“Your View of Things” By Brother Kenneth Ray August 12th,
2012 A little boy had a question. He went to his mother and asks, “Mom, where
did we come from?” His mother replies, “We
came from god; he made us in His image.”
The little boy receives his mother’s answer and leaves on his way. He comes across his father, so he asks his
dad the same question, “Where did we come from?” The father replies, “From apes. We have evolved over the years from apes to
the humans of today.” The little boy
receives his father’s answer and goes off, to once again come across his
mom. He says, “Mom, I’m very confused.” Mom replies, “Why?” He says, “Well, you say
that we come from God, but Dad says we come from apes. Which one is it?” His mother, seeing his dilemma, smiled and
replied, “Well, when you asked me where we come from, and I replied, I was
talking about my side of the family, but your father was talking about his.” Jesus had a similar dilemma in the
Book of Mark. I will tell you plain and simple,
the difference in the two answers is found in the relationship of the one
answering and his/her relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. It all depends upon their point of view,
based on the relationship that they had with Jesus. We’re all hurting; we’re all going
through things. That’s the same for
everyone. Who do you say that Jesus
is? Be sure of your answer. One reply is that He is the Christ, the Son
of the Living God. Jesus was only
looking for the one reply. In the military, sometimes you will
have someone ask you, Have you cleaned the shop?” and you tell them, “The shop
is all cleaned up.” And they ask again, “Have
you cleaned the shop?” After a while,
you get the message that there’s about to be a big inspection, and the shop
needs to be ready. When we tell a lie, we know that’s a
bad thing. If we tell a white lie, one
where nobody gets hurt, that’s not so bad.
If we kill somebody, that’s really bad.
The Bible says that sin is sin, though.
We see varying degrees of sins because we look at it through our own
natural eyes. If we look at it through
God’s eyes, from His point of view, then we see things differently. You may hear a sermon, and say, “That
sermon should have covered this, and
so you decide that it wasn’t a good sermon.
God’s going to cover what you need.
Maybe that wasn’t in there because you didn’t need to hear it, this
time. A month later, you may hear a
different sermon on the same topic but it my cover different points, because the
needs have changed. You know, I’ve
watched a lot of safety videos, and it seems like there’s always one guy that
says, “I’ve done this a thousand times, I don’t know why this one time should
be any different,” as he sits I the burn ward of the hospital. I’ve never yet seen a safety video where
somebody said, “Even though I’ve done this a thousand times, I treat it like it’s
the very first time I do it, each time that I do it.” Sometimes we know what to do, but we don’t
follow through with it. The wisdom of
man is not the wisdom of God. Most people know one of two Jesus’s. A Jesus that is turning over the tables, running
the moneychangers out, and declaring, “My house shall
be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den of thieves.”
(Matthew 21:12-13) The same Jesus put
Jonah in the belly of a fish for three days for being disobedient. Or, a Jesus who showed compassion, and, when
Jonah did repent, released Jonah from the belly of the fish, and used him to
see a city repent at the preaching of God’s Word. A Jesus who forgave the adulterous woman, and
told her, “Go and sin no more.” Most people think of Jesus as one or the
other, but God is one. Some may ask the question, “If God
is so good, why do all these bad things happen?
Reconciliation. When we see the
man in the ditch, God wants us to do like the Samaritan did, and take care of
that man, otherwise, God will rain thunder down upon you.
Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd |
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