By John Stallings
The first grey streaks of dawn appeared and the young fugitive knew he must move on.
He traveled light because he was on the run. As he swung his backpack on, his mind wondered back over the last months. It felt as if he’d been on the road all his life. He knew every back trail, every village, every cave, every gully, and every place a man could hide for a few hours. Such was his life lately. Such had been and would be his life for most of his twenties.
As any man whose home is the road knows there were good days are bad days. Today he didn’t have to concern himself with eating breakfast because there was nothing to eat. As dawn appeared- down the dusty winding road he went; a road that seemed to lead nowhere in particular.
The tattered traveler came to the top of a hill & surveyed the valley below. There sat a small village, rather non-descript; just a few buildings with a large tent in the middle. Hopefully our fugitive might find some food for his empty stomach in this little backwater town.
NOB
The village he is viewing is called Nob. Eighty-five priests of God live here & it’s also home to High Priest Ahimelech and home to the Tabernacle.
The fugitive has run out of options. He didn’t really want to come to this place but as detectives say, “he had a tail.” A mad man was tracking him and he had no choice but to stop in this village & try to get help. He has the “street- cred” to know “you play the hand you’re dealt.”
Though the fugitive basically had a good character, in his present state of affairs he’d lie or do just about anything to stay alive.
This story begins in 1 Samuel 21.
DAVID VERSUS SAUL
The fugitive is young David and he’s being hotly pursued by King Saul. It should not be forgotten that this traveler had been anointed by the prophet Samuel years earlier as the future king of Israel. Now his only royal distinction was—king of the road.
There are few men in the Bible that attract our attention as much as David. He’s mentioned more than any other man in the Bible except Jesus. From the time Goliath’s body hits the ground until he was anointed king, in spite of the mistakes he made and repented in bitter tears, we come to understand why David is the only man in the Word of God who’s called: “A man after God’s own heart.”
It’s important as we look at this story to remember that it’s not irrelevant to our lives. This is a cautionary tale God had recorded for a reason -as we’ll see.
What makes this particular story stab the heart is the fact that David had never done anything to Saul but show him compassion and respect. Saul had gotten his nose out of joint out of jealousy of young David who was Israel’s ‘boy wonder,” and greatly loved by everyone. But as we know, life isn’t always fair; it certainly wasn’t in this instance.
After a meeting with Jonathan, David went straight into the wilderness to begin his years on the LAM. He’s smart enough to know how to pull some strings, or call in a few favors so his first stop will be Nob, to Ahimelech the priest. David and Ahimelech go way back. When Ahimelech answered his door-bell and saw David, he trembled & asked, “Why are you alone? Why is no one with you?”
SITUATIONAL ETHICS
When David entered the desert he had some very real needs. He has no weaponry, no food, no water “no nothing.” Those needs will have to be met if he’s to stay alive. The important thing is, how will David choose to meet those needs? Answer: David resorts to situational ethics meaning--the end justifies the means.
We see it all the time in our day. We see it in our government, in our churches, even our own lives; doing things that hurt other people in the name of expediency.
Now David is going to tell a whopper of a lie. He says to Ahimelech, “The king [Saul] charged me with a certain matter & said to me, -- no one is to know anything about your mission & your instructions.”— David didn’t place all his cards on the table. Or put it another way-David lied.
David was running from Saul, not conducting a secret mission for him. He must have sounded convincing because Ahimelech bought it without question. But it was still a lie. David lied because he was between a rock and a hard place. Saul was trying to kill him. After so long on the road a man gets desperate and he says whatever he has to say to stay alive. David never meant to hurt anyone with his fabrication. Oh- but he did.
“OH WHAT TANGLED WEBS WE WEAVE …..”
David is telling lies that are so preposterous the truth would have sounded better. A small boy was asked to describe what a lie was and he said; “A lie is an abomination unto the Lord, but an ever present help in time of need.” I’m not sure which translations the kid was reading.
THE PLOT THICKENS
Someone else was in Nob that day. A certain someone knows who David is and knows David is telling a lie. His name was Doeg the Edo mite. He was Saul’s head shepherd, - one of Saul’s hired guns. He saw David and David saw him. And Doeg saw Ahimelech give several loaves of consecrated tabernacle bread or- “bread of the presence” to David.
Why did God allow David to see Doeg that day? He knows Doeg will “high-tail” it to Saul and tell him he saw David. Doeg is nothing short of a mercenary and won’t fail to use this information to ingratiate himself with the king. David also knows what that will mean to his old friend Ahimelech. IMHO God allowed this sighting of Doeg to give David another chance to come to his senses and do the right thing here. But alas, David doesn’t do the right thing; he does the quickest thing which is almost always wrong. David cares about no one but himself right now and is probably whistling-“Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, glory- hallelujah.”
Just before David leaves town he says to Abimelech, “Oh, by the way, you don’t happen to have a sword handy do you? I left mine back at home”? Now David makes an attempt at putting himself into “Oscar’s best actor” contention “by adding, -“……Because the King’s business is urgent.” It turns out that among David’s other talents; he’s also a “drama-king.” He’s acting his brains out. When we tell one lie we usually have to tell another one to prop it up.
Ahimelech replied, “The sword of Goliath whom you killed as a boy in the Valley of Elah is here; it’s wrapped in a cloth behind the ephod. If you want it, take it; there is no sword but that one.” David said, “There is none like it; give it to me.” [1 Samuel 21:9]
David, what’s gotten into you? First you lie then you lie again. Now you’ve taken the sword of Goliath, the giant you defeated-- to fight your battles. David, have you lost your mind? Where is God in all this? When you were just a shepherd boy you faced Goliath & all you needed was one stone from your sling. Now are you going to use the weapon of the man you killed with a rock?
David was wrong when he took the consecrated bread and now he’s wrong again by taking the sword that had been consecrated to the Lord because it stood for Israel’s victory over the Philistines.
Yes, in a sense, David has lost his mind. Another old saying goes, -- “Honesty is the best policy but insanity is the best defense.” If you cut a man off from his friends and family and put him in the wilderness, it does strange things to him. The constant pressure pulls at him until it wears him down. Things he swore he’d never do now don’t seem so bad.
Up to this point in his life David had done everything right. He has been the absolute model of faith, obedience, courage, integrity and devotion to God and to his king. But he is still a very young man who is living a long way from his family and home because he’s a fugitive on the run from King Saul. David needed some stability in his life but for the time being that had gone.
DAVID HAD BECOME USED TO POSITION & POPULARITY
A humble shepherd boy had been promoted to a captain over a thousand in Saul’s army and he had all the popularity that came with that. David had leaned on the support of people but now in this trying hour that support had been dismantled.
David had the support of his wife Michal. He also had the support of Saul’s son Jonathan who loved him more than his own father. Then David had the support of the prophet Samuel who’d taught him about sacrifice, service & worship. Samuel was a significant support to David during his early years.
It’s wonderful to have supports, props & crutches in our lives to help us make it. Praise God if He’s been gracious to you and given you an adequate support network in your life.
BUT DAVID’S SUPPORT SYSTEM HAS BEEN DISMANTLED.
Think of it. Think of all David had lost and how far he’d slipped to now be a desert dweller, begging for sustenance. David had been the greatest battlefield hero his nation had ever known and now he was a fugitive from justice.
David had also lost his popularity, his people and his pride and was now relegated to a distant memory. He’d been removed from the public eye. People assumed Saul would be successful in his attempts to take David’s life. Every person upon whom David had leaned in his life was taken away.
The lowest place a man can come to is the place where he loses his pride. Now all that David had to cling to have been stripped away.
His lies were acts of fear but taking Goliath’s sword was an act of desperation. First there’s fear, then there is a lie, then desperation, but the worst is yet to come.
Fear drove David to lie to Ahimelech. Fear drove him to take Goliath’s sword. Now fear drives him to do the strangest thing he has ever done.
NEXT DAVID GOES TO GATH
Gath? Haven’t we heard that name somewhere? Yes, we have. Gath is in Philistine territory. That means it’s not in Israel; it’s foreign to David. But wait; Gath is also the hometown of Goliath, enemy territory. Why would David do something like this?
It’s hard to know but we can imagine he was thinking, --no one would ever look for him there. -- So now David’s in Gath with Goliath’s people. The man of God is hiding in the enemy’s camp. It was an outright act of spiritual treason. God’s people were to have nothing to do with the Philistines. They were to be separated from the surrounding nations. But David looked around and said, “This looks like the quickest way out.”
The greatest temptation when we’re in trouble is to take the quickest way out. You and I can write this next principle down; -- when in trouble, the quickest way out is almost always wrong.” When we go over to the world’s side and compromise our convictions, disaster is soon to follow.
DAVID HAS A MELT-DOWN
Once David realizes he’s been seen and recognized, he plunges headlong into an act of madness. He feared what might happen to him so he –“pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard. 1 Sam. 21:13
Have you ever seen someone put on a crazy act, but then you realized if they were sick enough to be that convincing, they in actuality had a “screw loose.” IMHO, you can’t play-act like someone who’s “lost it” without having some level of emotional disturbance, at least for the moment. Can we say Mel Gibson? Keep in mind this is the man who won the greatest military victory in Israel’s’ history, the victory over Goliath and the Philistines, Israel’s arch enemy.
David’s compromise [ostensibly play acting] didn’t work. All it got him was thrown out of Gath. Now he’s back on his own and back on the run. First there is fear, then the lie, then desperation, then compromise and now humiliation.
DAVID WILL SOON BECOME THE CAPTIAN OF CROOKS AND THE DUKE OF DEADBEATS.
Still on the run, David comes to a place called the Cave of Adullam. Chapter 22:1 tells us that his family went to meet him there. Now he’s back in Israel. David has basically reached bottom and is on his way back. Then we’re told that “all those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him and he became their leader.”
About four hundred men were now with David; the exiled king and his rag-tag army. Every crook and troublemaker came out to join him. David was now the captain of crooks & the duke of deadbeats. As David grew spiritually, these men began to grow & they would one day become his mighty men. In later years his greatest warriors would come from this motley crew.
DAVID FINALLY STARTS TO WALK WITH GOD AGAIN.
Living in a cave changes David and as he changes, his men change. Some parents tell their children --“Don’t do as I do-- do as I say do.” But you and I know that’s never what actually happens. The reality is, in the end our children will do what we do. All David has to do to change these 400 hoodlums huddling in this cave with him is to start doing right & they’ll follow suit. It’s here that David again becomes a force to be reckoned with.
The story should be over but it isn’t, not yet. There are a few loose ends dangling that need to be tied up. Whatever happened to Doeg the Edomite & Ahimelech?
Let’s return to the village of Nob for a moment. Things are quiet, -too quiet. There’s not a sound in that little village of priests. There never was much noise but now all you hear is the wind whistling through the bushes. It’s deathly quiet. Tumbleweeds are rolling around and overhead the vultures are circling. In the hot sun dismembered bodies lie on the ground. They’ve been hacked to death in some kind of execution. Eighty-five priests are dead along with their families. A whole village has been wiped out.
WHAT HAPPENED HERE? WHO DID THIS?
Doeg the Edomite told Saul that he had seen Ahimelech give the sacred bread to David. Keep in mind; Ahimelech believed David’s lie that he was on a mission for King Saul. He’d acted out of patriotism but Saul called him out and accused him of treason for aiding and abetting David, a fugitive. Ahimelech had no way of knowing David had told him a lie but he will now pay with his life. When Saul ordered the priests killed, his own soldiers wouldn’t do it because the priests were servants of the Lord.
But Doeg was an Edomite, a foreigner and a lackey for Saul and priests meant nothing to him. So the whole village was wiped out. Only one man lived to tell the story and his name was Abiather. Somehow he found David and told him what happened at Nob. David’s reaction in 1 Sam. 22:22 is, ---That day when Doeg the Edomite was there I knew he would be sure to tell Saul. I am responsible for the death of your father’s whole family.
David thought he could get away with the lies and the charade but he couldn’t and didn’t. He knew Doeg was there and he knew he’d tell Saul but he was so wrapped up in himself and his own problems that he acted out of self-interest and didn’t level with Ahimeleck.
Who killed the priests of Nob? Who is really responsible for the tragedy? Not Doeg, not Saul- but David. David’s hands were dripping with the blood of the innocent people of Nob.
LOOK AT THE MALIGNANT GROWTH OF SIN
First there is selfishness, then fear, then desperation, then compromise, then humiliation and finally disaster. The saddest part of the story is that David never intended for things to end up like this. Not in a million years. He lied to get food and it seemed justifiable at the time. Most of us would have done the same thing.
If David had stopped to think, if he’d even dreamed of such a thing he’d never have told the lie. But he didn’t think. He didn’t dream, he just lied.
NO ONE EVER GETS AWAY WITH SIN
Numbers 32: 23 says, -- Be sure your sin will find you out. Galatians 6:7 says…….a man reaps what he sows. The chickens always come home to roost and the skeletons always eventually come out of the closet.
This story is so powerful because many of us are like David. We cut corners morally and ethically, we make excuses for our small sins and under pressure we do things we shouldn’t do. All the while we’re like fugitives, running, hiding always looking over our shoulder, hoping against hope we won’t get caught today.
GOD’S SEVERE MERCY
But even though David committed such horrendous sins he’s still God’s man and God is going to use him. This brings up the question; couldn’t God have supplied David’s need for food so that he didn’t have to bother Ahimelech in the first place? The answer is yes.
Why did God allow David to disobey knowing that a whole village would be wiped out in the process? It’s not possible for us to fully understand God’s ways but this much we know; God allowed this so that David would humble himself and realize that left to himself he’d ruin his own life. Sadly this is a case of severe mercy because a city was destroyed in order for the lesson to be learned.
As we’ve already said, we can lean on many things in this world. Some people lean on a pill, some on a needle & some on a bottle. What are you leaning on today?
Are you leaning on a spiritual spouse who prays for you? Are you leaning on people or things more than you trust in the Lord?
Is your support system keeping you from looking to God for the real support you need? Every plank in my support system can fail but God will never fail me.
God is famous for dismantling men’s support systems and the process is painful, but it helps us to learn to lean on Him-- and Him alone.
When at last David got back to his own country on his own turf, resting safely in the cave of Adullum, reflecting on the events in Gath, he wrote Psalm 34. If you check, you’ll see the inscription at the top of the chapter--“When David feigned madness before Ahimelech.”
There in the cave of Adullam, gradually God restored David to his spiritual roots. In Adullam David wrote Psalm 34, one of the classic descriptions of true spirituality;
I will bless the Lord at all times;
His praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear it & rejoice.
O magnify the Lord with me,
And let us exalt His name together.
Then David refers to the specific events of his deliverance;
I sought the Lord & He answered me,
And delivered me from all my fears.
They looked to Him & were radiant,
And their faces shall never be ashamed.
THIS POOR MAN cried & the Lord heard him,
And saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him,
And rescues them.
This brings me to the final point in this story: When we sin, someone is going to have to pay the price. In this case an entire village of innocent people paid the price.
The one overarching quality David possessed that made him a –Man after God’s own heart- was his willingness to repent. Saul on the other hand didn’t seem to ever be able to do it. The javelin he threw at David started the manhunt that lasted nearly ten years. But in a sense, that javelin never stopped traveling & years later it found Saul & pierced his heart on Mount Gilboa.
The good news of the gospel is that God specializes in forgiving sinners.
Whenever we’re ready to turn for home, the Heavenly Father will meet us on the way.
Blessings,
John
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Passing The Buck
By John Stallings
A baseball team was having problems with their center-fielder.
Smith played the position but it seemed every fly-ball that came his way he’d get his glove on it but couldn’t catch it. During one game this was happening repeatedly.
Finally the coach took Smith out and put in a very good center-fielder named Jones. Jones ran out into center field with his game face on and a great show of confidence as if to say, there’ll be no more errors today. Low and behold, every fly ball that came toward Jones was dropped- to his utter embarrassment.
After a few more misses by Jones the coach had to remove him because he wasn’t doing any better than Smith. So out to center field runs the newbie, a man named Clark. Now things would pick up. To the utter astonishment of the fans, every single fly ball that went out to Clark went right through his glove just as it had Jones and Smiths.’ The coach went out to talk to Clark saying that if he didn’t stop making errors, he’d have to replace him as he did the others.
The very next fly ball that came to Clark was dropped. He stormed off the field in total disgust and was heard to say as he walked along the sidelines, “those guys have got center field so messed up nobody could play it now.”
I did a little research on the meaning and origins of the term “buck-passing.” As I understand it the odd expression appears to have come from the old days during card games where passing the buck was actually buckshot. A token was used in a game to show who was next to deal---a bit of buckshot. In order to designate who had responsibility for dealing next, you would literally pass the buckshot. This was later shortened to buck. Over time, the phrase “passing the buck” came to mean that you pass responsibility onto someone or something else.
How often in an average day do we hear, “You did it” “you caused it”- "Don’t look at me’-“you’re to blame” “I did nothing wrong”- “I’m innocent.” We do this almost as a natural reflex. Blame is so easy to dish out, isn’t it?
In the last few weeks of watching the news I’ve heard the term used dozens of times by politicians, most recently by the president. Speaking of presidents; you’ve most likely heard that President Harry Truman was famous for keeping a small plague on his desk reading “The Buck Stops Here.”
In the few months of the oil gush, we’ve seen and heard the buck passed numbers of times. There are more versions of “The dog ate my homework” than I ever knew existed. President Reagan kept a plaque on his desk saying, “There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” It seems to me our present leaders could have one that read, “There’s no limit to the credit you can get if you don’t care who did the accomplishing.”
We see buck-passing in smokers with self-imposed addictions attempting to get millions from tobacco companies by shifting the blame for their habit, obviously unable to read the ominous warnings from The Surgeon General on each pack.
We see it in public officials every time they pass the blame for some failure to their predecessors.
THE BLAME GAME
Passing the buck happens when you blame other people for your problems. It’s a way of explaining why life hasn’t worked out the way you would like. You’ve been treated unfairly; you’ve ended up on the short end of the stick; you’ve been dealt a lousy hand of cards. You’re a victim. And that’s how you get through life—by blaming other people for the bad things that happen to you.
If you’re late turning in a report at work, that’s easy. You just say, “I would have turned it in earlier but Frank was late getting the statistics to me.”
If you lose your job, it’s because the boss was unreasonable, he didn’t understand you, he had it in for you, and he hated you from the moment you walked into the office.
—If you didn’t keep a promise, it’s because you were too busy doing other things.
—If you failed to do your homework, it’s because your roommate borrowed the textbook and wouldn’t give it back.
—If you lost your temper, it’s because “they” provoked you.
- If a relationship ended, it couldn’t have been your fault. Of course not. You are a nice person.
The other person was a creep. That’s all there is to it.
Sound familiar? It ought to. Most of us know all too well about being a victim. Years ago we learned the victim’s battle cry—"It’s not my fault.” We’re not always sure whose fault it is, but we know it’s not our fault.
Who me? Couldn’t be. Impossible. Unthinkable.
But if it’s not us, it must be somebody else. Maybe it’s Jones or Smith. Our parents, possibly. It’s popular to blame parents nowadays for every kind of psychological illness. If it’s not our parents, then it’s probably our brothers or sisters. They never treated us right. We were always overlooked. But if not our parents, the world is still full of candidates.
It could be our grandparents who messed us up. Or maybe it was the friends we ran around with in high school. Maybe we ran with the wrong crowd and they corrupted us, or maybe we ran with the good crowd and we ended up too good for our own good. Of course, you can always blame your husband. After all, he’s probably just a bone-head. Or you can blame your wife. She’s far from perfect. Or maybe it’s the people where you work.
ADAM AND EVE – CLASSIC BUCK-PASSERS
There’s a reason why we’re so good at the blame game. We make excuses because excuse-making is in our family tree. It’s in our spiritual bloodstream. When we pass the buck, we’re only doing what our ancestors did.
Let’s roll the tape backwards to the Garden of Eden. Let’s focus our lens right after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit. To the untrained eye, it still looks like paradise. Adam has just eaten the fruit and a silly, guilty grin slides across his face. He knows he’s done something wrong, but he has no idea what is about to happen next.
It happens so fast. He looks at Eve and notices something he never saw before. She doesn’t have any clothes on. That’s a shock to him. Then he looks down. He’s naked too. The thought crosses his mind, “We better cover ourselves up.”
But where did that thought come from? It came from a mind that has just had its first encounter with sin. Adam and Eve never wore clothes before because they never knew they were naked. The shame of nakedness is the first result of the fall.
Sin first brings shame. And with shame comes the disgrace of being uncovered. Then a strange sound of footsteps. Who could it be? It’s the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
Instinctively [and I used that word carefully] Adam and Eve hide themselves. Why? Who told them to hide? No one had to tell them anything. Their guilty consciences condemned them. Disobedience is now bearing its bitter fruit. Where once they enjoyed unbroken fellowship with God, - now sin has separated them from their Creator. Hiding from God is the second result of the fall.
But now the truth is about to come out. When God calls out for Adam, the man answers, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” There was no shame in nakedness as long as there was nothing to hide, but once sin entered the picture, Adam could not face God uncovered.
Then the question, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat of?” And the answer, -“The woman that you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
That’s a classic piece of buck-passing. Blame it on the woman and if that doesn’t work, blame it on God. Minimize your guilt by making the others look bad.
But the story still isn’t over. God turns to Eve and asks her, “What is this you have done?” Listen to her answer: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Do you know what’s so tricky about those two answers? Technically, Adam and Eve both told the truth. Adam told the truth when he said Eve gave him the fruit. Eve told the truth when she said the serpent deceived her. But both of them were making excuses as a means of avoiding personal responsibility. As long as Adam could blame Eve, he didn’t look so bad. And as long as Eve could blame the serpent, she looks like an innocent victim.
That explains many things. First, it tells us that the tendency to blame others is deeply ingrained in human nature. Second, it tells us that left to ourselves; we will do anything to avoid taking personal responsibility for our actions. Third, it tells us that blaming others is often nothing more than a subtle twisting of the truth in order to take the heat off of ourselves. Fourth, it tells us that without a deep working of the grace of God within us, we will do exactly what Adam and
Eve did.
CHEATING HEARTS
Jeremiah wrote in 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it.”
We are by nature so deceitful that we will do anything say anything to avoid admitting the truth about ourselves. And we will do anything to avoid taking personal responsibility for our actions.
We live in a society which teaches us to blame other people for our problems. And we go along with it because blaming others is in our spiritual bloodstream. Passing the buck is part of our inherited sin nature. Adam was the first buck-passer; Eve was the second. But they weren’t the last. After thousands of years, we’ve learned our lessons well.
THE MAN AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA
There’s a wonderful story in John 5 that brings this issue to the surface. Jesus had come to Jerusalem during one of the yearly feasts. Thousands of pilgrims were there from throughout Israel. While he was there, he paid a visit to a place called Bethesda, “the house of mercy.” It was a pool near the Sheep Gate in the northeastern section of the city. Five porches were built by the pool. It was the Jewish Lourdes of that day. The Jews believed that an angel would come and periodically stir the waters. The first person to enter the water after it had been stirred would be healed of his diseases.
So hundreds of sick and infirm people gathered around the pool, waiting and hoping for the water to be stirred. On the day that Jesus passed by, he met a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. When He found out how long the man had been paralyzed, He asked only one question, “Do you want to be well?”
On the surface it seems to be a bizarre question. Why else would the man be there? Of course he wanted to be well. Was Jesus insulting his intelligence? No, not at all. He was asking a very serious question. He was asking because it was entirely possible that the man did not want to get well.
The man answers this way: “Do I want to be healed? That’s a crazy question. Why do you think I’m here? You must be new here. You don’t understand the problem. Every time the water is stirred, somebody else beats me to the water. No one will ever help me. They just push me out of the way.” Have you ever heard a sadder story? Ain’t it a shame?”
I think Jesus is probing at the level of the will. He’s saying, “Stop blaming others for your problems. I have the power to make you well. But I won’t exercise my power until you decide you want to be well. If I make you well, you can’t sit here and gossip all day. If I make you well, you can’t be a beggar anymore. If I make you well, you can’t use your illness to get special treatment at home. If I make you well, you won’t get all that sympathy anymore. There’s a price to be paid for being well. Do you want to pay it?”
Jesus is saying, “Do you really want to be changed?” If the answer is yes, then miracles can take place. If the answer is no, then even Jesus cannot help you.
As I wrote in a recent blog, change is scary. It takes a lot of faith to truly want Jesus to change you. Sometimes it’s easier to stay the way you are.
The Son of God won’t barge into your life unless you invite him in. He will not change you unless you want to be changed.
THE “POOR ME” ATTITUDE
The man at the pool was indulging in self-pity.
How do you spot a person with a “poor me” attitude? There are several signs:
•They endlessly repeat how others have mistreated them.
•They view the world as hostile and unfair to them.
•They are “beachcombers of misery” who see each grievance as a treasure to add to their collection.
•They have a hidden need to feel bad. Many have enjoyed bad health for years.
•They live by the childish notion that life should always be fair to them.
•They find it very difficult to forgive others because forgiveness is a sign of weakness.
•They have a competitive view of life in which others are always winning at their expense.
•They have difficulty maintaining close friendships because they eventually turn on their close friends.
•They see themselves as permanent victims.
•They tend to be pessimists, always anticipating the worst possible outcome in every situation. Their pessimism becomes a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.
•They destroy their closest relationships because they have difficulty trusting other people.
It’s hard to break the poor-me attitude because people derive a kind of perverse satisfaction from it. However- the cost is high for the “poor me” folk.
They pay for that pleasure by forfeiting the hope of happiness. Only when we ask whether the price tag is too steep does change become possible.
Have you given up the hope of happiness? Perhaps you feel like the man lying beside the pool for 38 years. “There’s no hope for me. Things will never change. Somebody else will always get there first.”
If you feel that way, then let me ask the question Jesus asked: Do you want to be healed? That’s the first step in a new life. Do you want Jesus Christ to come into your life and change you?
Only God Gives Us Hope
Some people have felt like losers for years and years. When they tally up the score, they always seem to be losing by four touchdowns.
Here is the gospel: In Jesus Christ you are already a winner! That’s what grace is all about. He takes perpetual losers and he transforms them into eternal winners. He takes people who have no hope and he gives them a hope and a future. He takes people who are down on their luck and makes them recipients of sovereign grace.
Here is the proof that you are at last beginning to grow in your spiritual life:
—You no longer need to defend yourself.
—You no longer have to blame others for your problems.
—You don’t have to win every time.
Are you tempted to blame others for your problems? Are you tempted to take the dirt of your failures and throw it on them? Don’t do it. All you’ll do is make them dirty. You won’t make yourself clean. You can’t get rid of the dirt by throwing it on someone else.
If you are willing to accept responsibility for your own life, God is willing to come in and do his work in your life. He can redeem your failures and your mistakes. He can turn the dirt into compost. And from the fertilizer of your failure, a new life can grow.
He can do that. That’s what grace is all about.
But you’ve got to stop throwing your stuff on other people. You’ve got to finally say, “This dirt is mine.” When you do, the work of redemption begins. And when at last God has done his work, something beautiful will begin to blossom out of the soil of your bitter mistakes.
AHAB AND THE PROPHET ELIJAH
In 1 Kings 18:17 king Ahab told the prophet Elijah, when speaking of the drought that Elijah had pronounced, -
“You are the man who troubles Israel.” Elijah answered right back telling the king the truth, “No, you’re the one who troubles Israel.”
SARAH
You will remember that Sarah persuaded Abram to sleep with Hagar but she immediately passed the buck to her husband when things didn’t turn out as she’d planned.
ESAU
You will also remember Esau who carelessly sells his birthright for a bowl of bean soup demonstrating his contempt for his birthright then turns around and bitterly accuses Jacob of stealing it.
AARON
The first high priest of Israel passed the buck to the people when Moses confronted him about forging the molten calf. He told Moses, “Don’t get mad at me—you know these people.” Aaron denied all culpability in making the idol from melted gold, when he was largely responsible.
Like some names we’ve already called, Aaron was quick to take credit for things done properly but lightening quick to shift the blame when things ran amok. So the beat goes on.
KING SAUL
When King Saul was confronted by Samuel about why he didn’t obey God and totally destroy the Amalekites animals and all, he blamed the people.
PILATE
When Pilate saw that he couldn’t keep the mob under control he washed his hands in front of the multitude and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person.”
BLAMING THE DEVIL
The late comedian Flip Wilson had a famous line, “The devil made me do it.”
The devil is an awesome foe but you and I know the devil can’t force Christians to do something they don’t want to do.
Listen to Proverbs 28:13;
He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
Let me make one last suggestion here. Look in the mirror. This a good place to start. Are you a blamer? The answer is probably yes because as we’ve said, that’s part of Original Sin we inherited from Adam and Eve. The better question is probably-in what ways do I use blame as an excuse for not accepting responsibility?
If you and I want the blessings of God on our lives, we must mentally place a sign on the desk of our hearts reading, “The Buck Stops here.” After that we must stand solidly behind it and put it to work in our Christian walk.
When this happens we’ll begin to take quantum steps toward Christian growth.
Blessings,
John
A baseball team was having problems with their center-fielder.
Smith played the position but it seemed every fly-ball that came his way he’d get his glove on it but couldn’t catch it. During one game this was happening repeatedly.
Finally the coach took Smith out and put in a very good center-fielder named Jones. Jones ran out into center field with his game face on and a great show of confidence as if to say, there’ll be no more errors today. Low and behold, every fly ball that came toward Jones was dropped- to his utter embarrassment.
After a few more misses by Jones the coach had to remove him because he wasn’t doing any better than Smith. So out to center field runs the newbie, a man named Clark. Now things would pick up. To the utter astonishment of the fans, every single fly ball that went out to Clark went right through his glove just as it had Jones and Smiths.’ The coach went out to talk to Clark saying that if he didn’t stop making errors, he’d have to replace him as he did the others.
The very next fly ball that came to Clark was dropped. He stormed off the field in total disgust and was heard to say as he walked along the sidelines, “those guys have got center field so messed up nobody could play it now.”
I did a little research on the meaning and origins of the term “buck-passing.” As I understand it the odd expression appears to have come from the old days during card games where passing the buck was actually buckshot. A token was used in a game to show who was next to deal---a bit of buckshot. In order to designate who had responsibility for dealing next, you would literally pass the buckshot. This was later shortened to buck. Over time, the phrase “passing the buck” came to mean that you pass responsibility onto someone or something else.
How often in an average day do we hear, “You did it” “you caused it”- "Don’t look at me’-“you’re to blame” “I did nothing wrong”- “I’m innocent.” We do this almost as a natural reflex. Blame is so easy to dish out, isn’t it?
In the last few weeks of watching the news I’ve heard the term used dozens of times by politicians, most recently by the president. Speaking of presidents; you’ve most likely heard that President Harry Truman was famous for keeping a small plague on his desk reading “The Buck Stops Here.”
In the few months of the oil gush, we’ve seen and heard the buck passed numbers of times. There are more versions of “The dog ate my homework” than I ever knew existed. President Reagan kept a plaque on his desk saying, “There is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit.” It seems to me our present leaders could have one that read, “There’s no limit to the credit you can get if you don’t care who did the accomplishing.”
We see buck-passing in smokers with self-imposed addictions attempting to get millions from tobacco companies by shifting the blame for their habit, obviously unable to read the ominous warnings from The Surgeon General on each pack.
We see it in public officials every time they pass the blame for some failure to their predecessors.
THE BLAME GAME
Passing the buck happens when you blame other people for your problems. It’s a way of explaining why life hasn’t worked out the way you would like. You’ve been treated unfairly; you’ve ended up on the short end of the stick; you’ve been dealt a lousy hand of cards. You’re a victim. And that’s how you get through life—by blaming other people for the bad things that happen to you.
If you’re late turning in a report at work, that’s easy. You just say, “I would have turned it in earlier but Frank was late getting the statistics to me.”
If you lose your job, it’s because the boss was unreasonable, he didn’t understand you, he had it in for you, and he hated you from the moment you walked into the office.
—If you didn’t keep a promise, it’s because you were too busy doing other things.
—If you failed to do your homework, it’s because your roommate borrowed the textbook and wouldn’t give it back.
—If you lost your temper, it’s because “they” provoked you.
- If a relationship ended, it couldn’t have been your fault. Of course not. You are a nice person.
The other person was a creep. That’s all there is to it.
Sound familiar? It ought to. Most of us know all too well about being a victim. Years ago we learned the victim’s battle cry—"It’s not my fault.” We’re not always sure whose fault it is, but we know it’s not our fault.
Who me? Couldn’t be. Impossible. Unthinkable.
But if it’s not us, it must be somebody else. Maybe it’s Jones or Smith. Our parents, possibly. It’s popular to blame parents nowadays for every kind of psychological illness. If it’s not our parents, then it’s probably our brothers or sisters. They never treated us right. We were always overlooked. But if not our parents, the world is still full of candidates.
It could be our grandparents who messed us up. Or maybe it was the friends we ran around with in high school. Maybe we ran with the wrong crowd and they corrupted us, or maybe we ran with the good crowd and we ended up too good for our own good. Of course, you can always blame your husband. After all, he’s probably just a bone-head. Or you can blame your wife. She’s far from perfect. Or maybe it’s the people where you work.
ADAM AND EVE – CLASSIC BUCK-PASSERS
There’s a reason why we’re so good at the blame game. We make excuses because excuse-making is in our family tree. It’s in our spiritual bloodstream. When we pass the buck, we’re only doing what our ancestors did.
Let’s roll the tape backwards to the Garden of Eden. Let’s focus our lens right after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit. To the untrained eye, it still looks like paradise. Adam has just eaten the fruit and a silly, guilty grin slides across his face. He knows he’s done something wrong, but he has no idea what is about to happen next.
It happens so fast. He looks at Eve and notices something he never saw before. She doesn’t have any clothes on. That’s a shock to him. Then he looks down. He’s naked too. The thought crosses his mind, “We better cover ourselves up.”
But where did that thought come from? It came from a mind that has just had its first encounter with sin. Adam and Eve never wore clothes before because they never knew they were naked. The shame of nakedness is the first result of the fall.
Sin first brings shame. And with shame comes the disgrace of being uncovered. Then a strange sound of footsteps. Who could it be? It’s the Lord walking in the garden in the cool of the day.
Instinctively [and I used that word carefully] Adam and Eve hide themselves. Why? Who told them to hide? No one had to tell them anything. Their guilty consciences condemned them. Disobedience is now bearing its bitter fruit. Where once they enjoyed unbroken fellowship with God, - now sin has separated them from their Creator. Hiding from God is the second result of the fall.
But now the truth is about to come out. When God calls out for Adam, the man answers, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.” There was no shame in nakedness as long as there was nothing to hide, but once sin entered the picture, Adam could not face God uncovered.
Then the question, “Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat of?” And the answer, -“The woman that you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
That’s a classic piece of buck-passing. Blame it on the woman and if that doesn’t work, blame it on God. Minimize your guilt by making the others look bad.
But the story still isn’t over. God turns to Eve and asks her, “What is this you have done?” Listen to her answer: “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
Do you know what’s so tricky about those two answers? Technically, Adam and Eve both told the truth. Adam told the truth when he said Eve gave him the fruit. Eve told the truth when she said the serpent deceived her. But both of them were making excuses as a means of avoiding personal responsibility. As long as Adam could blame Eve, he didn’t look so bad. And as long as Eve could blame the serpent, she looks like an innocent victim.
That explains many things. First, it tells us that the tendency to blame others is deeply ingrained in human nature. Second, it tells us that left to ourselves; we will do anything to avoid taking personal responsibility for our actions. Third, it tells us that blaming others is often nothing more than a subtle twisting of the truth in order to take the heat off of ourselves. Fourth, it tells us that without a deep working of the grace of God within us, we will do exactly what Adam and
Eve did.
CHEATING HEARTS
Jeremiah wrote in 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and beyond cure. Who can understand it.”
We are by nature so deceitful that we will do anything say anything to avoid admitting the truth about ourselves. And we will do anything to avoid taking personal responsibility for our actions.
We live in a society which teaches us to blame other people for our problems. And we go along with it because blaming others is in our spiritual bloodstream. Passing the buck is part of our inherited sin nature. Adam was the first buck-passer; Eve was the second. But they weren’t the last. After thousands of years, we’ve learned our lessons well.
THE MAN AT THE POOL OF BETHESDA
There’s a wonderful story in John 5 that brings this issue to the surface. Jesus had come to Jerusalem during one of the yearly feasts. Thousands of pilgrims were there from throughout Israel. While he was there, he paid a visit to a place called Bethesda, “the house of mercy.” It was a pool near the Sheep Gate in the northeastern section of the city. Five porches were built by the pool. It was the Jewish Lourdes of that day. The Jews believed that an angel would come and periodically stir the waters. The first person to enter the water after it had been stirred would be healed of his diseases.
So hundreds of sick and infirm people gathered around the pool, waiting and hoping for the water to be stirred. On the day that Jesus passed by, he met a man who had been an invalid for 38 years. When He found out how long the man had been paralyzed, He asked only one question, “Do you want to be well?”
On the surface it seems to be a bizarre question. Why else would the man be there? Of course he wanted to be well. Was Jesus insulting his intelligence? No, not at all. He was asking a very serious question. He was asking because it was entirely possible that the man did not want to get well.
The man answers this way: “Do I want to be healed? That’s a crazy question. Why do you think I’m here? You must be new here. You don’t understand the problem. Every time the water is stirred, somebody else beats me to the water. No one will ever help me. They just push me out of the way.” Have you ever heard a sadder story? Ain’t it a shame?”
I think Jesus is probing at the level of the will. He’s saying, “Stop blaming others for your problems. I have the power to make you well. But I won’t exercise my power until you decide you want to be well. If I make you well, you can’t sit here and gossip all day. If I make you well, you can’t be a beggar anymore. If I make you well, you can’t use your illness to get special treatment at home. If I make you well, you won’t get all that sympathy anymore. There’s a price to be paid for being well. Do you want to pay it?”
Jesus is saying, “Do you really want to be changed?” If the answer is yes, then miracles can take place. If the answer is no, then even Jesus cannot help you.
As I wrote in a recent blog, change is scary. It takes a lot of faith to truly want Jesus to change you. Sometimes it’s easier to stay the way you are.
The Son of God won’t barge into your life unless you invite him in. He will not change you unless you want to be changed.
THE “POOR ME” ATTITUDE
The man at the pool was indulging in self-pity.
How do you spot a person with a “poor me” attitude? There are several signs:
•They endlessly repeat how others have mistreated them.
•They view the world as hostile and unfair to them.
•They are “beachcombers of misery” who see each grievance as a treasure to add to their collection.
•They have a hidden need to feel bad. Many have enjoyed bad health for years.
•They live by the childish notion that life should always be fair to them.
•They find it very difficult to forgive others because forgiveness is a sign of weakness.
•They have a competitive view of life in which others are always winning at their expense.
•They have difficulty maintaining close friendships because they eventually turn on their close friends.
•They see themselves as permanent victims.
•They tend to be pessimists, always anticipating the worst possible outcome in every situation. Their pessimism becomes a form of self-fulfilling prophecy.
•They destroy their closest relationships because they have difficulty trusting other people.
It’s hard to break the poor-me attitude because people derive a kind of perverse satisfaction from it. However- the cost is high for the “poor me” folk.
They pay for that pleasure by forfeiting the hope of happiness. Only when we ask whether the price tag is too steep does change become possible.
Have you given up the hope of happiness? Perhaps you feel like the man lying beside the pool for 38 years. “There’s no hope for me. Things will never change. Somebody else will always get there first.”
If you feel that way, then let me ask the question Jesus asked: Do you want to be healed? That’s the first step in a new life. Do you want Jesus Christ to come into your life and change you?
Only God Gives Us Hope
Some people have felt like losers for years and years. When they tally up the score, they always seem to be losing by four touchdowns.
Here is the gospel: In Jesus Christ you are already a winner! That’s what grace is all about. He takes perpetual losers and he transforms them into eternal winners. He takes people who have no hope and he gives them a hope and a future. He takes people who are down on their luck and makes them recipients of sovereign grace.
Here is the proof that you are at last beginning to grow in your spiritual life:
—You no longer need to defend yourself.
—You no longer have to blame others for your problems.
—You don’t have to win every time.
Are you tempted to blame others for your problems? Are you tempted to take the dirt of your failures and throw it on them? Don’t do it. All you’ll do is make them dirty. You won’t make yourself clean. You can’t get rid of the dirt by throwing it on someone else.
If you are willing to accept responsibility for your own life, God is willing to come in and do his work in your life. He can redeem your failures and your mistakes. He can turn the dirt into compost. And from the fertilizer of your failure, a new life can grow.
He can do that. That’s what grace is all about.
But you’ve got to stop throwing your stuff on other people. You’ve got to finally say, “This dirt is mine.” When you do, the work of redemption begins. And when at last God has done his work, something beautiful will begin to blossom out of the soil of your bitter mistakes.
AHAB AND THE PROPHET ELIJAH
In 1 Kings 18:17 king Ahab told the prophet Elijah, when speaking of the drought that Elijah had pronounced, -
“You are the man who troubles Israel.” Elijah answered right back telling the king the truth, “No, you’re the one who troubles Israel.”
SARAH
You will remember that Sarah persuaded Abram to sleep with Hagar but she immediately passed the buck to her husband when things didn’t turn out as she’d planned.
ESAU
You will also remember Esau who carelessly sells his birthright for a bowl of bean soup demonstrating his contempt for his birthright then turns around and bitterly accuses Jacob of stealing it.
AARON
The first high priest of Israel passed the buck to the people when Moses confronted him about forging the molten calf. He told Moses, “Don’t get mad at me—you know these people.” Aaron denied all culpability in making the idol from melted gold, when he was largely responsible.
Like some names we’ve already called, Aaron was quick to take credit for things done properly but lightening quick to shift the blame when things ran amok. So the beat goes on.
KING SAUL
When King Saul was confronted by Samuel about why he didn’t obey God and totally destroy the Amalekites animals and all, he blamed the people.
PILATE
When Pilate saw that he couldn’t keep the mob under control he washed his hands in front of the multitude and said, “I am innocent of the blood of this just person.”
BLAMING THE DEVIL
The late comedian Flip Wilson had a famous line, “The devil made me do it.”
The devil is an awesome foe but you and I know the devil can’t force Christians to do something they don’t want to do.
Listen to Proverbs 28:13;
He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.
Let me make one last suggestion here. Look in the mirror. This a good place to start. Are you a blamer? The answer is probably yes because as we’ve said, that’s part of Original Sin we inherited from Adam and Eve. The better question is probably-in what ways do I use blame as an excuse for not accepting responsibility?
If you and I want the blessings of God on our lives, we must mentally place a sign on the desk of our hearts reading, “The Buck Stops here.” After that we must stand solidly behind it and put it to work in our Christian walk.
When this happens we’ll begin to take quantum steps toward Christian growth.
Blessings,
John
Thursday, July 8, 2010
Whining And Dining
By John Stallings
……And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, I have heard the murmurings of the Children of Israel…Exodus 16:11-12
Do all things without complaining & disputing…Phil.2:14
Welcome to the fine art of whining.
Most of us, no matter what profession we’re in, constantly get our fill of whining. Pastors, teachers, restaurant owners, sales people, politicians, parents, you name it, all get more than their share of whining. At Malls, restaurants, book stores church and almost anywhere else you go, one of the hallmarks of the experience will be children whining and fussing. Its part of the package and we’ve pretty much learned to accept it.
Yesterday, Juda and I flew home from Philadelphia where we attended the wedding of our eldest grandson which was absolutely stunning. It was a joyous occasion and I might add the experience of a lifetime. As we boarded the plane in Philly, the lady in front of us was already in a fight with her baby son. Since she looked at us and smiled I smiled back and quipped; “I guess we’ll learn junior’s name by the time we get to Orlando.” She clearly didn’t get it and kept smiling. My statement was prophetic. She screamed that baby’s name about six-hundred times in the next two hours. I have a special move that would stop behavior like that in a New York minute but I didn’t dare tell the lady about it.
Pastors aren’t exempt from whiners but the one thing they can’t say is, “don’t come whining to me.” I have seen nice church folk sit down to a free meal & complain because the forks were placed on the wrong side of the plates.
People in most walks of life get thick-skinned and learn to ignore the carping and develop the philosophy, “The dogs keep barking but the caravan moves on.”
Most people think happiness is related to money or a relationship. Some think happiness is some sort of “physical shape” or a vacation destination. They truly believe they at all times are one shopping trip from happiness. What is it for you that you think will make you happy? If it’s money, what does that figure look like to you? Is it 10, 15, 50, 100,000 dollars in the bank? Is it when you can pay off all your bills or buy all the clothes, cars or houses you want?
Will it really make you stop grumbling & complaining & make you more delightful & content so that you no longer argue & dispute with others?
QUESTION—WHAT EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCE CAN CHANGE YOUR INTERNAL STATE?
Maybe you’ll blow these questions off & answer smugly, “Brother, I’m happy because I have Jesus.” O.K. Fine, after all I was just throwing some questions out there anyway. And here’s why;
81% of us want more than we earn.
94% of us know we’re too materialistic, yet…
89% of us expect to “have it all.”
Per capita we are the richest country in history yet we are also the most depressed people in the history of the world. We are also the most bored & discontent. We have the highest suicide rate, murder rate & committed insane in institutions than any nation. There are almost 100 nations in this world where the average person spends less on themselves per year than we spend on our garbage bags. We have over twice as many Malls as we do high schools. 75% of the people in Malls right now have no real idea why they are there & went for “retail therapy” trying to purchase happiness. That “buzz” will only last 15-20 minutes & then buyer’s remorse sets in.
The average American has over 8 thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. The average American will spend more on themselves for watches & jewelry & clothes than they will spend on education for themselves & their children. Over the last 20 years the number of items in supermarkets has grown by 200%. We work more than any other nation so we can buy more things but we have less time to enjoy the things we worked so hard to get. We are lucky if we get 2 weeks of paid vacation per year, while most Europeans take 1-3 months off for vacation.
The average American parent spends 6 hours of the week shopping & 40 minutes playing with their kids. Our suicide & divorce rate tripled from 1970-1999. Our nation comprises only 4.6% of the world’s population yet we use 40% of the world’s resources. American’s are born consumers & probably the greatest consumption is sex. America spends 32 billion dollars a year on pornography which is more than baseball, basketball & football combined.
Americans are 10 times more depressed & 40 times more violent than we were in the 1950s. We have bought the great lie that possessions & affluence means happiness & freedom. Our consumerism has given rise to horribly unhappy lives & we’ve become slaves to our possessions. In simple terms, we think the more stuff we have the happier we’ll be, & it hasn’t happened.
We’re driven to buy things to make us happy & are so in debt we live in fear of losing things we don’t even own. We can’t rest & enjoy the fruit of our labors because we don’t own the fruit. We can hardly walk through the mall without being stopped by an “opinion pollster” acting as our friend when all he/she wants us to do is tell them how to better sell things to us. I stopped co-operating with them years ago. Buying is bred into us from the first moment we were able to formulate thoughts using everything from cartoons to the backs of cereal boxes.
Discontentment with the way things are is hammered into us & our children. Materialism & thirst for things has led our children to never be happy with what they have. Instead of using our hands on the backsides of unruly kids like our parents did, we too often leave them undisciplined & just work harder to buy them more things.
Discontent has bred impatience which is another mark of our times, along with long lines, rude people, high prices, traffic jams, terrible drivers & crying babies. Road rage & abused & killed babies are byproducts of this kind of impatience. Then some people have a “mid-life crisis.”
What's that all about? A mid-life crisis happens when folk realize there is less life ahead than behind & they haven’t gotten all the “stuff” they’d dreamed of. Spurred by this, many of them then have “one last flaring up before fading out.” Many little red sports cars, & or, face & body work is then sold to them.
PEOPLE BRING THIS CONSUMERISM INTO THE CHURCH.
They want shorter, funnier sermons. They want less theology & they want catchy music. They want more convenient service times. They want to hear less about sin & more teaching on love. Do you get the point?
What we seem to have forgotten is that God doesn’t exist for us, we exist for Him. The church doesn’t exist for us; we exist to be the church. The pastor doesn’t exist to be our fishing buddy. I know it hurts to hear it but the world doesn’t revolve around us. What is needed in the church is for us to be turned away from being consumers to being true worshippers of the living God.
There’s one thing I’ve learned that I can share with you. The more I whine the more negative and miserable I become. Whining and complaining will sooner or later cast you in a sea of negativity that will rob you of energy, enthusiasm, and life itself. It’s just a small step from whining to cynicism. I once heard a definition of a cynic. “A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; they are prematurely disappointed in the future.” But really, that attitude isn’t too Christian is it?
When I get all whiny, I start to talk about how hopeless everything is and how useless it is to try. However, I always pull myself out of it for the one simple fact; I know that’s not who I am and that’s not where I want to be. I know that if I stay there with the moaning and the groaning, I’m going to hurt myself and everyone around me. Once you’re “ in the soup” of complaining negativity, it doesn’t really matter if you got there by whining about small, imaginary things or real issues, you’re still “In the soup” and are going to be cooked.
WHINING IS CONTAGIOUS
Ask Moses and Aaron. As you know the Israelites got out into the desert and went negative. They had faced down Pharaoh and escaped the Egyptian Armored Divisions. They had walked a super hi-way through the Red sea. Their enemies were in the land God had promised them and they were digging wells for them and building homes and roads for them. But what do they do? They start getting negative and asking, “Are we lost?” They don’t give Moses a plaque with the names of the twelve tribes on it. They don’t offer him a decorative quilt. They don’t even say thank you. They don’t have a thanksgiving service. They say, “The deserts too hot.” “How much further is it?” “I’m hungry”, and so on.
Isn’t it interesting that God hears their complaints. You might think that our great God would turn a deaf ear to their grumblings and whining. You might think that God would be so big that He’d say, “Well, they’re only human, what else is to be expected of them.” But no, God hears it and takes it serious. There are two sides to that. One is the side that God is attentive to his children and hears each cry. The other side, which isn’t such good news, is that God heard these bitter cries and took them serious; as a matter of fact he seems to take it personally.
Then God starts to give them Manna twice a day. I don’t know what manna is but I like to think of it as cinnamon-buns served with boiling hot coffee. But what do they do? Do they praise God from whom all blessings flow? No, they whine. They’re eating, they’re full, they’re feasting on the riches of Gods grace, but they’re whining and dining at the same time.
The problem now becomes, there’s only so much you can do with manna.
• Fried manna
• Boiled manna
• Baked manna
• Manna fritters
• Manna and banana
• Manna scampi
• Manna etouffe’
Then the Israelites starting wanting meat to eat; they whined so much that God finally said; O.K you want meat to eat? I’ll give you meat until it comes out your noses. Really! You can look it up. God puts them on the Adkins diet, all meat.
Do you want me to tell you what this looks like to me? It looks like God has His limits. He has a place He comes to where He says, “Get a grip & put your problems into perspective.”
IF SOMETHING IS BOTHERING YOU SO BAD YOU’VE STARTED GOING ON AND ON ABOUT IT, ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS.
• Ask yourself if the thing you’re bothered about really matters. If it really matters, you need to do something about it. If it doesn’t, let it go. Before you dump it on a friend, a co-worker or anyone else, ask yourself what’s really bothering you. What is it you’re really unhappy about? More often than not our whines are symptoms of what’s going on inside of us and sometimes it hard to face up to what it really is. Are you talking to the right person? If not, it’s triangulating or gossiping and that’s going to hurt everybody involved. There’s no use whining to someone who can’t do anything about it but get negative with you.
• Realize the effect that your complaint will have on the person you share it with. It takes 10 positive remarks to balance out a single negative one. Is your complaint going to be worth the damage it might do?
• Consider ways you may have contributed to the problem and ways you might help solve it. Consider also that others may have a completely different way of looking at the problem and don’t be offended if they don’t see it your way.
• Finally, be sure you express your problem if you do give voice to it, within a context of mutual respect and concern. Seek to find solutions not punish. Seek solutions that will build toward better relationships later on not leave people frustrated and discouraged. Unity is still the Christians goal and severed relationships are serious in Gods eyes.
• Don’t let a minor complaint become a major division.
EVERY BATTLE ISN’T ARMAGEDDON.
In closing, if you are someone who needs a prayer partner to help you pray something through, that’s not whining.
If you are passionate about some issue, and need to vent, that’s not whining.
If someone has hurt your feelings and you want to talk, talk to them, that’s not whining.
Life is too precious to fritter away on negativity. Our missions are too important to be sacrificed to the nibbling of minnows. We all need positive people to help keep us from becoming negative. We should do that for one another, don’t you think? God is patient with us and we should be patient with one another.
May we never get so thick skinned that we fail to relate to others who may have a burr under their saddle. May we put things into perspective and keep the carping down to a minimum. We have so much more to be grateful for that we do to complain about.
Paul speaks to the complainers in the Philippians 2 & tells them to;
Work out your salvation (not work for our salvation) in fear & trembling. Vr.12
In other words we’re to work out our salvation with fear & trembling without complaining & disputing. The word complaining in the Greek is gongusmos which means guttural grumbling sound when you are disgruntled & frustrated. It’s like someone talking about someone behind your back & under their breath so you can’t quiet hear it. It’s the same kind of grumbling we read about in 1 Corinthians 10:10 that Paul used to describe the Israelites who grumbled & were “destroyed by the destroyer.” 14,700 grumblers were destroyed & not allowed to enter the promise land because Korah & his company murmured against Moses & Aaron & ultimately against God.
God is a loving father who gives us many good things & too often we start to worship these things instead of Him. That’s why we get miserable because when the excitement of these things wears off we want a better one, a bigger one & a faster one. Our goal is to be true worshippers of God. When we worship Him instead of the things He gives us our lives become a wellspring of true joy that ends in happiness instead of disillusion & death.
MAY GOD GIVE US A GRATEFUL SPIRIT SO THAT WE MIGHT SHARE WITH THE WORLD OUR REASON FOR HOPE, OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
Blessings,
John
……And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, I have heard the murmurings of the Children of Israel…Exodus 16:11-12
Do all things without complaining & disputing…Phil.2:14
Welcome to the fine art of whining.
Most of us, no matter what profession we’re in, constantly get our fill of whining. Pastors, teachers, restaurant owners, sales people, politicians, parents, you name it, all get more than their share of whining. At Malls, restaurants, book stores church and almost anywhere else you go, one of the hallmarks of the experience will be children whining and fussing. Its part of the package and we’ve pretty much learned to accept it.
Yesterday, Juda and I flew home from Philadelphia where we attended the wedding of our eldest grandson which was absolutely stunning. It was a joyous occasion and I might add the experience of a lifetime. As we boarded the plane in Philly, the lady in front of us was already in a fight with her baby son. Since she looked at us and smiled I smiled back and quipped; “I guess we’ll learn junior’s name by the time we get to Orlando.” She clearly didn’t get it and kept smiling. My statement was prophetic. She screamed that baby’s name about six-hundred times in the next two hours. I have a special move that would stop behavior like that in a New York minute but I didn’t dare tell the lady about it.
Pastors aren’t exempt from whiners but the one thing they can’t say is, “don’t come whining to me.” I have seen nice church folk sit down to a free meal & complain because the forks were placed on the wrong side of the plates.
People in most walks of life get thick-skinned and learn to ignore the carping and develop the philosophy, “The dogs keep barking but the caravan moves on.”
Most people think happiness is related to money or a relationship. Some think happiness is some sort of “physical shape” or a vacation destination. They truly believe they at all times are one shopping trip from happiness. What is it for you that you think will make you happy? If it’s money, what does that figure look like to you? Is it 10, 15, 50, 100,000 dollars in the bank? Is it when you can pay off all your bills or buy all the clothes, cars or houses you want?
Will it really make you stop grumbling & complaining & make you more delightful & content so that you no longer argue & dispute with others?
QUESTION—WHAT EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCE CAN CHANGE YOUR INTERNAL STATE?
Maybe you’ll blow these questions off & answer smugly, “Brother, I’m happy because I have Jesus.” O.K. Fine, after all I was just throwing some questions out there anyway. And here’s why;
81% of us want more than we earn.
94% of us know we’re too materialistic, yet…
89% of us expect to “have it all.”
Per capita we are the richest country in history yet we are also the most depressed people in the history of the world. We are also the most bored & discontent. We have the highest suicide rate, murder rate & committed insane in institutions than any nation. There are almost 100 nations in this world where the average person spends less on themselves per year than we spend on our garbage bags. We have over twice as many Malls as we do high schools. 75% of the people in Malls right now have no real idea why they are there & went for “retail therapy” trying to purchase happiness. That “buzz” will only last 15-20 minutes & then buyer’s remorse sets in.
The average American has over 8 thousand dollars worth of credit card debt. The average American will spend more on themselves for watches & jewelry & clothes than they will spend on education for themselves & their children. Over the last 20 years the number of items in supermarkets has grown by 200%. We work more than any other nation so we can buy more things but we have less time to enjoy the things we worked so hard to get. We are lucky if we get 2 weeks of paid vacation per year, while most Europeans take 1-3 months off for vacation.
The average American parent spends 6 hours of the week shopping & 40 minutes playing with their kids. Our suicide & divorce rate tripled from 1970-1999. Our nation comprises only 4.6% of the world’s population yet we use 40% of the world’s resources. American’s are born consumers & probably the greatest consumption is sex. America spends 32 billion dollars a year on pornography which is more than baseball, basketball & football combined.
Americans are 10 times more depressed & 40 times more violent than we were in the 1950s. We have bought the great lie that possessions & affluence means happiness & freedom. Our consumerism has given rise to horribly unhappy lives & we’ve become slaves to our possessions. In simple terms, we think the more stuff we have the happier we’ll be, & it hasn’t happened.
We’re driven to buy things to make us happy & are so in debt we live in fear of losing things we don’t even own. We can’t rest & enjoy the fruit of our labors because we don’t own the fruit. We can hardly walk through the mall without being stopped by an “opinion pollster” acting as our friend when all he/she wants us to do is tell them how to better sell things to us. I stopped co-operating with them years ago. Buying is bred into us from the first moment we were able to formulate thoughts using everything from cartoons to the backs of cereal boxes.
Discontentment with the way things are is hammered into us & our children. Materialism & thirst for things has led our children to never be happy with what they have. Instead of using our hands on the backsides of unruly kids like our parents did, we too often leave them undisciplined & just work harder to buy them more things.
Discontent has bred impatience which is another mark of our times, along with long lines, rude people, high prices, traffic jams, terrible drivers & crying babies. Road rage & abused & killed babies are byproducts of this kind of impatience. Then some people have a “mid-life crisis.”
What's that all about? A mid-life crisis happens when folk realize there is less life ahead than behind & they haven’t gotten all the “stuff” they’d dreamed of. Spurred by this, many of them then have “one last flaring up before fading out.” Many little red sports cars, & or, face & body work is then sold to them.
PEOPLE BRING THIS CONSUMERISM INTO THE CHURCH.
They want shorter, funnier sermons. They want less theology & they want catchy music. They want more convenient service times. They want to hear less about sin & more teaching on love. Do you get the point?
What we seem to have forgotten is that God doesn’t exist for us, we exist for Him. The church doesn’t exist for us; we exist to be the church. The pastor doesn’t exist to be our fishing buddy. I know it hurts to hear it but the world doesn’t revolve around us. What is needed in the church is for us to be turned away from being consumers to being true worshippers of the living God.
There’s one thing I’ve learned that I can share with you. The more I whine the more negative and miserable I become. Whining and complaining will sooner or later cast you in a sea of negativity that will rob you of energy, enthusiasm, and life itself. It’s just a small step from whining to cynicism. I once heard a definition of a cynic. “A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past; they are prematurely disappointed in the future.” But really, that attitude isn’t too Christian is it?
When I get all whiny, I start to talk about how hopeless everything is and how useless it is to try. However, I always pull myself out of it for the one simple fact; I know that’s not who I am and that’s not where I want to be. I know that if I stay there with the moaning and the groaning, I’m going to hurt myself and everyone around me. Once you’re “ in the soup” of complaining negativity, it doesn’t really matter if you got there by whining about small, imaginary things or real issues, you’re still “In the soup” and are going to be cooked.
WHINING IS CONTAGIOUS
Ask Moses and Aaron. As you know the Israelites got out into the desert and went negative. They had faced down Pharaoh and escaped the Egyptian Armored Divisions. They had walked a super hi-way through the Red sea. Their enemies were in the land God had promised them and they were digging wells for them and building homes and roads for them. But what do they do? They start getting negative and asking, “Are we lost?” They don’t give Moses a plaque with the names of the twelve tribes on it. They don’t offer him a decorative quilt. They don’t even say thank you. They don’t have a thanksgiving service. They say, “The deserts too hot.” “How much further is it?” “I’m hungry”, and so on.
Isn’t it interesting that God hears their complaints. You might think that our great God would turn a deaf ear to their grumblings and whining. You might think that God would be so big that He’d say, “Well, they’re only human, what else is to be expected of them.” But no, God hears it and takes it serious. There are two sides to that. One is the side that God is attentive to his children and hears each cry. The other side, which isn’t such good news, is that God heard these bitter cries and took them serious; as a matter of fact he seems to take it personally.
Then God starts to give them Manna twice a day. I don’t know what manna is but I like to think of it as cinnamon-buns served with boiling hot coffee. But what do they do? Do they praise God from whom all blessings flow? No, they whine. They’re eating, they’re full, they’re feasting on the riches of Gods grace, but they’re whining and dining at the same time.
The problem now becomes, there’s only so much you can do with manna.
• Fried manna
• Boiled manna
• Baked manna
• Manna fritters
• Manna and banana
• Manna scampi
• Manna etouffe’
Then the Israelites starting wanting meat to eat; they whined so much that God finally said; O.K you want meat to eat? I’ll give you meat until it comes out your noses. Really! You can look it up. God puts them on the Adkins diet, all meat.
Do you want me to tell you what this looks like to me? It looks like God has His limits. He has a place He comes to where He says, “Get a grip & put your problems into perspective.”
IF SOMETHING IS BOTHERING YOU SO BAD YOU’VE STARTED GOING ON AND ON ABOUT IT, ASK YOURSELF THESE QUESTIONS.
• Ask yourself if the thing you’re bothered about really matters. If it really matters, you need to do something about it. If it doesn’t, let it go. Before you dump it on a friend, a co-worker or anyone else, ask yourself what’s really bothering you. What is it you’re really unhappy about? More often than not our whines are symptoms of what’s going on inside of us and sometimes it hard to face up to what it really is. Are you talking to the right person? If not, it’s triangulating or gossiping and that’s going to hurt everybody involved. There’s no use whining to someone who can’t do anything about it but get negative with you.
• Realize the effect that your complaint will have on the person you share it with. It takes 10 positive remarks to balance out a single negative one. Is your complaint going to be worth the damage it might do?
• Consider ways you may have contributed to the problem and ways you might help solve it. Consider also that others may have a completely different way of looking at the problem and don’t be offended if they don’t see it your way.
• Finally, be sure you express your problem if you do give voice to it, within a context of mutual respect and concern. Seek to find solutions not punish. Seek solutions that will build toward better relationships later on not leave people frustrated and discouraged. Unity is still the Christians goal and severed relationships are serious in Gods eyes.
• Don’t let a minor complaint become a major division.
EVERY BATTLE ISN’T ARMAGEDDON.
In closing, if you are someone who needs a prayer partner to help you pray something through, that’s not whining.
If you are passionate about some issue, and need to vent, that’s not whining.
If someone has hurt your feelings and you want to talk, talk to them, that’s not whining.
Life is too precious to fritter away on negativity. Our missions are too important to be sacrificed to the nibbling of minnows. We all need positive people to help keep us from becoming negative. We should do that for one another, don’t you think? God is patient with us and we should be patient with one another.
May we never get so thick skinned that we fail to relate to others who may have a burr under their saddle. May we put things into perspective and keep the carping down to a minimum. We have so much more to be grateful for that we do to complain about.
Paul speaks to the complainers in the Philippians 2 & tells them to;
Work out your salvation (not work for our salvation) in fear & trembling. Vr.12
In other words we’re to work out our salvation with fear & trembling without complaining & disputing. The word complaining in the Greek is gongusmos which means guttural grumbling sound when you are disgruntled & frustrated. It’s like someone talking about someone behind your back & under their breath so you can’t quiet hear it. It’s the same kind of grumbling we read about in 1 Corinthians 10:10 that Paul used to describe the Israelites who grumbled & were “destroyed by the destroyer.” 14,700 grumblers were destroyed & not allowed to enter the promise land because Korah & his company murmured against Moses & Aaron & ultimately against God.
God is a loving father who gives us many good things & too often we start to worship these things instead of Him. That’s why we get miserable because when the excitement of these things wears off we want a better one, a bigger one & a faster one. Our goal is to be true worshippers of God. When we worship Him instead of the things He gives us our lives become a wellspring of true joy that ends in happiness instead of disillusion & death.
MAY GOD GIVE US A GRATEFUL SPIRIT SO THAT WE MIGHT SHARE WITH THE WORLD OUR REASON FOR HOPE, OUR LORD AND SAVIOR JESUS CHRIST.
Blessings,
John
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
What sacres Americans most?
By John Stallings
What scares Americans most?
In order the answers are:
1. Snakes
2. Public Speaking
3. Heights
4. Being closed in a small space
5. Spiders
6. Needles and getting shots
7. Mice
8. Flying on an airplane
9. Dogs
10. Thunder and lightning
11. Going to the doctor
12. The dark
Fear is the enemy of progress.
Fear stops us in our tracks and causes us to over-think simple solutions. Fear demands that we keep running from everything and keep looking behind us. Fear whispers “what ifs” and frightful scenarios in our ears and we unfortunately respond by trying to construct walls to protect ourselves.
If you want to stay where you are in life and make no progress, befriending fear is the way to go. If you never want to win, hold tight to your fears and you’ll be guaranteed a perpetual second place finish. If you’d rather have the status quo and cling to safety rather than maturity, knowledge and revelation then let fear roam around in your head.
If we keep doing what we’ve always done we’ll keep getting what we’ve always been getting.
FEAR KILLS CHANGE
Fear keeps us from getting what we really want in life. Fear kills change-stops it dead in its tracks. So we go on living a disappointing existence, languishing for change and stay the same until the pain of remaining the same becomes too much for us to bear. Then some people find the faith to break through their seemingly unconquerable fear and take an honest shot at change.
But why are we so afraid of change? It’s an incurably transient world we live in. If we want to start living, we must first understand that happiness isn’t forged in fear. If we want to see true progress in our lives we should welcome change.
Several years ago there was a television show called Wide World of Sports. The opening sequence showed a young man on skies wiping out in the most atrocious tumble I’d ever seen. It was so terrible that many people wondered why they would choose to play the clip over and over for several years. The man looked like an out of control helicopter as he flailed and catapulted, head over heels, arms and legs twisting through the air.
I read an explanation of why this incident happened. The man explained that as he was jumping, the surface had become too fast and if he’d completed the jump he would have landed in a bad place beyond the safe landing area. Had he not literally changed in mid-air, the jump could have been fatal. As it happened, although he was captured on film in an awfully awkward fall that seemed to never end, all he got out of what looked like a fatal mishap was a headache.
This points up one of the realities of life; sometimes we are called upon to make changes, and do it, as this young man did, “on the fly.”
THE RAILROADS
At the turn of the twentieth century the railroad industry was faced with a dilemma. Automobiles and airplanes had come on the scene and were starting to siphon off their business. They weren’t very wise and kept doing business as usual. At one time the railroads almost died out.
Someone had wrongly told the railroad folk they were in the railroad business. They were not. In reality, they were in the people business and didn’t know it. When people started to choose other methods of transportation, the railroads were in trouble. Finally the government had to step in and form Amtrak to keep passenger trains running. Today, the only passenger train ticket a person can buy is a government ticket.
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET
Do you remember the Old Oaken Bucket? Have you seen one lately, other than the one behind dusty glass in the Smithsonian museum in Washington? The Old Oaken bucket was a staple for many years, giving people something to carry water in when water wells were all they had. The sad thing about the Old Oaken Bucket makers was that someone told them they were in the bucket business. They were not. In truth, they were in the people business; or the business of helping people transport water conveniently. When running water became available, the only ones in the bucket business who came out of it O.K were the ones who were visionary enough to buy water utility stocks. The bottom line was- people no longer needed buckets. What happened, pure and simple, is change.
CHANGE IS A CONSTANT IN OUR LIVES
Sometimes folk get so hungry for change they will go to great lengths to make it happen. For instance, intentional body changes, like losing weight. People will go under the knife to accomplish this change. Some get so desperate to change they undergo total body makeovers. Can we say—Joan Rivers?
Yet most of us fear change and don't accept it readily because change often means loss. Being human, we don’t make adjustments easily. However, since life is a journey, how could we not expect to constantly be making changes? A journey is, almost by definition, constant change. We are traveling and moving from one point to another on our trip through life. There will be hills and valleys, deserts and oceans as we advance on our journey. Change is happening from the time we are born to the day of our death. Never to have change would put us in an unhealthy state.
At one time in China tiny feet were so worshipped that in order to keep female’s feet small they’d tightly wrap them with winding cloths. Their feet would indeed remain little and dainty, but when unwrapped they would look ugly and deformed. Growth and change are normal and attractive, while stunted growth is generally extremely unattractive.
When I was a child my father was a Pastor/Evangelist which meant that even under the best of conditions, we moved a lot. If we stayed 2 or 3 years in one place we were surprised but happy. As my dad grew older he would stay longer in Pastorates but that didn’t happen until I was almost grown. What this meant was that my Mom, sister and I had to get used to often changing homes, schools, churches, cities and communities. When I grew older, I’d joke with my father that he would move across the street if he thought he could get a step ahead of the devil.
When I started in evangelism in my early twenties, I began my own travels all over the country and abroad. When you live like that for awhile, though you may enjoy it, you develop a deep yearning for a home and roots. When it’s your calling, you thrive on the travel but still there’s that constant change of congregations, towns and living conditions. Most people can’t live like that for more than a ten year period in their life and then they just start to wear down. Something within them yearns to put down roots. Though it’s very possible for some to get hooked on constant change and never truly be happy in one place; very few are Nomadic and at some point settle down.
LOOKING BACK AT YESTERDAY STUNTS OUR GROWTH AND PROGRESS.
Though life imposes change, still it’s always a little sad to move on because in order to do so, old patterns and ways must be left behind. However, if we refuse to change, we’ll lose ground anyway. Rebelling against change has its own set of unfortunate circumstances. If we don’t remain open to change, we will be haunted by the same old conditions, problems and frustrations.
In order to have a healthy life, we must be on a lifelong quest for self-improvement and hardest of all, self-discipline.
Genesis 19:26 tells the story of Lot’s wife. Abraham and family had been warned to leave Sodom for it would be destroyed, and not to look back as they left. Lot’s wife looked back, and turned into a pillar of salt. Being a salt statue, she was suspended and stuck in a state of frozen development. Likewise, constantly looking back will freeze us in time so that we can’t move forward to the next chapter in our lives. It’s like trying to drive a car always looking in the rear view mirror. It’s fine to occasionally glance at the mirror but doing it constantly would result in our running into a ditch or colliding with something.
In Isaiah 43:18-19 God tells his people, “Remember not the former things neither consider the things of old. Behold I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
In this passage God is warning the people about looking back. He tells them not to remember the former things; to wash them from their minds, and not to even consider them anymore.
In Luke 9:62, Jesus said, “No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Rather a strong warning, wouldn’t you say?
In Philippians 3:13 Paul says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto the things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
IF ALL THE IMPORTANT THINGS LIE IN OUR PAST, WHY NOT JUST DIE?
After all, why would we want to go forward if the really good things are all behind us? If everything of any consequence or to be desired is already over, what’s the point of living? The answer of course is we’re still here and we know that God has a purpose for our lives. With God’s help every one of us can conquer fear and make powerful changes and move toward better things in life. The power of choice and free will are awesome tools in our possession.
For example, a person who is released from prison after serving their time has a choice. The person can make some changes in attitude, readjust to life on the outside and move on, or refuse to change, continue with same mind -set and end up back in prison. Sadly, a great percentage of people who are released go right back to jail proving that prison isn’t necessarily remedial unless an individual will put forth the effort to change.
THE FIRST CHANGE CAME WHEN WE GAVE OURSELVES TO CHRIST.
The KJV version of Romans 12:1 says, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In this passage, Paul didn’t say give God an hour or a day but give him your whole life.
Listen to this translation. “So here’s what I want you to do, take your whole body and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God has for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit in without even thinking. Readily recognize what he wants from you and respond to it. Unlike the culture that always dragging you to its level, God brings out the best in you and develops well formed maturity.”—Message Bible
In the book of Jeremiah, there’s a most beautiful picture of change. God brings the crusty prophet down to the potter’s house to teach him some things about His work, His will, and His ways of bringing them to pass. In Jeremiah 2:13, God had told his people;
“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the foundation of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
When he sees the potter’s wheel, in chapter 20, Jeremiah instantly understands that this is a picture of stubborn, sinful man in the hands of God being changed and transformed. He sees God taking the clay, spoiling it and changing it into what He wants it to be.
Once you really see what this story implies, you realize it’s one of the most encouraging stories in the Bible. God is showing us that in his hands the worst person or situation we could imagine can be changed and made useable.
There is a wonderful old song we used to sing when I was a boy and it went like this;
Have thine on way Lord, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.”
This is the spirit of the potter’s house experience; to be changed by the potter into a vessel of honor. In Genesis 2:7, we see God reaching down and forming man out of the dust of the earth and breathing into him the breath of life. Certainly the God who formed man in the beginning can take him in his hands and mold him as clay into whatever he chooses him to be.
When it comes to man, God has a plan, God has the power to execute the plan, and He has the patience to complete the work He starts.
Philippians 2:13 says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
Romans 8:28 says, “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Lamentations 4:2 says, “The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine Gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter.”
In John 3 we’re introduced to Nicodemus. He was a leader of the Jews and obviously a man of high standing. He came to Jesus by night because he didn’t want to be seen visiting this controversial man in daylight hours. But at least he came. At least he was curious to see if this man had answers for a life that was obviously not very fulfilling. Jesus immediately speaks to Nicodemus about changing. He talks to him about a change so radical that it even has a special name, The New Birth. This hit Nicodemus like a ton of bricks and he likened it to going back into the womb and being born again. Unquestionably the new Birth is a transforming experience.
Perhaps the most outstanding examples of this in the Bible is the experience of Saul of Tarsus who was changed on the road to Damascus. His change was so dramatic that it’s what we call a phenomenal conversion. One minute he was going about his life’s work of oppressing Christians and the very next he was crying out to God to tell him what was His assignment for him. It would be somewhat like the late Ted Kennedy, the embodiment of a liberal political animal waking up one morning and being a conservative who would be more extreme than Rush Limbaugh. We’re talking change now.
OUR WORLD IS IN A CONSTANT STATE OF CHANGE.
In 1943, a man by the name of Thomas Watson was the president of the IBM Corporation. He actually said, “I could never see a worldwide need for more than five computers.” Can you imagine a smart business man saying that? The reason for this profoundly ignorant statement was, he didn’t comprehend how much in the state of flux the world is in.
A new innovative city bus program will soon be used in our town, Orlando , Florida. In a city famous for traffic jams, our city officials hope to create a better way to move people around. Here’s how it will work. Using a computer at home, at work or at special places around the town, a rider would order a bus trip. The request would be dispatched by computer to a bus driver who would then pick up the rider at a particular stop within 12 minutes and go to the stop closest to the destination. Sounds good doesn’t it? Obviously the on-demand service has already been tried successfully in other cities.
My point is that we are living in a time of diverse change and all of us will have to adapt to it or live in the past, [if that will even be possible.] Change is one of most uncomfortable things we do but life is constantly demanding it of us. Keep in mind that I’m not speaking of the Obama version of hope and change.
The network news media is now wrestling with the reality of the changing world where people no longer have to wait until six o’clock at night to find out what’s happening in the world. We now have 24 hour cable news not to mention the internet.
Churches have also been faced with the necessity of change. Because of changes in the work place and lifestyles, old traditional ways have been supplanted with new ideas and concepts. Certainly the Gospel hasn’t changed but the way it’s piped to people has. Nowadays, a person can turn on satellite television and get preaching and teaching 24 hours a day. Many churches are going to Sunday morning only with cell groups meeting in different parts of their cities through the week. It’s not intrinsically bad or good -it just is. Having said all this, it would be extremely unwise, not to mention unscriptural for us to forsake assembling together corporately.
Change is inevitable. At this moment your body is going through all sorts of changes. Your brain is changing. The Universe, including the earth, is changing. How the world does business and everything about our economies is changing. I remember when I traveled on the west coast in the early sixties; we didn’t telephone home to Florida but once a month because it was too expensive. Now we call with a cell phone from airplanes, ships and trains, half way around the world without hesitation. It’s hard for me to believe as I look back that things have changed so much in so short a time.
We all have a choice. We can embrace the change that’s coming anyway, or allow fear to influence us to hide from it. But unlike the poor people in the Indian Ocean when the Tsunami struck, we have been advised. We’ve been given a heads-up to what the future will be like. Either we prepare and cooperate with change by adapting and benefiting from it, or sadly, we’ll just be swept away.
Markets change from bull to bear; weather changes, sometimes on a dime. The seasons change several times a year. Of course that’s cyclical in nature. Technology changes and when it does -things never go back the way they were. Jobs change, management changes, people change, everything in life changes. If we look back, we’ll see that we’ve weathered many changes already in our lives. We may have resisted some change but you can probably look back and say, “thank God that changed and look at the great things that came of it.”
THE GREATEST CHANGES ARE JUST AHEAD.
Jesus is coming back to the earth soon to take his church away. Seven years later we’ll come back to earth with him at which time He’ll fumigate the place and rule and reign forever.
Listen to 1 CORINTHIANS 15: 51,
“BEHOLD I SHOW YOU A MYSTERY; WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED, IN A MOMENT, IN A TWINKLING OF AN EYE, AT THE LAST TRUMP: FOR THE TRUMPET SHALL SOUND, AND THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED INCORRUPTIBLE, AND WE SHALL BE CHANGED.
FOR THIS CORRUPTIBLE MUST PUT ON INCORRUPTION AND THIS MORTAL MUST OUT ON IMMORTALITY.”
SO WHEN THIS CORRUPTIBLE SHALL HAVE OUT ON INCORRUPTION, AND THIS MORTAL SHALL HAVE PUT ON IMMORTALITY, THEN SHALL BE BROUGHT TO PASS THE SAYING THAT IS WRITTEN, OH DEATH WHERE IS THY STING? OH GRAVE WHERE IS THY VICTORY?
This will be the change that will sweep us into his presence for all eternity.
Blessings,
John
What scares Americans most?
In order the answers are:
1. Snakes
2. Public Speaking
3. Heights
4. Being closed in a small space
5. Spiders
6. Needles and getting shots
7. Mice
8. Flying on an airplane
9. Dogs
10. Thunder and lightning
11. Going to the doctor
12. The dark
Fear is the enemy of progress.
Fear stops us in our tracks and causes us to over-think simple solutions. Fear demands that we keep running from everything and keep looking behind us. Fear whispers “what ifs” and frightful scenarios in our ears and we unfortunately respond by trying to construct walls to protect ourselves.
If you want to stay where you are in life and make no progress, befriending fear is the way to go. If you never want to win, hold tight to your fears and you’ll be guaranteed a perpetual second place finish. If you’d rather have the status quo and cling to safety rather than maturity, knowledge and revelation then let fear roam around in your head.
If we keep doing what we’ve always done we’ll keep getting what we’ve always been getting.
FEAR KILLS CHANGE
Fear keeps us from getting what we really want in life. Fear kills change-stops it dead in its tracks. So we go on living a disappointing existence, languishing for change and stay the same until the pain of remaining the same becomes too much for us to bear. Then some people find the faith to break through their seemingly unconquerable fear and take an honest shot at change.
But why are we so afraid of change? It’s an incurably transient world we live in. If we want to start living, we must first understand that happiness isn’t forged in fear. If we want to see true progress in our lives we should welcome change.
Several years ago there was a television show called Wide World of Sports. The opening sequence showed a young man on skies wiping out in the most atrocious tumble I’d ever seen. It was so terrible that many people wondered why they would choose to play the clip over and over for several years. The man looked like an out of control helicopter as he flailed and catapulted, head over heels, arms and legs twisting through the air.
I read an explanation of why this incident happened. The man explained that as he was jumping, the surface had become too fast and if he’d completed the jump he would have landed in a bad place beyond the safe landing area. Had he not literally changed in mid-air, the jump could have been fatal. As it happened, although he was captured on film in an awfully awkward fall that seemed to never end, all he got out of what looked like a fatal mishap was a headache.
This points up one of the realities of life; sometimes we are called upon to make changes, and do it, as this young man did, “on the fly.”
THE RAILROADS
At the turn of the twentieth century the railroad industry was faced with a dilemma. Automobiles and airplanes had come on the scene and were starting to siphon off their business. They weren’t very wise and kept doing business as usual. At one time the railroads almost died out.
Someone had wrongly told the railroad folk they were in the railroad business. They were not. In reality, they were in the people business and didn’t know it. When people started to choose other methods of transportation, the railroads were in trouble. Finally the government had to step in and form Amtrak to keep passenger trains running. Today, the only passenger train ticket a person can buy is a government ticket.
THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET
Do you remember the Old Oaken Bucket? Have you seen one lately, other than the one behind dusty glass in the Smithsonian museum in Washington? The Old Oaken bucket was a staple for many years, giving people something to carry water in when water wells were all they had. The sad thing about the Old Oaken Bucket makers was that someone told them they were in the bucket business. They were not. In truth, they were in the people business; or the business of helping people transport water conveniently. When running water became available, the only ones in the bucket business who came out of it O.K were the ones who were visionary enough to buy water utility stocks. The bottom line was- people no longer needed buckets. What happened, pure and simple, is change.
CHANGE IS A CONSTANT IN OUR LIVES
Sometimes folk get so hungry for change they will go to great lengths to make it happen. For instance, intentional body changes, like losing weight. People will go under the knife to accomplish this change. Some get so desperate to change they undergo total body makeovers. Can we say—Joan Rivers?
Yet most of us fear change and don't accept it readily because change often means loss. Being human, we don’t make adjustments easily. However, since life is a journey, how could we not expect to constantly be making changes? A journey is, almost by definition, constant change. We are traveling and moving from one point to another on our trip through life. There will be hills and valleys, deserts and oceans as we advance on our journey. Change is happening from the time we are born to the day of our death. Never to have change would put us in an unhealthy state.
At one time in China tiny feet were so worshipped that in order to keep female’s feet small they’d tightly wrap them with winding cloths. Their feet would indeed remain little and dainty, but when unwrapped they would look ugly and deformed. Growth and change are normal and attractive, while stunted growth is generally extremely unattractive.
When I was a child my father was a Pastor/Evangelist which meant that even under the best of conditions, we moved a lot. If we stayed 2 or 3 years in one place we were surprised but happy. As my dad grew older he would stay longer in Pastorates but that didn’t happen until I was almost grown. What this meant was that my Mom, sister and I had to get used to often changing homes, schools, churches, cities and communities. When I grew older, I’d joke with my father that he would move across the street if he thought he could get a step ahead of the devil.
When I started in evangelism in my early twenties, I began my own travels all over the country and abroad. When you live like that for awhile, though you may enjoy it, you develop a deep yearning for a home and roots. When it’s your calling, you thrive on the travel but still there’s that constant change of congregations, towns and living conditions. Most people can’t live like that for more than a ten year period in their life and then they just start to wear down. Something within them yearns to put down roots. Though it’s very possible for some to get hooked on constant change and never truly be happy in one place; very few are Nomadic and at some point settle down.
LOOKING BACK AT YESTERDAY STUNTS OUR GROWTH AND PROGRESS.
Though life imposes change, still it’s always a little sad to move on because in order to do so, old patterns and ways must be left behind. However, if we refuse to change, we’ll lose ground anyway. Rebelling against change has its own set of unfortunate circumstances. If we don’t remain open to change, we will be haunted by the same old conditions, problems and frustrations.
In order to have a healthy life, we must be on a lifelong quest for self-improvement and hardest of all, self-discipline.
Genesis 19:26 tells the story of Lot’s wife. Abraham and family had been warned to leave Sodom for it would be destroyed, and not to look back as they left. Lot’s wife looked back, and turned into a pillar of salt. Being a salt statue, she was suspended and stuck in a state of frozen development. Likewise, constantly looking back will freeze us in time so that we can’t move forward to the next chapter in our lives. It’s like trying to drive a car always looking in the rear view mirror. It’s fine to occasionally glance at the mirror but doing it constantly would result in our running into a ditch or colliding with something.
In Isaiah 43:18-19 God tells his people, “Remember not the former things neither consider the things of old. Behold I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.”
In this passage God is warning the people about looking back. He tells them not to remember the former things; to wash them from their minds, and not to even consider them anymore.
In Luke 9:62, Jesus said, “No man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.”
Rather a strong warning, wouldn’t you say?
In Philippians 3:13 Paul says, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting the things which are behind, and reaching forth unto the things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
IF ALL THE IMPORTANT THINGS LIE IN OUR PAST, WHY NOT JUST DIE?
After all, why would we want to go forward if the really good things are all behind us? If everything of any consequence or to be desired is already over, what’s the point of living? The answer of course is we’re still here and we know that God has a purpose for our lives. With God’s help every one of us can conquer fear and make powerful changes and move toward better things in life. The power of choice and free will are awesome tools in our possession.
For example, a person who is released from prison after serving their time has a choice. The person can make some changes in attitude, readjust to life on the outside and move on, or refuse to change, continue with same mind -set and end up back in prison. Sadly, a great percentage of people who are released go right back to jail proving that prison isn’t necessarily remedial unless an individual will put forth the effort to change.
THE FIRST CHANGE CAME WHEN WE GAVE OURSELVES TO CHRIST.
The KJV version of Romans 12:1 says, “Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.” In this passage, Paul didn’t say give God an hour or a day but give him your whole life.
Listen to this translation. “So here’s what I want you to do, take your whole body and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God has for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit in without even thinking. Readily recognize what he wants from you and respond to it. Unlike the culture that always dragging you to its level, God brings out the best in you and develops well formed maturity.”—Message Bible
In the book of Jeremiah, there’s a most beautiful picture of change. God brings the crusty prophet down to the potter’s house to teach him some things about His work, His will, and His ways of bringing them to pass. In Jeremiah 2:13, God had told his people;
“For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the foundation of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.”
When he sees the potter’s wheel, in chapter 20, Jeremiah instantly understands that this is a picture of stubborn, sinful man in the hands of God being changed and transformed. He sees God taking the clay, spoiling it and changing it into what He wants it to be.
Once you really see what this story implies, you realize it’s one of the most encouraging stories in the Bible. God is showing us that in his hands the worst person or situation we could imagine can be changed and made useable.
There is a wonderful old song we used to sing when I was a boy and it went like this;
Have thine on way Lord, have thine own way, thou art the potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.”
This is the spirit of the potter’s house experience; to be changed by the potter into a vessel of honor. In Genesis 2:7, we see God reaching down and forming man out of the dust of the earth and breathing into him the breath of life. Certainly the God who formed man in the beginning can take him in his hands and mold him as clay into whatever he chooses him to be.
When it comes to man, God has a plan, God has the power to execute the plan, and He has the patience to complete the work He starts.
Philippians 2:13 says, “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.”
Romans 8:28 says, “For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”
Lamentations 4:2 says, “The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine Gold, how are they esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter.”
In John 3 we’re introduced to Nicodemus. He was a leader of the Jews and obviously a man of high standing. He came to Jesus by night because he didn’t want to be seen visiting this controversial man in daylight hours. But at least he came. At least he was curious to see if this man had answers for a life that was obviously not very fulfilling. Jesus immediately speaks to Nicodemus about changing. He talks to him about a change so radical that it even has a special name, The New Birth. This hit Nicodemus like a ton of bricks and he likened it to going back into the womb and being born again. Unquestionably the new Birth is a transforming experience.
Perhaps the most outstanding examples of this in the Bible is the experience of Saul of Tarsus who was changed on the road to Damascus. His change was so dramatic that it’s what we call a phenomenal conversion. One minute he was going about his life’s work of oppressing Christians and the very next he was crying out to God to tell him what was His assignment for him. It would be somewhat like the late Ted Kennedy, the embodiment of a liberal political animal waking up one morning and being a conservative who would be more extreme than Rush Limbaugh. We’re talking change now.
OUR WORLD IS IN A CONSTANT STATE OF CHANGE.
In 1943, a man by the name of Thomas Watson was the president of the IBM Corporation. He actually said, “I could never see a worldwide need for more than five computers.” Can you imagine a smart business man saying that? The reason for this profoundly ignorant statement was, he didn’t comprehend how much in the state of flux the world is in.
A new innovative city bus program will soon be used in our town, Orlando , Florida. In a city famous for traffic jams, our city officials hope to create a better way to move people around. Here’s how it will work. Using a computer at home, at work or at special places around the town, a rider would order a bus trip. The request would be dispatched by computer to a bus driver who would then pick up the rider at a particular stop within 12 minutes and go to the stop closest to the destination. Sounds good doesn’t it? Obviously the on-demand service has already been tried successfully in other cities.
My point is that we are living in a time of diverse change and all of us will have to adapt to it or live in the past, [if that will even be possible.] Change is one of most uncomfortable things we do but life is constantly demanding it of us. Keep in mind that I’m not speaking of the Obama version of hope and change.
The network news media is now wrestling with the reality of the changing world where people no longer have to wait until six o’clock at night to find out what’s happening in the world. We now have 24 hour cable news not to mention the internet.
Churches have also been faced with the necessity of change. Because of changes in the work place and lifestyles, old traditional ways have been supplanted with new ideas and concepts. Certainly the Gospel hasn’t changed but the way it’s piped to people has. Nowadays, a person can turn on satellite television and get preaching and teaching 24 hours a day. Many churches are going to Sunday morning only with cell groups meeting in different parts of their cities through the week. It’s not intrinsically bad or good -it just is. Having said all this, it would be extremely unwise, not to mention unscriptural for us to forsake assembling together corporately.
Change is inevitable. At this moment your body is going through all sorts of changes. Your brain is changing. The Universe, including the earth, is changing. How the world does business and everything about our economies is changing. I remember when I traveled on the west coast in the early sixties; we didn’t telephone home to Florida but once a month because it was too expensive. Now we call with a cell phone from airplanes, ships and trains, half way around the world without hesitation. It’s hard for me to believe as I look back that things have changed so much in so short a time.
We all have a choice. We can embrace the change that’s coming anyway, or allow fear to influence us to hide from it. But unlike the poor people in the Indian Ocean when the Tsunami struck, we have been advised. We’ve been given a heads-up to what the future will be like. Either we prepare and cooperate with change by adapting and benefiting from it, or sadly, we’ll just be swept away.
Markets change from bull to bear; weather changes, sometimes on a dime. The seasons change several times a year. Of course that’s cyclical in nature. Technology changes and when it does -things never go back the way they were. Jobs change, management changes, people change, everything in life changes. If we look back, we’ll see that we’ve weathered many changes already in our lives. We may have resisted some change but you can probably look back and say, “thank God that changed and look at the great things that came of it.”
THE GREATEST CHANGES ARE JUST AHEAD.
Jesus is coming back to the earth soon to take his church away. Seven years later we’ll come back to earth with him at which time He’ll fumigate the place and rule and reign forever.
Listen to 1 CORINTHIANS 15: 51,
“BEHOLD I SHOW YOU A MYSTERY; WE SHALL NOT ALL SLEEP BUT WE SHALL ALL BE CHANGED, IN A MOMENT, IN A TWINKLING OF AN EYE, AT THE LAST TRUMP: FOR THE TRUMPET SHALL SOUND, AND THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED INCORRUPTIBLE, AND WE SHALL BE CHANGED.
FOR THIS CORRUPTIBLE MUST PUT ON INCORRUPTION AND THIS MORTAL MUST OUT ON IMMORTALITY.”
SO WHEN THIS CORRUPTIBLE SHALL HAVE OUT ON INCORRUPTION, AND THIS MORTAL SHALL HAVE PUT ON IMMORTALITY, THEN SHALL BE BROUGHT TO PASS THE SAYING THAT IS WRITTEN, OH DEATH WHERE IS THY STING? OH GRAVE WHERE IS THY VICTORY?
This will be the change that will sweep us into his presence for all eternity.
Blessings,
John
Friday, June 25, 2010
Three Danger Zones
By John Stallings
The Rolling Stone’s song “I can’t get no satisfaction” has been voted the number one Rock N Roll song of all time.
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, from what he wrote in his books could have easily related to the words of that song. Solomon reached a place where he felt life had no meaning. He hit a low point and was so disappointed with life he thought it was all vanity or meaningless.
Solomon is my kind of writer. In Ecclesiastes, he hangs the key to the whole book right on the front door, “Vanity of vanities [or meaningless] saith the preacher, vanity of vanity: all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?”
Just in case we missed it, he hangs the same key on the back door [12:8] “vanity/meaningless.” Other writers have even used the words “absurd” or “absurdity” to express meaninglessness. If you read Ecclesiastes, you will see that Solomon was writing to the whole world. His message has a universal, missionary appeal. We should have a keen listening ear.
We know much about the famous names in the Bible like Jesus, Moses, Elijah and David and a host of other renowned Bible heroes. But all most folk seem to remember about Solomon is that he wrote the book of Proverbs and several other books in the Bible. Let’s unpack Solomon’s luggage a little bit here and reacquaint ourselves with him.
Solomon sat on his Dad’s throne but unlike his dad king David he didn’t have to go out and kill a giant. As a matter of fact he never fought any big battles. Solomon grew up a little pampered but he was a good king in the beginning. He made Jerusalem shine like a diamond glistening between the shimmering blue waves of the Mediterranean and the glimmering salty waters of the Dead Sea.
At first, Solomon’s reign was Israel’s Camelot. Jerusalem was a crown jewel in Solomon’s day. Silver and gold were almost as common as dust. No wars were going on and everybody was safe, blessed with money and plenty to eat. The times were good. God was blessing the whole nation. It kind of sounds like America doesn’t it? God has blessed us tremendously but we are in need of a national revival.
The first thing Solomon did was put his enemies to death and bring Pharaoh’s daughter to the city of David and marry her. Not long after that God asked Solomon in a dream to ask of Him whatever he wanted and the request would be granted. Isn’t God good? God is so good to His people. Some people feel that we as the people of God are supposed to be poor and downtrodden and walk around like we’ve been baptized in pickle juice. But the Bible says in Psalm 144: 15, “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”
If you could have your fondest wish fulfilled what would it be? Would you wish for riches, a long life, good health or spiritual understanding? Since Solomon asked God for wisdom, God told him He’d make him fabulously wealthy also.
Ask what I should give you! We’ve heard that opening line before haven’t we? A man finds a bottle and a genie comes out and gives him three wishes.
I heard about three men who were stranded on an island when a bottle washes up on shore. When they uncorked the bottle a genie came out and granted them three wishes. The first man wishes to go to Paris and he suddenly goes to Paris and stands in front of the Eiffel Tower. The second man wishes to go to Hollywood and suddenly finds himself on a movie set. The third man, now alone on the island looks around and says, “I wish my friends were back.”
Scholars agree that Ecclesiastes was written in the sunset years of Solomon’s life. He obviously had a hankering for beautiful women because he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, which means three hundred more wives. Solomon got many of these women from other nations and they brought their foreign Gods and idols with them. This man collected women the way some men collect antique cars. It was his hobby. Every day Solomon was surrounded by 1,000 stunningly beautiful women and he didn’t get junk. They had a demoralizing effect on Solomon because he constructed many alters to their Gods to try to please them. These women had the power to undo Solomon’s connection to God. These sensual sweethearts spoiled his spirituality. If you read 1 Kings 11:9 the fact is made crystal clear that God didn’t approve of the way Solomon did business.
Yes, Solomon tried laughter, leisure, licentiousness, labor, lucre, and lovely ladies. He tried it all. And he got bored. He wasn’t a “happy camper.” The problem was that-Solomon lost God. It all started with marrying the wrong woman- a heathen woman who worshipped false idols. This rubbed off on Solomon and for all his vaunted wisdom he turned out to be one of the most profligate and promiscuous kings who ever ruled over Israel. Probably quite imperceptibly at first Solomon got an infection because he gave sin a foothold in his life. This infection ultimately killed him spiritually.
The writer’s messages come through loud and clear in Ecclesiastes. One of them is-
THE WORLD AROUND US DOESN’T CHANGE THE WORLD WITHIN US.
In this little book, Solomon uses the term “life under the Sun” 29 times. He uses the phrase “chasing after the wind” 9 times and the word “time” 28 times.
Solomon seems to be greatly impacted with the fact that there just isn’t enough time and that he’s running out of time. If you’re over 50, you’ll be able to relate to that fact. If you’re over 65, you are getting this book in a profound way. By this time, we’ve learned along with Solomon, - there just isn’t any time.
The book of Ecclesiastes suggests to us three periods of time that I’m calling-Three Danger Zones. First are;
1. THE TEEN YEARS
Solomon tells us in 12;1-3—Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth while the evil days come not nor the years draw night when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
The teen years are a real Danger Zone. Have you ever really considered the profoundly dramatic change a child goes through when they jump from adolescence to a teenager? As a child, everything was so simple. The child is playing in a sand-box and almost overnight they’re overtaken by puberty. Do you remember how overwhelming that experience was? With some of us we got a new voice about that time.
Now, not only is the newly-crowned teenager catapulted into a world of sexual awareness- the big questions of life start. Who am I? What am I doing here? What’s the meaning of life if there is one? They start to see the suffering, unfairness and injustices of the world. Teenagers will get in the streets and march over causes they’ve barely had time to know even exist.
To point out the obvious, it’s during the teen years that many times kids get into trouble. Some of them get into the “Goth” scene and wear all black clothing. Many young people get so confused that they take on a Gothic character to hide behind just so they can deal with daily life.
Teens typically feel they’re the first to discover the problems that have plagued mankind for centuries. Of course suicide is always something that parents have to be concerned about because suicide is the second cause of death among teenagers.
The next Danger Zone is;
2. MIDDLE AGE
If we make it through the teen years, we usually have smooth sailing for a number of years. During those years most people raise their children, if they have any. Then when middle age rolls around, the same old “meaninglessness” comes back to torment us again.
I’ve always thought it sort of funny to speak of middle age because we have to know how long a person’s life will be to know when middle age comes. Many men and women have what’s called a mid-life crisis.
Some have an easy transition through mid-life and others go nuts-o. The middle age years are often called the “so what” years. It’s during mid-life that people have affairs and many tear their lives all to pieces. As a general rule, if a married couple can make it through their middle years they won’t divorce. In mid-life there’s an instant replay of the craziness that plagued us as teenagers.
Jerry Lee Lewis had a song out several years ago called “Middle age crazy.” Old Jerry was pretty much right on target. Mid-life is when we start buying the CD and DVD disks that Time-Life offers on T.V. We can’t understand why the old songs we loved aren’t played on the radio anymore.
Many folk, especially women, I think, start having plastic surgery in middle age. I heard about one man whom the doctor told; “I can’t lift your face but I can lower your body.”
The story is told of a lady who was having quite a lot of plastic surgery done and during the process she prayed and asked God to let her live a very long life. God assured her that she could count on a life full of years. She continued to have more and more work done and after about the 15th surgery when she was released from the clinic, she was crossing the street and a car hit her, killing her instantly. When she got to heaven she asked God why he didn’t keep His promise to her of a long life. According to the story, God said, “I certainly had every intention of giving you a long life, the reason the car hit you was-I didn’t recognize you.”
Solomon tells us that he denied himself no pleasure but when he summed it all up, it was just a cosmic-joke. No pleasure at all. He learned the great mysteries of life but that just served to depress him more. He undertook great projects like building the Temple and building his own magnificent home but that wasn’t fulfilling either. In 2:17 Solomon actually said-I hate life.”
Again the truth comes through that-life around us can’t change the inner landscape of our lives. Solomon tells us that it’s all folly if we leave God out of our lives.
Adolph Menzel was a painter who lived in the 18th century. He undertook to paint a masterpiece featuring King Frederick the Great. The painting was to be of the King surrounded by beautiful scenery with a background of mountains and flowers. Menzel, wanting to get the scenery painted first, made a charcoal outline of where the King’s personage would be, intending to put that in last. Menzel inadvertently died before he could finish the painting so all that was visible was the surrounding trappings. The king was left out.
If we’re not careful, you and I can make this mistake. Well intentioned as we may be, we can, not really meaning to, leave God out of our lives, like Menzel, intending to come back to Him before we’re finished. This is a major part of what Solomon is saying to us. Remember God!
Certainly Solomon knew better than what he did throughout much of his life. But you and I do the same thing. We do things that we know in our heart isn’t right but somehow we just do them anyway. The last danger zone;
3. THE SENIOR YEARS
Some people say they won’t to ‘grow old gracefully,” and others plan to “fight it all the way.”
In the senior years the enemy comes to us again. Now we’re starting to get philosophical about our lives. After all, we were told as young people that we should get the best education possible and excel at some skill or in some profession. Now, in our sunset years, we’re told to retire. The person who’ll take our place will be maybe 25 years old and they’ll only have to pay him/her half what we were paid.
In our senior years we ask; what did I accomplish? Did my contribution make a difference? The thing that will make a difference in our senior years is do we have the inner spiritual resources to cope.
I read somewhere that studies have shown that older people tend to be less likely to experience persistent negative emotional states and have a greater capacity to experience poignancy.
I think that’s true because as a young man I traveled over much of the world and can remember being so tired I was hardly able to take in the unbelievable sights I was seeing. I walked through the catacombs in Rome and was so exhausted I could scarcely take in the importance of it. Today, I can see some of the places I’ve been to personally on TV and sit and marvel almost to the point of tears at the beauty my eyes behold.
Research finds that with aging comes deeper ways of relating to self, others and society and even the universe. These finding showed that:
*Older people tend to grow in their capacity for self-confrontation.
* Older people tend to move from self-centeredness to altruism.
* Older people tend to think of childhood more positively.
*Older people tend to find solitude less threatening.
* Older people tend to find more joy in social contact.
* Older people tend to have a renewed interest in nature.
MOCKING BIRDS
This might seem almost silly but it’s true. The other day I went out to the mailbox and as I walked I heard the most startling sound. I looked up in a small tree on our property and sitting at the very top like the star on a Christmas tree was a bird chirping out the most unbelievable sounds I’ve heard in a long time. I stood for a moment or two at rapt attention as the bird sang.
It was almost as if the bird was saying, “Look what I can do. I was just waiting for you to come out so I could audition for you.” To be frank, I wasn’t sure what kind of bird it was but this little guy was chirping away like his life depended on it, almost like a musician quickly going through his repertoire. I don’t know why I was so impressed but I was. This bird went through all sorts of sounds, swinging from sounds like a squirrel barking, to someone whistling for their dog. It was all over in less than a minute but I was so impressed I came back into the house and looked this bird up on Google.
It turns out that it was indeed a Mocking Bird, which explained why he knew so many sounds. They actually mock other birds and I suppose any noise that impresses them. I learned that these birds keep adding new sounds until the day they die. Isn’t that amazing? I may have learned some of this in school but had forgotten. More likely I just wasn’t paying attention. Now I listen for the mocking Bird’s song and wonder why it took me so long to see and hear the sounds all around me.
It’s not that growing older has left me with nothing to do-there don’t seem to be enough hours in a day, but at this point in my life, as the above study suggests, I have a “renewed interest in nature.”
IN OLD AGE, OUR PURPOSE MUST BE HIGHER THAN OUR POSSESSIONS.
Solomon should have been more solemn don’t you think? In him we see the restlessness of the young and the peevishness of the old. He had a steady diet of wicked women, food, frolic, and fame. Life has a way of decaying right under a person if they don’t take great care. Solomon’s downfall came in old age and its clear Solomon was led over “fool’s hill” by all the wicked influences in his life. As I’ve looked again at Solomon’s life, I’ve wondered if Elvis, Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods would have turned out differently if they’d read Solomon’s writings and taken them seriously.
It would be great if when a person grew old they’d be exempt from the decaying influences of sin but there’s no guarantee of smooth sailing into our sunset years. Rocky roads still await senior saints.
Do you think we’ll meet Solomon in heaven? Just a question. Listen to 1 Kings 11:4;
As Solomon grew old his wives turned his heart after other Gods and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely as David his father had done.
Ashtoreth was a sex goddess and sanctioned every sexual activity. Molech worship included child sacrifice. Solomon was into all of that. Heathen genes mixed with Hebrew genes and “all bets are off.”
Solomon’s son Rehoboam led Israel into deep sin and under him the kingdom was divided into ten tribes and the two tribes. War and bloodshed came and never left. It all started with Solomon.
DANGER
Friend, you and I can’t afford to slip into sin, no matter what stage of life we find ourselves in. If we do, generations who follow us will suffer for it. Hosea 8:7 says; They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
God wants you and me to have integrity. He wants us on our knees and He wants us feeding on His Word. If your father was immoral or maybe a drunkard, you can break that cycle. You can break it through the blood of Jesus Christ.
We can avoid each and every one of the danger zones but we can do it only through Him.
Blessings,
John
The Rolling Stone’s song “I can’t get no satisfaction” has been voted the number one Rock N Roll song of all time.
Solomon, the wisest man who ever lived, from what he wrote in his books could have easily related to the words of that song. Solomon reached a place where he felt life had no meaning. He hit a low point and was so disappointed with life he thought it was all vanity or meaningless.
Solomon is my kind of writer. In Ecclesiastes, he hangs the key to the whole book right on the front door, “Vanity of vanities [or meaningless] saith the preacher, vanity of vanity: all is vanity. What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?”
Just in case we missed it, he hangs the same key on the back door [12:8] “vanity/meaningless.” Other writers have even used the words “absurd” or “absurdity” to express meaninglessness. If you read Ecclesiastes, you will see that Solomon was writing to the whole world. His message has a universal, missionary appeal. We should have a keen listening ear.
We know much about the famous names in the Bible like Jesus, Moses, Elijah and David and a host of other renowned Bible heroes. But all most folk seem to remember about Solomon is that he wrote the book of Proverbs and several other books in the Bible. Let’s unpack Solomon’s luggage a little bit here and reacquaint ourselves with him.
Solomon sat on his Dad’s throne but unlike his dad king David he didn’t have to go out and kill a giant. As a matter of fact he never fought any big battles. Solomon grew up a little pampered but he was a good king in the beginning. He made Jerusalem shine like a diamond glistening between the shimmering blue waves of the Mediterranean and the glimmering salty waters of the Dead Sea.
At first, Solomon’s reign was Israel’s Camelot. Jerusalem was a crown jewel in Solomon’s day. Silver and gold were almost as common as dust. No wars were going on and everybody was safe, blessed with money and plenty to eat. The times were good. God was blessing the whole nation. It kind of sounds like America doesn’t it? God has blessed us tremendously but we are in need of a national revival.
The first thing Solomon did was put his enemies to death and bring Pharaoh’s daughter to the city of David and marry her. Not long after that God asked Solomon in a dream to ask of Him whatever he wanted and the request would be granted. Isn’t God good? God is so good to His people. Some people feel that we as the people of God are supposed to be poor and downtrodden and walk around like we’ve been baptized in pickle juice. But the Bible says in Psalm 144: 15, “Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.”
If you could have your fondest wish fulfilled what would it be? Would you wish for riches, a long life, good health or spiritual understanding? Since Solomon asked God for wisdom, God told him He’d make him fabulously wealthy also.
Ask what I should give you! We’ve heard that opening line before haven’t we? A man finds a bottle and a genie comes out and gives him three wishes.
I heard about three men who were stranded on an island when a bottle washes up on shore. When they uncorked the bottle a genie came out and granted them three wishes. The first man wishes to go to Paris and he suddenly goes to Paris and stands in front of the Eiffel Tower. The second man wishes to go to Hollywood and suddenly finds himself on a movie set. The third man, now alone on the island looks around and says, “I wish my friends were back.”
Scholars agree that Ecclesiastes was written in the sunset years of Solomon’s life. He obviously had a hankering for beautiful women because he had 700 wives and 300 concubines, which means three hundred more wives. Solomon got many of these women from other nations and they brought their foreign Gods and idols with them. This man collected women the way some men collect antique cars. It was his hobby. Every day Solomon was surrounded by 1,000 stunningly beautiful women and he didn’t get junk. They had a demoralizing effect on Solomon because he constructed many alters to their Gods to try to please them. These women had the power to undo Solomon’s connection to God. These sensual sweethearts spoiled his spirituality. If you read 1 Kings 11:9 the fact is made crystal clear that God didn’t approve of the way Solomon did business.
Yes, Solomon tried laughter, leisure, licentiousness, labor, lucre, and lovely ladies. He tried it all. And he got bored. He wasn’t a “happy camper.” The problem was that-Solomon lost God. It all started with marrying the wrong woman- a heathen woman who worshipped false idols. This rubbed off on Solomon and for all his vaunted wisdom he turned out to be one of the most profligate and promiscuous kings who ever ruled over Israel. Probably quite imperceptibly at first Solomon got an infection because he gave sin a foothold in his life. This infection ultimately killed him spiritually.
The writer’s messages come through loud and clear in Ecclesiastes. One of them is-
THE WORLD AROUND US DOESN’T CHANGE THE WORLD WITHIN US.
In this little book, Solomon uses the term “life under the Sun” 29 times. He uses the phrase “chasing after the wind” 9 times and the word “time” 28 times.
Solomon seems to be greatly impacted with the fact that there just isn’t enough time and that he’s running out of time. If you’re over 50, you’ll be able to relate to that fact. If you’re over 65, you are getting this book in a profound way. By this time, we’ve learned along with Solomon, - there just isn’t any time.
The book of Ecclesiastes suggests to us three periods of time that I’m calling-Three Danger Zones. First are;
1. THE TEEN YEARS
Solomon tells us in 12;1-3—Remember now thy creator in the days of thy youth while the evil days come not nor the years draw night when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them.
The teen years are a real Danger Zone. Have you ever really considered the profoundly dramatic change a child goes through when they jump from adolescence to a teenager? As a child, everything was so simple. The child is playing in a sand-box and almost overnight they’re overtaken by puberty. Do you remember how overwhelming that experience was? With some of us we got a new voice about that time.
Now, not only is the newly-crowned teenager catapulted into a world of sexual awareness- the big questions of life start. Who am I? What am I doing here? What’s the meaning of life if there is one? They start to see the suffering, unfairness and injustices of the world. Teenagers will get in the streets and march over causes they’ve barely had time to know even exist.
To point out the obvious, it’s during the teen years that many times kids get into trouble. Some of them get into the “Goth” scene and wear all black clothing. Many young people get so confused that they take on a Gothic character to hide behind just so they can deal with daily life.
Teens typically feel they’re the first to discover the problems that have plagued mankind for centuries. Of course suicide is always something that parents have to be concerned about because suicide is the second cause of death among teenagers.
The next Danger Zone is;
2. MIDDLE AGE
If we make it through the teen years, we usually have smooth sailing for a number of years. During those years most people raise their children, if they have any. Then when middle age rolls around, the same old “meaninglessness” comes back to torment us again.
I’ve always thought it sort of funny to speak of middle age because we have to know how long a person’s life will be to know when middle age comes. Many men and women have what’s called a mid-life crisis.
Some have an easy transition through mid-life and others go nuts-o. The middle age years are often called the “so what” years. It’s during mid-life that people have affairs and many tear their lives all to pieces. As a general rule, if a married couple can make it through their middle years they won’t divorce. In mid-life there’s an instant replay of the craziness that plagued us as teenagers.
Jerry Lee Lewis had a song out several years ago called “Middle age crazy.” Old Jerry was pretty much right on target. Mid-life is when we start buying the CD and DVD disks that Time-Life offers on T.V. We can’t understand why the old songs we loved aren’t played on the radio anymore.
Many folk, especially women, I think, start having plastic surgery in middle age. I heard about one man whom the doctor told; “I can’t lift your face but I can lower your body.”
The story is told of a lady who was having quite a lot of plastic surgery done and during the process she prayed and asked God to let her live a very long life. God assured her that she could count on a life full of years. She continued to have more and more work done and after about the 15th surgery when she was released from the clinic, she was crossing the street and a car hit her, killing her instantly. When she got to heaven she asked God why he didn’t keep His promise to her of a long life. According to the story, God said, “I certainly had every intention of giving you a long life, the reason the car hit you was-I didn’t recognize you.”
Solomon tells us that he denied himself no pleasure but when he summed it all up, it was just a cosmic-joke. No pleasure at all. He learned the great mysteries of life but that just served to depress him more. He undertook great projects like building the Temple and building his own magnificent home but that wasn’t fulfilling either. In 2:17 Solomon actually said-I hate life.”
Again the truth comes through that-life around us can’t change the inner landscape of our lives. Solomon tells us that it’s all folly if we leave God out of our lives.
Adolph Menzel was a painter who lived in the 18th century. He undertook to paint a masterpiece featuring King Frederick the Great. The painting was to be of the King surrounded by beautiful scenery with a background of mountains and flowers. Menzel, wanting to get the scenery painted first, made a charcoal outline of where the King’s personage would be, intending to put that in last. Menzel inadvertently died before he could finish the painting so all that was visible was the surrounding trappings. The king was left out.
If we’re not careful, you and I can make this mistake. Well intentioned as we may be, we can, not really meaning to, leave God out of our lives, like Menzel, intending to come back to Him before we’re finished. This is a major part of what Solomon is saying to us. Remember God!
Certainly Solomon knew better than what he did throughout much of his life. But you and I do the same thing. We do things that we know in our heart isn’t right but somehow we just do them anyway. The last danger zone;
3. THE SENIOR YEARS
Some people say they won’t to ‘grow old gracefully,” and others plan to “fight it all the way.”
In the senior years the enemy comes to us again. Now we’re starting to get philosophical about our lives. After all, we were told as young people that we should get the best education possible and excel at some skill or in some profession. Now, in our sunset years, we’re told to retire. The person who’ll take our place will be maybe 25 years old and they’ll only have to pay him/her half what we were paid.
In our senior years we ask; what did I accomplish? Did my contribution make a difference? The thing that will make a difference in our senior years is do we have the inner spiritual resources to cope.
I read somewhere that studies have shown that older people tend to be less likely to experience persistent negative emotional states and have a greater capacity to experience poignancy.
I think that’s true because as a young man I traveled over much of the world and can remember being so tired I was hardly able to take in the unbelievable sights I was seeing. I walked through the catacombs in Rome and was so exhausted I could scarcely take in the importance of it. Today, I can see some of the places I’ve been to personally on TV and sit and marvel almost to the point of tears at the beauty my eyes behold.
Research finds that with aging comes deeper ways of relating to self, others and society and even the universe. These finding showed that:
*Older people tend to grow in their capacity for self-confrontation.
* Older people tend to move from self-centeredness to altruism.
* Older people tend to think of childhood more positively.
*Older people tend to find solitude less threatening.
* Older people tend to find more joy in social contact.
* Older people tend to have a renewed interest in nature.
MOCKING BIRDS
This might seem almost silly but it’s true. The other day I went out to the mailbox and as I walked I heard the most startling sound. I looked up in a small tree on our property and sitting at the very top like the star on a Christmas tree was a bird chirping out the most unbelievable sounds I’ve heard in a long time. I stood for a moment or two at rapt attention as the bird sang.
It was almost as if the bird was saying, “Look what I can do. I was just waiting for you to come out so I could audition for you.” To be frank, I wasn’t sure what kind of bird it was but this little guy was chirping away like his life depended on it, almost like a musician quickly going through his repertoire. I don’t know why I was so impressed but I was. This bird went through all sorts of sounds, swinging from sounds like a squirrel barking, to someone whistling for their dog. It was all over in less than a minute but I was so impressed I came back into the house and looked this bird up on Google.
It turns out that it was indeed a Mocking Bird, which explained why he knew so many sounds. They actually mock other birds and I suppose any noise that impresses them. I learned that these birds keep adding new sounds until the day they die. Isn’t that amazing? I may have learned some of this in school but had forgotten. More likely I just wasn’t paying attention. Now I listen for the mocking Bird’s song and wonder why it took me so long to see and hear the sounds all around me.
It’s not that growing older has left me with nothing to do-there don’t seem to be enough hours in a day, but at this point in my life, as the above study suggests, I have a “renewed interest in nature.”
IN OLD AGE, OUR PURPOSE MUST BE HIGHER THAN OUR POSSESSIONS.
Solomon should have been more solemn don’t you think? In him we see the restlessness of the young and the peevishness of the old. He had a steady diet of wicked women, food, frolic, and fame. Life has a way of decaying right under a person if they don’t take great care. Solomon’s downfall came in old age and its clear Solomon was led over “fool’s hill” by all the wicked influences in his life. As I’ve looked again at Solomon’s life, I’ve wondered if Elvis, Michael Jackson and Tiger Woods would have turned out differently if they’d read Solomon’s writings and taken them seriously.
It would be great if when a person grew old they’d be exempt from the decaying influences of sin but there’s no guarantee of smooth sailing into our sunset years. Rocky roads still await senior saints.
Do you think we’ll meet Solomon in heaven? Just a question. Listen to 1 Kings 11:4;
As Solomon grew old his wives turned his heart after other Gods and his heart was not fully devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David his father had been. He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. So Solomon did evil in the eyes of the Lord; he did not follow the Lord completely as David his father had done.
Ashtoreth was a sex goddess and sanctioned every sexual activity. Molech worship included child sacrifice. Solomon was into all of that. Heathen genes mixed with Hebrew genes and “all bets are off.”
Solomon’s son Rehoboam led Israel into deep sin and under him the kingdom was divided into ten tribes and the two tribes. War and bloodshed came and never left. It all started with Solomon.
DANGER
Friend, you and I can’t afford to slip into sin, no matter what stage of life we find ourselves in. If we do, generations who follow us will suffer for it. Hosea 8:7 says; They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
God wants you and me to have integrity. He wants us on our knees and He wants us feeding on His Word. If your father was immoral or maybe a drunkard, you can break that cycle. You can break it through the blood of Jesus Christ.
We can avoid each and every one of the danger zones but we can do it only through Him.
Blessings,
John
Sunday, June 13, 2010
"Analyze This"
By John Stallings
I recall a scene from the movie “Analyze this” where Billy Crystal plays a psychiatrist who against his better judgment takes on Mafia crime boss [Robert DeNiro’s character] as a client. We learn that DeNiro can’t control his emotions and starts to cry at odd moments.
There’s a scene when one of DeNiro’s henchmen comes to fetch Billy at a very inconvenient moment and Billy balks on him, saying “What, you think you can call me any time day or night?” The gofer let’s Billy know he’s part of the family now and “when the boss needs you, you come.” It so happened that the boss was on the verge of having another nervous breakdown. When Billy starts to protest again, the gopher cuts him off and says, “It is what it is.” Funny line. So it’s Billy to the rescue.
The thrust of this message will be to analyze some of difficult areas in the Bible that often confuse people. Some folk love to be confused. They wander around “in the misty moonlight” as it were, always hung up on some spiritual calculus. Some preachers will take a simple passage of scripture & so mystify it no one can understand what they’re talking about. I guess you could say that’s their “preaching style.” I bite my fingernails when I listen to these men.
As for me I’m just the opposite. I’m a simple kind of man so I like to take those things that seem shrouded in mystery and break them down, if possible making them easier to understand.
I’ve learned that when we find one of these areas that tend to confuse us, a good rule of the thumb is, take a deep breath, look at the problem or area of confusion and apply this rule –to borrow a phrase-“It is what it is." We might not like some of answers we get, still, it’s the Word of God and - "it is what it is."
Some people think that all sin can be forgiven. There’s a problem with that if we parse the Word of God in total honesty. So lets analyze; -SINS THAT ARE FORGIVEN -AND SINS THAT CAN’T BE FORGIVEN.
In Matthew 12:31 Jesus said--…every sin & blasphemy will be forgiven man but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
The first part of that verse is certainly good news is it not? God is willing to forgive all sin and even some blasphemies. What a wonderful promise that is.
Recently a mother placed her small baby in a microwave oven & killed It. “That’s unforgivable,” we might say, but God would say, “No. If she’ll humble herself & ask for pardon, I’ll forgive freely.”
A mother in South Carolina placed her three children in a car & rolled the car into a lake drowning them all. Some might say, “That’s unthinkable. Anyone who’d do that deserves no mercy.” But God would say, “My grace is sufficient for that woman. If she’ll repent, I’ll forgive her.”
A doctor in England a few years ago threw acid in the eyes of his wife because she cheated on him. He slashed her face with a knife telling her, “No man will ever look at you again.” We might think that sin beyond mercy but God would find it totally forgivable.
Though O.J Simpson was found innocent, many people still believe he practically decapitated his wife & another man. We might look at that sin & have no feelings of sympathy for O.J, but God would forgive him if he’d killed a dozen people; if he confessed & asked forgiveness.
There are people who’ll kidnap a pregnant woman, slash open her belly & steal her baby leaving her to die. There are also people who will drug their victim, place them in a bathtub filled with ice & when the person wakes up they find the tub filled with bloody water & realize one of their kidneys was stolen.
God sees all these sins as horrible & certainly expects individuals to pay for their crimes according to the laws of man. However, in the spiritual sense –All manner of sin & blasphemy shall be forgiven unto man…..
BUT THERE'S NO FORGIVENESS FOR BLASPHEMING THE HOLY SPIRIT
In the second part of Matthew 12:31 Jesus says--… but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
In Matthew 12:22-24 the Scribes & Pharisees were attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. Then they brought Him a demon possessed man who was blind & mute & Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk & see. All the people were astonished & said, could this be the Son of David? But when the Pharisees heard this they said, it is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons that this fellow drives out demons.
The Pharisees attributed the works of Jesus to the devil himself. The sin was committed in full view of a demonstration of God’s power. Luke 4:18 says that Jesus went forth in the power of the Holy Spirit. Consequently the rejection of Jesus by the scribes & Pharisees constituted a rejection of the Holy Spirit’s witness of Jesus as the Messiah.
It was for this reason that Jesus said,--all sin & blasphemy shall be forgiven but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven men…whosoever speaks against the Holy Spirit it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
If the question of blaspheming the Holy Spirit has ever personally troubled you, here’s a little test;
# Do you know when you do wrong?
# Do you feel conviction after committing a sin?
# Do you feel sorry over such an offense?
# Do you feel the Spirit drawing you to repentance?
# Do you have a desire to worship & serve the lord?
# Do you ever consider God?
Christians can sin, but they have a hard time doing it. If God has closed the books on a person & written them off, they would be hardhearted; they’d have turned against Jesus, reviled Him & become so depraved that they could gladly consign the works of Christ to Satan.
This sin cannot be committed accidentally & it’s unlikely a person who does it would feel bad about doing it. It really boils down to this; it’s not what God does or is going to do to a person, it’s what the person does to their self. They would much rather continue to slander God & His name than to repent. In so doing they have shut off the only way to grace—Jesus Christ & His Holy Spirit. In shutting Him off, they shut off His conviction, drawing power, and His work of nudging them to repentance. Next,
TAKING THE MARK OF THE BEAST DURING THE GREAT TRIBULATION IS UNFORGIVABLE.
Revelation 13:16-18 notes, He also forced everyone small & great rich & poor free & slave to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no-one could buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.
Revelation 14:9-11 says,--If anyone worships the beast & his image & receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand he too will drink of the wine of God’s fury which will be poured full strength into the cup of His wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels & of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever & ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast & his image or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.
Revival will flourish during The Great Tribulation & many will be saved, but they will have to seal their testimony with their blood. People will be told to worship the beast & if they don’t comply they’ll be beheaded. As the verses above tell us, there’s no forgiveness for anyone who takes the mark of the beast.
Exodus 20:3-5 tells us,--You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to worship them…..
People won’t be able to buy or sell during the tribulation without the mark of the beast - 666. There’s no good news to talk about during this time because without the mark there will be no food, no shelter, no medical care etc. Worse, if the mark is taken, the individual will face the eternal judgment of an angry God.
Salvation will still be available but only through martyrdom. Next;
NO FORGIVENESS FOR UNBELIEF
In a Christian’s life there are times when our faith grows weak. James tells us that if we have wavering faith—“Let not that man think he shall receive anything from God.-James 1:7
A Christian who has saving faith, from time to time can experience wavering faith. This isn’t good but it does happen. But when it comes to salvation, -- to believe on The Lord Jesus Christ is the only basis for salvation. Christ didn’t die for the sin of unbelief nor is it covered in the atonement.
Listen to 1 John 5:10—He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God- hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not in the record that God gave of His Son.
John 3:36 says……he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Roman 10:9 says……if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Listen to Jesus in John 16:8-9….And when He has come He will reprove the world of sin & righteousness & of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me……Here we have the words of Jesus saying unbelief is sin.
Hebrews 2: 12 says---Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
God won’t override unbelief & save an individual on “credit.” Unbelief must be flipped & turned to belief in order for a person to be saved. “Little faith” would still be enough to allow the person to call on the name of the Lord, but unbelief would never do it, so there is no path to salvation for the person who through unbelief refuses to make that call.—Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16
There is no provision made for one who doesn’t call on the Lord during their lifetime, & death, without receiving Christ is irrevocable doom.
THE SIN OF APOSTASY IS NOT FORGIVEN
Following is what I believe to be one of the clearest descriptions found in the New Testament of what it means to be a Christian, --but ironically it’s wrapped in a serious warning. Hebrews 6:4-6 says;
It is impossible for-- those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, Who have tasted the goodness of the word of God & the powers of the coming age,-- if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again & subjecting Him to public disgrace.
In that passage there are five distinct expressions which elsewhere in the Bible are used to describe TRUE BELIEVERS…..The person has;
# “Been enlightened”—[This indicates they have received the truth of God’s Word in their lives.] # “Tasted the heavenly gift” [often a reference to receiving the free gift of eternal life.]
# have shared in the Holy Spirit—[who except Christians shares in the Holy Spirit?]
# have tasted the goodness of the word of God
# & the powers of the coming age-- [Sinners aren’t spoken of here. These are blessings associated with salvation, & the resurrection.]
The writer bends over backward to show that the folk he’s referring to are born-again Christians. And yet these people fall away & lose out with God to such an extent that --it is impossible for them to be brought back to repentance. That puts some “pepper in the gumbo” does it not? This is a very troubling passage.
Most of us know of individuals who for one reason or another have left the faith. They may not have actually denied the faith, but are certainly not practicing the faith.
Is this another incidence of a situation where people cannot be returned to repentance? Can a person have shared the Holy Spirit & then be lost? Are these good folk really lost? Is this really a description of a former saved person? Why can’t they find Christ once again? Why are they hopelessly lost eternally?
ANSWER; -- THESE PEOPLE COMMIT A SIN KNOWN AS APOSTASY—THEY ARE THEREFORE APOSTATES!
We know this is true because-They are crucifying the Son of God all over again & subjecting him to public disgrace.
They once confessed that Jesus was Lord & Messiah & that the crucifixion was unjust. Now in rejecting the faith their actions testify that the crucifixion was correct after all-Jesus was a blasphemer & not Messiah. If they had been there two thousand years ago they too would have cried, -Crucify Him, crucify Him. Such a witness exposes Jesus to public disgrace.
One of the sins of the end time is the sin of apostasy; people rejecting the true faith of Jesus Christ & embracing error.
1 Timothy 4:1 says, But the spirit explicitly says that in the later times some will fall away from the faith… A person can’t fall away from the faith or depart from it if they were never in it.
70% to 80% of those who are in cults today were at one time a part of classical Christianity. Nonetheless they fell into grave error & ultimately rejected the faith that they once held dear.
DELIBERATE SIN IS UNFORGIVABLE
Hebrews 10:26-30 [Living Bible]—If anyone sins deliberately by rejecting the Savior after knowing the truth of forgiveness, this is not covered by Christ’s death; there is no way to get rid of it. There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible punishment of God’s awful anger, which will consume all His enemies. A man who refuses to obey the laws given by Moses was killed without mercy if there were two or three witnesses to his sin. Think how much more terrible the punishment will be for those who have trampled underfoot the Son of God & treated His cleansing blood as though it were common & unhallowed & insulted & outraged the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to His people. For we know Him who said,--Justice belongs to me; I will repay them; who also said,--the lord Himself will handle these cases.
Verse 26 now from the NIV, --If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left…
If we’re completely honest we will all have to admit that none of us is perfect & have committed sin. It may not be a frequent or flagrant sin, but none of us has lived a perfect life, or Jesus wouldn’t have had to die on the cross.
We all do things, maybe we didn’t set out to do them, but we end up in some deed or activity we know is wrong yet we go against our conscience & do it anyway. We get angry, blow our cool, lie to get out of a jam, we speed, this kind of stuff. Now which kind of sin is the verse above talking about? Is it the accidental & unknowing sins or the other kind, the deliberate sins?
I believe the passage speaks of deliberate sin; sin people choose-- sin that is willful & premeditated, --sin that the individual knows is sin in the eyes of God when they commit it. It is a state of willful, known sin that a person embraces with no thought of giving it up. This is the sin spoken of in Hebrews 6:4-6 where apostates –trample underfoot the Son of God. They have also treated the blood covenant as something common &--insulted the spirit of grace.
These folk had known Christ as their personal savior & had-received the knowledge of the truth. For such people there is no forgiveness, no remaining sacrifice for sin. What remains is the judgment of God.
DOES THE NAME SAM KINISON RING A BELL?
Sam serves as a vivid illustration of an apostate. Sam was born in 1953 in Yakima Washington & became one of the loudest & rudest comedians of the 20th century. Sam grew up in Peoria, Illinois & he & his brothers followed in their father’s footsteps by touring the Bible Belt as evangelists.
Sam became one of the great stand-up comedians of the 1980’s & later his life became the classic image of drugs, sex & rock-n-roll. Hard-partying & hard-drinking became a major part of his act.
Here are a few “Kinisonisms” as they are called.
# I used to be a preacher & people think I changed overnight. I didn’t. It wasn’t like I woke up one morning & said, “Hey, forget the Bible, where’s the party?” It was a little more gradual than that. It took a lot of women to disillusion me.”
# People are going, -- hey aren’t you afraid to tell jokes like that? Don’t you get a small chill that runs through your blood when you tell a joke like that? Aren’t you afraid of going to hell? No, I’m not worried about hell. Because I WAS MARRIED FOR TWO YEARS! HELL WOULD BE LIKE CLUB MED!”
# I’ve lived a carnal life. My view of life is “If you’re going to miss heaven, why miss it by two inches? Miss it! I don’t have to go through the thing of paying for it in the next world. I know I’m—in the next life.”
On April 10th, 1992, on the way to a sold-out gig in Laughlin, Nevada, Sam’s Pontiac Trans-Am was struck head-on by a pick-up truck driven by a 17-year old driver. Sam who wasn’t wearing a seat belt died on the scene. A 27 year old female riding with him was knocked unconscious but suffered only minor injuries.
I’ve heard through several sources that Sam, while he was lying on the side of the road dying, was having a conversation with someone not visible to anyone but him. He was resisting death & making it clear to whoever he spoke to that he just couldn’t go. But finally he gave up & said, “Oh, well, yes I guess I’ll just have to go.”
There’s a photo going around of Sam & a group of women making mockery of the Lord’s Last Supper. I’ve heard it also hangs on the wall of a bar/restaurant owned by Sam’s brother Bill. Bill used to preach with Sam & is committed to keeping his memory alive.
I’ve read that Sam’s gravestone reads; - “In another time & place he would have been called a prophet.”
Could a person like Sam find Christ? Theoretically yes, if he would truly turn to the Lord. But Sam was an apostate & he wouldn’t turn to the Lord. He had;
# “been enlightened”
# tasted the heavenly gift”
# “had shared in the Holy Spirit”
# “Tasted the goodness of the word of God”
# “& the powers of the coming age.”
Sadly, none of that was good enough for Sam. He wanted more. He wanted booze, women, & song. He wanted fame & fortune. He wanted to worship another God besides the One True God—he wanted to worship the god of self.
Years ago a pastor friend told me the story of a small church that was praying for a young unsaved man in his mid-twenties. He had a wife & three children. The man worked with a group of other men on a construction job.
Revival came to the church & one night the young construction worker committed his life to the Lord.
Word of the man’s conversion reached the other men where he worked & the next day they mocked & made fun of him. At mid-morning they came around & said, “Hey, “preacher,” We heard you got religion last night.” At two o’clock they came around again to chide him saying, “Preacher,” we heard you got religion last night- Are you a holy-roller now?” At four o’clock there was more mockery of the young man, with his fellow workers putting all the pressure on him they could.
As the work day was ending the newly saved young man asked a friend for a piece of chewing tobacco. Then, in plain hearing of his buddies, this young man spit out tobacco & loudly said,--“There’s no more to God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit than there is to that tobacco I spit on the ground.”
The workers saw they’d really gotten to the young guy & they all laughed & left the construction site to go home. The young man got in his truck & drove around for a while, finally pulling up in front of his house.
He got his double-barrel shotgun off the rack of his truck, got some shells, walked into his home & shot dead his wife & three children & then killed himself.
Few people really knew the back story of this terrible tragedy. My minister friend said, “John, when he spat on the ground & uttered those words of blasphemy, he opened the door to a demonic invasion into his life & it was tragically fatal for him & his precious family.”
Listen to 2 Peter 2:20-22 regarding the terrible fate that awaits unfaithful, backsliding Christians;
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ & are AGAIN ENTANGLED IN IT & overcome, they are WORSE OFF AT THE END than they were at the beginning.
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER FOR THEM NOT TO HAVE KNOWN THE WAY of righteousness, than to have known it & then turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
Pretty well spells it out, doesn’t it?
Blessings,
John
I recall a scene from the movie “Analyze this” where Billy Crystal plays a psychiatrist who against his better judgment takes on Mafia crime boss [Robert DeNiro’s character] as a client. We learn that DeNiro can’t control his emotions and starts to cry at odd moments.
There’s a scene when one of DeNiro’s henchmen comes to fetch Billy at a very inconvenient moment and Billy balks on him, saying “What, you think you can call me any time day or night?” The gofer let’s Billy know he’s part of the family now and “when the boss needs you, you come.” It so happened that the boss was on the verge of having another nervous breakdown. When Billy starts to protest again, the gopher cuts him off and says, “It is what it is.” Funny line. So it’s Billy to the rescue.
The thrust of this message will be to analyze some of difficult areas in the Bible that often confuse people. Some folk love to be confused. They wander around “in the misty moonlight” as it were, always hung up on some spiritual calculus. Some preachers will take a simple passage of scripture & so mystify it no one can understand what they’re talking about. I guess you could say that’s their “preaching style.” I bite my fingernails when I listen to these men.
As for me I’m just the opposite. I’m a simple kind of man so I like to take those things that seem shrouded in mystery and break them down, if possible making them easier to understand.
I’ve learned that when we find one of these areas that tend to confuse us, a good rule of the thumb is, take a deep breath, look at the problem or area of confusion and apply this rule –to borrow a phrase-“It is what it is." We might not like some of answers we get, still, it’s the Word of God and - "it is what it is."
Some people think that all sin can be forgiven. There’s a problem with that if we parse the Word of God in total honesty. So lets analyze; -SINS THAT ARE FORGIVEN -AND SINS THAT CAN’T BE FORGIVEN.
In Matthew 12:31 Jesus said--…every sin & blasphemy will be forgiven man but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
The first part of that verse is certainly good news is it not? God is willing to forgive all sin and even some blasphemies. What a wonderful promise that is.
Recently a mother placed her small baby in a microwave oven & killed It. “That’s unforgivable,” we might say, but God would say, “No. If she’ll humble herself & ask for pardon, I’ll forgive freely.”
A mother in South Carolina placed her three children in a car & rolled the car into a lake drowning them all. Some might say, “That’s unthinkable. Anyone who’d do that deserves no mercy.” But God would say, “My grace is sufficient for that woman. If she’ll repent, I’ll forgive her.”
A doctor in England a few years ago threw acid in the eyes of his wife because she cheated on him. He slashed her face with a knife telling her, “No man will ever look at you again.” We might think that sin beyond mercy but God would find it totally forgivable.
Though O.J Simpson was found innocent, many people still believe he practically decapitated his wife & another man. We might look at that sin & have no feelings of sympathy for O.J, but God would forgive him if he’d killed a dozen people; if he confessed & asked forgiveness.
There are people who’ll kidnap a pregnant woman, slash open her belly & steal her baby leaving her to die. There are also people who will drug their victim, place them in a bathtub filled with ice & when the person wakes up they find the tub filled with bloody water & realize one of their kidneys was stolen.
God sees all these sins as horrible & certainly expects individuals to pay for their crimes according to the laws of man. However, in the spiritual sense –All manner of sin & blasphemy shall be forgiven unto man…..
BUT THERE'S NO FORGIVENESS FOR BLASPHEMING THE HOLY SPIRIT
In the second part of Matthew 12:31 Jesus says--… but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven.
In Matthew 12:22-24 the Scribes & Pharisees were attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan. Then they brought Him a demon possessed man who was blind & mute & Jesus healed him, so that he could both talk & see. All the people were astonished & said, could this be the Son of David? But when the Pharisees heard this they said, it is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons that this fellow drives out demons.
The Pharisees attributed the works of Jesus to the devil himself. The sin was committed in full view of a demonstration of God’s power. Luke 4:18 says that Jesus went forth in the power of the Holy Spirit. Consequently the rejection of Jesus by the scribes & Pharisees constituted a rejection of the Holy Spirit’s witness of Jesus as the Messiah.
It was for this reason that Jesus said,--all sin & blasphemy shall be forgiven but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit shall not be forgiven men…whosoever speaks against the Holy Spirit it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the age to come.
If the question of blaspheming the Holy Spirit has ever personally troubled you, here’s a little test;
# Do you know when you do wrong?
# Do you feel conviction after committing a sin?
# Do you feel sorry over such an offense?
# Do you feel the Spirit drawing you to repentance?
# Do you have a desire to worship & serve the lord?
# Do you ever consider God?
Christians can sin, but they have a hard time doing it. If God has closed the books on a person & written them off, they would be hardhearted; they’d have turned against Jesus, reviled Him & become so depraved that they could gladly consign the works of Christ to Satan.
This sin cannot be committed accidentally & it’s unlikely a person who does it would feel bad about doing it. It really boils down to this; it’s not what God does or is going to do to a person, it’s what the person does to their self. They would much rather continue to slander God & His name than to repent. In so doing they have shut off the only way to grace—Jesus Christ & His Holy Spirit. In shutting Him off, they shut off His conviction, drawing power, and His work of nudging them to repentance. Next,
TAKING THE MARK OF THE BEAST DURING THE GREAT TRIBULATION IS UNFORGIVABLE.
Revelation 13:16-18 notes, He also forced everyone small & great rich & poor free & slave to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead so that no-one could buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. This calls for wisdom. If anyone has insight, let him calculate the number of the beast, for it is man’s number. His number is 666.
Revelation 14:9-11 says,--If anyone worships the beast & his image & receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand he too will drink of the wine of God’s fury which will be poured full strength into the cup of His wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels & of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever & ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast & his image or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.
Revival will flourish during The Great Tribulation & many will be saved, but they will have to seal their testimony with their blood. People will be told to worship the beast & if they don’t comply they’ll be beheaded. As the verses above tell us, there’s no forgiveness for anyone who takes the mark of the beast.
Exodus 20:3-5 tells us,--You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to worship them…..
People won’t be able to buy or sell during the tribulation without the mark of the beast - 666. There’s no good news to talk about during this time because without the mark there will be no food, no shelter, no medical care etc. Worse, if the mark is taken, the individual will face the eternal judgment of an angry God.
Salvation will still be available but only through martyrdom. Next;
NO FORGIVENESS FOR UNBELIEF
In a Christian’s life there are times when our faith grows weak. James tells us that if we have wavering faith—“Let not that man think he shall receive anything from God.-James 1:7
A Christian who has saving faith, from time to time can experience wavering faith. This isn’t good but it does happen. But when it comes to salvation, -- to believe on The Lord Jesus Christ is the only basis for salvation. Christ didn’t die for the sin of unbelief nor is it covered in the atonement.
Listen to 1 John 5:10—He that believeth on the Son of God hath the witness in himself: he that believeth not God- hath made Him a liar; because he believeth not in the record that God gave of His Son.
John 3:36 says……he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.
Roman 10:9 says……if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and shalt believe in thine heart that God has raised Him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.
Listen to Jesus in John 16:8-9….And when He has come He will reprove the world of sin & righteousness & of judgment. Of sin, because they believe not on me……Here we have the words of Jesus saying unbelief is sin.
Hebrews 2: 12 says---Take heed brethren lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God.
God won’t override unbelief & save an individual on “credit.” Unbelief must be flipped & turned to belief in order for a person to be saved. “Little faith” would still be enough to allow the person to call on the name of the Lord, but unbelief would never do it, so there is no path to salvation for the person who through unbelief refuses to make that call.—Whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16
There is no provision made for one who doesn’t call on the Lord during their lifetime, & death, without receiving Christ is irrevocable doom.
THE SIN OF APOSTASY IS NOT FORGIVEN
Following is what I believe to be one of the clearest descriptions found in the New Testament of what it means to be a Christian, --but ironically it’s wrapped in a serious warning. Hebrews 6:4-6 says;
It is impossible for-- those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, Who have tasted the goodness of the word of God & the powers of the coming age,-- if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again & subjecting Him to public disgrace.
In that passage there are five distinct expressions which elsewhere in the Bible are used to describe TRUE BELIEVERS…..The person has;
# “Been enlightened”—[This indicates they have received the truth of God’s Word in their lives.] # “Tasted the heavenly gift” [often a reference to receiving the free gift of eternal life.]
# have shared in the Holy Spirit—[who except Christians shares in the Holy Spirit?]
# have tasted the goodness of the word of God
# & the powers of the coming age-- [Sinners aren’t spoken of here. These are blessings associated with salvation, & the resurrection.]
The writer bends over backward to show that the folk he’s referring to are born-again Christians. And yet these people fall away & lose out with God to such an extent that --it is impossible for them to be brought back to repentance. That puts some “pepper in the gumbo” does it not? This is a very troubling passage.
Most of us know of individuals who for one reason or another have left the faith. They may not have actually denied the faith, but are certainly not practicing the faith.
Is this another incidence of a situation where people cannot be returned to repentance? Can a person have shared the Holy Spirit & then be lost? Are these good folk really lost? Is this really a description of a former saved person? Why can’t they find Christ once again? Why are they hopelessly lost eternally?
ANSWER; -- THESE PEOPLE COMMIT A SIN KNOWN AS APOSTASY—THEY ARE THEREFORE APOSTATES!
We know this is true because-They are crucifying the Son of God all over again & subjecting him to public disgrace.
They once confessed that Jesus was Lord & Messiah & that the crucifixion was unjust. Now in rejecting the faith their actions testify that the crucifixion was correct after all-Jesus was a blasphemer & not Messiah. If they had been there two thousand years ago they too would have cried, -Crucify Him, crucify Him. Such a witness exposes Jesus to public disgrace.
One of the sins of the end time is the sin of apostasy; people rejecting the true faith of Jesus Christ & embracing error.
1 Timothy 4:1 says, But the spirit explicitly says that in the later times some will fall away from the faith… A person can’t fall away from the faith or depart from it if they were never in it.
70% to 80% of those who are in cults today were at one time a part of classical Christianity. Nonetheless they fell into grave error & ultimately rejected the faith that they once held dear.
DELIBERATE SIN IS UNFORGIVABLE
Hebrews 10:26-30 [Living Bible]—If anyone sins deliberately by rejecting the Savior after knowing the truth of forgiveness, this is not covered by Christ’s death; there is no way to get rid of it. There will be nothing to look forward to but the terrible punishment of God’s awful anger, which will consume all His enemies. A man who refuses to obey the laws given by Moses was killed without mercy if there were two or three witnesses to his sin. Think how much more terrible the punishment will be for those who have trampled underfoot the Son of God & treated His cleansing blood as though it were common & unhallowed & insulted & outraged the Holy Spirit who brings God’s mercy to His people. For we know Him who said,--Justice belongs to me; I will repay them; who also said,--the lord Himself will handle these cases.
Verse 26 now from the NIV, --If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left…
If we’re completely honest we will all have to admit that none of us is perfect & have committed sin. It may not be a frequent or flagrant sin, but none of us has lived a perfect life, or Jesus wouldn’t have had to die on the cross.
We all do things, maybe we didn’t set out to do them, but we end up in some deed or activity we know is wrong yet we go against our conscience & do it anyway. We get angry, blow our cool, lie to get out of a jam, we speed, this kind of stuff. Now which kind of sin is the verse above talking about? Is it the accidental & unknowing sins or the other kind, the deliberate sins?
I believe the passage speaks of deliberate sin; sin people choose-- sin that is willful & premeditated, --sin that the individual knows is sin in the eyes of God when they commit it. It is a state of willful, known sin that a person embraces with no thought of giving it up. This is the sin spoken of in Hebrews 6:4-6 where apostates –trample underfoot the Son of God. They have also treated the blood covenant as something common &--insulted the spirit of grace.
These folk had known Christ as their personal savior & had-received the knowledge of the truth. For such people there is no forgiveness, no remaining sacrifice for sin. What remains is the judgment of God.
DOES THE NAME SAM KINISON RING A BELL?
Sam serves as a vivid illustration of an apostate. Sam was born in 1953 in Yakima Washington & became one of the loudest & rudest comedians of the 20th century. Sam grew up in Peoria, Illinois & he & his brothers followed in their father’s footsteps by touring the Bible Belt as evangelists.
Sam became one of the great stand-up comedians of the 1980’s & later his life became the classic image of drugs, sex & rock-n-roll. Hard-partying & hard-drinking became a major part of his act.
Here are a few “Kinisonisms” as they are called.
# I used to be a preacher & people think I changed overnight. I didn’t. It wasn’t like I woke up one morning & said, “Hey, forget the Bible, where’s the party?” It was a little more gradual than that. It took a lot of women to disillusion me.”
# People are going, -- hey aren’t you afraid to tell jokes like that? Don’t you get a small chill that runs through your blood when you tell a joke like that? Aren’t you afraid of going to hell? No, I’m not worried about hell. Because I WAS MARRIED FOR TWO YEARS! HELL WOULD BE LIKE CLUB MED!”
# I’ve lived a carnal life. My view of life is “If you’re going to miss heaven, why miss it by two inches? Miss it! I don’t have to go through the thing of paying for it in the next world. I know I’m—in the next life.”
On April 10th, 1992, on the way to a sold-out gig in Laughlin, Nevada, Sam’s Pontiac Trans-Am was struck head-on by a pick-up truck driven by a 17-year old driver. Sam who wasn’t wearing a seat belt died on the scene. A 27 year old female riding with him was knocked unconscious but suffered only minor injuries.
I’ve heard through several sources that Sam, while he was lying on the side of the road dying, was having a conversation with someone not visible to anyone but him. He was resisting death & making it clear to whoever he spoke to that he just couldn’t go. But finally he gave up & said, “Oh, well, yes I guess I’ll just have to go.”
There’s a photo going around of Sam & a group of women making mockery of the Lord’s Last Supper. I’ve heard it also hangs on the wall of a bar/restaurant owned by Sam’s brother Bill. Bill used to preach with Sam & is committed to keeping his memory alive.
I’ve read that Sam’s gravestone reads; - “In another time & place he would have been called a prophet.”
Could a person like Sam find Christ? Theoretically yes, if he would truly turn to the Lord. But Sam was an apostate & he wouldn’t turn to the Lord. He had;
# “been enlightened”
# tasted the heavenly gift”
# “had shared in the Holy Spirit”
# “Tasted the goodness of the word of God”
# “& the powers of the coming age.”
Sadly, none of that was good enough for Sam. He wanted more. He wanted booze, women, & song. He wanted fame & fortune. He wanted to worship another God besides the One True God—he wanted to worship the god of self.
Years ago a pastor friend told me the story of a small church that was praying for a young unsaved man in his mid-twenties. He had a wife & three children. The man worked with a group of other men on a construction job.
Revival came to the church & one night the young construction worker committed his life to the Lord.
Word of the man’s conversion reached the other men where he worked & the next day they mocked & made fun of him. At mid-morning they came around & said, “Hey, “preacher,” We heard you got religion last night.” At two o’clock they came around again to chide him saying, “Preacher,” we heard you got religion last night- Are you a holy-roller now?” At four o’clock there was more mockery of the young man, with his fellow workers putting all the pressure on him they could.
As the work day was ending the newly saved young man asked a friend for a piece of chewing tobacco. Then, in plain hearing of his buddies, this young man spit out tobacco & loudly said,--“There’s no more to God, Jesus Christ, or the Holy Spirit than there is to that tobacco I spit on the ground.”
The workers saw they’d really gotten to the young guy & they all laughed & left the construction site to go home. The young man got in his truck & drove around for a while, finally pulling up in front of his house.
He got his double-barrel shotgun off the rack of his truck, got some shells, walked into his home & shot dead his wife & three children & then killed himself.
Few people really knew the back story of this terrible tragedy. My minister friend said, “John, when he spat on the ground & uttered those words of blasphemy, he opened the door to a demonic invasion into his life & it was tragically fatal for him & his precious family.”
Listen to 2 Peter 2:20-22 regarding the terrible fate that awaits unfaithful, backsliding Christians;
If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ & are AGAIN ENTANGLED IN IT & overcome, they are WORSE OFF AT THE END than they were at the beginning.
IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER FOR THEM NOT TO HAVE KNOWN THE WAY of righteousness, than to have known it & then turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.
But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, the dog is turned to his vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.
Pretty well spells it out, doesn’t it?
Blessings,
John
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