Presented to The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministry, 18 September 2022, by Major Michael Ramsay
We had a great time at the toy run and the food
drive this weekend. 2,878.1 lbs. of food were raised from the food drive and an
elevator load full of toys from the toy run! Thank you everyone! It was great
to be able to be out there serving coffee, doughnuts, publicly praying for the
community, serving lunch, picking up toys, setting up, cleaning up and helping
in everyway we can. So much of my life in this day and age seems to be spent
looking at a computer screen: filling out forms, entering information into
databases, answering questions, doing computer tasks from headquarters, emailing
and messaging people about this or that or the next thing and since the
pandemic struck, Zoom and now Teams has invaded our lives – so
that even meetings we used to have in person are carried out on a screen!
It is a weird place to
be, societally speaking. I grew up in a generation and a household that did have
a TV – but we were always told that too much screen time and sitting too close
to the screen was bad for you; as a result we kids were often thrown outside:
to climb a tree, kick around a soccer ball, or ride our bikes over to a friend’s
house (hoping they would have a TV that we were allowed to watch)
I remember when I was in elementary school one show that I used to go over to a friend’s house to watch after school was Leave it to Beaver. Does anyone remember Leave it to Beaver?
Heather and I have
found old episodes of Leave it to Beaver on-line and, when we get a
chance, we enjoy watching it together. Leave it to Beaver is an old
black-and-white show that ran from 1957 to 1963 (it was already in re-runs even
by the time I remember watching it as a child). The show was about a family
with a mother (June) and father (Ward) and two brothers (Wally and Theodore,
also known as the Beaver). One thing that strikes me is how this series stands
the test of time. You can watch this show that was made in the1950s today, in
the 2020s, and the themes are still relevant. That is really something - especially
when I think of other shows and movies I have watched with much less of a time
gap where I really need to stop, think, and remember the cultural references of
even the 1990s, for instance.
Heather and I watched
an episode this week entitled ‘the Pipe’ and that episode really reminded me of
our scripture passage today from Romans Chapter 7. Reading again from verses 7-8,
11-13:
7 What then should we
say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I
would not have known sin. I would not have known what it is to covet if the law
had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity in the
commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness…11 For sin, seizing an
opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the
law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good.
13 Did what is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure.
In this
episode Beaver’s family gets a pipe as a gift from friends who are visiting
Germany. Beaver’s brother and parents don’t smoke. Beaver isn’t allowed to smoke
until he is 21 – he is about 7 years-old. One day when his parents are out,
Beaver and his friend Larry convince each other to try to smoke the pipe. They
first try to smoke coffee in it and then after that doesn’t really work, a
couple of days later, they try smoking tobacco. The story focuses in part on
this and on the fact that Beaver’s dad suspects and blames Wally, Beaver’s much
older brother, when he notices that the pipe has been smoked. It is quite an
interesting episode. This is how my mind related it to Romans Chapter 7:
The rule
(the law) here stated that Beaver wasn’t supposed to smoke at least until he
was 21. Once he began dwelling on that rule, he began to be tempted to break
that rule. Without having the pipe at his house and the rule never to smoke it,
he and Larry may never have tried to smoke – but with the rule in place they
were drawn to break it…more and more.
Sin deceived
them. They deceived each other. Sin grabbed them and they suffered for it. Sin
grabbed them and their brother suffered for it. Sin grabbed them and their
father suffered for it.
When
Beaver and Larry smoked the pipe, Beaver’s parents found the pipe and could
easily see that someone had smoked it. Beaver’s dad assumed it was Beaver’s
older brother, so he confronted Wally and then punished Wally. Beaver suffered
the natural consequences of smoking – he felt sick! And more: he and his family
suffered the consequences of his deception.
The more
I read the New Testament (especially Paul) about the Old Testament Law, the
more I am convinced that the Law cannot stop anyone from falling prey to Sin. And
in some cases, we may never have been tempted to sin if we had never heard of
the Law. Sometimes the mere fact of being told not to do something can propel
us towards that very thing. I remember one instance where as a teenager someone
was challenging me to a fight that I had no intention of fighting – but… then… with
each person who came to me and told me not to fight the other person because
they were, bigger, stronger, a black belt in this, that or the next thing; I
was drawn into this fight that I never wanted to have in the first place – and then
a few seconds later when I broke the person’s hand, I felt bad, the person felt
bad and sore, and we all suffered the consequences of this thing that I never
wanted to do in the first place. I have heard similar stories of people trying
alcohol or cigarettes or other substances this very same way – they were never
drawn to it until they knew that they were told not to do it. I think the ‘War on
Drugs’ failed for this very reason.
That is
not to say that these rules are bad – again as shown by our culture’s current
drug policy: drug use is seemingly encouraged and people are dying because of
it. Rules in general and the Law in the Bible especially, are things that
people and society have worked out over time in and through their relationship
with God and each other. The Law, the Ten Commandment and more are not there to
tempt us to sin. They are there to share with us the collective knowledge and
experience of the way the world works. If one lies, cheats, steals, commits
adultery, covets, murders, etc., the natural consequences will naturally be
bad. They may be very bad. Not a punishment but a natural consequence. The results
of doing these things are often terrible and sometimes unimaginably so. The Law
isn’t a list of arbitrary dos and don’ts; it is a great warning from history,
experience, our elders, and God Himself because He loves us and He doesn’t want
any harm to come of us.
The problem
comes when people focus on the Law, when we focus on rules, when we focus on
prohibitions; when we do that, Sin can step in and tempt us to do things that are
self- and others-destructive. Instead of this, as we spend time with God, He
will let us know what is best to do; this is what I think it means when the
Bible says the Law will now be written on our hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-34).
The more
I live and the more I read, the more I think about sin as the way it is portrayed
here in Romans Chapter Seven and also in Genesis Chapter 4 and elsewhere. Genesis
4:7b, God says to Cain, “But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching
at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” I used to think
of sin like it was simply doing a bad thing -there is that element to it;
however, the more I read the Bible the more I think of Sin as almost a force
pulling you away from all the peace, contentment, and joy of holiness; pulling us
towards in some case an actual and/or a metaphorical ‘living Hell’.
The Law
was meant to help point out the ways in which Sin tries to draw us away
from the Love of God but, of course, no rules can fully do that. The
only thing that can keep us in the love of God, is the love of God. Again, this
is what I think it means to have the law written on our hearts (Jeremiah
31:31-34).
We have
all heard the analogy over and over again of the counterfeit bill. The way one
spots counterfeit money is not by studying counterfeit money; they way one
stops counterfeit money is by studying real money – when you are intimately
familiar with what is real you instantly notice what is not real.
The way
we know how to have perfect peace, the way we know how to have perfect love,
the way we know how to best be a blessing to God, ourselves, and others, is not
to study rules about how not to behave. The way we know how to be the best, blessed
follower of Christ we can be, is to spend time following Christ. The more time we
spend with God – praying and reading our Bible, meditating, singing and talking
to Him, the more we grow in the likeness of Christ and the more we are naturally
compelled to avoid those actions that can destroy ourselves and others. Jeremiah 31:33-34 records it this way:
33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 34 No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity, and remember their sin no more.
Let us
pray.
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