Preface To The Second Printing
1. Must God Plead With God?
   
2. How The Spirit Leads
   
3. Physical Reinforcements of Faith
   
4. Jesus' Physical and Spiritual Death
   
5. Is There Merit in Pain?
   
6. The Six Days of Creation
   
7. Adding Guilt to Anxiety
   
8. Wine and The Disciple
   
9. Revolution or Evolution
   
10. I Am That Disciple
    
11. When People Disagree
    
12. Is Unity Based Upon Seven Doctrines?
    
13. Our Seven Sacraments
    
14. Instrumental Music
    
15. The Mood of Worship
    
16. Justified Then Sanctified
    
17. Is Christian Our Name?
    
18. The Lord's Table
    
19. Righteousness That Exceeds
    
20. Neither Destroyed Nor Nailed To The Cross
    
21. The Right of Self-Protection
    
22. A Tree of Error
    
23. God is Limited
    
24. You Are Here
    
25. God is In Charge
    
26. Hook's Points
    
27. Lamentations of A Mediocre Preacher
    

HOOK'S POINTS

It seems strange and sad to me that there is no record of anyone telling Jesus that he or she loved him during his ministry. After the resurrection, Jesus coaxed Peter into admitting, first, his affection, then his intentional devotion.

Were their expressions just overlooked by the biographers? Had he not taught them that love was the great commandment? How can we explain their reluctance to affirm their love? Was it just too awesome or presumptuous? These questions come to my mind when I hear people gushy with, "I love you, Jesus!"

Some of us are timid and awkward about expressing sentiment to ones we love. The words fail to come out. But the greeting card comes to our rescue. Using words of someone else, the sentimentality becomes less embarrassing.

Those of us who cannot satisfactorily compose a song and sing it to the object of our love can identify with musical expressions on television, radio, and records, and thus communicate our emotions.

Many persons find it very difficult to pray alone or to offer a personal testimony of their feelings toward God. Timidity conquers them. Such persons? however, can identify fully with prayers worded by others and can join boldly in praise to God in group singing. They express feelings best through and with other persons.

This must be one of the reasons we are instructed to worship in assemblies as well as in private. The muteness of your private devotions should make you even more aware of your need to meet with others regularly for shared expression.

I have just come from hearing another message about love. That is great, for we have need of it. This man, however, used the same approach which I have heard, and used, for many years. We must love because we are commanded to do it. Love becomes a legal requirement, according to that approach.

All of us know that we should love, but love can hardly be initiated and nurtured by law or command. That would be a nice trick, wouldn't it, if we could command people to love us and bring it into being by that means?

The scriptures tell us to provoke/stir up one another to love and good works/active goodness. Here is where the emphasis should be. We should love others so they will respond in kind. We should continually remind one another of what God has done for us and the response of love will follow.

Through the years, I have given very few lessons on the "command to give," but many needs have been brought to the church's attention from the pulpit and a loving response would meet the need. Let's remind people of the needs of the lost, poor, orphans, prisoners, hurting, etc. Good works will come as a response to the need. out of love rather than a command.

Let's talk about things that stir a loving response rather than trying to enforce love as a part of a legal code.

Some unidentified person in the dim past seems to have come up with a clichŽ answer which is heard everywhere. When we ask what our purpose on earth is, the answer always comes: To glorify God.

That is pious, but unappealing! If we believe that God put us in this existence of pain, sorrow, and death just to add to his glory, it becomes easy for us to resent God as a selfish deity. That concept has characterized God as having a colossal ego problem which would cause him to demand our flattery to satisfy his vanity, to require depriving gifts to feed his pride, and to bind arbitrary oppressive whims to build up his sense of power.

God must have created man because he wanted man's fellowship, for, as soon as man separated himself from the Father, he initiated plans to bring man back to him He loves man like a man loves his children. He sent his Son in an effort to reconcile us back into his presence to enjoy eternal fellowship with him.

God wants us to glorify him-to hold him in high opinion-so we will want to return to him. He wants us to glorify him-to present him to others in favorable aspect-so others will want to come to him.

He loves us! He wants us back! He begs for our cooperation to accomplish that.

There is one body, one church. We speak of dividing the church. People cannot divide the church so that there is a multiplicity of churches, or even two half-churches.

All who have been baptized into Christ are in that one body. They may alienate themselves from each other, but they are still in the same body, just as brothers and sisters may fight while still in their father's family. None can cast others out of it. They only become judgmental and divisive.

That sounds simple, doesn't it?

Keeping the church pure has been a big thing with us, and it should be. How do we accomplish it? We don't. There has never been a pure one for it is composed of erring people.

In our efforts to purify, we have pressed our interpretations and scruples to the point of dividing. So we attempt to purify the church by division, by separating from, or driving out, those who disagree. By this method we start another pure church (?) each decade or so.

Wonder why Paul did not recommend that for the problem-filled church in Corinth?

I do not know whether we practice open closed communion or closed open communion!

Without examining others, we invite anyone in our assemblies to partake of the Lord's Supper with us. But we draw the line against communing with them in their services.

Communion is sharing, mutual participation, or fellowship. We enjoy this fellowship with any who attend our services. They are encouraged to sing, pray, and to eat the Lord's Supper, and we do not refuse their money. But they cannot get on our church roll because we do not admit that they are disciples. We examine, judge, and condemn them while having fellowship with them!

The communion emphasizes the oneness of the body. Paul said, "We are one loaf (bread)." The loaf depicts his one body. Anyone eating or drinking without discerning the oneness of that body eats and drinks damnation. Examine yourself, Paul urges, not the other person.

If I can eat with him in our building, why can't I eat with him in his building? If I am in fellowship with him in the communion, why am I not in fellowship with him all the time?

In our zeal to achieve, we have operated on the concept that, if a little is good, more is better.

You run the carpet sweeper throughout your house. Now, the carpet is cleaner and looks better. It helped so much that you do it again, and again, and again, and again! At some time you passed the point of profitability. The law of diminishing returns nullifies the concept that, if a little is good, more is better. To continue sweeping the carpet would be a foolish waste of time and energy, and it would be destructive to the carpet.

We must apply the law of diminishing returns to all activities, whether attending services, singing, praying, giving, or whatever.

That sounds simple, doesn't it?

How long has it been since you heard a pulpit lesson against instrumental music? Years? What does that tell you? If the preacher were convinced that it is sinful, he would be warning against it. On this, and other subjects, listen for what he does not say. You may learn some interesting lessons about change among us.

On the farm there were various kinds of creatures that could get sick

and die. When a fowl or animal became hopelessly sick, we would kill it before it went through the agonies of death.

When I was a child, the church had assemblies only on Sunday morning, and I assumed that folks were going to heaven that way.

As time went on, classes were added, then evening services, to be followed later by Wednesday evening assemblies. Ladies' Bible Class and the Young People's Meeting were added as time progressed, along with Vacation Bible School.

As each new activity was added to the program, it became a necessary function for the faithful. Some of these programs grow purposeless, tired, unfulfilling, burdensome, and sick. Wise leaders will recognize that their programs are not sacred and, when they cease to serve their purpose, they will kill them before they die.

Our neurotic aversion to solos and other special singing in our assemblies has caused us to sing the same songs until they lose their appeal. Having no time to introduce current songs except in our assemblies, and being tied down to the hymn book, we have limited ourselves to the old familiar songs. The old songs are not objectionable except that they tend to date our religion with the past and they become threadbare. Current songs can be introduced by singing groups, thus allowing our fresh poetic expressions to be in line with modern thought and music. We have cheated ourselves by this self-imposed limitation.

We can hardly say that we are teaching one another in song if each person present knows its message and is singing it.

We have interpreted "each one has a hymn" to mean that each, or one of you, has a hymn to lead.

When we do have a singing group, it is always necessarily after the "worship service" is dismissed! Is the teaching and admonition in song by the group worship or entertainment? And who laid down all those rules for us anyway?

Why can't our song leaders, or someone else, introduce songs with some scripture reading or thought to make them more relevant and to avoid the ritualistic number-song, number-song, number-song routine, like a long play album without commercials?

Rather than choosing songs on a theme, sometimes to emphasize the sermon, I have always tried to choose a variety of expressions-praise, prayer, aspiration, hope, assurance, exhortation, comfort, etc.-so as to touch on some specific need of each person present.

We have always been very cautious not to use elevating titles, for we are brethren. But when we call everybody by his first name, whether foe, Roger, Kevin, or Don, but we call the preacher Brother Hook, haven't we made that into an elevating title?

While I was a student in the classes of Charles H. Roberson in ACC, many times I heard him remark that no institution of higher learning in our country that was 100 years old still stood for the principles that it was founded to promote. It couldn't happen to good old ACC, I thought confidently.

Now I am rather confident that by 2006 one will never hear a defense of "verbal" inspiration at ACU, condemnation of instrumental music, lessons about the "falling away and the restoration of the church"-reaffirming the validity of the "Restoration Movement"-nor contention that the Church of Christ is the non-sectarian, non-denominational, exclusive, one true church.

I cannot hope to live until that time, but I just might live long enough to see most of that change. And ACU, which has been so dear to me, may be much better for the change.

Although we have our roots in the Stone-Campbell Movement of the early Nineteenth Century, we passed milestones of distinction in 1889 and 1906 which made us into a separate church.

In 1889 at a gathering of about 6000 conservative disciples in Sand Creek, Illinois, under the leadership of Daniel Somner, a document was read that declared that those who accepted choirs, societies, preacher-pastors, "and other objectionable and unauthorized things" could not be regarded as brethren. Thus he led in the making of the Church of Christ into a distinct body, the first division of the Movement.

In 1906, at the direction of certain leaders in the Church of Christ, we were listed in the government census as a separate group for the first time.

Although I had no awareness of it, as I was growing up, undoubtedly, I saw and heard numerous people who were disciples before 1906 and 1889. A late member of the church here, Lizabeth Heywood, was 103 years old on July 26, 1981. She had been baptized at the age of twelve, the year after Sand Creek and sixteen years before our separate listing.

Could the Lord's church be of such recent development? And at what point did the Church of Christ become the one true church?

By the direction of God, Israel kept the annual feast of the Passover. It was a memorial of their deliverance from slavery in Egypt. It was during the eating of this memorial that Jesus instituted the Lord's Supper. He gave new meaning to it. As often as they ate the Passover, they remembered their deliverance; now, as often as they shall eat of the Lord's Supper, they will remember their deliverance from sin.

Following in the context of the Jewish practice, the disciples would understand "as often" to mean annually. We have ignored this contextual meaning, and there is insufficient evidence to prove that the early disciples ate the Lord's Supper weekly.

We, in our legalistic inclinations, have sought to bind weekly communion. The Lord could have specified certain times for it, but he didn't. The "as often" is left to our discretion.

Our weekly communion has been reduced to a bare, formal ritual in too many cases. I think that it would serve its purpose better if we communed less often but made it a rich experience each time-like the Passover.

A few years ago a man was baptized into our congregation who had many beliefs that were unorthodox to our Church of Christ people. But he became very zealous and started a jail ministry of his own, proclaiming the simple gospel. I remained in part-time with the church and another pulpit minister was employed. This young man proposed to do great wonders in converting our city. The new convert began to bring prisoners to our building to baptize them, and I would report the news in the bulletin. But I got word from the elders that, since we really, did not know what the man was teaching at the jail, it would he best not to mention these baptisms. During the year, our congregation of 325 members and its flamboyant preacher baptized fourteen persons while the new convert alone baptized eighteen. But don't mention it in the bulletin for he doesn't fit with the system.

After experiencing the freedom that grace gives, various persons have left the Church of Christ in favor of a less dogmatic, more accepting, and Spirit filled group. They found their former associations based upon exclusive dogmatism to be intolerable. I sympathize with such persons but, generally speaking, I would not advise one to leave his heritage.

When you leave, you can no longer be of any influence to bring about reformation in the Church of Christ.

When you leave, you discourage others who are taking their first steps toward the road to freedom. They need your support and leadership.

When you leave, you face an identity crisis which may not be handled easily.

When you leave, you trade familiar problems for unfamiliar ones. There are no groups without problems.

In some instances a situation may become intolerable and a change is necessary for survival, but in most circumstances I would say, "Hang in there!" Wait for the Spirit to work.

Unfortunately. concessions in order to make and keep peace must be made by the more grace oriented disciples. Don't expect concessions from the dogmatic, authoritarian exclusivists because, when you are right on everything, to give an inch is to compromise truth.

The New Testament scriptures make frequent reference to the blood of Christ. We are accustomed to the bloody concepts expressed there and in the Old Testament writings also, but I wonder how they impress the uninitiated.

In the animal sacrifices common to the Israelites and the pagans in ancient times, the blood represented the life of the animal. They understood that the animal's life was given as a substitute for the life of the person. They were familiar with the concept of blood having power of atonement and forgiveness.

In the Twentieth Century, the blood offering of animal sacrifices is remote from our culture and thinking. Our society is so far removed from nature that blood is abhorrent to us.

Because of our cultural concepts, it seems that we would do well to speak more plainly about Jesus giving his life as a substitute for ours and of his dying in our stead rather than using the allusive and anachronistic language of his shedding his blood and the power of salvation being in the blood.

One thoughtful, relevant prayer can add much value to an otherwise dull assembly. But we hear so few of them! Generally, we have not taken public praying seriously. We call on whoever is next on the membership roll whether he is capable or not. We would do well to use only those men who are intimate with the Father and who can lead others into a deeper experience in prayer.

Our avoidance of written prayers has deprived us of much richness. It is commendable that a person write out his prayer at home as he meditates and studies the need of those to pray with him. A prayer read in the assembly is still a prayer, if we truly pray it, just as prayers in our songs are appropriate, if we sincerely pray them in song.

No person, leading a prayer in the assembly, should pray a private prayer there, like we are hearing these days. Let personal prayers be prayed in private, not on the street corner. If it cannot be prayed with "we" rather than "I", let it be secret.

Is arousal of bodily sensations sinful? Due to our conditioning on misinformation, many of us will answer that question affirmatively.

Is it sinful to arouse feelings of hunger within our bodies? Is sexual arousal a sin but appetite arousal all right? Maybe you say that sexual arousal may lead to fornication. That is true, but appetite arousal can lead to over-eating or the stealing of food.

Sexual arousal is not lust, but it is used by the Lord to help us form the home and hold it together. It becomes lust only when one gives consent of his mind to satisfy that sensation out of wedlock. In like manner, desire to murder is not murder in the heart unless consent of the mind is given to perform the act.

Desire may be temptation, but temptation is not sin or lust unless one gives consent of the mind, whether the act is performed or not.

Regardless of the amount of coverage that women's clothing affords, it is not enough! At least, that is what the preachers have been insisting since I was a teenager before I knew that women had knees or dreamed of wearing slacks.

The texts used to induce guilt are referring to over-dress in finery and prideful extravagance (1 Tim. 2:9f; 1 Peter 3:1f). Pretentious dress is immodest-shocking to the sense of appropriateness-because loving disciples do not flaunt riches, make the poor uncomfortable by their demeanor, display finery instead of character, or use their stewardship selfishly.

Whether certain areas of the body may be exposed decently depends upon the culture. I can recall when women would not expose a knee but would nurse their babies in the assembly. Missionaries, because the native dress was shocking to themselves, have labored to Westernize the native style when the native attire, or lack of it, was not immodest to the native. It is a relative thing.

Paul's instruction to the Corinthian women about veils and length of hair (1 Cor. 11) would forbid that a saintly woman emulate the styles of immoral women which would identify them as immoral also. That rule applies today. But when the veil and hair style lost their immoral connotation in Corinth, the disciples would be free in that regard It would no longer be indecorous.

The human body is no secret any longer. A fully and appropriately clothed woman can be very stimulating to a man simply because she is female. With no woman within a hundred miles, a man still has sexual arousal simply because he is male. Whether by clothing or demeanor, if a woman makes it appear that she is sexually available, that would have overtones of immorality, and it would be unduly arousing to a man.

If a man lusts after a woman who dresses in harmony with the customs of her society, it is not her fault. It is the man's problem. If a person is guilty of inducing lust in following usual customs of decency, then we would have to forbid the sharing of restrooms, dressing rooms, showers, etc. of persons of the same sex for we must recognize that a great percent of people are homosexual, and you would be tempting those homosexuals to lust by exposing your body to them. We can paint ourselves into corners by our own rules.

Some fellows claim that there are no gray areas of truth, that truth is obtainable on all spiritual matters, and that they have it all pretty well wrapped up. I'm not that smart. I get all tangled up just trying to put a TRUE or FALSE before each statement in the rectangle below.

( ) There are four statements in this rectangle.

( ) Every statement in this rectangle is true.

( ) Every statement in this rectangle is false.

Somehow I get the idea that somebody does not trust my powers of comprehension when I see a sign on a church building which reads: "The Church of Christ Meets Here."

Lest someone should be misled to think that barbecue is a building, do you suppose the big "BARBECUE" sign should be made to read: "Barbecue Is Prepared and Sold Here?"

To protect the unwary from further misconception of the sign, "The Church of Christ Meets Here," maybe it should be revised to read: "Some Members of the Church of Christ Meet Inside Sometimes."

Although my father's name was on his rural mail box for nearly fifty years, no one ever hollered "Howdy" to it in passing or offered it a chew of tobacco, thinking it was Dad.

-CH

Until a few years ago, I thought that water was a most effective conductor of electricity. But an engineer friend explained to me that an electric current simply cannot be made to pass through pure water.

I always thought that it was light in outer space. It is very evident, however, if that were true, we would have no darkness at night.

Again, I thought that sound traveled without resistance through the vacuum of space, not observing the obvious truth that, if that were true, we would be continually bombarded by thunderous noises of the explosions among the heavenly bodies.

We have often spoken of this heavy damp air. But if moist air were heavier than dry air, the clouds would shroud the earth instead of floating in the sky.

So easily can we overlook the very evident truths about us that it is becoming in none of us to be too dogmatic about what we think we know.

We can hold different opinions without sin, but we must be united on matters of faith. We have repeated some such simplistic expression long enough and often enough that it has a fundamental sound. But nobody seems to have the same conviction as to what are matters of faith and what are matters of opinion.

The answer is simple: my opinions are matters of faith and yours, when they differ from mine, are not matters of faith but merely opinions.

Were convictions about circumcision faith or opinion (Acts 15)? Were scruples about meats and days opinion or faith (Rom. 14)?

The truth is: any opinion/interpretation/understanding that one has about any spiritual matter becomes a matter of faith, and one sins when he acts contrary to that belief (Rom. 14).

Which is the shortest verse in the Bible?

Everybody knows that. Since childhood you have known that John 11:35, "Jesus wept," is the shortest. This is a point that no one raises any question about. It is something that we know for sure.

But wait a moment. Look in my New Testament. In it the shortest verse is 1 Thessalonians 5:16, "Rejoice always!'' Mine is a Greek New Testament.

All truth is not considered in the traditional answer. Only one viewpoint is considered. Looking at it from the Greek viewpoint, the English claim is wrong, and vice-versa.

Some conclusions which we consider as dead-set truth prove to be half-truths, or error, when we see the total situation. Considering traditionally disregarded factors will change many of our opinions if we are honest.

"He thought he most judiciously

Weighed all the data pro and con.

But he hand-picked the facts he chose

To bias his opinion on." (Gail B. Burket)

Dogmatism which ignores factors of truth is both inconsistent and erroneous.

We are not saved by teachings/doctrines, by facts, by truth, by a message called "the gospel," or tenets of faith.

We are saved by Jesus Christ. He is the Good News, the Gospel. What we call the gospel is a message about the Good News. "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall mane you free," Jesus said, but he also assures us that "I am the Truth!" The word is the message of salvation, but Jesus is the Word. Truth makes us free, but Jesus told us, "If the Son shall make you free, then you shall be free indeed." We are saved by a Person, not a message. I believe the message, but not in the message.

We have become a doctrine oriented people more than a Christ related people. We find people who are already converted to Christ and then convert them to a different set of teachings as though the teachings saved.

While it is true that we cannot find Christ without teachings, these teachings, truths, and facts are of importance only as they lead us to establish our relationship in Christ and to sustain that relationship. Complete knowledge and understanding of all teachings are not necessary for that saving relationship, else none would be saved.

Our righteousness is not in our being right in all things, but in being in Him who is right and gives us the gift of righteousness. Yes, Brother Legalist, both grace and righteousness are gifts (Rom. 5:15-17)!

Kristi's grades are not up to her parents' standards. Knowing that, her tensions build. So her solicitous parents say to her, "We don't want you to be upset about your grades. If a C in math and a B in grammar are the best that you can do, then that is all right. We just expect you to do the best you can do." How relieving!

Do you think she sleeps better after that, going to bed each night reproaching herself because she probably didn't do her best that day? It actually puts her under more pressure. Wonder if her parents do their best about everything?

A certain preacher continued to make little jabs about cheap grace, relying on grace too much, and the danger of overconfidence about God's mercy and forgiveness. So he would emphasize, "You must do your very best to be saved!"

Who can go to sleep at night thinking confidently, "I did my very best today?" That adds guilt and pressure and puts rightness with God on a meritorious basis. Nobody does his best all the time and, if he could, it would not make grace more deserved. None can be saved by doing his best, but by being in Christ who is our righteousness.

That is a favorite word in the Church of Christ. I have tried to eliminate the word from my vocabulary. Why? Am I opposed to learning? No. What connotation does that word hold for you? Doesn't it mean something difficult, laborious, tiring, exacting, and motivated by pressure? The word turns us off.

God forbid that we should prejudice people against the beauty of the Bible, the excitement of its stories, the simplicity of its overall message, and the strength, hope, cheer, and fellowship of the Spirit that comes through companionship with the Book!

Legalism demands a detailed study so one can be sure he is right on all points of law. Legalism depends upon proof-tests. A misapplication of the word study in 2 Timothy 2:15 is the proof-text for the emphasis on study. The word study used in the KJV has nothing to do with gaining knowledge, and Timothy was not being urged to read the New Testament Scriptures because they had not been written and collected then.

"You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness of me," was a rebuke of Jesus to the Jews. We can search the scriptures for legal justification and miss Jesus whom the scriptures direct us to.

Aside from being a formal recognition of the passing of a loved one, a funeral is appropriate as a time for friends to have fellowship in sorrow with the family. By our presence, words, touch, or embrace we express a common feeling which is assuring.

Why, then, do we separate the family from those who come to share those feelings? At funeral chapels the family is hidden from view of those who would give them comfort. To me, it seems that such an arrangement is contrary to the purpose of a funeral.

It is sad to see only a handful! of people at a funeral, but our industrial life limits our attendance. Would it not be better to have these memorial services in the evening so that people can attend them?

In efforts to stir our evangelistic fervor, we are often reminded of cities and countries who have never heard the gospel, and we are urged to take the truth to them.

Do we mean that those cities and nations do not have Bibles? Or do we mean that people cannot find the gospel or truth in the Bible without someone from the Church of Christ instructing them?

When I mail someone a Bible, I am sending that person the source of all revealed truth. When I open my mouth to start explaining it to him, there is danger that the truth is becoming contaminated by my adding my erroneous ideas. I surely cannot reveal additional truth to him.

Sending Bibles is cheaper and it guarantees purity.

It seems strange to me that churches that deny legalistic tendencies will still almost make a law of tithing. Tithing is a very legalistic effort to attain righteousness through meritorious works.

Of course, tithing has no new covenant roots. It was a tax for a combined religious-political system through which God dealt with Israel. The tithe financed the government as well as the priesthood. Preachers don't tell you that, for you might lessen your contribution!

This is a thorn in the preacher's side. Even though a deacon may be in charge, the beggar comes to the preacher. They are smart. Men seldom come in for they Bet less sympathy. So they send the woman, and a little under-clothed child or two helps to touch the heart. Most of them are transient professionals.

An elderly lady came one Sunday morning in Port Neches, Texas. Of course we could not send a poor old lady away empty-handed. I moved to Fort Worth. Ditto. Then I moved to Dallas. Ditto. Even though I exposed her scheme to the elders, they helped her anyway! Do you suppose she would stop such a profitable operation?

Many times I have offered this help, especially to the more polished salesman type beggar. I offer to let him use the phone to call someone who knows him so they can wire money in a few minutes time. I haven't had one to accept my offer yet.

Once I read of the policy used by one preacher, written in jest, which very well describes the problem. He said that he helps every other one. A beggar asks for help, is considered unworthy, and is refused. After he leaves, the preacher's conscience hurts him so that when the next one comes, he helps him. When the beggar is gone, the preacher becomes vexed with himself for falling for such a tricky story, and he refuses the next one who comes. And so the cycle repeats itself over and over.

Through the years we have been urged to give all of our "contribution" through the church so the elders can use it to glorify God. Individual use of "contribution" money became a sin of rebellion against the elders.

As a matter of loyalty to your congregation, you will want to support it, but you are the judge as to the extent. If you wish to help some other worthy cause, that is your business. If you wish to use some of your "contribution" to distribute these books, for instance, that is between you and God, not the elders.

Let us imagine a beautiful, isolated, uninhabited island that becomes open for homesteading. A hundred families are apportioned land according to the size of each household. Seven of the families, including yours, have thirty members each but other households are much fewer in numberÐone old man alone, two younger widows, a widow and four children, five teenagers whose parents are dead, etc.

In planning this new community, all agreed to prohibit guns and weapons of any sort so they could live together in peace. It is an ideal arrangement and all goes smoothlyÐfor a while.

One of the larger families, however, begins to force the orphaned teenagers to work its fields without pay. Your family is disturbed, but that is really none of your business. They steal chickens and cattle from the lonely old man continually. They seize the land of an elderly couple and drive them off the property. Sorry about that. Men from this large family continually force themselves on the two young widows who are helpless to repel their sexual attacks. Your heart goes out to them, but you cannot afford to become entangled in the affairs of others. The offenses grow in frequency and in their ruthlessness.

Members of other larger families come to you suggesting that you band together and stop the aggressive injustices. But a committee is formed and appointed to negotiate with the offending family. You urge them to stop their atrocities, but they only scorn the committee and increase their lawless tyranny. You negotiate again and again. No change for the better.

Now, what are you going to do? Can a person be an isolationist in the brotherhood of men?

Who is the dove and who is the hawk?

We are not Cod's pet rocks. Pet rocks cannot feel, think, choose, love, or hate.

We are not Cod's robots, programmed to do his bidding without accountability.

Pet rocks or robots could not hurt God. We can. God made himself vulnerable to hurt because he loves us. He is capable of being wounded by our rejection and rebellion.

When we love someone, we become vulnerable because that person can choose not to requite our love. God gave us that choice. He loves us. He hurts.

No one, I assume, has undiluted faith or total unbelief. We learn to live with a mixture of assurance and doubt.

I can ask scores of perplexing questions that would seem to explode the idea of a caring, omnipresent Creator. Why does he not reveal himself to us directly? If he is to hold us accountable to him, why should he be so hidden from us? Why would he make the scriptures so difficult to understand? Why would he make the eternal salvation of one person dependent upon the evangelistic efforts of another? Why would he allow most persons to be born into this life as a result of the sexual instincts rather than through purposeful planning? Why would he permit pain, heartache, evil, etc., etc.? Such questions rise like thunderheads and are allowed often to accumulate into a massive storm of destructive doubt.

On the other side, I can ask scores of questions about my doubts. How can we have existing matter without beginning, or without an intelligent originator? Can something come from nothing? Does intelligence come from inanimate matter? How could male and female roles in different species just develop? Who taught the setting hen to turn her eggs twice daily? Who taught the newborn mammal to search for its mother's nipple? How were newborn mammals nourished during the ages needed by evolution for the female to develop mammary glands? Who put the hormones in the female body that tell her body when to start and stop producing milk? The questions are endless!

How should we handle this mixture of faith and doubt? If I have ten parts of doubt to each part of faith, I will still hold to the faith. Doubt can add nothing to one's life. It promises nothing. It is like playing Russian rouletteÐa game in which one has nothing to gain and all to lose. Faith, weak as it may be, offers something. Something is better than nothing.

So, believe your beliefs and doubt your doubts instead of doubting your beliefs and believing your doubts.

Eternity! What a word! Can anything really be unending? Or is the idea of eternity just a fantasy?

Astronomers have discovered that we live in an exploding universe. The galaxies are moving away from us and from one another at speeds up to 100 million miles an hour. And the farther they go, the faster they travel.

Will these galaxies reach an outer limit of space? If so, what would be beyond that to contain space? To think of this is mind-boggling. Spice, however, is but an illustration of eternity. It is a physical proof of eternityÐof unending endurance. Our point in time is but a moment separating two eternities.

God is the ever existing, Great I AM. He has always existed, hence, like space has no beginning or end. God gave us of his undying spirit.

Although we have become alienated from God by sin, he wants us to be with him eternally and has provided that eternal life through Jesus.

Our little fuzzy, black handful! of affectionÐMidget, our poodleÐwas our constant companion for nearly twelve years. She became totally blind and almost totally deaf. Arthritis made her joints stiff and her body ache, and her teeth hardly allowed for chewing. Life for her had little quality of enjoyment. So we considered it best to have her put to sleep.

She had a horror of veterinarians, always trembling with fear as we approached the clinic. Although I had taken her numerous times, she still trembled. But on this last trip, I held her and talked reassuringly to her all the way, and she did not seem to fear. As we started into the clinic, she gave one of her faint little puppy whimpers, but she did not shrink back. While giving her loving assurance, I delivered her to death.

All of this brought some emotional feelings of guilt for it seemed that I had betrayed her loving confidence. But I kept assuring myself that I knew what was best for her and was doing the loving thing even though it was painful for me.

When God sees that our quality of life is such that a change would be better, he takes us close to him and dispels our fears by his loving assurances. It must pain him to see our family ties broken, but he knows what is best. He hasn't betrayed us.