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LESSONS FROM THE PAST
Deuteronomy 32:7-12
“Remember the days of
old, consider the years of many generations: ask thy father, and he will shew thee; thy elders, and they will tell thee. When
the most high divided to the nations their inheritance, when he separated
the sons of Adam, he set the bounds of the people according to the number
of the children of Israel.
For the Lord's portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance.
He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led
him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. As an
eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth
over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth
them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange
god with him.”
I. Learning from the past.
A. I am a history buff.
1) Ned & Marilyn Patterson's
house - ghosts on walls.
2) Church & Ministry photos
from New Beginning Ministries since I have been there.
Time is flying by.
3) Moses: "Remember the days
of old; consider the generations
long
past."
B. History has lessons.
1) Santana - "Those who don't learn from the mistakes of the
past
are condemned to repeat them."
a) History never repeats exactly.
b) I like what Bernard Shaw
said: "We learn from experience
that
men never learn anything from experience."
2) We don't have to be that
pessimistic, and we don't have
to be
slaves of past.
Years ago a thunderstorm swept
through southern Kentucky
at the farm where the
Claypool family has lived for six
generations.
In the orchard, the wind blew
over an old pear tree that
had
been there as long as anybody could remember.
The grandfather was grieved to
lose the tree on which he had
climbed
as a boy and whose fruit he had eaten all his life.
A neighbor came by and said,
"Doc, I'm really sorry to see
your
pear tree blown down."
"I'm sorry too,"
said the grandfather.
"It was a real part
of my past."
"What are you going to
do?" the neighbor asked.
The grandfather paused for a
moment and then said, "I'm
going
to pick the fruit and burn what is left."
That is the wise way to deal
with many things in our past.
We need to learn their
lessons, enjoy their pleasures, and
go
on with the present and the future.
II. What we can discard from the past.
A. Legalism.
1) Reducing Christianity to set
of rules. (alcohol, dress codes)
2) Don't get caught up in
secondary stuff.
B. Narrow attitudes.
1) KKK may have made offering in
this church in 1920's.
2) Women were too restricted.
a) They went beyond biblical
mandates.
3) Listen to society's criticism
of the church.
a) Some of it is due to
society's rejection of God.
b) And some of it is
well-deserved by us.
C. Stagnation.
1) For long periods, little
happened in church.
2) We have a tendency to be
complacent.
a) Ask yourself: what is this
church going? What is
being
accomplished?
b) If not much is happening,
shake things up.
D. Bickering and grumbling.
1) The olden
age wasn't necessarily the golden age.
a) They had plenty of
personality conflicts in church.
b) Human nature is unchanged
in thousands of years.
2) Keep eyes on Jesus.
a) People will continue to
disappoint.
b) Watch your own life and
attitude.
III. What we need to
recover from the past.
A. Simple lifestyle.
1) My suit is too fancy for
typical Baptist preacher.
a) They were proud to be
plain, even a little doudy.
2) They were against worldliness.
a) Rockefeller's wife - $200
worth of clothes.
b) 1 Peter 3:3 - adornment
doesn't make us pretty.
3) We ape the culture.
a) Most expensive clothes,
etc...
b) We don't need as much stuff,
especially when it puts
us
in debt.
B. Concern for sin.
1) Fine line between legalism and
concern for sin.
2) Previous generations realized
their actions mattered.
3) Your habits, choices of entertainment,
relationships
affect
you and everyone around you.
C. Aggressive evangelism.
1) They were not afraid to make
waves.
2) They Confronted sinners.
3) They Confronted sin.
a) Tent meetings were an
annual event.
b) But today we are too shy
& concerned about our own appearances.
Rather than God’s.
D. Making church a priority.
1) There were less
distractions, attractions, in the past.
2) Church membership must mean
more than another club.
IV. What we can keep doing, just like our
forebears.
A. Commitment to Bible.
1) We believe in the full
authority of the Bible
(yet most don’t practice it).
2) If we stray from it, challenge
us.
B. Commitment to fellowship.
1) We can expect many medical,
scientific advances but people
will
still be lonely, alienated.
2) Other churches will be bigger
than us, but we can be
personable.
(When’s the last time you went to fellowship with
a church member or
called
them at their home to see how they were?)
C. Commitment to Jesus.
1) We are more than an
organization.
We are an organism, the body
of Christ.
2) Personal relationship to Jesus
is essential.
a) More important than godly
politicians, laws.
b) Daily walking with the
Lord.
c) A personal, vital
faith.
V. Only Jesus is constant.
A. This church has changed and will will continue to change.
1) I hope it stays committed to
evangelical doctrine.
2) Maybe this building will
change.
a)
New Britain, Connecticut "little white church on Spring Street"
surrounded
by the lost and Reaching Out to
Them.
b) New Life is growing.
1> Spring Street has
never looked as good as it does now.
2> Rev. Frank L. Boddie is taking New
Britain by storm and Connecticut
will never be the same.
B. Jesus stays the same.
Hebrews 13:8 “Jesus Christ
the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.”
1) Believe in him.
2) Serve him.
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