Grace Emmanuel Church

Pastor Sam Chess

Prophetic Steps From Here To Eternity 3

(Our view of Life vs. God's view of Life)

50 to 100 years ago you could still find many people saying that advances in technology and the increase in world knowledge would make the world into a better and better place until we wouldn't need to go to heaven…we would be living in heaven right here on earth.

Time has passed…. technology has exploded…. knowledge has multiplied and now many, perhaps the majority in this world, do not have a rosy view of the future.

People have watched, closely, through the last few decades and seen the evil of communism, watched Hitler murder millions, seen ethnic cleansing and starvation kill off millions more, watched abortion consume 1/3 the world's children…. We are now watching the buildup of nuclear weapons by a growing number of countries every day , the dramatic rising of the world's population and the depletion of our natural resources.

I was struck, in last week's "man-on-the-street" video that nobody said they thought the world was headed toward utopia…everyone suggested that the world was moving toward a crisis.

If you know any thing about the Bible you know that it is filled with predictions that the world is moving toward the mother of all crises…

Jesus: Luke 21:34-36 "Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. 35 For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. 36 Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man." (NIV)

I had several of you tell me that this kind of discussion didn't leave you feeling uplifted. No…and today sermon isn't going to cause you to click your heels either.

I would love to be able to tell you that the human race is basically good, with only a few bad apples, and if we can just get all our heads together and decide to treat each other nicer… that soon one nation after another will join hands and finally one day we all will link arms around the globe in "world peace"… just like all those girls at beauty pageant have been asking for.

I could believe all that if I just didn't have to believe the Bible too!!!! The Bible says mankind is basically sinful and our sinfulness will cause us to do the most destructive kinds of things to our fellowman/ fellow-woman.

The Bible not only doesn't say that, as the end of time approaches humanity will get kindler and gentler…it says that the exact opposite will be true.

2 Timothy 3:1 You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult (painful, tragic, grievous) times. 2 For people will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents (ignoring the positive examples of their ancestors), and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. (including life itself!) 3 They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. 4 They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God. (NLT)

Now that's not very accommodating of mankind.. Many have been buying, for years, into the fallacy that if we just educate the world's people they will get better…then we discover that the more some people know…. the more they use that knowledge to hurt other people.

That's because the world's problem is not a head problem…it's a heart problem!

Romans 1:28 Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. 29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarreling, deception, malicious behavior, and gossip. 30 They are backstabbers, haters of God, insolent, proud, and boastful. They invent new ways of sinning, and they disobey their parents. 31 They refuse to understand, break their promises, are heartless, and have no mercy. 32 They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too. (NLT)

My wife calls me after some of the meetings she has with community leaders where they are openly advocating actions that will move our community directly opposite to God's principles…. they use some of the most distorted logic, openly promote facts that are easily disproved…. Yet much of the rest of the community leadership seems to embrace their godless viewpoints and then rejects anything with any smell of the Bible on it.

My wife has called me after those meeting saying Why? Why??

My response is: "You are expecting sinners not to think like sinners. The Bible says sinners will continue to think like sinners and as the end approaches their sinfulness will become even more sinful.

Only by repenting of our sinfulness ….embracing the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ death and resurrection, and submitting our lives to God's guidance do any of us stop thinking like sinful people and start thinking righteous thoughts.

There are few places where this chasm between sinful thinking and righteous thinking is more sharply defined that in our view of life itself.

Our view of Life vs. God's view of Life.

Last week the brother of Saddam Hussein was hanged. We were a little startled to find out that when he dropped to the end of the rope, the slightly misplaced noose severed his head from his body. Then we read that this was the man who took other Iraqis and literally fed them through a meat grinder while family members were forced to watch. We re-coil even more at that thought to the point of not even allowing that picture to fill out in our minds.. it's just too much to contemplate.

Why? Why are you struggling with that thought. SS officers in WWII. found humor in herding human beings into gas chambers. Everyday people in this world we live in are ruthlessly killed in the most horrendous ways as other look on in satisfaction.

How can that be? What makes people delight in the death of another human being. How can any human being maliciously snuff out the life of another human being and not be wracked with guilt and shame….. Don't be shocked…it's exactly as God said it would be:

Romans 1:29 Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness.. murder, quarreling… malicious behavior… 31 They refuse to understand… are heartless, and have no mercy. (NLT)

But this particular issue goes so much deeper than just surface sin… How we respond to other human life is so much more an inner spiritual indicator than whether or not we cheat on a test at school.

Some sins are simply infractions of God's stated laws. This sin… strike at the very root of who God is! We have Scriptures that gives us clues into God's relationship to human life:

Acts 17:25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. (NIV)

Psalm 36:7b  All humanity finds shelter in the shadow of your wings.
8 You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your river of delights. 9 For you are the fountain of life, the light by which we see.

Acts 3:15 You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact! (NLT)

Jesus is said to be the Light of Life, his words the Word of Life, his salvation the Gift of New Life, he promises us, in this world, Abundant Life, and in the world to come Eternal Life.

See… Human Life and the core of who God is…are all wrapped up together. When God created man he "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life"…. That had to be more than just air.

When God made a horse he put air into it's lungs….when he created humans he "breathed into our nostrils the breath of life". He invested his own essence into us. He took his "power of being" and injected some of it into humanity. The horse lives it's life… uses up it's breath and never gets to go to "horsy" heaven. Once we start to breathe….. we will never, really, eternally stop because we aren't just functioning with air in our lungs, we have the breath of God deep into our very souls.

Genesis describes us as being made in God's image:

Genesis 1:27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. (NLT)

This doesn't mean we look like God on the outside… God's image is something stamped on the inside. The seed of God's character is stamped into every strand of our DNA.

You can see the fingerprints of God in all of creation…all around us…every day.

But only inside humans is the DNA of God inter-woven into the spiritual DNA of mankind.

You remember when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus on the subject of paying taxes…

Matthew 22:18 But Jesus knew their evil motives. “You hypocrites!” he said. “Why are you trying to trap me? 19 Here, show me the coin used for the tax.” When they handed him a Roman coin, 20 he asked, “Whose picture and title are stamped on it?” 21 “Caesar’s,” they replied. “Well, then,” he said, “give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God.” 22 His reply amazed them, and they went away.

There a deeper meaning here than the issue of paying taxes. I have several coins here with the image " The United States of America" stamped on them. They're mine!.... actually they're not. I can use them for an indefinite period of time. I can trade them for goods equal to their stamped value. I f I decide to melt them down and use the metal for something else I can be arrested and put in prison… You see. I can use the coins for an extended period….all my life… but they still actually belong to the United States government.

What has Caesar's image stamped on it belongs to Caesar… what has God's image stamped on it belong to God. You are welcome to use that with God's image stamped on it for an extended period but any attempts to destroy God's image without his permission will bring his punishment.

From the time of Cain and Abel … God has the harshest of words, and punishments, for those who maliciously destroy his image in another human being.. without his permission.

Let me take us one step further into theology before I apply this to our present day lives.

1 Corinthians 3:16 Don’t you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 God will destroy anyone who destroys this temple. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.

If you know anything about 1 Corinthians… you know that Paul is speaking to Christians and non-Christians alike. A temple is defined as where you can find God…. And the temple of humanity is where you find the stamp of God with all the spiritual DNA of our Creator.

When we come to Christ as our personal Savior we often talk of giving ourselves to God. We aren't really, you know…. We are really acknowledging what is already his…taking our hands off the sovereignty of our lives and returning control of our lives to the one who they rightfully belong to. The process of growth in the Christian life …sanctification… is the process of increasingly yielding control of our lives back to our Creator. As we yield he is able to more and more completely "fill" his temple…which is our lives.

1 Corinthians 6:19-20 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body. (NIV)

Spiritual goal is to allow God to be not only the resident but president!

Let's apply this to Sanctity of Life Sunday:

A respect of God brings a corresponding respect of life… A disrespect of God brings a corresponding disrespect of life… The closer one comes into relationship with God the more value one places on His image stamped in humanity. The further one is from the Creator of the Universe the less one "sanctifies" human life…. Or as we say…. believes in the "Sanctity of Human Life"

… A disrespect of "Yahweh" God brings a corresponding disrespect of life… The closer one comes into relationship with God the more value one places on His image stamped in humanity.

Godless societies of the past, like the Roman empire, had absolutely no respect for human life. The Romans practiced a tradition called "paterfamilias" where life was only considered human life if they decided to "receive" it. Romans did not have babies, they made a careful decision to "receive" a baby. If they chose to say no… the child was put outside the city on special walls that the wild animals fed from. That horrifies you… only because the image of God is reflecting in your soul. It didn't bother them or dozens of other civilizations that practiced it.. in the least. Great minds like Plato and Aristotle, Cicero, Plutarch saw nothing wrong with it whatsoever. Of course.. neither did any of those people have a personal relationship with Creator God.

The only reason any of that changed was because Christianity came into those societies and ignited the inner image of God until it changed the collective conscience of whole communities.

Read your history books…. Laws against killing the unwanted in society came not because of the efforts of politicians… They were the direct result of the spread of Christianity and the heart change people experienced.

Now let's reverse that…. When the "religion of secularism" gained prominence in America.. and make no mistake: Secularism is a religion! Their God is themselves, their sacred doctrines are very carefully spelled out.. and near the top of their list of doctrines is the right to terminate a pregnancy. The latest on their list of doctrines is embryonic stem cell research. There has never been the slightest inkling that embryonic stem cells will cure anything (adult stem cells.. yes!) but they speak if it as fervently as a Christian affirms the Virgin Birth of Jesus Christ. The idea that they are snuffing out one life to try to prolong another doesn't even touch their radar.

If you think of these issues as just political footballs you are missing the whole point. We don't own life!…. We don't get to decide when to end it! …Ending life, without God's permission, is a grave injustice. We are not manipulating the air in people's lungs, or the blood pumping through their heart…we are toying with the image of God buried deep in their soul. God says: Human life is mine alone to determine!

I've said it every year, but it begs to be restated. We don't get to be part of the argument about whose live is worthy… who are or are not "persons". (Nazis, slaves) The argument about when life begins is useless.

Life began just once when God breathed the "breath of life" into Adam and Eve. Ever since then we only transfer life from parents to child. An egg and sperm are alive…the image of God stamped into their DNA. When they unite into a new human being… God's living image is already sovereignty moving that embryo toward its eternal destiny.

The idea that we, somehow, control that…or should control it…. is the epitome of human arrogance.