Rationalizing Sin and Frogs in Hot Water!

Let's put the teachings of Jesus first!

This is a loving message to my fellow Evangelicals! I know you as kind, caring, generous Christian people; people who pray, trust in Jesus, read the Bible, are good to their neighbors, pray for hurting people and are just very good Christians. I know so many of you personally, and I love you, but I have some concerns! Please give me an ear for just a few minutes!

Let's think about the old story about how frogs who sit in lukewarm water will remain in the water, even when it gets extremely hot if the temperature is raised gradually. We are in such a time. Christians have been accommodating behavior from public figures whose behavior has been less than desirable. As the unacceptable behaviors have increased at a very gradual rate, Christians continue to accommodate behaviors from our public figures that would never have been accepted at other times and should not be accepted now.

Along with the acceptance of the gradual increase in these types of behaviors, there is a huge amount of plain, old fashioned rationalization going on. People say, "Well, so and so says outrageous things, but think of all the good he is doing," when in actuality the good becomes less and less, and bad results increase daily. Of course, having politicians who have picked a cause that is certain to please a particular segment of society, just adds to the temptation to rationalize. We definitely see this with leaders advocating for Christian nationalism and anti abortion laws. Our current, popular Evangelical leaders have swallowed the bait. If a leader advocates for laws against abortion and at the same time pushes for having a "Christian Nation," then many of my fellow Evangelicals automatically believe that this is "the man for the hour," while rationalizing away quite a bit of unChristian behavior. It starts out small with small indiscretions and small errors of judgment and only slightly mean-spirited comments. As these have increased very gradually in intensity, quantity, and perverse quality, so does the tendency to rationalize more and more the gradually worsening behavior, and bingo, we have the "frogs in hot water" phenomenon!

Here are some of the rationalizing statements I have personally heard or have read on Facebook:

"He's already rich, so he must not be there for the money." The Bible says, "The greedy never have enough." Isaiah 56:11

"No one is perfect." True, but genuine Christians will try to do what is right and will repent when they do it wrong. We have leaders who have admitted to lying and who have said they had never needed to repent.

"Judge not that you be not judged." Yes, Jesus said that. He was talking about not judging people who we know, our equals, in a condemning way. However, a few verses later, in Matthew 7:15-20, Jesus said for us to inspect people's fruit. If we look closely at the context here, we can see that he was talking about examining the character of leaders. In verse15, Jesus warns against wolves in sheep's clothing calling them false prophets. The Greek word for "prophet" used there also meant public speaker. It's obvious and only logical that Jesus is talking about leadership. We need to be careful who we follow or we will be deceived by false leaders, ones who pretend to be Christian, but whose behavior shows they are not the real thing. Jesus says their fruit shows what their character really is. A fruit tree does not produce, thorns. he taught. When we let down our standards of honest leadership, we become very prone to being deceived.

Another danger that leads to deception is when we placed the importance of one value, over all other values that are in the Bible, particularly the New Testament. It is very easy to allow a favorite cause to take precedence over other Biblical standards of behavior. The Pharisees in the New Testament did that. They started out with good intentions, that of honoring the Sabbath Day to keep it holy. It was one of the Ten Commandments that God had emphasized many time in the Old Testament, so to begin with, the Pharisees were sincerely trying to please God, but then they became very legalistic about it, enforcing Sabbath observance very strictly and rigidly, while ignoring the laws to care for justice and mercy.

Now in 20th century America, we have a current cause, (mentioned previously), that of abortion, that people have raised above all other Christian values. My concern is that by making abortion the only emphasized value for Evangelical Christians, we have opened up the door for a great deal of hypocrisy. Somehow, if a public person is against abortion, then it seems that it doesn't matter what the person's character is. Many Christians have drunk the "Kool-Aid" that says that "the end justifies the means" which is not biblical. They also seem to go along with the old adage, "Might makes right," when people act as if it's all right for an elected official to do whatever he or she or she wants to do, regardless of the law, just because they got elected. We have sacrificed all the Christian values that Jesus emphasized, such as humility, forgiveness, repentance, helping the poor, taking care of the weak, and welcoming the foreigner for the sake of following certain people. Sadly, we have Christian leaders who adulate the very people who continually violate Jesus' teachings, publicly praising them, just because the public leader advocates for a couple of their favorite causes.

In Jesus time, He criticized the Pharisees, who (as I previously mentioned) thought they were fighting for God's Ten Commandments. However, Jesus saw their hypocrisy, false religiosity, their pride, their love of money and their neglect of justice and mercy and rebuked them. What would Jesus say about today's leaders?

I believe most of my fellow Evangelicals truly want righteousness to prevail and sin to be defeated. Please my good friends, let us not forget the teachings of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ! He said, "If you love me, you will obey my commands (John 14:23,24)." Let's read them! All of them! Much of the Gospel of Luke is ignored because in it Jesus strongly attacks the wealthy and the love of money. Have you ever read the "Sermon on the Plain?" (Luke 6:17, 20-49)? It's Scripture too! Are we committed to following all of Jesus teachings or not? I pray that we will always commit to putting his teachings first, and that we not allow anything to become an idol in our lives, especially not a political party of any kind! Nothing should be raised above the worship of God!