Those of us who know and love the truth are sometimes amazed at how people involved in man-made churches can believe the error that they believe. It is so clear and plain to us and we have difficulty sympathizing with those who are deceived by error. How can they believe that stuff???
In James 1:21, we read the following words: James 1:21 "Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls." I am interested in the last part of this verse where the KJV uses the expression engrafted wordand the ASV has it as, implanted word. This Greek expression is found only here in the New Testament. We will never go wrong when we work to study and learn the New Testament Scriptures and let it be implanted in our hearts. It is only this word which has the power to save our souls (Rom 1:16). I like the comment that D. Edmond Hiebert makes about this expression in his commentary on James, Tests Of A Living Faith (p. 131). He writes: “While the Word is not native to the human heart, it is well suited to be planted therein; and as living seed, its nature is to root itself deeply into the soil of the believing heart.”(Emphasis mine, DRL). How blessed we are when the word of God is allowed by us to root itself deeply into our hearts! It is by this means that we are saved.
I believe the explanation of how non-Christians continue happily to pursue their course in the broad way that leads to destruction is related to this idea of implantation. However, what they allow to be implanted into their hearts is error. That error is soul-destroying, yet they have it so rooted into their hearts that it requires a major operation to remove it.
I recently was awakened to this truth anew by a couple of trips I took into the State of Missouri. A few weeks back I was called upon to come to Thayer, MO, to preach the funeral of Cecil Griffith. Brother Griffith was a friend and I once served under him in his position as one of the bishops of the Viva Drive church in Trumann, AR. Brother Griffith was a good man and it was an honor for me to preach that funeral.
On the way back from Thayer that day, I would be passing through Poplar Bluff where my sister, Pat and her husband, Glen, live. I decided to stop by for a brief visit. As I made my way to the street where Pat lives, Channon Street, I was shocked to find that her house was missing from where it was supposed to be. Indeed, it had been quite some time since I had been to her house in that we usually have our annual family reunion at Thayer. I went down the street and turned around and looked again for the house, but could not find it. I saw something I thought looked a bit like it and determined that there must have been changes made where the approach to that house was now from another street. I tried to find such a way and then had to give up without any success. I returned to Kentucky, quite puzzled by it all. It really threw me for a loop. I didn't even think to call her to get directions to her new house.
When Diane and I made a visit together to Missouri recently, I discovered my error. First, we made a visit to the home of another sister, Sue, who lives in Thayer. As we talked, I brought up my previous weird experience in Poplar Bluff. I asked if Pat still lived at the same place. Both Sue and her husband, “Barney,” assured me that she had not moved. Then we began to rehearse directions to her house. Barney told me that her house was on the left side of the street from the direction that I had approached it. When he first said that I was sure that he was wrong and that he really meant right. I could not believe I had made such a foolish error. I had been quite confident that her house was on the right side of the street. Furthermore, when I had passed by her house twice in that previous visit, I had been so confident on which side of the street she lived that I had not even glanced over to the other side. Somehow I had implanted erroneously into my brain that my sister lived on the opposite side of the street from where she actually lived. I was not thoroughly convinced that Barney was right in his directions until Diane and I stopped by there on our way home. Sure enough, my sister lives on the left side of Channon Street from the direction that we normally approach it.
This experience with directions has humbled me and helped me to understand better how it is possible for people to be so very wrong and at the same time think they are right. I hope I will be somewhat more patient in trying to help people see the truth, knowing that they really do believe they are right. The moment that the truth hit me in the face (when I saw Pat's house), I accepted the fact that I had been wrong, wrong, wrong!
The matter of being wrong on directions to a certain location is one thing, but the matter of being wrong on the direction to heaven is quite another. Brethren, we have the truth! We have that which our deceived friends need to accept. Can all of us strive to study carefully first of all the Bible, and then, secondly, what the best approach might be to help our deceived friends and relatives to a knowledge of the truth? Can we realize that if we continually present truth to them and give them opportunities to investigate that they might actually wake up to the fact that they have been wrong in their religious beliefs? Can we be aware of the tremendous powerof implanted error? Please hold tenaciously to Galatians 6:9.
This item originally appeared in North Marshall Messenger, #751
