MORNING MANNA 11-30-22
CHIMPANZEE CHURCHES
“Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, This is the word of the LORD unto Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts.”- Zechariah. 4:6
I don’t know who wrote the following but it sure hits the nail on the head when it comes to the condition of churches today. He said,”blessing cannot be worked up, it must be sent down. Lewis Hastings was a British explorer in the late 19th century. He noted in his explorations of Africa that his guide shared unusual insights into the behaviour of chimpanzees. I don’t know whether anybody is an expert in chimpanzees here or not, but in the jungles of Angola there were often clearings where sticks had been carefully piled up as if to make a good fire. When Hastings asked his guide how these things came to be there, and why the sticks were so neatly arranged, he was astounded by the answer. The guide said: ‘Chimpanzees have gathered them’. In Angolan the word ‘chimpanzee’ actually means ‘mock man’. Hasting’s guide continued to tell him that even though the chimps had piled the sticks and done it well, that was all they could do because they were missing the fire. So the chimps had seen men build a fire for cooking or for protection from wild animals, and they were able to copy man’s actions in the building of a fire – how he put up the fuel. They would even gather around the sticks waiting for something to happen, but they would wait in vain because they didn’t have the fire. They would sit for hours, but couldn’t start a real fire because the spark was absent.
I don’t know if any of you go to Chimpanzee Memorial Church, but there’s a lot of them about! There’s a lot of us aping around, ‘doing everything right’, but the fire is not there. Paul the apostle said in 1 Corinthians 2:4-5: ‘My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom’,( and boy could he have used persuasive words of human wisdom,)’but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’. You see, people need more than arguments, they need more than intellect, they need more than persuasion. I’m not rubbishing the ability to reason, but that is not enough! There needs to be more! There needs to be that spiritual dimension, the power of God that only can be supplied by the Holy Spirit – and it’s missing, even among those who claim to have it!”
Leonard Ravenhill made this sad confession: “If God withdrew the Holy Spirit tomorrow, my church would function just the same; we wouldn’t even know He was gone!” Sadly the same is true of a lot of churches. That’s quiet a difference from the early church when every member was “filled with the Holy Ghost”(Acts 2:4). HDS
David Stone
Lakeway Baptist Church
Humble, Tx.
