Saturday, June 28, 2008

ALL THE FIERY DARTS

Some time ago I wrote a couple of devotional articles on Ephesians 6:16: “Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.” If you are interested in reading these, you can look in the archived devotionals, on the blog, for 8/17/2007 and 8/21/2007.

How do we raise the shield of faith?

Each time we engage in worship, each time we pray in faith, each time we open the Word of God believing that God is going to speak to us, we are performing an act of faith. Each time we activate our faith like this, we are taking up the “shield of faith.” Certainly, there are times when individual attacks come at us and, by faith, we speak directly to those “mountains.” But please understand that as our faith is being exercised we are continually raising the shield of faith.

I recently did some research on what Paul meant when he used the term “fiery darts.” I always thought he was referring to arrows that had been set on fire, like we see in some of the epic movies. I wasn’t exactly right; I was close but a little incomplete.

When Paul speaks of “fiery darts,” he is speaking from a First Century Roman context. The world Paul lived in was dominated by Rome and Roman military might was everywhere. A permanent Roman military garrison was just a few hundred yards from the Temple in Jerusalem. Roman soldiers maintained the rule of Rome throughout the world that Paul lived and ministered in. Paul constantly used the “Roman soldier” to illustrate truths he was teaching about.

The “fiery darts” were not exactly arrows. They were more like very thin, hollow pieces of reed or bamboo. Into the hollow portion, flammable liquid was inserted and somehow sealed in. Into one end of the hollow portion a wick was inserted. Just before the dart was to be used, the wick was set afire. The soldiers would then throw or launch the dart filled with flammable liquid at the enemy. When the projectile hit, it would shatter, splash the liquid, and the burning wick would set it on fire. This was a first century equivalent of a small “Molotov cocktail” or an incendiary bomb.

It was to protect against these fiery darts that the Romans got rid of the small metal shields used in warfare and moved to the larger wooden shield covered in leather. The Romans soaked their leather in water before going into battle so that when the fiery darts of the enemy came, the “soaked” leather would extinguish the fire.

And so we raise our “soaked” shields of faith! So that when the attacks come, we are ready.
The fiery darts are not primarily going to be attacks on your physical person, attacks of sickness or disease. The majority of the “fiery darts” will be attacks of temptation, lust, greed, disappointment, discouragement, jealousy. The attacks will be against your faith, your mind or your emotions.

The fiery darts of Roman warfare did not look all that lethal, all that menacing. If launched in daylight, you could hardly see the long thin projectiles coming. While looking innocent in flight, when they impacted and shattered, pain and death was released. How many times have I heard people say that they didn’t understand how dangerous and hurtful the problem would become until it was too late? Thousands and thousands of men and women in the church today are hooked and devastated under the control of pornography because they thought it would be no problem to spend a few minutes of personal time looking at porn. That quick looking was the launching of what seemed like a harmless projectile that exploded in their mind with devastating consequences. Current polls indicate that 50% of church going men and 20% of women are addicted to pornography.

When the enemy attacks and attempts to cripple your spirit and control your mind and emotions, it is time to take your stand in faith, it’s time to raise the shield.
“Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand… (Romans 5:1-2).

If the embracing of sinful thoughts or sinful behavior opened the door to the attack, then confess that sin according to 1 John 1:9, know that God will forgive you, and take a stand in the freedom of grace that Jesus Christ has provided for you. Declare that you are God’s child, brought into relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Declare that “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world” and that the power of the enemy is broken in your life! Declare that you are raising the shield of faith on the authority of the Word and in the Name of Jesus! Declare that by the shed blood of Jesus, “I am free!” And declare that the fiery dart of the enemy is extinguished by your faith in God, because God’s Word says so!

Saturday, June 21, 2008

LEARNING TO FLY

“But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

An eagle teaches its young to fly by coaxing or forcing them out of the nest. There is a reason eagles build their nests high on cliffs or at the very top of trees.

An eaglet will not learn to fly unless it gets out of the nest. As long as mommy and daddy are hovering and bringing it all the food it needs, why fly? Why not just stay in the nest, let somebody else do the work, and enjoy the good life?

Could there possibly be a lesson here for us?

In the majestic poetry of Deuteronomy 32:11-12, Moses pictures God with the imagery of an eagle caring for its young.

“As an eagle stirs up its nest,
Hovers over its young,
Spreading out its wings, taking them up,
Carrying them on its wings,

So the LORD alone led him,
And there was no foreign god with him.” (The “him” referred to here is the nation of Israel.)

When the time comes for an eaglet to fly, its mother will either stir up the nest or coax the eaglet out by keeping food just beyond its reach and forcing the child to stretch out past the boundaries of the nest. When the mother “stirs up the nest” she does so by hovering over the nest and with the wind from her powerful wings, she forces everything comfortable out of the nest. All the soft padding of feathers, grass and leaves is blown away and the poor little eaglet has nothing but sticks and rough edges to rest on. The comfort of home becomes not all that nice a place to live.

Why would mother do this? Has she gone mad? No, mother eagle loves her child and knows that in order for it to survive, it has to get out of the nest and into the bigger world. And this means it has to learn to fly. However, the eaglet will not learn to fly on its own. Eaglets do not jump up one day after a good meal and a snooze on a cushy pillow and suddenly declare, “I’m full, I’m rested and I’m ready to fly!” It doesn’t just happen, not for the eagles and not for us. People who are comfortable and at rest will not learn to fly in the Spirit or in faith, so the Father will stir their nest. Like it or not, He will stir your nest!

And so mother eagle will coax or force the little eagle out of the nest. But the eaglet is not going to fly on the first try; it may think it is, but it isn’t going to happen. And so down it begins to fall, flapping its undeveloped wings for all it is worth but it’s not flying, it’s just trying. Mother lets it fall just so far and then down she swoops and catches the eaglet on her wings and carries it back up to the nest where the test begins again. Over and over the mother pushes the little eagle to try and each time it gets a little stronger until one day, down it goes, flapping and trying. Suddenly it all comes together and now mom and baby are soaring and flying. Now the baby has the “wings of an eagle” and it’s a baby no more!

As God was there to coax, to push, to protect and to shelter Israel, so He is with us. With the patience of a mother He is teaching us “to fly.” The mother eagle never abandons her child but out of love she stirs the nest, coaxes, coaches, and stands ready to step in and help as her beloved child “learns to fly.”

Friday, June 13, 2008

DON'T STEP HERE!

Land mines became accepted weapons of war in WWII. In the last 65 years, millions of land mines have been used in conflict to kill and maim the enemy. Armies use land mines in specific areas and then as the conflict moves on, often the land mines are left in place. The devastation that we have seen on the TV news from Iraq often mentions IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devices) which are a type of homemade land mines.

Mines are indiscriminate in who they kill or maim. Once they are put down, it doesn’t matter to the device who gets hurt: an enemy, a friend, an adult, a child; whoever triggers the device is the one who is attacked.

It is currently estimated that over 100 million land mines have been left in areas of previous conflict. Portions of Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia, Vietnam and the Balkans have tens of millions of unexploded mines that have yet to be discovered. Hundreds of innocents are killed and maimed every week because they accidentally step on an explosive device.

When a left-over land mine is discovered and before it is removed, a warning sign goes up to keep everyone away. The warning sign is a reasonable and appropriate way to let all know: “DANGER! DON’T STEP HERE!”

Paul tells the church, “I am writing to warn you of some things that can totally ruin your day. We were taught these by studying the Exodus and learning from their example” (see 1 Corinthians 10:6 and 11). Paul likens the journey to Canaan (the Promised Land) to our journey of faith in Christ and suggests that we can totally mess up our life in Him if we don’t pay attention to the warning signs that have been planted by the Holy Spirit. Paul lists five things that will blow up in our face if we trigger them, and while they won’t rob us of our eternal life, they will certainly ruin the heck out of our spiritual journey.

Here are the five:

1. Lust
This is not primarily sexual lust; this is selfishness and attempting to gratify oneself at the expense of someone else. Paul also refers to this in other places as coveting (Romans7:7), which is to desire what belongs to someone else.

2. Idolatry
Idolatry means that we have replaced God as primary in our lives and put something else in His place. Idolatry can take the form of material things (home, business, money), it can be another person, or it can be a fantasy, like television, the movies or pornography.

3. Sexual Immorality
Immorality is so rampant in our society that I know this paragraph will not be well received by many in the church. In an attempt to “modernize” the Scriptures, there has recently come an argument that says, “Paul and the other NT writers were writing from a First Century perspective and what they have to say has to be translated into the cultural language of the Twenty First Century.” OK, let’s do that! Here’s what the Scripture has to say about immorality in the Twenty First Century: “All sex outside of marriage is sin! Oral sex is sex and that means it is sin! Sex prior to marriage is sin!” How’s that for an updated version!

4. Testing The Lord
Testing the Lord is demanding that God do what is contrary to His will or inconsistent with His character. The person who lies and cheats in a relationship or in business and then demands that God bless them is “testing the Lord.” Positive confession in the extreme is dangerously close to “testing the Lord.” Testing the Lord is pushing the boundaries to see just how far you can go, to see how far God’s longsuffering reaches.

5. Grumbling/Murmuring
When individuals or groups begin to complain about God’s plan and the leaders God has raised up, this is nothing less than an act of rebellion and God will punish a rebellious spirit. Sowing discord among the brethren is a sin. The children of Israel in the wilderness were complaining/grumbling because instead of being taken immediately into the “Promise,” they were taken through the wilderness and like spoiled, rebellious children they complained and wanted to go back to Egypt. Murmuring has its roots in unbelief and is a denial of the goodness and mercy of God.

When the children of Israel ignored the warning signs and stepped into these forbidden areas on their way to Canaan, it triggered a response from God.

Paul wrote these verses in 1 Corinthians 10:6-11 to alert us to an existing minefield. His words are a giant warning sign that says, “DANGER, DON’T STEP HERE!”

Friday, June 6, 2008

WHICH WAY DO YOU LEAN?

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths” (Proverbs 3:5-6).


Solomon was very engaged in the training of his children, just as every father should be. A large part of Solomon’s writing in Proverbs is a father sharing wisdom principles with his children. Proverbs 3:5-6 is one of those nuggets of gold that is worth more than a casual glance.

I break this wonderful passage down this way—it works for me!

1. The Challenge

The challenge is presented to us in two different ways. Maybe twice because we are stubborn and slow to learn? “Trust in the Lord with all your heart” and “In all your ways acknowledge Him.”

The word translated trust means “to lie helpless, facedown.” It is a picture of someone who has surrendered and is waiting for the command to obey. It does not suggest that we turn off our brain and ignore our intelligence and common sense. It is an acknowledgement that we are limited in our capacities and abilities and He is not. He is God and we are not!

“In all your ways acknowledge Him” is speaking about the entire course of your life. It means that we set Him first and invite Him to be involved in all aspects of our life: personal and professional; public and private; present and future. To acknowledge does not mean to tip your hat to God, to nod as if in agreement; it means to totally and wholeheartedly embrace God and His working in your life. The word acknowledge here also means “to know” on an intimate, personal level. These two challenges are clear in their boundaries; we are to choose to acknowledge/to know Him “in all our ways” and “with all our heart.”

2. The Question

Solomon moves quickly from the first part of the challenge to “and lean not on your own understanding.” It is as though the writer is saying that one of the ways you can muddy up your faith and dilute it is through a continual retreating back to reliance on our own abilities and intellect. Again, this verse is not saying that we should abandon any kind of intellectual pursuit and become a mindless automaton. It is saying that we must not make the base line of our faith our trust in ourselves, in our intellect and our abilities. We are to engage our intellect and wisdom but in submission to the plan and purpose of God.

The question that has to be answered by each of us is, “Which way do I lean?” Are we content to make our own way through life resting on our own abilities and wisdom? Are we so arrogant that we believe we have most, if not all, the answers? Have I brought my intelligence and abilities to a place of submission? If not, why not? What would hold us back from letting God’s blessing flow into our life?

Which way do you lean?

3. The Promise

And He will direct your paths.” This is God’s promise to His children. God says, “I will direct or make straight/successful the paths of your life.” When I study this verse, I keep going back to a mental picture of a bobsled run. Most of us have seen bobsled races as a part of the Winter Olympics on TV or perhaps on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. On each side of the track are eight- or ten-feet-high banks of ice and snow that keep the sled on the track where it is supposed to be. The slickness of the ice, the accumulating speed, and the downhill slope make it difficult under the best of circumstances to keep the sled centered on the track. Even though the sled may bounce from side to side, with the safeguard of the banks the sled will stay on the racing track most of the time.

So it is with our downhill race to the finish line of God’s purpose for our life. God makes a promise to us: “You put your trust in Me and get it off yourself and I will keep you on track. When you start to slip and slide, I’ll be there and I will keep you safe and on course.”

Which way do you lean?

“The weaker we feel, the harder we lean. And the harder we lean, the stronger we grow spiritually.” J.I. Packer