Our confession that we believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, is foundational to everything in Christian faith, but it is a serious error to limit God?s creativity to the original act of creation. Such a view is implicitly Deist: Deists think that God created the world once upon a time long, long ago, and now his creative work is finished. God wound up the clock and now it?s running on its own according to its own laws. Unfortunately, many Christians act as if they believed the same thing.

The Bible does not reveal a ?watchmaker god.?E It reveals a God who is inexhaustibly creative, who is continually doing new things, continually forming the world afresh, continually and necessarily involved in every moment of history and everywhere in His creation. When the world became full of violence and sin, God wiped it clean with the flood, and started over in a new world. When the nations fell at the tower of Babel, God began a new thing by calling Abram out of Ur and promising him land and an abundant seed. When Israel had suffered in Egypt for generations, God drew near to destroy the yoke of the oppressor, and Moses says in Deuteronomy that nothing like this had EVER happened before (Dt 4:34). When the tabernacle system fell apart in the days of the judges, God never told anyone to put it back together again. Instead, He waited for the time of Solomon, and told Him to build a house, not a tent, but a new thing. Later, Isaiah comes along and says to Israel about their captivity in Babylon that the Exodus was NOTHING, since something a whole lot better is going to happen: Thus says the Lord, ?Behold I do a NEW thing.?E

As Psalm 102 says, ?Of old Thou didst found the earth, and the heavens are the work of Thy hands. Even they will perish, but Thou dost endure; and all of them will wear out like a garment; like clothing Thou wilt change them, and they will be changed.?E Over an over through history, God replaces the threadbare clothing with new garments of glory and beauty, moving the world and His people from glory to glory, from one stage of maturity to the next.

Every time God does something new, there are people who want to continue the old ways, people who were ?conservative?Ein the bad sense of the word. When God changes the garments of the world, there are always people who are very attached to their old faded jeans and teeshirts.

Remember Korah? Korah said that all Israel was holy, and so everyone could draw near to an altar. And Korah was right: Until the law was brought in, sacrifice was performed by the head of the family or by one of the sons. But when God told Moses to build the tabernacle and turned the care of the tabernacle over to the sons of Aaron, that changed. They weren?t going to do things the way they had done in the good old days, and Korah and his household were swallowed alive to Sheol.

Remember Shimei? He was the man who mocked and cursed David when David fled from Jerusalem during Absalom?s rebellion. He was a Benjamite, and when Saul died, he wanted the kingdom to transfer to another Benjamite. He thought that David, from the tribe of Judah, had usurped an office that belonged to the tribe of Benjamin. He ended badly too, executed by Solomon.

Remember the high places? The high places were shrines where the people of Judah worshiped. This is the way that people had worshiped for centuries. Abraham set up altars wherever he went, and Samuel even set up an altar at his home town in Ramah. But the prophets condemned the high places. When the temple was built in the land, and was designated as the only place where sacrifices and burnt offerings were to be offered, many continued to offer sacrifice throughout the land, under every tree and on every hill. Solomon?s temple was an innovation, and the priests of the high places were preserving the old ways. This conservatism was a disaster: Israel was sent into captivity for 70 years for worshiping at high places.

Of course, not every innovation is from God, and there are good things from the past that MUST be preserved. But our temptation is in the opposite direction, both individually and in our corporate life as a church. The Lord wants us to grow, to be sanctified, and to be conformed more and more to the image of His Son. But this means change, and we don?t like to change, and so we cling to our old ways. May God grant us wisdom to discern what needs to change and what needs to be preserved; and may God grant us the humility to submit to Him as He leads us toward maturity.