FRIENDS DON'T LET FRIENDS

Sometimes we notice a church sign standing stately in the front of the building and we see the announcement that next Sunday is "Friend Day," at which time the members are to invite and bring a friend to church next Sunday so that he can see the church in action.

In preparation for the big day, 20% of the members assemble on Saturday and give the building a good cleansing, all the better to make a good impression. The members also plan an after church lunch for one and all immediately following the Friend Day service. They plan special music for that service and make certain the choir is all spruced up and practiced up, robes and voices at the ready.

Friend Day comes and all goes well. The members congratulate themselves on how smoothly the service went and the friends go home after seeing the church in action.

Or have they?

No, not really because the friends are not at the real meeting of the church, the one meeting during which a friend would really get to see the church in action. What the friends have seen is the church give a performance for their benefit, a charade, if you please, but not the real church.

A RADICAL PROPOSAL

I propose that to be really honest, a church should have its Friend Day, but so the visitor can see the real church, Friend Day should be, "Invite a friend to the business meeting." That's where they'll see the real church in action. And what would they see?

AN EYE AND EAR FULL

The first thing they'd hear would be the calling of roll, and on occasion laughter which they'd recognize as nervous laughter because the members know what's coming. Then, as the meeting progressed, they'd see the assembled brotherhood and the sisterhood begin to tear each other apart with the intensity of a cougar pursuing an antelope.

They'd hear members insulting one another and slandering one another as they threw accusations all over the auditorium. They would see member-against-member voting on the most petty of issues as if they were voting to dissolve the Union. They would see emotionalism run riot in the same auditorium in which, not an hour earlier, they had sung together and prayed together. In the process, they'd see brothers and sisters manipulating each other, threatening each other, and bullying each other to get their way. At times, they'd see a furious member who didn't get her way storm out the building, slamming doors along the way for emphasis, an example of wooden swearing.

They would hear a member or two quote "Robert's Rules of Order," the church by-laws, and the church constitution, but they wouldn't hear any one quote the Bible. The friends would notice that the members only quote the constitution and the by-laws when those hallowed documents favor their position, but fall silent when they don't. They are masters at using and abusing both the ancient documents.

AFTER BURN

Then when the smoke has cleared and they're leaving the unholy sanctuary, they would see people who've been needlessly hurt beyond belief; they would hear a few members swearing an oath before God and the angels that they will never attend another business meeting as long as they live.

Yet, should the friend go back to attend the church service the next Sunday, he would see the people bloodied from the previous Sunday's battle sitting in church, acting as if nothing had happened, but on the inside grudges and anger are festering in the swamps of their sin natures and their defeated power lusts. 

What's happened at the meeting is that the Bible has had no power over the meeting because the members have been raised to think that the Bible is for "church," but not for any other meeting. Yet business meetings are covered by the Bible in such texts as, "Let all things be done for edification," "build up one another," "avoid idle chatter," and "love one another," along with a host of other verses.

What's happened at the meeting is that sin natures have run amok, as each person or group craves the power to run the church. Church power is a heady wine, so powerful, each enters the business meeting with the motto, "I'll run it or ruin it."

Friends don't let friends go to business meetings.

THE RIGID RIGHT ARMS IN WEST VIRGINIA

December 7, 1941:the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and immediately a wave of patriotic fervor sweeps American towns and cities, farms, and every hearth and home. And rightly so. As WWII progresses, Americans will endure gas, food, sugar, meat, and rubber rationing. They will plant victory gardens and collect scrap metal door to door.

One month after the attack on Pearl Harbor, on January 9, 1942, the Board of Education in West Virginia adopts this resolution: "[As] a regular part of the program of activities in the public schools," all teachers and pupils shall be required to participate in the salute honoring the Nation represented by the Flag; provided, however, refusal to salute the Flag be regarded as an Act of insubordination, and shall be dealt with accordingly."

OBEY, OR ELSE

Failure to comply was insubordination and meant expulsion. Readmission was denied until the student complied. This expulsion automatically exposed the child and the parents to criminal prosecution; the expelled child was unlawfully absent and could be charged as a delinquent, and their parents or guardians could be fined as much as $50 and jailed up to thirty days.

 ENTER THE CULT

This is where a cult enters the picture, one with which we disagree concerning the fundamentals of the faith. The Jehovah's Witnesses have as one of their tenets that they neither salute the flag nor recite the Pledge of Allegiance. The salute prescribed by the resolution was a stiff-armed salute by the outstretched right arm toward the flag. There is a picture from back in 1942, of students standing with raised right arms rigid, reciting the pledge.

 The cult bases this erroneous belief on Exodus 20:4-5. They bring suit against the West Virginia resolution, one which goes all the way to the Supreme Court. Their lawyers argue that to obey the law, the authorities would be forcing them to violate their conscience and lie.
On June 14, 1943, Flag Day, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its ruling which included the following eloquent words: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confessor by word or act their faith therein."

WHAT WOULD THE FOUNDERS THINK?

James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, and Thomas Jefferson would have been pleased, although they would have disagreed with the basis on which the cult refused to salute and pledge. James Madison said it well in a letter to his friend and confidant, Thomas Jefferson: "I flatter myself [that we] have in this country extinguished forever the hope of making laws for the human mind."

But did Madison speak too soon? Forever is a long time.

In October 2015, California Governor Jerry Brown signs "The Reproductive FACT Act." The law forces pro-life clinics and medical clinics licensed by the state to tell women where to obtain abortions. Additionally, a document with this information was to be posted and/or distributed at the clinic. What we see in this law is what Madison, Jefferson, and the other framers of the Constitution feared: enacting law for the human mind. By this act, pro-life clinics are forced to advertise and promote a practice against their beliefs and the reason they founded the organization in the first place, i. e. it was the enactment and enforcement of a law for the human mind.

This reminds us of the Romans who forced the Christians to burn incense to the Emperor as one of the gods or face the consequences. Everyone, Christians included, had to agree, that the Emperor was a god because this tenet bound the Empire together. This was the making of a law for the human mind. Agree or face the music.

PUT DOWN YOUR GUN

How different is Christianity! It's spread doesn't come by force, but by persuasion: "Therefore, since we know the fear of the Lord, we try to persuade others . . ." Christ made it crystal clear that His kingdom would not advance by force when He commanded Peter, "Put up your sword" in the Garden of Gethsemane when the arresting party came for Him. Rather than fight, when Paul saw that he wasn't wanted in a city, he left. His motto was, "Some will, some won't, who's next?"

Madison congratulated himself and Jefferson for their extinguishing forever the hope of making laws for the human mind. But as it turns out, although they did so for a long, long time, when Madison wrote "forever," he chose the wrong word.

THE SECOND WORST GOSPEL TRACT IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

A tract is “a piece of writing expressing a strong belief, usually about religion or politics.” By their very nature, tracts are short, to the point and can be read in only a few minutes. The tract has a venerable history, going back to the 13th century which would predate Gutenberg and his printing press. Grace believers put tracts into play in order to disseminate the teachings of John Wycliffe before Gutenberg rocked the world.

HE CAME, HE WENT, HE WAS GONE

Tracts come in various sizes, some look cheap--cheap paper, cheesy graphics, and cheap printing, any one of which can be turn-offs to the reader. Others are well done, high tech, slick, in the good sense of the word. Such was the tract that came into my hands the other day while I was having a pleasant chat with a few folks. We were standing around engaging in conversation when a man walked up, put a slick-looking booklet in my hand, saying, "My wife wanted me to give you this." I didn't know him or his wife, but being polite, I said, "Thank you," and he was gone. Poof!

THE CARTOON MAN

I put the tract in my pocket and didn't give it another thought until I had time to take a look at it. On the cover I saw a large oval shape which hit almost the top and almost the bottom of the cover. Inside the oval were the words, "THE EMPTY SPOT," designed to look like someone printed them on the cover by hand. It was appealing to the eye.

On each of its 14 pages there's one and only sentence with a cartoon above it which depicts the content of the sentence. Each sentence describes an empty spot. The first sentence says, "Everyone who is born into the world has an empty spot on the inside." There's a color cartoon drawing of a man with a hole in his chest where his heart should be and an arrow to the side naming the hole as "EMPTY SPOT."

I thought about Augustine's famous quote, "Thou has made us for thyself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee." (Augustine lived from 354-430 A.D.) The next page shows a man standing over the sentence, "Sometimes this empty spot makes you feel lonely." He has a hole in his chest with "ES" inside the circle.

The next pages have a single sentence describing the empty spot in the chest which people try to fill with marriages, food, money, work, travel, or drugs.

ENTER A HAPPY LOOKING PERSON WITH A BIBLE

Then, near the end of the tract, the one with the empty spot meets "a happy looking person" who hands him a Bible and says, "Please read this." On the next page, we see the man with the empty spot is reading, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock, if anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him." (Rev. 3:20) We note that the speaker who's standing at the door and knocking is not identified.

THE CLIMAX

The next cartoon is climactic: the man with the hole in his chest is on his knees, saying, "Oh, Jesus, now I understand!! I open the door to my empty spot, please come in and fill it up with your spirit." (Some how, although not specified in the tract, the man has connected the Man knocking and speaking with Jesus.)

The next to the last page shows the man who now has the Holy Spirit in the empty spot and is now  smiling, holding the Bible standing over the words, "This person will never be empty again. The beginning of eternal life not THE End."

On the last page, the reader finds printed the words of Romans 10:9-10, Ephesians 2:8-9, and Romans 6:23.

And that's the end of the second worst tract in the English language.

WHAT'S SO BAD?

Why is this tract so bad? Because all the elements of the gospel that a person must know and understand aren't there. From the Bible, we know that a person must know and understand that Jesus is God and true humanity. Romans 10:9-10 identifies Jesus as God, but there is no mention of His humanity in the tract.

Why is this tract so bad? Because the death of Christ for our sins is nowhere found in the tract. The reader, going by the tract, has no knowledge of, nor understanding of, the fact that Christ died for his sins. The tract never mentions sin, only it only talks about loneliness. The cross and the interpretation of what happened there are nowhere to be found in the tract. The tract has told the cartoon man that God raised Jesus from the dead when it included Romans 10:10, but the man doesn't know why He died and what that death accomplished.The tract has substituted loneliness as man's problem instead of sin.

Why is this tract so bad? Because the man wants someone to solve his loneliness, not his sin problem, being lonely isn't a sin. Instead of confronting the man with his real problem and pointing him to trusting Christ's substitutionary atonement, the tract tells him to open the door to his empty spot and invite Jesus to fill it with His spirit.

LET'S GO TO THE BIBLE

Where in the world do we find such an evangelistic invitation in John's gospel or in the book of Acts? We don't find such an invitation in either one of those books because nowhere do the Apostles tell people to ask Jesus to come into their empty spot and fill it with His spirit. The Revelation text quoted is addressed to a church of people who are already saved, so it's not a statement telling us how to have eternal life; it's a verse dealing with fellowship with the Savior.

Unfortunately many believers will read the tract and read into it the five elements of the correct gospel presentation (Jesus is God, Jesus is true humanity, Jesus died for our sins, Jesus rose from the dead, and salvation is by faith in Christ and Christ alone) by assumption, but they all aren't there. The only conclusion we can come to is that this "gospel" is a gospel that has never and will never save anyone.

Why is this tract the second worst gospel tract in the English language? Because, although I don't know what the first worst one is, it must exist.

I ""TELL" YOU, I REALLY DON'T CARE

We often throw our words around as carelessly as we change socks. We talk about loving those out there in the proverbial "lost and dying world" and we say that we really, really care about its denizens. It's the acceptable thing to say in church circles and we feel good when we do. But most times the phrase rings like a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal, because, although we say we really, really care, we don't and it shows.

THE BRAIN TRUST

I was in a meeting of the brain trust of a local church, otherwise known as a deacons' meeting. One of the men who had never, for the long, long time I'd known him, witnessed to anyone at any time concerning Christ. Never ever, although he was in church every Sunday, did he venture out across the moat to tell a non-Christian about Christ. As a matter of fact, he didn't cotton to missions conferences and once said, reflecting his own opinion, "Nobody's interested in them."

Yet, at this meeting of the distinguished gentry, he said, "There's lost and dying world out there," as if he really, really cared. He didn't; it was just another cliche he'd picked up from all the years he'd stamped his DNA on the pew.

THE TELL 

The non-Christian is perceptive; he knows that although most say they really, really care about him, they really, really don't. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to sense when someone doesn't care. One needs no special insight to do that. There are little "tells" that give our attitude away. (A tell in poker--so I'm told-- is a change in a player's behavior or demeanor that gives clues to that player's assessment of their hand. The gambler doesn't any more know that he's inadvertently communicating to others through a tell than the believer realizes his tells are communicating his true attitude to the non-Christian.

THE TELL SPECIFICALLY

There are various tells the non-Christian can spot, easily, quickly, no matter what you're saying. I recently was talking to a salesman and I was in the store because I had a list of three questions I needed answered and I'd had made a special trip to the store to ask them. Every time I asked a question, he answered it, but there was this tell was in his tone--he was abrupt, curt, blunt, and dismissive. Since I wasn't there to buy anything, but only to ask questions about a product, there was no commission for him in our interaction. His tone was indicating his true attitude: "Let's move on and get this over with." It was so bad, I wanted to move on and get this over with too.

Another tell that you don't care is to talk down to the unbeliever as if he's stupid. He picks up on this tell quickly. I once heard a pastor say to his radio audience, "Now get your little pea-sized brain working and listen to me." I turned turned the radio off immediately. Or when a speaker habitually says, "Now listen . . . now listen , , , listen," as if he were talking to a first grade class. Or when the preacher yells his sermon, he's showing that he doesn't care about the listener; he'd rather be falsely dramatic. Lecturing is yet one more tell. People, more often than not, are open to having an intelligent conversation (what the N. Testament calls a "dialogue"), but lecturing is condescending.

The tells continue when we dismiss their story, their hopes, their dreams, acting and speaking as if they're of no consequence. They may not be important to us; they may as temporal as all get-out, but they are important to the other person and he needs to see that we value him by listening, not thinking of our next clever response to put him down so we can brag at the next church service about how we put him in his place.

HE CARED

Jesus sat at the well of the Samaritan woman, gave her the courtesy of an extended conversation. With Nicodemus, there was a nighttime appointment with honesty and clarity. Jesus went to people; He sought them; He invited people to come to Him, children too. An overlooked aspect of evangelism is doing what Jesus did with the Samaritan woman; He sat by her well.