Courier Editorial for Thursday, September 26
I write this editorial primarily to those who call themselves Christians. On the November 5 ballot will be Amendment G which would legalize many forms of abortion in South Dakota. I would like to give four Biblical reasons why it is your Christian duty to vote “no” on Amendment G.
1. Every human life has value since we all have been created in the image of God and receive life from Him – Genesis 1:26-28, 2:7, 9:5-6; Acts 17:24-25. Being imagebearers of God is so important that in Genesis 9:6 (ESV) we read “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” To murder an imagebearer of God was to forfeit their own lives.
2. Life begins at conception and God already knows the unborn as people – Psalm 139:13-16; Jeremiah 1:4-5; Luke 1:15, 39-42. We read in Luke 1:15, “for he (John the Baptist) will be great before the Lord. And he must not drink wine or strong drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb.”
3. Jesus showed God’s great concern for children by welcoming them and blessing them – Matthew 19:13-15; Mark 10:13-16; Luke 18:15-17. Jesus even blessed infants who were brought to Him. Elsewhere Jesus warned of the punishment faced by those who mislead the little ones.
4. God’s just judgment will fall on individuals, organizations, and nations that have shed innocent blood – Proverbs 6:16-19, Jeremiah 19:3-6, 32:31-35; Joel 3:19. Jeremiah 19:3b–5, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Behold, I am bringing such disaster upon this place that the ears of everyone who hears of it will tingle. Because the people have forsaken me and have profaned this place by making offerings in it to other gods whom neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah have known; and because they have filled this place with the blood of innocents, and have built the high places of Baal to burn their sons in the fire as burnt offerings to Baal, …”
Let me encourage other area pastors to write editorials in the Courier every week until November 5 calling on Christians to vote against Amendment G. As God’s watchmen we are responsible to warn others of the judgment that will come upon America if we do not stop the shedding of innocent blood.
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 29
Judge not!
Many of us can remember when the best-known Bible verse was John 3:16 (ESV) “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son (Jesus), that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” For many it was a quick reference verse that pointed people to our Savior, Jesus Christ. It was so common that people would flash signs at football games with just John 3:16 on it and expect people to understand what they meant.
However, this beloved gospel verse has been set aside for an excuse verse today. If you have brought up someone’s sin to them lately, you were likely to hear Matthew 7:1, “Judge not, that you be not judged.” Their response is that based on this verse Christians have no right to tell others what is right or wrong or what is sinful and what is not. They act as if by this verse Jesus gave everyone a get out of jail free card or get out of hell free card. Sadly, many Christians do not know how to respond and so the Gospel call of repentance gets swept away.
Still, there are at least three things that Christians need to know in order to respond to this escape verse. The first is the context of the verse. We read in Matthew 7:2, “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” In this we see that judging itself is not forbidden. Instead, what is forbidden is hypocritical judging. In verse 5 it tells once we have dealt with our sins, then we can go to our brother or sister to call them out of their sin. What we are called to do is to judge ourselves by the same standards that we judge others with.
The second thing is that when we judge ourselves or others the standard that we are to use is God’s standard. God’s standard, as found in the Bible, is sufficiently clear for anyone to distinguish right and wrong. We can know what is sinful and what is not. What is not specifically stated can normally be tested by the principles for godly living that God has given us.
The third thing is that as our Creator God has every right to tell us how we are to live for Him. God has the right to declare to us what is right and wrong. He has the right to expect us to follow what He commands. When I show someone that they are not living up to God’s Biblical commands it is not me judging them but God judging them as He judges me.
As our Judge, God warns us in Revelation 20:12, “And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done.”
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 22
Did God Actually Say?
The first temptation of mankind is found in Genesis 3. Genesis 3:1 (ESV), “Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” “Did God actually say?” has been a temptation that mankind has fallen for throughout history.
During the Enlightenment that question would lead to a challenge of Genesis 1 and 2. In an attempt to get rid of a Creator and our moral Judge, rebellious mankind established the theory of evolution in the 19th century. What many people who say “trust the science” do not know is that some of evolution’s early promotors admitted they embraced it not because of science but instead to avoid Biblical morality. They rejected God’s Word because they wanted autonomy from the Creator who placed constraints on them.
By the early 20th century there were many liberal churchmen who decided to chop up God’s Word. They did not like what God said about unscientific supernatural events, so they started explaining them away. Many of them even stripped Jesus of His deity. To fit in with the world they changed what God had said to fit their views.
A little later in the 20th century mainline churches embraced the feminist movement. To accomplish that they too had to remove portions of what the Bible said. Suddenly what God said became things that were only relevant to certain times. In many cases what the Apostle Paul said was no longer part of what God had said. They denied the unity of Scripture and set Jesus’ words up against Paul’s to avoid what was written.
Shortly after the feminist movement took hold, we started to see the sexual revolution appear. Here too what God said was quickly pushed to the side. It was claimed everyone was able to decide their own morality and even sexual identity for themselves. The desire to be fully autonomous from God was nearly here. Sexual autonomy became more important than the lives of our unborn children.
Today, God’s Word is scoffed at even though this rebellious route is filled with divorce, abortion, abuse, broken families, broken relationships, and lifelong scars.
Today we find individual Christians, churches, and even whole denomination falling for Satan’s temptation of “did God actually say?” Many have decided they can no longer accept God’s Word as a guide for faith and life. Many have instead embraced the wisdom of the world over God’s Word. They have come up with a multitude of ways to silence God in order to avoid what He says.
What Adam and Eve had done in falling for the first temptation was to try set themselves up as their own gods. They wanted to determine their destinies. They wanted to determine their truth. They wanted to be autonomous from God. Today, we see the horrendous results of a world that rejects what God has actually said.
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 15
The Church and the World
Historically there has been a struggle in defining the church’s interactions with the world. At times these interactions have been seen by some Christians in the terms of the church triumphant and the church militant.
The church triumphant is the church that is already in heaven with our Lord. It is seen as having fully overcome this fallen world. It awaits Jesus’ judgment of the world.
The church militant is the church that is even now advancing Christ’s kingdom against the world. It seeks to bring the world into submission to Christ. We see this view coming from Jesus in Matthew 28:19–20 (ESV), “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” The Great Commission includes the church calling the world to become obedient disciples of Jesus.
The church is being called to battle the world in 2 Corinthians 10:4–5, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, …” We are to try to overcome everything that challenges the knowledge of the true God.
We read in Jude 3b, “… I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints.” We are to put forth an intense effort in defending and advancing the Christian faith against all challengers.
The church of Christ is distinct from our fallen world and every false religion. Instead of compromising with the world, we are to strive to change it. We read in John 17:14, “I (Jesus) have given them your word, and the world has hated them (the church) because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.” Or John 17:16, “They (the church) are not of the world, just as I (Jesus) am not of the world.” As the kingdom of light, we are completely distinct from the kingdom of darkness. The church has loses its witness when we come too close to our fallen world. The American church faces becoming increasingly ineffective because instead of standing against the world and calling them to Christ, we have sought to embrace them and to look like them.
Instead, the church militant is called to chastise the wicked world for their rebellion against our Lord. We are to call sinners out of their sin and to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. We are to publicly defend the faith against false religions. We are to boldly defend the faith against worldly philosophies. This is part of the Biblically mandated soul saving work of the church. Let us call the world to repentance and faith as Jesus did.
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 8
Differing Perspectives
As I look at the current landscape of our country, I observe four general ways in which churches and individual Christians interact with the world and each other. Of course, each of these has nuances.
The first way is the progressive church. Many progressives seek to embrace our world and their deeds of mercy have become their Gospel. Many welcome both sinners and their sin into the church. Oftentimes they publicly stand with the world and against conservative Christians in our culture wars. While they oftentimes ignore the world breaking God’s commands, they eagerly pounce on the conservatives for breaking the 11th Command, “Thou shalt be nice.” This group seeks to be loved by the world.
The second way is the moderate church. Many moderates claim a conservative view of the Bible and yet they oftentimes side with the world. They do what is called “leaning left while punching right”. Rarely will they criticize the progressives, yet they regularly heap condemnation on vocal conservative Christians. While they are not on the first cars of the progressive cultural train, they are on the train, and they are moving to the left. This group, especially the elites, seeks to be accepted by the world.
The other two types make up the conservative church. The first would hold to a separation between the Gospel and the political world. Many of these would place our cultural ills in the realm of politics. While holding firmly to the Bible, they are normally unwilling to publicly challenge our culture with it. They say they avoid addressing today’s hot button political or social issues because they want the Gospel to go out to all. Or because they do not want to offend church members who have opposing political views. These might complain about Christian activism on both sides. This group wants the world to leave them alone.
The second type of conservatives is the church militant. These see the Gospel as forcefully confronting the world’s social ills, politics, immorality, violence, corruption, and unbelief. They are okay with the fallen world hating them. Some wear the world’s ridicule and rejection as a badge of honor. These would see themselves as Elijahs and our world as being led by Ahabs and Jezebels. These are also willing to return fire against the world and the progressive and moderate churches. This group wants to overcome the world.
Whichever group we are in we should see if we and our church are calling sinners into God’s kingdom. The Gospel places the hope of sinners not in our fixing the sinful kingdom of this world but instead in our entering the eternal kingdom of God through faith in Jesus Christ. Colossians 1:13–14, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” True care for the lost in this fallen world is in our calling them out of their sin, out of this world, and to our Savior, Jesus Christ.
Pastor's Pen for Thursday, August 1
Winsomeness or Compromise:
We need to see winsome does not mean to “win some”. Instead, it is to be pleasing, charming, or attractive. For Christians being winsome is oftentimes our being personally engaging when we present the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ. We can see this in 1 Peter 3:15 (ESV), “But in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, …”
Still, as Christians we must recognize that God’s Word and the gospel hold their own offense to unbelievers as they make exclusivistic claims. We see Jesus Himself is an offense in Romans 9:33, “As it is written, “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense (Jesus); and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.” Or in John 14:6, “Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Here Jesus rejected every other world religion and form of salvation. This is not a message many people want to hear.
However, winsomeness in our age oftentimes takes on a different nature. Many Christians go so far as to try take away the offense that the gospel itself holds. Some Christians have become accommodationists to our sinful world as they try to smooth off the rough edges of God’s Word. Sadly, what drives this for some Christians is the desire to be acceptable to our unbelieving world and culture.
For others though winsomeness has become a cover for fearfulness. To stand for Christ, the gospel, and God’s Word today can lead to Christians facing various criticisms, slander, and even anti-Christian bigotry. Let’s admit it, no one likes to be called haters, bigots, racists, Nazis, sexists, or whatever-phobes. So, instead of winsomeness making a way for the gospel to be presented to lost sinners, it has become an excuse to avoid the gospel of salvation in Christ alone.
For some of us, we have become more worried about our reputations and someone’s feelings than we are about the eternal destiny of their souls. Some run the risk of being ashamed of Jesus before our sinful world. These must heed Jesus’ warning in Mark 8:38, “For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him will the Son of Man also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
Instead, for the sake of the lost we are to uncompromisingly take the Biblical gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ to the whole world. Luke 24:46–47, “and (Jesus) said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.''
Pastor's Pen for Thursday, July 11
John Adams wrote, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Adams was speaking of Christianity. So, can our nation survive without a Christian foundation for our laws and culture?
On June 19 Governor Landry of Louisiana signed a bill to put the 10 Commandments into their schools. The law requires that their schools display the 10 Commandments in all classrooms. They require this based upon our Christian heritage and the influence it has had on our country.
The leftist ACLU immediately began suing to have this new law thrown out. There have even been liberal and moderate Christians who have objected to displaying the 10 Commandments in schools. Some hold that schools must somehow be morally neutral.
Yet, reality shows there is no morally neutral place, especially schools. When Covid came and parents saw what their children were being taught, many were stunned. They found that forms of pornography were being pushed upon children by many pro-LBGTQ school teachers and administrators. TikTok had many teachers admitting it was their mission to corrupt the children.
We need to see the damage that violations of the 10 Commandments cause us today. Let us just look at one commandment; “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” This is really an umbrella command that forbids all sex outside of God’s boundaries.
Sexual sins create a host of social ills:
The worst one is abortion where a woman’s sexual freedom is valued over the life of a baby.
Adultery oftentimes leads to broken marriages, broken families, and broken children.
Fatherless homes oftentimes lead to poverty, emotionally damaged children, and even prison.
In our culture today we see an explosion of sexual abuse and human trafficking.
In our own area, how many arrests have we seen for child molestation and child pornography? At the prison we regularly saw the devastation sexual sins cause.
Along with these we have seen the destruction of the family as a cornerstone of our culture.
Add to this a host of sexually transmitted diseases.
The devastating consequences of sin are all around us! While we cannot stop immorality, we can slow it down and limit the damage it does, especially to children. Romans 13 declares that government is to promote the good and restrain the bad. We can either strive for Biblical morals or surrender to destructive worldly morals.
Pastor's Pen for Thursday, June 6
An important phrase in political debates comes from Thomas Jefferson. In 1802, Jefferson wrote about the ‘separation of church and state’ to the Danbury Baptist Association. He was not trying to stop our religious views from influencing our opinions on government issues. Instead, he was affirming free religious practice for the citizens. Regardless, there is no separation of the state from God’s rule.
This original idea has been turned around to try keep religion from the public square. Even many Christians are leery of pressing Christian ideals or morality upon the public in general. There is a common idea that somehow the public square can be neutral and void of religious influences.
The reality is all laws are moral or have a moral backdrop. We are all under someone’s view of morality. If we lived in a Muslim land, we would expect to be under some form of Sharia law. In Muslim lands Christians are expected to submit to them. Muslims would not accept the idea of a neutral view of morality or the law.
In our land we have shifted from a Biblical morality or foundation for our laws to a humanist or atheistic view. With this shift we see there is no real neutrality. Neutrality was but a mirage before this because nearly everyone in our country stood upon a Christian foundation. Without that foundation we now see the left or humanists demand that Christians now submit to their views of morality. With this foundational shift Christians are more and more being forced to declare evil to be good and good to be evil. We see there is no neutral public square between these two religions.
Recently, a liberal elitist on MSNBC decried the idea that we have God given rights. From her humanist view rights are only given by the government. She claimed all those who say there are God given rights were dreaded Christian nationalists. However, the Declaration of Independence declared, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Only Biblical ideals can maintain these rights.
The message Jesus proclaimed was to repent and believe the Gospel for the Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. With our collapsing society, let us pray, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done.”
Pastor's Pen for Thursday, April 10 - Response to an editorial in on April 11 in the Courier.
Dennis Lehmann, thank you for responding to my April 4 editorial about being introspective and for encouraging me to practice what I preach. It is good to be reminded to live up to the standards we set for others.
Thank you for giving the readers another example of not being introspective. Like my liberal acquaintance from years ago, you blew off the claims that I made about the NBC and MSNBC talking heads. So, are you really saying that Ronna questioning aspects of the 2020 election is more serious than what they did in promoting the Russia collusion hoax to undermine the democratically elected president of 2016? In fact, Ronna’s response to the many allegations of election interference was quite tepid.
By ignoring the dismal track record of the talking heads at NBC and MSNBC you show you use a completely different standard for Ronna than what you do for them. Might this show a lack of introspection on your part?
Far worse than what Ronna did is what NBC, an alleged major news agency, did in promoting the Hillary Clinton campaign sponsored Russia hoax to undermine our 2016 democratically elected president, Donald Trump.
Before you claim that being an “election denier” is so much worse, let’s walk down memory lane. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jimmy Carter, Joe Biden, and even Barrak Obama have all denied the results of the presidential election of 2000. With them various Democrat Representatives objected to the count of the Electoral College.
Now jump to 2004 and the presidential election. Hillary Clinton, Jerry Nadler, Ted Kennedy, Harry Reid, Bernie Sanders, and many other elected Democrats denied those results. With them various Democrat Representatives objected to the count of the Electoral College.
Now jump to 2016 and the presidential election. Bill and Hillary Clinton, Jimmy Carter, Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, John Lewis, and many other elected Democrats denied those results. With them various Democrat Representatives objected to the count of the Electoral College. Can I add Dennis Lehmann’s name?
It seems leading Democrats are election deniers every time a Republican wins the presidency. Do you judge these Democrat election deniers by the same standard you use for Ronna or other Republicans? Have you called for them to be held accountable for their attempts to undermine U.S. democracy? I thought not!
Use the same standards on those we support as we do on our opponents.
Pastor's Pen for Thursday, April 3
This past week we witnessed an amazing example of introspection or in this case a lack of introspection. This past week we witnessed a debacle at NBC news. NBC had fired Ronna McDaniel after only one appearance. Ronna had been the head of the Republican National Committee for the past several years. I would classify her as a moderate Republican.
Yet, NBC and MSNBC talking heads like Chuck Todd, Joe Scarborough, and Rachel Maddow had their heads explode over Ronna’s hiring. It was crazy seeing people who promoted the fake Russia hoax against President Trump, the bogus impeachments of President Trump, who denied the very real laptop of Hunter Biden, who were wrong about nearly everything covid, and who have promoted several other falsehoods scream about how Ronna did not meet their standard of integrity and trustworthiness. Despite all their errors and downright untruths, these people had to worry about Ronna giving a false narrative. These same people had not made a peep against NBC hiring Jen Paski from the Biden White House. She had even negotiated with NBC for her position while still working for the White House. These people lack all ability for introspection of themselves or their views.
Several years ago, I knew a liberal who hated President Trump. At times it seemed he could not wait to tell me how awful Trump was. Yet, when he did, I would simply try to point out that the people he was supporting were no better and were sometimes far worse, and I even gave him many examples. His response was usually just to make the charge that I was defending Trump. He never tried to answer my examples and missed the point that it was not my intent to defend Trump. Instead, it was my attempt to get him to be introspective. For him to simply take the time to look at himself and those he supported with the same standards that he used to condemn Trump. But like the NBC folks, he had no ability to look honestly at his side.
It would be great for everyone to be introspective when it comes to politics and even to life. As Jesus warns us, let us not worry about the speck in someone else’s eye when we have a log in our own. Let us all use the same standards on ourselves as we do on others.
Pastor's Pen for Thursday, March 7
While our founding fathers were faulty, they did establish a path for advancing justice in our land. We overcame slavery, Jim Crow laws, and the KKK. In the 20th century we made headway in providing even-handed justice. Though not perfect, it was better than in many other countries.
However, we are seeing a rise of injustice in our land. We see the political left bringing in something called lawfare. We have seen this used against pro-life activists, Christian photographers and bakers, conservative activists, and President Trump. The purpose of lawfare by the left is not about justice. Instead, the purpose, whether a conviction is reached or not, is to punish their opponents through the legal system. The punishment comes in the financial and emotional costs that come with being prosecuted. The purpose is to shut down those who will not submit to today’s Soviet styled totalitarian left.
We see this injustice in the Biden administration’s attacks on pro-life protestors by twisting laws to go far beyond what they were intended. In contrast after many attacks on pro-life pregnancy centers, only one person was arrested. The FBI said it was hard to identify the attackers because the crimes were at night!! What silliness!! As they prosecute harmless pro-lifers, our borders are open, and criminals roam free in our cities.
We see injustice in the treatment Biden received in contrast to Trump over classified documents. While Trump faces Stalinist show trials, the Biden DOJ cleared Biden because he is too old and forgetful. Yet, the only way Biden got those classified documents as a senator was for him to intentionally steal them from a secure area.
I think it is important for Christians to search the Scriptures to discern what justice should mean in our country. Justice from a Biblical perspective is to give one his due, whether good or bad. A person’s due is based upon God’s Law and our being imagebearers of God. We are warned in Leviticus 19:15, “You shall do no injustice in court. You shall not be partial to the poor or defer to the great, but in righteousness shall you judge your neighbor.”
When we allow injustice against one person or group, we open the door to justice being perverted against everyone. When justice is denied or delayed by our leaders our whole society suffers as the wicked become even more entrenched and chaos reigns.
Pastor's Pen for Thursday, February 1
On Sunday, January 21 we recognized Sanctity of Life Sunday. I hope that a statement against killing babies was heard from every pulpit in our area. I highlighted a shocking article that stated abortion was the leading cause of death in the world for the past five years.
While Sanctity of Life Sunday does shine a light on abortion, it also shines a light on the value of life. We read in Genesis 2:7 (ESV), “… then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.” What a wonderful moment this was as God shared the life He has in Himself with creatures such as us. Life is one of God’s greatest gifts to us.
In Genesis 9:5–6 we see how God values life, “And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” Because we bear God’s image human life was to be protected by society. Those taking God’s gift from others unjustly forfeited their gift of life.
Jesus valued the lives of children and infants. Mark 10:14b–16 (ESV), “… Jesus … said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.” As little image bearers of God those children were welcomed by our Lord.
Life is so special that it stands at the heart of Christianity. Revelation 21:3b, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.” This is our Christian hope. Not simply that we can have eternal life but that we can have the gift of life with our Lord forever.
Christians and especially Christian leaders must publicly stand for life and against our culture of death. We must value human life as our Lord does.
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, January 4
I appreciated the two letters about Israel and Gaza last month. While sympathetic, people should stop focusing only on the suffering in Israel and Gaza. There are many places today where brutality is common. While awful, what they face doesn’t compare to what Christians suffer regularly in Muslim, Hindu, and communist countries throughout the world. Today there are far more Christians being killed throughout the world than any other religious group. The map of countries that persecute Christians stretches from Muslim Northwest Africa all the way to communist China with no gaps in between. When not being persecuted or imprisoned, my Christian brothers and sisters are being treated as second or even third-class citizens in those countries.
On the day after Christmas there was an article about 140 Nigerian Christians being massacred by Muslims over Christmas weekend. Over the years we have seen other Christmas and Easter attacks that have slaughtered church attending Christians in places like Iraq, Egypt, and Pakistan.
In a report issued by Intersociety called “Martyred Christians in Nigeria” over the past 14 years at least 52,000 Nigerian Christians have been murdered by Islamist militants. Let’s compare that to either Israel or Gaza.
Today the ancient Christian churches in places like Iraq and Syria have been nearly wiped out. Over the past 30 years the church in Iraq has gone from an estimated 1.5 million down to around 200,000.
From the Guardian Newspaper a few years back we read, “Pervasive persecution of Christians, sometimes amounting to genocide, is ongoing in parts of the Middle East, and has prompted an exodus in the past two decades, according to a report commissioned by the British foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt. Millions of Christians in the region have been uprooted from their homes, and many have been killed, kidnapped, imprisoned, and discriminated against, the report finds. It also highlights discrimination across south-east Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and in east Asia – often driven by state authoritarianism. “The inconvenient truth,” the report finds, is “that the overwhelming majority (80%) of persecuted religious believers are Christians”. This slaughter of Christians is nothing new. In the early 1900s the Islamic Ottoman Empire (Turkey) reportedly committed the genocide of around 1,000,000 Christian Armenians.
I call on all people to take a public stand against those Muslim, Hindu, and godless communist nations and groups that persecute millions of Christians in our day.
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, October 26
For the past several years many liberals and moderates have painted their conservative opponents with a broad brush. With looks of disdain they have labeled conservatives as racists. Beyond that the terms Nazi and anti-Semitic are regularly thrown at Trump supporters. Conservatives have even been set up for derision by the current President.
But now with the disgustingly brutal assault on Israeli citizens, we see today’s true anti-Semites and Nazis. Instead of finding them among the conservatives, we find them amongst liberals and progressives. They have especially been in full view on many liberal university campuses and at Black Lives Matter. Unlike the standard view of Nazis as white skinheads, we see instead much of the Nazi crowd on university campuses are progressive women, oftentimes young liberal white women.
At Harvard there were over thirty student groups that boldly blamed Israel for the attack by Hamas. The universities that have been so willing to shutdown conservative speakers for obscure micro-aggressions have allowed the chant “from the river to the sea” to ring out. For those who don’t know, this is Hamas’ call for the annihilation of Israel and the Jews. For liberals who accuse conservatives of victim blaming, how much worse victim blaming could they themselves be doing?
It was incredibly shocking to see the protests in support of the Hamas terrorists not only in our land but around the world. One crowd in Sydney, Australia even cried out “gas the Jews” as part of their profanity laced chants. Clearly these progressives were making a reference to what the National Socialists or Nazis did in Germany under Hitler. It was absolutely repulsive to see these liberals or socialists throughout the world take their stand with Hamas even after we knew the barbaric atrocities they had committed.
Then after Hamas’ attack we saw how quickly the liberal Western press was willing to accuse Israel of bombing a hospital. Why would the liberal press so quickly take the word of a group that had just slaughtered over 1300 people and are still holding many hostages? Anti-Semitism? Yet, even after the evidence came out that it was the hospital parking lot that was hit by a missile from another Palestinian terrorist group, they are still wanting to support Hamas’ original claim.
So how broad of a brush can now be used to paint those on the left as Nazis?
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 31
Why bother knowing these things? - I am an apologist at heart. As can be seen in my Pastor’s Pen articles, I like the discussions and challenges of defending Christianity in contrast to the world and other religions. Too often though Christians want to avoid these battles for the faith at all costs. Some ask, “Why bother knowing these things?” Or “Why even take on the challenges?” Yet, there are costs to not knowing what we believe and not defending it.
One cost to not knowing God’s truth is that we fall for lies. Ephesians 4:14 (ESV), “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.” Today, we have a shallow Biblical knowledge and with that a shallow Christianity. We have believers who are adrift because they have been separated from the anchor of God’s truth. The church is being driven to and fro because we have shifted from a faith that is built upon God’s truth to a faith that is built upon the unstable feelings of the individual. We have chaos in the church because our feelings now trump God’s Word.
Another cost is apostacy in the church. Hebrews 5:11-6:8 paints a picture of apostacy coming because Christians have become too lazy to advance their faith. Hebrews even shames Christians for still eating spiritual baby food instead of moving on to the meatier truths of God’s Word. Due to the church’s shallow knowledge, we find apostacy running wild. Pastors regularly declare what they think the Bible should say instead of what it does say. The impact of un-Biblical pastors is devastating. Church surveys show that at least a third of Evangelical Christians do in fact hold un-Biblical and even heretical beliefs. Not only can we not defend our faith, we do not even know what it is.
Another cost is the church in America today has become very weak. In the broader culture Christians have become unable to defend historic Christianity, its beliefs, and its godly work. While America has had a long history of having a Christian influence, that is falling by the wayside. Just look around, we are no longer impacting the world around us. Instead, we see the world has in many ways taken over the church. The church looks much more like our culture and our culture looks much less like the church.
If Christians are going to make an impact, we must know God’s Word, use it, and submit to it. 2 Timothy 3:16–17, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” But God’s Word will do us no good if we remain ignorant of it. If we are going to impact our world for the better, we will need to know what God says to us and our world.
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 24
Is Atheism Dead? - I will continue to use Eric Metaxas’ book called Is Atheism Dead? The fourth argument Eric uses against atheism is the historicity of the Bible. Rabbi Nelson Glueck wrote, “It may be stated categorically that no archaeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical reference.” Support for the Bible continues to grow even as archaeologists try to avoid linking what they find to what the Bible says.
Liberal Bible scholars had claimed there was no evidence for the Hittites that the Bible spoke so often about. They saw the Bible’s Hittites as an ancient fable. They even used this claim to undermine the reliability of the Bible. Without the Hittites everything else in the Bible was suspect according to them. Yet, in the 1800’s there started to be evidence that there really were Hittites. However, the alleged scholars attacked those claiming to have evidence for the Hittites. Yet, in time the evidence showed there had not only been groups of Hittites but there had been a Hittite empire in what is now Turkey. Oops!! The Bible was vindicated and the scholars not so much. Finding the Hittites should make everything else that liberal Bible scholars say suspect.
A more recent find has been the site of Sodom. Some scholars held that Sodom was a fable while others held it was south of the Dead Sea. But using the Bible Dr. Steven Collins believed instead it was north and east of the Dead Sea. Genesis 13:10–11 (ESV), “And Lot lifted up his eyes and saw that the Jordan Valley was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, in the direction of Zoar. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So, Lot chose for himself all the Jordan Valley, and Lot journeyed east.”
At Tall-el-Hamman Dr. Collins found evidence of the Biblical Sodom. 1. It had a “layer of distinct, ash-laden, hard packed soil. 2. It had a large time gap between that layer and what was on top. 3. It was a very large city and had a civilization hundreds of years old. 4. It was utterly abandoned for hundreds of years. 5. It ended with a violent fire that nothing else compared to. 6. The pottery got so hot that it turned to glass. 7. What was found was similar to trinitite which was sand that turned to glass at the nuclear test site after the atom bomb. Only something like a meteorite blast (God’s judgment) could have caused this scorching fire and the total destruction of Sodom.
Now what warning does the account of Sodom have for our world today? Jesus warned of a time like Sodom when judgment would come again. Luke 17:29–30 (ESV), “but on the day when Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven (a meteorite?) and destroyed them all — so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed.” That warning is, “Repent before the coming destruction!”
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 17
Is Atheism Dead? - I will continue to use the book by Eric Metaxas called Is Atheism Dead? The third argument Metaxas uses against atheism is the origins of life. This is my favorite and the one I think is the hardest issue for unbelievers to overcome. Genesis 1:2 (ESV), “The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.” Job 33:4, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
The first thing to consider is, “how could random events or processes have produced such a variety of life?” There are around 900,000 different insects and 400,000 different plants. For every slight change it would require multiple random events to happen at the right time, in the right order, and in the same place. Yet, Dr. James Tour states that random processes have no way of learning or knowing what is even needed next. Time, chance, and random events are simply not reasonable.
The second thing to consider is what happened to bring life into existence? Or how did non-living matter become living? The truth is evolution cannot answer this second part as Darwin simply presumed life.
While science made a lot about the Miller-Urey experiment back in the Truman era it has not really moved forward. As Dr. Tour points out, almost nothing has advanced since the Miller-Urey experiment. After seven decades there have been many claims by scientists with little scientific advancement. One thing to realize is that the experiment was human influenced. Even if there were advancements, labs with millions of dollars’ worth of equipment and carefully controlled experiments would prove nothing about random events. Another thing to note is that amino acids are nowhere close to being life. Many things would need to be added to these or to happen to them.
We also have no idea how we could go from an amino acid to a living single-celled creature. Science has now shown that even single-celled creatures are complex. Science now shows that everything about a cell is complicated. Zoologist W.H. Thorpe wrote, “The most elementary type of cell constitutes a ‘mechanism’ unimaginably more complex than any machine yet thought up, let alone constructed, by man.” The DNA information of a single bacterium is equivalent to the millions of written words.
So, could life have formed by chance in a primordial swamp of goo? Chemist Illya Prigogine said, “The idea of spontaneous genesis of life in its present form is improbable, even on the scale of billions of years…” Dr. Paul Davies says there is one chance in 10 to the two millionth power, which is no chance at all. It would be like flipping a coin on its head 6,000,000 times in a row, which is ludicrously improbable. As science advances it has only made these odds worse.
To hold to life without there being a life-giving God is simply irrational.
Pastor’s Pen for Thursday, August 10
Is Atheism Dead? - I will continue to use the book by Eric Metaxas called Is Atheism Dead? The second argument Metaxas uses against atheism is our fine-tuned universe. Even Christopher Hitchens in a rare moment of humility stated what he thought this w