You Will Be Outed ...

Darkness is a good place to hide.  But shine a light on the same place, and it is impossible to hide anything.  We don’t like to admit it, but very often we seek out the dark, to keep our secrets hidden.  We may not have planned it that way.  But just avoiding the light leaves you headed into the dark, whether you planned it that way or not.  But then that old adage comes to mind “the truth will out”, and you begin to wonder whether this was just another old wives’ tale, or whether it was a truism that cannot be avoided.  If the only variable there is the timing, and not the inevitability, it would seem that no matter how much darkness you seek out, or find yourself surrounded by, the light is coming, and the truth will be known.  You will be outed, it is just a matter of when.  And perhaps that is best.  Best for you.  Best for me.  Perhaps it is better to be revealed, than to allow the dark places to fester unabated.  Perhaps it is better for you, to have your deepest darkest secret revealed, if only to heal it.  Keeping secrets requires great isolation.  The greater the isolation, the more potential to delay the outing of the truth.  But isolation does none of us very much good.  Perhaps to be past the thing, is better than to be mired in the thing.

Sometimes our secrets are singular, ones we hold and know only about ourselves.  But sometimes too, our secrets are made in small pacts, and most often for nefarious purposes.  Think about it, if a group of church leaders conspire to make and hold a secret – is that secret really better kept for the sake of the people.  Or more likely, would the telling of that secret lead to embarrassment, or a lack of control by those same church leaders, if the people but knew the truth.  In matters of political leadership this happens so often it is expected by us.  But in matters of the church, we expect it a lot less, and would prefer it never happens at all.  But just like in political matters, we the people, are often unable to ferret out the secret for some length of time, if at all.  It usually takes a break down by one of the secret keepers, before truth ever has a hope of seeing the light of day.  It is sadly the same in matters of faith.  Church leadership comes to agree with the motives behind the secrets and then has no desire to share them at all.  What might seem like the better choice, seldom is.

Take matters of secret or personal sin, for instance.  As long as the sinner covers up his sin, and hides it, he or she suffers from it.  Martin Luther King was a great preacher, with excellent ideas, and powerful sermons.  He spoke with passion and conviction.  He was right.  His words still echo in our ears.  But he was still human, still flawed, and still suffered from the sins that men choose to indulge in.  Take Jim Baker, he too lived a life of public preaching.  But he too, suffered from the same sins as MLK, perhaps a degree worse.  Being forced to come clean, allowed Jim the chance to be forgiven, it allowed us a chance not to judge or condemn but to sympathize and pray for – even if that was not our first reaction.  These were instances of private sin made public.  But what has been happening systemically within the walls of the Catholic church in terms of abuse by priests of the penitent, of the young who had little defense, and even less belief in their word vs the parish priest – this was still private sin, but then made corporate by the institution who chose to systemically cover it up.  All in an effort to avoid financial liability (estimated to be so high it might break the church), and to avoid the “stain” on the priesthood that was sure to come.  Instead of recognizing this problem and finding a way to combat it, the church chose to deny this problem and find greater paths of darkness to cover it up.  But the truth will out, and now it is.

But not all secrets have the same level of intensity, or are perceived with the same level of darkness as say the abuse of children.  Some secrets are far more innocent to the casual observer, perhaps not worth even being classified as secrets at all.  Our Pharisee forefathers were pioneers in this area.  Take for example the practice of Sabbath keeping.  It is right there in the fourth commandment.  We are supposed to rest, not work, on the Sabbath.  That is about our behavior, driven by our motives.  But those are less clear things to deal with (pesky motives).  So instead the Pharisees focused on actions.  Practical actions.  Take walking for example.  At what point does walking turn from pleasure to work?  Or at what point does walking turn from necessity (i.e. I need to get out of bed and walk to the bathroom, then church) and into joy-ride-walks where I accomplish nothing for God, and perhaps use my feet to take me to dark places I should not be on any day, let alone on Sabbath?  The Pharisees came up with remedy for all this.  They reasoned, if they limited the steps to 1000 on Sabbath, they could still go to the bathroom, and make it to church (which was a requirement), and still function throughout the day.  Not enough steps to work, just enough steps to worship, if you kept track of them.

In today’s world if they had packaged this idea up as “guidance” from the CDC, or from Washington on how to keep Sabbath, believers might have adhered to the advice or not, as we all feel like we have a choice in doing that.  But if instead, you package up this idea as “doctrine”, and begin to teach it from the pulpits as “absolute truth” that God will ONLY accept you, if you do it as HE commands – then we have a whole different problem for believers.  Keep in mind believers back in those days, did not have multiple Bibles laying around for study (even if it would have been only the Old Testaments).  Nor did they have a population educated enough for reading and writing on their own (most were tradesmen, farmers, or soldiers, if you were not involved in the priesthood itself).  So if a Pharisee told you something was truth, you very rarely had the educational ability to question that statement.  You obeyed, or else.  Or else the vengeful God they taught you about, would surely punish the crap out of you, until you finally did what He had asked.  But in this case, God never asked that.  God wanted your time and attention.  God wanted you not to be distracted by work of any kind, and focused purely on what love looks like in action, love for others that is.  Love is what the commandments are supposed to be all about.  “Walking” not so much.

So the secret behind the truth of walking on Sabbath does not seem like such a big deal.  But teaching the truth of man for the truth of God, certainly is.  Teaching say, that the Sabbath was changed from the seventh day of the week, to the first day, even though there is not a single text in the Old or New Testaments where God asks us to do this.  Not one.  But a whole host of texts on keeping the seventh day holy as God asks, even extending this practice into heaven and beyond.  So how did that change occur?  And why has it been preserved?  It comes back to the same original dangerous premise, to teach for truth the thinking and wisdom of man, instead of what God might have in mind for us.  The same thinking that thought to limit steps, down the road, thought to change the day itself (to get away from Judaism).  And the ideas were both taught as truth, when neither were or are.  But the truth will out.  Luke talks about this very phenomenon.  You don’t need to take my word for it.  It pops up in the 12^th chapter of Luke’s gospel letter to his friend about what we believe and why.

Beginning in verse 1 it reads …”In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.”  And there it is.  The first counsel to the disciples, to those listening in a crowd so big, it was standing room only, with people pressed right up against each other was … “beware” the leaven (that is the embellishment, or the teaching of man’s wisdom for truth) of the Pharisees.  That leaven constitutes hypocrisy.  Yes, in yet another ironies of irony, the Pharisees did not even “keep” their own doctrines they knew to be false.  Again, if they had packaged their ideas up as “advice” or “guidance” maybe it would have gone down better.  But instead they packaged it up as the absolute truth of God, that He alone requires, and coincidentally, that they themselves did not keep.  They actually did “know” better.  They just did not teach it. 

As with the Sabbath question posed earlier, the Catholic church actually also did “know” better, they just reasoned that the Pope had the authority to change the day, and so he did.  The teaching of it as Biblical imperative instead of church preference became the danger to us all.  Now the matter boils down to simply one of authority.  If you accept the supremacy of the Pope, even above the clear edicts of scripture, you must follow whatever the Pope says – whether he changes days, or commandments about graven images, or systems that may someday wind up permitting the abuse of children.  But if you accept only the supremacy of Jesus, they you must follow what He says about Sabbath even to keep it in heaven, about His commandment to avoid graven images, or His long history of seeing the wickedness of man towards children resulting in punishments by God Himself to stop the practice.  There is a wide variance between those two views, and only one has true authority, the other does not.

Jesus continues in verse 2 saying … “For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. [verse 3] Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”  These too are words of Jesus, where it comes to our entire lives.  The truth will out.  The systemic abuse of children continued many years, but not forever, it was discovered, and revealed, and now stains us all as Christians.  For it was done under the supposed banner of our Lord.  The origin of the change of Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday too was hidden for a great long time, but it too was discovered, and revealed.  So was the change in covering up the 2^nd commandment on graven images and avoiding them.  All once tightly held church secrets, now out in the open.  But few people even pay attention to them anymore.  We are consumed with other matters of more importance, able to gloss right over the mistakes of the past, wanting to be rid of them, able to move on, but not able to undo them, or change them.  Most have come to accept the wisdom of men, for the teachings of God, and do not question any tradition they are familiar with, or content with.  So what looks so innocent as leaven from the pulpits, persists to this day, robbing us of even greater love, and greater truth, and we content to be robbed.

Jesus continues in verse 3 saying … “And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. [verse 5] But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”  For many years after the times of Christ on our earth, people remained largely uneducated.  Scriptures then, were believed to be better tightly controlled by the church, and only read or studied by the clergy.  We prolonged the errors of our Pharisee forefathers, as we still seem to do today.  But throughout history there have always been those rebels, those labeled heretics, because they too sought to protect and preserve the scriptures themselves, until the age of printing press came to be.  These men and women lost their lives to persecution.  But Jesus here says do not fear that.  Fear instead, the one who seeks to see us burn with him in the last great lake of fire.  Aligning our interests with those of Satan should be what scares us.  That is what we should fear most of all.  When we teach our own wisdom instead of that of God, we align with the enemy of God, even if that was not our intent.  It is that we should fear above all else.  But do we?  The truth will out, you will be outed at some point.

Jesus continues in verse 6 saying … “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God? [verse 7] But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.”  It is a frightening picture that has been painted.  How are we to know the walking rules of the Pharisees were never God’s rules in the first place?  Not all of us have read the Bible from cover to cover, maybe it is buried in there somewhere.  It’s not.  But maybe it could be right?  And what about the doctrines of the Catholic church as they are taught today?  Or my own church as they continue to be taught?  Perhaps in every faith, error is mixed with truth, or worse, taught as truth and continues to be leaven which leads to hypocrisy.  How is a man to be saved?  And this is where Jesus brings us back to the one constant.  Our salvation is based in Jesus.  Our submission is what allows Jesus to teach us His truth, in His time, in His way.  Our journey’s may be at various points, never the same between any two people, even husband and wife.  But our Lord is the same.  Our destination is the same.  And that we each submit ourselves is also the same.  I may never reach your level of truth, or understanding of truth.  You may be far beyond me on the path.  But I have faith in Jesus to save me in spite of myself, and I trust that Jesus, and only Jesus will get that job done.

This is not a segment to bash our Pharisee forefathers, nor is it a segment to bash our Catholic brothers and sisters.  This is not about bashing at all, it is about seeking the light of Jesus, whether you were a church leader 2000 years ago, or now, or anywhere in between.  It is about challenging what you have come to accept as truth, when it might simply be tradition.  ALL denominations, and all believers, need to take this posture.  Let us run from darkness and into the light.  Let us air our dirty laundry if needs be, in order to be purged of our mistakes, and able to embrace the truth that lies in front of us.  The truth is beautiful.  It teaches us to love differently.  It teaches us to support each other differently.  Not to embrace our sins as inevitable, but to embrace our Jesus as the singular cure for sins we will never defeat, but He can and will and does on our behalf as we submit to Him alone.  If there are to be challenges of authority; whether the authority of the state to dictate your conscience, or the even the authority of the church to try to do the same, let us repel those supposed authorities in these matters and look singularly at Jesus as our only authority for all time.  That is how our salvation works.  That is how we begin to learn how to love differently.  That is how the most secret desires we harbor, dissipate, till only what He creates in us remains.  I want His love to be what is outed in me, don’t you?

 

Rebukes to Leadership ...

In a contest, there is usually only one winner.  Where it comes to sports, we are fine with that.  Where it happens inside the church doors, we are divided by it.  On the playing field it is a contest of wills, who wants to win, how far can they push themselves to achieve it.  Inside the church doors, it is also a contest of wills, usually founded in the cement of ego, and rarely in consideration of “who” wins, and how many lose because of it.  Questions over doctrine, or rather over the interpretation of doctrines have divided bodies of Christ for centuries.  This has always been a sad thing, where the enemies of Christ appear the only “winners”.  But when disagreements over style and preference are elevated to questions of faith, because the ego of those in hardened positions will see no other reason; the enemies of Christ not only have the “win”, they have all the trimmings of the parades that go with it.  In these cases, division becomes the doctrine we exemplify, and tolerance and patience are put on the shelf like species of birds long since extinct.

While the membership joins in this phenomenon, and sometimes even form the catalyst for starting it, it is the leadership who bears the responsibility for quelling it and restoring order to the body.  It is our leaders who carry the burden of so patient a love, they are able to reason with members who may have long since abandoned it.  This is no easy feat.  It requires a close connection with our God, a complete trust and reliance upon Him.  And it requires a willingness to let the words of the Holy Spirit proceed from your mouth, even when you had other thoughts and feelings on the matter.  Make no mistake, there is only one entity that sows division, and would prefer a church “split” than come to resolution or tolerance to maintain the body united.  That entity is supernatural but not aligned to God, or His Kingdom, it is Satan.  The devil’s hoard may appear as angels of light, trying to persuade the believer that a certain level of fanaticism is required over some text in order to keep the “world” away from the saints.  These demons-under-mask then proceed to convince the believer that other members of the body, are in fact the “world” and must be cast out.  And before long the body of Christ is at war with itself.  While laughter in Satanic places thunders under our feet.

Division leads to isolation, and isolation of the believer like Eve who wandered from the side of her husband so long ago, leads to a vulnerability against demonic forces who themselves are aligned with a singular purpose – to inflict pain upon the heart of God, by the torture and death of His children on planet earth.  The kingdom of Satan has but one mantra, to cause man to self-destruct, to cause man to reject the love of God, and embrace the ideas of self-reliance, and power, even if the power is only self-control.  While our focus and vision remain inward, or upon ourselves, we look away from Jesus, and in so doing, sink into the sea as Peter did when asked to exit the boat and walk on water like His Lord.  Peter did the impossible while his gaze was fixed on Jesus, the minute he turned to look back at his friends, he sunk like a brick.  So when we look inward to fix ourselves, and improve ourselves, and save ourselves – we look away from Jesus to do it, and follow a plan long conceived in the dark places where only hatred of God exists as the binding agent.

In our previous study, there was a war brewing over “how” the Sabbath must be kept.  Ironically, and perhaps to the greatest Satanic glee, the war would place the leadership of the church of God, against the God they purported to serve.  It would be the grandest of all divisions.  It had already reached the point where the leadership of God’s church met formally to plan how they might destroy, that is kill, Jesus.  They were furious over Jesus choosing to heal a single man’s deformed hand on the Sabbath day, in their mind choosing to work on Sabbath, and declaring it was ok to do good on Sabbath (that is good for others).  The Pharisees, and Sadducees, and Sanhedrin were having no part in this.  This new way to interpret the law was not going to happen on their watch.  The heretic named Jesus must die, before too many of the people adopted His position of love and mercy being the most important thing.  The law was to be the most important thing, not love or mercy, or any kind of squishy stuff like that.

But unbeknownst to them, Jesus read their thoughts and intentions after their last failure to find fault with Him.  Matthew in his gospel to the Hebrews, continues the story in chapter twelve picking up in verse 15 saying … “But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all; [verse 16] And charged them that they should not make him known:”  Jesus leaves their grasp, but He does not run and hide.  Nor does Jesus change His behavior to accommodate the feelings of the leadership.  For Jesus cannot change who He is, nor will He reveal anything other than the TRUE will of God to us.  And what is that will?  As the great crowds follow Him out of the synagogue, they bring to Him their sick and ill, and “HE HEALED THEM ALL”.  Not only has Jesus healed one man on Sabbath, He has healed hundreds or thousands on this day.  This is not meant to be a poke-in-the-eye of the Pharisees, in fact He tells all those He healed to keep it on the down low.   To have hundreds or thousands of people declaring Jesus to be the Son of God would in fact be a poke-in-the-eye of the Pharisees, and that is not what He wants.

But Jesus heals these people because Jesus MUST heal these people as that kind of love and mercy IS THE WILL of God.  Not just for one man with a withered hand who happened to meet His gaze in the back of a synagogue, but for every single man, woman, or child, who came to Him, turning their eyes upon His, and finding a love of God, that does not ever will us to live like we live.  Jesus is not just interested in healing the physical infirmities that we have, but in taking from us the desire to sin that causes us infinitely more pain.  The reconstruction of who we are from the inside, is equally upon the mind and will of our God.  And our God is bent on performing this action on any who would come to Him to find it.  He does not discriminate in any way.  While the Jews believed this might only happen to them, because of their birthright, and because Jesus was one of them.  Jesus does this for literally everyone.

Matthew continues in verse 17 saying … “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, [verse 18] Behold my servant, whom I have chosen; my beloved, in whom my soul is well pleased: I will put my spirit upon him, and he shall shew judgment to the Gentiles.  [verse 19] He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets.  [verse 20] A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.  [verse 21] And in his name shall the Gentiles trust.”  Consider what Matthew and Isaiah before him say of the judgment of God, of what judgment looks like to God.  Jesus heals and restores, and offers salvation to all.  That is what judgment of Gentiles looks like in real life.  Judgment that leads unto victory is the “judgment” that God reveals even to people who are outside of the deserving Jewish bloodline.  Gentiles, meaning us, will trust in His name, in the name of Jesus.

Notice what Judgment does not look like from Jesus and His Father God, there is not a single reference to “or else”.  There is not a single reference to “fire”, let alone “eternal fire”.  There is not a single reference to the keeping of the law.  This is not because the law is moot.  This is because you can ONLY keep the law through the recreation of how your heart thinks and feels, in essence how you love.  When you love others like Jesus loves others, you become in harmony with the law, such that debating how you keep it is unnecessary.  You keep it, because it is part of who you are.  And the clear will of our God is revealed.  He is not interested in dealing out punishment we deserve, He is interested in dealing out healing from the disease we embrace.  The clear will of God is the redemption of mankind, of all of mankind, to the worst of us.  That is what the judgment of God looks like to the prophet, and through the eyes of Matthew as he bears witness to it in real life.

But where the healing of one inflamed the passion of the Pharisees, the healing of so many, and of Gentiles, is more than their vanity can bear.  Any reason that might have led to tolerance, or unity with Jesus is gone.  They must destroy Him on every level.  So they begin with His credibility.  They introduce the idea that Jesus (who must be evil), is able to heal through the power of Satan rather than through God.  It only takes a quick look to compare the reaction of those who find joy in the relief of suffering, and those who accuse God of being Satan for having relieved that suffering.  Matthew continues in verse 22 saying … “Then was brought unto him one possessed with a devil, blind, and dumb: and he healed him, insomuch that the blind and dumb both spake and saw. [verse 23] And all the people were amazed, and said, Is not this the son of David?”  The people see the miraculous reformation of one gone so far he was possessed of Satan, who has now been freed of Satan.  The people declare Jesus to be “the son of David” which is to say the long-awaited Messiah.

Matthew continues in verse 24 saying … “But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, This fellow doth not cast out devils, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devils.”  This is an attempt by the leadership to destroy the credibility of any who would dare to oppose them.  And the technique follows us down through the ages right into the churches of Jesus today.  When Luther dares to oppose Rome, dares to ask the leadership of the church in his day, to reform its practices and realign closer to the ideals of Jesus.  The first attack is to label him a heretic.  When the youth of our day, examine our hypocrisy and rigid expectations, and attempt to call us to realign how we treat those in need, and how we attempt to reach those who today do not hear – what is the first response, to label them as under the influence of Satan, attempting to bring the world into the church.  Division reigns today.  Division that would lead to isolation, and isolation to excommunication of those with different ideas.  What they do to Christ, we do to each other under the same motive and banner as the true leader of darker origins.

Jesus responds with the truth of it, for He can offer nothing else picking up in verse 25 saying … “And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:”  The destination of division is destruction.  The destination of isolation is destruction.  Our churches cannot withstand the tearing of each other, and call that any kind of success, it is failure nothing more.  Those members who would engage in it, engage in the destroying the very fabric of the body of Christ.  Those leaders who would promote it, no matter what line of reasoning, or perceived fanaticism that is required, do nothing more than the devils bidding.  Division can lead ultimately only to destruction.

Jesus continues in verse 26 saying … “And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? [verse 27] And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. [verse 28] But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. [verse 29] Or else how can one enter into a strong man's house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. [verse 30] He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”  Jesus points out that if Satan loses his unity, his kingdom would fall just like any other.  The leading of people to Jesus therefore cannot be of Satan, and so must be of God.  Otherwise Satan’s kingdom loses the very thing it wants.  The goal of Satan’s kingdom is to lead people away from Jesus not towards Him.

Then comes the most stinging rebuke to church leadership offered down through the ages.  He that is not with Me, is against Me.  The leadership of the church in the days of Christ was not with Him, and therefore decidedly against Him.  Those who value the law over love and mercy that underlie the law have found a way to be against Christ.  The rebuke continues; and he that gathers not with me, scatters abroad.  Those leaders who do not war to maintain unity, war to sow division.  Sabbath observance was never meant to be confined to a list of do’s and don’ts – it was meant to be about a relationship with Jesus, that values our time with Jesus, and puts away anything else we can avoid so as not to be distracted from that time and association for a day.  Every seventh day we are afforded the presence of our God in a special way like no other.  Are we so bent on squandering that because we have “important” things to do like work, or shop, or entertain ourselves with themes the world enjoys?  Are we ready to be so selfish with our time with God, that we would cause others to serve us during this day, and therefore miss what God may have to offer them?

Or for a change, can we rethink about how we spend our time.  Can we enjoy music that calls the mind to Jesus, no matter what that music sounds like.  Can we observe visual stimuli that is rooted in the stories of the Bible or of modern Christianity, that calls the mind to Christ and inspires us to share with others.  Can we relook and open our eyes to those in need, be they in pews next door, or in street corners of need, or in families and missions we have heard need our time as much as our money – and in so doing, go attempt to meet that need.  Can we redirect our conversations to the testimonies of what God does for us, and how, and how often.  And finally, can we change the perception of what the clear will of God is, and begin NOT to accept the condition of how we live; asking God to heal what medicine has long been unable to do, or asking God to heal within us what sins we have long been bound up in a cycle of commit and forgive.  To do well upon the Sabbath, to keep it holy, is not just the absence of work, of the following of lists, it is to reflect such love and such mercy that we become the conduits of our Lord Jesus Christ and reflect His light instead of our own blighted perceptions of a God more interested in punishment than redemption – particularly on the day He set aside for us to demonstrate what being close to God might really look like.