Is Jesus The Only Way To Heaven?

By John Stallings


To answer yes to that question, to say-“YES, Jesus is the only way to heaven”- is considered by many people, even some Christians, to be the most narrow- minded, bigoted, arrogant, mean-spirited, intolerant and hateful statement that could ever be made!

Does that surprise you?

It’s incredible to me that the most fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith, i.e. The Deity and Lordship of Jesus Christ, is being called into question or debated among people who call themselves Christians. But this is precisely what’s taking place. In some quarters there’s a questioning of whether a personal relationship with Jesus Christ should be preached as a prerequisite for salvation.

Recently a poll was taken and it showed 57% of evangelical church goers said they believed many religions can lead to eternal life. Apparently in our culture, the number one atrocity isn’t rape, or murder, but rather its intolerance. A scant 12% of Americans claim their religion is the only true faith.

When asked;- “Do you believe Jesus is the only way to heaven” even some prominent Christian leaders have been heard to say - “We’ll I’m not God and I’m going to leave it to Him to decide who’ll end up saved and allowed entrance into heaven.”

A prominent Baptist preacher/educator was recently asked by a reporter of the Edmonton Journal, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; - “Do you believe non-Christians can go to heaven?” He answered;-“That’s a good question to ask because the way we stand is we contend that trusting Jesus is the way to heaven. However, we do not know who Jesus will bring into the kingdom and who He will not. We are very careful about pronouncing judgment on anybody. We leave judgment in the hands of God and we are saying Jesus is the way. We preach Jesus but we have no way of knowing to whom the grace of God is extended.” So this educator and ordained Baptist minister is in the misty fog here. It’s just a big mystery.

One of the most famous pastor/T.V evangelists recently “fence-straddled” when Larry King asked him if he believed atheists would go to heaven. He said-“I am going to let God be the judge of who goes to heaven and hell.” When Larry asked him if Jews or Muslims could go to heaven without trusting Christ he replied;-“I’m very careful about saying who would go and wouldn’t go to heaven. I don’t know.” According to him too, the actual qualifications for heaven are a mystery.

This world famous Christian minister chose to skate around the issue for fear, I suppose, that someone would be offended or put-off if he made any kind of absolute statement about his faith. That would be considered…well…intolerant.

A scripture comes to mind here. Jesus said; But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I deny before my Father which is in heaven. Matt.10:33

So at least as far as these two powerful Christian leaders are concerned, there’s a mystery connected with the requirements for eternal life in heaven. If some are coming through that way it must be a “Mystery door.” According to scripture, Jesus is “The Door of Heaven.” If it’s true as the aforementioned ministers’ in essence imply, that there’s another big door …. “The Mystery Door” and we can’t and won’t know until judgment day whom He’ll let into heaven, then instead of the plan of salvation being simple, it’s not really as plainly marked as we’ve believed it to be. If this were true [it’s not,] then the “mystery door” is as much a part of getting folk to heaven as faith in the finished work of the cross upon which Jesus shed His blood.

As we watched not long ago the brouhaha unfolding  concerning the plausibility and feasibility of a Muslim Mosque being built within a stones throw of Ground Zero in Manhattan, we’ve been reminded that we don’t inhabit the same world that we did just a few short years ago. It’s my personal opinion that president Obama did what he does best and “clod-hopped” into the fray, but the one thing he did was to show an obvious bias for Muslims. This isn’t a surprise to most Americans. We understand that if it were a nativity scene in question, or even people singing The National Anthem on the sidewalk anywhere near the site it would immediately be squelched.

The good news is it allowed the president to do something I’d never heard him do before and that’s to stand up for the Constitution as well as our Founders and freedom of religion. I suspect that was an “unintended consequence.”

Paul warned us  when he wrote;-

For the time will come when they {church folk} will not endure [tolerate] sound doctrine; but after their own lusts they shall heap to themselves teachers having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth and shall be turned unto fables.”-2 Timothy 4:3-4.

Paul had no tolerance for those who would not preach the gospel. In Galatians 1:8 he said;

But though we, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

Far too many preachers stand in pulpits and feed tasty doctrine whipped into a creamy filling suitable for topping canapes. That’s a palatable but not very sustaining spiritual food. People go looking for syrupy homilies that will bolster their self-esteem, wanting to hear anecdotes and vivid vignettes to help them find fulfillment or entertaining monologues that will brighten their lives.

We need not only expository preaching, we need expository listening from people who don’t have “itching ears” but will demand and ingest “the sincere meat of the Word.”

Let’s contrast the aforementioned minister’s words to the words recently spoken by Franklin Graham. You will remember that Franklin, the son of Billy Graham was removed as speaker for the National Day of Prayer service at the Pentagon some time back. Things Mr. Graham said that “disqualified” him for speaking was as follows; in a USA Today interview Graham said referring to one of the five Hindu deities, “None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation. We are fooling ourselves if we think we can have some big Kumbya service and all hold hands and it’s going to get better in this world. It’s not going to get better.” Another Graham “offense” was saying-Islam is evil, and Muslims and Hindus don’t pray to the same God he does.

Graham didn’t back down from anything he said earlier and in a Newsweek Web Exclusive he restated his position;-“I am who I am. I don’t believe that you can get to heaven through being a Buddhist or Hindu. I think Muhammad only leads to the grave. Now that’s what I believe and I don’t apologize for my faith. And if it’s divisive, I’m sorry.”

In my view, Mr. Graham hit the ball out of the park.

If a major research establishment, say The Mayo Clinic discovered a treatment that would cure all kinds of cancer, the treatment is 100% effective, and they said-“This is the only treatment you’ll ever need,” would it be narrow-minded or arrogant for them to say that?

Moreover, in this day when people want to keep tolerance in everything and resent radical statements about absolutes, do you think a parent with a child stricken with terminal cancer upon hearing this would complain and say, “You know, even though this involves my child’s health, I don’t think it appropriate for you to make such rash claims. What about the other potential cures?”

When it comes to cures for potentially deadly diseases, most folk are looking for a “Silver Bullet Solution.”

IN EVERYTHING EXCEPT RELIGION PEOPLE LOVE ABSOLUTES.

Let’s take it a step farther. What if a parent took their sick child to a doctor and after the diagnosis, the doctor said, “There are hundreds of potential cures for your child’s condition. I have studied them all and I recommend all of them for your child’s treatment. I won’t however recommend a specific path of treatment for your child because that would be arrogant and intolerant. There are plenty of medical journals that perhaps would dispute my recommendation and my advice would in all likelihood offend some of my colleagues. So you’ll have to come to your own conclusion because in the end, any medical treatment is going to lead to your child’s healing.”

The same parent who might be offended at someone making absolute statements about religion would get in that doctors face and say, “What are you talking about? This is nonsense! You’re supposed to help me. Stop this ridiculous pluralistic and relativistic mumbo-jumbo and help me see my child get well.” At the end of the day when push comes to shove, we all hold to absolutes!

When it comes to the disease of sin, which is terminal beyond doubt, truth demands that we share with the world the good news that Christianity can provide both the diagnosis and the remedy.

What if I were hiking high in the mountains, and was standing 50 feet away from the edge of a cliff, and to fall off that cliff would mean an 1800 feet drop into the jagged rocks on the canyon floor. If I spotted an elderly man walking dangerously close to the edge, and I realize he’s blind and has no idea of the danger he’s in, which of the following things would I be correct in saying; - “Hey my Brother, you’re walking straight toward a pretty bad drop-off and you need to get away from there. You can go any way you like, just do it quickly and you’ll be O.K!” –Or-“Hey my Brother- don’t take another step. You’re in mortal danger. I’m coming to get you.” And then I went to him, took him by the hand and led him to safety. Which approach would be considered right? I think we can all agree that love would constrain me to do what I could to save his life.

Just to clarify, I don’t think God is more interested in “getting us to heaven” than he is seeing us conform to image of His dear Son while we’re moving through this ‘mortal coil.” But since the question has already been cast around the paradigm of attaining heaven, that’s where I’ll pitch my mental tent.

FIRST- WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY REGARDING JESUS BEING THE ONLY WAY TO HEAVEN?

Consider the words of Jesus in John 14:6. “I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.

This is an utterly exclusive claim by our Lord that without Him and apart from Him there’s no way to The Father in heaven. There’s not a plan-B if you decide against Jesus.

Note that Jesus doesn’t say-I am a way, a truth, and a life. He insists He’s “The way, the truth and the life.” It’s important to remember who’s making this statement. Jesus isn’t just a good man or a great prophet, Jesus is God in human flesh.

Jesus says He’s the only way you can get to heaven. You can’t get there by being good. You can’t get there by being religious. You can’t get there by ceremony or knowledge or pedigree. Jesus doesn’t just point out the way He is the Way. He doesn’t just teach the truth, He is the Truth. He doesn’t represent one avenue to life or one possibility in life, He is the Life. Mankind’s quest for truth ends in Jesus Christ. Having said this, in some people’s minds I now join the ranks of the “narrow-minded, intolerant bigots.”

In 1 Corinthians 3:11 Paul says;-For no man can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.

1 Timothy 2:5 says;-There is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

Paul says in Romans 10:9—If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead you will be saved.

Listen to Peter’s words—Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. -Acts 4:12.

NO OTHER WAY -NO OTHER NAME- NO OTHER FOUNDATION

The only way we can say there are other ways to heaven besides faith in Christ is to completely discount everything the Bible teaches on the subject.

The whole gospel boils down to this one universal truth; because our sins have separated us from God we need a mediator to bring us back to Him. Because the “sin-gap’ is so wide, we need someone from heaven who is Himself eternal to bridge the gap for us. Jesus is the only one who could bridge that gap. By His death He paid for our sins and bridged the gap that separates us from God. By His resurrection He proved He is the Son of God. The remains of all the other historical religious leaders are still in their graves.

No other mediator is necessary—no other mediator is possible.

IS THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST TOO NARROW AND ABSOLUTE?

I'm sure you've noticed that the world we live in is rather narrow. Certainly the law of gravity and the temperature at which water freezes and boils have a stubborn uniformity. If you enter a phone booth, you can’t dial any combination of numbers and get your home. Every business and residence has its own set of numbers that must be dialed to reach that location. If you set out to drive to California you can’t take any old road and expect to get there. If you have a headache, you don’t go to your cabinet and blindly pick out any bottle and expect relief. When I’m on an airliner, I expect the pilot to land on a runway not beside a runway, and not upside down.

Suppose a teacher put on an exam the question,- what’s the capitol of New York? When the test papers were returned she’d marked wrong any answer but the right one, Albany. One student had written the answer, New York City and the teacher had marked it wrong. Let’s say the young man who answered New York City wasn’t happy with the results and he turned to the other students and asked, “How many of you thought the capitol of New York was New York City? Let’s say half the students agreed with the young man and thought the capitol was New York City. The student then turns to the teacher and says, “So what makes you think your opinion is more valid than ours?” It’s obvious that there is only one correct answer to that question in spite of differing opinions.

Some people place spiritual truth into the area of opinion and anyone who tries to shift answers back from the realm of opinion to God’s authority is looked on as an intolerant person.

The other night Juda and I watched a Denzel Washington Lifetime Movie called The Great Debaters. It told the story of a Negro debate team from Texas, who back in the thirties won top national awards for debating. It was interesting to see how, before personal computers the students had to research their subjects. When they were traveling, they’d be in their motel rooms with books lying all over the beds to the point that they almost slept with books.

The point was, they had to be right in what they were saying during their debates. The researcher was as much an important part of the debates as the speakers. One of the comforts we as Christians can take is the fact that the claims of Jesus Christ have been more researched than any other group of facts man has ever known.

Let’s say for the sake of argument we accept that other religions will go to heaven. But the kicker is…none of these other religions—not Buddhists…..not the followers of Confucius…..not Taoist….not Hindus, none of those faiths have as their ultimate goal the kind of heaven most westerners have in mind. In most cases, these religions don’t even want to go to heaven.

The Buddhist doctrine is that all life is suffering and the goal is to end all suffering. Their big deal is something called Nirvana, a state of being absorbed, if you will into the great nothingness of the cosmos. You no longer have an individual existence or awareness of yourself. The Buddhists and Hindus see a cycle of reincarnation where life looks like a giant wheel. It goes around and around every time you die and are reincarnated.

It’s only people who’re raised in some sort of Christian culture who seem embarrassed by the exclusiveness of claims of Christ. Oddly enough most of the other religions try to incorporate this exclusive Jesus into their faith in some way. Muslims call Him an honored prophet. Buddhists refer to Him as a Bodhisattva, or an enlightened one who shows the path to others. Hindus think of Him as an incarnation of Vishnu, one of their highest Gods. I wonder if somehow deep in the collective heart of all humanity there isn’t that general revelation from God that points to Jesus as in fact, The Way, The Truth, and The Life.

Somehow the thought has taken hold that sincerity, not the truth is the higher of the two virtues. But in religious matters sincerity is never enough. We’re not talking here about our emotions or our preferences. The issue is truth. I don’t doubt the sincerity of the people of Islam or Hinduism. But sincerity only matters when applied to the proper object. You can be sincerely wrong and still be wrong. Believing the wrong things doesn’t make it right.

HOW DO WE COMMUNICATE OUR CHRISTIAN FAITH TO OTHERS?

Today our world grows smaller and smaller and we find ourselves rubbing shoulders with people from different religious backgrounds. This is a relatively new phenomenon…growing more intense. Let’s face it. It looks like in the future we’re going to have Muslims and people of other religious beliefs living all around us and our children will go to school with them. This is already happening.

How do we best explain what we believe to those of other religions? That’s an important question! Our challenge going forward isn’t just going to be to believe in the facts we’ve tried to present here about Christ, but rather to articulate this message in a culture that rejects our views. We must concern ourselves with boldly yet respectively sharing Christ with unbelieving classmates, friends and family.

The important thing is not to be afraid.

Don’t be afraid of someone who doesn’t share your point of view.

Don’t be afraid of your Muslim co-worker or your Hindu neighbor.

Don’t be afraid to strike up a conversation with a student who has no religious beliefs whatsoever.

If we’re afraid we become defensive and that can make us all mouth with no ears. In the west they call it “All hat and no cattle.” It’s not a sin or a mistake to let someone else explain what they believe and how they view the world. But pray as you listen to others so that you can get better understanding of who they are and what they believe. If you and I show ourselves friendly, God will open doors that we could have never opened on our own. I also believe that one of our greatest challenges is to know what we believe and why we believe it. Knowledge is strong medicine.

WHAT IF PEOPLE REACT NEGATIVELY?

Remember you can’t argue a person into the Kingdom of God. Neither can you insult them into belief in Christ. It seems also evident but swearing at folk doesn’t make them want to run to the cross. As we’ve said, it helps to remember that people without Christ are spiritually blind. 2 Cor. 4:4.

Until their blindness is removed by the Holy Spirit they will never “See” the truth. You might as well get angry at a blind person for not seeing the color green. Our strategy must be based on kindness and Christ-centeredness.”

Listen to 2 Timothy 2:24-25;

And the Lord’s servant must not quarrel: instead be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Those who oppose him he must gently instruct, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth.

For most of my life I’ve endeavored to focus my ministry on the supremacy of Jesus. If I fail to boldly lift Him up my efforts become irrelevant. No church group or denomination can get someone to heaven but Jesus can.

This is all that matters! Life’s biggest decision is what we do with Jesus and how we proclaim Him to a dying world.

We can’t let fear of being called intolerant Christians cause us to be weak-kneed when the world’s most important question is asked; “Is Jesus the only way to heaven?”


The answer is, YES!


Blessings,


John


SCRIPTURE REFERENCES

John 14:6

John 3:31-36

John 11:25-27

Matthew 7:13-14

Acts 4:12, 10;42-43, 17:30

1 Timothy 2:5-6

1John 5”12

Caging The Beast

By John Stallings


Don’t let its size fool you. It’s small but deadly.

Its influence & power far exceed its size. The destructive venom of this little monster has an almost unbelievable potential for destruction.

The beast is restless, arrogant, powerful, poisonous, deceptive & hypocritical. Graveyards are filled with its victims.

The smallness of this monstrous creature will cause you to tend to underestimate the damage it can do.

The snakes that slither through the swamps & jungles of this world, many of them packing enough deadly venom to kill elephants are almost a joke when compared with this little destroyer. It’s a nasty piece of work. Tiny but terrible.

This beast can hurt you & hurt you bad. Its powers can prove fatal. You must know what you’re dealing with, the insidious power packed into this shocking little monster. It’s too wild, too fierce, and too poisonous to ever be fully domesticated.

It only weights a couple of ounces. It hides out of sight, yet no force on the planet carries as much power.

Strong words? Yes- but in no way do they exaggerate. This little terrorist is shockingly hideous, ravenously hungry, a slithery, slimy, poisoned tipped beast. It’s indigenous to every country in the world & has caused untold destruction on a global scale.

Before I tell you the name of this little monster, let me first ask a few questions.

What part of the human body is so important that if we could control just that one part we could be considered to be a perfect person?

What part of the body, when it opens it can reveal our inner landscape?

What part of our body is said to be the “tattletale of the heart?”

What part of our body has the ability, at will, to strengthen others or tear them down at its own discretion?

THE TONGUE

By now I’m sure you know what body part I speak of. I speak of the tongue. We must admit that this movable muscular structure attached to the floor of the mouth has catapulted the world into global conflict, brought down empires, raised up leaders, & instilled courage into deflated minds.

Proverbs 13:3 says,--He who guards his mouth guards his life.

Johnny Cash “ shot a man in Reno just to watch him die.” The uncaged tongue likes to set fires just to watch people burn.

Probably no subject makes us more uncomfortable than the tongue. All of life seems to revolve, in one way or another around the tongue.With it we conduct business, build relationships, & express praise to God. But with it we might also deceive, tear down relationships & ruin the reputation of others. Each day we live, good & evil resides in our tongues therefore we must be sure that we submit our tongues to the lord & make certain we’re functioning by divine grace & that our love-level is high.

THE BOOK OF JAMES

The popular movie that has recently caused a sensation at the box office called Twilight & its sequels conjure up a scary scenario about human vampires & are categorized as horror movies.

But when you read James’ description of the tongue & its destructive potential you feel as if you’re in a horror movie to end all horrors. You feel as if you’re being pursued by a ravenously hungry & deadly monster, & you are. We all are because we all possess one of these potential killers called the tongue.

All the intricate connections that we are involved in, whether they be family, friend, or business related can quickly and easily be burned to the ground with a word. The tongue is the “top dog” among our members. Once let loose, the destructive potential of the spoken word can’t be recaptured. Every word that passes through our lips has the potential to wreck someone’s reputation or destroy a business or break-up a family.Such is the uncontrollable character of the tongue.

The book of James is different to say the least. It is basic entry-level “in your face” Christianity. If we spoke metaphorically, we could say that in James, we’re being exercised but it isn’t in a fancy spa. James is just crunches, push-ups & heavy bag work in a smelly basement gym. James is going to stretch us until we grasp the importance of putting our faith to work. You have to really mean business when you start with the book of James.

Reformer Martin Luther couldn’t understand how the book of James got into the Bible. He didn’t really appreciate the book because he couldn’t find grace in it. To Luther, James was all about works & right-living & wasn’t worth much.

To be frank, the first time I got into the book of James, I mean got into it in a serious way, I said, “God help me, I’m doomed.” Several times as a pastor I’ve tried to preach through James & it got so tedious I was looking for exit ramps. If you’re going to teach this book, you’d be wise to do as I’ve done & ask God for a revelation. James doesn’t flow in story form-James hits you from all sides so before you read it make sure you’re ready to get “fit.”

James has a lot to say about the tongue. We should keep in mind as we read that James is considering the tongue in its natural condition apart from divine power & grace. James’ whole point is to point us to the absolute necessity for God’s grace to work in our lives, especially in our tongues.

Maybe you’ve observed that I write a lot about the power of the tongue. To be very candid, it’s probably because I’ve so often been humiliated by some of the infractions I’ve made with words. I can honestly say that I’ve said lots of good things in my life. We all have. In a very real way, words have been my life. Words I’ve spoken have changed the lives of many for the better. When I’ve based what I’ve said on God’s Word, as in preaching & teaching, the eternal destinies of many souls have been changed by words I’ve spoken. Occasionally I’ve said & written some things that people a lot smarter than me have actually called profound.

But I’m also capable of occasionally saying stupid things that have made me long for a trap door so I could beat a hasty retreat & escape. I’ve wept over some of the things I’ve said. I’m sure I’ve caused others to weep too, & for this I feel terrible, even though it’s all under the blood. I’m getting better all the time but I still have the capacity to say the wrong things.

Attacks of stupidity play no favorites; you can find it in Washington D. C as well as in the ghettos. In this "silly season," as we move into an extremely important election period, we see the use and misuse of the human tongue on full display. I venture to say that the average politician doesn't have a clue to the richness of the book of James and how he could be enriched, even revolutionized by it. If we could print just this little book and send copies to the individuals of all todays political parties and ask them to please read it  through, their  outlooks would be changed and without a doubt we'd see a stunning immediate  difference in the words they say. Indeed the whole political discourse  would change and our nation would be the recipient of untold blessings. Don't you agree?

Who hasn’t hurled hurtful words in retaliation for real or perceived hurts? Who hasn’t wondered out loud if this or that may or may not be true & dropped a spark that ignited a forest fire of rumor? Who hasn’t said--- “now don’t breathe a word of this, but……?” I’m sure we’ve all put a few people in the spiritual burn unit with our words.

If you & I don’t acknowledge the awful power of our tongue & take steps to cage it, we’re sure to do some damage-some real damage. Psychologists say a small child can be caused to start a lifetime of stuttering when they’re abused with words or have been caused to feel they don’t have anything of importance to say.

James doesn’t offer any magic solutions. He isn’t under any illusions that we in our own power have the ability to change our ways. He says it flat-out—every species of bird & beast & reptile & sea creature can & has been brought under control but the tongue no man can control. The tongue is a restless evil full of deadly poison.
It doesn’t seem to be in our DNA to be able to control our tongue. Do you remember a few weeks ago while Obama was giving a speech, when Congressman Joe Wilson shouted out—“You lie?” He later said he wished he hadn’t done that. IMHO, whether what he said was correct or not isn’t the issue. The man was out of line & his little beast temporarily escaped its cage & struck like a rattlesnake.

Also, have you noticed lately how many public figures have lost their job, been shuttled around to get them out of the public eye or have been retired because of the improper use of their tongue? They didn’t know how to cage the beast in their mouth or maybe they just had a lapse & in an unguarded moment the little beast slipped out of his cage.

James is right when he says in essence, one minute we’re using our tongue to glorify God & the next minute we’ve opened our mouth & released “tongue toxins” into the air by saying mean & nasty things. Words can slip off our tongue & past our lips before we even know it.

Famed defense attorney Herbert J. Miller was asked the most important advice he ever gave a client. His answer was, “keep your mouth shut.”

How are we unlike the rest of the world when as Christians we tongue-lash each other & stab each other in the back with our words & too many times are too full of pride to apologize for the wrong things we’ve said. God help us all!!

STRATEGIES FOR CAGING THE BEAST

1. HOLY SILENCE

In modern day language—Zip-it!

Jesus is the example in this regard;

He was oppressed & he was afflicted yet he opened not His mouth; he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, & as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he opened not His mouth.—Ish: 53:7

David said;

"I will take heed to my ways that I sin not with my tongue….." Psalm 39-1

As believers, we should seek to develop the virtue of Holy silence; a silence that produces peace, reconciliation, & forgiveness.

I heard about a young unmarried man who was talking to a man who’d been married for many years. The young man, seeking to tap into some of the older man’s wisdom asked this question; “What in the world do you still have to talk about when you’ve been married all those years? It seems to me that after a while you’d just run out of things to say & then…silence.” The married man said with a smile, “Yes my boy you’re right…blessed silence.”

It’s been said that we should never pass up the chance to be quiet. God has placed our “little monster” behind a wall of teeth & between two powerful jaws & as a last resort behind two fastened lips. If you don’t think those jaws are powerful, just have the smallest child with teeth to bite you. Even the most powerful athletes in the world couldn’t deal with bites from human jaws.

Part of our wisdom & even our holiness is what we could say -but don’t.
This doesn’t mean that to be good Christians we should never speak. Speech is too precious & powerful a gift to just give up. Part of what we need is to develop a “filter.” A mark of maturity is the quality of our filter.

James 1:9 says….Let every man be swift to hear & slow to speak. Funny how we’ve gotten that backwards isn’t it?

2.  RECOGNIZE THE PROBLEM FOR WHAT IT IS

If we have a problem with that little critter one inch above our chin & one inch below our nose, we shouldn’t hesitate to take it to God in prayer & ask Him by His Holy Spirit to help us get control.

I heard about a woman who fell under deep conviction for gossiping so she went to her pastor & said, “pastor, I have a problem with gossiping & I’d like to lay my tongue on the alter tonight.” The pastor said, “That will be good, here’s 40 foot of alter, lay as much of it as you can on the alter.”

Many times we criticize ministers for preaching the same precepts & messages over & over but the truth is, some things are so important we need that repetition so that we might be constantly aware. This is especially true as regards the tongue because it can seem to be so trite.

How would you feel if you suspected that your house was “bugged?” If you thought someone was recording your every word how would it affect you? Well, we are being bugged. I’ve heard for years that every sound that’s made goes out into the ether waves & lives on. Apparently sounds never die. That would mean that everything we’ve ever said is alive somewhere.

Maybe that’s what Jesus meant when He said, -But I tell you that men will have to give account on the Day of Judgment for every careless word they have spoken.—Matthew 12:6

Our society tells us that people should just “let it all hang out. If you feel it, say it. Never hold back, if you do it’ll make you sick. Get it out there.” Well what about this little piece of wisdom;-“Put a lid on it?”

3. DON’T SAY TOO LITTLE

Just as we should ask ourselves if we’re talking too much, we should also ask ourselves if we’re saying enough.

Proverbs 25:11 says,--A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.

God wants to fill our mouths with good things. Too many Christians hold their peace when they should be speaking out.

Don’t say too little when your sweet wife has outdone herself in the kitchen making your favorite meal.
Don’t say too little when you kid works hard to get his/her grades up just to make you proud of them.
Don’t say too little when God has answered your prayers & given you your hearts desire.
Don’t say too little on the birthday of your precious wife who’s the most loyal woman on the planet & has stuck with you through thick & thin.

One more important tip;

4. THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK

“The heart of the righteous ponders how to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pours out evil things.—Proverbs 15:28

Here’s an acrostic that can be helpful & can assure that our words will be gracious & uplifting;

1. T—is it true?
2. H-is it helpful?
3. I—is it inspiring?
4. N.—is it necessary?
5. K—is it kind?

Obviously our words have great weight. But we should take heart because every word of love, grace, mercy, & encouragement will also be remembered.

Malachi 3:16 is an interesting prophetic passage in regards to this;

Then those who revered the Lord spoke with one another. The Lord took note & listened & a book of remembrance was written before Him of those who revered the Lord & thought on His name.

Like David we should pray, set a guard O Lord over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. Psalm 141:3

In order to use God’s gift of speech for the purpose for which God created it, we must control our tongue so that it is used to worship Him & build up others.

When we successfully cage the beast, we are free to loose words of life, hope, & peace. As I’ve said many times, we can work on it together.


Blessings,


John

You Might Be A Pharisee If....

By John Stallings

 
This blog is for recovering Pharisees [like me.] Yes I’ll admit it. But that was several decades ago. I didn’t know I was a Pharisee. I’m still in recovery.

In those days, I’d be preaching & say things like, “Now I’m going to say this but you good people who’ve experienced divorce, please don’t be upset, I’m not preaching at you.”

All the while I was saying in my mind, [I didn’t realize this then] “I’m a bit superior here because I’ve never experienced a divorce, & to be frank, my marriage is so special it could never happen to me. So I’ll just keep on trying to help these battered victims of divorce.”

But after over 25 years of marriage, a marriage that produced three children, I was blindsided by a marital break-up I would have crawled on shredded glass to have avoided. In the blink of an eye I saw my marriage & a quarter of a century of work vanish before my eyes. I didn’t even lay material claim to the proverbial “Styrofoam minnow bucket.”

Over the next few years I was forced to look closely at myself. For one thing, I was a Pharisee. What was this preacher going to do now, who’d been taught that his ministry, if not his life was over if he ever divorced? Here’s what I did; not willing to remain single for life, after  years of trying to save the marriage, I was forced to move on. God gave me another chance. I remarried,- to my childhood sweetheart  & recently my wife Juda & I celebrated 28 years of marriage.

 Yes God hates divorce.  He also hates;

……a proud look, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running into mischief, a false witness & he that soweth discord among the brethren. Proverbs 6:16-19

  God hates it anytime His children miss the mark because people get hurt.

Are you a Pharisee, recovering or otherwise? Are you, like I was, a Pharisee & not even aware of it?

First let’s define a Pharisee.

The Pharisee’s were the legalists of Jesus’ day. They excelled at nit-picking. They would rather slap a coat of paint on something than get the rotten boards out.

The Pharisees are best remembered for their conflicts with Jesus. His harshest words & fiercest battles involved them. Jesus debunked them, calling them play-actors & hypocrites. There was no connection between their heart & mouth.

 Matthew 23 for more background information on these people. This chapter is the quintessential reader on Pharisees.  They got Jesus stirred up because they pretended they were something they weren’t & no real fruit was swinging from their vines.

These old boys weren’t collaborators with the Romans or revolutionaries. They saw themselves as the protectors & propagators of the law. They were in “mission mode” to protect the law & they added 611 new fence-laws to Moses’ Ten. In Luke 18:9-14 Jesus told the story of a Pharisee & a tax collector who went into the temple to pray. The tax collector had the right attitude of humility but the Pharisee lifted his head & said in essence, "Thank God I'm special."

Jesus’ cousin John the baptizer was the first to spot & condemn these folk. He pinned their ears back telling them they’d sooner or later be axed.

The Pharisees took it on themselves to apply Jewish law to everyday life. They were big on keeping the Sabbath & used it as a frail-pole on Jesus. But Jesus had compassion for hurting people & while the Pharisees saw the details, He was seeing the bigger picture. They claimed to be holy but all the proof needed that they weren’t was the fact that they plotted to kill Jesus on the Sabbath day.


THE PHARISEES AREN'T AN EXTINCT SPECIES

We find them in churches & if we’re honest we can catch a glimpse of one in our bathroom mirror from time to time.

Here’s the bottom line. Anytime someone proceeds, in an attitude of superiority, to judge another person or act smug or superior to them, they can rightly be called Pharisees. That doesn’t mean that sin doesn’t need to be seen for what it is & corrected. It just means that we, imperfect as were are, are unable to see the hearts of our fellowman & cannot judge anyone’s righteousness but our own.

Paul also described the Pharisees when he said,

For I testify to them that they have a zeal to God but not according to knowledge. For being ignorant of the righteousness of God & seeking to establish their own righteousness they did not submit to the righteousness of God. Romans 10:2-3

The Pharisees held to a poisonous doctrine. They were the ones who brought the woman caught in the act of adultery to Jesus. They wanted to trip Him up & see if He’d contradict the law. They were trying to get her killed as an evil lawbreaker when they themselves were evil lawbreakers, & despised all others who weren’t up to their “standards.” They were always ready to proselyte but Jesus told them the ones they enlisted became worse for the experience.

So, the Pharisees were loveless, judgmental, prideful, couldn’t differentiate between traditions & God’s clear commands, & they were hypocritical, not living what they taught.

There’s a little formula that we can quickly apply to our lives to see if we have a bent toward the Pharisaical. Here are some questions & I’ll take the test with you;

What do you say you believe?—Stated belief
What do you actually do?—Actual practice
Now we have our--Actual Belief.

If we find that our stated belief & our Actual belief are different, we have some problems in the Pharisee department. Let’s try it this way. John says he believes that speeding is breaking the law & it dishonors God but he has three speeding tickets recently & blames it on his “lead foot.” Here’s John’s equation;

“Speeding is breaking the law & dishonors God”---Speeding—“Speeding really isn’t that bad.”

We can apply this formula to many things. Honoring parents, prayer time, TV habits, music choices, our clothes, the way we talk about others & the list goes on. Just do the math & you can instantly see if you lean toward Pharisee-ism.

I’d like to point out 8 more practices that if we follow will mark us as modern day Pharisees. Are you ready? You might be a Pharisee if you;

1. NEVER HAVE ANY FUN

Jesus gave us a new concept of happiness. He used another word for it. He said;

……I am come that they might have life & that they might have it more abundantly. John 10:10

Do you ever let your hair down & just have fun? I’m not speaking about worldly & questionable things; I’m talking about not taking life so seriously & enjoying the journey.

I learned early in life that God will forgive us if we slip up & smile once in a while, or laugh out loud for that matter. Do you love having fun now & then? I do. Of course with folk my age a lot depends on how much fun you can stand.

Really, we need to reel in our lowers lips & let the joy come back into our lives, don’t you think? Some people are so negative if they walked out in the Sun they’d develop.

In Psalm 45:7, the Psalmist says of the pre-incarnate Christ,

God hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.

That is telling us, in spite of the morose pictures we often see of Jesus, in actuality he was the happiest man in town. Have you really been enjoying the abundant life? If not, why not?

Jesus told His disciples,--These things have I spoken unto you that my joy might remain in you & that your joy might be full.-John 15:11.

Think about that; the very joy that Jesus has is available to us. His joy! Are you too spiritual to enjoy life? You might just be a Pharisee.

2. YOU MIGHT BE A PHARISEE IF YOU EXERCISE EXCESSIVE CONTROL

This spirit will manifest itself in too many rules & restrictions, rules that are pointless or too harsh. Psychologists say the two leading mental problems of our day are narcissism & paranoia, two off-shoots of needing power & control.

I’ve seen small children so controlling that their whole life is wrapped up in being the center of attention. If it doesn’t work for them they’ll pitch a conniption fit until it does work.

Many adults also have control issues, wanting to micro-manage the lives of those around them.

THE JEZEBEL SPIRIT--A CONTROLLING SPIRIT

Revelation 2:20 reminds us again of Jezebel whom we met in 1 Kings 21. She controlled the mind & actions of her wimpy husband Ahab, resulting in the murder of Naboth & theft of his vineyard.

Pharisees have controlling spirits. A person with a controlling spirit will connive & manipulate in unbelievable ways to have it their way & control everyone around them. They will lie, cheat, beg, borrow & steal to ram their agendas through. Many people are under the power of such a controller.

Here's a good rule of thumb to tell if you're dealing with a controller and a manipulator ; If when they need you to do something special for them, they present it to you with teary eyes and every drop of earnestness they can conjure up. You just know it's, for all practical purposes, a life or death situation. However when you go to them and present your special problem asking for their help, it's like they're a different person. There's no seriousness or deep concern about your need.

A controlling spirit will take what would ordinarily be good & right & use it to put others in bondage. For example, a husband can use the scripture saying women should be in submission to their husbands to make a wife little more than a puppet on a string. He forgets that he must earn the right to have his wife’s submission by loving her as Christ loved the church. Christ laid down His life for the church.

The Jezebel spirit can inhabit both sexes. There are mothers-in-law & fathers-in-law who exercise control over the minds of their married children. The Jezebel spirit can be a minister who wants to control his church or a boss who exercises control over the minds of those who work for him. This of course is to bring people under their power, position & influence for selfish gain. There are some pastors who don’t want revival to break loose in their church for fear of losing control.

Hitler & Stalin were controllers but there are controlling spirits all around us in businesses, homes & churches constantly working to bring people into bondage to them & their whims.

Are you a Pharisaical controller or are you under the bondage of one? If you are, God wants you free from that.

IF THE SON THEREFORE SHALL MAKE YOU FREE, YOU SHALL BE FREE INDEED.---John 8:36

3. PHARISEES OVERREACT TO FAILURE.

I feel, as I’m sure you do that I had the best parents a kid could have. Both my parents were preachers. This might sound a little strange to you, but I can’t remember ever hearing my parents say, “Son, everybody makes mistakes.” They were pretty smart people & they had that information, but I just never heard them say it.

That’s ironic because they had a son who made plenty of mistakes. I think the reason I never heard my parents say this was because they feared it would sound like a compromising statement. Maybe they thought it was a license to go ahead & make a lot of mistakes.

I also can’t remember ever hearing my folks preach or teach much on Grace. They knew about it, but again, I think they felt if you were always falling back on the Grace of God that meant you weren’t serious about towing the line of personal holiness.

I loved my folks & am grateful for the knowledge & training they imparted to me. But when it came to understanding God’s full & free Grace, & not being too hard on yourself, I had to get my own revelation on that.

Friend, we should not look at failure as the end of the world. Failure can be a wonderful opportunity for instruction. That doesn’t mean we should wallow in our failures, it just means we should never live in fear of failure.

The pursuit of excellent is completely different from perfectionism. God’s love for us isn’t performance-based & He isn’t expecting perfection, at least in the common usage of the word.

The more things we try, the more mistakes we’ll make but let’s not be so hobbled with “paralysis by analysis” that we fear to explore new avenues. That’s like committing suicide because you’re afraid to die. To be well adjusted in this life we’ll have to come to grips with the fact that mistakes & failures are basic to life.

You just might be a Pharisee if you’re;

4. IMPATIENT AND UNFORGIVING

Ephesians 4:32 says, And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted forgiving one another…..

Are you grouchy & irritable over everything that goes wrong? If so, your home, instead of being filled with joy, probably has an oppressive & negative atmosphere. If you & I are impatient & unforgiving we’ll drive ourselves & others to live in hopelessness & despair.

The word “long suffering” doesn’t mean, --I’ve been suffering a long time, -- it means being kind, loving & patient with others. Moses wasn’t allowed to set foot in the Promised Land because he lost his temper & was fractious with God’s people. We might minimize it but we pay a terrible price for being too hard on people.

I’ve known people that were so self-righteous about divorce they were insufferable. I’ve known preachers who got on radio & TV condemning folk who’d gotten divorced. But then someone close to them went through divorce & that shut them up quick. Often, all it takes is a little trouble in life to change some of our deeply held “convictions.”

You might be a Pharisee if you;

5. ELEVATE PERSONAL PREFERENCES OVER PRINCIPLE

It’s fine to have our own set of rules, rituals & standards but we run into trouble when we try to inflict them on others.

In the area of the essentials of the faith [we know what they are] we must all tow the line or risk drifting into spiritual apostasy. But in the area of non-essentials, we are given awesome freedom. We just can’t take our personal preference & place them on the level of Biblical commands.

Often we make the mistake of trying to spiritualize everything. If we start trying to enforce our preferential rules, we fall into the Pharisaical trap, for this is exactly what the Pharisees of Jesus' day did. Jesus’ radar quickly picked it up. Let’s be open & honest about what is Scripture, & what is not. 

You might be a Pharisee if you;

6. PROMOTE UNNECESSARY SEPARATISM & ISOLATION

We sometimes joke about people who are in-bred & in-grown, like the guy who prayed, “Lord, bless me & my wife & Joe & his wife-- us four & no more.”

I heard about a man who visited a little town & saw a Church of Christ on one side of the street & a Church of God on the other. He said, “Huh, I didn’t know Christ & God had a falling out.”

We home-schooled our children for a while & I’m all for it but problems can crop up if kids become so used to separatism that they don’t develop socially. Some people can be so “religious” that they only feel comfortable with those of their own stripe. Denominations are fine but the problem comes when we lose the desire & ability to reach out to unbelievers.

Ask yourself these questions, as I have;

Would the “worst of sinners’ feel loved by you or would they sense that you’re more likely to condemn & ostracize them? When you sing the words, “He saved a wretch like me” do you feel those words refer to someone else? Do you feel a twinge of jealousy when someone else is blessed or “more noticed” than you? Has your goodness become a habit or does it thrive as a response of love & gratitude to God?

Do you feel the need to let others know how spiritual & highly favored you are? Do you enjoy titles like...

 DOCTOR, REVEREND, THE RIGHT REVEREND, THE MOST RIGHT REVEREND, THE MOST HIGHLY FAVORED REVEREND, EXALTED REVEREND, & REVEREND-PROFESSOR? 

Here’s an idea; increase your “rank” by demoting yourself.

Do you consider your church-roll to be the Lamb’s book of Life? Are you disgusted by the moral filth that is playing on your own VCR/DVD player? Do you secretly feel the churches experiencing growth are probably watering down the Gospel? Do you carry the KJV because it’s what Paul & Silas carried?

You might be a Pharisee if you;

7. JUDGE OTHERS

A Pharisee will watch people carefully to make sure they’re doing things according to the book but they never see themselves. How convenient for them. Jesus’ most scathing words about them was, --Be on guard against the “leaven” or “Yeast” of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.-Luke 12:1

Since God is going to wait until the end of a life to judge it, we can & should refrain from judging others.

8. A PHARISEE HAS A PETTY, LOVELESS, SMALL MINDED, SQUABBLING SPIRIT

The Pharisees of Jesus’ day loved nothing more than they loved sitting around discussing petty things like;--If a Taylor or seamstress absentmindedly stuck a needle in their robe & walked out into the street on The Sabbath, was it a sin. ? Or, is it a sin to lift a child on the Sabbath. Or, if they saw a piece of an herbal leaf floating in their tea, they’d tear off a piece of it & run down to the temple to pay tithes on that little leaf before they drank it

In the book of Philippians Paul was coming against the pettiness he saw infecting that church. In chapter four he addresses two women, Euodias & Syntyche, who had faithfully worked for him in the past but are now using their talents & energies in disagreement rather than a common calling.

The problems that plague the church today are not so much the earth-shattering things we call “biggies.” Most problems, corporate & personal stem from pettiness.

Legalism is an ugly, ugly thing. It’s one of the most lethal cancers ever to strike a church or an individual. It will make you as mean as a snake.

Some were disappointed in Jesus when they learned He didn’t come to overthrow the Roman government, but rather He came to overthrow the legalism & mean-spiritedness he saw infesting the hearts & minds of His chosen Race. He saw it & He died to set us free from it.

THE ANTI-THESIS FOR LEGALISM IS LOVE

There’s a true story I heard, & I really don’t know where it happened or who it happened to but a Christian nurse was a witness to it.

A little girl named Liz had a rare & deadly blood disease. Her only chance of recovery was a blood transfusion from her five-year old brother who’d miraculously survived the same disease & had developed the anti-bodies to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother & asked if he’d be willing to give his blood to his sister.

The nurse said, “I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath & saying, “Yes” I’ll do it if it will save her life.” “As he lay in the bed next to his sister, I saw him smile, as we all did, as we saw the color returning to her face” she said. Then his face grew pale & his smile faded. He looked at the doctor & asked with a trembling voice, “Doctor, will I start to die right away?”

Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all his blood in order to save her; and even knowing that he did it. He did it because he truly loved his sister.

If you & I search our hearts & find even the smallest vestige of the Pharisee lurking around, let us get down on our knees & ask God to forgive us & take it away. We can go forth into this sin-cursed world, vibrant saints of God, singing of Jesus’ faith, bathed in Jesus’ hope & radiating Jesus’ love.

The world is waiting, not for another loveless, stinging critique, but to see & feel that staggering, holy love that comes to it from God.



 Blessings,



John

How Close Are You To God?

By John Stallings


And Peter followed Him afar off, even into the palace of the high priest; and sat with the servants and warmed himself at the fire. Mark 14:54


Living for God at a distance & in a half-hearted way sets us up for internal tension because all the vitality of a real walk with God oozes out of our relationship.

God doesn’t have “one style fits all” relationships, He leaves it up to us to decide what the distance we walk from Him will be. Holding God at arms length isn’t the kind of walk He wants to have with us but He won’t force a closer relationship.

A prime example of this is Peter. In 2 Peter 2:20-22 Peter tells us of the real possibility of backsliding. He described it as “a dog returning to his own vomit.” Isn’t it interesting that this comes from the inspired pen of Peter? If anyone knew first hand the reality & dangers of backsliding it was he. Peter declared that he would follow Jesus no matter what. But Jesus told him that before the cock crowed three times Peter would deny Him. To prove that could never be true of him, Peter cut off the ear of Malcus, the soldier who tried to take Jesus into custody. He took up arms for Jesus.

Peter’s story provides us with a postmortem if you will on backsliding. It’s the cautionary tale of a man’s downward spiral. Just to broad stroke the story of backsliding; -- it’s gradual, & some of the issues are pride, laziness, cowardice, worldliness & denial.

While Peter was warming himself at a fire somewhere in the city, a young girl pointed her finger at him & declared he was one of Jesus’ followers. Peter had a cussing-fit & told all who were interested that he didn’t even know who Jesus was. This behavior became a deeply humiliating failure for Peter. The main reason for his disappointment in himself was that Peter loved Jesus deeply. He was a leader. He was a son-of-thunder but during that week of Christ’s passion, with all the pain, violence, blood, gore & high drama, Peter had to face the fact that he was scared.

As the pressure on Jesus began to build, Peter followed further & further behind Him. We know that Peter later got his courage back & preached a great sermon on the Day of Pentecost. He ended up helping to write the New Testament & legend tells us he refused to die like Jesus did, but was crucified upside down.

You’ll remember that Jesus didn’t hold Peter’s denial against him. Jesus didn’t stand in rigid judgment of how close or how far Peter was from him. And later Jesus, without any harshness allowed Peter to redeem himself by declaring three times his love for Jesus.

Seems strange doesn’t it? Strange but true. What’s going to be your distance from God? You will define that distance. God leaves that up to us & loves us no matter what our choice is. It matters greatly to Him what we choose but He won’t put us in lock-down or force us, He gives us options. God desires the close walk with you & me but He will let us make that choice.

Jesus set the example of the kind of relationship He wants with us when He came to where we were. He left the ivory palaces of His heavenly home & came crashing out of timelessness into time to be born of women. He lived & moved among us & had close personal relationships with people. Even in His miracles He didn’t do things on the grand scale that the miracles of the Old Testament were done. There were no walls tumbling down or seas piling up. Jesus would find a woman with disease & heal her. Or He’d find a grieving family & bring their dead back to life. He’d sit at a well & talk to a woman & totally change her life with a conversation. He was always saying, “See, I’m available to you. You can walk close to me & have just as intimate a relationship as you want, it’s up to you.” He’s shown us the kind of relationships He wants but still He lets us decide. Jesus didn’t call His disciples in a “group call,” He personally & purposefully called them one by one.


Have you ever had a friend in your life who wanted to define how close the relationship was? Friends can sometimes be very smothering. Some friends want to be every day friends. Others want to be weekly friends. I’ve known people who wanted to be so close that if you went to a movie or went to a new restaurant without them they’d have a conniption fit & say something like “What? You went without telling me? Well I’m hurt.” They can act as if you aren’t capable of going out on the town without them. You almost have to ask permission to do something without them. This can be extremely annoying. They will try to set the boundaries of the relationship by saying, “If you’re going to be my friend, stay in touch.”

Sometimes parents can be this way with their adult children. Have you ever seen a “smothering mother?” I think they are called “helicopter parents.” They will give their kids cell phones & they expect their kid to always be checking in with them. They will say things like, “what, I’m not your mother any more? You didn’t call me. You never call. I’ll be dead soon & then you’ll be sorry.” Sometimes parents will try to keep this kind of relationship even after their offspring is married. That’s when things turn squirrelly. God won’t do this to us. He wants us to realize on our own that closer is better and closer is easier, but He won’t force it. We must decide if we want our attachment to God to be a big deal in our lives or a small deal.

In 1957, I stood at the alter of my father’s  church in Orlando Florida on a Sunday night in late August. The service was all about a few of us high school graduates who were leaving to go to college. I was leaving the next day for Southeastern Bible College in Lakeland Florida to study for my ministerial degree. But as I stood at the alter that night along with several others who were off to college, I was fighting a battle in my soul.

Up to now, my calling just amounted to young Johnny, who would preach in youth service & maybe occasionally go elsewhere to conduct a youth revival. This night was different. Now I was going to do something that would affect all of my life from now on. I was leaving the next day for Bible College & this would determine what my life’s goal would be. I was renouncing math as a major. I was renouncing music as my major. I was renouncing everything else but the ministry & that meant either pastoring, missionary work or evangelizing.

What to do, what to do? This decision would determine who I would marry & spend the rest of my life with. This decision would determine what kind of house I’d live in & the kind of car I’d drive. This decision would determine how much money I’d make & how much I’d have to someday retire on. What to do?

It was crunch time for me. I was afraid and felt guilty for being afraid. I was faced that night with the decision of just how close I wanted to be to God. After all there were options for me. Let me share a few of these options I had that night.

1. THERE WAS THE OPTION OF PARTIAL COMMITMENT.

I didn’t have to abandon the faith, I could just straddle the fence, maybe get a business degree (Not that there’s anything wrong with that) & preach on Sundays. After all, wouldn’t it be great to be able to preach to people & not worry about them having to pay me? I could make my own living & preach on the side.

Of course I didn’t make that decision to be partially committed & as I look back I’m happy I didn’t. In all probability God won’t call on you to make the commitment I made because it was for full time Christian service. All of our walks with Him are personal.

What was I afraid of? What are many people afraid of when it comes to total commitment to Christ? Why do we so often stiff arm God? Maybe we’re afraid God might make demands on us. We might be called to do something we don’t really want to do. But God doesn’t force people to do grievous things they’re not equipped to do or not happy about the prospects of doing. Jesus said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Another reason some are afraid to follow too closely to Jesus is they’re afraid of what people might say about them. They’re afraid people will think they’re too caught up in religion & are in danger of being a fanatic. Maybe people will think they are caught up in a Jim Jones like cult. In other words they find it hard to fully trust God. Maybe they’re afraid they’ll start writing checks with reckless abandon or start engaging in “destructive behavior.” They might even join the choir. What would happen then? They deduce that it would be safer to remain a spectator Christian & continue to keep a safe distance from God.

2. PEOPLE OFTEN USE THE POMP & CIRCUMSTANCE OF RELIGION TO REPLACE A CLOSE WALK WITH GOD.

All the revivals of history were periods of calling men back from institutional relationships with God to personal relationships. The Luther reformation was a move back to a personal God & a personal walk with Him. Every man is a priest. You didn’t have to go through an interloper; you could go straight to God. Up until the Reformation, Bibles were chained to the church pulpits & anyone with a Bible could be thrown in jail. People were forced to have corporate relationships with God.

The charismatic renewal that happened a few years back was a move to call the individual to a closer personal walk with God. But still there are many who want a relationship with God that will keep them out of hell & not much else. They will say in essence, “Just let me be loose about this. I might come to church once a year or I might come more often.” These folk are the ones that started the joke—“The church roof might fall in when I come next time.”

THEN THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO KEEP A DISTANCE BETWEEN THEMSELVES & GOD BECAUSE THEY’VE BEEN “HURT” BY THEIR CHURCH AFFILIATION IN THE PAST.

I hear about these folk on a regular basis. They got “too close” to a pastor or other Christians & something happened that disillusioned them. I am tempted to say at this point “poor baby” but I’ll resist that temptation. Now they will tell anyone who asks that there are lots of hypocrites in the church. My answer to that is usually, “if there’s a hypocrite between you & God, the hypocrite is closer to God than you are.” But I’ll resist that also.

To be hurt by a good man or woman undoubtedly gives us an eternal excuse to stay away from God & His church. After all, we now have to ability to point to the church & say—“Well one of the most spiritual among God’s people did me wrong. A man who stands in the pulpit & preaches hurt me personally so I have the perfect excuse not to get too close & return to religion.”

Let’s go back to Malcus, the man whose ear was cut off by Peter. Apocryphal writings tell us that Malcus in later years became a part of the Christian church. What? Do you mean to say that Malcus, the man who was brutalized & deformed by Peter’s sword later became a believer? Obviously that’s true. Wow! Malcus had the best reason to doubt & deny the Lordship of Jesus than any man ever had. One of Jesus’ closest men actually hurt him. He actually cut off his ear. Never mind the “small detail” that Jesus put Malcus’ ear back on & healed him. He now had a personal reason to testify to the "dangers of Christianity." Malcus was willing to allow Jesus to heal him that day. He could have pushed Jesus away & taken that severed ear, had it bronzed & shown it to folk for the rest of his life as exhibit A-"that Jesus crowd can really hurt a fellow." Alas, there are still some who refuse to be healed because their wounds are too precious to them.

Speaking of being hurt by Christians or hurt in the service of the lord, let me tell you about a very dedicated lady who was hurt in the service of God. While she & her preacher husband were conducting gospel tent revivals, her seven year old daughter took sick & died in a small backwater town. This woman was a truly committed person, but when she lost her daughter she got angry with God. She vowed that she would never darken a church door till the day she died.

She let her husband go on alone in his tent ministry although he was hurt just as much as she was at the loss of their beautiful little girl. One day a year later, this lady had to break her vow to never enter a church again, to attend the funeral of a beloved friend. As the funeral service progressed, the minister told the story of a mother sheep who refused to cross a raging stream. The Shepard needed her to join the rest of the flock so they could travel to lush green grass to feed on but the mother sheep was frightened & wouldn’t budge.

The Shepard in desperation finally got an idea. He took the sheep’s little fold & carried it across the stream & stood it on the bank on the other side. When the mother saw her baby on the other side of the stream she was finally persuaded to brave the troubled waters to join her baby. This bitter lady was smitten in her heart by the illustration. God brought it home to her that even though she couldn’t understand it all she now had a reason to endure any hardship because if she did, she had the eternal hope of someday seeing her baby girl again.

That day this lady was forced to define the distance between herself & God. Thankfully she chose to rededicate herself to her Lord, & humbly & closely follow Him the best she knew how, trusting that her remaining two small children would follow her example. I’m glad she did because that lady was my mother. From that day forward she guided my sister & me, encouraging us in spite of all the unanswered questions of life to covet a close walk with the Lord.

I am grateful that even though I’ve made many mistakes in my life there has always been a force pulling me toward God; an inner hunger that won’t let me be content without Him.


Have you considered the distance between you & God lately?



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