“Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!” is an expression that has often been said when I share the desire for change regarding the “system”; whether it is the business system, the local government system, the education system or the church system; people say, “But don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater!”
I used to resent hearing about, “the baby and the bathwater” when talking about change and the church system. I felt I was being criticised and rejected, but not anymore. The saying has helped me see more clearly the plans and purposes of God in the 21st century.
I once heard it said that, where “systems” are concerned, “God always brings people out”. For example, He brought people out of:
· The system of Egypt
· The system of Babylon
In, “From Eternity to Here”, Frank Viola suggests that Egypt represents the world system, where people serve materialism and pleasure, and Babylon represents the church system, where people serve a counterfeit Christ (Chapters 16 and 17).
As I mulled over the scenario of, “the baby and the bathwater” together with, “God brings people out”, a little light went on in my thinking. A very dim, very distant light, that has been growing brighter and coming closer over the last two years or so.
When Babylon was preparing to invade Jerusalem, God spoke to Jeremiah about the situation. In essence, God’s message to people through Jeremiah was, “Don’t resist Babylon. Submit to them so that it may go well with you. In due time I will bring you out of Babylon and then deal with them.”
In other words God said, “Don’t fight the church system, submit to it. Settle down and prosper in it until the time I bring you out. Then I will deal with the church system”.
Judging from the growing number of websites and blogs that are aimed at correcting the false teachers of today, many people are trying to resist Babylon. Up until recently, I was one of them.
Many church leaders are trying to throw out the dirty bathwater (correct the failures of the church system), whilst keeping the baby (God’s people) safe from harm. But God’s people should not be in a bath, they should be swimming in the river of life!
What I am proposing here is that God has a different approach concerning the church system.
It is time for God’s people to grow up and get out of the bath!
God has been using, is using and will continue to use the church system for His purposes. Those purposes will end in the destruction of the church system.
God has kept his people in the church system until the right time to be brought out.
THAT TIME IS NOW.
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