God Never Said to Adam . . .
"How Do You Like Them Apples?"
The following was written to a religious forum on which some became preoccupied with blaming their former religion's corporate leadership for nearly all of their problems. This particular forum was preoccupied with the WCG and it's splits, but the comments below could apply to any organization.
Greetings (forum members),
Just some thoughts:
Question: Why do we continue to attack ministers and administrators for things done in the past?
Possible answer No.1.
In some cases, we're not attacking people, We're attacking wrong actions.
In order to avoid the "appearance of evil", perhaps we should word statements so as to not be misunderstood.
For example saying, "IMO, Mr.__ made a wrong decision." (judging the action)
rather than saying, "Mr.__knowingly lied." (judging the heart,God's job)
Or saying,"IMO, Mr.__taught some things in error." (judging the action)
rather than saying, "He did this to maintain power and to get rich." (judging the heart)Possible answer No.2.
In some cases, we do it because we have been lied to, or otherwise abused.
There is no question that people did bad things to others. This is not some new thing. And it will continue until the Kingdom.
Now what does God tell us to do about it?A) If it is ongoing, we have the principles of correcting a brother(Mat.18), or fleeing (Mat. 10:23), and of warning others (Mat 7:15).
B) We are required to forgive everyone (Mat. 6:15) and to love everyone (Mat. 5:44).
Anger displaces love. Someone recently spoke of an attempted phone conversation with his wife. The connection was so bad that they both had to yell, and after 10 minutes of yelling without any exchange of information, they both hung up. The man commented, "I loved her less after the call than I did before." He had allowed his anger at the situation to be directed at his wife and he felt less love temporarily, as part of his love for her was displaced by the anger.
If we think that we can be angry and still love, consider how many times we were really angry at our mate and still had really great sex? It doesn't work even under the most favorable of conditions. Anger and love are not compatible. Like two solid objects, they cannot occupy the same space at the same time.C) To be Christ-like is to hate the sin while loving the person.
"For God so loved the world...(Jn. 3:16) yet "all have sinned . . . (Rom. 3:23).
And the greatest example of separating the sin from the person, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do . . ."(Lk. 23:34).Possible answer No.3.
We are looking at the splinter in our brother's eye in lieu of our own problem (Mat.7:3-4). This is not a matter of "if the shoe fits" but a matter of "one size fits all". :-)
Possible answer No.4.
Psychologists might say it's a matter of anger-resolution, of venting, of getting it out of your system. I'm not a psychologist, but God is, since he designed and created our brain.
The sins of Sodom and Gomorrah cost Lot his wife and everything he had, except his daughters (Gen 18,19).
Someone on here said something about "We have to look back.", "We have to uncover all the sins."
God was specific then about not looking back and we apply this to resisting the temptation to return to sin. Perhaps we can learn something else here. Did Lot get angry at the rulers of S? Did he insist on rehashing his losses, 10 years, 20 years later, blaming the leaders of S in lieu of discussing his poor choice of neighborhood and his decision to remain there knowing of the evil?
Did he republish old correspondence from S or did he get on with his life.If S had been this evil when Abraham allowed Lot to choose his home, would Abraham have allowed Lot to go without even a warning? Probably not. God probably would not have allowed it. S probably degenerated after Lot's arrival. Perhaps Lot was the "frog in a pot of water" with the heat being increased as the society degenerated around him.
Any on-going problem should be addressed. In Gen 18:17, the Lord was the first to bring it up to Abraham that there was a serious problem in S. In verse 23, we see Abraham's attitude was not one of, "Kill'em all and let God sort'em out!"
His attitude was, "Will you also destroy the righteous with the wicked?"(The original corporate president of this church) was not so dense as to have been totally unaware of the actions of those around him, especially with the lobbying, finger-pointing and back-stabbing. Aside from his personal sins, whatever they may have been, perhaps he felt toward (the corporate church) as Abraham felt about S. Perhaps he felt that while he did not approve of evil, why destroy a work that was producing some good fruit? Perhaps he thought of Moses, when God offered to wipe out the Israelites and start over from scratch with Moses.
Perhaps one reason that the work continued as long as it did was because of (the church leader's) prayer to spare the work in spite of the evil, so that some good could be done. Or perhaps it was allowed to continue so that detractors could not point and say, "See, we told you it was not of God." God was willing to spare S in spite of their sins even if there were only 10 righteous among them. There were more than 10 (at the corporate headquarters) and some of us were among them. Since (that organization) still survives, is it possible that there are still 10 or more righteous among them now? S didn't just go bad on the day before the Lord appeared to Abraham. They had been bad for some time and God had been allowing it. Should we blame God for not doing something sooner?
Regardless of how or when (the church leader) got his understanding of doctrine, (the last time I checked, understanding comes from God no matter how many books one reads) the efforts (at church headquarters) to distribute truth and the Gospel of Christ produced much good fruit in many peoples' lives. I don't know of anyone who prays to (the church leader) or prays in his name although some want to use his name to justify themselves or their actions. I have been accused of defending (him). I previously did that. I quit when I left (the corporate church). I realized that his efforts had produced enough good fruit, that he did not need defending.
I know God takes a dim view of bashing those He uses. I recall a story about bears eating some disrespectful children who harassed a prophet. And that prophet was also just a man, a man who undoubtedly sinned at times (2 K. 23-24, Rom. 3:23).Only God can cause a tree to produce fruit. Man can't. Does an apple curse the tree from which it falls? Does the apple say, "You evil tree, you produced me only for your own selfish benefit!"? "You should never have been allowed to be in the apple business!" "I should have been ripe earlier!" "I should have been on a better tree! I should have been larger! Look everyone, this tree has twisted limbs. It is old. It's not special, it's just like all the other apple trees! It even learned how to grow apples by watching the other trees do it."
"And there were ROTTEN apples on the tree and the tree supported these rotten apples until they FELL off or were knocked off their stems."
"This evil tree knew about the rotten apples and did nothing, it was in a conspiracy against us good apples." "Now that we are apart from the tree, we have a duty to continue to preach the history of this evil tree!"
Perhaps God would respond, "APPLESAUCE!!!"The tree is gone. There is rotten fruit still among us. A tree does not know which of its fruit will be bad. When a fruit tree is stressed for lack of water, it will drop its fruit, even its leaves in order to conserve the moisture remaining within itself. When it drops fruit, it does not distinguish between bad fruit and good fruit. That's the job of the husbandman.
[Editor's note: When Adam and Eve were caught in sin by God, they played 'pass the buck'. Adam blamed the "woman you (God) gave me", blaming Eve directly and God indirectly. Adam's marriage was arranged by God. Adam had little or no choice in the matter. But God didn't accept Adam's excuse for a situation in which he was led astray. He punished Adam for Adam's disobedience.
Eve said "the serpent beguiled me", blaming the serpent directly and excusing herself as having been deceived by others. God didn't accept 'I was deceived by others' as an excuse. He punished Eve for Eve's disobedience.
The serpent , to his credit, didn't bother trying to blame anyone else. Perhaps he/she/it learned something from Adam's and Eve's attempts to escape personal responsibility for sin. More likely, he already knew God well enough not to try. Perhaps we should learn the same thing.]
It only takes human nature to attack others. It takes God's Holy Spirit to learn to separate the sin from the sinner. It takes the Holy Spirit to learn to love our enemies. We have spiritual enemies to deal with now and we are going to have Satan-inspired physical enemies if we continue in God's truth. Why should we be "looking back" at former enemies, living or dead, real or imagined? Instead of re-living the past, we should have learned from it and be living the present, preparing for the future.
Just thoughts,
(Attack wrong ideas and behavior, not people.)
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