The Real Thing....

When I was a little girl, no more than three, my brother Joel (who was about four) and I had to run errands with my dad. Under normal circumstances we would have been disappointed about being sent off with Dad on his boring errands (this was his way of giving our mum a much needed break). But this time, we were excited! We were going on a grand adventure!

That day the errands were being run in our motorhome. So, off we went!! At each errand stop, our dad would leave us in the motorhome with a, "Behave while I am gone," command and off he would go. Being very curious kiddos, and getting a bit hungry, we started digging in the motorhome cupboards. Our search yielded a container of oatmeal. Not too exciting, but it would do for two young scavengers. We set up a blanket on the motorhome floor and proceeded to have a picnic of dry oatmeal and water with our stuffed animals as our honored lunch guests. One spoonful for the stuffed animal (we would take turns actually eating their bite), one bite for us, one bite for a stuffed animal, one bite for us... We did this until we finished off the box of oatmeal. Just as we were finishing up our lunch party, Dad came back to the motorhome. I can still see the look of horror on his face as if it were today.

His voice boomed and shook the motorhome, "WHAT DID YOU DO????!!!! WHERE IS IT????? WHERE IS IT????? WHAT DID YOU DO??!!"

Joel and I were at a loss until Dad grabbed the empty box of oatmeal and held it up. OHHHHH, THAT! It must have been his oatmeal for him to get so upset.

"We ate it," we squeaked out in fear.

"YOU ATE IT???!!!  YOU ATE IT??!! DO YOU KNOW WHAT YOU HAVE DONE??!! YOU ATE RAT POISON!!!"

UMMMM.....WHAT?! What had looked to us like harmless oatmeal was actually a box full of oats covered in rat poison. Our first clue should have been that it was not in the usual tall, round container with the Quaker Oats guy wearing his blue hat on the front.

The next few hours were VERY traumatic and painful for Joel and me. We were rushed to the hospital where doctors and nurses shoved tubes down our noses and throats. They pumped the contents of our stomachs into very large silver bowls. It was a terrible experience. Terrible. To add insult to injury, Joel's nurse was sweet and gave him a lollipop. I, on the other hand, ended up with Nurse Ratchett who started scolding the other nurse about rewarding our bad behavior. I can still see Joel's little grin of triumph as he continued to work on his lollipop.

It was from this experience that my parents discovered the Mr. Yuk stickers from the Poison Control Center. Every bottle or box of questionable content from then on received a Mr. Yuk sticker. It was drilled into us not to ever touch something with a Mr. Yuk sticker.



There were so many things that innocently led us into a potentially deadly situation that had us consuming poison. We had been left to our own devices when we were too little to be left alone. We were too little to be digging in cupboards trying to come up with a way to feed ourselves because we were hungry. We should have been fed. We couldn't read, so we had no idea the box said "Rat Poison". To top it all off, we had no idea something as good and wholesome as oatmeal could have something so terrible and deadly mixed in. Why would someone put poison on something meant to nourish and sustain? Quite simply, to bring death.

How like false teachings in the Church this is!! There are so many false teachers and false doctrines that have crept into the Body...such lies that sound so good and are being embraced. These teachings may look or sound good, but they are laced with the poison of deception. They count on the fact that people are so hungry to be fed, they are not taking care to make sure what they are eating is directly out of the real oatmeal container, the Word of God. False teachers rely on the fact that we, the Body of Christ, are leaving new believers to fend for themselves instead of coming alongside to disciple and a feed them from God's Word. False teachers know that some who have walked with the Lord for a time will get lazy about going to the Word of God to see if the things they are being taught are actually scriptural and come from God's Word, not man's word. Just like with the poisoned oats, false teacher will use something true out of the Word, but then they mix in the poison of lies that lead to sickness or death.

In Matthew 7:15 Jesus tells us, "Beware of the false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravenous wolves." All you have to do is look at some of the things being taught now in churches to see how true this is. We need to be daily seeking the truth in God's Word, not in someone else's word. We need to be pursuing relationship with our Father through Jesus Christ. We cannot leave babies in the Lord to their own defenses. We have to come alongside them. We need to make sure we are receiving sustenance and truth from the Word of God, not what some guy says God does or doesn't say. In love, we need to point out the error of false teaching when we hear it. We need to realize that just because something looks, sounds, or feels good, that doesn't make it true. We need to be like the Bereans in Acts 17:11, who when Paul was preaching to them would gladly hear what he had to say, but then they would check the scriptures to make sure what he was teaching was truly what God's Word said. We need to make sure we are being nourished on the real oatmeal and not oatmeal mixed with poison. We need to read the label and make sure we have the real thing.