Broke-Back Christianity

By John Stallings

I know little about the gay culture but I’m aware of -"BrokeBack Mountain" the movie that came out some time back about two gay cowboys.

Despite a tidal wave of publicity the film didn’t do all that well financially. I didn’t see the movie but I’m told both the cowboys are married but one of them is depicted as being interested in other men.

This gay man’s wife is called a “beard.” A Wickipedia entry says; “A beard is a female companion used to hide a gay man’s sexuality in public is if she & the gay man were a heterosexual couple.”

In politics today the same phenomenon exists. Many different groups look for “cover stories” that are socially acceptable to hide their true identity.

As an example, there’s a group called RINO’S, a group of Republicans who like to call themselves Republicans but think & vote like Democrats. They consequently are called RINO’s--Republicans in name only. Conversely, there are Democrats who maintain their affiliation for personal reasons or political expediency but are very likely to cross the aisle from time to time. They are called DINO’S.

Sadly there are many people & even groups who use the term “Christian” as religious symbolism but they are no more Christians than the “Broke-Back boys” are real cowboys. Maybe we could call them CINO’S-Christian in name only.

ONE OF THE MOST SOBERING STATEMENTS JESUS MADE

….In Matthew 7:21-23 Jesus said—Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of God but he who does the will of my father who is in heaven will enter.
Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name, & in your name cast out devils, & in your name perform many miracles? And then I will say to them, I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.

SURVEYING AMERICA TODAY WE SEE A WEAK CHURCH

In America today we see a wicked world, a weak church & unconverted multitudes. The reasons God could chastise our nation are nearly endless.

Many ministries & individuals are putting forth an effort to stem the tide of unrighteousness but a far higher number of folk, Broke-back Christians at worst, & lukewarm Christians at best, sit on the sidelines expecting someone else to do the work & make the sacrifices.

Our nation kicked God out of the public school system & replaced Christianity with the false teaching of evolution. Many young people have turned away from God because they’ve been falsely told evolution proves the Bible wrong.

Our schools indoctrinate children to believe homosexuality is a morally acceptable life-style. This is in conflict with God’s Word & is often done against the wishes of the parents. Our society is so inundated by sexual imagery that many of both sexes admit to sexual addictions.

I read recently that many American colleges have courses that teach in essence the message that America is a “repressive hellhole.” Maybe that attitude trickles down from a president who apologizes for us all over the globe.

NASA is spending billions of dollars ransacking space trying to find the origins of life in hopes of finding some proof that man can comfortably be his own God. The answers to what they seek have been right under their noses for thousands of years- in the Bible.

All kinds of “new age” philosophies are sweeping our country. Many states sponsor lotteries in spite of the fact that it’s nothing but gambling, a sin that dooms more people than many other addictions combined.

Approximately half of the nation would rather have a known serial adulterer & rapist in the White House than a person who has a sense of morality as well as a Christian testimony. Partially for this reason premarital sex as well as pregnancy out of wedlock have lost the stigma they had just a few years ago.

Stay- at- home mothers are mocked by society as being out of touch with the way a modern woman should be living her life. Corporal punishment which is strongly supported by the Bible has come under secular liberal attack & because of this children are disrespectful toward their parents & other authority figures.

Divorce rates are high. Fathers in large numbers are failing to teach & train their children & dump this responsibility on already over- burden wives, or on the church, or it doesn’t get done at all.

T.V shows are filled with openly gay characters who shamelessly parade their lifestyle before a morally anesthetized nation. Our society is far more interested in sports & other entertainment than they are Godly matters. Every sign the Roman Empire evidenced before it crumbled into the dustbin of history is seen in today’s America.

A football game is a very good analogy of America. There are 22 men on the field who desperately need rest & 70,000 people in the stands who desperately need some exercise.

ALL THIS RAISES A QUESTION; HAS THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST FAILED? HAS CHRISTIANITY FAILED?

After all, there’s a church on every other corner in America not to mention the fact that Christian television & radio saturate our airwaves. Christian book stores stocked with the finest of spiritual reading are easily assessable to most Americans. If the aforementioned sins go unchecked in our beloved nation there has to be a reason.

THE PARABLES

Is the gospel we believe to be so powerful only performing a holding action? What is the answer to this conundrum? Perhaps we’ll find the answer by examining some of the parables of Jesus.

Some of Jesus’ richest teachings are found in the parables. He used parables for several reasons; to reveal, to conceal & to bring his teachings from head knowledge to heart knowledge. When Jesus wanted to separate truth-seekers from curiosity-seekers He used parables. Parables are also hyperbole all of us use because sometimes words can’t convey the true feelings of the heart. For instance when we say to someone, “I love you so much I could eat you up,” we’re using hyperbole. When we say “we’re so hungry we could eat a horse” we’re using hyperbole.

Matthew 13 contains several parables so let’s delve into them & see if we can find an answer to the question, “has the gospel failed?”

First is the parable of THE SOWER. In this parable Jesus tells us that the sower is the witness, the seed is the gospel & the soils are the hearts of men. There are four soils; the hard heart, the shallow heart, the worldly heart & the receptive heart. Again, the sower is the witness or the person who plants the seed, the seed is the gospel or the Word of God & the soil is the heart where the seed falls.

Notice that only one of the four soils is responsive to the gospel. What was Jesus teaching us here? The lesson I see is that if the seed doesn’t take root & spring up, it’s not the seeds fault; it’s the fault of the soil. Some seed falls on soil that receives, protects & nurtures it but most of the seeds fail because they fall on the wrong soil. This doesn’t change our responsibility to take the gospel to the world but certainly Jesus was giving us a template that the gospel will only be successful when it falls on fertile soil.

When Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago He wasn’t personally successful with everyone He came in contact with. The Rich Young Ruler came running to Christ but when he was challenged to give up everything & follow Him, he couldn’t do it. Did Jesus fail where this young man was concerned? Certainly we can’t say Jesus failed. The failure lies at the feet of the young man & his unwillingness to commit to Christ. He was so concerned about finding eternal life that he ran to Jesus but in the final analysis he loved his possessions more. He went away sorrowful. Notice that Jesus didn't go after the young man & try to convince him to change his mind.

In 1967 I was privileged to visit Athens Greece & stand on Mars hill where Paul preached in Acts 17. Embarrassed as I am to say it, I used to have pictures of me standing on the hill striking a “preacher pose.” I’m not sure where those photos went but they vanished somewhere along the way. Now watch this carefully. One thing we didn’t do while in the beautiful city of Athens was to visit the ruins of a church Paul planted there. I visited the ruins of the churches in Philippi, Corinth, Ephesus & Colosse. In almost every city we visited we viewed the ruins of the ancient Christian church. But we didn’t visit any rocky ruins of the Athenian church.

If I were to ask you to turn to Paul’s letter to the Athenians, you’d quickly remind me there isn’t such a book. Why is there no letter to the church in Athens? Answer-- Paul didn’t build a church there. He planted a church in just about every place he visited-- but Athens. Why was there no church in Athens? I’m sure it wasn’t Paul’s fault. I’m sure Paul would have been especially anxious to have a church in this metropolis city teeming with false gods & false teaching. But if you read Acts 17 you’ll find the Athenians mocked Paul when he preached the Resurrection of Jesus. They were not that interested in the gospel Paul preached, it’s just that simple. You & I know the gospel didn’t fail, Athens failed to receive the gospel.

This parable teaches us to sow gospel seed everywhere possible but not to expect everyone to receive it, because they won’t.

WHEAT AND WEEDS

The next parable Jesus tells in Matthew 13 is the parable of the wheat & the tares. Many people look at the church, see hypocrites & say, “I’ m not going back to church because there’s too many hypocrites there.” I have often told people “if there’s a hypocrite between you & God the hypocrite is closer to God than you are.” Jesus made it plain that the devil had sowed the tares.

I think it apparent that we can’t call Christianity a failure because of hypocrites. I’ve also told people who quit God & His church because of the tares, “I’d rather spend a few years of my life in a church with a few hypocrites than to die unsaved & spend all eternity with them.”

I’ve known people who quit watching Christian T.V because of some inconsistency they saw in someone. One man I knew quit watching TBN because he saw a young man in a band with long hair that “looked like a hippy.” That was against his principles so he stopped watching Christian T.V. Of course I didn’t make any points with him when I asked him if he quit watching CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN or FOX when he saw someone on there who wasn’t dressed or coiffed according to his standards. His answer included a few coughs & a lot of throat clearing but as you might expect, “he’d never thought of it that way.”

Jesus told us in this parable not to go around judging & pulling up tares, but to let the wheat & tares grow until the day God separates them. Also see 1 Cor. 3:11-15.

Obviously God gave us these instructions because none of us are qualified to tell wheat from tares. Would you want that job? If you’d have tried to guess which of Jesus’ disciples would betray Him do you think you’d have chosen His treasurer? You & I might have well picked Peter or Thomas as the betrayer. I’m glad I don’t have that job.

So the gospel hasn’t failed because of an unconverted world or because of hypocrites?

What can we learn from the next parable, the parable of LEAVEN? Physically leaven is an old lump of dough in a high state of fermentation or a substance that causes dough to rise. Leaven is used in the Bible as a type of evil. Yeast would be our modern equivalent of leaven. Leaven, like yeast had a stealthy quality & a small amount of it could greatly affect a large amount of dough. In Exodus 12:8 & Leviticus 2:4 God told the people to make sure the Passover Lamb & other ceremonial meals were eaten without leaven.

In 1 Corinthians 5 when telling the church to deal with immorality within their ranks, Paul tells them to “purge out that leaven.” In Matthew 16:11 Jesus warned about the leaven of the Pharisees, which was their false teachings of Legalism & Liberalism. In Mark 8:15 He warned of the leaven of Herod, which symbolized worldliness.

Leaven works quietly & insidiously just as sin does. Jesus is teaching here that sin in society, even in small amounts has an awesomely devastating effect on the whole of society. The multitudinous multiplying of the leaven of sin in our world doesn’t surprise God. If sin wasn’t as cursedly potent as it is there would have been no reason for Jesus to die on the cross. The proliferation of evil doesn’t mean that God’s work has failed, been thwarted or frustrated, it just means there’s sin in the world & it will be here until Jesus comes back & fumigates the earth.

Next Jesus gives the parable of the DRAGNET. This one must have been a familiar & vivid picture to the disciples. After all Peter, Andrew, James, & John had been fishermen before Christ called them.

Jesus said the kingdom of God is like a large net that’s cast into the sea. In those days the fishermen would drag a net along the bottom of a body of water between two boats. The wide net would catch all manner of fish. Then they’d bring the net to shore & some were kept & some were thrown back into the sea.

The church today is doing the same thing in our “sea,” which is the world. The gospel is preached & there is no partiality to race, sex, wealth, education, intelligence, ethnicity or beauty. The church’s mandate isn’t judicial but declarative, in that we don’t do the separating, that’s God’s job.

Having grown up in Florida, I know what it means to fish in the ocean & catch all manner of creatures. We caught blow-fish, all puffed up (I might add some people caught in the gospel net are puffed up too.) We caught Eels that would slither & slide away; we caught Dog fish & Cat fish, Grunts & Croakers. You had to be careful handling some of these sea creatures because they could bite, sting or stick you.

The gospel net pulls in all sorts of people, & just as with fishermen, some stay & some leave. Some would be useable & some would not. No fisherman expects to keep everything he catches. Jesus is saying the gospel hasn’t failed because we don’t keep all we bring in. There’s always the question of why some people leave the church. Jesus told His disciples in response to this question, “They went out from us because they were not of us.”

As in the other parables, all this will be settled at the end of the age when God separates the spiritual “sheep from the goats.”

The last parable I’ll speak about is the TREASURE IN THE FIELD. As in all the parables, there are many out flashings of truth from this story but the basic truth of this parable is that the man who found the treasure went & sold everything he had to buy the field where the treasure was buried.

This man was willing to sell everything he had to buy this treasure. The treasure Christ alluded to in this parable is the riches of God’s kingdom & of His gospel.

When we look at the treasures in Christ, the truth is, some are willing to sell out to follow Him & some aren’t. Some will pay full price & others deem the price too high. Carnal people trample all over this field & don’t even know it’s there. Jesus also said that when the man found the treasure he covered it up temporarily to go buy the field.

That’s exactly what Jesus was doing by using the parables, He was covering up the treasure from those who weren’t interested enough to seek for it.

THE COUNTERFEIT PROVES THE REAL EXISTS

No one that I’ve heard of has ever made fake or counterfeit pennies. They aren’t very valuable. No one has ever made fake three dollar bills because real three dollar bills don’t exist. The fact that one counterfeits something proves the real exists & is valuable.

The gospel hasn’t failed because there are many “Broke-back Christians” who never were truly converted. Some don’t see the value of the authentic Christian life or aren’t willing to pay the price to claim it.

Remember Jesus’ words---On that day…..?

The day will come when you & I will stand before God & give account of our stewardship of the life He gave us.

The troubling thing about Jesus’ statement is He seems to be speaking of people who genuinely think they are ready to enter heaven but too late they realize that’s not the case.

Jesus said in Matthew 7:14; ...Straight is the gate & narrow is the way which leadeth unto life & few there be that find it.


Paul admonishes us; Examine yourselves whether ye be in the Faith. Prove yourselves….2 Corinthians 13:5


Blessings,


John

A Great Realtor Has Exciting Prospects-Act Now!

By

John Stallings


I'm happy to tell you that I represent Glory Realtors Inc., an exciting investment opportunity.

Let me quickly confess that I haven’t always lived there but have visited enough to honestly be able to present it to you as a wonderful place to live.

I am trying to persuade as many people as possible to buy property on Praise Avenue. I don’t know where you live now but it would be safe to say many of you live in exclusive residential areas. Maybe you live on Complain Court, Lamentation lane, Grumble Gables, or Barely Getting by Boulevard, down at the end of the street, next to Ain’t It Awful Ally. However, I’m asking you to pack up, sell out, and move to Praise Avenue.

“Why should I do that?" You ask. Good question. When an intelligent person decides to relocate, he does it for good reasons, so let me give you several reasons to make this move.

REASON #1:

WE ARE COUNSELED BY GOD’S WORD TO LIVE ON PRAISE AVENUE.

Psalm 135:1 says, “Praise ye the Lord. Praise ye the name of the Lord; praise him O ye servants of the Lord.”

Psalm 106:1 says, “Praise ye the Lord. O give thanks to the Lord; for he is good; for his mercy endureth forever.

Psalm 103:1 says, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me bless his holy name.”

Psalm 100:4 says, “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise.”

Many other places in Gods Word implore us to live on Praise Avenue.

Psalm 96:1-6 tells us; “Sing unto the Lord a new song all the earth. Sing unto the Lord, bless his name; show forth his salvation from day to day. Declare his glory among the heathen, his wonders among all people; for the Lord is great, and greatly to be praised. He is to be feared above all Gods. For all the gods of the world are; but the Lord made the heavens. Honor and majesty are before him: strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.”


REASON #2:

SOMEONE WHO WE SUPREMELY LOVE WANTS US TO LIVE ON PRAISE AVENUE.

When you love someone, you are always looking for ways to please them. You will have a keen listening ear to each and every suggestion because you know that some special day such as a birthday or Christmas is coming up and you don’t want to miss an opportunity to please the one you love. If you catch the slightest hint, you will file it away until you can fulfill that desire.

Some people are terribly hard to please, but look how easy our God has made it for us. He has plainly told us that He craves our love and praise so much that if we build him a house of praise He’ll be quick to inhabit it. To be frank, the very reason He created us was so that the creature could praise the creator. When a child climbs in his fathers lap and gives him love, the father receives great joy from it. Likewise our God receives genuine pleasure when we respond to His love for us with expressions of worship and praise.

REASON #3:

WE WILL GREATLY BENEFIT FROM THE MOVE TO PRAISE AVENUE.


Nothing blesses us in every way more than praise does. Note that God is always seeking to do us, His children good. A close investigation of all Gods commandments will prove that they are all designed for our benefit. If you feel that God isn’t answering your prayers, maybe you could make a change and start mingling more praise with your petitions and see what happens. When you and I start to recognize the goodness and mercies of God He will then start to consider our wants and needs more. Praise benefits us in another way, in that it will always make the devil run. Have you ever noticed that if you are talking to a person about someone they don’t have much affection for, the more you say positive about that person, the more uncomfortable the person is who doesn’t like them. If you don’t stop building that person up, you’ll soon lose your audience. That’s what praise does to Satan. He so despises God that he won’t be around long when we start to praise the Lord.

REASON #4:

THE LANDLORD ON PRAISE AVENUE WILL KEEP US SAFE AT ALL TIMES.

As soon as you make the move to praise avenue, you’ll get a protection policy, not that you’ll never have a problem, but that God will always go through it with you. Someone might ask; if I already have problems and a move to praise avenue won’t guarantee no problems, why should I move? The answer is simple. If we try to solve life’s problems by ourselves, we are sure to end up in trouble. But if we live on Praise Avenue, God will fight our battles for us. The bottom line is; without praise, life will sooner or later become too much for us.

Think about how faithful God has always been to wake you in the morning as well as sustain, protect and provide for you with such regularity. Think how he’s blessed you with sight, hearing, and the ability to move around and enjoy life. If you saw the movie The Passion, it reminded you of what Jesus went through to purchase our salvation.


Should we not sing with the songwriter?

MERCY THERE WAS GREAT AND GRACE WAS FREE.
PARDON THERE WAS MULTIPLIED TO ME,
THERE MY BURDENED SOUL FOUND LIBERTY,
AT CALVARY.



REASON #5:

MOVING TO PRAISE AVENUE WILL EXPRESS OUR FAITH IN GOD.

Our ability to burst into praise regardless of the circumstances is truly a measure of the quality and quantity of our faith in God. If we believe that God is both willing and able to do “exceedingly abundantly above all we could ask or think,” if we believe that our lives are in his care, if we really believe that nothing comes to us except what in His providence He allows, why would we not praise him in bad times as well as good?

As the old song goes, “anyone can sing when the suns shining bright, but you need a song in your heart at night.”

When you live on praise Avenue, you may be “troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed.” 2 Corinthians 4:8-9.

You see, even in the darkest circumstances, we can praise God because we know that all things are not good, but “all things work together for good to them that love God. “Romans 8:28. When we believe Him, we turn everything over to Him and praise Him for whatever he does.

Some well known Old Testament residents of Praise Avenue are Jehoshaphat and his army, who were surrounded by three hostile armies. The story says, “Then Jehoshaphat appointed singers unto the Lord and that should praise the beauty of holiness as they went out before the army, and to say “ Praise the Lord; for his mercy endureth forever.” 2 Chronicles 20:19-21.

Notice that Jehoshaphat put his full trust in the word of the Lord, not stationing the praisers behind the army where they’d have some measure of protection. No, they were stationed before the army relying on the fact that their praises would be suitable habitation for an all-powerful God who would fight their battle for them.

Two well known New Testament occupants of Praise Avenue are Paul and Silas. They had been thrown in jail in Philippi on trumped up charges. They had been flogged and their backs were sore and swollen. Their feet were in hard, brutal stocks. Every movement added more pain. By all rights they’d have been complaining but they weren’t. Instead they decided to praise God. And God, the mighty deliverer responded to those praises. The record says that suddenly a great earthquake came and the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s hands were loosed. Hallelujah!!!

The fact that God shows up when we praise is a good reason to keep praising, isn’t it?


REASON #6:

LIVING ON PRAISE AVENUE WILL ALLOW US TO PRACTICE FOR HEAVEN'S CHIEF ACTIVITY.

You can read Revelation 5:11-14 and Revelation 19 for a lifestyle of the redeemed as pictured by John the Revelator. In Revelation 5:11-13 John gets a glimpse on the inside of heaven and paints a word picture of a glorious service in heaven. He says;

“And I beheld, and I heard the voice of many angels round about the throne, and the beasts, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature that was in heaven, and on the earth and under the earth, and such as are in the sea and all that are in them, heard I saying, Blessing and honor and glory be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb forever and ever.” Hallelujah!!!

I don’t know how many trillions that is but let’s say that John saw more angels praising God than our minds can comprehend.

Aren’t you glad that this old world isn’t our home; we’re just pilgrims passing through? We have a lot to look forward to because according to John, we’ll join the saints of all the ages and engage in Praising God throughout the ceaseless ages of eternity.

So I’ll tell you what. In the light of all we’ve said, I have decided to move to praise Avenue and I’m inviting all of you to move with me. Regardless of our problems, let us praise the Lord.

God forbid, but if you sprain your ankle, praise him that he’s Jehovah Rophe, the mighty healer.

God forbid, but if you are dead broke, and the bills are high, and funds low, praise God he’s Jehovah Jireh, our provider.

God forbid, but if your spouse runs out on you or your children turn their backs on you, praise God He’s Jehovah Shammah and He’ll never leave you or forsake you.

God forbid, but if one day the devil, the accuser of the brethren, mounts a massive offensive against you and you feel your filthy rag of righteousness is filthier than ever, praise God that Jehovah Tsidkenu is only a prayer away and is eager to cover you with His robe of righteousness.

Have you ever noticed that the last five Psalms start with the words, “Praise ye the Lord?”
Reading these Psalms gives us the principles for improving the emotional landscape of our minds and the attitude structure of our hearts, so that we may have a blessed and happy life. The One-hundred fiftieth Psalm says;

PRAISE GOD IN HIS SANCTUARY,
PRAISE HIM IN THE FIRMAMENT OF HIS POWER,
PRAISE HIM FOR HIS MIGHTY ACTS,
PRAISE HIM ACCORDING TO HIS ABUNDANT GREATNESS,
PRAISE HIM WITH THE BLAST OF THE HORN,
PRAISE HIM WITH THE PSALTERY AND HARP,
PRAISE HIM WITH THE TIMBREL AND DANCE,
PRAISE HIM WITH STRINGED INSTRUMENTS AND PIPE,
PRAISE HIM WITH LOUD-SOUNDING CYMBALS,
PRAISE HIM WITH CLANGING CYMBALS;
LET EVERY THING THAT HATH BREATH PRAISE THE LORD,
HALLELUJAH.


I IMPLORE YOU, AS I AM DOING, TO MAKE THE PERMANENT MOVE TO PRAISE AVENUE SO THAT WE CAN,

…. “BLESS THE LORD AT ALL TIMES AND LET HIS PRAISE BE CONTINUALLY BE IN OUR MOUTHS.” Psalm 34:1.


Have a happy & blessed Thanksgiving,



John

DITHERING

By John Stallings


A few weeks ago former Vice President Cheney brought the word dithering to center stage describing our current President’s protracted agonizing over putting more troops in Afghanistan. You be the judge on that.

The dictionary defines dithering as-“To act irresolutely; to act in fear and trembling.”

Maybe we’ve all been guilty of that from time to time, sometimes out of fear & worry & sometimes just not being able to come to a conclusion regarding a matter.

One man was asked if he had trouble making decisions. He hesitated for a few seconds & answered, “Well, yes & no.”

A dense fog that covers a seven-city- block area one-hundred feet deep is composed of less than one glass of water divided into sixty thousand million drops. Not much is there but it can cripple an entire city.

This is emblematic of worry & how something so vague & foggy can become so confusing to the mind.

I heard about a very good man who experienced a nervous breakdown. This man would work all day, come home & walk straight to his bedroom, then sit for hours & cry. Obviously he wasn’t available spiritually, physically or in any way to his wife & family. When has wife would come in to try to talk to him he’d express to her his worry about whether their son who had been killed was saved, & shed tears over the prospects of his being in hell.

He’d agonize & wonder if his mother & father made it to heaven or were they burning in hell. I think you’d probably agree that this sort of thing is abnormal, but in truth this is what can happen to any of us if we allow anxiety, fear & worry to crawl into the saddle & dig their spurs into our side. Worry & fear can turn us into obsessive /compulsive thinkers suffering from paralysis by analysis.

We weren’t created with the capacity to worry all the time & be mentally & spiritually well. Fear isn’t native to us, faith is. We just live better with confidence & faith than we do with fear & worry. I heard an eminent doctor say recently, “We don’t know why people who worry & fret die earlier than those who maintain good cheer, but they do.” Think about that. That isn’t a snake oil salesman trying to hype us up, but a medical man who lives in the trenches with the issues of life & death 24/7/365.

This is why Paul wrote in Philippians 4:6-7,

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer & thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts & your mind through Christ Jesus.

A worry- wart will spend as much as 30% of their time just worrying. Contrary to what some people think, worry is actually a form of action. It’s endless- “Dithering.” Worry is incessant mental rehearsal convincing a person they’re moving toward a solution. Energy is spent uselessly & vitality is drained.

A good way of describing worry is its like shoveling smoke. Energy is used up but nothing of value is accomplished. It’s like spending time wishing skunks didn’t stink. But a person can’t just tell themselves to quit worrying. I’ve had the experiencing of trying to quit worrying on my own & it’s much like telling yourself not to think about elephants. Every time I’ve tried that a whole group of elephants showed up wearing pink sunglasses. We must exchange our thoughts for God’s thoughts & fill our minds with God’s Word.

Recently several of our greatest television preachers & pastors have gone to heaven. None of them were as my grandmother used to say, “Dead with old age.” They were getting a little older but I would have expected them to live far longer than they did. Now I know that I’m not God & it isn’t my business to second guess their deaths, but I can’t help but wonder if they passed too soon.

Psalm 116:15 says, Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.

I can’t tell you how many funerals I‘ve preached using this verse as a comfort to the families, that “God was standing at the portico of glory, beckoning for his child to finally be home with Him.” One day a minister friend of mine told me, “John, did you know that word precious actually means costly?” Well, that put it all in a different light. Now we see God presented with the high cost of losing great & effective people in His kingdom.

I’ve heard people talk about why God took their loved one, & they’ll say, “Well, you know heaven must be lonely & they needed another flower to bloom in God’s bouquet. I know God must have needed another tenor singer in heavens choir.” Dear friend, if there’s any place in the universe that isn’t lonely its heaven.

Let’s go back to the ministers who’ve died lately & apply something my dad used to believe & speak of often. He studied the lives of all the famous preachers of the last one-hundred years. D.L Moody, the famous evangelist died at age 62. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great London pastor who was called “the prince of preachers” died at 58. The last year or two of Spurgeon’s life he was so sickly he spent most of his time in the South of France & mailed his sermons back to be read in his church.

My dad’s theory & I think he was right, was that stress brought on by too much popularity killed these men. They were in such world- wide demand that they abused their bodies traveling too much & working too hard. Also these men knew little about how diet & exercise affect the body so they spent most of their lives sitting & studying, hence many of them died with what doctors used to call, “Fatty heart deterioration.” One thing for sure, our bodies can’t tell the difference if we’re stressing out over little mundane things or if we’re being crushed by the weight of hurting humanity. Helping people is a noble cause but if we let people’s problems, even their spiritual problems get inside us; it can prove deadly.

There are certain natural laws of good mental & physical health we can’t break & do well, just as we couldn’t jump off a bridge on our way to church & expect the law of gravity to be suspended for us.

A few years ago I lost one of my best preacher friends & we were about the same age. I knew him from a boy I always considered him to be in much better physical shape than I ever was. He was never a smidgen overweight through all the years I knew him. On a Sunday evening he was getting ready to go to church & had a heart attack & was dead before the paramedics could get him to the hospital. I can’t prove this is true but I’ve always believed that stress killed him. He was super-conscientious, a perfectionist, & very “military” in his thinking.

Let’s look at some things that cause anxiety & also a few ways to fight it.

1. A need to control can cause anxiety.

This quality can morph into a malignant motivation if not watched. Sometimes we can get over- inflated ideas of our own importance & forget the world will go on quite nicely when we’re gone. This thought helps us stay in touch with reality.

2. Deal with facts not hobgoblins.

A very sharp, intelligent person can think of more things to worry about before he/she put their feet in the floor in the morning that a “duller-knife” can conjure up in a week. But statistics say the person with the not-so-high IQ may well be more successful & will probably live longer.

Philippians 4:8-9 says,---Finally brethren, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of a good report, if there be any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things. The things which you learned & received & heard & saw in me, these do, & the God of peace will be with you.

3. Humble yourself and pray.

1 Peter 5:6-7 says,--Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God that He may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon Him for he cares for you.

Pride turned angels into devils. We need to let God search us & see what’s inside us. Pride will install itself in our hearts & cause us to be self-absorbed & unable to see our lives in proper perspective. When we become self-absorbed, we’ll see our problems in a warped light.

Cain told God when he was approached about killing Able that he feared “everyone was going to kill him.” Of course this sprang from his guilt, because how could everyone kill him? A person can only be killed once the last time I checked. This was paranoia in Cain, aggravated by his pride. The devil will try to make us think “everyone” is against us, when it just isn’t true.
One man said, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.”

A young man went to his dad & told him he felt everyone hated him. The father answered him by saying, “Son, don’t say that, everyone hasn’t met you yet.”

Other people have more to do than to go around thinking how to hurt & defeat us, don’t you think?

4. Release all your worries to God & rest in Him.

1 Peter 5:10 says, “But may the God of all grace who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while establish, strengthen & settle you.”

When I was seven or eight I remember asking my mother one day, “Mom am I saved?” Her answer stills reverberates in my mind. She answered, “Son, nobody can answer that question but you.” I had said the sinners prayer & been baptized but I still had that haunting question. What struck home with me was that it was actually my decision & no one but me could make it. My eternal destiny was in my own hands.

In 1 Kings 18:21 Elijah asked the people on Mount Carmel to make a decision. He told them if they wanted to serve Baal to go on & serve him, or if they decided to go with God, they should make a decision & stop halting between two opinions. He was saying in essence, stop dithering.

James said…For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea, driven with the wind & tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. James 1: 6-8.

There are many landmines in the path of the believer not the least of which is procrastination. What decision do you need to make today? Will you make it & get on with your life or will you succumb to,

DITHERING?

Blessings,


John

Five Mistakes Christians Make

By John Stallings


A couple had two boys ages 8 & 10 who were mischievous. If there was any trouble around they were usually involved.

A new preacher came to town that’d had success with disciplining problem children so they asked if he would speak to the boys.

The minister agreed to see the two so the mother sent her 8 year old first in the morning, with the older boy to visit in the afternoon.

The preacher had a big booming voice so the youngster’s eyes grew large as he asked him sternly, “Son, where is God?” The kid’s mouth dropped open but he had no response, sitting there in wide-eyed shock. So the minister asked again, “Where is God?”

Finally the preacher stood in front of the boy & shook his finger in his face & asked again as loud as he could, “SON, TELL ME, WHERE IS GOD?”

The boy screamed & bolted from the room, ran home & got in the closet slamming the door behind him. His older brother found him in the closet & asked him “What happened?”

The younger brother gasping for breath replied, “We’re in big trouble this time dude. God’s missing--& they think we did it!” I realize this story doesn’t necessarily fit here but I think it’s hilarious & I wanted to tell it.

When people get desperate, or think they are, it’s amazing what they are willing to do. For example, a wife has been faithful to her husband for years, but because he isn’t as attentive as he should be, she throws discretion to the wind & has an affair.

Or a Christian young man, unwilling to continue to wait to find a Christian mate gives in & marries a woman whose faith is dubious if she even has faith. Or a Christian teenager fed-up with inconsistent parents, rebels & starts taking drugs & having promiscuous sex. The aforementioned are acceptable ways of coping by much of the world. The theme that permeates many popular songs & much of television & movies is; “whatever gets you through the night.”

Recently I was watching Jay Leno in his “man on the street” skit. He asked a man to name one of the Ten Commandments & he replied, “Freedom of speech.” A woman was asked to complete this sentence, “Let him that is without sin……. The answer came, “have a good time.”

Is our society in trouble or not? But not only are the unsaved in trouble these days, many Christians are so desperate for answers they cook up remedies for their problems that are worse than the problems themselves.

Here are some ways even Christian’s are ruining their lives.

1. ALLOWING EMOTIONS TO OVERRULE GOOD SENSE

Recently I heard a financial expert say;-“most people will never buy a car in their lifetime where their emotions aren’t deeply involved.”

I can relate to that statement although we’ve put over one-hundred thousand miles on our present car & almost a quarter of a million miles on the car we owned before that.

We do far too many things because of our emotions. Actions usually follow feelings like baby ducks follow their mother but that doesn’t mean the mother knows where she’s going.

The other day we were driving on I-4 in Orlando & suddenly came on a wall of tail- lights. We feared the worst but when we got close enough to see the problem it was a mother duck, out in the middle of one of the world’s busiest Super-hi-ways with about ten baby ducks following her. They were cute little rascals but that mother duck didn’t have clue-one as to where she was going nor how much danger she & her babies were in. I don’t know about you but I’ve learned that my emotions usually don’t know where they’re going either.

I won’t belabor it here because I’ve talked about it so much but letting our emotions rule us is always a bad idea, because our emotions & moods can change in 15 minutes for no apparent reason.

I’D LIKE YOU TO IMAGINE A SCENARIO FOR A MOMENT.

Picture a young woman, an immigrant from another country. She’s unfamiliar with the culture & the language but she’s eager to succeed & get ahead. She finds a position working for a wealthy couple in their large home. They are God-fearing people & she feels valued there & is treated like a family member.

But as time goes by she notices problems between the couple. She tells herself it’s none of her business but soon she finds her boss stopping to talk to her as she works. He confides to her there are problems in the marriage & becomes more & more affectionate towards her, which starts to make her uncomfortable.

But to whom can she turn? She has no friends & no support network. She’s completely dependant on her employers for everything. As the boss’s advances become more obvious the young girl wonders what to do. If they fire her she could be out on the street without a job or a roof over her head. This is supposed to be a good & upright man & a respectable citizen. One day her employer comes right out & lets her know he wants her to take his wife’s place in his affections & in his bed.

Did you imagine this story was taking place in a sprawling mansion of a multimillionaire? A high-rise in a big city penthouse apartment? Would it surprise you to know the original story I based this anecdote on happened in a tent made of animal skins at a desert oasis almost four thousand years ago?

Of course it was a different time & customs were different. A slave girl belonged to her owners & there was no such thing as human rights or a place to report sexual harassment. Polygamy was common & a man had a prefect right to have another wife or concubine if he wished, especially if his first wife was unable to have children.

ABRAM AND SARAH

In Genesis chapter 16 there’s this story of Abram & Sarah & their desperation to have a child. Sarah, - are you listening, - Sarah concocted the idea that her husband should have a child through their young Egyptian slave girl Hagar. How foolish does that sound to you?

Though this practice wouldn’t have raised a single eyebrow in that time & among the folk of that day, Abram & Sarah [I know her name was Sarah at this point but I’ll call her by the name that’s most familiar to us,] were abandoning their faith in God’s promise he’d made them by a covenant in chapter 15. Abram & Sarah, so faithful in their lives to this point are now scheming according to the flesh & not according to faith in something that will result in disaster for them & all who would come after them. They were making the mistake of doing God’s business for God.

It’s interesting to note in this story that when Sarah is laughing Hagar is crying & when Hagar laughs, Sarah weeps. Their fortunes & prospects are always moving in opposite directions. Note also that Sarah & Hagar both speak but never to each other. Hagar speaks to God & Sarah speaks to her husband but no one but God addresses Hagar by name. The people around her speak about her but never to her & never call her by name. You may be interested to know Hagar is the only woman in the Bible who dares to give God a name when she calls Him “El-Roi,” meaning “The God Who Sees.”

Getting back to emotional thinking, emotions will say things like; “Well I don’t know what God thinks but I’m going to do this anyway.” Or, “I don’t care if I do go to hell, its hell to live in this condition anyway.” Before you use that last line as an excuse, I’d advise you to go back & read the eighty words that were spoken from hell in Luke 16:23-31.

The second foolish thing Christians do to mess up their lives is;


2. THEY LISTEN TO THOSE WHO ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE WORD OF GOD.

Psalm 1:1 says, How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked.

In verse 2-4 of Genesis 16, the deed was done. Abram & Sarah at last would have the child they’d wanted for so long. The house would soon be filled with the sounds of happiness. Sounds like its right out of a story-book doesn’t it?

But the euphoria was short-lived. Trouble was already brewing. Before the child saw the light of day tension filled the house so thick you could cut it with a knife. What was meant to produce happiness would end up producing nearly endless sorrow in areas they never expected.

Verse 2 says, -So Abram listened to the voice of Sarah.

You may say, “What’s wrong with a man listening to his wife?” Nothing; unless his wife doesn’t understand the will of God. God had spoken to Abram when he left Ur, when he left Haran, & when He made the covenant with him to give him a son. The revelation was made solely to Abram, & Sarah knows far less the he does.

It may surprise you to know how many people when seeking advice, will actually seek out either weak believers or those who don’t know God’s Word at all. As a matter of fact the surest way to make an enemy of some people is step in & tell them what the Bible says.

In Galatians 4 Paul says, --Before you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself. Where then is that sense of blessing you had... Have I therefore become your enemy by telling you the truth?

I blame Abram for what happened here just as much as Sarah, in fact he shirked his responsibility big-time when he simply didn’t refuse what she suggested & remind her of what God had promised.

The third thing Christians do to mess up their lives is;

3. THEY BLAME OTHERS FOR THINGS THEY BRING ON THEMSELVES.

Surely when the trouble started because of what Sarah & Abram did they recognized their fault & owned up to all this, right? Wrong!

After the baby comes Hagar is suddenly elevated from the position of slave to second wife. She now had two things to hold over Sarah’s head; she’s younger & she can have babies. From Sarah’s vantage point this wasn’t the way it was supposed to work out.

But when we resort to fleshly schemes things never work out like we expected.

Whew! But there’s a bright spot here. As soon as it dawned on her what she’d done, Sarah humbled herself & went to her husband & apologized for her ill-fated suggestion. Right? Wrong again! She blamed Abram. That’s right, she’s blaming him. It’s hard to believe that this is the same woman who’s held up to us in the New Testament as a model wife. But to be fair, everyone in this story is just doing what comes “naturally” not obeying God & doing things His way.

It’s very common for people to blame others when their own chickens come home to roost. A sure sign of spiritual immaturity is when people refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions.

I used the story in a message some time ago about a small airline operating out of South America. Most of the clients were missionaries who were shuttled around in the light planes owned & operated by this fledgling air-transport company.

One day one of the planes took off carrying several missionaries & two well known Bible translators to a remote area. The plane had been airborne just a few minutes when it burst into flames & crashed killing all aboard.

When the news reached the headquarters of the little airline where the plane took off & all the planes were serviced, a Christian mechanic took the news hard. The reason he took the news so hard was he remembered his hands were the last to touch the ill-fated aircraft before it left. As he contemplated it, he remembered that in the process of servicing the plane, he’d left a cap off a gas tank. He’d made a mental note to come back & secure the cap but had forgotten to do so.

One of the things that made the story so unusual was that the mechanic didn’t have to tell his story to anyone, but he was convinced his mistake had caused the plane to crash. I was impressed by that story for so many reasons, not the least of which was that mechanic was one in ten-thousand who’d implicate themselves when it would have been easier to just keep quiet about the part they played in the tragedy.

However, life seems to happen less in a linear manner than cyclical, & this man knew in his heart that in the long run he’d be more a candidate for God’s grace to help put it behind him & experience healing if he was open & honest about his mistake, rather than just bottling it all up inside himself.

If we can’t come clean about our mistakes we’re much more likely to repeat them. Many people stagger through life from one crisis to the next, battered, bruised & taken advantage of & it never occurs to them that they hold the key to changing things, but they’re too proud to admit they’re wrong. The wife blames the husband as Sarah did here & as Adam did in the Garden when he told God, The woman thou gavest to be with me she gave me from the tree & I ate.

The fourth thing Christians do to mess-up their life is;

4. THEY COMPROMISE THEIR CONVICTIONS FOR THE SAKE OF KEEPING PEACE.

Doesn’t it seem to you that its time for Abraham to take the bull by the horns in this story? Isn’t it about time he administered the Word of God to his bickering family?

He could have started by saying, “Guys, this all started because I let it happen. I didn’t have to consent to this fleshly scheme but I did & I was wrong. But Sarah, honey, I need you to own up to your guilt & admit it was your idea in the beginning. You brought this on yourself so its high-time you stopped pointing your finger at everyone but yourself; OK? You should have stopped & considered how Hagar was going to react in all this. And Oh, Hagar, girl you need to climb off your high-horse & remember you’re still a servant in this house & you must treat Sarah with respect because she’s my wife.”

So does Abraham start sorting it all out & put things back in order in his house? Nope! Abram turns out to be more of a push-over than a patriarch in this situation. Let’s face it; Abram didn’t want to deal with two bickering women so it’s much easier in this incidence for him to be a mouse than a man.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not advocating that men be overbearing with their wives, a thousand times no. But the husband is supposed to be the leader of his home & sadly many men don’t even know what that means. Godly pastors are preaching & teaching it all over America but men aren’t showing up to hear it. In America’s homes today about the only way a man’s going to rise up & breath fire is if someone misplaces the TV remote. Wives are frustrated, children are exasperated & many men are pusillanimous passives.

Twice during the difficult years of this story Hagar left Abraham’s camp. Once was just before Ishmael’s birth when she ran away because of conflicts that arose between herself & her mistress Sarah. On this occasion an angel from the Lord told her to go back to Abram & Sarah—perhaps because as a runaway slave she’d have no means of support & care for her baby outside their household.

The angel also told her she’d bear a son & that she should call him Ishmael the name that means “God hears.” Fourteen years later Hagar left Abram’s home again this time Ishmael was a young man. Not surprisingly his stock in the family had gone down with the birth of the promised child Isaac. The conflict was so bad Abram sent them away but God spoke to Hagar again & provided water when her son was dying of thirst. God also provided encouragement for her & Ishmael as he led them into a new life. Certainly Hagar was marginalized if not victimized in this situation, a woman without value & standing in the eyes of man. Though God didn’t plan to send the promised son through her, & she wasn’t the lawful wife of Abram, He didn’t see her as insignificant, nor ignore her. God saw her, He spoke to her & he reached out & touched this woman who had no reason to believe her life was of any value to anybody.

Most people know that what we are seeing in the Middle East today, the bombings that are in the news almost daily is the fruit of Hagar’s son Ishmael being born; the fruit of what went on ‘behind the tent flaps” of Abram & Sarah’s household so many years ago when they left God out of their planning & took up fleshly methods rather than rely on the promises of God.

The fifth thing Christians do to mess-up their life is;


5. THEY JUST AREN’T WILLING TO WAIT FOR THE GOOD THINGS GOD HAS FOR THEM.

Nobody likes to wait. As a matter of fact our culture hates to wait. Waiting isn’t one of our strong traits. Make us wait too long & we’re pretty sure something is wrong. Waiting frustrates us, makes us mean, challenges our faith & tempts us to lose hope. There’s a name for people who can patiently wait without going nutso. They’re called saints. Many people however if forced to wait too long, give up & become cynics making the decision to just coast through life. They become permanently disappointed with God & man.

Here’s where young people get in trouble in our materialistic society. They look at what mom & dad have, maybe three cars, an RV, a five bedroom house, flat-screen TVs all over the place, plus a quarter of a million in their retirement account. Not understanding that it took the parents 45 years of working their fingers to the bone to accumulate what they have, the young person sets out to have what the parents have, but they want it NOW!

And just how are these young folk going to do this? Easy! ---Think with me about the credit card you have in your wallet or purse. Did you know it’s a “time machine?” Oh yes, that card at least for a while can reach out & grab the future & pull it right into your present. I’ll bet you never thought about it that way did you? Each day people are charging their way into the future because they’re too impatient to wait for the future to come.

Saving is such a slow & tedious way to work toward home ownership that people have signed for mortgages they can barely afford. Also it’s hard for young people to wait for marriage to have sex so fewer & fewer couples are waiting.

Are you waiting for something big to happen in your life, your marriage, your health, finances or even your ministry? Will you let me tell you something extremely important? Here it is;--LIFE IS PRETTY MUCH A WAITING GAME. Let me go a little further. Life is slow, tedious, many times mundane & is so full of waiting if you’re not careful it can cause you to do something crazy; that is if you don’t know what I’ve just told you. Life includes seasons of running & seasons of waiting with a lot more valley time than mountain-top time.

If you’ve read many of my messages you’ve heard me say—God isn’t a time-dweller & isn’t impressed with time as we are. He calls on us to wait.

God wants us to wait in humility because He’s the king & we’re His subjects. He’s in charge. He knows when the time is right.
Waiting doesn’t mean we’ve been bad or that God is angry at us. Waiting doesn’t mean we’re lost or that God is punishing us.

Let us not grow weary of waiting like Abram & Sarah did & produce Ishmaels in our lives. Let’s not try to jump from mountain-top to mountain-top so we can live on a “false high” all the time.

Waiting doesn’t necessarily even mean that we are in need of repentance of some sin. Waiting just means that we need to be faithful & continue serving God in life’s routines.

In Hagar’s grief & agony, in her shame & hopelessness she cried out to the God of the helpless & the hopeless. The God who saw Hagar also sees you. He sees your need. He sees, knows & cares about your feelings & wants you to reach out to Him. Will you turn to Him? This story reminds us there’s a wonderful wideness in God’s unassailable love.

I invite you to remember with me this marvelous verse;

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run & not be weary & they shall walk & not faint.—Ish. 40:31


Blessings,

John