Tickling People’s Ears Is No Laughing Matter

How do you feel when someone pays you a compliment? If it’s genuine, it probably makes you feel good. Maybe really good. We like hearing nice things said about us, especially if we know they’re sincere. But sometimes, even if we sense it’s just flattery, it can still massage our egos. We might call it having our ears tickled – telling us what we’d like to hear.

 

In most instances there’s nothing wrong with that, although Proverbs 27:21 does offer these words of caution: “The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but man is tested by the praise he receives.” Perhaps another way of saying this is that it’s not just what we hear people say about us, but also how we respond. If their words go to our heads and we start thinking too highly of ourselves, we’re entering dangerous territory.

 

But there’s another, perhaps more insidious form of “ear tickling” that’s going on today, especially in the realm broadly defined as evangelicalism. Many denominations, individual congregations, and even some seminaries are “repackaging” biblical teachings and doctrines so they’re not regarded offensive. Because in our politically correct world, lots of folks don’t like being confronted with truth, especially (to borrow the term) inconvenient truth. They strongly prefer the ear-tickling approach.

 

Words like “sin,” “hell,” “judgment,” and “condemnation” are being banished from many pulpits. Pastors don’t want people sitting in the pews – their “audiences” – to feel guilty or bad or, dare we say it, offended. It’s like they’re trying to “rebrand” Jesus, making Him and His teachings more palatable for 21^st century consciousness. Even though the Scriptures describe Jesus Christ as “‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’ They stumble because they disobey the word” (1 Peter 2:8).

 

Rather than teaching how Christ and the Word of God should shape culture, some apparently have concluded the culture should shape perspectives on Jesus and the Bible. Questions of morality, ethics, spirituality, even life and death, are being answered according to the prevailing whims of the media, entertainment, education, politics, and other elements of popular “thinking.”

 

Thank the Lord, there remain churches where pastors speak biblical truth boldly, unapologetically, and as compassionately as possible, without watering down the gospel message. I’m a member of one of those. But with many congregations and denominations bleeding members like spiritual hemophiliacs, they’ve decided a more “tolerant” Jesus will stem the flow.

 

This is hardly a new phenomenon. Writing to his protégé Timothy, the apostle Paul declared, “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires” (2 Timothy 4:3). Another translation expresses it this way: “to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”

 

Ear tickling wasn’t conceived in the 20^th or 21^st centuries, however. It was happening many centuries before Paul arrived on the scene. In the Old Testament prophetic book we read, “They say to the seers, ‘Stop seeing visions!’ and to the prophets, ‘Do not prophesy to us the truth! Speak to us pleasant words; prophesy illusions’” (Isaiah 30:10). 

 

Reminds me of the fellow in the country church who approached the new minister and informed him, “Preacher, we don’t mind your preachin’. But now you’ve gone and started meddlin’!”

 

I get it. I lived much of my early adult life trying to keep God at an arm’s length, inviting Him closer only when I felt I needed His help. The straight-forward precepts of the Scriptures can cramp our style in how we’d like to live. As an old friend said so well, “If sin wasn’t any fun, we wouldn’t want to do it.”

 

Unfortunately for those who want a kind of compromising Christ, the Scriptures are adamant that redefining the Lord isn’t an option available to them. As Hebrews 13:8 reminds us, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” The God of the Old Testament and the God revealed through Jesus in the New Testament isn’t to be remolded into our image.

We find this ominous warning in Jude 1:17-18 which rings all too familiar today: “…remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, ‘In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.’ These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.”

 

Writing to Timothy, Paul exhorted him not to bend to the pressures of culture and other influences: “Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching you have heard from me, with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus…. You therefore, my child, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things that you have heard me say among many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be qualified to teach others as well” (2 Timothy 1:13, 2:1-2). 

What about those of us who see no need for “reimagining” Jesus and His Word, who believe more people need to hear God’s truth, as the Bible clearly presents it, and less ear-tickling talk? We’re not likely to change the mindsets of the “marketers” within the Church. But we can do as Paul admonished believers in ancient Corinth: “Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain” (1 Corinthians 15:58).  

Facing the Greatest Danger

Can we all agree that we live in troubled, troubling times? I have a friend, typically an optimist, who admits he’s become quite bothered by the turmoil in our nation and around the world. So much so that he now quips, “I’m very optimistic – I’m positive things are going to get worse!”

As a society, we seem more disconnected than ever. In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear about a push to rename the United States of America, calling it instead the Untied States of America. The perceived divides include race, economics, gender, basic values, and ideology.

Remember the song, “Come Together,” originally sung by the Beatles and later by Aerosmith and others? There doesn’t appear to be much coming together in our land these days. Add the fears surrounding ever-present threats of terrorism, violence, and a political scene that’s chaotic at best. Even technology, for all of its benefits, has also presented some decided liabilities. Are we really better off? We’ve got lots of questions, but answers seem scarce.

So if someone were to ask you what you considered the greatest danger facing us today, how would you respond? What do you see as the greatest threat to life as we’ve known it?

Recently I heard an interesting observation from someone who passed from the scene long before the 21^st century began. You might have heard of William Booth. He was the British preacher who founded the highly regarded Salvation Army, now one of the largest distributors of humanitarian aid in many parts of the world.

Booth died in 1912, but offered a perspective that might lead us to believe he had just returned from a time machine excursion decades into the future.

As the beginning of the 20^th century was approaching, Booth was asked to comment on what he believed to be the greatest danger society would be facing as the 1800s drew to a close.

He paused thoughtfully and then responded, “The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, heaven without hell.”

Even though Booth was gazing toward the 20^th century, his insights could apply just as easily to where we are today in the midst of the 21^st century’s second decade.

Alistair Begg, a native of Scotland who currently serves as senior pastor of Parkside Church in Cleveland, Ohio, has observed that in the name of tolerance and seeking to attract more worshipers, the gospel message in many churches has been diluted drastically and biblical interpretation softened to make it more accommodating.

The result, however, has been what 2 Timothy 3:5 describes as an institutional church “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power.”

A few lines later, the apostle Paul warns his disciple Timothy, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:5). Another translation states it this way: “wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires.”

It’s understandable for people in the secular world to select views that align with their own preferences and prejudices, but the greater problem occurs as evangelical congregations and denominations begin watering down their message in an effort to pack the pews.

Yes, the message of Jesus Christ is offensive to many. But that’s the way it’s always been. As 1 Peter 2:8 declares, “’He is the stone that makes people stumble, the rock that makes them fall.’ They stumble because they do not obey God's word….”

So the issue facing each of us who claim to be followers of Jesus, as we read and study the Scriptures, is to honestly ask ourselves, “What does it say?” and not, “What do I want it to say?” or, “What does society – or government – tell us it should say?”

As Booth sagely pointed out many years before any of us were born, a faith formulated by excluding Christ, His Spirit, repentance, recognition of a need for regeneration, acknowledgement of God’s role in the affairs of mankind, or eternal consequences for our actions, isn’t faith at all. It’s foolishness, an exercise in futility. 

What’s That Smell?

Take a moment and think about your favorite smell. In your imagination, take a long sniff. Is it bacon? The fragrance of a rose? Freshly baked pecan or cherry pie? The scent of a particular kind of perfume?

For me, nearly 40 years after my mom’s passing, I can still remember the smell of her unbelievably delicious Hungarian nut roll baking in the oven, the crushed walnuts mixed with sugar and lemon rind to comprise the pasty filling inside the delicate dough turning a golden brown. It only happened around the Christmas season, so that aroma was extra-special.

The nose knows what it knows - and remembers.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, one of the most revered Supreme Court justices, observed, “Memories, imagination, old sentiments, and associations are more readily reached through the sense of smell than through any other channel.”

For years after I broke up with my first girlfriend back in high school, whenever I caught a whiff of a certain brand of cologne, thoughts of her would come to my mind. As Justice Holmes correctly noted, our olfactory system – sense of smell – does wonders for the memory.

The point is, although most of us are very visual – men even more than most women – and we rely greatly on our sense of hearing as well, our sense of smell exerts considerable influence on our thoughts and emotions.

Before you get lost on a fragrant stroll down memory lane, let’s shift gears. Now, think of some repulsive, repugnant odors that particularly bothered you. Maybe a too-long hidden “treasure” in the back of your refrigerator comes to mind. Or a rotten potato forgotten at the bottom of a storage bin. Or a particularly pungent diaper produced by an infant nearby.

I’ve never been thrilled about going into florist shops because the smell of multiple varieties of flowers, although not unpleasant, always reminds me of a funeral home. If you enjoy visiting a florist, that’s fine. Just don’t invite me to tag along. Maybe you’re that way when you smell certain foods, cooked liver or cabbage perhaps?

Whatever negative odors come to your mind, this second assortment of “memories” elicits an entirely different set of reactions, doesn’t it? If you’re still meandering down memory lane, watch where you step!

Interestingly, God uses this reality as an analogy for an important spiritual truth. Have you ever wondered why the gospel of Jesus Christ seems so inviting and appealing to some people, while others find it repulsive and offensive? The apostle Paul explains it this way:

“But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?” (2 Corinthians 2:14-15).

What an odd thought: Jesus being “the fragrance of life” to those who are being redeemed and forgiven for their sins, but “the smell of death” for those that reject Him.

This isn’t to imply in any sense that those who profess Christ as Savior and Lord are better or superior to those who don’t believe. In fact, to turn one’s life over to Him is a humbling experience of recognizing our own unworthiness, our utter spiritual bankruptcy before the God of the universe. It cuts against the grain of human pride and self-sufficiency to respond to Jesus’ claim of being “the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).

But as His followers, we bear the responsibility of making certain if people turn away from Jesus, it’s Him they are rejecting and not a skewed, offensive caricature of Him we present.

Frankly, I’ve been around some people quick to define themselves as “Christians” who were pretty “smelly,” but not in the way the apostle Paul described. More than once I’ve thought how glad I was to have already known Jesus personally before I met them. Otherwise, I might have received the wrong impression, one that wouldn’t have drawn me closer to Him.

The Bible describes Jesus as “A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense” (1 Peter 2:8). For some He will be offensive, the “smell of death,” even though He is so attractive for others. In our efforts to express to friends, family members, neighbors and colleagues at work what He means to us and what He could mean for them, we should make every effort to ensure if there’s an offense to be taken, they’re truly offended by Him – and not by us as poor, inaccurate reflections of who He is.

We’re called to “give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have” (1 Peter 3:15), but not to make a big stink about it.