Sermon Transcript — September 3, 2005
Let's go to Matthew 24. Christ spoke of events to His disciples that would occur prior to the end of time. And among those events that He listed would be natural disasters. As I have said, most of the natural disasters that we have observed like most recently the tsunami in southeast Asia seem to be far away, brought close by video and by news media. But when it lands on American shores, its seems to be much close to home. At least I felt that way emotionally. I don't know about you. In Matthew 24:6, Christ said:
Matthew 24:6 - "And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet." And of course wars and rumors of wars have been a part of our everyday lives.
When I was a child attending school here in southern California, we had drills hiding under desks in a vain attempt to try to save ourselves from a nuclear holocaust. I think we now know how affable that is at this point. That crisis seemingly passed, and we entered new crises. I was here during the 1971 earthquake as many of you were. I saw the aftereffects of that. Many people died, certainly not in the tens of thousands. We were all affected in this area by that earthquake, and by earthquakes that have occurred since.
My daughter attends California State University in Northridge, which is basically a new campus built there after the quake of I believe 1984 that damaged a lot of the valley. We've all seen our share of what we call - natural disasters. In my mind, they're unnatural disasters because they're abnormal. But they are a part of everyday life as human beings living on this earth.
Verse 7 - Christ says: "(For) nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places." These things will happen. One of the aftereffects of a natural disaster like the hurricane striking the Gulf coast, and that they're now facing in that region of our country is disease. As I mentioned earlier, New Orleans I think we all know is in a bowl surrounded by levees that keeps out the water that is in Lake Pontchartrain, the water in the Mississippi River and the water of the Gulf of Mexico . And those levees have been breached because of the high surge that came ashore from Katrina, and the bowl was filled, and ninety percent of the city of New Orleans is basically underwater even as we sit here and speak today.
Mixed now, that water, with sewage, with dead bodies, with chemicals from the refineries that were there, and it makes one terrible chemical soup that must now be dealt with in the city of New Orleans . The aftereffects of that, they're warning us now, health officials are, could result in disease, pestilence, and our hearts go out to those people who live near there, who lost homes, and who are now being evacuated from the area.
Verse 8 - Christ said: "All of these are the beginning of sorrows." Again, I don't know how you felt, but this week, all week, even though we were happy with the sale of our home, and we were busy with the affairs of the real state agency and the escrow company, my heart was sorrowful for what I saw and for what I read and for what I heard for those people in that part of the world. And I kept thinking, except for the grace of God that could be us. And I thought, as probably you thought, what if a major earthquake occurred here in Southern California ? It'd be basically the same thing, knock down the cell phone towers, knocked out all communications, knocked out power, knocked out water, natural gas, created fires.
I thought about how I would react. I thought about how I would try to contact my children in San Diego. I wondered how my neighbors would react. I wondered, but not for very long, whether or not there'd be looting and anarchy. I have not only been saddened by the misery of human suffering, but also I have been disappointed once again by human nature, and what people can do when seemingly the restraints are removed and there's no presence of law and order, and what depths people will descend into.
Let's go Psalms 55 because I read this in thinking about the context of this disaster. This is a psalm of David; a contemplation he had because David certainly saw a lot of misery in his lifetime. He was the second king of a fledgling nation trying to carve out a place for itself among enemies. He was a warrior. He saw the misery of death on a battlefield. He saw the pain of the survivors who lost loved ones. Again, we don't have the music to this particular psalm, but we have the words, and they rang true to me when I read them this week
Psalm 55:4 - "My heart is severely pained within me, and the terrors of death have fallen upon me." Again, I don't know about you, but I thought about how I would feel if I were trapped in the Superdome with twenty thousand other people without light, without food, without water for several days. How would we feel?
Verse 5 - "Fearfulness and trembling have overcome (come upon) me, and horror has overwhelmed me.
Verse 6 - "So I said, 'Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest." We hear how desperately many of those people just, at first, to get outside, and then once outside on dry pavement then to get away somewhere from that horrible, horrible place.
Verse 7 - "Indeed, I would wander far off, and remain in the wilderness." How happy any of us would be to instead be in a forest somewhere away from that disaster.
Verse 8 - "I would hasten my escape from the windy storm and tempest.
Verse 9 - "Destroy, O Lord, and divide their tongues, for I have seen violence and strife in the city." As I said, when restraint is removed, oftentimes people resort to violence and strife, looting as we call it, thievery. You might think - I guess that's to be expected when someone is searching for food and water, to break the window of a store, to reach in for life-saving sustenance, but to carry a forty-inch flat screen TV under your arm from a store is something else, isn't it? Or to carry a weapon and shoot at rescuing helicopters or police officers or other people, or to rape the less fortunate, or to rob the elderly in the dark. The human depths that some people can dive is incredible.
Verse 10 - "Day and night they go round and on its walls; iniquity and trouble are also in the midst of it.
Verse 11 - "Destruction is in its midst; oppression and deceit do not depart from its streets." It will take a long, long, long time for New Orleans to recover physically. It will take even longer for New Orleans to recover morally and with its reputation. But I don't say it's just the people of New Orleans, as I said, I wondered out loud in some cases what it would be like if Los Angeles suffered a similar disaster and the same restraints were removed. Wouldn't human beings probably act the same? We are no different than those people there, are we?
Let's notice the prophet, Jeremiah, and what he says in Jeremiah 6 :7. Describing Israel here, the prophet says:
Jeremiah 6:7 - "As a fountain wells up with water, so she wells up with her wickedness. Violence and plundering are heard in her. Before me continually are grief and wounds." And certainly this week we've observed that.
Verse 8 - "Be instructed, O Jerusalem . . ." Oftentimes as we know, Jerusalem is speaking not only to the city but to the nation of Israel and to modern Israel. "Be instructed. . ." What may we learn from such a disaster? How may we be instructed by this horrible event? " Be instructed, O Jerusalem , lest my soul depart from you; lest I make you desolate, a land not inhabited." Lest my soul depart from you, I ask again, how would we react under similar circumstances. Would we act like children of God? Or would we act like children of Belial? I think it's a poignant question that we need ask ourselves.
I was saddened to see the reaction of many. It's understandable, but it still saddened me to see that there was an attitude of entitlement, you know - where is the government? I'm owed this. An attitude of anger at the leadership, I think partially provoked by the media - Well, what do you think of Mr. Bush now? Of course that will solicit an angry response.
Let's go back to Jeremiah 30. I think we understand prophecy enough to know that at some point in time, and maybe we're beginning to enter that time, who can know for sure when Jacob's trouble will begin to appear, but there will be difficult times. There will be natural disasters, followed by natural disasters, followed by natural disasters to break the pride of the power of the chosen nation of God. In Jeremiah 30 , a chapter that describes Jacob's troubles as we read in Jeremiah 30:7. I'd like to actually begin reading in verse 12.
Jeremiah 30:12 - "(For) thus says the Lord: 'Your affliction is incurable, your wound is severe.
Verse 13 - "‘There is no one to plead your cause, that you may be bound up and healed; you have no healing medicines.
Verse 14 - "‘All your lovers have forgotten you; they do not seek you. . ." I thought it was interesting but also very sad to hear the Prime Minister of Holland said in the aftermath of the levees breaking into New Orleans , he said, "Well, half of our country is below sea level, and we thought ahead, and we've engineered hydraulic levees. We've anticipated the rage of the seas." He says, "I can't believe a country as rich as the United States of America is still depending on earthen levees to protect you from such disasters."
The criticism that comes from even our allies hurts, doesn't it? That's what the prophet said here.
Verse 14 - "‘All your lovers have (forgotten) forsaken you nationally; they do not seek you; for I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy. . ." Like I said, I think natural disasters may increase. They certainly will at some point in time. ". . .with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of your iniquities, because your sins have increased.
Verse 15 - "‘Why do you cry about your affliction? Your sorrow is incurable. Because of the multitude of your iniquities, because your sins have increased, I have done these things to you.'"
As I said, the prophet inspired by God said that eventually these things will come to us. Let's look in Revelation 6. This scripture is another one that came to mind, Revelation 6, when I began to see the people interviewed around the Superdome, and I thought maybe God is giving us a glimpse at these magnanimous tragedies to help us see into the future, and maybe to think about and measure our own morality, maybe to measure our own inner strength, maybe to measure our own determination and closeness to God in His Spirit. In Revelation 6:15, it says:
Revelation 6:15 - "(And) the kings of the earth, the great man, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man, hid themselves in the caves and (in) the rocks of the mountains." There's going to come a time, we know, in the history of this earth when great tragedy will come, when all of the seals will be opened that we read about here in Revelation, and disaster, the kind of disaster we saw in New Orleans, occurs to the great and the small.
I read with some interest that Fats Domino, a musician that I would know, maybe some of you know, had to be rescued from his home, and escaped with only his life. All of his riches and his greatness didn't make him any better than the poorest of the residents of New Orleans who had to be rescued in like manner. That's what it's talking about here.
Verse 16 - "And they said to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of Him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb!
Verse 17 - "‘For the great day of His wrath is come, and who is able to stand?" As I said, maybe God is giving us a glimpse into the future through events like this and like the tsunami of this past year in southeast Asia, to ask ourselves, - are we instructed? Are we instructed by these things? Can we be instructed? The prophet, Jeremiah, calls for us to be instructed by such things.
I was very saddened to hear about the man who leapt to his own death by jumping from a balcony inside the Superdome. He just couldn't take it anymore. He told people around him, and he stepped up to the top of the railing of the balcony and leapt to his death. It's not dissimilar to what we're reading here in Revelation 6 where people pray for the rocks to fall on them in this futuristic event.
Let's go to II Timothy 3. As I mentioned, other than the human misery and destruction that we saw and the empathy of our hearts that go out to those people, we saw an ugly side of the human spirit, and Paul seems to address this in II Timothy 3:1.
II Timothy 3:1 - "But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come:" Dangerous times. I don't need to remind any of you of the dangerous times in which we live. We live in Los Angeles; we all have to lock our doors; we have to lock our cars. We have to instruct our women not to walk in dark places. We live in one of those big cities like New Orleans, and we recognize there are dangerous places. We do live in dangerous times.
Verse 2 - "For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
Verse 3 - "unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control. . ." Another translation says without restraint. Again, I think we saw that played out in living color in the videos that we saw on the news. ". . .without self-restraint." Again, it begs an answer to the question - How would we act under similar circumstances? If we knew the policeman wouldn't be there; if we knew the alarm wasn't on; if we knew the goods were there for the taking, would we do it?
I found an interesting quote. It was written by Edmund Burke in a book entitled - Reflections on the Revolution, talking about the French revolution. It was written in 1790. Edmund Burke wrote, "To make a government requires no great prudence. Settle the seat of power, teach obedience, and the work is done. To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide. It requires only to let go the reins. But to form a free government, that is to temper together the opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one consistent work requires much thought, deep reflection and a sagacious, powerful and combining mind."
He was talking about the reforming of the French government. Let's go to Jeremiah 18. You see true freedoms come from internal freedoms, and the for the people of God who are driven and motivated by the Spirit of God, it should drive us to do what is right, especially when the restraints are lifted, and nobody is looking over our shoulder, and the alarm is not on, and there's no camera watching what we might be doing. Notice here in Jeremiah 18:11.
Jeremiah 18:11 - "Now therefore, speak to the men of Judah and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem . . ." And again, this is synonymous with Israel, modern Israel, including us. ". . . saying, 'Thus says the Lord: 'Behold I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you. Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.'"
You see, in a culture that has all kinds of restraints like ours does, God gave us ten laws, and human nature kept finding ways to get around them, and our wonderful government in Washington has now given us over three hundred thousand laws. So three hundred thousand laws have grown from ten. Why? Because of the lack of restraint. We have found ways around the law, and therefore a new law had to be built, and then as we had no restraint, we went off in another direction and a new law was brought into power, and a new law, and a new law to keep caging us in so that we are now surrounded by laws of all kinds and varieties so that we need an attorney to go out the door in the morning, just about. Over three hundred thousand laws out of ten, because of our lack of restraint, carnally speaking.
Like I said, if we can be instructed, what is it that we would learn about ourselves? How does our lack of restraint begin? Well, it begins in the little things, doesn't it? In life. Do we steal from our employer? Do we steal a little bit from God? Do we steal time from one another? You see, that's where moral bankruptcy begins is in the little things. And then when all restraint is taken off, then carnal nature runs wild, completely without restraint, and we saw the ugliness of that this past week in New Orleans.
God asks us to learn. He says: "'. . . return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.'
Verse 12 - "And they said, 'That's hopeless!'" You can't expect that of us. Just like all those people who justified the looting, the thievery, the abuse of fellow man That's hopeless! How can you expect that high, moral ground in this age in these times. ". . .So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart." Post modernism. We will establish our own moral ground, our own level of responsibility. In the meantime, we'll do what we want. We'll do exactly what we want.
In 1791, a year after that quote I read to you awhile ago, Edmund Burke responding to a member of the French Parliament wrote a very interesting statement I'd like to share with you. He said, "Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains on their own appetites. In proportion as their love of justice is above their rapacity, in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsel wise and good in preference to the flattery of knaves, society cannot exist unless the controlling appetite be placed somewhere, and the less there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things that men of intemperate minds can never be free."
Let's turn to Ezekiel 7:26. Once again, the prophet, Ezekiel, talks about the future, perhaps our future.
Ezekiel 7:26 - "Disaster will come upon disaster, and rumor will be upon rumor. . ." What caused a lot of the problems this past week? Rumors. I don't know if you've heard the news stories, but there were rumors of gangs; there were rumors of evil and terrible events that were going on inside the Superdome, and it caused people to panic. But it happens in that kind of environment.
You know, I asked myself when I saw the misery of the people there, I said, "Where were the leaders? Where were people who could and would have stood up, and said, 'This is the way we should go. This is what we should do.'" And to organize people. We heard during the sermonette that you can have thirteen thousand people living in a confined area together peaceably. We did it for many years at the Feast of Tabernacles. ". . .Then they will seek a vision from a prophet."
They wanted somebody to come and save them, a sense of entitlement - my government owes me; where is my government now - sitting there, waiting for a bottle of water and a ration of food. Some people needed to be brought a bottle of water, but most did not. They could have been capable enough to find their way out of New Orleans in five days, I would think, to higher ground, to a safer place where they could have been helped with water and food. ". . . but the law will perish even from the priest, and counsel from the elders.
Verse 27 - "The king will mourn. . ." As our president does. ". . .the prince will be clothed with desolation. . ." As the governor of Louisiana is today. " . . . and the hands of the common people will tremble. I will do to them according to their way, and according to what they deserve I will judge them; then they shall know that I am the Lord!" Again, I had to ask myself, what happens; what will happen, and we know surely it will when the next disaster strikes. Perhaps it will be a major earthquake on the west coast. Perhaps it will be a tsunami of the east coast.
You know, they've talked about one of the volcanoes off of Spain in the Canary Islands blowing its top, creating a tsunami that could create waves on the east coast a hundred feet high. I've been along the Bos-NY-Wash area, that's all pretty flat land. A wave of a hundred foot would cover most of those big cities. If we were among those, how would we react? What type of moral chains do we have on our own appetites? How much of God's Spirit would work in us in times of no restraint?
I read an article just this morning about terrorist attacks. What would we do in the wake of a terrorist attack which will surely come to this country? They're now talking about nuclear weapons, dirty bombs. The article indicated that they may even be planted now in seven cities just waiting for the signal to blow them off, because you see al Queda wants the lives of four million people, four million Americans to equal the balance, they say. How will we react when those things begin to happen?
Maybe I should go back to something more basic - how do we feel about what we've just seen this past week? When most people learn of others miseries, eighty percent are glad it's not them, and twenty percent don't care. How to we feel?
I'd like to conclude by going back to Ezekiel 9:4, and reading something else that the prophet tells us:
Ezekiel 9:4 - "And the Lord said to him, 'Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and who cry over all the abominations that are done within it.'" How did we feel when we saw that human misery and suffering? Do we truly sigh and cry? Or worse yet, are we glad it's not us, or even worse yet, we don't care? I hope not, because that could reflect the kind of moral restraint that we have within us, and the level that God's Spirit works within us.
Verse 5 - "To the others He said in (my) His hearing, 'Go after him through the city and kill; do not let your eye spare, nor have any pity.
Verse 6 - "Utterly slay old and young (men,) maidens and little children and women; but do not come near anyone on whom is the mark. . ." That is the mark of those who sigh and who cry for the miseries and the abominations that are done in our land.
Do we sigh and cry for the misery and the abominations that we've seen? Does our heart go out to those people? I think it probably does. Are we instructed? Is there something we can learn from this horrible event? I think there is. And that is to measure our own personal inner self-restraint. Do we have it? How would we react if we had been in New Orleans? I hope we can answer that question honestly, because it indeed reflects what we're really like inside, and that's what's important. Something to think about on this Sabbath following a disaster of the proportions we have seen.
Let's continue to remember those people in our prayers, the brethren there in our prayers as they recover, and as we are able to help in the relief for those poor miserable folks that are our brothers and sisters.