.........I remember the book. It had a green cover and was 4.25" by 5.5". The title was something like "Illustrations for Youth". Philip Landis gave it to me, or was it his wife Judy? They were our youth leaders, barely more than youth themselves. I remember they were young marrieds and exuberant about everything. They challenged me to use it in giving a devotional to the Junior High group after a Saturday afternoon social. This was the first time I had been asked to do a devotional for my peers. Perhaps that's why I remember it so well.
.........The illustration was "The Frog in the Kettle". I think we all know the story: A frog dropped in hot water will immediately jump out but a frog dropped in a pot of cool water will stay put even as the temperature is increased to the point of boiling. It sits in the water, content with where it is, not noticing the incremental increase in temperature. One degree at a time the life of the frog is taken until it dies.
.........I am not an old man {unless you talk to my kids}, but I have watched our nation, and more importantly the church of God, slowly succumb to the revolution whose mastermind is Satan. Perhaps the presidential hopefuls have stirred the pot of my concern. When I was in college my major was Political Science with a strong minor in History. My goal in my early 20's was to become President of the United States. {Why are you laughing?} I wanted to impact the world for Christ and felt the Presidency would be a good platform from which to achieve that accomplishment. With that goal in mind I have had a heavy heart for our nation as I have watched her decline in so many areas.
And like many people today I equated a strong America with a strong church. For a time, I was dismayed by the seeming correlation between the decline of America and the declining church. And as things have gotten worse and worse I have had less and less expectation of a strong church rising up from the ruins of our nation. How can we get the church back on her feet spiritually and morally with our nation in such a moral abyss?
.........I realize now that we have been looking through the wrong end of the microscope. God has called His Church to be "the light of the world". We have viewed it backward, it is a strong church which makes a strong nation, not the other way around! The decline of the church is self-induced. It is not the revolution of our nation outside The Church which has torn at society. It is the revolution in The Church which has torn at the fabric of our nation. The decline of our nation has come about because we, as Christians, have not been good gatekeepers of the standards for society which God has established. The Church, to a major extent, has ceased to impact the world with The Light!
.........When I was growing up my dad was the pastor of a congregation in a small town. He was well known by many not only because of the growth of the congregation but because he took the time to run for school board {a race he lost due to dirty tricks, if I recall correctly}. Our family picture was on all the campaign literature. Everywhere I went people knew whose I was. And everyone who saw me seemed to have a mouth they couldn't keep shut. So I would arrive home from a day of being a normal child {you know, getting into trouble and trying not to get caught} and my dad was there to greet me. The conversation would go something like this: "Richard," {I knew then I was in trouble for he wasn't claiming me as his son} "What have you been up to today?" I knew he knew something but I wasn't sure how much of what I had done he knew and I didn't want to tell him more than he already knew. I was on the horns of a dilemma and it wasn't comfortable. Bottom line: I couldn't get away with anything. Dad had spies everywhere! {Actually I did get away with some things but I can't mention them here because Dad gets this newsletter.}
.........What I didn't realize, and certainly didn't appreciate, until much latter, was that I wasn't experiencing my dad spying on me, I was experiencing the cultural standard of "community": The standard where everyone looked out for the kids in a community because they were our future and everyone cared about how our future turned out. With that sense of community came a teaching to children that they were to respect adults, all of them, not just their parents and police officers.
.........The Christian community was even tighter than that. It was expected that adults in the Christian community be surrogate parents when the child's parents weren't present. The standard of behavioral expectation was well known, it was written in the Bible, and every adult was expected to hold each child to that standard. We were a community and our children were our future.
.........I could describe many other areas the church impacted the community if I were writing a book instead of a newsletter article. I mention the sense of community because I believe the decline of our nation began with the disintegration of the family and therefore the loss of community. When I speak of the disintegration of the family I speak from first-hand experience. Like many children in my generation my parents divorced when I was in my mid-teens. It is only God's grace that got me through that tragedy.
.........The good news for our nation is that the problem is much smaller than we have thought. The bad news is that the problem is "us". The problems in our nation are not reflected in The Church. The nation reflects the rebellion within The Church.
.........With that news comes the truth that if things are going to get better, we must do that which is most difficult for us, we must change. Unlike the frog in the kettle, The Church has not merely watched as this revolution came, we have participated in it. In fact, the common trend in congregations is to help build the fire under the church with the hope that the world will see how friendly we are and somehow come to know Christ in that manner. If we are to ever see a strong church in America we must first admit before God that we have sinned against Him: The Church has become friends with the world. James could have been speaking to The Church in America when he said, "You adulteresses, do you not know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God." (James 4:4) There is nothing wrong with The Church in America today which cannot be resolved by turning back to God.
.........In my recent study I have been struck hard with the scripture in Ezra 9 and 10. Ezra was informed "The people of Israel and the priests and the Levites have not separated themselves from the peoples of the lands, . . . . For they have taken some of their daughters as wives for themselves and for their sons, so that the holy race has intermingled with the peoples of the lands; indeed, the hands of the princes and the rulers have been foremost in this unfaithfulness." 9:1-2 The children of Israel came to understand they were unclean. They had violated the command of God Almighty! This was no small matter to Ezra and those with him: ". . . when I heard about this matter, I tore my garment and my robe, and pulled some of the hair from my head and my beard, and sat down appalled." 9:3 Ezra was stunned! So too were the people, "Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women, and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly." 10:1 Please note, these were not just the men of Israel who were gathered. Those gathered were men, women and children! This was a grave matter. This was a matter that affected the blessing of God upon His people and His people took Him seriously!
.........The Church in America needs to understand they are in this same situation. We have intermingled with the peoples of the land and have polluted His Body by adulterating ourselves with the world. Can there be any hope for our desperate condition?
.........Shecaniah the son of Jehiel was the man God gave Ezra at this time of distress. He began with a positive note, ". . . yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this." 10:2 Despite the despair and the horrible offense against God, Shecaniah said, there is an answer. Oh! But what an answer! "So now let us make a covenant with our God to put away all the wives and their children, according to the counsel of my lord and of those who tremble at the commandment of our God; and let it be done according to the law." 10:3 What a price to be paid! They had to put away their wives and their children to cleanse themselves of the abomination they had committed before God. {I cannot imagine putting Linda and the children away! It would bring death to me!}
.........Those who would not agree to this remedy faced severe consequences, "whoever would not come within three days, according to the counsel of the leaders and the elders, all his possessions should be forfeited and he himself excluded from the assembly of the exiles." 10:8 Once they did gather ". . . all the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and the heavy rain." 10:9 They trembled before the Lord! They sat in the heavy rain before the Lord! They had been unfaithful and they trembled before God because of their unfaithfulness.
.........This does not sound like a description of the American church responding to God. His people don't even come with regularity to the comfortable buildings which He has provided. Sit in the rain!? How absurd!
.........Brothers and sisters, when was the last time we trembled before God Almighty? When was the last time we took a serious look at The Word of God and the activities of our congregation and compared the two? When was the last time we went to the leaders in our congregation and pointed out the friendship of the world within our congregation? When was the last time we, or another leader in our congregation, called us back to the basic principles of the Christian faith?
.........Some of you may be saying, these are the ramblings of a person who doesn't understand the complexity of our society. The problems in our nation cannot be addressed with such simplistic notions. Was not the command of our Lord Jesus Christ one of simplicity - "‘Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.'" Matthew 28:18-20 Jesus understood that the conquering of the world came one disciple at a time. It is exponential growth which succeeds, not big programs. Let us repent as did the children of Israel in the time of Ezra.
