"The Divine Aristocracy"
An examination of Ecclesiastes 9 & 10 and how it applies to the contemporary church..
Download or email this sermon The Chronic Sinner
Continuing with Ecclesiastes 10:2:
"A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but the foolish man's heart directs him towards the left."
This reminds me of what Jesus said in Matthew 25 concerning the separation of sheep and goats, sheep on His right hand and goats on His left. There are some believers who are always going towards the left; always going the wrong way. I can't explain why, but it is always the same people who follow one silly trend after another piece of nonsense and get into trouble. In England, who is taking the Alpha courses? The same people who are involved in Toronto. Who is into Pensacola? The same people who are into Promise Keepers. It's always the same people getting into weird stuff; they do it chronically.
Now, a young believer can come to Christ with a lot of baggage and get themselves into a lot of trouble. However, when you see people who chronically get into spiritual and doctrinal trouble, it's a serious thing. “A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but a foolish man's heart directs him towards the left”.
For example: I knew a girl in England who was a lawyer. When she was in university, she would come with friends who were in the Christian fellowship on campus to some of my Bible studies in the North of England. She graduated and eventually her friends came to one of my meetings and told me they were very concerned about her because she'd gotten involved with some group that seemed on the surface to be born-again, but were actually more like a cult. This group had persuaded her to go to Chicago with them, and her friends asked me to see what was happening to her.
Several weeks later I had to be in Chicago – my wife was with me – and I found a way to contact this young woman. I had to make a deal to meet her in front of a department store because our meeting had to be surreptitious due to the extreme heavy shepherding and control this group exerted. I met her, talked with her, and took her to talk to my wife. I couldn't believe what she told me. This is an educated woman, yet this group she was in was telling people who were clean and healthy to marry people who were HIV-positive and trust the Lord to preserve their lives and health. Some of them were dying of AIDS as a result of obeying this. I took her to a mission, showed them my minister's card (this is the only reason I am ordained: so I can have a minister's license which gets me into hospitals and jails and, in my case, sometimes out of one), and got them to keep her there. I told them not to let anyone talk to her, and promised I would return the next day. Next, I called her parents (who were not saved) and told them what she was involved with. The next day, I took her to O'Hare Airport personally and put her on the plane with a stern warning that if I ever saw her there again I would do something unpleasant with my size 12-½ extra-wide boot. In any case, this girl went back to England. A while later she came to the Moriel church we planted in the South of England and told me she was in another crazy church. I saw her again several weeks ago, and she told me she'd been married to someone from that crazy church, but was now out of the church as well as separated from her husband.
There are just some Christians who are always like that, with one thing after another. Now, a young believer can come to Christ with a lot of baggage and get themselves into a lot of trouble – I understand that. I was saved out of the hippie movement, so I know what that's like. However, when you see people who chronically get into spiritual and doctrinal trouble, it's a serious thing. “A wise man's heart directs him towards the right, but a foolish man's heart directs him towards the left.”
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Scripture taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.