| "You Make All Christians Look
Bad." It is not people like me who make Christians look bad; who drive people away from Jesus. It is people who situationally redefine, counterfeit and conditionally apply His Word to suit cultural tolerances, convenience "interpretations" and moral relativity who PULL people away from Christ: people who think they are wiser than God and feel they can comfortably reject some of His Word because they embrace some; people who so pitifully soften, cheapen, distort and weaken His Word and change it into lies and superficial "truths"; people who cause the ones who walk away to expect practicing the Christian faith to be something it is not. Then, when the seekers are confronted with the Truth BY HIS WORD they can't handle it since His Word now gets in their way because of people who for so long have diluted the Truth to make it seem what it isn't by pabulum feeding the people with feel-good counterfeitings which suit man with any adherence to His True Word being coincidental. "You Should Be More Tolerant." We will NOT situationally redefine or conditionally apply His Word to suit modern ethics, social engineers, moral spinmeisters, false religions or even to avoid invading the comfort zone of Christians. We love you too much to feed you lies and less-than-truths. It is people who do who pull people away from the CHRIST of Christianity. Practicing the Christian faith and what is expected of it is being very intolerant ... of sin ... even our own by HIS Word, not your word or mine, by embracing the sinner but not embracing the sin; by helping the sinner, even ourselves, out of bondage to the sin by loving him/her enough to TELL THE TRUTH, not in a vindictive look-down-your-nose fashion but in a compassionate way. Tolerance, eh? On Judgment Day, Jesus will send the unforgiven sinner into the fiery pits of Hell in a heartbeat. Now that is intolerance. Of sin. And Righteously so. He further will not excuse any sin. For example, Jesus forgave the prostitute of her sin but did not excuse the sin -- He did NOT forgive prostitution, He forgave the prostitute of it. Jesus did not argue the judgment nor did He argue the law. He argued our authority to execute the woman. Prostitution is just as sinful now, after Jesus forgave the prostitute of it, as it was before He forgave her. He even reminded her of the sin by telling her to go and sin no more. He will forgive us all our sins if we are humble enough to ask, but He will not excuse any sin. All behavior which is sinful before forgiveness is still sinful after forgiveness. More intolerance. And righteously so. "Tolerance" has probably become the most abused word in the English language. There is nothing wrong with being tolerant if tolerance is being shown righteously. We must not be tolerant of sin. Even our own. We must not embrace the sin as we embrace the sinner. We do not have to "accept" the sin to accept the sinner. We do not have to participate in or encourage the sin to "reach" the sinner. To do so is to cause the sinner to sin which is a sin on ourselves. Not in one single case did Jesus ever participate in or even encourage our participation in a sin to teach us of it and its consequences. It is not people like me who tell His Truth undiluted and unmasked by modern man's alterations and distillations of it who drive people away from Jesus. It is people who offer self-serving counterfeitings of His Word to suit alternative interests, political correctness or modern morality who DRAW some people away from Jesus when confronted with the complete Truth [Acts 20:30 "Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them"]. It is people who conveniently modify His Word, people who set His Word aside when it gets in their way who PULL people away from Christianity. The victims of such deceit are so conditioned by the narcotic effect of a "mamma's milk" Spiritual diet that when they get a Spiritual "solid food" meal by His Word they can't handle it. People can Spiritually survive on a "cake-n-ice cream" diet only so long. Sooner or later they must have "meat-n-veggies." That is what we serve. Our gentle and loving and compassionate Jesus is One of finality who will say "I never knew you" without batting an eye on Judgment Day to those who have not accepted Him as Lord and Savior. That is certainly intolerance, of sin, to which He is righteously entitled. The point here is that while Jesus provided teachings of Salvation and of gentleness and compassion and indeed wants us to be gentle and compassionate as was He, Jesus also provided teachings of supreme finality and harshness for the arrogant and haughty. Righteously so. He taught of Hell which so many well-meaning men of the pulpit seem to avoid. All must know this because to say to Him on Judgment Day "But I thought...." or "So-n-so said..." or "Interpreted, that means......." or "I didn't believe..." will not buy another chance. So, it is not people like me who tell His Word unbridled and unabridged who are driving people away from Christianity or Christ. It is the people who say we do who are. Tom Carder President CAP Ministry |