Pastor Don Wolan

Pastor Donald Wolan
Downriver Christian Community Church
Melvindale, Michigan

Saturday, June 9, 2012

School's Out



The arrival of June brings with it the usual summer traditions we've all grown to love and remember. The familiar sound of the ice cream truck making its way down the street, the sights and sounds of local parades and carnivals commemorating Memorial Day and the arrival of summer, the smell of neighborhood barbecues filling our noses with tempting and mouth-watering aromas, or the sounds of oldies being played are all wonderful memories most of us have with the arrival of summer.  One tradition that still brings excitement, joy, and a sense of new hope to young and old alike is the yearly celebration of students graduating from high school.




I recently attended a high school graduation in the area and immediately noticed a highly charged atmosphere preceding the graduation event. People were waiting outside the auditorium for the graduates to arrive for the program. Parents, grandparents, family, and friends were all on hand with cameras and video recorders for the culmination of their children's public high school education.

When the buses arrived transporting the students to the auditorium, a huge cheer went out as students exited the buses and made their way into the building. Shouts of congratulation rung out loud, long, and repeatedly as parents identified their children walking in the crowd with their caps and gowns on.

Inside the auditorium, the crowd was excited and waited patiently for the program to begin. The usual announcements and requests from school administrators went largely ignored: don't yell and make a scene when your child's name is announced, don't stand in the sight lines of those behind you who are trying to watch, please turn off your cell phones during the ceremony, and please don't talk when someone is speaking on the platform. So much for civility and consideration for others!

When the program began, we were all inundated with the usual trappings of high school graduations - The Star Spangled Banner, a short and condescending speech from the high school principal, and a couple of speeches from the salutatorian and the valedictorian. What intrigued me the most about the whole program, however, was the humanistic worldview and pride that permeated every speech or comment by faculty or student alike! Encouraging words and accolades such as - you must change the world and make it a better place, you have the power within you to accomplish anything you want, or your education has prepared you to face life and be successful, you're all so very special - were meant to motivate, but instead came across to me a shallow and cliquish, lacking any definite motivation, direction, or ultimate goal!

Questions regarding this flooded my brain and screamed out for answers that evening. How were they to change the world and for what purpose where they to do it? When would the goal of changing the world be reached, and how would they know it had been reached or that they were close? What is the motivation for changing the world or the plan for doing it? Why should we change the world? Do we know what's better for others than they do? Why are you all so special - what have you really accomplished?

As these students were being sent out into the "real" world, I questioned myself as to whether these students were "really prepared" to face life with tools adequate for the job of "living" their lives successfully. Were the redundant public school lessons on diversity, tolerance, bullying, democracy, praise for everything attempted, and non-judgmentalism going to produce better citizens and employees or were these students deprived of something that would have truly helped them circumvent the issues of life with total confidence?

The Bible states in the book of Proverbs 1:7:

The fear of the Lord is the BEGINNING of wisdom, fools despise wisdom and knowledge.

Colossians 2:2-4 adds:

My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I tell you this so that no one may deceive you by fine-sounding arguments.

Unfortunately for the graduates I witnessed that day, they were being led like unsuspecting sheep to the spiritual slaughter. Having been deprived of the only true source of knowledge and wisdom in the public school setting and having been repeatedly told that they are "now ready to face the real world," a dangerous world and its anti-Christian philosophies eagerly await and anticipate them. Armed with nothing more than pious sounding humanistic platitudes, these young people will likely easily succumb to and be destroyed by sophisticated sounding philosophies and ideologies hellbent on destroying their souls.

When these students ultimately come to the realization - if they do - that they missed or were deprived of the most important aspect of their education, they'll remember those who could have made a difference but didn't! When that day arrives, then school really wont be out, it will only have just begun!   

Stay Holy, My Friends!

 
Pastor Don


P.S. If you would like to hear an excellent graduation speech, watch this!



Monday, June 4, 2012

Yum Yum Eat Em Up!


Recently, the news has been ablaze with an incident that occurred in Florida - one that shocked and amazed the national psyche. I know that is difficult to believe after being bombarded by those watching or hearing about the Jersey Shore crazies or the dysfunctional Kardashian family on a continual basis!

The police, after receiving and responding to a bizarre emergency call, shot and killed a naked man who was eating the face off of another naked man - who was unconscious - out in public! Upon arrival, the police had quickly ordered the man to move away from the unconscious man, but their orders were ignored. Instead, the man looked at the police, gave them an animal grunt of some sort and continued to bite and tear at the face of the man on the ground! The police then shot and killed the sadistic and crazed man and attended to the man who was being eaten alive!

When the press got a hold of the story, the public's response was incredible outrage that anything like that could happen in a highly civilized country. The news reporters and their minions quickly tried to analyze the "root causes" that would lead someone to this type of behavior! Everything - and I do mean everything - was suggested as to being at the root of this tragic incident. Bullying, poverty, born of a broken family, being born under the wrong astronomical sign, and even former President George Bush were all identified as possible causes leading to this abnormal behavior. When it was discovered that the culprit was on an illegal hallucinogenic designer drug that caused his bizarre behavior, the legalize drug crowd went into raging fits that the criminalization of safer types of illegal drugs leads desperate people to take more dangerous drugs - which they would not ordinarily consume - because the "safer illegal drugs" carry reprehensible fines and jail time. And if that wasn't enough to jar your senses, People For the Legalization of Cannibalism screamed bloody murder (pun intended) that the police acted as agents for the "state" and violated the "civil rights" of two consenting adults engaged in expressing their "consuming love" for each other!


Timothy-The Buoys/Lyrics

Trapped in a mine that had caved in
And everyone knows the only ones left
Were Joe and me and Tim
When they broke through to pull us free
The only ones left to tell the tale
Were Joe and me

Timothy, Timothy, where on earth did you go?
Timothy, Timothy, God why don't I know?

Hungry as hell no food to eat
And Joe said that he would sell his soul
For just a piece of meat
Water enough to drink for two
And Joe said to me, "I'll have a swig
And then there's some for you."

Timothy, Timothy, Joe was looking at you
Timothy, Timothy, God what did we do?

I must have blacked out just around then
'Cause the very next thing that I could see
Was the light of the day again
My stomach was full as it could be
And nobody ever got around
To finding Timothy
Timothy...


While thinking about this unfortunate incident, I related this horrible story to what is happening to much of Christianity today. Like the assaulted unconscious man laying naked on the ground getting his face eaten off, so too is the "church" been assaulted and eaten alive by world philosophies bent on our destruction and consumption! Ideologies and false religious beliefs such a atheism, secular humanism, scientism, and Islam have long been under the influence of the most dangerous designer drug of all - human autonomy - and have no intention of submitting themselves to the one true God and His commands! This drug causes an individual or society to believe they are God and can do or legislate anything! People or societies on this drug behave like God by decreeing when a life is really a life, deciding for themselves who is worthy of personhood, determining themselves what constitutes a true marriage, or recognizing as legitimate sexual practices they find unoffensive. The list could go on, but I think you get my point. And like the drug-crazed man, these religions and philosophies will not stop their consumption of Christianity just because they meet with someone's personal objection. No, these ideas must be put down by the church possessing an internal fortitude and passion set on seeing the Great Commission fulfilled under the anointing of the Holy Spirit! Man's original temptation was that mankind could be as God knowing (decreeing) good and evil.

Genesis 3:4-5 states,

'You will not certainly die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.'

As Biblical demarcation lines of what constitutes good and evil are slowly erased, society will continue to act as God and impose its own set of ethics, morals, and beliefs on those of us under its diabolical influence. Like the unconscious man being eaten alive, we possess the reputation of being alive, but are half dead and eaten. May God grant the church knowledge, strength, courage, wisdom, and a fresh anointing of his power to rise from our helpless position and fight back the cannibalistic and ideological forces at work in the world today - which are set on our total destruction and consumption! And may we be like the Wild Man from Borneo when he sees candy in the Little Rascals episode and say to all these deadly enemies of Christianity - yum yum eat em up!

Stay Holy, My Friends!


Pastor Don