Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity

If you enjoy this, the entire AOC Sunday Report is RIGHT HERE!

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon tied the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and talked, as is oft the case, of the need for action, not simply diction.

Consider the words of the Collect:  “…whose only gift it cometh that thy faithful people do unto thee true and laudable service; Grant, we beseech thee, that we may so faithfully serve thee in this life, that we fail not finally to attain thy heavenly promises…”

In our prayer to God, we acknowledge that His only or greatest gift is that we are, through Him, able to give Him true service.  For, it must be understood the only way we can really be happy is when we align our being with His Being.  Truly align, not get around restrictions.  There is a big difference.  We are not trying to avoid being caught in a rule, but trying to live by the Big Picture and not worry about little things.  How do we do this? Well, we first must trust God in our hearts, souls and minds. Then we love him with all our hearts souls and minds, this creates a solid foundation for serving Him laudably throughout the rest of our days.

In order to serve him, we have to remember to love Him with all our hearts, souls and minds and to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”  This is the first step to following him. Then, you have to act upon your trust in Him. If you trust Him truly, as a spiritual parent, then just like with your earthly parents, you will take His advice into consideration and acting upon int. In the old times, God had to prepare the people for the coming of Christ. So the Law of the Old Testament was an intermediate step to prepare people for Jesus. People had to be trained to follow the basic moral laws, before they could even comprehend the message Jesus gave.

If we do what we should do, we will follow the little rules as a matter of course.  If we get the important things the little things will follow soon after. The only rules that are important really come from:

1.     Love thy God with all thy heart and soul and mind;

2.     Love they neighbor as thyself.

As Jesus says, “On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” He means all of the moral laws and preaching of the prophets past can be traced back to these laws, which comprise the basis for all of the laws that would follow thereafter, especially the Ten Commandments.  The 613 Mosaic Laws can call be traced back to these two commandments. They are the “Basic Speed Laws” of the Christian faith; there is no way to get around these two and be within the spirit or intent of the Law.

Trying to follow the Law failed to solve the problems of the people it was designed to help and thinking about how getting around technicalities is different than doing what is right. To comply with the Law is a different matter than finding loopholes around the Law. The Pharisees did the latter, and we should do the former.

In California, we have this law called The Basic Speed Law. It says you should drive no faster than is safe. If there is a bend of road posted at 40 miles per hour, but it is really safer to go 25 mph, which is complying with the intent of the law ?

The Pharisees would have you find a loophole in a 25 miles per hour zone for example, by just going 25 miles per hour. But, what if the area it is in is not safe for 25 mph, more like 15 miles per hour?  Could you honesty think going 25 miles per hour in what is actually a 15 miles per hour zone is within the intent of the law? No! It is the same with trying to go around the intent of the Law. We cannot honestly say we are doing something within the spirit of the Law, when we are only doing lip service to it. We must be within the intent or spirit of the Law, rather than trying to find ways around the Law.  Follow, not avoid.

In the Epistle, we are reminded God chose Abraham not because of he complied with The Law, for the Law was far into the future.  God chose Abraham because he had faith and put his trust in God.  The Law was an aid to man to help him be better when he had difficulty following God’s Will. 

If we do the same and put our trust in God, we will be able to perform the laudable service that He so desires for the rest of our days. We have to keep this continuous process of faith and trust going. The best way to do that is to learn and absorb the Scriptures as a whole, to see the large picture of what He wants for us. The Law is a small part of the large picture, when you see how it ties into the New Testament, you have a larger understanding of what God wants in your lives, as individuals. That is to follow the Great Commission, to spread the Gospel of our Lord, which will improve the lives of those who truly believe upon Him and bring true Happiness throughout the globe.

However, not everyone on the globe will follow Him, and they will not be truly happy as a result. An example of this are the Pharisees.  They were religious lawyers who specialized in the 613 Mosaic Laws, which brought them death, not life.  Their job was to help people not break The Law without unduly interfering with their lives by forcing them to embrace the intent of The Law.

When the Pharisee of the Gospel asked Jesus what he should do to gain eternal life, the Pharisee correctly summarized The Law: Love God; Love your neighbor.  He would have been fine had he stopped there.  But, he had to show the Son how smart he was.  In doing so, the lawyer was about to learn the first lesson of lawyering, ‘Never ask a question to which you don’t know the answer.’  So he asked, ‘Who is my neighbor?’  The answer, of course, is everyone but you; the rest of humanity.  But, as was often the case, Jesus presented the story of the injured man helped by the Samaritan, then asked who was neighbor to the injured man?

The priest and the Levite would not see the injured man; there are none so blind as those who will not see.  They could or would not follow the second commandment of the Summary of the Law, of loving they neighbor as thyself. They were too prideful to see the truth of loving they neighbor. They were too wrapped up in the riches and cares of this world.

The material things of this world are temporary and they have blinded and ensnared many. This is the reason that the Jews have not yet come to Christ and they will not come to Christ. They care too much about the symbolic rituals of their Temple of restoring that. They are very much like many churches of today in that respect, caring about their position on Earth more than their faith in God.  Focusing on this world, which is only a temporary state, is a foolish and fleeting thing. What they should have focuses on was their eternal life. While they knew of the concept of Heaven, they truly did not know it or believe in it per se.

They cared only about following The Law on Earth and hoping that foolish hope would bring them salvation. No matter how they followed it, they could not obtain salvation on their own. The missing link to their solution was one that has been here since The Creation: Jesus Christ. They are searching for Him, but they cannot find Him, as he is right under their noses. This is the problem with the World as well. They search for the answers that He provides, but they will not acknowledge Him or His solutions.

The world would be better off if they learned the lesson the lawyer learned in today’s Gospel. You will also note the Samaritan, one of those separated from the chosen mass of Judaism, did his duty.  When he left the injured man at the inn, having given the innkeeper roughly two days wages, he said, “Do what need be done, if I owe more I will pay when I pass by next.”  You will note, he put no limit on his duty, he just committed to doing what needed to be done, regardless of cost. 

The lawyer to his credit answered honestly, “He that shewed mercy on him.”  Jesus told him, “Go, and do thou likewise.”

Right is not a matter of quantum; it is not a matter of majority rules or public opinion; actions speak louder than words.

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them. 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

Twelfth Sunday after Trinity

The Twelfth Sunday after Trinity.

The Collect.

A

LMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen

The Epistle came from Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians, the Third Chapter beginning at the Fourth Verse.  Paul reminds  us through the Grace of God we can be able ministers of the new testament, on our own we can be in the end no good.  If we are able to completely follow the Law, with good intent, we can through that please God, but inasmuch as that is impossible we fall short.  The letter of the Law, which cannot be complied with is death.  But following the spirit of the Law gives life.  That is Jesus’ message, for in the Law is death and in the spirit life.  For if there is glory in administering the Law, how much more glory is there in the spirit of the Law, which is Jesus’ message?

S

UCH trust have we through Christ to God-ward: not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: how shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory.

Today’s Holy Gospel started in the Seventh Chapter of the Gospel according to St. Mark, beginning at the Thirty-First Verse. Jesus came in to the coast of Decapolis[1].   The people brought unto him a deaf mute.  Jesus examined the man, put his fingers in his ears, touched his tongue and said “Ephphatha”[2], that is, “Be opened.”  What Jesus did here for the deaf mute physically is what he does for each of us spiritually.  Through Jesus, we hear the Word of God and are given the ability to speak it.  Conversely, there are none so deaf as those who will not hear and none so blind as those who will not see.  It is up to each of us to choose if we will remain blind, deaf and dumb or open our eyes to see, hear and speak the Word of God.  When we receive the gift of sight, hearing and speech we embark on a new life of freedom.

J

ESUS, departing from the coasts of Tyre and Sidon, came unto the sea of Galilee, through the midst of the coasts of Decapolis. And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. And he took him aside from the multitude, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spit, and touched his tongue; and looking up to heaven, he sighed, and saith unto him, Ephphatha, that is, Be opened. And straightway his ears were opened, and the string of his tongue was loosed, and he spake plain. And he charged them that they should tell no man: but the more he charged them, so much the more a great deal they published it; and were beyond measure astonished, saying, He hath done all things well: he maketh both the deaf to hear, and the dumb to speak.

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon tied the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and talked, as is oft the case, of the need 

for action, not simply diction.

Consider the words of the Collect, wherein we ask God who is … more ready to hear than we to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve; Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask …

For the first time in a long time, this collect acknowledges that we are continually pray to God, asking Him for what WE want.  Yet, how oft do we listen to Him when He responds?  If we will listen to Him and DO what He asks, He will give us more than we have need of, more than we ask for, more than we can even desire.  Yet, it requires us to listen to Him, then ACT on what we are told.  When we ask His forgiveness, when He gives it, we need to accept it and live it; if we live in the past, we never will benefit. We have to accept it in the present. The present is the only realm of time in which we have complete control of our actions and thoughts and can influence people around us. The past has already happened, we cannot change the past. The future has not yet happened, but can only be influenced through the present. So that brings us to the present, which is the most important part of time, where we can act directly for Him. We have to remember that the only time in which we can influence our action with the help of the Holy Ghost is within the present. We are never in tomorrow, and we are never in the past, but we are always within the present. Then let us accept His forgiveness now, not tomorrow, not yesterday, but today.

God gives us guidance through the Holy Ghost, if we will but accept it.  He gives us the power to act in the spirit of The Law.  The Law or actually 613 little laws turned out to be in of itself a death sentence.  The Jews could or would not comply with the 613 Mosaic Laws, which brought them death. 

The Jews only cared about following the Law, not about the spirit of the Law which was intended. Following the letter of the Law does not save an individual, following the spirit of the Law is the more important matter. If you follow in the spirit of the Law, you are following what the Law was meant for. Jesus is the ultimate embodiment of the Law. As the embodiement of the Law, He gave us the important bits of the law, when He gave us the summary of The Law, which through Him would bring life, everlasting life and happiness here on earth:

T

HOU shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets. 

Only two laws to comply with, which though simpler, are harder:

1.     Love God

2.     Love your neighbor like yourself

Think about it, if you do those two things, you will find you need no other real moral guidance.  If you understand the Big Picture, you know what to do on your part of the Little Picture to make your world line up with His World.  Just like the sight picture on a rifle, lining up the sights with the target. We want our sights to line up with His Picture. We want our sight picture to be the same as His. The problem is just like the Jews, we cannot perfectly follow those either. Because we come from the same common ancestor, Adam, we have the curse of free will. We often exercise this free will poorly, rather than in the way God intended it, which is to focus on Him.  But we can at least do our very best to follow those directions and change course whenever we aren’t.  

In the Gospel, Jesus helped a deaf man with an impediment of speech. We are like that deaf man, who cannot seemingly hear God’s commands, or won’t. We have a speech impediment in that we often utter incorrect or outright sinful words in our day to day lives. We are asking for Him to heal us of both spiritual impediments. Without His help, we cannot be cleared of our spiritual deafness and uncleanliness. 

Only Christ can purify our hearts, souls and minds. However, before He can do that, we have to make the conscious effort to let Him into our hearts. He does not enter into hearts where He is not wanted. Only with that continual, conscious effort, can He dwell within our hearts and save us. It is through His faith, His sacrifice we are saved, but we must show that we are with Him, by acting for Him. This is a continuous process that will go on for the rest of our earthly lives.

Doing our best is all that God asks of us, not just saying we are doing our best when we aren’t.  But, happily for us, Jesus’ sacrifice on our behalf accounts us as just before God.  So, now that we know that, who do we tell about it?  Do we let people know, or do we hide our allegiance to the Lord?   If you hide your allegiance, you really have none. But we must be open about our allegiance and share the Good News with others, that they in time may come to seek the joys of His Kingdom. They may not understand right away, but the seed of the Lord may germinate and grow within them, so that within due course they may understand the Word and come to seek Him. A seed does not instantly become a large sycamore tree, it takes years of watering and good sunshine for the plant to grow into the large tree. It is the same with us, it takes years of good spiritual food and drink (The Holy Scripture and the Holy Ghost) and of being with fellow believers who are learning along with you to grow spiritually. 

The Holy Ghost is a large part of our spiritual lives. Without Him, we could not be considered one of Christ’s sheep. We have to let Him into our hearts and lead a transforming and a renewal of our minds. Without His help, we cannot adequately follow Him. In other words, we are doomed without the help of the Holy Ghost, which will give us His guidance and advice in conducting our church lives, our professional lives and our personal lives. 

When Jesus opened the ears and mouth of the deaf mute, He did for him what the Holy Ghost will do for us, if we will but let Him open first our ears to hear, then our mouths to testify, communicate and direct.  We must lead people to God, not try to push them.  Thus, we need to strive, each of us, to follow God more closely that we can pull on the lead rope.  Leading requires being in front of the people you are attempting to lead, having them follow your example towards an objective.  Study Jesus’ life, He is a perfect example of a leader.  We cannot ever be perfect, but we can strive for that perfection in our actions.

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them.  

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

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[1] Decapolis - ten cities=deka, ten, and polis, a city, a district on the east and south-east of the Sea of Galilee containing "ten cities, " which were chiefly inhabited by Greeks. It included a portion of Bashan and Gilead, and is mentioned three times in the New Testament (Matt. 4: 25; Mark 5: 20; 7: 31). These cities were Scythopolis, i. e., "city of the Scythians", (ancient Bethshean, the only one of the ten cities on the west of Jordan), Hippos, Gadara, Pella (to which the Christians fled just before the destruction of Jerusalem), Philadelphia (ancient Rabbath-ammon), Gerasa, Dion, Canatha, Raphana, and Damascus. When the Romans conquered Syria (B. C. 65) they rebuilt, and endowed with certain privileges, these "ten cities, " and the province connected with them they called "Decapolis. "

[2] Ephphatha the Greek form of a Syro-Chaldaic or Aramaic word, meaning "Be opened", uttered by Christ when healing the man who was deaf and dumb (Mark 7: 34). It is one of the characteristics of Mark that he uses the very Aramaic words which fell from our Lord's lips. (See 3: 17; 5: 41; 7: 11; 14: 36; 15: 34. )

Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

The entire AOC Sunday Report can be found RIGHT HERE! 

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon tied the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together and talked, as is oft the case, of the need for action, not simply diction.

Consider the words from the Collect, wherein we ask God … who declarest thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity; Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; …

Once again, this Collect is kind of a follow-on to the last few weeks’ Collects.  First, we acknowledge God’s power which is manifested not in terror but in mercy and pity on our failures.  This is important to note; with all the power in and of the universe, God chooses to manifest His Power in showing infinite mercy and kindness to us, not in causing us more tears. He is far kinder to us than we could ever possibly deserve. We would expect Him to be otherwise, given our fallen nature.  Rather than be unforgiving and unmerciful, He is there to comfort and help us.  He does not act as a human would in His position, but rather being a merciful and mindful God to us. He realizes our struggles and gives us resources to us to help with those struggles. Thus, the Collect goes on to ask His Help in following His Commandments that we might gain the good that comes from that following.  And we would hope that we recognize the good that comes from that following and choose to repeat doing the following as opposed to going astray such as our tendency is.

As imperfect creatures of free will, the norm is to choose what we want, not what we need, then we come to calamity.  We are each grievous sinners, some worse than others, none better.  Yet, we come before God all equal.  In equally big trouble, some more, none less. We are all equal by the fact that we are hopeless sinners without the saving grace and faith of Christ.  It is only through faith we are saved.  And not our faith, but the faith of Christ that dwells within us.

This is the point Saint Paul is making when he says that first he gave unto us[1] that understanding he got directly from God as to the role of Jesus Christ.  He recounts some of the factual information about Jesus’ time here on earth after the crucifixion, the descent into hell and the resurrection. He is confirming that the story of the Gospel as told to him. He notes the various witnesses, still alive or recently passed away.  He makes the point that we must spread the gospel so that others might believe.  He tells us we are saved by faith alone.

Our faith?  Partly, but not chiefly and not first. Then whose faith is it that we are saved by?

We are saved by the perfect faith of Christ, our only mediator and advocate before the Father.  It is not by our faith, but the faith of Him who dwells within us, that of Chirst. Without Christ, we could not have any faith to begin with. The perfect faith of Christ allowed a single sacrifice to be made at one time, to right the account the sins of all mankind for all time.  This is the faith that saves us and our faith in Him allows Him to operate in us. If we do not have faith in Him, He cannot enter into us with His faith. That is why those who do not have the Holy Ghost in them do not believe in Him.  One of Paul’s points in today’s Epistle was that if he, the previous Chief Persecutor of the church could be saved by Jesus’ that option was available to each of us.  Anybody who is able and willing to can be saved by Jesus. They just need to repent and turn back to Him. All we need to do is repent and follow.  Thus, we need to Lead, Follow or Get out of the Way towards Christ and God’s grace.

The other point is that Jesus is real, He is Who He says He IS.  He is not a fictional character, he is not a great teacher.  He is THE SON OF GOD and He came to save us: body, heart, mind and soul.  There is no other way to view Him that makes as perfect sense as this. Just as we are real sinners, He is a real Savior. You cannot have the Holy Spirit within you and say that He is not the Son of God. Likewise, you cannot say He is the Son of God without the Holy Ghost in you.

If that is not enough to turn your heart, consider the parable of the publican and the Pharisee related by Saint Luke.  The man who was proud of his performance was not the example Jesus chose for the one justified, rather the one who acknowledged his failures and asked God for forgiveness and help. Think of these examples and who would we rather be like, the publican, or the Pharisee?  Remember, the Pharisee’s job consisted of finding clever ways around the 613 Mosaic Laws.  The publican was looking for help in actually following two:

Hear what our Lord Jesus Christ saith.

T

HOU shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets.    BCP Page 69

And, just as importantly, he was not looking for ways around those two laws, he was looking for help to follow God and forgiveness when he fell short. 

Let us ask God for the help we need to follow His Will.  For we must have His Help to act as we must here on earth!

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them. 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

---

[1] Though Paul was writing to the people of Corinth, the information is just as applicable to us, perhaps more so now than ever before.

Tenth Sunday after Trinity

Sermon – Reverend Jack Arnold - Time and Action

Church of the Faithful Centurion - Descanso, California

Today’s sermon tied the Collect, Epistle and Gospel together.

The entire AOC Sunday Report
is RIGHT HERE!

Consider the words from the Collect, wherein we ask God to give us … be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee …

Once again, this Collect is kind of a follow-on to last week’s Collect.  First, we ask God to hear our prayers, this is funny in that He always listens intently to us when we pray and we very seldom listen to Him when He answers.  It is an odd paradox, He listens but we never seem to listen.  It seems as if at times we should pray that we should listen not Him, as He always listens! Nonetheless, we ask His help to ask for those things we need, not those things we want and are bad for us.  We need to be humble when we ask.  

What does that word mean?  

According to the dictionary, to be HUMBLE means to be:

·      Modest

·      Respectful

·      Lowly

Modest - unassuming in attitude and behavior

Respectful - feeling or showing respect and deference toward other people

Lowly - relatively low in rank and without pretensions

We cannot change what is our station in life, but we can change our attitude towards God.  He is God, we are not.  We are His creatures, imperfect with free will.  We must recognize that when we ask for His Help.  We badly need the guidance from the Holy Ghost so we can ask for what we need, instead of what we want.  NEED and WANT are two four letter words that are used to oft interchangeably that do not mean the same thing. People often use these four letter words erroneously, thinking they mean the same thing. They do not and cannot. Needs are vital for our spiritual health as well as physical health. Wants are nice things to have, but they are not vital for us to survive. When we think we “NEED” something, we have to ask if it fits the above definition “Is this vital for our ministry/life here on earth, or is it something that is just nice to hav , but not a critical item?” We have to see if what we need is something we truly need, or just a want. Too many people do not perform this need analysis and as a result suffer for it physically and spiritually.

While our needs must be fulfilled, there is nothing wrong with wanting, just so long as you want things that are good for you.  Once again, we are asking God to help us to want the right things that will be good for us and help us develop in our Christian lives. Paul reminds us that though each believer is different, throughout all the believing peoples of the Church the same God, the same Spirit, the same Christ works all in all and through all His work is done and accomplished. When we are setting off to do work for the church, we have to keep in mind that those believers we serve and help believe in the same God we do, and they are filled with the same spirit.

Paul reminds us that we each have differing talents, but if we use them to the Glory of God, without concern for who gets the credit, all will be well. I can think of no finer example of this than the Marines serving on Peleliu with Eugene Sledge, in the 3^rd Batallion/5^th Marines. I was reading his memoir, With the Old Breed, when I realized in my reading, none of the Marines he served with cared a bit who got a credit, but all they cared about was helping their fellow Marines get the objective done. They didn’t do what they felt like, at least not the good ones. They did what was right without thought as to who would get the credit. Their main thoughts were to work as a team to defeat the Japanese. So too, must we work with our fellow Christians, as the Marines did on Peleliu, using each of our talents to further His work and to defeat the forces of Satan. There may be a lot of hardships to endure, just like the Marines endured, but if they could endure the hells of Peleliu, then surely we can endure whatever Satan can throw at us, if we just trust in Him and listen to Him. Do what you can, not what you feel like. Ignore what you feel like doing and do what God wants you to do. We will profit from doing what God wants more than if we did what we just felt like doing. What we feel like doing often does not align with what God wants for us, which can result in negative consequences for us. However, if we do what He wants for us, there will be positive consequences.

If you will but read the Bible, what God wants you to do will be clear.  If you do your best to do His Will all will be well with you.  Death is a pretty hollow threat if you do your duty.  The people of Jerusalem would not have been in the pickle they got in when 70AD came along, had they only done what God wanted.  But, it was too hard for them.  In 70AD, what had been so hard seemed pretty easy compared to the fix they were in, but by then it was too late.  By that time they were left with only “There are none so poor as cannot purchase a noble death.”  But, for most of them by that time they had no will.  It left when they failed to follow God’s will.

It is an object lesson for us, to do what we can in the here and now and not worry about tomorrow. And also we shouldn’t complain if it is too hard for us, because being on God’s side, nothing is too hard for us. We should ignore these thoughts and turn our attentions to what God wants for us. We must learn from the past mistakes of our spiritual forebears and resolve not to repeat those same mistakes. If we are ignorant of our spiritual past, we are doomed to make those very same mistakes.

When Luke wrote of the sales in the temple, he had a point.  The point was not to preclude jumble sales at church.  He was not abhorring the sales, but the cheating in the name of God.   This Gospel does literally preclude cheating people at those jumble sales!  You must understand the temple hawkers were selling perfect defective “sacrificial lambs” which would be recycled over and over[1].  In their very successful effort to make money they were defrauding the people and insulting God in His own House.  It should also be pointed out that a church should be a place of worship.  It may be a Prophet Center, but not a Profit Center.  If the building needs constant commercial enterprise, then perhaps the emphasis is on the wrong center. All of these churches that emphasize quantity over quality should be suspect. It does not matter the quantity, as long as you have a base of quality believers that serve the One Triune God.  A church should be funded for its needs by its members and its wants should come much later, if not in fact unheeded.  A church is about Him, not about IT. It should not be a self licking ice cream cone, but a center to help the believers walk in Christ, not focusing on the physical and material plant on earth, but on helping us on our own “Pilgrim’s Progress” towards heaven. If it focuses on anything but that, it is a stumbling block to believers. We are not called to be a stumbling block, but to be guides, to be lanterns shining in the darkness, to be as a light cloud amidst the darkness of this world.

Do what you are supposed to do when you are supposed to do it.  That is duty.  It does not matter how you “feel” about black or white.  Black is black; White is white.  Do your duty. Work as hard as you can, do the best you can, trust in the Lord.  By the way, cheat no one.  If you follow that, you won’t need to be told, “Particularly in God’s House.”

Action counts.  For by their actions ye shall know them. 

Heaven is at the end of an uphill trail.  The easy downhill trail does not lead to the summit.

The time is now, not tomorrow.  The time has come, indeed.  How will you ACT?

It is by our actions we are known.

Be of God - Live of God - Act of God

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[1] The concept of being truthful in the efforts we make to spread The Word is not a separate subject by any means, but would take more time to talk about than we have time for here.  Suffice it to say that we must take every care to spread The Truth and not what our audience, whoever that may be, would like to hear.  When we bring our “sacrifice” to the “temple” we needs make certain it is in fact as perfect as we can make it.  This is so hard that one of the recurring themes of the Collects is asking for guidance to ask for the right things.

Cellar Rats

Somehow the Cellar Rats look pretty comfortable there.

While I know what I should do at one level, I oft find my actions incongruent with what I am   This incongruence is most evident amongst those with whom I am most comfortable; my family and closest friends.  Is it because they “bring out the worst” in me?  To quote Paul, “God forbid!”  Perhaps it is because they are closest to my soul and I have no wall between us.  Those actions, unacceptable amongst strangers, are even more unacceptable amongst family and closest friends.  Yet they persist.  Why?  Perhaps because as an imperfect creature with free will my only hope is God.  I need His help to grow closer to Him and to those around me.  I need the Light of the Holy Ghost to shine into the deepest corners of my heart, to eradicate the darkness there and plate those crevices with His Light. 

supposed to do.

Apparently I am not the only imperfect creature with free will who has this issue[1], what a surprise!  Consider this short piece by Jack Lewis:

Rats in the Cellar on our Journey towards Christ 

We begin to notice, besides our particular sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are. This may sound rather difficult, so I will try to make it clear from my own case. When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.

Jack Lewis

Mere Christianity

Looking at the little graphic, it seems that the little rats are enjoying their time in the cellar and thus will be hard to drive out.  But, driven out they must be.  Those cellar rats must go, they cannot be tolerated no matter how comfortable we are with them, no matter how much we think they cannot go.  They must go.

Belfry rats, on the other hand, with their relationship to those same bats, would appear to be necessary to survival in this world.

Think about it.

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[1] 9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Child Sacrifice and Baal - Moloch • Abortion and Secular Humanism – 5 August 2015, Anno Domini

Planned Parenthood[1] is in the news, but is it new information or practice?

Moloch, Molech, Molekh, or Molek, representing Hebrew מלך mlk, (translated directly into king) is either the name of a god and the name of a particular kind of sacrifice associated historically with that god in cultures throughout the Middle East, including but not limited to the Jewish, Egyptian, Caananite, Phoenician and related cultures in North Africa and the Levant.

Moloch went by many names including, but not limited to, Ba'al, Moloch, Apis Bull, Golden Calf, Chemosh, as well as many other names, and was widely worshipped in the Middle East and wherever Punic culture extended (including, but not limited to, the Ammonites, Edomites and the Moabites). Baal Moloch was conceived under the form of a calf or an ox or depicted as a man with the head of a bull.

Hadad, Baal or simply the King identified the god within his cult. The name Moloch is the name he was known by among his worshippers, but is a Hebrew translation. (MLK has been found on stele at the infant necropolis in Carthage.) The written form Μολώχ Moloch (in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament), or Molech (Hebrew), is the word Melech or king, transformed by interposing the vowels of bosheth or 'shameful thing'. 

The principal pillars of Baalism were child sacrifice, sexual immorality (both heterosexual and homosexual) and pantheism (reverence of creation over the Creator). Adults would gather around the altar of Baal. Infants would then be burned alive as a sacrificial offering to the deity. Amid horrific screams and the stench of charred human flesh, congregants – men and women alike – would engage in bisexual orgies. The ritual of convenience was intended to produce economic prosperity by prompting Baal to bring rain for the fertility of “mother earth.”

Worshipping Baal meant sacrificing human life, never your own, just the innocent newly born, so you might have prosperity here on earth.  

Now that “medical professionals have perfected killing the unborn and partly born, there is a new way to prosperity and convenience.  

Will you kill your baby so that you can have the payments for a new BMW instead of just driving the old Ford? 

Can you please tell me the difference between Baalism and Secular Humanism? Secular Humanism is the Baalism of today.

Do you wonder what morals Barack Obama had in mind teaching his “miracle daughters”?  He said, "I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby."

Baal had his babies roasted alive.  Secular Humanism prefers to suck their brains out while they are alive or maybe just dismember them.  All so young people are not punished with a baby.

When a woman gives up her child, now prior to birth not post birth, for the reasons of "economics" or "ability" to raise him, that child, once aborted, is in the end burnt or rather incinerated. The burnt offering to Baal-Moloch is still created and created under the exact same hopes as it has been done for centuries: the hope for a rich and easy life.

The rich and easy life is just that, easy life, but life itself is rather short. One cannot give praise for the day to come, when one can not be sure to live to see its sun rise. As such, we, as societies, continue this evil practice of sacrifice to Moloch to gain prosperity; albeit in a more sanitized version of abortion, to buy our way out of "costly" children, a gift given directly from God. In so doing we damn our souls and the souls of future generations who will grow up and be perverted by the societies thus made.

Two thousand years ago, Jesus said, But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. (Matthew 18:6)  Do you think sucking their brains out or dismembering them alive is offensive to these little ones?

Punished with a baby?  There is a special place in hell, perhaps with a millstone.

Rev Hap Arnold

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[1] An interesting name for an organization dedicated to avoiding parenthood by the elimination of children.