We preachers are constantly encouraged to use effective illustrations and make our sermons more like “storytelling.” It’s advice that I really do try to implement. After all, Jesus was the greatest communicator who ever lived and He often taught by using parables, which are stories. I guess He understood that not everybody enjoys hearing a three-point outline featuring alliteration but everybody does love a good story.

Unfortunately, the New Testament epistles make for difficult storytelling. Preach from the four gospels? No problem. They are nothing but stories from Christ’s life. Preach from the book of Acts? No problem. Acts is simply a continuation of the storyline begun in the gospels. But preach from Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Ephesians, 1 Peter, 1 John, etc.? Ah, that’s tougher. If you are going to do any storytelling from them, you are going to have to get creative. Can you say, “Hand me my book of sermon illustrations”?

This explains why many preachers find it easier to preach from the Old Testament than the New Testament. You won’t find any epistles in the Old Testament. It also helps that the majority of the Old Testament is the storyline of ancient Israel and many of Israel’s stories have happy endings. For example, God promises Abraham and the barren Sarah a son and eventually makes good on that promise. Joseph becomes the second-in-command of all Egypt. Moses leads the Israelites out of Egyptian bondage. Joshua leads them into the promised land of Canaan. The shepherd boy, David, slays a giant and later becomes king. Solomon builds God’s temple. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego come out of Babylon’s fiery furnace unscathed. Daniel comes out of the lions’ den the same way. Esther saves the Jews from being exterminated in Persia. On and on the list goes.

This doesn’t mean that every Old Testament story ends well for God’s people. Far from it. Generally speaking, though, whenever a story doesn’t end well for the Old Testament Jews, it’s because God is whipping them because of their sin. Admittedly, I’m painting with broad strokes here, but you get the gist of what I’m saying. The Old Testament features a ton of stories that make for easy preaching because the nation of Israel enjoyed favored status with God in regards to worldly matters.

But what about the stories of the New Testament? Well, while there are certainly several that fit this same bill, it’s undeniable that a significant change takes place in the New Testament. The stage for this change gets set with stories such as John the Baptist getting beheaded, Jesus getting crucified, Stephen getting stoned to death, and James getting killed by a sword. And once that stage is set, then comes the full-throttle persecution of God’s people (the church). At that point, serving God usually means trouble instead of favor, problems instead of prosperity, and rejection instead of acceptance. As evidence of this, consider Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 4:11-13 concerning the lives of the apostles:

To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now. (N.K.J.V.)

Sometimes I think about how some of those famous stories from the Old Testament would probably have different endings if they took place in the New Testament. Sodom and Gomorrah would be allowed to stand because God would want their citizens to be afforded every possible opportunity to repent and turn to Him. Can’t we make that argument based upon 2 Peter 3:9? The Red Sea wouldn’t part for Moses and the Israelites because God would want them to remain as slaves in Egypt and eventually, through Christian teaching and influence, abolish the practice of slavery in Egypt. Isn’t that how the Christians of the Roman empire eventually brought down slavery in the empire? Goliath would kill David, but David’s courage and zeal for God would cause Goliath to seek David’s God and become a Christian. Isn’t that what happened with Saul of Tarsus after he had not only been present for Stephen’s stoning but ordered the deaths of many Christians himself?

Do you see now why I say that a significant change takes place over the pages of the New Testament? And do you also see why I say that preaching from the Old Testament is easier than preaching from the New Testament? You tell me, which is more appealing to our ears, the story of how Joshua and the Israelites defeated Jericho when Jericho’s walls came crashing down (Joshua 6:1-27) or Christ’s teaching about turning the other cheek in regards to your enemies (Luke 6:29)? You know the answer. Would you rather preach a sermon on the Angel of the Lord passing through the camp of the wicked Assyrians one night and slaying 185,00 of them (2 Kings 19:35-37) or one on loving your enemies and praying for those who spitefully persecute you (Matthew 5:43-44)? Again, you know the answer.

At the bottom line, the real question is this: Living in this era in which we live, does God want our lives to look more like an Old Testament story or a New Testament one? I think we know the answer to that, too. In light of this, perhaps we need to change our usual way of operating. Rather than always running to the pages of the Old Testament to seek pleasing answers for the troublesome situations in our lives, maybe we’d be better advised to major on what the New Testament has to say concerning those situations. Admittedly, this might not make for popular sermons that feature storytelling that is pleasant to the ears. What it will do, though, is make for deeper preaching, preaching that is more Christ-centered. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is preaching that definitely needs to be heard.

Posted on January 22, 2013 by russellmckinney | 4 Comments

Diving Deep Into the Subject of God’s Will

Posted on January 16, 2013 by russellmckinney

I placed my belief in Jesus as my Savior when I was a young boy. That belief was sincere and legitimate, which meant that God the Holy Spirit took up permanent residence inside my body and I was thus “born again.” A few weeks afterward, as a way of publicly evidencing the fact that I had experienced salvation, I was baptized by immersion.

The next few years saw me living the way the average Christian lives. I went to church, prayed, read my Bible, and for the most part lived a moral kind of life. But then came my teenage years. That’s when the wheels fell off my walk with Christ. I stopped going to church, stopped praying, stopped reading my Bible, and replaced it all with other things that I shouldn’t have been doing.

It took a while, but by my early twenties my sinful ways had led me to rock bottom. That’s when I rededicated my life to Christ. Did I get saved again? No. I had never lost my salvation. What I did do was confess my sins and genuinely repent of them. I also did something I’d never done before: I surrendered myself 100% to Christ’s lordship over my life.

As a result of my rededication, I began to seek God’s will concerning every area of my life. That included the so-called “little” decisions as well as the “big” ones. And truth be told, since then I haven’t really had all that much trouble discerning what God did or didn’t want me to do. Oh, sure, some decisions take a fair amount of time and a lot of prayer to figure out, and oftentimes I’ve even had to work through the slow process of proving God’s will regarding a situation. In the end, though, I’ve always gotten the answers I needed. I don’t say that to brag. I offer it simply as proof that the Lord does have a will for the saved believer and does guide that believer into it.

Ah, but there is one particular knot in the wood that has oftentimes plagued me in regards to doing God’s will in my life. It’s the problem of other people preventing me from doing that will. You ask, “But how could someone prevent someone else from doing God’s will?” Oh, it’s not that hard. Consider the following hypothetical examples:

  1. It is God’s will for Linda to marry Frank, but Frank refuses to submit to God’s plan and rebelliously marries Jennifer instead. Where does that leave Linda?
  2. It is God’s will for Phillip to get a certain job, but Jeff, who is in charge of the hiring of personnel, isn’t a submitted Christian, has his own agenda for who he hires, and subsequently gives the job to Ray instead. Where does that leave Phillip?
  3. It is God’s will for little Joey to attend church, but his parents, Steven and Monica, have no interest whatsoever in attending church themselves or taking him. Where does that leave little Joey?

On and on we could go with the hypothetical examples. How could that not be the case when the vast majority people living on planet earth DON’T attempt to discern and do God’s will concerning the countless circumstances and decisions life presents? Consequently, we all at various times get caught in the backwash of other people rebelling against God’s will. Call it unfortunate. Call it frustrating. Call it complex. But whatever you call it, call it life.

So, where does this leave us, as Christians? Well, this is where God’s foreknowledge comes into play. Because He has perfect foreknowledge concerning every act of rebellion against His will (and has had that foreknowledge since before Genesis 1:1), no act of rebellion ever catches Him off guard or unprepared. Much to the contrary, as soon as the act is committed, God immediately sets His alternative plan into motion.

The perfect illustration of this is Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. They went against God’s will by eating the fruit from the knowledge of good and evil, and in so doing fell into sin. But did God panic? No. Instead, He instituted the concept of a substitutionary sacrifice as He killed either one animal or two animals and used animal skin to make clothing for Adam and Eve (Genesis 3:21; Hebrews 9:22). This shedding of blood was an early foreshadowing of all the animal sacrifices that would be offered up during the Old Testament period under the law. Taking things even further, all of those Old Testament offerings eventually found their ultimate fulfillment in Jesus offering Himself up on a Roman cross as the sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Now let’s think about something fascinating: From eternity past, God’s ultimate plan was NOT that Adam and Eve and all their descendants would live in sinless perfection in the garden of Eden; it was instead that Jesus would die as the substitutionary sacrifice for the sins committed by Adam and Eve and all their descendants. How do we know this was God’s ultimate plan? Consider the following passages and make special note of the words I’ve highlighted in each:

…knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot. He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you… (1 Peter 1:18-20, N.K.J.V.)

All who dwell on the earth will worship him, whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Revelation 13:8, N.K.J.V.)

You see, this is how God works. In some strange way that you and I can’t fully fathom or grasp, His original plan doesn’t necessarily have to be His ultimate plan. Even more than that, His original plan doesn’t have to be as good as His ultimate plan. Have you ever thought about what would have happened if Adam and Eve hadn’t sinned? I’ll tell you. Since bodily death is the result of sin (Romans 5:12), they would have lived forever on earth in the garden of Eden. That means that a sinless Adam and Eve would have been immortal there in the garden of Eden. You say, “Great! What could have been lacking about that?” What would have been lacking about it is this: They would never have seen the inside of heaven or been able to spend eternity in direct fellowship with God on His throne.

Do you see now how what seemed to be God’s secondary plan of Jesus dying on a cross to eternally pay their sin debt was actually God’s ultimate plan? Furthermore, do you see how it was the better plan for Adam and Eve? This explains why the Genesis story makes a special point of saying that God drove them out of the garden after their sin and posted cherub angels and a flaming sword to prevent them from continuing to have access to the garden’s tree of life (Genesis 4:22-24). Evidently, it was the fruit from that tree that gave them their bodily immortality. If they had continued to eat that fruit after they had sinned, they would have been forced to live endlessly on the earth in their pitiful, sinful state.

So, in closing, I ask you, “Can you think of a situation in your life when someone else prevented you from getting in on God’s will?” If you can, then take some time right now and meditate on how things played out for you in the wake of that debacle. When you do this, you might just find that God’s backup plan for you concerning that situation actually turned out better for you than His original plan would have. Even more than that, because of His foreknowledge, in many situations His backup plan winds up being what He was ideally up to the whole time. Is this a deep subject? You bet. But is it a Bible one? Absolutely. And I hope this post has helped you understand it at least a little better.

Posted in Adversity, Choices, Christ's Death, Decisions, Disappointment, Disobedience, Dying To Self, God's Love, God's Omnipotence, God's Omniscience, God's Provision, God's Will, Human Life, Perseverance, Personal, Problems, Rebellion, Reward, Sin, Submission, Trials, Trusting In God | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

You would be correct to label me a big fan of the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation. I’ve seen every episode many times and have also seen every big-screen movie based upon the series. While I enjoy the original Star Trek series and movies, William Shatner as Captain Kirk is a little too much for me. I much prefer Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard, the captain of the starship Enterprise in The Next Generation series. As for all the other Star Trek spinoffs (Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise), I never really got into them. My apologies to any rabid “trekkies” out there who might take offense to that. Also, I don’t want any Christians hating me over the fact that the entire Star Trek universal view builds off a basic foundation of evolution. I’m perfectly capable of enjoying some sci-fi entertainment without forsaking my belief in the Biblical account of creation.

The only place I can find Star Trek: The Next Generation these days is on B.B.C, and a few weeks back I happened to catch an episode entitled “Homeward.” The storyline involved Captain Picard and his crew violating the “prime directive.” For those of you who don’t know, the “prime directive” is Starfleet’s most important rule. It forbids interfering with the natural societal development of an alien civilization and culture. For example, a Starfleet officer can’t just beam down to a planet populated by a primitive, backward people and say, “Hi, I traveled here in a spaceship from Earth. Let’s talk.” That, you see, would afflict that alien race with a knowledge they simply aren’t ready to handle. It’s only when an alien race starts sending out spaceships themselves that Captain Picard and his crew can rightfully initiate contact with them. Of course, the “prime directive” gets violated multiple times over the course of the series, always resulting in major problems. Evidently the show’s writers thought such problems made for good t.v.

Anyway, let me get back to the “Homeward” episode. I won’t bore you with all the details, but a certain Starfleet anthropologist has been working in a disguised observation post on an alien planet to covertly study a race known as the Boraalans. Unfortunately, the whole setup goes awry and Captain Picard and his crew are forced to get involved in an effort to salvage the situation without the Boraalans finding out about deep space, starships, advanced technology, and other races. As usual, however, problems arise. In particular, one young Boraalan ends up walking the corridors and halls of the Enterprise, seeing wonders he can’t fathom and meeting crew members he never dreamed could exist.

In the end, the young man is faced with a choice. He can remain on the Enterprise and build a new life for himself out there roaming the galaxies or he can return to his home planet and fake it for the rest of his life, allowing his people to continue to believe that their planet and race are utterly unique in the universe. Sadly, he can’t reconcile himself to either option and chooses instead to take his own life. The casualty bothers Picard and he regrets that the young man couldn’t return to his home and ultimately become a bridge to link his people with Picard’s people.

Okay, so where am I going with all this? Well, it strikes me that sometimes in this life we get to the place where we have simply outgrown our little world. At that point, like that young Boraalan, we can either embrace the newness of the great unknown and step out in faith to meet it or timidly shrink back to the comfortable confines of the life we have always known.

As long as I am running with t.v. illustrations today, I’ll also throw in a word about the famous episode of The Andy Griffith Show where Opie kills the mother bird with his slingshot and then takes up the responsibility of raising her babies. He keeps them in a cage until he realizes they are flopping all around the cage as they are trying to fly. Opie says to Andy, “Pa, I think they need a bigger cage,” to which Andy responds by explaining that they do need a bigger cage, the cage of flying free in nature. Opie then sets them free and watches each one fly off. Christian, what I’m saying is that sometimes you reach a place in your life where you need a bigger cage if you are going to continue growing and thriving in your faith-building adventure with Christ.

It is with all of this in mind that I encourage you to use the beginning of this new year to take real stock of your life. Where are you these days? Are you happy with your current situation? Are you content to continue on down the road you are traveling? Are you satisfied with your place? The fact is, many people are. And, for that matter, God may want you to remain right where you are, doing exactly what you are doing, for many years to come. That’s a very real possibility that you need to consider.

Ah, but then there are those other seasons in life, those where God is leading you to explore a brand-new world or fly out of your confining cage (depending upon which of my two t.v. illustrations you like best). He called Abraham to leave his hometown of Ur and journey to a new land, the land of Canaan. He called Moses to leave his comfortable existence in Midian, return to Egypt, and take up the biggest challenge of his life. He called Nehemiah to leave behind his life in a Persian palace, travel to Jerusalem, and lead a small group of followers in the rebuilding of the city’s walls. Jesus called Matthew to leave behind his occupation as a tax collector and follow Him into a new existence. He did the same thing in calling Peter, Andrew, James, and John to drop their fishing nets and go with Him wherever He went.

You see, the Lord knows that one of the greatest killers of faith and dependence upon Him is the blandness of a humdrum existence in which we know all the answers before the questions are even asked because we’ve got the test memorized. That’s what can happen when we stay in one place, doing one thing, for too long. We become too comfortable, too confident in our own abilities, too predictable, and too spiritually complacent. That’s when a new galaxy or a bigger cage is needed. Such times of drastic change and upheaval drive us to the Lord and compel us to seek His daily guidance and provision. And that, after all, is how He wants us to live.

Posted on January 4, 2013 by russellmckinney | 2 Comments

A Few Unanswerable Christmas Questions

Posted on December 24, 2012 by russellmckinney

Every Christmas I preach the familiar story of Christ’s birth. Over the course of thirty years of doing that, I’ve come up with a list of questions the Bible simply doesn’t answer concerning the story. Here are seven of them:

Question #1: Exactly how did Joseph and the very pregnant Mary travel to Bethlehem? Other questions that can be filed under this one are: Did they walk? Did they both ride donkeys or camels? Did Joseph walk while Mary rode? Were they part of a caravan that was traveling that way?

Question #2: Was Jesus born during the day or at night? I know, I know, the shepherds were watching over their flocks by night. But that’s only when the angel appeared to them and announced the birth. The way the story reads Mary gave birth shortly after she and Joseph arrived in town and found the local inn full. Well, that being the case they certainly wouldn’t have been traveling at night, would they? As for me, I tend to think the couple arrived in town in the afternoon and she gave birth that night.

Question #3: How long was Mary in labor? Some births happen fairly quickly, but others drag on for hours. What was the case with Christ’s birth?

Question #4: Who delivered the baby Jesus? If we stay strictly with the Biblical account, the only candidate is Joseph. That would make him the very first person who ever saw God in human flesh, touched Him, and held Him. I like that idea. But did Joseph know anything about delivering babies and cutting umbilical cords? If he didn’t know anything about such matters, did someone (a doctor? a midwife? a woman?) from the crowded town of Bethlehem deliver the baby?

Question #5: Exactly where was Jesus born in Bethlehem? What we know for sure is that His first crib was a manger, and a manger is an animal’s feeding trough. Therefore, the birth must have taken place in some type of livestock pen. But what kind of pen was it? Was it really the famous cave in Bethlehem that purports to be the site? It could have been. But then again maybe it was some kind of building, one that housed the animals of the travelers who were staying overnight at the inn.

Question #6: When the shepherds made “widely known” what they had seen that night, did any of the listeners go to the site and see the baby? The Bible doesn’t mention anyone doing so, but I can imagine some of them going to the site out of sheer curiosity if nothing else.

Question #7: When did Jesus fully understand who He was and what He came to do? It’s hard to believe that He was lying there in that manger, looking around at Mary, Joseph, and those shepherds, and thinking to himself, “I came to die for you people.” What do little babies think about? I don’t know, I can’t remember. Some people point to the story from Luke 2:41-50 as conclusive proof that, at the very least, Jesus fully understood His mission by the time He was 12. I don’t disagree with that, but it still leaves the exact time of His realization open for debate.

Okay, all you Bible students can now mull these questions over for a while and see what answers you think best fit. Remember, there aren’t any confirmable “right” or “wrong” answers to these questions, at least not while we’re on this earth. I just want you to spend some time thinking afresh and anew about Christ’s birth and really pondering the reason for the season. Merry Christmas from the Mckinneys, and may we all give our lives unreservedly to that little baby who grew into adulthood, lived a sinless life, died on a cross for the sins of the human race, arose from the dead, ascended back to heaven, and now offers salvation to anyone who will believe in Him as Savior.

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Who Is Bombing Our Nest?

Posted on December 10, 2012 by russellmckinney

When I was young, let’s say ten years old or so, I spent a lot of summer days with my cousins, the Bennetts. Since both my parents worked, I didn’t have anyone to chaperone me when there was no school, and the solution was to let me spend those summer days with the Bennetts. Their mother, Betty Jean Bennett, was my dad’s older sister. She was a stay-at-home mom who had a P.H.D. in babysitting. Of course, the problem with that whole arrangement was the fact that my cousins and I never stayed in the house where she could adequately keep an eye on us. Instead, most of our time was spent out and about exploring the local woods.

A dilapidated old car sat in the woods just above the Bennett house. The car belonged to the patriarch of the Bennett clan, Bill, who had parked it there years earlier when the motor had gone bad. Trust me, he had no plans to fix that car. Its windows were all busted out, the interior was little more than a shell, and the whole thing was well on its way to rusting down completely.

One day, as our crew was patrolling the area, we noticed that bees had built a huge nest inside that car. As best I can recollect, it was a nest of yellow jackets. Then again, it could have been hornets. I do vividly recall that the basketball-sized nest was located just above the driver’s side door. Naturally, kids being kids, we took it as a personal challenge to bring down that nest. It was just the kind of project for which lazy summer days are made.

After studying the nest for a while, we noticed that its one entrance was in the front at the bottom. The bees were constantly flying in and out of that entrance, a setup that made a frontal attack unadvisable. So, we made our way around to the car’s passenger’s side. I can’t remember if we opened the passenger door or if it was already off the hinges, but we somehow snuck our way inside that car and got behind that massive nest. Now there was only one question to be answered: When we started pelting the nest with rocks, would those bees fly out the front or the back to attack? We gambled on the front, gathered our rocks, and cautiously, one kid at a time, one rock at a time, began bombing the nest.

We grew more and more bold with each thrown rock because no matter where the rocks struck the nest, the bees flew out that one hole in the front. They just kept roaring out, stingers locked and loaded, seeking to deal with their attackers. But they couldn’t find us. The air was dark with them just outside that driver’s side window, while all remained clear on the other side of the car where we were. That allowed us to take turns easing inside the car and throwing our rocks. I can just picture us there, laughing like crazed madmen, as one by one we stoned that poor nest into oblivion without even one of us ever getting stung. If only we had channeled such genius toward purposes that were less mischievous and more productive for society. Oh well.

As I think back upon that day from my childhood, I’m reminded that we Christians oftentimes have our own trouble figuring out the source of the attacks that are coming against us. We fly around, all stirred up and righteously indignant, but our holy zeal is misdirected and our efforts ultimately fail. Why? It’s because we have trouble locating our true attacker.

And just who is our true attacker? Satan. The abortionists are carrying out his agenda. The gambling industry is doing his bidding. He convinces the homosexuals that what they are doing is morally acceptable. He energizes the pornographers. He inspires the producers and directors of filthy television shows and Hollywood movies. He is the power behind the thrones of evil politicians and murderous dictators. Yes, he’s the one who is constantly bombing us and thus creating the mess we call this world.

Notice carefully what the Bible teaches in the following passages (all from the N.K.J.V., emphasis mine):

Then Saul, who is also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked intently at him (Elymas the sorcerer) and said, “O full of all deceit all fraud, you son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, will you not cease perverting the straight ways of the Lord?” (Acts 13:9-10)

In this the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest: Whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother. (1 John 3:10)

“You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do…” (John 8:44)

But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them. (2 Corinthians 4:3-4)

So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world… (Revelation 12:9)

You see, Christian, the one who is bombing our nest from behind is Satan and the people he uses to accomplish his work are merely the rocks thrown from his hand. In saying this, I don’t mean to imply that God doesn’t hold these people accountable for their sins. Undoubtedly, He does hold them accountable. I’m simply pointing out that, in a very real sense, these folks don’t even do their own bidding. They think they are free and liberated to do as they please, but in truth they aren’t independent at all. Satan has them deceived because he has their minds blinded. They want to do the desires of his heart rather than the desires of their own hearts.

Please remember this, Christian, whenever you find yourself out there on the front lines of the cultural war. It’s so easy to despise or hate the people who think and act in ungodly ways. But don’t let yourself fall into the trap of failing to see them for who they really are. They are pawns in the hands of an evil lord. They are puppets dancing on the strings of a wicked puppeteer. They are children whose minds have become warped under the tutelage and training of their twisted father. They are the victims of a sinister brainwashing carried out by one who is a master in the art. Again, I’m not alleviating them from their own guilt and accountability. There’s no question that each of them currently stands under the foreboding shadow of God’s impending eternal judgment. I just want you to understand that the true mastermind who is doing all the worldwide nest-bombing we see is Satan.

Posted in Abortion, Current Events, Desires, Gambling, Homosexuality, Personal, Satan, Sin, Spiritual Warfare, The Devil | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Some Bizarre News from Modern Times

Posted on December 1, 2012 by russellmckinney

I am constantly amazed at how the Bible, a book that is thousands of years old, continues to be so relevant in our modern world. One case in point of that relevancy involves the grotesque act of bestiality. Yes, I’m talking about a human being having sex with an animal. If you think this kind of behavior died out thousands of years ago, please keep reading.

Believe it or not, in recent years Germany has been embroiled in a controversy over bestiality, which Germans call “zoophilia.” Zoophilia is defined as being the sexual attraction of a human toward a non-human animal, which may involve the experience of sexual fantasies about the animal or the pursuit of real sexual contact with it. No, I’m not making this up. I wish I was.

The controversy in Germany all started in 1969 when zoophilia ceased being a crime in that country. At that time, there were only a couple of restrictions placed upon the practice by the German government. First, the human sexual activity with an animal could not be used to create pornographic material. Second, the sexual activity could not do “significant harm” to the animal.

Well, you would think that the German people would have been outraged enough by the legalizing of zoophilia to raise a fuss, but it was actually animal rights groups who took on that assignment. They began pushing to make zoophilia a crime in Germany, and finally, in 2012, the Bundestag (the lower house of the German parliament) passed a law that did just that. The ruling made zoophilia a misdemeanor crime and attached a maximum fine of 25,000 euros ($32,400 U.S. dollars) to it.

And do you know why Germany’s government was finally compelled to officially outlaw zoophilia? It was because of “animal pimping.” That was the term given to the practice of animals being born and raised for the purpose of being sold into zoophilia. There were even reports of “exotic zoos” in Germany where tourists from countries that had made zoophilia (bestiality) illegal could come to Germany and engage in sexual relations with animals.

While the Bundestag making zoophilia illegal seemed perfectly logical and acceptable to most Germans, it immediately threw all of the Germans who were involved in the practice into an uproar. You say, “Oh, c’mon, how many such Germans could there have been? Five? Twenty? Fifty?” One estimate from 2012 put the number at over 100,000!

In response to the Bundestag ruling, some of those 100,000+ formed a group to take up the charge to make zoophilia legal again. The group’s chairman, Michael Kiok, who was at the time living with his Alsatian dog named Cessie — and I do mean LIVING with the dog in every sense of the word — said he’d had special feelings for animals since he was four or five and those feelings took on erotic elements in his teens. In regards to his group, he was quoted as saying, “We see animals as partners and not as a means of gratification. We don’t force them to do anything.” (I guess the fact that the animals couldn’t speak helped with that.)

Finally, in 2016, the German courts had to revisit the 2012 Bundestag law when a man and a woman — identified in the court case as “Mr. F” and “Mrs. S” — put forth a legal bid to have that law overturned. The basis for their proposed overturning was the couple’s contention that the law violated their right to “sexual self-determination.” Fortunately, the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany opted to throw out that legal challenge and zoophilia remains illegal in Germany.

This brings us back to the Bible. Here in this modern age, we don’t have to wonder about God’s opinion of zoophilia (bestiality) because it’s right there in the book. You see, such sexual perversion was common practice among the inhabitants of Canaan, the land that God gave to Israel, and that left God with a perfect opening to address the sin in that body of law He imparted to Israel. In Leviticus 18:23, we read:

Nor shall you mate with any animal, to defile yourself with it. Nor shall any woman stand before an animal to mate with it. It is perversion. (N.K.J.V.)

Under Israelite law, the deviant act was even a capital punishment offense. As Exodus 22:19 says:

Whoever lies with an animal shall surely be put to death. (N.K.J.V.)

Furthermore, according to Leviticus 20:15-16, the animal itself was also supposed to be put to death:

If a man mates with an animal, he shall surely be put to death, and you shall kill the animal. If a woman approaches any animal and mates with it, you shall kill the woman and the animal. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood is upon them. (N.K.J.V.)

And then there is Deuteronomy 27:21, which says:

Cursed is the one who lies with any kind of animal. And all the people shall say, “Amen!” (N.K.J.V.)

Now, admittedly, the Old Testament law was given to a specific people (the Jews) who lived in a specific dispensation of centuries (after the Exodus from Egypt and before the coming of Jesus). So, please don’t accuse me of advocating the killing of those who engage in bestiality (zoophilia) today. I’m simply pointing out that by studying God’s law we can get His verdict on certain topics. One of those topics is bestiality (zoophilia), and He is clearly opposed to it.

But isn’t it sad how, even after all these years of human history have passed, mankind still loves to commit history’s same old sins? It reminds me of another Bible passage, Ecclesiastes 1:9-10, and that’s the passage I’ll use for the closing of this bit of bizarre news from modern times. Those verses say:

That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun. Is there anything of which it may be said, “See, this is new”? It has already been in ancient times before us. (N.K.J.V.)

Posted in Bestiality, Bible Study, Current Events, Depravity, God's Word, Sex, The Bible | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Are You Getting Better?

Posted on November 27, 2012 by russellmckinney

When my youngest son, Royce, played 5th/6th grade football, his team’s line coach was a guy named Stacy Peterson. Even though I’d gone to high school with Stacy and had loosely known him for years, we’d always run in different circles and had never done any one-on-on talking. So, I was glad to get to know him better over the course of that season. Trust me, the guy knew a thing or two about being a lineman. Of course, that didn’t surprise me because he did play college ball.

As I think back to that 5th/6th grade season, the thing that stood out to me about Stacy was a certain coaching philosophy he employed. It went as follows: If you aren’t getting better by doing a drill, shut it down and do another drill that allows you to get better. For example, let’s say that our linemen were sleepwalking their way through a drill involving the blocking sleds. After a rebuke or two, Stacy would finally say something like, “Okay, we’re not getting better here; let’s set up some cones and work on our footwork.” If all else failed and he was out of options for alternative drills, he’d say, “Well, if we can’t get better by doing drills, we can at least get in better shape by running. Start running and I’ll tell you when to stop.”

The point is that Stacy was all about making practice time efficient and productive. His time was too valuable for anything less. If a ten-minute span went by in which our players weren’t a little better at football than they had been ten minutes earlier, he saw that as ten minutes wasted.

I’ve been a pastor for many years now and can speak with some expertise when I say that a lot of Christians sleepwalk their way through serving Christ and, consequently, never get much better at it. They aren’t any more involved with church than they were five years ago. They don’t know much more Bible than they did ten years ago. They spend the same amount of time in prayer, if not less, as they did two years ago. They aren’t giving an increased amount of money to church or parachurch ministries. They witness to the same number of people they always have: none. Obviously, these Christians are doing their “drilling” for Jesus, but somehow all of it isn’t making them better at serving Him.

So tell me, Christian, where are you right now in your service to Christ? Are you on fire for Him? Is your service to Him growing? Are you excited about what He is doing through you to affect the lives of others? Or is your service stagnated and stationary? Have you plateaued? Even worse, are you backslidden?

If you have to admit that you aren’t currently getting better at serving Christ, let me encourage you to apply Stacy’s coaching philosophy by trying a different “drill.” Step out in faith by starting something new for Jesus. Volunteer to teach a Sunday School class. Take up the challenge of reading the Bible through in a year. Get a notebook and begin a prayer journal in which you write down not only your daily prayer requests but also how you see God answering them. Muster up the courage to witness to a friend, a neighbor, a coworker, or a family member. Increase your giving to your local church or make a one-time gift to a Christian organization that can surely use it. Even if you can’t give financially, give of your time or your other resources. You get the idea. Whatever you do, don’t keep halfheartedly doing your same old “drills” over and over again, expecting different results.

In 1 Corinthians 15:58, the apostle Paul encourages Christians to always be “abounding in the work of the Lord.” The word “abounding” stands out to me in that verse. There is such a vibrancy to that word, such a vitality. It calls to my mind Olympic athletes bounding down a track-and-field event, muscles rippling and functioning in perfect harmony to power the athletes along.

But how does an athlete reach such an impressive state of performance? With each training drill and exercise, the athlete gets better! Every day, every week, every month, every year, the athlete just keeps getting better until he or she finally reaches that idealized state the world sees on television. You see, Christian, Stacy’s philosophy will work in terms of spiritual drills just as well as it worked in terms of football ones. You simply have to make the commitment to keep constantly getting better. And what I’m asking right now is, “How are you doing on that?”

Posted in Backsliding, Bible Study, Change, Church, Church Attendance, Commitment, Decisions, Depression, Discipleship, Doing Good, Evangelism, Faith, Faithfulness, Giving, God's Word, God's Work, Ministry, Missions, Money, New Year, Personal, Prayer, Prayer Requests, Sanctification, Service, Sports, The Bible, Witnessing, Youth | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Thanksgiving

Posted on November 21, 2012 by russellmckinney

A man bought a talking parrot that had once been a bar owner’s pet. Sitting in that bar every night, the bird had learned some, shall we say, interesting words. More than once it embarrassed its new owner by squawking out some cuss word in the presence of company. So the man decided to teach the bird a lesson by letting it spend ten minutes in his deep freezer. When he finally retrieved the chilled bird, he looked at it and said, “Now I don’t want to hear any more bad words out of you. Do you understand?” The bird squawked, “Yes. But I’ve just got to ask, What in the world did that turkey say?”

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day, that day marked by turkeys, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pies, family get-togethers, a Macy’s parade, football games, and all the rest of it. (Unfortunately, more and more it’s also now being marked by Christmas shopping as well, but don’t me started on that.) But will the day be marked by your thankfulness? Well, that’s up to you, isn’t it?

It strikes me that perspective is one of the secrets to be truly thankful. For example, if you’ve been grumbling because you haven’t been able to buy yourself a new pair of shoes in a while, consider a story from the life of noted gospel singer Charles M. Alexander. Traveling was a major part of Alexander’s life, as he was frequently a featured singer for the preaching tours of the likes of R.A. Torrey and John Wilber Chapman. One day an impoverished little fellow named Sam was helping Alexander pack his suitcase. The boy said, “Mister Charlie, would you have any old clothes you ain’t makin’ use of?” Since Alexander’s clothes were obviously too big for the boy, Alexander moved on to the subject of shoes. He said, “Well, Sam, what about shoes? What size do you wear?” Sam answered, “That mostly ‘pends on who gives ’em. Sometimes I wear sixes and sometimes I wear elevens.” Remember that story tomorrow and be thankful for your shoes!

2 Timothy 3:1-5 is a very well known passage. It says:

But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

You’ll note that even though that is quite a list of sinful conduct, the word “unthankful” is right there on it. As a matter of fact, the word begins the list of the “un” words: unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving. I’ve heard many sermons from this passage, all painting the picture that we surely are living in the “last days.” As preachers like to say of such passages, “Reading these words is like reading the headlines of this morning’s newspaper.” Well, if that’s the case (and I certainly don’t disagree with the assertion), surely an attitude of unthankfulness abounds these days.

But let it not be so with you. Never forget that whatever is authentically “good” in your life, comes from God. As James 1:17 says:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights….

Psalm 136:1 can be placed right alongside that verse. It says:

Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!….

So tomorrow I want you to make a special point of being thankful to God for all the good gifts with which He has blessed you. Better yet, why don’t you just go ahead and get a head start on tomorrow by being thankful today? Even better still, why don’t you just start being thankful right now and never stop? Do your best to live out the words that David wrote in Psalm 30:12:

…O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

Happy Thanksgiving!

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A Changed Heart

Posted on November 13, 2012 by russellmckinney

Each year at this time thousands of people participate in Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program. The names of the children of inmates are placed as “angel ornaments” on Christmas trees in churches, businesses, and shopping malls. Along with each name is a short list of the “gift wishes” that child has requested. People take the ornaments from the trees and purchase the Christmas gifts for those children. The idea is that the individual who takes a name is, in essence, purchasing a Christmas present on behalf of that child’s incarcerated parent. The gospel is also shared with the child. What makes Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program different from the Salvation Army’s Angel Tree program is the fact that the Prison Fellowship program specifically caters to children whose parents are incarcerated.

What most people don’t know is that Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program began with a woman named Mary Kay (no, not the cosmetics queen). In the late 1960s and early 1970s, she was a notorious safecracker and bank robber who wound up on the list of America’s Most Wanted. She and her husband became so infamous that they earned the nicknames “the Bonnie and Clyde of Alabama.”

Even after Mary’s husband abandoned her and went his own way, she continued with her criminal career. All of that ended, though, in June of 1972 when she was arrested, charged with 35 charges and 11 federal indictments, and sent to prison. She was 27 years old at the time.

Mary spent the first five months of her imprisonment in solitary confinement. Those months gave her a lot of time to think about her life. When she was moved out of solitary confinement she began attending the prison’s weekly Sunday church services. Having grown up in the deep south, she had heard the gospel in Sunday School, and so hearing the familiar story of Christ once again made no major impact on her. But what did impress her greatly was the dedication of the volunteers who organized the services. Since the Sunday service started at 7:00 a.m. those volunteers had to get up around 5:00 a.m. to give them time to drive to the prison, get through all the security, and get things set up for the service. Such dedication baffled Mary. She couldn’t figure out why anyone would get up at 5:00 a.m. on Sunday morning to go and visit prisoners.

On a particular Sunday she curiously asked an elderly volunteer, “Why do you bother?” The woman answered, “Well, Jesus loved you enough to go all the way to Calvary. So, we love you enough to come in here and tell you about Him.” That answer pierced Mary to the core, and over the next few weeks God began to convict her of her sinful, wasted life. One night, as she sat alone in her small cell, she opened up the Bible that one of the volunteers had given her and began flipping through its pages. One passage in particular caught her eye. It was Ezekiel 36:26-27:

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. (K.J.V.)

Upon reading that passage Mary knew what she needed: a changed heart. So, right there in that cell she prayed for the first time since she was a little girl. She said, “God, if you can do all that — if you can really change my heart — I’ll give my life back to you.” And God really did change her heart as she placed saving belief in Jesus. Afterward, she began to study the Bible more and grow in her relationship with Christ.

Each year at Christmastime when Mary was in prison, local church groups would bring the inmates gifts of shampoo, soap, and toothpaste. While Mary was always glad to receive these gifts, she noticed that many of her fellow inmates would save their items, crudely wrap them up, and give them to their children as presents when those kids came for Christmas visits. As Mary would say later, “Most children wouldn’t think much of such small gifts, but in prison there was such joy on their faces! It really didn’t matter to them what they got; it was from Mama.”

In all, Mary ended up serving 6 years in prison before being released on early parole. After her release, and with her new heart that Jesus had changed, she joined Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship staff, agreeing to become the ministry’s first Alabama State Director. One of her assignments was to create a Christmas project for the inmates, but it was during one of her speaking engagements that a conversation with an ex-inmate’s daughter changed the direction of that assignment. The woman asked, “What about the inmates’ kids? They are the real victims.” That conversation took Mary’s mind back to the toiletries she had seen her fellow inmates pass along to their children as Christmas gifts.

Then she hit upon an idea. She paid a visit to the same prison that had once held her, Alabama’s Julia Tutwiler Prison, and asked the women for the names of their children and where they lived. Next, she contacted the caretaker of each child and asked what the child wanted for Christmas. That provided her with the first 100 of what would become her “paper angels.”

Mary then took those 100 names and placed them on the first Angel Tree, which was set up in Birmingham’s Brookwood Mall the day after Thanksgiving. An advertisement in the Birmingham News paper notified readers about the project, and many of the store owners in the mall agreed to offer a 10% discount to shoppers who bought their Angel Trees gifts in their store. Much to Mary’s delight all 100 paper angels were gone in four days.

Well, she knew exactly what to do after that. She visited more prisons, collected more names, contacted more caretakers, and put more angels on the tree. The gifts were wrapped by volunteers, after which each child’s caretaker would come pick up the gifts for the child. Mary enlisted the aid of the Gideons organization and the mail-carriers of the Birmingham News to deliver the gifts for the children who lived far away. Everything went smoothly, and that first year 556 children received gifts.

Additionally, to Mary’s surprise, the effects spread much further than she could have ever dreamed. For some time she had been offering various Bible study groups in her former prison, and the attendance at these doubled beginning in January. Who were all the newcomers? They were the mothers of the children who had received gifts. Now these women would get to hear the same gospel that had so miraculously changed Mary’s life. The following year Mary’s Angel Tree program extended out to twelve states and was off and running. It is now Prison Fellowship’s most recognized and popular program and reaches the children of prisoners in no less than 90 countries besides the United States.

So, when you are out and about during the Christmas season, if you run across a Prison Fellowship Angel Tree, consider taking an “angel” and making that child’s Christmas. And when you do, think of a roughneck woman from Alabama named Mary Kay. Better yet, think of Jesus Christ, the Savior who marvelously changed that roughneck’s heart and made her a new creation:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. (2 Corinthians 5:17, N.K.J.V.)

(p.s. In 1984, Mary Kay married Don Beard to become Mary Kay Beard. He had served 9 years in prison for embezzlement and, like Mary, had given his life to Christ in prison.)

Posted in Bible Study, Change, Children, Christmas, Christmas Traditions, Doing Good, God's Word, God's Work, Grace, Influence, Ministry, Missions, Motherhood, Restoration, Salvation, Scripture, The Gospel, The Heart | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Mayonnaise Jar

Posted on November 9, 2012 by russellmckinney

A philosophy professor stood before his class and began an object lesson. First, he sat an empty mayonnaise jar on the table in front of him. Next, he brought out a box of rocks that were each about two inches in diameter and filled the jar to the brim with them. Then he asked his students, “Is the jar full?” All the students who would dare venture a guess answered, “Yes.”

Next the professor brought out a box of very small pebbles and began pouring them into the jar. As he poured, he paused periodically and gingerly shook the jar to allow the pebbles to filter down between the larger rocks. When he was done, he asked his students again, “Is the jar full?” Having been burned before by their premature answers, even the students who had dared to answer the first time remained silent this time.

Then the professor brought out a box of sand and began pouring the sand into the jar. Again, he paused every now and then and lightly shook the jar, which allowed the sand to filter its way down through all the rocks. When he was done, he asked his students one more time, “Is the jar full?” This time they all confidently answered, “Yes.”

At that point the professor said to them, “I want each of you to think of this jar as your life. The big rocks are the most important things: your family, your friends, your health, etc. The pebbles are the things that matter but to a lesser degree: your job, your house, your car, etc. As for the sand, that is everything else.”

Then he continued. “If you put the sand into the jar first, there is no room for the pebbles or the rocks. And the same is true for your life. If you spend all your energy and time on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are the most important to you. So, take care of your rocks first, the things that matter above everything else.”

Now, truth be told, that illustration is an old one and what I’ll call a worldly one. I use that word “worldly” because the illustration makes no allowance for Jesus Christ. So, how can you get Him into your jar of life along with everything else? Here’s how: think of Him as water. You see, that philosophy professor could have taken his object lesson one step further if he had brought out a large glass of water and begun pouring the water into the jar, pausing every now and then to shake the jar and allow the water to weave its way down through the rocks and sand.

What am I saying? I’m saying that establishing priorities in your life is a wonderful thing, but even those priorities must be touched by the “water” of Christ. The way to make your life count the most for eternity is to surrender it completely to Him. Let Him permeate everything you think, say, and do. Let Him lead you into His perfect will and plan for your time here on earth. Let Him guide you into all truth. Let Him mold and shape you into the absolute best version of you there can be. To sum up, let Him take everything about your life (all the rocks, all the pebbles, and all the sand) and use it all to bring glory to God the Father in heaven.

Posted in Discipleship, Dying To Self, Family, Friendship, God's Will, Human Life, Needs, Priorities, Salvation, Sanctification, Service | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment