Paradoxical Lions and Lambs<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
By: Vince and Lori Williams
www.vinceandloriministries.blogspot.com
 
 
This past Easter, or Resurrection Sunday as we like to call it, a mega church pastor taught his congregation about the paradox of Jesus. The example he gave...wait for the punch line...a real life lamb and fully-grown lion on the stage of his church.
 
Ed Young Jr, "pastor" of Fellowship "Church" in Grapevine Texas, kicked off his new relevant sermon series titled, Wild!
Let us set the scene for you. This is the day that Jesus was resurrected from the tomb, the day that is so significant to what the Christian faith hinges on...the Resurrected Christ who conquered death so that we might have life through his death, burial and resurrection. It should be a day of praise, reflection and hope for those who are a new creature in Christ.  That is what some Christians who were in biblical churches were taught that day.
 
However if you were in the seats at Fellowship "Church" on that Sunday, you got to see and hear something quite disturbing. Ed opens up the service with talking about everyone's outfits and looking snazzy for Easter as he parades around in his pink coat and skinny khakis. Then as usual, the obligatory shout outs were made to the multi-site campuses. As Ed is doing all of this you see two black crates on stage. One is fairly small and one is rather large. No sounds are being heard at this point...but Ed goes into the sermon of describing paradoxes. We think he may of gotten confused what that word means because he seemed to be describing things that would fall under the heading of an oxymoron rather than a paradox.
 
He opens the sermon with Revelation Chapter 5, 5-6  saying this, "John looked expecting to see the lion of Judah and instead saw a lamb."
 
So off he goes with grabbing his cherry-picked scripture verse and then gets to the bait and switch of it all. He runs over and uncovers the first cage and pulls out a live lamb. He then holds this lamb for quite awhile, petting it and kissing it and telling us how Jesus is just like this little lamb, kind, cuddly and compassionate. (We don't know about you, but we've never thought of Jesus as cuddly nor seen that description in the Bible of Him.)
 
Ed goes on to point out, but He's not just a lamb.... here's where the paradox comes in he states. "He's called a lion-like lamb and a lamb-like lion." There is not a scripture that directly says this in case anyone is wondering.
 
So after caressing the lamb for too long, he begins to talk about how Jesus was not just the lamb but...gasp.....He was like a lion. He turns to the crowd and draws them in saying... "You don't have a lion here do you?...you talking about Simba?"
A man comes out and uncovers the cage and unveils a massive full-grown lion. They hype up the lion with treats so that he will start acting ferocious and we can all get the idea of how lion like Jesus would be. Ed tells us that the lion goes after prey and the lamb is prey.
Then announces "Let's give it up for the lion and the lamb!" and the entire congregation joins him in giving these animals applause.
 
Two things here...not only is this a bait and switch to get people to church because they've heard a real lion will be there, but he completely takes the focus off of Jesus and puts it on himself and these literal animals. How about we give it up for Jesus? How about we exposit His word properly and not think of catchy phrases so we can showcase the latest craze in seeker-friendly style preaching?
 
The "sermon" was painful to watch actually as Ed mangled this next text that actually is nowhere to be found. He says that humility is confidence and then gives Philippians 2 verse 8 as an example. This is a direct quote from the "sermon." He was reading out of what appeared to be a Bible and read this for that verse, "He humbled himself and became a lamb and became obedient to death."
 
Friends, that is not what that verse says. We searched over 5 different translations including the NLT, NIV, NASB, NKJV, KJV, and even the heretical The Message, to see if any of them said that exactly. They did not. The text says in the NASB, "He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." Similar translations read the same. This is where you have to watch these seeker pastors so carefully.... they will take a verse and twist it or edit it so slightly to fit whatever "wild" sermon series they may be doing in order to connect the two points. This is dangerous! Be a good Berean and test everything. Look these scriptures up when you see them flashed quickly on their monitors and see if that is what your Bible says.
Jesus never became a lamb..........He became a Man. A man to take on the sins of the world in his full humanity...fully God and fully man. Not fully God and fully lamb. Do you see the subtle deception that creeps in? A twist of one or two words and you have altered God's word from the original meaning or the original intent of the passage.
 
Ed goes on to say other things throughout the sermon such as the following:  
"Mary had a little lamb",
"Jesus as vulnerable as a lamb asked us to join Him in His humility, when I humble myself before God as a lamb he give me the heart of lion."
"If Jesus is just a lamb then he's not threatening, he doesn't get up in my grill." 
 "Or you get focused on the lion only. He's a lion he'll kick your be-hion"
"We forget that Jesus had a heart of a lion."
 
None of these things are in the Bible, he gives no scripture throughout these trite statements to back up any of this crass and blasphemous talk. Just when we thought we couldn't take anymore, he makes this statement in continuation about the paradox of a lion and a lamb.
"I always say, Jesus was not some pale frail blue-eyed de-caf sipping white boy." It nearly made us cringe as we watched it being said.
 
He transitions from that statement talking about how lion-like Jesus was in his approach to Mary Magdalene. Ed does not name her by name but rather describes vulgarly the attributes of her pre-conversion state. It is so coarse we will not even defame the word of God by explaining it.
Ed uses another story in the Bible to talk about the lion-like state of Jesus in referring to the rich young ruler in the book of Luke. Apparently according to Ed, Jesus was lion-like when he stood up to the man and told him "it's your wealth you love too much", and how that took courage to say that.
Again, Jesus did not need courage to talk to the rich young ruler.... He simply told him the truth...something drastically missing in that analogy from Ed.
 
So the "sermon" comes to a close.... you have a lamb that literally "baa's" through the whole thing and a lion that is pretty much passed out on stage in his cage. Ed tells of how he was at the mall pondering this sermon and how he was wanting to take something complex and make it edible and simple for them. And that friend is the whole problem with the seeker movement...how can we water down the truth to make it more acceptable to the lost. THAT is NOT the Gospel. When are we going to stand up for the truth and quit pandering to these seeker friendly pastors that want to do something plus the Gospel. As if God's word isn't amazing enough to stand on its own.... we have to bring in animals to demonstrate a paradox.
Maybe next week's animal up for discussion will be a goat...........
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www.vinceandloriministries.blogspot.com