Truth Magazine

By Gary L Coles

Brad Johnson was just an average 17 year old boy. He was a senior at the Midway Senior High School, and was looking forward to attending Community College the following fall. He was an above average football player and had a decent shot at getting a football scholarship. His girl-friend, Kathy, was also planning to attend Community College. Brad and Kathy had been dating for about a year and were falling in love with each other. Yes, all was right in Brad’s little world.

One Friday night Brad and Kathy decided to attend a party that one of Brad’s friends was having at his house. On the way, Kathy reminded Brad to take it easy on the drinking. Brad assured Kathy that he would only have a couple of beers, just to be sociable.

When they arrived at the party, they noticed there was a lot of noise and activity. In fact, the noise was deafening. At first, Kathy just thought everyone was having a good time. However, as she surveyed the room, she noticed a large group of people standing around a table. As she and Brad walked closer to the table, she saw why. Lined neatly in a row were three beer kegs. Kathy immediately grabbed Brad’s arm and pleaded with him to leave. Brad laughed and assured Kathy that everything would be all right. The guys were just having a good time. At that moment Brad’s friend, Kirk, brought him and Kathy a glass filled with beer. Brad took the glass and drained it with a few quick swallows. Kathy glared at Brad in disbelief and refused to accept the glass of beer that Kirk was offering her. Brad laughed at her and proceeded to drain her glass as well. Kathy just shook her head and left Brad to sit by herself on the sofa. Brad just shrugged his shoulders and told Kirk that Kathy was a teetotaler. Kirk and Brad laughed and went to get some more beer.

For the rest of the evening Kathy sat by herself on the sofa. She could not believe how Brad was behaving. This was not the Brad she had fallen in love with. She thought about calling her father and asking him to come and pick her up. She decided against doing that. It might embarrass Brad.

Finally, at two in the morning, the party began to break up. Brad went to the sofa and asked Kathy if she were ready to go home. Kathy noticed that Brad’s speech was slurred and that he was weaving around a bit. On the way to the car, Kathy asked Brad to let her drive him home. Brad wouldn’t have it. He insisted that he was fine and told Kathy to shut up and get into the car. Kathy was deeply hurt by the way Brad had just spoken to her. Her first thought was to burst into tears and run away as quickly as she could. She knew that getting in the car with Brad in his drunken condition was foolish. Nevertheless, she got into the car anyway.

On the way home Kathy asked Brad to pull over and let her drive. Brad again insisted that he was fine. Kathy knew better. Brad was weaving all over the road. Kathy became frightened and began to wonder if they would get home safely.

Suddenly, for some unexplained reason, the car was out of control. Brad frantically tried to regain control. Unfortunately, his drunken condition would not allow it. For a moment he thought he was about to regain control, when suddenly the car veered to the right and off the road. For just a moment he glanced over at Kathy and noticed that she had raised her arms up to protect her face and began to scream. He looked ahead and saw why. Just a few feet ahead a huge oak tree stood in their path. Brad put both feet on the brake pedal and pushed as hard as he could. It didn’t do any good. He next heard the sickening sound of metal crunching, glass breaking, and a blood curdling scream. Then everything went black.

When Brad regained consciousness, he found himself on a table in the emergency room of the Community Hospital. A doctor was standing over him with a light checking his eyes. The doctor asked Brad a few questions to determine if Brad had suffered any brain trauma. The doctor then told Brad how lucky he was to be alive. He informed Brad that he only had a few scrapes and bruises and was free to go.

As Brad was sitting up and preparing to leave, he suddenly thought of Kathy. He asked one of the nurses if the girl that had been with him was all right. He noticed a hesitancy in the nurse’s response. She told him that his father and mother were waiting in a waiting room down the hall. They could answer any questions he might have.

When Brad walked into the waiting room, he saw his mother sitting on the sofa crying and his father looking out the window. When Brad’s mother saw him, she immediately ran to him, embraced him and asked if he was ok. Brad said that he was fine and proceeded to ask about Kathy. Brad’s mother returned to the sofa sobbing and his father continued to look silently out the window.

Brad’s heart began to race and tears began streaming down his face as feelings of dread and remorse began to envelop him. Then his father turned from the window and asked him to go with him. As they were walking down the hall, Brad noticed the stern steel expression that was on his father’s face. Brad asked his father several questions about Kathy. His father just ignored him and continued his silent walk down the hospital hallway.

They came to a set of double doors that would take them into the ICU. Brad’s heart began to leap with joy. She’s not dead, he told himself, she’s only hurt. Brad noticed that at the end of the hall was a large observation room. As they got closer, he saw that there was a lot of activity in the room. When they reached the window, Brad’s father turned to Brad and asked him to look into the room.

As Brad looked into the room, he saw a person lying on a strange looking table. Going into this person were all types of wires, tubes and hoses. A few of the wires appeared to be connected to some type of screws that had been embedded into this person’s skull.

A nurse moved and then he was able to see the face of the person lying on the table. Brad’s stomach began to twist and turn. His vision became blurred by tears. The person lying on the table was Kathy. Brad could see that Kathy’s beautiful long blond hair had been shaved so the screws could be placed into her skull. His beautiful sweet Kathy remained motionless on the table.

Brad’s father finally began to speak. He told Brad that Kathy had suffered a spinal cord injury. Her spine had been severed. She would never walk again. In fact, she was permanently paralyzed from the neck down.

Brad fell to his knees and began to sob uncontrollably. His beautiful Kathy, the girl he loved with all his heart, the girl he planned to marry one day, would be unmercifully trapped in a motionless body for the rest of her life, all because of his stupidity. Why hadn’t he listened to Kathy when she pleaded with him to leave the party? Why hadn’t he allowed her to drive him home? His pride and arrogance had done this. His concern about his “Big Man” image had tragically shattered Kathy’s life.

Brad’s father looked down at his son lying prostrate on the floor and placed his hand on Brad’s shoulder and said, “Son, I truly believe your pain and suffering will far surpass Kathy’s.”

Comments

The preceding story dramatically depicts a tragedy that is taking place in our country today. Millions of our young people are falling into the Teen Trap of drinking alcoholic beverages. Many teens believe that drinking makes them look grown up and will enhance their status among their peers. This way of thinking has created a trap from which many teens never escape.

Statistics seem to show that drinking among teens is a significant problem. Of the 20.7 million 7th through 12th grade students nationwide, 10.6 million say they have drunk an alcoholic beverage. That is 50%. This same survey revealed that eight million of these students drink weekly.

Beer is by far the most popular alcoholic drink of teens today. This is primarily due to the easy access of beer. Minors illegally consume more than one billion beers each year.

Young people are also operating under the mistaken notion that beer is a harmless drink. They don’t realize that one can of beer, five ounces of wine, or one wine cooler has roughly the alcohol equivalent of one shot of vodka. Most young people do not know that a 12 ounce can of beer has the same amount of alcohol as one shot of whiskey.

What about the young people in the church today? Are they truly aware of the dangers of drinking? Have we as parents and leaders in the church, done an effective job in convincing our young people that drinking alcoholic beverages is not something a Christian does?

So often I have heard people say, “The Bible does not explicitly condemn the moderate drinking of alcoholic beverages.” Oh really! Please take note of Philippians 2:15: “that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among who you appear as lights in the world.” You tell me how a Christian can possibly comply with this passage of Scripture while standing around with a can of beer in his hand?

Unfortunately, many Christian parents have been setting a very poor example for their children. By their example, they have been saying to their children, “Go ahead, drink up, there’s no problem.” Then, when their children find themselves in a similar dilemma as illustrated in our story, they hang their head in sorrow and disbelief and ignorantly say, “Why did this happen .. . where did I go wrong?” It is time for Christians to wake up and see that drinking is not only dangerous and stupid  it’s sinful!

In 1 Corinthians 5:5 we are told, “Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough?” For too many years, many congregations have been entirely too tolerant of social drinking. Many have placed drinking in that nebulous category, often called a “gray area.”

Our Bible classes and pulpits are going to have to do a better job of convincing people that abstinence is the only scriptural approach to drinking. Throwing a few Scriptures at an audience or a class is not going to convince anyone. Unfortunately, too many have become too calloused for that approach to work anymore. Preachers and teachers must powerfully and dramatically show the destructive effects of drinking. Furthermore, preachers and teachers need to take the Bible and use it to present an irrefutable argument against drinking. Finally, elders need to discipline those individuals who stubbornly refuse to comply with God’s teaching on this matter. Doing this may help some of our young people to avoid the teen trap of drinking.

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: No. 20, p. 6-8
October 19, 1995

By Randy Blackaby

No outrage in our society better exemplifies the need for a return to biblical morality than the present scourge of family violence. Yet most domestic violence dialogue today becomes a diatribe against Christian patterns for the home.

New figures released recently by the U.S. Department of Justice paint a bleak picture of family violence in our nation.

Those figures show:

 Murders within the family account for 16 percent of all large city homicides.

In white families where spouses are murdered, 62 per-cent of the victims are wives and 38 percent husbands.

In black families where spouses are murdered, 53 per-cent of victims were wives and 47 percent husbands.

One in four spouse killers is unemployed.

In 48 percent of spouse homicides the killer had been drinking alcohol before the killing; and, about the same percentage of victims also had been drinking.

Children are twice as likely to be killed by their parents as are parents to be killed by their children.

The only area in which females were more likely to be murderers than males was in the killing of children.

Mothers accounted for 55 percent of all defendants in child murders.

These statistics are sad. But sadder is the abysmal failure to use the best tool in the world to remedy this warfare between the sexes and the violence that leaves too many children dead.

Biblical morality, if taught from youth upward, endorsed through education and exemplified in more families, would reduce phenomenally the murders of husbands, wives and children.

God’s morality teaches a man to “love his wife just asChrist loved the church and gave himself for it” (Eph. 5:25). Husbands further are taught to “love their own wives as their own bodies” (Eph. 5:28).

Fathers are further directed to “not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4).

And women are taught in Scripture “to love their husbands, to love their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands” (Tit. 2:4-5).

Children are taught to “obey your parents” and to “honor your father and mother” (Eph. 6:1).

These moral regulations are not just naive or wishful thinking. They are rules of conduct (laws of God) that need to be inculcated in the thinking of every man, woman, boy and girl.

Men who love their wives and children as they do them-selves will not murder, brutally beat or otherwise abuse and harm such loved ones.

Women who love their husbands and children won’t be killing them either. And, children, raised in such loving homes and taught to honor and respect their parents won’t often turn into child killers.

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: No. 19, p. 18
October 5, 1995

By Edward O. Bragwell, Sr.

The doctor, looking at the routine test results, announces to the patient, “Hey, man, give me five. Have I got good news for you? Your blood pleasure is super. Your pulse rate is fantastic. And, man, what a fabulous gall bladder. It is beautiful to behold. You are in marvelous shape.”

Now the patient really feels good about himself. In fact, it confirmed what he had thought all along  there was nothing wrong with him. He only went in to satisfy his wife. She is one of those health nuts that thinks one should have a periodic checkup even when he is feeling good about himself.

Then the doctor says, “Sit down, I want to tell some really good news about our treatment plan for folks like you  you will love it and hardly feel a pain  I tell you it is sensational.”

The patient asks, “Treatment for what, Doc?” “You just said I was in great shape.”

“Well, you are, or at least we believe you need to think you are (haven’t you ever heard of Positive Mental Attitude), but everyone needs a treatment plan,” replies the doctor.

“How much is this going to cost me, Doc?”

“You don’t need to concern yourself about the cost now, I will explain that to you a bit at a time while you are recovering from the initial surgery.”

“From initial  what?”

“Initial surgery for that nice tumor that I think you may have  isn’t that super! Can you say `super’?”

“To tell you the truth, Doc, `swell’ is about the best I can do until I find out what will happen if I don’t have surgery. What will likely happen?”

“Do I detect that you are beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable about your-self? I was afraid of that. We can’t have that!”

“But, Doc, why didn’t you tell me to start with that I had a tumor and needed an operation?”

“What kind of doctor do you think I am? I am of the new school that tells patients how well they are, rather than that old negative school that tells folks how sick they are. How can I claim to be a `good news’ doctor if I keep telling folks the `bad news’ about their health and what all it is going to take for them to get well?”

“Doc, I think news about the surgery and its cost would have been `good news’ to me had you honestly told me first, with convincing evidence, the `bad news’ about my illness.”

The Doctor Is The Preacher

The above fictional doctor’s approach parallels a growing approach to preaching among us. One who sees no flaw in the doctor’s approach will likely see no flaw in this new style of preaching.

The idea that we can help sinners without first convicting them of sin is both unscriptural and illogical. The first order of business of the Holy Spirit given to the apostles was to “convict the world of sin” (John 16:8). As they went forth preaching under the direct guidance of the Spirit, they first convicted men and women of their sins; then they gave them the good news about how to be saved from sin.

Notice the order in Acts 2. Peter first convicted them of their sin by plainly pointing out, with ample evidence, that the One they had rejected and crucified was the Christ of prophecy. He concluded “that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” That made them rather uncomfortable about themselves. It even cut them to the heart. They asked, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” (v. 37) They were now ready for the good news. There was a way out of their sinful condition (v.38). They gladly did what they were told to do (v. 41).

Of course, they were not made to feel bad about themselves and left hanging. They were given good news of the way out of their sinful and lost state. They would not have been ready for the good news until they no longer felt good about having crucified Jesus. As long as they felt that they were innocent of wrong doing they would have felt no need for the gospel. They would have not considered it good news.

Once men and women are faced with the guilt and consequences of their sins when they understand that they are lost and hell bound, then the news of the gospel plan of salvation indeed becomes great news. It is good news even when they understand that discipleship involves effort, hard-ships and sacrifices.

No, we are not saying that every sermon or every article or every class lesson must be to convict one of sin. There are other purposes in preaching and teaching. But, there is entirely too much emphasis in today’s preaching upon trying to make people feel good about themselves rather than convicting them of sin. Too much psychology and not enough gospel in lessonsdirected to those in and out of the church. A preacher friend recently told me about hearing a young visiting preacher preach an entire sermon on “the grace of God” without even mentioning the plan of salvation. A few years ago I stopped at a place on a Sunday night and heard a sermon on “the new birth” without baptism being mentioned  much less showing that people needed it and urging them to do it. There is less and less emphasis upon what we must leave behind and what is involved in being saved from sin and condemnation.

The world hasn’t changed so much since the first century that it does not need convicting of sin. The church has not changed so much that there are no brethren who need convicting of sin. The word of God has not changed so much that it is not still designed to make us see what manner of men we are  prompting us to do something about it (cf. Jas. 1:25).

If our preaching makes one still in his sins feel good about himself then we have done him an injustice. It is like-wise an injustice to make one think that salvation and discipleship are without cost. But once one understands the gravity of his sinful condition and the rewards of salvation, he will eagerly accept the cost of obeying the Lord. The gospel, with all its conditions, tribulations, and blessings will indeed be good news to him, because he has fully understood the bad news of his condemnation.

It is time that we quit trying to spare the sinner the pain of honestly facing the reality of his condemnation; so that we might introduce him to the glorious relief in the gospel of Christ. It is time that we quit trying to make disciples of Christ without painful decisions having to be made. Repentance is not painless. It is prompted by godly sorrow (2 Cor. 7:9,10).

When one obeys the gospel there are sinful pleasures that must be sacrificed. There are often beloved, hindering relationships that must be severed. When preachers preach and people understand the whole picture, the Lord will be pleased and souls will be saved. When one understands the profitableness of godliness for the life that now is and that which is to come (cf. 1 Tim. 4:8), he will gladly count the cost worth it all. But one can hardly understand and appreciate the profitableness of godliness until he understands the unprofitableness of ungodliness.

Maybe we need to be more concerned that our preaching be profitable rather than painless.

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: No. 20, p. 2-3
October 19, 1995

By Irvin Himmel

Deconsecration

In 1839 a brick meeting house was erected in Mooresville, Alabama, in southern Limestone County. In the course of its long history it was used by the Cumberland Presbyterians, the Baptists, and the Methodists.

Several months ago the old brick church building was sold for use as a community building. A newspaper story reported that the Methodists had a service to “deconsecrate” the building.

To “consecrate” is to set apart, make holy, or dedicate to the service of God. That word appears a number of times in the Bible. To “deconsecrate” means the opposite. That word is not used in Scripture.

I do not know how the Methodists went about “deconsecrating” a building which had been sitting idle for many years. They seem to have a ritual that fits whatever the occasion may invite.

This much I do know. Many who have obeyed the gospel of Christ have “deconsecrated” themselves. By their actions they have made themselves unholy. Since being baptized into Christ, they have returned to the world. They have removed the sacred character of the calling which they formerly heeded. Some of these remind one of the dog that returned to its vomit. Others have departed from the truth and chased after religious error. It takes no spe-cial ceremony to “deconsecrate” one’s life. And a life has far more value than a material building.

It Might Have Been

Young people, choose your companion for life with prayerful thought and wisdom. Do not be guided only by outward appearance or emotions. If you marry the wrong kind of person, there will be deep regrets and far-reaching consequences. Many years from now you will look back and think what might have been.

Parents, do your very best to bring up your sons and daughters to fear and obey God. Teach them by your godly example. If you do not, they will disappoint you, and you will be haunted by what might have been.

Sinner, stop lingering and obey the gospel. Surrender your stubborn will to the Lord. Time is slipping by rap-idly. Do not wait too long and then with bitter pain remember what might have been.

Christian, be faithful, diligent, and zealous. Grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord. Do not allow pressures and problems, disappointments and discouragements to deter you. Never grow weary in well doing. You be-come unfaithful, you will forfeit your right to the tree of life.

“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,

The saddest are these: It might have been!”

Guardian of Truth XXXIX: No. 19, p. 19
October 5, 1995