MARK 7 THRU 12

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=100 BGCOLOR="#CCCCFF" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04600640egdysm.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000066" FACE="Arial" ><B>BOOK OF JOB</B></FONT><FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000099" FACE="Arial" ><B> </B></FONT><B>    |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="My Content"><U>My Content</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Photo Album"><U>Photo Album</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id19.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favorite Links"><U>Favorite Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Us"><U>Contact Us</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id36.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JOHNS GOSPEL"><U>JOHN'S GOSPEL</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id37.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="PSALMS"><U>PSALMS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id38.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="EASTER"><U>EASTER</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SERMONS ON MARK"><U>SERMONS ON MARK</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 2"><U>MARK 2</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 3"><U>MARK 3</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 4 THRU 6"><U>MARK 4 THRU 6</U></A>   |   <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF JOB"><U>BOOK OF JOB</U></A>   |   <B>MARK 7 THRU 12</B>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="MARK 13 THRU 16"><U>MARK 13 THRU 16</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="BOOK OF REVELATION"><U>BOOK OF REVELATION</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id29.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="SONG OF SOLOMON"><U>SONG OF SOLOMON</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id30.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="TOPICAL SERMONS"><U>TOPICAL SERMONS</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id31.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="GODS NATURE"><U>GOD'S NATURE</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id32.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="JAMES"><U>JAMES</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id33.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IJOHN"><U>IJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id34.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIJOHN"><U>IIJOHN</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id35.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="IIIJOHN"><U>IIIJOHN</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#0000BF" TEXT="#F7F7FF"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" height=380 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <I>MARK 7 THRU 12</I></div> <div> <B>A MOTHER'S FAITH AND DOG FOOD  Based on Mark 7:24-30</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Lucy Webb Hayes was one of the greatest mothers to ever live in the White House.  She was the wife of the 19th President of the United States, Rutherford B. Hayes, who was elected in 1877.  She was the first college educated first lady of the United States, but more important, she brought to the White House a deep Christian faith.  Daily it was hallowed by family prayers, and she departed from the custom of serving alcoholic beverages.  She said, "It is true I shall violate a precedent, but I shall not violate the constitution, which is all that, through my husband, I have taken the oath to obey.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Because of her stand she was dubbed, "Lemonade Lucy."  It was a small price to pay to be the mother she knew God wanted her to be.  She explained to a friend, "I had three sons just coming to manhood and starting out in society, and I did not feel as if I could be the first to put the wine cup to their lips."  She had two smaller children, and three sons who had died in childhood.  She had a powerful impact on her children, and on the whole country, because of her leadership in Christian women's organizations.  The Lucy Webb Hayes Training School for Deaconesses in Washington is named in her honor.  The poet John Greenleaf Whittier said of her, her presence lends its warmth and health to all who come before it; If woman lost us Eden, then such as she alone restore it."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is much truth to what the poet says, for Godly women, and especially Godly mothers, have played a major role in God's plan to restore man to the beauty of Eden.  From Mary, the mother of our Lord, all through Christian history it has been true that the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.  Most of the great men of God that changed the course of history, and whose influence never dies, were men who had Godly mothers.  Men like Augustine, or John Chrysostom who, even though they lived over 1500 years ago, have their sermons yet in every library right along with those of Billy Graham.  Men like Bernard of Clairvoux whose mother taught him early to love Jesus, and 500 years later, Martin Luther said of him, "Bernard loved Jesus as much as any man."  Now over 1000 years later we still sing his love song, Jesus The </B></div> <div> <B>Very Thought Of Thee.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We could go on for hours praising the powerful influence of mothers in history, but even though it is true, it will not have the impact on us that our text can have, for in this text we see Jesus confronting one of the most amazing mothers of all time.  Jesus never complimented anyone in a higher way than her, and yet she was a nobody.  She was not the wife of a great man, or the mother of outstanding children.  We don't even know her name.  Her only claim to fame was her faith, for it was great, and it was motivated by her love as a mother.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Here is a mother whose life and love has a message for all mothers, for all mothers cannot raise children in the White House as a national example, and all mothers cannot raise world famous preachers, but every mother can, like this mother, see to it that their children get God's best for them.  In her case God's best was only dog food, as we will explain, but it was enough, and because of her success her story is made known around the world by both Matthew and Mark.  We want to examine the characteristics of this famous nobody of a mother, for  though she is very unique her story is instructive for us all.  First we observe she is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  A COURAGEOUS MOTHER. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Her very approach to Christ took courage, for she was a Canannite woman.  If you know anything about the Old Testament, you know that her people were the hopelessly wicked people the Jews were commanded to destroy, and drive out of the promise land.  She was a descendent of these hated enemies of the Jews.  She was a Gentile from the area of Tyre and Sidon, two of the most godless cities of antiquity.  Yet inspite of this background, she had the courage to come to a band of Jews and cry for help.  She heard stories of what Jesus could do, and she believed Him to be the Messiah of Israel.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Just as a lovely lily can grow out of a putrid pond, so here is a woman of fantastic faith and compelling courage coming out of a corrupt society.   She had one strike against her before she started, but she had the courage to start because of her love for her daughter.   She may have been a pagan, but we are blind to the realities of life if we think non-Christians do not possess the blessings of mother love.  God's grace is universal in mother love, and you will find mother's honored, loved, and exalted the world over.  We sometimes think, or rather unthinkingly assume, that mothers who lose children in some pagan land do not suffer as do Christian mothers.  This is foolish, for they have the same love and compassion, and are driven to acts of desperation to save their children.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Mother love which sacrifices to protect the offspring is even seen in the animal kingdom.  I remember reading of a farmer who was kicking objects around after his barn burned down.  As his foot pushed a pile of burnt material off to the side, out ran some little chicks.  A closer examination revealed that the mother hen had gathered them under her and perished in the flames, but had saved them by her sacrifice.  Jesus only once portrayed Himself in the role of mother.  He did so by saying, "Like a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings, so would I have gathered the children of Israel."  Only God's love is greater than that of a mother.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     As we look at this Canannite mother coming courageously to plead for her sick daughter, we all can feel her love and desperation.  Certainly Jesus, the most compassionate man who ever lived, would be immediately touched by her need.  But her plea falls on deaf ears, and Jesus ignores her and answers not a word.  That must have been a blow to her faith, but with two strikes against her she goes on courageously swinging.  We will examine the fascinating reasons for why Jesus reacted this way in the next message, but for now we want to concentrate on the characteristics of this mother.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     She is an outsider in the first place, and now she is clearly rebuffed, and you would think she would face reality and go away, but she persists.  She apparently began bugging the Apostles to get Jesus to respond to her, for in Matt. 15:23 they came begging Jesus to get her out of their hair.  What nerve!  She was like a Jacob wrestling with an angel, and she wasn't going to let go until He blessed her.  If the leader won't talk to you, and the followers are all clamoring for you to get lost, you would tend to get a feeling of being unwanted.  Who would bother to seek help from people who treat you like that.  No one but a courageous mother.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     She finally did get Jesus to say something, but what He said was even worse than silence, and was like the third strike against her.  He said in Matthew's account that He was not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  In other words, you just as well go away, for I cannot help you.  My flock is Israel and you are from another flock not under my jurisdiction, so you had better look elsewhere for help.  That was strike three, but like so many mothers she didn't care beans about the rules of the game.  She kept on swinging.  It was apparent that she didn't realize that she was out of the game.  Then Jesus adds insult to injury and tells her that it is not fair to take the children's bread and toss it to the dogs.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     That should have been the last straw.  Jesus was referring to the fact that the Jews were the children of the kingdom, and the Gentiles were considered the dogs. She was one of the dogs, and had no right to expect the Messiah of the Jews to take what He had for their benefit and give it to a Gentile.  She got the point, for it was as clear as a ton of brick on her head, but she did not slink away like a defeated dog.  With courage she went on until she gained the victory.  Here was a mother who had more cold water thrown on her flame of love than anyone in the Bible, yet she continued to burn and prove that water cannot quench the fire of love.   Billy Sunday said, "If the devils in hell ever turned pale, it was the day mother love flamed up for the first time in a woman's heart."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Here was a mother's love that overcame even divine resistance.  Demons had her daughter, and the only power that could release her from their possession was resisting, but mother love never gave up.  That poor demon possessed girl had no idea what her mother was going through to help her, and this is true for most children.  Few ever realize what motherhood is all about until they go through it themselves.  The poet spoke truly who wrote, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Until the stars are old</B></div> <div> <B>               And the sun grows cold,</B></div> <div> <B>               And the leaves of the judgment book unfold,</B></div> <div> <B>               No one will ever know the full measure of service</B></div> <div> <B>               The mother's of earth have rendered to their children.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>This mother's little girl probably never knew of the courage of her mother as we do, and most of will never know until eternity what our mothers went through for us, but it is safe to assume it was more than we give them credit for.  We see next that she was not only a courageous mother, she was-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  A CLEVER MOTHER.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It would seem that Jesus had said the last word when He told her He could not take the children's bread and give it to the dogs.  But this mother had the wit to come back with an answer as clever as those that Jesus used in dealing with the Pharisees.  She said, "You are right Lord, but even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from their master's table."  Jesus was overwhelmed by the force of her faith, and He granted her request.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     She agreed with Jesus.  She did  not argue and say, "I am no dog," and, "How dare you insinuate I am."  Instead, she agreed that it is not right to take food from the children and give it to the dogs, but then even dogs are not allowed to starve.  The scraps and crumbs from the table are eaten by the dogs, and nothing is taken from the children.  All she was asking for was dog food.  All she wanted was the crumbs.  "I do not ask to be seated at the table with the children.  I only ask for that which any dog receives, and that will be sufficient for my need."  There is no defeat for a faith like that.  Call her a dog and instead of biting you she says, "Okay treat me like one and pass the dog food."  This is the only place in the New  Testament where Jesus is overwhelmed by the cleverness of another.  Many said of Him, "Never man spoke as He speaks," but now He stands before this mother who spoke as none had spoken before.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some of the most clever people in the world are mothers.  They are not always educated and brilliant in the things of the world,  but when it comes to getting what they feel is right for their children they are clever beyond compare.  Moses would never have survived to become the channel  through whom God influenced all of history had it not been the cleverness of his loving mother whose scheme to save his life worked out even better than she could have dreamed.  Billy Sunday said, "I expect to meet Moses mother in heaven, and I am going to ask her how much old Pharaoh had to pay her for the job.  I think that is one of the best jokes, that old sinner having to pay the mother to take care of her own baby."  Who knows how many marvels of salvation have been due to the cleverness of mothers.  This one in our text is one of the greatest, for by her wit in asking only for dog food, she opened the door to God's best for her child.  In our final point we want to see the foundation for her courage and cleverness.  It was due to the fact that she was-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>III.  A CONFIDENT MOTHER.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In verse 28 Jesus exclaims, "O woman, great is your faith."  Jesus was impressed with her unwavering confidence.  She was a woman whose faith in Him could not be shaken, even when He was doing the shaking Himself.  She knew He could heal, and she was confident He would if she could only get Him to see that it was right that He do so.  Without that confidence that love and compassion would win out over His resistance, she would have given up, but faith gave her the victory.  Faith the victory that overcomes all obstacles; even those placed in our path by God Himself to test our perseverance.  Faith believes God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him, and this mother would let nothing shake her faith in that kind of a God.  She kept seeking and expecting to be rewarded even when it seemed God was doing His best to hide.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          </B></div> <div> <B>MIRACLES AND THE MIND  Based on Mark 7:31-37</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Variety is not only the spice of life it is the very essence of life.  Consider the bacteria that is all about us and within us.  There are about 1500 different basic forms or species of these tiny one celled creatures.  If you took 400 trillion of these creatures they would weigh only about 1 pound.  Most of these bacteria have gotten bad press, and we think of them in negative terms.  We are not even aware that many of them are essential to our lives.  Only a small percentage cause disease.  According to Isaac Asimov they are far fewer than the percentage of human beings who commit crimes.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Bacteria carry out chemical reactions that are essential to digestion, and bacteria in our intestines form some of the vitamins that we cannot make for ourselves.  Molecular biologists are working hard to figure out how to use these tiny creatures as more efficient servants in fighting disease.  So they are primarily friends of man and not foes.  Man has already designed a bacteria that manufactures human insulin so diabetics can live  normal lives.  The hope is that bacteria will help man produce vaccines for his most potent disease agent-the viruses.  When you get into the world of scientific healing the one characteristic that stands out is the infinite variety.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is no end to the means and methods by which man fights off his foes to maintain his health, or to regain it when it has been taken captive.  What is fascinating in studying the healing miracles of Christ is that Jesus also used a variety of means and methods to bring about healing.  You would think that if all Jesus had to do was to say, "Be healed," that He would have a standardized method, and one healing would be just like another.  It would be monotonous and boring, but it would be so simple and easy.  But Jesus deals with people as individuals.  He recognizes that each person is unique, and is in need of treatment that is unique to their problem and personality.  No where do we see this more clearly than in Healing of the deaf-mute in our text.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is a healing that strays from the norm.  Jesus is giving this man a specialized treatment.  First of all, He takes him aside to deal with him privately.  Usually Jesus just heals people in the midst of the crowd.  But here He departs from the crowd to a place of privacy.  Jesus did often touch the patient, but here He puts His fingers into the man's ears.  Jesus does something that seems rather gross.  He spit on His finger and touched the man's tongue with the spittle.  There are a lot of strange things that happen in the world of healing, but fortunately this one never caught on.  You will have a fruitless search trying to find any healer who follows Jesus on this one, and practices spit healing.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     What Jesus is teaching us here is not a particular technique, but rather, the importance of variety in the methods and means of healing.  Not all miracles are alike anymore than all medicine is alike.  Miracles do not come in a can massed produced so that one is identical to the other.  Each miracle is adapted to fit the individual who needs it.  Miracles come in custom made packages with a lot of variety.  Understanding this is a key factor in trying to figure out the puzzling mysteries of miracles and healing.  Healings are not mass produced like bottles of aspirin.  Each one is custom made to fit the nature of the person, the disease, and the circumstances.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus may heal in the crowd, or in private.  Sometimes He heals by the spoken word alone.  At other times He adds touch, and as here, He adds special personal touches of His finger and spittle.  On another occasion He used clay.  He may heal at a distance, or right where He is present.  Usually He heals instantly, but He also healed by process and stages.  Some patients were required to do nothing, and others were asked to cooperate in their healing.  One was asked to go and wash in the pool of Siloam, for example.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Richard Trench in his classic The Miracles Of Our Lord wrote, "There must lie a deep meaning in all the variations which mark the different healings of different sick and afflicted.  A wisdom of God ordering all the circumstances of each particular case."  When he wrote that book in the 1800's, he did not have a clue as to what that deep meaning might be.  But today with the rapid advance of medical knowledge, we do know why His variety of treatment was of great value.  Modern medicine has discovered what the Great Physician always knew, and now it has become a principle of health and healing.  The principle is this:  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  THE MIND OF THE PATIENT IS THE DOOR BY WHICH HEALING POWER ENTERS THE BODY.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     You might think this should have nothing to do with miracles.  What difference does it make if the mind is open or not?  We are talking about God's power, and He certainly does not get stopped at the door just because the mind of man is closed, does He?  It all depends on whether you are going by the popular idea of miracles, or the Biblical record.  The popular idea is that God can do anything, and generally does.  It is all a matter of His choices, and man has little or nothing to do with it.  His puny mind is as irrelevant as bacteria is to the movement of a tank.  But what does the Bible say?  If you go back to Mark 6:5-6, you will read the shocking words that make the popular idea as false as a four dollar bill.   It says,  "He could not do any miracles there, except lay His hands on a few sick people and heal them, and He was amazed at their lack of faith."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Miracles may not be man produced, but they can be man prevented.  Yes, man can stop a miracle by a closed mind of unbelief.  If the mind of a man is not open to the possibility of a miracle, then a miracle will not happen.  Miracles are like electric power; they do not flow in where there is no outflow.  There has to be a complete circuit, and if the mind of a man is shut, the switch is off, and the energy will not flow.  Man can resist the Holy Spirit, and quench the power of healing by a closed mind.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     So what are the implications for healing?  It simply means that almost all healing is psychosomatic, and that to get to the body you have to go through the mind.  To do this you have to appeal to each person in a way that opens their mind to be healed.  The mind is the door to the body, and if you can't get through the mind, you will not be able to heal the body.  Doctors need the patients cooperation to be successful.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This particular man that Jesus is dealing with in our text is obviously a reluctant patient.  Some people have brought him to Jesus to be healed.  He was not like the paralytic who was brought by his friends, for this man could walk.  Yet, he had to be brought, and that means he did not choose to come, but is there under some social pressure.  He is likely somewhat skeptical and not convinced Jesus can heal him. Jesus recognized this reluctance, and so He gives the man special treatment that will have the psychosomatic effect of opening his mind.  Jesus is practicing psychosomatic medicine.  He is using what is very popular today because it works like a charm-the placebo effect.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The spit of Jesus had no power to cure a deaf-mute, but it had the power to open his mind to receive the healing power of Christ.  It kindled in him a sense that he was loved as an individual, and this gave him faith and hope.  Once that blockage was away from the door of his mind, the door could be opened, and the flow of healing power could enter his body.  The healing power was not in Christ's finger or His spittle.  This was the means by which to get the man's mind open so it could receive the healing power of Christ.  Whatever opens the mind to receive healing energy is a powerful medicine for that particular person.  That is why there are so many different methods and means of healing.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     What appeals to one mind leaves another unimpressed.  The  minds of men are so varied that there is no end to the means by which they can be impressed and opened.  Pills can be the open sesame to many minds, and that is why placebos can be effective.   The minds of many are ready to accept that any pill will work.  So when they are given a mere sugar pill they have a powerful effect on the body because the mind has been opened to receive healing power.  The spit of Jesus did this for this man.  It had the placebo effect that modern man has learned has power to heal.  C. S. Lovett in his book Jesus Wants You Well gives some amazing illustrations of the power of the placebo effect, or suggestive therapy.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      A young woman had a paralyzed tongue and could not speak.  She had all kinds of medical treatment, but to no benefit.  Her doctor had to get her mind on his side.  </B></div> <div> <B>The mind was his biggest obstacle, and he knew if he could just get past the closed door of her mind, he may be able to cure her.  So he told her he was going to try a new device that would loosen her tongue and enable her to speak again.  He wanted her to relax and close her eyes, and he would then give her tongue special therapy with this new instrument.  He took an ordinary thermometer and began to touch various spots on her tongue.  Then he told her she could now begin to speak. She immediately began to say a few words, and in two weeks she was back to normal speaking fluently.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      There was no more healing power in that thermometer than there was in the spit of Jesus, but both served the purpose of unlocking the closed mind so healing could get through to the body.  The mind can make us sick and keep us sick, and the mind, when it is won over to the side of the healer, becomes the key to being restored to health.  It's all in your mind is a cliché, but it is a powerful truth.  Faith healing and love healing, and forgiveness healing, and dozens of other methods of healing all depend upon the mind for their effectiveness.  "Behold I stand at the door and knock," says the Great Physician, and so does every healer and every method of healing, and only when the door is open from the inside can any method work.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Why else would Jesus bother to take this man aside privately and go through all this business with the finger in the ear and the spit on the tongue, unless it was to break through the barrier of a skeptical mind, and persuade it to open up by the power of suggestion?  If the man's mind was already open and ready to receive a miracle, he could have just said be healed, and he would have been healed.  What this means then is there is a type of healing miracle that can only happen when the patient's mind is cooperating with the healer.  They are not purely divine events, but are a product of the divine and human working in cooperation.  Not all miracles fall into this category.  There are what are called command miracles.  These are miracles which Jesus did by sheer divine power, and which, by their very nature, could not depend on human cooperation.  When Jesus cried out, "Lazarus come forth," Lazarus was dead and could not cooperate with mental agreement and belief.  Any resurrection of the dead calls for a command miracle.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In the miracles Jesus performed He most often called for cooperation, and He used the power of suggestion by the use of means.  It is not that Jesus could not heal by command, but that would not be of much value for the rest of Christian history.  But by using means Jesus made it clear that all Christians can enter into the healing of others by the use of means which wins the cooperation of the mind. Only a few can use command healing because they have the gift of healing or miracles, but all of us can get into healing on the psychosomatic level.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     George Washington had a mind so cooperative with the will of God he handled pressure that would have killed other men.  He lost battles, lost men, lost his crops,  and lost loved ones, but listen to his mental attitude.  He wrote in May of 1794, "At disappointments and loses which are the effects of Providential acts, I never repine, because I am sure the all wise Disposer of events knows better than we do what is best for us, or what we deserve."  He suffered plenty, but he did not carry half the burden of it that others did, because he had a mind submissive to Christ, and open to healing at all times.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Dr. Walter B. Cannon, a famous Harvard Medical School physiologist, documented the taboo system of the Maori aborigines of New Zealand.  He told of a young aborigine who while traveling stopped in the home of an older friend.  For breakfast the friend prepared a meal consisting of wild hen.  This was a food strictly forbidden for the immature.  The young man demanded to know if there was wild hen in the meal, and his host said no.  He ate and departed.  Several years later they met and the older friend asked him if he would now eat wild hen.  He said he never would, for it was taboo.  The older man laughed and told him how he had tricked him into eating this forbidden food long ago.  The young man became extremely frightened, and within 24 hours he was dead.  No disease, no germs or virus, just his mind which was convinced that he had to die.  Such is the power of the psychosomatic.  The second principle that grows out of this unique healing is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  MEANS TO WIN OVER THE MIND ARE A LEGITIMATE PART OF CHRISTIAN HEALING.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This ought to be obvious, but many Christians have been deceived into thinking that a use of means or medicine, or therapy is somehow a denial of faith, and, therefore, not legitimate for the Christian.  Somehow the idea has become quite popular among some Christians that true faith is in God alone, and that trust in any physical means to bring about healing is not legitimate.  The result is that many Christians have felt their use of medicine was a lack of faith, and they have stopped taking it, or thrown it away.  This has lead some Christian parents to be tried for murder when they caused the death of their children by rejecting all means such as medicine.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Such faith is presumption, for it is a clear rejection of Christ's own healing ministry where He used means to achieve healing.  The whole point of laying on of hands, of anointing with oil, and any other use of means in healing is to move the mind to cooperate in the healing process.  This is the power of suggestion.  It simply means the body will often do and feel what the mind says it should do and feel.  Why do you think Jesus used spittle?  It was because this was the in thing in His day.  People believed in the curative power of spit.  It has been thought by various tribes through history to have medical value, and I remember as a child being taught that dog saliva had curative value, and that is why a dog could lick its wounds and heal so fast.  Jesus was not teaching the curative power of spit, but by use of it He was teaching the power of suggestion.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Norman Cousin in his book The Healing Heart tells of the football game where several people became suddenly ill.  A public announcement was made that no more soft drinks from the beverage machines were to be consumed until the cause of the sickness was determined.  The immediate effect was that people all over the stadium became ill, and 191 people had to be hospitalized.  Local ambulances and private cars were hauling people to the 5 local hospitals.  No one knows how many people went to their own doctor.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Laboratory analysis showed nothing wrong the water or syrup, and when this was announced there was a sudden healing of all who became ill.  There minds made them sick.  This is just episode of a long series of historical incidents which reveal how the mind can make people sick.  Mass hysteria all through history has made people ill.  We tend to think that if it is all in the mind it is not serious.  This is not so.  A sickness that is caused by the mind alone is just as real and just as harmful as one caused by invaders from the outside.  Voodoo and magic spells of all kinds really cause people to get sick and die even though they are just psychosomatic.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Why do you suppose Jesus asked the paralytic at the pool of Bethesda if he wanted to get well?  It seems like a strange question, but the fact is, Jesus knew the power of the mind in healing, and He knew that this man could not be healed unless he was willing.  Senaca said, "To wish to be well is a part of becoming well."  The healing methods of Jesus make it clear that for healing to take place there usually has to be the use of means to win the mind over to a role of cooperation.  It may be physical, mental, or spiritual means, but whatever is needed is a legitimate part of the healing ministry for the Christian.  It is superficial and being hyper-spiritual, and advocating a faith that goes beyond Biblical faith to reject means as a part of healing.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If spit moves the mind to belief, then spit is a legitimate means for healing.  If I tell my grandson to eat his string beans and he will feel better, that is using means.  It is the means of suggestion.  It is to get him to eat well, and to get his mind on the side of health.  It is not only legitimate, but it is basic wisdom.  We tell our children that a kiss will make the hurt all better, and the fact is, it works, and crying kids in pain go away with a smile after the therapy of a kiss.  The kiss has no power to heal, but the mind does, and the power of suggestion wins the mind over to a position of cooperation.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Dr. Bernie Siegal, a cancer specialist, wrote a  book Love, Medicine And Miracles.  He would agree that spit cannot only heal a deaf mute, but it can even heal cancer.  He is absolutely convinced that all means have the potential of healing cancer.  He says that he is sure if he recommended eating three peanut butter sandwiches a day some people would do it and get well from incurable cancer.  The reason is not because of peanut butter, spit, diet, chemotherapy, or anything else, but because the mind can by any means be convinced and lead to healing.  That is why there are 1001 ideas about how to cure cancer.  There is somebody who has been healed by every strange means because they believed it.  Their mind and body got together and won the battle.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Pastor Lloyd Ogilvie had a healing ministry for years, and he saw people healed every Sunday morning.  In comments on the paralytic Jesus asked,  "Wilt thou be made whole?"  He wrote, "Intense desire for the Master's help in any area of our lives is a vital, necessary prerequisite for receiving his healing." Those who are really into healing agree that the emotions have to be kindled, and people have to have an active mental and emotional role in their healing.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The passive patient who says, "Go ahead Lord and heal me, I will not refuse it," is not likely to be healed.  It is the aggressive seeker that is most likely to be healed.  The Christian whose mind is full of hope and expectation so that he or she aggressively believes and acts on that belief, is the Christian who will likely experience healing.  The reason this is true is because there is a direct connection between miracles and the mind. </B></div> <div> <B>        </B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>A FOCUS ON FOOD  Based on Mark 8:1-10</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many years ago when Rudyard Kipling was a popular writer it was reported that he was getting 10 shillings for every word he wrote.  Some students at Oxford University, who were not impressed with Kipling, sent him 10 shillings with a request that he send them one of his very best words.  He cabled back one word-thanks!  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is certainly one of the very best words in any persons vocabulary.  I became curious about what use Jesus made of this word thanks, and to my surprise I discovered that Jesus used the word more often for food than all other uses put together.  He is not revealed as thanking God for nature, for people, or for the temple in which to worship, but over and over again Jesus is portrayed as giving thanks for ordinary, everyday, commonplace food.  The main New Testament word for thanks is eucharisteo.  Out of the 9 times it is on the lips of Jesus 8 of them are in reference to food.  Now, lest you think this is a Greek word somehow related to food, let me assure you this is not the case.  The primary use of this word in the New Testament is from the pen of Paul, and he hardly ever used it for food.  In all of the letters of Paul he is always giving thanks for people.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      The evidence overwhelmed me because Jesus is the only person in the Bible who is so thankful for food that it becomes a prominent part of His life's story.  Here in the record of His feeding of the 4000 Jesus is recorded as giving thanks 2 times in two verses.  First He thanks God for the 7 loaves in verse 6, and then He takes the few small fish in verse 7 and gives thanks again.  The second time He uses a synonym that can also mean praise.  He thanked God for the bread and praised God for the fish.  This is the only miracles Jesus performed where He expresses His thanks twice for the same meal.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In the feeding of the 5000 He only gave thanks once.  The only other place we see this double thanksgiving is also connected with food, but it is not a miracle meal.  It was the Last Supper, and Jesus in Luke 22 first took the cup and gave thanks, and then He took the bread and gave thanks.  Jesus was a thankful person, and even though in His deity He was the creator of all food, in His humanity He was thankful for food.  The dinner table is a frequent piece of furniture in the life of our Lord.  A focus on the role of food in His life will magnify the reality of His humanity.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Mark's Gospel is a food-filled Gospel.  The only miracles that all four of the Gospels record is the miracle of feeding the 5000.  Mark goes beyond the others and records the feeding of the 4000 which Luke and John do not record.  He tells of the eating and drinking and feasting and banquets of Jesus.  Jesus ate with just about everybody.  There was the tax collectors, the sinners, and even the Pharisees.  Meals were such a major matter that the disciples of Jesus were suspected of not being as spiritual as John's disciples and Pharisees, for they fasted, but the disciples of Jesus did not.  In Mark 2:19 Jesus defends their nonstop feasting by pointing out that you do not fast at a wedding, and that was the atmosphere of His ministry.  He was the bridegroom, and the they were the guests, and so feasting was always in order.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Pharisees did  not like the crowd that He ate with, nor the frequency of His eating.  It just did not seem very spiritual to them, but to Jesus it was very spiritual, and it was that for which He had so much gratitude.   We know the Pharisees made a big issue about Jesus healing on the Sabbath, but they also made a big issue about His Sabbath eating habits.  His disciples would pick off some grain as they walked through the grain field on the Sabbath.  The Pharisees charged them with breaking the law.  Jesus defended them and said in Mark 2:25-26, "Have you never read what David did when he and his companions were hungry and in need?  In the days of Abiathar the high priest, he entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat, and he also gave some to his companions."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus plays the role of the lawyer, and in defending his disciples he appeals to precedent as any good lawyer would.  Meeting the need of hunger is so basic that it has priority over legalistic and ceremonial laws, and He sums up His argument in verses 27 and 28:  "The Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath.  So the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath."  When it came to eating on the Sabbath Jesus is 100% in favor of it, and in Mark 1 He even healed Peter's mother-in-law on the Sabbath, and she got out of bed and made them a Sabbath meal.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Eating was not only a basic part of the social life of Jesus and His disciples, it was a part of His healing ministry.  When He raised the little 12 year old girl from the dead, the first thing He said in Mark 5:43 was, "Give her something to eat."  Today you are given an IV with nourishment going into your body because they know this is important in the prevention of shock.  It is vital part of the healing process, and Jesus knew this long before science did.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We could go on through many references showing how food played a major role in the ministry of Jesus, but we want to just look at the conclusion of His ministry at the Last Supper.  A large portion of the Gospels revolve around this last meal. The Gospel is perpetuated through this meal, for Jesus left us with  the command to remember Him by eating bread and drinking a cup.  Meal symbolism is the means by which the Master makes His atoning death a perpetual part of our memory.  All of this introduction is a foundation for the point I am making which is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  THANKSGIVING FOR FOOD IS A CHRISTLIKE FOCUS.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The reason I think this is an important issue is that Christians often feel more like the Pharisees then the Lord.  We feel like too much focus on the body and its pleasure in eating is not spiritual.  At Thanksgiving we often feel like gluttonous pagans when we spend so much time planning, buying, preparing, and then devouring food.  It all seems so secular and unspiritual that if someone told us they only had a hamburger and fries at Thanksgiving we would tend to feel they should be nominated for sainthood.  We have an uneasy feeling about our love for food.  To add to the mixed feelings we know that much food is a major cause of health problems.  So as American Christians we are caught in some ambiguous feelings about the spirituality of our Thanksgiving celebration.  Eating disorders are a problem, and on the other hand millions are starving, so the more we think about food the more mixed our feelings get.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     To take food, and plenty of it, away from Thanksgiving is like taking gifts away from Christmas, eggs away from Easter, and fireworks away from the 4th of July.  Food is the very essence of Thanksgiving.  My point is, we do not need to feel that this is some sort of compromise with our culture, for the spirit of Thanksgiving for good and abundant food goes way back before our culture even existed, and is the foundation for why it is a part of our culture.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The American spirit came from the Christian spirit, and not the other way around.  The people who gave us Thanksgiving were Christian people.  The background for the first Thanksgiving in America is quite similar to the feeding of the 4000 in our text.  The people had been following Jesus for 3 days, and whatever provisions they had were now depleted.   Jesus knew if He dismissed them to go home some of them would faint for lack of food.  Jesus had compassion on these hungry people, and that was the motivation for this massive meal by miracle.  His own disciples only had 7 loaves and a few small fish.  This was scarcely enough food for them to have a meal, but Jesus multiplied it to feed the multitude.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The first Thanksgiving in America had this same desperate setting.  The Pilgrims in 1623 found themselves facing a crisis.  A great drought had left them with no rain on their crops form May to the middle of July.  The people down South in Virginia wondered why the Pilgrims did not just give up and come down to God's country where food was abundant.  I am sure there were people who thought the 4000 following Jesus were fools to be off in the barren desert listening to Him when they could be on the coast catching an abundance of fish.  The Pilgrims trusted God to deliver them, and so they set aside a day of fervent prayer.  Governor William Bradford kept a journal of these trying times, and so we have an eye witness account of the events that lead to Thanksgiving.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Bradford describes the day of prayer, and I will break into his account and share a portion: "...for all the morning and greatest part of the day, it was clear weather and very hot, and not a cloud or any sign of rain to be seen; yet toward evening it began to overcast and shortly after to rain with such sweet and gentle showers as gave them cause of rejoicing and blessing God....It came without either wind or thunder or any violence, and by degrees in that abundance as that the earth was thoroughly soaked therewith.  Which did so apparently revive and quicken the decayed corn and other fruits, as was wonderful to see, and made the Indians astonished to behold.  And afterwards the Lord sent them such seasonable showers, with interchange of fair warm weather and through His blessing caused a fruitful and liberal harvest...for which mercy, in time convenient, they also set apart a day of Thanksgiving."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus fed the 4000 by miraculous provision of food.  He fed the Pilgrims by a natural provision of food, but the end result was the same:  people filled with gratitude for food.  The focus on food was the very heart of the American Thanksgiving because God's people were grateful for His provisions.  Feasting with lots of food is symbolic of God's blessing.  Famine and lack of food is symbolic of God's judgment, and being in a state which is out of His will.    Jesus had His longest encounter with Satan when He had gone without food for 40 days.  Lack of food and spiritual warfare were linked just as abundance of food and thanksgiving to God are linked.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When Jesus endured His greatest darkness on the cross, and felt forsaken by God, He was a very hungry man.  He had last eaten on Thursday evening.  He had since been through the energy consuming struggle in the garden of Gethsemane, and the all night illegal trial.  He was hurried to the cross without breakfast and hung there through the lunch hour, and at mid-afternoon in His state of horrible hunger He felt God forsaken.  He died a hungry man, but when He rose from the dead He ate with His disciples again, and promised He would eat with them forever.  Lack of food and lack of God's presence go hand in hand.  The most cursed times in the history of Israel were times of terrible famine.  In famine they were God forsaken.  They suffered horrible starvation under God's judgment, but when they lived in obedience they feasted on great abundance.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Food was always a focus of thanksgiving.  In the great 23rd Psalm the very essence of being lead by the Good Shepherd is abundance of food.  "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies."  The lying down in green pastures and being lead beside still waters is enjoying abundance of eating and drinking.  How revealing is the picture of the Good Shepherd in Rev. 7 where He leads His people who have been through great tribulation to springs of living water, and verse 16 says, "Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst."  The very essence of heaven is food and drink in abundance with hunger and thirst banished along with all other evils.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     No wonder Jesus taught us to pray, "Give us this day our daily bread."  Every mean we enjoy is a little taste of heaven.  It is a reminder that God is good, and that we have a basis for perpetual thanksgiving.  Not only is it not unspiritual to focus on food for Thanksgiving, it is the very essence of spirituality to be thankful for food.  Where do we begin our training of our children to be thankful to God?  We begin at the table with such prayers as, "God is great, God is good, and we thank Him  for our food."  Or, "Come Lord Jesus be our guest, let this daily food be blest."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Why do we begin with food?  Because food is the primary symbol of God's goodness.  If you are not thankful for food, you are not a thankful person.  If you do not have food, nothing else matters.  It is a level where the smallest child can begin to grasp gratitude, and it rises to the level of the most profound theology where Jesus says in John 6:51, "I am the living bread that came down from heaven.  If a man eats of this bread, he will live forever.  This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."  How is a man saved?  It is by what he eats.  You are what you eat, and Jesus says you can only have eternal life if you eat right.   Here is food exalted to the level of the key to eternity.  Jesus goes on in John 6:53-56, and stresses over and over that the key to eternal life is in eating the proper diet.  Your diet determines your destiny.  Jesus says, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh</B></div> <div> <B>          of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you</B></div> <div> <B>          have no life in you.  Whoever eats my flesh</B></div> <div> <B>          and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I</B></div> <div> <B>          will raise him up at the last day.  For my flesh</B></div> <div> <B>          is real food and my blood is real drink.  Whoever</B></div> <div> <B>          eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me</B></div> <div> <B>          and I in him."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If you have been thinking that all this focus on food is much ado about nothing, and trifling with trivialities, now you will have to change your mind, for Jesus has lifted this subject to the highest conceivable level of theology. This subject is to vast to cover in one message.  It takes us through the whole Old Testament sacrificial system where after the sacrifice was offered to God the priests and the people ate the sacrifice in a feast of thanksgiving.  Jesus was our sacrifice.  He was the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.  He was the best sacrificial Lamb every offered to God.  All the other lambs were eaten and enjoyed with thanksgiving.  What is to be done with the best offering ever?  Jesus says that He too is to be food for a feast of thanksgiving.  He is our manna from heaven.  He is our sacrificial meat which we are to enjoy perpetually as we thank God for this provision that guarantees we will never hunger again.  In Christ we consume that food and drink that feeds the eternal nature and gives it life abundant.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Taking Christ into your life is taking nourishment that feeds the soul.  The Christian life from salvation to eternity has a food focus.  Jesus said to the church, "Behold I stand at the door and knock, if any man hears my voice and opens the door I will come in and eat with him and he with me."  Eating together with Christ is where the Christian life begins.  The new birth is a birthday party.  It is a feast for the soul, and the final result of this meal with the Master will be the marriage supper of the Lamb that begins eternity.  That first feast with Jesus leads to feasting with Him forever.  The Christian life is to be a feast oriented life of enjoying food on all levels.  There is food for the body, for the mind, and for the soul.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     To try and get away from the focus on food for thanksgiving is to quench the Spirit.  You have to cut out a vast chunk of the Bible if you are going to judge a food focus to be secular and unspiritual.  You have to reject the symbolism of Christ and a large portion of Scripture.  Focusing on food does not make you spiritual, for everybody does that.  The most depraved and ungodly will feast on thanksgiving.  They will stuff themselves with no thought of God.  The response to this thoughtless and thankless feasting, however, is not fasting, nor guilt, for our feasting.  We are to feast with a thankful heart for the goodness of God that allows us to enjoy the abundance and pleasure of food.  Jesus loved to feed people, and He died that we might have access again to the tree of life for all eternity, and be able to eat forever the wonderful fruits of God's creation.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In a sense, we are saved to eat.  That is a slogan I have never seen in print, but the facts of the Bible support it as a legitimate Christian slogan.  We are not born to lose, we are born to eat.  We are born to enjoy what God has made to give life on every level, for body, mind, and soul.  Jesus is the total caterer, for He provides food for the total man.  To eat on the highest level is to feed on the Word.  We are to taste and see that the Lord is good.  The Christian is to enjoy feasting for the total man.  Christians are not to be gluttons, but they are to be people who enjoy physical food as well as the mental and spiritual.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When we don't feel good we do not enjoy food.  This is not a good state to be in, but one which is negative, and one which does not produce the fruit of the Spirit.  We are most loving, joyful, peaceful, and in harmony with God and man when we are cable of enjoying a good meal.  The physical and the spiritual are linked.  All that hinders the enjoyment of food is of the kingdom of evil.  Sickness, depression, grief:  you can put together a whole list of things that make us not enjoy eating, and they are all negative, and things that the devil uses to rob us of abundant life.  In contrast, all that leads to feasting and enjoyment of food are things like health, joy, love, friendship, and victory over the forces of evil.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is no escaping the facts, the focus on food is inescapable for the thoughtful person.  Everything that God gives is food for the body, mind, or spirit. He feeds the total man, and the more we recognize this, the more we will see all of life as a feast of one sort or another, for which to be thankful.  God is the great Provider.  He provides the manna for His people in every wilderness.  In the feeding of the 4000 Christ is the Cosmic Caterer doing more visible way what He has always done and will always do, feed His sheep.  Israel in the wilderness came to see God as their daily host.  The manna fell in abundance, but they could not use doggie bags.  They could only take enough for the day.  They had to depend on God everyday and not save up so they could forget Him for a day or so.  It is dangerous to be independent of God, for we to easily slip into thinking we can provide for ourselves, for we are not charity cases.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     That is our great sin as Americans.  We are so affluent that we forget our dependence on God.  Give us this day our daily bread is not relevant to us.  We buy groceries for a week or two, and we know we are always set for better than a day.  We lose this sense of dependence on God, and thus, we lose a sense of gratitude for daily provision.  We do not see God as our daily deliverer supplying our need for food.  Our problem is not that we are too focused on food, but that we are not focused enough on thankfulness for our food.  We try to minimize food, and in so doing we eliminate a basic element for the building up of a spirit of gratitude.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Meals just do not last.  Even this miraculous meal did not last long.  By the time these 4000 men got home they were, no doubt, extremely hungry again.  This miracle was no cure-all for hunger.  It was just a stop gap measure to help these people get back to their normal world where they provided for their own daily needs.  So this miracle lunch was old news by supper time.  Miracles do not last, and to depend on miracles is to make a major mistake.  If you are only thankful for miracles, you are not a very thankful person.  We need to see that God's primary way of meeting our needs is through natural means, and this is to be the basis for most of our thanksgiving.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     There is no hint that these people gathered in the wilderness each year to celebrate this great event of mass feeding.  It was done and gone, and life went on.  They had to go fishing for fish, and they had to farm for bread the rest of their lives in order to eat.  Jesus did not tell them to forsake their farms and boats and follow Him, and He would feed them by miracles.  He sent them back home to labor for their meals.  The miracles solved no problem, but only met the need for this one meal.  If you have never been feed by a miracle, do not feel bad.  Just be thankful you have the natural means by which to meet your need for food.  Your gratitude can never depend on miracles.  This is true in the spiritual realm as well. We need to be thankful for the commonplace everyday provisions of food for the total man.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We become victims of our culture when we cannot be thankful on this level, but demand more and more things in order to feel gratitude.  This has always been a danger for Christians, and Paul warned about it in his day.  He wrote in I Tim. 6:6-9, "But godliness with contentment is great gain.   For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.  But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.  People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Lloyd Ogilvie says that many Christians are never satisfied.  They have everything yet they are driven by ambition and lust for more.  They want power and control, and are ever in the quest for the kingdom of thingdom.  There are Christian people of fame and fortune, but are they super spiritual?  Not at all.  They have forgotten to be thankful for the simple and basic values of life.  But we also need to recognize that it is not more spiritual to give up the good things of life that God has made it possible for us to enjoy.  We need to learn to enjoy whatever God provides with a spirit of thankfulness.  Paul wrote in Col. 2:16, "Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink..."  He called them worldly rules that we are to reject by those who would treat the body harshly and say, as he does in verse 21, "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Paul called them hypocritical liars who order people to obtain from certain foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving.  In I Tim. 4:4 he writes,  "Everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving."  All through history there has been a tendency to think fasting is more spiritual than feasting, and that to indulge in banquets where food is the focus is to be lest spiritual.  This is a rejection of the life of our Lord who was no ascetic, but a lover of good food, and all the fun that it provides for fellowship with family and friends. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     John Calvin, whom we may think of as a stern theologian, saw the folly of asceticism, and he wrote, "If anyone raises the objection that a frugal use of food and drink is sufficient for the nourishment of the body, I answer, although food is a proper provision of our bodily need, yet the legitimate use of it goes beyond mere sustenance.  For good flavors were not added to food without a purpose, but because our Heavenly Father wishes to give us pleasure with the delicacies He provides."  Wise Christians will learn to enjoy the good food God has given.  We are not to become indulgent pleasure loving fanatics, and forget moderation, but simply to enjoy the pleasure of what God has provided through food.  God wants you to enjoy and be thankful for all He has provided.  Don't take it for granted, take it with gratitude.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     History is filled with true stories of how men lost at sea will catch a seagull and devour it with more gratitude than many have with prime rib before them.  We have such an account in Acts 27 where Paul and other prisoners are being carried by a vicious storm.  Paul urges them all to eat.  He says in Acts 27:33, "For the last 14 days you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food-you haven't eaten anything.  Now I urge you to take some food.  You need it to survive.  Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.  After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all.  Then he broke it and began to eat.  They were all encouraged and ate some food themselves."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     All 276 men were saved.  Paul implied they would not have survived without the food to give them strength for their swim to safety when the ship broke up.  Food was a key factor in this story of physical salvation.  Paul was thankful for food that made their salvation possible, for if you don't save people bodies, you can never save their souls.  Who knows how many of these 276 men will be in heaven because they were eager to hear of Christ the Heavenly Bread after being saved by means of His servant Paul, and through earthly bread? Salvation, sanctification, and many other aspects of the Christian life often revolve around  a focus on food. </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>SURRENDER TO WIN  Based on Mark 10:17-23</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <div> <B> </B></div> <div> <B>     There was only one general that threw fear into the mighty warriors of the Roman Army, and that man was Hannibal of Carthage.   Carthage was in North Africa, and was the rival of Rome.  It was the only power great enough to keep Rome from ruling the world.  For over 60 years they fought a desperate struggle, and Rome was winning.  Then in 218 B.C. Hannibal took command of the armies of Carthage, and for 16 years he outfought and outwitted the Romans.  One of his key weapons was a herd of 80 trained war elephants that would charge the enemy lines and soften them up for defeat.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Rome could not believe the success of Hannibal.  He captured a good part of Italy, and began to plan the taking of Rome itself.  All of history would have been changed had a Roman general Scipio not gotten a good idea.  When Hannibal's elephants charged in the battle of Zama, which could decide the fate of the world, he had loud trumpets blown that scared the elephants and sent most of them back into Hannibal's lines disrupting them and giving the Romans a chance to attack.  Hannibal lost that decisive battle, and Rome went on to conquer the world.  Hannibal never did surrender, but went on trying to fight Rome the rest of his life, but he never regained enough power to make a difference.  He is one of the heroes of history because he never gave up.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is legitimate to never surrender even if you cannot win, when the battle is against evil.  There are some battles that are perpetual and cannot be won.  The battle with sin and forces of evil is never over in this life, therefore, it is a perpetual battle.  We are not to surrender and give up, but like Paul, press on fighting a good fight to the end.  Many a scientist and doctor has fought against disease, and died before they found the answer, but they did not surrender, and those who came after them built on their foundation and won the victory.  Thank God for those who never surrender.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     On the other hand, it is folly not to surrender when you are fighting with God.  The first man, Adam, ran from God when he had sinned, and tried to escape from admitting his sin, and surrendering to God.  This has become the pattern ever since, and we see it so clearly in the life of the rich young ruler.  He was basically a good guy, and from his youth he had been religious, and tried his hardest to please God. Jesus said only one thing thou lackest.  Wouldn't that be great to lack just one thing?  That would be easy to solve, and you would be in.  Except, the one thing he lacked was the ability to surrender.    For him his problem was his wealth.  He clung to it, and depended on it.  It was his idol, and he just could not surrender and yield to Christ as his Lord, and give his all to him.  It doesn't make any difference if you are an up-and-outer; a down-and-outer, or middle-and-outer.  The real battle of life is in deciding, can I surrender to Christ or not?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is the kind of battle where the only winners are those who surrender.  Life has two kinds of battles.  The kind where, when you surrender you lose, and the kind where, when you surrender you win.  The first step to sobriety in AA is to acknowledge your life is unmanageable and in our own power you cannot stop drinking.  In other words, the first step to victory is surrender.  You have to give up on yourself, and say I can't win, for as long as you think you can and keep fighting in your own self-sufficient strength, you will keep on losing.  But when you surrender, and yield yourself to God's power, then you begin the journey to victory.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some men can stop drinking on their own, but no man can be saved on his own.  The only way to be saved in your own strength is to never have sinned, and that is not possible, for as the Bible says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.  It is always too late to save yourself, because you are always a sinner, and no one has the power to not be what he is.  To go on fighting trying to save yourself, and make a meaningful life in your own power is to fight as foolish a battle as those Japanese soldiers who kept fighting for an island many years after the war was over. It is doomed to failure.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The only way to win in this war is to surrender.  But man is by nature stubborn, and that is why man is his own worse enemy.  If you kick the man in the seat of his pants who gives you the most trouble, you wouldn't be able to sit down for a week.  Most men just can't let go and let God.  They are proud and feel they must save themselves.  They are like the man shipwrecked in the ocean.  A rescue boat found him and they threw him a lifeline.  But he says, "I have been swimming from my youth, and have done exercises every day.  I'll swim to shore  and save myself."  But they shout at him," one thing thou lackest, the humility to recognize that  you need a Savior.  You need to give up depending on your own strength, and surrender to the power of our rescue boat."  But he, in his stubbornness, refuses the life line, and they must go on to find others, knowing he will never make it. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      Jesus was sad when this young man did not respond.  It is always sad when people refuse to be saved, but even God cannot make you chose to surrender.  It is sad when men will not surrender in a war that cannot be won without surrender.  Jesus felt bad when this young ruler went away refusing to surrender.  Jesus had the power to force him to stop being stupid, and to trust him, but He does not use His power that way, for then it would not be surrender.  God does not crush us into submission.  He gives us a choice, and we can choose to fight, or we can choose to surrender, but it has to be our choice.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The rich young ruler went away sorrowful.  He wanted to be saved his way, and would not choose Christ's way, and the result was that he went away sad.  You can count on it, he remained sad as long as he refused to reverse this decision.  History is full of examples of men and nations who refused to surrender to Christ, and they always go away sad.  Many are like the preacher's son who rebelled, and later wrote home to his father saying, "I'm trying to be an atheist, and I'm having a devil of a time of it."  He was trying to get help at a psychiatrist at 40 dollars a crack, but he would not surrender, and so  he was going his way in sorrow.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>    In Sweden they gave up on the moral principles of God and went their own way.  The result is they have the highest suicide rate in the world.  They refuse to surrender, but go on fighting God, and they always go away sorrowful.  When you spit against the wind you spit in your own face.  History is also full of stories of surrender which has led to victory.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Sometimes surrender leads to immediate change because the folly of a person is a matter of a rebel will, and as soon as the rebellion ceases the foolish behavior ceases.  That is why you have real stories like the one I read of a man in a sanitarium for alcoholism.  He said to the doctor concerning another patient, "He is really in a bad way isn't he?"  "Yes," said the doctor, "but in a year he will be well and you never will."  The shock of that caused him to go into the night and look up at the sky.  He realized he was just a hard hearted rebel, and he looked up and prayed, "Make me clean."  He felt the chains drop off and he was free.  He never took another drink, and his body was changed from a tavern to a temple by the simple act of surrender.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     E. Stanley Jones tells of a big businessman who tried to deal with his guilt by self-punishment.  He made himself suffer to atone for his sin trying to be his own Savior.</B></div> <div> <B>Many do this, and they get drunk, and they make their life miserable, because they hate themselves for the evil they have done.  They try to pay for their sin by suffering and ruining their own life.  When Jones told this man he could receive forgiveness for  his sin, he said that is too cheap.  "Not at all" Jones told him, "for it cost Jesus the agony of the cross.  It cost God the giving of His Son to be crucified.  They were perfect and innocent yet they paid the infinite cost beyond what all men could ever pay.  It was the most costly price ever paid for anything.  But it is free to you if you will surrender to Christ and receive His free gift of forgiveness."  He did just that and won the war.  No longer did he have to punish himself and suffer.  He was free to enjoy life under the Lordship of Christ.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is happening somewhere everyday.  People are hearing the good news of the Savior, and they are saying to themselves, what folly to go on fighting and unwinable war.  I will surrender and be at peace with God and myself.  These do not go away sorrowful, but they go away rejoicing, for by surrender they gain the victory.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus recognizes that people are all different.  People are like a deck of cards.  You cannot have all kings and queens; you have to have a variety to have a deck, and so there are tens, nines, eights, and so on, down to duces.  Jesus knows people are all different, and so He does not ask of all what He asked of this rich young ruler.  The one thing He asks of all, however, is that they surrender; that they take  up the cross and follow Him.  Taking up the cross is dying to self and surrendering your pride and determination to do it your way.  It is letting Him be Lord of your life. There is no way to win without this kind of surrender.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     A psychiatrist in Porto Rico read E. Stanley Jones's book Victory Through Surrender, and realized he needed to do just that.  He gave His life to Christ, and it changed him completely.  He began to give many hours of free counseling to alcoholics and drug addicts.  He set up 12 rehabilitation centers in San Juan which took in 500 patients a day.  He put half a million of his own money into them.  They trained these people for carpentry and masonry etc.  Five thousand are on the waiting list because 65 % of those who get in are cured.  He was a miserable rich man, but when he surrendered to Christ, and let Christ use what he had, he became the happiest rich man in Porto Rico, and one of the most useful and helpful in the world.  He did not go away sad but happy because he surrendered.   It is the same, be  you rich or poor, black of white, educated or uneducated.  It is the same for everybody.  Surrender to Christ and you win life's greatest war. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B> HOW DO YOU SURRENDER?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>1.  ADMIT you are a sinner and lost without a Savior.  As long as you cling to your own self-sufficiency you will be a rebel.</B></div> <div> <B>2.  SUBMIT.  Humble yourself before Christ, and yield to His Lordship.  This means you cease to direct your own life, and seek His will and guidance.  </B></div> <div> <B>3.  COMMIT.  You say to Christ, "Here am I Lord use me."  You surrender your life as an instrument to be used for His purpose.  You switch armies, for you no longer fight for your own cause, or the cause of the world, you become a soldier of the cross and fight for Christ, which is a battle to bring others to the point of surrender.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>FEARS OF SURRENDER</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     People fear to surrender because they are not sure they can keep surrendered.  They know they are sinners, and they have tried to stop bad habits, and just cannot do it.  They know the facts of life, in their own weakness, and so they are afraid to surrender, because they know they will rebel again, and get drunk or sin in other deliberate ways.  They just don't want to be hypocrites so they don't surrender.  It almost sounds noble to be so honest about their own weakness, but the fact is, it is still folly not to surrender.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     You can't surrender now for tomorrow, or next week, or next year.  All you can do is surrender the present moment.  All God asks is what is in your present moment to chose.  There will be plenty of other moments of choice to come, but the only one that matters now is the one you have now.  Unless our rebel spirits come to that point where they will surrender to Christ in some moment, there is never a beginning of the process of salvation.  It begins with surrender, but it must continue as we fight with the old nature to bring it into submission.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In the Colorado River, the big danger is getting caught in the whirlpool that sucks  you under.  Most try to fight to get to the surface, and they drown.  The key to survival is to let go and surrender to its superior power.  It is scary but it will take you and bring you out about 20 feet down stream.  Here is a case where you can only be saved by surrender, and so it is in being saved by Christ.  You are not saved by fighting and struggling to do it yourself.  You are saved by surrender, and letting Christ do it, for the only way you can win the ultimate war is by surrender.  </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>A ROYAL REDEEMER  Based on Mark 11:1-11</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We live in a world deeply influenced by kings.  We do not have one as the head of our government, but they are a part of our environment.  "The time is come the walrus said to speak of many things, of shoes and  ships of sealing wax, of cabbages and kings."  In the children's world of our culture the king is often mentioned.  There is Old King Cole, the merry old soul.  There is the Cannibal King with the brass nose ring.  All the kings horses and all the kings men could not put humpty together again.  There is King Arthur and the Knights of the round table.  There is the dainty dish of the black birds set before the king.  There is Old King Weneslaus, and numerous stories of kings and their sons and daughters.  Most all of the folklore and literature on kings comes from our connection to England, the land of royalty.  There history is a part of our history, as is the history of Israel with its many Old Testament kings, and great ones like David and Solomon.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     About 3 centuries ago the Spaniards were besieging the little town of St. Quentin on the frontier of France.  The walls of the city were battered; fever and famine raged within destroying the defenders.  There was good reason for pessimism and discouragement.  One day the Spaniards sent a shower of arrows over the wall with parchment notes attached promising that if they would surrender and submit their lives and property they would be spared.  Gaspard de Caligni, the great Huguenot governor of the town, wrote a reply on parchment; tied it to a javelin, and hurled it back into the enemy camp.  His reply consisted of only two words, Regem Habemus, which being translated is "We have a king."  They were not interested in submission, for they had a king already, and they would remain loyal to him under all circumstances.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is the central theme of Palm Sunday, for this was the great fact revealed on this day-Jesus is king.  It is not recorded in all four Gospels so that we might learn some trivial truths about Palm leaves, Eastern donkey's, or fickle crowds.  There is a message of majesty here, for this was the day on which Jesus purposely made it perfectly and publicly clear that He was the promised Messiah, the Son of David, the King of Israel.  As the fourth of July is the day our national forefather's declared themselves independent of the king of England, so Palm Sunday is the day on which our spiritual forefather's declared themselves dependent on the King of Israel.   Palm Sunday is the King's Sunday.  It is the only place in the Bible where we see Jesus surrounded by subjects who hail Him as their King.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      If this event had not been recorded, we would not be able to clearly see that Jesus was prophet, priest, and king, fully fulfilling all that the Messiah was to be.  Palm Sunday reveals that Jesus did not go to the cross as a carpenter, but as a King, and, therefore, He was in reality a Royal Redeemer.  As we examine the record of that first Palm Sunday it is the kingly aspects of it that we want to emphasize.  The first thing we want to consider is, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  CHRIST'S ROYAL RESOLUTION.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We need to see here that this proclamation of Christ as King was not the result of a popular uprising, but was the result of Christ's own determined and deliberate planning.  The people had sought to make Him King before, but He resolved not to be taken, but now He resolves to court their allegiance and openly appeal for their loyalty.  He stirs them up to make a public demonstration.  This is in contrast to His attitude all through His ministry of shunning publicity.  This was all iniated from the top.  The King Himself has chosen the time and place for this public revelation.  This is all the outworking premeditated plan of Christ.  Jesus came to Jerusalem determined to bring things to a climax, and force the hand of His enemies.  When He sent His two disciples to get the colt He knew perfectly what the consequences were going to be.  He knows His public proclamation will result in rebellion, for the Jewish leaders will cry out, "We will not have this King to reign over us."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This was really not a triumphal entry, for this implies that one has just defeated his enemies, and gained a victory.  Lazarus had just been raised, and the people were stirred up about Christ's victory over death, and so it is possible to consider this event from that angle.  But, paradoxically as it seems, we can see this event from just the opposite point of view as well.  We can see that Jesus was riding into a trap.  He was playing into the hands of those who would kill Him.  He did so with His eyes wide open, however.  He was not blind at all to the consequences of His act.  He had been saying for days that He was heading to Jerusalem to be killed, and this was a major step in His strategy to become a Royal Redeemer.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus was resolved to ascend to that throne from which He would draw all men to Himself, which was the cross.  He could not just walk up to the leaders of Israel and say, I am the Lamb of God sent as the suffering Savior to be sacrificed for the sins of men.  If you will crucify me I will atone for the sins of the world, and become the King of Kings.   This whole idea was a stumbling block to the Jews.  They look for a king of power to set them free from oppression.  They were not concerned about the sin problem.  They only wanted a king who could redeem them from Rome.  They would not hear of a Messiah king who came to redeem from sin, and establish a spiritual kingdom.  Jesus could not attain His objective by reason and persuasion.  He had to attain His goal by action, and Palm Sunday marks the day on which He set the wheels in motion which He knew would take Him to the cross.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We get a picture in all of this that can be illustrated by a checker player who has resolved to get a king in spite of the fact that there are no openings.  He deliberately moves into the path of his opponent knowing he will lose a checker, but also knowing that this sacrifice forces the opponent to open up a path by which he can move in to be crowned.  The same principle applies to Palm Sunday.  Jesus is a master strategist.  He is the one in full authority determining what is taking place.  If ever evil was used to bring forth good, we see it here in the hands of the Royal Redeemer.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     If we see that all was the working out of Christ's own plan, we eliminate all the nonsense that pictures this event as a total flop.  It appears that Jesus made a bid for power and failed, but not so.  When we see what His objective was, it was a complete success.  If He was aiming for the throne of Caesar, He certainly was a poor shot.  But if He was aiming for the throne of the cross, He was a master marksman, and we know that the cross was His target all along.  When Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden became the champion of Protestants, his enemies called him the snow king because they said he would melt when spring arrived in Germany.  But they were wrong, and he did not melt, but remained solid.  They are also wrong who look at Jesus riding into Jerusalem as a king, and say it was a failure.  He was a snow king who melted in the heat of the opposition.  We avoid this error which reduces Palm Sunday to a trivial event by recognizing it to be the result of Christ's royal resolution to be exalted to the cross.  Next we see, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II. CHRIST'S ROYAL REQUISITION.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus sent two of His disciples to get Him a colt to ride, for Zach. 9:9 prophesied that the Messiah King would ride into Jerusalem on a colt.  He was deliberately fulfilling this prophecy and proclaiming Himself King of Israel.  He is using kingly authority in obtaining the colt.  Our government sends out a requisition for so many men to be drafted from each state to serve in the armed forces.  Kings have done this same thing for centuries.  They make a requisition on the people for servants and soldiers, and often for so many horses.  Jesus is here doing just that.  He sends His representatives to fill His requisition for a colt on which to ride.  The owner of the colt was likely a loyal subject, for Jesus says if there are any questions, just say the Lord has need of him.  If it had been some stranger, it is not likely he would be impressed with such an excuse for what appeared to be just plain stealing.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is highly probable that Jesus had this all prearranged.  He does add, however, that they are to assure the man that the colt would be brought back quickly.  It sounds almost as if this meant the owner will quickly let them take the colt, but, as all the modern versions show, it is a promise that Christ will get it back to him quickly.  In other words, Jesus is just borrowing it for an immediate need.  He knew this was the first and last kingly entrance He would ever make into the royal city, and would only need the use of the colt for a brief time.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many authors are impressed by the paradox of Christ's royal requisition here.  </B></div> <div> <B>He is Lord and King, and yet He has to humbly make requests for the use of a colt.  Never has a king been so lacking in the facilities needed to manifest His royalty.  He had arrived at the point where He was going to reveal Himself as the king of Israel, and He is no further ahead than when He was born in a stable. From then to now He has been a dependent king.  He is always been dependent upon loyal and generous subjects, from the gifts of the three wise men at birth to the gift of the tomb by Joseph of Arimathea at his death.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     All of this is a revelation of just what kind of a king Jesus is.  He  is not a tyrant, but a king of kindness and courtesy, who love an character command respect.  Those who are under His reign gladly comply with His requests, for it is the greatest joy of His subjects to cooperate with Him.  Joneson wrote, </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          Kings by their example, more do sway</B></div> <div> <B>          Than by their power, and men do more obey,</B></div> <div> <B>          When they are led, than when they are compelled.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Jesus is that kind of king.  If only we could all say, we are examples of the kind of subjects this unknown colt owner was.  Say the Lord needs it, and that will settle the matter.  Are we willing to submit to such a requisition?  The Lord daily depends on you, for He has need of your life, tongue, hands, house, car, money, and time for the extension of His kingdom.  Being the kind of king He is, you will not take it by force.  But on the other hand, being the kind of king He is, we who have been redeemed by His royal blood ought to jump at the chance to fill His royal requisition.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     What a strange combination of words to say, "The Lord has need."  What kind of king has to borrow a donkey?  The same king who had to borrow a boat to speak from; who had to depend upon friends for a place to sleep, and who had to depend on a wealthy follower for a grave site.  What a king!  He made all that is, and all that man has is by His grace, but He had to borrow a donkey.  It is amazing but true that our Royal Redeemer has need of us.  We must chose to cooperate with Jesus to see the will of God done on earth as it is in heaven.  Without the cooperation of the colt owner Jesus could not have fulfilled prophecy and carried out His plan.  The next thing we want to see is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>III.  CHRIST'S ROYAL RECEPTION.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We see here that Jesus was not always despised and rejected of men.  He was not always a man of sorrows.  That was just one phase of His life.  Just as real is the phase we see here.  He was a man of royal stature who kindled hope, joy, and enthusiasm in the hearts of many, and they in turn honor and praise Him with all their energy.  Jesus knew what it was to experience the reception of a hero.  He did not disapprove of their enthusiasm, and their shouts of hosanna.  He even encouraged it.  But you say it didn't last.  Neither did His sorrow, but His praises will go on forever.  Jesus gave full approval to their belief that He was the Messiah King who had come to establish the promise kingdom of David.  He gave this approval because that is what He did.  The Pharisees asked Him to rebuke them, but Jesus replied in Luke's Gospel, "I tell you if  these were silent, the very stones would cry out."  This truth was so essential that Jesus was really the king of Israel, that if all men failed to see it, it would have been proclaimed by a miracle of having the very stones shout it out.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus literally fulfilled the role of Royal Redeemer, but not to the satisfaction of the Jewish leaders.  All this business of garments and palm leaves was nonsense to them.  This foolishness will do no good.  What we need is a Royal Messiah riding on a white stallion with sword drawn, and the men of Israel following prepared for battle.  The only kind of redemption they could think of was redemption from Rome.  Jesus was concerned about a greater bondage.  He came, not to make captives of the Romans, but to set all men free from the bondage of sin; Jews and Gentiles alike.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>          Conquering kings their titles take</B></div> <div> <B>          From the foes they captive make.</B></div> <div> <B>          Jesus by a nobler deed, </B></div> <div> <B>          From the thousands He has freed.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus came to ransom as well as reign.  Those who do not see this think of Palm Sunday as a failure.  Robert Eisler called Jesus the king who did not reign, but this a failure to see the kind of king He was, and the kind of throne He sought.  If we look at the sign above the cross in three languages, so all could read, we see it clearly stated:  Jesus of Nazareth the King of the Jews.  He was reigning from the tree, and from there would draw all men to Himself as the Royal Redeemer.  His royal reception on Palm Sunday was not a failure, but a crowning success that led quickly to His coronation on the cross.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     At the coronation of his majesty George III, after the anointing in the Abbey, the crown was put on his head with great shouting.  The two archbishops came to</B></div> <div> <B>lead him from the throne to receive communion.  He said he would not go the Lord's Supper and partake of that ordinance with his crown on, for he looked upon himself, when appearing before the King of Kings, as only a humble Christian.  As we come to the table of remembrance, let us also approach in the awareness that we are in the presence of the King, and let our hearts be lifted in praise and thanksgiving to Him who is our Royal Redeemer.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>CHRISTIAN EDUCATION  Based on Mark 12:18-24</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Jews loved to tell stories about the importance of choices.  Nathan Ausubel tells one of the wealthy Jewish merchant who took his slave on a long journey leaving his only son behind.  On the journey the merchant became very ill, and at the point of death he made a will leaving all this wealth to his slave.  To his son he left only the right to choose one thing among all his possessions.  It seems like a cold and cruel thing to do to his son, but the father counted on his son to be wise in his choice.  When the slave returned with all his master's wealth, he and the son appeared before the judge to fulfill the terms of the will.  The son made his choice.  He chose of all his father's possessions, his father's slave.  In possessing him he retained possession of all his father's wealth.  A foolish choice would have lost him his inheritance, but a wise choice kept it all.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Wisdom is the ability to make right choices in life.  Folly is the making of wrong choices.  The goal of education in both the secular and sacred realm is to give to people the knowledge and awareness they need to make wise choices.  Ignorance leads to making wrong choices, whereas, knowledge leads to making wise, creative, and helpful choices that lead to success.  If you fail to bake a good cake, get your driver's license, win the ball game, pass your test, get the second date, or come up with an appropriate Bible verse to fit the situation, you can count on it, somewhere along the line you made a poor choice.  You probably did so because you did not know the better way that would lead to success.  Education is the process of learning the better way.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Pharisees were not interested in the better way, but only in obscuring the way.  The result is, they did not come to Jesus to learn, but to muddy the waters with complex but trivial questions.  They tried to trick him into a corner with a complex example of a wife with 7 husbands all of whom died.  The question is, whose wife will she be in the resurrection?  Jesus, of course,  has an answer, and informs them that the eternal relationship of persons will not be sexual as in time, but rather, like the relationship of the angels.  Jesus rebuked them for their ignorance of the Scripture that led to wrong understanding of the plan and power of God.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     One of the Scribes came forward and asked another question.  He asked, which commandment is first of all?  After Jesus answered him, and he gave a positive response, Jesus said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God."  Here was a man who pleased Jesus, for he truly sought for light and truth.  The Pharisees aggravated Him because they only asked questions in order to make things complicated, and not in order to learn.  We see from this passage that education begins with asking the right questions.  C. S. Lewis wrote, "Can a moral ask questions which God finds unanswerable?  Quite easily, I should think.  All nonsense questions are unanswerable.  How many hours are there in a mile?  Is yellow square or round?  Probably half the questions we ask-half of our great theological and metaphysical problems are like that."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     One of the major problems all through history is that men keep asking the wrong questions.  The result is, no matter how much they learn they never really get educated in a Biblical sense, for they never learn how to make the choices in life that really matter.  The Scribe asked the right question, and in so doing he opened the door to the answer of Jesus, and that becomes the foundation of all Christian education.  We want to focus our attention on one aspect of the first commandment about loving God with all of our mind.  This is the alpha and omega of Christian education.   There is no wiser choice in life than the choice to love God with all your mind.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     No Christian can be anti-intellectual, for God is the Creator of the mind, and the Author of all truth.  To believe anything false, or anything built on prejudice or superstition is inconsistent with loving God with all your mind.  One can be brilliant and learned, as were the Pharisees, and yet be stupid because the mind and all of its knowledge is not devoted to loving God, but to self-centered purposes. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Hitler's companions in crime were educated men.  Some of them were brilliant and had a well developed taste for high quality in culture.  But with all of their education and brilliance they made the choice to be more cruel and brutal than the beasts, and they became tools of darkness rather than agents of light.  They illustrate clearly that no amount of education, and no quantity of knowledge can make a man wise when the mind is not devoted to God.  Only when men love God with their minds will they use the knowledge of their minds to make wise choices that are pleasing to God and beneficial to man.   </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Harold Bell Wright said, "I would rather receive a great, vital, and living truth from an illiterate backwoodsman who violates every rule of grammar than have a university president to lie to me in perfect English."  Because the university president can lie to us in perfect English, and like the Pharisees use the brilliant mind to deceive and lead us astray, Christians have had mixed emotions about education.  Some became anti-intellectual.  They oppose education, for it only made bad people better able to be successfully bad.  They were as skeptical as the little girl who said to her father, "I don't think mommy knows how to raise children."  "Why do you say that," he asked?  "Because," she said, "She makes me to go bed when I'm not sleepy, and makes me get up when I am sleepy."  Sometimes even the right way does not seem right, and we have to trust in those who are suppose to know best.  The problem is that sometimes, as in the case of the Pharisees, they don't know best.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We need to be constantly reminded that the abuse and misuse of any of God's gifts is never a valid reason for rejecting or ignoring the proper use of them.  God gave us His Word in a book, therefore, it is God's will that Christians be people who learn to read, think, and grow in knowledge and wisdom.  Jesus spent a great deal of His short life in teaching, and He expected the church to continue for all time to teach people.  In His Great Commission He said, "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."  Christian education is not an elective, for the church it is required by both the first commandment to love God with all the mind, and by the second order of our Lord to be teachers.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     People cannot make wise choices unless they know the truth God has given to man and His Word.  That is why there is a strong emphasis on religious education all through the history of God's people.  The Old Testament makes clear the importance of instruction, and that wisdom leads to all the values God wants us to experience in life.  Josephus, the Jewish historian in the time of Christ wrote, "Our ground is good, and we work it to the utmost, but our chief ambition is for the education of our children.  We take most pains of all with the instruction of children."  The Jewish Talmud says, " So long as there are children in the schools, Israel's enemies cannot prevail against them."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This was the kind of culture in which Jesus grew up.  Jesus grew in wisdom as a boy, and at age 12 we find Him debating with scholars in the temple.  During His ministry He amazed people with His learning and wisdom, even though He never had the formal education of a Rabbi.  Never did a man speak as He did was the comment that circulated, and He debated and outwitted the greatest minds of His day.  Jesus set the example, and made it clear that growing in knowledge and wisdom is the wisest choice for the believer.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Christians who came to America recognized that a Christian education was crucial to the survival of this free land.  Many are not aware that most of the great schools of our land were founded by Christians.  Thy Presbyterians founded Harvard, and in the 17th century 52% of its graduates went into full time Christian service.  Yale, Princeton, Rutgers, Dartmoth, Brown, and many other schools were  schools where Christian theology was a basic part of the curriculum.  Up to 1850 25% of the students went into full time Christian service.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     9 out of every 10 college and university presidents before the Civil War were theologians, and the majority of the teachers were clergyman.  In 1851 the great evangelist Charles G. Finny became the president of Oberlin College, and it became the first college to admit women, and one of the first to admit blacks.  The point is, Christian education thrived in our land at one time, and had such powerful influence in our culture.  In 1795 Bishop Asbury of the Methodist Church could say, "The president of a superior college has it in his power to do more harm or good than the president of the United States."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Times changed and the universities got so involved in politics that theology was pushed to the side, and secular interests dominated education.  A little over a century ago Emerson and Thoreau were in Emerson's library.  Thoreau had just graduated from Harvard, and the talk naturally turned to the school they both had attended.  Emerson remarked that Harvard now taught all of the branches of learning.  "Yes," said Thoreau, "all the branches but none of the roots."  If America ceased to be a Christian nation, it was because it ceased to love God with all of its mind.  The mind was devoted to other things which were good and valid, but which left God out.  That is what secularism is.  It is the good with the best left out.  It is knowledge about everything that can lead to many values in life, but cannot lead to the best choices, because they are not made available as an alternative.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Christian education deals with all of the same things as secular education, but with this major difference:  It gives the student the light from God's Word so that he can use all that he learns in a way that is consistent with the will and plan of God.  This enables the student to make the best choices, for they are choices that enable them to love God with all their minds.  This is why Sunday School is such a vital part of the ministry of the church.  It is the teaching arm of the church, and it is the missionary arm of the church, for as Jesus said in His Great Commission, the goal of missions is to teach disciples to observe all He has commanded.  Sunday School teachers are the missionaries of the local church, and what they do is just as much a fulfillment of our Lord's command as going into all the world.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In my case, Sunday  School fulfilled the whole commission, for it was in a Sunday School started in the air base where I lived as a young boy that I came to know Christ.  It was in Sunday School where I got excited about reading and memorizing the Bible.  Without the influence of Sunday School in my life I know my education would have been a tool for evil rather than for the cause of Christ. I was anti-education most of my young life.  I can identify with the boy who, when his father asked him how he liked school said, "closed."  I disliked school and considered it a bore, and visualized the end of high school as the beginning of paradise.  I could not conceive of how anybody could deliberately waste four years of their life by going off to college.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Then in my last year of high school everything changed radically, and it all revolved around loving God with all my mind.  At the same time that I was being motivated by Sunday School to get into the Bible, I was being motivated by a high school teacher to read world literature.  She made it so interesting that I developed a love for reading.  Before this I seldom took a book home.  I read only the basic requirements to get by.  Now I was motivated to read and to see how all of history, like all of life, is related to God's Word.  I fell in love with all learning because I could see how everything that can be known can illustrate the truth of Scripture.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It was in the midst of the process of coming to love God with all my mind that I sensed the call to the ministry.  I could now tolerate the thought of 4 years of college.  I went off to Bethel never dreaming I would be student there for the next 9 years.  I spent 4 in college and 5 in the seminary.  Christian education has dominated my life, and I am convinced that all Christians must be involved in Christian education in order to obey the first commandment, and to obey Christ's final orders to the church.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When a Christian stops learning he stops loving God with all his mind, and, therefore, stops being what God wants him to be.  There is no way to be a good Christian if you stop exposing your mind to new light from the Word of God.  Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free."  Truth liberates but ignorance puts you in bondage.  The only way to remain free is to keep growing in your knowledge of the truth.  I already had a liberal arts education before I discovered what liberal meant in that context.  It goes back to Aristotle who divided education into liberal and illiberal.   If you teach a slave to pick cotton that is not liberal.  It is illiberal education, for it makes him a better slave, and of more value to his master.  But teach him to read and write, and about history and psychology, and you make him free to develop his own potential as a person.  This is liberal education, for it liberates and makes a man free to be more of what he is capable of becoming.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is the goal of the Sunday School as well.  It is the purpose of all Christian education to help Christians see how the Bible relates to all the issues of life so they can make choices that are truly Christian.  We need to see ourselves as children of God, and see  ourselves like we see our own children and grandchildren.  The one thing we all want for them is that they add new territory to their empire of experience and knowledge.  We want them to walk and talk, and keep learning all they can as soon as they can.  We want them to learn to take risks so they can grow.  Nobody wants a child to live the life of a one year old over and over, for life is full of too many possibilities to be content with that, or any other level of limitation.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     A couple of weeks ago we were swimming at a pool, and I was trying to get my granddaughter Sarah to take the plunge of faith and try to swim to me.  She was full of fear and trembling, for it was new territory for her, and it seemed risky.  But I had a strong desire for her to discover she could do what she had not done before.  She had potential that could become actual, and she could learn something new.  So my theme song was, let go and let grandpa-have faith-trust me-it won't hurt-and you won't drown-I'll be there to lift you up.  It was a thrill to her and me when she took the leap of faith and launched out into a new adventure.  This is what Christian education is all about.  It is entice us to let go and let God.  Take the leap of faith and believe you can be more and do more than you ever have.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In Christ, this process of education never ends for the finite can never become infinite.  There is endless potential for growth.  We can be always pressing on to a higher level.  To decide you no longer have to decide is to decide to die on the vine, for when you chose to stop making choices, you chose to end the life process which is choosing.  That is what it is to be alive.  It is to be free to make choices, and when we cease to seek more light to make wise choices, we cease to live the life of a believer.  Because we cease to love God with all our mind.  Paul said Christians are to prove all things and hold fast to that which is good.  Sunday School is designed to give you the opportunity to do just that.  To learn is to love. </B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>CHRISTIAN EDUCATION  Based on Mark 12:28-34</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     True to life is the story of the boy who asked his father how far it was to the moon.  His father said he didn't know.  A little later the boy asked why it never gets cold at the equator, and his father said again that he was not sure.  Again the boy asked him if Australia was the largest island, and again he replied that he didn't really know.  The boy said, "I'm sorry to bother you with all these questions dad."  "That's all right son," he responded, "That's the only way you'll ever learn."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In this particular case the educational value of questioning is doubtful, but ordinarily it is a key to growth and knowledge.  The questioning urge is built into us, and from early childhood it is expressed.  The poet put it from a child's perspective:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Why muvver, why</B></div> <div> <B>               Was those poor blackbirds all baked in a pie?</B></div> <div> <B>               And why did the cow jump right over the moon?</B></div> <div> <B>               And why did the dish run away with the spoon?</B></div> <div> <B>               And why must we wait for our wings till we die?</B></div> <div> <B>               Why muvver, why?</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This quest for answers goes on until we die.  All of life is a process of education, but whether or not one ever gets educated depends primarily upon the kind of questions he asks.  If one asks trivial questions, he will receive trivial answers, and though he may be well informed on trivia, he can hardly be called educated.  Or if one asks foolish questions, he will be frustrated and confused.  C.S. Lewis wrote,  "Can a mortal ask questions which God finds unanswerable?  Quite easily, I should think.  All nonsense questions are unanswerable.  How many hours are there in a mile?  Is yellow square or round?  Probably half the questions we ask-half of our great theological and metaphysical problems are like that."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     One of the major problems of the world today is that men are asking the wrong questions, and in spite of all their learning the problems grow greater, and solutions are no nearer.  The questions that really count and that really lead to a valuable education are those questions dealing with man's relationship to God.  We see just such a question in our text.  A scribe has just witnessed the wisdom of Jesus in debating with the scholars who oppose Him.  He is deeply impressed, and out of a desire to get the view of Jesus on a question much debated, he asked Jesus, "Which is the first commandment of all?"  This was not a matter of trivial technicality to trick the teacher.  It was a matter of serious importance, for the answer determines the very essence of the religious life that is pleasing to God.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some of the Jews believed that the commandments dealing with offerings and sacrifices were superior, others believe that those dealing with the Sabbath and circumcision were primary.  This scribe wanted to know what Jesus thought.  The answer Jesus gave is so vast in its implications, and so far reaching in its influence on the Christian life that we cannot begin to cover it all.  We just want to focus our attention on the one factor of loving God with all our minds.  This becomes a foundation upon which all Christian education is built.  It also becomes the goal of all Christian education.  Since we are to love God with all our minds, we diligently study and learn that our minds might be sharp tools for the Master's use, but we also study and learn that we might fulfill this great commandment of loving God with all our mind.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     God does not desire blind devotion.  To do the right thing in ignorance is neither a virtue, nor is it wisdom.  God demands that we walk in the light, and give willful and intelligent devotion to Him.  Often unbelievers have the impression that believers are people of faith, and that they despise the values of reason and education.  This false idea has been conveyed to them through Christians who themselves paid no attention to this first commandment of loving God with all the mind.  No Christian can be anti-intellectual without violating the supreme law of God who is the author of all wisdom and truth.  To believe any error, or anything built on prejudice or superstition is in inconsistent with loving God with all the mind.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The mind is the channel through which we receive and express faith and all the other virtues of the Christian life.  It is with our minds that we hear or read the Gospel and understand it as good news.  Faith, hope, love, and joy are responses to that which the mind determines to be of value.  The historical facts of the death and resurrection are not grasped first by emotion, but by reason.   Meaningful Christian emotions are always based on truth grasped by the mind.  For this reason God's people have put a great deal of emphasis on education.  Jesus was not called the teacher for nothing.  A large part of His ministry consisted in teaching, and He expected it to continue to be a large part of the ministry of His church.  He said in the Great Commission, "...Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Christian education is not an elective.  It is required both by this first commandment to love God with all the mind, and by the marching orders of our Lord to the church.  The value of education can only be overemphasized when it is not directed toward the service of God and worship.  The value of education was definitely over rated by the convict who said as he was being strapped into the electric chair, "This sure ought to teach me a lesson."  Those lessons are only of ultimate worth that teach us to fulfill this great commandment.  Education not specifically designed to reach this goal cannot be considered and ultimate benefit to man.  It may help him to get more out of time, but it gains him nothing for eternity.   This is what distinguishes Christian education from secular education.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Christian schools do not exist to educate doctors, engineers, teachers, and ministers.  They exist to educate Christian doctors, Christian engineers, Christian teachers, and Christian ministers.  That is, men and women of all walks of life who intelligence is dedicated to the glory of God.  Filling the mind with facts and knowledge is only a Christian activity when the persons engaged in it are seeking to love God with all their minds.  This commandment was not new with Jesus, for He was quoting from the Old Testament.  The Old Testament believers were also keening aware of the value of education.  God is the eternal educator, and learning always characterizes those who respond to His revelation.  Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it, is one of the great Proverbs of the Old Testament showing the value they put on education.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many are the Proverbs like these:  "A wise son maketh a glad father, but a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother."  Rabbi Judah said, "The world exists by the breath of school children."  Another said, "Dearer to me is the breathe of school children than the savor of sacrifice."  The Jewish Talmud said, "So long as their are children in the schools Israel's enemies cannot prevail against her."  We get an idea of the Jewish value on education at the time of Jesus from this quote by the Jewish historian Joephus.   "Our ground is good, and we work it to the utmost, but our chief ambition is for the education of our children."  "We take most pains of all with the instruction of children..."   This was the kind of educational setting in which Jesus was born.  At age 12 He was debating with scholars in the temple.  During His ministry He amazed people with His learning and wisdom, for He had no formal training as a Rabbi.  The early Christians held it to be their goal to out live, out think, and out die the pagans.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus came to fulfill the law, and the greatest part of it He said was in loving God with one's whole being.  Jesus did just that, and loved God with all His mind, and He expects His disciples to do the same.  The result has been that the church of Christ has always been engaged in education, and in the training of minds to be dedicated to God.  We cannot begin to cover the history of Christian education, but we do have time for a brief review of its significance in America.  Most  people are unaware of the fact that the Christian church is responsible for higher education in America.  Harvard was founded by the Scotch Presbyterians, and 52 per cent of its graduates in the 17th century became ministers.  Yale was founded because of fear that Harvard was going liberal, and they wanted a school more loyal to orthodoxy. Princeton and Rutgers were byproducts of the great revival at the turn of the 19th century.  Up to 1850, 25% of the students from these schools like Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth became ministers.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      As the church moved West the people planted colleges everywhere.  The Methodist and the Baptist were slow to realize need for education.  They felt it hindered their spirituality.  Time, however, made them realize how important it was.   When Cokesbury College, the first Methodist attempt at higher education, burned down in 1795, Bishop Asbury was glad to be rid of it, but later changed his view and said, "The president of  a superior college has it in his power to do more harm or good than the president of the United States."  Baptist also saw the need and started Madison, Brown, George Washington, Mercer, and Dennison College.  A hard to believe statistic is that 9 out of every 10 college and university presidents before the Civil War were theologians, and the majority of teachers were clergyman.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Optimistic social reform went hand in hand with the Gospel of revival.  Christian colleges became the central force behind the abolition of slavery, whiskey, and other social evils.  There were riots and beatings, mob scenes and killings.  Charles G. Finney, one of the greatest evangelists of all time, was a giant in intellect and zeal.  In 1851 he became president of Oberlin College.  It was the first to admit girls, and one of the first to admit blacks.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Militant reform reached its peak under the leadership of Finney.  One of the professors and several students went to jail for resisting the fugitive slave law.  Students and faculty were active in both the radical and conservative branches of the American Peace Society.  Wayward girls from New York City were enrolled as students to be rehabilitated.  With this kind of history as the background to American higher education, why is it so secular today?  The big universities got so involved in the politics of the days of our struggle for independence that theology was pushed aside.  Deism, rationalism, and French infidelity seeped to fill the vacuum, and Christianity lost control.  Over involvement in politics was the ruin of the Catholic Church as well.  It is dangerous for Christians to be totally connected with any political power, for it leads to a loss of commitment to Christian truth.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Many of the more orthodox schools lost their zeal when the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished, and also when the 13th amendment was passed.  Too many victories caused them to loss their sense of urgency, and in their slackness they let secularism take  control of their institutions.  One evening about a century ago Emerson and Thoreau were sitting in Emerson's library.  Thoreau had just graduated from Harvard, and the talk naturally turned to their mutual alma mater.  Emerson remarked that Harvard now taught all the branches of learning.  "Yes," said Thoreau, "All the branches, but none of the roots."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      American education ceased to be Christian when it forgot that its roots go back to this first commandment to love God with all the mind.  As evangelical Christians we continue to maintain schools like Bethel, because like all wise believers of the past we see the necessity of education that has rooted in this great commandment.  </B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>     </B></div> <div> <B>THE LOVE TRIANGLE  Based on Mark 12:28-34</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     One of the great tragic plays of all time is Shakespeare's Othello.  Othello was a general in the Venetian army.  He secretly married Desdemona the daughter of a Venetian senator.  Desdemona was the most lovely of all Shakespeare's characters.  She was a beautiful and ideal wife.  Othello was less than the ideal husband, however, for he killed her.  There was no reason for this senseless act of violence, but he was convinced there was a just cause.  This is how it happened.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Othello had promoted Cassio to higher rank, but bypassed Iago, and Iago was deeply offended.  So much so that he plotted revenge.  His method was to hint and imply to Othello that his wife Desdemona was involved with Cassio.  He arranged that a handkerchief that Othello had given to his wife be found in the possession of Cassio.  By craftily words and clever circumstantial evidence he succeeded in weaving a pattern of suspicion that put Othello in a jealous rage.  In that evil stage of mind he smothered Desdemona in her bed.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In spite of the fact that Iago killed several people, including his own wife, to keep his evil scheme hidden, he was found out and sentenced to torture.  But Othello, thunderstruck by his senseless jealousy, kills himself with his own sword crying, "The pity of it..O the pity of it."  Indeed, a tragic story that illustrates the danger of the love triangle.  Here was a case where there was no real triangle, but just the false suspicion, and that was enough to bring many to ruin.  When David turned the love relationship of Uriah and Bathsheba into a love triangle, it could be said that the end result was a wreck-tangle, for it lead to wrecked and tangled lives, and the tragic murder of the innocent, as was the case in Shakespeare's tragedy.  The Bible, literature, and history, all agree that love triangle is a plot that leads to tragedy.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      In spite of this great danger of the triangle in the realm of romantic love, Jesus makes it clear that in realm of redemptive love the triangle is not tragic, but tremendous.  The love triangle is not only permissible, but it is promoted as the only love that is complete.  Any love that does not go upward to God, outward to others, and inward to self is as incomplete as a one or two legged tripod.  Augustine said, "Where there is love there is trinity:  A lover, a beloved, and a spirit of love."</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It makes sense that Jesus would teach the necessity of a triune love.  If God is love, and God is triune, then it follows that love must be triune if it is truly a Godlike love.  Any love that lacks the triune nature tends to become a perversion. But about romantic love?  We just reviewed the well known fact that the love triangle on that level leads to tragedy.  The problem there is a false picture we have in our minds.  The triune nature of romantic love is also beautiful and complete.  It is God, the husband, and the wife who make up the three of the true trinity on that level.  It is when a fourth breaks into the triangle that there is a problem.  Four is the number of earth, and three the number of heaven.  Three is the number of heavenly balance even on earth.  When Adam and Eve and God were the only three on the stage of history, all was beautiful.  When the fourth, which was Satan, came on the stage, then came the seed of tragedy.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The point I am making is that love and trinity go together, and anything more or less is not complete love.  On every level, if we rightly understand it, the love triangle is beautiful and complete.  If  you eliminate any of the three points on the triangle of love that Jesus portrays as the fulfillment of the whole law, you  will destroy love.  If you love God only, and not self or neighbor, you turn religion into a thing of horror.  Men have committed every crime known for the glory of God, like Saul before he became the complete and loving Paul.  He persecuted, tortured, and killed Christians for the glory of God.  He loved God, but proved that without love for man love for God can turn you into a monster.   </B></div> <div> <B>History is filled with tyrants who claimed love for God while they crushed their fellow man.  John rightly asks, "How can you love God whom you do not see, if you do not love your brother whom you do see?"  John is saying what Jesus is saying, that love that does not have a triangle shape is not true love.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      If one loves himself but not God an others he is not to be admired, for his love is pure selfishness.  He is the Pharisee who thanks God he is not as other men.  He is the center of his universe, and those who are wrapped up in themselves make a mighty small package.  The Bible will not honor that sort of thing with the name of love.  If you love your neighbor only, you may be a great humanitarian and a helpful guy to have around, but you are shallow and superficial, and have no ultimate values and goals to give life meaning.  You may be the best liked of the three who have only a one or two pointed love, but you still fall far short of complete Biblical love.  The point is, there is no point in a one point or two point love.  Love must be triune or it does not exist.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Samuel Shoemaker, the great American preacher, said, "In the triangle of love between ourselves, God and other people, is found the secret of existence, and the best foretaste, I suspect, that we can have on earth of what heaven will probably be like."  Now abides faith, hope, love, but the greatest of these is love."  Why is love the greatest, and why is love the first fruit of the spirit?  Because love is eternal, if it is complete.  This triune love is the key ingredient of heaven.  If one fails to develop this three fold love, he has failed to become fit for heaven.  Hell is the destiny men chose when they fail to form the love triangle in their lives.  It is never God's will that any man lack this triangle.  It is God's whole purpose in history to bring men to the point where this three fold love dominates their lives.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus made it clear that the whole Old Testament of God's revelation is summed up in these two great commandments that cover this three fold love.  In the New Testament we have in Jesus the final and ultimate demonstration of the love triangle that makes it possible for men to fulfill these commands.  Man on his own can never love God, his neighbor, and himself as God demands.  His fallen nature will pervert love on every level.  The only hope to be what God wants us to be is to surrender to the Lord of love who fulfilled these commands in Himself, and who can fulfill them in you if you let His love invade your life.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     To be saved, or to be born again, is simply to let the love of Christ fill you so you can fulfill the purpose of God for your life by entering into the love triangle.  All men have a triangle shaped vacuum within, and only as it is filled with love can man fulfill his purpose in God's plan.  Jesus is the only person who ever fully embodied this love triangle.  He only, loved God supremely with His whole being. </B></div> <div> <B>He only, could love himself without doubt or defect, because He only, had a perfect and ideal character.  He only, loved His neighbor as himself, for He alone gave His life that all men might be reconciled to God.  No one but Jesus ever completely kept these commandments.  There is no way for any man to become what God wants him to be apart from the love of Christ.  To be Christlike is to embody the love triangle.  We want to look at each of these three essential points:</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>I.  THE SUPREME LOVE.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The high point in the love triangle is our love for God.  It is to be our supreme love.  Our total being is to put God first in its value system so that nothing, or no one, is superior.  To love God is to love what God loves.  Love for God is demonstrated by the goals we strive for, and the purposes we live for.  It is being one with God in our judgment of values.  This locks us into the triangle of love, for no one can truly love God who does not love his neighbor and himself, for God loves the neighbor and the self, and so not to do so is to reject God's value system.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Love for God leads to love for self and others, and so it is the number one love, </B></div> <div> <B>for it carries in it all other loves.  Without love for God there is no true love, for God is love, and the source of all love.  Weakness in any area of your love life can be traced back to your love for God.  Here is the mainspring that keeps all the other wheels of love turning.  Keep your love for God in good working condition, and you will have no trouble forming the complete triangle of love.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Everything we do in any relationship reflects love to God or lack of it.  David, after his great sin with Bathsheba, said to God in Psa. 51:4, "Against Thee, Thee only, have I sinned."  He saw that his primary problem was not just lust, but his lack of love for God.  Had he loved God with his whole being he would have known that his action could only lead to tragedy.  All sin is against God because all sin, like the first sin of Eve, begins with a doubt that God's way is best.  The only way to avoid sin is to love God supremely.  If David had loved God supremely, he would know that God's way would be best for his neighbor and himself.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jesus said in Matthew 25:40, "In as much as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me."  Jesus is saying, all evil actions toward others are really directed toward Him.  Every act of our life is saying, either I love God, or I do not love Him supremely.  When Paul said we are to do all things to the glory of God, he was saying we are to live our lives so that every deed will be saying to God, "I love you."  Everything we do and say has a cosmic significance, for every emotion of the heart, every action of the body, every thought of the mind, registers in the sensitive mind of God as love or the lack of it.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     This is both frightening and enlightening.  It makes us fearful, for we know we fall so far short and fail to love God as we ought.  Yet, it is enlightening and exciting because it makes all of life meaningful.  There is no such thing as the insignificant in the Christian life.  We can do all for the glory of God.  A word, a smile, a trivial act of kindness, everything we do in our routine daily life can be an expression of love to God, and have infinite value.  Love for God is what makes all of life meaningful, and that is why it is the supreme love.  The exciting truth must be pursued further at another time, but for now we want to look at the other two points in the love triangle.  The triangle has one point going up.  It is the high pointof the triangle, and represents love for God.  The other points are on the same level, and they are equal.  Jesus put it, "You are to love  your neighbor as yourself."  Equality is the emphasis.  Love for God is the supreme love, and these other two are secondary loves.  Let's look at the second point in the love triangle.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>II.  THE SELF LOVE.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     You will notice that self love is not a command but an assumption.  We are commanded to love others as ourselves.  Love for self is assumed, for God has made it natural and normal that we will love ourselves.  Not to love yourself is to be in a state of malfunctioning.  The person who does not love themselves are like knives that won't cut, pliers that won't grip, a flashlight that won't turn on.  They are like anything that exists for a purpose, but which cannot fulfill that purpose.  Those who do not love themselves lose the sense of meaning to life.  Lost of self-love is the primary cause of suicide.  Without self-love there will no motivation to love God or neighbor, for there will be no motivation to gain heaven or escape hell.   Self-hatred chooses hell.  The lost sinner who lives without love for God is living in a state of self-hatred, and is choosing hell as his destiny.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The appeal of the Gospel to the sinner is not only that he should love God, but that he should love himself.  If a man truly loves himself, he will repent of his sin and receive the gift of God which is eternal life in Jesus Christ.  No man surrenders to Christ and receives life abundant until he loves himself.  He may come to that love by being made to fear the loss of his soul, or he may come to it by seeing the price Jesus paid for his soul on the cross, and be stabbed into awareness of his infinite value, but one way or another salvation begins with self-love.  It begins with a recognition of self-worth to God. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     We who have entered the kingdom by receiving Christ must be ever growing in self-love in order to fulfill the purpose of God for our lives.  If God's first command and primary purpose is that we love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind, than we must face up to the high value that God puts on each of our lives.  How can I not love myself if God's main concern for me is that I love Him.  I must really be somebody and of infinite value to God if He wants me to love Him supremely.  Barber wrote, "You know always in your heart that you need God more than everything; but do you know too that God needs you...in the fullness of His eternity needs you?"  If God did not need our love, He would not demand it, and if He did not need our love, life would have no meaning or goal.  But because God does need and want our love, all of life takes on value and meaning.  This second point in the triangle is so linked with the first that they both lead to the same end.  The third point of the triangle is-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>III.  THE SEEKING LOVE.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The love of your neighbor is a seeking love.  It is the supreme love and the self-love seeking an outlet into the world.  Love of God and self can be quite private, but love is not complete until it reaches out and becomes public.  The triangle is not complete until love seeks expression in the public arena.  That is why Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.  The cross is the symbol of God's seeking love.  It is the symbol of the price He was willing to pay to love others as Himself.  The third point of the love triangle cannot be complete without a cross.  There is always a price to pay to love others as yourself.  G. Campbell Morgan said, "Loving your neighbor is not singing hymns about your neighbor, or merely hoping that some day your neighbor will go through the pearly gates into heaven.  Loving your neighbor is to poor out the life in sacrificial attempt to heal his wounds, rest his weariness, and lift him to the level on which God would have him dwell."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Just as love for self is the passionate desire to be what God wants you to be, so love for neighbor is to have an equally passionate desire for them to be what God wants them to be.  This means that true love for neighbor can include rebuke as well as positive guidance.  We can't begin to cover all that is involved in seeking love, so I will focus on just one aspect.  One of the main goals we strive for in self-love is happiness.  We all want to be cheerful and encouraged.  Love of neighbor is seeking to be a cheerleader in the game of life.  It is a seeking to give encouragement by word and deed t those around us who also crave the same happiness we do.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Pharisees had an apparent love for God, and a prideful love for self, but whatever good was in their love was lost because they broke off this third point of the triangle.  They made religion a burden to be borne rather than a blessing to bear others up.  Their idea of religion was to keep 618 different laws until life was just a daily pain.  The forced this system upon the people, and that is why Jesus condemned them and shattered their legalistic system.   Jesus came that men might have life and life abundant.  He came to love and give encouragement to men.  To love your neighbor is to see that your neighbor receives the encouragement they need to move toward the goal of abundant life.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In the novel Up The Down Staircase, Sylvia is a teacher of slow learners in a New York school.  One of the boys in her class felt he was a worthless nobody.  He did not even sign his name to his papers, but just put me on them.  Sylvia loved and cared for her students enough so that when she left this boy wrote to her and said, "I, for me, will never forget you as long as I live.  You've made me feel I'm real."  When you love can do that for a person it is a vital part of the love triangle.  Anything you can do that helps others get into the love triangle is loving your neighbor as yourself.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Some need to learn to love themselves before they can love God.  Others need to love God to escape a perverted self-love.  Still others need to love their neighbor to balance out an inadequate love.  Since all men need help at one or more of these three points of the love triangle, loving your neighbor involves anything you can do to encourage them to strengthen that point at which they are weak.  It is seeking love because you must care enough about others to seek to know what they need, and where they need the encouragement.   </B></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>THE COINS OF THE BIBLE  Based on Mark 12:41-44</B></div> <div> <B>By Pastor Glenn Pease</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Florence Banks in her book Coins Of Bible Days says that the handling of ancient coins does with time what radio and TV do with space.  There are hundreds of miles between us and California, but TV eliminates those miles, and puts people there in our presence here.  So Bible days are hundreds of years back, and a great gap separates us from the people who lived then.  But to see and touch the bits of silver, bronze, and gold that those people used, as we use dimes and dollars, brings them nearer.  She writes, "When we hold in our palms the one thing we can hold which we have a reasonable right to believe could have been in the hand of Nicodemus when he bought the hundred pounds of myrrh and aloes for Jesus's burial; in the hand of Martha when she went to market; in the hand of Mary of Bethany when she bought her precious alabaster box of spikenard, or in the money bag of Judus when he purchased food for the disciples, we feel a closer acquaintance with those personages of the Bible than we had ever dreamed we could."  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Money in those days was not called in when it got old like it is today.  There were no banks, and so people hoarded money and hid it in caves and wells, and buried it in the ground.  That is why archaeologists are able to find so much of that ancient money.  When Jesus told the parable of the treasure buried in the field He was not dreaming up a hypothetical situation.  He was speaking of a common practice of His day.  Many coins are also found in ancient ships that have sunk, and so the result is there are actually more coins available from the ancient world of Greece and Rome than there are from the 18th century in the United States.  There are enough of the coins of Bible times available so you can own one for just a few dollars.    </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The study of coins can make history come alive.  The symbolism has much meaning, for coins often had the image of some deity on them.  This led to people using them as magic and good luck charms.  Some use to put coins under their pillow to cure headaches because the god on the coin was a god of healing.  Jewish coins, however, did not follow the imagery of other people, for God commanded them not to make images.  Of great interest to coin collectors, however, is a coin that was made by the people in Gaza, the Philistine City in about 400 B.C.  It has a helmeted head of an unknown male god on one side, and on the other is a bearded figure of man seated in a winged wheel and holding a hawk on his hand.  Three Phoenician letters are also shown which are transliterated as YHD or YHW.  Kenneth Jacob in his book Coins And Christianity says that this coin may be the only known example of the God of the Israelites being depicted on a coin.  The Jews did not make the coin, but it was made by the people who made coins to appeal to a number of different cults by using their deities.  This was their method of trying to open up trade.  The wings and the wheels fit the vision of Ezekiel.  This unique coin is in the British Museum.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Jews learned the value of coins from others.  For centuries they used precious metals as money according to weight.  The first rich man mentioned in the Bible was Abraham.  He lived in the 19th century B.C.  Gen. 13:2 says, "Now Abram was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold."  In Gen. 23 we have an account of a real estate transaction.  Abraham bought a piece of property from the Hittites for a burying place.  When agreement had been reached Abraham weighed out, "Four hundred shekels of silver, according to the weights current among the merchants."  This was equal to about $220.00 in our money in the 1960's.  Today we could hand over $220.00 and a man could slip it into his billfold and go about his business feeling no burden.  In that day you had to have bags to carry your metal weights to measure, and then a beast of burden to carry away your profits.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>       Through most of the Old Testament the weight system was used.  This became so inconvenient that men had to devise an easier way of transferring wealth.  That is why coins became such a helpful invention.  Not all have caught on to this convenient idea even in modern times.   If you go to the small island of Yap in the Pacific, you will find that they still use for their money huge stones up to 50 pounds.  They have holes in them so a pole can be put through, and two men can carry it.  It is the largest and heaviest currency in the world.  In their primitive society it is no problem, but you can't even imagine what an intolerable nuisance it would be in our society.  There are also people in the Pacific who use bird feathers for money, and so the heaviest and the lightest money in the world is used by primitive peoples in the Pacific.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The Jewish people were more primitive than others peoples when it came to matter of science, culture, and business.  The first coins were made in about 700 B.C. in Lydia, which is now the coast of Turkey.  Gold was so plentiful there that the river was said to be flowing with golden sand.  Croesus, who reigned from 560 to 546 B. C. was world famous for his extreme wealth.  He was the first to make coins of pure gold.  Some of them have survived to this day.  Deluded by his wealth he believed he was invincible, and decided to take on Cyrus the king of Persia.  In two years he was defeated, and his fabulous fortune and mint were taken by Cyrus.  The Persians had no coins, but Cyrus liked the idea and made his own coins. </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      He then went on to conquer Babylon where the Jews were in captivity.  This is where the Jews first came into contact with the idea of coins.  When Cyrus sent them back to Jerusalem, they took with them vast quantities of these Persian coins called drachmas.  This is the first coin mentioned in the Bible in Ezra 2:68.  In Neh. 7:70-72 we also read of the thousands of drachmas given to help build up the wall.  From this time on gifts to the temple are no longer in weights of gold and silver, but in gold and silver coins.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     Jewish coinage then began after the captivity, and, therefore, at the end of recorded Old Testament history.  This means we must study the intertestimental period to learn of Jewish coinage.  This is of interest, but of even more interest is the study of coins in the New Testament.  We actually have coins in collections which were made by Herod the Great, his son Archelaus who is also mentioned in the New Testament.  Also we have them by Herod Antipas who had John the Baptist beheaded; Herod Agrippa who had Peter imprisoned, and Pontius Pilate. Collectors are eager to find his coins marked the 16th year of Tiberius, for that was the year of the crucifixion.  It is a coin with a vessel on one side and three ears of barley on the other.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The coin most in demand by collectors is that piece of money Jesus held in His hand called the tribute penny.  The Pharisees tried to trap Jesus in a political blunder by asking Him if it was lawful to pay taxes to Ceasar or not.  Jesus in Matt. 22:19 asked them to show whose likeness and inscription was on the coin.  When they said Ceasar's, he responded, "Render therefore to Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's, and to God the things that are God's."  This coin that Jesus looked at was a silver coin with Tiberius Ceasar on one side and this inscription-Tiberius Ceasar Augustus, son of the divine Augustus.  On the other side is a female seated with a spear in her right hand, and an olive branch in her left.  She represented Rome, and the inscription Pontifex Maximus meant chief priests or Pontiff.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     It is of interest to note the symbolism of war and peace which we still use on our coins, but also to note the difference.  On this coin that Jesus held the symbol of war is in the right hand showing a preference to war.  On American coins the eagle holds both the arrows of war and the olive branch of peace, but it is the peace symbol that is in the right talon showing a preference for peace.  There can be no doubt that this slight reverse in symbolism is due to the influence of Christ in our culture and heritage.  You could take a 50 cent piece or dollar bill and ask somebody why the arrows are in the left talon, and explain that in the time of Christ they were in the right, but He has made a difference.  A coin is a basis for a witness to Christ.  He is the author of peace, and you can speak of peace that He can give to those who will put their trust in Him.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     The same Roman denarius was the coin that Jesus used in His story of the Good Samaritan.  In Luke 10:35 after he took the injured man to an inn we read,  "And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, take care of him and whatever more you spend I will repay you when I come back."  A denarius was equal to about 20 cents, so he gave him an equivalent of 40 cents.  That would not go far in a Holiday Inn, but it was considerable money in that day.  In fact, it was equal to the average man's wage for two days.   In Matt. 20  Jesus tells another parable of laborers in the vineyard.  They agreed to labor for a denarius a day.  This means the Good Samaritan gave the inn keeper two days of salary.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In Mark 12:41-44 Jesus sits and watches people in their giving.  He sees the widow give her mites.  These mites were copper coins which together equaled the smallest of the Roman coins.  In our day they would be a half a penny each.   The RSV says instead of a farthing, a penny.  Here was giving on a level that is the least possible unless she would give only one mite.  Yet Jesus praises her, for relative to her wealth she gave more than a millionaire who would give half a million, for he would still have half a million left.  She gave her all, and in so doing she pleased Christ, and made the little coin called the mite, or lepton, famous for all history.  This provides a real stewardship lesson, and gives even our penny a place of potential in the service of Christ.  Littleness of value can be multiplied if given to Christ.  The poet put it-</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>                Little drops of water, </B></div> <div> <B>               Little grains of sand,</B></div> <div> <B>               Make the mighty ocean,</B></div> <div> <B>               And the beauteous land.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>               Little seeds of mercy,</B></div> <div> <B>               Sowen by youthful hands,</B></div> <div> <B>               Grow to bless the nations</B></div> <div> <B>               Far in heathen lands.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B> Never underestimate the power of small giving which is sacrificial giving.   </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      We don't have time to look at every coin in the Bible, but we want to look at a few interesting facts about the role of coins following the New Testament.  The Romans made a big thing of their destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D.  They minted 15 varieties of coins to celebrate this event.  Vespasian struck one of silver which can be seen on display in Philadelphia.  On one side is himself, and on the other is a female captive with her hands bound standing before a palm tree.  The words on it are Judea vanquished.  </B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     When Constantine, the Roman Emperor, became a Christian in 312 A.D., he began a process of Christianizing coins.  It was slow at first, and there were just hints of Christian symbolism mixed with pagan symbols.  After a century the cross was a frequently used symbol on coins.  In 450 A.D. the emperor Marcian struck a coin with he and his wife joining hands in marriage with the figure of Christ standing between them.  This was the beginning of many coins on which Christ appeared.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>     In the East in the 6th century some silver coins had the cross and the inscription-the light of the world.  Justinion II had his coins with himself and the inscription-the servant of Christ.  On the other side was a portrait of Christ and the inscription-Jesus Christ-King of Kings.  Sometimes Jesus was portrayed with a long beard, and other times with a short beard, but the cross is almost always present to make clear who it is.  In the 10th century a series of bronze coins had Christ on them, and in the 12th century Christ is shown crowning the emperor.</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>      In England coins with the cross were common, and also the holy dove.  In France in the 10th century there is coin of a bird with a twig in its beak representing the dove of Noah.  Some coins also had the Lamb of God.  Many Bible characters and scenes were put on coins, and it became a custom to associate Christianity and coin symbols.  So much was this the case that when a new silver florin was made in 1849 with reference to God omitted, a cry went up from the people against what they called the godless florin.  The outcry was so great that the coins were promptly withdrawn, and a new coin made that had reference to God.  The value of knowing this history is that it gives  the Christian another open door to use a common interest, which is money, to witness for Jesus.</B></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>     </B></div> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>