The Bulletin
of the
Church of Christ at
New Georgia
Tim Johnson, editor
June 3, 2001
In
This Issue:
"Do
We Lay it
to
Heart?"
By
Robert Turner
"Tests
of Obedience"
By
Steve Klein
Every parent knows the difference in "Do I have to go?" and "Do I get to go?" "Do I have to go to bed?" means the child wants to stay up. "Do I get to go to the show?" means the child wouldn't miss it for anything.
Isn't it strange that some of us will wave those same clear signals with reference to the Lord's services, and not see that we are being just as transparent as our children? Do we have to go to Bible study? says the same thing about our desires as it does when voiced by our child. When one asks, "How much must I give?," he is clearly saying, "I do not want to give anything, and would like to know how little will pay the bill." Either that, or he has failed to grasp the most fundamental and essential element in the spirit of acceptable service unto God.
There can be no coming to Christ except we deny or give up self (Matt. 16:24). Translated into the context of "doing" this means we must first want to do all possible (100% committed) to serve the Lord. The proper spirit must motivate the doing, or it is shallow and empty - may even be an abomination in His sight (Hos. 6:6). God told the priest of Judaism, "If ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name&ldots;then will I send the curse upon you, and I will curse your blessing; yea, I have cursed them already, because ye do not lay it to heart" (Mal. 2:2).
Lay it to heart! That means truly respect God; take Him seriously. The priests had offered polluted bread on the altar (Mal. 1:7); offered blind and lame animals as sacrifice (Mal. 1:8). They said of worship, "What a weariness it is!" (Mal 1:13-14). To make this current, they said, "Do we have to do or give?" "Do it any old way, just get it over with; we want to go home to the TV." And to top it off, when rebuked, they acted so innocent and said, "When did we ever do that?"
"Oh, that there were one among you that would shut the doors, that ye might not kindle fire on mine altar in vain" (Mal. 1:10). Better to close up shop - call it off - than to play at worship, and not "lay it to heart."
By Robert Turner, via The Admonisher,
Jackson Drive church of Christ, September 25, 1983
Did you enjoy taking tests in school? Most of us didn't, but we understood that the teacher needed to evaluate us, and tests were a good means of doing that.
Because God desires to evaluate us, He is also a test giver. In Job 7:17-18, Job asked the Lord, "What is man, that You should exalt him, That you should set Your heart on him, that You should visit him every morning, And test him every moment?" God has a very keen interest on finding out whether or not a man is willing to trust and obey Him (cf. Psalms 11:4-5; I Thess. 2:4). His tests are designed to demonstrate where a man's heart is - what a man is made of spiritually speaking. In the Old Testament, God tested the Israelites for this very reason. He told them that He led them for "forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not" (Deut. 8:2). As Proverbs 17:3 says, "The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold, But the Lord tests the hearts."
GOD ASKS US TO DO DIFFICULT THINGS.
In Genesis 22:1-2, we learn "that God tested Abraham and said to him&ldots;'Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, and offer him there as a burnt offering&ldots;" Can you imagine being asked to sacrifice your own child? Any parent with even a small measure of natural affection for his child can see how difficult this must have been for Abraham. Even believing as Abraham did, that God could raise up Isaac (Heb. 11:19), Abraham must have been loath to make his son endure being slain by his own father. Besides his paternal concerns, Abraham could also see another great difficulty with slaying his son - Isaac was the son of promise, the one through whom God had said He would fulfill the many promises He had made to Abraham regarding his descendants. But if Isaac were slain, he would have no descendants! Yet despite all of these potential misgivings, Abraham obeyed. Abraham's trust in God was greater than his parental bond with Isaac. Abraham passed the test (Heb. 11:17; James 2:21).
GOD ASKS US TO DO SIMPLE THINGS.
Of course, we humans sometimes find it difficult to do what God asks, not because He's asked to do some big, monstrous deed (like killing our own child), but because He's asked us to do something which, in our minds, is small and tedious. For instance, when God gave the children of Israel manna to eat in the wilderness, He told Moses to only allow the people to "gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not" (Ex. 16:4). The Israelites might have liked to gather several days' worth of manna at a time and store it. But no, God's command was to gather only so much. The day in, day out gathering of manna may have gotten old after awhile, but it was the very tediousness of it that made it a test of obedience.
GOD ASKS US TO OBEY HIM WHEN OTHERS ARE NOT.
In most major cities, a man driving on a busy Interstate Highway who wants to obey the speed limit will find it very challenging to do so. The reason is that vehicles all around him are constantly going faster than the posted limit. Having those around us who are not obeying God certainly tests our own resolve to obey. The Lord is aware of this - and it is another way that He tests us. In Judges 2:21-22, God said of the children of Israel, "I also will no longer drive out before them any of the nations which Joshua left when he died, so that through them I may test Israel, whether they will keep the ways of the Lord, to walk in them as their fathers kept them, or not" (cf. Judges 3:1-4).
WITHDRAWAL - A TEST OF OBEDIENCE
In Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, he wrote to the church commanding them to put away from among their midst a man who was a fornicator (I Cor. 5:1-5, 11-13). In writing his second letter to them, Paul makes reference to this situation again. Apparently, between the first and second letters, the Corinthians had withdrawn from this wicked brother. Paul commends the church for their action; he says, "This punishment which was inflicted by the majority is sufficient for such a man." Apparently the individual in question had seen his error, grieved over his sin, and asked the church to forgive him - and Paul encourages them to do so (II Cor. 2:7-8). He explains in II Corinthians 2:9, "For to this end I also wrote, that I might put you to the test, whether you are obedient in all things." In many ways we've discussed previously in this article, withdrawal is a test of obedience. It is difficult to do. It's a heart-rending experience for everyone involved. It's not a practice that the religious world all around us engages in or even approves of. It's a test. It's a test that many churches and individuals fail miserably.
My friend, God is testing you. He may be testing you by asking you to support the heart-rending process if church withdrawal. Or He may be testing you by asking you to drive the speed limit. He's testing you in many ways every day. And whether it's something big or small, something others do or don't do, our goal when it comes to being tested by God should be the same when we took those tests in school. Pass!
By Steve Klein, from The Exhorter,
Oakland Church of Christ, June 18, 2000