Calling a Spade a Spade

You have probably heard the common expression, "if it looks  like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck, it probably is a duck." So too the expression to call a spade a spade. Preaching is not always easy, unless you are always preaching to the choir, oops, another common expression.  God spoke to Ezekiel in Ezekiel 33:1-9 telling him that he was set as a "watchman unto the house of Israel." He was told to warn them of the approach of evil and if they took heed they would deliver their souls but if they refused to listen, they would be destroyed, but he as the watchman would deliver his soul. If however he did not issue a warning, the people may well be destroyed and he as the watchman would be held accountable.

As I said before, preaching is not always easy. Sometimes, even though a preacher may be preaching to the choir, as it were, it is necessary for him to call a spade a spade. We live in a day that most things come easy for us. At least in the good old U.S. of A. We have more than our heart could desire.  I said probably more than once to the church in Tigard while still their pastor, that even the poor in our society would be considered rich in most countries of the world. We truly serve a good God.  However, the Bible says in 1st John 2:15-17 to "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him..." Everything in the world that has its basis in "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." Let me say without equivocation, calling a spade a spade, that they which love this present world are doomed to not make heaven their home. It really doesn't matter who they are or what their pedigree might be, they will not be heirs to the kingdom of God.

When my oldest daughter was about 11 or 12 years of age we let her spend a few days at another preacher's home with their daughter of about the same age. When my daughter came home, she brought with her a stick of lip gloss.  Not chap stick but lip gloss.  I told my daughter that she was not allowed to wear lip gloss.  I tried to explain to her that lip gloss was leaning toward worldliness and if she fell she would fall in the direction she was leaning. If she fell towards the world, and she cried out for help, no one there would care about her soul but she would be trampled underfoot.  If on the other hand she was leaning toward the Lord Jesus and she fell and cried out for help, He would pick her up and set her back on the right path. It all depended on the direction she was leaning. She cried as she gave me the lip gloss. When I asked why she was crying, she said through her sobs that she had given the other preacher's daughter .25 cents for it.  So I gave her .25 cents to lesson her sorrow.

I have noticed recently, more and more, the young ladies of our church wearing lip gloss.  Also wearing hose that have (what seems to me) outrageous patterns on them. I certainly don't want to sound critical or judgmental but I still believe what I told my oldest daughter, lo, those many years ago. I am now 70 years old and I am no longer pastoring. I don't have as much voice in the lives of people as I once did.  But let me call a spade a spade and ask the question, why?  Who are they trying to be attractive to?  They do attract attention, not to their godliness but to their lips and to their legs (and various other parts of their anatomy depending on how they dress). Again the question that arises in my mind is, why?