Praise
the Lord for harvest season around the corner and around the world. It is the
harvest time here in New York the Empire State. We have some pear trees that
are loaded with beautiful fruit. New York apples are some of the best in the
world. We are getting ready for the Apple Fest, coming soon to Endicott. One
young friend brought to us some of the local honey that he raises along with
maple syrup from his trees. It is reported that the USA is going to harvest a
record amount of corn and soybeans this year. The USA has become the number
one producer of crude oil and natural gas. The Lord blessed us with an abundant
tomato crop from our garden, along with plenty of winter squash and hot pepper
galore. Blessed be His name. Indeed it is a wonderful world. We can say and
sing, "How great Thou Art" and joyfully proclaim, "This is my Father's
world".
In the
world filled with both beauty and bounty we face terror and fear. We face
the attacks and the assaults of the enemy. We resolve to live with confidence
because the Lord is the victor.. He is our mighty warrior, strong in battle.
The battle belongs to the Lord. May He make us as fearless and bold as Daniel
and Peter, and Jim Elliott and others who have gone before
us. Think of Daniel. Reflect upon his life and
witness. Daniel was taken to Babylon as a youth where, it is written, Daniel
chose a simple diet, chose an honorable way to be obedient to his new authority
and to honor God. The Bible says that God will honor those who honor Him.
The
testimony of Daniel was firmly established. We read how God used this young
man to speak to a heathen nation, to show God's sovereignty over all things, to
prophesy concerning Jesus Christ, and to establish the lordship of Christ in
human history. It started with a small act of obedience.
When we
live in active obedience to God, we become living testimonies for God. In the
very hard places of life where we are led, the mysterious places where we don't
understand why the innocent suffer or why we suffer, it is in those places where
small decisions are made to trust Christ regardless. It is in those very places
that we become living testimonies for others. Daniel had to be a testimony for
those other three young men. Every Sunday school child knows that Shadrach,
Meshack, and Abednego were going to have a challenge, but they never forgot the
strength and constancy of Daniel. Nebuchadnezzar would know the strength of
Daniel. They would all know the power of God at work in one teen-age boy who
overflowed with the love of God in his heart.
We see
that this evil place, this place of paganism, became, for one tried and true
young man, a place where other disciples were made. Daniel was a great
evangelist yet he was in a foreign land. Daniel was a great theologian who
taught others about God, yet he was a slave. Daniel was a leader, yet Daniel
was just a lad. In Babylon Daniel stirred up the faith of his friends who would
later need strong faith themselves, and he witnessed to a pagan
king.
This
reminds me of Paul in prison in Rome. He wrote to the Philippians to encourage
them about his situation, "I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened
to me has really served to advance the gospel, so that it has become known
throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is
for Christ" (Philippians
1:12-13).
Often,
through faith in Christ, the hard places of life become sacred places. One
might not
believe that cancer is a sacred place. The mere mention of the word makes us
stop, but as awful as such a place is, I have witnessed sacred places in such
times. I was visiting a beautiful and very sweet servant of Jesus who is
battling some dreadful health concerns. I sensed the very presence of the Lord
in her hospital room. Jesus sustains in those difficult places of life that I
call "Babylon". We don't want to go to Babylon and we don't pray for
anyone to go to Babylon, but Babylon happens in this life. Jesus is with us in
our Babylon. Jesus came from heaven to Babylon—the manger, the cross, and the
tomb were Babylon to Him. Jesus Christ identified with us in the hardest places
of life, in places we will never go. He took upon Himself shame and the
condemnation of the cross that He might identify with us, that we may know that
He is with us in Babylon.
The
Good News we proclaim is that our God knows no boundaries. He is the God named
Jesus who comes to our Babylon and turns a place of exile into a sanctuary.
Jesus comes to our Babylon in a manger, on a cross, through an empty tomb,
through the Holy Spirit, and He lives in our hearts wherever we
are.
In
Christ,
Brown
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