Don't Become A Superstitious Christian

Proverb 3:5-7, “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the LORD, and depart from evil.”

John 5:39, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.”

Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;”

We are all familiar with some superstitious tales. For example: Some people believe that if you break a mirror, it will bring seven years of bad luck. Another superstitious belief is that seeing a black cat is an omen of coming bad luck. These are mere superstitions, not based in fact.

Sadly, there is also a religious form of superstition Among many believers. Such people tend to read into everything, looking for divine meaning and the will of God. I have heard many such silly superstitious beliefs from professed Christians throughout my life. I once heard a radio preaching say that he is always looking for God. Well, you need to be real careful using that mentality. The Big problem with such superstitious thinking is how do you know the difference between a sign from God versus mere coincidence? You don't.

One of the text passages of Scripture that I chose is from Hebrews 1:1-2, “God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;” God does not speak today through men. Nor does the Lord speak through signs, visions or dreams as He did in the Old Testament at times. God speaks to humanity through His only begotten Son, Jesus. According to John 1:1-3 and 14, Jesus is the incarnate (made flesh) Word of God. Dr. John R. Rice (1895-1980) used to rightly say that Jesus and the Holy Bible are twins. Jesus is the Living Word. The Bible is the Written Word. Revelation 19:13 says that Jesus' name is: THE WORD OF GOD.

Jesus commands everyone in John 5:39, “Search the scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of me.” The inspired Word of God is no uncertain terms, exhorts God's redeemed and adopted children to SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES that we may know THE TRUTH. So we ought not go around looking for secret messages, visions, dreams or supernatural signs from God. It is okay to always look for signs of God, just so long as you don't base decisions upon them, or give credence to unprovable speculation. Some people are going to do it anyway, but I refuse to attribute any supernatural meaning to anything that could just as easily have been happenstance or a coincidence, not matter how unlikely or rare it may be.

I used to work for the U.S. Postal Service. I worked at the Processing And Distribution Center at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago for 11 years. One night I shared something with a co-worker that I had learned in Bible college years earlier by Evangelist Tom Williams in night collage. He said: “The secret to the Christian life is to live in John 19.” John chapter 19 is all about Jesus' crucifixtion on the cross of Calvary.

So I shared that excellent truth with a Christian co-worker. The next night, the moment I arrived at my machine to perform maintenance on it, I saw a bunch of pages torn out from a crumpled pocket New Testament. The pages were scattered throughout the Advance Facer Canceller Machine (AFCS). This machine prints a cancellation mark over the stamp, and then faces all the envelopes in the same direction, so they can be sorted on a different machine. When I reached into the feeder to pull out a crumpled page, my mind was blown when it was a page from John chapter 19.

I know what you're already thinking, perhaps my co-worker was messing with me. I thought that too. But for several reason I am 100% convinced that wasn't the case:

1. My co-worker's nature wasn't to be a prankster, he was a laid back kind of guy
2. I seriously doubt if he would destroy a Holy Bible to play a prank
3. The way that the page of John 19 was crumpled into the inner feeder belts just couldn't have been done by a human
4. There were pages of the Bible scattered throughout the machine
5. We both arrived at our work area at the same time
6. I was so paranoid how that single page of John 19 got jammed into my feeder, that I even wondered if a Postal Inspector had eavesdropped on our conversation from their tunnels above (they can see you but you can't see them), and then played a prank, but I reasonably concluded that such a suspicion was insane at best.
7. I pondered finally if God was sending me a message of confirmation that Tom Williams was absolutely correct, that living in John 19 is the key to the Christian life.

I struggled for months in amazement of such a strange occurrence happening. The odds must have been one in a trillion! To this day I cannot explain that bizarre night. Was it just a rare coincidence? Yes, I think so. Would God rip apart His Word to make a point? Since I already believed what Evangelist Tom Williams taught me (which I why I remembered that truth and shared it with a co-worker in the first place), what would be the point for God to reiterate it to me? Or perhaps, does God just like to mess with people? The possibilities are endless.

In the end, I think the only sane and reasonable conclusion is that it was indeed a mere coincidence. But I'll tell you what, I now fully know that: “The key to the Christian life is to live in John 19.” And I'd actually like to change that statement a little bit, to this: “The key to the Christian life is to live in the Word of God.” That is what David said in Psalms 1. David meditated in God's Word day and night. And we must include John chapter 20 about Jesus' physical resurrected from the dead. If Christ be not raised, then our faith in in vain! My point in sharing this true story with you is that superstition can drive a person nutty. I refuse to become a superstitious Christian.

I once heard Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001) tell a true story while he still lived and pastored in Texas. The First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana, had kindly contacted Dr. Hyles, inviting him to come candidate to be their new pastor. Brother Hyles wasn't sure what to do, so he prayed and prayed about the matter, giving it much thought. Then a few days later he was driving down the road  in Texas and saw a big billboard that read: “Hammond welcomes you!” Brother Hyles said he took that as a sign from God.

Now, I love Dr. Hyles and I would never criticize his logic. However, I would NEVER uses such a sign (literally) in even the slightest way to make a major (or even minor) life's decision. There were other considerations as well that Dr. Hyles made, not just the sign, but I have never liked that story of his, because it could have merely been a coincidence. Having said that, I praise God with all my heart and sure am glad that Dr. Hyles decided to come up to Hammond to pastor, because I might not be saved right now if he hadn't. I would likely have been caught between grace and works like so many neo-evangelicals today, who are trusting in the Devils' lie of Lordship Salvation instead of the Gospel of free grace. If my website and blog ministry means anything to you dear reader, you should in part be thankful toward Pastor Jack Hyles, without whom my blogs and websites would exist. I love and miss Brother Hyles dearly!

I like to stick to what I know as a child of God, and not speculate based upon feelings of having a premonition, likely coincidence or randomness. You'll hear foolish preachers saying stupid things like, “There are no coincidences.” But what saith the Scripture? Is that statement Biblical that there are no coincidences? Ecclesiastes 9:11, “I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all.” Solomon came to understand that just because a man is strong doesn't guarantee him a win in battle. And just because a man is wise doesn't guarantee that he will have food to eat.

I was watching some YouTube documentaries last week about the homeless crisis in California. There are now over 100,000 homeless Americans just in the state of California. Hardly anything is being done to help those people. Meanwhile multibillionaire Elon Musk is working 80 hours per week with his 10,000 driven employees to colonize the planet Marrs with humans by 2050. Have we gone totally insane on planet earth? It seems so. I wish that Elon Musk would invent affordable dental care for the 50,000,000 Americans with rotting teeth, because they cannot afford the insanely high cost of dental work. For a so-called “free” society we are also dealing with one of the most oppressive greedy cultures in history. I digress.

I heard a professed Christian man saying that God had blessed his family by opening a new restaurant, and that they are serving God in the restaurant business. That is no superstition, that is just plain ignorance of what it means to serve God. If you are not doing something to preach the Gospel and get people into Heaven, you're not serving God. I am disturbed how many professed Christians serve themselves and merely slab a label over it of doing, “God's will.” Right!

I knew a Christian man many years ago when I worked as a truck mechanic. He literally wrote down the Gospel on a few 3" x 5" cards. He wrote out all the Bible verses. I was really impressed. As he went on his garbage route each day, he handed customers that he met with his 3" x 5" Gospel presentation. He handed me one and I was humbled and thanked God for his soulwinning efforts to win the win to Jesus Christ. Truthfully, that garbage man is serving God a thousand times more than John MacArthur (who preaches a counterfeit plan of salvation). That garbage man is serving God infinitely more than all these deadbeat false prophets today like Benny Hinn, Pat Robertson and Joel Osteen who preach partial faith in Christ plus something else. Faith is the only righteous thing that I can do.

I wrote this blog just to share some common sense with you, because there's a lot of religious nuts in the churches today. Always stick to what you know, not what you don't know. Where the Bible is silent we should be silent.

Many years ago I tried my hand at the Stock Market. I knew enough to be dangerous...lol. Like millions of other Americans, I lost everything when the dot.com bubble burst in 2000. Over 5 years I lost $50,000. The ironic thing is that I had actually made $140,000 from Intel stock splits, using a series of long term Call options that I had bought. Call options allow you to control a very large amount of stock shares with a very small amount of money. The risks are high, but so also is the potential to make a lot of money in short amount of time.

Anyway, after the market crashed in 2000 and stayed down for the next 8 years, I vowed to never buy another stock and to this day I have kept my promise to myself. In the year 2000 I got off midnight shift at work, never signed up for overtime at work again, and I have focused all my energies on laying up treasures in Heaven since (Matthew 6:19-20). I began my website ministry in 2002 and have never looked back since, full steam ahead to the gates of Heaven!!!

When I had dabbled in the Stock market back in the 1990s, in Chicago we had a popular show called The Stock Market Observer. On the show they talked about stocks, interesting companies, did interviews with interesting people, and provided a little bit of everything for investors. One segment of the show that always disturbed me was the Stock Market Astrologer. Literally, some goofy looking guy would give financial advice based on the alignment of the stars and planets. I knew it was occultism. You'd by shocked if you knew how many rich people make million and even billion dollar investments based upon astrology!

In the same way, superstitious believers who make life's decisions based upon unbiblical whims, oddities, serendipity and zemblanity, coincidences, uncanny events and abstract things are no better than occultists. The wise saint will SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES daily as one's only source of truth in all matters of faith, living and life's major decisions...

Psalms 1:1-3, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.  And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”