The apathy theme

Last Sunday the pastor announced that the two missionaries who had given their reports during the worship service would stay behind in the fellowship room for anyone who wanted to hear more about their work in India, and perhaps to support them.

I wasn't going to stay. If you were to ask me why I wasn't going to stay, all I can tell you is that I didn't feel like it; I felt like going home. It's a nice thing to stay after church and make people feel welcome, but I went eenie-meenie-miney-moe in my head and decided that lunch sounded better than walking all the way to the other side of the church building to talk to people I don't know.

For one thing, my salvation didn't depend on it: I'm saved; leave me alone.

And if not staying is a sin, it's a little sin, easily forgiven and covered by the Blood. In short, I didn't want to go because I didn't have to go.

But then I thought about Judges, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Haggai. Do you know what sin God inveighs against in all these books? Yep, the sin of apathy. The sin of indifference. The sin of losing interest in God's work, and slacking off. We are not talking about murder or adultery here, or even grumbling or complaining.

In Judges, the Israelite juggernaut that was so vital in Joshua's day grinds to a trickle by the end of the chapter one. The various tribes assigned to take out the Canaanites on their respective parcels of land find excuses for defeat.

Much later, around 536 B.C., the exiles to Babylon return to the Promised Land under the edict of Cyrus, and at first they are gung-ho to rebuild the altar and start on construction of the temple. But soon apathy sets in, and the slightest opposition from their neighbors chokes the project. Haggai and Zechariah urge the people to repent and get back to the business of restoring the temple.

We must have a dangerous streak in us, because the author of Hebrews is still warning about sluggishness centuries later (Hebrews 6:12).

It is true that we are saved by grace and not by works. But the Lord everywhere warns that if we take that to mean permission to coast to the finish line, He will not be pleased.