If You Can’t Stand The Heat…

Now we must admit that some of these changes are for the better. For example:

• None of the ladies would want to go back to washing their family’s clothes on a scrub board

• Mothers would not know what to do without their microwave ovens

• Men would not know what to do without our T.V. remote control

We have many modern conveniences today that have spoiled us rotten, and we certainly would put up a brutal fight if someone tried to take them from us.

While we cling to all these new modern conveniences, we have a group of people in our society known as the Amish people that refuse to enter into our modern world of conveniences.

The Amish people live in the United States and Canada and are divided into two major groups.

• The Old Order Amish use horses for farming and transportation, dress in a traditional manner, and forbid electricity or telephones in the home. Church members do not join the military, apply for Social Security benefits, take out insurance or accept any form of financial assistance from the government.

• Beachy Amish and New Order Amish groups have fewer limitations.

Illus: The Amish people that belong to the OLD ORDER remind me of three men that were hiking and unexpectedly came upon a large raging, violent river. They needed to get to the other side, but had no idea of how to do so.

• The first man prayed to God, saying, "Please God, give me the strength to cross this river." Poof! God gave him big arms and strong legs, and he was able to swim across the river in about two hours, after almost drowning a couple of times.

• Seeing this, the second man prayed to God, saying, "Please God, give me the strength ..and the tools to cross this river." Poof! God gave him a rowboat and he was able to row across the river in about an hour, after almost capsizing the boat a couple of times.

• The third man had seen how this worked out for the other two, so he also prayed to God saying, "Please God, give me the strength and the tools...and the intelligence... to cross this river." And poof! God turned him into a woman. She looked at the map, hiked upstream a couple of hundred yards, then walked across the bridge

These Amish are different. They refuse to do things the way we do things. They raise their children in a different way. Someone said the Amish have such a strict standard that they know they have a troubled teenager when -

• He/she stays in bed till after 6 am

• In his sock drawer, you find pictures of women without bonnets

• You come upon his secret stash of colorful socks

• He's wearing his big black hat backwards

Illus: An Amish lady is riding down the road in her horse and buggy when she is pulled over by a police officer.

• “Ma'am, I'm not going to ticket you, but I do have to issue you a warning. You have a broken reflector on your buggy.”

• She says, “Oh, I'll let my husband, Jacob, know as soon as I get home.”

• “That's fine. Another thing, ma'am. I don't like the way that one rein is tied to the horse tail. I consider that animal abuse. That's cruelty to animals. Have your husband take care of that right away!”

Later that day, the lady is home telling her husband about her encounter with the policeman.

• “Well, dear, what exactly did he say?”

• “He said the reflector is broken.” Jacob said “I can fix that in two minutes. What else?”

• “I'm not sure, Jacob ... something about he did not like the way you had the emergency brake hooked up!”

The point I want to make here is that we have become accustomed to many changes. In fact, we have become so accustomed to changes that we now accept them without really thinking whether they are good or bad. THIS CAN BE BAD!

Everything that comes down the pike is not something we should accept. For example, we see a lot of changes in:

• The PHYSICAL WORLD

• The SPIRITUAL WORLD

Many churches today have accepted everything that has come down the pike, and now many of these churches have changed so much they do not even resemble God’s church according to the scriptures.

You see, when it comes to changes in the spiritual world, we need to make sure those changes line up with the Word of God. IF NOT, THEN WE SHOULD NOT MAKE THOSE CHANGES.

Why shouldn’t we accept those changes? Because the Word of God has not changed one iota, so why should we change? Matt. 24:35 says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”