Presbyterian Devotions: The Great Lafayette - Proverbs 16:25

Proverbs 16:25 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death. 

One hundred years ago today, the Empire Theatre, which stood in the heart of Edinburgh, Scotland, accidentally caught fire after a kerosene lamp was tipped over. The scenery was quickly set ablaze and most people escaped the flames.

During that week, the Great Lafayette, a German magician who was also Europe’s highest paid performer at the time, had brought his travelling mystical show to the theater. At first, he escaped the fire but then decided to go back through the flames in order to rescue his horse. Lafayette never made it and when the fire was eventually put out, the authorities found his body in the ruins. He was buried in one of the city’s cemeteries, along with his little dog which also perished in the blaze.

Lafayette tried to rescue his animals, but it was a decision that cost him his life. It was an act of courage, mercy and kindness, but was also one which ended up killing his famous career and taking away of his life. He probably thought that he was doing the right thing at the right time, but turned out to be the most fatal mistake of his life.

This week our denomination will do away with biblical ordination standards and be less circumspect about who become our elders and pastors. Instead of a national standard, we will have different boundaries established by different presbyteries and local sessions. Rather than follow biblical ethics, we will be guided by cultural conditions which ultimately will lead to a libertine church that the Father of Presbyterianism, John Calvin, sought to avoid.

Some people, younger than me, believe that this is the right way for the church to proceed in the 21^st century and the right path to follow. Only time will tell, but if Biblical history is anything to go by (and I believe it does), the Church will decline overall and it will only be a call to revival that will ultimately save it from itself.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, these are troubling times and our churches are experiencing a lot of emotional and spiritual turbulence. Keep us from following paths that lead us into dead ends. Help to find Your Way in the midst of all of our confusion. In Your Holy Name, we fervently pray. Amen.

John Stuart is currently the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment or ask questions of today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Today’s image is my Easter Window for 2011. It features four drawings that I created for Holy Week. If you would like to see a larger version of the drawing, please visit the following link:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5147/5651268701_f8c5f048aa_b.jpg

Presbyterian Devotions: If God Lied...Titus 1:2

Titus 1:2   …a faith and knowledge resting on the hope of eternal life, which God, who does not lie, promised before the beginning of time…

It all comes down to one thing: does God lie?

I’ve written for months about the struggle that our church is currently experiencing. Very soon changes are going to occur which will alter who we are and what we believe. If find it very disconcerting and am deeply troubled. I’m far from perfect and nowhere near as sinless as I should be, but there’s one clear truth that I have believed in no matter how much of a faithless failure I have been: God does not lie.

In recent times, we have become so used to compartmentalizing truth from feelings, integrity from interpretation, and honesty from our emotions that we’ve deluded ourselves into thinking that God is okay with what we choose to do. So what if God called something abominable in the past, He needs to loosen up and get with the 21^st century program. Who cares if some sins once affected our salvation, God needs to get over it and get on board society’s band wagon!

In other words, God lied. Or He was mistaken or misguided. Or He wasn’t being serious or meant to be taken literally. God lied; He might not have meant it, so we’ll forgive Him and let Him join us.

This is why I am unsettled and troubled. If God lied in the past, then He is capricious and not worthy of our worship. If we are deluding ourselves, then we are on the road to perdition where only repentance can save us.

If God lied, then Christ was forsaken on the Cross and there is no salvation.

If God lied, then Christ’s body turned to dust and there was no resurrection.

If God lied, then we are the most pitiable of fools and there is no point in having or sharing faith.

If God lied, then Christianity is a curse and there is no life after death.

Maybe now you understand my struggle.

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, You told us that You are the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If that is certain, then we are guilty of leading ourselves astray, away from the Truth, with no hope of Life to come. Break down the walls of our convenient compartmentalized choices and make us see the stupidity of our erroneous ways. In Your Holy Name, we pray. Amen.

John Stuart is currently the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment or ask questions of today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Today’s image is John’s latest drawing called “Happy Place.” It’s a rendering of sunrise at Ormond Beach in Florida. If you would like to view a larger version, please click on the following link: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5186/5561482881_b0270db4e6_b.jpg

An 8x10 inch print is also available which you can view on Ebay at http://tinyurl.com/4h3z468

PCUSA Gay Ordination Issues - Cradling the Grave

1 Timothy 4:14           Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you.

The denomination that I belong to finds itself at an unprecedented and unenviable crossroads. Within the next couple of months, the current ordination standards are going to be changed. This means that people who are in an active relationship, whether homosexual or heterosexual, who are not married, can be ordained to ministry if their local presbytery agrees. The only barriers to ministry and eldership will now be academic ones, but even they could be challenged.

For the first time in 2000 years, we will effectively be departing from concise biblical standards. Sinful behavior will no longer require repentance. Acceptance and tolerance will be the idols of this new church; contrition and repentance will be cast aside. The slippery slope to secularism will be placed beneath the feet of the faithful and the influence of the denomination will diminish, much like its European counterparts who are already experiencing the failure of Christian faith throughout their society.

The church will never be the same and I believe that the Holy Spirit will leave us to our own fractured state and false free will. We will delude ourselves as numbers decline, churches close, and presbyteries merge over the next 25 years. We will stubbornly refuse to believe that this was the moment when we abandoned God’s will. But by then it won’t matter; we will have reached the point of no return.

The Christian church will flourish elsewhere. Faithful Christian communities will grow and we will watch with enviable eyes as they are blessed. There will come a day when we will curse this moment in our denomination’s history, but the doom will be imminent and by the end of this new century, the denomination will be consigned to the ecclesiastical history books. Our epitaph will be the following:

“For the sake of society, the church was lost. For the want of acceptance, our souls were lost.”

Prayer:                        Lord Jesus, we are about to reject You, Your Ways and Your Words. We will deceive and delude ourselves about this action as being the right thing to do. Your scriptures warn us that “there is a path that seems right, but it leads to death.” By embracing our society, we are cradling the grave. Forgive us, Lord, for thinking that we know better. In Your Holy Name, we shamefully pray. Amen.

John Stuart is currently the pastor of Erin Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. If you would like to comment or ask questions of today’s message, please send him an email to pastor@erinpresbyterian.org.

Today’s image is one of John’s latest Good Friday drawings. It’s called “Forgive Them” and depicts the brutal moment when Christ was crucified. If you would like to see a larger view of the drawing, please click on the following link:

http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5257/5406505957_0639bd0b80_b.jpg

PCUSA Gay Ordination: Transformation, not Reformation

PCUSA Gay ordination: Transformation, not Reformation

The current on-going issue in the PCUSA concerns the biennial problem of ordaining gay people who are in active sexual relationships. As each year passes, the opposition to this is diminishing which denotes a change in culture as opposed to a change in Biblical standards. And this is where I have a problem with the PCUSA church and its Louisville leaders.

They are calling this a re-formation of the church which is false. Reformation is originally a military term that refers to soldiers in the battlefield. The order for reforming is meant to bring the scattered forces together again in the midst of the battle to a basic standard formation in order to consolidate the strength of the troops. When Luther, Calvin & Knox called for the Church to be reformed, they were asking Christians throughout Europe to get back to the basics of New Testament Christianity. They weren’t seeking to change the church; they were looking to have it return to its most basic biblical principles.

Ordaining gay people is not re-formation, it is transformation because the Church is being asked to radically change from its Biblical and New Testament beliefs. Those who call it reformation are wrong, because in order to reform the church would have to get back to its biblical basics.

Homosexuality has never been a practice that was acceptable in the original Christian church, so what we are being asked to do is to radically change who we are and what we believe is right. If we take this path to accept the ordination of practicing homosexuals then we are separating ourselves from the New Testament Church. We will have transformed into something else and into something other than New Testament Christianity. Our Western culture may demand this of our society, but our churches are meant to be separate from our culture in matters of doctrine, Biblical teaching, and Christ given truth.

In essence we have to ask ourselves this important question: are we Christ’s church in the world, or are we the Western World’s Church?