Morning Moments

THINKING!

Sometimes I wonder if the days of creative thinking are soon past, if not already.  After all, we live in an age when we can "Google" anything.

Recently my friend asked about "the sinner's prayer" and where in the Bible it might be found.  I explained the matter to him, but another friend of his who was LDS simply suggested that he "Google" it.

It is pretty amazing that we have all this information so easily available to us via computer and the Internet these days, but then I think of men like Augustus Strong and the Strong Exhaustive Concordance and ALL of the work that must have gone into the listing of every word in the Bible and THEN cross referencing those words to both Hebrew and Greek, which we can do today in a matter of seconds.  I am astounded!  Utterly astounded!

I then think of the way you and I have today of speaking into a computer and having the computer read not only the words we have spoken into it, but the ability to read to us the Bible and almost any other writing that has been computerized.  I am amazed!  Simply amazed!

When I remember having to sit close to the radio to hear the news with my dad and mom, and then the very first TV we had in our home with a television station that only telecast part time which we received on a scratchy black and white screen.

I remember the messages about the massive computer they called the BEAST in Luxembourg that was so huge it cover a city block, and how the thought of such a thing terrified the Christian world with the thought of the coming of the "Mark" of the Beast.

So much has happened since then, with much speculation and misinterpretation of Scripture; with charlatans making a killing and establishing compounds and sects by exploiting the ignorance of many who had been exposed to but perhaps not experienced the Christian Faith.

Then I think of the many movements today within the "Church" such as the Messianic Movement even within major denominations that sometimes do more than merely help us to appreciate the Old Testament, but seek to pull us back under the Torah, and the splits in churches NOT due to SOUND DOCTRINE, but due to minor differences in Biblical interpretation.

I think of pastors who seek to be tyrants or lords over God's flock rather than examples to God's flock as Peter instructs us.  Not to mention the mess we have made over the "one woman man" requirement for a church leader, which has for the most part been thrown to the wind by compromise of the Word of God.

And so, with all these "advancements" in "technology" and "theology" I just keep wondering why we have not seen a mighty move of God in the nation in so many years.  Maybe I am missing something, but it just seems to me that our "increase in knowledge" has definitely not led to an "increase in godliness" among the people of God.

Maybe the old ideas of repentance, praying through, the sawdust trail, the mourners pew, and all the rest were just cultural and traditional, but I WAS JUST THINKING that it seems to me more folks truly got saved back then.  Why, I read of drunkards and prostitutes and criminals and bar tenders and mobsters and the like CHANGING OVERNIGHT!  INSTANTANEOUSLY!  I read where they got free - completely free when they became NEW CREATURES in Christ!

I was just thinking and reading and remembering how homes where changed and neighborhoods were changed and communities were changed and a country was changed and I was just THINKING - and WONDERING - what went wrong when we got so technical and so theological?  Hmmm!

BLESSINGS!