Revelation 3:15-16, “I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. 16So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth.”
This past weekend Ransomed, the campus ministry I oversee, handed out hotdogs to drunk college students during homecoming. The goal is to get food in their stomachs so if and more likely when they get sick there is something to keep them from dry heaving, which can cause many problems. This is more of a service ministry then an evangelical ministry, as anyone figures out if they have tried talking about salvation with an intoxicated person. Typically does not work out so well. Not to mention they usually do not remember talking to you in the morning.
What got me thinking was the rationalization the college kids were using when we gave them hotdogs. The first question out of the mouths a lot of the time was, “Did you do anything to these?” but then we tell them we are from a church and they grab them. What they say next is always interesting to me. Some will say this, “Just because I am drunk does not mean I do not love Jesus or I am not a Christian,” or they will ramble about how they are believers in the midst of their apparent sinful behavior, wanting us to accept them. We made no indication we did not accept them, just the fact we were from a church and sober made them try to attain our approval.
Have you ever been around Christians who will say something like this, “I drink because I do not want people to think I am a ‘goody two shoes,’” or laugh at a distasteful joke, or go along with a sinful action because they are worried about what the other people will think about them. How many of us have given up our convictions because we wanted the other side of the fence to accept us? We do this even when the people in the sinful behavior give us no indication of not accepting us, though it does happen.
When we are sinning we want to rationalize why we are still believers and when we are following the righteous path we rationalize the sinful path, or rationalize why sinners should still accept us. It boggles my mind. If this is not the lukewarm that Jesus was talking about in Revelation 3, then I am not sure what is. We need to pick a side! Walk with Christ or don’t, but do not try to play both sides of the fence, because Christ tells us that He will spit us out of His mouth if we do. Actually, to not pick a side is picking a side and it is not Christ’s.
Choose this day who you will serve. “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24). You cannot play both sides of the fence. You are not fooling anyone when you choose to do so, and you are especially not fooling God.
1 comment:
Nice post, sorry I haven't posted in awhile been busy with work.
I would only add that I have helped with midnight mission before and I have experienced the exact same things. However I have had some interesting conversations before with drunk people, I don't know if they remember the salvation message in the morning or not but it means they can't get to heaven and say "No one ever told me."
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