As soon as the leaders of Joshua's generation are gone,
Israel begins to be lax about following the commands of the Lord. The first place they cease being obedient is
in the making of treaties with the nations who occupy the Land. It is easier just to make peace than to
bother with conquest. The angel of the
Lord says that this disobedience will result in these nations becoming a thorn
in the side of Israel and the nation will ultimately become servants of their
gods and, shortly thereafter, we are told they began serving the Baals and
Ashtaroth, fertility gods whose worship promised good crops. The Lord no longer protected them from their
enemies and finally, judges were raised up.
The people needed a godly leader to show them the way of life the Lord
commanded. The nation would then have an
on again, off again relationship with the Lord, depending on whether there was
a leader and what sort of leader was.
Leadership is important to the people of God. Their failure to conquer the Land meant there
would always be snares for them, tests of fidelity. One sin beget the possibility of many others.
The people, less than a week ago, wanted to make Jesus
king. They hailed him as the son of
David and cried out Hosanna, Lord save us as he rode into town in fulfillment
of the prophecy of Zechariah. They hung
on every word of His teaching and marveled at His healing power. Now, because the leaders had decided that
Jesus was a threat that would take away their places as leader and possibly the
right of the Jewish people to continue to worship freely, these same people
were playing follow the leader and rejecting Him as Messiah. They had no idea why they had rejected Him,
only that the leaders had found something amiss. Now, because of this, they turn on Him and
deride Him on the cross. No longer do
they cry for Him to save them, they jeer at His seeming inability to save
Himself at the exact moment He is saving them by dying for them. Again, bad leadership is a culprit.
Although Paul has never been among the church at Rome, as a
wise and experienced leader he is aware of two problems in every church, those
who cause division in some way and those who teach false doctrine. No matter how large or small the church these
two threats are present in the church.
Not only the leader(s) of the church need to be vigilant but the members
themselves need to be prepared to deal with these issues and the people who
cause them. In the world of mass media
and the internet there are constant threats to unity in the church, there are
at least as many false teachers whose "strange fire" can come into
the church as there are those who teach truth.
Paul says, "I want you to be wise as to what is good and innocent
as to what is evil." Sounds like
Genesis 3 language doesn't it? We need
to know where to go to get that wisdom concerning good and evil.
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