Don't Water Down The Diet Dr.Pepper 3/23/2015

Good Morning,

Monday is here and I am looking ahead to Tuesday night when we kick off our first meeting for our church mission trip.  My coffee this morning is Door County Blueberry Cobbler. The first day for their spring flavors to fill my cup.

My wife, Rene likes to drink Diet Dr. Pepper for a treat during the day. She has it refrigerated to keep it cold. She likes a cold glass at the end of her work day. I have learned throughout our years together that she will never add ice to the glass. "Ice just waters down my drink and it loses flavor that way" is what I have heard at least a hundred times. " Who wants watered down Diet Dr. Pepper"?

One thing worse than watered down Diet Dr. Pepper is a diluted gospel message.

Getting the right medicine in the right dose makes a world of difference to cancer patients.
So it is with the gospel. If we don’t get the full strength, we could be deceived into thinking we’re really healed when we’re actually getting worse. Likewise, the devil is mass-distributing a watered-down version among God’s people. He’s content to let you go to some churches because the medicine there is often so diluted it won’t make any transforming difference in your life.

“The time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables” (2 Timothy 4:3, 4).

In this verse, Paul describes a problem in the pulpit and in the pew.
You have preachers who are not sharing a straight message, and you have people who don’t want a straight message. The people don’t want to take anything that’s hard to swallow. They generally want what’s easy and sweet to the senses. They want someone who will give them a prescription for candy-flavored, chewable medicine.

“Savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, from among yourselves men will rise up, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after themselves” (Acts 20:29).

The gospel gets watered down because preachers/pastors want to be popular and some, for pride or money, want to draw away disciples after themselves for power and influence. (See Ezekiel 13:10.)

So beware of the goal of Satan to water down the message. A clear gospel message is not what He wants. A clear Gospel message heals the lost soul. A clear Biblical message calls sin a sin. The same way you wouldn't call cancer a case of the sniffles.

Make sure you are hearing the full message of the Bible. I for one believe that all 66 books of the Bible are to be read literally. All of God's rules are meant to be followed and only Jesus can save the lost.

So as a soda will go flat if it sits open too long, so will a Christian's life go flat with a Bible that is only open to the verses we want to hear, and give us warm fuzzies.

Hang in there today.

God bless,
Marty