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
