Dogs & Doghouses

If I’m wrong about all this Bible stuff, let’s say there really is no heaven or hell, and that once a person dies it’s just a big long, dreamless sleep I still haven’t lost out on anything because I’ve lived a good life.


It’s easy for us to say something along those lines (I know I’ve said it myself a time or two). That’s a common attitude and a quick way for Christians to dismiss people who question the idea of having faith in Jesus Christ.

The Apostle Paul, when working through a similar scenario, came to an entirely different set of conclusions than we do. Consider I Corinthians 15:13-19.

Paul concludes that if Christ never rose from the dead then:

• Preaching and faith are vain (meaningless)
  
• We are false witnesses (liars)
  
• We are still in our sins
  
• Those who have died before us are gone forever
  
• Believers would be the most miserable people on the planet
  

The big question is how come Paul’s thinking is so different than ours? We’re tempted to wonder what was wrong with Paul, or how come he doesn’t agree with us. But since his conclusions made it in the Bible and ours didn’t, let’s be careful.

• Minus the resurrection, how come a life of love, devotion, satisfaction, and helping others isn’t a good life?
  
• Concerning this big ‘what if’ question do you see the significant gap between our understanding and Paul’s?
  
• How are our lives of faith different than Paul’s life of faith?
  

Part of the reason we have the attitude we do is because we have it good, anyway. Our fallback position is to just shut up and go the couch (and the potato chips). Paul’s fallback position included jail, an unceasing desire to preach the gospel, and the fact that his conversion on the road to Damascus so completely changed his life that there really was no going back.

• Again, do you see the significant gap between our lives and Paul’s?
  
• Do we have a tendency to just ‘pick up’ salvation along the way and keep going along?
  
• How much of a radical, no going back, change, has salvation made in our lives?
  
• Paul’s life included many voluntary sacrifices and sufferings (2 Corinthians 11:24-29). Do ours?
  
• What would it take for us to realize something like this, “If Jesus isn’t real then I’ve lived a life of ridiculous sacrifices.”?
  

Most of the time when we play “What if” we end up losing. Paul was quick to note:

I Corinthians 15:20 - But now is Christ risen from the dead, [and] become the firstfruits of them that slept.

So all is not lost and Paul is persuaded that everything he has done has been worth it.

• Romans 12:12
  
• II Corinthians 1:12, 6:10
  
• I Thessalonians 2:19
  

But the initial idea still needs to challenge our understanding of the way things are in our own lives. Granted, we’re well off, immensly so. But doesn’t that only mean Christ should have an even greater impact in our lives than He does? What parts of our ‘good life’ have we put on the line or foregone in an unretrievable way?

Luke 12:48… For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more.

I fully believe anybody in their right mind can look out their window and declare, "There is a God." To note the diversity and beauty (the rich blue of the sky or the jagged and speckled orange of a lobster's tail, for example) of creation and ascribe it to an accidental event is foolish. The Bible tells us that fools (and only fools) tell their hearts there is no God. Psalms 14 and 53 bear this out. The only hurdle lies in the ability to see beyond the created and know there is a creator. This too is offered to all with eyes to see and, again, I look to the Bible as verification of this, "The grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all…" (Titus 2:11) And noticing the greatness of creation, and seeing our own tiny part in it, how great a God that must be?

I don't know how, but I trust that those who truly seek for God shall find Him and they will discover the salvation He offers. I don't think anyone will have an excuse that they did not know.

And we are given a choice in the matter - as God gives us life, it is ours to live. Free, moral will is what separates us from the animals. Else we would be nothing more than a separate herd from all others, going north and south with the seasons. We were given choice both for and because of the greatness of God. Ask yourself, where does the greater glory for God reside; from some robotic creation that He would entirely control - raising voices of praise as though turning the volume up on a radio, or from masses of people who, of their own volition, declare their maker's praise, in the midst of millions more who reject Him?

Herein resides the one great immutable law that all, believers and unbelievers alike must obey - this is the law of the harvest. One reaps what one sews. Plant onions you will not have garlic. Plant ferns and you will not have daisies. Plant nothing, and that's what you get.

It's a small glance around our lives to notice the suffering and wickedness of the world. People do wickedly, that’s what we plant, because we are sinful. Read the headlines. In Africa, tyrants steal the food and shoot at the soldiers of other tyrants while their subjects hack one another to pieces with machetes. Widows and orphans die in gun battles. Down the street from where I live children take drugs, fill their minds with hopeless songs and perform hateful acts upon others. Terrorists fly airplanes into buildings. So not only do we reap what we sew, but in many cases, we reap what others sew as well. Sin and death are terrible things to behold. These things don't happen because creation is Godless, but it is because people, in their choices, make Godless decisions. It's good that we see these terrible things, and cry out to God for help. Because there is a God, and because we are far less than He is, failing in our own right and knowing with intimate detail the calamities that befall each life, we need to cry out to Him.

Continuing in Titus, it's that vision of God's grace, bringing salvation, that calls us to, "…live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world:" come what may (Titus 2:12). The great creator God does not leave us stranded. There is hope. We know there is God. We know we need saving and we know the rest of the world needs saving.

And then there is hell. Remember what I said about all people being able to see the grace of God and that those who seek for Him shall find Him (as in Luke 11:9). If you are truly looking for the grace of God you will find it - no matter who or where you are. In many ways this is a mystery to me. But I know for a fact that using their God-given choice, people can go the other way. They can try, sometimes for all their lives on this earth, to be separate from God. In its most basic sense hell is God giving people what they have asked for all along, complete separation from Him. And yes, complete separation from God is going to be terribly painful.

I have no doubt in this.

(I wrote this last summer, but it's still true).

The other day I was mowing the grass and I caught myself singing the opening lines for the theme of “F-Troop”. You may remember them as well. It starts out like this. “The end of the civil war was near when quite accidentally….” I can remember almost the entire song. Isn’t it amazing what the human mind has the capacity for? I haven’t seen an episode of “F-Troop” for at least 20 years, but I still remember the theme song.

I bring this up because of some sobering words that the prophet Hosea spoke to Israel (Hosea 4:1-7). He said that God’s people were, “…destroyed for lack of knowledge…” and because God’s people had rejected knowledge, that God would reject them. Destruction and rejection by God is the price of willful ignorance of His Word. Our nation, by and large, is very ignorant of what’s in the Bible and there is a price to pay for only knowing useless things. And we who say we believe in Jesus Christ are sometimes more worried about having things our way than we are concerned about having things the Bible way.

Please take some time this week to read and then think about some part of the Bible. Let it change your life.

James 1:19 - Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: (20) For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God.

There’s an old joke out there. If you stay a Baptist long enough I’m sure you’ll hear it. I think it’s a commentary on giving advice wrapped up in a backhanded compliment. Anyway, it goes like this:

Somebody comes along and tells the pastor, “One of these days you’ll make a good pastor.” Never mind that the pastor in question has been a pastor for the past dozen or so years and never mind that he just delivered what was probably a really doctrinally sound and spiritually edifying sermon and that he’s doing quite well where God has placed him. Haw haw, get it? It’s funny (sort of) because the poor guy is already a pretty decent pastor. It’s sad because the first person can’t bring himself to just give an honest compliment – it has to be mingled with sarcasm.

Anyway, I can’t help but notice how, when preachers get together they talk about other preachers and other churches. In surreptitious tones, off in groups of twos or threes they mostly talk about those who aren’t present or represented in the current get-together.

Early in my ministry I had an older preacher take me to the side and tell me, “If you don’t let them tell you what to do, they’ll talk about you.” At the time I didn’t know what to do with that advice. Now I know it’s very true. The guy was warning me.

A lot of Baptist pastors say they believe in the local church. In other words, the local church makes decisions only for the local church. They’re not controlled by a convention or a group of people hundreds of miles away. They say that’s what we see in the New Testament. And I agree with that. But listening to our concerns about others, we make sure and voice lots of advice, not to them, but about them.

For example, there is always plenty of commentary about who they just called to be their pastor, or the type of activities they’re doing these days and about how we (the current gaggle of preachers) would do or did things differently if and or when we used to be pastor there. For all the talk of the local church it doesn't sound like we respect the concept.

If pastors were old women we’d call it gossip. But since pastors are doing the talking, it goes without a name.

True story: I remember one time when several people were sitting around talking about how a fellow Christian always acted so paranoid and how sometimes that person would do things that just seemed odd. Finally, someone spoke up and said, “Yeah, I don’t know why she’s so paranoid. It’s not like we sit around talking about her.” The subject changed pretty quickly.

Consider Ephesians 4:21 – 29 (bold is my emphasis):

“But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath: Neither give place to the devil. Let him that stole steal no more: but rather let him labor, working with [his] hands the thing which is good, that he may have to give to him that needeth. Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.”

In between the parts I made bold are the ideas of corruption, deceitful lusts, controlling anger, giving place to the devil, not stealing, and being charitable. Since we don’t seem to be able to stop our mouths from running all the time, I’d say the next best thing would be to try and get a handle on what’s coming out of them.

Pastors especially should watch their petty, catty, repartee. It’s just not that edifying.