January, 2009

Commentary — No Comments
23
Jan 09

Obama lifts international ban on abortion funding.

As expected, President Obama will sign an executive order ending the international ban on abortion funding previously upheld by Presidents Reagan, Bush senior, and George W. Bush before him. I had hoped that Obama would not govern from the left but rather the more comfortable middle, but it appears my hopes fail.

Thousands, if not millions of Christians voted for this man whose stance on abortion (excuse me, the murder of defenseless children) is as far left as you can get. I wonder how so many “Christians” justify their vote in a man with such views against the unborn.

Well, God will have His say regarding these “Christians” soon enough.

Commentary — No Comments
22
Jan 09

Presidents Come And Go, But God Rules All

Watching the transfer of power from President Bush to newly-elected President Obama this week stirred my mind to the one thing that is constant: change. Glancing through my Bible this week I stumbled on this Scripture in Daniel 2:

Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, for wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals the deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, and light dwells with Him. (Daniel 2:20-22)

The one thing we can always count on is change. Everything changes. The day turns to night, winter to spring and summer to fall; just as sure as the sun rises each morning, we can expect constant change. Though, this change is not the random consequence of cosmic or natural forces, but rather the plan and decree of a sovereign God.

One day George W. Bush is President, the next he is a man making his wife coffee in Midland, TX and watching the news like the rest of us. Coldplay’s “Viva la Vida” describes this experience well:

I used to rule the world
Seas would rise when I gave the word
Now in the morning I sleep alone
Sweep the streets I used to own…

…Revolutionaries wait
For my head on a silver plate
Just a puppet on a lonely string
Oh who would ever want to be king?

I am personally nervous about signifcant change. It scares me. I like the usual, the dependable, but there is a part of me that gets a little excited about the chaos of change. As crazy as change can be, the Lord is faithful and brings us to where He wants us, though sometimes (many times) that is not the place we really want.

It is important to remember that God is the real agent of change, not man or other natural forces. As such, we can have a sense of security that He controls all, changes all, and protects His own in the middle of it all.

Biblical Truth — No Comments
12
Jan 09

Repellent??

After a late Saturday doing pretty much nothing, my family skipped church and slept in this past Sunday morning. As such, we were able to catch some of the church programs on TV and found ourselves (my wife and I that is) watching Southland Christian Church’s program. The Pastor was speaking from Song of Solomon on sex. In bluejeans and an untucked shirt looking more suitable for a sporting event than church, he stood against a video back drop of a screen with the “explicit lyrics” warning found on so many cd covers today. Little did we know that “explicit lyrics” fit his sermon perfectly.

He begins to read from Solomon 1 and quickly begins to get explicit with his explanations and description of the verses he read from Solomon, even at one point encouraging the married couples in the congregation to turn and “lay a big one” on their spouses. Using terms like “make-out” and “great sex” he began to describe what he called a “sex repellent.” He said his wife sometimes wore a hooded sweat shirt that he told her was a natural “sex repellent” because it was so unattractive to him. While I share his disdain for sweat clothes of any kind, it is what my wife said next that struck me as one of the most profound things I’ve heard in a while.

This pastor had been sharing how clothing can effect our relationships and more specifically, the sex lives of married couples. No wife is attracted to a sloppy looking husband, and no husband is attracted to a careless looking wife. After hearing him talk about how wives/husbands need to consider their spouses when they dress so they can look good for each other, my wife said “what if his clothes are a repellent to God?” A light came on in my head and my truth meter shot off the charts.

The guy had been so focused on the explicit nature of the Song of Solomon, that he failed to acknowledge the imagery it provided was also and equally descriptive of the relationship between Christ and the Church. As such, if the application of “looking good” was to remain, then it stands to reason that his sloppy casual dress was repelling to a holy God worthy of our very best.

Before you slap the “God looks at the heart” argument on me, please remember that our outward actions and appearance are a reflection of the inward condition of our hearts. Would this Pastor dress in worn jeans and an untucked shirt to meet a dignitary such as the Governor or President?? Of course not. How then can the sovereign God of the universe be worthy of any less??

I (and most men working in professional environments) can’t even come to work in clothes like that. Southland’s Pastor made the point that when a women dresses in unattractive clothes, she is telling her husband that she does not value him. If we carry this over to the Christ/Church application of the Song of Solomon, what does that say about his and the rest of his staff’s Sunday morning dress?

So instead of worrying about his wife’s hooded “sex repelling” sweatshirt, he probably should worry about his own “God-repelling” dress when corporately coming together to worship God. His entire “sermon” was based on the explicit nature of Solomon and failed to deliver any real God-honoring principles. I wholly agree that God has plenty to say about the sex lives of married believers and has a blessing for those who pursue His glory in all things, but this guy was entirely too explicit for Sunday worship and the majority of what he said belonged in a couples’ marriage conference or better yet, a sex therapy session.

Legalistic?? No, just true.