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Christ A Kite
Whom Men Fly,
Not The Rock
Upon Whom We Stand
By Wellington H. Smith, Jr.
Here is a striking quotation:
“There is an Athenian love of novelty abroad,
and a morbid distaste for anything old and regular, and in the beaten paths
of our forefathers. Thousands will crowd to hear a new voice and a new
doctrine without considering for a moment whether what they hear is true.
There is an incessant craving after any teaching, which is sensational,
and exciting, and rousing to the feelings. There is an unhealthy appetite
for a sort of spasmodic and hysterical Christianity. . . .The whole tone
of men’s minds on what constitutes practical Christianity seems lowered.
The old golden standard of the behavior, which becomes a Christian man
or woman, appears debased and degenerated. The tendency of modern thought
is to reject dogmas, creeds, and every kind of boundary in religion. It
is thought grand and wise to condemn no opinion whatsoever, and to pronounce
all earnest and clever teachers to be all these. Mighty foundation-stones
are coolly tossed overboard like lumber, in order to lighten the ship of
Christianity, and enable it to keep pace with modern science. Stand up
for these great verities and you are called narrow, illiberal, old-fashioned,
and a theological fossil!”
When do you think these words were written? Were they penned
by a faithful modern preacher, lamenting the glitz and guile of the contemporary
Church Growth Movement? In fact, the words were written by J.C. Ryle more
than a century ago. The pressure upon Christians in general, and preachers
in particular, to be contemporary in the name of making the Gospel relevant
is not a new one. The apostle Paul, knowing that preachers in every generation
from his time to the end of the world would face that pressure, wrote to
counter it. The apostle had himself determined to preach nothing in cosmopolitan
Corinth except Christ crucified (1 Corinthians 2:1-2). He had reasoned
with the sophisticated philosophers in Athens, not by offering to them
a novel teaching for which they hungered, but by declaring to them the
ancient truths of God as Creator and Sustainer of life, of man being a
sinner in need of salvation, and of Christ being Redeemer and Judge (Acts
17:16ff). Accordingly, Paul set out a singular pastoral strategy for all
ministers to follow. Preachers are to preach the Word (2 Timothy 4:1-5).
They are not to analyze, anticipate, follow or set fads. Preachers are
to preach and faithfully seek to apply the whole counsel of God whether
men will listen and respond favorably or not.
Yet, to hear many in the church today, one would think
that Christ is not a rock upon whom we stand so much as a kite upon whom
we fly, blown by the ever changing fads and fashions of these modern times.
Today, unless we are conversant in the jargon of demographics, small and
large group dynamics, homogeneous units, fund-raising and membership expanding
drives, celebratory worship, and church architecture which aims to employ
family life centers and food courts as tools to evangelize sinners and
edify saints, we are made to feel that we are not only out of touch with
the contemporary world, but are marginalized in the church, and are sinning
against the Lord.
It has been said that the ABCs of success in today’s churches
are: attendance, building, and cash – all in large quantities. As pervasive
as such a value system is, one is struck with how devoid the Scriptures
are of such considerations. Not a word in the New Testament is written
about large church edifices or budgets. At times notice is given that great
numbers were added to the ancient church. Yet, as much, if not more, attention
in the Word is given to the conversion of single individuals, such as the
Ethiopian eunuch, and to the nurture of small but faithful churches, such
as the one at Phillipi. We must resist the pressures to let personal values
achieve ascendancy over objective virtues; to let the building of material
edifices and transient programs eclipse the building of character in immortal
souls; and to let a fascination with what is new replace faithfulness to
what is true.
Men in droves may want what is novel. That does not give
us justification to disguise or deny the fact that the faith once delivered
to the saints is ancient, though ever living and relevant. The mercies
of our Lord are truly new every morning. Nevertheless, Christ himself is
the same yesterday, today and forever.
I fear that many in the church today fancy themselves
wiser and more caring than Jesus. Men today, being rich in the trinkets
of this world, refuse, as did the rich young ruler, to renounce such rubbish
and follow Jesus. Yet, whereas our Lord was grieved and let the rich young
ruler go his way, many in our day would run after his modern counterparts,
endeavoring to refashion the claims of Christ in terms more amenable to
the hankering of those heading away from the Lord of life and glory. The
problem with such endeavor – and it is a fatal flaw – is that men are competent
to fashion only false gods. Neither is our Lord nor is his Gospel raw material
to be worked into the shape we desire. We, not he, need changing.
I know a man who was interviewed by a committee to determine
whether he would preach for a church. He was asked what programs he would
offer to make the church contemporary and appealing to the young and the
unchurched. He replied that his work was to preach the Word saturated in
prayer, as that is the only strategy God has given to evangelize those
in darkness and to build up the children of light. He was told that he
would fail in the ministry if he did not modify his naive thinking. He
replied that he would rather fail while faithfully preaching the whole
counsel of God than to succeed by doing anything else. Far from that man’s
ministry being a failure, it has for nearly two decades produced some of
the richest, strongest, most tenderly loving, faithful, and fruitful believers
in the world today. While that ministry has gone on largely out of season,
there are signs that it may soon be in season. Thanks be to God, whose
Word and Spirit sustain his people through all seasonal changes, as fads
can never do.
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