BURNING BRIDGES

The Mike Curb Congregation (they had nothing to do with a church) sang a song in a 1970 hit movie, a song called "Burning Bridges." To use the sophisticated terminology of musicians, it's a tune that can be described as "catchy." (I like to toss around technical terms.) The lyrics of "Burning Bridges" always bring to my mind Jesus' description of a man no longer on this earth, but separated from God forever and ever.  Read the lyrics and see if they remind you of Luke 16:19-31.

Friends all tried to warn me
But I held my head up high
All the time they warned me
But I only passed them by

They all tried to tell me
But I guess I didn't care
I turned my back and 
Left them standing there

All the burning bridges that have fallen after me
All the lonely feelings and the burning memories
Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door
Burning bridges lost forevermore

Years have passed and I keep thinking
What a fool I've been
I look back into the past and
Think of way back then
I know that I lost everything I thought I that could win
I guess I should have listened to my friends

All the burning bridges that have fallen after me
All the lonely feelings and the burning memories
Everyone I left behind each time I closed the door
Burning bridges lost forevermore

Burning bridges lost forevermore

THE REQUEST

In Jesus' account, the man is in a place of eternal torment; his memory is intact; he remembers his family, the brothers he loves and wants them to be warned not to suffer the fate he is. He asks that a miracle occur and through that miracle, they hear the truth, the truth of the gospel. 

But the answer is, "No," and for a good reason: if they don't believe the Bible, they won't believe Lazarus sent back from the dead because Lazarus would only say what the Bible says.

BURNING BRIDGES 

Using our sanctified imaginations, we see that with his memory unimpaired, he can think about the bridges he burned in his lifetime when he had opportunities to be as Abraham and David were, justified by faith. 

We note that he burned the bridges, and that people are burning their bridges today, bridges God has instituted to draw all men to Himself (John 12:32--"And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to Myself.”) There are six bridges:

1. The bridge of creation which testifies 24/7 to God's existence. (Rom. 1; Ps. 19)
2. The bridge of the concept of eternity in the human DNA. (Ecc. 3)
3. The bridge of the Bible, His complete and connected thought toward man. 
4. The bridge of His Son to provide the payment for our sins by His death on the cross, a public death of which Paul said, "This was not done in a corner."
5. The bridge of the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. 
6. The bridge of various Christians God puts in the path of the unbeliever. These are the friends who "tried to warn" him, the ones who "tried to tell"him, but he "didn't care." He "turned his back and left them standing there." They were the "everyone" he "left behind" "each time he closed the door." 

In our sanctified imaginations, we can hear the man in torment declare, "All the burning bridges that have fallen after me/All the lonely feelings and the burning memories/Years have passed and I keep thinking/What a fool I've been/I look back into the past and/Think of way back then/I know that I lost everything I thought I that could win/I guess I should have listened to my friends. Burning bridges lost forever more."

ONE LAST TIME

To engage our sanctified imaginations a bit longer . . . would it change you if, for ten minutes, you could hear the screams in hell? 

HIGH NOON IN THE SUNDAY SCHOOL

We're in a Sunday school class and in that class are some who are hostile to grace. Their gifted, gracious, and humble teacher has been teaching that salvation comes by faith alone in Christ alone,  but they aren't buying it.  Instead of accepting the Bible's clear teaching, they're angry and their anger shows. It's growing weekly.

HOW TO EMPTY A CHURCH

There's one way to empty a church and a Sunday school class--start teaching what salvation is and what it is not. The what-it-is-not-part will especially do the emptying and leave those who don't leave marinating in their anger. To explain what the gospel is not, the teacher makes it clear that salvation does NOT come by faith in Christ PLUS a hodgepodge of works such as abandoning sin, baptism, putting Christ on the throne of your life, walking an aisle, praying through, confession of sins, and making this or that vow. It is when some hear what the good news is not, then the clash begins.

One lady in the class has had enough and already left the class. Another has sworn that the youth under her auspices will never be exposed to such teaching.

Many of the ones who remain in the grace class sit there every Sunday thinking, "Surely a person has to do something for salvation, doesn't he? Surely he has to abandon his sins, doesn't he?" (Somehow, it never occurs to them that neither they nor anyone else in this life has ever abandoned sin.)

THE REAL ISSUE

One Sunday, what's really bothering them craw-deep finally comes boiling to the surface, and, like Mt. Vesuvius hurling rocks and ash 20 miles into the atmosphere in 79 AD, two people in the group express why they're so angry.

They fume, "Our parents never believed this [faith alone in Christ alone]!" By that admission, they're expressing the sentiments of others (not all) in the class.

There we have it--their parents! They're middle-aged (or above) and their parents are still controlling them. Way down deep inside, they have a really huge problem--their authority isn't the Bible; it's their parents, not Christ and His word. Instead of imitating the noble Bereans and searching the New Testament to see that Christ and the Apostles condition salvation on faith alone over 150 times, they've rejected the grace message out of hand because their parents are ruling them from the grave.

Although they've memorized John 3:16, they're so spiritually blind that they can't see there are no works in the verse. Not one. Some have the New Testament requirements for discipleship mixed into the gospel. Others have the Ten Commandments and the Golden rule in it. They can't even discuss the matter because the "discussion" consists of their repeating the same memorized phrases over and over again. After that, they begin to level personal attacks. Brush fires are erupting all over the place.

Like a pack of Ismaels on the loose, they're attacking Isaac and it all goes back to their parents and, upon examination, to their grandparents, truth be told. Mom and Dad rule them from the grave.

Their number is legion inside and outside the church, they are the tares among the wheat. Grace sounds foolish to them, even moronic; they ridicule it (I Cor. 1:18, 23).

The question: Is someone ruling you from the grave?

THERE'S NO FREEDOM OF SPEECH IN HEAVEN

Free speech is a huge issue today, huge to the point that it's being questioned and, in some cases, opposed if it's deemed, "hate speech." Universities ban certain speakers from their campuses if their views are not deemed politically correct. In addition, there are those whose speech is censored if someone deems himself offended by it, thus "offensive" is defined subjectively by the hearer. Our American heritage from the Bill of Rights is staunchly opposed to such encroachments.

But did you know that there's no freedom of speech in heaven--no boasting.

Eph. 2:8-9 declares: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast." Elsewhere, Paul writes, "For the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. Where then is boasting? It is excluded. By what kind of law? Of works? No, but by a law of faith."  

"For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God" (Romans 4:2). "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,  so that no man may boast before God" (I Cor. 1:27-29). 

Jeremiah 9:23-24: but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong, and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,  so that no man may boast before God."

Do you get the idea? God hates boasting.

THE FIRST BOAST IN THE UNIVERSE


Lucifer was the first to boast, and, interestingly enough, his bragging concerned five things he planned to do:

‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’

PAUL'S PROPENSITY

Paul had an area of weakness in his sin nature: a propensity to brag. This bent toward bragging was a serious matter, so serious that God blocked it and Paul was honest about what God did. He describes it in II Corinthians 12:7: "Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself!" That's what bragging is, it's "exalting myself," and wasn't that what Satan did? Bragging is such a serious affront to God that its prevention necessitated a thorn in the flesh for Paul.

IT'S OURS TOO

We are so curved in on ourselves, bragging wasn't only Paul's problem; it's ours. To listen to some preachers/missionaries/evangelists, everyone they come in contact with trusts Christ as Savior or finds himself "put down" by his keen intellect. Then there are those who never let us forget that they overcame smoking or some other bad habit; they incessantly tell us of the riches they accumulated because they were such good Christians that they tithed the gross and not the net. (Yet, truth be told, their largess came in spite of their tithing.)

IT'S ALL OVER THE PLACE

Every political campaign is one boast after another. This candidate is gong to "Bring us together.Another is going to "Make America Great Again," Then that one will bring "Hope and Change." The next one is going to send us to college and make others pay our tuition. There's an old saying for someone who overestimates himself: "He believes all his geese are swans."

Our sports heroes sorely lack a Lou Gehrig humility. It's catching. Those we make our pop culture heroes tear down their barns to build bigger and more impressive ones; they buy a new car or two every time they change their socks. Their want their possessions to do the bragging for them. Their conspicuous consumptions are their silent boasts.

THE BOWER BIRD

The male bower bird is so desperate for female attention that he builds an elaborate nest with incredible skill, featuring incredible colors. The birds use trash and garbage to create beautiful works of art. They choose objects of brilliant blues and whites, things colorful with which to build their bower.

All of this is to attract attention and it works. Such is the human race with it's innate desire to say, "Hey! Look at me! And while you're looking, I'll tell you all about me." It reminds me of the author who was going on and on about his accomplishments and his plans. Finally, he said to his friend, "Well, that's enough about me. What do you think about my latest book?"

NO IMMUNITY

No one of us is immune. I was once in the home of a very fine Christian man, a preacher/speaker/writer well-known in Christian circles and whenever I was with him (very rarely), I always enjoyed his company and his keen wit. Once, while visiting with him in his home, he asked me a really, really strange question: "Would you like to see the place where I mail my books from?" (I silently pardoned his ending a sentence with a preposition.)

I had given him no hint that I was interested in his postal affairs; they seemed mundane and inane to me anyway. Matters of the USPS aren't of consequence to me.

I wondered why I needed to see the place of mailing, but agreed. So we made our way through the house into his garage. Sure enough, there were the books he'd written and the postage meter on which he weighed the packages and by which he affixed the proper postage. His garage was his post office, but that wasn't a big deal to me, or anyone else, most likely. Yawn.

But I suspect that's not what he really wanted me to see in that garage because in the garage from which he mailed the books was his car, a "Car" with a capital C. But what a person drives is wasted on me--I don't know anything about cars and I don't care anything about cars (except when mine has a problem). They mean nothing to me, so it was a wasted trip into the garage.

I think he wanted me to see his new BMW convertible (or whatever it was) so it could be a silent brag, one that exalted its owner. It didn't work because he didn't know how little attention I pay to automotive trinkets, his or anyone's. (But I would pay maximum attention had he taken me into his garage and shown me Mickey Mantle's autographed bat or Roger Staubach's cleats!) 

Like I said, he was a mighty fine fellow and a true servant of the Lord, but he, like we all, have that inbred bower bird tendency to exalt ourselves or certainly, at the very least, we crave to do so.

God will not allow boasting in heaven. (Without our sin natures, we won't even think of such a thing.) His plan of salvation won't allow it--we just receive by faith, without cost to us, the free gift of the work of His Son for us.

Instead of self-exaltation, we can practice today what we'll be doing in heaven by following the psalmist who wrote: "My soul will make its boast in the Lord." And the words of the wise man, "Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; A stranger, and not your own lips."

IT'S EVERYWHERE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Talk to any missionary, foreign or domestic, and he'll tell you, "It's everywhere. Everywhere I've been, it's there." It's in America; it's overseas in every foreign country, even in places that aren't countries. It's in Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Mormonism, and Islam, et al.

DO THE MATH

There are 1.5 billion Muslims worldwide. There are 1.2 billion Roman Catholics worldwide. There are 15 million Jews worldwide. There are 14 million Mormons worldwide. There are 50 countries which have a Muslim majority. By my admittedly rough count, there are 42 countries in which Roman Catholicism is dominant, going by the percentages of the populations.

THEREFORE: IT'S EVERYWHERE

What's everywhere? What's everywhere is the Satanic deception that salvation comes by works. From Judaism: "Salvation is open to all; people must observe and practice the ethical pattern of behavior as summarized in the Ten Commandments."

From Mormonism: "You are saved by grace after you've done all you can do."

From Roman Catholicism: "It is the grace of Christ alone that saves us by our cooperating with that grace in fulfilling the law of Christ," . . . "and we see faith also involves assent to God's truth, obedience to Him, and it must be working in love."

From Islam: "Live in such a way that's pleasing to Allah so that [you] might gain paradise."

THERE'S ONLY ONE

Biblical Christianity is unique: "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God;  not as a result of works, so that no one may boast."

"Because by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified in His sight; for through the Law comes the knowledge of sin. But now apart from the Law the righteousness of God has been manifested,
being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets, even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe; for there is no distinction." 

 "What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."

"And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life  without cost."

We could go on and on, but those texts suffice. Salvation is a gift. No one has ever had to work for a gift. If you work for a gift, it's wages, not a gift.

THE WORLDWIDE LIE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

So we see that Satan has disseminated a worldwide lie, just as Paul wrote, he has blinded the minds of men. He has billions of victims. That word, "victim," changes our attitude toward the unbeliever--he's a victim of satanic blinding, living in chains in the slave market of sin.

This blinding is the background of Paul's instructions to Timothy concerning the Christian's social skills: "The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged." The Christian teaches in kindness, teaching in kindness in person, in writing, and on the social media (which is better termed, "The Unsocial Media"). Note well that we're to exhibit patience with those we instruct, even when they wrong us.

We have way, way too many cantankerous Christians who love to quarrel. They aren't servants of Christ ("The Lords' bond servant must not be quarrelsome.") What are Paul's instructions in this text--"be kind to those who agree with you"? No. His instructions are, "be kind to all." We're to be kind, even to the unbeliever who's opposing us because we see what he can't see, we see what's going on behind the scenes--he's a victim of the deceiver. We then treat him accordingly.

JUST HOW WIDESPREAD IS IT?

I was reading an author who was proclaiming that salvation is free. Absolutely free. Totally free. He emphasized that only Christianity offered salvation free and clear, a gift. And then he came to his dramatic conclusion. (Are you ready for this?) To get that absolutely, totally free salvation, he wrote,  "Turn from your sin." Wait. What?

It's everywhere.