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FROM THE least
to the greatest of us, the temptation exists to go after the
whole world. It’s almost an in-built urge. From the earliest
youth to doddering old age, we seem to want it all.
One of the
illusions of my early years was that, given the right support
and backing, I could conquer anything. I suppose that that’s
an attitude that encourages you to use other people. They don’t
exist as people in their own right, but as supports for my aims
and goals.
I wanted the world, but was losing my soul. I am glad that
God prevented my getting those things. I had to learn that other
people don't just exist for my gratification.
I think that most people face that kind of temptation. We feel
that we could get a bit more if we tried a bit harder; or we
feel that we didn’t get it because others stood in our way,
or because we were dealt a rum hand in the poker game of life.
Life, we learn, is about what we can get out of it.
But Jesus said,
What good
is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit
his very self?
Beneath the
urge to get it all are hidden fears. The more urgently people
need to get everything, the more driven by fear they are.
And fear is a manifestation of a lack of love, because,
Perfect love
casts out fear.
I had a friend
who always wanted the best in life. He was my friend because
he was a thoughtful and pleasant fellow. Although we didn’t
share a faith, we shared a concern for the needy and for justice
to be done.
But my friend was obsessed with getting the best.
I used to pay about $5 for a haircut; he was paying $25 for
the same thing accompanied by wine. I had an elderly FIAT car;
he had to have a brand new luxury car, though the repayments
were crippling. I put my handkerchief and money in my trouser
pocket where I could find them; he put his handkerchief in the
top of one sock and his wallet in the top of the other, so that
nothing would spoil the line of his designer clothes.
Like I said,
we were friends. And I got to know what lay behind these attitudes
and aims. His father was an alcoholic; his mother dealt with
it by being abusive to his father and the kids. They lived in
a run down Department of Housing house on the poor people’s
side of the railway line.
My friend was terrified that people would discover where he
really came from. He spent his life covering up his origins.
He didn’t know and understand that people would love him
regardless of what his family had been like. He didn’t experience
the perfect love that casts out fear.
Jesus asked
his question:
What good
is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit
his very self?
It's a pressing
question in our world today.
We are know the businessman whose sole aim in life is to become
rich regardless of cost.
In the collapse of OneTel, one of the directors told another
that he should pay back a large amount of money he had paid himself
despite the fact that the company was collapsing.
The director with the money told the man with the conscience,
“I don’t think I will.”
What kind of
person not only rips off the little people who depend on him,
but feathers his own nest even when it is clear that the business
is about to go bankrupt?
There are mistakes in business. There can be mismanagement
in business. But to deliberately take for yourself what might
make the difference between everyone getting a share and most
people missing out... there's something sadly wrong there.
How many companies have gone to the wall in the past few years,
and the CEO has walked away with a couple of million, and the
staff have lost their long service leave, their sick leave, sometimes
even their superannuation?
There is something dead in the hearts of people who can do
that and not even flinch.
I've even read about Company managers complaining that they
shouldn't have to treat employee entitlements fairly, because
that would rob the business of a good source of revenue. In other
words, instead of managing those entitlements so that the staff
will be looked after, they are using the money to prop up the
business.
There has to be something lost in people who do that and seek
to justify it. There is a foreiture of their very self.
It probably starts in a small way, but these people build up
to big things.
But what profit is there?
They have gained the whole world, but at what cost?
In India, there
is what is known as the Zamindari system. Landlords own the land,
and poor people rent it from them, generally by paying a proportion
of the produce.
The problem is that there is no provision for rent relief in
bad times, but the debt is added to the next year's rent, together
with interest.
This is one of the causes of poverty in India. The government
has tried to tackle it, but even if they completely eliminated
it, the effects would last for decades, maybe even centuries.
Many children are born owning money on debts their grandparents
incurred.
It permits a kind of slavery to take place as peasants try
to pa off their debts by working for the landlords.
About two years
ago, a group of Christian young people went over there to work
in a poor area. One thing they discovered was that the old water
canals had silted up and grown over, and the wells were filled
with muck, and there was no proper sewerage system. So they got
in with shovels and hoes and began sorting out the water and
sewerage problems, because water meant better crops and sewerage
meant better health.
So the Zamindar organised a gang of louts to beat up the Christians.
It was reported in The Herald.
Why did they beat them? Because better living standards could
mean that some of them might pay their debts and become free
In gaining the world, these people had lost their souls.
On the world
front, we have been thinking of Iraq all week, and we probably
have very mixed feelings about it.
Our Prime Minister is saying that the original UN resolution
and all the resolutions since give this tin-pot coalition the
authority to attack.
But George Bush Senior himself said that he didn’t topple
Saddam because the UN resolution didn't give him the right to.
And there has never been a UN resolution to permit what they
are now doing.
It is this
lack of legality which troubles so many Australians and people
around the world.
But why is
it happening in the first place?
Obviously George W Bush felt a need to do something about terror
if he couldn’t catch Usama bin Laden. And he probably had
some idea of finishing what his father didn’t achieve. There
may be something about oil in there, though it is probably not
the direct grab for oil that some critics suggest.
A lot of people have been doing a lot of fishing since this
war thing started coming up, and it is growing more and more
clear that the main underlying issue is that the US wants to
rule the world.
I don't mean that they want to replace John Howard with Condoleeza
Rice, though it has come close a few times.
They want to
be seen as so powerful that no other State will be able to match
them or control them in any way.
Some Arab States
have riches to match the US. China has people and military power
to make the US uneasy. The US wants to be so far ahead of countries
like these that there can never be a challenge, never a threat
that one of these States will turn against it.
It's the old Roman empire again. It's what empires through
the ages have dreamt. Unsurpassed power.
How do we know? Because several of Bush’s advisers are
on record as having said these kinds of thing.
The devil has
a way of taking us all onto a high mountain top and showing us
all the kingdoms of the world. He says, “These will all
be yours, if you bow down and worship me.”
Which desert did George W Bush go into?
The devil can
do that without fear, because anyone bowed down to him is his
servant. You can never be the sovereign, you can only be Satan’s
vassal.
If Jesus had bowed down to Satan, Jesus would have ruled the
world the way Satan wanted him to.
It’s on Satan’s top 10 list of hellish management
practices: responsibility without authority.
It robs us of our soul, it makes us less than we were created
to be. It kills us from within.
Several years
ago, I visited a man who had been the pastor of an ethno–specific
church. I talked to him about the issues in having an ethno-specific
congregation meeting together with a more generalist congregation.
The sort of thing we have had with the korean congregation or
the Indonesian congregation.
He was wise. He had been in exactly that situation, pastoring
a congregation where he could work in his own language and culture.
The Australian pastor was getting older and more tired. The
mainly Anglo–australian congregation was dwindling.
This pastor said, “I really had to fight the temptation
to try to take control, to stage a coup. I think that Satan always
does that to pastors in my situation. But I resisted it, and
the devil eventually left me alone.”
It's an interesting thing. This man learnt to be the associate
pastor alongside the senior man, and, at the right time, the
senior man retired, and they called the associate to pastor the
entire congregation. It worked out better than any coup could
have.
In my time
here, people have come along over and over again, offering to
give me all the kingdoms of this world.They say, “You can
have church growth at no cost. You can have a reputation and
an image. You can be on top with a big, healthy church. Just
move over and let me be in charge. Bow down and worship me, and
it will all be yours.”
Does it make
sense to you that that might appeal to me?
So we need
to think about what world it is that we want to gain.
It might literally be the entire world, but it might just be
a local church. Or it might be a nice suburban house with a well-kept
lawn and 2.3 children in the garage. We all have something that
will tempt us, we all have something that can take away our souls
if we go for that thing. What is it for you?
Peter was tough,
resourceful, a positive person who acted swiftly. But, deep in
his heart there was a hole, a weak spot, where he needed approval,
was afraid of ridicule, couldn't stand rejection by a woman.
It was a dead part of his soul, an area of his life that was
defective.
A hint of ridicule, and he crumbled. He wanted the world and
he sold out his Lord. If he had been like Judas, it would have
killed him, this failure. But he repented and returned and Jesus
brought him back into fellowship with himself.
The world you
seek may be as small as the love of a boyfriend, a girlfriend,
having the kind of car that you believe fits your image, being
well thought-of by your peers. Or it may be as big as the entire
world itself. As much as George W Bush seems to want the whole
world, so, too, do Islamic militants. And they will all lose
their very selves.Satan takes you to a high place, shows you
what you want, and says, “It's yours! Just get down on your
knees and worship me.”
As Jesus said,
What good
is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit
his very self?
As I said earlier,
it's the pressing question in today’s world.
Jesus shows
us in his own life what to do.
When the devil came to him, he didn’t bow down. He didn’t
give in to the temptation to receive it the easy way. He levelled
Satan with the irresistible answer:
It is written,
“Worship the Lord your God, and worship him only.”
Satan can’t
challenge the authority of God’s Word. He had to give way.
But there is more to it. Jesus didn’t just answer with
God’s word, he backed up his answer with action.
He went all the way, all the way from the desert to Nazareth,
all the way from Nazareth to the areas around Capernaum; finally,
he went all the way to Jerusalem, to torture, ridicule and death.
And he went all the way to resurrection, too — all for you
and for me.
As a teenager,
I was often told, “When Satan comes knocking, send Jesus
to the door.”
It’s good advice — if it works!
Or they’d say, “Answer Satan’s temptations with
scripture.”
And it told me what I needed to do, but not how to resist,
not how to do what the Lord Jesus calls me to do.
They left out
the missing ingredient: to choose the way of Jesus, and not just
know it.
He determined to go to Jerusalem. He exhorted us not to give
in to Satan’s blandishments, because,
What good
is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit
his very self?
And he went
all the way himself, determined to reach Jerusalem and not to
lose what he himself was made to be, determined not to lose his
very selt.
You and I can do that, too — because he will empower us
to. Let’s do it!
AMEN |
