Israel in Apostasy

Often in the Old Testament Israel fell into apostasy against God. Often we get lost and feel as if the worship was all wrong and the apostasy was blatantly obvious.

In a sense the apostasy was blatantly obvious, but often only with spiritual eyes to see. Often Israel on the surface appeared to be keeping the law of God. The outside of the cup looked clean, but the inside was dirty.

You see the apostasy was often for neglect of the poor. There are those who lament the state of the church in our country in the current day. Many times the fall of Israel into apostasy was for neglect of the widow and the orphan.

You see the church often lives or dies based on love. Love must be expressed. If we simply look at the budgets of many churches today we can see they do not really love as God intended.

They either have no support for missions or no support for the poor. Where our money is our heart will be also. You see often the brokenness in the church is that we listen to the word of God in word only.

We are simply hearers of the word but not doers. We listen to the word of God but do not enact it. We look for practicality but find no application even for the unpacked practicality.

True revival can only come by faithfulness to the teaching of God. A concern for the proclamation of Christ crucified and care for the poor are the hallmark concerns of the early church. These are fundamental elements churches must seek if they wish for revival.