Guard Your Bank Deposit

Helm's Deep, in case you're not quite as nerdy as I am and haven't lived your life in awe of J.R.R. Tolkien and the complex world he created in literature, is supposed to be an impregnable fortress. However, it is also a tomb. It is set into the stone wall of a mountain, and there are no escape routes. Once the walls are breached, there is little anyone can do to survive the onslaught of the enemy.

1.) The defense needs to be iron-clad. 
2.) Outside help is advisable.

So - a little simplistically - in Tolkien's The Two Towers, the good guys hide behind the walls of Helm's Deep. It's important to note that this decision is not approved by all the good guys. King Theoden wants the strength of the fortress for protection; Aragorn (returning king of Gondor) thinks he should meet Saruman's forces elsewhere. There's conflict, but Theoden's decision wins, and he pulls the armies back to wait behind the walls of Helm's Deep. When the enemy breaches the fortress walls, all seems lost... until the good guys (and trees) show up behind the enemy on the other side of the plain and sandwich them between Helm's Deep and their own forces. And then they rout them. 

(There's a bit more military strategic detail, but that's the main point). 

Proverbs 4:23 says: "Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Make your heart an impregnable fortress. Solomon's reference to the "wellspring of life" isn't simply talking about the beating of your heart from point A (your birth) to point Z (your death). It's speaking of your spirit, your soul, that spark of life that lives in you that makes you, exactly... you. It's what drives you to be who you are.

God made you as He intended, unique and exact to His design, and there is no one else just like you.

So, guard that. Further... "Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you -- guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit Who lives in us" (2 Timothy 1:14). In this context, Paul is telling Timothy to guard the Gospel message that has been preached to him, that he has accepted and allowed to transform his heart and his life, and out of that, is allowing the Holy Spirit to use him to teach, preach, and transform other lives.

Talk about a good deposit. No wonder it has to be guarded. It's a treasure. It's the treasure of treasures. It's the combination of God's work in us, where He takes the things that make us uniquely... us, and the work of the Holy Spirit through His Gospel... which builds up other people.

God doesn't keep the Good News (that's what Gospel means!) to Himself. His whole plan is exponentially viral. 

When I was a little younger and a little poorer -- and a lot more foolish -- I lived from paycheck to paycheck. I kept track of how much I had in the bank. Because there wasn't much, and because I am not very good with math (you see where this is going)... I ended up bouncing several checks before I got my bank statement, which politely informed me how very far off my math was. In turn, the bank rendered fees against my account, which in turn, tossed me into debt of nearly $400 -- all in the space of one weekend. When $20 seemed like a lot to me back then, $400 nearly did me in.

I didn't guard my deposit. I allowed purchases and bills and groceries to carve away at that deposit until there was nothing left. And then I had to pay the consequences. I had to call for outside help. 

Y'all, it's not easy admitting that you were wrong, that you failed. Thankfully, I had grace-filled friends and family who pulled me out of that tight spot, but it was a humbling lesson to learn. When I called, they answered, but it hurt to admit that I'd been careless, that I was wrong.

Genesis 36 is all about Esau and his descendants, and goodness, the time I had reading through all those names this morning. This was fun: Dishan and Dishon. What parent decided that was a good idea?

"Dishan, I told you to stop messing with Dishon. No, I said, Dishon, not Dishan. Dishon, you're not in trouble, it's Dishan that's in trouble. I didn't say Dishon, I said Dishan. Stop it!" (Genesis 36:21 for names, not the conversation, which is utterly my own invention, and I'm very sorry). :)

Esau has a deposit given him from his parents (bet you were wondering how I was going to fit Genesis in, weren't you? I was wondering that myself until exactly 4 seconds ago). ;) Esau is the son of Isaac, who is the son of Abraham, who is the receiver of God's covenant promise to make him the father of many nations. That covenant has been promised to Abraham, but it's not yet realized. The covenant is knowledge in the bank. It's a deposit.

As we've gone through the last several chapters of Genesis, we see several examples of Esau's lack of care in regard to that deposit. 

1.) He comes back from hunting, famished, and sells his birthright to Jacob for a bowl of soup and some bread. I mean... I'm a fan of Panera as much as any soup and sandwich fan, but that's just ridiculous. He treats his birthright, the deposit guaranteed to him by his birth order, as more trivial than food that his stomach will digest and his bodily processes will expel in the form of waste (Genesis 25:29-34). Ouch!

2.) He threatens to kill his brother, who -- no matter what deception has brought this about -- now carries the blessing of God and the right of primogeniture. Jacob is now the son of the inheritance and the child of God's covenant given to Abraham. So threatening to kill that person is despising not only his brother... but God Himself. Esau shaves a little more off that deposit (Genesis 27:41).

3.) He intermarries with the pagan cultures surrounding God's people. God has set aside His people in the Old Testament (again, returning to His covenant with Abraham to make him the father of many nations and to give his descendants the Promised Land), and Esau, with base disregard for that precedent... marries Canaanite wives. Genesis 26:35 says: "[Esau's wives] were a source of grief to Isaac and Rebekah," who can see the lack of care that Esau is taking to guard the deposit given to him. Rebekah makes sure that Jacob won't follow the same track that Esau does. In Genesis 27:46, she says, not at all dramatically: "I'm disgusted with living because of these Hittite women. If Jacob takes a wife from among the women of this land, from Hittite women like these, my life will not be worth living." Here, Rebekah tosses the back of her hand up to her forehead and faints onto a couch, to match the tone. (Not really, but whatever). ;)

Genesis 28:8 says: "Esau then realized how displeasing the Canaanite women were to his father Isaac, so he went to Ishmael and married Mahalath, the sister of Nebaioth and daughter of Ishmael son of Abraham, in addition to the wives he already had."

Y'all... not only does Esau not guard the deposit he's inherited by his birthright and thereby allows it to be taken from him, when he does realize that his lack of care is destroying that deposit, he jumps in to fix it... and chooses a daughter of Ishmael, who is not in the bloodline of the deposit he's supposed to guard in the first place.

Today, it's difficult to understand the culture and customs that surround God's covenant with a single people, the people of Israel, when we're used to thinking about the Gospel for the whole world, right? I mean, I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it, too. 

But Esau's decision to go with Hagar's bloodline instead of Sarah's bloodline holds all sorts of implications. "He despised his birthright" (Genesis 25:34). This seems to hold true throughout Esau's life, and so, in the end, we get Romans 9:13: "Just as it is written: 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'" 

No, I don't think God hates Esau. In Biblical lingo, this is the Scriptural way of saying: Esau makes his choices, and none of them lead to God. He allows corruption to penetrate his defenses. He doesn't call for help when he finds himself in the wrong. He allows the spark of life, of what makes him... him... to be snuffed out, and as a result, his deposit, his inheritance, his rights, are taken away and given to his brother.

We each have a deposit. It's probably not primogeniture. We're probably not the child of a covenant promise between God and our grandfather. But our deposit is our faith in the Good News of Jesus - who died, for us, for anyone who accepts that incredibly awesome and amazing gift of eternal life. We are free from the consequences of sin, which is eternal death, because Jesus goes before the Father and shows Him the blood without taint of sin, sacrificially shed for us.

Don't let doubts, fear, ridicule, bullying, hatred, lies, or anything else shave off of that incredible deposit. That's a deposit worth fighting for. Don't despise it, like Esau did. Shore up the walls, call for help from your brothers-and-sisters-in-arms. 

Nothing is worth giving that up. Nothing. Put away your bowls of soup and your crusts of bread. Respect the deposit, treasure it. Keep it until the last day when the clouds roll away and Jesus Himself gathers us to Him in the air. What a day that will be!