Break off the Ornaments
What a strange title to a thought about seeking for revival.
What a thought to someone who is seeking revival and then to
realize the absolute guilt that is found when I examine the
ornaments that I have attached myself to.
Let us look a little closer and see if we can discover the reason
that what we associate ourselves with may hinder personal and
corporate revival.
As we saw in the posting titled Go to where God Is, there was
a time when a group of people were granted great opportunity to hear
the voice and experience the very presence of the living God and yet
turned away from all of it, in preference for self, and incurred the
loss of fellowship with God and suffered the punishment that they
had earned.
Tell the people to break off their ornaments, so that I will know
what to do with them.
That is the word that was given to all of the wanderers in the
wilderness.
The ornaments that they had constructed out of the wealth that they
had been given on their way out of Egypt.
These ornaments were the images of things imagined, either for
decoration or for a good luck emblem or even perhaps to be worshipped
in the place of or in addition to the One God who had sustained them,
protected them, and was leading them in the desert.
Have we ever truly considered the similarities of our lives to those
who were enslaved in Egypt for a period of 400 years?
The toiled and struggled under the weighty hand of Pharoh all that
time, just barely surviving, suffering loss of the rights of
humanity, of the loss of the lives of family members, and of the loss
of intimacy with their God, for an extended period of time.
As we are, born into the world and toiling the soil with the sweat of
our brows, whatever that soil may be that you and I toil in, under
the heavy hand of the law and of the tradition of man. All of us
attempting to find a way of escape from the slavery of sin that we
have been born into.
Gaining little of temporal value and next to nothing of eternal
value, until that glorious moment, that through Salvation by the
purchase of the Lamb of God, we realize that we do not belong to this
world, and begin to have the knowledge of freedom and wealth of a
different nature.
Some among the children of slavery in Egypt were crying out for
deliverance from bondage, were crying out for mercy, were pleading
for a release from their current condition.
They recieved this release after time and they also recieved
recompense for their loss of 400 years as they left the land of Egypt
and began their voyage into the promise.
Imagine the wealth that was heaped upon them, the gold, the silver,
the rare stones, the brass, the fragrances, the lumber, the
livestock, the family members long thought dead or sold into slavery
to another people, as they began to gather together to find their
places on the narrow road that would lead them into the land that had
been promised to those who would seek Gods face and follow His
direction.
Imagine the revival that was experenced by those who were finally
free.
Imagine the revival that was experienced by all of those who now
knew that they were going home, to that place that had been recalled
to them so many times by those who remembered that they did not
belong to this world but to another realm.
Imagine now the grief of that same God who was leading them as they
began to look back and prefer the things of the world of bondage
above the things of freedom, and hurried to make for themselves
tokens of rememberance, ornaments to hang on their ears, in their
noses, around their fingers, toes, ankles, or anywhere else that they
thought the ornament would bring them the intended result.
One ornament for protection, one ornament for prosperity, one
ornament for good luck, one ornament to celebrate their favorite
athlete, one ornament to announce their heirarchy in whatever
association that they were paying membership fees to, and another
ornament for all around them to see and measure the wearer by.
Now let us look into the New Testament to see if we can find an
ornament or two that was broken from the wearer.
In the book of Mark ch 5 we read a story of a man who was bound with
the chain of demonic possesion, often times chained and fettered and
always crying and cutting himself with the stones that he would pick
up.......until the Christ arrives and the man realized that his help
had arrived, as he ran toward the Christ worshipping, and asking what
it was that Jesus would do for him.
Jesus asked the man what was his
name and those things that had attached themselves to him and that he
was identified by (ornaments) began to bargain with the Lord, who
sent them into a herd of pigs. When the demonic influence was gone
the man no longer was bound by the (ornaments) and was found in
revival sitting at the feet of Jesus desiring to be in his presence.
However Jesus instructed the man to go and declare to others the new
freedom that he had received.
Revival is a fire that spreads.
All of us at one time or another have emulated someone else, or have
declared that I would never be like that person, or have been
reminded that we are what we are and have no reason to attempt
improvement.
There is someone in every family or in every crowd who becomes the
trap whose jaws have captured any one who tries to move beyond the
past.
Revival is a present and a future desire.
In the book of
John ch 8 vs. 39-45 we see Jesus contending with a group of peope who
had been taught that their assumed heritage was of value before God.
" I speak that which I have seen with my Father and ye do that
which ye have seen with your father. They answered and said unto him,
Abraham is our father and Jesus saith unto them if you were Abrahams
children, ye would do the works of Abraham.But now you seek to kill
me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God ;
this did not Abraham. Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they
to him, We be not born of fornication, we have one Father even God.
Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me, for
I proceeded forth and came from God, neither came I of myself, but he
sent me. Why do you not understand my speach? Even because you cannot
hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your
father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning and abode
not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh
a lie, he speaketh, of his own,. For he is a liar, and the father of
it. And because I tell you the truth, you, believe me not."
Can we really
believe that the ornament of heritage means anything to the Lord God?
Can we truly
believe that just because we were born in a garage we are a Cadillac?
The book of Acts
ch 10 vs. 34-35 states. "Then Peter opened his mouth , and said,
Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: But in
every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is
accepted with him."
How can any of us
believe the reasoning that we live in a Christian nation, therfore
we are Christian as well. Can we believe that being born into a
family of Christians, of God fearing, church going, folks, riding the
bus to Sunday School a few times, and learning a few songs, that we
are deserving of anything more than fearful judgement?
God respects no
person above another, but He is measuring those who fear him and work
righteousness.
Many of us if
asked about our Chrstianity would readily give the answer that they
were of one or another (ornament) of identification, one might say
that they are a Baptist, another may say that they are Methodist, or
Presbyterian, or Church of Christ or Church of God, or Nazarene or
Pentecostal or Independent, or Catholic, or if they feel that they
are knowledgeable enough to swerve the conversation they may state
that they are Calvinist or Armenianist or the list goes on and
on........with each of these being mere (ornaments) that are used as
identifcation.
We read in the
book of 1 Corinthians where the Apostle Paul is teaching that the
ornament of identification is wrought with flaws. Ch. 1 vs. 10-13
"Now I beseach you, bretheren, by the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no
divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the
same mind and in the same judgment. For it hath been declared unto me
of you, my bretheren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that
there are contentions among you. Now this I say,. That evey one of
you saith, I am of Paul and I of Apollos, and I of Cephas,; and I of
Christ. Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were ye
baptized in the name of Paul?"
How would revival
grow thru division?
Revival grows where unity flourishes.
Break off our ornaments of defiance, and of difference.
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