After a busy day, when both Judy and I wearied and worn, we watched a recording of the pilot to a new TV show. The ads I had seen made it sound intriguing, but it turned out to be just another medical show. After an interesting beginning, the writers introduced an unmarried but pregnant, very sick, dying woman. At that point, the main characters started mumbling a bunch of words which were supposed to be their diagnoses of the woman’s problem. Not only were they using words I had never heard before, but the actors were mumbling them so quickly, I’m reasonably sure they had no idea what they talking about, and they didn’t know how to pronounce them. Fifteen minutes into the show, I turned to Judy and told her I wasn’t impressed, but she suggested we watch this one episode to the end to see how they cured the poor woman. Then, in the last moments of the show, the producers put the rotten cherry on top of their barrel of rotten apples, by revealing which of their characters was the requisite homosexual for the series. Needless to say, we won’t be watching any more.
I have said all of that, because I want to talk about another sick individual, using some words which you may have never heard before. But I’ll try not to mumble…. I’m seeing a speech therapist. Our sick person is a Christian, so even if he dies, we can be sure that we’ll meet again in heaven. But we don’t want him to die. We want him to live and to flourish in good health. We want him to serve beside us, offering up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Furthermore, we don’t want to catch what he’s carrying.
The spiritual doctors have run their tests on this poor fellow, and they have diagnosed his condition. There are some technical terms to describe his problem, but with a little consideration, we should be able to figure them out. This person is suffering from aphasia, atrophy, anorexia, apathy, agitation and asceticism.
One of the first signs of this Christian’s problem was his ANOREXIA.
“Anorexia” is an eating disorder manifesting itself in several ways, but it is primarily seen in not eating – properly. We’ve probably all experienced it – it is quite possible for a Christian to loose his spiritual appetite. For some people it is no appetite for anything – from soup to nuts, but for others it is just for some things. He may still enjoy sweets, while having no taste for meats and vegetables. He may relish chocolate or cheese flavored chips, but he says he has no desire for steak and potatoes. He doesn’t mind having fellowship with other Christians at their barbeques and picnics – but not in church. He may like sermons on prophecy, but not messages on church doctrine or missions, or holiness. He has a taste for some exciting things, but not for practical, nutritious everyday Christian living. Or – he might not enjoy the Bible at all, refusing to ever return to the spiritual dinner table.
This person is going to slowly shrivel up and effectively die. Just as our bodies need fuel, so do our souls. That fuel might be served in various ways – in fellowship, in group prayer and in worship. But the primary meal of day comes in the form of devouring and digesting the Word of the Lord. Christian, “as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.” Job said in defense before his friends, “Neither have I gone back from the commandments of (God’s) lips; I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food.” And David testified, “How sweet are thy words unto my taste. Yea, sweeter than honey to my mouth.”
Was there a time in your Christian life, when you were more hungry for righteousness, for the Word, and for the preaching of the Word than you are today? If, today, you have less appetite for the things of God than in the past then you are not well. This lack of hunger is a symptom of spiritual decline; of spiritual disease. Even if a person must force himself to the dinner table, and force himself to eat, if the meal has been well-prepared, the appetite of the patient should improve. If not, this may be the symptom of a fatal malady.
Another symptom of decline is spiritual ATROPHY.
In the medical world, “atrophy” refers to the loss or shrinking of tissue due to disease or disuse. When I was a child, I was run over by a car – I literally had the tire of a car run over my leg, breaking it. For the next three months I was in a cast from my toes to my chest. (This was in the prehistoric days.) For a quarter of a year, I couldn’t go sledding with my friends; there was no killer dodge ball and no baseball. When the cast was finally removed, my legs had atrophied to the point of utter uselessness. Not only couldn’t I walk, I couldn’t even lower my legs down to the floor from the couch or lift them up again. They were useless tentacles of bone wrapped in a bit of thin flesh.
And the same thing can happen spiritually. Our spirituality can shrivel; it can atrophy. Time and time again, people have told me that missing a single set of Sunday services, can make returning the following Sunday more difficult. When there isn’t a physical reason keeping someone from serving the Lord or enjoying the fellowship of other Christians, a dozen other things make it harder to get back to work.
Some Christians learn to fly with the angels, rejoicing in worship, singing God’s praises, soaring into heaven. But then they permit some aspect of the world to replace the things of the Lord. They feed their fatty flesh while starving the muscle of the spirit. And almost overnight they feel their spiritual strength waning. Early in their Christian lives, they go to the spiritual gymnasium every day, but then they miss a week, and on that first day back, they feel the regression. The body of the child of God is a finely tuned instrument, but when it sits around without being used it goes flat – it falls out of tune. The same is true of the spirit.
The moment we recognize that our spiritual muscles aren’t what they used to be, and there isn’t a good explanation or reason for it, then we need to do something to correct the problem. Maybe it is more good solid food. Maybe it is spiritual vitamins. Maybe it is spiritual exercise. It is never too late to begin a good regimen to restore that old vitality – door-knocking, attending special prayer meetings, volunteering for some neglected aspect of the church ministry. Spiritual atrophy is a serious, serious disease among the saints of God.
And – when a Christian becomes APATHETIC, it is a symptom of even more serious disease.
When we are less troubled about sin than we used to be, we are moving nearer to accepting that sin. There was a time when the least little sin disturbed us – grieved us – perhaps even made us weep a bit. But lately we can digest it better than we can the rebukes and exhorations of the Word against that sin. There was a time when we were troubled that we didn’t spend much time in prayer, but now we find it hard to make time in our busy lives to pray as we know we should.
And thanksgiving? We have gotten to the place where we assume God will bless us – or He should bless us. And only when something miraculous has been poured upon us do we praise the God of miracles. Only once a year do we take a moment to express our gratitude to God for His bounties and grace. Apathy can take various forms – less diligence against sin, less prayer and less thankfulness.
You and your children were never guilty of this, but you’ve probably seen it in the children of others… The family is at the dinner table, and Mom has dished a number of items onto junior’s plate. But rather than eating, he begins to play with his food – pushing the peas around, squashing down the mashed potatoes over and over again, pretending that the pieces of meat are boats floating in the gravy.
This sick Christian does the same thing with the things of God – such as his behavior in church services. He doesn’t throw his voice in among the others with an effort to blow the roof off the auditorium. He frowns when he hears someone say “amen.” He doesn’t care about encouraging a message in that way. And he doesn’t try to get to know his brothers and sisters in the congregation, because he doesn’t really care who they are or what struggles they might have in life. Apathy.
A fourth symptom of spiritual decline might be described as AGITATION.
Agitation is an actual medical condition that involves a state of extreme restlessness, or inner tension. I pulled this up directly from the first note in my google search. “Agitation can cause a person to feel tense, irritable, confused, or excited. Symptoms include, an inability to relax; becoming easily annoyed; eagerness to argue. Pacing, rocking, or fidgeting, disorganized thoughts and the loss of control of actions.”
I can’t tell you how many times during my five decades in the ministry I have seen symptoms of this disease. Some people attend our services for years and have no problem with what we believe and preach. But then, all of a sudden, something knocks their feet right out from under them. Doctrinally, they begin pacing and fidgeting, becoming easily annoyed when certain subjects come up. All of a sudden there comes an eagerness to argue, where it didn’t exist before. Other Christians have been members of one church for ten or twenty years, and all of a sudden they become restless, and start looking for “something new.” Rather than dealing with the disease, they think they can run from it.
Another problem with some Christians is ASCETICISM.
I’ll have to twist the definition of this word to make my point, but I’ll admit to it up front. There are some Christians who forget that we all have a job to do with a commission from the Lord. “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” They forget that they are “debtors both to the wise and to unwise,” to share with them the gospel. They think that only Paul has been commissioned to “to open their eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God.”
A very common malady among the saints of God could be described as: “Let Joe do it.” Too many of God’s people become ascetics, moving their beds into cloisters or cells in their monastery. They think that the Lord is pleased with them so long as they are victorious over the temptations they once had out there in the world. They believe they are spiritually healthy if once in a while, in the quiet of their austere monastery, they pray for the Lord’s blessings on the missionaries and evangelists out there in the world. But the Lord is not pleased with asceticism – spiritual or otherwise. We may not be OF the world any longer, but He has left us IN the world to be His ambassadors.
I’ll quit with one more symptom of spiritual decline: I’ll call it APHASIA.
“Aphasia” is another actual medical problem. It is a speech disorder that makes it difficult to communicate with others. It is not damage to the throat or larynx, or any of the other parts of speech like the tongue or lips. It is deeper than these things, being linked to those parts of the brain which control speech. This is a Christian problem in two areas, both of which are linked to other maladies I’ve mentioned earlier. The first is in sharing the gospel, or sharing one’s testimony with others who need it hear it. When they are with someone who has opened the door to an opportunity for evangelism, the Christians’ heart tells him he needs to speak up. But then something in his brain – that fleshly thing inside his skull – malfunctions, keeping his tongue from its Christian responsibility. Sometimes it is his pride, or his fear of this person, or he thinks of what he might lose if he speaks up. Aphasia kicks in and he’s unable to communicate.
And then there is the more religious aspect of the disease. The second form of Christian “aphasia” is a lack of a prayer life – a lack of communication with the Lord. The man’s brain tells him that he’s too busy to talk with the Lord. He has too many responsibilities to waste his time with the infinite God. Or something foolish tells him he’s got everything under control, and there is no need to get God involved. These are problems of the heart and mind, rather than with the tongue or larynx. They are debilitating problems, which need to be addressed.
Conclusion:
From time to time we need to take our spiritual temperature; we need to evaluate our spiritual condition. Am I has healthy as I was a year ago, three months ago, ten years ago? If there has been a decline, what do I suspect is the cause? Is there a cancer I need to take to the Great Physician for removal and regular Biblical radiation?
Remember, when one member suffers the whole body suffers. Not only do we need the blessing of good heath, but others also need us to stay well. And – when we are spiritually healthy, it automatically brings glory to our spiritual Physician, the Holy Spirit.