We Have Reasons to Blush: Jeremiah 6 and 8

So few pastor's spend any real time on the street any longer...  or they live in a protective religious bubble with very little real contact with the "outside" world that you may not be aware...  but hopefully I can help in that regard.

I live in Atlanta and we have no shortage of mess when it comes to preachers and churches in this area.  A pastor of a large church recently announced to the world that he was in fact homosexual. Others with their various sexual exploits that have become public knowledge and then those with preachers that come in making a spectacle that hits the public spotlight.  All the while, time passes and they keep the wealth they have amassed and for them there is no harm no foul...  for now.

Then there are those that are out there dealing with the masses...  the heathens... often known in Scripture as the "Gentile".  Yes, there are some that still actually try going into the highway and the byway to find the lost folk that Jesus told us to go after.  Folks that aren't waiting for them to pop into the church building.  Folks that aren't spending millions of dollars a year putting a television show on a Christian Network in the off-chance that one of these "heathens" will turn to that channel because they're searching for something other than their crappy existence of a life.  This person has an overhead that they must meet and usually it is Bibles to give out... shoes that need replacing because the ones they wear are thin soled from all that standing and walking on pavement. I would say, "you know the ones that don't have the multi-million dollar ministry" but fact is...  you don't know them because you really have nothing, or very little, to actually do with them. 

Preacher listen to me.  Be mad for a bit if you must but listen and then find out if what I say is true of you.  The anger will fade because most of you don't know me anyway.  You can ignore me now if you will and most will. But this is eternity and rest assured that I say this with trembling and fear.  We're in trouble for what we ignore...  the very Book we preach out of every time we stand in our pulpits.  Romans 2 is a horrifying passage of Scripture if you really read it for what it says and get past the mindset that you don't do all those sins it speaks of...  when in fact you know the drill.  Jesus made it clear that it isn't the physical act that is going to condemn us alone...  even if you don't physically commit adultery or even look at a woman with lust in your heart...  many of us have committed that against God.

The Gentile blasphemes the name of God because of us.  The complaint in the street from once upon a time Christian folk isn't that you didn't shake their hands.  It's that they gave and gave and gave to your ministry so that the kingdom of God would be advanced and more "lost souls" would be saved and there would be kingdom growth.  The only thing they saw growing was the fact that you once purchased your suits at a discount store and now you buy them at Brooke's Brothers. Once you were happy that Ford ran well...  now you're trading in your Cadillac for a Mercedes. Once you were thankful for the house with a room each for your family consisting of a wife and two kids but now.......    I mean after all...  as the "man of God" you deserve all that you have!  All the while...  your city is dying and going to an eternity in the hell you preach about and you don't even know them.

We have our wonderful programs on the holidays...  men's fellowship...  women's fellowship...  young adults, singles, young married couples...  teens, youth, children's church, and nurseries.  We have date nights, bowling tournaments, video games and movie nights.  We have the fellowship thing down to a science and it's what we are supposed to do and we make that very well known!  During our men's breakfast, John down the street died because his time was simply up and he is now spending eternity in hell.  During our women's tea...  Janice, on Elm street, shouldn't have taken all those pills at once but she'd just given up and now she's spending eternity in hell.  We had fun at the teen bowling night but the kids learn the next day at school that while they were laughing at the gutter balls one of them kept tossing... Bobby's meth habit finally caught up to him and now eternal torment is his destiny.  The family picnic was a blast until we listened to the radio on the way home and heard of that family of five that just died in that crash on I-75.  Simply going home and they never knew that the 18-wheeler was going to swerve into their lane pushing their van off the highway into a tree.  If they'd of known they would have taken another route but they didn't and now they are facing eternity...  maybe they're okay...  perhaps not.  We don't know because we've never spoken to them.  They didn't live all that far from the church or may have lived just a couple of houses down from me.  But hey...  at least it wasn't us... right?

Our priorities are all jacked up now.  We don't seem to even really care any longer.  We'll preach sermons about how our movies and video games have desensitized the people but then look at us?  We see people dying and frying all around us every day and we don't even shed a tear for our city...  our own neighborhood.  The heathen blasphemes the name of God because of us.  That's a reality that we will face one day ourselves.  We may not fear now...  we may not cry and we certainly don't even blush.  We will.