Are We Trusted and Are We Trustworthy?

My family is heavily populated by people with a communications and journalism background.  My undergraduate degree is in communications, my youngest brother is a newspaper editor and publisher, my oldest son holds a degree in broadcast communications while his wife is trained as a print journalist, my other daughter-in-law is a free lance writer previously serving as a newspaper editor and the young man dating my daughter is a sports broadcasting producer and director.  I’m not searching for kudos here nor seeking sympathy but I do want to offer some transparency before launching into this column.

In today’s news came the latest tracking data on the press from the Pew Research Center.  It’s enough to make the press depressed.  The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has been at this since 1985 but the just released findings reveal public confidence in the media at an all time low.  A significant 66% say that news stories often are inaccurate, an even larger 77% believe stories to be imbalanced and a whopping 80% think reporting is influenced by power brokers and organizations.  One wonders if these findings will headline newscasts tonight. 

If there is any silver lining here for those drawing a paycheck from the press it is in the fact that people reported much higher trust in their own choice of media than the media in general.  The news corps also rated higher than business and government so they are not at the bottom of the stack of American institutions.

The growing dissatisfaction with the American media should give Christians pause.  We are, after all, very much involved in the communications business.  We are God’s Plan A to share His life and love with the world and God has no Plan B.  If we fail, the world fails to hear.  Twin questions must be answered by those desiring a hearing of the Gospel message.  Are we trusted and are we trustworthy are those nagging questions.

Are we trusted?  Sometimes we are; sometimes we aren’t.  Christians are not always viewed more positively than some of the disliked facets of society like the media, business and government.  Will the public listen to the old, old story in this brave new world?  If they listen will they find the truth we tell credible?  There are many factors in this equation like the modern mood for non-commitment and the disdain for absolutes not to mention the stubborn presence of sin.  Though we have little or no control over much of this, one thing which will greatly influence the question of trust is trustworthiness.

Are we trustworthy?  Friends, family, classmates, co-workers and neighbors may and may not find us trustworthy.  Sadly, distrust has often replaced the trust that once existed between us and those we are responsible to communicate the Gospel to.  Earning trust is frequently tough but regaining trust is always tougher.  If I lie about my finances how will anyone trust what I have to say about my faith?  If my behavior is suspect will my belief not be also?  If my word is not my bond why would others trust what I claim to be God’s Word?

Christians often shout and scream a lot about so called “Christian bashing” by the media which leads to media bashing by many Christians.  The truth is we both face the same dilemma; the growing creditability gap in our world.  The questions we must face along with our friends in the media are we trusted and are we trustworthy?  To the first, I pray that we will be and to the second, I pray that we are.

This column originally appeared in The Daily Press

Two Churches, Two Doors, One Christ and Revival

Is there a more stunning contrasting of churches than the one found in the final two fellowships specifically addressed by our Lord in the Revelation?  One church has long been associated with the missions movement while the other is shamefully and inextricably connected to the pitiful state of a church languishing on the edge of eternity.  Of course, we are referring to the church at Philadelphia and the church at Laodicea. 

We have typically contrasted these congregations in terms of our Lord’s commendation and condemnation.  There is certainly no lack of material for commentary there.  I would insist, however, that the contrast held in boldest relief is the position of our Lord in respect to each church.  Indeed if our churches are the churches of Christ as they claim to be the most pressing question is where is Christ in relation to all who attend there and all that transpires there.

At Philadelphia, Christ is inside the church opening a door to a world that desperately needs Him.  “I have placed before you an open door that no one is able to close.” (Rev. 3: 8 HCSB).  At Laodicea, Christ is pleading with a church that desperately needs Him to open the door and let Him in.  “I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and have dinner with him, and he with Me.” (Rev. 3: 20 HCSB).  In one instance a church has the world opened to it and in the other Christ has the church closed to Him.

The irony is horrifying!  The church our Lord bought with His own blood has closed the door and shuttered the windows to He who gave them life.  The Landlord has been evicted by the miserable tenants who have not so much as made a token contribution to the purchase of this property.

Is it not downright frightening the message our Lord gives to His people at the close of both Testaments?  At the close of the first testament, God declares that Temple worship is so appalling to Him that it would be better if they simply barred and bolted the doors of that ancient worship center as opposed to continuing the spiritually bankrupt practices which had come to characterize them.  “I wish one of you would shut the temple doors, so you would no longer kindle a useless fire on My altar” (Mal. 2: 10 HCSB).  Now as the second Testament is closing, God pictures His Son locked out of His very church and feeling such revulsion to the hyper-hypocritical worship there that He wishes to vomit the nauseating worshippers out of His mouth.  “So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of My mouth.” (Rev. 3: 16 HCSB).

It’s hard to make the case that we’re doing the best we can in the face of these two bombshell blasts delivered from heaven.  All our alibis seem pretty lame before the excoriating analysis of Christ.  Anything resembling the Temple of Malachi’s day or the church at Laodicea is beyond revolting to God.

Actually only one thing (or should I say one Person) separates these two churches in the New Testament context or present day experience.  That difference is Jesus.  Is He in or out of the church?  His presence and our relation to Him are all determining. 

Termed “One Divine Moment,” a revival swept the faculty and student body of Asbury College in 1970.  For days hundreds lingered in the auditorium confessing sin and righting wrongs towards others.  When the revival broke out the President, Dennis Kinlaw was away from the campus and had his reservations about the experience.   He returned to watch his skepticism quickly melt away in the baptism of love that now engulfed the campus.
Later, a reporter asked him to explain the outbreak.
“Well, you may not understand this,” Kinlaw responded, “but the only way I know how to account for this is that last Tuesday morning, about 20 of 11, the Lord Jesus walked into Hughes Auditorium, and He’s been there ever since, and you’ve got the whole community paying tribute to His presence.”

Revival is that simple!  Jesus is welcomed where He has previously been locked out and Laodicea becomes Philadelphia!

Upbeat or Deadbeat?

Upbeat or deadbeat, you make the call, Dad.  Timed with the national observance of Father’s Day this past week the Pew Research Center released a new study on father involvement in the lives of their children.  It was one of those good news/bad news items we have become so accustomed to in the press.

First the good news: the study indicated a significant upswing in the amount of time fathers living with their minor children spend caring for them.  In 1965, married fathers spent an average of 2.6 hours a week caring for their children.  That figure rose gradually across the next two decades reaching 3 hours on average in 1985.  However, the number spiked from 1985 to 2000 when fathers reported spending an average of 6.5 hours caring for their children.  The trend is encouraging.  Fathers living with their biological children are clearly investing greater allotments of time in the youngsters.  For this we can be grateful.

Now the bad news: the number of dads who do not live with their children continues to rise at an alarming pace.  In 1960, only 11% of our nation’s children lived without their father’s presence in the home.  By 2010, that percentage had rocketed to 27%.  Making matters worse is the emotional distance existing between many of these fathers and their children.  Some nonresident dads are making a real effort to stay connected with their children; others not so much. While four out of ten of the nonresident dads report contact with their children several times a week almost one third of the fathers not living with their children say they communicate with their children less than once a month.  While one in five nonresident dads indicate they visit their children more than once weekly, a larger number (27%) have not seen their children even once in the past year.

As a pastor of over thirty years I can testify first hand to the devastating effects of father absence.  Talk long enough to those struggling with addictions, bondages and even incarceration and a familiar story unfolds.  Either Dad was largely disconnected from them as a child or is the object of great scorn due to real or perceived hypocrisy and/or immoral behavior.  It is not too much to say that America’s ills are largely attributable to father failure.

As a father of five grown children I readily admit personal failures too lengthy to enumerate in this column.  I do, however, know that children spell “love” T-I-M-E.  That’s what draws the silver lining around this otherwise ominous storm cloud of fatherlessness in America.  Increasingly, some dads are getting it.  They are awakening to the realization that responsibility not reproduction qualifies one as a father.  Consequently they are sharing growing hours of their week with their children.  This represents movement in the right direction.

If now fathers can be taught to not only spend time with their children but shown how to teach those same children how to spend time with God, America may yet experience the awakening for which she is long overdue.  Dads, you get to make the call.  Will you be upbeat with your investment in your children both temporally and eternally or will you be another deadbeat checking out on your responsibilities?  The choice is yours but no less than the fate of your children and the destiny of a nation hang in the balance.

This column previously appeared in The Daily Press.

He's at It Again!

By now you probably know that Harold Camping, the eighty nine year old voice of the 150 unit Family Radio network, has assured us that the Rapture is going to occur on May 21, 2011 and the world will be completely destroyed October 21, 2011.  Outrageous as this seems, it isn’t his first foray into such prophetic boasts.  Previously Mr. Camping told us that on May 21, 1988 the church age closed and a 23 year Great Tribulation began.  His boundless audacity further asserted that, “Satan has been employed by God to officially rule all of the churches."

I’m sure you’re pleased to know that, "The Holy Spirit has abandoned all churches (and) those still following any church on May 21, 2011 are not saved."  Camping seems to operate on a “not-invented-here” mentality which rejects two millennia of orthodox Christian teaching as well as contemporary theologians who seek to warn and admonish him preferring instead his “I-alone-have-figured-this-out-and-am-right” views of all things ecclesiological and eschatological.

Even casual Bible students quickly detect the errors of his highly systematized analysis of Jewish festivals and their bearing on the timing of the Lord’s return.  Less informed persons probably would want to know that Camping predicted in 1992 that Christ would return between September 15 and 27, 1994.  Since you are reading this right now, Camping was in error.  Commenting to Christianity Today on September 28, 1994 he conceded, “Obviously this has not happened, so that was inaccurate.”

Inaccurate?  Certainly there is a richer word in the King’s English for prompting thousands to reorder their lives (not to mention sending Family Radio mounds of money) all in pursuit of one man’s fancies!  It pains me to consider which is worse: the audacity of this radio preacher or the gullibility of his listeners.  I guess starving people will always devour stale bread!

Sadder still is the realization that Camping has company across the centuries.  From the second century Montanists to the nineteenth century Millerites and more some have strongly implied a date for the return of Christ while others brazenly broadcasted one.  In more recent years, the late NASA engineer Edgar C. Whisenant penned the catchy title 88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988 flatly announcing, "Only if the Bible is in error am I wrong; and I say that to every preacher in town."  I muse that he might not be as dogmatic in heaven just now.

In 1997 a lady sat in my office petrified she had missed her entrée into the celestial after thirty nine Nike clad followers were found in a California home dead of suicide induced when they thought the brightness of the Hale-Bopp Comet suggested to them they would reach an alien spacecraft following the storied comet.  The craziness never seems to end does it?

Jesus may return for His people before I finish typing this or you finish reading it!  Very well!  It’s His return, not mine.  I’m on the Welcoming Committee not the Arrangements Committee!  Even so, come Lord Jesus!

It’s On My Mind/From My Heart.

Mayfest

May is an incredibly awesome month for the Autry household.  The month of May is like Christmas only in the spring.  Five birthdays, Mother’s Day and a wedding anniversary make May pretty festive and pretty expensive every year.  This year is even more so.  Added to the normal cadre of celebrations is the very significant date Saturday the 14^th.

On this day five members of our household receive degrees from Liberty University.  This is the culmination of a journey which began in 1999 when our oldest son, Jonathan, entered Liberty as a freshman.

Jonathan Autry who received his Liberty University undergraduate degree in 2003 in Communications is being awarded his Master of Divinity from Liberty Baptist Theological Seminary May 14.  He is employed by Home Instead in Lynchburg.

Rebecca Solis Autry (wife of Jonathan) received her Liberty University undergraduate in Communications in 2003 and is receiving her Masters in Human Resources May 14.  This is her third Liberty University masters degree.

Jeremiah Autry receives his Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy and Religion with a Philosophy Specialization May 14.  He is currently employed by Staples of Lynchburg.

Joseph Autry, a three year veteran of the Liberty University Debate Team, receives his Bachelor of Science in History and a Minor in Psychology May 14.  He is currently in the application process to become a Liberty University Graduate Assistant and coach debate while completing his masters at Liberty.

Jessica Autry receives her Bachelor of Science in Family and Child Development and a double minor in Psychology and Special Education.  She has accepted a position with Jill’s House, a Christian respite facility for special education clients, located in Vienna, Virginia.

Observing the festivities will be Joshua and Jennifer Thurman Autry both of whom are also Liberty graduates.  Together our family has approximately thirty five total years of education on Liberty Mountain resulting in eleven degrees.  Am I proud of this bunch?  You betcha! 

Am I grateful for Liberty University?  Without a doubt!  Liberty is no more perfect than the students who attend there and the professors who teach there but it has provided a healthy environment for our family to explore the many and varied avenues of truth while hearing the Truth unapologetically articulated in both convocation and classroom.

I along with tens of thousands counted the late Jerry Falwell, Sr. a friend.  He threw a longer shadow than any figure who ever graced my presence.  He was an iconic figure truly larger than life.  His legacy lives on the generations who are “Changing the world one degree at a time” but in a highly personalized way in our children and daughters-in-law.

What are we doing next?  I’ll let you know after a week in the Outer Banks.  Pretty good way to celebrate, don’t you think?

Easter and Mother’s Day

This is the first Easter without Mom and I am grateful that the day we remember our living Lord precedes the day we remember moms living and deceased.  I know the dynamics of all the lunar stuff which determines the placement of the Christian holy day among the other 364 possibilities in the year.  I’m also acquainted with the origins of the annual Mother’s Day observance and why it is later in the spring than Easter.  Recalling and recalculating all the historical, astronomical and mathematical items which place one big day on April 24 and the other on May 8 this year can have someone auditioning for a migraine.

All that heady stuff isn’t my reason for celebrating the sequence of dates on my calendar, however. 

February 2010 found the Autry Clan traveling from the points of the compass to the tiny dwelling Mom and Dad where by then calling home.  Later we would move to a non-descript church building for cake, ice crème and a lot of smiles.  We were relishing a day fewer families reached in previous generations.  Mom was 80; an octogenarian for the more sophisticated.  All looked well.  A tragic automobile accident in 2006 had almost claimed her.  A lung spot in 2009 suggesting the dreaded “C” word proved a false alarm and four generations of our bunch were now here for the big day.  No one trades such occasions for Solomon’s fabled mines. 

Fast forward to August.  Mom elected to let her surgeon remove the lung’s mystery spot.  Consistent with all the previous pathologies it was not cancer, just a granuloma by which the lung had protected itself from a previous infection by walling it off from all the healthy respiratory tissue.  She had a relatively short surgery with an excellent prognosis.  I, the eldest, was soon on a flight back to the Commonwealth.  I would soon be grateful that planes flew both ways.

One trip became many.  The short visit became longer ones.  Friendly conversations with long unseen relatives and friends were now trumped by graveyard talk.  All those items many check off so officiously on advance directives were now more a part of our conversation than where to lunch.  Consultations and conversations about taboo topics like ventilators, feeding tubes and ending life support now dominated our words and aged our faces.  Speculation spiraled down into sorrow when a cancer appeared “out of the blue’ in another body part.  Mom was dying and now the love of a son could only express itself in a boy forced to watch the wretchedness of the one who gave him breath fight for her life’s breath.

Early afternoon Saturday, October 2 Mom’s struggle ended.  All three of her boys busy with other concerns in her acute care room turned without prompting to watch as she drew her final breath.  It was surreal and scripted all at the same time.  Three sons were motherless and a faithful husband of nearly 54 years was companionless. 

You see, Easter is more personal this time.  I have believed the Easter story on some level all my life.  I have preached it with gusto for decades.  But it is personal in a way only my readers who have been here before can capture.  Because Christ lives Mom lives also.  Because Christ lives I shall live also.  Because Christ lives I shall see Mom again.

Mother’s Day will be embraced with joy because Easter comes before it and conquers all our fears.

“Don’t be afraid…I was dead, but look – I am alive forever and ever.” (Rev.1: 17-18 HCSB).

This article originally appeared in The Daily Press.

What Do I Do?

You’re in a bit of a jam.  You have a big decision to make.  Your very life could be shaped by what you choose.  The voices around you seem confused at best and maybe even competitive.  Your emotions are swirling.  What do you do?  How do you make a decision?

There is little sense and much nonsense tossed around even in Christian communities about knowing the will of God.  Some treat the will of God as some grand mystery discovered by only the most select mystics among us while others prefer to demystify the will of God by reducing it to elemental forces converging on our lives.  These polar opposites have left an entire generation of believers wondering if anyone knows how to know the will of God.  The logic is simple: If I don’t know how to know the will of God then I can’t know the will of God.

How sad that so many find themselves in this spiritual, mental and emotional quagmire.  Life’s greatest discovery is finding the will of God and life’s greatest achievement is following the will of God.  Every one of us can confidently seek and find God’s specific will for us at any crucial turn.  We do not have to wander wondering if we will just happen to intersect God’s will as we fumble and bumble through aimless experiences occurring randomly and successively across the years.  Life need not be rudderless. 

The will of God is found in the confluence (or dovetailing if you prefer) of four things: (1) The principles of the Word of God, (2) The peace of the Spirit of God, (3) The people of the church of God and (4) The providence of the sovereignty of God.  Any one of these taken in isolation may cause us to make shipwreck of our life.  How so, you ask?

Obviously God is never going to contradict his Word and will not direct us to do something in opposition to it.  Our problem comes when we are so anxious to do a certain thing that we tear through the pages of God’s Word looking for any text that appears to support whatever it is we are about to do.  There are 1189 chapters and about 773,700 words (depending on your translation) in the Bible.  That’s a fertile field for the imaginative believer to pick a text from!  Often we treat the Bible like a spiritual Ouija Board generating strange vibrations certain to be God’s iron clad will for us today.

Perhaps you heard about the guy whose life was a certifiable mess.  In desperation he grabbed a Bible and prayed, “Alright God, I’m going to open this Bible and whatever verse my finger falls on will be your will.”  He opened the Bible and his finger fell on “Judas went out and hung himself.”  He thought, “That will never do” and he tried it a second time.  This time it said, “Go thou and do likewise.”  His frustration was growing and so he gave it one last whirl.  This time it read, “Whatever thou doest do quickly.”  You see, a text without a context is a pretext!  Fallen, finite minds find faulty foundations for all sorts of silly things even in Scripture.

Part of the fruitage of the Spirit is peace and so if I am walking in the Spirit I should be walking in peace.  My problem may come, however, when I look in the mirror, have a conversation with myself but leave convinced I’ve had a talk with God.  Our emotions are a tangled tussle of the tender, the tough, the tormented and the triumphant and are suspect guides in this wasteland we call life.  “Let your heart be your guide!” well-intentioned-but-not-so-bright coffee shop counselors opine as they take another sip of an overpriced latte.  Problem is The heart is more deceitful than anything else and desperately sick – who can understand it (Jer. 17: 9 HCSB)?

What I think is the peace of an unerring God may be the impulse of an impetuous spirit all mine own.  There are lots of cautions to be heeded when evaluating a major decision but none as dangerous as the internal one which often sends us spiraling down toward an unstoppable disaster.  “But I loved him and I thought he loved me!”  “It just felt so right but now I feel so bad!”  “I knew there were problems but I was sure in my heart they would work out!”  Sound familiar?  We’ve heard them and a hundred like them.

God put us in a world rushing toward 7 billion people, in a family of some size and in His church as well so we did not have to figure all this stuff out in a vacuum.  We are to turn to others for advice in a pinch.  God said, Without guidance, people fall, but with many counselors there is deliverance (Prv. 11: 14 HCSB; cf. 15: 22; 24: 6).  We don’t need a hundred counselors but we do need a number who are mature in their faith and vested in our success spiritually.

What fairly bright chaps learn is that if we go to certain people we will get certain advice!  If I want to be told to do a specific thing I have my heart set on then I just go to the “counselors” who will tell me to do that thing.  I conveniently avoid the other possible advisors because they might say something contrary to what I want to do.  This has going on for centuries (e.g. 2 Chr. 18: 1 - 27).  Honestly, why bother to inquire of people who are known to think and talk just like we do?

The principles, peace and people of God can be warped to my wishes and so can the providence of God. “Can I strong arm God into doing or not doing something,” you ask in your best theological tone?  Of course God is no man’s debtor or slave but we can look at His providences with a pronounced case of spiritual myopia.  Our nearsighted perspective prevents us from seeing the big picture – the God picture – in our quandaries.  I may look at a given situation and sigh, “That will never happen!”  I may also review a set of circumstances and exclaim, “This is done deal!”  As a matter of fact, I have done both only to have God prove me patently wrong!

What appear to be eternal barriers to accomplishing something fall like dominoes before the God of heaven and earth.  What present themselves as open and never-will-be-closed doors of opportunity slam so tightly and quickly that I must jerk my foot back before my big toe is caught in the door jam.  The same God Who opens doors closes them (Rev. 3: 7).

Well, if all these approaches to the will of God are fraught with failure where is the serious saint to turn?  As I said, it’s in the confluence of all four.  “Blessed are the balanced,” Warren Wiersbe has been saying for a generation.  Every one of these items is biblical big time!  Taken together they provide the balance I need for making a major decision. 

When I prayerfully and with yieldedness seek the will of God expressed in infallible Scripture, and surrender to the guidance of the indwelling Spirit Who saturates my soul with peace, and listen attentively to savvy and spiritual confidants and observe the providences of God about me I’m braced to make a choice.  When all four line up together I can say safely, “I have found the will of God,” and that’s good to know.

Hope for the Hopeless

Several years ago a lady in the church I was serving suggested to a young woman that she come and speak with me.  The young woman who came to my office that day was one of the most despondent individuals I have ever met.  She was in fact suicidal.  Unfortunately she left much as she came and soon disappeared from sight.  As I think about her today I can only pray that wherever she may be that life is very different than that day she idled into my office.

Among the reasons why I will never forget my meeting with this hopeless young woman was her name.  You guessed it!  Yes, her name was Hope.  Her name was Hope bur she was utterly hopeless.  Her name suggested a life spring of forward facing faith but alas she was plowing the dust with her chin.  The name her parents gave her seemed now only a cruel joke played on an unsuspecting child.  Hope was hopeless with no expectation that anything would ever be different.

My young friend is a parable of sorts.  Our planet is crowded with many a hopeless individual.  Some bear all the tell tale signs of deep depression.  The sagging eyes, drooped head, bowed posture, whispered tones and pale colors testify to hopelessness.   For most however one must be much more observant.  Heads held high, confident if not cocky voices, bold colors and fast paced lives mask a quiet but real hopelessness.  Eating away at the core of the soul like an ever growing family of termites is the gnawing question, “Is there anything more to life than this?”

Never forget that men in Brooks Brothers suits commit suicide as often as the forgotten souls on skid row.  And yes, ladies living in posh homes in tony neighborhoods end it all with a bottle of pills just like their counterparts in the trailer park or housing project.  Let’s face it – hopelessness is an equal opportunity offender stalking people in all walks of life.  Maybe you’ve been to that dreary country.  Maybe you’re there now.  Certainly you know those who wander aimlessly in the wasteland of weariness.

This rampant hopelessness gave birth to the motto for Union Baptist Church: “Where hearts and homes find hope!”  Hope is a magnet drawing the metal in the rich and poor, literate and illiterate, known and unknown to Christ and His church.  People are not looking for another set of rules and regulations nor do they need more places to be and deadlines to meet.  But hope – well, they’re searching passionately for that.  Hope is fresh bread for the famished and living water for the spiritually dehydrated.  Hold out hope and people will come!

Now when they come they come with all the attendant baggage of those who have no hope.  Hopeless folk have sexual bondages, beverage breath, too many pill bottles and a boat load of secrets but they also come in the more socially acceptable wrappings of materialism and self-centeredness.  Houses of hope quickly fill up with the hopeless and all their stuff!  Isn’t this what church is supposed to be?  “Where hearts and homes find hope!” – may it be more than a slogan here, now and forever!

The Couple that Prays Together

“The couple that prays together stays together.”  It’s a well know cliché to most of us but is it true?  Was it ever true?  Is it still true?  Can it ever be true?  The divorce rate in our nation has many of us wondering if anything can stem the tide of the tsunami of marital breakup in our land.  Our disillusionment is furthered by the numerous divorces within the churches across the fruited plain.  Are Christian couples just as much at risk for divorce as non-Christian couples?  Some would suggest so.

Three decades observing couples whose marriages withstand or fail to withstand the often fierce winds of contemporary culture has provided me some insight into the permanence and impermanence of marriage.  Like most of my readers I have witnessed the dissolution of the marriages of close friends; many of whom were actively involved in church.  Most of them continued to express strong, if not robust theological convictions throughout and after the divorce.  Quite a number of them continued to attend church with about the same frequency after the marriage ended as before.  Many report their spiritual activities to be similar to the time prior to the divorce.

I mention these spiritual and theological markers to highlight the fact that all of these things and more failed on occasion to preclude a divorce.  Each of these practices certainly increases the likelihood that a marriage will not end in divorce as an ever expanding body of evidence shows but in the end divorce manages to penetrate each of these veils.  (A number of these factors and studies are cited in a recent op/ed column by Glenn Stanton at http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=34656 ).

As a pastor for sometime in multiple states and cultures, I am surprised by two things when it comes to divorce.  I am shocked that more non-Christian marriages do not end in divorce and I am shocked even more that so many Christian marriages do end in divorce.  Perhaps the reader is asking if I am some sort of fatalist who does not believe that there is any reliable force to keep divorce away from your door.  Let me assure you I am no fatalist.  I am a man of faith.

In my years of experience, I have noted one predictor of marital permanence which significantly supersedes all others.  It is collapsed into a single line: “The couple that prays together stays together.”  I’m not omniscient and have done no elaborate longitudinal studies on the subject but I cannot never recall a couple who consistently prayed with each other coming to my office to discuss divorce.  While I have conducted no empirical studies on this subject others have.  (A recent study, “The Couple that Prays Together: Race and Ethnicity, Religion, and Relationship Quality among Working-Age Adults” can be found at http://www.virginia.edu/marriageproject/pdfs/coupleprays.pdf )

If, indeed, praying couples keep the preying claws of divorce away why then do so few Christian couples consistently pray together.  As a man who failed miserably in this regard for years, I think I can offer some clues.  For one most of us never saw it modeled growing up.  Two, men often feel more vulnerable when praying with their wife than they are accustomed to.  Poor scheduling and discipline would be a third problem.  And no doubt the sins we refuse to forfeit would be a major reason why we don’t pray alone or with our mate.

I can offer no wiser counsel to any couple than to begin to pray together if you do not and if you do, keep it up!

This article originally appeared in The Daily Press.

Peniel Preaching

Sermons should bear scars of the Savior’s surgery of our soul.  Paul humbly boasted, “I carry the marks of Jesus on my body” (Gal. 6: 17).  As every good New Testament student knows “marks” translates the Greek stigmata.  Most of us will probably never be body marked by wounds received in the service of Christ but at least our sermons can be.

The remarkable Scotsman, Robert Murray McCheyne opined, “The greatest need of my people is my personal holiness.”[i]  Paul instructed Timothy, “Be conscientious about yourself and your teaching; persevere in these things, for by doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4: 16).  If we take pains to know the message but overlook the messenger in the process we have made a fatal mistake.

The reality remains that one can only impart what he has experienced.  You cannot give away what you do not possess but you must give away what possesses you.  “What I live by I impart,” declared the transformed North African Bishop Augustine.[ii]  Character and communication are forever inextricably linked.  Sermonizing should be the outflow and the overflow of the inflow of what the Holy Spirit has accomplished in our life.

Like ancient Jacob we approach a text thinking our battle is with the men and women – or with a specific man or woman – to be seated before us.  In reality we face a more pressing foe – God Himself Who subdues us by His Word.  God waited patiently for twenty years to break Jacob and He waits with divinely determined mercy to break us.  Let us be done with the nonsense that we are preachers who require no such breaking!  Jacob was a patriarch of the promise and had experienced revelations we will only be exposed to in heaven and yet he needed breaking.  Such breaking is often required to confirm us in the truth we are called to proclaim.

Summing up Jacob’s nighttime struggle and surrender G. Campbell Morgan says:

            The story is indeed old, and yet ever new.  There are very few who have not in the course of the life of faith, spent a night of loneliness, in which they have risen through defeat into new power.  The crippling of such occasions are the crowning of men.  The limp of Jacob was a life-long disability, but it was the patent of his nobility.[iii]                                                                              

The story is told of a young man preparing to preach his first sermon.  He studied long and hard and arrived at the church swashbuckling style.  At the appointed time he rose with extreme confidence and almost defiantly strode to the pulpit but alas within moments his first sermon began to sound like a lot of other first sermons.  He got his points confused and his tongue tangled and shortly folded up his notes and walked sheepishly back to the front pew.  A wise, old, godly preacher who patiently watched the embarrassing ordeal caught him afterward and said, “If you had gone up to the pulpit the way you came down from the pulpit then you could have came down from the pulpit the way you went up to the pulpit!”

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[i] Quoted in Steven J. Lawson, The Ten How-to’s of Expository Preaching, The Tie, July 1997, 10.

[ii] Quoted in James S. Stewart, Heralds of God, (London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd. 1946; reprint  ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1972),  10.

[iii] G. Campbell Morgan, The Analyzed Bible: Genesis (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1911; reprint ed., Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983),  199.