unsung heroes, unsung details
Unsung details, like this New Testament and personal note left by Eric Trent in a remote Appalachian Trail shelter back in November, are often used by the LORD to effect things many years down the road.
Unsung details, like this New Testament and personal note left by Eric Trent in a remote Appalachian Trail shelter back in November, are often used by the LORD to effect things many years down the road.
Merry Christmas from Full Proof Gospel Ministries! One of my favorite songs this time of year is not a classic Christmas carol, but a ballad written by a former missionary to Africa, Scott Wesley Brown. It was released on his SWB album in 1981 and entitled This Little Child. It was powerfully prophetic then and all the more so NOW as we literally watch our nation crumble and fall before barbarians like Rome of old. Nevertheless, there remains hope, even after all these years since that manger in Bethlehem. For it was never about the manger; it has always been about the Kingdom:
Many years have come and gone;
Yet this world remains the same.
Empires have been built and fallen.
Only time has made a change.
Nation against nation;
Brother against brother.
Men so filled with hatred,
Killing one another.
And over half the world is starving,
While our banner of decency is torn.
Debating over disarmament,
Killing children before they’re born.
And fools who march to win the right
To justify their sin.
Oh every nation that has fallen,
Has fallen from within.
Yet in the midst of this darkness,
There is a hope, a light that burns.
This little child, the King of Kings
SOME DAY WILL RETURN!
Oh, I believe.
And I will always sing.
This little child is the King.
Oh, I believe.
And I will always sing.
This little child, He is the King of Kings.
In the birth narratives of Jesus Christ found in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, there are some unsung details and unsung heroes that deserve our attention these dark days. And these examples, I believe, can and should strengthen us to stand strong.
The wise men DEFIED an executive order of a lying tyrant (Matthew 1:12). So too should we.
The first thing Zacharias did after his tongue was loosed from nine months of silence was PRAISE GOD PUBLICLY (Luke 1:64) and exhort his audience to SERVE GOD WITHOUT FEAR. So too should we.
Mary PRIZED GOD’S WORD OVER HER OWN HEALTH AND SAFETY, and went out in faith, proving that she believed what she had already confessed (Luke 1:38 + 2:4-5). So too should we.
The shepherds “made haste” to come alongside God’s work and then “made known abroad” that work (Luke 2:16-17). So too should we.
Simeon was READY TO DIE AND GO BE WITH THE LORD (Luke 2:29-30) and he told Mary what she NEEDED TO HEAR, not what she necessarily wanted to hear (Luke 2:34-35). So too should we.
Anna believed, and therefore she SPOKE (Luke 2:38). So too should we.
And did you know that the first PERSON to acknowledge Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah was an UNBORN CHILD (Luke 1:44)? And yet, the same CDC and “health experts” who tell us to “social distance,” stay home, and wear a mask to protect ourselves from a virus with a 99.7% survival rate would also tell us that an unborn child isn’t a human being and can be easily disposed. God help us!
And then there is JOSEPH, perhaps the least esteemed and most unsung of the entire Christmas story. Actually, he was a hero, and his unsung actions are, in fact, a glorious picture or type of our Messiah’s relationship with us, His Church and His Bride. It behooves us to pause and consider Joseph’s example, particularly in the times in which we live, and that heroic example revolves around the use of a very interesting GREEK VERB.
This verb—παραλαμβάνω—appears 6 times in Matthew’s account of the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:20, 1:24, 2:13, 2:14, 2:20; 2:21). The King James translators accurately rendered it “take” in English, but it is quite different from another common verb, αιρω, also correctly translated “take.” The latter is used in the negative sense Jesus prayed in Gethsemane for His Father to TAKE AWAY the bitter cup appointed for Him “nevertheless not what I will, but what thou wilt” (Mark 14:36). And it is used to describe how Noah’s flood came for the wicked “and took them all away” (Matthew 24:39). But in the Christmas story, we find a TAKE VERB with a very different connotation. I can appreciate this because there are three primary verbs in Spanish that mean “take,” and you better make sure you are using the correct one, or the hearer might get the wrong idea. And that wrong idea might just get you into trouble.
In Matthew 1, an angel appears to Joseph and tells him to TAKE (παραλαμβάνω) Mary to be his wife after he had discovered that she was pregnant and definitely not by him (1:20). Then, Joseph did what many of us who profess Christ often fail to do—he rose from sleep and IMMEDIATELY obeyed God’s Word. He “took (παραλαμβάνω) unto him his wife” (1:24). In other words, Joseph RECEIVED Mary to himself.
In Matthew 2, the angel again appears to Joseph in a dream and this times tells him to TAKE (παραλαμβάνω) Mary and the baby Jesus down to Egypt to ESCAPE the tyranny of King Herod (2:13). Immediately, he obeyed and “took (παραλαμβάνω) the young child and his mother by night, and departed into Egypt” (2:14). In other words, Joseph TOOK the ones he loved for the purpose of ESCAPE or DELIVERANCE, God having already provided the financial means for such a journey through the valuable gifts of the wise men.
At the end of chapter 2, the angel comes to Joseph in a dream for a third time. He is told that Herod is dead and to TAKE (παραλαμβάνω) his family home (2:20). Of course, Joseph, as was his custom, immediately obeyed the LORD “and took (παραλαμβάνω) the young child and his mother, and came into the land of Israel. He TOOK THEM HOME to Nazareth.
Joseph obeyed the LORD and TOOK Mary as would a HUSBAND, a SAVIOR, and a CHAUFFEUR—to be with him, to be rescued by him, and to go home alongside him.
What a glorious picture this is of our Messiah’s relationship with His Church, His Bride. And it’s the use of this interesting VERB that proves it.
The Father will one day turn to His Son and give the command (Matthew 24:36). Only the Father knows the day and the hour. Like Joseph, the Messiah will immediately act. He will come TAKE His bride to Himself, to be with him (παραλαμβάνω in John 14:3). He will TAKE His Church, whether standing in a field, grinding at the mill, or sleeping in a bed: to deliver them from the coming judgment, to be rescued by Him (παραλαμβάνω FIVE TIMES in Matthew 24:40-41 and Luke 17:34-36). And He will TAKE His people to their eternal home (παραλαμβάνω in Hebrews 12:28).
Therefore, let us prepare for that day by the faithful performance of our present duties. Every time the angel came to Joseph, it was in a dream at the end of another day of faithfully carrying out his present duties. Let it be the same for us, serving God “acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12:28), holy living and aggressive ministry when the trumpet sounds.
Rest easy in these days of tyranny, my brethren, just as did Joseph long ago. For it is an eternal principle: “The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead” (Proverbs 11:8). Mattathias, the head of the Jewish Maccabee clan, once thought upon this biblical truth he and his five sons suddenly found themselves under the tyrannical thumb of a powerful usurper who forbade them to do the things that God had commanded and killed those who did. On his death bed, he exhorted his sons, having reminded them of Abraham, Joseph, Phinehas, Joshua, Caleb, David, Elijah, Daniel, the three Hebrew children, that deliverance would come. Therefore, “fear not the words of a sinful man: for his glory shall be dung and worms. To day he shall be lifted up, and tomorrow he shall not be found, because he is returned into his dust, and his thought is come to nothing. Wherefore, you my sons, be valiant, and shew yourselves men in the behalf of God’s Word: for by it you shall retain glory.” The sons of Mattathias would go down in history as valiant men who trusted in God’s deliverance, and for that reason, the Jews celebrate Hanukkah today.
Joseph, the husband of Mary, would come along more than 160 years later and likewise show himself valiant, show himself a man in the shadow of tyranny. He trusted in God’s deliverance and lived as if He believed it. May the same be said of us. For, in the words of the late Rich Mullins, OUR DELIVERER IS COMING, OUR DELIVERER IS STANDING BY.
My friends, it is the unsung details and the unsung heroes that are most powerfully used of the Lord and have the most potential to effect things to God’s glory way on down the road. The Bible is very clear about this. And those details, those actions, are often the opposite of what the world deems “practical.” Keep this in mind as you wait for the Lord’s coming and faithfully go about your present duties in 2021.
But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in his presence (I Corinthians 1:27-29).
Back in 2016, I preached a message about unsung details and their role in the genealogies leading up to the First Advent of our LORD. It was the SECOND in a 5-part series on the Advent of Messiah. Many strange and seemingly impossible things took place in the ancestries of both Joseph and Mary, much, though in quiet corners, that was not by might and not by power but by the Spirit of God. Who hath despised therefore the day of small things? You might find this sermon interesting, especially as we close the books on 2020:
This past Friday evening, when it is characteristic for young people to cruise up and down Highway 70 in Hickory, burning tires and blowing out mufflers, we stood on a street corner along the cruising route and at the exit of a busy Walmart and PREACHED CHRIST, along with many things related—biblical faith, liberty, God’s judgment, America’s wickedness, and fear when there is no real threat as a true mark of evildoers (Proverbs 28:1). We used a half-mile-hailer that made the preaching clearly audible inside vehicles pulling up to the stop sign and way back at the entrance where people were coming out of Walmart. There was a Taco Bell nearby as well, and at one point an employee, a humble young man, came out to listen during his break. He had some very good questions and eventually went back to work, having clearly heard the TRUTH. Please pray for young Daniel.
Later that night, well after our wicked Governor’s illegal “curfew,” we went into a gas station across the street for a coffee. We ran right into some of the same young people who had been driving by and mocking the preachers, revving up their engines and blowing smoke. I said, “Hey guys, we are those preachers you were mocking earlier.” One young man responsed, “Uhh, no, ummm, no we weren’t mocking you. We were supporting you guys for being out there.” I laughed in my spirit and then responded, “Well, it’s hard for an old preacher to keep up with who was mocking and who was supporting. It gets mixed up sometime, but hey, take this Gospel tract and carefully consider what it says.” The mockers (oh yeah, they were mockers, I never forget a face) said: “Yes sir. Thank you sir, I will read it.” Hey, I praise God for that!
Open-air Preaching is a most essential business in a nation that has provoked God to wrath. Therefore, Governor Cooper’s “curfew” doesn’t apply to the street preacher.
“Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty (II Corinthians 3:17).
Matthew Boyd shares with Daniel who came out to listen during his break at Taco Bell.
How often are people who talk a big something else outside their group of friends. I have seen this in countless mockers over the years who end up humbly taking a Gospel tract or a Bible sometime later. This is a good thing for them and the Gospel! A bad thing for righteousness, however, is when those who talk a big talk won’t walk that talk for the sake of others when it actually costs them something. This is sad reality these days amongst otherwise decent people, even many Christians, who won’t walk the talk in the face of threatening evil or if it might actually cost them something. We should consider our ways! Or, as the Weeping Prophet Jeremiah exhorted after his country came crashing down: “Let us search and try our ways, and turn again to the LORD” (Lamentations 3:40).
My Christian brethren, I simply cannot read the Scriptures and come to a conclusion that FEAR OF MAN (or of anything else other than the LORD for that matter) is ever justified in the life of a man of faith. Men of faith, at times, may struggle with fear, but it is never justified, and you never see righteousness make an excuse for it. Instead, men of faith went out to meet their enemy. They did not hide from him, even if he was at the head of a large host.
Abraham CHASED after the armies of four Canaanite kings with only 318 servants and rescued his nephew Lot (Genesis 14). Jonathan and his armor-bearer WENT OUT TO MEET an entire garrison of the Philistines. The armor-bearer was afraid but went anyway, for Jonathan declared: “It may be that the LORD will work for us: for there is no restraint to the LORD to save by many or by few” (I Samuel 14:6). Young David asked “who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (I Samuel 17:26) and then WENT OUT TO MEET Goliath, drawing near to him FIRST (17:40). Shammah the son of Agee the Hararite STOOD ALONE against an entire troop of the Philistines and defended a piece of ground (II Samuel 23:11). King Asa of Judah WENT OUT TO MEET a million-man Ethiopian host. He didn’t wait for them to besiege Jerusalem. Without hesitation, he took his small army and went out to meet them on the field of battle, crying unto the LORD: “LORD, it is nothing with thee to help, whether with many, or with them that have no power; help us, O LORD our God; for we rest on thee, and in thy name we go against this multitude” (II Chronicles 14:11).
God’s Prophets WENT OUT TO MEET the enemies of the LORD or those in need of rebuke who had sinned against Him. The man of God WENT OUT TO MEET Jeroboam at the false altar in Bethel and rebuked the king of Israel (I Kings 13). And the Prophet Amos, in like manner, WENT UP many years later to rebuke his namesake, Jeroboam II (Amos 7). Hanani WENT to King Asa of Judah and rebuked him for his fear of men and failure to remember God’s deliverance from the Ethiopian host, and he got a prison sentence for it (II Chronicles 16:7-10). Hanani’s son, Jehu, WENT OUT TO MEET Asa’s son, Jehoshaphat, years later and in the middle of the road to rebuke him for buddying-up to and playing paddy-cakes with wicked King Ahab and his house (II Chronicles 19:1-3). Elijah SHOWED HIMSELF to Ahab and then WENT UP TO MEET the 400 prophets of Baal atop Mt. Carmel (I Kings 18). Daniel REBUKED two different kings of the same world’s superpower of that day (Daniel 4, 5). Haggai and Zechariah WENT OUT to the people and rebuked them for obeying a king’s mandate instead of the Lord’s commandment (Ezra 5, Haggai). “Consider your ways,” they preached (Haggai 1:7).
Then there was the remnant of Israel, having returned to Jerusalem, who DEFIED local executive orders and continued to rebuild the wall, working with a tool in one hand and holding a weapon of defense in the other. They labored on and completed the work (Nehemiah 4), putting away fear.
Of course, time does fail me to talk about all the New Testament examples of men of faith who lived what Paul exhorted young Timothy: “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (II Timothy 1:7). All those heroes catalogued in Hebrews 11 had one thing in common, whether they saw deliverance or were tortured, not accepting deliverance: COURAGE. All these heroes of the faith feared God and not men. True courage fears God and does not fear men or viruses.
There are two phrases that capture my attention in two adjacent verses in Hebrews 11: “waxed valiant in fight and turned to flight the armies of the aliens” (11:34) AND “not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection” (11:35). The writer of Hebrews, addressing a Jewish audience, is writing to inspire courageous faith in the hearts of believing Jews who are wavering between their trust in Yeshua as the Messiah and falling back into the rabbinic traditions that denied the Messiah had come. They are wavering believers caving to the fear of man and rabbinic mandates. Therefore, Paul is reminding them of examples from their own history, accounts they would have heard and known. I find that to be exactly the case in verses 34-35. There was a time in Israel’s history between the Old and New Testaments when faithful men and women both waxed valiant in fight and turned to flight the invading foreign armies AND refused to obey a king’s executive orders, choosing to die rather than to disobey the LORD. I’ve already mentioned these in this newsletter when I was musing about Joseph—the time, events, and people that gave rise to the Feast of Hanukkah that Jews around the world just finished celebrating. Jewish families in Jerusalem were ordered by Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the Seleucid King of Syria and a type of the Antichrist, not to circumcise their baby boys upon penalty of death. Moreover, they were told that they must eat unclean meats sacrificed to idols and participate in heathen sacrifices. The historian who penned I Maccabees tells us:
“At which time according to the commandment they put to death certain women, that had caused their children to be circumcised. And they hanged the infants about their necks, and rifled their houses, and slew them that had circumcised them. Howbeit many in Israel were fully resolved and confirmed in themselves not to eat any unclean thing. Wherefore the rather to die, that they might not be defiled with meats, and that they might not profane the holy covenant: so then they died.”
These are such as would not accept deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection. The writer of Hebrews is alluding to faithful Jews in the time of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, the days of the Maccabees. His audience would have known exactly what he was talking about.
During those same days, there were also those who rose up, Mattathias and his five sons, who truly did wax valiant in fight and did turn to flight the alien armies of Antiochus. They fought the battle of Israel with cheerfulness. At one point, a mighty host came to Beth-horon out of Syria, and Judas Maccabeus WENT OUT TO MEET THEM with a small company. Some of his men, struggling with fear, asked their captain: “How shall we be able, being so few, to fight against so great a multitude and so strong?” Judas’ response was powerful and mirrors the very examples I have highlighted above from the pages of inspired Holy Scripture.
“Unto whom Judas answered, It is no hard matter for many to be shut up in the hands of a few; and with the God of heaven it is all one, to deliver with a great multitude, or a small company: For the victory of battle standeth not in the multitude of an host; but strength cometh from heaven. They come against us in much pride and iniquity to destroy us, and our wives and children, and to spoil us: But we fight for our lives and our laws. Wherefore the Lord himself will overthrow them before our face: and as for you, be ye not afraid of them.”
As soon as he finished speaking, we are told that Judas and his men LEAPT SUDDENLY upon their enemies, and God gave them great victory.
Men and women of faith during the time of Maccabees knew the Holy Scriptures, and instead of just talking about them, they lived them. Some “waxed valiant in fight and turned to flight the armies of the aliens” (Hebrews 11:34) and yet others “not accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better resurrection” (Hebrews 11:35). Whether in victory or death, there was not spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
“Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) . . . we must ask ourselves a few questions this holiday season:
Why do we hide in our homes?
Why are some of our churches still closed or meeting outside in the cold?
Why are we muzzling our countenances for fear of a virus with a 99.6% survival rate?
Why do we capitulate to unjust and unlawful mandates that cultivate fear?
My friends, we don’t face a vast host. We aren’t yet having to face torture and death, and yet we so easily veer from God’s commands in favor of our own health and safety. These things should not be, my brethren. Where is the courage of Abraham that chased an army of kings, Jonathan and his armor-bearer, David in the shadow of Goliath, Shammah standing alone, or Asa before a million-man multitude? Where is the resolve of the Maccabees? Can these things even be found today in America?
Jesus Christ, the paragon of courage and resolve, asked a poignant question: “When the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8). I am asking the same question of me and of my brethren in Christ.
The Prophet Haggai once exhorted a fearful people to consider their ways. We need to consider our ways. It is high time, as I exhorted in my last newsletter, that we “stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong” (I Corinthians 16:13).
I’m just finishing this incredible testimony of the Christian Church in Cambodia, from 1923 down through the Khmer Rouge’s Reign of Terror to the present day. This will strengthen your resolve dear brethren and help you to stand strong. Profound and incredibly convicting! A very worthy read":
Pray for Eric Trent & me next week. We are traveling over to Nashville, Tennessee to join up with some faithful brothers to declare the Gospel on the streets during that city’s New Years melees. Nashville is a pretty wicked city with one’s of the nation’s most corrupt and tyrannical local governments . . . right up there, in my opinion, with San Francisco, Marin County in California, Detroit, and Philadelphia. Yes, I am American by birth and SOUTHERN by the grace of God, BUT there are southern cities just as rotten to the core as Yankee cities! Anyway, please pray that some out there will have ears to hear and that God would put a few lost sheep from the House of Israel into our paths.
May the LORD grant you a blessed Christmas these next few days through uplifhting face-to-face fellowship with family and your brothers and sisters in Christ! Thanks so much to those of you who pray for this ministry and lend it your financial support. It’s been a lot of years; and here we are, in the words of the late Larry Norman: “still talking ‘bout Jesus just the same.”
O Come O Come Immanuel!
Jesse Boyd, Full Proof Gospel Ministries