“Joy belongs to those who understand that
earth is but a rehearsal
for heaven. Nothing in life is wasted
that remembers this.”¹
-Calvin Miller

If only for this life we have hope in Christ,
we are to be pitied more than all men.
-I Corinthians 15:19

“Joy belongs to those who understand that
earth is but a rehearsal
for heaven. Nothing in life is wasted
that remembers this.”¹
-Calvin Miller

If only for this life we have hope in Christ,
we are to be pitied more than all men.
-I Corinthians 15:19

Before my dad went back to college and became a teacher, he was a sheet metal worker. Once, when I was very small, he invited me to spend the day on the job with him. He was working on a house built up against the red rock cliffs of Sedona, Arizona, long before New Age disciples staked their claim on its powers of convergence.

I remember the hour-long drive to get there, just Dad and me in his pick-up truck. He shared coffee with me from his thermos, poured it into the lid and let me sip it carefully while we drove. Once at the site, he showed me around, gave me a “play area”, and said he would always be close, so have fun and holler if I needed him.

It was an early spring day, cold enough to need a heavy coat and mittens, but as the sun climbed high in the sky, the red rocks soaked up its heat. I shed mittens and jacket, roaming and playing in warmth radiating off the cliffs and boulders. Midway through the morning, Daddy took a short break, poured more coffee into the thermos lid for me and hefted me up on a rock to view the vast red canyons and monuments that pierce the sky like ancient war spears. We walked a while, searched for lizards and road runners and watched hawks travel the currents of air. At noon, we sat on the ground together, Indian-style, and ate sandwiches from his lunch bucket.

Mid-afternoon, another coffee break, more rock-climbing and exploring. Dad showed me the carpenters’ intricate wood work, described how the rocks had been quarried for the front walk-way, showed me the plumbing pipes. He let me handle some of his tools, pointed out the metal duct work and explained how it would carry cool air throughout the house. When other workers showed up on the job, he introduced me around as his daughter.

That day is indelibly etched in my memory. I was with my dad, on his turf, in his world. He had invited me in to share it with him. If I could have made that day last forever, I would have.

When I think about heaven, I think about that day with my dad. Imagine! God leading us into His eternal, vast domain and saying, “Come and play!” The wonders of heaven will unfold before us.

Peter Kreeft wrote that “all analogies limp,”² and certainly none more than those we construct for ourselves to help us grasp the unknown glories of heaven. But I think I sampled a tiny taste of heaven on that long ago day when my dad bundled me into his pick-up truck and introduced me to another world—a world that, until my father took me there, was only a mysterious, distant place.

An Ancient Spiritual Discipline

In the past two years, as I’ve watched people I love die, I’ve thought a lot about that mysterious, distant place called heaven. Within the sweet fellowship of my community, we’ve buried parents, siblings, friends, and a teenage daughter killed by a drunk driver. We’ve walked through the grass of cemeteries, sat in quiet funeral rooms and breathed the rose-scent of bouquets wafting off the wood-grained lids of coffins. We have stood tearful on this side of heaven, while those we love have stepped onto the other side into glory we can only try to imagine.

Sorrow and pain have pointed our hearts toward heaven.

For us post-modernists, it usually takes such an experience with intense sadness and death to make us think about life beyond the here and now. For most of us, only great losses turn our thoughts away from our obsession with making for ourselves a heaven here on earth; only deep piercing grief causes us to contemplate the end of our days.

It hasn’t always been so.

In early Christian thinking, meditating on the hereafter was a common practice. It was considered a valuable, worthwhile exercise to not only examine life but also to contemplate death.

Richard Foster wrote, “The notion of reflecting on our own demise is actually an ancient spiritual discipline.”³

You don’t have to look very far into classic Christian writings to discover how true that is.

Blaise Pascal was a brilliant seventeenth-century mathematician. He often was ridiculed by his intellectual peers for shifting his genius from mathematics to theology and apologetics. But nothing mattered more to Pascal than pursuing God, getting to know Him, and experiencing an ever-deepening intimacy with Christ.

His life was short—he lived only thirty-eight years, but he was a man consumed with love for God. Listen in as he prays, “…Grant then that I may so anticipate my death that I may find mercy hereafter in your sight.”⁴

Teresa of Avila lived a century before Pascal, and her writings still vibrate with her longing for heaven. “O my delight, Lord of all created things and my God! How long must I wait to see you?”⁵

Madame Guyon, writing to a dying friend, said, “I feel my loss, but I am very happy for you. I could envy you. Death helps to draw away the veil that hides infinite wonders.”⁶

John Donne wrote that it is our job to make a home in this world while remembering that home is not here.

This is a challenge to us American Christians, isn’t it? We aren’t in the habit of “anticipating” our death. We believe in heaven; we just don’t give it much thought.

A Better Country

“Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see”⁷—any Christian who has sat through even a handful of sermons has heard this verse from Hebrews 11, but look at verse 2: “This is what the ancients were commended for.”

Able, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Rahab—the list goes on and on—all of them were commended for believing in heaven. But they did more than just believe. Look at verse 16:

They were longing for a better country—
heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed
to be called their God, for He has prepared
a city for them. (emphasis added)

It’s obvious, isn’t it? These saints are not heroes simply because of their certainty of heaven; they are heroes because of their yearning for it.

Nothing so reveals our character and the condition of our hearts like the things we crave; and that’s what makes this passage so fascinating. God is telling us here that our desires, our passions, generate a response in His heart. Think of it as parental pride.

God is telling us that it reflects badly on Him when His children don’t long to be with Him.

He’s saying it reflects well on Him when they do.

I wonder--how many of us live with a yearning to be with our Father?

How many Christians generate pride in the Father’s heart because they long to be with Him, in His home?

Made For This Purpose

Picture it: A farewell message.

“I’m going away, but I’m coming back again. And when I do, I’ll take you back with me to my home.”

Jesus’ friends hear Him say He is going to be engaged in a building program, making His Father’s house ready for them—preparing a place for them to live with Him forever.⁸

Now step into a Roman prison and see Paul, his chains clanking as he moves about, always tethered to a guard, smelling his breath, hearing his every word, moving in a kind of macabre dance with his every step. Hear Paul say, “For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.”⁹

And then, as though he’s a contestant in a divine sort of “Let’s Make A Deal,” Paul adds, “If I could choose, I don’t know which I’d want--door number one: to keep on living here on earth to serve Christ and His people, the Church; or, door number two: to die right now and step into heaven to live with Jesus in His home.”

“I’m torn,” he says.¹⁰

Torn, because he knows that nothing earth has to offer comes close to what heaven has in store for us.

Torn, because he loves the people God put in his life, and he loves serving Christ through serving them.

Earlier, when he was free, making tents, traveling as an itinerant pastor, he wasn’t ambivalent. Peek into his thoughts. Read a letter he wrote to the Christians in the church in Corinth: “I choose door number two.”

Paul would rather be at home in heaven with Jesus than here, on this planet.¹¹

Why does Paul feel torn about leaving earth for heaven when he’s writing the Philippians, but when he’s writing the Corinthians, there’s not a hint of hesitation? Heaven is his first choice.

The answer is easy. Read the first few verses of II Corinthians 5 and you’ll understand: he’s been meditating on heaven. The picture of it is clear in his mind. Hear the longing in his voice as he contemplates the “eternal house in heaven, not built with human hands”¹²—the one Jesus is building for us.

Here, now, we’re all groaning, yearning to be there, he writes. We’re all living with heavy burdens and yearnings deeply embedded in our souls. Hear that yearning in David’s prayer: “How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints for the courts of the Lord.”¹³

Because heaven is what we were made for. Heaven is our true home.

“Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose,” Paul wrote.

No wonder Paul would have chosen door number two: Thinking on heaven, getting it front and center in his thoughts--heaven is the only choice. Paul is lost in the wonder of it, mulling it over, savoring it.

Paul knew what he was missing out on--what we’re all missing out on as long as we’re here, and not there. He had glimpsed it—had a “virtual” tour of it.

Paul had seen Paradise.

And he was homesick.

The Truest Index

It’s a fascinating account—Paul was “caught up to the third heaven”¹⁴—that loftiest place, beyond our atmosphere, above the stellar heavens, into the throne room of the Holy of Holies. He saw the very highest heaven and listened in on the conversations of the Trinity.

There, he tells us, he heard things he is not allowed to repeat, things “inexpressible.”

And he knew he was home.

Some commentators believe that Paul entered heaven through a revelation God gave him during intense persecution and suffering. It’s possible. Others think he might have seen heaven in a vision while he was sleeping. If that’s true, how hard it must have been to wake up!

This we know for certain: he was forbidden to tell all that he had seen and experienced. In fact, God gave him a “thorn” to serve as a reminder to keep secret all he had experienced, to remind him not to boast about it. A reminder, maybe, of what awaits him, so that when he suffered, persecuted as few of us ever will be persecuted, he could hold on to the reality of heaven and remain convinced that regardless of whatever it cost him to serve Christ here, home in heaven would one day make it all worthwhile.

But could there be more to that reminder?

I wonder--could it be that if Paul had told us in detail all he saw; if we could fully know the joys inexpressible that wait for us in heaven, would the yearning for it would break our hearts into tiny bits?

Could it be?

In his great novel, The Final Beast, Frederick Buechner’s character Nicolet, musing about heaven, says,

“There’s dancing there… The angels are dancing. And their feet scatter new worlds like dust. …If we saw any more of that dance than we do, it would kill us sure. The glory of it. Clack-clack is all a man can bear.”¹⁵

At times, if we listen, our hearts beat with a longing for the glory of it, for that which we have not seen, that which we cannot imagine. We sense the discord in our universe, in our souls. C. S. Lewis recognized the pain of our longing and considered it an evidence of the truth of who we are— God’s creation, intended for life in His presence, our true home.

Apparently, then, our lifelong nostalgia, our longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we now feel cut off, to be on the inside of some door which we have always seen from the outside, is no mere neurotic fancy, but the truest index of our real situation. And to be at last summoned inside would be both glory and honour beyond all our merits and also the healing of that old ache.¹⁶

The Pleasure of Surprise

G. K. Chesterton wrote that the “chief pleasure is surprise.”¹⁷

Of all the pleasures we expect in heaven, I think our greatest pleasure will be surprise. Surprise, after surprise, after surprise! Jesus will be more than we ever hoped for, more than we ever could have imagined! The sweetness of fellowship with Him, seeing Him, touching Him, hearing the voice of the Father--the extravagance of heaven’s bliss will stagger us.

New wonder and fascination will erupt with every discovery. Our curiosity will never be sated, our capacity for delight never exhausted. New surprises will await us at every bend in the streets of gold.

The size of God’s family will amaze us—all of us there together, from every generation, from every nation, every race and every status, from the lowliest of the poor to the loftiest of the rich and powerful—and all our minor differences about the peripheral stuff, like sprinkling versus immersion, pre-trib or post-trib or pre-wrath or amillenial, written prayers or extemporaneous, organ music or guitars and drums—all of it will seem so silly, so inconsequential. Nothing will matter but the joining of our voices and hearts in praise of Jesus who died for us and rose again and built this home for us to share with Him forever.

Eugene Peterson wrote:

…Heaven is like nothing quite so much as a good party. Assemble in your imagination all the friends you enjoy being with most, the companions who evoke the deepest joy, your most stimulating relationships, the most delightful of shared experiences, the people with whom you feel completely alive—that is a hint at heaven….¹⁸

But only a hint—because our imaginations, our expectations, can’t fathom the perfect beauty and joy that God holds in store for us. New surprises of grace will delight us throughout eternity. This is a certainty we can bank on because Paul, who saw heaven for himself, tells us so. He tells us that we will live every moment of eternity with the sweet taste of anticipation on our lips. Because “hope remains.”¹⁹

It’s a fascinating study--look at I Corinthians 13 and see the transition as Paul moves into a discussion about heaven–where we no longer “see through a glass darkly”; where finally, for the first time, all is clear, all is fully seen with new eyes. It is there, in heaven’s perfection, that these three-love, faith, and hope--will remain. Forever.

There is a kind of tantalizing conundrum in the thought of hope carrying over into heaven, isn’t there? Love we understand. Of course, love for God will not dissipate in eternity—it will soar with new wings, higher, fuller, unrestrained and uninhibited, as we see Jesus’ face and understand for the first time the depths of His love for us.

And faith—faith is our certainty and trust in the character and integrity of the Trinity. We can accept without difficulty that it will surge ever more powerfully, ever more passionately, as we live in the very presence of the immutable God in whose image we were made. Would we stop believing, stop trusting, now that we are seeing?

But hope? What is left to hope for when once we have gained all that God has promised us? Only this: more and ever-increasing experiences of the riches of God in Christ Jesus.

Hope will go into eternity with us, filling us with new expectations of grace, new and ever sweeter anticipation of what God will reveal to us over the eons of eternity. We will never stop hoping, eagerly expecting new understanding, new experiences of joy and worship and service. We will never exhaust the vast unfettered reaches of God’s wisdom and creativity.

A. W. Tozer wrote,

…Only God can supply everlasting novelty. In God every moment is new and nothing ever gets old. Of things religious we may become tired; even prayer may tire us; but God never. He can show a new aspect of His glory to us each day for all the days of eternity and still we shall have but begun to explore the depths of the riches of His infinite Being.²⁰

Seeing God’s splendor, breathing heaven’s pure air, our expectations will be heightened, our hopes raised. Every conversation with the King, every encounter with the saints, every horizon, planet beyond planet, will offer us amazing new revelations of triumphant grace from the God of creation.

Because to live without hope would be to not live at all.

Because if in this life only we have hope, we are of all people most miserable.

A Gesture of Welcome

Jesus is there, in heaven, sitting at the right hand of the Father.²¹ His seated posture demonstrates the truth of His words on the cross, “It is finished.”

The work of salvation is done, the final exclamation point carved into the stone rolled away from the empty tomb.

And so Jesus is seated.

But look! Something happens in the throne room when the martyr Stephen is ready to leave this life and step into heaven. Read it in Acts: Stephen looking up, seeing glory, seeing Jesus standing.²²

Let your mind consider the beauty of that gesture, the honor of it, if you can--Almighty God, creator of heaven and earth, standing up when His beloved faithful servant enters His presence.

Can it be?

Will it be so for us?

Will we have lived our lives with longing for Him, with yearning so deep, so passionate, that whatever this life has to offer, it is not enough for us?

Will we be like Stephen—looking up, our eyes locked on Jesus’ face, our hearts already there, because He is our treasure?

When we step into His presence, having longed for Him, for Home, will He so honor us, so welcome us that He, the King of kings, the Most High God, will rise to His feet, standing to extend His welcome?

On that day, we will fully understand the meaning of glory—the smile of God, heaven’s approval, heaven’s applause.

If we have longed for Him, if we have yearned for heaven—then He will not be ashamed of us.

We will see with our own eyes the delight that fills His heart because of the hope that is alive in ours.

Tracking Grace

“…It is invariably those who see and live out
most clearly the fact that this world is not
our true home who also have the ability
to enjoy life most fully.”²³

Ronald Rolheiser

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere; I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

Psalm 84:10

1. What does it mean to you to think of this life as a “gymnasium?”

2. What might be some lessons that “even joy cannot teach you?”

3. What experience have you had that you would consider a “ministry of the night”? How did it affect your yearning for God and His home?

4. What does it mean to you to think of Jesus standing in honor of your arrival in heaven?

5. How might a renewed passion for heaven change your life here and now?

---

¹ Calvin Miller, Into The Depths Of God, 222

² Peter Kreeft, Making Sense Out Of Suffering, 120

³ Spiritual Classics, 47

⁴ Blaise Pascal, Mind On Fire, 286

⁵ Teresa of Avila, Let Nothing Trouble You, Compiled by Heidi S. Hess (Ann Arbor: Chairs, Servant Publications, 1998), 143

⁶ Jeanne Guyon, Intimacy With Christ (Jacksonville, FL: The SeedSowers, 2001), 77

⁷ Hebrews 11:1

⁸ John 14:1-3

⁹ Philippians 1:21

¹⁰ Philippians 1:22-23

¹¹ II Corinthians 5:8

¹² II Corinthians 5:1-5

¹³ Psalm 84:1 (emphasis added)

¹⁴ II Corinthians 12:1-7

¹⁵ Frederick Buechner, The Final Beast (New York: Atheneum, 1970), 181-182

¹⁶ C.S. Lewis, The Weight Of Glory, 41

¹⁷ G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 27

¹⁸ Eugene Peterson, A Long Obedience In The Same Direction, 183

¹⁹ I Corinthians 13:13

²⁰ A. W. Tozer, God Tells The Man Who Cares (Harrisburg, Pennsylvania: Christian Publications, Inc., 1970), 106

²¹ Hebrews 1:3

²² Acts 7:55

²³ Ronald Rolheiser, Against An Infinite Horizon (New York: Crossroad Publishing Co., 2001), 80

All believers are equipped with gifts that enable them to function in the body of Christ. This message is an overview of how spiritual gifts demonstrate the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Years ago, 20th Century-Fox advertised for a salesman and got this reply from an applicant:

I am at present selling furniture at the address below. You may judge my ability as a salesman if you will stop in to see me at any time, pretending that you are interested in buying furniture. When you come in you can identify me by my red hair. And I will have no way of identifying you. Such salesmanship as I exhibit during your visit, therefore, will be no more than my usual workaday approach, and not a special effort to impress a prospective employer (“Bits & Pieces” [3/85]).

I don’t know if that young man got the job, but he demonstrated a quality that is rare, although it shouldn’t be—integrity. It’s easy to talk about integrity. In a 1980 Sports Illustrated, a well-known athlete said, “Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident and money takes wings. The only thing that endures is character.” That was O. J. Simpson speaking!

But talking about character and living it are two different things. When we find a man whose life radiates integrity, we should pause and learn from him. The apostle Paul was such a man. In his defense before Felix to the charges that the Jewish leaders brought against him, Paul proclaimed his integrity by saying, “I also do my best to maintain always a blameless conscience both before God and before men” (24:16). But he not only proclaimed his integrity; he lived it. The proof of Paul’s integrity is the great impact he has had on so many down through the centuries.

Luke contrasts Paul’s integrity with the glaring lack of integrity of a certain lawyer, Tertullus, who was willing, for a fee, to take up the Jewish leaders’ slanderous accusations against Paul. And, although Luke does not say anything derogatory against the Roman governor, Felix, it was common knowledge that he was a scoundrel. I will deal more with him next week, but for now I will say that he was a slave who gained his freedom and rose to power through his connections. The historian, Tacitus, described Felix as one who reveled in cruelty and lust, and wielded the power of a king with the mind of a slave. His rule over Palestine was marked by unrest and turmoil. He dealt with insurrection by crucifying hundreds of rebels. If Tertullus could convince Felix that this renegade Paul was a seditious man, it would not bother Felix’s conscience in the least to crucify him or lop off his head.

And so we have here a man of integrity up against a lawyer, a group of Jewish leaders who had tried to assassinate him, and a governor who notoriously lacked integrity. Paul teaches us that …

We can live with integrity by speaking the truth, by living in line with Scripture, and by keeping a blameless conscience before God and men.

Before we look at these factors, we need to take to heart another lesson that is evident from our text:

*A life of integrity does not shield us from being falsely accused.

If this world were made up of basically good people, a man of integrity would be well loved and have no enemies. But since this world is made up of sinners who love darkness rather than light, and since a life of integrity exposes their evil deeds, sinners will often slander the man of integrity. We are naïve if we think that if we live with integrity, we will be protected from false accusations and slanderous attempts to bring us down.

In 24:1-9, Tertullus presents his shaky case against Paul. Nearly half of his speech consists of his obvious flattery toward Felix. It is one thing to be polite towards the one in authority; Paul does that (24:10). But Tertullus’ flattery goes so far beyond credulity that probably Felix himself was thinking, “Come on! We all know that you’re lying. Get on with your case!” Tertullus promises to be brief, as if to say, “This case is a no-brainer! Just grant us what we ask by getting rid of this pesky fellow and we can all get on with more important matters.”

He brings three charges against Paul. Although the Jewish leaders’ main gripe was religious, they knew that religious charges would not get far with the Roman governor. Rome took charges of political unrest seriously, and if Paul were guilty of sedition, he could be executed. So they framed the first two charges in terms of political sedition: (1) Paul was a plague, spreading unrest among the Jews throughout the empire. (2) He was a ringleader of a heretical sect that was not recognized as a legitimate religion by the Roman government. And, (3) since he had tried to desecrate the Jewish temple by taking a Gentile beyond the Court of the Gentiles, Rome should hand him over to the Jews to execute him. Rome had granted the Jews that right, even if the Gentile in question was a Roman citizen (Richard Longenecker, Expositor’s Bible Commentary [Zondervan], 9:522).

Tertullus’ strategy was to hope that, based on the Jews’ testimony, Felix would act in his usual insensitive manner and have Paul executed (ibid., p. 540). Tertullus flatly lies when he states that the Jews arrested Paul in the act of trying to desecrate the temple (24:6). The fact was, the Jews mobbed Paul with the intent to kill him, but the Roman commander intervened to save his life. But in spite of such blatant falsehood, all of the Jews joined his attack, asserting that the charges against Paul were true (24:9).

The best manuscripts omit verse 6b through 8a. The addition of these sentences would have Tertullus complain against Lysias’ intervention, and would urge Felix to examine Lysias’ testimony. The exclusion would urge Felix to examine Paul’s testimony. Probably the words in brackets were not original (Bruce Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament [United Bible Societies], 2nd ed., p. 434). Thus Tertullus is telling Felix that if he examines Paul, he will find him to be the liar that he really is.

The application is to keep in mind that living with integrity does not shield us from being falsely accused. Read the Psalms to see how often David was slandered. Remember that he is often a type of the Lord Jesus Christ, who was without sin and yet was constantly slandered. You could probably state it as a rule: the more godly the man, the more he will be slandered!

With that in mind, let’s look at three factors that went into Paul’s integrity:

1. We can live with integrity by speaking the truth in every situation.

Paul’s integrity enabled him to give a calm, straightforward reply to the accusations against him. He lived openly before God and men, and thus he didn’t have to weave a tale of half-truths or misleading statements to defend himself. He simply spoke the truth, refuting each of the charges in order.

To the charge of stirring up sedition, Paul pointed to the facts. It had only been 12 days since he went up to Jerusalem to worship. Although it is debated as to when the starting point was of Luke’s “after five days” (24:1), Paul’s irrefutable argument is that he simply had not had time to stir up sedition, as his accusers had charged. Furthermore, his purpose in going to Jerusalem was not to stir up the crowds, but to worship. Thus he had not preached or even carried on a group discussion in the temple, nor in synagogues, nor anywhere in the city (24:12). His accusers could not prove their first charge.

Regarding the second charge, of being the ringleader of a heretical sect, Paul did not deny his commitment to the Christian faith, which he calls “the Way,” but he denies that it is a heretical Jewish sect. He affirms his full belief in everything written in the Law and the Prophets (the entire Old Testament). He also affirms the Jewish hope (denied by the Sadducee wing of his accusers) “that there shall certainly be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked” (Dan. 12:2; John 5:28). This is the only time that Paul explicitly states that the wicked will be raised for judgment. Paul is saying that as a Christian, he was acting as a true Jew, in line with the Hebrew Scriptures. Felix would have missed it, but Paul is also taking a swipe at his Sadducee accusers, implying that it was they that were the Jewish heretics. In denying the resurrection, they denied their own Scriptures.

Regarding the third charge, that he had desecrated the temple, Paul pointed out that his reason for coming to Jerusalem was to bring alms to his nation and to present offerings. “Offerings” may be a repetition of “alms,” referring to his gift that he had collected from the Gentiles for the poor Jewish believers. Or, it may refer to the offerings that he was about to offer in connection with the vows of the young men. But his point is that he had come to Jerusalem for noble purposes and had gone through the ritual purification. As he was going about his business, certain Jews from Asia who recognized him stirred up the crowd against him.

By pointing out that his accusers should have been present (24:19), Paul was raising a point of Roman law, which imposed heavy penalties on accusers who abandoned their charges. “The disappearance of accusers often meant the withdrawal of a charge” (Longenecker, p. 541). Paul concludes by pointing out that the only supposed misdeed that any of his accusers had against him was his statement of being on trial before them because of his belief in the resurrection of the dead. So Paul answered his accusers by speaking the truth.

Being a person who consistently speaks the truth is a freeing concept! If you’re in the spin business, of making yourself look better than you really are, then you have to remember what you said to whomever, and hope that those you’re trying to impress don’t start comparing notes. But if your life is a single fabric and you habitually speak the truth, you don’t have to worry about what you said to whomever. You just speak truth to everyone!

Earl Long, a former governor of Louisiana, once said of another politician: “You know how you can tell that fellow is lying? Watch his lips. If they’re moving, he’s lying.” I’m sure that all of you were, as I was, disturbed several years ago when our former President looked straight at the camera and told us with great vehemence that he had not had sex with “that woman.” But what bothered me even more was that when it came out that he had even lied about this under oath, the majority of our political leaders and the majority of Americans polled shrugged it off as if it didn’t really affect his ability to govern our nation!

As Christians, we are commanded to speak the truth (Eph. 4:25). The devil is the father of lies (John 8:44), but God is the God of truth, who cannot lie (Titus 1:1-2). Jesus Christ claimed that He is the way, the truth, and the life, and that no one can come to the Father, except through Him (John 14:6). As His followers, we must become people who speak the truth in every situation.

A small boy was on the witness stand in an important lawsuit. The prosecuting attorney cross-examined him and then delivered what he thought would be a crushing blow to the boy’s testimony. “Your father has been telling you how to testify, hasn’t he?”

“Yes,” the boy quickly replied.

“Now,” said the attorney triumphantly, “just tell us how your father told you to testify.”

“Well,” the boy said modestly, “Father told me the lawyers would try to tangle me in my testimony, but if I would just be careful to tell the truth, I could repeat the same thing every time.” (Author unknown.) Well said!

2. We can live with integrity by living in line with Scripture.

Paul asserts his obedience to Scripture when he tells Felix that he served “the God of our fathers, believing everything that is in accordance with the Law, and that is written in the Prophets” (24:14). Becoming a Christian for Paul did not in any way mean jettisoning the Old Testament. When he wrote, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness” (2 Tim. 3:16), Paul was referring mostly to the Old Testament, since the New Testament was not yet widely recognized and accepted as Scripture.

While the Old Testament must be properly interpreted in light of its fulfillment in Jesus Christ and in light of the transition from law to grace, we would greatly err if we set it aside as irrelevant or impractical. While the Jewish ceremonial laws were fulfilled in Christ and are set aside under the New Covenant, God’s moral law stems from His holy character and is always our standard for godly living. Being under grace never means setting aside God’s moral law. We will grow in integrity and godly living only as we grow to know and understand all of God’s Word of truth.

3. We can live with integrity by keeping a blameless conscience before God and men.

In light of Paul’s hope in God and in light of the certainty of the resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, Paul sought to maintain always a blameless conscience before God and before men. The concept of maintaining a good conscience is an important one in Scripture. Paul later tells Timothy, “But the goal of our instruction [lit., “commandment”] is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith” (1 Tim. 1:5). He tells Timothy to keep faith and a good conscience, warning him that some have rejected these qualities and suffered shipwreck in regard to their faith (1 Tim. 1:19). So it is crucial for us to understand what it means to maintain a good conscience and to practice it daily.

I offer this definition of what it means to live with a blameless conscience: In the light of Scripture and the coming judgment, we examine our hearts and are not aware of any sin of thought, word, or deed that we have not confessed and turned from; or of any person that we have wronged and not sought to make it right. Consider these four aspects:

(1) We need to inform our consciences by God’s Word.

Because of the fall of the human race, the conscience by itself is not a safe guide. Jesus told the disciples that the day would come when those who killed them would think that they were offering a service to God (John 16:2). His words applied to these Jewish leaders who sought to kill Paul. Paul himself had once thought that he was serving God by persecuting Christians. If we compare ourselves with others, rather than with Scripture, we can conclude that we’re doing okay. But God’s Word penetrates like a sword down into our innermost being, judging the thoughts and intentions of our hearts, laying us bare in God’s holy presence (Heb. 4:12-13). So we must grow in our understanding of God’s standards as revealed in His Word.

I had a humorous illustration of this in the church I pastored in California. My associate pastor was standing in line in a convenience store behind a man who had just started attending the church. This new guy, who was not from a Christian background, was buying a six-pack of beer and $5 worth of lottery tickets. The cashier only charged him $1 for the lottery tickets. He pointed out her error and then turned and said to my associate, “After Steve’s sermon, what else could I do? I have to be honest!”

Hopefully after he grew to know God’s Word, he would get convicted about his drinking and gambling, but at least he knew that he needed to be honest!

(2) We need to live before God on the heart level, confessing and turning away from every wrong thought, motive, attitude, word, and deed.

If we only live outwardly before men, we are hypocrites. It’s very easy to fake it in front of others, but we cannot fake out God, who examines our hearts (1 Thess. 2:4-5). Jesus said that all sin begins in the heart (Mark 7:21-23), and so we need to get in the habit of judging it at that level before it goes any farther. If we do not develop this habit, we are deceiving ourselves if we think that we are walking with God. It is especially important to avoid rationalizing and excusing our sin by blaming others. Having a blameless conscience before God means that I quickly confess and turn away from any sin that His Word or His Spirit convicts me of, no matter what others may have done to me.

(3) We need to ask forgiveness of those we have sinned against and take steps to avoid future offenses.

There should not be anyone who could say to us, “You sinned against me and have never made it right.” We don’t need to go to another person if our sin against them was only in our mind. We should repent of that sin before God, but if the other person is not aware of it, we don’t need to ask his or her forgiveness. But if we know that we sinned against the person directly or behind his back (through gossip or slander), we need to ask forgiveness and seek to avoid repeating the same sin again.

Bill Gothard has some helpful teaching on this subject. He emphasizes the importance of using correct wording so as to reflect full repentance and sincere humility. It is best to call or to go directly to the person, rather than to write a letter. Do not say, “If I was wrong, please forgive me.” As Bill points out, this is like saying, “If my personality (for which I’m not responsible) has offended you, there must be something wrong with your ability to get along with others. But I’ll be big-hearted about this and assume that maybe it’s my fault (which I’m not fully convinced it is) and ask you to forgive me—if you still think I’m wrong, that is” (“Institute in Basic Youth Conflicts Manual,” Clear Conscience, p. 28).

Rather, you should say, “God has convicted me of how wrong I’ve been in ___ (basic offense). I’ve called to ask, ‘Will you forgive me?’” (ibid., p. 29).

(4) The motivation for a life of integrity is the reality of eternity and the coming judgment.

Paul states that his practice of seeking to maintain a blameless conscience before God and men stems from the certainty of the resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked (24:15-16). If there is no God, no resurrection, and no future judgment, then you are a fool to live as a Christian. Those aren’t my words; those are Paul’s words (1 Cor. 15:19). If there is no eternity, then live for all the immediate pleasure that you can get, because you will die soon (1 Cor. 15:32). But if God lives and if He is going to raise every person to stand before Him in judgment, then everyone should repent of his sins, trust in Christ as Savior, and live all of life with a blameless conscience before God and before men. If you cannot go from here today with such a clear conscience, your greatest and most urgent need is to get right with God!

Conclusion

As we’ll see next week, Felix was a sad case, and here he waffles. He knows that Paul is innocent and should be released. But he also knows that the Jews won’t be happy if he lets Paul go. He can’t afford any more unrest among his constituents. So he does what many politicians do: He punts! He postpones the case with the excuse that he will decide it after he hears the testimony of Lysias, the commander. This gets the Jews off his back and out of town. He salves his guilty conscience by giving orders that Paul’s custody should be fairly comfortable and free.

This shows us that we have no guarantee that everything will go well with us when we walk uprightly before God. Joseph acted with godly integrity when he resisted the seductive moves of Potiphar’s wife, and it landed him in prison for several years. But the Lord was with him there, and it’s better to have the Lord with you in prison than to have sinful pleasure without the Lord. It’s better to be in custody with a clear conscience, as Paul was, than to have power and money, but be alienated from God, as Felix was.

So devote yourself to living with integrity by speaking the truth in every situation; by living in line with God’s Word; and, by keeping a blameless conscience before God and men. However difficult your circumstances here, you will sleep well, knowing that you will dwell in heaven with God throughout eternity.

Discussion Questions

1. Since many of God’s servants are slandered, how can we avoid being taken in by slanderous accusations?
2. Does speaking the truth require that we divulge all that we know about a situation? How can we speak truth and yet keep appropriate confidences?
3. Why is the phrase, “Let your conscience be your guide” only partially true?
4. Living with a clear conscience before God and men is the mark of every true Christian. Agree/disagree? Why?

Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2002, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation

A man, toolbox in hand, rang the doorbell. “Good morning, ma’am, I’m the plumber. I’ve come to fix the pipe.”

“But I didn’t call a plumber.”

“You didn’t? Aren’t you Mrs. Foster?”

“No, she moved away a year ago.”

“How do you like that? They call for a plumber, claiming it’s an emergency, and then they move away!”

Sometimes it seems as if God responds to our emergencies like that plumber responded to that call. We’re in a crisis and we cry out, “Help, God!” Silence. “God, I need You right now!” No answer. “God? Are You there?” Nothing.

If you have been a Christian for very long, you have experienced God’s delays. David experienced them. He wrote, “I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched; my eyes fail while I wait for my God” (Ps. 69:3). Again he wrote, “My soul waits in silence for God only; from Him is my salvation” (Ps. 62:1).

Waiting is especially difficult in light of the shortness of life. The older you get, the quicker life seems to fly by. I’ll be 55 in three weeks, and it’s amazing to me to think that all our children are grown now. I wonder how all of those years went by so quickly. Some wag observed that life is like a roll of toilet paper: the closer you get to the end, the quicker it goes!

Because life is so short, it’s difficult when the Lord makes you wait. Paul must have struggled as he remained in custody in Caesarea. The notice we get seems almost like an insignificant passing comment: “But after two years had passed, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus; and wishing to do the Jews a favor, Felix left Paul imprisoned.” You can read that comment in a few seconds, but it represents two long years of Paul’s life, and he wasn’t getting any younger. You’ll look in vain for any mention of God in the verse. It sounds so capricious. To gain some political capital, a selfish politician leaves God’s number one apostle to the Gentiles in prison. The preaching of the gospel among the Gentiles will have to wait. As Paul waited and prayed and prayed and waited, he must have wondered, “Why doesn’t God get me out of here?”

There are many lessons that we can learn from our times of waiting for God’s delays, but I would like to focus on two:

God uses His delays to teach us to trust Him more fully and to submit more thoroughly to His lordship over our lives.

1. God uses His delays to teach us to trust Him more fully.

Paul was a great man of faith, but no one graduates from the Lord’s school of faith in this lifetime. Paul had post-doctoral degrees, but there were still more courses to take! This course had at least four lessons in faith that God was refining in Paul:

A. When God delays, we must trust Him by submitting our agendas to Him.

We learn of Paul’s agenda in Romans 15:25-29, which Paul wrote just before he went to Jerusalem. His plan was to deliver the gift that he had collected among the Gentile churches and then to go to Rome for some ministry before he headed west to Spain. This was not a self-centered agenda. After all that he had suffered for the cause of Christ, I couldn’t blame Paul if his plan had been to retire to a nice seaside resort and write his memoirs.

But Paul was seeking to serve the Lord by spreading the gospel where Christ had not yet been named (Rom. 15:20). That was a godly agenda, but it was not God’s agenda, at least not in the way Paul envisioned it. He would eventually get to Rome, but not as quickly as he had hoped. Maybe he went on to Spain; we don’t know for sure. But while Paul sat in prison in Caesarea, he had to submit his agenda to God and trust God to work out His agenda in His time.

There is nothing wrong with godly desires and hopes for the future. We all should dream about what God may do through us in the future. We should plan, as much as we’re able, by setting godly spiritual goals for our lives. But after all the planning and goal-setting are done, we have to bow and say, “Lord, not my will, but Your will be done with my life. I trust in Your agenda for me.”

B. When God delays, we must trust Him to accomplish His will through us by His power.

As I said, there is no mention of God in verse 27. Paul must have wondered, “Where is God in all of this? Why isn’t God answering my prayers?” After all, Paul wasn’t trying to get out of prison so that he could go do his own thing. He wanted to spread the gospel to the ends of the earth. But here he sat, confined in jail, day after day, month after month, for over two years. As he sat there, Paul had to deepen his trust in God to accomplish His sovereign will in his life through God’s power.

In Acts 23:11, the Lord had appeared to Paul and told him that as he had witnessed to His cause in Jerusalem, so he would witness at Rome also. But then, as far as the text tells us, the Lord sort of checked out, as far as any visible or audible messages to Paul. He didn’t tell Paul in advance about the plot on his life by more than 40 bloodthirsty Jews. He didn’t tell him about the false accusations that would be brought against Paul in Felix’s courtroom. He didn’t mention that Paul would be incarcerated for two years in Caesarea, and then transported to Rome as a prisoner. He didn’t bother to relate the little detail about being shipwrecked in the Mediterranean Sea and spending a winter on Malta. In all of those trials and delays, Paul had to trust God’s promise to him and wait on Him to work through His power in His time.

Did Felix’s politically motivated injustice of leaving Paul in prison frustrate God’s plans for Paul? Of course not! No self-centered, corrupt politician, no matter how powerful, can even put a bump in the road of God’s sovereign plan for His people. But, God wants us to trust Him when it seems as if some evil person is blocking our ability to move forward with our plans for serving the Lord. We usually don’t understand the reason for God’s delays, but we need to trust that He knows what He is doing, and that He is not frustrated in the least by the whims and foibles of wicked men.

C. When God delays, we must trust in Him, not in our circumstances.

Even though we are seeking to trust in the Lord, it is so easy to put our hope in our circumstances instead of in the Lord Himself. Every time that Felix called for Paul (and it was often, 24:26), Paul’s hopes must have soared. Maybe today Felix would trust in Christ and this whole time of imprisonment would finally make sense! Just think of the influence for Christ that this powerful man would have! Paul easily could have thought, “That must be the reason God has me in prison. Felix is going to become a Christian.” Or, perhaps when Felix called for Paul and they had an enjoyable conversation, Paul went back to his cell and thought, “Maybe now he will release me so that I can get on with my ministry.” But Felix never became a Christian and he did not release Paul.

If we trust in our circumstances, we will have a roller coaster type of Christian experience. When things are looking up, we will be up. When things look down, we will be down. But it was a few years after this that Paul, still a prisoner, wrote that great epistle to the Philippians. The repeated theme of that letter is, “Rejoice in the Lord” (Phil. 3:1; 4:4). In spite of all of his years of trials, Paul was full of joy, not in his circumstances, but in the Lord.

In 1812, Adoniram Judson and his new bride, Nancy, left their familiar and comfortable New England surroundings to take the gospel to far-off Burma. After a difficult four-month voyage, they arrived in India only to hear discouraging reports about Burma and to learn that they could not stay in India. They spent a year moving from India to Mauritius (off the coast of South Africa) and back, to avoid deportation. Finally, against all advice, they managed to get aboard a ship heading for Burma. En route, Nancy gave birth to a stillborn child and almost died herself.

They finally arrived in Rangoon and began the arduous task of learning Burmese. They found the Burmese people to be committed to Buddhism and totally uninterested in and opposed to Christianity. The only other English-speaking couple in Rangoon left, leaving the Judsons alone to struggle with the language and the mission. The birth of a son brightened their lives, but when he was eight-months-old, he became ill. With no medicine or doctors in Rangoon, the baby died. The Judsons buried him in their back yard and plodded on through their tears.

After six years, they finally baptized their first convert. A handful more trickled in over the years, but mostly, they faced fierce opposition from the Buddhist monks and the government. In 1824, the British went to war against Burma, and Judson was arrested, tortured, and imprisoned on false charges as a spy. The conditions and torture in the prison were terrible. As he suffered with fever in that dark prison, Judson’s wife delivered a letter from a friend that asked, “Judson, how’s the outlook?” He replied, “The outlook is as bright as the promises of God.”

Wow! There was a man who had learned to trust in God, not in his circumstances! Judson later was released from prison only to face the deaths of his wife and his two-year-old daughter. He fought intense depression and struggled against numerous setbacks. But he plodded on in faith until he died at age 62. Today, over 600,000 Burmese Christians trace their roots back to Adoniram Judson, a man who hoped in God.

When God delays, we must trust Him by submitting our agendas to Him. We must trust Him to accomplish His will through us by His power. We must trust in God, not in our circumstances. Fourth,

D. When God delays, we must trust Him by doing right, even if we do not reach our goals.

As we saw last week, Paul was a man of integrity who would not use corrupt means, even if they would have accomplished a good end. A bribe would have sprung Paul from prison. It would have freed up this great apostle to get on with his ministry. He had so much to accomplish. Why not just pay off Felix and get on with his great goals?

Why not? Because Paul knew that doing right and not reaching our goals is better than doing wrong in order to reach them. Remember, Paul’s goals were godly. He wanted to preach the gospel in the regions that had never heard of Christ. But he would not compromise his integrity in order to reach a godly goal. He trusted God by doing what he knew to be right, even though it seemed at the time to sacrifice his goals for the gospel.

General Robert E. Lee was once offered $10,000 a year for the use of his name in connection with a state lottery at a time when money was a pressing issue for him. That was a lot of money back then, but Lee’s reply was, “Gentlemen, my name is all I have left, and that is not for sale!”

So the first major lesson in God’s delays is to learn to trust Him more fully.

2. God uses His delays to teach us to submit more thoroughly to His lordship over our lives.

Yogi Berra used to say about baseball games, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” The same is true of sanctification. It isn’t over until we meet the Lord in heaven or in the air. So even if we’ve yielded our lives totally to Jesus as Lord, there’s always more to yield. God’s delays often expose areas where we need to yield further to Him.

A. We submit to God’s lordship by acknowledging that He is God and we are not.

Paul told the Romans that he had for many years a longing to come to visit them (Rom. 15:23). Finally, it looked like he would be able to realize that dream. He would just deliver the gift to the church at Jerusalem, and then he would head for Rome. He wasn’t doing anything in Jerusalem to stir up controversy or risk a riot. He was just quietly going about his business in the temple when some Jews from Asia “happened” to spot him and start the riot that led to his imprisonment. Suddenly Paul’s plans were put on hold for over two years.

We all like to think that we’re in control of our circumstances, but the reality is, we are not in control. God is in control. As I said, we can and should make plans in dependence on Him, but as the psalmist said, “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the Lord guards the city, the watchman keeps awake in vain” (Ps. 127:1). When you make careful plans in dependence on the Lord, and the plans get foiled by what seem like random chance (there is no such thing), you have to bow and say, “Lord, you are God and I am not. I submit to You and will wait for You to accomplish Your plans in this situation.”

B. We submit to God’s lordship by not grumbling while we wait.

It was while Paul’s imprisonment dragged on beyond the two years in Caesarea into his time in Rome that he wrote to the Philippians, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing; that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world” (Phil. 2:14-15). In his current circumstances, Paul easily could have grumbled, “I obeyed God by preaching the gospel to Felix and his wife and by not bribing them, and look where it got me! I’m still in this prison and my prayers have not been answered.” He could have grown bitter and disappointed with God.

But even though Paul’s prayers were not answered as quickly as he wished, he learned to be contented in God’s sovereign plan for his life. He submitted to the lordship of Christ by not grumbling, even though Felix was wronging him by not releasing him.

If you’ve been in the military, you’re familiar with the phrase, “Hurry up and wait.” They get you out of bed at 5 a.m. so that you can stand in formation for 45 minutes to wait for breakfast. Then you march to your class 20 minutes before class starts so that you can stand in line waiting for the other class to be dismissed so that you can go in. Everyone grumbles, “Hurry up and wait!”

Paul says that if we don’t grumble, but rather rejoice in the Lord, our lives will shine as lights in this dark world. The world won’t be able to figure us out! Grumbling is natural for those who don’t know Christ, but it ought to be rare for those who submit to Jesus as Lord. When we grumble, it brings dishonor on the Lord’s name. In effect, we’re saying to the world, “You wouldn’t want to serve my God, because He treats you really poorly!”

God was angry with Israel in the wilderness because of their grumbling. He had dramatically delivered them out of Egypt through the parting of the Red Sea, where He drowned the Egyptian army. He provided His cloud to protect them from the burning sun during the day, and His pillar of fire to keep them warm and to let them see at night. But they grumbled about their conditions and wanted to return to Egypt. Because of their grumbling, the Lord said, “For forty years I loathed that generation, and said they are a people who err in their heart and they do not know My ways. Therefore I swore in My anger, truly, they shall not enter into My rest” (Ps. 95:10-11). If we want God’s rest in our hearts, we must not only submit to Him in times of waiting, but submit joyfully. We must repent of our grumbling.

C. We submit to God’s lordship by taking advantage of present opportunities while we wait on Him.

The well-known New England preacher, Phillips Brooks, was normally a man of poise and calm. But at times he suffered moments of frustration and irritability. One day a friend saw him pacing the floor like a caged lion and asked, “What is the trouble, Dr. Brooks?” “The trouble is,” Brooks replied, “that I’m in a hurry, but God isn’t!”

Paul was probably in his mid-fifties at the time of this imprisonment. Speaking firsthand, when you’re in your mid-fifties, you often think about the fact that you may not have many years left to serve the Lord. I think about the fact that John Calvin died at 54, Martin Luther at 62, Jonathan Edwards at 55, and Charles Spurgeon at 57. Even if the Lord enables me to serve until I’m 75, it isn’t all that far off. So I often ask myself what I need to be doing with the remaining time that the Lord gives me. Spending a number of years in jail isn’t part of my vision for the future!

But Paul no doubt used this time for spiritual advantage. He probably met with many visitors from the churches around Judea and used the meetings to instill his vision for reaching the Gentiles. He had many talks with Felix, although it didn’t yield any results that we know of. He had time for quiet reflection, communion with the Lord, and for further study of God’s Word. I am certain that he studied during this time because during his final imprisonment in Rome, as he awaited execution, he wrote to Timothy, “When you come bring the cloak which I left at Troas with Carpus, and the books, especially the parchments” (2 Tim. 4:13).

Charles Spurgeon (Spurgeon’s Expository Encyclopedia [Baker], 11:386) comments on that verse:

He is inspired, and yet he wants books! He has been preaching at least for thirty years, and yet he wants books! He had seen the Lord, and yet he wants books! He had had a wider experience than most men, and yet he wants books! He had been caught up into the third heaven, and had heard things which it was unlawful for a man to utter, yet he wants books! He had written the major part of the New Testament, and yet he wants books!

I would only add, “He’s facing imminent execution, and yet he wants books!” Paul used his time in confinement to deepen his knowledge of God through His Word and, perhaps, through other books. We should use times when God makes us wait to deepen our roots with Him.

Luke also probably used this time in Caesarea to research the material that he used in his gospel and the Book of Acts (Luke 1:1-4). Someone has said that the key to patience while you’re waiting at a doctor’s office or wherever is to have something to do while you wait. I agree. I’ve watched people just sit there doing nothing! I always take something with me to read if I expect to wait.

So when God brings delays into our lives, we should learn to trust Him more fully and to submit more thoroughly to His lordship over our lives.

Conclusion

A reporter once asked Mrs. Einstein if she understood the theory of relativity. She replied, “No, but I know Albert and he can be trusted.” As Christians, we may not understand why God makes us wait at times when it seems that we need immediate answers. But we do know the Lord Jesus Christ and He can be trusted.

David wrote, “I would have despaired unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; yes, wait for the Lord” (Ps. 27:13-14).

Discussion Questions

1. Why does God sometimes delay answering prayers that seem so urgent to us?
2. How can we know whether we’re supposed to wait for God to act or take action ourselves? See 1 Sam. 13:1-14.
3. How can we keep our focus on the Lord rather than our circumstances, especially when our circumstances seem overwhelming?
4. Is it hypocrisy to rejoice in the Lord even when you feel like grumbling? Why/why not? How do we rejoice in Him when we don’t feel like rejoicing? Should we fake it?

Copyright, Steven J. Cole, 2002, All Rights Reserved.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture Quotations are from the New American Standard Bible, Updated Edition © The Lockman Foundation