October 13, 2010
Lukewarm
My cousin’s husband, a non-believer, is nearing 90 years old. Laura had always worried about Nick’s eternal life until a pastor told her that knowing he wasn’t saved was better than wondering whether or not he was saved. Explaining the pastor’s reasoning she said, “As long as Nick hasn’t accepted Christ I know there is still a chance.” Jesus said, “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:15-16 NIV)
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Gail;
-----I understand this pastor’s thinking. It would be a tragic condition to be spewed out of Jesus’ mouth. It would be sad to find yourself rejected in the Day of Judgment when you had convinced yourself upon some basis that you would be accepted by Him. On that day the finality of our eternal condition will be set. But until then, life is a continuous approach towards Him or distancing from Him. Our choices of feelings, thoughts, and deeds are evidence of whether in our spirits we are warming up to His, or hiding from His. And because feelings and thoughts are the more extensive portion of what we are, only the person himself has the best opportunity, other than the Holy Spirit, of knowing which direction he is going.
-----Yet it is deceit that causes a person’s failure to avail himself of that opportunity, leaving others who do truly know Him in a better position to assess his direction. And deceit is a rigid structure, often having thick walls of interlacing fallacies. Being able to observe the thoughts and feelings of one who is not saved through the things they say and do to the point that it can be known the person lives in rejection of Christ, however much from deceit or purpose that rejection might be, is a sad piece of knowledge to hold, whether that person lays no claim to Christ or does. How to scale that wall of deceit, or penetrate it, or where to find its fatal flaw and crumble it is consternating. The consternation leaves one standing outside the person’s inner heart only wishing he could get in and substantively effect it.
-----To wonder, however, is different. Of course, the Lord has no wonder or bewilderment about a person. He knows to the absolute depths what a man’s heart is and how deceived it may or may not be. We are the ones left to wonder. And when we do wonder, it means that we have not been able to observe any of the person’s definitive feelings or thoughts or deeds, and therefore we have not been able to come to know whether that person is in a place of definite rejection. This means that in as much as there is some chance the person is lost, there is also some chance the person is saved. And that is more comforting to me than to know certainly, at least presently, that the person is lost. Moreover, I am less consternated at the wall of deceit knowing that the possibility he has a relationship with the Lord is the same possibility that the wall has soft spots or even openings through which influence and exhortation might gain entry to bolster a possible saved condition.
-----So even though I understand this pastor’s thinking, I do not hold it. But that is probably because I am more an encourager and exhorter than I am an evangelist. And that may be a result of my consternation by a lost person’s wall of deceit.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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