I received an interesting piece of mail this summer.  It was a promotional piece from Promise Keepers alerting me to the fact that they are going to be having a motorcycle rally in Milwaukee in September.  The Promise Keepers man-centered theology is bad enough, but the promotional poster I received was both humorous and nauseating at the same time.  The poster pictures a man with sunglasses sitting on a large motorcycle, presumably trying to look cool under the headline "PK Thunder."  My first reaction was, "This is just a cheap rip-off of Harley Davidson's Rolling Thunder."  But worst of all is the PK Thunder slogan.  It reads as follows: Promise Keepers unleashed–Releasing the raw power of your heart.

Gag.

Have they never read the Scriptures?  Do they not know what Jesus says about the human heart?  Here it is from Mark 7:21-23, "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, and evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within and defile a man."  Is this really the raw power they want to unleash?  I sure hope not.  But from the looks of the poster, I guess they have already unleashed a bit of foolishness, not to mention pride and blasphemy.

Much better is it for us to learn to pray with the Psalmist, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me."  Our heart doesn't need to be unleashed; it needs to be put to death and recreated in Christ, who alone is pure, who alone has the power to do what is truly good.  It's never about what we decide in our hearts to do but what God in His heart has decided to do for us.  It's not about our promise keeping but God's promise kept in Christ, who died to save us from the raw power of our sinful hearts and who rose again that we might live in Him and with Him forever.

So if you hear the sound of thunder around September 8th or 9th and there aren't any clouds in the sky, you'll know what it is.  It's the sound of aging baby boomers holding to the form of godliness but denying its power in Christ (2 Timothy 3:5).

 -Pastor Koch-