Spiritual Stricture
34 The crowd spoke up, “We have heard from the Law that the Christa will remain forever, so how can you say, ‘The Son of Man must be lifted up’? Who is this ‘Son of Man’?” 35 Then Jesus told them, “You are going to have the light just a little while longer. Walk while you have the light, before darkness overtakes you. The man who walks in the dark does not know where he is going. 36 Put your trust in the light while you have it, so that you may become sons of light.” When he had finished speaking, Jesus left and hid himself from them.
37 Even after Jesus had done all these miraculous signs in their presence, they still would not believe in him. 38 This was to fulfill the word of Isaiah the prophet: “Lord, who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?”a 39 For this reason they could not believe, because, as Isaiah says elsewhere: 40 “He has blinded their eyes and deadened their hearts, so they can neither see with their eyes, nor understand with their hearts,nor turn—and I would heal them.”b
41 Isaiah said this because he saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him.42 Yet at the same time many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not confess their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved praise from men more than praise from God. 44 Then Jesus cried out, “When a man believes in me, he does not believe in me only, but in the one who sent me. 45 When he looks at me, he sees the one who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness. 47 “As for the person who hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge him. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save it. 48 There is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day. 49 For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. 50 I know that his command leads to eternal life. So whatever I say is just what the Father has told me to say.” [1]
“We have heard . . . “ That would certainly be true of the church today. It may be the greatest offense that the grace of God could ever have to cover. We have heard it all and yet missed the message.
While attending a marriage seminar on communication, Tom and his wife Peg listened to the instructor declare, "It is essential that husbands and wives know the things that are important to each other."
He addressed the man, "Can you describe your wife's favorite flower?"
Tom leaned over, touched his wife's arm gently and whispered, "Pillsbury All-Purpose," isn't it?
The rest of the story isn't pleasant. --
We have heard! Over and over again and yet we have not obeyed. We have heard! Over and over again and yet we have not experienced. How many times do we have to hear before we truly understand?
On the verge of the ultimate sacrifice Jesus was still questioned and rejected by those He came to save.
1. It is so often true that those who are the most advantaged are often the last to realize what they have been given.
We have people who travel from all over the world to see the country in which we live and we are many times oblivious to it’s beauty. We ourselves could travel to exotic places and miss the beauty that is all around us. There are times when we become aware of it through the reactions of others. Elaine’s sister made her first trip to Grand Manan this summer. She was overcome by a beauty which truthfully I could not appreciate to that same degree. I grew up in it – I was “ever-seeing” but never perceiving. I enjoyed my home in a new way by seeing how special it was to someone else.
It is similar to the spiritually advantaged person who has grown up in a home where Christ was honored. They just don’t get it. It doesn’t impact them. I’ve seen spiritual dullness among Christian school students that renders them impotent for the cause of Christ because they have “over-heard”.
Bring Down a Son
1. Provide him with plenty of free spending money.
2. Permit him to choose his own companions without restraint or direction.
3. Give him a latchkey and allow him to return home at any hour of the night.
4. Make no inquiry as to where and with whom he spends his leisure hours.
5. Give him to understand that manners make a good substitute for morals.
6. Let him expect pay for every act of helpfulness.
7. Let him spend his church-time hours on the street instead of in church.
8. Be careful never to let him hear you pray.
Bring Up a Son
1. Make home the brightest and most attractive place on earth.
2. Make him responsible for the performance of a limited number of daily duties.
3. Never punish him in anger.
4. Do not ridicule his conceits, but rather talk frankly on matters in which he is interested.
5. Let him invite his friends to your home and table.
6. Be careful to impress upon his mind that making character is more important than making money.
7. Live uprightly before him at all times; then you will be able to talk to him with power.
8. Be much in prayer for his spiritual salvation and growth, pray with him daily as well as praying for him in private.
It’s not so much that we can hear too many sermons or attend too many services but our assumption that the knowledge that we have constitutes an experience is a false one. Knowing does not equal experience.
The Jewish people were chosen by God according to the scriptures and they were to be a theocracy. A society governed by God and His principles, His Word. They were given spiritual leaders, prophets who were to provide God’s direction and governance for them. That wasn’t good enough and God acquiesced and gave them a king.
4 So all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at Ramah. 5 They said to him, “You are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to leada us, such as all the other nations have.” 6 But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the Lord. 7 And the Lord told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8 As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9 Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will do.” 10 Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. 11 He said, “This is what the king who will reign over you will do: He will take your sons and make them serve with his chariots and horses, and they will run in front of his chariots. 12 Some he will assign to be commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and others to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and still others to make weapons of war and equipment for his chariots. 13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks and bakers. 14 He will take the best of your fields and vineyards and olive groves and give them to his attendants. 15 He will take a tenth of your grain and of your vintage and give it to his officials and attendants. 16 Your menservants and maidservants and the best of your cattleb and donkeys he will take for his own use. 17 He will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves. 18 When that day comes, you will cry out for relief from the king you have chosen, and the Lord will not answer you in that day.” 19 But the people refused to listen to Samuel. “No!” they said. “We want a king over us. 20 Then we will be like all the other nations, with a king to lead us and to go out before us and fight our battles.” 21 When Samuel heard all that the people said, he repeated it before the Lord. 22 The Lord answered, “Listen to them and give them a king.” Then Samuel said to the men of Israel, “Everyone go back to his town.” [2] 1 Samuel 8:4-22 (NIV)
This was not God’s plan but there are times when the only way that He can get our attention is to give us what we ask for even though He knows it will bring disaster to us. Be careful what you pray for. Some strive for jobs or positions that bring destruction to their lives. We have to sell ourselves by times to get what we think we want and we wind up trapped in the realization of our desires.
They were a people destined to be governed by God and blind to His Will.
In a time of spiritual blessing, the nations of Canada and the United States have turned away from the source of their favor. When the church was an institution that was respected by society, we sat back and took ease. It was assumed that respectable people would forever come to church and we were satisfied with that idea. It was good enough that people were respectable.
Gradually, all that just slipped through our fingers. We did the same things week after week. We failed to consider that each new generation needs to be shown the heart of God in a fresh way. And at times when that generation began to explore and express their “personal” relationship with God, it was discouraged and sometimes squelched because we felt that it was not appropriate. Gradually we lost them. They stopped coming, not because they were so much sinful, no more so that any other generation, but because they were not allowed to make their experience their own.
2. In a rigid belief system, it is not necessary that we believe - it is only necessary that we do not question.
The same is true in rigid homes. The rigid parent wants to avoid the possibility that their children will ask questions. Many times this is simply because we can’t answer all the questions that they have.
Good truth comes to a person as they have the freedom to inquire. There are those whose entire Christian experience is based on what they have heard. It’s not first-hand knowledge but “pre-gurgitated” truth. The person who is free to wrestle with the unanswered questions of faith begins to "take ownership" of their faith. Cultic faith is based on half-truth or deception and so they do not allow for divergent beliefs. It will not stand their scrutiny. People wind up basing their very lives on the things that they have heard and another group of people earn their living telling them.
3. And in rigid systems governed by tradition rather than God’s heart, people either leave, abandon their faith or they adopt the experience of a previous generation which is dead for them because it is not personal, they have not owned it because we have refused to allow them to take hold of it.
We don’t know how to turn our faith over to the next generation. We want to hold on and control it for too long.
I’m not sure which is worse to abandon a rigid, tradition bound faith or to adopt one. If you abandon it, there is the likelihood that you will realize your need of God through some disaster or tragedy or the result of decisions made that are self-serving. But when the crunch comes you’ll be alone and struck by the absence of God from your life. You are blessed to see your sinfulness because some who live so close and so advantaged never see their need of God and they die godless and suffer eternally within the shadow of the church.
An adopted faith that does not make a difference is incredibly dangerous. It is deceptive because we think that we are satisfying God because we attend church. We have our children dedicated. We put a little money in the offering plate. We are good citizens. We are open minded and we tolerate the humanistic society in which we live. We pat ourselves on the back and think that because we acknowledge the right of others to live in ways that offend us, that this is love. In truth we tolerate the sinfulness of others simply because we want the freedom to do what we want to do without challenge ourselves. It’s the same appetite that we feed that produces a life that is wrapped up in itself, its own interests and ambitions. We run our lives by our own fancies, a fanciful faith. And we just can’t see our own sinfulness because we are so good. We can’t imagine how a God of love would ever construct a place of eternal torment where “good” people would go – just because they didn’t choose to accept Christ. Unthinkable! And so we dismiss the idea and go on in our goodness.
Good brother, what if you come to the end of time and discover that your goodness is pitifully short. What if proposing your goodness, your sufficiency to God is as ridiculous as trying to leap the Niagara gorge with a running start. And God knows it and he sees people every day lining up to try to make that leap on their own.
Basing their lives on what they have heard and refusing to accept the clear truths of scripture. Perhaps you are too educated or enlightened to trust the Word. There has never been an enduring human treatise to match the durability of the Word of God. Go ahead write a better truth. Find someone who will publish the ideas that you spout from your imagination every day. The ideas that you are willing to base your eternal well-being on. Go ahead and line up and get a good start and launch yourself from the precipice of this life. You going to make that jump. It will be okay with God. You’re gonna make it, you’re gonna make it! But it’s a long jump. An Olympic athlete could launch himself 30 feet or so off the precipice but the drop is just as severe regardless of how far you are able to propel yourself from the edge and the end is the same – death – forever!
And this is the fate that awaits the person who is prepared to deal with God based on what the have heard. You might have heard it in church or at the water cooler or in some classroom. You might have been taught it by some educated person, lining up to take the leap.
I wonder if we would hear a different story from those who have tried and fallen short. I suspect so.
The Greek word for sin is “hamartia”. It really means nothing more or less than “falling short.” It’s not a reference to the degree of good or bad that your life represents. It’s simply a concept that we have heard forever and never understood. It’s just something that is meant to tell us that we don’t have enough gas in the tank to make it on our own.
Roxie French used to live on Swallow Tail Light. I used to ask her if it was foggy on the previous night. She didn't remember. She lived closer to the horn than anyone else and she couldn't hear.
Your faith will grow as large as the container in which you maintain it
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a Or Messiah
a Isaiah 53:1
b Isaiah 6:10
[1]The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984 . Zondervan: Grand Rapids
a Traditionally judge; also in verses 6 and 20
b Septuagint; Hebrew young men
[2] The Holy Bible : New International Version. 1996, c1984. Zondervan: Grand Rapids