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CAN JERRY SEINFELD
MAKE IT INTO HEAVEN? #5
SOMETIMES THERE’S NOT A “NEXT WEEK’S SHOW”
Sometimes in life our own words turn right around and
become a sermon to ourselves. Maybe preachers have that happen to them
more than other people, but today it’s about to happen to our chosen subject
for the week: the fictional character “Jerry Seinfeld” in the television
sitcom by the same name. If you’ve been with us all week, we’ve had this
as our series title: CAN JERRY SEINFELD MAKE IT INTO HEAVEN?, and the
fact that this megahit on NBC is going to go off the air exactly 41 days
from now has people thinking, maybe, about whether life is more than the
famous “nothing” featured every Thursday night.
Maybe you remember a scene where Jerry and George are in a drugstore planning
to buy some cold medicine. And one picks up a bottle and reads on the
label that it has some magic ingredient — “phenophylophillobenzine 50"
— or something like that. And the other reads the label of the next brand
over. “Aha! ‘Phenophylophillobenzine ONE HUNDRED.” So of course that’s
the brand they choose.
And in one of his standup comedy bits, the real Jerry muses about how
we make such pharmaceutical selections.
“We all think we’re experts on our own bodies,” he
says. “I was in the drug store the other day trying to get a cold medication.
Did you ever try to pick one of these out? Not easy. There’s an entire
wall of products that you need. You stand there going, ‘Well, this one
is quick acting but this is long lasting.” And then he asks the spiritual
question of the millennium: “Which is more important, the present or the
future?”
And today we want to really put the hard question on
the table: CAN JERRY SEINFELD MAKE IT INTO HEAVEN? But let’s spend today
wrestling with that question broadened to take in each one of us. Can
any of us make it in, whether we’re rich or poor, overweight, or, in Seinfeld’s
own self-description: “Thin, single, and neat”?
In the book of Luke, chapter 12, Jesus tells a story about a man who was
equally “thin, single, and neat.” And rich too, which gives him a fourth
profile match with Mr. Seinfeld. Here’s the story:
“The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop.
He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’
Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build
bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I’ll
say to myself, ‘You have plenty of good things laid up for many years.
Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’”
The cast of Seinfeld might be thinking along those
lines come May 14. However, Jesus goes on with the story.
“But God said to [the rich man], ‘You fool! This very
night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you
have prepared for yourself?’ This is how it will be with anyone who stores
up things for himself but is not rich toward God.”
There’s another Bible version, a paraphrase called
the Clear Word, where Jesus’ words are given to us this way:
“That night after the man had made plans for his retirement,
he died. Then God said, ‘I’m sorry this man was so foolish as to make
no plans for the Judgment. Now who’s going to enjoy all the things he
worked so hard to get?’ That’s how it is for those who work to get everything
they want for themselves and make no effort TO GET TO KNOW GOD.”
Now friend, I want to be very open with you right
here. CAN JERRY SEINFELD MAKE IT INTO HEAVEN? Frankly, it’s not ours to
decide. Only God knows a man’s heart, a woman’s heart. We might watch
a television show, or maybe even watch all 178 episodes of a hit like
Seinfeld, and think we know the state of an actor’s character, know what’s
in his soul. But we don’t. Judgment is left up to God, and I’m so thankful
that this is the case. I never want to go on the radio and stick my chin
out and say that this person or that one is or isn’t going to be in God’s
kingdom. Sometimes a preacher has to give the message at a funeral where,
maybe, someone committed suicide. And what does he say? Can God save that
person? Will He? Or someone who hasn’t ever appeared to enter into a relationship
with Jesus Christ . . . SO FAR AS I KNOW. But do I know that person’s
heart? Do I know the inward impulses of the Holy Spirit which might have
reached that person? No, I don’t. And it’s not my place to decide what
God should do about the fate of any man or woman.
Having said this, I want to emphasize how very sobering this story by
Jesus is. This hard-hitting vignette in Luke 12 makes it absolutely clear
that it’s possible to be lost. Despite the loving heart of God, despite
the Bible’s statement that God would like to save every member of the
human race, this story of the rich farmer tells us unequivocally that
it’s possible to reject God . . . die . . . and be lost. It is possible
to be confronted with the claims of Jesus Christ, His lordship, and reject
those claims. A man who says no to the Holy Spirit enough times can indeed,
as we read in Ephesians 4:30, “grieve” God’s Holy Spirit and drive Him
away.
In other words, friend, I don’t want to presume upon the mercy of God.
I don’t want to presume and assume that there will always be a tomorrow,
another Seinfeld episode next week.
Maybe you’ve gotten kind of cold about those sorts of corny evangelist
stories where the organ plays quietly in the tent and then the man in
the pulpit suggests that someone in the crowd might die that very evening
if they don’t come forward and accept Jesus. Is God really that way? Would
He reject a person who misses the plane by just a few minutes, or who
delays for just a day?
Baseball player Brett Butler just came out with a delightful autobiography
entitled Field of Hope. He’s a vibrant, born-again Christian who has entertained
fans in Cleveland, Atlanta, San Francisco, and then right here in Los
Angeles for a number of years until his recent bout with throat cancer
and retirement at the close of the 1997 season. And as you can understand,
he is always witnessing, always sharing, always trying to lead others
to Jesus Christ . . . including fellow baseball players. He’s a cheerful,
winsome kind of guy, and even those athletes who aren’t interested are
generally tolerant of his zealous efforts to “(quote) save their souls.”
But one young player really brushed him off. His name was Tim Crews, and
he has a Dodger connection as well, playing here in L.A. as a kind of
“journeyman” middle-relief pitcher before getting traded to Cleveland
a few years ago. And he just wasn’t interested in the things of God. He
finally said to Brett Butler — this was right after the ‘92 season ended
— “Look, just drop it for now. Maybe later I’ll get into it, but not now.
I’m only 31; I’ve got my whole life ahead of me.” And he expressly stated
that he was having too much fun, making too much money, enjoying himself
too much to “(quote) get religious” just yet. After he retired from baseball
and was ready to sit on a rocking chair on some porch somewhere, he might
read the Bible and give his heart to the Lord then. And he basically told
Brett Butler and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit and God, “Go away. For
now, at least — go away. Get off my case.”
Well, some of you may remember that just a few months later, Mr. Tim Crews
was in a boating accident. He and another player, Steve Olin, were killed
instantly. In just a moment of time, a brief flash of crunching metal,
and this man who said to God, “I’ll think about You later” didn’t get
a “later.” There wasn’t a tomorrow for Tim Crews where he could make that
delayed decision.
Let me say this again, friend: I don’t know what happened in the heart
of this baseball pitcher. He said no to Brett Butler, and later he died.
What happened in the intervening weeks or months? I don’t know and Butler
doesn’t know and you don’t know. Only God knows. And we leave it right
there. But I certainly wouldn’t want to put myself into a situation where
a tragedy could cut me off before I’d placed my life in the hands of Jesus.
Or putting it this way, if Luke chapter 12, this story of the rich farmer,
was a television sitcom script, I wouldn’t want to take the role of that
rich farmer. Friend, why should we delay? Why put off making the best
decision, the most gloriously wonderful choice a man or woman can make?
This coming April 29, Jerry Seinfeld will celebrate his 44th birthday.
And then in two weeks, on what the media world is calling Black Thursday,
May 14, he’ll play himself in Seinfeld for the last time. And then he’ll
“(quote) retire.” With the biggest barns a person could imagine to store
his money and his three Porsches and his 60 other cars and his Emmy statuettes
and everything else. Has he chosen God yet? Has he made his peace with
his Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ? I don’t know. I hope so. That’s a question
for him to decide, and Jerry Seinfeld is a man for God to pursue.
The more important questions here for us on the radio on this Friday,
April 3, 1998, are these: What about me? And what about you? We can really
only be concerned about those two people: me and you. Speaking for myself,
I’ve made that decision for Jesus. At this very moment I’m safe in His
hands. It’s too risky waiting, and He’s too wonderful to pass up for some
future tomorrow. Why should any of us wait? So I’ve made my decision.
And the other person is you. How about you? Jesus is counting on you too.
He wants you. He wants you as His friend.
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