At the beginning of a New Year our thoughts naturally turn to the future. Except for a few politicians who try to paint an optimistic future, the fact is that our country has painted itself into a corner. They're using lots of green paint, but when it dries, it mysteriously turns bright red. There is an indebtedness that is beyond the average person to comprehend-trillions. A trillion is a million times a million. One trillion seconds on our clocks add up to 31,546 years!

So what is the real U.S. national debt and what is it made up of? Here's an illustration that puts it into perspective, showing the current rising debt of more than 12 trillion dollars plus the unfunded liabilities of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and retirement benefits for civilian and military personnel. This is the legacy we leave our children and grandchildren-a debt of $184,000 for every man, woman, and child in America or $483,000 for every household in the United States (from Big Red internet site).

If that isn't depressing enough, many of our families are suffering with job losses, pay reductions, rising prices, and mortgages way over the worth of their property. Much of it is out of our control. I know, that's a terribly gloomy picture for the future. This is what men in power do. After the period of the judges, God warned the Israelites about the mistake of wanting an earthly ruler. He defined all the sacrifices the people would have to make and added, "And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day" (1 Sam. 8:18). But Israel insisted, and God gave them a king. The rest is history, a sad and continuing history. This is not about politics. It is about the fallen and selfish nature of man himself.

Christians find themselves in the December dilemma -"how to celebrate Christmas." In the end, to try to ‘put Christ back into Christmas' is an ill-founded concept. To put the incarnation of the Son of God into what we commonly call Christmas, with all its parties, spending sprees, not to mention the legendary fella from the North Pole, dishonors Christ.

In our increasingly secular society, what was once called Christmas has been turned into a "Winter Festival" that combines Kwanza, Ramadan, and the Incarnation of Christ into a single package.

For 200 years after Christ's birth the church did not celebrate Christmas. But the Romans of that day had a huge late December celebration which they called "Saturnalia." It was a wild celebration filled with debauchery and excesses. It was a religious celebration directed to their god of agriculture.

To counteract this pagan custom the bishop of Rome, in the fourth century, officially set December 25 as the date to celebrate the birthday of Christ. It was to be different than the Roman celebration-a protest to replace Saturnalia. It was to be celebrated with deep spiritual joy. Did it work? Actually, what happened was that the heathen celebration invaded the Christian celebration. Secularism and superstition soon invaded the Christmas celebration. Saturn was replaced by Santa and all the trimmings. It has evolved to today's idea of Christmas where the truth of the incarnation of Jesus Christ hardly has a place at the inn. Some families are so involved in family gatherings and gift exchanges that they have no time to worship God to celebrate our Lord's birth.

In the morally and philosophically squishy world in which we live, it is hard to find good footing. We are always saddened, and frankly befuddled, when we see people who are overwhelmed with the pressures of life drop their heads and look at their own feet. We see this in individual lives and in the lives of whole Protestant denominations. When decisions are made just to please people, we call that liberalism. When we look to strength in numbers or our own personal abilities, we call that weakness and failure. When change means taking your eyes off of sound doctrine, we call that unorthodoxy. All will fail.

In the political arena, some people are apt to think that hope rests in change. In many cases, the church has adopted this same mantra-change will bring security. This is true only if that change is humble repentance, but it is false if change only means following another human solution. It is false if all we are looking for is the lowest common denominator that will please a majority. Real change comes by lifting our eyes to a higher power.

Many of the problems we face are just simply overwhelming for us. When we watch people in Haiti digging through fallen concrete with their bare hands to see if there are any survivors under the rubble, we are vividly reminded of the weakness of man and the power of God. How many seconds did it take to level a city of millions of people? Many people's lives are no different from the destruction in Haiti-they are overwhelmed by the scope of the problem in light of their own abilities. Human depravity digs deep holes. And unrepentant man keeps digging.

"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors"-is the fifth petition of the Lord's Prayer. This petition deals with both God's forgiveness for our sins and then it extends also to our forgiveness of those who sin against us.

Our catechism explains the petition this way: "Be pleased, for the sake of Christ's blood, not to impute to us miserable sinners our manifold transgressions, nor the evil which still always cleaves to us; as we also find this witness of Thy grace in us, that it is our full purpose heartily to forgive our neighbor." (HC Q126)

By way of introduction, it should be clear to us that the basis for all forgiveness is the sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. God will forgive us only if atonement has been made for our sins, and we must forgive others because we have this same grace of being forgiven in us. On the surface it might appear that we will be forgiven on the basis of our forgiveness of others who may sin against us. That would be a serious mistake, and would make God's forgiveness depend on our actions. That is backwards. God does not forgive us because we have forgiven others, but we forgive because we are forgiven by God (see Matt. 18:21-35).

It should also be noted that we can only forgive others or be forgiven by God as an answer to a petition. Luke 17:3-4 teaches us that "if he repents" we must forgive-even if it is 490 times in a day (cf. Matt. 18:21-22). We hear some people say that they have forgiven the 9-11 terrorists, when those terrorists and their ilk have not repented nor asked for forgiveness. But, many folks may think that this is the "Christian" thing to do. Wrong. God does not forgive the unrepentant and those who do not seek His mercy. We are not better than God. The "Christian" thing to do is to follow the pattern that God has established-those who repent and seek forgiveness are forgiven. The fact that we cannot forgive the unrepentant sinner does not mean that we have the right to hate them or seek revenge. Far from it. We should be praying that God will give them a repentant heart, and we should confront them so they know their sin and repent (Matt. 18:15-17).

I would like to outline ‘seven steps of repentance' which are based mostly on the teachings of Psalm 51, where David, having committed adultery and murder, now comes to God with a repentant heart. Every part of the subject of forgiveness is evidence of the grace of God working in the heart and life of the believer. I would like to summarize these steps below.

Know What Sin Is

God alone has the authority to define what a "sin" is. He does this in the Law which is found in His Word (Rom. 3:20; 7:7; HC Q3-4). To add to or subtract from the law is a sin in itself. Yet we are sometimes told that certain actions are sins which God Himself has not called a sin. Sometimes these man-made commandments are based on tradition and sometimes on superstition. Jesus confronts this pharisaical attitude in Matthew 15:9 and Paul addresses it in Titus 1:14. Real sin is a transgression of the law of God or a failure to fulfill it (James 4:17).

During the civil trial of Jesus, He testified, "For this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice" (Jn. 18:37). Pontius Pilate, who sat on the bench as judge, responded, "What is truth?" The sad commentary is that Pilate didn't wait for or expect an answer. He didn't want one. He asked that question rhetorically-that is, he was saying that there was no such thing as "truth." The question deserves an answer. How will you answer Pilate's question?

"Self-denial" is not the same as "denying yourself." The thinking within the church prior to the Reformation was that of self-denial-paying penance, doing works of contrition, prostrating yourself before a plaster statue, or retreating to monasteries and basically depending on your own good works or the works of really good "saints."

Faith, hope, and love are essentials of the Christian experience. While we will never experience the "loss" that the disciples felt after Jesus died, there are times in our lives when faith and hope become weak, even though we say that we love the Lord. "And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13).

As we observe the time that Christ was in the tomb following the crucifixion, we see these three essentials weakened in the lives of those who followed Jesus. Their faith and hope were badly shaken, but we could not say that they ceased to love their Lord. It is the resurrection of Jesus Christ that cements all these three together.

In this special issue of the Reformed Herald, we are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the birth of John Calvin (July 10, 1509). As Reformed people we are accustomed to calling ourselves "Calvinists." This is a term hated and mischaracterized by many who are given to the notion that we follow the teachings of a man. Nothing is farther from the truth, and nothing was more repugnant to Calvin. Calvin simply expounded and systematized the teachings of the Bible for our benefit.

But, just what do we mean by saying we are Calvinists? What are the contributions of Calvin that we are indebted to? Because of the broad range of teachings that Calvin left us, it is conceivable that we could have a whole list of contributions that we might say define "Calvinism." Some of these would be the sovereignty of God, Christology, salvation by grace, works by grace, preaching, church government, worship, the sacraments, the covenant, and God's rule over all of life. For many, the word "Calvinism" immediately conjures up words like "predestination" or "election." Some, through embarrassment, have abandoned these teachings altogether. While Calvin saw that the Bible taught these doctrines, they were only a part of a much bigger picture.

For me, "Calvinism" is all of the above, but what strikes me as most helpful and as the greatest contribution of his teachings is the very first sentence of Calvin's Institutes. That simple yet profound sentence set the stage for the rest of the Institutes. It reads, "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves." In the end, all of the teachings of Calvin and of the Reformed creeds flow out of that fundamental statement in one way or another.

I like fudge. But not in theology.

I recently read a finding from the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion and Public Law which said that about half of U.S. adults switched their religious affiliations at least once during their lifetime. The fastest growing group are those who describe themselves as "unaffiliated." Most of these said they gradually drifted from religion. Another survey, released in 2008, reported that 44 percent of U.S. adults no longer are with the religion in which they were raised. Christianity is being defined by self-gratification.

All violations of the Law of God are "hate crimes." Sins certainly are not an act of love to God or our neighbor. Hate crimes legislation was passed by our government in 1969 to address racial crimes. In late April 2009, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the "Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act" which expanded the definition of "hate crimes" to include crimes based on sexual orientation, gender, or disability. The Senate is considering a similar bill-the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act (named after a gay man who was murdered in the course of a robbery in Wyoming). Our President has indicated that he will sign such legislation into law.

It is obvious that the purpose of this bill is to protect the practice of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. We already have laws that address race-related crimes, homophobia, etc., but now it is the thought and intent of the perpetrator which will have to be judged. The courts will be called on to judge the thoughts and the motives of man.

Whether the church will be silenced about preaching against the sin of homosexuality remains to be seen. For now, our federal legislators are saying that this new law only involves hateful physical violence but not speech. However, the foot will be in the door. Our courts have a way of reinterpreting the intentions of the law. If someone can say that they committed a crime because they heard of a specific sin (such as abortion or homosexuality) being condemned by the Bible as a grievous sin, it will not be too long before someone will be knocking on the door of the church to see that such "hate speech" is stopped. If the church does advocate any form of violence against those who commit such sins, then they should be liable for prosecution.

We are living in a fast-changing world where even some of the Bible itself is deemed "hate" literature. In the New Testament, any statement that Jesus was Christ, or that Jesus arose from the dead, or that there is no salvation outside of Jesus, was deemed hateful and worthy of death. The martyrs of the church were not imprisoned or put to death for any violent crime-but just for hate speech. Jesus was condemned by men for what He said, not for what He did.

For the unregenerate person, God's Word is hateful because it does not allow him the freedom to do as he pleases or continue in his sin. But the unbeliever does not consider it a "hate crime" to hate God. God disagrees (cf. "visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me"). If God condemns certain sins, the unregenerate mind interprets this as hateful toward them. But, the church is required to declare the Word of God.

The liberal church has been afraid to address sin as sin, out of ‘love.' Psalm 81:15 says, "The haters of the LORD would pretend submission to Him, but their fate would endure forever." When sin is not exposed and repentance is not commanded, this is the ultimate "hate crime" (cf. Ezek. 33:6-8; Ps. 139:21-22). It is hateful to God not to declare His righteous will, and it is hateful to the sinner if he is never called to turn from his sin to Jesus Christ. It is often said that "God hates the sin, but loves sinner." While this sounds pleasant enough and provides a false reason to ignore church discipline, it is not what God does. He punishes the unrepentant sinner because of his sin.

When sin is condemned for what it is from the pulpit, the world sees this as hateful, but it is, in fact, the most loving thing we can do for a fallen sinner. The Gospel is a message to sinners. If the Gospel is ever preached out of a hateful motive, then that is hypocrisy. But, if we are declaring what sin is and calling on the sinner to repent and believe in Jesus for forgiveness, what greater love could we show to anyone! What greater hatred can there be to men than to hide the Truth?! It is certainly not the calling of the church to try to overturn society's sins by violence, but to preach the whole counsel of God. To declare the truth is not a hate crime, but love divine.

In the end, God will perfectly judge the heart and the intents of the heart. Man cannot. In fact the Gospel exposes the darkness of the heart of man, but, "everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed" (Jn. 3:20). If there is any hatred associated with the Christian's life, it must be to "hate every false way" (Ps. 119:12). Proverbs 8:13 tells us, "the fear of the Lord is to hate evil."

How this "hate crime" legislation will affect the church and its ministry remains to be seen. One thing is certain. Peter and John taught us, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard" (Acts 4:19-20). We would do well to pray for boldness in proclaiming the Gospel, even as the disciples prayed, "Now, Lord, look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word" (4:20).