This morning I was reminded of a story from what seems like decades ago, but that’s OK, we live in a cyclical world where all sort of things morph in and out of use, so the story is not significant, it is the message that matters. The tale goes that God visited a church as a common member of the church, with a message for the congregation but each time he went to speak, someone else jumped in with one ore another regular part of the service. At the end of the Service after every one had left, there was God alone with his message still undelivered.
This is a cautionary tale. It has Bible roots right back to the prophets of the Old Testament, and as far forward as the last book of the New. It is cautionary in that the Book of Revelation endorses the message that is central to the story. The message is that God is not in the business of running roughshod over the decisions of mankind, even when our decisions are contrary to His will.
The sad part is that even though we are told this in the Bible, we still haven’t learnt. We still presume upon His will by making decisions as if Church was to be run on business principles. Often we do pray a cursory prayer that, “God will bless our decision”, rather than ask for His guidance and then act upon His revealed will.
The Book of Revelation has description of seven churches with God’s judgements on each, in each case the trauma deep in the spirit of our God. First was the Church of Ephesus to which the judgement was that it had lost its first love (Rev 2:4), next came the Church of Smyrna which was to go through suffering and those who persevered would live. The next Church was called Permagum which was riddled with false teaching, then came the corrupted Church of Thyratira, then the Church of Sardis that had a reputation of being alive but was “dead” The second last was called Philadelphia an impotent though faithful, and finally, came the Church of Laodicea which was described as comfortable, my word, neither hot nor cold, wealthy and self sufficient. In each of these churches there is a major failing which stops it from becoming God’s victorious spiritual church.
So the lesson that comes from these seven Churches is to seek God while He may be found, this is also the lesson of 1 kings 19, Elijah had fled to the desert to die, rather than be killed, because the evil Jezebel had issued a contract for his life. God’s voice greets him with “What are you doing here” and, after some discussion, then tells to go to stand on the mountain because God was about to pass by.
After being subjected to the spectacular sounds and effects of nature during which he never heard the voice of God, Elijah hears a small whisper of wind, at which time Elijah covered his head and went out to meet his God. Some translations use the word zephyr to indicate a breeze that you hardly feel.
This is the lesson that Revelation and Elijah have for us. God will never bully us to get His will done; indeed He will let us go to our own cost. He believes we will make the decision His Justice demands, once the discomfort of our error breaks into our conscience. The reason that we do make errors like these is that God must be sought earnestly, if we are serious about doing His will. He doesn’t hide it from who are intent on finding it for themself, but is a little like a treasure hunt sometimes and we must search with our best endeavours.
Be assured God is not hiding, He likes nothing quite like an earnest and sincere searcher for His will. He rewards such searches with His wisdom and timing. Can you imagine just what might happen if even half of the people who claim His name decided to take up this challenge and sought His will for them in the mundane areas of their lives? I believe that would be a world changing decision.
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