Jesus blessed us with a summer-like day
yesterday. People were out in droves in summer apparel. The
temperature reached into the lower eighties in some places. I
drove to the Triple Cities to do errands. The spirit of Spring has
descended in the region, awakening the earth that was long dormant.
The Lord of all seasons visits the earth once again so that the earth comes
alive by His breath and touch. Spring, with all its splendor and beauty,
is pervading the region. The Spring rains have drenched the earth.
The rivers, streams, and rivulets are running deep. Alice and I walked
around town yesterday. The town's ice cream parlor is open for another
season. The Local park was crowded with young people engaged in all kinds
of spring Sports. The fields, meadows, and hills are getting greener
again. Birds of all colors and all feathers were out in
droves, singing songs and melodies so sweet. Alice and I were
gazing at some of the strawberry plant near the parsonage. They are
budding and may soon bear fruit... the Miracles of spring.
This morning the birds began to announce the start of the day by 5:00 AM, singing their praises to the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe. Theirs is a "symphony of praise", and I love to hear their joyful refrain. I never get tired of it.
As we journey through this Holy week, may Jesus, our eternal companion along the journey feed us with the bread of life and draw us close to the Eternal Fountain that washes us clean and refreshes us from within. As we journey with Him may His truth reverberate and pulsate in our hearts, provoking us to deny ourselves and take up the cross and follow Him to Jerusalem, to His Cross, to the Grave, culminating at the Empty Tomb and into very presence of the Risen Lord. May we all take time and make time to pause and ponder and say and sing with Isaac Watts:
- "When
I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride. - Forbid
it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood. - See
from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown? - Were
the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all."
Just hours before Jesus died for us, the Roman Governor Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” Jesus was on trial before this pagan judge who had the power to sentence Him to death. Pilate asked, “Are you a king?” Jesus replied, “Yes, and I came into the world to testify to the truth.” It was to this that Pilate responded, probably with cynical derision, “What is truth?”
For Pontius Pilate, truth was whatever the Roman emperor said it was. Romans believed Caesar was divine. Therefore, when Christians boldly declared Jesus as Lord, they were saying Caesar was not. The word lord refers to one’s ultimate allegiance, and a person can have only one lord at a time. Therefore, when Christians declared Jesus as Lord, they were saying Caesar was not lord. Many Christians were killed for clinging to that truth. There was no room for dueling lords in the Roman Empire.
Today in the world, our secular and confused culture that has gone insane opposes biblical truth. That should not surprise us. Our Bible is a counter-cultural document. Many do not like the Bible’s definition of marriage, so they have spent years turning the cultural stigmas around, upholding behavior which used to be considered deviant in order to invent a different definition. Some do not reverence the holy name of God, so they use that name as a common expletive. The Bible is at odds with all cultures. What is truth? Jesus was exclusive, but not in regard to people—He included everybody. He was exclusive in regard to truth. He said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father but by Me” (John 14:6). The apostle Peter said, “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). Jesus said, “Whoever does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him” (John 5:23).
God has a sense of humor. There was an 18th century French philosopher named Voltaire who was critical of Christianity and skeptical about the Bible. He made a prediction, saying, “In 100 years the Bible will be a forgotten book found only in museums.” Guess what: 100 years after he made that prediction, his home was being used as an office of the Geneva Bible Society. God must have chuckled at that one!
As Christians we are called to be firm in the truth without being condescending, to be bold without being arrogant. Our culture has trouble with Jesus’ words about truth because cultural referees worship at the altar of relativism. Tolerance is one of the few moral absolutes in America, but it’s not a healthy tolerance that respects every person’s belief whether one agrees. Instead, it is an unhealthy tolerance that requires us to affirm all religious beliefs are equally true and that none is absolutely true. We must reject that brand of tolerance.
Jesus was the personification of absolute truth, though there are those who believe that He was the greatest fraud in history. Jesus was not something in between. If you reduce Christ to the lowest common denominator that other religions can accept, some moral relativism, you deny the Christ of Scripture.
The Bible is an absolutely unique book. Millions of people over thousands of years have proven by experience the truth, “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul” (Ps. 19:7). After 2,000 years, no expert in any field has disproved a single statement from the Bible, but that shouldn’t surprise us because “all Scripture is God-breathed” (2 Tim. 3:16) or inspired by God. Jesus is the Way,TheTruth and the Life. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. "All may change , but Jesus never. . . Glory to His Name.
In Christ,
Brown
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