A few weeks ago, when our grandson was about 27 months old, we noticed him doing something incredibly cute. He had put on his daddy’s flip-flops (a size 12) and was proudly walking around the room with a big smile on his face. He has become a great, natural imitator of what he hears us say and sees us doing. This got me to thinking that even we adults usually imitate someone.
Once Israel was in their promised land, “the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, Nay; but we will have a king over us; that we also may be like all the nations…” (I Sam. 8:19-20). This was an unwise decision on the part of Israel. God had been governing them through a series of judges who represented the Lord. These judges certainly were not perfect, but this had been God’s design. Jehovah’s response to their virtual demand to Samuel to give them a king was, “they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them” (I Sam. 8:7).
This pattern of imitating the world later worsened. “They rejected His [the Lord’s] statutes, and His covenant…and became vain, and went after the heathen that were round about them, concerning whom the Lord had charged them, that they should not do like them” (II Kings 17:15). Throughout the Old Testament, God’s people frequently became too close and familiar with the lost people around them. In the case of Lot, he first pitched his tent toward Sodom but before long he was living within the city and had completely lost his testimony. In other instances, Israel made treaties with the heathen nations, began to intermarry with them, and in short order began to worship their false gods. They were imitating the wrong things and the wrong people.
This same danger is still entrapping many believers in our day. Far too often, we are unduly influenced by the way the lost in our society talk, dress, think, and by what they embrace as acceptable, even when these things are clearly displeasing to the Lord. We believers are too often caught in the trap of being overly occupied with sports, recreation, leisure time, and hobbies to the neglect of spiritual things and the Lord’s local work. The Lord has something far better in mind for us, and someone far better to imitate.
The Lord tells us in Romans 12:2: “Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” As believers, our lives are to be so transformed that there is a marked difference between us and the unsaved. Our standard ought not to be what the world is doing, or what the latest fad dictates. Our standard should be what would please and honor the Lord. There is no virtue in being weird, strange, or odd. These things do not enhance our testimony or effectiveness as a representative of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nonetheless, we believers should be different from the world in many ways.
Believers do have someone they should be imitating. We should “mark them [godly believers] which walk so as ye have us for an ensample” (Phil. 3:17). Godly, knowledgeable Christians who followed
Paul as he followed Christ and are fervent in their walk with Christ are the ones we should imitate.
To the Reader:
Some of our Two Minutes articles were written many years ago by Pastor C. R. Stam for publication in newspapers. When many of these articles were later compiled in book form, Pastor Stam wrote this word of explanation in the Preface:
"It should be borne in mind that the newspaper column, Two Minutes With the Bible, has now been published for many years, so that local, national and international events are discussed as if they occurred only recently. Rather than rewrite or date such articles, we have left them just as they were when first published. This, we felt, would add to the interest, especially since our readers understand that they first appeared as newspaper articles."
To this we would add that the same is true for the articles written by others that we continue to add, on a regular basis, to the Two Minutes library. We hope that you'll agree that while some of the references in these articles are dated, the spiritual truths taught therein are timeless.