Gates of Hell

A friend of mine is walking through the valley of the shadow of death. She is fine - physically - but hurting emotionally because she walks in death's shade: a grandfather who passed away last night, and just the day before, the ominous threat of cancer diagnosed in her mom...... It is an unpleasant walk, full of dark thoughts, lunging feelings, a hard place in the throat and in the pit of one's stomach.

Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?

What? How dare he say that, when death's sting is felt by those it chooses, and perhaps more, by those who live in its shadow.

The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God!
He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Understand this carefully: It is not a sin to feel the sting of death; the sting of death is itself sin. This ugly thing called death is the promised result of sin entering our world, of mankind breaking the primal law of God. Not one of us can cheat it or avoid it. We will all spend time in its shadow, and one day it will overtake us.

But understand this even more: There is victory. Jesus won it.

My friend tells me that yesterday afternoon, she and her mom and sister went to see her grandfather who was dying, and they told him again of Jesus, and this time he believed. In Jesus' name, they broke in and robbed the grave that her grandfather lived in all his earthly life! They stormed the prison cell that would have been his forever and broke him out! Astounding.

Jesus promised it this way: "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven" (Matthew 16:17-19).

I always used to picture the church in a defensive stance, fighting off the attack of hell. Look more carefully. It is the realm of the dead that is under attack, and the promise is that it will not withstand the siege of the church. He's talking about big gates, prison gates or city gates, and we will break through and rob Hades of the dead who dwell there. Not by our authority, but by the authority of the One who builds his church to be a fighting machine that cannot be overcome.

That's what happened last night. Three women, arriving in a hospital room in the name of Jesus, crashed the gates of hell and rescued one who had lived there all his life.

Thanks be to God!

Is it fair? One of the most beautiful parables in the Gospels - the beauty of the kingdom of God - is this:

For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard.

About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, "You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right." So they went.

He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, "Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?"

"Because no one has hired us," they answered.
He said to them, "You also go and work in my vineyard."

When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, "Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first."

The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. "These men who were hired last worked only one hour," they said, "and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day."

But he answered one of them, "Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?"

So the last will be first, and the first will be last.

Grandpa gets his reward first. So cool. Though if you are thinking of following his example, I'm sure that he would warn you against tempting God. And he will thank you, my friend, for not being afraid to storm the castle and set him free.

Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.

Hey Church. Your defense is admirable. You have managed to bar your doors against all appearance of evil (and many people). You are like the man who barricades himself in his cellar against an enemy who is quite content to leave him there and cause all manner of havoc outside.

Climb out of the cellar. Go on the offensive. Jesus promises you that the very gates of hell will crumble before you, that you will raid Hades itself and fleece it clean. You have been given keys to places you have never visited, in your neurotic attempt to avoid the appearance of evil (to quote a poorly understood rendition of 1 Thessalonians 5:22).

Go where no church has gone before, open doors in Jesus' name, with a prayer on your lips and the confidence of his promise ringing in your ears. Rescue those who thought rescue would never come.

What are we waiting for?

I Kissed Dating & Got Slapped

People seem to think I'm a matchmaker. I don't know where they get that idea. Just because I tend to enjoy watching this person and that person come together doesn't mean I am involved in making it happen. Well, only occasionally. But I do enjoy watching.

People also often ask me questions about this whole guy/girl thing. I have to admit my personal experience is rather limited. The only girl that I ever got as far as holding hands with is the one I married. But because I am constantly among young adults - and because I like to watch - I guess I have done a fair bit of thinking about this topic.

Here are the questions I would like to tackle today, and I would love some feedback on my answers and my take on what God's word says about this topic. You may think I am out to lunch, and you may be right. So please let me know.

1. Is there one person out there whom God intends for me to marry?
2. Is there a gift of singleness / celibacy?
3. How does God want me to break off my dating relationship?

Before getting started, I want to remind you that this is a recent phenomenon, this ability to choose your own life partner and to develop a romantic relationship with that person before getting married. Not very common prior to the 1920's in Western culture, and still not common in many cultures today. If you think arranged marriages were a bad idea and good riddance, consider that divorce has skyrocketed in just the last century, especially in Western culture.

1. Is there one person out there whom God intends for me to marry?
Even those of us who would answer this question "no" likely hold to the romantic idea that our relationship with the one we love is a match made in heaven. Well, go for it.

Certainly God knows/knew who you are/were going to marry, just like he knew you were going to read this blog post today while eating espresso flake ice cream out of the container. And if today you would like to think there is no better way to read a post than with a container of espresso flake ice cream at your elbow, don't cry to me when tomorrow you discover that sauerkraut sherbet is so much better.

Here is the problem with assuming that God has chosen one person in the world for you marry: Apart from the lack of any biblical promise that God is the personal matchmaker of anyone other than Isaac (Genesis 24), one day you are going to run into a problem. One day, after you have married someone whom you think is the most perfect person in the world, you will meet someone more perfect. It's nearly inevitable, like it is when you buy a pair of new shoes. Someone is going to walk by wearing shoes that look better than the ones you purchased. So did you make a mistake? Was there only one pair of shoes for you and you somehow missed it? Now what?

The solution for many people is to dump the old and move on to the new. Maybe it's because we think we somehow deserve the best, but maybe we share the age-old assumption with Adam and Eve that God has been holding out on us. Rather than being satisfied with the good thing that is in our hand, we reach out for the better thing that is not ours, and death enters our world.

So what am I saying? That there are many people out there who would make you a good husband or wife?

Absolutely. Choose one. Wisely and with much prayer. Be satisfied and grateful.

And when Mr/Ms More Perfect walks by, be happy for their spouse or spouse-to-be, and don't assume that they were made for you or you for them. You can only wear one pair of shoes at a time, and when it comes to marriage for most of us that means only one in a lifetime.

2. Is there a gift of singleness / celibacy?
I like easy questions. No.

Those who think otherwise need to read Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7 more carefully. After Jesus' famous quote about, "What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder," ("asunder" is such a great word, I had to use the KJV), he says this:

Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it.

And Paul, teaching about marital faithfulness and cautioning spouses not to deprive one another, says this, "I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that."

Many assume from these two places that God gives some people a special ability to stay single. But when Jesus says, "The one who can accept this should accept it," the context shows that he is talking about marriage, not singleness. And Paul's gift is not singleness - he had to be married in order to be a Pharisee - instead, it seems that he is talking about a gift of sexual self-control.

The idea in both passages is that if you can accept God's standards for marriage, you should get married. It is a gift. Unfortunately, in our day of choice, some are not chosen and so miss out on this gift. Others are too busy seeking first his Kingdom. So God gives them something better. As the title of a book suggests, Wide My World, Narrow My Bed.

3. How does God want me to break off my dating relationship?
Here is where I lose some friends. He doesn't want you to break off your dating relationship. Want it from the Bible? Here it is, from Malachi:

You flood the Lord's altar with tears. You weep and wail because he no longer pays attention to your offerings or accepts them with pleasure from your hands. You ask, "Why?" It is because the Lord is acting as the witness between you and the wife of your youth, because you have broken faith with her, though she is your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.

Has not the Lord made them one? In flesh and spirit they are his. And why one? Because he was seeking godly offspring. So guard yourself in your spirit, and do not break faith with the wife of your youth.

"I hate divorce," says the Lord God of Israel.

Whoa! This is talking about marriage, not dating, right?! Well, when your dating relationship has all the trappings of a marriage relationship minus (maybe) the sex, so that when you decide to break it off it hurts you both and everyone around you and you can't be in the same room with one another afterward, is that not divorce?

What kind of relationship on earth should be like that? Is God okay with the two of you never talking to one another again? Never reconciling your differences? Never forgiving one another and being brother and sister in Christ again?

So when I say that God doesn't want you breaking off your dating relationship, what I mean is that you should never get into a relationship that requires breaking off.

Just don't let it get there, until you either decide that you should get engaged and get married (and then God's standards kick in and it is intended to be 'till death do us part), or you decide that you should stay friends and marry someone else.

I hope I'm still your friend. Let me know.