The Name Claim Shame

[OneAccord]

The Name Claim Shame

Isa 4:1 ¶ And in that day seven women shall take hold of one man, saying, We will eat our own bread, and wear our own apparel: only let us be called by thy name, to take away our reproach.

Is it just me, or does it seem like this Scripture is being fulfilled? It seems more and more people are abandoning the very things that identify them as Pentecostal. Or Apostolic. Or even Holiness. Those old-fashioned, sometimes legalistic, words seem to be going into the history books, and are being replaced by words like Progressive, Emergent and Relevant. And what I say here will probably seem old fashioned. Some will say I’m being legalistic. But I find it disturbing when the manna of yesterdays move of God no longer satisfies our hunger and thirst after righteousness. Maybe we have grown tired of eating at the Kings table and our "itching ears"have chosen a menu of what WE want to hear, rather than “what the Spirit says unto the churches.” Our banquet table of choice holds what WE want to eat- “our own bread” rather than the fresh manna the rains down from heaven.

We’ve looked to the pulpit for fresh Bread, but nothing fresh came so now, we bake a consume that which pleases us. Have we considered the pulpit is NOT the source of the Bread we seek? Have we forgotten that Jesus Himself is our Bread? That it is “by every Word of God” that we live? We choose what WE want to eat, rather than choosing to receive into our hungry souls the bread the Lord has for us. What we believe has taken precedence over Who we believe. “I know the Bible teaches that, but THIS is what it really means….” we say to justify our standing on the loose sands of doctrinal shift. That’s the same tactic used by the slithering serpent so long ago….” Well God said THAT, but He really meant THIS…”. The very foundational beliefs of Pentecostalism are spoiling on God’s table while we create our own dishes.

Its true. Many landmark beliefs of Pentecostalism are being thrown aside like some old worn out garment, and are being replaced by a new “progressive“, belief system that allows us to dress in “our own apparel”. We live as if nothing we do, nothing we say and nothing we wear affects out righteousness. We can hide accursed or forbidden things in the tents of our hearts like Achan of old, thinking we’ll remain spotless from the stain of a sin cursed world. But God’s all seeing Eye looks deep into our hearts and sees that which we have hidden from view. But, it seems we have become so harden to the truth we once held dear, that we no longer hide our departure from what once we held as “Holiness”. We boasts of our liberty to do, say, act and dress anyway we choose , forgetting the fact that God has called us to be separated from the world. We think that being like the world, we will win the world to Christ. Will we? Or have we blended in with the world so much that we have, in fact, become prisoners of war and are now clothed in the dirty and tattered rags of what use to be “His righteousness”? Our garments are spotted, wrinkled and blemished with the patches of what we have decided for ourselves to be our own righteousness.

Thank God for the Blood. Thank God for the Blood that has us free. Thank God for the truth that sets men free. But, we should bear in mind that liberty comes with a price. And that price is the knowledge that, in order for us to claim His Name, we must eat the Bread that cometh from heaven, and not the bread of our own making. Our righteousness, as the Apostle wrote, is nothing more than filthy rags. We are only safe from the filthiness of the flesh when we guard the entranceways of our hearts with the “breastplate of His righteousness”.

We bear little, if any, resemblance to our former selves when we sew our own little fig leaves of doctrines of our own making. We become fat and lazy, gorging ourselves on our own doctrines, rather than feasting on the health giving sustenance of God’s never changing word. But, to keep from having the words “apostate” and “heretic” labeled on us, we retain the name Pentecostal. We claim the name “Apostolic” and “Holiness’ while, at the same time, distaining the very truths that formed those words. It a shame we claim the Name, but we reject the very apparel and bread with which that Name sustains us. Once when those words, Pentecostal, Apostolic and Holiness , really meant something there was no doubt as to what kind of meeting you had entered. The Glory of the Lord had filled the house. Souls were being saved, healed and delivered. People worshipped together freely and the Spirit of the Lord reigned supreme. Now, the Voice of the Lord has been silenced in the temple, and the sounds we here today are “I know God said THIS, but He really meant THAT….” . As in the days of old, “the lamp of God is going out in the temple“, and is being replaced with the artificial light of OUR doctrine. We’ve abandoned the waters of living water and have hewn our own cisterns of righteousness. We are no longere conent with the Lord leading us “in paths of righteousness” and have abandon the cleared path of what we know in our hearts to be truth. We’ve blazed our own trails and have found ourselves entangled with the very things the Lord brought us from in the first place. What we once believed is no longer relevant in the age of Progressiveness and Emergence.

A few weeks ago, large areas of the south was inundated by what seemed to be a plague of cicadas. They emerged from the ground and covered large areas, devouring all they could devour. Greenery rapidly disappeared as they feasted on all they could see. Then, almost as rapidly as they appeared, the cicadas began to disappear. I could only think of Joel 1 where the prophet described of the day when Israel would be stripped of its former glory. They would be nothing by ghostly images of what they once were. Joe 1:4 That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten; and that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten; and that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten. It seems spiritual locusts are devouring the “beauty of Holiness” that God has called us to. I sure hope the infestation doesn’t last long. I hope the day will soon come people will do as the prophet urged and fall on their faces before the Lord and cry out for a fresh move of His Spirit. I hope we soon see the shame of our nakedness and cloth ourselves in His righteousness rather than our own. For that, and only that, will restore what the locusts have eaten. We long for a Joel 2:28 experience again, but forget that we pass over the humbling altar of Joel 2:16-17 first.

There are those who are probably scratching their heads wondering what I’m talking about. Some won’t get it. Some will. Those that get it will be those that want to hear. “If my people which are called by My Name….” If we’re going claim His Name, an expect His blessing, shouldn’t we eat His bread and wear His apparel rather than our own?