I want to add our word of thanks for the wonderful hospitality we have experienced this week. Some of us came as early as Tuesday, and we have been wonderfully treated.
It is wonderful to experience the body of Christ. The Lord gives us a little glimpse of what is really on His heart when we come from different places and see the oneness that we have in the Lord. In fact, that is really about the only oneness that we do have, because we are all very different in every way.
The Lord has found a way to take opposite people, different people, different races, and make us into one. That is a glorious mystery—something the United Nations will never figure out, never come into the reality of how we can be one here on this earth. So, we do thank you.
Please turn in your Bibles this morning to John 18:35.
Pilate answered, “I am not a Jew, am I?
Your own nation and the chief priests delivered Thee up to me; what hast Thou done?”Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then would My servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now is My kingdom not from hence.”
Pilate therefore said unto Him, “Art Thou a king then?”
Jesus answered, “Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end have I been born, and to this end am I come into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth heareth My voice.”
Pilate saith unto Him, “What is truth?”
And then John 14:5:
Thomas saith unto Him, “Lord, we know not whither Thou goest; how know we the way?”
Jesus saith unto him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no one cometh unto the Father, but by Me.”
And then Psalm 51:6, David’s penitent prayer:
Behold, Thou desirest truth in the inward parts.
And one last verse, Psalm 145:18:
The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him,
To all that call upon Him in truth.
Father, we are thankful for this wonderful time of remembering our great High Priest this morning. Father, we are thankful that He has ever interceded for each one of us, moment by moment.
We are thankful now for Your Word, which is truth. Lord, may it be living this morning—in speaking and in hearing—that we might be people who live in reality, in the truth of the Word, not just hear. We thank You in Jesus’ name. Amen.
What is truth? Pilate asked the Lord Jesus. Of course, the Lord answered it many times in word, and all the time in life. He was truth.
Therefore, as we saw so clearly this morning, the Father could exalt Him to the highest place because He had left a foundation of truth here on this earth—a seedbed, a seed plot—for you and me to enter into truth.
That is the Lord’s will. That is the Lord’s desire: that each one of us come into that truth. And that truth, as we just read, is to be in the innermost being—not from the outside, to the mind and the soul, but into the very spirit, the very heart of man—and work its way into the very soul of man: the mind of Christ, the desires of Christ, the feelings of Christ, the will of Christ.
There is a lot of teaching. We do get to hear you on Sundays before we have our meeting in Arizona; it works out very nicely at our breakfast time. So, I thought this morning that I would just tell a story that has a number of principles.
It is a real story, and it is filled with reality. I brought witnesses this morning—not intentionally. My two sisters are here, who can verify this story. It is repeated often in family gatherings.
I am the oldest of seven children. Every couple of years, the seven of us get together with our spouses, and we have two, three, or four days of fellowship. We rent a large home with a number of bedrooms, and we have true fellowship because every one of the family is following the Lord and desires the Lord.
As a result, you know what happens at family gatherings. There is reminiscing about things in the past. If Mom and Dad have already been taken to their heavenly Father, then there is reminiscing about our childhood and things that we remember.
You also know that often stories differ. One sibling thinks one thing; another one raises their eyebrows and says, “I don’t remember that. I don’t remember it that way.”
But in our case, if all of our siblings were here this morning, they would verify the story that I am about to tell. Each one of us would be nodding our heads in affirmation because we experienced it firsthand.
It is about our heritage, our personal family heritage. We were rather poor, but lived like kings—no pun intended. We were farmers, dairy farmers, and we raised chickens for eggs. With sixty cows and two thousand chickens, Dad and Mom were able to raise us seven children.
The first thing that all of us would agree on is that our father loved the Lord Jesus with all his heart, soul, mind, and strength. There is no question in any one of our hearts. We knew it. He lived it every single day.
Number two: our mother, who was an invalid and spent most of her time in bed, prayed and loved the Lord with all her heart. It was real—reality to them. They lived it.
When I was born, neither one was saved. By the time Barbara came along two years later—in 1944; do not figure out that she is seventy-three—Dad and Mom thought it would be good if we went to the little Sunday school on the corner of our property.
It used to be a schoolhouse. One of the neighboring farmers taught Sunday school there. They thought it was for our benefit, but God had another plan. Dad walked in there and was gloriously saved by an itinerant minister going through the area.
His life absolutely turned upside down. The friends that he had on Friday and Saturday night—no more. Everything was following the Lord. It was an absolute about faith in his life, and it remained that way until the Lord took him at age eighty.
The second thing was that Dad viewed Mom as the most special person on this earth. He loved her. And Mom loved Dad. She worshipped him.
It was so consistent. We never heard an argument. We know the real story—they had their disagreements—but we never heard them.
That was the foundation. As I was thinking of even sharing here the last couple of weeks, one word kept coming into my heart: reality. Truth. Reality.
And how that affects ourselves and the next generation. We talk about passing the torch. We talk about having conferences, retreats, youth retreats, having our children come up in the way of the Lord. I believe there is no better way—the same way we learn from the Lord—and that is a life of reality.
The reason we could sing this morning and pray this morning around the Lord’s table was why? Because when Ray read those Scriptures in Hebrews, it was all about reality. Those first couple of chapters in Hebrews even give the narrative of the real One.
Truth is a person, a living Person. As we live in that truth, as He lived it, it has an effect on the next generation, and it had an effect on our family.
Now, I might make one thing clear, and all seven siblings would agree on this: their example did not change our hearts. That had to come personally, and at different stages in our lives.
Mine was at twenty-nine. I was a believer when I was five years old. There never was a time when I knew that I was not a believer. But at twenty-nine, it went from here down here—forty-six years ago.
Each of my siblings has a story similar to that, as to when they really met the Lord and it was that of faith. It was coming into the reality of a baptism that might have occurred many years before, but it really became part of them.
So, I would say love was the foundation: love for the Lord, and seeing the love between Mom and Dad, was the foundation of reality, of truth, in my life and in our lives.
The second thing that occurred, as far as reality in our home, was the establishment of authority. We all agree on this. There was no question. There was authority.
Dad spoke very few words. In fact, he could, by one motion, get all of us kids upstairs to bed. We would come home from prayer meeting on Wednesday night, have a bowl of ice cream, and about a quarter after nine Dad would go like this.
Prayer meeting was at eight o’clock because it was a rural area and the cows had to be milked first. At nine o’clock, Dad would signal, and we did not ask what he was pointing at. We knew it was time to go to bed. He directed our lives that way. Authority was established.
I say this because we live in very somber times. What does the Bible say about the end times? Children will not obey their parents. Now, whose fault is it if a two-year-old does not obey the parent? The two-year-old? No, it is us parents.
We are the ones who have to establish that truth as God has shown us. This is something very heavy on my heart today.
Even in our gatherings—and my wife and I have the privilege of being in many, many fellowships during the course of the year—to see one-year-olds, two-year-olds, three-year-olds, and four-year-olds dictating and setting the standard in the home is scary.
If children at a young age do not know that yes means yes and no means no in a visible setting, what will it be like when God, Who is unseen, speaks? It is very easy to ignore Him.
But when this is established—“This is what you eat. This is where you sit, and stay there”—there is a natural flow. I saw this with my siblings. As the Lord began to speak to each one, there was a natural response. Authority had been established.
Just reading one verse on that subject: Titus 3:1.
Remind them to be in subjection to rulers, to authorities, to be obedient, to be ready unto every good work.
Romans 13:1-3 is similar.
The next thing that was reality in this home that I am testifying of is the truth, or reality, of being built together. We did not just go to church.
Church was the body. Loving the saints was an everyday thing. There was an affinity.
In any type of weather, we gathered. I remember in 1951 we had a very severe snowstorm. We missed twenty days of school that year.
On Sunday, after we got the milking done, Dad said, “We’ll leave an hour early and see which road we can get through.” It was only four miles on rural roads, and we took a couple of shovels along. We cleared a couple of drifts and got there.
The only person there was the pastor, because he lived in the parsonage right next to the church. But it left an impression on my heart: the seriousness. There was not an excuse.
Mom, being an invalid, her number-one goal every week was to have enough strength to make it to the meeting. This left a deep impression on us regarding the seriousness of gathering together.
And it was not just getting there and sitting in a chair, but engaging: praying for one another, being built together, knowing one another, serving one another in the community and in sickness, and through the various things that happen. It was truth. It was reality.
I might just inject something here. My father never stood up once in front of the people except to serve communion. He never spoke on a Sunday morning, never gave a message. He lived it, and it had a great effect on all of us.
Another thing that was obvious, besides the seriousness of gathering together—the Hebrews 10:25 principle—was the truth and reality of sacrificial caring for others.
I will give you one example. You can talk to my sisters more about this. We always bring this issue up.
In 1953, there were only six children at that time. We had a 1947 Chevrolet two-door, and no problem getting eight of us in there—and a seat in the front.
En route, invariably, there would be someone walking to the meeting: a poor person, handicapped in some way, perhaps mentally challenged or socially challenged. A number of people lived in the woods in this rural area, and they would come out and walk to Sunday school.
We would stop that 1947 Chevrolet. Dad said, “There is always room for one more.” These people would get in the car. Their one suit might have been packed in mothballs, and the whole car would be permeated with mothballs.
It taught us inclusivity. Such a real example. We can name these people by name to this day.
The more I go on in life, the more I appreciate it: the expression of real love, deep love, love that none of us are born with. Mom and Dad were just like all of us, with old sin natures, but there was a transforming work being done in their lives through pressure—Mom’s illness, eventually seven children, and hard work.
The next thing, besides caring for others, was the truth and reality of sacrificial giving. You would think we were wealthy by the way we helped people.
There was one Dutch man who never married—an immigrant who never became a citizen. We called him Uncle Jake: Uncle Jake Starkenberg. A good Dutch name.
He came over, got a job milking cows, and had a falling out with his family. He could hardly speak English. He had a Dutch Bible, and when he wore it out, we got him another one.
He would come down and probably have two or three meals with us each week. He lived a quarter of a mile away. Dad would take him to get his groceries and took care of this man his whole life, until the Lord took him home.
That is just one example of this giving spirit. Monetarily, it was the same way. Whenever there was a person having a problem, there was help.
The next thing that we saw in our parents was the reality of responsibility: taking responsibility for our words, taking responsibility for time, taking responsibility for being disciplined.
Again, we did not have nice clothes, but my mother thought everything had to be clean and patched. Those were the two things: they had to be clean and patched. Responsible for our mistakes.
When we made mistakes, we received the just compensation, and we took responsibility. No blaming.
I remember, at sixteen, it did not take me long to get my first traffic ticket. I just tore it up and threw it away. I did not think anything would happen.
In those days, in a small community, the judge was the secretary, and he called. My dad happened to answer the phone. “This is Judge Bert Cale”—you do not forget these names; white hair—“I need to see your son and you in my office.”
He gave the time. Dad asked me what it was about, and we went in there. He said that I had run a stop sign, which I had done.
The judge asked my father what he had done to punish me. Dad said, “Well, I’m just waiting for you, Judge, to see what you are going to do.” The judge said, “I’m taking his license away for two weeks.” My father said, “Make it four.” He doubled it.
This was just the way we were raised. There was this backup of authority in the community.
For example, if we went out of here today and one of us got a speeding ticket for going thirty-seven miles an hour in a thirty-five-mile-an-hour zone by a twenty-two-year-old state patrolman, we might raise our eyebrows.
But at a very young age, there was no argument. We were wrong. It was very, very helpful later on.
Number seven: the truth and reality of sacrificial prayer. Our parents were praying people.
Because of my mom’s illness—it was lupus, which was diagnosed for several decades during the 1950s and 1960s—she spent her life on a couch in our living room. There were maybe four or five Bibles on the top of the couch, reading material, and writing material.
There was this travailing prayer. I remember, and we all do, Mom apologizing as we would go out to graduation, basketball games, football games. She never saw one of my football games or basketball games, and she would apologize.
“Mom, what you are doing is more important. We do not need another soccer mom. There are plenty of soccer moms out there. Is someone praying?”
We saw it and experienced it. It is amazing what prayer does to the conscience, even of a wild sixteen-year-old or an eighteen-year-old. You walk out that door, and someone is praying to the Father in reality.
It has an effect. We were kept from a lot of destruction. But, being as stubborn and strong as I personally am, even to this day, God took His hand off and let me get into trouble.
I say, the Shepherding Man—oh, the Lord knows exactly when we are rebellious enough. He lets us reap what we sow.
I would like to say a couple of things about the opposition to truth that I personally have experienced.
Truth—the Lord Jesus, of course—is the most opposed thing on this earth. If we think for a minute that taking our children to conferences and retreats, getting them there, coaxing them any way to get them there, is the answer, it is not the answer.
There has to be real life, because we are in a battle. There has to be truth on every front—reality.
There are many little foxes that hinder the truth. I am going to talk about these little foxes.
The first little fox that I am going to talk about is subtle little idols. Idols that we deal with every day are to be a part of our life, but we make them an idol. We make them a priority.
Here they are:
The reason I said football is because, over the last eight months, how we, even as believers, can become so absorbed in sports—football—and make it more important than anything else.
Now, I could make a case very easily for each one of these things from the Bible. Facebook—I think of fellowship, as far as what the Lord wants. Food—we have just experienced the table of all tables. Food has a place.
But every time we eat, it is to direct our hearts right to the Lord. That is why we thank the Lord that it is provided. It is from Him. It is wonderful.
All of these things are wonderful. But when they suddenly take the place of the Lord Jesus being first, they are an idol. Then they are in opposition to God.
They hinder the Lord Jesus from coming back. Common things, daily things, can become unholy if put in the wrong place.
Another little fox that opposes truth, that keeps us from reality, is ignorance of our heavenly calling—ignorance of our inheritance.
I purposely said heavenly: spiritual, eternal. It is above the earth. How we become occupied with the things that are earthly, the things that are going to burn, the things that will not go with us.
We argue. We go to court over them. We wake up at two o’clock in the morning thinking about some earthly thing, some injustice that was served us the day before, and will not let it go. We hold on to it.
It saps our strength, our spirit, and communication is lost between the Lord and ourselves. Ignorance, truly, of our inheritance in Christ.
God wants to conform us to His image. This transforming work that He wants to do—He uses these everyday things: difficulties on the job, illness.
How often we either kick against the goad, resist it, or look for an earthly resource or solution, and miss even what we were singing about this morning: the cross that has been wonderfully and sovereignly given to us to get us through into reality, even the Lord’s life.
The third little fox is looseness.
The Lord answers our prayers, as we saw in Psalm 145:18, in truth—when there is truth—not idle talk, chatter, that hinders our testimony and hinders our relationship with the Lord.
Then we try to pray, and there is nothing there. There is no power because there is no holiness. Looseness—such a hindrance to God’s will.
We could make a whole list of what this is.
The next little fox is religious activity rather than intimacy with the Lord. Very subtle.
Work around the church and activity stimulate us. We were born to help people. But when it is of the flesh, it is hay, wood, and stubble.
The Lord Jesus will say, “I do not know you,” when we say, “Well, I did this. I did this. I was responsible in this area. I served. I helped people. I led people to the Lord.”
But it was activity of ourselves. The Lord has to do such a deep work in all of us in this area. I speak from experience—just these last forty-six years—what the Lord has to do to get us to that place where we see our bankrupt condition.
Another little fox—and again, we have experienced this particularly in the last twelve months—is politics: forgetting that we are of a heavenly kingdom.
Everything down here is vanishing. How we give our opinions and argue, when 1 Timothy 2 tells us how to pray for our leaders—for our prime minister, for our parliaments and congresses, presidents, kings, leaders—to pray.
We pray so the church can be established, so that the Lord Jesus can come back, not worrying about what is happening in a certain earthly realm.
Along with that, another fox would be getting involved in social issues. Again, wonderful things, but we have such a higher calling.
We are involved in people’s lives. I know in my own personal life, my business background was divided into two areas. The first half was in the funeral business, and the second half was in the pharmaceutical business. I thought there was an improvement there: you go from taking care of the dead to helping in a medical area.
But the last twenty-five years have been just ministering among the brothers, just being with the brothers, being built together. What a wonderful calling. This is all of our calling. It does not matter what we do. It is spiritual.
It is amazing how little Jesus ever mentioned or was concerned about the Roman Empire. Now, He could have given a few good talks about the Roman Empire. But what was He more concerned about? The reality of Himself and the disciples, and the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.
This is where His life was. This is where His ministry was.
The last thing I would mention about the little foxes is the tendency to give up, saying that all of these things are because of the time and day in which we live.
Things are much different than they were in the 1950s, when I was going through high school. In my class, there were only sixty-three young people. Not one of us had parents who were divorced. One hundred percent—all married. Just that one item.
Now, if a family failed in some way with their child, there was the school reinforcement. If there was a failure there, there was the community—the judge, remember? He was there.
The unbelieving community functioned on principles of truth and understood something of truth. But, as history goes on, we live in a time when the Lord could soon return. The battle lines have been drawn. We are in a battle for life.
These things that are opposing truth have to be turned around in our lives. Truth has to reign.
What is truth? Of course, it is our Lord Jesus.
We sang this morning, and may it, in each one of us, be more than a song, more than teaching, more than a doctrine. This happens in reality when we wake up in the morning and find ourselves bankrupt. But there is new mercy every morning.
I personally like to have that brief time of just saying, “Lord, I do not have the resources in my life. I have been taught things in my family, but those are here; they are not of the spirit.”
“You must, by Your Holy Spirit, give me the love. Give me the responsibility. Give me the giving heart. Give me, Lord, Yourself to go through this day—not just to get through, but with oil in the lamp, with testimony, with life.”
“So that our children and our grandchildren, Lord, can come into what You and we were singing about this morning.”
How is that going to happen? How does this happen? Well, that is why I told the story at the beginning, because I think all the little truths were found in that little personal story.
It is a travailing heart of parents.
It is a spiritual war we are in. It is a spiritual war that keeps our children and our grandchildren from truly seeing the Lord. Someone has got to stand.
Being a soccer mom is a wonderful thing—to be able to take the children to school, their functions, and homeschooling, teaching them. But God has to get into their heart.
Those things that we are about often affect the outer man, the soul. Oh, prayer—prevailing prayer—gets to the spirit, the root of the problem, down in the heart. “Lord, deal with this child,” starting with ourselves.
I must pray in truth, starting with myself: “Lord, You do it. You bring them into the reality of what we sang about and worshipped. Bring them into the reality of the table by first bringing me in.”
What a responsibility. The battle has been won. The Lord is looking for people to step in the gap during this very dark time in history.
As I mentioned yesterday at the wedding, I thought of this wedding. I came into it with fear and trembling at the outset. Meaning, when I first think about it—or any time I think about our children and grandchildren—then there is the Lord.
He wants to overcome. He wants to make a spectacle of the enemy. He wants to take what the devil has sown and reap a harvest: reality, truth.
And we only find it in the Lord Jesus. May we, first of all, come into that truth as brothers and sisters, and then husbands and wives, learning to pray together and standing to say no against the enemy, against the flesh that is occupying our families.
Say no daily. Before we go to bed at night, together, say no.
As parents, we often take on the world’s answers to raising children. The world knows nothing about raising children for the kingdom of God. Nothing.
We do. “I am truth.” May we be faithful—faithful in this dark day—but see the light.
Father, we are thankful for Your truth, the Lord Jesus. We have an anchor. As we said earlier: finished, complete. Lord, may we stand in that daily, for ourselves first, and then for our families and for Your family, the body.
May we pray instead of criticizing others’ children, praying for one another as You have told us to. Oh, Father, may we live truth, be truth, and pray for truth—the reality of Your Son in one another.
Thank You for the time we have had again this morning around Your table. Lord, we know that establishing that beachhead every day in our homes keeps the enemy at bay. He cannot enter, Lord, where You are.
May we walk in light. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.