Yeshua Explored
8th March 2022
Flockdown – part 3
New wineskins
(This series of articles was written at the beginning of the first lockdown in March/April 2020)
Previous articles are still available on the Premier Christian radio website – https://www.premierchristianradio.com/Blogs2/Yeshua-Explored – (until they finally pull the plug!)
Here’s a familiar Scripture; Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
It’s the holiest prayer in Judaism, the Shema, taken from Deuteronomy 6:4-5. It’s the ultimate acknowledgement of God, reminding us of our expected attitude towards Him and response to Him. It’s at the heart of all the Commandments He gave to us, reminding us that God is Everything, He owns our hearts, soul and strength and all must be given back to Him. This prayer and indeed all of the commandments are not just an internal affair. The next verses give us the wider context:
These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (verses 6-9)
The context is family and home. And when Jesus came along to emphasise and build upon these commandments, the context remained the same, family and home. This was also the context in the early church, when the actual word “church” referred to those gathering as God’s people, but when the word was redefined to denote the building in which they met, the context was wrenched out of God’s Hands and into man’s programmes and desires. This is our inheritance and little happened to change the status-quo, until March 29th 2020 (in the UK – a different date elsewhere).
This was the first Sunday in current memory when the UK Government banned all Church assemblies. Not out of a manic desire for totalitarian control, but for safety measures against a nasty virus. For twelve years I have been writing about the transition of the Church from a family-centred, faith-driven, life-enhancing path to salvation, to a multinational enterprise controlled by the few on behalf of the many. It’s one thing for a lone voice to express concerns (and offer solutions), but an entirely different (and extremely unlikely) thing for anyone to take notice, let alone make changes. It seemed that, if the Church was going to wake up and return to its Biblical roots, it is unlikely to be by evolution … it could only come through revolution!
The revolution came from the far east and, in a matter of weeks, turned every aspect of our existence on earth upside down. Our debate should be less about origins and more about the effects. Two Scriptures come to mind as being very relevant to our situation today:
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. (Genesis 50:20)
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, whohave been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
The principle is the same, God is always in complete control, even if it doesn’t seem so at first sight, as in the case of Joseph and his trials. Through the Covid-19 crisis, God has offered the Church a lifeline, if only it has ears to hear! It is a true revolution, something beyond the wildest imagination of the most hardened of Marxists. It is a revolution precipitated not by an idea of man, but through an accidental product of man’s meddling. And it has managed to shut down most of our civilisation, culture, economy and social life.
Which brings us to a true hinge of history, a portal to possibilities. The revolution has arrived within droplets of virus and the church is mostly flummoxed. The key question to ask those who are the current gatekeepers of the Church is this; discounting your lockdown plans, are you actively planning for change in the long term or are you expecting things to return to normal once the pandemic has died out? Is Flockdown a temporary inconvenience, or can you hear God’s voice in it? Perhaps God isn’t in the still small voice or gentle whisper, but is rather more insistent. It wouldn’t be the first time that God shouted at His people.
The Lord said, “Earth and sky, listen to what I am saying! The children I brought up have rebelled against me. Cattle know who owns them, and donkeys know where their master feeds them. But that is more than my people Israel know. They don’t understand at all.” You are doomed, you sinful nation, you corrupt and evil people! Your sins drag you down! You have rejected the Lord, the holy God of Israel, and have turned your backs on him.Why do you keep on rebelling? Do you want to be punished even more? (Isaiah 1:2-5)
This is a fed-up Deity, willing to reprimand His people. Yet hope is always offered, there’s always a way back, as we read later in that chapter (vs 16-20):
Wash yourselves clean. Stop all this evil that I see you doing. Yes, stop doing evil and learn to do right. See that justice is done—help those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights, and defend widows.” The Lord says, “Now, let’s settle the matter. You are stained red with sin, but I will wash you as clean as snow. Although your stains are deep red, you will be as white as wool.If you will only obey me, you will eat the good things the land produces. But if you defy me, you are doomed to die. I, the Lord, have spoken.”
This is our God. He is always speaking to us. Of course, it is not up to me to say what God is saying to us through the pandemic, that is one for our “prophets” to discern. What does interest me is that fact that God occasionally has to use a loud-hailer to wake us up, or at least nudge us into new possibilities.
Well, it’s been some nudge, with an awful lot of casualties and it certainly wakes us up to life’s realities, with a thin line drawn between life and death at the hands of the virus.
Repeating my question to the Church; discounting your lockdown plans, are you actively planning for change in the long term or are you expecting things to return to normal once the pandemic has died out?
Sadly, evidence seems to indicate a ‘riding out’ exercise until it’s over and then it’s back to the norm, church services, activities, programmes etc.
The two approaches
The “old wineskins” are content with the way things are and many saw Flockdown producing opportunities for evangelism and personal growth. There is a wonderful testimony here from my own local church. They used the lockdown period to build themselves up in Scripture, prayer and genuine fellowship, mainly over WhatsApp. I was more of an observer here, though Monica was very much a part of this. It turned out that God had His plans here, when a spiritual emergency suddenly exploded into the life of the Church and they were able to deal with it simply because they were an army prepared in advance!
But, unfortunately, many failed to grasp the implication that God may have been speaking through Flockdown and demanding a new thing from His Church. For them there will be no lasting change because, in the words of Haggai;
You expected much, but see, it turned out to be little. What you brought home, I blew away. Why?” declares the LORD Almighty. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.” (Haggai 1:9)
The “new wineskins” feel the call and, although it may not yet be totally clear what the call is, they are prepared to be agents for positive change, again because of the promise in Haggai;
Go up into the mountains and bring down timber and build my house, so that I may take pleasure in it and be honoured,” says the LORD. (Haggai 1:8)
Surely it is a good thing to give pleasure and honour our God? This is an extract from the book, Flockdown: Is the Church out for the count?, available for £5 at https://www.sppublishing.com/flockdown-263-p.asp
