Peach Juice

Pastor Bauserman gave an excellent illustration at our Mid-week Service last night that I would like to share.  He began by talking about his mother's canned peaches.  I've had homemade canned peaches before, and they are GOOD stuff!  He then poured a full glass of peach juice and drank some... mmmmm... good!  Then he got an idea.  He poured another glass with only about a centimetre of peach juice in it and added some water to fill the glass.  Then he proceeded to add food colouring to make it look the same as the full glass.  Was it the same?  Everything looked good.  Both were the same colour, both glasses had the same amount in them, if you drank the watered down peach juice you might not even notice a difference.  However, if you had the real peach juice and then the watered down version the difference would be noticed immediately!

The application was clear.  Many churches are watering down Christianity.  They have replaced good music with bad music.  They have replaced good preaching with mushy-feel-good-storytelling that might have a Bible verse in it somewhere.  They have replaced God's Holy Word the Bible with man's opinions.   They have replaced doctrine with cultural relevance.  They have replaced the gospel with let's-just-accept-everyone-the-way-they-are.  They have replaced exposing heresy with everyone is entiltled to their own interpretation.  They have replaced holy living with do what your conscience says is ok.  They have replaced sin, repentance, forgiveness, Jesus, hell, and the list could go on and on.  However, the sad thing is that most people in these churches have only ever tasted the watered-down version of Christianity.  To them it tastes pretty good; they have nothing to compare it to.  If they would only taste the real thing!  They would never go back to their watered down peach juice.