The king's officials have enough sense to fear when they
hear the prophecy Jeremiah dictated and Baruch wrote down and read to them. They want to know where this came from and
how careful Baruch was in the transcription because they immediately recognize
that this needs to be shared with the king.
They are also aware that this probably won't be well received by the
king and so advise Baruch that he and Jeremiah should hide and not let anyone
know where. The king is so arrogant that
he burns pieces of the scroll while it is read, it is of no consequence to him
at all. The words of the prophecy cause
neither fear nor even alarm in the king, no repentance, no reaction at all save
to order that Baruch and his master, Jeremiah, be seized. He is immune to the word of God, it is
nothing to him at all. As Bugs Bunny
would say, "What a maroon."
Jesus sends out the disciples with nothing, no food, no
extra clothes, no reservations for places to stay, no assets at all other than the
Holy Spirit. They are to do ministry
without all the bells and whistles, relying only on God to show up in power for
signs and wonders. When was the last time
we sent out a mission team like this?
When was the last time we even thought about doing ministry this
way? We believe that unless we have a
great band, comfy chairs, the right environment, great coffee, a building,
money, etc., that we can't expect much at all so we lower our sights. Jesus must shake his head in despair at the
church in the west most of the time. It
takes faith to obey the commandments of Jesus.
We are proclaiming a supernatural truth, one that transcends the natural
order of things by proclaiming a creator, a virgin birth, resurrection from the
dead, the man Jesus is of one being with the creator God, sits at His right
hand, will come in judgment and that death isn't the final answer, you can live
eternally. And we think that just saying
that is good enough to convince people?
If the Holy Spirit isn't active, even in the act of proclaiming and
hearing, there is no hope of success at all except among the mentally ill.
We can also have all the Spirit anyone can imagine and be of
no use to the kingdom at all. We can
lack love and everything else we have is worthless. I have seen it happen, people filled with the
Spirit who are proud and arrogant, lacking humility and completely lacking in
love for other Christians or, worse yet, for the world who needs love and the
Gospel. If we preach to sinners without
love we share not the Gospel of God's love for the world (John 3.16) but a
message only of judgment. When we take
great pride in our gifts we can take offense easily and often, we can lash out
and believe that we have been undervalued.
We forget that He is the giver of all good things and nothing He gives
returns to Him void without accomplishing the purpose for which He gave it. Our job is to use what He has given us in
love for Him, other Christians and the world.
Our aim should be to build the church and the kingdom with all we
do. Sometimes that is painful and then
we have to be particularly careful about our attitude.
No comments:
Post a Comment