By Tom Holland
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\nThree elderly ladies had gone shopping in a\u00a0town nearby. On the return trip, one elderly lady was driving and the other two were riding in the back seat. When the driver created a traffic problem with her slow driving, a State Trooper found an opportunity to pass several cars that were behind the slow-moving elderly lady. When he finally got directly behind her he turned on his blue lights and the elderly lady pulled over. As the Trooper came to her car she rolled down the window and said, \u201cNow officer, I know I was not speeding. I promised my children that if they would let me keep driving I would always drive the speed limit. So I don\u2019t drive one mile over or one mile under the speed limit and I know I was driving exactly what the sign said, and it said twenty miles per hour.
\n\u201cThe Trooper looked at her in disbelief and said, \u201cLady, that\u2019s not the posted speed limit sign. That\u2019s the highway number! This is highway twenty.\u201d
\nThe Trooper looked in the back seat at two very nervous ladies. One of the ladies had her purse in her lap and she was drumming on her purse with her fingers. The other lady was repeatedly pulling a handkerchief through her hand. The Trooper looked at the two women and smiled, saying: \u201cIt\u2019s all right ladies. I don\u2019t plan to issue her a citation. She was just confused about the sign. She thought she was driving what the highway sign said.\u201d
\nOne of the nervous ladies quickly exclaimed, \u201cBut officer, you don\u2019t understand. We\u2019ve just come off highway 102!
\nJesus once talked to some people who did not know how to interpret signs. He said to some religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, \u201cYou know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times\u201d (Matthew 16:3). What are the \u201csigns of the times\u201d relative to worship? \u201cWorship\u201d has, in many churches, become a thinly disguised form of entertainment. The focus is on people and what they like; whereas true worship is focused on God, Who is the audience of true worship (John 4:23,24).
\nSome churches are trying to compromise with new fangled worship services along with traditional worship services\u2014trying to please young and old alike. Will this result in another \u201cmodern speech version of Scripture,\u201d namely, \u201cone Lord, one faith, one baptism, and two worship services\u201d?
\nThere are serious problems with entertainment-worship. God is not the audience and the deep longing of the human soul for fellowship with God is denied. The reaction is predictable. One reaction is the development of the dichotomy of the \u201cspiritual\u201d from the \u201creligious.\u201d
\nAnother reaction is the \u201cabandoning of mega-churches for mini-churches\u201d (see Time magazine, March 6, 2006, pp. 46-48).
\nWhy not take the New Testament Scripture, the New Covenant, (Hebrews 8:7-12), and do what it reveals to receive salvation, to worship and to live in a way that pleases God and blesses people?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Tom Holland Three elderly ladies had gone shopping in a\u00a0town nearby. On the return trip, one elderly lady was driving and the other two were riding in the back seat. When the driver created a traffic problem with her slow driving, a State Trooper found an opportunity to pass several cars that were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1092,906,1128,991,1129,123],"class_list":["post-5144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-think-excerpts","tag-april-2006","tag-features","tag-signs","tag-tom-holland","tag-true-worship","tag-worship","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n