P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

"THIS IS THE YEAR I STRIKE IT RICH!" #2

SUCCESSFULLY CLIMBING THE WRONG MOUNTAIN

NEW YEAR'S DAY 2002

I don't know if you're catching us during halftime of a college bowl game, or during halftime of your New Year's Day dinner fiesta. And if you're tuning in on KNDL, Angwin, California, where we broadcast at 5:30 a.m., or KTKN, in Ketchikan, Alaska, with our 5:45 a.m. weekday time slot, then congratulations . . . because you might be the only person out there listening so early in the new year after a night of fireworks and fun!

In any case, a great big Happy New Year to each and every one of you. All of us here at the Voice of Prophecy wish you God's most generous blessings during 2002. And what a blessing to know that there's a faithful remnant of you who are choosing to join us for Bible study even here on this important holiday.

We're on a topic that's actually very appropriate for the start of a new year. After all, here's our title for the week: "THIS IS THE YEAR I STRIKE IT RICH!" And maybe you're already saying that as the first moments of 2002 come our way. You've made resolutions; you're going to work hard; you're going to save and make good choices . . . and hopefully, 365 days from now your bank account will look better than it does right now. Anyway, that's the plan here on January 1.

But here in Luke chapter 9 we get a warning. Jesus tells His disciples — and all of us eavesdropping on the conversation — that it's possible to make New Year's resolutions, and strive and try and sweat and achieve . . . and have it all be in the wrong direction. Climb a hill all year and then find out it's the wrong hill. In fact, you could do so well on your internet stock deals, get so lucky in your business dealings that you essentially own the whole world — and have it be all wrong, believe it or not. Ending up with the world would be to end up with nothing. In the spiritual realm, getting to the finish line with a hundred billion dollars could be tantamount to arriving there with zero.

So we ask today: how can this be? What's Jesus talking about?

I remember hearing, years ago, about a man who was politically convinced that America should allow, and even mandate, Christian prayers in our public schools. And I'm not talking about the quiet, private prayers that students are always free to say to themselves or in little groups huddled over their lunches or their algebra tests or out by the flagpole. Those kinds of prayers have always been legal and always will be legal. No, he wanted the state-paid teachers to actually get right up front and lead, direct ALL the kids in prayer. He thought that was a good idea, and he campaigned zealously for it to happen.

And then, unexpectedly, he and his family moved to the state of Utah. He enrolled his children in the local public schools, and abruptly came to realize that pretty much the entire faculty in that town was part of the Mormon community. That was all right with him, except that he immediately recognized that if there were state-sponsored prayers by the teachers, and if the teachers got up front and organized the kids into prayer groups, they were essentially going to be Mormon-flavored prayers. Mormon theology would find its way into the lines of the prayers. And it took this man about two seconds to say: "Whoops! Wait a minute! I think I've been campaigning in exactly the wrong direction! Hold everything! The state requiring organized prayer is a DISASTROUS idea, not a good one!" As they say on NBC's The West Wing, he was very abruptly "flipped" from one side of the question to the other side.

In their book, Blinded By Might, Cal Thomas and Ed Dobson reflect on the reality that Christians can try and try and try and try . . . and have all their efforts fail if they're climbing up the wrong mountain.

"The strongholds and pretentions [of the enemy]," they write, "can only be demolished under two conditions: one, that we don't fight with the world's weapons, but with divine ones; and two, that our obedience is complete. We have been trying to use the world's weapons of political power, and we have not been sufficiently obedient to the call of Jesus to care as He cares and do as He did. No wonder conservative Christians continue to run into brick walls."

Pay attention here with me to how Jesus describes this business of climbing the wrong mountain, of saving our end-of-the-year bonus paycheck in the wrong retirement account. Here's Luke 9:23-25 . . . and I'll add a bit of commentary as we go.

"Then He said to them all: ‘If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily'" — 365 times in the year 2002 — "‘and follow Me.'" And now notice: "‘For whoever wants to save his life'" — that's USUALLY a good idea — "‘will lose it, but whoever loses his life'" — that's generally a terrible idea — "‘whoever loses his life FOR ME will save it.'" Let's go on. "‘What good is it for a man to gain the whole world'" — excellent idea, we think, excellent New Year's resolution — "and yet lose or forfeit his very self [or soul]?'"

Friend, do you see why I'm thanking God right now that you're not hungover and in a January 1 stupor? Because according to the world's philosophy, we want to grab and get and grow our own money trees here in 2002. We want to gain — if not the whole world — at least our fair share of it. But Jesus tells us: "No. That's all wrong. All your efforts to save yourself mean you'll lose yourself. All your efforts to lose yourself IN ME, in a friendship with Me, mean that you find your true and eternal self. It's all upside-down. Do you get that?"

I mentioned yesterday how here in Luke 9, we find that the 12 disciples have been screaming among themselves about who is going to be the greatest in Jesus' soon-to-come kingdom. They were looking out for self, and of course, in an earthly kingdom located in Washington, D.C., that's what everybody does. You look to expand your own turf and get a better subcommittee assignment and a more prestigious cabinet post and a better locker in the Senate gymnasium. That's why there was such weeping and gnashing of teeth last year when the U.S. Senate fell from Republican control into Democratic hands by the defection of just ONE MAN! All that power lost!

The point is this: Friend, Jesus is talking about a totally different kind of kingdom! And the tactics used by Trent Lott and now Tom Daschle are not the methods of heaven.

In an old bestseller about the life of Jesus entitled The Desire of Ages, the author goes right to this exact point. Notice:

"That which Christ discerned they [the disciples] could not see. THEY DID NOT UNDERSTAND THE NATURE OF CHRIST'S KINGDOM, and this ignorance was the apparent cause of their contention."

They were endlessly going at it. Who's going to be greatest? Who is Jesus going to pick as His running mate? Who's going to get the corner office when we move into the White House? It's interesting that right here in this rough-and-tumble Luke chapter nine, Jesus really lights into them at one point. "What's the matter with you men?" He almost shouts. "Are you really that clueless?" And just seven verses later He brings a child into the group and says: "Here. Look. The kingdom is like this: childlike. Humble. Faithful. Being LEAST is the way to be greatest." In the Matthew rendering of this story, which you can find in chapter 18, He very frankly says:

"I tell you the truth, unless you CHANGE and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven."

In other words, you guys are climbing and climbing and sweating and getting all twisted up in your mountaineering ropes of revenge and greed . . . and you're on the wrong mountain! You're going to get to the top and find there's nothing there: no oxygen, no glory, and certainly no eternal life.

The same writer I just mentioned, E. G. White, takes this issue of "not understanding the kingdom" a bit deeper. Listen to this:

"The strife for the highest place was the outworking of the same spirit which was the beginning of the great controversy in the worlds above, and which had brought Christ from heaven to die. There rose up before Him [Jesus] a vision of Lucifer, the ‘son of the morning,' in glory surpassing all the angels that surround the throne, and united in closest ties to the Son of God. Lucifer had said, ‘I will be like the Most High'; and the desire for self-exaltation" — wrong kingdom — "had brought strife into the heavenly courts, and had banished a multitude of the hosts of God. Had Lucifer really desired to be like the Most High, he would never have deserted his appointed place in heaven; for the spirit of the Most High is manifested in unselfish ministry."

So friend, this is for sure a January 1 message. Do you want 2002 to be the best year ever? Then do a U-turn right now. Stop grabbing for self, and start grabbing for God's Word. Instead of seeking money, seek Jesus. Instead of trying to save your life, determine to lose it in a fully committed and fully surrendered relationship with the Son of God.

That's actually the only way — I've got to tell you — to really have a Happy New Year.