Sermon Transcript — November 15, 2003
In the early twentieth century, there were many shipwrecks along the New England coast. Many people drowned along that rugged coastline when ships went aground and broke up. One of the local villages decided to help remedy the problem, so they formed a local life saving station. They got volunteers; they built a small shack and the volunteers were trained in life saving skills. Some of the volunteers had their skills tested when a ship wrecked on the sharp rocks of the dangerous point. The call went out; the volunteers did their work and many people who otherwise would have drowned and perished were saved.
The survivors were warmed in the small rescue station. Their wounds were dressed. They were clothed by the donations from the volunteers. They were very grateful for the selfless service of these volunteers in this small village and life saving station. It wasn't long before other villages along the coast line saw what lives could be saved and what rewards could be had from such a project, so they too founded small life saving stations along the dangerous main New Hampshire and northern Massachusetts coast line. And they too were able to rescue people who would have otherwise drowned when ships went aground into shore and began to break up at the end of the nineteenth, the early twentieth century.
After several rescues and successes donations poured in to many of these rescue stations and they decided to expand their rescue stations into larger facilities and they put beds in them. They even got to the point where they put tables and couches and chairs and heating stoves and other devices. They cut down a lot of the trees to improve the view of the ocean, while the volunteers waited for ships to go aground. It wasn't long before these rescue stations many of them grew into country clubs. They built bigger and better rescue stations. They added tennis courts. Some golf courses. And it's a historical fact that not many, I mean not a few of them became great country clubs for which soon they hired people to rescue those who floundered on the shores and they charged great membership fees for their members to become exclusive, members of these exclusive country clubs.
People still drown along those shores. The coastline of Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts is dotted with country clubs now some of whom grew out of these early rescue stations. They soon lost their original purpose. Have we forgotten our original mission and calling like those volunteers along the New England coast?
Not too long ago Mr. McCullough recommended a book to me. He's a prodigious reader. A lot more books are read by him than me. My goal is one new book a month. His, I think, is one a week. He recommended a book called 'Historical Drift' to me by Arnold Cook. I'd like to talk about some of the principles that Mr. Cook brought up in this particular book. I will give you the same basic footnote that Mr. McCullough gave to me. The writer is evangelical. Decidedly he's a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary, which is a very liberal evangelical school, but much of what he says at the beginning of the book is very helpful. Very helpful indeed. At least it was to me. You might wonder what is historical drift? Well, I've given you a living example. Because historical drift occurs to all organizations made up of men and women whether secular or religious. Historical drift is a fact of life. No one can escape it.
There are many examples that we could go into. One is, as I said illustrated by the example of the life saving station that grew eventually into a country club and the members forgot their original mission and purpose—to rescue lives. That was a fact of history. Cycles of the church would show us this same principle. Let me illustrate by going to Joshua 4. Joshua the fourth chapter and to share with all of us what I found in reading the scriptures to confirm this principle. You might be wondering what is historical drift. Let me define it for you. Historical drift as defined in Cook's book is the inherent tendency of human organizations to depart over time from their original beliefs, purposes and practices, which in the Christian context results in the loss of spiritual vitality.
Notice here in Joshua we have the history of the ancient Israelites shortly after they came out of Egypt and one of the great leaders of the nation which you're all familiar with was Joshua after Moses' death. And I'd like you to read with me in Joshua 4:20 the words of Joshua who I believe was a visionary. In Joshua 4:20, he said…
Joshua 4:20. "And those twelve stones…"
They erected twelve stones on the edge of the Jordan River as they were about to enter the promised land. He says…
Verse 20-21. "And those twelve stones which they took out of the Jordan, Joshua set up in Gilgal. Then he spoke to the children of Israel, saying: "When your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, 'What are these stones?'"
Now clearly these were very large stones, more like a monument or a memorial. Very clearly the monument was designed to last for centuries. We have monuments today that remind us of the original goals and purposes of our forefathers in this country. Many of them were found along the East Coast in Washington DC. We have the Lincoln Memorial. We have the Washington Memorial. And many of those memorials are inscribed with the words of these founding fathers to help us remember over the centuries if you will the original goals of those forefathers and their vision of what our country would become. Well Joshua did something similar here as he established these twelve huge stones on the side of the Jordan River. And he says, what are you going to say when your children ask you what do these stones represent?
Verse 22. "…then you shall let your children know, saying, 'Israel crossed over this Jordan on dry land"
Rehearsing the miracle that had occurred, not unlike the miracle when the children of Israel came out of the land of Egypt and crossed the Red Sea on dry land. It continues on in verse 24.
Verse 24. "that all the peoples of the earth may know the hand of the LORD, that it is mighty, that you may fear the LORD your God forever."
Joshua did not want the Israelites to fall pray to this principle called historical drift. That is over a period of time people drift from their original mission and goals and purposes. Did it work? Well let's go to the end of the book of Joshua 24. And we read some of Joshua's parting words. Joshua 24 beginning to read in verse 2.
Joshua 24:2. "And Joshua said to all the people, "Thus says the LORD God of Israel: 'Your fathers, including Terah, the father of Abraham and the father of Nahor, dwelt on the other side of the River in old times; and they served other gods."
He says, look, Abraham's forefathers served other gods unlike Abraham your father. And he said you have a choice now as we begin to settle this promised land. You have a choice to either follow the gods of the ancestors of Abraham and the gods of these people in the land or the true God, the God of Israel. We can drop down to verse 15, I'm sorry verse 13.
Verse 13. 'I have given you a land for which you did not labor, and cities which you did not build, and you dwell in them; you eat of the vineyards and olive groves which you did not plant.'
So, let's get this in perspective. Let's remember our original goal and purpose and mission was that God delivered us here by his power. It's not anything we did. Now verse 15.
Verse 15. "And if it seems evil to you to serve the LORD, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD. So the people answered and said: "Far be it from us that we should forsake the LORD to serve other gods."
So once again this very visionary leader, Joshua, reminded the Israelites don't forget God. Whatever you do remember the original purpose, remember the great works, the miracles of God in our lives. Never forget it. Don't drift historically. How did they do? Well, we have the historical record. I think we all know, but let's read it. Judges 2:7 is rather telling. We begin to see as Joshua dies. Moses and Joshua were contemporaries. Joshua and Caleb were allowed to outlive Moses as we all know. We would call these men visionaries because they were driven. They had few other thoughts. They were very mindful of the mission and the goal that God had given them, the calling. We find in Judges 2:7…
Judges 2:7. "So the people served the LORD all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great works of the LORD which He had done for Israel. Now Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the LORD, died when he was one hundred and ten years old. And they buried him within the border of his inheritance at Timnath Heres, in the mountains of Ephraim, on the north side of Mount Gaash. When all that generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation arose after them…"
So we see this continuing cycle which goes on with time as I said in any organization, with any group and that is that one generation comes and eventually it goes and another generation comes along and eventually it goes and another generation comes and eventually it goes. We know the cycle of life, don't we? But how does this effect people in general over generations? It says in the middle of verse 10…
Verse 10. "…another generation arose after them who did not know the LORD nor the work which He had done for Israel."
According to this account in Judges 2 we find that in the third generation people didn't know God. They had forgotten; they had been blinded somehow to the original mission and purpose of that Old Testament church that we call Israel. I have to ask a question. How did that happen? Moses said now when your children ask you what these twelve stones are remind them. Tell them. When your children come every year and ask you tell them. Do you suppose the parents didn't do that? What happened in the course of three generations? In the scriptures a generation is about twenty-five years. So over a period of seventy-five years what happened? I think the answer to that question will be answered from the scriptures and from of our own thinking here this afternoon. Let's go to verse 11, Joshua 2.
Verse 11. "Then the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and served the Baals."
Remember that challenge that Joshua gave them? Choose today who will you serve. Will you serve the gods of the ancestors of Abraham and the gods of the Amorites, which were Baal, or will you serve the true God?
Verse 12. "And they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt; and they followed other gods from among the gods of the people who were all around them, and they bowed down to them; and they provoked the LORD to anger."
And so we begin to see a cycle of these ancient Israelites who provoke God to anger and then of course he would send a plague or he would send enemy into, ride over them and to possess the land and they would cry out to God and then God would send them a strong judge or a leader. I mean we see this cycle played out all the time in the history of ancient Israel. God sends a strong leader. A strong leader comes along and knocks down all the idols, knocks down all the groves, knocks down all the altars to Baal and once again revives the original mission statement of the Old Testament church. It says remember why we are here, remember who our God is, remember what he did for us. And you find that all throughout the history of ancient Israel.
I'd like to share with you a quote from this book 'Historical Drift' and maybe while I'm reading you this quote the ushers can distribute that handout that I have for you to help illustrate the point I'm trying to make.
"The second generation holds its convictions less fervently than the pioneers of the sects. With each succeeding generation isolation from the world becomes more and more difficult."
And this certainly would describe what happened in ancient Israel. Isolation from their world became more and more difficult and eventually the world of their day, the Amorites, the Hittites, the Hivites, the Canaanites drifted in on the church in the Old Testament and they lost their original purpose. For the next three hundred years of Israel's history we see this repeating cycle. After the third or fourth generation people lose sight of their original goals and mission and they fall into doing evil and the cycle is repeated. As I just mentioned earlier, the people cry out to God; the people are invaded by outside forces and the next thing you know God has to raise up a strong leader.
I'd like you to take note of this chart that I've made for you. I decided just to do this so you could take it home rather than put it on Power Point today. Because I thought it might be more helpful and some of you may actually want to buy this book and read it and again I would just caution you some of those prescriptions he makes at the end of the book I think are largely evangelical that I personally would reject, but some of the points that he makes I think are very valuable.
I've defined 'historical drift' for you in the paper, and I would like you to notice the first chart entitled 'Historical Drift' on this handout. And the author, Arnold Cook, puts it on a clock, compendium, where we can watch from 9:00 a.m. we see that this strong visionary leader, a man carries a vision, and we talked about Joshua carrying the vision. We read that example of ancient Israel and then as we move toward 11:00 we see the movement of the organization. Certainly in those early days of Joshua and the destruction of Jericho and the settlement of the twelve tribes. It was a dynamic time in the history of Israel. They had victory after victory after victory. And it was a very successful time in the ancient Israelite's world. And then they moved into what we call or what Cook calls the machinery mode at 1:00 on this compendium. And that's the danger zone. When you get into the working zone of the organization, in this case a nation, things were going along pretty good. They seemed to be having relatively peace, peaceful times. There was success. Other nations as God had dictated were being defeated. They were broadening their settlement of the promised land and they grew a little complacent. They took success for granted. That's the danger zone because finally when you get to 3:00 on this particular graph you finally get into the monument zone when people start thinking about the good old days. Remember the good old days. Have you ever had any conversations about the good old days in the last eight years? I see everybody smile and laugh, of course.
I'd like to turn your attention now to the stages of church life as compared to this continuum of historical drift. It's the bell curve at the left-hand bottom of the page I've given you. It starts out with a dream. The filtering and the establishment of beliefs, the establishment of goals, the mission of the church, the structure of the organization is formed, the ministry becomes very dynamic at the top of the curve, growth takes place at some pretty phenomenal percentages and figures. Then the downside of the slope is the nostalgia that sets in. Then the questioning about the original goals, mission and purpose of the church, maybe some of the beliefs and doctrines are put on trial and questioned. Then you get into the polarization stage where there are many poles that start developing and people cling to different beliefs and doctrines and you typically see the organization splinter. Now none of us are familiar with any of this I'm sure. Then finally you get to the drop out stage. The bottom of the curve where people lose their original purpose. They forget about why they were part of the organization in the first place and they begin to just drop away. Scary, isn't it to look at some of this?
This author, as far as I know, doesn't know much about us if anything as an organization, but it was interesting when I looked at these graphs and saw them and related them to my own experience. I am a third generation Christian. My grandparents stumbled across the truth, were called by God and responded. They instructed and taught my parents who were what I would call that pioneering generation. Like many of you my parents got excited about the church and gave up a business, loaded the family into a trailer, an old 1952 Chevrolet and came across the country to find out what this was all about and got all excited and got involved. Served and worked in the shadow of the organization for twenty-five years.
I don't know if you can see the shadow in the right-hand graph at the bottom called 'nominality through four generations.' The founder and the pioneering generation is all white, but as you get into the second generation you notice that the right side is gray. These are people within that second generation over 50% according to most studies begin to lose already the vision and the purpose of the organization and they begin to go through this cycle outlined in the bell curve. The third generation, it's estimated that less than 30% really hold to the original mission and purpose of the organization. And by the time you get to the fourth generation you see that scarcely 15% really hold tight.
You notice at the bottom of this chart the life span of a movement is a hundred years. I'd like you to think briefly about our own organization and I'd like to ask you an important question. Are we an organization that's eighty years old? I'm not talking about the church being founded in the New Testament and it were two thousand years old. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the organization that we have been a part of. Do we look at it as something that's been around eighty years or an organization that's been around eight years? The reason I ask you that because it has a great deal to do with this concept of historical drift. Are we beginning the fourth generation or are we the pioneers, the people carrying the mission of the first generation?
I'm constantly struck when I visit our camp programs and find that every child who's there knows little or nothing about Mr. Armstrong. Cannot relate at all. What makes for a strong church that may resist this concept of historical drift? Let's go to a couple of scriptures before we close. Luke 14:26. While you're turning to Luke 14 I'd like to share with you another quote from this book. It says…
"The strong religious organizations make very high demands of their members."
He was comparing strong organizations versus weak organizations.
"The members must give it absolute and unswerving allegiance, be willing to work, suffer and die for it. Abandon all competitive activities, allegiances and responsibilities in its favor. Tell its good news tirelessly and unselfishly to strangers, wear its stigma of humiliation on their bodies, submit to its strictures, conformities and disciplines. Go where they are sent and do what they are told."
Very unpopular language in today's world, isn't it? It's really interesting as we read here in Luke 14:26. Jesus Christ had some very high standards for his followers. He said…
Luke 14:26. "If anyone comes to Me and does not…" love less by comparison "…his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."
Some people say well the way to attract people to your church is to lower the standard, to make it very warm and inviting, to keep the standards low and open the doors wide. History tells us something else. History tells us that those organizations that do best, particularly religious organizations are those that have higher and stricter standards. Christ, I believe, requiring his disciples to give up even their own lives to follow him was a pretty high standard. What more can you give? All of his disciples lost their lives to martyrdom except one. They paid the ultimate price.
Verse 27. "And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple."
True Christianity is not for the faint of heart. It's not for those who are unwilling to sacrifice. It's not for those who are willing to drum or follow the drum of kind of a lackadaisical half-hearted effort. Christ begins by holding the standard very high. I'd like to share with you a few more thoughts from the book 'Historical Drift.' He says on page 102…
"In Christian denominations nominality begins to emerge in the second generation and becomes endemic by the fourth generation. By this time, the nominal person will either have rejected all claims to membership or will have been reactivated and revitalized. The life span of an organization is between sixty and eighty years by which time it will have reached the point of no return unless intervention strategies are in place."
It's kind of interesting the studies that he did. Typical evidence of loss of commitment. He lists these items which he found in his studies caused a loss of commitment and this historical drift among members of these various organizations, religious and secular, but primarily religious he goes through these points. I'll just read them off to you.
1. Inconsistent attendance
2. Token giving, but not tithing
3. No apparent desire for serious study of God's word
4. No interest in prayer
5. No involvement in the outreach of the church
6. No apparent interest in becoming Godly
Are just a few of the symptoms that begin to show after the second and the third generation of an organization that begins this process called historical drift. Let's go to Hebrews 2. I'd like you to notice in verse 1 a warning that Paul makes reference to, at least I believe it was Paul.
Hebrews 2:1. "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away."
Verse 3. "How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him."
It's interesting, this expression 'drift away' is a nautical expression used by Paul. Let me just read some commentary on this word. "It is used of something flowing or slipping past. It can be used of a ring that has slipped off the finger."
I don't know how many of you have ever lost a ring. You know when you stop maybe at a gas station, you go in the washroom and you wash your hands and I've lost a ring this way and you take the ring off to wash your hands or the ring slips off while you are drying your hands, you don't even realize it until you're a hundred miles down the road and you go, oh know, where's my ring? And you rush back and try and find the lost, precious ring. That's what he's talking about here.
"Or of a particle of food that has slipped down the wrong way."
You inadvertently swallow and it goes down the air passage and it got down there before you thought it was going in the wrong passage and you start coughing.
"Of a topic that has slipped into the conversation. Of a point which has escaped someone in the course of an argument. A sum fact that has slipped out of the mind of something that has ebbed or leaked away. It is regularly used of something which, has been carelessly or thoughtlessly allowed to become lost."
These words are linked to the nautical world. The words here, the admonition is to pay careful attention to, can apply to the docking of a ship. To let something slip away can describe which drifts by the dock due to the carelessness of a mariner who failed to calculate carefully the wind or the tide.
So when Paul says…
Hebrews 2:1. "Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away."
He's talking about historical drift, which can occur and I believe has occurred to all of us. It's kind of interesting in his conclusions there are two things which revived an organization or a church spiritually. One of those we see played very clearly in the history of Israel and that is outside persecution. Persecution. When you're attacked from the outside people band together and they re-examine their original roots and goals and say, yes, we need to be motivated again by what originally drew us here. And they get excited again and then strong leadership emphasizes that mission.
The other is personal reactivation or personal recommitment or personal rededication. I'd like to jump back to 1 Chronicles 12:32. Do we understand the dangerous times in which we live as disciples of Christ? 1 Chronicles 12:32. There's an interesting expression here. It's referring to the sons of Issachar who were considered outstanding leaders of David's army. It says in verse 32, I'd just like to read this one expression…
1 Chronicles 12:32. "Of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do, their chiefs were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their command."
They had understanding of their times. Do we understand the times in which we live and the risks that we face organizationally and individually? It's rather interesting that George Barna whose organization is up in Ventura does a lot of Christian surveys. He surveyed over 10,000 people in a 150 different lifestyles. These 10,000 people all call themselves Christians. After this extensive survey that went almost ten years this is what his conclusion was: The church is no different from the society around them. Survey data shows that you cannot tell Christians from non-believers because there is no difference in the way they live.
Does that describe us as a body of believers? We live in a Godless world. We have all drifted. Let's admit it. Now what will we do as individuals and as an organization? Let's go to Psalms in conclusion, chapter 139. Verse 23. Talking about prayers.
Psalm 139:23. "Search me, O God, and know my heart…"
What's in our heart? Do we still remember why we were called? Do we still remember our purpose in life? Do we still remember that our life should reflect the life of Christ living in us? Or have we too like so many drifted?
Verse 23-24. "Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting."
Lead me in the way everlasting not the way that will lead us to become victims of historical drift. The choice is ours, brethren, and it's a very, very important choice. Will we become victims of historical drift like our ancestors? Or will we be lead in the way everlasting?