Walking the Talk

Christian explains to Faithful why Talkative is such a “sorry fellow” and Faithful expounds the gospel meaning of the clean and unclean animals.

CHRISTIAN. He (Talkative - ed.) talketh of prayer, of repentance, of faith, and of the new birth; but he knows but only to talk of them.  I have been in his family, and have observed him both at home and abroad; and I know what I say of him is the truth.  His house is as empty of religion as the white of an egg is of savour.  There  is there neither prayer nor sign of repentance for sin; yea, the brute in his kind serves God far better than he.  He is the very stain, reproach, and shame of religion, to all that know him; it can hardly have a good word in all that end of the town where he dwells, through him.  Thus say the common people that know him, “A saint abroad, and a devil at home.”  His poor family finds it so; he is such a churl, such a railer at and so unreasonable with his servants, that they neither know how to do for or speak to him. Men that have and dealings with him say it is better to deal with a Turk than with him; for fairer dealing they shall have at their hands.  This Talkative, if it be possible, will go beyond them, defraud, beguile, and overreach them.  Besides, he brings up his sons to follow his steps; and if he findeth in any of them a foolish timerousness (for so he calls the first appearance of a tender conscience), he calls them fools and blockheads, and by no means will employ them in much or speak to their commendation before others.  For my part, I am of opinion that he has, by his wicked life caused many to stumble and fall; and will be, if God prevent not, the ruin of many more.

….Besides, good men are ashamed of him; they can neither call him brother nor friend; and very naming of him among them makes them blush, if they know him.

FAITHFUL    Well, I see that saying and doing are two things, and hereafter I shall better observe this distinction.

CHRISTIAN. They are two things, indeed, and are as diverse as are the soul and the body; for as the body without the soul is but a dead carcass, so saying, if it be alone, is but a dead carcass also.  The soul of religion is the practical part: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”   This Talkative is not aware of; he thinks that hearing and saying will make a good Christian, and thus he deceiveth his own soul.  Hearing is but as the sowing of the seed; talking is not sufficient to prove that fruit is indeed in the heart and life; and lets us assure ourselves, that at the day of doom men shall be judged according to their fruits.  It will not be said them, “Did you believe?” but, “Were you doers, or talkers only?”  and accordingly shall they be judged.  The end of the world is compared to our harvest; and you know men at harvest regard nothing but fruit.  Not that anything can be accepted that is not of faith, but I speak this to show you how insignificant the profession of Talkative will be at that day.

FAITHFUL.   This brings to my mind that of Moses, by which he describeth the beast that is clean.  He is such a one that parteth the hoof and cheweth the cut; not that parteth the hoof only, or that cheweth the cud only.  The hare cheweth the cud, but yet is unclean, because he parteth not the hoof.  And this truly resembleth Talkative: he cheweth the cud, he seeketh knowledge, he cheweth upon the Word, but he divideth not the hoof, he parteth not with the way of sinners; but, as the hare, he retaineth the foot of a dog or bear, and therefore he is unclean.

CHRISTIAN. You have spoken, for aught I know, the true gospel sense of those texts; and I will add another thing.  Paul calleth some men, yea, and those great talkers too, “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals,” – that is, as he expounds them in another place, “things without life, giving sound.”  Things without life, - that is, without the true faith and grace of the gospel; and, consequently, things that shall never be placed in the kingdom of heaven among those that are the children of life; though their sound, by their talk, be as if it were the tongue or voice of an angel.

(The Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan, Lothrop Publishing Company, Boston – date unknown – pages 146-148)

The War

So, how goes the battle?

A short question I remember from my father encapsulating into a brief sentence the question of direction for our life.  Taken from my fathers perspective I’m sure it was a question specifically pointed to our earthly endeavors, but it was also a statement revealing the effect of the world on our life.

Life is a battle.

            A battle is a brief period in a war.

A battle needs soldiers.

           

A battle requires a field of action.

A battle has a course of action.

            A battle is difficult.

            A battle is hazardous.

            A battle requires commitment.

            A battle IS NOT for the faint hearted.

                        Many difficulties and hardships must be overcome and it terrorizes the heart.

A battle has a finality.

Successful battles win a war.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:  (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)  Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

War and Peace

“A believer is to be known not only by his peace and joy, but by his warfare and distress. His peace is peculiar: it flows from Christ, it is heavenly, it is holy peace. His warfare is as peculiar: it is deep-seated, agonizing, and ceases not till death. I have chosen the subject of the Christian's warfare, that you may know thereby whether you are a soldier of Christ - whether you are really fighting the good fight of faith.”

From “The Christian's Warfare” by Robert Murray M'Cheyne

Regeneration

The message of the gospel is simple enough for little children to understand, but the heart of man is corrupt and will not absorb the things of God.  A person may sit in church for forty years and hear the gospel time and again until he can recite it by rote, yet never comprehend or trust.  Such is the depth of our depravity.

Such people sit there weekly in your church and in mine.  Merely brushing shoulders with us doesn’t do anything for them.  You can take a corpse to a crowded ballpark, but he won’t watch the game.  Unless the Spirit grants resurrection, the dead remain dead.  The only hope of any person, regardless of his church or family background, is that the Spirit of God will call him savingly unto Christ.  

Excerpt from an article by Pastor Tom Chantry

http://chantrynotes.wordpress.com/2013/06/17/calvinism-and-the-presumed-gospel/

The Choice of Words

OK, so why do we insist on changing the words to old hymns?  I mean, what is the point of changing some of the words in our classic songs?  Is it because we’re more intelligent or poetic than the author?  Because we know the intent of the use of our word versus the word choice of the one who wrote the song?

One Sunday the choice for the opening hymn in church was “Holy, Holy, Holy” by Reginald Heber (1783-1826).  According to Wikipedia, “Reginald Heber was an English clergyman, traveler, man of letters and hymn-writer who, after working as a country parson for 16 years, served as the Anglican Bishop of Calcutta until his sudden death at the age of 42.” He was also an admirer of John Newton and William Cowper and wrote 57 hymns himself.  He was, one would presume, a man who chose his words carefully.  So when he writes the stanza,

“Holy, Holy, Holy! Tho’ the darkness hide Thee. 

Tho’ the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see.”

Did he not purposely choose each of those words for a reason?  Most poets are careful about words.

This is a hymn I have been familiar with and sung as a child many years prior to my conversion. Why would anyone change the term “sinful man” to “sinfulness” as was done in The Christian Life Hymnal (Hendrickson Publisher, Inc. c.2006) ?  What is the purpose?  I admit I’m stymied.  Are those who arbitrarily change the wording of our Hymns feel the same responsibility to change the text of our Bibles as well?

I believe the term “sinfulness” as used in the Christian Life Hymnal to be ambiguous and relates to no one in particular whereas “sinful man” as originally written by Heber is a pointed reference to personal sin.   

Perhaps the “word changers” feel threatened by too personal an application?

How We Come To Be In This Mess.

In ancient Israel, when the nation had turned from God and from his truth and commands as given in Scripture, the prophet Jeremiah cried out that there was death in the city.  He was speaking not only of physical death in Jerusalem but also a wider death.  Because Jewish society of that day had turned away from what God had given them in the Scripture, there was death in the polis, that is, death in the total culture and the total society….

Humanists have been determined to beat to death the knowledge of God and the knowledge that God has not been silent, but has spoken in the Bible and through Christ – and they have been determined to do this even though the death of values has come with the death of that knowledge.

We see two effects of our loss of meaning and values.  The first is degeneracy….The marks of ancient Rome scar us: degeneracy, decadence, depravity, a love of violence for violence’s sake.  The situation is plain.  If we look, we see it.  If we see it, we are concerned.

But we must notice that there is a second result of modern man’s loss of meaning and values which is more ominous, and which many people do not see.  This second result is that the elite will exist.  Society cannot stand chaos.  Some group or some person will fill the vacuum.  An elite will offer us arbitrary absolutes, and who will stand in its way?

Will the silent majority (which at one time we hear so much about ) help?  The so-called silent majority was, and is, divided into a minority and a majority.  The minority are either Christians who have a real basis for values or those who at least have a memory of the days when the values were real.  The majority are left with only their two poor values of personal peace and affluence.

With such values, will men stand for their liberties?  Will they not give up their liberties step by step, inch by inch, as long as their own personal peace and prosperity is sustained and not challenged, as long as the goods are delivered?  ….Much of the church is no help here either, because for so long a large section of the church has only been teaching a relativistic humanism using religious terminology.

I believe the majority of the silent majority, young and old, will sustain the loss of liberties without raising their voices as long as their own life-styles are not threatened.  And since personal peace and affluence are so often the only values that count with the majority, politicians know that to be elected they must promise these things.   Politics has largely become not a matter of ideals – and truth – but of supplying a constituency with a frosting of personal peace and affluence.  They know that voices will not be raised as long as people have these things, or at least an illusion of them.

Edward Gibbon (1737-1794 in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire said that the following five attributes marked Rome at its end:  first, a mounting love of show and luxury (that is, affluence); second, a widening gap between the very rich and the very poor (this could be among countries in the family of nations as well as in a single nation); third, an obsession with sex; fourth, freakishness in the arts, masquerading as originality, and enthusiasms pretending to be creativity; fifth, an increased desire to live off the state.  It all sounds so familiar.  …….we are back in Rome.

(Excerpted from How Should We Then Live? The Rise and Decline of Western Thought and Culture by Francis A. Schaeffer, Published by Fleming H. Revell Company, 1976. Chapter 11, Our Society – pgs. 226- 227)

We're In the Army Now.

I found this "letter from the Army" in my old files and thought I would share it (with revisions) in light of my grandson recently joining the ranks and scheduled to depart for his basic training this month.  Hope you enjoy this lighter fare. 

Dear Ma and Pa,

            I am well.  Hope you are.  I sure miss Wisconsin.  Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer that the Army beats working for old man Minch by a mile.  Tell them to join up quick before all the places are filled.  I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but am getting so I like to sleep late.

            Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot and shine some things.  No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay.  Practically nothing.  Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there’s warm water.

            Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, and such, but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food.  But tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit between two city boys that live on coffee.  Their food plus yours holds you till noon, when you get fed again.  It’s no wonder these city boys can’t walk much.

            We go on “route marches” which the platoon sergeant says are long walks to harden us.  If he thinks so, it is not my place to tell him different.  A “route march” is about as far as to our mailbox at home.  Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.  The country is nice but awful flat.  The sergeant is like a schoolteacher.  He nags some.

            The captain is like the school board.  Majors and colonels just ride around and frown.  They don’t bother you none.

            This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing.  I keep getting medals for shooting.  I don’t know why.  The bullseye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don’t move.  And it ain’t shooting at you, like the Higgett boys at home.  All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it.  You don’t even load your own cartridges.  They come in boxes.

            Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training.  You get to wrestle with them city boys.  I have to be real careful, though.  They break real easy.  It ain’t like fighting with that old bull at home.  I’m about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Barron County.  He joined up the same as me.  But I’m only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he’s 6'8" and weighs near 300 pounds dry.

            Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before others get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,

Gail