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

FAITH: Personal leap of faith!

"Behold, as for the proud one, His soul is not right within him; But the righteous will live by his faith."

Habakkuk 2:4

As a youngster I was always in trouble. When I would walk somewhere I could hear the doors and windows shutting in homes as I approached. I could hear people saying things like, “Look out Ethel, here comes that Gillmartin kid!”

I clearly remember one time when my friends and I took a joy ride [my wife swears I stole a car; I’m still in denial]. Well we wrecked it and all three of us took off running. I was one of the fastest kids in town and no one was going to catch me running scared.

I ran to a set of stairs on an embankment, going down about twenty-five steps in under five seconds. It was then I remembered there were over a 100 steps in all. I had visions of police at the top and police at the bottom.

I vaulted the handrail and ran into the dark, looking for a bush to hide in. I found a nice fat round one and leaped to hide … it had no bottom. The plant had grown horizontally over the abyss. The rapid descent got me down another 40 steps. "Thump" I landed. The Lord had prepared an area of nice soft forest mulch in advance for me.

That was my first leap of faith. The next day we were caught and had to take responsibility for our actions and make restitution [yes, there was a time, long ago, in America when people had to do that].

Looking back on the event from this distance I can see I didn’t learn my lesson very well at the time, but the Lord’s hand was clearly on my life.

Faith is like that bush; it’s sort of laid out there for any who have eyes to see. But faith is unlike that particular bush in one very critical way: faith has a rock under it, preventing our fall.

Christianity, Faith,
Illustrations, Religion

BOLDNESS: Of the John Wayne kind!

GO AHEAD, MAKE MY DAY: John 16:8-11; other topics - Attitude, Commitment, Conviction, Courage, Fear, Right (opposed to wrong)

The Six Shooter was an extremely popular western, broadcast on NBC radio from 1953-54. Jimmy Stewart starred as Britt Ponsett, a Texas plainsman.

On one broadcast (“Duel at Lockwood”; 3/21/54 - Radio Spirits) Britt called a young tough’s bluff … even though it was possible the kid might be faster.

A teen-aged killer went after The Six Shooter in a town called Lockwood … he bragged to everyone if he ran into Ponsett he’d kill him. Well Britt showed up one day; the outlaw heard the quiet gunman had come to town, so he sent a messenger to warn Ponsett he was on his way. Ponsett didn’t wait … he rode out on the trail and waited for the kid on the trail.

The gunman found Ponsett sitting on his horse waiting for him; he asked, “Who are you?” He said, “Britt Ponsett” and laid a shotgun over his saddle as the tough started to draw. And in his signature style he drawled, “How come you're stopping? Go ahead, draw!”

The bully was so flabbergasted he couldn't find his courage; he never showed his face in the region again.

Fantasies concerning life and its living are common to all people … one of mine is stepping toward the next illogical, irrational, relativistic humanist or atheist and saying, “Go ahead, draw” as I lay the sword of the Lord across my saddle horn.

In my vision the rascal doesn’t turn and run; instead he comes under conviction, drops to his knees and pleads for God’s forgiveness.

Clearly, there is a present need for more boldness amongst the Body of Christ. Jesus didn’t die in order for us to become doormats for every godless heathen we encounter. After all, Jesus was no wimp! [Luke 19:45-47; John 2:13-17]

I fear many of our brothers and sisters have become so fearful of the world and its minions they’ve rendered themselves powerless in the battle for souls.

Britt Ponsett, Christianity, Courage, Discipline,
Illustrations, Jimmy Stewart, Sanctification,
Sermons, Texas Plainsman, The Six Shooter

EMOTIONS: Control central!

FOCUS OF THE WORLD! [2 Corinthians 10:3-5]

Emotion is defined as “a state of pending or present excitement, characterized by strong feelings, often with a tendency toward a definite kind of behavior,” e.g., anger, affection, depression, devotion, allegiance, love, etc.

When we see the American flag, it elicits a certain kind of emotion for Americans, something else for foreigner; when we see a fireman, policeman, or soldier, it results in a specific emotion; Easter scenes do the same for Christians; a child’s wedding or a loved one’s passing bring out a plethora of strong feeling; and certain hymns or choruses do the same. These are life and character building emotions.

Yet in this violent, deviant, self-obsessed world, with its collective focus three feet off the ground, we’re confronted with a glut of destructive emotions. The whole of our society seems to need "tenting," to exterminate the pests operating in the framework of our national and spiritual houses.

Reading what Paul said to the Corinthian church in his second letter, we rightly conclude the church, as a whole, has failed to take much thinking captive. He said:

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Fortresses are going up faster than churches; graves are flooding with the rotting carcasses of the lost, faster than the saving of souls; and the rate of growth of biblical ignorance is only exceeded by the combined annual rate of the printing of Bibles.

Where the church's emotions ought to be running high with righteous indignation (abortion, homosexuality, pornography, deviance), we instead suffer rebellious indigestion.

BLOOD - O' The Precious Blood!

AS CLEAR AS MUD! [1 Samuel 16:7; cleansing, heart, righteousness]

Rudy, one of the men in our church, took on the job of cleaning and waxing the floor of the ladies bathroom. After stripping the floor, we both marveled at how clean it was compared to its earlier condition. I then had to leave to run a few errands.

While I was gone, Rudy decided to try a detergent cleanser on the floor, just to see if it might improve the appearance even further.

I returned in the middle of his efforts. Half of the already once-cleaned floor was bright and like new, the other dark with grime ... this was the same floor we’d just a short while earlier thought was "very" clean.

Man labors in his efforts to live a clean life ... but the Bible says "there are none righteous, no not one" [Romans 3:10-18]. Man examines himself and says, "I’m not so bad! At least not as bad as so-and-so." But God doesn’t look at the outer man, as we do. What we see with our natural eyes appears clean but what God sees is far from clean.

The blood of Jesus cleanses in such a way that is beyond man’s understanding. That which is stained permanently black from sin is cleansed to pure white. Had we known how truly dirty the floor was in the first place perhaps we would not have been fooled into believing it clean. Were man to know how desperately polluted his sins have made him he would never claim to be "Worse than some but better than most; after all I’ve never murdered anyone or robbed a bank or plundered and raped."


BLOOD STAINED TESTIMONY! [1 Peter 1:19; atonement, power]

A Gideon friend recently told of how their well-known, pearl-white New Testaments were distributed to the Pacific Fleet prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese.

He also told of how, on a later occasion, the evangelist Harry Rimmer was speaking to a meeting of believers interested in military evangelism. During the speech, Dr. Rimmer displayed his own personal copy of the white Pacific Fleet New Testament.

Following the meeting, a member of the audience tarried to show Dr. Rimmer another white New Testament, one given to his son prior to the bombing of the Hawaiian base ... one stained with blood. The man smiled and said, "Yes … this little book is very precious … it’s … stained with the blood of my son." Dr. Rimmer paused for a moment, then held up his personal Bible and said, "God feels the same way about that Book. He loves [it] too. Its pages are stained with the blood of His Son." [Thanks to Brian Stromsoe, of The Gideons, for recently sharing this vignette with our church.]

Indeed it is; each page of Holy Writ is covered with that precious, precious blood which flowed from pierced and bleeding side of His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ.


MAJOR FOWL UP! [1 Peter 1:17-19; iniquity, licentiousness, permissiveness, secular humanism, sin]

Except for two weeks out of the year, Geese are federally protected game birds. Yet they're killing cattle. Recently a Virginia Beef Corp. spokesman informed WorldNetDaily (WND) that wildlife protections have resulted in overpopulation of the species; they’re crowding – and fouling – pastures where livestock graze.

WND was told that goose droppings, which carry swine and other viruses, are causing a profusion of stillbirths among heifers. Some 65 calves, valued at about $3,000 each on the market, have been lost this year at Virginia Beef's Louden County, Va., pastures … only one of many such pastures affected.

Similarly, federal protection of sin has resulted in the eternal damnation of tens of thousands of American citizens. In recent years representatives of the Christian community have been trying to warn public and private groups about the ever increasing problems associated with the licentious and permissive behavior of our fellow citizens.

Like most birds, sinners have been fouling their own and our nests with government sanction. The absence of moral clarity and its accompanying devaluation of human life has resulted in a holocaust of murders among unborn children. This moral and ethical dysfunction has brought about the eternal loss of an untold number of Americans … at what cost? Just the precious blood of Jesus!

LIFE - The newness of true life!

WITHOUT SPOT OR BLEMISH! [Romans 3:23; Cleanliness, Consecration, Holiness, Righteousness, Sin]

Any one who has traveled to Switzerland immediately notices how spotlessly clean the country seems to be – from their snow capped mountains, to their crystal-pure lakes, from their alpine glades to their doll-like villages.

Even their money seems spotless and to crackle with crispness; every bill looking and feeling new. Old bills are plucked from circulation before they rip or even the hint of a stain can disgrace them. Each year around one-third of all Swiss bank notes are removed from the public’s grasp at a cost of over 20 million Swiss francs (roughly $15 million). The old bills are burned in a furnace.

Why do they bother, why can’t they be more like the British or the Americans? Because, says the chief cashier of the Swiss National Bank, “The first thing you see when you arrive … is the money. It’s like a national identity.” [Adapted from an article by Bhushan Bahree in The Wall Street Journal]

In other words, the Swiss take their image very seriously. This causes me to ask, “What if God wanted a spotlessly clean world like the Swiss want a spotlessly clean country?”

What if God decided to pluck up people before they became too stained or blemished by life? What if one-third of the human race was shuffled off to heaven and hell each year because of the blotch of sin on their lives? After all, the first thing you see when you arrive is people in the delivery room.

The reasons He doesn’t are simple: first, “God so loved the world”; second, “God sent His Son” while we were sin blotched; third, the Good News would not be good news at all; and, fourth, God expects us to keep our-selves unstained from the world [James 1:27; 1 John 2:15-17; 1 Peter 1:13-19]. This doesn’t even address the implied promises in Isaiah 42:1-4.

How sad the Body of Christ has more problems with its image than Switzerland has with its.

DISCIPLINE - What the student is supposed to learn!

GENTLE PERSUASION! [Hebrews 12:7, 8 (9-13); other topics - body (Church), chastisement, surrender]

It is for discipline that you endure; God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons.

In order to blend eggs by hand, the eggs are broken into a bowl designed for that purpose. The cook then takes a wire whip and aggressively whips the eggs. More often than not one egg yolk will refuse to cooperate; the cook must stop the whipping and deliberately break the obstinate yolk.

God desires the body of Christ be a blended whole; He desires each of His children have “a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart.” [Psalm 51:17]

Chastisement (discipline) is never a pleasant thing. But God desires each child work, properly and supplying the essence of who he or she is according to his or her gifts. This causes “the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.” [Ephesians 4:16]

Predictably, one member won’t break under the gentle persuasion of the Lord; in such a case, breaking is called for.

How wonderful it would be if we could all fear God, yet not fear the strengthening process of His discipline.

SPECIFIC TAGS:Brokenness, Hebrews

IN FULL UNIFORM! [Ephesians 6:13; Armor (of God), Discipleship, Preparation, Sanctification]

Somehow, the young man found himself standing directly in the path of an oncoming car, the driver hit her brakes; but before either of them could do anything it seemed the ten-year-old was shoulder deep in the windshield of the automobile. “Are you alright,” asked the driver. From inside the football helmet a squeaky voice responded, “I think so!”

The boy, a participant in Pop Warner Football, was on his way home from practice, in full uniform. The driver saw the boy too late to stop; the boy saw the car too late to get out of the way.

It is unnecessary to explain why we are admonished to ...

“take up the full armor of God, that [we] may be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.”

Much like the ubiquitous seat belt, the armor of God is, for the most part, unused by believers today. And yet the devil, that self-centered maniac who drives blind, loves to plow through unprotected children on the King’s highway.

God has provided the armor; but He has left it to us to put it on, one piece at a time. Why we don’t is a mystery. Perhaps it’s “won’t” rather than “don’t.” Perhaps the devil is not the only creature that’s self-centered.

JESSE WHO? [Matthew 10:26; Body life, Commitment, Consecration, Holiness, Righteousness]

Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.

Thomas Firbank, in I Bought A Star, tells of a conversation he had with a formula race driver; he asked the professional why he took time to paint and polish the undercarriage as well as all of the other unseen parts of his race car. The driver responded, “If the metal is spotlessly clean, I can see at once if there is a flaw.”

The church needs to adopt this attitude; sanding, grinding, buffing, prepping, painting, and polishing every unseen part. Not so God can “see at once if there is a flaw,” nothing is hidden from His sight [Hebrews 4:13] ... so that we can see our own flaws.

Holiness is from God but the holiness of the saints is not; that responsibility rests wholly on our shoulders!

Soldiers are taught field discipline during peacetime, in the barracks. Polished boots and buckles, along with carefully folded underwear, are not needed during peacetime, nor are they essential for barracks’ life. This discipline is for the field during wartime. In the field, attention to detail IS essential … it cannot be learned under stress, nor is there time to do so! Every boot camp Drill Instructor knows this!

Every army knows (or quickly learns) it is a malicious policy which says during training, “We need not bother the men with the details; they’ll pick them up as they need them in the field.”

Too frequently today we are witnessing an undisciplined demeanor among “the saints”; worse, we are seeing it promoted by many of their instructors.

SPECIFIC TAGS:Commitment, Matthew

GENERAL TAGS: Chastisement, Christianity, Church, Discipline,

Homiletics, Illustrations, Religion, Sermons, Submission, Surrender