We will let the Lord divide the sheep from the goats but He evidently left it up to us to look out for the wolves! After all, when it comes to the Gospel of Christ, a man ought to be clear enough that no laboratory test would be necessary to find out what he is. It was never necessary to catechize Paul to find out whether he was for or against. No one had to call in a surveyor and take measurements to determine on which side of the fence Luther and Knox were. When a man is so hazy about anything as clear as the Gospel that he must be examined to see whether his sheepskin is real or borrowed, he has already established his identity. It might be well to display some sheephides removed from ravening wolves in the church before they further destroy the flock of God. Another type of ministerial misfit might be called DAVID IN SAUL’S ARMOR. You will re member that when the shepherd boy started out to meet Goliath, King Saul wanted to outfit him with the royal panoply of war. But David said, “I can not go with these for I have not proved them.” He decided that he had better be natural and proceed with sling and stones instead of kingly armor. We have come to a day of regimentation and standardization when preachers, like everything else, are turned out by mass production. Saul’s armory is working overtime and ministers are fit ted with ready-made outfits but not many Goliaths are falling on the field of battle. Ready-made clothes are popular with people of average size but once in a while God raises up a David who fares better in his own garb. Saul’s armor to him is only excess baggage and he lets Goliath furnish the sword for his own execution. This is irritating to those who are in the armor business. Davids who prefer sling and stone to standard equipment are not popular at Saul’s head quarters. But history proves that while Saul has slain his thousands David has slain his tens of thou sands. To keep the record straight, God has indeed used men in armor. God did not use David merely because David refused Saul’s panoply but because he was dependent upon God. The main lesson in the incident is, don’t imitate. Use the means most natural to you. The note that needs to be sounded is “B-natural.” If you don’t, you will B-Flat! One thinks of the day Ahab and Jehoshaphat prepared to go up against Ramoth-Gilead. Four hundred regimented hirelings of Baal had prophe sied in unison, “Go up and prosper!” It sounded too unanimous to Jehoshaphat. He asked, “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we may enquire of him ?” When the messenger was sent for Micaiah, he said, “Behold now, the words of the prophets declare good unto the king with one mouth: let thy word, I pray thee, be like the word of one of them, and speak that which is good.” In
be a black sheep! While we may misjudge once in a while, there is greater danger if we sink into an amiable indifference as though the whole thing did not matter much. What is mistaken for charity may be only a light attitude toward evil. “Love thinketh no evil” indeed but on the other hand we are to abhor that which is evil, abstain from the very appearance of it, remembering that the fear of the Lord is to hate evil, not tolerate it. I know that this is an age of spy-hunting and sometimes the innocent party is smeared. But there ARE enemies of our nation, termites who have already gone too far. And there are “enemies of the cross of Christ” who have slipped into our schools and churches. They are all the more dangerous be cause sometimes such wolves act more like sheep than some sheep do! Their culture, manners and morals put us to shame. It makes us look un-Chris- tian if we point them out. But the New Testament abounds in terrific warnings against false teachers. One has only to leaf through it to find these red lights on page after page. If we are to try the spirits, know false teachers by their fruits, reject heretics after first and sec ond admonition, not receive them into our houses nor bid them Godspeed, then certainly we are not to let the flock be devoured for fear we will mistake a sheep for a wolf. While it is possible to cry “Wolf!” when there is no wolf, there is far greater danger of crying “Peace, when there is no peace.”
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JUNE, 1968
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