Pastor Hurst

DRIFT

Do you say “Toh-mah-toe” or “Toh-may-toe”? Ever wonder why we say things so differently with different meanings across different generations, geography, and sub-cultures? Have you ever wondered, as a child quoting a nursery rhyme why some of the words didn’t rhyme? Take Mother Goose’s Jack and Jill: Jack and Jill went up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after. “Water” and “after” in the stanza are supposed to rhyme. They don’t. But, originally, they did. Now, at least in most of the U.S., they don’t. Not at all. Then there are words like “word.” Here’s an example church folk will get. At least older ones: One of my favorite hymns as a child was “I Remember When My Burdens Rolled Away.” One line always bothered me: “When I sought the blessed Lord, And I took Him at His word…” “Lord” and “word” are supposed to rhyme. They didn’t. They don’t. When I was older, I tried to explain this lack of rhyming with that thing in poetry called half-rhyme. Recently, through reading a book a friend gave me, I discovered the real reason “water” and “after” and “Lord” and “word” don’t’ rhyme. And why you may say, “Toh-mah-toe.” Knowing the reason also made me feel less like a country bumpkin. I moved from the Southwest to the farthest Midwestern state. I’m phonetically challenged anyway, but folks had fun with how I pronounced words. Words like donkey. I didn’t pronounce it “dahn-key” but somewhere between “doin-key,” and “dohn-key.” Even my children guffawed when I would say, “Quit Peeenching (long e as in “peach) each other,” instead of “pinching” (short i, like in ick.). As a child, I used to think it humorous that my cousins in the far Northwest said, “whuht?” instead of whaht? Now I understand why. I know you’re dying to know the reason. It can be put in one word. Drift. When we hear “drift,” we normally think of an unanchored boat carried off by the tide or snow blowing across the road. But drift explains what is happening in the examples above. Words drift in meaning and pronunciation. One reason words drift is that vowels drift. We make vowel sounds at the top of our mouths. Some we make at the very front, just behind the teeth. Others we make further and further back towards the throat. I’m oversimplifying this, but let’s just take one word, bat. Some say, baat and some baht. Originally, it was pronounced like something closer to beat. But, the vowel in bat drifted over time. It drifted from beat to bit to bait to bet to bat. If you would say this sequence, you would find that the vowel sound is moving at the roof of your mouth from the front at the first instance to the back at the last. This explains so many things. Like why food, good, and flood, all have different pronunciations of “oo.” The same vowels drifted in different directions at different speeds. But, drift they did. Well, that was fun, but I’m really alarmed with a drift of another kind. As folks recognized how I said, “pinch” differently because of vowel drift, there is just as noticeable drift going on in Christianity. It is evident in individuals, families, churches, and movements. I may be wrong, but it seems that the recent COVID crisis has accelerated the drift. A drift from a personal relationship with God. A drift from church attendance and involvement. A drift from orthodox, Bible-grounded doctrine. A drift from essential tenets and practices of faith. A drift from reverent, God-focused worship. The way I say or used to say, “pinch” may be funny. But the drift that’s happening within American Christianity is not funny. Many Christians are sounding more like post-modernist relativists than Biblical Christians. Many churches have become entertainment venues, even inviting secular bands to perform in their services. Others seem to think that the Gospel is all about giving folks a good dose of self-esteem and helping them cause all their dreams to come true. Cardinal truths like Jesus’ being God and substitutionary atonement and Bible infallibility and authority are becoming a distant shore in the drifting tack of so many. The message of the Blood has become to many, antiquated, crude, and primitive. Slowly. Incrementally. Almost imperceptibly. Individuals are drifting. Families are drifting. Churches are drifting. Movements are drifting. With the currents of our times. With the social movements and fads of our age. With the political correctness. With the craze for entertainment. With the do-it-yourself, make-up-your own religion trend. With thinking they can be spiritual without cardinal beliefs or personal commitment to a community of believers. Not even bothering to look to the shore from which they’ve drifted, many are unaware they have or how far they have. Individuals have drifted miles from any passionate serving and worshiping Christ. Their attendance at worship is sporadic, hit and miss—if extant at all, dependent on their capricious inclinations. Whole congregations have drifted from truth and practice until they have drifted from even gathering at all. Their former church’s windows are boarded over and their doors locked. Just as the vowels in words drift both ways, so do people and churches and movements. Some drift from the Word of God, the genuine experience of grace, to libertinism. Some drift from the Word in the opposite direction into legalism, traditionalism. Either way, the drift is going to be disastrous. Folks are drifting with the seemingly pleasant, undiscerned currents of our times or with their myopic, provincial, legalism with no regard for the rapids and cataracts ahead. Drift is disastrous. For individual. For family. For church. For movement. In the end, it will not matter if I say peeench instead of pinch (the way I said it is actually closest to the original pronunciation). But it will matter if I quit believing, for instance, there is salvation in no other name but Jesus and start believing that each can discover his own path. Drift matters in my relationship with God. It’s not the drift in my mouth but the drift in my heart and mind and beliefs that matter most. Don’t drift from God no matter if you say peeeench or pinch, toh-mah-toe or toh-may-toe. --Pastor Clifford Hurst I’ve anchored in Jesus, the storms of life I’ll brave, I’ve anchored in Jesus, I fear no wind or wave; I’ve anchored in Jesus, for He hath pow’r to save, I’ve anchored to the Rock of Ages. --Lewis E. Jones

The Why? Will Turn To When?

Increasingly, I am convinced that nothing--no philosophy, no religion, no pursuit, no lifestyle, no possession--can give any hope in life and death but the message of true Christianity. In a sentence, I believe this because nothing else can give historical, objective reason to believe that there is something beyond this life. For all the protestations of those who have jettisoned God insisting they have found meaning in life without Him, the stark reality is that, if there is no God (the Biblical One) there is no life after death. And, if there is no life after death, there is no real life before it. There is no life in life. Often, I have voiced disdain and aversion to modern platitudes like, "Live for the moment." "It's about the journey, not the destination." "It is what it is." I get the kernel of truth in each of these: “Live for the moment.” If we try to live life with only a nostalgia gaze to the past or a wishful one to the future, we will live a miserable present. “It's about the journey, not the destination.” I get it. Analogously, if on a road trip all you focus on is arriving at your destination, you will miss so much and enjoy nothing of the trip. “It is what it is.” There are circumstances that we find ourselves in over which we seemingly have no control, that there is nothing we can do to change. We must simply accept and face them. But, with God and eternal life, God and heaven, these axioms do not describe all of life, but only a facet of it. There is something more than this moment. Beyond this moment. Beyond all our allotted moments. There is a destination to my journey, one past death and decay, time and age. Eternal life turns that journey cliché on its head. If there is something beyond life's journey, it's really not what the journey is like that matters. It's where the journey ends. It IS about getting there; or, at least, about where it is you arrive. And, it isn't what it is. It may be what it is right now. But it won't always be what it is. There is something after this life that, for the believer in Christ, will rectify, recompense, restore, the bad of life. In the past two years, I have faced both personally and pastorally the deaths of those close to me. I have encountered physical pain and sickness at levels I've never known. I have reached a milestone of age that demands contemplation of how few moments there are left, how little of the journey lies ahead, how soon it isn't going to be what it is. Intent aside, I am not remarkably altruistic. Yet, during folk's loss of loved ones in these last two years, particularly from COVID and cancer, I have felt so badly for them and their dealing with, in many cases, the cruel, untimely, loss of ones they loved best. They, good believers all, haven't asked it out loud. They have in most instances suppressed it. But there must be that persistent, dark question as constant white noise in the background of their minds, WHY? They may never articulate the WHY?, but I see that question behind the expressions of grief. I feel it in their ache of loss. WHY? Those with faith are not supposed to ask it. Or admit asking it. I mean, if we were going by Karma, these folks should not have died. They were among the best, let me say it, the goodest. Great people. Great faith. Why did they die? If this life is all there is, if there is no God, and, consequently, no eternal life, no heaven, then this question wins. WHY? will not let us live the moment. WHY? will not let us enjoy the journey. And WHY? is what it is and all there is; All we have is just a WHY?. But, wait! There is a God. There is eternal life. There is a heaven. I'm not saying these things answer the question WHY?. But, I am saying that when WHY? crashes your moment, you can know there is heaven after all your moments. When WHY? is a pothole on the road, a bridge out, a detour, a tree-down over the path of your journey, you can know that heaven is at the end of it. When the it it-is is only an ugly, harsh, cruel, black, and dark demanding WHY?, you can know it-is isn't always going to be what it is. One day, the “it” is going to be heaven. These musings have led me to a conclusion: Thinking of our loved ones who have passed on, with our faith solidly in God, however strong the grief, however loud the question, we can know this: There will come that moment when the Why? will turn to When? I will make it to heaven. I will see them again. The only question is When? Knowing there's a When, I can live the moment, face whatever it-is is, enjoy the journey however rough. I know there is going to be a When. When I get there. When I see them again. Yes, as believers, there is a moment in our grief, in our loss, when the WHY? will turn to “When?” The only question is When? --Pastor Clifford Hurst

BE SILLY

The urging of the title above is the opposite of the reprimand we have often heard, particularly, when we were children: “Don’t be silly!” Or, as often put, “Stop being silly!” That meant to stop being foolish. Stop being frivolous. Stop trying to be funny. Stop being ludicrous. Stop being absurd. Stop being incredulous. Stop acting like you don’t have any sense. Stop acting immaturely. All true. Silly is something we don’t want to be. Or maybe we do. Maybe we want to be silly. Silly hasn’t always meant what it does today. Silly wasn’t always a bad thing to be. It was once a good thing to be. And that’s how it became a bad thing to be—by being a good thing. Huh? How words change meaning has intrigued me, particularly since learning Biblical Greek and beginning serious Bible study, while at the same time being exposed to various local vernacular during ministry in different parts of our nation. Words evolved. Words travel. Silly has had an incredible journey to get where it is today. Silly put in its appearance in our language as Blessed. That’s right, Blessed, as in happy for one’s good fortune, having the pleasure of God’s favor. If one was silly, he was blessed, as in, “Gilbert had a bumper crop this harvest. He is so silly.” Silly as Blessed traveled through time until it became in the eyes of all who saw it, or rather spoke it, as meaning pitiful, feeble, weak, helpless. If one was silly, he was in awful shape as in “John (Gilbert’s great-great-great-grandson) has had a terrible harvest for the last three years. He is going bankrupt. He will lose the farm. He is so silly.” As Pitiful, Silly traipsed on through time until he arrived at our recent ancestors’ and our era. Somewhere along the way, Silly changed again. When he arrived, we met Silly as the twins Foolish and Frivolous. If one is silly, he is a thinks-he’s-funny, ignorant, bumbling, imbecile. If one is silly, he is foolish, as in, “Ed (John’s great-great-grandson) thinks he is going to save his farm in Minnesota by growing pineapples and oranges. He is so silly.” That’s how Silly changed in meaning from Blessed to Frivolous/Foolish as it made its journey through language over the centuries. But that doesn’t tell us how it changed. Knowing how Silly changed can be a real silliness. Or should I say a real blessing? So let me try to explain so you won’t think me silly. Or, maybe I want you to think me silly. It goes like this. Silly started out as Blessed. If one is blessed, he has received fortune and favor that has made him happy. To be silly was to be blessed. But who needs to be blessed more than the weak, the feeble, those living in unhappy squalor and lack, those in the most unfavorable of circumstances? None need blessed like those in this shape. Thus, Silly, Blessed, changed from meaning the good fortune that someone received to the condition he was in that caused him to need the good fortune. Silly, Blessed, became the word for those who needed blessed--the feeble, weak, etc. Silly had become Pitiful. However, since there is no worse feebleness than foolishness and no worse foolishness than being frivolous about one’s plight, Pitiful became Foolish. None is as silly as one in awful shape but is too foolish to see his awful condition but instead frivolously makes light of it. Silly indeed. Silly has become the twins Foolish and Frivolous. The context I’ve forgotten. But in a classic novel, an older man is talking to a young woman and says, “One of us has been very silly, and I have to say, ‘It’s not me.’” Well, I have to say, “It is me!” I have been silly. I’ve made some foolish mistakes and choices. I have been silly. I’ve been in awful shape. Messed up. Weak. Feeble. But Silly has traveled the opposite way. Silly was the brokenness, the feebleness, the weakness of my life but God saw it. He responded to it. He gave grace, strength, goodness, and mercy. My silly was the occasion for His blessing. Silly had again become Blessing. Think I’m all off about this? What of these testimonies from Scripture? “When I’m weak, then I am strong in the Lord.” “God had regard to my low estate and responded with favor.” “I had fear, and God gave me perfect love.” “I had sin abounding, and grace super abounded.” “I wore rags, God gave me a robe of righteousness.” This is no appeal for being silly. But the next time you hear, “Don’t be silly,” you might think, “But I want to be silly,” and, when you’re told—as someone may be telling me as he reads this--“Stop being silly,” you might respond, “I hope I never stop being silly.” Friend, be silly. Be blessed. --Pastor Clifford Hurst

SPIRALING UPWARD

Remember spiral notebooks? I don’t think I’ve used one in years. You? They used to be a huge part of my life during eighteen years of school and decades of study, meetings, and such. Well, I guess I can’t count the earliest elementary Big Chief years. I’m not sure what grade transition brought the spiral notebooks. All I know is that years ago, staring at the coiled spring binding my spiral notebook, I had an epiphany about history, life, and Bible prophecy. There is an axiom, “History repeats itself.” The validity of that statement was codified by Solomon three thousand years earlier. In his Ecclesiastes, he famously notes that “there is no new under thing the sun.” (Ecc 1:9). He declares this after having illustrated it with the endless cycle of one generation being replaced with a subsequent one, the sun’s daily rising and setting, the wind’s continual alternating blowing from one direction and then the opposite, and a water droplet’s cyclic journey from river to sea to sky to river and back to sea. Life is an endless cycle. Thus, history is an endless cycle. I agree, though my corroboration is not needed nor required to verify the popular adage and the Bible sage. History repeats itself. Life repeats itself. Each year, with each marker of seasons and annual events I find myself remarking, “Here we go again! We’ve just done this, celebrated this, seen this.” That history repeats itself has been in my thoughts a lot lately with the constant news of the recent massing of huge numbers of Russian troops on Ukraine’s border signaling Putin’s desired intention to invade. This impending threat is being met with our and other nations’ seeking to prevent him from doing so with placating diplomacy that is careful to avoid any mention of the use of force. When I first heard this news, as a reader of history, I immediately thought of the pre-WWII days when Germany began to mass its troops to invade Poland and the allied nations began to try to appease Hitler with placating diplomacy. I found myself saying, “Here we go again. History repeats itself.” It does. So does life. This is where the spiral notebook comes in. You may have done this. I did. If you were to begin at one end of the coil and begin to trace its first loop, your finger, obviously, would go in circles. If you kept tracing, your finger would go around and around and around. You would be repeating the same action—a circular one. Your finger, again and again, would trace the same path through space. It would keep ending in the same place it began. Wait. No, it wouldn’t. Though going in circles, your finger would NOT be ending in the same place. Yes, history repeats itself—but not like tracing the circumference of a ring, but like tracing a loop on the coil of a spiral notebook. If you trace the circumference of a ring, your finger truly does keep making cycles and ending up at the same place however many times you trace it. But, if you trace the loops of the coil of a spiral notebook, although you make circle after circle, cycle after cycle, your finger moves linearly through space. If you start at one end, after making each cycle, you end up 10 1/2” from where you started. With all the circular movement, your finger has moved linearly. You didn’t end up where you began. Such is true with history. For all history’s repeating itself, going in cycles, it is--from Judeo-Christian worldview--headed somewhere. For all of my life’s endless cycles, it is going somewhere. For all of God’s people’s constant, reoccurring trials, battles, we are headed somewhere. But this begs a question. If history, despite its repeating itself, is moving in a linear direction, who, what, is moving it? Who makes the repetitions like loops in the coil of the spiral? Or, whose finger is tracing the loops? Some say it is just the Darwinian force that moves history. Others, just time and chance. Others say it's greed, money. Others, the struggle between classes. Others, the evolution of thought, philosophy. Others, religion. Etc. We Christians believe it is God. God moves history. God is moving history to a determined end. God is in control. God is behind the scenes at work. He even breaks out from behind the scenes to intervene and involve Himself in history. As He did in the person of Jesus. As He does in miracles. God moves history, yet allows humans their free will which they often use in direct opposition to God. Yet, even their diametric choices God, in the larger scheme of things, moves towards the end He has purposed. God does not cause the evil, horrible things that result from human choice and action—like the holocaust. But God moves them in a direction of His perfect plan with a perfect ending. This reveals a conundrum: If God is in control of history, if God is moving history, why does it seem to be moving from bad to worse? Why does human existence seem rushing to cataclysmic destruction? Well, it is—and it isn’t. By any measure, by any honest observation, our world seems headed towards dreadful demolition by its own volition. There’s little cause to deny that. But despite that reality, it’s also true that God is moving this world towards a Kingdom of Peace, Righteousness, and Glory. He is moving this earth to a new one. He is moving man’s dystopic world to His utopian one. The same is true for each believer’s life. Whatever bad, hurtful, disappointing things occur in his cycles of life, God is moving that believer to a perfect outcome. Yes, despite its repeating itself, history--human history, my history, your history--is moving somewhere. Where to? Which direction? That depends on the status of one’s faith in God. One’s relationship with God determines which way along the coil one is moving. One’s faith in God determines one’s point of view. History is forever repeating itself. It is moving along the loops of the coil of the spiral notebook of reality. By all appearances, it appears that all is spiraling downward. Out of control. We know it’s not. It is spiraling upward. In God’s control. To a glorious future for those whose faith is in Him. --Pastor Clifford Hurst

IT’S FEAR

Although our government would like us to believe that it is science that is driving its COVID policies, mandates, and restrictions, it’s not. Although conspiracy theorists would like us to believe it is a malevolent elitist group of individuals, it’s really not—at least not ultimately. It’s something much more primordial. It’s fear. Fear of death. At the very beginning of the pandemic, the forecast of possible millions of deaths resulted in draconian measures though the number of infected was at that time minuscule. And, the forecasts have proved basically correct. Millions have died. Close to six million. That is tragic. As a pastor, I have experienced folk’s loss of loved ones from COVID close up. I’m convinced it is unthinkably heartlessness to respond to people’s loss with diatribes against government intrusion and railings about conspiracies how “they” have taken COVID, which is “no worse than the common flu,” and misinterpreted, abused, and twisted the data, to present COVID as an awful plague. Reality is people have died. From COVID. Whatever other underlying issues, the point is, had there not been COVID, most of these would not have died. Without considering their coming across as heartless and compassionless, many political conservatives have denied or ignored these deaths and with boastful bravado bellowed that they have no fear of death by the virus. On the other hand, media and governments and those of a liberal political persuasion have used COVID deaths to capitalize on, play to, kindle and feed the fire of the fear of death to their own selfish ends--to gain power and control. Whether denied or used to malignant ends, the fear of death is a reality. Fear of death is not silly, groundless; Death is real. Death is something fearful. Death is an enemy, a thief, a cheat. It is the fear of death that compels a person with an almost zero chance of dying from COVID to get a vaccination and then a booster, and then another booster, and then another. It is the fear of death that causes someone, the only occupant in the car, to drive down the highway fully masked. It is the fear of death that causes folks without symptoms to line up in the cold shoulder to shoulder for hours to acquire a test for COVID—not considering a high possibility of contracting the virus while standing in line for a test. These do not just have a fear of death, they are in bondage to the fear of death. If you are human, you cannot fault the folks described above. However one tries to suppress it, whatever bravado one exhibits in deny having it, whoever boasts he is above and beyond it, the truth is the fear of death is inherent to us. We fear death. Perhaps, some to a much lesser extent than others. But, even if it is a mere apprehension, that is still fear of death. If nothing else, we fear death because we fear the unknown. The only substantive, evidence-based reason for not fearing death is faith in Jesus Christ. But I am ahead of myself. The greatest pandemic girdling our globe is not the virus, but the fear of death. It’s got a stranglehold on our world. This begs the question. If humans have always had this fear of death—and they have, why is there such heightened, exaggerated, phobic fear of death sweeping our world with the advent of COVID? I believe we can attribute this heightened fear to Darwinism and the cosmological theories of the universe’s origin that it later birthed. Generations have been taught Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of life (Darwinism is actually about the survival of life, not the origin). The unrelenting constancy of this teaching has eroded the Christian worldview of western societies. The preponderance of the populace today, because of embracing a non-God origin of our universe, is now naturalists. That doesn’t mean they like to take walks in nature. It means they believe the physical universe of matter and energy is all there is. If this is all there is and a human is just a collection of minerals and chemicals, then when one dies, that’s it. He is no more. Obliterated. Annihilated. Erased. He ceases to be. For all the protestations of some that this conclusion does not bother them, facing annihilation can only exponentially accentuate the inherent fear of death. You may question my insistence that the fear of death is ubiquitously inherent. But the reality is there has always been both a fear of death and bondage to that fear; it is contemporarily increased—despite how scientific or technologically advanced humanity has become. The Bible confirms this fear of death with a wonderful, liberating truth: Jesus came for the expressed purpose of destroying the one who has the power of death and to deliver all those who for fear of death spend their lives in bondage. (Heb. 2:14, 15). And, Jesus did just that. He defeated this enemy called death. He took away death's power. He beat it. We no longer need to be bound, debilitated, tormented by this fear of death. We often fear death because we’ve never crossed the threshold into that unknown. Simply, we’ve not been there. But Jesus has. He died. He’s been there. And, He’s come back--after He defeated death. He’s come back and said, “There’s life beyond that door.” If there’s life beyond that door, there’s also a reunion of those who believe in Jesus. Those who have lost loved ones can know in Christ those loved ones yet live! They can know that one day they can join those loved ones when they too die. Joyous reunion. Elucidating what I just said, the Apostle Paul shouted out, “O Death, hey, you there, Death. Where is your sting? And by the way, O Grave, where is your victory?” That’s our response to the fear of death. And that’s not bellicose bellowing bravado. That’s the truth! --Pastor Clifford Hurst

IT’S TIME TO TURN THIS PLANE AROUND

It would have been an embarrassment with the mistake duplicated hundreds of thousands of times as it ubiquitously blanketed our state. If any state should have known what was correct, it was ours. Thankfully, somebody caught it but only after our governor had unveiled it: A new version of our state’s license plate had been designed, approved, and was about to be released. Thirty-five thousand had already been produced. Labeled, “Sunrise in Ohio,” it depicts a colorful landscape blend of urban and bucolic portraying what Ohio has to offer—major cities, multiple rivers, fertile fields, beautiful hills, and stately trees. A boy swinging on a tree swing with his dog standing nearby adds the element of prospect, promise, and peace—this is a place to raise a family. Every detail--coloration, imagery, placement of details, and readability of letters--had been fastidiously fussed over and approved. Still, something was drastically wrong. Heralding Ohio’s unique place in history, across the top of the scene, above a rising sun, is the Wright brothers’ Flyer I, pulling a banner reading “Birthplace of Aviation.” An emblem of our state’s shape and its name is centered on and superimposed over the banner. What was the mistake? The airplane was headed in the wrong direction. The banner was stretched out in the air from left to right. But the Wright’s plane, which is depicted towing it, has the banner attached to its front and is flying towards it. The mistake is easy to make. The first airplane had its wings towards the rear and what has the appearance of a tail on modern planes on its very front. Designers of the license plate, thus, positioned the plane headed in the wrong direction. Yes, it was a mistake easy to make, but Ohio shouldn’t have. Ohio should have known. Ohio is the birthplace of flight. North Carolina often gets and takes the credit. Its license plate, “First in Flight,” while technically accurate, is misleading. The Wright brothers designed and built the first airplane in their bicycle shop here in Dayton, OH. For its first flight, they only shipped it to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, because of the ideal, constant wind there was conducive for test flights. No, Ohio has a rightful claim for the first flight--had there been no Ohio, there’d been no North Carolina. Therefore, Ohio should have known better. Before reading the news article, something was nagging me about the license plate. I knew something was wrong. Suddenly, it hit me, the plane was headed in the wrong direction. How did I know? I have read quite a lot on the Wright brothers and the birth of flight. I’ve lived within a few miles of where the Wright brothers built that plane. Everywhere there are reminders of their invention. The National Museum of the US Airforce is located here. There and in other area museums I have often seen photos, later versions, or replicas of the first plane. Looking at these, one cannot but be impressed that the plane looks all backward front to back compared to a modern one. See, my knowing the plane was headed in the wrong direction came from being familiar with the history having read of the plane and seen the photos, actual later versions, and replicas of it. So much in America is headed in the wrong direction. So much in the home. So much in the church. So much in individuals’ lives. But too many folks are oblivious to it. How could they not see things are headed in the wrong direction? Why are Americans from the person on the street to the professor in the classroom to the legislator in Congress to the chief executive of our nation getting so many things so wrong? Why are they headed and heading things in the wrong direction? Why? They don’t know or ignore the history. Many leaders truly don’t know our country’s history. If they know any history about our country, it is a revisionist history, or, worse, a purposely contorted, narrative-driven spin on our history. If they knew the history, they’d head our country in a different direction. The same is true for the church. Too many of today’s church leaders and followers do not know the church’s history. And, I do not mean general church history through the centuries. I mean the history of its founding by Christ and the Apostles. I mean what is recounted in Scripture. No wonder churches are pointed in the wrong direction. Government, church, family, individuals, each of these are headed in the wrong direction because of not knowing the history. A government is headed towards socialism when history has shown it never works. Society is headed towards the demise of the nuclear family when history has shown this always destroys society. The church is heading towards pluralism-universalism, kingdom now-ism, social-issue orientation when history shows doing so has always led to its spiritual death. Individuals choose paths of greed, lust, selfishness, drugs, etc., when history is replete with anecdotal and aggregate data revealing the certain ruin and destruction from doing so. Worse than not knowing the history is knowing it but having the arrogance that “with me, things will be different.” I’m the anomaly. Socialism, although history shows it never has, would work if I and mine implemented it. The breakdown of the family has always led to the decay of society, but the society I conceive would be better if the family was replaced with government. Adultery, history has shown, has always been ruinous and destructive, but it will be different for me. So, what about our license plate? Our state officials once enlightened to the flying-in-the-wrong-direction plane simply shrugged their shoulders and said, “Oh, well. It looks right to us. The license plate looks really sharp. It would take too much time, money, and effort to change it,” and left it as it was. Of course, not. They fixed the mistake. They turned the plane around. Imagine, the Wright flyer left facing the wrong way. If in real-time, it would have overtaken the collapsing banner which wrapping itself around the plane would have become entangled in the plane’s engine, gears, and steering apparatus. It would have crashed! Heading in the wrong direction would have wrecked the plane. Whether your personal life or spiritual life, whether, church, home, or country, if headed in the wrong direction, there will be a crash. It’s time to turn this plane around. --Pastor Clifford Hurst