It was a Mission Impossible kind of a heist. They scaled the building in a predawn rainstorm a few weeks ago on Sunday morning March 14th. After cutting a hole in the roof, they repelled down into the unmarked warehouse. Immediately the security system was disabled. The thieves netted prescription drugs manufactured by Eli Lily worth $75 million dollars. They were mostly Eli Lilly's staples of Prozac (it's first billion dollar drug) and Cymbalta and Zyprexa. There were no narcotics or other painkillers involved. It went down in Enfield, Connecticut. Some observers suggest that this biggest heist in pharmaceutical history will go down in folklore for the growing trend of warehoused pharmaceuticals in America being taken down. Enfield got famous again, if just for a moment. There has not been a story out of Enfield that big since 1741. That is a long hiatus. Enfield took a 269 years break between big stories. But in an odd way, the two stories may relate.

As the Great Awakening was catching fire sent from heaven up the Connecticut River valley in the early 1740's, a 38 year old preacher at the epicenter of its outbreak from Northampton, Massachusetts was invited as a guest preacher to go down to Enfield and preach. For reasons that please God He chose to use guest preachers as catalysts for reviving sparks in those days. It was no different on the night of July 8th in 1741 in Enfield when Jonathan Edwards began to preach. He had actually preached the message once before at Northampton with no affecting upon his people. This second rendering in Enfield would be remembered forever.

He preached on the threat of the wrath of God justly poured out on sinners who found themselves in the hands of a God who was angry at them and the evil that was being wrought in their lives. His language was characteristically Edwardsean. He smithed word pictures that gripped the crowd. "The unseen, unthought of ways and means of persons going suddenly out of the world are innumerable and inconceivable. Unconverted men walk over the pit of hell on a rotten covering, and there are innumerable places in this covering so weak that they won't bear their weight, and these places are not seen. The arrows of death fly unseen at noonday; the sharpest sight can't discern them." He appealed to the crowd to throw themselves onto the mercy of God. He offered Jesus as the remedy to our dilemma. The crowd was moved...

...so moved that he finished his message early. He stopped his message altogether and dealt with the crowd who by the time he started through the second half was involved in a frenzied group-convulsion of concern for their souls. Wailing and calling out was heard throughout the auditorium. People literally clung to the pews afraid they would slip into eternity, the text of course, "Their foot shall slide in due time," Deuteronomy 32:35.

The people saw God for His holy self. An old fashion dose of the fear of God overwhelmed them. But many of them found rest for their fear of God in the gracious offering of His own Son in mercy to atone for our sins which put us in such peril. Edwards never preached the message again. As sport to mock the Puritans the message makes its way into many High School Literature anthologies, sometimes in an edited version which leaves off the offer of God's mercies in Christ. Good Friday, indeed.

The Psalmist speaks of the godless as having no fear of God before their eyes.(Psalm 36:1). No one left Enfield that night without a healthy dose of the fear of God and some left joyfully meditating (for the rest of their lives) on the mercy this offended God offered in Jesus Christ. Calvary covers it all, a gospel writer would say over a century later.

What happened in Enfield recently is an emblem of this cultural moment in America. The daring of the incident is now famous. A culture that would become dependent upon pharmaceutical help that is needed in such volume that private warehouses are needed to stage for their dispersement says something about us, but I fear not very much. I thank God for His kindness in the development of needed drugs that help sustain us in our broken maladies. But others have observed that we have developed too much hope in the Walgren's pharmacy. Lilly was never intended to save us. Jesus does not need any help with that at all.

When there is no fear of God before a culture, civility begins to break up. Thievery continues to develop. Frequently abused prescription drugs raise in value on the street and secret warehouses are found out and big hits go down...among other negative trends. But when we see ourselves for who we really are, apart from Christ (sinners in the hands of a God who is angry...who poured out His anger at us on Christ) sinners in need of Christ, we are moved to reshape how live through repentance and faith. We experience awakening. People are not seeing themselves in such light these days, much to our and Lilly's chagrin. We are the worse for it as a culture.

Maybe God will be pleased to bring yet another awakening afresh to a healthy fear of God...the beginning of wisdom. Edwards helped people understand their plight and God's heart for them.

We are yet sinners in the hands of an angry God, who vented his anger on Good Friday on our behalf. Now, the door of grace and peace and pardon is wide open. As a culture and individuals, we would do well to run in and find "rest for our souls."

Jesus closed the Sermon on the Mount with his famous story of the two men who built their homes on different foundations. The wise man built his house upon the rock and the foolish man built his house upon the sand. The foolish man's home collapsed under the faulty foundation which would not stand the test of time and the elements of weather. The last words Jesus said in this famous sermon were in reference to the foolish man's house "...and great was its fall" Matthew 7:27. How tragic! Jesus, of course, is inviting men and women to build their lives upon the foundation of Himself. As the old hymn writer said, "that rock is Jesus." Jesus describes in the clearest of terms what happens in life. Eventually the sand foundations give way. But those founded on the rock, notwithstanding facing the same blows of the elements of life, survive and stand firm. Jesus Christ, what a firm foundation for life.

Graphically, in recent days that whole story has been played out around one neighborhood in Orlando, Florida. It came into focus yesterday as I put Ben on a plane for Florida, but that is getting a bit ahead of the story.

When our son Ben was growing up, we helped him develop his interest in golf. He was a part of two national Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) golf camps in Florida in high school. What a great experience for him. He met some neat guys. He got some great instruction. TPC Sawgrass and the World Golf Hall of Fame complex are two venues that are not bad as well. Every night they engaged in worship and heard from the Word of God. Along the way, he met some really neat guys and gals. This year he played for Cedarville University. The speaker at the banquet before the National Christian College Athletic Association National Tournament in Florida was a friend Ben made at camp. Corky invited Ben to a special retreat which he is involved in right now.

At another house in Orlando around the famous Isleworth Golf & Country Club is another household of another tour player. Unlike Tiger Woods, he does not garner $94,000,000 in endorsements per year. Although, 52nd on the career cumulative earnings list is not bad ($14,827,275). He has won eight times on the PGA Tour. Lee Janzen, two time U.S. Open Winner ('93 & '98), lives at home with his wife Beverly. He lives with his family in a neighborhood around Isleworth. From 1993 on, it has been a house founded upon the Rock. Lee came to place his faith in Jesus Christ, through his wife's encouragement and in part by watching the change in his buddy's life, Payne Stewart. Before Lee, Payne had begun to build his life upon the Rock!.

What is Lee Janzen doing these days? Well, how about welcoming an FCA college golf retreat at your house...all 50 of them! Yes, college golfers from all over the Southeast United States who are involved in an FCA golf outreach. Lee is hosting the retreat with his family and they are using their means to call other men to build their lives upon that rock. Our Ben is having the time of his life right now. They are scheduled to play Isleworth as I am writing. Ben out there teeing it up with a bunch of D-1 golfers from the SEC and more. As I was reflecting upon the tragic consequences of the choices Tiger Woods has made (bar none the greatest golfer up to his age in golf), I think of another home and another family facing the consequences of their choices. But rather than facing the collapse of the house, they are reaping the spoils of a life invested on the Rock, Jesus Christ. They are in turn investing in other lives.

I could not escape the irony of the two stories near the same neighborhood. One, a story of tragedy and collapse, the other a story of faith and life and hope and discipleship and joy. Maybe God will use this moment to call Tiger onto the Rock. That would be my hope. We are no where that the Rock cannot extract us from in redemption. He is the Lord who is a pardoning and redeeming God.

But oh the spoils of a life lived on the Rock! You don't make TMZ and are not nearly as much in the headlines. But the house founded upon the Rock stands firm...as a tribute to the stability that comes to lives founded on that firm foundation.

Yes, there is another story in Orlando around Isleworth this week. It is the story of a man of faith, Lee Janzen, pouring his life with others into young men who love golf. The press will not cover it. It will pass unnoticed, except by those men who will have their lives marked by three days of fun and laughter and camaraderie and golf and Bible Study and new beginnings. Who knows? Maybe several will come this very weekend to establish their lives upon the Rock. That is a part of its design.

Keep going Lee! Your investments are making a real difference in the realm that really matters. Thanks for sharing your wealth and the wealth that comes in knowing and trusting and living upon, Jesus Christ our Lord...the Rock!

"Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine, and acts upon them, may be compared to a wise man, who built his house upon the rock. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and yet it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the rock. And everyone who hears these words of Mine, and does not act upon them, will be like a foolish man, who built his house upon the sand. And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and burst against that house; and it fell, and great was its fall." Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:24-27.

The stories coming out of Sedona are tragic. Several people have died in James Arthur Ray's spiritual retreat ceremony of the "Sweat Lodge". One of Oprah's gurus is in deep weeds. Three are now dead having paid a reported $9695 dollars to come to the "spiritual warrior" event. Nineteen of the sixty-three people involved in the ceremony were hospitalized.

They were seeking cleansing. The way to purity was through the experience of the retreat which culminated in the Sweat Lodge ceremony where all impurities were released from the body. A channeler, reportedly brought in by Ray's organization, explained that the dead were having so much fun in their out of body experience "they just never came back".

What is it about us? How could sane and reasonable people get to this? We collectively all seem to have this restlessness about our selves. We want resolution. The self help racks seem to be recession proof. We all have a sense that something is wrong and needs fixed. We need cleansed, purged from pasts we'd like to redo. The predicament is so dire, there seems to be no limit on what we might do to face it. Ten thousand dollars and a death-trap hot tent (a mix of a Native American spirituality and New Age visions of cleansing) are not prohibitive.

C.S. Lewis said that we are created with a God-shaped void that we constantly fill with everything else. Nothing fits and we come back time and again to that sense of estrangement we have with our selves and with each other. We entertain that nagging suspicion that someone is at home in the universe and something is not right that needs fixed.

We love credit and love to earn everything the old Smith-Barney way. That is why things that we can do to cleanse ourselves and get right are our preference. We can do it our way. It affirms our own esteem and grooms our pride. In the end, we die being our own savior.

How foreign such ideas are from the Good News offered to us in the Bible! God came near to our sinful and estranged lot in Jesus Christ. He invites us to embrace by faith what he accomplished in taking up our sin and dying our deserved death. The grace extended to us at Calvary now opens the way for purity, given to us as a gift, one not earned or deserved. "By grace we have been saved" (Ephesians 2:8-9). To shed guilt and grip grace and hope (Easter) is to restart our lives anew-a life on completely different footing. Who would not like liberation from a haunting past? What about a fresh start with our Creator? Deep down many crave a peace that settles over all of life. "Let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost." (Revelation 22:17). It's no sweat. It's his blood! The benefits are open to all of us, free and without cost.

On both sides of the Atlantic buses are sporting advertisements for life without God. In London the buses herald: "There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life." Oxford University's atheist Richard Dawkins gave nine thousand dollars to the campaign. Not to be outdone, D.C. buses broke out with "Why believe in god? Just be good for goodness' sake".

Both jingles hold several ironies. First, the term probably is a fascinating concession to other possibilities. Probably is not one of those convictions well suited to lead us to live and die for the idea. Secondly, many in western culture who have given up God long ago seem yet to be proficient at worry and a lack of life enjoyment. There seems no necessary connection between espousing atheism and finding a long lost worry free life that is full of joy. Finally, history is one long persuasive closing argument on our inability to be good for any sake. Let's face it we are pretty good at not being very good.

For years I have been around people who claimed to be followers of Jesus Christ. The most care free folks I know follow Jesus. The people I know who seem to enjoy life best follow Him. They do not need spirits, money or a great party to pull it off. In fact these folks can sleep at night, enjoy simple conversation and value the raw pleasure of serving others. They are also those who suffer well, weather betrayal and find forgiving others liberating. They know how to laugh and what to laugh at and in proportion what to cry over. Just real people who have found life in Him! (John 17:3)

God has His advertisements out there from his authentic family. The peace with our past, the rest with right now and the hope for the future is worth its weight in gold-notwithstanding current bus ads to the contrary.

There is no remedy for worry like knowing "He has the whole world in His hands", no remedy for meaninglessness like "Jesus loves me this I know". There is no cure for self righteous arrogance and no inducement to humility like the realization that we cannot be good enough (Matthew 5:48), but don't have to be. People that show genuine goodness are those who have ceased striving to be good and embraced Jesus and found his life poking through in their relatedness to others. Everybody is for His ways: loving neighbor and enemy, treating others like you desire to be treated, returning good for evil, living beyond yourself. Even Dawkins would appreciate that social strategy.

It was the brilliant French Mathematician Pascal who said, "People despise Christian faith. They hate it and are afraid that it may be true. The solution for this is to show them, first of all, that it is not unreasonable, that it is worthy of reverence and respect. Then show that it is winsome, making good men desire that it were true. Then show them that it really is true. It is worthy of reverence because it really understands the human condition. It is also attractive because it promises true goodness."

Seven years ago this week (on September 10th) Eddie Torres started his new job with Canter Fitzgerald in New York City. The world was good...a new job and a wife seven months pregnant. Things were falling into place for Eddie. He died his second day on the job. He perished in the Twin Tower tragedies of September 11, 2001. His wife recently published a memoir of this experience entitled American Widow. Eddie was ready to tackle the world and had momentum by the throat working to his advantage! On that tragic day seven years ago he never came home. He went into eternity.

Those close to him will always remember him. He will not be forgotten by those who loved him. Reading a review of Eddie's wife's memoir I began to think about how life can turn on a dime. James, the half brother of Jesus, wrote, "Come now, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.' Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, 'If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that.' But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil." James 4:13-16. It is the right time of the year to read that verse about the vapor. Morning vapors with the cool air and the lowlands make for that moist morning fog that is so evident just for a few hours. Then, it's gone. That is life. "If the Lord wills, we shall live..." We shall live. That seems like such an assumed baseline that is somehow our birthright, yet the Bible urges us to reckon life as a precious gift from our Creator. "It is in Him that we live and move and have our very being...He gives life and breath to all things." Acts 17:25, 28.

We'll all die once and then live somewhere forever (Hebrews 9:27). When Eddie died and when we die, the thing that will matter most is what we have done with God's son Jesus Christ! In that Acts 17 speech that the apostle Paul gave to the sophisticated listeners at Athens, he directed their attention to the God of the universe who sustains our lives. Then he invited them to repent. "Therefore having overlooked the times of ignorance, God is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent, because he has fixed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness through a Man whom He has appointed, having furnished proof to all men by raising Him from the dead." Acts 17:31-32. That call was not new, Jesus began his ministry with a simple call with a familiar ring, "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe the gospel." Mark 1:15

Repentance is not a super popular concept today. It is an affront to our perception of us. To a person we tend to all be "way ok"...until we honestly pull up next to God's standards. Then we take the equivalent of what is much more than a back seat to His standards. A back seat to God in eternity is a fate none of us want nor is it inevitable or even necessary. God made other plans for us. We're invited by grace to His party...one that will last forever.

The good news is that we can live with hope and when it comes...die with hope through a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. God ran after us in Jesus and accomplished the errand of the cross and the assurance of his promise in the empty tomb. Now he invites us, while we live, to acknowledge our sin, turn around (repent) and give ourselves to Jesus Christ in faith. To know Him is have life eternal and celebrate that life before death (John 17:3). To not know Him is to perish in eternity.

Someday we'll leave the house for the last time. There is nothing in life quite like the assurance (because of his grace) of knowing that for we who have savingly laid a hold of Jesus, to absent our bodies is to enter the presence of our Lord. It is a win-win way to live and die....forgiven, hopeful and living with joy. Heaven is for everyone who can stand it and who has found joy in repentance and faith.

If tomorrow is your last day, are you ready to meet the One who gives you life and breath and the opportunity throughout your life to savingly come home to Him through repentance and faith? He stands at the door knocking, ready to meet you (Revelation 3:20). What a friend we have in Jesus, He who loved us and gave Himself for us so that we could live with hope and have everlasting life.

I had the privilege of spending most of my June in the East African country of Ethiopia. I taught for three weeks at the Evangelical Theological College in Addis Ababa. I had twenty-seven of what seemed to me to be the finest students in all of East Africa. They ranged in ages from early twenties to forty-nine. Most all of them were completely immersed in ministry and several had already planted several churches. They were bright and engaging and very helpful to teach me the culture of Ethiopia as well as warmly to embrace a "frengie" (read 'white dude') teacher.

Ethiopians by nature are warm and personal and polite. They very much appreciate relationships. They have each other. While the West is given to a "I think, therefore I am" individual mentality, those African brothers and sisters are reared in a setting where "We are, therefore I am" is the way to look at life...as well as the way to each injera (communal). That made for a quick development of chemistry as we were in it together...for three weeks that I will never forget.

Having been back now over a month, I am still savoring the experience and celebrating what God is doing in that great continent. Phil Jenkins (Penn State) has suggested that the epicenter of influence and leadership is shifting in global Christianity. It is shifting from the West and the Northern Hemisphere and shifting South. Simultaneously it is moving East and centering in Africa. Yes, Africa is emerging as the center of God's great global Christian movement. Ethiopia is poised to lead in this new nexus of influence.

Around fifteen million of the seventy five to eighty million people in Ethiopia would own an evangelical faith. That would include garden-variety evangelicals, along with Pentecostals and Assembly of God brothers and sisters and a retinue of Scandinavian Lutherans who are warm in their embrace of the necessity of a personal commitment to Jesus Christ our Lord. I was there just after the twenty fifth graduation at the Evangelical Theological College. The Ethiopian Graduate School of Theology is just down the road. These fully accredited institutions are well groomed and pulsating with vitality and thoughtful training for ministry in Ethiopia. The leadership development infrastructure is in place and I sensed the Ethiopian church is poised to lead. The church there is now sending missionaries out throughout Africa and other Middle Eastern and Asian countries. They are supporting these folks with monthly support, but need a little help from the West to put together the outfit and passage. SIM, whose ministry there has shaped the movement of God within Ethiopia in extraordinary ways, would love to hear from us as they build a network to be alongside the outfit and passage needs of these Ethiopian globetrotters leaving with the gospel and its attendant hope for Adam's children.

The church is vibrant and healthy. They are joyfully serious about this moment in Ethiopian culture and how to exalt Jesus in meeting needs and calling people to Him. They are engaged in feeding the poor, educating the young, HIV ministry and education, community development and jobs creation, along with evangelizing those yet to follow Jesus and training them for gospel ministry. One marquee example was a church in one of the poorest sections of Addis (in a city where all are poor by Western standards...and still paying our gas price per gallon). Since the liberation from the tyranny of communism in 1991, this church has planted eighteen churches in the city area. They are paying for staffs for all of these churches through the offerings received...from these Macedonian like saints who are giving out of their poverty. Jesus is most important to them. The church reminded me of a pack of Issachar brothers (I Chronicles 12:32). Remember it is said of them that they understood their times and knew what to do...that is the Ethiopian church. What a privilege to be next to twenty seven of their emerging leaders and teach them and build into their lives.

All of us who follow Jesus have a story. But some stories are full of more incredible providence. Two in the class had been victims of their mother's ingestion of abortion inducing drugs during gestation...and they lived to tell about it, notwithstanding their mother's fears that they would be deformed. They were perfect. One brother was imprisoned for three months for his faith, another for eight years. They were sharp and eager and so appreciative of the chance to learn and equip themselves for what God has next. I taught the assigned topic of Advanced Evangelism. God visited our class and in engaging conversations we had, as an extention of the class over two weekends, five Ethiopians came to embrace Jesus Christ. The gospel is the power of God unto salvation. They had such joy in rehearsing the stories as they returned to report to the class. Their reports were always followed by class eruptions of clapping.

Their names were different, but what we share in Christ brought us all together for a memorable twenty four days that I will take to my grave. The class ended in a circle of prayer with one dear brother crying out for the Lord's blessing on us. Priceless, something Visa cards and material culture cannot touch. May their tribe increase...and may God bless the church in Ethiopia, poised as they are to lead the new center of global Christianity through this new millennium.

The movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" got me thinking. Ben Stein stars in this Michael Moore kind of documentary. I found the ninety minutes in the theater provoking. Sure, I thought about the science and the prejudices discussed, but I left thinking about life's crucial expulsion. Many people have expelled God from their life. The testimony from the evolutionary scientists themselves in the film made the connection between embracing the evolutionary matrix and dis-embracing notions about God.

Surely there are a number of scientists who both embrace evolutionary science and faith in God. But not all of them do so maintaining a high view of the scriptures. I believe that species evolved within their own kind with adaptations over time. Individual species changed. In this micro sense (micro-evolution), I believe in adaptations within specie. I just do not find compelling notions of macro-evolution where one specie evolves into a higher form of life resulting in a new specie altogether. The fossil record lacks those transitional forms between species. Show me the transitional forms? Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould said once that what happened was that forms developed in evolution to a point where a quantum leap forward in transition was needed. At that point in evolutionary history they simply, with Elvis, left the building...earth's fossil record building. We do not have those forms, but these transitions took place...we are told. And who said brilliant scientists are men without faith?

But this is more than just a petty science argument; it is one with great implications and eternal consequence. Expelling God from your life is a weighty matter. Creation and life are as stunning as they are mysterious. Who can unravel the notion that "something came from nothing"? Even those most recognized for scientific prowess cannot prove their theory of origins...anymore than I can prove through reason and science that God created everything that is through the Word of His mouth. But I can herald what is affirmed and revealed, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" Genesis 1:1.

Going through school it was always the principal who carried out the expulsion orders. Looking back, I cannot remember an illegitimate expulsion, which is a good commentary on their judgment. He would levy the sentence and they would be gone. Then, they were let back in...whether he wanted them back or not. I cannot remember an expulsion that permanently barred a student from returning.

I wonder if principals have ever been quick to the trigger of expulsion and then went home and pondered it and entertained a measure of regret about the expulsion. Who of us would not like some judgments back for a second look? Many have expelled God from their life. The action stems from a hundred reasons and more. Their exposure to hypocrisy, nagging guilt, an arrogant heart and more have come together to bring about His expulsion. The movie made me think of kids who have grown up and without ever exploring the scriptures-able to make us wise unto salvation which is in Christ Jesus-they have dismissed God in biology class. He was simply expelled. Many have wanted to over time, but I know of no circumstance where a student expelled the principal. The hierarchy just was not set up that way. He or she was in authority over us in school. The Bible says, "He that comes to God must believe that He is, and believe that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him" Hebrews 11:6.

The irony of this expulsion is that though we expel Him out of our life, He is the very one who sustains our existence ("It is in Him that we live and move and have our very being" Acts 17:28). And He always stands ready, while we live, to be recognized again as the Lord of life, Creator and Savior. His grace toward us and love for us move Him to wait for us to re-open our lives to Him, who not only created us, but who loved us and gave Himself for us at Calvary.

Some expulsions are remembered for a long time and some pass from view and are scarcely thought of again. To expel God for whatever reason is to set oneself up for mulling over that decision forever...apart from Him. The flip side is full of delight. Forever the redeemed will ponder the joys of welcoming our Creator into our lives. With Adam we pushed Him away and expelled Him. With Adam we find the post-expelling God world less than paradise. Through Jesus, our enfleshed Creator, the passage back to Eden is secured (John 14:6). God relishes ending long dynasties of God-expulsions in our lives! The end of God-expulsions brings us to the delightful beginning of the adventure of knowing and worshiping the very One who made us and sustains our very existence.