Sermon 10-13-24

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

Includes the Gospel for the 21st Sunday after Pentecost, Mark 10:17-22.

What Will It Be?

As we’re approaching the big showdown on November 5th, there are many things at stake for the country. The biggest is this: will it be Marxism, Facism or Yahwehism that will rule the land? Will it be the rule of some false god or the rule of the true God?

We’re told in Romans 13:1-2, “1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.”

In a country that reveres government of the people, by the people and for the people, it’s rather strange to think that government is really from Yahweh and by Yahweh. But all authority in the universe is from Yahweh. The right to exercise authority is from Yahweh. Positions of authority are from Yahweh. After all, nothing can exist without Yahweh. Period.

The most elementary form of government is the human family. And as we saw Jesus teach last week, human sexuality, marriage and the family are creations of Yahweh Himself. They are not things we invented. And for this reason, they are to be treated with the greatest respect.

So, how are humans to behave in family? Of the Ten Commandments, the very first one that deals with human to human relationships is Exodus 20:12, “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” Then, we read in the Proverbs such statements as these: Proverbs 22:15, “Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.” Proverbs 29:17, “Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.”

Through the pen of Saint Paul, the Holy Spirit put all these commands together in Ephesians 6:1-4, “4 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. 2 ‘Honor your father and mother’ (this is the first commandment with a promise), 3 ‘that it may go well with you and that you may live long in the land.’ 4 Fathers, do not provoke your children to anger, but bring them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”

In human history, it has been the will of Yahweh that entire nations grow from one couple, one family. Israel itself is an example. It grew out of the marriage of Abraham and Sarah. So, by the time of the exodus we read of Israel in Deuteronomy 10:22, “Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons, and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

The Egyptian government eventually made slaves of all Israelites. And so, Israel groaned under the yoke of a government that served false gods. But, Yahweh, the Creator of the universe, stepped in. In the unseen realm, He defeated and punished the false gods of Egypt. On earth, in the visible realm, Yahweh humiliated the Egyptian empire and brought it to its knees, even destroying its army. And so a group of people as numerous as the stars of heaven left Egypt for the Promised Land.

How was Israel governed once it was freed from the government of false gods? Yahweh Himself was Israel’s King. It was Yahweh who guarded Israel with the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night. He sent His Angel before Israel. Food came from heaven and water out of rocks. Under Yahweh, Israel was invincible militarily.

But Yahweh did not act alone. He established His servant, Moses, as the human ruler of Israel. In the Torah we read that Moses’ authority and rule was challenged several times. Even his brother and sister, Aaron and Miriam, challenged his authority. In each case, however, by direct, terrifying, divine intervention, Yahweh made it clear that Moses was His choice to rule over Israel. Critics were swallowed alive by the earth. Miriam had to be redeemed from leprosy.

Of Moses, we read in Numbers 12:3, “Now the man Moses was very meek, more than all people who were on the face of the earth.” This means that Moses was the prototype of the humble man — humble before God and other human beings. And it was because Moses was humble that he wielded all of Yahweh’s authority. Until Jesus came, there was no more perfect ruler of Israel.

Of Jesus, we read in Philippians 2:6-11, “6. . . though he [Jesus] was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

In the realm that we are presently forbidden to see because of sin, the God/man, Jesus, sits at the right hand of the Father in perfect obedience to the Father, but He perfectly exercises all of the Father’s authority over all creation. Therefore, Israel owes its allegiance to Jesus. But more than that, every human ruler on earth owes their allegiance to Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And this is because Jesus did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped.

It took nearly three hundred years for the government of Rome to acknowledge Jesus. But Emperor Constantine finally did. From Caesar Augustus onward, the emperors of Rome had declared themselves to be gods. Therefore, Constantine did something unthinkable. He gave up his godhood and humbled Himself under Yahweh, the Son. He went from being a god to humbling himself as a human ruler under the authority of the only true God.

Constantine set a pattern for all the emperors after him. And even when Rome was lost to foreign invaders, those invaders adopted Christianity. Their rulers gave up pagan gods and became Christian princes. And as Christianity spread throughout Europe, it did so because prince after prince became a Christian prince, leading his people into Christianity.

As time went on, a theory called the divine right of kings grew up among the philosophers of Europe. This is the idea that Yahweh had appointed certain Christian families to rule the peoples of Europe. It’s quite in line with the passage from Romans we read earlier. Yahweh appoints the ruler. Then, it’s the ruler’s duty to rule according to Yahweh’s commandments.

Now, since every Christian ruler of Europe owed his or her allegiance to Jesus Christ and was supposed to rule according to Yahweh’s commandments, the Church naturally had considerable influence. Indeed, a political conflict grew as the Roman papacy attempted to exercise not only spiritual authority over all the European princes, but political authority. Nevertheless, for centuries, kings, princes and all rulers of Europe understood that they were under the authority of Jesus Christ. And, the more devout the ruler, the better his people fared.

So, we now come to the fledgling British Empire, its king, George III, and the American colonies. As we know, the British government in London imposed taxes on the colonies to pay for a war that had protected the colonies against the French and Indians. However, the colonists responded with the great cry of “no taxation without representation.” A confrontation ensued that developed into the American Revolution.

As we know, the revolution was successful and ended with the independence of thirteen English speaking colonies on the eastern seaboard of North America. Now, since the colonies had acted together in the revolution — albeit imperfectly — it was natural to assume that they would continue to act together as independent states. But this was not so easy. Therefore, a constitutional convention gathered and in 1787 produced a constitution for the United States of America. In April of 1789 the government called for by the constitution first sat in session.

Now, in creating the U.S. government, the founders were confronted by no small problem. Since Constantine, the nations of Europe had been governed by the divine right of kings. Therefore, how was a nation that had thrown off the yoke of a king to govern itself? And there was an additional problem. Unlike European nations, the U.S. would have no government supported national branch of Christianity on which to rest its legitimacy.

The founders came up with this philosophical solution. We would quietly acknowledge the Creator God. We would consider Him the author and giver of all human rights. Many of those rights are listed in the first ten amendments to the constitution called the Bill of Rights. And the founders made it the task of our government to guard and protect those God-given rights for all citizens.

Now, in addition to the bill of rights, the founders also assumed that the Ten Commandments and the other commandments long accepted by Christendom would be active in government. These commandments prohibit murder, theft, adultery, slander, homosexuality, and many other godless and evil behaviors. In addition, the founders assumed the many virtues proclaimed and promoted by Christianity would play a role. For, the founders recognized that only a moral people would be able to govern themselves without a king. And such morality could only come from the Creator of heaven and earth.

Therefore, Yahweh was quietly acknowledged in our country’s founding. Quietly, I say because U.S. culture includes multiple Christian denominations and religions other than Christianity. For this reason, the unofficial “official” understanding of God is a generic understanding called Theism.

The founders also assumed that Christian statesmen would be elected by a Christian majority nation. And so the Christian understanding, first adopted by Constantine, of government under God would continue without interruption, even without a king.

But times change. Western society was profoundly transformed by the Industrial Revolution that began about the time of the American Revolution and has continued to this day in various forms. Generations of people left farming and the rural lifestyle for cities and industrial jobs. 

It’s no secret that in the early decades of the Industrial Revolution, the talented people who created companies tended to look at their workers as expendable in various ways. And the free-for-all of capitalism rewarded only the most talented entrepreneur who could produce the best product at the lowest price. This meant keeping labor costs as low as possible. All these factors made life difficult for the average worker and average family. Therefore, it wasn’t long before there was deep criticism of the developing industrial system.

But, it’s one critic in particular who has powerfully affected the fate of peoples and nations from 1917 onward. And that’s the 19th century philosopher, Karl Marx.

Some of the most recent studies of Marx have shown that he appeared to have an infatuation with the demonic. Regardless, in his writings, he had a most definite antipathy to Christianity. And, Marx was definitely an opponent of all thinking, practice and culture that proceeds out of Christianity.

Marx considered himself a “scientist.” He considered himself to be in the forefront of the then new academic discipline called economics. However, unlike the other economists of his age, Marx had a violent, demonic streak in him that played itself out in his writings.

The key to Marx is that he was seduced by the ancient serpent. He believed that he not only had the right to criticize the developing industrial system, he believed he had the right to play God, envisioning not only a better industrial system, but a whole new concept of humanity. In Marx’s system, all greed, selfishness, self-interest and self-centeredness would be done away with through violent suppression. And out of the violence, a new human race would emerge dedicated to vigorously and selflessly meeting the needs of others. The great Marxian principle of “from each according to his means to each according to his need” would be established in the hearts of all those who would comprise the new humanity. And all counter-revolutionaries who could not live by the new principle would be eliminated.

If one thoughtfully considers the third chapter of Genesis, the fallacy of Marxism becomes apparent. In that chapter we see how the serpent deceived Adam and Eve into giving up the Image of God for the inferior Likeness of God. Fallen into the Likeness of God, Adam and Eve were forced to play God by defining good and evil for themselves. And fallen from the Image of God, they no longer existed in pure, undefiled righteousness. So they would be plagued by mixing good and evil in very self-interested ways. Most importantly, their inner nature changed so that resisting evil became difficult. They became rebels against their Creator God. And all this is true of us, their descendants.

What makes Marxism fallacious is that Marx proposed to heal the fallen Likeness of God in humanity by using the fallen Likeness of God. Can unrighteousness heal unrighteousness? Absolutely not. And this is why any form of Marxism is doomed to fail wherever it’s tried. Only true righteousness can heal the unrighteousness that afflicts all of us from the moment of conception. That healing righteousness belongs to Yahweh alone and the Messiah He sent.

Now, we have to understand that even though we are fallen into the Likeness of God, there is some of the Image of God left in us. That remainder longs for righteousness. It longs for a world without pain, suffering, injustice, death and everything else that afflicts humanity. Therefore, if Satan can produce an unrighteousness that masquerades as righteousness, then he can win the allegiance of many hearts. And this is precisely what he had Marx do. But can unrighteousness, even if it masquerades as righteousness heal righteousness? Again, no.

Unrighteousness masquerading as righteousness is what we’re also seeing with wokeism. Those who have accepted wokeism believe they are the righteous of the earth, superior in morality to all others. They believe that somehow righteousness can be restored throughout the earth if only everyone would be like them. They believe so much, that they’re violent about it.

Now, in its original form, Marxism proved to be quite deadly to the wealthy and powerful, as in the Russian Bolshevik Revolution. But there’s another form of socialism that’s safe for the wealthy and powerful. It’s fascism. In fascism, property remains private. But the government controls it for the social good.

Hitler’s National Socialism gave fascism a bad name because of the peculiar genocidal element Hitler incorporated into his brand of fascism. Therefore, when socialist fascism appears minus the genocidal element, few people today can recognize it for what it is.

But if you want an education in fascism, all you have to do is look at George Soros. In fact, Soros is doing facism far better than anyone else did it previously. Instead of the government controlling him, he’s controlling the government. And in control of government he’s attempting to sit over us as a socialist god trying to remake society as he imagines it. Of course, that imagination takes only one shape. He is god and everyone else must serve him.

Now, like all socialists, in order to realize his vision, Soros and the other elites like him must destroy what is. That’s what all the unrest has been about in the country since Obama. And, all socialists absolutely recognize that they must destroy true Yahweh worship. For true worshipers of Yahweh absolutely know that unrighteousness cannot cure unrighteousness. Only the righteousness of Christ can make a difference.

Therefore, for generations now, agents of Satan have been at work within the church corrupting its doctrines and its personnel from within. Therefore, a desperate struggle continues within the Church. For example, consider the pope’s recent ramblings about homosexuality as well as the Church of England’s pronouncements on the same. And, of course, there is the desperate physical persecution of Christians. It has been estimated that more Christians perished from persecution in the 20th century than in all the previous 19 centuries combined. And while persecution has subsided somewhat so far in the 21st century, it’s still going on.

So, we’re at the same crossroads in the national election cycle that we’ve been to at least since 2,000. What will it be? The country was founded with Yahweh as its God. There are other gods competing to be Lord of this land. Who will we have? And among the candidates for the various offices will we have the ones that truly acknowledge Yahweh in some fashion, or will we have the servants of other gods? Will we have those that properly recognize the founding of the country, or will we have socialist dreamers who think they can somehow purge us of unrighteousness using their brand of violent unrighteousness?

Let’s conclude with today’s Gospel. The man’s question to Jesus is the very thing that intrigues the remainder of the Image of God in us. How can I inherit eternal righteous life? Notice how Jesus answered. He didn’t have the man imagine some sort of righteous society here on earth established through violent revolution against the Romans. Instead, He brought the man to the holy commandments that Yahweh gave for life on the present earth. Therefore, for whatever number of years we’ve each been given to live on this earth in the Likeness of God, obeying these commands is the best we can do to bring a little bit of heaven to earth.

But Yahweh invites every human being who lives, has lived and will live to receive real righteous eternal life with Him. And there’s only one way to get it. Sell out to Jesus and follow Him in this life. He alone can lead us into the righteous new heavens and new earth that will be humanity’s inheritance at the resurrection of the dead. He alone can do this because He alone is the forgiveness of sins that removes sin so that only righteousness remains. For, He alone was obedient to the Father for our sake unto death, even death on a cross. This is what Jesus offered to the man, and what He offers to us.

Yesterday, the church’s Jewish neighbors sought forgiveness of their sins on Yom Kippur. Unfortunately, they could not receive what they sought with any assurance. For, assurance of forgiveness of sins can only be found in Messiah Jesus.

This morning, by simple faith, we have what they sought so earnestly, but could not receive. We have Messiah Jesus and His forgiveness. In Jesus, we have the only true foundation for eternal righteous life. Knowing this, therefore, do not be deceived by the devil. On this earth there is no cure for unrighteousness in Marx or any other false prophet. Vote accordingly. Amen.

All Bible quotes are from the ESV.