Balaam is one of the stranger characters we meet in scripture. He brings God’s words, but he also tries to curse God’s people. After his first attempt to curse Israel fails, Balaam says the following:

Numbers 23:10 (NKJV)

"Who can count the dust of Jacob,

Or number one-fourth of Israel?

Let me die the death of the righteous,

And let my end be like his!"

Balaam desired to die like a righteous man. Unfortunately for him, he chose be an enemy of God, going after gain. Balaam died with the Midianites, killed by the Israelites in their vengeance for the way the Midianites lured Israel into apostasy in the way Balaam suggested (See Numbers 31).

Death is ugly. Death is our enemy. But for those who are in Christ, the power of death is broken and will be overcome in the resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15:26

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

Although we hate death and battle against it, we know that ultimately we will triumph in the resurrection of our bodies, and we know that we do not go through death alone.

Psalm 116:15

Precious in the sight of the LORD

is the death of his saints.

So that leaves us with the question, who are the righteous? Who are the saints of God? Who has been good enough that they can confidently face death knowing they are coming into God’s blessing, and that our end will be like Jacob’s?

Jesus told a parable that answer’s this question.

Luke 18:9-14

"⁹ He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: ¹⁰ "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed[a] thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ ¹³ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ ¹⁴ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

In the midst of all his pain, I’ve heard my father calling out to God for mercy upon his soul. It was not the first time he had called upon God, but it has been a great comfort to me to know that unlike Balaam, he was dying the death of the righteous.

Goodbye, Father: Born October 29, 1936. Died December 30, 2004. We will meet again.

Headline Erie Times (Link requires registration and does not deep link to the actual article. How annoying.): Lord to add 110 jobs

MEADVILLE — Lord Corp. plans to upgrade three facilities in Erie and Crawford counties, creating 110 new jobs in the process….

Lord Corp. is expected to add all 110 of those new positions to its Erie facilities, while retaining more than 1,000 other jobs in the region, including all positions at its two Crawford County plants….

Lord, which specializes in anti-vibration equipment, makes systems used by a wide range of military aircraft, including the F-18 Hornet, the Apache Attack helicopter and the Joint Strike Fighter.

From John Piper’s 12/19/2004 sermon, Happy in Hope, Patient in Pain, Constant in Prayer.

Tribulation is the normal experience of believers in this life. Some tribulation we share with unbelievers (like sickness and calamity and death) and some is unique to believers (like persecution for Christ’s sake). But my main point here is that tribulation is normal and to be expected in this world. It’s the setting for all our love and joy and hope and patience and prayer. Affliction is where we live. If you don’t live there now, you will. Learning that this is normal will be a great help to you when it comes….

[Suffering] isn’t strange. It’s normal. It comes with the fallen, sinful, futile world….

The affliction of our lives extends from cancer to calamity to conflict to death. These are all normal and they are part of what we must live with on our way to heaven.

We need to know that bad things will happen, and that God is in control, even in the times of difficulty. As John Piper points out, you are much better off if you learn this lesson during the good times, so that when the difficulties come, you are not surprised. You don’t have to try to think through the issues in the difficult times while you are under stress and are not thinking the clearest.

So realize, you will suffer. If you aren’t suffering now, you will be some time. Don’t be surprised. It won’t make the pain of suffering any easier, but at least you won’t have to struggle with wondering how God could allow such a thing to happen to you.

Instead of questioning how God could allow us to suffer, remember, Jesus suffered. As John Piper reminds us:

Jesus was the best man who ever lived. None of us has any right to experience less affliction than he did. If we experience less, it is mercy. We don’t deserve the peaceful lives we have. They are merciful gifts.

Praise God for the mercy He shows us every day as He has spared us from untold suffering.

You learn much from reading news accounts. For example, I thought Russia was an independent nation. But according this AP report on Sunday’s tsunami in the Indian Ocean, I am incorrect.

The international warning system was started in 1965, the year after tsunamis associated with a magnitude 9.2 temblor struck Alaska in 1964. It is administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Member states include all the major Pacific rim nations in North America, Asia and South America, was well as the Pacific islands, Australia and New Zealand. It also includes France, which has sovereignty over some Pacific islands, and Russia.

Headline Telegraph: The secret of long life… go to church

A 12-year study tracking mortality rates of more than 550 adults over the age of 65 found that those who attend services at least once a week were 35 per cent more likely to live longer than those who never attended church….

The researchers found that among individuals who reported never attending religious services, the risk of death over the 12-year period was 52 per cent.

By contrast, the risk of death of those who attended church services more than once a week was 17 per cent over the same period….

Although the researchers acknowledged that regular churchgoers could lead more abstemious lives, they insisted that they had factored these variants into the study by examining a control group of equally healthy non-believers. The variation, they said, had made no appreciable difference.

"It is possible that more frequent religious attenders may have engaged in better health behaviours, such as exercise or lower dietary fat intake," the researchers wrote.

"The present data included a limited assessment of health behaviours such as smoking, sleep, alcohol intake, cigarette use and obesity.

"This is the first study of which we are aware to find support for the hypothesis that more frequent religious attendance in a population-based sample of older adults is associated with lower mortality."

So, I wonder how long an active, lean church-going woman can live?

Q.12. What did God’s providence specifically do for man whom He created?

A. After the creation God made a covenant with man to give him life, if he perfectly obeyed; God told him not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil or he would die.

Genesis 2:15-17

¹⁵ The LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. ¹⁶ And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, ¹⁷ but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”

Headline AP: Millions Celebrate Christmas Across Globe

At the conclusion of opening our presents this morning, I noticed something. All the gifts I received this year were disks. They were either CDs or DVDs. Marx Brothers, U2, Phil Collins, Tom Cruise, Don Henley. (I did get a gift card for Walmart also, but I think I can technically count that as a disk gift also since it will almost assuredly turn into CDs, DVDs or both.)

And even though I got all disks, none of them were smelly disks.

Do people know something about me?

Schmaltzy Christmas reminiscences from childhood. Trying to not go over the top, but failing. Snow lightly falling. Caroling in the dark and cold. Freezing feet. Lights and tinsel. Beautiful tree. A new ornament every year and a star at the top. Violins and Nat King Cole roasting on an open fire. Cookies, powdered sugar and gingerbread houses. Stocking with an orange in it. Story of a Christmas gift that went awry but ends in laughter and closer family bonds. End with a moral against materialism and warm greetings to your family.

(These things practically write themselves.)

Merry Christmas.

I imagine it all happened one evening when an inventor, let’s call him, Missed the Mark (or just Mark for short) was bored. Mark had listened to all his CDs, and had watched all his DVDs. “There is just nothing new to listen to or hear on those disks,” he thought to himself. “It’s too bad you can’t use the disks for other senses than sight and hearing. Wait a minute …. Why not make a disk player for smells? You could play a sea shore or a forest or whatever. It would be great!”

And so the idea of a scent disk player was born in that moment of crazy inspiration.

Surprisingly, Febreze bought the idea and is marketing it as “Scentstories”.

Play scents like you play music: Select the disc you want to play, insert it into the player, close the lid and push play. As the disc plays, a quiet fan rotates through five scents, one every 30 minutes over the course of 2.5 hours. The player shuts off automatically after all five scents have been played. You can stop the player or skip through the scent tracks at any time. Discs are interchangeable and reusable.

The Scentstories disk is what creates your new scent environment: Each disc theme uses five complementary scents to create a rich, engaging scent experience. Because the scents change every 30 minutes, your nose never gets bored.

With the touch of a button, the multi-dimensional environment created by every Scentstories disc theme takes you there.

And since the discs are reusable, you can experience your favorite theme again and again.

Now I understand why the scent player is so important. We all know what trouble a nose can get into when it is bored. It starts sticking itself into other people’s business and everyone gets upset. It is much better to play some odors for a while and avoid the trouble.

But what multiple-scent experience disks are available?

• Exploring a mountain tail
• Wandering barefoot on the shore
• Strolling through the garden
• Relaxing in the hammock
• Shades of vanilla
• Celebrate the holidays

Surprisingly, Visiting the sauerkraut and horseradish factory isn’t include. Perhaps that is a disk to be offered in the future.

I’m holding out for Riding in a B-52 disk. I can tell you there would be some distinctive smells on that disk.

• Entering the plane: Experience the initial smells upon entering a plane that people have been getting sick in for more than forty years.
• Engine startup: Catch a whiff of the jet engine exhaust fumes as they are blown in your face.
• High Altitude Refueling: Now experience the light aroma of jet fuel.
• Low level bomb run: Here’s where the best action is. Smell the hot metal, jet engine exhaust fumes, electronics, and, well, maybe we could leave out one of the other smells that quite regularly showed up at this phase of the flight. It wouldn’t be realistic without it, but the disk might sell better without the smell of air sickness.
• Touch and Go: Now for a couple hours of relative calm and then blasting fumes in your face.

Now, I love electronics as much as the next person (possibly more) (OK, definitely more), but in this case, I think the old fashioned candles do just fine and don’t need to join the digital disk age.