"The thoughtless and wayward become serious. The hardened repent of their sins, and the faithless believe. The gambler, the drunkard, the licentious, become steady, sober, and pure. The rebellious and obstinate become meek and Christlike. When we see these changes in the character, we may be assured that the converting power of God has transformed the entire man." 26
“Mommy, Daddy,” Billy shouted
from across the yard.
Grace and George released each others hand
and watched their son, face lighted up with happiness, running
toward them, his little arms and legs pumping excitedly.
“Momma, Daddy, guess what,” he
enthused, as he ran up the front steps and dropped into a porch
chair. “Gustov wants to come to Sunday school!”
Billy was so happy that even George was
caught up in the excitement.
“That’s wonderful,” his mother
responded.” She watched her son, his expressions, his tone
of voice, and was filled with amazement at the transformation
the Lord had wrought in her foolish little Billy.
“I told him all about how Christ came
from heaven to save us just like when Whiskers was missing and
I searched all over the neighborhood looking for him. I couldn’t
let Whiskers get lost so I looked everywhere until I found him.
You remember, the dog catcher was chasing him and he was so frightened
that he hid under Old man Cracket’s back porch and wouldn’t
come out until I crawled under there with him and put my arms
around his neck to reassure him that the mean old dog catcher
was gone. Then he came out and we played tag with the ball. He
had lots of fun.”
Grace was amazed at her son’s comprehension
of the basic plan of salvation.
“Billy,” she commented mildly,
“we shouldn’t call him old man Cracket. His name is
Mr. Cracket.”
Billy apologized. “I guess I have lots
of new things to learn, including how to be polite.”
George sat silently, listening to Billy’s
conversation, speculating whether God could transform him also.
“We are all lost,” Billy continued,
“just like Dad and me was lost in the woods. We didn’t
know how to find our way home, but God sent His flaming trees
to walk with us and show Dad the way out of the woods.”
Grace looked at George. “You didn’t
tell me about any flaming trees that walked with you and Billy?”
George shrugged. “I didn’t see
them,” he responded.
“But Daddy, they were all around us
and kept the fire from burning us.”
George looked perplexed. “I’m
sorry Billy, but I didn’t see them.”
Grace looked puzzled at the mention of flaming
trees that walked. “What did they look like Billy,”
she inquired?
Billy jumped to his feet, “they were
tall,” he gestured toward the roof of the porch, “they
were taller then the house, and they had faces, and they smiled
at me.”
George and Grace sat spellbound as their
son described the flaming trees. “And they were all around
us and ran down the hill with us, that’s before we fell into
the ditch. They were bright and shinny like burning trees, but
they didn’t burn. I wasn’t frightened of them because
I knew the Lord sent them to protect us.”
George glanced at his wife and mouthed the
word, “angels!” She nodded.
Billy stopped talking for a moment, as if
reminded of something, then he glanced at his father. “Daddy,”
he said, “I’m sorry for teasing you so much. I know
it bothers you. Please forgive me.”
George was dumbfounded by this simple apology
from his son, so unexpected.
“I forgive you Billy,” his father
replied with genuine humility. “I should be the one apologizing
to you. I swore at you and said some nasty things. I’m sorry
and ask your forgiveness.”
Grace listened to her husband and son with
profound amazement. How wonderful God is, she thought, to effect
this changes in both of them.
Billy’s face brightened at his father’s
words. “God loves you Daddy!” Before his father could
respond, he inquired of his mother, “where’s Cindy.
I gotta tell her that God loves her, too.”
“She’s in her room,” his
mother responded.”
Billy jumped up and ran for the door, exuberance
in every step. “In many ways,” Grace said, “he
hasn’t changed. He’s still my little Billy, he runs
instead of walks.” She smiled at his retreating back.
“I hope he never changes,” her
husband responded, “he’s becoming quite the little missionary.”
Billy dashed through the house shouting,
“Cindy, Cindy, where are you?”
Grace and George sat for a while longer
on the porch. George thought his wife looked especially radiant
today, the colder weather seemed to bring out the rose color in
her cheeks. He felt a strange warmth for his wife welling up in
his heart that he had never experienced before. She was wearing
an especially pretty dress, cornflower blue, his favorite color,
with a pretty white collar. Overwhelmed with a sudden and unexpected
burst of love, he leaned over and gently kissed her on the cheek.
“I love you, my precious.”
Grace was filled with an inner warmth that
seemed to radiate outward and fill her entire being. Smiling up
at George, she squeezed his hand, admiring its strong, masculine
lines compared to her delicate smooth hand. She gently caressed
it, admiring the firm, bold, character it manifested.
For a few moments, they listened to the
hum of voices coming from LuCinda’s room, then George, breaking
the romantic spell, and removing his hand, turned thoughtful.
“Did you hear about that terrorist incident at O’Hare
airport?”
“No,” his wife replied, lingering
for a moment longer over the wondrous experience she and George
had just savored together and fervently desirous that it continue.
“I heard it on the radio this evening
on the way home from work. A bunch of guys, dressed in casual
clothing, started shooting people in one of the terminal buildings.
The reporter, who apparently was on the scene when it happened,
was obviously shaken. She said it was terrible, people screaming,
running in all directions, falling over each other. The noise
of the guns, the shouts of the terrorists who were yelling something
in a strange language, nobody could understand, they must have
been Iranians, or something like that. She said dozens of people
were dead or dying, blood everywhere, broken glass, windows blown
out by grenades, smoke, explosions, gunfire, just terrible.”
Grace looked shocked. “No I didn’t
hear anything like that. That’s terrible,.” she said,
cuddling the Lady Bud close to her bosom.
George continued, nervously sucking on a
toothpick, “the reporter said some of the terrorists were
killed by the security personal at the airport but several got
away.”
“How many people were injured,”
Grace inquired, not daring to ask how many were killed?
“She didn’t know, but said people
were laying everywhere, the floor was literally covered with them.”
He sat silently, as if contemplating the
scene. “Dearest,” he spoke softly, “those people
had no warning, no warning at all. One moment, they were happy
travelers, maybe on vacation, maybe just on a business trip, the
next moment their dead or wounded. No warning,” he sighed.
“Just like you and Billy,” Grace
continued his unspoken thought.
George was profoundly disturbed by his thoughts.
“Truly the scripture is correct when it says that Satan,
as a roaring lion, is walking about seeking whom he may devour.”
Grace was stunned. She had never heard her
husband quoting the Bible before.
George looked at her and in a pensive mood,
spoke. “Honey, I’m frightened for this world, for our
country, for our society, and for us. Things are happening so
quickly.”
Grace sat in silence, examining her fingers,
folding and unfolding them in her lap. “I’m frightened
too, Dear. I don’t know what’s happening either, but
I am terrified by all the natural disasters, terrorism, political
corruption, social and moral pollution.” Looking at her husband
with apprehension in her eyes, she continued. “Is this what
the Bible calls the end of the world?” There it was, both
of them understood, the fear of the unknown would be preferable
to the fear of what they knew was coming upon the world.
For a long moment, they remained deep in
thought before George broke the silence. Would it be proper to
say that ‘God is love.”
Grace broke into a broad smile, “God’s
nature and character are love,” she replied, “therefore,
every attribute, characteristic, motive, purpose, and action of
God must be viewed from the principal of love. Even His wrath,
which is a passive response to our desire to have our own will
and go our own way, is a manifestation of his love. “Wherefore
God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their
own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served
the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even
their women did change the natural use into that which is against
nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of
the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men
working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that
recompence of their error which was meet. And even as they did
not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over
to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;
Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit,
malignity; whisperers, Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful,
proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,
Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection,
implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that
they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do
the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.” 39
“I thought God’s wrath was his
anger toward sinners whom he would toss into hell fire, if they
didn’t repent.”
“A lot of people believe that,”
Grace said, “but Biblical wrath means abandonment of the
sinner to the consequences of our sins, not something God does.”
“Where did you lean all those scriptures,”
George asked incredulously.?
“If you read the Bible long enough,”
she replied with an innocent smile, “you just pick them up.
By the way, do you want another can of beer.”
George was taken aback by this request.
Normally his wife avoided even touching the cans, she hated having
them in the refrigerator.
“No thanks,” he responded, holding
up his can, I’m not finished with this one.”
“The gospel or good news of salvation,”
she continued, “must be founded and rooted in this principal
of God’s love for sinners. Wait while I get my Bible. I want
to read several verses that I haven’t memorized yet.”
While she hurried into the house, he watched
the sun gliding majestically into the west, casting long shadows
upon the lawn.
Returning, Grace had grabbed a sweater on
her way, for the evenings were chilly. Opening her Bible, she
read, “Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: Among
whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts
of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind;
and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great
love wherewith he loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath
quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) And
hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly
places in Christ Jesus: That in the ages to come he might shew
the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through
Christ Jesus.” 40
“It seems to me,” George commented,
watching the moon grow larger and larger as the sky darkened,
that the greatest stumbling block to salvation is our human love;
we often project the attributes of our selfish, self-centered
love unto God.”
“Children often learn erroneous lessons
about Christ’s character by watching their parents,”
Grace replied.
At these words, George winced, thinking
of Billy.
“But Christ has an answer,” she
commented. “That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith;
that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend
with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and
height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge,
that ye might be filled with all the fulness of Godhead with all
saints.” 41.
The night descended around husband and wife,
as they sat contentedly upon their front porch, the evening birds
sang their song of repose and the neighborhood became unusually
quiet.
“To begin to comprehend God’s
love,” Grace remarked, “we need to distinguish between
four Greek terms that the New Testament writers used to express
love and which are translated by the same English word.”
George interrupted her with a gentle laugh.
“Don’t tell me your a Greek scholar,” he said with
some incredulity.
Grace looked at her husband with defiance.
“And why shouldn’t I know some Greek. You men think
all women are ignorant, well I’m not.”
“Now, now,” he said soothingly,
but succeeded only in irritating her further. “I didn’t
mean to insult your famine intelligence. Any wife of mine is smart,
continue, tell me about these Greek words.”
Only slightly mollified, she complied. “The
first of them is STORGE or family love; PHILOS is the second word
that is commonly translated as love but carries the connotation
of brotherly love, while EROS means love between the sexes.
“Is that what we did last night,”
George inquired innocently, with a smirk on his face?
Ignoring his comment, she continued to enlighten
her poor uneducated husband. “AGAPE is a pure love, uncorrupted
by any selfish interest and can be distinguished from human love
in several ways. Our love is always conditional or based upon
some perceived quality in the object or person being loved or
arises out of a response from the object of our love, while God’s
agape is spontaneous and unconditional, flowing from the essence
of His character.”
George held up a hand. Wait a minute”
he said. “Because I’m only human, your telling me that
my love for you is eros love.”
“Yes,” she responded brightly.
He grunted.
“To understand this basic principal
of God’s character enables us to understand that our salvation
arises, not out of our good works or our self-worth, but from
God’s love or grace, which is unearned, or unmerited favor.”
George was in a playful mood. “Are
you unearned favor?”
Grace, ever the serious one in the family,
grimaced at him in the dark, but he saw her expression and laughed
heartily.
“Be serious, honey,” she said
petulantly. “I’m trying to teach you something.”
“Yes, madam school teacher,” he
replied meekly.
“While human love is changeable,”
she said, trying not to let him anger her, remembering the nature
of the subject upon which she was conversing, “Christ’s
agape is unchanging. ‘Yea, I have loved thee with an everlasting
love: therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.’ 42.
‘Love never faileth.’”
“I guess that doesn’t include
us,” her husband replied, with a serious expression, “our
love is always changeable.”
“‘Who shall separate us from the
love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution,
or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written,
For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted
as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded,
that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height,
nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”’
43
“Because we are shaped or born in iniquity,”
Grace continued, “self-love, apart from the transforming
power of God, is the best we can ever hope to achieve. Christ’s
love, however, is a self-giving love. ‘Who, being in the
form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But
made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a
servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found
in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto
death, even the death of the cross.’” 44.
George yawned and stretched, glancing at
his watch, giving every indication of his indifference toward
the conversation, but, being irked at his remarks, Grace persistently
ignored his body language.
“When agape is perfectly reproduced
in the lives of God’s saints, here on earth, it is the most
powerful witness for his transforming grace that the world has
ever behold, apart from the personal witness of Christ himself.”
“Do you know of anyone who loves with
agape,” he inquired, settling back into his chair?
“No.”
“Then how can we witness for Christ
the way you describe it?”
“Only when we understand the nature
of God’s love and become rooted and grounded in this love,
can we be said to be transformed into saints and serve him with
unselfish motives,” she replied
“Where did eros come from,” he
inquired? Grace was pleased, he was still interested, despite
his irritating manners.
“Satan’s rebellion in heaven was
against the principal of agape, therefore, he introduced eros,
or self-love in its place. After Christ’s death, the Christian
church established agape as the motive for service, therefore
Satan launched his first attack upon this concept.
“Hang on,” George interrupted,
“I’ll be back in a minute, drinking too much beer makes
me have to run.”
During the few moments he was gone, Grace
collected her thoughts. Never before had her husband shown such
interest in spiritual matters.
A harvest moon shown full upon their front
porch. Her thoughts wondered back to a time of innocence, when,
as teenagers, George had romanced her under such a moon, surreptitiously
placing his arm around her shoulders, hoping her father wasn’t
watching. Despite her apparent reluctance, she really did enjoy
his embraces. For long hours, they sat in the porch swing, watching
smoke ascending from several bond fires, talking of future plans,
and kissing, when her father wasn’t watching. She sighed.
Whatever happened to those fall evenings and long walks, hand
in hand, among the maple trees?
George returned and plumped into his chair.
“Lets buy a porch swing,” Grace
said impulsively.
“You wanna smooch, again,” her
husband replied with a chuckle in his voice?’
“Yes, we haven’t done anything
like that in years.” She pulled her chair nearer his and
took his hand in hers, examining its strong lines in the light
of the moon.
“Tell me more about agape,” he
inquired, not a sentimental bone in his body, she thought.
“The attack upon the principal of agape
reached its greatest deception when Augustine, he was the bishop
of Hippo in North Africa, who was one of the great fathers of
the Catholic church and lived during the fourth century A.D.,
conceived of a synthesis of Agape with Eros to produce a concept
which he termed caritas from which the translators of the King
James Version obtained the word charity which is used most frequently
in Paul’s love letter to the Corinthians.”
George laughed.
“Now what’s so funny,” she
demanded?
“Your a historian as well as Greek
scholar.”
She hesitated, then decided to ignore his
jibes. “As a result of this fusion of the divine and human,
‘Not I but Christ,’ became “I and Christ.’
Self-love replaced self-sacrificing love and the church lost its
power. As a result, it became corrupt.”
“Are you suggesting the church is powerless,”
he asked incredulously?
She would liked to have responded, how do
you know, you don’t even attend church, but again she held
her tongue. He was learning something, after all, even from his
ignorant wife.
“As a result of the corruption of Agape,
the gospel of eros permeated the pagan and Christian worlds. The
gospel according to eros teaches that man must save himself through
our own good works. This concept is the basis of all non-Christian
religions and most Protestants teach the same thing. The gospel
based on caritas teaches that we must take the initiative in our
salvation, prove ourselves worthy of God’s love. When He
determines our fitness then He meets us part way, and makes up
for our shortcomings or deficiencies. ‘O foolish Galatians,
who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before
whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified
among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit
by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so
foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by
the flesh?;” 45
George listened intently. Despite his foolishness
and interruptions, he was deeply interested, never having heard
anything like this before.
“The gospel of Agape teaches the pure
concept of love,” she was saying. “‘For when we
were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
For scarcely for a righteous man will one die: yet peradventure
for a good man some would even dare to die. But God commendeth
his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ
died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood,
we shall be saved from wrath through him. For if, when we were
enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much
more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.” 46
“Awhile ago,” George ventured,
“you said something about the good news of the gospel.”
“The Eros and Ceritas gospels are not
good news for they depend on our works to approach unto God before
He condescends to approach unto us, while the agape gospel is
unconditional good news for it shows a God who took the initiative
in our salvation. This is the gospel that will finish the work
before Christ’s second advent. “And this gospel of the
kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto
all nations; and then shall the end come. When ye therefore shall
see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet.”
47
“If I understand you correctly, this
message, of the everlasting, unconditional good news of the gospel
is the antidote for low-self esteem?”
“I will make a man more precious than
fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.” she
replied. 48
She fell silent, having exhausted, at least
for tonight, her fund of spiritual knowledge.
George glanced at the moon. “I can’t
understand why you women think a harvest moon is romantic. After
all, its just a pile of old rocks floating in cold space.”
Grace reached over, gently removed the can
of beer from his unresisting hand, and poured it over his head.
* * *
Celeste shivered and pulled her coat tighter
around her shoulders. Depression settled about her like December
winds Walking along the street, in search of God, she glanced
into brightly lit shop windows and into the blackened interior
of dark alleys, but couldn’t find Him anywhere. She had been
searching for Him ever since she and Jasper had conversed about
God.
The sun was setting in the west, casting
long, golden shadows over streets and buildings. Dark shadows
penetrated Celeste’s lonely heart. Glancing up, she noticed
a Catholic church several blocks ahead that appeared to be surrounded
by shrubs and flower gardens. Certainly God could be found there,
she reasoned.
A few moments later, she gazed up at the
massive stone ramparts of the church and its stained glass windows.
Stern and forbidding, they seemed to reflect her own heart of
cold stone. The western face of the cathedral was brilliantly
lit by the setting sun which reflected off the windows with a
dazzling brilliance. She hated sunsets, suggestive of the approach
of night with its cold embrace of death and dying. Massive stones
radiated the heat of the departing sun while a mountain of lonely
steps marched upward toward the massive wooden doors of the sanctuary.
Lush flower gardens bordered the church.
Inviting benches offered a moments repose to her tired feet. Purple,
blue, yellow, golden, red, and orange blooms perfumed the air
with their scent. Well trimmed shrubs afforded shelter for small
birds that twittered among the branches.
The coolness of the evening and the relative
quiet solitude of the gardens caused Celeste to relax. Birds flew
high above her head, among the stone ramparts of the cathedral,
so quiet and solemn in appearance.
Kicking her small feet, Celeste leaned back
on the stone bench, gazing at the sky above the slate gray church
roof. Higher and higher her gaze ascended, until she could see
the clouds, gilded orange and red on their under surfaces.
Never had she wondered so far from home.
As night descended about her, she shivered from the cold and loneliness
of the place. The setting sun no longer illuminated the stone
facade. The cold, forbidding stones seemed to gather themselves
together against the night winds, shivering with the cold. Lonely
stones stared back at a lonely little girl sitting upon a lonely
stone bench. The night enfolded the church and the little girl
to its stony heart in arms of enduring silence.
Celeste sighed, rose from her bench and
headed back home, her search for God ending in futility. God wasn’t
here, either.
