Growing Old Ain't For Sissies

NUMBER 191
God With Us

Shortly before he went to the cross to die for our sins, the Lord Jesus Christ was preparing his men for his departure and said this:

"I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Yet a little while and the world will see me no more, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you." John 14.16-20

Preparing a lesson on Matthew 26-28 I was struck by the fact that I often think of God the Father and God the Son as “up there” in heaven and seldom think of God the Holy Spirit as “in here” in me. When I prepare a lesson I pray for wisdom, understanding, patience, diligence and whatever other qualities I think might need calling upon. My prayer goes “up there” and I then go about the job without really being aware of the Holy Spirit who is with me in the most intimate way—in my heart, now.

Alistair Begg says that he goal of preaching and teaching is “that the Spirit of God present the Word of God through a man of God.” It occurred to me that the starting place of a sermon or a message should be a text of the Word approached with a closed mouth and an open ear—the teacher or preacher must begin by listening, and that listening is to the Holy Spirit who dwells within each believer.

Once this thought entered my mind I began to notice how pervasive the mindset is that thinks of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ as “up there.” Oh, we know about omnipresence, but pragmatically, when we petition God to be with us, we think of him as coming alongside us, coming down from “up there” to be “down here” at our side.

On the car radio last week I heard a preacher go on about how difficult the times are and how God will be there beside us to go through every trial. He spoke of God, the Friend who sticks closer than a brother—as one who “will never leave or forsake us.” God’s entire ministry to us in our dire need was described as “alongside.” God was the perfect paramedic, never the indwelling fountain of life and health and power.

Maybe I am splitting hairs but I don’t think so. Christians often get accused of treating God like a cosmic valet and it is this pragmatic view of him “up there” that seems to make this possible. There is much more of this to be explored but for me the nub of it is a new insight into these verses in John 14.

Surely He is Immanuel, God with us. But he is also God in us:

"…do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.:
1 Corinthians 6.19

As we celebrate once more the birth of our Savior, may we be mindful of the fact that individually we are His temples, the place of His dwelling among men. Just as surely as He walks with us, He also surely is in us.

NUMBER 190
“I’m offended”

In recent months the opinion page of our local liberal rag has featured the word “scary” on an almost daily basis. The headline is invariably over a letter from someone who wants to impeach Bush or Cheney or the entire Republican administration.

All these “scaries” stirred up my dormant curmudgeonly instincts and I wrote a letter to the editor:

11.10.07
To the Editor, The Lexington Herald-Leader

The word “scary” is a regular feature on the opinion page these days. What is most scary to me is that this word seems to be reserved for the headlines of rants from mindless, high-chair banging Bush-haters. I suppose it would be too much to ask for them to take a deep breath and try to imagine where we would be today had Al Gore been President when the homicidal sons of Allah took down the Twin Towers.

So I will imagine for them. Today we would be reading glowing reports of the great progress being made by national and international focus groups examining how the United States can respond to this outrage “appropriately.”

“Appropriately” would be defined as “in such a way that no one’s feelings will be hurt and no dollar would be spent that could better be used to obtain or maintain a vote from a dependent Democrat constituency.” Of course, the definition would be framed in weasel words and shrouded in smoke to get it past the thousands of people suffering from continuing terrorist attacks in our major cities and on our infrastructure.

President Bush is a long way from perfect but I, for one, think the idea of the servants of MoveOn.org being responsible for our national security is a whole lot more scary than the situation we have at present. How about using your “scary” on a pro-administration letter for a change. “Really Scary” would be nice.
Jerry Sweers

The editors, in fear of stirring up the Muslim street changed “homicidal Sons of Allah” to “homicidal terrorists,” and dropped the last two sentences which were just a suggestion anyway. But they did accept the suggestion—their headline was “If you want scary, Imagine Gore administration. Frankly, I was surprised that their politically correct editors let this strong a letter slip through. I suspect they may have had second thoughts. 6 days after my letter appeared they printed a response from another reader:

Herald-Leader Opinions
12.1.07
In regard to the November27 letter, “If you want scary, imagine Gore Administration”: I am offended by the statement that a person who does not like President Bush is “mindless.” My dog could run this country better than those in charge at the moment. Has the letter writer heard some of what Bush has said? Anyone who voted for him deserves him. I wish someone would fool around with him in the Oval Office so we can impeach him.
Matt Kash
Nicholasville

Since the paper will never print a response to a response, I will just make a few observations about this letter and the general state of public discourse in these early days of the next presidential election.

1. It is difficult in 250 words or less to make more than one or two points and almost impossible to treat any serious issue fully. My letter is was 239 words. Its main point was that the liberal left’s philosophical commitment to a socialist welfare state and a globalist foreign policy makes them a worse national security bargain than a flawed conservative right in a world where well-organized expansionist Islam is busy trying to kill us. The Refuter’s response is typical of the mindless high-chair banging Bush haters that stimulated my original letter.
2. The Refuter is “offended.” This is a stock response from the party of “feelings.” He is clearly one of those who would like our foreign policy to always give the feelings of the rest of the world a veto on any action we might take.
3. What offends him is that I characterize “a person who does not like President Bush” as “mindless.” He cannot see himself as a “hater.” The line drawn by the liberal left between “dislike” and “hate” is always drawn between political ideologies—a person who “does not like” is always a liberal—a person who “hates” is always a conservative. His next two statements clearly identify him as a “Bush-hater.”
4. I would like to meet the dog that could run the country better than the present administration. I admitted in my letter that President Bush is far from perfect. I could do several single-spaced pages on the ways in which I feel he has failed to live up to his potential and his promises, but if this dog statement was made by a conservative about a liberal president, it would be called “hate speech” by the left and result in much high-chair banging all around.
5. The self-identification of the Bush-hater is completed by the desire to impeach. Was Bill Clinton really the victim of Monica Lewinski’s lewd fraternization in the oval office? Who was the sexual predator and who the silly fool. One of President Bush’s undenaible strengths is that Laura has never had to worry about who he would fool around with next.

So where does that leave things? I have a friend who accuses me of “Swapping spit with jackasses” when I write a letter to the editor. My response to him is that “at least one jackass has to read it and once in a while a whole herd of them get a look.” This Refuter’s letter proves that.

The H-L quickly slipped back into its usual mode—this Refuter’s letter was published in box labeled WHAT BUSH HATH WROUGHT? That contained a nice selection of three other typical Bush-hating letters.

One postscript: Just yesterday another response to this letter came in the snail mail. It was what the high-chair bangers would call hate mail (had it been written by a conservative) and the writer said at the end he wasn’t signing it because he thinks I may be “a little crazy.” He mailed it in an envelope with his name and return address on it—talk about a little crazy.

All things considered, I still think it is worth the trouble to speak the truth into the public square.