WEBVTT 00:00.700 --> 00:03.400 Grace, mercy and peace to you from God, our Father and from our Lord 00:03.400 --> 00:05.000 and Savior Jesus Christ. 00:05.300 --> 00:05.800 Amen. 00:07.200 --> 00:12.600 A few weeks ago, I fell down a Twitter Rabbit Hole. 00:13.100 --> 00:16.600 I was surfing around like I usually do in the morning while eating my 00:16.600 --> 00:19.200 breakfast catching up on the latest news. 00:19.200 --> 00:23.300 Looking at the crypto currency prices trying to find the latest hot 00:23.300 --> 00:28.200 take on things when a hashtag caught, my attention. 00:29.100 --> 00:32.299 Hashtag, Georgia, Guidestones. 00:33.100 --> 00:36.900 If you hadn't heard about these, I'm sorry to bring them to 00:37.000 --> 00:41.000 your attention because some of you are going to waste as much time as I 00:41.000 --> 00:45.400 did in a few moments looking them up on Wikipedia and such. 00:45.800 --> 00:49.800 If you're looking them up right now on your phone put it away. 00:50.200 --> 00:52.000 I'm going to tell you about them. 00:52.400 --> 00:57.600 You can look this up later. The Georgia Guidestones were a Monument 00:57.600 --> 01:06.500 built in 198o to serve as a compass, a calendar and a clock in the 01:07.000 --> 01:12.900 off chance that humanity ever suffered a severe nuclear attack. The 01:12.900 --> 01:18.400 Guidestones were sometimes referred to as American Stonehenge, because 01:18.400 --> 01:22.800 their granite slabs stood upright and where as massive as their 01:22.800 --> 01:27.600 English namesake. In eight languages carved on the slabs, including 01:27.900 --> 01:32.400 Biblical Hebrew there, were instructions to mankind for how to live 01:32.400 --> 01:34.900 after a nuclear holocaust. 01:35.600 --> 01:39.600 These were some of the instructions. Keep the population, under 01:39.600 --> 01:45.600 500,000. Guide reproduction. Unite humanity in a common language. 01:45.900 --> 01:50.300 Rule, passion, faith and tradition with reason. 01:51.000 --> 01:56.000 Keep a World Court. Be environmentally conscious. 01:56.700 --> 02:02.100 The monument had evidently become a favorite for conspiracy theories 02:02.100 --> 02:02.800 from the far 02:02.800 --> 02:05.300 right, supposing that the global world 02:05.600 --> 02:11.200 or the Illuminati or the Freemasons, or Nancy Pelosi had somehow 02:11.300 --> 02:16.800 established, their guidelines has a playbook, and mounted mounted them 02:16.800 --> 02:19.800 in Georgia. On July 6th 02:19.800 --> 02:21.500 the Guide Stones were themselves 02:21.500 --> 02:26.200 bombed, leading some of the stones to fall over. 02:26.500 --> 02:31.700 And later that day, they were all completely removed so much for their 02:31.700 --> 02:34.700 ability to withstand a nuclear holocaust. 02:36.600 --> 02:41.800 Why do human beings create secretive monuments like this? 02:42.100 --> 02:44.800 And then create conspiracy theories 02:44.800 --> 02:45.900 surrounding them? 02:46.100 --> 02:48.600 Why are 21st century people 02:48.800 --> 02:53.300 so enamored with conspiracy theories that they waste their time going 02:53.300 --> 02:54.900 down, Twitter rabbit 02:54.900 --> 02:59.900 trails? More importantly, what are Christians in particular 03:00.100 --> 03:06.400 called to do in the face of coming disaster and conspiracy theories 03:06.400 --> 03:08.300 that come with such rumors. 03:08.900 --> 03:12.200 These are some of the questions that I want to explore in today's 03:12.200 --> 03:14.700 sermon. In our text 03:14.700 --> 03:19.800 this morning, we have all the makings for a modern-day conspiracy 03:19.800 --> 03:25.000 theory. By the 30s AD when the events of our reading this morning we're 03:25.000 --> 03:29.300 taking place there had been rumors and rumblings of famine for 03:29.300 --> 03:29.900 decades 03:30.000 --> 03:35.700 across the Roman Empire. In 32 AD in Rome soaring inflation and 03:35.700 --> 03:39.700 especially the surging price of grain led to rioting and 03:39.700 --> 03:41.900 demonstrations in the theaters. 03:42.600 --> 03:47.200 When one crowd became so desperate for food that they began to eat 03:47.200 --> 03:53.400 weeds, they eventually found the regional Governor, lit a fire to burn 03:53.400 --> 03:59.800 him at the stake. When they captured him, they asked him about 04:00.000 --> 04:03.300 these surging prices and this famine and he blamed 04:03.400 --> 04:08.000 other Imperial officials for the local of famine. Explaining that those 04:08.000 --> 04:12.500 other officials had hidden the grain and we're distributing it to 04:12.500 --> 04:14.300 other parts of the Empire. 04:15.100 --> 04:20.399 Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me. With that the crowd went and 04:20.399 --> 04:25.700 burned down the homes of those other local administrators. In our 04:25.700 --> 04:26.800 reading this morning 04:27.600 --> 04:34.100 a man named Agabus comes on the scene. Ever heard of Agabus? 04:35.200 --> 04:41.100 Probably not, he's not nearly as well known as James the elder or 04:41.100 --> 04:47.000 James the Greater the Apostle, the son of Zebedee, the brother of 04:47.000 --> 04:53.400 John whom we commemorate today. Agabus shows up as this enigmatic 04:53.400 --> 04:59.800 figure in Acts 11 and he prophesies of a coming famine. 05:00.300 --> 05:04.700 The only other thing we know about this Agabus guy is that he shows up 05:04.700 --> 05:04.900 again 05:05.000 --> 05:11.200 in Acts 21 when he again prophesize that the Apostle Paul would be 05:11.200 --> 05:16.700 bound in Jerusalem and handed over to the Gentiles. For these two 05:16.700 --> 05:22.100 important prophecies Agabus receives, no fanfare, whatsoever. Of 05:22.100 --> 05:26.000 course, medieval tradition tried to fill in his story, in a bunch of 05:26.000 --> 05:30.700 speculative ways but the biblical witness is relatively quiet about 05:30.700 --> 05:31.400 this prophet. 05:31.400 --> 05:34.800 And I think for good reason. 05:34.900 --> 05:38.500 Instead of arguments leading Christians, down a Twitter Rabbit Trail and 05:38.500 --> 05:42.500 getting them all worked up about conspiracy theories of how the Roman 05:42.500 --> 05:45.400 Empire or some other unknown Illuminati 05:45.700 --> 05:51.300 we're out to get them. The earliest Christians had an entirely 05:51.300 --> 05:56.800 different reaction to Agabus has news of a coming famine. 05:58.500 --> 05:59.800 So conspiracy theories, why 06:00.000 --> 06:01.300 are they so popular? 06:01.500 --> 06:05.700 Everyone likes a good, whodunit right? A mystery that needs to be 06:05.700 --> 06:13.500 solved when the QAnon devotees were out to figure out what was 06:13.500 --> 06:14.400 going on. 06:14.900 --> 06:20.100 They weren't just out to crack some harmless code, it wasn't mere 06:20.100 --> 06:21.200 curiosity. 06:21.800 --> 06:25.500 Some were willing to break into the US Capitol building and bludgeoned 06:25.500 --> 06:27.100 police officers to death. 06:27.800 --> 06:33.200 I'm fairly confident that none of you participated in the January 6th 06:33.200 --> 06:37.600 events but we harbor our own conspiracy theories 06:37.600 --> 06:38.300 don't we? 06:39.300 --> 06:40.700 What's the latest angle on 06:40.700 --> 06:42.400 who's going to run for synodical 06:42.400 --> 06:44.900 president? Are their secret groups 06:44.900 --> 06:49.900 conspiring to win that office? Or let's take it to a personal level. 06:50.900 --> 06:54.200 You ever get the feeling that someone has it in for you. 06:54.800 --> 06:58.400 Maybe it's a prof who has given you not such a great grade. 06:58.500 --> 07:03.700 And you wonder if the profit if the Prof secretly harbors a grudge 07:03.700 --> 07:08.700 against you. Or maybe you think that your friend, or maybe even your 07:08.700 --> 07:13.200 spouse have been acting weird lately and that they're cheating on you 07:13.200 --> 07:16.500 with other friends or with someone else altogether. 07:18.400 --> 07:23.100 We love to speculate about conspiracy theories. 07:23.900 --> 07:28.000 One, interesting theory to explain the rise of these, modern 07:28.000 --> 07:29.200 conspiracy theories. 07:29.200 --> 07:33.700 Has been proposed by historian Niall Ferguson in one of my favorite 07:33.700 --> 07:35.900 books called "The Square and the Tower". 07:36.300 --> 07:42.200 He bases, these theories of conspiracy theories on the relationship of 07:42.200 --> 07:43.000 networks 07:43.000 --> 07:48.000 on the one hand, to traditional hierarchical power structures on the other. 07:48.900 --> 07:55.000 We all know that gangs, cartels, even special interest groups influence 07:55.000 --> 07:57.200 politics and institutions, right? 07:57.200 --> 08:01.300 And so Ferguson, argues that the popular conscience mistakenly, 08:01.300 --> 08:05.000 supposes that networks are to blame for everything. 08:06.100 --> 08:07.800 The covid-19 08:07.800 --> 08:11.000 pandemic must have been caused by some secret group, right? 08:11.300 --> 08:13.300 The push to vaccinate 08:13.300 --> 08:18.000 all people the list goes on and on. In modern secular 08:18.400 --> 08:22.800 times people don't look for the devil under every rock like they did 08:22.800 --> 08:23.800 in Luther's day. 08:24.500 --> 08:29.900 Instead, they look for secret networks of human beings who are out to 08:29.900 --> 08:32.000 get them and behind it all. 08:33.000 --> 08:39.000 Even deeper might be what Charles Taylor called, the buffered self. 08:39.900 --> 08:42.700 We have to maintain this self 08:42.700 --> 08:50.000 this identity at all costs, and so we choose to close ourselves off to 08:50.000 --> 08:52.300 everything mysterious. 08:53.300 --> 08:57.800 Everything that we can't understand everything that is outside 08:57.800 --> 08:59.800 our control. If we can just 09:00.000 --> 09:04.700 figure out who is the mastermind behind the latest threat. If we just 09:04.700 --> 09:09.500 watch enough Fox News or CNN or read enough Atlantic, or the 09:09.500 --> 09:14.300 Federalists then maybe we can figure out how all this suffering is 09:14.300 --> 09:18.300 going to come about and we can put an end all suffering. 09:20.200 --> 09:25.700 Ultimately though, I think modern conspiracies, conspiracy theories 09:25.700 --> 09:32.000 come down to this a desire to avoid suffering at all costs. 09:32.600 --> 09:37.200 Who wants to suffer needlessly? Who wants to suffer at all? 09:37.200 --> 09:41.400 Who wants to be poor or hungry or be on the losing side of an election 09:41.400 --> 09:45.700 or be lonely or have ones, heartbroken will do nearly everything to 09:45.700 --> 09:48.800 find out a way so that we don't have to suffer. 09:50.000 --> 09:53.400 But when the earliest Christians in Acts here from Agabus that they 09:53.400 --> 09:58.600 will suffer an upcoming pandemic or famine, sorry, they don't do 09:58.600 --> 10:04.700 everything they can to avoid suffering and I think that's because they 10:04.700 --> 10:06.000 knew the words of their Lord 10:06.000 --> 10:06.800 Jesus. 10:07.400 --> 10:09.100 Maybe they recall Jesus Sermon 10:09.100 --> 10:10.300 on the Mount. Blessed 10:10.300 --> 10:12.300 are you who are poor for yours 10:12.300 --> 10:14.000 is the kingdom of God. 10:14.200 --> 10:15.700 Blessed are you who hunger 10:15.700 --> 10:17.600 now for you will be satisfied. 10:18.100 --> 10:19.300 They likely remember 10:19.500 --> 10:22.900 that before Jesus own brutal suffering on the cross. 10:22.900 --> 10:27.200 Jesus himself had prophesied, there would be wars and rumors of 10:27.200 --> 10:33.700 wars, famines and earthquakes. Hearing Agabus prophecy and 10:33.700 --> 10:38.900 experiencing the famine itself must only have confirmed for them 10:39.200 --> 10:43.600 the precious words of their Lord Jesus. Shortly 10:43.600 --> 10:47.400 after the famine, when King Herod, put the Apostle James to death and 10:47.400 --> 10:48.000 imprisoned 10:48.000 --> 10:49.300 Peter, the 10:49.400 --> 10:52.400 disciples must have immediately recalled the argument that the, that the 10:52.400 --> 10:57.800 apostles had on the road to Jerusalem. John and James Zebedee 10:57.800 --> 11:03.900 remember they were arguing about who was the greatest disciple with 11:03.900 --> 11:10.200 the other disciples and they even had the audacity to ask Jesus, if 11:10.200 --> 11:14.600 they could sit on his right and on his left, when he came into his 11:14.600 --> 11:15.300 kingdom. 11:15.900 --> 11:19.300 Not knowing, of course, that this would involve a crown of 11:19.500 --> 11:25.300 thorn and a cross. Jesus prophesied, that John and James would indeed, 11:25.300 --> 11:29.700 drink the cup that Jesus would drink, which would eventually lead to 11:29.700 --> 11:34.500 their own deaths. Instead of speculating, who would be the greatest or 11:34.500 --> 11:35.100 discovering 11:35.100 --> 11:39.100 the latest conspiracy theory to prevent suffering or to get rich 11:39.100 --> 11:39.800 quick. 11:40.600 --> 11:45.900 Instead, Jesus embraced a life of suffering, a life of suffering for 11:45.900 --> 11:48.900 the sake of others, even for us. 11:49.400 --> 11:55.700 As Jesus said, the son of man did not come to be served, but to serve 11:56.200 --> 11:59.800 and to give his life as a ransom for many. 12:00.800 --> 12:01.400 Jesus 12:01.600 --> 12:07.000 entire life was one of pouring out his life for the sake of others. 12:07.700 --> 12:08.500 Even for you 12:08.500 --> 12:13.100 my dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ who have been marked with the 12:13.100 --> 12:15.800 sign of this cross of Jesus. 12:15.800 --> 12:19.700 Both upon your forehead and upon your heart. 12:20.200 --> 12:28.100 This cross marks your life, the cross of Jesus who died for you. 12:30.100 --> 12:34.100 So the earliest Christians didn't concoct conspiracy theories, when 12:34.100 --> 12:38.800 Agabus prophesied of a coming famine nor when one of their leaders, 12:38.800 --> 12:42.300 the Apostle James was brutally murdered because of his faith in the 12:42.300 --> 12:46.800 Lord Jesus instead, the Christians in Acts 11, 12:48.300 --> 12:52.200 fully embrace the fact that suffering was coming. And instead of 12:52.200 --> 12:55.600 looking for conspiracy theories, as a way to try to get out from under 12:55.600 --> 13:00.400 that suffering, they took Agabus prophecy that famine was coming 13:00.400 --> 13:05.700 so seriously, that they immediately began to think of their other 13:05.700 --> 13:07.100 brothers and sisters. 13:07.700 --> 13:13.200 What can we do for other people in the face of this coming famine? 13:15.200 --> 13:17.800 Did you notice that in the face of suffering when they heard that a 13:17.800 --> 13:23.100 storm was a coming with a word of famine, and the suffering certain 13:23.100 --> 13:25.000 suffering, and hunger coming their way. 13:25.200 --> 13:27.200 They thought of other people. 13:28.300 --> 13:33.500 As you hear of wars and rumors of wars conspiracy theories about who's 13:33.500 --> 13:37.700 going to win some election or if there's going to be some Civil War in 13:37.700 --> 13:41.100 America, if you learned that there was some massive conspiracy with 13:41.100 --> 13:45.700 vaccinations or even more, personally, if you suspect that someone has 13:45.700 --> 13:51.200 or is breaking your heart, instead of following the Rabbit Trail of 13:51.200 --> 13:55.800 social media posts and wasting all your time, like I did. 13:56.700 --> 14:02.300 Instead, think, on Jesus words, he is your Lord and your savior who 14:02.300 --> 14:04.400 orient's you in this life 14:04.400 --> 14:07.100 far better than any Guidestones ever 14:07.100 --> 14:15.300 could. He has told us ahead of times that will come times of suffering, 14:15.900 --> 14:17.300 but he has gone before us. 14:17.600 --> 14:19.000 He has suffered for us. 14:19.500 --> 14:24.900 And so, now suffers with us. And in times of suffering, he calls us all 14:24.900 --> 14:26.300 the more to 14:26.400 --> 14:30.800 sacrifice our own comfort for the sake of others, in the name of Jesus. 14:31.400 --> 14:31.900 Amen. 14:32.800 --> 14:33.400 We stand