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38 days till election day, and by all accounts it’s a frustrating election cycle. Both parties promise the moon, with the party in power trying to buy their way to victory giving out free stuff, whether forgiveness of college loans, investment of billions in your community, house loans, citizenship privileges, etc. The party out of power tries to buy your vote with goodies in the future, such as lower taxes/no taxes on tips, lower inflation, high tariffs to protect your job, deporting illegal aliens who are stealing your jobs, or the ending of regulations for businesses.

In the end, it amounts to more socialism, more statism, more greed, more elites handing you what is good for you, even if you don’t know it yet.

The candidates themselves are flawed as well. Nationally, they have serious non-Christian morality flaws, sinful views of sexuality and abortion, unbiblical views of liberty, and they all wanted or practiced draconian immoral policies of theft and confiscation during Covid! State and local candidates are just as flawed, and even professing Christians rarely or never mention the name of Jesus while legislating. Most don’t believe the faith has anything to do with ruling.

So what’s the faithful Christian to do? How do you keep from going mad, or getting anxious about the direction of the country? After all, the pundits tell us, this is the most important election since 1776! Hmmm, have I heard that before?

So how about some encouraging words from Jesus!

Proverbs 3.5-6: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him…”

Matthew 6.33: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness…”

Isaiah 40.27-31: (…but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength….they shall walk and not faint.”

Pastor Thacker preached on Exodus 23:10-19 last Sunday, and it is a timely passage. We are entering that Festive time of year where we have Thanksgiving, All Saints Day, Advent, Christmas, New Years Day, etc. Mixed in with all those days are usually plenty of extended family and friends get togethers. So what practical wisdom we can glean from Exodus 23 on observing the season?

First, the whole passage is about rest in some manner or other. We don’t have sabbath years in the New Covenant, but in both that section and the following weekly section, there is admonition to rest. Not only for ourselves, but for those under us or that we influence: your land, the poor, wild beasts, vineyards and orchards, work animals, the son of your servant, and the alien. They all should have some time to “be refreshed” (vs.12). So are you making sure you, and those whom you influence, will be getting some time of rest and refreshment? Do you look for opportunities to give rest and refreshment? Usually we only think of our immediate family, but some fellow Christians have applied this to their workforce, such as Chick-fil-A and Hobby Lobby!

Second, rest also means not being involved in the worship of false gods. Can you think of any false gods prevalent this time of year to watch out for?

Third, part of resting is feasting. So it would be good to make sure those working behind the scenes, wife, children, etc., have plenty of rest as well.

Fourth, we should offer the best of our hand to the Lord, just as they brought the best of the first fruits. So make sure you, your wife, your children, those visiting you, get plenty of rest Friday and Saturday night so they are rested and primed to offer their best on Sunday morning!

The very first words in recorded Biblical history were spoken by God. “Then God said, “Let there be light.”

God spoke the world into existence. God’s word carries power. God speaks, and things come into being. God rules creation by the power of His word.

Now consider that man was made in the image of God. There are many aspects to that image bearing, but one of them is certainly that we have the power and ability to affect our world by what we say. We have the ability to build up or tear down. To some extent we also speak a reality into existence.

Adam, following after God, rules over the creation by speaking the name of each animal. He also speaks the name of the first Woman, given to Him by God.

But Adam then fails to rule and exercise the power of his word. He stood by silently while the serpent spoke deceitful words. He failed to exercise the authority given to Him by God by not exercising the tongue He was given.

In the epistle reading of James 3:1–12 this morning, James warns us about the nature of the sinful tongue. The tongue can spew forth powerful poison, which stands to reason since words are very powerful. And what’s more, as no part of humanity was untouched by the fall, our tongue, our words are certainly very affected by man’s sinful nature. James says, “the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity… With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men… My brethren, these things ought not to be so.”

The exhortation from James is clear: Do not be as the first Adam. Be sure to exercise the power of your tongue righteously. Make sure the spring of your mouth brings forth fresh water, and not bitter water.

In the sixth seal of Revelation 6, there are several “cosmic” events that modern Christians have often used mistakenly to get more zing and sensationalism out of the passage, which helps to sell books about the end times or the Antichrist, etc. These writers think these events are future “end times” because they happen on the earth (instead of on the land of Israel before 70 AD). But are they interpreting these events biblically, comparing scripture with scripture? No, they aren’t.

The sun becoming black as sackcloth, the full moon becoming like blood, the stars of the sky falling to the land like figs being shaken off the tree, the sky being rolled up like a scroll, are well-attested symbols of the fall of political/national structures in the scriptures, symbols that demonstrate God’s judgmental wrath against those political/national entities. In fact, all four of the above mentioned cosmic symbols are attested in just four verses in Isaiah: 13:1, 10 and 34:1, 4.

Isaiah 13:1, 10: “The oracle concerning Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw…For the stars of the heavens and their constellations will not give their light; the sun will be dark at its rising, and the moon will not shed its light.”

Isaiah 34:1, 4: “Draw near, O nations, to hear, and give attention, O peoples!…all the host of heaven shall rot away, and the skies roll up like a scroll, all their host shall fall from the vine, like leaves falling from the fig tree.”

See also Ezekiel 32:7 regarding Egypt, and Joel 2:31 against Israel. And also see Matt 24:29, Mark 13:24-25, and Luke 21:25 where Jesus predicts what is happening in Revelation 6!

Following up on the sermon from August 25.

There are a couple of additional observations to make from Revelation 6 if it is true that the horses are the church and Jesus is the rider in the first four seals.

First, Jesus is our strong leader. Being a conqueror, he goes out to conquer with the gospel, and he is not unwilling to divide families and loyalties that stand against him. He is not afraid to lead his people, as a Lamb, out of the wicked land to where the oil and wine are found plenteous, and he is not unwilling to punish the wicked with death or bring down their rebellious lands with his strong power. He is not afraid to exercise wrath where needed. That’s the Lord, the Lamb, that we worship and adore and place our trust in. Let’s keep these images front and center.

Secondly, if the church is the horse under Jesus, then we should rejoice concerning the role that we play in the advancement of his kingdom. We are his steed of conquest! We are the means used to advance what he is doing in the world, not only back then in the early church but even today. We are all baptized into the Pentecostal church, and we are all given the Spirit at our baptism, and we are all agents of his Great Commission. Even our babies are involved; out of their mouths comes strength to still the enemy and their wicked vengeance (Psalm 8:2).

Thirdly, the four living creatures/cherubim, as each speaks, reminds us that there is a progression in history, a God-directed maturity for us as individuals and the church: from priest, to king, to prophet, to perfect man in Christ. May we always strive to move from glory to glory!

Psalm 33 is such a delightful Psalm to read and be encouraged by. Not only because it encourages you to shout for joy in the Lord, or to praise and give him thanks or to make melody to him or sing to him a new song, etc., but because it’s such a simple but powerful antidote to all the evolutionary junk we are constantly inundated with in our day! The unbelievers have an agenda, and it is to shove their godless, meaningless, and immoral beliefs down our throats, and those of your children, by ignoring the Lord and his ways.

How do they do this? In terms of the weather, they always ascribe hurricanes or tornadoes or heavy rains or flooding to “mother nature” or “forces of nature” or “climate change (as though that has a brain of itself!)” or something else. Of course, those who hate God don’t want to ascribe to him creation as his handiwork or they’ll be bound to worship him!

Psalm 33 puts us aright: “By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made; and by the breath [Spirit] of his mouth all their host… For he spoke [Word], and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.” (see Psalm 29 for God’s powerful voice).

No “mother nature” or “forces of nature;” that depersonalizes and evolutionizes the glory of the Lord. Nope: Just the Lord, our Lord!

This is how you should talk, and how you teach your children to think of the world: it is God’s creation; he made it. “By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible” (Hebrews 11:3).

Continuing last week’s theme..

Doug Wilson subtitled his men’s book Fidelity “What it Means to Be a One-Woman Man.” That’s a great subtitle because it puts the responsibility for faithfulness squarely on the shoulders of men, and rightly so, because men lead, and wives respond to husbands. Men look to their calling out in the land, and wives look to their husbands as his helpmeet (Genesis 2; Proverbs 31). But when men look out into the world to exercise dominion, it is not license to look at other men’s wives. That’s what his book is all about: all the sins and lusts and deviancies that must concretely and purposely be avoided by Christian men as they live and work in the world and lead their wives in purity.

Men are lookers; that’s how God made them. To look for the task, arrange to do it, and then get it done. And in doing so, they will see other women who are loose morally or are beautiful. The loose ones they should detest and thank the Lord their wives are faithful and pure; the beautiful ones they should note as beautiful, praise God they are beautiful, and say a prayer for the husband that has her or will as his wife. There is nothing wrong with noticing truth, goodness, and beauty, even in women by men other than her husband. But that woman’s total beauty is never as deep and lasting as that shared with his wife; she is his own, intimate, and covenantally beautiful woman. He is only intoxicated with her love (Proverbs 5:19). Sons and daughters should see this easily as it emanates from dad.

Pastor Thacker in his recent sermon noted the high wall erected around sexual purity, as it would cost a man roughly three years wages if he seduced a virgin. That’s a high fence around one’s future marriage relationship.

That’s because marriage, and sexual relationship within that marriage, is a wonderful blessing given by God to men and women. Adam and Eve were naked and not ashamed, sharing intimacy and exposure without guilt. Being unashamed speaks to the sexual freedom and security that only the marriage bond can provide. Their nakedness was a source of joy and pleasure.

But sexual sins are deeply personal and destructive to us. Adultery leaves the victim devastated by betrayal; porn leaves men feeling gross, pathetic, and lazy; losing one’s virginity breaks the heart of the future spouse. Etc., etc.

So, Christians, guard your eyes, your thoughts, and the situations that could turn sexual. Remember Paul’s admonition to “flee.” Seek purity, married or unmarried. Seek the joy God calls you to in marital love, and remember that God judges those sexual sins severely (1 Cor. 6.9-11).

And remember, parents, to teach your children marital love, joy and fidelity. Who better than you to live out, in front of their eyes, what it means to be pure and happy and grateful for the closeness of your spouse’s body. Be honest, be open, answer all questions quickly, prepare them for purity as unto the Lord. It is the Lord they glorify with their bodies; they have been bought with a price (1 Cor. 6).

As we look around, frustrated by the political shenanigans, the state of the world, the abounding of wickedness, it can be easy to get angry at the state of things. Which is why keeping James chapter 1 in the forefront of our minds is a really good idea.

James wrote his epistle to first-century Christian Jews under trials and persecution, fleeing for their lives. So James commends joy in trials, and lets them know that they are blessed to endure persecution.

And in verse 19–20 he says, “So then, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath; for the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God.” This three-fold exhortation is important to keep in mind.

1. Be swift to hear. We should be in a posture of listening to God in the tribulation of the world around us. What is He trying to teach us? Be swift to hear from brothers and sisters who may have things to teach in the midst of these times. And even being sure to hear and understand opponents.

2. Be slow to speak. This is the other side of the coin of the first exhortation. When one is speaking, it is extraordinarily difficult to listen.

3. Be slow to anger. Failure to listen, running quickly to frenzied words, can stir up fleshly, worldly anger. And James says that this does not produce the righteousness of God.

And note that the righteousness of God is often linked with deliverance of His people and keeping of covenant promises (Psalm 31, 71, etc.). So remember when tempted to anger and the wrath of man, that this cannot work the righteous deliverance of God. And so we must learn to put our trust in God and His son Jesus, our deliverer. He is faithful, and His righteousness is what we yearn for.

Recently I preached two sermons on Revelation 4 and 5, which gives the listener a view of heavenly worship as seen through the eyes of John. In that heavenly worship scene Jesus speaks with the voice of a trumpet, from the throne comes peals of thunder and rumblings, there are multiple choirs, the Ancient Ones have harps, and it all ends with the response of “Amen.”

How surprised I was the following Monday, while reading in 1 Chronicles 15-16, to see all those same elements! David, while making preparations to bring the ark into the tent he has made for it in Jerusalem, includes all those same elements as he redirects the Levites from lifting the ark up on their shoulders to lifting up Yahweh in praise. For musical instruments, David has trumpets, harps and lyres, and symbols (rumbly and thunderous). He appoints multiple Levitical choirs. And when the Levites finished singing David’s song of thanksgiving, all the people responded with “Amen”!

What I realized, after noting the correspondences, was that the very thing John saw, is the very thing David saw when God gave him the plans for the temple. Which is the very thing David sought to replicate in the temple worship environment on earth!

Two things to note: As the type of Christ, David was doing the Lord’s will on earth as he saw it in heaven. Jesus blesses that effort in “The Lord’s Prayer.” That’s your task as well.

Secondly, I bring this up to encourage you in the regular reading of God’s word, so that you, too, discover these little gems on your own!

We all showed up last Sunday for worship somewhat stunned: an assassination attempt on former President Trump? That doesn’t happen here in America (at least not very much: I personally remember JFK and President Reagan being shot)!

So, how do we think about this event? Here are some thoughts.

First, remember that Jesus is on the throne as King. So he’s moving history and the Great Commission forward with this event. We believe that by faith!

Secondly, don’t be angry about this and say or act foolishly. Your anger does not achieve the righteousness of God, James 1.19-20.

Thirdly, don’t be anxious about this event or what may follow; it is in God’s hands. Your job is to trust him and put off anxiousness, Matthew 6.25-34.

Fourthly, pray for our leaders that we, as Christians, may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way, 1 Timothy 2.1-4.

Finally, a sample prayer to use written by Al Stout, co- pastor in Pensacola:

“And now for all those in authority over us we pray that you would surround them with godly counselors and that you would use them to preserve our nation in righteousness and true honor. Grant us blessings as a people and may we lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. Father, watch over and protect President Trump. Keep the forces and individuals at bay who seek to take his life. Expose all those who had a hand in [the] attempt on his life and bring them to justice. Give us grace in our next election and lead this nation to repentance over our sins of violence, murder, hatred of the created order and image of God and lusts unbounded, lest judgment fall on us terribly fierce and devastating.”

The conclusion of each letter to the churches in Revelation chapters 2 and 3 ends with a similar phrase: “To the one who conquers, I [Jesus] will…” and then you have a promise of Jesus to that church. They range from eating of the tree of life, not being hurt by the second death, being given hidden manna, authority over the nations and ruling them with a rod of iron, white garments and confession of the conqueror’s name before His father, being made a pillar in the temple of God, to sitting on the throne with Christ. All worthy gifts to those who remain faithful to Jesus during times of tribulation.

Have you ever wondered what that looks life in real time, in real life? Well, this week is the 100 year anniversary of the Flying Scotsman, Eric Liddell, winning the gold in the 400 meter race at the Olympics in Paris, France. His athletic life and running was made famous in the movie “Chariots of Fire.” If you’ve seen the movie, you know that after his fame as a runner, he went back to his birth land, China, to continue the missionary work of his parents. While being caught in the midst of a devastating civil war and WWII, he chose to stay and carry on the ministry, and was finally interned by the Japanese after they invaded China. He died in 1945 of a brain tumor, just two months before the camp was liberated.

His friend and fellow missionary Annie Buchan was with him at the end. She told the makers of Eric Liddell: The Flying Scotsman: “Suddenly he said, ‘Annie, it’s complete surrender’ and that was his last breath. He went into a coma and never recovered.” Liddell never wavered in his Christian faith. “He had been a man who was surrendering to God all his life through, and I don’t believe that it cost him much to say ‘complete surrender’ because he knew where he was going.” — BBC, July 8, 2024, article, “It’s Complete Surrender”

Certainly, he was a conqueror in Jesus Christ! Certainly he believed his Savior.