Podcasts about that king

When life falls apart, where do you turn? In 2 Samuel 15–18, David finds himself in the middle of a storm—betrayed by his own son, forced to flee, and surrounded by uncertainty. It's a story of grief, loss, and the painful consequences of past sins. Yet even in the middle of the chaos, we see grace.David doesn't cling to power—he clings to God. His heart is heavy, but his hope is alive. In the storm, we see glimpses of a King who trusts God's will, even when it costs him everything.This part of David's story helps us see our own need for a Saviour who is steady in the storm. One who doesn't run from suffering but walks through it to bring redemption. That King is Jesus.Join us in person each Sunday at 10:00 am at 2458 St Frances Drive.

This week's passage deals with a deeply sensitive and painful story—the tragic account of Tamar in 2 Samuel 13–14. It's a raw and heartbreaking chapter that confronts us with abuse, injustice, and the devastating silence that followed. We won't shy away from the weight of this story. Tamar's voice matters. Her pain matters. And the failure of David to act with justice and courage exposes the brokenness not only in his family, but in the human heart.These chapters remind us that even Israel's greatest king fell short—passive when he should have pursued justice, silent when he should have spoken. In the grind of human failure and grief, this story leaves us longing for a better King. One who sees. One who defends. One who heals. That King is Jesus.

Over 2,000 years ago, the angels proclaimed the arrival of a newborn King. That King grew to become a Man who died to save the world. The Bible says this King will return, and believers all over the world eagerly await His coming. Pastor Jack talks more about this King in today’s podcast episode. (00:00) The Significance of Christ's Return(11:14) The Anticipation of Christ's Return(18:22) The Gift of God's Grace CONNECT WITH PASTOR JACK: Get Updates via Text:  https://text.whisp.io/jack-hibbs-podcastWebsite: https://jackhibbs.com/Instagram: http://bit.ly/2FCyXpOFacebook: https://bit.ly/2WZBWV0YouTube: https://bit.ly/437xMHnTwitter/X: https://twitter.com/RealJackHibbs Did you know we have a Real Life Network? Sign up for free for more exclusive content: https://bit.ly/3CIP3M9

Joy of Every Longing Heart - Pt 1 - It's easy to be discouraged with our earthly leaders. What we're all longing for is a true King, who will reign in righteousness and mercy. That King is coming. learn more about First Baptist Conroe at fbcconroe.org

New Series this Summer - “Sing to the King.” It is a study of the psalms with a focus on God's provision of a righteous, redeeming King for His people. That King is Jesus. Thank God that He is the King that we all need but could never find. In a world where leaders are perpetually flawed and fallen, there is One who can be trusted.   This Sunday, in our series called “Sing to the King”, we considered Psalm 2. Psalm 2 is one of the two “gateway” psalms (along with Psalm 1) that are designed to be the lenses through which we read all of the other 150 psalms. Psalm 2 declares that as aggressively evil and unjust as the world around us might be, nothing can withstand God's zeal to establish the kingdom of His Son. Do we realize how passionate our God is for the entire cosmos to be under the reign of His good King? The world might be passionate to throw off God's rule over their lives, but it cannot compare to God's passion to bring all the nations out from under sinful human tyranny and under the just, good, and faithful rule of King Jesus. This Sunday's message is called "Yahweh's Chosen King". Come and be encouraged and filled with awe and hope at a God who will not rest until every corner of the earth finds its rest under the reign of King Jesus. Pray for our church family and pray over your hearts that Christ would meet with us and minister His wonderful grace to us. In Christ, Kevin Dibbley, Senior Pastor   Need prayer?  Would you like to find out more about Waterbrooke Church?  Go to waterbrooke.church.

As Samuel was getting ready to pass away, the Israelites told Samuel they wanted a King. What is fascinating about this is that they had a King. That King was God. But, that wasn't good enough for Israel. In the same way, we have a King in our life who is Jesus. But do you allow Him to be King of your life or do you search for other false Kings? See how you can let Jesus be King of your life today. To read the Bible daily, you can text "Bible" to 703-454-5990. Share your stories, prayer requests, or your response to this devotional in the comments below. If you would like to know more about New Life, who we are, what we believe, or when we meet, visit http://newlife.church. Or you can fill out a digital connection card at http://newlife.church/connect - we would love to get to know you better!

As Samuel was getting ready to pass away, the Israelites told Samuel they wanted a King. What is fascinating about this is that they had a King. That King was God. But, that wasn't good enough for Israel. In the same way, we have a King in our life who is Jesus. But do you allow Him to be King of your life or do you search for other false Kings? See how you can let Jesus be King of your life today. To read the Bible daily, you can text "Bible" to 703-454-5990. Share your stories, prayer requests, or your response to this devotional in the comments below. If you would like to know more about New Life, who we are, what we believe, or when we meet, visit http://newlife.church. Or you can fill out a digital connection card at http://newlife.church/connect - we would love to get to know you better!

This week, we finished our mini-series on the Psalms, examining Psalm 2 and the promise of a King who would be the refuge for His people. That King is Jesus; He is higher than the nations, yet cares for individual people. Blessed are all who find their refuge in Him!

Hi Folks. We're continuing on in the New Testament letter to the Hebrews today so let's read verse 3 of chapter 1: Hebrews 1:3 (NIV)‌The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.We recently talked about how the Son is of the same substance as His Father. He is the one and only Son and because God is the one and only God, the Son must be just like the Father. That's why the Jewish religious leaders were so angry when Yeshua called Himself the Son of God.Let's look at John 5:18 NIV:‌For this reason they tried all the more to kill him; not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.Yeshua is calling God His own Father or if I can take the liberty, His very own Father.  In the Greek His own is idios. By using this word, idios, Yeshua is saying that God was His own private, personal, unique Father. This contrasts with just plain his for which the Greek word is autos. To make that contrast, the contrast between His own and just his, let's look at a couple of verses in the gospel of Luke:Luke 15:27–28 (NIV)‘Your brother has come,' he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.' “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his (autos) father went out and pleaded with him.So the father of the prodigal son goes out to talk with his older son and his father is autos, a different word than His own Father which is idios.  By using the word idios Jesus made it clear that God is His own unique Father.  This fits perfectly with the Son and the Father being of the same substance.  They are both deity, and along with the Holy Spirit these three persons are one perfect God.Let's go on now to talk about Jesus being the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of His being. How can we understand that better?Let's see if we can we get an idea of the glory of God from the Old Testament because those were the Scriptures that the writers of the New Testament had. Let's look at Psalm 97:1-6 NIV:The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. [2] Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. [3] Fire goes before him and consumes his foes on every side. [4] His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles. [5] The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth. [6] The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all peoples see his glory.This is God's glory folks!  Now let's look at something else:‌Exodus 24:9–10 (NASB95)Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.Now this was a glorious sight! They saw the God of Israel. But wait a minute! How could that be? Because if you see God you die, right?  Now how do we know that?Leviticus 16:2 (NIV) The LORD said to Moses: "Tell your brother Aaron that he is not to come whenever he chooses into the Most Holy Place behind the curtain in front of the atonement cover on the ark, or else he will die. For I will appear in the cloud over the atonement cover.AND:Exodus 33:19-23 (NIV) And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion. [20] But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." [21] Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock. [22] When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by. [23] Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."Now let's read the passage again from Exodus 24:Exodus 24:9–10 (NASB95)Then Moses went up with Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, and they saw the God of Israel; and under His feet there appeared to be a pavement of sapphire, as clear as the sky itself.So, they saw God here. Why didn't they die?  Is it because they didn't see His face?  We're not told that they didn't see His face.  I think the reason that they did not die is because Who they saw was the pre-incarnate Christ, the Messiah, the Word of God, the Memra!  And when you see the Messiah, you don't die.  That's why He came.Now let's take a look at a New Testament passage which can help us to at least get a faint hint of God's glory:Matthew 16:27-28 CSBFor the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will reward each according to what he has done. [28] Truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom."Yeshua is telling us that we're about to get a preview of His glory.Matthew 17:1-4 (NKJV) Now after six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John his brother, led them up on a high mountain by themselves; [2] and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. [3] And behold, Moses and Elijah appeared to them, talking with Him. [4] Then Peter answered and said to Jesus, "Lord, it is good for us to be here; if You wish, let us make here three tabernacles: one for You, one for Moses, and one for Elijah."Jesus was transfigured, His appearance changed. “Jesus' face shone like the sun and His clothes became as white as the light” - This sounds like the Shekinah glory such as the pillar of fire in the desert during the Exodus, or like God in the burning bush.  We're seeing the same thing here. And we're also seeing Jesus here very clearly as God's special Son. Let's continue on:Matthew 17:5–8 NIVWhile he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” When the disciples heard this, they fell facedown to the ground, terrified. But Jesus came and touched them. “Get up,” he said. “Don't be afraid.” When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus.‌‌So here is Jesus, transfigured, as bright as the sun, with God the Father speaking so that the three disciples could even hear Him and they became terrified, and Elijah and Moses were there. I don't think this was a vision because they all saw it. This was real, in real time.  This is glory, folks!By the way, why is Peter is offering to put up three tabernacles here - one for Jesus, one for Moses, and one for Elijah?  Some students of this passage believe that Peter may have thought that the Messianic or Millennial Kingdom was about to come in, since tabernacles are a symbol of that to observant Jews. I'm talking about the Feast of Tabernacles which in the Hebrew language is called Sukkot and it is associated with the Messianic Kingdom of 1,000 years as exemplified in these verses from Zechariah:Zechariah 14:16–17 NIVThen the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles. If any of the peoples of the earth do not go up to Jerusalem to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, they will have no rain.‌‌This Feast of Tabernacles is very important to the LORD. Peoples of the earth are commanded to go up annually to worship the King, the Lord Almighty. That King is Yeshua, folks, Jesus. Yes, folks, Jesus is indeed the exact representation of the Father. Jesus is God. He is God incarnate, God in the flesh, Perfect God and Perfect man. Not two separate beings inside one person. No, Jesus' nature and character embody perfect God and perfect man in one person. He was and still is today the God-Man. He had to be in order to be our Savior - the Savior of mankind. We'll hear more about that as we go on further in this epistle.Continuing on in Hebrews 1:3:“The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”Jesus sustains all things by His powerful word. What does that mean? Word in Hebrews 1:3 is not the Logos. Word here in the Greek is rhema and it means spoken word. So just as God spoke the universe into existence with incomprehensible power in Genesis, Jesus upholds or sustains all things by His spoken word, or we could phrase it like this: Jesus upholds all things by the power of His word. Let's look at just one example of the power of God's spoken word in the Hebrew Scriptures, in Genesis:Genesis 1:14–15 (NIV)And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so.God said. The word for said in Hebrew is amar. You could translate it as declared. God declared that the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets come into existence out of nothing and that's exactly what happened. And we know that all things were made through Yeshua. We read that earlier in John 1:3; let's read it again:John 1:3 NIVThrough him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.That includes the sun and the moon and the stars and the planets!  And in like manner, Yeshua/Jesus sustains or upholds all things by the power of His word.Moving on in Hebrews 1:3 “The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”‌How did Yeshua provide purification for sins?Before we try to answer that question, let me pose another question: Could God have merely declared all our sins forgiven without the cross? Would that have taken care of everything?  WAS THE CROSS REALLY NECESSARY?  I'm going to ask you to keep that question in mind for a minute or two.  We'll come back to it.Now let's look at something that might seem slightly off the topic, but it isn't. Let's talk about justification. Justification is when God as judge makes a judicial decision, and He states it as a judge in a courtroom would do. He declares it. He declares that our sins are forgiven, and our unrighteous nature is exchanged for the perfectly righteous nature of Christ. God pours out our sins on the Messiah – He takes our sins and His perfect righteousness is imputed or credited to us. An exchange occurs.  God declares us justified. That's exactly what He did for Abraham. By the way, I believe that this is comparable to God's declaring that the sun, moon, and stars come into existence. He declares you and me righteous when we are saved. He gives us the status of righteousness.  The power of God's word is beyond what we can comprehend. It created the universe, and it accomplishes our justification. Let's look at the very first clear cut example of this, i.e., of justification, in the Bible:Genesis 15:6 (NASB95):Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.This verse is about Abram, before he was Abraham.  Abram was justified. Righteousness was reckoned or credited to his account. God declared him righteous. Listen to what the Apostle Paul wrote about this in the New Testament:Romans 4:20–24 (NIV):‌Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.Now while we are on the topic of justification - having our sins forgiven - our slate completely cleared - and the righteousness of our Messiah imputed or credited to us - and please remember that justification includes both of those things, was the Cross necessary?So, back to the question I asked you to keep in mind a minute ago. Could God have just declared that all our sins are forgiven and have done nothing more? No.  Why not?  There are several reasons.  For one, the wrath of God must be turned away from us. Something called propitiation is necessary.  There must be a sacrifice made, a blood sacrifice of infinite value, to appease a wrathful God, and Jesus Christ is the only One who can do that. Please know, folks, that if a preacher denies the wrath of God and says that a declaration of forgiveness from God with nothing else behind it is enough, that preacher is going to give his congregation a very watered down gospel. No, folks, an incalculable price was paid for you and me to be justified.  The Son of God gave His life in payment for our justification.  Should this be of particular interest to Jewish people?  I believe so. I have a question for my Jewish listeners:What if the temple and the Jewish priesthood and all the accoutrements of the temple service were recreated tomorrow and the blood sacrifices of animals without defect was resumed?  Would that accomplish what the cross accomplished?  No.  Why?Let's take a look at Romans chapter 6:Romans 6:4-7 (NIV) We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. [5] For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. [6] For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— [7] because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.The things described in these verses – being buried with Christ, being united with Christ, our old self, our old man or old woman dying in Him on the cross, and then being resurrected, raised to newness of life, in Him – all these things require Yeshua's substitutionary death on the cross.  Because He did not come only to forgive our sins but to make us new men and women.  We are born again.  No animal sacrifice can ever do that.That is why Christ had to die.  Nothing short of that would do.‌In closing, let's read Hebrews 1:3 once more and make a final comment or two:Hebrews 1:3 :“The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.”Jesus sits down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.  He died for us, He was buried, He was raised from the grave by the power of God, proving that He was the Son of God, and 40 days later He ascended to heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven, in victory.  He finished it all and took a seat.Thanks for sticking with me through all this Folks. What God has done is beyond my comprehension. Before we close, let's not forget that He did this so that each one of us could spend eternity in heaven with Him. If you don't know Him, if you are not saved, if you are not born again, please call upon Him today and say “Lord, I know that I'm a sinner. I don't want to pay the price of eternal separation from you - eternal death – because of my sins. Please pay the debt that I owe and cleanse me so I can spend eternity with you. Thank you, Lord Yeshua.”Folks, please, if you don't know Him, ask Him to do this for you today.‌This is Art Wolinsky. God bless you, folks. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit awolinsky.substack.com

This week the Queenz were featured on the 2020 podcast! The conversation was dope and you already know we was lit! Tune in as we talk relationships and weigh in on the whole dating a bus driver hot topic. This weeks episode is proudly sponsored by Private Label Extensions. Check them out for all your hair and beauty needs. Shop locally in the ATL, Detroit and Charlotte area. Shop online by visiting: www.PrivateLabelExtensions.comTell em the Queenz sent ya! If you're diggin' this podcast do us a favor and hit the 5 stars! We love ya'll and as always remember you're 100% THAT KING and 100% THAT QUEEN! Instagram: @TheUndergroundQueenz Facebook: Underground QueenzFor inquiries email: TheUndergroundQueenzPodcast@gmail.com 

The nation of Israel is facing difficult and trying times as the 12 tribes have split into two Kingdoms moving further away from God. Making matters worse, neighboring Assyria grows stronger threatening to take over, and Israel's leaders turn to other nations for help instead of relying on God. Despite the repeated failures of Kings past though, the prophet Isaiah delivers a message of hope to Israel showing them how one day the Lord will raise up a King from the lineage of David. This King will have the Spirit of God and rule with all righteousness over the whole earth in ushering in God's Kingdom. This King, will never fail, but will provide a true hope to all who turn to Him. That King is Jesus Christ!

In every village there is a King. That King tends to take what they want leaving the village farmer left with no crops to sell or feed to his family. Taxes work the same way, the Government being the King decides they deserve a piece of your crops because you're growing too much. It's time to take back those crops to feed yourself. Keith Gause is the Founder and CEO of Tideland Financial and Tideland Consulting, He's a Husband, Father, and Veteran. Keith grew up watching his single Father hustle in the Plumbing Industry and learned from an early age how to be an entrepreneur. Towards the end of his senior year Keith enlisted in the Air Force where he served from 2000-2005 as part of the AFSOC (Special Forces). After finishing his time in service Keith decided to get into Insurance where he ultimately ended up opening his company.   Keith talks about his upbringing and how he ended up in the Industry of Consulting and Finances. Jeff and Keith also talk about three strategies that will help your business save money on your tax bill. Keith addresses why you need a solid tax foundation and how you can save money through the IRS Augusta plan.   Favorite Quote:  “My Dad instilled in me that winning is what we make winning. It's not necessarily running up the scoreboard it's not getting the trophy at the end of the season but it's what you did during the season independently that's winning.” -Keith Gause          How to connect with Keith:  Instagram Tideland Financial  Phone Number: 904-401-9327   How To Get Involved: Addicting to Winning connects listeners through stories that prove why mindset matters. Jeff Brekken was working a 60-hour week on his family's farm by the time he was 10. When he wasn't helping with the harvest, he was at the hockey rink. Jeff's early life experiences taught him he needs to be either all-in or all-out.In 2000 he started a single-family home construction business and by 2008 he was looking for the next big thing. Jeff founded the Blue SKy Benefit Solutions & Rise Above HR/ Recruiting on top of a lifelong passion for helping people. Through this show, Jeff will take that passion one step further. If you enjoyed this episode, head over and visit us on Apple Podcasts - leave a review and let us know what you thought! Your feedback keeps us going. Thanks for helping.   

Words of Hope from God through the prophet stating that one day a King would come, humble and gentle, and He would make us right with God. That King is Jesus Christ.

In our Offering Sunday message, Paul Jukes speaks about the call God places on our lives to Arise and step into the new plan He has for us: A call to arise and pray, and a call to arise and go. He challenges us to think about whether we are moving towards God's plan for our lives, or whether we've chosen to head the other way like Jonah did in Jonah 1. This message reminds us that either way, God is with us and He will pursue us when we do things our way. He wants to turn our hearts towards Him, not try to control our lives or our money. Paul goes on to challenge us on whether our actions match our words. If we say we love God, do our actions show this? As we receive grace from God, we extend grace to others and demonstrate the love we've experienced ourselves. By exploring Jonah 3:6, Paul demonstrates a great example of the king of Nineveh turning his life around by abdicating a throne that he'd built for himself, just like we sometimes need to. We are reminded to put our faith in God, not in things that give us importance and status. We need to humble ourselves and hand control over to the true King. That King did the same for us: He got off his throne to offer His life for us.

In the third and last Part of the Messianic Series, Pst. Jeremy takes us through Psalm 24 where the Psalmist introduces God as the Creator King. That King is mine. He's coming for me. .This sermon is from Covenant Life's Worship Service at Constantia hall, YWCA, New Delhi. You can join us Every Sunday at 10:45 AM (IST)....CONNECT WITH PASTOR Jeremy Dawson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremyadawson/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremydawso...Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremyADawsonEmail: pstjeremy@gmail.com

In the third and last Part of the Messianic Series, Pst. Jeremy takes us through Psalm 24 where the Psalmist introduces God as the Creator King. That King is mine. He's coming for me. . This sermon is from Covenant Life's Worship Service at Constantia hall, YWCA, New Delhi. You can join us Every Sunday at 10:45 AM (IST). . . . CONNECT WITH PASTOR Jeremy Dawson Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeremyadawson/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremydawso... Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeremyADawson Email: pstjeremy@gmail.com

Today on the show, Marco Lowe, Professor at Seattle University's Institute for Public Service, joins Crystal to discuss recent polls that have come out about Seattle's mayoral, city council, and city attorney races, the importance of understanding poll methodology and margin of error, and the historic and tragic impact of Seattle's recent heatwave and our governments responsibility to act to protect people from the impacts of climate change.  Key takeaways: Seattle's population has changed so much in the past 10 years that incumbents can't run just on their past popularity - a lot of folks who live here now won't remember it. Polls are just a snapshot in time, and it's important to contextualize them.  Climate change is here, and there is no more neutral ground. All policy and legislation needs to be evaluated through the lens of helping or hurting the environment. As always, a full text transcript of the show is available below and at officialhacksandwonks.com. Find the host, Crystal Fincher on Twitter at @finchfrii and find today's co-host, Marco Lowe, at @MarcoLowe. More info is available at officialhacksandwonks.com.   Resources “Bruce Harrell, Lorena Gonzalez lead in 2021 Seattle mayoral race with many undecided” from the Northwest Progressive Institute: https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2021/07/bruce-harrell-lorena-gonzalez-lead-in-2021-seattle-mayoral-race-with-many-undecided.html  Poll released by Echohawk campaign:  https://www.dropbox.com/s/pvy5wwbipq2ln4t/Seattle_Primary_Mood_Q1-9.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR2szALLpK5ndk6lUQfD4faPero_XajzTUU7g83EByX95iF_zLhwFBtXmmc  https://www.dropbox.com/s/abts97djtqhv08i/Seattle_Primary_Issues_Q11-17.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR1BG9eSNaZi0wvM2c-2o92fHHynGUd7HXbM28lcnWU8go55oLtAMJW48po  https://www.dropbox.com/s/t387o51ncqqr8ia/Seattle_Primary_Q18-22.pdf?dl=0&fbclid=IwAR2e-n1Jl6tnIp99yZWVZZF8_gwczGlMhimhLIVRblDB_jmSpQGqoSBHB44  “A three-way race for Seattle City Attorney: Pete Holmes barely ahead of two challengers” from the Northwest Progressive Institute: https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2021/07/a-three-way-race-for-seattle-city-attorney-pete-holmes-barely-ahead-of-two-challengers.html  “Nikkita Oliver has a big lead over Sara Nelson for Seattle City Council Position #9” from the Northwest Progressive Institute: https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2021/07/nikkita-oliver-has-a-big-early-lead-over-sara-nelson-for-seattle-city-council-position-9.html  Endorsements The Stranger: https://www.thestranger.com/news/2021/07/14/59065522/the-strangers-endorsements-for-the-august-3-2021-primary-election  The Urbanist: https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/06/28/the-urbanists-2021-primary-endorsements/  The Seattle Times: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/who-supports-who-in-seattle-elections-endorsements-roll-in-for-mayoral-council-races/   350 Seattle: https://350seattleaction.org/2021-elections  Publicola:  Mayor: https://publicola.com/2021/07/19/publicola-picks-lorena-gonzalez-for-mayor/  City Council Position 9: https://publicola.com/2021/07/19/publicola-picks-brianna-thomas-for-seattle-city-council-position-9/  “2021 heat wave is now the deadliest weather-related event in Washington history” by John Ryan at KUOW: https://www.kuow.org/stories/heat-wave-death-toll-in-washington-state-jumps-to-112-people    Transcript:  Crystal Fincher: [00:00:00] Welcome to Hacks & Wonks. I'm Crystal Fincher and I'm a political consultant and your host. On this show, we talk with policy wonks and political hacks to gather insight into local politics and policy in Washington State through the lens of those doing the work with behind-the-scenes perspectives on what's happening, why it's happening and what you can do about it. Full transcripts and resources referenced in the show are always available at officialhacksandwonks.com and in our episode notes. Today, we're continuing our Friday almost-live shows, where we review the news of the week with a cohost. Welcome back to the program friend of the show and today's co-host: professor at Seattle University's Institute for Public Service, Marco Lowe. Marco Lowe: [00:00:52] Thank you for having me. Always love being here. Crystal Fincher: [00:00:54] Always love having you here. Always very insightful. I thought we would get started talking about polling that was released in the past week about Seattle races, including the Mayor's race, City Attorney's race, the City Council races - the Northwest Progressive Institute actually sponsored a whole slew of public polling - some of the only public polling that we've seen regarding these races this cycle. We've heard a lot about internal polls at various points from different campaigns, but this was really interesting. So, I guess, starting with the Mayor's race, what did you glean from these polls? Marco Lowe: [00:01:39] I think that they're reflecting what we've seen some of the campaigns release quietly, maybe through back channel communication. That it looks like, currently - and again, Not Sure is the winning candidate in most of these races - but Bruce Harrell seems to have coalesced a good group behind him that gives him a very good chance of getting into the general. And then Council President Lorena González is probably in that second spot behind him. But what I think we've been watching is the jockeying with Colleen Echohawk and Jessyn Farrell that are trying to jump into that second spot as the weigh-in days of the campaign commence. Crystal Fincher: [00:02:17] Yeah, absolutely. And so, just for the percentages that were in this poll that has a 4.3% margin of error and a 95% confidence interval. Not Sure, Undecided at 54% - more than half of the people there. So to your point, Undecided is the winner here and really how they break will be how this race breaks, it looks like. Bruce Harrell at 15%, Lorena González at 8%, Colleen Echohawk at 6%, Jessyn Farrell 4%, Andrew Grant Houston 3%, Arthur Langlie 3%, Casey Sixkiller 2%. Lance Randall 2%, and everyone else has not broken 1%. The rest are at 0%. So really what that says is even though, technically, Bruce Harrell is - looks to be leading in this poll for people who've made a choice - one, more than half of the people who are still Not Sure. And it really is still a race for second place, if not first. It's certainly still a race for second place, and by no means decided. Marco Lowe: [00:03:27] I agree. And just to say that sometimes there's a tactic that you think you're going to push all the Undecided into the current levels and that's not often true. If people aren't deeply engaged in a race - when they enter and get educated, it doesn't follow that pattern. They will find other candidates. So I would agree with you entirely. This is an open race. Crystal Fincher: [00:03:48] Yeah, absolutely an open race. And there usually are a percentage of Undecideds who, unfortunately, end up not voting. Also, sometimes they just do not end up feeling strongly about any candidate and don't wind up pulling the trigger at all. But certainly, even with that percentage accounted for, this race is still wide open. But I think a number of the candidates certainly view the two front runners in the poll as front runners. And you see a number of candidates taking aim at the leader in their lane. And we've talked about lanes on this before - who is the more progressive candidate in the race who are aiming for that lane. Who is - again, I always talk about conservative in Seattle does not equate to a conservative in other areas - but Seattle's version of a conservative or a moderate Democrat, certainly, Bruce Harrell in that lane and people looking at that. And so, you have people like Colleen Echohawk, really seeming to take the fight directly to Lorena González, which led to another quasi poll released that we saw this week, that came from Bill Broadhead and people affiliated, it appeared with the Colleen Echohawk camp. But who released a portion of a poll, which upfront means that we need to take it with a grain of salt, because we don't see the methodology. I mean, there are best practices around how to release polling, so other people can, basically, check your work and verify that this is a legitimate poll - polling is an actual science. And we didn't get all of the information from this poll that purportedly shows that Colleen Echohawk performs better head-to-head against Bruce Harrell than Lorena González. And they certainly were pressing that point very hard online, but, unfortunately, the actual poll information that they released was scant. How did you view that? Marco Lowe: [00:06:06] It was an interesting release, because they did not, as far as I can tell, formally release it from the campaign. I saw it on Facebook from Bill Broadhead. And I think the way that you normally see these laid out, it looks a little different. Not bizarre, but just it was a little more informal, might be the right word. And I don't know exactly what they were trying to do, but there is potentially this effort to show that she could possibly win in a head-to-head. And that, again, we're trying to see her move into second place. So, I think this may have been more an insider game to show to donors or larger groups, versus a wider - because you see campaigns release these with press releases and press conferences and framing for the race. And this seemed to be a much more subtle effort. Crystal Fincher: [00:06:53] Yeah. I agree with that. And certainly, this brings to mind conversations - I've had a number of these conversations in real life with people - but polls as marketing versus polls as actual research. And this certainly seemed to be on the side of a marketing effort. Now I say that, and I certainly would not be surprised at all, to see that Colleen Echohawk polled more favorably against Bruce Harrell than Lorena González. I actually don't think that's a wild and ridiculous outcome if it were to happen. That could be the case. It's just making that conclusion from the data that we've seen publicly seems to be a stretch. Especially given as I read it - the bios as they were constructed in this are not consistent with the bios that people have heard to date. Now this can certainly have been message testing and "Hey, this is how we will message him and paint him if we do get through the primary. And so we can create these conditions." Maybe that's part of the conversation. And to your point, maybe part of that insider conversation, but we just haven't seen this information publicly. So, and given just the platform that it appears that the poll was done on, based on the watermarking, is one for corporate market research, commercial market research, not necessarily public opinion polling. So there are challenges there. That doesn't mean that the result is wrong, but it does mean that it's hard to accept that conclusion based on the information that we see here. And clearly the campaign was comfortable just releasing this information. So, I mean, I assume it's accomplishing their objectives, especially with some of the coverage of it that I've seen is certainly advancing this narrative. But it'll be interesting to see how this continues to play out over the final weeks of the campaign. Marco Lowe: [00:09:02] And it's worth saying - even just putting this poll aside, head-to-heads are tough until you're really in a race. And if you're in the last month of a presidential race, where there's been so many TV stories and everything about it, that's one discussion. But I remember in the second round for Dino Rossi and Governor Gregoire, he was polling very well into the spring against her. And one of her campaign folks, when I called them asking about it, they said, "Let's get them both in the ring and then let's see what happens. This is all just subjective data at this point." And so, it does just always with every poll - put it in its place in time. Crystal Fincher: [00:09:35] Yeah, absolutely. And it is worth reiterating that polls are in fact, just a snapshot in time. These polls are a snapshot of what people thought when they were fielded - which for the NPI poll was week before last or going into early last week, and it finished in the field early last week. So that certainly is before a lot of voter communication has happened, it's before a lot of the messaging from campaigns that are happening in these final weeks and campaigns making their closing arguments for this primary have happened. And that's going to impact how a lot of people wind up making a decision for this, in addition to a lot of endorsements that have come out and people seeing organizations that they like or trust, or dislike or distrust - see who they wind up supporting. So, certainly not conclusive. It would not be a shock if the results don't wind up lining up with these polls, because there's a lot that can change. And again, it's worth noting that the more than half of the people, the biggest vote getter were people who were Undecided. So, anything can happen. We're still in a wide open situation. Speaking of wide open situations, though - one race that really caught my eye in this polling that I think has to be causing some consternation for the incumbent is the polling in the Seattle City Attorney race. That race is extremely close in this poll with - again, 53% of people not sure who they're going to vote for, but Pete Holmes coming with 16%, which as a three term incumbent, not the number that you are aiming for. I mean, either he has not made an impact, has not been notable, or people have not noticed the work that he's done, or they're just unhappy with it. Either way, a tenured incumbent is never going to be happy with a number like 16%. Marco Lowe: [00:11:46] As a creature of City Hall, I will defend City Attorney. If you stopped cars on Fourth Ave in downtown and rolled down the window and put a mic in and said, "Who's the Seattle City Attorney?" I think you'd be lucky to get 16% to name any - maybe going back to Mark Sidran in the 90s and early 2000s, you had somebody who was on the press a lot. But Tom Carr, in the middle, lost to Pete Holmes - I think by his second re-election in '09. And I do agree with these numbers. I don't think anybody on Mr. Holmes' teams are saying this is a good news, but it's a challenging place to be. But that knee-jerk reaction aside - yeah. I agree with you. Going into a primary with these numbers and having three people so close together - you made a great point that with three - we were talking prior to the show. They can pitch somebody out really easily and it raises the bar for what he needs to get to now to close. I think that may be the first race I look at it on election night when the numbers drop. Crystal Fincher: [00:12:44] Yeah, same here. And so Pete Holmes is at 16%, Nicole Thomas-Kennedy at 14%, and Ann Davison at 14% also. So a race within the margin of error. The interesting thing about Pete Holmes is he used to be well-known. When he first came onto the scene, it was with a lot of pomp and fanfare - and he had looked at doing what, at that time, were some progressive things. Certainly, working with the nightlife community - there were a number of issues that were important to people involved in nightlife - owners of bars and cultural establishments, arts establishments, who definitely preferred him over his incumbent. And being willing to decriminalize, at that point in time, pre-legalization of marijuana, that they were going to de-emphasize prosecuting marijuana crimes. And they were on the front end of doing that. So when he came in, it was with progressive fanfare. But I think that, one, what we've seen from him in the preceding years was a lot less vocal, a lot less upfront, and he has been in the background. And a lot of the conversations where previously he has been in the foreground with, he was also well known for having some disagreements with Mayor McGinn at the time when that came in. But also - yes, there's been a lot of population change since he first came in. So there are just a lot of people in the City who never experienced that Pete Holmes, and never experienced what he hung his hat on. And so he's just a name that's part of this unpopular administration. And so looking at these numbers for his opponents, and especially given that The Times has endorsed Ann Davison, his opponent to the right. And The Stranger has endorsed Nicole Thomas-Kennedy, his opponent to the left. So, I would not call his position comfortable. And he certainly has to campaign and deliver a message to the people in order to get through this primary. Marco Lowe: [00:15:03] No, absolutely. And it is a low turnout - those endorsements matter a heck of a lot more right now. And it's interesting - boy, that point on population growth - we've added 30,000 people since '14. That's an incredibly good point. And he may be - you could almost look at his campaign like he is a new entrant into the race and we have three first-timers. That's a really interesting way to look at it. Especially when you're in an office that just isn't watched. I mean, there hasn't been high profile cases, they work a lot behind closed doors as attorneys do. Boy, when I'm hitting refresh on Tuesday night, it's going to be looking at that race. Crystal Fincher: [00:15:43] That's going to be one of the first races that I'm looking at. And who knows how that's going to end up? One and two could be anyone in that race. It could include Pete Holmes, it could not include Pete Holmes. Just really interesting. And the polling shows that it's completely up in the air. So, that's interesting. The other race that we saw some notable polling in was in the City Council race, with Brianna Thomas, Nikkita Oliver, and Sara Nelson - where Nikkita seems to be in a comfortable position in the lead. I'm actually pulling up this polling to get the exact numbers as we speak. Marco Lowe: [00:16:33] 26% was- Crystal Fincher: [00:16:36] Yeah. And so look, especially comparing this with the numbers in the other races - I mean, we're looking at Pete Holmes at 14%, Bruce Harrell at 15%. Seeing Nikkita Oliver at 26% - that's a big number. It's a big number, especially compared to a number of the other numbers. Certainly helps that Nikkita had been on a citywide ballot before - with this has Sara Nelson at 11%, Brianna Thomas at 6%. Again, Undecided - still 50%. So, again, when you're looking at this, it certainly is a race for number two, it appears, that could go any way. And with 50% of people Undecided and looking at Seattle ballot return - Seattle was trending a few percentage points behind the full King County number, which in my opinion, Seattle usually - well, I guess the fact that Seattle usually ends up with higher turnout numbers, but I feel like they may be lagging behind a little bit, because there are some tough choices for Seattle residents to make that aren't as tough in other cities, and in terms of City Council and mayoral races. So it just may take people a little longer to decide, but I anticipate that we'll see a Seattle number probably higher than the overall King County number. But this is going to be another interesting race to watch. And seeing Brianna Thomas and Sara Nelson - seeing how they both make their final statements. Sara Nelson ended up with The Times endorsement, Nikkita Oliver got The Stranger endorsement. Just saw today, PubliCola endorsed Brianna Thomas in the race. So we will see how this finishes out. But again, another one of those races that is not sold and that has a big Undecided number. Marco Lowe: [00:18:36] And you're seeing it's an open seat - when Nikkita Oliver, when they ran last time - if somebody agreed with them or not, oh my gosh, they were amazing. That King 5 debate - they owned the stage on numerous answers. And so, we have that name ID for them. Sara Nelson did not get through the primary last time. This is Brianna Thomas's first race. 26%, I mean, that's- Crystal Fincher: [00:19:06] Second race actually. Marco Lowe: [00:19:07] Second race. Oh, I apologize - so second race. So yeah, they're in a real strong position. And then you get to the general and it kind of resets, but I agree with you. Compared to the Mayor's race, it'd be hard to see them not going to the general. City-wide race to city-wide race, this is how people get into elected office. Crystal Fincher: [00:19:30] Yeah. I would agree. It is - this more than any other situation, that's hard not to see Nikkita getting through to the general. This seems like it would be the least likely to wind up in a surprise for the person in the lead in this poll to not make it through. But I do think that it's - we're up in the air for number two. Certainly a Times endorsement - countywide, a Times endorsement is a big deal. This could be something that really helps, or actually hurts - in terms of a Seattle race. But I also think an interesting dynamic there, because the voters who that would probably hurt most with are probably leaning towards Nikkita. But there is a lot to be talked about just in terms of people's records, whether they've been honest and forthcoming about those records. And I think that there may be more to come about that in the race. We will see. Marco Lowe: [00:20:39] Agreed. And also, you see this if Seattle breaks into, I call it, the outer ring and the inner ring. And the outer ring, homes with a view, tend to be the more conservative Seattle Times voters. And the inner ring tends to be the more progressive candidates. And you see the progressive candidates win when they push out the ring and the conservative candidates win when they compress the ring. And that's where I think you're going to see if Sara Nelson can attract the outer ring voters or not. Crystal Fincher: [00:21:07] Absolutely. And we will put in the show notes a review or links to different organizations and the endorsements that they've made. I know, certainly, it helps me sometimes to read through how other organizations are making their decisions, if I'm undecided about something. And I certainly have spoken to a lot of Seattle voters who still don't know which way they're voting in a number of races. So, this is still a critical time for making the case and people are still trying to decide. There's still a lot of communication that campaigns have to do. And that's also still making a difference. So the race is still shaping up. Marco Lowe: [00:21:49] If I can throw in one quick thing too - for all the races in Seattle, I think these three candidates have done an excellent job of articulating what they want to see in the City. This is as issue-based race as I've seen in a long time and I appreciate it. There's a lot of, "Here's what I'd like to do." And I just really appreciate that. A lot of races tend to say, "Look over here, look over there, but not right at what I'm trying to do." That is not the case. All the mail has been very specific. Crystal Fincher: [00:22:21] Yeah. Which I appreciate and I think is actually necessary at this point in time - not just that someone has a vision, and we've heard lots about people's visions. Or even that they're supported by, "I've got a ton of endorsements." Lots of candidates can tout that, but what do you actually plan to do with your power and authority and your jurisdiction? What are your plans? Not what we can do regionally, not what we need partners to do, or what we can study and learn more about doing, but what are your actual plans? What action will you take? I really do hope voters take a look at what candidates have said on that. And to your point, in that City Council race, there certainly is a lot that have been talked about for what the candidates actually plan to do, the action that they plan to take. And I hope they look at the mayoral race through that lens to say, "Okay. It's one thing to say, 'Yes, I believe in equity and treating people well, and we can have a better Seattle tomorrow,' but what have they committed to doing? What are our concrete steps and concrete actions beyond 'A lot of people support me?'" Marco Lowe: [00:23:42] And I give a little bit of credit to Nikkita Oliver on that. Anytime they're on stage, they are ticking off boxes. And even on Twitter, they said with a retirement of Seattle police officers, this money should be going to these kind of community groups. And again, this is a constant statement of what they would do in office. So, just - you kind of set the example - and the other candidates, it's hard to be on stage if you're not doing that as well. Crystal Fincher: [00:24:13] Very hard to be on stage if you're not doing that. I mean, just drawing on - we had conversations with all three of those candidates on Hacks & Wonks, and I heard a lot of information in detail and frankly, leading by example, from Nikkita Oliver, Brianna Thomas. Heard a lot of" I don't know"s from Sara Nelson and "We'll have to study that and figure that out." it's also interesting to see how campaign candidate rhetoric evolves throughout the campaign. So, a little bit more polished, but I certainly think that it is more natural for some candidates to be more action and ownership focused than others. And I think that's really important, especially at a time like this, when so much needs to be done to get us on the right track. Marco Lowe: [00:25:09] Sometimes just where they are in the race too. They're kind of - I mean, where I've started with some candidates early on at positions and later they may get better, but I agree, that's going to be a really interesting race. Crystal Fincher: [00:25:23] Going to be a really interesting race. So, we've covered races. Another thing that I wanted to talk about this week is it's taken a little bit for the state to compile all the numbers on what the impact of the historic heat wave that happened as a result of climate change was, but 112 deaths is the current toll. Throughout the entire Northwest - hospitalizations up over 60x. Not 60%, but 60x higher than what they normally are. So, the toll that the heat took on our communities was huge and devastating. It was the most lethal weather event that Washington State has ever had. And by all accounts, more extreme heat is something that we have to be expecting, because of climate change over the coming years. So this is something that our state and local governments have to prepare for. And frankly, it seemed like a lot of them were caught flat footed with, "Oh, heat coming. Oh, it's just another heat wave." We have some of these occasionally, but especially with the amount of folks that we have who are unhoused, who are vulnerable with a low percentage of air conditioning in homes and apartments now. This - you could see it coming - was a major threat to people's health and wellbeing. And it just seemed like a lot of governments were viewing this as something that was happening, that they didn't have to prepare for, that they weren't responsible for. And I think that we have to have a massive shift in attitude that, "Hey, this is something that is predictable - the consequences, the deaths, and the casualties are preventable. And we actually have a responsibility to prevent it." How did you see that play out? Marco Lowe: [00:27:30] I agree. A lot of local governments looked very flat-footed and we saw this temperature coming over a week away. And that's just irresponsible to not have both cooling centers, and how you get people there. The humans that are most vulnerable to this heat, whose bodies can't cool themselves. And at 105°, nobody's cooling themselves. Crystal Fincher: [00:27:47] No one. Marco Lowe: [00:27:49] But the most vulnerable aren't often driving. We have a whole issue with seniors in America that are somewhat stranded. Whether they can't drive, they live in a non-walkable community, what have you. So it's not just that you open the centers, but you get people in the center. And you staff them and people may be sleeping in those centers, because the night did not get better. So we have this immediate tactical response that we need to have better going forward, because we're not done. 2021 has been a B-roll for a disaster film - Texas mold, China and New York rain, Northwest heat, the fires in Oregon, in Washington, California, and the smoke that's gone all the way to New York City. We are in climate change, people are dying, and we have to react now. The other thing I'll throw in is that we are watching a fight in Washington, D.C., over an infrastructure bill that has in it more money towards renewable energy, so we can decarbonize this world. And America has to be a leader on it, because we are most of the carbon. So, to have both this tactical response and strategic response is essential and immediate and there's not a this or that. It is all of the above. Crystal Fincher: [00:28:53] It is all of the above. And I forget who it was on Twitter, but someone very astutely tweeted like really there is no neutral action on climate change. Every piece of legislation that every City Council person advocates for, passes, mayor legislator, there is no neutrality on climate change, on pollution. We have to examine every piece of legislation and say, is it hurting or is it helping? And to that point, we have a transportation package coming up in our State Legislature, where this has been a big point of conversation and contention - in that, are we going to continue to push for highway expansion and building and road expansion, which is the number one source of pollution. Over 40% of greenhouse gas emissions and a lot of air pollution is directly attributable to the transportation sector. So, are we going to continue and move in that direction? Are we going to start to move in the other direction? And to your point, climate change is here. We are dealing with it. And we also talked about, before the show - a point you made, which is very true - a lot of people have been pushed out of the city, because of affordability, into suburbs. A lot of our most vulnerable people now live in suburbs. And what people always hear talk about the "inner city," which is really a relic of the past, especially here on the West Coast. And that extreme poverty and some of that hardship is now in suburbs, who do not have the human services infrastructure that was built and developed in cities. And so, access to transit, access to assistance and help, just the visibility and prioritization of human services and health, in a lot of these suburbs and rural areas just does not exist. And it's not something that they've even factored in before and thinking in conversation. So, we're so behind. And so, experiencing these lethal challenges with some governments who just up to now aren't up to the task, we just need a rapid redeployment of resources, a rapid getting electeds up to speed, and demand from people in every city that you're in, that this is an essential service of government. Fundamentally, they're there to protect their residents and to keep them from foreseeable harm. And this is a threat that we know exists. It's so interesting seeing how heat and climate related disasters are covered in comparison to a lot of other things. Because there's this tendency for media to just cover it as an extreme weather event, disconnected from anything else, and like, wow, that was wild. Who could have predicted that? Or that was a once in 100 year event. We've seen these once in 100 year events, several times a year, all over the place. This is what climate change is. We have a responsibility to prevent it from getting worse. And man, we're already in for it getting worse and more just trying to prevent Earth from being uninhabitable for a majority of its people and for mitigating those impacts. So, we have to take action. I've certainly been vocal about this and the responsibility that local governments have to their residents to protect them. And that deaths and injuries that result are really a matter of negligence at this point, because we know what these consequences are. And either we choose to act and protect people or ignore the risk, and people should be held to account for that. Marco Lowe: [00:32:53] And if U.S. and, frankly, human history teaches us anything, when a crisis hits the wealthy will be taken care of. I mean, I have to - in my head, Exxon has a Dr. Evil lair some place, where they know they're going to be okay. I know that sounds crazy, but they know the data better than we do. They've been looking at it for 40 years and continued on their path. So if they're comfortable, it's not that they don't see the change, it's that they don't worry that it's going to impact them. And that has to be part of it. I will also just really - you said something that's worth putting a light back on. Legislation all needs a lens - is this making it better or worse? There is no middle land. I just think that's a really, really great idea. Crystal Fincher: [00:33:35] Well, thank you so much - we are at this time - certainly, issues that we both feel very passionately about. But I just want to thank you, the listener, for listening to Hacks & Wonks on KVRU 105.7 FM, this Friday, July 23rd. The producer of Hacks & Wonks is Lisl Stadler. And our wonderful cohost today was Professor at Seattle University's Institute for Public Service, Marco Lowe. You can find Marco on Twitter @MarcoLowe, it's M-A-R-C-O-L-O-W-E. You can find me on Twitter @finchfrii, spelled F-I-N-C-H-F-R-I-I. Now you can follow Hacks & Wonks on iTunes, Spotify or wherever else you get your podcasts. Just type "Hacks & Wonks" into the search bar, be sure to subscribe to get our Friday almost-live show and our midweek show delivered to your podcast feed. If you like us, leave us a review wherever you listen to Hacks & Wonks. You can also get a full transcript of this episode and links to resources referenced in the show at officialhacksandwonks.com and in the episode notes. Thanks for tuning in. We'll talk to you next time.

The reading from Ezekiel describes God’s search and rescue operation. God takes the initiative in restoring the lost and broken. National and personal recovery is possible because of God’s infinite mercy, but mercy takes sides. It may embrace everyone, but those who have profited at others’ expense must face the consequences of their injustice as a prelude to reconciliation. The good King’s focus is always on the people’s welfare. That King, that Good Shepherd, always protects the flock from their curious roaming. That Good Shepherd, that King made God’s loving kindness present among the people, brought healing to the infirm in the flock, bound up wounds, and led to good pastures and flowing water

Day 46 I thought today about Ozy-man-di-as That King of Kings with his sneer cold command Impermanence means we’re all made of star stuff Virus may kill you but won’t stop Mark Sands Splendid Isolation We don’t need no one Splendid isolation

That King of the Jews had something.A light. A peace. A trust.Even beaten to a pulp he radiated beauty,He seemed more a man then than I'll ever be. Authority from above he claimed.From above but flowing from within.What is truth? I had mocked him.But he was unfazed.“My kingdom is not of this world.I have come into the world to bear witness to the truth.Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.”His voice rang with truth.How I wish I could hear it again?Would I hear the truth if I heard him?Did I do the right thing?

Today we are reading Genesis 14, Nehemiah 3, Matthew 13 and Acts 13, following the Robert Murray M'Cheyne Bible reading plan. Our big Bible question of the day is all about Melchizedek, one of the most interesting and mysterious figures in the Old Testament. As of today, we are 3 chapters into Nehemiah, and we've barely talked about him! I hope to rectify that in an upcoming episode of the podcast. For now, we begin with Genesis 14, which is an action packed passage, to be sure! When I was a kid, I thought the Bible was boring, but I don't actually remember why. I also thought Lord of the Rings was boring and inscrutable when I tried to read it in 4th or 5th grade, and honestly both of those opinions are childish rubbish. The Lord of the Rings is one of the best works of fiction ever written, and the Bible is chock full of fascinating and interesting things, and this passage is a great example of that. Military strategists and historians should study this passage because it is honestly one of the first incidents in all of recorded history that features advanced war tactics and what we now call guerrilla warfare. Considering that military tactics were much more conventional even during the times of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, I find it fairly interesting Abram was thousands of years ahead of his time in terms of strategy. Think about it: he divided his forces against the far superior forces of King Chedorlaomer and attacked them by night - Abram had military wisdom! Using the clever tactic of a night attack with his army split into two groups, he succeeded in rescuing Lot and recovering all the plunder (all the goods) seized by the partnership of the five kings. And then, on the way back from this stunning victory, Abram encounters a mysterious figure, who brings him some bread and wine and blesses him. This person is Melchizedek, and Abram gives him a tithe/tenth of all the spoils of the battle. For thousands of years since then, people have speculated about who, exactly this guy Melchizedek was. "King and priest. None other of the house of David save our Lord Jesus Christ could claim the union of these two offices. In Christ we have a King and a priest, as also with Melchisedech of old, a great type of Jesus." C. H. Spurgeon, “Seeing Jesus,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 61 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1915), 47. "Clearly, from a passage in Hebrews there is something v. special about Melchisedech, but I don't know what it is. There's lots to find out, here and hereafter, isn't there?" Letter to Mrs. Johnson, C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, ed. Walter Hooper, vol. 3 (New York: HarperCollins e-books; HarperSanFrancisco, 2004–2007), 608. "WE will not enlarge upon the story of Melchisedec, nor discuss the question as to who he was. It is near enough for us to believe that he was one who worshipped God after the primitive fashion, a believer in God such as Job was in the land of Uz, one of the world's grey fathers who had kept faithful to the Most High God. He combined in his own person the kingship and the priesthood; a conjunction by no means unusual in the first ages. Of this man we know very little; and it is partly because we know so little of him that he is all the better type of our Lord, of whom we may enquire, “Who shall declare his generation?” The very mystery which hangs about Melchisedec serves to set forth the mystery of the person of our divine Lord. “Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; he abideth a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils.” C. H. Spurgeon, “First King of Righteousness, and after That King of Peace,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 30 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1884), 121. 7 Reasons I believe that Melchizedek was actually a Christophany - an Old Testament manifestation/appearance of Jesus: His name: King of Righteousness and King of Salem/Shalom. This is not persuasive, just evidential. Melchizedek was a priest AND a king. This was specifically forbidden by God, and King Uzziah - who tried to be both king and priest - was struck by leprosy for doing so. There are two king-priests in the Bible: Jesus and Melchizedek. Melchizedek served wine and bread to Abraham. This seems a bit on the nose, doesn't it? It doesn't have to be a nod towards Jesus serving wine and bread to the disciples - the New Testament never draws that connection - but it certainly seems significant to me. As mentioned in Psalms and Hebrews, Jesus was priest in the order of Melchizedek, not the order of Aaron, as every other priest of the Jewish people were. Consider this: why in the world would Jesus - God's son and God Himself - be of the order of ANY human priesthood? That seems rather absurd, doesn't it? The writer of Hebrews, in discussing Melchizedek and Jesus in depth and in parallel, seems to go out of his way to make the case that Melchizedek was significant and great, which is fairly odd considering that the Old Testament devotes a mere handful of verses to Melchizedek. But, consider these quotes from Hebrews, "Now consider how great this man was: even Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the plunder to him." (Hebrews 7:4) "But one without this lineage collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.7 Without a doubt, the inferior is blessed by the superior. " (Hebrews 7:6 - did you catch the obvious implication that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham?) Perhaps the primary function of a priest was to be a mediator between humans and God. There were many thousands of priests, but still Paul could say in 1 Timothy 2:5, "There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.  " There is only ONE priest like Jesus - who reconciles God and humanity - only ONE mediator like him. Considering how the writer of Hebrews talks about Jesus and Melchizedek in parallel - literally the only two priests in history that are in the order of Melchizedek, it would seem that these two priests are actually the same priest, with different names. (Consider Isaiah in this regard: Jesus will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.") The above items are certainly weighty, but not altogether convincing, and if they were the only evidence that tied Jesus and Melchizedek together, I would be content to stay with Spurgeon and Lewis and say that there is no solid biblical proof that Jesus and Melchizedek were the same person. However, there is one more passage that we have in the book of Hebrews about Melchizedek, and I can't imagine how that description of him could possibly be about anybody but Jesus Himself. Consider: " Without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever." Hebrews 7:3 There's really only two options here: either the writer of Hebrews was simply exaggerating a lot, or Melchizedek is an appearance of Jesus. How could a human being not have a father or mother? How could a human being not have a genealogy or genetic relatives? How could a human being not have a beginning? How could a human being be immortal and NOT DIE? How could a human being be a priest FOREVER?!? The writer of Hebrews makes it crystal clear in chapter 7 vss. 23-24 that all other priests prior to Jesus died ("Now many have become Levitical priests, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office. 24 But because he remains forever, he holds his priesthood permanently. ") So - that's my case for Melchizedek being more than simply a type of Christ, but an actual manifestation of Jesus Himself. There are other places in the Old Testament where this might have happened also, and theologians usually call this a Christophany. One prominent example is when Joshua meets the Commander of the Armies of the Lord prior to the Jericho battle, and Joshua falls down and worships, and the Commander does NOT stop him, as every other angelic being does in that situation.

Today we are reading Genesis 14, Nehemiah 3, Matthew 13 and Acts 13, following the Robert Murray M'Cheyne Bible reading plan. Our big Bible question of the day is all about Melchizedek, one of the most interesting and mysterious figures in the Old Testament. As of today, we are 3 chapters into Nehemiah, and we've barely talked about him! I hope to rectify that in an upcoming episode of the podcast. For now, we begin with Genesis 14, which is an action packed passage, to be sure! When I was a kid, I thought the Bible was boring, but I don't actually remember why. I also thought Lord of the Rings was boring and inscrutable when I tried to read it in 4th or 5th grade, and honestly both of those opinions are childish rubbish. The Lord of the Rings is one of the best works of fiction ever written, and the Bible is chock full of fascinating and interesting things, and this passage is a great example of that. Military strategists and historians should study this passage because it is honestly one of the first incidents in all of recorded history that features advanced war tactics and what we now call guerrilla warfare. Considering that military tactics were much more conventional even during the times of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, I find it fairly interesting Abram was thousands of years ahead of his time in terms of strategy. Think about it: he divided his forces against the far superior forces of King Chedorlaomer and attacked them by night - Abram had military wisdom! Using the clever tactic of a night attack with his army split into two groups, he succeeded in rescuing Lot and recovering all the plunder (all the goods) seized by the partnership of the five kings. And then, on the way back from this stunning victory, Abram encounters a mysterious figure, who brings him some bread and wine and blesses him. This person is Melchizedek, and Abram gives him a tithe/tenth of all the spoils of the battle. For thousands of years since then, people have speculated about who, exactly this guy Melchizedek was. "King and priest. None other of the house of David save our Lord Jesus Christ could claim the union of these two offices. In Christ we have a King and a priest, as also with Melchisedech of old, a great type of Jesus." C. H. Spurgeon, “Seeing Jesus,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 61 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1915), 47. "Clearly, from a passage in Hebrews there is something v. special about Melchisedech, but I don't know what it is. There's lots to find out, here and hereafter, isn't there?" Letter to Mrs. Johnson, C. S. Lewis, The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, ed. Walter Hooper, vol. 3 (New York: HarperCollins e-books; HarperSanFrancisco, 2004–2007), 608. "WE will not enlarge upon the story of Melchisedec, nor discuss the question as to who he was. It is near enough for us to believe that he was one who worshipped God after the primitive fashion, a believer in God such as Job was in the land of Uz, one of the world's grey fathers who had kept faithful to the Most High God. He combined in his own person the kingship and the priesthood; a conjunction by no means unusual in the first ages. Of this man we know very little; and it is partly because we know so little of him that he is all the better type of our Lord, of whom we may enquire, “Who shall declare his generation?” The very mystery which hangs about Melchisedec serves to set forth the mystery of the person of our divine Lord. “Without father, without mother, without descent, having neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like unto the Son of God; he abideth a priest continually. Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils.” C. H. Spurgeon, “First King of Righteousness, and after That King of Peace,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 30 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1884), 121. 7 Reasons I believe that Melchizedek was actually a Christophany - an Old Testament manifestation/appearance of Jesus: His name: King of Righteousness and King of Salem/Shalom. This is not persuasive, just evidential. Melchizedek was a priest AND a king. This was specifically forbidden by God, and King Uzziah - who tried to be both king and priest - was struck by leprosy for doing so. There are two king-priests in the Bible: Jesus and Melchizedek. Melchizedek served wine and bread to Abraham. This seems a bit on the nose, doesn't it? It doesn't have to be a nod towards Jesus serving wine and bread to the disciples - the New Testament never draws that connection - but it certainly seems significant to me. As mentioned in Psalms and Hebrews, Jesus was priest in the order of Melchizedek, not the order of Aaron, as every other priest of the Jewish people were. Consider this: why in the world would Jesus - God's son and God Himself - be of the order of ANY human priesthood? That seems rather absurd, doesn't it? The writer of Hebrews, in discussing Melchizedek and Jesus in depth and in parallel, seems to go out of his way to make the case that Melchizedek was significant and great, which is fairly odd considering that the Old Testament devotes a mere handful of verses to Melchizedek. But, consider these quotes from Hebrews, "Now consider how great this man was: even Abraham the patriarch gave a tenth of the plunder to him." (Hebrews 7:4) "But one without this lineage collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed the one who had the promises.7 Without a doubt, the inferior is blessed by the superior. " (Hebrews 7:6 - did you catch the obvious implication that Melchizedek was greater than Abraham?) Perhaps the primary function of a priest was to be a mediator between humans and God. There were many thousands of priests, but still Paul could say in 1 Timothy 2:5, "There is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity—the man Christ Jesus.  " There is only ONE priest like Jesus - who reconciles God and humanity - only ONE mediator like him. Considering how the writer of Hebrews talks about Jesus and Melchizedek in parallel - literally the only two priests in history that are in the order of Melchizedek, it would seem that these two priests are actually the same priest, with different names. (Consider Isaiah in this regard: Jesus will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.") The above items are certainly weighty, but not altogether convincing, and if they were the only evidence that tied Jesus and Melchizedek together, I would be content to stay with Spurgeon and Lewis and say that there is no solid biblical proof that Jesus and Melchizedek were the same person. However, there is one more passage that we have in the book of Hebrews about Melchizedek, and I can't imagine how that description of him could possibly be about anybody but Jesus Himself. Consider: " Without father, mother, or genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever." Hebrews 7:3 There's really only two options here: either the writer of Hebrews was simply exaggerating a lot, or Melchizedek is an appearance of Jesus. How could a human being not have a father or mother? How could a human being not have a genealogy or genetic relatives? How could a human being not have a beginning? How could a human being be immortal and NOT DIE? How could a human being be a priest FOREVER?!? The writer of Hebrews makes it crystal clear in chapter 7 vss. 23-24 that all other priests prior to Jesus died ("Now many have become Levitical priests, since they are prevented by death from remaining in office. 24 But because he remains forever, he holds his priesthood permanently. ") So - that's my case for Melchizedek being more than simply a type of Christ, but an actual manifestation of Jesus Himself. There are other places in the Old Testament where this might have happened also, and theologians usually call this a Christophany. One prominent example is when Joshua meets the Commander of the Armies of the Lord prior to the Jericho battle, and Joshua falls down and worships, and the Commander does NOT stop him, as every other angelic being does in that situation.

The Sunday before Christmas, Tim concludes our series O Come O Come Emmanuel. This talk looks at the verse of the carol calling Jesus "Rod of Jesse", as seen in the prophecy from Isaiah. Images of despair and destruction precede the passage read in this episode, a prophecy which ultimately came to pass in 722 BC, and in 587 BC, with foreign armies destroying Israel and capturing their people.  But the beginning of this passage encourages Israel to look for a shoot coming from the stump of Jesse - a new king from the line of Jesse and of David. That King is who we celebrate at Christmas - and who we look forward to his coming again - Jesus.

16/6/19 That King is at work (the Trinity explored) // This Is Our God // St Philips by Church Hill Anglican

16/6/19 That King is at work (the Trinity explored) // This Is Our God // Garrison by Church Hill Anglican

9/6/19 That King is present (the Spirit descended)// This Is Our God // St Philips & Garrison by Church Hill Anglican

Every year the Gallup organization releases a “World Happiness Report.”  It ranks the countries of the world as to their happiness.  Happiness is measured, in part, with survey questions such as, “Are [you] very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?”  “Very happy” responses are worth three points.  “Pretty happy” is worth two points and “not too happy” is worth one point. You might be interested to know where the United States ranks in the 2019 report.  Let me go ahead and break the suspense: we are not #1.  Despite our relative affluence and power, we don’t even make the top five or top ten.  We barely squeak inside the top 20 at the #19 position.  That’s ironic, isn’t it?  There’s an entire chapter in the “World Happiness Report” that explores this disconnect.  Chapter five’s title begins, “The Sad State of Happiness in the United States.”  Here’s a paragraph from that chapter: “This decline in happiness and mental health seems paradoxical. By most accounts, Americans should be happier now than ever. The violent crime rate is low, as is the unemployment rate. Income per capita has steadily grown over the last few decades. This is the Easterlin paradox: As the standard of living improves, so should happiness – but it has not.” We all want to be happy, but many of us are not.  To make matters worse, we may not even know how to be happy.  But here’s the good news--there is a king who knows how to be happy—truly happy.  It’s written into the very constitution of his kingdom.  That King is Jesus and his constitution is outlined in the Sermon on the Mount. Our U.S. constitution guarantees the right to the “pursuit of happiness.”  And, to be sure, we’re all frantically pursuing it, but Jesus’ “constitution” guarantees the “possession of happiness.”        This Sunday we begin a study of that unparalleled teaching.  It show the way to a happiness that is soul-deep and abiding, no matter what turn life takes.   Culture Flip “How to Be (Truly) Happy” Matthew 5:1-12   The pronouncement of happiness The right authority The right attitudes The paradox of happiness As to culture As to consequence The progressionof happiness

The episode can start now....tell the Talking Terror crew. On this episode, The King of Horror Andy G has decided to celebrate his birthday a week early! That King just couldn't wait to tear into his bloody birthday gifts and see what's inside! Also, the crew spared no expense for this terror party! There's a birthday cake made out of bacon and fried chicken, designer drugs, and strippers fresh off the day shift courtesy of Sweaty Stan's Sex Shack off route 80! So while the boys get this birthday party started, listen in as they discuss The King's film pick of the week; "Zombie" from 1979 and directed by Lucio Fulci. Or is it Zombie Flesh Eaters or Zombi 2 or Nightmare Island or Island of the Living Dead. Maybe it's Woodoo? The boys aren't really sure, just tune in and stay scared people, stay scared. 

Our Ministry Intern, Aaron Raines, preaches from Psalm 110.  As the Old Testament passage most often quoted in the New Testament, the significance of Psalm 110 cannot be overstated.  In this messianic Psalm, David points to a King who is God, who rules and reigns, who is a priest, and who is a warrior.  That King is Jesus Christ.

The King has spoken... Today's topics include: ...That King would be LeBron James. We'll get into some of the staggering things LeBron said on CNN the other night; Max Eden (Manhattan Institute) continues the discussion on LeBron regarding the opening of his new public school in Akron, OH - where kids get free meals, college tuition, and even a bike; and finally, Michael Saltsman (Employment Policies Institue) talks about the minimum wage war for waiters and waitresses, and why it's actually counterproductive.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In the ancient near east, as it went for kings, so it went for their people. Though we don't have a king in America, we have the same belief when it comes to presidents and leaders. We believe our leaders will change our future. But is it enough to have a strong human ruler? Can that person really deliver us from all that we face? Or could it be that we need another king, a greater king, to meet the deepest needs of our souls? Daniel 4 invites us to see that we do need a greater king and that there is such a great, sovereign king over all things. That King is the God of the Bible. Listen in as we consider what God's kingship looks like and what it means for our lives.

Lets open our Bibles up to James 3. I wonder if you remember a game from when you were growing up called King of the Mountain. Did you ever play that game? That was one of my favorite all-time games. In case you have not played King of the Mountain, this is the way we played it. This might not be the way you played it, but next to our house, we had a fire station; and they would heap up this snow, pile it up every winter. King of the Mountain is when one of the kids gets on top of the mountain, and then everybody takes turns trying to knock him off. You dont punch, but you push, you ram, you grab coats, and you just do whatever you can to get advantage to try to knock him off the mountain. Then you become king of the mountain until such a time as your reign is done, when somebody knocks you off. We just had a blast playing that winter after winter. Sometimes even the firemen would join in and play with us. What a good memory that is for me. I do remember the goal of King of the Mountain. It was to push everybody else down so you could be on top. Thats kind of it. You did whatever it took to get on top and stay there at your expense, and thats pretty much how the world works. Its about you, the individual, advancing yourself, building your kingdom, stepping on people along the way-doing everything you can to get to the top and stay there, however you define the top. Its contrary to what Christ has called the church to. What Christ has called the church to do-if it were a game of King of the Mountain-itd be your job to try to help people up. It would be your job to take the person who is below you and try to lift them up past where you are. Itd be a servant kind of mentality. It really wouldnt work for that game because what Christ has called the church to do is counter-culture. James says that there is a problem when we start to look like the world instead of like Christ. He calls it selfish ambition. That King of the Mountain mindset-its envy. Its saying, I dont like where you are. I want to be where you are. I dont like the fact that youre there, and Im going to try to take your place. Im going to try to advance myself at your expense because I want to be on top. I want to be the top dog. He calls that envy and selfish ambition. Hes going to say in this text that that causes conflict. That causes dissention. That causes the wars and things that we experience. He says, But a person who is serving as Christ called us to and lives the life that Christ called us to live, hes going to be a peacemaker. Hes going to be a difference-maker, so hes going to compare these two lifestyles. Were going to read through the text. Im going to give you a little bit of an outline for it, and then as weve done the last couple weeks, were going to find a person in the Scripture who exemplifies that Passage. Every time we do that, we find out that what James says is right. Then you plug these Passages into real life-what he warns us about, what he cautions us about-[and find out] its true, so lets take a look at James. Were going to back up to Chapter 3 and read it as part of our context. Remember the chapters arent in the original writings of these Books. They were added by the editors, so Chapter 3 leads into 4, and Chapter 4 is just as much connected to 3 in context, so we need to read them together. Lets back up to Verse 16 (page 1198 of pew Bibles), For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. By the way, I saw an example of envy this week. I was at the Labor Day parade, and there was a three year old next to us. It must have been her first parade because she wasnt quite getting the candy thing. Her motor skills werent advanced enough to go out there and get the candy, so she was watching in shock and amazement as-I dont know if there were siblings or friends, who they were-but they were eating candy, and she didnt have it. She did not like that one bit! She looked around, and she studied them for a bit. She realized they all had good candy, and she didnt have any; and she said (in a crying voice), I want candy!! I want candy!! Of course, they threw candy in her mouth. I turned to my kids, and I said, Well, that behavior will never be seen again. We certainly didnt reinforce that by putting candy in her face (sarcastically), but envy is I see what you have. I dont like that you have it. I wish I had it, so Im going to go after it, and that was her way to get it. Adults, were a little bit more subtle about it, usually; but we do envy nonetheless. A person might envy another persons position in their job, a co-worker. You might envy a sibling who seems to be the favorite like Joseph and his brothers. You might envy somebody in ministry. You might envy a public person who doesnt even know you, so we can envy a number of different ways. You could envy who somebodys spouse is; envy what car they drive; envy a lifestyle; envy their looks; or envy how they sing-whatever it is-but its wanting what somebody else has. He says, This is the cause of strife and conflict among you, but the wisdom that comes from Heaven is first of all pure, peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness. Now the first three [Verses] of Chapter 4, were going to call the Cause of Conflict. What causes fights and quarrels among you? Dont they come from your desires that battle within you? You want something but dont get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. In other words, God is not just going to randomly give us [answered] prayers. There is a reason God just doesnt blindly say yes to a prayer. If your prayer is of selfish motivation, James says dont expect God to answer that prayer. The second set of Verses here, 4-6, is confronting. Its confrontational. Were going to confront the problem, confront compromise, which is the problem. He says, When you start to live like this instead of how Christ called you to live, that is compromise. You start to resemble the world. Before I read this Passage, when we talk about the world, theres a Greek word, cosmos, that has three different definitions. It depends on the context in which you find it. It could be the earth. We could say the cosmos is the earth. We could say the cosmos are the people of the earth-when it says for God so loved the world… That means the people of the earth. Or, it could be used to mean of the worlds system. In the context here, this is used as of the worlds system. This world system that says, Me first. King of the mountain; selfish ambition; vain conceit; vain glory; pride and envy. That is the world system that we are not to be a part of or resemble. He says in Verse 4, You adulterous people… James does not pull punches, does he? James uses some strong language here. He says, You are committing spiritual adultery if you resemble the world more than you resemble Christ-if you love the things of the world system more than you love God. …dont you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Youre actually demonstrating hate toward the one youre called to love. Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God, and any enemy of God always loses. If youre Gods enemy, you lose. James is saying, Get on the right side. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the Spirit He caused to live in us envies intensely? But He gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Now some of you might ask, Well, why can God envy, but we cant? Its because this word is also translated into jealous. God is jealous for what belongs to Him. He loves us. He wants a relationship with us. We belong to Him, and He wants whats best for us. He knows whats best for us is to follow His commands. Thats entirely different than somebody who is envying something that is not theirs, shouldnt be theirs, or isnt theirs; but they want it, and its for their self-interest. God is for our interest, jealous that we love and serve Him because we were created for Him; so theyre not the same at all. The third Passage, or the third breakdown here, is the cure of the conflict. He says, Heres the cause of the conflict. Its our desires, and those desires lead us to compromise. Then James confronts that compromise, and he says that this is not to be characteristic of a Christian life. This is a wake-up call to you who think you can name the name of Christ and resemble the world rather than resembling what the church is supposed to be, the body of Christ. He says, You are acting in hatred towards God. Now heres the cure for the conflict. He says its repentance. Number one, Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and He will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners… He talks about ceremonial cleansing here in a metaphoric sense. …purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourn and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up. He says repentance is serious business. James is trying to get the point across that if you are resembling the world, youre living in this King of the Mountain mentality, and you think you have the world by the tail because youre professing Christ-yet youre living like the world, and you think life is good-he says, I have a wake-up call for you. You have to answer to a holy God, and you need to wipe that smile off your face. Have you ever had a coach who would come on the bus after a game you lost? Maybe you were embarrassed, or it was a close game. Whatever it was, you lost. He comes onto the bus, and guys are laughing and having a good time. What does that coach say? Wipe that smile off your face! You guys would not believe the pain youre going to be in tomorrow at practice. You have no idea how you embarrassed this school. You embarrassed me! You come on this bus, and you laugh? You think its funny? Youre smiling? We busted our tails all week to be embarrassed? Im getting mad. He said, Wipe that smile off your face. You did not represent this school! Thats kind of what James is doing here. Hes giving a lecture, saying, You who are living in the world and thinking you have everything, wake-up call. Wipe the smile off your face. You need to grieve, and whats more, you need to come into a sharp realization of your spiritual condition because your spiritual condition is not good. You are an adulterer! You are living a life of compromise! Nobody should be comfortable. Nobody should be at ease with life when youre in this situation. You have no idea what day youre going to have to answer to God, so you need to sober up. You need to get serious. This is serious stuff, James says. This is serious stuff. Hes not saying this to everybody. Hes not being Mr. Grumpy Gloom and Doom, saying to every person who is smiling and laughing, Stop that! You need to cry! You need to be sad! No, hes talking to the person who is living with selfish ambition and envy and resembling the world, You need to come to terms with how youre acting. You need to change your ways, and the only way to do that is repent. Metanoeo means to change your mind, to say the same thing and be in agreement with God and grieve it. Then God will meet you there, you will confess your sins, God will forgive you, and He will cleanse you. Then James says, I expect that your attitude and your actions are going to change. Weve been looking in the Old Testament the last couple weeks for an example. This week, were going to go into the New Testament, so thats your first clue. How many of you when you were young enjoyed magic or still do enjoy it? You enjoyed either watching good magic or practicing magic-David Copperfield or whatever? I do. But you understand when youre watching it thats illusion. You understand that its not real, and the person is not pretending that its real. Theyll tell you right off the bat, Im not going to tell you my secret, but everybody knows its an illusion. We know that guy really didnt get cut in half. We know that lady didnt really disappear. We understand that. We grasp that. There was a man in the Scripture who was so skilled at what he did that people were convinced that it was real. They were convinced that he was in some way an agent of God, that God had somehow empowered him to do what he did. Everybody-young and old, small and great-they all bought into this guys message that he was something important, that he was a big deal; and he became famous. I dont know if its right to call him an entertainer or almost a religious leader. He really had a following, and hed become quite wealthy, quite famous, and he was enjoying this prestige and carrying on this act until the Gospel came to his city. When the Gospel came to his city, he began to see real miracles, miracles that he knew were miracles: a lame man walked, a paralyzed person walked; another person who was crazy was all the sudden sane. He was like, I live here. I know these people. I know that that person really was insane, and that person really was paralyzed; and now they walk. His curiosity got the best of him, and he started following this man of God around, listening to his teaching, watching what he did; and he was thinking to himself, How can I get his power? Now, be certain, he is no longer the king of the mountain. This new guy-well call him Phil-is in charge. Hes the king of the mountain. He has the real power, and he was going to try to figure out any way he could to get it. Lets turn in our Bibles to Acts 8:1 (page 1085 of pew Bibles), And Saul was there, giving approval to Stephens death. Saul, at this point, is not Paul. He has not yet converted to Christ, so he is Saul, the persecutor of the church. He has just witnessed the first martyr, Steven. It says, On that day, great persecution broke out against the church at Jerusalem, and all except the Apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria. Now, the church has been around for some time-long enough to have gone out. Jesus says, You go out to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth, but they were all still in Jerusalem. They really werent obeying Christs command to reach the world with this message; but this persecution would scatter them. This persecution would do the job, so Paul, indirectly-remember hes the greatest missionary of all time-he is responsible for the first wave of Christian missionaries-theyre his persecution. Through his persecution, Christians are scattered. The Bible says rather than cower and fear when they were scattered, they preached the Word. Verse 4 (page 1087 of pew Bibles), Those who had been scattered preached the Word wherever they went. It tells us that Philip went to Samaria. Now Philip is not to be confused with the Apostle Philip or one of the Disciples, because Philip (as it says here, the Apostles were in Jerusalem) but this man is in Samaria. This is another Philip. This is Philip the deacon. This is Philip from Acts 6. Remember the Hellenistic Jews and the Hebraic Jews had the argument, so they said, Lets get these men in here to help us? Philip was one of them, so this is Philip the evangelist; so Philip begins to share the Gospel. The Bible tells us that crowds followed him and that miraculous signs took place. It said they all paid attention to what he said. Their evil spirits came out; paralytics and cripples were healed. There was great joy in the city. Now, watching all of this is this man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great. In other words, this is real. What Im doing for you is real, and maybe there was some demonic supernatural activity going on. We cant say for sure, but thats possible. …and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, This man is the divine power known as the Great Power. In other words, he has a spark of the divine in him. There is something of God in this man, so this was his title-the Great Power. Thats how he was known. They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. So how they followed him, were not exactly sure, but it could very possibly be they followed him in a religious sense. In fact, church tradition tells us-many of the early church fathers tell us-he was the founder of Gnosticism. Gnosticism is probably the primary heresy that the church encountered, this belief that we are saved through knowledge; key knowledge saves us, so it doesnt matter how you live. It doesnt matter what you do with your body because matter is evil. The spirit is what God saves, so as long as you have this knowledge, then youre right with God; so Gnosticism was this kind of mystical religion or heresy that started that the church had to combat. Whether he was for sure or not, we cant say. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. So, remember hes wealthy. He doesnt have to go to work, so basically wherever Philip is, hes there trying to learn the secrets-how he gets this power; so he starts jumping through the hoops. Okay, maybe if I go through this ritual called baptism… You can tell Im skeptical that he believed. You can tell Im skeptical of that. I really am. I think his entire motivation was he wanted this power so he could be the king of the mountain again. If he could get this power, then hed knock Philip off; and everybody would follow him because he could do all these miracles now too. He is just astonished and amazed. So when it says he believed, I believe he believed in the power, that it was real. He was not repenting of sin. He was not becoming a follower of Christ. This is still very much envy. This is very much selfish ambition. I want what you have, and Im going to figure out a way to get it. Once I get it, I will knock you off the hill, so this is what James talked about, the cause of conflict: selfish ambition and envy. Were going to see where this is going to lead Simon. Verse 14, When the Apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the Word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. Now this is interesting that John is on his way to Samaria. Do you remember what John had said the last time he was there? I dont know if you remember that, but in the Book of Luke, theyre supposed to ask Samaria if Jesus can travel through there. The people say no, and John, the loving Christian man that he is, says, Should I call fire down from Heaven and consume them? Jesus says, You dont know what spirit you are of. The Son of Man did not come to destroy mens lives, but to save mens lives. So now here he is going back through the same area. I wonder what his thoughts were as he was walking there because theyve now received the Gospel. Hes walking there thinking, Gee, I wanted to destroy them. That thought had to cross his mind how God had turned that whole situation around. Now when they get there, they had not yet received the Holy Spirit-possibly because even though theyd been baptized in the name of Jesus, this is all new. This is the first time that the Samaritans-anybody who is not fully a Jew-have received Christ. It could be that God was allowing John and Peter to get there so they could witness with their own eyes that the Samaritans had in fact become believers. Remember there is disdain and religious and racial prejudice between the two groups. The Samaritans dont like the Jews; the Jews dont like the Samaritans. The Samaritans are half Jew and half Gentile, and they were looked upon with disdain by the Jews; so to think that they could really belong to God and be saved, this could be one of those things where they had to see it with their own eyes. Its also not normative to receive the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands. When you receive the Holy Spirit-when you came to Christ-probably nobody was there to lay hands on you. When the believers in Acts 2 and Acts 10 with Cornelius received the Holy Spirit, nobody laid hands on them; but God chose to do it in this way. Its like Peter and John were giving their blessing, the Holy Spirit used them, and they were baptized in the Holy Spirit. Philip began to say, Oh, okay, so thats how you do it. Somehow they have to lay their hands, and I can tell by having Peter and John come to oversee what Philip is doing that Philip is not the top dog. Hes not the king of the mountain as I thought. This Peter appears to be the king of the mountain. He seems to be the guy who has the power. He seems to be the one, so now Im not concerned about Philip anymore. I have to get to know this Peter guy, and somehow I have to get him to put his hands on me, so he is just tired of waiting. He has seen this power manifest, so he says, How much do you need, Peter? I have money. I have deep pockets. What do you need? How much so I can do what you just did? …Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the Apostles hands, he offered them money and said, Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit. His envy had blinded him. He didnt even know it was wrong. Had he saw the rebuke that he was going to get, he never would have done this. He probably said it with a smile on his face as he held the currency. You see, I have a lot! He was probably happy about it. Peter is livid! Peter is going to confront the compromise here. As James set his audience straight, as he tried to set believers-as he tries to set believers today straight who are trying to live a double life-he said, Im going to set you straight, pal. You say youre a follower of Christ, youve been baptized and all… Peter knew. I guarantee you they said, Man, we caught a big fish here. This Simon guy, hes pretty famous. He has a large following, and hes even been baptized and is following Philip around, so Peter is aware of whom he is; but he is not at all impressed or intimidated. He says in Verse 20, …May your money perish with you… The JB Phillips translation says, To hell with you and your money. That might not be far from what hes saying here. This language is as strong as you could use. Peter basically is condemning him to hell here, and he is not a happy camper. He says, …because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money! You thought Gods grace was for sale! Any time God gives you a gift, it is because of grace. Its not something you earn; its not something you purchase, and this is making Peter angry. There were even times in the history of the church where the church had a scam where you could buy salvation. We know thats wrong. We know that was wrong. He says, You have no part or share in this ministry. Basically he says, Youre not a believer. If youre a true believer, you wouldnt be asking what you are asking. …because your heart is not right before God. Again, this tells me, if youre a brand new believer, and your heart is not right before God, then you werent right before God. This was all about Philip, so he confronts him. What is he doing? Hes confronting for the same reason James is-selfish ambition and envy. Hes resembling the world. Hes not resembling the Christ that he claims to follow. He says, Youre in this for you, and thats not what its about. Its not about you. That's one of the big dangers of the prosperity message. Christians were saying, If you follow Jesus, youre going to be rich. Youre going to have all this money. Youre never going to get sick, so like Im going to follow Christ because of all the great things He can do for me. That's the wrong reason to follow Christ. Thats not the reason were called. Its not to advance us; its to advance Him. Its about His mission-not your little small mission, not your little small agenda, so he confronts the compromise. Now, what did James say was the cure to the conflict? Remember the conflict is not with man; the conflict is with God. Even though envy causes tension and strife amongst people, he says its really a conflict with God when youre acting like this; so Simons problem ultimately was with God. So he says the cure of the conflict Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord. Perhaps He will forgive you. Notice he is so angry that hes not even sure God will forgive this guy. I think normally he would say, If you repent of your sins, youre going to be forgiven. Peter was so livid, he was like, Yeah, you have a shot…maybe. Maybe He will. …for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin. Youve not been cleansed of sin. Your baptism was an act. Your whole following thing is an act. This is about you, and youre trying to purchase the grace of God. Shame on you! Shame on you for your compromise. Simon is shocked! He still doesnt know what hes done wrong, and he says, Well, pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me. Notice even in his repentance, he is still only concerned about himself. This is not true repentance. Simon is upset that he got caught. Hes not upset that he did something wrong that displeased God. This is not repentance. What hes basically saying to Peter is pray to the Lord. I dont know Him. You know Him. Pray to Him. True repentance is you pray to God. Youd say, Lord, Ive dishonored Your name. This is what Ive done. Ive compromised, and Ive put Your name in a bad light; and Im so sorry. So he says, Heres the cure. The cure is repentance. Now, what we need to do, church, is we need to humbly and honestly look at our lives and say, Are we playing King of the Hill? Is it about keeping Jesus as King of the mountain, or is it about us being king of the mountain? Is it about us advancing the cause of Christ and helping others up along the journey, or is it scratch, claw, push, and propel myself to the top trying to name the name of Christ and live like the world-in selfish ambition and envy? James is confronting you today if that's you. The Word of God is confronting you. The Holy Spirit is confronting you, and Hes calling you to repentance. Hes calling you to grace. Lets pray together right now. Lets have heads bow and eyes close. How many of you this morning say, Pastor, I have an area Im struggling with, an area I really am living like the world rather than following Christ? This morning, I want to repent of that. This morning I want to get sober-minded about that and begin to have my life conform. Can I see your hands because I want to pray with you? I see those hands. I see those. Thank you. Father, all around this sanctuary, Lord, those who raised their hands right now, pray this prayer with me. Heavenly Father, I come to You in Jesus name. I confess my sin. I want you to name that sin to the Lord right now in your hearts. Father, I have lived with selfish ambition. Ive tried to be on the thrown of my life, and Ive seen the ugliness of my sin; and I repent of it. I ask for Your forgiveness and cleansing. I recognize that my sin is spiritual adultery. Youve called me to loyalty. Youve called me to resemble Christ and not the world, so I forsake my sin. I ask that Your Holy Spirit would cleanse me, pardon me, and make me new-that I might resemble Christ and not the world system. In Jesus name. Father, if they prayed that prayer in sincerity of heart this morning, You have heard, answered, and forgiven. Lord, I pray that that area that has been such a struggle will become a place of strength to them, no longer a chink in their armor, but its been fortified and reinforced. Theyre no longer, Lord, falling prey to those temptations, for they can live in victory through the power of Your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen.

Pastor Jeff Williams: December 20, 2009 The Light of the World. Would you stand please and open your Bibles to Isaiah 9 (page 683 of pew Bibles)? If you dont have a Bible, were going to put it on the wall as well. Now were going to do a responsive reading, and so far its been rough. The Saturday night service didnt get it. The 8 oclock service didnt get it. I didnt think it was that hard, but apparently it is. Heres what were going to do. Im going to read Verse 2 of Chapter 9. Youre going to read Verse 6 of Chapter 9. Then together, were going to read Verse 7. Its not that hard, right? We can do this. I would read my Verse 2, and then it would be like silence, like one person-like, Lets do it again. This passage is a very familiar passage of Scripture to us. Youre going to get at least one Christmas card, probably more, that will have this passage of Scripture. This was written by the Prophet Isaiah. He wrote 750 years before Christ was born. This is a prophesy. This is a foretelling about the people who walk in darkness, seeing a great light; and that great light will come in the form of a person, a child-a male child-who will be born in Israel, and His name will be called Mighty God, the Prince of Peace. His Kingdom will never end. That is the Prophesy, and 750 years later (it is fulfilled that Christmas morning as the light comes into the world); and were going to talk about that today. So Im Verse 2; youre Verse 6; and were all Verse 7. Im nervous-lets do this. [Pastor Jeff:] The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. [Congregation:] For to us a Child, to us a Son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And He will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. [Everyone:] Of the increase of His government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on Davids throne and over His Kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this. Lord, through Your Prophet, You spoke of a Kingdom and a King who had reigned for all eternity. That King is Jesus, and the light has come. We come this morning to celebrate Him and to celebrate the light that has come into the world. I pray that Your light would shine upon us today, and I pray that You would eliminate Your Truth. I pray that Your light would drive out darkness in our lives; that it would bring hope; that it would calm our fears; that it would bring rest to our souls. We give You thanks, Lord, for coming into the world, for revealing Truth to us, illuminating our souls that we could know God. In Jesus name, we pray, Amen. Before youre seated this morning, turn around and tell somebody what you want for Christmas; and then you can have a seat, okay? Would you open your Bibles please this morning to John 8? Once youve opened it there, just leave it. We wont need to look at it for a while-just be ready. Ive got some good news for you and some bad news. The good news is the sermon is going to be shorter today than it normally is. The bad news is youre not going to get out any earlier than you normally would. I want to preface the sermon with that because with the Saturday night crowd, I said, Amen. They were looking at their watches, going, Yeah! I love Christmas! This is great! Little did they know that they were going to stick around as long as they always do, so Im just giving you a heads up. We have a special video presentation that were going to watch at the conclusion of our service, so Im going to have to cut things just a little bit short. Were talking this morning about the light of the world, the light of Christmas. Light, of course, is a big part of our holiday, isnt it? In your homes, you probably have some lights. Maybe you have lights on your tree, your candles or other decorations that have light. Maybe you have lights on your house, or there are lights certainly on houses in your neighborhood or as you drive around. We celebrate with light. We have put a light on top of the Christmas tree-a star-because Christmas is about light. This is the time of the winter solstice. This is the time when very soon, actually sometime between tomorrow and Tuesday, it will be the time when the Northern Hemisphere is as far away from the sun as its ever going to get this year. After that day, after that moment, then we begin to get closer to the sun, and the days get longer. The nights get shorter, so Christmas was chosen for December 25 because of the winter solstice-because of the time that light begins to last longer because the light of the world has come. We see the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is also this time of year. They light their menorahs. Remembering the days when the Temple was cleansed and Antiochus was defeated, the Temple was restored to Jerusalem; and God miraculously kept the lamp lit while there was just a little bit of oil as they waited for more oil to come. So they celebrate light. Light was a very important element of the celebration. I want to share with you about a holiday that the Jews celebrated. This was a holiday that they celebrated in the fall. At this holiday, a very important proclamation was made that we need to talk about today. It was called the Feast of Booths, and that was a holiday to commemorate the time of their forefathers wandering in the wilderness for 40 years. They used to live in these little huts, these little houses, that are called Sukkoths. Just think if you have a friend named Sue, and she has a coat, thats a Sukkoth right there. These Sukkoths were made out of leaves, palm branches and reeds, whatever you could find. You could assemble this small makeshift home. That is where your family would live. Now when they were wandering in the Dessert, that was their home. It didnt protect well from the elements for certain, but it was a shelter; and they would just find whatever organic material was around. They would make for themselves these homes. Now, when you celebrated that, everybody would go to Jerusalem. This was a major holiday, so people would go there from all over-not only Jews, but also Gentiles who were God-fearing, Gentiles who followed the Lord. They would come as well, so hundreds of thousands of people would convey upon Jerusalem and to the Temple. They would set up and build these Sukkoths, and they would have their major meal in the Sukkoth. They would stay in the Sukkoth, weather permitting. They remember that heres where our ancestors live, and heres how we lived as God led us out of the Egyptian bondage and into the Promise land. A big part of that celebration, of course, was their sacrifices and their time of praise and worship. They had 70 candles. These candles were like 5 feet high, and they would mount them at various heights. The light was so brilliant that it would totally illuminate the Temple. If youve ever seen the Temple-maybe you took Pastor Garys class on the Temple-you know it was a magnificent structure. Just imagine a life so brilliant from these 70 candles that it just lit the area for miles. You could see it from miles away. It was just gorgeous, so illuminating the courtyard at night-it was in the courtyard of the women; and it was in the courtyard of the women because that way anybody could go: man, woman, Jew, Gentile-all were welcome in the court of the women; so there stood these large candles of light. They would dance amongst the candles, and they would sing. The Levites would come with their instruments, and they would just rejoice and praise God. Those lights at night stood for a couple things. They stood, number one, for the fact that God guided them through the wilderness as a pillar of fire at night; so it stood for His presence with His people. It also stood for the fact that the Messiah was coming-the hope, the light of the world, was going to come. There was a Prophet by the name of Zechariah. He is one of the great post-exilic Prophets in the Old Testament. He was one who was preaching about their spiritual health as they began to return to Jerusalem after exile and began to worship again in the Temple. He was a very influential Prophet. Zechariah said that theres coming a day when Messiah will come, and He will participate in the Feast of Booths with us. He will come, and He will celebrate with us here in the Temple. The Messiah will be amongst us celebrating this holiday. So this stood for the presence of Messiah, and then every year, the seventh day was done; and the morning of the eight day, the lights would be extinguished. Messiah had not come. The time of the festival was over. It was time to return to our homes. They would have one last invocation, sing final songs, final sacrifice, and then they would disperse to their homes. Its there in this courtyard the morning after the festival is done, the lights are extinguished, but the people are still gathered. Theres a smell of smoke in the air. Jesus stands up before a crowd of people, and He says, I am the light of the world. In that context, in that place, in that courtyard, with the light extinguished in the background, He stands in front of them and He says, I am the One that youve been waiting for. Im the One youve been hoping for. Im the One that Zechariah said would come and have this festival with you and celebrate with you. I am here, and Im the light of the world. Can you imagine if you were to say something like that and really mean it? If you got up in front of a group of people and said, I am the light of the world. People would think youve got an incredible ego to the point of being insane-youre crazy. Maybe youre some sort of a lunatic cult leader or something, but nobodys going to take you serious that youre the light of the world. But with the works that Jesus had done, the miracles He had performed, the teaching that He had given, friends, when He uttered those words, people paid attention. I want us to look at those words together this morning. John 8:12 (page 1059 of pew Bibles), When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. The first thing I want you to notice is He says, I am the light. This is an authoritative statement. He is saying, I am light. Hes not saying, I have light. Im going to bring light. Im going to carry light. He is saying, I am light. I am the source of light. Light emanates from Me. I am the light, not a light, not one of the lights. I am the light. Im not a light of this region. Im not a light of this time period. Im not a light of this race. I am a light of the world-all peoples, all times, all places. I am the light of the world. Make no mistake about it. Jesus is making a declaration of the fact that He is Messiah. The place that He said that, the timing of when He said it, the authority in which He spoke it-make no mistake about it, Jesus was saying, Im the One youve been waiting for. Im the One who has been promised by the Prophets. These candles are extinguished, but Im telling you, I am here. Im the light of the world. Now He is going from being the light of the world all the way down to the personal, to the individual-from the world to the individual because then He says, Whoever follows Me… Whoever follows Me… …will never walk in darkness. So they had a choice to make, didnt they? We have a choice to make. Is He in fact the light of the world? Is He who He said He was or is He not? If He is the light of the world, then if we follow any other voice or any other direction besides His, we do so to our own peril-if He is the light of the world, if He is the one who is to serve as our great guide, as a source of Truth. There are some who think that they have a better way, some who choose not to follow that voice. Maybe they think that they know a better way to live their lives. Theyre sadly mistaken. There is a story told of a naval captain who was sailing the seas. It was a dark and foggy night, and he saw another ship coming straight at him; so he got on the radio, and he radioed the ship. He said, We are on a collision course, and you need to alter the course of your ship by 20 degrees. Otherwise were going to collide. The radio answered back and said, No, you need to alter your course 20 degrees. The captain got a little bit upset with that. After all, he is the captain of this naval, so he starts to let the fact that hes offended be a little bit known. He starts talking about his ship, the name of his ship, how important it is and the mission it is on. He says, Now you alter your course by 20 degrees. Radioed back from the light, it says, No, you need to alter your course 20 degrees. The captain is furious. He says, I am a captain! Radioed back and said, I am a lighthouse! If youve ever sailed at sea, you know how that works. Lighthouse vs. ship doesnt work so well for the ship. There are times that we can become defiant. The light of the world? Well say, No, I have my own light. I determine my own course. To take that attitude is to do so to your own peril. There is one light to the world, and He has spoken. He has spoken authoritatively. We have a choice to follow, to surrender to His Lordship, or to set our own course. People still have that decision to make, but He says, If you follow Me, youll never walk in darkness, but you shall have the light of life. Youll have the light of life. In other words, youll have My presence within you. Thats what Jesus promised. He said that when He goes, He will send His presence here to earth in the person of the Holy Spirit who is God. So God will live within us through His Spirit, and so we will become little lights,Small L. Well become little reflections of the great light. Thats what He talked about to His church in the Sermon on the Mount. Please turn to the Book of Matthew 5:14 (page 958). Jesus is speaking to His followers. Hes speaking to the church, and He says, You are the light of the world. Thats an awesome responsibility. When Jesus says that we are to be the ones carrying His light to the world, that is a great responsibility. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise Your Father in Heaven. You know in those days in the house, it was usually a small one-room house, and the lamp stand was actually built into the wall. It wasnt a separate stand that we have. It was actually a ledge that was built into the home. The candle, of course, was their only source of light. They didnt have flashlights. They didnt have the electricity, and so that was their light. It was very hard to start a fire. There was no gas. There were no matches, so youd keep that light lit. Youd keep a lot of oil in there and a long wick, and that light would stay on even when you were gone. You didnt want to start a fire in your house, so youd put the light under a bushel. This was not what we think of as a bushel basket. This wasnt some sort of wicker or plastic basket. This was an earthen vessel that would not catch fire, would allow enough oxygen in there to keep the flame lit, and youd cover it up. Then youd go and as soon as you came home, you took the bushel off, and the light would again illuminate the house. He says, So your light is to be seen by all men. The first thing that that tells me is number one, it destroys the myth that we often hear of. You know, my faith is a private matter. I dont talk about my faith. I keep it a secret because its private. Its between me and God. Weve all heard people say that, and I want you to know something. The Bible knows nothing of that kind of faith. That is about as anti-Biblical of an expression of faith as you can find. Jesus says, and I think I prefer Jesus as the authority on the subject of faith rather than Uncle Bill, You are to live your faith out to the world. Youre to be a light for the world to see. Your faith should be very much a public matter. There are a couple of reasons for that. Number one, were to take Christs light to the world. How can we do that if we keep it private? How can we do that if we keep it hidden? It has to be seen. Number two, if you are silent about your faith, then when you do good works-when you do the kind of things that Hes talking about here, and people praise you-who gets the glory? You or God? If nobody knows why youve done something, you get the praise, right? People start going, Oh, what a great guy! What a super gal. Isnt she fantastic? because youve kept your faith hidden. Youve kept it secret. Thirdly, Jesus is the light of the world; so therefore any time we are a reflection of that light, ultimately the praise goes back to God, doesnt it? Because He is source of goodness. And so we reflect that praise back to Him. Now its very important that we understand what He means when He says a good work. So let your light shine that they may see your good works. There were two words for good. One was just a plain, ordinary word for good. Yeah, thats good. That works. Thats fine. But then there was another higher word for good, and that word meant that which is not only good, but what was attractive, appealing, beautiful-that drew people to it. That is the word that was used here by Matthew. Not just a good, not just functional, but beautiful. These should be beautiful works. Now what is the number one purpose of light? What does light do? Light is here to overcome darkness. That is the number one purpose of light. Its to overcome darkness. We read in the Book of John 1:4 (page 1047) where it says of Jesus, In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The next verse, Verse 5 says, The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. Its interesting in the Greek when you look up that word understood, it means overtaken. The darkness is not overpowered or overtaken the light, so the purpose of light, we can safely say is to defeat darkness. Its to illuminate; its to reveal. So a good deed here would be that which conquers darkness. Weve been talking about that in this little mini-series on Christmas, what were to be about. The church is to be about the things that Jesus is about. Were to be about overcoming darkness. If you are standing up for the innocent, if you are protecting the weak, if you are standing up for righteousness and justice, if you are speaking out against hatred and prejudice and bigotry, if you are proclaiming hope of Christ, if you are doing these things, you are the light. Those are good deeds. Those are deeds that we are to be a part of and engaged in. Weve said before, and well say it again, that the reason we do these good deeds, and Christ wants us to-He says, I want you to do these good deeds, is two-fold. We do these good deeds number one because we belong to God. Number two, we do them to bring glory to God because He wants the light to shine. When the light shines, its to shine on the Lord. Its to make Him greater. Its to make His love more fully-known. Its to make His light manifest in the world. And so we do these good deeds not in order to be right with God but because we are right with God. We do these because if the light is in us, then we should be doing what the light did. In 1 John 2:6 (page 1207) it says, Those who claim His name should walk as He walked, do the things that He did. Im paraphrasing now. Those who name His name should walk as He walked, do the things that He did. So its because we are children of the most high, because we are children of the light, that we engage in deeds that glorify God. Now, Ive got some flashlights in front of you, and were going to dim the lights just a little bit this morning. Maybe we wont go totally dark, but well just dim them. Ive got a flashlight here. And the first flashlight here, you cant see the light. That's because this light is blocked. That represents somebody who has hidden their light. This is the person Jesus said who is silent about his or her faith. They keep their faith private. They dont want to talk about it. They dont want to live it out. Its a private light, and it really does no good, does it, because nobody can see it? Then we have a second kind of light, and thats a dim light. Im shining it out there. Nobodys really-a couple of you are reacting, but its not that strong. Its kind of dim, and thats a person who really has allowed their light to grow dim. Its not as bright as it once was. Its not as bright as it could be because the cares of this world have caused it to go dim. Were busy with so many other things, busy with life, busy with our agendas that we forget why were here. We forget Gods purposes and His calling. If were not careful, then our light becomes dim. This life over here-remember the Bible says, Let your light shine. It doesnt say, Make your light shine. Let it shine. If Jesus is in you, the light is there. This is a little brighter. When I shine this at you, some of you close your eyes-especially those who are in the front row. I am watching you right now because some of you think, Well, its dark. I can sleep, but this way I can see you even when its dark and make sure that you are not asleep. Even in the tech booth, I can watch you. Back in the sound room, I see you back there. I keep an eye on you. This is bright. This is a life that is following what it says in James. God says, Draw near to Me, and I will draw near to you. This spotlight, this light, is to be shining not on ourselves. Jesus says, Its to be shining on God. Thats the purpose of this light. Its not to say, Oh, look at me! Im a great guy. Its to shine and say, Look at God! Look at how magnificent He is! Why do you do what you do? Why have you done this wonderful thing? Why have you given in this way? Well, because I belong to Jesus Christ, and He wants us to share His love with the world and shine that light to Him. So I want to encourage you today who are letting the light of Christ shine through you-continue on. Let it shine even brighter. There is no limit to how bright that light can get. So as we draw near to God, He draws near to us; and we reflect His light. Moses was so near to God that his face glowed. His face glowed. I heard a story about D.L. Moody, the famous evangelist and minister. He was sharing how theyd had an all night prayer vigil. Some of the students at Moody Bible were so excited they said, Dr. Moody, look at our faces. They glow! Dr. Moody looked at them and said, Yes, they glow like Moses! Weve been in the presence of God. Our faces are glowing like Moses. Yes, but Moses did not like the fact that his face glowed. Moses was humble. Moses realized that he was unworthy. So were going to pray together, and were going to ask for Gods help to be light in this world, in this dark world. Would you bow your heads for prayer? The first folks we want to pray for this morning are those whove not received the light. Its our prayer this morning that you would follow the light, that you would hear His voice even today to receive Him into your hearts as Lord. You cannot earn your salvation. You cannot work for your salvation. It is something that was bought for you through His sacrifice, through His life, His blood shed on the cross; and that by faith, you would receive Him as your Savior and invite Him into your life; that His light would come inside of you; that He would cleanse you of sin and give you His spirit; that you might follow Him all the days of your life. That is our prayer. Secondly, Lord, I pray for those who are blocking their light. They have hidden their light. Lord, they have become private. They dont speak. They dont act; in His essence, their faith is useless because our faith is meant to be lived out. Its meant to be seen. You could not have made it any clearer than You did. No one who lights a light puts it under a bushel. Lord, I pray for those who are under the bushel right now, that, Lord, their light would be seen, and theyd go public with their faith and demonstration of it for Your glory. Father, for those of us whove allowed our lights to grow dim, weve allowed the cares of this world and distractions of this world to zap us of our light and rob us of the brightness that we once had, we pray that we would affirm once again that there is nothing more important than our walk with You, that we would draw near to You, that You might draw near to us.

Soon, every TV station and network, and many of the nation's radio stations, will air stock film footage (or tape) of Martin Luther King, Jr., his handsome dark face shining in a sea of dark faces, captured in his moment of triumph: the "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington. They will gladly air this 'safe' Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who spoke loftily and eloquently of dreams. Few will dare air his remarks made at Riverside Church in New York City, where an older, wiser Martin spoke, not of dreams but of realities -- of social, and especially economic injustice -- of rampant American militarism, and yes -- the nightmare of white racism. One of those with him, who, too, would become a Rev. Dr., was Vincent Harding, a man who loved Martin, and who knew him as a brother, rather than an icon. Rev. Dr. Harding, a leading theologian and historian, wanted others to know the Martin he'd known; so he wrote a book: Martin Luther King: The Inconvenient Hero (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1996 [8th printing]). As Harding teaches us, King fell into the pit of betrayal, when he took on the war in Vietnam: ".... King was bitterly rebuked for taking on the issue of the war. Some called it a diversion from the issue of black rights. Others feared the terrible rage of [President] Lyndon Johnson who brooked no opposition (certainly not from black Martin Luther King!) to his destructive policies. "Some members of King's own Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) board of directors opposed his role in the antiwar movement, partly because they had seen the way in which the liberal white allies of the movement had withdrawn financial support from the radicalized young people of SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee), who dared stand in solidarity with the Vietnamese opponents of America's intervention ... "In the face of all this, partly because of all this, King persisted, and the Riverside speech - delivered exactly one year before his assassination, was the most notable result of his decision. Immediately the drumbeat of harsh criticism was heightened. It came from many ... including such black stalwarts as Jackie Robinson, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and Carl Rowan." [pp. 70-71] Rev. Dr. Harding also recounts how the allegedly 'liberal' Washington Post assailed Rev. Dr. King for daring to oppose the war. The newspaper editorial called his words "Bitter and damaging allegations and inferences that he did not and could not document." In the view of the Post's editors, "many who have listened to him with respect will never again accord him the same confidence. He has diminished his usefulness to his cause, to his country, and to his people." [Harding, p. 71] To his credit, Harding explains, King did not heed such criticisms, for he knew that they were on the side of war and death. Harding writes that King became increasingly radicalized, and emboldened to speak out against injustice; Riverside was a turning point: "(Who knew that night, April 4, that he had precisely one more year to live, that the bullet was closing in?) For King saw the larger context. He had already declared in other places that his "beloved country" was "engaged in a war that seeks to turn the clock of history back and perpetuate white colonialism." Underlying this backwardness, he said, was America's refusal to recognize that "the evils of capitalism are as real as the evils of militarism and evils of racism." [p. 101] This ain't the Martin Luther King we see on commercials, nor the ones we see in newspaper ads around the days of his birth or death. That Martin Luther King, anti-war critic, economic justice activist, advocate for the poor, fellow sufferer of the bombed and oppressed in Vietnam, a budding socialist (or at least anti-capitalist), had become, in Harding's words, 'the inconvenient hero.' May we remember who he really was. That King has almost vanished from our popular media, white-washed culture and history. Were it not for folks like Vincent Harding, he might have. Copyright 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal