When discussing religion, here is the test of an honest person

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“In all things, love.”  –I Corinthians 16:14

That’s one test of a believer and a mighty important one it is.  Our Lord said it is the mark of a disciple.  (John 13:34-35)

Look for the love.  Otherwise, you know this one with whom you are discussing scriptures and doctrines is no follower of Jesus.

The cultist you’re talking religion to across the table or across the continent feels no need to love you since he/she has decided you are not a follower of Jesus since you disagree with their doctrine.  I’ve sat at a table with a Jehovah’s Witness who was brutal and mean-spirited and who may as well have thought of me as a child-molester by the scoffing and belittling he was dishing out.  (I was a younger pastor, and had not learned that there comes a time when it’s all right to say, “This meeting is over,” and walk out.)

But while love is the first mark of the believer, there’s another test for determining whether the person across the table is an honest seeker.

Ask them to cite a verse that troubles them because it seems to contradict a doctrine they believe.

Here is mine….

In an article about discussing (or debating) religion, I cited a verse that does not seem to agree with a doctrine I hold dearly.  Hebrews 6:4-6 says, “For in the case of those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame.”

The passage says as clearly as possible that this individual has been born again and truly came in to the family of God, and yet if they fall away–and it definitely states it as a possibility–they cannot be saved a second time.  All of that is as clear as anything in the Word.  (I’ve read a dozen commentaries on this and know the arguments and explanations.  But none are satisfactory.  Sorry, if you do not agree.)

The reason that passage troubles me is because I believe John 10:28-29.  “I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish; and no one shall snatch them out of My hand.  My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”  This promise is consistent with the Lord’s teachings.  Over and over Jesus spoke of eternal life for believers, the saved becoming children of God, that we will never perish, etc etc.  Scripture says we are sealed by the Holy Spirit unto the day of redemption (Ephesians 4:30).  Our salvation is secure, eternal, and guaranteed.

So, what am I to do with Hebrews 6:4-6?  My answer is to leave it as an open question.  I have no answer for it, although the overwhelming testimony of the New Testament seems to say something otherwise.  And I’m fine with leaving this as an open-ended question, one for which I have no answer.

Only the immature and lazy among us cannot abide a mystery, that is, something he/she does not understand.  Which, if you stop and think about it, should be an amazing thing, since life is filled with mysteries and those who know their Scripture will always have questions for which they have no answers.  And it’s perfectly fine.  We walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7).

Now, let’s hear yours….

Here’s one for a particular group among us.

If I were a Mormon who truly and sincerely wanted to serve the Lord Jesus Christ and honor His word, I would have a huge problem with Galatians chapter 1.  In verse 8, we read: “Even though we or an angel from heaven bring any other gospel unto you than what I have brought to you, let him be accursed.”   The entire LDS religion goes back to an appearance of an angel to Joseph Smith.  Then…

The question for the sincere Mormon, based on Galatians 1:8, is: “Okay, then did the angel from heaven bring a different gospel from what Paul preached?”  The good news is we have the gospel which Paul preached.  It’s the book of Romans.  The Epistle to the Romans is the best explanation of the message which the Apostle Paul preached up and down the Roman Empire. We are not in the dark about that.  And no one who is honest can claim (as some groups are wont to do) that it was translated wrongly.  (That, incidentally, is a cop-out for any group that does not want to deal with the plain truth of Scripture.  By saying it was mistranslated, they can put their own spin upon it.  The Jehovah’s Witness people grew tired of claiming this, so they published their own translation of Scripture, one in which they made the Word say exactly what they wanted it to say.  No honest Greek scholar would pay a dime for a JW Bible.  It is a corruption.)

So, the “sincere Mormon,” one who wants to know the will of God and do it, is driven to read Romans and then compare with what he/she is taught by all the doctrines of the LDS church, few of which line up with the Gospel Paul preached.

So, what’s your verse?  The one that troubles you because it doesn’t seem to agree with what you believe the rest of Scripture teaches?

If you say there is none, then we know you are not honest and can end the discussion at that point.

Every group has its Achilles’ heel.  God set it up that way, in my opinion.  As we’ve stated elsewhere, instead of this being a weakness, it ends up being one of the strengths of the faith since it proves beyond all question that no little group of church leaders sat down and wrote or tweaked or whatever the Holy Scriptures.  Had they done so, they would have taken out the hard places.  But they’re still there.  And we can be eternally grateful for that.

If I were a member of the Church of Christ–the denomination which refuses to call itself a denomination; the group which teaches baptism is an essential part of the act of salvation–I would have a huge problem with I Corinthians 1:17. “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel.”  This is from the same apostle who gave us Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus, for it is the power of God unto salvation to all who believe….”  Baptism is a lot of things, but it is not a requirement for salvation.  (We believe it to be the first act of obedience following one’s profession of faith.)

If I were a member of the Seventh Day Adventist denomination, I would have a problem with Colossians 2:16-17. “Let no one act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day–things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ.”

And what are we to do when we find Scriptures that do not agree with what we believe the Bible teaches?

We are to stay on our knees and stay in the Word.

We should ask ourselves, “What is the overall and consistent teaching of Scripture?”

And we should leave room in our theology for questions for which we have yet to find answers.  Because they will always exist until the time comes when “we know even as also we are known” (I Corinthians 13:12).

Praying like a Pharisee in several easy lessons

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“And when you pray, you are not to be as the hypocrites… Therefore, do not be like them…” (Matthew 6:8).

All right, class, listen up.  If you expect to be the next generation of hypocrites, you need to give me your full attention.  The old Pharisees will be passing off the scene before long, and we’ll need a new class of the double-minded–you know, the play-actors–ready to step up and fill their ranks.

Tongue firmly planted in cheek now, everyone?  All right. Let us proceed….

It’s not easy being a hypocrite.  You’re always working on two levels, keeping things to yourself while presenting another image to the world.  And that’s hard.  It takes a pretty smart person to pull this off.  Shallow lazy people can be a lot of things, but not a successful Pharisee.

Scripture says “a double-minded person is unstable in all his ways;  he should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” That’s James 1:7-8.  We cite it here for two reasons. First, to say how tough our calling is, and second, to remind ourselves that being hypocrites we’re not expecting to receive anything from the Lord for our prayers.  That’s not the point.

Okay? Got that? For a hypocritical Pharisee, prayer is about a lot of things, but touching the Heavenly Father with our actual needs is not one of them.

Now, that being said….

Your assignment as a hypocrite will cover a lot of areas–your home life where you say one thing and do another, your church life where you pretend to love the Lord while secretly maneuvering and conniving, your stewardship where you claim to give more than you do and look for ways to profit from your spirituality, and of course, your prayer life which will be groomed for public consumption but devoid of anything vital and sincere. But today, let’s zoom in.

For the moment, let’s focus on prayer.  Praying like a hypocrite–the Pharisaical model–is not for the weak of heart.  Only the top ten percent of the class will be able to meet the stringent requirements.  Consider, for example…

One. A Pharisee must be able to pray effectively in public.  (Matthew 6:5)

He does it in public because that’s the whole point: to impress people.

Those with stage fright who dread speaking in public will not be able to pull this off. A Pharisee can always be counted on to pray at public gatherings, in church settings, and at civic events.  A Pharisee will have worked up a set of great phrases and voice patterns which sound impressive to the public at large, and which, with a little practice, you will be able to whip off at a moment’s notice.

The end result–and this is always the point–is that people will come away impressed by your spirituality and ready to trust you with the crown jewels.

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Why the resurrection frightens some people

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“For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus” (I Thessalonians 4:14).

If Jesus really did rise from the dead as Scripture claims and Christians hold, then nothing is the same and everything has changed forever.

The reason Christians are positively giddy about the Easter Event–the resurrection of Jesus–is that in walking out of that tomb and leaving it forever empty,  He broke the stranglehold in which death had held humanity.

We are free.  We are free forever. We are free to live forever.

It doesn’t get any better than this.

Everything stands or falls on whether Jesus rose from the dead that first Easter Sunday morning.

The resurrection of Jesus was Heaven’s imprimatur on Jesus’s ministry, the Father’s validation of Jesus’ every claim, eternity’s “amen” to Jesus’ promises, and convincing evidence that Jesus Christ is everything He said He was.

Prove that He did not rise, that His body is still lying in some grave somewhere, and you will have put a stop to the entire Christian movement.  Thereafter, the few remaining followers of the Man of Galilee would form themselves into a Jesus Memorial Society. Not long before they stopped meeting altogether, they would quit writing “Man of Galilee” and “He” in all caps.

Even the most notorious atheist, adamantly opposed even to the idea that Jesus could have risen from the dead, would concede that if indeed it did happen, it was a game-changer from that moment on.

The ultimate game-changer.  Nothing would ever be the same.

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Finding the balance between the old and the new

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I stood at the front of the church and watched as the congregation was led in a full slate of old hymns and familiar gospel songs. Nothing rising from us that morning had been composed since the 1950s. My grandparents would have been right at home there.

It was the menu we are told grey-haired people (like myself) say they want from a worship leader.

Personally, I thought it was one boring service.

I grew up on those hymns, and like most veteran church-goers in that church, knew them “by heart.” I sang as lustily as I could manage while endeavoring to save voice enough to preach. But in no way did I find that song service meaningful, worshipful, or enjoyable.

The problem was the familiarity of it all. I could sing those hymns in my sleep (and probably have). My mind went on vacation while my mouth sang them. And that is precisely why singing them regularly is a bad idea.

“O, sing unto the Lord a new song!”

Anyone who has read his Bible much has run across that line before. To make sure we could not miss it, the Lord sprinkled throughout His Word. It can be found in Psalms 33:3, 96:1, 98:1, 144:9, 149:1, and in Isaiah 42:10.

In Psalm 40:3, David testifies that after the Lord lifted him from the miry clay and gave him firm footing, “He put a new song in my mouth.”

We’re told in the last book of the Bible, that in Heaven “they sang a new song” (Revelation 5:9 and 14:3).

Anyone see a pattern here?

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Changing how I pray

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(This is a reprint of an article from 2011.  Rather than tweak and update it–my usual practice–I decided it works very well as is.) 

Tonight, a realization threw me out of the bed and drove me to my note pad. I was lying there in the post-midnight hour doing what we preachers do, going over my sermon for later this morning.

The sermon is a beginning message for a four-day revival meeting I’ll be preaching for the First Baptist Church of Crowville, Louisiana. This congregation runs 80 to 100 in attendance and is made up largely of farmers and their families. The pastor, Dr. Keith Dowden, and I had dinner tonight and prayed for the Lord to give me the messages and do something special in the hearts and lives of his people.

My text is the parable of the mustard seed, Matthew 13:31-32. It’s a strong insight that a lot of the people in our pews need to hear, that God loves to use small, ordinary things and churches and people and acts and offerings. The mustard seed is a reminder that what God begins to do may be unimpressive on the outside, ordinary to the human eye, and not big by any means. However, being God, He can do amazing things with small beginnings.

I love to encourage small congregations with the assurance Jonathan gave his armorbearer just before the two of them took on a nest of Philistine warriors. “It matters little to the Lord whether He saves by the few or the many.” (I Samuel 14:6)

I like the question the prophet Zechariah raised as he spoke of the rebuilding of an economical version of the Temple and the coming of a Messiah who would ride in on a colt and be pierced for our transgressions: “Who has despised the day of small things?” (Zech. 4:10)

The answer to that is: “We do.” We like big things, dramatic results, impressive crowds, celebrity guests.

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God has been planning on you and me for some time now

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“…the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world” (Matthew 25:34).

We don’t begin to have a clue.

God is doing a zillion things He has not deigned to mention to us mortals.

It’s not our business to know, for one thing.  He has reserved most of what goes on in the universe for Himself.  “The secret things belong to the Lord our God…”  (Deuteronomy 29:29).

All that we know about the operation of the created world is a sliver of the full story.

How can it be that before the world as we know it was formed, the Heavenly Father was already at work making plans for us to arrive and dwell with Him forever?

I do not know. Neither do you.

What unimaginable reality may we expect to find when we get to Heaven if Father has had all these eons to make it?

What does this say about pre-history, the story of what God was doing before the Big Bang of Creation.

We hang our heads in humility.  We read the final verses of Romans 11 and say, “Yes, yes. This is how it is!”

O the depth both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!  For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has become His counselor? Or, who has first given to Him and it shall be repaid to Him? For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things; to whom be glory forever. Amen.”

And so we humbly say…

–there is so much we do not know.  Humility.

–the overwhelming evidence is that we are loved and wanted and planned for.  Love.

–when we leave earth, we will have just begun to live.  The future is literally out of this world, beyond anything imagined or dreamed, hoped or expected.  Excitement.

–it all comes down to the character of the Lord Jesus Christ and the integrity of the Word of God, whether He can be trusted.  Faith.

–all the evidence we have–and there is plenty!–says Jesus is real, His word is good, and His promises are dependable.  Foundation.

–this is the day the Lord hath made. I will rejoice and be glad in it, and will serve the Lord with gladness.

Praise Him from whom all blessings flow.  For He hath prepared for us a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. (Hebrews 11:10).

The mind-boggling, everlasting love of God.

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“The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying, ‘Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love….’” (Jeremiah 31:3)

What part of ‘everlasting’ do we not get?

Lately, we are learning through science what unending and infinite look like. Space seems to be continuous, going on and on.  The lineup of galaxies across the heavens staggers our imaginations, considering their size, makeup, and number.

The Psalmist who said, “The heavens declare the glory of the Lord” had no clue just how much they say about the majesty and might of our Creator. That’s not to imply we do, only that we have far more information on the complexities and delights of the universe which the Father has wrought with His own hands than biblical writers.

From everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God (Psalm 90:2).

From everlasting in the past to everlasting in the future, God is God.  There never was a time when God did not exist; there will never be a time when God does not reign.

Personally, I cannot get my mind around that. To my puny intellect, infinity of any kind is fearful.  To think of being snuffed out upon death, that after our last breath, we are extinguished forever, is frightening and painful beyond belief.  I think of loved ones whose passing took with them a huge hunk of my heart and soul. The thought that I would never see them again strikes me with a sadness incalculable.

But infinity of the other kind–living forever and ever, world without end–is just as mind-boggling. How could that work? How could we exist knowing that nothing would ever end?

The answer is and absolutely must be: “It’s a different realm.”  This mortal must put off its mortality, its corruption, its limitation, and be changed forever–into immortality, into glory, into power.  “We shall be changed.”  (See I Corinthians 15.)

Someone protests, “Well, I’ve been bad and I know God cannot love someone like me.”  That’s so patently ridiculous as to be laughable.  Scripture says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

If God loved only the worthy, He would be mighty lonely.

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The prodigal’s ten surprises

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“A certain man had two sons.  The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.’  And he divided his wealth between them. And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, where he squandered his estate with loose living….” (Luke 15:11ff.)

The story of the prodigal son in Luke 15 is iconic. That means it is typical, well-known, an accurate depiction of a thousand things about this life.  Understand that story and you know a great deal about how life works and what God does.

If you knew nothing more about God than how He is depicted in this parable, you would love him with all your heart.

You and I are represented by the foolish, younger son.

That son, the subject of a few million sermons and the inspiration of almost as many conversions, received a lot of surprises in this story…

One. He was surprised that the father granted his selfish request. Some lessons we just have to learn for ourselves, and the Father was a good teacher.

Two.  He was surprised that the father allowed him to leave.  Surely, he must have thought, I will be stopped.  After all, this is a lot of freedom I’m being allowed.

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8 ways to avoid calling the wrong pastor

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A news article on how to avoid buying a lemon when purchasing a car caught my eye. It gave the usual stuff such as reading the information on the window sticker, checking the maintenance record, studying the interior, the exterior, the tires, etc.

The thought occurred to me that there should be some equally dependable methods for churches when verifying the reliability of the new pastor they are considering.  Veteran workers in the Lord’s vineyard all have their stories of churches that acted too hastily, of committees that did not do their background work or leaders who made a pastoral choice due to pressure from some strong individual.  In each case, the church paid a severe price for their errors.

There should be some foolproof way to guarantee that the new pastor is everything he claims to be and all the committee hopes and promises he is.

There isn’t.

Sorry. You thought I was going to give ten iron-clad ways to get this absolutely right every time and guarantee that no pastoral candidate would ever be a dud?  There is one huge reason why that cannot happen.  To see what that is, skip all the way to the conclusion.

That said, however, there is much a pastoral search committee can do and should do in an attempt to successfully bring the best possible candidate to their church.

Here are my suggestions along that line…

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Looking for the fine print in the gospel

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While getting ready to face the day, I noticed something on the television.  An ad for “hair club for women” was running.  Photos flew by of before and after shots of women. Most had been afflicted with bare spots or thinning mane and the “after” photos showed them with gloriously full tresses.

Then I saw it.  Down in the corner the small print said, “Results may vary.”

Ahh.  Yes, indeed.  Results may vary.  The old “caveat emptor.”

Let the buyer beware.

The ad might as well say “these are not typical,” as advertisers are forced to do by truth-in-advertising laws.

Sadly, in our culture we’re used to such come-ons and slick sales spiels. No one expects the used car salesman to tell you why we should be cautious in buying this particular car.  We’ve learned to turn a suspicious eye toward the seller of the house who cannot quit raving about all its fine points.  What, we wonder, is he not saying?

Which brings up another point…

The fine print of the gospel

Has anyone ever found “fine print” in the Lord’s offer of salvation? Is there anywhere that we are told things such as:

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