Special July Feature Article / by
TiJ&at IRectc
down (and now, as then, the showdown must come before the showers!) many church-members would decide not to attend the meetings. They will turn out for suppers and shows, for evangelistic meetings and study courses, but if called upon to declare themselves on discipleship and obedience, and if challenged to get right with God and man, most members of any church will be conspicu ous by their absence. As long as we refuse to face the real issue, all this talk about spiritual awakening, religious revival, and moral renewal is a pious dodge, beating around the bush, play ing on the periphery of the problem. We are ready to do anything and everything except the first thing that God requires; namely, to confess and forsake our sins. Nothing is plainer in the Word of God than the emphasis I am trying to make here. It is declared in that standard revival text, 2 Chronicles 7:14, with which almost every preacher begins a series of revival sermons. The revival under Hezekiah started at the top, in the upper brackets among God’s people. Joel set a pattern by calling all ages to repent with genuine sorrow for sin in a sweeping, weeping, reaping revival. It is too bad that most of us know nothing of Joel except Peter’s quo tation in his Pentecost sermon. Someone has said that the greatest mission field today is the membership of the average church. That may seem an overstatement, but remember that there are a hundred million church members in this country. Millions of them need to be saved for they show no evidence of regenera tion. It is ten times more difficult to reach them, because having been inoculated with a mild form of religion, they are almost immune to the real thing. The devil is never happier than when unsaved people join a church. Most of these millions belong either to the Christmas- and-Easter, holly-and-lilies crowd or to the multitude of Sunday morning-glories who never bloom at night. Then we have the faithful few who do most of the work. A real revival should start with the faithful few, spread to the Sunday morning crowd, then beyond them to the Chnstmas-and-Easter crowd, and finally to the un churched. One thing is certain: we do not have to go to Africa to find a mission field. Look around on Sunday morning and behold fields white unto harvest. Nor do we have to go to South America to find the equivalent of Auca Indians. They are all around us, just as ignorant of God, just as lost. There is a mission field across the sea but there is also another one across the street, and what a fish-pond there is on Sunday morning in any church! Let us never forget that we are fishers of men, not keepers of an aquarium! I have never been impressed with the definition that a church is a hospital for sick Christians. There are sick Christians aplenty in it, and it is the business of the church to minister to them. The normal thing in a hos pital is sick people, and this definition would make sick Christians the normal thing in a church. It may be true that there are no perfect Christians, but we should be healthy Christians. We accept the subnormal today as
'JT' rom almost every direction and from most unexpected J*- sources we are hearing and reading about the need for a spiritual awakening. Not only preachers but also politicians have found that it makes a good punch-line. We are in desperate straits nowadays, drowning men p-abbing at straws, and nobody will quarrel with the idea that we need renewal of some kind. Of course, the revival that some have in mind might be a disaster if it ever came. A wave of religious enthusiasm that fails to get at the bottom of the trouble would be like spread ing cold cream on cancer. Even in church circles, amidst all of our talk about revival, I am distressed about what one does not hear. There is much talk about evangelism, and that is good. We hear of great drives to gain more church-members. But we listen and read in vain for a call to repentance among Christians in the churches. For many years I have gone up and down the land preaching in churches and to the churches. I am amazed at how few church-members know what a revival really is. When I begin a week of meetings, it is assumed that I may preach a sermon or two to the church members but I am expected to start by Tuesday, at least, going after unsaved people and church prospects. Preaching all week to the church is unheard-of. If one calls on church- members to confess and to forsake sin, to give up the world, to make Jesus Lord and to be filled with the Spirit, he is stared at as if he were preaching some strange new doctrine. If, like Elijah on Carmel, he calls for a show-
26
THE K IN G 'S BUSINESS
Made with FlippingBook - Online Brochure Maker