Near–Death Experiences

Behold, God works all these things, 

Twice, in fact, three times with a man, 

To bring him back from the grave, 

That he may be enlightened with the light of life. —Job 33:23 

One winter, when I was in high school, my father decided to replace an old barbed–wire fence that marked the back line of our property. We spent a few days removing the wire and then he got busy with another chore and set me to the task of pulling the old fence posts out of the ground with our tractor. 

After a day of getting off and on the tractor to attach a chain to the posts I decided the next day, in a stroke of genius, to attach it to the seat post rather than the draw bar. All I had to do was back up to the post, reach behind me, attach the chain and pull the post out of the ground. Shake the chain loose. Move on. Piece of cake! 

The contrivance worked well until I came to a large cedar corner post that was not rotten and was deeply imbedded in the ground. (I didn’t know it at the time but it was set in concrete.) My first effort yielded no result, so I revved up the tractor, popped the clutch and…

Well, if you know anything about the laws of physics you know exactly what happened. The chain, being attached to the seat levered the front end up and over, throwing me off the tractor backward, head over heels onto the ground. I looked up to see the tractor “walking” forward on its back tires until it was almost vertical and about to tip over and squash me. I ‘lowed as to how my all-too-short life was over. 

When the tractor reached vertical, however, the engine stalled, otherwise someone else would be writing this blog today.

I’ve had two or three similar “near–death” experiences and I’m sure you have too. They serve us well, reminding us that death is right around the corner. Samuel Johnson, I think it was, said that the prospect of one’s imminent demise “wonderfully concentrates the mind.”  Indeed, death makes you think about things.

I saw a line in a sports magazine the other day about a well-known athlete who was in failing health and “listed as day to day.” An unexpected philosophical one-liner followed: “But then again, aren’t we all?” 

Right. You never know! Death could visit any one of us any day. 

Old Jeremy Taylor (1613–1667) wrote, “Death meets us everywhere, and is procured by every instrument, and in all chances and enters in at many doors; by violence and secret influence; by the aspect of a star and the stink of a mist; by the emissions of a cloud and the meeting of a vapor; by the fall of a chariot and the stumbling at a stone; by a full meal or an empty stomach; by watching at the wine or by watching at prayers; by the sun or the moon; by a heat or a cold; by sleepless nights or sleeping days; by water frozen into the hardness and sharpness of a dagger, or water thawed into the floods of a river; by a hair or a raisin; by violent motion or sitting still; by severity or dissolution, by everything in nature and everything in chance.”

HOWEVER, if you’ve put your trust in Jesus you’re in good hands. You can meet death, whenever and wherever it meets you, without fear. Jesus has promised, in a pledge that could hardly be stronger or more sweeping, that because He died for us, you and I "will never, ever, under any set of  circumstances whatever, die" (John 11:26). 

Jesus was thinking of our souls, of course. Our bodies are not immortal and, speaking for myself, I will most gladly leave mine behind. But the part of me that I call “me, myself and I” will live on, not just to the end of time, but forever.

Death is not the end of us, if we’re resting in Jesus’ death; it is an entrance into a life that is "far, far better” (Philippians 1:23). Life does not end in death, It is perfected by it. 

Lines from MacDonald's The Golden Key, come to mind:

"You have tasted of death now,” said the Old Man. “Is it good?”

“It is good,” said Mossy. “It is better than life.”.

“No,” said the Old Man; “it is only more life.”

David Roper

4.23.18

The Cost of Doing Business

“Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; But much increase comes by the strength of the ox.” —Proverbs 14:4

The little visitor climbed into the children’s rocker in our living room, munched on a cookie and exclaimed to Carolyn, "Your house is homey!" We hope so. We hope it says "You're welcome here!" 

Carolyn and I have always thought of our home as a tool to be used, not a treasure to be admired and safeguarded. Most of our furniture is old—some pieces belonged to her great–grandmother, like the little rocking chair—but Carolyn is a creative homemaker and her “touch” reflects her love for people. 

But that outlook can be costly: If you fill your house with people they will break your best china, wear out your chairs, leave water marks on your tables and spill coffee on your carpets. We must be be wise stewards, of course, but as the proverb suggests, wear and tear, breakage and clutter are quite often the cost of doing business. 

But not to worry. Only people matter. Everything else is going to burn up some day (2Peter 3:7). 

David Roper

4.14.18

Getting It Together

"Unite my heart to fear (worship) your name." —Psalm 86:11 

Gather my thoughts, good Lord, they fitfully roam

    Like children bent on foolish wandering, 

Or vanity of fruitless wayfaring 

    O call them home. —Amy Carmichael

An integrated personality is one in which every aspect of one's being is working together to achieve one's goals. In common parlance it's called, "getting it together."  

And what is the goal for which we seek integration? For those who know and love the Lord Jesus, it is to be like him in all that we think and do and say and thus to show his beauty to the world. If we have lost sight of this goal, no matter what we otherwise accomplish in our lifetime, we will have missed the purpose for which we were sent into the world.

And how can we so unite our hearts that we achieve that end? We must ask for it every day. 

Direct, control, suggest, this day,

All I design, or do, or say,

That all my powers, with all their might,

In Thy sole glory may unite. —Thomas Ken, "Awake My Soul"

David Roper

4.17.18

Half-Mental

I got used to my arthritis,

to my dentures I'm resigned,

I can manage my bifocals

but I sure do miss my mind,

"Two-thirds of baseball is half-mental," Yogi Berra said. To stretch his point, so is old age.

I've lost many things in my lifetime—keys, hats, sun glasses, iPhones, television remotes, lunker trout—but, I must say, my greatest loss is my mind.

I write everything down these days because I can no longer trust my memory. Carolyn will ask me to do something for her and before I walk out of the room I have to ask her again to be sure I remember what she said. Some days I have to walk back to the kitchen or wherever she is, and ask her again.

Worse yet, my memory issues affect my writing. A thought flies into my mind, flits about for a moment or two but escapes before I can capture it and write it down.

I think of Bunyan's Mr. Feeble-mind who was told that his Master had need of him: "Then Mr. Feeble-mind called for his friends and said, 'Since I have nothing to bequeath to any, to what purpose should I make a will? As for my feeble mind, I will leave that behind me, for I shall have no need of it in the place to which I go, nor is it worth bestowing upon the poorest pilgrim: wherefore, when I am gone, I desire that you, Mr. Valiant, would bury it in a dunghill.'"

Memory loss is not fatal for we shall have new minds someday—brighter, wiser, younger than ever before. Furthermore, a fading intellect and memory lapses can be incentives to faith for they are just another step along the way to forgetting ourselves and loving God alone.

And that, of course, is the reason we were brought into this world.

George MacDonald wrote...

Well may this body poorer, feebler grow!

 It is undressing for its last sweet bed;

 But why should the soul, which death shall never know,

 Authority, and power, and memory shed?

 It is so that love with absolute faith would wed;

 God takes the inmost garments off his child,

 To have him in his arms, naked and undefiled.

  David Roper

Playing the Fool

Desire that is satisfied is sweet to the soul,

But it is loathsome to fools[i] to depart from evil (Proverbs 13:19).

There is a principle here: When we give in to an evil inclination we lose our ability to evaluate it.   

Case in point is a man I know who left his wife and children to move in with his secretary, a woman half his age. "This can't be wrong," he said, "because it feels so right."

Of course. “Desire that is satisfied is sweet to the soul." but if the thing desired is bad and we continue in it, it will lead us to deny the good that we know.

Later, having destroyed his marriage, his business and his reputation, this man said to me, "How could I have become such a fool?"

David Roper

4.13.18

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[i] There are four kinds of fools in the Book of Proverbs. This is the kasil, the man or woman who has lost his or her ability to discern good and evil

Morality and a Dirty Shirt

"Some people think it is not proper for a clergyman to dance. I mean to assert my freedom from any such law. If our Lord chose to represent, in His parable of the Prodigal Son, the joy in Heaven over a repentant sinner by the figure of ‘music and dancing,’ I will hearken to Him rather than to men, be they as good as they may. For I had long thought that the way to make indifferent things bad, was for good people not to do them.” —George MacDonald, Annals of Quiet Neighborhood

When I was growing up I had a friend whose mother, if asked, “Is this shirt dirty?” would always reply: “If it’s doubtful, it’s dirty.” That may be a passable theory of grooming, but as a moral premise, it’s deadly.

The “Dirty if Doubtful” moral thesis rests on this proposition: “Everything is bad unless I know it is good,” a hypothesis that breeds paranoia, guilt and hypocrisy for, “if you tell a man that honest pleasure is a sin in God’s sight, he will find a way to get illicit pleasure and yet keep the name for godliness” (Thomas Buchan, Witch Wood).

Furthermore it promotes legalism because “doubtful things” inevitably become rules and regulations that go beyond scriptural proscriptions and acquire the force and finality of sanctions nowhere found in the Bible (Colossians 2:23, 24).

The biblical theory of morality is the other way around: “Everything is good unless I know it is bad.”  Paul put it plainly, “Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated (put to its intended use) by the word of God and prayer (1 Timothy 4:4,5).

Satan never created anything. Not even sin. Evil does not exist as a thing in itself; it is parasitic. It fastens itself to anything beautiful that God has made and twists it into a base and ugly thing through improper use, motive or timing. No, God has given us “all things richly to enjoy.” The world is ours, and everything in it.

Good can become evil in the devil’s hands and his devices are duplicitous—he can make evil look exquisitely good. Thus we need guidelines. The New Testament (the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles) is our authority in all matters of conduct, the answer to the question of the good life. Jesus and his Apostles drew very few lines but they drew them with fine precision. What is prohibited is clearly prohibited.

But, what is not prohibited is permissible. In other words: a thing is good unless I know from scripture it is bad.

Admittedly, a permissible thing may not be prescribed for me. I may, for various reasons, decide to lay a perfectly good thing aside. But the thing in and of its self is not wrong, nor is it necessarily wrong for others. To insist that it is, is to hearken to men, be they “as good as they may,” rather than to God (Matthew15:1-9)

David Roper

4.9.18