We often forget the previous season
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(Deu 8:19-20 NIV) If you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed. {20} Like the nations the LORD destroyed before you, so you will be destroyed for not obeying the LORD your God.
Last week I was leaving the house at about 8:30 A.M. to make a visitation and I looked toward the middle of my front lawn, where Marilyn (my wife) had planted a flowerbed several years ago. The flowerbed was full of colors by annual flowers that had come up and lifted their heads toward the warm air of the morning. It was wonderful to watch. The green stems appeared strong, the colors were so vibrant, the sun radiated her light into the flower bed . . . it was picture perfect.
As I stood there, I was lost in time for just a moment. It was a perfect moment.
As I was stepping into my car and leaving I was thinking: "How was it possible that I literally had forgotten the beauty of the previous season of spring?" "How was it possible that all winter I did not miss the flowers?"
Other things shot through my mind: "Is it the same when we relate to our God" Do we often forget Him as our maker, Savior, and friend?
I have to say "yes" For many of us we sometimes forget the seasons, where we felt God was with us and we move into the next season of life and we do not even remember Him as He revealed Himself to us.
In the biblical text we just heard, God warns about that! He asks us not to forget Him and the things He has done for us. God speaks to all people, those who believe and those who do not believe.
Why do we forget the previous seasons? How is it possible that many people on this earth still do not believe in our God?
Why is it so important for them not to believe, even though God revealed Himself so many times to us in our human history?
If you read my last Newsletter article, I wrote about the path humanity is taking: We as humanity become more and more accepting of all things, beliefs, behavior, etc. In fact we are taught to accept and respect others behavior, beliefs, etc.
I recently read a book review where the author Judith Levine asks that sexual relationships with minors should be lowered to a lower legal age. What that means is that pedophiles will no longer be pedophiles. And what other legal age would that be?
Now I must be ultra conservative, but I have not seen anyone lobby legislators to lower the voting age to 12 years old, or to lower the legal drinking age to 12 or to lower the legal driving age to 12. Where are all the parents of young children?
I saw recently on PBS that the sacrament of marriage will be eradicated by our own doing within the next 20 to 35 years, because "husband" and "wife" are no longer dependant upon each other, they are now able to adopt children as singles, women do not longer need men to have children, they now have the choice artificial insemination, homosexuality becomes widely accepted by society, by companies, and by the legal system and they are in some states allowed to build a family unit with adopting children.
I am following the Enron disaster, whose CEO’s are willing to sacrifice the savings of their staff and fill their own pockets. I see K-Mart executives who gave themselves loans just before filing for bankruptcy protection.
An individual recently sold outdated pacemakers to doctors and gave them incentives and kick backs
http://www.fbi.gov/fbinbrief/tour/wcc/wccmain.htm
We have legalized gambling on every corner of America. Senior citizens flock to gambling boats, we play the lottery that wants our money and lures us with jackpots of 320 Million Dollars in one of the last weeks, we bet in office pools on the NBA championship. I know someone who has four televisions in his basement and he watches four games at the same time to see how much money he lost/won in the games.
But we cannot meet our goals for United Way, The Red Cross, or better yet in our churches. Many pastors live on second incomes, congregations decline, and outreach monies are taken out of church budgets.
The Catholic church went as far as advertising Bingo in some of their churches. Are we all losing it?
And you know what? There is very little public outcry. There is no Million Men march toward Washington. There is no National prayer meeting about these issues. You know why? Because for most Americans feel alone in their opinion, they have bought into the idea of respecting others, their behavior, their beliefs and they do not want to offend anyone.
Well, I am here to offend those whom I have just listed. I believe in the sacrament of marriage, I believe that homosexuality is a sin, I believe that stealing money is against God’s will . . . and I am not willing to forget the previous season.
No, I am not drawing some dark picture for us as society. These are the facts.
And when we as God’s people accept these behaviors, actions, beliefs, we eradicate sin. Because when we accept certain things then we legalize sin. And when we legalize sin, we do not need forgiveness, and when we do not need forgiveness we do not need a God.
Simple as that!
I don’t know about you . . . but I feel that this world becomes more broken every day. I believe that people need our Christ more and more every day.
But as everyday passes by it will become harder and harder to convince others that God is in charge and that God will lead us to an eternal life . . . because we are slowly forgetting the previous season.
And when we do all these things our soul become cold, because each one of the behaviors I mentioned draws other sinful behaviors toward it. You see sin mingles only with sin, honest only mingles with honesty.
Maybe you are saying . . . Well we all sin . . . yes you are right . . . but by allowing certain sins to become legal we are just awaiting the next step. How about legalizing the killing of unwanted elderly who are helpless, sick and a burden to society? Or how about prostitution in West Alexandria? How about just asking over Canada, because they are close by and we should own them?
You are right, we all sin, but we MUST discern how we can solve our sins with God and how we can change our relationship with God. We must seek the will of God.
And then God can talk to us in the moments of silence and self evaluation.
God cannot talk to us when we abolish Him and His will for us,
Cable TV mogul Ted Turner proclaimed himself "news king" yesterday, and declared the Ten Commandments obsolete.
Turner, creator of Cable News Network, told members of the National Newspaper Association in Atlanta that the biblical Ten Commandments do not relate to current global problems, such as overpopulation and the arms race.
"We're living with outmoded rules," Turner said. "The rules we're living under are the Ten Commandments, and I bet nobody here even pays much attention to 'em, because they are too old.
"When Moses went up on the mountain, there were no nuclear weapons, there was no poverty. Today, the commandments wouldn't go over. Nobody around likes to be commanded. Commandments are out."
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