God's Tools Yesterday, Our Idols Tomorrow

There is no doubt or debate that God’s word tells us to look back on God’s blessings and mighty works and to remember his great power and faithfulness. But as we saw last week, we can dwell in the past to a degree which becomes unhealthy and unproductive. Today, I would like to continue in that same vein of thought.

There have been times in the history of man that God has chosen in His sovereignty to use an object to demonstrate His power or will in a particular manner for a specific time. Some examples would be Aaron’s rod that budded, Elijah’s mantle, and the Ark of the Covenant. These things stood as symbols of God’s power, and God showed great manifestation through them. But as powerful as these manifestations were, these objects were merely objects. They had no real power of their own!

As intriguing and captivating as such God-empowered objects are, they can be dangerous! The hearts of fallen mankind have a great propensity for idolatry, and we have a tendency to want to make these “tools of God” objects of worship. A good example of this is found in the Old Testament.

In the eighteenth chapter of 2 Kings, we read of the account of King Hezekiah destroying the idols and false gods that Israel had begun to worship. Among those objects was a particularly interesting idol. This idol was called Nehushtan, and King Hezekiah had it broke into pieces. 2 Kings 18:4 tells us that Nehushtan was “the bronze snake Moses had made” and that “up to that time the Israelites had been burning incense to it.” The Israelites had taken an object that God intended to be looked upon in repentance and changed it into an object of devotion and worship to which they burned incense.

In this story, we see the propensity of man to make idols out of objects. We easily loose sight of the God who chose to use the object for His purpose for a season, and we become focused on the object itself. We slide slowly yet easily down the slippery slope of nostalgia in to the pit of idolatry. Let’s not forget that although God can use objects for His purposes, He is neither confined to nor represented in objects of any sort.

Stones of Remembrance, Not Anchors of Idleness

In the third chapter of the Book of Joshua, we find the account of God’s people miraculously crossing over the Jordan River into the Promised Land. In this chapter, God tells Joshua to have the priests carry the Ark of the Covenant ahead of the people and walk into the edge of the river. As soon as the priests’ feet touch the water, the river piled up on itself and stopped flowing, and as the priests stood in the middle of the river, the people crossed over on dry land.

In chapter four, God tells Joshua to have a man from each of the tribes of Israel take a large stone from the middle of the river where the priests were standing and take it to the other side. They were instructed to erect a memorial, and Ebenezer, to mark the place and occasion of God’s miraculous demonstration of power.

Today, we who are God’s people, like the Israelites of old, need to learn the importance and blessing of erecting Ebenezer stones in our lives. We need to mark times and occasions when God has moved mightily to heal, deliver, provide for, rescue, and sustain us when only He could. We need to mark those times and occasions when we are reminded in a very special way that God is ever with us and is forever faithful to His people. But we also must be careful in doing so!

It is easy to forget that Ebenezer stones are simply mile markers along an on-going journey. They are to mark the progress we have made with God’s help, not our arrival! Although the Israelites had reached the Promised Land, they were not finished! There was still a lot of work to be done, people to be conquered, land to be settled, and new lives to be started. If they had settled on the shore of the river and gone no further, they would not have experienced the promises and blessing the Lord had in store for them.

If we allow ourselves to dwell on the blessings of yesterday (not in a way that reminds us of God’s faithfulness and encourages us forward, but rather in a way that causes us to do nothing while we dwell in the past), we will miss out on God’s blessings for today and His promises of tomorrow. Yesterday’s “crossing of the Jordan” was GREAT but what about tomorrow’s “walls of Jericho”? Let’s be encouraged by what God has done in the past. Let us remember. But do not let our stones of remembrance become anchors that hold us back or weights that hold us down!

Our Needs vs. God's Commands

Something I’ve noticed over the past number of years is the lack of consistent participation by many believers in activities that constitute the life of the church. This observation has caused me to examine the possibilities of what may be the cause of this dwindling participation.

Bear in mind that I am not talking about peripheral, extra-curricular activities like church softball teams, a men’s fishing trip, or a ladies’ shopping outing. I am talking about the central activities of the church that are commanded in scripture. I’m talking about corporate worship, prayer, evangelistic efforts, and fellowship. These ‘events’ are often sporadically or poorly attended, and sometimes both! Why is this?!?

I think it has a lot to do with our motivations, and I think that this ‘phenomenon’ exists because many are more driven by their personal needs than by God’s commands. Our wants, needs, and desires have a greater influence on what we do and how we spend our time than does God’s commands and expectations.

In our local church, we have between 100 and 150 people in morning worship, but at Sunday Evening Prayer we have between 4 and 10 people on average. When we have Family First, there are usually about 30 to 50 people. And when we go door to door inviting people to come to church at Operation Invitation, we have between 3 and 6 people most of the time. Why is there such a discrepancy in the numbers?!?

I submit that it is simply because most people do not feel that a need that they have is filled by this activities. Though few would actually verbalize it, it is as if they are saying (with their actions), “I don’t go to prayer because it really doesn’t do anything for me.” or “Family First is good and all, but I just don’t get a lot out of it.” Some of those same people want to see their church grow and they sometimes act as if the leadership of the church should be doing more to make it grow. However, they are not willing to participate in reaching out and inviting people to come.

Like so many other things in the Body of Christ, our participation in the life of the church is NOT ABOUT US!!!! When God’s word clearly commands us to do certain things and models certain things in the life of believers, we should do those things consistently, faithfully, and fervently whether it directly benefits us or not!

Church is not a performance to be attended; neither is Christianity a spectator sport! We should be an active member of the Body of Christ! We should do those things that glorify and honor God and build up the Body, not just the things that benefit us!

Ask not what others can do for you, but rather what you can do for others!

Last week we started talking about humanism in the church. We started to look into how this humanistic mindset governs how many churches “do church”. In my last thread, I started discussing the three priorities that lead so many pastors in the ministry models. They are numbers, reputation, and excitement (buzz). Previously, we looked at numbers. This week I want us to look at the next two priorities together since they go hand in hand. When speaking about reputation and excitement as it relates to many modern churches, you will find that it is the latter that causes the former.

Let’s look at reputation first. I don’t know of any pastor in their right mind, including myself, that does not want to be successful. Every pastor is striving for success. But what kind of success and whose definition of success? Many pastors today want to be known. They want to be seen as important, likeable, and edgy. Pastors as men who spend a great deal of time in studying the word of God and presenting the deep truths of sound Biblical doctrines have been replaced with pastors who know more about MTV, R-rated movies, Twitter, MySpace, and the latest cultural fads than propitiation, substitutionary atonement, and the implications of God’s sovereignty and who are more interested in preaching sermon series that help their members become satisfied “in the sack” than sermons that help believers become truly satisfied with Christ. If we measured Jesus with the same standards of success that we measure pastors with today, Jesus was a failure! (John 6)

Many pastors no longer want the unheralded, often lonely job of faithfully tending the flock of God and guarding against the ravenous wolves of this world. Instead, they want to be ranchers. They want to be known for the size of their herd, and too many, it doesn’t matter if the herd is made up of a mixture of sheep and goats. As a matter of fact, some even allow wolves in sheep’s clothing because outwardly they look like sheep and are counted as such. Many pastors have left the path of servant and teacher to walk down the broad path that is paved with celebrity and notoriety as they strive to become the “spiritual rock stars” of our day.

In order to achieve this new status of pastor, you need to have a following, a large following. I’m not talking about a following of grey-headed Bible-thumpers either. That’s doesn’t rate very high on the cool scale. I’m talking about a large number of “20-30somethings” that like kickin’ music, edgy “talks”, and services that allow their non-believer friends to feel comfortable. And in order to build that following, you need offer only one thing: what they want! Sadly, many churches do just that. They issue questionnaires on a regular basis to people in the church as well as those in the community. They ask such questions as: What do you like about church? What would you like to see more of in church? What is you favorite style of music? What topics are important to you? Then, once this information is compiled, the “worship team” begins planning the services tailoring them to these expressed desires and “needs”. (Where is the Biblical pattern for this?)

This has given rise to the secularization of many churches. Some churches have opened services with AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells and Madonna’s Material Girl. Sermon series no longer consists of exegetical preaching through a book of the Bible or a Biblical truth that is universally applicable. Now many sermons (er…talks) consist of super heroes, ‘80s lifestyle, s-x life enrichment, or any number of the latest TV shows or movies. In order to draw and maintain the numbers and the reputation, extreme and even unbiblical measures are taken to create excitement. A teaspoon of Scripture is taken and mixed with a bucket of worldliness, and it is called relevant ministry.

Scripture-based, Spirit-led ministry has given way to pragmatism. Whatever works do it. How do you know what works? If it’s putting fannies in the seats, it’s working. The sad thing is scripture tells us that Biblical truth is rejected more than it is embraced.

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