Imagine

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

THE WAY OF THE CROSS

9 October 2016

I. Introduction

-- turn in Bibles to 1 Kings 11:1-13

1 King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. 4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

7 On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 8 He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods.

9 The Lord became angry with Solomon because his heart had turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice. 10 Although he had forbidden Solomon to follow other gods, Solomon did not keep the Lord’s command. 11 So the Lord said to Solomon, “Since this is your attitude and you have not kept my covenant and my decrees, which I commanded you, I will most certainly tear the kingdom away from you and give it to one of your subordinates. 12 Nevertheless, for the sake of David your father, I will not do it during your lifetime. I will tear it out of the hand of your son. 13 Yet I will not tear the whole kingdom from him, but will give him one tribe for the sake of David my servant and for the sake of Jerusalem, which I have chosen.”

-- it’s a widely accepted fact that the American author Mark Twain was not a Christian -- which posed a problem when he began courting Olivia Langdon in hopes of marrying her -- you see, in his day, a man typically had to get permission from a woman’s parents before he could marry their daughter -- and, herein lies the problem

-- Olivia came from a professing Christian family, strong in the faith -- they not only attended church, but lived out their Christian faith in their lives -- and Twain quickly realized that there was no way Olivia’s parents were going to allow her to marry an unbeliever -- so Twain hatched a diabolical plan -- he pretended to be a spiritual seeker who needed the support and prayers of Olivia’s family in order to clean up his life

-- and as he met with the family and received their prayers and counsels -- as he continued to grow closer to Olivia and began to imitate their faith, Twain presumably converted and became a Christian -- and once Olivia’s family was convinced he was a Christian, they permitted the marriage

-- but, as we know, it appears Twain’s conversion was an illusion contrived to get permission from Olivia’s family for her hand in marriage -- after the wedding, the letters from Twain to Olivia changed in tone, and the religious feelings he had expressed in earlier letters during their courtship were never mentioned again

-- in fact, after their wedding, Twain began to ridicule Olivia's beliefs and devotion -- and soon Olivia’s own faith and hope in Christ began to cool -- she eventually turned away from the church and from her religion altogether, and a deep sorrow overtook her soul

-- Twain had never intended for this to happen -- he did love Olivia and never meant to hurt her, but the damage had been done -- he had broken her spirit and wounded her faith -- he said to her, "Livy, if it comforts you to lean on your faith, do so." -- She replied sadly, "I cannot. I do not have any faith left."¹

-- as sad as it is, the story of Olivia Twain’s waning faith is so often written into our own lives and our own churches -- we find ourselves drifting away as the anchor of our faith is severed by the world and our own flesh -- not so much in an intentional way as with Mark Twain and Olivia Langdon, but in more insidious ways -- through the gradual darkening of our own souls

-- everyone in here has probably heard the story of the frog in boiling water -- I have to admit I tested it out one time to see if it was true or not -- it is

-- if you take a frog and put them into a pot of boiling water, they will immediately jump out -- they sense the danger -- they feel the pain -- and they leap away to safety

-- but if you take a frog and put them into a pan of cool water and slowly turn up the heat to boiling, the frog won’t jump out -- it adjusts to the gradual change in temperature and will literally allow itself to be cooked without doing anything to get away

-- that is true for so many of us -- it is the spiritual tendency of all our hearts -- as Robinson wrote in his hymn, “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it -- prone to leave the God I love” -- it’s a spiritual law akin to the second law of thermodynamics -- energy trends towards entropy -- or, in other words, the spiritual always trends towards the unspiritual -- the heart always bends towards evil -- belief always trends towards unbelief

-- we see that played out so often in the lives of those around us -- we see it played out in our own lives and in our own churches -- and we see the warning to turn around from that path given to us in passages such as this

-- the Bible tells us King Solomon was the wisest man in history -- even in our day, with all its genius and technological advances, there is no one who is as wise as Solomon was -- no one who possesses the knowledge he had, nor who could apply it in similar ways today -- Solomon’s wisdom is unparalleled -- he had been singularly blessed by God with spiritual wisdom, and the success of his kingdom reflected the result of this Godly wisdom

-- but despite all the wisdom Solomon possessed, he ended up turning away from the God he loved -- from the God who had gifted him with wisdom and wealth and power -- and he is recorded in the Bible as an example of someone who started well but ended as a spiritual failure

-- how could this happen to him? -- and how can we keep this from happening to us? -- that is what I want us to talk about this morning

II. Scripture Lesson (1 Kings 10:23-11:13)

-- to better get a handle on what happened to King Solomon, let’s back up and read a summary of his life beginning in 1 Kings 10:23

23 King Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth. 24 The whole world sought audience with Solomon to hear the wisdom God had put in his heart. 25 Year after year, everyone who came brought a gift—articles of silver and gold, robes, weapons and spices, and horses and mules.

26 Solomon accumulated chariots and horses; he had fourteen hundred chariots and twelve thousand horses,[a] which he kept in the chariot cities and also with him in Jerusalem. 27 The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and cedar as plentiful as sycamore-fig trees in the foothills. 28 Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and from Kue—the royal merchants purchased them from Kue at the current price. 29 They imported a chariot from Egypt for six hundred shekels of silver, and a horse for a hundred and fifty. They also exported them to all the kings of the Hittites and of the Arameans.

-- it all sounds good, doesn’t it? -- if you were looking for someone who was the epitome of success -- who had it all together -- looks, wealth, wisdom, power, influence -- Solomon would be your man

-- as it says in verse 23, Solomon was greater in riches and wisdom than all the other kings of the earth -- he had it all -- he knew it all -- he was success personified

-- he was so wise, the whole world would come to hear him speak -- he had chariots and horses -- he had so much money and shared it so freely with his people that silver became commonplace and wasn’t considered to be of great value anymore -- Solomon was the kind of man that other men wanted to be and women wanted to be with

-- but one thing is missing in this recitation of all that he had and possessed -- faith -- no mention is made here at the end of Chapter 10 about Solomon’s faith -- of his devotion to the God who had blessed him -- of his obedience to God’s commands and desires

-- which brings us to Chapter 11 -- look at verse 1

-- this section begins with the word, “however” -- it marks the point of failure in his life

-- yes, Solomon had more wisdom than anyone else in the world, however...

-- yes, Solomon had more wealth than anyone else in the world, however...

-- yes, Solomon had more power than anyone else in the world, however...

-- however, he neglected that which was the most important of all -- the state of his soul -- as Jesus said in Mark 8:36, “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” -- this is exactly what Solomon had done

-- in defiance of God’s commands to the Israelites, Solomon had married many foreign women who had turned his heart from following the one true God of Israel to their foreign, pagan gods -- rather than standing firm in his faith, Solomon allowed the influence of his wives to lead him astray

-- look back at verse 4

4 As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been. 5 He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molek the detestable god of the Ammonites. 6 So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely, as David his father had done.

-- as Solomon grew old, his devotion to God waned, and he did not follow the Lord completely, as David had done -- he didn’t abandon God completely, but added the worship of other gods into his religious practices -- and the nation followed suit

-- things got worse and worse as the worship of pagan gods became accepted as okay -- as the new normal -- I mean, you can understand the feelings of the people -- “the government says it’s okay, so we should start accepting the worship of other gods, too” -- “the government has approved this, so we should, too” -- and the nation of Israel began down a steep, slippery slope to unbelief and idolatry and evil

-- it reached the point where altars were built for Chemosh and Molech on the high places in Israel, and sacrifices -- including the sacrifice of the children of Israel -- were offered to these evil gods

-- how did this happen? -- how could a nation set apart and called by God turn away so completely and totally within a matter of years?

-- they followed The Three C’s of Spiritual Defeat: Complacency, Compromise, and Corruption

-- Solomon and the nation of Israel became complacent in their lives -- they were satisfied with how things were and saw no need to keep striving to make things better -- not only was Solomon rich, but everyone in the country was rich, too -- they had plenty of food -- they had plenty of resources -- they were respected by the other nations -- and they lived in peace and prosperity -- they had all they needed and, as a result, they became comfortable and complacent in their lives

-- they were like a frog in a pot of lukewarm water, just chilling out, enjoying the scenery

-- from there it became easy to begin to compromise their faith and their moral standards -- they had so many people streaming to Israel from all over the world, bringing new ideas and new religions and new ways of thinking -- the king’s own wives were bringing new ideas on worship to the land -- and, sure, maybe that’s not the way they had been taught as children, but this was a new world -- a new time -- and things changed -- people just needed to be more tolerant and understanding

-- maybe it was time to add these new ideas and new ways of thinking to their lives -- and, as a result, they began accepting moral and ethical stands that were not in keeping with their traditional religious beliefs -- they began adding into their worship ideas they gleaned from the other religions -- why not? -- what was the harm

-- and little by little, the water in the pot began to heat, but very few noticed -- those who did were ridiculed by the public -- those who cried out for a return to the former ways of God were called bigots and intolerant and castigated as deplorable because of their traditional values and morals

-- and, inevitably, complacency and compromise led to corruption -- to total depravity -- to a complete turning away from what was good to that which was evil -- to that which was opposed to God Himself

-- just as Sodom and Gomorrah had become totally and completely evil, within and without, so had Solomon and the people of Israel -- they no longer pretended to follow God, but openly worshiped foreign gods and did that which was evil in the sight of God

-- verse 9

-- complacency led to compromise which led to corruption which ended up with God’s judgment and wrath being poured out on the nation

-- because of the sins of the people introduced by Solomon, the kingdom of Israel was split -- God commanded it be divided and separated -- its wealth and its power dissolved -- its influence lessened

-- the peace was shattered as God raised up enemies against Solomon from within and without -- and what was once a great nation fell to never rise again

III. Application and Closing

-- we need to pay attention to the voice of God as He speaks to us from His word -- the path that the nation of Israel followed in this passage is being writ large in our own country today -- we see America following the same path of complacency, compromise, and corruption -- and the judgment of God cannot be far behind unless we do something about it

-- but the warning in this passage is not just for nations, but for us as individuals -- all of us are prone to wander in the same way as Solomon -- all of us are prone to leave the God we love -- to become complacent with our lot in life -- to compromise our morals and our values and our faith -- and to become corrupt in our very beings

-- it should be a warning to us how many great men and women of the Bible started well in their lives, only to end as Solomon did later in life -- what’s important is not how you start your walk of faith, but how you end it -- and unless we are diligent, it is easy to cut our anchor lines and to shipwreck our faith

-- but even if you find yourself walking down the slippery slope of complacency and compromise and corruption, all is not lost -- there is another word that begins with the letter “c” that can turn things around -- The Cross

-- The Cross stands before us as a beacon on our path -- as a lighthouse to warn us away from the rocks of complacency and compromise and corruption -- as a safe port in the storm

-- The Cross is our source of redemption -- offering both forgiveness of our sins and the power to turn away from sin completely -- The Cross shows us the way when we are lost -- and all we have to do is turn back from our sin -- to turn back from our wicked ways -- to pray and seek the face and the presence of God and turn to the Cross -- and we will find grace and mercy and redemption

-- just because we find ourselves on a slippery slope leading away from God, both as individuals and as a nation, doesn’t mean we have to continue on this path -- God calls us to return to Him -- He calls us to repent -- to turn around -- and to come back to the God we love

-- as Jesus counseled the church of Ephesus in Revelation 2:4-5, “You have forsaken your first love -- remember the height from which you have fallen -- repent and do the things you did at first”

-- the answer to the slippery slope is to repent and do the things you did at first -- to turn back to the true worship of God and to put behind you all the things that are hindering that worship -- to follow the laws and the commands of God -- to once again hold yourself and this nation to a higher standard of moral values and ethics

-- just because everyone else is going over the cliff doesn’t mean you have to go, too -- you can take a stand -- you can be a voice -- you can make a difference

-- it all begins with recognizing the error of your ways -- of repenting from complacency, compromise, and corruption -- and of following the path of God regardless of who else walks your way

-- Solomon and the nation of Israel failed to follow the path of God -- they chose the way of the world to their detriment -- may we choose a better way and a better path

-- let us pray

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¹ Modified from Susan K. Harris, "The Courtship of Olivia Langdon and Mark Twain," Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture (Cambridge University Press, 1996), pp. xiii; submitted by Aaron Goerner

Monday, October 10, 2016

The Future of the United States: Thoughts following the 9 October Presidential Candidate debate

In 1998 a Russian economics professor predicted the disintegration of the United States as a result of an economic collapse, moral degradation, and unchecked immigration. This same economics professor had earlier predicted the disintegration of the Soviet Union.

While his prediction is obviously flawed in many ways, the truth remains that we are a country perched on a precipice. We are more divided as a nation than we have ever been racially, economically, and religiously. We are divided along party lines and already identified as separate members of a divided nation (i.e. red states and blue states).

The debate last night showed just how far down the slope of dissolution our country has already traveled. We are no longer a united nation, and if a country is divided, it cannot stand.

Something has to give.

The answer was not on the stage at the debate last night. The answer is much higher than that. The only hope this nation has is a return to God (2 Chronicles 7:14). Apart from Him, we are doomed.

Friday, August 26, 2016

PERSPECTIVES ON HOMELESS ASSISTANCE FROM A HOMELESS PERSON

This was posted on Reddit by a former homeless person. This is well worth a read, although it contradicts some of the other advice I have been given about ministry to the homeless (Note: Expletives deleted):

"Okay, so, I don't think it's appropriate to restrict charitable giving to only supporting organised charity or government initiatives. I also think that only giving people "things" (ie food) is a bad idea. Here are a few reasons.

Homeless shelters and services like soup kitchens develop a culture. Everyone needs humans to interact with and a society to be a part of. However, the homeless congregate around these services, especially when they have no other option.

The "scene" that results from this is incredibly toxic. Instead of having an opportunity to be around functional, healthy people in a different environment, we only interact with other homeless people. People who have poor coping skills, who have addictions, mental illnesses, learned helplessness, and all of the other crap that accompanies homelessness. People who all believe that there's essentially no way out, and that to find a way out is in some way disloyal. Getting out and learning how to interact with society is already really, really f*****g hard.

But when you have a ready made peer group of, perhaps, the only people who won't look down on you or treat you differently because of your situation, it's that much harder to collect the internal resources necessary to pry yourself away from that community and learn how to function in another one. The horrible, abusive, and dysfunctional interpersonal dynamics amongst the group seems not only normal, but inevitable. This is, in my opinion, only heightened by the presence of the people running the charity.

These people are usually educated (almost always more educated than the service users), from a relatively stable or "normal" background, and the class differences between users and providers is obvious, and often insurmountable. Not because of ill intentions on the part of those providing charity, but because there are basic, fundamental differences in things like communication and priorities that come with class differences. There is almost always some sense of patronisation, sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle, sometimes only felt by the receivers.

The distinct sense of we the givers are different from you, the lowly receivers, whether intended or not, almost always seems to be there. This makes one thing apparent: that as a lowly receiver, the kind of person I am not is: whatever the giver is. Stable, normal, secure, educated- those are other qualities, and they have nothing to do with me."

To that effect, some of the best charities I've experienced are ones that were primarily run by people who had substantial experience with poverty. Now, don't mistake what I'm saying here, because nowadays most charities that have job postings request that the candidates have "lived experience". This is often essentially b******t, and someone's week going hungry in college doesn't compare in any real way to being poor, where poor is literally an essential component of your identity and culture.

That brings me to another point, which is that organised charity usually requires employees to ensure its running. There is a big problem with this, and anyone who has had to take charity and who has also paid careful attention will already know what it is: these people's jobs depend on there being enough poor people of the correct demographic for them to serve.

Many charities depend at least in part on grants and government funds. I have seen firsthand the ways that organisations manipulate the system to ensure that they continue to receive maximum funding, while providing questionable value to the users.

Of course there are metrics that are used to determine if an organisation is being effective and if they are needed. And of course, the organisations are adept at fudging the numbers and gaming the system. I doubt if I have the room or energy to get into it in detail, but please believe me when I say that there are plenty of homeless shelters, job search organisations, soup kitchens and so on dedicated to keeping people dependant on the system as long as possible, and/or getting credit for those people's successes, whether or not it was actually due to charity. On the other hand, pure donation and volunteer based charities are unpredictable and unreliable.

A related concern to this kind of manipulation is the learned helplessness that is instilled in us. Giving people money is important in two ways. One is that money is an essential component of social function. If you don't have money, you basically don't exist. Exchanging currency for goods and services is such a basic function of modern living that taking it away from people denies them the opportunity of one of the most basic forms of interaction we have. It denies people the opportunity to function in society on a very basic level. it denies them autonomy. This is negative in a number of ways. One is that it is impossible to learn to have a functional relationship with money when you never have an opportunity to use money. Another is that taking away people's opportunity to choose- even if they make bad choices- reduces them to basically helpless infants. We cannot learn to make good decisions if we do not get to make decisions. Doing the homeless shuffle from park bench to soup kitchen where you eat whatever is put in front of you back to park bench to a meeting with a social worker that you're obligated to go to because someone said so, doesn't encourage you to look beyond the park bench. People don't have goals if their life is spent without choices.

The assumption, as well, that homeless people are incapable of making the best choices for themselves given the resources they have available only cements that exhausted learned helplessness even further. Now, I don't know what things are like for people who were doing well and then fell into addiction, but for people like me who were never doing well, who grew up looking forward to welfare day (pizza!) and food bank day (a garbage bag full of stale donuts!),

We make decisions with money that may be foolish or self defeating to a rich person, but there was usually something behind it. Sometimes it was "if I spend ten dollars on twenty five cigarettes I can smoke away my hunger twenty five times" sometimes it was "if I have money in my pocket I can't get arrested for vagrancy", sometimes it was "I want to save this so I can sit at the all night diner tonight instead of going to the shelter because of Reasons", and sometimes it was, yes, "f*** this, I gotta get high/drunk". But denying me those options altogether denies that I'm even capable of making decisions.

That brings me to Why We Don't Always Want You Giving Us Food/Supplies.

Food and supplies are nice and wonderful. But I am not going to eat food that isn't prepackaged that a stranger gives me. I've heard of people spitting on, putting garbage, razor blades, roofies, and God knows what else, in food that gets given to homeless folks. And im not going to go with some stranger to get food either. No. I live on a street corner. If I never come back, nobody is calling the cops. Nobody is looking for me. Have you ever had a guy get mad at you because he bought you dinner and you won't put out? Well, it's a lot worse when you don't have anyone to call or go to for comfort, or if he decides he's really mad and he's allowed to do whatever he wants to you because you're just some homeless girl and you don't matter. And you're afraid to make a scene, because who do you think is going to get in trouble? Nice clean upstanding citizen, or trash?

And im not just talking about rape. I'm talking about being spat on, being pissed on, being beaten up, having them tell the cops you tried to rob them, out of spite. Or for kicks. And I'm not saying this kind of thing only happens to women. And it could be even worse. What if he (or she) is a pimp? Or a murderer? Do you know how often the murders of homeless people are investigated? Not. Nobody f*****g cares about us. So no, i'm not a bad person because I don't want your food and i don't want to go anywhere with you.

There's a less frightening side to having some stranger buy you food: the shame. The shame of being paraded into a diner as someone's good deed. The shame of being afraid to ask for anything because you aren't allowed to ask for things. The shame of being on display as the Poor Person Being Bought A Meal by the Good Person. When you purchase something with money that you pull out of your own pocket, even if you stink and you know you're disgusting, there's some kind of dignity left.

That brings me to what I think is effective. Soup kitchens that charge, even if it's ten cents for a coffee, where the volunteers are at least 50% homeless or ex homeless or on probation or whatever. No condescension. And if Fred, everyone knows Fred, he's not all there, doesn't pay, nobody says too much, but in theory you're still a person, you still have to pay. Or that require everyone to help out and where the volunteers eat the food too.

Resource centres that offer computers, showers and laundry machines, but not a lot of places to sit around. Resources that are available without necessarily being mandatory.

Welfare. As in straight up, flat out, handing people checks. Bigger if you can prove you found an apartment or have a big expense, smaller otherwise.

Charity thrift shops where the prices are actually low. Like, joke low. To give people an opportunity to experience being selective, making- though small- financial decisions.

Organised charities that have a definite scale and limit. Systems that aren't set up in such a way as to impede people when they do become motivated. And patience, virtually endless patience. Heh.

Now, the situation is a bit different with people who aren't really able to function independently because of some condition. I'm only talking about people who probably could."