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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Obtaining and Maintaining Moral Identity

Let's just ask God to again add a blessing as we're going to now look at His Word.

Father in heaven bless us as we look at your Word and as we consider its meaning then, its meaning now, and give us correction, give us direction, give us solemnity, but give us joy.

Well this past week as I was deciding what theme I would develop next in our kind of rubric we've been looking at, Matthew 24 and the morning sermons and the moral identity in our little series on moral identity here at 11 o'clock, I decided to entitle my message Obtaining and Maintaining Moral identity in times of crisis.

So I was then thinking, what exactly should I talk about?

And some would question even the wisdom of being out here in the smoke today.

But And then I was getting my oil changed, and there was a firefighter who was there.

And I asked him, why do you think these fires are happening?

And he says, you know, I just fight the fires.

And I said, do you ever think about that?

And so I kind of put my mask, you know, tightly on and just went back to looking down.

And then about 30 seconds later he goes, why do you think they're happening?

Well I said I don't fight fires much, but I talk about why they happen.

I said, you know, I had read the news, it's a confluence of extreme weather conditions that set the stage.

First came a record-breaking heat wave across the state, temperatures in Death Valley reached 130 degrees.

Everybody turned on their air conditioning and the grid went down.

Next, the storm, tropical storm of the Pacific Ocean, spun moisture towards California, triggering a rare lightning storm that zapped California 10, 800 times over a three-day period, sparking small fires in the Bay Area in Northern California.

Then the humidity dropped, winds picked up, stoking the small flames until they erupted in full-blown infernos.

And as a result of not doing controlled burns for the last number of years, there was a huge amount of dead trees, more so than normally was, and that's what started all the fires.

But I said, people are not talking about it that way, they're kind of talking about it like the newscasters, the news folks, and the journalists are saying it's apocalyptic.

There's an unusual amount of lightning storms igniting multiple small fires at a time, overwhelming our ability to quench them.

And another said 5 of the 10 largest wildfires in California history are burning.

7 of the 10 largest fires have occurred in the last 4 years, and that's just not normal.

And then yet another said, this is the biggest wildfire outbreak in U.S.

History since the time of the great fire of 1910.

The great fire, the big blow up, the big burn.

And that kind of makes our passage come alive, doesn't it?

Look at it again, 2 Peter 3, 2 Peter 3, verse 10 through 14.

"'But the day of the Lord will come "'as a thief in the night, "'in which the heavens will pass away with great noise and the elements will melt with fervent heat, both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up.

Therefore since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought ye to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

Nevertheless, we according to His promise, look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." Well that page, that kind of leaps off the page, doesn't it?

The elements will melt with fervent heat, Both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up, the heavens will be exalting on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.

And this is near the day of the Lord, Which will come like a thief in the night.

Now does that mean God's coming as a thief?

He comes not but to steal and to kill and destroy.

Is it just a confluence of influence of capricious acts of nature?

Or does the Bible say at the end of time, fires will be actually started by the devil?

Come not but to steal, to kill, and destroy.

Looking at that more fully, it's interesting what the pen of inspiration says concerning this.

Like Israel of old, the wicked destroy themselves.

They fall by their iniquity, by a life of sin.

They have placed themselves so out of harmony with God that their natures become debased, so debased with evil that the manifestation of his glory is to them a consuming fire." God keeps a reckoning with the nations.

By the way, these were penned in 1911, right after that great fire by Ellen White.

In this age, a more, God keeps a reckoning with the nations.

In this age, a more than common contempt is shown for God.

Men have raised to point an insolence and disobedience which shows that their cup of iniquity is almost full.

The Spirit of God is being withdrawn from the earth.

And when the angel of mercy folds her wings and departs, Satan will do evil deeds that he has long wished to do, storm and tempest, war and bloodshed, in these things he delights.

And so completely will men be deceived by him that he will declare that these calamities are the result of the desecration of the first day of the week.

From the pulpits of popular churches will be heard the sentiment and the statement that the world is being punished because Sunday is not being honored as it should be.

Who is it that brings the fire and the flood and the destruction?

Because God has been pushed out by many people and nations.

Since the Amorites' iniquity is not yet full, so they're not destroyed.

And there's a number of statements I don't have time to go through that indicates that this was the case in a sense after that great earthquake and this great fire that hit America.

But then with prophetic vision, Ellen White says something about iniquity would become full again, the spirit would be drawn, storms, tempests, war and bloodshed.

And this would cause people to say that the reason these calamities were coming was because some people were not resting on the first day of the week.

Could anyone ever say these kind of things?

Well, this last week, starting the week of the celebration of the creation of the world, the season of creation, and a call to respect our common home.

Pope Francis said the pandemic has brought us to a crossroads.

We need to have a vision capable of taking into account every aspect of the global crisis.

We have a serious need of a serious collective effort.

If we all act together, there's hope and change can take place.

So I went to the website, eco, or eco justice, or Jesuit Environmentalism, Jesuitjustice.com.

And there the Jesuit order had spelled it all out.

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Obtaining and Maintaining Moral Identity

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