Lesson 21



I think a lot more than I used to... one of the benefits of education

and not being able to think is it helps you with your education..

thinking just gives you more options.. especially if you have the whole

rest of your life to do that..



prayer: Our Father, we thank you today, you're a great God.. thank you

that we could come and study and think.. and as we reflect on other

movements to reflect on how we organize information.. we pray your

blessings to that end.. we're in that difficult time of year, we pray

your grace for these your servants.. so easy to forget the struggles

that we had when we were students.. we pray your grace.. there are so

many balls to juggle.. things to do.. obviously we're continuing through

life settle for less.. diversions and times.. we pray for grace.. to

persevere.. and realize that it's not how well we do... that we keep

doing and seek to serve you in the strength that we have as long as we

have it.. we give our few moments to you.. seek your understanding, in

Jesus' name. Amen.



...I wasn't out preaching over the weekend, so I just.. basically

deteriorated.. I had to go out and preach on Sunday, that was only over

at Arlington, and Carolyn went with me.. so I knew if I could survive

'til Friday that I didn't have to think until Tuesday.. so Saturday.. we

had a great weekend.. oh, we fought a little bit, but you always do..

generally.. when it's more good than bad, it's great.. that's what I

call great.. we had a disagreement, which was very very good, really,

for that amount of time together.. and toward the end she was wishing

that I could go find something to do.... Saturday went over to.. took

Carolyn out to.. lunch.. if you want to take your wife to some place

that's really nice.. or a girlfriend.. go to La Madeline.. have you ever

gone there.. it's that little French place over near SMU... very nice..

and then we just walked across the street there to watch the Rice and

SMU game.. or whatever you call it.. if they did call it a game.. but

they grunted and groaned and one finally won.. it was sort of fun.. we

love college football... Sunday went over to preach.. Monday, she came

up with this idea that our carpet had not been cleaned for ten years..

now how did she know that.. and that's what she made me do... so that

was my full weekend.. but I didn't think a lot... it's just a failure on

my part.. I'll get around to it..



last night.... with the kids gone, we're entering a new phase of life

that we just never understood.. when we didn't have our kids.. I just

studied all the time.. six days a week.. and I probably survived on five

hours of sleep.... then our kids came, when I was just finishing the

first doctoral degree.. so we have never really known what it's like to

have nothing to do.. but now we have all the time, and all we have is

each other.. you know, really how depressing... so we're sort of

scrambling to find meaningful things to do.. one thing we have found to

do is.. we take someone out to dinner one night a week.. usually Tuesday

or Thursday.. or do something with a couple.. we have a long list of

people that we're dependent upon, and we should have done something a

long time ago.. but last night, we took a lady out for coffee.. to a

real nice coffee shop... real coffee.. real good stuff.. she lost her

husband a month and a day ago.. he was a real Godly man.. but the Lord

let him die real slow.. he just died a miserable death... and we went

out to spend a couple hours with her.. and that was interesting.. she

had a good question... and obviously a person like that.. was rambling

on.. to get her ideas collected.. at that point of sorrow.. she said,

why don't preachers preach more on heaven.. obviously she's interested

in heaven.. and I said, well, because for the living, heaven is a

depressing thought... no, I wasn't going to lie to her..... and in our

day, and the emphasis is upon celebration of this life as worship.. then

who wants to know about heaven.. and we joked about that.. I came away

saying, you know, that's right.. as we looked across what I've preached

in the last five or six years.. I haven't preached a sermon about

heaven.. I never thought about it.. I'm going to have to think up one..

but it's fun.. I would rather go out with a couple who've been married

about two weeks.. we're not going to talk about heaven... far as they

know.... they think it has arrived... for the one dear lady, who's

wanting to join her husband and the Lord.. and this dear couple will

want to avoid it as long as possible.. so your circumstances.. sociology

has to do a lot to do with your perception..



..drying up spiritually.. I've heard that story, around the block many

times.... mid-life crisis is the realization that.. things aren't going

to come true.. and then you have to manage.. the last twenty years of

your life.. and that is a crisis..



..my thought is that there are many wonderfully saved people in the

mainline churches.. we wish they had the insight to leave because

they're not being fed.. but they are singing the hymns, and they're

entering into a tradition that is still 'worked up'..



..a lot of movements seem to have prospered in a sociological setting..

now when our movement prospers, we always blame it on the Lord, that we

did it right.. when other movements prosper, we always blame it on

sociology, they lucked out, they cared for people more.. the truth might

be in between both of them..



..Jackie Deere was on the 700 Club, but I felt sorry for him.. he was up

with some excitable and exciting people talking about prophecy.. and you

could tell poor Jackie wasn't going to say anything.. to them that they

were wrong... they were just further out there than he was.. and he

didn't know what to do.. when I saw it.. I said.. we ought to record

it.. so we spent five minutes trying to find.. couldn't find a tape..

but there's Jackie... a wonderful man.. open to prophecy with a new

definition, but he realizes that these guys that he's on with are

cracks.. and he doesn't know what to do.. can't condemn 'em on his own

principles, but you know he's not comfortable.. you could see it.. just

go up on this poor guy's neck..



..how to see something it's validity without seeing its fruits is

impossible.. and then the fruits come, and it could be terribly

damaging.. and that's where we struggle.. that's where I struggle..



..so the second work of grace is an experiential phenomena that rises

above the cold deadness of intellectualism.. you know, if I really want

to be happy... I often associate with charismatics.. you know.. happy

people you'll find at Christ for the Nations... they're so anemic when

it comes to theology and bible.. but they're so happy.. how do you

account for that.. when I come here, and the guys look like they're

death warmed over.. where is the joy of knowing the Lord.. in a deep

sense.. that puzzles me.. I don't think there's an answer... why would

the guys come the first year so happy.. and they fall off in the fourth

year hoping to never see us again.. I often thought.. let's just abandon

the fourth year of our Th.M.. we just make bitter students out of them

that fourth year.. they're ready to go, let them go.. now they'll come

back, some of them..



.."charismatic renewal rejects the liberal non-supernatural God.... but

it also rejects the rational evangelical God of the intellect".. so he's

slamming us... that's what the Vineyard guys would do.. we have an

intellectual bifercated world that doesn't admits to the upper story..

in some ways, you got to say they're right.. I would rather say finding

a balance is very difficult.... "the great giver of propositional truth

in favor of the God who you can feel, respond to, and love".. it's

prejorative.... maybe they're saying that we act like that.. and I can

accept that.... in other words, this stuff sounds great on paper... I

can't object to it.. when I see what they mean in practice, then it's

another story..



..testimony, the irrefutable thing.... seems to me that a lot of our

preaching is doctrine, where in our world the testimony is really seen

as the most powerful thing.. we haven't caught on to that yet..



..Anaheim Christian Center... have any of you ever attended that.. we

said awful things about it.. you know where it's located.. across the

streets of the entrance of Disneyland.. so we used say it was the

Disneyland of the evangelical world.. and that was fairly pejorative..

I used to go out, when I was in California.. and I would attend their..

Thursday morning healing service.. and they would pack the place.. 8000

or 9000 people on a Thursday morning.. and Ralph Wilkerson's stage was

in the middle.. so it's a huge amphitheater.. the thing I found funny

was when they healed a protestant.. it was just a protestant.. you know,

just a run of the mill chicken.. but when you healed a catholic.. this

is what struck me.. when they heal a catholic, they would have everybody

stand up and give a hand to Jesus.. and I thought.. now that's strange..

it takes more of the power of Jesus to heal a catholic than a

protestant.. and that we have to stand up and give him a hand.. well, I

did too.. I mean, that was crowd psychology.. but what they were trying

to do.. is they were trying to find in a marvelous experience.. a bridge

that would tear down the illogical traditions and distinctives.. and

bind us all together..