09-01-08

YOU ARE A TREE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

A PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE

Dear brothers and sisters, God bless you. Oftentimes, as I sit down to compose these monthly newsletters, I have a more or less urgent message uppermost in my mind that I feel compelled to share with you, sometimes good news and sometimes bad news, but always relating to Father God, for He is the inner heart and outer boundary of my life. It is from the perspective of a pastor and servant of God manifesting a sincere desire to bless you wonderfully with more of Him that these messages are delivered to the congregation of believers at large (you) once a month; and it is God whom I believe inspires and uses me as His trumpet to convey them in the peculiar fashion thereof. Brothers and sisters, let it be known that we are all, every human being on the face of this earthly globe, instruments and servants of the living God, saved and unsaved, willing and unwilling. Amen

1.       (Jer 5:14)  Wherefore thus saith the LORD God of hosts, Because ye speak this word, behold, I will make my words in thy mouth fire, and this [unsaved] people wood, and it shall devour them.

We commonly are acquainted with the biblical metaphor that the Lord our God is the potter and we are the clay (Isa 64:8; Jer 18:1-6). However, do we also thoroughly acknowledge that God will use and has used every single human being, both saved and unsaved, for His own good purpose? Please allow me to present another interesting biblical metaphor for men and women that we will happily amplify. In the Bible, all men and women are symbolized as different kinds of trees, each having limbs and a heart, Jesus-Christ being the Tree of Life and Lucifer-Satan being the tree of the knowledge of good (Lucifer) and evil (Satan). Now, as you can see, the particular kind of tree that you are is very important.

Did you know that saved, born-again, imputed for righteousness persons symbolically are birthed into the world as shittim trees? Yep. The word “shittim” appears 32 times in the KJV, and in the original Hebrew language shittim means: “sticks of wood; the acacia tree - from its scourging thorns.” How interesting. Many associations. Did you pick up on the “scourging thorns” part, the scourging and the platted crown of thorns upon our Savior’s head? Do we remember the seed of the Word of God that fell “among the thorns” representing “the care [Gk: distractions] of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches?” (Mat 13:22). Thorns also represent the intentional and unintentional pain that we cause each other. Have you ever met anyone or tried to get close to anyone who was “all thorns?” Shittim wood is a very hard very dense wood bearing sharp thorns that is found in dry arid places of the middle-east. For example, the waterless “valley of shittim” (Joel 3:18) was located east of (outside) the Promised Land in the wilderness. That is where we all begin life, east of Jordan. Please note that the wise men came from the east.

Well praise God, hallelujah, and thank you Lord that born-again shittim tree persons are cut asunder and separated from our root in this natural world by Jesus Christ who is the great carpenter. We are spirit. Shittim trees are the “good,” the redeemed, who Jesus Christ severs from this world, de-thorns, and shapes into perfectly formed wooden boards which He is using to build a house (Psa 127:1), a Tabernacle for Father God. Jesus Christ also uses the “bad” trees, but those as wood fuel for the sacrificial fire of the brazen altar, symbolizing the cross. Those persons who have been and shall become fuel for the sacrificial fire are also “ensamples” to us, written “for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.” (1 Cor 10:11). Those who are unsaved, not born-again, will be fuel for the fire for they are the living epistles of Satan, and our God is a consuming fire.

1.       (Isa 9:18,19)  For wickedness burneth as the fire: it shall devour the briars and thorns, and shall kindle in the thickets of the forest [of unsaved trees still rooted to this world], and they [burning] shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke. Through the wrath of the LORD of hosts is the land darkened [by the ungodly smoke], and the people shall be as the fuel of the fire: no man shall spare his brother. 

2.       (Ezek 21:32)  Thou shalt be for fuel to the fire; thy blood shall be in the midst of the land; thou shalt be no more remembered [i.e., definitely not going to heaven]: for I the LORD have spoken it.

Today there are many other quite distressful topics contesting for preeminence in my mind that are worthy of your focused attention and prayer. For example, we might mention the plainly observable methodological monetary devaluation and all too rapid deterioration of our great country’s economy with our obviously corrupt (quite embarrassingly so) political system at the helm. These are readily perceivable facts, the consequences of which are painfully experienced like sharp piercing thorns suddenly thrust into our everyday lives, with no end nor viable solution in sight. Our eloquent but grandly deceptive political system historically offers the discerning child of God a choice, realistically and without question, between two evils who have both been, again historically, proven to be blatant, deliberate, and unashamed liars (Rev 21:8: no liars in heaven), and asks the blithely mesmerized citizen to vote for who they deem to be the lesser evil. The point of this literally fruitless godless exercise being that whomever they vote for, they are still voting for evil. This is nothing less than Satan’s cunning national stratagem, under the fervent guise (pressure) of patriotism, to conform (Rom 12:2) God’s chosen people into personally voting for, endorsing, sanctioning, and approving, evil. Where is God in this? Where is love in this?

Or, we might mention our small but magnificent army of Rescue Mission personnel, our hard-working staff and faithful volunteers, dedicated Christian men and women, who are sacrificially fighting every single day in the front line combat zone of our Rescue Mission, valiantly struggling, with far from adequate support funds, to maintain and defend every month, the over 29,000 (twenty-nine thousand) critically needed meals (physical food) and the 30 also critically needed evangelical Bible services (spiritual food) that we are instrumental in providing to the many thousands of desperately needy poor families and homeless persons who are feebly striving to scratch out a meager existence in Pinellas County while suffering pitifully in grief, sorrow, and great inner anguish, every one in various stages of deep depression. Reaching out to them, interacting with them, helping them every day as best we can, it is unavoidable that we intensely identify with them, and feel their pain.

Or, we might mention our unified Rescue Mission efforts in winning lost souls to Christ by loving our neighbors. The pain therein is derived from our God-given compassion, and lies in helplessly seeing the sad countenances of those men and women, young and old, who walk away from our gospel message with their backs stiff and unbending to the Lord, empty and unknowing, thinking we could not help them; these are those who reject and refuse to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and yet they need Jesus so very very desperately. We all too frequently see this wayward behavior of the hopeless lost at our Rescue Mission, and among the thousands of men and women and little children wandering astray from the path of life, and thus walking the on path of death. We see them at our Rescue Mission, at the Wagon Wheel Flea Market, at Pinellas Hope (tent city), at the Pinellas County Jail, and at the several long term care hospices that we serve. May we note that it requires great strength of spirit and faith in God for a born-again person to endure hearing a “no” of rejection to our Lord.

Dear brothers and sisters, with all the foregoing in mind, please note that we need your help, your prayers, and your financial support to continue to “fight the good fight of faith” (1 Tim 6:12) throughout our catastrophically hurting nation and right here in the neighborhood of your own back yard, where there is lots and lots of pain, hunger, fear and great darkness. Please help us that you may become part and parcel of our mission for God, and share now in the wonderful blessings that Father God is graciously bestowing upon His obedient children, and shall bestow upon all the obedient redeemed and eternally loved in heaven. J  Be sober, be vigilant, watch and preserve yourselves “that they [you] might be called trees of righteousness [un-swayed by the boisterous winds of worldly doctrines], the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.” (Isa 61:3).

Dear brothers and sisters, thank you for your prayers and love offerings. We are fellow trees of righteousness, dripping with wonderful fruit, the planting of the Lord. We are family. God bless you.

Ps. most surprisingly, our Rescue Mission has not received even a single motor vehicle donation in over two years, and the engine in my own personal vehicle (that I bought inexpensively at an auction) blew-up, broke, busted, is ruined, went completely kaput last week, so I need another vehicle as well. J  If you own a van, mini-van, truck, or car that you believe the Lord is stirring you up to donate, please do so now. The Rescue Mission and myself need them rather urgently. Thank you. God bless you.

And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament;

and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars for ever and ever. (Dan 12:3)