Evangelicalism in Crisis Part 1: Corrupt Sons Of Hell Leading The Flock

I have been asked to teach a 5-part series on the theme “Evangelicalism in Crisis.” Your pastor, Gordon Yee, and I, along with many others, are agreed that evangelicalism is in crisis. That is, evangelicalism, as represented in the Western World in our largest churches, denominations, colleges, institutions, radio stations, books, and music is in a state of corruption so awful and decay so putrid that it is often unrecognizable as Christianity, and is in desperate need of repentance, revival and renewal. That is, things are not just bad in our evangelical neck of the woods - they’re really really really bad. They’re 1517 bad – referring to the year that Martin Luther nailed 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg Church, an act that helped spark the Protestant Reformation. Things are “Jesus-cleansing-the-temple” bad, referring to that event where Jesus overturned the tables of moneychangers in the temple in Jerusalem, and prophesied that that great structure would be taken apart stone by stone - as indeed happened about 37 years later.

While I must speak forthrightly about the sins and errors that plague our community of faith, I have misgivings about doing this series. I will begin by communicating three of those misgivings.

Misgiving number 1. I am not qualified to do this. I am neither professor, historian nor theologian. I have written no books. I have never pastored a large church or run a large organization. I work a day job as an unskilled laborer. As for my ministry background, I tried but failed to plant a church. As a pastor I failed to keep two dying churches from folding. Before that, as a missionary linguist I failed to persuade an indigenous group to allow me to translate the Bible into their language. I acknowledge my laughably inadequate qualifications for taking on so ambitious a project. I am waddling up to a high-jump bar whose height should only be attempted by a C. S. Lewis, a Carl F. H. Henry, a John Stott, a James Montgomery Boice, or a D. A. Carson. But they were all dead, or unavailable, so here I am.

Misgiving number 2. In this series I must expose, judge and condemn that which so richly deserves exposure, judgment and condemnation. But there is danger in that. It is easy to condemn. It is even agreeable. Condemnation is an addictive, beguiling drug. When we condemn we are energized, and we feel good about ourselves because we know we’re not as bad as those people.

The Pharisees of the Bible were so good at condemning that they judged Jesus Christ while justifying themselves. I don’t want to be a Pharisee, and I don’t want to train you to be a Pharisee. So I urge that we keep before us those Scriptures that humble, convict, and terrify. 1 Corinthians 10:12: “Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.” Romans 2:1,3: “[I]n passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things... Do you suppose, O man—you who judge those who practice such things and yet do them yourself—that you will escape the judgment of God?” James 3:1: “Let not many of you become teachers, my brothers, because you know that we will be judged more strictly.” Luke 6:46: “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, but don’t do what I say?”

If Jesus asked me that question, “Paul, why don’t you do what I say?” I don’t know how I would answer. I know I could not respond, “But it’s not true! I always do what you say!” Someday soon – could be today, could be 15 years from now, I will appear before the judgment seat of Christ. I will look Jesus in the eye – if I dare raise my head to meet his gaze. 2 Corinthians 5:10 says, “We must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he had done in the body, whether good or evil.” I believe that, and it unsettles me. We ought never dismiss that unease insofar as it spurs us to holiness and does not cripple us in despair. In this series I know that I will be tempted, and I will tempt you, to indulge the genial task of condemning other people’s sins while neglecting the more painful and necessary task of repenting of our own.

Misgiving number 3. I understand that this lament over the current state of things could be preached – and indeed has been preached – in every generation.

In 1988, in the wake of multiple televangelist scandals, Pastor Warren Wiersbe wrote a book called “The Integrity Crisis”. The subtitle was, A blemished church struggles with accountability, morality, and lifestyles of its leaders and laity. That was 33 years ago.

And before any of the televangelist scandals broke, Francis Schaeffer had already written a book published in 1984 called “The Great Evangelical Disaster” – a similar diatribe about how bad things were.

In 1959, Martyn Lloyd Jones preached a series of messages on the factors that were hindering and subverting revival in his day.

In 1887 and 1888 there was the famous Downgrade Controversy that featured rhetorical warning bells sounded by none other than Charles Spurgeon, the best-known and most gifted preacher of the time. (Perhaps of all time). He wrote: “No lover of the gospel can conceal from himself the fact that the days are evil…[O]ur solemn conviction is that things are much worse in many churches than they seem to be, and are rapidly tending downward.”

More examples could be added to that list going further back in history, but I will stop there. The fact that preachers have been lamenting the current state of things forever could call into question the legitimacy and urgency of this lament in 2021. In my mind I can see the eye-roll, I can hear the weary sigh of some historically informed Christian who says, “Oh no, not that again. Not that ‘Everything’s-going-to-hell-in-a-handbasket!’ line again. We’ve heard that too many times before.”

I will come back to this third misgiving and provide my answer to it in about 20 minutes before I conclude my message.

But first, in order to show why I think things are especially bad, let me go through a brief list of some prominent evangelical leaders and outline their scandalous behavior over the past 15 years.

Number 1: Ted Haggard. Ted Haggard was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals. He had a church of 14,000 people that he founded from scratch. He was politically influential and had the ear of George W. Bush. Reportedly he communicated with the White House every Monday morning. In 2006 it was revealed that he had a three-year paid relationship with a male prostitute, Mike Jones, with whom he used methamphetamines. When first outed for this behavior Ted Haggard lied, repeatedly, denying everything - until the evidence became irrefutable. Later it was also revealed that he had sexually harassed a male volunteer to whom he said, “You know what, you can become a man of God, and you can have a little bit of fun on the side.” For Ted Haggard, a little bit of fun on the side was godless, perverse, unwelcome sexual harassment.

Number 2: Bill Hybels. Bill Hybels, one of the founders of Willow Creek Church, is far and away the most influential evangelical of the past 50 years. No one else is remotely close to Hybels in terms of impact on evangelical culture and practice in the past half century. This influence was deliberate, and exercised through his megachurch, satellite churches, association of churches, and the Global Leadership Summit. It is impossible to calculate how many people over the past few decades left good churches to go to Willow Creek or to one of its satellites, just as it is impossible to calculate how many churches became or tried to become Willow Creek clones. Heaven knows how many pastors succumbed to it, or how many were told by their congregants, “Let’s do it the Willow Creek way!”

In 2018 Bill Hybels was revealed as a sexual predator. At least 10 women testified against him, demonstrating a pattern of life that went back decades. In response, he denied everything and lied and lied and lied, slandering his victims, and to this day has shown no repentance or remorse. Shortly after his disgraced departure from Willow Creek, his friend and the theological kingpin of that church, Dr Gilbert Bilezikian, was also shown to be a pervert with a pattern of preying on women that went back decades. Less well-known is the name Dave Holmbo. He was the other co-founder of Willow Creek way back in the 1970s. He was forced into resignation back then because of sexual immorality.

The most influential church of our generation, the infamous Willow Creek that sucked a thousand evangelical churches into its black hole nightmare of fake Christianity was founded not upon the rock that is Jesus Christ, but upon the ambitious megalomania of three adulterous sons of hell.

Please let that sink in. For the love of God let that sink in.

Number 3: James MacDonald. MacDonald had the other megachurch mega-phenomenon in the Chicago area, Harvest Bible Chapel with all its affiliates. MacDonald had a daily radio program on WMBI, “Walk in the Word”, and was a regularly featured speaker at conferences and seminaries and events like Moody’s Founders Week. He was also the focal point for gathering around himself other megachurch pastors to mentor them, influence them and network with them.

A friend of mine from seminary worked with James MacDonald just over 10 years ago. I’m not sure I am at liberty to mention my friend’s name. I’ll call him John. John witnessed firsthand how utterly malicious, dishonest and lascivious James MacDonald was in his daily interactions with people. And it was no secret among those who knew him. John said, in shock, to one of the elders at the time, “James is not a spiritual man!” and the elder responded, “We all know that.” John told me that he literally came to fear for his life. At one point John told his wife, “Listen, I am not depressed, I am not suicidal. If anything happens to me, insist upon an investigation. Because I think James might try to have me killed and make it look like an accident or suicide.” She told him to write that down. They wrote it down, signed and dated it and sent it to themselves certified mail to be opened in case of his violent death. They still have the letter.

Does my friend John sound paranoid to you? I mean – come on, really? Could one of the most prominent evangelical preachers in America with a worldwide influence over evangelical laity and other evangelical megachurch pastors really be an assassin at heart?

Around the time that MacDonald was finally and abruptly fired by his own elders in 2019 for across-the-board wickedness that even they had to acknowledge, Chicago radio host Mancow Mueller revealed that twice in the preceding year MacDonald had talked to him about hiring a hitman. Mancow thought that MacDonald was joking, but then came to realize, oh no, he was serious. Then, independently of those chilling encounters, MacDonald’s former bodyguard, Manny Bucur, revealed that in 2015 MacDonald offered to pay him to murder his ex son-in-law Tony Groves. According to Bucur, MacDonald offered to help dispose of the body. These are all mutually independent attestations.

Of course there is much much more with regard to MacDonald. Constant lies. Multi-million-dollar indebtedness and financial mismanagement and fraud. Stunningly abusive, profane and misogynistic language. Attempting to grope a female staff member on an airplane. Insanely luxurious lifestyle that included high stakes gambling forays with fellow evangelical fraud Jerry Jenkins of “Left Behind” fame. MacDonald was recorded talking about planting child pornography on the computer of a Christian statesman he disliked. James MacDonald is basically Al Capone. He’s a psychopathic mobster who masqueraded as an evangelical pastor and managed to fool the vast majority of the evangelical public into believing that he was a Christian. For decades!

Number 4: Ravi Zacharias. Zacharias was celebrated by some as the greatest Christian apologist of our generation. An apologist is one who defends the faith intellectually before skeptics and antagonists of that faith. I know it is easy to say this now – but it is nonetheless true – I was never a fan of his apologetic work. It always seemed that when I heard him speak I had the frustration of listening to a man who could not hold a train of thought in his head for more than 90 seconds. He was extremely listenable, but organizationally his presentations were all over the place, and none of his thoughts tied together. His talks melted away in your mind like unsweetened cotton candy. That said, I had nothing against him personally.

That is, until about a year and a half, two years ago, when I learned that he had been lying constantly for years. And his lies were thoroughly, openly documented in work of Steve Baughman, an atheist opponent. For example, Zacharias had claimed to be a professor at Oxford. He claimed to study quantum mechanics under physicist John Polkinghorne at Cambridge. He exaggerated or just outright invented academic credentials again and again and again. When his mammoth dishonesty was exposed it should have ended his public ministry right there. But it didn’t. He still had his radio program on WMBI. He was still invited to Christian conferences around the world, like the Sing! 2020 conference hosted by the Gettys (though it was cancelled by Covid). His self-named organization Ravi Zacharias International Ministries continued to rake in tens of millions of dollars. And sadly, none of the respected speakers in his ministry like John Lennox or Sam Alberry resigned in protest and disgust. I was disgusted. In my outrage I even wrote an essay, “Why is my atheist son more honest than Ravi Zacharias?”

If a man is a chronic liar like Zacharias, you can be sure that dishonesty is not his only vice. After Ravi’s death in May of last year it was revealed that he had abused an untold number of women here in the States and in Thailand, India and Malaysia. Under the guise of massage therapy he demanded sexual favors from the women treating him. He groomed them, pressured them, threatened them, demanded their silence, and paid them off when necessary. His phone after his death was found to have hundreds of pictures of such women on it.

All those years that Ravi Zacharias spent speaking at our conferences and writing bestsellers and receiving accolades as the greatest Christian apologist of our generation he should have spent in a prison cell as a rapist.

It makes me want to scream and break things. But I know that I must exercise emotional and physical self-control lest the truths that I speak risk being dismissed as the rantings of an unbalanced zealot. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, whom I love and before whom I tremble. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, who loved sinners like me and gave his life on their behalf in order to unite them with God the Father. I am a follower of Jesus Christ in the evangelical tradition, meaning, among things, that I am eager to communicate the evangel - the good news - that Jesus Christ is Lord and king, and through his death and resurrection he has opened the way to the Father that we might have a share in God’s eternal, holy delight.

But in seeking to communicate this truth to a spiritually needy world, I find that there have gone before me utterly depraved conscienceless demons in human form who wore the mask of evangelical Christian, but whose daily lives indicated that they had rejected Jesus, did not have the Holy Spirit within them, and obviously never believed for a minute that they would actually appear before him to render account. And moreover, these fakes, these evildoers, have not been obscure cases, marginal oddballs, one-out-of-12 bad apples like Judas Iscariot. They have been, one after another, the most prominent names in evangelicalism.

And I have barely scratched the surface. When I began preparation for this message I had 15 names I wanted to give you. But I realized that there would not be enough time, and it would become oppressive, and your eyes would glaze over. So let me run through just three more names, very quickly, with just a few sentences each.

For years, the largest evangelical university has been Liberty University in Virginia. Till last year its president was Jerry Falwell Jr. Jerry Falwell Jr. is a lying drunken skirt-chasing party animal. Among many other acts of Jerry Springeresque depravity, he matched up his wife to a handsome young pool boy so that he could watch the two of them cavort together.

Next, Hillsong (frequently and understandably misheard as Hellsong.) Hillsong is a musically fecund megachurch headquartered in Australia but with venomous tentacles everywhere. Most evangelical churches support it unknowingly by singing its copyrighted songs. Hillsong’s New York pastor, Carl Lentz, was pastor to the stars. He palled around with Justin Bieber whom he baptized in Tyson Chandler’s bathtub. Kevin Durant also went to that church, along with Selena Gomez, a Kardashian and a couple Jenners. And of course Lentz got to be interviewed by Oprah. He was finally exposed for tawdry extramarital affairs and let go by his boss, the founder of Hillsong and openly greedy celebrity panderer Brian Houston. Earlier this month, Brian Houston was formally charged by police with covering up the crimes of a child rapist – his father, Pastor Frank Houston, who gave Brian his start in the ministry. Listen: Hillsong is a big pile of manure from beginning to end. It’s garbage on steroids posing as a church.

Do you remember my misgiving number 3? That is, someone could say, “But evangelicals have always been saying, ‘Friends, things are really bad now.’” Here is how my imagination responds. If I could time-travel Spurgeon and Lloyd-Jones and Schaeffer and Wiersbe into the present moment and explain to them what has transpired – not in the world generally, nor in Christendom vaguely, but specifically in evangelical Christianity among its prime representatives - I picture these preachers of old growing pale, grabbing an armrest for support, having to sit down, and then saying something like, “Surely the end of days has come.”

And I do not believe it is simply a matter of our having a particularly bad run of corrupt leaders. Rather, evil men have risen to power and influence within evangelicalism in large part because of a foolish, undiscerning, careless evangelical public. In this regard I like to quote my son Peter who once said, “Hitler did not kill six million Jews by himself.” He had help. Of course Hitler had the active help of villains and bloodthirsty psychopaths. But he also stood atop a great pyramid of sleeping boulders in the German public who lent their unthinking support.

Part of my goal over these next few weeks is to awaken analogically similar sleeping boulders in the evangelical community. I want fellow Christians to know the part they played, perhaps unwittingly, in the current debacle. And I want them to be better equipped to spot the warning signs and red flags to which our community has been, and still remains, culpably blind. There are still many wolves out there in shepherds’ clothing, and sometimes I almost despair over the fact that my dear brothers and sisters still do not see the fangs and the claws.

I will close now by addressing what to me is the biggest elephant-in-the-room question. Are the corrupt spokesmen of evangelicalism that I listed today damned souls? Are they going to hell, or in Ravi Zacharias’s case, in hell already?

I prefer to stop just short of saying, concerning any specific individual, that that person is in hell or will certainly go to hell. There is more than one reason for this reticence. I am not the arbiter of anyone’s final destiny. God is. And I could never know whether a man was – perhaps - born again on his deathbed and then received by God’s grace into paradise.

But here is something I do know for sure because the Bible says it so many times. People who behave the way these men behave are not saved, and they are bound for hell.

Ephesians 5:5: "For of this you can be sure: No immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on those who are disobedient."

Galatians 5:19-21: "The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

1 Corinthians 6:9-10: "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

Revelation 21:8: "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur."

God alone knows who is saved and who is not. 2 Timothy 2:19 says, “The Lord knows those who are his,” And then it goes on to say, “Everyone who confesses the name of the Lord must turn away from wickedness.”

I wonder if anyone who hears or reads these words thinks, “But those scary verses about God’s condemnation of the wicked apply to me! I’m going to hell. According to the Bible I’ll be excluded from the kingdom of God and cast into the fiery pit.”

I am not here to reassure any evildoer with mild words saying, “You’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.” But there is a question I would put to any person who knows himself or herself to be a sinner in danger of God’s condemnation. And the question is, “Do you want to be made good?” Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Do you want to be pure in heart? The Bible says, “Without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14). Do you want to be holy? Be honest. Many people would prefer to remain the way they are because the idea of being remade, reborn into truly good personhood and fashioned by God’s hand into a fit and worthy citizen of heaven is too difficult, too costly, too alien, too different from that which they know themselves to be.

I can’t answer this for you. But if you want God and you want his goodness and you hate your wickedness and you just wish you could be free from it, I have good news. God loves you. It is not God’s will that you should perish and go to hell. It is his will that that you repent and be saved. It is his will to transform you into someone he can love more fully and who can know the joy of delighting in him forever. And there is more good news. Your sins, which are many, and which testify against you, and which indeed would weigh down your soul into the pit of hell, have been placed upon the shoulders of God’s Son Jesus Christ, who died so that those sins could be forgiven and who rose again so that he could receive you into the place where he lives, in joy, forever.

Talk to him now and ask him to save you. The Bible says, “Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

I will now say a prayer on behalf of any who want to be saved from their sin and made holy unto God. Let us pray.

Lord God, there is wickedness all around me, including among those who claim to know you and have been your chief representatives here. I can’t do anything about them. But right now my only concern is the wickedness within me. Please don’t let it stay there and fester and turn me into a monster. Don’t let me be or become a fake. Save me from myself. Forgive my sin. May your Holy Spirit take control of me and change me, no matter how hard that is and no matter how long it takes. Thank you that because of what your Son Jesus did on the cross, dying on behalf of sinners, I can pray this prayer and have hope of receiving your grace.

For A Granddaughter Starting Kindergarten

Lena,

I am glad that you will be starting kindergarten soon.

Would you like to know the best thing about going to school?

The best thing about going to school is that it gives you a chance to be kind to people you never had a chance to be kind to before.

I know that you love to think, and that makes me happy. Here is something good to think about: "How can I be kind to people and not be mean to them?"

It is good to be kind, and it is bad to be mean.

Sometimes I hear grownups talk about things that happened to them when they were very young. Although they have forgotten many things, they often remember very clearly those times when someone was mean to them. I like to think that nobody will ever remember you being mean. Instead, I imagine that, many years from now, some troubled person will say something like this: "The other kids were mean to me sometimes. But Lena Lundquist was always nice to me."

I hope that you like school. But I can think of something even better than liking school. That would be if your teachers and the other kids like school more just because you are there.

Wait A Minute. God Told A Man To Murder His Son? (Genesis 22)

I would like to begin with a thought experiment. For the purposes of this experiment imagine yourself to physically impaired. Maybe you are in a wheelchair or have some degenerative condition. You hear blood-curdling screams coming from next door. You make your way over there as fast as you can. You see that your neighbor has tied up his son and bound him to the kitchen table. He has raised a knife over him to kill him. You cry out “Stop!” The father looks at you and says, “I know this looks bad. But God told me to kill my son. And I must obey God.”

What would you do? Here is something I don’t think you would do. I don’t believe you would say, “Wow. I am in awe of your faith. I am humbled by your willingness to obey God even when he commands something difficult. But you’re right. God must be obeyed no matter what. Go ahead and kill your son.” None of us would say that, right? All of us would try to stop him, right?

But how would you do that? I have stipulated that you are disabled. You do not have the quickness or strength physically to stop the murder. Do you call 911? That won’t help. This father is on a mission from God. His son will be dead in a matter of moments, long before the police get there. The only thing that you have at your disposal is your speech, your words - your ability to argue him out of it. Let us say that despite all appearances the father is rational. He will listen to what you have to say. He can follow a train of thought and will heed a fair argument.

So what do you say? Do you say, “Defy God! Disobey him!” That won’t work. He won’t choose to obey you rather than God. So do you say, “You’ll go to prison for this!” I think he has considered that probability and is prepared to accept the consequences. He believes that God must be obeyed no matter what, even if it means prison or death.

I think I know what I would say – or at least the line of reasoning that I would try to use. I would say, “But that wasn’t God! You have been deceived. How do you know it was God speaking to you and not some demon impersonating God and trying to trick you into doing something bad? The Bible says do not believe every spirit but test the spirits to see if they are from God. Well let’s test this spirit. I can show you that God – the real God – does not command child sacrifice. In fact, he forbids it. Here’s what the Bible says.”

And then we would go through some Scripture texts. Exodus 20:13: "You shall not kill." See? God says don’t kill. Jeremiah 32:35: “They built the high places of Baal in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to offer up their sons and daughters to Molech, though I did not command them [the Lord says], nor did it enter my mind, that they should do this abomination.” See that? Child sacrifice is an abomination. It was a way of worshiping Molech, not God. God says it never entered his mind to command that kind of worship. And then Deuteronomy 12:30-31: God says to the people of Israel with regard to pagan Canaanites, “Be careful not to be ensnared by inquiring after their gods, saying, ‘How do these nations serve their gods? We will do the same.’ You must not worship the Lord your God in their way, because in worshiping their gods, they do all kinds of detestable things the Lord hates. They even burn their sons and daughters in the fire as sacrifices to their gods.” Do you see? God hates that kind of thing. God says it is detestable to offer up your son or daughter as a sacrifice. That’s pagan worship, not God-worship. God does not want to be worshiped that way. So, clearly, it wasn’t God who told you to sacrifice your son!

You say all this, and the father stares at you in stunned silence. Then he lays down his knife. He says, “By golly you’re right. I have been deceived. What I thought was the voice of God really wasn’t God at all. It was probably just some demon or something. Sorry about that, son. My bad.”

Well now we have solved the problem of our hypothetical homicidal neighbor, but in doing so we have had to open up a can of worms and spill it all over the page of Genesis 22. I can’t be the only one to whom the question has occurred, “How did Abraham know that it was God who was telling him to sacrifice his son?” Why didn’t Abraham reject that command as the voice of an imposter, a demon clearly opposed to the character of the one true God? And if it was God, how could he command child sacrifice? Even granted that he rescinds the commandment at the last possible moment, how could he order it in the first place? Would God command a man to commit adultery, only to stop him just as he is about to commit the act? How could God command something he declares evil? And what’s to prevent him from doing that now?

It is my very limited purpose in this sermon to provide a response to these troubling questions and then relate them to some other issues that for me at least help shed light on how God deals with humanity, and how we are to read the Bible as a whole.

To do this we have to dive into Abraham’s world. Please understand that Abraham did not grow up in a Christian home. He couldn’t have, because Jesus Christ would not be born for another 2,000 years. There were no Christians then. Abraham did not even grow up in a Jewish home. There were no Jews. In fact we get the word “Jew” from the name “Judah”, and Judah was Abraham’s great grandson. So when we read this account in Genesis 22, remember that the first Jew is decades away from being born.

But at least Abraham would have had some of the Bible, right? No. None of it. The first 5 books of the Bible are attributed to Moses, and he would not be born for another 600 years or so. It is worth pausing to ask yourself the question, “What would you know about God – his nature, his character, whether there was just one of him – what would you know about God if there were no Jesus, no Bible, no church, no synagogue. No 10 commandments. No Lord’s Prayer. No Apostles’ Creed. Nothing like that. What would shape your understanding of God, or gods - or let’s just say “supernatural reality” - if you had none of those things to inform you? It is fair to say that you would absorb, for the most part, whatever was in your environment, or culture. Maybe not 100 percent, but an awful lot of it. Because we all do this. It is impossible not to. We like to imagine that we are independent thinkers, objective and rational in how we form our worldview and make our judgments of right and wrong, and what the world is like and what our place in it is. But the fact is, a lot of that is determined for us by our culture, our group, our era - and through those influences there are formed within us assumptions that we don’t even recognize as assumptions. They are so much a part of us that it never occurs to us to question them.

Now consider Abraham. Do we know anything about Abraham’s religious upbringing? As a matter of fact we do. He was raised as a pagan. I do not mean “pagan” as an insult, but simply as an objective term. Abraham was raised to worship idols. In Joshua 24:2 it says: “Joshua said to all the people, ‘This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: “Long ago your ancestors, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the Euphrates River and worshiped other gods.”’”

Abraham’s father was an idol-worshiper, and so Abraham was raised in an idol-worshiping home in an idol-worshiping culture. And that fact wore the grooves in his brain through which could flow thoughts about supernatural reality. Again, I cannot emphasize strongly enough that at this time there was no Christianity, no Judaism, no church, no synagogue, no Bible. If God were to speak to Abraham at all, he would have to speak Abraham’s language. Not just his verbal language but his mind-and-culture language. God must stoop to Abraham’s level and communicate with him in a way that makes sense to him. As God must do with us all, if we are to understand anything he says.

In Abraham’s world, the gods were powerful and involved with humanity – they could wreck your life or enhance it – but I know no evidence to suggest that pagans ever understood their gods to be fundamentally good. Compassionate. Kind. Fair. Loving. Just. On the side of the oppressed rather than the oppressor. The later Roman and Greek gods were certainly not like that. They were a rowdy bunch, and not in a good way. As best as I have been able to determine, while there were people in the ancient Near East who were fanatically, radically devoted to their gods, they did not love their gods. They felt no affection, no warm-hearted delight in them. Nobody loved Molech, or Chemosh, or Baal, or Asherah, or Marduk. How could you love those gods? You feared those gods. You wanted to be on their good side. You wanted them working for you and not against you. So you would give them things to appease them so that they would like you and give you good luck, not bad luck. Think of it this way. If there is a powerful bully in your neighborhood, and no recourse to justice beyond that bully, would you rather he be fighting you or your evil enemies? That’s an easy choice for most people.

When God told Abraham to offer up his only legitimate son Isaac, he was speaking a language that Abraham understood, and understood all too well. Child sacrifice was something that many gods commanded, and were pleased with, according to the thinking of the day. Child sacrifice was a sign of earnest and absolute devotion to your god – the ultimate indicator that you would do anything to have that god on your side. Let me recommend to you, if you have the time, interest and stomach for it, the Wikipedia entry on “Child Sacrifice”. There you will learn how prevalent and universal this custom has been. It is safe to say you will find it on every continent except Antarctica. It wasn’t just Molech. As I started to read that article I was thinking that I couldn’t remember if it was the Aztecs or the Incas or the Mayas who sacrificed children. It turns out all three of them did – and some other American civilizations as well. It was in Carthage and Greece and northern Europe, and you can go on and on. And I’m not even including the infanticide of unwanted children, children who are regarded as a burden or a threat, as when Pharaoh ordered the drowning of Hebrew baby boys in Exodus 1, or when Herod the Great authorized the slaughter of boys two and under in Bethlehem in Matthew 2. That is a separate issue. The slaughter of young innocents for the sake of convenience, power and autonomy has continued unabated to the present day, and has even accelerated. But I am not including that at all. Just restricting ourselves to the concept of sacrificing a child to appease a god – that was all over the place in the ancient world.

So while I believe that while Abraham would have been saddened and grieved that his God would require him to sacrifice his son, I don’t believe he would have been stunned or outraged. Because the gods were like that. They had a right to your firstborn – and more, and they could assert that right, and you had no standing before them such that you could defy them, go your own way, say to them, “No, this is mine, not yours! Stay in your lane, Molech, or Chemosh, or Jehovah, whoever you are. When I want something from you I’ll let you know, and if I give you something it will be on my terms and you better be satisfied with it.” No, no, no. You did not address the gods that way. They had authority over you, not you over them.

I believe that the surprise that Abraham would have felt would not have consisted in the fact that his God required his son, but specifically this son, Isaac, whom God had promised earlier would be the one through whom his lineage would continue. Now that was a tough nut to crack. It was puzzling to say the least. How could God do the impossible? How could he say on the one hand, “Through your son Isaac alone your descendants will multiply and all nations will be blessed” and then also, “Your son must be sacrificed before any of that can happen”? How does that make sense? The book of Hebrews suggests that Abraham had to reason his way to a resurrection.

Before continuing with this theme I would like to relate it to a seemingly unrelated one that I guarantee many of you will find deeply offensive and repulsive. And you should be repulsed. At the end of Genesis 22, we read this comment about Abraham’s brother and sister-in-law. It says in verses 23 and 24, “Milkah bore these eight sons to Abraham’s brother Nahor. 24 His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also had sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash and Maakah.” Did you hear the word “concubine” in there? That’s a mistress. Abraham’s brother had 8 sons by his wife, and also 4 more with his mistress.

Would you have a problem with your brother if he had a mistress in addition to his wife? I hope you would. But Abraham didn’t have a problem with it. Not at all. Because Abraham himself had mistresses. Plural. We read that in Genesis 25:6, which says, “while he was still living, [Abraham] gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.” Concubines? He had concubines?

In our day we rightly condemn pornography, and spiritual men resist its temptations. But Father Abraham was such a lascivious philanderer that he didn’t only look at images of unclad women, he looked at the women themselves, and slept with them, and had children by them – repeatedly. And apparently without any sense of guilt whatsoever.

It gets worse. He was sexist. He had an outrageous double standard, as did all the patriarchs. Because while he could have other lovers, do you think his wife could have her share of carnal boyfriends? Of course not. That would be adultery. That would be unfaithfulness. You see for Abraham, marital faithfulness only applied to women. The only way he could commit adultery was by sleeping with another man’s wife. He knew that that was wrong, but as long as his mistresses weren’t married, he felt he could have as many as he wanted. Same with King David. David had 7 wives and 10 concubines. He had 17 women he could sleep with. But in his mind, and in that of the culture of his day, it was only adultery when he took another man’s wife – Bathsheba. If Bathsheba had been single, she just would have become wife number 8 or concubine number 11 and no one would have batted an eye.

Are you disgusted? Please be disgusted. Some of you may remember back in 2009, the world was outraged and sickened to learn that Tiger Woods had about 10 mistresses. His wife may have beaten him up about that. She divorced him, and he was a moral outcast for some time. If we could go back in time and inform Father Abraham and King David of this news story about Tiger Woods, we can well imagine them scratching their heads and saying “This is a scandal? Why? Were any of those women married?”

How unbelievably obtuse they were, morally speaking. I’m not making excuses for men like Abraham and David. They were disgusting, depraved, despicable human beings. I repeat: Abraham and David were disgusting, depraved, despicable human beings. Abraham was so warped in his thinking that he could conceive of a God who would order him to slit his son’s throat and burn him, but could not imagine a God who would keep him from having a harem. How twisted is that?

If you say that Abraham was a disgustingly primitive barbarian, I will agree with you. But please listen to this further point. You also are a disgustingly primitive barbarian. And so am I. We are barbarians too. We just can’t see it yet. Our descendants will see it, if they are worthy. Hundreds of years from now, maybe a lot less, our descendants, if they have not been corrupted, will be revolted and disgusted by us – and their revulsion will be legitimate, and it will concern things that don’t even occur to us to feel guilty about now. They’re things that aren’t even on our radar screen.

Let me give you a historical example. Ask any theology professor who is the greatest American theologian, and number one on anyone’s list is Jonathan Edwards, 1703-1758. Even those who disagree with him theologically have to acknowledge that he was a man of stupendous learning, honest, hardworking, extremely devout, self-disciplined, beloved by his wife and kids, highly regarded on both sides of the Atlantic and by the indigenous community with which he worked and by Princeton University of which he was president at the very end of his life. And he was also God’s prime mover in what is now called the Great Awakening, the flashes of revival in the 1730s that have repercussions to this day. Amazing man.

And he was a slave-owner. It wasn’t even a case of him inheriting a slave from his father or marrying into a family that already had slaves – no, he himself actually went out and bought a human being at auction. That was wrong. That was evil. He should have known better. He should have been an abolitionist. He should at least have been wracked with guilt over his participation in slavery, the way John Newton was, the man who went from slave-trading to slavery-fighting and eventually wrote the words we love to sing, “Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.” But there is no indication that Jonathan Edwards ever felt the least bit troubled about buying and owning a human being.

Jonathan Edwards had a moral blind spot that astonishes anyone with moral sensitivity. So did Martin Luther, and so did King David, and so did Father Abraham. And on and on and on. But if you dismiss such people, hold them in contempt, ridicule their barbarisms and refuse to learn anything from them and their stories, be aware that you too will be rightly disregarded by future generations who will consider you to be a moral monster for things that do not afflict your conscience.

Only God, the one eternal Creator God, has and is the unwavering standard of true holiness by which all actions are judged. Now here is something thing that must be understood from the Abraham story in Genesis 22 and from the Bible as a whole. God, despite his holiness and our corruption, stoops. God stoops to our level. Rather than rejecting us out of hand as incorrigible, unteachable failures, God comes all the way down into our limited understanding and speaks in a language that we can grasp. He takes us by the hand to the next step, like a parent holding a toddler’s hand and guiding her up a staircase. The toddler can’t see the top of the staircase and doesn’t even know how far away it is. But by holding tight onto her father’s hand she can struggle to the next step, though later as a 12-year-old she’ll bound up those steps two at a time, running. As a 15-month old she’s not ready for that.

But at the same time, to press the metaphor, there are things that a 15-month old can learn that a 12-year-old can’t, like visual perception and first language acquisition. You have to learn those things very young, and in gradual stages. As we know now, if you are deprived completely of language or sight in youth, then as an older person you will never learn to speak fluently or perceive the dimensions of clear sight even if hearing and vision are restored to you.

I am going to suggest to you a truth that was communicated to this moral-and-theological toddler Abraham in Genesis 22 that could only be expressed to him at that stage of development – and that could never be said the same way to moral and theological 12-year-olds like us.

I believe that God was saying to Abraham – if I, with reverence and fear, may presume to put words in God’s mouth – something like, “Abraham, you must be no less devoted to me than your pagan neighbors are to their gods. You must render me absolute obedience. You must not think of me as a chill, easy-going God who drops in and out of your life like a cool uncle but does not really care whether you trust me and will do as I say. Abraham, I am your God. Everything you think you own in truth belongs to me. So. Give me your son.” That makes cruel sense to Abraham in his time and culture. He does not know, and God knows that he does not know – as we know, 4000 years later, that there is something here that is out of character with the one true God, so much out of character that he will later forbid the practice. But then, just as Abraham is about to commit the act, God intervenes and provides a substitute sacrifice – a ram whose horns are caught in the bushes. So indeed, there will be a sacrifice – that is nonnegotiable – but God is the one who will provide it. God provides the substitute so that Isaac can live and Abraham can rejoice.

In this, I believe, Abraham learns a crucial lesson that we take for granted. Namely, that his God is not like those other gods, those false gods of human imagining. Jehovah does not belong in the same category. He must be obeyed with no less reverence than Molech. But he’s not Molech. The true God stops a man from sacrificing his son, rather than making him go through with it and then delighting in the final deadly result. Abraham’s God is powerful and sovereign. But he is also good.

4,000 years later we who live this side of the cross of Jesus Christ understand so much more of this story that Abraham at his stage could never even have guessed at. Because now we have a wider view of where this story was going all along. God does not say to us, “Give me your son.” Rather he says, “I give you my Son. You don’t offer your son as a sacrifice to me. I offer up my Son, Myself, as a sacrifice for you." For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life.

As I conclude now, I acknowledge that I have not answered one of the questions that I posed at the beginning: “How did Abraham know it was God telling him to sacrifice his son?” I’m not sure that question is answerable. I can answer to my own satisfaction - if to no one else’s – a different question, the question of whether God could command a man to sacrifice his son today, even as a test. The answer is absolutely not. Because that command was crucially dependent on Abraham’s culture and understanding and moral development 2,000 years before the cross of Christ. Today is a different era, we have a greater understanding of God, and sons of zealous fathers may rest easy in their beds. But can I say anything to that nagging question, “How did Abraham know it was God?” And beyond that, how can we ourselves know for sure that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life?

At the end of C S Lewis' great fantasy novel The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, some weary and hungry travelers arrive at a table spread lavishly with food and drink. Hungry as they are, they are afraid to partake because they think the food might be enchanted and will do them mischief. A solemn and majestic young woman appears, speaks with them briefly, and invites them to eat and drink at Aslan’s table. Edmund demurs, saying, “When I look in your face I can’t help believing all you say: but then that’s just what might happen with a witch too. How are we to know that you’re a friend?” She replies, “You can’t know. You can only believe – or not.”

After a moment’s pause noble Reepicheep says, “Sire, of your courtesy fill my cup with wine from that flagon. It is too big for me to lift. I will drink to the lady." Soon he and all the travelers are refreshed and full and content. Or, as the Bible says in Psalm 34:8, Taste and see that the Lord is good.

Let us pray.

Almighty Creator, God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for stooping to us in our foolishness and wickedness, and for speaking to us in ways that we can understand. Thank you for not rejecting us but rather working in us with patience to conform us to the image or your Son Jesus whom you provided to appease the wrath that we provoked and to invite us into an eternal joy that we never deserved. In his name, amen.

Full text of Genesis 22:

Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, “Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied. 2 Then God said, “Take your son, your only son, whom you love—Isaac—and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.”3 Early the next morning Abraham got up and loaded his donkey. He took with him two of his servants and his son Isaac. When he had cut enough wood for the burnt offering, he set out for the place God had told him about. 4 On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place in the distance. 5 He said to his servants, “Stay here with the donkey while I and the boy go over there. We will worship and then we will come back to you.”6 Abraham took the wood for the burnt offering and placed it on his son Isaac, and he himself carried the fire and the knife. As the two of them went on together, 7 Isaac spoke up and said to his father Abraham, “Father?”“Yes, my son?” Abraham replied.“ The fire and wood are here,” Isaac said, “but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” 8 Abraham answered, “God himself will provide the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.” And the two of them went on together. 9 When they reached the place God had told him about, Abraham built an altar there and arranged the wood on it. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar, on top of the wood. 10 Then he reached out his hand and took the knife to slay his son. 11 But the angel of the LORD called out to him from heaven, “Abraham! Abraham!” “Here I am,” he replied.12 “Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”13 Abraham looked up and there in a thicket he saw a ram[a] caught by its horns. He went over and took the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place The LORD Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of the LORD it will be provided.”15 The angel of the LORD called to Abraham from heaven a second time 16 and said, “I swear by myself, declares the LORD, that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, 17 I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, 18 and through your offspring[b] all nations on earth will be blessed,[c] because you have obeyed me.”19 Then Abraham returned to his servants, and they set off together for Beersheba. And Abraham stayed in Beersheba. 0 Some time later Abraham was told, “Milkah is also a mother; she has borne sons to your brother Nahor: 21 Uz the firstborn, Buz his brother, Kemuel (the father of Aram), 22 Kesed, Hazo, Pildash, Jidlaph and Bethuel.” 23 Bethuel became the father of Rebekah. Milkah bore these eight sons to Abraham’s brother Nahor. 24 His concubine, whose name was Reumah, also had sons: Tebah, Gaham, Tahash and Maakah.

God's Righteous Judgment Against Liars

My father fixed radios for a living. Two-way radios of the sort used by police, fire departments and ambulance services. Over the years he got to know emergency personnel around the area of Bridgeview and Oak Lawn where we lived. One day in March of 1980 when I was in high school he went to work as usual and while fixing a radio he slumped over and died of a heart attack.

About 20 years later, somewhere around the year 2000, my sister was helping her daughter find her first apartment. They saw that an elderly couple had a room to rent and so they went to inquire about it. As it turns out the man who was renting the room, Al Harker, had been chief of the Oak Lawn Fire Department. Upon finding out who he was, my sister said to him, “You would have known my dad, the radioman, Lowell Lundquist.” He said, “You’re Lowell’s daughter?” His eyes filled with tears. He actually had to sit down. Then he said, “Lowell Lundquist was the most honest man I ever knew.”

Growing up, I did not think it was remarkable or unusual or noteworthy that my father was an honest man, or that my mother was an honest woman. Looking back I think I just took that for granted. Of course they were honest - they were Christians. Honesty was something you didn’t even think about. It was just assumed. Christians don’t lie, defraud, deceive, slander with falsehoods, exaggerate their accomplishments to try to look big in the eyes of others. You just don’t do that. That’s what worldly people do. That’s what people do who do not fear God, who do not love Jesus, who do not have the Holy Spirit living within them. But we’re Christians. We don’t plagiarize, or cheat on exams, or embellish resumes. We file honest tax returns. If the cashier gives us too much change we say, “Oh you gave me too much, this is yours.” I recall one time back in the 1970s my mother deposited one hundred dollars in a bank account. One zero zero point zero zero. The bank lost the decimal point and recorded it as 10 thousand dollars. Of course my mother immediately informed them of their mistake, because that’s just what you do. That is what you do if you are a child of God and not a child of the devil.

I am reluctant to tell this next little story about me but I will give myself permission because it seems pertinent. Back in high school a friend made a favorable comment about my honesty relative to other people. And I disputed it. I said, “Bill I’m no more honest than you are. You’re either honest or you’re not. You’re just as honest as I am.” Bill was a good guy, a devout Catholic who led a blameless life. But he said, “No, no.” He said “For example If I’m in my room watching Johnny Carson and my mom says, ‘Bill do you have the TV on in there?’ I’ll say ‘No.’” I can’t remember how I responded to that, but I know that my thought was, Really? You would just lie to your mom like that? Wow. Well, then, I guess I am more honest than you.

The account from our Scripture text in Acts 4:32 – 5:11 reveals to us the mind of God regarding honesty. It is a disturbing, terrifying story, and I have no desire to blunt its terror or mitigate its power. In fact I hope that God will use these few words of mine to inspire fear and repentance in the hearts of sinners so that they will dare to ask themselves, “Could that have been me? Am I Ananias or Sapphira? Could that have been my dead body carried out from apostolic presence in view of everyone and thrown into a grave in instantaneous divine judgment upon my untruthfulness, and as a warning to all? Could that have been me?”

Briefly the story is this. The church in Jerusalem was in its infancy. It had only been weeks or months since Jesus was crucified there, resurrected, and then ascended back to the Father. Then the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples and they began proclaiming who Jesus was, that he was Messiah and Savior and that he had risen from the dead. Thousands believed and were baptized and had begun to form a community - a community of people who loved each other and cared for each other.

Part of that care was shown by the way some of them provided for the poor among them. A Jewish priest named Joseph who had become a Christian sold a field and gave the money to the apostles to be distributed among needy Christians.

Everybody liked Joseph. He was generous. And he was such an encourager that the apostles gave him the nickname Bar Nabash – son of encouragement – and the nickname stuck so that that became the name by which he was known through the rest of the New Testament: Barnabas. He is never called Joseph again.

When you have someone like Barnabas in your congregation – kind, generous, worthy, likeable - it is only natural that you honor him. And you would be wise to make sure that he is in a position of authority and influence. You want good people as your leaders, not bad people. When it comes to determining policy you want to listen to Barnabas and give special weight to his opinion because you know his heart. You know that he considers other people’s interests and not just what’s in it for him. You listen to Barnabas, not to a sneaky self-dealer like Judas.

I think it is fair to assume that Ananias and Sapphira noted the esteem with which Barnabas was held, and they wanted some of that honor for themselves. “Wouldn’t it be nice to have people look up to me the way they look up to Barnabas? You know how everybody says, ‘That Barnabas – he’s such a good guy’? What if they were to say that about me? Maybe they’ll give me a flattering nickname. Instead of ‘Ananias’ I’ll be ‘Bar-emeth’, Son of Truth. Or ‘Bat-tov’, Daughter of Goodness. They’ll listen to me. They’ll ask my advice. So how can I contrive to get the influence and good name that Barnabas has?”

They decide to do pretty much the same thing Barnabas did. They sold a piece of property and brought the proceeds to the apostles to be distributed among those in need. But they kept some of the money themselves. Was it wrong to keep some of the money? No, not at all. The property was theirs, and the money from the sale was theirs. They could have kept some of it, most of it, or all of it. Peter said so himself in Acts 5:4: He said, “Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?” They could have done anything they wanted with it. It was good that they gave away of some of it. The problem wasn’t how much they gave. The problem was that they lied about it. Both of them lied, deliberately. They said they were giving 100 percent of the proceeds when actually they were only giving 70 percent, or 50 percent, or 90 percent – whatever it was.

It was that lie that provoked Peter’s condemnation and God’s instantaneous lethal judgment. First for Ananias. Peter said to him, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land…You have not lied just to human beings but to God.” When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died.

It is significant that Peter said to him, “How has Satan so filled your heart that you would lie?” Jesus said that Satan was the father of lies. In John 8:44 Jesus said to Jewish leaders (presumably Pharisees), “There is no truth in Satan. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” And Jesus said to those same Pharisees, “You belong to your father, the devil.”

If you lie, it is because you have permitted Satan to fill your heart. If you go on lying, then the devil is your father, not God. I’m afraid there are many people who pray the Lord’s Prayer beginning with the words “Our Father…” and the devil responds, “Yes, what is it?”

But if you have been born again, and the Holy Spirit has taken up residence within you, then you are a person of truth. If you are a liar, then something other than the Holy Spirit lives within you.

Born-again people tell the truth. Holy terror descends upon them if and when they realize that they have lied - holy terror followed by confession and repentance. That is how Christians respond when they are exposed for having lied. But the sons and daughters of Satan double down on their lies. When they are challenged and exposed for their falsehoods, they don’t grieve and repent in deep shame. They just tell another lie to cover up the first one. By doing that they show that their consciences have been seared, glazed over, and the Holy Spirit can gain no foothold to do his work of moral conviction. People of that sort reveal by their constant unrepentant falsehoods that they have not been born again. As Charles Spurgeon said, “If God has not made you honest, he has not saved your soul.”

Ananias’s wife Sapphira was granted the extraordinary mercy of an opportunity to come clean. Three hours after her husband’s sudden death that she did not yet know about, she came in and appeared before Peter and he asked her, “Is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” That question is an act of grace, because now she has opportunity to look down at her toes, take a deep dive into the cleansing pool of humiliation and shame and say, “No, it isn’t. I lied. I wanted people to look up to me. I was wrong. I’m sorry. I have no excuse. May God be merciful to me. Would you please pray for me?”

Then, I think, we would have had a different outcome to this story. Because then Sapphira would have been widowed and grief-stricken and ashamed, but not dead. She would have rejoined the living, gracious family of believers. The Bible says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. It says if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. It says Jesus will not break a bruised reed, or snuff out a smoldering wick. There is mercy, mercy in abundance, before the throne of God.

But many people don’t want that mercy. They reject it because it comes at the cost of deep humiliation. And some people would rather maintain the lie that they don’t need mercy because they have not done anything wrong.

That is the choice that Sapphira made. She rejected mercy and doubled down on her lie. She stuck to it, and dropped down dead. Her body was carried out and buried next to her husband. Partners in deception united in death.

Why was the lie of Ananias and Sapphira judged so harshly? I think that most would agree with me that their sin seemed relatively minor compared to sins that other Christians have gotten away with, or that perhaps even we ourselves have gotten away with. They didn’t steal money from the offering plate, or commit adultery, or kill anybody or abuse anybody. All they did was tell a little fib, a little white lie that made them look a bit more generous than they really were. Why such a harsh judgment for that?

The text does not ask or answer the question as to why their judgment was so harsh. But because that question seems to scream out at us and demand to be addressed, I will give you my speculation for what it’s worth.

First, it seems clear to me that the motive of Ananias and Sapphira was to get prestige and honor in the eyes of men. That is, the thing that Barnabas had by virtue of goodness they wanted to obtain by scheming. They wanted to look big and important and generous and good. They wanted to seem holier than they were, and so gather to themselves the kind of influence and authority that is rightly bestowed on good people. This was the sin of the Pharisees who hated Jesus so much that they sought to kill him and ultimately succeeded in doing so. The Pharisees were corrupt but they longed to look holy in the eyes of others, and there was no sin that Jesus condemned more regularly and ruthlessly than that – the sin of hypocrisy. Some Bible scholar (I wish I could remember who) said that Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount could be summed up with the words “Don’t be like them.” Don’t be like those Pharisees who seek the esteem of people in whatever way they can contrive to get it, but don’t care about the genuine praise that comes from the God who sees everything, and who knows the heart, and who alone has authority to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

Now remember that the church at this point in Acts 4 and 5 had just started. It was still in its infancy. What a tragedy beyond reckoning if Pharisaical hypocrisy were to gain a foothold in the very foundation of the church of God. That could not be allowed to happen. You can’t have devious hypocrites like Ananias and Sapphira standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Peter and James and Stephen and (later) the apostle Paul who lost everything including their lives for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You can’t have conniving self-dealers built into the ground-floor leadership of the church.

Second, the gospel depends crucially on truthful people telling the truth.

The apostles proclaimed, and we who follow in their footsteps go on proclaiming, a message that is likely to be met with doubt, incredulity, derision, contempt and even laughter. We say that the God who made everything - including us - has visited our planet as one of us. He has been incarnated as a human being. He was born of a virgin. He performed miracles like walking on water, healing the blind, changing water into wine. He died deliberately by offering himself up as a blood sacrifice to be murdered maliciously by cruel men. And he rose from the dead. There is salvation in no one else. But whoever believes in him will be saved.

Who is going to believe that? We live in the real world here. Who is going to believe anything so ridiculous as the idea that a man actually rose from the dead? That never happens!

On several occasions in the Bible, from the gospels to the book of Acts to 1st Corinthians, we see that this report that Jesus had risen from the dead was met with disbelief. But more than just disbelief – there was often a kind of snorting contempt along the lines of “No way! You can’t be serious. What’s the gimmick? I’d have to see him for myself to believe that.” Even one of Jesus’ disciples, Thomas, reacted this way. He initially disbelieved all of the other disciples, and the women like Mary Magdalene who said they had seen Jesus alive, and he had even disbelieved Jesus himself who had said many times that he would rise from the dead. Thomas only believed when he saw and talked with Jesus himself. Same thing with the apostle Paul. He did not believe that Jesus rose from the dead until he saw him and talked with him.

So it is natural, understandable and typical to regard the report that someone has risen from the dead as a fabrication, a lie, a story that has behind it some motivating force other than truth. But the apostles who proclaimed the resurrection did so and continued to do so for decades right up to their deaths just because it was true. They did not gain from it. They very evidently did not have ulterior motives. They did not become rich. They did not rise to positions of secular power and influence. Rather they were hunted down, imprisoned, beaten repeatedly, and nearly all of them were eventually killed – some of them experiencing death by torture just like Jesus. It is very hard, in their lives, to find some underlying self-serving motive for their proclamation that Jesus had risen from the dead. They proclaimed it because they saw him alive.

In that context, what if any one of them were found to be untruthful in any other area of their lives? What would that do to the gospel? It would completely undermine it. Suppose for a moment that you are one of these early converts to Jesus. An apostle has convinced you - by God’s grace and by the internal working of the Holy Spirit - that Jesus is the anointed one, that he rose from the dead, and that he is Lord of heaven and earth. But then you find that this same apostle has embellished his resume, or committed insurance fraud, or told a story that happened to someone else as though it happened to him, or sold a defective item to a customer without telling the customer it was defective. What would you think of the gospel then? If you are an honest person yourself, you would find a dark shadow being cast over everything that apostle has ever testified to. What else has he lied about?

On the other hand, if you are a child of the devil, you may actually breathe a sigh of relief and think, “Well, I’m glad the standards aren’t so high here. We can all just kind of wink at each other while we play this religious game to our personal or mutual benefit.” And then if you get enough people with that mindset, you don’t have a church at all but rather institutionalized collective Phariseeism. Sons of the devil masquerading as sons of light.

The gospel of Jesus Christ and the worthiness of the church crucially depend on truthful people being honest all the time.

I explained this principle to a newly-hired youth pastor whom I briefly met 9 years ago. When he introduced himself to the congregation, he related that the pastor had called him when he was graduating from Bible school and asked what his job prospects were. In self-deprecating humor he said that he told the pastor that he had several offers and it was just a matter of picking which was best for him. In reality though he had no such offers. He told this story on himself for a laugh, making fun of himself for the way he had postured before the pastor. A week later in a different context I heard him tell the same story. And then I knew I had to pull him aside privately and tell him as graciously as I knew how, “Look, you’re a pastor. You represent Jesus Christ. You can’t lie or shade the truth about anything, ever. And if you do lie, it’s not funny. It’s not a joke. You can’t pass it off as ‘Boy that was silly of me wasn’t it?’ It is a thing to be repented of as you set an example for the congregation of absolute truthfulness all the time.” I’m happy to say he took my words well. I’ve lost track of him. I hope he is, and remains, honest.

Time would fail me to tell in detail all the stories I would like to tell now of church people, some in leadership, who have related to me instances of their own dishonesty without any hint of remorse or shame or indication that they would now behave differently. As a young pastor I heard an elderly woman in my congregation tell me she had sold her house, and in passing she happened to mention that the prospective owners asked her what the heating bill was in winter. It was about 200 dollars. But she was afraid that would scare them off and so she told a “little white lie” that it was 100. I was speechless. I probably should have said something, but I think I was too gobsmacked to formulate words. I’d like to have the moment back, so that I could find the right way to say, “That was wrong, you know. You can’t lie. You’re a Christian. And if it means you don’t sell the house then you don’t sell the house.”

Or I think of another time when someone at church explained to me how he had gotten his roof replaced for free. The insurance company paid for it. Somebody happened to mention to him that he could claim hail damage. Crucially he had not noticed that the roof had been fine, and then there was a hail storm, and he was able to spot areas where hail had damaged his roof. No, there was none of that. But it was time to get the roof redone. So we'll say there was hail damage. Well what do you know - it worked! Free roof! I hope that every Christian who hears this sermon or reads it online would rather be poor and have a leaky roof than do that.

One more. A Christian man who frankly did a lot for me over the years – and I acknowledge that – I can’t mention his name, but I am indebted to him for services that he performed for me that I never did for him. This man recommended an auto mechanic to me. And he did so on this basis. He said he had taken his old car to the mechanic. And the guy looked it over and assessed what would need to be done, and said “Look, sell this car to someone you don’t know and will never meet again.” And the Christian thought that was great advice. In fact he repeated the story to me later on, and both times, to my discredit, I was speechless. I should have spoken up, but in my cowardice and surprise and fear of appearing self-righteousness I said nothing. So I will try to make up for that by saying something here. If you would foist a bad car on a stranger that you would not sell to a friend, then you should not be an elder in any church. You’re not honest enough.

Read the story of Ananias and Sapphira and be afraid. That is what this story is supposed to do to you. Verse 5 says “great fear seized all who heard what had happened.” Verse 11 repeats that, saying “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.” If you are dishonest, then be afraid, confess, repent, and be honest going forward.

I close with this thought. I guarantee you that honesty will cost you. It may mean that you won’t be able to sell your house. Or that you will be stuck with a leaky roof that you cannot afford to replace, or with a bad car that you cannot palm off on an unsuspecting stranger. Or maybe something even worse than that.

I don’t know why Al Harker said concerning my dad, 20 years after he passed away, “Lowell Lundquist was the most honest man I ever knew.” I don’t know what observations of my father’s character informed that assessment. But maybe, among other things, Al knew how my dad had lost his job a year or so earlier. The company where Dad had worked for many years had been bought out by corrupt new owners who insisted that that he engage in billing practices that he considered fraudulent. He refused to do so, and they fired him.

Of course honesty will cost you. It cost my father his job, and it cost the apostles their lives. But just imagine someone tearing up 20 years after your death at the mere mention of your name, and saying you were the most honest person they had ever met. And beyond that, imagine God your Father welcoming you home with the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Let us pray.

God, whom I dare call Father I hope without guilty presumption, provoke righteous fear in the hearts of Christians who lie, and who stand in danger of revealing themselves to be no sons of yours but rather sons of the devil. May this fear lead to confession, repentance, forgiveness, and the holy joy of living before you in truth. In the name of Jesus your Son, Amen.

Scripture text: Acts 4:32-5:11:

All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet. Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet.3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasnn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human beings but to God.”5 When Ananias heard this, he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.7 About three hours later his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?” “Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”9 Peter said to her, “How could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”10 At that moment she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events.

Why Was Jesus So Mean To His Mom?

Some 25 years ago a teacher of mine in seminary said that every time in Scripture where Jesus has some interaction with his mother Mary he’s pushing her back, he’s creating distance between himself and her. There is a readily apparent motivation for this. Though she is his mother, and she gave him birth and nursed him and changed his diapers and taught him to walk, he is nonetheless her eternal Creator, her Lord, her Savior. She has no dominion over him, but he has absolute dominion over her. And she must bow the knee before him and acknowledge him as Lord and God as must we all. Therefore every trace of motherly privilege and indulgence and even authority must be relinquished, taken out her hands, lest it hinder the development of her soul. That makes sense. As I looked over these passages I saw that my professor was right about Jesus distancing himself from her. But it seemed to me that the case can be stated even more strongly. It seems that Jesus treats his mother as though she were not one of his followers. This is disturbing, but, I believe, it is ultimately instructive, enlightening, and even hopeful.

There are 5 occasions in Scripture where Jesus talks to his mother or refers to her. The first incident is in Luke 2 when Jesus is 12 years old and his parents take him to Jerusalem and then leave him behind while they go back home. They assume he is in their traveling party but they do not check. And then they blame him for it. They come back and find him in the temple where Mary says to him “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” Significantly, Jesus – even as a 12-year-old - does not apologize. He does not beg forgiveness. He does not vow to do better next time. Instead he turns the charge back on her and Joseph and says, “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”

I feel bad for Mary. I can’t imagine how awful it would be to be the parent of an utterly sinless child. The Bible insists repeatedly that Jesus never sinned. St. Paul said he knew no sin. St. Peter said he committed no sin. St. John said in him was no sin. The writer of the Book of Hebrews says he was tempted as we are, but was without sin. Try to imagine raising a sinless child. It would mean that every time you disagreed with him, every time you tried to take him to task, he would regard himself as being in the right and you in the wrong. In inevitable areas of conflict and tension it would always be you who needed to say “I’m sorry.” You were the sinner – he was holy. And if he ever spoke words that you found hurtful, well, they were just hurtful and he never took them back.

We who have children want to raise good children. But being flawed human beings ourselves, I think that raising a perfectly holy child would at times be a nightmare. Because whether that child openly rebuked us or not, he would know, and we would know that he knew, that we ourselves were never measuring up to the standard that he followed perfectly. So I believe that this snapshot of an incident that we have in Luke 2 was reflective of a broad pattern, a daily pattern, that characterized life within the holy family. And I imagine that it plagued poor Mary as she, a sinner like the rest of us, tried to raise the sinless Son of God. Jesus was always right. And he knew it. And if he and his mother ever disagreed, she was wrong and needed to repent.

The next interaction with Mary occurs at a wedding feast in John 2. The hosts of the reception run out of wine, and she comes to him and tells him about it with clear expectation that he solve the problem. But Jesus responds, “Woman, why do you involve me? My time has not yet come.” “Woman”? He called his mother “Woman”? It’s not the only time he does this. If we skip ahead to the 5th occasion where Jesus has interaction with his mother, it is when he was hanging on the cross, dying, and he entrusted her to the care of his disciple John. Even there he said, “Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.”

How could Jesus address his own mother as “Woman”? Every Bible scholar for centuries it seems has said - rightly so - that the term we translate “woman” was not an insult in their language as it would be in English. It was not rude or insulting, but it was formal. It was distant. It was respectful but not intimate - roughly comparable in English to the word “Ma’am.” So Jesus is saying on these two occasions, “Ma’am, why do you involve me?” and “Ma’am, behold your son.”

When Jesus was only a month old a Spirit-filled righteous man named Simeon prophesied to Mary saying, “A sword will pierce your soul.” And of course that probably had primary reference to the fact that she would see her son tortured to death. But I also imagine that a sword pierced Mary’s soul every time Jesus called her “Ma’am.” “Oh, there he goes again. ‘Ma’am’! Couldn’t he at least call me ‘Mom’?”

With regard to the implied request that she makes of him at the wedding feast that he do something about the wine, it is worth noting that when Jesus talked with his disciples, he emphasized that their requests, made in the right spirit and according to the will of God, would be heard and answered. For example, “If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask what you will, and it will be given to you.” The conditions were important: you had to be a disciple, remaining in Christ, and one in whose soul the words of Jesus had taken root. In that case, yes, ask what you will. But Jesus was clearly not pleased with every request that came his way. For example, he put off the request of James and John to have the top two positions in his administration. And one time when a man said to Jesus, “Tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me” Jesus rebuked that request and went on to preach a little sermon on greed. So, not every request delighted Jesus. And in the one instance we have recorded where his mother made a veiled request of him, he seemed displeased.

When she said, “They’ve run out of wine,” Jesus did not say, “Oh bless you mom, you did exactly the right thing! You didn’t try to handle this yourself, you brought it me, which is what you ought to do in these circumstances. Well done!” No. However we interpret Jesus’ curious response, there is no mistaking the fact that he considered this a flawed request, and he granted it not out of joy but as a concession, as God so often does in Scripture when he condescends to human frailty and grants certain things because of the hardness of our hearts.

Occasions 3 and 4 where Jesus refers to his mother will take your breath away if you let the texts speak plainly and feel their full force. There is an instance recorded in Mark 3 and Matthew 12 where Jesus’ mother and brothers go looking for him in order to lay hold of him and bring him home. Mark 3:20-21 says, Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” Go down to verses 31-35 and you will see what happened. It says: Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Through my more than 4 decades of reading through the Scriptures and hearing them expounded upon I believe I would have read through this text many many times without really having paid close attention to what was actually being said. Because if you had asked me years ago how I understood the family dynamics of this situation, I probably would have said something like this: “This was clearly engineered by Jesus’ brothers.” They were not believers in Jesus at the time – John 7:5 says so explicitly. It says that not even his own brothers believed in him, and in that chapter they taunt him, make fun of him and suggest he should go to Jerusalem where they know people are waiting to kill him. At least 2 of Jesus brothers, James and Jude, eventually came around, and came to know that their brother was indeed the Messiah. But that is getting ahead of our story. During Jesus’ time of ministry with his disciples, his biological brothers were not followers of his and they were even hostile to him like Joseph’s brothers in the Old Testament. That is, Joseph the son of Jacob. His brothers hated him so much they talked about killing him and instead sold him into slavery.

So, I would have assumed years ago that it was Jesus’ brothers who said, “Our older brother has flipped his lid – he thinks he’s the Messiah or something. We better go and do an intervention, drag him away from his groupies, bring him home, do a de-programming, and talk some sense into him, teach him his place and take up his proper role in the family carpentry business.” And then Mary went along with them, but of course she was of a different mindset. She did not agree with them. No, she must have been tormented in her righteous soul in having to be in the same vicinity as his unbelieving brothers. I think that’s how I would have understood this text if had you asked me.

But the text itself gives you zero justification for making that distinction between Mary and her other sons. The text does the opposite. It groups them together, tightly, and it does so 5 times. It says, “his mother and brothers arrived.” Then people tell Jesus, “Your mother and brothers are outside”. Then Jesus says, “Who are my mother and brothers?” He points to his disciples and says, “Here are my mother and brothers.” And then he says, “Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

Think about that. If Mary at this time in her life had been doing God’s will, and had been a lone, faithful, troubled holdout against Jesus’ brothers’ contempt and pride and feelings of superiority, then wouldn’t Jesus have said, “My mother and brothers are here? Keep my brothers outside and let my mother through! She does the will of God. She is not only my biological mother but my spiritual mother as well. My soul rejoices to see her face!” That’s not what he says. Instead he says, “My brothers are the ones who are seated around me. My mother (or mothers) are the women here who are listening to me and doing the will of God.” Mary and Jesus’ brothers were left outside while Jesus made that point.

I wonder how Mary felt when Jesus’ cold words were reported back to her. “Ma’am, uhh, he says his mother and brothers are there with him already.”

There is one more reference that Jesus makes to his mother Mary, and it is just as chilling. Luke 11:27-28. Jesus has been teaching, and a woman in the crowd is pleased with what she has heard and pronounces a blessing on his mother. It says, As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

The word “rather” in that sentence is not a mistranslation. The Greek term has adversative force. It is a correction, a push-back to what that woman in the crowd had just said. It is not the term you would expect if Jesus were responding with a warm smile, “Oh yes, thank you - blessed indeed is my mother among women, and blessed is the fruit of her womb – Me. But let me add here, blessed in addition are those who, just like her, hear the word of God and obey it.” That is not what is being said, it is not a responsible exegesis of the text. What Jesus says here is of a piece with what he had said earlier when Mary came to rip him away from his disciples and “bring him home where he belonged.” His real mother, he said at that time, was any woman who did the will of God. And now the truly blessed woman, he says, was - well, not her so much, not now, anyway - but rather any woman who listened to the word of God and did it.

Imagine the dagger going through the heart of poor Mary if she caught wind of those words. More than 30 years earlier the angel Gabriel had told her that she was highly favored of God. Her relative Elizabeth told her twice that she was blessed. And she herself said, “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” (Luke 1:48). And she was right, we have called her blessed.

But in her own lifetime when somebody tried to bless her, Jesus stepped on it and provided a correction, a contrary statement in order to tell us who was really blessed.

Mary, did you drift? Mary, did you stumble? Mary did you take a step back from that remarkable devotion of your youth, your maiden youth, when as a young pure virgin faced with the destruction of your reputation, a teen pregnancy where even your own fiancé would not believe at first that you had been faithful to him, and he initially decided he was done with you forever – when you faced that galling prospect, remember what you said? You said, “I am the servant of the Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.” And then, “My soul magnifies the Lord. My spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” Do you remember that, Mary?

I’m afraid an awful lot can happen between the ages of, let’s say, 15 and 50. Sincere devotion can give way to dull depravity. Humility can give way to pride. I have witnessed it personally, and if you’re old like me, and have been a Christian for decades, you have witnessed it too. Much can change over the course of years when the sweet dependence on God and the nobility of one’s youth becomes the drifting, self-indulging, self-pitying, God-forgetfulness of one’s middle age.

There are many examples in Scripture of great souls who started well, but at some point they veered off course. Early in their lives it was evident that the favor of God was upon them, and they even experienced astonishing miracles. They demonstrated great faith in God and courage in the midst of overwhelming opposition. In Judges chapter 7, for example, Gideon is a mighty warrior before the Lord, who defeats a great army with just 300 men and God. But in chapter 8, he and his family succumb to idolatry and worship a garment made of gold.

Solomon, the wisest man ever, as young man bowed before the Lord and humbly asked only for wisdom to guide the people of Israel. “Well done Solomon! We rejoice to see that your father David has such a worthy successor!” But later, Solomon became an ungrateful self-indulgent moron as he worshiped the false gods of his pagan wives.

Hezekiah in his 30s was one of the godliest, most exemplary kings that Israel/Judah ever had. But he went seriously off-track in the last 15 years of his life. 2 Chronicles 32:25 says, “Hezekiah’s heart was proud and he did not respond to the kindness shown him; therefore the Lord’s wrath was on him and on Judah and Jerusalem.”

Tell me, what can be done for such people? What can be done for a backslider, a moral drifter? What is the kindest, best, most loving, most effective thing that can be done for an individual whose latter drifting betrays a former devotion?

At least part of the answer will be to do for that individual just what Jesus did to his own mom. And that will sometimes involve the appearance of mean-spiritedness because it will not shy away from earnest confrontation and the withholding of fellowship so long as the rebellion continues. Please understand, I am not talking about cold-heartedness toward the unbelieving and the unconverted, but rather toward fallen saints. To them it must be made clear – as graciously as possible, as sternly as necessary - that they have gone far off course and must turn back while there is time.

Scriptural examples abound. Nathan tells King David a story about a wicked man. David is enraged and calls for the man’s execution. And Nathan says, “You are the man.”

Good King Hezekiah fell so grievously that the prophet Isaiah said to him, “Jerusalem and the temple will some day be ransacked because of what you have done.”

Peter, St. Peter, foremost among the disciples, tried to get in the way of Jesus’ appointment with the cross – and Jesus went as far as to call him the devil. He said to him, “Get behind me, Satan. You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of men.” (Matthew 16:23). And even after that, Peter was not done trying to block Jesus’ road to the cross. On the night before the crucifixion, Peter drew a sword in violence, and Jesus again rebuked him, saying “Put your sword away! It will be death of you!”

After that, Peter was perfectly reformed, right? No. Years later, when he succumbed – we hope only briefly – to gospel-denying racism, his colleague, the Apostle Paul said, “I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.” (Galatians 2:11).

Please do not misunderstand me. King David, King Hezekiah, St. Peter, and Mary the mother of Jesus were not damned souls. But each one of them, at some point, was a terribly lost sheep. So lost that it was necessary for them to be confronted – brutally, in dead earnestness, without a hint of sarcasm or joking around – they had to be confronted with terrible words like these:

You deserve to die.

Others will suffer immeasurably because of you.

You’re the devil. You stand condemned.

Ma’am, you do not now have a place with my family, these blessed ones who do the will of God.

Why was Jesus so mean to his mom? For the same reason he will be mean to you and me when we stray off the path. He will be as mean as hell to save us from hell. If he loves you, he will not let you get away with ongoing rebellion. In fact it is a probable sign of your damnation if he does let you get away with it. But his loved ones, the sheep for whom he died, are the ones who are made to feel the sting his rebuke, the conviction of his Spirit, the grim bitterness of a defiled conscience, the painful shock of being excluded, for a time, from family fellowship.

If Jesus loves you, then when you defy the will of God, I believe that he will do for you no less than what he did for his own mother. The Bible says, “A bruised reed he will not break, a smoldering wick he will not snuff out.” And it also says that he prunes the vines. He cuts them lest they be unfruitful and ultimately useless. He disciplines those he loves.

If King David and King Hezekiah and St. Peter and Jesus’ own mother were not exempt from such harsh treatment – are you and I? I don’t want to be exempt from it because that would mean I was damned. What looks like meanness on the part of Jesus to his mother is in fact love and restoration and salvation. It is a loving shepherd going after his lost sheep and putting a strong shepherd’s crook around his rebellious sheep’s neck to drag it back. And do you know what? It worked. It worked. How do I know?

While most of the disciples had fled for their lives when Jesus was arrested, put on trial and crucified, guess who was still there at the foot of the cross, close enough to be within earshot of his groans and his words of grace? Mary was there. A heart full of daggers, of course, but she was there. And then a few weeks later, after the resurrection, we read in Acts 1:14 that the disciples “all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus”. She is still there. Mary, we can now assume, was back on track, doing the will of God and in company with the disciples rather than excluded from them. That is the last time that Mary is mentioned explicitly in the Scriptures. But a little deductive work suggests that 30 years later she’s still there. By now she’s 75, 80 years old. If you read the Gospel of Luke, written around that time – it becomes clear that Luke interviewed her, and he picked up details that nobody else got, including several references to Mary’s internal, unexpressed state of mind, and private dialogue that could only have come from Mary herself. She is still there. And through Mary, Luke was able to inform us of many of the excellencies of Jesus Christ, Mary’s God and ours.

It is my belief that if Jesus had spoken to her at that point, his tone would have been different, and he might even have called her “Mom.” In the same way, we who have been stabbed through the heart and cut in pieces by his rightful rebuke, and who come to the cross in agonizing grief knowing that our sin caused his death - we nonetheless cherish a fond hope beyond hope that someday, in his resurrected glory, by his grace, he will kindly say to us, “My child.” Let us pray.

Lord God if this message should come to any who have strayed, then, by your mercy, pierce their souls with the dagger of your Word. And though my words may not persuade, may your Holy Spirit convict, and cause those who have turned away to know that their only hope lies in bowing the knee to Him whose stern rebuke has stripped all other hopes away. Thank you for that severe mercy by which you make known to us our deadly rebellion and its consequences, and for the tender mercy by which your Holy Son Jesus took that rebellion upon himself and paid its debt. Jesus, you are King, Lord, Savior, and our only hope. Amen.

Tips For Spotting Evangelical Frauds Like Ravi Zacharias Ahead Of Time (Part 3): The Hero Of His Own Story

In September of 1981 I was a newly arrived freshman at Wheaton College, and the guest preacher for Spiritual Emphasis Week annoyed me.

There was no questioning his skill. He was an exceptional communicator: direct, listenable, insightful, having no trace of preacherly affectations, compellingly conversational in tone without being flip. It was a master’s class in how to give a series of talks.

So what didn’t I like? The first thing he did when getting to the pulpit was take several strides away from it and then stand there in plain view to give his message. The only motive for this move, it seemed, was to show us that he was speaking without notes. Later that day my gym teacher (yes, we had gym) said, “Wasn’t that a great sermon? And I can’t believe he did the whole thing without notes!” Cynical young me (who later morphed into cynical old me) thought, Of course. That’s exactly what he wanted you to think. He made sure we all knew he had the ability to deliver a message stored in his brain as effortlessly as Mozart stored a concerto.

Perhaps that is a mere quibble. But there’s more. Repeatedly during the course of that week he told stories that reflected well on himself and his example. He was, by all accounts (well, by his own account), an amazing family man. A colleague had asked him: “If the devil were to take you down, how would he do it?” – a provocative jab intended to reveal some vulnerability where he would need to be on guard. He dodged that challenge brilliantly by replying, “Well I know how he wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t get me through my family.” That was because he was so great with his wife and kids. He prioritized them even above his ministry, and everyone could see that about him.

He went as far as to tell us (holy COW was this a red flag) that someone said to him, “The women of this church love you.” They saw how attentive he was to his family, and they delighted in the example he set for their husbands. He explained that he never sat in a chair up on the platform before it was time to preach: he sat in the pew, with his family, arm around his wife, stroking his son’s earlobe. The whole congregation would see that and think, “Now THAT’S a man who gets it right with his wife and kids.”

I cannot say that I was shocked when, six years later, Gordon MacDonald resigned as president of Intervarsity because of an extramarital affair. That affair went on for months even while he was writing his bestseller “Ordering Your Private World.” No! Him??? How could a man who was so great with his family that women loved him possibly fall into adultery?

Sometime later MacDonald was restored to the pulpit of the church he betrayed. (It appears that the fact that his return deeply divided that congregation did not weigh so heavily on his conscience as to prevent his resumption of the pastorate.) In the ensuing years whenever I had occasion to hear him I could not help but notice that he was still indulging the habit I detected nearly 40 years ago: telling stories where he was the hero. He was having lunch with a friend and he said just the right thing. He gave an apt word of encouragement to a troubled person that turned things around. He sacrificed comfort to come to the aid of someone in distress. He had a brilliant reply to someone who had tried to trip him up. Even his adultery was put to good use: it equipped him all the more expertly to steer fallen souls (like Bill Clinton!) through the treacherous waters of repentance and restoration.

The “And-here's-another-time-I-excelled” brand of illustration is one that characterized the preaching of disgraced fraud Ravi Zacharias. I was never a close follower of him, but he was impossible to avoid in the circles of Evangelicalism in which I have walked. And in the bits and snatches of his sermons that I heard over the years, I don't think I’m exaggerating when I say he couldn’t go 15 minutes without relating some story in which he refuted a skeptic, or wrested respectful acknowledgement from an opponent, or sparked a revival, or gave a clarifying insight to some poor muddled soul. Now that so many of his lies have been documented in gory detail (the man claimed to be a professor at Oxford when he was never even a student there!), one begins to wonder if any of his self-flattering stories were true.

But even if they were all true, the Bible still says, “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.” (Proverbs 27:2). A faithful servant of God is far more likely to tell you about the time a stranger showed him kindness than about the time he showed kindness to a stranger. He will relate wise counsel that somebody gave him more willingly than the wise counsel he gave someone else. He remembers with photographic clarity the times he was forgiven, but is extremely forgetful about the times he forgave. He will extol others’ charitable acts, but his own you will never discover until someone else reveals them.

I am not saying it is always forbidden to draw attention to your example. St. Paul himself did so in 1 Thessalonians 2:9-10 among other places: “Surely you remember, brothers and sisters, our toil and hardship; we worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel of God to you. You are witnesses, and so is God, of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.” It is appropriate to do that sometimes, especially when responding to false accusation. I believe it is a matter of degree, quantity, frequency, motive, and bearing. I am reminded of D. A. Carson’s perceptive comment about the apparent retrograde slippage of Nehemiah’s character as revealed by the fact that four times at the end of his book the Israelite administrator called upon God to remember him with favor for his good works, and to remember with disfavor his opponents for their bad works. (Nehemiah 13:14, 22, 29, and 31). Once is ok. Even two we’ll let pass. But four times? At some point we seem to cross a threshold that marks a descent into self-centeredness and self-aggrandizement.

What I have to say to fellow evangelicals is essentially this: we have been deceived so, so many times in recent years by celebrity evangelical evildoers that the time has come to ratchet up our standards and heighten our sensitivities to the telltale signs of fraud. Put this one on your list. Be on your guard against preachers who keep telling you what great things they have said or done.