I bet you have all used them sometime in your life, maybe even every day.  Leo Gerstenzang, who was born in Poland on June 3, 1892, invented the cotton swab.  He sold them under the name "Baby Gays."  We know them as Q-tips, but did you know that the Q stands for "quality?"  And despite doctors' warnings, I bet most of you stick them in your ears.  The doctors may not like it, but sticking a spiritual Q-tip in your figurative ears is a good idea.
           Jesus once made a statement that has always made me flinch.  After the parable of the sower, when listing all the various soils and what went wrong with each hearer, he added, as Luke records it, Be careful therefore, how you hear, 8:18.  In a society big on blaming everyone but ourselves for our problems, this is truly one of the biggest.  Unlike the early church, which seemed to thrive on helping each other overcome problems with confessions and exhortations, we seem to think that no one has the right to tell us anything that might even slightly indicate that we might need to change.  Or we “wear our feelings on our shirtsleeves,” as the old saying goes, so we can be offended at the least provocation.
            Jesus makes it plain in this passage that how I take what people say to me is entirely up to me.  It only makes sense when you think about it.  If I had no control over my reactions to what others say, then it would be to my advantage for people to say hurtful things to me, wouldn’t it?  In fact, getting my feelings hurt would be the ideal way to go.  Then I could be angry and strike back with no qualms at all. 
            I could ignore the rebukes others offered for my sins as long as I felt insulted, and could keep doing them, couldn’t I?  But Paul says in Rom 2:6 that God will render to every man according to his deeds, not according to how someone corrected me.
            I could ignore the one who tells me I am wrong about what I believe if I thought he had evil motives and bad intentions, couldn’t I?  But Paul also says of those who preached with bad intentions, What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed and therein I rejoice, Phil 1:19.
I could hear false teaching and not have to worry about checking it out, right?  But Jesus said in Matt 15:14, they are blind guides and if the blind guide the blind, they both fall into a pit.
            So here is my obligation:  Listen to what others say, and evaluate it based upon truth, not upon how they say it, who they are, and whether or not I like them or their teaching.  Judgment Day will not dawn with three groups of people, including a group who “got their feelings hurt,” or “didn’t like the preacher,” or “were provoked,” and because of that did not do what they should have done.
            There will only be two groups:  the ones who did right and the ones who did not.  Let’s get out those Q-tips and clean out our ears.  Be careful how you hear.
 
He who corrects a scoffer gets to himself reviling, and he who reproves a wicked man gets himself a blot.  Reprove a scoffer and he will hate you; reprove a wise man and he will love you.  Give instruction to a wise man and he will be even wiser; teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning, Prov 9:7-9
The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but he who is wise listens to counsel. Prov 12:15
 
Dene Ward

A long time ago, when Keith preached for a small country church, he and I used to do our visiting on bicycles.  With two toddlers aged 3 and 1, we each had a child seat over the back wheel of our bikes and off the four of us would go for an afternoon or early evening of making the rounds to our elderly or ill brothers and sisters, or to make new contacts in the rural community whenever someone moved in. 

We rode sometimes as far as five or six miles one way.  We learned the roads far better than we would have by car.  The traffic on the highways was scarce so we could easily avoid the potholes.  We learned to use the center of the dirt roads.  You simply couldn't plow your way through the thick white sand on the corners and edges.  We also learned why lime rock roads are often called washboards.  Talk about vibrations—our teeth were still chattering a half mile after we turned off of one.

We found another good reason to avoid the edges of the roads—snakes!  More than once one of them jerked back from the road and slithered further into the grass it had been just about to leave.  Whenever we passed a flattened rattlesnake or moccasin in the road, we gave a little cheer.

And we also learned about wind.  I was reminded of it the other day when Lucas called and told me his experience with his bike and the wind.  It goes like this.  You are having the greatest ride of your life.  You feel great.  Your legs seem to fly on the pedals.  You can up the gears with impunity and virtually zip down the road.  Then you turn around to head back home.

Suddenly you understand why the ride out was so easy.  You are headed into a wind that had formerly been at your back.  You pedal harder in lower gears.  Your calves and thighs burn.  You begin to huff and puff.  Sometimes you wonder if you are making any progress at all.  And it takes you half again longer to get back home than the ride out.

When I see someone trying to navigate the trials of life without God that's what I think of—pedaling against the wind.  I cannot imagine facing problems without God.  What's the use of it all?  You can't count on help from anyone because, like you, they are all in it for themselves.  You don't believe that anything good will come from it.  You are pedaling into a headwind so strong you will be lucky to even stay in the same place instead of being blown backwards.  Who will listen to your cries?  Who will hold you up when things get even worse?  And why did it happen to you anyway?  Nothing makes sense.  And sooner or later, even if you get through this one, another problem will rear its ugly head and there you go again.

But with God on your side things are different--the wind is at your back.  It may still be a rough ride.  Life can deal you some bad moments.  The French have a phrase:  c'est la vie.  Such is life.  You can't get through it unscathed.  But with God behind you, you know you have help.  You have someone to lean on, to talk to, and to count on.  Because you have His Word in your heart you can make better decisions.  Because you pray you can feel calmer and more content.  Knowing that He will send help through your brothers and sisters, through Providence, through his Holy Spirit, and because you believe He will answer your prayers, you can face the impossible and come through it far better than you might have otherwise.  You know there is a reason—be it learning or growing stronger or refining your soul, you know you will be better on the other side of this affliction.

Are you riding with the wind, or against it?  If you don't have that relationship with God, if you don't know Him through his revelation to us, and if you never bother to talk with him unless you want something, maybe you are headed in the wrong direction.  Just because you sit on a pew, you aren't necessarily on the right road.  It's easy to get bogged down in the sand corners.  Just because you were once baptized into the Lord's body, you aren't necessarily a part of it now.  There is a snake out there just waiting to strike at your ankles.  You need to turn that bike around.  He wants to help you, but He can't as long as you keep riding against the Wind.
 
Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted; but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint. (Isa 40:28-31)
 
Dene Ward
 

Sometimes the craziness people come up with, both scholar and layman, amazes me.  Yes, the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and must be followed to the letter, or why bother at all?  But God did spend over a millennium trying to communicate with us in our language, exactly the way we use language, so that we could understand exactly what that Word means and follow it.  And guess how we communicate?  We use idioms.  We use hyperboles.  We use all sorts of figurative language every day.  Yet still people think that every single word in the Bible is meant to be taken literally and ignore obvious figures to the point that entire convoluted false doctrines can come from it.
            Here is a simple example:  And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher (she was of a great age, having lived with a husband seven years from her virginity, and she had been a widow even unto fourscore and four years), who departed not from the temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day (Luke 2:36-37).
            We could spend a lot of time on those two verses alone.  We could talk about the family Anna came from, and their obvious devotion to God, a devotion that sometime in the distant past caused them leave their property in the northern kingdom and travel south at probably great loss.  We could talk about the difficulty translating her age and marriage so that we really are not sure if she was 84 or whether it had been 84 years since she became a widow—not really as far-fetched as you might imagine if you do some research.  But let's just concentrate on the last couple of phrases:  who departed not from the temple, worshipping with fastings and supplications night and day. 
            Many would have her living at the Temple and doing nothing else in her life.  But look at the things she did "night and day."  I don't have to be a Greek scholar to know this:  if "night and day" means 24/7, she would not have lasted more than a few days because one of the things she did "night and day" was fast.  What applies to fasting applies to the rest.  She simply made a habit of fasting.  Not every single day all day long.  What does an exasperated mother mean when she says of her teenage son, "All he does is play video games?"  See?  We use the same sort of language all the time.  (See what I just did?)
            So this good woman made a habit of going to the Temple, of worshipping God with fasting and prayer.  We can do the same thing, except our temple is the body of Christ, the church.  Are you following Anna's example so well that someone would say of you, "She worships God all the time?"  That's what we should learn from Anna, if we learn nothing else at all.
 
One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple (Ps 27:4).
 
Dene Ward