Startling Confessions of a Gospel Preacher
                                     
March 4, 2007 and February 25, 2007

          Four preachers were meeting for lunch one day.  One of them suggested, “Brethren, confession is good for the soul. So I suggest that we all confess one of our deepest, darkest sins to one another. Since I brought it up, I’ll start.  Ever since I started preaching, I have placed  bets on football games and buy a lottery ticket when the jackpot is large.”  The second preacher joined in the confessing with:  “I drink a couple of beers now and then.”  Then the third confessed, “I don’t attend services or give when on vacation.” Finally, they all were staring at the fourth preacher awaiting his confession.  Wringing his hands in excitement, with a big smile on his face he said, “I have a terrible problem with gossip and I cannot wait to get out of here.”

          Confession is good.  Whether one is confessing his sins or confessing his faith, confession is important to the salvation of our souls and even the souls of others.  This gospel preacher has some startling confessions to make.  So, here I go:

  1. I am no longer a conservative. I am a liberal.
  2. I do not keep the Ten Commandments.
  3. I believe in evolution. 
  4. Marijuana is good.
  5. We should revive slavery.
  6. I am not a gentleman or an adult.  I am immature.
  7. I viewed porno on TV this week, in the grocery store and on the road.
  8. The only way to save this world is to kill all the wicked.
  9. Body piercing helped saved my soul.
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  1.           Now, just in case you have a problem with the sin of gossip, please allow me to explain in greater detail.  Perhaps, you will agree with me and make the same confessions.

 

  1.           First, the reason I am a liberal and no longer a conservative has nothing to do with my views on the authority of God’s Word.  It has everything to do with my views on giving.  Paul explained it this way to the Corinthian brethren: “But this I say: He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and he who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully.  So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity; for God loves a cheerful giver.   And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, have an abundance for every good work.   As it is written: ‘He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness remains forever.’  Now may He who supplies seed to the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the fruits of your righteousness,   while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God” (2 Cor. 9:6-11).   All of us need to be liberal in our giving.  Will you not agree?
  1.           Furthermore, just because I do not keep the ten commandments does not mean I believe in killing, adultery, stealing or worshiping idols.  I have done none of these things.  Never would I encourage anyone else in committing these sins.  By now, most of you will know what I am talking about.  Remembering the Sabbath day and keeping it holy is the one commandment I do not keep.  Why?  Ten Commandments were given by Moses in Exodus 20 and are part of the Old Testament.  The Old Testament  has been replaced with the New Testament (Heb. 8).  It has been nailed to the cross (Col. 2:14).  Paul specifically states that the fourth command is no longer valid.   “Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.   Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.  Therefore let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths (my emphasis, DRV),  which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ” (Col. 2:14-17). All but the fourth commandment is commanded by Christ and His apostles in the New Testament.  However, we do not argue that we keep nine out of ten commandments. This sounds like was are picking and choosing what we will obey.  Instead, we are keeping zero out of Ten Commandments, because Christians have never been given Ten Commandments to follow.  We keep them because Christ has commanded us to keep them.
  2.           Next, just because I believe in evolution does not meaning I or you came from lower life forms after millions and millions of years of mutations.  The term “evolution” comes from the Latin “evolutio” meaning an unrolling or change.  Many things can be labeled as evolution:
  3.  

A child growing into an adult

  1. A seed developing into a tree
  2. Season changing from summer to autumn
  3. Day turning into night
  4. Languages evolve
  5. Evolution of new species of pigeons, dogs, hogs, etc.
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  7. Interspecies evolution is very common.  It is a proven scientific fact that through breeding you can come up with new types or breeds of dogs.  This is not to be confused with one species over long periods of time mutating into  entirely different kinds of animals.  For example, a horse could not become an elephant.
  8.           However, the truth is I do not believe in “organic evolution.”  This is the hypothesis (not a scientific fact, or even a theory) that millions of years ago, lifeless matter, acted upon by natural forces, gave origin to minute living organisms, which have since produced all living and extinct plants and animals, including man.  The first chapter of Genesis is very clear that God created the world in six literal days (Gen. 1:26-31).
  9.           My confession that marijuana is good has nothing to do with the recent debate: should marijuana be legal.  The Bible condemns drug abuse with the word “sorcery” the Greek word pharmakia used in Galatians 5:19-21.  Marijuana comes from a plant, a plant God created.  Everything God made was good.  Man took something good and misused it.  We cannot eat, drink or smoke something just because God made it.  Marijuana is good, but not for food or for smoking.  There are many plants and even animals that if you eat, drink or smoke will harm or kill you.  God commands us to be sober-minded.  You cannot be under the influence of marijuana or any other mind-numbing or mind-altering substance and be sober-minded.
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  11.           Although I believe slavery should be revived, this is not a reversal of the Civil War or Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation.  Spiritually speaking, we are either slaves to sin or slaves to God. “Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves slaves to obey, you are that one's slaves whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered.  And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
  12. I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness. For when you were slaves of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness. What fruit did you have then in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death. But now having been set free from sin, and having become slaves of God, you have your fruit to holiness, and the end, everlasting life” (Rom. 6:16-22).  All men are slaves.  We only must determine who we are go be a slave to.
  13.           The confession that I am not a gentleman or an adult but immature has nothing to do with my table manners.  Yet, the world has informed me that I am not a gentleman, because I cannot go to a gentleman’s club.  So, I guess I am not a gentleman.  I cannot watch movies or material for mature audiences. I cannot view adult videos.  So I am immature and not an adult.  Spiritual growth does not automatically come with age.  Those who are viewing this material and shows are immature and are not gentlemen.  Job said, "I have made a covenant with my eyes; why then should I look upon a young woman?” (Job 31:1).  When it comes to the ways and evil of this world, I would much rather remain a child and immature.  “Brethren, do not be children in understanding; however, in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature” (1 Cor. 14:20).
  14.           It is a fact that I viewed porno on TV this week, in the grocery store and on the road.  Sadly, we live in a world where everything has to be marketed with a half-naked woman.  It is difficult to be a gentleman in a society that allows you to be morally assaulted with pornography where ever you go.  Going to work, you see a billboard with a nearly nude woman trying to entice you to drink a certain brand of alcohol.  At work, a young lady leans over you desk exposing herself in a low cut blouse.  Stopping off at the grocery store on the way home, you are flashed by a magazine rack with a naked pregnant celebrity on the cover.  At home, trying to watch the local news, you find yourself watching commercials selling perfume with very scantily clad women.  Try as you might, this world insists that looking at immodest women or men is a part of life.  Well, it cannot be for a faithful Christian.  Jesus warned, "But I say to you that whoever looks at a woman to lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matt. 5:29).  Women who expose themselves are guilty of being a stumbling block and will be held accountable before God. When Bathsheba either willfully or carelessly exposed herself to David’s eyes she had sinned (1 Tim. 2:11f). David did not have to lust after her.  He could have looked away and prayed.  However, he chose to look, lust and “love” her.  When you see all this pornography it reminds us of what the Bible said about Lot “who was oppressed with the filthy conduct of the wicked  (for that righteous man, dwelling among them, tormented his righteous soul from day to day by seeing and hearing their lawless deeds)” (2 Pet. 2:7,8).
  15.           Although my next confession sounds very intolerant, I do believe that the only way to save this world is to kill all the wicked.  In fact, Paul tells us that the only way to be saved is to die: “Or do you not know that as many of us as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death?   Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3,4).  Jesus told his would-be disciples that the only way to follow Him was to crucify themselves every day (Luke 9:23; 14:26).  Paul confessed that he had “been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Gal. 2:20).  In Argentina, before someone is baptized the preacher will say, “I kill you in the name of Jesus Christ.”  In baptism, the old man is put to death or killed so that the new man in Christ can be resurrected to walk in newness of life.  So, we need to get busy killing all the thieves, murderers, adulterers, drug dealers, our neighbors, etc. if we are going to save those in this world.
  16.           Ever see someone with multiple piercings on their face?  Why do they do it?  I personally do not think that it has improved their appearances.  Surely they do not have this done for heath reasons.  Yet, I must admit that body piercing helped saved my soul.  Christ was pierced on the cross and because of that I am saved: “But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out” (John 19:34).
  17.            Should a Christians do anything they want to their bodies?  We do not own our bodies but are to glorify God with it:  “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?  For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's” (1 Cor. 6:19,20).
  18.           I stand by my confessions and hope you will confess the same.
– Daniel R. Vess