Ensign: Button, Button, Who's Got The Button?

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. Isaiah 18:3

AN ENSIGN ON THE MOUNTAINS 31 May 2013

Now the earliest movie I can think of hearing that line in is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and I thought of a Twilight Zone episode where a couple on the edge of poverty was presented with a button that if they pressed it, they would receive $200,000 (which was a lot of money in the mid 1980s) but someone they did not know would die. It was quite a dilemma at first, but the couple DID press the button, receive the money, and were told when the button was picked up it would be reset and go to another person … that they did not know.

Be thankful, be extraordinarily thankful, that you and I are not relying on someone else's goodwill regarding our lives and what comes after them. But wait a second, the differing-believer asks as they're reading this: aren't we relying on GOD's goodwill to let us in heaven or keep us out? Yes we are, but it is our choice to either accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior or not, and those who do get their sin – their willful acts of separation – covered by Jesus' death on the cross and able to meet God and dwell with Him after this life on Earth. (Do the math: God and what's not of God cannot coexist in heaven.)

God uses anger. “Be ye angry and sin not:”, the first part of Ephesians 4:26 (itself a slight rewording of Psalms 4:4 and 37:8), is a direct statement that anger in itself is not a sin. And I'll go on record here and say the second part of that verse from Ephesians – “let not the sun go down upon your wrath:” I don't always keep, I am known to brood. But back to anger, do you truly think Jesus wasn't angry when he took the whip and drove the moneychangers out of the temple?

Think Jesus wasn't angry when He was being guided through the streets of Jerusalem on His way to being crucified after He'd committed no crime? Think there wasn't ever a figurative moment when one of the disciples said something … well, crazy and Jesus was – oh, what's that texting shorthand, smh? This happened yesterday morning and I still have a hard time knowing why. I just must ask for others' forgiveness. And forgive myself, and that can be the hardest thing to do, can't it?

If I wait until all my i's are dotted and t's are crossed (in King James Version speak, “until every jot and tittle of the law is fulfilled”) I'm NEVER going to ask forgiveness. It's no small thing to say of either you or I that we probably would not handle forty days fasting in the desert and then being tempted by the devil to step – even just a little bit – out of God's will and maybe make one rock into bread to eat or just stick our foot out off the cliff's edge or even settle for one kingdom, heck with the whole world.

I loved reading and seeing The Manga Bible's interpretation of Satan's third temptation of Jesus in the wilderness; the devil's seen to show Jesus a modern metropolis with buildings as far as the eye can see, not just first-century Jerusalem. For it makes the temptation more real to us now in the twenty-first century, doesn't it … when it is very possible to rule the world (perhaps not literally in our cases, but because we're all so interlinked the temptation to achieve total control and damn the hindmost) in an age when though the Internet it is very east to “run to and fro” and increase our knowledge.

“For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” For Matthew 14:26 of course you can insert woman for man, and especially this graduation season for students, it's a question we and they need to ask ourselves. There's nothing bad or sinful about wanting more or wanting to be more, but there's always a price. A price in time, a price in money and resources, a price that can be both subtle and gross, obvious and hidden, that we have to be willing to pay. Let that price not be our integrity and Godly character.

BE ABSOLUTELY SURE BEFORE YOU PRESS THE BUTTON

David

P.S. I write this weekly devotional to keep in touch with all of you in my address book, and I hope to be an encourager too! If you find that I’m not or you want me to get lost, just let me know, thank you!

We praise You, Lord, for this beautiful day You have given us! Please pray with me for the peace of Jerusalem on both sides of the fence and for physical and spiritual communities around our world.

Lord, we need Your strength to fight the natural disasters and human ills to ultimately treat the cause and not just the symptoms; until we who have power change, this world You have made us stewards of won’t either.

Thank You, Lord, for all those in leadership and service here and abroad. Thank You for the opportunities we have been given as well as the promise of new life through Your Son. And may we all seek and have a blessed week! Amen.