I was recently at a pastor’s conference in East Texas. The church is definitely a country church and when I say backwoods it was back in the woods! The church is a hundred years old and the pastor is in his eighties and has been preaching fifty-six years. I had a great time. The preachers were all just down home country preachers that still had some fire left in them not quenched by a seminary education. I could have stayed a month!
One of the preachers from Mississippi told us about a child that his son was caring for because the mother was a crack head prostitute and in jail. They had her nine years until her biological mother got out and some judge gave the child back to her. Now she lives in squalor and I fear that at some point “Mom” might decide to use her for extra income. Pray for the child!
I said all this to say that when she was an infant the church folks called her “poor baby” because no one wanted her. At the church that held the conference they had a child they called “church baby” who is now two and wants to shake hands with everyone. They joke that he is going to be a politician.
Nicknames are fun and often they do describe a particular characteristic about a person. In Thailand, my nickname was tooie nooie, which meant baby fat. I was a very large baby but they called my taller heavier friend “water buffalo” so tooie nooie was OK with me. Somewhere we got the idea that a fat baby is a healthy and happy baby but we know that isn’t true anymore. Fat babies usually become fat adults and often die young or endure a plethora of ailments. I want to speak to you about three fat babies. The first one is the nation of Israel in the Old Testament.
Deut 32:15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation.
The picture I see here is a fat spoiled rotten kid that is kicking and crying. He may have started out stamping his feet and screaming then falling on his tail kicking up a hissy fit as his face turns red with anger or frustration. We have all seen these kinds of kids and as a lady who once attended here said, “It makes you want to volunteer for a drive by whuppin’!” It may have been your child so there was no need to drive.
I read about one couple that broke their child’s temper tantrums. He liked to bang his head against the step as he screamed. One day, Mom had enough and she took him by the head and starting doing it for him. Not as hard as he was doing it but as she did it she said, “I can see why you like doing this.” Then she called for her husband and he did it saying how much fun it was. The child never did that again. A year later a brother was born. At some point, the new child tried the same technique. The other and wiser brother came over to him and said, “Forget it, it doesn’t work!” It’s a great cure! They probably saved him from a concussion and taught him a lesson!
God had provided so much for the nation Israel. Like a loving father, God guided them, gave them plenty of food, drink and land. God put them high on the earth and they lived high on the hog figuratively since they didn’t eat pork but they were very prosperous and safe. They were fat babies! They started out serving only God but that was to change.
Somewhere along the line like the time they tired of the manna in the wilderness they became disenchanted or ungrateful and developed an interest in the false gods of their neighbors. Some of those gods allowed some pretty exciting and exotic things. They were told to be separate from them but they got the seven-year itch and went looking for things they should have never even known about let alone experience.
They had fun for awhile and may have even appeared to have prospered for awhile for indeed sin is pleasurable for a season. God in His patient love and mercy allowed them to exercise their free will until He could bear no more. They traded the relationship they had with the true God for the deceptive glitz of an affair with the devil and his minions. The sweet taste of sin would turn terribly sour in stomachs.
They forgot the Rock that had brought them to birth as a nation sustaining them in a land that was surrounded by their enemies. They made peace with people that God told them not associate with and even married into the tribes. They were His sons and daughters and yet they chose to provoke Him to wrath. They had seen what He had done to the ancient gods of Egypt yet they thought the new ones were better.
Thus He hid his face from His faithless and rebellious children. I am sure that they would occasionally still visit the temple on the high holy days out of respect for their aged parents or tradition but their hearts were not in it. The God of their fathers was not good enough for them and they were seeking “truth” somewhere else. They may have prayed to YHWH but He was not listening. He was sharpening His sword.
God had every right to be angry. They were like men who had left their wives for a manikin. They left the real life God behind for the fake and lifeless statutes of the heathen. If we say that “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” then try to imagine the jealousy of the Almighty as He sees those He redeemed bow to the carved imaginations of men instead of worshipping Him in humble gratitude!
Is it any wonder that He chastised them? Instead of using nature to bless them He turned it into a weapon of war against them. He roused up their enemies and even used people that they disdained as being stupid and not even a true tribe to be victorious against them. They may have written off some things to natural causes at first and laughed when the disdained ones started their attack but when the disasters kept coming and the foolish were victorious they had to rethink their philosophy.
His mercy was extended even in His wrath because He held back so that their enemies would not completely destroy them though they deserved it and He considered it. For His own name’s sake, He could not let that happen but they would experience much sorrow and death from infants to the aged.
I am sure that through all this the best academic and military minds in the country were trying to figure out how to fix the problems. Yet, God said that they were without wisdom and were void of counsel. Had they had half a clue they could have looked back and saw that the problems started when they started leaving God and His ways because of their own temper tantrum selfish fat baby ways. They flourished when they were with God so their troubles could have only happened if God was no longer on their side and boxed them in with no way out. How could their great armies be defeated by people less advanced technically and tactically except that God gave them over? Even those enemies feared YHWH. Why didn’t His people? Had they only considered their end and repented sooner they would have suffered less. Sadly, fat babies have poor focus and logic. Thus they suffer more than they should.
Let’s jump ahead to the founding of another nation. It started out as colonies founded by men and women of faith. They came here for religious freedom and even though they were colonies of England the people dedicated the land to God and asked for His providence. Later, when oppressed by England they declared their independence and won a war they should not and could not have won except that God was on their side.
In setting up the country the founding fathers again petitioned to God to guide and protect them. They created most of the laws based upon the Bible. This new democratic republic was established as a Christian nation. God took them at their word and I believe became a theocracy whether the fathers had that intent or not. God took this country into His covenant and it prospered. It became the freest, richest and most powerful nation on earth.
The US should have never won its war for independence or the War of 1812 nor any other conflict prior to WWI. The odds were greatly against it and many major mistakes were made by its military commanders. The first settlers should not have survived the winters or the Indians but they did. God was on their side and establishing a country built upon Him and His Word. It had to prosper.
Sadly, like ancient Israel the prosperity would start to become more desired than the God who provided it. After WWI, President Wilson pushed us into an unholy alliance or yoke with the League of Nations. Morality started slipping and we had the Roaring 20’s. The era of the Great Depression and the dust bowl drove some back to God. There were some great preachers and revivals. Albeit the leaders sought their own ways and came up with some programs that worked for the short run but created greater problems for the future.
Then came WWII and we fought against a great evil in Europe who did not attack us and a similar evil in Asia that did attack us. How did a nation still recovering from drought and economic depression become a great military power overnight? God was on our side. We acknowledged Him in song and mottos. In 1954 we even added the words under God to our pledge. Victory in war had been sweet and the prosperity after that war even sweeter.
Yet, the leaders still made some mistakes that are causing us great problems today. Macarthur was right but Truman did not listen and instead of advancing in an area where we had interests instead he got us into a war in Korea where he was told that we could not win there and that we had no real national interests. He was an example of what kind of leadership would come in later years doing that which was right in his own eyes.
The 50’s were the golden era and even considered an era of innocence and compared to today it was nearly a virginal paradise but it had its share of problems. The money and the materialism that it spawned set the stage for moral decay in the home, Church, schools and the Government.
We grew fat, comfortable and complacent. Then the false god of humanism took over our schools and universities denying the true God that gave us all the blessings. The sexual revolution and the drug culture of the ‘60s attacked the body and soul of our youth as humanism attacked their mind. Then we found our Christianity boring and prohibitive so we reached out to pagan religions and atheistic philosophies so we could be free from the God of the Bible thus thinking we could assuage our guilt and deny what we did was sin. We became gods and the masters of our own destinies.
What did that get us? Gangs run the schools and the streets. Crime is out of control with crimes being committed by children as young as seven. STDs are rampant with some being incurable. We have unwed mothers as young as 12 and babies being murdered by abortion. Divorces occur at the drop of a hat and glossed over by being called “no fault” or amicable separations. We have far more industry, political and religious leaders without integrity than ever before. We have had recessions, dotcom crashes and companies cooking the books and collapsing. Suicide among teens has skyrocketed. We are turning out high school graduates that can’t read though we pour millions of dollars into the inept system. Our society is sharply divided and may be on the brink of the cultural war going from words to guns. Folks, God is not on our side. Indeed, our days may be numbered as a nation. Fat baby America is headed for the woodshed.
We have waxed fat and kicked and God has been giving us plenty of warnings. We have ignored them. Instead we listen to false prophets and soothsayers that say we are becoming more spiritual while our churches apostatize thus losing influence on the culture. Because they seek appeasement they seek to appeal to the culture rather than stand against as the Scripture teaches.
That brings us to the next fat baby, the Western Churches but especially the Americans. We have gone from proclaiming the glorious Gospel to proclaiming the Gospel of Entertainment and Amalgamation. We are repeating the same errors of the Catholic Institution. We haven’t brought in idols and gods so to speak but we are trying to “redeem” parts of the pagan culture in order to win them. What Book are the leaders reading that shows this type of approach? Certainly, not the Bible for the prophets, Jesus and the Apostles stood against their culture.
The early Church would not fast on the same day as the pagans so as not be considered a part of the pagan rituals. There would be no service for folks in black lipstick listening to music by “Puppies In Barbed Wire” on their watch. Their preachers wouldn’t be getting piercings to “relate” to the Lost. When people got to where they were only showing up for the miracles or the food Jesus shut that down and gave them strong doctrine. They couldn’t chew that meat so they left. Jesus didn’t run after them and try to make it up to them by doing a few miracles. The doctrine was so deep and strong that Jesus asked Peter if the Disciples were going to leave as well. Jesus didn’t try to lure them in with contests or their favorite genre of music tweaked with Christian lyrics. He literally lost most of His audiences. Stop all the hoo-ha that is going on in too many churches and get back to preaching Hell hot and sound doctrine and they will also turn away because they aren’t there for spiritual manna. The ones that stay will be the real wheat as doctrine blows the chaff away.
Ah, but Ron look at the size of some these churches. They have thousands of members, a large staff, buildings worth millions and the preacher lives in a multi-million home. They are on TV and the pastors have best selling books surely that is the blessing of God, right? Does the word Laodicea mean anything to you? They were plumb tickled at being rich thinking God was blessing them as well but He told them they were poor and naked. The church at Smyrna was in fiscal poverty (guess they didn’t understand the prosperity gospel) but God said they were rich in spiritual things. Americans have a wrong view. We are pragmatists and if it works and is prosperous it must be God’s will. Not from what I see in these two churches or in Hebrews 11:36-40. Certainly, the lives of the Apostles don’t bear testimony to it. By American standards they lived in poverty and died financial and social failures yet I dare say they were richer than any Emperor and even Bill Gates.
"It is only the atheist who adopts success as the criterion of right." - Robert Lewis Dabney
It would appear that we have many atheists in the religious world even among the saved. If it enhances the bottom dollar, do it may work in the business world but not if you are about the Father’s business. We have had a wrong focus and premise for the past sixty years or so and because we have become rich and fat we think we have it all down pat. We don’t understand why the culture doesn’t love us since we have compromised and come their way so we whine and cry to God. The compromise is what made us fat but it clogged the arteries of our heart and we are having angina pains. Lest the Lord come quickly we may have the big one and the church in America and the Western world will die but God has many who have not bowed the knee to Baal in Africa and Asia.
Those brethren have exercised their faith and have resisted unto blood in their striving against sin and for the spreading of the Gospel. They are not fat babies but strong and vibrant. If persecution is coming, and I believe it is, then we will have a chance to shed our fat and run the race the martyrs before us have run. The lovely edifices will be gone and our focus will get right. Then we may see the glory of God and His power upon us and our churches like we have not seen in a long time. Persecution is a great reducer of fat.
Oh that we might become lean and mean witnessing machines before God puts us on that weight loss regimen. Let us hit God’s gym exercising our senses that we might be able to discern good and evil by feasting on the meat of the Word and not just its milk. It is long past due for the fat babies of God to grow up and be mature adults grateful of blessings and committed to their responsibility! Maranatha!
