This is a sermon about “The Goat and The Frog & The Colon.”
When I was growing up, my uncle would drive the stock truck by our house to pick me up and take me along with him to Lugbill’s Farm Auction in Archbold, Ohio. We would haul the choice animals over to the gate, unload, then go inside to the auction house where animals seemed to be constantly streaming in. The first live streaming of my days. For me, as a kid, there was this special moment that happened during one of the auctions that became somewhat like a clown show at a rodeo or an entertaining intermission.
All of a sudden the doors would open and a heard of sheep facing the opposite direction would be just standing there not even moving. But then their heads would turn in the direction of this one creature, who had the same ears and even the same face, but the rest of his body was different. Whereas the sheep were wooly white, this creature was brown and black. The animal trainer would have THE GOAT walk into the arena right in front of the auctioneer then around the entire ring and those sheep, as if they didn’t want to be last, or finally thinking, “Hey! There’s somebody who knows what to do and where to go. I’ll follow him!”
Once inside the ring, the fence would be brought around to join the other fence and coralle this herd of sheep, and just before the fence was latched, that goat knew right when to pop its head through and walk out solo to the trainer where he’d get a handful of oats or sugar cubes. It was a pretty good racket they had going there. Have any of you seen this? Or is this just an Ohio thing?
Listen to these words from Jesus, NASB Matt. 25:31-33(-46)
31 “But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32 And all the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, just as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33 and He will put the sheep on His right, but the goats on the left.
What is the key idea here? Jesus is like the trainer and will be the one who separates all the peoples. Some to his right and some to his left. Do you know there are some people who actually believe everyone will be on his right? Hold that thought.
In college I learned about a process that came to be known as the FROG IN THE KETTLE. It isn’t hard to understand but it is hard to apply to yourself. You will see why. But it goes like this: If you drop a frog in a pot of hot water, it will seek to get out of it right away.
But if you place it gently in a pot of comfortable water and turn the heat under the pot on low, it will float there rather nicely. But here is where things get interesting. If you turn the heat up at a slow rate, perhaps a degree ever couple of minutes, so the key is gradually, the frog will warm up to the idea of never leaving, sort of like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death and never seek to jump out to save its life.
The Frog in the Kettle cautions people to be aware of how gradual changes can lead you more easily into eventual undesirable consequences and suffering. It is the slippery slope vs the creeping normality. Think about it: the "boiling frog syndrome" describes the failure to act against your problems usually by sweeping them under the carpet, until the problem increases in severity until reaching destruction. It describes the barely noticeable impact of shifting baselines. It is the popular dumbing down effect gone rampant until what is to be achieved is a bar set way too high to ever be reached.
And we do this with God. Do you know there are some people who actually believe everyone will end up on Jesus’ right?
Hold that thought.
When I turned the ripe old age of 5-0 I had an interview with a certain doctor. It was less an interview as it was a lengthy discussion about why I NEEDED a colonoscopy. We finished the first part of the discussion and came to the part where we discussed anesthesia. There were two choices, one that led to a. A Fast recovery, or b. A Slower recovery. The faster recovery brought you back from being under the influence of the anesthesia quicker and with less grogginess; the slower recovery took longer with more grogginess. I mentioned my wife had a program that night of the procedure and I planned on attending it, and he said, “So the faster one then.”
This was the 3rd time I should be anesthesized (uh, to my memory anyway), the first time was for having my wisdom teeth removed back when I was a sophomore in college; the 2nd was for a “particular surgery” where they asked me to start counting and I don’t remember anything after two. The same happened here as well. And I really tried to focus, but in the end the score was = Anesthesia 3 - Kent 0.
Anesthesia has ether-like effects that can put you into a state of sleep so that you remain alive, but have no memory and feel no pain–An induced sleep needs an induced awakening.
Do you know there are some people who actually believe everyone will end up on Jesus’ right? Hold that thought.
The fifth church needed to persevere to the end had to be commanded to WAKE UP! To be victorious to the end, we need to be Fully Awakened Overcomers.
SO if you can, hold on to the thoughts of The GOAT, the FROG, and the COLON er, anesthesia - it is also about the dumbing down of the faith so much that Jesus is now a false Jesus who will let everyone slide past him into his heaven.
But we need to hear the REAL Jesus speaking today telling us to WAKE UP to such lies! WAKE UP and get out of the heated water! Wake UP and get OUT of the culture–you are in the world but not OF the world. WAKE UP! Don’t think for a minute everyone will be let in, that soiled clothes are OK, that mediocrity is acceptable! The dumbing down of our faith needs to stop and we must find our voice to speak up after we WAKE UP!
The fifth letter is to church of SARDIS:
Rev 3:1-6 - “To the angel/messenger of the church in Sardis write: These are the words of him who holds the seven spirits of God and the seven stars. I know your deeds; you have a reputation of being alive, but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God. 3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent.
But if you do not wake up, I will come like a thief, and you will not know at what time I will come to YOU.
4 Yet you have a few people in Sardis who have not soiled their clothes. They will walk with me, dressed in white, for they are worthy.
5 The one who is victorious
will, like them, be dressed in white.
I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life, but
will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.
6 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Let’s pause here and pray: Father God, make us aware of how we are asleep to your word. Shake us to wake us. Reveal how we are being lulled to sleep and anesthetized by our culture and by worldliness. Grant us the grace to see YOU –we would see JESUS today and hear from YOU so that we can see YOUR fame and YOUR great NAME spread. You are LOVE and you are LIFE and we want to love you MORE. Help us to not just survive, but to thrive in our faith! For your glory. Amen.
Once again, we see here how Jesus knows all about what is going on in the churches. He HOLDS the messengers of the churches in his hand! He knows not only what a church is doing, the MOTIVES behind what they are doing–the WHY it is being done. He knows how seriously they are taking the Faith!
The word “name” is repeated four times in this passage so it must be important.
Do you remember the story of the tower of BABEL? It is found in Genesis 11, and the word “name” was important to them as well. Let me remind you of the story. This was just after the ark.
ESV Genesis 11:4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”
Now, when NOAH landed the ark in epic fashion in ESV Genesis 9:1,7 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth. 2 The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every bird of the heavens, upon everything that creeps on the ground and all the fish of the sea. Into your hand they are delivered. 3 Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. And as I gave you the green plants, I give you everything. 4 But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood.
And here in 9:7 God says it again, 9:7 “And you, be fruitful and multiply, increase greatly on the earth and multiply in it.”
So back to chapter 11:8-9, 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built. 6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. 7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another's speech.” 8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. 9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.
This people wanted to make a NAME for THEMselves. Things haven’t changed. For some people, that is what life is all about– Becoming popular, and #1, become a household name, someone everyone will remember for all time, become a G.O.A.T.--the pursuit of making a NAME for OURselves is a worthless pursuit.
BUT if we seek to EXALT THE NAME, the great name of our God, the great name of his Son, and spend our lives in pursuit of that one thing–the rewards are exponential! You have no idea. My Bible tells me we cannot even imagine the things can and will do for us! We cannot even imagine the things God has prepared for those love Him, but he does give us glimpses through His Spirit within.
AND HERE is this 5th church, they have a name, a reputation but is a false one. JESUS tells them all, and listen to it this time the way the Message paraphrases these verses:
I see right through your work. You have a reputation for vigor and zest, but you’re dead, stone-dead. “Up on your feet! Take a deep breath! Maybe there’s life in you yet. But I wouldn’t know it by looking at your busywork; nothing of God’s work has been completed. Your condition is desperate. Think of the gift you once had in your hands, the Message you heard with your ears—grasp it again and turn back to God. “If you pull the covers back over your head and sleep on, oblivious to God, I’ll return when you least expect it, break into your life like a thief in the night.
Making a great name for yourself isn’t even on God’s radar. But it was for Babel, it is for the spirit of Babylon that still lives on today. It seeks to boil you, to lead you astray, to anesthetize you from truth of God and from FAITH in HIM!
What is the remedy? WAKE UP! But the enemy somehow TRICKS us into seeing GOD as our enemy and that we must take a defensive stance against HIM! That we must FIGHT him, or RUN AWAY from Him, or FREEZE and do nothing, or finally dissociate - that is, turn loose and just do whatever we want while blocking God completely out of our minds.
People would rather have the good feelings of being in a church, hearing the music, sensing the love from people around them, and cash in all of that while at the same time deceiving themselves into thinking they are a good person. And when conviction of our great, good, and merciful GOD comes upon them –instead of allowing the conviction of God to bring them to REPENTANCE they turn his grace into something it was never intended to be: LICENSE.
LICENSE. is where we get the word licentiousness from. And the thoughts go something like this –God loves me and would not want anything bad for me, but only my good. And since this conviction is a BAD feeling, it must not be from God. SO I am just going to ignore it and CHOOSE TO BELIEVE I am okay just the way I am.” That thinking is brought on by the ether of Satan.
WAKE UP! How? Re-establish your position! You are not on the heights, GOD IS. You are not in control. GOD is. You are not the Creator. GOD is! You are not the Judge. GOD is. You are in EARTH and HE is in heaven!
What we need in our country is another SPIRITUAL AWAKENING! And that is what this church needs!
Sardis had a reputation of being an alive church, a church that had it all together, a church on the rise; but Jesus saw right through all of that and informs them they were really DEAD! STONE DEAD!
That’s how we remember the name of this church for tests in BIble College - Sardis like sardines were dead!
What does it take for a spiritual awakening?
What does it take to WAKE UP!?
It takes a PROPHET to call you. Remember the story of Samuel after he has anointed Saul as king and Saul was doing a rebellious job of it. And God told his prophet Samuel to go to the house of Jesse and anoint a king. Do you remember this story?
Samuel went through all the sons of Jesse and no of them were chosen. So Samuel asked, “Jesse, do you not have any more sons?” Yes, I do. The youngest. He is out tending sheep. Heis a little on the spectrum and we didn’t think you’d want to…”
Samuel, “WAKE UP! GO CALL HIM! We will not sit down to eat until he comes.” And when David walks in, the Spirit of God said ARISE AND ANOINT HIM! And if you know the story well, the young boy has a name that has been long remembered BECAUSE his name is tied to God’s name. When you think of King David you have to think of Jehovah God!
Every time you heard, YES, DAVE! You also heard the praise, “Yesway!’ Their names were one. And here is the prophet’s call to you today. WAKE UP!
REV 3:3 Remember, therefore, what you have received and heard; hold it fast, and repent.
Let me remind you of what you have received and heard!
AND Let me remind you of those great awakenings that have happened in our history and let’s be on the lookout for one to happen again in our time!
Follow along with these points: Maybe you will relate to more than one of these marks of spiritual awakening –write them down on your bulletin as a takeaway from today’s message from God to you.
First, WAKE UP by Fearing God! You have to have a proper fear of GOD!
In the Great Awakenings there was much much prayer for an Increased Awareness of God which involved recognizing our limitations and that our ego means nothing and God is God and we must realign ourselves with HIM! NOT him with us. The awareness God’s greatest is revealed in putting our true self KNEELING before the greatness of God!
2nd, WAKE UP by Shifting your Perspective from self to God: It isn’t about YOU anyway! LIFE involves seeing things the way God sees them and believing His way is the right way. Reevaluate all of your values and beliefs and lay them all before the King. When you get there, you are on the right path.
3rd, WAKE UP by Deepening you Connection with GOD! When you come into his presence like Moses you walk away getting more than you gave. When you come into HIS LIGHT your private world gets ordered by that light and your inner self reorients to God. It is like recalibrating your sense of direction by finding the NORTH STAR!
Keith Green had a song with these words of the chorus, LIKE WAKING UP FROM THE LONGEST DREAM, how real it seemed, until YOUR LOVE BROKE THROUGH. I was lost in a fantasy that blinded me UNTIL YOUR LOVE broke through
WAKE UP must cause a breakdown - This deep connection with God is where people breakdown in themselves and many cry and sob in repentance because they have finally broken through their being the center of the universe and allowing God at the center.
WAKE UP to a Greater Sense of Purpose: the meaning behind experience of God is found in a focus led by hope and a faith to the more of God–which leads to more experiences, and to a more fulfilling and meaningful life.
WAKE UP to Personal Transformation: The awakening process transforms a person who is hungry for personal growth and moves him and her toward living a life in alignment with God’s values and beliefs –and WHERE do we discover God’s values and beliefs? In the written Word! Empowered by the Holy Spirit within, we learn to surrender to God’s leading, which brings you to deeper blessings and fulfillment and then to deeper places of surrender –and this awesome cycle continues. That’s personal transformation.
WAKE UP and Shift your Focus: Remove from in front of your eyes things that merely gratify YOU. Validation from others is nothing. Realize God lives in you now and you ALREADY have validation because you have from HIM unqualified acceptance and unlimited forgiveness and unconditional love as long as we continue to walk in the fear of the LORD.
Maybe you understand these truths. Maybe you do. If you have been a follower of Jesus and attended a God-fearing, Bible-believing church growing up, you SHOULD know these truths:
All people are born sinners.
The destiny of Sin without salvation is hell.
People can be saved if they confess their sins to God, seek forgiveness, and by God's grace, bring forth the fruit of that repentance.
All people can have a direct connection with God bringing peace, hope, love, and fulfillment in this life and the next.
In other words, you are not OK. You have to hear from God what it means to be OK. There is NO other NAME under heaven given by which we can be OK except through the NAME of Jesus Christ. You must have the grace and the faith to turn away from seeking every other way to be OK and to surrender to the ONE NAME given by which you can be saved!
The GOATS have it all wrong and will lead you astray. The comfy water of our culture has it all wrong and will give you and the FROG in the kettle the warm fuzzies your flesh wants to feel good but in the end it leads to death. Satan has plenty of anesthesia for you to dumb down faith and actions to make you think you are OK when you are not. WAKE UP PEOPLE!
John Wesley is such a great and timely example. Here his testimony from his own pen: In the evening I went very unwillingly to a society in Aldersgate Street, where one was reading Luther’s preface to the Epistle to the Romans. About a quarter before nine, while he was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.
What John Wesley felt in his heart that night was not left there. What did he do? He continues:
I began to pray with all my might for those who had …despitefully used me and persecuted me. I then testified openly to all there what I now first felt in my heart. After my return home, I was much buffeted with temptations, but I cried out, and they fled away. They returned again and again. As often as I lifted up my eyes, He “sent me help from his holy place.” And herein I found the difference between this and my former state …I was striving…under the law…I was sometimes, if not often, conquered; now, I was always conqueror.
Aldersgate Day is May 24 and celebrated on the Sunday closest - which is TODAY! To commemorate in 1738 when John Wesley experienced the assurance of his salvation.
His actions followed his faith. That was the difference and it happened because the love for God took over his heart. You cannot truly love Jesus without fearing God! WAKE UP!
And the ones who fear God will awaken and be the overcomers to the very end.
REV 3:5 The one who is victorious
will, like them, be dressed in white.
I will never blot out the name of that person from the book of life,
will acknowledge that name before my Father and his angels.
6 Whoever has ears, let them hear what the Spirit says to the churches.
Do you know there are some people who actually believe everyone will be be passed through by Jesus?
Hold that thought no longer.
Back to Matt 25: 34 “Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38 And when did we see You as a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39 And when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40 And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’
Do you see it? They didn’t know they were doing it because it came from the changed life they had on the inside. It was a natural thing for them to care and be their brother’s keeper.
41 “Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, you accursed people, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels; 42 for I was hungry, and you gave Me nothing to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me nothing to drink; 43 I was a stranger, and you did not invite Me in; naked, and you did not clothe Me; sick, and in prison, and you did not visit Me.’ 44 Then they themselves also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, or thirsty, or as a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not [a]take care of You?’ 45 Then He will answer them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for Me, either.’ 46 These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
Let’s pray: Have you heard the Father call your NAME?
No one comes to the son unless his father calls him. And those the father calls the son will shepherd. And if he has 100 sheep and one is lost he will seek it to find it.
Are you lost today? You’ve been lost for awhile really. But have you heard the Father call your name to come to him? To come home? To stop trying to survive but come to him and thrive.
Do you heard his voice? Whatever you do, don’t harden your heart against his voice. Don’t reason. Just respond. Stop running and pray. Jesus I Come. Just as I am. I come. I have heard you calling and I turn to you in faith and I turn from all of my stubborn ways and I come to you. Are you hearing him call? Raise your hand and let’s pray together.
Now to you believers who have heard him call before but who are not listening any longer. With Gary back on the road and listen or get out of the way. Either repent or move on. Either conquer and abide or play the coward alone. Which will it be. Joshua said those brave words, Choose you this day whom you will serve. But as for me and my house we will serve the Lord! Would you be brave enough to raise your hand confess I needs God's help right more to get back on the road. Pray for me.
Benediction - Rev 21:1-4 NASB
21 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. 2 And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among the people, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, 4 and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” 5 And He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” And He said, “Write, for these words are faithful and true.” 6 Then He said to me, “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give water to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life, without cost. 7 The one who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.
Blessed is the one who hears these words.
Amen and amen.
