NC Eugenics and Quick to Listen Slow to Speak

I don’t want it. I don’t approve of it, sir. I don’t want  a sterilize operation…. Let me go home, see if I get along all right.  Have mercy on me and let me do that..
   — A woman pleading with the eugenics board, 1945.  (Winston-Salem Journal)

North Carolina made the national news this week.  It wasn’t good news.  It was about the eugenics program that had gone on for many years in NC.  What is eugenics?  It’s the science of improving a breed.   So we breed out the less desirable people.  It’s simply applied Darwinism.  But when we play God it doesn’t turn out too well.

“They were wives and daughters. Sisters. Unwed mothers. Children. Even a 10-year-old boy. Some were blind or mentally retarded. Toward the end they were mostly black and poor. North Carolina sterilized them all, more than 7,600 people. For more than 40 years North Carolina ran one of the nation’s largest and most aggressive sterilization programs. It expanded after World War II, even as most other states pulled back in light of the horrors of Hitler’s Germany.  Contrary to common belief, many of the thousands marked for sterilization were ordinary citizens, many of them young women guilty of engaging in premarital sex.”  (W-S Journal)

So how could this happen? 

 

 It started with a conversation.  An internal conversation that became external. 

 

“I thank God that I’m not like other people.”   That’s how that internal conversation could be framed in Biblical words, in Jesus’ words.  We use words to express our thoughts.  And we often use them to express the idea, not in these words perhaps, but what are saying is:  “Isn’t humanity lucky to have someone like me!  Wouldn’t it be great if everyone was like me.”  Maybe we aren’t into eugenics, but we can have attitudes that are similar.

 

We make assumption and draw conclusions on incomplete information and our information is always incomplete!  At least to some degree.  God alone has the full picture and has the true right to judge.  So we ought to give the benefit of the doubt and be gracious.  Remember the story of the man on the subway in New York with his four children?  The kids were bouncing off the walls!  A fellow passenger observing this had the same conclusion that we’d probably have:  What a poor parent this fellow is!  The other part of that is:  What a great parent I am!  Or at least would be.  So he spoke to the father who told him, “I’m sorry, we’ve just come from the hospital where their mom died.  They are upset.”  Be slow to speak.  It’s a powerful force for healing or pain.

 

We forget the gospel and the fact that we are sinners all. The ground around the cross is level.   Even when someone has failed, we have failed often also.  Remember Jesus’ story about the man who was forgiven millions but choked his fellow servant who owed him pennies?  Do we want to be that person?

 

2. The internal conversation goes external:  “Isn’t it great that we aren’t like other people!”   Gossip and slander.

 

Slander is when we lie about someone.  Gossip can be true, but its unnecessary talk.  It does not love it’s neighbor but rather exposes him or her to others who may be very uncharitable toward them.

We’ve all gossiped, and if you haven’t forgive me and congratulations.  There is a deep fellowship in gossip.  We feel close to someone when we share secrets.  But it isn’t a good or wholesome closeness.  Like our text says:  It doesn’t bring about the righteous life that God desires for us. We ought to be about protecting others when they are absent.

 

So:  If you think it might be gossip, it probably is:  Quick to listen SLOW to speak!!   

 

REMEMBER:  GOSSIP IS CONFESSING OTHERS SINS AND MY RIGHTEOUSNESS, THE GOSPEL IS CONFESSING MY SIN AND CHRIST RIGHTEOUNESS. 

 

Proverbs 10:11  The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life…

You can drink from a fountain springing up from the earth.  Its pure and clean as opposed to something like stagnant swamp water.  One brings life and the other death.  God wants our words to give life.

 

Jesus said we speak out of the abundance or our hearts.  Your speech will show your heart.

 

It’s the righteous who do this.  And who are the righteous?  Is it those who say:  God I thank you that I’m not like other people, or is it this internal conversation:  God have mercy on me a sinner?  We know which one it is.  Remember what Gospel means vs. Gossip!  They say folks who quit smoking often gain weight because they replace the smoking with eating.  So we need to replace gossip with the gospel.  The one who comes in need to Jesus and abides in Him because he or she has no righteousness of their own.  How hard it is to criticize others when on our knees crying for mercy.

 

Prov. 12:18  The tongue of the wise brings healing…The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.  Its knowing who we are and who God is that keeps our tongue an instrument of blessing rather than cursing.

 

How did Jesus enemies get him on that cross?  He was not a victim.  He said no one takes his life from him but he lays it down voluntarily.  Yet in one sense he was a victim of words like those folks who were forcibly sterilized.  An Internal conversation.  He was one evening having at a dinner party in the home of Simon the Pharisee.  A woman was there who had let her hair down.  She was a prostitute.  Think of the Middle East today and women keeping their hair covered.  But this woman washed Jesus feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair!  Simon had this inner conversation:  If this man were a prophet (and he obviously isn’t!) he would know what kind of woman is touching him!

A shared conversation.  From that point on they began to plot how to kill him.

And more words:  crucify Him, crucify Him! 

May the Lord help us to use our words with wisdom and love for God and neighbor.

 

The Reproach of Us All

I can imagine, from my human perspective, Jesus rising from the dead and saying:  I’m gonna get those guys!  (Who chose Barabbas over me, spat on me, beat me, mocked me, crucified me) Each one of them and boy will they be sorry,  But this isn’t Jesus.   Now see how we get to here from Joshua chapter 5.

The Reproach of us All  Joshua 5:1-12

INTRO:   I remember one day when we were living in Kenya and being at a Masai Manyatta.  A Manyatta is an encampment of two or three dung huts.  They are surrounded by a fence of thorn tree branches meant to keep the animals safe from predators, and they have predators, like lions and leopards.  On this day the young men of that area had been circumcised.   Masai young men are circumcised at age 16.  They become men that day.  It’s a traditional right of passage that many cultures practice.  When the men heal they go out into the bush and learn how to be Morans, learning how to live off of herbs and fight animals that may threaten their people’s  herds.  You feel safe out in the bush when they are around. But on that day they weren’t fighting any lions or any man!   I could have taken them on!

 

In our text this morning God’s people have crossed the Jordan.  They are in enemy territory.   So it seems like bad timing to circumcise your warriors at this point.  But God will provide victory for them.  Already the kings of the Amorites and Canaanites were full of fear.  Vs. 1 tells us that their hearts melted and they no longer had courage to face the Isralites because they had heard of the great things God had done for His people.  But this rite of circumcision is God’s reminder and confirmation of something even greater than the land.  God himself is their inheritance and they are his.

 

SO WHY CIRCUMCISE? 

 

God commanded it:  This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.  Genesis 17  And so Jesus as an infant was also circumcised.  He was born under the law that he might keep the law perfectly in our place.  Note: they had time to talk and think about the meaning of this act as knives were made.

 

God commands it in view of his promises which Abraham believed. 

 

“It is the rule of divine grace to give then to ask.”   Kiel and D.   God did not give the law until he gave redemption from the land of Egypt!  When a man ask a woman to marry him he gives her a ring.  God is not only giving the land, He gives Himself as husband and father to his people.  And that was seen most clearly in His Son who was given by the Father and who laid down his own life voluntarily for us.   He woos us with gentle and omnipotent grace.

 

So circumcision sets the people apart. 

 

When I go to an ECU football  game with Marty and Jerry I don’t wear red!   I wear purple, the right color!   It answers the question:  Who do you identify with?  To whom do you belong?   The people of Canaan who worshiped idols were called “uncircumcised.’   Consider this Biblical example:

 

When Samson wanted a Philistine woman as his wife:   His father and mother replied, “Isn’t there an acceptable woman among your relatives or among all our people? Must you go to the uncircumcised Philistines to get a wife?”  Judges 14:3

 

Being a Christian means being set apart as to how we live!  Is it so?  What mark’s us out?  Jesus said it is to be love.  This is how all men will know that you are my disciples, that you have love for one another.   Being separate in how we live but not who we love and interact with.  It’s either the glory of Jesus or, from his enemies perspective a charge:  ‘Friend of sinners!”

 

Circumcision is an act of devotion  It’s painful.  Circumcised with stone knives.     If we follow Jesus as he says above, you will have pain.

God is worth it.  He promised Abraham the land and the people were about to inherit it, but God said to Abraham “I am your shield and great reward.”  The health and wealth gospel misses God.

Are you satisfied with God?

 

Then: Circumcision is not magic, the sacraments or sacred ceremonies that God gives us must be combined with faith.  They do not work in and of themselves. 

 

Note:  Those men of fighting age who died in the desert were circumcised.  Cf. Are you baptized?  Do you have faith?    A friend went to a church were baptism is by immersion.  She was immersed three times.  She told me that one of those times she thought about how good her tan looked while she was wearing that white baptismal robe!  Do you have faith?

 

1. Abraham believed first then was circumcised-faith was first.  This argument is made in the Bible so we know that justification is by faith not works.  So, why did God have all those eight day old boys circumcised?  Could they understand and believe the word of God?  No.  But they were part of that covenant community as God makes his covenant with all of his people.  The promise to Abraham included a family, a nation and the whole world!  And by faith we are part of that.

 

So: Circumcision is an issue of the heart.  Romans 2:   A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. ²⁹ No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.   

 

So we’ve crossed over into the NT.  Let’s think about circumcision as its seen in the light of the NT-

 

In him you were also circumcised, in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by Christ,   having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.   Colossians 2:11

 

1.Here we see that the rite of circumcision deals with the inside not simply the outside.  Remember Jesus words about the inside and outside of the cup!  Which cup do you want to drink from?  One clean on the outside or on the inside?

 

2.Its not done by men, but Christ.  Text  Joshua 5:9…and “Today I have rolled away”  It is Jesus, our Greater Joshua, who does heart surgery.  He take away our old nature and gives us a new one controlled by his Spirit!

 

3.And thirdly circumcision is related with baptism.  Think about the Passover in the Old Testamant and the Lord’s Supper in the New Testament.  So what does our baptism mean?  It identifies us with Christ.  Whatever method we use or who the person is, baptism speaks of our belonging to/identifying with  Christ.  When an infant is baptized the parents, and all of us, recognize him or her as a member of this covenant community.

And when an adult or a child who understand the gospel is baptized to profess their faith he or she is identifying with Jesus!  And think about people who declare their faith in cultures that may be ignorant of or hostile to the gospel of Jesus!    They are declaring that they have a new Master, a new Brother, a new Father.  Last time I was in Kenya several people were baptized at a church service at which I spoke.  My Kenyan pastor friend, John, baptized them.  These folks lived up on a small mountain, their church meets under a  tree (they have come down to the village that morning where there was water to baptize them)  They grew up worshiping spirits in trees, now they worshiped the Lord of Heaven and Jesus His son.  They have a new allegiance.

 

Circumcision is a bloody sacrifice. 

Its speaks of the fact that the soul that sins shall die!  That without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins!

 

NOTE also those who were circumcised when they came out of Egypt died in the desert.   

 

But here are these uncircumcised who have entered the land!   Has God gotten things mixed up here?  No, it always of grace.  But don’t  think that those who were now circumcised by Joshua weren’t sinners too. We all have sinned and the wages of sin is death.  So the rite of circumcision continues  in Joshua’s day because either not enough blood or the right blood had been shed.

So we need a redeemer.  Someone who shed blood could cover all our sins whether  we are circumcised or uncircumcised!   So Paul says in Romans 3:

 

 ⁹ Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, ³⁰ since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. ³¹

 

Now the verses I just read don’t seem to speak about the redeemer, (the chapter does vey much so)  and so we know they speak about faith in Him.  The two things, faith and Jesus go together.  Cf. Faith is the verb for saying Jesus!   Jesus is the Bible’s object of our faith.

 

Here is the good news.  Belonging to God and being under his care as our husband and Father come by faith alone. 

 

CLOSE   Jesus alone is that redeemer we need.   He alone can take away our reproach and shame, our sin. 

Look at VS. 9 again:   Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.   

What was this reproach?  Being slaves?  Was their God reproached for not delivering them?   A god of slaves!  Was it their shameful wandering in the wilderness?  Maybe it was all of the above?  BUT WHAT DOES CIRCUMSICIONS MEAN?   Asking and answering that question can help us to understand what it means that God took away their reproach:  It means they don’t belong to Pharaoh, they belong to the LORD! 

And we belong to Him, Jesus who has borne our reproach:   ⁶ But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people. ⁷  -Psalm 22

Cf.  Matthew 27:

²² “What shall I do, then, with Jesus who is called Christ?” Pilate asked.  They all answered, “Crucify him!”   ²³ “Why? What crime has he committed?” asked Pilate.  But they shouted all the louder, “Crucify him!”

²⁶ Then he released Barabbas to them. But he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.  ²⁷ Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole company of soldiers around him. ²⁸ They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him, ²⁹ and then twisted together a crown of thorns and set it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand and knelt in front of him and mocked him. “Hail, king of the Jews!” they said. ³⁰ They spit on him, and took the staff and struck him on the head again and again.

Then they led him away to crucify him.  ³⁹ Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads  ⁴¹ In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. ⁴² “He saved others,” they said, “but he can’t save himself!

⁴⁴ In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

I can imagine, from my human perspective, Jesus rising from the dead and saying:  I’m gonna get those guys!  Each one of them and boy will they be sorry,  But this isn’t Jesus.  Even on the cross what does he say?  Father forgive them!   And Jesus says to everyone:  come!  Come to me…He is our father, our brother, our friend, He is our great reward.  Are you satisfied with him?

 

 

 

 

Oh No!! He (Jesus) Didn’t Say That!!

And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.   O no He didn’t say that!!

Joshua 1:10-2:24

As we get back into the story of Joshua and the conquest of the Promised Land God’s people are camped east of the Jordan River.  They are getting ready to cross it and enter the land and conquer it.  All that is, but the tribes of Reuben, Gad and the half tribe of Manasseh.  Their land is east of the Jordan.  They are home free!  But Joshua tells them that they also have to go into the land and fight and maybe die.  They have to do this until their brothers have their rest also.  They must go the second mile.  And more.

 

I could have entitled this sermon:  Oh no!  You didn’t’ say that!!  Our hearts tend to respond that way when we hear, really hear, God calling us to live in a way that only the Spirit can produce.  That may have been the first response from some of those from Reuben or Gad.  Consider Jesus words from Matthew and the Sermon on the Mount:

And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.   O no He didn’t say that!!

“Jesus’ words strike at the very core of human selfishness, summoning us to value others above ourselves in concrete and consistent ways.”

And so: 

FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS GOING THE EXTRA MILE WITH HIM TO SERVE OTHERS

 

READ: Vs. 12-15

 

These tribes are called to help their neighbors, their brothers, take possession of the land and enter into the rest God has for them.  This even though already they have their own. 

They had reached their portion of the promised land east of the Jordan.  They don’t need to cross the Jordan or fight to have their portion of the land.  They might die.  Why should they die to insure the blessing of others when they were already blessed?  Why should Jesus leave the blessedness of heaven to die and suffer our hell?  Isn’t this the principle in the Bible?  We go about taking up our crosses daily, we lay down our lives for others.

 

Do you remember Pat Tillman?   He was a football player with the St. Louis Cardinals.  He was a special player who made millions of dollars playing the game he loved.  But after 9/11 he joined the military and became a Ranger.  He did from friendly fire.  He did not have to go, there is no draft.  But he left his home, his family, the game he loved and the life it gave him.  He left to serve.  We cannot honor men like this enough, but that fight is for a temporal hope.  We are called to fight in an eternal struggle.

 

This was selfless service.    Jesus didn’t come to unself us, but to unselfish us.  Luke 12:

¹³ Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.”  ¹⁴ Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” ¹⁵ Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”  ¹⁶ And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. ¹⁷ He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’ ¹⁸ “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. ¹⁹ And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’  ²⁰ “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’   ²¹ “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”

 

Don’t fool yourself by thinking you can make your own good life.  Don’t fool yourself by imaging you know what your good life is!  The motto of the USO: Until they all come home.  Jesus isn’t done calling all his sheep home.  And we join him in that conquest of hearts to submit and serve him.   

 

⁵ Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. ¹⁶ If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? James 2

 

These tribes could have said this, Go, I wish you well, but they were called to something higher and greater.  Are we called to less?

 

¹ If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, ² then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. ³ Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. ⁴ Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Phil 2

 

Is there is anything good about being in Christ, then do we want that for others?

 

 These tribes went because they believed GOD was with Joshua!   So for us when Jesus speaks things to us like the 2^nd mile we don’t say, “Oh no he didn’t say that!”  Rather, we say, “My Lord and my God”.   THEREFORE: 

 

FOLLOWING JESUS MEANS GIVING OUR ALLEGIANCE TO HIM AS OUR SOVEREIGN 

 

 READ 2:1-6And the story of Rahab…

 

Faith isn’t just saying I believe in God, cf. the Devils believe!  It’s a change of allegiance.  We no longer say:  I will do such and such etc, but what is the Lord’s will.  He is mine yes, but I am His.  His in the deepest sense!  A full and unconditional surrender that only the Spirit can work in us!  I am his like a marriage, in fact the Bible says it exactly like that.  I have a relationship with Gail that I have with no other woman.  Its an exclusive thing.  Its an all the time thing.  I’m not hers Monday through Thursday with long weekends off.  Its 24/7/.

 

Saying the pledge of allegiance is OK for Christians.  We are not forbidden.   Those in the military take an oath of allegiance.    As Christians we have a dual citizenship, but our final and ultimate allegiance is to Jesus as our King, our Lord and God! 

 

Rahab in a real sense had to switch her allegiance from her city, her culture, to God. 

God had to be her greater, her true Lord.   Jesus doesn’t ask for part of us, but our lives!!

There is no part of my life Jesus doesn’t claim.

 

¹ Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Consider the  Image of an altar and something put there to never take back!   It is God’s, you don’t take it back.  It is consumed by fire!

 

Rahab is mentioned by James and writer of Hebrews as a woman of faith.  Link between true faith and obedience.  Obedience when its not convenient or what I had planned! 

 

James 2:25
In the same way, was not even Rahab the prostitute considered righteous for what she did when she gave lodging to the spies and sent them off in a different direction? Faith produced works in her life.

 

By faith the prostitute Rahab, because she welcomed the spies, was not killed with those who were disobedient. Hebrews 11

 

Rahab did a couple of things that deomonstrated her faith: 

 

1. She hid the spies to save their lives:  Rahab and the “righteous lie”.   She told her countrymen that the men had left when in fact she was hiding them on her roof.  Remember  Corrie Ten Boom and her family hiding Jews from Nazi’s.  What should they have done?  Sometimes in a fallen world there may be two choices and both are sin.  But one may be the right choice in this fallen world.  It may be the right thing to do.  And so Rahab’s good works are this!   A true faith that produced good works saved her.  She believed that neither she nor her city could stand against God. 

 

2.She was hospitable to the spies…protected them by given them shelter. 

 

NOTE: God has prepared her before hand to believe.  READ JOSHUA 2:8-11!!

God prepares hearts beforehand, don’t waste that!

 

The spies themselves were moved to greater faith by this testimony!  Cf. vs. 23-24!!

Are we prepared to join King Jesus in seeing  people submit to him being captured by his love?  Are we prepared to take God’s word and deeds of love and mercy to hearts whom God has prepared?

HE IS A CONQUERING KING, DON’T MAKE HIM A WIMP.

 

READ 2:14FF  CLOSE:  THE COVENANT AND ITS SIGN  

 

Rahab is in the covenant of Grace:  She in mentioned in another place in the NT:  Jesus geneology!  She was his ancestor in the flesh.  This prostitute, like us, found grace, but not because of lineage, but faith, as we have seen in the New Testament quotations above.  And God’s grace is demonstrated in that he is not ashamed of Rahab.

 

Rahab and the spies made a covenant.  Her life for theirs.  And there was a sign for this covenant.  So Rahab used scarlet cord to let the men down from the wall and escape.  That same scarlet cord was to be hung in her window so that when the Israelites saw it they would spare, Passover, Rahab and her family.

 

Rahab and others had heard about what God did in Egypt:  There was a sign there in the final plague: That sign over the doorpost in Egypt, that sign of the covenant in which the angel of death passed over the Israelites was the blood of the Lamb.  And so Jesus, the Lamb of God has his blood shed that we might find grace with Rahab and others who can sing, the worthless may have it , it always comes free, the vilest may have it twas given to me!