We're SO Funny!! Oh, But It's Time to Grow Up, You Know? :)

5/5/2002

Sunday Night, May 5, 2002

Wine Experts Fooled Into Thinking White Wine Is Red

Psychologists have fooled a group of wine experts into praising a white wine that had been coloured red. The German magazine Psychology Today gathered 54 wine tasters in Bordeaux to taste the wine that had tasteless food dye added. It says none of them realized the wine had been doctored—they thought it was a legitimate red because of its colour.

The magazine said of the first experiment: None of them guessed that it had been a wine that we had tampered with. “It is a psychological phenomenon that they marked it down as tasting what their senses told them it should taste of because it was coloured red. Actually it tasted of hardly anything.”

In a second test, it says the experts praised another cheap wine that had been poured into an expensive bottle. When it was offered in its real bottle, they criticized it. The magazine says the experts described it as “marvelous,” “forward but charming,” “fruity” and “robust.” When it was poured into its proper bottle, the experts described it as “thin,” “weak” and “too light.” “It shows that not all experts should be believed,” the magazine warned.

How weak is the human mind! How gullible the church world, and the world at large, can be....

We tend to believe anything, as long as it comes in a convincing and pleasing package! Everything is “good”—as long as it appeals to our minds and senses and emotions—whether it violates all sorts of things that are precious and essential to Jesus, or not.

But Jesus, and Jesus IN us, isn’t gullible, if we’d Listen.... : ) Yes, I’m picking on gullibility again. : ) The test of Godly authenticity is not whether it makes us feel good, meets human needs, or makes the hair on the back of our neck stand up and our skin tingle. Jesus was clear that even miracles don’t prove that He even knows a man. Buddhists speak in tongues, Muslims pray, and Mormons do good deeds and emphasize “family values.” SO?! : ) Those things are not the Measure!

So, we’re just asking you, all of us, always, to weigh your circumstances in TRUTH. And be willing to be appalled by the contradictions of “leaven in the batch,” lukewarmness, and other Issues...and deal energetically and passionately and relentlessly and lovingly with these and other Biblical mandates from God. TRUTH, not sentiment. That’s how Jesus did it and does it. And so shall He today, in our lives and in our environments, if we’ll Listen and have the courage to risk for Him. Ah, times are changing, for those who will care more for the pillar of Fire than for the oasis of comfort, prestige, and avoidance of the Cross and controversy....