Monday, December 29, 2014
"Interpretation........................"
Beth and I both awoke about seven-thirty this morning and settled in the living-room with a hot cup of coffee before the television. Usually, Fox News is immediately sought, as my wife has long been fed by their political output; but, for whatever reason, with the tube’s reintroduction to our daily life we were greeted by one of these modern celebrity evangelists about to deliver a sermon snippet concerning the “last days”. For a few moments we listened, disagreeing as to what was said and not said. The message, in my opinion, was “right on” in so far as warning the Church at large to wake up and look in the mirror, but “out in left field” when it suggested that all believers were under a promise of peace and prosperity even as Goshen knew in the land of Egypt. Truth; but not the whole truth. One verse utilized to make a point while neglecting others that declared life before the exodus knew much misery. “Blessing” is not God’s blanket promise to all who are under the Covenant, at least not in the sense of physical healing and financial success is a guaranteed commodity. What we get in this is a restored connection within us, one that yet requires the circuit to be completed if we are to experience the fullness of what it extends unto us, if we are to even come close to knowing Him individually in our own personal assurance what the next step brings unto us. Benefits are not measured by pecuniary windfalls, by assigned power and authority to raise the dead in our own strength if we can but find the faith. What we gain in Christ is the potential to experience HIM, to find His presence suddenly in our mist, resurrected, alive, and still doing that which He did from the beginning. It comes in various forms, operates in His wisdom, and, always, is a matter of grace. Sunday morning at the Youth Detention Center, as we were about dismiss, one of those young men seated before us, one within whom God has been working over the last few months, raised his hand and requested if he might, himself, pray for those who were incarcerated with him. Nothing cocky. Without any mischievous ring to it at all. His words are yet manna unto this old man’s heart. My cup runneth over. THIS is the Gospel. This is “wealth” in my book……
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If you wanna see my blood boil, put a televangelist on the TV that I'm watching. Years ago, well decades now actually, whenever I would stumble upon one while channel surfing, I would feel compelled to stop and listen to see how long I could stand it. It was almost like a self-inflicted dare. I was especially annoyed by Jimmy Swaggart. To my mind, it was like watching spiritual All-Star Wrestling. It was hard to believe that anyone could take his particular dramatics seriously. Before long I would start to rant and my Ma would say: "If it bothers you so much, change the channel." We would end up laughing at my silliness and eventually I would change the channel. Of course, I would give a very frustrated "aarrgh" as I did.
ReplyDeleteI agree about your definition of "wealth." For sure.
It might surprise you that I found Swaggart's message one of the truest to the Gospel out there. It was my early years in this walk, but still feel his fall in no way diminished what God had worked through him. While working long overnight hours at the railroad, I came home on Sunday morning, turned on his broadcast while waiting to go to Sunday school, heard John Starnes sing about New Jerusalem, and even as the Spirit fell over that tv crowd before him, His presence filled me to the point of pure praise, spilling out of me in tongues. In the middle of such experience a thought went through my head how what I was listening to was pre-recorded. How could the Holy Ghost span the gulf? I don't know; He just can. Can He work through preachers who fall in their humanity? Can He minister to the same who seem to turn the ministry into their own personal financial wealth? It's not about the preacher. It's about reaching the lost. The rest will get sorted out at His throne one day. It's all over my head, Mich. I just seek His tug, the encounter as He brings it unto me. It remains a journey for us all....
DeleteIt's funny that as I was writing it occurred to me that I probably shouldn't mention any names and that he might be one that you appreciated. Then I thought why? I'd rather just speak plainly. Isn't it interesting to think that all those years ago, you saw him one way and I saw him another. At that time, I would certainly have been considered a cocky teenager, exactly the opposite of the young man who offered prayer at Youth Center.
ReplyDeleteBut truth be told, I still have a generally hard time with televangelists. I have really tried to hear past the dramatics and, on occasion, do think there is sincerity. But for the most part, I remain suspicious and perhaps it's due to my own jadedness. I don't really know. Generally speaking I've just decided to take my mom's advice and allow for differences by changing the channel. I agree that God can use any means to reach people in different ways.
You did not offend me in any way, Mich. I shun almost all, if not all, what comes across television within religious programming. I could listen to Swaggart today and have on occasion. There are those times when, in passing, some preachers gets my attention and I pause to listen. I sit within my own church and fail in many ways to understand the evolution of our identity, waiting for that which I know: His tug on my anchor line, that connection which yet holds me to my bunch and within the Body at large. We live, I believe, in those "last days" of which the evangelist spoke this morning and the Church is one of the biggest witnesses of that possibly being the situation. Too many voices. Christ is here and Christ is there. Within the confusion, what is extended unto us is the reality of knowing His reins on our stagger down the path. I am grateful for your witness here and do not ever worry about expressing it as you see it here......
DeleteThanks, Jim. It's good to know. I can be rather terse at times. You don't strike me as an over-sensitive type of person or that you would shy away from real frank discussion.
Delete"There are those times when, in passing, some preachers gets my attention and I pause to listen."
Yeah, I think it's a good idea to listen when out of the blue something beckons us to pay attention.
"in those last days"
It looks like that to me too, sometimes. Then I wonder if it didn't seem like that to each generation before. Also, I wonder if it's because we can't really imagine the world without us in it so it inadvertently makes us see that all things point to the end. Though it does say that no one will know when it also says something about "All these are the beginning of birth pains." Ugg. Don't much like the sound of that.