Scales of Life

Credited with the invention of karaoke, I believe I have every one of his sing-along albums, Mitch Miller died last night at the age of 99. All the greats are dying, some having lived a very long life. Turning the dial on your radio, you will be shocked at some of the music you will hear: a cauldron of insanity, senseless lyrics, profane words, mystical beats.

Bring us back to the good old days, Tony Bennett - I Left My Heart in San Francisco, Dinah Shore's or the Four Ace's Three Coins in the Fountain, and those of us who have thrown a coin in Trevi Fountain always remember. Famed Patsy Cline with Crazy, Eddie Arnold's Don't take your love from me, Paul Anka's Lay your head on my shoulder, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of wonderful lyrics and melodies which became a part of our life...simply since we could associate with them.
Perhaps, this is the reason I don't understand rock n' roll and RnB so-called music, you'd probably have to be stoned out of your mind with drugs to appreciate it. Once in Africa, listening natives perform on hand-made drums, one of my fellow travelers a professor of music in Canada said, “just beating on cardboard box with a stick, with rhythm, is considered music.”

Living and life is very much a scale, a scale with a pointer. You spend your time going one direction or the other. Your value system either swings toward the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law (Galatians 5:22); or you may choose to swing in the other direction as shown by the seven deadly sins, and every sin begins with pride, anger, lust, laziness, greed, gluttony, and envy.

There was a time when most baptist churches grew by visitation, in this, you go into the community and visit those who are not associated with any church. Perhaps those with other means have shown an interest in your church. You take to them and their family, the good news of the Gospel. One of my friends, a deacon in one of the world's largest baptist churches went with another deacon to visit the home of an influential man who had visited their church, probably because a great preacher, and well known orator, had spoken there. The man had filled out a visitor's card, and had expressed the desire for someone to visit him. In these days of political correctness and uncertainty about everything, even soul winners, are careful about intrusion. I tell every minister, every counselor, not to talk with a woman or child without another person being present. We all know the horror stories of ministers, counselors, or even doctors being accused (most of the time, falsely), it is a very foolish doctor, of any type, who does not have a nurse, or an assistant present at all times. This is the world in which we are living. One of the finest doctors I ever knew, in Johnson county, NC, was falsely accused by a young woman, a truly country doctor, he had left his office and gone home for the evening. The girl's father called him at home, and told him his daughter was very sick, would he go back to the office. My friend, a truly sympathetic country doctor, went back to his closed office, and examined the girl without an assistant being present. The girl accused him, his license was taken, he later killed himself, his family now lives dependent on others and in despair.

The two deacons drove up to this beautiful home early in the evening: colleens on the front, expensive cars parked to the side, outside lighting showing a large swimming people in which young people were having a good time. They could see through the front windows of the house: magnificent furnishings, a maid serving hors d'oeuvres to the man and his wife, as they sat with a drink. Everything about this picture was one of opulence, wealth, a paradise of life and living. The point of the scale had swung completely over to the plus side of their equation. One deacon said to the other, “tell me again the good news we are supposed to bring to this man.”

So often, “gobs” of government money, “trust” from family empires, the creme of success having risen to you, in spite of everything. Why do you need God, the Gospel of good news and salvation, the pointer of your scale is already completely over on the plus side. Not like Mother Teresa, lifting totally desolate people out of the trenches of Calcutta, or as in my lifetime, tenant farmers, mill-workers, people who can barely survive, the pointer on their life scales totally on the minus side of the equation. The poor and disenfranchised and much more eager to grab of the good news of salvation, the good news of security and assurance in this life and in the life to come. We forget that life is not just a horizontal experience, there is a vertical experience, and the gravity equation, the scale of gravitational pull can be totally reversed for us through the experience of redemption.

Hard to understand, but important to understand, the matter of “will”, we are given free will, the freedom to choose. In the prayer given by our blessed Lord to the disciples, we are instructed to pray “they will be done, on earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-13). Through out life we weigh options, Satan always offers insidious choices. Happy is the man who learns to choose wisely, after weighing the options, many times forced to take the road “least traveled” (The Road Not Taken – Robert Frost).

When God forgives, he forgets, but he does not allow us to forget, if we forgot our sins, we would forget many other things. He does not allow us to forget the pit from which we were delivered, the shipwreck from which we were saved. His scale is perfect, his score keeping is accurate. We will never question his judgment, he honors his Word.

Mankind thinks himself smart, the creature brighter than the creator, we are told that a camera in a space satellite can read the letters on a golf ball thousands of miles away, on a golf course on earth. This does not compare to the all seeing eye of God, accurate on the fairness scale, accurate on the legal scale, accurate on the justice scale. To those who are playing church, to the pretenders, a message which should scare all of us: Before the Lord; for he cometh to judge the earth: with righteousness shall he judge the world, and the people with equity. (Psalm 98:9)