Should pastors be asking God to kill their neighbors?

Here’s a great example of what can go wrong when you preach from personal anecdotes rather than from God’s Word.

Perry Noble is preaching about how he ignores his critics, and uses a cute little travel anecdote from a recent missions trip to help us see his point.

It’s hard to ignore some things. It really is.

Back in February when I flew to Kenya–went over there for several days, we were very tired. We get on a plane, we fly from Nairobi to Amsterdam. We get off the plane at Amsterdam. We’ve got a layover. We finally get on the plane. We get there, and we were flying to Detroit, and I just want to sleep. I’m like, craving sleep. I don’t want food (and when I don’t want food, it’s bad). I just wanted to sleep.

So I get on this airplane, and I sitting there, and this really large man gets [on] and sits right next to me, and he’s, like, right over here across the aisle, and he kind of sits down. No problem, you know. And he sits there.

He had been sitting down two minutes, and all of a sudden he started snoring. The plane takes off, and this dude–he wakes up for a few minutes and goes back to sleep–and he is snoring. And it’s not like [a gentle snore], it’s like [very loud]. Like the oxygen mask fell, and stuff like that. I mean, like, the stewardess walked by, and she looked at me and went, “I don’t even know what that is. I’m sorry.”

So I started praying for him. I prayed for God to kill him, because he was…

Don’t judge me!

Some of you prayed that for your husband last night while he snored. “God, take him. I know where he’s going. Take him, now! We have life insurance.”

So, I tried to watch a movie, and I’m trying to watch the movie and [he's snoring loudly]. It’s almost impossible to ignore, but finally, over a period of time, I learned how to ignore the snoring and kind of move on.

That’s what Jesus says we need to learn how to do [in] Matthew 7:6.

Matthew 7:6, by the way, says,

Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and then turn and tear you to pieces.

Jesus wants us to develop discernment, not murderous fantasies.