Read this: Daniel, Ch 5.

Rap this:
The king was called Belshazzar
But we’re gonna call ‘im Shazz-ar.
He said, “I am a dazzler,
Am go’n dazzle all the Kasbah.
We’ll be drinkin’ good wine;
Be a stinkin’ good time.
Am go’n take it further
When they say, ‘Don’t take it that far!’ “

He invites a thousand,
They’se all A-list glitterati.
Includes his wives and girlfriends,
‘Cause no way they’ll miss the party!
His dad was Neb’ kanezz-ar
It’s bad for poor old Shazz-ar
Livin’ in the shadow of
Ol’ Neb, who was a smarty.

“Am Shazz the man, an’ am so baad!”
He looks to push the boat out.
“Not like ol’ dad ‘cause he went mad
And looked a fool with no clout.”
Ol’ Neb, he had a showdown
With God who brought him low down.
If Neb was wondrin’ who was boss,
Then he found out with no doubt!

But Shazz was like, “What’s with this thing?
C’mon, must be a phony!
A ‘God’ who’s bigger than the King-
So how’d I face my homies?
This ‘God’, needs to be shut down,
A bod who needs a put down.”
He did it and he flashed the bling
In front of all his cronies.

Now Judah, it bin’ treated rough,
Neb pillaged all its treasure.
He carted off the sacred stuff
To Babylon at leisure.
Bling’s no real valuation-
The thing’s God’s reputation.
And Shazz he dissed that right enough,
All through his night of pleasure.

So when the wine was flowin’
An’ they sorta got a swing on,
He set the party goin’,
Said, “Got somethin’ else to bring on.”
Shazz used all Judah’s treasures
As boozers’ drinkin’ measures.
They toasted local idols
‘Cause they’s somethin’ safe to cling on.

His pride got over heated,
Needin’ somethin’ doin’ drastic.
An’ arrogance, deep seated –
That’s a call for the fantastic.
Then where a lamp is standin,’
A hand appears, just hangin’.
The body bin deleted,
And it’s real, it isn’t plastic.

All eerie in that dim light,
Seems that somethin’creepy’s startin’;
A myst’ry note, is filled in by
The hand, before departin’.
And, dude, that spooky scrawl
Would prove the writin’ on the wall.
Four words in some weird lingo:
‘Mene mene tekel parsin’.

Graffiti quite outlandish,
Was too much for Shazz to take in.
He couldn’t understand it,
So, like Elvis, started shakin’.
No menu he could drop down
So wha’d he do, but flop down.
He found no-one to crack the code
No matter who he raked in.

Nobody was of any use
Except, that is, The Queen Mum.
Said, “Hail Oh King! Stay cool, hang loose.
We’ll find out what it means, son.
With riddles needin’ solvin’
There’s a man who needs involvin’.
His name is Dan; he’s all good news,
He even sees your dreams, hun.”

“He was the brains for your ol’ dad–
Your dad, the king, I’m sayin.”
(Did she say that to make him mad?
The obvious, she’s statin’.)
“He’s got more intel inside.
The gods sure yell for his side.”
So Dan gets called to Shazz’s pad
And Shazz thinks, “Wha’ do I pay him?”

Shazz says if Dan’s the real thing-
Achieves a resolution,
He’ll get the Gucci an’ the bling,
Be made an institution:
For word trace and translation
Offers third place in the nation.
But Dan says, “Thanks, no thanks Oh king,
No fee for the solution.”

“Ol’ Neb as king of thee known world
Was up himself, and big time.
But God made him look so absurd
It flipped him like a trip line.
He got the thing, the lesson
That God’s the King, no mess’n.
King Shazz, you know all this occurred
But you don’t give a fig, mind.”

“The Lord of Life, you dissed Him good;
The One who holds your future.
That’s why He spoke into the hood
And loud as any hooter.”
That fist, it’s got a punchline-
It’s, ‘he’ll be gone by lunchtime.’”
The Lord, Dan made it understood,
Is judge and prosecutor.

“‘Mene’; that means ‘numbered’ and
The days you got are zero.
‘Tekel’ means that you bin’ weighed.
You lightweight, you’re no hero.”
Four words have bin’ hand written.
Your world y’see is splittn’.
‘Parsin’ means ‘divided’ and
Two into one, you’ll see, go.”

That same night king Shazz got whacked,
(Or ‘killed’ in other versions).
And, as we said, his Empire cracked;
Half each to Medes and Persians.
It’s right, right on, not ‘off the wall’,
That pride might come before the fall.
That plastered wall was lightly scratched
With sober, deep assertions.
A plastered wall, but lightly scratched
With sober, deep assertions.

Amen.

 
You can find more Code Odes featuring Dan and Neb, in The Manual, vol 3, out now …

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(Originally published at carlbeech.com)

Being the leader of the largest UK men’s movement, I’ve been asked more than a few times lately where we are with some of the teaching coming from the United States.

I need to take serious time to start to put my thoughts down in a considered manner but as my schedule through to September is extremely heavy, to say the least, I thought I would begin with a few bullet points. Come September I hope to have a series of articles in development. One thing I am convinced of is the need for British men to be speaking to British men…I hope I can deliver that over time.

At this time, my primary concern is not to teach the church on issues of gender but to focus on evangelism. By this I mean words and actions. I believe that by reaching men we can start to tackle some of the issues that men face and the sins they perpetrate upon society. With violence against women “off the chart” and sex trafficking able to thrive because of sex addicted men, the last thing we need is macho posturing. We need men to use their strength and testosterone in pursuit of more noble causes.

That’s why I founded the movement based around “the code”.

So here you go:

1. Unlike some ministries and individuals we don’t criticise another man or woman’s ministry from the pulpit or blog. We have enough to do without worrying about targeting friendly fire on each other. We get on with the job in hand and trust that our own message and teaching will get out there in the end. What follows is not directed at any individual.

2. I believe there is no one-way of being a man. Portraying stereotypes is unhelpful and shallow. Human beings are far more complex than any stereotype. People hear my accent and see my build and assume I’m into everything that’s macho and despise anything that looks weak or wimpy. Assumption is the mother of all catastrophe. I play piano, write poems and don’t like football. I also love to cook and don’t mind watching a chick flick with the girls. However, it is true I also love gadgets, shooting stuff, meat, fire and loud music. Big deal. I have testosterone. Some of my mates who also of course have testosterone like none of these things. Big deal. Lets get on with the real task in hand. Millions are dying without Christ. We need all our talents, eccentricities and personalities on task.

3. Projecting ‘macho” as the only type of man speaks to me of deep inadequacy and insecurity. If you were truly a man (of whatever type) you wouldn’t keep needing to talk about it. You would simply live it, demonstrate you are truly comfortable in your own skin and point beyond yourself to Jesus. We tend to bleat on about what we struggle with most. Be mindful of this next time you get a hobby horse!

4. I believe people should be allowed to be comfortable to be whatever they have been made by God to be, within the framework that the bible gives us. Some men will be artistic, others born to lift heavy weights. One is not superior to the other IMO.

5. Being a husband is a huge privilege. The bible tells us to lay down our lives for our wives. I see myself as the thorn on the rose, protecting the rose so that it can flourish and take the lime light. I am called to apologise first, take the hit and carry the can. I love my wife as Christ loved the church….by dying to myself. Lets talk about that before we talk about anything else. IMO, if you take the ability to do that away from me I don’t have much else. This is where feminism goes wrong. More on this another time.

6. Men should use their strength to protect the weak and stand against the abuse of power. There’s a good use for our testosterone. I can’t think of a better one.

7. Do I think my wife is weaker and more easily deceived and that for this reason I should be in charge? Of course not! In fact I feel that this sort of teaching massively insults my wife and I take issue with it in the strongest possible terms. How dare women be spoken of in this way. In fact, if Genesis is used for that argument we should conclude that men are less intelligent and gullible for eating the fruit offered in the first place. This smacks of culture deeply affecting the reading of scripture and control stemming from fear.

8. Every human being is an amazing and stunning creation. There is no place for bullying, intimidating, harassing, stereotyping or squashing another person or ministry. Taking strong issue with something is a different matter.

9. Jesus exercised power and strength with nails through his skin and bone. Sometimes we need to remember this.

10. My greatest heroes are those who serve humbly, walk diligently before God and lay their lives down. It’s not about following someone with greater physical strength who can handle himself in a dark alleyway.

Hope that helps for now to at least begin to understand where we are at with some issues. Don’t forget to check out the code. Its going ballistic and men are finding faith in Jesus through it.

Grace to you

Carl

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Every month for 2011 we will be releasing a study guide based around the codelife initiative. 12 codes; 12 months. The January guide of codelife unlocked is available now!

Tackling code I – ‘Jesus is my Captain, Brother, Rescuer and Friend’, codelife unlocked uses Scripture, story and questions to challenge and sharpen our faith.

The download is free, although we do ask for a small donation. Use it as a personal devotional, use it in a small group of guys – however you like!

Be inspired and equipped to “fight the good fight” alongside your brothers.

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This is a quick email to let you know about the resources based around the codelife initiative that are coming your way to help you reach and make disciples of men.

• From January there will be a monthly Bible study download from the website. Every month will see 4 studies (or one a week) to help “unlock” The Code. We will be using all kinds of media and each month will focus on one code in particular. So that’s a whole years worth of material.
• In May we will be publishing “The Manual” with Monarch. This will be a back pocket devotional book that contains a hard hitting thought on each code with prayers, poems and other devotional material.
• We have already launched the new Beechy and Willmott podcast. This is a “cross over” resource that is designed to be evangelistic. We discuss in a fun way the issues that men often wrestle with and seek to finish up by taking people to the Bible. It’s pitched to be light hearted, honest and edgy. It’s not a Bible study but we will be focussing in on issues that living by the code raises.

Alongside this we have available “codelife cards” to keep in your wallet, stickers, t shirts and church packs as well as a DVD of the launch conference.

This is in addition to all the other great resources we have on offer to help men find Jesus and equip the church. Have you pre-ordered the “men” DVD? It contains all our insights on how to gear your church up to introduce men to Jesus! Only the other day a guy from our speakers list came up to me and said. “four more men in the kingdom as of the other night!” We are hearing this more and more!

Let’s keep praying and being in faith for 1 million men to find Jesus in the UK!

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We receive lots of encouraging stories from men across the UK who have attended a CVM event. Check out this letter we received from ‘Bob’ (not his real name) who attended the National CVM Conference – Codelife 2010, earlier this year.

Dear CVM,

First of all I want to say a big thank you for the conference last month. This I the first time I have been involved in this type of event and despite several reservations before hand it was an incredible experience!

I just wanted to briefly let you know of the significance of the weekend for me. Once I finally convinced myself to attend (yes, like a typical guy, I don’t make anything simple!) I realized that this could be a great opportunity to spend some valuable time with God without some of the usual distractions of everyday life. So I decided that I would aim to deal with a particular area of like which clearly needed addressing. Prior to the conference I prayed and prayed… I told God that I really wanted to deal with this area and asked (actually begged at times) for his support.

The thing is you see, I am a relatively new Christian and have a lot to learn. However the one thing that has become evident is that God doesn’t do things in the way, or time I would like. Therefore, intellectually I realized that despite my prayers and my intentions God wouldn’t necessarily do what I had planned!

A quick silly example which illustrates my point – when I first became a Christian I prayed that God would help me sort out some particular issues from the past. Instead something amazing happened and I found overnight that I wasn’t swearing nearly as much as I used to. That’s great I thought: God has given me something which was amazing and free… but where was my bloody answer to my prayer (as you can see there are still some lapses in the swearing!)

Anyway – back to the conference. I was having a wonderful time and enjoying all aspects of the weekend. We got to Sunday morning and was just starting to think about the long drive home when God turned up – poked me in the ribs and answered my prayer… instantly! Since that day the area of my life which so needed addressing has changed, It’s not always easy and I clearly have to put effort into avoid temptation – but God has done the hard work for me… he has changed my heart again!

So there you go. Just a quick example of how cool God is. You guys are doing an amazing job and I thank you all once again for providing an environment which helped me hear God.

Cheers all.

‘Bob’ attended Codelife 2010. Are you coming to The Gathering 2011? CVM are changing the National Conference to accommodate more men, having more fun! Find out more …

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In ‘Heaven is for Wimps and Posh Women – Part Two’ I mentioned the way Jesus once told people about hell, using an accessible, ‘earthly’ place as an analogy. I think he sometimes talked about heaven using earthly ‘hooks’ in the same way. He said, for instance, there would be wealth in heaven—treasure—but not like earthly wealth. He hinted that valuing that kind of wealth went with a complete change of mindset—‘where your treasure is, there will your heart be also’[1].

You could say that was a bit like the sermon I heard where the evangelist said you wouldn’t enjoy heaven unless you were a Christian. But Jesus started from where people were. He reminded them how earthly wealth gets stolen and possessions deteriorate and He simply said that heavenly wealth doesn’t[2].

That’s a good investment in anybody’s book, especially after the banking crisis. He said that heaven’s wealth was a complete step up in value. He helped us grasp a bit of what this means—but only by letting a bombshell drop which puts all of economics in a completely different light. He said that the whole business of handling earthly wealth acted as a test for whether a man could be trusted with any of the stuff in heaven, at all[3].  He called that ‘true riches,’ which makes out earth’s wealth is sort of counterfeit by comparison. In the same conversation, he also seemed to hint something else about heaven, to do with wealth, which is mysterious but tantalising. He seemed to be saying that we don’t really know on earth, what it is to truly own something for ourselves[4]. We will be trusted with real ownership, only in heaven. In the light of that—what a con, earthly greed will turn out to have been in the end.

Will a bloke just sit around, just listening, sometimes singing and doing mostly passive things in heaven, like in most church services? I don’t think so. Jesus hinted that we would have responsibilities. He used the picture of us governing cities.[5] I think this means we will be useful.

The last book of The Bible says that we will be servants of God, reigning and bringing glory and honour into the heavenly ‘city’[6]. We’ll be working, doing stuff.  And I don’t think it means things like handing out the heavenly service sheets or checking the heavenly PowerPoint projector either. In fact, because Jesus seems to think that every aspect of heaven is bigger, more real and more significant than any counterpart on earth, then these responsibilities are going to dwarf any previous ones we’ve ever known. We’ll be more use in heaven than we ever were on earth.

But since we know there’ll being nothing bad in heaven, this won’t come with the grinding pressure or the fear of failure we know here. We can’t understand how, yet, but I think these responsibilities will be perfectly fulfilling, challenging and satisfying, without any downsides. And like the way we handle earthly wealth, Jesus made out that how we handled earthly responsibilities was a test for what heavenly responsibilities we would be trusted with.

There’s another mysterious hint about all this in the picture language of the last book of The Bible. It says that on reaching heaven, God will give each of us a new name and we will each be the only person who understands that name[7]. In other words, as far as God’s concerned there is something uniquely special and valuable about you and about how and why He made you.  There is a unique secret between each of us and God. Being finally told what it is, is a reward not a punishment. Some have said that it’s something to do with the work we’ll be doing. Some have said it’s something to do with each of us being made to appreciate a unique aspect of God. Whatever it is, it’s part of what we were each created for and it must be worth more than any other gift we could ever be given.

A man can sometimes look at a drop-dead gorgeous woman and feel something different from lust. Sometimes just what she looks like can speak of wisdom, grace, openness, strength and peace. Writers have used the phrase, ‘the face of an Angel’. This may be the closest many men come to what the World means by worship. Heaven must be where we find that earthly feeling is just a shadow of the real thing; where  the spell can’t be broken by some earthly ‘angel’ opening her mouth and telling you to … off, or breathe out the smell of stale cigarettes.

A man can turn to drink, drugs and loveless sex to look for satisfaction and fulfilment but fail to find it and become a slave of these things. Heaven must be the place where a man finds complete satisfaction and fulfilment in the only kind of slavery which gives him true freedom, and that is in service to God.

The preacher I mentioned in the first blog was right. Heaven must be full of praise and song and is only heaven because we will meet Jesus. But the praising won’t just be a passive, endless gazing at someone. Worship (praise) even in this life is described in the Bible in terms of how we live our lives[8]. So in heaven surely it will keep us involved in the most meaningful, useful, important, challenging, interesting and rewarding stuff we could imagine and beyond imagining. I don’t think time as we know it will be an issue. Any ‘singing,’ (to use our poor idea of singing), will be something more than we can now understand and it won’t depend on earthly talent or musical appreciation. It will be more welcome to us than water to a man dying of thirst.

Many men come closest to heaven on earth, at home with their family or with a bunch of mates they’ve shared adventures and hardships with. But for many people this ends in conflict, broken relationships, pain and regret. And death finally brings an end to all friendship and family bonds.

One picture of heaven in the Bible is a celebration feast with Jesus and the saints—our elder brother and our brothers and sisters in Christ[9]. But this image of heavenly friends and family isn’t going to inspire me deeply, if I’ve never had a strong bond with my Christian brothers and sisters in this life. And perhaps the secret truth deep inside many of us is that we don’t feel massively inspired, day by day by the prospect of eventually meeting Jesus. Perhaps this is related to why we don’t have a strong bond with our brothers. Perhaps it’s because virtually our only experience of Jesus is from reading His story in the Bible, wonderful as that is.

Only as we move on from that first knowledge and acceptance of Him and take risks in life, doing things for Him and with Him, which put our time, our comfort, our peace, our money, our career and our safety on the line will He begin to make himself known to us more and we know Him more.[10]

Only as we do this with a band of brothers will we feel a bond with them.

Only in this way will we begin to truly look forward to meeting Him and his saints as they shout ‘COME ON!’ to us on the home straight.

Only by doing this will we start to find out what heaven is like in this life, because it’s going to happen in the New Earth anyway.

Only as we do this will we know that heaven isn’t for wimps and posh women, but it’s where men find out what being fully masculine is about. And for that matter it’s where women find out what being fully feminine is about, posh or not.

So sign up to Codelife and just do it.

[2] Matthew 6:1,2

[3] Luke 16:11

[4] Luke 16:12

[5] Luke 19:17

[6] Rev chs 21 and 22

[7] Rev 2:17

[8] Rom 12:1

[9] Matthew 26:29; Rev 19:9

[10] Hebrews 6:1-3; John 14:21

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There have been some great additions to codelife.org recently. If you haven’t been there in a while, here’s what you can find:

• The Codes
• Share – Download graphics, videos and buy merchandise
• FAQs on The Codes
• Sign Up – join this new movement

Merchandise includes: T Shirts, Full Codelife Pack, stickers and cards.

Using all these resources is a great way to spread the word about CODELIFE. Share the videos. Stick the logos in your email footers, on your profiles. Grab stickers and stick liberally (and legally). Use the CODELIFE cards to always have something on you to give to someone else.

It’s all there for you to use! Go for it!

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Watch Carl deliver his rousing closing talk from CODELIFE 2010.

As with all our videos, if you like it – tell people it about it! Email it to a friend, stick it on your blog, tweet about it, post it on Facebook … Hover over the video to bring up the sharing options.

If you want a hi-def copy to show a group of guys, why not get the complete DVD set from the conference? 3 DVDs including all the main sessions and Barry Woodward delivering his testimony on the Friday night.

You can order your copy now.

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code I from CVM on Vimeo.

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The banter was being served in pint glasses. Hundreds of men sharing their lives and smells together at Warwick University Campus; in the heart of Coventry. (Genius marketing there).

We met to support CVM’s vision to encourage British men to follow Jesus. What I absolutely loved was in amongst our desires to learn about holiness and our eagerness to belt out songs of praise to our Creator, I could taste the banter between men from every corner of the UK. I got mocked for my Fireman Sam accent, Carl was slated for his love of the fight montage in Rocky, and one guy was awarded for looking like a spitting image of Graham Kendrick. We loved it.

I realised something a bit mental last weekend. Our careers, our clothes and our characters are mere costumes God has given us to live out our Christian lives. The external layers to our journeys enable us to function from day to day, but they are not our driving force. And on realising this I attempted to redefine the term ‘banter’. I think it is the necessary prodding of an external layer to remind a man he did not create himself.

I love banter in its true form. Women hug and cry over coffee (so do I but moving on) and men have banter. One guy said I was a cross between Fireman Sam and a breezeblock. Hallelujah. Humbling, hearty and hilarious. I can imagine our loving heavenly father doubled over with laughter with some of the comments.

Let’s redefine banter for a word that has replaced it with a vulgar distant cousin.

Peace

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