Sermon 5-25-25

Pastor Ray Lorthioir

Trinity Lutheran Church

W. Hempstead, NY

The Sixth Sunday of Easter — Sermon for Memorial Day Weekend

Affecting The Outcome

The Civil War of 1861-65 was the most disastrous event that ever occurred in the United States. It’s estimated that 600,000 people, civilians as well as soldiers, perished in the four year conflagration. Tens of thousands of others were maimed for life, North and South. Although the North grew into an industrial powerhouse as a result of the war, the South was wrecked in the process.

In the immediate aftermath of the war, the veterans of the Union army formed an organization called the Grand Army of the Republic. It was the American Legion of its day. It’s commander was a famous Northern general, John A. Logan. In 1868 Logan promoted a national holiday on May 30th “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who had died in defense of their country during the late rebellion.” It was called Decoration Day.

After World War I the name was changed to Memorial Day to honor soldiers of all the wars the U.S. has fought. And since 1971, it has been observed as a federal holiday on the last Monday in May.

Here we are, then, on this national holiday weekend. So we’ll start by looking at what Lutheran theologians call God’s left hand — His authority over all human governments on this present earth.

Christians recognize that this earth and the present universe are scheduled to perish at the return of Messiah Jesus. When Jesus comes, there will be a new heaven and a new earth as per Revelation 21:1. But, for now, Yahweh is working out His will in the present creation.

Yahweh has given humanity strong direction concerning government in the words He gave to Saint Paul in Romans 13:1-7, “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. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.”

We think of our U.S. federal, state and local governments as our own creation. But the very existence of authority in this universe is a thing from Yahweh Himself. For He is the ruler over His creation. Therefore, when human beings recognize and submit to their Creator, they will create forms of government in line with what He has revealed to us about Himself and our present situation. For, human beings are born with Original Sin. And without human authority based on Yahweh’s righteousness, we easily descend into societal chaos as a result of evil. This is why it is necessary for rulers to bear the sword with which to punish evil doers.

The United States is blessed to have had Christian founders who understood the Bible and what it says about Yahweh, humanity and government. The founders were men well educated in all the forms of government that had existed up to their time. And for the U.S. they created a form of government that Abraham Lincoln called a “government of the people, by the people and for the people.” However, founder, John Adams, noted a significant requirement that is necessary for our form of government. He said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

In the last hundred and twenty five years, Adam’s words have proven more than true. For, as our society has grown less moral and less religious, the warning given by founder, Samuel Adams, has come to pass. He said, “If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.”

We’ve had some vain and aspiring people at the helm. Hopefully, we now have some experienced patriots at the helm. Certainly, we need to pray for those in the present administration that they will contemplate Scripture and everything it reveals in order to govern the country. Certainly, we need to pray for them that they will recognize righteousness and resist the temptations to corruption that will come their way. For we read in Proverbs 29:2, “When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.”

The third communist dictator of the old Soviet Union, Nikita Kruschev, said to America in 1959, “Your children and grandchildren will live under communism.  You Americans are so gullible.  No, you won’t accept Communism outright, but we’ll keep feeding you small doses of Socialism until you finally wake up and find that you already have Communism.  We won’t have to fight you.  We'll weaken your economy, until you fall like overripe fruit into our hands.”

Being a doctrinaire economic Marxist, Kruschev was proven wrong on one crucial point. They didn’t weaken our economy. We weakened theirs — until Marxism collapsed in Russia on Christmas 1991. However, we’ve now awakened to the fact that half of the electorate in the United States are willing to vote for the forms of Communism that have arisen since 1991. And we’ve gotten there by the grand march of Marxism through our institutions, especially education and media. We even elected a Marxist president. Barack Obama was a flaming Marxist in his youth. To my knowledge, he never publicly renounced it. And he’s probably been shadow president for the last eight years. Indeed, we’ve been directly struggling against Marxism since he was inaugurated. Therefore, Kruschev was right about one thing. We Americans are so gullible. Hope and change anyone?

So, let’s quickly take a look at the foundations of Marxism. First, there’s the criticism of society. Because of Original Sin, Satan, evil and temptation, human societies are very imperfect. There’s a lot to criticize. Therefore, by engaging in criticism of society, Marxism gains a legitimacy it doesn’t deserve. For its aim is not to improve what exists. Rather, its aim is to tear down anything that presently exists and replace it with Marxist pipe dreams of heaven on earth.

Marxism is atheist and materialist. This means that it denies Yahweh and His revelation to us. To Marxism, the Kingdom of God is a joke. But Marxists consider the promised glorious future of the Kingdom of God something to be stolen from Christianity and usurped. Marxism tells us that there is no such thing as patiently waiting for the Kingdom of God and its Lord, Jesus Christ. Therefore, we should grasp at equality with God by building our own version of the Kingdom of God here and now.

Marxism was originally an economic theory. It criticized the disparities of wealth that naturally occur in human society. But it did more than criticize. Marxism is founded on several well known human sins: envy, greed and violence. But classical Marxism hid its evil under the noble sounding dictum, “From each according to his means to each according to his need.”

Wouldn’t it be grand if we could eliminate all human poverty and the suffering it produces? Eliminating poverty is the false promise classical Marxism rested on. As an aside, we’ve had a “War on Poverty” in the U.S. since the Great Society legislation of 1965. Trillions have been spent and we’re no closer to eradicating poverty now than we were then.

In classical Marxism, the impoverished — those with the greatest need — have an absolute claim on the resources of anyone above them who has more. In Marxism, the state is the arbitrator. It arbitrarily confiscates the resources of those it deems to have more and distributes those resources to those it deems to have the greatest needs.

Usually the impoverished — those with the greatest need — have little power in a society. Those with the greatest means have the most power. Therefore, Marxism promises to reverse this situation by taking power from those with the greatest means and giving it to those with the least. But in practice, this means that state bureaucrats take all the power and exercise it. They also confiscate all the means. Therefore, those desiring power and resources in such a system have to cull favor with the state and its bureaucracy. It doesn’t matter whether you’re competent or not. Who you know is the important part.

Now, because the wealthiest and most powerful people in a society are very often its most competent people, the Marxist dictum of “From each according to his means to each according to his need,” winds up punishing the most competent and rewarding the least competent.

South Africa was in the news this week while its president paid a visit to President Trump. The present government of South Africa is both Marxist and racist. Therefore, it has embarked on a policy of confiscating the successful farms of white farmers and handing them over to black owners. It has done this without any training of the new black owners in successful farming. The Marxist leadership is ensnared by the Marxist delusion that simply transferring wealth from those who earned it to those who did not and don’t know how to earn it will somehow result in making the incompetent wealthy. All it does is use up the wealth and plunge everyone into poverty.

Indeed, South Africa’s neighbor to the north, Zimbabwe, confiscated farms owned by whites under a Marxist government in the late 20th century. The result was that Zimbabwe went from being a bread basket of Africa to an impoverished state incapable of feeding itself. Marxism takes from those it deems to have bad politics and gives to those it deems to have good politics. Therefore, it pays to have good politics under Marxism. Indeed, this is why we saw many U.S. businesses attempt to cull favor with government during the last sixteen years by adopting DEI and other policies. However, if you’re incompetent, even if government rewards you handsomely, you’ll still wind up poor and envious.

It may be that enough Americans have seen through the economic failures and false promises of Marxism to deny it credibility in the economic arena. However, let’s look at the other nonsense we’ve been subjected to under Marxism — in particular its criticism of gender and gender roles. There are young men claiming gender identity as females who are competing in women’s sports. It’s been shown that when such men competed against other males, they weren’t that good. They won nothing. But, when they competed against females, they took first place. Therefore, wherever government at any level supports this, they are actually following the Marxist principle of punishing the most competent and rewarding the least competent. It’s a good thing many Americans have begun to wake up to this scheme. We’re starting to see through Marxist social fallacies.

Historian, Victor Davis Hanson has an interesting take on the present administration in Washington. He sees it waging a 24/7 counter revolution against the mechanisms that have created all the present aberrations in our society — including the court system, lawfare, the foundations that fund the Marxists, the universities, the student loan process, the violence committed against students, racism, and the media public and private. Hanson sees the administration as waging revolution against all of the institutions that have allowed the crazy ideas that don’t have any popular support to enter the mainstream. Hanson believes this is why President Trump is hated so much by the left. He also says no previous conservative president has dared oppose these forces, not Bush, not even Reagan. Most importantly, Hanson points out the public support the president continues to have in the polls as he wages the counter revolution. Hanson’s take is that the public is sick of the mechanisms Marxism has used, namely Critical Race Theory; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. I would also include the so-called Green Revolution.

Marxist theory divides the world into oppressor and oppressed. Young, white, males are now rebelling against their demonization by Marxist theory as unredeemable oppressors. Marxist theory also excuses anyone in a class they identify as “oppressed” from any responsibility for their actions. As a result, our cities are being terrorized by crime. But, now there is an increasing cry for the suppression of crime.

These are all indicators that we’re in an extreme conflict of very powerful forces. It remains to be seen which side will prevail. The fate of the country remains to be determined. And, God’s left hand will determine the outcome.

But God also has a right hand. It’s His Kingdom. It’s Christ’s Church. And the Kingdom has also been caught in extreme conflict. In Europe, atheism, Marxism and Islam have been pounding down on the Church from outside. Materialist atheism, communism and unbelief have been undermining it from within. Here in the U.S., atheism and various forms of anti-Christian propaganda have pounded the Church from without while Materialist atheism and various false and even heretical teachings have hollowed it out from within.

It’s hard to know where we are in the fourth quarter of the great contest that Jesus began. Are we close to the violent and terrifying end that’s promised in Scripture? Or is there yet much more to go? The answer is as yet hidden from us. However, two things are sure. The conflict will continue until the end. And when the end comes, we already know the winner.

As we’ve seen through the record of Scripture, Jesus was completely successful in what He was sent to accomplish. There was one thing He absolutely could not do. He could not grasp equality with God by rewriting the life-script for Messiah. In this He totally succeeded by humbling Himself and becoming obedient unto death — even death on a cross. And there was much Jesus was sent to do. He was sent to earn forgiveness of sins for the entire human race so that all who call on His Name may be rescued from sin, death and the power of the devil. He accomplished this by freely shedding His holy and precious blood as the supreme sacrifice for sin. Jesus was sent to redeem our mortal bodies from the grave. He guaranteed this by being the first to be resurrected from the dead in an immortal human body. Jesus was sent so that Yahweh’s Holy Spirit might come upon many, establishing them in the true Christian faith and moving all His redeemed ones forward in genuine, divine love and righteousness.

Here in the remaining days of the count from Easter to Pentecost, we are celebrating the transfer of Messiah’s victory to His Church. We are now the ones on the playing field in conflict with Satan and all his horde. This conflict is severe and may demand suffering at times. Indeed, St. Paul wrote in Philippians 3:8-11, “8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— 10 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11 that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.”

The Word says we must expect to share in the sufferings of our Lord Jesus. However, when we suffer for His Name, He is always with us in the suffering. And in due season we will receive the reward He won for us. As St. Paul wrote to Timothy in expectation of his martyrdom, 2Timothy 4:8, “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.”

And by engaging in the struggle of God’s right hand, we can also affect the outcome of God’s left hand. Remember.  John Adams said, “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” And by a religious people, Adams meant a Christian people. Therefore, the more people we can bring under the authority of Messiah Jesus, the healthier our form of government will be. Amen. 

All Bible quotes are from the ESV.