P.O. Box 53055    
Los Angeles, CA 90053   

RED-WHITE-AND-BLUE CON GAMES

For some Americans, the 42nd President of the United States will forever be remembered as “Slick Willie.” Back when he was running for office in 1992, a political enemy noticed that Governor Clinton had given the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette “two diametrically opposed statements” on the issue of Desert Storm. Quickly she rushed a new nickname into print: “The Silver-tongued Straddle Pander.” And the Republican operative later directed her attack staff with this memo: “We’re going to show the slick side, the waffle side, the all-things-to-all-people, the chameleon-on-plaid side of Bill Clinton.”

Well, friend, let me hasten to respectfully add that all presidents, from George Washington on down, have had to learn to sincerely examine and explore all sides of the hard questions. President Clinton wasn’t the first chief executive to say to voters on all sides of a difficult issue: “Whatever you’re for, I’m for.” In his book, The Agenda, reporter Bob Woodward tells how Clinton was actually an extremely intelligent, hard-working man.

“Clinton was even a step above Carter,” Woodward writes, “because he could ‘correlate’ various ideas and issues. In many respects, Clinton was well suited to the presidency. He had a superior, inquisitive mind. . . . But the very discord or range of opinions that Clinton craved in making his decisions often got him bogged down. [Lloyd] Bentson, [secretary of the Treasury in the early Clinton years] once described Clinton as the ‘meetingest’ fellow he’d ever seen. The very fact that he wanted debate meant he could not contain his own doubt. The lapses of discipline and restraint made it hard for Clinton to act methodically, as a president must. The war for Clinton’s soul, that great struggle over which ideas and approach to use to guide the nation, continued unabated.”

And do you know something, neighbor? The same tug of war that threatens to spin a President down 50 conflicting paths happens in the spiritual arena for us and has ever since the days when the Apostle Paul sat down and wrote some words of advice about wind and waves and storms and shifting loyalties. It’s one thing to change your mind about the capital gains tax or how many troops to send into Iraq or what band you should engage to play for the big Fourth of July party on the Mall; it’s quite another when a smooth voice comes into your life and invites you to abandon the Christian faith you once grew up with . . . or to subject your beliefs to a “focus group.”

Here in Ephesians 4, we’ve been discovering that God wants His children to grow up in the faith, to become mature adults. Verse 13 finishes with this:

“Attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

And what should be the result of this maturing process? Here’s what God wants to happen in our lives; notice:

“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching [“doctrine,” says the King James] and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.”

Let’s pay careful attention to two important points here. First, God’s Word makes it clear that we DO want to have our ship of state sail and progress — but always toward truth and away from error. We do want to abandon old campaign pledges if they’re the wrong ones, and we want to shed false teachings in favor of true pillars of the faith. That’s what reaching unity in the faith is all about. And certainly it’s sobering to us here on the radio and as we step into pulpits each weekend, that God calls the apostles and the prophets and evangelists and pastors and teachers to lead the flock into truth, exchanging heresy for the sure word.

So friend, don’t think it’s always wrong to change a view. The Bible invites us to grow up, and that always involves change. But the second thing we want to pick up here is the Word’s plain counsel about helter-skelter confusion in our sailing trip to the sea of glass. And — let’s take full note of this warning — we’re told that there will be people out there who are actively dedicated to throwing us off course. The New International Version’s text notes make an excellent point here in verse 14:

“The nautical imagery” — storms and wind — “pictures the instability of those who are not strong Christians. Then, as now, there were many distorted teachings and heresies that would easily throw the immature off course.” And here’s their warning: “Sometimes those who try to draw people away from the Christian faith are not innocently misguided but deliberately deceitful and evil.”

Have you ever seen a game of “three-card monte” going on, maybe down on the boardwalk or in the big city? I’ve traveled around enough, both here and abroad, to see it taking place, and I’ve learned to quickly walk in the other direction with one hand over the few pesos I have in my wallet. But the game operator, the shark, shuffles those three playing cards around, faster and faster, flip flip flip flip flip — the hand being quicker than the eye — and then lets you bet on where the ace of spades, or whatever, has come to rest. Is it a one-in-three chance you’ll be right? Well, at first, while he’s getting you hooked, you might win five times in a row. But as the game progresses and the wagers grow, pretty soon that ace of spades isn’t even out there on the table; it’s in his pocket, along with your bankroll.

It’s interesting that the King James Bible doesn’t just call these operators “sleight of hand” technicians. Notice instead:

“That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of MAN, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.”

Have you met any religious con people like that? “Sleight of MAN” — where the entire person is just one big crooked cube of dice? In fact, the Tyndale New Testament Commentary, which we’ve been citing in this Ephesians series, provides us with some good Greek “color” here in verse 14.

“The Greek verb periphero,” writes Francis Foulkes, “often has the idea of such violent swinging about as makes a person dizzy.” Have you ever felt that way in your spiritual journey? I certainly have, and it’s not what God wants for us. The commentary continues: “The companion epistle to the Colossians shows well that there were various winds of doctrine against which Christians were realizing already that they had to keep an even keel.” It takes the sharks about two minutes to come around. “The unsteady and rudderless could easily be turned from their course. For there were not only those who had been deceived and gone astray without realizing it, but there were some who were lying in wait to deceive.”

II Timothy 3:13 mentions them too, calling them “evil men and seducers, [waxing] worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.” And notice this final Greek tidbit from the Tyndale scholars:

“Their activities are described first by the word kubia, which means literally playing with dice, and hence trickery or fraud; and secondly as cunning craftiness (panourgia), the word used with reference to our Lord’s questioners in Luke 20:23” – that was in the “show Me a penny, render unto Caesar” inquisition – “and in II Corinthians 11:3 of the guile of the serpent.”

Well, friend, it’s a little scary, isn’t it? Wind. Storm. High waves. Sharks and card sharks and salesmen with Bibles, palming crooked dice and palming OFF crafty lies. How can we be protected? How can you know that, even here on the radio, we aren’t dealing you a game of “three-card monte” right now?

There’s really only one protection, and we find a beautiful picture of it amid the wind and the waves. This same commentary scholar, Francis Foulkes, explains that the word for tossed to and fro is kludon, which takes us back a few books to Luke chapter 8. Do you know who’s being tossed and turned in the waves that night? It’s the twelve disciples of Jesus, there on a stormy Galilee. Do you remember the story? Back and forth, up and down, with twenty-foot swells threatening to swallow them up. The usually calm King James Bible says very simply: “They were in jeopardy.”

But friend, you may recall what else the good old King James says in its wet-and-watery transcript. All 12 disciples began to shout and cry with one voice: “Master, Master, we perish!” You see, Jesus was there in the boat with them. There was plenty of kludon that night — whitecaps and racing pulses — but there was also Jesus. The Man even the wind and the waves had to obey. And when Jesus stood up and said just a word, the storms of confusion and fear died away.

You know, that’s how it is for us too. I don’t know all truth; you don’t know all truth. Innocent people may accidentally pull us off the road, and the charlatans among us will deliberately try to do us even worse. But we have Jesus. The Bible invites us here to stop being nepioi — children — blown off the course by every breeze. But our only hope is to grow up IN CHRIST, to become stable men and women sailing together in security toward the eternal harbor of His truth and His kingdom.