Thank you for making FM 104.5 possible. For over 35 years WBVN has broadcast the Gospel. Our purpose in starting the ministry (January 8th, 1990) was to make a difference in believers’ lives and make a difference in the communities with our broadcast and concerts. Today making a difference is more important than at any time during those 35 years. I’m going to use a few quotes from Christian author G.K. Chesterton, author of the Christian apologetic book Orthodoxy, to illustrate how important it is to put this message out into the communities we serve. The quotes are quite old, Chesterton having made most during the early 1900’s. He was an English author, philosopher, Christian apologist, journalist magazine editor, a literary and art critic, author of the British fictional priest-detective series Father Brown. Chesterton once categorized the main thing he thought was wrong with the world was we do not ask what is right. In the world of today, it seems we have grown comfortable with the idea there is no right, only different opinions.
Here are a few Chesterton examples:
“A society is in decay, final or transitional, when common sense really becomes uncommon.”
“Every high civilization decays by forgetting obvious things.”
Again, “Once abolish the God, and the Government becomes the God.”
By abolishing God the following occurs:
“If men will not be governed by the Ten Commandments, they shall be governed by the ten thousand commandments.”
“For when we cease to worship God, we do not worship nothing, we worship anything.”
The book Orthodoxy was a foundational influence in CCM artist Rich Mullins’ life:
I think Rich would have fit right in when quoting Chesterton’s: “Jesus promised his disciples three things—that they would be completely fearless, absurdly happy, and in constant trouble.”
As a Christian, if there’s a pillow to lay our head on right now, a place to find rest, it’s having Faith in Christ. What we hear, what we see, will not comfort us so very much; His Word will. I love woodlands, sunsets, mountains, Robert Frost poetry, but none of the many things I treasure comes close to providing the Peace of Christ Jesus. ‘Peace I give… John 14:27: my Peace, I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be fearful.’ Peace there is a specific Greek word associated with a Peace free from anxiety and care. It is in direct contrast with strife. It’s a perfect Peace that only Jesus can deliver. It denotes where we experience the untroubled and undisturbed. It literally means to experience the fruit of Forgiveness. (Similar to Isa. 26:3-4)
I’m pretty convinced that most of the time I’ve needed it (Peace) and experienced it I did not understand where it came from. To me, it seems most often that I’ve not touched it while in some emotional state; but touched it in the still, quiet, when not speaking a word. It just comes from thinking about Paul’s ‘accusation’ of the ‘goodness’ of God. It’s not head knowledge peace; it’s not even an earned peace. It’s simply an unforced, favor/gift of God to whosoever will believe. It’s not generated by anything other than the confidence we have in who He is and the confidence in His characteristics as defined by Jesus Christ. I think I’m safe in saying it’s not something we work up, but something that simply comes and rests on us.
I’m not trying to make it too mystical, too complicated. We live in a Kingdom of God. That’s simply anyplace He is present. In that place, He reigns. The Kingdom of God is ‘not eating and drinking, but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit.’ (Rom 14:17) I stated earlier, it’s not dependent upon our logical mind having to understand how it works. It’s a ‘Peace of God, which passes all our understanding. It guards your heart and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.’ (Php 4:7)
We live at a time when it seems all people feel they’re the most right, they use the most logic and possess tons of worldly wisdom. (Strangely, people that assume they’re the most reasonable and the most intelligent are seemingly the most angry and intolerant people we see in the media every day.) The people that lead us, the ones that suppose they are the most learned, are the ones using the most 4 letter words to express their lofty IQ’s. As far as I can see, Peace is not at a high water mark in their character. Hateful, angry, yelling, disrespectful expressions are considered more normal than peaceful, thoughtful, calm, logical reasonable ones. Our news broadcasts resemble a school yard more than a mature society. There’s an absence of philosophical conversations today. There are fewer conversations about what is the best for us to experience a good life. There’s less of what’s good for our culture and more about what is good just for ‘me’. Most arguments center about what do I get? For my part I simply believe ‘We need Jesus’ may be the best way to express my solution for the world. Historically, the world always has been opposed to that concept.
I had a dream a few weeks ago (actually on Memorial Day morning), a dream about a CCM concert. In it, spontaneously, the artist started singing ‘God Bless America’. It wasn’t in his playlist that night. He said nothing profound about it. It was just a sincere request of the artist asking God to anoint, to bless, simply from the knowledge of ‘we truly need Jesus’. It was not a sympathetic moment; it was just a Hope-filled moment. People, were up and out of their chairs and all moving down the aisles to a place resembling an altar call of years ago. Each one was coming with a sincere request by their Faith for Peace in this country. In the dream a friend of mine whispered to me he had not expected a healing concert that night. This was a ‘not a performance moment’ but an ‘all heart moment’. Each person present in the hall coming to one conclusion, each person knowing and acknowledging we really need Jesus. Politics, economics, morality will not work; Jesus is the only ‘Way’ to find the expressed purpose and experience that God had planned for us. We do have the option to say ‘no’ but that only leaves us with the simple calamity of Adam. Cultures can’t advance, progressively, they can’t improve people’s lives without Jesus’ Wisdom and Love.
Two of my greatest weaknesses are kerosene lamps and books. I have a couple dozen lamps and hundreds of books. I have books on birds, books on flowers, on bees, even a book on crows, and lots of books on the human condition. But I decided long ago, the best book on humans is the Bible. It’s historical, it contains science, but best of all it represents the true, natural character of human beings. It, more than any other book, acknowledges us a body, soul and spirit. Not just the biology of body, not just the emotions of the soul, but the presence of a spirit. It’ a book of God’s Wisdom about humans. It’s a book with many truths about man, but more importantly, The Truth (about God: Father, Son, and Spirit). Using the Bible as a reference, in many ways it can be argued that humans have not changed very much since the first Adam. I think that’s universally true. Much of what Adam dealt with in the garden is still observable in people’s lives today. In the days of Moses, David, Nicodemus, Paul, all had to deal with the same nature of man. That said, God’s Word also points out with certainty that humans have always thought they’re changing for the better by leaving God out of this equation. Adam and Eve felt that way; current cultures feel that same way. In reality, we’ve not changed for the better at all. It’s true that nothing is really new under the sun. And today, just as in the Garden, as we move away from the Wisdom of God, a universal chaos happens in each country and culture. If you stand back far enough, get a bird’s eye view, look at the whole world on a global map, where is the Peace? From Genesis on, it’s that chaos that we should expect to see.
Without Jesus: chaos replaces Peace. The further we move away from the Garden’s Father God it’s a pretty confused place. With Jesus, it’s a more hopeful, calm and peaceful place.