Jude

⁸ Yet in like manner these people also, relying on their dreams, defile the flesh, reject authority, and blaspheme the glorious ones. ⁹ But when the archangel Michael, contending with the devil, was disputing about the body of Moses, he did not presume to pronounce a blasphemous judgment, but said, “The Lord rebuke you.” ¹⁰ But these people blaspheme all that they do not understand, and they are destroyed by all that they, like unreasoning animals, understand instinctively. ¹¹ Woe to them! For they walked in the way of Cain and abandoned themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error and perished in Korah’s rebellion.

Paul Sanyangore is the lead pastor at Victory World International Ministries in Zimbabwe. He claims to have God’s actual phone number. He has taken out a phone in the middle of services before and called God to ask Him how he should heal a particular person in the congregation. Sanyangore responded to criticisms of these antics thusly:

I have a direct channel, actually I have His number and I can call Him when need arises. It is possible to talk to God; why would you doubt that I got a call from Him? I actually have a direct line which I can call Him on and get instructions on how to proceed. I got this when I was praying and I heard a voice telling me to call direct.

Church, I am begging you to be deeply grounded in the gospel and to be aware of false teachings and teachers.

Two weeks ago at a church in Florida a drag queen who goes by the name “Penny Cost” was brought before the church to address the children during the children’s sermon. After some playful banter with the kids, the priest explained that the drag queen was actually fulfilling positively, Paul’s words from Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The drag queen was, he argued, the embodiment of what Paul was calling Christians to be.

Church, I am begging you to be deeply grounded in the gospel and to be aware of false teachings and teachers.

A pastor named Denis Kinto lines up his church members during a worship service and beats his mostly female congregants with a stick in order, he says, to cast demons out of them.

Church, I am begging you to be deeply grounded in the gospel and to be aware of false teachings and teachers.

A Lutheran minister named Andrea Roske-Metcalfe preaches in a chapel service in March of this year that Jesus was wrong to say to the Syrophoencian woman that it is not right to take what is for the children and give it to dogs, that Jesus “screwed up” in saying this, that we would have applauded the woman had she slapped Jesus in the face for saying this, and that, in this case, the Syrophoenician woman redeemed Jesus by showing Him how wrong He was to say this.[1]

Church, I am begging you to be deeply grounded in the gospel and to be aware of false teachings and teachers.

In Jude 8-11, Jude continues his consideration of the false teachers. We will approach his considerations as cautions to the church.

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Jude

⁴ For certain people have crept in unnoticed who long ago were designated for this condemnation, ungodly people, who pervert the grace of our God into sensuality and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. ⁵ Now I want to remind you, although you once fully knew it, that Jesus, who saved a people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed those who did not believe. ⁶ And the angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day— ⁷ just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.

In a seminary chapel service at a school in New Jersey, a Lord’s supper service is held. In this service a hymn is sung to a goddess named Sophia instead of to Jesus. Some of the words sung to this goddess include:

She’s the teacher we esteem,

And the subject of life’s theme.

Lover, counsel, comforter,

Life is gladness lived with her.

One person present at this service recounted how the minister “then offered the invitation to come to the Lord’s Table, not in the Lord’s name, but in the name of the goddess who was speaking through Jesus…The Inviter was not the crucified Lord of glory but the Sophia figure who was speaking through him, by her own authority.  Ironically, we were being invited to his table, but only so in her name.”[1] The participant got up and walked out with a few others.

A member of one church in Walnut Creek, California, proclaimed, “Every person, no matter their age, sexual preference, gender, or nationality, has the right to have access to the divine, however they see the divinity made manifest.”[2]

An openly gay bishop of the Episcopal Church proclaims that his relationship with his male partner is “sacramental” and sacred before God.[3]

A talk-show host decides to send in some money to a televangelist to see what happens. He then recounts to his shocked and guffawing audience the dozens of letters he receives from the televangelist in return, all of them asking for more money, many of them sending him a few dollars and telling him that if he will send that few dollars back along with a larger gift of $100 or so then he will receive an even bigger blessing. He is also sent strange talismans: supposedly blessed cloths and the like that will allegedly open the treasury of heaven to him. Some of the letters suggest that if he does not respond with more money he is being disobedient.

A famous New Testament scholar argues in print that Jesus did not rise bodily from the dead but rather that his body was likely thrown into a ditch and possibly eaten by dogs. His book is a bestseller. He is celebrated as a great biblical scholar until he retires in comfort.

The editor of a large Christian book publisher is asked (by me) whether or not a person can be a Christian if they felt that Jesus did not bodily rise from the dead but rather that his body was, say,  eaten by dogs. He responds by saying that such a person, yes, might be a Christian after all.

I want to talk about the Greek word hairesis. We know this word in its Anglicized form: “heresy.” In his book Heresies, Harold O. J. Brown defines “heresy” as “something that seemed to undercut the very basis for Christian existence.” He points out that “[p]ractically speaking, heresy involved the doctrine of God and the doctrine of Christ—later called ‘special theology’ and ‘Christology.’”[4]

This is important for two reasons: (1) it tells us that heresy is a corruption within the church and (2) heresy is not a synonym for “opinions different from my own.” When I say that heresy is a corruption within the church, I am saying that non-Christian religions and theologies are not heresies, they are rather utterly foreign ideas outside of the church. Heresy, by definition, refers to taking the faith or vital aspects of it and corrupting or distorting them. When I say that heresy is not a synonym for “opinions different from my own” I am saying that you cannot refer to differences of opinion on non-fundamental matters “heresy” even if you might call some of them “error.”

Not every error is a heresy though every heresy is an error.

For instance:

• Precisely how we understand predestination is not fundamentally a heresy issue.

• Precisely how we understand the details of end-times prophesy is not fundamentally a heresy issue.

• Church government is not fundamentally a heresy issue.

• The mode of baptism, while important, is not fundamentally a heresy issue.

• Whether or not Jesus rose from the dead is a heresy issue.

• Whether or not Jesus is divine is a heresy issue.

• Whether or not God is just and good and all-knowing is a heresy issue.

So let us be careful on what we call heresy…but let us also be keenly aware that heresy does in fact exist! The late Methodist theologian Thomas Oden has publicly complained that heresy is simply not even allowed to exist in many of our seminaries today.

            It seems worth noting that the liberated seminary at its zenith has finally achieved a condition that has never before prevailed in Christian history:  Heresy simply does not exist…No heresy of any kind any longer exists.  You cannot find one anywhere in the liberated seminary – unless, perhaps, you might consider offenses against inclusivism.  There is absolutely no corruption of Christian teaching if under the present rules all notions of corruption are radically relativized.  Not only is there no concept of heresy, but also there is no way even to raise the question of where the boundaries of legitimate Christian belief lie, when absolute relativism holds sway.

It is like trying to have a baseball game with no rules, no umpire, and no connection with historic baseball.  Yet we insist on calling it baseball, because a game by that name is what most people still want to see played.[5]

And Philip Lee has asked, “…within the Church, has heresy not become a heretical word?”[6]

No, we must not get rid of the word “heresy.” We must keep it. And we must define it rightly. And we must apply it carefully, but, when needed, boldly.

We lose a lot if we lose the idea of heresy. Not the least of which would be the ability to understand the book of Jude, that speaks of heresy and the need for the church to respond rightly to it.

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Jude

³ Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. 

A little episode occurred in 1962 that I think most theology nerds would really like to have witnessed live. It involved the great Baptist theologian Carl F. H. Henry (at that time the editor of a new magazine, Christianity Today) and the internationally-known and famous Swiss theologian Karl Barth, whose celebrity was at its peak. Owen Strachan recounts what happened in this fascinating exchange.

In the postwar era, Karl Barth was one of Carl F. H. Henry’s most frequently referenced sparring partners. The two men labored in the same task from different theological poles. Both wished to vindicate Christianity as a system of revelation in a century that viewed the Word as outmoded.

Barth, though a churchman, championed what is called the “neoorthodox” position, claiming that the Bible-in-itself was not the Word of God, but became the Word of God through the Spirit’s influence. Henry, though recognizing Barth’s prodigious gifts—he called his writings an “epochal contribution to theology”—sided with the evangelical tradition in identifying the Scripture as the revealed mind of God.

In 1962, the two men had an epochal encounter. Barth came to America from Switzerland for a lecture tour. Henry attended his lectures at the McCormick Divinity School in Chicago and engaged him in the question-and-answer session. The exchange that followed, recounted by Henry in his Confessions, captured the differences between the two theologians.

“The question, Dr. Barth, concerns the historical factuality of the resurrection of Jesus.” I pointed to the press table and noted the presence of leading religion editors or reporters representing United Press, Religious News Service, Washington Post, Washington Star and other media. If these journalists had their present duties in the time of Jesus, I asked, was the resurrection of such a nature that covering some aspect of it would have fallen into their area of responsibility? “Was it news,” I asked, “in the sense that the man in the street understands news?”

Barth became angry. Pointing at me, and recalling my identification, he asked: “Did you say Christianity Today or Christianity Yesterday?” The audience—largely nonevangelical professors and clergy—roared with delight. When countered unexpectedly in this way, one often reaches for a Scripture verse. So I replied, assuredly out of biblical context, “Yesterday, today and forever.”[1]

It is a beautiful little story and one that makes an important point: Christianity, rightly understood, has a doctrinal core that is unchanging. The church’s music may change and some of the external forms and dynamics may change, but the heartbeat of the church and its message—the good news of Jesus Christ—is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Verse 3 of Jude makes this very point. This verse is profoundly and critically important. It will lay the foundation for the rest of the book.

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Jude

¹ Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: ² May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

I love famous opening lines of novels. Many of these opening lines are so well known that after hearing just one or two words of them you not only can finish the line but you are also immediately carried away into the world of the entire book, with all of its feelings, and intrigue, and twists, and turns.

An opening line can grab you and not let you go! It can bring a whole mood. An opening line can confound or amuse or irritate you. For instance, how many of these famous opening lines grab you and take you somewhere else:

“It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

“All children, except one, grow up.” J.M Barrie, Peter Pan

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

“‘Where’s Papa going with that ax?” said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.” E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

“It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen.” George Orwell, 1984

“It was a pleasure to burn.” Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.” J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

“This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it.” William Goldman, The Princess Bride

“Call me Ishmael.” Herman Melville, Moby Dick

I love it! I love a good opening line! I want to argue that this opening line should be considered among the greats. Here it is:

¹ Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ: ² May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you.

I really mean it: that is an amazing opening line! It may sound fairly typical of ancient letters, of biblical letters, but it is actually laden with meaning and a fascinating backstory. It is an opening line that provokes, both in what it says and what it does not say. It is an author’s identification, but an identification that is rich with purpose and intent and weight.

Let us consider this great opening line of the ancient letter we refer to as “Jude.”

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Hebrews 13

⁷ Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. ⁸ Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. ⁹ Do not be led away by diverse and strange teachings, for it is good for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by foods, which have not benefited those devoted to them. ¹⁰ We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat. ¹¹ For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as a sacrifice for sin are burned outside the camp. ¹² So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. ¹³ Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. ¹⁴ For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come. ¹⁵ Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. ¹⁶ Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. ¹⁷ Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. ¹⁸ Pray for us, for we are sure that we have a clear conscience, desiring to act honorably in all things. ¹⁹ I urge you the more earnestly to do this in order that I may be restored to you the sooner. ²⁰ Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, ²¹ equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. ²² I appeal to you, brothers, bear with my word of exhortation, for I have written to you briefly. ²³ You should know that our brother Timothy has been released, with whom I shall see you if he comes soon. ²⁴ Greet all your leaders and all the saints. Those who come from Italy send you greetings. ²⁵ Grace be with all of you.

Is the church still needed in the world today?

In 1934, the poet T.S. Eliot wrote his “Choruses from ‘The Rock’” in which are included these jarring words:

     I journeyed to London, to the timekept City,

Where the River flows, with foreign flotations.

There I was told:  we have too many churches,

And too few chop-houses.  There I was told:

Let the vicars retire.  Men do not need the Church

In the place where they work, but where they spend their Sundays.

In the City, we need no bells:

Let them waken the suburbs.

I journeyed to the suburbs, and there I was told:

We toil for six days, on the seventh we must motor

To Hindhead, or Maidenhead.

If the weather is foul we stay at home and read the papers.

In industrial districts, there I was told

Of economic laws.

In the pleasant countryside, there it seemed

That the Church does not seem to be wanted

In country or in suburbs; and in the town

Only for important weddings.[1]

It is fascinating to me that the writer of Hebrews concludes his letter by saying, in essence, “Yes! The church is still needed and so it is critically important that the church actually be the church!” Then, toward that end, he shows us how the church can be the church.

I very much agree with David VanDrunen who wrote, “The church ought to be central to the Christian life because the church is the only earthly community that manifests the redemptive kingdom and grants us the fellowship of our true home, the world-to-come.”[2]

That is so. Let us consider, then, the conclusion of Hebrews and how it calls us to be the church.

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Hebrews 13

¹ Let brotherly love continue. ² Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. ³ Remember those who are in prison, as though in prison with them, and those who are mistreated, since you also are in the body. ⁴ Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. ⁵ Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” ⁶ So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?”

 When I was a kid I heard a pastor pass along a story that Dwight L. Moody shared during his amazing ministry in the 19^thcentury in Chicago.

In Chicago a few years ago a little boy attended a Sun­day school I know of. When his parents moved to another part of the city the little fellow still attended the same Sunday school, although it meant a long, tiresome walk each way. A friend asked him why he went so far, and told him that there were plenty of others just as good nearer his home.

“They may be as good for others, but not for me,” was his reply.

“Why not?” she asked.

“Because they love a fellow over there,” he replied.

I heard that a long time ago and I have never forgotten it: “Because they love a fellow over there.” And I think the reason I have remembered this is not the quaint phrasing of it—“Because they love a fellow over there.”—but because it is so self-evidently true.

When the church demonstrates the love of Christ, the church has the power of God in its midst.

We are most like Christ when we love, and the love of Christ draws people in.

It is telling indeed that as the writer of Hebrew begins His letter’s conclusion He offers a number of challenges, a number of charges, a number of commissions. And the first of these is the commission to love.

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Matthew 18:21-35

²¹ Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” ²² Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times. ²³ “Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. ²⁴ When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. ²⁵ And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. ²⁶ So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ ²⁷ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. ²⁸ But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ ²⁹ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ ³⁰ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. ³¹ When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. ³² Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ³³ And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ ³⁴ And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. ³⁵ So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart.”

I have mentioned before Peter Mommsen’s beautiful book about his grandfather, J. Heinrich Arnold, one of the leaders of the Bruderhof Christian communities before his passing. The book is entitled Homage to a Broken Man: The Life of J. Heinrich Arnold – A true story of faith, forgiveness, sacrifice, and community. Mommsen writes of his grandfather:

Trust was an article of faith for him. Newcomers and old-timers alike sometimes shook their heads at his endless insistence on forgiving. Why, after such and such a person had stabbed him in the back time after time, did he insist on trusting him yet again? It went against all common sense. But Heiner saw it differently. As he once explained to Christoph, “I would much rather trust and be betrayed a thousand times than live in mistrust for a single day.”[1]

This is most interesting, is it not? I wonder if we too would consider this constant posture of forgiveness as unwise? And yet there is something very gospel about lavish forgiveness.

In our text, Peter comes to Jesus to discuss the matter. How much should we forgive? Jesus’ response is powerful and convicting and perspective-bringing. He tells him a story about a forgiven man refusing to forgive, and about the judgment that such haughtiness invites.

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Hebrews 12:18-29

¹⁸ For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest ¹⁹ and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them. ²⁰ For they could not endure the order that was given, “If even a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned.” ²¹ Indeed, so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I tremble with fear.” ²² But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, ²³ and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, ²⁴ and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. ²⁵ See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven. ²⁶ At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens.” ²⁷ This phrase, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain. ²⁸ Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, ²⁹ for our God is a consuming fire.

A friend recently told me something that I cannot stop thinking about. Sadly, I have heard this kind of thing before and I would be willing to wager you have too. But I keep thinking about this, perhaps because I have met this child before.

A lifelong friend and his wife have recently taken in a young relative, a young girl. They took her into their home out of a highly dysfunctional situation involving drugs and neglect. My friend was telling me about the little girl’s attempts to adapt to a normal home life having come out of a home of drug abuse and neglect. My friend shared with me that after a few nights in her new home it occurred to my friend and his wife that the child was taking food from the kitchen and hiding it in her bedroom.

The reason for this is obvious enough. All she knew was want and a terrifying uncertainty about one of the basic needs of life: food. Never having lived in a supportive and healthy home, the child could not conceive of the goodness of her new reality, namely, that the she would not be neglected, that she would not go to bed hungry, that she would never again have to wonder if there would be food tomorrow.

It is hard to imagine the better thing when all you have known is fear. Fear is a powerfully debilitating force and it walks hand in hand with uncertainty, with unknowing.

“We fear things in proportion to our ignorance of them,” said Livy. H.P. Lovecraft agreed: “The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.” This is true.

The writer of Hebrews is beginning to approach the end of his amazing letter. He has one more chapter after this one and we can feel him pulling the ties together here in the second half of chapter 12. And what he wants the people of God to know—indeed, what he needs for them to understand—is that in Christ we have a better home: a better sacrifice, a better priest, a better deliverer, a better covenant, and a better understanding of the nature of God.

Let us be careful: Jesus did not come to say we have a better God! Perish the thought! The Father of Jesus is the God of the Old Testament. God has not changed. God was as compassionate and loving in Genesis as He is in Revelation and God is as awe-inspiring and wrathful in Revelation as He is in Genesis. God has not changed.

But our experience of God, and our understanding of God, and the means employed to reveal God are greater and better now that Jesus has come. We have more light, so we need not fear.

We need not hide food in the bedroom just in case our Father turns out to be evil. No, that is not how the Kingdom works and that is not who our great God is! We must understand this, so we must heed carefully the words of this amazing chapter.

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Hebrews 12:1-17

¹ Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, ² looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. ³ Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted. ⁴ In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. ⁵ And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. ⁶ For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” ⁷ It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? ⁸ If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. ⁹ Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? ¹⁰ For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness.¹¹ For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. ¹² Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. ¹⁴ Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. ¹⁵ See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; ¹⁶ that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. ¹⁷ For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.

I do so love the “Just for Laughs” show out of Canada. Sometimes it is a bit much, granted, but sometimes it is just side-splittingly funny. Basically, it is a show of gags and pranks in which unsuspecting people find themselves in crazy or strange or scary circumstances that have been orchestrated by the producers in the show. There is a recurring cast of characters who are “in the know” and they lead these poor folks into and through the funniest of scenarios. The reactions of the victims of the pranks are the greatest!

One of my favorites is the prank pulled on bicyclers. Hidden cameras capture citizens casually riding their bikes down sidewalks. After they pass a U-Haul truck parked to the side, the back of the truck opens and a number of fully-decked-out and geared-up bicyclists come out of the truck, down the ramp, and up behind the person riding his or her back. That person then looks behind and realizes to his or her great shock that they appear to be in a race with this pack of cyclists closing on them. Their reactions are great: shock, horror, confusion, peddling faster! Then, as if that is not enough, a finish line complete with cheering crowd and line ribbon appears before them! They all pass the line and win the “race,” only to be applauded and cheered by the raucous crowd. Then, to top it all off, they are ushered to the first place spot on the platform, given flowers, a medal, and a kiss, all the while being photographed.

You can see the look of panic in their eyes. They are all saying variations of the same thing: “I am not in this race! I did not win any race! I do not know what just happened! What on earth just happened?!”

It must be a surreal experience to find oneself in a race that one did not realize he or she was a part of! Such was the experience of those tricked on this show and such too, if we are honest, are some of us. For Hebrews 12 tells us that we actually are in a race, whether we realize it or not, and that we had better come to terms with this fact so that we can be all that God has called us to be!

Yes, it is true! We are in a race, and, like all great races, this means we have an audience, we have a finish line, we have training, and we have a coach.

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Matthew 18:15-20

¹⁵ “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. ¹⁶ But if he does not listen, take one or two others along with you, that every charge may be established by the evidence of two or three witnesses. ¹⁷ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church. And if he refuses to listen even to the church, let him be to you as a Gentile and a tax collector. ¹⁸ Truly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. ¹⁹ Again I say to you, if two of you agree on earth about anything they ask, it will be done for them by my Father in heaven. ²⁰ For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.”

I used to enjoy reading the old minutes of the last church I pastored. They were full of fascinating characters and stories! Consider Hiram Wadsworth, who joined the First Baptist Church of Dawson, Georgia, on the first Saturday of November 1849, by transfer of letter. The minutes would go on to reveal that Mr. Wadsworth apparently struggled with alcohol and was repeatedly summoned before the church to answer for his behavior in the community.

In fact, Hiram Wadsworth was called to stand before the church and answer for his conduct on February 1852, November 1852, May 3, 1856, March 1857. These repeated summons to Mr. Wadsworth will sound alien to our foreign ears, and we might think that such actions were harsh on behalf of the church. However, in the minds of these Baptist Christians from long ago, the name of Christ and the witness of the church was at stake when a member lived an ungodly life. Furthermore, the church’s intentions become clear when we read on and see the verdict of the church once Mr. Wadsworth repented of his actions:

Date                Offense            Offender’s Response        Church’s Response

Feb. 1852        intoxication      repentance                            “forgiven”

Nov. 1852       intoxication      repentance                            “forgiven”

May 1856        intoxication      repentance                            “forgiven”

Mar. 1857       intoxication      repentance                            “forgiven”

This sounds so strange to us, does it not? What were these earlier Christians up to? What is this? They referred to this as “church discipline” and they looked to our text as the key text that led them through this process.

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