What People?

Every so often, I like to switch translations for my devotional reading, just to get a different perspective on God’s story. When I do that, I will typically get a study Bible so that I can have some commentary on difficult verses.

It frequently opens my eyes to amazing truths that I might have missed before. So, right now I am using the NLT study Bible.

A few weeks ago, being in Genesis for one of my scheduled readings, I was captivated by God’s answer to a world so devastated by sin that He called Abram to be the father of a new people.

It was God’s solution.

God’s answer to a broken world was, and is, a people called by Him, directed by Him, blessed by Him, loyal to Him…not to be elitists or arrogant or controlling, but to be a diamond through whom He could reflect the lights of His grace and love.

So, to get a people for Himself, God called Abram from Haran to one of the darkest and most pagan cultures in the world, at that time.

Canaan.

But, to fulfill their calling, Abram, and the growing families who would become Israel, could not assimilate with the Canaanites…not in marriage, not in religion, not in practices or lifestyle.

Neighbors…yes.

How else would the Canaanites see the goodness and holiness of God, except they be in proximity?

But assimilated…no!

Business associates…yes.

Abraham entered a covenant with a Canaanite king, Abimelech, for their mutual protection and agricultural enterprises.

But to assimilate in any other way would negate their whole reason for being the people of God.

Which is why Abraham insisted that his servant get a wife for Isaac, Abraham’s son of promise, from Abraham’s extended family in Haran. He explicitly did not want Isaac marrying a Canaanite woman (Genesis 24:3).

Why not?

It would signal the beginning of assimilation.

A generation later, Esau, who treated his heritage and calling with contempt, married two Canaanite wives (Genesis 26:34). The beginning and the end of his role in being the people of God.

Jacob, Esau’s brother, who received Isaac’s inheritance and calling, is sent by Rebekah, his mother, to Haran, expressly so that he would not marry a Canaanite woman (Genesis 27:46).

Again, a protection against assimilation.

So, jump now all the way to Genesis 38.

Jacob, his wives, children and household are back living in Canaan, as God intended. God’s plan is still to reveal Himself to the nations through His people.

To do that, they cannot assimilate with the Canaanites.

But Judah, one of Jacob’s sons, leaves home and marries a Canaanite woman.

Wait for it!

The NLT study Bible footnote rocked my world this morning on Genesis 38.

“The family of Judah, who would later rise to prominence, show the beginning of assimilation with the people of the land to help explain why God sent the family to Egypt (chapters 39-47). The Egyptians were strict separatists (43:32); the Israelites would retain their unique identity better in Egypt than in Canaan.”

Boom!

Mic drop!

God will go to extreme lengths, even sending a world-wide severe famine, to secure for Himself a people who will be a visible witness of His life-transforming presence and power.

This is why the American Church has to have a massive revival NOW, if it is going to survive as a witness to the love, goodness and holiness of God.

American Christians have so assimilated with the Canaanites that there is now no discernible difference between us and the world. (George Barna’s research, over the last twenty years, unequivocally proves the point.) In matters of belief and practice, there is now no significant, statistical difference between Christians and non-Christians.

No wonder, we have so few genuine new believers, and that the Church is in serious decline.

It’s not our evangelistic techniques that need fixing.

It’s not our worship styles that need upgrading. (Smoke machines, strobe lights and worship bands are just a cover up for what is missing.)

It’s radically transformed lives that alone will set us apart as the people. God is looking to use as salt and light in pagan Canaan.

In the world but not of the world!

And the only way to get from the tragic assimilation with the world, that is the American Church today, and being a true people of God…is revival.

We need to get some of the historical revival stories off the shelf and into our hearts until a Holy dissatisfaction is stirred in us and we start to call on the Lord.

We need to get back to corporate prayer meetings in every church, crying out to God for a Spirit of repentance, beginning in the Church and sweeping across the nation.

We need the pulpits of the land to abandon warmed-over feel-good sermons and to start preaching God until the people tremble (Richard Owen Roberts).

We need a revival that restores the Church to a visible, separated, holy people of God who reveal the goodness and mercy of God to a lost and rapidly decaying world.

Are you willing to ask God to begin the revival in you?