THE LOST QUEEN
“A lost queen can cost you the game”
Hebrews 12:26-28 “At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth, but heaven as well.”
I’m not Jerry Lee Lewis and it is not 1999, but I can tell you that a whole lot of shaking is going on! Our very way of life is being shaken from top to bottom—and the church is also being shaken in these pandemic times.
Our college chess team would sometimes practice with the Queen removed from the chess board because one must become more skilled and strategic in using the other piece players (rooks, bishop, knight, castle, and valuable King) you have on the board. If you lose your Queen, you are more likely to lose your game. A chess opponent knows if she can get your queen, it becomes much easier to defeat you without your best weapon. The Queen is the most versatile, agile and lethal piece when you are playing the game of chess.
Consider for a moment, the church in the West has relied on its Queen for most everything in its church life and ministry for three or more centuries. The Queen of the church is the Sunday or Sabbath service and the associated activities that take place when the people come together in large gatherings for praise, worship, fellowship, teaching, evangelism, education and discipleship. We gather our most people into our largest facility on weekly super-service. The weekly church gathering is the most powerful tool in the arsenal of most local churches. But what if you lost your queen?
We have put most of our eggs in our one big basket—the big weekly event! That convenient super-tool has been taken from us by pandemic and regulation to protect our people from the Covid-19 virus. (Let me make it clear at this point, that we want to do all we are supposed to do to mitigate, contain and wipe-out this virus as much as possible. We will abide by national and local government regulations and guidance as long as man’s laws don’t require us to disobey God’s laws.)
The American Church has made the Sunday/Sabbath large meetings the main event, the main thing in their efforts to be the church. It follows the American mantra that “bigger is better”. Is this the pattern to follow when we study the first-century church in the Book of Acts and in the epistles? Are these large gatherings in our “temples” man-made creations following our cultural patterns and values? Maybe it is now time to reexamine our patterns and practices and see if the New Testament model and teachings can instruct us through these massive changes that have been thrust upon us because of the Covid 19 pandemic and ensuing social/legal/financial changes we face. Is there a new normal that will emerge? What will the church look like when this viral crisis is over—if it does become over? When God is through shaking things a lot, what will emerge as Kingdom best practice?
I. THE BIG SHAKEDOWN
The writer to the Messianic Jews in Hebrews 12: 26-28 “At that time His voice shook the earth, but now He has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth, but heaven as well.” The words, “Once more,” signify the removal of what can be shaken— that is, created things— so that the unshakable may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving an unshakable kingdom, let us be filled with gratitude, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe.…”
God is shaking the earth right now. God is shaking the world’s great security and power systems and God is shaking His church as well. God says that He will cause a great shake-up in the world, so that the “shakable things”, things which are man-made, will be shaken down so that His “unshakable Kingdom” that has been given to us by Messiah may be preeminent and Messiah prominent. God is going to bring to naught that which man has created so that we have remaining what God has created for us. When we realize what the real purpose of the “great shaking” amounts to, the saints will “be filled with gratitude, and to return to worshipping God in acceptable ways and with reverence and awe!” God is looking for true worshippers (John 4:24) and God is shaking-out the fluff and the frill, like shaking a sheet to get rid of the bed-bugs!
God is shaking the earth in a mighty way today. Not since WWII have so many nations and peoples been as affected as is this pandemic. God is using an infectious plague of pestilence to shake-up governments, financial systems, financial markets, globalism, education, medicine, world order, and yes, he is shaking up religion—what there is left of it. We have become use to the POWER and SECURITY that our prosperity, our science and technology and our advanced way of life has given us. We value the world-given POWER and SECURITY and we devalue the WORD-GIVEN POWER AND SECURITY IN THE KINGDOM OF GOD. We have exchanged the “truth of God for a lie”, as Paul describes us in Romans 1:25.
God is shaking everything in the world that man has created, that man values and that man depends upon. God is shaking all the rubber-crutches we are leaning on for our power and security. They are all squirrely and unreliable under the mighty hand of YWHW. If we build on the foundation of the shakable, we are building on the foundation made with sand. If we build on the foundation of the unshakable, we are building on the rock!
The only thing that is truly UNSHAKABLE is the Kingdom of God and all of those who run to it will be saved and protected, both now and forever. The Kingdoms of this World (all of the institutions and plans of the world that we choose to rule over us in finances, health, safety, government, education, religion and so forth) will fall, will be shaken and will prove weak and puny when God moves His mighty hand and speaks His mighty voice. This is a foretasting of the Great Shaking soon coming to the earth.
When the things on which our power and security are mightily shaken, and when we are shaken to our knees, we feel powerless and helpless, and that leads to fear, desperation and pandemic! That is where we are today and it is not going to get better soon. Many will repent and others will curse God and rebel.
This pandemic is the voice and hand of God moving in judgment and warning to cause us to return to Him, and to that which is unshakable: the Gospel of the Kingdom of YHWH as revealed in Messiah as Savior and Lord of all. God is saying, “If you use the world’s ways, you will get the world’s results. If you use God’s ways, you will get God’s results”.
What has man created in making a church after his own image? Its corporate structure, its CEO model, its monuments to men, its democratic governance, its celebrity pastors, its entertainment models, its paid professional “ministers”, its promotions and programs, its mega-church patterns, its mortgages and debt, its real estate holdings and its wealth and power. Even the great weekend event, is man’s making. But what if you lose your queen? Now, how are you going to do church using God’s ways?
On God’s chessboard, He uses our finances and designs to put us in “checkmate”, helplessly exposing our queen and the game.
Let’s summarize this lesson so far:
1. That which is unshakable is the Kingdom of God on earth.
2. That which is shakable is the Kingdoms of this World
3. YHWH is shaking us, our kingdoms and His Kingdom so we can distinguish between the two kingdoms and to realign our personal and church ministries accordingly.
II. CLEANING THE TEMPLE
I think we can find additional instruction for these times, by looking at the time Jesus felt it necessary to clean-up His Father’s house, the Temple in Jerusalem the first time Yeshua went to the Passover Feast after His baptism by John the Baptizer. He had just been to the marriage in Galilee and turned the water to wine, and now he goes to Jerusalem for the big event.
In John 2:13-17, we find the story of how God did a shake-up of His temple, especially how He feels about the “Business as Usual” enterprises and franchise practices that were going on in His Temple, in His dwelling place. Here is what it says, “
“When the Jewish Passover was near, Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple courts He found men selling cattle, sheep, and doves, and money changers seated at their tables. So He made a whip out of cords and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle. He poured out the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those selling doves He said, “Get these out of here! How dare you turn My Father’s house into a marketplace!”
His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for Your house will consume Me.”
God still has zeal for His house, for His dwelling place. What is that house, that dwelling place of God? It is the Body of Messiah, both individual and when we gather together in His Mighty Name. It is the church and each of us, as His holy temples, that He is cleaning and cleansing. God is shaking things up so that we return to His ways and not our own. It is to cause us to sort out where we find our power and security, what we really count on for our strength and protection. Or if you please, “Which kingdom do we belong to?”
Yeshua was not taken back in surprise what he encountered on that Passover account. He was a faithful Jew who had been to Passover many times. Everyone knew how business was conducted at the Temple. Jesus knew that “business as usual” was long-standing practice when going to the Temple to make sacrifice and offering to the Most High. Jesus knew that most people found it more convenient to not raise their own animals or fowls for sacrifice, or to sacrifice and labor to produce their best produce and product for offering to the Lord. They found it more convenient to convert it to a business transaction and would “buy” their sacrifice from the convenient store in the Temple courts. Jesus knew that each of the markets on the Temple square were actually franchises of the Priests and Jewish religious leaders, who approved of each vendor and had franchised kick-backs on each transaction. Jesus knew that in addition to the use of money to purchase personal “sacrifices to God”, that each person was to pay a Temple Tax and that tax had to be paid in an approved coinage/currency, so all of the thousands of pilgrims from the nations of the world coming to Passover, would have to exchange their various national currencies for the “temple currency”. Jesus knew that this lucrative franchise of money-changing was awarded to the highest bidders, with appropriate overrides and kickbacks for the privilege of currency exchanges. Jesus knew that crooks and impostors now ran His Father’s house in building their own kingdoms and fortunes. Jesus knew what “business as usual” truly was, and the greed, religious self-seeking and corruption that characterized the whole enterprise. Jesus knew that people were willing to “go on the cheap” and pay cash for a sacrifice which Torah sais was to come from the best of their own flocks and produce! Worship, sacrifice, rituals and liturgy, and personal practices were commercialized to satisfy the greed and convenience of all concerned! It has become the “big event”, became a corporate power machine to accrue wealth and power to those paid clerics and teachers. It was an evil scheme, both within and without the Temple.
Jesus knew full-well what “business as usual” looked like. Jesus became indignantly angry for what had been done to His Father’s House! He took a whip, upturned the money tables, scattered money and livestock all over the place, and sent the crooks and imposters scurrying for cover.
It was a shaking that exposed the “business as usual” and revealed the Father’s heart for His dwelling place and for His people.
I think the same thing is happening with us today. God is revealing His displeasure with business as usual in our in our nation, in our communities, in our churches, in our families and in our individual lives. God is cleansing His temple and He is cleaning His house.
So much of today’s modern church models have become man-made business as usual. These major monuments to men! They have become massive business enterprises more concerned with branding, marketing, expansion, market share, program management, financial projections and shaking down the people with money for paid ministers and sacrifices to God! The individual enterprise members serve gods of money, convenience, pleasures and self-gratification. Money, rather than service, has become the mercenary means of operating the church and many anonymous “ministries”. Individuals treat the “church” as a spiritual convenience store where we get quick pleasantries and buy spiritual indulgences. Individual temples of God have “outsourced” their own ministry and worship to paid ministry contractors and hirelings, giving money rather than giving of themselves as living sacrifices which are holy and acceptable to the Almighty. Local churches are franchises of huge chain-churches that carry a particular brand and peculiarities.
Church “Business as Usual” is usually a far cry from the simple “one-another”, relational patterns given us in the Gospel of the Kingdom. Leaders and hired hands have become the wranglers of large herds of mavericks rather than shepherds who know the name, the voice and the intimate lives of each member of their flock. Churches are more like ranches than sheepfolds. Each person does their own thing in a re-creation of Korah’s rebellion. The corporate church and its individual members find their Power and Security in the things that are of the Kingdoms of this World rather than from the Kingdom of God. The church often utilizes the shakable things of this world rather than the unshakable things of the Kingdom. In short, they part of the wrong kingdom.
Let’s expand on the concept of the Queen for a moment. The Hebrew scriptures speak of things being shaken in the ‘heaven’ and I think that is a -reference to that which is “virtual”, digital and computer-managed and driven. That is the internet, communication technology, business technology, military technology, educational technology, scientific technology and all that is enhanced or trafficked by digital processors, servers and computers. That is mysterious existence not immediately accessible by our natural senses. It is in the “heavens” and is the satellite and global networks that maintain world digital systems. That has become our power and security, but not for long. That includes almost everything that describes Mystery Babylon, that which is held together by global financial systems. Eventually, that will come down in one-hour the Bible says (Rev. 18:19), in the meantime it is being shaken enough for us to realize that it too is shakable, it is only temporal and is the creation of man not God.
And it is all going to be shaken to the ground so that the unshakable things are what last and that count. And the people who had been misled by blind leaders and false prophets are going to be shaken to the ground as their security and hopes are dashed along with the shakable things they have embraced.
Paul tells us to rejoice in tribulation (Romans 5:3). James tells us to rejoice in trials and persecution. We told to count it as pure joy (James 1:2) when we are under siege. We are told to praise God and thank Him for the good and for the bad (Philippians 3:1). We know that all things will work together for the good of those who are His true disciples (Romans 8:28), and that what we first thought was bad, we now understand was for our good and for the salvation of many (Genesis 45:5-6).
So we praise God for this blessed pandemic. We praise God in the middle of the shake-down. We know His purposes will be revealed through it all. We praise God for the threshing floor and for the winnower’s fork as it separates the grain from the chaff. Praise God when our Queen is missing and we have to come up with better strategies and practices to promote the things that last, that which is unshakable! “Dear Lord, please show me what we must change in me!”
Let me be sure and clarify a couple of things. I’m very much for and not against the saints coming together to celebrate the Almighty and His works among us. I’m for coming to celebrate what He is doing in our individual temples and lives, to come together to worship, learn, encouraged and celebrate the Mighty God and His works among us. But that coming together into large groups and big events is not the main thing, the main thing is for each individual to take up their cross, deny themselves and follow Him. Discipleship is each disciple obeying God in everything. True Kingdom Ministry is both collective and individual, with the most unshakable being the latter. We must have some centralized leadership and authority and there will be some centralization of that to equip the saints for decentralized service and ministry.
So where are you going to find the Power and Security that you need in times of shaking, pandemic and trouble? Are you looking to the shakable things that man makes or the unshakable things that God makes?
III. WHAT WILL HIS DWELLING PLACE LOOK LIKE AFTER THE SHAKING?
Much of this discussion about the post-pandemic picture of the Body of Messiah will be for future discussions. However, we can find the essential message in this time of shaking by studying Yeshua’s words to the end-time churches of Revelation 2 and 3, to us:
a. REMEMBER FROM WHERE YOU HAVE FALLEN (Rev. 2:5). You have forgotten your first love.
b. REPENT. You must repent and return to those things you did at first (the unshakable things).
c. “LET ME IN! “Look here”, (Yeshua is saying, Rev. 3:20) “I stand and knock at the door to my own church and to my own individual temples, asking to be let back in to eat and dwell together.”
We must allow Yeshua to clean house in our Individual temples and in our collective synagogues, allowing Him to drive out everything that indulges, deceives and entices us to that which is shakable. We must die to self, surrender and submit to the Lordship of Messiah.
What will the before and after look like? We will renounce any ministry or motive that is patterned after the shakable world rather than after the unshakable Christ. We will be in a season of repentance. Our lives and Kingdom ministry will have at least the following characteristics soon:
1. We will be agile and responsive to the Holy Spirit and to the needs of the Body and world around us
2. We will be simple, decentralized in ministry – mutual ministry – doing the many “one -anothers” taught by Christ and the apostles, in the power, anointing, the fruits and the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We will renounce paid ministers.
3. We will have ministry built on strong, intimate personal relationships, within and without the Body.
4. We will have centralized leadership in the local Body
5. We will be united in purpose and in Spirit
6. We will be post-denominational but complementing and completing of other parts of the Body.
7. We will look very much like the Primitive Ekklesia in the Book of Acts and Epistles.
8. We will survive and thrive under the coming persecution.
