144: Mark Carr - Exhortation: Wind

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

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   Welcome to Good Christadelphian Talks. I'm Levi. And I'm Chris. And I'm Brian. Thank you for joining us this week. On this podcast, we select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our daily news feed. We post a new episode at the start of each week, with a short intro beforehand to kind of set the stage for the talk you're about to listen to.

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   And now, let's talk more about this week's talk. Hello, and welcome back to another talk. This week, we're listening to an exhortation which was sent in as a suggestion. And it's an exhortation that was given by Brother Mark Carr on May 16th in 2021. And the subject of the exhortation is wind, based on a reading taken out of Song of Solomon Chapter 4.

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   From the context of the exhortation you're listening, it sounds like this was an exhortation that was given after a recent baptism at the San Francisco Peninsula, Asia. Without spoiling anything from Brother Mark's exhortation, he has a lot of really interesting ideas and thoughts on the concept of wind and what it means to us.

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   And has some interesting anecdotes, which I found to be really interesting when we were diving into it. I'm going to keep this one a little bit more short and sweet. Apologies that this is a little later in the week. As always, thank you for sending in your suggestions. This was one that was recommended to somebody who heard the exhortation live, so I appreciate you sending that in.

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   And we hope that you enjoy this one as much as we did when we were listening to it. So with that, I will turn it over to Brother Mark for his exhortation on the subject wind. Indeed, the topic for our exhortation is on wind. And Brother Nick's right. How are we going to connect Song of Solomon to wind?

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   And so God willing, throughout the exhortation, hopefully we'll see a wonderful conclusion through the words of Song of Solomon 4. Well, where we base our exhortation, where our thoughts come from this morning, was actually an experiment that was done only about 700 miles down the road from where you are today. In the American desert in Arizona.

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   And there was an experiment done there called Biodome 2. Called Bio 2. That's the term that it went by in Arizona. You may be familiar. I'm sure many of you are familiar with the experiment that was going on. It was an exercise, for those who aren't familiar, in conjunction with NASA to create the perfect living environment for human beings.

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   For plants, for animal life, all of those things. It was a huge glass dome or a series of domes that was created. And in it was created artificial controlled environment where purified air, water was created, filtered light, and so on. All offering perfect growing conditions for trees, for fruits, for vegetables, and also to sustain human life.

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   It was created with the mind of learning about how all nature interacts with each other. But mostly, as you can understand by NASA's interest in it, it was an experiment. It was gaining experience to establish perhaps colonies on the moon or maybe even later on on Mars. Now, people actually lived in the biodome for many months at a time.

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    And it was quite wonderful because everything seemed to go very, very well. There was some quite marvelous science that actually came out of this particular study. Something quite interesting happened, though, that baffled scientists in this dome. You might have heard of this and you might have read of it, of something that came out of this study.

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    You see, when trees that were planted in this dome were planted, they grew to a certain height. And the importance of trees, of course, is that it creates oxygen. And God, in his marvelous way, these are little engines creating oxygen. And so when the trees were planted, they grew to a certain height.

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    And then they just topple over. They would fall over. It baffled scientists for the longest period of time. There was nothing wrong with the trees. They were infected by bugs or a fungus or anything like that. They didn't get sick. They just grew to a certain height and they toppled over. Well, this issue baffled scientists for a period of time until they realized that in creating this perfect man-made environment to grow things, they forgot one important element.

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    They forgot to create wind inside the dome. That's right. They forgot to create wind. Wind was necessary to sustain life. You see, brothers and sisters, trees need wind to blow against them, which in turn, as they're growing from saplings, strengthens their root systems so that they grow deeper and deeper into that soil, which in turn supports the tree as it grows taller.

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    That's incredible, isn't it? Who would have thought that wind would be required to sustain life? You see, I know that you're like me. Wind is an irritant. We see wind is undesirable. That if we had our druthers, we would prefer calm on our walks or on our journeys. Nobody likes to go out when there's a windstorm.

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    We'll just skip our walk today. Nobody wants to go out when there's wind and garbage and dust flowing into our eyes. We see our Heavenly Father, the great creator. He's a master builder. And he knew in the creation of his creation, of his world, this element was critical in its growth. It's a lesson that only scientists actually discovered after the fact.

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    How great is the wisdom and power of our Heavenly Father? Now, whether they care to admit to a master builder, the fact remains that a marvelous mind absolutely created our world. And we see that. We see that 100%. When we look at creation, we see intelligent design. Man just sees, well, a mistake.

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    We see a mind far and above our own in these things. And scientists only discover these things by accident. But God has always seen it this way. You see, we know that for life to survive, we understand that there are some basic key elements that are required. Water, food, sunlight, oxygen. All basic elements that are needed to sustain our lives.

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    We, with our knowledge of God and his purpose, his thinking, are in a unique position of understanding to those scientists compared to those who prefer to deny the existence of a creative hand at work. Creation is here, brothers and sisters, as a window to the mind of our Heavenly Father. We know that from Scripture that the natural surrounds us and it always points to the spiritual.

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    We think of springtime and the resurrection of life. Things that were dead, trees that were dead, plants that were dead, all of a sudden are brought back to life. It speaks to us of a great mind. It speaks to us of the spiritual things that we have to look forward to. Well, brothers and sisters, we know that in Scripture, we as individuals are often described as trees.

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    Now, in our opening reading in January 1, the very first day that we actually do our Bible readings, Psalm 1 says this, Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is the law of the Lord.

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    His law, and in his law, he meditates day and night. He shall be, here it is, like a tree planted by rivers of water that brings forth its fruits in its season, whose leaf shall not wither, and whatsoever he does shall prosper. We are described as trees planted by rivers of water, and our fruits comes forth, whose leaf will not wither, and whatever we do prospers, just like those beautiful trees, well watered and well fed.

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    The righteous, Israel's God's chosen people, both spiritual and natural, are often described as palm trees. They're often described as cedar trees, the great cedars that used to exist in Lebanon. The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, Psalm 92 says. He shall grow like a cedar of Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.

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    What a beautiful psalm in Psalm 92. Well, we know that we too, on a spiritual level, we need basic elements, not just the physical elements. We know that we need the sun to grow. God himself describes himself as the sun, S-U-N. For the Lord God is a sun and a shield, Psalm 84 says.

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    The Lord will give grace, he will give glory. No good thing will he withhold from those who walk uprightly. He describes himself as the sun. And it makes complete sense that in turn his sun, S-O-N, a perfect reflection of his heavenly father, is also our sunshine. Mount Lechai 4 describes the Lord Jesus Christ as the sun of righteousness, S-U-N, of righteousness, who has healing in his wings.

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    The warmth, the energy we derive from the sun as seen in the reflection of our Lord Jesus Christ is what we need to grow. We simply need both God's breath and God's power to live. And the warmth of all those things is the association that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. It is his shining example.

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    So God and his sun are the warmth of the sun that radiates, that gives us the vitamins and minerals, vitamins that we need to grow. But we also need water, don't we? We know that the water is a symbol of the word of God itself. Having Jesus as a rock in which the water pours out.

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    It doesn't replace the necessity of regular water of the word. So yes, we receive water, but we need to drink constantly. We know that we can't have two or three gallons of water on Sunday night and hope to make it to the next Sunday. We have to keep drinking a little bit of water every single day, don't we?

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    And so too, we do our readings throughout the day. Just a little bit of readings. You know, whatever we can, whenever we can, but make it consistent in our life. Having him is not simply enough. We need to listen. So it's nice that he radiates the heat in the sun, but we have to listen and we have to partake of those things.

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    And so we see that in the nourishment of the water of the word. Well, we need good soil too, don't we? In order to grow, it's nice to have sun. We definitely need the water of the word, but we need good soil. And we can pick from the sower the idea of the good ground and what it teaches us.

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    It teaches us that we need to have our ground free from rocks, free from weeds, free from the paving stones where the word will just ricochet off of us. We need to make sure that where we are is suitable. That's work. That's something that we need to do for ourselves and have God help us do that.

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    We need to remove those rocks out of our own soil, whatever it is that causes you to stumble, whatever weeds that will come and potentially choke you out later on. We have to remove those things ourselves because the good ground, we need good soil in which we to live and grow. And we see that in our ecclesial life, don't we?

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    That's good soil, spending time together. That's where we need to be. We need to remove rocks and stumbling blocks out of our way in our personal lives to make sure that we grow together in that weed field. We have to remove those obstacles in our life. But science tells us. Science tells us.

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    Nature itself tells us that there is one key element that we all must have in our lives. And that, brothers and sisters, is wind. It's lovely to have the warmth of the sun on our face. It's lovely to have a refreshing glass of water. The comfort and stability of a strong base, a good ground in which we grow a home where godly principles are forming the foundation.

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    All those things are necessary. But we need wind. As we stated, wind seems to be a bit of a deterrent to us, isn't it? It's something that if we had a choice, we would sooner live without. We pray for calm. In our opening prayer, Brother James, we pray for peace. We pray for calm.

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    We wish to live our life in Christ quietly, with serenity, with lack of trouble. We can have Christ as our master. We can have the word of God in our lives every single day. We can be firmly in place in good soil, having our soil, things removed that will be an obstacle to us.

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    But without wind, this science experiment tells us we will fall over, brothers and sisters. Wind, without doubt, represents trouble in our lives. Nobody likes trouble. Wind provides pressure, they found. It provides pressure against us. And so young Sam is now beginning his journey. And his roots are short, are small. He's in shallow ground yet.

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    And so wind would come and knock him over if it was too hard. We know our Heavenly Father is not like that. He will be gentle. And he will, in his way, put that pressure against him, and as he does with us, in his lives.

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    Wind provides pressure. Its power hurls objects into our way. Sometimes when that wind is severe, it can send massive objects that can hurt or seem dangerous to us. We think of wind as the power of wind, hurricanes, thunderstorms, tornadoes. And to the human eye, it's destructive. It's fearsome. It's terrifying. Well, 2020 and 2021, these are years like no other.

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    Regardless, if you're 17 or as a lovely sister or friend of ours just turned 97 years old, none of us has experienced what we have experienced in COVID in our lives. Not our sister Lorraine in Guyana who just turned 97 or any one of us or even Sam who's just 19 years of age.

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    I have a feeling we're nowhere near at the end of this. God willing, we'll be back into our ecclesial homes, and hopefully we'll start to see a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel. But there are different strains. The greed and pride of mankind to stand on their rights instead of doing what's right prolongs this pandemic in our lives.

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    But we have all endured fierce winds, and we continue to do so this very day. So many great men and women of faith have proven to endure through winds in their lives. We think of the time in Luke chapter 8 where the disciples were in the boat on the Sea of Galilee. And it came to pass in Luke 8, it says, On a certain day that Jesus went into a ship with his disciples.

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    And Jesus said unto them, Let us go over to the other side of the lake. And they launched forth. But as they sailed, he fell asleep. And there came a storm of wind on the lake. And they were filled with water and inward jeopardy. And they came to him and woke him saying, Master, Master, we perish.

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    And he arose and rebuked the wind, the raging of the water. And they ceased. It was a calm. He said to them, Where is your faith? And they, being afraid, wondered, saying to one or two, What manner of man is this? For he commandeth even the winds in the water. And they obey him.

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    We take great comfort, don't we, brothers and sisters, that the winds are at his command, at his control. Yes, they may press against us. But it doesn't press against us like it presses against those around us, does it? No, this is in control. God is in control of the wind in our lives.

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    Nothing blows against us unless he deems it right. That the trial of your faith, Peter says, the tested genuineness of your faith. That's what that phrase means in the ESV. It says that the trial of your faith in 1 Peter 1, the tested genuineness, being much more precious than that of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.

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    Well, it must be God removing the rough edges and sinful aspects of us in nature, right? We are sinful creatures and God needs to refine us. But surely water, soil, warmth of the sun is enough. We think of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was made in the expressed image of the sun, S-U-N, his father.

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    So much so that the Old Testament, one, because he was so complete in reflecting that sun, that he became the sun of righteousness. Never was there a man more full of the water of the word. So much that he was called the word itself. That's how full he was of the word. And he was the definition of that good soil that brings forth 50 and 100 fold.

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    There were no rocks. There were no weeds. There were no thorns in his life. Yet, Hebrews 5 verse 7 says this, though he were a son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered. And having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey him. So even the Lord Jesus Christ needed wind in his life to grow.

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    It's not just because we had wind in our life that he needed wind. No, no, no. In order for him to grow, Hebrews says, he needed wind in his life. Suffering, trial, pressure in his life for him to grow. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. If we indeed suffer with him, that we may be glorified together.

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    For I consider the suffering of this present time are not even worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us. Well, brothers and sisters, for our exhortation, we could chase this idea of wind and trials in our lives and build a study of what that kind of looks like.

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    But I don't want to leave you on a sorrowful note. I don't want to leave you depressed about the difficulties that may be in your life. The things that I don't even know and you don't know about my life. The difficulties that we endure. That even briefly we were able to speak up in our opening prayer.

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    Just a few of the things. Well, we don't want to approach the table in remembrance of sorrow. The winds that beat against us are against our Lord in his life and he endured on our behalf. We think of those things when we think of the bread and of the wine. But the table, the table is so much more than that.

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    It's incomplete in our remembrance, brothers and sisters, if we leave in sorrow. If we leave with a resignation that life is just life full of pain and toil and trial. No, we have to leave on a high note with confidence, with joy. And brothers and sisters, my hope is that we're going to leave with an image so beautiful, so wondrous of the love of our God and why wind is important in our lives.

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    And think of our Lord Jesus Christ in the things that he did on our behalf. Now, while I was thinking about this idea of wind, I quite literally stumbled on a very wonderful picture of love and caring and what wind really does in our lives. Why we must have wind in our lives.

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    Now, you were asking yourself, as I know Brother Nick mentions, asking himself, why would we read Song of Solomon chapter 4 as our opening reading? Well, if you turn to Song of Solomon chapter 4, let's take a look at that. And this will draw our minds, God willing, to our memorial feast. Song of Solomon 4 verse 16 says, Awake, O north wind, and come thou south.

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    Blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come to his garden and eat his pleasant fruits. That's the verse that stunned me. That was the verse that anchored me in our focus on leaving on a positive note. You see, this verse speaks of wind, a strong wind that comes from the north and a strong wind that comes from the south and rushing through this garden.

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    Well, Song of Solomon is a love song. It's a love poem. Verses of that song are sung by the bridegroom, the husband-to-be, and some are even sung by his bride, his beautiful fiancé. In Song of Solomon 4, things become very, very intimate. It's an exchange that is private, only between two people deeply, deeply in love.

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    You see, it says that the wind rushes through this garden. Oh, what a smell. What a delightful scent that comes from this garden. And, you know, I thought, you know, oftentimes, you know, you can come home and you can, you know, you come in the door and you can smell something is cooking and fragrant spices or a delicious smell that is cooking, coming from the kitchen.

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    What a wonderful scent. You can almost smell it down the streets when you're coming home. Well, it talks about, let's go back to Solomon chapter 4 and let's read a few extra verses and see what the bridegroom is speaking about. You see, it is the bridegroom who's speaking about this garden. A garden encloses my sister, my spouse, verse 14, verse 12, I'm sorry.

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    A spring shut up, a fountain sealed. Your plants, your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, pleasant fruits, fragrant henna with spikenard. Spikenard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon with all trees of frankincense, myrrh, aloes with chief spices taken from the ESV. Beautiful, beautiful garden. Garden full of fruits and spices. Well, the bride is that garden.

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    We are described as that pleasant garden, full of delightful things, of fruits, spices. And you know, brothers and sisters, in that garden, there are listed nine things in that garden. Nine things in that garden. So this garden that is a symbol of the bride, a symbol of us, has nine characteristics, nine things in that garden.

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    Well, Song of Solomon, there are nine delicious, fragrant, spices and fruits. There are nine fruits and spices linked to nine other things. Where else in scripture do we have nine things listed? Galatians 5, perhaps? The fruit of the spirit. But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, count with me, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

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    Those are the fruits of the spirit. That garden, brothers and sisters, is us. And in that garden, there are nine fruits and spices. Those fruit and spices are a symbol of the fruits of the spirit that we are working to develop in us. This love song sings to us of a breeze, of a wind that fiercely blows from the north and it fiercely blows from the south.

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    But as it blows, the bridegroom says, it rushes through that garden of spices. And the expectant husband, as he walks by that garden, he catches a scent of the wonderful spices that are growing in that garden. You see, what it doesn't say is, if there wasn't wind coming from the north and from the south, he wouldn't have smelled anything.

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    Without the wind, there's no way that he could have told what was in that garden. But the wind, it says, rushed through and the scent came up in his nose. How beautiful it smelled. When the wind blows, as it blows this day, brothers and sisters in our lives, it carries our characters, our hearts, our minds to our bridegroom, the Lord Jesus Christ, the fruit of the spirit in which we are working to develop in our lives.

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    It's only through the trials, the pressures, the wind that blows in our life, that these characteristics that we are working on can now begin to rise as a sweet-smelling savor to our Heavenly Father. And what Song of Solomon tells us is that our Lord Jesus delights in the aroma that he smells. You see, our roots, because of that wind, will grow deeper.

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    The saplings that we start off like our new brother Sam will grow into strong cedars and palm trees that will never be knocked over. So our exhortation to you this morning is this. Let the wind blow. Let the winds blow as hard as they may. Know that the same wind that carries the fierce destruction and dismay for those who would not know our God is the same wind that lifts our prayers, our supplications, our attempts to reflect his goodness, his character, as we see in our Lord Jesus Christ.

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    We will conclude our words with the words of the Apostle Paul from 2 Corinthians 2. Verse 14, it says this, But thanks be to God who in Christ always leads us in triumphal procession and through us spreads the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. for we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.

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