The BGCT and the worm in the Apple

There is a worm in the apple from yesterday's post.

This money did not start out as our money. It was God's money. The misuse of God's money is called "robbing God." (Malachi 3:8)

I find, for me, at least two times in Scripture that parallel our times in the BGCT.

The most obvious time is the time of Nehemiah who came to be given an awesome task. Years of petty infighting, enemies outside and within, and weak leadership had left the remnant paralyzed and defeated sitting on the very land that a once great city and temple had stood. While conventions are not mentioned in the Bible, they could be see as a quasi-nation. Called into existence for the purpose of glorifying God, and doing His work at home and around the world. God as Sovereign, Scripture as truth being our guide, we join together for this great task. What happens when a convention, once great, having lost its way, sits in the rubble of the past?

The second time was the time of Josiah (II Kings 22) Again, years of bad leadership had taken its toll. The very nation whose existence was for the praise and glory of God had so lost its way it was like all the other nations around it--only worse. How could they be worse? Surely they were not as brutal, as corrupt, as heathen as the nations that surrounded and conquered them? Yet, they were worse because the nations around them were doing exactly what they committed to do. Judah did not. She was rotten to the core. And then Josiah found the scrolls of the law.

What do these incidents have to do with the BGCT? Before we can ask for one another's forgiveness, we have to ask God for His. After all, it was His money set aside, His money sent to Dallas, His money siphoned off and squandered for purposes other than what they were intended. In other words, while there has been a breach of trust with Baptists of the BGCT, there has been a great breach of trust between the BGCT and God. Woops! That is the worm in the apple.

There are two different but similar approaches that Nehemiah and Josiah took.

Nehemiah repaired then called the people together for a festival of the Word of God. Why did he do this when so much time had already been lost? Perhaps it is that Nehemiah learned by spiritual instinct what we come to see later articulated in the Word of God. Ephesians 5:26 uses the analogy of "cleansing her (the Bride of Christ--the church)by the the washing with water through the word. . ." So Nehemiah calls the people together for a festival of the Word of God. From daybreak until noon Scripture tells us that Ezra and the priests read the Law and the people cried. Why did they cry? Because they were inwardly being washed by the Word. Guilt and rebellion and sins of every description were being washed away in the flood that only comes from the Water of the Word. When a nation or convention betrays the Lord, by misusing His money, betraying His trust, disregarding His Word, and basically betraying their spiritual charter, the only way back is for God to wash us clean through the Word of God.

But Josiah had another approach, similar but different. Josiah called the leaders of the nation together (II Kings 23) and renewed the covenant with God. It was a moving time of confession and repentance that signaled his intention to lead the people rightly.

So, in my previous post, I stand by what I said, but first, we have to deal with God. We all have to deal with God. Every leader for the past eight years collectively has to move through a time of renewal and repentance.

After all, it was all His, and remains so; misused as it was.