Beeson Divinity School, Episode 481
Paul R. House
Jan. 28, 2020

Announcer:          Welcome to the Beeson podcast coming to you from Beeson Divinity School on the campus of Samford university. Now your hosts, Doug Sweeney and Kristen Padilla.

Kristen Padilla:    Welcome to a new episode of the Beeson podcast. I'm your co-host Kristen Padilla here with my co-host Doug Sweeney. As you know, Doug normally opens our podcast episodes, but I am doing so today in order that I might say a word about the significance of today and the life of Beeson Divinity School and in Doug's life as well. Today's episode airs on January 28 the first day of our spring 2020 semester. We begin each semester with opening convocation in Hodges chapel during our regularly scheduled chapel time. This service is always so special as faculty process the opening hymn for all the saints. But today's opening convocation is particularly special. Today, Dr. Doug Sweeney, our beloved co-host, will formally be installed as the school second Dean during opening convo. Dr. Kevin Vanhoozer of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School will give the installation address and Dr. Andrew Westmoreland, president of Sanford university will preside over the service.

Kristen Padilla:    If you happen to listen to this podcast before 11:00 AM central standard time, then you can tune in live at beesondivinity.com/live. The service will be posted to our YouTube channel this week in case you miss it at youtube.com/beesondivinity. This time last year in 2019 the search for a new Dean was underway and many of us, many of you were praying for a successor who would continue the good work Dr. Timothy George began at Beeson, and someone who would help us further our mission to prepare God called men and women for service in the church. Doug, we are especially mindful today of God's grace and kindness toward us at Beeson in bringing you and Wilma here for such a time as this.

Doug Sweeney:       Well, thank you Kristin for such a kind introduction. Wilma and I are deeply grateful for the privilege of serving here and we are looking forward to this installation day with so many of the good friends of Beeson all around us. The theme of this semester's community worship service after this installation day is the word of the Lord and doers forever. The word of God has always driven what we do at Beeson Divinity School and though we do have a new Dean now, it always will at least as long as I'm here. Although institutions change and deans come and go, the word of the Lord remains forever and continues to do what it says it does in our world, our lives, our ministries, and our school. Our chapel service is this term will shine a light on what the Bible says, the word is and does by the spirit in our midst.

Doug Sweeney:       Next week on February four, our own Dr. Ronald Sterling will preach on Isaiah 40:6-8, one of the places in the Bible where we read about the word of the Lord enduring forever. Also, beginning next week is our African American ministry emphasis in conjunction with black history month. With the exception of our biblical studies lectures which take place February 11 through 14, each Tuesday in February, an African American brother or sister will preach in chapel and we'll be involved in a number of special events on campus and we invite you in our listening audience to join us for that special emphasis. Given our attention to the enduring nature of God's word this semester, today on the podcast, we want to share a sermon, Dr. Paul House, another beloved professor here at Beeson gave this past fall on Isaiah 40 called the word of the Lord stands forever, which of course is another way of saying the word of the Lord endures forever.

Doug Sweeney:       Dr. House teaches courses on the old Testament and Hebrew. He's a longstanding member of our faculty and we pray that this sermon will encourage you today. We hope you'll join us each Tuesday at 11:00 AM in Hodges chapel for community worship. More information can be found at beesondivinity.com/worship. Now let's turn to Hodges chapel as we hear the word of the Lord preached by Dr. Paul House.

Amy:                Today's old Testament reading comes from Isiah 40:1-31. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that her warfare is ended, that her iniquity is pardoned, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins. A voice cries: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” A voice says, “Cry!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the Lord blows on it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.

Amy:                Go on up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, fear not; say to the cities of Judah, “Behold your God!” Behold, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; behold, his reward is with him, and his recompense before him. He will tend his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms; he will carry them in his bosom, and gently lead those that are with young. Who has measured the waters in the hollow of his hand and marked off the heavens with a span, enclosed the dust of the earth in a measure and weighed the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance? Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

Amy:                Behold, the nations are like a drop from a bucket, and are accounted as the dust on the scales; behold, he takes up the coastlands like fine dust. Lebanon would not suffice for fuel, nor are its beasts enough for a burnt offering. All the nations are as nothing before him, they are accounted by him as less than nothing and emptiness. To whom then will you liken God, or what likeness compare with him? An idol! A craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and casts for it silver chains. He who is too impoverished for an offering chooses wood that will not rot; he seeks out a skillful craftsman to set up an idol that will not move. Do you not know? Do you not hear? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth? It is he who sits above the circle of the earth, and its inhabitants are like grasshoppers; who stretches out the heavens like a curtain, and spreads them like a tent to dwell in; who brings princes to nothing, and makes the rulers of the earth as emptiness.

Amy:                Scarcely are they planted, scarcely sown, scarcely has their stem taken root in the earth, when he blows on them, and they wither, and the tempest carries them off like stubble. To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One. Lift up your eyes on high and see: who created these? He who brings out their host by number, calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might and because he is strong in power, not one is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God”? Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.

Amy:                He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength: they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. This is the word of the lord.

Congregation:       Thanks be to God.

Speaker 7:          A reading from Timothy II chapter 3:10-17. Listen carefully for this is God's word. You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

Speaker 7:          But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. This is the word of the Lord.

Dr. Paul House:     Would you pray with me please. Father, these are your words, not mine. We ask for the ability to hear them, to understand them, to live them. I pray that you would give me clarity and you would give the hearers a willingness to obey and to overlook the mistakes that I would make that they might see you. Thank you for this time in Christ's name. Amen. Please be seated. So good to see you today. I'm grateful that you've come. It was easier today. You did not need a ticket to get, plenty of room with this speaker coming I think. I have been assigned a passage that was quite acceptable to me and ably and wonderfully read by Amy a few minutes ago. I found it interesting how she kept striking the note on the pronouns, didn't she? His and him and so forth. Very helpful as I thought about God and as I thought about his work with us.

Dr. Paul House:     So I've assigned this passage and in the recesses of Dr. George's mind, [inaudible 00:14:01] again. He saw this passage as being one of the glories of God and it has been set to music in many different ways and many different times. I want to focus on the first 11 verses. I will touch on the last, this passage I bring to you today from our friend Isaiah as one part of his great vision, comfort for renewal and commitment. God's word rises forever. Isaiah, by this time I would suppose was a man in his early sixties, were coming out of the destruction, the difficulties of 701 BC. He'd been a prophet a long time. He'd seen a lot of things come and go and in his book this past, he's just part of his overall plan. The book of Isaiah, if you take out the chapters and read it, you will find that it proceeds as a series of sin to Zion cycles that you read in chapter one; blistering, really condemnation of the wrong sort of warship.

Dr. Paul House:     Moving through the day of the Lord, which is the redeeming function in that section and into a clear, cool shaded Zion. In chapter four. That's a nice, nice point. To be interrupted in chapter five by a horrible grasping, greedy sin portrayed in one of Isaiah's most colorful passages and he has a lot of them in which he imagines Israel as a vineyard that simply won't do what it's supposed to do by nature or by choice, and God then speaks to Isaiah and tells him, chapter six, "This vineyard is going to be greatly reduced." In fact, he says, "Imagine a tree that is cut down to the ground and then you do what you're supposed to do to clear the stump. You set it on fire. That would be these people, this Israel, this Judah that you see. Out of those ashes, you'll see a little Sprig come up. Just a little plant."

Dr. Paul House:     Now where I come from, you had chopped that off and you would be angry that it existed at all because you did not burn the stump to see it grow again, and that's right because the people burning the stuff I suppose are the Assyrians, but God's said, "You see that plant. That's the Holy seed. It's growing. That's the remnant." That's wonderfully comforting unless you're Isaiah. He encounters a has who will not stand in faith in chapter seven and he tells us about the Messiah in chapter nine and chapters 11 and 12 beautiful, beautiful coming from all places where they have been exiled by the Assyrians in this text, of course, to a place where they drink water from the Wells of salvation and it's beautiful, beautiful, comforting and beautiful. Then we get chapters 13 to 27. I could keep going.

Dr. Paul House:     Chapters 24 to 27, brilliance. In fact, God's going to bring his people and take away death. No more death, and in chapter 26 dead people popping up out the ground, grass in the spring. God raised him up. It's beautiful. The nations are included in this as you come to chapter 27 it's beautiful, beautiful then you know what's going to happen. Chapter 28, what in the world are you people thinking? Trusting in Egypt and in other human flesh this to redeem you? By chapter 35 through the work of the Messiah, chapter 32 and so forth. You come to Zion, they're walking to Zion, even the lame are walking, the redeemed shall return rejoicing that all is well. And in chapter 36 we open up with loss defeat and a blasphemous Assyrian saying, "Are you trusting in Yahweh, he has sent us here. You took away his worship sites, you did all these things. Yeah, Yahweh mad at you."

Dr. Paul House:     And on we go through this passage on into chapter 56 and verse eight where in Zion, again, because of the Davidic covenant to people and, and people who are uniques are having spiritual children. It's beautiful. And then of course by verse nine we're starting over. You see this point. All of this said in the Assyrian era, Isaiah expects a lot of us. He expects us to know all the invasions the Assyrians did, all the times they did battle with and defeated Babylon, all the time that the King of Assyria is also the King of Babylon, which is confusing to say the least. He wants us to know that and he wants us to remember that Israel suffered exile in 732, 722, 713 that Israel and Judah suffered exile in 701 and then again in 670 before the Babylonians ever set foot in Palestine. Exile became a way of life.

Dr. Paul House:     So Beeson students learned not to say the exile is if we were among those who thought there was only one rather than what God was doing over this long series of time. The most recent thing that's happened in this text is in chapter 36 to 39, 701 BC, all but Jerusalem captured by a Assyria, all but Jerusalem. As Isaiah puts it earlier, the flood comes up to the neck. The good news is that's all that happens. The bad news is the flood is calm. So in this situation, God tells Isaiah, "Here's the message I want you to take to the people, comfort. It is time for comfort. It is time for renewal. Comfort my people," says the Lord. "Speak tenderly, speak to her heart." The text says, "Speak to her kindly and speak to her persuasively. Speak to the heart of the matter and call out to her. Call out to her, what?" What are the comforting words in three specific clauses? Isaiah, who's a fabulous poet who can do nearly anything with a Hebrew line.

Dr. Paul House:     Tell them the warfare, the hard service it can mean either one is ended. So tell them first of all today, tell them of God's pardon in peace. Tell them, tell them that this word that Isaiah used, which can mean hard service of a limited duration or a military service of a specific duration he who likes to use words that can mean two or three things because he can only use three words in the Hebrew line he makes the most of every one. You're hard service, this military time. Well, it's ended. It's fulfilled. It's filled up. This is very good days. In chapter eight, God tells him, "Don't call conspiracy. All these people call conspiracy. Don't be worried about the things they worry about. Live in peace as you trust in me." Now he gives us definitive word. This time has ceased. The Assyrians are gone for now.

Dr. Paul House:     Andy says, "Tell her, her iniquity pardoned," perhaps even more beautiful than the end of hard service or warfare. Sweeter is the word that our sins have been pardoned. Anytime this is true. And we know as the Bible unfolds, that all the great sacrifices roll into Jesus, that he is the permanent and final sacrifice. Our sins pardoned, but he tells these people who are burdened with their sins that I have pardoned you and that she's received from the Lord's hand, another tough little Isaiah, double for all her sins. It's tough to translate because you think, "Well, this means I got twice as much as they deserved." Yes, because of course that is how God operates in the Bible, isn't it? It's an interesting little word because it's about folding something and it's used to folding garments and so what we would say they have had whole cloth forgiveness.

Dr. Paul House:     Look at the outside, look at the lining, wherever you look, the whole cloth, it's forgiven because their sins were all folded up and that was whole cloth sin wasn't. Unfolded any way you want to. You kept finding sin. Any way you fold it, you find the forgiven. In the lineage of Isaiah I bring you today, comfort. God's peace and God's pardon can be yours in Christ our Lord. Whether you are a seminarian or an advisory board member or who you are, alumni who have returned here, several of whom who are helping here today, what do they hold in common besides Beeston's past? Well, they're mentoring group members. Even if you're back serving as alumnus, will you hear God's pardon in peace and take comfort? Verse three to five, "Will you take comfort in God's presence?" Because in verses three to five, a passage cited by all four gospel writers, all of whom said, "These are the words of Isaiah the prophet."

Dr. Paul House:     Words that John the Baptist counted on that Jesus counted on God's coming, a voice calls out in the wilderness, "Prepare the way of the Lord. Make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Go build a road." My grandfather worked on the WPA in the great depression and he talked about building roads and how they did it then with mules and tools and so forth. Well, this passage is build a road God's coming. Build a road. [inaudible 00:26:05] been here at God's coming." And this would require you now to make a straight road so you're going to have to pull down the mountains. You're going to have to fill up the valleys. You're going to have to grade the thing and make it all smooth. John the Baptist uses this passage to tell people to repent, doesn't he? You soldiers stop extorting money out of people. You tax collectors. You too, and you scribes and Pharisees who told you to come in here? You'd better build a road in your heart for God.

Dr. Paul House:     And I don't know about you, but there's been many a days that for me to get my heart ready to receive God, even as I take on board as normal. 1 John 1:9-10, if you confess your sins, God is just and righteous to forgive your sins, cleanse you from all inequity. It is pick and shovel and maddix work. And I don't know whether it's Camels or mules or if you've got a machine driven thing, it is not easy. So God says to us, "Will you prepare for my presence daily, hourly," and of course John in the Bible says, "God is coming and here's Jesus of Nazareth. God is coming." And of course, this is the most exciting thing longterm, God is coming. The Valley's lifted up, mountains made low on even ground level so that the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. The glory of the Lord, which in the Bible is God manifesting his presence through a demonstration of his power that would reveal his character to us, God's glory.

Dr. Paul House:     And then Jesus came. And perhaps even John the Baptist thought, "Boy, this is great. This is the end, Gods come. We're now all going to go to Zion straight away." But they didn't. Did they? John the Baptist sends these messengers, says, "Do we have the right person or is there some other?" He says, "No, tell them I've done what Isaiah 61 said I would do." So here's Isaiah ministering to people who are going to have to continue on living out these promises. Jesus tells his disciples the same thing. You're going to continue on living out these promises, being faithful, preparing your heart, making the road, making the road, but the end is not yet. There is no comprehensive [inaudible 00:29:01] in passage for some time and Isaiah goes on and John the Baptist went on and the disciples went on and here we are and we continue on showing the glory of God that he has manifested himself in Jesus Christ and in the body of Christ. Here we are for the mouth of the Lord has spoken according to God's word.

Dr. Paul House:     So I asked you today to take comfort in God's presence. You know by now that some of the prophets get promises of life. Some of them get minor promises of success. What they all get is the promise of God's presence. "I will be with you. I will never leave you nor forsake you. My presence will either be enough for you or you will despair." And God's presence is enough. God has come and God will come and God lives within us. Take comfort for renewal in God's presence. Well, verses two to eight already introduced in verse five; "What else can you take comfort in? Take comfort in God's word." Take comfort in God's word. And what is this word that this text gives us? What is the message of it? What is it that you would cry out? All flesh is grass. It fades.

Dr. Paul House:     And the covenant loyalty, so here's another Isaiah's return to phrase, "The beauty of the thing fades." And he uses the word for covenant loyalty for steadfast love hesed here. So he asked beauty, "But it's also, when I look at people, their steadfast love can fade even the best of them." He says, "How's that?" Well, they die, don't they? Some of the best people I've ever known my biggest complaint about them is that they died when I needed him or could have used him for whatever they just died. Even the good ones are impermanent. All flesh is grass. So in chapter 40:12-26, so what flesh? Kings? You'll trust in Kings? Most people are fairly satisfied these days with Queen Elizabeth. She's been in since 1952 and yet impermanent, going to pass away. Every president, every Supreme court member, every third world dictator, every first world dictator, they're all going to go the best of them in the worst of them, they're all going to go. All flesh is grass.

Dr. Paul House:     And yet Israel including Hezekiah in the proceeding passage. What's he trusting in seven 703 BC, Babylon? [inaudible 00:32:06], now he was a great old campaigner and he was a big old freedom fighter. He was kind of the Arafat of the Babylon people as they fought against their opponents, he was a good one and Hezekiah puts his trust in him. Flesh is grass. It's going to pass. It's going to go. The good ones, the bad ones, all flesh is grass. It's beauty fades because the breath of the Lord blows on it in judgment and in life. Surely the people are grass, this is the message. Don't put your ultimate trust in people. The word of our God rises up forever. That's the word. Yes, it stays in the sense that it always rises up. That's the word night, and I checked it with Alan Ross, so I know this is true. While the flowers fade and the grass goes down, at the funerals of the best people you'll ever know and that you commit in your work as a minister to the ground or a family member, God's word rises always, always rising up.

Dr. Paul House:     When you're sick, it rises up. When there are lost people, it rises up. When there's death, it rises up. When there's pain, it rises up to meet each and every situation as second Timothy three says, "It will," as Psalm 19 says, "It will," and so I affirm cry quite happily the Bible is [inaudible 00:33:38]. I'm very happy to say that the Bible is my friend. Jim packer says, "It's completely true and trustworthy." I'm happy as Carl Henry, a blessed memory used to say, "Happy for every inerrantist who knows it and every person who is by default in an inerrantist because though they don't call that they will live by the scriptures and stand to it no matter what. For every single one of you who are slippery characters like me who confess one thing and daily tried to wriggle out of it, the word of God rises forever. It just keeps coming. Just keeps applying so that you can preach it without any fear of failure on its part.

Dr. Paul House:     We start in the right place. We know that if one of us disagrees with scripture, we are wrong. We know if both of us looking at scripture saying, "Well, I believe one thing you believe another on all sorts of issues that are secondary. We know one of us is wrong, not the text." It continually rises up to bind people together to help them, to strengthen them. The word of our Lord rises up and it stands forever. Take comfort in it daily, hourly. Make it a pattern. Make it your help. I was reminded as I said, I'd like a whole chapter of Isaiah read and as Amy was reading it, a [inaudible 00:35:17] admonition that if the people of God can't stand a whole chapter of God's reading, particularly seminary students, the church is in a bad way. One of those less happy parts of life together. What else? Convicting parts. So you did very well. God's word. Take it in and love it.

Dr. Paul House:     And then verses nine to 11, God's witnesses. Take comfort. Go up to the high mountain. Why Jerusalem? Well, that's what's left. Read 2 Kings 18, read the Assyrian text, read Isaiah 36:1 that's what was left. The Assyrians came and conquered the rest. Go to that great bastion of ancient near Eastern studies, the place where every text ought to be, the British museum. And you will see the locations, the la quiche artwork that shows Assyiria conqering that Judas city, boiling them in oil. Impaling people, taking captives, but not in Jerusalem. She's watched left, a Herald of good news. A gospeler, our friend William Tyndale taught us. And so it's here in five other places in the book of Isaiah that the gospel writers get the term gospel. Isaiah is not the fifth gospel. Isaiah would be the first gospel and boy did those gospel writers and Paul and all of them depend on him for their biblical theology.

Dr. Paul House:     So go up on the mountain Jerusalem, you're what's left, and tell them, "Behold your God. Behold a great word." It is like look and listen, but it's also like an alarm clock sometimes. Behold, take a look and you'll see God and you'll see his arm rules for him and you'll see his payment. His reward is recompense. His wages for you are right out there and in that power, what's he do with his flock? He tends them and he carries him. He's the good shepherd who knows what to do for every breed of sheep. Thank goodness. God's witnesses. And God's witnesses know that he is the creator, that no King can stand him, that no country measures up. They have known and they have heard. As you come to verse 27 to 31, if you want to renew your strength, the strength of a Christian, if you want to renew the straight of seminary, if you want to renew the strength of a church or a family or anything, look to God who has the strength. Because of young men and women will get weary much less the rest of us. Where do we go for the renewing strengths?

Dr. Paul House:     Well, you'll look to this old, older your man Isaiah, writing out the words and you think of Jerusalem, which was a tiny place back then, a few thousand people. This is all that's left. Go herald God. As some of you who know, I believe it's amazing how God keeps looking at huge, massive problems and coming up with these teeny tiny answers that have legs and sustainability and go on for centuries. Abraham and Sarah, what a little bitty response to Genesis one through 11. Jesus and the disciples spending all his time, most of his time, having picked the right people, making them into the right people. I always laugh when people say, "Oh, those disciples, they were just common, ordinary." Please. John? John was a normal, ordinary person? Have you tried to read John lately? John? Old elliptical John? Jesus from the start was training him to be the leader so he was supposed to speak up and he took all the lumps that it came from being out front.

Dr. Paul House:     I've had it with people making Peter into a fool and I was like, "Oh, Peter, [inaudible 00:40:03] while he's out on the water and he looked around... He looked to this waves and drowned. He was out there while the rest of them were cowered in terror. Ought to have been under the cushion that Jesus had vacated. Pick the right people and spent that time and here we are. So we look to renewal. What do we see? What do I see having been told on a couple occasions I was introducing prominent speakers and they told me in no uncertain terms that not only would a small school like this ever amount to anything, it was wrong to try. If you weren't big, you ought to get out. [inaudible 00:40:58] down on the farm a long time ago. Well, we do have Jesus, I'm not saying something can't be bims, but we do have Jesus who says, "I think I'll spend time with these 12 and one of them will be a perfect example of a trader. I want everybody to know what that's like. So you'll notice him and there he is."

Dr. Paul House:     So I look for comfort, little bitty Beeson. What in the world is going to do? Well, a person at a time, a class at a time, face to face at a time, we're going to do what Jesus did, we're going to help people know how to follow him. And so now from the distance I look out to the margins from where renewal often comes and somewhere out West, I know of a student who received a full scholarship handpicked and is now serving churches and teaching college students as well. I know of another person handpicked as an Anglican. You had to be Anglican to have this and the donor said, "So we found that person," and that person is a missionary to the Solomon Islands right now. Are they Holy or because they went farther? They're not. If you won't stay home, if you're not willing to do that, you won't be much use to somebody else somewhere else.

Dr. Paul House:     And so I tell you look, great tab alumni around. Nick Seaborn, Amy Hirsch and so forth, Because God called Nick to be right here. Joel Busby, he didn't think he could go to the far ends of the earth like Seaborn had all the way out to Raleigh Avenue you'd plant a church just down to the bottom of the Hill. Years ago, Lyle Dorsett planted one in this building. So I look and I see these seeds of renewal in some fairly forgotten small places, but God doesn't care about that. Take comfort for God's witnesses are rising up with his word. In one of the more moving faculty retreats we ever had. I know it's for sub. It sets a low standard. Is it faculty retreat? I won't set up a colleague, not here, but I know if he scheduled hemorrhoid surgery he'd rather than go to his faculty retreat. But we went down to Civil Rights Institute. I'm thinking about this because the anniversary over the weekend and had Carolyn [inaudible 00:44:07] street talk to us about the bombing.

Dr. Paul House:     Out of those bombings we see Christians coming on out rising up. When I think of the areas around here and go to Shuttlesworth airport and I think of Fred Shuttlesworth being beaten nearly to death by a mob in 1957 I think it was because he was trying to enroll his kids in school. Did he good come with that? Yeah. One of the bombers were in the mob and they proved it later in court. See he did have motive. I think of all sorts of Christian people, moms and dads. Some of them faculty and alumni burying their children. In faith rising up, raise your eyes and see renewal in all its small and interesting ways where God's witnesses crawl up the mountain and tell the story.

Dr. Paul House:     Well, part of our story is chapter 40:31: those who trusted the Lord shall mount up with wings as Eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. It's exciting to see those of you who run. It's extraordinary. I love to watch it. Those of you who fly, I marvel at it. Some of us walk or just crawl. Some of us say, "Could you help me up?" But to go on in renewal and in verse 41 which is where I want to end date because we have another job to do. Oh, coastlands which represents all the foreign places of the world, clear to the edges of the water. Let them renew their strength. As we're sending some friends today to the coast lands, to Perth, Australia, known as the most isolated city on earth where we have friends waiting for friends because the coast lands like us, need God's renewing strength, need God's people.

Dr. Paul House:     And so we send the tailors for the renewal of the coastlines and for the renewal of our own souls as we see them go. And if you say, "Well, are we sending them our best?" I don't know. I know we're sending good ones, but I don't know if we're sending our best. But I know this Christian people aren't selfish, therefore we don't cling to our people and we don't work for ourselves. Therefore, we'd go where we're deployed and we serve. And so I'm certain that as we take comfort, take comfort in sending the tailors and take comfort in praying for them because they will need it and because they will pray for us. Father, thank you for these people. Thank you for your word. Please empower us now to live it today in the future and always. Amen.

Kristen Padilla:    You've been listening to the Beeson podcast. Our theme music is written and performed by Advent Birmingham of the cathedral church of the advent in Birmingham, Alabama. Our engineer is Rob Willis. Our announcer is Mike Pasquerillo. Our co-host are Doug Sweeney and myself, Kristen Padilla. Please subscribe to the Beeson podcast at beesondivinity.com/podcast or on iTunes.