Here's the scenario....you're the coach....and there is a young recruit with tremendous potential.....only he hasn't a clue how to play the sport at this new level....whatever sport it might be....but you do....because you are the coach....and it is your business. You sit him down....maybe you have to do it twenty times....until he stops doing things the wrong way....and starts doing them the right way....and gets all the interruptions and temptations out of the way. It happens all the time in America. That's how stars are born. That's how teams win....because it's a Lombardi or a John Wooden or a Chuck Noll that makes sure things are run his way.
Well this isn't a game....and we are not a team....and making superstars is the last thing we want to do....but you still need a coach. It's supposed to be the shepherd but they don't know how to coach anymore.....as they just keep telling all the players how great they are.What prompted this post is a short vacation that we were on....a beach town....dinner at a hot spot with a lot of laughter and young people all around....cable television in the room with a hundred channels….and distractions everywhere. It's like going back to the prison you were once incarcerated in....just to take a short tour....long enough to make you weep and thank God that you were paroled.
You do not know that God is judging all of us....and you do not know that Jesus is at the very door on His return....and you look around but cannot see a nation totally collapsed in upon itself....just as Rome was as it was collapsing.....you do not know any of this because of the voices all around you are like a drug...and you are hooked....you have to have it....the nightlife....whether it be partying or just friends and good times....family gatherings on every Lord's Day....and the sports are like heroin....and the voices in your ear telling you how great you can be....and all the voices on the wireless....(I love that word....Martyn Lloyd-Jones used it all the time)....all the voices are drowning out God's Word.
This was like the preseason....and we won every game....giant fancy churches....political leaders referencing God all the time....but it didn't mean anything. Well the game started....and we are losing right now....and this is the two-minute warning. There is only one answer for us....take a knee....and ask forgiveness....seek God's mercy....for His name sake alone....to His glory alone....not that we might win anything on this earth....but that He might be with us in the tempest ahead....that we might bring Him glory....not by our abilities....but by our faithfulness and our trust.
