Mark 2:1-12

...  in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.  Amen.  Through the prayers of our holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us.  Amen.  Glory to You, our God, Glory to You.

O Heavenly King, the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, You are everywhere and fill all things, Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.

Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us (three times).

Mark 2:1-12[1]

Again He entered Capernaum after several days; and it was reported that He was in the house.  Immediately, many were gathered together, so that there was not enough room to receive them, no, not even around the door: and He preached the Word to them.

Four came to Him carrying, bringing one sick of the palsy.  When they could not come near Him because of the crowds, they dug up the roof where He was: when they had broken it up, they let down the bed on which the sick of the palsy lay.

When Jesus saw their faith[2] (of the four), He said unto the sick of the palsy, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

There were certain scribes sitting there, who reasoned in their hearts, “Why does this man speak blasphemies?  Who can forgive sins besides God alone?”

Immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned this way internally, He said to them, “Why do you reason these things in your hearts?  Is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, ‘Your sins are forgiven;’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed, and walk?’  But, so you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, He says to the sick of the palsy, ‘I say to you, Arise, take up your bed, and go your way to your house.’ ”

Immediately, he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; so that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this before.”

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[1] There is a direct connection between sin and sickness.  This case is evidently the specific sin of the paralytic that is the cause of his illness.

In other cases the cause of sickness could be the specific sin of the individual, the sin of others, or the original sin of all mankind.  In this last case the sickness has no assignable reason, but it exists for the Glory of God (John 9:1-3): in which case the question of who sinned is irrelevant.  The Psalms repeatedly assure us that such afflictions draw us closer to God: that is certainly the case here.

What is amazing in this passage is that the paralytic is healed, is forgiven his sins, because of the faith of four other people, four friends, who have brought him to Jesus, and not because of his own faith.

Dear Father, there are more than seven billion people in our world, more than three hundred million people in our country, more than one hundred thousand people in our town; as well as many family members, friends, acquaintances, even casual acquaintances, and enemies.  We bring all of these to You in faith seeking Your healing and Your forgiveness of their sins.  Nevertheless, Your will be done.

Dear Father, please inform each one of them about the gift of the Holy Ghost; move in each heart, the desire to ask You for this magnificent gift; and give the life giving power of the Holy Ghost to all who ask in sincerity and truth.  Nevertheless, Your will be done.

Dear Father, do this because we have had the faith to bring all of these to you in prayer.  Nevertheless, Your will be done.

[2] Our generation has manufactured a new concept of faith: faith in faith.  This or that person does not have faith enough to be healed: it’s their fault that they are not healed.  This is utter foolishness.  The faith of the four friends motivated them to carry the paralytic to Jesus, dig up the roof, and lower the pallet through the hole in the roof: nothing more.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for (Hebrews 11:1); it always has this substance with it; in this case the substance of the four is seen in their actions related to Jesus: nothing more (Hebrews 11-12).  Jesus’ faith, that the Father had appointed Him to this service enabled Him to perform the miracles involved.  Note that He had the power within Himself, but His faith assured Him that, His will and His Father’s will, as well as the will of the Holy Ghost were in perfect accord.  Our faith assures us that it is necessary to do something: then we, in obedience, do it.

Jesus said, “If you have faith and do not doubt … if you say to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ it will be done.”  (Matthew 21:21-22; Mark 11:22-23).  This is not magic.  This is a veiled reference to an historic event.  Ezekiel, having faith to see the will of God, prophesied about the destruction of Tyre (26:3-21).  Nebuchadnezzar II came and completed part of this prophecy (586-573).  Tyre rebuilt itself in an island fortress.  In 332 BC, Alexander the Great came to Tyre and besieged it again.  His soldiers carried dirt and rocks from an adjacent mountain to build a causeway out to the island of Tyre, and destroyed it.  Tyre was besieged again, and again, and again: Macedonians (315-314 BC), Fatimids (996-998 AD), Crusaders (1111-1112), Venetians (1124), Saladin (1187); long after Jesus spoke about the meaning of faith.  God promised to obliterate Tyre, and God did exactly that.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Tyre

Jesus’ message is simply this: if you are absolutely confident that God wants you to move this mountain, start digging.  If God wants it done, it shall be done.  Let us put away this abuse of the meaning of faith.  God makes His will happen.  Man, in faith, may understand a small part of that will, and be allowed to participate in it.  Mary of Bethany understood, by faith, that Jesus was about to be crucified; accordingly, she washed His feet with her tears and anointed Him for burial (Matthew 26:6-13; Mark 14:3-9; Luke 7:36-50; John 12:1-8): it was simply the decent thing to do.  All of the Apostles heard the same preaching that Mary heard.  She alone, sat at Jesus feet and paid attention.  She alone, believed.

Faith is not a magic formula, whereby we conjure up miracles by our own power; that idea is demonic, witchcraft: we need to abandon it.  Faith always has substance.  If you have faith in God to do something, go do it.

This is the principal difference between faith and hope.  Faith and hope are both informed by the certainty that God does what He wishes in heaven and on earth (Psalms 46:10; 58:10; 115:3; 2 Peter 3:9).  Faith sees how it can enter into the will of God.  Hope does not see that it can do anything, but is confident that God will act.  Love continues even though faith has faded, hope is dimmed, and death approaches (1 Corinthians 13).  Hence, love is superior to all.

Hobby Lobby Revisited

Hobby Lobby Revisited

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Dear ______,

We Don’t Understand Why God Abandoned Us.

We can and should pray for miracles.  We will win this fight, but not on earth.  All the evidence points to the idea that we are well on our way down the drain.  God has been patient with us since 1776 and before, but His patience is growing thin.  On September 11, 1993, God could have sent His holy angels, our guardians, to stop the World Trade Center bombing.  He didn’t.  Why not?  We are so very concerned with the evil perpetrators of such an outrage.  We should be concerned with the fact that the problem is our own sin.  God withdrew His mighty hand of protection from us.

Painful Lessons from Church History.

Shortly after my birth on September 11, 1937, I was baptized in the Swedish Lutheran Church in America (better known as the Augustana Synod).  By that time, the Swedish Lutheran Church had already been seriously undermined from within, and real faith in God totally lost to some, who only attended Church out of a dull sense of duty.  This growing cancer, this rottenness, this lack of faith in God, had already grown for centuries (certainly before 1855).  If we take Christ seriously, as we must, we see that this rottenness was always with us: for Christ teaches that Satan would sow tares in the field of God’s wheat.  By 1855, most of European Christianity had lost confidence that anything in the Bible was true.  Pseudo-science had seemingly disproved miracles, the virgin birth, and pretty much anything else of importance.

Existentialism is on the Wrong Track.

It is difficult to understand if the Dane, Søren Kierkegaard was a villain or a hero in such a mess.  Kierkegaard (d. November 11, 1855) is the father of Existentialism.  Existentialism, greatly over-generalized, is the idea that even though something is not true, or it can’t be prove true, that it should be believed anyway.  Existentialism, greatly over-generalized, is that now famous “Faith is a leap in the dark.”  It is hard to tell in this mess if Kierkegaard is adding foment to this unbelief in God, or if he is a concerned pastor throwing a life preserver to his dying flock with his last ounce of strength.  Nevertheless, such pseudo-science, Existentialism, and Kierkegaard are all wrong.

Science is Inadequate.

We, as engineers and scientists, know that this sort of pseudo-science does nothing to disprove the miracles of the Bible.  Having given our lives to the study of science, we have learned the painful lesson that science just isn’t that powerful; man just isn’t that smart.  This sounds a whole lot like something Paul said around 48-50 AD (1 Corinthians 1:26).  Evidently, Paul had a sense of humor.  Today, he would write, “The Gospel for Dummies,” and bind it into a black and yellow paperback.  So, we conclude that we, as honest engineers and scientists, must put a stop to the destruction of the evidence.  Yes, the Bible must be opened again, and we must learn from the beginning the most fundamental rudiments of reality.  Duh, reality check.

Christianity Stands on Objective Truth.

Nevertheless, Christianity stands on objective truth, and we must struggle to recapture and relearn that objective truth.  Christian faith is not a leap in the dark; it is rather, a walk in the light.  It is not difficult to prove objectively that God exists.  Measured statistically, the odds of doubt are on the order of 1 in billions or trillions: statistically too small to measure, and for all purposes, zero.  The problem is not that the existence of God is not provable; the problem is that most observers want to suppress or throw out the evidence.  Such blindness can only bring about death.  Consequently, the response most often voiced is, “I don’t want to hear it.”  At which point we have to walk away, we can’t breathe life into a rock: only God can do that.

Israel-Judah Fell from Within, not from Without.

In 722 BC, Israel was conquered by the Assyrians.  In 586 BC, Judah was conquered by the Babylonians.  Neither of these nations was defeated because of enemies outside their boarders; both of them failed from within.  They rotted from the inside out because of their sin.  Finally, God got so disgusted that He abandoned them: that is why they failed.  In the entire period from 1446 to 586 BC, Israel-Judah was never a great and powerful nation, not as measured in terms of armies and weaponry.  They were a military mouse sandwiched between gigantic military lions.  If the survival of Israel-Judah was ever dependent on military might these lions would have crushed them with a single swipe of the paw.  Even Solomon could not muster the might to resist such crushing defeat.  However, God’s Glory lived in the middle of Israel-Judah; and as long as God’s Glory lived there, Israel-Judah was untouchable.  As soon as God’s Glory abandoned them, they were crushed.

The Widow for Rescue was Shut.

Then in 4 BC, God’s Glory returned.  He came to His own, and we did not receive Him (John 1:11).

America is Dying from Within, Too.

What I’m trying to say is simply this.  America is dying from the inside out because of a fundamental lack of faith in God.  Our churches are dying from the inside out because of a fundamental lack of faith in God.  Many of our churches are already so dead that they should no longer be called churches.  In 1776, America was a weak nation that prevailed because of great faith.  In 2013, America is a great nation that is writing her own epitaph because of zero faith.

Regaining Real Faith is the Solution.

It is not that there is a breed of Christian, who is “better than the average bear,” Holier than thou, more pious than most.  Christianity is not the religion of a collection of pious asses.  Christianity is the religion of the circumcised in heart, a very painful surgery.  Christianity is the religion of broken failures, who know full well that their only hope rests in the Blood of Jesus Christ and in His Resurrection from the dead.  The Lord Jesus Christ is coming to get us.  That is an objective hope, made confident by a many thousand-year history of God’s objective faithfulness among us.  Christians simply give their life, living in that very objective and certain reality.

The Disease is Spiritual, not Political.

The political problem cannot be fixed, until after the spiritual problem gets fixed.  After the spiritual problem gets fixed, the political problem will take care of itself.  If the spiritual problem is never fixed, America will be destroyed.

Yours in Christ,

Augie-Herb