Pastor Scott's Musings

 Sermon for Milledgeville & Whitestown UMC... Living With Justice ( Revelation 19:1-20:15 )   Justice is the establishment of right relationships The supreme court changed dramatically after the death of Justice Ginsberg. Some say it’s become Ruth-less.   I gave up my seat on the bus to a blind person. And I lost my job. I guess there’s no justice in this world for a kind-hearted bus driver.   Judgment and justice go hand in hand. Justice is the state of righteousness, behaving in the way acceptable to God. Justice is the establishment of right relationships. To judge is to select the right instead of the wrong. The Greeks thought of judgment as separation. Jesus taught his parable of the sheep and the goats.   “When the Son of Man comes in his glory and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  32  All the nations will be assembled before him, and he will separate people one from another like a...

 Sermon for Milledgeville & Whitestown UMC Living With Idols ( Revelation 17:1-18:24 )   Billy Idol’s wife gets very upset when he’s behind on yardwork. In the midnight hour, she yells: mow! mow! mow!   Why did the little cloud idolize the big cloud? Because its the raining champion.   What exactly is an idol? Why is idolatry so offensive to God?   In the Bible an idol is a statute made of wood or stone, or gold or silver, which depicts a god or goddess. Many foreign gods were popular in the nations near Israel. Haddad was depicted as a Bull, a god of the Akkadians, Assyrians and Arameans. Baal was a Canaanite god also depicted as a bull. Dagon, worshipped by the Philistines, resembled a fish. Anubis, the Egyptian god of the underworld, had the head of a jackal. Diana was depicted as a woman with a crescent moon crown.   Israel was influenced by cultural and political forces that led them into the worship of pagan deities. Solom...