A Bible Teaching

Mark 5: 25-34

Let’s talk theology this morning – if you want to amaze your friends with an interesting tidbit of Theology during your next discussion this message will help you out.

First, let me reinterpret the story of the Good Samaritan for 21^st Century Millennials:  A man was beaten up by robbers on the road. He lay on the side of the road, half dead. A republican came along, saw him and passed by on the other side. A democrat came by, blamed it on guns, and also crossed to the other side.

Finally, a progressive social justice warrior came along, looked at the man and said: "Whoever did this to you is a hater and needs to be re-educated, I’ll be bac k to organize a protest.”

Today I want to offer to you a teaching on salvation that has transcended time. From a practical theological perspective most of us are either what is called “Arminian” or “Calvinistic” about our own salvation.

If we are Arminian, we believe that God gave us free will, and it is through the exercise of that free will that we choose to be saved or not.

Calvin’s view was that God preselected or pre-destined some people for salvation and death and damnation for others, supposedly based on His foreknowledge of human choice.

The Reformed Church has always believed that it was the individual’s free and independent action to respond to the gift of God’s Grace that brings about reformation, regeneration, and eventual sanctification in the believer. In other words, total free will.

But Calvin thought that if you were elected to salvation by God then His grace would irresistible to you and you would become sanctified despite yourself. Thus you would be saved because you were always “pre-destined” to be saved. Circular logic, I guess.

To me it never made sense to say Jesus died for everyone and then say that only those God knows, through His omniscience, will be saved – it creates a drag on our ability to understanding free will, and pulls a veil over God’s love for some. It is just one of those mysteries of God that kind of doesn’t matter as long as people are saved.

Listen to our Gospel Lesson for today:

Now there was a woman who had been suffering from haemorrhages for twelve years. She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 

She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, for she said, ‘If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.’

Immediately her haemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease. 

Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, ‘Who touched my clothes?’ And his disciples said to him, ‘You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, “Who touched me?” ’ 

He looked all round to see who had done it. 

But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’

Note that this passage comes in the middle of the story of Jarius’ daughter and seems to catch Jesus unaware, or at worse, unprepared, but I hope not unamused. (Imagine Jesus whiling about in the crowd yelling, “Did you touch me, who touched me?”

It’s clear in this passage that not everything is predestined or preordained in Jesus’ ministry. The Holy Spirit is unrestrained to do its work in bringing people to Jesus.

It suggests that free will, the act of humans reaching out, or seeking out, will result in salvation just as easily as Jesus’ seeking out those He encounters in His ministry.

Jesus saves all who reach out to Him in reopentance, proclaim Him as God’s Son, and become His disciples. Our choice is independent of God’s Will for His creation, but He gladly includes us in it as His Children. Truly he favors both Jew and Gentile.

In the book Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer tries to explain the seemingly contradictory beliefs of God's sovereignty, that is, His total control, and man's free will:

"An ocean liner leaves New York bound for Liverpool. Its destination has been determined by proper authorities. Nothing can change it. This is at least a faint picture of sovereignty.

"On board the liner are hundreds of passengers. They are not in chains, neither are their activities predetermined for them by tickets or the ship’s staff.

They are completely free to move about as they will. They eat, sleep, play, lounge about on the deck, read, talk, altogether as they please; but all the while the great liner is carrying them steadily onward toward a predetermined port.

"Both freedom and sovereignty are present here, and they do not contradict. So it is, I believe, with man's freedom and the sovereignty of God. The mighty liner of God's sovereign design keeps its steady course over the sea of history." 

God has promised us a relationship throughout eternity and he will keep it. The world travels on regardless of what men do or not do. Listen to these scriptural promises:

Acts 4: 11-12 (HCSB) says:

“This ⌊Jesus⌋ is the stone rejected by you builders, which has become the cornerstone. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people, and we must be saved by it.”

Romans 1: 16-17 (HCSB) reports:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.”

And Ephesians 1: 13-14 (HCSB) records:

“When you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed in Him, you were also sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. He is the down payment of our inheritance, for the redemption of the possession, to the praise of His glory.”

R. C. Sproul once preached:

“There are only two ways that God’s justice can be satisfied with respect to your sin. Either you satisfy it or Christ satisfies it. You can satisfy it by being banished from God’s presence forever. Or you can accept the satisfaction that Jesus Christ has made.” 

This is why we say that God’s grace, while available to all, has one catch – faith and profession of belief. God does 99.99% of the work while we have but to accept it.

The woman who reached out and touched Jesus received these words in reply:

He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.’ (Mark 5: 34).

If this woman had not reached out she may never have been healed. Jesus probably would have passed her by, but she had heard about Him and she reached out to Him. We need to do likewise. Amen.

^{ROMANS 1: 16-32 (HCSB)}

¹⁶ For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is God’s power for salvation to everyone who believes, first to the Jew, and also to the Greek. ¹⁷ For in it God’s righteousness is revealed from faith to faith just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.

¹⁸ For God’s wrath is revealed from heaven against all godlessness and unrighteousness of people who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth,¹⁹ since what can be known about God is evident among them, because God has shown it to them. ²⁰ For His invisible attributes, that is, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen since the creation of the world, being understood through what He has made. As a result, people are without excuse.

²¹ For though they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became nonsense, and their senseless minds were darkened. 

²² Claiming to be wise, they became fools ²³ and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles.

²⁴ Therefore God delivered them over in the cravings of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. 

²⁵ They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served something created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen.

²⁶ This is why God delivered them over to degrading passions. For even their females exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 

²⁷ The males in the same way also left natural relations with females and were inflamed in their lust for one another. Males committed shameless acts with males and received in their own persons the appropriate penalty of their error.

²⁸ And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a worthless mind to do what is morally wrong. 

²⁹ They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, ³⁰ slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹ undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. 

³² Although they know full well God’s just sentence—that those who practice such things deserve to die—they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.

Each and everyone of us is a sinner in God's eyes and needs to repent. None of us is perfect nor will be unless Jesus' grace sanctifies us.

“…The Constitution, however, does not permit the State to bar same-sex couples from marriage on the same terms as accorded to couples of the opposite sex," he said."                                                                         Justice Kennedy 

                                        6/26/2015

And now the religious world will change because churches will not be allowed to say , "NO." Judge Roberts suggested it would happen in his dissent and Judge Scalia suggested the ruling would be an end to Democracy.

Don't believe me? Think I'm jumping the shark? Look what they did to bakers!

Besides how many people told me it would never get to the point that they would make churches do it? (Sorry - but I told you so!)

I probably am done marrying anyone as a pastor again as I will refuse to participate in any civil ritual, now mandated by Government DECREE that denies the Will, scriptures, and teachings of my Creator and Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

St. Paul’s Reformed Church Grants $ 3,000 in Scholarships

St. Paul’s Reformed Church, located 3 miles east of Clear Spring recently awarded 3 $ 1,000 scholarships from the church’s Harold Snyder Scholarship Fund.

Applicants were required to submit essays regarding how they expect seeking further education will impact their faith. The essays and applications were reviewed by a panel of church members under the direction of Laura Luhouse Stotler, Scholarship Chair.

Winners were: Wesley Logan Ambrose, recent graduate of Clear Spring High School, who plans to attend Frostburg State University; Danielle Nicole Hill, recent graduate of Washington County Technical High School, who plans to attend Virginia Polytechnic and State University; and Valerie Iseminger, recent graduate of South Hagerstown High School, and who plans to attend Coastal Carolina University.

Other graduates recognized included Bradley J. Rudolph, recent graduate of Grand Valley State University; Lexi Sowers, graduate of Spring Mills High School who plans to attend Piitsburg Institute of Aeronautics at the Hagerstown Airport; Ben Rosendale, graduate of Washington County Technical High School who plans to attends Hagerstown Community College; and Tim Rosendale, who completed a certificate at the Barr Institute in the electrical trades.

St. Paul’s Reformed Church, is a member of the Evangelical Association of Reformed, Congregational, and Christian Churches and is located at 14106 National Pike, Clear Spring, Maryland.

Written/submitted by Pastor John Toms with picture attached.

So much for the "by line" in the paper. It makes me wonder how many church members will see it and think the paper was looking out for us by publishing such a thoughtful notice!

THE OTHER Perspective

Mark 4: 35-41 NRSV

This past week’s events suggest our tragedies, heartbreaks, and difficulties are increasing at a breakneck pace. We search for answers for the evil that men do and know it starts in their hearts and is being encouraged and nurtured by our secular world and it’s willingness to be separated from God.

I think the time has come to finally speak truth as it needs to be spoken and point out things as they are.

There was a situation in a Catholic hospital`s Intensive care ward where patients always died in the same bed on Sunday morning at 11 A. M., regardless of their medical condition. This puzzled the doctors and some even thought that it had something to do with the supernatural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths took place at 11 AM. 

A medical system wide expert team was constituted and they decided to go down to the ward to investigate the cause of the incidents. So on the next Sunday morning, a few minutes before 11 AM, a bunch of medical experts nervously waited outside the ward to see for themselves what the terrible phenomenon was all about. 

Some were holding prayer books and other holy objects to ward off evil. Just when the clock struck 11, Santos, the part-time Sunday janitor, entered the ward and unplugged the life support system and plugged in the vacuum cleaner.

Each of us lives within a certain perspective subject to three orientations that effect our assimilation of information and driving forces within the world whether we admit it or not.

Most of the time we think we live in the natural world, subject to the laws of physics, where gravity and Newton’s Law is observable. Other times, depending on how strong our faith is, we open ourselves up to God’s presence, and profess Jesus’ as resurrected Lord and Savior, and occasionally encounter miracles.  

But how about those times when we encounter things that don’t make sense, give us goose pimples, or set us on edge because there was something just on the fringe we could see, but not explain? Those times when even the laws of nature seem to bend? Those times that seem a little crazy or strange?

Let’s read our Gospel lesson for today from Mark 4: 35-41: On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.” 

And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him. A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped. But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion; and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” 

He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm. 

He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” 

And they were filled with great awe and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

That third thing we deal with, but deny is called the supernatural. We tend to overlook our Scriptures that tell us that we live in a world subject to spiritual forces of good and evil.

Ephesians 6: 12 - “For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.”

Supposedly we have cast off, the “dark ages’ superstition of leprechauns, vampires, werewolves, and demons, for those things we can answer scientifically. We have replaced them with ghosts, UFO’s, and little gray aliens that will help us be better humans.

How many TV shows are on that contain aliens, ufos, ghosts, ESP, vampires, demons, angels and the like. There’s even a show coming this fall called “Lucifer,” where Satan comes to earth and sets up shop to directly sell temptation to humans. 

The sad fact is that people don’t believe in the Holy Spirit but they believe that channeled beings from Alpha Centauri care about our dead Aunt Mabel and her blueberry jam recipe.

People don’t believe in Jesus as Son of God but they watch hours and hours of soap opera vampire TV or shell out $ 15 to learn about ET phoning home.

People who don’t believe in an all-powerful Creator named Elohim are ready for the saucer to land on the White House Lawn and admit they are our long lost ancestors and the scientists who created our DNA to seed the earth so long ago.

Everywhere you look people are begging for answers to the whys of our world and meaning and understanding. People are perishing without love, hope, or eternity.

Look around folks, the world around us is stormy, and our country and US are perishing. The principalities of evil are stirring things up. Look at the number of earthquakes, floods, natural disasters, sinkholes, and unexplained animal and fish kills being recorded around our world. Extreme weather of all types.

Look at the destruction of family, destruction of men, destruction of women, and boys and girls that is happening due to our modern revision of values, traditions, and morals. Look at the intentional casting away of family in our culture.

We are becoming a world of not so polite, government sponsored death – abortions, and government assisted suicides, gender changes, same-sex marriage, the denial of reality and the deception of political correctness as I speak it-not as it really is.

Throw in the rampant drug abuse, increased use of legal medications to alter moods, and the manipulation of truth that is our political and educational systems.

There’s even a new category called “Trans-able” which recognizes that some people are so uncomfortable with their bodies that they can cut that part off. Some have become handicapped without legs or arms in order to live this new “identity” out.

And the devil laughs! Anything that pulls humans away from the created world as God made it. What if those UFOs and little gray men are demons and other created beings, rebelled from God, are engaged in the greatest deception ever staged? All designed to finally destroy the church and any resistance to evil?

Anything that keeps even one person from professing Christ as Savior is worth every piece of supernatural power Satan has to bear on us. And he’s using it.

Even now you are starting to tune me out because I’m using a supernatural cause to explain so-called natural things and that violates our civilized rules. Lock me up – I’ve gone over the hill, all my dogs aren’t barking.

But listen: Jesus tells us in John 3:12:  “If I have told you about things that happen on earth and you don’t believe, how will you believe if I tell you about things of heaven?” The Bible gives us plenty of examples of heavenly things on earth.

Luke 24: 1-5 – “On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, they came to the tomb, bringing the spices they had prepared. They found the stone rolled away from the tomb. They went in but did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. While they were perplexed about this, suddenly two men stood by them in dazzling clothes. So the women were terrified and bowed down to the ground. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” asked the men.

Many scriptural passages (Genesis, Numbers, Daniel, Isaiah, Zechariah, among others) talk about angels and other supernaturally created creatures moving in and out of the earthly realms with an amazing correlation to reported UFO encounters.

There’s a lot more to it, including archaeological and eye-witness evidence but I’m not going to dwell on this topic for too long lest your skepticism encourage you to stop listening, and your thinking I’ve finally lost my marbles.

For now, understand this- we humans are being set-up for the greatest attempt at deception ever tried – selling Satan as Jesus Christ and God. And the whole world, for the most part, is buying the narrative, and becoming hostile to God but open to the supernatural.

You as believers, have nothing to worry about if you remember Jesus’ words to His disciples in our passage from Mark 4. Jesus, as the Creator of heaven and earth, and all that are in it, has total power, control, and mastery. He can manipulate any natural law or use any material He so chooses.

He also cares very much if we are perishing. Everything about Him has been for us while everything that is not of God seeks to mislead us.

We must learn to be on our guard, be on watch for the evil manifesting as supernatural incidents like UFOs, ghosts, near-death experiences, new age occultism, and even those who appear as angels of light, that are the wolves in sheep’s clothing we’ve been warned about.

Do you realize that more has been recorded in the scriptures about our times, and the days to come then about Jesus Himself? Prophecy is here for our study.

Jesus taught us to rebuke evil and stand against the coming days. We are going to see things and hear things that will be designed to destroy our faith and trust in God and reliance on the grace of Jesus Christ. BUT NOTHING CAN!

FYI: Did you know that UFOs and supernatural beings disappear when Jesus’ name is mentioned? It is well documented.

We need the words from Ephesians 6:10-13 (HCSB) to resonate in our hearts and minds: “Finally, be strengthened by the Lord and by His vast strength. Put on the full armor of God so that you can stand against the tactics of the Devil.

For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world powers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavens.

This is why you must take up the full armor of God, so that you may be able to resist in the evil day, and having prepared everything, to take your stand.”

Rebuke evil in the name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Just surfin a little this morning and what I see?

The most ironic, yet iconic, headline on a news article there could be.

Here it is:

Archeologists make stunning discovery of name mentioned in Bible!

       The Israel Antiquities Authority, has shown a 3.000 year old ceramic jar with inscription of a name mentioned in the Bible, “Eshbaal Ben Beda.” 

       Israel’s antiquities authority says archaeologists have discovered a rare 3,000-year-old inscription of a name mentioned in the Bible. Eshbaal of the Bible was a son of King Saul. 
      Archaeologists said Tuesday, June 16, 2015 it is the first time the name was discovered in an ancient inscription. It is one of only four inscriptions discovered from the biblical 10th century B.C. Kingdom of Judah, when King David is said to have reigned. 

(from Tal Rogovski/Israel Antiquities Authority via AP)

And the stuns continue to grow (because the Bible, gasp, is REAL and TRUE!)

You just can't make this up!

A SERIOUS QUESTION

MARK 3: 20-35 (NRSV)

This past week is a study in contrasts. Wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, floods, sightings of UFO’s, terrorism on the home front, deceit and deception of politicians; yet what’s in the news: Decade old reports of a 14 year old adolescent male curious about sexual issues and a former athlete mutilating himself into another supposed sexual identity.

Where are our priorities? When will we wake up and pay attention? A person translating themselves into another cosmetically induced sex is grounds for prayer and not praise; a 14 year old whose parents did everything right according to the scriptures is grounds for praise and not condemnation.

Our world faces serious questions. Hear our gospel lesson for today:

…and the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, “He has gone out of his mind.” And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, “He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” 

And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, “How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.

“Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”— for they had said, “He has an unclean spirit.”

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” 

As I read this passage I was reminded of how serious our eternal salvation and relationship with Jesus truly is. When Jesus talks about “eternal sin” and having an unclean spirit that is really, really, scary stuff. So it makes me want to ask each of you, “How serious about your faith are you?”

Would you die for Christ? Would I? Hopefully we can answer "I hope so" or "Yes" or "I don't know." And not answer, “No,” “Not a chance,” or “probably not.”

I think I figured out how to know for sure how one would answer that question if it really came down to being faced with someone saying, "Deny Christ or die." 

The answer to whether one would die for Christ lies in the answer to another question. That question is: "Do I live for Christ?"

I have noticed something from stories about Muslims coming to Christ and dying for it. They are not always killed for saying they believe in Jesus, they are killed for living as Christians. 

 Another way to say it is, "They are killed because they really are Christians - their lives show it."

What do our scriptures tell us that the Devil seeks to destroy? He seeks to destroy real Christ followers not just those with a fuzzy or sentimental feeling about Jesus. 

Take a look at two statements about who the Devil sees as threats to his agenda in as recorded in the Book of Revelation:

"And they [Christians] have conquered him [the Devil] by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death."

"Then the dragon became furious with the woman and went off to make war on the rest of her offspring [Christians], on those who keep the commandments of God and hold to the testimony of Jesus."

According to these verses the Christian is one who: has been brought from death to life through the work of Christ...has a credible or believable testimony about their life in Christ - the Devil can see that they are followers of Christ...is willing to die for Christ, after having lived for Him...when the Devil comes for him, the Christian obeys God and holds on to Christ by faith.

Theologians have and will argue whether Jesus can be Savior of your life without being Lord of your life. I suggest that is the wrong question. Jesus is Lord and before Him ALL will eventually bow, Christian or not. 

The correct response is to do what the Apostle Paul did when he wrote in Philippians 3: 12:

 "Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus."

Like Paul, we should all recognize in humility that we are not yet fully mature as Christians, and we should follow His example in being all the more dedicated to living our calling by pressing on full steam ahead. 

As a simple exercise consider how you are doing with the following character qualities the Apostle points out to the Colossians in Colossians 3:12-14.

"So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of:

Compassion, Kindness, Humility, Gentleness, and patience - bearing with one another forgiving each other whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you. Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity."

Will I die for Christ? It probably depends on whether I live for Christ.

I'll close with Paul's words from Colossians 3: 15-17:

"Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father."

Before you can die for Christ, you must first live for Him!

Amen.