One Thing Worth More than a Soul

As long as I have been a believer I have heard that the soul of just one man is of inestimable worth. And I believe it. It was for the soul of man (and I am convinced even just one man) that God gave His only begotten Son. It was for the soul of man that Christ gave His own life on Calvary, holding His peace at the mocking and restraining the angels for defending Him at the violence of His death.

It is the value of the soul of man that has led Christians to sacrifice comfort and family to preach the gospel in far off lands. The value of a soul has led millionaires to give away fortunes and the impoverished to sacrifice food on their family's table so a missionary may be sent. Preachers have pled for souls to be saved, knowing the value of that one soul. Some with right intentions have employed phrases such as "The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing" and "Win the Lost at Any Cost" to stir Christians to make the winning of lost souls the main thing in their lives. This perceived value of souls has also (I believe) misled some Christians to employ pragmatic means to "reach" lost souls at the expense of separation, doctrine and Christian methodology. I mean to point out today that there is one thing that is more valuable than even the soul of man; truth.

By the word truth I mean something deeper than simple verifiable facts. I might go so far as to question whether those are real truths at all. Verifiable facts are merely that; fact. Truth carries with it something more substantial, something moral. Truth is and originates with God.

That truth is more valuable than a soul seems apparent to me in that, when Adam and Eve fell, God did not overlook it. God gave Adam and Eve and indeed, the soul of every man the opportunity to choose his own soul or truth. That a soul ever ends in hell is evidence that God places more value in truth that in a soul. If He had chosen, God could have set truth aside and let all souls enter heaven. God chose truth over the soul.

• God chose truth over the souls of the pre-Flood generation committing thousands and possibly millions of souls to perish rather than allow them to continue living in rebellion to his truth
• God chose truth over the souls of those in Sodom and Gomorrah, raining fire and brimstone upon them and dooming them to eternal hell
• God chose truth over the souls of Pharaoh and his armies drowning them in the Red Sea and condemning their souls to eternal torment
• God chose truth over the souls of individuals in Israel, slaying them for their sin with Aaron's golden calf and condemning an entire generation to die in the wilderness.

I do not mean that God did not care. I am convinced that God grieves over the souls over every sinner who chooses his sin over God's truth. However God places such value on truth that, regardless of the cost, He always chooses truth over the soul.

Modern Christianity would do well to take a clue from God. The current pragmatic kind of Christianity that allows practically anything to go so long as we are seeing assemblies gathered together and souls supposedly being converted is contrary to the very nature of God.

The soul of man is of inestimable worth. Truth is of far more value than that.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

A Comfort Gone Bad

John Gill makes a comment on Job 32:1 that's worth consideration. He writes, "His three friends, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite, who came to visit and comfort him under his afflictions; but unawares were led into a controversy with him, …."

How often good intentions turn into something very wrong.

• We mean to say something cheerful but we say something hurtful
• We mean to be helpful, but our effort turns out harmful
• We mean to be a blessing, but the blessing turns out bad

Very often the person we hope to comfort is in such pain that they misunderstand our intentions and our comfort goes bad. At other times their pain causes them to misspeak and we take it wrong and react and the comfort goes bad.

Much too often the well intentioned contribute to the pain of a suffering soul when they are led unawares into a controversy with the suffering.

Here's the thing; I can't imagine it should ever be considered the suffering soul's responsibility to set this controversy right. Those who have come to comfort need to be prepared to be misunderstood and misinterpreted and to forgive and let whatever reactions the suffering soul has roll off.

Forgive one another.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

Baptist Heritage May Not Be What You Think

 One of my first experiences in church, once I became an adult was an issue over Baptist heritage. My friend, the man who brought me to a Baptist Church the first time, had loaned me a book by John R. Rice. Rice wasn't a strong Baptist though he was a strong Fundamentalist and thus accepted by the better part of those Fundamental Baptists I was aware of. Rice's book seemed to cast doubt on local church authority which led me to speak to my pastor. After a conversation with him, and reading The Trail of Blood, I became interested in Christian heritage and Baptist heritage in particular.

One of those lessons I learned is that Baptists don't agree on Baptist heritage.

• There are those who believe squarely that Baptists had their beginnings with John Smythe in England in the early 1600's and 
• There are those who believe (as did the author of the trail of Blood) that Baptists trace their roots through Anabaptists to John the Baptist

The two camps tend completely deny the veracity of the other's view. In truth there is some veracity to both schools of thought.

• It is undeniable that some Baptist congregations had their beginning with Smythe but 
• It is equally undeniable that others can trace their roots much further back. It is not an either or situation but a both situation

And herein lies one great rub amongst those who claim the broader title of  Baptists. We keep trying to tie our lineages together when in fact we are two separate systems of spiritual faith as diverse as  Methodists would have been to Presbyterians a century ago. These two schools, even if each claims to be fundamentalist, are unique, diverse, and in very many respects, incompatible.

Notice that I did not say un-christian. I am not advocating that we oppose one another but only that we acknowledge that we are not the same. The distinctives between us are, I believe, important enough to demand that we remain separated lest those distinctives be lost altogether.

• There are distinctives in the ordinances
• There are distinctives in heritage
• There are distinctives in doctrine 
• There are distinctives in emphasis

The melding of our respective camps, whether it be out of a desire to present unity in the world or a misunderstanding of our relationship given we claim the same name, has only served to create

• Confusion among the outside world
• Division within the Baptist community and 
• Compromise of important doctrines

I am thankful for those Baptists who, while being charitable, have begun to call Baptists to separate and identify their family of faith within the broader camp called Baptists.

Marvin McKenzie
In the fields

The Gold's Up Higher

Psalms 119:127 KJV

Therefore I love thy commandments above gold; yea, above fine gold.

Our recent family vacation was spent in Winthrop, WA and the Methow Valley, the heart of Washington gold country. Even now hobbyists and more serious prospectors are bringing gold out of "them thar hills!"

Thanks to Bohannan, my oldest son, we got a small taste of gold prospecting while we were there. Placer gold is that which is scattered down a river stream by the current of the water. It's recovered either by panning or dredging the gold river's bottom and running it through a sluice to sift out the gold from other sediment.

Here's the applicable part for us; since the gold is scattered down the river through the current it stands to reason that the farther you get from the source, the smaller will be the pieces of gold. There are huge amounts of gold all the way down to the ocean, but it's so fine it is almost impossible to sift out. If you want the bigger pieces, you have to go up river, high into the mountains where the nuggets that are too heavy to be carried away in the current are deposited.

Of course, the higher in the mountains a person is, the greater are the hardships of being there.

The same is true in the spiritual life. The greatest treasures of Christianity can only be gleaned by being very close to the Lord. The problem is, it's a challenge to get there and once there you'll find that the world will bring hardships upon you.

Paul said any sufferings he endured in those higher elevations of the spiritual life could not be compared to the glory which would be revealed in him in heaven.

The gold that's available from a close walk with God is obvious worth the hardships of that spiritual life.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

Vacation and Services

I didn't grow up going on a lot of vacations per se. My dad was a professional rodeo cowboy and we went somewhere almost every weekend. Often if we weren't staying in the camper at a rodeo arena we were camping in it at a lake, fishing trout in the early mornings.

In my earlier years of ministry I modeled my family off times more like how I grew up. We didn't ever take a vacation as in a week or two unplugged and away. We did travel almost every month to a preachers' fellowship meeting and we always turned some portion of that trip into an adventure for our kids. We also camped a lot as Oregon's largest state park is just outside of Astoria, where we lived in the earliest days of our ministry.

Things changed when we moved twelve years ago to Puyallup. Bible Baptist offered a vacation package as a part of my benefits so we began modeling our down time a little more like how my wife grew up.

The first year was two full weeks out camping. We decided that was much too long. The next year was a week long trip to Lake Louise, Canada. It was a bit hurried, but the most significant challenge was attending church. We attended a good church Sunday morning and headed into Canada thinking we could find a church to attend where ever we stopped for the night. We stopped early on purpose so we could get cleaned up from traveling in time for church. What we found was that no church in town held a Sunday night service. I was even willing to attend an Episcopalian service if necessary. No open church whatsoever.

The next several years were no better. We went on an Alaska cruise one year. The timing was such that we left after the morning service so we missed church that evening and there was not church in Skagway, where we spent Wednesday so we missed that service too. Apparently a lot of preachers have no problem missing services to go on a cruise because a lot of them recommend cruising.

Another year we planned to take a train from Seattle to New York and back. I made reservations for a sleeper car. The whole vacation was going to be the train. Just ride it to New York and back (taking different routes each way). My (by then) adult children and their wives drove us to the train station. On the way one asked where we would stop for church. It was not until then that I realized that we would not be able to attend a single church service the entire way. My kids tried to justify their parents' lack of church that week but by the time we arrived at the train station I had come to the conclusion that I could not set that example for my kids. I canceled our trip and ate the cost.

This year we secluded ourselves in the North Cascade Mountains no more than one and a half hours from four Baptist Churches of like faith and practice. Still trouble attending church. It turned out that 

• One is a church plant and does not yet have mid week services. 
• Another advertised just a children's outreach for the mid-week (turns out their web site needs a little updating. They did have a preaching service on Wednesday.) 
• Another held their mid week service on Tuesday instead of Wednesday. I know that many do Thursday instead.

Here is the thing, it's just about impossible to go on vacation and be faithful to worship in God's house. Oh, sure, almost every town has something that looks like a church but those with a little biblical discernment know that most things men call church are just that, called of men and not the Lord. Trouble is that some who have the Lord's authority are shirking their obligations. Church needs to be 

• On a consistent time
• Well advertised and 
• Faithfully executed

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

Compromise Is Always Loss

I admit it; I have been a "gadget junky" ever since 1992, when I got my first computer. It wasn't that long after I got my first cell phone and, Brother, I was hooked. I resist buying the latest and greatest, and I avoid updating software like the plague. But still, I enjoy the gadgets and many times have found them to be helpful to my ministry. I had a PDA early on in their history and remember telling my wife not would be wonderful if the engineers would design and cell phone/PDA in one gadget. When the smart phone came out I was early on the bandwagon. And I learned very early that those smartphones could be used for other things, like reading books. In the early days I found books posted on a website and read them right off the Site. Not long after my phone had the capability to read books in pdf format. Very shortly thereafter my phone was capable of reading almost any electronic book. And I used it for that.

It was a natural then, for me to become interested in the electronic readers like Kindle and Ipad. The first Kindle I purchased was actually a gift for my oldest son. At the time I bought the second one for my second born son, I was still reading with my smartphone. Two more e-readers and my wife and one daughter in law were equipped. Me? Still using my phone. Then it was my turn. I purchased an Ipad which I have thoroughly enjoyed. But there have been new gadgets to explore. I watched the gadget world after the Kindle Fire came out until I was able to buy a refurbished one for a discounted price. It has become my typical nightstand reader, replacing first my phone and then my Ipad.

I now find myself packing not one but three electronic gadgets. My problem is that each of the three does something so much better than the other two that, to give up any one of the three would mean to compromise some functionality.

My smartphone does the most.

Frankly, it comes the closest to being the go to gadget of the three. If I could only have one it would be the phone. But it is just too small for Web research and reading for an extended period.

The Ipad is a good research tool.

However it has no phone capability and it would be a catastrophe to give it that function. Also it's virtual keyboard is clumsy to me. It's just a little too big for regular use. I much prefer the thumbs only virtual keyboard on my phone. The Ipad is also large enough that it becomes uncomfortable to read with it for any length of time.

My Kindle Fire is an ideal reader.

I do not like it as a Web research tool, I hate its virtual keyboard, but for reading books, especially in Kindle's proprietary format, it is hands down the machine I like to grab.

To do without any one of them would be to compromise.

Here is the problem; compromise in its basest form, is always a loss. I know our government glories in the art of compromise but compromise means something is always lost. Washington sacrifices pork spending to pass a bill that one side of the house believes is essential. In order to get the legislative, executive and judicial branches to cooperate, many times the thing they cooperate on has been so watered down with compromise that it is in effect, ineffective. Compromise always means loss.

And when that compromise happens with eternal things the loss is very often of eternal consequence. God's Word gives us no room for compromise.

• We are either saved God's way or we are hell bound
• We are either at peace with God or we are at enmity
• We are either preaching truth or we are preaching heresy
• We are either walking with the Lord or we are apostate

There is no reasonable compromise between the gospel of works and the gospel of grace. The only option the Bible believer has is to contend for the truth as he sees it in the Word of God. He may stand alone. His might be few in number. But to compromise to gain a larger following or more acceptance among the religious crowds is to suffer loss of doctrinal integrity.

Compromise always means loss.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

Courageous

I guess I am behind the times a bit. I just watched the film "Courageous" for the first time. I can see why so many have spoken highly of it.

• The acting and production has improved dramatically from "Flywheel."
• The story is compelling and emotional
• The conclusion is powerful and convicting.

It was a pleasure to watch.

That said, there were some things in the show that a Christian ought to give second thought to. This show claims a Christian message. For that reason it must be held to a higher standard than other things a person might watch. As much as the "message" of the show is preached, so too are some more subtle "mini messages" that we might not even be aware were preached.

First there was the issue of allowing a nine year old daughter to attend a party where there would be dancing. The daughter wants Dad to teach her to dance and the clear message is that he should have done it. I understand that Baptists are about the only people in the world who are opposed to dancing. But we have good biblical reason.

• The music is sensual and worldly.
• The context of dancing is sexual in nature.
• Those dances that involve an embrace are in direct violation of the Bible[1]
• The atmosphere of the dance hall is wicked.
• The conclusion of a dance is nearly always (especially in the heart of the worldly male) to find someplace to consummate what was acted out on the floor

This film's not so subtle approval of Christians dancing is an enemy of the cross.

Second there is a prosperity theology message promoted in the film. I commend the film for encouraging men to work and I certainly commend the film for encouraging workers to be honest. But Javier's story is the opposite of the message of the Christian classic "In His Steps" by Charles Shelton where the character does the right thing and losses his job because of it. The message of this film is that if we will do the right thing, God will reward us with a promotion and more money. That flies in the face of those millions of Christians of the past who did the right thing and we're burned at the stake or torn to pieces by wild animals. Where was God for them?

It might seem like a trivial complaint but as a preacher I deal with the consequences of this false doctrine regularly. Americans have been led to believe that if they become Christians and obey the Bible they

• Will get raises at work
• Own the best houses and
• Raise the happiest families.

But that isn't the message of the Bible and years of reality have now led to a generation of people who do not trust Christianity because the (false) message of prosperity hasn't come to pass so they won't listen to the (true) message of salvation.

The movie is good. I do not deny that it is compelling and mostly clean. But the messages under the message are dangerous and Christians ought to take heed.

Marvin McKenzie

In the fields

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[1] 1 Corinthians 7:1