Persons with Great Influence

 

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John 3:20-21

Holman Christian Standard Bible

²⁰ For everyone who practices wicked things hates the light and avoids it, so that his deeds may not be exposed. ²¹ But anyone who lives by the truth comes to the light, so that his works may be shown to be accomplished by God.”

 

Christ spoke very straight to Nicodemus. He gently cut him down to size. When Nicodemus quibbled over being born again, Christ chided him for not understanding what He was saying. Now He is in effect saying, why did you come to me in the dark of night? Are you afraid that you’re doing evil by coming to me at night? Hey man! If you’re doing right then let everyone see you do it.

When the Jews wished to prosecute Christ without first giving Him a fair trial, Nicodemus brought them up short by reminding them that their own law insisted on their being fair. But Nicodemus didn’t reveal his belief in Christ in front of the critical Jews or show his true colors until Christ was hanging on the cross. When Joseph of Arimathea, another secret follower, took Christ’s body down to bury it, Nicodemus came along with 100 pounds of myrrh and aloes to embalm His body. After that he used his wealth to help the struggling new church survive during those first few years after Christ’s death.[2]

When I was falsely accused of defaming the Tanzanian flag, Thomas Lisso, a member of parliament and my former principal, “just happened to be” at each of at least four councils that considered the accusation and spoke up strongly in my defense. I was very thankful that this man, whom the church condemned for going into politics, was willing to stand up and show his true colors. He became a true force for right on a national level.[3]

Thank you, Lord, for having people of great influence ready to help Your work in times of great need.

 

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[1] https://bibleteachingnotes.blog/2018/10/19/john-3/

[2] E.G. White Acts of the Apostles p105; and Desire of Ages p. 177

[3] See my forth coming Ikizu—A Memoir

The Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ

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2 Peter 3:9

Holman Christian Standard Bible

⁹ The Lord does not delay His promise, as some understand delay, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish but all to come to repentance.

When I was 12, I was sent off to boarding school. Up until that time I had led a very sheltered life. I attended a preparatory school connected with a college where Dad was a very respected teacher. Over the next six years I picked up my “street smarts.” Originally I found it expedient to stand up for the opinions of the authorities. I regarded their rules, their opinions, their decisions as sacrosanct.

This submersion in boarding school was like taking large helpings of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Being a somewhat normal if nerdy teenager, I tried lots of forbidden things just for the kicks. I tried alcohol and tobacco, shoplifting, and other obvious sins. Worse, I learned subterfuge, deceit, and general distrust of the establishment.

The establishment had taught me the legal aspects of Christianity. They taught me to read inspiration their way. Their way supported church authority at all costs. Therefore I read the Bible with their interpretation. I read the Spirit of Prophecy with their interpretation. Everything I read showed me how evil I had become. Indeed, I quickly recognized that I was damned. Furthermore, there was no way I could change that status.  This led me deeper and deeper into a sinful, lawless life. My fellow students were quick to urge me on in my descent towards hell.

But God had decided to defeat the triumph of Satan and evil over my life. He led me to Germany. I went there to learn German—at another boarding school. This time my fellow students were all German. Knowing no German initially, I felt cut off from my fellow humans. To compensate, I attended a Sunday church on the American military base and joined its choir, merely for companionship. They spoke English, so we could understand each other.

These new friends came from all walks of life and all religious persuasions. Some came to church for exactly the same reason as I had—for companionship. They had as little Christianity as I did. Others came because they loved Jesus and wanted fellowship with other Christians. One of these made it his mission to introduce Jesus to me.

Yes, I knew Jesus. He carried around a big black book with all of my misdeeds in it underlined in red. He was seeking to punish me for all of my evil thoughts and actions. This new Jesus I now met was a savior. At first, I didn’t really know what that word “Savior” meant. But with long patience, this missionary taught me. He had a very simplistic understanding of Jesus, even childlike. But that’s exactly what Jesus had declared as essential to being a Christian. Finally I accepted this new concept of Jesus. Then I spent many years unlearning what my early training had so successfully drummed into every facet of my psyche. I was not doomed but, praise God, forgiven and a child of God.

Thank You, Lord, for working out things for good. Help me to communicate this with those You bring to me.

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[1] https://www.westminster.org.uk/school-life/pastoral-care/boarding/

The Desire of My Heart

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Psalm 37:4 
(King James Version)
Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.

 

As a child in boarding school in what is now Zimbabwe, we were required to write a letter to our parents. We then gave this to our teacher who censored it, put it in an envelope, and mailed it to our parents. Two pence postage was not too much per week for the school to keep the parents and kids in touch with each other—after all there were no cell phones in those days. Mom about hit the roof when she learned that the letters were censored, but she did enjoy getting a weekly letter from me. She wrote back on a weekly basis.

This training has stood me well all my life. I continued to write an (approximately) weekly letter to my parents. This has evolved into a periodic letter to the extended family today.

When I was in high school, I was extremely shy when it came to girls—something like Koothrappali in the Big Bang Theory TV sitcom. As a senior I still didn’t have a girlfriend. A freshman girl took a liking to me, and we started going steady. In the next weekly letter, I mentioned that I had “gotten myself a girlfriend. “

By this time Mom had gotten so busy she wrote very seldom. Dad, picked up the weekly letter writing. But on this news, I got short typed letter from Mom. She expressed her delight. Then in good motherly fashion she encouraged me to pray continually about this. She reminded me to “Delight thyself also in the Lord: and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.”.

During college I met the love of my life and have shared many years with her. Indeed, the Lord has blessed us beyond what we could have imagined!

Thank You, Lord, for fulfilling Your promise in Psalm 34!

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[1] https://devsari.com/the-hardest-rajesh-koothrappali-quiz-ever/

Starship Captain Goes Into Space

 

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Psalm 73:26
Good News Translation
²⁶ My mind and my body may grow weak,
    but God is my strength;
    he is all I ever need.

 

The nonagenarian, William Shatner, stepped down out of the space capsule and walked over and threw his arms around Jeff Bezos. With tears in his eyes and a quaver in his voice, Shatner exclaimed, “What you have given me is the most profound experience!”  He went on, “I hope I never recover from this. I hope that I can maintain what I feel now.” Shatner is worth at least $100,000,000, and Bezos well over $190,000,000,000.  Bezos had just given Shatner a ride some 65 miles high above the earth into space.

When I was a grad student in Iowa City, we didn’t have a TV, so at a local electronics store, Occasionally I used to watch Shatner playing Captain James T. Kirk of the space ship Enterprise as they cruised around through space in the Star Trek series. Since then, he has become famous for his acting roles. Shatner at 90 years old now is still popular. Of course, this actual space flight was a publicity stunt for Bezos, the opulent founder of Amazon. Bezos used this flight to publicize his commercial exploitation of space.  

Read the whole of Psalm 73. The poet, Asaph, compares the affluence and exorbitant lives of the wealthy to his meagre existence. Then his thoughts come back to the life he has as he rests his existence in the hands of God. He recognizes the effect of age on his own mind and body, his flesh and heart in this hymn.

Thank You, Lord, that I, too, find in You my strength and hope.

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[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/science/bezos-shatner-star-trek.html

If You're Not against Us--You're For Us

 

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Mark 9:38-40
Good News Translation
³⁸ John said to him, “Teacher, we saw a man who was driving out demons in your name, and we told him to stop, because he doesn't belong to our group.”
³⁹ “Do not try to stop him,” Jesus told them, “because no one who performs a miracle in my name will be able soon afterward to say evil things about me. ⁴⁰ For whoever is not against us is for us.

 

In 1979, we had just joined Atlantic Union College in Massachusetts. When we went to church on Sabbath, an elderly gentleman approached to me and asked, “Are you Wil Clarke?”

“Yes indeed,” I admitted, somewhat puzzled.

“I’m delighted to meet you in the flesh!” he said and threw his arms around me. “I’m Elder X and am retired here in South Lancaster. It’s wonderful to have another missionary from Africa here!”

It never ceases to amaze me how a person’s brain can process surprise information extremely rapidly. Within less than a second, my mind was flooded with memories.

Eight years earlier, we had been at Ikizu Training School in Tanzania for 5 years, and it was time for my salaried nine-month furlough. In June 1971, I had received a letter from Pastor X, treasurer of a division of the General Conference. It stated categorically that I had no furlough coming since I had only worked for the division for a year and a half. The Tanzania Union (TU) had been transferred from the another division to this division a year and a half before.

I showed this letter to Pastor Y, treasurer of the TU. Ikizu was a TU institution. He told me, “Don’t you worry. You have earned this furlough, and we’re not going to let him take it away from you!” Letters went back and forth between X and Y. I never saw those letters, but Pastor Y kept me informed as to progress. He sighed several times as he told me that the responses he got from X were not even Christian in spirit . Finally, a committee overruled him, and I got my furlough.

Here he stood with his arms around me. I felt like throwing up. I had the overwhelming urge to tell him what I thought of him.

By God’s grace, I returned the Christian embrace and said with all the enthusiasm I could muster, “Brother. It’s great to meet you!” We chatted for a few minutes, catching up on our African experiences.

Thank You, Lord, that friends are better to have than enemies; and we won’t have any enemies in heaven.

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[1] https://www.amazon.com/Avinu-Apparel-Love-Your-Enemies/dp/B093QYKGVN

Beating Cancer

 

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Deuteronomy 10:21
Good News Translation
²¹ Praise him—he is your God, and you have seen with your own eyes the great and astounding things that he has done for you.

 

Great and marvelous are Your works, O God.

Sylvia and I drove over 8,700 miles or 14,000 kilometers through nineteen states during the months of June, July and August this year—without mishap. Closer to home, twice Sylvia was driving when each of our vehicles was totaled, yet she walked away from each accident. Last year she fell approximately 30 feet down a nearly vertical rock face and survived well enough so that, although she broke six or seven bones and gashed her head wide open, she is now living principally without pain.

Cancer struck me some 16 years ago. I am still fighting it and keeping it at bay, so far. The major reason for our trip this summer was to gain a new weapon in that battle at Uchee Pines Institute. My latest weapon against cancer is whole body hyperthermia, or a fever bath. Here at home, I have a steam tent to raise my body temperature above 102º F (39º C) for 20 minutes. Since I started the fever bath in July, my cancer indicator PSA has dropped by fully 50%. I appreciate your prayers on my behalf. For more details send me an email, or comment on this blog.

Since the cancer started, I have overcome West Nile Virus only through the intervention of God. I have had COVID-19 and survived it well due to my being vaccinated and God’s protection. For me, taking advantage of the skills and knowledge God has given humans through modern medicine, far from denying our faith, instead acknowledges His ultimate control over all things here on earth. Today, I am seeing because of modern medicine and traditional Adventist hydrotherapy, even though painful blindness struck me a year ago.

Indeed, I praise You, O God, for the great and astounding things You have done for me!

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 [1] A picture of me in my steam tent. The steam generator is on the floor to the right of the tent.

Omnipresence

 

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Isaiah 46:10
Good News Translation
From the beginning I predicted the outcome;
    long ago I foretold what would happen.
I said that my plans would never fail,
    that I would do everything I intended to do.

 

In Isaiah chapters 44 and 45, God named Cyrus as the man who would restore and rebuild the Jewish temple. In the very next verse, He spoke of a hawk (“ravenous bird” in KJV) who would accomplish what He had planned.

Indeed, in his first year, Cyrus issued a decree that all the Jews were free to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple. He actually returned the various vessels that had been taken from the former temple by Nebuchadnezzar and provided extra funds to rebuild the temple. It is a great tragedy that most of God’s people chose to not return to their ancestral homes. Christ later told a parable in which a king instructed his ten servants to “occupy until I come.” (Luke 19:13) The exiles were doing exactly that, as Jeremiah had instructed, “Build houses and settle down. Plant gardens and eat what you grow in them.” (Jeremiah 29:5) They had become prosperous as God promised in verse 7. Many of God’s people were doing so well in exile that they didn’t want to leave. Others had jobs they felt they couldn’t afford to leave. Ezra lists 42,360 people who returned with him as he led the group back to Jerusalem. Compare that to the time of the Exodus when the number of men considered able to fight was 603,550 who left Egypt; that is probably well over 2 million people counting women and children. Those who remained behind in exile eventually assimilated into the heathen they lived amongst.

Descendants of those 42,360 people became the nucleus of the population in Judea and Galilee who were alive when Christ came some 500 years later. God had provided them the privilege to be able to welcome His Son. But again, the people, instead of welcoming Him, crucified Him.

When Christ comes again, how many of us will actually look up and say “God bless Him who comes in the name of the Lord” (Luke 13:35 GNT)?

 

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[1] https://www.montananaturalist.org/blog-post/montanas-the-final-destination-for-rough-legged-hawks-flying-south/