Pastor Chris -
Micah 4:9 - "Why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you?"
They were 30 feet high, walking on quarter-inch cable, crossing over and under ropes, except when they were jumping from "cloud" to "cloud" which were boards nailed together in three feet by three feet or smaller islands across the cables. It's a big island if it's only you hopping one to another. It's a small island when you have to get all six people in your group on the island before you can start to go to the next one.
I was 30 feet below on the ground, taking pictures. But no snapshot could capture what frequently happened as the 5th and 6th people tried to get on the next cloud.
Yelling! Lots of yelling! With most of the group crying out to no one in particular. As sweet Bronwyn Estep said in the debriefing, "As if yelling was actually going to keep us all from falling off of the cloud."
That's what God's saying through Micah in today's Bible verse, "Why do you cry aloud? Is there no king in you?" (Micah 4:9). In essence, God's saying, "Yelling is not going to make anything any better. But if you'll remember the king in you, he can certainly save the day!"
Yep, Jesus Christ, the King of kings wants to live in you by the power of the Holy Spirit so that the next time you feel like you're falling off your cloud, well, there's no need to yell. Just appeal to and trust in the King. He'll make sure that you, and all your loved ones, stay on board together! Praise God!
Now here's Kristen -
"Then the Lord said to me, 'The prophets are prophesying falsehood in My name. I have neither sent them nor commanded them nor spoken to them; they are prophesying to you a false vision, divination, futility and the deception of their own minds.'" – Jeremiah 14:14
Or as John puts it, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." - 1 John 4:1
Either way, what does this have to do with us communicating the Gospel? Well, for one thing it means that receiving and then effectively communicating the true Gospel has become more difficult because there are people out there communicating a false Gospel or, at the very least, false assurance.
What is this false Gospel? What is this false assurance? Think Romans 6 – "What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase?" But instead of our churches, our households, our community events being filled with Paul's hardy "By no means!" many have come to be filled with tolerance to open sin. And unfortunately this tolerance has recently been finding its origins at the top of the church organization food chain. Some "leaders" have loose morals at best. One pastor stole from his members. Some churches sell distraction in a cup labeled "Starbucks", and there are deacons who pat people on the back after a wild night of drinking. Now please understand that these are all hypothetical situations to whatever degree, but we had better be examining what direction our leaders are leading us in and what direction we're leading others in.
We need others to be and we ourselves need to be a Nathan (speaking truth boldly), not a combo like Ananias and Sapphira (who teamed in Acts 5 to hide the truth). Look at the difference in the two accounts – life for Nathan – death for Ananias and Sapphira. It's pretty simple.
We are so fortunate at Christ the King to have two wonderful Pastors who build our church upon a solid Biblical foundation. They preach what they live – Biblical truth – which does not tolerate sin. May we be found communicating the Gospel by testing all things against the word of God which is living and active and endures forever.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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