According to the story that Svetlana told Muggeridge, and Muggeridge in turn told Zacharias, Stalin was plagued by terrifying hallucinations as he lay dying on his bed. Then suddenly he sat halfway up in bed, clenched his fist toward the heavens, fell back upon his pillow, and was dead. It was if his last gesture in life was literally a clenched fist toward God.

It would be easy to assume that a man such as Stalin had lived his entire life in open rebellion and opposition to the idea of any kind of God. That would be a wrong assumption, however. The fact is that when Stalin was sixteen he received a scholarship to a Georgian Orthodox seminary. He even did well in his classes until he missed his final exams and was expelled. Not long afterward he began reading the writings of Vladimir Lenin and became a Marxist revolutionary.

Looking back over Stalin’s life it isn’t hard to deduce that he had an excellent opportunity to not only receive Christ as Savior but also spend his life in service to Him. After all, that is what seminary students usually do. But somewhere along the way Stalin came to a spiritual crossroad and chose to reject Jesus. Then, like Pharaoh in the Old Testament story of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, once the hardening of his heart began there was no stopping it.

We should all take Stalin’s example and learn from it. For one thing, it is a dangerous thing to reject Jesus when He comes to you offering salvation. For another, even if you are a Christian, it is a dangerous thing when He comes to you offering guidance, direction, and commands for your life. To reject light is to embrace darkness. To rebel against a word from the Lord is to choose to walk in your own foolishness. To shun blessing is to invite judgment.

So, has the Lord been telling you to do something? Perhaps He has been convicting you of your need of the salvation found only in Jesus. Or, if you have experienced that salvation, perhaps He has been giving you some specific command or word of wisdom concerning a situation. Well, all I can say is that whatever He has been sharing with you, you need to grab hold of it incorporate it fully into your life. I’m not saying that you will ever end up like Joseph Stalin, but I am saying that there is always a great danger in clenching your fist toward the Lord and saying, “No.” With that in mind, I’ll leave you with the words of Proverbs 29:1:

He who is often rebuked, and hardens his neck, will suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy.

On October 22, 1999, Jan and four other jumpers were in California’s Yosemite National Park to jump off the 3,200 foot granite cliff known as El Capitan. They were jumping to protest the fact that the Park had made BASE jumping illegal in the wake of the six deaths and numerous injuries that jumpers had incurred in the Park. The jump would prove the safety of the sport. Jan’s husband had come along to film the event, and several reporters were also on hand.

Jan was the fourth of the five jumpers. She launched off the cliff, fell for twenty seconds, and then fatally crashed into the rocks. Her chute had failed to open properly. Her husband and the reporters stood there stunned, having just watched Jan plunge to her death. The husband even had it on film.

I’m really not trying to be insensitive to the Davis family, but I think we can glean a spiritual lesson from Jan’s needless death. Over and over again the Bible warns against the sin of rebellion (such as rebelling against a logical law that has been enacted). Consider the following passages:

1. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry… (1 Samuel 15:23)

2. A evil man seeks only rebellion; therefore a cruel messenger will be sent against him. (Proverbs 17:11)

3. There are those who rebel against the light; they do not know its ways nor abide in its paths. (Job 24:13)

4. “Come now, and let us reason together,” says the Lord, “though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land; but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword”; for the mouth of the Lord has spoken. (Isaiah 1:18-20)

5. God sets the solitary in families; He brings out those who are bound in prosperity; but the rebellious dwell in a dry land. (Psalm 68:6)

And so it is with these verses firmly in mind that I ask you this question: Are you, in some way, playing the rebel these days? Well, if you are, what are you rebelling against? Is it something reasonable? Is it something understandable? To use the proverbial saying, you aren’t making a mountain out of a mole hill, are you? Think hard now and be honest. It just might be that you have taken the matter way too far.

But what bothers me about our little county (approximately 15,000 in number) is how easily we blur the line between authentic Christian conduct and rank worldliness. Some of the same people who go to church every Sunday morning don’t mind doing a good deal of drinking and carousing on Saturday night. Some of the ones who rant and rave about the sexual sin of homosexuality evidently don’t understand that adultery falls in that same category. Some of the ones who are quick to request prayer for themselves or their families are also far too well versed in backbiting, gossiping, and rumor spreading.

My point is that a lot of people love to hear about Christ, the Bible, forgiveness, grace, and salvation, but the numbers dwindle significantly when the topics become repentance, godly conduct, separation from the world, and personal holiness. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not promoting a works-based plan of salvation here. I myself sin every day and have to spend more time than I should asking the Lord for forgiveness of those sins. But with me sin is the exception, not the rule. It occurs outside the norm. It’s the uncommon, not the common. That’s what salvation has done to me (or better yet for me).

Perhaps an illustration will help me say what I’m trying to say. Little Billy was dressed for church in his Sunday best, but his mother wasn’t quite ready to go. So he went out in the back yard and started playing in the dirt. In just a few minutes his clothes were absolutely filthy. When his mother saw him she was furious. Passionately, Billy said, “Mom, I’m real sorry. Please forgive me.” She replied, “Okay, you’re forgiven but go change.” But Billy didn’t want to go back in the house and go to the trouble of dressing again. So he said, “No, I’ll just go as I am.” You see, he wanted forgiveness but not change. And, unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of Billys running around out there these days.

Last Thursday was our final day of vacationing before we checked out and began the approximately seven-hour drive home. So that day we wanted to give the boys one more opportunity to enjoy the ocean and pool. This had been the first year ever that Royce, our youngest, had enjoyed splashing around in the ocean more than splashing around in the pool. He had even used some of his own money to buy himself a boogie board so that he could ride the waves properly.

Well, for a good while Thursday’s day at the ocean hummed along delightfully just as previous days had done. The boys played in the waves while Tonya and I laid on the beach. Then I joined the boys in the water and Tonya waded in a few minutes later. So there we were, all four Mckinneys splashing around in the ocean, enjoying every minute of it.

But then suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt a brief but intense sting on my arm. A jellyfish had stung me. I didn’t shriek in pain and head for the shore, but it did hurt, about like a bee-sting. Since I had no clue what to do and didn’t want to create a scene from Jaws as millions abandoned the water, I decided to stay in the water and let the salt water disinfect the sting. I found out later that my plan was a good one. The worst thing you can do for a jellyfish sting is pour fresh water on it. That causes the toxins or whatever they are to spread.

After a few minutes, some small whelks raised up on my arm and I began to feel a slight tingling in my fingers. I thought, “If things get any worse, I’m going to get some medical attention.” But, thankfully, that was the worst of it and before long my arm was virtually back to normal except for the small whelks. Event over, right? Not so fast.

About twenty minutes after I got stung, Royce rode an exceptionally large wave all the way into the shallows. But before he even fully emerged from the water, we heard the scream. And he kept screaming as he hurled himself out of the water, ran to our beach blankets, and buried himself in one of them. Honestly, Tonya and I would have feared that he had been bitten by a shark if not for the fact that I had been stung by a jellyfish just a few minutes earlier. So we had a pretty good idea what had happened.

As it turned out, Royce’s sting was much worse than mine. It was as if a jellyfish had wrapped itself around his leg and kept stinging. He had big marks on the inside and outside of his leg and they were already becoming whelks. The poor little fellow, no wonder he had gotten out of that water so fast. I wouldn’t have hung around in there either!

As Tonya raced to comfort Royce, I made my way to our female lifeguard and reported the two stings. She immediately grabbed a spray bottle of vinegar and sprayed down my arm. Then she went over to Royce and did the same for his wounds. By that time he was beginning to calm down somewhat, but he didn’t want any more to do with the ocean for that day. So we gathered up our things and headed for the pool.

Now, here’s the thing that you ought to know about those two jellyfish stings. All week long, as the crew and I had ridden those ocean waves, a warning sign had been posted just next to the lifeguard’s chair along the shoreline. What did that sign warn about? Jellyfish! You see, Royce and I, along with dozens and dozens of others, had been swimming at our own risk all week because jellyfish had been reported in the area and the warning sign had gone up.

And so here is the spiritual application to all this: God’s word, the Bible, is like that warning sign. When your actions go against it, don’t be surprised when you get stung. Oh, you might swim around for a while and get along fine. You might even have some fun and enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. But, ultimately, God will not be mocked and His word will not be ignored without consequence. Jellyfish stings hurt, but those stings are nothing compared to the hurt that we bring upon ourselves by sin. And just as Royce and I could offer no legitimate objection to us getting stung, neither can the sinner who has been warned by God’s word and blatantly ignored it.

The more we drove, the more we became accustomed to having the woman in the van with us. Every so often we’d hear her say something like, “In 1.2 miles turn right onto Deer Park road and continue 3.6 miles.” It was pretty cool stuff. I even began to anticipate her voice piping up. When I knew we were coming to a turn, I’d ask Tonya, “Shouldn’t that woman be saying something by now?”

Unfortunately, though, there was one word that we heard the woman use a few too many times on the trip. That word was, “Recalculating.” Whenever we would miss a stated turnoff, she would go silent for a moment and then say, “Recalculating.” Then she would pick her directions back up from our new position. It got to the point where we would miss a turn and I would immediately say, “That woman is not going to like that.” Then right on cue we would hear, “Recalculating.”

I’m glad that when it comes to God’s guidance in our lives, He knows how to recalculate. If we do miss His will for a given situation, it isn’t the end of our walk with Him. He doesn’t throw up His hands and say, “You missed it. Now you’re on your own.” Instead, it’s as if He says, “Recalculating.”

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that missing God’s will is ever good or acceptable. He never grins about it and playfully says, “Oh, you little rascal, what am I going to do with you?” Missing His will is always serious, serious business, and there will always be unpleasant consequences for doing so. My point is simply that missing one of the turns of God’s will doesn’t mean the end of your journey with Him. If it did, we would all be hopelessly adrift as we move through life, forevermore cut off from the voice and guidance of our Maker.

I don’t know where this post finds you today, but maybe you are just coming out of a situation in which you really missed God’s will. Well, I”m not patting you on the back and saying, “There, there, honey, what you did was understandable,” but I am saying that God hasn’t abandoned you. Even now He is in “recalculating” mode concerning you, and He wants you to pick back up with Him right where you are and start following His new instructions. If you will do that, you’ll find that He can still take you to some wonderful places. Even more than that, there will be some great scenery for you to enjoy along the way.

Many a person is right now holding on to some “penny” of sin. Even when clutching the sin begins to complicate their life, they won’t let go of the sin. Even when clutching it gets monetarily expensive, as in breaking an expensive vase, they still won’t let go. Maybe the sin is drugs. Maybe it is alcoholism. Perhaps it is adultery or looking at pornography on the internet. Sometimes it’s greed, pride, or covetousness. The list of “pennies” can seem endless.

And please understand that the problem of “penny” clutching doesn’t just affect lost people. A lot of Christians are out there playing the role of little Billy too. I don’t know that repentance has ever made for popular preaching, but its popularity is certainly at a low ebb today. Many preachers today major on words such as acceptance, tolerance, mercy, patience, and love. Certainly these are Biblical themes. But we must be careful that our preaching doesn’t become so mush and gush that we downplay repentance into oblivion. You see, fists must always be released and pennies of sin must always be dropped.

So, I ask you, what’s that in your hand right now? Is it your personal penny of sin? Well, little Billy, you’re going to have to let go of it (repent of it) before God will help you get your hand out of that vase in which it’s caught. Don’t bother waiting on Him to break the vase for you. That’s not how He deals with sin. He’ll gladly set you free from your entrapment, but He won’t do it just so you can continue running along, having a death grip on your penny. But why hold on to the sin anyway? After all, isn’t it what has you in trouble anyway?

It was yesterday, around lunch, when I first noticed the bird. It kept heaving itself into my bedroom window. When it wasn’t doing that, it was incessantly pecking away at the window. I grew worried the poor little thing would hurt itself. As the day wore on, I grew worried it was going to crack the window. But along about dawn this morning, I just wanted the thing to ram into the window one last time and die.

So after Tonya and the boys headed off to school, I turned my full attention to what had now officially become “a bird problem.” (Think Bill Murray going up against that gopher in the movie Caddyshack.) My first attempt involved me walking outside and seeing if there was any way that I could catch the thing. You know, maybe I could throw an old sheet over it, get it on the ground, keep it loosely trapped in that sheet, drive it a few hundred miles away, and then release it so that it could torment some other family in that area. But the bird was having none of it. I barely got within ten yards of it before it flew off to safety. Of course, as soon as I got back in the house it returned to the window and started up again. So much for plan #1.

Next I tried running hard at the window from the inside while the bird was pecking away at it. That did create the scare I was hoping for, but the bird just moved down to Royce’s window and started pecking away at that window. So then I ran at that window. That got the bird to fly off to a tree in my neighbor’s yard. But it didn’t stay there long. Just a few minutes later it was right back at my window, back on the job. That ended plan #2.

At this point I decided to seek some professional help. I went to the internet and did a google search on “how to keep a bird from pecking at a window.” First, I had to work through the old superstitious nonsense about such a bird meaning that someone in the house is going to die soon. The idea is that the bird is actually the soul of a deceased loved one who has come back to escort another soul into the afterlife. Yeah, right. And I’m the Easter bunny. The only way that bird was going to be associated with a death in our home was if I fell off a ladder and broke my neck while trying to deal with it. Clearly more research was in order.

In the end, I was somewhat surprised to learn that this is a common problem, especially during this time of year. What the bird is actually doing is protecting its nesting territory from a rival bird. When it sees its reflection in the window, it thinks it’s seeing another bird from its species. And it deals with that by aggressively attacking that other bird. I guess it’s a price we pay for keeping our windows relatively clean.

Okay, so how do you stop a bird from attacking its reflection? The popular answer was to get some pictures of a cat and tape those pictures on the outside of the windows the bird visits. So I printed out some pictures of cats and taped those pictures to the windows. As I was doing that, I kept thinking what a wonderful environmentalist I was. I mean, you have to be a true animal lover to go to such extremes not to harm a bird, even if it does require scaring the thing to death by way of a cat picture. But, alas, my little friend paid absolutely no attention to those cat pictures. It just parked itself on the ledge right beside one and started hammering away again at my window. So much for plan #3. Evidently I should have gone to a taxidermist and rented a stuffed mountain lion.

At this point I transitioned from being Bill Murray in Caddyshack to being Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation. I went down into the basement, gathered up a bunch of box lids, found our step-ladder, and headed outside to basically “board up” the windows. It wasn’t until I was literally up on the step-ladder that I figured out that I had miscalculated the number of lids I would need to do the job. So, to make the best of a bad situation, I decided to cover just the bottom halves of my window and Royce’s window. Since the bird had been fixating only on those bottom halves, I thought that might do the trick.

Well, guess what happened. The bird literally hopped up onto the top of one of the box lids and started pecking away at the upper half of my window. I thought, “You’ve got to be kidding me. Is this bird from hell or what?” Whereas I had orginally thought it was the dumbest creature on earth, I now began to see a sinister brilliance to it.

But, of course, by now I wasn’t going to be outdone. Things had gotten way too personal. So I went back downstairs, found some more box lids, climbed back up the step-ladder, and boarded up every inch of those windows. And I have to say that effort finally produced peace in the house. At last the bird was beaten, beaten that is until a gust of wind blew down two of the box lids and left one corner of my window exposed. And, sure enough, not long afterward the bird was sitting on the ledge, slamming away at that one corner. Plan #4 had proved temporarily successful but needed a bit of tweaking.

So now it was time to bring out the heavy artillery, the one thing that no home project can be completed without: duct tape. I grabbed a roll, went back up the step-ladder, and taped the troublesome box lids to the side of the house. And that, at least for now, seems to have driven the final nail in the coffin of the epic struggle between me and the bird. Of course, the side of our house now looks like a bunch of lunatics live here, but at least we are lunatics who can sleep in on Saturday morning. How long will those box lids have to remain in our windows? I have no idea. It will probably involve the life span of that bird.

Okay, so now I come to the spiritual application of all this. Are you ready? It is two-fold and it goes like this: Like that bird, some people devote their entire lives to attacking themselves, and such people make life very, very hard not just for themselves but for others. Now, could it be that you can find yourself somewhere in that two-fold application? Maybe you are the bird who is constantly hurting yourself with your foolish behavior. Or maybe you are me, the person who is having to deal with the fallout of someone who makes a habit of harming himself or herself. Whichever role you might be playing, believe me when I say that it is not a pleasant one. And here’s one other thought on the subject: God doesn’t intend for any of us to live life through boarded up windows.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear. (Psalm 66:18)

One who turns away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer is an abomination. (Proverbs 28:9)

Then they will cry to the Lord, But He will not hear them; He will even hide His face from them at that time, Because they have been evil in their deeds. (Micah 3:4)

But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, So that He will not hear. (Isaiah 59:2)

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, And His ears are open to their prayers; But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil. (1 Peter 3:12)

The requirement jumps right out at you, doesn’t it? Even if you are a Christian, the only way to guarantee that God will hear your prayers is to live a life of personal holiness. I’m not talking about some unattainable sinless perfection. That isn’t possible for born sinners such as us. But I am talking about making the confession of sins and the actual repentance of them integral parts of your walk with Christ.

I’ve known some Christian singles who chose to live with members of the opposite sex rather than get married. I’ve known other Christians who frequently got drunk on alcohol or high on drugs. I’ve known others who consistently conducted themselves in other sinful ways. Concerning these Christians, I’ve asked myself, “Is God even hearing their prayers?” Based upon the passages that I gave earlier, a solid case can be made to answer, “No, He’s not.”

I’m not trying to play the role of “Prayer Czar” here. God is God, and He can choose to hear any prayer that He wants to hear, regardless of how the person is living. But if His word means what it says, He has to draw some lines of division between the prayers of Christians who are trying to live right and the prayers of those who aren’t.

If this seems harsh, let me offer an illustration to help you better understand. Let’s say that a father has a son whose life is dominated by a lust for money and possessions. The young man wants everything the “good” life has to offer, even if it means bending a few rules or breaking a few laws to get it. Time and time again the father begs him to reprioritize his life and repent of his sins, but the son refuses.

Finally, with a broken heart, the Father says, “Son, I’ve tried to help you, but I‘ve grown to realize that you are dead set in your course. The only play I have left is to separate myself from you and let you hit rock bottom. You are still my child, and I will always love you, but there comes a time when love must be tough. Don’t call me, write me, or come see me again until you have changed your ways.”

Several months later, the son gets caught embezzling from his company. Not only does he lose his job, but if he doesn’t repay the thousands of dollars he stole, he’ll be formally charged and sent to jail. He goes to see his father and says, “Dad, I’m in trouble. I owe my former company a lot of money that I don’t have. If I can’t pay it, I’ll end up in jail. Will you help me?”

How do you think that father will respond? If He responds as God does, everything will hinge upon whether or not he sees true repentance in the son. If the young man is obviously broken and ready to live a different kind of life, the father will do whatever it takes (empty his savings, take out a loan, mortgage his house) to pay the son’s debt and keep him out of jail. But if it’s clear that the young man is just a somewhat less cocky version of his same old self, complete with the same priorities, attitude, and immoral streak, the father will remain staunch in his tough love and refuse to hear the son.

And the thing about God is that He always renders the correct verdict in regards to whether or not He will hear His child’s prayer. He knows the child’s situation before the child ever prays. He knows if repentance is on display. He knows if there is sincerity in the heart. Therefore, when He says either, “I’ll hear your prayer and help you” or “I won’t even hear your prayer,” His choice is the appropriate one.

It was then that the homeowner walked out to see what had gotten the dog all stirred up. The mailman explained what had happened and asked, “Why did that dog go back to the porch?” The homeowner answered, “Oh, we took his chain off yesterday and he hasn’t realized it yet.”

You know, many Christians haven’t realized yet that Jesus has set them free from the power of sin. Jesus said,

“Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36)

Galatians 5:1 says:

“Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.”

So, Christian, what sin do you continue to struggle with? Well, don’t you think it’s about time that you started walking in the power of Christ and living like someone who has been set free from that sin’s bondage? Until you do, you aren’t showing much more sense than that dog.

But then came the day when his father, who had been diligently searching for him for years, found him and took him home. As the father walked the prince through the castle, the prince’s memories refired and he slowly began to reclaim the life of royalty that had once been his. To his shame, he also began to realize just how foolish he had been for ever wanting to abandon such a lifestyle for a lower one.

You say, “Boy, what a stupid story. NOBODY would be as foolish as that prince.” Friend, there are Christians out there right now who have voluntarily abandoned the royal lifestyle of walking in close fellowship with Christ and chosen to live in the squalor of sin. There are Christian husbands who are addicted to alcohol, drugs, gambling, or pornography. There are Christian wives who are cheating on their husbands. There are Christian teenagers who are fully conforming to the world in their mindset, appearance, words, and deeds. Even the average Christian child knows far more about the latest SpongeBob SquarePants episode than he does the Bible.

So what about you? Are you a Christian? Well then, how is your lifestyle these days? Could it be that you have more in common with that foolish prince that you’d like to admit? Is your heavenly Father out looking for you, His wayward child who has broken off fellowship with Him? If that describes you in any way, please come to your senses.

Know this: The fellowship being broken off, even for a long time, doesn’t mean that the relationship has been severed, and God wants you back home with Him. He wants to take care of you and pour out His rich blessings upon you. But He can’t do that, prince, until the fellowship you once had with Him is restored. So, are you ready to get back to your castle and a higher way of living? The only person stopping you is you.