TOPIC:"Life In the Neutral Zone"
TEXT:St. Matthew 12:22-30
"He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad" (Matthew 12:30)
I am certain most of us are aware that we are presently living in a day when the plague of moral neutralism is eating its way into the moral fabric of our country. And while society as a whole has been throwing its moral convictions to the wind, the fact remains that this neutral zone way of living has been spreading like wildfire among those of us who profess Christ to be our Savior and Lord.
Now this way of neutral living, I say, is bringing shame to the Christ who loves us and died for us. God dislikes people who are half and half. To Israel God said through His servant Joshua: "Choose you this day whom ye will serve" (Joshua 24:15). To Israel again God declared through His prophet Elijah: "How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God follow Him; but if Baal, then follow him" (I Kings 18:21).
And we could go on: Through the Psalmist God declared: "I hate double-minded men" (Psalms 119:113, NIV) or as the New Living Translation renders it: "I hate those who are undecided." Or think of what the risen Christ said about the disgusting indifference of the Laodicean Christians: "So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth" (Revelation 3:16, NIV).
Our spiritual spinelessness and lack of courage to take our stand for that which is right will one day bring us all, Christians and non-christians, into judgment before a sovereign God. Let us now look at the words of our text to find out what Jesus meant when He declared, "He that is not with me is against me."
Consider, to begin with, the DECISION Jesus invited us to make. Listen to His first statement: "He that is not with me is against me" (v. 30). The New Living Translation has it: "Anyone who isn't helping me opposes me." Listen to His second statement: "He that gathereth not with . . .