This Monday is Memorial Day in the US. It is a day where soldiers who have died in service to their country are honoured. Those veterans who are still living, or who have died since serving, are also honoured.
The Sunday before Memorial Day is tomorrow. While I know the urge is there to make much of those who served, especially those who died doing so, I wish to remind my brethren who preach the Gospel that Sunday is the Lord’s day, a day for honouring Him. There are many pressures to remove the Gospel from our presence, and even good things, like remembering the valiant, is no replacement for the greatest Honour due the Lord. In Canada, on Remembrance Day (November 11th), the same tendency is present.
Whatever sermons you may preach tomorrow, ask yourself: 1) is it Gospel, or is it patriotism? 2) is God honoured, or man? Honouring human achievement, dedication, commitment and sacrifice can have a valid place, but never in the place of the living God who judges all nations.
1 Corinthians 9:16 (ESV): “. . . Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!”
2 Timothy 4:1–5 (ESV)
1 I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. 3 For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, 4 and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. 5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Followers of our LORD in Cuba are repressed and persceuted. The Church has been desimated in these last 50 years under the brutal castro communist regime. My mother suffered a repudiation act (in essence a trial meant to coherce and humiliate you) at her place of work for wearing a crucifix. They communist party head at the job site indicated the act of wearing a crucifix was anti-revolutionary and they tried to force her to remove it. She did not .This is just one example of how the castro regime operates againts Cristians at the lowest levels of government power. For many years students who were active in the Church were prohibited from attending college because they were deemed anti-revolutionary . This constant pressure on Cristians has led to a society with no moral direction and a lack of a structured belief system in our Lord. Many have turned to Santeria, and other African rite religions out of sheer ignorance since the regime in many ways promoted this transition to beliefs in Santeria as they have mined the religion with government informants .in effect officially sanctioned Santeria leaders work for the government and often agree with the dictatorship. It’s just another way to control and influence the population just like they do in China with their government run catholic church .May Jesus bless the Cuban people and we ask that he have mercy on them and liberate them from the communist dictatorship