SEEPAGE

There are things that seep into our consciousness that do so without examination. It's as if we admit ideas into our minds without the proper papers. We hear something that sounds good, but we don't examine its qualifications for admittance into our lives. For the Christian, there is only one qualification for admittance into the thinking of the church: it must square with the Bible.

There are many things in many areas to which we give no thought. For example, let's look at the English language, a language which is difficult for the foreigner. I wonder if you've ever thought of the fact that we pronounce a vowel in English differently, depending on whether it's "long" or "short." Have you ever thought that it would be a lot simpler if we had a letter for a "short" A and a different letter for a "long" A and all the other vowels, but no, we don't.

Or how about this: when you're writing or talking, do you have to consciously think, "Do I use 'a' or 'an' in front of 'boy?' Do I say, 'an boy' or do I say 'a boy?'" We don't have to give a nanosecond's thought to the question, do we? We don't have to think about the rule of grammar governing the use of "a" or "an," we just write or say the word with the proper article, no thought given. If we had to think of the grammatical rule for the use of "a" or "an," it would make for some mighty boring and lengthy conversations while we each waited for the other to remember and apply the rule in every sentence.

SEEPAGE OF A MYTH: HOW? WHY?

There are ideas that seep into our churches without the proper papers. The seepage may be because 1) it sounds good or 2) it's been repeated so often and so much that we just accept it or 3) my parents believed it, so I do too, i. e. traditionalism, 4) my pastor believed it.

THE MYTH

OK. Our study of English grammar is over. Our look at the "Why" and "How" is over. Let's get to the myth, which is, "You have to earn the right to witness." By that statement, the myth says that we have to earn our right into someone's life before we can tell them the good news of Christ.

Is that concept anywhere in the Bible? If it is, I haven't yet found it. I've found the opposite. The Ethiopian had no relationship with Phillip the hitch hiker he picked up as he read Isaiah 53. Paul had no relationship with Felix or Sergius Paulus. Paul didn't have to earn the right to speak to the academics in Athens. Peter had never met Cornelius, his family, or his slaves, but he wasn't to wait until he earned the right (or as is sometimes said, "Live the life before them") to tell them about Jesus.

Francis of Assisi is attributed with the following quote which promotes the myth: "Preach the gospel at all times and when necessary use words." I Corinthians 15 shows us that to communicate the gospel, we must use words to tell people that Christ, the God/Man, died for their sins and rose from the dead and that those who trust Him alone have everlasting life. We can't give the gospel apart from words. Forget Francis.

In the Parable of the Sower and the Seed, the Sower threw the seed all over the place; there was no discrimination in the casting. Jesus met the woman at the well, the blind man at the Pool of Bethesda, and upon that first contact, He told them the good news. Paul wrote, "I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish." To  discharge that debt, he went into the synagogues and the forums to throw the seed of the gospel to one and all, whether he had built a relationship with them or not. He hadn't in most cases. On one occasion, he even wanted to enter a mob to give them the gospel. He had built no friendship with the mob.

No, we don't have to earn the right to speak to others about Christ. Christ gave us the right to do so. 

In over 2,000 of church history, there's been a lot of seepage. For every concept seeing admittance to the thinking of the church, we need to ask for its papers.

  

COINCIDENCE?

History contains some strange events. Take 1953 for example. In February of that year, the brutal dictator Joseph Stalin had announced a plan of his devilish concoction. The plan concerned the Jews in Soviet Russia. Stalin planned to get rid of them. (Remember, this would be just a few years after the Holocaust in Nazi Germany killed millions of Jews in Europe.)

Stalin called in 25 members of the Soviet Presidium in February 1953, and announced that he planned to send all Russian Jews  a designated place more than 3,000 miles Moscow. He told the group that he was doing this because of his "discovery" of a Jewish plot against the Soviet Union and against him personally.

We know that dictators are like some preachers; they stand six feet above contradiction. But one man at the meeting, V. M. Molotov, the Soviet Foreign Minister–who had a Jewish wife–said in a trembling voice that such deportation would have a deplorable effect on world opinion.

This was a bold move and an even bolder statement against the dictator whose name means "Steel." Tyrants are accustomed to unanimous votes. When Stalin made a pronouncement, the expected response was, "So let it be written. So let it be done."

Marshal Voroshilov threw his Communist Party card on the table and said: “If such a step is taken, I would be ashamed to remain a member of our party, which will be completely dishonored."

Now there were two brazen souls in the room, both opposing Stalin to his face and in front of others. This was intolerable. In the past, anyone who dared to do such a thing went to prison, to a slave labor camp, or disappeared. You can imagine the dictator's reaction: Stalin was in a rage of uncontrollable anger.  

Stalin didn't speak; he roared: “It is I who will decide when you no longer have the right to keep your membership card.”

Those who were there revealed later that the meeting fell into an uproar. Then a strange thing happened: Stalin fell to the floor, stricken. Lavrenti Beria, the chief of the secret police, jumped to his feet, danced around Stalin’s prostrate form, and shouted, “We are free. Finally! finally!” The doctors arrived a few minutes later and the dictator was taken to his private rooms.

That was February 1953. In less than 30 days, on March 5, 1953, Stalin died. The deportation of the Jews never happened.

Coincidence? Not according to the Abrahamic, the Palestinian, the Davidic, and the New Covenants. According to those promises and those given in the prophets and the Psalms to Israel, Israel is indestructible.

Again, the question. Coincidence? No way!

UNADULTERATED EVIL

It is a study in unadulterated evil, pure, without admixture. When people realized the full extent of its horror, it was on a scale unbelievable to many. It started slowly, planned and incremental, year by year, so the population at large wouldn't realize the depth of the deviltry. Such is the way the world works to cloak its intrigues.

1933: the Nazi party got what they wanted: power, and after that, their hatred of the Jews began to show itself. There were the public burning of books by Jewish authors, random violence against Jews and their property. The police and the courts turned a blind eye. For the Jews, there was no legal recourse. Boycotts emerged: people were told not to buy from Jewish merchants. Intimidating, uniformed men were placed outside the stores to prohibit customer entrance.

1934: a decree made it illegal for Jewish students to take their final exams to qualify in pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, and law. The party excluded Jews from the military.

1935: laws enacted against intermarriage with Jews.

1935-36: They banned Jews from parks, restaurants, and swimming pools. Jews lost the vote. Jews couldn't own electrical or optical equipment, bicycles, typewriters, or records. Jewish students began to be removed from the universities.

1938: They excluded Jews from going to the movies, theaters, beaches, concerts, and resorts. All female Jews were to add "Sarah" to their names and all males were to add "Israel" to theirs. It was on November 9, they attacked and murdered German and Austrian Jews, burned their synagogues, and broke the windows of Jewish stores. It was on that night that thousands of Jews were arrested. It was in this year that Jewish children were expelled from the schools. Jewish passports began to be stamped with a scarlet letter, "J." Many passports were revoked.

1939: It becomes illegal for a Jew to own a radio and they are confiscated. All Jews are now under a curfew.

1940: It becomes illegal for a Jew to own a telephone. No Jew can own a ration card for clothing.

1941: All Jews over 6 must wear a yellow Star of David accompanied by the word, "Jew." No Jew can use a public telephone, own a dog, a cat, or a bird. No Jew can leave the country.

1942: Jews must hand over their fur coats and woolen goods. No Jew can receive eggs or milk. Blind and deaf Jews cannot wear armbands which identify them to traffic. All schools now closed to Jewish children.

We can stop there. The list of "Jews Can't" was long and deadly, comprised of 2,000 decrees. Yes, 2,000. Of course, eventually came the Nazi death camps. Once Eisenhower liberated those camps, he had them photographed for the historical record and made the Germans tour their horrors because he understood that someday, there would be those who would declare the horrors a hoax. He was right.

So, today, to carelessly hurl the insult of "Nazi" at just any political opponent is to trivialize the horror and the monsters who passed those 2,000 laws and initiated "The Final Solution." It is to insult the Jewish people.

Today, it shows the depths Satan will go to destroy the Jews, but God has declared His ancient people,  "Indestructible." That's a declaration the gentile nations have ignored, an ignoring going way back to ancient Egypt.