CANDY FILLED DECORATED EGGS

We decorated the Easter eggs Saturday night. And as expected, my youngest child, as most three year olds would do, wanted the best decorated egg for himself. Once in his hand, he quickly began to break up and remove the beautifully decorated shell, only to find a boring, bland, undecorated, white egg inside, which he, after one little nibble, abandoned it like it was bowl of uncooked leaf spinach. So I ate it. I wanted what was on the inside of the decorated shell. I was totally unconcerned about the outside.

Kids care only about how it looks and tastes, not whether or not it is healthy or good for you. This you expect of a child. But no matter how the egg is decorated, a kid ain't gonna eat the egg, that is unless, of course, it is the egg that he wants.

I couldn't help but notice the analogy. So many of our churches today are too often trying to get the world to eat the egg by decorating the outside. This they do by offering entertainment, by advertising FUN, by softening the hard things of the gospel like self-denial, by only whispering of themes on hell and God's judgment and so on. Yes, it will bring in the masses, it will keep the attention of many, but are they coming for what's inside or are they attracted and lured by the decorating of the true gospel?

What happens too often is that if the true message of the gospel is ever revealed, many of those who were lured in, turn away because the gospel demands too much (John 6: 60, 66: "On hearing it, many of his disciples said, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" "From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.").

But what's worse is that these same churches who use such techniques often never even reach the point of revealing the true hard gospel. They basically spend their time giving their flock candy filled decorated eggs, hallow of any real truth and no good for anything other than a worldly country club existence. These are the churches that are full of christians who have not gone beyond babyhood, churches lacking solid teaching of biblical doctrine, lacking regular prayer meetings, lacking confrontation of sin, missing warnings about hell and God's hatred of sin and guilty of building up youth groups which neglect to tell young people about obeying their parents and submitting to God ordained authority.

Here is a great quote from Charles Spurgeon on a similar subject back in Jan. 17, 1858;

"Now the christian that has gone beyond babyhood does not care about how the man says it. It is the thing that is said that he cares about. All he asks is 'Did he speak the truth?' ...he cares not for the trimming of the feast, nor for the exquisite workmanship of the dish. He only cares for that which is solid food for himself"

-KCO