Living Letters
The Field of Dreams
May 4th, 2010
A young church known as The Promise of Life is being planted in Dublin Ohio. Our city is perhaps best known nationally, at this time, for the monument pictured on the right, a symmetric structure of 109 concrete human-sized ears of corn, completed in 1994 and known as The Field of Corn. Though I’ve likely passed this structure a thousand times in the 10 years we’ve lived in Dublin, I don’t contemplate its meaning. It’s just a curiosity that no longer piques mine.
But after having passed by it on the way to a recent worship meeting, the Lord spoke a word to me. I would like to pass it to you, as the Lord led me to that evening with our little flock.
“You know the Field of Corn, on the corner of acreage once planted by Sam Frantz. It looks like corn, but it is not alive. It is no more than a monument, a remembrance of what once was.’
‘Nearby is planted a field of young corn. Unlike what is called The Field of Corn, this is alive, though it’s growth is not observable to the naked eye. It is growing, not because of its own striving, nor because of the best intentions of the planters, but singularly because of the life that is within it. As one writer explained, it “grows all by itself, though nobody knows why.’
‘One field, for all its renown, feeds no one. The other, in its generations, will feed millions.’
My people, know this: you are alive and growing, not because of lifeless monuments to what once was, but because of My life in you. Because you are an expression of My Promise of Life in Christ Jesus, this planting of which you are a part will, in the same way as the real field of corn, reproduce itself in the millions, in its generations.”
- Chuck Parrish
On Inoculation 
Many are those who tell us how profoundly the gospel of Jesus Christ is impacting the Third World. Despite the implicit threat of death that accompanies conversion to Christ from nearly every major world religion, the heathen world is being turned upside down by the impact of the Gospel.
Meanwhile, back in the USA, a 2003 Gallup Poll indicates that 42% of all Americans claim to be born again. More than two of every five persons, this in a representative republic that has effectively jettisoned God from the public arena. To coin the name of a popular table game, this is “Balderdash” (IMHO).
But let us consider implicit to the claim of this 42%? Comparing their premise of “Hey, I’m born again!” with the effect on the world around them, what they state for the record is that they have effectively been rendered ineffective. Ineffective by exposure to that which, in Third World countries today, is turning the world upside down. Today I bring to you a word from the Lord, which we’ll call Inoculated. Inoculated against Jesus Christ. What does it mean to be inoculated? How could one be inoculated against Jesus Christ? Let’s look.
First, the goal of inoculation is immunity to the effect of something attempting to invade the body. How does inoculation work? First, a weakened or killed dose of the virus is introduced to the host. This has the initial effect of activating the body’s immune system. The immune system fights off the weak attack and the immune system actually becomes stronger. Thus, the next time the virus attacks, the immune system identifies it and can handle a stronger assault. In time, and with repeated exposure, immunity becomes complete. The key word in all this is “weak.” For if the inoculation contained too strong a dose, it would overwhelm the immune system, make the person sick, and perhaps even kill them. The dose must have enough of the virus to activate the immune system, but not be so strong that it overpowers that system and kills the host.
In the case of biomedicine, the invading virus intends a sickness leading to death. In the case of Christ, the invader also intends a sickness leading to death, but only as the necessary precedent of “life, and that more abundantly”. But we are speaking of inoculation, the goal of which is to make one immune to the effect of the invader.
OK, enough with the biomedical lesson! Where is this going? Precisely here: A virus at full strength, visiting a host who has no developed immunity against it, cannot but succeed in its purpose. Conversely, introducing a weak version of a virus can result in the immunization of a host. Means he or she can’t catch it. In like manner, a weakened version of the Gospel can inoculate the host, with the end result of the immunization of the heart of the recipient.
Symptoms accompanying inoculation include momentary pain, perhaps a slightly elevated temperature, some redness and swelling. All these are expected, and are expected to be temporary. That is the point of inoculation: a temporary discomfort acceptable for warding off a larger impact. This is good in the realm of biomedicine, but catastrophic in the realm of Christ.
Perhaps this is why Paul saved his strongest words for the interlopers in Galatia. Reading from Galatians 1:6 (NIV) “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
Paul’s gospel is contrasted with a different gospel, which he also calls “no gospel”, a “perverted” gospel, and a gospel “other”. To Paul, It didn’t matter if an angel from heaven presented it. Consider that with regard to what was being called the Lakeland Revival…where angels were said to be bringing the Word. And as far as naming names goes, how about the Seeker Sensitive, Purpose Driven and Prosperity Gospels. I have no problem calling a spade a spade.
But back to what Paul preached. My gospel, he called it in Rom.2:16, 16:25, and 2 Tim.2:8. First person possessive. His point: Don’t mess with the message! Paul states for the record his wish for those who preached another gospel. And emphatically, not once but twice, he states his wish was that they would be anathema maranatha. Eternally condemned…Go to hell, go directly to hell, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars. Ah, more political incorrectness… Eternal condemnation for preaching a weakened version of the Gospel? Wonder how that would preach today?
All of the sermons… to inoculated, immune congregations that will happen this day. All the Three keys to yada yada yada that passes for preaching. Could they be meriting the same DO NOT PASS GO card that Paul spoke of?
But what of those recipients of the gospel of Christ who would overcome the effect of the inoculation? Many are inoculated, but by the grace of God not all are immune. Brothers and sisters, in thirty-five years since Jesus came into my life, I don’t know that I’ve ever heard the onset of Jesus compared to the onset of a virus. But hear me, friends: to yield to the onset of a virus, to cease resistance, is to be subject to its full impact. Will anyone cease to resist the onset of the Christ? Does anyone else want their life to be fully impacted by the Christ?
With that impact fully in mind, I invite you to accompany me, in your mind’s eye, to the hospital ICU. We’re looking in on a patient in critical condition, with pneumonia. Will the immune system win, or will the virus? In precisely the same manner, the onset of the Christ brings us to the critical decision: will our life be made immune to or subject to the Christ? There are but two factors that come into play: the strength of the virus, and the strength of the resistance to it. Will the virus kill us, or will our resistance kill the virus?
Bonhoeffer said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die”. The problem is, we don’t want to die. Our whole being echoes the words of Martin Luther King’s last speech…”Like any man, I would like to live”. But the onset of the Christ begs the question, Will we live now and die later, or die now and live later?
Jesus phrased it this way: He who loves his life will lose it, and he who loses his life will find it. Inescapable is the necessity of the choice, as presented by the onset of the Christ. To resist is to embrace death, to yield is to embrace life.
Let’s look at the Scriptures on this… Jesus in Jn.5:24 says “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life. To yield is to cross over from death to life. Later in the same chapter, speaking to those who relied on the Scripture as if they were an end in itself, Jesus says: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” It is not understanding the Christ, but rather yielding to him, that brings life.
The onset of the Christ was never to make bad men good, but rather to make dead men live. Eph.2:1 “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins…But God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead. To yield…to the onset of the Christ…is to be made alive.
2 Cor. 5:15 says “And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again.” A song we sing in our fellowship says, He gave me new life, something to hope for, when I would have died he gave me something to live for… Yes, he gave me new life, but why? So that we should live no longer for ourselves but for Him and yielded to Him.
Examine yourselves, Paul says in 2Corintians 13:5. Are you in the faith? What does that question mean to us today? It asks not if you were yielded, or once yielded, nor if you will someday yield. Today, if you hear his voice… will you yield to the onset of the Christ?
- Chuck Parrish
(This message was first preached at The Promise of Life, Dublin, OH, on 8/17/08)