MY LITTLE WHITE LAMB: INTRODUCTION TO THIS STUDY

 INTRODUCTION

    

 When I was a kid, I wrote a song that was published by Crown Music, a New York Publisher. A couple years later it was  recorded by the one and only Ben Tate on Ronnie Records. Soon after that, Mr. Tate and my song disappeared into obscurity.

Since my father generally chose the music played about our house, when he was home, my song followed his preference so was in the Country genre. The opening lines were:

"You came into my life like a little white lamb;
But you went out like a big roarin' lion..."

There I was a Junior High Geek back in 1955 writing and singing about unrequainted love; yodling about some fickle truck stop waitress "leavin me alone and blue".

Good grief, I hadn't even been out on a actual date yet! (Yeah, that be me on the right back then.)

Nope, hadn't been on a date yet, but I had been threatened with reform school, but I didn't do any singing about that.

Thinking about the song I did write certainly reminds me how something can sneak into your life like "a little white lamb", but grow into a roarin' lion. I was 14 when I penned the song and I didn't become a Christian for another 30 years. Believe me, there were a number of sneaky white lambs becoming big roaring lions prowling about trying to devour me during those intervening years.

Say, Satan prowling around like a roaring lion, might make a bumber sticker...Oh wait, that's been done, somebody else said that about Satan first. Think I read it somewhere.

 I have never been big on Bumper Sticker evangelism.  One I did like was "Christians aren't perfect -- Just forgiven." Ain't that the truth! A lot of us forget that truism though.

There are a couple of problems with advertising what you are with signs and stickers.

For one, a bumper sticker is just a snippet that doesn't explain what it means. As a Christian I may know what it means, but I read an Atheist Blog where they interpreted this cute little aphorism as a declaration of our elitist, smug, superior attitude, restating it as "Christians aren't perfect - They just think they're better than you."

 What is one to do now, get a bumber sticker that says, "Am not!"

The second problem is you are advertising what you claim to be. Now don't misunderstand me. I'm not trying to hide what I am. I'll tell you or anyone I'm a Christian. I try to live my life so it reflects that fact in the most positive way so others will say, "he's different"; then ask the question, "Why?"

 In other words, it is important to show your Christianity by your behavior, not just by the signs you hang around your neck or paste on your car. It is wise you remember that you aren't perfect if you do go about with  a Glow-in-the-Dark Jesus Fish on your trunk or a twenty-pound cross dangling from your neck, not that there is anything wrong with any of that (although that twenty-pound cross may cause some neck pain). You aren't going to win friends and influence people to Christ if you have a bumper sticker saying, "Christians Aren't Perfect - Just Forgiven" then you tailgate some guy on I-95, zoom around, cut them up and give them the finger.

They're going to say, "Yeah, Christians think they can do whatever they want 'cause God's gotta forgive them."

I would hope we would not think that way!


Of course, I'm assuming what I am saying is to fellow Christians; an assumption I shouldn't make. What is going to follow is aimed at those Born-Again, washed in the blood, Christians struggling with guilt and having problems believing their sins have been forgiven; people who wring their hands and repeatily ask for what they have already asked for and gotten
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It is also meant for those non-Christians who reject the idea of salvation believing their deeds were so awful that even God would never forgive them. 

Now my own sins were not so hideous as some when measured by the world's yardstick. I recall a number of years back a survey given on the radio saying that men of my then-age had generally engaged in a dozen affairs. I though, "Man, I gotta lot of catching up to do."

God measures us a bit deeper than the world does. Just read Jesus's definitions duing the sermon on the mount. (Matthew 5)  I didn't do so well on His scale. Or on a more baser level, we can consider a quip attributed at various times to Winston Churchill, Groucho Marx, George Bernard Shaw, Mark Twain and our old friend Bertrand Russell, among others. Whomever told it claimed to have approached a haughty society woman and asked if she would sleep with him for a million dollars. The woman quickly accepted. He then asked if she would sleep with him for $20. The woman was incensed. Angerly she demanded, "What do you think I am."

The man replied, "We've already established that; now we're just haggling over price."

Once we have broken any of the Ten Commandments we are a sinner. Once we have stole a forbidden fruit off God's tree we are a thief; it doesn't matter how many we steal. The volume of our deed doesn't alter that fact. A sin is a sin, degree doesn't matter.

I can guarentee you I was a repeat sinner, who broke many of the Commandments. And like many people I dismissed what I did as minor in the scheme of things. I didn't see where I was hurting anyone. It was my private business, not anyone else's. Besides, everybody was doing it or worse. (Actually, I can't really say that everyone was shoplifting "Girlie" magazines from their local newsstand, but you know what I mean.)


I had a number of Christians approach me with the Gospel, and they would ask, "If you died tonight, where would you be tomorrow, Heaven or Hell?"

        I always answered, "Heaven."

"How do you know," they would ask? 

"Because I think I'm a pretty nice guy, why should I go to Hell."

Even by my mid-twenties I still thought I was a nice guy, although in truth I had become an Atheist telling Ministers how foolish they were to believe such myths as the Bible; I mean, I was militant enough to walk into their churches and argue to their faces.

A person can say, "That was then; this is now" 

True, but those saved and forgiven are not perfect, are we? We still get angry sometimes and say the wrong thing. We sometimes get tempted and give in. If we do and don't recognize we have failed once again in our flesh, and if we don't feel great remorse when we do, then we need to question if we are truly saved or just giving lip service to a religion.

And sometimes someone who loves God and has that strong vertical relationship to God fails big time. We have probably all read or heard about pastors and elders who have strayed into immorality, sexual sin or dishonesty. It is always difficult when such things happen because the world watches us and when we fail we let down those who may be on the edge hoping we have answers and it gives those who mock us even more mockery to throw our way.

Yet, if we should slip even in a big way, we should not lose hope. We need to repent, to come in our remorse to God and thank him for his forgiveness and beg for our restoration.

Do we have any examples to guide us?

Yes, we have the terrible story that begins with a little white lamb.

NEXT WILL BE PART 2, THE TERRIBLE TALE OF THE LITTLE WHITE LAMB