Chick-Fil-A, Homosexual Marriage, “Haters”, ‘n’at

(This tile is in honor of the fact that I'm an incurable "yinzer" [those who say "tinz" rather than "y'all"] from Western Pennsylvania.  That's the way we talk, and it means, "And that")

Life in a fallen world batters all of us in one way or another and there is no escape from this condition so long as we have pulses and continue to engage in the respiratory exchange of carbon-dioxide for oxygen.  And while this may sound like some controversial theological assertion, it is one so well attested across the broad spectrum of life that even Sir Mick and the Rolling Stones have observed that, "you can't always get what you want, but if you try real hard, you will find, you get what you need."

The interplay of this notion combined and re-combined with current events and popular sentiment have been bouncing around the inside of my skull for the better part of this past Spring and unfolding Summer.  It has all un-spooled in my head as I watch and hear a seemingly endless stream secular and ecclesiastical advocacy and counter-advocacy proposing or opposing establishment and recognition of homosexual marriage in the civil and sacred spheres.  This has been doubled and re-doubled within this past week as Chick-Fil-A founder and CEO S. Truett Cathy’s comments in opposition to homosexual marriage have sparked a veritable barrage of charges, counter-charges and salvos of either boycott threats or enduring promises to eat only “Christian” waffle-fries and fried chicken sandwiches.

Now for me, a theologically-orthodox and conservative mainline Protestant clergyman (almost an oxymoron by definition), living in an increasingly libertarian/libertine secular Western nation, these discussions are of the highest importance because of their capacity to harm a great many people who cannot (in my estimation) perceive their own peril.

I know, recognize and appreciate that the tide of the civil debate is turning against me and that increasingly I am culturally, philosophically, theologically and politically “on the other side” of these issues.  And, in and of itself, this doesn’t particularly bother me; I’ve spent so much time outside of the main-stream on so many different issues that I’m fairly comfortable living my life on the margins — the fringe.

In argument, discussion and debate, I am generally able to make at least a semi-competent and somewhat persuasive case for my contrastive and competing intellectual/philosophical positions.  The “rough-and-tumble” of debate has never bothered nor dissuaded me from articulating the positions I hold, and I even relish a good argument when conducted within the bounds of common civility, the basic laws of logical discourse and the mutual respect owed to all human beings possessed of the Imago Dei (the Image of God) resident within each of us — no matter how badly defaced by our common fallen nature it may have been rendered.

I can even be a gracious loser when I’m not in the majority — or, at least, I am in the sense of being the loyal gadfly and a loving but frustrated announcer of jeremiads (kind of like British minority parliamentarians giving the Prime Minister a collective “Razzberry” during the weekly “Question time”).

But then this Summer IT happened.  We officially “flashed over” in our collective definition of “tolerance” from its being a mutual toleration of each others existence, views and peculiarities without violence or undue molestation to a new definition that stresses our need to “fully accept, embrace and even applaud” those peculiarities — even when we disagree and seriously believe that critical warnings against immanent danger and harm are required.  From a practical standpoint, this means that those of us who do not support the notion of homosexual marriage equality because we find it [a] nonsensical, [b] logically and ontologically (the reason for being) non-existent, and [c] dangerous to the temporal and eternal well-being of the very people seeking its institution, are labeled as “haters” and “fear-mongers” for the very reason of our disagreement.

This may sound reactionary on my part (and in some measure it probably is), but let us consider several latent facts lying-about on the ground around us.  For the better part of the past three decades the made-up term “homophobe” has been bandied about and applied to anyone who disagreed, for any reason, with the progress of normalization and intellectual assent (not mere toleration) to homosexual practice and its attendant lifestyles (yes, I’m fully willing and ready to admit that the “LGBTQ community” is far from monolithic).  Now, let’s look at the definition of the term asserted: “homophobe” means “fear of homosexuality and of homosexuals.”

I have never feared homosexuality nor homosexuals in the way in which many of society's and the church's most strident “movement-advocacy” groups and individuals have asserted.  I do not believe that if I come in contact with a gay or lesbian individual that I am somehow polluted, corrupted or infected.  I will not suddenly become gay the day-after-tomorrow.

The other “big accusation” against those of us protesting this process of normalization is that we are “haters”.  Haters of what and of whom?  I realize that the very term “hater” has come into vogue in the standard English lexicon, but it is such a ridiculous and monumentally inexact “verbal-noun” that its very premise is fatally flawed when used against anyone other than such misanthropes (haters of humanity) as a Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Kim Jong-Il who genuinely detest what it means to be human apart from their warped and un-natural definition.

And, again, I have never hated homosexuals.

I will, however (for the sake of argument) admit to being a “hater” — if that is the term folks insist on applying to those who detest and oppose a set of lifestyles choices that  we find morally objectionable and eternally dangerous.

Now, let me “un-pack” what I just said: I find homosexuality, as a self-embraced and practiced lifestyle to be “detestable” because of the harm it is capable of causing (I believe at an eternal and ontological level) to people about whom I care greatly and for whom I have profound respect on account of that very “Image of God” within them.  I fear that they are harming themselves.  Similarly, I detest the “lifestyles” of murderers, molesters, alcoholics, idolaters, adulterers, fornicators, thieves, perennial gossips, cheaters, frauds, misanthropes, etc. of every stripe and kind.  But this opposition to any of the above-enumerated behaviors is rooted not in self-adulatory or self-righteous moralism.  It is, instead, utterly rooted in my self-awareness and-understanding as a horrible sinner saved by God’s grace alone extended through the propitiatory (that which removes God’s anger) sacrifice of Jesus of Nazareth upon a Roman cross at the instigation of the Second-Temple Jewish Sanhedrin.

To have such a self-awareness and -perception means that one is desperately far from considering him-or herself any better than anyone else.  Rather, it means that the individual in question sees him- or herself as having been rescued from a life of “eternal spiritual and moral death and decay” by someone else.  This self-understanding further requires an entirely new lifestyle of worship, thanksgiving, gratitude, positive discipleship, a constant repentance for the grievous wrongs we commit everyday, and a new and developing desire to act differently and proclaim the hope we’ve found to those who have not yet heard that great and abiding news.

This is precisely the understanding, awareness and attitude commended by the Apostle Paul to his disciple and protégé, Timothy, when he says in I Timothy 1:8-17 (ESV):

•     “Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
•     “I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.”

Paul here announces his own culpability, the mercy and grace that have been extended to him, the commission entrusted to him to share this same news with others of like-mind to his former condition.  Paul is seen here to be anything other than the misanthropically bigoted misogynist and curmudgeon he is so frequently portrayed as being.  Rather, he is the proclaimer of his own sinful idiocy “striving for all he’s worth” to proclaim to other “sinful idiots” that there is genuine hope of real change, healing and life eternal in place of a pre-existing sentence of condemnation and eternal death.

Consider these things in the following manner:
A man or woman may, theoretically, saved him- or herself from choking while sitting in a booth at a restaurant by performing the Heimlich maneuver upon him-or herself against the table’s edge.  This would be akin to society’s never-ending affection for self-help and self-improvement schemes.  That said, I defy anyone to show me a single case in which someone suffering cardiac arrest has ever performed CPR upon him- or herself.  It is not only improbable, but utterly impossible.  And this is precisely the place in which every man woman or child who has ever lived finds themselves morally and spiritually.  Unless that grace and mercy are applied to our dead, decayed carcasses by an alien and external propitiation and righteousness, we remain dead.

Now, I will here make several concessions for the sake of honesty:

• There are always sinfully self-deceived and self-righteous people who are essentially moralists parading as Christian believers saved by the grace of God alone.  They stand as condemned as any other until they receive the grace extended by Jesus Christ alone.  Fred Phelpps is incapable of extending grace because he has so obviously never received it himself.
• Such discussions as this one will always engender difficulty, discomfort, distrust, and disharmony, but if we are to honestly understand each other and practice genuine toleration rather than a merely anemic and truncated “tolerance”, then we MUST grapple with them and extend to each other the acceptance of the Imago Dei  in each other.
• Many poly-theists, agnostics, non-theists, atheists, secularists, Non-Trinitarian Theists and others will reject my essential Trinitarian Theistic starting premise --- that God is self-existent and has created all of humanity in His own image, and that this created universe (and all within it)  are irretrievably fallen and broken apart from God’s grace and forgiveness.  Because of this, many will, by good and necessary consequence, reject the notion of the Imago Dei; and yet, unless and until they invent some other similar construct, we will never arrive at mutual respect and care for each other as people.

These are the core beliefs that I hold, promote and pronounce.  For me, they are the very sine qua non (that without which, nothing) of my existence.  I have been placed in the very town in which I graduated from college because, at some cosmic level, God has a sense of humor and decided to return me to “the scene of the crime”, even as He sent out Paul to announce that same Gospel before me.

So to return to my opening theme, I realize fully that “I can’t always get what I want”, but I DID “get what I need”.  I may well lose the battle against civil and ecclesiastical recognition of homosexual marriage, but my core conviction remains un-altered because I must offer allegiance to my King, Jesus Christ.  Similarly, those who oppose where I stand will not get what they want, either.  I remain unconvinced that homosexual marriage is an ontological possibility, and I will stand opposed.  But I hope and pray that they will find that same grace that was freely given to me by God when I did not deserve it, and I continue to hope this precisely because I care so deeply for them.  And, when it comes to genuine hatred and INTOLERANCE (of the classical variety) handed to any, I will stand with them against it!

May the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, of His great and enduring mercy extend grace to us all in genuine encounters with Him.

“Brothers & Sisters of God’s Only Son?”

DATE: Sunday, 27 March 2011
TEXTS: John 1:1 - 5, 9 -14 & 16 - 18; Romans 8:12 - 17 & Hebrews 2:5 - 18 [ESV]
TITLE: “ Brothers & Sisters of God’s Only Son ? ”

Pastor: Let us hear the Word of God!

JOHN 1:1 - 5, 9 - 14 & 16 - 18
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. . . .
. . . 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, yet the world did not know Him. 11 He came to His own, and His own people did not receive Him. 12 But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . .
... 16 And from His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, Who is at the Father's side, He has made Him known.

ROMANS 8:12 - 17
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

HEBREWS 2:5 - 18
5 Now it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. 6 It has been testified somewhere, “What is man, that you are mindful of him, or the Son of Man, that you care for Him? 7 You made Him for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned Him with glory and honor, 8 putting everything in subjection under His feet.”
Now in putting everything in subjection to Him, He left nothing outside His control. At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Him. 9 But we see Him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God He might taste death for everyone.
10 For it was fitting that He, for Whom and by Whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the Founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. 11 For He Who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers, 12 saying, “I will tell of Your name to My brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing Your praise.”
13 And again, “I will put My trust in Him.” And again, “Behold, I and the children God has given Me.”
14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore He had to be made like His brothers in every respect, so that He might become a merciful and faithful High Priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because He Himself has suffered when tempted, He is able to help those who are being tempted.

RESPONSE:
Pastor: This is the Word of the Lord!
People: Thanks be to God.

SERMON: “ Brothers & Sisters of God’s Only Son ? ” Pastor Stuart

Brothers & Sisters.

Popular wisdom tells us that adoption is a terrible, though sometimes necessary, practice that rips children away from their natural parents and leaves them forever bruised and scarred emotionally, socially and spiritually.

We've heard the horror stories about adoption on TV magazines, seen it portrayed in numerous made-for-TV movies and mini-series, and read more of the same in news magazines. Usually, these stories tell us of the tragic emotional tug-of-war felt by adoptees who search for long-lost biological parents, of the trials and tribulations of adult adoptees who feel worthless because they don't possess their own family histories, or of those made to feel inferior or second-class to natural children born into the same family.

And even when we hear positive stories about happy adoptive families with normal well-adjusted children, we must face the fact that adoption and adoptive children still face a certain social stigma. The practice makes people feel funny and the children are often told verbally, or in practice, that they are “damaged goods,” unwanted and unworthy of real families.

Statistics and biographies of individual kids provided by social service agencies, adoption services and national foundations all indicate that it is quite difficult to place orphans with prospective families and that the working definition of “hard-to-place and special needs” children is basically: “any non-white child over two years old or any orphan with siblings.”

Many of us have probably seen TV interviews and appeals with Wendy's's Restaurant founder and adoptee Dave Thomas. Thomas, who founded and leads one of the nation's foremost adoption foundations, regularly promotes that cause on the morning and afternoon talk-show circuits and spends incredible amounts of time every year actively seeking willing adoptive families for some of these “hard-to-place” or “special needs’ kids.”

According to Thomas and others, adoption is apparently as thorny an issue among Christian families as it is among non-Christian and utterly unchurched families. We, as a community of believers, seem unwilling to take in orphans and give them love, nurture and shelter.

This fact is both odd and sad.

It is odd because we, as a community and body of believers, are called by our Lord and Head to take in and care for the widow and the orphan. It is sad because it shows our community’s refusal to return the favorable treatment we have all received as a body and as individuals.

You see, all Christians are adopted into a new family other than the ones into which we were born. God the Father, who has only one true-born Son, adopts all of us as His own children and invites us to partake of life in a large and loving family.

This is the great truth and mournful irony presented by our opening illustration, our Scripture Lessons and Heidelberg Catechism Questions for this morning.

Those two questions clearly present the issue as they ask us:
[1] Why is Jesus called God's "only son" when we also are God's Children?
[2] Why do we call Jesus "our Lord"?

All three of these lessons show us the absolutely essential understandings of who we are in Christ, what this identity means for us and what it must mean for the community around us if we really believe its truth. And these understandings are especially important for us during this Lenten season as we examine and meditate upon Christ's work, ministry, death and Resurrection and their meaning in our lives.

In our first lesson, we find John's classic words describing the creation of the universe, the place of Jesus Christ within that creation and the meaning of His life for humanity. John opens his gospel by giving us a five-verse summary of the Genesis 1 creation account by telling his readers that the Messiah and Savior Whom he is about to introduce to them is no less than God, the Creator and Sustainer of all that exists.

The first references and introduction we receive of Jesus are the mentions of Him as the “Word of God” Who is Himself God and the life and light animating and sustaining all people. And as we search more deeply into the meaning of these words, we find John saying that Jesus “the Word of God” is both present and active in the spoken words of command and creation uttered in Genesis 1 by God the Father. He possesses the full power, light, life and meaning of God and supplies these qualities in varying measure to the things He creates.

Christ, the Son and Word of God, is the exact essence and substance of His Father and radiates the same glory, power and majesty onto the creation. The universe, and its creatures all bear the unmistakable stamp and authorship of the Messiah who created all things.
These verses also give us a clear, if incomplete, impression of the Trinity. They describe for us the Son’s integral, abiding and unbreakable relationship to the Father while also showing us that the Father and the Son are — and always have been — separate persons of the God head, but that they are united in substance, purpose and will.

We then discover in Vv . 9-18 that this eternal “Word of God” becomes fully human and lives in order to share with us the joys, pains, trials, and temptations that populate human existence. He became like us in all things except sinfulness so He could share our human-ness and deliver to us the light and new life that are give to us when we live lives of faith in obedience to Him and to His Father.

This Light and New Life are the justification and sanctification we receive from Christ when, through God's grace, we have faith in Him. These are themes we've seen played-out in the last several weeks as we reviewed Jesus' life, ministry and work as prophet, priest and king.

Unfortunately these scripture lessons, and our lessons and catechism questions for today all show us that we humans, the very ones Christ came to seek and save, have largely rejected Him, His work and His message.

There is Good News, though. Those who receive Him, His grace and His work through the gift of faith do receive acceptance, joy and forgiveness from God. But beyond this, there is still something else that we receive through Christ's sacrificial death and Resurrection that we haven't discussed yet. It is something equally fundamental, but more amazing than the knowledge that God forgives and transforms us.

John tells us that in addition to the other things God provides for us, He also gives us the right to claim a relationship to God and call Him our Father. We receive this right because we have been re-born through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit at work in us and have become new creatures in Christ through faith.

And it is this new and right relationship with God that Paul tells us about in his letter to the Church at Rome. Paul affirms and strengthens John's assertions and doctrine by plainly and boldly telling us that we are no longer mere physical creatures born of the flesh, blood and the desire of our parents.

Rather, through our faith in Christ we are given the gift and strength of the Holy Spirit Who enables us to “put to death” our old behavior as He so heals and transforms our lives and character that we are re-made as new creations who live and work as integral parts in Christ's Body.

As these new creatures, we are a people redeemed through the pain of Jesus Christ, the Suffering Servant, Who died and was resurrected to make us free from sin and death and acceptable to God. He became one with us in our humanity. He is our Older Brother Who shares our trials, perfects our nature and adopts us as His own brothers and sisters.

He then insures that we are equipped with and clothed in those qualities of truth, life, light and righteousness we need to sit in God's presence as His children.

In V. 15, Paul tells us of our release from slavery and captivity to sin and death and of the adoption that we receive through Christ. He loudly proclaims that Christ doesn't buy us from our slavery only to make us slaves again to fear and death. When He releases us, we are indeed released.

The apostle is refers to the ancient Jewish concept and practice of kinsman redemption in which one bought relatives out of their slavery in debtor’s prison at great personal expense so that his relatives' good standing in the community is restored. Paul then carries the symbolism a step further by describing the Roman practice of adoption in which one was adopted, generally by a wealthy or aristocratic family, and became the Heir to all of the family's titles, honors and possessions. This person's past life and family were gone to him and he would become the fully accepted legal heir.

Christ is our Kinsman Redeemer. He paid the incalculably high cost of our freedom from sin and death through His suffering and death of the cross. The Resurrected Christ then announces to His Father that He has not only bought our freedom, but has adopted us as His own siblings and co-heirs with Him in the Father's Kingdom.

Because of His work as Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer and the transforming presence and action of the Holy Spirit in our lives we are enabled to call God “Abba - Father” just as naturally as Jesus does, or as we do when speaking with our biological parents.

There is no second-class relationship here. We aren't unwanted or damaged goods that God is reluctant to take as His own. He planned from eternity to redeem and re-claim us — even at such a high personal cost — because He loves us so intensely. We are the chosen and very much loved adopted children of the Eternal Parent.

This is also the clear and abiding message of our lesson from Hebrews. Here, we find that our “adoption records” refined and sharpened and take on a fuller and more personal clarity than what we find in even the preceding two passages.

Here we see that God makes us in His own image, crowns us with incredible glory and honor as His image-bearers and places all things under our control and for our use as His good gifts. He then commissions us to be the stewards over that creation and honors us with rights, duties and privileges unlike those given even to angels.

What's more, He places such high value upon the image of Himself resident in human beings that He willingly sends His own beloved Son and Heir to us as a the perfect human redeemer, king and priest who makes the perfect self-sacrifice needed to atone for our sin and evil and to settle our accounts and make us whole, sin-free and righteous.

This passage tells us that it had to be this way. Christ had to share our human nature fully so He could justify and sanctify us through His priestly atoning sacrifice of Himself. And it is as our human brother that Christ sympathizes with us in our pain, trials and temptations and is able to help and heal us.

And in sending His Only-begotten Son and Word to become the perfect human and eternal high priest, God makes certain that sin and death are overcome and uprooted by Christ's Resurrection from death. In this way, humanity gains victory and Lordship over sin and death.

This means that our Older Brother is the Lord over creation who became Man in order to make us righteous before His Father in order that we may also claim God as our Father, and thus, be proclaimed openly and publicly by Christ as “His brothers and Sisters.”

We have become God's own children because Christ, God's only-begotten Son and the Lord of Creation, has made us righteous before His Father and brings us to the foot of the Father's throne, in effect saying, “Father, these people whom you have given to me, I now claim as My own kin. They are My siblings and Your Children.”

This means that we, as those who have been adopted into another person's family, must value and honor the great gift we are given. We must, therefore, always be willing and ready to take up the “family chores” assigned to us by our Father through our Older Brother.

He commands us to mind after our human brothers and sisters, taking care of them and sharing the incredible news of our adoption with them. We are then commanded to tell them that they too may share our good fortune and be adopted by God the Father through faith in Christ and His completed work.

For us, here at the corner of Franklin Street and Highland Avenue, this means we continue to be good neighbors, friends and relatives to those around us. We must continue to offer aid, comfort and healing as we received them through Christ. We will continue to work with the Feed My Sheep Food Cupboard. We will keep demonstrating love and leadership in and through the borough and townships. We will continue to engage both local and wider-church mission projects and to work with our own kids and those in the community who are spiritually rootless and confused.

But our adoption also means that we continue sharing our faith with all the "hard-to-place" kids around us because they are our own brothers and sisters. We will carry the message that Jesus Christ sacrificed His own life to redeem us from slavery to sin, death and the constant power and temptation of Satan so He may present us before His Father as much-loved brothers and sisters. In all of these things we are faithful and we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and enable us to live as the much-loved and quite-loving and well-adjusted children safely lodged at home in the Body of Christ, Who is our Older Brother and our Lord.

Amen.




This sermon covers Question & Answer 33 & 34 From the Heidelberg Catechism for Lord's Day # 13. The Heidelberg Catechism was originally designed and written as Reformational preaching catechism.

Q33] Why is He called God's “only Son” when we also are God's children?
A33] Because Christ alone is the eternal, natural Son of God. We, however, are adopted children of God adopted by
grace through Christ.

Q34] Why do you call Him “our Lord”?
A34] Because not with gold or silver, but with His precious blood He has set us free from sin and from the tyranny of
the devil, and has bought us, body and soul, to be His very own.

"What Is My Only Comfort?" --- Lord's Day 1 Sermon from the Heidelberg Catechism

DATE: Sunday, 2 January 2011
TEXT: Psalm 8:1 - 9; Matthew 10:26 - 33 & Romans 8:18 - 39 [ESV]
TITLE: “What Is My Only Comfort?”

✠ ✠ ✠ ✠ ✠

Psalm 8:1 - 9

1 O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth!
You have set Your glory above the heavens.
2 Out of the mouth of babies and infants,
You have established strength because of Your foes,
to still the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which You have set in place,
4 what is man that You are mindful of him,
and the Son of Man that You care for Him?

5 Yet You have made Him a little lower than the heavenly beings
and crowned Him with glory and honor.
6 You have given Him dominion over the works of Your hands;
You have put all things under His feet,
7 all sheep and oxen,
and also the beasts of the field,
8 the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea,
whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O Lord, our Lord,
how majestic is Your name in all the earth!


Matthew 10:26 - 33

26 “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. 27 What I tell you in the dark, say in the light, and what you hear whispered, proclaim on the housetops. 28 And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. 29 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. 30 But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. 31 Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. 32 So everyone who acknowledges Me before men, I also will acknowledge before My Father Who is in heaven, 33 but whoever denies Me before men, I also will deny before My Father Who is in heaven.

Romans 8:18 - 39

18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. 19 For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him Who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. 23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? 25 But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And He Who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. 28 And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose. 29 For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? 33 Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, Who was raised — Who is at the right hand of God, Who indeed is interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written,
“For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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Heidelberg Catechism Questions & Answers:
Lord's Day 1

Q1] What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A1] That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.
He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven: in fact, all things must work together for my salvation.
Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.

Q2] What must you know to live and die in the joy of this comfort?

A2] Three things: first, how great my sin and misery are; second, how I am set free from all my sins and misery; third, how I am to thank God for such deliverance.

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Sermon:

Our sermon title for this morning comes from Question and Answer 1 of the Heidelberg Catechism, a German Reformational teaching tool written in the 1560s, and a part of the Presbyterian Church [USA]’s own Book of Confessions. That first question asks, “What is my only comfort in life and in death?”

The answer to the question is, by our contemporary standards, quite long, but also quite good. It is one that goes along with the rediscovery, or re-emphasis, made during the Reformation by Martin Luther, John Calvin, Thomas Cranmer and others; that rediscovery was of the Doctrine of Grace. The answer to the question, then is, “That I am not my own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. . . .” The answer then goes on to either cite, or allude, to parts of virtually every one of our passages for this morning, plus a great many others. Had I used all of these passages this morning, I’d still be only half-way through the Scripture readings; so, I settled for the three I chose as being among the most representative.

The central message for this morning, though, is one that we can never forget or lay aside because it is nothing less than the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

We are not our own! We are bought for a price — and a high price, at that. We belong body and soul, in life and in death not to ourselves, but, in fact, to our faithful savior Jesus Christ.

And, as we think about that, we must recognize and realize that this is essential.

It is so significant, in fact, that I not only picked the question as my title, but you’ll see on the title-art for the sermon slide on the worship screen that I chose the classic Christian symbol, the fish — filled in with Greek letters and topped with an “Alpha”, “Omega” and a crown. The main symbol, called the Ichthus, which is Greek for “fish”. Who here this morning has not seen this symbol done in chrome on the trunk lip or back bumper of many cars? In fact, many of us probably own one.

Now, we need to break down those Greek letters inside the fish:
∙ Iota = the first Greek Letter in Ieseus, the Greek for JESUS.
∙ Chi = This is the first letter in Christos, the Greek for Christ.
∙ Theta = This is the first letter in Theos, or God.
∙ Upsilon = This is the first letter in Whious, or Son.
∙ Sigma = This is the first letter in Soterios, or Savior.
∙ When put all together, what you have is “Jesus Christ, God’s Son, Savior” in the of a Greek acronym that spells out “fish”.

Both Church history and legend tell us that this was a code symbol used by early Christians to identify themselves to each other in the earliest days of Roman persecution — the days when Emperor Nero liked to use Christians as lawn torches at his garden parties. If a believer met someone on the road, for instance, whom he suspected might also be a believer, then he would scrawl an arc in the dust with his toe or with a stick. If the other “believer” actually was a believer, then he would draw an intersecting arc to form the fish’s body.

Now, on top of the fish, you’ll see the “Alpha” and “Omega” that represent the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet — that the Resurrected and Ascended Jesus uses to identify Himself to John at the beginning of Revelation, when he says, “I am the Alpha and Omega, the First and the Last.”

Finally, between the “Alpha” and the “Omega”, you’ll see a crown which signifies that Jesus is the “King of kings and Lord of lords” from Isaiah 9.

Moreover, this is a message that Jesus, Himself, took quite seriously as He basically tells His listeners in Matthew 10, “Don’t worry, God has you in the palm of His hand because He cares for and loves you. He worries about you and takes time with you. If He takes care of the birds in the sky, and you are worth many times more to Him than the birds, then He’ll take care of you as well.”

And we have those glorious words from Psalm 8 that we looked at this past summer: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is Your name in all the earth! . . ,” and going through this great litany, asking the question, “What is man that what is man that You are mindful of him, and the Son of Man that You care for Him? Yet You have made Him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned Him with glory and honor,” referring to us humans with respect to our Savior — God’s own Son, Who was Himself fully human. And because of that, we have a kinship with God. We’re not just creations. We are not merely clay pots made to be molded and then broken upon the rocks. We are not merely paper upon which doodles are written, and which are then wadded and crumpled up and thrown into the waste bin or burned in the fire.

No. We are God’s own creation. And He does care! And He does ransom us from the very body of death and then leads us through our sufferings!

And I like the way Paul phrases this in Romans 8:18 - 39: “For I consider that these present sufferings are nothing to be compared against the glory that will be revealed to us” — and some translations render this as “the glory to be revealed in us.” Now, stop to consider just how magnificent that is.

And this is so very significant because there’s a frank, flat acknowledgment that suffering will, and does happen; but this suffering does not have to be definitive. How many of us have met people who seemingly can’t get beyond one particular trauma in their lives? We all have those traumas in our lives that are deadly serious and difficult to deal with — the death of a loved one, or some particularly severe reverse that we’ve suffered, crippling pain or a chronic malady we’ve endured (there could be any one of dozens to consider here). But we slog through. Not always well. Frequently with great discomfort — but we slog through, nonetheless. There’s a frank acknowledgment here that we can.

Paul’s looking at a situation in which he’s only a couple of years removed — literally as well figuratively, since Nero decided to remove Paul’s head from his shoulders, if church tradition and history are to be believed — from severe persecution of the Church. He sees people persecuted on a daily basis, some of them even killed. He sees them being crucified. He sees them being fed to the lions and used as Tiki torches on Nero’s front lawn. And in the face of all of it, he can still say, “That’s NOT all there is.”

There are days when I’m just having a grumpy day — a fit of the “sweltering grumpies”! I “got up on the wrong side of the bed”, and it’s not getting any better, and I want to declare the day a total disaster about 40 seconds after my feet hit the floor. And yet, Paul, looking at the very real possibility of a short, brutal and ugly life and death, and in the face of that, and can still say, “I consider these present sufferings as nothing to be compared against the glory to be revealed in us.”

That’s amazing!

It means that there is something there that fundamentally changes us and then holds us up and supports us in our gravest extreme. I found it interesting that this passage is one selected for Carolyn Hundertmark’s funeral down in Bakerstown. And these were words from which Carolyn derived enormous comfort and hope because she could look at what she was enduring with her ultimately terminal cancer — and she knew that all of you were praying for her, and she’d gotten all of your cards and letters — and she knew that even more than your presence, she had God’s abiding presence with her every day. He had neither left nor forsaken her. What she was enduring had a purpose, if it if was not one she could discern; she was satisfied that those answers would come.

In all of this, and far, far worse, these are abiding words of hope. They are words that tell us that we are not stuck on some eternal “hamster wheel” doomed eternally to chase our own tails to no purpose. That is so incredibly important!

It is important because, if we do not see this order, purpose and hope engendered by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone, then we are highly susceptible to the notion that, somehow, God’s grace and mercy are quantities to be bought, earned or merited. When we do that, we lose sight of what it is that God has given to us. We act, at that point, as though somehow we are giving something to God. We come to act as though somehow He depends on our generosity rather than we relying on His incalculable grace and mercy. But when we understand afresh that it is God Who has already called us out, Who opens our eyes by the gift of the Holy Spirit, that we can come to faith in the One Who transforms us by faith in His Son’s death, Resurrection and Ascension. It is He Who makes us new people and transforms us at a core level so that we are able to do those things that we could not do before.

How many of you have seen that “sock-puppet” commercial for the “Debt Monkey”? Sin is like that Debt Monkey: it hangs on; it clings on; it grabs you around the neck and tries to put you in a choke-hold — constantly trying to convince you that you are not good enough and will never be good enough — and that everything you ever try to do or accomplish will be sub-standard, and that you will never be acceptable. So you might as well just give up.

But this is the “great deception”. It is the deception that seeks to keep our eyes from the truth. It is the deception that seeks to keep our eyes from the slave’s chains that bind us while simultaneously trying to convince us that we are free when, in fact, we are already chained. But, in fact, we receive our true freedom when we acknowledge that we are owned by Christ — “body and soul, in life and in death.” He brings us the freedom we have because He brings us into the family.

God the Father adopts us as His children in order that His Son “might be the firstborn among many brethren”. Because of this we share a kinship with God Almighty and are very much His beloved children.

Again, this was another theme that shone so powerfully, like a beacon for Carolyn Hundertmark. Every time she heard those words, that we are adopted so that He might be the firstborn among many brethren, she cried in joy. We’ve all met her two young granddaughters, Grace and Hope, both adopted from China, both very much loved, both very much within and members of that family, and never regarded as anything other than firmly rooted in that family, and Carolyn knew that she, too, was regarded as being a member of God’s household by adoption through Christ Jesus.

We, too, are members of God’s household. And as members of that household, we are family members, not servants, not cleaning staff, not cooks or butlers or back-stairs staff.

“What is man that He is mindful of us, or the Son of Man that He cares for Him?” We are the brothers and sisters of the King, and the Father has high regard for us because of Him. And this is “our only comfort in life and in death”, that He has — and this is a promise in which I always place great stock — “even the hairs of our heads numbered,” (for some of us, that’s easier than for others!). He has the days of our lives marked out and measured out; He knows them from beginning to end. He knows our trials, temptations, tribulations and walks through those difficulties with us, never letting go of our hands.

The whole of Scripture, from beginning to end, is an prefigurative enactment of that eternal Gospel:

• Whether it’s Noah and his family — the eight of them on that ark: God leads them onto the ark. Does He take them out of the midst of the flood? No. He protects them in the midst of it and walks them through it, and then guides them through to the other side.
• Moses and the Israelites: They didn’t levitate across the Red Sea. They had to go through the Sea (granted, they went through it dry. But, they went through it, nonetheless) and a “sea of troubles” to their deliverance on the far side. Israel had to go into captivity for 430 years. And when they are delivered from that captivity, it’s for another 40 years of learning hard lessons. Yet, it is always with God’s direct presence literally in their midst as He “tabernacled” among them.
• The Babylonian Captivity: Israel had to go into another 70 years of captivity in Babylon to be broken — to remember Who God is and their relationship with and allegiance to Him.
  

Christ is our template. We share in His sorrows and suffering. Those sufferings mark us out as His. And He never deserts, forsakes or walks away from us. Rather He lifts us up and strengthens us, and then guides us through them so that we might come through on the other side. And in that, He makes us — as that first question of the Catechism ends — “from then on wholeheartedly willing and ready to live for Him.”

It’s a change at our very core.

Grace is free, but it costs us everything we have and are because we belong, fundamentally, to God. And yet, it IS free, and it’s extended to us because of God’s great bounty, and mercy, and His love and His grace. Grace upon grace, stacked up, packed together, shaken together and overflowing. Let us cling to that with all that we have and all that we are.

Truly this Gospel is “our only comfort in life and in death! Amen.

Pastor Rusty's November 2010 Highlander Column

NOVEMBER 2010
PASTOR’S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

As I began considering the intertwined and related Eighth and Tenth Commandments for this installment of our study, I thought back on my time as a security guard while I was in seminary. I saw a great many things that truly astounded me and came to the conclusion that we people are “interesting critters” who continually provide our own proofs of original sin.

To refresh our memories, the Eighth and Tenth Commandments, as recorded in Deuteronomy 5:19 & 21 are, “And you shall not steal. And you shall not covet your neighbor's wife. ... or desire your neighbor's house, his field, or his male or female servant, his ox, his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor's.”

A case-study in the total violation of both the “letter and spirit” of these commands came for me in the form of one particular fellow security guard with a kleptomaniacal fixation with office supplies. He always arrived at work looking neat and trim in his uniform, working through his eight-hour shift. But invariably, when he “punched-out” at 7:00 A.M., he appeared seven to 10 pounds heavier around the middle than he did eight hours earlier. Short of starting his own Staples’ franchise, I don’t know what he planned to do with all that stuff. . . or how this guy with “bulges and rolls” in all the wrong places escaped detection for six months. By the time he was “laid off”, he must have “creatively acquired” five to six dozen boxes of ball-point pens and a case or two of 20-pound bond copier paper from supply stocks he was supposed to protect.

My time as a dockhand with a Pittsburgh-area tourist-boat company also provided “grist for my mental mill”. For most of my tenure there, enormous quantities of food were squandered — left to spoil. And, while this may not have been the obvious theft occurring in the first example, it was equally dishonest and repulsive. You see, meat (generally, prime rib or chicken) was weighed before it was loaded aboard the boats’ galleys for dinner cruises. It was then re-weighed when the boats were off-loaded. This meat was then left to sit and spoil overnight in open warming trays. Then it was “re-”re-weighed in the morning. If any of the meat was missing, some employee would be fired and grand theft charges filed against him or her.

Food was never given to employees, a food bank or soup kitchen. That is, it was never given away until someone in the Front-office discovered that donating food to one of the city’s food banks would net a big public relations benefit for company. This theft was the “theft of trust and of human responsibility”. The meat had never before been donated or used, but always left to rot.

I'm not saying that donating food is a bad thing — I thought it was great that Pittsburgh’s hungry would be fed. But the motivation for the donation was all fouled up: “We'll just let the food rot, unless, of course, we get some sort of tangible double-return on it!”

Both of these examples point out the real-life problems people get themselves into when they violate the related commandments against stealing and coveting. This is God’s message, warning and command to us from scripture and catechism. And it's all so simple, so basic. Yet, all-too-frequently we assume that so long as we haven’t “knocked over” a bank or gotten busted stuffing VCRs under our jackets and jumpers at Wal-Mart that we've somehow obeyed these commands.

But, if we look at these commandments, we see that while they forbid outright theft or robbery, they also forbid us from longing for the possessions, affections and goods belonging to other people.

Simple, straight-forward and easy to follow, right?!? One would think so, but then that's where we run into the answer to Heidelberg Catechism Question 110 and the prophet Micah's words of challenge and warning:

• Q] What does God forbid in the eighth commandment?

• A] He forbids not only outright theft and robbery that are punishable under law, but also cheating neighbors with schemes that are too good to be true, or through false weights and measures, false merchandising or advertising, counterfeiting, charging of excess interest (Note: call my credit card company, I've been ripped off! ) or through greed or the squandering of God's good gifts.

And this answer to the catechism question is the substance of Micah's message to the people of Israel and Judah.

• MICAH 6:8-16

• 8 He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
• 9 The voice of the Lord cries to the city ...: “Hear, O tribe and assembly of the city! 10 Can I forget the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, the scant measure that is accursed? 11 Can I tolerate wicked scales and ... dishonest weights? 12 Your wealthy are full of violence; your inhabitants speak lies, with tongues of deceit in their mouths.
• 13 “Therefore I have begun to strike you down, making you desolate because of your sins. 14 You shall eat, but not be satisfied, ... you shall put away, but not save, .... 15 You shall sow, but not reap; you shall tread olives, but not anoint yourselves with oil; you shall tread grapes, but not drink wine. 16 For you ... kept Omri’s statutes and the works of the house of Ahab, .... Therefore I will make you a desolation, ... so you shall bear the scorn of my people.”

He tells them they are ignoring God’s clear intent in these commands and that He is really flamed about their disobedience. Micah describes the “on the ground” situation in which the wealthy cheated the poor when they bought and sold their merchandise; farmers clear-cut their fields at the end of the harvest rather than leaving some of grain for gleaning by the poor. The poor, in turn, resorted to theft of wealthy farmers' crops because they were hungry or felt cheated.

In short — Rampant Immorality! In practical contemporary terms: this would be like going to the grocery store and buying 5 lbs of potatoes for the price of 10 lbs. because the manager “fixed” the scales. Or, conversely, it’s like switching the price tag on a 10 lb. bag with one from a 5 lb. bag so you don’t pay full price. . . . Or, swiping company office supplies because the “big execs have too much money already;” . . . or, letting left-over food rot until “we figure out how to make double profit from it.”

Regardless how we try to square it, it still amounts to covetousness and theft. And when we succumb to the temptation to covet or desire things that we haven't earned or that don't belong to us, then, Micah warns us, God will give us over to our evil desires.

But when He does, God ensures that, even if we get what we ever coveted, we'll never be satisfied by it. The leaders and common people of Micah's time didn't listen to him then, and, even now, many, many people still fail to listen to these words of correction and warning. Today, we tend to be attuned to glitzy commercial advertising, to the lottery and sweepstakes and to a culture that truly believes that because we’re “modern and civilized and sophisticated” we’re somehow entitled to get “something for nothing”.

The underlying problem, however, is the same one Jesus addresses in His commentary on the Eighth and Tenth Commandments in Matthew 6:19-24 as He shows us that such desires actually rot away our souls and leave emptiness and corruption behind.

• 19 “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; 20 but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
• 22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light; 23 but if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
• 24 “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Christ shows us that “where our treasures are, there our hearts are also.” When we cease to rely on God for our “daily bread” and the necessities of life, we begin to rely on ourselves. We put ourselves in God's place and figure that we can do a better job than He does.

“If then the light in you is darkness -- how great the darkness”?!?! We come to expect “getting something for nothing” and find, instead, that Micah’s promise and Jesus’ words come true in real life. We get “nothing for something” as we exchange our health, wholeness, prosperity and God's providence for endless desires that are never satisfied and lead us to ever-greater emptiness and eventually Hell.

We will have falsely weighted our own scales and God will say to us, “Sorry, but that's the full measure.” In practical terms, God may forgive us for our covetousness and evil desire, but He will not excuse us from the consequences of our actions. That’s why so many compulsive gamblers and “quick-scheme operators” are miserable. They have mislaid the real prize and don't know where it is.

But, in a more positive fashion, Jesus also reminds us that if we are faithful and seek God's good gifts we will never be disappointed. We may never own the way cool Porsche, or win the lottery or have as may CDs or DVDs or clothes as we want, but we won't suffer by our own hands, either.

If we, who are too often inclined to give false measure — to play with the scales to even the score — are willing to do well for our children, how much more, then is our loving Father willing to give to us if we'll only rely upon Him?

I challenge all of us to consider how our personal scales measure up? Are we trusting our heavenly Father, or watching the scale's balance needle on our own? Let's all remove the excess weight, the desire that kills us and trust God to provide full measure of what we need rather than what we may want. So then, “How are our scales measuring up”?

Grace & Peace,
PASTOR RUSTY ✠

Pastor Rusty's October 2010 Highlander Column

OCTOBER 2010
PASTOR'S COLUMN

Brothers and sisters,

One of the all-time great teen-age boys' pick-up spots is the senior high church youth group. It is so popular because it is neutral ground, it's a place Mom and Dad are comfortable with and because — at least in the minds of most of the teenage boys I've met — no one will suspect church boys of trying something!

I can remember, as a kid, hearing other guys trying to sneak kisses, hugs and such-like with girls they were sweet-on. I also remember hearing the girls in questions saying things like: “CUT IT OUT! We're in CHURCH !"

Girls at this age just seem to be naturally brighter than boys about such matters.

Now, this may seem an odd way to begin a column, but such reminiscences and scenarios are particularly relevant to us this month as we begin our look at the Seventh Commandment (Thou shalt not commit adultery) — no matter how old we are. And they are so relevant to us because they serve to remind us of a valuable and powerful truth about relationships, commitments, trust, covenant and the ever-present fight against lust in an age and society seemingly driven by lust and the prurient.

Even here in sleepy Slippery Rock, the youngest and most vulnerable among us are increasingly “sexualized” and “objectified”. One need only walk past the “girls department” at Wal-mart to experience the real sense of coarse oppression under which we labor as we encounter entire clothing racks of “thong underwear” designed for five and six year old girls! Heidelberg Catechism Questions 108 and 109 bring laser-like Scriptural focus to the topic of sexuality, fidelity and lust.

Those driving questions this month are:

• What is God's will for us in the 8th commandment?

• Does God forbid only such bad sins as adultery, itself?

As we seriously and honestly examine both ourselves and these questions and the commandments they address, we should recognize and admit that the core problem we face goes far deeper than simple adultery. That, in itself, is a critical difficulty in a society where teen-age “hook-ups” are incredibly common and the divorce rate stands at nearly 50 percent. But, all of this stems from the root problems presented by unconquered or uncontrolled destructive desires, emotions and temptations that lead to the sin of adultery.

If we're honest with each other and ourselves, most of us are forced to admit that the intent goes far deeper than adultery; we know we stand convicted of our disobedience and sin and that our sense of timing and of appropriate place really stinks. Now, that last phrase probably has some of you wondering if I'm little tetched — a proper place and time for lust or adultery?

Bear with me for a moment, though, as we take a quick look at some relevant scripture texts and you'll see what I'm talking about:

• DEUTERONOMY 5:1 - 3 & 18:

• 1 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them, “Hear, O Israel, the statutes and the rules that I speak in your hearing today, and you shall learn them and be careful to do them. 2 The Lord our God made a covenant with us in Horeb. 3 Not with our fathers did the Lord make this covenant, but with us, who are all of us here alive today. . . .

• 18 “‘And you shall not commit adultery.’”

This simple, straight-forward passage from Deuteronomy forbids a very easily understood and particular set of pre-defined activities. Adultery is condemned. You may not have sexual relations with the husband or wife of another person. If you are married, you may not have sexual relations with anyone other than your own spouse. God forbids it. Period. It's really that simple.

Confusion, however, frequently arises because we get adultery and fornication tangled. Both are forbidden, and are related, but are different infractions. Fornication is any sexual relation between any two un-married people. Both proscriptions bind our Christian lives. But only adultery is specifically referenced in the 10 Commandments.

But, both activities are forbidden because they are a form of theft in which the offender steals a form of intimacy and affection from the one and only person to whom that affection rightly belongs — the offender's spouse or future spouse. Moreover, both have their roots in lust and lead us to deepening levels of impure thought and behavior which, in turn, open us to other obvious sins and to that worst of all sins, idolatry.

The temptations to sin are both obvious and abundant.

The risk of idolatry is more subtle. It becomes an issue because our thoughts and feelings about the wonders of the human body and about intimacy over-ride the sense of obligation, the devotion and the meditation which we rightly owe to God.

How many of us know someone so enamored of someone else that he or she just can't think straight? How often do we hear stories about those left devastated and robbed of their ability to trust because of a spouse's real or perceived infidelity? No less than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, while she was first lady, was obviously troubled and touchy on the subject of her husband's dalliances with Jennifer Flowers and Monica Lewinski.

All of these items stem from lust, the desire to possess the intimacy and affections of another person. And these are just the points that Christ made when He offers His own commentary on the Law in Matthew 5:27 - 30: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.”

Christ points out to us, as only God's only Son and Lawmaker can, that the intent of the commandment is rooted in the overthrow and defeat of simple thoughts and desires — not just by actions. Whether we like it or not, thoughts and emotions lead to actions for most people. Perhaps none of us will ever actively go out and fornicate or commit adultery, but off-color jokes, leering looks and inappropriate comments might follow from such lustful thoughts.

It's the old principle: Garbage in, garbage out.

How often do we see such garbage offered to us on television, in magazine, in books or movies? How often does one hear such things while listening to Don Imus, Howard Stern or while watching the sitcoms Friends, Two and-a-Half Men or The Office?

Our Lord tells us we must work actively to avoid impure thoughts and actions. He says it in such a blunt and graphic way that even when we're being deliberately dense, we can't miss it's importance. I don't think Christ actually means for us to rip out our own eyes and sever our optic nerves, or that we should take meat cleavers to our extremities, but we must avoid anything — thought, word, glance or behavior — causing us to stumble into sin.

Surely, there is still forgiveness for those who have committed these sins, but we must consider that our King -- the King of kings — gives clear marching orders for our progress on the road of Christian faith and discipleship.

Even beyond that, as Paul tells us in his letter to the Corinthian church, we who have been redeemed by Christ and have felt the cleansing presence of the Holy Spirit are now walking, talking temples or churches of Jesus Christ. For us, this means that we must think back to the days when we would hear the girls say, “Cut it out, we're in church!”

Paul's words in I Corinthians 6:14 - 20 are binding upon us and remind us that, as Christians, we carry our churches on our own backs because we are the Church: “Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food” — and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? . . . your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.”

We are never out of God's sight and we never leave His presence. He knows and sees all. We must always be careful because this is a God-given matter of trust, not merely some issue about which God is incredibly close-minded.

God knows that we needs Him and each other. Adultery and fornication distort or rupture our relationship with God. They destroy or shatter our relationships with each other.

And, as little as we may think about them after a few months or a year, these sins can come back to bite us many years after the fact. Thinks about Bill Cosby and his reputed daughter Autumn Jackson. Yes, Cosby told his wife, Camille, about his affair with Jackson's mother, and they were reconciled and have stayed together despite the breech of trust.

But, a quarter-century after the fact, the issue raised its head and an old wound was re-opened to inflict new hurts and pains for all concerned: For Cosby and family. For Jackson and her mother. For the other man who claims paternity of Jackson.

Much of the fall-out that results each year from the explosions within families rocked by adultery and fornication could be eliminated and the pain and harm diminished if Christians would spread the message of purity and familial trust delivered to us by Moses 3,500 years ago at Sinai.

We must force ourselves to remember that all of us who believe are each temples of Jesus Christ that hold the light of the world for all to see and believe.

And then we must ask ourselves again, “what won't we do in church?”

Grace & Peace,
PASTOR RUSTY ✠

Highland Presbyterian Church Sunday Sermon: Sun., 5 September 2010

DATE: Sunday, 5 September 2010
TEXT: Psalm 146:1 - 10 [ESV]
TITLE: “Put Not Your Trust in Princes!”

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TEXT:

Psalm 146:1 - 10

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
2 I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.

3 Put not your trust in princes,
in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.
4 When his breath departs, he returns to the earth;
on that very day his plans perish.

5 Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
whose hope is in the Lord his God,
6 Who made heaven and earth,
the sea, and all that is in them,
Who keeps faith forever;
7 Who executes justice for the oppressed,
Who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
8 the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
the Lord loves the righteous.
9 The Lord watches over the sojourners;
He upholds the widow and the fatherless,
but the way of the wicked He brings to ruin.

10 The Lord will reign forever,
your God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!

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INTRODUCTION:
Danger comes in many and various forms and temptations are seldom overtly ugly, or else the dangers would not be half so dangerous, and the temptations would not be tempting.

Now, taken in passing, this statement might seem both innocuous and self-evident, but as with a great many things in this life that we live (and, fallen human beings being who and what we are), the Devil is quite literally in the details.

I mention this now, at this time, in the wake of Fox News’ commentator Glenn Beck’s “Divine Destiny” pep-rally at the Kennedy Center and his much larger “Restoring Honor Rally” on the National Mall. On the surface, these events were quite successful and drew at least a couple hundred thousand souls who handsomely filled the Mall from the World War II Memorial to the Lincoln Memorial. Some 250 largely evangelical pastors and leaders from a variety of denominations and para-church ministries participated, thereby, lending their patronage and prestige to the event and adding to its overall popularity.

And this is precisely where the Devil began to enter the details — its popularity lent the twin rallies a patina (or veneer) of evangelical respectability and popularity. The rally was conservative , both culturally and politically; it was a high energy event that made full use of Beck’s inherent personal charisma and his considerable popular communications skills.

BUT . . .
And this is a huge but, this so-called moment of “national revival” was, at best woefully inadequate, and, at worst, spiritually fatal to the gullible — it was possessed of the ability to critically wound the naive and the unwary.

Now, right at this point, some of you will be quite vexed with me, or inclined to think that the knot has slipped my mental thread. After all, Beck shares many of our cultural values; he is a political and fiscal conservative and he mentioned “god” so frequently, so positively and with such enthusiasm that it seemed totally on “the up-and-up”; “what possibly could be Rusty’s problem?!?”

Chiefly, I have two problems, but they are major systemic, foundational problems that revolve around a third even more central and overwhelming Biblical problem addressed by our text for this morning:

• PROBLEM ONE: Glenn Beck has now billed himself — both explicitly, and by implication — as a spiritual leader, mover and shaker of the “Religious Right”. This is, at best, problematic because, [A] Beck is Biblically and theologically under-informed to uninformed; and, [B] he is not a Christian; he is a highly committed and active Mormon.

• PROBLEM TWO: The god to whom Beck repeatedly refers and directs our attention is a generic god of secular civil religion, and the religion itself is not orthodox Biblical Christianity, but rather, the limp, anemic counterfeit of publically-accepted ceremonial civic Deism — that is to say it is the “cosmic watch-making god” of Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin who is seen to have constructed and “wound-up” the universe only to watch it “run-down”. This is the idolatrous god of Franklin’s vain imaginings who “helps those who help themselves.”

The third, and by far most serious, of the problems, as I mentioned above is that this god presented last Friday night — and all day last Saturday — is not the God of heaven and earth presented generally in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments and, specifically, in Psalm 146. Beck’s god is not the only true God who is Sovereign Monarch Who rules over His subjects not only with supreme justice, righteousness and holiness, but also with love and grace. This God, Yahweh, the Lord, is the one Who “executes justice for the oppressed”, “Who keeps faith forever” (even when we are faithless), “Who gives food to the hungry”, “Who sets prisoners free”, “Who opens the eyes of the, lifts up those who are bowed down, and loves the righteous”.

This Biblical God is, most assuredly not the god appealed to by Glenn Beck last Saturday in the nation’s capital. Our God is not the god who offers only “individual salvation” to those who work hard enough, well enough and sinlessly enough to “make the grade” and merit salvation.

So it is here that we properly begin our study, this morning, into the Scriptural God of Psalm 146, who tells us through the psalmist “put not your trust in princes; in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.”

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BODY:
As with Psalm 8, we don’t know a great deal about this psalm or the events surrounding its composition. And, again, it is one of the psalms traditionally attributed to David. But as we examine it, several important things should powerfully strike us about it “right out of the gate”.

First among these considerations is the fact that, as with Psalm 8, and so many others of the psalms, it is immediately apparent that David presents us with a portrait of a personal God with Whom he is well acquainted and for Whom he has a genuine love, high regard and definite passion. Again, God’s personal name, Yahweh, represented by the Tetragrammaton, Lord, is heavily used — in fact, “Lord” appears 11 times. Additionally the personal pronouns “He” and “Who / Whom” are used an additional six times, and the explicit descriptor, “the God of Jacob” is also used once.

I do not mention this to either bore you with statistics, or to hone your skills and “personal knowledge bank” for Trivial Pursuit, but rather because these references make it, or should, abundantly clear that David speaks of one Whom he knows and knows well. This is no amorphous, anonymous god who is either unknown or lightly regarded.

This understanding is crucial to grasping the faith and life of believers, and its importance cannot be overstated. We love, praise, worship and serve a known and knowable God Who has, does and always will reveal Himself to us. Whether here in the psalms, or a millennium later with Paul at Mars Hill in Athens, the believer is called to know, praise and proclaim this Covenant God of ours (remember Paul, in Acts 17:23 saying, “For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription, ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you.”).

Psalm 146 begins and ends, as our lives of faith should also begin and end, with praise, literally with shouts of “Hallelujah!” to the triune Lord of heaven and earth because it is His very existence, His creation and rule of the entire cosmos that brings us order, purpose and hope, especially when we are suffering and in need of God’s salvation.

Vv. 1 & 2: Praise the LORD! Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being: David begins this psalm by calling for praise to Yahweh, something that can only be considered and accomplished if one genuinely knows Him. And, in fact, this psalm can be seen structurally as a responsive reading for worship, much like ones we still use to this day, a feature common to many if not most of the psalms. That said, picture David calling out to the assembled Israelites saying, “Praise the LORD!” to which they respond, “Praise the LORD, O my soul! I will praise the LORD as long as I live! I will sing praise to my God as long as I have my being.”

The opening two verses set the tone and tenor for the entire psalm and call us in a very definite way to look toward and offer our praise, even the whole of ourselves — our very being and essence — back to the Lord “from Whom all blessings flow.” We are called to offer this praise (and this act itself goes far, far beyond some sort of supernatural cheerleading because God is neat and nifty) for the whole of our earthly and resurrected lives. In light of the Resurrection, and what we know of both salvation and condemnation, this is the full sense and impact of the statement “as long as I have being.” We will never be without being. Whether in this earthly life, or after our natural deaths, we still have being and stand in the presence of the ever-living and all powerful God.

Vv. 3 & 4: Put not your trust in princes;, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth; on that day his plans perish. The hue and cry in life is frequently, and realistically always has been, to call for our leadership from “the best”, “the strongest”, “the most telegenic” or the “most novel proponent of change”, whether conservative, liberal radical moderate, or what have you. This is a temptation that goes back to the very foundations of the human family, and it’s a product of sin and the Fall that beset us continually.

Though we are here warned that we should never put our trust and hope in those who are physically, spiritually and morally unable to fulfill the mandate they either seek, or that we seek to thrust upon them, we nonetheless “pursue the dream” of new and better utopias (that mythical perfect state that always, without exception, turns quickly into dystopia, the habitation of evil and dysfunction). We see it early, in Genesis 4:23 & 24, under the self-appointed leadership of Cain’s son, Lamech, who boasted to his two wives, “Adah and Zillah, hear my voice, you wives of Lamech, listen to what I say: I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain’s revenge is seven-fold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold.”

We see it time and time and again, even in the covenant people:

• as they leave from Egypt, and many followed the leadership of Korah and Dathan (in Numbers 16) as they rebelled against Moses’ leadership under God, and sought to implement the coming “new thing”. Korah, Dathan, their sons and families were destroyed and buried by God in the sun-baked sands of the Sinai.

• In Judges 16 we have The Israelites attempting to follow Samson, the strongest, by far among them, as a Judge over Israel. He very nearly led them to destruction at the hands of the Philistines, and only won in the end by his suicidal pulling down of Dagon’s Temple.

• Then, we see the Israelites demand a king to replace God’s chosen judge and priest, Samuel. God gives them exactly the king the ask for when he commands Samuel to appoint and anoint Saul as their king. Despite promising beginnings, Saul’s kingship was disastrous. It led to civil war on account of Saul’s personal jealousy and thirst for personal power. Saul allowed himself to be slain by his armor-bearer rather than be taken by the Philistines in a losing battle. He died on a hill and his plans perished with him.

Even in this past century, leader after leader of movement after movement in nation after nation have led their followers and nations into the götterdämmerung of broken dreams, slaughtered lives and burning nations. And, all because they dreamed grand and lofty dreams, sought fantastic visions, but almost always either ignored God completely or so twisted His word and His designs that their systems became satanic havens of cruelty, abuse, tyranny and destruction.
Consider:

• The “Christian Empire of Russia” and the “Christian Empire of Germany” went to war in 1914 dragging all of Europe, Western Asia, Africa, India, Australia and North America in World War I in which military and civilian casualties — wounded and killed — were posted at 39 million in the four-and-a-half years of the war. That’s nearly 9 million per year — the population of one New York-sized city per year wiped out every year for four years.

• This was immediately followed by the beginnings of the Russian Civil War and the beginnings of the 70-year-long communist Soviet Empire in which another 12 - 15 million people were killed between 1917 and the beginning of World War II.

• World War II erupted as Hitler’s “glorious 1,000 years Reich” and Japan’s “Empire of the Rising Sun” plunged the entire world into the hell of war, death and destruction in the name of “scientific racial superiority” and their mutual and allied attempts to control massive territories and create new utopias. In 1945, the once-flat plain upon which Berlin was constructed, for the first time had hills in the city that were the remains of the thousands of buildings leveled by the Red Army and Allied bombing campaigns. Another 60 Million dead in seven years. Hitler took cyanide and shot himself in the head. His breath departed from him and his plans perished.

No matter the time frame, Scripture’s clear warning rings out. Princes promise many things. They may even promise national salvation and the “1000 year Reich”, but they never produce the promised results. The only crops they ever produce are the massed field of cross-shaped tomb-stones that litter a thousand-thousand fields and hillsides around the world. Death, destruction, mayhem and misery are their commodities produced in train-load lots.

It is for this reason that the psalmist says, in the parallel verses of Psalm 118:8-9: “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.”

Will we never learn?!?

There is only one solution to our difficulties: trust in the Covenant God of Jacob who offers this salvation through the completed work of His Son, Jesus Christ who is the King of kings and Lord of lords. And this brings us to the next section of the psalm.

Vv. 5 - 9: Blessed is he whose help is in the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the LORD his God, Who made heaven and earth,... keeps faith forever, ... executes justice for the oppressed,... gives food to the hungry. The LORD sets the prisoners free,... opens blind eyes, ... lifts up the bowed down, ... loves the righteous, ... watches sojourners, ... upholds the widow and orphan and brings the way of the wicked to ruin. Our trust, loyalty, faith and service should be placed firmly and always in the God who truly is our only hope. This is the unlimited and all-powerful Covenant Lord who made heaven and earth and all that is in them. He is the one Who knows us warts and all, at our best and our worst; He knows us when we rise and when we sit and lie down; He knows us through all the seasons, trials, tribulations and temptations of our lives and has made provision for us in His eternal will.

Despite some of the best care in the world, socially, medically, politically, militarily and any otherwise, we are protected, preserved and lifted up not by the size of our armed forces, not by our social service and welfare systems, not by our representative republican government, not by our scientists or anything else other than by the hand of the known and knowable God of Jacob. He is the one Who uses all of these other programs when they work, and do not seek the credit for themselves. But when they seek to usurp His domain, or claim some other lord, temporal or religious, He dashes them to pieces and sends them, as President Ronald Reagan once observed to the “dustbin of history”.

We must reckon on, meditate upon and understand these verses and to the reality to which they point. We must see that they refer to the completed work of God in His universe among the people whom he created, breathed the breath of life and in whom He placed His image — that same image to which we referred last week as we studied Psalm 8.

We must see that this is the God of remnant Who has time after time, century after century and epoch after epoch made covenant with His people whom He has chosen for Himself. He has ransomed, released, transformed, empowered, saved, sanctified and preserved them from the very beginnings of human history to the very present.
We live in a university town, and Slippery Rock Township and Borough are at the very heart of our school district. Three months ago, we passed through the baccalaureate season and recognized our highschool and college graduates. We’ve listened to them as they’ve shared their dreams with us. We’ve commiserated with them as they’ve compiled their resumes (the curriculum vitae) in the sometimes elusive search for that first big job.

Right here in these verses we possess God’s accomplished C.V., His eternal resume. It is not padded, it does not misdirect, mislead or lie. It is the "real deal".

And this resume of His is the accomplished list of those things that He has done, even now and ever-will completes on behalf of those who are His. This is more than a list of promises of “new and better tomorrows”; is the accomplished listing of the Creator, redeemer and sustainer of the entire cosmos.

This past week, Nobel laureate physicist Stephen Hawking, the Newton Chair at Oxford, announced that God was unnecessary and that “theories about His role” in creation and history are either, at best illusory wishful thinking, or at worst, detrimental to humanity’s future.

Thus speaks “human wisdom”.

But, Hawking, undisputed super-genius that he is, misses “the big picture” while mired in the minutiae of his theories and calculations. He is severely misled, is misleading others and in as desperate need of the God of Heaven and Earth as every other human being ever born.

And as we look to these verses, we are, or should be, struck by the ways in our ever-faithful God provides daily for us, and of the demands that He places upon us based upon His super-abundant providential supply of our needs.

In fact, we must consider that this resume is repeated over and over again throughout Scripture and points the way to God’s greatest provision for us in the atoning sacrificial work of Christ in the cross. These verses “set the score straight” and point us to Isaiah’s prophesy in Isaiah 61, which Jesus references in Luke 4:18 & 19 and fulfilled by His death on the Cross and Resurrection from death: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.”

Many kings, princes, presidents and other leaders have pledged and promised to do grand and noble deeds. They offer us milk and honey, but deliver vinegar and ashes. They promise enlightenment and broad vistas of human potential, but lead us to intellectual dead-ends and the abasement of human dignity. They promise to release the oppressed from their bondage, but bind the body, the soul and the spirit to ever deepening and debased degradations that mock God and strip away the dignity over our God-created nature and His image within us.

Once understood, even if imperfectly, as creations, we now join with Lamech and declare our independence of God and our supposed freedom. And in so doing, the world around us, particularly this western culture of ours, has bought into the great lie and counterfeit. As St. Paul tells us in Romans 1:21 - 25:

• . . . although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.

Glenn Beck is correct that the calculus of God’s salvation is an individual one. All human beings must come to a point of decision and choose whether they will love, serve and follow the God who created and saves us, but he has missed the point that this salvation, while individual, is always lived out in community.

As Christ, the Lamb of God, has died for us to ransom us from the consequences of the Fall, He has done so, that, by the inward power and witness of the Holy Spirit, we might fully live into the delivered promises made by our Triune God.

And this brings us round again to where we began this morning’s study of Psalm 146.

V. 10: The LORD will reign forever, your God, O Zion, to all generations. Praise the LORD! Our call is to always remember and seek Yahweh, the LORD, our eternal God Who has reigned and held the entire universe in the palm of His hand from eternity past unto eternity yet to come.

We seek and find Him through His only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ the Lord as we experience the intercession and work of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and minds in order that we may truly see, know and understand Him.

We begin, live out and end our lives of loving fellowship with this utterly holy, righteous, just, loving and grace-filled God of ours in the same place: we are filled with reverence, holy fear, love and praise for Him.

Whether we always recognize it or not, He does reign forever. He is The King Who truly provides for His subjects and has so designed and worked His plan that He enables us to be far more than mere creations. Instead He calls us His own children and has so arranged things that the “Father/Children” relationship is no mere appellation and title. Instead it is an ever present reality by virtue of our adoption through the atonement won by His own Son, our Lord.

We are truly His legal children and heirs. The God Who takes care of the widow and orphan has ensured that we are orphaned no longer because we have an eternal Father Who never forgets or forsakes us.

So we truly are enabled to live out our lives of thanks and praise in real time everyday by living into the salvation to which He has called us and which He has definitely delivered.

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CONCLUSION:
Our call is to be faithful to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Our call is to proclaim and publish the grace of God available only through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Our call is to do the works of Him Who calls & sends us, even when that means getting our knuckles dirty.

To say this does not mean that we don’t get involved with politics. It does not mean that we cannot have political opinions or that we remain aloof from philosophy, the arts, sciences, and the frequently messy nitty-gritty of daily life in the here and now. But it most assuredly does mean that our first allegiance is always, & must always be, to King Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords, Who executes justice for the oppressed, gives food to the hungry, frees the prisoner and provides for the widow and the orphan, loves the righteous and brings the way of the wicked to ruin. To do less than this is treason against the Kingdom of God and the reigning Sovereign thereof.

I bear Glenn Beck no ill-will. I do not think he is a bad man, and I do believe he is quite sincere in the call he has just made to the nation. But, I also believe that he is honestly misled. He seeks an anonymous and generic god who is, ultimately a pale shadow and weak counterfeit of the God Whom we definitely know, Who has been revealed to us through the fulfilled Gospel of Jesus Christ which we are called to publish and proclaim with loud and joyful voices.

Beck is correct to a point about the origins of the malaise in which we, and all other human beings find ourselves. He is right when he says that our problems and deficiencies are spiritual ones. But, we will not find the help we need if we do not seek its true source and realize that we cannot and will not ever work our way to that God.

We must seek the God Who proclaims Himself to us. We must surrender to the God Who delivers us from “this body of death”. We must offer our praise, our thanks — even our very selves — to the Lord, the personal God of Jacob, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and the one Who warns us “never to put our trust in princes” and Who alone delivers salvation to us as He lovingly and graciously saves and restores us.

“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man, in whom there is no salvation.”

Amen.