by Steve | Nov 2, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: The Virgin Birth is Vital
By Charles W. Keyson, Editor
Recently a Good News critic said, “I like some of the things you people are doing, but I think you make too much emphasis on petty doctrines.”
“Can you give us an example?” we asked.
“Yes—the Virgin Birth. That’s not important.”
This prominent layman was not the only United Methodist who thinks the Virgin Birth is a trivial matter. And since the Christmas season will soon be here, the matter bears examination.
During the 1920s, the Virgin Birth became a kind of litmus-paper test of theological orthodoxy. Fundamentalists declared passionately that a person can’t be a Christian unless he believes that the Virgin Birth happened—literally. On the other side, non-fundamentalists insisted that the Virgin Birth is not important, for Jesus never mentioned it, nor do the letters of Paul. Under the influence of more radical Biblical criticism, the Virgin Birth came to be regarded by many as only a “myth,” a charming bit of folk religion.
These different opinions are very much alive today. And it is safe to say that many will read and hear the Christmas story in 1977 without believing that the Virgin Birth really happened.
The people who believe the Virgin Birth literally usually believe literally the other miracles too. And people who doubt the Virgin Birth usually also question some or all of the Bible’s miracles.
“A child can’t be born without a human father,” they insist. “That’s contrary to the laws of nature. Jesus could not have been conceived by the Holy Spirit the way the Bible says.”
So the real issue is whether or not God is Master of the universe. He set up all life processes. Has He the right to interfere with, or set aside, these processes? In this case, could He create a child without a human father? Does God rule nature, or does nature rule God?
The Bible declares from beginning to end that God is Creator and supreme Master of everything. The distant planets are under His control; also the unseen elements of which matter is composed. People who believe in this Biblical God have no trouble believing in the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, and all the other miracles. Such things seem only natural to those who have glimpsed the infinite greatness and majesty of God.
The trouble comes when the Biblical God is replaced by a lesser god, one whose power and wisdom are no greater than the power and wisdom of human beings. This is humanism. It places human wisdom and human experience as the Number One source and standard of truth. God and His activity must be limited to what we can understand and explain through scientific or pseudo-scientific theories.
Humanism is idolatry because it places man where God ought to be. And it is humanism, foisted on the church through much seminary teaching, preaching, education, and program emphasis, which has shrunk down our ideas about God so that He no longer threatens our freedom to think and do whatever we please.
All of this lies beneath the question of whether or not the Virgin Birth is true—like two-thirds of the iceberg underlies the tip that is visible above the ocean’s surface. Is God supreme, or man? That is the issue.
The next issue concerning the Virgin Birth is more obvious. The Bible says Jesus was born of a virgin (Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38). If the Virgin Birth is NOT true, then the Bible is wrong. And if it is wrong about the Virgin Birth, is it also wrong about the atonement of Jesus (dying on the cross to pay for our sins), His Resurrection, and the predictions about His coming again?
Evangelicals believe that the Bible is a reliable record of things that really did happen and will happen. We believe that nothing false is found from Genesis to Revelation. We believe that Scripture has a deeply symbolic meaning—but we insist that the symbolic must not displace or replace the literal meaning of the great events in holy history, especially the birth, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore we oppose making the Virgin Birth symbolic only; rejecting or ignoring it first of all as literal fact.
A third issue on the Virgin Birth is the deity of Jesus.
If Jesus’ mother and father were both human beings, then He would be no different from you and me … a great man, but certainly not God. For this reason the biological fatherhood of God is essential if Jesus is the God-man as the Scriptures picture Him to be. And if Jesus was nothing but a great man, His death could not possibly have atoned for the sins of billions.
Historic Christian faith has insisted for many centuries that Jesus is of one essence with the Father and the Holy Spirit. All three, the Holy Trinity, are united mysteriously in the Godhead. The Wesleys believed this strongly, and true Methodism has always insisted on it—but without trying to explain the unexplainable truth that we worship “God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.”
The Virgin Birth is part of the mystery of the Godhead. The Bible’s claim must not be set aside in favor of theories which make the origins of Jesus just like the origins of anybody else. We believe that His perfect Deity was expressed through His perfect humanity. And the Virgin Birth helps us to understand how this miracle happened.
We do not say that a person is a Christian because he or she believes the Virgin Birth. But we do say that the Virgin Birth is naturally and easily believed by all who have become personally acquainted with the only begotten Son of God.
by Steve | Nov 1, 1977 | Archive - 1977
What do Christians celebrate on December 25?
Archive: When God Became A Man
By H.C. Morrison, Methodist Evangelist
Adapted from his message “The Christ of the Gospel” preached in 1915
“Without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” — I Timothy 3:16
The inspired writers nowhere undertake to explain the mysteries which abound in the revelations God has made to man. It must be understood that the revelation of the divine Being—the incarnation[1] of Jesus Christ—and the new and holy life of peace and joy which come to those who trust in Him cannot be figured out and explained by mathematical processes or in terms of human philosophy.
Who can explain to us electricity? We know it exists. It is about us everywhere; it illuminates our pathway with its light; its penetrating rays may destroy germs and heal us of disease. We may cook our food with its heat. It leaps across the ocean carrying our message with the speed of lightning, but Edison himself cannot tell us what electricity is.
“Great is the mystery of godliness.” To the devout Christian, who believes the Bible, loves Jesus Christ and worships God in spirit and in truth, the mysteries connected with our holy religion are not an objection but a fascination, always claiming reverential study and constantly increasing our spiritual comprehension of divine goodness and the glorious plan of human redemption.
In accomplishing this great work, infinite wisdom found it necessary to combine two natures in one Being. Man’s condition was such that it was necessary to offer him a Redeemer so human that He could sympathize with him, and so divine that He could save him.
God had created men, but He had never been a man. God had seen men toil, but He had never blistered His hand with carpenter’s tools. He had seen men weep, but He had never wept. He had seen men struggling in the midst of temptation, but He had never felt the onslaughts of the tempter against Himself. He had seen men bleed, but He had never bled. He had seen the millions struggling on the crumbling verge of the grave, and finally sinking into its hopeless depths, but He had never felt the cold grip of death, or spread His omnipotent shoulders upon the bottom of a sepulchre.
God determined to come into the world … to take the weight of humanity upon Himself … to walk its rugged paths … to carry its heavy burdens … to know its deep sorrows and heart-breaking griefs … to meet and conquer its tempter and destroyer … to suffer and die among its outcasts and criminals … to lie down in the house of death, and then to arise in majesty and rend the gate of the tomb asunder, opening the way for a redeemed race from the grave to the glorious resurrection and eternal life.
The wisdom of the incarnation is seen when we remember how difficult it is for the finite to grasp the infinite, for the earthly to comprehend the heavenly, for the sinful to approach the holy. It is hard for us to fix our thoughts upon that great Being without body or parts, who is eternal in existence, omnipotent in power, and omnipresent. The poor human intellect staggers with the thought. We do not know where to begin, how to proceed, or where to leave off. The wings of our imagination grow weary, the brain grows dizzy, while the heart hungers on, and we are made to cry out in the language of Job: “Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea.” (Job 11:7-9)
It is easy to think of the Babe of Bethlehem, and with the wise men to worship Him. Even in His infancy lying in the manger, He was a true object of worship. There is no intimation that the gathering of the eastern sages and the humble shepherds on bended knees about that wondrous Child was sacrilege. It is delightful to stand amidst priests and doctors of the law, listening to His wisdom, while He is yet a youth; to go down to John’s baptism and see Him standing meek and lowly in the presence of the rugged preacher, and saying: “Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness.” (Matthew 3:15) It thrills us to follow Him up the mountain side, to look with awe upon the temptation.
We can trail Him along His pathway by the crutches and the canes which have been cast aside by the halt and the lame He has healed, and the shouts and praises of those from whom devils have been cast out.
As we follow Him there is no doubt that He is God manifest in the flesh. He walks like a man, but He works like a God. We behold His humanity when He lay sleeping in the boat, and His deity when He arises and rebukes the wind and storm, and the tempest sinks into silence at His command. He weeps like a man at Lazarus’ tomb, but with Godlike voice He breaks the power of death and brings Lazarus forth alive. As a man, He sits hungry at the well’s mouth; like a God, He breaks the few loaves and little fishes and feeds the multitude. Like a man, He goes into the mountains for prayer; like a God, He walks the waves of the sea of Galilee and overtakes His disciples who have gone forth in the ship. Like a man, He climbs the mountain; transfigured like a God, He stands upon its crest in garments whiter than the light.
What a marvelous combination of the two natures-human and divine! Spirit begotten and virgin born.
Jesus had a human mind, which “grew in knowledge.” He had a human soul, of which He said in Gethsemane, “My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death.” (Matthew 26:38)
In coming to the world’s Redeemer, seeking to know something of Him and what He means to the world, and what He is to us, the Holy Scriptures weigh infinitely more with us than all the reasonings and philosophies of men. They have absolute right-of-way. Turning to the Scriptures we find the inspired writer saying, “For verily He took not on Him the nature of angels; but He took on Him the seed of Abraham.” (Hebrews 2:16) That is, the nature of man.
And again, “Wherefore in all things it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that He Himself hath suffered, being tempted, He is able to succor them that are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:17,18)
It is by means of this divine Christ, who was made like unto His brethren in body, mind, and soul, that the wide chasm stretching between an infinitely holy God and an utterly depraved and fallen man is bridged. Our Redeemer becomes to us a faithful “high priest who [can] be touched with the feelings of our infirmities,” (Hebrews 4:15a) and yet possessing in Himself that eternal power and godhead which make Him one and equal with the Father, able to save to the uttermost.
The conflict of the centuries has raged around Jesus Christ. He was unknown until He was manifest in the flesh. And the Father was unknown—that is, He was never understood—until He was revealed in the Son. The world had heard of the eternal God. He had revealed Himself to a few men; the prophets had proclaimed His laws for our government, angels had now and again brought some message from the headquarters of the universe.
When the disciples insisted that He should show them the Father, He said, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” (John 14:9b)
What amazing words are these! We never could have had any such conception of the eternal God of the ages. We knew He could build a universe, fling the stars from His fingertips into their orbits, but we never dreamed that He would become a Carpenter and fix the windows in the hut of a poor man. We understood that He sat upon the throne of the universe and angels and archangels bowed in adoration at His feet, but it never occurred to us that He would sit down and partake of a frugal meal among sunburned fishermen. We understood that He commanded all the mighty hosts of heaven, that angels flew on lightning wing, that at His look and word devils fled in consternation at His command, but we did not know that He would gather little children into His bosom and bless them with His caress and love.
Had Jesus not come to our earth, and lived with us here, had God not been manifest in the flesh, we never could have known the heart of the infinite Father. We are profoundly impressed, as never before, that there is closer kinship than we have yet dreamed between God and His creature man, made in His image, redeemed by the incarnation and sufferings of His Son, adopted as His children, with the promise that we shall be satisfied when we awake in His likeness. It seems to us that contemplation of these great facts in our holy religion ought to lead to a universal rebellion against sin—a great heart-cry for redemption from all of its effects, for restoration to purity of heart and holiness of life.
The greatest need of our time is that we get away from mere theological theories and human philosophies about Christ and that we get back to Christ Himself. Not that Christ of men’s notions, manufactured by this, that, and the other school of theology, but the Christ God gave to men; the Christ of the Gospels, the Christ of Bethlehem, Nazareth, Galilee, Bethany, Jerusalem, Gethsemane, Calvary, Mt. Olivet; the Christ who lived and labored, hungered and suffered, loved and forgave, who died in tears and blood and agony on the cross for a sinful race.
We can no more permit the theologians and philosophers to rob us of the humanity of Jesus, than we can permit the destructive critic and skeptic to rob us of the deity of Jesus. We must keep in our thought, worship in our heart, and proclaim in our message to the people the Christ of the Gospels, that human-divine Being, who lived, walked and talked with the disciples; that human Christ who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; that divine Christ who is able to save to the uttermost, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
This beautiful Babe of Bethlehem, this wondrous Youth of 12 years, this patient Carpenter of Nazareth, this meek and lowly Man followed by ignorant fishermen, “Receiving sinners and eating with them, ” this matchless Preacher of the truth, this majestic Master of devils, disease, and death; this Man in bloody sweat in Gethsemane, this Victim of human hate and mob violence falling beneath His burden on Calvary’s hillside, this white-faced, sinless Jesus hanging on the cross—Do you know who He is! He is God manifest in the flesh.
Do you ask what all of this means! It means that the Good Shepherd of heaven has come to earth seeking His lost sheep. It means the redemption of sinners; it means that fallen men are to be born again and become in Christ new creatures. It means that the depraved and sinful are to become sanctified, that strangers to the commonwealth of Israel are to become the sons of God. It means that the demon-possessed are to sit clothed and in their right minds at the Master’s feet. It means that this Jesus of Nazareth is God manifest in the flesh to save a lost race; that sinful men are to partake of the divine nature, that the demon-possessed on their way to hell are to become pure and holy beings, are to walk in righteousness through the earth and to ascend in triumph to heaven. …
Jesus Christ belonged to no special race of men. He was the Son of man, the own full brother of every man of every race. His kinship with men helps us to love and hope for all men. He belonged to no special age. He belonged to all ages, to all time, to all eternity. He was with the Father before the world was. Abraham saw His day and was glad. Moses promises His coming. Micah tells us that He was to be born in Bethlehem. David sings of Him in a hundred Psalms; Isaiah describes His humble person, His patient suffering, His cruel death, and His final triumph.
The civilized world today acknowledges Him the Son of God. The heathen world begs to hear His gospel. The multitudes of the earth ask to be baptized in His name, and millions of redeemed souls are waiting with hope and prayer for His coming. We believe in Him. We worship Him. We pledge and consecrate our all to Him. We cry to the lost race—”Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29b)
Our hearts respond.
All hail the power of Jesus’ name,
Let angels prostrate fall;
Bring forth the royal diadem,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Let every kindred, every tribe
On this terrestrial ball,
To Him all majesty ascribe,
And crown Him Lord of all.
Oh, that with yonder sacred throng,
We at His feet may fall,
We’ll join the everlasting song,
And crown Him Lord of all.
[1] INCARNATION: God coming to live on earth as a man; fully human (except for sinning) but at the same time also fully God
by Steve | Sep 11, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: Where Evangelism Comes Alive
By Eddie Robb, Associate Editor, Good News
What could bring 1821 pastors, their spouses, and seminarians from 99 denominations to Metropolitan United Methodist Church in downtown Detroit?
a) A settlement of Howard Hughes’ will, giving each of the 99 denominations a piece of the pie?
b) The premiere unveiling of Noah’s ark?
c) A school for evangelism?
d) 20,400 cups of free coffee and 18,000 free donuts?
Unlikely as it may sound, the answer is c and d. It happened last October when Billy Graham came to Detroit for an evangelistic crusade. Each night, October 15-24, people from southeastern Michigan Ohio Indiana, and southern Ontario poured into the Detroit Lions’ 80,000 Pontiac Stadium to hear Billy Graham proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.
This crusade had all the familiar characteristics—big stadium, huge crowds, wide publicity, and many decisions for Christ.
But behind the scenes, unknown to the crowds, was another aspect of the crusade—the five-day School of Evangelism. In terms of lasting significance and multiplied influence for Christ, it may have been the most significant part of the entire crusade effort.
Each day from 8:45 in the morning until 5:00 in the afternoon, students at the School of Evangelism were bombarded with learning experience opportunities. Worship, major addresses, seminar workshops, and discussion groups all zeroed in on one subject: evangelism.
Seminars included Biblical Basis for Evangelism … Evangelistic Preaching … How to Share Your Faith … How to Develop a Growing Church … The Use of Media in Evangelism … How to Give the Invitation. In all there were 18 seminars—all thrusting toward conversion of the lost.
“Every pastor I know would like to be a more effective leader, ” said Dr. Kenneth Chafin, dean of the Billy Graham Schools of Evangelism. “This school is an honest effort to meet this need.”
Apparently, this “honest effort ” is bearing fruit. Rev. Donald Rossman, UM pastor from Bryan, Ohio, wrote Good News: “The weeks since the Evangelism School have not only been great ones in my personal life, but also in the life of my church. Prayers have been answered. Souls have knelt at the altar of prayer …. The doors have swung open and I believe God has begun to send a fresh breeze of His Spirit upon us.”
Reasons for attending the Schools of Evangelism were as varied as the people. Rev. Randy Brown, a pastor from Sterling, Illinois, told me, “I came to be spiritually fed.” A pastor from Pennsylvania explained, “I came to hear the rich resource persons of evangelical persuasion.” And Jack Harnish, a young pastor from Michigan, bluntly stated, “I came to hear Robert Schuller!”
The program lineup does feature big names: James Kennedy of Evangelism Explosion fame … Robert Schuller … Charles Allen, pastor of America’s largest UM Church … Cliff Barrows . . . Jeannette Clift George (who played Corrie ten Boom in The Hiding Place) … George Beverly Shea … Oswald Hoffman of the Lutheran Hour … the list of talent goes on and on.
And it was all free! In order to enable the maximum number of pastors and laypeople to attend, no tuition was charged. Many pastors were even given scholarships to help defray their travel and lodging expenses.
In a sense, the School of Evangelism began at the Cow Palace in San Francisco in 1958. Billy Graham was holding a crusade there and Lowell Berry, who was on the crusade executive committee, made a new commitment to Christ.
“The ’58 crusade was a wonderful experience for me, ” he told Good News. “I met so many fine Christians and saw the fine organizational effort to get churches to cooperate in counseling, in the choir, in finances, attendance, and follow-up. And above all, I saw a unique opportunity for folks to witness the evangelization of Christ’s Gospel when properly presented.
“I thought: Wouldn’t it be wonderful for young pastors and seminarians to share in this experience!”
Mr. Berry recalls, “I approached Billy with the idea of starting a School of Evangelism. But a lot of people bring good ideas to Billy. He said he liked my idea but he wasn’t sure how much interest there would be among pastors. ‘Besides,’ Billy said, ‘it would cost a lot of money.’ ”
As a successful businessman in commercial fertilizer and chemicals, Lowell Berry had a lot of money and he didn’t give up easily. In 1960 a trial balloon was sent up at the Phoenix crusade, when Mr. Berry flew in some seminary students for a week-long “learning experience.”
But it wasn’t until 1967—nearly 10 years after the idea was conceived- that the first official School of Evangelism began in Kansas City, Missouri. Since then over 23,000 pastors, seminarians, and laypeople have attended in the U.S.A. In addition, more than 19,000 people have participated in Schools of Evangelism in as far away places as Tokyo, London, Melbourne, and Rio de Janeiro.
The great expense, the time involved, the logistical problems—is it all worth it? Lowell Berry thinks so. “I believe the local church is the most important single institution in the world, ” he said, “and ministers need all the help they can get.”
That’s what Billy Graham Schools of Evangelism are all about: strengthening local churches in their task of fulfilling Christ’s Great Commission: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations [people], baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I [Jesus] have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” (Matthew 28:19,20 RSV)
by Steve | Sep 9, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: I Remember Harry
I am living unafraid because the Lord holds up those who stumble and straightens backs which are bent.
by Charles W. Keysor, Editor of Good News
I shall always remember Harry.
He was a milkman—or, more correctly, Harry owned a small dairy. For years he serviced a growing community. Finally the business got too large and complex. His wife died, and Harry sold out to a bigger dairy company.
In retirement, Harry went back to the thing he liked to do most—working in gardens. Anything growing liked Harry and vice versa. This included small children, young families, and plants—fruit trees especially. Harry knew just how to plant them, water them, prune them, and finally pick their fruit.
He used to go visiting friends with a bunch of baby trees in the back of his old Buick sedan. He would show up and begin planting apple trees—sometimes to the consternation of the homeowners who were both delighted and appalled because Harry sometimes forgot to ask, “Do you want an apple tree?” or “Where should I plant it?” He just planted trees wherever he thought they ought to be.
Once he planted two saplings in the back yard of our parsonage. I was unhappy because they were right where I had wanted a garden. But Harry was so delighted! These were English walnut trees, imported from California. They were the only trees of this type in the city—maybe the state. Just wait until they began to bear those large thin shelled walnuts ….
It was hard to be angry with Harry. Even the time he showed up in our backyard and asked for a free haircut.
I was giving a Saturday haircut to one of my four sons. This was a matter of necessity, and over the years my home barber kit had saved us probably hundreds of dollars. I was clipping away when Harry came by to kibitz.
“That’s a pretty good haircut,” he said, admiring my son’s scalp. (This was in the days before the long hair fad put father-barbers out of business.)
“Say,” Harry said, “how about giving me a haircut?” The thought scared me.
“Now wait a minute, Harry,” I protested. “I have cut my sons’ hair for years, but I never gave any adult a haircut. You might have to go into hiding for a week after I worked you over.”
“Well,” Harry said, “my Social Security check hasn’t come yet, and I have just enough money for a haircut. If I have to go downtown to the barber this afternoon I won’t have any money left for the offering in church tomorrow. I’d a whole lot rather give $2.00 to the church than to the barber.”
This is how I started cutting Harry’s hair. At first I resented it. But always he would say the same thing, “I’d rather give $2.00 to the church than the barber.” So Harry had me trapped. I went along the best I could.
Gradually, though, I began to look forward to the haircutting sessions with Harry. It gave us a chance to talk. And sometimes, as I was snipping and clipping, I thought about Jesus washing the feet of His disciples.
It happened very slowly. Then it became painfully noticeable … Harry was getting more stooped month by month. He bent forward when he walked. As he sat or dug in the garden, his tired, old back was bent into a C. I even noticed it as Harry dozed in the back pew through my sermons. (He had a part-time job cleaning a supermarket Saturday nights. Sometimes he got only three hours sleep before getting up for Sunday school and church. So I understood Harry sleeping in church—at least he didn’t snore.)
Harry never complained. When we sat out in the parsonage backyard, with a towel around his neck and the hair flying from my clippers, he would tell me what chapters he had been reading in the Bible … about calling on this or that inactive church member … or how he was going to send away for some new variety of apple tree next spring.
Never a word about his back … or his leg.
Long ago, when Harry was a boy, a horse had kicked him in the right leg. The bone was bruised or chipped, and it never healed. All these years he had lived with an ulcerated leg. Twice we took him to the hospital when the leg swelled and turned an ominous, scaly brown. He hobbled to church, to visit people, and over to the parsonage for that regular haircut. But he never mentioned his ailments.
Often Harry talked about his son. The boy had been a top athlete and served as an infantryman in World War II. Returning home safely after months of combat in Italy and Germany, Harry’s son got married, began a family. Then young Harry was stricken with polio. Paralyzed from the waist down, he had learned to live and do business from a wheel chair. Harry Sr. was proud of his son and his grandchildren.
Time passed. Harry’s leg grew worse and his back seemed to bend lower and lower. But Harry always said, “The Lord keeps me going. The Lord is good. He’s so good to me.”
I think about Harry when I read in Psalm 145: “The Lord holds up those who stumble and straightens backs which are bent.”
The last time I saw Harry he was practically bent double. But he was in church. And he said with a smile, “The Lord is good. So very good.”
One day we shall meet in eternity. There by the throne of God, by that crystal, shining river, Harry will be standing straight. And he will be saying, “The Lord is good. He straightens backs which are bent.”
Reprinted from Living Unafraid, by Charles W. Keysor. 7975, David C. Cook Publishing Co., Elgin, IL. Used by permission.
by Steve | Sep 7, 1977 | Archive - 1977
Archive: A Call to Biblical Evangelism
We would like to share with you a few portions of the address our Chairman, Ed Robb, delivered recently at our Good News Convocation in Anderson, Indiana. – Charles W. Keysor, Editor
We may be experiencing the beginning of the Third Great Awakening!
Extreme darkness preceding dawn is a regular event in the history of revival, and truly we are in a dark period of our history.
Malcom Muggeridge said at the Congress on World Evangelization in Switzerland in 1974, “We may be entering another dark age and the tragedy is we don’t even realize it.”
Situation ethics is taking its toll.
Homosexuality is considered by some church leaders as a valid alternate Christian lifestyle.
Marriage as a sacred institution is in peril. There will be one divorce for every two marriages in America this year.
Permissive abortion has been legalized with the blessing of the church. We are seeing the slaughter of millions of unborn children in an increasingly amoral society.
Despite the indiscriminate use of the pill and millions of abortions, there were more illegitimate births than legitimate ones in Washington, D.C. in 1975.
There is little wonder we have lost our moral influence. I quote from a letter written by a United Methodist minister to a friend of mine. “… Many people have wonderful meaningful experiences of love and sexual intercourse apart from any marriage covenant … many extra-marital relationships are not casual. They have their own contract or covenant. ‘Sacred marriage vows’ are what each couple agrees [their vows] will be … they define what loyalty and commitment to the relationship means. Whether a person is a virgin or not has nothing to do with [his or her] ability to enter a binding covenant in the present.”
Alas, antinomianism from the ministry!
I have a letter in my files from a lay leader of one of the strong conferences in United Methodism. He recently had a conference with the cabinet and bishop because of their concern about charismatic activity in the laymen’s program. As a non-tongues-speaking United Methodist I have a question: “Why do we become so concerned about the excesses of those who are excited about the Gospel, but seemingly are undisturbed by the statements of radical secularists who question or deny the faith?”
For example, a minister on the west coast was quoted recently as saying he had come to see that the Bible was not the Word of God—but the word of man. This same man is reported to have joined homosexuals in a covenant service.
Ichabod! What cabinet and bishop have questioned him?
Dr. Dow Kirkpatrick has written of a recent trip to Cuba in the “Here I Stand ” column in July 22 issue of The United Methodist Reporter. He quoted Dr. Sergio Arce, the president of a theological seminary in Cuba as saying, “The first task of evangelism is to confront Christians who are not atheist in the head, but are atheist of the heart. Marx was an atheist of the head, but not of the heart.” A strange description for Karl Marx who advocated class hatred and violence! Dr. Kirkpatrick also writes, “Aldersgate announces it feebly, May Day celebrates with a shout—the creation of the new humanity.”
And he is on the staff of the Board of Global Ministries!
Shall we be discouraged?
Shall we quit?
Never!
It is darkest just before dawn.
We have seen the impotence of liberalism and the destructiveness of the radical secularist.
There has never been a greater openness to the Gospel. There are encouraging signs in the church.
We can be encouraged.
There are 40 million persons in America today who profess to be regenerated Christians.
The New York Times book review section has confessed that if it were to include evangelical books among its nonfiction best sellers, they would fill the top ten places.
Evangelical seminaries are training a large proportion of our new ministerial candidates.
Most of the nation’s large churches are now evangelical.
Dr. Richard Lovelace of Gordon Conwell Theological Seminary has reminded us, “All too often evangelicals are unrealistically pessimistic about their growth, and prepared to abandon a church which is just waking up to the meaning of [the evangelicals’] success.”
He continues, “The fictitious truism that ‘once a denomination starts downhill it never recovers’ is being steadily disproved. Those who doubt should look at the history of the Anglican Church, which has bloomed again and again with new life when the tide of spiritual life rose in the people, and which has developed strong evangelical leadership again today.”
Both the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York are evangelicals, and 45 percent of the newly ordained in the Church of England are evangelicals, according to Dr. John Stott.
Too often evangelicals have adopted an outlook on history which predicted decline and apostasy in the nation and the church. Most Christians stopped praying and working for revival, and proceeded to dig into spiritual bomb shelters and wait for the coming of Christ.
I have learned that if you want the maximum ministry out of the church, you must begin by putting the maximum of Jesus into the program of the church! If you do that, then the biggest problems you will have will be—where you are going to seat all the people, and how you are going to spend all the money.
Let us not be afraid of the power of the Holy Spirit that comes when men and women surrender their lives to Jesus.
Most of our evangelism in The United Methodist Church has been ineffective because it is difficult to win persons to a corpse. When the church comes alive—a warm, caring, sharing, redeeming fellowship- persons will be attracted and open to the message of Christ.
We must stop pretending that everything that calls itself evangelism is legitimate, laudable, and worth supporting.
Social action may be needed, but it is not evangelism.
Christian education is necessary for nurture, but it is not necessarily evangelism.
Worship is the heart of the Christian faith, but it may not be evangelism.
Membership recruitment is not synonymous with evangelism. In the 50s we brought many into the church who had no personal experience with Christ and did not follow Him in discipleship.
It is time we stopped majoring on secondary things and realize that the supreme task of the church is the evangelization of the world. This is the day of the evangelical!
