Author: lesterhutson316

God is pretty smart! The Ten Commandments are His. Number 5 on the list says,“Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee” (Exodus 20:12). This is “the first commandment with promise” (Ephesians 6:2). Among other things, with this commandment God says those who want to stay around for a while had better listen to the wisdom of the ages. While the command is personal, it has a loud message for societies. That people (or nation) which disregards the beliefs, principles and practices that brought it the blessings of God cannot expect continued blessings and longevity once it deserts its heritage. That is true of nations, churches, companies and families. Beware America!

History may call ours the age of dishonor. Like an infectious disease, it’s in vogue to turn from and desert most anything or anyone that is old. Take down the Ten Commandments from courtrooms and schools! We don’t believe them anymore. God is dead; he never was anything more that the invention of man.In an America that was once vintage Christian, where is morality, character, integrity, financial sanity and a strong work ethic? What would old men like Washington, Franklin and Jefferson know about how to govern a nation? We can’t be bound by a fixed Constitution or Bible; they must evolve and become what we want them to be. We will decide what is right. What was right for Moses, Granny and Pa is not right for us.

You’d think the current generation is the only one that has ever known anything. Darwinian Evolutions mock the great scientists of the past who believed God created the heavens and the earth. Parents and people in power are far past Solomon and the Bible: you can go to prison for practicing Bible parenting. Even old but reliable translations of the Bible are shelved in favor of those that reflect a more politically correct and palatable language.

Shortly after contemporary church music burst onto the scene (yes, in my lifetime) a rather progressive brother wrote me a 3 ½ page typed letter. He assured me that we had finally learned how to worship God. Somehow all of God’s people from Adam and Eve had missed it. Yes! David, the churches of the New Testament, Jesus, Paul and all of those saints of God for almost 20 centuries! Nothing but the Blood, Grace that is Greater than all my Sins, He Looked beyond my Fault and Saw my Need, Saved by His Power Divine, I Shall Know Him by the Prints of the Nails in His Hands, The Holy City, Blessed Assurance, Amazing Grace and Holy, Holy, Holy don’t cut it – unless maybe yousoup them up and get your hands together or in the air. This brother went so far as to predict to me that all of the old set who failed to get on board would soon be extinct.

Yes. There is a new breed today! It is a breed that smugly holds the past with most of its ways, people, music, values, methods and practices in contempt.Nobody knew how to do it till we got here. Change put our president in the White House (by a landslide) and America has change. Does it ever! Many a couple has thrown out the ideas of mom and dad and the Bible: you don’t need to wait till marriage (or even marry), don’t deprive yourself by being financially responsible, don’t give your children rules and responsibilities, forget sanctification. Most anything from the past must go: music, methods, excellence, standards!

I know God is still right. It is still right to “Honor thy father and thy mother:”to ascribe value and weight to the wisdom of the ages, to be very careful before you write off the generation or generations before you, along with most (if not all) of what they embraced. There never has been a perfect generation which got it all right however nobody, old or young, is smart enough to ignore the wisdom of the ages or shut his ears to God. I suspect that somewhere ahead there is an unpleasant day of reckoning for all who dishonor their father and their mother.

The lady interviewing for a job makes us chuckle. “Are you a responsible person?” “Oh, yes! I am very responsible. At my last job they said I was responsible for almost everything: a messy office, gossiping, missing items, a hot temper and a lot more.” Oh boy! At least she admitted it.

Taking responsibility sounds good and everybody knows it’s the right thing to do; doing it is akin to chasing a shadow. Some wise-crack said that prisons are full of the most innocent people in the world. Even the ones who admit that they did it almost always say it really wasn’t their fault. Somebody tempted them, framed them or started it. It’s really not my fault. We have no fault insurance. On FM 1960, a major Houston highway, I saw a billboard. It said, “It’s not your fault but it is your problem.”

Our nation is in a financial crisis; head over heels in debt and spending like there are forests of money trees everywhere. Who is to blame? Nobody! It’s Reaganomics. Blame Bush. The Tea Party put us here. And John Q. Citizen who just filed for bankruptcy has the audacity to throw the first stone! Upside down in a car note, borrowing on one credit card to pay on another and still eating out, but it’s not my fault. I’m not responsible for where I am.

Sigmund Freud must be proud. If you are on drugs, your marriage is in shambles or you can’t hold a job, you must have had a lousy childhood. Somebody sexually molested you 30 years ago and he is responsible for all of the problems you have today. Blame, blame, blame! Your parents! Your mate! The boss! The government! God! Even preachers do it. The deacons! Troublemakers in the church! Bad location! The times in which we live!

Why does it never occur to people that the problem might be me? Any moron knows somebody is at fault. Why imagine that the fault is always elsewhere?

After the affair with Bath-sheba David’s house began to fall. God’s man confronted him with his sin. As famous and powerful as David was, he was big enough to admit, “I have sinned.” I’m responsible! I can’t blame my mom for spanking me when I was a kid, the pressure I’ve been under as a head of state or Beth-sheba for seducing me. It’s my fault. Pure and simple! I’m to blame.

Irresponsibility is a downhill trip. Things get worse instead of better. Consequences multiply. Apart from diagnosis improvement rarely comes. Bad habits and practices grow stronger. Relationships continue to degenerate. Financial consequences get worse. Bitterness deepens. Churches continue the trip to the graveyard. Health problems don’t go away; they worsen. We pay doctors big money to pinpoint our problems yet we deny any responsibility for the woes that are upon us. Strange indeed!

The story of the man sitting on a long, sharp tack is strikingly true to life. A Freudian counselor passed by and said, “Too bad man. Somebody did you bad. You have every right to be mad. You ought to sue.” A positive thinker came by and said, “It’s not as bad as you think. If you will think positive and quit dwelling on the pain you’re in, you will feel better.” Finally a Christian with a little common sense walked up. “Man, you are sitting on a tack. Get up and you will feel better.”

Yes! Face the truth. It’s amazingly liberating. Irresponsibility is a prison. It locks you in, but when you stand up and take responsibility for your own decisions and actions, you can start getting better. Responsibility takes away blame and such spiritual cancers as resentment, bitterness, revenge and hatred. You can get forgiveness, change your ways and crawl out of your pit. But, irresponsibility will keep you where you are and dump you into a deeper pit, possibly a premature grave. It will take you down in shame, disgrace and with a shaking fist in the face of God!

Responsibility is medicine for life. Honesty with self is a great victory, particularly when it is consistent. Try it. Get out of the window and into the mirror. It’s a painful move but the dividends are extremely high.

“This is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Sanctification! Now there’s a 50 cent word which will generate lots of “Amens” in church. Seems that everybody’s for it but not many know what it is. Only a few practice it; and for those who do, there’s always a preacher around who will condemn them for being Pharisees because they have standards. Sanctify means to consecrate; to dedicate; to keep holy; to set apart. Inherent in the idea is that of a difference.

 

It would be really difficult to read the Bible with any sense of objectivity and fail to see that God expects a practical, everyday difference between His people and world’s people who are lost. That difference is never to be ugly, mean, haughty, judgmental or prideful; but it is to be clearly observable, saturated with humility, love, selflessness, goodness and compassion. The thinking of God about His people is well seen in this statement about His priests. “And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean” (Ezekiel 44:23). An identifiable difference for the better because of a higher standard is the intent of God for His people, regardless of the age in which they live. To His New Testament people (including us) He said, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light . . . Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul; Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they speak against you as evildoers, they may by your good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the day of visitation” (1 Peter 2:9, 11-12).

 

In any age it is never difficult to grasp the reality of a world whose ideas and practices are far from God. Place the world’s views and God’s views side by side; the differences form a chasm. Compare the two views point by point: God, origins, biological classifications, economic systems, the purpose of life, the sanctity of life, morality, greatness, values, worship, sexuality, marriage, child-rearing and the list goes on. The world’s positions constantly shift ever farther from God who never changes. In hopes of reaching the world’s people, many who claim to represent God move to the turf where the world just was; they don’t want to seem too pious, stiff and untouchable to the world. They thus try to be as much like the world as possible so no one will be offended and turn away. Together the lost world and those hoping to convert them unknowingly drift farther and farther from the holiness of God as revealed in His Word. However for those who face reality (on either side) it is never difficult to see the difference between the holy and the profane, the clean and the unclean, the sanctified and the worldly. Simply look around, and then compare what you observe to the standards of the Bible (not the church). The differences will be obvious. Through the centuries the chasm between the world and Christendom stays essentially the same as the two waltz ever farther to the left because both are moving in the same direction; but the chasm between the world and biblical Christianity grows ever wider and deeper.

 

Today and through the centuries, lack of sanctification (separation) has been one of the greatest hindrances to the cause of our great God. In church we sing with such enthusiasm and passion, “What a wonderful change in my heart has been wrought, since Jesus came into my heart.” We speak unequivocally of the transforming power of the blood of Christ and entice sinners with the claim that meeting Christ will change them for the better forever. Oh, could that really be true? Could He really change me? Show me, Christian friend, show me a changed person. And the look begins. They look for the difference in the moral lives and sexual habits of Christians and those who are not. They compare spending habits, language in the workplace, responses to adversity, fundamental honesty, moderation, dispositions, attitudes, values, where Christians are investing their lives and other everyday practices. With few exceptions the differences are almost non-existent: in divorce rates, credit scores, dress codes, humor, entertainment, temper control, response to evil treatment, consistency, child-rearing, work ethic, relationships with others or elsewhere.

How can it be that we talk so loud about a life-changing meeting with Jesus Christ while bystanders compare us to lost people and see almost no difference? How empty rings our claim that our life was changed when we got saved while those who knew us before can see almost no difference now! Oh, it’s easy to hide behind the positional sanctification we received by faith when we were forever set aside into the family of God. Every honest Christian knows that’s a defenseless defense. The truth is that rather than our position in Christ being a license to live unholy, profane lives with little or no difference from the world, our new position should commit us to a day-to-day life of holiness and service to God. As saved people, we are living letters “known and read of all men” (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). We are literally God’s “ambassadors” with the specific assignment of representing our King in this profane and godless world (2 Corinthians 5:20).

 

God expects His people to interface with the world and win lost sinners. In order to win the world, He does not allow His children to blend in and embrace the world’s standards of language, economics, dress, humor, response or other common (profane) ways of living. “For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:11-14). It’s hard to imagine language calling for holiness and sanctification being any more straightforward and clear.

By today’s social standards I am retired. For the vast majority of people retirement seems to be the ultimate goal. Kick back. Do nothing but goof off and play. A life of ease and no responsibility!

Few illusions are greater than retirement! It usually takes only weeks (sometimes days) for this bubble to burst. No point, no purpose, a steady diet of golf or fishing, babysitting the grandkids, constant sight-seeing and nothing-of-value-to-do get old in a hurry. In less than 12 months the vast majority of retirees are bored stiff; large numbers are already in a 6 foot hole. Heart attack, stroke, gave up!

No person was made to vegetate, fossilize, aimlessly wander, waste life in self-indulgence and laziness. Low or high class! Men were created by God for a purpose. We are not here to merely occupy real estate till we die; we are here to contribute, serve, give and work.

Yes, work! Because the years take an incessant toll on the body the approach to work may shift but it must not end. Never! As the tree matures and ages its fruit gets better and sweeter. What a lesson! May the goal for all of us be more and sweeter fruit; never barrenness!

Long before retired I had to come to grips with retirement. I looked in our manual for life, the Bible. I couldn’t find it. Jesus never retired. Neither did Moses, David, Daniel or Paul. It’s just not there. Hum! Maybe there’s a silent message. It does seem that wasted years by those who still have a mind and body sound enough to produce are inconsistent with everything taught in the Scriptures.

For me it is a no brainer. I belong to God. I do not belong to me, own myself. I’ve been bought with the blood of Jesus Christ. I’m a slave for life! I must serve Him till I die. I must! He owns me. He has given men enough sense and honesty to know I cannot do all of the things I once did but I can do many things I never did. And, I can do some things better than I ever did. Furthermore I intend to do all I can with all my might till my Master reassigns me to heaven.

On June 7, 2009 I stood in the pulpit of Berean Baptist Church which it was my privilege to occupy for 33 years. “Today I am resigning the pastorate of Berean Baptist Church; I am not resigning the gospel ministry. I shall never do that. Today my ministry is merely changing directions.” Has it ever! In the 24 months since, I have preached and represented the Christian Law Association in 135 churches in 12 states. That’s over 200 sermons and representations. I have also completed 18 chapters in my newest book. I am also making progress editing my History of Churches book. I am working on a number of other projects.

Retirement! What’s that? My goal and full intentions are to be effectively used of God until I see King Jesus face-to-face.