Well, good evening, everybody. I'm so glad to be back again among friends and brothers in faith. I'm quite glad that I made it without any without having been given any other opportunity to do the sightseeing of the local police department of Fireville County from the inside, so to speak. Though the explanation for my mishappening some years ago is that I was driving a big van with a sign, Gators, on the plate at the back. And you are not supposed to drive that kind of plate through the territory of the Bulldogs of Georgia. So the crucial question I put myself anytime I come close to the final count is how did the Bulldogs play Gators last time? And they won. So I should be safe. We'll see. Now let me start. Well, let us focus on the gospel and its implications in our personal lives. Implications that should focus on the salt saltness and lightness of our lives so that we could bring the word in the gospel through all our callings into into the world. And let me start with a story. I was told that if I start with a story Americans appreciate stories, so I should be safe. So we will see. But it's going to be a rather serious story. I used to have a grandfather, a poor boy with a sewing machine and a creative talent who turned into a factory owner with many employees in the branches in various parts of Europe. a true master tailor with an academy of design, teaching other designers all over the country and elsewhere, since he was an inventor of a new system of design on which he published two highly technical textbooks. He loved his work, his business and family prospered, and people loved him. There just seemed to be a promising, peaceful, and happy future ahead of my grandfather and his family. But then, after several years, all of a sudden, the devilish National Socialist Adolf Hitler came, and immediately after him, even worse, the Communists, who confiscated all of his business, robbed him and all other hard-working people of their financial assets through the secretly planned overnight monetary reform, and put my grandfather into prison for being a member of an enemy bourgeois class. There he was dying of heavy beatings so that they released him to die at home after a long time of imprisonment. Yet the Lord saved him on the very deathbed through the medically learned hands of his own wife and mother-in-law. But the dream his great dream, his 40 years of painstaking endeavor and self-denying work vanished, and hard times befell upon the whole family, family at large. After another 40 years, the iron curtain fell, and my grandfather, 80 years of age now with a failing health and facing the saddening reality Just after the death of his beloved wife, without whom, it seemed to us, life lost all its meaning to him, he, to the absolute amazement of all family members, determinedly pronounced that he was starting his lost business again. His eyesight was growing worse at that time, but I had never seen such a vitality in man's eyes and such a vital mind, fresh as if of a young man with a breathtaking vision. However, the world had changed drastically in the meantime. There was no more Europe as he knew it. Instead, it turned into a paradise of the new European socialism with obstacles against free market, an enterprise of which he had never heard before. And thus he sat down under a tree in an Austrian park in Vienna with his two books on design under his elbow and hardly grasped for breath, being both physically and mentally exhausted. Six years later, awarded the honorary citizen of his town, he died within a second sitting over his sewing machine like he used to as a young boy. The Lord granted him the best passage one could wish for. Well, none of you can probably personally relate to the fate that in this or similar fashion afflicted many men like my grandfather at that time. And in a sense, the whole society and the continent as well But I suppose you can understand why I, personally, was so rebellious as a young man against the communist regime, bearing consequences for my stances, and why I was, as a young missionary, so zealously defending business, hard work, the capitalist work ethic, free market and free political system, creation, not to speak of being the first proponent of pro-life values in my country. Well, simply remembering the lost legacy of my grandfather and grandmother, as if I wanted to retaliate the devil for what he had done to my family and prevent this, by the apologetics of the gospel, from ever happening again. So far, so good. And the Lord has blessed the ministry in many respects so that I could personally influence not only businessmen, intellectuals, but government members. I could plan the church. I could serve as pastor and influence people from the Supreme Court, even the president himself. Yet one day I started to wonder in my apologetic enthusiasm that I might not be missing yet something quite essential and crucial about the ultimate meaning of human life, Christian religion, and Christian faith itself. The question was, how should I live the life worthy of the gospel? I seem to forget that my grandfather died as a happy man. with a very meaningfully fulfilled lifetime behind him, not as a bitter, frustrated and crushed human being as might be natural to our inborn sinfulness. Despite all the tragic loss in his life and work, he never considered his later life as less meaningful, let alone vain. He was the most optimistic member and humorous member of our family, giving encouragement to people all around, although he lost much more than most of them. Many men like him, who lost everything, died long before him or committed suicide, which was not unusual at those early times of communist liberation. But not so my grandfather. who used to say that he would have never accomplished what he had without Christ, working 20 hours a day, providing for his family and employees, writing his books during nights. As he used to say, he, the Christ, gave him the ideas, the strength, the vitality, and the vision. So, how do I interpret the fact that God took it all away from him and, unlike Job, he never returned it back to him again? How do I interpret the meaning of the Christian life and religion of my grandfather and of thousands upon thousands of Christians who suffered, were killed, lived in poverty, whose professional careers and businesses were thoroughly and completely frustrated, and yet, amongst all the excruciating distress, they lived personally profound, meaningful, and wise lives, despite the fact that truth, love, and justice didn't win, as they usually don't in this veil of tears. Are there two standards to judge upon what should constitute the earthly meaning of the Christian religion of the gospel of Christ, of the fulfilled Christian life worthy of the gospel. One saying that the increase of material wealth is a sign of divine favor, a visible stamp of God's approving attitude toward us, that success and prosperity are very important, if not being the very moral virtues worthy of praise, respect, and honor. That industrious life and hard work are most typically godly, and that there is a sacredness to them in terms of God's calling. That God rewards the just and righteous with success and well-being, with the honey and milk of old. Or, on the other hand, the other saying that honor given to prosperity and wealth, self-satisfaction, ambition, and self-confidence should be regarded as great dangers and serious temptations for the godly life, that one should look upon poverty with sympathy and certain benevolence, that strong attachment to earthly ties is a burden, that godly contemplation and repentant self-searching solitude are commendable and praiseworthy, that man's life upon the earth is going through the veil of tears, where just and righteous are not necessarily awarded nor justified, but where the just often suffer and weep of sorrow, that sinners and men in disrepute should be met with a certain heartfelt forgiveness, that one should not miss the inner appeal of Christian charity, which, being merely remedial in physical matters, begins by renunciation and looks to spiritual freedom and peace, that man should keep in mind, or at least never lose from his sight, the words of Ecclesiastes on the ultimate vanity of all human worldly endeavour, Well, we find both of these aspects clearly in the scriptures, often uttered by the Lord himself, which, in a sense, appears to us as a paradox. For there is indeed a marked difference in between the hectic, industrious life of a Christian businessman living in an anonymous megacity and, say, the contemplative lifestyle of a pensive Christian peasant in a detached, mountainous dwelling where everybody knows everybody. So what we need to be careful about in coming to a proper balance is a balance against prejudice, clear distinction against false contradictions, and a heed against the danger of misrepresentations. Poverty is no virtue, contrary to what some inhabitants of monasteries Welfare recipients and leftist human heritarians tend to suggest But nor is a device or necessarily a sort of dishonorable punishment for there are those Whose properties and great mental or material accomplishments were and are frustrated by totalitarian regimes socialist taxation or natural misfortunes or they're just those who want to live a A simple lifestyle, and these do not necessarily have to be some militant environmentalists covering their laziness with a green ideology. Hard work is praiseworthy and commendable. Yet, man doesn't live in order to work, but works in order to live a meaningful, full, and comprehensive Christian life. whose enjoyment is no less godly. To consider profitable enterprise and practical ambition as a sort of moral vocation may easily lead to the materialization of goodness, economization of all values and spiritual life, confusing matter with spirit, as the term make good in modern materialist connotation may already indicate. On the other hand, to consider wealth as an evil and entrepreneurs as little devils getting rich by making others poor is just a pathological delusion of all communists, egalitarians and the envious. The tragic irony that those who so ferociously despise wealth and the rich always belong to the greatest materialists only confirms the falseness of such a delusion. So our question is, how should we then live, as Francis Schaeffer once put it, how should we then live the life worthy of the gospel of Christ? Facing worldly temptations, Jesus firstly answered the devil that man does not live by bread alone. Therefore, what the Christian man should beware of is what we could call geocentrism or anthropocentrism. That is, making this world and man the center of all meaning. Projecting the meaning of life, the meaning of what some call human happiness, or just all the other basic values into this world, this brings an enormous thirst for social justice, earthly justice, which in turn is nothing else but an initially veiled and finally open demand for absolute equality, namely with God. No wonder most of the bloody revolutions and wars were led in the name of such a justice. This humanistic geocentrism has changed the very content of our culture, definitely in the Czech Republic. The happy end of cheap, popular novels and most Hollywoodian movies is nothing but the outcome of the supposition that the human drama finds its ultimate conclusion here on Earth. On the other hand, the more subtle atheists in our country with some life experience has a contempt for the happy end, but in substituting for it a stubborn, heroical pessimism, he comes pretty near to integral despair and nihilism, that is, the loss of all meaning. And we faced many of these in our ministry. To both, and to us Christians, the Lord says that mine is the justice, mine will be the judgment. So without the naivete of the pathetic secular happy ends, without the apathy of the desperate, faceless soul, the Christian is capable of rising up again and again, even against what seems to be humanly impossible, against what seems to be a lost cause. For his victory is in Christ, and death has no power over him. Previously, death was viewed as a gate of life, Another life, better life, life with Christ in the heavens, where the Lord wipes every tear of sorrow and suffering. But now, these days, with this truth lost to sight, life becomes a terrible load for the secularized world, breeding only thirst for the realization of all possible earthly utopias and paradises. No wonder the utopias became the opium of the people. In the more Christian past, a great stress was laid upon the reality of death and its just aspects. The most famous representation of this theme is probably Albrecht Durer's conception, the artist of Luther's Wittenberg, depicting death, carrying away beggar, merchant, burgher, emperor, and pope, simply all of us. From the little to the great. But in our humanistic civilization, it's indelicate to speak of death of a person, since death is for the atheist an irreparable catastrophe. Yet Christians of old, bygone times, like our Comanians, used to believe that the life of a wise man is a continuous reflecting upon death. that nothing discourages and diverts man from his sin so much as contemplating death. That if you want to live a modest, just, and godly life, always keep your end in sight. That a true Christian does not seek death, but nor does he fear it. Well, we could say in this respect that it is very difficult to fear death if one is very pious. if your faith is deep, from which follows that it is very difficult not to worship health if one fears death. Here, among others, you see a direct relation between the loss of Christian faith and social health care. One acts as he believes. Therefore, contemplation does not need to be viewed as idleness. and solitude as selfishness. For the Christian man needs to make a pause and, without any morbid inclinations, ponder even the question of death, looking at his present life from the perspective of his own deathbed. Life is then seen from quite a different angle. We need to be concerned with these things also, and no less importantly, because within the hopeful and courageous Christian look into the reality of death, life itself, the gospel special, receives a different meaning for the unbelieving world. Many issues which we consider crucial and primary may become trivial and secondary at best. On the contrary, those we tend to neglect may receive a primary significance in the fate of death. What seems to be worthy of consideration is the consequence of today's modern utopia, a determined belief in some sort of endless progress. This is a British pronunciation. Progress is, for the convinced materialists, a consoling utopia of madly increased comfort and technicism, providing all sorts of toys and gadgets without technology, mistaken for true science, which, unlike technology, does not confuse ends with the means, and always looks into the question of ultimate meaning, long-term consequences. So the Google Nexus I got from you is really a matter of science to me. This charming but dull vision holds always the pseudo-religious consolation of millions of ecstatic believers in the Rousseauian democracy and the relative perfection and wisdom of the common man. Utopias in general are surrogates for heaven. They give a meager solace to the individual that his sufferings and endeavors may enable future generations to enter the teleastic earthly paradise. Communism worked this way, but so does modern democratic materialism today in our country. So with this idea propagated en masse, an equal happiness for all, probably made in China, we might consider the possible future course of social, political, and economic events, lest we should be taken by surprise. Actually, with the wisdom of God in Christ's own words, we may be always ready and ahead of times. This modern tempo of false progress, death-stricken progress, cannot last forever. so that not only the qualitative life of the soul will have to suffer ever cheaper products of mind and matter, but the global demand for equal quantitative happiness disregarding all cultural differences will necessarily cause a heavy quantitative decline so that scarcities will appear. And with this economic, social, and political changes, no less than psychological, religious, and spiritual, nothing new under the sun. This is nothing new under the sun for the Christian. It will just depend who is spiritually better equipped for facing the changes of times, as always, who is well progressed in the knowledge of what is essential and truly meaningful in life, what is of lasting, ultimate value, what is worthy of the gospel of Christ which we share with others. For these people, like my grandfather, even the worst calamities and death itself are no fatal blows and might work even to the contrary. And even if this course of events might be rather a matter of the future beyond our own lifetimes, when things do and work as we would wish, It is still no less important to remember for our lives, now and here, what things should be first and what should fill our inner lives in the first place. Man does not live by bread alone, we heard from Jesus. Because we mourn and rejoice, we are being born, live and die, here and now. And this readiness If integrally constituting our whole being, this preserves peace in the soul, the Christian character, and helps us live a truly meaningful life of hope, faith, love, and courage, as becomes the gospel of Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen. Let us pray. Almighty God, Lord, of time and eternity, we come before you, our Father, with our sins, faults and weaknesses as your creation and as your children. Forgive us and build in us the unity and diversity of all our callings upon the highest common denominator of faith, knowledge, love and wisdom, with which we would be armed against the spirit of the modern times, and could serve you, your church, your gospel, and our neighbors in the capacity of the Daniels of old, for your glory and the kingdom of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, in whose name we thus humbly pray. Amen.