Category Archives: evil

Jan 9 2012

The Parable of the Good Mormon

25 Then an expert on the law stood up to test Jesus, saying, “Teacher, what must I do to get life forever?”

 26 Jesus said, ”What is written in the law? What do you read there?”

 27 The man answered, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.” Also, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”

 28 Jesus said to him, ”Your answer is right. Do this and you will live.”

 29 But the man, wanting to show the importance of his question, said to Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

 30 Jesus answered, ”As a man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, some robbers attacked him. They tore off his clothes, beat him, and left him lying there, almost dead. 31 It happened that a priest was going down that road. When he saw the man, he walked by on the other side. 32 Next, a Levite came there, and after he went over and looked at the man, he walked by on the other side of the road. 33 Then a Samaritan traveling down the road came to where the hurt man was. When he saw the man, he felt very sorry for him.34The Samaritan went to him, poured olive oil and wine on his wounds, and bandaged them. Then he put the hurt man on his own donkey and took him to an inn where he cared for him. 35The next day, the Samaritan brought out two coins, gave them to the innkeeper, and said, ‘Take care of this man. If you spend more money on him, I will pay it back to you when I come again.’ “

 36 Then Jesus said, ”Which one of these three men do you think was a neighbor to the man who was attacked by the robbers?”

 37 The expert on the law answered, “The one who showed him mercy.”

   Jesus said to him, ”Then go and do what he did.”

I would like to suggest to you, that the Orthodox Jews looked at Samaritans, the same way as we look at Mormons. I think there is a parallel. And I think that we could stand for an adjustment.

I very much want to be a voice of reason, but also firmly based in what is true. I quite simply don’t believe Mormons are Christians.  My personal history with Mormonism has not been good. Back in May of 1982, I ventured in the Temple grounds at Salt Lake City. I was quite “stoned”, and I didn’t have on a shirt, and I was smoking a cigarette. My tattoos certainly didn’t create a lot of good will either.

Quite suddenly, two men in suits appeared. I have no idea where they came from. But they briskly escorted me out to the gate. I was told not to return. But outside the Temple grounds I met Christian believers, who were stationed outside to hand out tracts. I talked with them, and took all the reading material they had.

Within this particular parable, the deep heart of our Lord is strong. As He spoke, He dismantled issues split from its foes. There simply isn’t room to carry our personal issues. He takes us apart, but in a good way. We are brought into a special friendship with God.

The Samaritan also has been brought into the presence of God. He does not volitionally do so. We who follow, we must enter into His presence. But the Samaritan must press further in. All that he does, is factored in.  Samaritan love does have definite boundaries. But it does have humanitarian awareness. There is a profound sense, in a kindness that is true and kind. I heard someone once say, “If I had to choose only one, I’d rather be kind than right.”  I have to agree.

When we examine closely all that really matters, we clearly must take a definite stand against evil. In this case we find less a stand against what is wrong, and we step up to what is right. The Mormons approach us with a righteousness that is really quite evil. And as believers we do absorb it, but not with out a certain rationale.

The Good Mormon pushes us way beyond what we consider reasonable. He performs a great goodness, as he rescues this beat-up man.  I don’t know why, but I’m quite taken by this particular by the Mormon’s efforts. But when I come to the Lord Jesus, I want it to be certain. I have no intention of  letting it vacillate. I do trust in Jesus, and I must learn things from strange places.

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Jan 5 2012

Painchange: Transforming Life’s Trials


“He comforts us every time we have trouble, so when others have trouble, we can comfort them with the same comfort God gives us.”

-2 Cor. 1:4, NCV

“We are alive, but for Jesus we are always in danger of death so that the life of Jesus can be seen in our bodies that die.”

-2 Cor. 4:11, NCV

There has to be some sort of confusion here. Some discrepancy, some incongruity, something overlooked. But things are never what they seem, and that is accentuated when we are in real pain. We think that whatever trouble we get enmeshed in, can’t have any real redeeming value. Or does it?

After a period of time walking with God, we should process this prominent thought. Suffering is part of God’s idea. He has plans that hinge on our pain. It has been deliberately placed into our lives. A competent pharmacist will be extremely aware of the drug he is filling for a patient. Never too much, nor too little. God is even more meticulous and acutely alert when it comes to suffering and pain. He has an intense love for you through it all.

He drops in the proper amount needed for that moment.  It is confined and designed to heal, grow, and strengthen. Never to harm or destroy.

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, ambition inspired, and success achieved.

Helen Keller

Keller understood. She was deaf-blind, since infancy. From this dark and complete isolation, she broke through. Helen Keller became a potent and significant woman. She graduated from college and became a famed public speaker of international renown.

God never allows pain without a purpose in the lives of His children. He never allows Satan, nor circumstances, nor any ill-intending person to afflict us unless He uses that affliction for our good. God never wastes pain. He always causes it to work together for our ultimate good, the good of conforming us more to the likeness of His Son (see Romans 8:28-29).

Jerry Bridges

Pain has purposes. Life teaches us how to love. Some seem to go through life “charmed”, they are really not hurt in any substantial way. If that is the case, reach out and help someone else, for there’s certainly enough pain and evil to go around. We should find ourselves actively sharing in the trials of others.

I think that when a believer finally arrives in heaven, they will be ushered in limping, wounded, leaning on an angel for support. They will bring it all to Jesus, their scars remembered and their sins forgiven. And we will be changed.

Dec 22 2011

The Light Side, the Dark and Amazing Grace

“To live by grace means to acknowledge my whole life story, the light side and the dark. In admitting my shadow side I learn who I am and what God’s grace means.”

― Brennan Manning

Perhaps there are a few things we need to more fully grasp.  There is a real and definite, “life of grace.” And it’s more than a polished “niceness” or even an agreeable congeniality.  It is Grace, and when you do connect with it, it’s like touching a bare wire. The first time, don’t be surprised if it throws across the room figuratively speaking.

There is a special perception of grace.  We must locate it and then live off its fatness. One of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott wrote,

“I do not understand the mystery of grace –” only that it meets us where we are and does not leave us where it found us.”

After just several sentences of writing this post, I simply come to this same place.  I know precisely what grace is, but I can’t tell you. I would like to, very very much. It simply is beyond a definition, and yet, I can tell you it is real. When you reach out and grab it, you suddenly realize that you have been “taken apart,” and then reassembled in a changed way.

Manning talks about “acknowledging my whole life story.” There are very dark times, times when we actively promoted and revelled in our personal evil. I can tell you of many things in my own behavior that would curl your hair and demand justice.

But the ‘light-part’ needs to be recognized.  It does exist. But unquestionably I have done much more evil than good. On my knees recently, I’ve realized I have committed more sin as a believer, than I ever did in my darkness, before Christ. I was completely overwhelmed.

As I get familiar with my evil, it really “schools me”. It drops me into God’s classroom of grace. He tutors me, over and over. I learn of mercy, and grace, love and kindness. All which can only be decrypted by one simple word, “undeserved.” If you know that single word, heaven itself will open up like a golden sardine can.

The impetus of Christmas, and this wonderous incarnation, and this astonishing nativity is worth the focus we give it.  But all of it pivots on grace.  Grace was the total reason it all happened like it did.

“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.”

“You are familiar with the generosity of our Master, Jesus Christ. Rich as he was, he gave it all away for us—in one stroke he became poor and we became rich.” 

[2 Corinthians 8:9, top ESV/ bottom MSG]

Sometimes we need a dramatic change in our perception of the truth. What I mean is this. When we accept Jesus as our Savior, we seem to naturally drawn to hard things. We are curious about the Second Coming, the Trinity, the doctrine of healing/tongues, the proper formula to speak at baptism, women in ministry, and the like.

But perhaps what we really should do is think about forgiveness, kindness, servanthood, and faith and evangelism.  We will often make small things big, and big things small.  We really should understand the density of things spiritual. We then can submit to their focused work more fully. If you are going to take a Geometry test tomorrow, it isn’t wise to take on English lit.  There is just an intelligence and a wisdom in it.

Grace is one of those challenging things for us, quite “Amazing”. It has such beauty and perfection, that men could never dream it up. It’s like an ocean where a child can splash, and yet it’s depths are still unfathomed and unexplored.

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Dec 10 2011

Cleansing the Wounds

“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
      and desperately wicked.
      Who really knows how bad it is?”

Jeremiah 17:9, NLT

We are the wounded. What exactly has caused it isn’t always known.  A death, divorce, depression and disability.  Some of us are chronically ill, others are mentally ill.  We struggle to hold a job, and to go to church. There are some who are reading this who are controlled by addictions.  And a few of us consider suicide on pretty much a regular basis.

We’ve been hospitalized and stigmatized, and at times we endure powerful attacks of fear and anxiety.  We are not easily understood, and we hear the whispers.  Our paranoia can often saturate what what we are thinking, (I think its more like a marinade.  Our brains just soak it up.)  Most of us are ‘walking wounded.’ We limp physically and figuratively.

“For thus says the LORD: Your hurt is incurable,
    and your wound is grievous.”

Jeremiah 30:12, ESV

If we are honest (and God insists on a rigorous honesty) we realize that we are a  mess!  The prophet Jeremiah had a tremendous understanding of the human condition, and was never beguiled by the lie of goodness and health.  We are diseased down to the core, a rotten apple.

We continue in our favorite style of darkness.  And havoc rips through us and we become “disaster areas.”  How very sad, and profoundly tragic.

But you must understand this powerful fact.  Jesus Christ has been sent by the Father to save and cleanse all who come to Him.

“At that time a fountain will be open for David’s descendants and for the people of Jerusalem to cleanse them of their sin and uncleanness.”

Zechariah 13:1, NCV

It’s time for a bath, and what God has done provides us the exact remedy. Some of us carry staggering burdens.  I must be truthful. Our afflictions may continue to disturb us.  If you are bipolar or depressed, it just could be you’ll remain so.  But I know first-hand that our Father will give us an extra ration of grace.

In the Old Testament, family patriarchs could give an additional portion to a son he especially loved.  All were blessed, but some more so. That peculiar proclivity of our Father is why some of us with deep wounds can follow closer.

“for I am the LORD, your healer.” Ex. 15:26

“The treatment a wound gets decides whether time will bring healing or  bondage.”

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Nov 4 2011

Snakes Alive!

6 So the Lord sent them poisonous snakes; they bit the people, and many of the Israelites died.7 The people came to Moses and said, “We sinned when we grumbled at you and the Lord. Pray that the Lord will take away these snakes.” So Moses prayed for the people.

 8 The Lord said to Moses, “Make a bronze snake, and put it on a pole. When anyone who is bitten looks at it, that person will live.”9 So Moses made a bronze snake and put it on a pole. Then when a snake bit anyone, that person looked at the bronze snake and lived.

Numbers 21:6-9, NCV

Mass poisonings are not new. The children of Israel were under attack by thousands of snakes. I remember hearing of “Jonestown,” where on November 18, 1978 when 918 people drank “kool-aid”mixed with cyanide. The whole thing was based on Jim Jones‘ delusion and rampant paranoia.

Death on a mass scale is never easy to deal with.  It seems brutal and capricious.  Any survivors are forever tortured with “why me, and could I have known?”  When people start dropping like flies the unspeakable nightmare is just getting started.

There are snakes in the camp of Israel, “fiery serpents” the older versions translate.  The people had severely taken issue with God and Moses because the way was hard.  They accused God of leading them out of Egypt, just so He could whole-scale destroy them.

And this became a self-fulfilling prophecy.  God in response to their bitterness and murmuring unleashed these vicious snakes throughout the camp.  They were quite poisonous, aggressively attacking random people.  Their bites were not only painful, but deadly.

I venture to say that the effects of sin have a terrible tendency (and a purpose) to kill people.  Its infection will work through our “blood stream” and be a certain poison that taints us. Now, if we could actually see the snakes we might just take the presence of sin a bit more seriously.  But our particular viperous horde is seen on a spiritual level.  We aren’t suddenly collapsing, and our sin doesn’t bring us immediate death. (A slow death, which is, maybe harder.)

Inside of me, there is a savage battlefield.  Grace is healing me, and by faith the poison is being rendered inert.  I admit, there are good days, and not-so-good ones.

I read this somewhere, and it seems to explain much.  I think it is more than a “cute” story.  If we should take the time and “unzip it,” the truth will spill out.

“A fight is going on inside me,” said an old man to his son. “It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you.”

The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, “Which wolf will win?”

The old man replied simply, “The one you feed.”

Snakes and wolves. Oh my.  Read John 3:14 and 2 Corinthians 5:21.

Look  to Jesus, who was lifted up.  Fix your eyes on Him, and He will save.

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Aug 26 2011

The Evil of Twisting Scripture

“It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.”

Judges 16:16, NASB

This has become a savage and vicious verse for me.  I used it to alienate a dear sister in the Lord. Vicki was a dear one who ran our office.  She had a heart that fully embraced our work of evangelism in the inner city in San Francisco.  She was an exceptional secretary.

She was wonderful.  She would constantly reach out to me, with the desire to see me established in this ministry of evangelism.  Her heart of kindness motivated me to press into the work of the Lord.  But there was something in my own heart that opposed her presence that was directed to me.

But her constant questions and comments every single morning had become a burden and a hassle.  Out of this frustration, I became somewhat more and more brazen and cynical toward her. I don’t really know why, really. Vickie continued to reach out to me, but I thwarted her work.  She wanted so much to contribute, and I figuratively slashed her tires with my dark skepticism.

One day I read this verse in Judges 16:16, “It came about when she pressed him daily with her words and urged him, that his soul was annoyed to death.”  I so very absorbed this and laid it on her.  I can see her now opening the Bible she kept in her desk.  She read with eagerness “the Word of the Lord” from me, and she was crushed. The tears streamed down her face.

Mishandling the Word like this should be a capital offense.  I have deeply regretted that moment when I slammed my sister with my twisted interpretation of scripture.  I wounded her very deeply, all ‘in the name of the Lord.”  I imparted to her with “my verse” which was a certain evil, in spite of my noble ministry of evangelism to the lost.

“Brothers, do not speak evil of one another” (James 4:11). Is not this a word which is much needed by some of us today? Alas, in some quarters the habit of discrediting others behind their backs has become so common that it is regarded almost as a matter of course; the mentioning to others of a brother’s faults or a sister’s failures, the repeating of unfavorable reports which have come to our ears—is so general that few appear to make any conscience thereof.

But we do this every day. We contaminate everyone around us with an awful evil.  At the first observation, it seems true and holy.  But as we press into it we find a powerful iniquity.  It is camoflaged and hidden.  But it is quite corrosive and detrimental.

Oh, dear one.  I hope you can circumvent this issue.  I hope you can resist the evil of misguided truth.  We effect so many, we come to this place of analysis where we can reject those on the boundries.  We place them into our “unacceptable” folder.

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