Read the Writing!--by Linden Malki

The Assyrian/Babylonian period of history brings us into a time where Biblical writings are parallel with archeological and ancient written sources, and many events can be dated within a year (which varies slightly with different calendars). Nebuchadnezzar's weak descendents were overthown shortly after Nebuchadnezzar's death by a father and son originally from Assyria, who claimed the political inheritance, in 555BC.  Nabonidus spent ten years outside the city restoring the shrines of his own favorite gods, while his son Belshazzar ruled Babylon. (This is why Belshazzar offered to give as a reward the position of third ruler; he himself was the second in power.)

In 539BC we find invading Persians (who had already absorbed the Medes) threatening Babylon, and Nabonidus was probably outside, attempting to defend the area. Meanwhile, behind the walls and fortifications of the city itself, Belshazzar was having a celebration, possibly a traditional holiday, probably a show of defiance against the invaders.  Calling for the  goblets from the temple in Jerusalem would be a reminder that Jerusalem had been conquered and looted by his predecessors, even though the Jews had claimed a powerful god of their own.  Even though he saw the mysterious hand actually writing on the wall; the message, when explained, it didn't scare him. He had possibly heard stories of Nebuchadnezzar's experiences with the power of Judah's God, but Belshazzar obviously thought Him just another tribe's god, like all the others around the area whose worshippers had been conquered by Babylon.

Historians tell that the outskirts of the city had already been overrun by the Persians and Medes, and this night was the finish. The invaders diverted the Euphrates river upstream from the city, lowering the water level enough to create clearance under the gates across the river for soldiers. Belshazzar was killed that night, and his father may have survived to work for the Persians, as did Daniel.

I  see writings of people who, like Belshazzar, don't take our God seriously. They describe Biblical writings as being violent, and full of bad people and unbelievable stories. Yes, there is violence, and bad people (those usually go together); the Biblical writers were honest about humanity. God gives us free will, the choice of paying attention to Him or wanting to be our own bosses and do life our own way.  Usually that doesn't work well, but the payoff isn't always obvious or immediate; often things that look desirable or successful are never satisfying. Often it's the painful experiences that grow us; even good things can have their tough parts.  And my own experience has been that we are taken care of through difficult times.  Where are these empires today? Do we see Iran or Iraq as desirable places to live? Their histories are a list of conquests and reconquests; their ancient gods are forgotten. The Church we know today is not perfect, but has survived; millions of people know from their own experience the goodness of God, even when things are not what we expected, and have their own "unbelieveable" adventures with God.

SAME BLOG, NEW NAME!--by Linden Malki

This blog is appearing this week with a new file name and title.  It has been appearing under the name "ncflife" since its original appearance in 2012, with NorthPoint Christian Fellowship, San Bernardino, CA's pastors Paul and Chris Reinhard as contributors. In March of 2012,  several other members of the church family were added, including me. Over the next few years, there were additional contributors added and some dropped out, and by 2014 I remained the only regular contributor.

It has been posted to the NorthPoint San Bernardino Facebook page as well as having subscribers through Blogspot. However, due to upcoming changes to the Facebook page because of a major upcoming change involving the church, we will not be able to continue posting in its original format. We as a local church are in the process of becoming a part of the Sandals Church family which is based in Riverside, California, and has been interested in developing a ministry in San Bernardino.

Calvary/NorthPoint  has been struggling financially since our sanctuary was essentially destroyed by an arson fire in 1999, and we were in the process of rebuilding when the events of 9/11 set off a liquidation of our insurance carrier, resulting in a suspension of payments when we were well into the rebuild but  $1.6M short of completion at a time that the local economy was struggling. In spite of our fundraising efforts, we had to borrow against the property to complete the rebuild, and the effect of the debt as well as other local factors were bringing us face to face with a small but growing congregation, effective but limited leadership, and a financially demanding facility. The merger with Sandals Church will bring much-needed resources and backup, bringing new energy to a troubled community that needs Jesus.

I have been encouraged to continue writing the blog; I have found it to be a challenging discipline and the interesting experience of  ideas and insights provided as I write, never quite sure where it's going until it gets there. I have been using the week's sermon and discussion topic as a starting place; will continue to do that through the next several months. I have also been posting daily Bible readings, also coordinated with the study topic for the upcoming week, for a number of years, and when the Facebook format change is complete, may post that on this forum as well.  It will be interesting to see where God will lead this effort in the future; any comments, questions and suggestions are welcome from all readers.

The link will also be posted to a new Facebook page,  entitled "Linden Malki's Musings and Meditations".  I have also been posting daily Bible readings, also coordinated with the study topic for the upcoming week, for a number of years, and it will be posted on the new Facebook page. This may also include shared posts from the church's Facebook  page, as well as other posts from other sources. There are members of my extended family and friends that are involved in interesting and inspiring ministries and activities that may be included as well.

Trial by Fire--by Linden Malki

One of the constant themes of the history of the God's people is that God kept calling people to himself, and offering them a spiritually healthy society--on His terms. After all, who knows what is good for man better than His creator? He also created us with an amazing amount of freedom, including the freedom to ignore him. However, this freedom comes at a price; there is a cost to doing it our way. We see the societies that made gods in their own image, and often in the images of their worst selves, paying the consequences.
The people who became the Kingdom of Judah were chosen to be the example and witness to the plan of God for humanity.  Sometimes they did it right; more often they didn't. Many times they did not recognize their responsibility to be the demonstration.  There were many people called to explain this to their fellow Jews, but one of the unusual things about the book of Daniel is that most of what we might call preaching is his response to messages given by God to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. He and his friends--as well as the other Jews who had been brought to Babylon--were called to live in a pagan society and witness to what they knew God required of them.  Their experience was an example of how God uses difficult things to accomplish His will. One of the results of the Babylonian captivity was that the Jewish scholars, under pressure of the pagan surroundings, made a successful effort to collect, edit and teach the writings and teachings that went back to the beginning of their history with God.

One of the most troublesome part of the experiences the Jews had had with pagans they were in contact with over their entire history was the idols that were made and worshiped. One of the things about these idols was that they were made to gratify the wants of their makers--which meant that they often encouraged the selfish and most degraded parts of the human personalities. Nebuchadnezzar had seen Daniel's God in action, but he still felt he needed to keep up the worship of his old gods.  This led to the incident of Daniel's three friends refusing to bow down to the golden idol that had been made at the king's orders, and , their being thrown into a furnace (this was in a city built of fired bricks) and being visibly protected by a "son of God".  Even this didn't prevent Nebuchadnezzar from continuing to talk of himself as the creator of his Kingdom, and once again being punished by God.  Recognizing the power of the one true God is essential, but it doesn't work to have any other authority in your life above the sovereignty of God. 
We are created to recognize our own true position as His creation and under His rule. It's not that bad things don't happen, but we are taken care of--if we let Him.

Faithfulness Far From Home --by Linden Malki

Mesopotamia, the "Land Between the Rivers", was where Abraham's family was living when God called him to move out and promised him a new land to be filled with his descendants.  Close to 1500 years later,  many of those descendants found themselves back, but not of their own choice. This river valley was now the center of one of the great civilizations of the ancient world, known as Babylon.

In those years, Abraham's people had been to Egypt and back, and in a thousand years had built two kingdoms out of twelve tribes, and a city with a Temple to Abraham's God.  The northern tribes rebelled against being ruled from Jerusalem, rebelled against Jerusalem's God, and had been conquered by an empire from the northern part of Mesopotamia, Assyria, and their people scattered among the nations that Assyria ruled. In 625BC, Assyria was conquered by their rivals in the south, and in 604BC the Babylonian king Nebucadnezzar invaded the Kingdom of Judah, captured the king, installed a puppet king and brought the treasures from the Jerusalem Temple and many of the leading citizens of Judah back to Babylon.

One of the young men captured is named Daniel; and this is where his story begins. The first thing we know about Daniel and his three friends is that they are intelligent and capable young men, chosen for the royal civil service. The next thing we know is their dedication to the Torah's dietary  laws they had been raised with, and how they convinced their supervisor into allowing them to eat kosher.  Daniel had a long and successful career with the Babylonians and later the Persians. He was able to work in a strange culture and hold to his commitment to God under tough times. 

One of the things that is interesting in the history of our country, is the number of places in the world that people have come from, and the challenges between faith and culture. I took an opportunity to learn to live with quite a different culture (a Swede marrying into a Lebanese family) but the thing that really made it work is that this family were historic Christians who had become associated with Protestant missionaries. Even though the historical backgrounds were very different, our spiritual backgrounds and values were very similar We discovered that my in-laws knew a Baptist missionary cousin of mine whose mission headquarters was in Beirut. It's important when dealing with cultural differences to be clear about your spiritual values.

Call on His Name--by Linden Malki

God is capable of whatever we need. Not always what we want, but what He knows is best for us. We are so blessed in the universe He created; it shines with His personality. The other day I was driving home from work, and I could see a rising moon playing tag with some wispy clouds, and it was not only beautiful, but right where I could watch it and the road home at the same time. It was perfectly placed to show me the beauty of His world, in a way that I could appreciate the fact that He did create it on His scale but shares it with us so that we can know where we are in relationship to Him. We are called to humble ourselves before Him, but also invited to listen to Him in prayer, turn the imperfections of our lives to His words, His forgiveness, His care.

He is amazingly patient with us. Yes, there are limits to it, but I happened to read a comment the other day that even Cain didn’t get zapped on the spot, which he richly deserved. He didn’t get off the hook, either. Looking at 2 Chronicles 7:14, the backstory is that God had worked through several generations and bypassed the rest of David’s sons to come to the point of having Solomon build the Temple. And the promise is that He will continue to watch over His people—but with conditions. It’s amazing what He put up with over the next thousand years until the time was ripe for the Messiah to come and the Temple to go away. It’s also interesting that in a society that was waiting for Messiah to come that they were looking for a political answer, despite the failure of politics to get them where they needed to be. This is one of the way He works—lets us try our own resources until we learn that’s not how He takes care of us.

We’ve certainly seen that in our church. We’ve come to the end of our rope a couple of times, and just when there aren’t any frayed ends left, He stepped in and is putting us on a whole new track. He doesn't make life easy for us; it wouldn't be good for us. When St Paul said that "all things work together for good for those who have been called according to HIs purpose" (Romans 8:28) it doesn't say what kind of things they might be; just that the end result is for our good. A running joke in my life in the car business is that I've driven a lot of varied cars, and I've had them quit for a variety of reasons, but always within reach of help . Right now, I’m looking at my little red car dead on the lot. We just happened to have a car here dropped off by a customer who wants it out of his life, and runs well enough to get me around but still needs more attention. So today, my daughter just found out about an appropriate car a friend needs to sell, for just about what I can afford, right now. And yesterday, she thought I was weird for not worrying about it. A small thing, perhaps, in the big world, but another reminder that He does take care of His people.