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The Harassed and helpless of the world Matthew 9 First Saint Johns June 18, 2017

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We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who want to reach out to the suffering of the evil of the world said … AMEN!

Last week the Gospel lesson was the Great Commission … Matthew 28: … “ESV Matthew 28:19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,…” It was Trinity Sunday, Jesus is making us aware that what we do, and certainly baptizing and making disciples are two of the most important things we do, that it and all the other things that are done best when we keep in mind that we are doing it in the Name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus’ command in the Great Commission can certainly be understood in an additional way. What we see in today’s Gospel reading follows what Jesus is telling His disciples, including us, what He told them in Matthew 28. Our Gospel reading is Matthew 9, this is much earlier in Jesus’ ministry and before all of the momentous, triumphant events that have preceded the Great Commission and then His immediate ascension into heaven. Things are still pretty much the regular routine when Jesus sent His disciples out for their first tour as Jesus’ disciples, and certainly evangelists. He sees the people that have been following Him and these are people who really are without a shepherd. You may not feel an immediate need for a shepherd, someone to guide you, to give you protection and certainly when we talk about Jesus in this sense we are talking about someone, like a father, who is there to protect. Sure dads today protect. I think every father feels a duty to stand up for his family when his wife, children are being attacked, taken advantage of, suffering, floundering in the world. Paul writes: “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience– among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”(Eph 2: 1-3) Jesus, the Son of God, certainly He sees this, He knows what these people are going through, He is that Shepherd. Yet He knows His sheep are living such aimless lives and are under constant attack from the evil all around us. Certainly Jesus feels a need to protect these people, and us, from the “attacks” Satan launches against us on a regular basis. Often those “attacks” don’t feel violent or hostile. Often those attacks consist of luring us away to the things of the world that we think give us pleasure, but always result in taking our focus off of Jesus, and making an idol out of the things we think are pleasing. Certainly fathers feel the need to do what they can to try and keep a straying child from falling into bad habits, destructive lifestyles. It’s not easy being a father in today’s world. The evil of today tells us that we’re entitled to these destructive lives. Sure the world doesn’t say it that way, yet we know how it ends up. So many people today, yes someone’s son or daughter, but not always young and immature, feel perfectly entitled to indulge in what they think they should have. The world doesn’t care about what your child does or messes their life up with. The world’s idol is almost always and ultimately, how can I make money off of this person. They won’t let their own children go down their evil path, but they’re perfectly happy to take the money from someone else’s child. The tragedy is ultimately there is a crash and burn and although the father tried to keep the child from crashing, now the child or other people expect the parents, often even the church to be there and help them pick up the pieces and rebuild their lives after their collapse. It’s often the father that has to step up, making life so much more difficult for fathers.

Can’t you imagine Jesus seeing this right before His eyes? All of these people followed Him around, day to day. His heart is breaking, like any father’s would, to see His children being harassed by the evil all around them. Unable to rebuild shattered lives, needing someone else to pick up what they caused in their rush to destruction, believing all the nonsense around them. Jesus is God the Son, but all creation came into existence through Him. No doubt He had a hand in the creation of all us, He is God. It bugs me when someone makes a reference to “Jesus our brother”. Since we’re God’s children and Jesus is God’s Son, well He must be our brother. Yeah, kinda, but really no. He is still all powerful God. He is man, but He is entirely God as we saw in the Athanasian Creed from last week. And no not even really our big brother, but certainly our God.

He knows every one of those people who are hungry, are oppressed, suffering, often as the result of their sins, their envy, greed, their search for pleasure instead of trying to grow in the relationship that Jesus offers them every moment of every day. Dr Jeff Gibbs writes: “the passive forms of sku,llw [harassed] “to flay,, skin and r`i,ptw “to throw” emphasize that the people are victims of evil spiritual forces around them that are beyond their control.” Dr Gibbs goes on to stipulate that the failure is not limited to those people who, because they are without a shepherd, or the shepherd is not faithful to them: “…their deplorable spiritual condition is caused in part by the failure of their spiritual leaders.”[1] That is also a two-way street in Christianity. In a world, today, where we see pastors who are trying to be faithful, pretty much ignored because they are seen as narrow-minded or naïve, and that the world is oh so much more accepting and “tolerant”. Sure, the world can afford to be tolerant, it doesn’t care how someone ends up and even has the chutzpah to criticize the church and the parents because they don’t do enough to help the people the world destroyed to function as adults again. It’s a bizarre world being a pastor in this day and age, and certainly the church has to bear responsibility in a lot of ways that it has not been faithful to the parishioner and the church has done itself harm by its passivity and failure to truly represent Christ and what He truly stands for and how He defends us against the evil of the world, the spiritual, demonic attacks that go on around us every day. But those in the church expect the church to fix those problems by providing material comfort, which in this day and age, serious churches no longer have the resources. But much more important than the material comfort, is the spiritual strength that the church should provide every Sunday morning, as a father provides strength and encouragement to his children. Not to be a faint echo of the world. What’s the point of having a church if it only weakly prattles about the world around us?

I would seriously hope people take Jesus’ words very much to heart in this passage. He knows full well the world that He is sending His men into, like a military commander, He knows He can’t protect His people from all the harm they could incur. But, He can and must prepare them in a way that they at least have every chance, not just to survive, but in order to achieve the objective. Jesus’ objective is clear, He wants His men to grow and have on the job training, bringing His hope and promise into the world. He wants the world to know that there is strength and protection and love and caring from Him in His church. No one is going to find it in a greedy, grasping, lying world that is only about telling anyone what they want to hear. That is not living, that only results in harassment, often physical sickness, disability, which we see all around us, all of the time. It’s time that we went out into the world to serve the Lord of the Harvest, in His harvest of the world. To see all of the harassed, helpless, sick, twisted, results of the world, to get serious about the church that Jesus has given us in order to stand strong against the lying, death dealing ways of the world. We see this smarmy, snarky, weasely attitude towards the church, inside and outside of the church. Our only hope is in Christ, He died in order to fully pay for our sins, He rose again to give us the promise of eternal life, fulfilling and life the way God had always wanted for us, not life the way the world uses to tear us down and destroy us. The church of Jesus Christ is important because it is what we have, as the Body of Christ, to stand up to all the evil around us. The church will always be, but if it continues to limp along, more and more of our families and those around us will be lost to eternal damnation because while we are the church, we chose not to act like the church.

Dads, you are expected to be those laborers, those who go out and protect and build and strengthen. It might even be casting out demons, we see the demonic all around us and quite often, only in the strength of the Holy Spirit, you need to stand up to those demonic forces, those snarky, smarmy forces that threaten our families. We should expect to suffer the slings and arrows of a nasty, evil, threatening world and do what you can to stand up for Christ and true life and ignore the taunts and nonsense of the world in doing it. No matter what our children say and do, they are looking for us to protect them. It’s often messy and unpleasant, but you, me, all men in Christ have to emulate the things that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit have shown us to do to be true men of God and to reject the evil of the world.

The peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amin and Shalom

He has risen! He has risen indeed! Hallelujah!

 

[1] Rev Dr Jeffrey Gibbs  “Concordia Commentary  Matthew” p 495

Los cielos cuentan la gloria de Dios Salmo 19 First St Johns 3 de julio de, el año 2016

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Hacemos nuestro comienzo en el Nombre de Dios el Padre y en el nombre de Dios el Hijo y en el nombre de Dios el Espíritu Santo, y todos aquellos que saben que toda la creación glorifica a Dios, dijo … AMEN!

Tuvimos que permanecer constantemente calificada en el guardacostas, aun siendo a tiempo parcial. Uno de los títulos a que se estaba llevando a cabo en diferentes áreas, nocturnas, diurnas, durante todo el año. Muchas veces nos estarían saliendo a las 8 pm en enero debido a que tuvimos que coger las horas de marcha. No, no me gusta ser frío, pero hay que hacerlo. Allí están, muy lejos de la costa, sin otra luz que te rodea, sobre todo cuando no hay luna. Incluso en el cielo sobre el océano a 18 grados, hay muy poca humedad en la atmósfera, el cielo está despejado y oscuro, y mirando hacia el cielo, las estrellas son brillantes y nítidas, la Vía Láctea es tan prominente, se sentía como si podría alcanzar y cepillar mi mano a través de la Vía Láctea. El número de puntos de luz en el cielo es asombrosa, nosotros que estamos tan acostumbrados a ver el cielo de la noche en medio de la iluminación artificial, el material que entra en la atmósfera, que tiene muy poco de la visión total, incluso en las mejores circunstancias, hay muy poco que vemos a simple vista. La mayor parte de lo que vemos es la galaxia que nos encontramos, lo que conocemos como la Vía Láctea. Cuando proclamamos que Dios creó el universo, que nuestro todo creativa, de gran alcance, todo lo que Dios sabiendo que nos hizo a su imagen y nos fijamos en este universo, nos dio toda su creación, muchos se nos acuse de presunción: “¿Cómo se puede pensar que en este inmenso universo que somos las únicas personas en esta masiva, universo? Tiene que haber otras personas. “Hay complicados cálculos de estimación de cuántos otros planetas están poblados por seres como nosotros. Considero que si confía en las matemáticas complicadas y haces los cálculos de todos los factores que intervienen para explicar el hecho de que estamos aquí, se vería que nuestra presencia aquí está más allá de cualquier estimación de la posibilidad científica. Si usted realmente desea para justificar nuestra existencia a través de la ciencia hay que reconocer que hay un Creador todopoderoso y trascendente del universo. Para nosotros estar aquí es, en virtud de las leyes de la probabilidad, más allá de cualquier posibilidad estadística. Si somos estadísticamente imposible, incluso en este universo masivo, la “probabilidad”, la palabra científica, por otras formas de vida está más allá imposible. Además, si Dios nos crea a su imagen, crea un ambiente que no sólo es “compatible” nuestra existencia, nos mantiene con vida, pero sobre todo nos permite florecer y crecer a pesar de nuestra constitución más bien frágil, sobre todo en un universo que consiste en tales extremos en términos de temperatura, radiación, el agua, la atmósfera, y muchos otros factores, que Dios nos proporcionan un entorno muy singular para nosotros vivir. La perspectiva cristiana es que Dios es todo amor, todo el suministro y todo poderoso en todos los aspectos de la creación, para su pueblo. ¿Por qué no nos, su pueblo, su creación, y para los de Jesús, sus hijos dar. ¿Por qué no nos dan una enorme, magnífico, inmenso universo?

Dios sí creó el universo, la opinión científica predominante es que el universo fue creado como resultado de la gran explosión. Curiosamente, la teoría del Big Bang fue formulado por un cura católico. “Esta idea sorprendente apareció por primera vez en forma científica en 1931, en un artículo de Georges Lemaître, un cosmólogo belga y sacerdote católico. La teoría, aceptada por casi todos los astrónomos hoy en día, fue un cambio radical de la ortodoxia científica en la década de 1930. Muchos astrónomos de la época eran todavía incómodos con la idea de que el universo se está expandiendo. Que todo el universo observable de las galaxias comenzó con una explosión parecía absurda. “Es interesante que la ciencia convencional en ese momento era que el universo había sido siempre, esto se llama la” teoría del estado estacionario “que todo lo que siempre fue, y siempre lo sería. Tomó un clérigo cristiano para señalar al resto de la ciencia convencional de que “estado estacionario” no era sólo la realidad. Ningún científico en este día y edad creen en el “estado estacionario”, debido a una serie de factores, uno de ellos que el universo no es sólo un poco de allí sentado, que el universo es en realidad tirando de diferenciarse. En algún momento, millones de años a partir de ahora, el universo se han retirado tan lejos que la gravedad ya no será capaz de controlar, que todo en la creación será un trozo de materia sólida congelada. Ya no va a haber ningún calor, ya que el calor es un factor de gravedad.

Padre Lemaitre, el formulador de la gran explosión es citado en el sentido de decir que si Dios el Padre escogió para crear el universo en una enorme explosión rayo rápido, un destello brillante que así sea. Los cristianos han sido efectivamente a la cabeza de los descubrimientos científicos desde el comienzo, la gente como Louis Pasteur, sin duda el más brillante matemático Blaise Pascal para nombrar unos pocos que eran devotos cristianos. Muchos creen que Galileo demostró que el sol era el centro del sistema solar. En realidad, un clérigo católico llamado Nicolás Copérnico demostró que el sol, la tierra no estaba en el centro. Una teoría siempre completada por otra devota cristiana Johannes Kepler. El argumento se ha hecho que los cristianos son mucho mejor equipado para los científicos desde el paradigma para el universo es lo que Dios ha establecido, que el Dios de la Escritura es muy racional. Pablo escribe en 1 Corintios 14: 33: “Porque Dios no es Dios de confusión, sino de paz. El universo es una prueba para la orden. Hay momentos en los que sentimos que el mundo está fuera de control. Pero entonces nos damos cuenta de que el trastorno es lo que creamos, lo que hacemos como una cuestión de nuestro pecado. El orden que mantiene el universo, lo que Dios ha establecido, para que no se puede debilitar, que el sol brilla, el ciclo del agua continúa, de que estamos protegidos de las duras condiciones que nos rodea; frío extremo y el calor, la radiación, la falta de agua, los extremos de la gravedad. Nuestro medio ambiente, lo que está alrededor está, es tan equilibrado, tan controlado, tan adaptados a nuestras necesidades muy específicas, lo que quiere decir que todo esto es un accidente se acaba viviendo en la negación a un extremo.

La afirmación es que es la ciencia contra la fe, pero la fe se ha demostrado una y otra vez desde el principio, en contraste con la ciencia que ha sido refutado una y otra vez. Mientras que la iglesia fue la creación de las universidades, la formación de personas para enseñar y hacer investigación en la Edad Media, la ciencia secular era todavía mucho más preocupados con la alquimia y la astrología, las áreas condenado la iglesia. Si al estar justo es arrogante que así sea, considero que ser arrogante es mucho menos de un pecado que estar equivocado, o tomar una posición debido a lo que los demás quieren que usted crea, porque es popular, porque es el mundo alrededor de nosotros que viven en negación, que sí, supongo que voy a ser arrogante. Es más importante tener la razón que sea popular.

Como cristianos sabemos que se debe a la voluntad de Dios que no sólo son los seres humanos conscientes en el medio de la creación de Dios, reconociendo que la complicada e intrincada universo que nos rodea no podría haber sido un accidente, pero en este Día de la Independencia, los cristianos reconocido la mano de Dios en lo que tenemos en nuestras libertades hoy en día, en los Estados Unidos. En la forma final de Thomas Jefferson, escribe: “… a los que las leyes de la naturaleza y del Dios de la naturaleza les da derecho …” reconociendo que no sólo que las complejidades complicadas de nuestro mundo, en la naturaleza, ha sido creada y controlada por Dios, sino que también se trasladó a los hombres y mujeres de hace 240 años para crear una nación que sigue siendo el más fiel de Cristo en el mundo, sino también fiel a las directrices verdaderos y la inspiración de la Biblia. Negar que es estar en la negación de la historia tanto como muchos están en la negación de la ciencia y la probabilidad.

Y, por supuesto, la parte más citado de la Declaración: “Que todos los hombres son creados iguales”, es decir hay un Creador, que no conseguimos aquí por accidente, nos pusieron aquí intencionalmente, como el escritor de Ester afirma: ” para un momento como este “.

Que Dios no sólo nos ha creado, sino que dotó a su pueblo en su creación, con ciertos derechos inalienables: “… que éstos están la vida, la libertad y la búsqueda de la felicidad”, sí que hemos tendidos esos “derechos” Salir al impío , pero sabemos que no sólo crea, sino que también nos dio la dignidad y responsabilidades de su creación en Él como testigo de Dios. Jefferson terminó declarando que los miembros del Congreso Continental que representan a todos los que están en los Estados Unidos; “… Apelando al Juez Supremo del mundo, por la rectitud de nuestras intenciones”, es decir, hacemos un llamamiento a Dios para que confirme nuestro curso de acción, que sentimos que se nos confirma en ese curso, o que Él debe intervenir con el fin para nosotros para ser llevado de vuelta a su voluntad. Para los estadounidenses el poder creador de Dios no es sólo en términos de todo el universo, sino también en nuestra muy pequeña parte de ese universo, guiados por su Suprema, incluso en estos días en los que parece no seguimos su voluntad.

Craig Blaising y Carmen Hardin escribir: “El salmo XIX presentes tres leyes en armonía unos con otros”, citando a Teodoreto. Y “También presenta un reproche de ateísmo.” Citando a Diodoro. Ellos van a decir, citando a varios autores: “El pslam comienza proclamando que Dios, como diseñador de los cielos, es conocido por su diseño. La creación no es por casualidad. Más bien, las cosas creadas son criados para nuestra instrucción. Es el espectáculo de creación que habla, dibujo una respuesta de nosotros que glorifica al Creador. Eso … “Dios se revela especialmente en el orden de las cosas. Porque está claro que las reglas de la razón a través del orden natural … Esta orden se forma la música original del cosmos. Esta revelación natural constituye un mensaje de la grandeza del Señor … su providencia es un mensaje de su amor … en un libro abierto para todo … declarado en un lenguaje universal “.

En verdad Dios es grande, Él revela todo lo que necesitamos saber que Él está en control. Que Él nos ha dado la vida y vida más abundante a través de Su Hijo. Que incluso en este universo que está tan hundido en el pecado, que Él nos da la promesa de salvación y resurrección por medio de su Hijo Jesucristo. Todo para nosotros que si tenemos en cuenta la inmensidad de la creación y el aún más masividad de Dios, que Él ha provisto para nosotros en muchos sentidos, sigue ofreciendo para nosotros y nos da la promesa de la vida eterna en la nueva creación en Jesucristo . Sólo alguien que está verdaderamente en Cristo o la predicación de Cristo puede saber que este mensaje es verdaderamente en su corazón.

La paz de Dios que sobrepasa todo entendimiento, guardará vuestros corazones y vuestros pensamientos en Cristo Jesús. Amin y Shalom

I’m going to do it God’s way, by His Word in Scripture

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A lot of feedback I get is to the extent, “sound really strict”, “not very loving”, “why are you always quoting the Bible?”. There is a lot of pretty superficial Christianity out there. As a Lutheran pastor I’ve always been taught, to be faithful to what the Bible says, it’s God’s Word that matters. It’s your job to help people understand it, grow in it, live their life in accordance with the Bible, not to make things up. Imagine if we all lived according to the Bible and not just the way we think things should be, the world would be a much better place. Fact is, we are all sinners, even in our best intentions we do things that are messed up and hurt people and hurt our relationship with God. We can turn back to Him for His forgiveness and blessing, or we can keep messing things up, even unintentionally and keep driving each other away. We live so isolated from each other today, we have our superficial relationships, heck we really think we’re friends with someone because they accepted us on FaceBook. No it’s really time to build relationships the right way and not the way the world tells us that we all know inevitably hurts us and other people.

For example, “it’s all about love”. It’s not about “love” in terms of doing what’s right, of being a blessing to others by helping them to really focusing on God, His Word and your neighbor. (I do find it interesting that people will always quote “Love they neighbor”. They seem to forget that Jesus said first, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your strength.”) You can’t really love your neighbor until your relationship of love with God is firm and established. Until you know how to “love” as God wants you to “love”, then you’re really just kind of playing with people.

To many people “love” means, “you make me happy, you do things for me”. (Often those things are give me sex, booze, drugs or just cash, make it easier on us.) Love means what’s doing the best for that person, helping that person be the best they can be and not just an enabler for whatever sin that they’ve become chained to, that’s supposed to make them “happy”. Come on, let’s face it, let’s take a, somewhat, benign sin like ice cream. It costs money, good ice cream gets a little pricey after awhile. It puts on weight, with very little nutritional benefit. It causes much more serious health issues. I know plenty of people with diabetes, yet we’re so consumed with smoking. Smoking is sin too, but get a grip. Too much junk and diabetes will kill you. There’s people all around getting constant medication for diabetes, going blind, losing limbs, dying. Don’t know anyone with lung cancer.

Let’s really love and start holding people accountable to what they should be doing. Being “happy” today, is just a fast track to poor health  and early death. Throw in drugs, booze, lack of exercise. Poor health in general is everywhere, do we really love when we see someone tooting another joint, or doing another in a long line of “16 ounce curls”?

There is so much “me” today and so little in terms of God’s will. We make God to be an agent of our “happiness”  and we really aren’t interested in what God has for us. People would look at my life and think that it might be pretty goofy. Picking up and moving from a place I had grown up in, raised children in, then moved to an unfamiliar place (actually two), far away from family and friends. But I do have peace that this is where God wants me and I am doing what He wants me to do. Way too many people today do what they think makes them happy, but have very little peace, hmmm, how do you think that happens? Telling God to go take a hike in order for me to do what makes me “happy”, then finding out what makes you “happy”, just messes you up. What God wanted for you would make you “happy”, but you just decided “don’t confuse me with the facts” if God wants it, then it’s probably boring or lame, I don’t want to do that.

But yes, in God’s will I do have peace. Doesn’t mean things are easy, we see with the disciples, many people down through history. Things weren’t easy, read what Paul wrote about 2 Corinthians 11: 16-33, he went through more in a few years, then most of us will in a lifetime. He knew God was guiding him and strengthening him, making him a better man and certainly a more godly man, and certainly not a messed up man.

So I do what God guides me to, yea sometimes it’s not very pleasant, there are plenty of times I take shots for what I preach, teach or write. Doesn’t mean what I’m doing is wrong, just means someone thinks it’s ok to take shots at me, even if they don’t have a good reason to, don’t know what they’re talking about. Being faithful in God is not settling for just a “feel good” Gospel, something that makes everyone happy for the moment. Sorry just doesn’t work. The trials and tragedies of life pop up all to quick and then we don’t feel good anymore and it’s all God’s fault. My job is to equip those who are in Jesus in order for them to deal with all the good times, tough times, and mundane, maybe even boring times in order for them to grow closer to God and to glorify Him who provides so much for us. That includes eternal, perfect life in the resurrection, it’s only through Jesus. This also includes being strong and being a Christian example for others. The next time you need to be encouraged and strengthened, you think your local drug pusher is going to help you? No! In the end he’s only going to make it worse. What really works is a strong /mature Christian man or woman (and yes that excludes the “feel good” Christians out there too). Too often we want to be made “happy”, placated like a child. We know that leaves us worse off then we were.

God sacrificed greatly for me in His Son Jesus. I have to step up and live a true life in Jesus, not a life of go-along to get-along. I have to be that example of a mature faithful Christian man. That is what God expects from me, to be faithful in continuing to grow, in following where He leads and not in what I think is “happy”, or what I “like”. Lots of other people look to me for that too, imagine what a great place the world would be if everyone were living that way. But that’s not going to happen because in this day and age it’s all about me and what makes me, what I think, happy. We can’t just continue to “hang” where we are and to be pacified, You aren’t going to find any example of that in the Bible. The Bible is what God wanted us to know about Him. He inspired men to write the Bible and show what is the truth. You don’t see people just coasting along in life, sitting around getting snookered and honoring God. Only those who are strong and faithful honor Him. What you find over and over again is men and women who are pushed to step out of their comfort zone in order to live up to God’s will and not their own. Why on earth do we think we should be different today? Is it because we know we can’t handle it and need to be babied?

You will think what you will, but Jesus made it very clear that many will be deluded, fooled, by wrong messages. That His true disciples will have to deal with the trials and antagonisms of the world. We are seeing Christians being martyred right now, all around the world. Not for “feel good”, but because they know who Jesus is and that they need to serve Him and others even in extremely difficult circumstances. There were more Christians martyred in the 20th century, then in all of history, combined! There’s no “feel good” Christianity there, yet it is only through Jesus that we are saved, some of us do have to suffer to the extreme in order to be saved. It dishonors them and Jesus when we make being a a Christian about “what makes us happy”.

What does honor Jesus, the millions who have lived in Jesus through the centuries, the millions who live around the world? It is being true, faithful disciples of His. Doing what He teaches us in His Word the Bible, and not what other people try to make Him out to be. To follow where He leads us and to what He leads us to do through His Holy Spirit. Jesus said He will tell many to be gone because “I never knew you”. Many who thought that what someone told them to “tickle their ear”, was actually genuinely in Jesus. Someone who tried to make Jesus into what they wanted instead of what Scripture truly says about Him. I know my responsibility as a teacher will be greater and I will be held much more responsible for what I teach. I intend to do all that I can to truly teach God’s Word in the Bible. I seriously fear for those who have to answer to God who ignored God’s Word and made up what they thought would make people feel good, it will be very scary for them.

I am holding on to you John 16 First St Johns May 1, 2016

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[please click on the above for the audio of this sermon]

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who know that the great I AM is holding on to them said … AMEN!

I AM holding on to you, I AM holding on to you, in the middle of the storm I AM holding on I AM. For those who are convinced that I’m a stodgy fuddy-duddy, who just can’t get contemporary Christian music, I assure you that is completely inaccurate. I will compare my library of “contemporary” Christian music going back over twenty years to yours any day of the week.

One of the newer artists is David Crowder, the last Winter Jam we went to he was there and he really is great. I think he gets it a lot better than a lot of Christian musicians and yes, sad to say, there is a lot of junk out there.

One of his newest songs is titled “I Am”, if you listen to the song without really “hearing” it, it will sound as if me, you, the desperate sinner whoever that is, is almost frantically proclaiming that he is holding on. Sort of like me on a real roller-coaster. I don’t like roller-coasters, and when I am on one, I am probably thinking about how much “I am holding on”. But that’s not the point of the song and it is a really good illustration about our relationship with Jesus.

When Crowder says I AM holding on to you, who is the I AM? …  Yes, Jesus. In the middle of the storm I AM holding on to you. We have that assurance all the way through as to who it is that is really holding on. Jesus says, in our reading, “…whatever you ask of the Father in My Name, He will give it to you.” Now that is a huge assurance that in Jesus when we ask we will get what we need. More than that, when we think we’re asking in Jesus’ Name and we’re not, we’re asking for something that is not going to build us in Jesus or glorify Him or witness to the world for Him, we won’t get it. Why? Because He is holding on to us, even when we have a bad idea or motivation, He is holding on to us to protect us from ourselves and the world. Between John 6: 35 to 51, Jesus refer to Himself four times as “I AM the Bread of Life”. I AM the Good Shepherd, I AM the door, I AM the water of life over and over. The people listening to Him all knew exactly what He meant, Yahweh told Moses that His Name is I AM. They understood His reference to the bread that Yahweh provided for their ancestors in the desert. They understood their need for that physical bread, and also the bread that “strengthens and preserves us in body and soul to life everlasting.” That Jesus was saying I AM the bread. He was telling them that He is God the Son, the only one who could give them what they need to preserve them in their daily lives, but also for spiritual nourishment, to strengthen, preserve and prepare them to life eternal in the resurrection, as He was going to be shortly resurrected. The difference being our resurrection will be in the perfect world of the eternal earth.

Crowder writes “this is my resurrection song”, saying again that it’s about what Jesus did, He who died in order to save us from our sins, who was perfect, perfectly holy and God the Son, the only One who would be sufficient to pay those sins and in doing so gave us the hope and promise that we need in order to know that we are saved. Not just saved but also given the very visible, tangible evidence of our salvation. The perfect Son of God, tortured, mocked, humiliated, killed so that our sins are completely paid for. Not what we did, but entirely what He has done and continues to give us the assurance that He has provided everything necessary for us to live in this world in Him, and as it says in the Revelation reading: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” That is, we will be in the very presence of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the resurrected, perfected, eternal world.

Through all of our readings today, it is being made abundantly clear, who’s we are and in Whose hand we are and will always be.

Luke tells about Paul who is headed east, toward Asia. The Holy Spirit gives Paul a dream of a man in Greece, Macedonia, asking Paul to cross from Asia Minor to bring the Gospel message to Greece. Paul’s journeys have been entirely in faith to Jesus who knocked him off his horse on the road to Damascus. While Paul was taking the initiative to spread the Gospel, it’s obvious when we look at all he had to endure that it was the great I AM who was holding on to him, guiding him in his ministry. Paul had the things that he was told by the apostles in Jerusalem, by men who had been Jesus’ disciples during His incarnational ministry. He had his encounter with Jesus, he certainly had his experience of being raised to the third heaven. But the Holy Spirit was leading him into places that had never heard of Jesus. Paul didn’t have a New Testament to show people and help them to see who Jesus is. But Jesus was holding on to him, even in new places where Paul had to trust entirely in Christ. There were no churches, no clergy, no funds to live on, no Bibles, no radio, internet or television. Just Paul and maybe Timothy, Barnabas, Mark, maybe Peter caught up to him. Much more powerfully it was the great I AM who promised to hold on to him, did hold on to him and lead him to where he needed to be to build those churches, establish the Christian leaders who would be the catalyst of Christianity to grow around the entire world.

Finally He gives them the ultimate hope and promise; “But take heart; I have overcome the world.” It’s not up to us to overcome the world. We’re not going to be able to overcome the world, Jesus will. The world will ultimately become so corrupted, sin-filled, beyond the possibility of any kind of rehabilitation or redemption that it will be destroyed. Yea, I guess many people would wag their finger saying how mean that will be of God. “Why can’t God just leave us alone and let us be happy?” You hear people regularly ask. Because the world they envision, filled with destruction, despair, anger, intolerance will become an intolerable place to live, even to those who think that complete independence from God will form some kind of utopia. It won’t, the world today, all around us, is filled with despair, hopelessness. We see people substituting that hope with greed, drugs, sex, alcohol, things that separate us, divide us, even cause us to confront each other in anger, violence and destruction. The only thing that will unify us, bring the world together is the peace and hope of Christ, who through Him all creation came into existence. Jesus’ promise in our reading that yes, we will have tribulation, but in the things that He has promised us, we will have peace, we will have true life and life more abundant, our life in this world and especially in the life of the resurrection. The great I AM is holding on to us.

Crowder’s song may sound like the desperate floundering of someone who is just barely holding on, but it really is about the assurance that no matter what we’re going through, being led to some unknown to witness to Jesus, to serve others, going through the storms of life, that the great I AM is holding on to us and not the other way. He holds on to us even when we try to pull away, when we ask in His Name He is faithful to keep holding on, always for our good in Him.

The peace of God that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amin and Shalom

We are His saints, enriched by Him Matthew 5 All Saints Day First St Johns Nov 1, 2015

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[For the audio of this sermon please click on the above link]

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who are saints in Christ said in a spirit of celebration and joy … AMEN

I am going to paraphrase Paul: “To the church of God that is in York, Pennsylvania to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1: 2-6)

Paul goes on to say to his brothers and sisters in Corinth as I would like to express those same sentiments to my brothers and sisters in York: “I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge-even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you- so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Corinthians 1: 7-8)

As His Saints we win and we didn’t do anything. Because He’s overcome, we have overcome. We have overcome the world. We have overcome death. We couldn’t do any of these things ourselves. While we like to think that we are so strong that we can achieve whatever we are confronted by, deep in our hearts we know we can’t. Why do you think that there is so much fear, anger, angst around us? All of these people who know perfectly well that they just can’t confront the world. They hear the lies of the world all around them and they try to believe them. They have to. Why? Because there is nothing else for them to believe. So they accept that they are somehow gifted, strong, personally endowed with some skill that is going to enable them to make it. But when you ask them what that looks like, how did they get there and for that matter, where is there? You get bewilderment, you get frustration. They don’t know. The world’s told them a lie, that they are somehow special. But they don’t feel special, they say they are. Students in the United States today rank way below the rest of the world in math, language, science. But they do rank first in one thing, in self-esteem. They feel good about themselves. But when you confront them with the reality of what that means, they have nothing. They are somehow special, but special how? They don’t know. Those around us today can’t perceive, or maybe more accurately don’t want to perceive anything past the next event. “Well let’s see what happens after the World Series. Let’s see what happens after the next election. Let’s see what happens after the next Federal Reserve meeting. Sure we wait to see the outcome, then what happens? Pretty much where we were. Nothing much has changed. We cling to the latest stock market numbers, and then we watch as our IRA’s, our financial future drop again. We think we have a way to make money on the stock market, we might even have a little success, then the market closes and we just spent money without lifting a finger. That affects the Christian and the non-Christian. But we have Jesus to cling to. He has overcome the stock market, the housing market, the GNP, the President and the Congress.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” That’s us! Ours is the kingdom of heaven. It might not “feel” like it right now. Another thing that separates us from the world? It’s not about our feelings. It is about what Jesus has done, what He continues to do. It’s His promise of heaven and eternity. Things might not be that great for you right now. We all know perfectly well that there are Christians all over the world who are very much suffering for their witness to Christ. You see that last verse in our Gospel reading? “…for your reward is great in heaven…” We have all had days and will have days, when we don’t feel so great, when everything’s going wrong, the future looks doubtful. Are there times when we’d like to give up? Sure! But because we are saved the Holy Spirit doesn’t give up on us. Why? We are His, we aren’t allowed to give up and we won’t because the Holy Spirit saves us from ourselves. The world does not have that promise, believes Satan’s lies and gives up, gives up in the form of drugs, alcohol, sex, money, power. They honestly believe this will save them, but we all know, and they know deep inside too, it will make them slaves and condemn them.

As a saint, as one who is saved in Jesus you are saved, you have the promises of Jesus, you have new life in Jesus, you are a special, holy, sanctified person, completely saved in Jesus and the Father’s special child and you didn’t do anything to be any of that. God chose you, He saved you, He recreated you in baptism, He lifted you up from the waters of baptism a new creation in Him. He gives you His own Body and Blood. His ministers share His saving, life restoring word with you. You received all this. You should praise and glorify God for what He’s given you. But none of that is yours because of your praise or worship, it’s yours because God gave it to you in your baptism in Jesus. Randy Alcorn writes: “What God made us to desire, and therefore what we do desire if we admit it, is exactly what he promises to those who follow Jesus Christ [His Saints]: a resurrected life in a resurrected body, with the resurrected Christ on a resurrected Earth. Our desires correspond precisely to God’s plans. It’s not that we want something, so we engage in wishful thinking that what we want exists. It’s the opposite – the reason we want it is precisely because God has planned for it to exist. As we’ll see, resurrected [saints] living in a resurrected universe isn’t our idea – it’s God’s”[1]

For those He has separated, not our choice, His decision. That’s something that we take to the bank. If Jim makes a decision for God what does that mean? Well did I do it the right way, did I do it at the right time? I’m fallible did I make some kind of mistake? It isn’t on me, I am hagios I am holy, separated. You and I are made to be a completely new and different being because Jesus redeemed you and me, He died for you and me, He paid for all of our sins and now we are made perfectly clean and holy. I am made to be completely acceptable to God because of Jesus. The Holy Spirit led me to be baptized and in that baptism I am cleansed from the sin I was born in and the sins I have committed in my life and made to be that new creature, His saint. Then as a part of His church, the Body of Christ, I am given His Body and Blood to strengthen me in Body and Spirit, to be newly cleansed of my sin, renewed in my Spirit. All because of what He did for us, nothing of what we did. We therefore have that assurance that because God did it that it’s done, completely right, totally in His power and none of it in ours. There can’t be a mistake, because of that we have complete assurance that Jesus is the Lord of our lives, in this worldly life and in the true life that is eternal and perfect in the resurrection. Journal about it for the next week, what does it mean to you to be a[gioj completely clean in Christ, how does that compare to what you see in the rest of the world, why is this a reason to give thanks, to praise and glorify our Savior Jesus Christ?

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amin and Shalom

[1] Alcorn, Randy   Heaven  pp 7-8

Being aware of your environment Ephesians 6: 10-20 First St Johns August 30, 2015

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[Click on the above link for the audio of this sermon]

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father, and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who are aware of the world around them in Jesus said … AMEN!

We should be familiar with; “those who are in Christ are in the world, but are not of the world.” Jesus’ priestly prayer for His disciples John 16 and 17, Jesus stresses “ESV John 17:16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

We are Jesus’ disciples, we are in the world, but we are not of the world. We are His, Jesus is our Lord, our Savior. We also know the things that are constantly around us. St Paul’s quote reminds us that we are of a different mind then those who are in the world: “ESV 2 Corinthians 4:4 In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” Despite the words of Jesus, of St Paul, we still have many in the church who believe we can somehow reconcile this and be at peace with the world. That’s certainly not Jesus’ idea, “ESV John 17:14 I have given them your word, and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” The world will do whatever it can to separate those who are in Jesus from Him and influence us into anything, so long as it’s not Jesus.

We should all be very aware of the influences that surround us and defend ourselves against them, not give into them. Many of those influences are very tempting, often they’re made to look like “ehh, not such a big deal”. But it’s the little bad influences that can keep affecting us, impacting us, slowly separating us from the truth that is in Christ Jesus. Do these bad influences “defile” us? Jesus says no in today’s passage. The Greek word koino,w means: “1) to make common 1a) to make (Levitically) unclean, render unhallowed, defile, profane 1b) to declare or count unclean.”[1]  Jesus is telling us loud and clear in our Gospel reading No! The things that are around us, don’t make us unclean. You find something on the Internet or on television, or happen on something in your travels that makes you feel unclean. I’ve seen things that made me want to run and take a shower. Let’s face it a lot of those things make you feel “defiled”, kind of violated. But in Christ those things don’t make us unclean, if they do, turn them over to Him, ask the Holy Spirit to give you a spiritual hose down… AMEN ?? But don’t feel as if you’ve become unworthy or so unclean that you can’t take it to Him, to be a part of His church.

But that doesn’t relieve us of the responsibility of being aware, of just avoiding the things that do make us feel that way, that do make us feel violated and separated from Jesus. Today more than ever, one of the most common things you will hear in the military, police work and other areas that require interaction in the world is the warning to “be aware of your surroundings, of your environment”. For most of history war or crime was pretty straight forward. There’s the enemy, there’s the bad guy, go and get him and restore control. On Sept 11, 2001, an unremarkable Tuesday morning, the biggest issue for most people was summer was over and dealing with the reality of the coming fall and winter. No one in their wildest imagination would have thought that at the start of their day at the World Trade Center that the building would come crashing down around them and many would not be home that evening. There was no apparent threat, no reason to be aware, another day like so many others they had lived through. And yet, out of no where, came a very real, very deadly threat.

We have spiritual threats like that all around us, day in and day out. Television, the internet, so much in print, there are spiritual threats at the flip of a switch.

So we agree, we live in a dangerous world. There’s no question that our physical safety can be of concern too. But frankly, more importantly our spiritual lives can be even more readily destroyed, temptation to degrade our spiritual lives is all around us, right in our homes, much nearer than what could kill us physically and this is the case even more so now than ever in the history of mankind. We agree we have to be readily aware of the fact that spiritual danger is all around us and we have to be very aware of our surroundings. That doesn’t just mean walking down a city street, being in a crowd, but the surroundings in our own home. What do we keep right around us that can negatively impact us, can spiritually kill us? We agree on these things, but what do we do about them? Paul tells us that we continue to trust in God and what He has given us, has already done for us.

We are told that our strength is in God, in His might. That we put on the whole armor of God. I don’t pull my helmet out of my helmet bag, my Kevlar vest out of my closet, our greatest enemy is “cosmic powers … spiritual forces of evil”. What do we have to defend us? Paul tells us: the belt of truth. When the world tells us what we should do we know the truth, it is right there around our waist. The breastplate of righteousness, protects our heart, soul, the things that do corrupt us. He gives us the shoes of readiness, not just to protect what supports us, our feet, our stability in the Word, but also to move us into the world to proclaim Christ, against the evil that is around us. We have a shield, the shield of faith what God gives us to protect us against the attacks of the world, the many attacks of the world. The helmet of salvation, reminds us of what is really important. We can get all involved in the evil and temptation of the world, or we can remember that our true life is in the resurrection, the world that God saves us for, the way God intended for us to live. The sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, the Bible. This is what we bring to thrust God’s Word into the world. It’s not enough to just stand there and take the hits from the world, we have God’s Word and He calls us to bring His Word into the world. Being aware of your surroundings isn’t just to be defensive, but it is to pro-actively go into the world and proclaim God’s Word, to push back against the darkness with His Word, the Bible, the Gospel. AMEN??

Of course Paul ends with “praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplications. The church’s most powerful weapon is prayer, us lifting up our prayers to the Father and the Father guiding us in our prayers so that we will be in His will. In five years of being ordained, I’ve seen God do some amazing things in answer to the prayer of His faithful people. So we put on the whole armor of God, all the things that protect us while we maintain “situational awareness”, and we lift up our situation to God in prayer and trust that He will answer and He will also lead us to where He wants us to be, for His best interests and ours. Our safety, our family’s, those we love, our awareness, is in Him and the armor that God has given us to stay in Him. Physically we may be hurt and suffer, but that is only for a time, our real danger is in the eternal life, letting the world drag us down because we were not aware of our surroundings and we let them influence us and not God’s protection. Spend some time this week in your journal to really work out where you need to improve in the use of the equipment God gives you.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amin and Shalom.

[1] Strong’s in BibleWorks

Martin Luther for the twenty first century

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Dr Martin Luther was one of the greatest minds, greatest theologians of all times. He made all of Christiandom look back and regain its understanding of what it means to be in Christ to be saved by Him, to be under His Lordship, to obey our Lord Jesus in what He revealed to us in His Gospels. We could sure use Martin Luther’s wisdom, courage and spiritual leadership today. But he was a real guy too, he was not some cranky fuddy duddy. So I thought I would start posting some of Dr Luthers “Table Talk” quotes. Let’s just say he was “relaxed” enough to give some of his more candid observations. He sometimes he was a little too blunt and no one would call him politically correct. His candor would be a breath of fresh as in this time of phoney it’s all about me “Christianity” and political correctness.

This isn’t the first time people of God have had to stand against the evil, corruption of a decadent world

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Right on the heels of the vote in Ireland to permit homosexual marriage, I’m reading this devotional in Henry and Richard Blackaby’s “Experiencing God” p 166: “No matter how ungodly the environment you may be in, God will always find you and walk with you. Noah lived in perhaps the most wicked age in history. No one worshipped God.”

Point taken, the Bible tells us of many ages full of human wickedness. Why would we expect ours to be any different? [it is kind of interesting this comes just before the rendering of the U.S. Supreme Court decision] it’s not just homosexuality either. Men and women think that it’s almost a “pro forma” to live together before marriage. Sorry, that’s not acceptable either. We have a society that is no longer concerned about being God honoring and is solely concerned about pleasing and honoring self, and then we wonder why we are surrounded by all sorts of debasement. if there is any sense of propriety, dignity, character, nobility, it has become so distorted in contemporary use as to usually become meaningless or irrelevant.

We have those in society who make ridiculous demands “I expect $15 an hour to work at McDonalds” and then still don’t do their work with any level of competence or cooperation. Women today are more debased and sexualized then ever. The PC crowd, who couldn’t care less about the treatment of women call that sexual expression and then wonder why woman are treated with more disrespect now then ever.

I understand there have been many times in human history where there has been such gross ignorance and debasement it seems, based on history, that eventually builds and there is a vicious backlash against the attempts to drag our society and children into even cruder and coarser practices.

As Christians we have stood over the course of history for human dignity, while the secular continues to degrade every possible segment of the world. Eventually the abusers are shoved out, either by a culture that finally realizes it is being abused and taken advantage of, or certainly the resurrection when God establishes the world the way it was meant to be.

We want a world for us and our children that honors the sacrifices made for us, that we observe on this Memorial Day, for example.  We want what is fine, noble,courageous, dignified, precious. We do want those who are continuing to undermine and corrupt to stop polluting the world. By the same token we don’t want to see people debased, destroyed or abused. Now more than ever we need to pray for all, to witness to all those the Holy Spirit puts in front of us.  The church does have some responsibility in all this too.  The church has been far too passive, far to willing to stick it’s head in the sand and ignore what is going on. We do need to speak out in support of what God wants, but we also need to be constant and faithful in the Christian’s most powerful weapon prayer, and all the spiritual disciplines.

There have been worse times, the church of this time needs to step up and show real integrity and also genuine willingness to live according to God’s will and to witness that to the world. No we will ever  live without sin, but we need to live with Christian integrity and faith in God’s leading.

Ghosts, spirits, demons

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This may seem like kind of a goofy subject, but frankly considering all the supernatural themed shows on television, and a couple of experiences I’ve had as a parish pastor, this subject really should be raised and discussed from a Christian perspective. I happen to agree with the writer, that there are demons in the world, that they do try to convince people they are  ghosts of relatives, friends that kind of thing. OK, goofy, but the demonic wants only one thing, to take your attention away from Christ. So if you get caught up in doing “ghost hunts” through old houses, hey so much the better, keeps you from being a Christian disciples. So consider the following and I certainly would like to hear back from you to discuss further.

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Do You Believe in Ghosts?
Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Biblical Worldview

by Rick Barry on June 3, 2010; last featured October 28, 2014

Audio Version

Ghosts. What do you really think about them? If someone pushes us, most will admit a degree of love for scary stories. But what about reports of real ghosts, even by sincere Christians? Few Christians seem to know what to think. If we look to the Scriptures, however, we find solid answers, even on this murky subject.

The Fall of Satan

In The Fall of Satan you will discover who Satan is, when he rebelled, and other biblical teaching about this spiritual adversary and his angels.

Both children and adults alike wonder about the existence of ghosts. Some reject the notion. Others insist that ghosts exist and cite experiences—their own or friend-of-a-friend stories—as proof.

But what is a ghost? Although definitions vary, the most common one is that ghosts are the disembodied spirits of dead people that linger on earth. According to tradition, ghosts are invisible but can permit humans to see them.

Of course, either a thing exists or it doesn’t. No amount of belief will cause ghosts to exist if they don’t; nor could personal opinion cause ghosts not to exist if, in fact, they truly do exist. Because a person’s belief in ghosts creates very serious and far-reaching ramifications, it’s a topic that no Christian should ignore.

Classic Ghost Stories

Tales involving apparitions drift down to us from ancient times. Various languages contributed words such as wraith (Scottish), phantom (French), specter (Latin), shade (Old English), banshee (Gaelic), and poltergeist (German).

In ancient Iraq, the Epic of Gilgamesh portrayed Gilgamesh conversing with the spirit of his dead friend Enkidu. Old Egypt left a cryptic tale about the ghost of Nebusemekh chatting with the high priest of Amun-Re. Such stories prove nothing, of course, except that the concept goes back a long way. In fact, even Christ’s twelve disciples fearfully mistook Jesus for a spirit when He appeared walking on the sea at night (Mark 6:49).

Homer included ghosts in his Odyssey and Iliad, and Shakespeare cast roles for spirits in Hamlet and Macbeth. Whether these authors believed in ghosts is unknown. What they understood, however, is that a truly chilling ghost story can grip an audience.

Growing Interest

Yes, ghost stories have been around for ages, and some (such as Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol) have become fixtures in modern culture. However, in recent decades the genre has exploded with an abundance of movies (Field of Dreams, The Haunting in Connecticut, The Sixth Sense, as examples) and TV shows (such as Lost and Ghost Whisperer) that depend on spirits to drive the plots. Nonfiction programs such as Ghost Hunters attempt to investigate claims of ghosts using infrared cameras and other devices.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN GHOSTS? THE QUESTION IS HUGE. GETTING PEOPLE TO BELIEVE IN GHOSTS AUTOMATICALLY FORCES THEM TO REJECT KEY BIBLE VERSES.

Does a diet of such entertainment influence anyone? Undoubtedly. In 2006 the Barna Group published the results of nationwide studies involving more than 4,000 teens. The study found that 73% of the youth surveyed had “engaged in at least one type of psychic or witchcraft-related activity, beyond mere media exposure or horoscope usage.” One tenth had participated in séances. Nine percent had visited a supposed medium or spiritual guide.1

The Barna Group’s vice president noted that teens “cut and paste supernatural experiences and perspectives from a variety of sources—from the movies and books they read, from their experiences, from the Internet, from their peers and families, from any place they’re comfortable with.” This is a problem for adults as well.

An astounding find is that only 28% of churched teenagers could recall hearing any teaching at church in the past year that helped to define their understanding of the supernatural. Is it any wonder that so many teens enter adulthood without the answers they need on this topic?

Shadows of Doubt

Most reports of ghost sightings include details that defy logic. For instance, most alleged apparitions are clothed. But if a ghost is the spirit of a dead person, shouldn’t a spirit appear unclothed after shedding his earthly body and its garments? Is one to conclude that pants, shirts, dresses, and medieval armor contain spirits of their own that faithfully cling to the ghost of a person?

Further challenges to logic stem from stories of ghost ships (such as the Flying Dutchman), ghost trains, and similar accounts. Does a vehicle constructed by human hands gain a “soul” that reappears later?

People who listen to ghost stories around a campfire understand that their friends have concocted those tales. The wish to embellish a spooky yarn naturally explains the addition of such silly details as ghostly nightgowns and horse carriages. But what about people who insist they really did see spirit manifestations, clothes and all? Is it possible that some individuals—including sincere, Bible-believing Christians—truly observe supernatural apparitions?

God—the Creator of the universe—offers solid answers to man’s questions. His Word, the Bible, is the foundation for understanding both the visible and invisible world because God is Lord of both the natural and the supernatural. Regardless of whether a question concerns the origin of life or human souls, the first resource to check is God’s Word.

Even new students of the Bible quickly notice that it never portrays souls as lingering after death. (The immediate destination of heaven or hell rules out that idea. See, for instance, Luke 16:22–23, Luke 23:43, and 2 Corinthians 5:8.) Yet Scripture bluntly affirms the existence of immaterial intelligences. Mark 5:2–15 details Jesus’s encounter with a man indwelt by a multitude of unclean spirits. Christ ordered them out but permitted them to enter a herd of swine. In Samaria, Philip preached and “unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed” (Acts 8:7). Later, Acts 19:14–17 tells of a man inhabited by a demon. The sons of Sceva tried to exorcise it, but the man attacked them. However, these aren’t ghosts; they’re demons—fallen angels—governed by Satan (Matthew 12:22–28).

Bible scholar Charles Ryrie noted, “The very fact that demons can enter human or animal bodies shows they can pass through barriers that would restrict human beings. . . . Demons are not humans; neither are they God. But they are superhuman with superior intelligence and experience and powers. To deny the existence of demons is not skepticism; it only displays ignorance. To be unrealistic about their power is foolhardy.”2

Interestingly, the Bible records one occasion when the living appeared to contact the dead. King Saul donned a disguise and visited a medium to summon the dead prophet Samuel (1 Samuel 28:7–21). An apparition that looked like Samuel appeared to the witch—causing her to cry out in fright.

However, this passage doesn’t suggest that séances work, and it absolutely doesn’t condone witchcraft. Some scholars believe that God sent Samuel on this unique occasion.3 But others believe a demon was impersonating the prophet based on the fact that he made some false claims. For example, commentator John Gill notes that the apparition warned that all of Saul’s sons would die on the next day, but some survived.4

Either way, the emphasis is that Saul had sunk so low that he tried to dabble in the occult, which God condemns. The next day Saul died.

Grave Conclusions

No evidence has produced a single fact that should sway a Christian into believing that the spirits of deceased people can loiter on earth. In light of the Bible, the only conclusion is that ghost sightings are either the figments of overactive imaginations, or else they are demons.

In his book The Truth Behind Ghosts, Mediums, and Psychic Phenomena, Christian author Ron Rhodes states, “People sometimes genuinely encounter a spirit entity—though not a dead human. Some people encounter demonic spirits who may mimic dead people in order to deceive the living (see 1 John 4:1; 1 Timothy 4:1–3). Many who claim to have encountered such spirit entities have some prior involvement in the occult.”5

But why would demons want to deceive the living by impersonating the dead?

As servants of Satan and enemies of God, they would have every reason to cast doubt on God’s Word and its warnings about future judgment. Getting people to believe in ghosts automatically forces them to reject key Bible verses (seeHebrews 9:27).

Do you believe in ghosts? The question is huge. Coming to a wrong conclusion about the afterlife has eternal consequences, and the wrong choice on this side of the grave can condemn a soul to eternal agony on the other side.

Harumph, Harumph what are you doing? First St Johns Acts 4 April 26, 2015

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[For the audio version please click on the above link]

We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit and all those who know and love the Good Shepherd said  … AMEN!

In a scene from a Mel Brooks movie, Blazing Saddles, Mel Brooks plays a rather adle-brained governor. He is asked to sign a bill and he says “We must protect our phoney-baloney jobs gentlemen and he starts to harrumph and the rest of his entourage harrumphs with him. “Hey that guy over there didn’t harrumph” he says.

Reminds me of the scene we have here. It might be a little harsh to label them as phoney-baloneys, but the scene that comes to my mind is the Sadducees and temple guards coming up on Peter and harrumphing. “Harrumph, Harrumph, what are you guys doing here? Wait a minute that guard over there didn’t harrumph. Didn’t we tell you guys to get out of Dodge? At least put a lid on this Jesus stuff and now here you are preaching this stuff right on the temple.” I can hear at least one guard saying: “I was all nice and comfortable, having a cup of coffee and a bear claw, checking my smart phone and now I have to jump up and deal with these guys?” No one was going to cut the disciples any slack.

Remember these guys, the disciples? These are the guys who couldn’t run away fast enough when the guards showed up to arrest Jesus. Big, tough Peter and he denies even knowing Jesus to a little Jewish maid. Up until now they’ve been hiding behind locked doors and closed windows scared to death that the temple guards or Roman soldiers are going to drag them away to be crucified. I’m not minimizing their fear, they had legitimate fears, there really wasn’t anything like due process in Israel at the time. Sure Pilate did try to defend Jesus. But it wasn’t like Jesus, or now the disciples, had some smart lawyers to keep them from being punished. Jesus became a serious liability to Pilate and Pilate had no compunction of washing his hands of the situation and sending Jesus to be crucified. The same could have been easily done to the disciples. There wouldn’t have been any newspaper articles condemning this, the television stations wouldn’t have had film of marches to protest this. The disciples would be flogged and it easily could have been worse.

So what was the difference here? How did these men go from quivering with fear in dark to tigers, standing out in the most public spot they could have been at in Jerusalem? Of course we’re talking about, what was probably the Day after Pentecost they are now indwelt by the Holy Spirit. No doubt Peter and the disciples wreaked some havoc the day before, and now they’ve added 2,000 more people to the crowd they had yesterday. Ya this stuff had to stop, harrumph, harrumph!

Today is Good Shepherd Sunday. This has again taken on sort of a frilly connation, but it is intended to be a very serious, very life or death meaning. You can trust Jesus and the fact that He is the faithful Shepherd that lays down His life for His flock, and continues to stand on guard in a very spiritually dangerous world. We had a great talk about this at the Men’s Retreat. We who live in this part of the country, 21st century Americans have pretty much been lulled into very comfortable, affluent lives. Okay, so what do we have to be protected from? From our complacency, from our attitude that we’ve got it all in a brown paper bag and there’s nothing that threatens us! As you’ve probably heard me say, Satan doesn’t care how he gets your attention, so long as it’s not Jesus. If he can just lull the world into this frilly la, la world, a world where we have everything, so we don’t need Jesus then he’s happy to see us lost. Apparently the last episode of Grey’s Anatomy was very traumatic to fans. One of the threads was this great romance and the wife was put in the position where she had to watch as they had to stop treating her husband. She’s sitting next to her unconscious, dying husband telling him it’s ok, everything will be alright. How the world comes to that conclusion baffles me, how will it be alright? Death is terrible trauma, a horrible rending of life, something we were never meant to endure until sin came into the world. There is nothing alright with death and for those who are not saved in Christ, who have rejected God’s plan and lived how they want to, it means eternal condemnation!

What do we have to be protected from, what does the Good Shepherd save us from? Being lulled into death with a false assurance that it’s ok, it’s not! From the spiritual warfare that goes on around us that continues to look for ways to turn us from Jesus to anything and everything, including eternal damnation.

Jesus gives us His assurance, His promise, His genuine love “I am the Good Shepherd and I lay down my life for the flock.” His love is not only to comfort and assure, but to protect, to stand against the evil all around us that can overcome and swallow us up, while we think we are safe and sound in things that we are blessed with, but rust and are destroyed, in the end don’t do anything for us, while Jesus is eternal and all-powerful. We are always so ready to trade the eternal for the trivial.

That’s what we see in our Acts reading today. There are those in the Jewish leadership who understand who Jesus is, they know, they’ve seen all the signs of the Messiah. But like Mel Brooks, harrumph, harrumph, I’m big and important and this is what is real today and I will deal with it when it’s convenient for me. Remember Jesus’s parable of the Rich Man? Where am I going to store all my crops and God comes to him and says: “Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ All of our wealth and easy living won’t mean a thing. We can either be Pentecost tigers and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit who guides us, and, like Peter, get up before those who just want to harrumph, or we can be nice and complacent. CS Lewis writes in the Screwtape Letters: “Indeed the safest road to Hell is the gradual one–the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts,….” We can harrumph all we want and feel it isn’t fair, or it should be up to us but that option wasn’t available to the disciples at Pentecost and it’s not to those who claim to be Jesus’s disciples today. Blow the dust off those journals, ask yourself and write about whether you are of the flock that Jesus shepherds or do you just harrumph your way through life?

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Amin and Shalom