Ripping The Script—ure

At first, my mind could not register what I was seeing. Over the left shoulder of the President of the United States who had just given his state-of-the-union speech, I saw the lady in white, the Speaker of the House, ripping up the script of the speech he had just given. Vehemently. With gritted teeth. With exaggerated motion. I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but I do not write of this to deify the President and demonize the Speaker of the House. I write because as she ripped the script, I thought of what many do to the Scripture. Actually, in the Speaker’s actions I saw something I once did:. Decades ago, when I was a young preacher I did, perhaps, an unwise thing. It did shock people. Behind the pulpit, I took out my pocket knife and began to select certain pages of a Bible* and cut them along the spine, pull them out, wad them up, and thrown them on to the floor in front of me. You can see why the specter of the Speaker reminded me of this. Before you deem me blasphemous or lunatic, let me explain what I was doing: I was illustrating a scene from the Bible. God gave a prophecy to Jeremiah of the judgment He would bring on His people and other nations and instructed him to write it upon a scroll. Jeremiah called in his secretary Baruch, dictated the prophecy for him to copy down, and, since the prophet was restrained from going himself, sent Baruch to the Temple to read it to the people. Some governmental officials heard the prophecy and sent for Baruch to come read it in the convened cabinet meeting. It so disturbed them that they sent Baruch into hiding, put the scroll in cabinet member’s safe, and sent word to the king. The king called for the scroll and one to read it to him. He was in his winter quarters before a cozy fire. As a few columns were read, the king cut them off the scroll with his knife and threw them into the fire. Soon, the scroll was read, but nothing remained of it but ashes on the hearth. I was illustrating the king’s disdain and mutilation of God’s Word. My application that day was that when folks dislike, disobey, disdain, demean, a part of God’s Word, they are in essence doing the same thing as the king did. They are saying we don’t need this part—cut it out. This part doesn’t apply—tear it out. This is outdated—rip it out. And thus, they dismiss God’s word from their lives. The people that day were likely appalled at my actions. Understandably so. Yet, I made a further point. People were horrified that I would treat God’s Word so disrespectfully yet do not read, study, memorize, or comply with its instructions. People feign great respect for the physical medium of God’s Word, the Bible. They would never rip a page out of their Bible. Yet, when the Word of God runs at cross-purposes of how they want to live, what they want to believe, instead of doing what is necessary to align themselves with the Word, they want to get rid of the conflicting Scripture. They relegate it to another time and culture. They mutilate its intended meaning, bending its words into pretzel shape to accommodate their convoluted opinions and rebellious behavior. As the king dismissed, cut each just-read section off the scroll and threw it in the fire, bit by bit he burned the Word from God until nothing was left. Or, so he thought. He could no more get rid of the Word of God by destroying it’s medium, than the Speaker of the House could get rid of the President’s speech by ripping it up. The President had already given his speech. His message was out. It was heard, recorded, and written down. God has spoken His Word. There is no getting rid of it. As, the psalmist declared, “Forever, Oh Lord, thy Word is settled in heaven.” God’s word is permanent. Nothing I can do can get rid of it, erase what it says. One can try to rip up God’s Word, but will only succeed in ripping out his place in the Book of life. (Rev. 22:19). The Speaker ripped up the President’s script. Many rip up God’s Scripture. In both cases, the message lives on! *In the days before computers and word processors I would acquire inexpensive Bibles from which I would cut verses to paste into my sermon notes. I believe it would have been one of these Bibles.

Ripping The Script—ure

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