Last Sunday’s storm kept us from gathering, so this week we take up the readings assigned for Epiphany 3.
America is drowning in moral chaos—cities gripped by rebellion, families shattered by lawless ideologies, and the Church too often silent as darkness spreads unchecked. But what if the same light that first broke through Galilee’s ancient gloom is the only power that can restore God’s righteous order today? This sermon pulls no punches: moral softness is crippling the Church and nation alike, yet the cross has real power to heal weakness, boldly rebuke sin, and renew our covenant from the ground up. Listen or read “Restoring God’s Moral Order: From Galilee’s Darkness to Minneapolis’s Rebellion” and discover why repentance isn’t optional—it’s the urgent path forward.
Epiphany 3
Psalm 27:1, 5-13; Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23
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I.
If ever there was doubt that our nation needs restoration, that we have broken our covenant with God, proof has been given in the streets of our cities, during the unrest of the past few weeks.
The breaking of a covenant is itself an act of rebellion. It makes us rebels.
Therefore, one of the consequences of covenant-breaking is endless revolution, which we see for the second time this decade in Minneapolis.
Now, as I often preach, sin is its own punishment.
The punishment God metes out to a human race characterized by a rebellion against His law is that they must forever revolt.
They become revolting. This is one of the implications of the doctrine of human depravity.
If ever they wish to lay down their arms and sue for peace, they find it is not in their nature to do so.
They have abandoned the law of God which brings order and peace.
This morning’s reading from Isaiah 9 describes “the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations” as the “a land of deep darkness” and the people who lived there as a people “who walked in darkness.”
Why? Because they have abandoned their covenant with God.
Psalm 119:105 says, “Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path,” but that lamp was extinguished in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali.
The result was that there was chaos — moral darkness — in the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.
There is chaos and moral darkness in America in 2026. We are a latter-day Galilee of many nations.
In many places we walk in darkness. Our people rebel against lawful authority. Like all rebels, we raise our fist to God, shaking it defiantly in His face, and all but dare Him to smite us.
But God has another plan.
II.
Today’s readings from Isaiah are set in “Galilee of the nations,” an area to the north in the old northern kingdom of Israel. They speak of the promised “latter days” of these nations — days of covenant renewal and restoration — the coming of the kingdom of heaven.
It was in Zebulun and Naphtali, the land beyond the Jordan River, where the people of God first fell into darkness.
The Assyrian invaders came from the north to conquer and scatter Israel.
Yet Isaiah prophesies that the land where the lights first went out in Israel will now be the first to see the light of Christ’s redeeming face.
In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Jesus declares that Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled: “the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
As our Gospel lesson opens this morning, Jesus learns that John the Baptist has been arrested — an ominous turn of events.
You will recall that in His human nature, Jesus was prone to fear and anxiety, just as we are. His ministry was not easy, and His cousin’s arrest foreshadows His own.
In response, Jesus retreats further north into Galilee, to the land Isaiah foretold:
“Now when he heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew into Galilee; and leaving Nazareth he went and dwelt in Caper′na-um by the sea, in the territory of Zeb′ulun and Naph′tali, that what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled.”
Thus, Jesus begins His ministry.
Matthew goes on to tell us that here, in “Galilee of the Gentiles,” “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.”
The “great light” is Jesus.
The light is shining as Jesus calls these men to be His first disciples — apostles of the new and restored Israel.
The light is shining as Jesus goes “about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.”
Matthew begins chapter four of his Gospel with these words: “Now when he heard that John had been arrested.” John was arrested for preaching boldly. Specifically, he was arrested for applying God’s law about marriage to two specific people.
Those two people were Herod and his so-called wife, Herodias.
Matthew 14:3-4 tells us that “Herod had seized John and bound him and put him in prison, for the sake of Hero′di-as, his brother Philip’s wife; because John said to him, ‘It is not lawful for you to have her.’”
Herod had married his brother’s wife. According to the law of Moses, this was both adulterous and incestuous (Leviticus 18:16, 20:21).
John the preacher was not afraid to apply the law of God to the specific sins of specific people.
Since those people were public figures, the king and his wife, their sin was public, and John’s rebuke was public. This is why he was arrested.
The public rebuke of sin is the first step in the restoration of God’s moral order, the first step in covenant renewal.
That is why, historically, in many Protestant churches, the Ten Commandments were read before each Communion service, and they were often printed on large wooden tablets behind the pulpit.
That is why, to this day, our service begins with a public confession of sin.
In doing so, we bear witness as a congregation that the path — the only path — to restoration lies in the public rebuke, public confession, and public repentance of sin.
Jesus began the renewal of the covenant in Galilee, the place where the consequences of breaking it first fell upon Israel.
Later in Matthew’s gospel, He commissions His Church to continue His mission, the mission of restoring God’s moral order, to the ends of the earth.
Jesus gives this commission in the same place where He begins His ministry today, in Galilee.
III.
Now, let’s go back and look at something in Matthew 4:23 and ask why Matthew seems to repeat himself. The reason will shed some light on why the Church is struggling to fulfill this mission today.
Matthew writes, “And [Jesus] went about all Galilee… healing every disease and every infirmity among the people.” Why does he use two words that seem to mean the same thing, disease and infirmity?
The first word means grave and chronic disease, but the second word, translated as infirmity in the Revised Standard Version and as disease in the King James and many other translations, doesn’t do the Greek justice.
The root word in Greek (μαλακός) means softness, often referring to physical weakness, but it is not limited to that. It can mean moral weakness, moral softness, as well.
Paul uses the same word in 1 Corinthians 6:9, which the King James Bible translates as effeminate.
This is the primary sin of the Church today and of our culture at large. This is what is preventing covenant renewal and the restoration of God’s moral order: effeminacy, moral softness.
This is not a problem when women are feminine and men are masculine.
John the Baptist would not rebuke anyone for that. Feminine women and masculine men — this is how God’s moral order is meant to be.
John would, however, rebuke effeminate men and feminist women.
In healing His people of their moral softness, Jesus is restoring to men what their rebellion stole: their rightful place in the kingdom of heaven as elders of His Church and as rulers of His creation.
And with that restoration — I guarantee you — will come renewed respect from the women in their lives.
Matthew is describing exactly this, the restoration of manhood, in verses 4:18-22. He calls men to be His first disciples. Jesus will later accept women as disciples (but not as apostles) and women play key roles in the gospels, but Jesus’ restoration begins where the original creation began: with men.
Notice the authority with which He calls them. Notice the vigor with which they respond:
“As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon who is called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea; for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.’”
In other words, restorers of men.
Continuing at verse 20:
“Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zeb′edee and John his brother, in the boat with Zeb′edee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.”
These men immediately respond to Jesus’ kingly authority — which is to say the authority vested in Him as a man — when that authority is ordered according to God’s law and ministered as grace.
That is what is missing from today’s Church.
That is what is missing from today’s culture.
That is what is missing in Minneapolis.
IV.
Paul writes in this morning’s readings from 1 Corinthians 1:18, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”
It seems foolish to be a Christ-follower in our day and age. What I want you to understand is that it seemed just as foolish then. That is what Paul is saying.
That is why Paul emphasizes over and over again in his letters that with salvation comes power.
Later in 1 Corinthians 4:20 he writes, “For the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power,” and Jesus Himself promised the kingdom would come “with power” (Mark 9:1).
A Christian’s power always flows from the cross.
Make no mistake: the reason the cross is a power to be reckoned with is that even death cannot overcome it.
The Church needs to reclaim this power if she is going to fulfill the commission her Lord gives her. We have to apply the law of God to the situations in which we live and to the specific people we find in those situations.
John the Baptist applied God’s law to Herod and Herodias. He defended the sanctity of marriage, and went to jail for it.
This is why the word of the cross is folly. Follow Christ as John the Baptist did, or as any of the early saints and martyrs did, and you will be called a fool for throwing your life away.
Yet in every generation, the Church is called to restore God’s moral order. More often than not that means the Church herself needs to be restored.
Jesus says, “first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye” (Matthew 7:5).
St. Peter asks, “For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God?”
V.
That is the question — indeed it is the only question that matters in the end. This is the question we have to get right and that we have to help those who are perishing to get right: How will things end for you if you do not obey the gospel of God? There is only one answer. You will become an enemy of God. You will end up in hell.
I find it interesting that the public defense of the sanctity of marriage was the catalyst that launched Jesus’ public mission.
Elsewhere in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus makes it clear that part of healing “every infirmity among the people” — that is, of healing the moral softness of the people — is restoring marriage to its rightful place in the kingdom of heaven: “For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8, also Matthew 5).
It sounds foolish, in an age defined by humanism, to say that the sanctity of marriage should be restored in our laws, but these are exactly the same circumstances under which Christ began His ministry of moral restoration.
I am happy to say that Al Mohler, Katy Faust, and others launched an effort last week to do just that.
The Greater Than campaign seeks to overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell and to ensure that children once again have the legal right to — and that society expects them to be reared in — a two-parent home, consisting of a mother and a father.
Many will say this is a fool’s errand, that the matter has been decided, that the government should stay out of the bedroom.
But those who say this concede a very important point to the Enemy.
They are saying that the marriage bed — which St. Paul says must be held in honor by all (Hebrews 13:4) — is a lawless place, a place where God’s word has no reach.
This is an illustration of why the word of the cross is foolish to those who are perishing.
Fortunately, the cross also has the power to cure a fool’s hardness of heart.
I want to close by saying one more thing about what we’ve seen in Minneapolis these past few weeks.
It seems to me that the rioters share this in common: they are either soft men or hard women. That means they are stricken with the very same infirmity, the moral softness, Jesus came to heal.
But there is good news. The good news is they can be healed.
Our fellow Americans can be healed, and there would be no greater way to celebrate our nation’s 250th than with a national repentance and renewal of our covenant with God.
But they can only be healed if they face the truth. For that to happen, the Church must ask them the question: How will things end for you if you do not obey the gospel of God?
Obeying the gospel of God does not mean calling a riot a “mostly peaceful protest.”
Obeying the gospel of God does not mean you get to organize and interfere with law enforcement operations while saying you are a “legal bystander” or by using another euphemism.
Obeying the gospel of God does not mean you get to interrupt a church service and call it free speech, a protest, or journalism.
Obeying the gospel of God does not mean hiding the fact that anyone who crosses our borders illegally has broken the law. That makes him or her a criminal and subject to the consequences of breaking the law.
Let me end by saying something about the common leftist slogan that these are our “neighbors” and that the gospel commands us to love our neighbors.
Our laws either mean something or they don’t. The whole point of Jesus’ ministry is to show just that: that law matters.
It matters so much that it must be fulfilled. This is how the moral order is restored and the covenant renewed.
The covenant — even the new covenant — is, after all, a legal instrument, a peace treaty between God and former rebels, sinners who have been born again.
This means that law and gospel are not opposed. To restore the moral order is to shine the light of God’s grace on every atom of creation.
Crime is a tax on that creation. To show leniency to criminals is to subsidize the destruction of creation.
That is the very opposite of “love thy neighbor.”
Your neighbor is actually the one who is paying this tax on subsidized crime. If you want to love him, then punish the criminal who is robbing him.
When Jesus began to preach, he said, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
When you hear that the kingdom is at hand, it can only mean one thing: the king has returned.
This same king returned to the lands where moral darkness had first fallen, and there He began to restore the rule of heaven.
Two thousand years later, nothing has changed. If the Church is serious about her task, she will recommit herself to establishing God’s will in law, on earth as it is in heaven.
Preached on February 2, 2026, at the First Congregational Church, Woodbury, Connecticut (https://www.firstchurchwoodbury.org).
