This is one of the arguments you hear from time to time against Christianity. Religion is just a crutch for weak people.
But before I get to the point, let me give my disclaimer. I work in the pharmacy business. I am not against the use of prescription medication. Nor am I contending that all psychopharmacological drugs are bad. Nor am I claiming that all people who are on them are bad! They have their purposes. This is only an illustration of a point. Having said that, allow me to digress.
I was listening to a sermon by Martyn Lloyd-Jones a couple of nights ago. Though he did not use this terminology, for the terminology had not yet been developed at the time, he was doing a fine piece of presuppositional apologetics. He was demonstrating how modern detractors of Christianity contradict themselves. One interesting story he told was of what he called one of the greatest speeches he ever heard.
He listened to a political leader, before World War II, arguing that Germany had acted so immorally in the breaking of one of its alliances that it demanded war. His speech concerned the sanctity of national contracts, treaties, and alliances. Compacts and treaties are sacred, and dare not be broken. For one nation to break its vow of fidelity to another is the unpardonable political sin.
Lloyd-Jones said that this speech was eloquent and compelling. Only, in later years it came out that the man who gave this speech was in the midst of marital infidelity as he delivered it. So much for the sacredness of compacts, at least as far as wedding vows are concerned. We are walking contradictions.
Which leads me to a story. This is one ‘work story’ that I have shared several times from the pulpit. And it is a true story.
I have worked at a pharmacy for years. One day I was ringing up a customer at the cash register while she continued to talk on the phone. She had no idea that I was a Christian, much less a preacher of the gospel. She was highly emotional, and very much tuned in to her phone conversation, virtually oblivious to the fact that she was in a public place (let this be a lesson for those who talk on cell phones in public!). She raised her voice and said to the person on the other end of the phone, ‘Can you believe so and so (she said a name here) says she’s become a Christian? What a joke! Religion is just a crutch for weak people who can’t cope with life!’ She pounded her little hand on the counter as she said this.
In that moment I felt a deep sympathy for her. For as I looked down on the counter, I saw that what this lady was purchasing was a large bottle of prescription Xanax!
A compelling story!
If you ever have, listen to Charles Spurgeons:
“A paradox”
At the website of Sermon index
http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/mydownloads/singlefile.php?lid=13115&commentView=itemComments
I meant if you ever have the time to do so of of course
I found a written copy of it and hope to read it over the weekend.
Reblogged this on Timothy J. Hammons and commented:
This has such an great anecdote, I had to share it. Heath also makes the point that we are all walking contradictions. That’s one of the many reasons we need Christ.