Community Reveals Human Weakness (Problems in the Church of Rome) #5

Some of you have a dark side. There is one or two or three of you in here who even have pernicious evil. This is the Scripture – not pernicious anemia, but pernicious evil, and you have turned loose from good, and you are enjoying evil. Others of you…some of you in this room here tonight…you’re very loving, but it’s just because the Bible tells you to. It’s two-faced. It’s not really genuine. Well, if this doesn’t get you down in the dumps, nothing will. There are a few of you, I don’t know which one of you it is, but there are a few of you who feel that others in this room are inferior, certainly inferior to you. There are one or two others of you in here who, when you serve the Lord, you do it on the low burner. You do it just as close to lazy as you can. You are lazy in your spirit. Alright, are you still here?

Would you like to interrupt me at any time and say something? Feel free to. Would you? Say, “Hey, that’s my roommate.” Here’s a really dangerous one: the Christian here in the fellowship in Rome, Italy, who has lost the eternals and is living in the now; “now” is all-important to him or to her. His future, her future, hope in Christ means nothing. That which causes most of us to get through the mess we’re in is the sight of things to come, but this person has given up that sight and is living in the here and now — right here, right now — caught up in that. There are some of you who are suffering, but finally, for the first time in your life, you have suffered in the past, and you have suffered well, but this time you are rejecting suffering. “No way am I going to put up with this. I’ve put up with this before. I’ve gone to the cross before, but this is it — no more. I’m through. I’ve got a few things to say to you people. I’m sick and tired of the way I’ve been treated. No longer.” You’re rejecting suffering.

You people look so sad. I can’t imagine why. (laughter) One or two of you have just about quit praying. Some of you were very, very helpful. You just got tired of helping other Christians. They always seem to need help; you just quit. “Let the bums suffer. I am tired of helping these brothers and sisters.” You what, huh? Okay, alright. Is that the way they’re treating you right now? One or two of you here were given to hospitality that would just make a king feel royal, but you were hospitable to Joe, and then Jack, and then Pete, and then George, then Mac, then Harry, then Larry, then Curly, then Moe, and they took advantage of you, and you’re tired of sleeping on the sofa and cooking meals for bums. You have opened your house fifteen, twenty, thirty times this year, and by George, “I’m not going to do it anymore;” you have given up hospitality. “Let them stay somewhere else. I’m tired of this.” Or it’s more like this: “Well, let me go talk to my husband. I don’t think he’s going to be up to this.” Or “Let me go talk to my wife. She’s really getting tired of this.” You have lost hospitality.

Are you there? Let’s see how many of you would fess up to that one. Anybody who would raise their hand and say, “I don’t know.” We got one. Actually, we got two — mine and yours. Two people in here who’ve worn out hospitality, and only two? I’m not at this time, but boy, I tell you, there have been times in my life that the doorbell rang one more time, somebody with his bedroll, and I was going to shoot him.

There has been a lot of persecution in the churches Paul has written to and raised up, and there’s going to be a lot in Rome; perhaps there has already been a little, and some of you have just gotten tired of putting up with your persecutors, and you’re getting just downright angry at them. In fact, a few days ago, when you were walking through the streets rejoicing in the Lord, somebody threw water on you, and then the garbage, boy, you turned around and you just plain threw a fit. You are no longer putting up with your persecutors. You are getting angry with them.

Okay. I don’t know exactly how to describe this, but maybe you’ll recognize it: brothers and sisters who are rejoicing. “Oh, praise the Lord, praise the Lord.” And you’re kind of looking at them and saying, “Boy, I’m getting tired of listening to these people with joy. I’m tired of seeing people with joy.” Some other dear Christian comes by with a problem; he’s just sitting there crying. “This is the worst thing that happened to me.” You look at them and say, “I’m so sick and tired of seeing Christians burdened. I just don’t care, buddy; that’s your problem, not mine.” Church life — Rome, Italy, 56 A.D. Church life — North America, all the way through the year 2000. That’s right, and on and on and on and on. It was true in the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Modern Ages, and in the years and millennia to come until the Lord Jesus comes and gets this thing. It’ll just stay this way, saints. I think I’d like for you to know it’s not ever going to get much better. You’re going to live here.

I will sometime this week talk to you about the greatest single mistake Gene Edwards has ever made in the ministry, and it has to do with the fact that I don’t think I’ve always understood that it really doesn’t get any better. I’m talking to you about things that will be here with you till the day you die. You can get all the people in this room completely cured, but when Joe Schmo walks through that door and joins you, it’s going to start all over again. It just never stops. They’re going to, sure as the world, if anybody even comes to my funeral, I’m sure there’s going to be a fight over, “I don’t want to carry that coffin out to the…” There will be a fight over my coffin. I’m going to pull the lid open and say, “You young dumb single brothers, shut up and get this thing going.”

Some in every fellowship of believers work at causing disharmony. There is always someone who feels there must be a minority view. We’re all in agreement, right? I’m not so sure I agree with this. I had an experience as a teacher. I always taught the scourge of the world. I started teaching in a ghetto and went down from there. Well, it was horrible, but I went from there to teaching the mentally retarded and the learning disabled. I have always taught the eighth grade. That is the worst grade; everybody in education will agree if they’ve ever been through it. It is the worst grade to teach. And I didn’t teach eighth grade in good neighborhoods. I taught either in the slums, or I taught kids who…what they did is they used my classroom as a dumping ground for all the troublemakers. I had a situation once when I was teaching in the ghetto in which the one kid, the one incorrigible kid in the room, got transferred out. Wow. About two or four days later, I noticed something unbelievable; there was another kid in that room who took his place. Interestingly enough, and this is a true story, that kid moved. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I had gotten rid of the two biggest troublemakers that I had in that classroom, and about four or five days passed, and somebody took their place, and it never got any better. I could have shot half the kids in that room, and somebody in that room will feel that he or she has to have and give to the group a minority view. Now, I’m going to someday gather together a group of people who are all psychopathically optimistic, and I’m not going to let anybody else join except these people. You know, I’m afraid one will turn sour, get cured, get well, and turn sour. I used to be optimistic my whole life, and I got cured. Some of you who come from the better parts of the neighborhoods of Rome, Italy, do not like being thrown in with the poor and the beggarly, and you’re just a little too good for some people. Now, I don’t know how that fits in with Chicago. Do they have a class lower than the Puerto Ricans? (laughter)

Well, I didn’t know if you were going to handle that or not. I really seriously discussed with myself whether or not I’d pull that on you. You could have easily said, “Yeah, the Anglo-Saxons.” Oh, I’m glad we got past that, saints. Oh boy, what a relief to get over that one. Wow.

I think everybody who lives on this earth, no matter where they are, feels that there’s somewhere in society around them somebody who is classed lower than they are. Did you know that? It is said of Italy, and this is a modern-day saying, that the northern Italians look down on the southern Italians. Southern Italians look down on people from Sicily. Now, if you get down to Sicily, there’s no place to look down on, but the truth of the matter is, the northern Italians, the southern Italians, and the Sicilians all looked down on the people from Rome. So the question is, who do the Romans look down on? And the answer is, the French. Who do the French look down on? That’s right; absolutely everybody. Always, always, there is that feeling that I’m better than somebody; well, you’re not. Don’t ever forget that your Lord was born in a barn, and don’t ever forget that the poor are His favorites. Even the Cubans, brother. The church ought to always have an outreach to the worst of society, even if it’s in Beverly Hills or someplace like that.

There are a few of you who are just drunk on, just really intoxicated with your wisdom. You really see yourself as extremely wise, and you think you’re wiser than most people. Now, I don’t know about your group here, but I have lived with a group of people from another nation and another culture that trades in wisdom, and I really have seen this driven home – those who really are wise, just feeling that wisdom is everything and they’ve got it all. Alright, some of you are very drunk in your own wisdom.

Now, here are some really cute ones. Some of you have not only given up on the persecutors, but you’ve just gotten down to the point that you’re taking revenge on anybody who hurts you. You’ve just gotten downright, out-and-out vengeful. It’s going to be an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. It’s going to be a broken glass for a broken glass. It’s going to be an ugly word for an ugly word. It’s going to be a flat tire for a flat tire. It’s going to be an empty tank of gasoline for an empty tank of gasoline. And on it goes. Some of you…your conduct has reached the point that your conduct is not even acceptable in the eyes of the heathen and the unbeliever. That’s when things really get serious. Let me tell you, the most serious thing is when a Christian begins to conduct himself in a way that even the world finds unacceptable. That’s pretty heavy. That’s serious. That’s getting down serious, and that’s not just in drunkenness and immorality; that’s in ethics. Yeah, well, I’ll just leave it there with ethics. Some of you have gotten to the point of saying, “That was so ugly and dirty, what he did, and I’m really afraid God’s not going to punish him for it, so by George, I’m going to punish him.” Some of you have some enemies, and you have said, “Let him starve. Let him die of thirst. I just enjoy sitting right here and watching that guy die of thirst and starve to death. I want to know that he suffered; I want to watch him suffer, and I’ll make him suffer.” Some of you can’t identify with that. Wait till the next time your roommate makes you mad.