Category: Devotional Grist

Thanksgiving Homily 2015

I Thess. 5:18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Thanksgiving is a Holiday. The idea of the word Holiday literally comes from Holy Day. A Holy Day, is a day set apart and distinct from the days that are common. Actually as Christians we have 52 Holidays every year though we seldom think like that anymore. Those 52 days of course are our Lord’s days.

So, we see in the whole idea of Holidays, Thanksgiving included, the idea of distinction. We distinguish this day from the others and we do so by celebration and festivity with kith and kin. On Thanksgiving when giving thanks  we are thankful for the particulars in our lives. When we give thanks for family we give thanks for our family and the families of those we know and love in our Church and community. When we give thanks for blessings we give thanks for the blessings that God has been pleased to pour upon us. When we are thankful for the Church we have particularly in mind our Church. When we give thanks we thanks to the God of the Bible and not the pagan false deities that festoon our culture. Not only is the day a day of distinction but the Thanks we offer up are for peculiar and particular blessings.

We could pray, “Thank you Father for the Human Race and Thank you for every blessing you’ve given everybody ever” but that would make our giving of thanks brief, and abstractly universal and esoteric. This would be non-incarnated gratitude. Thanking God for the particular is incarnating our gratitude. Thank you Father for this wife, for this family, for these fellow saints. Thank you Father for this food, this table, and this roof over our head. Thank you Father for this Church, these musicians, and these leaders.

I merely note this to reinforce the pleasure we should have in the particular. We live in a culture that is at war with the particular and with distinctions. At this Thanksgiving time we should pause to Thank the Triune God for the distinct and peculiar blessings with which He has blessed us.

Knowing the Triune God is for us we can even particularize our Thanksgiving in terms of our struggles as they have been providentially assigned to us as means to our sanctification. These particulars burdens are to us increased Christlikeness and  our character formation.

Samuel Rutherford could write, in what has become  quote I return to repeatedly,

“Oh, what owe I to the file, to the hammer, to the furnace of my Lord Jesus! who hath now let me see how good the wheat of Christ is, that goeth through His mill, and His oven, to be made bread for His own table. Grace tried is better than grace, and it is more than grace; it is glory in its infancy.”

We can easily be Thankful when the Bank account is full, when there is no sickness, when personal resistance to us in the politics of the workplace are minimal but can we be Thankful when the thorn in the flesh is gouging more than usual? Can we be Thankful when when disappointments becomes a familiar companion?

Another thing we might note here is that Christian Thanks giving is a an act that communicates satisfaction with both the past and present indicating a confidence in the future. The person shriveled with animosity regarding the past will not find it in his soul to give thanks. The person not content with the present will not give thanks. And the person convinced that the future is bleak will hardly be a candidate for the giving of thanks. Christian Thanks giving then is a supremely worshipful act communicating volumes regarding one’s disposition towards the past, the present, and the future.”
I posted this thought online and a non-Calvinist who is a very sharp chap took exception with it saying,

Gratitude and reality can co-exist. We have lost much over the last several decades, we are currently in a struggle to the death with forces that are turning our lives into a sewer in the present, and the future, outside some miracle of God, is indeed likely to be bleak before I die. I am indeed grateful that God has seen me and my family through the events of the years we have lived in, and pray that He will give us the resources to survive what’s ahead. But my gratitude is tempered by sadness and loss.

I don’t believe that what we’re experiencing is necessarily what God has ordained or desires for us.

It is easy to appreciate this insight but we have to keep in mind that this is the exact present that God has ordained for us and if that is true we can be thankful. This is not to say we can not have regrets in regards to our failures in paying heed to God’s will of precept. It is to suggest though that we can be Thankful because what has been past, present, and future is what God ordained for us in keeping with decreed will.

Now we are not pollyannas and we do continue to lean against the Darkness but we do it as a people thankful for the file, the hammer, and the furnace.

But having said all this we note that life is not always file, hammer, and furnace and we are thankful for that as well. We are thankful for when we are led so as to lie down in green pastures. We are thankful when he leads us besides still waters and so restores our souls. We are thankful for the wise Mentors he has placed in our lives and the wisdom of the generations he has kept for us in books seldom read. We are thankful for the generations gone behind who have given us such a rich inheritance and we are thankful for the rising of the generations we are seeing coming behind us. We are thankful for cousins, and Aunts and Uncles and Grandparents. We are thankful for Elders.

And we are thankful that no matter how dark it gets outside there is always light to be found by those who are lovers of Truth.

Christ, Religious Professionals and the Widow’s Mite

Beware of the Scribes

38 And in his teaching he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes and like greetings in the marketplaces 39 and have the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honor at feasts, 40 who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

The Widow’s Offering

41 And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. 42 And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny.[f] 43 And he called his disciples to him and said to them, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box.44 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”

Background

Here we find the Lord Christ teaching on the Tuesday prior to his Crucifixion. On these last days of public ministry during Holy Week the Lord Christ remains focused on the doctrines and practices of the Religious Professionals of his time. The Lord Christ knows that with His death this whole Temple system, which the Religious Professional serves is coming to an end.

And so the Lord Christ directs our attention to the failure of the Temple system.

1.) Religious Professional have polluted it.

2.) In the next chapter the Lord Christ will note, that this whole Temple system is all going to violently end. In its place the Lord Christ is to be the new Temple to whom all types of men and women will come and will find peace with God.

So, I submit to you what is going on here in Mark 12:38-44 is a series of contrasts.

The contrast in Mark 12 then is not only the contrast between the wicked Religious Professionals and the faithful widow but more importantly the contrast is between the corrupted Old Temple system that injures God’s most vulnerable people as against the Faithful Lord Christ, as the New Temple, who will give is all for God’s people.

The contrast here is a religious system which has become a kind of an essential backdrop for a phony religious piety (Mark 12:38-39) as against the Lord Christ  who  emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, and who humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

The contrast is between wicked Religious professionals who love to grandstand at the expense of God’s people and the Lord Christ who is meek and lowly in heart.

The contrast is between those who would become rich at the expense of the poor with the Lord Christ who was rich, yet for our sakes He became poor, that we through His poverty might become rich.

The contrast is between a Widow who surrenders her all to a Temple system that has failed with the Son of God who as God’s new Temple will surrender His all that men might have peace with God.

Now having established that let’s look at the main players in Mark 12,

I.) Scribes

One of the purposes of this narrative is to expose the religious leaders for their hypocrisy. They pray to demonstrate their piety while at the same time they devour widow’s houses.

Of course you remember the Scribes. They were the Religious Professionals. They taught their corrupted version of the Law of God.

Of the Lord Christ,

1.) They complained that he ate with publicans and sinners (Mark 2:16; Luke 5:30, 15:2).

2.) When Jesus said to the one sick of the palsy , “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” (Mark 2:6) the Scribes charged Him with blasphemy.

3.) When he cast out demons they said that He cast them out by “Beelzebub, the prince of the devils” (Mark 3:22).

4.) They would sit and watch Jesus to see if He would heal on the Sabbath day, that they might find an accusation against him (Luke 6:7).

5.) They also were among the Pharisees when they brought to him the woman caught in adultery,“tempting him, that they might have reason to accuse him” (John 8:3, 6).

6.) They were filled with indignation when Jesus performed any miracles (Luke 6:11).

They took counsel with the chief priests as to how they might destroy him (Mark 11:18),

7.) When they contrived to have Jesus brought before Herod , they stood and vehemently accused him (Luke 23:10).

So, we see a running conflict between the Lord Christ and the religious professionals. Oftentimes Mark records the scribes mistrusted the Lord Christ’s various activities (cf. 2:7, 16; 3:22; 7:1, 5; 11:18, 27-28), and in return, the Lord Christ and his disciples questioned the influence of scribal teaching (cf. 9:11; 12:35). At one point, the disciples, without Jesus’ around, argued with scribes over an ailing child (cf. 9:14). As his mission continued, Jesus recognized their antagonism, predicting that they would “reject” him (8:31) and, eventually, “condemn him to death” (10:33).

So, this withering public critique of Scribes, in 12:38-40, fits into the larger pattern of conflict that Mark portrayed.

In verses 38-40 Jesus specifically denounces the scribes. In Mark’s estimation they are self-important, arrogant, and self aggrandizing. This section of Mark’s gospel, since Jesus’ triumphal entry, has been dominated by controversy and antagonistic interaction between Jesus and various groups with leadership responsibilities in first-century Judaism. It is not surprising, then, that we find here a final nail in the coffin, a sweeping condemnation of the scribes.

We should pause here to note that throughout history religious professionals have often been a burden on God’s people. Whether you want to look at the OT record, or the NT record you find that religious professionals are often a group of people one wants to keep at arm’s length. You can find this truth throughout history. When you look at the Reformation, for example, one of the driving factors in the demand for Reformation was the corrupt and scurrilous religious professionals who likewise were preoccupied with building up their illegitimate wealth at the expense of the most vulnerable of God’s people. The indulgence system, which was the occasion for the Reformation, was just such an example. It is no less true today. The sheep, too often, are still being sheered by the Religious carny, con-man, and Religious Professional scheister.

While we esteem faithful shepherds we are reminded of a truth repeated throughout Scripture

Psalm 146:3 — “Put not your trust in rulers, in mortals in whom there is no help.”

II.) Widows

There are about eighty direct references to widows in the Scriptures.

Repeatedly Scripture teaches that God is the kind of God who keeps a careful eye on the widow.

Per Deut 14, 16, Widows were to be especially cared for in the Hebrew community
Per James 1 one aspect of the essence of religion is to visit widows and orphans in distress
Per Acts 6 we see the Church was providing for Widows
Per I Timothy 5 we see that the church understood that it was responsible for God centered widows who had no one to do for them

He is profoundly concerned for her, together with all those who are vulnerable and so easily oppressed. God is righteous and protects widows.

Psalm 68 teaches that God is “a father of the fatherless, a defender of widows . . . in his holy habitation,” (Psalm 68:5).

We see this again in Isaiah 10, Jeremiah 22 and Ezekiel 22 where, in each case, God has noticed the oppression of the Widow by the powers that be and demands that it cease.

The Lord Christ reflects this character of God when he bends low to be the God who provides to the widow of Nain when he restores life to the son of the Widow of Nain.

Jesus reflects this character of God while on the Cross when he provide for his own widowed Mother.

Jesus reflects this character of God here when he denounces the Scribes (Religious Professionals) for enriching themselves at the expense of the least and most vulnerable.

Of course this reveals to us the Character of God. He is especially near to those of His people who are oppressed and vulnerable. He HATES it when the righteous poor in the covenant community are swindled or taken advantage of. He HATES those who, in His name, feather their own bed at the cost of His covenant community poor. The Lord Christ here says that those who act this way will have a greater condemnation.

Reminders

1.) This reminds us then of the danger of being a unfaithful Religious Professional. It is true we might get ahead in this life by doing the equivalent of devouring Widows houses but the Lord Christ tells us here that a time is coming when those who have sewn the wind of ill gotten gain will reap the whirlwind of God’s remembrance.

2.) We are reminded again of our need to look out for “the least of these” among us.  It remains true that “Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is  to visit orphans and widows in their affliction …”

III.) We close by considering some issues surrounding this giving of the Widow that may inform us of our own giving,

One of the clear ideas that comes through here is that while the Rich put in large sums that dwarfed the widows giving (vs. 41) the Widow put in all. Of course the call here isn’t that all people must deposit everything they have into the offering plate. However what is accentuated is that there is a difference between giving out of abundance and giving out of want. It’s not the size of the check but the size of the cost that is highlighted.

“The value of a gift is not the amount given, but the cost to the giver.” – J.R. Edwards (Pillar NTC)

Similarly,

God measures the gift by the sacrifice involved (cf. 2Sa 24:24). – A. Black (College Press NIVC)

I’m reminded of someone I once knew who would give nice presents and gifts for certain occasions. I later learned that this person was passing on work related promotional material. So, while the gifts were nice, they cost the person nothing.

I am reminded of the Scripture … “I will not sacrifice to the Lord that which has cost me nothing.”

R. A. Cole reminds us,

“It is well to remember that God measures giving, not by what we give, but by what we keep for ourselves;”

In all this we observe that it is possible that the generosity of the impoverished can be greater than the generosity of the wealthy.

All of this communicates again that even in  our giving God looks at the heart. This can serve as encouragement to those who are frustrated by the fact that they have so little to give. God looks at the heart. He doesn’t count your gift by the number of zeros in your check. He counts your gift according to your heart, and your resources.

Conclusion

By this standard of Giving we see that God gave all in providing Himself, in the 2nd person of the Trinity to be the means by which we can have peace with God.

Christ is the greatest of all who have given all for while we were still enemies the Lord Christ gave His all that we might be reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

Christ emptied Himself and bore our griefs and and carried our sorrows. He is the archetype Widow who gives all of which the Widow here is but an echo.

If we are to have a giving disposition it must be imbued with gratitude that comes from the God who gave all and gives all. We do not give in order to get. We give out of gratitude because we have already been given all by the one who gave all in our stead.



 

	


	





	

		
		
A Short Treatise on the Biblical & Historical Foundation For Self-Defense
	


	
	
	

		
This morning we turn our attention to an issue that likely won’t be touched upon in one in 10,000 pulpits across the Nation this morning. We are going to spend just a few minutes, in light of the events of the last week, speaking about the Scriptural and Historical background of the obligation of self defense and the right to keep and bear arms.


We might find such a subject odd but there was a time when such an examination from the pulpit on such a subject was routine. That this is true is testified to by Will Durant, author of several volumes of World History. Will and his wife Ariel were no friends of Christianity and yet they could write,


“In Protestantism the preachers became journals of news and opinion; they told their congregation the events of the week or day; and religion was then so interwoven with life that nearly every occurrence touched the faith or its ministers. They denounced the vices and errors of their parishioners, and instructed the government as to its duties and faults.”


-Will Durant,

The Reformation


And we take up the duties and faults of the Government in its desire to dilute the Christian duty and obligation of individual self defense.


When we turn to Scripture we find in,


Exodus 22:2-3 –“If the thief is found breaking in, and he is struck so that he dies, there shall be no guilt for his bloodshed. If the sun has risen on him, there shall be guilt for his bloodshed. He should make full restitution; if he has nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”


This idea of self defense … defense of family, hearth, and home compels us to ask, along with Rev. Samuel West, in a sermon from 1776 if we really believe “that people please God while they sit still and quietly behold their friends and brethren killed by their unmerciful enemies without endeavoring to defend or rescue them.” West asked if the sin of murder, as committed by the pacifist by way of the sin of omission in not pursuing self defense, is any nobler than a sin of commission that finds someone involved in the butcher of unjust wars. West insisted that both sins were “great violations of the law of God.”  


Certainly Exodus 22:2-3 compels us to conclude that a threat to our life is to responded to with appropriate force.  To not respond in such a way would find us guilty to self murder or murder of the judicially innocent who were under assault.


Further the idea of self defense, as found in Exodus 22:3, when combined with the New Testament teaching from Timothy which teaches that a man who neglects to provide for his family has implicitly denied the faith and is worse than an infidel forces to ask, along with Colonial minister Simeon Howard,


“in what way can a man be more justly chargeable with this neglect, than by suffering himself to be deprived of his life, liberty or property, when he might lawfully have preserved them?”


Defense of self and family is the duty of the Christian man and if the Christian man is stripped of this God ordained duty by the State’s attempt to repudiate the Second Amendment than that Christian man is disobeying God by neglecting to provide for his family. We must obey God rather than man.


When we consider Exodus 22:3 further it is clear that self defense looks differently in different situations. Not every situation requires full lethal force. We are to be defenders of our selves and what God has given us headship over and not those who act on vengeance or without mercy. In this passage after “the sun has risen” seems to refer to a different judgment than the one permitted at night. At night there is more confusion and more uncertainty about what is going on. There seems, thus, to be more latitude given to the necessity of self defense. During the day time matters are clearer and a higher standards for lethal self defense obtains.


In Proverbs 25:26, we read: “A righteous man who falters before the wicked is like a murky spring and a polluted well.”  Should we allow our God given — and therefore non retractable by any government — right to keep and bear arms to be seized from us we are the example of the righteous man who falters before the wicked being like a murky spring and a polluted well.


Certainly it is simple to see why the righteous man who falters before the wicked is so described. It can hardly be considered the essence of civilization for good people to falter before the wicked. No one really believes that it is virtuous to allow the schoolyard bully to have his way. To believe that that righteous should falter before the wicked is to believe in Nietzsche’s little shop of horrors where the ubermensch might makes right.


That this Biblical view as barely highlighted as been the track record of Western Christian civilization can be seen by a quick glimpse of our history.


In the three preceding articles we have taken a short view of the principal absolute rights which appertain to every Englishman. But in vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected by the dead letter of the laws, if the constitution had provided no other method to secure their actual enjoyment. It has therefore established certain other auxiliary subordinate rights of the subject, which serve principally as barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three great and primary rights, of personal security, personal liberty, and private property….


5. The fifth and last auxiliary right of the subject, that I shall at present mention, is that of having arms for their defence, suitable to their condition and degree, and such as are allowed by law. Which is also declared by the same statute 1 W. & M. st. 2. c. 2. and is indeed a public allowance, under due restrictions, of the natural right of resistance and self-preservation, when the sanctions of society and laws are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.


Wm. Blackstone

English Jurist


J.L. De Lolme, an eighteenth century author much read at the time of the American Revolution[3] pointed out:(p.286)




But all those privileges of the People, considered in themselves, are but feeble defences against the real strength of those who govern. All those provisions, all those reciprocal Rights, necessarily suppose that things remain in their legal and settled course: what would then be the recourse of the People, if ever the Prince, suddenly freeing himself from all restraint, and throwing himself as it were out of the Constitution, should no longer respect either the person, or the property of the subject, and either should make no account of his conversation with the Parliament, or attempt to force it implicitly to submit to his will?–It would be resistance … the question has been decided in favour of this doctrine by the Laws of England, and that resistance is looked upon by them as the ultimate and lawful resource against the violences of Power.




To nineteenth century exponents of limited government, the checks and balances that preserved individual liberty were ultimately guaranteed by the right of the people to be armed. Without an armed citizenry Republican mixed Government, with its complex and interlocking checks and balances could not be successful apart from a legitimate means of resistance. The preeminent Whig historian, Thomas Macaulay, labelled this right to keep and bear arms “the security without which every other (security) is insufficient,”


In the Republican system, with its equal parts Monarchy, aristocracy, and Democracy, as  envisioned by our Christian forefathers it was the Sate that had to convince an armed and sovereign citizenry that its ideas were not oppressive. In the system we have now it is the subject citizens that has to convince the Sovereign State that they should be allowed to have their weapons.


It is true that when you look at Western Civilization you can find epoch where gun control was advanced. In 1920 in England for example, in the context of being un-nerved by the Bolshevik threat Parliament debated a bill that sought to restrict arms from the citizenry. In that debate a member of the Commons … one Colonel Kenworthy, stood up and objected to the bill before the House. Colonel Kenworthy pointed out that historically the right to keep and bear arms had been necessary to maintain other existent political rights that the people enjoyed precisely because keeping arms allowed the citizenry to resist an out of control state. A Major Witherington objected to Kenworthy stating that it was just that kind of distrust of the state by just those kinds of people that demanded the Bill be passed.


Conclusion,


How do we turn this all then to the essence of our Christian faith? The essence of our Christian faith is Liberty from sin. This idea of being set free by the finished work of Christ for sinners such as us from the bondage and tyranny of sin in order to be free to serve Christ ended up being translated into every area of life. If a man was free from the bondage and tyranny of sin then that same man was to be free from all other tyrannies and bondage. This included political liberty. The Biblical Christian realizes that the implication of being free from the tyranny and bondage of the Devil means likewise being free of the tyranny and bondage of Usurpers who would work to put a people into the bondage of a law system and Lordship that was contrary to Christ’s Lordship and Law…. a Lordship and Law that is the essence of Liberty.


Those who have been freed from the devil are not inclined to come under the bondage of the Devil’s political henchman.


There have been those throughout history who have understood this point that I’m seeking to establish.  Protestant Christians, being spiritually set free, were not going to come into other unbiblical bondage.


Historian John Patrick Diggins writes that American historians have concentrated on political ideas while underplaying “the religious convictions that often undergird them, especially the Calvinist convictions that Locke himself held: resistance to tyranny….”


One simply can’t understand the insistence by traditional Reformed folk on the issue of the right to self defense without understanding how their macro theology is connected to and drives that visceral desire against being subjugated. Having been loosed from the Devil by the finished work of Christ from their sin they will not become chained to or by anti-Christ magistrates.


Edmund Burke is another chap who could connect the dots between the Macro theology of the Protestant Faith and the micro refusal to be subjugated.


In 1775, the Burke tried to warn the British Parliament that the Americans could not be subjugated:


“the people are Protestants, and of that kind which is the most adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion.” While the Catholic and Anglican Churches were supported by the government, and were inclined to support the state, the American sects were based on “dissenting interests.” They had “sprung up in direct opposition to the ordinary powers of the world, and could justify that opposition only on a strong claim of natural liberty. Their very existence depended on the powerful and unremitted assertion of that claim. All Protestantism, even the most cold and passive, is a sort of dissent. But the religion most prevalent in our northern colonies is a refinement of the principle of resistance: it is the dissidence of dissent, and the protestantism of the Protestant religion.” 4


The fact that these quote may sound so foreign to our hears is because we have been so denuded of the convictions of our Reformed and Calvinist forefathers…. we have been stripped of their Biblical Christianity. We no longer have the ability to move from the Macro of being set free from our sins to the micro resolve that we will not be put into subjection of those political Masters who serve the ends of the one we have been set free from.  We can no longer see that if one believes where the Spirit of the Lord is there is spiritual Liberty therefore it must also be the case where that Spiritual liberty works itself out in corporeal space and time reality.

	


	





	

		
		
Mark 9:33-48
	


	
	
	

		


Markan Sandwich


Story 1 (Mark 9:33-37) — Argument over who is the greatest results in Jesus’ declaration that greatness will be defined by who is last and servant of all, represented in a small child.




 


Story 2 (Mark 9:38-41) — The disciples are uptight over an unknown exorcist wielding the power of the kingdom.


 


Story 1 continued (Mark 9:42-50) — Warnings about those who put a stumbling block before any little one who would believe in Jesus.


 




Mark sandwiches (intercalates) these accounts so that the reader understands them and interprets them together.


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I.) The Disciples Issue


Mark 9:38 — “Does not follow us” — hearkens back to the issue of status or greatness (33). It was not that the man in question was not a follower of Jesus, but rather it was a matter of not having the proper credentials. It appears here the concern of the Disciples here is a concern about their position and status. The chap in question who was casting out Demons wasn’t licensed or ordained by the official disciple club. The Lord Christ teaches here that the support and fellowship of all who champion His cause and name should not be censured.


There seems to be a motif here that is captured by the proverb, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.”


Taken together with the issue of “who would be the greatest” in vs. 34f as combined with the issue of position and status of sitting at the Lord’s right hand as given in Mark 10:35-45, vs. 38 reminds us again how important honor was in that society and culture. The Lord Christ does not overturn the notion of honor or hierarchy but He does alter its trajectory so that position and status is connected with serving as opposed to being served.  We know the Lord Christ maintained positions of honor and hierarchy just by virtue of the fact that He chose 12 to be His disciples from among many candidates, and then of those 12 He chose 3 (Peter, James, and John) as an inner circle. Honor and hierarchy are thus maintained. However something is changed in this issue of honor and hierarchy. What is changed is the purpose of leadership, and hierarchy.


The Lord Christ does not eliminate position or hierarchy of leadership. He is not a leveler who erases all distinctions between leaders and rank and file but what He does do is He teaches and models in such a way that it is made clear that any position of leadership is understood as a position of leadership to the end of serving. The Lord Christ, Scripture teaches, came not to be served but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many. Those who lead really do lead but they understand that leadership does not mean everyone serves them but rather that the Leader servers everybody in his leadership.


This is made clear when the Lord Christ says,


“If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)


This is made clear when Jesus takes the towel in John 13 to wash the Disciples feet.


This is made clear in Luke 22 when Jesus says to the disciples, who are again arguing over greatness,


“The kings of the Gentiles exercise lordship over them, and those in authority over them are called benefactors.26 But not so with you. Rather, let the greatest among you become as the youngest, and the leader as one who serves. 27 For who is the greater, one who reclines at table or one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at table? But I am among you as the one who serves.


The Church in the West, what little remains of it, desperately needs to hear again this word regarding status mongers and ladder climbers. Is the goal of leadership in the Church of the West to be fawned over and adulated? Are we looking for status via our positions? Are we seeking to parlay our leadership positions to the position of being famous for being famous? The Lord Christ offers a leadership example that demonstrates leadership by being concerned for the flock and its needs.  It is the leadership of the towel, the table-waiter, and the sheep dog.


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II.) The Counsel of Christ


Mark 9:40 For the one who is not against us is for us.


Matthew 12:30 Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.


Note the repeated insistence we find in Scripture that there is no neutrality. There is no tertium quid where one can have a foot in both the enemy’s camp and in the camp of God’s company.  Christ speaks in black and white with no gray area. If you are not against Him you are for Him. If you are not with Him you are against Him. If you do not gather in His cause you scatter against His cause. No neutrality. In theological jargon this is the “Reformed Antithesis.”


Perhaps the best 20th century example of pushing the Reformed Antithesis was J. Gresham Machen.


Machen’s fundamental insight was that the Reformed Antithesis applied to “Christianities” that were Christian in name only. Machen insisted that Orthodox Christianity and Liberal “Christianity” were not two slightly different Christian theological positions such as Calvinism vs. Lutheranism but rather were two radically opposed systems of thought and religions that each competed over the possession of the Christian nomenclature, words, concepts and phrases. They each talked about God, Jesus, the Spirit, sin, salvation, the cross, but they each poured such different linguistic content into those words though remaining the same words in the hearing they were different words as to the meaning. Because of these vast differences of meaning and definition then, Machen concluded that Theological Liberalism was not Christian at all but was fundamentally opposed to Christianity as it comes to us defined in Scripture and history. Machen concluded that Theological Liberalism was against Biblical Christianity and not for Christ.


So, the thrust here seems to be the necessity to discern our enemies from our friends. Those who are genuinely advancing Christ’s cause, though they may not be of our club or tribe are to be supported, while on the other hand we are to reject those who are wolves in sheep’s clothing … those who use all the right jargon but who are using it with the intent to deceive.


So, on one hand we admit that there are Lutherans, and Reformed Baptists, and others we can come along and support and wish well but on the other hand there are those who may have an exalted status so that speak to Kings and Potentates in the name of a Christ who we are unfamiliar with because we are unfamiliar with their Christ. This business of knowing who is against us and who is for us is not always as easy as it might seem.

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III.) The Promise of Christ


vs. 40 — Note that service to the Lord Christ that indicates that one is on the Lord’s side come in all shapes and sizes. It can be the widow’s mite or it can be a cup of water generously given.  Our service rendered to the Lord Christ and His people does not need to be splashy and ostentatious. Here the Scripture teaches that God notices what we might think are the most insignificant things. A cup of water to relieve thirst will not lose its reward.


God is debtor to no man. Service rendered to Him will be remembered. That is the kind of generous King that we serve. His generosity extends to the point of being generous in providentially providing opportunities wherein we can be of service.

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IV.) The Warnings of Christ Against Stumbling


vs. 42 –“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin,[g] it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.


Commentators note that there are several catchwords repeated frequently throughout these verses, such as “name,” “scandal,” “fire,” and “salt.” In particular, the Greek word skandalon is used in each verse from 42 to verse 47. A skandalon is an obstacle that people trip over, and is usually translated “stumbling block” due to the decidedly moralistic tone the word “scandal” has taken in modern times. Jesus could not be more clear: he is talking about the danger that his own followers can do, and he uses the dire image of drowning to get his point across. Better to drown (be thrown into the sea with a millstone around one’s neck) than do harm to “these little ones.”


It is an open question as to whom the “little ones” are that the Lord Christ refers to.  The “Little ones” can refer either to the little child mentioned in vs. 36 or to those of seemingly lesser importance mentioned in vs. 39. Or it could be purposely nebulous so as to refer to both. Whoever the little ones are the point is that being the instrument by which someone struggles and stumbles in their faith who is young or tender in the faith is a costly proposition.


If we take the context seriously we would have to conclude that the Lord Christ is pointing this warning at the Leadership. Jesus lays bare the minefield of leadership in the church, and speaks of real dangers within Christian community particularly between more mature disciples and “the little ones.” The followers who are closest to Jesus in these verses, ie, the disciples, carry a huge responsibility as a result of their intimacy with Christ. Others look to them, follow their examples, are susceptible to their claims and practices, are perhaps especially vulnerable to their critiques and conflicts. Carelessness in discipleship can do irreparable damage to those most vulnerable within the body of Christ.


Elders in Christ’s Church can do both great good and great harm.


As a Elder in God’s Church when you teach wrongly or engage in unseemly behavior you risk not only yourself but you risk the faith of others.


Illustration — In High School I knew of a popular area Youth Pastor who had a dalliance with someone in his congregation and the result was a good deal of stumbling. More recent examples could be easily adduced.


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Next the Lord Christ turns from warning against causing others to stumble to warning against those things which cause individuals to stumble. The language that the Lord Christ uses is hyperbole and is intended to make a point about doing all it takes to avoid sin and enter into life.


The point here is to not actually cut off limbs because of course it is never hands, feet, or eyes that “CAUSE” us to sin. The cause is our fallen natures. Hypothetical people who cut off appendages would not solve their sin problem by cutting off the appendages. Our human body parts are only the vehicle through which our fallen-ness is expressed. The point here is to take sin seriously and to wage war with sin.


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IV.) The Consequences for Unchecked Sin


The reality of Hell


The New Testament speaks openly and repeatedly regarding the reality of Hell. It is,


The final abode of those condemned to eternal punishment (Mt. 25:41-46, Rev. 20:11-15)

Described as a place of fire and darkness (Jude 7, 13)

Described as a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth (Mt. 8:12, 13:42, 50, 22:13, 24:51, 25:30)

Described as a place of destruction (II Thes. 1:7-9, II Peter 3:7, I Thes. 5:3)

Described as a place of torment (Rev. 20:10, Luke 16:23)


Of course Hell is one of those doctrines that have fallen on hard times. Universalists deny hell.


What I want to do now is just give a few observations surrounding the denial of Hell.


1.) The denial of the eternality of Hell is all the more dangerous because on the surface it seems so benign. This denial is not like the denial of the Resurrection or the Virgin Birth. No one doubts that someone who denies Hell can be in Union with Christ. (Though I would insist that such a view leaves them open to the charge of having low views of Scripture.) I do insist though that people who are Annhilationists aren’t looking under the hood of that denial to see the implications of what they are denying.


2.)  The denial of the eternality of Hell is another example of putative Christians or unlearned Christians or immature Christians attempting to make God out to be nicer than He makes Himself out to be. It is an attempt to save God from being God. It is sentimentality trying to rescue the alleged mean glowering character of God. It is another example of do gooders, who by doing their good, end up making Christianity crueler then any Devil could. This denial of the eternality of Hell is taken up by those who, at the very least think, “My God would never be that mean.” It is the argument which attempts to make God “reasonable.”








3.) Annihilationism, does not seem to comprehend that by altering the anchor example of God’s eternal justice (The condemnation to Eternal punishment for those who rebelled against God and His Christ) that the effect is a relativizing of temporal justice and punishment. If the anchor of justice is set loose and diminished in the Cosmic Divine realm the effect is to set adrift any ideas of absolute justice in the temporal realm.  If God’s justice is altered in terms of Hell and / or its duration then justice is the realm of man can be relativized and altered as well.


4.) Those who insist upon the conditionality of Hell or deny the eternality of Hell are those who will, in themselves or in their generations, become those who rebel against the whole concept of fixed Justice. When we deny the proper required Justice applied (eternal Hell) against those who commit crimes against God’s character and who do not find forgiveness in Christ, we will, over the course of time, deny the proper required justice against those who commit other lesser crimes. If the required proper punishment is denied, in our thinking, against those who commit the greatest of all crimes (unrepentant rebellion against the Character of God) then the consequence of that will eventually be the denial of justice implemented against all other lesser crimes.




















Getting rid of the eternal character of Hell guarantees the eventual arise of Hell on earth.










  5.) The Holiness of God is infinite and as such rebellion against God’s Holiness requires eternal punishment for those who do not close with Christ. The denial of the eternality of Hell is a denial of the august and majestic character of God. Low views of Hell insure, and in turn cause, low views of God.Envision my point this way. If one was to change the penalty for murder from the death penalty to a $100.00 fine the obvious impact would be to cheapen the value of a life. Just so when we argue that Hell is not eternal punishment but only ceasing to exist we cheapen the value of God’s Majesty, Holiness and Transcendence.


The doctrine of Hell is a case where the punishment fits the crime. Any lesser punishment would suggest a lesser crime. The suggestion of a lesser crime would suggest that an offense against the person of God is somehow an offense that shouldn’t have the fullest possible consequences.  The eternality of Hell corresponds to the Majesty of God and His Law.


6.) Another way to frame this is to note how a threat on a President’s life brings greater punishment then that same threat levied against a homeless drunk. There is a greater punishment because the President is a greater person. The same principle applies here. When we offer up lesser penalties we communicate that God is more like the homeless drunk then He is like the President.











	


	





	

		
		
A Short Treatise On Immigration
	


	
	
	

		
George Barna Group


‘What we’re finding is that when we ask them about all the key issues of the day, [90 percent of Pastors] telling us, Yes, the Bible speaks to every one of these issues. Then we ask them: Well, are you teaching your people what the Bible says about those issues?–and the numbers drop…to less than 10 percent of pastors who say they will speak to it.’


The reasons for that doubtless are varied. I intend to suggest a couple.


First, many conservative Pastor have been convinced that the pulpit is not the place for these kinds of pedestrian messages. The thought goes that the Pulpit is so special that we dare not waste time in it teaching on comparatively un-spiritual issue of the day. And so Ministers avoid issues like what God’s word teaches on issues like “Capital Punishment,” “progressive taxation,” “death or property tax,” “usury,” “centralized banking,” “minimum wage laws” or “illegal immigration,” as well as any number of other subject matter that is deemed “not Holy enough for the pulpit.” “We need to focus on ‘Spiritual Issues,’ so the story goes and as such God’s people hear very little of God’s mind on these types of issues.


Second, the reasons like these issues don’t come up in the pulpit is that they are prone to being controversial and as ministers like to avoid controversy so that the giving doesn’t go down, because angry people leave Churches, ministers tend to avoid these kind of subject matters like the plague.


The Barna report that I cited out of the chute confirms this reasoning. The report went on to ask: “Why the disconnect between your confidence that God speaks to all of life but your reluctance to teach that? According to Barna, the answer is simple. The answer lies in the conviction that Pastors are concerned about building big Church and one can’t build large churches based on sermons that are inherently controversial.


A third reason that these kinds of subject are not broached from the Pulpit may also be fear of the IRS 501c3 tax-exempt status being revoked.


Today we briefly take up one of those controversial issues and that is the issue of immigration,


43The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low. 44He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.


Here God explicitly says that one consequence of His people’s disobedience is that they are oppressed by the stranger that is among them.


The immigrants who live among you will be promoted over you, higher and higher! But you will be demoted, lower and lower!


Deuteronomy 28:43 (Common English Bible Translation)


There are more than one Hebrew word translated as “stranger,” “sojourner,” “alien,”


The picture that is painted is one of an outsider among a foreign people who at times is a part of the culture and at other times is on the margins. This is a person who is counted among a specific people, but does not themselves belong to that people. They are required to obey the laws of the land, and can even participate in some of the customs, but in the end, they are still outsiders. This status threatens to lead to oppression, even though oppression of the sojourner and other marginalized people is expressly prohibited.  This paints a picture of a people who exist within the nation, but occupy the margins; they are in, but not included. There are thus continuities and discontinuities between the alien and the native born.


Of all the verses in Deuteronomy, the passage that sends the most mixed signals on this word and concept is Deut 5:12-15. Here sojourners are promised the same Sabbath rest as citizens, an indication of equality. However, when viewed in a slightly different manner we notice they are listed after children, slaves and livestock, which could indicate they were viewed no higher than the beasts of burden.


So, what we see here is that this idea of stranger, alien, sojourner requires context in order of us to understand how it is being used. Clearly in this Dt. 28 passage the word is being used in more of a discontinuity sense. We know this because God is saying that disobedience will bring the result that the alien … the one not belonging to the Israel as Israel will rise higher and higher over them. A clear demarcation is being made between the immigrant and the native son.


The resident alien (ger) in Israel was never so integrated and assimilated into the Israeli social order that the distinction between citizen born and alien evaporated. The resident alien (ger) was held to the same law, could become part of the worship cult BUT they were always known as distinct from Israeli born. Hence they are continuously referred to as ger (stranger).


Having said this we should realize that clearly there is a immigrant class that is living among the people of God. This people are not to be oppressed. They are to be treated with justice according to God’s law and they are to be able to find a way in the land. However, they are clearly the “tail” of the social order.


We know this because the text teaches that the roles will be reversed for disobedience. They who were once the head will become the tail and those who were once the tail will become the head.


So one judgment of God upon Israel’s disobedience is that God’s people will become strangers and aliens in their own land.


We should note here also that this text does away with notions of egalitarianism. All peoples in all settings are not equal. God speaks here of one people being a tail and one people being a head and says that He is the one that makes that to be the case and in here we learn that obedience to God’s Law results in being the head.


It is not Christianity that teaches egalitarianism but rather it is Liberalism as Machen noted,


“… one thing is perfectly plain—whether or not liberals are Christians, it is at any rate perfectly clear that liberalism is not Christianity. And that being the case, it is highly undesirable that liberalism and Christianity should continue to be propagated within the bounds of the same organization. A separation between the two parties in the Church is the crying need of the hour… The modern liberal doctrine is that all men everywhere, no matter what their race or creed, are brothers.”


(J.Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, p.133)


Of course we have come to the point that we no longer think in terms of categories like stranger, alien, foreigner, and sojourner which means we no longer think in terms of family. If we take Deuteronomy 28 seriously and find delight with the stranger being lifted above us we must at least ask ourselves if we hate our family and secondly if we are under God’s just punishment for our disobedience.


When we think of our own immigration issues we see that the result here is also that the head is becoming the tail and that the tail is becoming the head


This reality is portrayed as low skill labor class immigrants saturate our markets. Because of this immigration saturation opportunities for the native born at the entry job level have markedly decreased and those Americans who are the most to be hurt by this policy have experienced a dip in wages as a result of this saturation immigration.  Immigration expert George Borjas estimates that immigration is responsible for half the decrease observed in the wages of high-school dropouts.  “The biggest winners from immigration are owners of businesses that employ a lot of immigrant labor and other users of immigrant labor”, writes Borjas. “The other big winners are the immigrants themselves.”  The primary losers are native citizens with minimal skills and low levels of education.


There is a head and tail reversal going on here as a consequence of disobedience to God’s law.   This saturation immigration is creating a coercive and massive transfer of wealth from productive tax payers to the world’s poor from other nations.  Knowing this about illegal immigration and still supporting illegal immigration is an endorsement thus of theft on a grand scale in the name of philanthropic do-goodism and “Christian” charity. It is to invoke the sanctity of theft in the name of Christian charity. It is to disinherit our children so as to place the alien above the native born. James Hoffmeier, in his book, “The Immigration Crisis” teaches that a State is under no compulsion to have a generous immigration policy and does have a responsibility to protect its borders –just as States did even in the Old Testament. The biblical texts used by progressive Christian organizations like “Sojourners” to support illegal immigration are ripped out of their context in order to guilt the laity into thinking being a good Christian means disinheriting one’s self and children by supporting illegal immigration.


R. J. Rushdoony probed these issues as far back as 1965 in the context of the passage of the Immigration law that has finally placed us where we are now at. Rushdoony said then,


“The purpose of this immigration policy then is to unify man, to bring about the unity of the godhead. Its purpose, and its premise, is not economic but religious. It is theologically rooted in this religious dream, the United Nations.”


Rushdoony realized that the 1965 immigration act was religious in its essence. It was about pursuing a New World Order where man would be God. Rushdoony was insisting that where Humansim thrives, via Statist expression, there you will have a Unitarianism that requires the same oneness in all men, in a universal order, as obtains in the Unitarian God State.


One God-State to rule them all,

One God-State to find them,

One God-State to amalgamate them all,

and in the darkness bind them


So, Rushdoony realized that the immigration push was to eliminate all borders so that the humanist global order could come to the fore. Rushdoony understood that the immigration act in 1965 (and what is currently happening is merely the flowering of that Legislation) was being pushed by Humanists desiring to destroy the Nation State order. Rushdoony understood that such immigration was not Biblical because its real purpose and goal was the destruction of a Christian social order and the Christian religion.


This intent to assimilate the world into a New World Order via mass migration and immigration has no historical legs in terms of Biblical Christianity.


A Reformed Old Testament scholar Martin Wyngaarden, from Calvin Seminary a generation ago, recognized this when he wrote,


“Thus the highest description of Jehovah’s covenant people is applied to Egypt, — “my people,” — showing that the Gentiles will share the covenant blessings, not less than Israel. Yet the several nationalities are here kept distinct, even when Gentiles share, in the covenant blessing, on a level of equality with Israel. Egypt, Assyria and Israel are not nationally merged. And the same principles, that nationalities are not obliterated, by membership in the covenant, applies, of course, also in the New Testament dispensation.”


“More than a dozen excellent commentaries could be mentioned that all interpret Israel as thus inclusive of Jew and Gentile, in this verse, — the Gentile adherents thus being merged with the covenant people of Israel, though each nationality remains distinct.”


Martin J. Wyngaarden

The Future of the Kingdom in Prophecy and Fulfillment: A Study of the Scope of “Spiritualization” in Scripture pp. 101-102.



Before 1950 or so no orthodox Christian theologian of any heft believed in this mass amalgamation project that mass immigration portends.


Conclusion,


The common view of immigration on the Left is that Mass immigration is a useful weapon on four fronts


1.) The war against the ideal of limited government


The influx of third world immigrants that is being advocated will result in the burgeoning power of the State as these new immigrants vote for candidates who will take from the stolen monies of citizens, that are nested in the Government coffers, and redistribute those monies to the new race pimps representing the immigrant constituency. The consequence of this, of course, is to expand government in its stealing from Paul to give to Peter routine.


2.) The greater jihad against the historic American nation itself


Bertolt Brecht in a similar context where people had risen up against their government poetically asked,


Would it not be easier

In that case for the government

To dissolve the people

And elect another?


Clearly a state apparatus that fancies that the best arrangement for a State is a Centralized top down State replete with a planned economy is going to do all it can to create a citizenry that agrees with them and will support the State. Traditional Americans who know their history and are familiar with their birthright will be, at the very least, diluted by the immigration influx.


3.) Enriching the Super Wealthy by swamping the market with low wage slaves.


Immigration redistributes the wealth upward into the pockets of the super-wealthy as wages are suppressed while the super rich get richer. What this means is a “have vs. have not” social order with the corresponding erasure of the middle class. For the “haves” there are high stock prices, rising home values and surging corporate profits buoying their recovery-era incomes . For the “have nots”their incomes are weighed down and falling by high unemployment and stagnant wages  due to the labor surplus created by untrammeled immigration.


“Love” for the immigration translates into disregard for the native born. We take care of the world at the expense of disinheriting our own children.


4.) And the Ultimate goal … To destroy the Historically Orthodox Christian Faith


This provides the ultimate reason biblical Christians should resist untrammeled immigration. Ultimately the agenda in this mad pursuit is to recruit the pagan hordes and so dilute the leverage and muscle of what little remains of Christianity. All of this is ultimately at attack on the Crown Rights of the Lord Christ. It is a indirect attack on Christianity. The intent is to pull down those who have most carried the banner of Christianity on a civilizational basis. In pulling down the West via mass immigration and amalgamation, Christianity falls also.


Most of the types of Biblical Christianity that informed America for the first 75 years or so has long gone into eclipse but remnants remain. With continued immigration Christianity will be redefined just as the rest of the nation is redefined. Biblical Christianity accounts for the belief in limited Government, the belief if just wages and just prices, and the belief system of traditional Americans. As such, this ultimate goal of destroying the Historically Orthodox Christian faith, if accomplished, assures that the lesser proximate goals are achieved.


Love of Christ as well as love for our people, our culture, our Fathers and our generations yet unborn require us, as Christians, to fight.