Tag: sin

Have We Misunderstood Grace?

Neal Pollard

Perhaps the subject of grace has been neglected in some pulpits and congregations.  Undoubtedly, it has been misunderstood and improperly taught since the first century (cf. Rom. 6:1; Gal. 5:4).  It is vital to properly emphasize and explain such a huge concept within the gospel message.  Why? Because of what it is—the completely free and undeserved expression of God’s lovingkindness and favor toward mankind, because of what it does—brings salvation (Ti. 2:11; Eph. 2:5) and comfort and hope (2 Th. 2:16), and because of what it cost to make available (2 Co. 8:9; Heb. 2:9).  Perhaps some try to restrict God’s grace, making the requirements of Christ more stringent than Scripture teaches.  If we forbid what God permits, we are distorting grace.

However, our age tends toward the other extreme.  Far more try to make God’s grace extend further than Scripture teaches.  This is not novel to our times.  From the time of the early church, some apparently wanted to make God’s grace embrace things it simply does not cover.  Jude contended against some who attempted to have grace cover excessive indulgence in sensual pleasure (Jude 4). By leaving Christ’s grace for another gospel, teachers contradicting the gospel message distort not just the gospel but also grace (Gal. 1:6-9).  Paul also contradicts the idea that continuing in sin, without repentance, is abiding in God’s grace (Rom. 6:1).  Passages like these serve as a warning not to make God’s grace cover what it simply will not.

Grace will not cover willful disobedience, a refusal to repent, a lifestyle or habit, or relationship that violates the expressed will of God.  Some in adulterous marriages defend the relationship, trying to hide behind grace. Some feed addictions, sure that God’s grace will sweep away the guilt of it.  Some refuse to follow God’s plain plan of salvation, claiming that they will ultimately be saved by grace on the day of judgment.  Such ideas and claims are tragic misunderstandings and ignorance of revealed truth.  The source of grace is Divine.  So are the explanation and terms of it.  Paul’s teaching is definitive when he says, “How shall we who died to sin still live in it?” (Rom. 6:2).  The life in Christ is a new life (Rom. 6:4), a life characterized by turning away from sin, lust, and unrighteousness (Rom. 6:12-13).

Let us never restrict God’s grace.  By the same token, let us never redefine it—especially to excuse or validate a lifestyle of sin.  How that disgraces and cheapens the act that brought grace, Jesus’ painful sacrifice.  May each of us grow in knowledge and appreciation of this great Bible doctrine!

Avalanche Season

Neal Pollard

They are calling it an historic avalanche season in Colorado.  With snowpack at well over 100% due to massive amounts of mountain snowfall, conditions are prime for avalanches to breakout all over the backcountry. Already, six have died in avalanches this winter.  In fact, there have been three deadly slides just in the past week.  Warnings continue to come in from The Colorado Avalanche Information Center about dangerous conditions following two weeks of heavy snow.  Others have escaped death, but have harrowing tales of survival and, in some cases, broken bones.  Avalanches travel at the rate of a speeding car and hit with the force of a freight train. Typically, those buried in an avalanche lie beneath a ton of snow and the most common killer is either suffocation or blunt force trauma.  The head of the CAIF says the three most important tools are the beacon, probe, and shovel. The first is worn by the potential victim, while the other two are used by the rescuer.  Though these events can happen and be over in a matter of seconds, they can bring permanent consequences (information via FoxNews and Time’s Science And Space).

How often do we face overwhelming circumstances which we might liken to an avalanche?  They happen suddenly and seriously, and the aftermath can feel almost suffocating.  Though with different images, Bible writers speak of the feeling of burdens and sins being heavy and over their head (Ps. 38:4; Lam. 3:54).  David says similar things about trouble (Ps. 119:143) and iniquity (Ps. 40:12) overtaking him so that he cannot look up.  Maybe you can relate to such feelings, whether brought on by the guilt of sin or the difficulties of life. Both can threaten to bury us.  These things have even led to spiritual death.

May I suggest that we need the same three tools for our spiritual escape.  We have a beacon (Ps. 119:105), yet it also serves as a probe (Heb. 4:12) and a shovel (cf. Ps. 107:20; 147:16ff).  He also blesses us through prayer and providence.  Through all He does, God provides us a way of escape (1 Co. 10:13)!   We can survive, even in those times when problems crowd into our lives and threaten to bury us!  God is greater and stronger.  When swept up, hold on! Help is on the way.

PLAGUE IN MADAGASCAR

Neal Pollard

It is hard to believe that bubonic plague could be a problem in any country in the 21st Century, but that is exactly the case in the African nation of Madagascar.  Helped mainly by extreme unsanitary conditions in that nation’s prisons, 20 people died from the plague there just in the first week of December. There were 256 cases and 60 deaths in 2012, and while that is nothing to compare to the 25 million deaths in Europe during the Middle Ages it is alarming.  Since inmates’ relatives visit those detained, the disease can leap the walls of confinement and become an epidemic throughout the impoverished country bereft of a good, organized public health system. Though 90% of the world’s plague cases have occurred in Madagascar and the D.R.C., there have been outbreaks in India, Indonesia and Algeria in the last decade or so and this summer Kyrgyzstan had its first plague case (and death) in 30 years.  While it seems like ancient history, the last global pandemic occurred just over 100 years ago ( (BBC Scotland, BBC Africa; Quartz).

Read any medieval chronicles of the black death and they seem like horror stories, compounded in those days by the people’s ignorance concerning how the disease spread.  But what was obvious was how swift, painful, and fatal it was.  The resilience of the disease is demonstrated in the fact that it can still be a story today, despite the development of antibiotics and sophisticated means of detecting and preventing it.

Sin is a spiritual disease that cannot be contained by geographical boundaries, technology, medicine, education, or any such potential preventative.  While its effects impact the unseen part of a person, its threat is eternally more great.  People who die with it untreated are lost forever.  There are ways to cope with the symptoms, but there is only one cure.  It is universally accessible and no one who seeks treatment will fail to have the cure.  If we can fathom ourselves, as Christians, and relay to the lost how terrible the sickness of sin really is, we will reach more people and lives will be saved!  Of all the Bible passages that speak of the matter, perhaps none is more impassioned than Paul’s words to Rome as he says, “For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man. But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God–through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with the mind I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.  There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit” (Rom. 7:22-8:1).

Can He Accept Me As I Am?


Neal Pollard

Can God accept me as I am?  I know me better than I know anyone else—my thoughts, feelings, motives, intentions, desires, temptations, and attitudes.  I know I have sin in my life, and I have for many years.  I know I struggle today and I will continue to struggle until He takes me home or He comes again.  Can He accept me as I am?

No!  Not without a heart of resolve or an attempt to please and serve Him.  Not without obedience to the best of my ability.  Not without submitting to His Word and His plan.  Not if I am defiant and self-ruled.  Not if I continue to serve sin in order to get more grace.  Not if I am trying to write the rules or make it on the basis of my righteousness.  Not if I feel I can somehow earn His acceptance or do enough good or avoid enough bad to force His hand and make Him accept me.  Can He accept me as I am?

Yes!  He made the plan.  He set the promises and defined the conditions.  His Son offered the sacrifice.  He has the power and ability to cleanse my sins as I walk in the light.  After I have lived the way He wants me to, to the best of my ability, He provides the grace that bridges the gap between my best and perfection.  He refers me to Zaccheus, the woman at the well, the Prodigal Son, the woman who was a sinner, Peter, Saul of Tarsus, prostitutes, and sinners, the tax collector praying in the temple, the rabble, and the rest, and He says this is what is possible for you!

Can I accept that He can accept me?  Perhaps that is the question that needs addressing first.  His grace and my obedient faith is the roadway to divine acceptance.  Heaven depends on my accepting that!

HOW MUCH DOES GUILT WEIGH?


Neal Pollard

Perhaps you have heard about the unusual confession Matthew Cordle made on a website called “Because I Said I Would,” a video that went then went viral on the internet.  This will provide the prosecution ironclad evidence to convict him of a drunk driving accident in which he killed 61-year-old Vincent Canzani back in June.  His lawyer explained that Cordle confessed to the June killing because he is “riddled with guilt” and on the video, designed to deter others from drinking and driving, he says, “You can still be saved. Your victims can still be saved” (Erin Donaghue, www.cbsnews.com).

In Psalm 38, David depicts the heavy weight of guilt brought on by sin.  He describes the physical effects he felt because of his spiritual transgressions.  He likens it to physical assault (1-2), sickness (3), drowning (4a), a too-heavy-burden (4b), wounds (5), dilapidation (8), and readiness to fall (17).  Words like “mourning” (6), “turmoil” (8), “pants” (10), “sorrow” (17), and “anguish” (18) punctuate the Psalm.  While some so harden their heart to sin that they can seemingly move forward with no qualms or pangs of guilt, the Bible describes the nagging, constant, and unceasing tug of guilt that accompanies wrongdoing.  As David reflected on his sin with Bathsheba and the horrible things he did to cover it up, he would write, “My sin is always before me” (Ps. 51:3).  Most people are like David.  What they do with that guilt may differ, but God wants that guilt to produce “diligence,” clearing of self, “vindication,” and similar, godly responses in people’s hearts rather than to produce death (cf. 2 Cor. 7:10-11).   How fruitful and tragic to feel the weight of sin’s guilt but never apply God’s remedy to get rid of it!

The fact is that all of us are guilty of sin (Rom. 3:23) and deserve a sentence of eternal condemnation, but we can escape the consequences of our guilt by obedience to Christ (cf. Heb. 5:9).  The net effect of that can be the profound peace that accompanies forgiveness.  Too many are held hostage by their sins when freedom and escape are readily available. We cannot measure or quantify the weight of guilt upon a pair of scales, but we know it is real and burdensome.  Jesus calls us to come to Him and He will unburden us (Mat. 11:28-30).

Thrown Down On Naboth’s Plot

Neal Pollard

Naboth must have been shocked and baffled as the charges of blasphemy and treason rang in his ears.  He must have felt jostled and panicked as he was grabbed and thrown outside the city of Jezreel.  Surely he was filled with the acutest sense of injustice replaced only by the undeserved pangs of pain as his own brethren stoned him with stones (1 Ki. 21:12-14).  He had been set up by wicked King Ahab (though Jezebel was really the “brains” behind the operation).  When Ahab took possession of “his” ill-gotten vineyard taken only by the brutal plot that claimed innocent Naboth, did Ahab ever think about the murdered man (cf. 1 Ki. 21:19) as he puttered around his vegetable garden?  Could even Ahab have thought that it was worth it?  Whatever Israel’s king felt, Elijah the Tishbite, God’s mighty prophet, is sent into “the vineyard of Naboth” (1 Ki. 21:18; interestingly, God still saw dead Naboth as the rightful owner) and foretells of the bloody, ignominious end of Ahab’s house.  Though God showed remarkable mercy in not ending Ahab’s dynasty in the wake of the wicked king’s humble plea (1 Ki. 21:28), the decree was only delayed.  Ahab died in his chariot, a casualty of a circumstance God used to execute His judgment (1 Ki. 22:34-38).

Some time later, though now Ahab’s second son to reign currently sat on Israel’s throne and Elijah had been replaced by Elisha, the judgment on Ahab’s house transpired.  Jehu “conspired against Joram” (2 Ki. 9:14), encouraged by one of the sons of the prophets (2 Ki. 9:7-10).  Jehu meets Joram at an interesting site:  “the property of Naboth the Jezreelite” (2 Ki. 9:21).  God says He repaid Ahab on Naboth’s plot (2 Ki. 9:26).  What a powerful lesson and warning from God!  It is a message that says not only that you reap what you sow, but that there is sometimes irony in this sort of reaping.  Another example is Haman in the book of Esther.

Let us consider this lesson first taught on Naboth’s land.  Does the gossiper, intent on spreading rumors and divulging details about another, ever become the victim of his own methods?  Does the hypercritic and unjust judge ever fall into a sin problem, only to find himself treated as he has treated others?  What about the greedy or the unethical, who climb the corporate ladder by stepping all over whoever is above him on it?  Does he ever meet the same, ironic end?  There will be some Naboths, men and women who are unfairly and unjustly treated despite their innocence.  Yet, there will also be some Ahabs, too, men and women meted out the same kind of end they inflicted on someone else.  If you have to identify with anyone in this biblical account, let it be Naboth and not Ahab.

 

 

“TOLERANCE, ACCEPTANCE, EMBRACE”

 

Neal Pollard

One of the feature stories in today’s USA Today is a glowing feature about a homosexual couple getting married in Maryland, one of the states to legalize homosexual marriage in the last election.  The article is also about changing attitudes in our nation.  Chuck Raash, the author, states in the course of writing that 53% of Americans surveyed say they think that same-sex married couples should enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples.  Perhaps the statistic I found more interesting was that 36% of people surveyed have changed their mind about this issue during their lifetime.  While those numbers are not further analyzed, the tone of the article would suggest that most, if not all, have changed from opposing to accepting it.  One of the grooms summed up the “three stages” homosexuals often face when they reveal their preference to the people in their lives–“tolerance, acceptance, embrace” (USA Today, 1/9/13, A-1).  I do not doubt any of the statistics in the article, nor do I disagree with the fact of such gradual change in thinking in people’s minds toward matters like homosexuality.

Yet, I would disagree with this man and those who support his lifestyle that such change is positive.  Sin is very often met with such a gradual, changing attitude.  The 18th Century English poet, Alexander Pope, is actually the originator of the thought from the afore-quoted groom.  In “Essay on Man,” Pope said, “Vice is a monster of so frightful mien, as to be hated needs but to be seen. Yet too oft, familiar with her face, we first endure, then pity, then embrace.”  The idea, especially in context of the whole, is that people’s attitude toward sin soften through the attrition of exposure.  That is, the more we are exposed to sin, the more comfortable and desensitized to it we become.  When a sin is increasingly portrayed as positive and right and people stop speaking against it, that society inevitably moves from disapproval to embrace.

Isaiah speaks of people getting things spiritually backward, calling evil “good” and good “evil” (5:20).  Consciences get seared (1 Tim. 4:2). They become callous, having “given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness” (Eph. 4:19).  Someone may deny God’s existence or that the Bible is His inspired Word, but those who claim faith in both cannot consistently do so but tolerate, accept, or embrace what He says therein is sin!

VACCINATION

Neal Pollard

Despite the work of some special interest groups trying to expose the health risks to children who get vaccinated, there has historically been inestimable value derived from them.  Perhaps no incident proves this better than the deadly, debilitating outbreaks of polio in the 20th Century.  Starting early in the 1900s, polio cases turned into outbreaks. In 1916, 9000 cases were reported in New York City alone.  Even a U.S. president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, contracted it as a young man. Physicians raced to find remedies, treatments, and preventatives.  The “March of Dimes” was created to fight Infantile Paralysis due to polio.  The Mayo Clinic got involved around the time the U.S. was drawn into World War II, which distracted America’s best medical researchers with military-related projects. In the last five years of the 1940s, there was an average of 20,000 new cases of polio per year.  It is hard for most of us alive today to remember the panic and fear struck by this mysterious malady. Then, Jonas Salk develops the first successful vaccine around 1950.  Albert Sabin eventually develops an even more effective vaccine. By 1964, there were only 121 cases in this country.  By 1994, the World Health Organization certified the entire western hemisphere as “polio free” (much information via timeline at http://users.cloudnet.com/edrbsass/poliotimeline.htm).

 It would be hard to imagine parents who knew of other infected children not rushing to take steps to protect their own.  For that matter, they would surely move to prevent their own infection.  Whatever perceived risk or sacrifice, the risk of doing nothing was surely, universally seen as worse.  

 To call sin an epidemic is to grossly understate.  Beyond even pandemic proportions, this spiritual malady is universal.  Every accountable person has the problem (Rom. 3:10,23; 1 Jn. 5:19).  The effect is spiritually fatal in 100% of untreated cases (Rom. 6:23).  Yet, it is an affliction mankind always chooses to contract.

 No words can adequately describe the love, mercy, grace, and compassion that drove God to supply the cure.  While it came at an incomparably high price (cf. Jn. 3:16), it is 100% effective in eradicating the effects of the malady.  That is, no one who ever obeyed from the heart God’s plan of salvation ever failed to receive what God promised–forgiveness (cf. Rom. 6:17; Ac. 2:38).  Can you imagine, then, that people every day and every week have the opportunity to be cured, but choose to refuse it.  May God give us courage and compassion to persist in making the cure available!

THE PRICE PETRINO PAID

Neal Pollard

Thanks to a morality clause in their contract, the University of Arkansas was able to fire head football coach Bobby Petrino and save nearly $18 million dollars.  That will be money, no doubt, that can be used toward finding and signing his replacement.  Though the fan base openly stated they could not care less about his sexually immoral ways (after all, he had led the Razorbacks to a stellar 21-5 record as coach), the university fired him for a series of indiscretions at the bottom of which was the married man’s affair with a 25-year-old, engaged former volley ball star from the school.  It is yet to be seen what impact his actions will have on his marriage or his relationship with his four children.  How hard will it be for another university to trust him enough to hire him?  He has embarrassed himself and damaged his reputation.  And, for what?

There was another man, a man who by every indication was a much more spiritual man, who centuries ago gave up so much for comparatively little.  He had it all, power, wealth, reputation, respect, and a healthy relationship with God.  But one trip to the roof of his house began a downward spiral fueled by his own lust for a married woman.  By the time the dust settled, the man would experience the loss of four children, death threats, displacement, wholesale embarrassment, and his own spiritual compromise.  Though David was forgiven and restored in his relationship with God, look at the carnage that came of his tragic decision.

One of the biggest lies men and women swallow is that sexual immorality and deviance from God’s pattern for sexuality is relatively harmless.  They know there is risk, and sometimes risk is part of the thrill for the guilty.  Perhaps one sees all that is at stake, but driven by sinful passion are too intoxicated with such to care.  But as sad as this week’s newest scandal is and as lastingly tragic as David’s decision was, it serves as a reminder and a warning for us today.  What does the “after” picture look like?  Let David have the last words:  “For I know my transgression, and my sin is ever before me” (Psa. 51:3).  What a price!

THE INNER STRUGGLES

Neal Pollard

Marilyn J. Abraham revealed something remarkable that a forest ranger told her about how trees protect themselves.  The ranger said that when a tree’s life is threatened, stressed by fire, drought, disease, or whatever, it twists beneath its bark to make itself stronger. You cannot see this new inner strength on the surface. The bark often looks the same.  It is when the exterior is stripped away or the tree is felled that its inner struggles are revealed.

The ranger’s story tells us several helpful things.  Often, we do not know the depths and extremes of others’ suffering.  Too, usually, no one knows the depth and extreme of our suffering.  But, God is able to help make us stronger even through the struggles through which we go.

Asaph wrote, “My voice rises to God, and I will cry aloud; My voice rises to God, and He will hear me. In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord; In the night my hand was stretched out without weariness; My soul refused to be comforted” (Psa. 77:1-3).  Asaph depicts a mighty inner struggle, one wallowing in the pit of despair.  When things seemed most hopeless, the struggler saw that His pain had changed His view of God.  He had focused on God’s anger and seeming rejection.  But, then, He remembered who God is.  He thought about God’s deeds, His power, His holiness, and His leadership.  Then, he had the help he needed to handle the hurts.

To those who are hurting, remember who God is and what He can do!  Think about the strength and growth God can produce in you through the trials you are enduring.  May all of us understand, as we deal with others, that we may not be able to tell how much others are hurting when we see them.  Let us deal gently with others, since we do not know their inner struggles.

The Listeria Outbreak

Neal Pollard

The CDC reports that 30 people died and one miscarriage was attributed to an outbreak of listeria, a bacteria causing food poisoning, traced to cantaloupe raised and processed at Jensen Farms near Holly, Colorado.  An attorney representing several who died in this outbreak has the count at 34 victims, including a 68-year-old man who succumbed to listeriosis yesterday.  Those who have either become ill or died hail from 19 states, and the FDA traced the outbreak to dirty equipment.  The dead in most, if not all cases, already had compromised immune systems or underlying health issues that allowed the bacteria to be lethal (cf. Denver Post, 2/22/12, Michael Booth).

It is useless to become paranoid about listeria and cantaloupe, but it does point out how “little” or “minor” things can easily become significant.  If the “right” (i.e., “wrong”) person is exposed to something that may not hurt most people, it can be toxic and even deadly.  If one is “careless” about how they handle even the seemingly routine things, he or she can have a devastating impact.  Even without evil intentions, harm is done!

Perhaps the most common way we contaminate and poison others is through our words.  On the surface, they are seemingly insignificant.  But they can quickly injure or contribute to the spiritual death of the weak, vulnerable, and otherwise susceptible.  James warns of the volatile potential of the tongue (Js. 3:2ff).  Proverbs 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue.”

We also must watch our example.  Others are watching how we react to life, they see our attitudes, and they examine our choices.  We may brush something off as “no big deal,” but it might be deadly for them.  Jesus warns, “It is inevitable that stumbling blocks come, but woe to him through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea, than that he would cause one of these little ones to stumble” (Lk. 17:1-2).

May our lives bring spiritual health and life to others!  May we disdain what is otherwise!  Eternal lives are at stake.

 

The Family That Distributes Cocaine Together…

Neal Pollard

Family togetherness can be a good thing, but, obviously, not always.  The Lerma family in Grand Junction, Colorado, were not playing Scrabble, hiking, or watching Disney Movies together.  They were working together to bring two pounds of cocaine into this “western slope” community about every ten days or so.  They were arrested on Sunday, coming back from Denver.   Federico, wife Dolores, 19-year-old daughter Blanca, and a 16-year-old son were all implicated in the drug ring.  Blanca even took her 7-month-old child along for the car rides to transport the drugs (via Grand Junction Sentinel, 1/31/12).

It is unfathomable, unwholesome, unthinkable.  How parents could not influence, but encourage, sinful behavior is baffling to consider!  What were they thinking?

Extreme as it is, this family’s example should cause us to pause and consider what we do as a family when we are together.  Are we ever encouraging our children to miss worship and other regular assembly times in order to pursue other activities?  Do we watch things with them on TV or at the movies that are spiritually harmful?  What do we find humorous and entertaining?  Is it ever that which is not spiritually lawful?

We would never contemplate taking our young ones on a drug run, but where are we taking them?  Where will where we take them cause them to eventually go?  Fathers, as the spiritual leaders of the family (cf. Eph. 5:22-23; 6:1ff), God makes us accountable for our wives and children.  Let us rally them around only “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute” (cf. Phil. 4:8).

ORAL HYGIENE (or “VERBAL SNIPERS”)

Neal Pollard

Routine teeth cleaning can be pleasant, but cavities, extractions, and root canals, from what I hear, are less than thrilling.  No matter how well you think you are doing with “home care,” the dentist will always have suggestions for how you can improve your “oral hygiene,” from flossing and regular brushing to avoiding certain types of food (i.e., sugary and staining stuff).

But, how is our spiritual “oral hygiene”?  Sometimes, we equate such with abstaining from profanity and vulgarity.  But, doesn’t God expect more?  Growing up in the church, I have preserved in my mind a “Hall of Fame” of people who have filled their speech and words with encouragement, truth, gentleness, and thoughtfulness.  They brighten the lives they touch, altering them for the better.  However, I have seen too many Christians in every congregation I can remember whose speech is rotten and decayed.  Ironically, they often are those who faithfully attend and are generally morally and ethically upright.  Yet, they have slipped the bridle off their tongue to the harm and detriment of others.

Neither one’s age, perceived position and importance, nor tenure in a congregation entitles him or her to riddle others with verbal bullets.  Insults, discouragement, destructive criticism, loveless rebukes, railings, and the like have proven stumbling blocks to many visitors, new Christians, weak Christians, or others who are spiritually vulnerable.  I cannot count the specific number of times I have tried to help these wounded ones pick up the pieces after razor-sharp comments made by thoughtless brothers and sisters who ought to know better.  The offenders may not have any idea of the havoc they cause, but I am certain that some will be shocked and astonished at the judgment.

Jesus taught that “the mouth speaks out of that which fills the heart” and “that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned” (Mt. 12:34b, 36-37).  What do we think James means when he says that the tongue “is set on fire by hell” (Js. 3:6)?  The kind of speech referenced above is certainly not ignited by heaven!

Please consider that your speech is a direct reflection of the content of your heart!  Be mortified at the thought of a word of yours causing anyone to stumble and fall!  However important or unimportant you believe yourself to be, realize the potential harm or good you do simply by what you say.  Am I talking about your speech?  Well, ask if your speech is “with grace, seasoned with salt” (Col. 4:6), wholesome, edifying, needful, and gracious (Eph. 4:29)?  If it is not, please keep it to yourself!

Let us remember the words Will Carleton wrote in “The First Settler’s Story”:

Boys flying kites haul in their white-winged birds;
You can’t do that way when you’re flying words.
“Careful with fire,” is good advice we know
“Careful with words,” is ten times doubly so.
Thoughts unexpressed may sometimes fall back dead;
But God Himself can’t kill them when they’re said.

Swept Away, Enslaved Then Reunited

Neal Pollard

 

Seven years ago today, an 8-year-old girl was torn from her family by a violent tsunami wave that struck her hometown of Meulaboh, Indonesia.  She was recovered by a wicked woman “who called her Wati and forced her to beg, sometimes beating her and keeping her in the streets until 1 a.m.” (Fakhrurradzie Gade, AP, via Denver Post, 12/25/11, 14A).  When she stopped bringing money in to the woman, she told her to leave and find her parents.  She even told her the hometown from which she hailed.  Now a teenager, “Wati” had to draw on vague recollections to find her family.  She remembered her grandfather was named “Ibrahim,” and locals in Meulaboh took her to the man and ultimately to her parents.  They had long given up hope that she had survived.  230,000 people perished in that infamous tsunami, including tens of thousands in her province alone, but Meri Yuranda, Wati’s real name, was reunited with her overjoyed parents (ibid.).

Such reunions are, sadly, rare, but they are thrilling when they occur.  The imagination races with all the twists and turns of a seven year journey that began with a tidal wave and ended with a solemn, yet happy, rejoining.  That the girl would escape death and then survive an unhappy experience far from home is amazing enough.  That she would be resourceful and savvy enough to rediscover her family is almost unbelievable.

How it illustrates the terrible, spiritual circumstances facing the vast majority of this world.  Swept away and enslaved by sin (Eph. 4:14; Rom. 6:16-18), they find themselves in the cruel far country (cf. Lk. 15:13).  Too often, they never find their way to the Father.  However, when they do search for Him, they find Him (Ac. 17:27)!  It sets off a joyful celebration in the Father’s House (Lk. 15:25ff)!  The Father never ceases hoping and longing for the return of the wayward ones, but we must come back to Him.  What a happy ending is made when we are reunited with the loving, waiting Father!

Immune To Venom?

Neal Pollard

My son, Dale, tells me that the mongoose builds up immunity to cobra venom by eating smaller poisonous creatures, from spiders to scorpions to wasps.  That makes the mongoose an “ophiophagous” creature.  Ophiophagous animals are those which hunt, kill, and eat snakes (including the poisonous ones).  Many of these kinds of animals are thought to be immune from their prey’s venom, and they have antineurotoxic antibodies in their blood.  However, the most venom-resistant animal known to science is the wild and exotic Virginia opossum.  They do not build up immunity, but rather seem to be born with this resistance.

As a Grade A Snake Hater, my skin is already crawling.  However, what a splendid application there is.  In Genesis three, we are introduced to a creature many take to be nothing more than a serpent.  While this may be true, Satan is referred to in symbolic terms as “that ancient serpent” in Revelation 20:2—a seeming allusion to the garden scene (cf. Rev. 12:9).  Is it coincidental that the beguiling serpent is mentioned in the same context as Satan’s beguiling work in 2 Corinthians 11 (cf. 3 + 14-15)?  Whatever may be concluded about any connection between the serpent of Eden and the devil, there are some potent comparisons.  Like a poisonous serpent, Satan is destructive and deadly (cf. 1 Pet. 5:8-9).  As such creatures can strike suddenly and without warning, Satan can do the same (cf. Matt. 4:3).  Just as these can cause fear, so can the devil (Heb. 2:14).  The devil can be made to flee (Jas. 4:7), just as those nefarious reptiles can.

Keeping with our analogy and original illustration, can we build up immunity against the devil?  Yes and no.  We cannot, in the sense that we can ever court sin and temptation and hope to come away unscathed.  The wages of sin are always the same (Rom. 6:23).  However, in another sense we can.  By drawing close to God, we can build up devil-resistance (Jas. 4:7).  Building a proper relationship with the Lord serves the dual purpose of helping us stand against the power of the devil (see Eph. 6:10ff).  By being and remaining in Christ, we are free from the effects of the sting of sin and the spiritual death brought thereby (1 Cor. 15:56-58; Heb. 2:14-15; 1 Pet. 5:8-9).  Let’s work to protect our souls from the ravaging effects of sin by building righteous, submissive, and holy lives!

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Don’t Be Overcome By Night

Neal Pollard

Gary, Carl, and I visited the United States Holocaust Museum today.  There is no experience with which to compare this harrowing, sobering, and unfathomable tour of one of the darkest periods of recorded history.  That one human being was capable of treating another human being the way the Jews were treated defies understanding.  We saw pictures and videos of the pogroms, boycotts, concentration camps, executions, and experimentations.  An entire ethnic group across an entire continent was seized with terror for over a decade.  To have witnessed such atrocities and survive must have scarred and wounded the psyche.  Perhaps no one who survived this genocide saw more than the Romanian writer Eliezer (Elie) Wiesel, who spent time in the Auschwitz, Buna, Buchenwald, and Gleiwitz Concentration Camps.  In fact, he only reluctantly became a writer to share his dark experience at the hands of the Nazis.  In his first book, Night, he wrote,

Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed. Never shall I forget that smoke. Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky. Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever. Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.

I do not stand in judgment of Mr. Wiesel’s pain.  Who of us will ever know its depths?  But his words demonstrate how pain and suffering can undermine and even destroy faith.  Paul told the Romans, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Rom. 12:21).  We will not be cast in the throes of despair Wiesel has known, but when we encounter trials, difficulties, and suffering may we keep our faith in God strong.   It may be hard to love our enemies (Mat. 5:44), but may we maintain our love and fidelity to our God–no matter what!

Learning From The Church’s First Recorded Sin

Neal Pollard

The world likes to record and memorialize its “firsts”–the first airplane flight, Jackie Robinson’s breaking the color barrier, Roger Bannister’s sub-four-minute mile, Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight, and so forth.  There are some firsts no one relishes.  Oklahoma City was the site of the first federal building bombed by U.S. citizens.  Nevada was the first state to legalize prostitution.  Hawaii was the first state to legalize gay marriages.  Andrew Johnson was the first president impeached.  The 1919 Chicago White Sox was the first professional team caught losing on purpose for money.

Acts 5:1-4 records the first sin in the church.  It was a sin concerning money.  This sin, committed by Ananias and Sapphira, was written to warn us.  It contains many lessons we need today.  Consider a few of them.

The church was imperfect in the days of the apostles.  The church was, is, and always will be imperfect on the “human side.”  It is inevitable because we are all sinners (cf. Rom. 3:23).  Yet, the divine side of the church was, is, and always will be perfect, as perfect as God is.  The New Testament instructions and teaching about what the church is to be and do is not subject to change, for its Designer is divine.  Yet, we will never find a “perfect church” here because it is filled with flawed humans like us.

The church is right, though some in it are wrong.  There are some hypocrites in the church, as there are anywhere.  There are liars in the church, as there are anywhere.  There are covetous and greedy people in the church, as there are anywhere.  These things are wrong!  But it is not a refection on the purchaser or purchase price of the church.  A church can have members who are less than they should be without such being the grounds for us rejecting Christ and His church.

It is wrong to cover up sin.  God did not cover up their sin.  He advertised it in Acts five.  Sometimes, we are prone, when we see someone practicing sin, to look the other way or make excuses for it.  How consistent is it for us to preach against the sin of those “outside,” then ignore that which occurs “inside.”

One can commit sin while doing good.  This couple was giving to support the displaced saints in Jerusalem.  They had a part in it, but they lied and thus sinned.  The Bible reveals others who sinned while doing good–Nadab and Abihu were worshipping (Lev. 10:1-3).  Today, there are good people who sin in their teaching and worship.  What about those who sprinkle for baptism, add instruments to their singing, place women in positions of authority and leadership, teach salvation by faith alone, etc.?

There are many other lessons to be learned from this infamous couple.  May we so live and labor that we will be remembered by the Lord on the last day, but may it be a remembrance for righteousness and not wickedness.  Let us do right and for the right reasons!

(I believe these main points came as the result of a conversation I had with Flavil Nichols at least fifteen years ago).