A New Pair Of Pants Pt.1

Our brick and mortar department store mentality churches of today are about as outdated as an IBM mainframe next to a PC. Father Time where are you?!! We are now over 500 years removed from the Protestant Reformation and God didn’t stop there- we did! Hard to believe isn’t it? Why did we stop? What possible loss of vision and obedience precipitated such an about face? After centuries and centuries of darkness; false doctrine, the church going underground, persecutions, the inquisition and untold other sufferings we failed to move forward at such a pivotal time in history. Have we even asked the question why? Have we ever asked the question why since that blessed time. Martin Luther, Zwingli, Calvin all sunk their stakes in the ground shortly after the whole thing started and we have been dealing with and promoting the consequences ever since. God mercifully brings Reformation and we start Protestantism! The Reformation was from God. Protestantism was from man. Can you hear that dear reader? God starts a reformation and we put so much of our effort in to a “protest” rather than the revelations of reform being brought by the Holy Spirit. Let’s pause a moment for a station break.

Dr. Merle D’ Abigne in his classic history, The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, gives this insightful comment,

“The history of the reformation is distinct from that of Protestantism. In the former everything bears the mark of a regeneration of the human race, of a religious and social change emanating from God Himself. In the latter we too often witness a glaring degeneracy from first principles, the struggles of parties, a sectarian spirit, and the traces of petty individualities.”

Ok were back. Jesus didn’t bring a protest. He brought a revival. A dispensational shift. An outpouring of God’s mercy and grace to free people from the chains of bondage and move them into the liberty of truth. Every revival of God since the Reformation has walked with the same “protesting” limp, marked with the same blindness. A short-lived jump forward only to stop a few feet from the starting line. Another protest and up go more walls. We are still utterly infatuated with our 1517 model “A” style church system while God has been moving on to a Rolls-Royce! See those tail lights? Hello Church! Since when does God stop moving on? Why did we?? We’re outdated. We’re caught in a time warp. We’ve lost our edge. We’re driving down the freeway of life in our model “A” jalopy version of Christianity and we don’t dare get out of the slow lane for fear of being run over by culture. Horns are blaring everywhere. People are shouting “get off the road you has been!” But we smugly move on patting ourselves on the back and singing “give me that old time religion, it’s good enough for me”- Putt, Putt.

We’re driving a beater folks and we’re so used to justifying it and convincing ourselves that it is God’s best we don’t or should I say won’t consider anything else. Shining the bumpers and giving it a new set of wheels now and then doesn’t change anything. It’s a beater and should be in a wrecking yard or at best in a museum somewhere next to the horse-drawn carriage! It’s far past time to move on. With stop signs and warning lights signaling us everywhere these days you would think we would get a clue that just POSSIBLY something needs to change! But we continue scratching our heads wondering what the problem is and most all our efforts are spent just making it worse- Hmm. Spare the walls, throw out the baby!

Revelation #1- Does God really have something better than this?

(Pardon the aside here but it seems a bit unbelievable that
we really have to consider this question. It’s like remaining in
the gate at the Kentucky Derby and wondering why all the
horses went around the track.)

Getting us to consider this will require giving up our precious jalopy and the whole “good ol’ boys” jalopy club. Are we really willing to do that? I repeat, are we really willing to do that? Everyone in favor say “I”.

The extremely conventional Christianity of today knows little of moving forward. We just keep broadening out on the same dry plane we’ve been on for centuries; rehearsing stale truths that have been re-wrapped and given out so many times everyone knows exactly what to expect even though they try so hard to act excited and put on that religious demur of “it’s great to be on the winning side.” Moving on.

Every now and then a new era of reformation is due in the church. You can only wear a pair of pants so long before they need cleaning. It is very similar in the church. Through the years we seem to pick up the dirt and grime of the world. What we once were is covered up by various stains of one sort or another and the original garment just isn’t the same any more. When it comes to cleaning clothes it is a relatively simple matter; we throw them in the wash or take them to the cleaners and certainly no one raises and eyebrow over that. But when it comes to the church the whole matter of needing a cleansing becomes far more difficult and complex. It’s no longer just a matter of washing a garment. Now it’s a matter of changing policies, principles, theologies and various matters of faith. We’re tinkering with people’s understanding of God, Jesus Christ and His purpose and plan for man. We are questioning issues that have become sources of security, comfort, esteem, recognition and financial gain. We have raised up institutions and various organizations to defend the whole thing and give it an appearance of orthodoxy (putt, putt). What is considered accepted and normal is being jepeordized and absolutely no one likes their sacred ground or should I say “sacred cows” questioned. Given enough time the matters that call for reformation become entrenched into the way we “do church.” Succeeding generations of Christians, pastors and church leaders just adapt or adopt and move on. It is the very rare individual that questions the process and the system that results. The few who do usually face quite an uphill battle trying to convince the majority and especially the leaders that there is a problem. Their struggle is not just with an erring church system and leadership but with themselves. They often struggle with feelings of insecurity and loneliness wondering why they’re different, why they don’t fit; wanting to get along but all the while troubled by their convictions with no way to reconcile them with what they see.

~Reformers are a rare breed, committing their lives and livelihood to something they may never see in their lifetime, but will certainly eventually come to pass~ LC

Jeremiah’s lamentation before the Lord certainly makes sense here,

“O Lord you have deceived me and I was deceived; you have overcome me and prevailed. I have become a laughingstock all day long; everyone mocks me for each time I speak I cry aloud; I proclaim violence and destruction, because for me the word of the Lord has resulted in reproach and derision all day long. Then I said, I will not make mention of Him, Nor speak anymore in His name. But His word was in my heart like a burning fire shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, and I could not.”(Jer.20:7-10)

Yes my dear friends, loneliness is often part of walking with God especially in matters of reform and in times like these. If you need the big pats on the back and the kudos of man to feel God’s acceptance, then reform will be more of a threat than a friend and accepting the changes that are literally pounding on the church’s door right now will make you want to cut and run. Can you handle this? The scripture says, “Cease ye from man whose breath is in his nostrils…” (Isa.2:22).

So how do we get the church out of stuck mode? How do we become unentrenched? How do we trade in our model “A” jalopy Christianity and catch up with God’s Rolls-Royce? Are you really tired of looking at those tail lights?

Every revival of the Christian Church bears the same unmistakeable tendency to shy away from going to what is considered to be “to far.” When revivals have swept through the church many embraced the initial work of the Holy Spirit bringing new life, hope, joy and salvation to many but as the Spirit moved on requiring greater depths of commitment and righteousness people began to pull back and throw up walls in an attempt to contain what little they had, not willing to pay the price for more. And everyone said, “two steps forward, one step back, two steps forward, two steps back, three steps forward, three steps back.” Ah what a dance. Unfortunately it’s the dance of death! “Too be carnally minded is death” Paul said (Ro. 8:6). My oh my the patience of God!! How long He puts up with our foolishness. All our walls, no matter how ornate and impressive represent the wreckage of some former revival. Where man took over and the Holy Spirit left off (putt, putt). Repeat after me,

~All our walls no matter how ornate and impressive represent the wreckage of some former revival. Where man took over and
the Holy Spirit left off~ LC

So much for walls! The tendency to pull back or what is called “camping” occupies most of the churches time, money, meetings and efforts these days. We don’t like to think of it in those terms but that is exactly where so much of the emphasis is! Rather than pursuing ways to move forward we focus on ways to maintain the status quo. We get a good thing, we settle into it, raise up a flag and build a Fort around it complete with high walls and battlements. God is not into just giving us a good thing. He is into making us like Jesus. True visionary thinking is unwelcome or at best looked upon as suspect these days. There is no way to fit in without compromises but they come with a terrible price tag ie. the loss of desire for more. It is a self-replicating mentality that breeds itself throughout a movement and is so often justified from our pulpits and religious organizations. It is inline with the popular narrative of building walls and keeping the people coming back. David the psalmist wrote “Yes again and again they tempted God, and limited the holy one of Israel” (Ps.78:41). Jer.2:13 says, “For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns- broken cisterns that can hold no water.” The Old Testament cistern was usually a man-made reservoir used to store rain water. Get the connection? Most of our churches today are exactly that and as such the words of this verse ring loud- they “can hold no water.” Why does it always seem that good things don’t last? That those blessings disappear. They “can hold no water.” The Fountain of Living waters has been forsaken. More next article.

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