Lessons from a Storm

 

This is the cross that sat atop the steeple of St. John Lutheran Church in New Minden, IL.  It came down as a result of the F4 tornado that passed through town around noon on Sunday November 17th. During cleanup operations the cross was found crumpled on the ground.  It is bent but not broken.  The center of the cross caves inward.  You can almost picture the face of Jesus in the bulge where the cross bars meet.  It was on another cross nearly two millennia ago that the Son of God absorbed all unrighteousness into Himself as He hung cursed on the tree.  Jesus cried out in anguish:  “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!”  Here Jesus experienced what it was like to live without the providential arm of God the Father.  Here he tasted hell in all of its fury.  Shortly after He cried out again.  “Father, into Your hands, I commit my spirit”.  Though forsaken for a moment Jesus entrusted Himself into the hands of His heavenly Father, confident that He would live, even if He died.  Three days later He was raised bodily from the dead.  He lives nevermore to die.  In Him we Christians live, move and have their being.  In Jesus all things are held together.  Jesus lives. Because He lives He says that you will live also.

Some thirteen homes in New Minden suffered damage from the storm.  Most face the daunting task of rebuilding their homes and sorting through what possessions are salvageable.  Vera Mills helped her 102 year old mother,Loretta Weihe, reach the basement safely. There they heard the snap. crackle and pop of the twister hitting their house.  They heard the loud bang the chimney made as it crashed to the floor.  Down the road Ray and Eunice Hausler reached the bottom step going into the basement when the storm carried off their home.  All are incredibly grateful to be alive.

Pastor Jacob Mueller, the oldest son of Rev.Tim and Dawn Mueller put everything in perspective regarding the tornado.  The path of the storm was headed straight for the crowded section of the village. Then it suddenly turned north and east where it heavily damaged a convenience store and four homes before crossing Highway 127 to the church. Pastor Jacob Mueller noted that it was so much like God to avert the suffering of people by directing it to His home, the church.  No doubt the injures and fatalities would have been greater if it the storm remained on its original course.

Look again at the recovered cross from the steeple.  Bent but not broken. It looks like someone punched it in the center.  Now the head looks down with arms eager to embrace. At Golgotha on the tree of the cross, Jesus suffered death and abandonment so that you and I may live and never be forsaken.  The members of St. John and people of New Minden have this in metal on the cross recovered from the fallen steeple.  Thanks be to God for His mercy and grace!

Timeless and Unchanging

A message bsed upon 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

How can I be sure in a world that’s constantly changing?  This question was put to song some forty-five years ago in another tumultuous decade. Nothing has slowed since.  The world around us is changing more rapidly than ever.  At the turn of the 20th century it was believed that the body of human knowledge doubled every century.  Today the doubling of knowledge takes place every twelve hours!  It is impossible for anyone to keep up with this increasing depth and breadth of information.  The proverbial jack of all trades is being replaced by specialists in every field. Change is everywhere.  It is relentless. It threatens to sweep away everything in sight.  Is anything sure and certain?  How can I be sure in a world that’s constantly changing?

The tides of change impact Christendom too.  Mainline church leaders have been abandoning Biblical teaching for decades. They deny the virgin birth of Jesus Christ, His divinity, His bodily resurrection and His physical return in judgment on the Last Day. Universalism, the belief that everyone will be saved regardless of what they believe has gained traction among many denominations. Clerics as diverse as the three most recent popes, Billy Graham and emerging church leader Rob Bell deny that Jesus Christ alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Sociologists of religion declare that the church is dead.  Something different will serve the burgeoning Christ-less spirituality of this present age. Modern scholarship prides itself on its skepticism of the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3).  Programs you see on the History Channel, Discovery and TLC do not promote Biblical Christianity. They recycle ancient heretics and their false teachings into alternatives to the faith that you have learned.  Unbelief, misbelief and disbelief dislodge faith and certainty.  How can I be sure in a world that’s constantly changing?

None of this is new.  Satan, the dark prince of this world, has sowed seeds of doubt, unbelief, cynicism and skepticism widely.  He has many willing helpers.  Whenever you hear the question “Did God really say?” Stop. You should be able to detect the scent of sulfur emanating from these words.  “Why do you ask?” is an excellent follow-up. What follows is usually a denial of God’s Word and a particular belief based upon the Scriptures. The assault on marriage and the family are current examples. The debate is not so much about same-sex marriage as it is a sweeping effort to discredit religion and the family as we have known it since Eden.

What is new is the abandoning of the faith as handed over to us by our forefathers.  Early Christians became a leaven through which the culture was permeated and became largely Christian.  We are heading in reverse. Public figures deny our religious heritage and seek to replace it with anything but Christianity.  We are on the verge of an era when Christianity will be oppressed by ideologies as diverse as Islamic Sharia Law, humanism and Marxism.  It’s happening now in Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.  North America is next. Christian persecution is rampant in Egypt, the Sudan and Pakistan.

       The answer, the mission challenge, is before you.  SFrom infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.  All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the  man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:14-17). The grass withers, the flowers fall but the Word of the Lord endures forever (Isaiah 40:11). Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:7). The Lord does not change His mind based upon the latest poll numbers of public opinion (James 1:17).

       The mission of the Church is not to scratch the itching ears of a wicked and perverse generation. Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4)? We live in the time when people do not endure sound doctrine (2 Timothy 4:3).  The answer is not to accommodate, change or let the world write the church’s agenda.  Paul introduces this section of Holy Scripture by charging Pastor Timothy “in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge the living and the dead at the appearing of His kingdom” (2 Timothy 4:1).  In other words, you are accountable to the Lord for the conduct of your ministry.  He will require that accounting when He returns.

       Therefore, “Preach the Word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.  As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:2-5).

       We enter the mission field with eyes wide open.  The field is precisely where God has placed you.  It is fulfilled in your home, neighborhood, church, school, vocation, community and through your mission offerings to the outermost parts of the world.  Each of us knows people who are living contrary to the Word of God.  All of us know people who would benefit greatly from the forgiveness of their sins.  Repentance and forgiveness remain the heartbeat of Christian mission.  To reprove, rebuke or exhort has gone out of favor.  That’s a national problem today.  No one wants to say no to anyone.  The result is a generation that refuses to be held accountable. Who will step up and be the adult when adults abandon their God-given role?

       This is why the Scriptures call for pastors to be sober-minded with complete patience and teaching. Endure suffering.  It’s remarkable that most of us haven’t suffered for being a Christian to this point.  Regardless, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.  An evangelist is one who brings the forgiveness of sins in Jesus’ name. This is vital for those convicted of guilt by rebuke, reproof or exhortation.  Jesus remains the Savior of the human race.  There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life the only way to God the Father by the power of the Holy Spirit (John 14:6).

       St. Paul writes: “All who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people will and imposters will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived” (2 Timothy 3:12-13). “Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1Timothy 4:16). These remain the timeless and changeless Word of God.  How can I be sure?  God is faithful even if we are faithless.  The Word of the Lord endures forever, Amen.

This Present Darkness

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).

As Daylight Savings Time reverted back to Central Standard Time, darkness falls one hour earlier. Coupled with overcast skies and stormy weather the hours of light are retreating.  So it is for this sin sick world.

Tuesday afternoon the present darkness turned deeper.  Illinois became the fifteenth state to legalize same-sex marriage. People celebrated. The media rejoiced. The clear Word of God was ignored. Listen to the Holy Spirit as you read the following.

"So God created them in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis 1:27-28).  So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while He slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man He made into a woman and brought her to the man.  Then the man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:22-24).

Jesus confirmed this Biblical truth.  He added a comment regarding the dissolution of marriage.  “What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:26).
The holy apostle writes under inspiration of the Holy Spirit. “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For His invisible attributes, namely His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to Him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.”

“Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever, Amen.”
“For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those contrary to nature, and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in them the due penalty for their error.”

“And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know and God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them, but give approval to those who practice them” (Romans 1:18-32).
The darkness deepens.  Can it overcome the light?

“For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.  For it is written, ‘I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.’”

“Where is the one who is wise?  Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ, crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to the Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weariness of God is stronger than men.”

“For consider your calling brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong. God chose what is low and despised in the world , even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him your are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord’” (1 Corinthians 1:18-30).

The Light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.

“…all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and imposters will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.  But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.”

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by His appearing and His kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with complete patience and teaching.  For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 3:12-4:5).

Even as the darkness deepens in the twilight of this world, Christians look forward to the dawning of the eternal day when Christ appears in radiant glory.

Jesus Christ is the Light of the world, the light no darkness can overcome.