Nathaniel Philbrick, in Mayflower, his acclaimed history of the Pilgrims, recounts how William Bradford, the intrepid leader of that courageous band of Puritans, years later described “that first morning in America.” Recalling with wonder their landing on the salty, windswept shores of Cape Cod Bay on November 15, 1620, Bradford wrote: “But here I cannot stay and make a pause and stand half amazed at this poor people’s present condition. . . . [T]hey had now no friends to welcome them nor inns to entertain or refresh their weatherbeaten bodies; no houses or much less towns to repair to, to seek for succor. What could sustain them but the spirit of God and His Grace? May not and ought not the children of these fathers rightly say: ‘Our fathers were Englishmen which came over this great ocean, and were ready to perish in this wilderness; but they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity’” (46). His words are appropriate, not only because we celebrate the nearly four century tradition of the Pilgrims’ thanksgiving this week. But in Bradford’s description—“they cried unto the Lord, and He heard their voice and looked on their adversity”—perhaps we also hear the faint hint of a day of adversity yet coming upon this land of the Pilgrims. Could the breath-taking speed with which this nation’s hourly economic headlines are unfolding or unraveling these last few weeks be a portent of what is yet to come? Could this land of the free have already seen her best days? Scribbled on the page of Revelation 13 in my Bible are these words written a century ago: “The Lord has done more for the United States than for any other country upon which the sun shines” (Ms 17, 1906). Hardly a prideful claim of superiority or grounds for national arrogance, this quiet observation simply declares a common truth that this country has enjoyed the uncommon blessings of Providence. And in the sunlight how easy is the spirit of thanksgiving. But should the days turn dark and the supernal blessings wither away, what shall we be grateful for then? A year after their landing, the Pilgrims gathered for that first thanksgiving—half of their band already buried beneath the Massachusetts sod. Yet they gave thanks to God. And so must we. No matter the uncertain voyage that spreads before us, nationally or personally. The Almighty is still that. And in the darkest storm his mercy will yet triumph. Just look at Calvary. “Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For his mercy endures forever” (Psalm 136:1).
Pastors' Blog
By Pioneer Pastors
What’s a Michigan Thanksgiving? Just ask the chief executives of the Big Three auto makers, who with hat in hand this week begged Congress for $25 billion of bailout loans. While it’s hard to sympathize with 8-figure compensated corporate executives, the plight of 175,000 Michigan auto industry workers is concerning. If GM, Ford or Chrysler were to go bankrupt, siren voices are predicting “a nuclear winter” and “an economic tsunami” for our home state. Who knows? A chart in the South Bend Tribune on Wednesday shows a cluster of 29 auto industry facilities right here in Berrien County that would be affected. Michigan already owns the dubious distinction of leading the nation for two years in unemployment, and we are among the top ten states for home foreclosures. For what then shall we be grateful this season of thanksgiving? “I complained I had no shoes, until I met a man who had no feet.” Even in this season of troubling economic downturn, our lists of reasons to be thankful are indeed still long, are they not? No wonder the apostle, whose meager life belongings consisted of a change of clothing, a walking staff and a pair of sandals, could pen the admonition: “In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:13). “In everything”? In everything. For apparently there is no downturn that God cannot upturn for the good of his friends (see Romans 8:28). Which is why a grateful soul is such a contagious witness. For God. In Michigan. And to the ends of the earth.
We have lost a gifted leader and a dear friend. The death of Jere Patzer, 61, president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Pacific Northwest, is not only the death of a personal friend—I’ve known Jere for thirty years since ministry days together in Oregon. But it is also the loss of an uncommonly gifted church administrator in our community of faith. Jere’s passion for God and his church, his energetic vision and buoyant leadership style, his personal commitment to mission lived out in his own evangelistic preaching on nearly every continent (all the while serving as an administrator), his loving devotion to family (his wife Sue and sons Darin and Troy and daughter Carissa and their four young grandchildren) and friends—it isn’t hyperbole to recognize that men like Jere are a rare gift. And I shall miss him.
I was thinking of Jere as I wrote and preached last week’s teaching on theodicy, “Is God to Blame?” Jere waged a two and a half year battle against non-Hodgkins lymphoma. His emails through that dark and difficult passage of his life, however, are not only the candid admission of suffering and pain—they are also the brave and confident testimony of a disciple of Christ, who not unlike Job, declared, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
In 2003 Jere wrote one of his four books, The Road Ahead: A Vision for Spiritual Leadership in the 21st Century. His autographed copy is one I now treasure. In a chapter dealing with the adversity that all leaders face, he noted that “sacrifice has always been part of leadership” (117). As an example, he cites a letter William Miller, one of the progenitors of our community of faith, wrote on May 3, 1843: “My health is on the gain, as my folks would say. I have now only twenty-two boils from the bigness of a grape to a walnut, on my shoulder, side, back, and arms. I am truly afflicted like Job. And about as many comforters—only they do not come to see me as did Job’s, and their arguments are not near so rational” (118). Touché!
Jere never embraced the evil that cut him down. Nor did Job. Nor did Jesus. But woven through the final chapter of his life was the shared testimony: “For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day” (II Timothy 1:12).
Jere lived and led with the radical hope of Jesus’ return, as does his family, as must we all. For in a world as unsettled as ours and a life just as uncertain as his, trusting in the only One who can save us is the most rational hope of all.
In the election of Barack Obama, as our nation’s first black president, we all made history together. Irrespective of our political convictions or party loyalties, we collectively share this historic moment. And while the painful story of slavery is permanently woven into the tapestry of our country’s four hundred year history, the decision of American voters in this election provides us all—black and white, young and old, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, believer and non-believer—the unprecedented opportunity to now write a new story of racial reconciliation. For that is the will of Christ. “‘So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples’” (John 13:34, 35 NLT).
And it also is the will of God that we join hands in fervent prayers for our new president-elect. On the morning after the election, Peter Baker wrote in the New York Times: “No president since before Barack Obama was born has ascended to the Oval Office confronted by the accumulation of seismic challenges awaiting him. Historians grasping for parallels point to Abraham Lincoln taking office as the nation was collapsing into Civil War, or Franklin D. Roosevelt arriving in Washington in the throes of the Great Depression” (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/05/us/politics/05ahead.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin). Surely our new leader, young and untested, desires the fervent intercessions and prayers of churches and synagogues and mosques across this land. The Bible commands this moral duty: “Pray this way for kings and all others who are in authority, so that we can live in peace and quietness, in godliness and dignity. This is good and pleases God our Savior, for he wants everyone to be saved and to understand the truth” (I Timothy 2:2-4 NLT).
Note carefully the apostle’s rationale for our prayers—not for the cause of political success, but rather we are to pray for the sake of the divine mission to save lost humanity in this generation! For this is the “primetime generation.” In this election, you who are young have shown us the political influence you can wield. Now I earnestly appeal to you to show us the spiritual impact you can have, not on a single nation, but on an entire planet! You were born for this hour—which is why, more than the government, the church needs you. Lead us in a radical following after Jesus “into all the world”—and I promise you, the church will follow in your steps. For as history will show, you are the greatest leaders to emerge from this election.
Makes you wonder—what if God had to run for office? If he were on the ballots of this nation next week, how do you suppose he’d fare? Perhaps the question isn’t so preposterous, given all the national polling about belief in God. In fact this year the Pew Foundation released one of the largest surveys of Americans’ religious beliefs ever conducted (36,000 adult respondents). Be prepared to be surprised! According to their findings, 92% of Americans believe in God or a universal spirit. While the inclusion of “universal spirit” as an optional response to the polling question no doubt raised the figure somewhat, nevertheless that number is astounding! Given the media’s reporting and Hollywood’s imitating, one would have thought we were a country of unbelievers through and through. Not so. But here’s an even more startling number. According to this Pew Forum Survey on Religion in America, one out of five who call themselves atheists are included in those believers! I.e., 21% of those who call themselves atheists believe in God or a universal spirit, “and more than half of those who call themselves agnostics expressed a similar conviction.” What is more, more than half of those surveyed report that they pray to God at least once a day. And about a third of the people surveyed reported that “they receive answers to their prayer requests at least once a month and say they have experienced or witnessed a divine healing of an illness or injury.” Furthermore, given this election season, the Pew survey also discovered that irrespective of your religion the more you pray the more politically conservative you are. Go figure! (See http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/23/ST2008062300818.html for the Washington Post report on this survey.) Apparently, if God were on the ballot next week, he’d do fairly well in this nation. But the fact remains that a movement of New Atheism is mounting a nearly “direct mail” appeal to the West, with a spate of passionate books and a flood of literature defending their belief in no God at all. And the American academy still proudly asserts its non-God preference. And so in our “Primetime” series (available at this website) we now plunge into two examinations of how to communicate your faith in God with an atheist colleague or friend: “Can an Atheist Be Saved?” and “Is God to Blame?” But let’s not arm or pride ourselves in these statistics. Truth be known (and it will be one day), the most effective proof for the existence of a loving God is found in the existence of a loving human being. Simply because it is hard to argue with Love.
Am I the only one amazed by what appears to be the stunning speed of this economic meltdown? It seems like years ago that we were collectively mourning the collapse of investment firm Bear Stearns—when in fact only seven months have passed since March 17, 2008. True, the home mortgage and foreclosure crisis was already under full steam in the summer of ’07, but in a post-Bear-Stearns world the dire headlines have exponentially accelerated! And in the unraveling process, we have witnessed an historic immersion and injection by not only our own government, but the governments of the world, into the marketplace of banking, investment and consumerism. And yet all the economic masters, wizards and talking heads notwithstanding, the national and global financial predicament only grows more dire. For every voice that whistles the cheery note that “this too shall pass,” there is a growing and anxious chorus of analysts that warns the worst is yet to come. So who’s right? And aren’t we better off simply going about our quiet, citizenly, Christian ways, letting the finance barons, economic professors and Wall Street moguls negotiate with the nation’s and world’s politicians for the eventual “fix” that will surely come? A century ago there was a little lady whose predictions at the time now seem amazingly prescient today. According to her, the exploding headlines that presage the return of Christ will be stunning in their speed. “Great changes are soon to take place in our world, and the final movements will be rapid ones” (9T 11). Would the overnight blitzing of our unfolding headlines of late qualify for “rapid ones?” Apparently, societal change in the closing chapter of earth’s history will be marked by its rapid flux. But what is even more startling is her observation two pages later of the economic conundrum that will face earth’s governments just before Christ returns. “There are not many, even among educators [read: economics professors like Paul Krugman, this year’s Nobel laureate for economics, who himself is unable to prescribe a “saving” economic response to this crisis] and statesmen [read: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, President George Bush, senators Barack Obama, John McCain, et al], who comprehend the causes that underlie the present state of society. Those who hold the reins of government are not able to solve the problem[s] . . . They are struggling in vain to place business operations on a more secure basis” (13). “In vain” seems to be the subplot these days, doesn’t it? So how then shall we live, we who believe we are approaching the eve of Christ’s return? Business as usual? How dare we! What we expect of our government leaders we must demand of ourselves—steadfast vigilance and thoughtful, bold action. For the community of faith that means seizing the paradigm-shifting opportunities that this present crisis is providing to share the everlasting gospel of hope with those around us who despair the future. The return of Christ is the greatest hope this race has been given—energetically sharing that hope is the greatest mission this church has been entrusted. Given the accelerating speed of our headlines, surely we agree that this is the greatest opportunity of our lifetime to share the truth of Jesus with our world! “We must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming when no one can work” (John 9:4 TNIV).
According to the CIA website (www.cia.gov), it’s the same size as the state of Oregon. But clearly Romania is a world apart, and a beautiful world, at that. Karen and I just returned from a seven-city preaching itinerary in that ancient but modern land, and we’re certainly the richer for it!
We were there at the invitation of Pastor Adrian Bocaneanu, president of Speranţa (Hope) Television, the Romanian Adventist television station seen throughout the country. As it turns out, Romania was one of our strongest partners in NET98, the global satellite event that Pioneer began hosting exactly ten years ago last week. And Pastor Adrian was our Romanian translator (along with 38 other language translators each evening downstairs in the Commons) for that five-week, 100-nation satellite event, the NeXt Millennium Seminar. Ten years later the memories still shine! And it was a very special joy to meet new members who trace their conversion to NET98 in Romania. In fact Speranţa TV, which just went on air this past spring, has been re-telecasting the NET98 series nationally. And so a further joy was meeting new visitors last week, who attended one of the evening meetings because of watching the station. Each evening in each city we ended the sermon with an appeal to these visitors, and we’re rejoicing in the decisions for Christ that were made.
Clearly there was one who did not wish for our 2700 kilometer preaching circuit to even begin! On the very first day in Romania, we were driving from Oradea southward to our first preaching appointment. We were stopped to turn left onto another highway, when the pastor driving us “happened” to look into his rearview mirror, just in time to see a utility van racing up behind us, the driver of the van looking down at something in his hand. In a split second response the pastor released the brake, attempting to accelerate forward. Pastor Bocaneanu was in the front passenger seat. Karen and I were both sleeping off our jetlag in the back seat, when we all heard (you know how you can hear a loud sound while you’re asleep?) the screeching of tires, followed in the next second by that awful crunch of metal on metal, as we were hurled across the opposite lane to the side of the road. In that waking moment I thought we’d had a head-on collision. It happened so fast! Shaken, the four of us crawled out our car, glass and metal strewn across the road. In slamming into the rear end of our small Ford, the van driver struck the windshield with his head and was bleeding. Cell phones brought the police and ambulances—Pastor Adrian and our host pastor ended up in the hospital. Karen and I, relatively unscathed, remained behind at the scene of the accident, while police measured off the 100-feet (I stepped it off) skid marks. A few minutes later an auto tire business owner (who can’t speak a word of English) drove up with one of his mechanics (broken English)—he’d been sent by the pastor to come and rescue the American couple at the side of the road! Bless their hearts, that man and his wife and children opened their home to us, fed us, and then drove us to our evening preaching appointment.Pastor Adrian’s whip lash was fortunately not severe. And the other pastor, except for a sore neck, was also released. But both missed the first meeting. You can be sure though that when we crawled back into another car the next morning to drive on to the next city, our prayers of gratitude were fervent to the Lord of the angels: “The angel of the LORD camps around those who fear him, and he delivers them” (Psalm 34:7). No doubt it was the same angel of the Lord who was with those Romanian prisoners held in that communist jail we visited last week—a story I’ll save for today’s teaching, “Primetime: ‘Just Walk Across the Room’” (click on to that title at this website for that story).
Has Wall Street become a four-letter word? The headline for Jeff Cox’s report on CNBC’s home page earlier this week caught my eye: “As Bailout Looms, Fear is Market’s Biggest Problem.” His piece opened with these words: “The government rescue plan may help cure some of the ills that are afflicting the banking industry, but it’s unlikely to remedy Wall Street’s greatest malady right now: fear. . . . ‘People are confused and they are scared. Baby boomers are remembering what their parents told them about the Depression and they’re afraid they’ll be next,’ says Kathy Boyle, president of Chapin Hill Advisors in New York. ‘Everybody’s worried about their money, everybody’s worried about their future, everybody’s worried about whether their retirement is safe.’” (http://www.cnbc.com/id/26942317/) Just four letters long, but how iron-fisted its grip: f-e-a-r. Unfortunately, however, the alphabet soup of this nation’s and world’s financial crisis is about more than fear. Truth be told, that four-letter word is the byproduct of a five-letter word: g-r-e-e-d. Nearly to a man and woman, commentators have recognized that what has driven us to the brink of this credit market crisis has been the wanton scramble for fees, pay-backs and quick profits from the credit industry’s calculated generation of toxic subprime “wink and nod” mortgages, sold to gullible first-time buyers, who played the same silly game by inflating their own financial worth in hope of acquiring that coveted “American dream,” their own home. Thus we all have been led straight into the lair of this six-letter reality: c-r-i-s-i-s. Let this crisis go on long enough and we shall eventually reap its baleful seven-letter harvest: d-e-s-p-a-i-r. And that is the stuff of our grandparents’ once-upon-a-time Great Depression sagas. But enough of this toxic alphabet soup. For in an ancient prediction Jesus made are both the poison and the remedy. He prophesied the toxin in the human stream just before his return: “‘People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world.’” But as quick as his prediction comes his promise: “‘Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near’” (Luke 21:26, 28 NRSV). For the toxin of fear Christ offers the promise of hope—two poles-apart four letter words. We’ve been getting plenty of the first through the news media of late. Isn’t it the right time that we imbibe on hope instead? Hope in Bernacke, Paulson, Bush, McCain and Obama? No. Hope and confidence in this same Jesus who promised that in an unraveling world of fear we would find the compelling sign of his soon return. And who better to be looking for than the Savior who wrote the alphabet of hope in the first place!
Do you know how much $700 billion is? Yes, it is the amount of taxpayer bailout that the United States administration is urging Congress to adopt in order to save the financial institutions that have recklessly accumulated “toxic debt” in their quest for skyrocketing profits. But how much is $700 billion? If the 3,200 students at Andrews University were to be declared the beneficiaries of this bailout, each of our students would be receiving $218,750,000. One could afford college education with a subsidy like that! How much is $700 billion? If you sent the bill to the 330 million men, women and children living in the United States it would cost each of us $2,121.21. But in reality, the addition of this $700 billion bailout to our national debt raises our debt to an unfathomable $11.3 trillion! If this nation began to pay off that debt $100 billion per year, it would take 113 years (assuming not a single penny more were added to that debt during the time). In response to the dramatic downward spiral of both our national and global economies over the last few days, the blogosphere is electric in reaction. Todd Harrison, with Marketwatch.com, opined, “The free market system officially broke last week and the ramifications are profound. A new world order is upon us, one that will forever change the construct of capitalism” (9-24-08). Likening this crisis response to what took place post September 11, 2001, his lengthy two page analysis included the sobering observation, “Indeed, anticipation of social unrest may be the catalyst for the decision to transfer troops back to the states [sic]. Beginning Oct. 1, a military army brigade will be an ‘on-call federal response force for natural or manmade emergencies and disasters,’ the first time an active unit has been given a dedicated assignment of this kind” (http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/shock-awe-five-things-you/story.aspx?guid={0FBD43B9-A7CA-4816-95C2-2ABA25FE8ED8}). The point is inescapable, irrespective of your political persuasion or economic acumen. We now live in an hour of profound and rapid change. Literally overnight the headlines are rewriting life as we know it. I received an email from a young adult this week asking if there is anything to her remembering reading somewhere once that economic crisis would precede the return of Christ. Revelation 18 unapologetically describes such a global financial meltdown. And you can be certain our own nation will not be spared. How then should we now live? The bold command of Christ bears our brooding: “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven. . . . for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21 TNIV). Though we may consider ourselves treasureless, nevertheless Jesus’ point is clear—we must invest our very selves in the kingdom of God. If ever there were an hour of history when our treasures would not be just well-spent, but best-spent in advancing the everlasting gospel to the ends of a very uncertain civilization, this would surely be it, wouldn’t you agree? . . . for the pastor’s weekly blog, go to www.pmchurch.tv
A week ago, a scientist warned that the world might end . . . a week ago. Which is why he wasn’t celebrating with the rest of his colleagues in the scientific world over the brand new Large Hadron Collider that was unveiled beneath the grassy sod along the Swiss-French border. Billed “the world’s largest atom smasher,” this brand new particle accelerator is a seventeen mile underground circular tunnel. In the tunnel are two parallel tubes into which scientists last week first fired one beam of protons clockwise and then fired a second beam in the second tube counterclockwise. Traveling at nearly the speed of light, the two beams made 11,000 circuits of that 17-mile tunnel . . . in a single second! Cheers went up when computers revealed that the two beams had successfully circumnavigated the tunnels and crossed the finish line in opposite directions. Why all the hoopla? Because scientists are hoping to recreate the conditions that might have been present in the birth of the universe long ago. Their plans are to gradually increase the two beams with protons, fire them in opposite directions, and then at four points in the tunneled circuit through giant magnets cause the beams to cross into each other. At that split second massive digital cameras weighing thousands of tons will record those collisions through millions of snapshots per second. Pouring over those “pictures,” scientists hope to piece together clues that might unravel the mystery of our universe’s origin. And that party-pooper scientist? He fears that the underground collision of those protons will threaten this earth through the formation of micro black holes, ultra-tiny versions of the collapsed stars in the universe that are known to suck in all nearby light, planets and stars. Adios amigos, is his warning. Let’s leave to the scientists the debate over the perils of this fascinating new particle accelerator. But surely we who believe in the Creator God of the universe are not surprised at the unbridled power that science unleashes in these atom smashers. “By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth” (Psalm 33:6 TNIV). We sprinkle the word “omnipotent” in our sentences, but truly the all-powerful reality of the divine is beyond our feeble human comprehension! Let us remember—he is the God who poured out his life for a fallen race at Calvary. At the fulcrum of the cross, the energy of a trillion trillion galaxies was released, as into the black hole of Christ’s death the sins of an entire planet were sucked into the divine heart, so that “whosoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16). No wonder, as we noted in “Primetime”—III last week, it is so strategically essential that through prayer we bring our lost friends and family to him. What more powerful force could possibly be unleashed to save and rescue them than the redeeming love of the universe’s Creator? Forward on our knees indeed!
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