“‘People I associate with are looking at me like, are you guys crazy?’” That was school committee chairman John Coyne’s comment when a measure he opposed was approved by a 7-2 vote of the Portland (Maine) School Committee (South Bend Tribune 10-19-07). Why did that vote make the national headlines a few weeks ago? Because it was a decision to allow children as young as eleven years of age to obtain birth control pills at a middle-school health center. News indeed!
In defense of the King Middle School, it should be noted that school officials maintain that only five of the school’s 510 students would have qualified for birth control under the program last year. And the policy does require that students have parental permission to use the health center at the school (although the students would not have to tell their parents that they were seeking birth control).
But all of that aside, dispensing contraceptives for children as young as eleven years of age is surely a social commentary on our times, is it not? Is this where “the land of the free” is destined? Does the early onset of puberty mean that we must keep revising our sexual health policies downward in order to accommodate younger and younger children?
But then, is anybody really that surprised it has come to this? Didn’t the ancient prophet warn, “They sow the wind, and reap the whirlwind” (Hosea 8:7)? After decades of prime time sex on America’s channels and screens of entertainment, are we surprised that our kids finally got the message? That unbridled sex is not only the acceptable, but the preferred norm for our society? Who can blame eleven year olds for thinking, “If my body can do it, I might as well do it”? We have reaped the whirlwind.
In the words of Christian philosopher Francis Schaeffer, How then shall we live? Or shall the community of Christ sow the same sexual winds and reap the same night-after whirlwind? Our series, “The Chosen,” moves now to the heart of the dark game plan on the borders of the Promised Land: play the sex card.
But the good news is Christ offers us a winning hand! And he does so with the profound declaration that our bodies “were bought at a price,” the crimson currency of “his own blood” (I Cor 6:19, 20; Acts 20:28). Clearly, having emptied heaven’s treasury to redeem not only our souls but our bodies at the cross, it is in God’s own interest to protect his investment in us and to spare us sexual defeat. All of his power to protect all of our purity—ours for the asking. How could the headlines be better?
Was this some sort of Halloween joke? The headline caught my eye: “Hunter shot by his dog.” You’ve got to be kidding! No, the Des Moines, Iowa, story turns out to be very true, painfully true. Jim Harris, 39, was out hunting last weekend on the opening day of pheasant season. As he and his canine buddy were moving through the brush, Harris stopped, laid down his shot gun, and you can guess the rest. “Man’s best friend” accidentally stepped on the shotgun, tripped the trigger, and at close range pumped 100-120 pellets into Harris’ calf. The good news is that Jim is recovering from surgery in good condition, except for a very sore four-inch circle on his calf. “Hunter shot by his dog.” Some things in life are just plain backwards at times, aren’t they? Take this headline from the upper room the night before Jesus was crucified. There in the orange glow of those flickering torches, Jesus turns to his closest companions and friends on earth and declares, “’You did not choose Me, but I chose you’” (John 15:16). But we get that headline backwards sometimes, don’t we? It’s easy to get to thinking that all this talk about “the chosen” must mean that people with enough spiritual smarts will make the right choice and settle in with the right God and the right theology and the right lifestyle. If only everybody else would just do the same (so the subliminal thinking goes). But Jesus’ quiet assertion that night is that such thinking is backwards. The choice that matters most isn’t my choice or your choice—it’s clearly his choice. “I chose you.” Oswald Chambers, in his classic My Utmost for His Highest, drives home the point: “Keep that note of greatness in your creed. It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you” (299). Good news for all the times you and I mess up our choices, foul up our resolutions and just plain get it all backwards. “You did not choose Me, but I chose you.” Which means that you’ve been chosen by the only One in the universe who knows how to make a perfect choice. Which, of course, doesn’t make you or me perfect. But it does reverse the headline of salvation’s focus from imperfect us to perfect Him. And in anybody’s book, that would surely make God, not dog, our “very best friend.”
Did you hear about the Pittsburgh man last week who went in to a Giant Eagle supermarket and paid for a head of lettuce with a $1 million bill? That’s right—one million dollars. And he asked for change! The wide-eyed but suspicious clerk notified the manager, who promptly confiscated the bill. Whereupon the customer promptly flew into a tirade, smashing the electronic funds-transfer machine beside the cashier and grabbing the scanner gun. Police arrested the man. When later asked by a reporter for comment, a police spokeswoman replied, “It’s a bit different.” It certainly is! The U.S. Treasury has never printed a one million dollar bill. Since 1969, when the Grover Cleveland $1,000 bill was taken out of circulation, the $100 bill has been the largest banknote in circulation. And the man asked for change. Bogus bills and counterfeit banknotes. You aren’t going to fool anybody with a million dollar bill. But ATF agents with the Department of Treasury are on constant lookout for counterfeit $20 and $100 bills. Why? Because counterfeits are based upon the genuine, not on somebody’s wishful thinking. Obviously, it is the existence of the genuine that makes the counterfeits possible. Which is why today’s teaching, “How to Stone the Prophet,” is so critical. God has always offered the genuine. And since the beginning, the dark moral counterfeiter of earth (whom we know as the devil) has attempted to pass off his counterfeits of that divine genuine. And not surprisingly, given the length of time the devil has had to practice and perfect his cunning counterfeit, more than a few have been duped and deceived. In fact so confusing is the deception, that now there are some who have reversed reality, and are declaring the genuine to be a counterfeit, and the counterfeit to be the genuine! Which is why I hope you’ll prayerfully examine this teaching. Download it from this website as a podcast, and ruminate over it with your MP3 player. Pull out your Bible, and review the evidence. The counterfeit is so prevalent that this may be the first time you’ve ever examined the genuine. Take your time. Too much is at stake to be wrong. The Spirit of God will guide you, if you ask him. And that $1 million bill? Police now believe it was a promotional piece from a Dallas-based ministry that distributed thousands of religious pamphlets with a picture of President Grover Cleveland on a $1 million bill. You see, when it comes to identifying the genuine, not even a church will do. So, stick with the Word of God.