Copyright © 2006 Ron Schwartz
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The “Shape” Of Things To Come

October 12, 2006

By Ron Schwartz

Everything has a shape.  Have you ever consider why some things have such peculiar shapes?  It is usually because of the forces that act upon it.  For instance, an airplane has wings to create lift so that it might overcome gravity.  Both lift and gravity are forces that act upon airplanes.  The long narrow shape of a rocket is designed to force the atmosphere around it evenly so that, once launched, it travels in a straight direction.  For rockets, atmospheric pressure is a force.  The design of a house’s roof is to protect us from the forces of nature (weather).   There are forces that act upon everything, and everything responds to force.  Even who we are is the result of social, economic, spiritual, and cultural forces that act upon us our entire lives.

Airplanes, homes, and rockets each respond to different forces.  Our lives are like these things in that what makes each of us different are the forces to which we choose to respond.  Consider the following story:

Luke 15:11-14 KJV

11 And he said, A certain man had two sons:

12 And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living.

13 And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

14 And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want.

Here we find a man who had two sons.  One son was influenced more by the appeal of the world than by the needs of the family estate to which the other son responded.  The same father raised both sons in the same home, yet each responded to very different forces.   One allowed secular forces to drive him away from home and to squander his fortune while the other son responded to traditional values.   When we consider our own lives and what we have become, it is easy to identify the forces to which we have responded.

The shape that some people take is driven largely by social pressure.  For instance, there is the “goths” who dress in black with powdery white complexions and dark makeup, and the “metal monsters” who are pierced with metal studs over many parts of their bodies.  Consider the dress of the Amish, the Nun, and the Muslim woman and you see immediately the effect of the force of religion.  We are not what we are as a result of blind chance.  We are what we are because of forces that act upon us and to which we have chosen to respond.  Responding to a force is a choice, not a necessity.   In the story of the prodigal son, both sons could have wasted their fortunes but only one son did.   We can resist one force and yield to another.  Sometimes this resisting requires resolve.

Forces that Effect Our Lives

There are forces that shape our lives.  Some are more obvious than others.  

Luke 21:34-35 KJV

34 And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares.

35 For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth.

Here Jesus describes the cares and pleasures of this life as a weight.  The English definition of the word “overcharged” is “to fill too full, overload.”  This word means “to weigh down, heavy.”  The idea is that we are trying to support a burden so heavy that we collapse under the weight.  We are unable to move forward.  We become immobile, non-functional, and stagnant.

If we do not keep our priorities right and stay focused on our purpose, we can become consumed by our earthly responsibilities.  Work, marriage, children, and chores can consume every minute of every day.  At the end of the day, we realize that we have gone nowhere.  We are where we were last week, and we will be in the same place next week.  We are carrying too great a burden, and in the end, we are making no spiritual progress.

The cares of this life are a force to which many respond.  Many become so entangled in it that they cease to be a functioning part of God’s kingdom.  They become stagnant, immobile, and spiritual impotent.   These things are obvious.  We know what consumes our time and drains us of energy.  It is no surprise.

Other forces are not so obvious.

Revelation 12:15 KJV

And the serpent cast out of his mouth water as a flood after the woman, that he might cause her to be carried away of the flood.

The phase “carried away of the flood” actually means to be “carried away of the flood.”  It describes something caught up in the flowing water of a river and swept away.   The analogy here is a woman standing in a dry riverbed.  Then, without warning, a sudden flash flood bursts forth to sweep her away.  With this in mind, consider the consequences of the values we teach our young people.

At one time, young men were raised with values of personal honor, a love for king and country, and a respect for others.  This bred into their lives self-respect, patriotism, courage, and chivalry.  Young men grew up with a sense of duty, honor, and bravery.  Where has it gone?  It has been swept away by the river currents.

Today we tend to raise young people for success.  We instill values in them that have to do with becoming successful in life, getting ahead, watching out for themselves.  Consequently, we have several generations of people who are self-centered, having a general disregard for others, for their nation, for the world.  It has become a “look out for myself” generation.

We want our children to succeed “in this life,” to be somebody.  Without necessarily even realizing it, we instill in them the values they need in order to do so.  However, Jesus was a nobody who “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant (Philippians 2:7).”  The apostle Paul wrote, “What things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.  Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ (Philippians 3:7-8).”  This emphasis on success causes our children to be caught up in today’s self-centered culture.

We have become swept away in the culture of this world without even realizing it.  It happened ever so subtly.  One minute we were standing on a dry riverbed, and the next minute we were swept down river.  We wonder what happened.  As Christians we have allowed ourselves to be influenced by this world’s values, and we have taught our children to embrace these values.  We have shaped our lives, and those of our children, to respond to the value forces of this world.

The Service-Oriented Culture

We live in a “service-oriented” culture.  That is to say, we want to be served.   This desire has given rise to drive-through restaurants, pharmacies, and dry cleaners.   Our desire to be served has created businesses that provide lawn care, pool cleaning, and even dog walking.  We have Internet shopping and delivery to allow us to stay home.   In short, anything that can make our chores more pleasurable is quickly becoming reality in our culture.  Think about it.  Satellite communications, cellular phones, and RF devices have made it possible for us to do our office work while sitting at a pool sipping on ice tea.  Today, more than at any other time in history, mankind is seeing the fulfillment of the passage, “in the last days… men shall be… lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God (2 Timothy 3:1-4).”

Contemporary churches reflect this culture of people wanting to be served.  Childcare has become a big part of this.  When parents arrive at church, the children are quickly shuttled away to allow the parents to relax and enjoy the show.  A family integrated meeting presents too much effort on behalf of the parents and is a distraction for the show.  Service-oriented people would never stand for this.

Jesus described His Church as a force that not even the gates of hell could oppose.  He described His followers as having rivers of living water flowing from them, endued with power from on high, and evangelizing the world.  But does this describe the Christians of our modern service-oriented culture.  Absolutely not!   Service-oriented Christians are willing to pay others to do this work for them.   They pay the pastor(s) to teach, receive and operate in spiritual gifts, evangelize the community, and hear from God.

Genesis 2:5, 3:23 KJV

2:5 …the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.

3:23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

God gave men the responsibility of caring for this world.  But man abdicated this responsibility to Satan when he submitted to temptation.  Mankind has always sought to have others perform the responsibilities for which he is called and created.  We see this in the church today.   People abdicate their responsibility at every opportunity.  They want comfort, pleasure, and entertainment from their church, not responsibility, work, and accountability – and they are willing to pay to have it.  Rather than seeking to hear God, they buy books, listen to talk shows, and go to conferences.  Rather than spend time with God themselves, they would rather pay someone else to do it for them.   The effort is too time-consuming and their time is too valuable to waste it with God.

When I share with different groups, I like to ask the congregation, “How much time did you spend with God specifically preparing yourself for this meeting?”  Oh, I know the pastor(s) have, but I am interested in people other than them.   I have yet to receive a response.  It takes time and effort to prepare one’s self, so most people don’t.  They are not looking for a church that will require anything of them.   When I ask, “Why did you come?”  The answer I receive most of the time is “to be fed.”  People do not go to church to give, they go there to receive.

Pastors of contemporary churches have become time conscious.  They know that if they are going to draw an audience, they must begin and end promptly.  They have gotten it down to a science just how much time can be spent on announcements, offering, and special music  because this is how their service-oriented people like it.  Why is it that the gathering of the Saints is the only part of our Christian life that attempts to satisfy the desires of the flesh? 

Being service-oriented has another drawback: self-centeredness.  Consider a church that sees nothing wrong with spending hundreds or thousands of dollars on a fancy sound system or on paving their parking lot when there are homeless just a few blocks away.   Where do we find scripture suggesting that the poor and needy should take second place to our own personal comfort in a building that the vast majority of members will only frequent a few hours a week?

I know of pastors who ridicule people who involve themselves in beauty contests but see nothing wrong with turning their desires for church growth into one.   Churches in a given community compete in a sort of beauty pageant to see who will win.   The stage is the community.  Pastors parade their churches and flout their sermons as a means to get peoples’ votes.   And people vote with their feet.  Pastors know what people want by where they go.  So they try to emulate the more successful churches (e.g., as measured by attendance).   “If people come, then we must be doing something right” is the common assumption.  Pastors now speak of church growth as measured by attendance, not by spiritual development.   If attendance is the measuring stick, then appealing to cultural desires is the solution.   How can I make this clearer?

Appealing to the service-oriented culture is not the answer.  Many people disagree and say, “but if that’s what is takes to get them in…” That’s part of the delusion.  If you will stoop so low as to use manipulation to get people to come, then what will you do to keep them?  How will you respond when someone down the street builds a nicer building and offers better service?  This is what Christendom has become: a tug of war over attendance, a popularity contest, a beauty pageant.  Pastors have lost their way.  Evangelism is no longer a determinant issue.  Feeding the fatherless and supporting the widow is no longer part of the objective.   These things have been relegated to something else we attend to when there are excess funds available and volunteers to administrate it.   The original charter of the Church has now become optional.

To understand how far we have fallen, you need only take a look at the measuring stick.   Today, anyone who demonstrates a desire to fulfill the basic requirements of being a Christian as defined by Jesus and His Apostles is now considered a super-Christian and must be “called to the ministry.”   Normal is no longer about discipleship but about faithful attendance and financial support.  Discipleship has become nothing more than a special class to which certain interested people can go.  Churches have gotten what they wanted: they have made members of this service-oriented culture by conforming to the world.  If these things describe your church’s pastor and Christian leaders, do not believe you are doing God a favor.  You have diluted His gospel, the faith for which God’s Son paid with His death.

Tradition and Orthodoxy

Tradition and orthodoxy are forces that shout out, “Stop!  We have gone far enough!  Change is bad!”    Like dragons of the deep or falling off the ends of the earth, tradition/orthodoxy fears going forward.  It finds safety in the past.

Tradition/orthodoxy sees the compromise that the service-oriented culture has caused to the contemporary church and responds in fear.  It seeks to be pleasing to God through self-denial.  It overemphasizes appearance and worldliness.  Invariably, what suffers is music, worship, and spiritual gifts.

Traditional/orthodox churches rejected the Maranatha praise songs of the 70’s just to embrace it in the 80’s and 90’s.  Churches like this are always a decade or two behind others in music.   But if music is wrong for one generation, why is it right for the next?   Why does waiting ten years or more make certain types of music acceptable to God?

Whereas churches that respond to service-oriented culture address neither the inside (spiritual) nor the outside (appearance) of believers, churches that respond to tradition/orthodoxy are preoccupied with outward, or appearance-related, things (i.e. dress and apparel, music, home furnishings, etc.).   For them, serving God is all about form, appearance, and doctrine, all of which are rooted in the past.  It is as if anything of the past was right and everything about the present or future is wrong.

Conclusion

There is another force that shapes the contemporary church.  I call it the “home team principle.”  You find this principle everywhere in this world.  People like to belong to things.  Sports teams, clubs, schools, organizations, families and yes, even churches.   The home team principle causes us to overlook problems with our own team, or at least excuse them.  We give unwavering support to our team regardless of their issues and pick at the other teams around us, teams that we see as competition.   This is because teams are all about winning, and when we join a team, it is with the expectation and desire to win.

We find this everywhere in the contemporary church.  People give steadfast support to their church and pastor regardless of the damage he or the church has caused in the lives of others simply because it is their team and they want it to win…  at any cost.  If their church is winning, then they are a winner, too!

Contemporary pastors claim that they are listening to God.  However, the fact that numbers/attendance is such an important element in all of their decisions only serves to demonstrate what really influences them.  It is not the Holy Spirit that motivates them but today’s cultural pressures.  It is their need to find fulfillment as measured by this world, not by God.

Contemporary pastors claim to have the power of God.  Yet look at how they measure power.  People who claim to be ministers but have no people “following” them are considered less spiritual by those who do.  People who have large churches look down on the small churches, and people who have mega-churches look down on the large churches.  Power is measured by attendance, not by spiritual maturity.  But such an outlook is not unique to this generation.  The Pharisees had the same view.

John 7:47-49 KJV

47 Then answered them the Pharisees, Are ye also deceived?

48 Have any of the rulers or of the Pharisees believed on him?

49 But this people who knoweth not the law are cursed.

Contemporary Christian leaders reflect the same hypocrisy that was found among the religious leaders of the past.  They look for credibility in numbers, not from God.

Most contemporary churches have “blended” the service-oriented culture and the traditional to create today’s secular religious church.  It appeals to the service-oriented culture by offering the masses a pleasurable experience of rich entertainment and at the same time offers traditional preaching that touts the value of godliness.  In churches such as this, we find the fulfillment of the prophecy “having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof… (2 Timothy 3:5).”

By embracing this service-oriented culture, pastors have realized the prophecy written 2,000 years ago.  They have opened their doors to the culture of this world and in doing so have transformed their churches into the Laodicean church.

Revelation 3:17 KJV

Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.

The contemporary church is not responding to the (force of the) Spirit of God.  That is to say, what the church has become is not what God intended.  It has become what the world wants in a church.   It is quite obvious that contemporary church leaders are not interested in leading the church into what God wants for it.  To do so would be to go against popular opinion.  Therefore contemporary pastors now offer what this world values: its riches and goods.  They have allowed the church to be “shaped” by this world’s culture.  True Christians are now minority in the contemporary church.  The elite of this world have taken over as contemporary pastors seek to fill their churches with the highest numbers.  Compromise has given shape to a new generation of those who claim to be Christians but look to be served rather than to serve.  A new dark age is upon us as contemporary pastors have turned evangelism into a popularity contest: seeking membership instead of discipleship.  They have embraced the ideology of communism: the end justifies the means.  Compromise is tolerated if it will ultimately increase numbers.  As a result, more and more Christians are abandoning the contemporary church, leaving it to the service-oriented members who have shaped it.  But contemporary pastors don’t seem to mind as long as their church is winning the popularity contest of the community.

He who has an ear let him hear.

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