but they still cannot preach unless they have somewhere a session in Arabia with'God. Satan has another device of which we seem to be woefully ignorant, he emphasizes size above sort. We Amer icans worship bigness and the church falls easily into the same idolatry. God is not primarily interested in quantity production but we are and at the expense of quality again and again. More than one church roll is padded with the names of mem bers who could not be found with a search warrant and all in a mad en deavor to keep up with the statistical race. Progress is measured by an add ing machine and in order to make the grade we aim at size with little regard to sort. Gideon’s army was useless until it was reduced to what looked like piti ful proportions. God had too many on His hands. Lenin is said to have declared that he would rather have a hundred fanatics than a thousand indifferent followers. The children of this world are wiser on this point than the children of light. The army of the Lord is cluttered with so many slackers that even the loyal soldiers are seriously hampered. A spiritual purge is in order. It would be well if we could trim off the fat to a hard core of effectives who really mean business. Our Lord was after disciples, not joiners and He lost a good many prospects we would readily take in today with no questions asked. The rich young ruler was a good catch but Jesus did not catch him. Unless we match our extensive program today with something more intensive we are going to extend the stakes of our tent until we bring down the centerpole. We are intent on expanding our borders and taking in more territory. That is good if along with it we strengthen what we have. Otherwise we gain width at the expense of depth and become shal low. Vast ingatherings bring peril if we do not properly teach, indoctrin ate, build up in the faith. The aver age church, to use A. J. Gordon’s il lustration, is often like a congested lung with only a few cells doing the breathing.” There is usually a faith ful nucleus surrounded by a mass of nominal Christians. We must fix the point of our com pass properly before we describe our circles. “ Lengthen thy cords, and strengthen thy stakes” is the Biblical injunction and if we do not strength en our stakes the length of our cords will be our undoing. We go farther only as we go deeper. Our size can be our ruin if we gain it at the ex pense of sort. These conditions we have been de scribing are due in part to the fact
that we have had much evangelism with but little revival. To be sure we use the word revival every day but real revival is not often in mind. The term is generally employed to designate a series of special meetings with a view to winning converts. That is a worthy goal but it is not re vival. Real revival—a powerful work of the Spirit among Christians, bring ing a deep sense of God, conviction, confession, cleansing from sin, is still rare. There is a wave of successful evangelism for which we thank God but a mighty moving of His Spirit within the church has not yet come on a large scale. What follows is that we have a host of believers, old and nevv, who are poor disciples. And just here emerges another wile of Satan. Following Christ used to mean a clean and com plete break with the world, the flesh and the devil. It still does in the sight of God but not in the sight of men, even of some Christians. No doubt there has been much extrem ism on the subject of separation until there has grown up in some churches cliques of “more spiritual people” .whose separation means little more than that they no longer play cards, dance, smoke or go to the movies. The reaction to that has produced a new brand of Christianity that claims to be able to have fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness and testify to Christ at the same time. There seems to have been achieved a symphony of Christ and Belial of which the New Testament knows nothing. This approach would have the rich young ruler come along without for saking his besetting sin, on the argu ment that those things will clear up as you go.” If the present state of affairs continues we may yet behold the strange sight of a professed Chris tian pickpocket who declares he can pick a pocket with one hand while with the other he deposits a gospel
tract in the other pocket. Nowhere is the New Testament clearer than in its challenge to a clean break with this world. Such a call today is very distasteful to most churchmembers so we have doctored it up until being a Christian means no radical difference in the way one lives. The outsider says he sees no difference between the average churchmember and himself. He is quite right. He doesn’t because there isn’t! Satan has had no greater success than in robbing the saints of their white garments and robing them in ambiguous gray. The early Christians were different . . . not queer but different. Their Lord had said they were in the world but not of it and they lived that way. Not being of the world they shook the world. But a lot of water has run under the bridge in the past few years. One has only to read, for instance, Marcus Rainsford’s classic, “ Our Lord Prays for His Own” to see what a change of mind has come over even Very con servative Christians in the brief span since this majestic treatment of John seventeen was written. All this suggests a final considera tion. The early Christians expected nothing of earth but much of heaven. They looked for their Lord to return. They were citizens of an invisible commonwealth and were strangers on the earth. So long as they kept their pilgrim character they were invinci ble. But Constantine professed to be come a Christian and Augustine en visioned his City of God . . . right here on earth. Instead of bringing back the King later they began to build the kingdom now. Thus there came that view of Christ’s plan and program of which A. J. Gordon said, “Though the doctrine of the Lord’s return is not ignored in this system, it is placed in such a setting as to render it quite impractical as a theme for preaching and quite inoperative as a motive for Christian living.” With such a twisted perspective it is not surprising that so much else is out of line. On the other hand, a correct understanding of the times will enable the “ children of Issachar” in any generation to “ know what Is rael ought to do.” A boy can see a whole ball game through one hole in a fence and a right view of this one doctrine will bring all others into clear view. In this hazy age the humblest Christian if he yields to the Spirit and if he knows how to pray can take his New Testament and find his way, if Bible explainers will let him alone long enough. Nor will Satan beguile him unawares for such a Christian will not be ignorant of the devil’s devices. END.
Your Prayer Requests If you would develop a living faith, you must quit working at your faith and rest in the Faithful One. We believe that there is no request too small nor too great for God if we but come to Him in child-like faith. He is able. Each morning at 9 o'clock the editorial staff of King's Business gathers for prayer. Each request that comes in is prayed for individually. We shall count it a privilege to take your request to the throne of grace. Address: The Editors, King's Busi ness, 558 So. Hope, Los Angeles 17.
MAY 1954
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