Together Under the Cross, by Pastor Ed Evans

Scripture: 1st Corinthians 1:18-31
1:18 For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1:19 For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."
1:20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?
1:21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe.
1:22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
1:23 but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
1:24 but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
1:25 For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength.
1:26 Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth.
1:27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong;
1:28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are,
1:29 so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
1:30 He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption,
1:31 in order that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

In 1995 I lost a one of my best friends to a fast-growing brain tumor, called a blastoma. Within three months of being diagnosed, he was gone. He and I had met on the battlefield in Vietnam in 1970 and survived many close calls. He was one of the most dynamic, creative, can-do people I ever met. A very giving person, his enthusiasm for life actually drew people to him.
However, for all of his positive, upbeat outlook on life, he had a great sadness he carried around with him. His father was a preacher, pastor of a church that believed it was the only church true to Christ. His father refused to perform or even attend my friend's wedding to a lovely and loving Christian girl. My friend professed to being a Christian, but his knowledge of Christ was forever stunted, and he refused to attend any church believing, even as he said he loved Christ, that churches were hypocritical. His experience with his father's church had forever warped his Christian experience. Unity of the body of Christ was not a concept understood by his father's church, nor by my dear brother in arms.
Unity is exactly what Paul is writing about here in the very first chapter of his first letter to the Corinthian church. Paul states the case plainly, there are only two groups here, the perishing and the saved. No in-betweens, no some of this group and some of that, no something less or something more. You are either among the perishing, or among the saved. And he drives the point home with the word "foolishness", parading it before us five times in eight verses. It helps to know that the word Paul is using as he writes in the Greek is the word "moria". In 1:15 is appears as the adjective "moros".
Our word "moron" comes from this word. In today's lexicon it would be properly understood that Paul was saying that to some the cross of Christ is "moronic." To some the cross is also what we translate that word to be, foolishness.
There are many in the world who look at Christian churches today and there behind the altar, there atop the church or chapel or cathedral, there hanging around the neck of the Christian man or woman is an instrument of torture, a sign of embarrassing punishment. Why do Christians do that? The very Christ they worship was crucified -- a death of indignity and shame -- on a cross like that.
The great British evangelist and world traveler Ian Thomas once preached a sermon about how difficult it was for him to "like" the cross. He spoke of the old hymn "The Old Rugged Cross", by George Bennard. That hymn begins, "On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross, the emblem of suffering and shame; and I love that old cross where the dearest and best for a world of lost sinners was slain."
Thomas equated it to his mother being slain with a knife, and him singing, "I love that old knife that murdered the mother I love."
He understood the necessity of the cross, and even of the death of God's Son, our Savior, bringing us back to God through the sin-covering righteousness of Jesus Christ crucified in our place. But he stumbled over loving that instrument of torture that brought such pain to our sweet Jesus.
And much of the world agrees with Ian Thomas, though for different reasons. To make an icon of a crucifixion cross is akin to lionizing an electric chair, or a hangman's noose, says the world. They do not understand it. It is foolishness. It is moronic.
Writing out of his own time, Paul pens an explanation that is as meaningful today as it was 2000 years ago: "For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom,
we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles,
but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God."
And then right there, Paul gives us a glimpse of the mind of God. Who may know the mind of God? And yet, as God has shared with Paul, he shares with us. Paul explains in verse 25, "For God's foolishness is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength," and in verses 27 and 28, " But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God."
It is not of us, not through our energy, our intellect or creativity, not of our wisdom, but of Him. He must increase and we must decrease.
Look back quickly at verse 1:18. Once again we have the two groups, the perishing and the saved, "but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
What did that say? It -- the cross of Christ -- is the power of God! This is the power that assures us that salvation is freely granted by God's grace, not through anything we have said or done, not by anything we have decided or accomplished, but by the power of God, through the cross of Christ.
And it is right here that the cross becomes an offense to men of pride. Because every one of us, beggar and millionaire, bookworm and stellar athlete, we all come to God through faith, based upon the work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The ground is level for each one of us at the foot of the cross. Neither money nor wisdom nor accomplishment nor anything we can do will get us to the foot of the cross; only faith.
How foolish is that? It is said that what men and women do not earn for themselves they lightly esteem. And that is true, in this world, but the spiritual world operates by God's laws, not ours.
When I was working in Tokyo, Japan, I had the opportunity to climb Mount Fuji, an extinct volcano so huge it is visible throughout most of Japan. One of my young sons and I climbed this venerated symbol of Oriental strength with a group of young Christians beginning in the morning, and reaching the top sometime that night. We slept in a small lodge just below the summit, awakening in the morning to an amazing sight. The morning sun was bright and all around us lay a white, fluffy layer of clouds as far as the eye could see. We awoke above the clouds atop Mount Fuji! As we had breakfast and prepared to climb down, the clouds dissipated and the sight was even more awesome as the land far below us appeared as a rumpled quilt of many squares and varying colors depending upon the crops and fields of tea.
We felt very small and almost insignificant by comparison so high on Mount Fuji. It was as though we could almost touch that cobalt blue sky. The same kind of humbling dynamic takes place in our hearts when we draw near to the awesomeness of God's glory, recognizing and understanding, adoring the cross of Christ that gave us such unparalleled victory. It is beneath this cross that our differences disappear and we achieve unity in a divided church, as the body of Christ comes together in worship of God, allowed there by the Christ on the cross, the basis of our unity.
For there He hung, between heaven and earth, opening the gateway to God for you and for me. Do the words of George Bennard's old hymn not come back you.....?

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame;
and I love that old cross where the dearest and best
for a world of lost sinners was slain.
Refrain:
So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,
till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
and exchange it someday for a crown.

O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
has a wondrous attraction for me;
for the dear Lamb of God left His glory above
to bear it to dark Calvary.
(Refrain)

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
a wondrous beauty I see,
for 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
to pardon and sanctify me.
(Refrain)

To that old rugged cross I will ever be true,
its shame and reproach gladly bear;
then He'll call me some day to my home far away,
where His glory forever I'll share.
(Refrain)

Amen.

Fighting back against sodomized military

COMMENT: Political promotion of a human perversion does not make it any the less offensive, and those who thought surely common sense would prevail are now making their voices heard. "No" needs to be said loud and clear!

Fighting back against sodomized military (OneNewsNow.com)
http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=1260920
A national defense analyst and Pentagon advisor says the new Congress can take a number of actions to blunt the impact of the new law that allows homosexuals to openly display their lifestyle in the U.S. military.

Redefining the Season of Giving

In a time of lost jobs, lost wages, and difficult times, some Americans are still redefining the season of giving.

Unemployed Father Takes In Homeless Family For Christmas
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/unemployed-father-takes-i_n_800457.html
Gregory Schauer, an unemployed man who, despite not having enough money to buy Christmas presents for his own kids, was able to give an amazing gift to people he didn't even know when he opened his home and took in a homeless woman and her three children for the holidays. "I can just barely cover all my bills," he explained, "but I know there are people who are worse off than I am right now." His generous and uplifting gesture reminds us that Christmas giving need not just be about putting the hippest new gadget or must-have toy under the tree - but about demonstrating the caring and selflessness that are the true heart of the Christmas spirit.
See also the Devotional on this at http://www.guildofchrist.com/

WashPost: Marine Corps Commandant Has to Go

The following is a Commentary from Washington Post writer Richard Cohen, followed by my response to him.
Marine Corps commandant has to go
By Richard Cohen
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/staff/articles/richard+cohen/
Monday, December 20, 2010; 8:00 PM
I am a fan of the old World War II movies, the ones where the platoon was composed of typical Americans, Hollywood-style. There was a guy named Farmer and one called Preacher and another called Brooklyn (who was killed shortly after receiving a salami from home), no blacks and, of course, an officer who was good-looking and clearly a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant of the John Wayne variety. Now, of course, we would have to add a gay soldier. I fear for him. He'll need someone to watch his back.
THIS STORY
>The repeal of the odious "don't ask, don't tell" law has been 17 years in the making. It could have been done much sooner had it not been for the political cowardice and/or ignorance of much of Congress and some of the military. The nation as a whole was way out in front of these institutions, having learned from their own kids and society in general that gays and lesbians were not drooling perverts but human beings with a different - not better and not worse - sexuality. Most of us know this now.
There's good reason to believe, however, that this lesson has not been universally learned. In the run-up to the vote in the Senate, Gen. James Amos, the Marine Corps commandant, showed how he felt about the prospect of open homosexuals serving in the Marines. He was particularly concerned about combat situations where, he thought, gays might be "a distraction." "Mistakes and inattention or distractions cost Marines' lives," Amos said. This was not the first time the general had expressed his doubts. Earlier, he had talked about what might happen when his Marines were "laying out, sleeping alongside of one another and sharing death, fear and loss of brothers. I don't know what the effect of that will be on cohesion. I mean, that's what we're looking at. It's unit cohesion. It's combat effectiveness."
It's easy to dismiss Amos, but his concerns fall within the realm of possibility. After all, being gay is a sexual matter and young people are nothing if not sexual. This is the way it is supposed to be. This is also the problem with having women in the armed services or, if you are a radical feminist, having men. Sooner or later, a certain amount of unacceptable harassment will occur, abuses will be committed and, more innocently, plain hooking up is going to happen. We know this.
But we know also that this can be managed - contained, limited. It takes education. It takes training. It takes leadership. This is what concerns me about Amos. His views are on the record. He sees gays as somewhat out of control, possibly holding hands in combat, sneaking into one another's bunks at night, being distracted just as the enemy is coming over the hill. Not only is this silly and based on an ignorant misconception of who most gays are, but it can be dealt with.
Amos, though, is the wrong man to deal with it. His subordinates know what he thinks of gays. They know he has not an iota of sympathy for what might be their difficulties or any tolerance for their lifestyle. If I were gay, I would not want to work for the man - or serve under him. He is one step short of being a bigot.
The racial desegregation of the military in 1948 also produced much blather about unit cohesion. It is true, of course, that race is not about behavior, but it is also true that race is obvious, spotted clear across a room - or a dance hall or a noncommissioned officers club - and can produce a violent reaction. (Remember, the South was still an apartheid nation back then.) The military managed because it was commanded to comply. The leadership came from President Truman. He liked to have his orders followed.
The Marines of today know that virtually the entire Republican Party stood up for bigotry. The Corps knows that some important senators - John McCain and Jon Kyl, to name two - furiously fought to retain the status quo, always in the sainted cause of unit cohesion. (Kyl said repeal could "cost lives.") Marines know, too, that in surveys, those on the front lines are least supportive of having gays among them and they are also aware that their brass fought to keep "don't ask, don't tell." The issue for me, as for Gen. Amos, is unit cohesion. That's why he has to go.

Letter to Richard Cohen, Washington Post writer
Dear Sir,
You need to raise your sights. You obviously have the talent to do that.
Your cute sequencing of words and historical segments that otherwise have no real relation to the subject, as you built a scarecrow you can knock down, is journalistic talent, no doubt.
However, to change the paradigm a bit, were you a young Marine on the rifle range, qualifying to make expert use of your weapon, I would have to advise you that you have jerked the trigger -- rather than squeeze it -- and you are off target. In addition, you don't have good sight alignment, so your best shots went astray. Finally, you have taken much too fast a shot, and you have missed the target.
General Amos is not the target. He is the messenger speaking facts about what is. It is the "what is" you should be targeting.
However, I feel certain that -- if you read this -- along the way you are thinking not about the validity of what I've described to you, but you instead have been formulating stinging responses. That signifies a lack of critical thinking, and it shows in your subject article. You show you have the God-given talent, and your position with the Washington Post indicates you are probably capable of generating significant insights on the real problems here, not all of which are even in sight, yet. And again, that problem is not General Amos. But I think you knew that all along, even as you attempted to make him the poster boy and target for your easily knocked off commentary.
You can do better.

Ed Evans, MGySgt., USMC (Ret.)

Seven Whose Vote Will Live in Infamy

by Ed Evans

The following are those Republicans who voted to repeal Don't Ask Don't Tell, needlessly weakening military unit integrity and subjecting heterosexuals to the type of acting out from which they have been protected in the past, and opening the door for open sexual access and contact that has been denied homosexuals in the past.

These are those who turned their backs on our military men and women, even though they are yet now engaged in a fight for their life -- and the continuance of our way of life.

For their own purposes these ignored the pleas and the facts presented by experienced military leaders of America's highest caliber. Their vote for political correctness and against common sense has encouraged the homosexual crowd to demand the head of those military leaders, such as the Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. James F. Amos, who stood up for those now serving in uniform.

Those Republicans deserving of our derision are: Senators Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Mark Kirk of Illinois, George Voinovich of Ohio, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine. Each one ignored their responsibility those who have volunteered to go in harm's way for the rest of us -- and voted to repeal DADT! For many of us, this is no surprise. Their vote will stand in infamy throughout history.

However, so did Senator James Webb, a Democrat, but also once a Marine officer. He voted against the Marine Corps Commandant and against his Marines. The Commandant of the Marine Corps, General Amos, recently sent out a message to all Marines that there is no such thing as a "former Marine." By our training, our personal commitment, and the oath we took to protect and defend, we are Marines forever. However, as far as this Marine forever is concerned, James Webb by his actions has proved himself not just a former Marine, but an ex-Marine.

Allowing homosexuals to serve in the military was never the problem. They have always been there, so long as they lived up to their oath and kept their private lives private, as is required of heterosexuals. When either acts out, that's where there are problems. DADT encouraged homosexuals to keep their private lives private. When they did not and it became a problem, it was usually because of something they did. Now the restraints are off, and now military order and discipline, much different from how civilians live and work, will begin to disintegrate and people's lives will be ruined. This vote was not done for "equal treatment", this was done for shameful political reasons and against the well-being of everyone involved.

This is not a mere disagreement over politics. The trashing of DADT seriously affects the well-being of our Corps and every Marine now on active duty, and those in the future. Any Marine, of whatever stature, who would stab our fellow Marines in the back, selling out for political correctness and political party loyalty, stands with ex-Marine Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated President John Kennedy; and with the three ex-Marines who were arrested for selling military assault rifles to Los Angeles gang members. Such is the shame of ex-Marines.

Now for the kicker....

Having said all that, any military lawyers in the room?

You see, UCMJ Article 125 STILL reads, in part: (a) Any person subject to this chapter who engages in unnatural carnal copulation with another person of the same or opposite sex or with an animal is guilty of sodomy. Penetration, however slight, is sufficient to complete the offense. (b) Any person found guilty of sodomy shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."

Now, the reason I ask is that I am as certain as hard rock candy that no one, but no one, in either the House or Senate is smart enough to have thought to nullify this rascal. It's still out there, with sharp fangs and no rattles.

NOW THE END BEGINS: Senate Votes to Overturn Military Gay Ban

www.nowtheendbegins.com/option8.html

WASHINGTON In a landmark for gay rights, the Senate on Saturday voted to let gays serve openly in the military, giving President Barack Obama the chance to fulfill a campaign promise and repeal the 17-year policy known as don't ask, don't tell. Obama was expected to sign it next week.

If you look at the prophecies of Jeremiah 50, 51 and Isaiah 47, 48 and Rev 17, 18 they point to America as the only candidate that fits all of the scripture references to Mystery Babylon. And scripture tells us that the end will come in the time of the Sodomites.

President Barack Hussein Obama has now kept his election promise to allow the Sodomites access to the U.S. military. Remember, scripture says that the end will come in the "days of Sodom."

Allowing homosexuals to serve in the military was never the problem. They have always been there, so long as they lived up to their oath and kept their private lives private, as is required of heterosexuals. When either acts out, that's where there are problems. DADT encouraged homosexuals to keep their private lives private. When they did not and it became a problem, it was usually because of something they did. Now the restraints are off, and now military order and discipline, much different from how civilians live and work, will begin to disintegrate and peoples lives will be ruined. This was not done for "equal treatment", this was done for shameful political reasons and against the well-being of everyone.

We will be in a quandary, will we not? I cannot at this moment recommend a decent young man or woman enter the Armed Forces of the United States of America under the conditions this will bring about. And yet, if those who really care about love of country, and obey the word of God, do not join the ranks to defend this nation, what will become of us? Do we begin to see Almighty God withdrawing His arm of protection from the nation that has come to use His name equally in vain and in blessing?

Is Mexico America's Next Front?

Check out this story:

http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2010/12/12/like-it-or-not-mexico-is-americas-next-afghanistan/

Before Mexico indeed becomes another front, we need to clean out the cesspool. Even before we throw a battalion of diplomats into the battle, and in order to make it a peaceful transition, suggest we locate enough patriot hackers to mount a massive electronic survey online that asks the question, if you as a citizen of Mexico were given a choice, would you like to remain in Mexico under the current political regime, or would you like to remain in Mexico and be part of the United States of America?

Lots of publicity. I think the answer will be that Mexico should be part of the U.S. If not, no harm done, and all the Mexicans can be encouraged to go home since the majority do want to be part of the U.S. But if the vote goes the way I suspect, then it becomes a matter of negotiating with what passes for political power in Mexico -- telling the rest of South America that's been using Mexico as an open door to the U.S. to shut up and go home -- and pulling Mexico into the U.S. for the purpose of upgrading health, welfare and industry there. Actually, much of our industry is already there.