The Leading Cause of Death in America

Newsletter Article for April 2005

© 2005 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

The government and the popular media would like you to believe that more people die of heart disease each year than any other cause, but that is not quite true. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in 2002 (the latest data available) 696,947 people died of heart disease and 557,271 people died of cancer. These were the reported leading causes of death in 2002, but in their annual reports the NCHS and the Center for Disease Control (CDC) omit the greatest killer of Americans. In 2002 there were an estimated 1,300,000 people killed by abortion in the United States. This is more than died of heart disease and cancer combined! That makes abortion, far and away, the leading cause of death in America, but because of politics, it is officially unacknowledged.

The failure of the government to accurately report this fact means that few people realize the true magnitude of the problem. Although the information is available, you really have to work to find it, and few people do, so most Americans remain ignorant about the magnitude of the tragedy. The Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI) calculates that since 1973, when the U.S. Supreme Court first illegally legislated nationwide permissive abortion laws, there have been at least 44,000,000 abortion deaths in the United States through 2004. The AGI also believes that these numbers are low by as much as 2,000,000 due to abortion providers underreporting their true numbers.

These numbers are truly frightening. Although the number of people killed each year in abortions has gone down slightly since about 1990, the 1,300,000 Americans killed each year are more than were killed in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the two recent Iraq wars, and the war in Afghanistan combined (1,111,000)!

This is one issue in which Christians should be the strongest voices in opposition to this senseless slaughter, and among those supporting anti-abortion activities Christians certainly are well represented, and Christians aren’t the only ones working to stop the slaughter, but compared to the magnitude of the problem their voices seem to be as yet small and drowned out by a belligerent force viciously supporting the murder of millions of innocent babies each year. Christians should be united in this cause because God’s Word is very clear. God’s Command says, “You shall not murder.” In several other places such as Deut. 18:10-13 and Leviticus 18:21 God further clarifies this by forbidding and condemning parents from murdering their children. In Jeremiah 7:31 God condemns His people for killing their children because it was “something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind.” Although the ancient people did this to children who were already born there is no doubt that God’s response was and is the same. In Deut. 18 God forbids the ritual murder of children, calls it “detestable”, and reminds them that it is because of these “detestable practices” of the Canaanites that God was going to drive them out of the land in order to give the land to the Israelites (who would presumably not do such practices.)

Now some godless abortion apologist would likely point out that in not one of the 44,000,000 (or 46,000,000) abortions performed in the U.S. in the past 32 years has anyone called on Molech. This much is true, as far as it goes, but it ignores the real reasons behind the ancient pagan practice of infanticide. The reason why the ancient pagans killed their children was because they wanted their god to bless them and make them prosper and if this detestable practice meant one less mouth to feed then so much the better (until the real God got fed up with this and sent conquering enemies to slaughter the whole lot of them). People today have abortions for much the same reason. They want to prosper, and what they imagine prosperity to be is being able to commit adulteries and fornication and not have to deal with the responsibilities of the results of such activities (i.e. children).

You can ignore ALL of the popular arguments in favor of abortion. They are all grotesque, detestable lies. According to National Right to Life, a survey of women seeking abortions indicated that only 7% of women cited typical “hard cases” (rape, incest, or some health concern with either the baby or the mother) as the primary reason they were seeking abortion. That means 93% of abortions (about 41,000,000 in the past 32 years) were the completely “detestable” actions committed for the convenience of the mother and/or the father (not that the other 7% are not also detestable to God). Although the statistics also show that the death rate for women who have abortions has gone down since 1973, it is still immoral to slaughter 1,300,000 innocent babies to save 200 lives.

Bernard Nathanson is a former abortion doctor who helped sell legal abortion to the nation in the early 1970’s. He came to realize what a horror this really was and in an eye-opening and chilling article entitled “How Lying Marketers Sold Roe vs. Wade to America” he tells how abortion advocates lied (and still lie) to influence public opinion. He says,

We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one, knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1 million.

Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000.

Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization.

The lying continues, as shown by the government’s refusal to accurately report the number of abortions and their reticence to include these figures in reports such as the ones which list the leading causes of death among Americans. It makes one wonder about the politicians who are so outspoken in support for this murderous “choice”. Apparently they are pandering to the wicked desires of their constituents who wish to engage in any of a number of wicked lifestyles without any fear of retribution or responsibility for their actions. It is telling that former President Clinton disingenuously said that abortion ought to be “safe, legal, and rare”. If something is so admittedly immoral that it ought to be “rare”, then the best way to make it rare is for it to be made illegal, no matter how “safe” it may be. It is certainly not “safe” for the 1,300,000 babies who are viciously murdered every year.

Black Christian Americans ought to be especially vocal in their opposition to this outrageous massacre. The largest abortion provider in the world is Planned Parenthood, which was founded by the racist eugenicist Margaret Sanger, who promoted the idea that non-white races were inferior. The fruit of this ideology is seen in the fact that according to the CDC, 36% of all women who obtained abortions in 2001 were black. This is far out of proportion with the fact that black people only comprise around 13% of the general population. The CDC also reports that “The abortion ratio for black women (491 per 1,000 live births) was 3.0 times the ratio for white women (165 per 1,000).” That ratio is astoundingly sad! It means that nearly for every two children who are born to black mothers one other baby is killed by abortion! There should be protests in the street until this wickedness is ended, but instead, black Americans have been overwhelmingly supportive of the major political party which advocates this massacre. Where you find such inconsistencies you are surely to find sin at the root of it.

Holy Scripture frequently describes sin as “darkness” because sin has a blinding effect on those in its grasp. Christ Jesus has a cure for this blindness. He is the cure for this blindness. Jesus calls on all sinners to repent of their sins and look to Him for forgiveness. In John 3:19-21 Jesus describes the situation in this way, “Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” Christians are the Body of Christ in the world by His grace and we must shed light on such wickedness and sin. The sinners surely are not going to like it, but if we can lead sinners to repentance and also to faith in Jesus then in the end it is much better than burning in hell for eternity. Some may object that not all who practice or seek abortions will burn in hell, but only those who repent of this sin (and all others) and look to Christ for forgiveness will escape the torment of hell.

It really isn’t enough for Christians to say that, “Well, I would never commit adultery or fornication or kill my baby. I don’t want to impose my beliefs on others.” Remember that in the Old Testament when Israel had such ideas God punished the whole nation. And besides, God wants ALL people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:4). The truth is that abortion in America has gone beyond mass murder, and even beyond genocide. It is fortunate for us that God is “slow to anger” (Num. 14:18) because “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, therefore you are feared.” (Psalm 130:3-4) God will certainly forgive those who repent of any evil thing, but although God is slow to anger, when his wrath is kindled it is fearsome. Those who wish to remain in their sins are certainly still subject to God’s anger and punishment. If we, as Christians “love one another” as Jesus loves us then we ought to vehemently condemn sins such as abortion as the wicked things that they are so that the sinners may repent and find forgiveness in Jesus. God is a forgiving God who sent His own Son to be our savior. Jesus willingly sacrificing His life that we might be spared God’s eternal wrath. We can also show the world that through the grace of God even the fruits of adultery (children) can be a tremendous blessing from God to people who love Him.

A Squirrel in the House

Newsletter article for March 2005

© 2005 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

There once was a group of tenants who rented a house. One day a squirrel got into the house and began to make a mess. The squirrel chewed holes in the tenants belongings, knocked over the furnishings, and made a great mess in the house. The tenants complained to the landlord and he sent a housekeeper to clean up the mess and deal with the situation.

When the housekeeper arrived at the house he saw what the problem was right away. He quickly began planning to get rid of the squirrel and clean up the mess in the house. But when he told the tenants what he was going to do they strongly objected. They thought the squirrel was “cute” and they had really grown attached to it and didn’t want to get rid of the squirrel, despite the damage it was doing in the house. The housekeeper had never before heard such nonsense and tried to reason with the tenants, but they wouldn’t let him remove the squirrel so that he could clean up the house. The housekeeper was determined to clean up the house because he worked for the landlord and not the tenants, but so as not to upset the tenants too much too quickly he resolved to move slowly.

The housekeeper thought he would first try to clean up a little bit of the mess the squirrel had made so that the tenants would see how good it was to live in a clean house, and then he would also explain to them all the good benefits of squirrel removal so that they would appreciate when the squirrel was gone. This was the plan, but it didn’t go quite as he had hoped. Whenever the housekeeper tried to clean up the mess the squirrel had made, or repair the damage it had done the tenants objected. They had grown so attached to the squirrel over time that they had gotten so used to the squirrel’s destruction that they couldn’t bear to live without it, and they wouldn’t let the housekeeper lift one finger to do the work that he had been sent to accomplish.

The housekeeper tried to show the tenants that keeping a wild animal in the house was self-destructive, and it violated the terms of their lease, but they dismissed the words of the housekeeper by calling him such things as “insensitive” and “uncaring.” Some of the tenants might have listened to the housekeeper, but the other tenants told them that the real problem was the housekeeper, and that all their problems would go away if the housekeeper left. So the housekeeper found little support among the tenants.

Most of the time the tenants listened politely to what the housekeeper told them about all the benefits of letting him remove the squirrel and cleaning up the landlord’s house where they lived, but they didn’t believe a word of it, and they wouldn’t let the housekeeper do his work.

As time went by some of the tenants did grow weary of living in a house which was increasingly being torn to bits by the squirrel and its progeny. The squirrel had made a nest and there was a whole family of squirrels just destroying the landlord’s house and despoiling the tenants’ belongings. A few tenants decided to move out, and a little later, a few more tenants moved out. The housekeeper couldn’t blame them for leaving. He would have left himself except that the landlord had given him a job to do and he wanted to see the job accomplished. He also wanted the tenants to see the wisdom of getting rid of the squirrel so that even if they moved somewhere else they would not bring such destruction to another of the landlord’s houses.

When the tenants saw that people were moving out they began to get upset and again blamed the housekeeper. The housekeeper thought that this was just more of their nonsensical rationalizations, but there was a bit of truth to their complaints. The housekeeper had not done his job and people were leaving. It’s not that people wouldn’t have left if he had done the job in opposition to the tenants, but he had tried to accommodate the irrational and self-destructive desires of these tenants, and in doing this he hadn’t done his job.

The housekeeper began to do what he had been sent to do. He found all the squirrel nests in the house and removed them and all squirrels that he was able to find. Then he started to clean up and repair the damage done by the rodents. The tenants had a fit! They complained about what the housekeeper was doing. They told how other tenants in other houses lived in similar squirrel squalor, as if that would excuse their own misdeeds. Then they proceeded to call the housekeeper all kinds of nasty names. They tried to turn all of the other tenants against the housekeeper and the landlord by telling lies about him. When they saw they couldn’t intimidate him from doing his job they began to conspire secretly how they could sneak more squirrels into the house without the housekeeper or the landlord knowing about it.

When the situation had gotten so bad that the house was beyond repair the tenants still tenaciously kept at their destructive ways. They complained that they had hit rock bottom, but they didn’t believe they were really at rock bottom because they still felt that everything would be better if only the housekeeper wasn’t there to clean up the mess that they had allowed to grow, and they still tried to get the housekeeper kicked out of the landlord’s house. A squirrel is not a person, but they loved that squirrel and its destruction more than they loved the housekeeper or the landlord.

What do you think the landlord will do to those wicked tenants? (See Matt. 21:33-44)

The Christian and Culture

Newsletter article for February 2005

by Rev. Paul Wolff

© 2005 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

It has become something of a commonplace for Christians in our culture to believe that in order to win converts we must be sensitive to the culture of the people we are witnessing to, instead of seeking to replace the godless worldly culture with a true worship of God. This would only be true if the process of winning converts would only involve trying to please people. Holy Scripture rejects this view. Saint Paul writes to the Galatians, “Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Gal. 1:10) If we seek to accommodate earthly culture in order to please people then we have made the people and their culture into false gods, which God condemns.

In the Old Testament God did not give the Israelite people the specific task of evangelism or making converts. God’s people were to give witness and testimony about God’s gracious kindness through their history and the blessings of life. There’s actually more directions from God about totally destroying the pagan idolaters who were inhabiting the land which God reserved for His people, Israel, than about converting other peoples. They weren’t told to destroy all pagan idolaters, just the ones living where God wanted His people to live. For those foreigners who saw God’s gracious dealing with Israel and wished to be a part of God’s people, God gave guidelines as to how this was to be done. In many cases foreigners were welcomed into the family of God, but they had to submit completely to God’s laws, including circumcision and the ceremonial and religious laws, and they had to completely forsake their previous way of life including all worship of other gods and even foreign dietary practices which conflicted with God’s Law.

In Deuteronomy 7:3 God forbade intermarriage with pagans because God knew that these spouses would tend to turn the people away from God, rather than vice versa. The Israelite people were a people holy to God and He wanted them to remain in His love (see John 15:9-10) and that is why He warned them not to accommodate the cultures of other people.

In Deuteronomy 7:7-11 God explains that He did not choose Israel because they were more numerous or more powerful than the other nations. The Israelite nation was small and weak in comparison with many of their neighbors. Actually when God chose them as His people there were only two of them: Abraham and Sarah; and they were already rather old at the time. This fact is also a good answer to those who question the validity of Scripture by saying, “What makes you think Christianity is the only true religion?” as if to say that “might makes right” or because two thirds of the world denies God this means that four billion to two billion – you lose. Four billion people can be wrong if they deny God’s Word.

One person who is faithful to God’s Word can stand against any number of those who deny God even if the odds are six billion people to one person. Jesus says, “If you hold to my teaching, you really are my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth shall set you free.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t make any concessions to cultural considerations, unless you count faithfulness to His Word as a cultural consideration, but that would be God’s culture, rather than earthly culture. When God chose Israel as His people He looked after them and gave them prime land to live on, and He defeated their more powerful enemies, and protected them as long as they were obedient to Him and kept His law.

When the Israelites took over the land of Canaan God told them to destroy all cultural artifacts which went along with the false worship practices of the pagans. God’s people were instructed by God not to have respect for the cultures of the pagans. These cultural artifacts were not some quaint reminder of the olden days without any deeper meaning, they were an ongoing threat to the true faith and a stumbling block which would lead people to forsake God if not destroyed. When Israel did as God asked He was pleased and blessed them and gave them victory and protection. When Israel disobeyed God and saved some of these foreign cultural artifacts, God was angry and He punished the people for their rebellion.

When God gave the Israelites the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20 & Deut. 5) He specifically stated in the preamble to the First Commandment that the authority of these commands comes from the fact that the one who spoke them is “the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.” This would be true and valid even for foreigners even if it were not specifically historically true for those who came from other nations originally. It would be true spiritually when the foreigners abandoned their cultures and were adopted by God and made a part of His people through His eternal covenant.

Even in the New Testament where Christ sends His Apostles to go to the “ends of the earth” to make disciples, and the ceremonial rules of the Old Testament have been fulfilled and completed in Christ himself, God’s people are not to make concessions to culture. Jesus commissions His disciples to “make disciples of all nations, baptizing them … and teaching them….” Jesus commands His people to use the means of grace so that the Holy Spirit would change the worldly cultures into a Christian culture.

Peter writes, “once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God.” (1 Peter 2:10) Christianity has its own culture which supersedes all worldly cultures. Paul also writes to the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” Thus the cultural identities which we formerly had no longer apply to the Christian.

Should we be worried that we might offend people’s cultures? No, we should fear God rather than men. Are we going to offend? Evangelism always includes calling sinners to repentance. How can that not offend someone? St. Paul recognizes this reality when he writes to the Corinthian Church that the message of the crucified Christ is “a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (1 Cor. 1:23) Does this fact stop him from offending such people? Not at all. Only ten verses later in his letter Paul writes, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.”

Hermeneutics

Newsletter article for December 2004

© 2004 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

“There is no God.”

“I am a god.”

“God is tempting me.”

“Jesus be cursed.”

This may seem like a foolish question, but which of these phrases comes from the Bible? The quick and easy answer is that they all are found in the Bible, but the true answer is that in this form they are all taken out of context. Here are these same verses in their proper context:

“The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” (Psalm 14:1)

“Will you then say, ‘I am a god,’ in the presence of those who kill you? You will be but a man, not a god, in the hands of those who slay you.” (Ezekiel 28:9)

“When tempted, no one should say, ‘God is tempting me.’ For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death. Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.” (James 1:13-16)

“No one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, ‘Jesus be cursed,’ and no one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.” (I Corinthians 12:3)

Hermeneutics is the study of the interpretation of texts such as the Holy Scriptures. As I have demonstrated above the proper interpretation is essential if a person is going to properly understand what the Bible has to teach. Otherwise if we have a false method of interpreting the Bible we can even make God’s Word say what we want it to say, despite what it really says.

Jesus calls the devil the “father of lies” (John 8:44) but even the devil lies in a sneaky way so that he makes his deadly lies seem attractive and true. When the devil was tempting Jesus (see Luke 4 or Matt. 4) he quoted Psalm 91:11-12 which reads, “He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.” What the devil was trying to do was to get Jesus to commit suicide by jumping off of a tall building. His wicked reasoning went like this: “If God promised to protect you then you can’t be hurt, so make him prove it by jumping.” Jesus was not convinced by this fallacious argument. First of all, Jesus believed the teaching from Psalm 91 so he didn’t need to prove that God would save him. He already knew it by faith. Also, Jesus knew better than to say, “Well, if the Bible says it then it must be true.” Jesus knew the Bible better than that. He answered the devil by quoting another Bible verse which says “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.” (Deut. 6:16) This demonstrates the hermeneutical principle which states, “Let Scripture interpret Scripture.” All scripture is true because it is God’s Word (2 Tim. 3:16) so just because one passage is accepted as true it doesn’t mean that you can reject another.

We saw this type of false hermeneutic at St. Timothy earlier this year when an unknown and still-unrepentant person made reference to Exodus 32:18 in a newsletter article which gave the false argument that because God wants us to sing then all singing must be God-pleasing. Well, anyone who is familiar with the story of Exodus 32 knows that God was not pleased with this singing, and He was so angry over their false praise that he was ready to destroy all the people of Israel (see v. 10) and start over with Moses. So just because singing is one way to properly praise God, it doesn’t mean that all singing properly praises God.

I have also heard someone try to tell me this year that because Scripture says to “Sing for joy to the Lord” (Ps. 95) it is all right to commit the idolatry of self-worship. Well, not exactly in those words, but that was the obvious intent of the argument in the same way that Satan also tried to tempt Jesus to disobey God by his misuse of Psalm 91. I was not swayed by this misuse of God’s Word, but I am extremely concerned that some people around here are misusing God’s Word in just such a way, and that other people are possibly being misled by such lies.

Hermeneutics by themselves are not pro-Christian or anti-Christian. They are tools which may help Christians understand God’s Word so that through it they may believe in Jesus and receive His salvation. A proper interpretation of God’s Word shows us Christ as our savior. An improper interpretation shows us something else which cannot save us. It is the great strength of Lutheran theology that we have the proper tools to understand the Scriptures “which are able to make you wise unto salvation” (2 Tim. 3:15), but even the best theology and the best teaching will do no good if we don’t use them, or don’t believe the truth of God’s Word. “Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.” (James 1:16)

The Fruits of Pietism

Newsletter article for November 2004

© 2004 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

Pietism is an anti-Christian ideology which completely turns upside down the role of piety in Christian life. Proper Christian piety is what we do to practice and live out our faith. Pietism makes piety primary and faith secondary (actually pietism tries to turn faith itself into a good work, contrary to Eph. 2:8-9). Pietism makes works its goal rather than faith. Those who understand Lutheran doctrine, or the Biblical teachings on faith and good works, will understand that pietism emphasizes the Law over the Gospel.

Although pietists claim to be fervent Christians, and claim to do everything in the name of Christ, pietism is truly anti-Christian because it steals away the true comfort Christians have in the all-sufficient work of Christ and replaces it with an emphasis on personal acts or feelings to provide a false sense of satisfaction. There may be some temporary sense of comfort in pietistic acts, but that only works as long as we can keep it going. The problem with basing our faith on feelings is the same problem with illicit drugs. A first time drug user will feel an incredible “high” with a relatively small amount of the drug, but each subsequent experience requires more of the drug to feel good, and the user will find himself or herself dismayed that the original good feelings cannot be reproduced. When true healing comes it feels a lot like suffering and pain and death rather than anything approaching peace and comfort. So it is that pietists become “addicted” to good works which aren’t really good works in the Biblical sense because pietists intend to serve their own feelings rather than serving their neighbor in a truly God–pleasing way.

Pietists do not see Holy Scripture as the sole source and authority of doctrine and the Christian life. Personal experiences or feelings are valued more. Pietists are more likely to believe the false teaching that God speaks to them personally apart from the Holy Scriptures. This all too easily plays into the hands of the devil, who is eager to substitute his lies for the truth of God’s word. Remember that the devil got Eve to doubt God’s word by saying, “Did God really say…?” Pietists may encourage Bible study, but since personal feelings are valued more than the truth – individual interpretations easily lead to false teachings, false belief, and heresy. Even Bible studies led by a trained pastor will be seen as an exercise in finding consensus rather than an exercise in learning the truth of God’s word.

Because pietism is based upon subjective feelings, pietists will rationalize sin as long as they feel they are doing something which is pleasing to God. It won’t matter to a pietist that a particular sin is condemned by God in Holy Scripture because as long as it feels right the feelings matter more to them than an objective command, even if it comes from God. So the pietist will be very bold in his or her sins.

In the Bible there is perhaps no greater example of a pietist rationalizing his sin than King David. There have been few people (if any) who have had so much trust in God to put their lives on the line as much as David, and fewer people who have received so much earthly blessings as a result of such faith. But when David committed adultery with Uriah’s wife and then when the cover-up failed had Uriah murdered, it must have seemed to David that despite the unbelievable wickedness of those sins they were the right things to do because they felt like the right things to do at the time. It made David feel good to spend intimate time with Bathsheba, and then it felt good to have her husband killed because at least that was better (in David’s eyes) than publicly admitting the betrayal and being stoned to death for committing this crime. However, even the faithful David’s feelings betrayed him. He forgot for a few brief, but tragic, moments that he was a sinner and that his feelings were corrupted by sin. He realized this later when he repented and he confessed in Psalm 51 that he was “sinful from the time my mother conceived me.”

There is no lasting comfort in pietism. If we trust in our feelings we will sooner or later be betrayed by them also. Our feelings are inherently selfish, and if we place ourselves above all things then there will be no room in our lives for God and His word. There is true comfort in God’s word. Even if we find ourselves suffering like for doing good, like the addict who has forsaken the feel-good drugs, we can be assured of God’s forgiveness and salvation.

God’s word is a sure thing because it shows us what Jesus has done for us, and not what we need to do. Jesus told the Pharisees, “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” (John 5:39-40) The Scriptures do deliver eternal life because they show us Jesus. “Whoever believes in [Jesus] will have eternal life.” (John 3:16) Christ’s life and death and resurrection is the source of all our comfort, and the motivation for all our good works, because He did this all for our sakes so that we can be comforted by our salvation no matter whether we feel good about ourselves or not.

Feeling Good can Kill You!

Newsletter article for August 2004

© 2004 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

There is a war going on. Actually, there seem to be several wars going on all at the same time. The war that I would like to consider here has been labeled the “Culture War”. This war is being fought between Christianity and Culture. It is not a new battle. It has been fought since the beginning. Holy Scripture describes it as the “great tribulation” (Revelation 7:14).

Although the Culture War is being fought for the hearts and minds of all Christians, it is parents who are engaged in the most important battles. I say that this is the most important because in the culture wars it is the children who are most vulnerable, and it is also vitally important that our children stay on the Christian side of this war, rather than being recruited for the other side.

Why is this called a “war”? Saint Peter describes it in this way, “Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul.” (1 Peter 2:11) Scripture frequently describes antagonism between the world and faithful followers of God. The “world” are those who follow their sinful desires against God’s commands. Christians are those who, though they are also sinners, by the grace of God live by faith in Jesus and by His grace they do what God commands. The war is what happens when the world tries to turn Christians against God through temptation to sin.

Make no mistake, this really is a war. The worldly side in this culture war would like you to believe that it is something completely different, that is, something which is really harmless and benign, when in fact if the battle is lost it is very deadly. Saint Paul describes it in this way, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.…We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” (1 Cor. 10:4-5)

The battles in this war can be most clearly seen in temptations to such sins as sexual immorality and the pleasures of illicit drugs. The world tempts us with such things by trying to get us to believe that such things are good for us because they make us feel good. There is a bit of truth to that, but as they say, “a half truth is a whole lie.” It is true that there is probably nothing that is more pleasurable than drugs such as heroin or cocaine, but the lie in this is shown by the fact that it is a one-time “high,” you can never feel that good again. After the initial pleasure then the person is hooked and driven by a powerful desire to feel that way again, but such a thing can never be attained, and as the person seeks to feel good he or she is destroying their body.

Another front in this culture war is fought concerning sexual sins. God has given us sexuality as a blessing for married couples so that they may “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (see Gen. 9:7). Jesus taught that the Holy Scriptures show us that God intended marriage to be as long as they both shall live (see Matt. 19:4-6), but the world says, “if it feels good, then what harm can it do?” The harm that these sins can do is seen in the betrayal of marital vows, or the betrayal of the physical intimacy between lovers, and also in sexually transmitted diseases, in broken families, and fatherless children and orphans.

In a way, these are relatively easy battles for Christian parents to fight. We can easily show our children that if you take drugs then you might wreck your health or die. We can easily show our children that if you commit adultery then your life will be changed in any of a number of ways, none of them worth the momentary pleasure of the sin. Our children may not listen to us, and still may fall into the temptations of these sins, but the consequences of these temptations are easily seen and can be easily taught. The real tough battles in the culture war are the spiritual battles. These are the temptations to sin against the First Commandment (“You shall have no other gods.”)

The difficulty with fighting spiritual battles is that the bad consequences are not seen. Unlike the physical consequences of other sins, the result of losing the spiritual battles cannot be seen by anyone in this life. No one knows what hellish things that others experience, so when people lose the spiritual battles it is hard to point that out to our children and say, “See, if you turn against God in this way then this will happen to you, too.” The worldly culture tempts us to sin against the first commandment in much the same way as it tempts us to sin against the other commandments. We are told, “Try it, you’ll like it. It feels good, and it won’t hurt you one little bit.” In a way, it can be very fun to follow false gods, but again there is a terrible price to pay in the end.

Parents have a difficult job in fighting the war between Christianity and culture. The best weapon we have is God’s Word. As we teach and live according to God’s Word, then we arm our children to fight and become victorious in the culture wars. One simple, useful, practical way to help our children is to use the word, “no.” If we learn to say “no” to our children at the right time then we can teach them to learn some self control to deny themselves some of the pleasures of life. This is important because if we are comfortable denying ourselves some worldly pleasures then we can be comfortable denying ourselves the destructive pleasures of sin. There are many ways that feeling good can kill you, but if we train ourselves and our children to say “no” to the pleasures of the flesh then with the help of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, we can be victorious in the culture war against Christianity.

Reconciliation

Newsletter article for June 2004

© 2004 by Rev. Paul A. Wolff

Reconciliation is a word which has weighed heavy on my mind lately. Perhaps it has been on your mind, too. It means to become friends again. Obviously this assumes that something has happened between friends which has broken their friendship or even in an extreme case has made them enemies. The opposite of reconciliation is estrangement or alienation. The ultimate cause of estrangement is sin, and because we are all sinners estrangement is not all that strange to us. Since estrangement is familiar to us then reconciliation also ought to be familiar to us, but people’s sinful pride gets in the way of that far too often.

In my consideration of the word “reconciliation” I did what I often do, I went to the Holy Scriptures to see how God uses this word. This is a good habit to get into. I learned this from a good friend. Jesus himself had the habit of going to the Holy Scriptures to deal with events in His life. He did it to teach. He did it to answer questions (both honest questions, and evil ones intended to entrap him). He did it to withstand temptation. He did it when He was dying, and He did it after he was resurrected from the dead. Jesus was familiar with the Bible because He was familiar with God. If we wish to be a member of God’s family then we also ought to be familiar with the Bible.

When you use your concordance (or computer Bible word search) it is important to keep in mind a few simple rules of Bible interpretation. Jesus was a very good interpreter of the Bible. He was the best, and although this also is one way in which no one can fully measure up to Jesus, it is not hard to properly interpret the Bible. The people who make it hard are the ones who don’t believe God’s word. It is actually quite simple. Proper Bible interpretation all comes down to the answer to this simple question: “What does the Bible say?” It really is that easy. The hard part comes when, in our sinfulness, we don’t like what the Bible says and we try to make it say what we want it to say instead of what it really says. We saw that a couple months ago in an unauthorized article in this newsletter which quoted Bible verses about praise, but did it in a way which ignored the context of the verses and really said something opposite to what the those passages really teach about the true praise of God. The rules of Bible interpretation are simple, but they are absolutely important.

I found nine occurrences of the word “reconcile” in its various forms in the NIV Bible. Several of the passages (Matt. 5:23-24; Luke 12:58-59; Acts 7:26; and 1 Cor. 7:11) encourage or command people to become friends again with each other. As I said above, this is to be expected in a sinful world in which our pride is a great sin. There are many other Bible passages which show reconciliation and how it should be handled such as Matt. 18:15-17 and Genesis 45:4-7, but for this essay I am simply focusing on the passages which use a form of the word “reconcile.” The passages which are most helpful to us estranged sinners are the other passages which describe our reconciliation with God. You may find these in your Bible at: Romans 5:10-11; Rom. 11:15; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Ephesians 2:14-18; and Colossians 1:15-23. You may not think that the verses which tell us how we are reconciled with God would be more valuable to us in reconciling with one another, but that would be wrong. God’s ways are not the same as the world’s ways, and Christians especially need to be reconciled with God before we are reconciled with one another.

We are all estranged from God because of our sinfulness. Remember how Adam and Eve were kicked out of God’s garden paradise after they sinned against God’s command (Genesis 3). The estrangement of sin is severe, and there is nothing we can do about it. Romans 5:10-11 reminds us that our sin makes us God’s enemies, but we are reconciled to God through the death of His Son, Jesus. It is Jesus who has made us friends again with God. He has endured the punishment for our sins so God is no longer angry over them, and he has also forgiven us for causing him to suffer. The effect of Christ’s reconciliation is that we can have access to God’s heavenly paradise where we shall live in peace and happiness forever.

Because of Christ’s reconciliation, St. Paul told the believers in Corinth (2 Cor. 5:16-21) that we now regard no one from a worldly point of view. If Christ went to the cross and the grave in order to make us friends again with God the Father, then our estrangements here on earth are petty and small by comparison. They may not seem small, but we may quickly learn from experience that things aren’t always what they seem. If we look at our estrangements from God’s point of view they all are small and easily overcome. The key is forgiveness. Here again we learn forgiveness from Jesus. We learn in the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant (Matt. 18:21-35) that Jesus has forgiven us so much, that if we treasure His forgiveness then it is relatively easy to forgive the little things which keep us apart.

Reconciliation is easy for Christians because Jesus enables us to do it all the time. Reconciliation is impossible for unbelievers because they reject the forgiveness of their sins through Jesus Christ, and so therefore they reject the forgiveness of one another. Christians rely on God’s forgiveness every day of their lives so reconciliation is quite familiar. I pray that God would lead all sinners at St. Timothy to repentance so that they may joyfully receive Christ’s forgiveness, and having received this treasure they may also share that forgiveness and reconciliation with one another. I include myself in this, but it would be a tragedy for me to be the only one to repent. I repent of my sins daily, but I am not here to be the only one who receives Christ’s forgiveness and reconciliation. I am here to lead Christ’s sheep to the green pastures of His paradise. Christ has taught me that the way to paradise comes only through faith in His forgiveness and reconciliation. Read the Scripture passages which I have referenced above. May Christ lead you to repentance of all your sins, and receive the blessings of His forgiveness and reconciliation.