Dear Trekker,
The AP headlines today in Colorado are intriguing to say the least… “Thousands Flock to Denver for Marijuana Celebration.” The article leads: “The counterculture marijuana holiday known as 4/20 is getting an early start in Denver where tens of thousands (80,000 estimated) are expected for a group smoke-out on the first celebration since Colorado and Washington made pot legal for recreation use.” Though public marijuana use is still prohibited in Colorado, the article notes that “authorities generally look the other way at public pot smoking here on April 20.” (Bad habits quickly gather speed!)
As I race toward octogenarian status, these are interesting times in which we live. The word “counterculture” (noted above) is interesting indeed… one wrinkles his brow wondering what is the culture today? For something to be counter, the culture must be clearly identified! That is difficult in a society where anything goes; and if one stands for something traditional in a “feel-good” culture, he usually is automatically a bigot, mean-spirited and out-of-touch. The name of the game is…“tolerate everything”… or so it seems.
I am writing at the end of the week of the Boston Massacre, where the thought booming across the airwaves is “why would these two nice, normal young brothers do such a horrific thing?” Yesterday morning in the quiet of my daily spiritual reading, the following words caused me to ponder deeply the cultural turmoil within my own country: “But as they came closer to Jerusalem and he saw the city ahead, he began to cry. “Eternal peace was within your reach and you turned it down,” he wept, “and now it is too late.” Your enemies will pile up earth against your walls and encircle you and close in on you, and crush you to the ground, and your children within you, your enemies will not leave one stone upon another – for you have rejected the opportunity God offered you.” (Luke 19:41-44, The Living Bible translation.)
Could these principles perhaps apply to the USA as they do to Israel? I thought…Americans are not God’s chosen people as were the Hebrews, but are there principles inviolate for any nation? Does God weep over squandered opportunity today? Does a nation founded universally on Biblical concepts pass the point of “no return” to those principles?
Trekker, let me be clear. There is tumultuous change taking place in our country! We will argue in the next few days such issues as who should try this young Muslim murderer (immigrant turned citizen) in Boston…all just details in the big picture! Who we are as a nation is key! Note…we have never been a “Christian nation” legally, by the wise design of our forefathers. Though once a Judeo/Christian nation culturally, today we are a pluralistic nation religiously and morally, living in a post-Christian American culture. The “tired and poor” who have entered our country (legally or illegally) may or may not yearn to breathe free these days. They learn our language and enter our great Christian and Jewish private and state universities, but they are not being taught many of the same principles on which these bastions of education were founded. “Train up a child in the way he should go”, a thoroughly biblical, Judeo/Christian concept, has been short circuited and has today no universal sanction. That youth do not automatically “turn out well” never surfaces. Core values not passed on wither and die, particularly when apathy and secularism rule… but too few care.
Nations and kingdoms rise and wane. That is the truth of human history. And when cultures dry up, burn up or are gobbled up by those stronger, what remains? For sure trekker, “Ichabod” can be written all over the landscape of our country. The glory has departed! Can it be recaptured? I don’t know. Have we reached the point of no return? I don’t know. But let America not be deceived. God cannot be mocked! A man (or a nation) reaps what is sown. If we sow to satisfy our sinful bent (out of touch relationally with God), we reap destruction. (See St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, Chapter 6…quite instructive.)
What will remain if we continue down the path of self-indulgence, standing for nothing but accepting non-traditional, untested, never-proven-to-last-or-build-anything-values so popular today? What you can know for sure is that the church will remain in America and across the world. And persecution will take place here as elsewhere. The church likely will go underground. True martyrs will abound. But the church will never die for it is not a human institution. It is divinely conceived and inspired, the Body of Christ, His faithful followers in every age being added to the visible (and invisible) church daily by the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said something quite amazing to his disciples: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not overcome it.” (Matthew 16:16-18) The church is the only entity (as I read Holy Scripture) which will last through this life and be a part of life hereafter. Think about it trekker! What God builds, lasts. What God builds, remains. It can’t be any other way!
How do you think God is doing these days “in building his church”? (Not that He cares a whole lot what you or I think about His workmanship!) Sadly, his church is fragmented by division, repeatedly scandalized by immorality of its members, not respected for its true values, often exposed unmercifully for its judgmental spirit… and far from replicating the ministry Jesus modeled in His brief lifespan on earth 2000 years ago.
Yes, there are short falls of “where we should be” as a church. But, God is faithful! He builds, He raises up, He forgives, He gives second chances. He provides the “means” (His Spirit) for us as the church to “grow into His likeness”, the real purpose of the church. The church of Jesus constant will remain! Nothing will stamp out the church; that is impossible, for God is building it. He is succeeding!
So where should our priorities be today, trekker? Clearly, priority one should be joining God as He builds His church! All that we do must be done to the Glory of God. We are in the world but not “of it”. We are of God; we are the Church. If any man be “in Christ”, he is in “the church”. We work as salt and light in society, bringing about “the kingdom on earth as it is in heaven”, loving our neighbor… always knowing the church (only) will remain at any point in history. This is Good News!
Nothing can defeat the church because God is the builder. Unexpected twists and turns occur, but grace is always greater than our sin and short sightedness! So let’s be steadfast, immoveable. always abounding in the work of the Lord.
Be encouraged…your friend,
Jim Meredith
