Skullduggery
Fourteen years ago, I decided to write a weekly article for our bulletin. You are aware that in 2019, several of our families secretly conspired to compile these articles and publish them in a beautiful volume of over 700 pages. The book was a surprise gift and I placed it prominently among far lesser works on my bookshelf. This volume is the product of hours and weeks of labor which continues as you read this article. Discovering my subjects is often difficult and so it is today as I began the week with a migraine headache on Sunday night which still abides on Thursday afternoon. Concentration is difficult and keeping thoughts in order is challenging. This happened to me in 2020 while video recording a sermon during the church shutdown. To my dismay, I had my Bible upside down while trying to read which was more than a little confusing. I am sure you often think this must be my problem. Today, I see words backwards and cannot keep my hands in the proper position on the keyboard. All this makes for great difficulty completing this article. Ah, but I made the commitment, and I must.
As I thought about this, it drew me to the subject of last week’s sermon. I spoke and wrote on the valley of the dead dry bones in Ezekiel 37. I compared this to the spiritual condition of every sinner who without divine power has no ability to hear Christ, understand Him, and come to Him. He is no more capable than a body left to decay over many hot summer days in the blazing desert sun. All flesh has rotted from the bones. Wild animals scattered them, disjointing them without a complete skeleton found among them. The picture is stark and the comparison frightening.
With more thought, my current state of mind supplies another example of helplessness. I cannot think straight with this headache. Pain strains my cognitive abilities (more than usual). Like disjointed bones, I struggle to connect thoughts. This is also the condition in which Christ finds the sinner. Do you recall in your lifetime rationalized denial of incontrovertible facts as if centuries of human advancements have disappeared? Yesterday, my wife found a man in the women’s restroom at Kaiser—discovered by seeing feet turned the wrong way underneath the adjoining stall.
Is this normal? Well, yes, in a sense it is. It is normal for a reprobate mind. It is normal for skulls with brains dried up from roasting in the overglow of hell. Mutilating bodies, gender switching, pride in perversion, pedophiles cross-dressing for the entertainment of preschool children—it’s all normal for the crowd that will populate the underworld.
So, I sit, and I write, and I think my confusion from a headache is not normal for me. I cannot think very well because of a medical condition. I will get over this, or at least from experience I believe I will. However, I know from God’s word that these others who see the world opposite of the way God created it will never recover. They have never been right and never will be unless awakened spiritually and remade with fresh brains, with bones connected and flesh covering them and operational as they should be. For too long, the skull connection was at the wrong end of the body. This much I can clearly perceive.
Pastor V. Mark Smith