Good morning church family,
Imagine that your body is a castle and your spirit the precious life within. Imagine your castle’s treasury to be so rich in peace and joy, that you must make a fortress of yourself lest the pillaging barbarians pour in. Now scan the perimeter of your castle walls. Where are its weakest points? Should you set a guard at your toes? Should ramparts be built at your elbows, marksmen positioned in turrets atop your knuckles, and a moat dug around your belly button? Could the strategy of the barbarians really be to launch their attack at your digits, bones, and joints? I suppose anything is possible but those parts of the wall are fairly impregnable. Access to the inner realm is simply not granted at those spots. Go ahead – let the enemy lay siege to your toes and amass their entire army there. Let them roll in the trebuchet and pile a mountain of stones beside. Let the archers make torches of their arrows and their cavalry ride in at a gallop. Your toes could be completely conquered, occupied, and even cut clean off and God’s image not be damaged a bit.
No – our enemy is not so benighted nor so dumb. He knows that the place to attack is at the gates.
Our castles all have three gateways; don’t you know. Of course you know this, for it’s obvious. Think of all the freight that’s daily admitted in through the large gateways at your eyes. Railway cars overflowing with images, barges carrying a hundred shipping containers all filled with words, and tractor-trailers loaded to the last bulwark with advertisements and seductions of every kind. And what of the gateways on either side of your head? In through your ears, a river of philosophy, thought, and argument – much of it set to music – flows down the canal day and night. Finally, there’s your mouth – that yawning, gaping vulnerability. There are fewer imports admitted at this gate than at the others but what the enemy is able to get past the guards there – whether it be narcotics, intoxicants, poisons, or other unhealthy things – can steal more treasure than anything else.
Eye gate, ear gate, and mouth gate; all three grant direct access to your castle’s inner realm where the heart, mind, and soul reside. You say you know this, but where is your security at these critical points? And don’t tell me about that Barney Fife character you have sitting on a stool between your two eyes; the one with the bullet in his breast pocket and the hat tipped down over sleepy eyes. And I’ve seen the mercenaries you’re counting on to keep the peace by each ear canal. They do okay when they’re getting paid a pretty penny but their heart’s not in the job. It doesn’t take an awful lot for them to be bribed into looking the other way at the importing of barrels and barrels of lies. And last of all, that new-fangled bit of technology you’ve got running the border at the back of your teeth – the one that scans bar codes and checks for government approvals – that thing does its job, I suppose. But it sure isn’t discerning. You must know it’s letting all manner of deadly things down the hatch.
No, this simply won’t do. You’re going to need to empower an entirely new security apparatus if your castle’s going to maintain its integrity and be spared a collapse at the hands of the enemy. Fire all your law enforcement. Ask for your chief’s badge and strip your commanders of their rank. Transfer all your agents to remote outposts. They’ve failed you and were never really up to the job anyway.
Turn all your security over to the Holy Spirit and allow Him, through the work of repentance and sanctification, to dispatch love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control to go stand guard at the gates. These are mighty guardians indeed! They are keen-eyed, lionhearted, and fierce. No enemy is any match for these defenses.
Don’t take your castle’s security lightly. Many a once sovereign heart has grown proud and cold. I’ve seen the flag of faith lowered from the castle spire and replaced with the pirate’s Jolly Roger. Remember what the Apostle John wrote to his fellow believers: “Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world is passing away, and also its lusts; but the one who does the will of God abides forever.” (1John 2:15-17)
What a wonderful blessing it is to have brothers and sisters in the Faith, to have an ordered home where the Word is loved and honored, and to have so many gatherings that stimulate us to love and good deeds. It’s grand to be a Christian! We’re looking forward to gathering together again in the morning to see what the Lord intends to do. May the Lord, mighty God, bless and continue to keep us!
- Pastor Tate
