115 Sermon Illustrations on Discernment

Ted Williams, the last baseball player to hit better than .400 in a season, died [in July 2002] at the age of 83. “There is no joy in Red Sox nation, a.k.a. New England, or in any heart where baseball matters,” George Will reported in a column memorializing the star hitter.

Will described Mr. Williams as “an alloy of innocence and arrogance,” an obsessive player who gave the local sports reporters lots to write about. “He used a postal scale to check that humidity had not added an ounce to the weight of his bats,” he writes.

“Challenged to find from among six bats the one that was half an ounce heavier than the others, he quickly did. He once returned to the maker a batch of his Louisville Sluggers because he sensed that the handles were not quite right. The handles were off by five-thousandths of an inch.”

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Source: World (7/20/02)

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An article in the online magazine Slate reveals a lot about the forces of political correctness. Slate assistant editor Julia Turner was clearly in a tongue-in-cheek mood when she wrote “Laura Bush — Why liberals shouldn't like her.” But the article turned out to be even funnier than she intended.

Turner, you see, is bowled over by the idea that an avid reader like the First Lady is not liberal. Of course, it is well known that Laura Bush is married to a fairly influential conservative. However, Turner writes, liberal book-lovers could not believe that Mrs. Bush was on board with her husband's policies.

Turner explains “how easy it is to be wooed by the first lady's reading habits. ... More than one commentator has noted with approval and some surprise that Laura Bush's favorite scene in literature is the 'Grand Inquisitor' portion of THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV [by Fyodor Dostoevsky].” Turner quotes fellow writer James Wolcott, who asked, “A man who would marry a woman this kind and refined couldn't be all boor, could he?”

Turner and many other liberals were disappointed this campaign season when Laura Bush confirmed that, yes — imagine it — she is a conservative. Her attack on embryonic stem-cell research, in particular, left Turner in the dumps.

Turner explains, “When liberals note that Laura is a reader, they mean that she must be a sort of anti-Dubya. And when they hear her standing by Bush in the stem-cell debate, they wonder how a reader — someone devoted to the pursuit of knowledge — could possibly stick up for a policy designed to thwart those who seek it.”

It's hard not to laugh when you hear this from the tolerant, all-embracing Left. (It might even break Turner's heart to know that THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV is my favorite novel too.) But Turner is not the only one surprised, as many responses from Slate readers demonstrated. One such reader lamented, “What I and many other liberals are often guilty of is the fallacy that, if one reads the right books ... one's politics are bound to be progressive. What we often fail to realize is that people read the same books and come to different conclusions.”

No kidding. Great literature isn't political propaganda; its complexity and insights draw people of all religious and political stripes. The cited passage from THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV — a parable about Christ's return — is a perfect example. Both Christians and non-Christians have found unforgettable truths in this story. But Dostoevsky was a believing Christian who wrote powerful Christian themes, and he would have been startled today to see how much they are being enjoyed by modern secular liberals.

Much of the greatest literature is full of such Christian themes. If these “progressive humanists” were to meet some of their favorite authors in real life, they would even notice that several of those authors had worldviews very similar to Laura Bush's.

As I've said before, there's so much to learn from great literature — if we're willing to keep our own biases and prejudices out of the way. But reading isn't always beneficial. Wearing ideological blinders when we read — and trying to force fellow readers to march in lockstep — can produce twisted ideas and a diminished ability to see, as Ms. Turner's column illustrates.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Julia Turner, “Laura Bush — Why liberals shouldn't like her,” Slate,31 August 2004.

• Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, 1879. Read the book online here. (The “Grand Inquisitor” chapter is here.) Anne Freemantle's 1956 essay “Introduction to Fyodor Dostoevsky: The Grand Inquisitor“ provides a biographical sketch of the author and a thoughtful analysis of the “Grand Inquisitor” passage. Mars Hill Audio gives more details here.

• C. S. Lewis, An Experiment in Criticism (Cambridge University Press, 1992 edition).

• Michael Dirda, “As I Live and Read,” Washington Post, 25 July 2004, B01.

• “The Importance of Reading Earnest,” Wall Street Journal, 9 July 2004.

• Joseph Epstein, “Is Reading Really at Risk?“ Weekly Standard, 7 August 2004. (Available to subscribers only.)

• Vigen Guroian, Tending the Heart of Virtue (Oxford University Press, 1998).

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Copyright (c) 2004 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

An amusing story is told of Ulysses S. Grant. One day during his Presidency he came into the room where his Cabinet was assembling, quietly laughing to himself. "I have just read," said he, "one of the best anecdotes I have ever met. It was that John Adams, after he had been President, was one day taking a party out to dinner at his home in Quincy, when one of his guests noticed a portrait over the door and said, 'You have a fine portrait of Washington there, Mr. Adams.' 'Yes,' was the reply, 'and that old wooden head made his fortune by keeping his mouth shut.'" And Grant laughed again with uncommon enjoyment. It is a great thing to know when to keep still. As we look back over our lives there are comparatively few times when we regret having not spoken, but a great many of us have numerous reminiscences of trouble and sorrow that have come from unguarded and ill-advised speech. It is important to do a great deal more thinking than speaking.

Of olden times on the coast of Cornwall there were wreckers. These men tied a lantern on the head of an ass, and drove the animal along the heights that fringe the shore. Ships at sea saw this light, and thinking them to be guides where there was open water, ran towards them, fell on rocks, and were dashed to pieces. Then the wreckers came down to the shore, and took from the wrecked ship all that could be saved. There are a host of these false signals about in the religious world, leading men to destruction. What, then, are we to do? Look to the lighthouse of the Church, built by the hands of Jesus Christ. In it He has set the clear, steady light of revealed truth.

While the Americans were blockading Cuba, several captains endeavored to elude their vigilance by night, trusting that the darkness would conceal them as they passed between the American warships. But in almost every case the dazzling rays of a searchlight frustrated the attempt, and the fugitives' vessel was captured by the Americans. The brilliant searchlight sweeping the broad ocean and revealing even the smallest craft on its surface is but a faint type of the Eternal Light from which no sinner can hide his sin.

The natural man cannot discern the things of the spirit. We see this every day, not only as applied to imagination in its highest reaches, but in the ordinary interaction of men. A man in a rage cannot understand the emotions of peace. A man that is grasping and unfair is not in a state to consider justice and equity between man and man. All prejudices and all emotions inspired by hatred or by selfishness twist the mind. It gets awry. You are obliged to discharge these influences before you can form an equitable judgment of what is truth in any case of controversy or conflict.

The Evangelical Christian church in the United States is undergoing one of the most thorough and sobering seasons of exposure and cleansing that I have ever seen.

This has been percolating for some time, but in recent months and years, the scope of the exposures has substantially increased. The cleansing is across several denominations and expressions, in churches large and small.

Much of the current exposure is due to social media and independent investigative podcasters with large online followings. While there are pitfalls to these particular means of exposure, the dark secrets, cover-ups, and manipulative tactics of corrupt leaders in churches can now be aired more quickly and more thoroughly than was possible in previous decades, and I consider it a net good.

What to make of all of this? And why now?

God’s timing is the greatest mystery of faith for me, but what’s occurring is a sovereign move of His hand. The LORD has determined that the present moment is His appointed time to clean house.

For sincere Christians in every stream, it is wrenchingly painful to watch this purification process unfold. I speak from both personal and professional experience, having been affiliated with groups plagued by scandal and having seen the wrongdoing firsthand while reporting on these issues.

Many, myself included, have asked: “How was I so gullible as not to discern and see the wickedness and deception at work there?” and “How did that profane leadership misconduct manage to be covered up for so long?”

The spiritual vertigo is especially disorienting for lowercase-o orthodox Evangelicals in churches that aim to adhere to biblically rooted teaching in a time when many have bowed to progressive revisionism and the spirit of the age. For believers desiring to remain anchored in their convictions, it’s a humbling (if not downright humiliating) experience to have perceptions shattered and realize that esteemed people they thought were godly actually were not. Wolves are usually skilled communicators, masters at hiding their destructive patterns until they finally become so visible as to be undeniable.

And if a church environment turns out to be a mixture of good and bad, of truth and deceit? Spiritual cognitive dissonance besieges the minds of people who are often already confused and hurting as they struggle to understand how God’s Word might have been faithfully proclaimed from the pulpit and taught within its ministries, yet indisputably rotten fruit appeared in the lives of leaders. Many wonder: How did the Gospel truths they espoused not yield transformative change where it truly mattered?

Barna research reveals that over a quarter of American adults report that past experiences with religious institutions fuel doubt in Christ. As Teasi Cannon aptly noted last week, many such people exit churches in self-preservation, not rebellion, forced to conclude with genuine sorrow: “If this is Christianity, I can’t survive here.”

Not to diminish the severity of the current scandals, but gross compromises and distorted doctrines among God’s people are not new. The New Testament records how sexual immorality and the abuse of the Lord’s Supper existed in the early Church among the Corinthians (1 Corinthians 5:1-5 and 11:17-34). The Galatians were called foolish, having been bewitched into another Gospel (Galatians 3:1). Individual wolves in the Church are not new either, as the Apostle Paul had to turn Hymenaeus and Alexander over to Satan that they might be taught not to blaspheme (1 Timothy 1:20).

Churches and ministries dealing with a dreadful mixture of righteousness and grievous sin are also not new. Among the seven churches addressed in the Book of Revelation, some had exhibited remarkable faithfulness to God in ways He commended them for (Pergamum, Thyatira, and Ephesus), but He also had to rebuke them for their compromises (Revelation 2:1-29).

Many centuries later, as the contemporary West convulses, the Judeo-Christian norms and ethics that have long undergirded society have eroded. A significant contributing factor to this erosion is pervasive distrust and rejection of religious institutions that have simultaneously furthered and covered up sins that have wounded people, the same sins that the churches claim to oppose doctrinally.

As the exposure continues, it leaves many newly sobered Christians thinking and asking: “This is terrible. This cannot be the abundant life in the Kingdom about which Jesus spoke. What should we do now? What can we do? Where do we even go from here amid this fierce heartache and countless people harmed in God’s name?”

The only response that makes any sense to me, and maybe it sounds simplistic, is genuine repentance. In Acts 3:19, Peter speaks to the men of Israel about how they had rejected the Holy and Righteous One (Jesus), saying: “Repent therefore, and turn back, that your sins may be blotted out, that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

We, too, have forgotten the holiness and righteousness of God. We would do well to rend our proverbial garments and earnestly cry out to Him, even if we have not been directly involved in or impacted by such a scandal.

If you’re a believer in Jesus Christ who is grieved to the core by the rampant sin in the camp that is manifesting nowadays, continue to search your heart before the Lord, and repent of anything and everything that would grieve Him. Each one of us needs it. Pray that a fervent love for God’s righteousness resurges in the Church, and that reverential fear of the Lord return in great measure to His House. Intercede that His people remember the awesomeness of a holy God, and that He is not mocked (Galatians 6:7).

Our sin is great, and we do not deserve His mercy. But His mercy is vast, and it triumphs over judgment (James 2:13).

Because if I know what animates committed Christians who are clinging to Jesus amid this disruptive chaos, it is an earnest yearning for another Great Awakening, an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and revival — the precursor of which is repentance. May it sweep our land like wildfire; it’s our only hope.

Perhaps then, as seen in the pattern of Scripture, God may grant us the times of refreshment in His presence that the remnant longs for in this sin-saturated world.

It takes a lot of hard work to convince yourself that something bad is actually good.

In a recent commentary, I told you about my friend’s autistic son who, despite being surrounded by things that cause him genuine distress, bravely does what needs to be done.

As I put it at the time, his courage is both an example for and a rebuke to our culture’s obsession with “microaggressions” and “microtraumas.”

Well, recently, my friend’s son unknowingly rebuked our culture again. The occasion was the question he asked his father after yet another viewing of one of his favorite movies, “The Music Man,” starring Robert Preston and Shirley Jones.

For those of you unfamiliar with the 1962 film and the 1957 Broadway musical it was based on, “The Music Man” tells the story of Harold Hill, a con man who preys upon small towns in the Midwest. It’s a great movie.

After having fleeced most of Illinois, Harold Hill arrives in River City, Iowa. He decides that the way to get at the town’s wallets is to sell them on the idea of creating a marching band, which requires money for uniforms, instruments, and music lessons.

Through a combination of charm, fast-talking, and great songs like “76 Trombones” and “Ya Got Trouble,” he persuades most of the town to part with their money. All that stands between him and his payday is a buffoonish mayor, who is no match for Hill, and the town librarian, who has fallen in love with him.

Actually, there’s someone else: an anvil salesman named Charlie Cowell who comes to River City with evidence of Harold Hill’s previous crimes. And that brings me back to my friend’s son.

After watching Music Man again he asked his father if Harold Hill shouldn’t be regarded as the villain of the story and Charlie Cowell the hero. After all, he pointed out, Harold Hill admits to being a “dirty rotten crook” and a “big liar.”

Yet in the end, the town — and the audience — sides with Harold Hill. They convince themselves that his lies have made River City a better place to live.

My friend’s son cannot understand how this can happen. The right and wrong of the situation is clear to him. Ironically, his disability has made him immune to the sentimentality and relativism that seduce the audience as surely as Harold Hill seduced the people of River City.

Chuck Colson, whose grandson Max is also autistic, noticed how people like Max lack guile, they don’t use subterfuge like a lot of us so-called “neuro-typicals.” Chuck also speculated that people like Max think in a way that’s closer to the way God intended for all of us to think.

While autistic folk are as fallen as you and I, they don’t rationalize their wrongdoing, and thus are genuinely surprised and even disturbed at other people’s flagrant transgressions, both on screen and off.

This story brings to mind another musical, “South Pacific.” In one of its most memorable numbers, a sailor sings “You’ve got to be taught to hate and fear. You’ve got to be taught from year to year. It’s got to be drummed in your dear little ear. You’ve got to be carefully taught.”

The same thing is true of relativism and calling evil “good.” As my colleague’s son reminds us, this kind of folly doesn’t come naturally. It’s not the way God made us.

Instead, it’s been carefully drummed into our ears and from there into our minds and affections. The process is so effective, we don’t notice its impact and we end up despising those who, like Charlie Cowell in “The Music Man,” point out our folly.

Well, not all of us do. And thank God for them.

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Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.