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Mirage
Avoiding Disillusionment in the Church
Presenter: Larry Kirkpatrick
Location: Mentone Seventh-day Adventist Church, California USA
Delivery: 2006-09-02 22:17Z
Publication: GreatControversy.org 2006-09-02 22:17Z
Type: Sermon
URL: http://www.greatcontroversy.org/gco/ser/kir-mirage.php
What Should Others Expect from Christian Lives?
You know how the saying goes: The only thing that’s wrong with the church is the people. If it weren’t for the people, everything would be fine. This is not true, of course. Without the people, there would not be a church.
When in our life journey God confronts us with Jesus and His present truth claims, and when we begin to see His interlocking system of truth and His mighty purposes for His people, for some reason we expect that those who uphold such truths will be their enfleshed representation. Is this something that we really should expect? Consider:
Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded me, that ye should do so in the land whither ye go to possess it. Keep therefore and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. For what nation is there so great, who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God is in all things that we call upon Him for? And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set before you this day? (Deuteronomy 4:5-8).
Moses argues that God’s people should actively do the will of God, that doing God’s will was their wisdom and understanding. The premium is on doing. If they would do God’s will, then the other nations would be impressed by their God, and by them as being His people. It is not here so much their doctrines. but what their doctrines make them, that speaks.
The Greek Scriptures contain a similar idea: “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men” (2 Corinthians 3:2). Paul says that it is the testimony of the Christian life itself that people read. So doctrine gives shape to the believer’s expectations, but it is the believer’s cooperative reception of the Holy Spirit and the behavior flowing out from this that suggests the actual spiritual value of that belief.
Right about here some will start to squirm. You expect me to urge you to look to Christ rather than to people. Of course we should look to Christ rather than to people. What I am getting at is that regardless of what people should do, there remains what people actually do. And some are going to judge our religion on the basis of our behavior. We are epistles; we are letters; we are messengers, angels. The proof of what your religion does for you is in its end product: you.
Crucial Qualifiers
There are crucial qualifiers. Are you truly living-out an authentic Seventh-day Adventism today? If you are living-out anything short of that, then the end-product is no testimony to what real Adventism looks like. Some reject the message of Seventh-day Adventism but are actually rejecting a different message.
Be careful now. You know that when I say “Seventh-day Adventism” to you, what I mean is simply that serious kind of Bible Christianity that takes all the Bible seriously, that makes the life of Jesus not only as substitute but as our example, that insists that the gospel is the power of God unto salvation (Romans 1:16), and that God is watching for opportunities to fulfill His work of faith with power in our lives (2 Thessalonians 1:11, 12).
So we join the mighty remnant church. It has been represented to us that this is God’s end-time church. After all, it teaches His end-time truths, it rose into existence historically at the right time, in the right place. This must then be it. So we look around, and while we notice a powerful intensity, we see also confusion, and disunity for which the cause is not immediately apparent. And we are not as sure as before about what is what. The testimony of lives provokes us to doubt. Maybe we are wrong.
Let us keep in mind that there are both legitimate and illegitimate items for doubt. If you are a member of a church that is teaching error, and that shows no sign of ever coming around to upholding truth, then there is a legitimate doubt. If there is no apparent concept for purification of that body, then you have to wonder.
Laodiceanism and God’s Solution
In the case of our church, God showed us early on that a certain malaise would exist in the closing period of earth’s history. We call it Laodiceanism, from Revelation three. God there foretells that in the last days of planet earth His church—His church, mind you—would be found in a pitiful in-between position, neither hot nor cold, self-deceived, seeing itself as rich, as clothed in the glory of Christ’s righteousness, but that she would actually be naked and miserable and blind. Here the whole final scenario is on the verge of completion, and the bulk of the church is found thoroughly unready. But remember: God showed us this ahead of time; not all would sleep, not all would be naked, unready, blind.
A Laodicean church will have a certain Old Testament tendency; we will be inclined to number ourselves. Several times in the history of God’s people, they gave in to the desire to dwell upon numbers. The people would be counted, the total number of men in the armies tallied. The strength of Israel would be evaluated on the basis of a number count. This was seen to represent trusting in people rather than trusting in God. God took a dim view of the practice.
Numbers do have a legitimate place. But how does a church that thinks it is rich and increased with goods use numbers? It, as did Israel, will likely misuse them. It will tend to make numbers the measure of its success. We will begin to count baptisms and see those baptisms as indicators of our spiritual strength. We must beware. Outward acts are important but as indexes to internal states. When everyone has been dried off, behavior will tell what has really happened.
Let us do serious, quality labor in our Lord’s behalf. The numbers are His concern. Not ours.
Cold or hot; Jesus desires that we choose and we will indeed choose. Some will go cold forever, and some hot. He comes not to bring peace but a sword (Matthew 10:34). He has a plan to that will ripen the matter at last. He calls it “the shaking.” Remember these words?
I asked the meaning of the shaking I had seen and was shown that it would be caused by the straight testimony called forth by the counsel of the True Witness to the Laodiceans. This will have its effect upon the heart of the receiver, and will lead him to exalt the standard and pour forth the straight truth. Some will not bear this straight testimony. They will rise up against it, and this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people.
I saw that the testimony of the True Witness has not been half heeded. The solemn testimony upon which the destiny of the church hangs has been lightly esteemed, if not entirely disregarded. This testimony must work deep repentance; all who truly receive it will obey it and be purified (Ellen G. White, Early Writings, p. 270).
As we approach the very end, there will be a difficult, intensified period within God’s church. The onset of this period is caused by the straight testimony of Jesus. Through His servants, He tells us that His church is neither cold nor hot, that she thinks herself rich but that she is naked. Some will respond positively to this. They come up to the standard of experience and thus to the standard of behavior. They join in pouring forth the straight truth. Some who are within the church, who are members of the church, perhaps even holding significant positions of influence, will rise up against that testimony. “And this is what will cause a shaking among God’s people.”
The destiny of the church hangs upon the testimony or the rejection of the testimony. Which group will prevail? Those who hear the testimony as the voice of Jesus, or those who rise up against it as not being the voice of God? Notice that those who receive the message will obey it and will be purified. So yes, God has a plan for the cleansing of His church.
But there is so little talk these days about His plan. If we don’t know that plan, we can take little encouragement from that plan. But that plan is part of our legitimate hope. God has promised to purify us—He has not promised to take hardened Laodiceans to heaven. He has promised to shake His people, to nurture wheat and then sift it from the chaff. We must not forget it.
Mirage
Does it take courage, or just realism, to turn around and change direction when you see that you have been misled? If you look into the phenomenon of mirage, you will learn that mirages are real. That is, a mirage shows images of things which are elsewhere; a mirage is not an optical illusion. Light waves, under certain circumstances, refract in ways we do not intuitively expect.
If you look up the term “disillusionment,” you’ll find a definition like “a feeling of disappointment resulting from the discovery that something is not as good as one believed it to be.” Another similar term is “discouragement,” which is “to have experienced a loss of confidence.”To experience such feelings can be very hard in secular matters; in matters of faith, it is especially painful. How can we deal with such feelings?
There are things to keep in mind, including some of the following:
- Because you cannot know someone’s heart, you cannot know how fully they are living their faith—you cannot tell whether their life accurately represents the system of belief they profess or not. That is, you cannot look at a life and say that that life is a laboratory specimen of Seventh-day Adventism or of the Baptist Church or the Lutheran Church or the Catholic Church. It may actually be one, but you cannot be absolutely sure. God alone can read the heart (1 Kings 8:39). We may attempt to interpret a heart correctly. But we must not forget that our knowledge is limited, our insight is limited, and our own heart is liable to misperception.
- You should avoid painting with a broad-brush. Many of the church’s worst critics paint with a broad, black brush. They see something in their local church or in their local conference, and they then attribute it as being a denomination-wide plot. But think again. What happens in one place does not necessarily represent what happens in another.
- A denomination does not have motives. But people within the denomination do. My experience has been that even while working side-by-side with people, sometimes with which I may disagree, the apparent motives of virtually every denominationally employed worker I have met are well-intentioned. God isn’t through with us yet and he probably isn’t through with them yet. Let us give God opportunity to work with us and to perfect our own motives.
- Permit God His element of divine providence that may surprise. He may lead us home by a path we did not expect. In fact, it seems that he specializes in this. We must let God be God. He has a plan, and as far as we know, His plan is for us to go forward as members of His Seventh-day Adventist Church. We should be salt, preservative people, laboring for God’s gospel truth. He wants His church to be a facilitating force for the preparation of people for the end-times. Let us labor to exert our influence to that end.
We must not follow cunningly devised fables (), and we must be honest with ourselves when we find we have been traveling toward a mirage. God will lead us, he will guide us, if we are willing to be guided. The shortest distance between two points may involve a 90 degree turn. If God shows that that is the case, then the only thing for the Chrsitian to do is to take the 90 degree turn. Have we learned to trust Him yet?
Church Militant and Church Triumphant
What we now see is the church militant, not the church triumphant. Consider:
Has God no living church? He has a church, but it is the church militant, not the church triumphant. We are sorry that there are defective members.... While the Lord brings into the church those who are truly converted, Satan at the same time brings persons who are not converted into its fellowship. While Christ is sowing the good seed, Satan is sowing the tares. There are two opposing influences continually exerted on the members of the church. One influence is working for the purification of the church, and the other for the corrupting of the people of God....
Although there are evils existing in the church, and will be until the end of the world, the church in these last days is to be the light of the world that is polluted and demoralized by sin....
There is but one church in the world who are at the present time standing in the breach, and making up the hedge, building up the old waste places; and for any man to call the attention of the world and other churches to this church, denouncing her as Babylon, is to do a work in harmony with him who is the accuser of the brethren.... The whole world is filled with hatred of those who proclaim the binding claims of the law of God, and the church who are loyal to Jehovah must engage in no ordinary conflict.... Those who have any realization of what this warfare means, will not turn their weapons against the church militant, but with all their powers will wrestle with the people of God against the confederacy of evil.
Those who start up to proclaim a message on their own individual responsibility, who, while claiming to be taught and led of God, still make it their special work to tear down that which God has been for years building up, are not doing the will of God. Be it known that these men are on the side of the great deceiver. Believe them not (Ellen G. White, The Faith I Live By, p. 305).
Two influences are exerted. The positive is the good seed influence, the influence of truly converted members, a purifying influence. The other is the tare influence, the influence of the unconverted, an influence to corrupt church members.
God does have a living church. This church is, in spite of some evils existing in her, to be the light of the world. This very church continues to stand in the breach and build up the old waste places. This church, notwithstanding her defects, is said to be loyal to Jehovah.
How We Run the Race
You had expected me earlier to tell you to look to Jesus. Let us hear again the passage you had in mind—Hebrews 12:1-6):
Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds. Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin. And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: For whom the Lord loveth He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom He receiveth.
After the preceding chapter wherein men and women of faith are reviewed one by one, Paul turns to the ultimate witness: Jesus Christ. But he does not give us any slack in the race. He urges us to lay aside every weight, and what he has most in mind is our sin. He urges us to run the race in a steady way. But we run it realizing that Jesus is the goal and that He both causes us to have faith and will perfect our faith so long as we run the race steadfastly.
He urges us to run the race and not to faint, but must resist sin with yet more determination. He also reminds us that running the race does not mean dropping out when God chastens us, but it means submitting to His discipline and moving in the course that God marks out. Yes, we must, after all, look unto Jesus. No question about it. We want our faith finished, and we must keep on with the Finisher.
Along the way we must not forsake our integrity. We must be willing to be led of God. Douglass MacArthur said “Nobody grows old by merely living a number of years. People grow old by deserting their ideals.” He was right.
If our ideals are God’s ideals, then we cannot desert them without deserting God. But when we experience an apparent change of course that causes us sadness, we must stop and ask ourselves if we are able to see the whole picture. And we are not able. Therefore, we must be willing to exercise faith in God, trust in God. He has led us this far, and He will lead us further yet, only we must not lock down onto something and in stubbornness try to force God to our will. He may surprise us and lead us to the destination He and we had in mind via a different route.
We are far along the track. It is late in the hour of earth’s history. We must not become discouraged if we here or feel that injustice has been done us. Rather, we must trust in God and leave these things with Him. He never promised us a path free of obstruction. In fact, He promised the opposite: “all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2 Timothy 3:12). Yes, an authentic Christianity promises you persecution.
So my brothers and sisters, keep your serious Seventh-day Adventist ideals. Hold them high. Don’t let them go ever. Don’t grow old; don’t desert your ideals. Trust in the Lord. When you see apparent defects in the church or in your fellow travelers, look up and look a little higher, and look to Jesus. Don’t surrender your hope because you cannot see as far and as clearly as you like. God will have His church triumphant. But will you have it? Let disillusionment go. Let God shake His church. Let’s you and I walk ever closer with Jesus. GCO
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