First of all, it seems to me that we need to know the meaning of booby-traps in order to be able to avoid them. Booby-traps may sound like a modern word, but it actually has rather ancient beginnings. The word "boob" traces from the Spanish bobo, meaning stupid, which in turn comes from the Latin balbus, meaning stammering. The ancient Romans considered stammering to be a sign of stupidity. This type of word is called "echoic," reflecting the repetitive stammer. "Bal-bal-bal-bus" says Clau-clau-claudius.”
The word booby to mean dunce appears as early as 1599.
There is a species of bird called the booby, from its apparent stupidity. As early as the 1630s, the celebrated author and traveler Sir Thomas Herbert described this tropical bird that perched on ship railings and was so stupid, unsuspicious, or dense that it could be easily caught by sailors. There is an old British expression, "A booby will never make a hawk," meaning that a bird that allows itself to be so easily duped will never itself become a bird of prey.
Once we've got the word booby meaning dunce, there are all kind of nice follow-ups. Booby-prize is the prize given to the loser (such as the contestant with the lowest score), usually something humorous (literally, the idiot's prize).
The boob-tube is a term to refer to television, synonymous with "idiot box."
And a booby-trap is a trap set to catch an unsuspecting (idiot) victim. The first use of booby-trap (1850s) referred to practical jokes, such as balancing a bucket of water on top a door that's ajar, to fall on the unfortunate person who opens the door.
The devil is the ultimate impractical joker. He delights in setting all kinds of booby-traps in the hopes of catching Christians off guard. Therefore, it would behoove us to spend some time looking at the various traps and snares that are lying around our feet as we journey toward the Celestial City.
The Nature of Christ . The current debate around the nature of Christ, for example, is actually an attempt to legitimize a certain view of lifestyle and morality. Generally we try to develop theologies that support our personal view points on a particular matter.
Be careful about taking sides in either camp. The two positions being put forward are both right and both wrong. The truth of the matter is that Jesus was not like what either side is saying, but He was actually a combination of both. He would be better understood as being a third kind; that is, there has been no one like Him, either before nor will there be afterward. But don't worry; whatever He was, and is, is sufficient for whoever you are and whatever need you might have.
We need to examine very closely the theological choices that are on the market these days. If someone should ask you what you believe on a particular subject, this or that, think clearly. You might have to answer, "Neither," or "Give me another choice."
Surveys . Be especially careful of surveys. Attitudes are being formed and advanced these days that actually don't reflect the thinking of the people but rather the thinking of the pollster. Don't be afraid to answer, “All of the above” or “None of the above.”
Look out for which questions you choose to answer. There are many so-called legitimate questions that have, in fact, only wrong answers. This is one of the devil’s favorite booby-traps. He tried it with Jesus. But Jesus was careful, not only in how He answered a question, but in which questions He would answer. He knew which questions were worth answering and which were simply, as we would say, dumb questions that would lead to wrong answers.
If a person asks you a question, don't try to answer it until you have ascertained if the question is honest. The problem in this planet began over a bad question. Eve lost the battle as soon as she undertook to answer the serpent. In that moment the serpent was in control of the agenda, and from then on it has been down-hill all the way.
Again let me speak to this matter of the polls and surveys. They may say that a particular poll has a margin of error of + or -3%. The fact is, it may actually have a 100% margin for error, because all the choices given were false!
Obedience . I saw an illustration of this recently. A question was being put to young people. The question was, What role does obedience play in salvation? (A) We are saved by obedience, (B) Obedience is our loving response to salvation, or (C) Both A & B. The pollsters should have added a D--None of the above; but that wasn't an option on the survey.
The fact is that obedience is a gift of God in the same way that forgiveness is. When a person accepts Christ as His Savior, two things happen--I repeat, TWO things happen at the same time, and one never happens without the other. A person who accepts Christ as His Savior, 1) has His sins forgiven and, 2) God gives him the desire to obey; that is, He gives him an attitude of obedience. In other words, contrary to popular belief, it is impossible to receive Jesus as Savior without receiving Him as Lord of our life.
Forgiveness and obedience are to salvation what the atrium and ventricles are to the heart. Though the atrium and ventricles are separate chambers of the heart, the heart can't function without both.
Salvation Outside Ourselves . Watch out for spiritual land minds, especially the one that says we are saved outside ourselves. This booby-trap won't just maim us spiritually, it will cost us our salvation. Those who preach that we are saved outside ourselves [their words] are in effect suggesting that we not just throw out the baby with the bath water but cut it in two.
The rationale that we are saved outside ourselves is being pushed as a means to rationalize, legitimize, or institutionalize a personal morality which seeks to somehow excuse disobedience in the life of the Christian.
To say that we are saved outside ourselves is as absurd as saying that a person who has cancer can be cured outside himself. Though the treatment may indeed come from the outside, it is meaningless and futile unless it works inside the affected one. Cancer is life-threatening because it is on the inside. Sin is a problem that is not outside of us, but inside; and salvation that claims to work outside of us and not inside is not salvation at all.
Do you see how we have allowed ourselves to try to solve problems without defining the terms? We may or may not be talking about the same thing. It is like trying to back the car out of the garage sideways.
Salvation by Faith . The moment we entertain the thought that justification is God's part of salvation and obedience is our response to salvation, we are, to put it mildly, off on the wrong foot.
Salvation by faith simply means that we cannot save ourselves; that is, we cannot save ourselves in any sense of the word. Every part or aspect of our salvation is not, never was, and never will be anything but what God does for us and in us.
Do you make your heart beat, your eyes see, or lungs breathe? We can poke out our eyes, stop our heart, and cease breathing. We can make these things stop happening, but we don't make them happen. We simply choose to let them happen. In the same way, we don't make salvation happen. We let it happen. We can keep it from happening, but we don't make it happen. We can't make ourselves obedient. But when we receive Christ as Savior, we receive from Him not only forgiveness but a desire to obey. That is an attitude of obedience.
Don't tell me that salvation is outside me. It had better not be, because sin and death are inside me. Pride, selfishness, impurity, dishonesty, the spirit of criticism and the like are inside me, and that’s where I need salvation.
Take this next thought slowly so you don’t misunderstand. God forgives sinners, but He doesn't forgive sin. You understand, don’t you? The person is made righteous, not the sin. I love and accept a person who has cancer, but I hate the disease. The whole plan of salvation is to get sin out and the fruit of the Spirit in!
Salvation by Works . We let salvation happen, but God makes it happen. For that reason there is no such thing as salvation by works. It is all by faith, because it is all something that He does for us and in us. The result of life in the Spirit is not righteousness by works but the works of righteousness. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Cor. 5:17).
Jesus said that He would send the Holy Spirit and that He would convict us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment (John 16:8). Our belief system is generally molded by the extent to which we are either yielding or resisting this work of the Holy Spirit upon our lives. If we resist the Holy Spirit’s workings, then we will not be convicted.
It is a fact that a person’s theology tends to be a reflection of his personal morality. We are attracted to philosophies and theologies that confirm or affirm our lifestyles--that is, our personal morality. The issue in the Christian church today is the issue of how salvation works, or what we can expect when we get saved.
Assurance of Salvation . Another booby-trap to look out for is what is currently being marketed under the name, assurance of salvation.
Isn’t it strange that, instead of doing what Jesus invited us to do when He said, “Buy of Me” (Rev. 3:18), when we want the Holy Spirit, we buy it from Pentecostal theology, and when we want the assurance of salvation we buy it from Baptist theology? Why should we continue to buy the truth about the Holy Spirit and about assurance second hand? We’re not strangers and bastards that we have to ask of others. “He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things” (Romans 8:32)?
The popular doctrine of assurance of salvation as marketed by First Day churches is generally a license to disobey. The reason they need this doctrine is to cover their tracks that lead away from the Sabbath. The gospel as taught by the Evangelical churches is highly discounted; and if we buy into it we could very well end up loosing our salvation here in the last generation.
Sanctification . One day out on the hillside, Jesus said, “Consider the lilies how they grow” (Luke 12:27). There is something more to be learned here than not to worry where our next meal is coming from. The Christian life, though it is an invisible process, can be understood by observing how nature works. God uses the visible things to illustrate and make plain the invisible.
For instance, a branch has the assurance of life, all things being equal, as long as it is connected to the tree. Jesus said that salvation functions the same way. He spoke about the necessity of abiding (living, remaining) in Him. He said, “I am the vine, ye are the branches” (John 15:5). Salvation (sanctification) is a process. As far as we are concerned, it is something that is happening to us. Our assurance, then, is in our abiding in Jesus.
We cannot use the illustration of the vine and the branches, though, in every aspect of salvation, because we have a component that separates us from lesser life forms, and that is the power of choice, or the will. Our part in salvation is choice. We choose to facilitate the process or to block it. But we have the assurance that, if we so choose, “Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6).
The Sinner’s Prayer . Certain evangelicals, who may scorn beads and images, nevertheless seem to think that a person can be saved by a set of words. They call it the Sinners Prayer. If we cannot be saved by beads and images, could it be possible to be saved by reciting a little memorized prayer? I like what I heard once: "You don’t need anyone to tell you that you are saved, you know your own heart.”
Fortunately for us, we are saved, neither by beads nor images, nor by memorized prayers. Our assurance of salvation is real because we have made a heart commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ, who made a commitment to us. The fruit of the Spirit in our lives and the desire to obey God in every detail is an indicator that Jesus is alive and well in us.
Let us not fall for the devil’s booby-traps as we seek to understand how salvation works. Salvation is not complicated, but neither is it easy to comprehend. It is like going to a shopping center that has 25 stores, and all of them have signs in their windows advertising, "Get your salvation here--we sell the original,” yet none is selling the same thing. Can someone please tell me what salvation really is? Will the real salvation please stand up?
This dilemma reminds me of some of the fruit drinks on the market these days. The label boasts, "Contains 10% real fruit juice." Certain concepts that are being marketed these days under the label of salvation contain little of the real thing.
Forgiveness . There is an emphasis being placed these days on forgiveness. But the meaning is being diluted. If they continue to devalue it, instead of facilitating our understanding of salvation we could actually be mislead and develop a fatal misunderstanding.
There is a word that always needs to be used in tandem whenever we talk about forgiveness, and that word is repentance. Every true revival, whether in the Old Testament times or on the Day of Pentecost down to the present time, has always been about repentance. At the present time, however, we don't hear much about repentance. If John Wesley knew how we try to work up revivals these days, he would, as we say, turn over in his grave.
Forgiveness is what we receive because of the incarnation of the Son of God--His life, death, and resurrection. The forgiveness of God surrounds this planet like the air we breathe. But for forgiveness to be effective, it must be accepted. Repent is what a person does who breathes in the forgiveness of God. Repentance is triggered by forgiveness. A person who is not repentant has rejected forgiveness and will be lost.
You are probably familiar with the TV show, Jeopardy, in which the contestant is given the answer and he has to formulate the question. In the Christian life, the significance we give to a particular component depends upon the question we happen to be asking at the time.
For example, let’s talk about obedience. Obedience was never the answer to the question, "How are we saved?" Obedience is the correct answer to the question, "Name something that a person who accepts Jesus Christ as his Savior receives in his life."
Remember the old song that goes, “If religion was a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die.” If that is true, it might also be said that, if salvation is complicated, then only the smart who can figure it out will be saved. But salvation is not complicated; it is error that is very complicated. We are all tangled up in the devil’s web of lies, exaggerations, and distortions.
If you think things are rough now, just stay around a little while. The deceptions of our day are being crafted in such a way that just about everybody will fall for them. We expected the devil to come at us like a herd of elephants, but instead he has been working like a termite. He has just about gutted our spirituality, and just a little push is all it will take for many to fall into his trap.
It should not come as a surprise to see that not all Adventists believe the same things, and that includes Adventist preachers. We are now often sitting at the feet of evangelicals who have discounted and short-changed the gospel. As Scripture says, "Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned" (Proverbs 6:27). Brethren, we have suffered some third-degree theological burns. Some are not shooting themselves theologically in the foot, they have blown their brains out. Though they profess a form of Godliness, they are in fact spiritually dead.
The Christian life is not about believing, it is about being. A profession of faith is not the same as a living faith. On paper, our denominational doctrines are probably in the best shape ever. I say on paper, at least. But from a practical standpoint we are perhaps reaching new lows.
Remember what happened to the 55 mph speed limit. After the gasoline crisis was over, the limit was not immediately changed. It was on the books, it was the law, but people simply began to ignore it. Finally, when disobedience became the rule, the law was changed to reflect the lifestyle.
This could very well happen in the church. The doctrines are on the books, yet they are beginning to be slowly but surely ignored. Finally, when the majority are living another way, we simply up-date the doctrines to reflect the current consensus.
It is disconcerting to realize that morality these days is being established by Gallup Poll. The rightness or wrongness of something is set by a consensus. This has frightening possibilities for the future of our church.
Everything that can be shaken will be shaken. If we haven't known what it is like to live by faith alone, we are soon going to find out. If we haven't experience what it means to have the Word of God as a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path, we’re going to find out.
Guilt is Bad . Remember, I said at the beginning that a person's theology tends to be a reflection of his personal morality. If today you and I are resisting in any way the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives and rationalizing or condoning know sin, we will simply be drawn to false doctrine and error like a bee is drawn to honey.
Scripture is specific that it is a clear conscience that gives us the ability to discern between right and wrong. If God has convicted you of a sin in your life and you are holding out, you are dulling the cutting edge of your conscience and will eventually loose the ability to understand spiritual truth.
In the past it was thought that leprosy caused a person’s body parts to disease and fall off. Leprosy sufferers often lost their fingers and toes, even parts of their face. Only in the twentieth century did doctors discover that the patient lost limbs and digits because leprosy had killed the nerves to the extremities and they could no longer feel pain. Therefore, they would continually and unknowingly injure themselves. They would cut their fingers, burn their hands, twist their ankles, tear their legs, scrape their noses, and not feel the pain necessary to protect themselves.
Rather than an enemy, pain is a friend. It let’s a person know that damage is being done. The Holy Spirit, speaking through our conscience, is not an enemy but a friend to tell us when we are disobeying a law of God. Guilt is not bad; guilt is what shows us our dangerous condition and leads us to repentance.
So, these are just a few of the devil’s booby-traps designed to catch you in his snare. He is continually thinking up new traps. What works for some generations may not work for others, so he keeps himself current. He has had thousands of years to devise them and will custom them for each victim.
You may feel like throwing up your hands and saying, “How can we know the truth with so many voices saying so many different things? How are we to differentiate between the false and the true?” Friend, you don't need to know Greek and Hebrew to know the true doctrine. Scripture makes it plain. It says those who obey will know the doctrine, whether it is of God. John 8:32 says, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.”
The truth of salvation is not as complicated as we sometimes make it. The message for today is the same message of AD 31: “Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord” (Acts 3:19). If you and I will repent of our known sins and accept the blessing of obedience, we will not be deceived in the last generation, but we will know the doctrine, if it is of God or man. We will understand the issues. We will avoid the devil’s booby-traps.
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