Mountian Dew

By John Stallings


It is like the Dew on Mount Hermon….Psalm 133:3


On April 13, 1984, in Durango, Colorado Ruthie & Verena Cady were born, joined at the chest & sharing a three-chambered heart.

On July 22, 1991, the seven year old Siamese twin girls died within 15 minutes of each other.

“Ruthie died 15 minutes ahead of Verena,” Mrs. Cady said. During the next few minutes the surviving seven year old twin talked with her mother.

Mrs. Cady said, “Verena talked about the whole thing. She said,
“This is the time we’re going to be dying.” “She asked me to get daddy & she gave me a list of friends she wanted to send flowers to. She asked to be cremated because she didn’t want to be in a box, she wanted to be free.”

The twins were connected from the sternum to the navel & shared a three –chambered heart which prevented doctors from separating them. Most Siamese twins die at birth. Doctors told Mrs. Cady & her husband, Peter, that if the girls lived a year it would be a miracle.

The twins studied at an elementary school & sang in a church choir. Their favorite activity was biking on a custom two-set tricycle that let one pedal & the other relax, their parents said.

“They could laugh at life,” said their mother, who wrote a 1989 cover article about the twins for People magazine. “They were almost always happy & smiling.”

They looked alike, smiled alike & wore identical shirts & bathing suits that their mother would stitch together.

“They had two completely different personalities, but they complimented each other,” said Mrs. Cady.

The girls would alternate days on which each would make the major decisions. They learned to compromise. “When you can’t get away from the other person you’re arguing with, you solve it quickly,” their mother said.

For the first two years when the family lived in Colorado, the sleeping girls would awake every hour because Durango’s 6,500-foot elevation made breathing difficult. The family later moved to Rhode Island where Mr. Cady was offered a college teaching job.

Does that story tug at your heart-strings? It certainly does mine.

Though these girls had different nervous systems & personalities, they were sustained by the same heart & literally needed each other to survive.


"MAKE THEM ONE…"

I think Verena & Ruth have something to teach Christians because we’re also all part of the same body. If you think that’s extreme, turn to John seventeen & read the priestly prayer Christ prayed before going to the cross. He pleads & prays to His Father that His children might be unified as He & His father are. In verse 21 He prays; -Make them one.

The founder of a business that grew to a billion dollars in annual revenues expressed the power of teamwork in this way; “If you could get all the people in an organization rowing in the same direction you could dominate any industry, in any market, against any competition, at any time.”

The church or the body of Christ is in a similar position. We’re all in the same boat; a lifeboat. Many of us have our oars in the water but sadly we aren’t all rowing in the same direction.

Satan really only has one weapon & that’s division. Anywhere you have a Difference there is a great opportunity for Division.

You can have division between white & black, tall & short, fat & skinny, men & women, educated & uneducated, rich & poor, Democrats & Republicans, Liberal & Conservative, outgoing & incoming, worldly & spiritual, Northern & Southern etc.

When Satan sees a Difference he goes to work to create the Division, in families, churches, businesses & nations.

PSALMS

Psalms help us in a unique way because every human emotion has its echo in the book. In them we learn that God cares about the circumstances of our lives, our reaction to every experience & about our relationships with one another. The Psalms are rich in imagery & figures of speech.

The Psalms touch us at the deepest levels of our being & probe all human experiences, also possessing the capacity to lift up our eyes to see God & our brothers & sisters.

PSALM 133--I dearly love this Psalm’s simplicity as well as its profound content.

Behold how good & how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.

It is like the precious ointment upon the head that ran down upon the beard even Aaron’s beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments.

As the DEW of HERMON, & as the dew that ascended upon the MOUNTAINS of Zion: for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.


This Psalm is about unity but David doesn’t provide a road-map for going from disunity to unity. He doesn’t leave a trail of “Holy bread-crumbs” for us to follow; he just speaks about how glorious solidarity & unity is.

I heard about a Scottish Presbyterian who was stranded on an island in the middle of the south pacific. For years he lived alone on the island. When he was picked up the captain of the rescue ship said to him, “I thought you were alone on this island.” “I was,” replied the castaway. “Then why are there three huts on the beach?” “Well, the first one is my house, and the second one is my church.” “What about the other one?”

“Oh, that’s my old church.”

Although we love to sing about being one, Christians are mostly united about our love of dividing. If you doubt this, check the Wikipedia article called, List of Christian Denominations. Christians not only disagree, we enjoy our disagreements. How else could you explain so many different “flavors” marching under the “Christian banner?”

The first word in Psalm 133 is;

BEHOLD…..

The word behold tells us to stop, look, listen. The next word is;

HOW….

You’ll notice the word HOW occurs twice in the first sentence. Generally when we use the word HOW, we’re raising a question. The scriptures are replete with HOWS.

HOW can two walk together except they be agreed?
HOW shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
HOW long shall you halt between two opinions?
HOW shall I know this? Zacharias, Elisabeth’s husband asked this.
HOW can this be? Mary asked the angel.

But in Psalm 133, neither of the HOWS raises a question & this is very unusual. Both the HOWS make an imperative statement accentuated by closing with an exclamation point. Behold how;

GOOD AND PLEASANT…..

Its not every day that we find anything that’s both good & pleasant. Visiting the dentist is good but it isn’t pleasant. Eating a healthy diet with plenty of fiber is good but it’s not always pleasant. Driving the speed limit is good, but many of you aggressive drivers who’ll read this know it’s not always pleasant.

David doesn’t say it will be easy to live in unity. There’ll be times when we have to work hard at staying unified. As an example, marriage is constant negotiation; from where to keep the thermostat to which restaurant we go to eat. Like the twin girls, we are constantly engaged in the give & take of relationships.

I believe it’s healthy to have disagreements but the key is how we handle them. Married folk know where all their spouses “buttons” are. We could get up any morning & start a fight with our spouse if that’s what we wanted. But if we’re wise, once we learn where those buttons are, we try to stay off of them. There’s a difference between unity & uniformity. God never called us to uniformity, but rather is calling us in all our relationships, to unity.

The Psalmist seems to stand in total awe & amazement as he gives us the message; there is nothing so sweet as this intangible-untouchable-indefinable-unexplainable-unclassifiable-indescribable- unspeakable thing called UNITY!

UNITY is sweet, good & Pleasant. In other words, how sweet it is!

The Hebrew word for pleasant is a musical synonym for harmony. I enjoy music of almost all kinds but the one thing I can’t stand is when music has no harmony or things are out of tune.—Behold how good & how pleasant it is for brethren to;

DWELL…

The word dwell means residency, a continuation & a perpetuating harmony. Unity is to dwell among us, not just be an occasional visitor, an ever-present resident, not a temporary guest. Brethren should dwell together;

IN UNITY…

Unity is good for us –body, mind, soul & spirit. I can’t understand people who foolishly add stressful things to their lives when we have enough problems with the world the flesh & the devil. It makes no sense to waste time dwelling on bitterness & grudges, stinking thinking & other toxic thoughts & patterns.


UNITY IS LIKE…

Now David describes Unity by using two similes, oil & dew. First it’s like OIL. The Oil spoken of here is special oil the priest used in the tabernacle. This oil was a preparation made of four different spices, which gave it a special fragrance, & was prohibited for use elsewhere. The Old Testament priesthood was a type of the New Testament church, pastors & leaders.

Most of you are familiar with the priesthood of all believers. When The Psalms were written the priests were the primary communicators with God but Jesus changed all that with His death & resurrection. Now we can all have the oil of the Holy Spirit poured out on us. The “it” refers to the unity we can experience & the special blessings that accompany it.

OIL lubricates dry bones, loosens the frozen nuts & bolts, soothes rough skin & softens hard hearts in the body of Christ.

When this oil starts flowing it doesn’t stop. It flowed from Aaron’s head down the beard over the collar & onto his robe. There’s an inexhaustible supply of oil.

David could have used other examples. The reason he uses Aaron is he was someone special; a high priest. So too is this unity we can experience- something special. Through Aaron’s anointing he was qualified to serve as priest & with the Holy Spirit’s anointing we are also qualified to do the work of God.

Have you ever been in a fighting church? I’ve been in lots of them & they have a terrible odor. The fragrance of Jesus, the great high priest isn’t among them. The most important thing a church can have is the fragrance of unity. The preaching doesn’t have to be great nor the buildings elaborate, but the fragrance of unity is indispensable.

Satan wants our homes & churches to be models of Balkanization, factions & disunity. Have you ever visited in a fighting home? I have. I’ve been in homes as guest & felt so bound up I almost choked. You can ask someone to pass the gravy & when you hear the words coming out of your mouth you say, “What in the world did I say that for?” All I did was ask for the gravy & the words seemed to go into a synthesizer & emerged sounding like something echoing through the forests of Transylvania.

Tension is palpable, & can’t be hidden. I’d rather be in Alabama with a banjo on my knee than to be where strife resides. The first thing that hits you in the face when you enter one of these homes is the tension between the personalities in conflict.

But you can also feel love & sense unity. You can walk into a home or a church & feel the fragrance of Christ’s unity radiating from people.

UNITY IS LIKE THE “DEW ON MT. HERMON….”

I’ve visited Israel three times, as a matter of fact on our first visit we left just a few days before the six day war of 1967. When you look at your map of Palestine, you see a long piece of real estate & way up in the North East corner, almost directly across from Beirut, is Mount Hermon.

Mount Hermon is the highest point in the region—9,200 feet above sea level. Very little rain falls in this arid region but heavy dew falls each morning providing the moisture necessary for life & growth. There is such heavy, penetrating dew it makes the area abnormally lush & green on the slopes & up on the mountain. This dew makes the desert bloom.

Again David illustrates how rich the blessings will be when this “unity dew” falls on us. This dew will so penetrate us that it will moisten our minds, wash away worries & dampen the dusty demons that try to gain entrance.

This dew drenches everything. Everything gets covered with it. And so it is when the dew of unity comes.

Homes & churches that are filled with conflict & controversy are nothing less than a tragedy for everyone involved.

Some people think that they can talk trash around their kids & it will not affect them. Here’s the truth; if you talk negatively about your pastor, or anyone else around your kids, the person talked about will be able to feel it, literally see it in the kid’s eyes when they’re around them.

A few years ago Juda & I were pastoring a small church in the South & there was a young couple in the church with several small children. This couple just didn’t like us, period. That’s hard to understand given the fact that I’m so lovable. I knew they were angry at us but one Sunday Morning I walked up to greet the mother. She was holding her small child in her arms & when the baby saw me he began kicking & screaming almost uncontrollably.

The boy, just a few months old pitched a conniption- fit right there. Later I was sharing it with Juda & to my total shock she said the same thing had happened when she tried to speak to the lady. Both times the baby, who as I remember wasn’t even talking yet, reacted the same.

We all know this can happen with children but I’d never seen it so distinctly in evidence in a child that small. It wasn’t imaginary. The mother was extremely embarrassed & I’ll always believe she understood exactly what was happening. The couple had other children, the oldest had gotten old enough to be able to hide it, but the younger one, & the baby just couldn’t do it. Because of the attitude of the parents toward us we instinctively knew what the problem was with the youngest one. Make no mistake; when there is negative talk in the home, even the youngest somehow soak it up & it gets in their spirit.

I remember thinking, dear God, if people only understood the damage they do to their children when they allow bickering, fighting, hostility, criticism & strife to reign in their homes.

The converse is also true; when parents speak well of their church at home the children will be happier about attending & they will have the same sweet spirit their parents have.

Some people seem to think we’ve been given the ministry of demolition but they have it wrong; it’s the ministry of reconciliation that God has given us.-2 Cor.5:18

There’s a vast difference between being a peace lover, a peace keeper or a peace-maker. We all enjoy peace & it doesn’t take that much effort to keep peace, if it’s already on the scene. However it takes initiative, concern, prayer, tact & sometimes vulnerability to make peace where there isn’t any. When we do all possible to promote peace, we’re protecting what is cherished in the heart of Jesus, that for which He prayed in John 17.

Let me give some advice here that I’ve garnered over more than half a century of ministry. If someone comes to you wanting to dish out slander & gossip; they have just given you the biggest insult possible. Why? Because they’ve assumed that your ears are garbage cans.

We should say this when that happens; “Hey, wait a minute here, you’ve just insulted me. You’re handing out verbal garbage so that implies that you think I’m a garbage can. Don’t ever insult me like that again.”

THE HIGH COST OF DISUNITY

When reading Psalm 133, I often wonder if David was talking out of his experience with his brothers. Remember how abusively his brother talked to him when he went down to visit on the battle line, when he defeated Goliath? Perhaps he was ruminating about how it felt to have so much jealousy in his home life. He also could have been referring to Israel, which had a civil war & split in half forming the Northern & Southern kingdoms.

Ladies & gentlemen, let’s try with all diligence to cultivate a healthy self/critical spirit, instead of being so hard on one another. There used to be a saying, “Don’t criticize until you can show-how.”

When I was a kid, I used to occasionally try to use an axe, a hoe, a shovel or a rake. [Not at the same time.] My dad was raised on the farm, & he was an artist with all those tools.

I remember him occasionally critiquing  me in a nice way about how I was using the tools. Then he’d proceed to take the axe, hammer, or shovel out of my hands & demonstrate how to use it. The thing I remember about all his work was the ease with which he did it. I would sling the axe with all my might & make very little impact. He’d lift it up & let it fall a certain way & huge chunks would fly. My point is he felt free to correct me because he could turn around & model a more effective way to do it.

If you have a “bone to pick” with your church or your fellow Christian, before you point out their failures, ask yourself if you know how to do better than they the thing you’re criticizing. When we cultivate that healthy self/critical attitude we’ll soon realize there’s room for improvement within all of us.

As with my father, show a better way & people will usually take it but let’s make sure we’re exemplifying in our own lives the things we’re trying to straighten out in others. Anyone can “point out the gap” but what is needed is someone to “stand in the gap.” When we’re overly critical of someone, Romans 2:1 says it’s a guarantee that we’re harboring that same thing in our own lives; consequently we’re quick to spot it in others.

I well remember one of the first funerals I conducted as a young pastor. The deceased was a long-standing member of the church. I did some research & when I spoke to members of the congregation, I heard, “Oh that family doesn’t get along.”

I also learned that I couldn’t get the family together so I had to meet most of them separately, & they all had different things they wanted me to say about the deceased. I had to walk a tight-rope as I navigated the family’s “land-mines.”

I learned much later that this—“celebration of their family member’s life”—was the last time that family would ever sit together in the same room.

Lastly, Psalm 133 tells us; where unity dwells;

THERE GOD COMMANDED THE BLESSING, EVEN LIFE FOR EVERMORE

Did you know the Lord has commanded blessings to come upon you & me when we’re at peace with our brothers & sisters in the Lord?

Is there someone you can’t quite get along with? Pray for that person. Go out of your way to be a blessing to them. Do your best to walk in peace & unity. The world will know we’re true followers of Christ when we do this.

Make the decision to live in peace with your brothers & sisters if the only thing you can agree on is “Jesus is Lord!”

Focus on the love you have for God & for seeing people come to know Him. As you focus on walking in peace & unity, you’ll walk into the place of blessing the Lord has commanded for you.

Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit, in the bond of peace. Eph.4:3


Blessings,


John