Hello everyone!
Have you ever noticed that quite often us Aussies never directly answer a question that is put to us, or we use a negative like “not”. Comedian Carl Barron has observed some frequently occurring examples. Question: “Gee whiz, how much did that cost?” Answer: “Oh, wasn’t cheap.” Question: “So, what have you been up to?” Answer: “Aw, not much.” Question: “G’day mate, how ya going?” Answer: “Not bad.” Question: “How’s work?” Answer: “Could be worse.” Question: “Where is this place?” Answer: “Oh, it’s not far.” Question: “Enjoying that steak, mate?” Answer: “It’s not half bad!” Question: “When are we leaving?” Answer: “Not long now.”
You get the drift – we Aussies are famous for this kind of talk that doesn’t directly or explicitly answer questions. It’s as if we don’t really want to answer, or want to keep our options open. In more recent times another phrase has arisen in our everyday language that just wasn’t there 15 years ago … “Yeah, no.” Yeah, no? What on earth is that supposed to mean? “Yeah, no.” This phrase is everywhere now. Recently, listening to a talk back radio program (on “Our ABC”) both radio announcer and interviewee used “Yeah, no”, 17 times in the space of barely 15 minutes – and these are educated people.
What does such a response mean? “So, what is your recommendation here given the looming economic crisis?”, asked the interviewer. Interviewee replies, “Yeah, no … it’s not going to be easy.” What!? “Yeah, no” now precedes so many conversations as a meaningless “give me time to formulate a response” kind of buffer. “Yeah, no” seems to want to avoid a straight answer.
No one wants to definitively answer questions, it seems, or say where they stand. Or, perhaps, they’re not sure how to at times. And politicians? So many are expert in spending several minutes not answering the questions put to them. Often they don’t want to answer and reveal their hand, or where they stand until they’ve worked out which way the social wind is blowing.
What ever happened to plain speaking?
FINAL WORD
This habit of not speaking plainly, in our Aussie culture, has infected the church today. Few want to speak plainly about sin and behaviour – or are afraid to do so, for fear of incurring the shrill wrath of the social media kangaroo court. Few want to nail their colours to the mast - not as some kind of protest but - in terms of “this is where I stand, this is what I believe according to the Bible.” If you dare to do so you’re likely to be labelled in some derogatory way – and not just by non-believers, either.
In many a church today even the Gospel itself has been obscured because of a great reluctance to speak plainly and, yes, for fear of offending someone. But the Gospel is pretty plain speaking – there is no “yeah, no” about it. The Gospel ignores the complaints levelled against it such as “intolerance”, “harsh”, “judgemental”, “unfair” and so on, because the truth is of far greater importance to God, and to human beings. The eternity of every soul hinges on the truth. There is a stream of thinking across sections of the church which is called “liberalism”. That is, those Christians who embrace liberalism have a “yeah, no” view of the Scriptures. They happily say “yeah” to the things that appeal to them and create a nice soft Gospel of their own making that they prefer; and they just as readily say “no” to anything that calls them to account, or excludes people who refuse to acknowledge God, or His standards of holiness. Liberalism, in my view, is the “yeah, no” of modern Christianity. It is non-committal. It is wish-washy. It is deceptive. It is absolutely dangerous.
Liberalism reduces Christianity to the “golden rule” – do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. But this kind of reductionism renders the cross of Christ absolutely meaningless. It allows no room for personal acknowledgement of sin, let alone accountability for it according to Scripture, and thus no room for redemption and salvation. Eternity hangs on this one issue. Yet, liberalism redefines sin, and reduces it to a humanist moral code that is relative – that is, it changes to suit the new season’s preferences. I have noticed that liberalism never increases its moral code, it is always reducing to lower and lower standards. There is no enduring, unchanging, biblical standard. Holiness is not relative, according to Romans 3.
Romans 3:23 “… for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, …”
God’s standard of holiness never changes. There is no “yeah, no” with our Holy God.
He has spoken plainly to us in his Son, Jesus Christ …
Matthew 7:21-23 "Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?' 23 Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'”
And also through the apostle Paul …
2 Corinthians 4:1-3 “Therefore, since through God's mercy we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. 2 Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. 3 And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.”
Don’t be deceived by liberalism’s deceptive appeal. Remain true to everything in God’s word, even those parts that may offend your soulishness for a time, because God is not kidding. There is no “yeah, no” in Him.
You are dearly, dearly loved.
Ps Milton