A Second Sermon in the Series on Nehemiah by Lead Pastor Fredrick Russell

Sabbath Sermon, "What God Thinks / What God Does"

Pastor Fredrick Russell, captured from this Sabbath’s  video, a rare moment when his hands were in repose.

The sermon this Sabbath at Berean Seventh-day Adventist Church, Atlanta, was delivered by lead Pastor Fredrick Russell. It represents the second installment in a series of talks based on the Book of Nehemiah, “Rebuilding the Ruins.” The title of today’s installment is “What God Thinks / What God Does.” As usual, here is a link to the ENTIRE SEVICE. Pastor Russell’s sermon begins at time marker 1:17:45. Two pre-sermon songs by the choir commence at time marker1:02:30. Luther Washington II relinquished his spot at the organ in order to direct the choir today. He is kind of a perfectionist. His classical predilection is evident in the first number. The second number is like a “torch song” interpretation of Psalm 23, and not nearly as “Washingtonian.”

A brief summary of the sermon may be found below some relatively lengthy marginalia concerning the Sabbath School lesson. The sermon served a threefold purpose:

1. Lessons in the importance and efficacy of prayer, using Nehemiah’s (and Daniel’s) prayer life as an example for us to emulate. As stated last week, this relates it to the church’s current emphasis on prayer.
2. General educational material about the rarely highlighted Book of Nehemiah. A parallel between the restoration of Jerusalem’s defenses, and our own defense against the snares of Satan was mentioned last week, and, tangentially, this week as well.
3. The lamentable state of Berean’s physical plant. If this is not applicable to your life, you may mentally substitute “state of my soul” for church repair references, a dual-purpose message akin to the “dual prophecy” discussed in the December 27 Sabbath School lesson, “The Fall in Heaven.”

SOME COGENT REMARKS BY A YOUNG SCHOLAR

As I was walking into the main sanctuary, a sincere young Adventist (name not known to me, and not on the video) was making a brief, but very topical speech to the early arrivals. He expressed his support for the “Spirit of Prophecy,” and then told us that his remarks were not intended to advocate any particular political position.

The speaker mentioned some recent, and controversial remarks by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. The Justice spoke a day or two ago at a Catholic High School, a speech that may be fully scrutinized at this LINK. It emphasizes the relationship between church and state in this country, a relationship that Ellen White expressed concern about. But the main Antonin Scalia reference the speaker brought to our attention were some insensitive, and inaccurate, opinions the Justice uttered early in December regarding the capabilities of minorities to function, scholastically, on a level playing field. This New York Times LINK should refresh your memory. I am not virulently anti-Catholic, but the remarks reminded me of dozens of similar displays of ignorant prejudice by the British author G.K. Chesterton, a convert to Catholicism, like Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene (who were not, however, idiots like Chesterton).

The mother church of the Society of Jesuits, “Il Gesu” in Rome. The “consoles” at either side of the nave made their first appearance anywhere on this façade.

The Society of Jesus could be considered the elite of the Catholic hierarchy, and the current pope has a Jesuit background. The young speaker at Berean this morning alluded to Antonin Scalia’s Jesuit training. The poet Gerard Manley Hopkins was a good Jesuit. I consider John McLaughlin a bad Jesuit. There is such a thing as being too conservative (in the current, politically compromised meaning of the term), and social justice (and subsequently, African-American interest) is better served by the Democrats. But, alas, the Democrat tent is too big for comfort. In Europe one of the major parties is named the Christian Democrats, inaugurated as a Catholic endeavor, but grown up into something more ecumenical. They are “moderate conservatives” like myself, and not “rabid conservatives” like yet another Catholic I will link, Patrick Buchanan. The Wikipedia article calls him a “paleoconservative,” not a very objective sounding name, and akin to my rabies analogy.

This morning’s speaker referred to Scalia as America’s foremost “conservative intellectual.” I am just perverse enough to call this usage an “oxymoron.” Most progress in this country has been made by “limousine liberals.” The speaker noted that there were currently no Protestants on the Supreme Court. This statement would seem to contradict the speaker’s inferred preference for a Jeffersonian separation of church and state. Justice, like vengeance, is best served cold, without denominational taint, and the dispassionate execution of it is a worthy ideal. I am sure that the reality is quite the opposite of “ideal,” however.

The Adventist agenda regarding these matters is partially displayed in Chapter 21 of “The Great Controversy,” entitled A Warning Rejected (on the deterioration of denominations, not just Catholicism), and in Chapter 35, Liberty of Conscience Threatened (touching on the dangers of church-state fusion). I am getting on in years. Every time I hear of some new calamity, I find myself in reluctant agreement with Ecclesiastes 1:9″ “…there is no new thing under the sun.” What will be new is “a new heaven and a new earth.”

Here is one last Jesuit reference, one that is probably already known to everyone. It is a famous quote from Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Society of Jesus: “We should always be prepared so as never to err to believe that what I see as white is black, if the hierarchic Church defines it thus” (from Spiritual Exercises, 1548). This is the quintessential example of “blind loyalty.”


A LUDICROUSLY SHORT SUMMARY OF TODAY”S SERMON

Pastor Fredrick Russell prefaced today’s sermon, “What God Thinks / What God Does” with some personal reflections on prayer technique. He said that while out west recently, up in the skies, over the mountains, he thought of the prayer life of Daniel. It was so disciplined, God Himself would drop by. He said that a lot of us are so self-centered these days, that God gets excluded from our affairs. God finally gets consulted when it is usually late in the game, sometimes too late. The pastor told of recent difficulties with a slow leak at his house. The wooden basement floor buckled severely due to the moisture. He got in a tizzy about the situation, seeking advice and estimates, but then eventually got God involved in the crises. The pastor reflected that, in retrospect, it would have been a good idea to get God in on the ground floor of the dilemma.

The text for the sermon, from Nehemiah, is from Chapter 2, verses 17,18, & 19. After his secret, moonlight reconnaissance of the broken walls of Jerusalem, Nehemiah informs his hitherto rather complacent fellow Jerusalemites of his intention to rebuild. This is what the King of Babylon, current master of the Hebrews, had authorized Nehemiah to do. The locals agree that it would be a good idea. My soon-to-vanish song “Go To the Ant” has a line from Nehemiah 4:6: “…the people had a mind to work.” But opposition existed in the form of three powerful local adversaries. I understood the identity of “Geshem the Arab,” but was educated when Pastor Russell told us that the other two (Sanballat the Horonite and Tobiah the Ammonite) were Jewish. My view is that the arrival of Nehemiah in their midst, out of the blue, and bearing authority delegated to him by Babylon, represented a threat to their cushy status quo.

Last week’s sermon highlighted the “travailing prayer” of Nehemiah when first informed of Jerusalem’s sorry plight. This week, the fact that the balance of the Book of Nehemiah documents a continuous prayerful connection of the author with God was noted. Nehemiah’s prayers were, according to the sermon and the handy notes provided us:

• Daring (I was reminded of three times at the end of the book, where Nehemiah cites his virtuous activity to God, asking that the Lord “remember it,” but this kind of presumption is not at all what Pastor Russell was referring to).
• Defiant (against enemies, spiritual and physical; the later would soon come in for scrutiny).
• Disciplined (in the manner of Daniel).

The pastor said that Nehemiah did not make a move without consulting God. In bold type the printed notes to the sermon stated: “What God Thinks and What God Does Matters More Than What Anyone Else In the World Thinks Or Does.” If this is true (and none disputed this), then God should be consulted at the beginning of any activity. You need to ask him to be the one to inaugurate an action. The whole church had, in connection with a fitness campaign, earlier sung the juvenile song that starts with “I May Never March In the Infantry.” Pastor Russell was, in effect, advocating that we let God lay down an “artillery” barrage, before we, ourselves get embroiled in a skirmish (my weak metaphor).

…Artillery hard at work. My favorite character in “War and Peace” was the affable and self-effacing artillery officer who lost an arm by the end of the book.

The pastor provided four points in the sermon outline which encapsulated the situation of the Jerusalemites. The keywords are (1) Trouble! (2) Ruins! (3) Burned! (4) Rebuild! A quote from the relevant verses of Nehemiah, spoken by the people: “let us start building” (NIV), or in superior King James parlance: “Let us rise up and build.” At this stage, the “Triple Trouble,” as the notes designate it, tried to block progress. The pastor was subtly introducing the secondary theme of the sermon at this time, the urgent need for some major repair on the church building. He quickly cited:

• Bad downstairs bathroom conditions.
• Pews coming apart at the seams.
• A kitchen that is “dark, gritty, and grimy.”
• Cracked asphalt in the parking lot.
• Puddles on the walk in front of the church (more precisely, one mega-puddle)

A figure of 1.5 million came and went so fast I barely had time to catch it. I stared at it there. sitting in my hand, and remarked to myself what a reasonable little figure it was. If there really are 4000 Bereans, that requires just $375 from each one of them to do the job. But the pastor warned against the inevitable “naysayers,” likening them to Nehemiah’s adversaries in Jerusalem.

An image that can be appropriately inserted just about anywhere. It represents “truth in advertising,” for the church in fact “Welcomes You.”

This painless digression into the temporal realm yielded, at the conclusion of the sermon, to a restatement of it’s primary emphasis on prayer. The pastor encouraged the congregation to make a commitment to pray “three times a day,” the frequency that Daniel employed for his prayers. Daniel also prayed in the direction of Jerusalem, but the pastor omitted this refinement. My unfinished song “What Prayer Can Do” mentions this direction, but it is most confusing if you are not familiar with the Book of Daniel. Muslims face Mecca, and offer “Salah” five times a day. Muslim “Zakat,” their version of tithing, is just 2.5%.

Prayer concluded the sermon. Pastor Russell spoke a collective desire to commit to praying “morning, noon, and night.” He enjoined us not only to learn how to pray to God, but how to “listen to God” as well.