Cieled Houses

“Is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?  Now therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts; Consider your ways.”-Haggai 1:4-5

The value of a home is far more than just four walls and a roof.  Equity and investment.  It is the center of your life.  Your “homebase.”  A place of shelter, safety, comfort, and security.  A dwelling place.  Yet, for all its value, it’s only temporary. 

The prophet Haggai asked the people of God this searching question: “is it time for you, O ye, to dwell in your cieled houses, and this house lie waste?”  The house to which he was referring was the temple in Jerusalem.  The temple which the scribe Ezra, and the cupbearer Nemiah had endeavored (by God’s help) to rebuild.  Haggai saw the waste and destruction of God's house and challenged the people.  The people had built cieled houses for themselves.  Comfortable, safe, convenient, affluent homes to dwell in.  While God’s house lay ruined. A cieled house was an extravagant house.  It would have had paneling and covering.  Proof that the people had money left over to give.  Time left over to sacrifice, and energy left over to serve.  Yet they spent all this on a covering for a covering.  On coating and finishing for their four walls, while God’s house had no walls.  The destruction of God’s house should have shocked them into action, but they passed by unconcerned, while decorating their own homes.  The destruction of God’s house should shock us into action; however, the comfort of a cieled house cradles us in apathy. How can we sit at ease when the world around us cries out for the gospel?  How can we dwell in fatness, when multitudes are starving for truth?  Is it not the ones that live around us with whom God wants to dwell?  Should we eat, drink, and be merry while the world burns?  Can you face God honestly after spending your life at play?  Heaping up treasures, comforts, and safety nets for your safety nets, while the Lord’s house lies in ruin?  It is not brick and mortar that must receive our work, but men and women.  The people around us who need the restorative power of Christ in their lives.  Let us receive the exhortation of the prophet.  Rise and work!  Ministry is messy.  It’s the life of a miner.  Descending into the darkness each day to hammer against the hardest stone of sin and wickedness; praying that amidst all the filth and dust there lies a precious jewel.  Ministry is a risky endeavor.  It is an uncomfortable task.  Yet, those who choose to follow Christ sign up for suffering.  “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory; While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.”  (2 Cor 4:17-18)

Our mission has taken us to the front lines of the battlefield, where excess is abhorred.  No soldier would hold on to double rations while his brother starved.  No medic would hold back life saving medicine, from the wounded and dying.  We dare not stay home, while the rest of our brothers and sisters die on foreign lands, in foreign fields.  For how can we dwell in cieled houses, and call ourselves disciples?  

The Work Of Righteousness

“Woe unto them that are mighty to drink wine, and men of strength to mingle strong drink: Which justify the wicked for reward and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!”- Isaiah 5:22-23

The justification of wickedness will interrupt the operation of righteousness. Like a white blood cell, righteousness will find and destroy sin, and when the preaching of truth falls on a ready heart it convicts or converts.  

In the prophet Isaiah’s day, there were false prophets falsifying God’s judgment on sin. Desiring to ease the burden of the word of God. Or so they thought. They told the people “Smooth things” and prophesied deceit. While Isaiah spoke the truth in righteousness. The people flocked to the false prophets because they coddled their sin, justifying the wicked, which took away from the possibility of righteousness. A work where the righteousness of God will confront sin, and the truth of God’s word exposes sin. Once exposed the sinner will quake under the truth that God is righteous, and they are wicked. Then they will either yield, rage, or run. Rage like a dying animal with its last stand. Rage like a wolf's den disturbed, or a bear robbed of her cubs. Yet, in all the rage and discomfort, it must not be that the work of righteousness is taken away; for the end of it is peace and assurance. As Isaiah says in chapter thirty-two: “And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever.”  Righteousness will purge out sin and establish peace. The peace of knowing God richer, fuller, deeper, and sincerely. This will settle in and promote more righteousness. Reveal more grace. Humble the penitent still further. God desires the work of righteousness to be accomplished on the earth, by accomplishing it in earth. In you and me. From the very beginning he sought to preserve righteousness, saying of Noah “for thee have I seen righteous before me.”  The Holy Ghost, coupled with the Word of God is not only the giving of righteousness but an instructor in righteousness. I ask, what area of life could not be better with instruction in righteousness? What if all relationships were righteous? All the businesses just? What if every heart of man was set to do what is right? Bars would close, gambling halls, strip clubs, and prisons boarded up. Locksmiths and security companies would go out of business. Donation boxes would fill up, while poverty and homelessness went down. Our fighting forces and weapons money redistributed. This is because the cleansing wave of righteousness flows like a mighty stream, purging out the deadness of the land, and leaving behind water that gives life. Well said the prophet Amos “But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream.” (Amos 5:24)

This stream of righteousness can reach you. Are you a liar? Are you a cheat? Are you ashamed of the sin you are living with or living in? Do not comfort it, kill it! Do not justify it. Kill it! As David did Goliath, pick up the sword and cut its head off. Kill it, kill it all. Why can’t we be rid of wickedness? Why can’t righteousness work a work in you? Nobody wants a little bit of cancer; they want to be rid of it. Why should we settle to have a little bit of sin within, when within our reach is the means to destroy it? Christ offered the work of righteousness as a gift. Take it, take it by faith and stop at nothing until you have it. Kneel before God, die to yourself and surrender to Christ. 

Precious Promises

“Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.”-2 Peter 1:4

Life is full of promises. Promises that you make and promises that others will make to you. It is likely you have had someone promise you something, and they have broken that promise. It is just as likely that we have broken a few promises ourselves. Man is fallible, but God is faithful.

From an early age, kids’ pickup on promises made to them saying things like: “Daddy, you promised.”  My dad was quick to counter this and implement the “we’ll see” method so as not to overcommit himself. And now, I do the same, because when you make a promise, you set yourself up to proceed in the realms of faith and trust. We all make promises. Promises to your kids, your family, your spouse, friends, employers, and employees. Promises are a pledge, declaration, with which it binds the promisor in conscience and honor. Promises to bind us together, they make up an essential component of society. Faith and trust are the building blocks of promises. To keep them builds up faith and trust, and to break them tears it down. Therefore, when someone makes you a promise, and you act on it, you are exercising faith in that promise and that person. You are saying “I trust your word.”  Do you trust God’s Word today? Do you believe His promises? Then act. Act on them. In Hebrews eleven it tells of a people of faith who acted in faith on God’s promises. Noah, at God’s word, began building a boat long before it ever rained. God called Abraham out of his own country to go to a land which Abraham knew not. God made Abraham a promise that he would be the father of many nations, and Abraham obeyed God in faith. Joseph believed the same promise that God gave Abraham and asked that they would carry his bones up out of Egypt to the land of Canaan. Moses believed God and left the lap of luxury, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than that of Egypt. Gideon went to battle against incredible odds, believing the Word of God, over the evidence of strategy. They believed the promises and waited for the promise. The promise of the Father that would solidify all promises. A promise that Jesus would come, die, rise again, and send the Holy Ghost to fulfill the promise to dwell with us. To adopt us, to give us power to become the sons of God. To deliver us from the snare of Satan. To assure us of a home in heaven. To separate us from a life of sin. To comfort, guide, and teach us. To be an everlasting testament and cornerstone of all of God’s promises to us. God has given unto us exceeding great and precious promises. “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” Promise. “I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”  Promise. “Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” Promise.  Take time, take down your Bible, and read all the promises that God has made to us. We can stand on the promises of God. We can believe them, trust them, and we can have confidence in them. We can act in faith with them.  As the hymn says: “they are builded sure and strong for the conflict with the wrong, God’s promises are never known to fail.”

The same God that sacrificed for us, is willing to sanctify us, and carry us through this life into a home in heaven. The promises of God are indeed exceedingly great and precious. Believe, trust, and act on them. 

Ye Are Idle

“But he said, Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord.”-Exodus 5:17

The scripture says: “whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.”  The world cannot esteem the things of God, because they are contrary one to the other.  This is the case when it comes to praying.  At best the world views it as personal development, and often as idle time.  However, like farming, when the seeds of prayer are sown in the fertile ground of faith it will bear much fruit.  It may take some time, but it will pay off. 

In the above text, Moses comes to Pharaoh at the word of the Lord to tell him to let God’s people go that they may go and worship.  Pharaoh responds: “Ye are idle, ye are idle: therefore ye say, Let us go and do sacrifice to the Lord.”  Then he tells them to get back to work.  Pharaoh is like the world in this instance.  When the people want to go out and worship the Lord his response is that they must not be busy enough.  If they have enough time to go and worship, then they should have enough time to go and work.  Prayer being an element of worship, an essential component of worship.  Of all that is attacked by the world as idleness and slothfulness it is the place of prayer.  Yet nothing could be further from the truth.  Prayer has a profound utility to it, just not in the way that the world honors.  The world exalts the man that sits down, hashes out a plan, rally’s the labor, the capital, and then executes that plan.  It bears their name and most often they rejoice in the glory of it all.  From entrepreneurs to military generals, this kind of work is esteemed.  Yet the labor of prayer is not this way; it is founded in a place of yielding.  It is not that you concoct a brilliant strategy but wait before the Lord for direction.  It is not that you rally labor and capital to your cause but rely on the moving of the Spirit of God to: open doors, send volunteers, and provide the means.  It is not that you follow through with your strength and might but give yourself over to His might that he may work through you, giving glory to God.  The early church wasn’t strategizing and organizing in the upper room, they were praying.  Praying and waiting on the power from above.  Some took them for idle drunkards, but little did they know that the work was underway and had been underway since the foundation of the world.  They were simply fulfilling their part in the plan of God.  What seems like idleness to the carnal world is essential in the work of God.  The investor that sets a certain sum in a sure stock knows that in time his money will compound.  What seems like idleness to the untrained, is in fact compounding into a generous sum.  So, it is in the place of prayer.

We must invest our all in the place of prayer, because only through prayer can we beat back the forces of darkness.  The battle ground we are tasked to fight cannot be won through capital and strategy.  We are fighting for the eternal soul of man.  We are preaching to raise the dead from sin.  We are laboring to liberate the captive from the clutches of Satan.  It’s spiritual warfare that must be fought with spiritual weapons.  So let us find ourselves praying. 

Take Your Place

 “And Abraham gat up early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord:”-Genesis 19:27

The man who is intimate with God will see and experience things other men will not.  They can entreat God with confidence, and where others will shrink from the same request they make; they in turn inquire with boldness.  When the time came Abraham knew the voice of God and followed, when others did not. 

The verse above comes to us concerning the father of Israel.  God’s chosen man, Abraham.  Here is up early to meet God, and he looks toward the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Only to find them burning to the ground.  Just one chapter before Abraham had noticed the angels of God headed toward Sodom, and he invited them in and entreated them as brethren.  He then began to inquire of God about Sodom and Gomorrah’s deliverance.  Asking for it to be spared of God’s wrath.  He began asking for fifty, just fifty righteous people in the city and God would spare it.  Then he asked for forty-five, then thirty, then twenty, then ten.  God was patient with him, and said he would spare the city at every count.  He heard Abraham’s request, and Abraham had the boldness to ask.  I believe Abraham had insight where others could not, because of his morning worship.  The hours that could have been given to work or rest, Abraham went to his place and stood before the Lord.  When you have a “place” it stands to reason that it is a place you frequent.  Whether it is a chair or a couch.  A pew of a church or certain locker at a gym.  Everything has a place, and it’s a place you go back to over and over.  I believe Abraham had a place he went to over and over to stand before the Lord.  To communion with him, to worship him, and to hear his voice.  The voice of God was Abraham’s priority.  He knew firsthand what obedience and belief could do.  He had seen how God had called him, blessed him, and provided for him in miraculous ways.  Abraham won battels he should not have won, obtained favor he should not have obtained.  Abraham thrived, because God was with him.  He was near to God’s will, and the Lord blessed Him.  He stood before the Lord, and because he stood before the Lord, that intimacy with God gave him a boldness and perseverance to continue to ask of God.  When you’re intimate with something or someone, it affords you a boldness that others don’t have.  The career carpenter will swing a hammer with confidence to drive a nail, because he has done it thousands of times.  The captain knows how far he can push his vessel because he has sailed it thousands of miles.  The husband can say things to his wife no other man can, and the same goes for a wife to her husband.  The man that appears before the Lord will have an intimacy with God that others are forsaking, and consequently they will have a boldness with God that some do not have.

Abraham couldn’t control the outcome of Sodom and Gomorrah, but he could make the ask.  He could presume upon God to change God’s righteous judgment; and God listened to him!  The Almighty God engaged with Abraham over the deliverance of a wicked and sinful city.  This is one of the many benefits of spending quality time with God.  That he hears and answers prayer.  Regularly, taking your place before the Lord to fellowship with Him to know His heart affords to that soul a boldness through intestacy that many miss out on, because they are captivated by the things of this world.   

No Room for Him: Rev. Luther Gray (posthumously)

“And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” -Luke 2:7

The following is an excerpt from the journal of Reverend Luther Gray (Uncle Luke) of Christ’s Sanctified Holy Church.  Date and time unknown.

The town of Bethlehem was crowded because a decree had passed that all the world should be taxed.   It is easy to understand why there was no room at this hotel but knowing who it was knocking at the door that night and what it would have meant to them; it seems they would have made room for them.  If the door manager at the inn could have seen the opportunity of it, if he could have looked in the future to see what joy, what happiness it would have been to him. If he only could have let them in, it would have been the greatest hotel of all. Its name would have lasted through time and outlasted the finest hotels of our day. The Ponce de Leon of St Augustine and any in New York or Chicago. It would have exceeded them all in fame and may have been the largest today. If they would have known who was knocking at the door. The picture of the inn would have been on calendars and walls, and on thousands of Christmas cards. If they had only let Joseph and Mary in that night. But there was no room. What a chance, what an opportunity to become something. To do something worthwhile in life. And they passed it by. A humble manger took the glory and honor that would have been given to the inn. It would have been in the hearts and minds of men and women of the world, yet without this it is gone forever. That opportunity was lost, because there was no room. 

Now my dear friend, what might this mean to you? The Great one has said “Behold I stand at the door and knock.”  Now we may think that it was a pity that they did not make room for Jesus. How about us? Can we make room for him? May we as others have, make room in our house, in our life for Jesus? Or is our life so filled with the cares of this life, that there is no room for him. There are many things that we do that we think are not wrong to do. Our time is all taken up what with no harmful things at all. There just doesn’t seem to be room in our own life for Jesus. What a pity, we are like the inn, and inn keeper. Missing the chance of a lifetime by not letting Jesus in. That he may be formed anew in our lives. Behold, what we are missing no human tongue can tell.  Nothing but eternity can know all that we are missing. It is not what we are doing, but rather what we are not doing that counts against us. We take time to get up, to get to work. We take time to eat, and some time to sleep. We take time to go to town and do shopping. We take time to wash our car. We take time to build and to plant. Time to fish and hunt. We take time to go out to eat. We take time to talk with one another. Yet, no time to talk with Jesus. All these things may fill the house. All these things take up all our time; and we will not have any room for Jesus of Nazareth. 

If It Be So, Why Am I Thus?

“And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord.”-Genesis 25:22

Why?  This searching question has accompanied mankind through the ages.  It is a question that has driven, provoked, plagued, and befuddled mankind since the beginning.  Why?  Why are we thus?

The son of Abraham.  God called Abraham to leave his home and country; called him to journey to the unknown.  God promised that he would make Abraham a mighty nation.  Abraham believed God, and one day had Isaac.  Isaac was the beginning of the fulfilment of that promise and would be the beginning of this nation. Issac’s wife Rebekah was a woman of faith herself, having never met Isaac, she went in faith and followed the calling of God into the unknown.  She was brought to Isaac and became the mother of the people of promise. In the twenty second verse of Genesis chapter twenty-five, we find Rebekah pregnant with twins, one to be called Esau and the other Jacob.  (Jacob would later be renamed Israel and have sons that would become the Israelites.  God’s chosen people.  Through this lineage would come the Savior Jesus Christ.)  As she is carrying them the children are struggling together within her.  Children that Isaac had entreated the Lord for.  The twins came to her as an answer to prayer, and now the children are bringing to her what is sure to be fear, pain, and anxiety.  The fear only a pregnant mother can know.  The anxiety of feeling unrest within the womb and knowing the helplessness of not being able to do anything about it.  Again, a result of Isaac’s prayer, to which she replied, “if it be so, why am I thus?”  As if to say: “why is this happening to me?”  The scripture tells us that the ways of the Lord are past finding out.  That his ways are higher than our ways.  To the sufferer, this can seem insufficient.  As it is mankind’s nature to want to know why; often, when we lack contentment, we will push for insight.  Settling in our minds to search out our own resolutions.  Doctors, therapists, self-help, social media, friends, and much more may be employed to help us find more insight into this great question of “why, and why me?”.  Now, please don’t take me to mean that this is without merit.  I am sure Rebekah would have loved to get an ultrasound, but there was no way to know or understand.  Yet, she was still wiser than many today in that her first instinct was to inquire of the Lord.  She didn’t go to Isaac, or her friends or confidantes.  She went to inquire of the Lord.  To wait before him and take his instructions on the matter.  She went to the one who understands it all and she got her answer.  The answer was that two nations are in her womb, and the present struggle is predestined to bring about a future deliverance.

This can be said of many things.  The present struggle we feel is predestined to bring about a future deliverance.  To bring forth something in God’s plan for our lives that we cannot see.  That is bigger than us.  The walk of faith rests on the pillar that God is in control.  No matter what.  The reason we don’t always see, but we must trust.  Therefore, in all things we must inquire of the Lord.  Go to Him, because he knows, and we don’t.  He is the one who can speak peace, knowledge, wisdom, and contentment to our hearts, our fears, our cares, and our deepest concerns.  The only one that can truly answer the question: “if it be so, why am I thus?” 

Owe No Man, But Love

 “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.” Romans 13:8

 Have you ever owed anyone money?   Or has anyone owed you and not paid?  It’s an uncomfortable relationship to be in; and the larger the sum the more uncomfortable things become.  We owed a tremendous debt to God and could not pay.  So Christ step in and absorbed the debt, and brought life and love to whosoever will.  

To truly understand or even begin to approach the depth of this scripture we must first understand the love that Paul is speaking about.  To do this, we can reach back to Romans chapter five where Paul writes: “And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.  For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure for a good man some would even dare to die.  But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  Can you see in this text the amazing love of God?  The passion of Christ?  How that the Son of God left heaven to be broken for you and for me?  To be tortured, rejected, and humiliated for you and me?  The just for the unjust.  This is the love of Christ.  That he gave.  He gave his time, himself, his life, his all; for you and me.  My sin was on his shoulders says the hymn writer.  My debt, he paid.  I owed God, but Christ wrote the check.  We live in a qualify and quantified world.  One must be qualified and quantified before you can justify giving them anything.  Justify giving, loving, aiding, helping, ministering, lending or embracing.  It’s much like when you go to borrow money.  Before you can borrow money, the lender wants to see if you have justifiable collateral against what they plan to lend you.  They want to qualify and quantify you.  They want you to fill out an application with your assets listed and references they can call to inquire about your character and past performance.  You must articulate to them what you’re worth before they decide to give you anything.  What if God had done that to us before he sent Son?  Would we have qualified?  Certainly not.  We must see and understand that freely we have received and freely we must give.  We are debtors to everyman in love, because our example became a debtor himself.  Christ placed himself as a debtor to all men; who am I to do anything less?  The man in the gutter, the women on the stoop, the drunks, prisoners, murders, gangsters.  I am indebted to love them.  This is contrary to the theme of the world.  The world loves its own.  It loves those like them.  Those that make them feel rich, safe, happy, familiar and comfortable.  We are called to love all mankind, even those who seek to torment and destroy us.  To take from us, and despitefully use and persecute us.  Jesus pleaded to God on behalf of his persecutors: “Father forgive for they know not what they do.”

 Second Corinthians says: “For the love of Christ constraineth us” The love of Christ compels, drives, and presses us.  The same chapter goes to say that we are “ambassadors for Christ.”  The ambassador goes out as a representative.  If you are sanctified and serving Jesus.  The love you show to people may be the only representation of Christ they ever see.  Their introduction to the gospel may be a cup of cold water, a warm jacket, a bus ticket, or new shoes.  A listening ear, or time of intercessory prayer.  This love is like a foreign language in the world today, and as ambassadors for Christ we must carry his message.  At the risk of our all.