The “twists and turns” of the human condition, and the contradictions of history, become more understandable when we realize that human beings do not enter into this world inherently and entirely good (as the Pelagians taught), nor so corrupt that their natures can never be rectified (as some ancient gnostics taught), but as creatures originally made good and holy by God, who have fallen into sin, but who can be rescued from sin by divine grace. Since the eighteenth-century Enlightenment, a Pelagian mindset has led many secular thinkers and politicians to endorse a mistaken idea of ultimate human perfectibility. 

As a boy, I once encountered a book that had hidden messages on its pages. Using ordinary eyesight, the printed words remained invisible. But once I looked through the “decoder” spectacles, suddenly I could read the printed letters that were otherwise invisible. The Christian doctrine of original sin is like that. This teaching allows one to see aspects of human nature that might otherwise remain invisible. The doctrine itself stretches in two different directions—toward the distant realm of human origins, and toward the everyday world that we all presently inhabit. Reinhold Niebuhr once called the doctrine of original sin the “most empirical” of Christian beliefs, noting that the front page of every major newspaper in the world, daily confirms this doctrine. The notion of an inborn or innate inclination toward evil fits with general experience. Where, indeed, can one find a human community that does not exhibit the downward gravitational pull of selfishness, promise-breaking, deception, pride, greed, violence, and the whole sorry catalogue of human wrongdoing?  
In the early fifth century A.D., a theological debate pitted the North African theologian, Augustine, against the British monk, Pelagius—the first significant British author in world literature—and in so doing brought to light opposing perspectives that have, in one form or another, continued with us down to the present time. The “Augustinian” view of original sin holds that human beings, though created good by God, have nonetheless fallen into sin, have been enslaved by sin (Jn 8:34), and so manifest an inclination toward evildoing that remains deeply rooted in corrupted human nature (Mk 7:21-23). This view implies that a very young child does not have to be taught to be selfish, or to screech out “Mine!” when another child picks up a toy that he or she has been ignoring up to that moment. Instead, the child’s parents have to curb an inherent self-centeredness that begins to manifest itself as soon as the child begins to make moral decisions. In Augustine’s view, therefore, human effort alone is insufficient to overcome our innate inclination toward evil. God’s inwardly transforming grace is thus necessary for our salvation.  
In contrast to this, the “Pelagian” view of original sin—in effect a denial of the doctrine—is that each human being comes into the world without any wrongful inclination. Each child begins life in a state that is just as innocent as that of Adam and Eve before they ate from the forbidden tree. To the obvious question, as to why evildoing is so pervasive, the Pelagian answer is that people are influenced by bad examples all around them. Every infant starts out with an uncorrupted nature, argues the Pelagian, but then, on seeing evil behavior, begins to copy what they see others doing. This Pelagian view has commended itself to many modern thinkers, since it seems eminently fair and just to them that each person begins his or her life—like Adam—in a condition of total purity and innocence. If one accepts the Pelagian perspective, then one is not faced with the pesky question so often posed to those who hold the other view: Why would God allow those born into the world to begin their lives already inclined toward evil?The problem though is that Pelagianism does not tally with what we observe. If Pelagianism were true, then in principle—if one were to surround babies at birth by an ideal environment—one might raise morally perfect children, who would become morally perfect adults, constituting themselves as a morally perfect society. This has been attempted many times and yet has never succeeded.
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No matter the situation or context, no matter the “craziness” going on around us, the Christian is that person who sets themselves to still thinking about and focusing on the things of the Spirit. Are there distractions? Yes! There will always be distractions…perhaps it is our focus on God in the midst of distraction which is so necessary for our growth and faith and life. 

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.Romans 8:5-6
I first wrote these meditations in the early months of the COVID pandemic when everyone was isolated at home, and it struck me how much I and other brothers and sisters needed to meditate deeply upon God’s word. Essentially, I was attempting to help my church and anyone else who would read these do precisely what Paul says Christians do in Romans 8:5 – setting our minds on the things of the Spirit. Even now, this reminds me of a famous sermon C.S. Lewis preached in Oxford in 1939, right at the outset of WW2 and during the German blitzkrieg where German bombs were continually dropping on England day and night. Lewis, asking what should students do in the midst of such turmoil, when the world was seemingly coming to an end, answered thus:
“The peculiar difficulty imposed on you by the war is another matter, and of it I would again repeat what I have been saying in one form or another ever since I started—do not let your nerves and emotions lead you into thinking your predicament more abnormal than it really is. Perhaps it may be useful to mention the three mental exercises which may serve as defenses against the three enemies which war raises up against the scholar.
The first enemy is excitement—the tendency to think and feel about the war when we had intended to think about our work. The best defense is a recognition that in this, as in everything else, the war has not really raised up a new enemy but only aggravated an old one. There are always plenty of rivals to our work. We are always falling in love or quarrelling, looking for jobs or fearing to lose them, getting ill and recovering, following public affairs. If we let ourselves, we shall always be waiting for some distraction or other to end before we can really get down to our work. The only people who achieve much are those who want knowledge so badly that they seek it while the conditions are still unfavorable.
Favorable conditions never come. There are, of course, moments when the pressure of the excitement is so great that only superhuman self-control could resist it. They come both in war and peace. We must do the best we can.”
In essence, Lewis maintains that we should give our minds and effort to business as usual, as best we can. I think this is right in line with what Paul is getting at in Romans 8, verses 5-6. No matter the situation or context, no matter the “craziness” going on around us, the Christian is that person who sets themselves to still thinking about and focusing on the things of the Spirit. Are there distractions? Yes! There will always be distractions – some certainly greater than others. But perhaps it is our focus on God in the midst of distraction which is so necessary for our growth and faith and life. Isn’t this what Paul says in verse 6?
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It is not until we are humbled by the reality of what the Gospel teaches, that Christ has died for the ungodly, and we give up our feeble claims to might and self-identity that we can come and take on the yoke of Jesus our Lord. Yet, in some sense that only gets at the beginning of the solution. It is that need not only to know, but remember this in the use of the means of grace, our reliance upon the love of God for sinners, the gift of the Holy Spirit who as we read the word convicts us, opens our eyes, and gives us a power that is not own.

So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth.
— Revelation 3:16
The letter our Savior wrote to the people of Laodicea is probably the one that we know the best of the seven. The picture of Christ spewing out members of a local body is quite arresting, yet it’s why He does it which makes all the difference, and that will be the subject of our prayer and worship help today.
I said in the sermon Sunday that I’d much rather someone hate me than not recognize my existence. At least when someone frets about your existence they recognize that you matter to them, even if it is in a negative way. Apathy has a way of causing more trouble than disagreement. But what is it that causes that kind of thing, especially as is the case with the people of Laodicea, when it comes to the Lord of Glory Himself? It’s a question that may or may not hit too close to home, because it is a matter of a heart which is alive or at least thinks it is. Everything seems to be going well in their church. It’s a time of prosperity, as v. 17 says, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing . . .”.
A common sin that the prophets condemn Israel for is that in the times of plenty they forget and forsake the God who had not only enabled their blessing, but had chosen them out of all the nations of the world to represent His covenantal mercies.
At the end of the story of Gideon Judges 8:33-35 reports:
So it was, as soon as Gideon was dead, that the children of Israel again played the harlot with the Baals, and made Baal-Berith their god. Thus the children of Israel did not remember the Lord their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side; nor did they show kindness to the house of Jerubbaal (Gideon) in accordance with the good he had done for Israel.
Gideon of course had been selected by God to deliver His people from the scourge of the Midianites, and the Lord had sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to bring that message to the father of Gideon, Joash the Abiezrite. As He appeared (Judges 6:11) under the Terebrinth tree of Ophrah Gideon’s response to His presence is instructive. First, He doubts God’s goodness in allowing the evil that had come upon the Israelites, which to be sure is an inauspicious start. However, the Second Person of the Trinity is not undaunted in His encouragement of the future savior himself. As Christ witnesses in His forbearing grace to the questions that Gideon asks we see something of the nature of the mercy of God in the calling of His children.
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