The Heaton File

Today is Monday. The clock needs winding. When my father retired from the phosphate mines in central Florida they gave him a mantel clock with his name on it. It is an eight day clock that requires winding with a chime for each quarter hour and numerical chimes for the top of the hour. One of the jobs on Monday is to wind the clock and to adjust the time. It has a habit of running fast. Sometimes it has a habit of stopping. This came about as a result of the last move where it got a little more movement than it needed. Without the attention given on Monday the clock does not work. When the clock is set in motion it becomes a wonderful song throughout the week of chimes with gentle reminders of the passing of time. Monday’s are great days to wind the clock. This is the second day of the week – not the first! The Lord established seven days in a week in creation. Monday is the day after the Lord’s day (Revelation 1:10) and is a great day of the week. For many it becomes the first day of the work week. This is a day of winding the clock for the rest of the week and setting things in order. Yesterday was a day of worship and praise to God. The first day of the week was spent in joyful remembrance of what Jesus has done for me. Our hearts were guided by the Holy Spirit on the first day of the week as we dug deep in the word of God. Now we get to go out into the world and show them Christ living in us. Monday’s are not bad days because this is the day we get ready for a great week. Empowered with the love of God we set our lives to chime the music of grace, love and forgiveness in a world filled with sadness, despair and hopelessness. We are the music of the chiming bell letting the world see Christ living in us. Refreshed with the worship of the Lord’s day we are energized to go to our jobs as people of God. The companies we work for are blessed to have our spirit in their employ. Our friends will see us living for truth and righteousness. We are heard this week! Today is Monday and we should wind our lives up in the King of Kings and let the world know there are many on the mantel of life that want the world to hear the plea of salvation from the cross of God’s Son. I love Monday’s; don’t you?

The Funeral Of Jesus

There was no pomp and no procession filled with mournful criers lamenting the death of a loved one. The crowds had diminished and returned to their homes. Three men hung on wooden trees of death with soldiers milling below with no concern. All the acquaintances of Jesus, the women who followed Him from Galilee including Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons (Luke 23:48,49; Matthew 27:55,56) looked on with dispassionate despair. The screams of the two thieves whose legs had been broken to hasten death still linger in the air. The man in the middle hangs limp in death with his side pierced; blood and water staining his body.

Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus (Luke 23:50-52). Consent was given and Joseph, joined by Nicodemus (John 3:1-15; 7:45-52) went to Golgotha to retrieve the body of Jesus.  Removing the nails from the feet, the body of Jesus was let down to the ground to remove the nails from his hands. The face of kindness, compassion and love was now stilled in the gray shadow of death. The soldiers removed the cross and the body was taken up to be prepared for burial.

How does one feel the emotions of sadness to carry the body of Jesus to a place of preparation? His hands lie still that once gave sight to the blind. His voice is silent that once taught the beatitudes of grace. The smile of compassion is faded to a mask of death. Eyes that once gazed into the lives of men are closed in silent repose. The body of the Son of God is bloody, dirty, filthy and bruised with the lashes of a terrible scourging and crucifixion.

The men lay Jesus down to wash his body. Are tears mixed with the careful love these men have to clean the body of Jesus? Do their voices tremble as they speak to one another in moving the body of Jesus? When they turn the body of Jesus over and see the ribbons of flesh remaining from the scourging, do their hearts break in despair? The washcloths are filled with blood. Their hands are stained with the stench and horror of death. Finally the body is cleaned.

A mixture of myrrh and aloes (about a hundred pounds – John 19:39) is used to cover the body of Jesus. The two men take the fine linen cloth and wrapping the body with the spices and cloth enclose his body (John 19:40). The scent of death is removed by the perfume of Jesus life filling the world by His sacrificial love. The preparation finished, the two men carrying the body to the tomb of Joseph. Entering they lay the body of Jesus in the new tomb. A handkerchief is placed around the head of Jesus. Leaving, Joseph rolls a stone against the entrance of the tomb. “Now the women who had come with Him out of Galilee followed, and saw the tomb and how His body was laid” (Luke 23:55).

The funeral is over. The friends pause for a moment to think of their Lord inside the tomb. They return home to prepare spices and perfumes for a proper burial later. They need not have bothered. When they return on the first day of the week, Jesus is risen – He lives – He reigns – He has conquered death. This lonely funeral brings hope to all men in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Lamb of God. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

Today is Monday. The second day of the week is a great day because it is the day after the first day of the week. On the first day the saints of God worshiped the Almighty with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. They fellowship in the union of the one Body. The prayers of righteous priests were sweet incense to the Father above. Remembrance was given for the sacrifice of God’s only begotten Son on a cross of wood. The mind of God was revealed through teaching and preaching the word of God from holy pages of writ. Spirit filled people begin Monday with a new determination to the work in the vineyard of the Lord. We do not shrink back nor walk on cautioned paths but lead forth victoriously to a great week of changing the world where we are with the fragrance of Jesus Christ. Our banners fly high in our homes. Our faith is seen in the work place. Our families are examples of the grace of God living through the communion of the Holy Spirit. We stand boldly before a perverse generation of those opposed to righteousness. The victory is ours as we serve the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. This week the battle cry comes from the charge of Nehemiah who proclaimed his allegiance to the work of God. “And I told them of the hand of my God which had been good upon me, and also of the king’s words that he had spoken to me. So they said, ‘Let us rise up and build.’ Then they set their hands to this good work” (Nehemiah 2:18). Tell the world how the hand of God is upon you. Rise up and build this week for the harvest is white. Let us all set our hands to the task of the good work of Jesus Christ.

The Wise, The Mighty And The Rich

The achievements of man throughout history declare the powerful intelligence given by the Creator for man to have dominion over all the world. Egypt constructed pyramids that stand after thousands of years and the marvels of mummification still intrigue scientist today. Rome built a nation on the technological advances of its day that would revival any civilization throughout history. China raised a wall of stone, brick, earth and wood almost four thousand miles long that can be seen from space. July 21, 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the surface of the moon – a scientific milestone showing the mastery of man’s wisdom. The last 45 years have seen an explosion of wonders changing the lives of every person on the planet.

Wars have been fought continually since the beginning of time. The modern warfare is fought with the advancements of man’s wisdom that can destroy whole cities with a single weapon, launch missiles from hundreds of miles away, rain “shock and awe” on a nation and bring fear to all who stand against the might of a powerful nation. The might of man is explosive, powerful, deadly and dreadful.

The American dream is filled with the promise of riches, wealth and the good life. Large homes, new cars and boats, fashionable clothes, tech gadgets that entertain the family, televisions the size of sofa’s and a lottery in forty-four states that make gambling socially acceptable. Athletes are paid millions of dollars to play a sport, Hollywood churns out sewer infested filth bringing in trillions of dollars, executives loot retirement funds to support their degraded view of the common man and the almighty dollar is worshipped in nearly every home as the god of happiness.

“Thus says the Lord: ‘Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, let not the mighty man glory in his might, nor let the rich man glory in his riches; but let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness in the earth. For in these I delight,’ says the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:23-24). If all the wisdom of man and the might of man would be secured in the vault with all the riches of man the final sum would not be an atom’s atom closer to the magnificence of the Almighty Jehovah – nothing man can do would ever be worthy of consideration before God. The only thing that matters in this life is to understand there is a God and man is not Him. To know the Lord is to have a deep reverence for the nature of He who is called Jealous (Exodus 34:14). Man must recognize that God is Lord and Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:16). The character of a loving Father is steadfast love, a just hand and a law that is right in the purest form.

The wisdom of man and his might and all his riches is nothing before the Lord. “Behold, the nations are as a drop in a bucket, and are counted as the small dust on the scales; look, He lifts up the isles as a very little thing” (Isaiah 40:15). Solomon concluded that man’s all is to “Fear God and keep His commandments” (Ecclesiastes 12:13) and all the wisdom of man and his mighty power and his wealth will not save him. Our challenge is to look in the mirror of our life and see how far we have trusted our own wisdom and might and riches. Do we need the wisdom found in the word of God? How often do we trust the Lord to make our decisions for us or are we despots who rely upon our own might. The power of money may drive more of our life than we realize – look at the bank account and see how much glorifies God. Man is a funny creature. He is the only one who fails to realize where his blessings come from (Isaiah 1:3). Our wisdom should come from above (James 3:17-18), our might from God (2 Timothy 1:7) and our riches from His grace (Ephesians 1:3).

Abraham And Baptism

Is baptism necessary for salvation? Most of the religious world denies the need for baptism rejecting it for faith alone. The father of faith, Abraham, bears testimony of the necessity of baptism for salvation. At the age of ninety-nine the patriarch and his eighty-nine year old wife, Sara, received the news that within “the time of life” (Genesis 18:10) a son would be born. Before Isaac’s birth, a covenant was established between Abram and his descendants showing a sign of promise with God through the act of circumcision. “This is My covenant which you shall keep, between Me and you and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised; and you shall be circumcised in the flesh of your foreskins, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you” (Genesis 17:10-11).

Circumcision was the cutting of the foreskin required of all males born in the house of Abraham or bought with money. Refusal resulted in the person to be “cut off from his people” (Genesis 17:14) as they had broken the covenant with God. The names of Abram and Sara were changed showing the promise of God and the assurance the promise would be found in Isaac and not Ishmael (Genesis 17:19-21). When the Lord finished talking with Abraham He went from him and “Abraham took Ishmael his son, all who were born in his house and all who were bought with his money, every male among the men of Abraham’s house, and circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very same day, as God had said to him” (Genesis 17:23).

Establishing a covenant with Abraham the Lord confirmed with the “immutability of His counsel” (Hebrews 6:17) a promise made in the Garden of Eden of the Seed fulfilled in Christ (Genesis 3:15; Galatians 3:16). The significance of circumcision was the affirmation of God’s promise of salvation through the obedience of Abraham and his descendants to His will. This was not open for argument or discussion and understood so clearly that First Century Christians faced an onslaught of pressure from Jewish converts to follow the law of circumcision (Acts 15). Circumcision was the defining moment when a person entered a covenant with God. Abraham so clearly understood the command of God he circumcised himself at the age of ninety-nine, his thirteen year old son Ishmael and all the men of his house.

Paul’s letter to the church at Colosse bears the mark of Abraham’s obedience when the apostle shows the covenant of God in a spiritual circumcision.  “In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead” (Colossians 2:11-12). As in the physical act there must be a spiritual action of putting to death the old man creating the new (2 Corinthians 5:17). Baptism is the spiritual circumcision of the heart. The Lord declared the covenant of salvation in circumcision and refusal to keep the command resulted in the person being lost. Without the covenant of baptism there will be no salvation. “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

The faith of Abraham caused him to take drastic measures at the age of ninety-nine as well as his son and all the men of his house. Many today refuse baptism as a drastic measure of works and would have refused to be circumcised in the day of Abraham. Did it make sense to the wisdom of man what cutting a piece of flesh would have to do with salvation and especially the nature of the sacrifice? Abraham walked by faith before God commanded him to be circumcised (Romans 4) and when commanded by God to show his faith in the covenant of circumcision “circumcised the flesh of their foreskins that very same day, as God had said to him” (Genesis 17:23). His faith led him to obey the command of the Lord without question.

Baptism is the defining moment when a person becomes a child of God as circumcision was for the children of Abraham. Faith alone does not circumcise the heart or repentance alone. The circumcised descendants of Abraham were cut to the heart and three thousand were spiritually circumcised in baptism (Acts 2:36-41). Luke shows in Acts many stories of salvation and each one shows the moment they became a child of God: “And now why are you waiting? Arise and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the Lord” (Acts 22:16). Sins are washed away in “the circumcision made without hands” (Colossians 2:11).

Baptism saves because it is the covenant of God and promise of salvation (1 Peter 3:21; Romans 6:3-6). “For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God” (Romans 2:28-29).

-Biblical Insights, May 2014 Gary Kerr, Editor

That Does Not Fade Away

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4).

During a remodel of a newly purchased home, a father helped his daughter remove a lot of old stuff from the garage and house spending a few weeks hauling pickup loads to the landfill so the remodeling could get underway. After about three weeks, the former owner called and asked to come by because he had left some things behind in the garage. There was little that remained and the new owners were unsure what would have been left of any value. To their surprise the former owner had hidden more than $60,000 in cash and another $20,000 in gold coins in some old paint cans. A search of the landfill was not a success.

The Egyptians have taught us that earthly treasure is only an object of a later times discovery. In the 1930’s many American learned the awful truth of the value of material things when the stock market crashed and the nation was plunged into a great financial depression. Fortunes gain today can be lost in the twinkling of an eye the next day. One of the greatest myths in advertising is a “life time” warranty because it remains dependent upon the whims of economy and the state of the nation. The news is filled with stories of men and women working 30 years for a pension plan and then finds the coffer empty because of the squandering of greedy executives. One certainty of this world is the uncertainty of what will take place tomorrow.

Jesus exhorted His disciples to have a different view of worldly possessions. There is the frantic search of what to eat, drink and put on the body and life is filled with the worries and anxieties brought about by the produce of our own demise – possessions. “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing” (Matthew 6:25)? His point is clear: life is more than what we spend our lives gaining. There is a greater reward than the rusting treasures of this life. Earlier the Lord had said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matthew 6:19-21). We spend all our lives piling up possessions of this life and then we die and leave it to whom? Solomon understood this lesson. “Then I hated all my labor in which I had toiled under the sun, because I must leave it to the man who will come after me. And who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will rule over all my labor in which I toiled and in which I have shown myself wise under the sun. This also is vanity” (Ecclesiastes 2:18-19).

Buying a brand new car is the first step to its final decay. Building new homes is a pursuit consuming life to maintain, fix, repair, protect, paint, replace and worry about for years. The bicycle with a new coat of paint turns to rust. Even our bodies that we spend thousands of dollars to look young and beautiful still grow old and wrinkled and one day return to the dust from whence it came. “Lift up your eyes to the heavens, and look on the earth beneath. For the heavens will vanish away like smoke, the earth will grow old like a garment, and those who dwell in it will die in like manner; but My salvation will be forever, and My righteousness will not be abolished” (Isaiah 51:6).

The great joy of being a child of God is knowing that while all that we see about us is perishable the promise of eternal life is imperishable. This comes from a proper viewpoint of the life now and the life to come. Peter’s admonition to the “pilgrims of the Dispersion” (1 Peter 1:1) was to think about the inheritance promised that was incorruptible and could not be defiled and would not fade away. It is impossible for God to lie (Titus 1:2) and the promise He made is “by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast” (Hebrews 6:17-19). Nothing man will do can compare to the promise given by the Father.

There should be no doubt in the promise of God. Our lives should be focused not on the “I don’t know” of salvation but the blessed assurance of the promise given that Heaven is ours. “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God” (1 John 5:13). A crown of life awaits the children of God that will not fade nor rust. The promise of eternal life is the promised held in trust by the blood of Jesus Christ to those who abide in Him. I am saved. I am redeemed. I live for the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and long for the day He returns so that I may see His face and dwell in His presence throughout the eternal ages.