Feb | 28 | Checking Out Those Dusty Bottles

Key Word:- CHANGE

Title:- Checking Out Those Dusty Bottles

Proverbs 23:21 For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags.



We may be well into the movable season of Lent by now and I remember growing up, attending Roman Catholic schools and being tutored under the watchful eyes of the Jesuits. In particular, I well remember the preparations made for the 40 days of lent.

In those days of my youth and long, long before this purely man-made tradition would be a time of austerity and serious contemplation prior to the celebration of Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Christ the Lord. Ash Wednesday would mark the ‘kick off’ of these religious proceedings and the Tuesday before, would traditionally be a day of sincere shriving. Yes, I said SHRIVING!

Shriving is an archaic word referring to the confessing of sins to a priest, thereby receiving both freedom from guilt and the gift of reconciliation. This particular Tuesday, or Shriving Tuesday or rather, Shrove Tuesday as it became known, would have been a day of confession, repentance and forgiveness. In my house however and in the houses of most modern Catholics and Protestants in the United Kingdom, it was a day for pigging-out on pancakes!

In the not so long ago, like so many other poorer households in the West, the giving up of food for Lent would have meant a waste of precious perishable and expensive goods. To that end, the larder may have been cleared for Lent, but nothing was wasted, no sir, everything was eaten and much of it was rolled and served in lightly battered parcels which we now call pancakes. What with all the abundant eating of Shrove Tuesday it then very quickly then became known as ‘Fat Tuesday’ and the literal French translation of ‘Fat Tuesday’ is in fact, ‘Mardi Gras.’ How interesting, that a time of repentance and reconciliation should so subtly be turned into a raucous party!

Sin always seeks to spend itself and before it is finally extinguished, and like a dying firework in its final moments, it will consume itself and all who pass within its fiery perimeter, will be burnt up with it, in its own self-indulgent madness. Mardi Gras, in the present bankrupt and previously flood water levelled city of New Orleans, pictures the world, like a red nose drunk, pedal to the metal, just one last time, before he drives into the waiting school children on the corner. Or paints the world in oils, sitting on an old leather lounger, leaning back with open and disdainfull legs, reconciled to death like a stage four cancer patient, sucking deep on his last cigarette before the final piece of lung is coughed up in his smoky sputum. Or like a pox-faced whore, pimped to the devil, syphilicticly deceived, still thinking she’s beautiful and so still trying to sell her wares on the brink of destruction, just one last time before her all indulgent legs are closed forever. Sin, you see, is a gigantic and greedy, self-undulgent, self-consuming madness.
When we as Christians look at the state our advanced civilizations, you would in my opinion, have to be on an astonishing amount of anti-depressants, not to tremble in fear at the obvious fact, that God is giving us up to our own sins and all their gross consequences. Whilst clothing ourselves with painted costumes, rather than repentant righteousness, nationally, we have sold our souls for a handful of plastic beads and continue to jiggle our teats before the dead but golden calf of self-indulgence. It’s all scary stuff friends, but what is more disconcerting is the absence of any current and loud prophetic voice, announcing impending doom on such once blessed nations that now so blatantly shake their fists against God Most High!

The controversy of our age, is not found so much in wars, racism, poverty, perverse political agendas or even in genocide. No, the controversy of the age is found in our hard hearts towards the long, long-suffering, good and gracious God. A long lie is being perpetuated along these Western shores, that God is at work saving people. However, let me ask you this today, “If indeed so many people are becoming Christians in the West, then where do we go, to even get a sniff of its impact on our culture? Where is the change?” There is none and so like I say, there is long lie being perpetuated among us..

It is obvious that there is no real change, no real response of repentence and our beloved nation’s present answer to so consistent and merciful a chastisement, to all the certain and clear signs of a coming calamity, that seems to draw nearer with every sunrise, has been to simply continue to dance upon the breaches. To party on and party on. We the church in our own diminishing little way, are joining in this same devilish delusion of safety, and are even perpetuating it with pitiful little picnic’s in the park and big days out in the countryside, painting faces, finding space to ‘worship’ and of course, buying as much Chisrian ‘tut’ as we can cart away with us, especially music tut. Yes, especially music ‘tut’.

We in the church must remember that snake oil never did cure any nation of its scourges and its ills. It never did and it never will. So, as we tout our so called spiritual wares, let’s take the time to wipe the dust off the bottle and take a little longer look at just what it is we are selling, because whatever it is, it’s just not working!

Listen: - “If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and who, when they have chastened him, will not heed them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city, to the gate of his city. And they shall say to the elders of his city, 'This son of ours is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.' Then all the men of his city shall stone him to death with stones; so you shall put away the evil from among you, and all Israel shall hear and fear. Deuteronomy 21:18-21 NKJV


Pray: Lord, we Your people humble ourselves and pray. We call for the healing of our land, and Your merciful provision of those from among us who shall be called ‘The re-builders of the old waste places, the repairers of the breach and the restorers of streets to dwell in.’ In Jesus mighty name we pray, amen.