Christ Church (Moscow, ID)

Consistent Christian are not anarchists or scofflaws. We are gathered together today in this particular way precisely because we are not scofflaws. Every Christian who reads his Bible knows and understands that we are supposed to submit to the authorities that God has placed over us. What every Christian does not know, however, is that there are various understandings of how we are to do this. So yes, this is what we are to do. But how are we to do it? Are there different approaches to this assigned task?

There is a long tradition in the Christian Church in which ministers of the gospel delivered sermons that were directed to kings and governors and judges. Moses preached to Pharaoh. Jeremiah was called by God to preach to nations and kingdoms. Paul preached to a number of Roman Governors. John Calvin dedicated his Institutes of the Christian Religion to the King France. And you can read whole collections of sermons from early American preachers full of messages to the governors of the colonies. So, Mayor Lambert, Counsellors Bettge, Kelly, Laflin, Sullivan, Taruscio, and Zabala, this message is respectfully for you. The Bible is clear that Christians owe magistrates honor and obedience in the Lord. And the Bible is equally clear that we are to pray for all who are in authority, and this is with the goal that we may lead quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness and honesty.

n the Garden of Eden, when God shaped the first man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), the Almighty was simply playing the part of a sculptor. He shaped Adam from the dust of the ground, but until the second half of the verse, this Adam was simply dust rearranged. After the semblance of a man had been fashioned out of dust, God breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life,” and it was then that man became a living soul. The dust was still there, but something else was now present. The image of God was now present.

In the Garden of Eden, when God shaped the first man from the dust of the ground (Gen. 2:7), the Almighty was simply playing the part of a sculptor. He shaped Adam from the dust of the ground, but until the second half of the verse, this Adam was simply dust rearranged. After the semblance of a man had been fashioned out of dust, God breathed into his nostrils the “breath of life,” and it was then that man became a living soul. The dust was still there, but something else was not present. The image of God was now present.But that image was soon to be marred. Despite the warning of God that if he ate the forbidden fruit he would “surely die,” our first father disobeyed, and in the curse was dragged back down to the dust of the ground. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return” (Gen. 3:19).

This is why Jesus took on a human body: so that He could drink death down, tasting it fully. This is why his mouth, tongue, and teeth were first formed in the body of his mother, the virgin Mary, so that He would be able fully to take in the acrid taste of death

A mid-week sermon from Pastor Douglas Wilson.

One of the greatest vices of the evangelical church over the past century has been our bad habit of attempting to read our Bibles in light of our current events, instead of the other way around, which is to read our current events in light of our Bible. In Scripture you have a firm and certain word. In the world around you, as we have right now, you have a raucous multitude driven by whatever emotion has worked its way to the top of their esophagus. If you go from that raging emotion to Scripture you will have no end of confusion. But if you start with the clear testimony of Scripture you will find that you suddenly have your feet on an immovable rock.So let’s start with Scripture and the promises of Psalm 118. These things have been promised to us and for us to be obedient means reading our current situation in light of this text.

A mid-week sermon from Pastor Toby Sumpter.There is something glorious here for us. The pagans were struck with darkness and could not rise, could not go out, could not move for three days, but all the children of Israel had light in their homes. The text doesn’t tell us exactly how this worked. It doesn’t say if there was some kind of massive cosmic miracle taking place or if the darkness was simply less intense in Goshen, such that the lanterns and candles actually worked or whether there was some other supernatural light being given. But either way, this moment is glorious. There was thick, paralyzing darkness in Egypt, but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. The implication seems to be that there was still darkness in the land of Goshen, but that while Israel had to stay home, there was a relative blessing in the midst of the plague. Everyone was stuck at home, no one could go out, but where there was an additional darkness inside the homes of the Egyptians, all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. Everyone had to stay home, but there were two very different experiences of that darkness. In one experience, there was no variation, only darkness, inside and outside, all the way through, but in the other experience, there was significant variation. The darkness was on the outside, but there was light on the inside. All of the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. It is still unclear exactly what has happened in our land, in our world, and what is happening. Whatever your views of this current moment, whether you are more concerned about the virus, or more concerned about the panic, or more concerned about government overreach and loss of civil liberties, or if it’s some or all of the above, whatever your opinions, whatever your concerns, the message is that for those who know God through Christ, no matter the darkness outside, there should be light in your homes, light in your families, light on the inside. Whatever the darkness, whatever the hardship, whatever the cause, you can say it however you like, but your sentence should end: but all of the children of Israel had light in their dwellings. But all the people of God had light in their homes. So my question is: if you call yourself a Christian, if you profess faith in Jesus Christ, is there light in your home? Is your home full of light? When the story is told of these days, will it be said of you and your family, that even though the world was full of darkness, the people of God had light in their dwellings? What is your home like? What is your family like? What is your marriage like? Is it full of light? Is it a joyful place to be? Is it a comforting place to be? Or is it fearful, biting, angry, grumpy, cold, or distant?

In a recent press conference, the president said that his desire was to have our country emerge from this crisis in a matter of weeks, not months, and that it was his desire for the churches of our country to be packed out on Easter.This is a laudable desire on at least two levels, and we should support and applaud it, as I do. But there is something more that still needs to be said about it. Packed churches are better than empty churches, but in themselves are not nearly enough.

The prophecy of Joel is about a coming disaster in Israel, the hope of repentance and reformation, and the promise of international justice. We do not know the full nature of the hardship we are facing, but we know that it is from the Lord. It is for our good, it is for His glory, and it is part of His plan to fill the earth with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. But one of the great lessons of Joel is the centrality of worship to all of life. Joel confronts our national sin of thinking that worship is not related to plagues, politics, economics, and family life.