May 2001 chaplain's corner

The Chaplain's Corner is a monthly message for chaplains.

Chaplain's Corner - May 2001

Rev. Rich Hines

Getting back to answering good questions asked by correctional chaplains at our Chaplain Enrichment Seminars, this month I want to try to deal with this one:

"Why do so many inmates we have worked with and thought were truly saved, come back to prison after they are released?"

It is a good question, one all chaplains who love the Lord, struggle with.

There are many reasons that ex-inmates re-offend and return to incarceration. For this Chaplain's Corner I want to deal with one of the main reasons. I want to talk about something very real that biblical, Christian chaplains need to consider.

One of the main reasons "professing Christian inmates" re-offend and come back is that they do not have the power of God, through the Holy Spirit, resident within them. What I'm saying is that they were never truly born of the Spirit, converted, regenerated and saved. They made a "profession" of saving faith, which in reality was something less than true repentance and saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This means they are not "Christian" as defined by the New Testament Scriptures.

I am not saying it is impossible for a truly saved man to grieve the Holy Spirit (Eph.4:30) and yield to the flesh, the world or even to Satanic onslaught, for that is also true.

From my experience I believe most religious re-offenders were only playing with Christianity when they appeared to respond to the biblical call to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. Some have called it "Jail House Religion" or "Jail House Christianity."

From Scripture we know that salvation is God's work, and according to His word - He will complete what He began.

"Being confident of this very thing that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

The ones God saves also have power (from Him) and a responsibility to curtail their sinning ways.

The following Scripture definitely applies to the ones correctional chaplains are trying to establish in the faith of Christ:

"And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He (Jesus) has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight - if indeed you continue in the faith, grounded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the hope of the gospel which you heard, which was preached to every creature under heaven, of which I, Paul, became a minister." Colossians 1:21-23

The end of this text is interesting. It is not teaching salvation by works. It is not teaching that once you've trusted Christ you must continue in order to gain salvation. What it is teaching is that if He worked His salvation into you - YOU WILL CONTINUE GROUNDED AND SETTLED AND NOT MOVED AWAY. You see, there is doubt introduced in this text because Paul didn't know their hearts. Only God knows anyone's true heart. But when He saves a man, He gives him the ability to stick it out, to continue in Christ. God is keeping His saved ones until the Day of Jesus Christ.

Consider this Scripture -

"Nevertheless the solid foundation of God stands, having this seal: "The Lord knows those that are His," and "Let everyone who names the name of Christ* depart from iniquity." 2 Tim.2:19 (* or "the Lord")

Every one God seals in Christ is given power to literally "be departing from iniquity." Those whose lives don't change morally apparently don't have that inward power of the Holy Spirit, to keep on departing from their old sinful way.

Experience has also taught me that often the fault is on the human side of the giving of the gospel or in reality, something less than the true gospel. As Chaplain you need to make sure the full content of the gospel is explained to the inmates that appear to be seeking God.

Dr. John MacArthur recently said the following to a large group of evangelical pastors -

"Sometimes our presentation of the gospel is so incomplete, that the non-elect don't know enough to reject it, so we end up filling our churches with the half-converted"

He's right. What is true in the local churches of our country is also true of the state of professing Christianity in our correctional facilities.

Sometimes, volunteers and chaplains are so eager to record "decisions" or "salvations" they use psychological tricks to get inmates to "take a stand for Christ" and the result is something far less than a God-wrought deliverance of the life from sin, different from God-wrought salvation

We need to make sure we are not actively or passively participating in any kind of "easy believism." Jesus turned people away who came to Him as if they were ready to believe. In Luke 18:18-25, He sent the "rich, young, ruler," a religious man, away lost. The man went away from the Lord knowing he was lost in his sin. Jesus always wanted men to count the cost of discipleship, of being one of His true followers.

Luke 9:57-62

57 Now it happened as they journeyed on the road, that someone said to Him, "Lord, I will follow You wherever You go."

58 And Jesus said to him. "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."

Why did Jesus deal with this seeker like that? Because He knew in his heart of hearts this man was looking for a special position in what he thought would be a new administration of Israel's government. He was "coming to Christ" to get what he wanted for self, not to get a new life with power to deliver from sin.

59 Then He said to another, "Follow Me." (Be united in the way with Me, center your life on Me, focus on Me) But he said, "Lord, let me first go and bury my father."

That sounds reasonable doesn't it? What we need to understand is that in the ancient Jewish culture, the phrase "Bury your father" meant taking care of everything at home before he died, so that you would insure the reception of your full inheritance.

60 Jesus said to him, "Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and preach the kingdom of God."

Jesus meant "Let the spiritually dead worry about their worldly inheritances, you must give that up to truly follow Me and be about My business."

61 And another also said, "Lord, I will follow You, but let me first go and bid them farewell who are at my house."

62 But Jesus said to him, "No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God."

In all three cases He challenged these men to consider the real cost of following Him. He challenged their sincerity when they seemed to want to "follow" Him. Often correctional Chaplains and volunteers will take any inmate and give them assurance verses and try to help them think they are in the kingdom of God, when there has been no God-wrought repentance evident in their life at all.

Mark 8:34-38 - The heart of the Gospel message from Jesus -

34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, "Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny (reject, repudiate, disown) himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.

To truly follow Christ we must reject self, we must die to self. That's what it means to take up our cross daily (compare Luke 9:23).

35 For whoever desires to save his life (Greek psuche - soul, mental apprehension of life) will lose it, but

whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel's will save it.

36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?

37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels."

We must make sure we correctional chaplains are not part of any "Jump on the Jesus bandwagon"

message. We must call men and women to count the cost. Salvation is a serious commitment. It ultimately is only God-wrought. Humans can not save themselves or help themselves get saved.

That should cause us to see another part of the problem is in the inmates we are seeking to truly win to the faith. -

As you must know by now the culture they have adopted, or are surrounded by, teaches living a lie, putting on one face in order to get what they think will benefit them for the moment. This is where the "Con-games" come into play. In the end, many prisoners "Con" themselves spiritually.

You as Chaplain need to warn and teach about this possibility repeatedly. A good text to develop lessons on this from is Acts 8:5-24 - which is the example of Simon the Sorcerer.

5 Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them.

6 And the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did.

These were confirming signs given before the completion of the New Testament text.

7 For unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many who were possessed; and many who were paralyzed and lame were healed.

8 And there was great joy in that city.

Now the opposite of great joy - a great tragedy is introduced. Here the text looks back to before Philip came to town with the gospel.

9 But there was a certain man called Simon, who previously practiced sorcery in the city (a drug-dealing conjurer of demon spirit powers) and astonished the people of Samaria, claiming that he was someone great,

10 to whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, "This man is the great power of God." (meaning some kind of emanation of the Divine nature)

11 And they heeded him because he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.

Now the text moves back to the time of verses 5-8 -

12 But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.

13 Then Simon himself also believed; and when he was baptized he continued with Philip, and was amazed, ( the wow-er got wowed! ) seeing the miracles and signs which were done.

14 Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, (the gospel message) they sent Peter and John to them, (to check things out, to see if this was of God)

15 who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

16 For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the

Lord Jesus.

17 Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

A brief theological explanation needs to be giver here. The Book of Acts is transitional and not normative in many of it's descriptions. The norm is always when a person truly repents and believes in Jesus they receive the Holy Spirit at that instant.

The reason for this situation was that there needed to be saved, Holy Spirit indwelt Jewish believers (represented by the Jewish Christian leaders, Peter and John) present to verify the Samaritans reception of the Holy Spirit - because of the natural Jewish tendency to look down on Samaritans.

Their later witness would prevent the Samaritans from being thought of as second class believers in Messiah (Christ). This was unique. See Acts 10:44-48 and 11:2-4, 15-18. Everyone had to be seen as the same in Christ, Jew, Samaritan or Gentile, especially at the time of the transition from Old Testament Israel to New Testament church..

18 And when Simon saw (in his mind he now understood) that through the laying on of the apostles' hands the Holy Spirit was given, he offered them money,

19 saying, "Give me this power also, that anyone on whom I lay hands may receive the Holy Spirit."

Do you understand what was going on there? Simon appeared to come to Christ because he thought it would be good for his sorcery business. He thought the "Holy Spirit" was some new kind of demon spirit power that he hadn't heard of before, and he wanted to buy in on the action.

So verse 20 records at this point -

20 But Peter said to him, "Your money perish (go to destruction in hell) with you, because you thought the gift of God could be purchased with money!

21 You have neither part nor portion in this matter, for your heart is not right in the sight of God.

22 Repent therefore of this your wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of your heart may be forgiven you.

23 For I see that you are poisoned by bitterness and bound by iniquity.

24 Then Simon answered and said, "Pray to the Lord for me, that none of the things which you have spoken may come upon me."

(Note, in verse 24, Simon did not do what Peter told him to do in v.20)

There are many prisoners that are similar to Simon. He "believed"(or at least appeared to, making some public statement of faith in Christ) and was "baptized" and even "continued" to listen to Philip's gospel teaching -verse 13. But Simon was never truly saved.

The words Peter used (given by the Spirit of God) to describe Simon can never describe a truly saved person. Simon was described as one on their way to perishing i.e. in hell, verse 20. One who had not part or portion in the Holy Spirit, verse 21. One who was "bound by iniquity" verse 23. These things could never be said of a truly saved person, a real Christian.

In cases like this the human fault is not with the messenger, but with the rocky and thorny ground hearers. We have a lot of this type of gospel hearers in the general public and especially in our prisons today. For some, all we can do is pray that God will someday remove the blindness of their heart and work a true repentance into them.

In other cases, where the persons we are seeking to help have previously only received an incomplete cheap gospel; remember, according to Hebrews 13:17, we who are chaplains (Christian leaders) must give an account to the Lord for the souls of those He's entrusted to us.

He is trusting us to get the clear and complete gospel message of repentance, soul repudiation and commitment to keep on following Christ. People that respond to that message are what the Bible calls Christian.

Those kind of people, the ones that give up all to truly follow Christ, don't come back to prison - unless it is against the law to be righteous. This is vitally important, please think seriously about this, dear chaplain.

With passion for the Lord - and for the souls of the prisoners He will set free.

Rev. Rich Hines