The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
You’re sitting four rows back in an aisle seat. The curtain rises, and the musical begins. You relax. You’ve been looking forward to watching The Sound Of Music for a long time.
But something seems off. The actors are all carrying clipboards or pretending to thumb through large magazines. It dawns on you—none of them know their lines. They’ve hidden their lines on their clipboards or pasted them inside the magazines.
On cue, Captain Von Trapp says, “You brought music back into the house.” The line is intended for Maria, but he says it to Max. Befuddled, Max blows him a kiss and walks off stage. Nowhere in the script does it direct Max to blow anyone a kiss. But what choice does he have when a compliment he doesn’t understand unexpectedly flies towards him?
Instead of singing Climb Every Mountain, Mother Superior sings Climb Every Fountain. Captain Von Trapp thinks he’s singing about some butcher in town because his solo Edelweiss sounds like a ballad about Ed L. Weiss. Mr. Weiss would be proud.
For us Believers, life often imitates a badly-produced musical sometimes. We are supposed to know God’s Word, but multitudes of us don’t. Except for John 3:16. Everyone and their neighbors know that verse. We can recite it blindfolded.
The reason is simple. Like bad actors in a musical, many of us don’t spend time learning God’s Word. Therefore, our own lives always carry the potential to morph into an extremely chaotic stage play.
For example, a believer thinks he’s quoting Scripture when he proclaims, “God helps those who helps themselves.” That quote comes from Aesop’s Fables, not the Bible. What we have here is an Aesopian, not a believer. Not much hope in that.
Reverse that. A believer sits in his chaise lounge sunning himself, and a well-dressed gentleman sidles up and proclaims, “God helps those who help themselves.” He adds, “Sir, that quote comes from the book of Hezekiah 3:20 (author’s note: There is no book of Hezekiah), and through me, God is using that verse to tell you to come and join me in the work of God. If you are faithful, God will help you because on this day, Sir, you helped yourself.”
The ignorant believer rises from his comfortable chair and follows the charlatan preacher. After all, the charlatan knew Hezekiah by heart. He just proved it to the believer. Surely, this ‘man of God’ will not lead him astray.
We believers fall for false teachers simply because we don’t know God’s Word. The tragedies are both numerous and horrible. Remember the Branch Davidians and The People’s Temple?
But it also happens in regular lives. Following is a quote from Malachi 3:10: “Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, so that there may be food in My House, and test Me now in this,” says the LORD of hosts, “if I will not open for you the windows of heaven and pour out for you a blessing until it overflows.”
It sounds like God is promising wealth to every believer who tithes. A gross misinterpretation of His Word. But if a false teacher convinces enough believers it’s truth, he can fly anywhere he wants in a plane with leather seats.
Why, then, is knowing God’s Word a part of the easy yoke He promises for us? Obviously, we escape the danger of drinking cyanide-laced fruit drink, like the followers of James Jones did.
More importantly, we build faith through verses like Isaiah 55:11: “So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; it will not return to me empty, without accomplishing what I desire, and without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.”
Every time a believer is committing himself to knowing God’s Word, he’s committing himself to knowing total, unbreakable truth, a key ingredient of the easy yoke Christ promises. When he hears something that doesn’t ring true, he knows he can double-check within the Scripture to gauge the truth of it. Peace follows.
That’s a far, far easier life than running chaotically around this stage called life and being clueless about our lines. We’re easy targets for evil directors.