Pastors' Blog

Let’s see—at the time of this writing the Cubs are down 0-3, Vladimir Putin and Barack Obama have flying aces bumping into each other over Syria, down on the ground Palestinians and Israelis are at it once again, half a world away North and South Korean families are reunited after being separated for 65 years since the Korean War, Wall Street is keeping its fingers crossed about any significant upsurge in the stock market before the end of the year, the latest rumor for the Vatican to squash is about the Pope having a small brain tumor, though the press has tired of reporting the immigration hemorrhage into Europe from the Middle East it still flows unabated, autumn is turning glorious here in the St. Joseph River valley, and did I mention the Cubs?

Life is filled with stuff we simply get used to, isn’t it? And when a little four-year-old girl is caught in the deadly cross-fire of two cars dueling it out in a tragic case of road rage in Albuquerque, we pause, catch our breath over the stab of sorrow for so short a life snuffed out so insanely. And we go on. Because life does just that. Goes on.

Makes you wonder, doesn’t it? How does God handle the headlines? Think about it—He’s the only One in the universe that has to live with them all, all the time, night and day, forever now it seems (to us at least). Poor God. How sad He can’t quietly dismiss or callously forget the way we humans do. Instead He remembers. It all. All the time.

And what’s even more astonishing is that God not only monitors our stories, He monitors the story of every life form that exists. “Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies?” Jesus asked. “Yet not one of them is forgotten by God” (Luke 12:6). And not only does He monitor, He cares. “Yet not one of [those sparrows] will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care” (Matthew 10:29).

In John Peckham’s very new book (Peckham teaches at the theological seminary here at Andrews University), The Love of God: A Canonical Model (InterVarsity Press), he offers up this lengthy definition of God’s love: “At the risk of oversimplification, God’s love is virtuous, kind, generous, unmerited, voluntary, faithfully devoted, evaluative, profoundly affectionate and compassionate, intensely passionate, patient and longsuffering, merciful, gracious, just, steadfast, amazingly reliable and enduring but not unalterably constant, preferential but not arbitrarily exclusive, relationally responsive, desirous of reciprocation, and active” (65).

It takes a lot of words to define the love that courses through the heart of the Creator of this universe, doesn’t it? A universe, and particularly a planet now held hostage by a sin-crazed rebel angel. Whose insane hatred of all that is divine or even reflective of the divine spews forth the headlines we’ve grown dangerously accustomed to of late. Even in Lucifer’s backyard, God is still love.
Which means that “not a sigh is breathed, not a pain felt, not a grief pierces the soul, but the throb vibrates to the Father’s heart” (Desire of Ages 356).
Or as the ancient prophet expressed it, “In all our affliction He is afflicted” (see Isaiah 63:9). Love feels the pain.

Divine love. As Peckham described it, “profoundly affectionate and compassionate, intensely passionate, patient and longsuffering . . . and active.” God’s love. For you. For me. For Putin and Obama. For the reunited families. For the four-year-old’s heart-broken parents. For disappointed Cub fans. For the tiny brown sparrows.

“God is love” (1 John 4:8).

Turns out it’s the only headline that lasts.

After a week of headline heartaches from the mass shooting in Roseburg to the biblical proportion flooding in South Carolina, here’s a headline hardly as ponderous. According to USA TODAY the grammar-checking app Grammarly has run some numbers on the presidential candidates from both parties and their supporters who comment on the candidate’s Facebook page. In short Grammarly set out to find out which candidate’s supporters were the most grammatically correct. I.e., how many spelling and/or grammatical errors appear in the online postings of the various candidates’ supporters.

How did Grammarly come up with its numbers? “A sample of comments from each candidate’s Facebook page was taken, and the negative ones filtered out. Grammarly then took a random sample of at least 180 messages from remaining comments and examined them for errors—focusing on things such as misspellings and punctuation” (USA TODAY 10-7-15).

How did everyone fare? According to Grammarly the most mangled English language treatment added up to “12.6 boo-boos per hundred words.” And the most grammatically correct supporters posted responses averaging 3.1 errors per hundred words. And so between 3.1 and 12.6 errors per hundred words you’ll find all the candidates’ supporters spread out. Makes you wonder how you and I would do, doesn’t it?

I’m sure we’d all agree, though, that checking our grammar is hardly a fair way to evaluate a candidate. Why should the way I spell or write reflect on someone I support?

And yet, wasn’t Jesus suggesting as much  in the Sermon on the Mount? “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Because the truth is: how we live our lives—how we comport ourselves in public, in private—very much reflects on our parents, our spouses, our children, our friends, and even our employers—doesn’t it? Then how much more does how we live reflect on the God we love!

“The church of Christ, every individual disciple of the Master, is heaven’s appointed channel for the revelation of God to [others]. . . . The divine love glowing  in the heart, the Christlike harmony manifested in the life, are as a glimpse of heaven granted to men [and women] of the world, that they may appreciate its [His] excellence” (Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing 40-41).

And so let your light shine, Jesus invites us, with the glow of divine love, the glow of divine compassion—which is precisely what the disenfranchised and alienated among us need from us more than anything else right now (I’m thinking of what we shared last Sabbath in “The Pugwash Factor”—4). Let your light shine so the world, the hurting, the needy, the lost, the lonely may experience God’s compassionate love through you and thus be drawn to Him.

No app to download—just the daily infilling of Jesus so that little things of life—our words of compassion, our acts of kindness, our gestures of friendship—might leave the strongest impression of all.

For God.

Young filmmaker Christopher Hudson has pulled off a headline-grabbing feat. Armed with only a $20,000 budget raised through crowd-funding and gifted with remarkable talent for cutting edge camera work and music/script editing, Hudson directs and stars in this 1:26:00 length docudrama, “Leopard Vision.” Since its September 7 release on YouTube, the movie has gone viral (194,000 YouTube views in less than three weeks). Critics are weighing in, including Hyperfresh, an independent pop culture magazine, which gave “Leopard Vision” a five-star movie review. For a Seventh-day Adventist filmmaker?

It was late in the evening when I got an email this week with one sentence—check out this link. I did. Turns out it was a news piece written by Andrew McChesney for the Adventist Review online. I’d never heard of Christopher Hudson—who grew up an Adventist kid on Long Island but left it all at the age of 19 to hitch his wagon to another star. Began writing “treatments for music videos.” Finally caught a break with Madonna’s production company MadGuy Films. But in the flush of success God caught him. Again. And now “Leopard Vision.”

What struck me—before even watching—was the strong review from Hyperfresh: “Christopher Hudson. Better known globally as the ‘The Forerunner’ has done the unthinkable, in which no man has ever set forth to accomplish, publicly and most importantly—personally. His newest motion picture/documentary ‘Leopard Vision’, reveals the truth behind the biggest hidden agenda in the history of humanity’s existence, which is the decoding of the biblical prophesy [sic] of Revelation in today’s modern times. And this isn’t an ‘opinionated ‘ documentary with assumptions conjured forth by his feelings’ or ‘emotions’. Christopher Hudson uses historical facts proven to be correct in verification of his thesis. . . . By also incorporating Biblical Doctrine and living scripture to confirm this to be evident and true, after watching this film, prepare your mind to be blown out the skull it once rested in” (http://hypefreshmag.com/leopard-vision-delivers-a-powerful-message-all-should-watch/ ).

Hudson’s theme? McChesney wrote: “It’s a Revelation prophecy seminar unlike any you’ve ever witnessed. . . . a hip, fast-paced film that has gone viral on YouTube and . . . . traces the history of the Catholic church while underscoring what Hudson sees as the central theme of the last book of the Bible: that the book is a revelation of Jesus Christ, not of political powers or false systems of worship” (http://www.adventistreview.org/church-news/story3250-young-adventist-filmmaker-turns-bible-prophecy-into-youtube-hit).

Clicking on to the YouTube link, I quickly realized McChesney and Hyperfresh were right—“Leopard Vision” is powerful stuff! Thought I’d catch maybe the first five or 10 minutes but sat in front of my laptop for an hour and half, gripped by Hudson’s screen wizardry, his compelling script and emotive sound track.

On this weekend when the nation and world are mesmerized by the news media’s live coverage of someone who is arguably the most popular human being on the planet today, “Leopard Vision” is a commanding reminder that beyond charisma and news cycles is the unstoppable advance of apocalyptic prophecy—prophecy that is sounding ominously more familiar with each fresh headline. Never read that prophecy before or can’t remember it now? Christopher Hudson’s new tutorial or refresher movie will take care of that—click on to: www.youtube.com/watch?v=gYiXc34-FCk.

In fact do your friends a favor—simply forward this blog with its embedded links or send them the link yourself. Either way wouldn’t this be the right time for the halogen light of prophecy to illumine the gathering darkness?

So is she a hero or a villain? Rowan County (Kentucky) clerk Kim Davis was welcomed by adulating throngs this Tuesday, when U.S. District Court Judge David Bunning, who had incarcerated her last week for contempt of court, released her from jail. At issue is Ms. Davis’ contention that as an Apostolic Christian her conscience forbids her from complying with the Supreme Court’s summer decision declaring same sex marriages legal across this nation. Citing her understanding of biblical injunctions against same sex sexual relations, the Rowan County clerk refused to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples applying for the Supreme Court mandated provision.

So if you were the county clerk, how would you have responded to that dilemma, caught between the highest court in the land’s ruling and a growing que of applicants for same sex marriage licenses?

The issue isn’t so neatly resolved, is it? On the one hand the Bible commands Christians: “Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God” (Romans 13:1). That seems clear enough. For this fallen planet, God has ordained governmental authority and civil power to preserve a semblance of law and order for the human race. “Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience” (v 5).

But of course, “conscience” was and remains the rub. Simply because Ms. Davis cited her conscience as reason for disobeying the court order to issue marriage licenses to same sex couples. The same Bible that commands obedience to governing authorities also declares: “‘We must obey God rather than man’” (Acts 5:29). Those were Peter’s words to the Sanhedrin when he and his fellow apostles were charged not to publicly teach “in this name” of Jesus (v 28). Clearly there are instances when governmental authority is overruled (at least in the divine tribunal) by conscientious loyalty to one’s understanding of God’s Word and His will. Furthermore, even if you have misunderstood a biblical position, you are still enjoined by Scripture to be obedient to your conscience, “for whatever is not from faith [i.e., whatever violates what the conscience believes is right] is sin” (Romans 14:23). Simply put—it is dangerous to disobey your conscience, for through the conscience the Creator communicates with His sentient earth children.

Thus Kim Davis made the decision to honor her conscientious objection to the law of the land and refused to sign the same sex marriage applications. For her act of civil disobedience she was subsequently jailed. Again, what would you have done? Is there a proscribed Christian pathway through the minefield that our national debate over same sex marriage is taking us? What would Jesus do?

On October 3, as a final piece in our mini-series “The Pugwash Factor,” we will grapple with culture, conscience and Scripture in “How to Respond to the Supreme Court’s Same Sex Marriage Decision.” But we must not expect a neat and tidy resolution to the dilemma. Yes, obedience to conscience is in the end a simple matter—just do it—simply obey. But it is hard work to seek an informed conscience that intelligently discerns the issues swirling at Scripture's intersection with our third millennial complexity. Fortunately Christ will guide His followers. What remains for us then is to “take up [your] cross daily and follow Me” (Luke 9:23).