Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

By James V. Heidinger II, Chairman Good News Board of Directors

Good News has always been interested in theology. The movement began over 14 years ago out of a concern for theological issues. My initial interest in Good News came as I heard its leaders raise theological concerns in the United Methodist Church. The Junaluska Affirmation was a careful attempt by Good News to reaffirm the historic faith of the Church. More recently, at our summer board meeting, a proposal was passed for Good News to establish a special emphasis, culminating at the 1984 General Conference, on historical Methodist/EUB theology.

The issue is far more than academic. Paul wrote to Timothy, “And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher” (II Timothy 1:11). The real question is, what is “this gospel” which we have been appointed to preach and teach?

In the service of ordination for elders in the UM Church, each elder promises to “give faithful diligence duly to minister the doctrine of Christ … and in the spirit of Christ to defend the Church against all doctrine contrary to God’s Word” (p. 50, Book of Worship). There are at least three assumptions here. First, that there is doctrine contrary to God’s Word. Second, that it can be identified, and third, that we are morally committed and obligated to defend against it. One might wonder how long it has been since the UM Church has taken doctrine seriously enough to “defend” against any contrary doctrine.

The truth is, friends, that in our United Methodist Church today, nearly anything goes doctrinally or theologically. One can deny nearly any tenet of traditional Methodist doctrine and get away with it in the name of theological pluralism. It is time for a new honesty among United Methodist clergy about what they no longer believe.

The real issue between liberal and evangelical United Methodists today is not a “personal vs. social gospel” issue. It is, rather, the issue of the historic New Testament Gospel vs. a more recently-created religious system that makes use of much Biblical terminology, albeit with different meaning given to the words. Years ago, Dr. Machen called it “another religion.” The Apostle Paul called it “a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6). We would call it “heresy.” (By definition, “heresy” is doctrine at variance with the orthodox or accepted doctrine of a church or religious system.”)

Now all this may sound like we are not being of “catholic spirit.” But let’s hear Wesley clearly in his often-quoted sermon on “Catholic Spirit. ” His gracious, non-dogmatic spirit was toward “opinion,” and not basic doctrine. Under “opinion,” he included modes of worship, forms of church government, forms of prayer, forms of baptism, and details concerning the Lord’s Supper.

Wesley describes and develops what he means by the question, “Is thy heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?” He spends no less than seven lengthy paragraphs, some 64 lines, asking, “Do you believe … Do you believe … Have you the divine evidence …?” Wesley then goes on to deplore the “unsettledness of thought,” and “this being ‘driven to and fro, and tossed about with every wind of doctrine.'” He states a remarkable and unpluralistic affirmation: “A man of a truly catholic spirit has not now his religion to seek. He is fixed as the sun, in his judgment concerning the main branches of Christian doctrine.” In major doctrine, Wesley was no pluralist! He was “fixed as the sun.” (Wesley even sounds a bit dogmatic!)

It is time for theological definition. If you don’t think so, try taking the following statement from Dr. Carl F.H. Henry, and drop it in the midst of a Conference Board of Ordained Ministry for consensus:

The Apostolic proclamation reflects the characteristic elements of the gospel, namely and centrally, God’s offer of forgiveness of sins and new life on the ground of the substitutionary death and victorious resurrection of the divinely incarnate Redeemer. This one Mediator, moreover, now exalted, rules already as the supernatural source of the church’s continuing life and as the invincible Lord. (God, Revelation and Authority, by Carl F.H. Henry, Vol. III, p.64.)

If any two items could be agreed on it would be an amazing accomplishment. Friends, our critical need today is for theological integrity within the United Methodist Church. “For this gospel, I was appointed a preacher.”

Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

Archive: Conference Celebrates Holy Spirit

Archive: Conference Celebrates Holy Spirit

By Diane Knippers, Associate Editor  

UM charismatics gathered for a second national conference on the Holy Spirit last August 7-10 in Indianapolis, Indiana. Sponsored by the UM Renewal Services Fellowship (UMRSF), the conference was intended to witness that “God, through Christ, by the power of the Holy Spirit, is bringing new life to the church.”

Speakers for the main sessions were Joe Harding, pastor of Central United Protestant Church in Richland, Washington; Tommy Tyson, well-known UM evangelist and teacher; Francis MacNutt, a leader in the ecumenical charismatic renewal movement; Bishop Roy Nichols, president of the UM Council of Bishops; and Canon Michael Green, rector of St. Aldate’s Church in Oxford, England. The conference program also included periods of worship and praise, plus selection from some 20 workshops.

During an early session, UMRSF president William P. Wilson announced the appointment of the fellowship’s first full-time executive director. Ross E. Whetstone assumed the new staff position in early September. He had served as part-time director since the group was organized in late 1978.

UMRSF is an autonomous organization with a liaison relationship to the UM Board of Discipleship where its offices will be located. (A Board of Discipleship staff member serves ·on the UMRSF board and a UMRSF representative serves as a member of the Board of Discipleship.)

The purposes of UMRSF include providing an avenue for United Methodists to contribute to the renewal of the church by upholding “the teaching of Scriptural holiness in both its personal and social dimensions to all constituencies of the church,” and also increasing understanding of the “historical relationship between other churches in the Wesleyan tradition, including those of Holiness and Pentecostal doctrinal emphasis and the United Methodist Church.”

When asked how UMRSF differed from Good News, Dr. Whetstone replied, “Purpose. We have good relations with Good News and are not antagonists in any way, but they are issue oriented and we are experience oriented.” Dr. Wilson and some other UMRSF leaders are active in Good News.

Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

Archive: Winning Out Over Worry

Archive: Winning Out Over Worry

Some helpful thoughts on a universal human problem

by Philip E. Worth, Pastor, First United Methodist Church, Collingswood, New Jersey

On the editorial page of the New York Times an article appeared that is typical of the anxiety that grips the hearts of hundreds of thousands of men and women across our nation. Let me just give you the feel of it in a few words: Ed Furey is a 52-year-old, recently fired, middle-management executive in one of America’s top 500 companies. He has sent out over 150 resumes. Less than ten percent of them have drawn a response; five percent asked for additional information. None resulted in a job.

As a World War II veteran of the South Pacific, he knows what fear is and how men deal with it. He doesn’t scare any easier than the next, but to be 52 years old, jobless, with a wife, nine children, and a mortgage is to be frightened! Now, for the first time, his family is not covered with medical insurance. The bank warned that foreclosure is being considered. Bills to utilities are overdue. He lies awake at night and wonders if he is going to lose the home he worked for all his life, the home that represents the only equity he’s been able to accumulate in 30 years of working and raising a family.

As believers, we face the fact that we are living in a time of financial crisis … of social upheaval … of social and moral changes which, for the most part, are unique to our generation. Some are going through situations which their wildest imagination would not have thought possible. An undercurrent of anxiety has penetrated even into the hearts of God’s children.

Worse, perhaps, is the fact that the anxiety of the heart of the individual believer is contagious. Many churches have been affected adversely by individuals who, because of pressing problems in their personal lives, have become bitter and cynical concerning the things of God. I do not believe we fully comprehend the price we pay for anxiety.

In studying the Sermon on the Mount we come to that portion where Jesus sets forth a strict commandment to His followers: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry … ” (Matthew 6:25).

The word “worry” comes from the Greek word merimnao, which is a combination of two words—merizo, meaning to divide, and nois, meaning mind. What a clear description of the result of worry in life—it divides the mind!

John Haggai has written concerning worry. He pinpoints this problem of the divided mind as it results in abulia—the loss of power to decide. He illustrates this extreme indecision with the story of the old mule who stood between two haystacks and starved to death while trying to decide from which to eat. In the extreme form, the victim just gives up—becomes depressed and never again makes a decision. We call it, I believe, incorrectly, a “nervous breakdown.”

Dr. Tim LaHaye, in his book, How to Win Over Depression, describes a person who is seriously depressed in terms of what he calls the depression formula. It is this: injury plus anger plus self-pity equals depression.

Most of us have seen this worked out in terms of life. Here is a man who has been injured greatly. Once he feels the initial impact of the injury he becomes angry at his circumstances. He begins to reason this way: “I was doing a good job. I was an effective worker and yet I was fired—laid off—somebody must have had it in for me.” As that man begins to think about how unjustly life has treated him he begins to feel sorry for himself. Dr. LaHaye suggests that that kind of self-pity leads to deep depression, which no change of circumstance will alter. It is my conviction that the reason we are seeing so much depression today is because we have a nation of worriers.

But Jesus says, “Do not worry.” Some of you right now are saying, “It is my nature to worry. If I didn’t have something to worry about, I’d think of something.” However, I believe that right here in Matthew, Chapter 6, there are three definite steps which can help you move out of negativism, depression, and self-pity to become God’s liberated person.

The first step may seem negative but it is absolutely essential: (1) Recognize worry to be sin. Let me say it another way. Understand that when you worry, you are sinning. There are men and women today who are scrupulously moral. Good men who have never even entertained the thought of any immorality. Godly women who are good wives and good mothers. Teenagers who are determined to live their lives for God. Yet perhaps the sin that is holding them back from God’s blessing is worry.

God says in Romans 8:28: ” … in all things God works for the good of those who love him. … ”

Worry answers: This cannot be, because I sense that I am about to be replaced at work.

God says in Philippians 4:13: “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

Worry answers: I cannot face another day now because my strength is failing.

God says in Philippians 4:19: “And my God will meet all your needs. … ”

Worry answers: The mortgage payments are more than I can manage with inflation.

God says in Hebrews 13:5: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

 

Worry says: I am going to be left alone—I know it and I will not be able to cope with it.

God says in I Peter 5:6: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”

Worry answers: If He cares for me, then why did He allow this to happen to me?

God says in Mark 7:37: “He has done everything well.”

Worry says: Then why did my husband leave me?

When we answer God like that we are really saying, “God, you are lying. You do not mean what you say.”

Recognize your worry to be a sin. We Christians need to stop joking about it, to stop making excuses for it in our lives and blaming it on circumstances or events. Recognize it to be sin. Confess it daily. Satan is a great deceiver and one of his cleverest tricks is to convince believers that it is a good thing to worry.

For instance, a mother who has two sons confides to another Christian in the church, “I am worried about my two boys.” When she says that, inwardly in her heart she is really saying, “I am a good mother because I worry. I am working hard at being a mother because I worry.”

Do you know what the Bible calls a person who worries? When the worrying of Old Testament people is described in the New Testament it is called a “sinful, unbelieving heart” (Hebrews 3:12). Have you committed your financial situation to God? Then you are not worried. You see—faith and worry are mutually exclusive.

Some of you are saying in the quietness of your heart, That is very idealistic. You don’t understand all the things I have to worry about. Worry is only natural. May I repeat what I said before? “Worry and faith are mutually exclusive.” If you are worrying, you are faithless. I didn’t say it—God did! (Matthew 6:25-34).

Wednesday mornings we have a prayer fellowship for teenagers at our house. Once in a while during the prayer requests, someone will say: “Pray for me today. I’m taking an exam. It is an important one.”

Nine times out of ten our youth leader will look directly at the person asking the question and will ask: “Did you study?”

The kid will say, “Yes, I did.”

Then he will answer, “O.K. then we’ll pray that you will pass.”

That is what Philippians is all about: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”

Jesus says in Matthew 6:28-30: “See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?”

Jesus Christ gives here one great overwhelming truth, which presents us with the second step: (2) Realize the provision of God for all your needs. God controls all material things and He distributes them in His sovereignty. It would be pointless for Jesus to say to His disciples, “Now stop worrying” without giving reasons. So He lists how God demonstrates His ability to care.

Dr. James Boice points out that Peter, in the early days of his association with Jesus, was worried about many things. Walking toward Jesus upon the water, Peter began to look at the waves and became so worried that he began to sink. He worried that Jesus might not pay taxes. At one point he was worried about who might betray the Master. He was worried that Jesus might have to suffer and so rebuked Him on one occasion.

Yes, Peter was a great worrier. But after he came to know Jesus better he learned that Jesus was able not only to take care of Himself but also to take care of Peter. Thus, toward the end of his life, he wrote in his first epistle telling other Christians how to live: “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (I Peter 5:7).

This applies directly to those of you who know Jesus Christ as Savior, who can say, “I have been redeemed.” Paul replies, “You yourselves are God’s temple … God’s Spirit lives in you” (I Corinthians 3:16). Day-after-day as you struggle along and worry, you are destroying the physical body in which God has chosen to dwell. Think of how many times you have heard someone say, “I am worried sick.” They mean it quite literally! How many thousands and thousands are suffering physically from a host of symptoms because they have indulged themselves in the sin of worry? Jesus says, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry” (Matthew 6:25). Why? Because in so doing you are denying the provision of God for you.

The book, Hudson Taylors Spiritual Secret, tells of a life with all of the trappings taken away. The spiritual secret that Hudson Taylor, the great missionary to China and founder of the China Inland Mission, learned was simply this: Just as he had trusted Christ and His promises for eternal life through faith, he could mix the promises of God with faith and find God’s perfect rest right here in this life. He was the first white man to enter inland China. He was alone with no human to depend on. He simply trusted God for the needs of each day.

While Taylor was at school studying medicine, preparing for the mission field, he gave away everything he had. He said, “Lord, give me this day my daily bread.” God gave it to him—and even more than he needed. Taylor gave away the rest. He started out every day with absolutely nothing but faith and the promises of God, who had promised to supply all of his needs through Christ Jesus his Lord. During week after week, month after month, and year after year of preparation he found that God was absolutely trustworthy for every need of life. This was his “spiritual secret.” The secret of learning to trust Christ for the daily, practical things of life.

Finally, (3) Begin giving thanks for all things. More than 500 times in the Word of God we are commanded to give praise and rejoice. David said in Psalm 34:1, “I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.” Praise was a habit built into David’s life.

You will remember that David had many problems … many difficulties. He had one son who broke his heart. Another son tried to steal his authority. He had an enemy who persecuted him and sought to take his life. He went through great testings and great temptations and he did not always triumph. But he made praise a way of life.

In Greece there was a man who appeared on the stage with the Greek name Titedios Amerimnos. This was a proper name plus a descriptive name, such as Philip the Great, James the Just, and Thomas the Doubter. Titedios was his proper name. The descriptive name was “the man who does not worry.” Titedios, the man who doesn’t worry. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could take your name and add that to it? The person who doesn’t worry. It can be yours if you are willing to listen to the message of Jesus and by faith reach out and appropriate it for yourself.

Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

Archive: C. S. Lewis: Exmas in Niatirb

Archive: C. S. Lewis: Exmas in Niatirb

(a lost chapter from Herodotus)

A satire from his book “God in the Dock”. Published by Wm. B. Eerdmans. Used by permission.   

And beyond this there lies in the ocean, turned towards the west and north, the island of Niatirb which Hecataeus indeed declares to be the same size and shape as Sicily, but it is larger, though in calling it triangular a man would not miss the mark. It is densely inhabited by men who wear clothes not very different from the other barbarians who occupy the north-western parts of Europe though they do not agree with them in language. These islanders, surpassing all the men of whom we know in patience and endurance, use the following customs.

In the middle of winter when fogs and rains most abound they have a great festival which they call Exmas, and for fifty days they prepare for it in the fashion I shall describe. First of all, every citizen is obliged to send to each of his friends and relations a square piece of hard paper stamped with a picture, which in their speech is called an Exmas-card. But the pictures represent birds sitting on branches, or trees with a dark green prickly leaf, or else men in such garments as the Niatirbians believe that their ancestors wore two hundred years ago riding in coaches such as their ancestors used, or houses with snow on their roofs. And the Niatirbians are unwilling to say what these pictures have to do with the festival, guarding (as I suppose) some sacred mystery. And because all men must send these cards the marketplace is filled with the crowd of those buying them, so that there is great labour and weariness.

But having bought as many as they suppose to be sufficient, they return to their houses and find there the like cards which others have sent to them. And when they find cards from any to whom they also have sent cards, they throw them away and give thanks to the gods that this labour at least is over for another year. But when they find cards from any to whom they have not sent, then they beat their breasts and wail and utter curses against the sender; and, having sufficiently lamented their misfortune, they put on their boots again and go out into the fog and rain and buy a card for him also. And let this account suffice about Exmas-cards.

They also send gifts to one another, suffering the same things about the gifts as about the cards, or even worse. For every citizen has to guess the value of the gift which every friend will send to him so that he may send one of equal value, whether he can afford it or not. And they buy as gifts for one another such things as no man ever bought for himself. For the sellers, understanding the custom, put forth all kinds of trumpery, and whatever, being useless and ridiculous, they have been unable to sell throughout the year they now sell as an Exmas gift. And though the Niatirbians profess themselves to lack sufficient necessary things, such as metal, leather, wood, and paper, yet an incredible quantity of these things is wasted every year being made into the gifts.

But during these fifty days the oldest, poorest, and most miserable member of the citizens put on false beards and red robes and walk about the market-place; being disguised (in my opinion) as Cronos. And the sellers of gifts no less than the purchasers become pale and weary, because of the crowds and the fog, so that any man who came into a Niatirbian city at this season would think some great public calamity had fallen on Niatirb. This fifty days of preparation is called in their barbarian speech the Exmas Rush.

But when the day of the festival comes, then most of the citizens, being exhausted with the Rush, lie in bed till noon. But in the evening they eat five times as much supper as on other days and, crowning themselves with crowns of paper, they become intoxicated. And on the day after Exmas they are very grave, being internally disordered by the supper and the drinking and reckoning how much they have spent on gifts and on the wine. For wine is so dear among the Niatirbians that a man must swallow the worth of a talent before he is well intoxicated.

Such, then, are the customs about the Exmas. But the few among the Niatirbians have also a festival, separate and to themselves, called Crissmas, which is on the same day as Exmas. And those who keep Crissmas, doing the opposite to the majority of the Niatirbians, rise early on that day with shining faces and go before sunrise to certain temples where they partake of a sacred feast. And in most of the temples they set out images of a fair woman with a newborn Child on her knees and certain animals and shepherds adoring the Child. (The reason of these images is given in a certain sacred story which I know but do not repeat.)

But I myself conversed with a priest in one of these temples and asked him why they kept Crissmas on the same day as Exmas; for it appeared to me inconvenient. But the priest replied, It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left. And when I asked him why they endured the Rush, he replied, It is, O Stranger, a racket; using (as I suppose) the words of some oracle and speaking unintelligibly to me (for a racket is an instrument which the barbarians use in a game called tennis).

But what Hecataeus says, that Exmas and Crissmas are the same, is not credible. For first, the pictures which are stamped on the Exmas-cards have nothing to do with the sacred story which the priests tell about Crissmas. And secondly, the most part of the Niatirbians, not believing the religion of the few, nevertheless send the gifts and cards and participate in the Rush and drink, wearing paper caps. But it is not likely that men, even being barbarians, should suffer so many and great things in honour of a god they do not believe in. And now, enough about Niatirb.

Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

Archive: “All Flesh is Grass….”

Archive: “All Flesh is Grass….”

As nation rises against nation, can this depressing statement comfort us?

By Rev. Dr. John Oswalt, Associate Professor of Biblical Languages and Literature, Asbury Theological Seminary

Part I

The voice said, “Cry.” And I said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is as grass. …

What is Isaiah saying? He means that human power is strictly and severely limited. On the face of it, this seems hardly the comforting word Isaiah was told to deliver in the chapter’s opening. Yet it was what the Judeans, living in captivity at the time of this prophecy, desperately needed.

Mighty Assyria had been replaced by mightier Babylon. What chance did a tiny band of exiles stand in the face of that accumulated wealth and power and pomp, the flower of human achievement at that time? Little did the Judeans know that this fair flower’s day was already nearly over and that within a few short years Babylon’s empire would disappear forever. If the Judeans asked what chance they and their God stood against Babylon, they were asking the wrong question. The real question was: what chance did Babylon stand against God? And the answer was none, if Babylon was relying on its own permanence. “All flesh is as grass … but the Word of our God abides forever” (Isaiah 40:6,8).

How desperately we Americans need to hear this word today. We need to apply it to our enemies, before whom we grow frustrated and fearful. “All flesh is as grass. …”

But even more we need to hear it of ourselves, for we can never receive the comfort of God as long as we say, “In God We Trust ” upon our coins and yet secretly believe that our power will carry us through. Like James’s doubleminded man, we can receive nothing from God (James 1:8), so long as we are trusting primarily in ourselves.

If anything good can be said to have come out of the dreadful debacle of Viet Nam, perhaps it is this: we have learned that human power is strictly and severely limited. For let’s face it—we, the world’s greatest superpower, were beaten. I am pretty hawkish on the Viet Nam question. But that does not change the fact: we were beaten! Some wouId say it was a rigged fight, that we were never really able to bring our full power to bear. But that’s part of the picture, isn’t it? All flesh IS grass—even America’s. The question now is: what will we do with this knowledge? Will we shrivel up and die of despair? Or will we launch out into the depths of true greatness by casting ourselves upon Him whose Word abides forever?

And if the American nation needs to hear this word, so does the American church. We are faced with several disturbing trends. Not only is general church membership declining, but there is an even more galling disinterest among our fellow citizens in what we have to say. In 1960, 70 percent of Americans between 20 and 30 years of age thought religious issues were significant to political questions. Today, less than 20 percent think so. It is one thing to be hated; it is infinitely worse to be simply ignored.

How shall we meet this situation? Every church periodical has suggestions. Some suggest better management procedures. Others call for better utilization of plant and of human resources. Still others call for streamlined organizational structure. This one says innovative worship. That one says small group ministries.

Every one of these ideas has value, and given the right time and situation, will bear fruit. But every one of them, in itself, is of that deadly “can do ” philosophy endemic to the Old Man, which says, “Just stand by and watch me, God, and I’ll bring in Your Kingdom! “This was what Gideon had to learn. God had to show him the truth embodied in the words of a much later prophet, “Not by might, or by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord of Hosts ” (Zechariah 4:6).

Rudyard Kipling, poet laureate of England, was seized by the truth of this when he was commissioned to write a poem in honor of Queen Victoria on the 60th anniversary of her inauguration. The British Empire stood at the apex of its glory and the occasion was one of great self-congratulation. In that setting, Kipling’s somber poem “Recessional ” was as welcome as a Salvation Army officer at a stag party. But Kipling saw with a clear eye that all flesh is as grass and the flower thereof fadeth:

God of our fathers, known of old —
Lord of our far-flung battle-line —
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet
Lest we forget — Lest we forget!

 

The tumult and the shouting dies —
The captains and the kings depart —
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

 

Far-called, our navies melt away —
On dune and headland sinks the fire —
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

 

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the Law —
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget — lest we forget!

 

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard —
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding, calls not Thee to guard —
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on Thy people, Lord!

Part II

“To Whom will you liken me?” (Isaiah 40:25).

The exiled Judeans were faced not only with the political crisis of the power of their captor, Babylon. They were also faced with a religious crisis. Had not the God of their fathers been proven irrelevant for this new day? Oh yes, it was said He had delivered their ancestors from the power of Assyria. But He had not delivered them from the power of Babylon. Didn’t this demonstrate the superiority of the Babylonian gods over Yahweh, Israel’s God?

Do you see the analogy to our own times? We hear people saying, “The God of Jonathan Edwards, George Washington, and Francis Asbury is no longer relevant to our situation. This is a new day. We are faced with the chaotic forces of nature, of society, and of our own psyches threatening to destroy us. Somehow we must come to terms with these forces now before it is too late. We can no longer afford the luxury of time spent cultivating a radical trust in a personal God who will settle for nothing less than ourselves. If we are ever to attain that most desirable of all states—security—we must use every effort to lay hold of the sources of power in nature, in society, and in ourselves.”

There is nothing new about this philosophy. What I have just described is paganism. To be sure, the Babylonians personalized the chaotic forces of nature, society, and psyche over which they sought to gain control, while we treat those forces as impersonal abstractions. But the goal is the same—personal security. And the means are the same—discovery of and manipulative use of elemental power without self commitment. This is what idolatry is: to make God in the image of this world, to limit Him to this world, in order to gain power over Him. Whether this involves representation in some visible form or not, the principle is the same.

But the irony is that this is the surest way to lose control. For paganism, whether in ancient or modern form, can never answer the two ultimate questions—Whence? and Why? And without those answers life becomes a riddle.

Power? Security? For what purpose? Unless we know where we have come from, we cannot know where we are headed. Pagan religion was fascinated with origins, just as our modern sciences, both physical and behavioral. But what if the answer to our origins and our meaning lies outside of the physical universe? Then indeed we are in the dark. Unless, of course, the Source of what we are is a Person who could speak to us.

This is exactly the taunt God directs toward ancient idolatries – and ours. Can nature tell you what she is about any more than you can tell yourself what you are about? Of course not. “Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? ” (Isaiah 40:21). Only the Uncreated holds the keys to our existence. If there is any power, any security, they are to be found in the Creator who is beyond our control and manipulation. Psalm 2 puts it well: “Why do the nations rage and the people imagine a vain thing. … He who sits in the heavens will laugh.”

The One who hung Orion in place can be amused at our petty posturings and our claims to have explained Him away. The marvel is that He has not flung us away because of our blindness and our heavy-handed attempts to make Him do our bidding. Instead, He longs to be known by us. While we cannot manipulate Him, He wants to give us power and He wants to give us security, if we will only abandon ourselves to His love (Isaiah 40:28,29). Truly He is without compare. There is none like Him, in Heaven or on earth.

Part III

If His real nature is revealed in His longing to comfort His people, to speak to their hearts … if human power is severely and strictly limited … if God is God without compare, then what is our proper response? The word of Isaiah, the prophet of prophets, again seems strange. He says we should wait upon the Lord. How strange! He tells a captive people caught in despair and dejection to wait. He tells a great nation looking to its past and future, searching for some sense of direction, to wait.

What is waiting in the Biblical sense? Waiting is not that frustrating deferral of expectation, that anxious wondering whether what we hope is so, is so. Rather, this word, the equivalent of “hope” in the New Testament, expresses a calm and confident anticipation. It is a part of God’s solution to our problem. The attitude of waiting is evidence of God’s care and concern. It is not a grim stoicism which says, “My head is bloody but unbowed.” Instead, it is a joyous sonship which declares, “This is my Father’s world!”

But even granting this positive aspect, waiting still involves accepting another sense of timing than my own. Why wait? First of all, because whatever is accomplished in our own strength is ultimately deadly. Remember Abraham and Sarah? They had the promise of God that they, far past the age of child-bearing, would have a child. They must have wondered how God would do this amazing thing. How normal it seemed to take the accepted, the legally demanded, but human, way. So Abraham went in to Sarah’s handmaid. Given the standards of the day, it was a perfectly moral act. But a moral act is not necessarily an act of faith, and whatever is not of faith is dead. This was abundantly true in the case of Ishmael. This was Abraham’s child, not God’s. And Abraham’s child is Adam’s child. In place of the reconciliation God longed to bring into a torn world, there was only deepened alienation; in place of humble praise, sad pride; in place of a glad legitimacy, a bitter sense of illegitimacy.

So it is with all of our works to which we try to attach the name of God. Oh, the difference when Isaac was born! This was God’s answer, not man’s! Isaac’s birth could never be mistaken for anything but the miracle of grace it was.

The world no longer looks to see the adequacy of the church. It knows that answer. Rather, it looks for the adequacy of the church’s God. “Wait upon the Lord.”

Why wait? To remind ourselves that the battle is not ours but the Lord’s. Things had gone so well for King Saul. His first great test at Jabesh-gilead had been met successfully. The people had responded wonderfully to his Spirit-fired leadership and the eastern enemies had been driven back. Now came the decisive confrontation with the main enemy—the Philistines. They were entrenched on the central ridge and Saul’s troops would be forced to attack uphill from their camp at Gilgal in the Jordan valley, a prospect dreadful enough to chill the heart of any general.

But Saul accepted the challenge and called out the people. Again they responded wonderfully. But Saul had come in his life to a crucial point that comes to any moderately successful servant of God – the point where one begins to ask if one’s own abilities, skills, sense of timing, and charisma were really the explanation for the successes. One person was missing from Saul’s company, the prophet Samuel who would convey God’s blessing on the endeavor. They waited and he did not come. They waited some more and still he did not come. Finally, a week having gone by, Saul grew desperate. The people were beginning to drift away. So he made a fateful choice. Believing that timing and superior forces were essential to victory, while God’s blessing was merely desirable, he tried to manufacture the blessing himself and get on with the fighting.

Of course, Samuel appeared at that moment, for God’s moment is only one moment after our fear and pride drive us to cry, “I can wait no longer.” That is the crisis moment. Will we take affairs in our own hands, believing we hold the key to success? Or will we, having crucified that fear and that pride, choose to wait, knowing that God and His blessing are the only essentials. In either case, God’s moment is the next one.

Do you see now why Jesus said what He did on His Ascension Day? “You will be my witnesses … but wait. … ” The Hebrew believers had come increasingly to the understanding that their only hope of achieving that holy life which their hearts cried for, but their wills refused, was God Himself coming to live in them in His Spirit. This is what the ministry of Jesus was about, as John the Baptist said, to take away our sins so that God could abide in us and we in Him.

In John 15 and 16, Jesus called God’s Spirit “the Comforter.” When I thought of that I raced to my Greek Old Testament to see how they translated the word “comfort ” in Isaiah 40:1. You guessed it! The same word: parakaleo. “Comfort ye my people? Speak to their hearts? The Comforter is come!” To broken-hearted, despairing, frustrated Jews, Jesus said, “This is it! He’s here! But wait.”

Surely if I had been there I would have shouted, “We’ve already waited 20 centuries; how long, oh Lord?” God’s moment is the next one. What a tragedy if the disciples had gone out to witness without waiting for the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, to come. The Church would have died a-borning. But they did wait and we benefit from that decision today.

Will America wait today? Will the Church wait today? Will our difficulties drive us to further frenzied activity or will they drive/call us back to the Fountainhead? Make no mistake. This is not a call to passively sit on our hands, for no Old Testament prophet ever proposed such a scheme. Instead, it is activity of God’s choosing, at His timing, and with His resources. Isaiah 64:4 reads, “For since the beginning … what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for Him.” Paul paraphrases it in I Corinthians 2:9, “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love [not wait for] Him.” Was this change a case of unwarranted license? I think not.

Paul puts his finger on the heart of it. Those who wait in His presence are those who love Him, and those who love Him are those who daily say, “Not my will but Thine.” For this is to say, “my way and will and time and resources are Thine.” This is to walk and not faint. This is to run day after day and not be weary. And this is to be alive to those moments when the Spirit says, “Now!” And we can spread our wings to catch His freshening wind and soar, and the world will know this is not Ishmael, but Isaac.

Comfort ye my people …
All flesh is as grass …
To whom will you liken me?
They that wait upon the Lord will renew their strength.
Wait, I say, upon the Lord.

Archive: What is “This Gospel”?

Archive: How Joyce Got Her Bible

Archive: How Joyce Got Her Bible

A personal testimony by Joyce Eblen, Co-pastor, Carthage Christian Church, Cincinnati, Ohio

American Bible Society
1865 Broadway
New York, New York 10023

To Whom it may Concern:

I know you receive many stories about what happens to the people who receive ABS Bibles. Many of these people live in foreign mission fields, but some live right here in the United States. I am one of them. My life was changed by Scriptures produced by the Society and I want to tell you my story.

In the fall of 1972, I was living in New York City and trying to make it in the rough, competitive world of the professional theatre. Sometimes I got a part in a play and worked for awhile. Sometimes I didn’t. (During those times I didn’t eat much.) But whether I was working or not, I felt unhappy most of the time. There was something missing in my life, but I didn’t know what it was.

The previous summer I had been acting in a drama in the state of Kentucky. One of the cast members was a Christian and he shared with me about his Lord. At the time, it didn’t make much sense to me. Then, at the end of the summer, I went back to New York. What he had said stuck with me, even though I tried to put it out of my mind.

Back in the city, things weren’t getting any better. Finally, I couldn’t hold out against the Lord any more. One night, alone in my apartment, I accepted Jesus Christ into my life. I went to bed that night with a peace in my heart that I had never before experienced in my entire life.

The next morning I woke up with an absolute thirst to read Scripture. I don’t know why that happened, because I had never read the Bible seriously before. Yet I knew that I had to get a Bible for my own that day. I had seen the ABS building many times in my travels throughout the city, so I started to make my way up there. Now you must understand that I was living on the lower West Side, so a walk to your building meant a hike of over 50 New York City blocks!! Why didn’t I take a subway? Because the small amount of change that I had in my pocket was all the money I had in the world. I was just hoping it would be enough to buy a Bible. When I got to your bookstore, a very nice middle-aged woman (I’m sorry that I don’t know her name) came up to wait on me. I said that I wanted to buy a Bible.

“What version would you like?”

I was stunned. I didn’t know that there were different versions. So I merely answered, “One that I can read easily.”

She handed me the little gray paperback called Good News for Modern Man. I asked how much it was. For some reason, she looked at me and said, “How much do you want to pay?” I counted out some of my change—it totaled 37 cents—all that I had. She said that would be fine. So I left your bookstore with the precious Word of God. Now I had no money at all, but I was very, very rich.

I read the entire New Testament that afternoon. Now I have several Bibles, but none is more precious to me than my little battered, marked-up, dog-eared Good News.

Who could have guessed how much that little paperback Good News would mean? Yet I know that the Scriptures your Society has produced have worked even greater miracles in the lives of countless others across the world.

Once I had only 37 cents to pay for a Bible. Now I can do better than that, so please accept this contribution with my deepest gratitude for your continuing work in bringing God’s Word to those who need it.

In Christ’s Name,

Rev. Joyce Putnam Eblen

United Methodists who are concerned with the spread of Scriptural Christianity have long had an ally in the American Bible Society.

The ABS, whose “only purpose” is to “promote the distribution of the Holy Scripture without doctrinal note or comment,” offers many suggestions for Bible distribution. These include making large-print Bibles available to the elderly or placing racks containing portions of Scripture in public places.

St. Mark’s UM Church in Atlanta, Georgia, purchased 1,500 Scripture selections on postcards and brochures and used them to decorate a large Christmas tree on the church lawn. Passers-by were encouraged to help “untrim” the tree by taking a Scripture selection home.

Opportunities are also open to spread the Scripture through records and tapes. A motel in Orlando, Florida, for example, has begun an around-the-clock reading of the New Testament in Today’s English Version over its closed-circuit television. Find out about the Outreach Program, personalized for your church, and the Good News Bible Order Agreement, where you can order Scripture on consignment.