If you ever have the misfortune to take an introductory course in Sanitary
Engineering (that branch of Civil Engineering that deals with the design of
sewers and sewage treatment plants) one of the first things you will learn is
that raw sewage is as unadulterated as Ivory soap, 99 and 44/100 % pure. With
Ivory it probably doesn't matter what is in that 0.6%, it will still get you
clean, but with sewage that percentage could kill you. There are about a
million bacteria in every hundred milliliters (about a third of a cup) plus
other kinds of stuff we don't need to get into.
Ivory soap and Sanitary Engineering are just two of the millions of great
enterprises that western culture has given us. Look at the advertisement of
many modern merchandisers and you will see words something like: "We stock over 50,000 items to serve you
better!" Now every one of those items had at least one person
engaged in some sort of enterprise to bring that product to you. Some of them
had literally thousands of people actively involved in the design, production
and distribution of the object's enterprise. Some of those people are even
engaged in the enterprise of making soaps and detergents. Stuff to make you
clean and fresh. But equipped with such a great cleansing product, would you
want to take a dip in a sewage lagoon - like some of the ducks? Of course not.
Even if you washed and washed with the best anti-bacterial cleanser and had a
battery of chemical and biological tests conducted to prove you were indeed
cleansed, you would always remember that quick swim. And not with pleasant
thoughts.
I find it quite difficult to understand how this complex enterprise system
could come about by chance. It couldn't of course. It was designed, whether
that be a simple sewage lagoon or a complex urban waste treatment plant. The
complexity that can be involved in the understanding that water runs down hill
and in the process can be made clean by millions of bacteria and other
organisms is truly a miracle. There are artificial lakes to build, piped rivers
to size, many means to mix air within this process to keep it from going
septic. Just like in a natural cascade. Then there is the place where it all
settles out and the water is almost pure enough that with minor further
treatment can be reused, perhaps even for drinking.
What if this whole complex system of different enterprises, in their whole
complexity were again designed, would you destroy the whole treatment process
just because you started out with some impurities? Again you would design a
process that would take care of it. Last week we looked at the sources of good
and evil. This week let us look at the waste treatment process that could be
involved in getting rid of the evil and keeping the good. We will do this again
by using the branches of the Quercus trifecta.
Last week we learned that both western and eastern religious culture have no
real understanding for the sources of good and evil, they both believe it just
sort of happened. We therefore turned to the Bible, the book of the middle
religious branch , to get some concept of that origin. While that Biblical
account was written like a simple story, that simple men and women could
understand, there also seemed to be some cosmic dimensions to the whole story.
In that regard let us just speculate that God has used western man and his
self willed desire to produce great enterprises as the primary mechanism to
become the waste treatment process (to cleanse evil) from the whole world. Not
that the drive to subdue and to exploit is really compatible with the God
thing, so western culture will just have to po-po that whole concept. In order
to deal with what he can not understand, western man invented the enterprise of
evolution to remove God entirely from the natural picture. For that unexplained
that still remains, he (western man) finds in eastern religion and metaphysics
that solution. It is truly amazing to me how a culture that has given man so
much materially, can share the same bed with a religious structure responsible
for most of the world's impoverishment. But then again, perhaps they both are
infected with that same small percentage of evil, that makes ingesting either
culture eternally fatal.
Just as the Bible talks about the origin of everything including man and his
enterprise. The Bible also talks about the end. Now you could say, "Do you really believe all that religious
stuff?"
"Well I have to admit that after looking
at all the alternatives, all the different cultures and enterprises that man
has produced, I have to say that in the Bible alone do I find answers that are
found no where else. The great thing about it however, if I am wrong I am no
worse off for it, I've just made some choices different and perhaps strange
from your perspective. But if the Bible is right and you and your rational
wisdom is wrong, you could be in for a long swim in the sewage lagoon of
eternity. It is the Bible that condemns you not me!"
The Bible speaks about the end of this present age and the beginning of a
new creation and a new order without the influence of evil, in Revelation
Chapter 20. Since you found that old dusty Bible last week and I assume you
read some of it, this week we want to look at the possibility of what the line
in my Bible calls, "The Great White Throne Judgement." It begins in verse 11, if you stole your Bible from
a motel room and it doesn't have these little notes. While you are at it,
really won't take that long to finish the whole book, go ahead make the choice.
Judgment! That really isn't a pleasant sounding term for someone who has
always tried to do as good as they could, considering the circumstances. No
warm fuzzies here! How can we be assured that our name is in the Book of Life
and we will not be cast into the lake of fire?
At that time, even though your good works are as pure as Ivory soap, the
possibility is strongly indicated that you may be judged as raw sewage. To keep
the percentages right you have 994 great things about your life's enterprise -
but you have just six things that will keep you out of that eternal Jerusalem,
those six things you will share with everyone who eternally lives in the lake
of fire. These six principles are clearly demonstrated, in essentially this
stated context, in other portions of the Bible. It would be well for you, if
your eternal destiny hinges on their external truth, to consider their
application to your life. These six are:
1.
There is an eternal personal God, preexistent to all creation, who is all
knowing and all powerful and completely just.
2.
That God has created a literal hell for a place of punishment for a personal
Satan and his angels. Through our own willful obedience to Satan's evil schemes
we are subject to that same eternal judgement.
3.
Just as there is an eternal dwelling place for Satan and his children, there is
an eternal dwelling place of reward for God's children. This place is popularly
called heaven or the restored creation. It is a place without evil or death.
But most people don't go there when they die.
4.
The God-Man Jesus Christ alone is the propitiator and the justifier of each and
every man. That sacrifice on a cross is made available by His grace alone
through faith in His work alone. He is the very source of God's mercy and
through His resurrection provides His followers the hope of eternal life.
5.
Any merit that I bring has nothing to do with my election to eternal life.
Eternal life is a free gift of grace and blessing which God bestows on all
those who believe in faith in the justification presented through Jesus Christ.
6.
Jesus Christ will return physically to this earth one day and at the end of
time all humanity that has ever lived will be judged according to their
understanding of the preceding five points. Those who by faith live in the
perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ will proceed to the eternal state of
blessing. Those who do not will forever be subjected to just punishment.
These are the classical teachings of historic orthodox Christianity as
presented in the Bible. It is the purifying process by which the church has
been proclaimed these last 2000 years. It is part and parcel for every
individual upon hearing these six principles, to make your own choice as to
their truth. You can accept them, you can reject them, or you can study and
learn more about them. You can understand it in the nature of a free will
choice presented to you. With so much potentially at stake, pride may lead to
your downfall. The choice is yours.
The church in her pursuit of enterprise has
gotten away from her mission. In that pursuit the essentials of the historic
Christian faith, are neglected in just another marketing scheme of selling soft
soap. Now it is apparent than in order to correct this disorder, most
evangelical organizations, ministries and churches point their scolding finger
at the perpetrator and say, "Shame on you, transgressor of sin!" That is the easy way to create and to sustain a
religious enterprise. This can take place within Evangelicalism by either
pointing to enterprise as the source by which doctrine is compromised, or by
pointing to sinful moral choices as the enterprise becomes corrupted. Neither
of these is the reasons for the existence of the church. Satan has succeeded by
altering our mission statement and then having us focus on the enterprise in
question as the source of evil. But if enterprise was part of the original
creation, the job that God gave Adam to do, then it is by nature good, or very
good.
We in the church are really criticizing this artful development in western
culture because of its success. We have man centered churches and ministries
because it is just part of the natural development of western religious
enterprise. We can write books, sing contemporary Christian music, have radio
and television programs, fast, pray, say a million Rosary's or whatever and it
will have no effect, because that is not our job. The job of the church is, and
always has been, to preach the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, the
Kingdom of God. A brief six point program, was included above just in case you
forgot what it was. By using God given enterprise as a mechanism for its
proclamation, but not as the end. The end, as with the gospel itself, must be
left with God alone and not with our western marketing and business plans. When
the gospel is preached faithfully, it is God who adds his chosen to the
community of the eternal congregation. Once we understand, that which we so
easily forget, that Jesus Christ is our justification. Then, and only then, in
the God-centered bud on the central branch of Quercus trifecta we begin again to produce the fruit so many of us
long to see. From that bud we can build our enterprise which can last eternally
and which can be taken in some positive aspect into the life to come.