The Upside Down Church

John, that lovely apostle, faithful to the end, was blessed in being shown the prophetic history of the Christian Church as accounted in The Revelation of Jesus Christ. In the revealing of "things which are soon to take place", he was shown seven messages that would be in transit through time and opportunely delivered.The last letter, to the church of Laodicea, is recognized as being directed to the final dispensation and is characterized by the Christian Church in today's western world. This church is described as "the lukewarm church". The passage is as follows:

Rev 3:15-17

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot; I wish that you were cold or hot.  16 'So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew you out of My mouth.  17 'Because you say, " I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,"   NASU

Imagine a jar of water, hot on top and cold at the bottom. For the water to become lukewarm, we'd need to turn the jar upside down. This is how I see the church today - upside down. We have lost the intense love and faithfulness to Christ that the early church had during the first three centuries of heavy persecution as depicted by the church of Smyrna and again during the period of revivals as typified by the church of Philadelphia. Today's church doubts the authority and veracity of the bible as God's Word, sees little evidence of the Spirit in healings, spiritual manifestations and the exercising of Spiritual gifts. Yet instead of being completely turned off, we play church. We have not only become diluted, but tepid and apathetic. The vibrancy the Church once had has waned to indifference.

Today's Christians, don't believe they need God. After all, we have all we need. If we fall ill, we go the doctor. If we're hungry, we go to Supermarket, If we're threatened, we call the police, If we have spare time, we turn on the TV, or PlayStation. If we lose our job, we have employment Insurance. The kind of problems we face is running out of chips and pop in the middle of the movie. 

We may have, at one time, been excited about God and church, when we were in our impressionable teen years; we read our bibles and attended youth groups or bible camps. But now, grown up, there are so many other things more important - like the hockey play-offs, or Saturday afternoon golf - besides the work of the church is looked after by the pastor. After all, that's what he's paid for, right?

Unfortunately, the pastor's salary of, say, $75K annually, keeps him and his family also busied in today's modern, stuff-littered world. There's the plethora of box stores: Walmart, Home Depot, Superstore, Winners, Canadian Tire, Mark's Work Wearhouse, Sport Chek, Shoppers Drug Mart and Chapters, just to name a few. The pastor is also a huge sports fan, and it seems one of his favourite teams is always in the running for the play-offs. And he's an avid news junky – after all, he needs to stay on top of world events. Then, there are the many generous patrons who regularly beckon him for a game of golf, dinner out, coffee at Timmy's, the latest theatre production and varied charity events. And to keep their money flowing, they all need to be stroked and preened. I honestly don't know how he keeps up. Inconveniently, for the pastor, family and church responsibilities often fall behind. Compared to the early church, the Apostles modelled, today's church is indeed upside down.

In order to find the solution to our lukewarmness, we first need to identify the problem and its source. We need to retrace our steps. In comparing the early church to today's church, we immediately identify key areas of deviation. The early church was instructed in how to abstain from moral corruption, i.e: premarital sex, extra-marital sex, same sex, self-sex, selfish sex, abortion, astrology, gossiping, gambling, gluttony (super-size me), bitterness, back-biting, lying, cheating, and such. The early church Christians were also instructed in how to protect themselves from spiritual attack, how to recognize the presence of demonic forces, how to deliver one that is demonized, and instructed in correct doctrine. 

Additionally, the church members were taught to identify their spiritual gifts which would be exercised accordingly. While today's church is sermonized by "the pastor" of the assembly, typically a "senior pastor", seldom does he/she teach on issues of morality or spiritual warfare. Sound doctrine is often under attack in today's churches, and pastors are often afraid to take a stand where they might be labelled as "too radical". We're more afraid of how we look than of God, "who can destroy our body and our soul in hell" (Matt 10:28).

Today's opulent churches are not much different than the assemblies depicted in The Revelation in the message to the Ephesians.Rev 2:4,5 But I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Therefore remember from where you have fallen, and repent and do the deeds you did at first; or else I am coming to you and will remove your lamp-stand out of its place, unless you repent. (NASU)

Unfortunately, they did not repent, and their candlestick was removed; the church was broken up in 96 AD. I can imagine how heart-broken the apostle John would have been to have known the church he, himself, was an elder, would slide into such lukewarmness. 

And as we reflect on the role of the body of Christ on earth, can we see how we have lost the vibrancy we have as God's people being the light of the world and salt of the earth? Can we see how our love of money and the things of the world is blinding us to a world of lost souls falling through the cracks to an eternity of outer darkness? And what of us, the upside down church, the lukewarm church, are we also falling through the cracks? Do we blithely believe we are heaven bound, or have we fallen for the lies of "wolves in sheep's clothing"?

My Obduracy - Up-close and Personal

"All the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted."
— Ezek 3:7

What? All of them? All of Israel, the chosen ones? Wow! That's unbelievable!  - But if the best of humanity is so bad, then what is the charge for the worst of us? Where's my mirror? I need my mirror! You there! What is your part in this all-sweeping charge? As I glare deep, past my familiar expression to the depths of my inner being, what is that that I  see? In my true introspection, I'm aghast. Before I was regenerated, I behaved like all the wicked, sinning without guilt, shame or remorse. Now, after my eyes have been opened, I've received God's bountiful grace, I've tasted His sweet mercies and have seen the cross of cruelty where my Saviour paid for my sin. And, still, there I am in church with my brothers and sisters in Christ, covered from head to toe in the dust and grime of my daily unrepented sin, pretending to pray to Him, pretending to worship Him. 

This is indeed arrogance and impudence of the worst kind. Yet, there it is, staring back at me in the mirror. It's true. Since the day of my new birth, I have doubted Him right to His face, I've complained without even the slightest blush and I've worshipped in church with a phony, two-faced insincerity without the slightest regret or sorrow 

Where is my holy fear? Where is my contrite heart?

It's true then, shamefully, I am one of the impudent house of Israel. 

The second charge is hardheartedness, and I'm through with defending myself. In the mirror, I've already seen my guilt. I now, can only stand as charged. There was a time when I did have a heart of stone. But since then, by God's over-flowing grace, He exchanged that deadened soul with a new heart, a tender heart, a soul after His own. And still my resistance and rebelliousness remain. I have been born anew, not by the will of man but of God and yet I remain unaffected by the sufferings of my saviour as I should be. I am neither moved by the spiritual hell that awaits those I interact with daily, nor am I repulsed by the wickedness of our times. Not even my Lord's correction and my own failures affect my calloused mind. I yearn for the moment I am dissolved by my saviour's suffering and death. I cry out for a renewed sensitivity to the lost around me and distress to the needs of my fellow man - that I would see Jesus in each of the needy. But how? Who can deliver me from this sickening body of death? Jesus, thank you once again. For you have become my all in all. I can now see that even in my deepest sinfulness, my arrogant affront and hardened heart, You Jesus, again are my saviour. Your blood not only washes, but purifies and softenes the hardness of heart. Come now Lord Jesus, my healer, and deliverer. .

Bend this proud and stiff-necked I. Help me to  bow my head and die; beholding You on Calvary, where you bowed your head for me - Roy Hession, The Calvary Road.

Adapted from Spurgeon's Morning and Evening Devotional - April 28th evening

The Troubled and Sleepless Mind

In the stillness of a blackened moonless abyss of a night,
Sounds and images scream through the sleepless mind.
Like squealing tires on a race track black and tight;
As continuous as a jack-hammering on an unyielding concrete rind.

Cringing - tossing - turning from taunts the night is rife
With white-knuckled clenching hidden in the night.
The pounding heart beats to a slideshow of life,
Oh for the images to merge to that final blinding light.

But final rest and quietude elude to hateful mocking laughter
Of the captor gleeful in a cat and mouse game with the tormented
Could this be a game played neither here nor there nor before nor after?
Could, indeed, the sleepless mind be a playground of the demented?

"Come to me; I'll give you rest", I hear, with wringing hands now limp.
And with it the ebb of mental effluent, machine-gun images, together unwind
To softer edges, faint and weak. Drive the demon, banish the imp!
"Yes, I'll come."  and finally ease the troubled and sleepless mind."

~ib

A Sneak Preview

Imagine a caged rat running frenetically on the inside of his spinning plastic orb trying to get ahead. He doesn't know where he's going, but has the notion, that since he's running as fast as he can, he should be arriving soon. In fact he will be arriving soon, just not where he thought. The ambient noise, of what sounds like water running, interrupted by intermittent honks and the shaking vibration of his surroundings hasn't deterred him. Moreover, as he's so focussed on achieving his goal, he's unaware that he's currently en route to the animal shelter, where he'll soon be euthanized. Furiously he scurries to success, but his existence is soon to come to an end.

It brings to mind the movie, The Matrix, where the mass of humanity was unaware that their existence was quite different than what they believed to be their reality, and their life-line was about to be unplugged. I wonder if this could also be our reality. If you were given a sneak-peak into your future and learned to your utter dismay, that your existence was about to come to an end, would you have any final thoughts? Or, even with this knowledge, would you continue your frenzied pace? And as you read this bizarre supposition, you quickly correct the conjecture by taking a quick sensory assessment. You glance about and surmise all is well. Unfortunately, you're not absolutely sure. Well, I have good news, and bad news. You see, I'm bringing this to your attention, because I have been given a sneak-preview. And you can breathe easy; your existence is not in jeopardy.

But, what is your existence? Are you really just a consuming, calculating bag of bones and meat - much like what your pork roast looked like before it arrived to your supermarket? If that's the case, then you really don't have much time. You see, even if you live to a ripe old age of, say, ninety-seven, which is unlikely, it still passes like a dream. Think of your last twenty years. What do you really remember of it? Can you relive each moment; or was it more like a wisp of smoke that momentarily lingered, then disappeared? If the latter is the case, I conjecture your next twenty years will be the same - and the next- and the next, until you find yourself sitting in a chair unaware of your past or your future - simply living in the moment. Time is relative.

Now, back to the sneak preview. This is what I've been shown: the bag of meat, is really more like an overcoat. It will eventually wear out, but you, as a person, will continue into timelessness. You see, life and death are both timeless. The state of your conscious continuance, however, is determined by a decision you can make now. Your existence begins in a state of spiritual death. You began this way, because humankind once made a decision, or more of an allegiance. You've heard the term "he sold his soul"? Well, that's one way of describing it. You are a slave to whom you obey. And someone in your ancestry decided to join the losing team, and what they lost was their spiritual life. They still existed, but in a state of spiritual death. In the Bible, we're told that Jesus is Life. He Himself, said, "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." and that, "whoever has the Son, (Jesus) has Life and whoever does not have the Son, there's no life in him." Whoever is "In" Christ, also has all that He is. A brief list would include: joy, patience, peace, contentment, faith, hope, love, etc, and without Christ is the opposite of all that He is. Jesus described it as "weeping and grinding of teeth".

But here you are, still in your physical "overcoat". It's not completely worn out - yet. But this is the only time you can change your state. Will it be Life, or will you remain in your spiritually dead existence? The answer is simple - it's even easy. You see, God has a very intense love for you. And the only way that, He Himself, established as a means of correction, was for Him to take your place - and that's exactly what He did. He entered into our spiritually dead state, by being incarnated in the person of Jesus the Messiah. He lived as a man, but one without sin and without committing sin, and when those who were ruled by Satan learned who He was, they were motivated to have Jesus executed. Satan believed he had finally won. But God being who He is, conquered death. He was crucified, died and went to the same place all who are outside of Christ go - to hell - that place of "weeping and grinding of teeth". But He didn't go as a result of His own sin, but in payment for yours and mine. He paid for our sin and separation from God's Life by suffering and dying on our behalf. He then overcame Death, by means of the resurrection. In the gospel of John, we read, "that God loved us so much that He gave His only Son (Jesus)and that all we need to do is simply accept His free gift of Life, by telling Him that you are switching sides. You'll be His instead of being "dead" in sin and you will enter into the Kingdom of God" - John 3:16 (somewhat paraphrased). Remember, Jesus is Life. In Him you will experience all that Life is.

Consider this as the one moment in time - in your bag of meat existence - that you can change the rest of your eternity. This moment may never come again. If you feel drawn to say YES, then it is really not you, but God who is drawing you. You can't resist. You are not your own. If you are ready to make this change, follow me now in simply talking to Him:

Father, I know that I've been living in a death-like existence. I don't want to be a slave on the wrong side any longer. I want Life. I choose You, God. My sins weigh heavy on me. Please Lord wipe them away. Thank you so much for dying in my place, and I accept You now, as my new Life. I give myself to You. Come and fill me with Your Life. I will now live my life through You. Thank you Jesus.

Oh, remember me saying that I was given a sneak preview? This is how I know it's all true - My Belonging and Believing