Did you hear about the Pittsburgh man last week who went in to a Giant Eagle supermarket and paid for a head of lettuce with a $1 million bill? That’s right—one million dollars. And he asked for change! The wide-eyed but suspicious clerk notified the manager, who promptly confiscated the bill. Whereupon the customer promptly flew into a tirade, smashing the electronic funds-transfer machine beside the cashier and grabbing the scanner gun. Police arrested the man. When later asked by a reporter for comment, a police spokeswoman replied, “It’s a bit different.” It certainly is! The U.S. Treasury has never printed a one million dollar bill. Since 1969, when the Grover Cleveland $1,000 bill was taken out of circulation, the $100 bill has been the largest banknote in circulation. And the man asked for change. Bogus bills and counterfeit banknotes. You aren’t going to fool anybody with a million dollar bill. But ATF agents with the Department of Treasury are on constant lookout for counterfeit $20 and $100 bills. Why? Because counterfeits are based upon the genuine, not on somebody’s wishful thinking. Obviously, it is the existence of the genuine that makes the counterfeits possible. Which is why today’s teaching, “How to Stone the Prophet,” is so critical. God has always offered the genuine. And since the beginning, the dark moral counterfeiter of earth (whom we know as the devil) has attempted to pass off his counterfeits of that divine genuine. And not surprisingly, given the length of time the devil has had to practice and perfect his cunning counterfeit, more than a few have been duped and deceived. In fact so confusing is the deception, that now there are some who have reversed reality, and are declaring the genuine to be a counterfeit, and the counterfeit to be the genuine! Which is why I hope you’ll prayerfully examine this teaching. Download it from this website as a podcast, and ruminate over it with your MP3 player. Pull out your Bible, and review the evidence. The counterfeit is so prevalent that this may be the first time you’ve ever examined the genuine. Take your time. Too much is at stake to be wrong. The Spirit of God will guide you, if you ask him. And that $1 million bill? Police now believe it was a promotional piece from a Dallas-based ministry that distributed thousands of religious pamphlets with a picture of President Grover Cleveland on a $1 million bill. You see, when it comes to identifying the genuine, not even a church will do. So, stick with the Word of God.
Pastors' Blog
By Pioneer Pastors
If you’re a firstborn, did you know there was a price on your head? This headline is a tad old (about 3,500 years or so), but nevertheless it’s true. On that dark and fateful night that the slave kingdom of Israel fled Egypt in the mighty Exodus, God declared that the firstborn of every Israelite family (and flock and herd) belonged to him, “It is Mine” (Exodus 13:2).
Was God playing favorites? Not at all. Rather, he was branding deep into that slave community’s perpetual consciousness the supernatural deliverance Israel’s firstborn received on the night of the tenth plague. Remember the story? Through Moses God warned both Egyptians and Israelites alike that death would “pass over” the land at midnight, and only those homes that had painted the blood of a lamb upon their doorposts and lintels would be spared the death of their firstborn. “And it came to pass at midnight” that it happened just as Moses had decreed, and “there was a great cry in Egypt” (Exodus 12:29, 30). Only the firstborn “under the blood” had been spared.
So that they would never forget that mighty deliverance, God later instituted in Israel a “head tax” for every firstborn, five shekels of silver (see Numbers 3:47; 18:16), a perpetual reminder that God alone was their Deliverer, firstborn and all born.
But when the story of the greatest Exodus of all (from the bondage of sin) is told in the New Testament, the fate of the firstborn is reversed! For the sacrifice of Christ is portrayed, not as the deliverance but rather as the death of the Divine Firstborn: “Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead . . . who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood” (Revelation 1:5). For at Calvary the death angel of divine judgment did not pass over the Firstborn. Rather “he was wounded for our transgressions, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:5-7).
I happen to be my mother’s firstborn. But no matter your birth order, the deliverance we have gathered to celebrate today declares us all “the church of the firstborn” (Hebrews 12:23)! And who’s complaining? After all, the sacrificial love and death of our Savior truly is a one-way ticket to the Promised Land for all “the chosen” who believe. Chosen as you are, then, do you believe?
Even if you’re afraid of heights, this is one pinnacle I wish you could stand upon. Many consider it one of the most sacred sites in all of Dark Ages history. Today I’ve invited my young friends from the School of Architecture here at Andrews University to share with you the story of that unforgettable day when together we stood atop the Castelluzzo, that infamous rock tower high above the alpine valleys of northwest Italy and immortalized in John Milton’s sonnet, “On the Late Massacre in Piedmont”:
Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones
Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;
Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old,
When all our fathers worshiped stocks and stones,
Forget not: in thy book record their groans . . . .
But how can one brief moment of worship possibly capture the crimson drama of the Waldenses? And why make their intrepid preservation of the light of Holy Scripture through five hundred long years of spiritual darkness our theme for Alumni Sabbath? After all, the world and Christendom have long forgotten the “Bloody Easter” (April 24, 1655) massacre of those hapless innocents—a crime against humanity so unspeakable that when Sir Oliver Cromwell read the eyewitness accounts of the slaughter, he declared a day of fasting and prayer across England. But why should we care today?
Because in the fulfillment of the Apocalypse’s cryptic words in Revelation 12—the vision tale of a woman fleeing from an ancient Serpent into a barren wilderness and there hidden by God for the long, dark ages of medieval Christianity—in that fulfillment still witnessed to by the silent rocky sentinels of the Piedmonts is the unspoken assurance that the God who has preserved ancient truth through the crimson centuries since Calvary, the same God who raised up this university over a century ago, is the very God who will yet proclaim that very truth to this generation through the remnant seed of that very woman. For that reason their story is ours.
For as surely as Almighty God called upon the men, women and children of those cloistered valleys long ago, he is calling upon the men, women and children of this generation to embrace the missional legacy of the Waldensian people, captured in their Latin motto, Lux lucet in tenebris. “The light shines in darkness.” Indeed it did. And indeed it must. Yet. In your life and mine. Shine into the gathering darkness of a culture and world desperate for even the fragments of the only Light who can yet heal this world he loves.
Would you like to know what a group of students, faculty and community members identified as God’s top four agenda priorities for our world and our university? For the past two weeks our House of Prayer has been focusing on “Seeking God’s Agenda.” The premise to that quest is simply that the goal of the Christian’s prayer life is to embrace God’s agenda as your own agenda. (Have you noticed—so much of our praying focuses on our own agendas for ourselves, our needs, our wants, our problems, our desperations. Nothing wrong with bringing those to God, to be sure. But the great prayers of the ancient scriptures reveal a compelling focus on the divine agenda first.)
But then, coming to a sense of agreement as to what the divine agenda might be isn’t really a complicated task, is it? For example, if I asked you to list right now what you believe God’s most important priorities are in his agenda for this university or for your own life, for that matter, would it be hard to come up with them?
After prayerfully preparing our hearts through music and reflection, I was surprised at how quickly last week these agenda items were suggested by individuals in our prayer fellowship. If God has a prayer list, what do you suppose is at the top of that list? Here were their responses: #1—that this world of lost sinners might be saved (Isaiah 45:22); #2—that all might come to personally know Him (Jeremiah 9:23, 24); #3—that Christ might be lifted up and draw all to him (John 12:32); and, #4—that God’s name might be glorified upon the earth (Revelation 14:7).
Wouldn’t you agree? I do. After all, what would God want more than to save every lost heart on this campus, and this world? Go down that list of four agenda items—is there one you would take off that list? Sure, you may think of one or two you’d want to add to that list.
But here’s the proposition: what would happen if you took these four divine agenda items and began weaving them into your own private praying? What could be more fulfilling than to know that what is preoccupying your praying are the very longings that preoccupy the heart of God? After all, “can two walk together, unless they are agreed?” (Amos 3:3)
“When terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none. Calamity upon calamity will come, and rumor upon rumor.” At this sixth anniversary of 9-11 these cryptic words of an ancient prophet (Ezekiel 7:25, 26) give pause for reflection, don’t they? Run through your mind a quick scan of the national and global headlines since that fateful September Tuesday in 2001. Tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes—the more than usual intensification of nature. Madrid and London and Baghdad—new hot spots in a post-9-11 world. While Ezekiel wasn’t describing the United States, his stark prediction remains unsettling: “When terror comes, they will seek peace, but there will be none.”
But then, not to worry. Because life goes on, doesn’t it? Neither this nation nor its citizens need live in the paralysis of fear, should we? After all, isn’t human history the seemingly endless cycle of predictable headlines? Doesn’t every generation have its 9-11 or Pearl Harbor or Gettysburg? Not to worry. Or in the words of Bobby McFarren’s 1988 bromide, “Don’t worry—be happy!”
And yet, anniversaries such as this one deserve some reflective thinking, don’t they? Candidly, in the course of my sojourn on this planet I do not remember a time when the brightest thinkers of this generation have seemed so much at a quandary for lack of a workable solution to this civilization’s greatest challenges. Too many are concerned that predictable cycles can no longer explain the growing morass.
Two thousand years ago, after giving a prescient description of what could be our generation, Christ offered his counsel: “When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28). Not exactly a “don’t worry—be happy” quip, but it certainly rings with a very positive call to hope and courage, does it not? Irrespective of the anniversaries or headlines, look on the very bright side—the deliverance of the human race is drawing near!
Which is why you and I can celebrate the hope we find in Jesus. “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” And no wonder. Because from beyond the terror comes riding the Prince of Peace. And that is one piece of history I don’t want to miss!
If God were standing up front beside a white board right now, and we asked him to please write on that board what his top agenda is, what do you suppose he would put up as #1? For Andrews University? For Pioneer Memorial Church? For our world? What if you asked him to write up his top priorities for your own life? What would he write up for my life? Ever wonder what God thinks is most important around here?
John Franklin in his stirring book, And the Place Was Shaken, makes a point that I’ve continued to ruminate over these past few weeks. He writes that the secret to transformational prayer—praying that turns the world upside down, or at least right side up—is moving from our own agendas to God’s own agenda. I.e., moving from a prayer-paradigm that focuses on me-me-me, to one that focuses on God-God-God. As evidence Franklin directs our attention to the greatest prayers of the Bible—from Nehemiah 9 to Daniel 9 to II Chronicles 6 to Acts 4 to our Lord’s prayer the night of his betrayal in John 17—in all of them, note how the prayers are radically God-focused from the very outset, and how the personal agenda of the pray-er is saved until the end of the prayer. Whereas in my prayers, how often do I plunge immediately into my list of wants and needs, i.e., my personal agenda?
What would happen if when we gathered to pray together corporately, or even when you and I prayed privately, we were proactive in seeking to keep God and his revealed agenda for us front and center during our prayer time? What if the psalmist was right, that in prayer to God, we are to “enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise” (Psalm 100:4)?
I’ll be honest with you. John Franklin’s counsel regarding corporate prayer in particular is challenging me and the way we’ve always “done” prayer meeting in the past. But as I wrestle with what God must be longing for for Andrews and for Pioneer, I’m burdened to bring our corporate prayer life into harmony with the way God’s people prayed long ago. If you’d like to join me this fall in seeking to know God’s mind and heart for this university in particular, I wish you would come and help me reshape our House of Prayer experience on Wednesday evenings. It may not “feel” comfortable at first, but with your help and prayer partnership, I firmly believe that together we can learn God’s agenda for this place and that our prayers can consequently be ignited as we embrace it (and Him) as our own.
Student, faculty, community—come, and let’s pray together. House of Prayer. Wednesday, 7 p.m.
On March 4, 1933, the newly elected president of the United States delivered his inaugural address to the nation. Four sentences into that address, Franklin Roosevelt uttered the words that have lived long beyond his four-term presidency: “So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.” So spoke the nation’s leader in that dark hour of economic despair. Because that’s what leaders are raised up to do, is it not? To call the people, the populace, the public to renewed confidence and hope for the journey yet ahead, to remind them of their “rendezvous with destiny.” That’s precisely what an aged leader named Moses did in an ancient book that becomes the grist for our worship journey this new season. Deuteronomy is in fact the farewell address (no doubt the longest farewell address in history!) of that beloved leader to the children of Israel who had literally grown up under the tutelage of his forty year administration. As we handle the document and text of his last will and testament to this community that had exhausted four decades of wandering in the bleached, barren wilderness south of Canaan, we will ponder the notion that in their wanderings lies the tale of our own journey toward the Promised Land. For the apostle firmly asserts: “Now all these things happened to them [in the wilderness] as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (I Corinthians 10:11). Have “the ends of the ages” come upon us? And are we prepared for the high calling of that “rendevous with destiny?” What are the lessons of and for “the chosen?” Journey with me this season as we track the sandy footprints of that chosen generation long, long ago. And in Moses’ appeal to remember, may we heed the call of another leader who spoke courage into the uncertainty of a journey that yet remained: “We have nothing to fear for the future, except as we shall forget the way the Lord has led us, and His teaching in our past history” (Life Sketches 196). Nothing to fear, much to remember, and a future to claim. It is the shining hour of “The Chosen.” Shall we not seize it?
You won’t think less of me, will you, if I admit that I’m not a country music aficionado? But hurrying to catch a plane in Minnesota a few weeks ago, I caught the refrain of a country song. With one hand on the wheel, I scribbled the words down, googled them back at home, and discovered what’s turned out to be the most requested country song in America this summer.
Sung by Tracy Lawrence, it’s “You Find Out Who Your Friends Are.” Here’s a snatch of the lyrics: “Run your car off the side of the road/ Get stuck in a ditch way out in the middle of nowhere/ Or get yourself in a bind—lose the shirt off your back/ Need a floor, need a couch, need a bus fare.” I.e., the familiar human predicament of finding yourself in trouble and in need of a helping hand. “This is where the rubber meets the road/ This is where the cream is gonna rise/ This is what you really didn’t know/ This is where the truth don’t lie” (remember, this is country grammar). And then Lawrence launches into his refrain that has obviously struck a resonating chord in American hearts, “You find out who your friends are/ Somebody’s gonna drop everything/ Run out and crank up their car/ Hit the gas, get there fast/ Never stop to think ‘What’s in it for me?’ or ‘It’s way too far’/ They just show on up with their big old heart/ You find out who your friends are.”
Last week we called them “front porch” friends, the people around us who are willing to get out of their comfort zones and go out on a limb for the likes of you and me. People who, as the song sings, aren’t asking, “What’s in it for me,” but who get into it for us. “You find out who your friends are.” Don’t you?
Makes you wonder how many “front porch” friends are in this church, on this campus? Are you one of them, am I? I wish you’d download the podcast of this mini-two-part series, “The Front Porch” (www.pmchurch.tv). Sit in the rocker, brood with me, how can we grow community around here? Maybe it’s time we too join one of those small “front porch” circles—not just for what we can get, but as the song sings, for what we can give. After all, the greatest Front Porch Friend we’ll ever have joined our group because He wanted to give.
You find out who your friends are, don’t you?
How would you like to teach school in New Orleans? The government is endeavoring to attract new teachers to what, even before Hurricane Katrina, was one of the toughest and most challenging school districts in the nation. But now in the post-traumatic stress of that crippled city, recruiters are offering to every teacher willing to move to the Crescent City a two-year signing bonus of $17,000. Any takers? Fact of the matter is that whether you teach in New Orleans or Benton Harbor or Berrien Springs you’ve signed on to a very demanding profession. U.S. Department of Labor statistics report that there are now 3.8 million preschool through high school teachers (public and private) in the United States, with annual earnings ranging (in the latest statistics available) from $26,730 to $71,370. Any takers now? But sit down with a school teacher, private or public, and inquire the motivation that keeps the teacher returning to that noisy classroom day after day, and I predict you’ll not hear a word about “the compensation package.” And probably not too much about the working environment or physical plant either (which isn’t to suggest that such factors aren’t important or vital to these professionals). But to a man and woman among the teachers I’m privileged to know (and work with) the gut motivation and heart response keep coming down to a personal passion for kids, a love of learning and teaching and the desire to change this world one life at a time. And the rewards? Years ago the screen play “Mr. Holland’s Opus” powerfully portrayed the payoff of a high school music teacher, whose dream to compose a world-class opus was perennially preempted by his devotion to the kids who tromped through his band room year after year. Their surprise rendition of his unfinished opus at his retirement program captured the compelling truth about teachers—their greatest life compositions are played out in the lives of their students long after school days are over. I carry these two quotations in my Bible: “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth” (Eccl 12:1); and, “What line can we dwell upon that will make the deepest impression upon the human mind? There are our schools” (FE 529). In that juxtaposition is the reason why I thank God for the hundreds of dedicated Christian teaching professionals in this parish. Let the school bells clang—our kids are in the right hands!
Should we send out a search party? Anybody know where summer disappeared to? I’m not a prophet, nor the son of one, but I did prophesy to Karen back in May that this summer would be over before it even started. Was I right? (Just don’t ask me to predict the stock market this fall!)
Next Sabbath marks Pioneer’s official farewell to summer and entry into the new academic year as we welcome the faculty from Andrews University, Andrews Academy and Ruth Murdoch Elementary School to a special worship dedication for teachers. And while it’s been an eventful summer for us all, the new year promises to be a veritable adventure. And why not? Given earth’s proclivity for the unexpected these days, who can say what the journey ahead will bring?
Which is why I’m excited about the uncharted space ahead of us. Because as I’ve been reading over these last few muggy days of my study sabbatical after Honduras, life really is about space. In fact, Edward T. Hall declares that all of our lives are about four spaces. And as I ponder those four spaces, I’ve been asking myself a lot lately—how are we providing for those four spaces here at Andrews and Pioneer? Beginning next Sabbath with our dedication service, I’d like to explore the answer to that question with a two-part mini-series, “The Front Porch.”
Whatever happened to the front porch anyway? There’s hardly a builder around who incorporates front porches into the architectural plans, is there? After all, it might have been important space for a generation or two ago, but who’s got time any more for a rocking chair existence? Four spaces every human being must have. Again, I keep wondering—how are we providing for those four vital spaces around this place? Since there’s no point in searching for summer—she’s gone, what do you say we go searching instead for that front porch. After all, we just may be surprised with the discovery that awaits us.
And surprises are what make new beginnings so special.
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