"BORDERLAND"

"My message to you is: No longer consent to listen without protest to the perversion of truth." Selected Messages Book 1, Pg. 196

Have you ever been guilty of ‘committing Corban’? I regret to say I have, and I have to add it is a very common thing among us today, especially the women.

"So what", you ask, "do you mean by ‘committing Corban?’" Well, you remember that Jesus talked about it in Mark 7:11; He pointed out to the Jews their terribly wicked and greedy practice of allowing people the option of ‘dedicating’ their property to the temple and thus they could excuse themselves from caring for their elderly or dependent parents. I can imagine that there were many destitute elderly in those days as a result of this cruel idea; and if they tried to point out to their children the duty God lays on children to their parents in the Ten Commandments, the children would just say, ‘I am doing my duty to God, I have dedicated everything I have to His service, so don’t preach to me about the law."

So how can we commit Corban today? We have many ways of doing it, and we do it whenever we allow ‘religious busy-ness’ to cut into the time we rightly owe to our family members and household duties. How frequent is the cry among us, "Oh, I have to attend the woman’s ministry meeting and I help with the teen’s group and I am president of the church greeting and social committee and I just haven’t any time!"

A minister who helps lay-ministries get started was called by a lady, eager for advice as she and her husband wanted to have their own ministry. "We really want to do something big for the Lord", she gushed, while in the background could be heard the yelling and screaming voices of children behaving in a most unchristian manner. Gently the minister tried to point out to her that, just perhaps, her own mission field was right there in her home with her own children.

Why, oh why is it, that if most of us were asked, "Who and what is most important to you?" We would unhesitatingly answer, "Why, my family, my children, they are most important to me." I have a question for you, if your children were asked what is most important to you—would they have the same answer? Or would they say with hurt sadness, "Oh, Mom and Dad, they have their ministries, they have their meetings, they care more about the church work than they care about us. They have time for all that religious stuff, but if I need to talk to them, most of the time I can’t even get a chance and if I do, they are in such a hurry that I can’t remember what to say, so I just don’t bother."

If your spouse was asked, "What is most important to your spouse?" Would they say, "Oh it’s the church stuff, they always have time for that, but when I need to have time to discuss the family needs and problems, I would have to book an appointment."

What about the elderly and infirm in your family tree? Is there a quick visit on special occasions, and a gift or flowers shoved in their face, accompanied with, "Well, I’d like to stay longer and have a chat but I have to run, I have the youth meeting this evening, you understand."

Mrs. White tells of a man they came across in her early ministry, he seemed so godly and earnest in his concern for truth and religious things. (See Life Sketches pg. 79) He associated with other men of the area and always dressed so well and had such a righteous air about him. What was the Whites’ surprise, when visiting in the home of this man and a poor neglected little boy, literally dressed in rags, attempted to get his fathers attention. The mother, slaving over the household duties looked ashamed but the man went on talking of holy things, as if the poor little ragamuffin didn’t even exist. Ellen White says:

"His sanctification had suddenly lost its charm in my eyes. Wrapped in prayer and meditation, throwing off all the toil and responsibilities of life, this man had failed to provide for the actual wants of his family or to give his children fatherly attention. He seemed to forget that the greater our love for God, the stronger should be our love and care for those whom He has given us. The Saviour never taught idleness and abstract devotion, to the neglect of the duties lying directly in our pathway."

Brothers and sisters, what in the sight of God is our #1 priority of responsibility? Have a look at this counsel, keeping in mind that this was addressed to working Pastors:

"Nothing can excuse the minister for neglecting the inner circle for the larger circle outside. The spiritual welfare of his family comes first. In the day of final reckoning God will inquire what he did to win to Christ those whom he took the responsibility of bringing into the world. Great good done for others cannot cancel the debt that he owes to God to care for his own children." The Adventist Home pg. 353

Did you see that? His duty to his family comes first! If it is true that a working minister with the responsibility of a ministering career owes his first duty to his own family, how much more do the church members owe their best and foremost duties to their own families?

"Let not the mother gather to herself so many cares that she cannot give time to the spiritual needs of her family. Let parents seek God for guidance in their work. On their knees before Him they will gain a true understanding of their great responsibilities, and there they can commit their children to One who will never err in counsel and instruction." The Adventist Home pg. 321

Notice this: "The education which the young men and women who attend our colleges should receive in the home life is deserving of special attention. It is of great importance in the work of character building that students who attend our colleges be taught to take up the work that is appointed them, throwing off all inclination to sloth. They need to become familiar with the duties of daily life. They should be taught to do their domestic duties thoroughly and well, with as little noise and confusion as possible. Everything should be done decently and in order. The kitchen and all other parts of the building should be kept sweet and clean. Books should be laid aside till their proper season, and no more study should be taken than can be attended to without neglecting the household duties. The study of books is not to engross the mind to the neglect of home duties upon which the comfort of the family depends." The Adventist Home pg. 88

You know how important study is in the Spirit of Prophecy counsels, and yet here she advises that what is even more important, is efficient and faithful care of ordinary household duties. Friends, proper attention to the daily needs of one’s family is more important in the sight of God than scholarly study, than missionary work or church busy-ness!

The 58^th chapter of Isaiah has been pointed out to us as our ‘job description’, as it were, for SDAs in the last days. Notice this in verse 7: "Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?"

What does it mean ‘thine own flesh’? Why, it means your own family members! Are you doing what you can in your family circle to encourage, uplift and guide; to shed the sunshine of God’s love into the hearts of your dear ones, to make Christianity so pleasant and comforting an influence to them that praise to God joyfully ascends to heaven from your home daily?

And what about the extended family—are there elderly family members, sick or shut in ones that you never seem to have time for? Well, rearrange your priorities because when the Chief Shepherd calls for an account in THAT day, the first thing he is going to ask is "Where is your flock? Where are the lambs I gave you?" Then He is going to ask about the rest of your family, then your neighbours and finally your influence in church and community. If you want to do a great work for God, first look around you for duties unique to you—each person has people near them that are specially dependant on them, children, the infirm, the elderly, these are your #1 priority!

You may be asking what this subject has to do with the swarming frog-spirits and the spiritualist inroads among us. Satan has a clever trick and he uses it well; he knows that God’s first and primary plan for the good and spiritual prosperity of human kind was not churches, but families! Even Israel was organized according to families. Satan knows that if he can destroy the family, he has mankind right where he wants them.

A few years ago, demon spirits developed a new concept; it was called the ‘generation gap’. While there had always been different ages living together as families, suddenly this was a big problem. All at once everybody ‘Knew’ that seniors were better off with seniors and children should be with children, teens had to associate with teens and men and women, well of course they had to have their separate ‘societies’ and clubs.

With lightning speed, these ideas galloped into the church. All at once we had separate meetings for different age-groups; then came separate church programs for the youth and then women’s ministries and men’s ministries and ‘kid’s’ ministries (What a terrible thing to call our children, ‘kids’ baby goats, animals—where is the respect for the younger members of God’s family?!)

Brothers and sisters, it was God’s plan that families stay together, worship together, vacation together, serve God together. But by dividing up the family, Satan has many ways to bring in falsehood and error and spiritualistic concepts that he would never get away with if the family was presenting to him a united front.

Way up in northern Canada, further than I have ever been, there is to be found a shaggy animal called a musk ox. They live in extended family groups and endure hardship and trials in a supportive way. Wolves love tasty musk ox calves, but they think twice about the heavy, sharp horns of the parents. When wolves attack, the adults make a circle and the calves go into the centre of the family circle. The adults face the danger and thus a circle of razor horns and stamping hooves confront the enemy. A wise wolf knows when to quit.

But just suppose, (and animals would never be stupid like this), that the wolves could convince the musk oxen that it was better for calves to group together and the male oxen to group by themselves and the females somewhere else. What would happen? Musk oxen would soon be extinct. Well, brothers and sisters, true knowledgeable, biblically grounded Seventh-day Adventists are becoming extinct for the same reasons!

Let’s talk about missions shall we? I know of a person that was all enthusiastic about going to a third-world country to work as a missionary. This is all very well, but this person also had a teen child who badly needed the counsel and encouragement of the parent. The child was placed in a boarding academy and very much neglected. Later on all this hoopla about going to a mission field was dropped, but not before great damage was done to the teen, that had felt they were of no import to the parent and that foreigners and church work were more important to the parent than the child.

Many children are growing up with resentment against religion, because church busyness, community work, ‘ministries’ and ‘missions’ have so occupied the parents’ time, that they have been shunted to one side. They may not be clothed in rags like the boy in the story, but their emotional needs are in tatters.

The Spirit of Prophecy warns us that parents cannot with impunity delegate the raising and training of their children to even Christian boarding schools. God holds parent responsible for the proper training of the children entrusted to them, and while schools and churches may be helpful, they do not excuse the parent from their duty—parenthood cannot be delegated!

And now matters are even worse! Children and teens have their own devotionals, their own Bibles, their own church meetings, their own ‘camps’, their own ‘ministries’ and so on. And parents, with all their own busy-ness, are often content to just let them go, assuming that they are being taught in the right way. Do you KNOW what your children are learning? Do you KNOW what they are doing? Are you SURE it is right according to the Bible and Spirit of Prophecy? Or do you just trust them with the ‘group’.

"Parents, what course are you pursuing? Are you acting upon the idea that in religious matters your children should be left free of all restraint? Are you leaving them without counsel or admonition through childhood and youth? Are you leaving them to do as they please? If so, you are neglecting your God-given responsibilities." The Adventist Home pg. 320

It seemed to the Jews that this idea of giving their property over to the church was a very holy and good thing to do. Wasn’t the service of God more important than family after all?

This again is a spiritualist concept; did you ever hear about ‘renouncing the world’ among Hindus and other Eastern religions? The highest religious thing they can do, is to just walk out on their families and responsibilities and go off somewhere and sit and meditate all day. God has no part in any thing like that.

Do you know what finally happened to all the riches the temple priests had piled up in Jerusalem from the practice of Corban and other schemes? Well, when Jerusalem was destroyed in AD 70, the treasure all laid up and horded away in the temple was taken to Rome by Titus and his army and given over to that sweet humanitarian—Nero. He used it to build the coliseum where for many years both Jews and Christians were tortured and killed to the delight of the populace. It was cursed money, brothers and sisters, and it was used for a cursed purpose.

What about these ‘retreats’? I can tell you, friends, we are not supposed to ‘retreat’, there’s no armour for your back—and that’s not a joke! When husbands go off to some ‘retreat’ and leave behind the family, both they and the family are more vulnerable to Satan’s attacks. And when a wife goes away to a ‘woman’s retreat’ both she and her husband are sitting ducks for ‘romantic’ episodes. Do you think that after Satan has gone to all the trouble of getting us swallowing these spiritualist concepts and setting us up for his temptations, that he is going to miss his chance to capture us?

I have heard reports about some of the stuff presented at separate retreats of men’s or women’s ministries; things have been able to be implanted in minds, that if they had been presented before a solid family group, would have been repudiated on the spot; but they are brought back and begin to work like leaven in the family.

What about the children? I know if my mother would have went away from me when I was young, to go attend some ‘woman’s retreat’, I would have thought it didn’t say much about her love for me. But we had never heard of such stuff back there! Dad might have to be away on business, but to go on a ‘vacation’ without the family? Unthinkable. We had ‘Family Camp’ and the whole family went together and did things together.

What about some of these ‘community service’ duties that people are getting involved in? I know of some SDA churches that participate in the local community soup kitchen. The church has agreed to put in so many hours of work per week in it; but who is running this charity? St. Vincent de Paul society; this is Roman Catholic. If any spiritual influence is going to be generated by this service it is going to guide people into Rome. Is it God’s will that we use our time and resources this way? I will let Him answer: "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you," 2 Corinthians 6:17

Take a look at your life; take a look at your family; take a look at what is going on in your church. Is there a multitude of ‘meetings’ of ‘ministries’ of ‘workshops’ of ‘seminars’? Are the families all split up while Mom runs to her ‘women’s ministry meeting’ and Dad goes to the men’s and the teens and children are all off to other things? If so it is time to sit down and re-evaluate your priorities, remember, God is not going to accept the excuse, ‘Well, you see, times have changes, things are different.’

You need to study together as a family the reasons why this is not God’s plan for His people. It is not easy to give up the church busy-ness and ‘ministry’ addiction, but it is important. At first your family members well may think you are around the bend, if you suggest that some of their separate meetings may not be as good as you had thought they were. At first you may have to just see what you can do yourself, to slow down and take more thought and care of those in your family circle. It may take much care and prayer to rescue what little family spirit may still be alive among you.

If you want ‘missionary projects’, chose those that the whole family can do together, that’s how it used to be. Dorcas meetings for example, used to be where the old folks, the women and the children got together and worked on projects, children learned to sew and knit and quilt and they were held in the afternoon so that Mom could be home when Dad returned from work.

Friends, the family is dying, Satan is laughing and the angels are weeping and the Holy Spirit, the gracious Angel of Mercy is soon to fold His wings and leave us to our own devices. What a terrible day that will be—if we stand there before the judgment and are told, "I gave you a job, I entrusted you with a family, but you wanted to do your own thing." You may say, "Well, Lord, I had this ministry and we held these workshops and retreats and we did all those hours of community and volunteer service, aren’t You pleased Lord?"

But somehow, I don’t think so—I don’t think so. "But the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." Matthew 8:12