Sexual Harassment

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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The preceding video and following video come from women.

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The next video comes from...

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    Our youth group had a lock-in on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.

    Habitually, every Sunday morning before 5:30 a.m., I go around the church to check security and see if I need to tidy up.

    That includes the restrooms.

    Considering what's going on in our country with accusations of sexual harassment changing judgment from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until proven innocent" or really never innocent again after accusation with no respect to Matthew 18 or Galatians 6 or even secular jurisprudence or common sense, I decided not to check the women's restroom.

    What if one of our female youth group members was in there?

    I imagined a text to mom and dad: "Guess who just came into the bathroom?  Pastor Bob!"

    I imagined posts gone viral on Facebook.

    I imagined being brought up on charges by...

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    When I was a Cub Scout in heat, my daddy gave some advice to me: "Always look a woman in the eyes."

    Get it?

    Today, of course, with those plunging necklines and half-exposed tattoos that provoke curiosity, it's hard.

    Women seem to be inviting...sexual...

    Daddy also warned, "If it's too easy, many have been there before you."

    Then, with a sigh, he admitted, "Boys with erections have no conscience."

    So it's rather, uh, uh, uh, natural for boys to be, uh, uh, uh, interested in, uh, uh, uh,...you know what.

    Paul and Freud agree on that.

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    While our culture is determined to emasculate men - Have you seen any of those commercials for Verizon and Geico to mention just two? - and women are amassing intimidating numbers in secular and sacred power positions, men, still, I guess, are more guilty of sexual harassment than women.

    I think of a little sticker that Wingman bought for me in Sturgis a few years back that hangs on our refrigerator with encouragement from my wife: "Never trust a pastor with a boner."

    O.K., I wouldn't use that illustration in a sermon.

    Maybe that's the problem.

    Suppressed honesty is at the genesis of most dysfunctional etiology

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    My home pastor gave some advice to me before 5/8/77 that I've given to pastors and other related species of all ages ever since.

    Like all good counsel, it only works if you subscribe to it.

    Here goes.

    Parenthetically, this is just for men because, as we know from our culture, only men are guilty of sexual harassment.

    "Never meet alone with a single woman, married woman, divorced woman, pregnant woman, widowed woman, or woman of any kind behind closed doors with no windows."

    "Never tell a sexually oriented joke to a woman."

    "Never talk about human sexuality with anyone, especially women and gays, unless they're family or read the Bible as God's inspired apocalypse."

    "When in doubt about saying anything to a woman that could in any way be construed as sexual harassment or inappropriate or maybe inappropriate or considered inappropriate even if she's whacked out which is a description that could also be considered sexual harassment by some, shut up."

    That advice from over four decades ago seems to be more contemporary than ever.

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    If the previous cautions seem hyperbolic, let's go back to Thanksgiving.

    I talked with several college students - female and male - who were in for the week.

    When I asked what's considered sexual harassment on campuses these days, the summary response was chilling: "Sexual harassment is anything that a woman wants to say it is."

    Whoa.

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    Fortunately, I've followed my first ecclesiastical mentor's advice.

    I've sinned; but never propositioned or degraded.

    I may have felt like doing it; but I haven't.

    That's something shared with President Carter.

    Still, I'm concerned.

    Every manly man should be concerned, cautious, and conversationally compartmentalized.

    I almost said this on the Sunday after Thanksgiving: "As you know, I really love you and I'm a hugger.  I hug women and men and I know what the apostle meant by a holy kiss on the cheek.  Buuuuuuut I think, all things considered in our country right now, I'm going to stop unless you sign a permission slip that I've asked our attorney to prepare.  Sorry, but I'm not hugging without written consent."

    Seriously.

    Yeah, I've got a lot of freedom after four decades of pension credits; yet I've still got another few decades left on the corner of Lincoln and Main and I know there are some very, very, very darkly inspired sick strategies inseminated by satanos to bring down as many Biblically Christocentric men as possible and, knowing that/it, I've got to approach all relationships in a Matthew 10:16 kinda way.

    Still, as a very public person confided to me not too long ago, accusations alone will assassinate and destroy with vindication for the innocent being improbable.

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    For example, did I ever tell you about my affair with Sophia Loren?

    Really, how do you know for sure that I didn't have one?

    She may deny it, but I can still claim it!

    Just, uh, saying.

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    I don't know the answer apart from mass conversion and deportment shaped by intimacy with Jesus by the book.

    Not gonna happen.

    Let's not miss the course on original sin.

    It's a very, very, very serious problem.

    Guilt and innocence, according to previous jurisprudence in America, was built on evidence and jury deliberation more than accusation.

    The church used to have even higher standards.

    Go back to Matthew 18 and Galatians 6 again.

    Sadly, I think that's changed for less than good.

    So, again, I don't have any answer; except one: "Come, Lord Jesus!"

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    BTW, have you seen how those from the left and right in DC are using our tax dollars to hide sexual harassment in Congress?

    It's almost like Hillary enabling Bill with the help of their ideological buddies in media and education and churches while destroying credible victims of the harassments and crimes of her sexual predator hubby.

    Anyway, if I had the guts, I'd write to my Congressman and copy local media: "Because it's our money and you work for us, we expect you to reveal who used that account to pay off the victims of sexual harassment by members of Congress.  If you can't/won't do that, we must assume you are on the list."

    This is going to get much, much, much worse.

    Maybe we need a national study on Exodus 20:16.

    Forgot.

    Not fashionable.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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Kopp's Books for Sale

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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Friends,

Adding insult to injury, one of my publishers, CCS Publishing Company of Lima, Ohio, has written to say they are going digital or something and cleaning out their warehouse of inventory.

While these and other titles will not be "out of print" - as if anyone cares - and available til the parousia, there are several copies of God's Top Ten List (420) and Golf in the Real Kingdom (40) on the shelves and being offered to me - the author - for $.99 a copy.  That's even lower than you can get 'em at www.amazon.com; though I Just Wanna Ride seems to have risen to "cult" classic on a few websites and is begging another publisher to do what the former did not aka market it.

If I weren't paying off cars for two sons while saving up for a truck with a projected purchase date of 2037 or about 10 years before I retire, I'd buy 'em all for egotistical reasons.

I mean, really, aside from guys like me who stock their studies to impress people, can you imagine how impressive it is to stock shelves with books that you've written?

Not.

Anyway, if you'd like any or all of 'em, call Charles Spar at 419-516-0348 and say, "The author, Bobby Kopp, is a friend of mine and wrote that non-best-selling___that is being sold out and off your shelves and I'd like to order___ copies."

From what I've been told, God's Top Ten List, a contemporary exposition of the Decalogue aka Ten Commandments, has been used by adult and young adult Sunday School classes and study groups and cellular groups and sparked...  Of course, noting Judge Roy Moore, Al Franken, and Hillary's husband and their apologists, this book may not be that fashionable anymore.  As you know, the Decalogue isn't really a part of our culture since...

Golf in the Real Kingdom, dedicated to my dad, is a book about, uh, golf; actually, it's a metaphor for discipleship with golf as the vehicle.  Golfers like it.  That's what I've been told.

So there ya go.

Some cheap Christmas gifts.

BTW, just so ya know, I won't get $.01 for any sales.

That's why I haven't ordered that truck or even more Cubans lately.

I'm still holding out for the repackaging of I Just Wanna Ride or my favorite local publisher putting those Bible scratchings into a book form to keep the paper afloat and feed my 150 dream.

Note from CSS: "This is a limited time offer that will expire 30 days after the date of this letter" (DOL: 11/13/17).

So unlike folks who think it's rude to be on time for worship, call today or enable my continuing humiliation of trailing the toothy guy from Texas in book sales by about a trillion to one.

Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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Together on Thanksgiving

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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Father God, as we pause to give thanks for all undeserved favors, withheld judgments, and

the privileges of citizenship in a country exceptionally blessed yet increasingly selfish,

ungrateful, and divided and distant from You, we take nothing for granted; especially

Jesus as we reserve our highest praise and truest thanksgiving for confident living

in the assurance of heavenly life by grace through faith in Him.  As with all faith-

filled prayer, belonging and beholden to Him, we pray in the name of Jesus.

Amen and amen and amen!!!

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    According to tradition, Thanksgiving includes the sin of gluttony, football games of occasional consequences, strategies for beating everybody to the best sales later that day or early the next, and maybe squeezing in some family time to love on each other.

    Yes, believers will pray kinda like noted above; but in America today, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, and rarely-observed Pentecost are reduced to some kinda emasculated holidays of some kinda spiritually dead winking in faint appreciation for someone somewhere who sometime ago maybe forever not sure nor certain nor really care is at the source of whatever it is that makes us wanna kinda celebrate, uh, whatever.

    Just being honest.

    Part of that honesty includes the assault on family table talk by those cellulars that are sooooooo obviously more addicting than heroin.

    I mean even heroin addicts can put down their needles for an hour of worship in church, funeral home, or...

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    Father John Pisarcik, who studied with me on one of my worthless degrees, has written three books worthy of our attention: Hard Choices for Christians, Naughty or Nice - Virtue or Vice, and Ramblings of an Old Man.

    In the latter, he lamented, "I was at a gathering, in a room filled with adults, and watched two women who were sitting about three feet from each other, not joining the conversation but busy texting.  Finally, I had to ask what was so important that they could not be a part of the group.  Looking at me in utter bewilderment, they responded that they were talking to one another.  Just didn't care for the rest of us to hear so it was easier to text.  Part of the group, but not part of it at the same time."

    We've seen it in restaurants, worship services, funeral homes, and even around family tables at holidays.

    Maybe we need to rename it.

    Anti-social networking.

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    While the preponderance of perspectives tilt left, I subscribe to The Week: The Best of the U.S. and International Media because it does a commendable job of collecting erudite reports and commentary from all ideological perspectives.

    The editor's letter is always provocative and penetrating even when not persuasive; especially in the 10/27/17 edition: "A growing number of Americans say their relationships are being wrecked by a seductive third party.  Not another person, but something far more eye-catching: a smartphone...studies show that many couples are struggling to balance their love for each other with their love for the iPhones and Androids."

    Managing editor Theunis Bates continues, "Even if a phone isn't in use, it can still cause problems.  Studies show that simply having a phone out on the restaurant table, for example, interferes with your sense of connection to your dining partner - perhaps because their eyes keep flicking at the device for new alerts, suggesting that piece of technology is more interesting than you."

    He concludes, "But that buzz often comes at the expense of genuinely rewarding moments of in-person intimacy, like chatting with a loved one over a morning cup of coffee instead of phubbing them as you scan your Facebook feed...[Scroll down for more on Facebook!]...To communicate meaningfully, we have to learn to put down our communication devices."

    Selah.

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    I've been getting more and more and more requests for "unplugged" services at worship, weddings, funerals, and where two or three or more are not always gathered in His name.

    Simply, before getting on with 'em, the pastor or funeral director or MC or whomever announces something like this: "This is an 'unplugged' occasion as requested by...Out of respect for ___, please raise your cellulars with me, now turn off the power, put 'em in your pocket, and be assured your world will not have ended after the next hour or so."

    It might not be a bad idea to unplug during family meals...and start a new tradition on Thursday.

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Blessings and Love!

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Scratching the Surface

of

Facebook

(A Brief and Incomplete Guide to Facebook, Frogs, and Faith)

I don’t do Facebook.

While Facebook is like money – just an instrument that can be used for good or bad or ugly with no morality until we attach ours to it – I’m just not into it.

I know myself.

Too easy to kneejerk and vent and brood and bully and…

Reminds me of those old anonymous snail mail letters; for just like Islamofascistnutball terrorists who hide behind masks while doing the unGodly because they don’t have the courage of their convictions and have deleted Matthew 18 from their auto-suggested theology – Oh, how impressive and brave and noble! – such anonymity is from the pit of hell as antithesis to John 3:19-21.

Sooooooo just as I’ve never read an anonymous letter in over four decades because gutless hurlings are not worthy of our consideration, I don’t do Facebook.

From what I’ve heard, and this could be a boon to parents with under-achieving children, behind every successful student is a deactivated Facebook account.

Really, I’ve heard some people spend more time on Facebook than with their wives, husbands, children, parents, and…even you know who.

It’s the Hotel California syndrome: “You can check in any time you’d like…but you can never leave!”

I’m not anti-social networking.

I’m just not anti-idiot networking.

If I did do Facebook, I’d create an account with the name Nobody.

Whenever somebody posted something silly, stupid, superficial, or slanderous, I’d say, “Nobody likes this.”

O.K., before I totally upset yu’uns addicted to it, please recall I’ve already said it can be used for good or bad or ugly and has no morality until people attach theirs to it.

I see lots of good uses for Facebook.

Flirting with women/men other than your wives/husbands not included.

Sharing potty stories not included.

Gossiping and bullying not included.

Sharing embarrassing photos not included.

Sending a picture of a cloud formation over Capron, Illinois that looks like Miley Cyrus not included.

Claiming 4,234 friends not included.

Reeeeeeeaaaaaallllllly, 4,234 friends?

Annnnnnnd if you don’t mind your demographics being stored by advertisers, IRS, NSA, and…

Help us, Rand Paul!

Again, I see good uses for it; like connecting with family and sharing good news.

Enough.

A pastor was giving a children’s sermon.

He said, “When I say a word, I want you to say the first word that comes into your mind.”

A little boy yelled, “Jesus!”

The pastor asked, “Why did you say Jesus when I said frog?”

Answer: “Because I know you didn’t call us down here to talk about frogs.”

The preceding isn’t about frogs…or Facebook.

It’s about people who say they love Jesus acting like they love Jesus in their treatment of others when they text, twitter, Facebook, voicemail, use money, or whatever whenever with whomever.

It’s about following Jesus’ golden rule of behavior: “Do to others as you wish they would do to you.”

Caution from Jesus: “As you do it to them, you do it to Me!”

Now read Matthew 25 for the consequences of attaching bad behavior to Facebook and…

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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Inventory

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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"When you think you've arrived, it's time to start over."

(#11 from a non-best-selling book)

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    Since a week with Jan, Eugene, Chuck, Jeff, and Ken along Flathead Lake in Montana back in October 2011, I've confessed I'm just scratching the surface of my relationship with Jesus and inching closer to the kinda undershepherd that He had in mind when The Rev. Harold F. Mante (RIP) took me to ___ seminary as an 8th grader because he discerned...

    I've written a lot about that born anothen and kairos moment that's archived and available by going to the right column of www.koppdisclosure.com.

    As I look forward to the next two decades of life and ministry on the corner of Lincoln and Main in Belvidere, Illinois with a family of faith that I love more than they will ever acknowledge or appreciate, I think it's time to take a quick inventory of some recent conclusions, convictions, and...

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    1. I'll never eat stewed tomatoes because they look like blood clots;

    2. Concomitant to #1, there's a lot of freedom when you've got over four decades of pension credits piled up;

    3. Isaiah 40:28-31 is real for anyone who has real intimacy with Jesus;

    4. As a homiletics professor, there were some technical problems with one of the best sermons that I've ever heard.  Surprisingly, it was at a recent presbytery meeting where the Spirit is often squeezed out by rules of order and ideology masquerading as Biblically Christocentric theology because of forgotten, ignored, defied, or pretended ordination promises.  Anyway, proving Samuel right again that the heart and gut are more important to God than the head, the message was about loving Jesus by loving like Jesus and nobody really likes to hang out with people and churches that say they love Jesus but don't love like Jesus;

    5. More than ever, I really want to be shown my errors by Jesus, Holy Scripture, and common sense so I can confess, repent, ask forgiveness, and have relationships restored with people who forgive because it's the only Christian thing to do and is one of the indicators of being homeward bound;

    6. While cellular prayer, romance, Cubans, iron pony, 9 with Billy, and the truck that I gave up but will get back again before the parousia provide the kinda refueling necessary for an INTJ like moi, among my greatest pleasures are leading authentic-not-by-the-scripted-liturgies-of-1563 worship moins mindless and barking litanies and other contradictions of Matthew 15 and 23, helping someone develop the intimacy with Jesus that produces good stuff like Paul wrote about in Galatians 5, helping folks who grieve broken relationships in time to praise God for the overcoming of the wouldas and couldas and shouldas by grace through faith in Jesus that will be healed forever in heaven, shattering the sound of silence, salting, shining, and leavenating; and

    7. I covet more time with my family that has sacrificed so much for so long because they have respected sometimes grudgingly what Pastor Mante discerned so many years ago.

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    While I could be assassinated at any time by an Islamofascistnutball savage or somebody in town who's still mad at me for taking the church away from them and giving it back to Jesus or be done in by Grandpa Kopp's cancer genes, I am more psyched - I'll never forget the mean and nasty hater who left our church because she didn't like me saying I'm psyched for life because she's not which is too bad because I'd cherish the opportunity to help her find Jesus and get psyched for life instead being such a bummer to herself and anyone around her! - than ever to get closer to Jesus and then closer to...

    Uh, BTW, this hasn't been about me.

    This is about you.

    I'm just like you; needing to take an inventory every once in a while to...

    If you don't understand what I mean by that, hang out with Jesus and part of His family in any church that still worships and follows Him by the book.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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For Sheepdogs Cause Sheep Too Dumb

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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    Too many sheep would rather die than follow Jesus.

    If you don't believe that, you're unconscious, stoned, or OD'ed on St. John's Wort.

    God knows churches are leading the rest of the losers in that department; longing for the way things never were or maybe were but are no more as they hold on to idolatries aka traditions that never really worked or worked for a little while but don't work anymore.

    Sheep are dumb.

    It's a Biblical metaphor about the truth that most people are too dumb to follow Jesus literally and always so it may be on earth as it is in heaven.

    Sheep will follow the lead of so many inferiors than the only One who really loves by guiding, providing, and protecting them from satanos and its witting, slithering, stealthful, disguised, eager, duped, and enabled-by dummies and accomplices.

    So this is a brief disclosure on one of the dumbest things that sheep do as they follow and fall into the diabolically deadly strategies of the dark side.

    This is for sheepdogs or undershepherds to the Good Shepherd who are called and prepared to pick up their rods, staffs, and swords to protect the sheep.

    This is for wolves and their master to warn them that sheepdogs will do what is necessary to defend the sheep and defeat them.

    This, again, is not for sheep because they're too dumb to take care of themselves.

    There are so many illustrations; but since Vegas and Texas, that little sticker announcing a "Gun Free Zone" may be among the most indicative of the need for sheepdogs to protect sheep from the wolves even when the sheep seem so willing to follow the lead of those who enable those who want to devour them.

    "Baaaaaaahhh...Baaaaaaahhh...Baaaaaaahhh..."

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    The secret is out!

    Those little "Gun Free Zone" stickers invite terrorists, madwomen/men, and other miscreants to a feeding frenzy.

    If bad guys with guns know good guys with guns - law-abiding, fully vetted, trained, credentialed, and registered with big brother - are forbidden to exercise their 2nd Amendment right to protect themselves and others from bad guys with guns, bad guys with guns know they can do their deadliest without interference from good guys with guns until many/enough minutes pass by before good guys with badges and guns show up after carnage.

    Here's how it goes.

    Good guys: "Though we've been vetted, trained, credentialed, and registered, we can't go into that place with our metaphorical rods, staffs, and swords to protect anyone because they have a 'Gun Free Zone' sticker on the window.  The sheep are ready to be slaughtered."

    Bad guys: "Look!  There's a "Gun Free Zone' sticker on the window!  No one to protect the sheep!  Yahoo!"

    Really.

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    Now at this point, I've got to repeat a thesis from one of my books that nobody's read: "Trying to be rational with the irrational is illogical."

    Or as elder Bob Imm of New Kensington, Pennsylvania said many years ago while counseling me about snakes in the sanctuary, "Don't get into a pissing contest with skunks."

    Ignorant, irrational, two-feet-planted-firmly-in-the-air, and otherwise unconscious sheep-in-leaders'-clothing will come up with the most convoluted, asinine, nauseating, and intellectually dishonest and dopey pabulum to defend the "Gun Free Zone" stickers that invite mayhem.

    Heeeeeeelllllllooooooo, anybody home?

    Reminds me of Otter's famous comment to Flounder in Animal House: "Face it, Flounder, you ___ up!  You trusted us!"

    Do you really trust the backers of "Gun Free Zone" stickers to protect sheep from wolves?

    If you do, please send back your prescription from Colorado.

    The stuff that you're smoking is too intoxicating.

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    I was visiting one of my dearest friends in the hospital.

    She is very discouraged by what happened in NYC, Vegas, and Texas.

    She lamented horrific episodes of the same old story before and expressed fears of more of the same in the future.

    Asking if there's anything that can be done to stop it, she suggested more gun laws.

    I responded, "More gun laws will not stop bad guys from getting guns and using them."

    We also admitted it won't help to hold some rap sessions in Chicago or sponsor public choruses of Kumbayah.

    Then we talked about Psalm 23, Matthew 10, and Ephesians 6.

    Then we thanked God for the good guy with a gun in Texas who stopped the bad guy with a gun in Texas from slaughtering even more sheep.

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    Thanks to our media exercising their 1st Amendment right, bad guys with guns have an updated list of soft targets like churches, schools, stadiums, supermarkets, and "Gun Free Zone" stickered establishments.

    Whether it's an Islamofascistnutball or madwoman/man or whomever, it's really satanos and its kin at the genesis of any spiritual etiology.

    Sheepdogs understand that.

    Sheep are too dumb to get it.

    Wolves are fueled by it.

    That's why sheepdogs don't pay much attention to the "baaaaaaahhhing" of sheep while protecting them by turning their focus and aim on the wolves.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

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The Best Way to Kill Worship Attendance

Kopp Disclosure

(John 3:19-21)

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The Best Way to Kill Worship Attendance

          A pastor greeted an infrequent worship attendee, “I didn’t realize it was Easter already.”

          Alert!

          Pastors who use that kind of humor are offending people who offend God by not worshiping Him.

          Question!

          Which is worse?

          Offending people who offend God by not worshipping Him or offending God by not offending people who do not worship Him?

          Ouch.

          Yep, the truth will set ‘em free; but may cut down on attendance and income.

          Parenthetically, it’s obvious that lots of people don’t believe in eternal life; for if they did, don’t you think those pews would be full and things important to God like agape, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and…would be practiced more than pretended.

          Example.

          When I was an important pastor as defined by important pastors and idolizing pewsitters who confuse high steeples and ecclesiastical lifestyles that would make Solomon blush as the ingredients of importance, I was in a group of important pastors that would meet yearly in Malibu, California that would often include non-self-effacing tributes to our importance.

          One pastor, far more humble than most and especially me, named George Callahan, who was a leading light in the Presbyterian Charismatic Communion and among the first to ask what the anything but heaven is going on in the franchise and other increasingly sideline denominations, preached a sermon that became a little booklet called God Commanded Tithing So Don’t Blame Me!

          He said, “Jesus spoke more about money than any other subject, except for the Kingdom of God.”

          True.

          Money is understood in the Bible and by common sense as among the best measures of who and what are important to us.

          Rather, how we use/manage money is among the best measures of who and what are important to us.

          Money, like all things including Facebook and cellulars and firearms and art and government and other human inventions, has no meaning until we attach ours to it.

          If we want to know who and what are important to us, all we have to do is look at our checkbook stubs and plastic bill statements.

          Of course, everybody knows lots of people dislike, resent, rebel, and sometimes yell when people bring up money in church.

          You know how it goes: “I don’t want to hear about money in church…I don’t want to be told that I need to give money to the church…I don’t want to…I…I…I…”

          Hmm.

          Another subject for another day.

          Getting back to money, it matters to people; and when it comes to bringing up money in church, it can cause a lot of guilt disguised as some kinda righteous indignation claiming church is no place to bring it up; which, as Callahan said and anyone who actually reads the Bible will discover, comes as a great shock to God who brought it up…a lot.

          So the best way to kill worship attendance is to announce next week’s sermon will be about money; and if we really want to stir up the devil in people and kill worship attendance in succeeding services, talk about tithing when they come.

          Yeah, a faithful herald will say, “I don’t write ‘em.  I just read ‘em.”

          But, again, if even churchy kinda people don’t pay much attention to what He says about agape, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and other things that are really important to Him, it’s really fake news to think people think sermons about money are in any remote way related to good news.

          It’s a homiletician’s dilemma: tell ‘em what they wanna hear which ain’t always what He says they need to hear or tell ‘em what they need to hear but don’t always wanna hear and catch you know what for telling it like it/He is.

          Parenthetically, again, I guess it all depends on what one believes about eternity.  If a person really believes God’s in charge of here, now, and forever, that makes a big difference in how one handles what He’s revealed about Himself and what it means to behave like you believe in Him.

          So about money.

          There’s so much about it in the best apocalyptic resource – the Bible – available to us on who He is and what He expects from those who know who He is; so we’ll hit just a few pregnant verses.

          1 Corinthians 16:1-4: “Now about the money to be collected to help God’s people…Each of you is to set something aside on the first day of the week…”

          Money is an instrument to honor God by using it to help people.

          Money is to be managed in ways that honor God by using it to help people.

          Helping people is honoring God or honoring God by helping people is fundamental to a Christian’s job description: “As you do it for them,” Jesus said, “you are doing it for Me; and as you’re not doing it for them, you’re not doing it for Me.”

          Malachi 3:8-10: “Will you rob God?  You are robbing Me!  You ask, ‘How do we rob You?’  You rob me by not tithing.  The tithe comes to the storehouse so that there may be food in My house.”

          Tithing is a Biblical word that means “tenthing” of all we are and have for God’s honor by helping God’s people or helping people to honor God.

          A tithe – the least not most that we can manage/do for God – is 10% of our thought, time, treasures, and talent.

          It’s the price of admission or getting into the game – proving we are on His side.

          Tithing is one of the most significant and obvious measures of fidelity.

          Referring back to an important disclosure, Ralph Cushman wrote in Dealing Squarely with God back in 1927 for believers who behaved like believers when it comes to using/managing money for God as obligatory not discretionary, “You can tell the sincerity of a man’s interest in anything by the way he puts his money into it.”

          Tithing means we are serious about God.

          Or as my old buddy George Callahan wrote in that awfully titled booklet, “If you are not tithing, you are ‘tipping’ God as you might tip a carhop or a waiter.”

          Matthew 22:37-40: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and most important commandment.  The second is like it.  Love your neighbor as yourself.”

          God wants/commands/expects us to use/manage everything – emotionally, intellectually, spiritually, materially – for Him.

          God expects us to be totally committed/devoted/dedicated to Him.

          So anyone who says God isn’t really about tithing is right!

          That’s right!

          God doesn’t want 10%!

          He wants/commands/expects 100%!

          God wants/command/expects us to use/manage 100% of who we are and what we have for His glory, laud, and honor; and among the best ways to do that is to use/manage who we are and what we have to help people who need God through who we are and what we have.

          Psalm 24:1: “The earth and everything in it belong to God.”

          While that comes as a shock to capitalists, unions, school boards, Democrats, Republicans, denominations and their ecclesiastical elites, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, PBS, ACLU, NAACP, NOW, ESPN, and other social engineers operating on human over divine wisdom with their ever-threatening thought police dedicated to exterminating dissent and exorcising comment or contradiction – that’s a mouthful – the Apostles’ Creed begins with a fundamental truth that’s in their face: “I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth.”

          God is Source, Starter, Sovereign, and Savior and not even the aforementioned can do anything about His providence in the end despite impotent attempts in the meantime.

          When it comes to money, it means it’s not ours in the first/His place.

          God entrusts money to us; allowing us to use/manage it for heavenly or…hellish…ends.

          So, again, take a look at your checkbook stubs and plastic bill statements and see how you measure up/down.

          Just like faith, “You can’t give away what you ain’t got for yourself.”

          Paul was practical: “Be as generous as you can.”

          Part of that urging includes the call to evaluate what we can give to the Lord’s house and for the Lord’s missions after taking care of the most immediate family responsibilities entrusted to us by God and confirmed by us in parental and congregational baptismal pledges.

          I like how Charles Hodge explained it in his commentary on this text back in 1857: “Contributions were to be in proportion to the means of the giver.”

          That’s why I’m always trying to soak the haves for the have-nots; or as Jesus said/warned, “From everyone to whom much has been given, much will be required; and from the one to whom much has been entrusted, even more will be demanded.”

          A story comes to mind.

          A fellah says to his pastor, “If I only had more money, I’d give more to the church; but I don’t have enough money.  I can barely make ends meet…If I only had more time, I would do more for the church; but I have so much to do at work and home…If I only had more talent, I would serve the Lord; but I can’t sing or teach or do this or do that.”

          According to the story, our Lord gave more money, time, and talent to the man; but the man did not use/manage the money, time, and talent to honor God.  So, as God does sooner or later and definitely in the end, He took them back.

          The man went to his pastor and said, “If I only had those things back, I would do a better job of using/managing them for God.”

          The pastor said, “Just shut up!”

          Dr. James I. McCord remains among the most faithful and brilliant men to ever cross my path.  He was president of the seminary that I attended and president of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches when it stood for Someone.

          He often talked of the young Scot who told his pastor, “I’m fed up with the church and Christianity.  All I ever hear is, ‘Give, give, give.’”

The pastor fixed his eyes on the young man and said, “Well, can you think of a better definition of Christianity than give, give, give.”

          McCord explained: “The Christian doctrine of stewardship is rooted in the gospel itself.  The gospel begins with a gift…Jesus…It continues with a claim on the lives of those who respond to this gift.”

          Or as Calvin wrote, “We are not our own…We are God’s…to Him, therefore, let us live and die…We are God’s. Towards Him, as our only legitimate end, let every part of our lives be directed.”

          Talking about tithing, stewardship, checkbook stubs, plastic bill statements, and money may not be the best way to beef up worship attendance, but it is among the best measures of who will be attending the big banquet in the end.

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Blessings and Love!

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Shatter the sound of silence!

Salt!  Shine!  Leavenate!

Wake up!  Look up!  Stand up!  Speak up!  Act up for Jesus!

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