Christianity and interregnums. Do we really need one?

I do not believe that Churches and Local Assemblies decline or die as a result of the absence of a Minister but, rather, because those whom God has set in the positon, fail to exercise their priestly privileges and gifts which have been given by God. So many good souls are unable to think in terms other than "clergy and congregation" that it would never occur to them to see such a period as an opportunity to entrust themselves to the Lord and the Spirit and encourage and create a new environment in which the "Body of Christ" can be expressed and function normally.

They are more likely to direct their energies into replacing the outgoing Minister with another, by whatever process that Church or denomination has adopted and repeated over the years and so clericalism is perpetuated, error is compounded. Nothing is learned. It is 'the system' again and having completed this traditional process, through what may actually be a genuine period of exercise and prayer, the danger is that with the pulpit occupied again, congregationalism re-asserts itself and the spiritual vacuum remains........................until the next time.
The Author

I never tire of the story of Job and I wouldn't be too hard on his friends but Job's sarcastic rebuke to them always amuses me.

“Doubtless you are the people” he says, “And wisdom will die with you but I haven't done anything wrong so stop implying that I have. I don't know why this is happening to me, just get off my back” (or words to that effect)

We must be so careful not to attribute the suffering of others to any wrongdoing on their part. It may be that God is refining his work. “He takes away the first that he might establish the second” the scripture teaches us.

That is not an easy path and sometimes God has to turn up the heat.

I would rather be the object of God's discipline than him have nothing to do with me at all.

What Mean These Stones?

There was no ark at the Red Sea. There it was a demonstration of the power and authority of God as seen in Moses staff and they passed through a wall of water on their right and on their left and it was an incredibly strong east wind that held those waters back. Here, at the Jordan, it is a very different scene, quiet, measured, deliberate, and sensitive (as indicated by the reference to the Priests feet). As their feet just touched the water the waters disappeared out of sight.

So, a very different scene to that of the Red Sea. The ark (which speaks of Jesus) the focal point, was carried by the priests to the centre of the river bed and there you have this wonderful expression "The priests feet stood firm until all the people had passed over."

How thankful we should be that Jesus stood firm in the presence of death, stood firm despite the awful prospect of bearing the wrath of God against sin, stood firm despite the suffering and humiliation inflicted by men. Stood firm throughout with nothing less in mind than that ALL the people should safely pass over. "God desires that ALL should be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth."

It is also a wonderful picture of the inherent power within Jesus to roll back the power of death (Jordan was actually in flood you remember), to go into death of his own volition and to remain there until the whole work of redemption was complete.

He went into death to break its power "What ailed thee oh Jordan?" the scripture says. A kind of Divine irony. It’s like saying, "What happened to you then? Where did you disappear to then?" Jesus alone had the power over death yet he went into it and remained in it for a while. Some of the Psalms give us an insight into what that must have meant to him to remain, to linger in the domain of death.

You remember he said "No one takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself and I take it again". Well, the waters receded and the priest’s feet stood firm until all the people had passed over.

Have you passed over? Have I? The teaching of the Red Sea and the Jordan coalesce (come together) in the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. Have we understood yet that his death was as much to bring us into our inheritance now as it was to save us from our sins and our sinful state.

So, we are encouraged to possess the land now, to live in it (read Ephesians). It has been well said about our inheritance that most Christians spend their lives as though on the outside looking in rather than on the inside looking out.

Well, twelve stones were collected from the bed of the river where the priest’s feet stood firm and set up as a memorial so that generations to come would ask "What mean these stones?

So, what mean these stones? What do they mean to you and to me?

Paul said to Timothy, "Lay hold of (or possess) eternal life", not hope for it at some time in the future but lay hold of it now.

The Author