A Lesson from Sesame Street
See if you recognize this first verse of a song:
	One of these things is not like the others,
	One of these things just doesn't belong,
	Can you tell which thing is not like the others
	By the time I finish my song?
If you’re young enough, or if you’ve raised children, you probably recognize this song from the children’s television program “Sesame Street.” Big Bird or one of the other characters would display four items. Three would be identical, but there would always be something different about the fourth. Perhaps it would be a different color or different size. Or maybe there would be three identical drawings of puppies with their eyes open and one with its eyes closed.
Here’s the ending verse of the song:
	Did you guess which thing was not like the others?
	Did you guess which thing just doesn't belong?
	If you guessed this one is not like the others,
	Then you're absolutely...right!
Evidently the song was intended to help children learn to think, pay attention to detail, and understand that we sometimes mistakenly think that things are identical when actually they aren’t the same.
Is there any application to spiritual matters (whether you’re old or young)? Indeed, there is! Our culture in this country pressures us to blur the lines and ignore differences. For example, as Christians, we recognize the Bible as the word of God and try to follow its teaching. But political correctness says there is no difference between the Bible and the “holy books” of other religions – the Muslim Quran, the Hindu Vedas, etc. All of these books teach the same things, we are told: be kind to your neighbor, take care of your family, etc. The fact is, however, these books are as different as night and day. Even five-year-olds watching Sesame Street would easily know the difference if you read the books to them .
Society insists that all churches are the same. Is that true? Is there really no substantial difference among the literally thousands of churches in this country? Prepare yourself to be accused of being a self-righteous bigot if you say that there really is such a thing as the true church that Jesus promised to build and that you can read about in your Bible!
Sprinkling, pouring, immersion, or something else – much of the religious world says “it’s all the same!” I think even a five-year-old watching Sesame Street understands that sprinkling is not immersion, nor is pouring. They all involve water, but that lacks a great deal of making them the same thing. The fact is that the Holy Spirit inspired the NT writers to use the word baptizzo, which is correctly translated immerse. No Greek dictionary defines it as sprinkle or pour. There was a perfectly good word available had God meant sprinkle. There was also a perfectly good word available if God wanted to say pour. But He didn’t. He said baptizzo, immerse.
New Jersey is the latest state to dive into the “same sex marriage” movement. The world tells us, “man and woman, man and man, woman and women, it’s all the same – it’s marriage!” I doubt that I need to tell you that it isn’t the same. One is an institution ordained by God from creation. The other is something He has opposed in the clearest of terms from Genesis to Revelation.
We could go on indefinitely, but I’m sure you see our main point here. Simply saying that different things are the same doesn’t make them the same! Just because the world says two things are the same doesn’t mean we should agree. By human standards the differences may be irrelevant. But we are going to abide by God’s standards.