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LEAVING THE ALTAR AND MAKING THE CALL
#4
MAKING THINGS RIGHT WITH GEORGETTE
I don’t know if we’re picking on the CBS television
network or thanking them — because we already borrowed from one of their
vintage old M*A*S*H episodes to illustrate a Bible truth about confessing
our sins. Well, today we’ll turn to them again, and really, from kind
of the same era. You very likely remember a rather pompous fellow named
“Ted Baxter,” played so brilliantly on The Mary Tyler Moore Show by the
late Ted Knight. Ted, or “Teddie,” as his little mousy girlfriend, Georgette
called him, loved to talk big about his favorite subject, which was, of
course . . . Ted Baxter. Any unwitting person who asked him the tiniest
question about his television career at WJM, or how he got started on
television, would get that lofty look, that faraway gleam in the eye.
And then the standard spiel: “It all began in a 5,000-watt radio station
in Fresno.” And ended, in Ted Baxter’s dreams, anyway, with him winning
an Emmy for being the greatest anchorman in the history of the known universe.
Well, there was a segment once — and this is a couple of decades ago,
so forgive us if the details are a bit muddy, just like the snow there
in Minneapolis — but Ted Baxter had met a beautiful woman at some function.
She wouldn’t have anything to do with him, of course, but he just couldn’t
help but let on to everyone he met that they had enjoyed a record-setting,
fabulous, unforgettable romantic encounter. Oh my, she was putty in his
hands; she was mad for him; she was warm for his form. He didn’t want
to BRAG, of course . . . but what a night! Not a word of it was true,
but he foamed at the mouth to everyone he met.
Well, news got back to Georgette. Who was crushed — and about as angry
as her 98 pounds could be. You recall, maybe, that tiny little voice of
hers. And the closing scene of the sitcom shows Ted Baxter on the phone
to someone, and he’s saying: “So I want to apologize for giving the wrong
impression. So-and-so didn’t want to have anything to do with me. In fact,
she hated me. Nothing whatsoever happened — which is just as well, because
GEORGETTE is the only girl for me. I only love HER.” And Georgette, sitting
right there next to him, crosses a name off her list, and then says: “Very
good, Teddy. Only 45 more names to go.” And it looks like it’s going to
be rather long night of confessing for him. He might do just as well to
finish his six-o’clock news broadcast by telling the entire Twin Cities
what a wretched worm he’s been.
Well, it was a cute moment . . . and we should probably play Mary’s theme
music and that little cat “meow” right here to finish off the piece. But
how biblical is this? If you hurt somebody’s reputation, and you do it
to 50 people, do you need to make 50 phone calls? Couldn’t Ted just say
he’s sorry to Georgette, and let it go at that?
There was a hard-hitting article in the Summer 1999 issue of Leadership
— I guess they AND CBS get listed on the radio credits for this week’s
radio series. Pastor James MacDonald, from Harvest Bible Chapel, in Rolling
Hills, Illinois, shared an article entitled “Five Moral Fences: What One
Pastor Does to Protect Himself FROM Himself.” The five points he makes
are very revealing . . . and some other time we’ll run through them for
you. But he’s in a men’s small group, a Bible study core, and these men
make themselves accountable to each other regarding what they see: TV,
magazines, Internet, movies, etc. He KNOWS that every time they meet,
someone is going to ask, quoting from Psalm 101:3: “Have you set anything
unclean before your eyes this week?” And these men have agreed to openly
and regularly confess to each other.
We’ve been so grateful during this series for some excellent resources
— besides CBS reruns, of course. And I’ve already shared some dynamic
principles regarding confession from the book The Crisis of the End Time,
written by my friend Marvin Moore, editor of the great Christian journal,
Signs of the Times. Some of you have heard Marvin on this program. But
today I’d like to REALLY slice out a couple of pages from his book and
let you peek over my shoulder as we look at this issue close-up.
He points us to one truth that I think absolutely MUST come first. After
affirming the importance, the necessity — according to the Bible — of
confessing our sins, he shares this wonderful news: it’s the job of the
Holy Spirit, the ROLE of the Holy Spirit, to remind the Christian of any
sin he or she needs to confess. If you ask Him to, friend, He WILL do
it. What counts as a sin? What do you need to confess? To WHOM do you
need to confess it? If you are straight with God, honest with Him, and
if you invite the Holy Spirit to do His job, He absolutely will do it.
This is one area of spiritual discipline that you can lay entirely at
His feet.
We mentioned earlier in the series how a young monk named Martin Luther
almost drove himself INSANE, picking into the deepest corners of his mind,
his soul. Had he overlooked some sin? Had he forgotten something? Would
Almighty God ring down the curtain on him, get to the “L”s, going alphabetically
in the judgment, and pronounce sentence on him with an unforgiven transgression
still on the books?
And of course, for all of us, death might cut OUR lives short, bring on
OUR judgment day at any moment. Or . . . Christ might come, unexpectedly,
as the Bible says He will, and announce that mankind’s probation has closed.
No second chance. What if WE have a sin we just didn’t think hard enough
to resurrect and confess?
Here’s what Marvin writes on that very topic, and it’s wonderful good
news:
“Some people worry that they might not think of all
the sins they need to confess and overcome before the close of probation.
That’s a useless fear. If you and I need to know anything about it, God
will reveal it to us. Anything God DOESN’T bring to our minds we DON’T
need to know.”
He reminds us how King David invited God’s Holy Spirit
to fulfill this “reminder” function in his own life. Here’s Psalm 139:23
and 24:
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know
my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead
me in the way everlasting.”
And then . . . you abide in Jesus. Is there something
you need to confess? If so, Christ’s own Spirit, the Holy Spirit, will
be sent to remind you, to stir your mind to that deed or attitude.
Later in his book, Marvin shares with us some very specific principles
regarding confession. I already related his own story, where an unconfessed
sin just sat there for YEARS until God slowly but steadily brought him
to the point of having enough courage and humility to drive those 200
miles to make things right.
Now to the principles. Number one, confession needs to be SPECIFIC. We’ve
already discussed that.
“If you stole something,” Marvin writes, “you must
go to the person you stole from and confess exactly what you took. If
you were dishonest or angry, you must confess that specific sin. It is
not enough to confess sin in general.”
What did our fictional Ted Baxter steal? He stole reputations.
He lied about the glamorous mystery woman, and he lied about Georgette.
And he needed to apologize specifically about that.
Principle number two — and here’s Marvin’s own words
again:
“Whenever possible, I prefer a face-to-face conversation
when I confess and ask for forgiveness. However, if my home is across
the country from the person I need to talk to, I accept a telephone conversation
as next best. Sometimes a letter is the most appropriate way to handle
the situation.” And then this added P.S. “However, I won’t write a letter
unless I’m sure that I wouldn’t mind someone else reading what I wrote.”
That would go double for e-mail, certainly.
Number three: for a face-to-face encounter, Marvin
advises a specific time: an appointment, if you will.
“Make an appointment,” he writes, “and ask God to help
you keep it. When the time comes and you are in the person’s presence,
tell him or her exactly what you did. Don’t excuse your sin or make light
of it, and don’t try to hide the worst part of it. Tell everything, just
the way it happened, regardless of how embarrassing it may be. If God
does for YOU what He did for ME, you will want to do this.”
Principle four: restitution. If you stole something,
return it or pay for it. If you damaged someone’s reputation or feelings,
you do all within your power to make it right — including an announcement
to all of Minneapolis on WJM Television if necessary, and if Lou Grant
gives you permission.
Friend, the bottom line is that this is messy-hard. It is. I’ve been through
it right along with Marvin: putting it off, delaying, trying to not look
into my spiritual mirror. Playing the stereo louder so I wouldn’t HEAR
the Holy Spirit’s reminders. But two points, friend. God is WITH us when
we confess. He’s closer to us THEN than at any other time; that’s His
promise. He WILL enable us.
And number two: what a wonderful feeling when it’s done! To be clean again,
free again, the burden lifted. To be forgiven. To have your Georgette
back . . . if Georgette’s the one you love.
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