Reading Between The Lines ( Cont.)

 Let’s consider the ministry of Jesus.  Jesus was ushering in a whole new covenant replacing about 1500 years of Old Covenant history. Hearts and mindsets of an extremely long-standing nature had to change to accommodate such a huge shift in thinking and this difficulty was multiplied by the religious nature of the task. People’s understanding of God and their relationship with Him had become so entrenched with Old Testament concepts of Law that nothing short of a major divine work of grace and repentance would prepare them for the change. Please understand, people have a hard enough time adapting to new temporal concepts that effect them personally, but this is especially so when it effects their understanding of God. It involves their eternal values and thus their eternal destiny. People just don’t let go of such things easily. Complicating the issue further was the maze of Pharisaic and Sadducean traditions that had become so intertwined with the Law of Moses. And then there was the whole matter of the legitimacy of John the Baptist’s ministry (was it of men or of God?) and the nature of Christ’s unusual birth and entry into the public arena. All these things stood like a wall of Bismarckian proportions against the shift in thinking and understanding that Christ had to effect in three and one half short years. Thus the need for John’s ministry of repentance. It had to go deep and it had to be thorough; opening people up to the colossal changes that were about to take place over the next number of years through Christ and then through His disciples. 

     Let’s take this a step further. When the apostle Paul came on the scene, Christ amplified His New Covenant purposes by gracing this amazing apostle with a gigantic download of New Covenant revelation to further advance the work. Like Christ’s initial seed revelations that sparked such a tremendous uproar throughout Palestine, these further revelations centered Paul right in the middle of the same controversy; controversy that followed him throughout the rest of his life and cost him dearly. As with Christ’s revelations, the success of the apostle Paul’s revelations were also dependent upon the continuing influence of the repentance message begun by John the Baptist. City by city the importance of this principle was dramatized by the acceptance or rejection of Paul’s message. “These were more noble than those in Thessalonica” (Acts17:11) became a ruling paradigm of Paul’s ministry, a constant shift between stones and blessing depending on the mood of a town toward the word of God. Was there an attitude of repentance, a willingness to change ones thinking about the things of God and face the repercussions or wasn’t there? We sometimes never really know which end of this issue we’re on. While we assume obedience- how much vital truth and life transforming experience escapes us because we have unwittingly joined the stone throwers rather than the ‘blessers’. “Crucify Him” the angry mob cried as Jesus passively faced his objectors. “Crucify Him”, “Crucify Him” they went on and there in the midst of the crowd were people just like us; all dressed in their religious garb feigning orthodoxy and unfortunately on the wrong side of the cross that was soon to loom over Golgotha. “Impossible” we think? “I would never have done such a thing” we tell ourselves. Seriously, if Jesus and his disciples came on the scene today disguised as common Christian folk, how many of us would accept their gospel as it was presented. “Those things don’t happen any more” we like to say, “that was for the New Testament era but not now”, “we don’t teach that in my church”,”that’s not our tradition”, “we don’t believe that”. “that’s your interpretation” and on the excuses go- so many of them about as senseless and sad as another stone thrown at Paul or another angry threat hurled at Christ. Our walls not only hint at such things they literally SHOUT them! While we willingly celebrate and promote this vast assemblage of divisions as healthy variety our walls nevertheless demonstrate a huge array of unsettled conflicts, jealousies and power struggles; a veritable Hatfield’s and MacCoy’s feud gone ballistic; glazed over by years of senseless and completely non-biblical excuses- and who is it all aimed at? What is it all for? To build up walls against one another- all who claim to believe in Christ and endorse His teachings. So who are we standing against? Who have we separated ourselves from? “In as much as you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me” Jesus said (Matt.25:40). Yes, falsely sanctified by our walls is the same animus toward Paul and Jesus so vividly demonstrated in the New Testament, and while this may not be very clear to us yet it will hopefully become much more clear as we continue in these articles. May God give us a no-strings-attached mindset of openness to change, a repentant attitude as we move on.

~ Our character has to accommodate a repentant mindset.  It has to facilitate it.  You can’t move a brick wall with “high profile” worship and sanctimonious platitudes by a  warm and fuzzy pulpit.  Brick walls are moved by bulldozers and heavy equipment: heavy equipment that needs to enter many hearts and minds today and prepare the ground for this. A repentant mindset is a dove not a bulldozer.  It enters where there are no brick walls to greet it. ~

The work of God and the truths that promote it can go no further or deeper than the level of the repentance that precedes it!! LC

  It was this message of repentance that prepared the ground for the planting of the greatest Christian revival in the history of the church (the New Testament), and it is the lack of such a message that has undermined so many revivals since that era. We just seem to push on the brake right when our gospel car is beginning to get traction and then wonder why it quit moving forward. The work of God and the truths that promote it can go no further or deeper than the level of the repentance that precedes it!! Probably one of the most keen observers of this phenomenon was the great revivalist of the nineteenth century Charles Finney. In one of his writings he notes, “I have observed, and multitudes of others also I find have observed, that for the last ten years revivals of religion have been gradually becoming more and more superficial. All the phenomena which they exhibit testify to this as a general fact. There is very much less deep conviction of sin and deep breaking up of the heart; much less deep humility, and much less strength in all the graces exhibited by converts in late revivals… The unutterable depravity of the human heart has not, I fear, been laid open to the very bottom as it formerly was… From my own experience and observation, as well as from the Word of God, I am fully convinced that the character of revivals depends very much upon the stress that is laid upon the depravity of the heart, its pride, enmity, windings, deceitfulness, and everything else that is hateful to God, should be exposed in the light of His perfect law.” (Revival Fire). We like to side step this issue today and brand it as negative and counterproductive to the love of God. We like to soft peddle the gospel to a seeker-friendly crowd and bring in all kinds of church growth mechanics and big business strategies to cover up the loss, but to the degree that we rely on such things we distance ourselves from the repentant mindset that is key to understanding and accepting biblical revelation especially on the subjects before us. It has very little to do with mechanics and everything to do with character. 

John Mulinde, one of the main leaders of the current national revival in the nation of Uganda, Africa said in reference to Israel’s apostacy from God in the Old Testament, “..You can not depart from the standard of the Lord unless you do it in your mind first. So they had developed a mindset different from the mindset of God. Their thoughts are not the thoughts of God and their ways are not the ways of God. But they feel comfortable in their ways. They feel acceptable in their ways and they affirm each other in their ways because they think alike. Even when it comes to the things of God, the priests and the prophets speak the word, teach the word and prophecy to strengthen the position where the people are. They make it acceptable. They make it understandable and they interpret the words in such a way as to support the system as it is among the people…Their understanding of the Spirit of God and what he would do if he comes is distorted. Not only are they comfortable in their ways and not wanting to change, they have theology teaching them to be comfortable and to love it that way…” The prophet Jeremiah said, ‘The prophets prophecy falsely, and the priests rule by their own means: and my people love to have it so! but what will you do at the end of it?’(Jer.5:31).” It’s this comfortableness, this love of the current way of doing things that has got to be changed. Popularity has never been an acceptable test of orthodoxy, but it has been accepted as such today.

     No one wants their party crashed. We like everyone tooting their horns, blowing their whistles and celebrating with us and while there’s confetti floating everywhere very few seem to question the validity of it all. We like to think that future answers exist within current thinking and as long as we can tamper with God’s standards of success and get away with it, we have no reason to think otherwise. But significant changes always come on the heels of repentance. No pain, no gain we like to say. So let me finish this appeal for a repentant mindset with a few personal words. 

     There before the Old Testament Tabernacle stood the alter of sacrifice. Right in the pathway to the door that led into the presence of God was this very revolting and saddening sight of blood sacrifice. That same alter continues to stand before us today. Are we willing to face it? The apostle Paul wrote, “I beseech you therefore brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice holy and acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service” (Ro.12:1). So how reasonable is this to us? Are we willing to offer ourselves up on this alter that represents Christ or do we just want to view it from a distance and feign having been there? We’ll never get beyond that alter and into the revelation (revealing) of God until we have submitted to its process. Let it go my friend. “He that seeks to save his life will lose it” Jesus said. Let go of your popularity, acceptance, money, pulpit, church, self-image or whatever that alter may require. Let it go up in flames as a sweet smelling odor unto God. Give it up! Take the loss! As multitudes are still viewing the alter from a distance and justifying themselves; walk through the crowds, take a stand for truth and let Jesus have it all. No, we don’t know how to do that, so ask Him to do it in you. Only then can you go on closer to God and the wondrous truths that represent Him.  This is the way of relevance and Reformation. 

Luther Canon
Sola Scriptura