The Dead Sea
It Receives but does not give!
A pundit, according to definition, is an expert, an authority, a learned person. These days we get a little tired sometimes of hearing from them. Their prognostications, predictions, postulating sometimes get a little old. They often confuse us because their so-called expert opinions oppose one another. One pundit says one thing and the other says quite the opposite.
But amazingly enough, all over the world little crowds and big crowds gather around self-proclaimed pundits. This often happens in politics, science, economics, world views and unfortunately there are religious pundits. Sadly enough they all claim the same Book and the same Spirit. And everybody wonders which pundit is right.
Roe v Wade was an explicit example of this. The religious pundits just could not agree on some of the key issues. They could not completely line up with one another.
In the early 80s I took a course in "Social Research." One of the requirements was to do a research model. I chose to do research on the differing opinions, if there were any, between African American preachers and Caucasian preachers on the subject of abortion. There were some differences of opinions among the religious pundits. And some were very vociferous with their opinions. My research showed me that that is exactly one of the reasons that the Court ruled the way it did in that case. There was no consistent agreement between the experts and the learned ones in the religious field.
This was indelibly imprinted on my mind just a few years ago. I was 64 years old and had been preaching for 40 years. I mentioned abortion in a sermon and the terrible cost it had tallied on our world. After the lesson I was hustled into an office by an older preacher who unloaded on me about putting politics in the pulpit. Of course, in doing this, he gave away his affiliation. To me it was not a political issue but a moral issue. Near the end of the discussion he expressed an opinion which probably had great sway with the court in 1973. He said that he did not believe that a fetus was a human being until it was born. Case in Point.
To me the only positive thing about the whole subject is that little babies who are destroyed in that process are spared the extremism of such pundits.
Men and women who realize they are sinners sadly live in the presence and under the influence of this confusion and live lives imprisoned spiritually by such "authorities." They, all too often hear replays of "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God" or some such. And they are told "god hates all sinners" by such experts. Gloom and doom is their weekly message.
How refreshing it is when preachers are not like those kinds of pundits, but they are soul conscious, people loving, leaders of the flock. How encouraging it is when preachers stand in pulpits and teach about God's forgiveness, God's grace, God's longsuffering, God's kindness, God's love, God's compassion instead of reaching out with some all-knowing long arm of legalism that requires a perfection that no human being can perform.
Most men already know they are wretched sinners. They already know that God will judge their lives. They don't need to know how much we know but how much we care. They need to know Jesus died for them individually and wants to save them individually, no matter what they have done. They need release from guilt and depression and feelings of lostness.
For the past two weeks I have been studying the books of First and Second Samuel. David was declared to be a man after God's own heart. One thousand years later the apostle Paul reiterated the same thoughts about David in Acts 13:22. Was David perfect? Was he a sinner? Did he make mistakes? People need to have hope. Preachers need to give it to them. I challenge you to read the story of David's life carefully, each detail, and then continue to be calloused, judgemental, hard and deceitful in dealing with other sinners.
Did David know he was blessed and forgiven despite his weaknesses? Are pundits sinners? Do they seek to be saved from their sins? Perfection can be claimed but that in itself is dangerous according to scripture. If pundits have the right of blessedness then why not allow that to other sinners?
All of us need to be careful, especially those I call religious pundits. Some folks are simply , as the song goes, looking to Calvary to view the cross where Jesus died for them. For they know that grace caught their falling souls. Jesus saw their need. Man's empty and failing philosophies and opinions will not save one soul. Most people, millions of them are looking beyond that.
There is a world full of people looking up to Jesus. Show them His perfect love.
There are good preachers everywhere. Not just pundits who know it all, but intelligent, caring men who struggle to help pentitent sinners find meaning in life. These preachers have no religious agenda. They have no attachment to systems that would get in the way of Christ. They just care. No, they don't gloss over sin. But neither do they present a gospel of condemnation where there is no escape from sin and its consequences. They still believe Jesus came to save and not to condemn.
Yesterday I heard one of these preachers. And coincidentally he preached the very thing I had been studying for two weeks. He preached about David. For a long time I had thought that too many preachers were very interesting in house-keeping in their churches. And lest they give the wrong impression to their flocks or seem to be condoning certain behaviors or giving credence to them there were certain subjects that seemed to tighten their throats to the point of silence. This preacher was not one of those. He did not mind going to some of the more graphic and explicit writings of Solomon and reading them with reference to describing the husband-wife relationship. And it amazed me when he said that if his congregation was like most other American congregations then about 50 per-cent of the couples in the congregation had been divorced. So unlike many pundits. And he told divorced and remarried folks they had a right to begin again. He told them that God expects that of them. Don't quit.
Praise God. What a preacher. It is not too late. A 66 year old can have a place in God's kingdom. God does still love us. He still sees our worth. He still has a plan for us. We can still serve Him. I sobbed. I could not help it. I am sure others did. There was a building full of "amens."
Of course a truthful wise man; one who is a student of God's word cannot preach anything but that if he preaches a lesson on David. One might tend to ignore or hedge some of the issues in David's life. But thank God this preacher got to the truth and told it like it was. Therefore, he gave hope to the disconsolate. He give direction to the misdirected. He gave courage to the
discouraged. He helped all of us see the true nature of our Creator. He will lift us up out of the miry clay. When we go through the valley and the shadow we will fear no evil....on and on you could go with this...Thank you Lord for such preachers...May the pundits take a lesson from him...
I hope to study more about David and write a little more.....
It Receives but does not give!A pundit, according to definition, is an expert, an authority, a learned person. These days we get a little tired sometimes of hearing from them. Their prognostications, predictions, postulating sometimes get a little old. They often confuse us because their so-called expert opinions oppose one another. One pundit says one thing and the other says quite the opposite.
But amazingly enough, all over the world little crowds and big crowds gather around self-proclaimed pundits. This often happens in politics, science, economics, world views and unfortunately there are religious pundits. Sadly enough they all claim the same Book and the same Spirit. And everybody wonders which pundit is right.
Roe v Wade was an explicit example of this. The religious pundits just could not agree on some of the key issues. They could not completely line up with one another.
In the early 80s I took a course in "Social Research." One of the requirements was to do a research model. I chose to do research on the differing opinions, if there were any, between African American preachers and Caucasian preachers on the subject of abortion. There were some differences of opinions among the religious pundits. And some were very vociferous with their opinions. My research showed me that that is exactly one of the reasons that the Court ruled the way it did in that case. There was no consistent agreement between the experts and the learned ones in the religious field.
This was indelibly imprinted on my mind just a few years ago. I was 64 years old and had been preaching for 40 years. I mentioned abortion in a sermon and the terrible cost it had tallied on our world. After the lesson I was hustled into an office by an older preacher who unloaded on me about putting politics in the pulpit. Of course, in doing this, he gave away his affiliation. To me it was not a political issue but a moral issue. Near the end of the discussion he expressed an opinion which probably had great sway with the court in 1973. He said that he did not believe that a fetus was a human being until it was born. Case in Point.
To me the only positive thing about the whole subject is that little babies who are destroyed in that process are spared the extremism of such pundits.
Men and women who realize they are sinners sadly live in the presence and under the influence of this confusion and live lives imprisoned spiritually by such "authorities." They, all too often hear replays of "Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry God" or some such. And they are told "god hates all sinners" by such experts. Gloom and doom is their weekly message.
How refreshing it is when preachers are not like those kinds of pundits, but they are soul conscious, people loving, leaders of the flock. How encouraging it is when preachers stand in pulpits and teach about God's forgiveness, God's grace, God's longsuffering, God's kindness, God's love, God's compassion instead of reaching out with some all-knowing long arm of legalism that requires a perfection that no human being can perform.
Most men already know they are wretched sinners. They already know that God will judge their lives. They don't need to know how much we know but how much we care. They need to know Jesus died for them individually and wants to save them individually, no matter what they have done. They need release from guilt and depression and feelings of lostness.
For the past two weeks I have been studying the books of First and Second Samuel. David was declared to be a man after God's own heart. One thousand years later the apostle Paul reiterated the same thoughts about David in Acts 13:22. Was David perfect? Was he a sinner? Did he make mistakes? People need to have hope. Preachers need to give it to them. I challenge you to read the story of David's life carefully, each detail, and then continue to be calloused, judgemental, hard and deceitful in dealing with other sinners.
Did David know he was blessed and forgiven despite his weaknesses? Are pundits sinners? Do they seek to be saved from their sins? Perfection can be claimed but that in itself is dangerous according to scripture. If pundits have the right of blessedness then why not allow that to other sinners?
All of us need to be careful, especially those I call religious pundits. Some folks are simply , as the song goes, looking to Calvary to view the cross where Jesus died for them. For they know that grace caught their falling souls. Jesus saw their need. Man's empty and failing philosophies and opinions will not save one soul. Most people, millions of them are looking beyond that.
There is a world full of people looking up to Jesus. Show them His perfect love.
There are good preachers everywhere. Not just pundits who know it all, but intelligent, caring men who struggle to help pentitent sinners find meaning in life. These preachers have no religious agenda. They have no attachment to systems that would get in the way of Christ. They just care. No, they don't gloss over sin. But neither do they present a gospel of condemnation where there is no escape from sin and its consequences. They still believe Jesus came to save and not to condemn.
Yesterday I heard one of these preachers. And coincidentally he preached the very thing I had been studying for two weeks. He preached about David. For a long time I had thought that too many preachers were very interesting in house-keeping in their churches. And lest they give the wrong impression to their flocks or seem to be condoning certain behaviors or giving credence to them there were certain subjects that seemed to tighten their throats to the point of silence. This preacher was not one of those. He did not mind going to some of the more graphic and explicit writings of Solomon and reading them with reference to describing the husband-wife relationship. And it amazed me when he said that if his congregation was like most other American congregations then about 50 per-cent of the couples in the congregation had been divorced. So unlike many pundits. And he told divorced and remarried folks they had a right to begin again. He told them that God expects that of them. Don't quit.
Praise God. What a preacher. It is not too late. A 66 year old can have a place in God's kingdom. God does still love us. He still sees our worth. He still has a plan for us. We can still serve Him. I sobbed. I could not help it. I am sure others did. There was a building full of "amens."
Of course a truthful wise man; one who is a student of God's word cannot preach anything but that if he preaches a lesson on David. One might tend to ignore or hedge some of the issues in David's life. But thank God this preacher got to the truth and told it like it was. Therefore, he gave hope to the disconsolate. He give direction to the misdirected. He gave courage to the
discouraged. He helped all of us see the true nature of our Creator. He will lift us up out of the miry clay. When we go through the valley and the shadow we will fear no evil....on and on you could go with this...Thank you Lord for such preachers...May the pundits take a lesson from him...
I hope to study more about David and write a little more.....
1 comment:
Scripture says it all when it says David was "a man after God's own heart"...all of who he was and with all his thoughts and actions on those thoughts, and yes, in his repentance and seeking of God's face. In his doubting and calling out to God and in his praise and singing. In the fact that he was a part of the lineage of Jesus. We are all people whose hearts God is after. Praises for those who will face down the pious and lift up the struggling.
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