Christians in Rome were a secret society assembling before sunrise or at night in the Catacombs. That was viewed with suspicion and brought on persecution. Today we have gone all-out in the other direction in a country-club Chris tianity and by being hail-fellows- well-met with the world have lost our distinctiveness. The church has deserted the Catacombs for the Colosseum! The early church was persecut ed because evil business interests were affected by the spread of the Gospel. When our Lord cast out demons in Gadara, the hog own ers asked Him to leave because their hogs had drowned. Paul was endangered at Ephesus because the image makers had been hit by the success of his preaching. When Paul won a convert, the devil lost a customer! There are thousands o f businesses tod a y that would soon feel it if the church members o f America be gan to live their Christianity. There is no howl from the liquor business nowadays for too many church members sell, buy, drink or rent their property for the sale of the poison. We are hearing an uproar from the tobacco industry because the Health Department has exposed the dangers o f the weed. What a tumult if all church members stopped smoking, rais ing, selling tobacco! Christianity is in a sad state when the hog owners of Gadara and the image makers of Ephesus are not dis turbed. The early church was a PER SECUTED church. The church today is a POPULAR church, rich and increased with goods and needing nothing. It is the day of “ Progress” and the professing church has become progressive. But where is it going? It will end in institutional Christianity and world religions blended into one gigantic world church which our Lord will spew from His mouth. Meanwhile He is assembling a remnant who will be today as long ago a persecuted church bearing the cross, despising the shame, supported by His Word. f l i
are any prophets) are decapitated now with more finesse. Nobody wants to bear the reproach o f the ‘old rugged cross;’ we want to be “ in” with our day and indeed it is preached nowadays as the only effective way to witness to it. The new approach would bow at every pagan shrine on the premise that the end justifies the means. Ac cording to this pitch, the martyrs and reformers were mistaken: they should have avoided a head- on collision with paganism and instead engaged in dialogue. Why fuss over a pinch o f incense? Give Caesar a nod of obeisance and have a summit conference on peaceful co-existence! The early Christians were ac cused of being UNSOCIAL be cause they did not take part in the pagan festivals. Idol worship was woven into all the life o f that day and to participate in that life was to become involved in the idolatry. Paul had set a standard by refusing to eat meat offered to idols. Today we are seeing a complete reversal of that position. Christians are urged to mix and mingle freely, join its societies, go to its cocktail parties (drink ing ginger ale, o f course), and be one of the crowd on the pretext that some converts may be won by that strategy. Now o f course the salt o f the earth must be rubbed into the carcass of this decaying humanity if it is to be effective. The light must shine where the darkness is and they that are sick need the physician, not they that are well. But in mixing with the world, we tend to become OF the world. There should not be isola tion but insulation . . . but our insulation easily breaks down! The verse about our Lord’s eat ing with publicans and sinners has been stretched to cover a mul titude o f errors. In the first part of His ministry when He came first to the lost sheep of the house of Israel He shared the simple social life of the time but as He neared the cross He instituted the Lord's Supper with His disciples and after His resurrection He ate only with His own. Later, the
other deities but the Christians refused. Today in many church circles other religious teachers are placed on a footing with Jesus Christ. He is but one figure in the modem Pantheon. A promin ent book on missions says: “ The Christian must accept the possi bility that the early Christians may have been over-zealous in affirming that ‘there is no other name . . . whereby we must be saved.’ As Christians, we should go forth seeking converse with men of other faiths, not offering an absolute message.” The new trend toward universalism makes rooms for all the gods in the tem ple. As American citizens we all stand on equal ground regardless of race or religion but somehow that idea has spilled over into our thinking about our standing be fore God. Here race and back ground make no difference but re ligion does and only heart believ ers in Jesus Christ stand accepted today or any day. Only the straight and narrow way leads to life and few go in thereat. In the cities of the Roman Em pire stood statues of the Emperor and every one was expected to offer incense before that shrine as to a god. But the Christians refused because they had only one Lord and they paid for such devo tion with their lives. Today there are no statues of Roman gods to worship but th e re is another Caesar, the god of this Age, and Christians offer their in cense there. I am not speaking o f our duty as citizens and our obligation to government for there we are to render to Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, tribute and custom to whom it is due. I do mean the god o f this present world order shaping up for the last o f the Caesars, Antichrist himself. Mod em church members pay him trib ute in a thousand ways and bow to his lordship. We shall indeed be persecuted if we refuse, not by being cast to lions in the arena, but in a score of more elegant ways. John the Baptist’s head is not being brought in on a plate these days but prophets (if there
35
MARCH, 1969
Made with FlippingBook Online document