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Grants Pass SDA Church

Christian Martin

A President, the Pope and a Lectern

So our hearts are prepared to hear a word from the Lord.

As we prepare to open our Bibles, let's pause and ask God to come and direct us.

Father in heaven, how thankful we are, Lord, to be living in days like these.

We ask that as we ponder your word and put our thoughts into what you inspired writers to write.

Lord, this is your time to speak to our hearts.

We're eager to hear a word from you and we thank you for answering this prayer in Jesus name, amen.

Thousands, hundreds of thousands of men, children flock around him.

Appears the cacophony of the crowd, crescendos.

People become frantic to get him to stop, hoisting children to be blessed.

People often respond to him with the intimacy that they would show to a beloved relative.

Men and women sometimes weep openly, overwhelmed by his presence.

Matthew Matthew records in chapter 4 of his gospel.

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel, healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

Verse 24, Then His fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments and those who were demon possessed.

Great multitudes followed him from Galilee, from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea and beyond the Jordan.

And in chapter 5, Matthew writes there that on the mountaintop, surrounded by hundreds of thousands of people, He spoke to the multitude and delivered what has become known as the Sermon on the Mount.

And it was delivered to give his hearers a proper understanding of his kingdom.

In 1 instance there in the Sermon on the Mount, he spoke these words, Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven.

But he who does the will of my Father in heaven." Verse 21 of chapter 7.

Jesus spoke words that describe the character of the people of the kingdom.

There, from beginning to end, He speaks about a people dedicated to the cause of God.

People who glorify God with their good works.

People who go the second mile and love their enemies.

He taught, no 1 can serve 2 masters, for either he will hate the 1 and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the 1 and despise the other.

And here in the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, you cannot serve 2 masters.

He doesn't even say it might be in your best interest not to.

Something that you're able to do or not able to do.

And he continued to speak boldly to the people saying, enter by the narrow gates.

He spoke to thousands of people in the outdoors.

Enter by the narrow gate, For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction.

Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way that leads to life.

If you were to summarize the Sermon on the Mount in a single sentence, it would probably be something like this.

How converted Christians who are bound for the kingdom of heaven ought to live.

That's what the Sermon on the Mount is all about.

And most certainly, most certainly, a new life that can only begin with the new birth.

You can't live like this without experiencing the new life.

Jesus spoke about it there when he met with Nicodemus during the night.

He told him, Moses, surely I say to you, unless 1 is born again, "'he cannot see the kingdom of God.'" And so then in Matthew 7, 28 and 29, Jesus concludes the Sermon on the Mount with these words.

He says, When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because at his teaching because he taught as 1 who had authority and not as their teachers of the law.

I take you now to another era, to another multitude, to another man, to another speech.

1 that was spoken nearly 2, 000 years later, yet with the same theme of dedication to a single cause.

A crowd of about 15 to 20, 000 gathered around the the speaker's platform at the small market town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, at the Gettysburg Cemetery Dedication.

He took a seat on the platform and he looked over the field, sight of 1 of the most bloodiest battles of the Civil War that had been fought just 4 months prior with 51, 000 dead in 3 days.

During this service, this ceremony, a prayer was offered, followed by music by the Marine Band and the ceremony's chief speaker, who spoke for 2 hours.

And after that long speech, there was more music, and then he was given the hand signal to stand and speak.

And he arose, walked to the lectern, and addressed the crowd.

His name was Abraham Lincoln and he stood behind a simple walnut lectern and delivered what has become known as the Gettysburg Address.

The main orator of that ceremony, his name was Edward Everett, he wrote Lincoln the next day, and I quote, I should be glad if I could flatter myself that I came as near the central point of that occasion in 2 hours as you did in 2 minutes.

Lincoln's 272 words would go down by some as the greatest speech in American history.

4 score and 7 years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty.

And he ended with these words, that this nation under God should have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Allusions to a new birth as well as exploring dedication.

The word dedication is used 6 times in 10 sentences to describe the original dedication of the nation, the dedication of the dead, and the rededication of the living to the great task remaining before them.

He spoke to the multitude saying, Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure.

And so the appeal was to the hearts of a young nation.

He was saying, are we going to endure this?

As were the hearers of the Sermon on the Mount, the crowds were amazed at his words.

A historic moment in our country's history.

And that simple walnut lectern used on that historic day has not been lost or forgotten.

It's respectfully kept behind a glass display case by the League Union in Philadelphia, 141 miles from the ground where President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.

So it's gone on a journey of 141 miles in 152 years.

And so what does Abraham Lincoln's lectern has anything to do with this?

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A President, the Pope and a Lectern

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