Every great man has great potential for righteous works, and great potential for sin. It is the nature of men in power that allows them to rise to great heights and fall to great depths. That is the frailty of human beings who lead others…the bigger they are, the harder they fall.
Ted Haggard, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Jesse Jackson are all good men blessed with charismatic personalities, deep faith and driving leadership skills that far exceed the amount apportioned to the faithful congregation of believers. Yet, at the time when their ministries, influence and leadership has reached the great heights that separate their works for the LORD GOD from the common works of man and their god, they come crashing down in the depraved, nasty, pornographic, fleshly world of lust.
Oh, the crashes are heard throughout the world, as the world audience repeats the news over and over that a great man of God has fallen once again. The weak in faith lose their shepherds; the strong in faith waver and feel shame.
The worldly common people take great joy in the fall of the leaders of Believers, because it allows them to assume a position of superiority over the fallen, a task once impossible when the leaders were strong. They dance a jig on their sins, and attempt to discredit the good works with their vulgar songs of hate.
And I am faced with a dilemma once again. A preacher has fallen and I should respond. Has the LORD GOD removed him from his position of power because of false teachings and false ways, or has Lucifer once again used lust to destroy a man of God?
Surely they knew the consequences of their weak submission to the lustful temptations. Over and over and over we witness the strong leaders fall for the same things, every time. Some of the strong leaders of the Faithful, like Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham, committed early on to avoid these predictable temptations with common sense rules that governed their behaviors. Why don’t all Christian leaders take the same precautions?
It gets cluttered and confusing from my place of judgment. Every time I weigh it, the measure comes out differently. On one hand I’m angry when a man given so many blessings and so many opportunities to do great and enduring works that glorify Him, throws it all away for stupid moments of lustful abandonment. On the other hand, the difficulty in living in two different worlds, with one foot in spiritual and one foot in natural is sometimes almost impossible to navigate, when the burdens of leadership weighs down, and Lucifer is placing subtle temptations on a path that leads to a terrible fall.
And that is why I was flip flopping back and forth in judgment, and that is why I write today. Sometime last night, as I was struggling to make sense of this terrible fall of a Christian Leader, I think I finally made it all balance in my mind and in my soul.
A man of God has been removed from his leadership position when his human frailties overcame his spiritual works. He will never be a leader of the faithful again. His works that glorify the LORD GOD will endure to the end. The works that were done to glorify him will not.
BUT…
My Christian brother has fallen into the grasps of Satan, and I just can’t turn my back and pretend that his loss doesn’t matter. Our beliefs and our paths of faith have always been different, but our adoption through Christ has made us brothers.
It breaks my heart to see my Christian brother so low, so broken, so lost as the world laughs and the wicked dance. So when you say your prayers today, please include Rev. Haggard in them, and ask God for His wonderful mercy to shine on him, and allow him to stand once again, not as a leader of the faithful, but as strong, good and faithful man of God.
David "Bucker" Becker
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing [this], that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have [her] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man [is] unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed [is] the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”
“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion [is] vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:1-27 av)
Ted Haggard, Jim Baker, Jimmy Swaggart, Jesse Jackson are all good men blessed with charismatic personalities, deep faith and driving leadership skills that far exceed the amount apportioned to the faithful congregation of believers. Yet, at the time when their ministries, influence and leadership has reached the great heights that separate their works for the LORD GOD from the common works of man and their god, they come crashing down in the depraved, nasty, pornographic, fleshly world of lust.
Oh, the crashes are heard throughout the world, as the world audience repeats the news over and over that a great man of God has fallen once again. The weak in faith lose their shepherds; the strong in faith waver and feel shame.
The worldly common people take great joy in the fall of the leaders of Believers, because it allows them to assume a position of superiority over the fallen, a task once impossible when the leaders were strong. They dance a jig on their sins, and attempt to discredit the good works with their vulgar songs of hate.
And I am faced with a dilemma once again. A preacher has fallen and I should respond. Has the LORD GOD removed him from his position of power because of false teachings and false ways, or has Lucifer once again used lust to destroy a man of God?
Surely they knew the consequences of their weak submission to the lustful temptations. Over and over and over we witness the strong leaders fall for the same things, every time. Some of the strong leaders of the Faithful, like Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham, committed early on to avoid these predictable temptations with common sense rules that governed their behaviors. Why don’t all Christian leaders take the same precautions?
It gets cluttered and confusing from my place of judgment. Every time I weigh it, the measure comes out differently. On one hand I’m angry when a man given so many blessings and so many opportunities to do great and enduring works that glorify Him, throws it all away for stupid moments of lustful abandonment. On the other hand, the difficulty in living in two different worlds, with one foot in spiritual and one foot in natural is sometimes almost impossible to navigate, when the burdens of leadership weighs down, and Lucifer is placing subtle temptations on a path that leads to a terrible fall.
And that is why I was flip flopping back and forth in judgment, and that is why I write today. Sometime last night, as I was struggling to make sense of this terrible fall of a Christian Leader, I think I finally made it all balance in my mind and in my soul.
A man of God has been removed from his leadership position when his human frailties overcame his spiritual works. He will never be a leader of the faithful again. His works that glorify the LORD GOD will endure to the end. The works that were done to glorify him will not.
BUT…
My Christian brother has fallen into the grasps of Satan, and I just can’t turn my back and pretend that his loss doesn’t matter. Our beliefs and our paths of faith have always been different, but our adoption through Christ has made us brothers.
It breaks my heart to see my Christian brother so low, so broken, so lost as the world laughs and the wicked dance. So when you say your prayers today, please include Rev. Haggard in them, and ask God for His wonderful mercy to shine on him, and allow him to stand once again, not as a leader of the faithful, but as strong, good and faithful man of God.
David "Bucker" Becker
“My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations; Knowing [this], that the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let patience have [her] perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all [men] liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. A double minded man [is] unstable in all his ways. Let the brother of low degree rejoice in that he is exalted: But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away. For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his ways. Blessed [is] the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him.”
“Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man: But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death. Do not err, my beloved brethren. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”
“Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: For the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth [therein], he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man’s religion [is] vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, [and] to keep himself unspotted from the world.” (James 1:1-27 av)
2 comments:
Well, I was hoping to see the story still while I was leaving a comment. I don't know any Haggard but if he's another Charismatic preacher and you made it sound like he was I'm all for them falling or instead are they just shown for what they are? Sure, people are people but if they're drawn to the skirts they ought to not go into the ministry in the first place and yes, I agree, there are some very simple common sense rules to completely avoid this and I think the reason that those rules aren't in place is because they don't wish to avoid such situations with some woman.
I have a rule in our little church. No, I am not a charismatic (even in the true sense of the word) and I am not all that charming to the ladies but I don't want to be. My rule is that the ladies don't come to me to ask me if this is right or if this is wrong or what about this guy or what about her. I don't play that game because I've learned over the years that women like to monopolize my time unneccesarily so. I tell them to do what the scriptures tell them to do and that's to go ask their husbands about this or that or him or her. He's the one who's going to stand in front of the Judgment seat of Christ and answer for her - I'm not. I say if your husband can live with that then so can I - as a matter of fact he has to and so do I. This avoids all kinds of problems with the wife using me as a lever for changing her husband's mind. If the husband doesn't know what the answer is - he can come to me but she is forbidden.
Of course there are those who say but I don't have a husband. Good point - try to make yourself as attractive as you can and get one is usually my response because she is still not my problem. If she has a father still go ask him - if not, well cultivate some friends dear but I don't let her tie my time up.
Of course some women leave but . . . sometimes that's a real blessing to the others in the flock.
Hey Brother Annoymous,
I think you have that "girl" part figured out real well for ya! Thanks for sharing! Your letter was delightful and insightful.
David
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