Daniel 12:3

Daniel 12:3 is a verse that has come up a couple of times in the past week, and I can’t believe that it’s a coincidence, so I will attempt to elaborate on that verse today. First of all, that is part of a prophecy that was given to Daniel. The prophesy itself appears to be an end-times prophecy, but that particular verse would seem to be timeless: I do not believe that those words are just for the end-times.

It starts out talking about “the wise.” Clearly Daniel was considered to be wise, although I suspect that he would have denied that he was, pointing out that whatever wisdom seemed to come from him actually came from God. I would submit that true wisdom is simply allowing the Holy One to flow through you, and any attempt to take credit for such things would interfere with that process. In James 1, we are told that if we lack wisdom, then we should ask God for it, and that He gives liberally. James goes on to warn that we need to ask in faith believing, and that if we don’t fully believe, then we will not receive. Of course, if we ask for wisdom in order to benefit ourselves, rather than the Kingdom, we still won’t get it.

It goes on to say that the wise shall shine as the firmament of Heaven. In Matthew 5, Jesus commanded us to shine. In order for us to shine, do we have to be wise? Perhaps not, but Jesus also commanded us to be wise, anyway. In Matthew 10:16, Jesus told us to be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. That’s an interesting instruction, in and of itself. How wise are serpents? Well, if you stop to consider that serpents are cold-blooded creatures who can normally find sources of warmth when it is cold, and they generally are able to sneak up on their pray when they are hungry, I’d say that they are as wise as they need to be. Of course, if we are talking about two-legged serpents, they also are good at finding sources of warmth, because they are cold-blooded creatures, they are generally good at sneaking up behind people, (or blatantly walking up pretending to be friendly) and stabbing them in the back, and are clever enough to push their own agenda, and to get what they want by whatever means is available. There is a certain wisdom there, just not the “good kind” of wisdom that we’re used to. The point is, that Jesus wants us to be as clever and as subtle as we need to be to spread the gospel, but not to use that cleverness to hurt anyone (not even people that we perceive to be enemies of the gospel). Notice again that in Matthew 5, Jesus tells us to let our light shine, that others would see our good works, and glorify our Father… I mentioned earlier that God isn’t going to give us wisdom for us to fulfill our own selfish desires. What we do, we should do for the furtherance of the gospel, and not for ourselves. Whatever we do, we should be able to do so that people would be aware of God in us, and so that they can see how much God loves them.

The passage in Daniel also talks about turning many to righteousness. Remember that we are commanded to preach the gospel to every creature. Somewhere along the line, the term creature has taken a negative connotation (I think Mary Shelley is to blame for that), but a creature is simply a created being; we are all created beings. It was pointed out to me recently that, in this particular context, the term creature doesn’t necessarily include cats and dogs, although you can practice preaching to them if you want to. I would suggest that cats make better practice than dogs, at least your own dog. Let’s face it, if you tell your own dog that baking powder mixed with Sprite makes decent shaving cream, he will look at you as if to say, “Why that’s brilliant! Thank you so much for telling me! I never would have thought of that, but now I know exactly what to do the next time I run out of shaving cream!” Very few people will react anywhere near that enthusiastically when you tell them about Jesus. I believe that cats would give a better approximation of the sort of reaction that you can expect from most people.

The Answer Is in Your Hands

There is an story about a wise old man in a village that always seemed to have the right answer to every situation, and to every question. One day, a young man decided to challenge the old man, and prove that the wise man was not so wise. He held a songbird behind his back, and asked the old man to say whether the bird was alive or dead. The plan was, that if the old man answered dead, then he could produce the live bird, and prove the old man wrong; but if the old man answered alive, then he could wring the bird's neck, and produce a dead bird, again proving the old man wrong. The old man looked the young man in the eye, and said, "The answer is in your hands."
Many times we fret about what we don't have, and don't pay nearly enough attention to what we do have. In 2 Kings 4, there is a story about a widow woman, the survivor of a man that was faithful, who has two sons, and a great deal of debt. She asks Elijah to help her, and he asks her what she has. She tells him that all she has is a pot of oil. He tells her to go and borrow vessels from her neighbors, as many as she can get, and pour the oil into the vessels. She filled all of these vessels, and still had oil in her pot. She sold the oil, paid the debt, and then returned the borrowed vessels. God has a way of making the things that we have stretch to meet the need.
In 1 Kings 17, there is a similar story with Elijah the prophet and a widow woman who had a little bit of meal in the bottom of barrel and a small portion of oil in a cruse. Because she was faithful, and prepared food for the man of God before feeding her son or herself, God blessed the barrel and the cruse, and they didn't give out until after the draught ended.
Let me add a cautionary note. I know that there are "ministries" out there that will implore you to trust God, and give to their cause more than you can really afford. I would implore you to trust God, and follow His leading. If He leads you to overextend yourself to support a ministry that you believe in, that's one thing; if a ministry pressures you to overextend yourself to support them, that's a very different thing. If you follow God, you can't go wrong, but there are an awful lot of people that claim to represent God, and are trusting that they will never have to give an account for what they have asked of you. Not only are they putting their trust in the wrong things, they are asking you to, as well. If the blind lead the blind, they shall both fall into the ditch, but you don't have to be blind. The book of James says that if any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not. If it comes down to a choice between paying your light bill or giving to a ministry, well, if it's of God, then God will find a way to pay your light bill, but if it's not of God, then you're going to be sitting in the dark, wondering how God could let this happen to you (but if you had sought God about it, He would have warned you not to give that money to those people). Don't sign your light bill money over to some preacher unless you know with absolute certainty that it's what God wants you to do (It’s okay to fleece the Lord, Gideon did it).
God can do a lot with a little, and sometimes we feel that we just don't have enough. If we let God have His way, though, a little can be plenty. Just as Jesus said that if you have faith as a mustard seed, you can move mountains, so can you do a great deal with just a little time, or a little effort, or a little bit of money. Remember the widow with the two mites? It didn’t seem like much to the disciples, but God saw how much it was to her—it was all she had. Pray for God's direction, and the leading of His Holy Ghost, and He can make a lot out of whatever little you have, too, provided that you are willing to use it for His glory.

Evangelism

I can access the usual resources again. Not sure what happened to them, but I'm glad that they are back.

Evangelism is a subject that I am perhaps a bit touchy about. I personally don't feel called to be an evangelist. Of course, Apostle Paul admonished us to do the work of an evangelist, and he doesn't seem to be talking to just those that have 'the gift' (some would say that that's just written to Timothy, but it seems kind of silly for it to be in the Bible if it were only intended for one man). Of course, there have been a lot of people who have 'evangelized' without wisdom. It can be particularly difficult to talk to someone about God who has been the victim of an over-zealous, under-compassionate evangelist in the past. The United Sates is generally regarded as a Christian nation, but our founding fathers taught religious tolerance, so all religions are welcome here. On the other hand, if you look around at those of us who call ourselves Christians, there isn't a lot of practicing of the faith (Jesus told us that we could identify His followers by their fruits, and Paul was nice enough to list those fruits for us). I posted last week on the subject of 'What Do You Believe?" Do you believe that you are going to Heaven because you have accepted Jesus as Lord of your life? Do you believe that there are people around you that are going to Hell because they haven't accepted Him? Do you think that they deserve that (more than you do, that is)? Jesus told us to compel them to come in, but that doesn't mean to push them. Pushing them only moves them farther away (in some cases, just telling them that they are going to Hell without Jesus will push them away). Every person is an individual, with their own wants and needs (okay, everyone needs Jesus--but not everyone knows that they need Jesus). On the other hand, there are a lot of people who know that something is missing in their lives, and are very much afraid that whatever it is could keep them out of Heaven, so if you don't tell them, they won't listen to anything else you have to say.

Last night we had a visiting pastor speak at our church. He is from a country that is predominantly Buddhist, and they have laws against converting a Buddhist to any other faith. He has found, though, that if you go in, and find out what people need (and everybody needs something), and help meet those needs (physical needs), then, not only are they more receptive when they finally ask, "Why are you doing this?" and he tells them it is because he is a Christian, even the ones that don't want to even consider converting are less likely to call the authorities. My point is that you can "shotgun" people with the gospel, but you're probably going to do as much harm as good (if not more), or you can spend some time and get to know the person. Find out what they need, where they're hurting. I'm sure that there were a lot of people during Katrina that needed to hear the gospel, but most of them were more concerned with where they were going to sleep that night, what they were going to eat (or when they were going to be able to eat next), what they were going to wear the next day, when would they be able to take a shower... Don't talk to me about where I'm going to go when I die right now, I'm too busy just trying to stay alive. Of course, there were probably also a few that were so convinced that they weren't going to survive that they wanted to hear all about Jesus (or Buddha or Mohammad or Krishna or whoever else might have some impact on where they would spend eternity). We have to be open to what people need right now; that means listening to God because He knows exactly what each of us needs.