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"MAKE IT
AS SECURE AS YOU CAN" #3
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
Some very good news came out in the Travel Section
of the Los Angeles Times just the other day. If you would like to become
a millionaire, there's a very simple way of accomplishing that. Now, why
is this in the Sunday travel feature instead of in the Times' "C"
section, Business? Well, the proposal for getting to quick riches is this:
move to Turkey.
According to the latest exchange-rate figures, the lire in Turkey is currently
trading at 395,327 to one U.S. dollar. That's up, by the way, from 253,780
lira for one greenback. What's this mean, then? Well, all you'd have to
take over to Ankara would be $2.53, and you could exchange that for a
cool million lire. By Turkish standards, you'd be a millionaire. Of course,
it would take a million lire to get yourself a Big Mac or a taxi ride
of approximately a mile. But if you're willing to define "millionaire"
down to that level, it's not hard to get into the winner's circle.
I guess we all think of the man who said to his friends, "Well, I'm
now working on my second million!" "Is that right?" "Yes,"
the man said. "I gave up long ago on my first million." Or the
man who told associates, "With my wife's help, I am now finally a
millionaire. Of course, before I met her, I used to be a MULTI-millionaire."
And then there's the large group of average citizens myself included
who have given up on EVER being millionaires, and have now set our sights
on becoming "thousandaires" someday.
Our radio topic this week doesn't really have to do with money . . . and
then again, maybe it does. We focused Monday on a momentarily confident
statement made by Pontius Pilate. "Go," he said to the Roman
soldiers about to guard the tomb of Jesus, "make it as secure as
you can. Take a hundred men. Stick some red wax on there with the invincible
Roman seal. Take your sticks and your stones and your swords and your
spears." And then on Easter Sunday, when God the Father decided it
was time to call His favorite Son out of the tomb, the defensive bulwarks
snapped like baby twigs. All the soldiers fell over like dead men.
And yet, here in 1999, let me ask you this. Isn't it true that our money
whether it's U.S. dollars or Turkish lire is a kind of defensive shield
to us. We talk about being PROTECTED financially. Is our future SECURE?
we ask. Do you have enough money "socked away" and it almost
sounds like a weapons arsenal we want to have in our basements. All around
us are instant millionaires who got rich overnight on an Internet stock
IPO. But for every stock that went from $12 to $95 in two days, there
are two or three that went from $12 to $95, and have now settled back
in at SEVEN.
I know there was a time when a Russian ruble was worth something. And
then, with the ravages of inflation and the rough-and-tumble of glasnost,
all of a sudden Moscow's citizens were looking at trading a thousand rubles
for a dollar. Then two thousand. Three. It got clear up to almost seven
thousand rubles to a single U.S. buck. A million rubles was worth something
like $167. I was there; I saw it. And for about six weeks I was a millionaire
too. Inflation was a killer tidal wave, washing away a Muscovite's entire
savings. Finally the government stepped in and engineered a thousand-to-one
currency fix, so that it would be just six or seven rubles to the dollar
again. But you know, the deadly spiral is happening all over again.
Here's the point, friend . . . and don't think that a humming U.S. economy
means these spiritual laws don't apply to us too. If you and I put faith
in our bank accounts, or our e*trade successes, or our Discover Brokerage
coups, and think that our eternal security lies THERE, then we're about
as smart as Pontius Pilate, who thought that a few Roman swords and a
bit of red wax could keep God from invading that cemetery next to Calvary.
I think we've told the story before, about how in a suburb just about
15 miles away from our Simi Valley studios, one of the biggest industries
going was the video porn empire. The San Fernando Valley was the core
of HARD-core. And I'm sure there were entrepreneurs who counted their
X-rated dollars every night and said to themselves, "Huh! Nothing
can touch us." Until the Northridge earthquake hit, and their buildings
were at the very EPICENTER of the shaking and the resulting rubble. Now,
friend, I don't suggest that God aimed this particular temblor at that
exact spot to make a point. But there IS a point, and it's this: there's
nothing in this world we can put our confidence in which might not disappear
in less time than it takes for me to finish this sentence.
I don't know how accurate some Bible paintings are, but maybe you remember
with me back to our childhoods, and those marvelous old blue books called
The Bible Story, written by the incomparable storyteller, Arthur Maxwell,
also known as "Uncle Arthur." His classic Bedtime Stories are
still a best-seller, I understand. If you have kids, by all means, look
around for them.
In any case, I remember the painting for the Tower of Babel, which is
an Old Testament story you'll find in Genesis 11, right after the saga
of Noah and the Flood. There in the Plain of Shinar, the descendants of
the great shipbuilder said to themselves, "Let's make sure we don't
get drowned out a second time." So they plotted to build this huge
skyscraper out of bricks and mortar, and the kids and grandkids of Ham,
Shem, and Japheth actually achieved quite some success building an enormous
tower "that reaches to the heavens," as they put it. In the
"Uncle Arthur" painting, by the way, this was a colossal structure,
towering up into the air hundreds of feet: right up there with the Sears
Tower, the Las Vegas Stratosphere, and the Empire State Building. And
you could almost hear Pontius Pilate's words echoing across the valley:
"Make it as secure as you can."
The scholars who prepared the study helps for the NIV Bible point out
that there were various Mesopotamian structures, or ziggurats, constructed
during this time, and some of them had names which actually implied an
ability to climb right up to the stars. One at Larsa was called: "The
House of the Seven Guides of Heaven and Earth." "The House of
the Mountain of the Universe"; that was at Asshur. "The House
of the Foundation-Platform of Heaven and Earth," which was on all
the tourist maps of Babylon. And the scholars add this note for verse
4:
"At Babel rebellious man undertook a united
and godless effort to establish FOR HIMSELF, by a titanic HUMAN enterprise,
a world renown by which HE would dominate God's creation."
In commenting on the word "Babel" itself,
these same Bible students tell us that this word is of Akkadian origin.
Guess what it means: "Gateway to a god." In other words, "We
can protect ourselves." And even: "We can make it clear to heaven
our own way."
Well, friend, with all due respect and that's not much to the old
rock-and-roll band, Led Zeppelin, there is no such thing as a human stairway
to heaven. Were these Babylonians really going to be able to defend themselves
and build a human tower reaching to the sun, moon, and stars? What in
the world was God up IN heaven going to do to this human tower that was
daily creeping closer and closer to the gates of His empire?
Well, you have to smile as you read verse eight. Was God worried? Was
His plan stymied? Were His armies outnumbered by the ragtag AFL-CIO union
of workers working down there on the tower? The Bible calmly tells us
that God simply snapped His fingers . . . and all at once, every person
on the scaffolding down there spoke a different language. You talk about
U.S. dollars and European euros and Turkish lire: suddenly there were
two hundred dialects and sub-languages competing for the bricks and the
mortar. Foremen couldn't make themselves understood, and in less time
than you could say good-bye, auf wiedersehen, and sayonara, that's exactly
what the Babylonian Brigade said. To each other. Off they went to the
far corners of the earth, and they've been there ever since.
Now, friend, let's understand something. If you've become a millionaire
either in lira or dollars that's perfectly an all right thing to do.
Praise God for your prosperity, and use it as a blessing. If you have
the talents to build a skyscraper, do it! Dedicate every floor and every
elevator and every window pane to God's glory. If you can write a great
best-seller or do well in your NASDAQ investments, wonderful! Give God
the glory for His many blessings.
But never, never, NEVER do you and I want to TRUST in our towers for salvation.
We simply cannot ever build us a building out of steel, or dollars,
or good deeds, or obedience, or perfect church attendance that will
earn us a home beyond the stars.
There at Calvary was an army of a hundred men. Outside the tomb, they
had their pointy spears and their primitive battering rams and their red
Roman wax. INSIDE the tomb was a Savior, a Lamb sent of God. His name
was and IS Jesus. When it comes to salvation, you can trust what was
OUTSIDE the tomb, or you can trust what was INSIDE it. Take your pick.
Of course, what was INSIDE the tomb isn't in there anymore.
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