My Very Prop

“By faith Jacob worshipped, leaning on the top of his staff.” —Hebrews 11:21 

There’s an antique umbrella rack in the entrance to our home in which we keep the canes and walking–sticks of several generations. One of my favorites is a slender staff with a gold–plated knob, engraved with the initials “DHR.” It belonged to Carolyn’s great–grandfather, Daniel Henry Rankin, whose initials, curiously, are mine. 

My study houses another collection: an intricately carved walking stick, hand-crafted by a friend, a shepherd’s crook from Israel, my father's peeled, apple–wood staff and his blackthorn shillelagh among others. 

Out in the garage there's a barrel filled with a collection of snowshoe and cross-country ski poles, wading wands and trekking sticks that I’ve gathered through the years. Now I've traded up to a bright-red “Nitro” walker. This is now “the staff of my age, my very prop" (Shakespeare), a daily reminder of my need to lean on God and his faithfulness. He has supported me in the past with his right hand; he is guiding me this day with his counsel; and “afterward he will receive me into glory” (Psalm 73:23,24). "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow." Who can ask for anything more?

Like old Jacob I too worship, “leaning on the top of my staff.” I’ve become rather fond of my prop. It reminds me every day that we all need Someone to lean on. 

David Roper
3.20.22

Lies Frae End to End

Some books are lies frae end to end,
And some great lies were never penn’d:
Ev’n ministers they hae been kenn’d,
In holy rapture,
A rousing whid (exaggeration) at times to vend (vent),
And nail’t wi’ Scripture.

—Robt Burns, “Death and Dr. Hornbrook”

“A man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God.” When Ananias heard these words, he fell down and breathed his last" (Acts 4:36-5:5).

Heavens to Murgatroyd! One lie, you die! 

Well, not exactly. This was a one-off to put down a marker: lying is serious sin. 

People who cheat, even a little, are generally dishonest in other areas. People know that and can’t fully trust them. "I’m not upset that you lied to me,” Fredrick Nietzsche lamented. “I'm upset that from now on I can not believe you.”

The fundamental reason to be truthful is Paul's reason: "Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator" (Colossians 3:9,10). God is the God "who cannot lie” (Titus 1:2). God's children, like their Father, are true through and through.   

Satan is the “father of lies." God is “the Father of light (truth)…” (James 1:17). So, I ask myself, "Who's my daddy?"

David Roper
3.17.22

Wrong Way Riegles

It was New Year’s Day, 1929. The University of California at Berkeley was playing Georgia Tech in the Rose Bowl. Roy Riegels, a Cal defensive back recovered a Georgia Tech fumble, ran laterally across the field, turned and scampered sixty–five yards in the wrong direction—straight toward Georgia Tech’s goal line.

One of his own players, Benny Lomm, tackled Riegles just before he scored for Georgia Tech. On the next play Georgia Tech blocked the punt and scored. 

During the half–time, Riegles hid in a corner of the UCLA locker room with a towel over his head. His coach, Nibbs Price, said nothing to him and very little to the team. Three minutes before the second half he said quietly, “The team that started the first half will start the second half. Riegles cried out: “I can’t, coach; I can’t go back in. I’ve humiliated the team, the school, myself. I can’t go back in.” “Get back in game, Riegles,” Price replied, “The game is only half over.”

Our failures may not be as conspicuous as Riegles’, but we all have our wrong–way runs and the memories that accompany them, recollections that rise up to taunt us in the night watches. There’s much of our past we would undo if we could, or redo. Louis Fletcher Tarkington wrote for all of us when she mused, 

I wish that there were some wonderful placeCalled the Land of Beginning Again,Where all our mistakes and all our heartachesAnd all of our poor selfish griefCould be dropped like a shabby old coat at the doorAnd never put on again.

There is such a place. It's found at the feet of Jesus, who freely sets our sins aside and puts us once more on the path of obedience. We must accept His full and free forgiveness and then forget ourselves. That we are sinners is undeniably true. That we are forgiven sinners is undeniable as well. We must take what forgiveness we need, put aside our "poor selfish grief” and get back in the game, for the game only half over.

“We remain such creeping Christians,” George MacDonald said, “because we gaze at the marks of our own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments…. We mourn over the defilement to ourselves, and the shame of it before our friends, children or servants, instead of hastening to make the due confession and then forget our own paltry self with its well-earned disgrace and lift up our eyes to the glory which alone will quicken us….”

Price put Riegles’ miscue behind his back and got him back in the game… as does our gracious Lord.

What a coach! What a God!

David Roper

3.7.22
Excerpted from A Man to Match the Mountain

  

Fighting the Good Fight

"This charge I entrust to you, Timothy, my child...(that) you may fight the good fight, by holding on to faith and a good conscience. By rejecting this (conscience), some have made shipwreck of their faith" (1 Timothy 1.19)

In my first church, where I served for a time as a youth pastor, we offered a college prep course to graduating high school seniors to prepare them for college. We taught classes in theology and apologetics to provide a solid foundation for their faith, knowing that it would soon be under attack. 

Lately, however, I've come to see that most young men and women do not lose their faith in college because they’re overwhelmed by the logic of unbelief. They do so because they drift into sin. 

Temptations to sin abound, especially temptations to sexual sin, and most young Christians, away from the influence of parents, church, community and friends, are unprepared for these assaults on moral constraint. Little by little they sever their moral mooring-lines, drift out to open sea, founder on the shoals and "make shipwreck of their faith.".

This is the argument of the text above: The "good fight of faith" is waged by holding on to one's faith (the truths we believe) but also by keeping a good conscience (obedience to the truths we believe). The clause "by rejecting this" is the crux. The relative pronoun, "this" is singular and refers to the noun "conscience." "By rejecting conscience some have made shipwreck of their faith."

The verb “rejecting" is a strong word and means "to refuse to listen." We know what God is asking us to do, but we turn away from it to delve into sin and thus set in motion a chain of events that culminate in radical unbelief. The Message paraphrases the text this way: "There are some, you know, who...thinking anything goes have made a thorough mess of their faith."

Our consciences cry "foul" when we think and act contrary to the truth. If we fail to listen it will become more shrill and we must then try to assuage it. One way to do so is to deny the truth that's plaguing us. That rids us of the dissonance between our set of beliefs and our behavior. 

Then, the arguments we hear in the classroom that disparage the faith begin to take on resonance, gather strength and become more persuasive. Traditional arguments against the Faith are singularly unpersuasive when viewed objectively. It's when I want these arguments be true that they gain force and win my approval.

[It’s worth noting that apologetics (rational arguments for the faith) have little value in persuading non-Christians. They are, as John Calvin said, “secondary aids to our imbecility”—have some usefulness to encourage and strengthen those who already believe.]

How then do we fight the good fight and "hold on to faith" when that faith is challenged? By listening to the conscience as it's directed and corrected by God's word and then doing what he's asked us to do. 

And, it's worth noting, we'll always know what he's asking us to do.

David Roper
3.6.22