CHRISTIANS DON'T TRUST EACH OTHER

Christians don't trust each other? Believe it or not, it's true; we don't. Not only that, but we even put it in our church constitutions and/or by-laws that we don't trust each other. Anyone who's interested in seeing it can do so by reading almost any church's by-laws or by punishing themselves and attending a church business meeting.

Let's go back to 1863, to a business meeting held in a church, one which gave birth to a guidebook that's plagued multiplied thousands of churches ever since. It all started when Henry Martyn Robert was an engineering officer in the Regular Army. Without warning, he was asked to preside over a meeting and realized that he didn't know how. He tried anyway and his embarrassment was supreme. This event left him determined never to attend another meeting until he had read and mastered parliamentary procedure. He did and published in February1876 what we know as "Robert's Rules of Order." (RRO)

Few have read RRO, but when the meeting starts, whoever oversees the meeting using RRO controls who makes motions from the floor and how a motion is tabled. He decides who has the authority to say when a motion is out of order. He knows when you can cut off a discussion and when you may vote. Whoever controls the RRO controls the meeting. The person who controls RRO is the person who knows exactly what they are and how they work to control a meeting.

Robert was so discouraged after that meeting, he said, "One can scarcely have had much experience in deliberative meetings of Christians without realizing that the best of men, having wills of their own, are liable to attempt to carry out their own views without paying sufficient respect to the rights of their opponents." If Christians loved each other and trusted each other, they wouldn't need Robert to darken and dampen any meeting.

Have you ever read RRO? Most people haven’t, which is a problem because the person who knows the rules may not have the best interest of the church in mind, or worse yet, he may be a carnal believer or an immature one.

Here's the heart-wrenching testimony of one man: "A friend called me a couple of years ago after a church business meeting.  In tears, he told of the ungodly things said among the people of God. He told me about the personal attacks that took place.  He told me of the name-calling, the cursing, and the selfishness that pervaded the entire meeting.

"He asked me what I thought went wrong.

"I asked him to describe how the meeting started.  Taken aback, he said, "The beginning of the meeting was fine. Later it turned ugly. I asked him to describe it in detail.  He finally shared the piece of information that I was looking for.

"After praying, a moderator took the platform, grasped the pulpit with his hands and then told the people of God that they would conduct their meeting according to Robert’s Rules of Order.

"My response to the caller was that the church business meeting didn’t have a chance for success when they relied more on Robert’s Rules of Order than they did on the Word of God.  Many would argue that you need structure and systems in meetings like these, and I would agree, but the Bible has plenty of instructions on that matter.

"God says to regard one another as more important than yourself (Phil. 2:3-4).  God says not to let any unwholesome word come out of your mouth (Eph. 4:29).  God says to respect and to honor spiritual leaders (Heb. 13:17).  God says there is an order about a confrontation in the church (Matt. 18:15).  And so much more!

"What needs to happen in many American churches is that they get rid of Robert and put Jesus back in his rightful place!  Robert didn’t die on the cross for your sins, so I would let the one who did say how the people of God should conduct themselves.

"I don’t know how many church business meetings you have attended.  You may be at a church where that doesn’t happen.  You may be at a church where the business meeting is the thing that has the most attendance.  Whatever your situation may be, don’t allow our culture or the words of man to dictate how you conduct yourselves.

"Let God’s Word be the standard by which we live. Which book guides your church’s business meetings?" The Bible? Captain Robert's 699-pages of rules? The church always shoots itself in the foot when it borrows from the world. It's like trashing fine china and replacing it with paper plates.

What Robert did was to treat the symptoms and not the cause of the disastrous meeting. The rules were an aspirin; the symptoms would return meeting after meeting with the cause never addressed.

In II Peter, we read that believers have all they need to live a godly life. If that's true, why do churches incorporate RRO?

If Christians love each other and in loving each other, they, therefore, trust each other, then RRO are out of order.

THOMAS JEFFERSON AND THE 10TH COMMANDMENT

Thomas Jefferson was emphatic: religious freedom is important. Jefferson believed that such liberty came from God, as he eloquently stated, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."

Jefferson held firmly to the belief that the state should not sanction an official, established religion. But in his state, Virginia, the Anglican church was both an established and an official religion to which, by law, Virginians paid taxes. It was against the law for a citizen of Virginia whose motto was and is, "Sic Semper Tyrannis,” meaning “Thus Always to Tyrants,” to disseminate beliefs the Anglican church deemed unorthodox.

You might think that the Declaration of Independence took care of that matter and Virginia's tyrannical religious dictates were gone with Jerrson's pen. But such wasn't the case. The taxes and the laws remained on the books for a while.

The thinking behind the First Amendment to the Constitution was, is, and forever should be, "No one can make you profess or support ideas or teachings you don't believe." That amendment, standing number 1in the Constitution, says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech . . ."

You can think whatever thoughts you like and say whatever you believe to be true. To put it another way, contrary to old Virginia's laws, you have a right to be wrong, a right to think wrong thoughts and a right to express those thoughts, but you do not have the right to force people to think the way you think and to force people to express beliefs that you express.

In George Orwell's 1984, he foresaw a tyrannical government of Big Brother that made its citizens think only the approved thoughts, called, "Doublethink," (the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them as true.) The citizens could say only the approved thoughts with only the approved words called "Newspeak." To think differently was a thought crime.

John Milton would have agreed with the First Amendment. He wrote, "Truth . . . is the proper and sufficient antagonist to error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict unless by human interposition disarmed of the natural weapons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be dangerous when it is permitted freely to contradict them."

To the thoughts of Jefferson and Milton, we would say with Sherlock Holmes in the movies, "Of course. That's elementary, my dear Watson." But we live in a day in which it would be difficult to find a college president, administrator, or professor who has the courage to express what Jefferson, Milton, and almost all the rest of us believe. The reason they don't have such courage is that they will be lynched via technology, harassed, howled down, assaulted, or even fired.

And what does all this have to do with Commandment Ten of the Mosaic Law? That commandment says, "Thou shall not covet." What's coveting? It's desiring what's not for sale or what you cannot legitimately have, such as "your neighbor's wife."You might want a Samsung 65 inch 4KHD TV, but that's not coveting. It becomes coveting when you want your neighbor's and it's not for sale.

When you read the Ten Commandments, you'll notice that they all carry a penalty but one. Break nine commands; pay the price. One command carries no penalty: the last one, "Thou shalt not covet." And why is it the only one that carries no penalty? Because it's a thought crime. Thought crimes aren't punishable. You have a right to be wrong. But you can't be punished for your thoughts.

Except in our day when the howling mob comes. The barbarians are not at the gates; they have crashed through the gates at full howl demanding that you think as they think and say what they say or face the consequences. You will be punished for thought crimes. The day grows darker.

 

SERIOUS BASEBALL

One area of theology has been under attack for a long, long time and no surcease is in sight. Because of a history of past and on-going attacks, even people inside our churches firmly hold to beliefs that have been declared heretical throughout church history.

Those filling up pew after pew aren't the only ones who are the heretics, albeit it silent ones; pastors, missionaries, and popular Christian authors hold to heretical ideas as well and propagate them all over the place. The problem is further complicated by the fact that, because folks are weak in two areas, church history and Christology, they have no idea that they're either falling for and/or promoting heresy.

An example of this occurs when well-meaning folks try to explain the Trinity with this illustration: I am a teacher and I am a father, and I am a husband--three different roles yet one person. This heresy is called modalism and has been around for a long time.

"Modalism rejects the Trinitarian belief that God exists at all times as three distinct persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Rather, the modalist believes that God is one person made known in three modes. In the Old Testament, God manifested Himself in the mode of the Father. With the incarnation, God manifested Himself in the mode of the Son. And following Jesus’s ascension, God made Himself known through the mode of the Holy Spirit.

"Problematically, modalism rejects that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit exist simultaneously, which means that modalists deny the distinctiveness of the three persons in the Trinity. This problem is compounded when you consider the baptism of Jesus. At His baptism, we see all three persons of the Trinity present. The Father speaks from heaven, the Son is baptized, and the Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove."

These heresies spring from a paucity of knowledge of church history and in a knowledge of Christology (the Person and work of Christ). Instead of instruction in Christology which could incorporate a look at the battles fought in church history to cleanse the church of various heretical infections, many are content with "biblical" instruction in "How To Live Your Best Life Now," "How to Conquer Depression," and "Conquering Disease."

We're talking serious here. According to a 2018 survey conducted by LifeWay Research, over 70% of people in our evangelical churches hold to a heretical belief about the Person and work of Christ. Something is wrong, very wrong. Deep Christological books Paul's letter to the Colossians, II Peter, Jude, and a host of texts like Philippians 2 are treated like the red-headed stepchildren of the church.

Let's talk baseball. Serious baseball. The winningest high school coach in America, the winningest ever, took baseball seriously and expected nothing less from every player and every team he coached. They were either serious or they quit or he ran them off.

He was so serious about winning baseball that every new player had to take a written test of over 200 questions, a test so hard that no one could pass it as it dealt with situation after situation that could arise in every game and where the player, no matter his position on the field, should be when that situation occurred. Things like that. The test was designed to show the player, "You don't know as much as you think you do about this game."

Then, every summer, he ran a baseball school. This wasn't a baseball camp for a week or two. It was every morning, the entire morning, five days a week all summer long. He took kids starting at age 7 and they would come back, summer after summer through high school. By the time they got to that level, they were BASEBALL PLAYERS.

When the player got to his high school team, they would practice 6 days a week starting in February and the practice sessions included each player's taking 200-300 pitches in the batting cage from the pitching machine. (The average high school team would have each player take 6 or 7 swings in the batting cage.) The practice sessions would begin after school at 4 PM and continue until it got so dark, they couldn't see the coach. The question is, with that level of seriousness, how did that coach ever lose a game?

Can you imagine what the results would be if we took kids starting at age 7 and every summer through high school used the best teachers to give biblical instruction 5 mornings a week, specializing in Christology? A pipe dream? I know, you're right.

So, all this boils down to a plea to get serious about Colossians, II Peter, Jude, and Christology.

Really serious.

THOSE LITTLE DECISIONS

History celebrates the great decisions that turned the tide in a nation's or the world's history. For example, the decision of the day and the location of the allied invasion of Europe on D-Day; General George Washington's decision to cross the Deleware and attack the Hessians the day after Christmas in 1776; John Adam's decision to assign Thomas Jefferson to write The Declaration of Independence instead of the Committee of Five. Momentous decisions all.

What is often overlooked are the little decisions that are also the hinges on which history turns, personal decisions that set the course of one's life on one path or another. We all make them. One of the leading scholars in New Testament Greek, while a non-Christian in college, decided to take a beginning course in Greek only so that his schedule would be clear to enroll in the physical education course in golf.

Robert Frost wrote in his famous poem, "The Road Not Taken," about a traveler who comes upon "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood," and concludes with: "I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."

Those little decisions that set the course of our lives and "make all the difference." One such decision occurred in the life of Daniel, a teenager far from home and ripped from all that was familiar. In a new country, where he didn't want to be, taken there by the force of a powerful conqueror, there was a new language, a new education, new literature, and a different religious mindset. It was required that he throw off the old and embrace the new. Daniel and his friends were to become brainwashed Babylonians. And by embracing the new, the ultimate result would be conformity to the world-system.

It was at that time, at that young age, that he made a decision, a small one, but one that changed everything. He decided he would reject the food the government cooked and commanded him to eat and instead, keep the dietary prescriptions of the Mosaic Law. In rejecting the food, he made the decision to become a vegetarian. (This is a description of what he did, not a prescription of what we're to do.)

He took his stand when he said, "Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink." Later we read, "So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink, and kept giving them vegetables."

In world history, that decision appears to be a minor incident, but in reality in world history, it "made all the difference," because without rejecting one diet and keeping for another, we would never have heard of Daniel.

What we might consider a little decision in our lives may set us in motion on one path instead of the other. Therefore, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight."  

"MR. HALSEY, ARE YOU OPEN-MINDED?"

"Mr. Halsey, are you open-minded?" I've never forgotten that loaded six-word question, my professor asked me in class in front of everybody in the fall of 1961, my freshman year in college. His name was Mr. Vann. The class was the English class (called "College Rhetoric") the academic gods had decreed as required for graduation. I was 18 and had years of academic toil to endure before graduation.

Professor Vann was reading through the class roll and assigning each student a book to read for a book report which was to be both oral (in class in front of everybody) and written. He would read a student's name and then tell him what book he was to read, assigning each student a different book.

But for some reason, still unknown to me, he prefaced my assigned book with that question, "Mr. Halsey, are you open-minded?" That was strange. He asked no one else any question before telling them what book to read for their report.

I suspected Mr. Vann was up to something. I answered his question, "No."

But my answer meant nothing; he assigned me The Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. That book was like the teacher's answer to me;  The Catcher in the Rye meant nothing to me; I'd never heard of it nor its author even though it had been published ten years earlier. Little did I know that J. D. Salinger's book was hailed around the world as a classic in literature. They even erected a sculpture in Lithuania in honor of the author.

However, if a person reads even the first few paragraphs of the short book, which is all I read, he would see that, to be blunt, it's junk. One reviewer, definitely in the minority, wrote that The Catcher in the Rye was a "bad book," stating, "The basic plot of 'Catcher' can be summarized in two sentences; Holden Caulfield is a teenager who hates life, runs away from school, and hangs out in New York City. There he has a terrible time, goes home, tries to run away, and doesn't. The end. No drama. No suspense. . .  the book in its present state basically repeats itself over and over as the hero does the same things in different variations, all the while griping and complaining at how terrible everything is."

Not knowing anything about the book, I took it home and my parents asked to see it. After looking it over, they said, "No, you're not. If you fail the course, you're not reading that book."

I didn't ask, "Why can't I read it?" That question never occurred to me. They didn't want me to read it, so I didn't. End of story. So, I had to do something I'd never done--fake it; write a report, but cheat and not read the book, only pretend via the report, that I did.

Then, out of the blue, as the date for our oral reports approached, the university newspaper came out with a headline: "Catcher in the Rye Removed from Campus Bookstore." Wait. What? Then I figured it out: Unbeknownst to me, my father was so upset by the junk I was being forced to read that he had made an appointment with one of the very highest of the academic deans of the University and told him all about what I'd been assigned and the result was that the dean ordered all copies of the book to be removed from the bookstore.

The school newspaper didn't mention any names, but I was in a sweat because the next day, we were to give our oral reports in class. Talk about bad timing. Would Mr. Vann make the connection between me and the bookstore's removal of the very book he assigned me and only me?

The day after that headline blared the news across the campus, Mr. Vann began to go down the class roll, calling on each student in turn. I was a nervous wreck as the name "Halsey" got nearer and nearer to heed the teacher's call to come to the front and give the report. I would be at his mercy. He could really make it rough. He could begin an in-class rant about censorship and single me out. What was I to do, an 18 year-old freshman against a professor?

And then it happened. As the class rolled on, right before my name came up, the bell rang. The class was over. Class dismissed. We all filed out of the room, handing in our reports. The next class day, the professor called for no more reports. They just stopped. That was odd.

I never knew what had transpired in that conversation my father had with the dean, but I've since wondered if he told him that no reprisals were to be taken against his son. I never knew if the dean then went to Mr. Vann and told him that he'd better not embarrass me or criticize me or penalize me in any way. I never knew and I never thought to ask. I was just glad it was all over.

I don't see how Mr. Vann could not have made the connection between that headline and me. His silence was strange, but maybe, just maybe, he'd been told to lay off. Did he arrange the class so that time would run out, just before my name came up? I don't know. But if ever there was a true statement, it would be, "Saved by the bell."

Now, why go into all this ancient history? It's because of Daniel chapter 1 and what we're seeing up close and personal in our society today are parallel. In Daniel 1, Daniel, a teenager at the time, makes a decision, seemingly small one, but without that decision, we'd have never heard of Daniel. His decision: he wouldn't eat the diet commanded by the tyrant, Nebuchadnezzar. To do so would mean that he would be breaking the Mosaic Law.

Along with the food, the Israelite captives, like Daniel, the best and the brightest, were to be immersed in the "literature and the language of the Chaldeans." The purpose was to make Babylonians out of people like Daniel and his friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. This was to change the way they spoke and thought. Their core values, the biblical worldview on which they were raised was under attack.

The Jewish youth were to read only government-approved books, eat only government-approved food, and speak the government-approved language. There is the same strategy that has been going on in our culture. Movies began to portray virginity before marriage as the practice of losers. Movies began to mock parental authority, showing dad and mom as hopeless dimwits. Children and teens were shown as possessing the wisdom that saved the day. The dialogue in the media began to give cultural permission for children to use language that would embarrass a San Deigo sailor home on leave. 

The literary elites proclaimed The Catcher as a classic. History students study A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn which received high praise from Matt Damon in the movie "Good Will Hunting," when his character said, "You wanna read a real history book, read Howard Zinn's  "People's History of the United States."

The textbook, according to Mary Grabar, ". . .  presents Western civilization as marked “by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money, all which leads to torture and murder." She further writes that Zinn's crowning accomplishment was the destruction of the observance of October 12 and "hordes of angry adolescents demanding an end to the holiday."

The world system has its own Babylonian language and a person must speak it or face the consequences. Just one example which could be multiplied a hundredfold: "According to a new Army manual, U.S. soldiers will now be instructed to avoid 'any criticism of pedophilia' and to avoid criticizing 'anything related to Islam.'"(From "Judicial Watch")

I look back on that College Rhetoric Class as a picture in miniature of what we're seeing today and that question as symbolic of what was to come, "Mr. Halsey, are you open-minded." Was I embarrassed by what my father did? Absolutely not. I was glad he did what he did and remain glad to this day. He was determined that his alma mater wasn't going to make a Chaldean out of his son.

It didn't.