I am reading, perusing and sometimes devouring the following books in my summer pile (some of them I came across at an old book store in Connecticut, some I actually picked up new, or ordered online, and at least one of these has been lying proleptically beneath other volumes in my library, waiting for its pages to be turned. A few comments on each:

My Grandfather’s Son, A Memoir by Justice Clarence Thomas. It has taken me about a year to get around to this. But I read it through quickly like one would see a movie. Beneath the public life of a man there is always a story. And behind Clarence Thomas there is a good story, an American story that took him from Pinpoint to the Supreme Court of the United States. The story involves our own story as Americans, and the story of faith in Jesus Christ through family strife, poverty, injustice, a grandfather’s eccentricities that would at length mold the man we see, prejudice and pain, love and regret, hope and new life. I commend it highly.

Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church. For the odd few among us who really care what “Adoro Te Devote” means (”a simple, heartfelt, Eucharistic hymn, the most famous of which would be J.R. Woodford’s (1880, Bishop of Ely) “Thee we adore, O hidden Saviour”, or who seriously would inquire about the Zillerthal Evangelicals were (a body of Protestants, living in Zillerthal, Austria, who left the Roman Catholic Church in 1829 and the following years, were ordered to leave by a decree from the provincial estates of the region, and were resettled at Erdmannsdorft in the Prussian territory), this volume is a treasure. A thank you to Oxford University Press is in order. I am proud of my 1958 edition, though there are, of course, newer ones, newer heresies, more recent innovations, other people who have come on the scene, and so forth. But I am quite content with my edition. It does all that I need it to do.

Romans by John Murray. I like Murray on Romans more than any other. Read Barth on Romans and this. Murray is an interpreter of St. Paul to the Romans. Barth is a preacher of Barth in front of Romans. There is a considerable difference. For excitement you migh want to try one. And for accuracy on the text you will most certainly need to read the other.

Murray on Romans 7 and Romans 11 is worth having the book and reading it from time to time. His conception of what Paul is saying in Romans 11 remains, to me, unassailable. Paul is saying that a large mass of Israel, even as they were hardened and turned away, will be revived and engrafted in to the one true Church. He awaits nothing short of a tremendous revival. I read this and grow excited. For as the Church now encircles the globe, and moves Eastward, I expect that we shall begin to hear of the conversions of souls in the Middle East. And how glorious that will be! When the glorious Gospel of peace quiets the spirits of the children of Ishmael, the world will have to pause. The age-old war will, no doubt, continue, but the preachers of grace will be the very men who today go about so violently. Then they shall be subdued, not by the might of men, but by the power of God’s love in Jesus Christ. And that shall be the final wall to be destroyed. Then, the floodgates of the revival that swept in Europe in the Reformation, and pushed on to the New World as Columbus arrived, and the pilgrims settled this new country in North America and George Whitefield preached the Gospel up and down the colonial coast bringing in masses of people, and as the Methodists and others brought it further west in the United States and throughout Canada, as the Gospel went, through the 19^th century missionary movement to the far reaches of the East and into the Pacific islands, and in the Twentieth Century the flood of cleansing revival has baptized South America, and awakened the great peoples of Africa (and I think of men such as my friend Henry Luke Orombi, the Anglican Archbishop of Uganda), has moved upon China and India, will finally break through to the ancient Hebrew peoples and “all Israel shall be saved.” I praise Jesus Christ and look in wonder at what He is doing and want to be part, as I am allowed, to urge this Gospel upon the hearts and minds of others! What more glorious labors could there possibly be?

And all of this from a few lines in Murray’s Romans. He is dry. He is barebones. This is not prose for prose’s sake. This is interpretation for the Church. And it is marvelous in my eyes. I commend him to you.

History of the English Speaking People, “The Birth of Britain” by Sir Winston Churchill. I enjoy reading Sir Winston because no one seemed to see the American century arising quite like him. And it was no assault on his British prejudice, for he saw America as an extension of the British Empire and thus applauded her ascendancy. This first volume in the series, of course, is more about the founding of the British nation and much is said about the place of Rome and the Danes and the Normans. But the way that Sir Winston writes makes one think that he is always going somewhere, and of course he is. He is always concerned with how this English speaking people arose and how they went to the ends of the earth, taking with them their religion (Christianity), their system of government (amalgamated as a supreme democratic rule through the governments of Rome and other invaders), and of course their customs.

If you were to stay with Sir Winston to his conclusion in 1900, then you should read the book that I read last year, The History of the English Speaking People Since 1900 by Andrew Roberts. He opens with this moving scene:

“As the first rays of sunlight broke over the Chatham Island, 360 miles east of New Zealand in the South Pacific, a little before 6:00am on Tuesday, January 1, 1901, the world entered a century that for all its warfare and perils would nonetheless mark the triumph of the English-speaking peoples. Few could have suspected it at the time, but the British Empire would wane to extinction during that period, while the American Republic would wax to such hegemony that it would become the sole global hyper-power. Assault after assault would be made upon the English-speaking peoples’ primacy, each of which would be beaten off successfully, albeit sometimes at huge and tragic cost. Even as the twenty-first century dawned, they would be doughtily defending themselves still.”

But without Churchill’s insights, we would miss the sweeping epic that led us to that moment.

The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy, 1943-1944. I have not read a better author on World War Two. An Army at Dawn, which won the Pulitzer Prize, was one of my favorite books two years ago. I devoured it in a few readings. I must say that I taking more time here. But the result is the same. Beyond all others, Rick Atkinson the reporter is helping us to re think the War through his “lower” history of how it felt to the men with boots on the ground.

Berlin Embassy by William Russell. Reflections on a great capitol city being transformed and disfigured by Hitler and his monster regime from an eyewitness account make for a great read.

 

 

W.H. Auden, Longer Poems. I love reading Auden as I enjoy reading Donne. Both were men who followed a road to Jesus Christ through a road of self-destructive sins. But their intellect was sharpened by what they saw along the way. I like this book as much for his longer poem called, “For the Time Being” as I do for anything else. This reflection through the Church Year, dedicated to his mother, reveals the faith of Auden, but through a glass darkly, and through moods murky. Auden is not a precise theologian, of course, nor does he convey the sense of God’s grace like Donne does. Indeed, Auden can be as obscure as his personality. But his words provoke a sense of Advent, which has its place, I think. He begins, as one should begin a work on the church year, with Advent:

“Darkness and snow descend;

The clock on the mantelpiece

Has nothing to recommend,

Nor does the face in the glass

Appear nobler than our own

As darkness and snow descend

On all personality.

Huge crowds mumble - “Alas,

Our angers do not increase,

Love in not what she used to be;’

Portly Caesar yawns - ‘I know;’

He falls asleep on his throne,

They shuffle off through the snow;

Darkness and snow descend.”

Auden closes out the church year with these words, a summary of all of his experiences and reflections:

“He is the Way.

Follow Him through the Land of Unlikeness;

You will see rare beasts, and have unique adventures.

He is the Truth.

Seek Him in the Kingdom of Anxiety;

You will come to a great city that has expected your return for

            years.

He is the life.

Love Him in the world of Flesh;

And at your marriage all is occasions shall dance for joy.”

That line sums up, not only the Christian life, but also the life of a minister of the Gospel. And all of this “For the Time Being.”

A Jonathan Edwards Reader By Jonathan Edwards, John E. Smith, Harry S. Stout, Kenneth P. Minkema. This Yale University Press anthology is outstanding. If you are wanting a one-volume reader look no further.

 

 

 

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. I read this book in one sitting. I thought about it for days on end. The characters are so real, the situation so possible, and the writing of John Steinbeck so powerful and beautiful, that I could not forget it. It is grotesque, in a way, and pitiful. But I think I have known these two men, George and Lenny. And as an oil field worker in South Louisiana, not a ranch hand in the Salinas Valley, I have seen them. Their tragic story reminds me of Louisiana. But having lived in Monterey, California, and hiked through the mountains that protect the rich, dark earth of that valley, I read Steinbeck and think of him as an eccentric, brilliant neighbor. Talk this one out after you read it.

I continue the adventure. And I speak to students of the Word, ministers of God’s Gospel, and pastors-in-training: read widely, but wisely. Read carefully. Read to gain insight into Creation, Fall and Redemption. Read to diagnose and treat the human soul with the balm of God’s grace in Christ. You will sharpen your skill to do so by reading the great novels as well as history and biography. Learn to read poetry, and even fantasy. Consider the greatest theologians, and follow the faithful ones. But in all things, read to the glory of God.

And that which I proscribe, I do pray to do myself, and ask forgiveness for my failing to read what I should read, and for reading what is unnecessary as well as well is unprofitable.

 

 

 

Please visit The Call with Mike Milton for more entries and resources for Gospel ministry.

I am reading W.H. Auden’s Collected Longer Poems while on vacation. Throught the oncoming heaviness of sleep last night, as I lay reading, seeking the soothing medicinal dust of my summer reading pile, I came across this, which did indeed soothe my mind, but awakened me to excitement, as if Advent were here. And I do offer that which I have received to all of you:

We who must die demand a miracle. 

How could the Eternal do a temporal act,

The Infinite become a finite fact?

Nothing can save us that is possible;

We who must die demand a miracle.

(W.H. Auden, Collected Longer Poems, page 13

 

Please visit The Call with Mike Milton for more entries and resources for ministry.

 

 

 

Introduction to the Reading

When I was a little boy, summer evenings were enchanting. And I would stay outside so long that my Aunt Eva who reared me, used to come out on the front porch and call (and she call like this): “Mi-cha-el!” It was distinctive call that made come running. I knew supper was on the table. Butter beans and boiled okra, cornbread and buttermilk, with black strap molasis to sop up the remaining cornbread pieces…but that is another story! Well, do you remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Aunty Em is calling for Dorothy? That is the scene I have in my mind, Aunt Eva calling for me from the front porch of our old house. And I can sometimes still hear that distinctive call of Aunt Eva’s. My heart always melts as I do. Because I loved her so much. And she loved me. I will never forget her call. I sometimes hear “Mi-cha-el” in my mind today. I want to come running.

In the book of Galatians, we learn about calls that were authentic and calls that weren’t. Some were calling the Christians in Galatia to a different Gospel, a false call that leads to law and bondage. But God’s call is an authentic call that leads to love and freedom.

Martin Luther in his Small Catechism explains the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed in this way: “I believe that I cannot by my own understanding or effort believe in Jesus Christ my Lord or come to him, but the Holy Spirit calls me through the gospel”

This reading from Galatians 1.11-24 is about the authentic call of the Gospel on one man’s life. When you hear the true voice of your Savior, you will never forget His call.

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. 12 For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. 13 And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. 14 But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, 15 was pleased to reveal his Son to* me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone;* 16 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. 17

  Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. 18 But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. 19 (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!) 20 Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 21 And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 22 They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 23 And they glorified God because of me. 24

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Our Father, who did send Jesus Christ to call us out of darkness and into light, open the ears of our hearts, Lord, that we may today hear Your voice in this message and in hearing, be drawn home to You. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Introduction to the Sermon

I once saw a little boy in the Smithsonian Museum, standing with his parents in front of the very spacecraft that took John Glenn into outer space and carried him around the earth and back again! Wow! What an amazing testimony to the courage and teamwork and vision of an entire generation! And before this amazing sight, before this artifact from the American century, I watched as this fine little fellow was…playing his Game-boy. There could be no doubt about it. He was just not impressed. And I thought to myself, “How many times am I like that little boy, and simply bored in the presence of glory?”

Well, I have a question: Is theology boring to you? Are you bored and playing a Gameboy, or pursuing sports or drugs or a new relationship or a new spouse or a new religion, in the presence of glory? Is doctrine dull? I must admit that it can be. But should it be?

The late Stephen Ambrose, the famed writer of books like D-Day, on which Saving Private Ryan was based, which created enormous interest in World War Two and in particular the 101^st Airborne, or his book, Nothing Like it in the World, which told the story of the transcontinental railroad, was also a professor of history. And Stephen Ambrose used to say that the greatest crime a professor of history could ever committee in the classroom was to make history boring! Remembering the “higher” history of dates and wars and treaties and such can create a yawn or two. But talking about the “lower history” of a king who marries the daughter of the king his nation was at war with is anther matter! Or telling the story of the Civil War by telling a story about an Army surgeon in the Union Army. Wow! That would bring that period alive! In other words, history comes alive through the people who live it.

In a similar way, St. Paul could have said, “The greatest crime a preacher could make would be to make theology boring!” Theology is the study of God. Doctrine is drama. Doctrine is practical. Doctrine is the unfolded truth of the eternal God that sets human beings free. So Paul writes to the Galatians and not only talks about the details of the Gospel, over against the lies of false teachers who were drawing the Galatians away from the true Gospel, but he draws them in to see how the Gospel began…in his own life. We have here the very origin of the Gospel in one human soul. And this hits me where I am. This will hit you where you are!

In Galatians 1.11-24 every believer can discover and discover and marvel at how the Gospel of grace becomes supernaturally embedded in the life of a man or woman or boy or girl. The origin of the Gospel is not just an idea about Jesus; it is Jesus Christ alive in you.

There are 10 ways that the Gospel “originates” in one’s life. Yes, that right, 10 ways. You didn’t think you would get a seminary president and only get three points today did you? I wanted you to get your money’s worth! But I come up with these 10 ways that the Gospel originates in your life because as I studied this text and prayed about it, the truths flooded from the pages of the text into my own thirsty soul, so that what I have received from God this week I want to share with you!

1. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life through special revelation (11,12)

The Apostle Paul tells the Galatians, who were bent on returning to a works-based religion, that the only way to know the freedom that Christ brings is to know Christ and the only way to receive Him is through special revelation. Now for Paul that meant a direct encounter with the risen Christ, in His body. And that makes Paul an apostle. But all of us must come to know Christ and the Gospel of grace through special revelation and that is called the Bible. Why doesn’t general revelation work? General revelation tells us about God but according to David in Psalm 19 stops short of conversion. David says, in verse 1-6 of that great Psalm that the heavens declare the glory of God but in verse 7 he changes course to say that “the law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul.” And the rest of redemptive history is about getting that Word in front of human beings: the word which brings life, the word which is sharper than any two edged sword and which cuts deep down into the soul of a man and changes him.

Every computer program has a default setting. If you leave that program alone and don’t alter it will always default back to the settings it came with. Beloved, you and I are the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve. Our default settings are calibrated in sin. And the default setting of the human mind and soul is works-religion: “do this or do that and God will be happy. In the worst case offer a child for sacrifice. Or in our case, go to church, do some good, and God will be pleased with you.” But the Gospel comes from a special revelation that tells us that if we simply believe, transfer our trust from ourselves to Jesus Christ, His life and His atonement on the cross, will bring us into a right relationship with God.

2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life despite sinful resistance (13-14)

Paul tells the Galatians that he was not the ideal candidate for God’s grace. Paul is transparent before them lest they think that somehow God chose Paul because of his innate goodness. To the contrary, he lays out a case against himself. He was saying that he not only tried to please God through a faulty religion but also was a violent opponent of the Gospel, seeking to destroy it. The Gospel comes into a person’s life despite sin.

Not too long ago our nation was fixed on a mine out west that had collapsed. There were many men in that mine. As precious time clicked past, every effort was made to bring in a drill big enough to tear through the side of a mountain, through miles of iron ore and granite to save those men.

You are I are like those miners trapped. We are trapped by sin. And religion brings out every instrument available to dig through the layers of original sin to bring us freedom. Precious time ticks by as we try to please God through religious works, as we try to pretend like we are not in the mine, as we try to go around and find a hole through the mountain of sin. But Paul is saying that the Gospel came to him when he was in the worst possible condition of sin. He was resisting God’s grace. But thank God His grace is greater than our resistance! Only the divine drill bit of grace can drill deep and clean through the years of resistance to claim a human souls and breathe fresh life into a dead man. Praise God that His Gospel reached Paul! Praise God that His Gospel reached me! And praise God that new life is available to anyone here today who will receive His free gift of life!

3. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life through unconditional election (15a)

For Paul, the Gospel that saved him and transformed him was something at work a long time before. In fact, it that God had chosen Paul not based on anything in Paul’s life but based on the deep mysterious unfathomable love of God in Christ before the worlds began.

God elected Paul. Paul does not explain election as if we could fully grasp all of its divine complexities. He simply states it. And like Calvin and Luther and Knox and others many years later, Paul clings to it. For election is always revealed in order to give us assurance.

In my ministry as a pastor, I have seen over and over again that as so many of the saints of God draw near to their home going, they are fearful. “Did I do enough?” “And what of that sin of my youth?” And, “Can I really hold onto Christ during this transition?” And I have had the God given privilege of being those saints at their bedside and teaching them the doctrine that Paul here clings to: that God set you apart before you were born and if God started it, God will complete it. If God saved you then you are saved unto eternity. If you did it, you have something to worry about. But the Bible reveals the doctrine of election, not for philosophical speculation in ivory towers, but for practical assurance.

There is a Bluegrass song that my son and I used to sing, coming down Signal Mountain, as I would take him to school, “I’m Not Holding onto Jesus, He’s a Holding on to Me.” And that is the glory of this doctrine. The Gospel is not of man, but of God. And He set His love on you before you were ever born.

Now I want to rev up my engines just a bit and give you the next three ways that the Gospel originates in a human soul, and then we will slow down a bit as we head into the finish line.

Here is number 4:

4. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life through personal calling (15b)

God called Paul by His grace. My beloved each and every one of us must be called of God. That calling may not be in a blinding light on the road to Damascus, but maybe in the soft glow of your bedroom, when there comes a time in your Christian home that you recognize that your parent’s faith must be your faith and you know God’s call on your life personally.

Maybe even today, someone here is moving past the “ideas about Jesus” to the “Person of Jesus.” And you know that God is calling you.

The Gospel always originates in a personal call of God on your life. Have you answered that call?

5. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life through mere grace (15b)

Now in this call Paul refers to God’s grace. The call of the Gospel is all about God doing for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And in our calls to come to Christ and in our heart’s acceptance of that call, it is all a divine work of the Holy Spirit. It is not of you, not of works lest any man should boast.

The Gospel is a free gift from a loving God. What did Jesus say to us?

“You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you” (John 15.16 ESV).

The fifth way that the Gospel originates in your life is this:

6. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life with divine purpose (16)

In verse 16 Paul says that the Gospel came to Him “in order that” He could preach Christ among the Gentiles. Paul sees a divine purpose in his calling as a Christian and a preacher. He has a mission in life.

Each and every one of us has a purpose in life and it is to glory God and enjoy Him forever. We say that well. But do we know it? Do we live it? Do we live life, embrace it and know that God has called us for a purpose. Now you may be a lawyer or a doctor or a clergyman or a homemaker and you say that is your purpose. And I will not disagree with you. But your purpose in life is more than a professional occupation. Your purpose is not just to get a job, accumulate wealth, raise kids who do well, and then retire in the mountains. In fact, your purpose is to fulfill God’s purposes in this world while you are here. And God’s purposes are to redeem a fallen race through getting out the Good News of the Gospel of His Son Jesus Christ. The question to ask of yourself today is not, “Do I know God’s purpose for my life” but “Am I about god’s purpose in this world.”

7. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life and brings committed redirection (17)

Saul of Tarsus was a new man. And after the Gospel came into his life he committed to a new way of life and even a new direction. We are told in verse 17 that after Christ came to him he went into Arabia¾a sort of self imposed time of seminary¾and then he returned again to Damascus.  Paul changed course. He had started on his way to Damascus to persecute Christ’s people and he ended up going in a new direction only to end back there again preaching Jesus. That is the Gospel. E. Stanley Jones, the great Methodist missionary wrote in his autobiography, Song of Ascents, about an African man. When this man heard the Gospel he changed his name to “After.” That is a funny name to us. But hew as saying that he was committed to a new way, a new direction in life, “after” Christ’s Gospel had changed him.

When Christ changes a human being there is an “after effect”: and that is a new direction.

Where are you going to day after Christ? Where are you going in your relationship with your family? Where are you going in your business? Where are you going in your relationship with God? If there is an origin of the Gospel in your life there must be an “after.”

8. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life and brings godly submission (18-20)

When Paul was saved he was saved by Christ. He was called by Christ. Who could boast up against Paul’s testimony of having received a personal visitation by the risen Christ? But Paul was submissive. After he went to his seminary experience at RTS Arabia and RTS Damascus, Paul presented himself in submissiveness to Peter and James.

The Gospel produces such a godly submission. When Christ saves you, He begins the work of sanctification and part of that involves getting rid of saying, “But I have a right!” He replaces that with “I have a debt…to pay to Christ…I am glad to just be here. How can I help?”

Is there anyone here today who is still clinging to your rights? Dietrich Bonheoffer famously said that when Christ saves a man he bids him to come and die.

But whoever truly experiences the Gospel in his life, begins the walk of surrender, even unto death of the old self and the beginning of a walk of new life.

9. The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life and brings wonder (23)

This is one of my favorite verses. Those who were fearful of Paul began to say, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” I love that because this says that a man we look upon today, as a vile wicked sinner that we wouldn’t let near our children could become in God’s grace, a man who teaches those children Bible stories. The man who curses Christ today may preach Him tomorrow. And this brings wonder. Indeed, Martin Lloyd Jones used to speak of the “romance of the Gospel” and this is it! The wonder of the Gospel is that there is no story incapable of becoming God’s story! Even yours!

Sometimes I will get people saying to me, “I have prayed for my son for many years and yet I still see him living away from God. Is there any hope for him?” And I always remind them of Paul. I remind them of Peter. I remind them that the greatest preachers in the history of the Church were all, for the most part, men brought to Christ out of a life that was far from God. Augustine and his wicked sensual life, a concubine and illegitimate son, becomes the man who almost singlehandedly re discovers the doctrine of grace, which we study in Galatians, and transforms the Church of his day. Wesley was not a man of wickedness but a man of methodical religion who learned that such religion could not even give him security in a storm on the sea! He was afraid of dying and facing a holy God! But this man read the very preface of the Book of Romans by Martin Luther, another sinner saved by grace, and John Wesley fell on his knees on Aldersgate Street and said he felt his heart “strangely warmed and knew that Christ had saved even me.” And the Methodist movement began to spread throughout England so that Arnold Toynbee, a secular historian, declared that without the Great Awakening brought on by the preaching of Wesley and Whitefield, England could not have avoided the bloody revolution that had happened in France. What wonder?

The great Hebrew scholar, Abraham Joshua Heschel, was on his deathbed and he told his family, “I only asked God for wonder and He gave it.” I do not know the fate of that man’s soul, but the wonder of wonders is not just that there is a God, but that this God took on flesh and became Man and lived the life I could not live and died a death for my sins and offers eternal life to all who will turn to Him by faith.

“The one who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once he sought to destroy.”

Parents of wayward children, wives of straying husbands, souls seemingly locked in immovable unbelief: Jesus Christ is the God of wonders!

10.             The Gospel of Jesus Christ originates in your life and breaks out in worship (24)

Paul often ends his own testimony with praise of the God of grace. It is as if the truth of Christ bubbles up inside of him and overflows into worship!

I have a friend of mine, Dr. Robert Smith, who is professor of preaching at Beeson Divinity School in Alabama. And Dr. Smith says this about doctrine:

“Doctrine doesn’t have to be dull. Doctrine can dance.”

Paul thus makes doctrine dance in his life. And it dances to the tune of grace. Paul’s theology becomes doxology.

Conclusion

In Galatians, Paul stands, as it were, on the front porch of the Galatians church. And he calls for the children to come in, to come in and feast on the Gospel of Grace, a Gospel that came, not from men like the false Gospels they are enchanted with, but from God Himself. Come in. Come home. Come eat the good food for your soul.

When I was a young man, I began to listen to other voices, other Gospels. Some of them came through words and music that today I would characterize as influenced by Eastern thought and Western 20^th century existentialism. Then, it just sounded like the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield! It was just another voice. And I followed and I do not have time to tell you the sorrow that following that voice brought me. But I began to give out some calls of my own. And with a guitar and a pen and paper, I began to speak. When I heard the authentic call of Jesus Christ, I put down the guitar. I continued to play and to write privately, but I could not bear to play again publically because, for me, that guitar and my voice were sounds of pain, of wayward, lost years. And I shared this with some of my friends at a church I was planting, at the time in Savannah, Georgia.

One Christmas, a couple of members of that church asked me, “If you could have any guitar in the world what would it be?” I answered in jest, “I would probably want Neil Young’s Martin D-45.” That guitar cost around $10,000. The officers showed up on my door step that Christmas with a gift: it wasn’t a D-45, but a D-35, still more expensive than I would ever have paid. And as these kind believers presented me that guitar they were telling me, “Now. Play. And sing. And write. And do it for God’s glory.”  

This is not the call of Aunty Em, or Aunt Eva. It is the call of Jesus Christ on your life from this Word. My prayer for you is that you will hear the authentic call of Jesus Christ from His Word, turn from all other voices and follow Him. For there you will find freedom. And there the doctrines of the Gospel will come alive and dance, and maybe even sing.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

This is a song about hearing His voice. It is called ,”Jesus Came.”

 

Jesus Came

Jesus came when I was down,

I was lost no way to be found, He touched my soul and made me whole,

When Jesus came.

 

Jesus came into my life

His Word brought love

His Word brought life

I never knew what was true

‘ Till Jesus came.

 

“Even so Lord Jesus come”

Is the cry of those whose lives

Have felt your tender majesty

So we pray and so we plea

 

Jesus come when I grow old

When I see that my story ‘s been told

Come Shepherd lead me through death’s door

And find You there, forevermore.

 

Jesus come, in all of Your power

Though we know not the Day or the hour

We long to see the world set free

So Jesus come.

Jesus come. Jesus come.

 

---

See Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Samuel H. Dresner. I Asked for Wonder: A Spiritual Anthology. New York: Crossroad, 1983.

 

As quoted in Preaching Now, Volume 7, number 23, June 16, 2008.

 

 

Please visit The Call with Mike Milton for more entries and resources for ministry.

 

 

 

Summer is here! Three weeks ago we had our 13th graduation at RTS Charlotte, and now summer school has started. General Assemblies and Synods are underway, and vacations are planned. I am thinking about all of these things, and I am thinking about Vacation Bible School. A few years ago I wrote about the power of the Gospel through VBS that I want to share with you here.

As I went out to get the newspaper, I already had the weight of the world pressing down on me. I was walking, I was breathing, I was thinking, but because of my preoccupation with rescuing the earth from eternal destruction and other similar issues, I was not really living. Or really praying, for that matter. Then came one brilliant moment, when God disclosed Himself to me. 

It happened as I bent down to get the paper. As I stretched and grunted to pick up the paper on the curb of my driveway, my eye caught sight of a single hollyhock that I had planted by our mailbox. The hollyhock had bloomed. I had previously noticed one or two yellow flowers com-ing out, but I had somehow missed the full, glorious blooming that had occurred. There were now yellows and reds and pinks and whites all arranged by God on huge “fig-like” leaves, sitting prettily on a couple of tall, skinny, green stalks. Now if you know anything about hollyhocks, you know they are one of those perennials that are advertised in garden magazines as, “Old Timey Plants Just Like Grandmother’s” or something like that. And it is true. Hollyhocks have a cherished place in the English cottage garden. As our forefathers and mothers came to America, they brought the seeds of those beautiful, spiked, multi-colored staple of the flowerbed with them. It truly is “an old timey” beauty. I have noticed that there are more of them in Midwestern gardens than Southern ones. The hollyhock is one of those flowers that can evoke memories of childhood at grandma’s house, or Sunday afternoon strolls through a park, or for me Vacation Bible School (VBS). 

They remind me of VBS because there were hollyhocks growing near the outhouse of New Bethlehem Baptist Church, way out in the country near where I grew up. (If you have not had the joy of using an outhouse, particularly an outhouse at a country church with VBS going on, I would love to talk with you about it sometime.) I remember that going to the outhouse was a real pleasure. Yes, that’s right it was a real pleasure. 

First of all, as a child, I was amazed by a plant that was taller than I was. Hollyhocks can grow to be eight feet tall in the right conditions. Second, they were pretty and reminded me of Miss Dot, our teacher who was, I thought, going to be my wife one day. I was seven years old and she was married to a banker, but somehow none of that mattered. Third, bees love hollyhocks and there was an element of danger in going to the outhouse. It made VBS even more adventuresome. 

But put it all together, and for that one moment, as I bent down to get the paper and was mesmer-ized by the hollyhock in full bloom, I remembered the experience of the Holy Spirit moving on my heart at Vacation Bible School. I remember how I got to carry the American flag in the daily processional before we said the Pledge of Allegiance and then the Christian Pledge of Allegiance before the Christian flag. I remember cold Kool-Aid on hot, humid days. I remember the crunchy sweetness and floury smoothness of those cookies that came like a million to a pack for 99 cents. I remember waiting for a ride home after it was over at noontime. 

But before I left each day I would slip inside and stand in the pulpit at New Bethlehem Baptist Church and imagine being the preacher. I remember how I felt God was there in that place and that He probably wanted me to do something with His presence. I didn’t quite know what He wanted at that time, but I remember His tug at my little heart.

I am thankful for hollyhocks. The Lord uses them to remind me that something very important is happening at churches this week and in the weeks to come. VBS will reach in to our children and reach out to children living right down the street from us. Many staff and 100s of volunteers are hard at work now preparing for that time next week. The Gospel of Jesus Christ will be presented. I am praying for covenant children, who have been reared in the Gospel, to be strengthened and challenged to follow the Lord. I am praying that children who don’t understand God’s love in Jesus Christ will understand for the first time and receive Him. And I am praying for the Lord, who often does His wonderful sovereign work of preparing young, tender hearts for future ministry, to do that in churches all over America.

Will you join me in praying for the summer ministry to children through VBS? Pray for Christ to touch the hearts of children with His grace and love. For behind the cookies and the singing and the crafts there is the image of Christ welcoming children and saying, “Let the little ones come unto Me.”

And if you drop by your church in the next few weeks of summer, maybe you will see some little child hanging around the sanctuary, maybe “trying out” the pulpit. Just let him alone and pray. God may be up to something with that young and tender heart. 

We don’t have hollyhocks growing at my church; we don’t have an outhouse anywhere nearby. But I think God will still be with the children anyway. Because I think God loves VBS. And I know that  Jesus loves little children.

 

 

 

Please visit The Call with Mike Milton for more entries and resources for ministry.

 

2 Samuel 18.24-19.2; Proverbs 17.6; Ephesians 6.1-4

The Bible is very practical and plain. Sometimes, disturbingly so. Like in the case of the historical account of King David and his son, Absalom. David was a great man but he was guilt of great sin. And his sin infected his home. In 2 Samuel 12.11-13, Nathan confronts David about his sin with Bathsheba. Bathsheba was not his first sin. He had been married seven times before. David had seven wives when he took Bathsheba from his servant Urriah the Hittite. In 2 Samuel 12, Nathan says that David’s great sin had resulted in a judgment. The sword would not leave his home. The universal laws of God had been violated. And David’s sin had produced family pain. By Chapter 13 it happens. Chapter 13 unfolds the damage done. It is the repugnant tale of incest in the royal line between two children of two different wives to David. The act is followed by the murder of Amnon by Absalom, Tamar’s full brother. In Chapter 14, Absalom, we read, “lived two full years in Jerusalem, without coming into the king’s presence” (14.28). Absalom conspires to dethrone his father and become King. Chapter 18, the climax of the sordid story. And I read from 18.24-19.2:

Now David was sitting between the two gates, and the watchman went up to the roof of the gate by the wall, and when he lifted up his eyes and looked, he saw a man running alone. The watchman called out and told the king. And the king said, “If he is alone, there is news in his mouth.” And he drew nearer and nearer. The watchman saw another man running. And the watchman called to the gate and said, “See, another man running alone!” The king said, “He also brings news.” The watchman said, “I think the running of the first is like the running of Ahimaaz the son of Zadok.” And the king said, “He is a good man and comes with good news.”
Then Ahimaaz cried out to the king, “All is well.” And he bowed before the king with his face to the earth and said, “Blessed be the LORD your God, who has delivered up the men who raised their hand against my lord the king.” And the king said, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?” Ahimaaz answered, “When Joab sent the king’s servant, your servant, I saw a great commotion, but I do not know what it was.” And the king said, “Turn aside and stand here.” So he turned aside and stood still.

And behold, the Cushite came, and the Cushite said, “Good news for my lord the king! For the LORD has delivered you this day from the hand of all who rose up against you.” The king said to the Cushite, “Is it well with the young man Absalom?” And the Cushite answered, “May the enemies of my lord the king and all who rise up against you for evil be like that young man.” * And the king was deeply moved and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept. And as he went, he said, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!”

It was told Joab, “Behold, the king is weeping and mourning for Absalom.” So the victory that day was turned into mourning for all the people, for the people heard that day, “The king is grieving for his son.”

Introduction to the Sermon

Have any of you ever had the nightmare where you show up someplace and you have no clothes? Well, that nightmare became a reality for me yesterday. You see, I had a wedding to conduct at four o’clock in the afternoon, and we had some outdoor activities planned earlier in the day. So I grabbed my dress clothes, which I would wear for the wedding, and threw them in the car, planning to change once I got to church. So, at around three o’clock, my wife dropped me off. I took my suit which was on a hanger and walked up to my office. I took a shower, and went to grab for my pants from off of the hanger. But there were no pants on the hanger. There was mild panic, but I thought, “surely, the pants slid off of the hanger and I will find them somewhere along the path I took in coming to my office.” Wrong. Mild panic quickly turned into terror! I called by wife on her cell phone, hoping to get her aid. No answer. What was I going to do? I had, at this time, about 15 minutes until I was to pray with the bride and about 20 minutes until I walked out with the groom to perform this wedding! What a sight it was going to be: hairly white legs sticking out from under the black pulpit robe! Yikes! Suddenly, our facilites manager walked in. I told him, “My nightmare has come true! The king has no clothes!” Fearlessly, he summed up the situation and provided the answer. “Pastor, the missionary closet has all you need.” So, the nightmare ended and the wedding went on.

Now, what if you had a nightmare that you lost your family. And it came true. This week, I heard from a man who is going through a divorce, and the loss of his family. His nightmare is coming true. He is going to lose his newborn son, his wife lives in another country, and he seems destined to a life of heartbreak. Sin and sadness have conspired together to bring hopelessness to this young man’s life.
Every person here has either known this situation personally or has encountered it in your family or in your friendships. I know it is present in this and every congregation in our day. We are so much like Israel in Nehemiah’s day that had wandered from God and taken up with the foreign women of a pagan nation. We are infected with the sensuality of this present evil age.

But that never stopped God from bringing hope and healing for broken people then. And there is hope and healing for broken daddies, and children today. There is, in fact, hope and healing for that pitiful man who wrote me the email this week. What I told that man this week, is what I tell you today. And all I have to say is what I find in God’s Word.

As I heard this story of pain I went to the sad story of David and his son Absalom. I would draw every father’s attention to words that we never want to utter but words which we should all pay close attention to today. What does this father’s lament tell us?

Few stories match the gripping grief-struck tale of David and Absalom. Two great truths can be seen in this passage that can bring hope to broken daddies and fractured families.

1. The secret sins of earthly fathers will brings sorrow to their families. And thus today is a day of repentance.

I say this based on the soul-shaking cry of King David as he learns of his rebellious son’s tragic death, even as he was seeking his father’s kingdom. David’s cry, “O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! Would I had died instead of you, O Absalom, my son, my son!” is an awful statement of remorse and regret. And we see in that cry and in that story how it came about.

I am concerned as I repeat David’s words that many will hear this and know their own grief. I know that some hearing this, though they have been forgiven and God is working redemption in their lives and families, will be drawn by the past pain to withdraw from this message, but I pray you, to be drawn by God to prayer for others. I ask you as a fellow sojourner in the pathway of family pain to bear with me, my brothers. If you have known God’s love, pray that in this message, the Word of God will do its mighty work in the hearts of unrepentant men who hear this—drawing them to see their sins, see their Savior and stand on His salvation on the cross to see hope. Will you stand with me now, who have been healed of your own sins in this area, and bravely testify with me to the tragedy of what secret sin will do to man and his family?

Now let me return, along with these praying men, to see this passage. It is a hard one for all of us. It is hard for those women who have suffered because of the sins of their husbands. It is hard for children who have suffered because of sin in their own homes. But we must look up to be healed or else forever wander hollow-eyed and depressed in the wilderness of our own seething pain. Jesus bids you look up to see your redemption drawing nigh.

But we must begin with confronting the terrible cry of David in this passage before us. How did David, nay how do broken daddies, end up with such a painful plea of the soul as to cry, “O my son, my son…?”
And here are the answers.

Such Remorse begins with Rejection

He rejected God’s law and its set into effect a judgment that reached through his generations. David rejected God’s law with his many wives. This was never condoned by God and was a direct rejection of God’s intention. For Jesus said of the unbiblical marital arrangements in his day that it was not so in the beginning.

“…He who created them from the beginning made male and female, and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh…”

And Paul teaching on the one woman qualification for an officer in the Church further instructs us on the intention of God, that man should have one wife. And David rejected this.

David also rejected the Law of God in coveting what was not his. When you break one commandment, you break them all. And David’s sensual sin caused him to worship the flesh, have other gods before him, and we could go through each commandment. He became deceived by the devil and succumbed to his own flesh and the result was devastating.

In Genesis chapter 6, the chapter where we see the word of God that He will destroy the earth and the call for Noah to build an ark, God shows us the pathway to destruction. For that generation it began with men governing themselves by the lusts of the flesh rather than by God’s will. For they took women who were the daughters of ungodly pagans rather than marrying a woman who was faithful. The result was that their sin bred violence in the land. Sexual sin is a sin against God’s laws for life and always results in pain and even in violence in the land. Abortion is a result of such sin. The bloodletting of abortion in our land is a consequence, in the majority of the cases, of violating God’s best intentions for our lives.

Men of God, the spirit of this age seeks to destroy your life by promising you fulfillment through sensuality. It is a lie from the pit of Hell that must be rejected by trusting in Christ, honoring your wife, thinking of the great damage that could come to your children, and the horrors of Hell.

The Rejection of the Father leads to the Rebellion of the Child

And David’s children rebelled. The sin of Amnon with Tamar, the sin of Absalom against his brother (which should have been handled according to the law not through vigilantism which only compounds the crises), and the sin of Absalom against his father’s kingdom, all came about as a direct rebellion against David. Nathan the Prophet prophesied this after David’s heinous crime of adultery and murder.

Covenant children rebel when they see duplicitous living in their parents’ lives. Covenant children rebel when they see a demand for holiness that their parents do not adhere to. But let us be careful to say that the child is responsible before God for his own faithfulness to God. And children, the Bible instructs you to turn to Jesus now. Your parents are not perfect. And you cannot use their sins to disguise your own. God calls you to repent and to be obedient to them and should they fall, then be obedient to God the Father and continue to pray for and show honor to your parents no matter their condition. This God will bless.

The Rebellion of Children to the Father’s Sin leads to a Repeating of the sin

Thus, the rebellion led to a repeating of his sins in David’s own household. Amnon and Tamar represent a rebellion that tragically mimicked David’s own lustful situation with Bathsheba. Absalom, who sought revenge of his full sister against the half brother, Amnon, represented the murderous act of David, who had Bathsheba’s husband killed in battle.

The warning of God is clear:

You shall not bow down to them or serve them [speaking of the gods of the surrounding nations]; for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, Deuteronomy 5.9

There was once a ruckus that happened in a little Scottish village. Stores were broken into, damage was done on a Saturday night spree by youth. One of the men in the town darted out of his house with a big stick. He began to follow the suspected pathway of the wayward youth. He marked all of the signs of their presence, noted all of the damage they did along the way, followed closely, and came to a house. It was his own.
The truth is that the children follow us all the way.

Today is a day of repentance for men who are caught in sensual sin

Many of you may be familiar with the sad marriage of the great Russian playwright, Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy’s marriage was a saga of bitterness. His wife carped and complained and clung to her grudges until he could not bear the sight of her. When they had been married almost a half a century, sometimes she would implore him to read to her the exquisite, poignant love passages that he had written about her in his diary forty-eight years previously, when they were both madly in love with each other. As he read of the happy days that were now gone forever, they both wept bitterly.

God does not want you to weep bitterly as you think of what could have been. God is the business of transforming lives today, giving hope today. And new life begins with the rejection of the old, which has brought sorrow, and the embracing of the new, which brings life. And today is a day that God has visited you and called you to return to Him. Today is a day where you must see the awful consequences of your sin. Though your sin be done in secret, the defiance of God in the most private of areas will become the devastation of your family and your soul in the most public of ways. Do not go another moment without confession of sin and a prayer to Almighty God for His deliverance and His hope.

Jesus said that if you eye offends you pluck it out. And Jesus was using extreme language to address a heart issue that demands extreme and immediate attention. It is a call to repent, to turn from the sin in order to embrace healing and renewal and life. And the way to turn from something that is powerful is to be compelled by a greater power. And the power I show you is the power of God’s love in Jesus Christ. The power I show you is something you can relate to now: the power of God the Father in His brokenness in sending His only begotten Son for you.

And this is the second and final truth I bring from this passage on this Father’s Day:

2. The holy love of our heavenly father through the suffering of His one and only Son will bring salvation to broken daddies and their broken children. And thus this is a day of resurrection hope

David’s cry ended with “My Son, My son” but Jesus’ cry, in David’s place, was “My God! My God! Why Have you forsaken Me?”

The cry of David was the cry of a broken daddy.
The cry of Jesus was the cry of a forsaken Son.
The cry of David came from failure to follow God’s plan for living.
The cry of Jesus came from fulfillment of God’s plan of salvation for those who have failed.
The cry of David brought only more remorse.

The cry of Jesus on the cross brings miraculous resurrection.

There is not a case that ever comes before me that I say, “Well, no hope here. No way to mend this. No answers.” No, my beloved, God in Christ is a Redeemer. He came to bind up wounds and set captives free. Paul said of His saving work:

Broken daddies—from Adam, whose sinful son Cain murdered Abel to Abraham whose sinful unbelief led to seeing his first born son, Ishmael, led away with his mother from the camp; to David, pale in comparison with the brokenness that had to occur as a result of a covenant between God the Father and God the Son. For it was ordained from before the foundation of the world that God the Son would leave His Father’s glorious presence in heaven to come down to live with men, to be rejected by the very ones He came to save, and then to be abandoned on the Cross with all of the wrath of God coming down on His pure soul. But you see, broken daddies and fractured families are healed by the brokenness of God the Father sending His Son to be forsaken on Calvary’s Cross for you. And not only that, but in Jesus’ being forsaken by His Father on the cross, He was sent to the grave. But God did not leave Him there, but raised Him up on the third day. And forever more, praise the name of Jesus, there is hope and renewal for broken daddies and fractured families through the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become she righteousness of God.” 2Corinthians 5.21

And there is reconciliation for estranged families, renewal and hope for remorseful fathers and mothers, restoration for prodigal children, through Jesus Christ:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation—if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant. Colossians 1.19-23

I believe with all of my heart and I have experienced it through all of my life that through Jesus Christ the redeemer, families can be brought together, marriages can be healed, abandoned spouses and children can be ministered to and given a new life, heart broken children can be mended, and the cycle of pain that afflicts generations can be immediately snapped by the broken daddy, broken not by remorse but repentance before a holy God who is quick to receive you back because of His Son Jesus.

And maybe there is someone here, like the young father who wrote me this week. You don’t see a way out. You don’t see how God can redeem your situation. You look into the future and see pain and more pain because of your sin or the sin of another.

I end with the words of a wise woman, Elizabeth Elliott.

“The disorders and sorrows in my own life, whether attributable solely to my own fault, solely to somebody else’, perhaps to a mixture of both, or to neither, have given me the change to learn a little more each time of the meaning of the cross. What can I do with the sins of others? Nothing but what I do with my own - and what Jesus did with all of them - take them to the cross. Put them down at the foot and let them stay there. The cross has become my home, my rest, my shelter, my refuge.”

Fathers, is the cross of Christ your home for your sins past and present? Children, is the cross of Christ your rest and your shelter from disappointment? Or pain? Dear women, is the cross of Jesus your refuge?

Regret and remorse are covered in the precious blood of Jesus when our problems are placed at His feet. And on this Father’s Day that is good news for David, good news for any would-be Absalom and good news for all of us. Let us pray.

O Father, the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, you have blessed the world with fathers. And yet, too often we have obscured fatherhood that you intended by the consequences of our sin. And we ask you you redeem fatherhood in our families, in our nation, in my life, through the instruction of Scripture, the grace of Jesus and the transformation of our souls. I pray in Christ’s name. Amen.

 

Please visit The Call with Mike Milton for more entries and resources for ministry.

Hit by Friendly Fire is a new booklet in the series, “Faith for Living,” published by Wipf and Stock. I pray that the Lord uses this book to bring healing to Christians whose souls fester in pain from being hurt from other believers. 

Introduction to the Reading

Many Americans and Presidents have made their way to the center of Arlington Cemetery there stands a monument that is beloved by all Americans. It is the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. Guarded 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by the Old Guard of the United States Army, this monument has engraved on it these words:

“Here Rests In Honored Glory An American Soldier Known But To God”.”

It’s hard to view that sight and not be moved.

Today we will make our way to a place in God’s Word that has been visited by many believers through time. And here we will honor whom God has honored and memorialized in His Word. Some of these people would also be known but to God. But He has erected a monument in His Word to the story of His grace in their lives that we too may view that sight and be moved, be strengthen, and be encouraged.

That is my prayer as I read the inerrant and the infallible Word of the living God.

(Read Joshua 2; Hebrews 11.30-12.2)

Introduction to the Sermon

Camp Wolverine, Iraq is not where you want to end up. It’s not just that it is yet another sandy, forsaken sort of place in a far away, war-warped country. It is that it is the home of the 4^th Quartermaster Company, which is the mortuary affairs camp for the United States Army in that area of operation. The soldiers there say, “We like it when we are bored with nothing to do.” Lately, there have not been many days like that. One the young soldiers recently granted an interview and talked about her support role to those on the front line. Pfc. Mari-Ann Lopez is a mortuary affairs specialist serving at Camp Wolverine. As I read her words I was proud of her determination to do her mission, even though it was hard. I was thankful that she could find meaning even in that most difficult of assignments.  She felt that she was there to return loved ones to families. She was one link in the chain to aid a grieving family. And she has ministered to the families of men like:

·      Staff Sgt. Jorge A. Molina Bautista, 37, 1^st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion, 1^st Marine Division, 1^st Marine Expeditionary Force, Rialto, California, who died as a result of hostile action in Al Anbar Province, Iraq, on May 23, 2004; or,

·      Spc. Jeremy L. Ridlen, 23, 1544 Transportation Company, Illinois Army National Guard, Paris, Illinois, Ridlen was killed by small-arms fire after an improvised explosive device hidden in a parked dump truck was detonated as his military convoy was driving by in East Fallujah, Iraq, on May 23, 2004; or,

·      Staff Sgt. Jeremy R. Horton, 24, Company B, 2^nd