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LOOKIN’ FOR A LOOPHOLE

Last week, if you were with us, we kicked off a radio series by telling a less-than-heavenly story out of rerun heaven. In an old, old M*A*S*H episode, the very faithfully married B. J. Honeycutt had accidentally slipped into a moral pit, a one-night stand with a nurse. He never, never intended to do something so wrong — I mean, he passionately loved his wife, Peg — but this dark deed had happened. Now he was back in his tent, The Swamp, along with Hawkeye Pierce. And he was writing a letter to Peg, to confess his sin, and how he had wronged her.

Well, right there, we segued away from the painful confrontation of confessing a sin to a fellow human being, and spent the entire week of radio discussion time exploring instead what the Word of God says about confessing our sins to GOD. And we never really got back to Korea and that unmailed letter. If the fictional Major Honeycutt was a Christian — as actor Mike Farrell certainly is — is he only obligated to tell heaven what he had done wrong? God already knew, of course. Or does he have to send that letter with its wrenching confession — “Honey, I betrayed you last night” — slowly bobbing across the Pacific Ocean and into Peg’s mailbox back in the U.S.A.?

Well, friend, we’re not going to duck that question. We have confessing to God, who’s up in heaven trillions of miles away. And invisible behind the clouds and the stars and planets and Milky Way systems. And then there’s Peg. She’s flesh-and-blood. She’s got feelings that can bruise. She’s got tear ducts that work big-time. She might be crushed. She might file for divorce. She might fly over to Korea and kill you. So I think for most of us, it’s a whole lot harder to confess to Peg than it is to cry on the invisible shoulder of Gentle Jesus, meek and mild.

You remember the old line by the very irreligious W. C. Fields, who is caught thumbing through a Bible. What in the world? What are you reading that for? And W.C. shrugs: “Just lookin’ for a loophole,” he says.

So let’s see if the loophole is there. The Bible addresses this very question, and it speaks with the highest authority there is: Jesus Himself. Right in the middle of His great Sermon on the Mount, He talks about confession — and to whom. Here’s what He has to say, in the book of Matthew, chapter five.

“Therefore, if you are offering your gift at the altar and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.”

I kind of like the modern spin put on this passage in the Clear Word, which is a very loose paraphrase of Scripture written by Dr. Jack Blanco. The verse right before is talking about hating others, treating your enemy with contempt. This is the context of Jesus’ command here. Now notice:

“If you treat someone with contempt” — this is back in verse 22 — “because you think you’re better than they are, you can never be given eternal life. That’s why you should make things right with others before you go to worship God. And if, while you’re worshiping, you remember that you have something to make right, it’s better for you to leave, go and make things right and come back later, than to stay there and worship God with hatred and pride in your heart.”

Now friend, I’m going to be honest with you. We don’t follow this very well. Do you ever see someone abruptly get up out of church, go out and fix a feud, and then come back to finish the service? That’s rare . . . although there was a story in a Christian journal just the other day where a believer actually did postpone his worship experience, because he was out attempting this kind of reconciliation.

Bible commentaries point out that this business — common in the Jewish culture — of giving a gift at the altar, was a rather high experience. The Greek word doron can describe just a regular gift, or a very special one that a man or woman might give to the Lord on a truly sacred spiritual occasion. You might remember that Jesus talked about people “swearing by the gifts on the altar”; that’s over in Matthew 23. And this same Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary adds this note from the scholars:

“The act of offering a personal ‘gift,’ or sacrifice, was considered to be among the most holy and important of all religious acts, but even it must take second place under the circumstances set forth. It is possible that the ‘gift’ here mentioned was a sacrifice made to secure divine forgiveness and favor. Christ insists that men must make things right with their fellow men before they can be reconciled with God. The more important obligation takes precedent over one of less importance. Reconciliation is more important than sacrifice.” That’s true, isn’t it? They close with this: “The living out of Christlike principles in the life is of far greater value in the sight of God than practicing the forms of religion.”

That’s an interesting priority, isn’t it? Is it a good thing to give a gift at church? Friend, that’s a wonderful thing to do. But being reconciled, confessing your sin to your friend or your enemy, is more important. Is it good to worship in the sanctuary of the Lord? The Bible tells us to do it. But higher on heaven’s list is for you to confess your sins and have all accounts squared.

But back to the dilemma. Because most of us aren’t bolting out of church and going out to the parking lot and getting out our cell phone to call that enemy up for the purpose of making confession. This is not a common scenario. Should we be doing better? Without a doubt. Are there loopholes we can wiggle through with our anger and our bottled-up vice still intact? I don’t believe so. And yet we’ve found some very solid words of comfort and advice and encouragement from a book we mentioned last week: The Crisis of the End Time, by my friend Marvin Moore. Marvin’s been a guest on this program, and I really appreciate his godly insights, his determination to live a holy life for Jesus here in these last days.

He has a whole section on the topic of confession. And it’s his contention that the great Holy Spirit blessing of these final days — sometimes called in the Bible the “latter rain” — simply WILL NOT fall on people who have unconfessed sins. If your relationship with Jesus is blocked because you are holding back and not confessing to another person you’ve wronged, you’re going to miss the power of that last great outpouring.

“I believe,” he writes, “that the latter rain will come only upon those who are willing to be completely honest with themselves, with others, and with God. If we are holding back from confessing any known sin, God CANNOT pour out His latter rain upon us.”

But then he writes from his own heart. Sometimes even good and faithful Christians are in a place where they just cannot yet get to the point of confessing. It’s like confessing that sin to that certain someone is a dive from the highest diving board at the pool, and you’re simply not ready. Spiritually speaking, you’re just not mature enough. It might be fear; it might be pride; it might be circumstances beyond your control. Maybe the person you want to confess to is out of town for the next three weeks. I mentioned last week — and it’s Marvin’s own story — that sometimes we face a situation where confessing is so scary that death would almost seem preferable.

“Many Christians have dark secrets,” he writes in the next paragraph, “in the deepest recesses of their minds that are so unacceptable to polite society, perhaps even criminal in the eyes of the law, that they would rather die than admit the facts to another person, especially the one they have wronged.”

Have you been there? I have. Even though I loved the Lord, and wanted to be His child, I’ve had something just sitting there in the way, and friend, I let some time go by. That high diving board was just too high for me at that moment. I couldn’t do it . . . and the days trickled past. But now here are some words of real comfort and challenge again from my friend, Marvin Moore. And praise God, these insights come from his own scarred journey toward faith.

“First, I want to assure you that God loves you,” he says. “You also need to know that God wants nothing more than to see you cleansed, free, and happy again. That’s His goal for your life, and He is anxious to make it real. Second, I want to assure you that the fact you have not found the courage to confess all these years is NOT an indication that you are not a Christian. . . . If you have been struggling to figure out how to deal with this sin, God accepts that as the best you have had to offer up to the present time.”

Isn’t that good news? If that diving board is just too high, God doesn’t give up on you. Friend, He’s willing to go up there on that high dive with you, but if it takes some time — even years, maybe — to get up those steps, you’re still His child while that journey happens.

We still have Major B. J. Honeycutt standing by the Post Office tent at the 4077th M*A*S*H, and tomorrow, for sure, we’ll see if he mails that letter.