EVIDENCE: The heavenly CSI!

Why is it that we can tell when a child with dirty hands has been into something … say, the refrigerator? The answer? Because he leaves dirty fingerprints!

Well then, why can’t we tell when the child who washed his hands has been in the same refrigerator? The answer? Because clean hands leave no dirty fingerprints!

Haggai says,

"the word of the LORD came [me] saying, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "Ask now the priests for a ruling: If a man carries holy meat in the fold of his garment, and touches bread with this fold, or cooked food, wine, oil, or any other food, will it become holy?" And the priests answered and said, "No."' Then [I] said, 'If one who is unclean from a corpse touches any of these, will the latter become unclean?' And the priests answered and said, 'It will become unclean.'" [vv.10-13]

Believers look at the spiritual landscape and wonder why all of their efforts provide so little fruit. Perhaps the answer is because people don’t like fruit covered with dirty fingerprints … we know God doesn’t.

After giving the people a pair of allegorical questions (based on Levitical law) Haggai adds, “'So is this people. And so is this nation before Me,' declares the LORD, 'and so is every work of their hands; and what they offer there is unclean.'" [v.14] Ouch!

Recent surveys of spirituality in America reveal a horrible shallowness and ignorance among professing-believers. Our nation is litter-strewn with evidence of believer’s dirty fingers … unbiblical and undoctrinal positions on critical issues abound, leaving the church and the nation “unclean.”

If believers were more aware of sin and unrighteousness, as viewed by God, their passing would go unnoticed due to their “clean” hands. The only evidence would be saved souls and changed lives … and of course the bloody fingerprints of The Risen Lamb of God!

Christianity, Illustrations,
Religion, Righteousness

EVIDENCE - The testimony of our eyes!

NOT WHAT HE SEEMS TO BE! [Matthew 16:15; other topics - Deity, Identity]

I have a unsaved friend, a really good guy, who drives a white pick-up, with a utility conversion instead of a bed … it has several key-entry bins on each side-bank and an overhead rack with ladders and electrical conduit secured to it. Strewn about the open area between the bins are buckets of electrical boxes, used conduit connectors, electrical tools and reels of various gauge non-insulated and insulated wire, both stranded and solid core.

He tries to convince me he’s an electrician, but I’m not fooled … he has to be either a teacher at a local junior college or a chiropractor. He can’t really be a successful contractor … after all, I know his family, I went to high school with him, and I even dated his sister. No way he’s an electrician … no way!

Now you know I’m nuts, right? Why would I do this in the face of all the evidence which says he is what he says he is? Because that’s what my friend does with my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

In spite of all the evidence confirming Jesus did the things the Bible claims He did, in spite of the testimony of eye witnesses, in spite of the testimony of millions that He is the Son of God, in spite of the archealogical and historical evidence, in spite of the lives He's changed, my friend still says Jesus was just a religious teacher or a mystic healer. He even insults my Sovereign King by saying, “Regardless of what he was, he certainly was a good man.”

My friend doesn’t understand this makes Jesus, the church fathers, and all God’s witnesses liars and charlatans. So I tell him he’s no electrical contractor, regardless of what he carries in his truck. Nope, he’s no electrician … can’t be!

Adapted from a message by R.G. Lee