Jesus loves me! This I know,
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong;
They are weak, but He is strong.

How many times have we sung that song? As little children it was the first one that many of us learned, and as parents it was the first one that many of us taught our children.

For this generation this song doesn't carry the punch that it used to. This is because in the past we got our concepts of religious truth from the Bible. At this time this is not necessarily so. We live at a time in which truth is seen as not something outside of ourselves, but rather to be real it must be real to me. The current attitude is that unless I know from personal experience a particular thing then I don't feel that it is real.

This attitude has caused us an enormous amount of suffering. This is because we now prefer to live by trial and error. It is not a matter of God telling us what is right and wrong; the current mindset is that it is up to us to decide for ourselves as we go along.

A young person said to me, "I guess I will have to make my own mistakes." The problem is that the mistakes of this generation are world-class mistakes. You have heard that it used to be that the problem children in school were those who chewed gum or were habitually late or were prone to talk too much in class.

The problem young person in school these days is making their own mistakes all right and now-a-days these mistakes are likely to be taking drugs, contracting venereal disease, or carrying a concealed weapon. This generation is into experience. As we used to say, "My mind is made up. Don't confuse me with the facts."

It is no wonder that young people have a hard time taking advice and learning from the experience of others. Much of the education today is reluctant to tell a student that they are wrong; it sees this as harmful to their self-esteem. The trend to put self-esteem before anything else is putting truth in second place or out of the picture altogether. (By the way, another name for self-esteem may very well be selfishness. Please think about it a little.)

I was reading the other day something of the new educational modalities. It said that in situations where students and teacher disagree over what is best, the teacher should not merely tolerate the student's opinion in the matter but should actually affirm it.

One educator explains it and I quote:

"No longer would it be possible to cling to the notion that a given task has one solution and only one way of arriving at it. The teacher would come to realize that what he or she presents as a "problem" may be seen differently by the students. Consequently, the student may produce a sensible solution that makes no sense to the teacher. To be then told that it is wrong is unhelpful and inhibiting...because it disregards the effort the student has made. " (Ernst von Glasersfeld, Knowing Without Metaphysics , p. 137.)

One education professor has given advice on how teachers can non-judgmentally acknowledge student responses:

The list included "um-hummm," "That's a thought," "That's one possibility," "That's one idea," "That's another way to look at it," "I hear you," and eleven other ways not to tell a student the answer was wrong.

Children are not being taught right from wrong for fear of offending them. How will our children ever learn to know right from wrong unless we teach them? If we allow them to experience everything for themselves we are in effect abandoning them to the devices of the devil who, as you know, plays for keeps.

Please listen to what I am going to say next. The Scripture was given to us to save us from having to suffer the pain and permanent damage that can come from making our own mistakes. The Lord tells us that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction and for instruction in righteousness.

The Bible is not as some see it--all negative. The Bible is also not a put-down either; sin is the put-down. If we refuse to let the Bible instruct us in how to live we will suffer unnecessarily in this world and will not see the world to come. The Bible repeatedly urges young and old alike to accept instruction. Instruction is telling you what you can and cannot do. But I don't need to tell you that being told what we ought to do is a no-no these days, especially among the young people.

The Scripture tells us that the Elijah message that is to be preached in the last days turns the hearts of the fathers to the children. This means that we who are parents must take the initiative in confessing when we commit wrongs against our children. Then the Bible says that the true message will turn the hearts of the children to the fathers.

Unfortunately, in many places the ministries that we are creating for our young people are doing anything but turning the hearts of the children to the parents. They may very well be encouraging the disobedience of our children and, instead of bringing our youth into the main street of church life, some are in certain instances creating a separate church that bears little similarity to the church of the parents.

I remember one time I was talking with one of the leaders of the youth in our denomination. The person said to me, "Dick, what we need to do is take you, the church of yesterday, and we who are the church of today, and together we will forge the church of tomorrow."

I called him by name and said, "Excuse me, but I am the church of today!" This we must get straight (and we will be without the blessing of God until we do) and that is that all of us who are alive today--representing all generations--we are all the church of today. If the youth do not link up with the experience and history on which this church is founded, the church of tomorrow will not be the Seventh-day Adventist Church at all, and I would even emphasize the word, "Seventh-day."

I said in another sermon that I preached recently that the youth of today are what we, the parents and grandparents, have allowed them to be. I heard someone say one time that what the parents do in moderation the children will do in excess.

I often hear us reminded that our church was organized by young people and that the time has come for us to give leadership back to them. I am not comfortable with the concept that we need to turn the church over to any special interest group, be they young, old, or middle-aged. The leadership of the church should not have age as a criteria, but should have spiritual maturity as a criteria.

An important survey of our youth discovered that 8% of our young people believe in using illegal drugs, 12% of them believe in drinking beer and liquor, 27% of them believe in eating unclean meat, 32% of them believe in premarital sex, 61% of them believe in wearing jewelry, 69% believe in using caffeine, 77% believe in dancing, and 91% believe in going to the theater.

I am not saying this to put the young people down, but the Scripture is clear. In Proverbs 22:15 it says that foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him.

A person doesn't like being told that they are wrong, especially in the 21 st century. The Scripture says that a person who will not take instruction is foolish.

This is no time for us to abnegate our responsibility as parents and grandparents and turn the church over to the children or, for that matter, to the boomers. God did not organize a church for boomers or one for the old or one for the young. The first church was the family and that is what the corporate church is to be, and that is a family. I am afraid that, in our earnestness to minister to all the members of the church, if we are not careful we could well break up the church as we know it.

This sermon is entitled, "A Mistake of the Heart." I surely don't sound like I am all heart so far, do I? But, my brother and sister, we are in the last hour. The devil wants to perpetrate a huge deception on us and, if we continue to go with the flow, we will go over the edge and be lost, make no mistake about it.

Before I get into the core of this sermon, let me read a text that is very relevant to what is going on in so many places. I am going to read to you from James 2:1-6:

"My brethren, have not the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with respect of persons. For if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment; And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool: Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him? But ye have despised the poor."

Would you mind if I bring that text into the 21 st century? It would go this way:

"My brethren, you are not acting like Jesus in the way that you are playing off one group of people against another.

"For if you have a group of young professionals (boomers) in your church and you also have the blue-collar group and the old-timers, you are giving preference to the boomers. You are redoing the church standards and the worship services of the church to please the boomer and you are saying to the rest of the people, 'We are in charge now. Get used to it.'

"Have you not now become partial and are evil in your way of thinking?

"Don't forget, God has always worked with the simple people regardless of their age or social standing. He has said that of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.

"But in the 21 st century you are treating these people as nobodies."

You may be angry with me by now and thinking, "Pastor O'Ffill, them's fightin' words. I am not going to sit still for this."

Please be patient and hear me out. They are preaching that we should be all-inclusive these days, and all I am saying is that we should be just that. A church designed for boomers or any other special-interest group is not all-inclusive at all.

Let's not design a church for your crowd or mine; let's not do it one week your way and the next week mine. Jesus is the head of the church. He is the one who must call the shots. He has been very clear that we are to be sanctified through the truth and the truth is found in the Word.

The church should not be about gender, generations or some far-out culture. The church is about the Word of God, which endures forever and ever. We don't need more dialogue or negotiation, but we need the Word. Without it we will not survive what is about to come upon the world, and without it we will definitely not have a part in the world to come.

Well, the time has come to proceed with "A Mistake of the Heart." You may be upset with what I have been saying, but at least think about it. What I have been saying doesn't make us feel too good, but it is true, and so with these words, away we go! Did you hear what I said just now? I said that what I have been explaining up to now doesn't make us feel good.

You see in the past thirty years the culture is putting more and more of its emphasis into feelings. During the age of the hippies and the flower children drugs were introduced to induce feelings into the body that were pleasurable. The point was to artificially induce pleasure, be it physical or psychic. The drug culture has never gone away. Untold misery has been the result. Thousands of lives have been either lost, or for all practical purposes, ruined. It was from the drug culture that we got the expression "blows my mind." A spin-off of the continuing scramble for a "buzz" has been the spread of AIDS through the sharing of contaminated needles. If you don't mind, I would like to share some thoughts on the matter of AIDS.

Some people can't stand to think of AIDS as a judgment of God, but it is no coincidence that the disease is driven by sexual promiscuity and drug abuse.

Speaking of AIDS as a possible judgment of God, I was thinking about this the other day. Would God send AIDS? Many would scream, "No, a thousand times, no!" Yet I believe the evidence in Scripture shows us that when we disobey God He removes His protection and so we must bear the consequences of our actions. Could we say then that AIDS is a judgment of God? Yes. Yes, in that as a consequence of our disobedience to His will, He has removed His protection from us.

We must realize that were it not for the grace of God we would not last a day on this planet. It would seem to me that realizing that the Scripture is clear that to sin with impunity is to grieve the Spirit of God, it would not seem strange or unnatural then to say that a disease like AIDS or lung cancer could be seen as judgments of God in that He withdraws His protection from those who persist in violating His Word and they then bear the consequences for their sins. Do you see how that could be? I believe that the Old Testament prophets saw things in this light.

And so the mindset of this generation is to feel good. We are looking for experience. There may have been a time when people craved knowledge, but that is not so much the case now. What people crave now is to feel something.

This phenomenon has resulted in truth taking a hit. In the spiritual realm nowadays doctrine is not important; it is the heart that matters. We are all heart. You might say, "Well isn't it true? Isn't God going to judge our hearts?" Of course He is, but what we must realize is that unless our heart has been educated, and indeed is being directed by the truth, we could suffer a disaster. I don't need to tell you about Jonestown, Waco or of Heaven's Gate.

Listen to this text in Jeremiah 17:9: "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?"

Friends, we cannot trust our hearts. We cannot trust our feelings. Yet this is exactly the way that people tend to look at things these days. You will hear: "It's right, if it is right to you." "If it feels good, do it." "The Lord knows my heart," and "It doesn't make any difference what you believe as long as you believe."

Come on now. Recent events have proven that a person who believes in that will drink Kool-Aid laced with poison. Ladies and gentlemen, if there was ever a time in which we could trust our instincts, now is not the time. If there was ever a time in which we could let our hearts lead us, now is not the time.

Unless we are rooted and grounded in the truth as it is found in the Word of God, unless we take the Word of God seriously, unless we obey the Word, we will not survive in all that is important in this life, much less in the life that is to come.

Some have said that a right heart takes primacy over a right head. I couldn't disagree more. Those with right hearts and wrong heads are setting themselves up for destruction.

Once again referring to the sad case of Waco, Texas, with David Koresh, and we could mention at the same time the events in Southern California. We could even say that the victims' hearts in both of those cases were inclined to follow truth, to obey, but their heads were wrong--they had the wrong Christ.

Those who try to separate the things of the heart from the things of the head are doing something that is against what the Scripture teaches.

We realize, of course, that head knowledge can puff up. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 8:1-2, "Now as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth. And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know."

We also know that experience is both negative and positive. These points we don't question. The real problem comes when heart knowledge and head knowledge are viewed from an "either/or" perspective instead of a "both/and" perspective. If we try to divide our hearts from our heads it is dangerous.

What I am saying is that what we know in our head and in our hearts should be the same and not different.

Head knowledge and heart knowledge must always be compatible; neither is dispensable. Those who try to depreciate one or the other are distorting what biblical Christianity is all about.

This is why the Scripture says: "My son, my daughter, give me your heart." That is because there are many Christians of the head who are not Christians of the heart. Yet on the other hand there are many sincere Christians of the heart, who because they have not grounded themselves in the truth, will be deceived and misled in the end.

These will probably be among those who at the end say, "But we did all kinds of wonderful things in your name and He will say to them, depart from me you workers of iniquity, I never knew you."

I don't need to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that probably nowhere are the matters of the heart, as opposed to the knowledge of the head, reaping a greater harvest of suffering than in our marriages.

How many times has a young woman or a young man gone ahead and married when every logical bit of information, where all available counsel and all accumulated experience was telling them not to do it? They go ahead and marry anyway, and as a result there comes a time when one or the other of the spouses becomes bitter, and at times even gives up on God.

I remember the story that I heard one time about a large factory during the lunch hour. Some of you will remember when we carried the black lunch box to the job? There was a thermos jug in the top part. Do you remember?

Well, the scenario has the factory whistle blowing at twelve o'clock and the workers streaming out for lunch. One guy comes out and just happens to sit down next to a big bruiser of a guy. He doesn't know the guy and so says nothing. He just starts to eat.

The big guy opens his lunch box and takes out a sandwich wrapped in wax paper. Do you remember those days? Well, anyway, he opens the sandwich to see what it is, and says, "Oh, no, peanut butter sandwich!" It was clear to the other guy that the big fellow didn't like peanut butter, but he said nothing. Soon the lunch hour was over.

By coincidence the next day, lunch hour found the fellows sitting next to each other again. They still hadn't said anything to each other. The same thing happens, the big guy opens his lunch, takes out a sandwich and when he sees that it is peanut butter he really gets mad. Still the other guy doesn't say anything.

Would you believe it, the third day the same thing happens, only this time the big guy goes wild when he sees that he has a peanut butter sandwich and starts cussing a blue streak.

The little guy couldn't believe it, so he meekly said, "Buddy, I have been noticing that you don't like peanut butter sandwiches. Why don't you ask your wife to fix you something else?"

The big guy cussed again. He stuck his fist in the face of the first guy and said, "You shut your mouth! I pack my own lunch!"

Do I need to say more? Though we don't like to admit it, we pack our own lunch. But when our hearts are made up, don't confuse me with the truth.

In our generation we insist that we must have our own experience. That would not be so bad if we would go ahead and get our experience after we were sure that what we were about to experience was in harmony with the truth of the Word of God. Because we are insisting that all that matters is the heart, we are reaping a whirlwind.

Let me comment on the matter of letting the heart lead in the choice of a husband or a wife. So be it. We pack our own lunch. If you are determined to marry a jerk in spite of the fact that he has already punched you around and he is foul-mouthed and can't get along with his mother, go ahead. You deserve what you will get.

Young man, if you are determined to marry that sexy something or other because you like the way that she kisses, go ahead. But don't be surprised if she gets tired of that one day, or if she simply gets tired of kissing you and goes looking for a better buzz. You deserve what you get. We pack own lunch.

But let me stop right here. Though you and I deserve to pay for our mistakes, the ones that don't deserve it are our children. The sins of the parents are being visited on the children in this generation and I don't see how they can avoid growing up to be a generation that has no capacity to bond or to love anyone but themselves. God help us. God save our children and grandchildren.

I know what I am talking about because I have been for the past five years raising a granddaughter who is the light of our lives. Her situation has been for us a continual grief and a broken heart. Many of you will know where I am coming from.

Oh, how different our lives would be--not just in the future life, but in the present life--if we would only submit ourselves to the Word of God. If we could only let the truth be our guide instead of our feelings.

But then what can I say? In this day and age we insist on having an experience. This insistence as fallen into our religious lives and is even dramatically influencing the way that we do church. No longer do we speak much of "The Truth," or of "The Message." We don't even like the word "religious." A person will actually deny that they are "religious" and rather insist that they are "spiritual." People who have little to do with the church-people, who long ago stopped going to church, will now insist that they are spiritual and that they have what matters and that is a relationship with God.

You can see at once what is happening. It is just what I was telling you. Knowledge is dumb or if it is there at all it must be under the control of my feelings. They say, "I know that I am right because it feels right." We live in an age that may be known as the age of "Death of the Truth," and if truth is not dead because truth is eternal, at least we who are supposed to live by it have in many cases become hostile to it.

And so, in things that pertain to God, for many people it is now all about feelings. This is interesting, because what can happen and indeed what is happening is that, while truth is outside ourselves and is what we call objective, I don't need to tell you that feelings are inside us and are very subjective. This means that for an increasing number of people God is not something out there, but rather something inside your head. When this happens not only do we lose the ability to know the true God but, believe it or not, we actually become our own gods.

I told you in the beginning that we live in the age of what we might call the buzz or instant gratification. The drug culture and the emphasis on sex is a proof of what I am talking about. Now, as I have just been pointing out, this same mindset is being carried into our religious experience.

Don't misunderstand me. I recognize that in our church we don't use peyote like some Indians do as part of their religious ceremonies. They see the drug high of peyote as a part of their experience with God. Although we so not take drugs in our religious experience, nevertheless, more and more we are definitely looking for some kind of a kick in our spiritual life.

I know that I am right because more and more you hear people say that in church they felt something or the other. There goes that word "felt" again. Now you might be saying, "But Pastor O'Ffill, what is wrong with feeling in church? What is wrong with feeling in things that have to do with our relationship with God?" My answer is nothing as long as that feeling is based on truth and as long as that feeling is not antagonistic to truth.

I have told some of you about the experience that I had when I attended the Promise Keepers Ministers Convention in Atlanta last year. There were forty-two thousand of us in the Georgia Dome. I don't believe there has ever been such a large meeting of ministers.

Anyway, I wondered how they would to it. We represented probably the majority of the denominations. The first night things were just so-so. The music was so-so. There were a few thousand Charismatics who, of course, were waving their hands as Charismatics are given to do.

The first full day was when it began to happen. The morning speaker told us that if we were really going to worship God we had to raise our hands. Then he went on to say that the Lord had told him that He wanted him to dance for Him and so on.

As the day went on we heard wonderful preaching, but also the music got louder and louder, and by the evening of the first day practically the whole place had gone charismatic. But watch now. There was a method in their madness.

On the third day the first speaker stood up and told us that one of the evils in the world was denominationalism. Then Max Lucado stood up to preach. He said that he was going to count to three and that then we should shout out the name of our denominations. One, two, three--you couldn't understand a thing. Then he said, "I will count to three again, and I want you to shout out the name of the one who has saved us." One, two, three, and there was the mighty roar, "JESUS." He had set us up.

Then he skillfully began to make fun of our distinctive doctrines and even said that he looked forward to a time in which we as Protestants could not only unite but that we could unite with the Catholics.

Can't you see then? He had seduced the masses with feelings! The so-called Holy Spirit was used to create feelings that would the next day make truth seem superfluous or irrelevant.

Can't you see what is happening these days? Feelings can and are being used not only as a substitute for truth but actually to make the truth of no effect.

The mistake is that we insist on feeling something, and as a result feeling has become not an expression of truth, but instead of truth. What might have been a part has become the whole.

I don't need to tell you that this phenomenon is also at the root of what is trivializing our marriages. The world is telling us that a happy marriage is built on good sex. That is a lie. Actually meaningful intimate relations between a husband and wife are built on happiness. Notice I did not say kinky, but meaningful.

Now, when you are out for a buzz--when we are going for the feelings--commitment and truth are out the window. We are like the bee that goes from one flower to the other. You know what I mean.

There are two magic words that we are using these days to justify our craving for feelings in religion, and those words are the "Holy Spirit." I can understand this because, though the Bible is objective, it is a "thus saith the Lord." The Holy Spirit is much more subject to personal interpretation. It is interesting that the Word of God doesn't lend itself to the word "feeling," but the Holy Spirit definitely does. I am sure you have heard someone say, "I felt the Holy Spirit here today." On the other hand, I don't think I ever heard someone say that they felt the truth.

Now, before I continue, I want to say that I am not at all against feelings in religious experience. I feel my faith very much. I am only saying that feelings, if they are going to be trusted, must be based on the truth of the written Word of God. There is never a case in which the Holy Spirit will give us a feeling that is not based on the truth of the written Word of God and in total harmony with it. If we do have feelings that are beyond the Scriptures or do not agree with the Scripture, these feelings, no matter what someone may tell you, are not from the Spirit of God.

Some may disagree, but the feelings that the Holy Spirit produces are best experienced not by some sharp singing group or a modified rock band in church or a funny or heart-rending theater presentation before the sermon. If you want to really experience spirituality and the Holy Spirit in your life, then go to a person who you have wronged--maybe that would even be your spouse--and confess the wrong and ask for forgiveness. If you and I really want to get the feeling of the Holy Spirit, then take that secret sin that may be in your life and ask God to give you forgiveness--and not only forgiveness--but victory. He will do both.

We are trying to be all heart these days and it is true that God looks at the heart and He wants us to worship Him from our hearts, yet we must realize that we cannot trust our hearts. Remember the text, "The heart is evil above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?"

It will be suicide to let our hearts lead. Our hearts themselves must be led by our minds and our minds must be rooted and grounded in the truth of the Word of God.

Is it wrong to have spiritual feelings? No. Are feelings a part of our spiritual lives? Yes, of course they are. But feelings that are springing out of the Word are the only feelings that we can trust. Feelings that are the result of listening to our favorite Christian rock group are not driven by the Holy Spirit even though we may want to shout out "Hallelujah!" as we listen.

Was our emphasis on knowledge in the past wrong? No, of course not. If we had problems in the past it was not the result of our emphasis on truth, but perhaps our failure to put it into practice in our lives. When we practice truth we will have feelings, but they will be holy, sanctified feelings.

Our emphasis on feelings is dangerous. While truth comes only from God, feelings can come from any place, and so when we let feelings guide us we can be setting ourselves up to be fatally deceived.

Let us root ourselves and ground ourselves in the truth of the Word. Let us do so with the sincere desire to obey it in every detail. Let us answer the call of the Word to repent of our sins; let us submit ourselves to the Living Word.

Obedience to the truth will bring feelings. The Truth will bring happiness and delight. Listen to these texts:

• Romans 7:22, "For I delight in the law of God after the inward man:"
• Psalms 119:16, "I will delight myself in thy statutes: I will not forget thy word."
• Psalms 119:24, "Thy testimonies also are my delight and my counselors."
• Psalms 119:35, "Make me to go in the path of thy commandments; for therein do I delight."
• Psalms 119:47, "And I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved."
• Psalms 40:8, "I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart."

Listen to these:

• John 13:17, "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."
• Proverbs 29:18, "Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he."
• Proverbs 3:13, "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding."

Call

• Psalms 16:11, "Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fullness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore."