Overcoming Substance Abuse

[i]

 

Psalm 51:12

New English Translation (NET Bible)

¹² Let me again experience the joy of your deliverance!
Sustain me by giving me the desire to obey!

My wife, Sylvia, stopped and chatted briefly with a beggar at the freeway off-ramp. His sign read, “Save me from myself.” She sensed in him the sincere desire to rid himself from a life of substance abuse. She chatted with him a second time a day or two later. He committed to going with her to a Salvation Army place that gives alcoholics (and druggies) a place to live and eat while they are coming clean from their controlling substances.  She offered to take him and then came to me and asked me to go with her. I didn’t totally approve of what she had done, but I was certainly not going to let her be alone with him.

When we went to fetch him, he was not at the prearranged place. We finally contacted him at his girlfriend’s home. It became evident in the ensuing conversation that he was definitely for real in his decision to come clean. It also became evident that although he had claimed to have been off of alcohol for some period, his trip to his girlfriend’s place was to indulge his habit one more time.

On the drive to the Salvation Army hostel, he told of us his conversion to Jesus Christ a couple of years previously. He spoke in glowing terms of the euphoria that came over him when he accepted salvation. He expressed the hope that this euphoria would take hold of him again. From our conversation it became apparent to me that the young man was seeking the feeling of ecstasy more than victory over the substance.

I told him of my conversion to Christ and how my Christian experience had grown but without the same feelings as at the time of conversion. I did my best to encourage him to continue the spiritual fight by the help of the strength that Christ’s Spirit would provide him.

We sat through a careful questioning an officer of the Army gave him. It put more of the hard reality of the ongoing fight in his future than I had given him on the hour’s trip over. The officer pointed out that unless he had been clean for six weeks they wouldn’t take him into their program. He did provide an address of a family that was willing to take him in and let him live with them for the six weeks and warned him strongly that they couldn’t help him if he didn’t pass this period of probation.

Sylvia had gotten in touch with the young man’s mother. She was obviously at wit’s end. She was also very hopeful and thankful that Sylvia had taken an interest in her son. Things did go well for a period of time, but then, without the initial euphoria, he went back to his old ways of living.

The Psalmist’s desperate plea for God’s sustaining power is the absolutely critical part in our battle against the united forces of evil that are seeking to destroy us.

Our Almighty King, may Your sustaining power give us the overwhelming desire to keep obeying You!

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[i] https://blog.uniongospelmission.org/the-impact/panhandling

#California, #IE, #Alcohol, #Dependence, #MotherSon, #SalvationArmy, #CleanOfDrugs, #Psalms, #Conversion, #Habit, #Euphoria, #Ecstasy, #Overcome, #Panhandler

CYRUS THE GREAT

[i]

Isaiah 44:28; 45:4, 13 

King James Version (KJV)

²⁸ That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid…

⁴ For Jacob my servant's sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me…

¹³ I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will direct all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let go my captives, not for price nor reward, saith the Lord of hosts.

According to the setting presented in Isaiah 1:1, Isaiah wrote this book between 739 and 681 BCE. History records that Cyrus[ii] lived between 598 and 530 BCE. Taken at face value, this prediction of Isaiah preceded the reign of Cyrus by well over 100 years. Christians have traditionally assigned omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence to God. As such God can read history not only in what has already occurred but equally in what is yet to come.

Many biblical scholars worry that if a supreme being has perfect foreknowledge, then that knowledge removes the possibility of created beings having free will. If these creatures do not have free will, then they are not responsible for their own sins, so Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is unnecessary. Some of these scholars date “Deutero-Isaiah,” chapters 40 to 55 of Isaiah, to a prophet who lived in Babylon during the captivity of the Jews and already knew of Cyrus. They claim his/her writings are published as part of the prophecies of Isaiah. This raises the very real concern about what we mean by all scripture being inspired by God. Is God relying on a misrepresentation to get the prophetic message to the world?

My physicist friends insist on another way to look at creation and the Creator. We must assume that in the beginning God created our entire universe, which includes both space and time. In this case God is outside of both time and space. This means that God is not restricted to the inexorable march of time. God can view time as completely and clearly as He can physical space. This concept of creation gets us around whether or not there is a Deutero-Isaiah. What does this do to the problem raised about human free will?

As I see it, in either case we still have divine foreknowledge. What I do not see is that foreknowledge automatically includes God’s fore-ordaining human actions. It does include acknowledging that God’s intellect and knowledge are infinitely greater than humans can know or understand.

Lord, I thank You that although Your thoughts are infinitely higher than mine, You still take a personal interest in me and my life.

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[i] https://iranterritory.wordpress.com/2015/10/29/happy-cyrus-day-the-king-of-persia/

[ii] https://www.britannica.com/biography/Cyrus-the-Great

Weapons to Fight in the Light

[i]

Romans 13:12

Good News Translation (GNT)

¹² The night is nearly over, day is almost here. Let us stop doing the things that belong to the dark, and let us take up weapons for fighting in the light.

When I was probably about 8 years old we had a student at Helderberg College who taught our Sabbath School class. He was very persuasive and very knowledgeable. He also had an unshakeable faith in Jesus Christ and His soon return. He looked at current world events—around 1950—and assumed that all the prophecies about Christ’s return had already been fulfilled. He stated that he guaranteed categorically that Christ would return within 5 years at the very most. It made a huge impression on me, or I certainly wouldn’t remember it all these years later.

I got much of his expressed certainty, but I do remember wondering whether it would really happen. The thought of Christ’s coming struck fear into my life rather than wondrous hope. Christ’s coming meant He would judge me, and I knew that my life and thoughts would reveal that I wasn’t ready. What it did mean to be ready? In my young life it meant that I would no longer be sinning—something that still hasn’t happened. I did not understand what the grace of Christ means to every Christian. It is this grace that makes me ready in spite of my sinful nature.

Unfortunately my teacher hadn’t put this verse into either his or my thoughts about getting ready. “Let us take up the weapons for fighting in the light.” A weapon of great consequence is the “Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 KJV). Now close to 70 years later, it appears that we have a new tool in this Sword. Devout men and women of God are demanding that we provide Scripture to each people group in their own heart language. Furthermore they are anxious, willing, and able to step in and provide the manpower to produce these translations. Truly this is a modern outpouring of the Holy Spirit to provide the most powerful weapons “for fighting in the light!” With these weapons against him, Satan is hard pressed like never before. He is redoubling his fiendish efforts to defeat Christ and us. But we have the infinite power on our side, and we can indeed overcome by Christ’s amazing grace.

Thank You, Lord, for giving us this new and most potent weapon against the enemy of all human kind in our day.

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[i] https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2016/march/wycliffe-associates-leaves-wga-bible-translation-son-of-god.html

NEW BIBLES IN SPITE OF PERSECUTION

[i]

[ii]

Matthew 5:11-12 

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

¹¹ “You are blessed when they insult and persecute you and falsely say every kind of evil against you because of Me.¹² Be glad and rejoice, because your reward is great in heaven. For that is how they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

We are just back from a weekend set of meetings called the Wycliffe Associates President’s Summit in Carlsbad, California. We listened to a number of heartening reports of how their new MAST program is allowing the translation of Scripture into languages worldwide. It provides printed text and also audio and various sign language versions for those who would rather not read or are visually or audibly handicapped. Some of these languages have never even been written down. It is a technique that, I’m sure, is inspired by the Holy Spirit. It allows us to provide an excellent and accurate translation in an unbelievably short time. Some have translated a whole New Testament in a fortnight.

Satan is not taking this lying down! WA brought in two African leaders who told of the extreme trials they are meeting in their respective home countries. Both had experienced physical beatings and imprisonment for their faith. Hundreds of Christians have been brutally killed. This has left each of them stronger and more determined to provide Scripture for their people so that they can meet terrible opposition with the knowledge, hope, and faith that comes only from reading and understanding the Word of God.

One of these leaders comes from what is probably the first Christian country on earth. He reminded me of Bekele Heye, a Christian leader from his country whom I met a half-century ago. Heye was a visiting speaker at a camp meeting in Tanzania where Sylvia and I were working. I’ll never forget some of his words to those African believers. He told them, “Don’t wish you had been born with a white skin. One day I went out into the fields with a white missionary, and we worked all day in the sun. The next day this missionary was in hospital where all his skin came off. Meanwhile I was still out in the field growing food for my family.”

Heye also warned his listeners “Don’t think that this is a white man’s religion from Europe or America. Almost 2,000 years ago Africa had it first when the Ethiopian ambassador came back from having been baptized by the deacon Philip. Since that time we have kept the Christian faith to ourselves and haven’t taught it to the rest of Africa. Now these missionaries have come from other countries to do the work God originally gave us to do.”

Thank You, Lord, for showing us how to use modern technologies to reach the entire earth so that a “vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language” (Revelation 7:9) can soon be gathered in front of Your throne.

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[i] http://globalchristiancenter.com/christian-living/lesser-known-bible-people/31308-the-eunuch-of-ethiopia

[ii] https://www.google.com/search?q=ethiopian+eunuch+acts&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS744US744&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiMj-3V0uXdAhVE6lMKHafoAHUQ_AUIDygC&biw=1116&bih=538#imgrc=G89oFVhp0BT6pM:

Make a Joyful Noise unto the Lord

[i]

Psalm 98:4 

King James Version (KJV)

⁴ Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.

As I write this, the world is in Russia watching the FIFA World Cup playoffs. Stadiums are full of fans who have gathered for two hours of a game between the teams of two different countries. When a player makes a great play, the whole stadium seems to rock under the roar of the gathered soccer aficionados. Around the world, people gather in pubs to watch the play and shout their feelings.

We were in Monterey, Mexico, during another playoff some years ago. Our host took his TV out onto his front patio, connected big speaker boxes to it, and all the neighbors gathered around. Even here great roars of approval would echo up and down the street as people expressed their enthusiasm for their home team’s performance.

What benefit did these millions of enthusiasts gain when their team scored a goal? From their responses one would think that this gave them long life and great wealth. When the home team would do poorly or when the competing team would score a goal, a loud moan of anger and pain would escape their lips. If one didn’t know better, one would wonder if the watching throng had just suffered incalculable loss. The supporters would debate long and vociferously about what the players should have done.

The liturgical church service I attend and often participate in is a carefully orchestrated performance that has every part carefully laid out and coordinated to fit exactly into a given time slot. We have grand music performed by a professional on a magnificent pipe organ. I must confess I love the magnificence of the music. I sit back and close my eyes and allow the organ waves of praise to God to thrill my every nerve, marrow, and fiber. If the music is especially moving, I will allow myself to respond with a subdued, reverent “Amen.” Otherwise, I follow the hymn’s injunction to “let all the earth keep silence before Him!”

When, on occasion, I read the liturgy, I do my best to read it meaningfully and with careful dignity. I would be stunned if what I read elicited a heartfelt response, no matter the sense of what I read, even if it came from the verse listed above: “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all the earth: make a loud noise, and rejoice, and sing praise.” For some reason we just don’t worship God that way! Is this Laodiceanism?[ii] If so then God tells us he will spit us out of his mouth.

Lord, I love You for what You have done for me! Use my voice and my very soul to praise You with appropriate enthusiasm.

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[i] https://es.fifa.com/fifaeworldcup/photos/galleries/y=2014/m=9/gallery=ea-sportstm-fifa-15-for-sony-playstation-3-2444281.html

[ii] Indifference in religion or politics (from the Merriam Webster Dictionary)

Cancer Recovery

[i]

Isaiah 40:31 

Holman Christian Standard Bible (HCSB)

³¹ but those who trust in the Lord
will renew their strength;
they will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary;
they will walk and not faint.

This week I completed my last chemo infusion. I started the chemo five months ago in January. At that time I had made remarkable recovery after the West Nile Virus bout I contracted a year and a half before. Our dog Katie and I would walk over the La Sierra Hills in front of and behind our home. Katie would come home dragging her tail behind her and trying to duck into the shade of every desert plant that looked like it might offer a bit of cool respite.

Then I started the chemo. Within a scant fortnight I was winded just walking up to the Pumpkin Rock nestled on a low point on the ridge to the west of our home. Since then I have only once or twice made it up to the saddle point—an even lower destination. Otherwise I have restricted my goings to the almost level area in our valley. I walk with uncertain steps and brace myself for any slight slip on the dirt. I feel this constant headache that decries my actually being upright. Sylvia walks next to me gently pushing the middle of my back on the uphill stretches.

Meanwhile Katie runs joyfully around and digs energetically in every gopher burrow and rabbit hole she can find. I have pushed myself to walking about 2,000 steps according to a pedometer program I have on my smart phone. Then I return home and sit in the recliner and allow my heart and lungs to catch up with my body. Usually I am too tired to even sleep, but if I do, it will often be an hour and a half before I awaken. That is unless Katie suddenly explodes into a barking session.

Now that I am no longer being infused with the chemo poison that is supposed to zap the cancer I’m carrying, I eagerly await the renewal of my strength in a very literal sense. The Lord brought me back from a much closer brush with death during my West Nile episode. I fully trust that he will again fulfill this promise in Isaiah.

I thank You, Lord, that I can trust in Your promises and that You have seen fit to preserve me a second time. Let’s go for it, Lord!

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[i] https://www.google.com/search?q=pumpkin+rock+hike+norco&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS744US744&source=lnms&tbm=i

Adventist Missionaries to Africa

[i]

Acts 2:17 

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁷ And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams

This weekend the Fellowship of Adventist Missionaries to Africa (FAMA) held its biennial meeting in Cicero, Indiana. I had been planning to be there for two years now, but my cancer treatments nixed that possibility. I have been leading FAMA for most of the last 4 years but left it in the very capable hands of Charles Schlunt. Imagine my delight when Dr. Russell Staples phoned me Sabbath afternoon and gave me a firsthand report of the meetings.

In 1954 my father, C. Fred Clarke, was called to Solusi Mission, then a 10 grade high school to convert it into a 4 year college for the training of Africans to prepare them to be leaders in the Adventist Church. He overcame almost insurmountable obstacles, and in due course they graduated their first four students. When I was in Tanzania, I had the privilege of working very closely with Thomas Lisso, one of those first four graduates.

Dr. Staples, Professor of World Mission, Emeritus, at Andrews University is a pioneer Adventist missionary both from Africa and to Africa. He started teaching at Solusi with Dad. Then he became the second president of the university and set it on its very successful course. It is one of the major universities in the country of Zimbabwe and was the only university to remain open during the worst of that country’s tragic financial collapse. Solusi has had as many as 5,000 students from many parts of Africa. It is practically at the center of the Southern Africa—Indian Ocean Division of Seventh-day Adventists, apparently the largest division of the Adventist Church.

Dr. Staples reported that of the close to 22 million Adventists in the world, 11 million live in Africa, and of those 3.5 million are in the SAIO Division. This success can be traced back to the far sighted leaders who yielded to the leading of the Spirit to prepare for this vast need and tremendous growth.

Last summer Sylvia and I stopped by the Staples home where we were hosted for several days. I encouraged Dr. Staples to give a presentation at the FAMA meetings. At the time he turned me down, but I was delighted when Charles visited him, and he agreed to do it. He gave an overview of the history of missions in Africa, and his presentation was well received.

If you would like to be placed on the mailing list for the FAMA Newsletter, please contact me by responding to me on this blog.

Lord, thank You for the Outpouring of Your Holy Spirit and for those willing to follow Your leading.

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[i] http://solusi.ac.zw/event/voluntary-week-of-spiritual-emphasis/