The Silent Treatment

A man and his wife were having some problems and were giving each other the silent treatment. The husband realized he needed to be awakened early one morning to catch a flight, but he didn't want to be the first to break the silence. So he left a note on his wife’s side of the bed that read, “Please wake me at 5 A.M.” By the time bright sunshine woke him the next morning, it was 9 A.M. Furious, he threw back the covers and shouted to his wife (who was nowhere to be found), “Why didn't you wake me up like I asked you to?” That’s when he saw, stuck to the lamp on his bedside table, a note in her handwriting that read, “It is 5 A.M. Time to wake up.”*

There’s nothing worse than The Silent Treatment. And, as the above illustration shows, it’s also about the most pointless scenario any relationship can experience. Why? It accomplishes nothing! Zero! So, why do we do it? Sadly, the best answer simply is: We just don’t know what else to do. Our feelings have been hurt; we want to not say the wrong thing, so we clam up and deafen the other person with our silence.

Do we do this with God? As we spend this quarter talking about prayer in our “Talking Back to God” class, one thing I’ve read over and over is how proclaimed “Christians” openly admit dissatisfaction with their prayer life. Why? Same answer – we don’t know what to say. Yes, there are some folks who find themselves hurt with life and don’t want to talk to God about it. And yes, there are those who just don’t know God well enough to talk with Him.

But what about us? What about those of us who consider ourselves faithful? Do we ever give God The Silent Treatment? Sure, it can be accidental. We get busy and just forget to pray. Or, it can be a sin problem. We have a sin issue in our lives we know we need to take care of, but just don’t. So we try to avoid talking to God out of shame or flat-out stubbornness.

Psalm 139:4 tells us, “Before a word is on my tongue, You know all about it, Lord” (HCSB). What do we learn from this? The Silent Treatment is pointless with God! It’s even more pointless than it is between you and your spouse – He already knows what you want to or need to say! So don’t avoid God. Don’t withhold your communication from Him out of embarrassment or pride. If there’s a sin problem, He can help with it! If your relationship with Him needs work, ask Him for help with it. When it comes to our relationship with God, the old adage “silence is golden” is not only wrong, it’s spiritually unhealthy.

* Illustration borrowed from Dennis Rainey

Under the Influence

“Then I pressed further, ‘What you are doing is not right! Should you not walk in the fear of our God in order to avoid being mocked by enemy nations?’” (Neh 5:9 HCSB).

            Sadly, it’s very easy to find lists of celebrities who have been arrested for DUI – driving under the influence – with frazzled hair and bloodshot eyes, yet they remain famous. You’d think they’d fall out of the good graces of popular opinion. But, it’s almost as if these stars have society under their influence.

            The truth is we’re all under the influence. Of something. Or of someone. That’s Nehemiah’s point. He’s telling the people to act like they ought because they’re God’s people. Over whom do we have an influence? Let’s talk about three categories.

            Primarily, parents have their children under their influence. Can we be real frank here? Moms, Dads, if you’re not enthusiastically dedicated to the Lord and His church, please don’t expect your kids to be. According to the Pew Research Center, 32% of America’s young adults (under 30) identify themselves as “religiously unaffiliated.” However, “those who leave faith tend to come from homes where they were not regularly made to attend church as teenagers or Sunday School as children. They were more likely to report not ‘having had a very strong religious faith as a child or teenager’” (pewforum.org/2012/10/09/nones…). Scary. Parents, this is on us. Deut 6:7, though part of the Old Law, speaks volumes to our responsibility, “You shall teach them diligently to your children…” This is a reminder to teach God’s words to our kids. But, we know the old adage, “Actions speak louder than words.” We are the primary influence on our kids’ spiritual lives – and that’s reality.

            Adults in general, we too have the younger generations under our influence. Our kids, from the age they’re aware, pay attention to us. And, by “our kids” I mean the kids in our congregation, the kids in our sphere of influence. When they look around on Sunday night and Wednesday night and don’t see adults they expect to see, they notice. When they hear us speak poorly of fellow Christians or of church activities, they pay attention.

            Finally, Christians, we have the world under our influence. That’s what Nehemiah is saying. The world will look at you to see how Christians are supposed to be. Another adage: “Most people would rather see a sermon than hear one.” That’s our lives! Therefore, we have to watch how we represent Christ in our lives – on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, at the office, wherever we are. When we live as children of God in our daily lives, Paul says in Phil 2:15, we will “shine among them like stars in the sky.” But if we don’t, unlike celebrities, we will fall out of the graces of popular opinion. Let’s make our aim to follow Peter’s encouragement in 1 Pet 2:11-12, “I beg you…having your conduct honorable among the Gentiles…they may, by your good works which they observe, glorify God in the day of visitation.”

Sinners Among the Saints

“‘Behold, I am vile; what shall I answer You? I lay my hand over my mouth’” (Job 40:3-4 NKJV).

            Job describes himself as vile?! Wait, what? Didn’t God Himself describe Job was as “a blameless and upright man, one who fears God and shuns evil” (Job 1:8)? Yes. But, when Job saw God, he could only say, “I am vile.” Think about Abraham, who is called “the father of all those who believe” (Rom 4:11). When he presumed to talk to God, however, Abraham said, “I who am but dust and ashes have taken it upon myself to speak to the Lord” (Gen 18:27). Let’s consider David – the man called “the sweet psalmist of Israel” (2 Sam 23:1) – in 1 Sam 13:14, he’s even called “a man after God’s own heart.” Yet, in Ps 51:3-4, this great man says, “…my sin is always before me. Against You, You only, have I sinned…” What about the “greats” of the New Testament? In Luke 5:8, Peter said, “I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Paul calls himself the chief of sinners (1 Tim 1:15).

            This is not intended to depress you! In fact, this should be encouraging! Often I hear a couple different ideas about our spiritual lives. Some folks think they’ll never be good enough for God. Some others think they want nothing to do with “religion” because, you guessed it, “they’re all a bunch of hypocrites!” So, considering these pillars of the faith just mentioned, let’s deal with those lines of reasoning.  

The closer one becomes to God, the more clearly one sees his own sinfulness. The fact is – we WILL never be good enough for God! God is holy. He is the very standard of holiness! We come to know Him and are accepted by Him through our great Mediator – Jesus Christ, “and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Secondly, I know I’ve mentioned my friend in Topeka, KS who referred to the congregation there as his “favorite group of sinners.” That is so true. We’re ALL Romans 3:23 people (look it up…). But, that doesn’t make us hypocrites! Surely we all want to walk in the light. But, it’s a challenge. And, the truth is, sometimes we’ll slip up. We try! We do our best! But, even Paul describes, in Romans 7, the struggle of doing what we don’t want to do and vice-versa! So, if you’re walking with Christ, but you see mistakes made in your life on occasion, just remember – you’re in good company. Only our Savior was sinless. And through His sacrifice we can trust God’s promise, seen in Hebrews 8:12: “…their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more.”

(Idea adapted from icr.org - "Saints and Sinners" - 7/11/13)

Learn From Our Mistakes - Don't Repeat Them

A friend of mine asked me to consider an article written by a proponent of the “progressive” movement within the churches of Christ. That sounds great – “progressive”, moving forward, advancing, and all that – but, in my opinion it is a movement which progresses away from Scripture toward a more humanistic, man-centered approach to deciding what God expects from His people. All that being said, I read the article which primarily dealt with something called “The Regulative Principle.” This principle states anything not authorized in the New Testament in regard to worship practices is unacceptable to God. The article addressed the account of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10 and Uzzah’s sad account recorded in 1 Chronicles 13. My summary of the article’s premise would be this:

Nadab and Abihu made a “mistake” with their worship, not a sin. Uzzah too made a “mistake.” God, however, killed them for it. So, if we today choose to offer worship to God for which we have no evidence in the New Testament, or even in history, we can hope God considers it a “mistake” and won’t damn us for it. Therefore, whatever we choose to do, as long as it’s in “good faith”, it will be acceptable to God. If it is not authorized by God through Scripture, it’s simply a repeated “mistake”, even if there’s no support, evidence, command or example of it ever being used in New Testament worship or asked for by God.

            To quote the article: “First, we have to question any view that a particular sin damns. I mean, David wasn’t damned for adultery and murder — why would God damn for well-intentioned worship? To reach that conclusion, you must assume that God is more concerned with the ritual of worship than with day-to-day Christian living — which just isn’t so.” First of all, that’s a very broad statement. Of course David wasn’t damned for his sins. He confessed and repented and didn’t do it again. That has little to do with Nadab and Abihu. God took care of them. Do we know they went straight to Hell? No, we don’t. But, dare we risk God’s anger by repeating a “mistake”? I’d like to assume Nadab and Abihu also would’ve never repeated their error had God allowed them to live. We would hope they would repent and press forward in their service according to God’s will. Secondly, can we not just as easily assume God is equally concerned about proper worship as He is about day-to-day living? To say God is more concerned with one over the other displays an arrogance in assuming to know the mind of God beyond what He’s revealed.

            Another quote from the article: “Leviticus 10:9-11 strongly suggests that Nadab and Abihu were guilty of drunkenness…” and this was their sin – not the offering of unauthorized fire. This, again, is an assumption without much merit. Granted, God does discuss the subject of intoxicating drink in these passages. However, all we’re told in verses 1-2 is what they did was not honoring to God. They lost their lives for not holding God’s commands up as holy. See God’s statement in verse 3: “’By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; and before all the people I must be glorified,’” (NKJV). The author quotes from Adam Clarke where Clarke says he is among those who have “…supposed from the introduction of this command here, that Aaron’s sons had sinned through excess of wine…” With all due respect, a supposition from the astute Mr. Clarke is still simply a supposition not found in the text. Even more confusing, the author of this article quotes another author who says, “…God is more gracious to those who make mistakes because they fear him than to those who carelessly and impudently enter his presence as Nadab and Abihu did.” Then our author goes on to add, “…God overlooks honest mistakes (among those in grace, of course) but does not overlook willful disobedience.” So which is it? Did Nadab and Abihu make a mistake or were they willfully disobedient? By killing them, we can hardly say God “overlooked” their unauthorized offering.

            Again from the article: “There’s a huge difference between using the wrong fire and acting where God has been entirely silent.” This is exactly the point! Certainly in regard to music offered to God in worship He has NOT been the least bit silent. ALL we see in the New Testament is vocal singing. Offering any other type of music is offering the “wrong fire.” In regard to the argument surrounding the matter of silence of Scripture, music used in worship just doesn’t apply. God is not silent. However, even if one attempts to say anything not prohibited is permitted, Scripture answers that as well.

                        “Hebrew 7:14 contains the very principle that is the focus of this discussion.

In this context, the sacred writer has noted that there has been a change in the priesthood. The Aaronic priesthood of the Old Testament regime has given way to the better priestly system of the New Testament economy. It is then suggested that Christ could not serve as a priest “after the order of Aaron” (cf. 8:4). Why not? Because Jesus was descended from the tribe of Judah, and, as to that tribe, Moses spake nothing (i.e., the law was silent; there was no authority) concerning the priesthood. The silence of the law was prohibitive! If God does not authorize a religious practice, it is forbidden. This principle absolutely must be respected. Underline, therefore, the terms “spake nothing” in Hebrews 7:14, and marginally observe: Silence is prohibitive” (Wayne Jackson, christiancourier.com; “Hebrews 7:14 – The Law of Silence”).

Moving along, let’s examine this quote from the author: “Christians need not fear damnation from trying to do right but accidentally making a mistake.” Perhaps we should have begun here. Merriam-Webster online defines “mistake” as follows: “to blunder in the choice of; to misunderstand the meaning or intention of.” This implies the mistake can be corrected – should be corrected. It is a point-in-time occurrence. Offering something to God on one’s own authority, once shown the New Testament form of doctrine is not a mistake or an accident. It’s continuing in something beyond God’s authorization. Certainly no Christian would want to continue in a “mistake.”

Then our author moves into a discussion of Uzzah. Uzzah died when he touched the Ark of the Covenant. The author’s argument is that David, in 1 Chron 15:11-13, explains he didn’t know how to move the ark and Uzzah died because of, again, an accident. However, that’s a spurious argument. David is incorrect in his statement to the priests. The instructions for moving the Ark are found in Numbers 4. David knew how to move the ark and chose to do something other than what God had commanded. Yet, since Uzzah touched the Ark, he died, not David. The author closes his Uzzah argument with this statement, “God is unhappy when we don’t even look into his word to follow his instructions. But it doesn’t mean that there’s no grace for mistakes made in worship.” I totally, completely, 100% concur. The New Testament mentions, no less than eight times, singing in celebration, in worship, and in relation to one another. The use of instruments is mentioned in Revelation; however, that’s in Heaven. We don’t live in Heaven, so that doesn’t apply. Nowhere in the New Testament are instruments authorized; and, since instrumental music is of the same nature as what is authorized – singing – using instruments along with or instead of singing is going beyond what God permits. It’s “strange fire.” Upon looking into His word, we can see His instructions and avoid making that particular mistake again in worship.

            In conclusion, why would we want to continue in any “mistake?” Once we see the New Testament authorizations for worship, why wouldn’t we just let God determine what He wants and follow His instructions? Continuing in the mistake of calling someone by the wrong name, or continuing in the mistake of driving the wrong direction are things we would not do. We have an adage for that – “we all learn from our mistakes.” We see the error and then correct it – no matter the context. So, it seems nonsensical to risk God’s wrath over a correctable “mistake.”