By Dr. Nelson Perret. Familiarity with a subject often leads to a very superficial understanding of reality. So it is with the passion and crucifixion of our Lord Jesus Christ. We all know the story. In fact, we know it so well that the depth of physical suffering Jesus of Nazareth went through is scarce
Church Leadership
Long-Suffering in Candy
By Lee Taylor. This conversation took place in a Sunday School class when the question was asked, “What attribute of God do you see most clearly in your daily work?” In a class including many high-level professionals, Mary Long gave the first response, “I see God’s long-suffering in my job.”
“Mary, what do you do for a living?”
“I work for Whitman’s Candy Company. I am a ‘lidder.’ That means I put the lids on every other box that comes down the line. Another woman does the ones I skip.”
“Does it take long-suffering to do that every day?”
“Oh, does that take long-suffering! That takes a lot of long-suffering and patience to do it every day. That really takes a lot of long-suffering!
“Then, too, I want to be a good witness on my job. A lot of the women I work with are hard to deal with. I need long-suffering to get to know them, sometimes just to put up with their problems. I didn’t used to be able to handle them at all. Now I am learning there are a lot of people who need Jesus in my work place. It really takes patience to deal with them. I want the same kind of long-suffering God had with me so I can show it to them.
“And I see the long-suffering that God has with us. We fail Him so many times.”
The class went on to reflect on God’s long-suffering with us, even as Christians. We go to him for forgiveness time after time. He does not treat us as so many boxes coming down the assembly line for forgiveness. He deals with each of us gently and personally-in long-suffering; we are His people.
Sometimes we can look at our work as being closely aligned with one of the great attributes of God or one of the names used in the Bible to refer to who He is. Sometimes it is easier to link our work to what He does. Our work is an extension of either who He is so that He can be known through our work, or an extension of what He does so that His works may be known through our work.
People in legal professions might think of God’s justice. People in social work of God’s kindness. People in the grocery business of God’s providence. People in politics of God’s power.
A restaurateur may draw a vision for daily work from Christ preparing breakfast for the disciples by the seashore after his resurrection. A military person might see God’s hosts as revealed to the servant of Elisha. The stories of the bitter waters at Mara purified for the children of Israel in the wilderness might be the right image for someone who works in water treatment.
In our daily work, we each see unique facets of God’s character and of His great works. He teaches us each unique things. We need to bring all these things together into the Body of Christ.
We need Mary’s under
Easter Train Coming
By Bryan Chapell. Yo-Yos, pet rocks and Reeboks-the fads come and go with dizzying speed as America’s youth undecide, “what’s hot.” But in the simpler times of my own grade school years, there was nothing more “cool” than “stretched nickels.”
The value of a stretched nickel was not determined by how sparingly you spent it but by how flat you squashed it. The thinner the sliver of silver in one’s pocket, the more its owner’s “cool” quotient inflated. As a result some kids stretched nickels by squeezing them in vices, crushing them between rocks or hammering them on driveways. But the coolest kids always had their nickels stretched by trains. They put a nickel on a train track and let a 100-ton locomotive do its work.
Sacrificing a nickel to a train was no small investment to a kid of my day. A nickel amounted to an entire week’s allowance. With a nickel you could get five pieces of Double Bubble, or three jaw breakers, or a slab of gum with two baseball cards. Still, despite the anticipated loss, in the quest for adolescent “cool” I also made my pilgrimage to the local train tracks one Saturday. (Now, I was young and oblivious to the dangers of my actions. So, do not take this account as an endorsement for what I did.)
I stood on the train tracks and looked far down the line. Though it was just a speck on the horizon, I saw a train coming. The smoke of the diesel engine puffed into the air and my hopes soared with it. “I am gonna be so cool,” I gloated inwardly.
I put my nickel on the track and I waited-and waited, and waited: five minutes, ten minutes, thirty minutes. My, that train was coming slowly. The speck never seemed to get larger no matter how many thousand times I checked its progress. If it was moving at all, it was going to take till Christmas to arrive. Though my vision was never quite good enough to tell for sure what was happening, I slowly began to lose confidence that train was coming at all.
As my confidence in the coming of that slow train waned, the longings of my sweet tooth grew. And before I knew it a stretched nickel seemed far less valuable than the sweet savor of Double Bubble and sour-apple jawbreakers. The thought of things more immediately gratifying eventually won out as the train delayed. I picked my unstretched nickel off the tracks, trekked to the local candy shop, and whether that train ever came I cannot say.
But I can tell you of another slow train that did come. It was a train called Death. It brought the sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ, on the Cross. The schedule of that train was marked not by hours and minutes, but by millennia, because the Scriptures say that Jesus is the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world (Revelation 13:8) Through his prophets God announced this train centuries before it arrived.
Amazing Vision
It is one of the wonders of Easter that God saw that train while it was only a speck on the horizon of history. The prophecies of the Old Testament span many lifetimes to reveal an amazing vision possessed by our heavenly Father. When the slow train of Death that would come to crush the Savior was too far off to be seen by any human eye, Scripture reveals God clearly perceived this train centuries before its arrival in all its gory detail: The hiss of the brake release echoes the gasp of the Son as they put the thorns on his brow; the rattle of rocks in the rail bed, the roll of the dice as they gamble for his garment; the roar of the engine, the clamor of the crowd that cries, “Crucify Him”; the pummel of the tracks, the rhythm of the lash that stripes his back; the driving of a piston, die hammer of the blows that pound the nails; the wail of the whistle, the cry of the Lamb, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani”; and, above all billows the cloud of smoke that is the darkness as the Father must turn His back on His own Son. All was foretold. The Father saw this slow train coming while it was still distant down the tracks of history.
The miraculous vision, the prophesies of Christ’s passion reveal, is one of the great comforts of the Easter season. The difficulties of our world, our occupations and our families can seem to wrap us in a darkness so deep we wonder if God is really aware of what we face. In our pain and confusion we cry out, “Doesn’t God see?” Easter proclaims he sees and knows.
Like the headlight of a train piercing the foggiest night, God’s vision penetrates the darkness we face. He sees the problems. He knows the pain. If neither the darkness of evil nor the distance of centuries that enshrouded his Son could cloud his vision, then our darkness does not blind him now.
Amazing Love
But there is another miracle as evident in the Easter prophesies as God’s amazing vision. It is the wonder of an amazing love. The Father saw that slow train that would crush His Son coming down the tracks of time. That is a miracle. But an even greater wonder is that the Father, seeing that slow train coming, left his Son there.
The Father left Jesus on the tracks that Death would travel. Your soul and mine were to be purchased at the cost of this sacrifice. And though the train was slow, nothing distracted God from his purpose. Nothing of greater value called him away from his diving intention. Even the life of his own Son was not more precious than our salvation.
It is an amazing thought, isn’t it? The God who sees so far through history sees as deeply into us. He sees our sins, our failures, our doubts and longings. He sees all that could make us undesirable to him. Yet he deemed nothing more valuable than our souls. Nothing appealed to him more than us. He was not distracted and he did not lift the One infinitely more precious than silver from the tracks on which Death traveled until all was accomplished.
The amazing love of God revealed at Easter further comforts us in our troubled world. For even if we believe that God sees through our darkness, when our world caves in our hearts cry out, “Doesn’t God care?” The heart of God displayed at Easter responds, “How could I care more?”
Look through God’s eyes and see how great is his care for you. There coming down the tracks of time is the slow moving train that will crush life from his Son. It will take only the slightest motion of God’s hand to trip the lever diverting the train down another track. Every parental impulse is to lift the Son from danger and clasp him to the Father’s breast in loving relief. Yet our Heavenly Father sees that if the train crushes not Jesus it will destroy you and me. He looks at us with our sin-stained clothes and angry eyes. He looks once more at the train bearing down upon us, and then his eyes settle on his Son. The decision is made. The gaze will not shift again until the moment of the awful blow.
We are deemed more precious than the Most Precious. The Father gave the Son to save us. “It was the Lord’s will to crush Him” (Isaiah 53:10) that we might live. Nothing was more valuable to the Father than purchasing your soul and mine-not even the life of His Son. What an amazing heart beats in heaven for you and for me! What a wonderful reassurance that heartbeat provides when our fallen world does not make sense and our lives are full of pain. When explanations are not possible we still know God cares. He already purchased us at too high a price not to consider us precious to him now.
The amazing love and vision revealed in biblical prophecies of the Easter events are wonderful encouragements. But there is another wonder the prophecies illumine. It is the amazing purpose in God’s Easter plan. God revealed long ago that he would not allow his Holy One to see decay. (Psalm 16:10) The grave would not own the Son. For this to be true the power of Death itself had to be destroyed. God planned every detail.
When Death struck Jesus the collision not only crushed life from him, it ruptured the engines of the train itself. And the sin that fueled this formerly irresistible force spewed upon the Savior leaving Death powerless to run the rails of time again. It could not even inch beyond the point of impact with our Lord.
When it struck Jesus, Death collided with its own destruction. Jesus rose from the wreck to prove the once mighty train had made its last run on the route heaven claims. From the ruin God purposed a resurrection whose impact reverberates still in our lives. For there are moments of despair and difficulty when it is not enough that God sees or cares. We also question, “Can’t God help?” Easter echoes the answer that God is able.
In Christ’s resurrection God demonstrates he will achieve his good purposes even if the forces of a fallen world seem to travel unhindered for a time. The train whose destination was the Cross proves God’s plan is precise, his actions are sure, and he is never behind his schedule. Even though our circumstances may confuse and trouble us, Easter bells announce the arrival of the train of God’s amazing purpose that cannot be hindered.
The train called Death crushed Jesus. Then Jesus commandeered the train. With his death he conquered Death and gave this train a new name. The train left the station of human history names Death, but it arrives at the destination of God’s purpose as the Death of Death. Now as it travels on through the lives of millions of souls in the largest cities and remotest places Jesus calls to us. He beckons us aboard the train powered by the righteousness no man can match and bound for the destination no man can reach alone.
No force can keep the passengers aboard this train from the purposes God intends for their lives. Their route is perfectly planned. Their arrival is sure because Lord Jesus engineers this train. It may seem to take a while, and sometimes it may seem delayed but the train is coming. Through history it rolls, to heaven it rides. Jesus is at the throttle and neither sin, circumstances, nor Satan himself can stop this train or hinder its riders.
Year after year the Easter train comes. Each time it passes it roars anew Christ’s victory and our hope. Earth’s clamors fade when the Easter train comes. Christ’s victory drowns every echo of doubt and makes faint the loudest fears. When we see his amazing vision, when our hearts perceive his amazing love, when our minds conceive his amazing purposes; confidence grows in our souls, courage resonates in our lives and rejoicing springs from our lips.
Jesus rose from the wreck for me and now he engineers my victory. The Easter train is coming again. My Savior rides it still. Because I see him coming, I face this life with the confident words of the old Negro spiritual as my own victory song: “Ride on King Jesus, no man can hinder me. Ride on, Ride on, King Jesus-Now, no man can hinder me!”
Calling Pastors to Partnership in Prayer
By Michael F. Ross. There’s a new breath of freshness blowing here and there. The word “revival” is finding its home in the hearts and on the lips of more and more people, and especially more and more clergymen. Since the Lord put me flat on my back in 1986, I have had an increasing burden, a growing obsession, for an awakening prompted by the outpouring of God’s Spirit upon His people, beginning with the Presbyterian Church in America, beginning with me. Many other men share this God-sent burden.
But while we sense that mixture of painful waiting and hopeful anticipation, we often ask ourselves, “How shall it begin? What can I do? How do I prepare for the return of the presence and power of Christ to His church and to the congregation I serve?
Careful study of the history of revivals and the Book of Acts in particular, will show us that prayer-partnership in prayer-is the seedbed of revival. History will also show that preachers-the clergymen-have so often been used by God to usher in revivals. Naturally, then, pastors should today be leading in a partnership of prayer.
If we turn to the Book of Acts and read carefully its first chapter, we find a partnership in prayer among the early New Testament church leaders. They were told to go into the city and wait until revival came. They waited… but they also prayed in partnership.
What do you suppose they prayed about? Was it about which evangelistic program to use? Was it about which committee Matthew would best serve as treasurer? Was it about the latest church-growth, buzz-word: Networking, franchising, ranching instead of shepherding, homogeneous units or organic growth? Did they all read Dress For Success and In Search of Excellence? Did they pray about choices of architects and advertising agencies? I sincerely doubt it. I venture to guess that they prayed about the following:
- Their lack of burden for and love for the lost, the love Christ displayed so awesomely.
- Their silliness, petty pride, and nit-picky dealings of ego against ego that proved a lack of sobriety in their souls.
- Their spirit of expediency in their approach to ministry.
- Their spiritual cowardice, denials and hypocrisy.
- Their fears, anxieties and deeply-rooted weaknesses.
- Their hunger for purity, strength and moral earnestness.
- Their need for vision, hope, confidence and simple faith.
- Their desire to be free of discouragement and indifference.
- Their absence of power, authority, purpose and direction.
- Their burning passion to sense the presence of Christ again.
- Their need for God’s approval rather than for man’s.
I also suspect that over the ten day span, they waited and prayed, their prayer partnership went from coldly uncomfortable and awkward to warm and liberating.
Beloved, could that not take place in the forty-eight presbyteries of the PCA? It could if we wanted it to happen. If we formed partnerships in prayer, it could happen.
But in order for that to happen, we pastors must admit some glaring needs in our lives as shepherds of God’s flocks. First, we must stop the trendy approach to ministry that relies upon Madison Avenue techniques, performance seminars and demographic rearrangements to “build” the church. Businessmen do not need to tell us how to grow the church. Our Bibles tell us that preaching, prayer, spiritual power in ministry, purity of leadership, perseverance by pastors and the presence of Christ in the Body are what grows Christ’s church.
Second, the local congregation of the PCA can be no healthier nor holier than the fellowship at presbytery. If our people are aloof, apathetic, indolent, arrogant, materialistic, competitive, routinely bored and lacking both zeal and love, it is because they are taught that by their elders who bring presbytery home with them.
Third, we must stop seeing our presbyteries as merely administrative units and begin to see them as gatherings of the fellowship of brethren in need of encouragement, support, tenderness and acceptance. If we want to put a stop to people “falling through the cracks” in church, we’ve got to first seal up the gaping chasms of presbytery.
Finally, we must “prove to be examples to those who believe” by modeling what does not come easily, but what is essential to revival: transparency, confession of sin, admission of one’s needs and weaknesses, brokenness, a contrite heart and a lowly spirit. Some will no doubt say, “Dream on!” Others will shrug it off out of opposition and fear. A few might sigh, “Boy, if it could only be that way!” The spirit of discouragement, superficiality, isolation and distrust runs to the marrow of the church.
But I respond: All the more reason to purpose to be partners in prayer! Jesus said: “This kind (of spirit) cannot come out by anything but prayer” (Mark 9:29).We must agree; we must begin partnership in prayer. So I urge the PCA, beginning with the ministers, to join me in 1990 and in this new decade to prepare for revival and reformation. Begin by prayer. Be prayer partners with me and others for the sake of Christ and His PCA. As we pray together we’ll gam confidence through partnership in prayer. May the world notice our confidence in Christ as they did in the Apostle’s lives: ” …they were marveling, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13) -partners with Christ; a partnership in prayer.
Taking Prayer Requests Seriously
By Frank Barker. People frequently make prayer requests of us. So many, in fact, that we tend not to take them as seriously as we should. I think of some requests I received recently:
…a mother asking that I pray for her wayward son
… a missionary, for the Gospel to penetrate his area
… a minister’s wife, for her discouraged husband
… a grandfather, for his seriously ill Granddaughter
… a wife, for her marriage
When Jesus Made a Prayer Request
Matthew tells us of an occasion when Jesus made a prayer request. At Gethsemane He said to Peter, James and John, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death: tarry ye here and watch with me” (Matthew 26:38). R.C. Trench says Jesus uses a remarkable word that points to an unfathomable depth of anguish. Mark’s term is that he was “sore amazed.” He wanted human comfort, companionship. His hand, in the darkness, gropes for the hand of a friend. He asked that they pray for Him.
He then made a request of the Father: “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me” (vs. 39). What is the cup of which He is speaking? Hugh Martin in his classic, The Shadow of Calvary, writes:
That curse of God, from which he came to redeem his elect people-the penal desertion on the cross-–the withdrawal of all comfortable views and influences-and the present consciousness of the anger of God against him as the surety, substitute … these were the elements mingled in the cup … which was now to be put into his hands: and the prospect caused him deadly sorrow! Christ is disappointed in His disciples’ response.
“And He cometh unto the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could ye not watch with me one hour? Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (vs. 40-41).
The flesh, human nature, is weak. He was experiencing the weakness of His own human nature and theirs was fallen. He says: “You need to watch and be constantly vigilant against anything that would trip you up. Be vigilant against slothfulness in prayer especially. Watch and pray that ye enter not into temptation!”
A little later they defected! They were sleeping when they should have been praying. Meanwhile He has peace, having been strengthened in answer to prayer.
Prayer for Others is Crucial
From this story we can see that prayer for others is crucial. Jesus requested such prayer for Himself! Paul requested prayer for himself, “brethren, pray for us” (1 Thessalonians 5:25). James tells us to “Pray for one another” (5:16).
God, on occasion, leads in such prayer, laying burdens on our hearts that He would have us pray for and then giving unusual indication of its effectiveness. Oswald Sanders in his book, Prayer Power Unlimited, tells of Mrs. Ed Spahr being awakened at midnight burdened for missionary Jerry Rose in Dutch New Guinea working among stone-age culture people. She prayed and the next morning wrote a letter telling of it. Later it was learned that he received prayer letters from five prayer partners in five continents saying they prayed for him on that specific occasion. When the dateline and time span were adjusted, it was seen that they all prayed at the same time-the very time Jerry was standing with his arms tied behind his back and a “stone-age” savage was standing before him with a spear ready to pin him to the ground.
As five prayer partners on five continents prayed, another man in the tribe (there were no Christians at this time) spoke to the man and he walked away. As we can see, this was, in a sense, God requesting prayer from these five for Jerry Rose.
How Can We Encourage Taking Prayer Requests Seriously?
We can encourage it in others by giving opportunity for making such requests. On Saturday mornings we have a men’s prayer breakfast at our home. We distribute lists of things to pray for, but when we break up into smaller groups we tell the men to share with each other prayer requests. In a group you’ll say: “Bill, what can we pray for you?”
Bill responds,”I lost my job.”
“George, what about you?”
“Praise God! I got that contract you fellows prayed about!” George exclaims.
“Sam?”
Sam says,”My son is on drugs.”
Well, believe me, you pray for each other in such an environment, and you cry for each other, too.
At our early morning prayer meeting at the church, we spend the last fifteen minutes in small groups praying for each other. Some of our Sunday school classes do similarly. Many churches have telephone prayer chains to handle prayer requests.
To encourage yourself to take such prayer requests seriously, try the following. First, if possible, pray with the person right when the request is made whether over the phone or if the person is with you. Second, right then write the request down in your appointment book (I have a section in the back for such requests). Third, have time in your prayer schedule for praying about such things.
Something that has been helpful to me is to arrange my prayer time letting the different days form an acrostic. On Monday M stands for Ministers and Marriages; O for Other Evang
When Brothers Live Together in Unity
By Kent Johnson. On Saturday morning in Metropolis, Arizona, as twilight announced sunrise, it was already eighty-five degrees outside. The air around the Women’s Health Clinic was filled with excitement, as pro-life demonstrators prepared for a major battle in the war of wordsand wills surrounding the abortion issue. Across the street at a small park a large group of pro-choice demonstrators had assembled for a counterdemon