Lessons from the VIKINGS

Romans 7:8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead.

It is a testimony to the power of the law when you realize that our whole society is based around the Abrahamic law. Our judicial system comes from the law and is an enforcement of the Old testament law. As believers we can think we no longer live by the law but when we look objectively we can see that our church life reinforces the law and the law reinforces church life. Many Christians vote according to a law of morality and expect a blessing on society. The law we teach in church is the exact same law that is lived in our society.

I think most good church going people today would be proud of the fact they are law abiding and this rings true for their life with Christ as well. The law is probably one of the most powerful written expressions ever known to mankind.

It raises a few thoughts firstly with all the attack on the morality of our society humanistic mankind endeavors to change the law to suit the times. As Christians we of course do not want to see an erosion of morality but maybe , just maybe God is trying to show us something else. Maybe He is allowing such to reveal in us His ultimate plan

I think about the disciples of Christ and the similar situation they were in. Their whole society was based in the Abrahamic law and they were better at it than we currently are. They knew the law was powerful and being raised under such had a healthy respect for its power. What a totally understandable thing to get mad when Jesus turned up on the scene and what a windows into the disciples lives we see in the gospels. Firstly Jesus came and the bible says to fulfill the law. Yes while walking this earth Jesus respected the law but we can all agree he confronted the religious system that had sprung up around the legal system. Both are sisters are take care of each other. For the American society to think they can separate church and state is ludicrous and the height of ignorance. They are the same spirit  and one in the same.

So these disciples underwent massive change as they followed Christ and they were exceptional men hungry for God or they would never have stepped out as they did. Then as massive as the changes were in them Jesus then leaves and sends the comforter. The comforter or Holy Spirit was to decimate everything they ever knew and we can see a progressive enlightenment in the disciples lives as to what the Holy Spirit did. Peter and James struggled whereas Paul not having walked with Christ stepped in and laid down his legal background. Paul we read in Galatians spent 14 years being unwound from a religious law zealot to a Holy Spirit inspired man.

Philippians 4:10 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith

Yes if sin is apart or separated from or not connected to the law it is dead.

Let’s say it this way a bunch of lawless Vikings plunder and pillage as there is no law governing them. Take those Vikings and give them Pentecost and without anyone ever teaching them they will do as God wants. It will be who they are Romans 10:8  “The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If we teach those Vikings to be respectable we are attaching the law to sin again and as such empowering sin. The Vikings will now start accountability groups to help them stop pillaging and will meet Sundays at 10am to hear how they should stop pillaging. Occasionally every Monday morning they sneak out and pillage a village or two but  they are working on it and better than those who do it every day, RIGHT?

The Pentecost Vikings just lost all desire to pillage. They never even went to church Sunday morning as they seemed to have people turning up at the homes and in the parks and shops wanting to be with them. Their days were filled with celebrating the new freedom they have and for someone to say “thou shalt not pillage” is insulting as there is no longer anything in them that desires such. That pillaging life sees so far away one had to ask did we ever do that?

Of course the Viking village next door is in church Sunday mornings learning to be good Vikings and in due course they separate from the Pentecost Vikings who don’t go on Sundays. These Pentecost Vikings obviously have not learned the righteous ways that the Sunday Vikings have attained to. After all the Pentecost guys seem to be always in each other’s homes eating and singing and dancing. They even go to the shops and laugh and pray with strangers who seem to get glued to them. Is that not disgusting! The Sunday Vikings have been to the shops as well, handing out literature inviting people to their Sunday life of righteousness. Their leaders told them on Sunday that whenever they slip up and pillage the funds must be given to the church as its dirty money.

The Pentecost Vikings have all these changes going on, one of them picked up a bible and read it. Funny thing was it described them and all the changes that had occurred in them. WOW, it is as if they could have written the bible as it was a mirror of their lives and they never even knew it. What a celebration what a party to discover others lived the same and the more they celebrated the more they looked like each other. Of course they all looked and acted different but they started to move as one, they were aware of a Holy Spirit moving them as a mass. They called that mass a bride as it just seemed so romantic. Kind of weird for a pillaging Viking to be romantic all of a sudden but they just could not help it. Why they even seemed to care for their neighbors more than themselves. Not by conscious thought it just happened. Funny thing was other Vikings just started turning up from other villages. They had never met something just drew them and now they understood it was a Holy Spirit.

The Sunday Vikings unlike the Pentecost Vikings spent a lot of time reading the bible and learning how to be good. Yes it was a struggle but as they read about the disciples in the bible they were inspired and encouraged to find someone reached perfection. But boy was it hard praying and fighting to stop pillaging. So many Viking brothers left the village, some just went back to pillaging and others are now partying with the Pentecost guys. So they worked at unity and invited other similar villages to come together and pray and talk. Their leaders knew so much and they worked so hard to keep other Vikings who looked strange away.

The hardest thing was one Viking village seemed a counterfeit of the other. One had romance and love associated with a bride, the other had a labor of love and worked to try and unify with other villages they secretly thought were misguided and incomplete. One was romantic the other was more like a harlot. Working at love for wages, wages like blessings and good feelings. The exact same things the other Pentecost village seemed to attract but never focused on or worked for. Yes indeed they both spoke about this new Viking that entered their village right at the beginning. He looked like a Viking only he never seemed to have a dirty past. This guy called Himself Jesus and to one village all He bought more of was romance. The other village had this Jesus who looked the same but even the Viking villagers that still pillaged knew He was not like the other he was another Jesus, actually this other Jesus turns out was just another Viking pretending to be the Jesus of Pentecost Viking life.

Thus is the Vikings dilemma. Das ist us!

You get the idea!