| Redeemer Lutheran Church 1084 W. Bullard Ave. Fresno, CA 93711 Phone: (559) 439-8500 Fax: (559) 439-8585 office@redeemerfresno.com The Reverend Clarence Eisberg Phone: (209) 725-9082 Cell: (209) 631-3108 pastor@redeemerfresno.com Worship ~ 8:30 a.m. & 10:00 a.m. Family Ministries ~ 10:00 a.m. Holy Communion ~ 2nd & 4th Sundays |
| Connecting People to Jesus and to One Another! www.lcms.org |
The Reverend Clarence Eisberg |
September 5, 2010 |
“How Evil Works” |
| Best selling author David Kupelian in the opening pages of his book writes: “Today we understand the physics of an expanding universe and the mysterious behavior of quarks. We know how to create vaccines, we know how to create the customization of genetics, replace body parts and build space robots. Our knowledge of life and the universe continues to grow dramatically in every field imaginable. Except one. As a society we don’t understand evil….what it is, how it works and why it so routinely and effortlessly ruins our lives. Some take what they think is the easy path and simply deny that evil even exits. Increasingly Americans are forsaking their traditional faiths of Christianity and Judaism in favor of other pagan or New Age Practices. Andrew Delbanco in his book “The Death of Satan: How Americans Lost the Sense of Evil” writes: Despite the hovering malignancy of evil at work in our human experience….our modern age is losing our capacity to engage evil or even acknowledge the existence of Satan. Delbanco argues that beginning in the 19th century the idea of an active God intervening in history slowly gave way to the worship of chance and luck. Science, not theology, became the more trusted answer to uncertainty, and thus the loss of the concept of sin. As a culture continues to do away with the Ten Commandments, and with ongoing advancement of relativism, the result is the removal of guilt and shame leaving people with no firm sense of evil. So, when the nightly news reports, gang wars, domestic violence, and larcenies of corporate executives, racial or ethnic hatred, we flip the switch on our channel and we think evil is gone or forgotten until the next news cast. When a mother reads to her children a bed time story and tucks them into bed, it’s not news. When a mother drowns her five children in a bath tub, as Andrea Yates did, it’s news. Just four years ago the Barna Research Group gave the results of a nation wide survey of church members. The results shows an alarmingly high number of church members whose belief falls short of orthodox Christianity. Only 47% of all adults surveyed acknowledge the existence of Satan. Most Americans still believe in God as the all powerful Creator but a mere 21% of Lutherans, 17% of Catholics, 18% of Methodists, 20% of Episcopalians and 22% of Presbyterians told Barna that they thought Satan was real. If you are familiar with the Screwtape letters you’ll remember one of the strategies of Satan was to simply cause people to deny the existence of a real devil. It looks like that strategy has been succeeding. There are three enemies of Christians: 1) the influence of the world 2) our own sinful nature 3) the devil. Here are a few examples of how Satan is at work to use culture or science to create doubt about the existence of God…. If there is no God, no higher power, then morality is subjective. Some examples: 1) Atheism is growing in America. It was once considered shameful by the larger culture, now it is becoming hip, sophisticated and even a badge of honor. Oxford Professor Richard Dawkins who wrote the book “The God Delusion” calls “religion” a “virus” and faith based education, “child abuse.” Listen to the opening lines of chapter 2: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction, jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak, a vindictive, blood thirsty ethnic cleanser, racist, homophobic, ….. A bully.” Remember millions are reading his book. His words seep into the conscious mind and behavior and thus his words nourish the denial of the existence of God. What does the Atheist offer? Freedom from God, or more accurately the illusion of being free from accountability to a higher power… I like David Kupelian’s quote: “Atheism has the sweet stench, a little like those green Christmas tree shaped air fresheners people hang from their car’s rear view mirror….offering the delusion of pride that you are your own “god” (small g) and ultimate master of your destiny.” 2) Just this week…. There was a big article on the internet… front page of Yahoo.com entitled “God did not create the universe…” says Stephen Hawking a noted scientist and author of “The Grand Design” and professor at Cambridge University. Here is the leading quote: “God did not create the universe and the “Big Bang” was an inevitable consequence of the laws of physics….” “because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exists. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.” My only comment: He fails to explain where gravity comes from, where the minerals come from that create magnetic fields and thus gravity. You see, it dosen’t matter … it is a famous scientist whose words seep into a culture’s belief system and into our children’s text books to encourage the denial of the existence of the Living God. Stephen Hawking holds the professorship chair once held by Isaac Newton who said: “When I look at the solar system I see the earth and the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of light and heat. This did not happen by chance.” To say there is no “God” rejects the reality we see and experience. If there is no “God” then morality is subjective…. That’s the culture we are living in…. it’s not new….yet it has been a long time coming. 2) The second enemy of Christians, of every human being is “our human nature”. As Christians we are familiar with the words of Paul in Romans 7. “…..For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do… this I keep on doing….. It is sin that is living in me that does it..” The sinful nature which he calls the “Old Adam” makes us a slave to sin. There is a famous story often told at Boy Scout troop meetings as the Scoutmaster retells the story of an Old Cherokee Chief talking to his grandson. The Chief said: A fight is going on inside me. It is a terrible battle…between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, pride, envy, lust, greed, arrogance, self-pity, resentment, lies and cruelty. The other wolf stands for honesty, kindness, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, friendship, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too. The grandson reflected on these words for a minute and then asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old chief simply replied: “the one you feed.” Our Old Adam, our human nature pulls us away from love, towards selfishness, lust greed, resentment, envy, anger, pride and ego. James writes: “What causes fights among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but you can not have it… you kill and covet, you quarrel and fight….don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God.” We must be honest. There is a tug of war going on inside each one of us. On one side is our conscience, which is primarily how God makes His presence and desires known. There is also a dark side which seeks to confuse us to cause us to doubt truth. We all have been born with “pride”…. This is the part of us that wants to be like God. Pride loves being praised, puffs up with angry judgment over real or perceived wrongs by others. The dark side is what Paul calls the Old Adam. It began in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve could not resist the lie of Satan who promised that they would be “as gods” (small g) and we have been falling for the same lie ever sense. This is the attraction and flaw of Eastern and New Age religions that claim that we are all “gods”, we just need to find the divine within us. The wrong place to look! The laws of God are written in the human heart….Jeremiah 31:33 God declares: “I will put my law in their minds and write in their hearts.” That’s why Thomas Jefferson, wrote that there are “self evident” truths, which our present relativist culture denies. He wrote: “We know it is wrong to steal from our neighbor, not because the bible tells us so…. But because it is obvious… it is a self evident truth.” My question: Where does this “self- evident truth” come from? God. With a capital “G”. James writes: “You believe in God… good even the demons believe that and shutter.” (2:19) The third enemy of Christians and Christianity is the Devil. Jesus said that the Devil is the father of lies. Yet people choose to believe lies rather than the truth… that way they can still be their own “god” (small g). That’s what happened to Adam and Eve. It is a circle… as Satan uses “human knowledge combined with culture and our human desire to be in charge” to cause us to deny first the existence of God, then second deny the existence of evil and third, deny the existence of Satan himself. James writes: “Don’t be deceived my dear brothers….. When tempted no one should say ’ God is tempting me.’ for God can not be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone, but each one is tempted when by his own evil desire is dragged away and enticed…. Which gives birth to sin and sin when full grown gives birth to death.” (1:13-15) Paul writes: “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light” ( I Cor. 11:15) He is a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Jesus has encouraged his disciples and us to “watch and pray” so that you do not enter into temptation. We are encouraged to pray: “deliver us from the evil one.” This is an admonition to “watch” what is going on “in our culture” to divert us from the Living God; to be watchful of what is going on “within our nature” where temptation can overtake us and thirdly to “watch out for Satan who is a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. Remember what God told Cain? “Sin is crouching at the door it desires to have you… but you must conquer it.” To be a watcher is to understand ourselves, our culture and others. Remember the words of John? “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all.” As followers of Jesus we are to walk in the light” for the light exposes our sin and face them honestly we can be forgiven by the blood of Christ shed on the cross. In the gospel of John we find these words: “In the beginning was the Word, (Logos…for the Greek mind… the prime mover or Creator ) and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us… He was in the world, and though the world was made by him the world did not recognize him.” The Apostle Paul continues the same theological point when he writes: He (Christ) is the visible presence of the invisible God, by him all things were created… God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in Christ and through Him reconcile to himself all …(people) by make peace through his blood shed on the cross.” Satan has been successful in every age enabling nations, and institutions and individuals to walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Satan has convinced an entire generation that we don’t need “God” and we are free from the constraints and controls of an out dated belief in the existence of God…. Even though the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia in 1776 all placed in their constitutions these words: “we the people… are grateful to Almighty God…” I’m not saying their preambles were Christian…. They are not. But each state recognized they did not create themselves. When Jesus stood before Pilate and said: “I am the Truth” our culture joins the words of Pilate and scornfully shouts back: “What is truth?” sophisticated scholars say there is no such thing a “truth”. The student in college, the common man and woman are told they can find and define their own truth, which might change tomorrow. History is being rewritten so that any memory of God’s guidance is removed and erased. To believe that God exists is a choice. If you choose yes, then that decision requires other choices to be made about your relationship with the Living God and the problems within your own human heart and behavior. It requires you to make a choice about your own eternal destiny after life on this planet comes to a close. When I say “the Living God” I’m talking about the one who created the universe with it’s elegant solar system, exploding fireballs and endless expanding universe of stars and galaxies. I’m talking about the One who fashions the droplets of water, the unique snowflake. He created you and your unique DNA. It causes each of us to ask…why? What is our purpose? In love God offered Adam and Eve, and each of us the freedom to choose between good and evil. For love can not be compelled nor demanded. It is given freely. Animals have not been given such a choice. You can learn to live in “obedience to that still small voice” of conscience or ignore it and seek to become your own “god” (small g). In love God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ. He lived a perfect life. He shared our humanity. He was tempted in every way but he did not give in to temptation. He rejected every approach of Satan to disobey God’s commandments. In His death on the cross God restored peace with humanity by offering total and complete forgiveness to all who place their trust in Jesus. When Jesus rose from the grave of death He defeated Satan’s last grip on the human heart and took away all fear for our eternal future. Jesus Christ has defeated Satan, but… He has not conceded defeat. That is why we still see Satan’s activity “displayed in the so called knowledge of science” and in the internal spiritual battle within our being. In the words of the Cherokee chief to his grandson… I ask you: Which wolf will you feed? Satan has captured the culture….but the warfare is on going. Do not loose hope. Put on the full armor of God and take your stand against the devil’s schemes. Pray that God would raise up brilliant men and women in “high” places. Stand firm with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breast plate of righteousness and with your feet fitted with readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. (Ephesians 6:10-15) |