The Priest's Graveyard, by Ted Dekker

(Sorry for being silent for so long, but the fact of the matter is CFRB has lost most of its members, and under the new guidelines there seems to be little communication between remaining members.  Not to mention that things have been a little frustrating and busy on this end.  However, I thought I'd put up a few posts)

What I like about Ted Dekker is his ability to take ordinary situations and twist them around into a work of real suspense and sometimes horror.  He takes a Rod Serling approach, where things are all going great, and then all of a sudden it's like you tripped over some line and entered an alternate reality.
In The Priest's Graveyard, we are introduced to a young boy in Bosnia.  His family is Catholic, and the war being fought is over religious as well as political lines.  At the time Daniel Hansen is only 8.  His mother and sisters have been raped and murdered.  Now you'd expect someone like that to find the biggest gun they can and kill those involved.  It doesn't matter what religion they were.  They would have to die.  Yet Danny becomes a priest.  Somehow he finds those responsible, one at a time, and gives them a chance at redemption.  Few, if any, take it.  Under the priestly robes roams a most unusual assassin.  His quest leads him to America, particularly California.
Unknown to him is Renee Gilmore, once a young woman with a lot of promise, but now a heroin addict.  One night outside a bar, she is nearly beaten to death until a man comes to her rescue.  She wakes up in his house.  She's given new clothes, a wonderful bedroom, and medication to "get her off the heroin" and slowly begins to fall for this man.  Then, one day, he doesn't return.  This is where the lives of Danny Hansen and Renee Gilmore collide.  The priest who has been what one reviewer rightly calls "an avenging angel" falls for Renee, and she begins to bond with him.

What this unlikely union unleashes is frightening, not so much because it is a story of horror as much as it could be similar to the lives of any of us, especially if we acted on our emotions alone.  While some of the story seems a bit fuzzy we are faced with this one question, "How would I react if I would come face to face with my real, inner, evil, self?  It's a question that we need to ask, because to really be free we need to see ourselves for who we really are, and then realize that when we give our lives to Jesus He removes all that evil.  This is a truth we also must realize and grasp or we can be Christians in jails of our own making, while Jesus has already come along and opened the door that we could walk out.  How many of us are sitting in those jail cells we made for ourselves, and yet asked Jesus to be our Savior, the door is now open, but we refuse to walk out?

This, roughly speaking, is the story of The Priest's Graveyard.

Don't forget to visit his official page at Ted Dekker

The Priest's Graveyard can be found, for sale online at:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Christian Book

Thank You...in Memorium

MEMORIAL DAY

It is the VETERAN, not the preacher,
who has given us freedom of religion.
It is the VETERAN, not the campus organizer, who has given us freedom to assemble.
It is the VETERAN, not the lawyer, who has given us the right to a fair trial.
It is the VETERAN, not the politician, Who has given us the right to vote.

 

It is the VETERAN who salutes the Flag,

 

ETERNAL
REST GRANT THEM O LORD, AND LET PERPETUAL LIGHT SHINE UPON THEM.

 

Some Have Entertained Angels, by James Robert Wilson

One of the final things I'd like to make about Some Have Entertained Angels, by James Robert Wilson, is that not everyone has the same talents. In fact we all have differing talents, although some may be similar to others and will overlap still more. (I'm trying to do these reviews after my own fashion, so I can tell you what's in there without telling you what's written in there and giving the story away.)

Consider military forces engaged in conflict. Are all ground soldiers? Even among them are they all snipers, or radiomen, or medics? Doesn't the military have need of all of these, as well as airman and naval personnel, whose jobs are equally varied? So why must we insist that Christians all be like one another? Scripture teaches us, in several places and by different human authors, that we are all members of One Body. The Holy Spirit gives us gifts, the Son gives us offices, the Father gives the orders. We are all different for a reason, and one way to achieve victory is to stop insisting others become like you, or trying to become like someone else. We must ask God to make us into the kind of warrior He wants.

In our story we find Reg and Rebecca have different talents. They even hold different ranks, but fighting together they become unbeatable (with Angel and Angela, and of course God). As they let God create them into the person they were meant to be, sometimes using hurtful memories of the past, he walks them through to a different, new, and vibrant life, where they are a warrior unlike any other on the battlefield. This is how we are to be. We are to realize that our ultimate strength is God and God alone, and beyond that we are to allow God to mold us into that which He has already predetermined we should be. In this there is not only personal victory, but victory for the rest of the army. We will stop killing off our own soldiers and help the wounded off the field. God sends His medics to care for the wounded. So if you find encouraging someone to be more to your personality than preaching, perhaps it's because you are one of these medics. Or perhaps you are one of God's heroes who will go into the throes of battle and carry away the wounded to safety. Don't try to become someone you are not. Let God create you to be the person He wishes you to be. Always remember, the ultimate victory was already achieved through the death of Jesus on the cross. Now that almost gets back to my last review on humbling ourselves. Hmmm. Maybe I should have stayed there a bit longer.

Needless to say there is so much in this book that you can't help but enjoy it and be enriched by it. I want to thank James Robert Wilson personally for this book, and for helping me in my spiritual walk through pointing me to the Word of God in places that I really needed to see God speaking to me in. Thank you. For the rest of you, pick up this book and be enriched and encouraged yourselves.

Unfortunately I was not able to find a website for James Robert Wilson. You can find his book for sale on the following sites:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Legal notice: I received this book in order to write and publish a review. My review is seen, even by me, as payment for such a service. However, let me hasten to state that this in no way diminishes what I've written. If I say a book is awesome, then I found it to be so and believe others will as well.

Some Have Entertained Angels, by James Robert Wilson

This is going to sound a little backwards, so before I talk about obtaining ultimate victory I think I'm going to talk about the way our society thinks verses the way God thinks, so far as I understand it.

We say, in order to become rich we must gain as much as we can. God says, in order to be rich we must give everything away.

We say, in order to become famous we need to let everyone else know of our great deeds. God says, if we really want to become famous we must become lowly, and He will see that we are lifted up.

It seems that each of our human perceptions is the exact opposite of the Truth. Perhaps that's because we are only looking in a poor mirror. Ever try to trim your hair while looking in the mirror? It's nearly impossible because your hand wants to go in the exact opposite way it needs to go. So it is with God. We may see what we are supposed to do, but we see the mirror image of it, and go the opposite way. Just as we have to have someone else trim our hair we need someone else to direct our life's actions.

In Some Have Entertained Angels, by James Robert Wilson, as well as in our Christian walk, the only way to be victorious on the spiritual battlefield is to surrender. That may sound absurd, but I'm not talking about surrendering to the enemy. I'm talking about surrendering to God. There is so much in us that opposes God, even after we become Christians, that in order to truly become useful to Him as His soldiers we must surrender ourselves to Him. If you fail in this please don't become discouraged. Surrendering ourselves to God is a lifelong process. The more we surrender the more we become like Christ. Here is one very good place to start; "And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." (Romans 12:2) This means that we are to follow Paul's instructions found in Ephesians 5:26, "That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word."

As you can see, and read some really graphic examples in Some Have entertained Angels, we need to humble ourselves before God in order to be of any use to Him. The more we are humble before Him, the more useful we are to Him, and the more we find ourselves living in victory instead of defeat. Defeat is not characterized so much by our stumbling and falling as it is by our giving up. This we must never do. To get a real grip on this you'll have to do your own study of enduring until the end, although we see even that in this little book.

Unfortunately I was not able to find a website for James Robert Wilson. You can find his book for sale on the following sites:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Legal notice: I received this book in order to write and publish a review. My review is seen, even by me, as payment for such a service. However, let me hasten to state that this in no way diminishes what I've written. If I say a book is awesome, then I found it to be so and believe others will as well.

Some Have Entertained Angels, by James Robert Wilson

In yesterday's review I talked about angels, and I talked about prayer as one of our most valuable weapons. Today let's focus on another weapon, one James Robert Wilson also focused on in Some Have Entertained Angels. It is our sword. Even in Scripture we sometimes see angels with swords. Remember the angel set at the entrance to the Garden of Eden? He had a sword, a flaming sword. In Ephesians 6:17 the apostle Paul talks about the "Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."

In conversation and even in one study I did I talk about spiritual swordsmanship. You don't become a master swordsman just because you are given a sword. That is why so many Christians today live in defeat. To become a master swordsman you must get to know your sword. In the military, especially basic training, soldiers are made to sleep with their weapons, or at least some drill instructors find this effective. The idea of spending time with their "sword" seems to make them better soldiers. There is also training on the firing range. When talking about a literal sword the same thing holds true. You must spend time with your sword. You need your hand to feel the grip, the way it balances in your hand, the way it responds to your own movement. So they train. They will pair up with another and practice blocks, thrusts, parries, and the like. The more time they spend getting to know their sword and the way they can control it, the better swordsman they become.

In the spiritual sense, the Word of God, as I've already pointed out, is our sword. We have to spend time with God's Word. We have to get it into us, but intellectually and spiritually. Intellectually only helps us so far. We only understand the way it feels. As we begin to understand it spiritually we begin to see how we can use it in our own lives for our own battles. This is true because we are getting to know the "Sword Maker" better, and it is His Spirit, not ours, that will ultimately make us great and feared swordsmen of the Lord.

Unfortunately I was not able to find a website for James Robert Wilson. You can find his book for sale on the following sites:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Legal notice: I received this book in order to write and publish a review. My review is seen, even by me, as payment for such a service. However, let me hasten to state that this in no way diminishes what I've written. If I say a book is awesome, then I found it to be so and believe others will as well.

Some Have Entertained Angels, by James Robert Wilsom

Can angels get hurt? James Robert Wilson tackles this question in a very interesting way. In fact, I never even thought of angels getting hurt. Reg is shown what happens when an angel does more than they are called to or fights with such abandon that they leave themselves open to attack. Now I'm not if this is exactly the way it works, but you have to admit, if an angel could be stopped from giving Daniel the answer to his prayer, then there are limits to their power. Also, demons, who are fallen angels, displayed anguish when Jesus cast them out of people. Perhaps their anguish isn't exactly physical, but more psychological or emotional, and certainly spiritual, but it is pain just the same.

Given these short examples, then, is it possible that angels God sends to protect us sometimes go through the same kinds of pain? And why might that be? I believe that there is a direct link between the faithfulness of a Christian, especially in their prayer life, and the level of protection an angel is capable of achieving. Daniel persevered and God sent another angel to help the one bringing the message so Daniel would get it.

I've always thought of prayer as "air support" during battle, at least part of prayer's abilities. It's like being out on patrol and getting pinned down by mortar fire. Now if your radioman is down and you can't get word out, chances are your patrol is going to die sooner or later. Even if all the mortar fire can do is pin you down, it can do so while an enemy patrol catches you on your flanks. This is why they will call in for air support. You need to knock out that mortar, take that hill, before you can be relatively safe. Prayer is like that. Prayer is sending God the coordinates of where you are and where the main enemy attack is coming from. You can request, and receive, a counter attack against the enemy through prayer.

Although the author doesn't describe prayer in quite those terms the idea is still there. And you have to wonder, if we can get hurt, even those providing air support, then is it possible for angels giving us support to get hurt as well? While all of this is speculative I think he handled the question well. Do not the angels rejoice over every single person who comes to the Lord? Wouldn't they also weep over every battle we tried to fight on our own and lost, or tried to fight with them and didn't give them the full benefit of our prayers? They are, after all, creations of God, just as we are. The main difference is that we have chosen sin as a way of life. When we turn from that death to salvation found in Jesus we enter into spiritual warfare. Why Jesus would become a man and die for us is something the angels do not understand. There is no redemption for angels. Either they belong to Satan, a fallen angel himself, or they belong to God. So the whole idea of salvation to the heavenly angels is something that is beyond their realm of comprehension. Because of their obedience to God they instruct us and protect us just the same, even if they don't understand. And I believe they weep as well when they see us fall. It may not come into their minds that once we are saved by the grace of God the only way we can lose that grace is to renounce it.

Unfortunately I was not able to find a website for James Robert Wilson. You can find his book for sale on the following sites:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Legal notice: I received this book in order to write and publish a review. My review is seen, even by me, as payment for such a service. However, let me hasten to state that this in no way diminishes what I've written. If I say a book is awesome, then I found it to be so and believe others will as well.

Some Have Entertained Angels, by James Robert Wilson

One of the things that I have personally found just awesome in the Bible is how we, as Christians, are at war. James Robert Wilson's entire book deals with this. While this is not a exhausted study on spiritual warfare, hey, it's a story, not a textbook, Wilson does capture some of the key components. Reg has the "advantage" of having an angel instruct him, but really, all the information is in the Bible. If we would only allow the Holy Spirit to open up the Word of God to our hearts we would learn more than Reg.

Step one: You can't be trained in God's army until you belong to it. That means you have to pass over from death unto life by faith in the atonement made for you by Jesus Christ, and His resurrection from the dead. I mean, any Commander in Chief would be foolish to train soldiers of an opposing army.

Step two: You must realize that you are in a war, a spiritual war. This is the step that usually creates a problem with immature Christians. They are saved, but they don't know they are in a war. Until they realize this they can't be trained. Becoming aware of this spiritual war and opening your whole being to God, makes you trainable. You'll make mistakes, but God isn't worried so much about the mistakes. You are, after all, in training.

Step three: You must be trained. This again becomes an obstacle to many because even though they are aware that a war is going on all around them, they allow fear or sin or whatever to keep them on the sidelines. Once they surrender to God, then He is able to train them. Each warrior of God has one very special talent, and that is the ability to allow God's power flow through them. How this is manifested is up to the Holy Spirit and the circumstances of that particular battle. So God trains us. He puts us in situations where we will have to reach beyond ourselves and trust Him. For in Him we find our true power and strength. (This is nicely brought out in Some Have Entertained Angels by the way)

Step four: You have to enter battle. Now don't be deceived. Even battles are part of our training, but training for something beyond when we will just be warriors. The Bible gives us glimpses of what we will be doing in Heaven, and it's not sitting at the table eating, or bowing down and praising God, or playing harps, although (minus the harps) those things will be part of our experience. The apostle Paul tells us that we will judge angels, and in another place that we will govern nations. Understand, at that time we will have a new immortal body, that is perfect and holy. One that is not limited by time and space. So we will be able to do all this things, and more, all at the same time. So we are being trained, fashioned, to become like Christ in the most ultimate of ways possible without actually becoming Christ Himself, so that we, like Him, and in Him, can enjoy our rest, oversee peace, administer justice and righteousness. These are things we should be learning to do now. We may fail, but there will come a day when all this training comes to bear and we will not fail, nor shall we glory in ourselves. We will know fully and completely that we are holy and righteous because of Jesus, and that one thing alone will so fill us with joy that we will be unable to contain us.

The Call: God is looking for people willing to submit so totally to Him that they will not only deny their every selfish desire, but be filled with a zeal to do whatever God asks of them. People who will try and fall down and get back up again. God knows we aren't perfect. That's why He's training us. You see, there is a whole world out there that doesn't know that He loves them. If we can let them know, even in our failures, God will use us.

You'll find elements of each of these steps throughout this wonderful work, and more if you are willing to look for it. I hope you'll pick up a copy today and see some more about the beauty of God that you haven't seen or realized before.

Unfortunately I was not able to find a website for James Robert Wilson. You can find his book for sale on the following sites:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Legal notice: I received this book in order to write and publish a review. My review is seen, even by me, as payment for such a service. However, let me hasten to state that this in no way diminishes what I've written. If I say a book is awesome, then I found it to be so and believe others will as well.