Everything in life seems to change. Sometimes the change is good and at other times it is not. As a society grows older and older, the more it will have changed because the people who make up that society can never be happy with what they have or the order in which things are done. Human nature is to go to the “edge of the envelope” and test the waters. We are a restless people who must find something else in order to keep ourselves happy. Nothing stands still or is satisfied for very long. People think that that they have to change or adjust something in order for it to remain relevant.
The quest for “progress” and something new and exciting affects just about everything. An invention is hardly off the inventors table when a new model which is suppose to be better makes its debut. When I bought my last computer, it was the latest thing with all the bells and whistles. But that didn’t last long. Newer technical things were available in only a short while. The companies know too well the nature of people. Something new and more powerful came out in only a few days. In fact, people who have expertise in that area tell me that when a new computer model comes out, it is out of date when it appears on the shelves of the stores. Automobiles are just as subject to the desires and whims of a buying public who can never be totally satisfied. If one cannot keep up or does not keep stride, their product will eventually suffer because the quest for something new and exciting is not being met.
This human desire to always be satisfied by something new has made its way into the spiritual world and the effects are going to be devastating. Somehow, in the early nineties, the church growth movement superseded almost everything else. Growth was the word of the day. The mark of success for a church or convention was not whether they were being obedient to the Gospel but whether they were adding members and collecting more money. Every effort was expended on making a church “successful” by those two standards. That focus had the effect of making churches turn inward and focus on themselves more than having a vision for reaching the lost. Churches which formerly had a large and active visitation group found that they suddenly had a hard time getting people to dedicate their time to that work. In today’s world, many churches do not have an active visitation program. In many churches where I go to preach, I usually ask if that church has an active outreach program and most of them shake their head in the negative. But, every effort is made to provide things for a closed society consisting of that particular church’s membership. Now, we want to have a close and warm church situation but it must go beyond that if we are to be obedient to what Jesus told us to do. So, with a focus which is directed to the church and not the lost in the world, it is only natural for people to design things to satisfy themselves. “Come to our church. We have a fabulous youth program, a magnificent music program and the best children’s program in the area. You will not be disappointed in any way. All your expectation will be met at our church. And, we have a good preacher also, they add.”
Please be aware of something that most people are missing: God is Immutable. According to the Bible He does not change. He is still occupying the same throne that He has always occupied. He has told us how to worship him in spirit and truth. He has enlightened us on the depth of His Holiness and how easy it is to offend His Holiness. All one has to do is to read in Exodus the degree to which He ordered things to see that He wants us, His children, to conduct ourselves in a way which will honor Him and His Son Jesus. And when Jesus shed His blood for our sins the expectation is that we will honor what took place on the cross in all of our doings in life and that we will do nothing to take the focus off of that event.
So, here is the situation: Our God, who cannot change, has told us what He expects from us as we worship Him. When He gave His Son to die for us, it was not so that we could treat it lightly and, to satisfy our preferences, change how we focus on the Majesty and Holiness of God and what He did for us. Worship should stand apart from the world’s methods because it is not worldly in any way. As I have often stated, “you cannot do God’s business with the world’s methods.” There is no way the world’s approach will be able to produce a heavenly result.
I saw a picture recently of the men who announce sports on television. They call the plays at football games; they furnish commentary during the game and on television shows. All of those men were dressed in suits and looked professional. The worldly television networks know that is the way they should dress to deal with sports. But, I also saw a group of the “popular, cool” preachers of today. They are the ones attracting large crowds and generating plenty of money. They were dressed like they actually tried to look as grungy as they could. That’s the cool thing today. God isn’t interested in “cool.” He is seeking those who honor Him in their worship and He, long ago, laid down the dress code of the priests and how they should look. Remember, He is immutable and does not change His mind. The outside (how we present ourselves before Him) speaks of what is on the inside. It says something about the heart and its focus. What is on the inside will, sooner or later, make its way to the outside and reveal what a person is really like.
We are living in an age which is addicted to “hoopla” but our God is above all that and should not have His image dragged down to that level in order to satisfy worldly people who have convinced themselves that if they are satisfied with worship then surely God is. What we do may or may not satisfy God but it a sure thing that worldly methods will not satisfy our Heavenly God. Worship is a spiritual activity and cannot be replicated by the worldly methods used today.
The bottom line is this: We must be far more careful in the worship of almighty God than we have been in recent years. The wrath for displeasing Him in our worship of Him is too devastating for us to take a careless chance on it. And, this writer thinks that what churches think is acceptable today is actually an affront to our God who changes not. He is immutable and we are fluid. He never changes and His Word lasts forever. We feel free to play loose with that fact and one of these days it is going to be perfectly clear how He feels about it. Scripture tells us of the coming days of apostasy and I feel that what is going on in churches today labeled as worship is a clear sign that we just might be entering those days at the present time. We should never do anything that would assist Satan and his diabolical work during his attempt to bring those horrid Biblical days to pass. There will be the time of apostasy but we should never assist in bringing it about.
It will come in God’s timing.
As we live our Christian lives dedicated to Christ we must always think about this question: Does what we do match the personality and approach of our Lord. Remember what was previously stated: “What we do in worship should, to some degree, match the gravity of what took place on the cross.” If that is not the fact then I believe we are out of order and are diminishing the worship of Our Immutable God.
