On
Charging into ‘Hell’ With A Squirt Gun
There is a popular expression that I
hear in church circles, and from pulpits, and in casual conversation from time
to time. The saying is, essentially, that, “charging into ‘hell’ with a squirt
gun,” is a nonsense thing to do. Let’s take a brief moment to laugh with the
saying. It’s a funny way to express what is otherwise meant as a serious
warning. Imagine someone charging into the unquenchable fires of ‘hell’ with a
toy squirt gun filled with a few ounces of water. Good luck with that, right?
Hahaha.
The laugh we get from this is a
certain kind of laugh though. Its a laugh that comes from a feeling of contempt
or scorn, a laugh that the philosopher Joseph Albo describes as arising when
one, “ . . . observes his neighbor doing or saying something that is unbecoming
to human nature or the person’s dignity.” We laugh because we feel superior to
the foolish man with squirt gun in hand braving the fires of ‘hell’. We laugh
at his folly for being vastly unprepared for the task before him. He’s not
someone in whose footsteps we want to follow by any means.
It is unknown whether he came back or
no, or what became of him exactly in ‘hell’ after his charge but we assume the
worst: that he is as good as gone. We have him fixed in our minds, a timeless
statue like Lot’s wife. The man who “charges into ‘hell’ with a squirt gun” is
a sign, a great illustration to us all of what men ought not to do for shame.
Our haughty laughter echoes in the chambers of sanctuaries, at coffee shops,
and in basement rooms as we retell the legend of that man, who so full of
folly, took it in himself to charge into ‘hell’” with only a squirt gun.
This phrase I am convinced, though
well intended perhaps at its outset, has now become for us a great enabling
myth of discouragement. The myth is that young Christians should not take up
action for the kingdom of God because they will, in all likelihood, be
defeated. “Christ’s sake, you are outnumbered and unprepared,” says the myth.
“Until you have managed to achieve the unachievable, until you are capable of
beating ‘hell’ in your own power and strength, until you are full grown (in the
brain) and know the scriptures at least as well as any good Pharisee, you have
no business doing any kingdom business for the Lord. You’re simply too small
and you need to ‘grow’ a little more so people don’t look down at you and
laugh.” That is the myth. “Until you
are like a master, you ought not serve and until you can manage ‘hell’ with as
much ease as you can a small candle in the middle of Antarctica, you have no
business there to do anything noble.” That’s what the myth says.
God is our Antarctica in the ‘hellish’
fires that we face in life and “Master” status was never the goal Jesus had in
mind for his sheep. We are free to love God, love people, and live for his
kingdom now at this present moment! But the myth encourages that we take a
precautionary, delayed approach to noble action. This ends up bewitching us.
The spell is that we fall into a deep sleep of inaction.
The myth says that God cannot use
small things done by single individuals to change the world. This is the exact
opposite of what God has shown us to be true time and time again. “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God
chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised
things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Cor 27-29)”. The
story of David and Goliath comes to mind. As a single individual he slew a foe
that greatly outmatched him in size and strength and he did this with only a
few small stones in hand. But do we laugh with contempt at David? No. We give
glory to God for using a squirt gun to mop up the fiery ‘hell’ of Goliath that
stood in the way of God’s kingdom. My friends,
if it pleases you to drop the haughty laugh immediately do. What is much more of
folly than “charging into ‘hell’ with a squirt gun” is feeling superior for
having not done it, and then laughing at the man who chose to make a small
difference.
The idea of “charging into ‘hell’
with a squirt gun” is that our young people are overly zealous but without
knowledge, and without preparation, know-how, etc., to such and such a degree, and
so much so, that their efforts for the sake of the gospel and God’s kingdom
should be seen with contempt or scorn. They are aspiring for something so far
above them, something that is clearly out of the scope of what they are capable
of doing.
While it is true that we, as the
young, can have zeal without knowledge, this is not our biggest problem. In
fact, we have the opposite problem. What we have is knowledge without zeal. We
don’t have the kind of heart it takes to charge into ‘hell’ with a squirt gun.
We don’t have that kind of guts.
Our problem is not that the young are
ill advisedly charging into “hell” with a squirt gun, it is that while we have
super soakers, we deny the power thereof, our hands being not on the trigger,
nor our eyes on the field before us to know when to shoot. We are not ready to
engage the world with a gutsy heart and be “alive to Christ”. Our senses are
deadened to that sort of thing at this point. We sit on the outside looking into
“hell” from our safe friend groups, from our comfortable digital libraries and
artificial hearths, from our institutions and homes, and we wonder why our
lives are so boring, while all around us there are people who do not know the
gospel, who desperately need to know the One who can save them, Jesus Christ,
with promise both for the life to come and also for this present life.
The capitalist culture in which we live has brought us many blessings and great material prosperity but it has not been without cost. There is a new kind of evil we see: isolationism. We have an epidemic of lonely and depressed people, people who live vain lives on escapist computer game realities and the like, people so dispelled by efficiency and material prosperity that they have fallen for the great trap of riches warned about in proverbs, “ . . . [they] have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’”. Every one of them needs the gospel. There are people in dark places of sin and despair, in psychological realms, in the realm of ideas, in physical places, in destructive relationships, and in spiritual places so dark that it is best not to even dwell on that darkness. They need reaching, loving hands in their life. If we were less concerned about dutifying Christians, obligating them into regular church attendance with an iron fist, and collecting the tithe like movie tickets, perhaps we could see these weightier things and practice some love and justice without leaving the other things undone.
The capitalist culture in which we live has brought us many blessings and great material prosperity but it has not been without cost. There is a new kind of evil we see: isolationism. We have an epidemic of lonely and depressed people, people who live vain lives on escapist computer game realities and the like, people so dispelled by efficiency and material prosperity that they have fallen for the great trap of riches warned about in proverbs, “ . . . [they] have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’”. Every one of them needs the gospel. There are people in dark places of sin and despair, in psychological realms, in the realm of ideas, in physical places, in destructive relationships, and in spiritual places so dark that it is best not to even dwell on that darkness. They need reaching, loving hands in their life. If we were less concerned about dutifying Christians, obligating them into regular church attendance with an iron fist, and collecting the tithe like movie tickets, perhaps we could see these weightier things and practice some love and justice without leaving the other things undone.
I hope its starting to dawn on you that
what is accepted as orthodoxy without much of a second thought is, in my view,
something more like heresy. “Charging into ‘hell’ with a squirt gun” is what we
want to see! Especially in the young! Young people are the ones with the most
free time, the most influence on people who can still be influenced, the most
energy, the most strength, and the biggest hearts. Why have a discouraging and contemptuous,
laughing disposition towards them? Let’s encourage them instead of stopping
their charge! They can make an impact on the world. Don’t you believe that?
That’s why we don’t need a negative saying; we need a positive call-to-action
saying! Here are a few examples of sayings that would be more useful:
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.” - Saint Francis of Assisi
“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace, where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.” - Saint Francis of Assisi
“There is not enough darkness in all
the world to put out the light of even one small candle.”
-
Robert Alden
“Again Jesus spoke to them,
saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in
darkness, but will have the light of life” (John 8:12). “The light shines in
the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (John 1:5)
”Your word is a
lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Psalm 119:105 an encouragement for
movement perhaps?)
“The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1)
Those would be much better sayings
for our young people to have at the forefront of their mind rather than the
image of falling with their squirt gun shamefully vanquished by the
overpowering fires of ‘hell’.
I think our first inclination is to
be negative, to not trust the Body like a doubting Thomas, at least it seems
that way in my experience. Recently I was engaged with an atheist in a public
Internet forum dialogue that people, for whatever reason started to follow with
interest. I was met with great warnings from Christian brothers to be careful
because “whosoever shall cause one of these
little ones that believe on me to stumble, it were better for him if a great
millstone were hanged about his neck, and he were cast into the sea.” I heard
other people make comments such as, “are you sure you’re not doing more harm
than you are good?” and the like. The glass was felt to be half full and at
times it seemed, strangely enough, that it was even considered something like a
glass entirely empty or even, perhaps, poisonous, though the glass was really just
a dialogue between a Christian with someone who is not a Christian, something
that should be, in my view, considered “normalcy” in support of the kingdom of
God. The “charging into ‘hell’ with a squirt gun” fear mantra was palpable as a
felt attitude about the dialogue, although there were other palpable attitudes
of a more encouraging sort. Those are the ones I decided to listen to. If
anyone wants to examine “the glass” of this conversation as it were, it is open
for viewing on facebook in a group called “Cuddle Session by Rob and Max”. We
engaged each other on a wide range of topics, all of which I sought to speak to
in a way so as to exalt Jesus as Lord. I did an imperfect job. It is easy to be
critical and negative of someone who enters the battlefield and charges ‘hell’
with a squirt gun as it were, to criticize their technique and the way they
employ their weapons, etc., but we must simply realize that doing something for
the gospel of the Lord and for the glory of God is the right thing to do and we
should want to encourage actions
along those lines.
Charging into ‘hell’ with a squirt gun
is a poor depiction of what our present situation is. It presumes that any
taking of action, any going into the world is hopelessly heroic and destined to
fail. It assumes that things are too big and too unmanageable in scope, like
‘hell’, when in reality charging into ‘hell’ with a squirt gun looks more like
giving a cup of cold water to one of these little ones, or inviting a lonely
person to hangout with a group of friends, or being a listening ear for a
friend in trouble or distress, etc., things that are mightily and gloriously
‘small’ yet immensely important. Think of how David fought in the face of his
great foe, Goliath. He fought bravely. Even if we feel outnumbered or
outmatched, if the job of bringing the kingdom of God and the message of the
gospel to our community seems so vast and great so that it feels as daunting as
‘hell’, even if the enemy is powerful and we feel certain to be defeated, we
are to act in the confidence of the Lord because he is living and walking,
alive, and unbeatable as far as it goes. He is the one that defeats death and
sin and hell, not us. We are the ones that lead people out of darkness into the
light. We do this with love, not squirt guns. Love is much more powerful than
squirt guns. Light cannot be conquered by the darkness. Darkness can’t
comprehend it. It doesn’t matter what darkness we are talking about: dark rock,
dark paper, or dark scissors, light beats all.
We have tricked ourselves into thinking we’re in a strange squirt gun vs hellish fire paradigm and that we are unable to do anything. In a sense, we can’t do anything. Apart from Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Father we can do nothing. It has always been that way. There has always been nothing to lose and everything to gain here. It is God who gives the increase; we have only merely planted and watered. We don’t bring anything about as far as that goes or we might have opportunity to boast, and no one may boast before God.
We have tricked ourselves into thinking we’re in a strange squirt gun vs hellish fire paradigm and that we are unable to do anything. In a sense, we can’t do anything. Apart from Christ and the Holy Spirit and the Father we can do nothing. It has always been that way. There has always been nothing to lose and everything to gain here. It is God who gives the increase; we have only merely planted and watered. We don’t bring anything about as far as that goes or we might have opportunity to boast, and no one may boast before God.
The truth is this: a single light can
lead many out of darkness. And a single man can charge into ‘hell’ (the world)
with the gospel message without hesitation, though it is better to have
multiple lights to do this. What we need is a new voice of optimism, a voice
that says that the Lord is risen, a voice that says, “go out into the highways
and the by ways and call in the people”. Because what we have is a bunch of
naysayers throwing water balloons on the little sparks of fire that do exist in
our midst.
Don’t be afraid to employ the squirt gun, to do the smallest actions for the glory of God, as small as bringing one of these little ones a glass of cold water perhaps. God is the God that takes mustard seeds and turns them into huge trees. Start employing small seed-like loving actions for God’s kingdom immediately, and do the exact opposite of what this phrase is discouraging you into not doing.
As always, feel free to comment my friends! Always interested in what you have to say!
.
Don’t be afraid to employ the squirt gun, to do the smallest actions for the glory of God, as small as bringing one of these little ones a glass of cold water perhaps. God is the God that takes mustard seeds and turns them into huge trees. Start employing small seed-like loving actions for God’s kingdom immediately, and do the exact opposite of what this phrase is discouraging you into not doing.
As always, feel free to comment my friends! Always interested in what you have to say!
.
Well said my friend!...a Wayfarer
ReplyDeleteVery well said. You always did excel in encouragement.
ReplyDeleteIn the defense of the phrase, however, I don't believe the proper spirit has been represented. I may just be speaking from a personal position, but I always understood that the saying meant something more along the lines of "passionately unprepared." Whenever I use it, I intend not to squelch the passionate flame but to open the eyes to better direct the blaze.
Many leaders have seen it happen; the excited new Christian runs out to win the world, fails, and either becomes thoroughly disenchanted and never tries again or does more harm to the cause than good. It is said out of a desire for effeciency and discretion.
You do bring up a point of dire importance. There are very few examples of honest encouragement of the youth in our church. The desire to shift our paradigms is tantamount to our success in reaching our culture.
Bravo sir, bravo.
Interesting Talon! Thank you my friend! I always like hearing what you have to say.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that I had not heard the phrase until now. (Perhaps it depends on the background of those who mentor us.) I found myself laughing at it, then asked myself why. For some reason, we tend to find comical those things which we would never do ourselves. I don't believe I have ever been discouraged from such boldness, since I have not displayed such boldness. I think we not only need to encourage others ("stimulate one another to love and good works"), but also ourselves. If we do not believe we can do something, we may laugh at it, never dreaming of attempting such a thing. However, as we let God's word and people, and most of all, example inspire us, we must allow ourselves to do bold things. We must encourage ourselves and not lose zeal. Thanks for sharing Max.
ReplyDeleteAppreciate your comments! Thanks Kristin!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the quote from 1 Cor 27-29.
ReplyDeleteGod extincts the t-rex and keep the lizards, :)
Thank you for defending Christianity, I think discussing about God is something people do even in the times of the apostles, as Peter encourage us to answer to questions about our faith.
God Bless you