“My Church Is Better Than Yours!”

The man who gets baptised by pouring or sprinkling because he thinks it is the will of God is a better Christian than the man who gets baptised by immersion because he thinks it will help his business.

The man who in all sincerity and searching of soul becomes a Mormon will fare better in the day of final justice than the man who becomes an Episcopalian because he calculates it will give him a better standing in the community.

The honest and devout Roman Catholic is much more honourable than the chap who got “gloriously saved” at a Church of God revival on night and the next day stole the evangelist’s wallet with all it contained.

But none of this proves anything at all as to the rightness or the wrongness of the Mormon Church, or the Episcopal Church, or the Roman Catholic Church or the Church of God. But neither does it prove that it is not important what religious group one belongs to.

What it does try to illustrate is the face that in matters of morals and religion, MOTIVE is a basic factor. Now, anyone who reflects on the subject can see at once that human motives are difficult to determine. Courts of law are very well aware of this.

Motives are subtle and sometimes subconscious and sometimes very much mixed. Now, for the legal and practical purposes, it becomes necessary for man to judge the motives of his fellowman. Man, being fallible, it follows that there can be no such thing as absolute justice in human affairs. In matters of eternal destiny, no man has a right to sit in judgement on the motives of his fellowmen.

In the matter of whether I am lost or to be saved in all eternity, no man can judge me. No court can judge me. No Sanhedrin, no Pope, or priest or pastor has the right to open or close the door to me. God, and God alone, has the right to judge me in the last great day. That is because He alone can know what is in the human heart, “for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart.” (Mat.7:1) Surely this is the reason why Jesus would not allow the saints to judge each other.

That red headed rascal from Tarsus, Paul, was once asked “What is the church?” I love his answer, “Christ in my heart is the church!”

Chaplain Al.