What the World Believes
Matthew 23

Good morning my dearest Brothers and Sisters. This morning, as every Sunday morning we come together to witness the Truth. And in doing so, we uphold the Truth in our lives. We sing praises to it. We pray about it. We long for it. Truth. It’s what we are all waiting for expectantly. It’s what we base our lives on. It’s what we teach our children. It is what we try to ingrain into them while the world is filling their head with lies.
I for one am truly offended by what the world presents to us; what the world tries to hammer into us, day after day. And I must say that sometimes, I offend the world.
At a Doctor’s office where I work, I am surrounded by Catholics. Every member of the staff, aside from me, is a Catholic. They attend the same Church, the same services and they know all the same people. They say things that sometimes just make me laugh. But other times the things they say offend me. And still other times they make me quite
angry.
The other day everyone in the office was searching frantically for a patient’s file that had been misplaced or misfiled. No one could find it. I offered to help. As we were searching, the receptionist turned to me and with the deepest sincerity informed me that we would find it soon, for she had already prayed to St. Jude, The Patron Saint of Lost Causes. Two conflicting emotions crossed my heart at the moment. One was to laugh, the other to cry. Sadly, I did find humor in the thought of praying to a dead man for help in finding something lost, but what struck me more was the second emotion. The one of utter pity for this woman who would spend her life, in all sincerity, praying to the dead without hope of life. All that wasted effort. All that honor, all that praise, all that worship, all that sincerity was wasted. Wasted on a lie.
At this Doctor’s office I find things hanging all over that I find quite offensive at times. Little snippets from magazines that herald the coming joys of a fanciful life in a magical Heaven, Catholic calendars with almost every day demarked by some dead Saint’s Holiday. Sometimes I just have to laugh. I noticed the other day that December 15th was the day of the Immaculate Conception. And as you well know, Catholics charge that holidays are the exact days when some such event occurred. When I asked about it of the Girls in the Office, I was immediately subjected to the story of how Jesus, being God, came down from Heaven and “implanted” Himself in a woman named Mary. I asked that if Jesus were Conceived, as the word Conception implies, on the Fifteenth of December, then how can we say that Jesus was born on the 25th of December. “Well, it was the next year” they all stated. Not wanting to be blatant about their little mistake in calculation. I asked then if Jesus was born of a sea lion. They all looked at me with concerned misunderstanding. I preceded to point out that while a sea lion has a gestation period of 360 days, an average human gestation was only 280 days or 40 weeks. So if you believe that Christ was born on December 25th his conception would have to been about March 31st. So Which date is wrong, the conception or the birth? Neither, I was told. Christ was conceived on December 15th and was born on December 25th , 350 days later. They
all stated this as if they were there when these events transpired. And that they were indisputable facts. Saddened by The Lie once again, I felt a sense of loss for them.. These are such beautiful people, so passionate, so stout in their religion, yet so fraught by the lie.
On another day that same week, I was presented with a patient who happened to a Catholic Nun. The Doctor I work with is a pillar in his Church as well as on the board of the Hospital, so naturally I see a lot of Catholic Nuns as well as Priests at his office. On this particular day, the receptionist informed me that my next patient was ready, Sister Mary Clarence. I opened the door to the waiting room and called for Mary. Looking over to the receptionist, I saw the sheer terror in her eye. As I walked the patient back to my ultrasound room, the receptionist watched me with a look of utter horror. I finished the patient and took her back to the waiting room. Upon closing the waiting door between the waiting room and the office, I turned and was confronted by the receptionist and the office manager. They proceeded to inform me that I should, out of respect and
reverence, have called the patient “Sister” Mary Clarence. They were upset that I had used her familiar name, as we do for every other patient. I had offended their religion. I apologized that they were offended, but also informed them that I could no easier call this woman my sister as I could call one of their priest my father, for Jesus tells us in Himself in Matthew, a verse I am sure you’re all familiar with, Matthew 23:9:
“And call no [man] your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven.”
And following that statement to it’s logical conclusion, I can call only those who have the same Spiritual Father as I do, my Brothers and Sisters. For God is Truth and because they believe in the God of Truth, they are my brothers and sisters in God and in the Truth. Therefore, only those who believe the God of Truth are my Brothers and Sisters. Only those who worship God in Spirit and in Truth as we are told in John 4:23/24

John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the
Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
John 4:24 God [is] a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship [him] in spirit and in
truth.

And only those who worship Him as instructed, IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH can I call Brother or Sister. The rest are those of whom Paul speaks of in Romans 1:25, those...
“Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the
Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen”
In the Greek text there is no definite article. Our versions of the verse we just read say “a lie”, but I like to think of it as “The Lie”. You see, the lie spoken of here by Paul is not just any lie, but The Lie. The Lie of Genesis 3. Where the serpent tells Eve that she can be as God. The lie here is Idolatry, which puts us or anyone or anything in the place of God; it is the lie that we can make ourselves, or any man or thing like God. (Genesis 3:5). That we can worship, or teach our children to worship, lesser or Demi Gods that we ourselves have created. The creature over the creator.
Which brings me to the point of this exhortation. We, as Christadelphians, are bombarded day after day with concepts and ideas that are contrary to our beliefs. Beliefs about The Lie. Lies about belief. We talk about them, we may even laugh at them. We hold them in contempt So it’s strange to me that we, who espouse the Truth, share in parts of the Lie as long as they fit into our lifestyles. That we, who demand Truth of others, so much that we will not call them Brother or Sister unless they condemn the lie, entice our children to believe things which are contrary to Truth. In that way we are no better in God’s eye than are those who actually believe the lie. For III John 1:41 tells us that we should have no greater joy than to hear that our children walk in truth. How can our children walk in Truth when we feed them lies? God has chosen us. He has chosen us to
be fruitful. In John 15:16 Jesus Himself tells us that we are chosen.
John 15:16 Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye
should go and bring forth fruit, and [that] your fruit should remain: that
whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.
Our hope is to be the chosen people; the heirs of Abraham. We long to be the new Jerusalem. In a way, our children are our fruit. But how can we bring forth fruit to our Father in Heaven if we fill our children’s imaginations with the awe and fear of dead men who bring them presents, magical fairies that replace their felled body parts with rewards, and other nonsensical figures. How can we expect that our fruit remain. We all pray that our children remain in the Truth, that they become pillars of our community. But, how can we expect our children to remain? How can we expect our prayers to be answered when we fill the imaginations our youth with the lies of the world? How can we teach them about Truth and lie to them at the same time? That is hypocrisy. Are we any better then than the Pharisees to whom Jesus said in Matthew 23 as we read this morning:
Matthew 23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make
one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than
yourselves.
What powerful words. What a stunning admonition. And how befitting for us who say we are bringing our children up in Truth and in Love. Are we not those Hypocrites? Do we not make it more profitable for our children to loose a tooth than to
loose the flesh of their hearts in circumcision to God? Are we not leading them two steps closer to the grave than we are to our Father in Heaven?
We fill the imaginations of our children with the lies of the world. We tell them about mystical figures with magical powers. We allow them to believe these things. And is it no wonder that God Himself has condemned us. It is no wonder that we are so far from our God that he no longer speaks to us. We have heard our Brother Jim speak on this matter many times before. The Imagination of Man’s heart is evil from his youth. And as we understand him, our imagination is one of the things that set us apart from all other creation. Our ability to live in this imaginary world where we are safe from God’s
wrath and judment. Our abilty to rationalize in our imaginations that what we have done has not offended our Father in Heaven. Our abilly to imagine that we may be worthy of being priests in His Kingdom.
Both Genesis and Jerimiah speek of this imagination. The Imagaination of our
hearts. Lets’ look upon what they have to say.

Gen 6:5 And GOD saw that the wickedness of man [was] great in the earth, and [that] every
imagination of the thoughts of his heart [was] only evil continually.
Gen 6:6 And it repented the LORD that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart.
Gen 6:7 And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth;
both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me
that I have made them.
And After He did these things, and all were gone but Noah and his family, the Lord still confirmed the evil of our imaginations. He saw that as long as one man remained, there was yet evil in our imaginations. When Noah burned at the Alter: Genesis 8:21 reveals to us what was in God’s Heart.
Gen 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not
again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart [is]
evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have
done.
And because of that last verse, we think we are safe, don’t we. We, by our imaginations, think that we can escape the Wrath of God. After all, He has promised not to destroy all the Earth again, right? Well Brothers and Sisters if we hold that notion in our
imagination, we are sadly mistaken. Yes, God had promised never to destroy the earth again. He has made that clear. But what He has said is simply that He will not destroy the Earth for our sakes. And if you think that because we are made of the earth that we are safe, again He reminds us in Jeremiah.
Jer 11:8 Yet they obeyed not, nor inclined their ear, but walked every one in the imagination of
their evil heart: therefore I will bring upon them all the words of this covenant, which I
commanded [them] to do; but they did [them] not.

Jer 16:12 And ye have done worse than your fathers; for, behold, ye walk every one after the
imagination of his evil heart, that they may not hearken unto me:
Jer 16:13 Therefore will I cast you out of this land into a land that ye know not, [neither] ye nor
your fathers; and there shall ye serve other gods day and night; where I will not shew
you favour.
Jer 18:12 And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will
every one do the imagination of his evil heart.
I can’t imagine a time when I would not want my child to believe me. I want him to know that when I say “The Truth” that I mean “The Truth”. I want him to know that I am trustworthy else he might think the other things I tell him are not true. The things I tell him about God, the things I tell him about the Kingdom. After all, most of the things we tell our children, the rest of the world does not believe. Who do we want them to believe, we, who have lied to them, or those that share in the lie. Who are fooled by the Lie.
When I think of the children whose parents partake in the Lie, lead them to believe the Lie, all I can think about is all that wasted effort. All that honor, all that praise, all that worship, all that sincerity, all of it was wasted on a lie. When they could have been honoring our Father in Heaven, instead, they were writing out Christmas lists to an imaginary person, prying loose parts of their own body for reward, and taking time away from the intent of their purpose toward God in Heaven. And I think....While they believ the Truth, they encourage others not to. And yet we honor them by calling them our
Brothers and Sisters.
And again I have to think to myself. “Is this really what God want’s for us? Is this what Jesus died for. Is this the way I want my child to believe?” That while He is young and most impressionable, it’s OK to lie to him as long as he stops believing before he decides to become my Brother? And we all know they will. We all know our children are going to figure it out eventually. So why do we do it? For the fun of it? Because it gives us power over them? Because the once a year gift giving is more of an incentive than the True reward?

12/26/2004
Bro. Sol L. Gorrell
Wanatah Christadelphian Ecclesia