AH, THE GOOD OLD DAYS

Ah, the good old days - you know when everything was better and didn't cost near as much as the "stuff we got coming at us today." Everything was simple, perhaps uncomplicated would be a better word. "There were eight baseball teams in the American League and eight in the National League, and I knew 'em all, even the guys who didn't play much," says my friend Marty. It seems like today's world has more of everything, and just about every state has a sports' franchise. We don't know the names of all the players anymore - there are too many of them. "It's frustrating," the sports fans say.

Nothing complicated about television back in the "good old days" either. You had three or four channels, and all you had to do was move the rabbit ears every once in a while to get a clear picture. Calling your bank on the phone was no problem either; you were greeted by a friendly voice who spoke perfect English who took care of your need right over the phone. Now, it's "press one for English." Yeah, the good old days sure were great and uncomplicated. Even the Israelites after their Exodus from Egypt longed for the good old days of slavery back in Egypt (Numbers 11:5,6). "The food was great," they said, "so we had to do some work," they reminisced. "The way it used to be always seems better" goes all the way back to the Exodus.

People don't change much, but what does trouble us is change itself. Maybe it's because of the uncertainty of the future, a preference for staying in our comfort zones, or having our security threatened. Whatever the reason, we are fearful of what the future holds for us. The "future" can be defined as traveling through uncharted waters. The future is a place where we are going but haven't been to yet.

Christians and non-Christians are different in a lot of ways, but when it comes to change, they are alike in some ways. One of them is the difficulty in dealing with changes that take place in their church. Two old friends of mine will not go into their church service until the singing stops, "they changed from singing the great old hymns to them ungodly choruses." They proclaim to all who will listen, "we used to sing the old hymns, but the new pastor wants that contemporary Christian music that ain't nothing but self-glorifying rock 'n roll." Some churches have gone to two services on Sunday to try to solve this problem, one to sing the old hymns and another for those who prefer the contemporary Christian music.

Going from the KJV to a modern-day translation is for many believers change that crosses the line. This goes beyond a mere change; it is the tampering with the faith itself. As one lady said, "If the King James Version was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it's good enough for me." Sooner or later the KJV is going to go the way of the dinosaur; it will probably be sooner rather than later.

Life is filled with a never-ending cycle of change; meeting the on-slaught of change is not a simple undertaking.

I Thess. 5:21 - "Test all things, hold fast to what is good."

Is it worth bleeding over? Then we challenge it; if it is good, then we acquiesce to it.

"It's not so much what the church doesn't know as it is what they think they know that just ain't so." Unknown author