Fear of Flies

Fear of Flies

The last thing a kayaker does before pushing away from the shore to face white water is seal himself in his boat with a “spray skirt.” It wraps tightly around the rim of the cockpit and keeps the foam and spray on the outside of the boat. John, my Army buddy, was a great kayaker, but I remember how one day, he sealed himself in, braced hard in the water with his paddle, and pulled into the middle of a raging stream. Then suddenly, he sat bolt upright, dropped his precious paddle, and began pounding on the deck with his fists. When he sealed his spray skirt, he sealed a vicious grey fly inside. In the dark, the bug began to lunch on John’s exposed legs! I can still hear John screaming as his boat slowly turned upside down! Then it was silent save the roar of the river as his overturned boat was carried downstream, bouncing off the rocks.

That was a single biting fly. Can you imagine swarms of the little devils?

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and present yourself to Pharaoh, as he goes out to the water, and say to him, thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. Or else, if you will not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies on you and your servants and your people, and into your houses (Exodus 8:20, 21).

I don’t like flies. I don’t think anyone enjoys a swarm of noxious flies swarming around them, whether they are biting flies or not. Can you picture them in your eyes, in your nose, and your mouth? It was too much for Pharaoh too. This time, he agrees to let the Israelites go into the wilderness to worship the Lord, but as soon as the flies were gone, so was Pharaoh’s promise. He didn’t keep his promise.

Sometimes we’re the same way. When times are tough, we turn to the Lord and beg for help, but when He answers our prayers, we conveniently forget. Perhaps, today, we should spend some time remembering – and thanking – the Lord for all of His blessings?

Learning to Live with It

The third plague happened when Aaron struck the earth with his staff, and the dust became a swarm of “gnats,” but what are gnats? The Hebrew word doesn’t help us very much. It’s only found here in Exodus 8 and Psalms 105:31, which is referring to this event. The word refers to tiny two-winged insects. They could be either gnats or mosquitoes. (Although the American Standard Version, King James Version, New King James Version, and English Revised Version translate it as “lice”! The New English Bible, for some reason, has “maggots.”). The notable point of this plague is that the Egyptian magicians couldn’t reproduce it with their trickery. I like what D.K. Stuart says about this event:

What is notably different about the third plague is the failure of the magicians. They had been able to make it look as if they could change water into blood and produce frogs by their magical arts. But what magician has ever done a trick with trained mosquitoes?[1]

Let’s reread the text:

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, ‘Stretch out your staff and strike the dust of the earth, so that it may become gnats in all the land of Egypt.’” And they did so. Aaron stretched out his hand with his staff and struck the dust of the earth, and there were gnats on man and beast. All the dust of the earth became gnats in all the land of Egypt. The magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not. So there were gnats on man and beast. Then the magicians said to Pharaoh, “This is the finger of God.” But Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he would not listen to them, as the Lord had said (Exodus 8:16–19).

Whether you picture gnats, mosquitoes, lice, or maggots, the effect is the same. It’s not pretty! I would have to agree with the magicians, “This is the finger of God.” What I can’t understand is Pharaoh’s reaction. He “hardened” his heart. He didn’t even ask for this plague to be lifted!

Sometimes we turn a blind eye to sin. Perhaps we have become so accustomed to it, we no longer even see it, or, worse, we no longer care. Have we learned to live with the bugs?

  [1] Stuart, D. K. (2006). Exodus (Vol. 2, p. 211). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.

Why Wait?

As a little boy, the second plague was my favorite:

Thus says the LORD, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will plague all your country with frogs. The Nile shall swarm with frogs that shall come up into your house and into your bedroom and on your bed and into the houses of your servants and your people, and into your ovens and your kneading bowls. The frogs shall come up on you and on your people and on all your servants” (Exodus 8:1 – 4).

Can you imagine? Frogs in the living room. Frogs in the bedroom. Pull back the sheets and “ribbet” – frogs in your bed. Look in the mixing bowl: frogs. Look in the oven: frogs! Frogs everywhere!

Then Pharaoh called Moses and Aaron and said, “Plead with the LORD to take away the frogs from me and from my people, and I will let the people go to sacrifice to the LORD” (Exodus 8:8).

The amazing thing for me comes next. When Moses asked Pharaoh, “When?” (verse 9), Pharaoh replied, “Tomorrow” (verse 10). It was the same as saying, “Let me spend one more night with frogs on my pillow.” Why would he do such a thing? On the other hand, when someone has a toothache, and you suggest, “Let’s go to the dentist!” How often have you heard them reply, “It’s not that bad”?

Likewise, I have always been amazed at the end of a Bible study, when someone is ready to be baptized – to be cleansed from their sins – and they say, “Let’s wait until Sunday.”

I don’t understand. In the case of toothaches, frogs, and sin, “Why wait?”

What Will You Have to Drink?

There are two aisles in our small-town grocery store that are devoted to drinks. The shelves are weighed down with Coke and Pepsi products. Diet drinks, power drinks, flavored drinks, vitamin water, bottled water, distilled water – the variety is amazing. However, there is still nothing as refreshing as drinking cold, clear water right from the stream. Perhaps those days are gone. “Beaver Fever” and pollution have ruined those sources of refreshment, but I remember canoeing in Arkansas on a summer day. It was hot work, but all you had to do was lean over the side and drink your fill from the river. I remember countless times drinking from the streams that sprang directly from a snowfield.

Water is essential to life. Scientists tell us we are made up of mostly water. Without it, we would die in a matter of days.

Now turn your imagination to ancient Egypt: the land of the Nile. For the first of the Ten Plagues, Moses struck the river in front of Pharaoh with his staff, and the water turned into blood. The fish died. The water stank and no one could drink from it. Can you imagine the children returning to their mothers with a bucket of blood? Can you see the people rushing to the riverbank and then pulling back in horror? “What has happened?” But “Pharaoh’s heart remained hardened” (Exodus 7:22). In desperation, for the next seven days, the people dug for water. That gave them enough time to change the question from “What has happened?” to “Why has this happened?” That is a far more important question for us to ask. Think about it. “Why are these things happening to me?”

The Attraction of Christianity

Christianity is very attractive. Did you know going to church is good for your health? Philip Yancy offers the following list of advantages:

• Regular church attendees live longer.
• Religion reduces the incidence of heart attacks, arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, and hypertension.
• Religious people are less likely to abuse alcohol and far less likely to use illicit drugs.
• Prison inmates who make a religious commitment are less likely than their counterparts to return to jail.
• Marital satisfaction and overall well-being tend to increase with church attendance.
• Depression rates decline.
• Religious commitment offers one protection against the nation’s greatest health problem — divorce.
• A Redbook magazine survey said that married people who were religious had a whole lot more fun in bed than those who were not.

That all sounds pretty good to modern ears, but the most important thing is missing from this list, and it is absent from most people’s concerns. What was it about Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost that persuaded three thousand people to beg for baptism? It wasn’t their concern about “heart attacks, arteriosclerosis, high blood pressure, and hypertension,” or even their desire to have “a whole lot more fun in bed.”

Listen to his conclusion. It has three parts: “Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” First, there is a God. Second, Jesus is “both Lord and Christ,” and, finally, Jesus died for our sins. Join me. How can we make that message clear in 2021?

No Need to Rob a Bank

Danny Simpson of Ottawa, Canada, made two tragic mistakes in 1990. Desperate for money, Simpson decided to rob a bank. He visited the bank every day for a week to plan his hold up, and then, the night before, Danny had dinner with his parents. While mom and dad were cleaning up the dishes, he slipped into his parent’s bedroom and took the 45-caliber pistol from the drawer in the nightstand beside his father’s bed.


The next day, Simpson made off with two bags of cash worth over $6,000 from the bank. When the Mounties reviewed the surveillance tapes, they quickly identified Simpson as a “frequent visitor” and made the arrest.


Danny Simpson made two big mistakes. The first was robbing a bank, and the second was using his father’s pistol. While Simpson stole $6,000 from the bank, his father’s gun was a very rare 1918 .45-caliber Colt semi-automatic made by the Ross Rifle Company valued at over $100,000! The pistol went to a Canadian museum, and Simpson went to jail.


As Christians, we might desire the gifts someone else has: their respect, ability to teach, or sing, but God has given each one of us unique skills (Romans 12:6-8) that make us special. What’s your gift?

Gemstones of the Bible

When people learn I’m a mountaineer, they often ask, “Why? Are you nuts?” Of course, the answer is “Yes,” but there are some other reasons why people climb mountains. There are over 50 peaks in Colorado, over 14,000 feet high. One of them, near Buena Vista, where I was a youth minister, is Mt. Antero. Every year different gem companies send young people to the summit of Mt. Antero on a quest to find Aquamarine – the stone the Bible calls “Jacinth” (Revelation 21:20). Jacinth is one of the foundation stones of the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem.

When I reached the summit many years ago, I met a number of these young gemologists. They were excited to put down their shovels and picks and show me their treasures. Their aquamarine crystals were light blue, like the waters of the Mediterranean Ocean. In the ancient world, travelers believed that they had the power to protect their owners against shipwreck because they looked like the ocean.

Aquamarine “Jacinth” stones on the summit of Mt. Antero

Another interesting stone from the walls of heaven is amethyst. I think they are beautiful. Amethyst is a violet variety of quartz. In Greek, a- means “not,” and methysko means drunken. This refers to the Greek’s belief the stone protected the owner from drunkenness. Archaeologists have found many carved drinking vessels made from amethyst in hopes it would guard the owners against intoxication, but why is it a foundation stone? Perhaps because sobriety is a solid virtue.

Finally, have you wondered why diamonds aren’t included in the biblical list? According to the New Bible Dictionary:

The modern diamond was probably unknown in OT times, the first certain reference to it apparently being in Manilius (1st century AD).

The list of stones that make up the foundation of the walls of the heavenly Jerusalem is interesting, but the gates are what amaze me: “And the twelve gates were twelve pearls, each of the gates made of a single pearl” (Revelation 21:21). We’ll talk about biblical pearls in another article, but just imagine the giant oysters that made them! Put one of those in your Thanksgiving stuffing!

Dinner for 4,000

Jesus fed large crowds on two occasions. We are more familiar with the feeding of the 5,000 (Mark 8), but have you ever wondered why later Jesus repeated this miracle with 4,000 people?

In context, we are told, “Then he returned from the region of Tyre and went through Sidon to the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis” (Mark 7:31). The Decapolis was a confederation of ten Greek cities, mostly on the Jordan River’s far side. It was Gentile territory. They had followed Jesus for three days and were in a lonely place. Then Mark tells us many of the people following Jesus “have come from far away.” Who were these people?

The language may help us identify them. J.A. Brooks explains:

The expression translated “a long-distance” and cognates are used in the LXX to describe the Gentile lands to which Israel had been exiled …  The early church sometimes referred these passages to the calling of the Gentiles. Mark, therefore, may have wanted his readers/hearers to see an allusion to the Gentiles.

This story is the highlight of Jesus’ ministry to the Gentiles in Mark. It began when Jesus took his disciples to Phoenicia and cast a demon out of a Gentile woman’s daughter (Mark 7:24 – 30). Then Jesus healed a deaf man in the Gentile territory on the far side of the Jordan River (7:31 – 37). Now Jesus has been teaching for three days in the wilderness and feeds a crowd of 4,000 people, most of whom are probably Gentiles (8:1 – 10).

What does this tell us? The Jews may have been God’s chosen people, but He never stopped loving all of his children. Because we have the Old Testament, we know much more about God’s relationship with the Jewish people but scattered throughout its pages, we find Gentiles who also worship the Lord. Jethro, Moses’ father-in-law, was a priest of Midian. Balaam was a prophet of the Lord, and who can forget Melchizedek, whom Abraham worshipped with? When we come to the New Testament, we have the mysterious wise men who come to worship the baby Jesus.

Jesus fed the 5,000 Jews in Mark 6, and he fed 4,000 Gentiles in Mark 8. The point is: God loves everyone and desires all of his children to come home.

The Preacher with the Golden Tongue

It may be one of the gutsiest sermons ever preached. John Chrysostom (A.D. 354 – 407) was considered the best preacher in the early church. (They gave him the name “Chrysostom” – golden tongue — in spite of his humility.) John was a very popular preacher in Antioch where the people loved his direct style of preaching. Unlike many teachers of his era who used flights of fancy to interpret the Scriptures called “Allegorical Interpretation,” John encouraged the literal approach – “It means what it says.” He believed the Bible was its own best interpreter and he made the Scriptures come alive with practical applications.

He was invited to become the archbishop of Constantinople and preach for the empress. He continuously refused. John was content to minister to live the simple life of a monk and preach in Antioch. Finally, he was kidnapped and forced to move there. It didn’t take long for John’s straightforward approach got him into trouble.

Can you imagine the empress coming to church with her jewels and fabulous garments? It took a full day to style her hair weaving pearls and other precious jewels into it? The Apostle Paul wrote: “Women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works” (1 Timothy 2:9, 10).

Let’s sit back and read the text of John Chrysostom’s sermon that Sunday.

“Paul however requires something more of women, that they adorn themselves “in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broidered hair or gold or pearls or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.” But what is this “modest apparel”? Such attire as covers them completely, and decently, not with superfluous ornaments, for the one is becoming, the other is not.”

Can you see the empress in church listening to John? He continues:

“What? Dost thou approach God to pray, with broidered hair and ornaments of gold? Art thou come to a dance? to a marriage? to a gay procession? There such a broidery, such costly garments, had been seasonable, here not one of them is wanted. Thou art come to pray, to supplicate for pardon of thy sins, to plead for thine offenses, beseeching the Lord, and hoping to render Him propitious to thee. Why dost thou adorn thyself? This is not the dress of a suppliant. How canst thou groan? How canst thou weep? How pray with fervency, when thus attired? Shouldest thou weep, thy tears will be the ridicule of the beholders. She that weeps ought not to be wearing gold. It were but acting, and hypocrisy. For is it not acting to pour forth tears from a soul so overgrown with extravagance and ambition? Away with such hypocrisy! God is not mocked! This is the attire of actors and dancers, that live upon the stage. Nothing of this sort becomes a modest woman, who should be adorned ‘with shamefacedness and sobriety.’ Imitate not therefore the courtesans.”

Amazing! Shortly thereafter, John was exiled, and when that couldn’t shut him up, they killed him. I wonder what our tongues are made of?

Monk Fight! Monk Fight!

It may be the holiest site for Christians in all of Israel, but it turns my stomach. The Church of the Holy Sepulcher probably enshrines the site of the crucifixion and the tomb of Jesus Christ. The original Golgotha was just outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was a hill of soft limestone that wasn’t suited for use as a building material, but it was in an ideal location as a site for public executions. Later, after the death of Christ, it was enclosed by the last wall surrounding the city. The “modern wall” built by Suliman the Magnificent in the eighth century follows this new wall and so Golgotha is now enclosed by the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and surrounded by buildings in the old city.

The original limestone outcropping was carved into a beautiful shrine, and later a church surrounded it. That church, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built by Emperor Constantine in 335 A.D. was destroyed in 1009 A.D. and rebuilt by the Crusaders. It has been continuously added onto and modified since that time.

Now the question is, “Who owns the church?” It’s not an easy question to answer. Six different churches claim ownership: the Greek Orthodox, the Roman Catholics, the Armenians, Coptics (Egyptians), Syrians, and the Ethiopians. The Greeks claim they were the first, but the church was destroyed. After the coming of the Crusaders, in 1233, the Roman Catholics came. The Ethiopians claim they have been in Jerusalem since the days of the Queen of Sheba and, later, the Ethiopian eunuch.

In 1757, to put an end to the endless squabbling, Turks, then Jerusalem’s rulers, proclaimed a status quo for all holy sites in the city, which was confirmed in 1852 and has been enforced by all succeeding conquerors — including, since 1967, Israel.[1]

This document divided the church into different sections and common areas. It is quite explicit about who has what, and what they must do. This has led to frequent fights to protect rights. For example, the Ethiopians have a monastery on the roof. The Coptics claim it was theirs first and they only allowed the Africans to stay there as guests. A Coptic monk takes a folding chair up there every day and sits to assert their rights. In 2008, he moved his chair 20 centimeters into the shade of a tree that was growing out of the rocks on the roof. This led to a battle that sent monks to the hospital! Now the monk comes and sits every day for 15 minutes with a police escort and three guards.

In another incident, during a candle lighting ceremony, a mass fight broke out between Armenian priests and Greek monks! That resulted in the arrest of two monks and several injuries. (You can watch it on YouTube! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9a6f9RI-Fs You can also watch monks fighting with brooms in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ETAGB6LGD5Q but that’s a story for another day.)

I’m sorry but didn’t Jesus say, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39)? However, before we start condemning those whacky monks, perhaps we should ask ourselves, are a better example of Christ’s love?


[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/26/world/jerusalem-journal-atop-church-another-less-deadly-holy-war.html March 6, 2021