Short Courses on Small Subjects

The Master’s Touch

(ONE)

A course doesn’t get much shorter than this one! But, hey, we’re just getting warmed up.

You’ve heard the story of King Midas, and how everything he touched turned to gold. That would be nice in some ways, but he wasn’t happy in the end. And that has never been my prayer or desire.

One time when I was young, I actually prayed, Lord, make me a poor man, so I will need you to do a miracle in my life to provide my needs. Then I could see an answer to prayer! Well, He definitely answered that one, as my children all know. I shared that story with my wife, years later. She said, "I wish you had told me about that prayer before we got married!" She was just teasing—I think(?)

But my other prayer, especially in recent years, has been, "Father, what I really desire is not the Midas touch, but the ‘Master’s Touch.’ Let those that I ‘touch,’—with my words and with my life—turn, not to gold, but to God, in repentance and faith." That is my desire for my precious family, and anyone else who reads this book. May we all become a part of the family of God. (We love you dearly!)

THE MASTER—

Who Touches U.S. All

(TWO)

I just put the finishing touches on my latest book, Judah Means Praise. It hasn’t been printed yet, but when you finally get a copy, you will discover a lot of things that I said about praise, and about the One we praise. However, I saved one small additional detail for this book. It is a seldom-noted observation, with very large implications.

There is an account in the book of Acts about Peter visiting the house of a Roman soldier named Cornelius. Peter was this important leader of the Church, and Cornelius and his family were just lowly gentiles, deeply grateful for his visit to their home. So the humble host fell at his feet in reverence. But Peter made him get up. ‘Stand up,’ he said, ‘I am only a man myself’ (Acts 10:25-26, N.I.V.).

Also, in the book of Revelation, the apostle John is in the presence of an angel. He revealed many wonderful things to John, and John reacted in this way:

. . . I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. But he said to me, ‘Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers… Worship God!’ (Revelation 22:8-9, N.I.V.).

Finally, we come to the story of the disciples meeting with Jesus after His resurrection. Then the eleven disciples… (Judas was no longer there) . . . went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him… (Matthew 28:16-17, N.I.V.). And Jesus didn’t say a word.

When we come to Jesus, we are not dealing with just a man, or even an angel. Hebrews 1:5 (N.I.V.) asks, . . . to which of the angels did God ever say, ‘You are my Son; today I have become your Father’? When Jesus and the disciples were on the Mount of Transfiguration, and God spoke from the cloud, He declared, "This is my Son, whom I have chosen; listen to him (Luke 9:35, N.I.V.). Jesus adds this exclamation point to God’s command: Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away" (Luke 21:33, N.I.V.).

2012 is an election year, and in the middle of it all, I am reminded that the Father didn’t require the results of an election or a poll to determine His choice for King of kings and Lord of lords. You may not agree with His choice, and simply choose to walk away from Jesus. When He was on earth, many in the crowds around Him did just that. But I pray that, instead, you will join His disciples, and worship Him for who He truly is, the glorious Son of God, far superior to any man or angel.

Before you cast your vote, please read the next chapter. I think it will be a game-changer! I’m definitely trying to influence the outcome of the election. (Guilty as charged!)

My Letter to My Brother

(THREE)

We are switching now from Short Courses to one of our family letters. Those will be alternating back and forth in this book. I wanted to begin with a letter to my brother and his wife before I wrote the ones to my own wife and children, because they remember my years at Kansas State University and Fuller Seminary. Those were in the 1960’s, and I didn’t even meet my wonderful wife until 1973.

They also remember my wonderful mother, who had breast cancer and passed away in 1971. When they got married in 1970, she was in the hospital and couldn’t attend their wedding. So they made slides of the ceremony (this was before videos), and she was so grateful to be able to watch it on her hospital wall. And as I shared in my book, The Matt & Noelle Letters, one of the saddest parts of this story is that she didn’t live long enough to know my wife and kids, whom these books will be passed down to. She would have loved them like no one else. (You may want to be present for that family reunion in heaven! It should be a good one.)

So without further introduction, let’s get this game-changer letter going! At my age we need to write fast, before we forget.

Dear Ron & Earlene,

The reason I thought of writing this letter to you was something Earlene told me the last time I was at the farm during harvest. She was rather depressed because she had been attending a Bible study that was analyzing the topic of hell, of all things. She could think of twenty other subjects more to her liking! But she wasn’t the leader of the group. Even then I felt sorry for her and wanted to help her out. And I vowed that someday soon, I would write a letter to her that might give my poor sister-in-law a more positive perspective on this important subject.

It’s also a letter to you, Ron. You have been such a supporter and fan of my books from day one. Thank you! And speaking of Bible studies, you once used my first book, Short Courses on Tall Subjects, in a class that you taught at your church. Then you made me feel very important when you invited the class to bring their books up to have me sign my name in them!

I’m sure you will notice this when you read what I have to say; my book that you used in your Bible study covered some of this same ground in the closing chapters. So it may sound a little bit familiar to begin with. But there is more to say on this important subject. That was just the Reader’s Digest version, and in this letter we will take it a little bit further and draw some conclusions that I guarantee you haven’t heard before.

Ron, as you know, back in my college and seminary days, we had both just recently become Christians. I remember at the time that I was still struggling with the issue of law vs. grace. And I was reading one of my favorite Bible passages, Ephesians 2:8-10 (N.I.V.):

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

On the one hand we weren’t saved by works, but on the other hand we were supposed to do good works. I was thinking long and hard just how the two were connected.

The crux of the matter, I eventually discovered, is THE CROSS—literally! My dictionary says the word crux is the Latin word for cross. As you know, the Cross is at the heart of the Gospel; after His resurrection, Jesus commanded His disciples, Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15, K.J.V.) There is a very, very crucial reason for that command as well. (Crucial also comes from the word crux, and in my dictionary, the next five words following crucial include both crucifixion and crucify.)

So to make this connection, the first question we have to ask ourselves is, What kind of ‘works’ are we talking about here? It has something to do with the laws of Moses. That covers a lot of territory, like the first five books of the Old Testament, including the Ten Commandments. In Matthew 22:34-40, Jesus helps us out by boiling it all down to two simple things: (1.) Love God with all your heart (See Deuteronomy 6:5), and (2.) Love your neighbor as yourself (Leviticus 19:18). He concludes, All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments (Matthew 22:40, N.I.V.).

Therefore, Paul must be saying that we can’t be saved by loving either God or our neighbor, but we are created in Christ Jesus to do both. And when we become a born-again Christian, from then on we become God’s workmanship, and he helps us to do what we never, ever could do all alone. (Thank you, Jesus!)

Where, then, does this help come from? Let’s let some very important verses be our guide, starting with Romans 5:8 (N.I.V.). "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Before we had done a single thing to deserve His approval, His grace was already in motion, and His Son was hung on the Cross to pay the ultimate penalty for our sins. It was His idea, not ours… HIS LOVE in action. Our love wasn’t even a blip on the radar!

The next verses come from one of the Bible’s Love Chapters. There are two of these that I know of—I Corinthians 13, and I John chapter 4. The first one is more a description of what God’s love looks like, but the second tells us where it comes from. That is our main concern here.

I’m just going to let the Scripture speak for itself:

"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." (I John 4:7-11.)

That passage is so vital, I would recommend that every Christian memorize it! Or, you could just remember verse 19, seven little words that summarize it all:

WE LOVE BECAUSE HE FIRST LOVED US.

This has since become my life-long motto.

This passage is the good news (the word gospel means good news.) But Jesus’ description of the last days before His second coming is the bad news—Matthew 24:12 (N.I.V.) warns us, "Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, . . . We are definitely seeing the world becomes more wicked" in our lifetime! I don’t think our ancestors would even recognize the America we live in today, slipping far from its original foundations. So how can we avoid following the crowd, and letting our love slip from its foundation?

Thank God, that foundation is still solid as a rock! The bad news doesn’t cancel out the good news. Jesus goes on to say, in Matthew 24, verses 13-14, . . . but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. How will we be saved, and our love endure to the end? The same way as before, by continuing to preach the gospel of God’s love, to all nations, unforgettably displayed by His only begotten Son on the Cross.

Ron, I know you guys like to go to Florida to do some deep-sea fishing. You once told me about a diver that you rescued at sunset, who had gotten separated from his mother ship. He might have been lost at sea if you hadn’t seen him. But how did he travel so many miles under the water before he discovered that he was lost? He didn’t drown, though he was surrounded by water. He must have had oxygen tanks on his back.

The Gospel is our unfailing source of oxygen when we find ourselves surrounded by an ocean of sin, godlessness, and even hatred. Our reaction doesn’t depend on others, who they are or what they do. We have a higher Source for our love, exalted on a Cross, praying Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do (Luke 23:34, K.J.V.). We can’t take any of the credit. We can only thank Him that He prayed the same thing for us, when we were undeserving sinners. (And we still are!)

Now, Earlene, I need to talk to you for a while. You faced a little bad news of your own, when you attended that Bible study. I wish I could turn hell into something more pleasant, but that is impossible for even God to do! But when the light of the Gospel is set against that inky black-drop, God’s grace shines even brighter, praise the Lord! (Was it Billy Graham that said, Hell was created for the devil and his angels, and God is doing everything He can to keep you out of it!?),

I have a very simple definition for heaven and hell. Heaven is life with God and hell is life without Him. When God predicted the future birth of His Son, He gave him the prophetic name Immanuel (Isaiah 7:14), and Matthew 1:23 (N.I.V.) adds this translation of the name: —which means, ‘God with us.’ By my definition, the Father is telling us that Jesus opens the door to heaven, for those who welcome Him into their lives.

What is the alternative? For those who walk away for him, or slam the door in His face when He knocks (see Revelation 3:20), they are choosing life without God! And we know the name for that! (It’s a four-letter word that I don’t even like to use in mixed company.)

This is why I would sternly caution our national leaders to reconsider their