Biblical Illuminations

Mountains, Music, and Paintings: A few of my favorite things

If you've been following the content of this site for very long, you've probably noticed by now some of my hobbies, because I do write about them from time to time. I like to play the violin and the guitar. I like to climb mountains. And I like to to paint.

Interestingly, each one of these hobbies has, in some way, changed the way I view the world.

Because I like to play music, whenever I hear music, I don't just sing along with it, I notice how it is structured. I notice the timing, the bass line, the percussion, and a lot of things that I never would have noticed before I starting learning to play a musical instrument.

Because I like to climb mountains, I can't even drive down a country road without noticing every single mountain in the distance, and being amazed by their beauty. Strange...before I started climbing, I never even noticed those mountains.

And since I've started up painting again, I can't go anywhere without noticing the brilliant, vibrant colors all around me, and thinking things like, "What color paints would I mix together to get that particular shade of blue?" or "I wonder if this scene would make a good starting point for a painting?"

(Of course, sometimes my hobbies overlap, as is the case with these paintings...

Mount Washington from Brimstone Corner

Acoustic Guitar)

I think it's interesting that each of my hobbies has, in one way or another, heightened my awareness of the world around me. I didn't start climbing mountains because I always thought the mountains were so beautiful. Nor did I start painting because I noticed and understood color and structure and composition.

No, it was the other way around. My appreciation for mountains, my understanding of color, and of beauty - these things came after a lot of hard work on my part. The work came first, and then the understanding and the appreciation.

You might not have realized it, but the Christian life is very much the same way. I occasionally hear Christians pray, "Reveal yourself to me," but really, that's sort of a lazy prayer, because Jesus already told us the circumstances under which He reveals Himself to us:

John 14:21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.

If we want to more deeply understand God, and the work He is doing in this world, it doesn't just happen. It happens because we have his commandments, and are doing them. And we are doing them because we love Him.

The work comes first, then the understanding. I never would have come to such a deep appreciation for mountains without first putting a backpack on my shoulders and doing some very hard work. I would never have understood music so well if I hadn't spent so many hours doing tedious scales and exercises.

Do you want to understand God? Do you want Him to reveal Himself to you? Don't just sit around waiting for it to happen. Put your nose to grindstone and actually do his work, follow his commands. Yes, it's hard work. Yes, it is sometimes discouraging, and yes, there are sometimes a thousand different things you would rather be doing. But do God's work with the same stubborn determination that a musician practices his scales, or a hiker keeps on climbing, no matter how tired he gets.

In the long run, the benefits are worth it, because bit by bit, God reveals Himself, His character, His love, and His work to us.

And that's more wonderful than the tallest mountain, the most beautiful song, or the most magnificent painting.

Family Likeness - An illustration on being like Christ

Recently I had a chance to visit with Nate, a young man who used to travel with me and run my sound system when I went out to preach, sing and do ventriloquism. We were reminiscing about some of the things that used to happen when we were "on the road" together, and we recalled that it was not uncommon for people to say to Nate, "We sure do appreciate you and your dad coming today."

To which Nate would reply, "He's not my dad."

Frankly, I never saw much resemblance between us, and since I was only thirteen years older than him, I found it a bit disconcerting that people would think I was old enough to be his dad.

The day after I visited with Nate, day I took my nephew Daniel to a basketball game that our local Christian Academy was competing in. During the half-time break, I took Daniel to the concessions stand, so Daniel could buy a cheeseburger. When the lady behind the counter gave us our food, she said, "Here's your cheeseburger, and here's your dad's french-fries."

Once again, I don't think there's that much resemblance.
But those two back-to-back events started me thinking about family resemblances. Do you look like your father? Your mother? What about your brothers or sisters? Do your children look like you?

Did you know that the Bible has something to say about family resemblance? It's true!

Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus is "the image of the invisible God," and "the firstborn over all creation." Think about that for a moment. God is Spirit, and as such, we cannot see him. But when Jesus Christ came to earth, he came as a man with a physical body. So what does it mean that Jesus is the "image of the invisible God?" That he physically looks like God the Father? Of course not! There is a "family resemblance" between God the Father and God the Son, but it is not a physical resemblance.

When Jesus came to earth, it was so we could see and understand the character of God. When we look at Jesus, when we read of His life, His deeds, and His sacrifice, we are seeing the character of God being lived out perfectly.

But that's not the only thing that the Bible says about family relationships. In II Corinthians 3:18 we are told, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image"

Nice little progression, isn't it? Jesus is the likeness of the invisible God, and we – we are to be transformed into the likeness of His Son, Jesus Christ. In other words, when people look at us, they ought to be able to see our family resemblance to God Himself!

What do you think? Is your character like the character of God? Or does it leave a lot to be desired? How does your character change to be more like His? Well, the answer is right in the verse: we behold the glory of the Lord. How much time do you spend looking on Jesus Christ, through reading of Him in God's Word? Take time each day to read of Him, and allow yourself to be transformed more and more into His image.

Context! An Illustration about Colors and Context

Just for fun, let's begin today with a short test of your eye-brain coordination. Ready?

Take a look at the image above, which is just a tiny snippet of a photograph I took recently. What do you think it is?

While you're pondering that question (and no fair scrolling down the page to see the full image!), here's a bit of "housekeeping" I need to take care of. If you are a subscriber to this site, you should update your feedreeder to a new feed address. After this post, the feed will no longer be at feedburner.com; instead it will be here: http://feedproxy.google.com/BiblicalIlluminations.

So update your feed reader (clicking the link above will help you with that process), or you might miss out on future sermon illustrations and Bible lessons. I apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.

Okay. Housekeeping over. Back to the question at hand. Did you guess that this is a close-up of a bit of sky? Or maybe the ocean? If you guessed either of those things, you were wrong.

Actually, that is a closeup of a snowy field. Amazing, isn't it? Who knew that snow was so dark, and so blue! A little bit later on I'll show you the actual photograph, so you can see it in context.

And really context is the issue I wanted to talk about today. This year I picked up an old hobby that I left behind years ago...painting. (You can view some of my artwork here: Glimpses of Eden.) Because of that, I've been paying a lot more attention to light and color than I normally do. I've found that there's an interesting difference between what your eyes see, and what your brain interprets.

Here's the picture, so you'll have something to look at while you read:

When your eyes view the bottom of the picture, they see dark blue, but somehow between what your eyes are seeing, and what your brain interprets, you don't consciously think that you're looking at something that's grayish-blue; your brain says, "Oh! A white, snowy field!"

In fact, if you compare the color of the field (even the part that's not shadowed by a tree) to the color of the house, you will realize that there is nothing white about what you're seeing!

What a difference context makes. And context makes a huge difference in the way we read and understand scripture as well. This is why, as I've been traveling to churches this year, I've been encouraging people to read God's Word in such a way that they get the big picture - the full context of what God is saying to us. When we only read it one verse at a time, we can easily be deceived into thinking it says something that it really doesn't, just as you might have been deceived by the little snippet of a photo at the top of the page.

When I start out painting, I need to understand the full context of the scene first, and then, after fully understanding what I'm looking at, I can then focus on the details of the colors and the shadows and the highlights.

In the same way, if you plan to study a book of the Bible verse by verse, be sure to take the time to read the whole book first - maybe even a few times. Getting the big picture will help you understand what you're looking at, and it will help prevent you from misunderstanding and misinterpreting the smaller bits.

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Contentment and Snowshoeing on the Ice

This morning I went out snowshoeing. Because we've had a mixture of snow, rain, and freezing rain recently, there were stretches of my trek where the rain had washed down the hill, forming a smooth sheet of ice on an uphill grade.

Now, if I hadn't been wearing my snowshoes, I would have found it just about impossible to make it up that slope without sliding backwards two feet for every foot I moved forward.

But my snowshoes have vicious looking sawtooth crampons on the bottom, that do a great job of digging into the ice and giving me the traction I need.

I didn't slip even once, on my way up the hill, or on my way back down.

As I was walking, I thought of two verses. One of them was a verse I read just yesterday, from the book of Psalms. Psalm 73:18, which is speaking of the wicked, says "Surely You set them in slippery places; You cast them down to destruction."

The Psalm tells us that those who live with unrighteousness might appear to have it all together, they might appear to be on solid footing, but in reality, they're like someone on a sheet of ice without snowshoes. Sooner or later, no matter how "together" they seem to be, they'll slip up, and everything falls apart.

Now, if I were to ask you, "How do you avoid that slippery place?" you might be tempted to answer, "Don't get involved in unrighteousness." That's not a bad answer, but it's actually not what the Psalmist says. In verse verses 2 and 3, he writes:

But as for me, my feet came close to stumbling, My steps had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant As I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

Isn't that interesting? The Psalmist says that it is envy that almost put him on the slippery slope. That makes sense, doesn't it? It is our envy that causes us to take the same shortcuts the unrighteous take in order to reach our goals.

I guess that means contentment is like a good pair of snowshoes. I wouldn't want to be without it!

Make The Roads Straight

Today as I was driving from South Paris, Maine to Gray, Maine, I was thinking about how much more enjoyable the drive is, now that all the road work has been completed. Back before all the road construction, if I needed to go from South Paris to Gray, it seemed as though the drive took forever. The road twisted and turned around every little hill and obstacle along the way. Now it’s much different, and much nicer.

Why do you suppose the road used to make all those twists and turns? A good guess might be that the original road builders didn’t want to build over the hills, and they didn’t have the resources to carve through the hills. So building around was the only option left. Now, as you drive that road, you see rock faces which are a testament to the fact that the road has been carved into the sides of the hills.

As I think about this, I’m reminded of John the Baptist, and the message he was commanded by God to deliver to the people: "Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain be made low. Make straight the paths of the Lord."

In the days of John, roads were difficult to maintain through the wilderness – perhaps they were even as awful as our Maine roads during the winter and spring! But what if the king wanted to travel across the countryside? Surely he wouldn’t follow the same dizzying pattern of twists, turns, dips and rises that everyone else followed? No, heralds would go out before him announcing to the people, "The king is coming! Fix up the roads! If it passes through a valley, raise it up! If it passes over a hill, lower it! We want the king to have a perfectly smooth and comfortable trip."

Make no mistake about this: when John said, "Make the roads straight," what he was really saying was, "The king is on His way!" When the king comes to visit, everyone's lives are disrupted. The people understood this, for they asked John, "What do we need to do to get ready for His coming?"
John’s answer, though simple and straightforward, was certainly a disruption to the way they lived their lives: Be generous, don’t be a cheater, don’t be a bully, don’t lie about one another, and be content with what you have.

Jesus the King dwells with us daily – does His presence disrupt your life at all? Or do you simply live life as though He is not there at all?

A Clogged Drain - A Lesson About Human Nature

I realize it has been a while since I've posted anything new here. Life has been very busy and hectic the last little while, and may become even more so for awhile. More on that another time!

For now, I do have another illustration of a Bible principle. The principle comes from Matthew 15:11, in which Jesus talks about what defiles a man.

For a change of pace, I've posted this one over on my Creative Writing website: Fifteen Minutes Of Fiction. It can be found at this address: A Clogged Drain.

I Am The Resurrection And The Life - A Personal Story

This is a very rough transcript of a message I preached at several camps this summer; some campers requested a copy of it, so I'm posting it here, for any to read. Sorry it took so long to get it posted! It is not a complete transcript; I left out a few pieces here and there, but tried to hit the most important parts.

Every year when I've gone out to do Sunday Schools and church services - preaching and singing and doing ventriloquism - I've always had a couple young men trained to run my sound system. (Since I never know what kind of system a church will have, I find it easier to bring my own). A couple years ago, my sound men were a young adult named Ben, and a teenager named Tommy. Ben and Tommy would swap off weekends; one would travel with me one week and the other would get to stay at home. At least...that was the plan.

One Saturday evening in September, Ben and I were in Orrington getting ready for services the next day, and I got an email from my church. The message really shook us both up: Tommy had been in an ATV accident, and was in critical condition - the doctors said things didn't look good. Part of me wanted to pack up and go home. But we didn't.

The next morning when I got up, I checked my email again, and found terrible, distressing news: Tommy had died during the previous evening. At that point, I'm not exactly sure how Ben felt, but I know I really wanted to just go home and be with friends and family. But we had committed to preaching in Orrington, and I didn't want to leave them in the lurch just hours before their service.

I wonder, is that how Jesus felt when he got word that his friend Lazarus was dying? Because Jesus didn't go immediately to be with the family. He stayed where he was (finishing up some unfinished ministry, perhaps?). And when he was finally went to be with the family, it was "too late" - Lazarus was already dead.

As Jesus was on his way to Bethany to be with the family, he was met on the road by Martha, Lazarus's sister. Martha, along with Mary and Lazarus, was a dear, dear friend to Jesus. But she certainly didn't act like one! She walked up to Jesus, and I can just imagine her shaking her finger in his face as she said, "If you had been here, my brother would not have died."

How completely unfair she was being to Jesus. But I've discovered something about grief: grief can cause people to be unreasonable, and even irrational. When we are grieving, we don't always think straight. How important it is for us, when friends are going through difficult times, to be patient and encouraging with them, even when they are unfair and unreasonable to us. This is part of showing our love to those in need, to respond with gentleness even in the face of a harsh word.

Jesus, true to his character, merely says to her: "Your brother will live again." And then He adds these famous words: "I am the Resurrection and the Life. He who believes in me, even if he dies, will live again."

And then Jesus comes to the tomb, and he does something extraordinary, that's recorded for us in John 11:35 - "Jesus wept." We don't necessarily think about God crying, but here Jesus shows us his own grief and sorrow over the loss of his beloved friend.

It reminded me of something I heard people saying to some of our teenagers after Tommy died: "Don't cry. Tommy wouldn't want you to cry."

These words made me angry. First I thought, "How do you know what Tommy would want?" And then I thought, "And why shouldn't they cry?" Jesus himself cried at the grave of his friend! His sorrow was a proof and demonstration of his great love for his friend, and so it was also a way of honoring his friend. Even the people standing by said, "See how much Jesus must have loved Lazarus!" When I cried for Tommy, I honored his memory, and there is nothing wrong with that.

Yes, the Bible says that our grief is not the same as the grief of unbelievers, but that is because they have no hope. We do. And here we find the point of the story of Lazarus.

Jesus walks up to the tomb, and asks the people to open the tomb. Once the tomb is opened, Jesus cries out, "Lazarus come forth!" To everyone's amazement, the dead man ceased to be dead, and walked out of the grave - ALIVE!

What has Jesus done? He has proven, once and for all, that he has a power beyond the power of any angel or demon, or any human power: he has the power to control death itself. With one single statement he reverses death, and the man who had been dead four days returns to life.

Jesus has given us the proof that when he says, "I am the Resurrection and the Life," he is not just speaking in metaphors; He truly is Resurrection. He truly is Life. And for all who believe in Him, death is NOT the end.

One thing I will never forget, listening to all of Tommy's friends from the church speak at his memorial service: almost every one of them finished their comments and memories by saying: "I know that I will see Tommy again someday."

This is the power of the Resurrection. This is the power of the Life. This is why, though we grieve, it is not like those who have no hope. We have hope. We have Jesus. And even death cannot stand against Him.

Whose Home Is It? A lesson on the Way, the Truth, the Life

In our "pluralistic" society, people seem to be very comfortable with the idea that no one religion has the corner on truth, and that there are many ways to get to heaven (if heaven does, in fact, exist). As a consequence, members of any one religion are made to feel as though they are being arrogant and narrow minded if they suggest that their religion is "true". In the midst of all of this, Jesus' statement found in John 14:6 makes people feel very uncomfortable.

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," Jesus says, and you can almost hear the capital letters at the beginnings of each of those words. "The Way," he says, not "A Way." And to make matters worse, he then has the audacity to say that no one can get to heaven except through him. Not only is He the Way, He claims He is the only way.

So people tend to look at Jesus and say, "That's pretty arrogant and small minded of him to suggest he's the only possible way."

Not arrogant and small minded at all. Why can Jesus say things like "no one can come to heaven except through me"? Because he owns heaven. Paul tells us in Colossians 1:16 that Jesus is the creator of heaven. It belongs to HIM!

If you stop by to visit my home, who gets to decide whether you are invited in? I do! It's my place. And if you have chosen to disregard and disdain me, is it unreasonable to think that I wouldn't want you to live in my home? Of course not!

The real arrogance is for mankind to think "I will spend my life in pursuits other than the pursuit of Truth, and at the end of it all, I'll just assume that there's an eternal dwelling ready for me."

Peter Gets Distracted - The Last Supper

When it comes to Jesus' disciples, Peter has always been the one who most interests me. Peter is the first one to come up with the most outlandish, inappropriate statements, but he's also the one who comes up with the most insightful statements as well. One of my favorite "Peterisms" is in John 6, when Peter basically says to Jesus, "Leave you? We don't have anywhere else to go! You're the only one who has words of life!"

But, as interesting as Peter is, I would have hated having him in my classroom. Actually, now that I think about it, I've had students like Peter. If you've ever been a teacher, either in school or church, you may have met a student like Peter...

Peter is the student who hears you make some inconsequential remark that was not at all the main point you were trying to make, and while you're proceeding forward to talk about the really important stuff, his brain is stuck on that one comment you made.

You see him sitting there, with a deep and puzzled look on his face, and you think "Oh, look at how carefully Peter is considering my words!" But then he raises his hand and asks a question that's related to what you were saying ten minutes ago, and you realize: he hasn't heard a word you've said in the last ten minutes!

Peter did this to Jesus on their very last evening together. Jesus was going to the cross the next day, and He had some very important information to impart.

"I'm going to be leaving you," Jesus says, "So I need to give you one final, great command. It's a New Commandment. Love one another as much as I love you. If you do this, the whole world will recognize that you are my followers."

What a powerful bit of teaching that is! To love one another as Jesus loves us, that will demonstrate itself in both small ways and big ways, just as Jesus himself served us in both the big and the small - the cross, the washing of feet, and everything in between!

But Peter, he got stuck on the very first thing Jesus said. "Uh, Jesus? What do you mean, you're leaving?"

I don't think Peter heard a word Jesus said after that!

Of course, I don't blame him. I mean, don't I do the same thing? When I read something in God's word that might be challenging, difficult, or force me to change something about myself, don't I also let myself get distracted?

I think it is a common failing of God's people, that whenever God's word makes us uncomfortable, we let ourselves get distracted by issues of lesser importance, issues that have no eternal consequence, and yet we persuade ourselves that they are the issues of most importance.

I'm determined that I'm not going to be like Peter. I'm not going to let myself get distracted; I'm going to hear what Jesus has to say to me, and I will follow with my whole heart, instead of getting sidetracked by every little detail that comes down the pike.

A lightning strike on my car

I love thunderstorms. I love to sit and watch the bolts of lightning that streak downward in stunning displays of light and power. But after yesterday, I don't think I'll ever look at lightning the same way again.

I was driving down Route 3, on my way home from a week as the Bible teacher at Camp Fairhaven, and the thunderstorm warnings came on the radio. I smiled. Then I watched as bolt after bolt of lightning flashed across the sky in the distance. The stikes were quite far away.

Or so I thought.

Then, suddenly, as I was zipping along at 50 miles per hour, the most extraordinary thing happened. There was a bright flash of light, a sudden bang (much more than a clap or a boom - this was deafening!) and my car seemed to lift up off the roadbed and slam back down about a foot to the right of where it had been a second earlier.

For a moment I felt as though both my brain and my heart had shut off. The shock (not electrical) of the moment was really quite astonishing. It took me, perhaps, two or three seconds to realize that my car had just been struck by lightning. Though the electrical shock had passed through the metal shell of the car and left me untouched, it was several minutes before my hands stopped trembling and my breathing and heartbeat returned to normal.

And now, I don't think I shall ever enjoy a thunderstorm in quite the same way again.

I was thinking, as I continued driving home, that we often think of sin in the same way that I think of thunderstorms. Sin entertains and amuses us. It fascinates us. We think that we can dabble in it, stay on the fringes of it, and remain untouched by it.

But sin is far too powerful for us to "dabble" in it. As frighteningly powerful as lightning is, sin is just as powerful, and just as deadly. Sin has a way of catching us off-guard when we least expect it, and striking a blow that can ruin our lives.

Numbers 32:23 says that eventually, sin will always catch up with you, and in one of his great debates with the Pharisees (John 8:34), Jesus said that whoever commits sin is a slave to sin.

Did you know that sin had such power?

For the most part, I suspect that most Christians don't have enough of a good and healthy fear of sin. When it comes to sin...don't dabble. Steer clear.