Original Entry: May 21, 2008
McMinnville, OR
Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists,
for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:31
‘I will
set my face against the person who turns to mediums and spiritists to
prostitute himself by following them, and I will cut him off from his
people.’ Leviticus 20:6
For there
is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. 1Timothy
2:5
Big Darby
and I first learned we had been drawn for 2007 New Mexico mule deer hunt by a
post card we received in the mail. It
wasn’t a postcard from the Fish and Wildlife Department as would be expected
but from a guide service. Apparently,
the guide was privileged to a list of successful applications and was able to
mail out marketing materials before the results were posted on line!
This
created a dilemma for Darby and me, “Do we try to figure out an area from more
than a thousand miles away or hire someone who already knows the area? Do we risk wasting such a premium tag on
ignorance or trust the experience of a middle man?”
After much
discussion we decided that all the information we needed was as close as our
computers and cell phones and we chose to do it ourselves. We wanted the
adventure of doing it on our own without any medium.
This
reminds me of my religious upbringing as a Catholic.
I will
always consider myself Catholic, but there are a couple of practices of
Catholicism that I cannot find in Scripture.
One is the Catholic tradition of praying the Rosary, specifically the
“Hail Mary” prayer in which Catholics pray to the blessed mother. Another is the whole concept of confessing
your sins to a priest, or middle man, who sits on the other side of the
confessional booth. He then instructs you in what you must do for penance in
order to receive forgiveness.
Mary is a
medium. A priest is a middle man.
Another
word for “medium” in Leviticus 19:3 is “ghost” or
“spirit”. How often do we rely on the
spirit of our human potential or the spirit of a lost loved one to inspire
us? How many rely on the spirit of Mary
or some other ghost from the past?
Ghosts are real, sprits are real, and Mary was real, but Jesus is the
only real way to God.
As we
learned yesterday, a man should seek nothing except the face of the King. In 1Timothy
2:5 we read, “For there is one God
and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Jesus is man’s
conduit to the Father.
Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the
Father except through me" (John 14:6).
Jesus
said, “I am the gate for the sheep” (John 10:7).
Jesus is
our guide into manhood. Jesus is our guide to eternal. life. Jesus is our way
to the Father.
Jesus said
it and that settles it.
