The City of Three Pillars

The City of Three Pillars

by Paul Leacock

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

Let me just say good morning to everyone and to express my thanks and appreciation to your council ring and those of your leadership who have kindly consented that I can share the word of God with you. It is always a privilege and pleasure to be asked to share the word of God because it is His word. And none of us have the exclusive right or scholarship that gives us any particular edge over anybody else that is called by the name of Jesus.

All of us are but servants of the Lord in one way or another. And therefore when we are asked to stand among our brethren and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ, it’s indeed a privilege and an honor. I particularly want to thank Sister Celia and Nana Hurst who has been instrumental in persuading me to come and to bring my family.

Without their persuasion, I guess, I would probably be this morning reviewing the statistics at Allen AME Church, where I am… I have been privileged to work under the pastorate of Dr. Floyd H. Flake. His wife was an assistant pastor, Reverend Elaine Flake, and the other associate ministers.

It’s good when you have good friends. And it’s good when you have the type of friends like Sister Celia and Sister Hurst and others who are here. It’s good when they can see that there are things that perhaps in your haste, in your business, you may otherwise bypass but that you may need. And I’m glad to be here and to be here with my family. Oftentimes when you’re ministering, family gets to be somewhere down the list of priorities. And if you’re not careful, everything you do would be for the Lord, upset family. And so it’s good to be able to get away and to be devoid of all the hustle and the bustle, the rush and the crush of New York City. And to be able to come this far away from everything and just be among people who love the Lord. This has certainly taken us back. My wife and I have been reflecting on days when we shared as youth. And I remember the days when we went away to Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship camps or Inter-School Christian Fellowship camps. And the blessing that there were in my life. And this has certainly been somewhat of a déjà vu for me. And thank God for it.

Sister Sili has been careful to instruct me that this is more of a sharing of oneself, of one’s life, than it is necessarily to preach the gospel. And so I will endeavor to do so, even though I don’t think that there’s anything in my life that can be as rich and important as the things found in this Book. But to the degree that the Lord’s work in our lives is evident, I hope that something about my life would be of some worth and value to you today. Just before I do that, however, there’s a… I’m following her instructions again. There’s a song I would like to share with you. If you want to turn to it, it’s in your book, number 79. A song that just reverences the Lord. And especially in this environment where we can see all of His beauty. This one seems to be somewhat relevant today.

Fairest Lord Jesus, Ruler of all nature, O Thou of God and Man the Son, Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honor, Thou my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the woodlands, robed in the blooming garden of spring. Jesus shines fairer, Jesus is purer, who makes the woeful heart to sing. Fair is the sunshine, fair still the moonlight, and o’er the twinkling star reholds. Jesus shines brighter.

Jesus shines purer than all the angels’ heaven can boast. Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer than all the angels’ heaven can boast.

Amen. Praise the Lord. Turn with me, if you will, in your Bibles, if you have them with you, to the book of 1 John. The book of 1 John, the second chapter.

1 John chapter 2. Let us begin reading at the 12th verse. 1 John 2, beginning at verse 12. If you don’t mind, let us stand in recognition of the word of the Lord. I’m reading from the New International Version. It says, “I write to you, dear children, because your sins have been forgiven on account of His name. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I write to you, dear children, because you have known the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you have known Him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one.” And then he adds, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If any man loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world, the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes, and the boasting of what he has and does, comes not from the Father, but from the world. And the world and its desires pass away. But the man who does the will of God lives forever.”

Or as the King James Version puts it, “For all that’s in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passes away, and the lust thereof. But he that does the will of God abides forever.” Let us pause for prayer.

Lord, You heard Jim’s prayer. And we ask only now that You would open our eyes, that we may behold the wondrous things written out of Thy law. The entrance of Your word give us understanding. It gives light to the simple. And truly, Lord, we are simple.

We are foolish people who are so prone to stray from You, to leave You, to doubt You, and to trust our eyes and our feelings, to respond to the world around us. But You have said that we are not of this world.

And so, Lord, Father, make that reality known to us. The hour has come, Father. Glorify Your Son, the Lord Jesus, that Your Son may glorify You. Through Jesus Christ, O Lord. Amen.

You may be seated. I’d just like to share with you briefly on this text, particularly the 15th through 17th verses, where the Apostle John sets forth for us two paths that… two options, two choices. And how typical of God it is that He sets before us the paths of life and gives us the privilege to choose. So perhaps we can focus our thoughts on the path of life to choose. It takes quite a lot of love to give someone a choice, especially when you have the power to determine what they choose, when you have the authority to set out the options.

We don’t always have that when others control all the pieces. After all, we are told what to wear. The fashion designers determine how long the skirts would be, or how short they would be, whether we will be wearing pedal pushers this year or whether we will go back to something from the sixties, whether it be retro or whether it be progressive or moderate or conservative. And then they tell us how wonderful what they have selected for us is going to be, and how beautiful we are going to look if we just wear what they have designed, and how terribly odd and out of place and out of sync we would be if we don’t choose what’s in.

When we go to the stores to make our selections, the shelves are not decorated and laid out and set up according to what you want, but according to the marketers’ ideas of what you should choose. The price points, the bargains, the specials, the staples, the fads are all set up to trigger our choices, to cause us not to choose what perhaps we need, but what they want us to buy. Try going down the cereal aisle to choose a good cereal for your child, and you’ll see that the cereals are not at all in your scope. They are at the eye level of the child, so that the child will choose what it likes, whether it’s healthy or not. And you have to stoop to see what the child is choosing, and then to have a major fight in the aisle as to what you should select. That…

But God, as infinite and powerful as He is, does not herd us into a bottleneck, that we must go down the cattle ramp to where He want us to go. But builds a world with all its grandeur and beauty.

And creates us with all the intelligence that we have, and the power to think and reason, to speak and create. And in spite of all that, He risk us going the wrong way by giving us choice. That takes great love.

And it takes great confidence in Himself, to know that He is good and that He is true and that He is life, so that even if we make the wrong choices, He’s secure enough within Himself that as we go along the path that we have chosen that leads away from Him, that along that path there are signposts, and there are various encounters that we will have that will somehow tell us that life is in the other direction, that joy is the other way, that peace is behind us, and tragedy, trauma, and drama is ahead of us. And that if we continue going the way we go, that we will not satisfy the longings of our heart and have our needs met. But if we turn around, if we repent, if we change our minds, and change our directions, and change our feelings and our perspective, that the choice that we make in following Him will be the right one. Because the moment we turn around, we come into His favor. And rather than stumbling and falling and bruising and hurting and ruining ourselves, we find healing. He pours in oil and wine

Into the wounds that… the thieves who, the robbers who try to take from us that which He has bestowed in the first place, leaving us bruised and wounded, may be healed. And that we may begin to experience life, meaning, and purpose in pursuing the destiny He has set for us. He’s that confident about Himself. He’s good, and He knows it. And we’ll know it when we make choices, how good and faithful He is. He’s faithful, so He doesn’t have to worry about the choices we make. We worry about our choices because we are worried that the stock may run out, or you may not like certain things, or I may give you too much scope. So therefore I want to control. But God is not worried, because His resources are unlimited.

And His scope is unfathomable. And there’s nothing that we can want in this path of life that He has not provided. After all, there are only five billion people living on the face of the earth. And yet

all are drinking water daily, and it’s still in abundant supply. We are all breathing the oxygen He has provided, and it’s still in abundant supply. We are all consuming food, and we yet have more than enough. You will say, but some are starving. It’s only poorly distributed. But we have more than enough.

And the choices that John therefore sets out here for those who have known God. He says there are some things. I’m writing to you, fathers and children and mothers, says that you may exercise the right choice. He comes over as an elder, having walk with Jesus, experienced the spreading of the gospel, and now, in a sort of epilogue of his life and ministry, writes to those whom he have ministered to over the years in a very fatherly and tender way. And he says to them, now, now this is what I want you to understand. Here are some parting words of wisdom for you.

Don’t love the world, and don’t love the things that are in the world. Now when he says, don’t love the world, he doesn’t mean, don’t love God’s green earth. He doesn’t say to be an anti-environmentalist, even though as Christians you’re going to find that you’re going to begin to bump heads with the so-called environmentalists.

But he presents the choice of loving the world or loving the Father. Or having the love of the world and the love of the Father. And what a dichotomy. What poles to exist within. On the one hand, there is the world, and on the other hand, there is the Father.

One we are related to in our natural existence and within the scope of our living. The other we are related to because of our salvation in Him and because of His redemption of us, so that we have become His children. In the sixties the thought was that we are children of the universe, the earth. Instead of Father God, there was Mother Earth, so that we were seen to be the children of the earth. And Mother Nature was the one that we should give our abundance to.

And we must be careful because language, the definition adoption sets in your mind, what it sets, that determines many times the path that you will go and the choices that you will make. We must pay careful attention to words.

Because words convey thought and meaning. And when that meaning is set in our mind, it triggers a whole train of thoughts that we respond to and, if not carefully, live out. The world is speaking of is the system that exists within society, those systems that are operative. And it has the connotation of not just talking about transportation or communication or taxation or politics or government or education. But he is referring to that system that is operative within the world, that is behind the scenes, that tends to cause all these things to have an ungodly bent and flavor away from God.

And we can see that so clearly in the book of Ephesians chapter 2, when the word of God tells us that you have He quickened, brought alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. Wherein in the past, he said, you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now rules in the children of disobedience. And there unmasked in Ephesians 2, 1 to 3 is the one who controls this world’s systems. Satan, Jesus describes as the prince of this world. God is the Lord and God is the God of the world, of heaven and earth. But Satan is the prince of this world. He’s the puppeteer that is pulling the strings behind all that we see. That is insidious and evil and wrong and sinful.

He’s the one, the Bible says in Ephesians 6, that we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against the rulers of darkness of this world, the rulers of the darkness, spiritual wickedness in high places. That same spiritual prince of darkness was the one that approached Jesus on the mountain. Said, “All these will I give to you.” He showed Him all the wealth and glory of the kingdoms of this world. He said, “All these will I give to you if you would fall down and worship me.”

That was the same prince of Persia whom Daniel, when he was praying and fasting for understanding of the scriptures, when that angel came to him to explain what he was seeking to reveal, what he longed for, that said to him, “From the time you begin to pray, Daniel, I was sent to give you the revelation. But I was held up by the king, the prince of Persia. And Michael the archangel had to come and fight for me, so that I may get through, break through the ranks of the demonic forces that control this world.” And so as Christians we are told today, don’t have a love for this world.

Don’t love the systems of this world, and don’t love the things of this world. And then he shows us why. Because on the surface they look so innocent, so good, so wholesome. But in actuality, when you pull out the curtain, and when you use God’s viewpoint and lenses to look through, you can see why he’s saying it. He says, why? Because everything that is in this world boils down to three things. Three things. Christians ought to be wise in this world. When other people are sharing us, they’re being pumped up by some political agenda, while others are drinking down the news reports from CNN, on U.S. News and World Report, and the Wall Street Journal, and all of our major papers. Whenever people are reading them and saying, “This is good. This is true,” we ought to be able to see the news behind the news. We ought to be able to read beyond the headlines. We ought to be able to go deeper than Ted Koppel can go, and deeper than any of those that we like to listen to, the commentary can go.

We ought to be able to see farther, because we are able to take the world stuff and sift it. And using the eyes of the Spirit of God and the Word of God, we ought to be able to see the three principal operatives here that is in the world. All that’s in the world. All that’s in the world, he says, amongst just three things: the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life. Just those three. That’s all. That’s all. The desires. Life is simply desires. To have a lust for something is to have a desire for something.

And I know we tend to think of lust only in one area of our lives. But lust simply means desire. In the Word of God it oftentimes have the connotation of evil desire, ungodly desire, desire that is inordinate, that is excessive, that is inappropriate. Inappropriate, if I may use the President’s word. Inappropriate desires. Lust.

And the three principal desires that constitutes Satan’s economy. He has built this economy, this world system, on three principles. And John is saying, the Word of God is saying, don’t choose that path that goes down that street that are built on the three pillars of desire. Fire.

Don’t fall in love with that far country like the prodigal did. It has three pillars. And the pillars are the lust of the flesh. That what makes you… what satisfies you. Psychologist Sigmund Freud, best known, even though he was not the original person that brought this up, speaks about the id.

That part of us that just wants to satisfy something. It has no conscience. Whether it’s right or wrong, it does not care. It just wants to enjoy the pleasure of what is presented to it. It tastes good. It feels good. It makes me feel good. I like it. I want it.

And you can take a third of society’s behavior and put it on the pillar of the desire of the flesh. Just think of your behavior before you became a Christian, and you will see how much you follow the desires of the flesh. What satisfied.

That’s how he got us started in the first place. Because when you approach Eve, you will notice that these three principles were used. And then the second one is the lust, or the desire, of the eyes. Solomon said in his wisdom that the eye of man is never full.

You are going to eat lunch later on today. And you may be able to eat as much as you can. But that’s all you are going to be able to do, eat as much as you can. Because your stomach is going to become full, and to eat more, full. The desire is to give yourself grave discomfort. And the body is going to stop you from eating more.

You are going to take as much as you can. But your eyes are never full. They see, and they see, and the more they see, the more they see. They are never satisfied. The desires of the eyes are ones that are unharnessed and unbridled. There are no parameters. There are no fences to the eyes.

Remember, children, you would hear your parents saying, “The more you see, the more you want.” When a child loves to eat more than it can really handle, we used to say, “Your eyes are bigger than your belly.” The desires of the eyes.

Every flattering thing. Things that look attractive. Oh, that looks good. I want that. Oh, look at that car. Oh, what a lovely house. Oh, what a fine dress. What a beautiful suit. Hmm. Oh, what a beautiful woman. Oh, did you see that hunk that just went by? The desires of the eyes. The eyes.

And thirdly there is the pride of life. What makes me look good? Oh, if I could only get that position. Oh, I’ll be top dog. I’ll be top gun. I’ll be the big man. Oh, I’ll be head honcho around here. The drive for power and control and to be in charge and to be recognized and to be seen, that everybody says good morning to and good evening to, and “Can I get you something? Oh, sit here. Oh, sit there. Oh, oh, we’ve reserved the table for you.” The pride of life. There are many in Washington who don’t need money. They have plenty of it.

They don’t have to worry about the satisfaction of the flesh, because they have enough resources to take care of that. They’re probably overindulging already. So what takes them there to Washington? What drives them there to that strange place? It’s the quest for power, to have their names in the annals of American history, to be some of the big wheels that make things happen.

Power and authority. We can go down that road and fall in love with all those things. Or, John says, you can have the love of the Father. The love of the Father. I don’t have to spend much time telling you about the love of the Father, do I? I don’t have to tell you about the God who made this world and the beauty that it has, and despite our irresponsible polluting of it, still remains as beautiful as it is.

And just give it to us. Have dominion over it. Control it. All the animals. All the birds. All the trees. Everything. Even the creeping thing on the ground. You know what? I don’t have to tell you about the love of the Father, that even though we have broken covenant with Him over and over again, He has given His Son that we might be able to come into relationship with Him. Behold what love. Behold what love the Father have bestowed on us, that we can be called the children of God. I came face to face with this road one day in my life.

The son of a deacon and a deaconess in the First Baptist Church in Bridgetown, Barbados, and particularly at age 16, when my world was turned upside down, as my parents moved from the neighborhood that I grew up in and loved. It was teeming with kids. And everything was just fine. You had all your friends in place. You know where their houses were. You know where your old haunts were. We could run to the beach in a few minutes, and we would be there and have a ball.

That’s very crucial when you’re a teenager, right? You know, you have all your friends and everybody in place. Everything is where I want them. Don’t anybody touch anything. And then my father decides to leave the neighborhood, to move to another.

He at last had worked hard enough to fulfill a dream in his life, to build a home that could accommodate all of his children. And there were many, for I’m one of eleven. And he felt so good that he can take us to a house. And the boys can have their quarters, and the girls can have their quarters, and Mama and Papa can have their quarters, and living room and dining room to spare, and even a veranda to look outside.

But we hated it. The neighborhood was dead. As far as we consider it was lousy. Nobody our age around. The neighbors were strange. Everything looked awful to us. But little did I know that God was trying to steer me down the path that led away from this society of the three lustful pillars to the love of the Father.

I remember particularly as my mother went to transfer the kids to the schools in the area, my brothers and sisters who were of school age, that I was left in the house to think. And I had planned not to return to the school where I was going, because one, it was a distance away, and secondly, I don’t think I was getting the education that I really wanted.

You have to understand that Barbados, even though it’s a very small country, has excelled in its education. And the standards are high. And we have been able, bless God, to have a 99.9% literacy. Therefore not to have a good education, to be average, is not anything. I didn’t want to go back. I don’t think I was gaining what I should. When I looked at my academic record, it was poor. It was ridiculous. It was absolutely something that I was ashamed of.

But one thing church gives you, when you are a church kid, at least you can get up and speak. Right? You’re always prodded by your Sunday school teacher to give a memory verse, or to share scripture, or to give a recitation, or say something. And so church develops within you that ability to stand before audiences and speak. And so when you can articulate a few words, people think, oh, that kid is smart. But deep down inside, you know what the real temperature is within you.

And so I went back to the school, at least to say goodbye. When I went, many of the teachers were a little disappointed that I wasn’t returning. But they understood. I didn’t know where it was going and what I was going to do next. But…

Then one of the teachers said something that was absolutely distasteful to me. I didn’t want to hear it. One of my teachers said, “You know, there’s a… there’s a secondary school in that area, new school that just opened up a couple years ago. Maybe you should apply to get in there.”

I didn’t want to hear that. I should, right? I wasn’t happy with my education. Why not do more? But to get into that school, I would have to be tested. Oh, I didn’t want to do that, because that was going to blow my whole image. That was going to unmask me. That was going to show everybody that I didn’t know as much as they thought I knew. A test? An exam? Oh no. Mm-mm. Let me stay as ignorant as I was, with the perception of the world. What made me look good was comfortable. But God was interested in what was good. Because everything He made, the Bible says, “And God saw that it was good.” The world is content with what looks good, what appears to be good. Build a nice facade at the front. Never mind the walls at the side are uncovered, are unpainted, are shoddy. Let the front looks good. And that’s alright.

Satan is a master deceiver. So finally, feeling cornered and nowhere to go, I decide, I might as well try. And so I went, and I saw the principal. And he was a man that was extremely busy. Overcrowded school. Had more kids than he was allowed to have by the board of education. But that didn’t stop him anyway. And he said to me, “Young man, they tell me that you want to learn.” Thanks. That a good plug. Right?

“I’m going to put you in the class that you are… one year behind. Two years behind in work. But you’re… one year ahead of them. You got to catch up.” Those words were like thunder in my ears. For the first time in my life, I realized I got to really hunker down and do some hard work. Study became a word in my vocabulary. Now, to make a long story short, my father and I decided that the best way we could handle this mass to catch up with was that I would go to sleep early in the evening and get up late at night and burn the midnight oil. There was no other way to do it. There was no shortcuts to this.

And so about 11 o’clock he would come and wake me up and direct me to the table. Study time. Didn’t know anything about the techniques of studying. Had no idea what it would have entailed. All I knew, here were the subjects, here were the books, and I got to know all this stuff.

And as I sit there in that lonely room, and all I could have heard there was the snores of my brothers and sisters, blissfully asleep, I’m feeling sorry for myself, having to sit up late to catch up. The only person that was awake was God.

My father got me up, went to bed. And that perhaps was the greatest gift that he could have given me, in knowing his God, the Father. Because in the quietness of the early morning hours, in the stillness of the night.

I pray, “Lord, I don’t know what to do here. But just open my mind, expand my understanding, and help me to be able to gain this information that I have to.” Night after night I would read and read. Read and read. And it would seem as though, when my father went to bed, the heavenly Father got up with me. And night after night, as I sat there in the darkness, it was evident that a presence was with me. It was clear that as I… I was guided to read my Bible before I begin to study. We can get real holy when we want stuff from God, can’t we? But God isn’t worried about that.

And as I read the word of God and then proceeded to study, and to read and to read and to read, many times I look up at the window and the morning light was breaking. It was dawn. It was time to get ready for school. The next day. May.

But gradually there was a consciousness that God, my father’s God, had become my God. And the heavenly Father was not just someone we read in the Lord’s Prayer. He had become my Father. And I had a path to choose. It could be to go down the road with the city of the three pillars that was swinging. I experienced the love of the Father. I’ll never forget a minister at the church look all the young people in the eye, all the teenagers, said to them, said to us:

“Don’t just choose your career. Ask God what He wants you to do. Don’t just choose a job because it looks good and it’ll make you look good and earn a lot of money. Ask God what He wants you to do.” And so we got busy asking God.

Morning after morning I would pray, “Lord, what would You have me do? Lord, Lord, tell me what You would have me do. Lord, tell me what You would have me do. Lord, tell me what You have me to do.” And even though I prayed that repeatedly, one morning, after many weeks, out of the blue and out of the dark, God spoke.

He speaks, you know, if we would listen. I’m not sure if anybody else in the room would have heard His voice, but I know I did. I was praying, but I was startled. I was thinking, but I was shocked. When the answer came back, and I heard just three words: “Preach My Word.”

I must confess to you, I was disappointed. Because now, isn’t it strange? Now that I begin to learn, I begin to see myself as a CEO of some business, of ascending to some great position. The city was calling.

The lust of the flesh, and of the eyes, and the pride of life was appealing. The paths were open. And God was saying, “This is the way I want you to go.” And I protested, “Is that what You want me to do?”

He said no more. He said no more. But “Preach My Word.” Let me ask you today, which path of life are you taking? Are you responding to the desires of your flesh, the desires of your eyes, or those desires of those things that make you look good? Or are you responding to the will of the Father?

The vehicle of desire will take you into the world. But the vehicle of the will of the Father will help you to learn to love the Father. Jesus said, “My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to finish His work.” What’s yours?

What’s yours? Which path are you on this morning? Which path? Desires, or His will? Will. You can’t stop having desires. But you can do like Paul: “I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ live within me. And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by the grace of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”

Let us pray. Lord, You are more precious than silver. Lord, You are more costly than gold. Lord, You are more beautiful than diamonds. And nothing I desire compares to You. Teach us Thy way, O Lord. Lead us into the plain path.

Now like Job, we may be able to say, “He knows the way I take. My feet have held His steps and not decline.” That we may hear the words of Jesus that say, “I am the way, the truth, the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me.” Unlike him, we may be obedient to Your will.

And turn our backs on the city of three pillars, and turn to the God, God, who is our Father, who loves us. Place Your ring of sonship on our hands. Place the shoes of the gospel of peace upon our feet. Place Your robe of righteousness upon us, that we may know who we are. And help us to sit in fellowship with You, Lord, that we who are dead may come alive, that we who are lost may be found.

And that we may have joy in the name of Jesus.