Change – Part Two

All of us are instinctively resistant to change. The Lord has built into every one of us a clock. When we reach a certain age an instinct kicks in and we don’t want to change. It is for that reason Scripture advises, “Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

The term translated “old” actually meant “hair on the chin.” Therefore, when a child is the age of a boy who is beginning to grow whiskers the body clock goes off and an inner stubbornness to personal change occurs. The same is true in a girl. It is clinically called “internalization of identity.” It usually occurs between ages 17 and 20. At that point in life we become resistant to change. It is for those reasons advocates of teaching woke morality to young children are so active.

The English word describing why we are reluctant to change is emotions. Emotions are feelings that are loyal to past experiences and decisions. Emotions are an enemy to change. Certain moral and spiritual laws are just as inflexible. As William Penn observed, “Right is right though all men be against it, and wrong is wrong though all be for it.”

Ratheon is a company that developed many high tech guided missiles. Their theme is: “Excellence begins with fundamentals.” 

For stability in life, memorize the fundamentals of faith.  If you realize the value of Scripture memorization you will do it. Base your core values on the Word of God.

You have got to know what is basic if you are going to get back to basics. Therefore, “Let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another….” (Colossians 3: 15, 16)

We are instructed to let “the peace of God rule” in our hearts. The word translated rule can be translated as “arbiter.” An arbiter is one that makes the rules. The word translated rule came from athletic jargon and is the equivalent of umpire. Let the peace of God “umpire” in your heart. Let it determine for you what is good and what should be ruled out.

Leo Tolstoy said, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”  You can. The capacity for change lies within you. Whenever you develop the desire to change to become more like Jesus, He can enable you to be victorious over the things that defeat you. 

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.” (Galatians 5:1)

Change – Part One

Change is vogue. No generation has seen more change faster than ours. It is said human knowledge doubles every 17 days. In such an environment don’t plan on maintaining the status quo. Especially when the status is nothing to “quo” about.

One of the most dramatic examples of change occurred in 1991. Soviet cosmonaut Surge Korkof was launched into space in April. His was to be a four month orbit. When he left the Soviet Union it was a super power. He was given the dramatic salary of 500 rubles a month. President Gorbachev seemed entrenched for life.

Soon after he went into orbit the Soviet Union came apart. Gorbachof was overthrown, the union was dissolved, and those in command of his mission put in an uncertain position. As a result, the four month mission became a ten month mission. Finally somebody with enough authority brought him down to earth. His 500 ruble salary was devalued by inflation to the point it was virtual starvation wages. His nation no longer existed. While he was away the world changed.

Surge is a portrait of all of us. Your world is changing at a dizzying pace. 

If you are married to today’s technology you will be divorced from tomorrow’s reality.

Change makes us look for something stable and secure to help us deal with the insecurity caused by change. Stress, anxiety, and fear consequent from so much change.

Some things will change. Certain things need to change. This creates within us a desire for a constant that doesn’t change and give us stability. That constant is: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace….” (Hebrews 13: 8, 9)

He and the established truths He taught are ageless. Many basic laws of science never change. Their application does, but their consistency creates confidence in those using them. 

Moral issues change with every generation, but the solution to them as taught by Jesus remains the same.

The Greek word homo/stasis consists in the merging of two word meanings: “home” means the same and “stasis” means to stand, or “the same.” Put together they mean to stand in the same place. That place is the person Jesus and the principles are those taught by Him.

“Watch, stand fast in the faith, be brave, be strong.” (I Corinthians 16:13)

Face this and every day with a calm confidence in Jesus and His word.

Remembering the Foundations 5/25/97

Psalm 11: 3
Page 803 Come Alive Bible

JESUS CHRIST was loved, revered, and obeyed by many who worked to build the foundation of this great nation. Their efforts were not without debate, challenge, and conflict.

Our Lord’s intervention in the affairs of state were distinctly evident to the craftsmen construction for the foundation of a new nation. The records of their faith and faithfulness are stored in the archives of our great institutions of learning.

The most memorable section in Gabriel Garcia Marquez’ prize- winning novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, concerns a strange disease that invades the old village of Macondo from the surrounding swamp. It is a lethal insomnia like sickness that attacks the entire town. Initially people lose sleep, but the villagers do not feel any bodily fatigue at all. A more critical effect slowly manifests itself – loss of memory. Gradually victims realize they can no longer recall the past. Soon they find they cannot remember the name or the meaning of the simplest things used every day. They cannot remember the identity of other people, even those closest to them. Finally, the dementia is complete and their own sense of identity is erased from consciousness and memory.

One villager, Aureliano Buendia, conceives a way to try to stave off the loss of memory. He writes the name of everything on pieces of paper and pastes them to the objects to recall what they are. All the people begin doing it in their homes. Finally the whole village is marked: table, chair, clock, door, bed, toothbrush, knife, water faucet! Animals, flowers and trees are also identified in this way: cow, goat, banana tree, orchid flower. Alas, what happens when things will be recognized by the label but no one will remember their use?

So labels are made more specific. “This is a cow. She must be milked every morning so that she will produce milk. The milk must be boiled on the stove in order to be mixed with coffee to make coffee and milk.”

Someone puts a sign at the beginning of the road into the swamp: “This is your town, Macondo.” Someone else posts a sign on main street announcing: “God exists!” Soon people fear that in time they will not be able to remember the meaning of the written letters on the labels, and they will be forever lost.

One day along the road from the swamp, a strange old man appears, carrying a bulging suitcase and pulling a cart covered with a black cloth. When the stranger discovers the town is suffering from the plague of insomnia and amnesia, he produces a vial of secret potion and cures the town. People can sleep again. Memory returns to them; life comes again, and people once again look forward to tomorrow with hope.

This moving narrative is a telling parable for all as we think of our nation. In how many ways has America become like those stricken citizens of Macondo? We have forgotten where we came from, and we are confused about who we are and why we are here. We have forgotten what life means and what freedom means.

The core values of our society are worth working to restore. Recently Supreme Court Jurist Anthony Scallio said:

Our nation has – – –

I. A FORMIDABLE FOUNDATION
Patrick Henry said, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religions, but the gospel of Jesus Christ! For this reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.”

After his army had been blessed supernaturally with victory over the far superior British forces George Washington said, “The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked, that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.”

While speaking of religion and morality as “great pillars of happiness” Washington said, “…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail, in exclusion of religious principle.”

John Adams, Vice-President under Washington, and our nation’s second president, spent ten years in France and England and compared the atheistic republic of France with the government of America which he considered based on Christian principles. He correctly predicted the republic in France would soon fail and it did. It did not have the right foundation according to him. Then he said, “Our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

James Madison, chief architect of the Constitution said, “Religion is the basis and foundation of government.”

John Quincy Adams, our sixth president, noted, “The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity.”

He further noted the future of our nation depended “upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

There is a quiet awakening to the reality that we have currently gone too far in trying to remove God from society.

Recently it was said that separation of church and state is bad history and bad law. The persons making that statement said it ought to be thrown out. Who said that and with what sense of history and law did he make such a statement.

The Honorable William Rhinquist, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court made that comment.

Consider this conclusion: “The separation of church and state has been carried too an extreme.” Joseph Califano, not exactly a member of the religious right, but architect of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society.

Speaking of the war against drugs an editorial in “The Wall Street Journal,” March 6, 1996 noted: “Indeed, if we’re going to deploy religious institutions in this war, we’ll first have to get over the idea that the First Amendment means that every mention of religion must be eradicated from the public square. A substance-abuse counselor whose institution gets tax-payer money shouldn’t have to fend off an ACLU suit if he makes prayer part of the therapy.”

Parenthetically, the Supreme Court that banned prayer in public schools consisted of six judges who had no experience as judges but were career politicians.

They completely disregarded previous court decisions.

For example:
The U.S. Supreme Court in 1892, after studying the vital documents of our nation for ten years, made the following ruling: “This is a religious people. This is historically true. From the discovery of this continent to the present hour, there is a single voice making this affirmation.”

In 1844 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled: “Why may not the Bible, and especially the New Testament … be read and taught as a divine revelation in the schools? Where can the purest principles of morality be learned so clearly or so perfectly as from the New Testament?”

In 1892 the Court ruled: “The morality of the country is deeply ingrafted upon Christianity, and not upon the doctrines or worship of other religions.”

II. A FRAUDULENT FOUNDATION
Those opposed to rebuilding the foundations employ a red herring technique. Perhaps most persons don’t know what the expression “red herring” means, but in the event anyone doesn’t let me explain. Years ago in England prisoners who escaped were tracked with bloodhound dogs with a very sensitive sense of smell. On occasion an accomplis of an escaped prisoner would drag a fish, a red herring, along the escapees path to divert the dogs which would follow the stronger trail and be diverted.

A red herring today is to accuse those who advocate rebuilding the foundations of being reconstructionist and wanting to revert to Old Testament lifestyle and law making America a theocracy. What they are getting at is always emphasized by their references to stoning certain people. This red herring seeks to divert attention to the extremes of the Old Testament era civil law.

I don’t knowingly know a person who wants America to become a theocracy. I don’t. I don’t think Theo does either. He established ancient Israel as a once and for all example.

What these persons forget is there were three types of law in the Old Testament era.

One was CEREMONIAL LAW. This involved animal sacrifices, rituals, feast days, etc. Most Christian’s believe these were types and symbols used to speak of the coming of Messiah and were fulfilled with the coming of Christ. Ceremonial laws have been fulfilled.

A second kind of law was MORAL LAW. It is this basic law as typified in the Ten Commandments that is still germane.

Another is CIVIL LAW. These were the laws governing crime and punishment. They did include stoning as a means of capital punishment. They were intended for Israel just as our modern laws are designed for our nation. They were applicable then but not to us now.

Most modern Christians know the ceremonial law to be fulfilled and the civil laws of the Old Testament era to be past. It is however the ancient civil law that is used as a red herring by those who say there is a desire to return to a theocracy.

It is the law of morality that is needed today.

III. A FUNDAMENTAL FOUNDATION
It is not the job of the church to change society. It is the job of the church to change individuals who change society.

Here are some personal aspects of the foundation on which individuals can work.

A. Bible study. This right is greatly restricted in school but it is still a privilege in homes. Do you have a personal Bible study program? If not start one.

B. Prayer. I wonder if all who complain about prayer being removed from schools have a good personal private prayer life.

C. Morality. It is incumbent upon us personally to govern ourselves morally. Start with a better understanding of the Ten Commandments and a commitment to know and obey them.

Personal discipline must be reignited.

D. Home mentoring. Not all children are getting insights and information regarding moral values. Horace Mann who directed the development of the public school system in America in the 19th Century said, “…our system earnestly inculcates all Christian morals; it founds its morals on the basis of religion; it welcomes the religion of the Bible…”

Though that was the intent the design has been lost. It must be taught in the home.

E. Public worship must regain its place of primacy and the pulpit its principle mission.

The pulpit must teach\preach the Word of God as the authoritative, divinely inspired, supernaturally authored Word of God.

People must discipline themselves to engage in regular worship as a public expression of devotion.

To Go Forward We Must Go Back

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord….”  Psalm 33: 12

With the Fourth of July in the rearview mirror there is still much to consider. Our nation’s Founders, flawed and imperfect, gave us a virtually perfect document, our Constitution. They believed Divine Providence led them in doing so. Diverse as they were in their belief as to the nature of the God of the nation, they believed He honors His promise: 

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord….” He did it for ancient Israel in those instances of obedience. He has done it for America in those days of obedience to Him.

Today America has so many gods of decadence it is hard to claim He is our God. Yet, there is a large remnant seeking to draw America back to Him.

What institution do you think should be in the forefront of the return effort? Logic says the church. Many are not engaged in such an effort. When a pastor arranges to be away on the Sunday of the Fourth so he won’t have to address the issue, something is remiss. When a pastor has a member of the Department of Immigration speak on the day the issue isn’t addressed. When a pastor won’t allow an American flag in the church, the issue goes begging.

God Himself should be foremost in all worship services. However, caring for the welfare of the nation He gave birth is appropriate. Properly addressing the subject can be done in such a way as to glorify God. Revisit our Pledge of Allegiance: 

“I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

The allegiance is subservient to the devotion given to God. It will never again be “indivisible,” that is, “one nation” until it is once more under God.

Lest some extremist try to carry this too far and say this is an effort to make America a state church under Old Testament Law. Ridiculous.

There were three types in the Old Testament laws.

The civil law under which Israel, and the Israel only of the Old Testament, was to be governed. Not even modern Israel enacts the civil laws of that era.

The ceremonial law related to the form of worship in the Old Testament only. It is no longer applicable for various reasons. Christians believe Jesus fulfilled all those laws which were a foreshadowing of His coming.

Then there were the moral laws which apply to all people of all ages. These laws still apply.

Agents of immorality under the gods of decadence seek to establish a new code of ethics and morality. Not only is there disrespect for God, but even a denial of Him.

While secular institutions call for diversity, our pledge advocates unity, “one nation.” To be one nation while we have such diversity it is expedient for there to be obedience to the teaching of Jesus who said: 

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you….” (Matthew 5: 44)

It is not only possible to do this, it is expedient.

Personally there are some people with whose moral conduct I strongly disagree, but I have regard for them as individuals. In doing so I seek to disagree without being disagreeable. 

All faiths have much to gain by calling people back to God and allegiance to America.

Something in Which to Believe

Having given attention to something in which to believe now consider someone to obey. 

Are you willing to submit to Jesus as Lord; Boss of your life?

In newspapers of the old west the following ad appeared: “Wanted: courageous young men who are willing to risk all. Preferably orphans. The work is hard, the hours long, and the risk is great, but the rewards are great.” That ad by the Pony Express resulted in large numbers of volunteers. 

At all costs are you willing to take your orders from Jesus and obey His command? There is a challenge in following Him, but the rewards are worth it.

Out of the Civil War comes a story of courageous obedience like that deserved by our Lord.

General Hood relieved General Johnston of his command. He sent his adjutant for General Cheatham. He returned with the report that General Cheatham had been killed in action.

The adjutant was dispatched to bring General Evans. He returned with the report he was missing in action.

General Hood then dispatched the adjutant to seek out General Cleburne and deliver this message: “Give him my love and tell him I require at his hand the Fort at the Locus Grove.”

When the adjutant found General Cleburne, he was mounted on his horse. Upon receiving the message, he stirred himself and sat up to his full height. Raising his saber he shouted, “First Missouri Brigade, to the Fort at the Locust Grove — charge.”

After the furious battle ended, General Cleburne said to the adjutant, “Give my love to General Hood and tell him I present to him the Fort at the Locus Grove.”

Every person has a sphere of influence. Such is our Fort. Though we live and work in a world environment alien to Christ, we are to be there as His ambassadors. We are to be set apart for His use. We can’t earn the ears of those of the world by copying their life-style. We must earn their respect by letting Jesus live His life through us.

Will you be able to speak of your sphere of influence and say, “With all my love I present to you the charge you gave me, your obedient servant?”

So live that when time comes for your final report you can hear your Commander say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”