We are pleased to announce our annual Vacation Bible School. It will take place June 11-15, 2012. The theme for this year’s VBS is “Olympion.” We will start each day at 9:30am and go until 12:30pm, except on Friday June 15, when we will close with a program for all children and family/friends at 12 noon.

You may download a registration form by clicking here.

In the last couple decades a controversy has arisen among Christians over the existence of Hell. A startling number of Christian theologians have gone to great lengths trying to demonstrate that a good God would not prepare a place of eternal punishment for condemned sinners—Hell.

Yet, a recent opinion poll taken among North Americans indicates that more people believe in hell today than back in the 1950s. In 1952 about 58 percent of the public believed in hell. Today the figure is 60 percent.

I don’t put much stock in polls, but I do believe there is a hell. I believe this because Jesus has been there.

No one can plumb the depths of Jesus’ agony upon the cross. But when darkness came over all the land from the sixth to the ninth hour—and the sun’s light failed—Jesus descended into hell. That’s why he cried out from the cross at the ninth hour, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The Bible clearly indicates that hell is a place of “outer darkness.” Hell involves being forsaken and abandoned by God, being deprived of his loving embrace and presence, suffering under God’s just judgment. Jesus’ cry tells us he was there.

Jesus was willing to endure the darkness of hell so that we might dwell in the light of heaven. He was willing to be forsaken so that we may be accepted by God.

No one who believes in Jesus need ever fear of being abandoned by God. “He who did not spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). “All things” means heaven, not hell.

Rev. James Sawtelle

Please also be advised that there will be NO SUNDAY SCHOOL on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012.

Come and join us for a service of carols and the Word! This Sunday, December 18 at 5pm, we will have a special Christmas program entitled “At the Name of Jesus.” There will be refreshments after the service.

This post is a shameless plug for the support of a seminary.  As we come to the close of the year, many people receive a flurry of appeals from various institutions and causes for monetary support. Many of these causes are truly worthy of our support.  But of all those causes worthy of our gifts, I would  like to suggest that faithful seminaries are among the most worthy of your consideration. I say that in part because of these Spirit-inspired words of Moses.

The Word of the Lord is decisive for the creation and maintenance of our lives, our well-being physically, emotionally and spiritually.

“By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Psalm 33:6).  Not only did God create all things by His word, but the Bible tells us that God upholds “all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3).   By the word of the Lord, our heavenly Father calls us to Himself, unites us to Jesus Christ through faith, grants us forgiveness of sins and eternal life in Him, and feeds and nourishes our souls daily until he takes us to himself in glory.

At Christmas time we remember and celebrate the coming of our Savior. The eternal Son of God, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us. The Creator partakes of the flesh and blood of His creatures (Hebrews 2:14).This is Jesus Christ.

One day Jesus fed over 5,000 of his followers with two fishes and five small loaves of bread. But they did not understand who he was. So he said to them, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.  Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you…I am the bread of life, and he who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me shall never thirst.  Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.  Jesus has the words of eternal life. When by faith we receive Jesus Christ in the preaching of the Word, we eat His flesh and drink His blood.  And Jesus feeds and nourishes our souls with all the benefits of His redemption purchased for us on the cross.

You see, we shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds for the mouth of God.

Romans 10 teaches us: “How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how shall they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:14, 17).

If you have saving faith in Jesus Christ, it is because God has given it to you through the instrumentality of His Word.  At some point, God used preachers in bringing you to faith. That means most likely a seminary has been involved the training of the ministers in your life.  All glory goes to God alone for our salvation.  But all honor also.  And God has been pleased to use faithful messengers to proclaim the gospel so that we His people might have life.

For this reason I would commend to you the labors of faithful seminaries by whom our God is training preachers to bring glad tidings of our Savior’s birth.

There are a number of faithful Reformed seminaries in North America. I would especially like to commend to you Mid-America Reformed Seminary as particularly worthy of your support.  I am alum of this seminary, and have served on her board for six years. For thirty years Mid-America has faithfully trained men for the gospel ministry, carefully instructing them to properly and honorably handle the Word of God, thoroughly grounding her students in the historic, orthodox Christian faith as it is also expressed in the great creeds and confessions of the Church, and in particular the Reformed tradition. All of this training is with the express purpose of equipping men to be faithful pastors and proclaimers of the Word of the Lord in the Church of Jesus Christ.

If the Lord has blessed you with an abundance of resources this year, I encourage you to consider a   generous gift to Mid-America Reformed Seminary.  Man shall not live by bread alone; but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

Jim Sawtelle

This is not a request to help us be good mathematicians. It is not a request to become a prognosticator of doom, or of our own demise.  This is a confession, a prayerful acknowledgement that our life is allotted time.  The point isn’t simply that our days will soon end.  Moses has already affirmed that the days of our lives are seventy years, and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their span is only toil and trouble.

Moses knew something of death. For forty years he was the pastor of a congregation of over a million people.  Every one of his people over the age of twenty died in the wilderness in that forty year time span.  The bells tolled for dozens of his people daily. The desert was literally strewn with the graves of his congregation.  He knew about death.

But Moses also knew something about life. What Moses wants us to fix our minds on is what really matters: that our time is allotted time. Our Creator God has given us time.  And our times are in His hand. The question is: how will we use that time?

This week my thoughts were drawn to these words of Moses inspired by the Holy Spirit.  This was an unusual week for me. It began by sitting in a conference room in the University of Minnesota Children’s hospital with tension filled dear friends listening to a heart transplant team speak matter-of-factly about the process of a possible heart transplant for their fourteen year old son. I have known this young man since the day he was born. Jacob was born with half a heart, or Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome. As the doctors told my friends the day of Jacob’s birth, this is a universally fatal condition. For the last fourteen years of his allotted time God has enabled him to live with this condition. But it has become apparent that the medical measures sought to keep him alive are no longer viable for any length of time. A heart transplant now seems his only recourse. Of course, the obvious point here is that for this transplant to take place, someone else will have to die.  O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

How long would it take for Jacob before he could expect a heart? Two to three months is average wait time for the heart he would need. A heart from a person somewhere around his current size and weight or perhaps a bit older and bigger. Stunned, we asked why it takes only two or three months. People of that age are prone to accidents, was the ominous reply.  This is the reality of allotted time for some living in the wilderness of this present age. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Then on Wednesday afternoon I received a call from the St. Louis Park Police Department.  Come to the station, one of our officers just died. I am a chaplain for this department. Tim was thirty eight years old. A husband and father of two children.  He died of a pulmonary embolism.  This was his allotted time. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

I sat for some hours talking with the officers, watching the characteristically stunned and numb bodies of the grieving. This is part of our allotted time.  O Lord, teach us to number our days.

I also visited a ninety three year old saint recovering from back surgery. Helped a family in the church move to a new house. Counseled a young woman of two children whose husband has committed adultery. And began premarital counseling with a young couple. This is the allotted time in which each of these people is living out their days.  O Lord, teach us to number our days.

Listen again to Moses: “The years of our life are seventy, and if by reason of strength eighty, yet their span is but toil and trouble.”  Rather blunt isn’t he? This is the realism of pilgrim piety for the child of God who doesn’t hide the fact that we don’t live in paradise. We live in the land of the dying, not the land of the living. This too is the reality of our allotted time.  O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

But you say: “What does God know of death and suffering and sorrow? Isn’t God far removed from and untouched by the frailties of mankind?”  Moses asked the question: “Who knows the power of your anger?” (Verse 11).

In the fullness of time, the Bible reveals the incomprehensible and comforting answer to that question. The Son of God came into this world, took to himself our human nature and became man. Hebrews says: “Inasmuch as the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the same, that through his death he might destroy him who had the power of death…” (Hebrews 2:14). And again, “He [the Son of God, Jesus Christ] learned obedience by the things which he suffered, and having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:8, 9).

Not only did the Son of God taste the toil and trouble of our existence in his allotted days, he also drank down the full cup of the just anger of God for our sins. On the cursed tree on Calvary he bore the wrath and curse of God in our place for our sakes. On that tree the Son of God cried out: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The Bible is not coy about supplying the answer: “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

What does God know about death and suffering and sorrow? God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son, delivered him over to the curse and to bear the wrath of God against our sins in our place. God forsook His own Son whom He loved with a Divine and eternal love. O, God knows infinitely more about death and suffering and sorrow than we could ever know. And He gave His Son so that through faith in Him, we might live forever with God. O Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

O may we not fail to see our time. If you are still drawing breath, you have time. Confronted with the gritty face of death and toil and trouble, O Lord, teach us to number our days. “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake his way. The unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy on Him, and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon” (Isaiah 55:6, 7). This is the heart of wisdom God would teach in our allotted days.

May we not fail to see our time. When we see that our time is allotted time, our response must be gratitude and joy that this time has been given to us by God, for God’s service and glory. This is the heart of wisdom God would teach us in our allotted time.  This is what really matters. For time, and eternity.

“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.”  William Shakespeare.

A thankless child is not only a pain, he or she is also painful for a parent to endure.  A thankless child takes the blessings from the hand of a loving father and mother, but doesn’t come close to his parents expressing humble and heartfelt thanks to them.

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.

It is that kind of sentiment that Jesus, our Lord, expresses in Luke 17:17,18.  Ten lepers approached Jesus for healing.  Nine were Jews, one was a Samaritan. After healing the lepers, only one, the Samaritan, returned to give thanks and glorify God.  So Jesus answered and said, Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?  What?!  Is only one man grateful enough to come back and say thank you?  And he a foreigner—a Samaritan.  Didn’t I heal ten lepers?  Where are the other nine?  Ninety percent ingratitude.  An under-whelming response, wouldn’t you say?

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.  These lepers have taken the merciful and gracious gift of God’s loving hand in Jesus Christ, and they have bitten that hand instead of kissing it.

Now, why is that so remarkable?  Here’s why: the nine ungrateful former lepers failed to give glory and thanksgiving to Christ. This is the kind of ingratitude that characterizes the fallen sinful race in Adam “…although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful….”(Romans 1:21).  On the other hand, surely what is most characteristic of the redeemed child of God is whole-hearted thanksgiving, which flows from a heart that has received the unmerited mercy and grace of God through Jesus Christ. This Thanksgiving consider:  Are you a thankful child?

Let’s review some of the details of the passage.  There were these ten men suffering from that most dreaded disease of the time—leprosy.  Lepers were dead men walking.  No medicine of that day could heal them.  Their hands and feet and faces, the insides of their mouths, were full of sores.  These parts of their bodies were slowly decaying, until finally they would bleed to death, or starve.

All lepers had to leave their homes and cities and go into virtual isolation.  When other people came close to them, they had to call out, “unclean, unclean!”  Because the disease rendered them unclean, they were not able to go to the temple.  They were isolated from society, and could have little contact with family or friends.  They were alone.  They were miserable.

This group of lepers cried out to Jesus: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.”  Jesus commanded them to present themselves to the priests at the temple.  They were healed as they went, in obedience to Him and out of faith in his words.

Now, a striking contrast is seen in the responses of the former lepers.  Nine of them went their way to the priests, and we never hear of them again.  Were these men happy?  Most certainly.  Were they appreciative of the gift?  Undoubtedly.  But where is the expression of their gratitude to the Giver?

Our Lord’s words in verse 17 give us His assessment of such a response to His good gifts.  “Were there not ten cleansed?  But where are the nine?  Where there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”  Now that really bites!  With regard to this passage, John Calvin speaks of Jesus here rebuking the Jewish nation—covenant people—who had been “gulping down God’s favors without any feelings of godliness”.  In fact, Calvin continues, this charge is brought against all of us, “if we do not at least repay the divine favors by the duty of gratitude.”

But notice the tenth leper’s response, the Samaritan’s response.  He returns to Jesus, the Giver of this great gift, and in a loud voice “glorified God.”  He bows, he worships, he thanks the Christ of God.  Yet, there is more to it than that even.  He seeks Jesus’ benediction.  He wanted more than what the priest could give, he wanted what only our Great High Priest could give.  He is not disappointed.  For with Jesus he has come to the One who has eternal life.  “Arise, go your way.  Your faith has made you well.”

In Jesus Christ we have God’s greatest gift (John 3:16).  Our sin is like leprosy. It slowly but surely destroys our whole life.  Only Jesus can heal us, and cure us of sin’s sickness and curse.  Only Jesus can make clean what is unclean.  Through him, we who once were far off from God, separated from Him because of our sins, we are reconciled to God.  Forgiven, redeemed body and soul, we are raised up unto newness of life through the resurrection of Christ.  We will live with Christ in the new heaven and new earth where there shall be “no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying.  There shall be no more pain” Revelation 21:4.

Now let me ask you:  What ought to be the response of the child of God for such a great salvation?  Nothing less than our whole-hearted thanksgiving.  Glorifying God in everything, every day.  Every day humbly obeying Christ, and thanking Him for our redemption.  The cross of Christ has taught us to sing with the poet, “Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small.  Love so amazing, so divine demands my soul, my life, my all.”

You see it, don’t you?  That whole-hearted thanksgiving can be present whether you have sickness or health; rain or drought; fruitful or barren years; suffering and trials, or comfort and happiness.  These cannot alter for one second the reality of the benefits of Christ’s redemption.

So, another Thanksgiving Holiday has come around.  The children of God survey the past year.  People of God, go ahead, count your many blessings.  Name them one by one.  But at the top of that list put: Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift.  Jesus Christ.  Through faith in Him, you have been made well.

Then the measure of your thankfulness won’t be defined simply in terms of your material blessings, or even because of your good health.  May the redeeming work of Christ teach us all how to be thankful children.

Jim Sawtelle

Crystal, MN