APOSTACY

Our long litany of the catalog of sins agains the first commandment ends today in a theme of apostacy. Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary describes apostacy of renouncing or abandoning the faith. This is a very serious action. Some in our denomination would see any parting company with our congregations in this light. However, it has always been the practise of your session to allow people of conscience to resign their membership here in order to take membership somewhere else. And since within the various tribes of Christian experience there are different standards of membership and affiliation we are not quite as clear cut in relationships as the tribes were in ancient times.

To be certain, the prophecy in Hosea describes apostacy in Isreal, Ephriam especially. We do know from the biblical record that some people of Israel left their families to move to the Judean state for sincere biblical reasons. No doubt, some in Judea who wanted a more naturalistic and worldly religion kept their membership in the tribe of their fathers.

Some time ago, a few people wanted our denomination to define several of the liberal denominations as apostate. Certainly, there may be a well defined body of evidence for such a definition. However, members of our Lord's universal church are still in residence there and it is necessary to maintain a minimal decorum of respect for the less orthodox groups of Christian organizations. After all in this imperfect world a good round of accusations would provide great mirth and entertainment to the worldly media. All we have to do is consider the biblical wisdom of the Southern Baptist Church in identifying where the Disney organization and leaders are going. The worldly reaction was one of incredulity. So today, as we consider the definitions and examples of apostacy catalogued in our catechism, let us leave to the Supreme God of heaven the process of judgement which will certainly come to pass.

And for the sake of our souls and our own little church, let us consider this catalog carefully that we assembled here today might not harbor these temptations in our heart. The eleven specific charges mentioned in our Larger Catechism may be grouped into five general categories of apostacy.

These include:

1. our estrangement from God,
2. our worship of other spiritual beings,
3. our setting up of men as lord, demeaning God and His Spirit,
4. and finally our ascribing of praise to any other than God alone.

The first sin of estrangement is aptly described by Isaiah in his opening chapter (Isaiah 1: 4):

"Ah, sinful nation, a people loaded with guilt, a brood of evildoers, children given to corruption! They have forsaken the Lord; they have spurned the Holy One of Israel and turned their backs on him."

You may very well get away showing disrespect to our worldly leader, but the God of heaven is a completely different matter. At last count at least 40% of my five closest seminary friends have departed the ministry. For various reasons they have not been able to continue the work to which they were called. Even one of my most respected mentors, a Doctor of the Church has stepped aside from his calling for worldly reasons. When our boys were little, one of them made the mistake of turning his backside to me in a fitful tantrum. At the time, he barely stood knee high, yet he crossed his arms, grunted and turned to walk away. He never ever did that again! Neither can we tempt the God of heaven with such an attitude!

The second sin of apostacy here is praying or giving any religious worship to saints, angels, creatures or the devil or even listening to the evil one. Sadly to say, devil worship and various occultic notions are multiplying in our day and age. Some of the nature worship may seem harmless on the surface but as all of this gets to be more common, the rituals must become more seductive to ensnare a larger and wider audience. A fascination with angels is also a growing part of the New Age movement. I have even met a man who sincerely believed that he had an old Indian spirit watching over him to guide and protect him. The fur-righteous crowd and the radical tree huggers too, would lift up the creatures of creation and hold them in higher awe and respect than they could ever deserve. Why in Ohio you can spend a lot more time in jail for destroying a wild turkey egg than you could ever get for killing an unborn human!

The greatest evil monster of this century listened to an imagined vision from Satan when he willingly heard that he would one day be the savior of Germany. And all through his Nazi cult, occultic images and rituals defined and described his distorted vision of mankinds future. That fascinating cult which still grips the hearts of of red necked visionaries near and far demonstrates not only the satanic influence but the unbiblical submission to all too human organizations.

This third sin of apostacy is a group thing! There are social organizatons that have long demanded from their members a complete confession of sins realized, desired and imagined. This information is then used to control the confessee from that time on. That control might not appear to be too abusive, but it is a social means of making certain the right lodge fellows get all the richer contracts in the community and that the appropriations of government fatten the right cats. I have heard that all of those orange barrels on the highway in some states are rented for outrageous sums because our politicians have quite often joined the correct social organizatons to further their careers. Wherever loyalty to Christ must take second place to an organization, even if it be a Christian one, there you have apostacy in one of its very worst forms!

Our fourth sin of apostacy is wrapped up in our relationship with the God of heaven. This is a great sin as the details well attest. Within these flawed relationships the individuals have not stood publically against our Father God. No indeed they have just reimagined who He is and what He has revealed. One denomination even set aside a large sum of money to hold a real live reimaging conference. Such conferences do not serve the God of heaven. Instead they promote the very opposite new age view that we are gods and goddesses ourselves. The leaders who would promote such apostacy must actually despise our God and his commandments.

Very many other people who have not worked themselves up to such grevious sin nevertheless resist the working of the Holy Spirit and grieve Him by discontent and impatience as the little progress of His Kingdom in our midst. I have to admit that what we are attempting to do here in growing Christ Covenant is taking longer than I first imagined eight years ago. Of course, the leading congregations in the Presbytery only took fifteen to twenty-five years to get established, so by their measure we are doing well. It is His timing and His providence that we must await, so let us not be impatient and so grieve His Spirit.

Finally, in this regard, like all humans we are prone to blame God for the troubles that we have instead of thinking Him for His loving discipline. We all know people who blame God for the loss of someone close and whose lives are changed for the worse because they really truly want to believe that He is at fault, the He, the righteous holy God is the cause of wickedness.

Our last point this morning in this consideration of apostacy is give praise to one who does not diserve what really belongs to God alone! Just this week, the Republican leaders gave what everyone realized was false praise to the greatest obstacle to a balance budget. The scene might have come right out of a three stooges movie. Giving credit to good luck, or even our brilliance in worldly happenings is the real sin in this sense. We must learn that whatever happens in life is allowed by the Creator. And further that even when those troubles, opportunities or accidents occur, the apparant bad in the event can be turned for the good of those who belong to our Father God.

Imagine all of life as a Television Quiz Show. You are shown three doors to claim your prize. Foolish man or woman, do you really think you can choose the door that leads to eternal life? Your choice is not a matter of luck, but of the providential will of God. To live with an attitude any less than that is to sink into the apostacy that our commandment would warn us against. I hope that you have seen in our studies of the First Commandment, that there never has been a need for any others. This one alone is sufficient to separate us who were once worldly forever from the eternal joy of the presence of Christ.