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The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

“Prepare the way of the LORD;
Make straight in the desert
A highway for our God.” (Isaiah 40:3)

Too often, we allow the “holiday season” overwhelm us. What starts out with happy anticipation of joyful gatherings and peaceful worship, instead ends up covered with anxious shopping and distracting office parties. This is not to say that gifts and office parties are bad, but our culture allows the evil spirits to push us into thinking more about the correct celebration of Christmans than about what is being celebrated.

I call this “Holiday Pandemonium,” the craziness that distracts us from what we really would rather be doing, enjoying friends and family and the peaceful holiness that surrounds us. “Pandemonium” has taken on the meaning of “wild, lawless confusion” but originally was the name John Milton used in Paradise Lost for the capital city of hell (from the Greek “Pan-” meaning “all” and the Latin “demonium” meaning “evil spirit”). Both of these senses are meant in “Holiday Pandemonium”.

How do we prepare ourselves for the Holiday Pandemonium so that we might avoid the chaos and anxiety as much as possible? The prophecy in Isaiah, repeated in the New Testament, tells us to prepare the way of the Lord, or more literally, to “sweep” the path of the Lord. We start the beginning work of repentance by reading the Word and thinking about our lives and what we really want. By doing the preparation work ahead of time, before the Pandemonium sets in, we allow the Lord ino our lives in ways that, though unseen, are powerful. It is like a baptism before the work of regeneration takes place.

To see that this is true, read Isaiah 40:1-8, John 1:19-27, and True Christian Religion 531, then listen to the full audio version of today’s sermon, and then try putting it into practice.

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From these considerations it is clearly manifest that so far as a man shuns evils, so far is he with the Lord and in the Lord; and so far as he is in the Lord, so far he does good, not from himself but from the Lord. Hence results this general law: SO FAR AS ANY ONE SHUNS EVILS, SO FAR HE DOES WHAT IS GOOD. (Doctrine of Life 21)

When we turn away from hell, which way are we facing?

We often think of the Ten Commandments as a list of “Thou Shalt Not”s—the Lord telling us, like parents tell their children, all the things they are not allowed to do. But as we have learned over the past weeks, the Ten Commandments are not about limiting our freedom or making us suffer. So why are they so negative?

The Doctrine of Life, which is drawn directly from the Ten Commandments, teaches that everyone in this world is suspended between heaven above and hell below. We are kept this way so we can freely choose which direction we want to turn. By birth we would naturally turn towards hell, but the Lord maintains our freedom and equilibrium and then educates us on how to turn towards heaven. We would assume that we would therefore be taught about how to do good. But in the 10 Commandments, we’re not taught how to do good, but how to not do evil. Why?

Good and evil are opposites and destroy each other when they meet. Since we are born with an inclination to evil, we cannot do good right away because the evil within us would destroy it. So our first job is to get rid of the evil. And as we shun those evils as sins, the Lord replaces them with good. We cannot do good without first shunning evil. The amazing result is turning toward heaven—not because we are choosing to tourn towards heaven, but because we are turning away from hell. If we choose to not look down at the ground, we can’t help but look at the sky. Obeying the Ten Commandments by shunning evils as sins against the Lord is the surest way to reach heaven.

To see that this is true, first read Doctrine of Life 53, Isaiah 1:10-20, and Doctrine of Life 18-21, then listen to the full audio version of this sermon, and, finally, try practicing it for a week.

This is the tenth and final sermon in our Journey series, celebrating the Ten Commandments.

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant nor his female slave, nor his ox nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” (Exodus 20:17)

The Lord is waiting for permission to replace your heart with a pure one. This is because right thinking and useful living cannot overcome selfishness and greed on their own. We are all born with sick hearts, and no amount of exercise will save us. Spiritually healthy living is important, but without a spiritual heart transplant, we’re still doomed.

We have already learned in the past eight weeks of studying the Commandments that there is not only natural murder, but spiritual, as well. We are to shun both. The problem is, spiritual murder actually feels good to us at times. How is this a spiritual form of coveting?

Consider how coveting—longing to possess something that belongs to someone else—is like stealing in one’s own heart. When we covet something, we haven’t actually stolen it, but there’s a part of us that wants to. This is how eventually all natural thefts, murders, false witnesses and acts of adultery come about. First comes the covetous desire, then comes the destructive act. So spiritual murder—attacking a person in your own heart—begins with the evil desire to do so.

Now here’s the frightening part of this teaching: satisfying our heart’s desires gives us pleasure. That means that there’s a dark part of us that feels good when we break a commandment, whether spiritually or naturally. The sin of adultery provides a powerful illustration of this.

Everyone knows that physically committing adultery involves physical pleasure. That’s a big part of the attraction of adultery.

So our will rules over our intellect. Our will is our spiritual heart, and just like a natural heart, we can’t directly control it. We can hold our breath but we can’t “hold our pulse” from beating. Only the Lord can help us. For Him to do this, though, we have to freely decide on our own that we want Him to. We do this by repenting—or turning away from—evil impulses as they come to us, by praying to Him to ask Him for a clean heart, and by shunning—literally “fleeing”—evil when it presents itself within us.

This is what the Lord meant when He said that, if our right eye or hand causes us to stumble, we should pluck it out and cut it off. He also said that it isn’t what goes into the mouth but what comes out from the heart that makes a person unclean, meaning that it isn’t our intellect that makes us evil, but our will. This is because love of self, along with its subordinate love of the world, warp our rational thinking, making whatever justifies our evil desires appear to be truth, and whatever satisfies them to feel good.

Our hearts are corrupted by selfishness and greed, and full of murder, adultery, theft and deceit. So go back to the beginning of the Commandments., acknowledge the false god is you, and pray to the Lord for a new heart, and over time He will miraculously transform your life.

To see that this is true, read Exodus 20:17, Luke 12:13-21, Mark 7:1-23, and True Christian Religion 325-328, then listen to the full audio of the sermon, and finally put it into practice for a week.

This is the second-to-last sermon in the Journey / Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments, preached at Pittsburgh New Church, this time addressing the ninth and tenth commandments. It is archived at TheoBlog.com, and also available through www.PittsburghNewChurch.org and www.NewChurch.org.

Pittsburgh New Church will celebrate and honor the participants from all over Pittsburgh who took part in a faith journey that began September 17^th, in the Point Breeze neighborhood of Pittsburgh. ‘The Journey Program’ concentrated on the validity and power of faith through common elements found in the Ten Commandments. At this event, people will witness how lives have changed since the start of that program. Their Journey started in September and is now approaching closure November 19^th. Everyone is welcome to attend this exciting and life-changing celebration, even if they did not participate from the beginning of the program.

Sixty-seven men and women in Pittsburgh joined over 1,000 people around the country working to strengthen their personal spiritual walks, build healthier relationships and ultimately lead more purposeful lives. This celebration is a culmination of a ten week program that re-examined the Ten Commandments, its relevancy for the 21^st century and how these Commandments show up in different faith traditions and in life. Participation in this program has been open to people of all faith walks.

People who participated in this program are saying it changed their lives. One participant new to the congregation happily described the impact one week as “earth shattering”. Another participant, Gillian, of Edgewood, PA, described how the program made her a better mother. Speaking about an incident in which one of her children knocked over a grocery cart, she said, “In the past, I wouldn’t have been able to let it go. I would have lectured on and on about it the whole way home. This time, though, because of the program, I was able to remain at peace. I handled it calmly and quickly, and then moved on with life. For me, that’s a huge deal.”

The Journey program educates and encourages individuals, couples and families to have healthier relationships, to resolve conflict, find greater personal fulfillment, and ultimately lead happier lives through applying a unique perspective on the Ten Commandments.

The Journey program is a great opportunity for personal growth and to build friendships and connections with people in Pittsburgh. This celebration is not just for participants at the Pittsburgh New Church, but also for affiliated congregations elsewhere in Pennsylvania (Sarver, Philadelphia, Ivyland) and across the country (Los Angeles, Cincinnati, Tucson and Phoenix) who joined in this effort.

The celebration on November 19^th marks the end of the program, but not the end of the journey for participants, says Assistant to the Pastor, Rev. Mac Frazier. “Spiritual journeys never really end, of course. I think we’ve all learned new ideas and practices that will continue to help us for the rest of our lives.” He also says that participants have formed new friendships through the Journey program. “That’s part of the strength of programs like this. If you couple powerful ideas with real-life skills, and do that in a loving community, then you end up not just with tools for life, but a support group that is always there to help you use them.”

“You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:16)

The commandment not to bear false witness is one that does not obscure its spiritual meanings too much; we easily leap from giving false testimony before a judge to lying in general, and from there to the spiritual meaning of this commandment: to not call the truth falsity, and to not call falsity truth. In the highest meaning, of course, it is a warning not to blaspheme against the Lord, for the Lord is Truth Itself.

The great sin described in Isaiah 28 is false witness. The source of this sin was drunkenness, that is, the purposeful confusion of the understanding part of the mind as to what is right or true and what is wrong or false. This “drunkenness” was not an accident, but was the result of people pridefully and selfishly searching for truth with their own reason alone, confirming their own ideas with a mixture of falsified truths from the Word and “proofs” from the natural world. The result of this “intoxication” is extreme uncleanliness, representing the possession of the mind by the evil spirits. Once this state sets in, the Word is no longer the source of truth, but an obstacle to be overcome in fulfilling one’s own selfish desires.

How could a person live this way and call it good? That is the greatest lie of all: that the hells are the source of happiness, safety, comfort, strength, and peace. The hells promise us “glorious beauty” and delicious fruit from verdant valleys, self-esteem, success, and power. But when judgment comes, that covenant is annulled and our relationship with the hells is revealed to be terrible and the real source of suffering.

How do we prevent this from happening to us? The short answer is to let your Yes be Yes and your No be No. Let truth be true and falsity be false. Acknowledge that the Lord is Truth itself and the source of what is right. The Lord simply says to us, “Give ear to My voice, Listen and hear my speech.” We are not the source of our understanding of the truths of the Lord’s Word; the Lord’s Word is the source of our understanding of everything else. We break this commandment when we turn away from the Word when seeking answers to life’s questions. Instead, we will listen to the teaching of the Lord.

To see that this is true, read Matthew 5:33-37, Isaiah 28, and True Christian Religion 324, then listen to the full audio of today’s sermon. This is the eighth sermon in our Rise Above It series on the Ten Commandments.