(WHAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO READ IS A BASIC TRANSCRIPT OF ONE OF MY SERMONS)
I was reading my Bible the
other day and, believe it or not, I found a place in the book of Romans that
enlightened me and gave me clarification on texting and facebooking.
In Chapter 1 Paul tells the church at Rome
that he plans to come and see them. He
tells of spiritual gifts that he will give them. Now these gifts are not tangible things that
can be brought in a sack. So why does he
need to GO THERE to give them to them?
Paul is called of God to preach and teach
spiritual things to this group of people.
And the thought crossed my mind.
“If he is already writing letters to them, then why doesn’t he just keep
writing letters and teach them that way?
It would be easier, less expensive and less time consuming than taking a
trip all the way across a continent?
Right?” But I think we all know
the answer. Some things just have to be
done in person. Some things can never be
expressed that are not expressed face to face.
What happens is when anyone reads
something that anyone else wrote, they put their own internal spin on it. They read it as they want to hear it or as
they assume it was written. And more
often than not, the “want to hear” or the “assumed” version are far from the
way that it was intended.
Expressions of human nature such as humor,
sarcasm, playfulness, sternness, compassion and sincerity can not be absorbed
off of the page or “the screen”. The
written word is best absorbed factually.
Many things, including spiritual things, are more than just
factual. They are intense, passionate
and very colorful. These are rarely
interpreted correctly from text. It is
why the Bible plainly says ABOUT ITSELF in 2nd Corinthians 3:6 that “…the
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
Because without the abiding Spirit of God upon the anointed text, the
words themselves would undoubtedly be interpreted many different ways. The majority of which would be destructive,
even deadly. This has all come to pass
many times over.
This differentiating between text and
personal presence seems to have happened often in Paul’s ministry. In 1st Corinthians chapter 11 Paul
was writing about several of the do’s and do not’s of the church and he ended
by saying, “…And the rest will I set in order when I come.
“ Basically saying, “Here are some of
the facts that you must do and not do.
There will undoubtedly be some interpretation issues and some problems
with things deeper than just the facts but they cannot be dealt with in letter
form so when I get there we will deal with them.”
If you
remember there was even a little debate over the difference in demeanor that
Paul had between when he was writing and when he was physically present. Paul actually commented on it in 2nd
Corinthians chapter 10.
Now
the reason that I reference all of this is to tell you that God completely
understood and built into creation the use of ALL forms of communication. The creator of communication created it with
rhyme and reason. He is not the author
of confusion. If any form of
communication is causing us confusion or problems it must be that we aren’t
using it correctly.
Look
with me now at the expansion of use of modern texting and facebook
messaging. As technology expands into
every second of every day life it has grown into areas where it attempts to
replace certain parts of communication that are irreplaceable. A text saying, “Mom, I had a flat tire. Tire is fixed. B home in 15 mins.” Is tremendous use of technological
communication. “These are the basic
facts, no drawn out phone conversation.
It stops mom from wondering what is going on and the details of the
story will be explained WHEN I GET THERE.
A facebook message or post of, “Little Joey said his first words
today!” Or, “Suzy and daddy brought me
supper from Olive Garden. #MYFAVE.” These give facts and even induce emotions and
feelings that are pretty hard to get wrong.
But
now let’s look at some other communication.
For example: I know of an 18 year old young lady that had been on drugs
off and on for about two years and after trying or perhaps not trying to get
clean several different times, she finally prayed and seemed to get a lot of
help. Since being on drugs she had been
a very mean and negative person. She was
much more cheery and fun loving before.
One night, after being clean for only a few weeks, she sent her mother
this text. “Ugh, I went out with my
friends to get pizza and the waitress was a weirdo and our pizza was some
concoction of bizarre things that we didn’t order. Oh my word!”
To which mom responded with.
“Young lady, if you don’t get a better attitude and start seeing the
blessings that you really have you are never going to make it in this
life. Are you still on something? You didn’t used to act like this.”
Now. When the girl wrote the text
this was her thought process. I want mom
to see that I am out with normal friends.
Not hiding from social activity.
I want her to realize that I am at a pizza place and not a party at some
guy’s house and I want her to read my innocent/ humorous “complaints” about the
pizza toppings and the waitress and realize that I have a sense of humor
again.
What
happened was the two women took a technological form of communication that
works well for factual transfers of information and random bits of updates and
sharing of thought and tried to use it to build a bonding, healing, life
changing moment with it and it was never INTENDED to be used as such and it
very very often fails horrendously when used as such! Anyone who believes that a heart to heart,
“Mom I’m getting better”, “Honey I still worry about you but I want you to
understand how proud I am of you”, “I need to explain things about my
addiction”, “Dear, you are going to have to help Dad and I understand”,
“Addiction, salvation, life altering, family time, personal one on one stuff
can be replaced with a series of texts is greatly mistaken!
So if
we can agree on that, then what other subjects and topics are we fooling
ourselves with when we think that they can be crammed into technology thus
saving more time to do more things? People
have literally convinced themselves not to take on highly effective things in
their lives, such as Bible reading, regular exercise, regular date nights with
their spouse, etc. for the reason that they just don’t have enough time in
their day. But the same people have
“habits” of playing “words with friends” or “slappy birds” or they are
ritualistic, almost spiritualistic about updating their status, reposting,
hashtaging or scrolling through the feed.
Listen closely to what I am saying.
There is nothing wrong with playing some modern electronic version of
scrabble or posting a picture of your macho nachos but if it is altering your
ability to communicate on a deep enough level thus undermining your God given
ability to communicate and have right relationships……Ok, let me give you an
example. Your kids are not listening to
you. They are getting rebellious. They talk and it doesn’t even sound like your
children. You’re losing control of them. It is as if they don’t even respect you as
their authority anymore. Sound familiar
to anyone? If you ever had a teenager it
does. So you get together and meet at
The Olive Garden and sit there with your family in close proximity and……do
what? Facebook, instagram, text back and
forth. Your children to their friends,
you to the office, your wife to her mother.
Let’s
pretend for a moment. You are God. You are inventing humanity. Marriage.
The family. You realize that
there must be different levels of relationships thus there will be a need for
different levels of communication.
Ahha! You got it. The second closest of all relationships
outside of their relationship with you needs to be the family unit. They will live in tight quarters. Share things, see each other often, learn
moods and facial expressions. The only
relationship closer is the marriage and they will share all these similar
things plus a bed. Wait, one more thing. You will build their digestive system in a
way that they will of necessity meet together multiple times on a regular basis
to “have a meal”. Why? Why not design it any other way?!?!?! Because this way the children can ask curious
questions and the parents will fill their heads with knowledge and wisdom and
inspire them with kindness, mercy and regulations. This way the parents can delve into the lives
of the youth and get the who, what, when and where of their offspring. Look into their eyes and decipher if they are
telling the truth or not, ohhhh!!!!!
Come on church!!!
Or
when the husband and wife crawl up into the bed and take the God given time
that should be used to strengthen the marriage by the wife telling the husband
all about her day and the husband telling the wife all about his big plans and
he caressing her and her feeling his strong arms of protection. But instead they feel the desperate need to
get fully updated about how Suzy’s Candle party turned out or what whimsical
quote was posted on the face of the cute kid or answer those last couple of
emails and get so distracted and so discouraged by things that are happening
hundreds of miles away from their little house or apartment until they are
exhausted and don’t have quality time for one another. It should be enough for her that I paid the
bills, no need to talk. Right? Right?
It should be enough for him that I made supper, no need to be
intimate. Right? Right???
Please, please I am begging you church. I’m not being radical, I’m being
reasonable. I am not preaching “against”
these things I am preaching against the abuse of these things. My wife and I at some point or another use
almost every single thing that I have mentioned tonight. And I am only against them when they become
destructive to good Godly relationships.
But when they reach that point, I am VERY against that.
The
Bible IS the answer to ALL of our troubles.
It IS in there! The church world
always has these battles and every time that the battle lines are drawn, the
radicals take up arms on the front lines and it appears to be all about the
radicals and not about the reasonables.
It is reasonable to expect that if you study to show yourself approved
unto God and take his yoke upon you and learn the things that are built into
the perfect law of liberty that are for you and about you, that you can expect
health, joy, love, strength….it is all promised. But if God showed us how to do it right and
we try to circumvent his perfect plan it will not work. It never has worked. It cannot work. In the 60’s there was a movement that thought
that they could have peace without God, it failed, it the 70’s there was a
group that thought that they could have love without marriage, it failed, in
the 80’s there was a bunch of philosophers that believed that they could have
marriage without intimacy, they even made a movie about it with Harison Ford
and Barbara Striesand, it failed, now in the 21st century we have
decided that we can raise good kids and have a strong marriage and happy family
and a powerful church without good communication skills…..IT WILL FAIL!!!
I’m
going to get on some toes now….We have children that are running around acting crazy, have to have new
things, have to have new friends, have to be entertained 24/7 and grandma and grandpa are usually scolding
mommy and daddy for not teaching their children better…..and then I noticed
something. When grandma and grandpa hold
the children in church and within 15 seconds the children start fussing and
squirming…..are you ready for this….grandma or grandpa pulls out their cell
phone and gives it to baby and baby is happy.
Now when baby is 13 and can’t sit through a church service and doesn’t
know anything about the Bible and has no attention span, Is it baby’s fault? I want to brag on my wife for just a
minute. When we were evangelizing, we
never took our phones into church and she would sit Justin, Sean, Branden and
Tirzah on the very front row and often times I would sit on the platform with
the pastor and my children were taught from a very young age to sit still, pay
attention and be good. Not very many
days ago I saw a young evangelist’s wife that sat on the very front row and had
5 children from 8 weeks to about 7 years and outside of a little fussing from
the baby they all sat, listened, cooperated and obeyed. That doesn’t just happen. It takes communication, dedication and
discipline. IT TAKES A SERIOUSNESS TO BE
IN THE WILL OF GOD! God knew and
designed all of these things to take place at the time that each child would be
most acceptable and in need of it. But
we think that we can REPLACE it. Put it
off until later or do it a totally different way. I’m asking you tonight, no
I’m pleading with you tonight. For the
church, for the next generation, for America…..do it God’s way! Look at the verses and realize that he meant
what he said.
Proverbs 22:6 Train up a child in the way he
should go
Colossians 3:21 Fathers, provoke not your
children to anger
Proverbs 5:18 rejoice with the wife of thy youth
1st Corinthians Chapter 7 Defraud ye not one the other, except it be
with CONSENT for a time, that ye may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and
come together again, that Satan temp you not for your incontinency
Isaiah 1:18 Come now, let us reason together
Ecclesiastes 12:13 Fear God and keep his
commandments, for this is the whole duty of man
These
verses and many others need to be studied, understood, taken seriously and
implemented through teaching, structure and example. Then life will get better. Church life, home life, eternal life.
God
has a perfect plan for every moment of every life but it must be implemented
Biblically, not just religiously or fellowshiply or pastorally or grandfatherly…..
What
is wrong with your world? Drugs? Look at Jesus’s refusal of the pain killing
potion on the cross. Adultery? Study proverbs Chapter 7. Selfishness? See what the Bible says about it. Lack of church growth? See what the Bible says about it. I know I know. But brother Todd, this is the way we have
always done it. If it hasn’t worked for
a long time, it’s not going to work if you do the same thing…harder. The answer to teen preganacy still is not
preaching harder on longer dresses, the answer to drugs still is not preaching
harder against drug addicts. The answer
to selfish church goers and ministers without a vision still is not a tighter
standard and a more political fellowship.
It’s not trying to be connected to the big names and the big players
across the country or to marry into one of the key families. The answer, the solution, the fix the repair,
the restoration, the joy, the shout, the cleansing the GLORY is the answers
that HE already gave us that we have not been applying.
You
want a better wife, be a better husband, you want a better family, be a better
leader or a better follower, you want a better life, be a better person, you
want a better eternal life, be a better Christian. The plan of the old KJV Bible will work in
any situation. If you grew up with a
silver spoon in your mouth or white trash.
If your back ground made you susceptible to sin or your bad choices
did. If you were raised on a church pew
or a bar stool. Technology or no
technology, 20th century or 21st century, don’t let
anyone fool you and don’t let the trends of society shake you…..THIS IS THE
ANSWER!!! THE BIBLE, THE BIBLE, THE
BIBLE!!! No, I did not say Church,
church church or preaching, preaching, preaching…..It’s THE WORD and the
understanding thereof.
God bless You,
Your humble servant,
Rev. D. Todd Sloggett
I want to say something about my home
church, Bethany Holiness Church. The environment that has been built here by
Pastor Darrel Toliver and many others is amazing and life-changing. 
Just this week alone we have
three weekend services, including a traditional morning service and a
traditional evening service and a Christmas for the homeless outreach afternoon
service, a special Christmas singing at a cancer treatment center, a Christmas
play and program put on by our school and our youth, a work night at the
satellite church, a service and singing at the county jail, the church as a
whole sponsoring a mother and baby for Christmas, another family sponsoring
another mother and baby in tremendous need also for Christmas, and multiple
families sponsoring children from several other families for Christmas that
otherwise would have very little. And the list goes on and on. There are many
support roles such as book keeping, setting up and taking down tables and
chairs, multiple levels of Sunday school teaching, etc that wasn't even
mentioned. The list is just too long. 
