As the Pendulum Swings
Author: Ronald Gadberry
“And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin.” (1 Kings 15:34, KJV).
When the echoes of His voice had finally rumbled their way around the mountain and Moses was just a shadow high up on its side, His people were already looking for another god. Days were spent in restlessness as the families gathering in tent fronts wondered about their absent leader. Conversations were muted but punctuated by the groaning earth as it answered the fire belching from the mountain top. It seemed that each day the heavy smoke crowning the summit hanged just a bit lower and then the rumors began to circulate. The echoes had faded as the memory whispered “no other gods, no other gods” but the children had already wondered from the path.
The people found a ready listener when they approached Aaron and it didn’t take much persuasion to have him looking back across the Red Sea, to the temple of Apis the golden calf of Egypt. A little time and a little gold and its image was perched on a pedestal and the people were dancing in reckless abandon, prostituting themselves before their little god. But, it was only one.
Choices have consequences and Israel wandered into forty years of them. From the moment the calf idol emerged from the furnace only to be crushed beneath the broken stone tablets of the law, Israel huddled like whipped curs from one judgement to the next. Forty years of wilderness wandering salted the landscape with the bleaching bones of the miscreants of Sinai. But the sins of the fathers became a sinful legacy for the generations that followed and brief moments of revival became the doorway into intolerable denigration.
The prophet warned: ““Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!— harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life” (Galatians 6:7-8, MSG). Israel harvested weeds! From a radiant theocracy they slid into self indulgent duplicity and a frustrating monarchy, with God left to His own devices in the wherever. Enter king JEROBOAM!
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat who taught Israel to sin.
If Aaron led Israel astray with one golden calf, what did Jeroboam do with two? Watch the pendulum swing. There was David, the man after God’s own heart whose one departure was from favor to adultery to murder and the infamous coverup but with repentance. Then Solomon, the man with a thousand wives whose gods he tolerated, accepted and accommodated and who did not repent but went on to write his memoirs with the heavy notation “Everything is vanity and vexation of spirit. Rehoboam the heavy handed whose arrogance split the nation was next. Watch the decline: Righteousness, self-righteousness, self-justification — sin; Self-righteousness, apostasy, frustrated depression; Self-reliance, rebellion, catastrophe! All of which threw open the door to idolatry and extreme godlessness. JEROBOAM!
With the exception of a few, each was given his space in the history then disposed of. He was the son of — his son succeeded him — he died, and that’s it. Not so with this man. For many generations and through many kings his epitaph continued to be written. “___ followed in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who taught Israel to sin!”
How far and far reaching the pendulum swings.
Sometimes we forget the terrible impact the church and the world have each on the other. There is and can be no harmony between the two for they are poles apart. The church for her part is based on selfless love born from the heart of Christ, the world on selfishness and a bitter hatred of things pure and holy. The terms compromise or middle ground cannot be broached when speaking of such a relationship. If the church does not win, no one does. Petersons’ translation of Ephesians 1:22 says it best: “At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church.” But, if we are to hold that position it must begin with humility and heart. The one thing above all others that must be avoided is self-righteousness for that corrupting trait is twin sister to arrogance and both are characteristics of the evil one.
If we are to save or even influence the world we must love the world’s people. But we must acknowledge John's admonition: “Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important— has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity” (1 John 2:15-17, MSG).
Watch as Jeroboam sets up, not one but two golden calves. Afraid Israel might reunite with Judah and rush back to God in Jerusalem, he offered alternative gods. The extremes of self righteousness and arrogance have no place in Christendom. But the holiness of God is not extreme. It is the baseline, the foundation of life and life lived in the earth. When the pendulum is at its apex (self-righteousness) it is extreme and when that realization strikes the heart the temptation to rush back to the foundation is good but if care is not taken it will swing to that other extreme (arrogance) and the hope of touching the world will be lost for the church will have lost its place as the center of all things. There is no place for compromise with the culture but love for the Word of God must prevail. If the fire in one generation is allowed to grow dim, in the next it will go out and as the pendulum swings, the third and fourth generations will have lost the ability to change either the world or themselves and the culture will have won. If the church does not win, no one does.
[Pastor Ronald Gadberry and his wife, Jody, serve as pastors of Oil Center Pentecostal Holiness Church centered in an unincorporated community bound together by their church and the fire department. Ron wrote, "Hopefully we can create a big enough fire it can’t be put out. We are located 9 miles west of Ada in Oklahoma." They have been serving at this church since October 2021. On a personal note Ronald wrote, "I am back in my element as a full time pastor and excited for the prospects."]
Author: Ronald Gadberry
“And he did evil in the sight of the LORD, and walked in the way of Jeroboam, and in his sin wherewith he made Israel to sin.” (1 Kings 15:34, KJV).
When the echoes of His voice had finally rumbled their way around the mountain and Moses was just a shadow high up on its side, His people were already looking for another god. Days were spent in restlessness as the families gathering in tent fronts wondered about their absent leader. Conversations were muted but punctuated by the groaning earth as it answered the fire belching from the mountain top. It seemed that each day the heavy smoke crowning the summit hanged just a bit lower and then the rumors began to circulate. The echoes had faded as the memory whispered “no other gods, no other gods” but the children had already wondered from the path.
The people found a ready listener when they approached Aaron and it didn’t take much persuasion to have him looking back across the Red Sea, to the temple of Apis the golden calf of Egypt. A little time and a little gold and its image was perched on a pedestal and the people were dancing in reckless abandon, prostituting themselves before their little god. But, it was only one.
Choices have consequences and Israel wandered into forty years of them. From the moment the calf idol emerged from the furnace only to be crushed beneath the broken stone tablets of the law, Israel huddled like whipped curs from one judgement to the next. Forty years of wilderness wandering salted the landscape with the bleaching bones of the miscreants of Sinai. But the sins of the fathers became a sinful legacy for the generations that followed and brief moments of revival became the doorway into intolerable denigration.
The prophet warned: ““Don’t be misled: No one makes a fool of God. What a person plants, he will harvest. The person who plants selfishness, ignoring the needs of others—ignoring God!— harvests a crop of weeds. All he’ll have to show for his life is weeds! But the one who plants in response to God, letting God’s Spirit do the growth work in him, harvests a crop of real life, eternal life” (Galatians 6:7-8, MSG). Israel harvested weeds! From a radiant theocracy they slid into self indulgent duplicity and a frustrating monarchy, with God left to His own devices in the wherever. Enter king JEROBOAM!
Jeroboam, the son of Nebat who taught Israel to sin.
If Aaron led Israel astray with one golden calf, what did Jeroboam do with two? Watch the pendulum swing. There was David, the man after God’s own heart whose one departure was from favor to adultery to murder and the infamous coverup but with repentance. Then Solomon, the man with a thousand wives whose gods he tolerated, accepted and accommodated and who did not repent but went on to write his memoirs with the heavy notation “Everything is vanity and vexation of spirit. Rehoboam the heavy handed whose arrogance split the nation was next. Watch the decline: Righteousness, self-righteousness, self-justification — sin; Self-righteousness, apostasy, frustrated depression; Self-reliance, rebellion, catastrophe! All of which threw open the door to idolatry and extreme godlessness. JEROBOAM!
With the exception of a few, each was given his space in the history then disposed of. He was the son of — his son succeeded him — he died, and that’s it. Not so with this man. For many generations and through many kings his epitaph continued to be written. “___ followed in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who taught Israel to sin!”
How far and far reaching the pendulum swings.
Sometimes we forget the terrible impact the church and the world have each on the other. There is and can be no harmony between the two for they are poles apart. The church for her part is based on selfless love born from the heart of Christ, the world on selfishness and a bitter hatred of things pure and holy. The terms compromise or middle ground cannot be broached when speaking of such a relationship. If the church does not win, no one does. Petersons’ translation of Ephesians 1:22 says it best: “At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church.” But, if we are to hold that position it must begin with humility and heart. The one thing above all others that must be avoided is self-righteousness for that corrupting trait is twin sister to arrogance and both are characteristics of the evil one.
If we are to save or even influence the world we must love the world’s people. But we must acknowledge John's admonition: “Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important— has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from Him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity” (1 John 2:15-17, MSG).
Watch as Jeroboam sets up, not one but two golden calves. Afraid Israel might reunite with Judah and rush back to God in Jerusalem, he offered alternative gods. The extremes of self righteousness and arrogance have no place in Christendom. But the holiness of God is not extreme. It is the baseline, the foundation of life and life lived in the earth. When the pendulum is at its apex (self-righteousness) it is extreme and when that realization strikes the heart the temptation to rush back to the foundation is good but if care is not taken it will swing to that other extreme (arrogance) and the hope of touching the world will be lost for the church will have lost its place as the center of all things. There is no place for compromise with the culture but love for the Word of God must prevail. If the fire in one generation is allowed to grow dim, in the next it will go out and as the pendulum swings, the third and fourth generations will have lost the ability to change either the world or themselves and the culture will have won. If the church does not win, no one does.
[Pastor Ronald Gadberry and his wife, Jody, serve as pastors of Oil Center Pentecostal Holiness Church centered in an unincorporated community bound together by their church and the fire department. Ron wrote, "Hopefully we can create a big enough fire it can’t be put out. We are located 9 miles west of Ada in Oklahoma." They have been serving at this church since October 2021. On a personal note Ronald wrote, "I am back in my element as a full time pastor and excited for the prospects."]