Several years

ago, I attended a week-long spiritual and teaching retreat known as "Camp

Farthest Out," or CFO, in Toccoa, Ga. Reverend David Cooper, who

would eventually go on to be senior pastor at Atlanta's Mount Paran Church

of God, was also in attendance.

During a break,

he and I were sharing pastoral war stories and it came time for me to

do my storytelling part. About a minute into the story, Cooper interrupted

me and said, "Now is that the truth? Or are you just preaching?"

He grinned, I grinned back, and I assured him that the story was, indeed,

the truth.

I was so amused

When I want the people to "listen up" and pay attention, I'll

often say, "Now, listen. I'm not just preaching here this is the

truth!"

Over the years

I have learned that not everything preached from the pulpit is the truth.

One summer, when I was a guest workshop leader at a convention, I told

a story that had happened to me years earlier. It really, really had happened

to me personally and I thought that it would ably illustrate the point

that I was making in the seminar.

A couple of

years later, I heard a minister (who had been in my workshop) tell the

same exact story in a sermon. The only problem was that he told it as

HIS story. Evidently, he had forgotten where he had heard the story since

I'm certain he would not have told it as his own with my sitting right

there in the service. I was likely the only one in the congregation that

knew he was lying and I was too polite to say anything. Ah, the missed

opportunities we suffer.

I have been

guilty myself of misstatements in sermons. Once I had Noah leading the

Israelites into the Promised Land and another time I told the inspirational

story of Moses and the Ark (the big boat, not the Ark of the Covenant).

I have told

a story or two about my family only to have the family say after the service,

"That's not how it happened at all!" So, it may not be out of

line to ask, "Is that the truth... or are you just preaching?"

Sometimes,

however, I fear that preachers sometimes preach things that they themselves

do not even believe. After the terrible disasters of September 11, one

television minister told his congregation something like this:

"I'm telling

you that we are about to see the Battle of Armageddon. We are about to

see the end of all things. Folks, the end is so close that this will very

possibly be the last sermon I'll ever preach. The last song we sing here

today will likely be the last song we ever sing. The coming of the Lord

is so close that I don't expect any of us to be here next Sunday."

Of course,

at the end of the telecast, the minister spoke to the viewers and urged

them to send in a special love offering so that he could stay on the air.

And, of course, the imminent return of Christ before next week did not

deter the reverend from receiving an offering during the church service.

Was what he shared the truth? Or was he just preaching?

A friend of

mine who serves as a pastor shared that, on the way to visit relatives

in another state (a Southern state, I'm sorry to report), he stopped to

telephone them and give them the time of his arrival. His cell phone was

in a dead area so he looked for a high point in the community where he

was driving.

He determined

that the local cemetery offered such a vantage point and drove up the

hill to telephone his relatives from the graveyard. When they learned

he was calling from a cemetery they became horrified and urged him to

leave that place immediately.

Curious about

their reaction, upon his arrival at their home a few hours later, he quizzed

them about he urgency of their strange request. They explained that, if

he were standing on the grave of a Christian, and Jesus returned at that

moment, he might be guilty of impeding the dead as they were resurrected

to meet Christ in the air. Since the "dead in Christ will rise first,"

the good folk asserted, my friend would be in their way and might even

prevent the person in the grave from going up in the "Rapture."

This, they allowed, would be a serious sin. My minister friend might even

go to hell if he was guilty of "obstruction of the resurrection."

I said, "Were they serious?" "Dead serious," he replied,

if you'll excuse the pun.

"Well,

is 'obstruction of the resurrection' a celestial misdemeanor or a celestial

felony?" I inquired. "I suppose that since you could go to hell,

it's a felony!" he said. Where did they get the idea that a resurrected

body could pass through a steel coffin, a concrete vault, and at least

two feet of dirt only to be impeded by a human body that wandered in the

way? Where did these people get such an absurd idea? From some preacher

who was preaching without telling the truth, no doubt.

Once a minister

got carried away in a sermon and told a few blatant exaggerations. Parishioners,

knowing that what he said could not possibly be true, reported him to

the proper people. A few days later, he was summoned before his denominational

official and made to answer for his falsehoods.

After his superior

demanded an explanation, the preacher replied, "Well, it's just amazing

what a man will say when he's under the anointing of the Holy Ghost."

Most people,

I have discovered, don't simply want to listen to good preaching they

just want to hear the truth.

[Father David

Epps is rector of Christ the King Church in Peachtree City. He may be

contacted at [email protected] or at www.ChristTheKingCEC.com .]