Someday you will

In the book of Joshua chapter fourteen, Caleb is 85 years old. He comes to Joshua with a challenge which some day you may have. He says “Give me this mountain” (Josh. 14:12).

 

Caleb spoke to Joshua:

“Forty years old was I when Moses the servant of the Lord sent me … to espy out the land; and I brought him word again as it was in mine heart. “Nevertheless my brethren that went up with me made the heart of the people melt: but I wholly followed the Lord my God. “And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive, as he said, these forty and five years, even since the Lord spake this word unto Moses, while the children of Israel wandered in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. “As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me [at least in the spirit of the gospel and its call and needs]: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now, … both to go out, and to come in” (Josh. 14:7–8, 10–11).

EXODUS – Handling Criticism

Aristotle famously said,

“If you want to avoid criticism you just have to do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary as it calls attention to an unhealthy state of things. The wisest man who ever lived said in Proverbs 18:21,

“For the power of life and death are in the tongue.”

We are responsible for our words.  Jesus warns us in Matthew 12:36,

“But I tell you that men will have to give account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.”

Surely Moses knew the pain of criticism. He was bullied by it every day for 40 years.  Other than Jesus, no one ever handled it better than Moses.  If we are not going to destroy others by our critical words, or be debilitated by the criticism of others, we need to learn from him the 13th principle for those who want to finish well the journey to their Promised Land.

We read in Numbers 12:1&2, ìMiriam and Aaron began to talk against Moses because of his Cushite wife, for he had married a Cushite.

“Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they asked.  “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?”  And the Lord heard this.” Miriam and Aaron were shaped in a culture of criticism.

Three verbs are repeated with nauseating regularity to describe the Israelites throughout the Exodus: ‘grumbling’ ‘complaining’ ‘murmuring.’  You see it just a few verses before in Numbers 11:4-6:

“The rabble with them began to crave other food, and again the Israelites started wailing and said, ‘If only we had meat to eat!  We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost’ also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.  But now we have lost our appetite; we never see anything but this manna.”

In 1 Corinthians 19:9&10 Apostle Paul said that the paramount sin in Israeli history was complaining. Why did they complain?

• People who suffer most can become most critical.  No ever suffered more than the Jews.  For 400 years they were slaves in Egypt.  Having been abused, they distrusted authority.  After years of deprivation, they became negative and fearful. After centuries of figuring God had abandoned them, they found it difficult to trust him again.
• Betrayal can make one bitter.  Suffering will cause one to be skeptical.  The abused distrust those in authority. The poor resent the prosperous.  Losers are jealous of winners.
• Bad times give birth to a critical spirit. On the other end of the spectrum, People who have been blessed most can become most critical.  No folks were blessed more than those Jews.  They walked through seas on dried land, drank from waters flowing out of desert rocks, ate the bread of heaven, and witnessed spectacular miracles.  Yet, the more people receive the more dissatisfied they become.  Beware if you are enjoying the good life.
• Good times are also a recipe for a critical spirit. Prosperity breeds pomposity. Attractiveness breeds arrogance.  Being in a superior position breeds a sense of superiority.  Being served breeds feelings of entitlement.

Embrace Every Opportunity to make peace

Israel in Jesus’ day was divided into four camps.

1. The Sadducees were the priestly ruling caste. For centuries they had grown rich and powerful on our tithes and offerings. They were the Wall Street boys of our day, making huge bonuses off scams in the temple. They lived in opulent mansions across from the Temple, and compromised with the Romans to stay in power while running their religious con games. The Zealots hated them most.
2. The Pharisees were the Puritans of our day, trying to reform religion. They hated the Romans because of their paganism. But the Pharisees were focused on heaven and the “the kingdom of God” somewhere out there in the sweet by-and-by. They told us to be pious, and to wait for the Messiah. But what good is “pie-in-the-sky” religion when Romans are strangling you? The Zealots wrote off these fundamentalist evangelicals as irrelevant.
3. The Essenes were the survivalists of our day. They believed that the end of the world was coming. So they fled out into the desert to build monastic communities like Qumran by the Dead Sea. They collected the sacred scrolls, and lived in their sanitized little worlds. The Zealots ignored these survivalists as nut jobs.
4. The Zealots were the only ones with practical patriotism: make life such a living hell for the occupiers that they would finally leave. The Zealots were the first urban terrorists in history—the prototype for today’s Middle Eastern terrorists. You may call us terrorists if you like. But one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.

 Their solutions never solved any problems.

1. The Sadducees gave up the only One who could have saved the nation in exchange for a Zealot whose terrorist tactics would later cause the destruction of Israel and their temple.
2. The Pharisees never saw their religion reformed or their society changed.
3. The Essenes never escaped the end that came. Their survivalist camps out in desert places like Qumran were destroyed and they were put to the sword.
4. The Zealots all ended up on Roman crosses anyway. And Israel ceased to exist for almost 2,000 years.

BUT

• The kingdom of Jesus of Nazareth has changed the world by a gospel of peace, grace, and salvation.

The Importance of Remembering

So many times in the Scriptures,  Israel and we are commanded to remember.

Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and the LORD your God redeemed you from there. {Deuteronomy 24:18}

And that remembrance of the LORD’s mercy becomes the basis of mercy toward others.

Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and on the third day rise (Luke 24:7).

And that remembrance helps the women at the tomb realize that their LORD has risen from the dead.

It is absolutely essential to remember what God has done for us, both as individuals and as a church or a society or a nation, for several reasons.

• The memory of God’s acts on our behalf forms the basis of gratitude.

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits— 3who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

7He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: 8The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. 9He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; 14for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 15As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; 16the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. 17But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children— 18with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

19The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all. 20Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. 21Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. 22Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the LORD, O my soul. (Psalm 103)

• The memory of God’s “saving acts” forms the basis of our hope for the future

Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6).

• The memory of God’s saving deeds gives us patience in the midst of tribulation.

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew [their] strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; [and] they shall walk, and not faint. (Isaiah 40:31)

The Making of a Pastor

Great was the idea that started the way into the ministry, great is the privilege to have a direct call of God to this high office. Great also is the privilege to sit under Godly instructors and there learn the principles of the doctrines of our faith, to gain knowledge of the Bible and its characters, of men and women who blazed the unbroken trails before us, to learn not only the art of public speaking, but the joys of being the spokesman for God to our generation. The privilege to the test of actual service, being given the title of Reverend. Of being sought out for the position of a pastor. But while we may be adept at the art of preaching, of giving out the word of God and being so in all sincerity and earnestness, this leaves us a long way from being an efficient pastor.

The old saying: “It takes a lot of living to make a life,” is also true of the ministry. It takes many hard trials, sorrows that grip the heart and wring it dry, it takes the wounding that comes from the battles in trails and sorrow, those that have gaping wounds from the battles of life. The ability to comfort, to heal, to cheer, do not come from books on the study of like similar circumstances, this ability comes from actual service which have tried the heart and tested it to the breaking point.

At one time or another in our lives, we have real need for not only a physician, but a specialist; and we want to be assured that this specialists knows what he is doing by virtue of past experience, that he is experienced in the matters concerning our lives, and we refuse to trust our lives to someone who has only read or watched this operation, we want someone who has actual experience in this matter.

It is one thing to be an efficient preacher, but quite another to be an efficient pastor, because there are no short-cuts for experiences, no substitutes for service. It takes a lot of trials, of suffering, of being wounded in battle, of watching the slow untwisting of the cords of life, of seeing the golden bowl of joys dashed to the ground and broken at our feet, to stand by while the tide ebbs and see the sunset of lives. It is these that make a pastor, a Priest of God among men.

Someone has said, “When God wants to make a man, he puts him into storm of trial and suffering.” No man is made until he has been out into the surge of the storm and found the sublime fulfillment of the prayer, “O God, Take me, break me and mold (make) me.”

Thank God for young men who will hear and head the call of this great service, who will listen to God and see the great need for God-called men to stand in the gap, to replace those stalward soldiers of yesteryear, who will dedicate their lives completely to this great service. But bless those who have braved the storms of yesteryear, those who have gone through great battles and bears the scars of their many wounding because they chose to be in his service. There are the Pastors, Men of experience, men who have been used of God and many who have been used of God and many are yet being us of God, and when people look for counsel along the turbulent paths of life, they seek these men out for the directions they should take in life. These stalwart soldiers lift high their banners for the privilege of suffering for the cause of God, just to be able to help others, just to be a pastor.

Taken from The Southern Methodist Article of March 1969 by Rev. Lawrence A. Miller  {Volume XXVII # 3}.