Reverend Calvin Robinson | Christianity SHOULD NOT allow Gay Marriage

Come, O Sinner

 

Blessed Forgiven Covered - Convention of General Synod 2023 LCANZ Australia

 Psalm 32:1(ESV)  Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 

Blessed, forgiven, covered. 

In a world of chaos, confusion, and fear these three words stand out as beacons for true peace.

Since the year two thousand it has been difficult to identify peace within the Lutheran Church of Australia.

A lack of good-will has been allowed to fester, causing division that’s giving way to suspicion, treachery, and a promotion of personal agendas that’s only served to further division between God’s people.

We have struggled with division as a Lutheran Church in Australia since not long after the first Lutherans arrived here from Germany in the eighteen-thirties.  Karvel and Fritzsche parted company in 1846, and with the arrival of others in following years, the Lutheran Church remained splintered in separate synods till 1966.

But even today still the threads of separation continue to simmer and cause suspicion. 

It may or may not be due to faithfulness towards Karvel or Fritzsche, with the former ELCA or UELCA synods.  

The separation may or may not be whether one should be or shouldn’t be immunised with the latest Covid vaccination. 

It may or may not be whether you believe or disbelieve women should be ordained into the office of preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments.

Whatever it is that causes your suspicion and ill will, though, we all must acknowledge that with suspicion, holy fellowship cannot truly exist.  And no matter how much we work to put suspicion and ill will aside, things will only continue to get worse. 

What will remove suspicion and ill-will from the Lutheran Church of Australia and New Zealand?

 Chaos, confusion, and corruption are an everyday part of life in these days.   And the reality is that it is getting worse in all areas of life.  This makes it all the more important that we remain blessed, forgiven, and covered by God.

If we as church do not remain blessed, forgiven, and covered by God there is zero chance of unity in the Lutheran Church of Australia and there will never be any assurance of sincere good will amongst us as a fellowship of believers.

Any unity built on our love of the LCANZ, desire for unity’s sake, for the good name of the LCANZ, or for any other human ideology or love needs to fail!  Indeed, it must fail, so the love of Jesus Christ can find us debased and rebase us in the loving forgiveness and faithfulness of Jesus Christ, where we can continue to receive the Holy Spirit and confess our sin before the all-seeing, all-knowing, all-hearing, and all-powerfully forgiving and faithful Almighty God our Father.

You and I together with every other human being struggles with trusting and fearing God.  All of us for a myriad of reasons desires to replace this fear and trust in God with a knowledge of our own good and evil.  In essence, when we do this, we replace a singular ultimate knowledge of good and evil, found only in God the Father, with a pantheon of ideas of what is good and what is evil.

All these goods and evils are the chaos, confusion, and corruption in which we live.  Today we live in a society that sees the biblical goods God has given us as evils, and God’s evils are now identified as good. 

Five years ago, we as a country voted to legalise gay and lesbian marriage.  Three fifths of the country voted yes but two fifths voted no.  Five years on, the evolution of the love that has grown from the plebiscite is one of legalism and intolerance towards anyone raising and teaching children about an objective right and wrong in submission to an ultimate source of good and evil identified by God and his Word, and as God and his Word made flesh.

Our society will continue to crumble and disintegrate through chaos, confusion, and corruption without trust and fear in an Almighty Triune God.  Individualistic desire and ideas of what is good, and evil, will continue to divide and conquer community. 

This disintegration at the hands of chaos, confusion, and corruption is happening in the church too.  

At our upcoming Synod the LCANZ have a number of proposals before us as church. 

The debate on women’s ordination, safe place manipulation and its impact on congregational supply, the theological and pastoral training of ordained pastors in the LCANZ, the function of the pastorate, the function of the college of bishops, the function of the districts, the function of boards in the LCANZ, the function of our education and welfare sectors, all under the umbrella of our synodical function, together with discerning the function of the face to face administration of God’s word and sacraments, as opposed to an undifferentiating use of multimedia, is the multifaceted storm of dysfunction into which the LCANZ is sailing. 

We have not been watching where we have been sailing, nor have we kept before us the purpose for which we sail.  We have been so focused on ourselves seeking to control the ship, throw sinners overboard, and have failed to allow the winds of the Holy Spirit to fill the sails and move us to those whom God wants us to minister his forgiveness.

In fact, there has been a type of mutiny against our Lord’s Headship in the LCANZ through the confusion between the priesthood of all believes and those called and ordained to prepare the priesthood for ministry in the vocations in which God has placed each of us. 

We have sought to wrangle the word of God from him and use it to our own advantage, we have sought to use it for our own desire and selfish love.

In the women’s ordination debate both sides have sought to use God’s word for their own gain.  Both sides standing in authority over God’s word, rather than kneeling in submission to it.

The function of the LCANZ stands on the brink of dysfunction, church boards are usurping their authority, while those called to function with theological authority have not.

But this does not have to be the crisis it’s growing to be!  We are a church that has stopped listening and watching. 

The Holy Spirit is being grieved.

Jesus is still in the midst of his church.  He is ready to be woken, to calm the storm, so we continue to be blessed, forgiven, and covered.

We all agree that we cannot come to agreement on what the scriptures say regarding the ordination of women. 

We know that other denominations and Lutheran churches ordain women.  We also know that God has spoken through our synodical process four time saying “no” to the ordination of women in the LCANZ.  Only in the fulness of time will we understand this.

In synods at Tanunda in 2000, Toowoomba in 2006, Brisbane in 2015, and Sydney in 2018 delegates trusted God in the process of synod, prayed accordingly, voted, and God spoke through the result saying, “no”.

If we have not trusted God in the past, why should anyone trust him working through the forthcoming 2023 synod and beyond?  Are we not opening the way for further chaos, confusion, and corruption?  If we continue to go the way of subjective knowledge of good and evil, can we expect any type of functional unity in Jesus Christ to come from this?  Only the worst kind of love will come to life from a pseudo unity or trust in God!

We can engage in emotionalism in questioning why God has said, “no”.  But it does not dismiss the fact that God has said “no” in the process we trust in which he works. 

When God says no in scripture, he calls us to listen.  When he says something three times, yes or no, God is calling us to stop, turn, and follow him, listen to him, and trust him.

Four times God has spoken to us.  He has been faithful to us through synod.  God calls us to suffer under his righteousness just as Jesus did.  For pastors, in the office in which he has called them as mediators, to suffer, as Jesus suffered.  For all in the office of the priesthood of all believers to suffer as servants as Jesus did.

When we suffer or endure in what Christ has called us to, the Holy Spirit will enable peace within, as  he leads us. 

As the psalmist says in Psalm 32 we will be blessed or balanced or made level before God and be caused to be seen balanced and blessed before a chaotic world. 

We will be affirmed in Christ’s forgiveness and led by the Holy Spirit in the mega work of confessing sin to God, and the confession before the world of God’s forgiveness of our sin.  Nevertheless, we will suffer in doing so.  But praise God, we will continue being covered by the forgiveness of Jesus Christ and holiness worked by God the Holy Spirit.

Be blessed, forgiven, and covered by God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.

Psalm 32 is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.  Jesus is your confessor before God the Father, he also instructs and counsels you with the Holy Spirit who proceeds from him and our Father in Heaven.

Just as Jesus listened to God the Father and bore our transgression for our forgiven and was covered and raised by the Spirit and the Father, we too are blessed, forgiven, and covered, when we remain in Jesus Christ, listening to the will of God our Father. 

Jesus is in our midst, let’s join him in prayer, listening to God, asking him to forgive us and cover us in his blessed knowledge and holiness.

Psalm 32 (ESV)

A MASKIL OF DAVID. 

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. 

Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity,

and in whose spirit there is no deceit. 

For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. 

For day and night your hand was heavy upon me;

my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah 

I acknowledged my sin to you,

and I did not cover my iniquity;

I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,”

and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah 

Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you

at a time when you may be found;

surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. 

You are a hiding place for me;

you preserve me from trouble;

you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah 

I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will counsel you with my eye upon you. 

Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding,

which must be curbed with bit and bridle,

or it will not stay near you. 

Many are the sorrows of the wicked,

but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. 

Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice,

O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

 

Pastor Heath Pukallus

January 2023

 

Revelation Repentance Prayer

 Dear Heavenly Father please forgive your church 
these seven sins in the holiness of your year,
this year...

The sin of:
abandoning our first love;
fearing to suffer for Christ's sake;
serving wealth and the worship of it;
crediting salvation to those outside Christ;
make-believing, with a human-spirited faith
while resisting a Holy Spirited faith;
neglecting opportunities to witness
through the door opened by the Lord;
being lukewarm and apathetic.

Not only do we ask God to forgive us
but also confess before the world 
whom we have also let down by these sins.

 In abandoning our first love
we no longer point you to this love;
in fearing to suffer for Christ’s sake,
we have not lived the way of the cross before you;
in our worshipping of wealth,
we have allowed you to suffer
in your desire for health and wealth;
in crediting salvation to those outside of Christ,
we have let the lamp of Lucifer
burnout your hearts;
in our make-believing, 
we have allowed you to trust
we only believe in fairytales;
in neglecting opportunities to witness,
we have slammed the open door
of God in your faces;
in being lukewarm
we have failed to show you God,
by showing ourselves as saviours.

We confess these seven sins
to you our Heavenly Father
 through Jesus Christ our Lord,
 who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever. Amen

Suffering in Drought

“What can we do?”

“What can we do?”  This is the plea of many Australians in the face of the destructive drought and fires ravishing our country in these days.

“What can we do?”  As human lives are destroyed and creatures both domestic and wild are burnt out of large areas of habitation our earth is crying out to us from the midst of this every increasing dry and fiery climate.  

In fact the cry is so great that around this planet people in other countries are commenting on the situation in Australia.

However, the reality deeply seated behind the cry “what can we do?” is not one of us wants to give up the things of this age we deem necessary for daily living.  Behind the question “what can we do?” is an ideology which casts blame on someone else so “I” don’t have to change anything in my life.

The last decade has been the hottest on record.  This was recently reported in the media just weeks into the new decade.  And things appear only to be getting worse.  As we face the devolution and degeneration of humanity, how can we fix years of havoc wreaked on our planet’s resources?

Let’s collect lots of money to fix the problem!  Let’s apply for research grants to understand the effects of fire and smoke on our community!  Let’s come together to save our world from climate change.  But let us first post on social media how wonderful it is to be able to drive to the shops, drink coffee out of a disposable cup, and buy goods produced for our pleasure through the evils of pillaging and plundering our planet. 

There is nothing we can do that will halt the spiral of disaster humanity is heading towards on this earth.  Our climate is changing; there are many different arguments why.  However, there is little in the answer to the problem of climate change.  The vultures will continue to circle the pool of money.  One evil will replace another as people seek to cast blame onto someone else.

Who can stop the inferno?  Who can stop the smoke?  Who can make it rain or make it stop?  Who can put the rainbow back in the sky where it rightfully belongs?  Can the scientist?  Can the bushfire fighter?  Can the farmers and the graziers?  Can the activist or the protester? Can the politicians and policy makers?  Can our mums and dads?  Can our children?  And we continue to cry out, “What can we do?”

Looking at ourselves and at our earth for the answers leaves us in a bleak situation.  And the state of affairs is very real.  We see any fix as impotent at best.  But then what can we expect if we are accidents of evolution?   Shouldn’t we expect extinction of humans, animals, and plants that are not the fittest in a changing climate, if we hold to this doctrine of the scientifically justified man?   If this is the case why do anything if this is our lot on a planet swinging from ice age to hot house.  If this is the case you or I can do nothing!

Regardless of whether we stand as individuals on this earth or every person on earth stands together as one there is no power within us to fix what is wrong on earth.  This world is decaying exponentially; this world is dying.  If any of us think we can fix our world, death overtakes us and the next generation faces the same deadly scenario.  When we ignore this reality we as humans demonstrate our conceitedness.  Many parade evolution but reality shows us devolution to be the truth!

Humanity stands at the crossroads of life and death.  In fact it has never been different, only in these days it has become more obvious in this age of technology and knowledge that knowledge and technology will not sustain life in the face of what nature throws at us. What we know and what we do will not save humanity!

But something can be done.  In fact it is being done.  It is coming.  God’s will is being done and his kingdom is coming.  It has been done, it is being done, and it will be done.  It has come, it is coming, and it will come!  When we take the rule of this world out of God’s hands, and impose our rule on this earth God leaves us to our own rule.  And yet as an argument against the existence of God humanity cries, “If God is ‘a god of love’ why is he letting this happen to us?” But God has lovingly given us our wish and removed his oversight from this earth so we might see the results of our rule.

The earth is crying out for mercy in these days.  Our fauna and flora are crying out for mercy in the wake of the fires.  Our livestock are crying out for mercy as the drought drags on.  But God is waiting for us to invite him back into our lives so he might show mercy on us.

What can we do?  Stand before God with humble hearts and confess our sin that; we have many other gods before him; we have used God’s name to serve ourselves; and we have ignored the teaching and preaching of God’s word.  It is time to put the spirit of humanity aside and let the Holy Spirit return us to Jesus Christ. 

In allowing the Triune God into our hearts through the forgiveness of sins, God’s love will be revealed.  God will bless our work to help our brothers and sisters recover from the fires and the drought.  We will have the power of the Holy Spirit to mourn with those who have lost loved ones. 

We will be the agents of peace in an age of fear turning hearts to take hold of our Heavenly Father, to see him as holy, to know his kingdom is coming in this dying world, to know his will is being done on earth as in heaven.  And by our trust in God we will show others that Jesus is the only daily bread needed for this life.

What can we do?  Let us pray, forgive us our sins as we forgive those, lead us not into temptation to build our own kingdoms, but deliver us from evil into the holiness of your name.  For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours, Heavenly Father.  Amen.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.  (Romans 8:18–23 ESV)

Climate Change

We as country, states, and communities commend our emergency personnel for the stand they have taken to defend us and our property.

This Spring and Summer in Australia has clearly demonstrated we live in a fallen world.  Creation is broken and our climate is changing for the worse.  Indeed we are in the grips of climate change.

But the climate change addressed below is not the climate change the government and political activists would have us take a stand against.

The true climate change is not a change which lays blame on individuals for not having an effective escape management plan or for not back burning around one’s properties.  It is not one which loads blame on individuals like the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison or Opposition Leader, Anthony Albanese.  No! This climate change is one in which all of us need to address within each of us as individuals, state, and community!

The true climate change needing to be addressed is the climate change of the heart.  Cold stony hearts denying God entry does exactly that.  We are left alone.  God leaves us alone to stand alone! To stand in the power of ourselves!  To stand as individuals having ultimate authority!

But to live this way is contrary to living as creatures under the wisdom and authority of our Almighty God the Father. This is living without the mercy and grace in which God desires to immerse each of us and all Australians. When we live contrary to God and his Word, his will, and his way, we flip the way to live over to our way of existence as evil.

As community, state, and individuals we are all guilty of this.  Sins of commission and sins omission are being exposed as the deception of our dross loaded lives is being burnt away showing on what we stand to be impotent at best.

The only true power that exists in this world is by God working through a church that stands under his Word and by his Word and nothing else but his Word.  With God’s Word we the church are called to repentance.

The community of the Christian church is being called to account for lack of its repentance over its sexual misconduct and the greater sin of seeking to appease the world by joining it in its accusations of sinners.

The community of the Christian church is being called to account for not making a stand on God’s Word defining and defending love that is agape from love that is a heavenly eros.  That is love which solely focuses on love that comes down from the Father through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

Rather than seeking a love that flounders around in the human spirit to raise itself up in a righteousness of its own.  Each of us needs to ask God to reveal what kind of love comes to life when he shines the pure light of his love in us.

The community of the Christian church is being called to continue standing against the vulgar eros that two thirds of Australians voted for in 2019.  “Love is love” is not a love that lets us love unconditionally because it binds love to the individual’s idea or what is good and evil.

And the Christian church is called to account for it denominational eudemonic self preservation rather than focusing on Jesus Christ and his Word being the centre of our proclamation to our neighbours, communities, and state.  This is a proclamation where we confess our sinfulness and forgiveness to each other and the world; where we confess Jesus’ forgiveness to all who allow their sins to be lifted and put on the cross.

We as the Christian church are called to stand receptively under Jesus Christ, and remain standing despite the spiritual fires raging around us rather than join the judgement of world and stand in judgement over what God wants or says in his Word.  When we do this we love ourselves no differently than any other person or worldly institution.

When this climate changes and God’s people stand in the face of the fire, seeking forgiveness on behalf of the church and all other peoples in Australia we will see God turn down the temper of the climate change in this broken world.  Why?  Because God is the God of Love!  He stands for humanity so much so he stood his Son up on the cross to bear the flames of evil.  In doing so he flips evil on its head.

Obeying in its simplicity means to listen.  When God’s people repent they no longer rule over God’s Word but hear God’s Word, stand under it and live.  We stand under Jesus repenting of our evil.  We are covered by the love of his blood and the division of his body from the Father by evil, so you and I might live.  In ourselves we have neither the way nor the will to stand over evil in either the fires testing us physically or spiritually.  But the fires of God’s love are greater than our feeble back burns; they are even greater than the fires that blacken our skies and shut out the light in the middle of the day.

“Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts; let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him, and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sewer and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. “For you shall go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall break forth into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall make a name for the Lord, an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.” Isaiah 55:6–13 (ESV)

God’s will is to effect a climate change within all of us.  The fires are thawing our frozen stony hearts returning us to the warm blooded creatures God intends us to be.  God is a God of providence. God will cause his rainbow to shine again in the late afternoon sky because he will sustain life when we live it for his glory.  Human rainbows only confuse peace, hope, and love.

We cannot love God unless we have received the forgiveness of sin.  [Apology CA IV:311]  Alas, we cannot love anyone unless we love God.  Let us pray for climate change in our hearts, effected by the Holy Spirit, standing fast in the forgiveness of sin, in the love of God, in the face of whatever evil assails us.

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Ephesians 6:10–13 (ESV)

As we seek ways to help survivors of the fires who have lost loved ones and property, let us bring our neighbours, our community, our state and our selves before the Lord of Heaven and Earth in faith and repentance.  In doing so we share the love that God has shown to us.

Pastor Heath Pukallus
Epiphany 2020