On Reverence and Revelry

In Deuteronomy 14 (today's OT reading), God instructs each Israelite family to set aside a tithe of their harvest. The purpose of this tithe is different from the one described in Numbers 18-- "You and your household shall eat there in the presence of the Lord your God and rejoice" (Deut 14:26). They were to carry their tithe to the place where the tabernacle was set up to have a festival (party) where they are to "rejoice" or "celebrate" (NLT) before the Lord. If they lived too far away to carry their tithe with them, then they were to sell it and use the money to buy cattle and sheep and wine (we’ll just skip over the “or other fermented drink” part) and whatever else they wanted when they got there. But whether they took their tithe with them or converted it to money to buy goods when they arrived, the tithe was to be used for the same thing. They were to have a festival, a celebration, a party before the Lord.

And it was a party with a purpose-- to teach them to “revere” (NIV) or “fear” (NASB) or “respect” (NCV) the Lord. Through gathering together with the people of God for this festival with eating and drinking and laughter, Israel was being taught to reverence God. Reverence was not seen as something that was incompatible with revelry; rather it was through the right revelry that Israel was taught reverence. It was through celebration and community that they learned something about the kingdom of God. In fact, one of the most consistent metaphors in scripture for the kingdom of God is the feast, festival or party--

• Matthew 8:11-12: Gentiles coming into the kingdom (and the rejection of the Jews) is seen in imagery of a party.
  
  
• Matthew 22:1-12: The kingdom is a wedding feast where those invited to come don't, and so the master sends his servants to find other guests.
  
  
• Matthew 25:1-13: Watching for the Lord's return is explained in terms of a wedding and a wedding party.
  
  
• Luke 15:22-24: The loving father celebrates the return of his prodigal son by throwing a huge party, complete with music and, uh... choreography.
  
  
• In Revelation 19:9: The celebration to which all are invited and by which all who come are blessed is the wedding feast or party of the Lamb.
  

We can view the Christian life as one of deprivation if we choose. And we can look with envy at the world and the fun things we giving up to follow Christ if we like. But if we do, then we miss the point of the abundant part of the abundant life that Jesus is seeking to give us. Yes, there is sacrifice and denial in our call to walk withGod. But there is also a celebration and joy that those who don't knowGod and are not part of the family of God can never know. Tony Campolo nailed it with the title of a book that he wrote several years ago-- The Kingdom of God is a Party!

Maggie the Wonder Dog

My lunch break yesterday reads a little like an old episode of Lassie. I was home on my lunch hour minding my own business and eating my peanut butter and (no sugar added) jelly sandwich when our dog Maggie started barking. Now usually that means that the mailman has just delivered our mail. There was no mail when I went to the front door, but there was smoke, and lots of it, coming out from behind our across-the-street neighbor's backyard. I got my cell phone and went over to investigate, wanting to make sure someone wasn't barbecuing on a really big grill before I called the fire department. Sure enough, the back yard was on fire. I'm not talking just a little bit on fire; the grass, shrubs, pine needle mulch, split rail fence and several trees were burning and the flames had jumped to the other side of the fence. The smoke was so thick by that time that I couldn't tell how far back it went.

So I called 911, and 5 minutes later a fire truck pulled up and fireman jumped out and started doing their fireman thing. Fifteen minutes later, a second fire truck pulled up to add its crew to the mix. Firemen were running around grabbing hoses, axes and shovels just like on TV. I watched the show for awhile chatting with another neighbor before going back to work. I went over after supper to chat with the guy across the street and see the damage. It came fairly close to the house, but nothing was really hurt except a fence that he said he has been meaning to replace. If the fire had burned much longer, that could have been very different.

So Maggie the Wonder Dog saved the day. I still have no idea if she was really barking at the fire or not. She may have glimpsed a squirrel running for its life across the street... which is exactly what any squirrel in the vicinity would have been doing. But there is a good chance I would've have noticed what was going on had she not been barking. So we'll credit Maggie the Wonder Dog with saving our neighbor's house. And then she went out and found Timmy who had fallen down a well.

Great Inversion

Sunday was a great day! It is certainly not unusual for us to have a few more folks on Easter Sunday than we do during the rest of the year. But it is VERY unusual for us to have 100 extra folks! That is a lot more if your membership is 500, but when your membership is 200, that is a while lot more. We kept the ushers busy! I'm glad all those people were there and the Fire Marshal wasn't!

I think several things combined to create the overflow crowd. There were some still in town visiting after Antoine and Ivy's wedding on Saturday. And we had more folks visiting from out of town than we had visiting out of town (maybe because the kids weren't out of school since spring break doesn't follow Easter this year). But mostly I think we had members who invited people to come to church with them and stay for the egg hunt and potluck afterward. And many did! Cathy is still busy typing up all the "glad you were there" letters.

Since we're talking about Easter, check out this article by Anne Rice reflecting on Easter. You may recognize Anne Rice as the author of the dozens of books, including Interview with a Vampire (made into the movie with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt). Several years ago, Rice returned to her faith and rededicated her writing career to Christ. Her current series is entitled Christ the Lord, and she just released the second volume, Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana. She concludes her article talking about the Gospel as "the great inversion."

As we experience Easter week, we celebrate the crucifixion that changed the world. We celebrate the Resurrection that sent Christ’s apostles throughout the Roman Empire to declare the Good News. We celebrate one of the greatest love stories the world has ever known: that of a God who would come down here to live and breathe with us in a human body, who would experience human death for us, and then rise to remind us that He was, and is, both Human and Divine. We celebrate the greatest inversion the world has ever recorded: that of the Maker dying on a Roman cross.

Let us celebrate as well that throughout this troubled world in which we live, billions believe in this 2,000-year-old love story and in this great inversion -- and billions seek to trust the Maker to bring us to one another in love as He brings us to Himself.

Easter Sunday

A couple of years ago, I heard Garner Ted Armstrong preaching on TV about the Easter holiday. Armstrong has to be one of the most resilient of the televangelists. He was still on the air despite two highly publicized sex scandals that resulted in him being defrocked and removed from his own church. Oh, and there was also the fact that he had been dead for several years! Someone was still rebroadcasting his sermons years after his death, and he was preaching against “The Evils of Easter.” I just found that kinda funny. If you are going to continue to have a career after death, then you kinda need Easter!

Why preach against Easter? Well, Easter was originally a pagan festival. It's name comes from the Germanic goddess “Eostre,” and many of our Easter customs, like Easter bunnies and colored eggs and wearing suits and ties to church were pagan in origin! (OK, I’m kidding about that last one). Armstrong's point was that because Easter was once connected to paganism and then brought into Christianity through Catholicism, then it was something that we must avoid today. Actually, I pretty much heard the same thing when I was growing up. If I had a mind to look through my files, which I don't, I probably preached something very similar at some point.

One of the reasons that we generally choose not to make Easter a special festival of the resurrection is that we see each Sunday that way. Each and every Sunday, we eat the bread and drink the cup which symbolizes Jesus’ body and blood. Some disciples choose not to have communion every Sunday, and my point is not to criticize them. My point is simply this—we have committed to be people of the cross. We want to emphasize the meaning of the cross. We want to be God’s family under the cross. And the way Jesus told us to point to the cross and remember the cross is through this solemn ritual we call communion. And so each Sunday we gather at the foot of the cross to remember.

But there is a danger in eating communion every week, isn’t there? It is so very easy to allow tradition to become traditional and ritual to become rote. Familiarity breeds contempt… or at least complacency. And that is the one thing we must never allow to happen in communion. This simple act doesn’t just tell a story; it tells the story. And it allows us to become participants in the story. We cannot allow the death and resurrection of Jesus to become a once a year festival... or a once a week rite. For disciples, the cross is something we must carry and the resurrections is something we must live every day.

What Are They Thinking?

One of the distinctive characteristics of Churches of Christ has been a cappella (non-instrumental) singing in worship. For many of our members, this was not simply a choice or preference-- it was a matter of heaven and hell. We wanted to be Biblical, and that means that our every practice must be authorized by scripture. We develop a 3-step hermeneutic that raught that the Bible authorizes by command, example and necessary inference. Because the Bible authorizes the church to sing praises, then adding music is a non-Biblical and unauthorized addition to God's desires and therefore sinful and wrong. OK, sure this is an over-simplified explanation, but you get the idea.

Well, no issue is ever settled when you are a part of a church that denies the authority of tradition and encourages everyone to re-think and re-study everything. Many of our churches have rethought both the practice of instrumental music and our arguments against it. Some still believe it is a matter of sin. Many others see it is a matter of good vs better rather than right vs wrong. Still others see a cappella singing as our tradition and choice; while it is not the only tradition or choice, it is our story and we are sticking to it! But if it is a mater of choice... There are growing numbers of our churches that offer praise services using instruments as a choice in addition to their a cappella services. I heard one respected scholar 15 years ago say that once a generation sees a cappella singing as a matter of tradition or choice (and not truth), then the next generation will choose to use instruments. It seems that he was right.

I have mused over this issue before, so I won't reharsh all that. I am perfectly content with my a cappella heritage and have no plans to change that. However, on those few occasions when we can visit another on vacation, our choice of a church has nothing to do with the presence or absence of instruments. I have known many people who attended churches that use instruments though that was not their worship preference because the church fed them and gave them a place to serve. We have members here at Denbigh that prefer instrumental praise, but they continue to come here for other reasons (like the superior preaching!). If our churches are autonomous, led by their own elders who are committed to following God and leading His people, then if should not surprise us that different churches make different choices as well.

Who are we to judge the servant of another? Well. recently, one of our churches began offering an contemporary instrumental praise service as a worship choice. Some folks in other churches that were so upset about this that they raised $11,000 to public an ad in the newspaper attacking that church and its preacher. They weren't satisfied, so they raised $11,000 again and published a second full-page add that ran in the local paper. What were they thinking? Paul told the litigious-minded in Corinth, "If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints?" (1 Cor 6:1).

Would not the cause of truth been better served had that $22,000 been spent on helping the homeless and feeding the hungry? Wouldn't that have better could the eye and heart of the world? Could we not handle our opposition to how another church does worship by, I don't know, going and talking to the brothers privately (Matt 18:15ff)? When Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant out of wedlock, he was determined to put her away quietly rather than expose her to public scandal (Matt 1:19). When is the cause of Christ best served by stirring up a public scandal? What were they thinking?

Our Own Worst Enemy?

Dwight Whitsett writes a blog called “Whitticisms.” Not too long ago, he suggested that Christians have long been our own worst enemies. There have been real and terrible persecutions of the church, and those continue in many parts of the world today. But outside persecution often leads to the growth of the church—the Roman Empire and modern day China. But while the church can flourish despite outside oppression, it cannot seem to survive it’s on insistence of shooting itself in the foot. Wisslet offers three examples:

• History: People doing horrible things in the name of Christ. The world of observers, not knowing any better, makes uninformed assessments and forms terrible opinions of Christianity.
  
  
• Televangelists: Money-grubbing, high-living, charlatans and false teachers giving religion in general and Christianity in particular a bad rap (1 Timothy 6:3-5).
  
  
• Division and Infighting: People who should be loving each other and thus proving to be disciples (John 13:35) fighting and slinging mud in the most unloving ways. Dividing into yet another denomination over the slightest perceived doctrinal error, we assist the world in its dismissal and unbelief (John 17:20-23).

It’s hard to argue with his assessment that “We are our own worst enemy.” But what do we do about it? Maybe we need to recommit ourselves to living the quiet and peaceable lives for which Paul teaches us to pray (1 Tim 2:2). Before we can really invite people to Christianity we have to demonstrate to them that it works?

J. I. Packer

The name J. I. Packer is one known to many through his insightful book Knowing God. Dr. Packer is widely respected as one of the world’s foremost evangelical scholars. He taught for years at Regent College in Vancover, and has written many books and spoken around the world in many settings. It was surprising to hear that Packer had been suspended from ministry in the Anglican Church and that there were proceeding to revoke his ordination.

Why? The church he attends, St John's, Shaughnessy, voted overwhelmingly last month to break with the Anglican Church in Canada and seek episcopal oversight from Archbishop Gregory Venables in South America. Why? The church simply could not accept the blessings of homosexual unions and the ordination of homosexual clergy that the Anglican Church of Canada under Bishop Michael Ingham seemed hell-bent on establishing. The church wanted to remain Anglican, but they could not remain under Bishop Ingham’s leadership in something so blatantly immoral and unscriptural. So Ingham by brining ecclesiastical charges and seeking to revoke Packer’s ordination.

I have to admit to not understanding the church polity and politics here. I am very grateful my church is non-denominational and autonomous. (Of course, sometimes that only means that our church law and tradition is understood rather than written down). But you have to applaud people who are willing to take personal and professional hits because they are committed to seeking God’s holiness. The fact that a theologian and preacher would be prosecuted and persecuted by his church for seeking to uphold both scripture and 2000 years of Christian living is both surprising and depressing.

Archbishop Venables (of the diocese with which Packer’s church is now affiliated) suggests that the issue was not solely about homosexuality. He says this—

This is about two versions of Christianity which are in a strong state of difference. You've got the original biblical Christianity which the church, the Christian church throughout the world has held to over the past 2000 years and then you've got this new liberal postmodern Christianity which has evolved especially in the western world over the last 100 years or so. It's like two ships that have gradually pulled apart and can no longer really sail together and the trouble is, it's pulling the church apart as it does that.

Jesus and Atlas

Leonard Sweet once asked his theology students to compare and contrasts two these images—one of Atlas and the other of Jesus. Atlas was the character in Greek mythology that was forced by Zeus to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. The statue of Jesus is of a child who carries this world represented by a small orb. One of the students made this comparison--

I want to give an attention to the context in which the Atlas stands. The Atlas statue is in the entrance court of the New York City's Rockefeller Center, directly across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's one of the most prominent public sculptures in the New York city. In other words, hundreds of people, if not more, see this statue everyday. You don't have to seek this statue. If you pass by the Rockefeller Center, it's right there. What image or message does this public statue convey to people? The world is a burden for us to carry on our shoulder. You need to be strong, masculine, and mighty to survive this world. The more you carry, the more load is saddled on your shoulder.

In contrast, this small statue of Jesus the child is located behind the altar at St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's not a public statue. Rather you would seek it out. This statue has an unassuming appearance. He seems to be at peace with himself being a child who is small and weak. And yet, he is holding an orb in his hand. For him, the world is not something you have to carry as punishment. On the contrary, it's something to embrace.

The story of Jesus is that of a God of unlimited power and holiness who came into the world of weakness and sin to rescue us from ourselves. He ultimately does carry the world on His shoulders, but he does so as part of the world of flesh and blood. He wants to carry us because he loves us so much; He wants to carry us all the way back home with Him.

On Backpacks and Burdens

I happened to be behind a school bus recently that was dropping elementary kids off after shcool. One little guy got off the buss lugging a huge backpack. He let it rest on the ground for a minute as he marshaled his strength, and then with a mighty effort he slung it onto his shoulder. The weight and momentum pushed him sideways for several steps, and he stumbled to the point where I thought he was going down. It was then all he could do to trudge toward his house. The look on his face was really funny—halfway between total concentration and total aggravation! It is a good thing he did not have to walk five miles to school uphill like his granddad likely had to do.

I don’t remember carrying home that many books when I was in third grade. In fact, I don’t remember carrying home any books when I was in third grade (which may explain a few things). If nothing else, the kid will be able to get work as a longshoreman unloading barges with all the muscles he is developing carrying all those books. Hopefully they will come up with virtual textbooks on Twitter or something before they have to have staff chiropractors in elementary schools.

That image of being overwhelmed by a load too heavy to manage should be a familiar one. David said, “My guilt has overwhelmed me like a burden too heavy to bear” (Psalm 38:4). We can allow ourselves to become weighed down with burdens of our own creation that overwhelm us. The invitation of Christ is to exchange our heavy loads for his light one. The words are familiar ones from Matthew 11:28-30—

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The words are familiar; our success in carrying through is not. Peter invites us to “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Why do we insist on dragging those old anxieties around? Lack of faith? Yes, often that is it. But we also have an unwillingness to give up control. To cast our burdens on God is also to make ourselves vulnerable to Him, and that can be scary. We’d rather trudge on like the little guy struggling home from the bus. We have to learn that if we’ll just lay the burden down, Jesus will carry it. He already carried his cross!

New Sins?

It seems like everyone I know is on Facebook, including just about everyone in my Tuesday night small group, so maybe I need to take the plunge. So I asked Angelynn when she was home last week on spring break to help me set up a Facebook account. She looked at me in horror and said, “No way!” It was actually funny. I was pretty much kidding about it, but it looked like it was going to annoy her so much that now I have to go ahead and set one up!

Did anyone see where the Vatican released a list of “new sins?” These behaviors that are now deemed as sinful include using drugs, pollution, genetic manipulation and social and economic injustices. The traditional list of the “seven deadly sins” (gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride) was established by Pope Gregory in the 6th century, and it was time to modify the list to fit the modern world. I guess the old list was getting too easy and it was time to add some tougher stuff? Or did they just give up on people keeping the older list? For the record, I am against using drugs, pollution, and social-economic injustice. I don’t know that I would dismiss all genetic engineering. Coming up with heartier wheat seems like a good thing, although the Dr. Frankenstein stuff is a little scary.

Actually, this "new list" of sins does illustrate the inefficiency of lists of rules that codify human behavior. When I was a kid, morality was often talked about in terms of dancing, drinking, smoking, mixed-bathing, etc. That list was incomplete then, and it is certainly out-of-date today. The list was actually confusing then— some of the deacons smoked between church and Sunday School and we saw several of our church friends at the pool on Monday after mixed-swimming was preached against on Sunday. Talk about mixed-signals on sin. On the other hand, maybe today we (I) are so hesitant to draw up lists of rules that we (I) don’t preach specially enough on certain behaviors.

So maybe Sunday I will preach against genetic manipulation.

Taking the Grumble Tumble

We are in the nook of Numbers in our Old Testament reading. The book is named for the censuses (censi?) where the Israelites (Num 1 and 26) and Levites (Num 3-4) are counted. But the book could be called "Numbers" because here is where God is thinning the"numbers" of Israelites because of their unbelief. In Numbers 11, the people complained about the hardship of the trip, and fire comes from heaven and destroys part of their camp. They complained about their food, and God sends quail… and a plague that killed many of the complainers.

In Numbers 12, Miriam and Aaron themselves grumbled against Moses. And perhaps that emboldened the rest of Israel to grumble about Moses after the spies sent into Canaan report about the giants and fortifications in the Promised Land. Soon the whole nations was grumbled against Moses and there was talk of even stoning him (see Num 14:10). Their grumbling and complaining lead to the downfall of that entire generation. Psalm 106:25-26 puts it like this—

25 They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the Lord. 26 So he swore to them with uplifted hand that he would make them fall in the desert.

Grumbling and complaining were not just slips of the lip. They betrayed the lack of faith and negative attitude that kept that generation of Israelite from following God. That is why God is so against grumbling and complaining.

Giving voice to our negative thoughts is something that we do all too naturally and often without a lot of thought. But God hears our grumbling, and He seems to take it very seriously. Listen to some New Testament texts—

• 1 Corinthians 10:10- And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.
  
• Philippians 2:14,15- Do everything without complaining or arguing, that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.


• James 5:9- Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!


• 1 Peter 4:9- Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.

A negative, grumbling, complaining and fault-finding attitude is not simply a problem of temperament. It is a sin that will keep you from pleasing God.

Are We Listening?

There is an old saw that says, “When we talk to God, we call it prayer; when God talks to us, we call it schizophrenia.” I believe that God communicates with us in any number of ways—through scripture (of course), circumstances, experiences and and even inner intuition (If Satan somehow prompts me to do wrong, it’s only fair the Spirit prompts me to do right, right?) All of those ways that God speaks must be correctly interpreted. The person who hears the clear, audible face-to-face voice of God speaking directly in their ear may be closer to the schizophrenic than the prophetic. Even in the Old Testament, God speaking directly and clearly to people was very rare (see Numbers 12:6-8).

But then that is tomorrow’s reading. Today’s reading in Numbers 10 reminds me of something about God’s direct leadership. As Israel left Sinai to claim their Promised Land, God lead them dramatically and miraculously. The cloud that represented his presence (and burn like fire at night) would rise from above the Tabernacle and Israel would follow it wherever it led. God was leading his people directly and powerfully. So the text says in Numbers 9:22,23—

22 Whether the cloud stayed over the tabernacle for two days or a month or a year, the Israelites would remain in camp and not set out; but when it lifted, they would set out. 23 At the Lord’s command they encamped, and at the Lord’s command they set out. They obeyed the Lord’s order, in accordance with his command through Moses.

Moses reinforced the leadership of God each time they would leave and stop. Whenever the ark would set out to follow the cloud, Moses should shout, “Rise up, O Lord! May your enemies be scattered; may your foes flee before you.” (Num 10:35). And when the ark came to rest, Moses would say, “Return, O Lord, to the countless thousands of Israel.” (Num 10:36). If one really wanted to follow God, then how much EASIER could it possibly be?

And therein lies the run. That generation simply did not want to follow God. Time after time, when the going got tough, the non-tough among them began to complain. God was very patient with them at first, but after Sinai and the giving of the covenant, that patience wears pretty thin pretty quickly. Hesent fire to punish them because of their complaining ( Num 11:1-3), and the very next verse has them complaining about being tired of their food supply! So God killed a bunch of them (Num 11:33)... and the very next paragraph has Aaron and Miriam complained about Moses’ wife and leadership! Come on! God was doing His pillar of cloud, fire and destruction, miraculous supply of food routine and the people were COMPLAINING rather than being driven to their knees in PRAISE?

What’s up with that? That, unfortunately, is human nature being human nature. It is a whole lot easier for us to complain about the things that are going wrong in our lives than to praise God for all the ways he has blessed us. And when we complain, we are blinded to all the things He is doing. Moral of the story... even if God sent fire (or quail) from heaven again, we wouldn;t get the point if we were not listening. So... are we listening now?

Home Security

Police in Hartford, Connecticut we called to check on a man after relatives reported him missing. When they forced their way into his house, they found him dead of natural causes. They also found guns. Hundreds of guns scattered throughout the man’s house. There were about 500 in all, all of them legally registered to the man who was fully licensed. Police said that the man had no criminal record and he wasn’t a gun dealer. He just liked guns and evidently kept them around to keep him safe.

This isn’t a blog about gun control. I’m sure you can find many discussion boards on all sides of that issue. I have friends on both sides of the gun control debate, and I always stand by my friends. After the VA Tech and NIU and various mall shootings in the last year, I can’t help but think that we need to do a better job controlling something! I remember Pat Paulsen, that genius of American politics, suggesting that outlawing guns would cause other problems—without guns, how are you supposed to kill anybody?

No, this blog isn’t about guns; it’s about the illusion of safety in this world. Here was a guy who probably fits anyone’s definition of “heavily armed.” With 500 guns scattered around, anyone breaking into to this guy’s house would be in for a surprise. But then the guy drops dead of a heart attack or something and his guns can do nothing to change that. I type in a code each night on a keypad before going to bed—I call it a security system, but it really doesn’t give any security. We can exercise, eat right, get yearly check-ups, wear our seat belts—there is no security and there are no guarantees. There was a article in the paper this week about a man making dinner for his family when he burned his hand on the stove, jerked his hand back, stabbed himself in the chest with the paring knife he was using and died. There are no safe places in this world; there is no security. Even with 500 guns laying around!

The only real security is found in God. That doesn’t means that faith insulates us from crime or protects us from health issues, It does mean that a relationship that transcends this world with its trouble and strife is the security we will find. There is a peace that passes understanding in the assurance that “God is good and all is well.” David wrote in Psalm 62:7,8—

7 My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
8 Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge.

We do need to take precautions in this unsafe world. We indeed need to exercise, eat right, get yearly check-ups, wear our seat belts and use security systems. Personally, I think packing 500 firearms is a bit excessive. But even with our best efforts, this world is unsafe. So… “Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.” (Psalm 20:7).