Would Someone Dare? by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Romans 5:1-11

5:1 Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,
5:2 through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.
5:3 And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance,
5:4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,
5:5 and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
5:6 For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.
5:7 Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die.
5:8 But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
5:9 Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through Him from the wrath of God.
5:10 For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by His life.
5:11 But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Would someone dare?

Dare what?

Would someone dare to die for you? Give up their life for you?

Life is so precious, so much to enjoy, friends to spend time with, beautiful places to visit, foods to taste, touch, smell. Life is so much more than even this.

And yet they do it. As I prepare this sermon, men and women in the military uniform of this nation are putting the right to their life ... out there ... and they could lose their life. Many have, already.

After 30 years in the military, I am very aware of how quickly things can go badly. The man next to you, one moment just as alive as you are, the next moment, that life is gone, and you can't get it back into him.

Someone has said he who saves a life, saves a generation. That's the impact of a life gone, destroyed, changed from life to death.

But there are different types of death. We speak here of the physical death, the disappearance of life from flesh and blood. But there is also spiritual death, the separation of man from God. There is the death of hope, the death of dreams, even the death of sins.

For the Christian, the death of the old sin nature is what we need be concerned about. Once we follow Christ, we have participated in His death on the cross, and the Holy Spirit fills us with the life of Christ, we are covered before God with the righteousness of Jesus Christ, since we have none of our own. That is life that lasts forever, life that defies death, life that cannot be separated from Almighty God.

Our scripture speaks of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, of access to grace, of building character through suffering and endurance, and the hope that lifts us up because we have the love of Christ in us. All of this came about because of a death. And not just any death, but the death, the God-permitted death, of the Son of God, born of mankind, and still God.

He was as flesh and blood as you and I, so He knew pain. In fact, as the second Adam it's possible, born without a sin nature, that Jesus Christ was everything the first Adam was intended to be, perfect in mind and body before God. But feeling heat and cold, the stab of a sharp rock on a bare foot, the slashing of flesh and blood on a bare back from a barbed whip, He went to the cross, anyway. He went for you and for me.

I want to share a story with you about someone else who made a similar sacrifice, the walking into death that we may find hard to really understand.

In the spring of 2004 I was stationed in Iraq as a federal civilian with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Our living quarters were in the area of Baghdad known as the Green Zone. This is where Saddam Hussein's favorite's lived, a walled-in green oasis of concrete streams, green grass, roses, cinder block homes and palaces.

The enemy would regularly shoot rockets into this area, and made various attempts to breach the walls. Sometimes they would attempt to infiltrate with the Iraqi civilians who worked inside the walls, as they lined up to come through one of two gates, guarded by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers.

For our part, anytime we travelled outside the walls to work, which was daily, we were accompanied by professional, armed civilian guards in armored SUVs. Most lived outside the walls; most were American, with some Aussies, and some Germans.

One morning, as the long line of Iraqi workers in their cars entering Gate 2 got even longer, one of our guard teams was in that line, not far from entering the gate. U.S. and Iraqi soldiers milled about the crowd, checking cars, I.D. cards, boxes and packages. Suddenly, from the back of the line, a car pulled out into the middle empty lane and sped toward the gate. The SUV carrying six professional guards saw it in his rear view mirror, and heard the car's engine whining into high gear as it raced toward the gate. They all turned and looked. They knew. They looked back at the driver as he looked at them. In an instant he swung out in front of the onrushing car, creating an explosion that was seen over most of widespread Baghdad. The onrushing car had been filled with massive explosives, meant for the gate, and the men who guarded it.

They had saved the men on the gate. All six of them died in the explosion.

Someone might say, well, that's what they got paid to do. But I take you back to those mini-seconds when they all knew. They knew why the car was rushing at the gate. They knew they were the only ones who had what it took to stop the butchery that was about to happen. They looked at the man driving them. He looked at them. Each man knew, and still the driver threw them all in front of that onrushing car of death.

I will tell you that they had families, wives, children that must have been on their minds in those few seconds. The certain loss of their own lives. The end of their generations. Death.

Change gears with me now to that hill called Golgotha that waited for the Christ. As He fed the multitude with loaves and fishes, as He saved the woman from stoning, healed the lepers, spoke with the woman at the well, He must have known what was coming. Death was coming, painful, agonizing death like that onrushing car.

But He did it anyway. And we take His death much too lightly. After all, wasn't He God? Couldn't He keep the pain away?

When I think of Jesus Christ undergoing the savage attack and scourging that ripped his skin open, the beatings, the spitting, forced to carry His own cross through the jeering crowds to His crucifixion ... and I think of those six men, knowing what they knew was coming, about to happen. The agony, the helplessness of those moments frozen in the mind before it happened. And then the pain. And they did it anyway.

Jesus, did it anyway.

One of my favorite Christian authors, Oswald Chambers, has written a passage concerning Galatians 2:20 that means a great deal to me. I shared it this past week with my Facebook friends. Because Christ, knowing, and doing it anyway, for me, for you, for us, deserves so much more than I can ever give Him of me, of anything.

Oswald Chambers wrote, in an excerpt from "My Utmost for His Highest":

"The inescapable spiritual need each of us has is the need to sign the death certificate of our sin nature. I must take my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs and be willing to turn them into a moral verdict against the nature of sin; that is, against any claim I have to my right to myself. Paul said, "I have been crucified with Christ . . . ." He did not say, "I have made a determination to imitate Jesus Christ," or, "I will really make an effort to follow Him" -- but -- "I have been identified with Him in His death." Once I reach this moral decision and act on it, all that Christ accomplished for me on the Cross is accomplished in me. My unrestrained commitment of myself to God gives the Holy Spirit the opportunity grant to me the holiness of Jesus Christ.

". . . it is no longer I who live . . . . " My individuality remains, but my primary motivation for living and the nature that rules me are radically changed. I have the same human body, but the old satanic right to myself has been destroyed.

". . . and the life which I now live in the flesh," not the life which I long to live or even pray that I live, but the life I now live in my mortal flesh -- the life which others can see, "I live by faith in the Son of God. . ."

"This faith was not Paul's own faith in Jesus Christ, but the faith of the Son of God given to him (see Ephesians 2:8). It is no longer a faith in faith, but a faith that transcends all imaginable limits -- a faith that comes only from the Son of God."

Do I have a right to my emotional opinions and intellectual beliefs, a right to my rights? Of course I do.

Those six guards had a right to say, "Don't do it!", to turn away and let those young men on the gate and in the crowds die. They had that right. But they went anyway.

Jesus Christ had every right to turn away from the cross, to enjoy His time in the flesh, to give vent to His own desires, imaginations, opinions and beliefs. He had more right than you and I. But He went anyway.

I have every right to listen to false teachers who call Christ a liar by saying there is no Hell, there is no Heaven, God doesn't really mean what He said, and we are meant to satisfy ourselves (that echo from the serpent in Eden). I have that right. Can I do it? No, speaking just for me, no, I can't, not when such great loves comes so near in the embodiment of the Holy Spirit, drawing me to the greater love of Christ, who loved me first.

No, I can't do it. How can you?

1st Corinthians 2:9 reminds us there is so much more waiting for us if we will just keep faith with Christ: "No eye has not seen, no ear has not heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him." Amen.

The Timing is All Wrong, by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-11

4:1 Then Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.
4:2 He fasted forty days and forty nights, and afterwards he was famished.
4:3 The tempter came and said to him, "If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread."
4:4 But he answered, "It is written, 'One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"
4:5 Then the devil took him to the holy city and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple,
4:6 saying to him, "If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down; for it is written, 'He will command his angels concerning you,' and 'On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'"
4:7 Jesus said to him, "Again it is written, 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'"
4:8 Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor;
4:9 and he said to him, "All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me."
4:10 Jesus said to him, "Away with you, Satan! for it is written, 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.'"
4:11 Then the devil left him, and suddenly angels came and waited on him.

On this first Sunday of Lent, we look at evil from the standpoint of bad timing.

You see, Satan made a grand attempt to stop the plan of God when the Son of God was a helpless babe, moving Herod to murder hundreds of babies hoping to slay the infant with Mary and Joseph, the One sought by the Magi through that bright new star in the sky.

Had we spiritual eyes to see we might also know that those great forces of angels who sang of Jesus' arrival might also have sacrificed themselves to protect the beloved Son of God, helpless though He be at that moment. So you see, it really was bad timing on the part of Satan in that early attempt to kill the Child.

Now, in today's scripture, we see yet another attempt to stop the unstoppable plan of God for His people, by destroying the holiness of the Christ. And again, bad timing, for Jesus is within sight of the culmination of His purpose on earth, as fully man and fully God. And Jesus is fully capable of using the powerful word of God to shut down His opponent. We must admit that any attempt at any point was going to be bad timing when you are intent on tripping up Almighty God. Only a being swept up in his own intelligence and power would consider such a thing, and there you have that beautiful angel who fell from heaven.

Still, Satan has not given up. He is still forging ahead in the attempt, and has been from the beginning. If he cannot stop God, perhaps he can stop men from having faith in Christ, from believing, and in that Satan has had some success, sadly.

Mankind's literature today, in many languages, is replete with erudite explanations why God does not exist, why He is dead, why Christ is not the Christ, why man-made gods have more validity, are more believable.

But once again we come up against wrong timing, but in a very final way.

It does not take a genius' observation to know that now, in this age, is the wrong time in history to decide there is no God. Rather, it would be a good thing to begin making plans on how we are going to deal with Him when He appears on our plane.

Those who have made their reputations and fortunes on "proving" there is no God are about to be swept into the dust bin of history as the actions of a superior being become evident across this earth, as more and more people suddenly become aware of His presence, as we are moved inexorably into His manifest destiny. Now, it is of little consequence that someone like myself should say this is happening. But to any rational person, especially those steeped in critical thinking and evidentiary procedure, it is of far more import that what is taking place now, in a world of human beings endowed with free will, and therefore capable of any number of varied impacts upon the activities and people around them, of far more import that what is happening was set down in writing thousands of years ago.

Down through the machinations of time, events seemingly unconnected now appear to all be parts that have been silently falling into place, wheels turning and stopping and turning again until this moment when God's people, the church, arrived, and individuals, governments, and nations were in place.

Now it begins. Now the Prince of Peace begins His arrival in Jerusalem, the time of peace, the time of war, the time of reckoning. Now the battlefield at Armageddon begins to be readied. The Anti-Christ and his assistant are most likely among us, smug with the preparations and plans they are making. But the time is God's. Only He says "when."

For centuries, men and women of Biblical knowledge have guessed this date and that, interpreted this action and that as the beginning, to no avail. Some, convinced by charismatic leaders, sold all they had and waited on mountain tops for Jesus to arrive in the clouds. But again, the timing was wrong. Movements have been formed, speeches made, books sold, determining what God has said no one will know. Only God knows. Even the Son admitted He did not know. Only God knows.

If any of these people, who claimed to have knowledge hidden even from the Son, if they had been paying attention, they would have realized the battle was fought and won the day Jesus Christ walked out of His tomb, fully alive as a human being, fully alive as Almighty God. Everything after that is preparation for Satan's surrender. When Christ returns to earth to make that happen it is just another detail in God's great plan.

And yet, all the while the profane and the proud have been declaring there is no God, even as He was at work among them. God has been at work with real world events, caring for and keeping His promises to His people, and apparently felt no need to correct them about His early "death." If instead of running from Him and denying Him, they had sought Him they would have found Him. For the list of those who said there is no God, those who then found Him, that list goes into a very long and blessed length.

So, truly, as events move toward that culmination when time itself will be no more, now is absolutely the wrong time to declare there is no God, and find yourself opposed to the only real power in the entire universe, finding yourself standing among the defeated and damned enemies of a loving God who now will not hear your prayers or your pleas, because you insist on holding sin in your heart. (Psalm 66:18, Isaiah 59:2) Had they only availed themselves of 1st John 1:9, how different their future would be; "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

For those who know Him, it is such a difficult thing to understand why anyone would deny someone who loves you so, someone who sacrificed so much, personally, to buy you free of what enslaved you, loved you so much their very human death, in such pain, made it possible for you to approach Holy God, and accept eternal life. Jesus Christ made it possible.

Such great love that comes near, but is pushed away by temporary pride, desires and greed; a permanent and pitiable solution to a temporary problem, for this life, this flesh, these desires, are but temporary. But as men and women meant for heaven, having an earthly experience, we can get lost in that, and the loving reunion with the God of love and caring is lost. Forever.

It's on its way, our meeting with our God, either at the point of the grave, or at the point of Christ's return, Him of whom some still sadly insist, there is none. Amen.

How Many Commandments Do We Need?

By Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: Exodus 24:12-18

24:12 The Lord said to Moses, "Come up to me on the mountain, and wait there; and I will give you the tablets of stone, with the law and the commandment, which I have written for their instruction."
24:13 So Moses set out with his assistant Joshua, and Moses went up into the mountain of God.
24:14 To the elders he had said, "Wait here for us, until we come to you again; for Aaron and Hur are with you; whoever has a dispute may go to them."
24:15 Then Moses went up on the mountain, and the cloud covered the mountain.
24:16 The glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it for six days; on the seventh day he called to Moses out of the cloud.
24:17 Now the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain in the sight of the people of Israel.
24:18 Moses entered the cloud, and went up on the mountain. Moses was on the mountain for forty days and forty nights.

The title for this sermon comes from a bumper sticker I once saw.

It said, "1. Love your God.

"2. Love your neighbor.

"How many other commandments do you need?"

And I thought, well, he has a point.

The 10 Commandments as we know them, as commonly cited in Exodus 20:2-17, are ten moral and religious commandments from God for the Hebrew people, after they had been freed from Egyptian slavery. They form part of the 613 injunctions, prohibitions and commands which make up the Mosaic Code, those religious laws under which Christians no longer live, being covered by the shed blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ as their savior.

So, do we now ignore the Ten Commandments?

You might be interested to know that a UPI news story from Feb. 2, 1997 reported that "only 68 of 200 Anglican priests polled could name all Ten Commandments, but half said they believed in space aliens."

And then there's the old joke about not being able to post the Ten Commandments in courthouses and legislatures, because you cannot post 'Thou Shalt Not Steal,' 'Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,' and 'Thou Shall Not Lie' in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians. For some it creates a hostile work environment.

And of course, there are people standing in line looking for fame by attempting to discredit the Ten Commandments. For example, some claim the Ten Commandments bear a striking resemblance to the Egyptian "Book of the Dead." After all, the Israelites had just come from captivity in Egypt when God gave the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments to Moses. It's interesting they should see that correlation, however there is a slight problem with that theory, in that the Book of the Dead didn't appear until three centuries after the Ten Commandments.

Elements of the Ten Commandments also show up in the Muslim Qur'an, sort of. Muslims believe the Qur'an is the revealed word of God dictated by the angel Gabriel to the prophet Mohammed. Elements of the Ten Commandments show up in fourteen verses of the Qur'an.

At one point in the Qur'an it appears to urge the Ten Commandments of the Hebrews be followed, but the actual text is left out: "007.145 "And We ordained laws for him in the tablets in all matters, both commanding and explaining all things, (and said): 'Take and hold these with firmness, and enjoin thy people to hold fast by the best in the precepts'..."

Then, regarding keeping the Sabbath, the Qur'an, at 16:124, says the Sabbath day of complete rest was only required for Jews.

If you wonder what Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had to say about the Ten Commandments, which warn us about sinning against God, first you should know that in John 8:36 Jesus says, "If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed." Then throughout the books of the New Testament Jesus mirrors what the Ten Commandments say, loving the Lord your God, keeping the Sabbath, not committing adultery, not swearing falsely, honoring father and mother, and so on.

Nearly 1,400 years after they first appeared, Jesus summed up all 10 Commandments for us in Matthew 22 of the New Testament. Jesus had been confronted by the so-called experts in religion of His day, when they asked, "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Matthew 22:36-40 quotes Jesus as replying, "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."

His first response contains all of the first four commandments brought down from Mt. Sinai by Moses. The last six are then contained in his final statement, "Love your neighbor as yourself."

There are those today, among the Jews, who live every moment of their life attempting to keep every one of the 613 injunctions, prohibitions and commands of the Mosaic Code.

There are Christians who commit themselves to living by the spirit of the Ten Commandments, recognizing we are flesh and blood, and prone to sin, as Paul wrote, even when we don't mean to do so.

Then there are Christians who are content to live within Jesus' two new commandments, loving God and their neighbor.

Which one should you do? Well, I don't know you well enough to advise you, but I can tell you the story of three boys and how they turned out.

The first boy I got to know right after I graduated Marine Corps boot camp and was stationed at the colorful El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, near Santa Ana, Calif. That is also near the very first Disneyland in the world, and since it had just opened when I got there in 1959, many of us worked there after hours as cooks, maintenance men and clean-up crews. Extra money and lots of girls to meet, including Annette Funicello!
Four of us rented a beach-front apartment on Newport Beach, and were living the high life. One of the four was sort of a loner, pretty much kept to himself, not a team member. Three of us had spoken of growing up with our families, average American families and lives filled with school and church. Not so with the fourth man. That was not his experience, and he avoided talking about his family. One day when the local police pulled his car over for speeding, they popped the trunk and found bags of coins that had been stolen from local laundromats. He was kicked out of the Marine Corps and went away to prison. We never heard from him again.

Many years later another Marine and myself found that one of our younger Marines was borrowing office cameras and pawning them. No family roots, no spiritual background, he seemed to be without ethics altogether. He was discharged from the Marine Corps. Years later I learned he had gone to prison in Oklahoma for burglary, was gang-raped and committed suicide.

Another young man about that time had grown up being kicked around from family to family, doing poorly in school, and barely graduated high school. But an elderly gent from a local church had taken an interest in him and got him to going to church regularly. Wanting to go to college but without good enough grades, and knowing he would never have the money, he joined the Marine Corps. But before joining, he had given his life to Christ at a weekend camp for church teenagers. Growing up he had been exposed to what he knew to be accepted ethics and morals, and his experience among other Christians at church solidified that for him.

Throughout his time in the Marine Corps he would stray from what he knew God expected of him, and the Holy Spirit would call him back. For many years his was an "up and down" relationship with God, but the Creator of the Universe would not let him go, would not turn His back on the young man,

Three young men, two with little or no spiritual background, no ethical path to follow when tempted to do wrong; one young man who leaned heavily upon the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Can such fundamentals as the Ten Commandments, make that much of a difference? Can spiritual guidelines be enough to keep a young man on the right path, away from deadly and dead-end temptations?

There are no guarantees. The son of a preacher, growing up in a Christ-centered home, still has free will and the ability to make those decisions that will eventually destroy him and his life.

The scriptures advise us, in Proverbs 22:6, "Start children off on the way they should go, and even when they are old they will not turn from it."

If only the mothers and fathers of our families across America had done that, we would have fewer societal problems today. As individuals before God, as a society, as a nation, a knowledge of the Ten Commandments, and an adherence to the spiritual guidance given by Jesus Christ would have us in very different times.

This is true because our relationship with Jesus Christ is not about keeping rules, obeying laws, or even about keeping from sinning, even though that is an element of it. Our relationship is about obedience, doing those things the Father has told us to do.

The German preacher Dietrich Bonhoeffer, murdered by the Nazis for his opposition to Adolph Hitler, has written, "Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about courageously and actively doing God's will."

How do we know God's will for us? Prayer will seek His will for us, and we will find it in scripture. That's where we find Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments, as well as Jesus' statement in John 13:34-35, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are My disciples, if you love one another."

And yet, if we love one another, how do we allow the bad behavior, the poisoning of the well of youth, the evils that go on in our own society, our own nation against the weak, the poor, the disenfranchised?

Pastor Bonhoeffer, writing more than 70 years ago in a national crisis similar to our own, told us, "Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christians should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong."

How many commandments do we need to make that happen?

Amen.

Here They Are, the Ten Commandments -- God's Revelation in the Old Testament:

ONE: You shall have no other gods before Me.

TWO: You shall not make for yourself a carved image -- any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

THREE: You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.

FOUR: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.

FIVE: Honor your father and your mother.

SIX: You shall not murder.

SEVEN: You shall not commit adultery.

EIGHT: You shall not steal.

NINE: You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

TEN: You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor's.