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Christmas Celebration 2019

Lane Cedar Chest Restoration Pt. One

Cadron Settlement Park

The Disappointment of Expectations

 “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

James Madison (1751 - 1836), The Federalist Papers, 1788

1 Peter 2:13-14 (NKJV) ¹³ Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, ¹⁴ or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good.

Personal Reflection

Several years ago while I was still part of the secular work force I often found myself expecting others to respond in an approved manner. This worked well when the expectations were objective and performance related. Problems would arise when ever I put subjective expectation on people's responses concerning their likes and dislikes. Otherwise when they liked what I like it was good; when they didn't it was not so good for them. But to my chagrin I quickly realized my boss also had expectations.  I remember one incident where I picked up my boss at the airport. The traffic was horrific and when the guy in front didn't lunge forward when the light turned green I blasted him with the horn. My boss turned to me and said, "I expected you to drive with more patience." Puzzled I ask him why. He said he had noticed the Christian "fish" on the back of the car and therefore he expected me to drive with a Christian attitude.

The obvious lesson was loud and clear, if you are going to tell the world you are a Christian then you had better present yourself like one. But there was another lesson to be learned. Our expectations of others are set by our rules and standards and when people don't perform to our standards we become disappointed. God is no exception, it seems as though man’s ambition is to disappoint Him. God sets rules and standards for believers to live by; but often when applying them to ourselves the standard becomes murky, dark, and gray.  The bottom line is we go through life putting misplaced expectations on people which cannot possibly be fulfilled by man in his fallen nature.

Historical Expectations

Neville Chamberlain, prime minister of the United Kingdom, signed the Munich Agreement with Adolf Hitler in 1938. During his first public address upon returning to Great Britain he said, “I have returned from Germany with peace in our time.” He had returned to Britain with the expectation that Hitler would keep his word by not invading Poland. Chamberlain had the same problem that man has had since mankind first established government; he failed to realize that governments are made up of people, and people are fallible and cannot be trusted to be faithful to their promises.

Our government is administered by fallible people whom we have entrusted to serve for the greater good of the American citizen. But history should have taught us a valuable lesson, even when Godly men are at the helm of government mistakes are made, sometimes unintentionally but often with the intent to serve the man and not the country.

Disappointment of Expectations

After this year’s presidential election many Christians are in shell shock wondering what happened. We see the once "Godly nation" turning its back on founding values. We don't understand what happened to the culture where morality was once a virtue. Many are asking how could the majority of people in this country vote against the sanctity of life, vote for sexual immorality, vote against family, and vote for mind altering drug abuse. Many are pondering the question, where did we go wrong; or is it a country heading in the wrong direction?

These are tough questions and the answers don't come easy. Some blame it on the choice of candidates. The pundits will tell you we needed someone more conservative. Others will tell we needed a nominee who was more central and willing to reach out to liberal left. Then there are subjective qualities of the candidates; older verses younger; black verses white; rich verses poor; charismatic verses stuffed shirt; I think you get the idea the list could go on forever. Just what are the qualities needed by a candidate that will ensure that he will meet the public expectations?

There is an old saying, "expectation is a road paved with disappointments." Too many have come to believe government has all the answers. Our country was founded on the principle where government would be limited and a citizenry who would not expect much from it other than protection from foreign enemies. Our own American civil war was not fought, as some assume, over slavery; the overriding issue was states rights and limited government. Unfortunately candidates and government have proven not to be the answer.

The Answer in History

Today our country is a mixed culture and we see all aspects of society demanding much from government; and Christians are no exception. We now have a large segment of our society with an entitlement mentality demanding more and more "freebees" from Washington. The Christian community is demanding a moral agenda, i.e. demanding a government to put us on the tract of embracing Godly values. But should government be doing any of this? Should Christians be expecting government to restore virtue and Godly values?

If we look at history we find since the being God warned His people if they sought a king other than Him their problems would multiply. God told Samuel to give the people the king they wanted; but first warn them they will not like to be ruled by any king other than God. Historically in Jesus time government ruled God's people with an iron first. It would not be until 335 AD before government would not be in the business of persecuting God's people.

Even though the church was established as the official religion of state the problems were not over for God's people. Until the reformation came 1200 years later the church participated in politics. Even when the church was naming kings the plight of the individual believer was one of maltreatment with little or no relief from bad government.

The Character of the Early Church

So, what is the point? Jesus, the apostles and the early Christians anticipated nothing good from government nor did they seek anything from government. But today we have expectations of government which far exceeds theirs. The early church made no effort to change government and demand the society to turn from its evil ways. The thrust for the early church was the sharing of the gospel and not changing the culture. A cultural change would have been considered a secondary benefit coming from the change of hearts.

What was important to the early church was the courage of conviction for the individual believer. They were not out to change the world; their goal was to change themselves, to live    out a life manifesting what they professed to       believe.  continues on page 4                                                   Today most Christians see courage as getting in the face of a non-believer and hitting him over the head with a hard back bible. To the early believers courage was the willingness to change their own hearts.

Early believers sought to make their life so    appealing because of the peace and joy they experienced through a personal relationship with Christ. They knew if they lived a Godly life people would seek them out wanting to know what made them different.

Should believers stay out of politics? Absolute not! We should be involved in politics but not because we are Christians, but because we are citizens of this country wanting a government which is just and protects righteousness. Our government was founded on the principle of freedom "of" religion, not freedom "from" religion. This is all we should expect; a government which will protect our right to worship and share our faith.

So, when the pundits tell you the "Moral Majority" is out of sync with the culture they are right. We are out of sync and we should stay that way. But we should demand as citizens a government honoring certain values not because they are exclusively Christian values; but because they are values a culture must have if it is to exist as a vibrant society where basic human rights are protected.

Holding to the Courage of Your Convictions

How do we do this? We do as God commanded the Israelites in the book of Exodus 6; you keep His commands forever in front of you and you teach them to your children. Then you hold yourself and other believers to a profession of faith. Lastly, you share the good news on a one on one basis with your friends and neighbors. Our goal should be to change the hearts and minds of people so they too will be good citizens seeking a government of justice protecting righteousness. As Peter said, good government is granted by God to punish evil and to recognize good. He said nothing about government doing the good work of a believer to share God’s word. As Christians we must retain a worldview expecting the worse from man and government; but always working to help mankind achieve his best.

Next Steps: When you are in fellowship with other believers do you hear talk of how government is letting down the Christian community? Should this be so? Take the bold step of engaging fellow believes in the Godly role of government making sure they understand virtue cannot be mandated by law; it is only found in the heart of the individual. Good Christians make good citizen; how will you convince your friends to be both?

Call of The Priesthood

Over the last two years I have sent out many blogs that you received and did not read. Not sure whether you were not interested or you thought “who is he to be spewing this garbage.” Never the less I can a sure you that I did my research before I wrote the blogs and for the most part they accurately portrayed the present and did a fair assessment of what lay in the future for our country and culture. However, in the future my blogs will be oriented towards Christian Ethics and not national and world politics. Why the change? I am not sure; maybe an epiphany or maybe I am just tired of politics. The following is a transition of thought into a new approach to the heart of believers and a new outlook towards the national and world landscape.  If you would rather not receive these, let me know and I will remove your name from the list. If you do want to read the blogs please read them on the Skandalon blog site. In the future you will only get the first paragraph and not the entire blog, because on the blog site is a place for your comments and impressions; this will help me in determining if I am making sense or just rambling.  If you enjoy this and find it helpful to you as you live as aliens in this lost world, please forward to your friends and relatives. Thanks.

Call of The Priesthood

Family values are a thing of the past, divorce is at an all time high, sexual perversion and homosexuality are out of the closet and increasingly being accepted, crime is rampant, the government is out of control, taxes are higher than ever, politicians are corrupt, there are places where you can’t walk the streets in the day time, Christians and Jews are persecuted and have lost any if not all influence in the world, secular humanism and paganism are on the rise, drugs and alcohol abuse are everywhere, standards of morality have been torn down, the court system is inadequate, there are not enough police to rein in crime, the culture is in a quagmire of decline. That was Crete in Apostle Paul’s time; not all that much different today, is it?

I think that we have the mental picture that it was easy for Paul to advance gospel of Christ in his day; that the world was different, a much better place in that it was open and receptive to the things of God, open to Godly values. That all Paul had to do was show up and people immediately flocked to him and embraced Christianity. Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul had come to Crete because the churches were in disarray, there were at least 100 churches on the island and most of them were engulfed in idolatry and were being greatly influenced by paganism. The world at that time was the sewer of paganism and the church was at a lost to know how to respond to the culture around it.

We live in a situation that is very similar to what confronted Paul and Titus. The great revivals of Christianity seem to be a thing of the past; they are only footnotes in the pages of history. Our government is forever passing laws making it more and more difficult for us to get out the message of Christ and to openly speak out against the evils of this world. There is a lot of talk, with books being written, about how the church needs to take a greater role in impacting the culture of our time. That we need to get out into the streets and demand that things change for the better; that we need to get involved into politics and propose laws that would mandate morality; that we need to stand against the evils of this world. But I am here to tell that is not the church’s goal. It sounds like a good idea, but our goal is not to impact our culture by changing people’s moral values. Our goal is not to impact our culture by creating laws that demand traditional family values. Our goal is not to make sure that the USA adheres to a national policy that mandates biblical morality. That is not our goal as defined by scripture. Scripture does not direct us to get involved in altering cultural morality. We are not told to be involved in advancing social conduct. Our mandate is to be interested in people being saved. That is our agenda; that is our only agenda. If we are going to change our culture we are going to change it from the inside out, not the outside in; one person at a time.

The question today is how are we supposed to respond now that our culture has declined and our society has become so pagan? How are we to react? What is the proper response of Christianity in a pagan culture?  As a Christian what are you to do in a post Christian society that is unreceptive to the gospel and is outright hostile to Christianity as a way of life? The answer lies in our divine calling.

The single divine calling of the church is to bring sinful people to salvation through Christ. As a believer we have been given the responsibility of priesthood; i.e. a person who has one simple function, to bring people to Jesus Christ, to usher them into God’s presence.

That is our only responsibility to the world as Peter says in1 Peter 2:5 (NKJV) ⁽⁵⁾ you also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Chris.  Just in case you miss the point, he says it again in 2:9  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. That is you are to proclaim and share the message and gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing there that says you are to become a legislator, a policeman, or march in the streets demanding morality. Your only job as royal priest is to share the good news of Jesus Christ to a lost world. Think of it like this, if we free someone from the slavery of homosexuality but we do not lead them to salvation, they are going to the same hell as an unsaved heterosexual. It makes no difference if you are a militant pro-abortionist, or a militant anti-abortionist, if you are not saved you are going to hell. It makes no difference if you are a policeman going to hell or a drug dealer going to hell; hell is the same for both. Our mission to present the gospel cannot be weakened because we don’t like the culture we live in. When we try to change people’s lives by changing their conduct without changing their spiritual heart we make them our enemy and ultimately enemies of Christ. As a priest we are to help change their hearts; then and only then will they change their conduct.

Jesus and Paul spent their time admonishing believers not to live like the world; but they did not spend much time condemning the pagans and their beliefs and practices. They did not call for violent resistance against unjust laws or inhuman punishments. Rather they called on believers to preach, teach, and witness to the transforming power of salvation through Jesus Christ.  They called on us to love and show compassion for the lost, while at the same time condemning the sin in all people’s lives, including the believers.

The first eight verses of Titus 3 Paul calls on Titus and us to remind Christians to remember our duties as believers, to remember our former condition of unbelief and sin, to remember our salvation through Jesus Christ, and  to remember our mission/duty to an unbelieving and lost world. This blog looked at what we are first to remember; our duties as a believer.

Titus 3:1-15 (NKJV) ⁽¹⁾ Remind them to be subject to rulers and authorities, to obey, to be ready for every good work, ⁽²⁾ to speak evil of no one, to be peaceable, gentle, showing all humility to all men.

I want to thank Pastor and theologian John MacArthur for his writings and inspiration for this blog. He is one of the great theologians of our time and I would encourage all to read his books and sermons.