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Allen’s Corner

Excerpts from Pastor Allen Clemmer’s work

 

Labor Day

Each year on the first Monday in September, America celebrates Labor Day. It’s a day of parades, picnics and fireworks. It’s a day we pay special recognition to the millions of Americans who are a part of this nation’s mighty workforce.

Throughout history, labor has been man’s chief activity. 

• One thinks of the great pyramid of Egypt, and we all remember that a lot of people worked and labored very hard to erect them.
• One thinks of the Great Wall of China, and we remember that millions of men and women labored hard to build it.
• One thinks of the Empire State in New York, and we remember the folks who worked hard to build it.
• We see buildings and bridges, and we are reminded that people worked hard to build these structures.

Man has to work to build.  Ironically, labor and work are the direct result of the sin of man.

Adam was placed in Eden garden to dress it and keep it.  It was not work, nor labor, to keep the Garden of Eden.  Yet after his sin, “cursed is the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life” [Genesis 3:17 KJV]

We are told that man would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow.  In other words, he would have to labor, hard and long, to get enough to eat.

Yet labor and men working is mentioned a lot in the Bible.

I.  God intended for men to work. Solomon, the wise old king, said “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might…” [Ecclesiastes 9:10 KJV]

1. God never provided man a ready-made loaf of bread. He made man, He made the soil, He made the seed. Man will have to earn it, work for it.
2. God never provided man a ready-made coat. He made man, and He made sheep. He’s saying oh men, if you want a coat, take the sheep I made and the wool grown on his back, and spin it into yarn and make yourself a coat.
3. God never provided man a ready-made house. He made man, and man in turn made an ax, and he cut down the trees God put here and build for himself a house, or stone or bricks.
4. God’s creatures are examples:
   • Bees are making honey
   • Birds are building nests
   • Animals of prey are hunting, and beasts of burden are plodding along their paths.
5. This Labor Day finds many people laden with heavy burden – trapped in the web of sin and neglect of God.

II.  The Bible Teaches Us about Work

1. There are more than 12 verses in the book of Proverbs alone that teach us about work and how important it is.
2. The 4^th commandment tells us to remember the Sabbath day – but we forget that it does say six days shalt thou labor.
3. Jesus said He came Not to be served
   • When speaking of the Works of the Kingdom, He said the fields are white unto harvest but the laborers are few.
   • He worked in the carpenter shop when He began his ministry at about 30 years of age. No one ever crowded more labor and activity into about 3 & 1/2 years than Jesus did.
   • In one of his parables, He told of a landlord looking for workers and he found some men idling in the afternoon and said “Why stand ye here all the day idle?” [Matt 20:6 KJV]
4. The Apostle Paul said of himself – that he was a worker – that even though he could have taken the church money for being their minister and apostle, he took none of it. In fact, Paul did go on to say “that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” [2Thes 3:10 KJV]
5. God is an example of work:
   • God is introduced to us on the first page of the Bible.
   • It starts “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”
   • The Bible states that in six days God created all things and on the seventh day he rested from his labor.
   • Was God tired that he needed to rest? Certainly not, he rested to set an example to men to rest.
   • When God choose people to serve him, they were busy working people. Gideon was thrashing wheat. Moses was tending sheep. Amos was gathering fruits. Peter, Andrew and John were fishing. Matthew was collecting taxes.

Labor has been man’s chief activity throughout history.

 

Who Is Jesus? 

Matt 21:8-11 {KJV}

⁸ And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way.

⁹ And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest.

¹⁰ And when he was come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is this?

¹¹ And the multitude said, This is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

Introduction

This is a question that has haunted mankind ever since he came. “Who is He?” is asked again and again. Jesus himself wanted men to know who he was, and especially his disciples. He one day asked them: “Who do men say that I am?”  He also fired point blank the question to them: “But who do you say that I am?”

It is no accident that the great heresies of the church, have down through the centuries, have as it basis the ultimate question as to who Jesus is. The Confession of the SBC (Southern Baptist Church) for the past 20 years has been the Bible: is it true of not. But at its ultimate issue was – who was Jesus? One side said Jesus born of a virgin and the other side said no, he was not born of a virgin.

The disciples who accompanied Jesus during his earthly ministry saw his family, his friends, they saw him walk up and down the dusty roads of Galilee, they heard him teach, they ate beside him, and slept beside him. They had no trouble with the humanity of Jesus.

The mainstream of the Christian faith has sought to maintain a precarious, and yes, the mysterious balance the New Testament maintains. Here was one, who in a way, we cannot explain or understand, nor can we work it out with scientific formula, was at one and the very same time, very true God and true man.

The disciples who knew him had a long struggle with the deity of Jesus. Their struggles were recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. But they finally came past the great question to accept him as the revelation of God.

After years passed, and Jesus ascended back to heaven, gentiles were saved, and these gentiles were influenced by Greek philosophy. The Greeks believed that the spiritual was good, and the flesh or physical was evil. So they had a problem. They said if God took on flesh which was evil, then he could not be sinless.

Thus by the end of the first century, great problems were arising about just who Jesus was – They had no problem with him being God – but a problem arose if he was flesh.

I.   No Doubt the Gospel of John Was Written To Combat These False Beliefs

a)  John was deeply aware of these problems when he wrote his gospel. John begins: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. And he continues on until he said: and the Word became flesh and dwelt among men. And then John says in verse 18: No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.

b)  As you read the Gospel of John, it’s almost as if the Apostle John is having a conversation with the Greek thinkers. Here was one who readily could see the power of God and his creative power.

c)  The Word became flesh. That literally means the Word tabernacled among us. We saw him, and we touched him, and we beheld him, and yet no man has seen God. But yet through Jesus Christ, we have confronted God. The Word became flesh.

d)  The writer of Philippians told us: and He who being in the form of flesh thought it not robbery to be equal with God. [Philippians 2:6 KJV]

e)  Looking at a colony of ants, they usually were just milling about. But if you could become an ant and live as an ant, and be an ant, then it would be different. This is what God did, God incarnated. In Spanish, the word incarnate has as its root: carne (meat or flesh). Most of us realize what carne means, example chili-con-carne. (It is chili with meat). And that is what God did. It is God taking on meat – God taking on flesh.

II.   The Word Continues to Become Flesh Today. Do you know how?

a)  Christ becomes flesh today through you and I, when we become a child of God and start living for Jesus.

b)  When you have and show others a Christian witness, it is Jesus Christ taking on flesh today. We don’t get to see Jesus, but if I look at some dear saint of God – I can see Jesus.

c)  The word became flesh in Jesus Christ. It was written of Jesus that he went about doing good.

• • The religious order of the synagogue of Jesus’ home town didn’t believe him, so it pushed him out into the highway.
  • The Word became flesh went to the temple in Jerusalem and they pushed him out, into the hedges, out to where the people were, where the sinners were.
  • It was said of Jesus, “why this man receives sinners”. These sinners were the lowest outcasts of society.
  • The religious order didn’t want him, and pushed him out to the publicans and harlots, the lepers, the halt and the lame, and the blind.
  • If you are born again, Christ lives in you. Paul said it is not I that live but Christ who lives in me.
  • Jesus is still taking on flesh today though you and me

d)  God is not only at work inside the walls of the church building, but he is also out there on the streets and sidewalks of your town.

• • Once I was preaching and a bird got into the sanctuary. It flew back and forth. Soon it began to fly to the windows and then threw itself against them. It hit the window so hard it addled itself and almost fell to the floor. We all sang hymns and watch the bird. We prayed and some watched the bird. I tried to preach and the congregation watched the bird. When the service was over, I said to the pastor maybe we should have stopped the service and let the bird out. He looked a little embarrassed, and he said he didn’t want to interrupt the service. Sometimes we go through the mechanics of religion. We were singing hymns, praying, and preaching. Which is what is supposed to go on in a church service, but it can become so focused on with the mechanics of the service we’re afraid to interrupt.
  • How would you feel if someone came in and said right in the middle of a prayer and they said: I couldn’t wait till the end of the service, I want to be saved now!
  • Sometimes we lock the church up in the museum of the sanctuary to visit reverently for one hour on Sunday and Sunday night. Then we lock the church up till next Sunday.
  • What is the most important thing God has called us to do? Why did God redeem us? To sing a hymn? To listen to a sermon?
  • As important as these things are, as basic and essential they are, is this what we are called to do? Jesus said: Go ye therefore, and teach all nations… [Matthew 28:10 KJV]
  • It’s like that bird that kept trying to get out. Let’s get the church out there where the people are.
  • Let’s get the church out there where the people are lost without Christ.
  • Note at Billy Graham call, hundreds of folk coming down the aisles. Oh how I wish that could happen when I preach.

III. This World Today is Hungry

a)  The world over, millions go to bed and not have enough to eat. Yes, it’s a hungry world, hungry for food.

b)  But it’s a hungry world for Jesus Christ, the one who became flesh and lived among us.

• • That person last week in Ireland, who shot those children and then turned the gun on himself. Oh how tragic! Had someone, somewhere, allowed Jesus to become flesh in them, that tragedy could have been prevented.
  • In India, around back of the Hotel in Bangalore, children were going through the garbage. The stuff people had thrown out, they wanted. Our children here, we’ve thrown them sex, violence and abuse, and they’ve gone through our garbage, and decided they wanted it.
  • One day a stray dog came by our house, the dog was terribly thin. I had run the dog away a couple of times. But he kept coming back. Finally my heart went out to him and I tried to befriend him. It was a dog that had been badly mistreated. That dog had no doubt been kicked and cursed and mistreated so many times, when you get near him he put his tail between his legs. It took several days just to pet the little thing, and the first time I did try it, he growled at me. He simply didn’t know what it was to be treated right.

    In this hungry world, men have been so mistreated; they don’t know what it is to be treated right. Inside of every person’s heart, there is a blank space that can only be filled by God in Christ.

Conclusion

There is a restlessness in man, and the only way he can have rest is in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. The greatest responsibility we have, after we have met Jesus, is to show Jesus has become flesh in us in our Christian walk.

The world outside the church windows and outside the sanctuary doors, it could care less about the story of the Christ, but it needs him so desperately.

The church service expectation is to be reverent, be still and be silent, for God is here (and He is). But make no mistake about it, when we have closed the service and go out those doors, we don’t have God locked up in side until Sunday night or the next Sunday. He’s already out there with us and He calls us to follow him.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.

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Some Claims of Christ  

John 14:6… Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Man can make some fantastic claims. He can travel faster than sound. He has climbed the highest mountains on earth. He has gone to the depths of the sea deeper than men have ever gone before. He can destroy every living human on this earth with his bombs. He has even gone to the moon and back. These are great claims and man is proud to have made such great claims. Let us examine some claims of Christ and see how they compare with the claims of men.

I.  Jesus said “ I am the way…” ( John 14:6)

a)  This claim is made by Christ but other men have made such a claim.

b)  Many men have said, “I am the way.”

• • Hitler told his nation that he was the way to victory over a conquered world.
  • False prophets have claimed they were the way to heaven or paradise. They all died and went to hell.

c)  Christ is the way from earth to heaven. From the heart of man to the heart of God.

• • From sinner to saint
  • From trials to triumph
  • From grief to glory
  • From defeat to victory
  • From darkness to light

d)  Christ is the way back to the Father, What real man can make such a claim?

II.  Christ also claimed the Truth. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth…” (John 14:6)

a)  Men have claimed to have the truth, and people have flocked from all parts of the earth to hear his claim.

b)  But one thing is missing when men say they have the truth. There are too many “truths”, and most of these “truths” don’t last any longer than their popularity.

c)  Jesus Christ is the one originating, living, visible truth. He is the truth about

• • God
  • Love and mercy
  • Holiness and rightness
  • Salvation… all would perish without his truth.

III.  Christ also claimed to be The Life. Not a life but THE LIFE. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth and the life…” (John 14:6)

a)  All people everywhere desire life.

b)  All people desire to live and to live forever.

c)  We see evidence of this in science fiction and horror movies.

d)  If a doctor or a man could give life, he’d be a billionaire the first hour of his offer.

e)  Medical science cannot give anyone life eternal. They may be able to prolong life but never for an eternity.

f)  Only Christ can save us from death, and deliver us through the valley of death to the land of peace and immortality.

g)  He is the life from God, for he said, “I am the resurrection and the life ” (John 11:25)

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First thought: The Lost Word of God

There is a very interesting story in the Bible in 2nd Chronicles 34:8-33.

Josiah was the boy King of Judah.  He began serving as King at the age of eight (8) years old.  At the age of 20 he ordered the places of false gods destroyed (where people had worshiped idols).  After that he ordered the Lord’s Temple repaired and the grounds cleaned up.  To their workers surprise they found “The Book of God’s Law”.  Here’s the real surprise – the Law was not found in the courtyards nor in an office, but in the Temple where it should have been all the time.  King Josiah called all the people of Judah together where they read the Law for all to hear.  They received the Scriptures with great joy.  Truly the God’s Word is a great joy to hear; for it is the Word of God.

So, it is also a great truth today.  In many churches the true Word of God is lost.  It’s back somewhere inside the church building itself.  This is where it should be but it is lost to so many church members.  The Gospel is preached – it is not given- however a lot of other things are given.

Second thought: Does God think?

If God thinks, does He think like humans think?  The Bible declares that God is above and beyond mankind. 

”For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.” Isaiah 55:8 (KJV)

Again the question comes hard around; does God think?  If He does think, then could God think of something He has never thought of before.  If God does, He would be a changing God.  There again God declares “For I am the LORD, I change not…” in Malachi 3:6 (KJV). There is not a shadow of turning with God see James 1:17 below.

So does God think?  The answer maybe He does not think like humans think, for He is Spirit.  In the end, there must be some kind of “thought/ways” with an Eternal God.

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” (KJV)