by David Scott Robertson
(Gen 1:26 NIV) Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
Human beings were the ingenious creation of God. The "let us" and "in our image" in the scripture above refers to, of course, the Holy Trinity. In the same way that there is one God who eternally exists in three persons - God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit - similarly mankind whom He created exists in three aspects - body, soul, and spirit.
1 Thessalonians 5:23, among other scriptures, proves this to be true: "May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Each of these aspects of the human being must receive appropriate care and feeding and nurturing in order for proper development to occur. If this does not happen, malfunction and dysfunction result.
I have observed an interesting phenomenon in our culture. There seems to be enormous attention given to the development of two-thirds of what makes up a human being leaving one-third in a very undeveloped state. The net result of this practice is a generation comprised of incomplete persons. We see this truth manifest all the time.
A young woman is on a low-carb diet and works out 4 days per week at the health club. She is a graduate student at a local university. However, she only goes to church on Easter and Christmas. The incomplete woman.
A young college graduate lands an executive position with a Fortune 500 company. On the weekends he participates in regional triathlons. He is the picture of health poised to climb to the pinnacle of corporate success. His competitions take him away from home on Sundays so he rarely attends church. The incomplete man.
A young couple has a baby. They painstakingly feed it, clothe it, shelter it, and rear it to the point where they eventually send it off to school for 12-16 years to educate it. Tragically, the parents totally omit the spiritual rearing of their offspring. The incomplete family.
My point is that we can look at a person who is beautiful and attractive (whatever that means to you) and intelligent and successful (whatever that means to you) and ERRONEOUSLY suppose that this individual is full and complete. Wrong.
- The gold medal-winning gymnast with bulging biceps and perfect abs has an anger problem.
- The Nobel Prize winner smokes 2 packs of cigarettes a day.
- The MTV idol is working on her fourth marriage.
- The college professor drinks…a lot.
- The drop-dead gorgeous blond at the office is eaten up inside with bitterness against her father.
Incomplete persons, one and all. And you and I rub shoulders with tens of thousands of them in a lifetime. It doesn't help that we exist in a culture in America when we rate, judge, and reward people based on two-thirds of who they really are. But that's the way that a carnal culture operates.
So what if someone is incomplete? What difference does it make? If a person is pretty and smart, isn't that enough? It may well be, unless you're interested in marrying an incomplete person. Or employing one. Or electing one to public office. Personality, charisma, charm, pedigree, appearance, accomplishments, etc. all take a back seat to the fruit of the Spirit.
"But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law" (Galatians 5:22-23).
Unless you are "born of the Spirit" (saved, regenerated, a believer in/disciple of Jesus Christ) you are ineligible to receive the fruit of the Spirit. Therefore, any super-model or power-executive who is not a Christian is an incomplete person.
"You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked" (Revelation 3:17).
Natural beauty will eventually fade; time and gravity will take care of that. Earthy intelligence and reasoning will eventually prove to be inferior to godly wisdom; experience and history each testify to that. Success without God is not success at all. Kings, politicians, CEOS, and movie stars all eventually die. At that time, the only thing that matters is whether or not you are a complete person.
"If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15).
My counsel to you who are reading this today is to eat right, exercise, drink plenty of water and read your Bible. Complete your education, exercise your mind and imagination, enjoy the arts, and spend lots of time in prayer. Plant a garden, play ball with your kids, go on vacation, and make sure you are in church as regularly as possible. Fellowship with complete persons who will help your faith in Jesus grow strong. Reach out to share the love of God with those who are not yet complete in Christ. Make sure that your spiritual life development is the top priority in your life and then the other two-thirds of who you are will follow in proper order.
DSR
4/26/04
Monday, April 26, 2004
Monday, April 12, 2004
The Planet's Most Extreme
by David Scott Robertson
NOTE: This thought was the text for a sermon I preached in 2003.
My daughter Abigail and I very much enjoy watching nature shows on television. She, like me, is fascinated at the wonders of nature and rightly so. God had done such a magnificent, spectacular, (fill in the blank with your own adjective), job in creating creation, don't you think?
To be sure there are vast wonders in the areas of astronomy, biology, physical science, geography, and all the other complex segments of our universe, but it's the animal world that has captured my daughter's attention.
As Abbey and I watch these programs together, it is my delight as her father to have opportunity after opportunity to teach her about the many facets of the Inventor of the animals - Creator God.
It was God who gave the Crocodile Hunter (Steve Irwin), and Jeff Corwin, and the explorers on Wild Kingdom, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel and all other nature shows something to talk about. In fact, as these scientists perform their excellent job of bringing nature up close and personal to the rest of the world by way of a television camera, they are also, whether they realize it or not, glorifying God who created the subjects of their commentary.
Abbey and I particularly enjoy a series on Animal Planet called "The Planet's Most Extreme." It's a show that counts down backwards from ten to one the most peculiar organisms in the natural world: The most extreme camouflage, the most extreme intelligence, the most extreme speed, the most extreme strength, and so forth. We love it!
I want you to know that this show is the inspiration for this "Thought About God."
It got me thinking about how God holds the title for "The Planet's Most Extreme." Extreme what? Let's take a look at some of the attributes of God that are unparalleled in this or any universe. Let's begin our countdown of what I think may be 10 of the most extreme characteristics about God. Coming in at #10, is the fact that God possesses…
#10: The Planet's Most Extreme GENIUS
God is so smart. Abbey and I get giddy with laughter as we look at the innumerable, incomparable, ingenious variety of wildlife on the planet! Recently we visited the Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg (Tennessee) and saw colorful fish of every shape and size - it was fantastic! But God's genius and creativity doesn't stop with fish! In His creation are tiny and huge birds of every description - tiny birds like a hummingbird that can fly backwards and large birds like geese that somehow migrate thousands of miles back to their original nesting grounds.
God invented insects that look like they're from outer space! Yesterday, in my daily devotions, I was reading about the Noah and the ark and I had this funny picture flash through my mind of Noah feeding the animals and suddenly and instinctively he realizes something is biting his neck and - SLAP! - Noah squashes a mosquito and cries out: "What have I done? I've killed a species!"
Anyway, the genius of God has created critters ranging in size from microscopic to massive.
Moreover, it's not just what they look like, it's where they live and how God has crafted their bodies to survive their environment. Critters survive in the oceans, the lake and river systems, the savannahs, the desserts, the frozen wastelands of polar regions, the rainforests, the everglades - they flourish on top of the ground, underground, or spend their days soaring in the sky -- the ecosystem and chain of plant and animal life are beyond incredible!
I watched a documentary one time about volcanic holes in the floor of the ocean where the water pumping out of the earth's crust was superheated and poisonous and guess what? God invented tubeworms to thrive there! Friends, it would take a Genius to think all this up. And it did.
To believe that all of this was the result of a process called evolution takes more faith than to believe in the creation account.
Evolution basically says that TIME + CHANCE = EVERYTHING.
To believe that everything evolves over billions of years is tantamount to believing that you can throw a grenade into a print shop and out of the explosion comes an unabridged dictionary! If you believe that then you'll have no problem believing that the United States Navy can fire a cruise missile into an airplane hanger and out of that explosion will come the space shuttle!
No, things don't go from chaos to order all by themselves (investigate the "law of entropy"). You can look at your kid's room and figure that out! No, things don't go from simple to more complex all by themselves! Evolution is a THEORY, not a fact, and it's a bad theory at that based on lies and false assumptions.
You see, the earth has a very complex design, therefore it must have a Designer. Seasons follow a plan, so there must have been a Planner. Creation had a Creator, His name is God, and He is a genius!
It is Abbey and my firm conviction that when it comes to high intelligence and creativity, God is the Planet's Most Extreme GENIUS.
Coming in at #9 on the countdown of God's extreme attributes is that God is the owner of…
The Planet's Most Extreme PATIENCE
God is so patient. He's more patient that you or me or all of us called humanity put together. And it's a good thing too because if God were not patient, there would be no humanity. The Lord God could have, at any given time, spoken the word and the earth could have been reduced to a sterile ball of matter floating through space.
And it's not like we haven't tried His patience. By and large, every people group on the earth today has offended God, transgressed His laws, and for the most part ignored Him.
As a matter of fact, the Bibles predicts a day in which the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth to claim His Bride, the Church, and leave the rest of humanity to contend with a period of history known as "The Great Tribulation." What's preventing Him from showing up? Patience.
"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
I could go on and but suffice it to say that God is the clear winner when it comes to longsuffering and exercises the Planet's Most Extreme PATIENCE.
#8 - God possesses The Planet's Most Extreme GLORY
God is so glorious. In Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, he writes "that no flesh should glory in his presence" (1:29). When we compare the glory of man with the glory of God, there is no comparison!
God is so great and so glorious that the angels in heaven bow down and give Him glory and praise with complete adoration continually.
His glory provided light in the beginning before there was a sun (Genesis 1:3) and His glory will illuminate the universe when the sun is extinguished in the new heavens and new earth at the consummation of the age (Revelation 21:25).
A man in the Bible named Saul got a glimpse of the glory of God and the brightness blinded him for three days (Acts 9:8-9). Peter, James and John caught a glimpse of the glory of God on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2) and they instantly fell on their faces deeply afraid! The Israelites saw the glory of the Lord settle on Mount Sinai for seven days and it looked like a consuming fire (Exodus 24:16-17). When King Solomon was dedicating the newly built temple of God the glory of the Lord was so thick that the priests could not perform their service (1 Kings 8:10-11).
Friends, the glory of the Lord is beyond description and human understanding. When it comes to magnificence, splendor and wonder, the Lord God most definitely possesses the Planet's Most Extreme GLORY.
#7 - The Planet's Most Extreme HOLINESS
God is so holy. God is unspeakably holy. He is utterly good, flawless, sinless, He is perfection personified. He is so holy that there are living creatures in heaven right now who day and night never stop saying:
"...holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come" (Revelation 4:8).
It's a good thing God is holy. You see, if God were not holy, then Jesus' sacrifice on the cross would have been insufficient to purchase mankind's salvation and restore the severed relationship between God and Man lost in the Garden of Eden through Adam and Eve's sin.
But because God is holy, and Jesus is God, then His sacrifice was all-sufficient (Hebrews 7:27) and allowed Christ to die a vicarious and atoning death as the ultimate sin offering. It worked! Now, whosoever calls on the name of the Lord can be saved! (Acts 2:21).
Why? Because when it comes to sanctity, godliness, and consecration, nothing even comes close to God who has the Planet's Most Extreme HOLINESS.
#6 - The Planet's Most Extreme POWER
God is so powerful.
"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" (Genesis 1:3).
Can you do that? When God speaks, it is so powerful that whatever He says happens.
Let me illustrate the power of God's creative power this way. Since it is impossible for God to lie, if God were to say to me: "David, you're 8 feet tall." Before I could get the words out of my mouth saying "no, I'm 6 feet 1 inch tall…" - I'd be 8 feet 0 inches tall! Why? Simply because God's word would cause it to be so.
God is so powerful that - as Nahum 1:5 tells us - that…
"The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it" (Nahum 1:5).
God is so powerful that no man can see him face-to-face and live (Exodus 33:20).
All the atomic weapons in the world combined couldn't rival one atom of His power.
As a matter of fact, God is so powerful that there's a special word in the English language reserved exclusively for Him and nobody else: the word is "OMNIPOTENT." That means "all-powerful."
I think that means God can handle the mess you've gotten yourself in to.
When it comes to supremacy, command, and authority, God is most assuredly the Planet's Most Extreme POWER.
Well, at this point, we're halfway through the countdown! We're talking about attributes of the Lord our God that are so extreme that nothing on earth, nothing in heaven, and nothing under the earth can compare with the majesty of Almighty God.
We're talking about the One who is going to lead us into 2004. This is the One that who says, "My presence will go with you and I will give you rest." This is the one who said in Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you nor forsake you!" This is the One who said "ALL authority in heaven and in earth has been given to ME!" and this same Jesus wants to be your Best Friend in the New Year - if you'll let Him!
His GENIUS is extreme. His PATIENCE is extreme. His GLORY is extreme. His HOLINESS is extreme and to be sure, His POWER is extreme. But although these are incredible qualities that our Lord King possesses, there's still more! The half has not yet been told!
Have a look at my #5 most extreme attribute of God...
#5 - The Planet's Most Extreme WISDOM
God is so wise. He doesn't possess a portion, part, slice, or fraction of wisdom, He IS wisdom embodied. Everything He does is just and fair and right (Proverbs 2:9).
There's not a single decision or plan He's made that wasn't perfectly wise. There hasn't been a solitary incident of Him saying or doing anything that wasn't the exact right thing to say or do. His counsel and advice are wise, His laws and decrees are wise, His commands and statues are wise. Even His rebukes and judgments are completely wise!
Without a doubt, God has a monopoly on wisdom.
"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3)
If that's not enough, the Bible teaches that ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ! (Colossians 2:2-3). And where is Christ? That's the mystery of the ages - "Christ in you, the hope of glory!" (Colossians 1:27).
Compared to God, man's wisdom is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:20), and yet God has generously consented to share His wisdom with whoever needs it.
"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him" (James 1:5).
When it comes to being intelligent, prudent, and judicious, God most certainly wins the award for the Planet's Most Extreme WISDOM.
Coming in at #4, please consider that God is also…
#4. The Planet's Most Extreme DREAMER.
God is such a dreamer. You see, in the beginning there was a perfect God walking in the cool of the day through a perfect garden on a perfect earth with a perfect atmosphere and perfect environment in perfect balance with a perfect man and a perfect woman in perfect fellowship with each other and God. That's what's called "paradise."
Enter sin…and the rest is history.
Now listen to this: God's dream is to restore fallen mankind back to that original state. He's not going to just refurbish or remodel the planet, He's going to make it brand new!
Let's take a quick look at a couple of verses out of the Book of Revelation:
"He [God] who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" (Revelation 21:5)
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea" (Revelation 21:1).
Before God concludes His plan for the ages, He's going to restore all that was lost in the fall of man. Before all is said and done, we are going to end up with a perfect God visibly and physically living with perfect men and perfect women on a perfect earth in perfect relationship with each other and God. (By the way, God will be on the throne and the devil, that old serpent, will be in the lake of fire!)
In my daily devotions I'm reading through Genesis right now and I just finished reading the account of creation. It never ceases to amaze me that in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, that He made all that real estate but only put two people on the planet. The earth is a large land mass 12,000 miles in diameter at the equator. Why do you suppose, then, that God only put Adam and Eve on the planet in the first place? It's because God is a Dreamer!
The Father's dream right from the beginning was to ultimately have billions and billions of sons and daughters on the earth that look like Jesus. And He sent Jesus to reconcile a fallen race to Himself and to challenge us with a Great Commission to go and win souls and make disciples so that His Father could have His dream fulfilled. When you say "yes" to God's Great Commission ("Therefore go and make disciples..." - Matthew 28:19-20), you are saying yes to becoming a part of making God's dream come true.
What a Visionary God is! Talk about positive thinking! This is one dream that is guaranteed to come true because it's God's dream.
When it comes to thinking big thoughts and dreaming big dreams, wouldn't you agree that God is absolutely the Planet's Most Extreme DREAMER?
#3. God, undeniably, is the title-holder of The Planet's Most Extreme GRACE.
God is so gracious. Grace means that you don't have to do it but you do it anyway.
Somebody somewhere once wrote that God's grace was amazing. Grace is the ex-murderer going to heaven. Grace is the former homosexual walking down streets of gold. Grace is the disabled man's body functioning properly again. Grace is the woman who once only used God's name as profanity who now cherishes that name and worships her precious Lord with all her heart.
There is no grace found on planet earth greater than the grace of God.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).
Jesus volunteering to leave the comforts and glories of heaven to intercept fallen humanity's death sentence was the single most profound act of grace in the history of the world.
Therefore, when it comes to unmerited favor, God has a corner on the market making Him the owner of the Planet's Most Extreme GRACE.
I'm thankful for God's grace, but I'm also thankful that God is…
#2. The Planet's Most Extreme GIVER.
God is so generous. There is no greater giver than God.
He gives food to the animals, sun and soil to the plants, and water for the creatures of the sea to play in. He gives weather and atmosphere and environment to keep things running smooth.
He gives man and beast the basic staples of life to sustain their existence, and yes, He even gives all creatures great and small the very breath of life itself.
His compassion knows no bounds as in His benevolence He gives time, money, resources, energy, willpower, choice, understanding, common sense, wisdom, self-worth, and a reason to live to mankind. And get this: God's generosity extends to everyone, good and evil alike! Even the wicked benefit from the kind, benevolent, giving hand of the Lord.
2 Peter 1:3 says it well what God has given us. The World's Greatest Giver through
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness."
But God went beyond giving the basics of life or providing people with a higher quality of life, He went on to give a Gift that purchased for mankind eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
My dear friends, when it comes to giving, no one has yet to out give God! That's why God is the undisputed champion of giving and by far the Planet's Most Extreme GIVER.
And so we've come to end of our countdown. We've talked about various aspects of our God that demonstrate to us, unequivocally, that He is without equal. There is no God like our God, the Holy One that does awesome wonders!
But there 's outstanding quality about God that perhaps stands out more than any other. And that attribute is #1 in our countdown…[this would be the place where Animal Planet would put a commercial - but I'm not going to do that to you!] #1: God is the possessor of…
#1. The Planet's Most Extreme LOVE
God is so loving. As we come to the end of our countdown, we have examined several attributes of God that has recognized Him to be THE Most Extreme Deity. This great God we serve is not just the greatest of many lesser gods, He is in fact the One True and Living God! (1 Corinthians 8:6)
Although the Lord is strong, He has also chosen to be loving (Psalm 62:11-12). He is big enough and tough enough to be and do anything He wants to - after all, He's God!
What makes God so incredible, so wonderful, so extreme, is that
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:8).
The prophet Jeremiah commented that "His loving kindness and tender mercies are from everlasting to everlasting" (Jeremiah 31:3) and went on to say that God's plans for us are for good and not for evil (Jeremiah 29:11) - plans to give us a hope and a bright future.
God the Father demonstrated the full extent of His love for us in sending Jesus to die for our sins (John 3:16).
Jesus demonstrated the full extent of His love for us in agreeing to become the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world on the cross (John 13:1).
The Holy Spirit demonstrates the full extent of His love for us in agreeing to remain on earth in the hearts of every believer and lead and guide us continually into all truth (John 16:13).
In this God confirmed that "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
When all is said and done, at the end of the day - as 1 Corinthians 13:13 says - there are three things that remain…
"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).
We end our countdown of the Planet's Most Extreme with a quote from God Himself proclaiming His name in Exodus 34:6-8:
"And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped" (Exodus 34:6-8).
My question to you is: Will you follow the example of Moses the man of God and bow down to the God of all men?
DSR
4/12/04
NOTE: This thought was the text for a sermon I preached in 2003.
My daughter Abigail and I very much enjoy watching nature shows on television. She, like me, is fascinated at the wonders of nature and rightly so. God had done such a magnificent, spectacular, (fill in the blank with your own adjective), job in creating creation, don't you think?
To be sure there are vast wonders in the areas of astronomy, biology, physical science, geography, and all the other complex segments of our universe, but it's the animal world that has captured my daughter's attention.
As Abbey and I watch these programs together, it is my delight as her father to have opportunity after opportunity to teach her about the many facets of the Inventor of the animals - Creator God.
It was God who gave the Crocodile Hunter (Steve Irwin), and Jeff Corwin, and the explorers on Wild Kingdom, National Geographic, the Discovery Channel and all other nature shows something to talk about. In fact, as these scientists perform their excellent job of bringing nature up close and personal to the rest of the world by way of a television camera, they are also, whether they realize it or not, glorifying God who created the subjects of their commentary.
Abbey and I particularly enjoy a series on Animal Planet called "The Planet's Most Extreme." It's a show that counts down backwards from ten to one the most peculiar organisms in the natural world: The most extreme camouflage, the most extreme intelligence, the most extreme speed, the most extreme strength, and so forth. We love it!
I want you to know that this show is the inspiration for this "Thought About God."
It got me thinking about how God holds the title for "The Planet's Most Extreme." Extreme what? Let's take a look at some of the attributes of God that are unparalleled in this or any universe. Let's begin our countdown of what I think may be 10 of the most extreme characteristics about God. Coming in at #10, is the fact that God possesses…
#10: The Planet's Most Extreme GENIUS
God is so smart. Abbey and I get giddy with laughter as we look at the innumerable, incomparable, ingenious variety of wildlife on the planet! Recently we visited the Ripley's Aquarium in Gatlinburg (Tennessee) and saw colorful fish of every shape and size - it was fantastic! But God's genius and creativity doesn't stop with fish! In His creation are tiny and huge birds of every description - tiny birds like a hummingbird that can fly backwards and large birds like geese that somehow migrate thousands of miles back to their original nesting grounds.
God invented insects that look like they're from outer space! Yesterday, in my daily devotions, I was reading about the Noah and the ark and I had this funny picture flash through my mind of Noah feeding the animals and suddenly and instinctively he realizes something is biting his neck and - SLAP! - Noah squashes a mosquito and cries out: "What have I done? I've killed a species!"
Anyway, the genius of God has created critters ranging in size from microscopic to massive.
Moreover, it's not just what they look like, it's where they live and how God has crafted their bodies to survive their environment. Critters survive in the oceans, the lake and river systems, the savannahs, the desserts, the frozen wastelands of polar regions, the rainforests, the everglades - they flourish on top of the ground, underground, or spend their days soaring in the sky -- the ecosystem and chain of plant and animal life are beyond incredible!
I watched a documentary one time about volcanic holes in the floor of the ocean where the water pumping out of the earth's crust was superheated and poisonous and guess what? God invented tubeworms to thrive there! Friends, it would take a Genius to think all this up. And it did.
To believe that all of this was the result of a process called evolution takes more faith than to believe in the creation account.
Evolution basically says that TIME + CHANCE = EVERYTHING.
To believe that everything evolves over billions of years is tantamount to believing that you can throw a grenade into a print shop and out of the explosion comes an unabridged dictionary! If you believe that then you'll have no problem believing that the United States Navy can fire a cruise missile into an airplane hanger and out of that explosion will come the space shuttle!
No, things don't go from chaos to order all by themselves (investigate the "law of entropy"). You can look at your kid's room and figure that out! No, things don't go from simple to more complex all by themselves! Evolution is a THEORY, not a fact, and it's a bad theory at that based on lies and false assumptions.
You see, the earth has a very complex design, therefore it must have a Designer. Seasons follow a plan, so there must have been a Planner. Creation had a Creator, His name is God, and He is a genius!
It is Abbey and my firm conviction that when it comes to high intelligence and creativity, God is the Planet's Most Extreme GENIUS.
Coming in at #9 on the countdown of God's extreme attributes is that God is the owner of…
The Planet's Most Extreme PATIENCE
God is so patient. He's more patient that you or me or all of us called humanity put together. And it's a good thing too because if God were not patient, there would be no humanity. The Lord God could have, at any given time, spoken the word and the earth could have been reduced to a sterile ball of matter floating through space.
And it's not like we haven't tried His patience. By and large, every people group on the earth today has offended God, transgressed His laws, and for the most part ignored Him.
As a matter of fact, the Bibles predicts a day in which the Lord Jesus Christ will return to earth to claim His Bride, the Church, and leave the rest of humanity to contend with a period of history known as "The Great Tribulation." What's preventing Him from showing up? Patience.
"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).
I could go on and but suffice it to say that God is the clear winner when it comes to longsuffering and exercises the Planet's Most Extreme PATIENCE.
#8 - God possesses The Planet's Most Extreme GLORY
God is so glorious. In Paul's first letter to the church in Corinth, he writes "that no flesh should glory in his presence" (1:29). When we compare the glory of man with the glory of God, there is no comparison!
God is so great and so glorious that the angels in heaven bow down and give Him glory and praise with complete adoration continually.
His glory provided light in the beginning before there was a sun (Genesis 1:3) and His glory will illuminate the universe when the sun is extinguished in the new heavens and new earth at the consummation of the age (Revelation 21:25).
A man in the Bible named Saul got a glimpse of the glory of God and the brightness blinded him for three days (Acts 9:8-9). Peter, James and John caught a glimpse of the glory of God on the Mount of Transfiguration (Matthew 17:2) and they instantly fell on their faces deeply afraid! The Israelites saw the glory of the Lord settle on Mount Sinai for seven days and it looked like a consuming fire (Exodus 24:16-17). When King Solomon was dedicating the newly built temple of God the glory of the Lord was so thick that the priests could not perform their service (1 Kings 8:10-11).
Friends, the glory of the Lord is beyond description and human understanding. When it comes to magnificence, splendor and wonder, the Lord God most definitely possesses the Planet's Most Extreme GLORY.
#7 - The Planet's Most Extreme HOLINESS
God is so holy. God is unspeakably holy. He is utterly good, flawless, sinless, He is perfection personified. He is so holy that there are living creatures in heaven right now who day and night never stop saying:
"...holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come" (Revelation 4:8).
It's a good thing God is holy. You see, if God were not holy, then Jesus' sacrifice on the cross would have been insufficient to purchase mankind's salvation and restore the severed relationship between God and Man lost in the Garden of Eden through Adam and Eve's sin.
But because God is holy, and Jesus is God, then His sacrifice was all-sufficient (Hebrews 7:27) and allowed Christ to die a vicarious and atoning death as the ultimate sin offering. It worked! Now, whosoever calls on the name of the Lord can be saved! (Acts 2:21).
Why? Because when it comes to sanctity, godliness, and consecration, nothing even comes close to God who has the Planet's Most Extreme HOLINESS.
#6 - The Planet's Most Extreme POWER
God is so powerful.
"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light" (Genesis 1:3).
Can you do that? When God speaks, it is so powerful that whatever He says happens.
Let me illustrate the power of God's creative power this way. Since it is impossible for God to lie, if God were to say to me: "David, you're 8 feet tall." Before I could get the words out of my mouth saying "no, I'm 6 feet 1 inch tall…" - I'd be 8 feet 0 inches tall! Why? Simply because God's word would cause it to be so.
God is so powerful that - as Nahum 1:5 tells us - that…
"The mountains quake before him and the hills melt away. The earth trembles at his presence, the world and all who live in it" (Nahum 1:5).
God is so powerful that no man can see him face-to-face and live (Exodus 33:20).
All the atomic weapons in the world combined couldn't rival one atom of His power.
As a matter of fact, God is so powerful that there's a special word in the English language reserved exclusively for Him and nobody else: the word is "OMNIPOTENT." That means "all-powerful."
I think that means God can handle the mess you've gotten yourself in to.
When it comes to supremacy, command, and authority, God is most assuredly the Planet's Most Extreme POWER.
Well, at this point, we're halfway through the countdown! We're talking about attributes of the Lord our God that are so extreme that nothing on earth, nothing in heaven, and nothing under the earth can compare with the majesty of Almighty God.
We're talking about the One who is going to lead us into 2004. This is the One that who says, "My presence will go with you and I will give you rest." This is the one who said in Hebrews 13:5, "I will never leave you nor forsake you!" This is the One who said "ALL authority in heaven and in earth has been given to ME!" and this same Jesus wants to be your Best Friend in the New Year - if you'll let Him!
His GENIUS is extreme. His PATIENCE is extreme. His GLORY is extreme. His HOLINESS is extreme and to be sure, His POWER is extreme. But although these are incredible qualities that our Lord King possesses, there's still more! The half has not yet been told!
Have a look at my #5 most extreme attribute of God...
#5 - The Planet's Most Extreme WISDOM
God is so wise. He doesn't possess a portion, part, slice, or fraction of wisdom, He IS wisdom embodied. Everything He does is just and fair and right (Proverbs 2:9).
There's not a single decision or plan He's made that wasn't perfectly wise. There hasn't been a solitary incident of Him saying or doing anything that wasn't the exact right thing to say or do. His counsel and advice are wise, His laws and decrees are wise, His commands and statues are wise. Even His rebukes and judgments are completely wise!
Without a doubt, God has a monopoly on wisdom.
"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3)
If that's not enough, the Bible teaches that ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Christ! (Colossians 2:2-3). And where is Christ? That's the mystery of the ages - "Christ in you, the hope of glory!" (Colossians 1:27).
Compared to God, man's wisdom is foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:20), and yet God has generously consented to share His wisdom with whoever needs it.
"If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him" (James 1:5).
When it comes to being intelligent, prudent, and judicious, God most certainly wins the award for the Planet's Most Extreme WISDOM.
Coming in at #4, please consider that God is also…
#4. The Planet's Most Extreme DREAMER.
God is such a dreamer. You see, in the beginning there was a perfect God walking in the cool of the day through a perfect garden on a perfect earth with a perfect atmosphere and perfect environment in perfect balance with a perfect man and a perfect woman in perfect fellowship with each other and God. That's what's called "paradise."
Enter sin…and the rest is history.
Now listen to this: God's dream is to restore fallen mankind back to that original state. He's not going to just refurbish or remodel the planet, He's going to make it brand new!
Let's take a quick look at a couple of verses out of the Book of Revelation:
"He [God] who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" (Revelation 21:5)
"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea" (Revelation 21:1).
Before God concludes His plan for the ages, He's going to restore all that was lost in the fall of man. Before all is said and done, we are going to end up with a perfect God visibly and physically living with perfect men and perfect women on a perfect earth in perfect relationship with each other and God. (By the way, God will be on the throne and the devil, that old serpent, will be in the lake of fire!)
In my daily devotions I'm reading through Genesis right now and I just finished reading the account of creation. It never ceases to amaze me that in the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, that He made all that real estate but only put two people on the planet. The earth is a large land mass 12,000 miles in diameter at the equator. Why do you suppose, then, that God only put Adam and Eve on the planet in the first place? It's because God is a Dreamer!
The Father's dream right from the beginning was to ultimately have billions and billions of sons and daughters on the earth that look like Jesus. And He sent Jesus to reconcile a fallen race to Himself and to challenge us with a Great Commission to go and win souls and make disciples so that His Father could have His dream fulfilled. When you say "yes" to God's Great Commission ("Therefore go and make disciples..." - Matthew 28:19-20), you are saying yes to becoming a part of making God's dream come true.
What a Visionary God is! Talk about positive thinking! This is one dream that is guaranteed to come true because it's God's dream.
When it comes to thinking big thoughts and dreaming big dreams, wouldn't you agree that God is absolutely the Planet's Most Extreme DREAMER?
#3. God, undeniably, is the title-holder of The Planet's Most Extreme GRACE.
God is so gracious. Grace means that you don't have to do it but you do it anyway.
Somebody somewhere once wrote that God's grace was amazing. Grace is the ex-murderer going to heaven. Grace is the former homosexual walking down streets of gold. Grace is the disabled man's body functioning properly again. Grace is the woman who once only used God's name as profanity who now cherishes that name and worships her precious Lord with all her heart.
There is no grace found on planet earth greater than the grace of God.
"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God" (Ephesians 2:8).
Jesus volunteering to leave the comforts and glories of heaven to intercept fallen humanity's death sentence was the single most profound act of grace in the history of the world.
Therefore, when it comes to unmerited favor, God has a corner on the market making Him the owner of the Planet's Most Extreme GRACE.
I'm thankful for God's grace, but I'm also thankful that God is…
#2. The Planet's Most Extreme GIVER.
God is so generous. There is no greater giver than God.
He gives food to the animals, sun and soil to the plants, and water for the creatures of the sea to play in. He gives weather and atmosphere and environment to keep things running smooth.
He gives man and beast the basic staples of life to sustain their existence, and yes, He even gives all creatures great and small the very breath of life itself.
His compassion knows no bounds as in His benevolence He gives time, money, resources, energy, willpower, choice, understanding, common sense, wisdom, self-worth, and a reason to live to mankind. And get this: God's generosity extends to everyone, good and evil alike! Even the wicked benefit from the kind, benevolent, giving hand of the Lord.
2 Peter 1:3 says it well what God has given us. The World's Greatest Giver through
"His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness."
But God went beyond giving the basics of life or providing people with a higher quality of life, He went on to give a Gift that purchased for mankind eternal life.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
My dear friends, when it comes to giving, no one has yet to out give God! That's why God is the undisputed champion of giving and by far the Planet's Most Extreme GIVER.
And so we've come to end of our countdown. We've talked about various aspects of our God that demonstrate to us, unequivocally, that He is without equal. There is no God like our God, the Holy One that does awesome wonders!
But there 's outstanding quality about God that perhaps stands out more than any other. And that attribute is #1 in our countdown…[this would be the place where Animal Planet would put a commercial - but I'm not going to do that to you!] #1: God is the possessor of…
#1. The Planet's Most Extreme LOVE
God is so loving. As we come to the end of our countdown, we have examined several attributes of God that has recognized Him to be THE Most Extreme Deity. This great God we serve is not just the greatest of many lesser gods, He is in fact the One True and Living God! (1 Corinthians 8:6)
Although the Lord is strong, He has also chosen to be loving (Psalm 62:11-12). He is big enough and tough enough to be and do anything He wants to - after all, He's God!
What makes God so incredible, so wonderful, so extreme, is that
"Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4:8).
The prophet Jeremiah commented that "His loving kindness and tender mercies are from everlasting to everlasting" (Jeremiah 31:3) and went on to say that God's plans for us are for good and not for evil (Jeremiah 29:11) - plans to give us a hope and a bright future.
God the Father demonstrated the full extent of His love for us in sending Jesus to die for our sins (John 3:16).
Jesus demonstrated the full extent of His love for us in agreeing to become the Lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world on the cross (John 13:1).
The Holy Spirit demonstrates the full extent of His love for us in agreeing to remain on earth in the hearts of every believer and lead and guide us continually into all truth (John 16:13).
In this God confirmed that "greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).
When all is said and done, at the end of the day - as 1 Corinthians 13:13 says - there are three things that remain…
"And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Corinthians 13:13).
We end our countdown of the Planet's Most Extreme with a quote from God Himself proclaiming His name in Exodus 34:6-8:
"And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation. Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped" (Exodus 34:6-8).
My question to you is: Will you follow the example of Moses the man of God and bow down to the God of all men?
DSR
4/12/04
Monday, April 5, 2004
The Forgotten Funeral
by David Scott Robertson
(Mat 1:18 NIV) This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
(Mat 1:19 NIV) Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
(Mat 1:20 NIV) But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
(Mat 1:21 NIV) She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
Can you imagine the inexpressible joy of being the adopted parent of Jesus Christ, the Messiah? That privilege fell to a man named Joseph.
In His wisdom, God the Father had chosen Joseph, a righteous man, to serve in the key position of earthly father to God's only begotten Son. Mary, Joseph's virgin fiancé, was of course selected by the Holy Spirit to be the human host to usher in the incarnation, that is, God becoming man in the person of Jesus the Christ. Joseph and Mary, although by no means a perfect couple, was the perfect couple chosen by Almighty God to entrust the care and nurture of His beloved Son.
So then, into the house of this humble Jewish carpenter, Jesus was carefully, lovingly, and providentially placed. What an honor! What a responsibility!
I'm curious, aren't you, if there ever was a time when Joseph had to speak sternly to Jesus as a toddler? "Don't go out in the road, son!" "Come over here and sit down." "Pick that up, Jesus."
When the Lord was 12 years old, He amazed the religious leaders with theological discussions over a three-day period in the temple while separated from His very worried parents oblivious of His whereabouts. Can you just imagine what must of have been running through Joseph's mind those three agonizing days? "Dear God, I'm supposed to be looking after your Son and I've lost Him!" The young lad Jesus calmly comforted His earthly parents when at last they located Him:
(Luke 2:49 NIV) "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"
So Jesus came home to His earthly father's house and continued to be obedient to them.
Throughout the remainder of His childhood, Joseph and Mary were there to provide for all the needs of the Savior of the world as He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52).
As a young man growing up in a carpenter's house, there must have been many years of hard labor involved in doing His part to support the family and assist His dad, Joseph.
"Jesus, I need you to go down to Ezra's and pick up a load of wood."
"Son, can you finish this table for me?"
"We've nearly out of nails, Jesus, I want you and James and Simon to make the trip to get more."
In his heart Joseph knew all along that his firstborn Son would not be carrying on the family business.
The Bible doesn't give us many details about Joseph's life and is completely silent about his death. It seems apparent, though, that at some point before Jesus entered His public ministry that Joseph passed away. We can deduce this from the fact that at His crucifixion, Jesus commits the responsibility of the long-term care of His mother to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 19:26-27). (It's interesting to me that Jesus did not assign this task to James, Simon, and Judas, his half-brothers or His earthly sisters. Evidently, Jesus discovered first hand that Proverbs 18:24 applied to his beloved and trustworthy friend, John, "…a friend who sticks closer than a brother.")
Most of us know the heartache and pain of losing a loved one, and losing a father, the head of the family, is most especially traumatic. I wonder how Jesus felt when this crisis visited His own home? I wonder about the reaction of Jesus' brothers and sisters. I wonder about the crushing anguish that Mary must have experienced.
"Can't you do something, my brother?"
"Why does he have to die now?"
"Is there any other way, Son? Please ask your Father to heal your father."
I'm curious if losing Joseph - and Jesus' apparent inability to do something about it - skewed his family's view of Jesus and His destiny. It seems so because the scriptures record subsequent doubt and unbelief manifesting in his family in bizarre ways such as this instance captured in Mark's gospel:
"Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind" (Mark 3:20-21).
Friends of the family, neighbors, and those they went to synagogue with were no less kind in their estimation of who Jesus was:
"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor'" (Matthew 13:55-57).
I wonder if some of the doubt and unbelief stemmed from a funeral many of them attended some time back, the funeral of Joseph, as they watched a nice family helplessly weep and grieve over their dead loved one.
But the Lord Jesus Christ would not be called to action ahead of God's timing. He would not be driven by emotions but by obedience to His Father's perfect will.
The time to unveil the miracle power of Jesus the Christ began not in a funeral parlor but oddly enough at a wedding feast. It seems the wedding party ran out of wine and Mary petitioned Jesus to do something about it. He responded:
"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come" (John 2:4).
No doubt at this point Jesus calls upon His Father God in brief and perhaps silent prayer for direction and quite obviously received it. Because His next act was His first miracle, transforming the water of six stone water pots into 120-180 gallons of high quality wine.
"This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him" (John 2:11)
The forgotten funeral of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Matthan, may have faded into the pages of unwritten history, but history is not yet complete.
One fine day, ten thousand years from now in the New Jerusalem, Jesus Himself may be walking down the golden streets as millions of people out of every nation, people, tongue, and tribe worship Him in humble adoration saying, "behold, my Lord!" At that time, there will be only two in heaven that have the right to say of the King of kings and Lord of lords, "behold, my son!"
DSR
4/5/04
(Mat 1:18 NIV) This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
(Mat 1:19 NIV) Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
(Mat 1:20 NIV) But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
(Mat 1:21 NIV) She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
Can you imagine the inexpressible joy of being the adopted parent of Jesus Christ, the Messiah? That privilege fell to a man named Joseph.
In His wisdom, God the Father had chosen Joseph, a righteous man, to serve in the key position of earthly father to God's only begotten Son. Mary, Joseph's virgin fiancé, was of course selected by the Holy Spirit to be the human host to usher in the incarnation, that is, God becoming man in the person of Jesus the Christ. Joseph and Mary, although by no means a perfect couple, was the perfect couple chosen by Almighty God to entrust the care and nurture of His beloved Son.
So then, into the house of this humble Jewish carpenter, Jesus was carefully, lovingly, and providentially placed. What an honor! What a responsibility!
I'm curious, aren't you, if there ever was a time when Joseph had to speak sternly to Jesus as a toddler? "Don't go out in the road, son!" "Come over here and sit down." "Pick that up, Jesus."
When the Lord was 12 years old, He amazed the religious leaders with theological discussions over a three-day period in the temple while separated from His very worried parents oblivious of His whereabouts. Can you just imagine what must of have been running through Joseph's mind those three agonizing days? "Dear God, I'm supposed to be looking after your Son and I've lost Him!" The young lad Jesus calmly comforted His earthly parents when at last they located Him:
(Luke 2:49 NIV) "Why were you searching for me?" he asked. "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house?"
So Jesus came home to His earthly father's house and continued to be obedient to them.
Throughout the remainder of His childhood, Joseph and Mary were there to provide for all the needs of the Savior of the world as He grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man (Luke 2:52).
As a young man growing up in a carpenter's house, there must have been many years of hard labor involved in doing His part to support the family and assist His dad, Joseph.
"Jesus, I need you to go down to Ezra's and pick up a load of wood."
"Son, can you finish this table for me?"
"We've nearly out of nails, Jesus, I want you and James and Simon to make the trip to get more."
In his heart Joseph knew all along that his firstborn Son would not be carrying on the family business.
The Bible doesn't give us many details about Joseph's life and is completely silent about his death. It seems apparent, though, that at some point before Jesus entered His public ministry that Joseph passed away. We can deduce this from the fact that at His crucifixion, Jesus commits the responsibility of the long-term care of His mother to John, the disciple whom Jesus loved (John 19:26-27). (It's interesting to me that Jesus did not assign this task to James, Simon, and Judas, his half-brothers or His earthly sisters. Evidently, Jesus discovered first hand that Proverbs 18:24 applied to his beloved and trustworthy friend, John, "…a friend who sticks closer than a brother.")
Most of us know the heartache and pain of losing a loved one, and losing a father, the head of the family, is most especially traumatic. I wonder how Jesus felt when this crisis visited His own home? I wonder about the reaction of Jesus' brothers and sisters. I wonder about the crushing anguish that Mary must have experienced.
"Can't you do something, my brother?"
"Why does he have to die now?"
"Is there any other way, Son? Please ask your Father to heal your father."
I'm curious if losing Joseph - and Jesus' apparent inability to do something about it - skewed his family's view of Jesus and His destiny. It seems so because the scriptures record subsequent doubt and unbelief manifesting in his family in bizarre ways such as this instance captured in Mark's gospel:
"Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, "He is out of his mind" (Mark 3:20-21).
Friends of the family, neighbors, and those they went to synagogue with were no less kind in their estimation of who Jesus was:
"Isn't this the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all these things?" And they took offense at him. But Jesus said to them, "Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor'" (Matthew 13:55-57).
I wonder if some of the doubt and unbelief stemmed from a funeral many of them attended some time back, the funeral of Joseph, as they watched a nice family helplessly weep and grieve over their dead loved one.
But the Lord Jesus Christ would not be called to action ahead of God's timing. He would not be driven by emotions but by obedience to His Father's perfect will.
The time to unveil the miracle power of Jesus the Christ began not in a funeral parlor but oddly enough at a wedding feast. It seems the wedding party ran out of wine and Mary petitioned Jesus to do something about it. He responded:
"Dear woman, why do you involve me?" Jesus replied. "My time has not yet come" (John 2:4).
No doubt at this point Jesus calls upon His Father God in brief and perhaps silent prayer for direction and quite obviously received it. Because His next act was His first miracle, transforming the water of six stone water pots into 120-180 gallons of high quality wine.
"This, the first of his miraculous signs, Jesus performed at Cana in Galilee. He thus revealed his glory, and his disciples put their faith in him" (John 2:11)
The forgotten funeral of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Matthan, may have faded into the pages of unwritten history, but history is not yet complete.
One fine day, ten thousand years from now in the New Jerusalem, Jesus Himself may be walking down the golden streets as millions of people out of every nation, people, tongue, and tribe worship Him in humble adoration saying, "behold, my Lord!" At that time, there will be only two in heaven that have the right to say of the King of kings and Lord of lords, "behold, my son!"
DSR
4/5/04
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