Inconsistency

Inconsistency A Christian Off and On
Gypsy Smith once asked a man in an after-meeting, "Are you a Christian?" "Yes." "How long?" "Twenty-eight years, on and off." "More off than on, I guess," replied the evangelist.

Erring Christians
In the Greek, the verb to "err" is planomai. This is the word from which we get the English word "planet." These heavenly bodies are called planets because they seem to wander ("err") in the sky. There are not only planets in the solar system, but also erring ones in the Christian church.

Authority Questioned
A medical doctor, sitting in the company of friends, quickly cut in on a lay person who was talking about a particular disease with an air of authority. "Only a specialist who has devoted his life to medical science is entitled to speak with authority," he declared. He was right. Before long, however, the conversation turned to a religious question. Without a moment's hesitation the doctor became equally dogmatic. When it was politely pointed out to him that he had not made a study of the Bible and was not religiously inclined, he confidently voiced the assumption that all people are equally entitled to an opinion on questions of religious truth and experience. According to him, the person who hardly gives five minutes' serious attention to the claims of the Spirit is entitled to rank equally with those to whom the reverential fear of God is a daily study and passion.

Hot And Cold
Aesop's fables contain many helpful moral lessons for us. One of them is about a man and a satyr who, having struck up an acquaintance, sat down together to eat. The day being wintry and cold, the man put his fingers to his mouth and blew upon them. "What's that for, my friend?" asked the satyr. "My hands are so cold," said the man, "I do it to warm them." In a little while some hot food was placed before them, and the man, raising the dish to his mouth, again blew upon it. "And what's the meaning of that, now?" asked the satyr. "Oh," replied the man, "my porridge is so hot, I do it to cool it." "Then," said the satyr, "from this moment I renounce your friendship, for I will have nothing to do with one who blows hot and cold with the same mouth."

Double-minded Christians
The worst pronouncements Christ ever made were not against the out-and-out sinner and unbeliever but against the hypocrite. We can see this for ourselves in the twenty-third chapter of Matthew. Both God and your fellowmen can tell the difference between the real and the counterfeit, the real and the imitation. These people are like an old apple tree which stood at the fence line by the roadside. Its branches spread both into the field and out over the highway. There was always a contention as to whether the fruit of this tree belonged to the farmer or to the public. An unwritten law said it belonged to the first one to club it down. Every boy, big and little, watched to see when the apples were beginning to turn red, and then the battle was on. The owner never got a ripe apple from that old tree. The tree on the side of the highway always had lodged in its branches a lot of broom handles, sticks, and old wagon spokes. That tree got more clubbing than a whole orchard. It presents a true picture of the professing "Christian" who hangs on both sides of the fence and thus receives clubs from every direction.

Christian Living
Henry Drummond, that great Scottish professor, told how the Infidel Club was started in Glasgow. Some men were standing at the corner of a street when a very prosperous looking man went past. One of the men said, "That is the founder of the Infidel Club in Glasgow." "What do you mean by that?" said another of the men. "Why, that man is an elder of the church." "Elder or no elder," replied the man, "he is the founder of Glasgow's Infidel Club." Then he told how the man's inconsistent life had been bearing for years a false witness to Christ. So false, in fact, that it had undermined the faith of several young men who joined together to form the Infidel Club.