Double-Mindedness

By John Stallings

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. -- James 1:8

You probably remember the story. It happened just a few months ago. A man has perverted sex with a male prostitute while he uses illegal mind-altering drugs. The man is an ordained minister, the pastor of a church, and president of a national religious body as well as a spokesperson for a group who stands four-square against homosexuality.

This man lives one life with his wife & another with his gay partner. He preaches one standard to his congregation but lives by a standard that’s not what he preaches.

This man, who recently resigned in ignominious shame from all his posts, has problems on several levels. Not only does he have a mind-boggling sin problem, he’s a perfect poster-person for the double-mindedness Pastor James speaks of.

James says a double-minded person ----“must not expect to receive anything from God. -- James 1:6

A good definition of double-mindedness is….. “Thinking two ways at the same time.” Another word that has the same root is duplicity. A double-minded man is someone who is wavering or inconsistent. He is influenced by popular feeling & inclined to one opinion at one moment & a contrary one at another moment. He is irresolute, undetermined & distracted in all his ways. Spiritual double-mindedness is trying to hold on to a world-system & all that entails with one hand & God & His kingdom with the other. You could call it spiritual schizophrenia.

In the Greek, double-mindedness means, “two lives are being lived.” This man has chosen not to relinquish himself therefore God’s life is quenched & blocked from coming through. God may be trying to work with him but self-life is dominating him.

Double-mindedness is the devil’s game plan. He knows that double-mindedness will keep us…unstable in all our ways.

….Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against itself falleth. --- [Luke 11:17]

The opposite of double-mindedness is single-mindedness. Single-mindedness means---“there is only one life being lived here-God’s.”

Paul warns us in 2. Corinthians 11:3 about double-mindedness.

He says,--I fear lest by any means as the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety, so your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity which is in Christ.

Simplicity doesn’t mean naiveté’ or unschooled in the things of God; it means “singleness of mind.” The Greek word for simplicity is haplous, which means “something that is folded together, braided or intertwined.”

Simplicity in Christ means having our thinking folded together with & focused on Christ. Haplous therefore is the same thing as single-mindedness.

JOSEPH IS A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF SINGLE-MINDEDNESS IN GENESIS 39.

Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites traveling to Egypt & was assigned work in the household of Potiphar. Potiphar believed in Joseph & trusted everything into his hands. Too bad Potiphar’s wife wasn’t as trustworthy. In the absence of Potiphar she tried to entice Joseph to lie with her & of course he refused. One day she physically caught hold of him & his coat came off in her hands as he fled. I say this often but, Joseph always did have a hard time keeping a coat.

She lied & slapped Joseph with a rape charge & though Potiphar was grieved, he had no choice but to put him in prison.

Joseph to me is a perfect example of single-mindedness because though he was repeatedly tested his choice was to stay focused on God. This is a picture of a believer who keeps God’s thoughts in his mind.

DAVID IS AN EXAMPLE OF A DOUBLE-MINDED MAN IN- 2.Sam.11.

As you recall David was on the roof of his palace when he saw Bathsheba bathing next door. He thought she was absolutely beautiful & he wanted her. Rather than catch those ungodly thoughts as Joseph had, David allowed lustful thoughts to stir up his emotions, feed his desires & finally influence his actions.

David got so emotionally wrapped up that he called for Bathsheba & lay with her. When David learned that Bathsheba was pregnant he called her husband Uriah home from battle thinking he could cover-up his sin. But Uriah didn’t go home & sleep with his wife & David’s scheme didn’t work. David then put Uriah on the front lines to be killed & took Bathsheba to be his wife.

To me this makes David a perfect example of double-mindedness for even though he had God’s life in his heart he nevertheless chose to go with the tide & follow his own lust over what God was prompting him to do.[Acts 13:22]

Jesus has told us—we can’t serve God & mammon. He’s also told us we’re either for Him or against him. We can’t think with spiritual wisdom & the carnal mind at the same time.

I love a good apple. Apples are good for you. They used to say, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” From what I read apples have all kinds of nutrients in them. All I know is they are delicious & it’s good to know something so good is also good for you.

However there’s one kind of apple I like above all others. It’s called the “Candy apple,” or an apple dipped in a candy-like coating.

Scrumbdeliumpious! But my doctor tells me the candy apple can’t do anything good for me. As a matter of fact he says it’s bad for me. To make a long story short, the minute the nutritious apple is dipped in the sugary coating, all its nutritional value is cancelled out. In my opinion the apple tastes a lot better with the coating but it now has something on it that isn’t healthy, at least for me, & that’s sugar.

Likewise we can’t successfully mix godly wisdom with carnality. It may at first seem “sweeter” & more palatable but in the long run the benefits of heavenly wisdom get canceled.

I remember when I was about fourteen riding a horse for one of my first times. The horse I rode had a problem. I was that problem. The horse finally became so frustrated with me he just balked, gave up & wouldn’t do a thing. He was so disgusted he did everything short of going over & leaning against the fence.

We were stalled, no pun intended. The horse’s owner, who was trying to give me instructions, explained to me that this was one of his most highly trained horses. He was extremely sensitive & obedient to each & every command of the rider. But it was clear to see the horse didn’t appreciate me the least little bit, and there was a reason.

My instructor explained what I was doing wrong & when I corrected it, the horse & I were fine. The problem was, without realizing it; I was giving the poor horse several different commands at once. I was kicking him in the side saying get-e-up, & making a clucking sound with my tongue but I was pulling back on the reins at the same time. Some people might call a horse a dumb-animal but this horse was smart enough to know he couldn’t go forward & stand still simultaneously. I was being, well, double-minded, the horse knew it & very much resented it.

DOUBLE-MINDED POLITICIANS

We see & hear double-mindedness a lot during a political campaign. Have you noticed the thing one politician likes to catch another one at is being a “flip-flopper?” They all do it to one degree or another but they won’t allow each other to get away with it. Why? Because we know & they know if a person has a problem making a decision & standing by it, they can’t successfully lead the country.

Remember the famous line, “I voted for it before I voted against it?” That one line helped lose The White House for John Kerry.

I heard about a politician who was asked about a certain issue & he said, “Well, some of my friends are for it & some are against it.” When they pressed him further as to what he was for he retorted, “I’m for my friends.”

I heard about a man who had a little fur-ball dog. One day a lady came up & asked him what kind of dog it was. The man said, “Oh, this is a German police dog.” The lady said, “I’ve never seen a German police dog that looked like your little dog.” Whereupon the man answered; “Well, this dogs in the secret service.”

There are many secret service Christians. They attend church services & go through the motions of Christian behavior but their hearts aren’t in God’s work or His truth. God isn’t impressed with partial commitment & Jesus made it clear in Matthew 6:24;

No man can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one & love the other or else he will hold to the one & despise the other. Ye cannot serve God & mammon.

WHAT DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS ISN’T

Having a difficult time making a decision isn’t necessarily being double-minded. I’ve had to sweat out decisions in my life & many times I felt I was just holding on by my fingertips, trusting I was making the right move.

But I don’t believe indecisiveness is what James is referring to here. Inattention, wandering minds even going to sleep when we should be praying are not what James is talking about when he speaks of double-mindedness.

Was Paul being double-minded when he said,--For the good that I will to do I do not; but the evil I will not do that I do?” Romans 7:19. I don’t think so at all. This struggle that goes on in all of us isn’t double-mindedness. Right in the middle of Paul’s confession of weakness & vacillation he states, ---For I delight in the law of God after the inward man. -- Vr.22.

Until the day when we are totally composed of spirit, we can expect a spiritual tug-of-war to go on perpetually. The spiritual struggle going on in all of us if we’re honest enough to admit it, between the spiritual & carnal natures isn’t double-mindedness.

Double-mindedness happens when we know what God’s standards are yet we perpetually & intentionally harbor a state of willful, known sin choosing to conceal it, repress it, or ignore it. In other words; when we choose to be hypocrites. Double-mindedness depends on knowledge of God’s law or standards & a willful decision to reject it.

The troubled father in Mark 9:24, who said— Lord I believe, help my unbelief—might be accused of being double-minded but he isn’t. He’s not of two opinions but rather he wants to believe & asks God for help. God has no trouble with honest inquirers, it’s those who make a profession of faith they don’t possess, or make up their own standards of righteousness He has a problem with.

It’s analogous of the election of 2000 when the Florida Supreme Court handed down a decision & the U.S Supreme Court rebuked them for ignoring the real federal & state laws & statutes & willfully making up its own.

I once counseled a lady who made great claims of spirituality. As happens many times in counseling situations I became aware that she already knew what she was going to do. What she wanted was for me to “rubber-stamp” her decision. As she told me her problem & the way she was going to handle it, God was showing me a whole chapter in the New Testament that spoke to her situation. Quite frankly she was going in a diametrically opposite direction than the bible in the matter.

I opened my bible & started showing her as kindly as possible what it said about her situation. In a few minutes she stood up rebelliously & said, “Well, bible or no bible, this is the way I’m going to do it.”

What I’ve learned is when someone tries to embrace God’s Word with a carnal mind, it plunges them into a spiritual tailspin. And because –The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be…. It’s easier for them to just reject the teaching that sends them into a dither.

Old Testament Saul was double-minded when God told him to destroy the Amalekites totally but he only completed about 80% of the job. [1 Samuel 15.] When confronted with his compromise he had nothing but a pocket full of excuses which were going to serve as defense mechanisms for his double-mindedness. If he’d put the sin out of his heart as soon as he found it he wouldn’t have ended up in such confusion which led him to suicide on Mount Gilboa a short time later.

Make a decision! This is the message Elijah delivered to the people of Israel on top of Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. His question to them was….How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him.-vr.21.

Elijah was telling the people its time to make a decision. They’d been sitting on the fence too long. He said … “If you think Baal is your true god, if you think he can answer your prayers & is worthy of your worship then by all means, serve him, but do something.”

The sad part of the story is the last phrase of that verse….And the people answered him not a word.

In Luke 9:62 Jesus said, ---- no man having put his hand to the plough & looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.

To put ones hand to the plough signifies that a person is undertaking a business of some sort & to be successful he must always keep his eyes focused on the goal ahead. He has to be determined to finish what he started.

Psalm 78:9 says—The children of Ephraim being armed & carrying bows turned back in the day of battle.

Ephraim was one of the largest tribes of Israel. They were fully armed yet they never made it to war. The answer to this is found in Psalm 78:10…They kept not the covenant of God, & refused to walk in His law. These people just never could make up their minds to follow God.

Luke 17:32 says---Remember Lot’s wife.

She’s a classic example of double-mindedness. She was caught between two loves; God & Sodom. She wanted the best of both worlds. Even though the angel warned her to be in haste, don’t look back, don’t delay, escape quickly; she looked back longingly because a part of her was still in Sodom. She didn’t want to leave it all behind. She wanted to take some of Sodom so God made her a monument of His displeasure.

In 2 Timothy 4:10 Paul writes….For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world… Demas was a friend & fellow laborer of Paul’s in his first imprisonment but rather than face possible martyrdom he departed to a place of safety.

Listen to Acts 7:38—41, speaking of The Children of Israel in the wilderness…who received the lively oracles to give unto us. To whom our fathers would not obey, but thrust Him from them & in their hearts turned back into Egypt, saying unto Aaron, Make us Gods to go before us for as this Moses which brought us out of Egypt we wot not what is become of him. And they made a calf in those days & offered sacrifice unto the idol & rejoiced in the works of their own hands.

Even though God had delivered the children of Israel from the iron furnace of Egypt, yet in their hearts they turned back to the place of bondage & idolatry.

2 Peter 2:20 says…. For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord & Savior Jesus Christ, they are entangled again therein, & overcome, the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.

So what is the answer to double-mindedness?

In chapter 4:6-10 James tells us the remedy;

But he giveth more grace wherefore he saith; God resisteth the proud but giveth grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore unto God. Resist the devil & he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God & He’ll draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands ye sinners purify your hearts ye double-minded…..Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord & he shall lift you up.

You may have heard the story of the man who owned a wonderful luxury car, a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. One of the best British cars ever made. This man was touring in a remote part of France when a rear half-shaft broke. Apparently that’s a part of the car for those like me who aren’t technically minded.

The local garage couldn’t fix it so the owner called the Rolls Royce factory & explained the situation. They agreed to fly a mechanic out to fix the problem. The mechanic came & brought the parts & fixed the car & put the man back on the road. My, the perks the wealthy enjoy!

When the man arrived back in England, he expected to find a huge bill waiting for him. After waiting for some time the man wrote the factory about it. Soon he received a letter from Rolls Royce which read;

“Dear sir; thank you for your enquiry concerning an invoice for the replacement of a rear half-shaft of a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud. After searching our records carefully we can assure you that there is absolutely no record of a half-shaft ever having been broken on a Rolls Royce Silver Cloud.”

This is what our great beneficent God does for us when we repent; He keeps no record of sin. All our sins & brokenness are covered & paid for.

James ends his letter at the foot of the cross which is where we need to return if we’re double-minded. He doesn’t want us to be the kind of person of spurious faith, saying one thing & doing another. He makes it clear that if we’re wandering from the truth we’re wandering toward death.

James says we need each others help to stay on the right track in order that we don’t wander off. If we see someone we know wandering we should bring them back. We can’t save them but we can point them to the cross which is the only place we can be forgiven for our double-mindedness & failures.

It’s there that God --covers a multitude of sins.

Blessings in Christ,

John

THE REST IS UP TO YOU

By John Stallings

Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest……..Heb.4:11


What comes to mind when you think of rest?

 The weekend? A day at the beach? Sleeping late in the morning? Retirement? Some would see these things as boring while others would see them as heavenly.

If you’ve attended a funeral lately, I’m sure you heard the word rest used a lot. If you’ve walked through a grave yard recently you’ll know the words “Rest in Peace--RIP” are on almost every tombstone.

The use of the word rest associated with death means that the person’s labors have come to an end. The troubles of the world and the illnesses that may have caused the deceased persons death are now over. The stillness of death gives the impression of rest.

The writer of Hebrews, in chapter four introduces a different kind of rest, a spiritual rest. The Bible depicts the life & experience of a Christian as a journey or pilgrimage wherein we’re called upon to leave a world system & come under the headship of Jesus Christ As we follow Christ we come more & more into a rest which He provides for us.

Some folk are never at rest because they’re always bothered by something. The only way we’ll ever truly experience the life God has for us is to enter into His Rest.

I know whereof I speak because I’ve spent more time than I’d like to admit, not in total chaos & tumult, but neither in the true perfect resting place of God’s love & mercy.

What I’ve learned & am learning is that the desired place God wants us to live & where we’ll be most fruitful is a zone called His Rest.

There are three influences that exert pressure on us; the world, the flesh & the devil. Each of these influences is seeking to do one thing; to pull us out of God’s Rest. If you are doing kingdom work & contending for kingdom principles, the Enemy is trying to get at you at every turn.

God’s rest is a place where an individual is established in Christ & does not run from philosophy to philosophy.

God’s rest is a place of quietness, peace, stillness, & freedom from guilt, where we rest from whatever seeks to disturb us or cause us to worry. It’s a cessation from endless legalistic activity & relaxing in God. It is to be settled & secure. It is having absolute faith & trust that God will supply all our needs. It’s knowing we can lean & rely on God for support no matter what may come.

Hebrews chapter four actually opens with a warning focused on this rest.

—Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into his rest, any of you should seem to come short of it.

It’s important to note the rest spoken of here is different than other kinds of rests in scripture. It’s called-“The rest that remains.” This rest isn’t the Sabbath day or the seventh day rest, a pattern of God’s rest on the seventh day after creation.

Hebrews 4:11 tells us to,

--Labor therefore to enter into that rest, lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief.

It sounds like an oxymoron, to speak of “laboring to enter God’s rest,” but it isn’t.

Jesus said …Come unto me all ye that labor & are heavy laden & I will give you rest.” Then He says, Take my yoke upon you & learn of me for I am meek & lowly of heart & you shall find rest unto your souls.

REST ISN’T ACHIEVED BY LEAVING A SET OF BAD CIRCUMSTANCES.

Some people think they can find rest & peace by relocating. They will leave a job, a marriage, a city or even a country thinking if they can go somewhere else they’ll find happiness & rest. This of course is just an illusion.

Human beings are restless by nature. Have you ever seen people walking down a Mall talking on their cell-phone? They’re one place but they want to be somewhere else. We go out, and then we can’t wait to get home. When we get home we can’t wait to leave to be somewhere else.

We take vacations to rest but unless we have a resting heart & spirit a vacation won’t work. We’ve all had the experience of coming home from an extended get-away & as soon as our hand touches the door-knob the old pressure is still there. We took it with us & brought it back.

Israel thought if they could throw off slavery they would be happy but it wasn’t long until they started grumbling & wanting to go back to Egyptian bondage rather than press into the Promised land, or rest, God had for them.

This would be a good place to remind ourselves of a group of powerful & prominent leaders in the Bible. Because they are so prominent in Israel’s history without question you’ll be familiar with their names; Shamma, Shaphat, Igal, Palti, Gaddiel, Gaddi, Ammiel, Sethur, Nahbi & Guel. These names are household words in every Christian home in America, right? Nope! Hardly. Only if we add the two last names to the list, Joshua & Caleb, will it make sense.

These are the names of the twelve men sent out by Moses to survey the land of Promise. Isn’t it amazing that of these twelve princes, each the head of his own tribe governing thousands of men, the names of ten are lost in obscurity in a list tucked away in the book of numbers? Only two of the twelve are household names, immortalizations of greatness & fame.

Ten leaders were a dismal failure; dragging a whole generation down with them, but two, Joshua, & Caleb were paragons of victory & success. What made the difference? The ten spies failed to believe God would do what he said he’d do. They didn’t mix faith in God with their so-called knowledge so they never entered into God’s best, or God’s rest.

God had this & other stories recorded for our edification & as examples to us. This same rest He urged His people to press into & possess is still available to us but we can only enter into it by faith. A rest is available to us & we should make every effort to enter into that rest. Ancient Israel failed to do so & God is showing us why & how we might avoid making the same mistake they did. If we don’t press into God’s rest, we’ll do essentially what Israel did & wander around rootless, never experiencing God’s best for our lives.

HERE ARE THE INGREDIENTS OF GOD”S REST:

1. When we are residing in God’s rest, we are seeing things from His perspective, not ours.

We began to see our problems as small because God is with us. When we are resting with God we know that anything is possible because we have “Big time back-up.”

When we are in God’s rest we won’t make decisions based on fear. We won’t worry & fret because we’re seeing things differently now. Resting in God is surrender where we don’t try to do things on our own without Him.

2. When we are in God’s rest we hear from Him more often.

When we’re having panic attacks its harder for God to reach us. God wants to talk to us but we must be listening to Him. The world around us provides static that blocks God out unless we intentionally tune Him in & keep Him at the forefront of our minds. When we are resting in God we give Him the opportunity to do things we’d never be able to do on our own.

When we rest in the power of God, we start to see His power actualized in our lives.

One of my favorite passages on rest & peace is in Acts 12:1-15. Listen to it;

Now about that time Herod the king stretched forth his hand to vex certain of the church.

Did you get that; he vexed certain of the church? The devil doesn’t bother everyone in the church; at least he doesn’t bother them all to the same extent. If Satan sees us as a threat he will do all he can to vex us. If we’ve made a deep commitment to God, there’s a bulls-eye on our back.

And he killed James the brother of John with the sword.—vr.2

And because he saw it pleased the Jews he proceeded further to take Peter also. [Then were the days of the unleaven bread.]Vr. 3

And when he had apprehended him he put him in prison & delivered him to four quarter ions of soldiers, intending after Easter to bring him forth to the people. Vr.4

And Peter therefore was kept in prison but prayer was made without ceasing of the church unto God for him.

And when Herod would have brought him forth, the same night Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains & the keepers before the door kept the prison.

This has to be one of the Bible’s most prefect pictures of rest. James had been killed by a sword & now Peter has been arrested & awaits the same fate. But is he screaming & crying? No! Is he telling God how He’s let him down? No! Peter is sleeping. Can you imagine that? Would you & I be sleeping in a circumstance like that? I can’t speak for you but in my case I strongly doubt it. But Peter is resting in the hands of God. We could find no greater example of God’s rest than this.

Then because Peter’s trust was in God & the people of God were praying for him, he was miraculously delivered by an angel.

Here’s one of the most restful thoughts I’ve ever embraced; Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:8…to be absent from the body is to be present with Christ. That being true, what’s the worst thing that could happen to us? If we die we’re immediately ushered into Christ’s presence. I’m sure that promise is what gave Peter such peace that night in prison. So, if we’re looking at death as the worst calamity that could befall us, all death could do is take us away from the asphalt & concrete streets we trod & upgrade us to the golden streets of Glory.

In 1967 I had my first experience in flying over an ocean. I’d flown domestically many times since childhood but this time I was going with a group of ministers to visit several foreign countries, including Israel.

I was so green at flying that when the plane started banking to land in New York, I leaned back the opposite way as if that would somehow balance the plane. The hardest thing for me was when the plane headed out over the Atlantic Ocean. Rational thought told me if we hit the water it would be the same as hitting solid ground but my fears were telling me it was much more dangerous to fly over that big ocean. We flew overnight from New York to Amsterdam Holland.

I would drift off to sleep for a while then I’d wake with a start & sit there thinking how unnatural it was for a big jet with hundreds of people aboard to be up in the air over the ocean. I’d repeat this pattern every hour on the hour. The thing that finally enabled me to relax & come to a place of peace was telling myself that God could take care of me just as well flying over water as over mountains or flat land.

Then I acknowledged that the risk of flying was acceptable when I thought of where that big Jet was taking me. I was actually going to Europe. Then I was going to follow Paul’s footsteps in Italy & Greece, & finally I was going to walk in Jesus’ footsteps in The Holy Land. I was going to visit the Coliseum in Rome where the Christians were fed to the Lions. That to me was far better than refusing to risk flying the ocean & staying home with both feet on the ground.

I also had to finally place my trust in the Plane & the pilots & trust that the jet engines would keep running until we found a place to land. I had to relax believing everything would work out & I’d not only be safe but enriched for the experience.

It’s the same for us as Christians. We believe Christ died & rose again & He is able to bring us safely into God’s rest & entering that rest is worth all the sacrifices we might make on the journey.

This isn’t a political endorsement but I recently heard Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee tell his experience as he came up through the ranks in Arkansas politics, finally becoming one of the very few Republicans to be elected to the Governors office in that state.

When he was first elected Lieutenant Governor, he found his office nailed shut from the inside. Most of the people who held office in the state were “yellow-dog Democrats,” meaning they’d vote for a yellow dog before they’d vote for a Republican.

Huckabee, being a committed Christian knew if he tried to play the game his detractors were playing he’d lose in the end so he stuck to his Christian principles. He told his staff to do just the opposite of what his enemies were doing. Though he had to occupy a small cubby-hole office for 59 days, [all the furniture had been removed from his office anyway] he just went about his work in a relaxed manner never seeking to retaliate in any way.

Word got out about how he was being treated & a writer from The Wall Street Journal was sent down to see what was happening. In the end, Huckabee became one of the most popular & successful politicians in Arkansas & ended up serving two terms as Governor. How did Huckabee accomplish this? Not by resorting to the street tactics of his enemies but by resting & believing that he’d be rewarded if he let God fight his battles.

Here’s a simple little illustration. When you get a knot in a shoelace or any rope or string, the first thing you have to do is to not make the knot worst by yanking or pulling on it. If you do that the knot just becomes tighter. When a child comes to a parent with a knot in his shoelace, the first challenge is to get the child to be still while you are untangling the knot.

One of the lessons God is trying to teach us is to cease from struggling & impatiently trying to work things out using our own strength & wisdom. In Psalm 46:10 God instructs us….be still and know that I am God. That means stop the panicky thoughts & efforts & just rest in God’s ability to untangle all our “knots.”

THE  REST IS UP TO US!

If you & I can’t rest in God & trust Him with our lives as well as our eternal souls, we’ll never enter His rest. The writer of Hebrews puts it this way;

There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. For he that is entered into His rest he also hath ceased from his own works as God did from His.

Let us labor therefore to enter into that rest lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief. Hebrews 4:9-11.

 BLESSINGS  IN CHRIST,



John

DEAL OR NO DEAL?

By John Stallings

It’s a TV phenomenon isn’t it? A simple format with a million bucks on the line. Canadian Howie Mandel leads the contestants through a series of “deals” as they gamble their way toward what they hope will be the big banana. Some contestants win if they make a good deal while others lose & go home to cry in their pillows.

But everyone who plays is playing with fire.

I’m not exactly a stranger to this type of television game show. I remember “I’ve got a secret” “Password,” “Family Feud,” & “Let’s make a deal.”

Theres a lot in this game that reminds me of the way people play with eternal matters. The devil & the world much like Howie & the Banker are offering them all kinds of deals to gamble away their souls. And the thrill of it all can easily capture their hearts.

Like Jacob & Esau. Esau had a birthright. As firstborn between the two twin brothers he had the right to carry on the promise of God to Abraham to father many sons. But in a moment of passionate stupidity Esau was tempted to deal away his birthright. And like many people today not understanding the value of the blessings God has in mind for them Esau said “DEAL” when Jacob offered him a little bowl of soup. And in that one silly move Esau squandered everything good God had in mind for the eldest son.

Hebrews 12:16-17—Esau who for one morsel of food sold his birthright. And afterward when he wanted to inherit the blessing he was rejected, for he found no place for repentance though he sought it carefully with tears.

TV’s “Deal or no Deal” is such a game of chance you never know what will happen & it seems to me the people who need the money are the ones who have the hardest time ever winning any.

Sometimes I can get so disappointed & hurt for a player, especially if they are so close to a life changing amount of money then let greed push them too far & leave with five or ten bucks.

I don’t know if you watched the night a woman was playing who had a husband who was a Marine serving in Iraq. She had mentioned that she wanted to win a Harley so they could have matching Harleys. The show surprised her with a video link-up with the Sergeant & his unit in Falluja.

He could give her advice on what to do. His parents were in the studio, telling him how much they loved him. It was all very touching & I thought, “This is all rigged, she’s going to win big no matter what.”

At one point she had $750,000 & $500,000 still on the board along with some low numbers. The bank offered her $99,000 & Jay Leno offered her a Harley. She refused & went on, no big deal.

Then the sad part came when the odds were no longer in her favor. $500,000 was still on the board the bank was offering something like $120,000. Her husband said over the video link: “Take the deal honey.”

She said, “Nah, I’m going to play one more round.” Her husband looked nervous. The family members kept telling her to “Listen to Justin, listen to Justin!”

She then asked him, “Which briefcase should I choose? He said: “Pick #12 honey.”

Her family’s advice: “Whatever Justin thinks is really what you should do.”

But she again refused to listen to him! “It’s not 12, I know it! I pick #11.” In case #11 was the $500,000. It was off the board. That meant the next offer would only be $28,000, *poof.* She had blown about $100,000 by refusing her husbands advice twice!

She seemed shocked, but not remorseful. She didn’t even look at her husband, or say much of anything. He advised her to take the $28,000 & she finally did, hesitantly, “its okay honey” he said.

Now this is just me, Okay? But I think that marine’s wife had a chance to show how much she loved & respected him by picking the suitcase that he wanted her to; the odds were the same either way.

Instead she disrespected him in front of his unit on national TV & didn’t seem to care. For all she knew he could have been killed or who knows what & come home in a box & his last visual memory of his wife is of her disregarding his advise & not seeming to care. How does that make him feel? How should that make his wife feel to know that their last memory together was one in which she chose not to listen to him, & lost $100,000 because of it?

Saddest thing I’ve seen on TV in a long time.

EVERY DAY OF OUR LIVES WE ARE MAKING DEALS

We trade an older car for a newer one. We trade a small house for a bigger one. We trade time with our kids for overtime at the office. We trade a seat in God’s house for a seat in the Football Stadium. We trade God’s Word for Doctor Phil’s advice.

We’re even bold enough to make deals with God; “God. Get me out of this mess & I’ll come to church more. Give me enough money to pay the mortgage & when I get a raise I’ll give part to you. God, let me have a good time for a few years doing my thing, just enjoying life & I’ll give my life to you when I’m older.”

I’m sure you’ve noticed; God makes good deals. He says, “Give me your frustrations & I’ll give you peace that passes understanding. Give me your sin & I’ll give you forgiveness. Give me your desire for success & I’ll give you eternal significance.” What a deal! God’s great deals should motivate us to use our resources for Him.

DEAL OR NO DEAL?

Satan entered the heart of Judas Iscariot. He wondered if he could turn a fast buck by turning Jesus in. “Thirty pieces of silver,” they said, “that’s the price my boy.” Judas said “Deal” & promptly lost his soul.

DEAL OR NO DEAL!

That’s what Satan offered Jesus in the desert. He offered Jesus a series of deals in return for His soul. He was hoping to plant doubt in the Savior’s mind about the security of His mission & His Lordship. He wanted Jesus to gamble away His mission. But again & again Jesus said “NO DEAL!” You shall not tempt the Lord your God!”

Satan will always tempt us to wander away from our mission in life. The next time Satan comes to lure you away from your destiny stand firm & say, “NO DEAL!” and walk away.

THE RICH YOUNG RULER

One of the saddest & most troubling stories in the New Testament is the story of the Rich young Ruler found in Mark chapter 10. Jesus was about to leave town & the young man came running as it would be his last chance to talk to Him. It’s a picture of urgency, earnestness & humility. The Greek words to describe this young man carry the connotation of extreme, great wealth.

The young ruler kneels in front of Jesus & asks Him; “Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Often the rich, religious people who asked Jesus questions were trying to trick Him into saying something imprudent such as “should we pay taxes,” or “shouldn’t we stone this sinful woman who we caught in the act of adultery?”

But this man’s question wasn’t a trick. It was sincere & he needed an answer-how to inherit eternal life. Obviously the young man had a sense of spiritual inadequacy. He has faith to believe eternal life is possible but he thinks it’s something he’ll have to earn.

This seems strange but do you know how many people you’ll meet in the course of a week who believe that they are earning their place in heaven, or losing it, by their works? This two-thousand year old myth is very much alive; that eternal life is a reward for what we do on earth. You can go anywhere in the world & that’s what people will tell you. Isaiah 64:6 tells us that-- all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.

Jesus doesn’t really exchange pleasantries with this young man but gets right down to business, first by pointing out his lack of understanding of what “goodness” is in God’s sight. Then Jesus proceeds to inquire more of his idea of righteousness. He says; --You know the commandments, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not give false witness, honor your father & mother.

The young man’s response was, “All these have I kept from my youth.”

He has been doing things right but still had a sense of lack, incompleteness, or else he wouldn’t have come to Jesus in the first place. Then comes the “kicker.” Jesus said;

You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have & give to the poor, & you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.

But Jesus’ requirements are unacceptable to this young man. Jesus wasn’t proposing that the young man could buy a place in heaven but He read the thoughts of his heart & knew he not only had money, his money had him.

Paul told Timothy,--For the love of money is the root of all evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith & pierced themselves with many griefs. 1 Tim.6:10

Jesus is asking this young man to give up possessions, status, influence, power, & community leadership. If this young man gives up his money he won’t be a ruler for long & if he gives away a huge chunk of the family wealth he’ll be in trouble with his siblings & his parents.

The passage says that—Jesus loved this young man. He had great compassion on him. Just look at the great offer Jesus was making him. He was actually asking the young man to join Him on His journeys, to become one of His disciples & enjoy the immense unspeakable privilege of spending time with Him & learning from Him day by day. What a wonderful invitation.

Jesus was saying, ---Young man, DEAL OR NO DEAL??

But this radical call to Christ’s ministry was too much for this young man.—when he heard this he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.

He can’t go with Jesus as much as he’d love to, because he loves one thing more & he cannot leave it to serve God. In a sense he broke the first commandment; --You shall have no other gods before me. In one stroke Jesus has given an audio-visual lesson on –You can’t serve God & money. Luke 16:13

But the invitation Jesus made this young ruler is no more wonderful than the one He gives to us. We too are invited to follow Him on a life journey; to enjoy His Company, & His presence. To become part of His great extended family, The Body of Christ throughout the world.

“Come follow me,” is the clarion invitation He extends to you & me.

Is there anything, any hindrance that you are unwilling to give up to follow Jesus? He gently calls to us. What will our answer be?

DEAL OR NO DEAL?


John

You have a date with Hillary Clinton

John Stallings

If the presidential election were held tomorrow, Hillary would win.

And with her would come big government, higher taxes, a cut in military spending, greater intervention into American’s personal lives, & a whole spate of other social programs.

I’m not saying this with a prophetic periscope but rather as an observer of the national political scene & spiritual climate, with a healthy dose of common sense thrown in.

If you think Hillary’s recent gaffs in the debates or the alleged planted questions are going to hurt her, you can give that up. These weren't body blows & she’ll bounce back.

Recently I heard Mike Huckabee, a Republican contender for presidency, a fellow resident of Arkansas & long time political rival of the Clintons say just that in essence. He added that the Clintons always learn from their mistakes.

There are basically two reasons I say Hillary will be the next president. First I believe it because more than half America’s voters lean toward liberalism & aren’t about to cast their vote with moral issues in mind.

Secondly, I believe Hillary will be the president elect this time next year because she is craftier & more aggressive than the rest of the field & that’s counting Democrats & Republicans. Whether you like her or not, you can’t deny the fact that Hillary is one of the most able politicians in the country.

Because of some wily Republicans who were willing to fight in 1993, America dodged the Hillary Health system but she has learned from that, she’s evolved her tactics, she’s tougher than ever& she means business. If you don’t believe this you’ll quickly learn it over the next year.


One of the reasons I believe a Hillary presidency will be unfortunate for the U.S is that she’ll be forced to spend so much time putting out the fires of political payback.

This is just my opinion but if Hillary is elected, her honeymoon will be over on her first walk into the oval office. I’m not saying it would be the right thing to do, although certainly it’s to be expected because of the way she & her party treated president Bush during his tenure. There will surely be retribution against her[one & only one of the triggers might be her unwillingness to make public her past White House documents, etc.] & it would be conceivable that impeachment would start during the first week of her presidency. In no scenario would she win a second term when the American public sees the social programs she’ll unfurl. The disillusionment would grow into a national nightmare.


After the tumult of the Bush years, & the fact that we’ll in all likelihood still be at war, all of this would rip into the open wounds of national discord over war in Iraq that have yet to heal.

Hillary & her plans for America aren’t going to fade away because she’s determined to reside again at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. She almost certainly has the Democratic nomination wrapped up. A few untested, one-term Senators are no match for the “war machine” the Clintons have built over the years.

I’ve said for years that the pulpits of America have saved us many times & they can do it again but too few pulpits today are issuing the clarion call to national prayer & repentance.

The Republicans need to return to their Barry Goldwater & Ronald Reagan roots. I don’t know what’s happened to Republican leadership but I’m beginning to think of myself more & more as a political Independent.

As Christians we can pray & work for the candidate of our choice & make sure that candidate espouses a clear, principled limited- government agenda.

Absent that, or an act of sovereign God, you & I are headed for a date with Hillary.


John

"You say that.......You die!!"

By John Stallings


The first sermon Jesus preached in His own home town almost got Him killed. We’re told about the incident in Luke 4:16-30.

He’d spent forty days in the wilderness & was now returning from Capernaum in southern Israel to His neck of the woods in Nazareth. Now He was back home where He grew up.

As was His custom Jesus went to the Synagogue on the Sabbath & was greeted warmly. After all, this was a home town boy who’d gone away & made good. He’d come back to Nazareth with a degree of fame & the town was a- buzz.

In those days if there was no priest, a person of some standing could be asked to read from the Old Testament Scrolls & take a stab at expounding on it before the crowd.

It’s always hard to know what to preach for your first sermon in a place. Jesus’ assignment was made harder because He was preaching his first sermon on His old stomping grounds. Should He try to challenge them, encourage them or both?

Jesus was handed the scroll & asked to read a little & then comment on what He read. He read from Isaiah 42, 58 & 61. The passages He read told about the messiah whom the Jews were expecting & then He sat down to make a few comments.

The comments Jesus made couldn’t have lasted more then roughly ninety seconds but did He ever kick-over a bee-hive? Better still it was as if someone threw a hand grenade into the temple where Jesus was sitting speaking to the people.

It happened in a blink of an eye. Blue skies turned to dark thundering storm clouds producing jagged streaks of lightening in a heart-beat. The people exploded, rose up as a mob, surrounded Jesus & ushered Him out of the temple toward a near-by cliff.

If a miracle hadn’t happened to allow His escape Jesus would have died at the hands of old friends & maybe a few relatives. Most all preachers have preached sermons that were received less than enthusiastically but nothing like this.

What on earth did Jesus say in his first sermon that incited the crowd of homies to gnash their teeth & come at Him with blood lust in their eyes?

Here it is. After reading about the coming Messiah He told the listening audience, “I’ve told you about the Messiah, you’re looking at Him.”

Oddly enough, they were still O.K at this point. They were still smiling & showing signs of appreciation. In Luke 4:22---….they wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of His mouth.

Jesus continued, telling them that He knows a prophet is usually not honored in His own home town. But then things turn ugly. He began to relate how God in times past had often chosen to bless foreigners & outsiders before He’d bless Israelites, His chosen people. He cited Namaan the leper & the widow Of Sidon who saved Elijah & received a miracle supply because of it. He was in essence telling them not to be complacent because they were Jews; that God could & often did by-pass them & bless non-Jews.

This was information-overload for these religiously puffed-up people. Now they are ripping-mad at Him & ready to wring His neck. They said, “The nerve of this young home boy to challenge our position as first in God’s kingdom.” After all we’re Jews. You’ve crossed the line young man, ----you’ve gone too far. –

“You say that….. you die.”

What had Jesus done to these Nazerites that stung them so deeply and caused them to hustle him toward a high place to try to throw Him over?

HE HAD CHALLENGED THEIR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Of course they were God’s chosen people. But they had forgotten what they were chosen to do & preferred to bask in the title only. They wanted that chosen place but wanted more to be comfortable & ignore their purpose. Jesus saw they were stuck-in-the-mud so He lit a fire under them, to say the least.

How dare Jesus remind them of their history; that if they & their ancestors forgot their purpose, the prophets had no choice but to by-pass them & go bless Gentiles instead?

God is also still telling us that we can’t take His blessings for granted because of who we are. When the people in Jesus’ home town heard that message, their stubbornness & self-righteousness caused them to reject it & Jesus too.


LET’S LOOK AT SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Self-righteousness by definition is,

--“An attitude of complacency with ones self, smugly moralistic & intolerant of the opinions of others. Self- righteousness is rooted in pride-- & pride is arrogance inflated with conceit.

Self-righteous people find no fault with themselves but they find numerous faults with others. They are guilty of gross arrogance as they see themselves perfect in knowledge & righteousness & have little problem holding themselves up as an example for others to be judged by.

Self-righteous folk not only see themselves as up, they see everyone else down. They have to be careful not to walk in the rain because they might drown with their nose stuck so high in the air.

Self-righteousness says, “I’m with God, but the rest of you have lots of room for improvement.” All would be right with the world if everyone were like them. Or so they think.

Self-righteousness is a sense of moral superiority that appoints itself as prosecutor of others sinfulness, & acts as if it were incapable of the sins others commit.

We’ve all known people who were so self-righteous they could be clinically diagnosed. They are not capable of seeing the world in anyone’s eyes but their own. They are among those people who can curse you in public & then turn around & blame you for getting them upset. They are incapable of seeing how anyone could be hurt by their behavior.

They are the bullies who can bloody your nose & while you lay on the ground trying to stop the bleeding, they yell at you for not offering them a hanky so they can wipe the sweat off their foreheads.

I once ran into a friend of a person who’d done me a horrible injustice & still owed me money & when I smiled at them all I got was a dirty scowl in return. This lets me know that everyone in this persons world will be totally conditioned to believe what they say, (many times this will be offspring) or they will no longer be in their world.

If they do feel any guilt about wrongs done to you, they’ll try to offset it by maximizing some imagined wrong you did to them, & so as long as you play along with them you’ll never hear the end of it.

If you don’t have experience with their type, or a lot of spiritual insight, after they’ve abused you, they’ll even trick you into believing you’ve wronged them. Only much later will you say, “Hey wait a minute, I was the one who was beaten-up!

If you’re not careful, you’ll get so sucked into the self-righteous persons web that ( especially if you’re married to one) you’ll waste precious years of your life trying to rationalize with them why they should treat you better & end up falling into a black-hole of catering to their every whim.

Notice that self is at the center of this life, not Christ.

Paul tells us in Romans 10;3,--For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness & going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Self-righteousness says, -- “I know better than you do,” I am right, you are wrong.” “I’ll do this your way this time but my way is better.” Self-righteousness can go so far, especially when dealing with people close to them, as to say in actuality or in essence, “Look, you are an ignoramus. I don’t even want to waste my time talking to you. What you have to say isn’t in the least important & when I want your opinion I’ll give it to you,” or in some cases, “when I want your opinion I’ll knock it out of you.” “You can think the way you think or join me & be right.”

When husbands treat their wives this way they’re likely going to be sitting before a judge soon & when parents treat their offspring like this the offspring will rebel sooner or later.

The Pharisees were self-righteous & Jesus called them hypocrites because they set up standards that they actually thought were better than His.

When I turn my personal convictions into your duty, & then sit back & judge & criticize you for your failure to perform according to my standards, then I’ve not only become an annoying person, I’ve become evil, poisonous, pernicious & full of deadly pride & self-righteousness.

If you don’t believe self-righteousness is evil, read again through the New Testament & that fact will be hard to miss. Romans 3: 10-12 says,

There is none righteous no not one; there is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God….there is none that doeth good, no not one.

Everyone is self-righteous to a certain extent. We find it hard to detect self-righteousness in ourselves, I know I do. When I started this article, I determined to look inside myself painful though it is. By nature I must keep a constant vigil on myself at all times, and believe me I don’t say that with a self-righteous attitude.

Let’s drop the “plumb-line” & see where we stand in the area of self-righteousness. A self-righteous person stands on their own laurels, their knowledge, and their talents. They are unloving, selfish, mean-spirited, & not generous. Think about this; in Jesus’ time many repented of their sins but few of the self-righteous repented, because they didn’t see their need. After all, how do you reason with self-righteousness? A person infected by it hasn’t a clue to their own faults or sins.

All the qualities Jesus spoke of in the Beatitudes –poor in spirit, meek, merciful, peacemakers etc.—are the opposites of self-righteousness. The degree of self-righteousness varies with the person but it’s far more ingrained than any of us ever dreamed it could be.

Many of Christ’s teachings & parables were used expressly for the self-righteous. The parable of the prodigal son was basically told to highlight the self-righteous elder brother who never left home & was always obedient to his father.

Listen to these words after Jesus told the parable in Luke 18 of the Judge who feared neither God nor man; -- And He spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others. Vs. 9

When self-righteous people go to church, they split up. Half sit on the front row with their shovels, & as the truth comes from the Word they shovel it back to the others sitting on the back row with their umbrellas up. None of the self-righteous crowd is getting anything. You’ll often hear them say after a good sermon, with a straight face, “I wish so-n-so would have been here to hear that.”

If you read in Matthew chapter 15, 21, 22 & 23 you’ll find Jesus getting progressively tougher on the self-righteous. In chapter 23, it reaches a crescendo which is mind-boggling & Jesus is practically scorching the earth around the Pharisees. Yet even in that chapter He shows love,

--O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killeth the prophets and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings and ye would not.—Vs. 37

Listen to Proverbs 16:2,

All the ways of a man are right in his own eyes; but the Lord weighs the spirit.

If I’m reading right it’s not possible for us to know our hearts unless God shows us. Our self-righteous hearts justify everything we do. Jeremiah 17:9 says, --The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Then God answers, I the lord search the heart I try the reins even to give to every man according to his works….Jer.17:10.

We are naked & opened unto the eyes of Him with whom we have to do, including the thoughts & intents of your heart.—Heb.4:12-13

David said,--…..Cleanse thou me from secret faults. Ps.19:12


AVOIDING SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IN MY OWN LIFE—

1. I must first conquer self-righteousness in my own life then & only then can I set an example leading others in the right way.
2. I must never allow myself to become needy, needing constant positive feed-back & nourishment from others. Matt. 6:1-4
3. I must constantly be reminded of my dependence on Christ. Phil. 4:13
4. I must consider others better than myself.—Phil.2:2-4—Rom.12:9-10.
5. I must give God the glory for every accomplishment. 1 Pet.4:10-11
6. I must keep my eyes in God’s mirror & constantly be applying His word to my life. James 1:22-25
7. I must continue learning to humbly receive criticism though I abhor it.—Proverbs 9:8-9
8. I must be willing to turn the other cheek. Matt. 5:38-42.
9. I mus tn’t be a self appointed examiner of warts & carbuncles in others. It’s highly likely that everything I criticize in others I’ve done myself. Mark 7:2
10. I must show mercy & forgiveness whenever possible. Matt. 9:13

In closing, there’s’ no better template for us to follow to avoid self-righteousness than The Sermon on the Mount. Matt. 5:3-5-12.

1. Blessed are the poor in spirit---HUMILITY
2. Blessed are those who mourn—REPENTANCE
3. Blessed are the meek—UNDER GOD”S CONTROL
4. Blessed are they who hunger & thirst after righteousness—DESIRING GODLY THINGS.
5. Blessed are the merciful—FORGIVENESS.
6. Blessed are the pure in heart—HOLINESS OF LIFE
7. Blessed are the peacemakers—PEACEFULNESS
8. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake—LONGSUFFERING—(Longsuffering doesn’t mean-“I’ve been suffering a long time.”)
9. Blessed are you when they revile you & say all kinds of evil against you falsely---FAITHFULNESS.

An individual wearing the robe of self-righteousness will be wearing the frock backwards so that the back of the hood actually covers their face. This is the reason they’re blind to things as they really are. The worst part of that is the person doesn’t know they are really blind.

To others this is obvious but to the poor souls wearing the garments of pride & self-righteousness they actually believe they see & they always see themselves in a different light than others see them.

The antidote for self-righteousness is real salvation, a gift that isn’t purchased by following laws, rules, regulations, creeds dress codes etc. Yes we’ll bring forth fruit as committed Christians but that’s only because of the life of Christ that resides within us.

The other antidote is to accept the fact that salvation is 100% of God & He loves & accepts all mankind who trust in Him for salvation.

When we do these things the crowds of people beneath our feet will suddenly disappear & our hearts desire will be to give thanks & bring glory to our Father who’s set us free & has chosen to use us as instruments to set others free also.

I can’t brag & tell you that I’m completely set free in the area of self-righteousness, but I can tell you I’ve seen some big changes in my life in the last two decades.

As I’ve written in blogs before, I find myself being truly grateful for the small things like a warm meal placed on the table by loving hands. Like plenty of clean water & clean sheets, a loving family & friends, things I once so grievously took for granted.

Maybe that sounds crazy to you but to me at this juncture of my life I see it as a sign that I’m entering into His rest, His nature & His life.

I say, -“Thank you Lord. You’ve begun a mighty work in me; now please continue it until some day soon, I satisfied, --shall awake in your likeness.”

John

Whatever happened to the good ship Pelicano?

By John Stallings

I remember it like it was yesterday.

The year was 1986, and after a long hot summer, the city of Philadelphia wanted to get rid of its trash. Orange rinds, beer bottles, day-old newspapers, junk mail, aluminum foil, chicken bones, cigarette butts, dead batteries, coffee grinds, half-eaten hot dogs, tin cans; it was trash. Like all trash, it was the refuse of everyday life, collected door-to-door and trucked to an incinerator in Philly’s Roxborough neighborhood. It was to be carried away into a black whole, or at least into New Jersey.

Oops! It didn’t happen that way. I5, 000 tons of trash was packed onto a ship, the Khian Sea, for disposal, but at one port after another the ship was turned away.

The 466 foot ship roamed the Caribbean, sailed to Europe, Africa, and Asia. It changed its name twice, was sold, switched its flag, dumped some ash on a third world beach, and some in the ocean.

In 1988, more than two years after it left Philly, the ship, now renamed Pelicano arrived in Singapore. It had been rejected by Puerto Rico--Haiti--Bermuda---The Dominican republic---Honduras---Guinea-Bissau—The Netherlands Antilles, among other places. Its career of rejection had only just begun.

Someone said, “Most of the Philadelphians who created the garbage, have preceded it into the ground and their refuse has seen far more of the world than they ever did.” To say the least!

In its illustrious career, the good ship’s manifest was changed from “incinerator ash”, “general cargo”, “bulk construction material,” to “top soil fertilizer.” At one point the ship returned to Philly but while it was anchored in the Delaware River, fire destroyed the pier. It left the dock there, violating Coast Guard orders to stay put, and became an international fugitive, because its radar and sonar were not working and its hull was covered with barnacles.

Next stop -Yugoslavia, for repairs; then Senegal, - Sri Lanka, - Indonesia, and the Philippines. Get the picture? Nobody wants this ship.

As late as 2000, 14 years later, the ship anchored off Stuart Florida, still holding most of its payload; 2,050 cubic yards of ash. To say the least, this is no ordinary yarn. It is a peculiar, bizarre, weird and pitiful, yet true story.

The question has been asked “what ever happened to the good ship pelicano?”

I must confess, I don’t know. What I’ve shared is, by far, not all the saga of the Pelicano; it just happens to be some of what my research has been able to uncover. Once in the early eighties, I did see a video of the loaded ship, sailing down the Florida coast. The ship that sailed the seven seas in search of a resting place for Philadelphian’s garbage, most likely ended up somewhere in India, recycled for scrap metal and today is in a car somewhere in the Far East, that is, if it even exists.

THE MORAL OF THE STORY IS; ---GARBAGE ISN’T A DESIRABLE COMMODITY. IT’S NASTY AND HAS A HORRIBLE ODER.

Garbage has another synonym in our day, and we use it often when we talk of evil speaking; It's

GOSSIP!!

Because of mans fallen, corrupt nature, gossip and evil speaking are a constant problem. The old nature delights in hearing and spreading gossip and it’s not something just done by women. Men are just as guilty of gossip.

Though the word gossip doesn’t appear in Holy Writ, the Bible has much to say about it, calling it,

• “Backbiting,”
• “Busybodies,”
• “Evil speaking”
• “Slander”
• “Talebearer”
• “Tattler,”
• And whisperer.”

LET’S SEE WHAT GOSSIP IS NOT!

TELLING THE TRUTH IN LOVE, TO THE PROPER PARTY, FOR THE PROPER REASON, IS NOT GOSSIP!

It wasn’t gossip in 1 Cor.1:11 for the household of Chloe to tell Paul about the problems in the church at Corinth. As the founder of that church, Paul had every right to know about those problems.

It isn’t tale bearing to speak privately to a Pastor or Sunday school teacher about matters concerning church member’s lives that they should know about, any more than its gossip to talk to a mother or father about matters affecting their children.

It wasn’t gossip for Paul to remind Timothy that the Cretans had a poor national character when he described them in such harsh sounding terms as “liars, evil beasts” and “slow bellies” in Titus 1:12, quoting one of their own poets. It was true, and his motive wasn’t to hurt them but to help them, v 13, “That they become sound in the faith.”

It isn’t gossip or slander to speak the truth in love regardless of how harsh the truth might sound. I have often had to warn people about serious problems with certain churches and conversely, warn churches about certain people. This, when done correctly, isn’t gossip or slander as long as the information is true and the motive is to help, not hurt.

Telling the right person the truth in love is not gossip.

CONFRONTING A QUESTIONABLE TEACHING ISN’T GOSSIP.

It’s never wrong to question, in a humble and Godly manner, a teaching that doesn’t seem to square with what we know to be the balanced teachings of scripture. Truthfully, it is incumbent on us as Christians to do just that. We must first guard against critical attitudes and spirits and be sure our love level is up, not going around the community criticizing and spreading “hearsay” that we know little or nothing about. However, if we’ve been exposed to a teaching that isn’t squarely founded on the Word of God, it behooves us to not to swallow it, “no questions asked”. Ministers have godly authority but aren’t Popes and, shouldn’t be followed blindly.

However, it’s never wisdom to air questions in public, but rather in private settings; unless questions are asked for in a public forum.

In 11 Timothy 2; 23 Paul tells Timothy, --But foolish and unlearned questions avoid, knowing that they do gender strifes.--Also see……. Acts17:11 and 1Thessalonians 5:21.

I have known hundreds of sincere Ministers through the years, and none of them would resent, at all, someone coming to them privately with an open, teachable spirit, with any scriptural question they may have, as long as it wasn’t presented with an argumentative attitude. A wrong spirit will cancel out the good we may be seeking to accomplish.

Only a man who would seek to “Lord it over Gods heritage” would resent a person who came to them with a gentle, honest approach. Paul said in 2 Cor. 1:24, ---Nor for that we have dominion over your faith, but are helpers of your joy: for by faith ye stand.

WARNING OF SIN ISN’T GOSSIP.

Marking false teachers and compromisers isn’t slander or gossip. Several times in I and 2 Timothy, Paul warned of false teachers.1 Tim 1;20---2 Tim.1:15 –2:17 –4:14-15 --4:10. Slander is spreading ill-founded untrue things about others with intent to injure them.

In Romans 16:17-18, Paul says, now I beseech you brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ; but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.


ADMONISHING EACH OTHER ISN'T GOSSIP.

Proverbs 27:5-6 says, Open rebuke is better than secret love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

In Rom.15:14, Paul says, --And I myself also am persuaded of you, my brethren, that ye also are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge, able also to admonish one another.

In Heb.3:13, the writer says, --But exhort one another daily, while it is called Today; lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.In Hebrews 10:24, the writer says, --And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.

WHAT IS GOSSIP?

Leviticus 19:16 says, Thou shalt not go up and down as a talebearer among thy people; neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy neighbor; I am the Lord.Proverbs 11: 13 says, --A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter.

Proverbs 20:19 says, He that goeth about as a talebearer revealeth secrets: therefore meddle not with him that flattereth with his lips.

Proverbs 16:28 says, --A froward man soweth strife: and a whisperer separateth chief friends.


Proverbs 26:22 says, --The words of a talebearer are as wounds, and they go down into the innermost parts of the belly.

Psalms.15:3 says ---God blesses he that backbiteth not with his tongue nor doeth evil to his neighbor nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor.

Proverbs 10:18 says, --He that hideth hatred with lying lips, and he that uttereth a slander, is a fool.

Numbers 14:36-37 says , “ And the men which Moses sent to search the land, who returned and made all the congregation to murmur against him, by bringing up a slander upon the land, Even those men that did bring up the evil report upon the land, died by the plague before the lord,”-

Jeremiah 9:4-6 says, Take ye heed every one of his neighbor and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant and every neighbor will walk with slanders ;and they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth’ they have taught their tongues to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

Second Thessalonians 3:11 says, -For we hear that there are some which walk among you disorderly, working not at all, but are busy bodies.

I Tim.5:13says, -And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to
house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies speaking things which they ought not.

1 Pet.4:15 says, But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in others men’s matters.

PLEASE CAREFULLY READ THE FOLLOWING.

I’m going to give three statements and ask you to tell me what they all have in common.

# ONE---A schoolteacher speaks out in class to one of her sleepy ten year old students and says, “Johnny, wake up back there son or you’re going to fail this class. I know your mother and dad have been drinking and quarreling all hours lately, and you’ve not been able to get much rest, but you have to stay awake and start listening.”

# TWO. ---A doctor is at a party and as he sips a glass of wine he says, “You people all know Mrs. Jones? Well she wouldn’t sleep so well tonight if she knew what I know. Her test’s have come back, and looks like she has cancer.”

# THREE. ---A Pastor who’s chairing his annual church business meeting says, “Folks, Brother Jones and his wife are having serious marital trouble and it looks like they’re going to soon divorce; so he’s withdrawing his name to be voted on for deacon this year.”

What do these three statements have in common?

That’s right. They may be (are) true, but any person with any heart at all would agree that to say those things publicly would be terribly heartless.

The people who said these things could never excuse themselves by saying, "well, it’s true." --Yes, but the truth telling is totally out of place and inappropriate and what they’ve done is cruel and thoughtless.

We feel in our hearts that a person should be given some modicum of right to privacy. OR do we?

THE PSALMIST SAID; KEEP BACK THY SERVENT ALSO FROM PRESUMPTIVE SINS. PSALM 19:13.

#---WORDS HAVE A POTENTIAL FOR MUCH GOODNESS BUT CAN ALSO BE CONTAINERS OF POISON.

We often take what we say lightly, God never does.

Paul says in Ephesians 4:29,--- let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister Grace to the hearers.

Think about that: a thing has to be more than merely true, it must first be edifying.

Then Paul goes on to say something even more amazing: he says our words must be “ministers of Grace.”

Since the ninth commandment forbids us to bear false witness against our neighbor, (along with murder, stealing, and adultery) then why do we gossip?

JEREMIAH AND JESUS GAVE US THE ANSWER; THE HEART OF MAN IS SO DESPERATELY WICKED THAT IT CAN’T BE UNDERSTOOD. ----Jer.17:9


JESUS SAID--- NOTHING WE COULD PUT IN OUR MOUTHS COULD BE AS POISONOUS AS WHAT THE HUMAN HEART MANUFACTORS.---Matt.15:11

Put these two statements together and you have a shocking reality; unregenerate hearts are creators of poison.

COULD IT BE THAT GOSSIPS ARE VINDICTIVE COWARDS?

Let’s examine it. Let’s say we wanted to hurt someone without being held accountable for it. After all, if we walked up to the person we wish to hurt and punched them in the face, we’d be jailed for it. But by gossiping about the person, we can achieve the same results and no one can touch us.

Let’s say we are envious of a person because they are doing better than we are financially. We can’t bear for someone else to have a bigger house or nicer car, a greater inheritance, or smarter children. How can we bring them down? We can’t steal their savings or burn their house or cause their kids to be less smart. We can only gossip, and if we’re “lucky” we can bring them down. Maybe, with some luck we can bring them down to our level or even below us. What a “Triumph!”

But let’s say we do none of this. We don’t gossip, and if gossip is going on, we only listen and keep our lips buttoned.

Leviticus five says that-- to hear evil speaking and not denounce it is to be guilty of it.

Malachi five says that…… God will bring swift judgement on a false witness {talebearer}.

Ancient Israel was totally horrified at a false witness, and made sure they knew what damage they were doing and also made sure they were punished.

THERE ARE THREE QUESTIONS WE SHOULD ASK WHEN WE HEAR GOSSIP.

1. WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS?
2. HAVE YOU TOLD THE PARTY BEING DISCUSSED WHAT YOU’RE TELLING ME?
3. CAN I QUOTE YOU ON THIS?

A story was told of a lady who came to her Pastor's home weeping bitter tears for a story she’d heard and passed on, thinking it was true. When she learned that it wasn’t true she promptly hurried to the Pastors home and explained that she was horribly wrong, and was willing to do anything necessary to make amends for passing along the untruth. The Pastor readily accepted her apology but asked her, since she was being so nice, if she’d do something for him. He went to the back room and brought out a large feather pillow, and went to the window and pointed outside to a large mountain. He asked the lady if she’d mind taking the pillow to the top of the mountain, cutting the pillow and letting the feathers fly into the wind.

The lady was overjoyed at the prospects of doing something to help make restitution for her passing along the untrue story. As she started to leave the Pastors home, he asked how long it had been since she had told the unfortunate story. The lady had a puzzled look on her face, but explained it had been about a week. The Pastor the asked her, if about a week after she had released all the feathers in the pillow, she’d go back to the area and gather all the feathers, put them back into the pillow and bring it back to him.

Obviously the stunned lady got the point; there was no possible way for her to ever get even a small percentage of the feathers back into the pillow case. Sadly, that’s exactly what had happened with the untrue story she passed on. A bell can never be un-rung.

The story also includes that the people in that church were exceedingly careful of the things they said from that day forward.

ECCLESIASTES 10:11 SAYS, “SURELY THE SERPENT WILL BITE WITHOUT ENCHANTMENT: AND THE BABBLER IS NO BETTER”

THERE’S ANOTHER STORY-LINE IN THE SAD- SAGA OF THE GOOD SHIP PELICANO.

It’s the sad story of a ship, laden with toxic trash that could find no home, and no rest. If you, like the good ship Pelicano, have been roaming the world looking for a welcome harbor, haven’t you been carrying that load of sin long enough?

In Matthew 11:28 Jesus said, --Come unto me all ye all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.

Evidently, the Pelicano never found safe harbor, but your story can be different. You need search no longer, for someone is searching for you.

HE SAYS, ---BEHOLD I STAND AT THE DOOR AND KNOCK: IF ANY MAN WILL HEAR MY VOICE AND, AND OPEN THE DOOR, I WILL COME IN TO HIM, AND WILL SUP WITH HIM, AND HE WITH ME.”----Rev.3:20.

John

The "Law of the Sea" Treaty

by John Stallings

The other evening while watching the Republican debates, I heard one of the candidates allude to “The law of the sea” Treaty, which is rattling through the halls of Congress. To be very honest I didn’t have a clue as to what it meant so I researched it.

A little goggling revealed to me that this Treaty if signed by an American President would be a mistake because it’s a “globalists’ dream bill.” It would put the United States in a de facto world government that rules the world’s oceans under the pretense that they belong to “The common heritage of mankind.” As you may know, Cuba is now drilling for oil not that far off the Florida coast with the help of China, Canada & Spain.

The Bill has been bouncing around for some time & here’s an interesting tid-bit; Ronald Reagan refused to sign it in 1982. Why? Because he felt it would put our nation at the mercy of a world body & would ham-string us to cow-tow to corrupt United Nations bureaucrats & subject us to a multi-national ruling clique.

The treaty has already been ratified by 155 countries because they know the riches at the bottom of the sea, which would be brought to the surface by United States technology & investment, would then be doled out to Third World dictators to support themselves in the lavish style to which they’d like to become accustomed.

The argument is being made that Reagan’s problems with the bill have been “fixed,” but that’s a sham because no one country could legally change the terms of a treaty that has already been signed & ratified by more than 100 countries with 25 others who haven’t agreed with the changes.

We should make no mistake; Ronald Reagan found this bill obnoxious & impudent for reasons which in a nutshell were—a loss of U.S sovereignty.

Ladies & gentlemen, we need to work & pray against the growing one- world mentality. If you stay abreast of the news you know that Russia recently put a symbolic claim on the North Pole regions & its oil riches. As it stands we don’t have to accept that but if Bush signs this treaty (And it looks like he’s partnering with Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del to try to get the Senate to ratify it) we’ll be at the mercy of a world body who would vote on any given issue; 1 for America & 155 for Russia.

The best protection for U.S interests in the worlds ocean’s is the U.S Navy, not a bunch of pencil-necked paper pushers ( sorry about that) in the International Seabed Authority of rulings of the International Court of Justice supported by a UN bureaucracy financed by a global tax.

I learned there are other treaties as bad or worse than the aforementioned one that are just waiting for an American President eager to fit in with a one-world-government to sign.

I quote the great man a lot; --“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,”& unless we’re ready to go back to horse & buggy days, we’d better stay as vigilant as we would be if we were sitting in the audience of a “cross-eyed knife thrower.”

EVERY BLESSING,

John