ATTEMPTING TO MAKE GOATS ACT LIKE SHEEP

By Curtis Pugh

If it were not so sad it would be amusing to read and hear preachers and others trying to get spiritual goats to act like spiritual sheep. It seems that some people think that everyone that ever “made a decision for Christ,” or “prayed the sinner's prayer,” or “got baptized,” etc., are saved in spite of the way they live. Because of this idea again and again we read and hear religious leaders hammering away trying to get lost people to act like Christians.

It seems clear that they think that there are genuine Christians who continue to live exactly like the world. Nothing could be further from the truth! Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me,” (John 10:27), but these folk say that Jesus' sheep do not follow Him. Jesus said, “For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit,” (Luke 6:43), but these folk say that a good tree brings forth rotten fruit: i.e. that a true child of God can live an immoral life. Jesus said, “Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them,” (Matthew 7:20), but these folk seem to think that true Christians do not necessarily produce good fruit.

It is unpopular today to believe the Bible although many give lip service to it. Paul wrote: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new,” (2 Corinthians 5:17), but some folk, it seems, believe that a born again individual will not experience what it means to be a new creation in Christ. Hebrews 12:14 says: “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord,” but it seems some think it possible to go to be with the Lord without any holiness.

It is true that spiritual goats act like goats. They think like goats, love the things of this world, dress like goats, seek after goat-pleasures, indulge in goat-excesses, etc. In short they acted like goats before they “made a decision” or “prayed the sinner's prayer,” or whatever they did having been told by false teachers that their act would cause them to be born again. They do not understand that the new birth is a matter of God's intervention in their lives and has nothing to do with their wills for God says of those born again, “Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God,” (John 1:13). In spite of these clear words, “Not of works, lest any man should boast,” (Ephesians 2:9) the natural mind reasons that it is possible to do something which will get God to save a sinner.

So it is that some goats are obviously goats while other goats make a pretense at being religious, claiming to be spiritual sheep. But you cannot make a goat into a sheep.