Here’s an interesting passage I preached out of a couple of weeks ago…

In Ezekiel chapter 14, the Lord speaks through His prophet Ezekiel a message to His people.  In verses 12-14, Ezekiel, speaking for God says, “The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, if a country sins against me by being unfaithful and I stretch out my hand against it to cut off its food supply and send famine upon it and kill its men and their animals, even if these three men—Noah, Daniel and Job—were in it, they could save only themselves by their righteousness, declares the Sovereign LORD.”

The  next 6 verses of Ezekiel describe more of the same.  Basically, when God gets ready to do something to Jerusalem, for their unfaithfulness to Him, it’s going to be worse than these examples, and not even the presence of Noah, Daniel and Job would stay God’s hand.  Only those three men would be spared.

The scripture notes their righteousness as the cause of their salvation from these judgements from God, but my question is, why these three men?  God uses these same three men each time over a course of different judgement examples.

Where is Moses on this list, the savior of God’s people from Egypt?  He would have been a great example.  How about Abraham, a man the Bible calls the God’s friend, he was certainly righteous in God’s eyes.  Joseph is another candidate for the list.  No one in the Old Testament was more a type of Christ than Joseph.  In fact, the Bible does not record any sins committed by Joseph, but he’s not on the list.  The list could go on and on… Isaac, Jacob, Joshua, Samuel, David (a man after God’s own heart), Elijah, Jeremiah???

There has to be something that links these men together, something that sets them apart for this example, something that we can identify as the quality that cause God, speaking through Ezekiel, to use these three men as the lone survivors of God’s wrath in His example to His people.

Faithfulness.  I believe the answer is faithfulness.  In there own way, each of these men proved their faithfulness to God in the face of varied and difficult circumstances.

Noah faced the test of futility.  He proved faithful, even when he wasn’t sure the rains would ever come or this huge ship he built on dry ground would ever have a chance to float.  He probably looked like a fool to those around him, but he didn’t waiver.

Daniel showed his faithfulness to God at the King’s table.  He refused to eat things that he believed he shouldn’t eat, and the rest is history.   You could say that the test he faced was the temptation to lower his standards.

You might think that God put Daniel on this list because he showed himself to be faithful to God in the lion’s den.  The only problem with that, is that when God spoke this statement about Noah, Daniel and Job, it was years before Daniel would have to face the lions… His stand at the king’s table proved the faithfulness of his heart to God, well before Daniel had to face the lion’s den.

Job’s great test was the test of suffering.  The Bible says that satan reached out and touched everything Job had.  He killed his family and servants, flocks and herds.  All was lost.  His wife even told him, “Why don’t you just curse God, and when you’re done giving God a good cursing, why don’t you just die?”

Job looked it all over and said, “I was naked when I cae into this world, I’ll be naked when I go out, the Lord gives and takes away… blessed be the name of the Lord.”

When I see something in the Bible that shows me the likes/dislikes of God, I like to pick up on those cues and see where I can be more pleasing to Him.  I think He was very pleased with the faithfulness of these 3 men, and they are company that I would not mind keeping!

Have you ever experienced that moment, when you are watching a movie or reading something or talking to someone, and you find something “real.” Something real about love or life or passion or intent.  These are moments that bring clarity, moments that bring perspective, moments that make some things seem suddenly very important and other things seems suddenly very unimportant.

Those moments sneak up on me a lot.  I’m not looking for real… I’m looking for entertainment or escape or conversation, and I find real.  Often those moments are unexpected, but I’m always grateful for them.  I long for those moments of clarity, I need them, I crave them.  We all need them.

Last night over the course of a couple of conversations with my wife, Cheryl, I had some “clarifying” moments.  Some realities about life, marriage, family and ministry made themselves evident.  In that moment, I knew with a great degree of certainty, what is and isn’t important in life, and the things that are worth focusing on and the things that aren’t.

Those moments serve as road markers.  They direct you and illuminate the path you are on.  I don’t know how many times the insanity, cares, and pace of my life cause me to forget the direction I was called to walk, not just as a Pastor, but as a father and husband.  Thank you, Lord, for those moments…

I was totally honored to spend 8 days traveling and ministering with a group of 19 students and adults from Ocala and Naples, FL.  Oh, yeah, Ben was from West Virginia, too!  We worked with Castillo del Rey (King’s Castle), who has been doing a tremendous work in that country for over 20 years.  Missionaries Don and Terri Triplett have overseen this ministry expand to 31 nations!

Thank you to all of our national staff that made the week so amazing and all the students that “left it all on the field” for Jesus in El Salvador!

Had a great time this week visiting the Dominican Republic w/ my pastor and our missions director.  We were checking things out and making plans for a couple of 2010 missions trips.  The pics below are a sampling of the 275 pics I took.

There is something very “right” about getting out of my office and getting on a plane and meeting new people and seeing new sites.  We also did a fair amount of envisioning what next Spring and Summer will look like for our missions program… good stuff!

I'm on a plane!

typical village outside of capitol, Santo Domingo

beautiful mountains... pastor and missionary Nelson de Freitas in the background

I’ll take just a second to brag on our student choir… they did an amazing job at the Pen Florida District Council Fine Arts Festival.  They were awarded the top award for Youth Choir in the state!  I’m really proud of them, and all of our students that participated in Fine Arts.  In total, 20 of our 37 events were given invitations to the National Fine Arts Festival.  That’s in August, and it’s gonna be off the chain!

This morning I visited the Francis Marion Military Academy for student-led prayer and to see them do their “formations.”  Very cool.  It’s a small school, but the students are really intense.  About a dozen students gathered at the flagpole.

During their formations, a group of 4 Cadets came forward and unrolled, attached and raise the flag.  On the P.A. system, they played the Star Bangled banner while all the Cadets and leaders stood at attention and saluted.  The flag hadn’t really moved much until the music started.  Almost as if on cue, the flag caught a breeze and stretched itself out and began flying in a slow, twisting motion.  It was moving and cool all at the same time.

Thank You, Lord, for this day!

Lamentations 3:22-23
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

Take a moment, and reflect on God’s goodness…

I’ve noticed that in the last couple of years, as I’ve become a better student of the Bible, ministry and other topics, opportunities to use new-found info. come more often.  When I make time for reading, listening to audiobooks, podcasts and good old discussion with others, I find opportunities to use all my new “wisdom” on a regular basis.

Just yesterday, I was talking to one of the leaders in our student ministry, and he was going through something tough.  Just that morning I had finished a chapter in a book I’d been working my way through that perfectly spoke to his questions/needs.  If that was the first time that had happened, I could chalk it up to coincidence.  If I had steered that conversation toward the topic of the chapter I’d just read, then I’d have the answer as to why it seems to be happening.

If you don’t… READ, LISTEN and LEARN!  I wonder what I did before I kept myself fed.  It adds a lot to my life, and certainly gives me things to say when people need advice!

Yesterday I picked up my 6 yr. old daughter from school, b/c she threw up and didn’t feel great.  She was basically fine all day.  That was until last night… While attempting to use the bathroom (the other symptom of her stomach ache) she puked all over the floor.  Looking back, Cap’t Crunch wasn’t a great selection for a bedtime snack.  Anyhow, wow, that was a lot of vomit!

I hate to throw up, but I really hate to see my kids sick.  It makes me feel pretty helpless.  We prayed, gave her a Tums (hey, we didn’t have any Pepto handy) and put her back in bed w/ a trash can close at hand.  That’s about all you can do.  She was puke free and feeling very talkative this morning.  And VERY happy to be out of school for the day!

Yesterday my Pastor and I sat in three different rooms.  One was a home office and two were hospital rooms.  One was a maternity room and one wasn’t.  Each of those situations were heartbreaking/difficult in their own way.  Families are in crisis, marriages are on the brink, and students are facing things no one should have to deal with…

Sitting in those moments, I reflected that for these people, right now, they are dealing with issues that make the rest of life’s issues/problems pale in comparison.  Even as an outsider, when I heard the anguish in their voices, saw the decisions being wrestled with, and the fate of families, children and faith being decided, I felt the rotation of the earth pause, if ever so slightly.  It’s one (or 3) of those moments when the stuff on my day’s to-do list seems far less important than it did before I walked into those rooms.

Ministry is full of those moments, and it’s always sad to see people go through difficult things, but those are the moments that remind me why we do what we do, and how important it is to speak truthfully about the effects of sin and hold fast to bold convictions about God’s plan for His people’s lives.

God, be merciful on these families.  Only Your grace will cover the needs.

Yesterday, April 12, 2009, was Easter.  It was a good day.  As a staff member at a church, Easter is far from a day off!  We had morning service and then our family spent time w/ another great family in the church, and then back to church.  I had the honor of preaching last night.  I guess it’s no surprise that Easter evening service is not going to set any attendance records, but it was a good time, and the Lord helped me speak.

The lesson learned yesterday, for me, is that a church should never miss an opportunity to invite the community in… especially on a day like Easter.  We have a great Pastor and staff, and service yesterday was powerful, w/ video, music and speaking intertwined, my only nagging feeling is that we didn’t make a push for visitors on Easter.

We have glossy cards out right now in circulation w/ our church folks and ads running in local magazines for our “Family 911″ series in May, and I think that’s going to be great, I just think we might have missed it a bit on Easter.  It’s the most highly attended service/services of the year, and people are ready to be invited, people are feeling guilty about skipping the last 22 Sundays in a row, I mean, people are READY to get dressed up and come to church on Easter!

We had a great turnout, and 7 folks made decisions to follow Christ (Praise the Lord), I just left feeling like we could have reached more and touched more lives.  This is one of those feelings that will be a reminder to me.  I’m in student ministry and this reminds me that the end of school, the beginning of school, spring break, Christmas, these are all opportunities to blow it up and invite students in to a night of music, message and connection.

On a side note… yesterday, on Twitter, I posted, “Hey Satan – Boom, you’re roasted – Jesus is alive!”  If you don’t follow The Office, that makes no sense… I crack myself up, though.

- Charles