Author: Merlin Erb

Five Minutes with Marlin

Actually, IT IS One Minute with Marlin! But this post will take five minutes to read! This inspiration was in my inbox early Monday morning begging to be shared ASAP! Marlin Miller, founder of Plain Values magazine has a gift of elevating the simple (apples again Marlin? the forbidden fruit?) to the profound. Make no mistake! As in the days of Noah, our culture is catastrophically grooming both “deceived christians” and the “worldly unaware,” to strategically accept a false synthetic form of “His “Biblical redemptive simplicity” that is clearly profane. May His Truth be revealed, grasped, implemented, and invitationally shared as we have opportunity during the ensuing chaos...merlin

Last fall, our neighbor Kevin started bringing some apples over for our pigs a few times. He would toss a few handfuls through the fence, hang out for a few minutes, and then go about his work. Hammy, the self-proclaimed leader of our porky tribe, noticed a pattern and began making a beeline for the gate at the bottom of the hill every time Kevin came near. The big old Ford tractor or his little ATV; it made no difference. Hammy knew Kevin, end of story. Then came the last cutting of hay, and that pig ran corner to corner following Kevin as he mowed hay and then baled it… Every time he passed by, Hammy was with him.. He knew what he liked and who to get it from.

It may be a stretch, but humor me, please. If you replace the pig with me or you and those apples with deep fulfillment in life, it makes for a beautiful microcosm of the human condition. All of us yearn for peace that lasts, something to fill the hole and fix the brokenness we sense deep down. We run from corner to corner, searching for ways to cope with our own broken lives, and when there is severe trauma, our minds and bodies have different ways of surviving, to protect and keep us alive, all to find an apple or two.

When a person runs after apples outside the divine design, trying to fill the hole with money, sex, or power, they make decisions through the lens of self. At times, forgetting about the people who love them, those actions isolate themselves and hurt the ones by their side. Because they are still seeing the world focused on themselves, they don’t see the unintended damage left behind. Sometimes, they will leave a trail of broken relationships, utterly unaware of the role they played in creating the wounds.

When a family chases apples outside the divine design, you see a compounding of bad decisions because the children grew up watching Dad prioritize his own needs. They might have seen their parents endlessly bickering, till one day, they are sat down and told that one parent will be moving out. The need to watch out for oneself is reinforced and welded into his or her subconscious. The next time, they are at a crossroads with a decision to make, what do you expect them to do?

When an entire culture runs after apples outside the divine design, you have the makings of a world before Noah’s great flood. Genesis 6:5 says people were “only evil continually,” bringing the Creator to regret having made mankind. At times, I try to imagine what a world looks like in which you and your neighbor are living with every thought being only evil… continually. I wonder where our culture lies on that scale? How close to the pre-flood culture are we today?

The other day I read the story of two gay men hiring a surrogate to carry and give birth to their baby boy. All was going well, then, in the baby’s 25th week of gestation, the surrogate mother was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer. The doctors encouraged her to deliver the baby to facilitate treatment. The two men quickly and decidedly told her they needed a death certificate. They claimed the baby was now their property, and because they didn’t want to mess with the messiness this turn of events would bring, they refused the Hospital to care for their son after birth in any form. They refused the surrogate’s plea to allow her to adopt him. The surrogate’s uncle begged them to allow him to adopt the baby. They refused the uncle’s pleas. They would not allow their DNA to be “out there,” hence, he was not allowed to live. That tiny, innocent baby boy starved to death, surrounded by people wanting to save him and not allowed to do so… the two guys got their death certificate.

Soon after, I read another shocking story about euthanasia. Canada is planning on euthanizing 15 million people in the next 20 years. If you are not familiar with MAID, I humbly ask that you learn about it. The program, Medical Assistance In Dying, became law in June of 2016 and expanded in 2021 to include those suffering from a grievous and irremediable condition whose death was not reasonably foreseeable. The planned inclusion of people with mental illnesses is controversial and has been repeatedly delayed. In fact, as of this writing, the website says, “eligibility for MAID for persons suffering solely from a mental illness has been delayed until March 17, 2027.”

A hundred years ago, on July 21, 1925, in a Tennessee courtroom, evolution made its way into our public schools by way of the Scopes trial. I submit to you that we are seeing the devastation caused by a worldview that claims life is meaningless, you came from pond scum by way of millions, even billions of years of chance. Henceforth, if life has no purpose or meaning, it’s all about self-actualization, fulfilling who you really are, and because this worldview has killed God off, the only thing left is one’s own nature. A very sinful nature, which drives that person to prioritize their own needs above everyone else… blindly chasing those apples.

I remember Terry Schiavo’s family fighting for her right to live. Under a court order, she died on March 13th, 2005, after 13 days without nutrition or hydration. The judge ordered the hospital to stop feeding and giving her water.

I remember the first time I listened to Steve Taylor’s song Baby Doe. He shared the story in haunting verse of a woman in Bloomington, Indiana, who gave birth to a baby boy on April 9th, 1982, with Down syndrome. He had a complication, esophageal atresia, where the separation of the esophagus from the stomach renders the baby unable to absorb food. It will take a surgery to fix and save his life. Instead, the parents decide not to treat their son, and on April 15th, Baby Doe died of dehydration and pneumonia.

BOTTOM LINE:

Looking back now, I realize the role these two stories played in my life. It’s one thing to read about life and death in a book, even the Bible, but when I see how that “rubber meets the road,” it changes everything. From birth to death, life is loaded with apples. The older I get, the more I see life as our journey to laying down our own desires and serving others. The very fact that we humans find meaning in the things around us (Hammy and the apples) points us to a First Cause of meaning. May we not stop finding apples all around and seeing them through a worldview where humanity and life is gloriously bright, full of meaning, and dare I say, especially so, in suffering!

As always, may you find joy in the simple things, marlin

This book, Go Now, is filled with bold faith and miracle stories from the head hunters in the northern Philippines to Communist China where Wendell and his wife Daisy, made over 1000 border crossings with suitcases filled with Bibles. Wendell gives you an intimate inside look at how God worked deep in his heart rescuing a discontented young man and crafted him into an effective tool for His service. Now, onto Post #5 of 9.

Pastor Derstine briefly explain the typical Church-ianity I had been experiencing primarily up to this time in my life, would always leave me feeling empty, and indeed, there was more! I leaned forward eager for whatever he was about to tell me.

“Have you ever heard of the Holy Spirit?” he asked.

Well, that question surely opened a can of worms. During my last years of high school, I had actually heard quite a bit about the Holy Spirit. Though I didn’t understand much about it (Him) I knew the Holy Spirit was somehow a part of God. I understood much more about who Jesus was, and I knew that God was out there somewhere, but how all this fit together was a great mystery to me. What I did know was that churches were arguing about who the Holy Spirit was, what He does, and how to get Him. Some said you get Him at the time of salvation and that’s all there was. Others said that you get Him as a second infilling of the Holy Spirit, called a baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some referred to the infilling of the Holy Spirit as a “second work of grace.” In fact, there was discussion about whether we should even need or want the Holy Spirit.

There were also discussions and arguments about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Is speaking in tongues a required sign of having received the Holy Spirit, or is it a manifestation of the devil? People who had received or been baptized in the Holy Spirit, as some would insist you must be, seem convinced that they had a higher connection to God than those other Christians without such experiences. And although their behavior was so weird, it seemed as if they did have some special kind of connection that I was somehow lacking.

All this conflicted with the concept I had grown up with that God is a God of order, discipline, and correctness, demanding a kind of holy purity. What followed from this understanding was the assumption that if you put on a good-enough act on Sunday when the religious crowd is around, what goes on the rest of the week doesn’t really matter.

 I had witnessed the split of several churches over the subject of the Holy Spirit and I had come to my own conclusion that the Holy Spirit was probably something good but also something that created a lot of other problems too. Because the Holy Spirit issue was so controversial, I had concluded that I would be much better off if I kept myself at a safe distance until the dust settled.

To be continued tomorrow…

FYI, I’m thinking of spicing up your day a tad with a double header today with a second post this afternoon by Marlin Miller of Plain Values. You can visit merlinsmustache.com after it posts at 12:01 pm, thus not needing to wait on my email announcement sometime later….

This book, Go Now, is filled with bold faith and miracle stories from the head hunters in the northern Philippines, to Communist China where Wendell and his wife Daisy, made over 1000 border crossings with suitcases filled with Bibles. Wendell gives you an intimate inside look at how God worked deep in his heart rescuing a discontented young man and crafted him into an effective tool for His service. Now, onto post #4 of 9.

Gerald Derstine, a well-known preacher, was spending several nights as a guest at the Volunteer Service Center while conducting revival meetings at an affiliated church in the city. I had read some info about Gerald several years earlier and I remembered how it had dramatically challenged and inspired me. In his writing I had learned about other people who had experienced Jesus in similar ways as I had when he had healed me of those warts. I knew I had to talk to Pastor Derstine. I had so many unanswered questions.

Night had fallen when I found him settled in a well worn over stuffed armchair with an open Bible on his lap. His eyes were closed and I couldn’t tell if he were asleep or meditating. I shuffled my feet in the doorway making just enough noise to let him know that he was not alone yet, given him the liberty to ignore me if he chose.

The slight disturbance was enough. Aware he was not alone, he glanced in my direction. Seeing me standing in the open doorway, he smiled broadly and offered the warm invitation I had been hoping for. “Hi there! You want to come in and sit with me for a while?” I quietly entered the room and found a chair nearby. For moments we were both silent. I stared out the window at the bright city lights that suddenly blurred as tears filled my eyes. Blinking them back furiously, I sought to control the flood of unexplainable emotions overwhelming me. I didn’t want to cry; I wanted to have an intelligent conversation.

Sensitive that I was struggling, he waited quietly until I finally gained some control. Then he inquired, “Would you like to tell me what’s on your heart?”

That was all I needed. I choked down the lump in my throat and blurted out, “There has to be something I’m missing. I just don’t understand why today’s Christianity doesn’t match up with what I read in the Bible. I just don’t understand.” I felt anger and bitterness rising as I vented my frustration. I thought he would scold me, to tell me to read my Bible more, pray more, or just suck it up, but instead he let me unload my frustration.

Bottom Line:

When I was done, he just smiled. Finally, he broke the uncomfortable silence. “You know, I understand what you’re feeling, probably much more than you realize. I’ve been there and…” He paused for emphasis. “I know just what you need, what your heart is longing for.”

To be continued tomorrow…

This book, Go Now, is filled with bold faith and miracle stories of head hunters in the northern Philippines, to Communist China where Wendell and his wife Daisy, made over 1000 border crossings with suitcases filled with Bibles. Wendell gives you an intimate inside look at how God worked deep in his heart rescuing a discontented young man and crafted him into an effective tool for His service. Now, onto Post #3 of 9.

Then He said to the crowd, “If any of you want to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you will give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?” (Luke 9:23-25 NLT”)

I had read these verses many times before. I had memorized them as a child. They were words that always left my heart in unresolved conflict. As I read them now, however, it seemed that they were more than bothersome words. They were calling to me personally and I felt I really needed to hear what Jesus was saying. It was as if Jesus himself were speaking directly to me, that same Jesus who had promised to be with me always, the One who is the same yesterday and today and forever. As I stilled my heart and listened, I found a vague familiarity in the words that took me back to something distant, to a childhood memory. I strained to hear the voice I knew was certainly speaking to me yet seems so hard to hear. Spiritual ears that had been deaf for so long, were finally came to life!

“Wendell,” Jesus seemed to be saying. (I somehow knew it was him!) “You have seen how everyone is searching, striving, and trying desperately to prove they are someone, that they have value and worth. You see how they are never sure, never completely satisfied that they are living out their destiny or accomplishing anything significant or meaningful. Through human efforts, you will fail every time. Wendell, if you will let me, if you will trust Me, I will give you real life, the kind of life you are searching for!”

I drew deeply on the cigarette and thought long and hard on what God seemed to be saying. Could it really be this simple? Was there really a way I could experience what my heart was so intensely longing for?

I went back and read the fine print of the promise. To gain, I must lose? Lose by deliberately making choices that really didn’t make any sense? Deny myself? Take up my cross daily and simply follow Jesus? I didn’t understand how this worked. I figured most other people didn’t understand how it works either because I didn’t know of anyone whom I could say really denied themselves daily to follow Jesus. I was perplexed but I felt I was on to something, albeit something that would probably come with great risk.

Suddenly I remembered a thought, a burst of inspiration I had jotted down on a scrap of paper during my last year in high school I had written, “You won’t find your real purpose for living until you find a purpose worth dying for.”

At that moment, it all began to make sense: Jesus had lived his life to the fullest because He found I was worth dying for. Me! Perhaps I would find my real life by dying to my own self-interest in exchange for following and serving Jesus’s interests. The question now was: would I – could I – be willing to do this to the extent that Jesus was asking? I knew without a question that there would be no halfway point in this offer. It would have to be all or nothing, either a yes or a no.

BOTTOM LINE:

I crawled back through the skylight let myself drop onto the bed beneath. I had a strange sense that I was at a major turning point in my life, and the choice seemed clear. A compromised agreement with Jesus’ invitation would probably be worse than completely rejecting his offer. I knew I did not have the strength and the willpower to truly hold up to the conditions required of me. The situation would require some outside assistance. With an understanding that I had little to lose and with determination to aggressively pursue Jesus’ offer, I fell into a peaceful sleep.

In summary, the chapter aptly titled “Going Deeper,” resonates with many of us, especially as Wendell shares his meeting and being prayed over by Gerald Derstine, (1928-2022) who became a prominent early leader in the charismatic movement. Born into a conservative Pennyslvania Mennonite family, he initially became a functional agnostic but experienced a profound spiritual transformation after attending a Pentecostal revival in 1955, which led him to yield his life to Christ. His ministry, marked by an outpouring of the Holy Spirit featuring miracles, speaking in tongues, and other charismatic manifestations, began during a youth retreat in 1954-1955 at the Strawberry Lake Mennonite Church in MN. This revival led the conference to silencing his ministry in 1955 as church leaders demanded he denounce the events as Satanic, which he refused to do.

In his book, Wendell references the heated conversations in many Mennonite conferences & congregations about the Holy Spirit; who He is, what He does, when and how to get Him, during the years following up to his meeting Gerald in the later 60’s in NYC. Wendell poignantly identified the conflict for we born during the 1940’s and later, for we grew up with up God defined as a God of order, discipline, and correctness, demanding a kind of holy purity. Wendell shares beginning during his middle school years of coming to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit was probably something good, but the issue then was so controversial, he concluded he’d be better off if he kept himself at a safe distance, at least until the dust settled.

Therefore, I’ve divided chapter three, “Going Deeper” into nine posts. Here begins the third chapter, “Going Deeper.”

“If your children ask for a fish do you give them a snake instead, Or if they ask for an egg do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Luke 11:11 – 13

I had previously removed four of the five protective bars from the skylight over my third-story bedroom at the Voluntary Service Center jumping up from my bed I grasped the remaining bar and with great effort pulled myself up through the narrow opening and then crawled out the skylight window.

Sitting on the flat tarred roof I leaned against a stained brick chimney and stared out over the neighborhood. It was so different from the neighborhood I had known in Kidron. The unpleasant odor of the tar grilled by the afternoon sun mixed with a wonderful cross-cultural smorgasbord of smells drifting out from nearby open windows where evening meals were being prepared. This was the perfect place to meditate undisturbed. None of the other young residents in the house beneath my rooftop perch knew my secret place. Secure from prying eyes, I lit up a cigarette and enjoyed its calming effects as the stresses of the day seemed to dissipate along with the smoke. I had been in the city for nearly a year. During this time I had indeed gained a clearer perspective on life, humanity, and the human heart, even my own life. With a final puff I ground out the glowing tip of the cigarette and flicked the remaining evidence over onto a neighboring roof top.

One thing was clear. If there were going to be any meaning to this life, I would have to make my own way to find it. The tried and proven methods that the masses seem bent on pursuing regardless whether it was in Kidron or New York City, seemed to lead nowhere. People generally define success by how good a façade they are able to present in a never-ending game of illusions. The last thing I wanted was to become trapped inside an illusion of success or happiness.

Bottom Line:

Usually when I came up to my secret place, along with my cigarettes, I would also bring my Bible. There was something comforting about the book. Maybe it eased my guilt for sneaking a smoke. Even if I didn’t read it much, it felt good to have it at my side. Somehow my roots were in this book, and I knew if all else failed in life, somewhere buried within those pages, lay the clues that perhaps would unlock new avenues of exploration and hope.

Under the ambient light of the city, I lit another cigarette and randomly flipped through my open Bible. There on the page in front of me, my eyes fell on these familiar voice words of Jesus.

Then He said to the crowd, “If any of you want to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you will give up your life for my sake, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but are yourself lost or destroyed?” (Luke 9:23-25 NLT”)

         Again folks, that’s just the way I see it this morning, always speaking to myself, first & foremost! To be continued.

in a few minutes it will detonate and be irreversible…..

I have attempted below to explain my rational for exposing you to seven consecutive posts from Chapter Three titled “Going Deeper” from Wedell Martin’s “GO NOW: From the Innermost Parts of the Heart to the Uttermost Parts of the World.”

First, I desire that you can experience Wendell’s real life practical exposure of the struggles as a young man involved in going deeper, spiritually “warts” and all, and perhaps, we be reminded of the intricacies of the twists & turns, even the highs & lows, of our own spiritual journey. Indeed, there are likely hundreds of such written encounters out there, but I do believe because many of you readers share both Wendell’s childhood niches of geography and faith traditions, his written accounts may become especially meaningful as we reflect on our earlier personal struggles of “going deeper,” as many of us are now, or about to, be coming down our life’s ladders, preparing to enter our “count-down years.” And by now, you surely better be aware it is past time to be strategically prepared!

Second, I am sensing a profound disconnect in too many professing Christians, perhaps not fully practically believing that God loves them and wants them to experience the assuredness of peace and both the abundant and eternal life. As with I, this discontent has plagued their spiritual peace for decades with no definitive resolve. Yes, God did create us in His own image to have an abundant life. He did not make us robots to automatically love and obey Him, but rather, with a will and freedom of choice. Early on in our lives, we may have chosen to disobey and go our own willful way, never exiting the compelling fast & furious Interstate for His township gravel road (sometimes a mere footpath) in search of the Celestial City, such that even yet today, we are still living separated from God. Just imagine, being around the church all your life, and never been “grafted,” or adopted in, or ever seated at His table. “Ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.” Rom. 8:15. 

Third, we may have in our desperation during key life events attempted to reach a Holy God to experience His peace and abundant life, so we chose for a time, to do good works, to live a morally exemplary life, to join a church, may even read our Bible and other Christian books about being a successful Christian, but we never really ever have faced the reality that God’s remedy is THE CROSS. Jesus Christ died on the Cross and rose from the grave, such that He paid the penalty for our sin thus bridging that impossible gap between a Holy God, and we, as sin ravaged men & women. NO BRIDGE REACHES A HOLY GOD EXCEPT ONE – HIS CROSS!

Therefore, EACH PERSON MUST MAKE THEIR OWN CHOICE…EITHER WE MUST TRUST JESUS CHRIST AS LORD & SAVIOR & RECEIVE HIM BY PERSONAL INVITATION, OR NOT! If our response is to claim His gift of salvation, the Cross of Christ is the link we as convicted sinful & rebellious people claim the Holy God’s gifts of peace, forgiveness, INCLUDING an abundant & eternal life! Do understand when we IGNORE HIS Call, we are refusing His invitational gift of our lifetime.

Folks, that’s the way I see it this morning, always speaking to myself, first & foremost! To be continued…