Get Out of the Past!

“Say not, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.” – Ecclesiastes 7:10
 
“Oh, that we were still living in the ‘Good Ole Days’”, people often remark.  This is a common theme often related to every part of life.  Patriots want the “Good Ole Days”, businessmen desire the “Good Ole Days”, older people reflect on the “Good Ole Days” and I’ve often heard preachers in the pulpit reflect on how good things used to be.  Living in the past is a sure fire recipe for failure in the present.  “Nobody wants the truth anymore” pastors often say.  But a man that recognizes human depravity as taught in God’s Word should realize that nobody has ever naturally wanted it.  “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned” (1 Corinthians 2:14).  This whole “Good Ole Days” perspective is not a wise one.  I say that by the authority of our text verse.  We would do well to cast such a perspective aside and keep plugging along with the instructions we have been given. 
 
It should be mentioned that American Christians are spoiled – all of us.  We see the world from a completely different viewpoint than pretty much all believers of the past.  We’ve had freedom to worship and live out our faith in a way that the vast majority of Christians in the past and present (in other countries) simply know nothing about.  We have expectations of what is “due” to us as “Christian citizens of America”.  Because of this, we have taken to fighting more political battles than we ever have fought spiritual ones.  Historians that write of our generation will write of a generation that sought more change through the voting booth than the Gospel.  Our freedoms have made us lazy in carrying out the Great Commission and passionate about restoring Americanism – the “Good Ole Days” of America’s past.  We want to “Make America Great Again” while our neighbor dies apart from Christ.  And this entire mindset has caused us to see revivals and excitement surrounding God’s Word as a thing of the past.  If we aren’t cautious, our lack of zeal concerning the last instructions Jesus gave His church will continue to see our churches closing their doors.  Our view of the world is skewed and it needs corrected 50 years ago. 
 
For those who may not know, the Book of Ecclesiastes is written to us that we may have a more spiritual viewpoint of what’s going on around us.  The writer is constantly reminding his readers not to have an “under the sun” perspective on life (Ecclesiastes 1:3).  That is, quit only thinking about things on planet Earth (under the sun).  God’s plan is bigger than what you can see and your allegiance to God is greater than your surroundings.  It’s like when Paul reminded the Philippian believers that our “citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20) or when he told the Colossian saints “Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth” (Colossians 3:2).  As believers, we should see more going on than what our eyes perceive around us every day.  Perhaps we are so busy laying up treasures here on Earth that we get too caught up in the daily affairs of this life.  We must always remember, “…he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4). 
 
We need to accept this truth - living in the past is driven by an earthly mindset.  Practically, at least, it reduces the power of God to an age gone by.  The sovereignty of God becomes a doctrine we believe on paper but rarely apply in real life.  There was a mighty movement of God in the past…somewhere.  But we seem to have this idea that He cannot move today.  Look, 1st century Christians faced a depraved world much like our own.  The Roman Christians under Nero lived under the dominion of a monarch who was reportedly a twice-married homosexual who relished the opportunity to murder Christians.  He blamed them for everything that went wrong under his reign.  First century believers were tortured and martyred in every imaginable way.  First century Christians literally faced rulers and laws that forbade them from doing the very work Jesus gave His church to do.  And again, death was promised to those that broke such laws.  That’s the “Good Ole Days”.  If you trace church history through the centuries following, you’ll find a similar theme.  That’s the “Good Ole Days”.  We see persecution as being forced to bake a cake for a homosexual couple or not allowing us to buy a machine gun.  What a “Woe is me” perspective we often have.  While the first century Christians were concerned they would become an “event” in the Colosseum where lions were unleashed on them, we are concerned that we may not have tax-exempt status anymore.  Folks, our perspective is skewed.  The folks living in the “Good Ole Days” would have loved to live in our day. 
 
For what it’s worth, God worked mightily in the past centuries under which Christians were heavily persecuted.  They didn’t quit doing what they’d been instructed to do even in the face of such atrocities.  I fear sometimes that we are so caught up in American rights that we forget we still live in, perhaps, the most free society that has ever been for the propagation of the Gospel.  I see churches today where we are bold to speak on the truths of God’s Word…as long as it’s inside the four walls of a church.  But the moment we walk outside, “nobody wants the truth anymore” so we don’t even offer it.  The world around us is perishing from the disease of sin.  Yet, here we are with the antidote and we keep it to ourselves.  Paul saw the wrath of God on a wicked society (Romans 1:18-32) and this drove him to preach the Gospel (Romans 1:15-17).  Why does it not do the same for us?  Perhaps we are living in the past.  Perhaps we believe that God is done working.  Perhaps we’ve lost our love for our fellow man! We should consider that maybe God has chosen to use stones to carry on His work because we are failing to do what we’ve been called to do (Luke 19:40). 
 
There is another sense in which we live in the past.  Oftentimes, those of us that lived in gross immorality simply cannot shake what we did before we were saved.  Whether it was partying and carousing or whether it was abominable acts, we are unable to serve God today because yesterday is still bogging us down.  I’m certain that the enemy is pleased with any attitude that would keep us from serving God today.  Paul certainly had sins in his past.  He was a murderer.  And if that wasn’t enough, he was murdering the people of God…Bible believing Christians, if you will.  Yet, Paul had the most widespread personal ministry of anybody that has ever lived.  How so?  He told the Philippian saints, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way” (Philippians 3:13-15a).  You cannot change the past.  It’s done.  It is forever written.  But you can affect your future service for Christ.  And that begins today. 
 
How are we to live then?  I mean if the past was the “Good Ole Days” and tomorrow seems bleak, what are we to do?  Our Lord gives us some pretty plain instruction on this very subject.  Jesus said, “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matthew 6:34).  Live for today.  You cannot change the past.  You cannot live in the past – “Good Ole Days” or not.  You may not be here for the future.  We simply do not know what tomorrow may bring.  But today…we are here.  You can affect right now.  You can serve God right now.  You can do what you’ve been instructed to do right now.  Whether churches or individual believers, we need to get busy doing what God has called us to do.  Right now, as believers living in America, we have great freedoms that most Christians have never been afforded.  But don’t let a fight for those freedoms take over your life to the point that you aren’t fighting the good fight of faith (1 Timothy 6:12).  Read God’s Word and do what it tells you to do.  This needs to be our goal and focus.  As our text verse implies, it’s easy to see today as the hardest time that there’s ever been to live.  The “Good Ole Days” are past and the future may be bright.  But today, it’s tough.  That simply is an unwise assessment.  And again, it is a poor application (at best) of God’s sovereignty.  If we truly believe He is sovereign, then He is sovereign today just as He was yesterday.  And, He is sovereign outside the church doors just like He is inside.  Let us stop dwelling on the past.  God has sovereignly placed you and I in this exact moment.  Let us use it to the glory of God (1 Corinthians 10:31). 





Originally published in Baptists for Liberty, October/November 2016 edition.