WHO IS GOING TO OPEN THE SCROLL

2 Kings 1:3-4 The angel of the Lord said to Elijah the Tishbite, “Go and ask the king, “Is it because there is no God in Israel that you consult Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron? Because of this, you will not leave your bed you lie on, and you will die.”

Revelation 5:4 I wept and wept because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or look inside.

Revelation 5:10a You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to reign upon the earth.

Some things never change. I just drove down a busy street and passed by a big group of kids waiting on a school bus. I noticed that they were signaling the large truck passing by to honk his horn. I recognized the national sign for ‘honk your horn’. I had to laugh to myself when I saw those kids because I used the same ‘honk your horn’ signal to passing semi’s on the highway when I was a kid in the 60’s. Yep, some things never change.

John’s apocalyptic letter offers some of those same some-things-never-change sentiments, “I wept and wept because no one was found worthy.” Few were found worthy in the Old Testament times as well. Just ask the weeping prophet, Jeremiah. Revelation contains a myriad of confusing and complicated imagery, but it doesn’t take a college professor to sort out the lamented mood of Revelation chapter five. I’m no expert, but there seems to be a lack of holiness in the summation of people. But why?

Believers are made to be a kingdom and priests to reign upon and influence the earth. Today, the church can’t influence the high school down the street, much less the earth. And why is that? Well, I’ll give hat question a go.

The problem is sort of like what happened in the movie, Elf, when Santa couldn’t get his sleigh to fly any more. People stopped believing in him. It was a lack of belief. Transfer that scenario to our situation, a lack of belief has caused holiness to stop flying and lay dormant. We can’t get holiness off the ground.

Peter quotes God’s voice in the Old Testament, ‘You will be holy as I am holy,’ but believers are satisfied to blend in with the crowd of the current culture. One woman of faith recently said to me, “I won’t lie; I’m all about beauty.” Pride and ego have taken the place of holiness. Given the plethora of social media platforms, the temptation for women to keep up with the beautiful Joneses is too great with so much emphasis on youth and beauty. Plus, the men can’t keep their eyes off the beautiful.

Ten years of vocational ministry has afforded me windows into anthropological and pornographical statistics and behaviors because of the catastrophic and collateral damage these behaviors cause families. They call the church. I’ve recently learned that 60% of congregations are active in some kind of pornography, and they aren’t all men. Women are in this unholy club. There is a naked elephant in the church, and no one seems to notice.

Infiltration of unholiness in the church is no newer than the ‘honk your horn’ signal. Take a minute to review Timothy’s church in Ephesus. Greco-Romans were coming to church, but instead of renouncing their cultural beauty techniques, they were bringing it all with them and influencing the rest of the church. 1 Timothy 2 offers a taste of Paul’s mentorship of Timothy.

Egyptian make-up practices didn’t go out of style or join other relics left to be observed by museum visitors. These products kept their intrinsic value by providing luster and allure, and who doesn’t want that?

Then there is the aging phenomenon. I call it a phenomenon because, the last I checked, aging is a process created by God, and God’s ways are perfect. If we all believe that gray hair is the crown that Proverbs professes it to be, why is everyone running as fast as they can get to a box of color?

Titus 2 is tough to teach and preach because older women who are supposed to mentor the younger women are getting harder and harder to locate. I want to help young women embrace their senior status as the place of honor that it is, according to Job 12:12 “Is wisdom not found among the aged?” It’s supposed to be. But now it’s difficult to tell.

My message about holiness and being separate from a worldly culture is about as popular as Elijah’s message to Ahab’s son, King Ahaziah, that he was going to die in his bed. But that is no surprise, just history repeating itself. Holiness has always been welcomed like the plague. Maybe Revelation 2:4 spoke to just this conundrum, “This I hold against you; you abandoned your first devotedness (another translation choice for ‘agape’). What should be a believer’s first devotedness? The answer to that is a term paper, but for starters, it is holiness:

1 Peter 1:16 “You will be holy as I am holy.” Peter reaches back and pulls the voice of God from the Old Testament and establishes new ground rules that should have never gotten old. Peter is the author of the following recipe for holiness:

You are a chosen people, a holy nation that should not mimic the surrounding culture, a royal priesthood whose function is to be the temple that houses the spirit of God, a people belonging to God.

If you belong to God, pick up your cross, ditch the youth and beauty game, inappropriate internet habits and get busy imitating Jesus. The scroll is at stake:

A building does not a church make.

How much more of us will God take?

The bar is set high for holiness. Why?

Who opens the scroll is at stake…