BOOK REVIEW. David Heddle, who has a great blog over at www.helives.blogspot.com, has written a book and I am going to review it. David is a physicist and a student of the Bible. His current series on early church history is both educational and fascinating. You should go there and read it. His book is a novel. It this age of technology, he sent it to me electronically and I will read it on my laptop computer. I plan to start on New Year's Eve.

I admire almost anyone who can complete a book, whether ficition or non-fiction. I have started several, but never completed one. It is a large amount of work. Congratulations, David.

CREEPY STUFF IN THE NEWS. A woman in Maryland has had her own grandchildren. Really. When her daughter and son in law could not conceive, this woman volunteered to carry the babies. The doctors fertilized her daughter's eggs with her son in law's sperm and an embryo was created. The embryo was implanted in the grandmother, who is 55 years old.

The grandmother has now given birth to triplets, as is often the case when doctors mess with the natural process.

So, the gestational mother is the genetic grandmother. The genetic mother is the gestational sister. That sounds like a bad country and western song, doesn't it? Or life in Arkansas?

I find this all creepy and unsettling. I am not much of one for messing with the reproductive process anyway. But, this raises a lot of issues that doctors cannot resolve by chemistry.

I think I prefer that babies come into the world in the normal way and we let God decide who has kids and who does not. Wow, there is something the Pope and I agree on.

There is something we don't agree on, however, and it is creepy item number two. The Pope is trying to bury the axe with the Orthodox church, so he in un-burying some saints. John Chrysostom and Gregor Nazianzen were big in the Orthodox church. They were buried in Constantinople, now Istanbul. When the Catholics were tuning up for the Fourth Crusade, they took a detour to Constaninople in 1204, sacked it, and stole the bones of these two saints. They also raped women and children, stole art, gold, and silver, spreead animal excrement in the cathedral, and generally amused themselves at the expense of the Orthodox. The Pope had already excommunicated the Patriarch of Constantinople about 150 years before. However, there is not much that can be done about that now. The bones of the dead saints are a different matter.

One problem, however is that John Chrysostom is also a "Doctor of the Church" for the Romans.
Therefore, it is thought that the Pope will hang onto some of John's bones. They call them Relics by the way, which sounds much better than bones, corpses, dead bodies, and other more accurate descriptions.

Can you imagine a bunch of Baptists digging up Spurgeon and carting his corpse around?

The world is a creepy place.

THE VALUE OF EXPERIENCE. Good judgment comes from experience. Most experience comes from bad judgment.

Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.

QUOTE OF THE DAY. "Even I have trouble explaining to my family that we are not about killing babies." Gore-Lieberman campaign manager Donna Brazile. Well, Donna, you just can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

TODAY'S SUNDAY SCHOOL NOTES.

ROMANS 8

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT

8:1-4 (No Condemnation)

This great verse tells us there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. “Condemnation” means a judicial declaration that you are guilty of sin and must face punishment. You might here a news report that a murderer was condemned to death. That person has been found guilty of a crime and sentenced the punishment of death.

In our situation, we are found guilty of being sinners and condemned to death unless we believe in Christ. John 3:18 tells us that whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

However, those who are “in Christ” are not condemned. God does not look at us and see as sinners He condemns. He sees us “in Christ”. So, you do not need to live your life as if God is mad at you or condemning you. He may discipline you along the way, but he will not condemn you.

This applies to those who are “in Christ”, those who have believed in him and been changed into children of God.

Verse 2 begins to tell us why we are not under condemnation. It is because we have been set free from the law of sin and death. (I do not think he is speaking of the commandments and ordinances here as the law of sin and death, but the power of sin in the lost person’s life.) Those who are saved live by the Spirit. Here he says the law of the Spirit. We have been set free from sin, death, and condemnation under the law because we have been saved to live by the Holy Spirit.

Verse 3 reminds us that the law was powerless to make us righteous because our sin natures weakened it or prevented it. Sinful people do not see the law as the path to righteousness. They see it as an unfair limitation on their freedom and will.

So, God fulfilled the requirements of the law by sending his Son in human flesh to be a sin offering (NIV), or “for sin” (ESV), or “on account of sin (NKJV). Christ fulfilled the law by living without sin. Hebrews 4:15 says he was tempted in every way just as we are, yet lived without sin. Christ also paid the penalty for our sin by dying on the cross for us.

This again shows God’s justice, although this passage does not mention it specifically. Verse 3 says that he condemned sin in sinful man. God is, therefore, the just judge of sin. But, the righteous requirements of the law were fully met in us. They were met when we accepted Christ as Savior by faith so that his righteousness was credited to us.

Who is “us”? It is the saved, the converted, the church. Verse 4 calls us those who live not according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit. Those who have believed and been redeemed, are now guided by the Spirit and do not live according to the sinful nature.

In John 14:16, Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit to us who believe. He is our Counselor or Helper (parakletos). He will provide us with encouragement, counsel, and strength. John 14:26 says the Holy Spirit will teach us. John 15:23 says the Father and Jesus himself will come and make their home with us.

8:5-8 (Flesh v. Spirit)

Paul offers us a contrast between those who live by God’s Spirit and those who live according to the flesh, or the sin nature. They do not want the same things. Galatians 5:17 tells us the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with ech other.

Here are the traits of those who live according to the sinful nature. First, they have their minds set on what that nature desires. The sinful nature desires stature or significance, and physical gratification in food, drink, drugs, and sex. These desires lead to the acts described in Galatians 5:19-21 and Matthew 15:19. So, we should not be surprised that people want to get drunk, take drugs, have sex outside of marriage, lie, cheat, steal, boast, and seek to justify it all. That is what the Bible says they will do.

Second, the mind of the sinful person is death. It is death in that it seeks the life of sin that leads to eternal death, and that is spiritually dead today. That life leads to dead thinking and dead feeling. Notice it is contrasted with the life and peace of the believer. The life lived according to the sin nature is ultimately meaningless and useless, so it leads to depression, emotional deadness and detachment, and confusion.

Third, the sinful mind is hostile to God. It is hostile in the sense that it is the opposite of what God wants for us. It is also hostile in the sense that sinful man opposes God and seeks to remove his influence. Welcome to America, where people want a king sized God eraser for our society. They want to remove the crèche from the lawn, God from the pledge, Christians from public discourse, and the Creator from Creation.

Fourth, the sinful mind cannot submit to God’s law and cannot please God. The sinful man can only become reconciled to God through accepting the work of Christ on his behalf and receiving salvation from him.

In contrast to the sinful mind or the person controlled by the sin nature\flesh, we have the person who lives in accordance with the Spirit. What are the traits of this person?

First, this person has their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The believer may stumble and sin, but his or her overriding desire is to do God’s will, to do what the Spirit desires. In John 14:15, Jesus said “if you love me, you will obey what I command.” The Believer, because he loves the Lord, wants to obey him by doing his will and living according to God’s instruction. He reads the Bible and applies it to himself. If the Bible says God loves humility and opposes pride, he examines himself for arrogance and conceit, repents if he finds it, and submits himself to God to sanctify his attitude. He becomes humble through the work of grace in his life and his submission to Jesus through his love for him.

2 Corinthians 3:18 tells the Spirit is transforming us into the Lord’s likeness with ever-increasing glory. The Spirit produces in us that fruit listed in Galatians 5:22: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control.

Second, the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. We have eternal life, we have spiritual life, because we have crossed over from death to live by faith. In John 14:27, Jesus told the Disciples “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

Matthew 6:25-34 tells us not to worry about our physical life, for God knows what we need. In Matthew 11:28-30, Jesus said “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The mind of the Believer is in peace, because he trusts God with his present and his future, because he communes with God through the Spirit and he is a God of peace, and because the Believer, through the Spirit, learns the priority of living for God rather than for himself, and that brings order and peace to life.

SCROOGING TOWARD CHRISTMAS. Go here to read Tech Central Station's many versions of The Christmas Carol.

The Christmas Carol, you may recall, is that Dickensian classic that virtually no one in America has ever actually read. Of course that is not saying much, as the vast majority of Americans have never read anything except the cable television guide. Most Americans have heard about the story and many dandy versions have been shown on television (that great conveyor of American culture or what passes for it).

I watched one that had Captain Picard in it (from Star Trek The Next Generation in case you have been in a convent for the last decade or so). I like Captain Picard because he was an Englishman playing a Frenchman in Outer Space (the real thing, not France) on American television. But, TV likes Picard, Patrick Stewart, because he has that lovely British accent which has a profound effect on Americans. Our forefathers hated the English accent so much they hid behind trees and shot at the English with muskets shouting "Speak English, you limey immigrants".

Now, however, Americans hear an English accent and they act like cats around catnip. People with accents just sound smarter, don't they. This is especially true if you grew up in Arkansas. (That was where Captain Kirk grew up. That is why he always spoke in those choppy, short sentences.)

I was disappointed with Pat's version of the play, however, because I kept thinking he would rip off that ridiculous night gown and have his Captain Picard uniform on under it. He would tap his communicator and yell "security to the Captain's quarters". (Actually, he did that all the time when Tasha Yar was security chief, so they quit answering. Or she would answer and say she had a headache.)

Then he would yell "phasers on stun" and shoot the ghost, who would really be a Klingon warrior in disguise.

Then Tiny Tim would rush in and restore order. He would look like Rike and Scrooge would call him Number One. Number One would say "God bless us everyone".

Picard would say "make it so".

Wouldn't that be great?

SOLUS CHRISTUS. Jesus said to his disciples, Thomas in particular, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” He was speaking of the way to heaven and the Father.

On other occasions, he said it in different ways. He told Nicodemus anyone who believes in him would have eternal life. He told the Samaritan woman at Sychar whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst and that water will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life. He told Jews who were plotting to kill him that whoever hears and believes his word has eternal life and will not be condemned, but will cross over from death to life.

He told the crowds he would give them food that endures to eternal life and that he is the bread of life. He said everyone who looks to him and believes in him will have eternal life and Christ will raise him on the last day.

Peter understood the message. In his first sermon, he said salvation is found in no one else but Jesus. There is no other name under heaven given to us by which we must be saved.

John understood the message. He said those who receive Jesus, those who believe in his name, receive from Jesus the right to become children of God.

Paul understood the message. He said the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The writer of Hebrews understood. He said we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all.

James understood, though some have questioned. He said the Father chose to give us birth through the word of truth.

Jude understood it. He called Jesus our only sovereign and Lord, and ended his letter by saying “to the only God our savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore.”

There have always been those who cannot take Jesus at this word. Oh, they might believe he is the way to heaven, but surely something should be added. They usually add works of some sort, or ceremonies. The Jewish Christians wanted to add circumcision. Paul said no. Some want to add baptism, or membership in their church.

Some want to add good works. It is a shame that those who claim Peter as the founder of their religion do not understand the issue as Peter himself did. That made "Solus Christus" one of the cries of the Reformation. The Reformers wanted to return the church to Christ’s teaching: I am the way.

Some will accept Christ as the way, but want to include others. But Jesus said no one comes to the Father except through him. There is no other way. All roads may lead to Rome, but they do not all lead to eternal life.

Let’s cling to Jesus’ words today. He is the way. Let’s cling to the cry of the Reformation: Solus Christus.

Semper Reformata.