Dew of Hermon!

How good and pleasant it is
    when brothers can live together!

    It is like fine oil on the head,
    running down on the beard,
    running down Aaron's beard,
    on his robes.

    It is like the dew of Hermon
    falling on the mountains of Zion.
    For there the LORD has appointed the blessing—
    life forevermore.

Psalm 133

When the early settlers in America were looking for places to settle down and live, an issue of prime importance was the water supply. The place may have been pristine and beautiful, but if there was no supply of fresh, clean water it would be rejected. Water is the second essential for life. The first is air to breath, then water to drink and finally food to eat.

When God was preparing the land that would belong to the Children of Israel He put in an amazing water supply called the “dew of Hermon.” Mount Hermon was and is known for its snow covered peaks. When the snows melted in the spring and summer the water came down into Lake Galilee which fed the Jordan River. The water system for Israel literally was water from above!

When the house in which I live was built in 1928 my wife’s grandfather installed a cistern. A cistern is an underground tank for storing rain water. The water that fell on our roof during a storm or even a gentle rain was channeled into the tank. By the time we moved in to the house in 1984 the cistern was no longer used and we depended on a well behind the house. Well water can be clean and safe to drink, but it can also be polluted. We filter out lots of iron from our well water before we drink it or use it even for washing our clothes. Rain water, water from above is always pure and clean and safe to drink! The only way rain water can be polluted is by smoke or dirt in the air. Even so, the rain will quickly clean the air and then provide the pure water needed for life!

The Dew of Mount Hermon is an important lesson for life itself. Where do you get the spiritual water needed to sustain your life? Does it come from a well dug deep into the world system? Or does it come from Mount Hermon where God Himself deposits pure water for you to drink? Most of us drink some of both.

When it comes to the spiritual water needed to sustain your life determine to drink only from the cistern and not from the well!

The Power of Bowing!

“‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,'

says the LORD Almighty."

Zechariah 7:13

The rain falls on the just and the unjust! God blesses the worst offenders with water to drink and air to breath! His mercy extends to his enemies. Evil men are still granted food to eat and clothes to wear. Most of them have a place to sleep at night. God could instantly remove life support from everyone who opposes Him! It is His sovereign choice that those who oppose God continue to be able to rebel against Him.

So what is the advantage of the righteous? If God sustains all life then what is the blessing of following Him? The core of your amazement should center on the fact that if you listen to God, He will listen to you! We spend lots of our focus in life encouraging each other to listen to God. This is by all measurements the right thing to do. But never forget that if you listen to God, God will listen to you! That changes everything!

There are millions of people who listen to Glenn Beck on the radio and watch him on television every day. But Glenn Beck does not and cannot listen to all of them. It is impossible. There are many millions of people who listen to God everyday and the miracle of miracles is this: God listens to each and every one of them! When you listen to God, He will listen to you!

If you were an advisor to a great king how seriously would you take your position? There would be a sober reality in knowing that your thoughts might influence the actions of the king. The sovereignty of the king would not be threatened by listening to an advisor.

The sovereignty of God is not in jeopardy because He is willing to listen to you! When you pray consider this: The world and everything in it may be changed today because of something you say to God!

If I listen to God, then I am forever and always changed! If God listens to me I can have a word to say about everything that exists! That is the amazing power of bowing your head!

Ultimate Secret to Happiness!

Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior.

Habakkuk 3:17-18

Have you ever tried to make a deal with God? The movies are salted and peppered with people who make promises to God. “If you will save me from this storm, get me home safely from this war, or keep my child from dying, then I will serve You and do the thing that I know You want me to do anyway.” It reminds me of the Don Knotts character, Barney Fife. Barney was the sheriff’s deputy who was always making bold statements and demands while everyone knew that Barney was too weak to back up his words. Attempting to negotiate with God is like trying to talk the sun into coming up this morning. We are like a flea trying to reason with the dog!

Remember the story about Abraham negotiating with God about the fate of Sodom. The amount of righteous people necessary to save Sodom dropped all the way to ten when the negotiations ended. Why did Abraham not seal the deal by trusting in the righteousness of Lot and ask God to save the city for the sake of one righteous man? If the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord, then so was the heart of Abraham. In spite of the circumstances Abraham ultimately desired God’s will.

Truthfully, I can’t ever remember consciously trying to bargain with God. But I think we all do it every day. When I am tempted to do something contrary to God’s will then I enter in to a moment of negotiation with God. Questions flood my mind and heart.

“Do you really want me to do this thing?”

“Is this essential for my walk with You?”

“What will happen to me if I don’t obey?”

Before you start feeling really guilty about asking such questions don’t forget that Jesus asked God to remove the cup that God wanted Him to drink. It is not sin to ask God. The sin comes when I want my will to rule over God’s will. That was the original position of Satan and of Adam and Eve.

These verses in Habakkuk give us the ultimate secret to happiness. It is this: When everything around you fails you can still, and you must rejoice in the LORD, and be joyful in God!

What You Will Be!

May the Lord make your love increase and overflow for each other and for everyone else, just as ours does for you. May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all his holy ones.

1 Thessalonians 3:12-13

I once worked for a man who had the considerable ability to elicit excellence from his employees. His method was simple. He ignored your past, tweaked your present and praised your future. His concern was how to help you do a better job in what you were currently doing and perhaps most importantly he praised you for your potential and the possibilities! “Do you know that you could be the very best at what you do?” When he told me that, I was encouraged and determined to work as hard as I could to make it a reality.

There has never been an Olympic Gold Medalist who did not believe it could happen! Faith is a part of every human achievement.

Of course the negative of faith is true as well. The man who believes he will never succeed, almost never does. The man who believes that he will never get well rarely does. The bottom line is that if you believe you will fail, you usually do.

Do you believe that the promises God made in the Bible will come true? Do you believe that one day you will be “blameless and holy in the presence of God” when Jesus returns with His holy ones? The reason Satan tries to keep you from listening to the Word of God is that God wants to tell you about your potential in Him and the possibilities of your life with Him forever!

Because of Jesus and His sacrifice, God ignores your past, tweaks your present and praises your future! The glory of what God has created you to become and what He is willing to strengthen you to become is literally beyond your mind’s ability to grasp!

When you listen to God and accept what He says then the door to your amazing future swings wide open as He bids you step through. The most blessed among us may touch the hem of that garment here on earth, but when we exit this life, all who follow Jesus will explode into the Son shine of Heaven!

Like It Will Be!

"This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel
       after that time," declares the LORD.
       "I will put my law in their minds
       and write it on their hearts.
       I will be their God,
       and they will be my people.

No longer will a man teach his neighbor,
       or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD,'
       because they will all know me,
       from the least of them to the greatest,"
       declares the LORD.
       "For I will forgive their wickedness
       and will remember their sins no more.”

Jeremiah 31:33-34

What do you know that no one has to teach you? There are certain things that God has put in the hearts of men and women for which they need no education. A baby is taught how to talk, but no baby is ever taught how to cry. Crying is a built-in function of an infant. Toddlers are not taught how to eliminate waste from their bodies. They are taught where and when, but not how. That ability comes without any teaching or even training. Before the days of “sex education” there were no long lines of confused newlyweds needing a class!

According to Jeremiah 31:33-34 there will come a time when the knowledge of God will be written on minds and hearts and they will “all know Me!”

Just imagine a time when everyone you meet and know is sincerely pursuing God with an honest heart, a time when every word you hear is foundationally true and no lie vibrates the air! It will be a time when there are no ulterior motives and everyone’s heart is pure. Love will be the final arbiter of all disputes and the peace of Christ will reign like the sun on a warm summer day!

But that day is not yet here. It will come like the line of the song, “Heaven came down and glory filled my soul!”

Until it does, there is a way we can practice and touch a little of the reality of heaven. When the Church assembles, you find yourself in a microcosm of heaven. The next time you are with other true believers ponder the moment. You are experiencing a tiny sample of the time that is to come when all men will know God “from the least of them to the greatest.” You can lay bare your heart because you know that no one will violate your confidence. You can forget about protecting your things because no one would steal. You are relieved of the need to judge each other’s motives.

Frankly, that is why I find it hard to rush home after church. I crave one more conversation with a man whose heart is running hard after God! It is a little like it will be forever!

Let Jesus Pinch Hit!

Jesus replied, "You may go. Your son will live."  The man took Jesus at his word and departed. While he was still on the way, his servants met him with the news that his boy was living. When he inquired as to the time when his son got better, they said to him, "The fever left him yesterday at the seventh hour."

Then the father realized that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, "Your son will live." So he and all his household believed.

John 4:50-53

The difference between the best baseball batter who has ever swung the lumber and the worst strong young man who couldn’t hit the ball if it was as big as a basketball is timing. Those who can swing the bat at the precise instant the ball enters the strike zone make baseball look like simple child’s play. Anyone can have “beginner’s luck” and swing the bat at a home run ball once. It is only if you can “put the bat on the ball” over and over again you will begin to hear the cheer of the crowds!

The man who came to Jesus in John 4 and asked Jesus to heal his son still speaks to us today. Jesus told the man that his son would live and the man “took Jesus at His word.” That means he accepted what Jesus told him and acted on it. This was the desert time! He had heard the Word and yet nothing around him had changed. There was nothing to tell him that when he returned home he would not be attending his son’s funeral, nothing except the Word of Jesus. Then came the moment of revelation that forever sealed his future and the future of his household. His servants were coming to meet him with the news that his son would live! When he asked them when the boy got better he realized that when Jesus spoke the words his son was healed!

The timing of God is perfect. He created the world at just the right moment. Jesus was born, and finished His work at precisely the right time. And you and I were born according to the perfect timing of God. The plans for your life and mine were complete before we ever took our first breath. Occasionally we, like the father of the boy who was healed, see how perfect God’s timing is and our faith is strengthened. But know this: The timing of God is perfect in every second of your life. There is never a time when Jesus leaves us to fend for ourselves to return later and clean up the mess. Jesus did say, “I will be with you always.”

I might as well end with the baseball analogy. Many believers study the Bible and pray that Jesus will be their batting coach in the game of life. And certainly it is a good idea to learn from Jesus as we stand at the plate and face  fastballs from Satan! But, the best idea is to step aside and let Jesus be the pinch hitter!

The Only Hope!

When terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none. Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor. They will try to get a vision from the prophet; the teaching of the law by the priest will be lost, as will the counsel of the elders. The king will mourn, the prince will be clothed with despair, and the hands of the people of the land will tremble. I will deal with them according to their conduct, and by their own standards I will judge them. Then they will know that I am the LORD.

Ezekiel 7:25-27

An accused murderer may stand before a judge and jury and detail all the wonderful things he has done over many years. He may remind those who stand to condemn him that this was his first and only murder and he should be given a second chance. He can show them all his meritorious awards for outstanding public service. But all those things are irrelevant when it comes to whether or not, if guilty of murder the man should receive the penalty for his sin!

Even a casual reading of the Old Testament will convince you that nations also are judged for the evil they have done. There were many good people in Hitler’s Germany. There were many wonderful deeds of kindness performed every day, but the nation was judged because of its evil not because of its righteousness.

As Christians it is easy to become confused about nations. Jesus died for people not nations. The blood of Jesus covers your sin when you come to Him. The Bible never says that His blood covers the sin of an entire nation. Nations are not saved, people are! When a man or woman turns to Jesus in faith and repents of sin the union with Jesus is complete. When a nation turns to Jesus it is simply called a revival. If you live in a nation where everyone but you turns to Jesus and is saved, you can still persist in your rebellion and go to Hell!

The Bible clearly states that a nation can be healed because of God’s people turning to Him and prayerfully repenting. But national sin will come face to face with the justice of God Almighty.

For almost forty years the people of the United States of America have been given opportunity after opportunity to stop the killing of innocent children before they are born. We have not stopped it! Will God bless America and never hold us accountable for the lives that have been lost? For an almost equal amount of time we have told God that He is not welcome in our governmental affairs. Will God continue to bless a country above all others when He is ushered out of every matter of state?

Don’t be deceived. The faith of our Founding Fathers is of no consequence as we stand before God today. It matters not what they intended. What matters is what we have done. For that we will be held accountable. Pray for revival! Revival is the only hope for America!