Not a New Problem

If you have lived in the same home for many years it has probably developed some small idiosyncrasies that you have adapted to.  They are just part of the normal functioning life of your house.  But, if you decided to sell your house and the realtor gave it the check-up we talked about yesterday, what would they say about those idiosyncrasies?  They would say that you had problems that needed to be fixed.  They were not new problems.  They were not problems in your own mind.  The realtor, however, saw them differently.  They were old problems that needed fixing.

Putting up with error in the church is not a new problem.  People have been content to just focus on their own worship and let problems slide by if they don’t stop them from personal worship.  It is an attitude that worship is really just about me and God and not anyone or anything else.  That is a nice idea, but it is false.  We are part of a body and not the body by ourselves.  Corporate worship is part of the whole body functioning in unison and not each member functioning alone.  God has called us to corporate worship; therefore problems in the body, especially leadership, are not an issue that can be ignored.  Their error will trickle down into the very nature of our own obedience to God.  Input that is wrong will ultimately create output that is wrong.

Jeremiah and Ezekiel were constantly at odds with the false prophets of their day.  Those false prophets did not declare themselves to be prophets of Baal or some other foreign god.  They declared themselves to be prophets of the One True God.  But God said of them, I did not send them nor speak to them.  This is a repeated refrain.  The problem was that the false prophets spoke lies about God.  They said that what He was saying through His current prophets and what He had said through His past prophets was false.  Jeremiah and Ezekiel were saying the same things that had been said by prophets before.  That was the clue to God’s people about who was right and wrong among the prophets.  A new message that changed an old message was not acceptable to the God who changes not.  The people, however, were more inclined to listen to the soft words of the new prophets and reject the harsher words of the old.  They had itching ears, as Paul said, and chose the path of sweetest sounds. 

God’s message is eternal.  The declaration of what sin is has not changed.  The declaration of how God will deal with it has not changed.  His promise to all who will repent and believe has not changed.  In our world today there are many new voices that actually say, “The Bible doesn’t really mean that.”  Those are the voices of false prophets.  Friends, hold fast to the true Word of God.  Sing these old words penned by Haldor Lillenas from “The Bible Stands”.

The Bible stands like a rock undaunted mid the raging storms of time.

Its pages burn with the truth eternal and they glow with the light sublime. 

The Bible stands though the hills may tumble,

It will firmly stand though the earth may crumble;

I will plant my feet on the sure foundation for the Bible stands. 

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