down to the Colorado River, which seems but a silver thread more than a mile below them -- and sooner or later some tourist cries in amazement, "I don't understand how a tiny thing like that river could have carved a canyon like this!" They are amazed by that concept.

And if you read the book of Isaiah thoughtfully and carefully, you sense immediately the grandeur and the power of God. You hear the powerful, rolling cadences of this book's language. You sense the insignificance of man when compared with the might and the wisdom and majesty of God. 

We know very little about Isaiah himself. He lived during the reigns of four kings of Judah -- Ussiah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. His ministry began some 740 years before Christ when the ten tribes that formed the northern kingdom of Israel were being carried away into captivity by Sennacherib, the Assyrian invader. And Judah, the southern kingdom, was plunged into idolatry toward the end of Isaiah's ministry in 687 B.C. and was carried captive into Babylon. So the ministry of this prophet spans the time between the captivity of the northern kingdom and the captivity of the southern kingdom -- about 50 years. Isaiah was a contemporary of the prophets Amos, Hosea, and Micah. And tradition tells us that Isaiah the prophet was martyred under the reign of Manasseh, one of the most wicked kings recorded by the Old Testament. The story is that he hid in a hollow tree to escape the reign of Manasseh, and the king's soldiers, knowing he was in that tree, sawed the tree down. Thus, he was sawn in half. Some scholars feel that when the epistle to the Hebrews in its great chapter about the heroes of faith, lists being sawn in two as one of the ways the prophets were martyred, that It’s referring to the prophet Isaiah. (Hebrews 11:37)

The Bible is made up of sixty-six books….. There are 39 books in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament….  The Old Testament, most often, deals with the sin of the people of Israel, and the New Testament, most often, deals with the Savior, who came from Israel, to take care of there sin, and ours, once and for all. 

And the book of Isaiah divides in exactly the same way. There are 66 chapters……The first half of the book comprises thirty-nine chapters. with a distinct division at chapter 40, with the remaining twenty-seven chapters, constituting second half of this book. The first 39 chapters deal with God’s impending judgment, and the second twenty-seven chapters deal with forgiveness and deliverance. The first 39 chapters deal with sin, and the last 27 chapters deal with the Savior — 66 chapters in all. 

Many people see Isaiah as a small Bible, because of the definite similarities…… 

The first 39 chapters warn us of the destruction of the nation and the deportment of the people to a foreign land. And it tells us about how the people of Israel, abandoned their God and He, in turn, was going to abandon them, for an allotted period of time…... The first part of the book is heavy and plodding, because when Isaiah wrote the first part of his book, the disaster hadn’t come  to the nation, yet,  but, there is a distinctly different tone and message beginning in chapter 40… as Isaiah writes about the deliverance that was coming to Israel, and to all the people in the world, who would believe in his coming redemption…… 

The language, in these verses, soars with majestic eloquence and wondrous intention...the glory of the Lord’s salvation just pours out of Isaiah’s heart.

The people grew very tired of Isaiah’s warnings and his constant talk about their need for repentance and their return to God. But Isaiah didn’t care, the Lord God had given him a mission and he was determined to see it through it to the end….and as is God’s way, Isaiah was led to give the people comfort, in the middle of their tragedy, by writing  the second half of his book, to the people of Israel and Judah, who would be in exile — he wanted them to understand that there would come a time when they would be taken away to Babylon,  and their nation would be destroyed and Jerusalem and its beautiful temple would be in ruins, and the people would be in captivity. 

And in captivity, they didn’t need to hear about pending judgment, because they were living it. They didn’t need to be reminded of their sins; they were experiencing the consequences of them on a daily basis.

So, there were three truths that Isaiah felt compelled by the Lord, to fill the people’s hearts and minds with…., and the first one was: God’s everlasting comfort. Because the truth is, what they would need as captive slaves in Babylon, was comfort. They didn’t need Isaiah to shake his finger at them, at that point and say, “I told you so”; what they needed to hear, was that God still loved them and that there was hope for their future…. In Isaiah. 40:1-2. the words that God spoke to Isaiah,  about the children of Israel…is one of my very favorite verses, He said……“Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand, double for all her sins”

It is interesting that the Hebrew word, that Isaiah uses for comfort is also a word which can be translated “repent.” It’s the word  nâham, and its root gives you the idea of breathing deeply. It means to breathe deeply with sorrow for your sin, or to breathe deeply as you comfort and console someone else ….the idea is that God’s comfort comes, as a result of a person’s repentance.,,,,,,,Because they have breathed deeply in repentance, God will breathe deeply into their hearts, as He consoles and comforts them.

Isaiah explained to them that “in repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength,” and he was anxious for them to receive the blessimg of God’s comfort,,,, 

Their sins had been paid for and deliverance was in the air. We know, on this side of the cross, that their deliverance wasn’t the result of what the people had done. I was 100 percent, the work of God. It was undeserved and unmerited favor. God had promised to to deliver them, but the way had to be prepared first. 

In his vision, described in Isaiah 40:3-5, Isaiah heard a voice calling and saying, “A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God. Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken’” We know that John the Baptist was that voice calling out, preparing the way for Jesus to be received for who He was. God was coming to them, in the person of Jesus, and the call was going out to prepare his way.

In ancient times, when there were no superhighways, history tells us that months before a king’s entourage would set out on a journey, the call would go before him: “Prepare the way for the king. Make a straight way in the wilderness and a highway for the king.” The people would run before the king to remove any obstacles and fill in the rough places in his path. They would build a road and fill in small valleys and dig through the hills so the king’s progress would be smooth and unhindered. Their reward was to see the king coming in all his royal splendor. In this passage, God was on his way to his people, who were in slavery to a foreign nation. He will come to them and deliver them from captivity — bringing them home on the highway, which has been prepared for Him. The picture is one of God coming in glory from Jerusalem to bring his people back to himself and to their home. This was the great comfort the people longed for.

However, the idea of comfort here is not like the comfort we usually think of. When we think of comfort, we think of sitting on a beach, watching the waves, and drinking something cold and delicious, (for me it would be diet Mtn.Dew.) Or if it’s winter, we see ourselves sitting in a nice leather chair in front of a roaring fire, with a quilt spread over us while we sip hot cocoa and read a book, or watch a good movie, (or if its me, both at the same time). 

But the idea of comfort, in the scripture, comes from the two Latin words, “com and fortis” which literally translated, mean “with strength.” 

So, God’s way of giving comfort, is to give us the strength to do what needs to be done. As His strength comes to us…. grief and sorrow go. The situation may not change, but He will give us a new ability to face whatever it is and the strength to deal with it. The people of Israel, who Isaiah was speaking to, needed strength to face the journey home, as well as, once they were there, the huge job of rebuilding the temple and the city. They needed a lot of strength and encouragement. 

And the word encouragement, again in the scripture, means basically the same thing…. …. it means to be “in courage.”

If you are encouraged, then you have the courage to do what needs to be done. God instructed Isaiah to be comforting and encouraging His people so that they would be able to carry out His will.

Sometimes, God’s comfort comes, by forcing us into a situation, that will change and grow us. It has been said, “that the Spirit of God comes to both comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.”

(Someone once asked a paratrooper friend, of his, how many times he had jumped out of the plane while he was in the military. He said, “None.” His friend said, “What do you mean, ‘none,’ I thought you were a paratrooper?” He said, “I was, but I never jumped. I was pushed several times... but I never jumped.”) That, is the military’s idea of encouragement….. And it’s the same with us, a lot of times, we need a little shove. But along with that shove, God gives us the renewed courage and strength to do what He is calling us to do. And the beautiful blessing of it all is, that in the end, it becomes something we really want to do.

And the other way that God comforted His people then, and still does today, is  by letting them know that he would take care of their enemies. The kingdom of Babylon looked so formidable. It seemed as though no one would be able to get through their walls or defeat their army. The splendor of Babylon was breathtaking with its magnificent buildings and it’s “wonder of the world” hanging gardens. No one, could imagine the possibility of Babylon being destroyed. But God, through Isaiah, in Isaiah 40:6-8… assured them,  that “all men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever…. God was saying that no matter how powerful the Babylonians appeared, they were nothing but grass. That He determined their time and place, and that when he blew upon them, it would be like the hot desert wind blowing on the desert flowers. They would wither and fall, but He would still remain.

And, in Daniel 5, that is exactly what happened. The Babylonians who seemed so powerful were actually defeated, without much of a fight. They thought, that nothing could happen to them. They were so sure they were safe, that they did not even post a guard on the wall. But while their rulers drank themselves into oblivion, the Persian army simply diverted the flow of the Euphrates River, which flowed under the walls and through the great city. Then they marched right into Babylon on the empty riverbed. The great kingdom of Babylon collapsed in a night, and God proved, that the people were like grass and that only He remains.

II                  Everlasting Word         

This is Isaiah’s second point. Not only did Isaiah speak of an everlasting comfort, Isaiah spoke of the everlasting Word of God. When all other claims to truth have had their say, the Word of God will stand alone, in the end. Everything else will change. Ideas and philosophies will come and go, but God’s Word will always remain the abiding Truth. 

The lie of the Nazi’s came and died. The lie of godless communism came and died.  

One of the training areas for a mission team, in Russia today, is the Hotel Gorbachev. In the convention room the team holds worship services with the backdrop of a huge mural with pictures of Marx, Lenin and the other communist leaders, who denigrated the Christian faith and the Word of God, glaring down from the walls…... But now communism has fallen, and in the place where young communists were trained on the tenets of atheism, Christians are worshiping together, and being trained in evangelistic techniques — and believe it or not, it’s at the invitation of the Russian government.

When I was a teenager, in the mid to late 70s, many philosophers, were saying that God was dead, and they were predicting the death of the church. Today almost no one can remember the names of those men and women, who made those predictions, let alone the titles of the books that they wrote, because the church of Jesus Christ is thriving; our God is still very much alive, and the truth of His Word, is still t, very much, the ultimate authority to live by…..
God’s Word is God’s word…. It was God’s Word yesterday; it is God’s Word today, and it will be God’s Word 5000 years from now. Kingdoms will rise and fall. Ideas will come and go. The values of the world will change, but God’s Word will remain the one constant, in a world of change and confusion.

The emperor Diocletian tried to revive the old pagan religions of Rome by persecuting and killing Christians. He set up a stone pillar in his honor, inscribed with the words that he wanted to leave as part of his legacy: I read “For Having Exterminated The Name Christian, From the Earth.” 

…….If only he were alive today to know how far short of his goal he fell! His monument is more of a tribute to the endurance of Christianity, than it is anything else-----instead of wiping out Christianity his persecution ignited it…..”

III         Everlasting Strength

Isaiah told of an everlasting comfort, and he told of the everlasting Word of God, but thirdly: Isaiah spoke of an everlasting strength. He knew that being in exile, would eventually wear down the people’s strength….Isaiah wrote in Isaiah 40:28-31: “Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint”. 

We all can get discouraged from time to time….even young people can be beaten down, weary and defeated. But those who place their hope and trust in God, will not lose heart, and they will not lose strength — regardless of their age. Our hearts and minds will soar as we think about what God has already done and what He can do in the future…  As new strength and courage enters our hearts, it began to affect our bodies, and we will gain a new enthusiasm for life and a new strength to go on and a new comfort to sustain us. But we need to understand we will never gain that strength, unless we are willing to wait on the Lord.

We would all like to mount up with wings like eagles, but It’s hard to soar with the eagles when you are surrounded by turkeys.” 

But the truth is, that’s just a cop out. When God shows up, it doesn’t matter who is around you. (I read about a young boy who spent the summer with his grandfather. As he and his grandfather were out in the field one day they found a small bird. It was strange looking and they didn’t know what it was at first. They named him Ernie and took him home to show to grandma. Grandma put him with a mother hen and her brood of chicks. As it turned out, Ernie was an Eaglet. It wasn’t long until Ernie was larger than the chickens, and it was apparent he was different — even though he had picked up some of the mannerisms of the chickens. But one sunny afternoon the father eagle saw Ernie eating corn down on the farm with some strange white birds. The father eagle began to soar in circles above the farm, and then began to spiral downward while calling out for Ernie. Ernie’s head lifted as he heard something that resonated deep within him. Instinctively he began to spread his wings. Suddenly he was flying, and he began to soar in response to his father’s call. Ernie had within him the spirit of an eagle. The chicks heard the father eagle’s call as well, but they only chirped in response and continued to eat their corn on the ground. But Ernie had a higher calling. He was destined to soar. )

Chickens and turkeys can fly, but they rarely do because they are most comfortable on the ground. Sparrows and other small birds fly, but they mostly use their wings to get from one tree to another. 

But eagles soar. They have great power and freedom. They are destined for the skies.

 And like them, we have a different Spirit in us, than those who are content to be ground dwellers. We have a higher calling. We are destined for the skies. God’s Spirit is in us and He is calling to us to soar with Him. 

But just because we are Christians, doesn’t mean we are using our wings. We may still be more comfortable on the ground, than soaring in the sky. We may even flit, from one place to another,, which isn’t bad, it’s just that God is calling us to soar. 

And we are able to soar by waiting on him…able to soar by responding to his call….able to soar by trusting him….able to soar by spreading our wings and able to soar by using the strength that He’s given us.

There is a quote of unknown origin that says, “There are two lasting bequests we can give to our children and grandchildren….. One is roots; the other is wings.” We can teach the children in our lives, that there is a strength that comes from God that is greater than our own. We can teach them to wait on him and trust him, even when everything looks hopeless. We can teach them that Isaiah wrote about an everlasting strength, an everlasting hope, an everlasting comfort, an everlasting truth, an everlasting kingdom, and an everlasting God.,

 But the best thing that we can do is to show them, the reality of God’s faithfulness ,as we model it in our lives. 

As we show them how to mount up with wings like eagles…..
we can be living examples of hope…. living sources of comfort…. living proof of the reliability of God’s Word…..and living examples of a strength that only comes from the Lord God. 

THE COMFORT OF GOD
“Those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint” (Isaiah 40:31).

JOY "Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon" February 18, 2015

February 18, 2015

Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon

I          Ecclesliastes  1:1-12:13

II         Song of Solomon  1:1-8:14

(Eutropius had fallen into disgrace. As the highest-ranking official in the Byzantine Empire (late fourth century), he served as the closest adviser to the emperor Arcadius, who was ruling in Constantinople, at the time. But Eutropius abused his imperial power and aroused the anger of the Empress, Eudoxia, who orchestrated a campaign against him that resulted in a sentence of death.

Desperate to save his life, Eutropius slipped away from the palace and ran to the Hagia Sophia ( which was a beautiful, Greek Orthodox Basasilica, whose name means the Holy Wisdom of God; it later became a Muslim Mosque; and today is museum).

 Eutropius clung to the altar and claimed sanctuary. Soon an angry mob of soldiers surrounded the great church, denouncing Eutropius and demanding his execution. Eventually, the crowds dispersed, but the next day was Sunday, and so they returned the following morning to see whether the pastor would give in to their demands for the execution of Eutropius.

The pastor was John Chrysostom, the famous preacher, who served as the Bishop of Constantinople. As he mounted his pulpit, Chrysostom could see a church crowded with worshipers and thrill-seekers. They, in turn, could see Eutropius groveling at the altar. The great man had become a pitiable spectacle, with his teeth chattering and hopeless terror in his eyes.

The dramatic sermon Chrysostom preached that day may have been the finest he ever preached. For his text Chrysostom took Ecclesiastes 1:2 ("Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity"), and for his primary illustration he used the decline and fall of Eutropius.

Here was a man, Chrysostom noted, who had lost everything--position, wealth, freedom, safety. Only days before, he had been the second most powerful man in the world. But it was all vanity, as events had proven, for now Eutropius had become "more wretched than a chained convict, more pitiable than a menial slave, more indigent than a beggar wasting away with hunger." "Though I should try my very best," Chrysostom said, "I could never convey to you in words the agony he must be suffering, from hour to hour expecting to be butchered."

Chrysostom did not stop there, however. His purpose was not to condemn Eutropius but to save him, and also to give his listeners the gospel. So, he went on to challenge his listeners to recognize the vanity of their own existence. Whether rich or poor, one day they would all have to leave their possessions behind. They too would face a day of judgment--the judgment of a holy God. Their only hope then would be the hope that they should offer to Eutropius now—mercy, at the table of Christ.

The sermon must have hit its mark, for as the great preacher, Chrysostom, came to a close, he could see tears of pity streaming down people's faces. 

Eutropius was spared--a life saved, by a sermon from the book of Ecclesiastes.

And because Ecclesiastes is the Word of the living God, it can have the same impact in our lives, today. The world hasn’t changed….and God’s word hasn’t changed-----Ecclesiastes still teaches us that there is more to life than what we can see with our eyes. Ecclesiastes warns us to live our lives… in light of eternity. and Ecclesiastes teaches us how to live a meaningful life.

I                            Ecclesiastes

The book of Ecclesiastes, or "the Preacher," is unique in scripture. There is no other book like it, because it is the only book in the Bible which reflects a human point of view, instead of a divine one.. It is a book, according to Ray Stedman, the author of our study book and commentary, which is filled with error, while at the same time it is wholly inspired, by the Holy Spirit. 

This may confuse some people, because most of us feel like if its in the scripture, then it is a guarantee of truth.  But the truth is, if it is God's point of view it will always be true; but if it’s man's or satan’s it may or may not be true. And, only the Holy Spirit can give us the discernment to recognize and understand the difference…and Ecclesiasres is full of man’s interpretation of what life is….and it’s all wrong.

So, there is truth and error at the same time---- Whenever false views of men are quoted or set forth, or whenever Satan speaks…. most of the time, lies are being spoken, and even the truth that is used, can be twisted and distorted, which makes it unreliable. But, thankfully, the Bible always points out the error, which is presented and makes it clear that it is error, as it does in Ecclesiastes. And that makes it totally true….

Because of its remarkable and unusual character, Ecclesiastes is the most misused book of the Bible. This is the favorite book of atheists and agnostics. And many cults love to quote this book's erroneous viewpoints and give the impression that these are scriptural, divine words of God concerning life.

But right away, in its introduction, this book is very careful to point out, that what it records, is not divine truth. It presents only the human view of lif…… throughout the whole course of Ecclesiastes, one phrase is repeated again and again: "under the sun," "under the sun." Everything is evaluated according to appearances alone-- this is man's point of view of reality, and it leaves God out entirely. Which enables us to see and discern that Ecclesiastes very accurately summarizes only what man thinks.

Ecclesiastes is not atheistic….. to be atheistic is to be unrealistic, and the Bible is never unrealistic. An atheist is one who has convinced himself, by long argument that there is no God, even though every inward testimony of his conscience and the structure of the universe around him are constant witnesses to the fact that there is a God. For the most part, only the educated man is an atheist. Or, the man who does not desire to face life's realities, because he wants to convince himself that there is no God to whom he must answer. But this book is not atheistic, even though it is written from a humanistic point of view.

Ecclesiastes views God, as men, in general, view God – like a not very vital concern of life. sort of like a high-calorie dessert, which we can take or leave---- not the sovereign Savior, who has all authority in heaven and earth, that we are blessed to have a personal relationship with.

The book opens with this introduction:

The words of the Preacher... (Ecclesiastes 1:1a RSV) which In Hebrew, means debater or arguer… and as we read this book, we can see that it is a series of arguments set forth by Solomon, as the representative of all men,,, as he views the world around him. 

Solomon was in an unusual position to undertake the experiments and investigations reflected in this book, because, during the forty years of his reign, there was total peace in the kingdom of Judah and Israel. There were no tribes around stirring up warfare or strife. And since he didn’t have to bother himself with military life, he had all the time he needed……and since he was the wealthiest man on earth, he had all the wealth he needed, and since he was the wisest man on earth, he was blessed with a keen, logical, discerning mind. So, he had all that he needed, with way too much time on his hands, so, he set out to discover what life is all about. Which in the long run, serves to prove to us that there is God; there has always been God; and there will always be God…..and also, anytime we have a conversation with someone who expresses to us their reasons for hopelessness, the arguments in this book, provide the opportunity to turn the conversation back to the Gospel…

As you read through the book you'll notice that it all centers on verse 2, “Vanity of vanities, says the Debater, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. Ecclesiastes 1:2 RSV)

Unfortunately, that word "vanity" doesn't mean today what it used to, we seldom use it in quite the same sense. To us, "vanity" is conceit over personal looks. We think that a woman or a man, who spends a half hour primping before a mirror every time they go by a mirror…. is a victim of vanity ----- And of course that’s true. (There’s the story of the woman who said to her pastor one day, "I must confess to you, pastor, that I am suffering from a terrible sin. I suffer from the sin of vanity. Every morning before I leave, I admire myself in the mirror for half an hour." He said, "My dear lady, it is not the sin of vanity you are suffering from, it is the sin of imagination.")  "Vanity", here in Ecclesiastes, means emptiness, futility, meaninglessness. The debater had completed his survey of life, and he gave his conclusion, at the beginning of the book. His conclusion said everything is futile, empty, and meaningless – nothing makes any sense.

He supported his conclusion with a series of arguments that he had gleaned after sifting through the philosophies of life. And perhaps the most interesting thing about this book….. is that all the philosophies that men have ever attempted to live by, are gathered together here, in these few chapters…

There is nothing new under the sun, the book says -- and how true that is. Here we are, almost thirty centuries removed from the time of the writing of this book, and nothing more has been produced in the world or in the ideas of men than what is reflected right here. 

As Solomon sets forth his arguments….

1.) Science

First, there is the scientific outlook…. This outlook sees the universe as nothing but a great, grinding machine, and the Debater in his investigation of it, is lost in the monotonous repetition of nature's processes. And yet, in many ways, this is a most remarkable passage. Some revelations here are of scientific import and were written long before men of science ever discovered these things. Notice, for instance, the circuit of the wind:

The wind blows to the south,
and goes round to the north;
round and round goes the wind,
and on its circuits the wind returns. (Ecclesiastes 1:6 RSV)

Men didn't discover the circuit of the wind until centuries after this was written. And then there is the evaporation cycle of circulating waters:

All streams run to the sea,
but the sea is not full;
to the place where the streams flow,
there they flow again. (Ecclesiastes 1:7 RSV)

That is, the rivers run down to the sea, evaporate, come back up to the mountains again as rainfall, and run down to the sea again. 

The writer has discovered this in his observation of nature, and he says all this is vanity, it’s empty. He feels the utter weariness of this endless circuit.

 So in his outlook…. life goes on and we are lost in the meaninglessness of the universe. Nothing is to be heard but the clanking of gears, and the end of it, is emptiness This philosophy is very common today….our world asks the questio ... “What is man in the midst of a universe like that?” And our world answers…we are just  tiny specks, with no meaning or significance at all.”

2.)   Pleasure 

In chapter 2 the writer examines the philosophy of hedonism –which is the pursuit of pleasure, as the chief end of life. What gives life meaning? Well, millions today say, "Just enjoy yourself! Have a good time, live it up, do as you like, seek pleasure. That's the purpose of living. That's why we are here!" But the Debater said:

I said to myself, "Come now, I will make a test of pleasure; enjoy yourself." But behold, this also was vanity. (Ecclesiastes 2:1 RSV)

Then he proceeded to itemize pleasure. He says that first,… he tried pleasure in the form of laughter, or mirth. Thinking, that, that, is what is needed to make life thoroughly enjoyable. So he sought out opportunities to give himself to genial, gracious, laughing, happy company. But he said that over time, even laughter yielded to a weariness of spirit.

Then he said, that he tried to acquire possessions;  he was thinking that maybe, meaning of life, comes from wealth: 

3.)  Wealth

Ecclesiastes 2:9-10 says…

“So I became great and surpassed all who were before me in Jerusalem; also my wisdom remained with me. And whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them; “

So, he gave himself to the accumulation of wealth and possessions. (How many of us are living on that level today? Thinking that money can buy us peace and joy and satisfaction….. ) but , in the long run, he said that that was empty of spirit too and it did nothing to satisfy the longing in his heart….

4.)  Wisdom  and Folly

Then he considered  wisdom and madness and folly---he was comparing opposite….. for what can the man do who comes after the king? (Ecclesiastes 2:12a RSV)
Then I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. (Ecclesiastes 2:13a RSV)

He says, "This is better, at least. Here is something that is interesting: pursuing all these various ideas about life. Ah, but," he says. "I found that it comes out at the same place." The fool and the wise man alike die. And as far as their lives are concerned, one is as utterly insignificant as the other. It doesn't make any difference.

Then, he comes to a terrible conclusion: (Ecclesiastes 2:17 RSV)

“So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind. “

Here is a man who has given himself to pleasure, to possessions, and to the pursuit of wisdom in the realm of ideas, and he says, "I hated life. I hated all my toil. I turned about and gave my heart up to despair." 

5.)    Existentialism

Then in chapter 3 he views life from what we might call the existential viewpoint.

Webster’s Dictionary says that Existentialism is a philosophy that emphasizes individual existence, freedom and choice. It is the view that humans define their own meaning in life, and try to make rational decisions despite existing in an irrational universe. It focuses on the question of human existence, and the feeling that there is no purpose or explanation at the core of existence. It holds that, as there is no God or any other transcendent force, and the only way to counter this nothingness (and hence to find meaning in life) is by embracing existence. Existentialism believes that individuals are entirely free and must take personal responsibility for themselves (although with this responsibility comes angst, a profound anguish or dread). It therefore emphasizes action, freedom and decision as fundamental, and holds that the only way to rise above the essentially absurd condition of humanity (which is characterized by suffering and inevitable death) is by exercising our personal freedom and choice.

This is a popular term today. It is fashionable to believe in existentialism and it is, of course, thought to be something new on the stage of world ideas. But it is nothing new at all. It is as old as the thinking of man. Actually, we might call this viewpoint fatalism, because there is always a fatalistic element in existentialism.

We in America can hardly realize why existential thinking has so powerfully gripped the minds of people in our world. The popularity of existentialism was born at the end of World War II, when Europe was left in shambles. The great cities of Europe were in ruins, and all that men had previously pinned their hopes on -- in government and religion, as they knew it -- had been powerless to arrest the catastrophe and terrible chaos of World War II. At the end of it, men were left with utterly shattered hopes concerning what they had believed in. They asked one another, "What can we trust? We can't trust religion. It did nothing to stem the awful tide of tyranny under Hitler. And we can't trust government, because it is the very tool of such power. So what can we trust?" And somebody suggested that the only thing that we can trust is our own reactions to life as we live through things. We experience feelings and reactions to events, and even though no two of us may have the same reaction, at least each person's reaction is real to him. So they said, "All we can really trust is our own reaction to events, to existence." And that is existentialism.

Solomon said, that he had discovered, that life was a series of reactions to  events, which are inescapable experiences, in every person’s life." He wrote that there is:

“a time to be born, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
a time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to break down, and a time to build up;
a time to weep ..........[and so on.]” (Ecclesiastes 3:2-8 RSV)

Solomon saw that all these events come upon us. And he saw also, that man has a desire for something deeper, for finding significance, for finding meaning in these things and in life:

He has made everything beautiful in its time; also he has put eternity into man's mind, (Ecclesiastes 3:11a RSV)

In other words, man can never rest with simply external explanations of things. He has to look deeper. Eternity is in his heart. 

So, Solomon said that he saw all this. He saw that events of life are inescapable and are experienced by all men -- but he saw, also, in a fatalistic way. that all men go to one place when it is all over, the same place that animals go to…. They all turn to dust.

“Therefore, the only thing man really has to enjoy is his work. because that’s why he’s here, because no one will bring us back from life after death to enjoy life after we die..  “(Ecclesiastes 3:22b RSV)

He sees futility and hopelessness. He asked the question,” What's the use?”

6.) Capitalism

In chapter 4 he turns to capitalism, of all things. Here he sets forth the competitive enterprise of life. When we Americans hear the word "capitalism" …….we think it is a wonderful word. We think it describes the vigorous young insurance executive out to join the million-dollars-a-month club, or some high-powered executive in business who is building his own empire. We admire this. We say. "Capital is the answer."

Remember, though, that the word of God always ultimately looks at life as it really is. And capitalism is not a final answer to things. It is certainly a better answer than socialism or communism…… but Solomon said he tried the competitive-enterprise approach, and saw that it resulted in injustices and oppression. And he discovered that selfish motivation lay behind a lot of it, which resulted in huge socioeconomic inequities. So, he said it all came down to the same thing:

He said in 4:13, “Better is a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king, who will no longer take advice, “(Ecclesiastes 4:13 RSV) His question is, What good does it do to get to the top of the heap when a young man at the bottom with nothing but a few smart ideas can surge ahead of you? What's the difference? What is the good of it all?

7)    Religion

Then in chapter 5 he tries religion -- religion which recognizes that God exists -- and he tries to do good and to be good. And yet he points out that there is no practical value in it. Religious people can do very unethical things and oppress the poor. Plus, he couldn’t see that there was any power in empty, dead, religious formalism, to stop wrongs or change inequities. He decided that religion of that sort doesn't work either. It comes down to the exact same thing -- emptiness and vanity.

8/)  Materialism

Chapter 6 sets forth his experiments along the line of materialism -- the philosophy of "the good life." His conclusion is that even though a man has everything,…….he has nothing.

He said in 6:3, “If a man begets a hundred children [children are wealth to the Hebrew], and lives many years, so that the days of his years are many, but he does not enjoy life's good things, and also has no burial, I say that an untimely birth is better off than he.” (Ecclesiastes 6:3 RSV)

If you have everything, but in trying to satisfy yourself you discover that there is still a craving that these things can't meet, then you are no better off than if you had never been born. It all comes out to the same thing

9.)  Moderation

In chapter 7 Solomon approaches life from the standpoint of stoicism -- a cultivated indifference to events -- and his conclusion is that in order to view life this way, aim for a happy medium. Be moderate in all things:

He said in 7:16-17 “In my vain life I have seen everything; there is a righteous man who perishes in his righteousness [righteousness doesn't always pay], and there is a wicked man who prolongs his life in his evil-doing [wickedness sometimes does pay, judging by evidence "under the sun"]. (Ecclesiastes 7:15 RSV)

So, he said:

“Be not righteous overmuch, and do not make yourself over wise; why should you destroy yourself? Be not wicked overmuch, neither be a fool; why should you die before your time?” (Ecclesiastes 7:16-17 RSV)

That is, aim for a happy medium. How many times have we heard these verses quoted as exactly, reflecting what the Bible teaches? But, in reality, they are the words of a man, looking at life who says the best policy is "Moderation in all things" -- avoid extremes as much as possible, don't volunteer for anything, try just to get through. That is his viewpoint.

10.)      Common Sense

Chapters 8 through 10 and the first eight verses of chapter 11 are a connected discourse examining what might be referred to as the wisdom of the world, or the common-sense view of life. In chapter 8, Solomon said that anyone approaching life, from this point of view, Is exhorted to master the power structures of the world in which he lives and align himself with them… He said, "Try to understand who is an authority and who isn't, and do your best to be on the right side at the right time." That is his philosophy. We recognize that, don't we? Here is his conclusion

 In:8:17 he said..“...then I saw all the work of God, that man cannot find out the work that is done under the sun. However much man may toil in seeking, he will not find it out; even though a wise man claims to know, he cannot find it out.” (Ecclesiastes 8:17 RSV)

Basically his philosophy was "I don't offer you much hope along this line, but if you get on the right side and get in good with the powers that be, you will at least get along pretty well, but you won't find any answers to life. It's all futility, don't you see?"

Then in chapter 9 he examines the world's value judgments and points out again that they all come to the same thing:

In 9:11 he said,  “Again I saw that under the sun the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the intelligent, nor favor to the men of skill; but time and chance happen to them all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11 RSV) There are some very foolish rich people, in the world and some very wise poor ones.."  And in the end, death comes to each one the same way.:

In  9:12 he says, “For man does not know his time. life fish which are taken in an evil net, and like birds which are caught in a snare [suddenly, unexpectedly] so the sons of men are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them.” 

What difference, then, do worldly values matter?

In chapter 10 he exhorts us to maintain discretion in life -- be temperate, diligent, cautious, accommodating -- try to get by as best you can. But this is only an enlightened expression of selfishness, which is the motive underlying it all. We read in chapter 11 that success is simply a matter of diligence -- in order to get something out of life, you need to work and apply yourself:

In 11:6 he says, “In the morning sow your seed, and at evening withhold not your hand; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.”           In 9:12 he says, “

But then he concludes:In 11:8

‘For if a man lives many years, let him rejoice in them all; but let him remember that the days of darkness will be many. All that comes is vanity.”

It seems like he’s proved his case…. All the way through its been the same thing. Life lived apart from God, all comes out to the same thing….nothing…..

Then, at this point in his discourse, came the change in viewpoint, the recognition that life is meaningful and significant when God is enthroned in it. This is Solomon's true conclusion to all of his findings, and it begins this way:

In 11:9 he said, “Rejoice, O young man, in your youth, and let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth; walk in the ways of your heart and the sight of your eyes. But know that for all these things God will bring you into judgment. 

That doesn't mean punishment. It means examination: God will bring you into an examination of your life. But "Rejoice!" (That is Solomon's very word!) The Debater's final conclusion is directly opposite his previous conclusion. In his first conclusion, The only thing he had to say to the man who approached life without a genuine commitment to God, was this: "Eat. drink and be merry. for tomorrow you must die."

Practical isn't it? And devilish. Do you see? When you hear people talking this way today, when you see worldly man thinking and acting on the basis of "Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die," don't blame him. What else can he say? This is the inevitable conclusion of any approach to life that erases God from the picture. And there is nothing more descriptive of utterly blind pessimism than those words. Think of it. Eat, drink and be merry. In other words, live like an animal. This denies the glory of manliness and manhood. It reduces man to the level of the animal. It is the most hopeless statement one can ever make. "What is life? Nothing at all. Utterly insignificant. Without any meaning. Utterly futile. All that we can do, therefore, is to make the best of it. Eat, drink and be merry. Life goes out like a candle flame in the end." Utter pessimism rules in a life that is lived without God.

Now contrast that with what Solomon really believed and said in the last chapter:

12:1 says, “Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, 

And after a beautifully poetic passage, where youth gave way to aging and aging gave way to death,,,,and then,  Solomon taught his final conclusion:

In 12:13 he said, The end of the matter; all has been heard. 

Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.

Ray Stedman, our commentator, says that in this verse, the Hebrew bible leaves out the word duty and that the verse just says…

“Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole of man”.

This is what makes man whole. The secret is to enthrone God in the days of our youth. If we want to find the secret of living, so that our hearts are satisfied and our spirit is enriched, then we have to enthrone God in the center of our lives and we will discover all that God has intended our lives to be. And then, we will be able to rejoice all the days of our lives. 

I think we can probably all remember well, when were teenagers, and we  wondered whether the training we were being given as Christians, was right, because sometimes, we felt allured and enticed by other ways of thinking. And we would feel the awful uncertainty, of not knowing which one was right, and what, if anything, was the answer to life's questions…. (For me , it was when I was !5, and I couldn’t sleep at night, cause I was afraid the world  would end, or my granddaddy would die of a heart attack, or was I really saved, or would there ever be any thing I could do that would make an impact on somebody else.) Looking back upon that time I have great sympathy for young people; I see their deep inner desire, just as I felt it then, not to waste their lives but to live significantly. But, all these many years later, after walking with the Lord from the wonderful perspective of more than forty years, I can say that God in His grace has taught me to trust and believe and commit myself, as it says 

in Proverbs 3:5-6……

“Trust in the Lord with all my heart,
and do not rely on my own understanding
In all my ways acknowledge him,
and he will make my paths.straight” .

 I’ve always loved the 2^nd verse of Amazing Grace…"Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come, "Tis grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home." I can testify to the fact that Solomon’s original conclusion is true, without God in the center of our lives…everything is vanity….and that makes , the final conclusion correct…. life is worth living, only when God is enthroned in the center of an individual's life and that individual acts in obedience to his sovereign rule.. 

My prayer is for us to say thank you, to the Father for these words of wisdom, and for having recorded them for us in this ancient book so that in our hunger for fulfillment and the meaning to life…. we don’t have to go down all these paths ourselves……and to say thank you to Him that we can trust His word to be genuine and accurate, so that we can build our lives upon it. And to pray that we will have the courage to believe and trust His word enough, to act upon it –and  to enthrone Him as the Lord of our lives, so that we can live them in grace and strength and beauty. 

II           The Song of Solomon

Jeffrey Archer's 1994 book Beyond Reasonable Doubt, will make you weep. Admittedly, the story is a little melodramatic. The main character is a lawyer named David Metcalfe, who has been accused of murdering his wife, and successfully defends himself in court.
Then, in flashbacks, the story reveals that his wife actually died of an overdose of medication which he administered, at her request, to save her from excruciating pain in the final weeks of death by cancer. It is during these flashbacks that we see the extraordinary intimacy and tenderness between the two of them, the absence of which makes David's life without her almost unbearable.
It is the amazing intimacy, I think, that causes the reader to want to weep. It is heart-breaking  to think of a human being experiencing that intimacy, and then being deprived of it.
Francine Klagsbrun, in her book Married People, discusses the nature of intimacy and enumerates several key factors present in it. First, intimacy requires a complete acceptance of the other person just as he or she is, so that each person is unafraid to be open and honest with the other. Second, it implies that each person feels important to the other. Third, it means the creation of an environment in which secrets can be shared with complete confidence.
Fourth, it accepts the fact that there will be periods of distancing as well as closeness, and that the distancing will not destroy the relationship. And Fifth, intimacy means truly communicating, listening with sensitivity, and assuring the other that he or she is safe in the exchange.
Every human being longs to have intimacy with someone else -- to be open and loving and safe together.

Which makes us ask the question,,,,Is it possible to be intimate with God as well? To be able to have have an open, sensitive, creative relationship with the eternal One who presides over our destinies?
The Bible says that we can,,,,that intimacy, communication, and a sense of well-being together -- is entirely possible. The psalms often breathe an air of intimacy. The Song of Solomon 2:8-17, read at a spiritual level, suggests it. The prophet Hosea glories in it. Jesus obviously experienced it -- and Paul and John and other New Testament figures did too

Here are some suggestions as to how we can achieve a sense of intimacy with God ….,,, 

I. Get to Know God's Story.
This is always a first step toward intimacy. In any romantic encounter, or in the beginning of any friendship…… there is the sharing of information----a quick flurry of questions, trying to get to know the other person’s story, and endeavoring to make a connection, on some level, that will serve as foundation for an intimate relationship with that person..

God has a story. His history is in the Bible, and in the books of church history and the books about other people's experiences with Him. In fact, God's story is probably better documented than that of any other figure we know. It is woven in and out of all the history books, all the philosophy books, all the books of religious experience ever written.
It amazes and frightens me to think how few people today seem to be interested in discovering as much of God's story as they can.,,,, even believers, have better things to do , most of the time  They are busy reading and talking about everything else in the world, from computers to music to sports, even doing good works in the Lord’s name,,,,but they don't seem to be motivated to learn about God, Himself.

Remember the book Brave New World that we read in high school English class?  It's almost as if we live, for the most part, in the "brave new world" described by Aldous Huxley, in which the Bible and Shakespeare and all the books about God, are locked up in a safe so people can't read them; only in our society, they don't have to be locked up because most people don't even realize that they need to read them.
How can we be intimate with a God whose history we don't know? We can’t….. we should all be constantly reading and listening and learning about God; then we will have taken the first step toward intimacy with Him.

II. Spend Time With God.
You can't have intimacy with anyone you don't spend time with.
You can even lose intimacy, after you've had it, with someone you have stopped spending time with.
I have seen it often with married acquaintances. They go to the counselor, complaining that they don't feel good about each other anymore. Pretty soon, it comes out in the open. "You're hardly ever home anymore," she says, "and when you are you've got your eyes glued to the TV, or the computer"
"Oh, yeah?" he says. "Well, you're always on the phone to the children and your friends, or you're running off to some meeting at the church!" In the end, they realize that if they want their marriage to work, if they want intimacy to return, they have to give it time to come back.

They have to value the time that they have together. Sometimes,  they have to struggle to create time when their schedules say there isn’t any, Intimacy can’t develop and grow if you don’t spend time together.
It is the same with God.
Study the life of any great saint, from Augustine to Mother Teresa. The story never varies. They are people who have time for God, who make time for God. Mother Teresa, as busy as she was, working fifteen-hour days, always began her day with Mass. She began with God. Then everything else she did became an act of worship
When we learn to do this, we will miss God if we have have to skip time with Him.
The great concern pianist, Paderewski, said, "If I don't practice for a month, my audiences notice it. If I don't practice for a week, my friends notice it. If I don't practice for a day, I notice it."
That is the way it is with spending time with God. When we miss doing it, if we are accustomed to it, we feel the lack of it and we long for it and we will do anything we can to get it back. 

We need spend time with God, and get to know His story……then, we need to………

III. Seek to Please God

That's what we would do next in a human relationship, we would try to do something that would bring the other person pleasure……
We buy flowers and candy, and we make special meals and we get tickets to  plays and sporting events and movies and we woo and court each other.
And it doesn't stop when two people get married. It is an essential ingredient of intimacy throughout the relationship.

A few months ago, one of our friends arranged a special birthday celebration for her husband. She took him on a trip that was a series of surprises for him. They drove to a lovely bed-and-breakfast Inn, somewhere in South Carolina. They had a special dinner. After an early breakfast the next morning, she took him down to the beach, where at low tide they could walk across to a close-by island, and have a picnic that had been prepared for them in advance….
The husband nor the wife have stopped talking about it----I’ve heard about it from each of them, at least 3 times…hahaha….
It’s clear that this served to deepen the intimacy that they share with each other…

Now, what can do to please God that would deepen our intimacy with him….?
There are many things.
You can undertake a program of personal change and reform.
You can make a pilgrimage to some special place of faith.
You can make a significant donation to a church or charity.
You can establish a relationship with a needy person and help that person back to solid ground in his or her life.
You can offer your services to a church or a charitable agency.
There are countless things that we can do…..

But, as in the case of my frien who arranged the beach picnic for her husband, the best gifts that we can give  to God are designed in our own imaginations. We should challenge ourselves to think, "What can I give the Creator of the world who has shown Hdis love to you and me, by giving us the Lord Jesus Chriist, and all that that involves….
Without a doubt, it will carry you along the road to intimacy.
IV. Reflect on What Your Life is Becoming With God
Finally, when you have learned God's story and spent time with God and tried regularly to please God, I recommend that you pause occasionally to reflect on what your life is becoming with God -- on how being related to God is changing your existence -- and then surrender to the flow of this alteration.
We do this with any new discipline or influence in our lives. When we are undertaking an exercise program, we reassess our progress and adjust the strenuousness of the exercises. When we engage in a course of study, we pause to think about what we have learned and how that impinges upon everything else we know.
When we consider our relationship to God and what it is doing in our lives, we can only give thanks and receive inspiration to intensify the relationship.
I think about a friend in this congregation who has been a Christian for only a few years. It has been exciting, in the last couple of years, to hear him speak self-consciously of what is occurring on his pilgrimage. Some time ago, he was visiting with a former partner in business. She observed that he seemed always to be going to church these days. He said he took the opportunity to tell her about what a difference God has made in his life. She replied that she would like to go to church sometime. Afterward, he reflected on the conversation and realized that he was now witnessing to his faith. He could see his own growth occurring. It was an exciting moment.
I don't mean that we should spend our time feeling our pulses to see how we're doing. But there should be times of introspection when we think about the journey we're making, how far we've come, and what we ought to do to facilitate our future progress.
When I taught courses on prayer in the divinity school, I asked my students to keep journals of their experiences during the semester. Each day, they would write about their prayer lives and other things that impinged upon their spiritual formation. In the years since, I have often had a former student say to me, either in a letter or in person, "I am so glad you had us keep a journal. It began a practice I have never given up, and it still rewards me when I look back and see the distance I have come."
May I summarize for you? First, learn God's story. Second, spend time with God. Third, seek to please God. And, fourth, reflect on what your life is becoming with God.
Do these things and you will find yourself growing in intimacy with God.
Maybe you saw the movie A Field of Dreams. It is a beautiful, whimsical story about a young farmer who hears a voice in the cornfield say to him, "If you will build it, he will come." Build what, he wants to know. A ball park, he learns. Who will come? Shoeless Joe Jackson, the great star of the Chicago White Sox. So the farmer plows under his corn and builds a ball diamond. And sure enough, one day Shoeless Joe Jackson walks out of the cornfield and begins to play ball. So do seven other White Sox players, and then some old New York Giants. It is a lilting, tender story, and it probably sounds crazy if you haven't seen it, but it almost invariably gives people's spirits a lift.
"If you will build it, he will come."
That's the promise we are dealing with too, isn't it? If we will create the right conditions in our lives, God will come and dwell in them. God doesn't make the intimacy. We do. But God never fails to reveal Himself intimately to those who make the overtures, those who take the simple steps of preparing for His presence.
Build your life in these ways and He will come.