A REPEATED LIE

"Repeat a lie often enough and it becomes the truth."

The internet is split in attributing this quote to Lenin, Hitler, and Goebbels. 

The uncertainty, ironically, does not stop the attributions from being repeated - until they become accepted truth. 

There is a theological lie that gets repeated often and, thus, taken for truth, and it drives crazy every time I hear it: "Jesus taught more about hell than about heaven". 

You will find this sentence in the mouths of way too many preachers, from the unknown to the famous, but I don't believe I have ever heard anyone even attempt to quantify it with hard data.

It wouldn't be hard to do. There are plenty of tools online these days to help - you wouldn't even have to reread the four Gospels with a highlighter in hand.

In fact, all it takes is a little thought and reflection and you would instantly see the impossibility of Jesus teaching more about hell than heaven. 

If you DID quantify it, you would find - like this guy - that Jesus spoke on heaven at least five times as much as on hell. 

I'm not sure why people get so invested in promoting a hell of eternal torture that they have to resort to obvious lies to bolster their position. 

Satan, being the Father of Lies, undoubtedly approves.

CONSTRUCTIVE GREED

It's strange - I won't preach again until three weeks from today. And that will be the Sunday before Thanksgiving!

(Time continues to pass at an ever increasing rate these days!)

Next Sunday is our annual Harvest Day and there will be a special speaker for the morning. The following Sunday I will be in Ghana, God willing.

Assuming my flights are all on time, I should be back in the pulpit on the 24th.

And I already know what direction that sermon will take. 

The typical Thanksgiving sermon is on gratitude and contentment, but I plan to invert that and focus on things we should be greedy for.

This thought occurred to me in connection with a passage I touched on this morning in 1 Corinthians 14 where Paul tells his audience of believers to eagerly desire spiritual gifts. 

And generally speaking, when it comes to anything we can get our hands on to further our spirits, we are never to grow content in this lifetime. We are to want more, more, more.

Like a greedy kid at Christmas.

When greed is pointed at having more of the comforts of heaven in the here and now, it is destructive.

But when greed is pointed at having more of the God of heaven in the here and now, it is endlessly constructive.

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory, and Other Addresses

MOSES' WISH

Numbers 11 tells the fascinating story of Moses and God getting frustrated with the Israelites as they complain about having nothing but manna to eat.

They want meat and they have fond memories of the food they used to enjoy back in Egypt - when they were SLAVES.

There's material here for several different sermons.

But this week I was focused on the tail end of the story. God eases Moses' burden by calling out 70 other leaders and taking some of the Spirit that is on Moses and spreading that Spirit among the 70.

And "when the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied". 

I think the average church member hears that word "prophesy" and envisions these 70 men making weird, symbolic pronouncements of events that would occur hundreds of years in the future.

But is that what the Israelites were needing at the moment?

What they needed was correction, rebuke, and guidance. Perhaps a reminder of God's faithfulness and provision in the past. 

That seems to be what is meant by prophesying in the New Testament, anyway, and it makes sense here.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14, "1 Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. 2 For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. 3 But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort."

There's a curious epilogue in the story of Moses and the 70 new prophets of Numbers 11. Two of the men never left the camp to join the big gathering of leaders and they end up prophesying back at the camp among other people. Joshua finds this to be out of order and tells Moses that he ought to stop them.

At this point, Moses does a bit of foreshadowing of a big change coming in the future:

29 But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

Now and then you hear a little talk about speaking in tongues, but when was the last time you heard any teaching on prophesying in the local church? And yet, according to Paul, this is the big advantage of living in this current era of the human story: We have the Spirit and He can speak through us to edify the Body of Christ.

I need to do more thinking, reading, and praying about this because I confess my own ignorance and fear of this aspect of what the church is meant to be doing. 

MORE FIBER

After getting into a verbal tussle with a fellow believer in the comments section of a YouTube video* today, I just feel the need to say this:

If your faith makes you angry, judgmental and humorless, you are doing something very wrong.

God invited you into His family to be His son or daughter, not His theological pit bull. 

Although my opponent questioned my salvation, I did not return the favor.

Imagine calling a fellow believer's salvation into question based on a few sentences back and forth on the internet! 

So I did not suggest that he himself was unsaved - but I did wonder aloud if he was getting enough fiber in his diet.

*If you're curious about the venom this brother spat at me, just look at the discussion under this video HERE by James White. The video highlights some interesting squabbles recently among Calvinists resulting from some creeping antisemitism in their ranks. You'll have to click on the replies under my original comment/question. I am "mrgrossism" and I asked, "This development begs the question: What is it about reformed theology that opens a door to antisemitism?"