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“THIS IS THE YEAR I STRIKE IT
RICH!” #2
SUCCESSFULLY CLIMBING THE WRONG MOUNTAIN
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.
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