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Pastor's Perspective for Sunday, August 22, 2010 |
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Written by Ron Woodrum
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Sunday, 22 August 2010 |
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A few years ago I bumped into a young man that I used to supervise at Millikin University. We had a chance encounter at a grocery store. The expression on his face looked like he had just seen a ghost. That was exactly what he was thinking! I had been ill. Seriously ill. He had not heard of my miraculous recovery. He said, "Ron, I thought you had died! I read your obituary in the paper!". (Actually he had read the obituary of my cousin Robert who was three years older than me, though he did die at a relatively young age). How do you respond to that? I responded the same way I had heard that Mark Twain did years ago, in a very similar situation. It seems that rumor had spread that Twain was in very bad health. A journalist was sent to investigate his poor health, expecting to find him at death's door. It reality it was his cousin too, (James R. Clemens). On June 2, 1897 Twain responded publicly by recounting the event to the New York Journal with his famous words, "The report of my death is an exaggeration", (what is usually misquoted, e.g. "the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated". Many today are extremely quick to read with glee, what they feel is the obituary of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Recently George Barna, the pollster, wrote "After nearly two decades of studying the Christian Churches in America, I am convinced that the Church, as we know it, has a rapidly expiring shelf life!" (The Second Coming of the Church, 1998. p.1). Today the idea is that unless we become a "seeker-friendly" Church that the Church of Jesus Christ is a failure! We are being told to look at these Mega-Churches, with thousands of members/attendees; twenty full-time staff; sprawling church plants and campuses; and unlimited budgets, and conclude that these are the real movers and shakers of Christianity. In reality only two (2) percent of all protestant Churches have over 1,000 in attendance on any given Sunday morning. The United States is dominated by small churches, with average attendance of less than ninety, (90) attendees on any given Sunday. That fact has caused most today to announce the funeral of the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Those who do so, do so, in direct contradiction of the declaration of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, when he said, "I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" ( Matt. 16:18). The Allies, in World War II, were extremely confident that the war was close to conclusion after D-Day. The only problem was Hitler did not share their perspective. Like a dog, with his back against the wall, he struck back, desperately. He attempted to attack the allies, through the Ardennes forest, driving a wedge between the American and British forces, taking Antwerp, and crushing Allied morale. He did so on December 14, 1944, achieving both strategic and tactical surprise. The Allied forces found themselves again in peril. The torrential rains, making air reinforcements impossible for the Allies, now favored Hitler's bulge! Gen. Patton called in his chaplain. He wanted to rally the troops, and the people to prayer. He had the chaplain write a model prayer, print it on wallet-sized prayer cards, with a Christmas greeting on the other side from the famous General. He was asking his troops to pray that God would intervene in this circumstance, and turn the tide of the war back in the favor of the Allies. He explained his convictions to his chaplain with these words, "I am a strong believer in prayer. There are three ways that men get what they want: by planning, by working, and by praying. Any great military operation takes careful planning. Then you must have troops to carry it out-that's working. But between the plan and the operation there is always the unknown. The unknown spells defeat or victory-success or failure. It is the reaction of the actors when the ordeal comes. Some people call that 'getting the breaks'. I call it God...God has His part, or margin on everything. That is where prayer comes in. God has been so good to us...and that is because a lot of people have been praying for us at home". In answer to prayer, the rains stopped. The weather turned clear. The reinforcements arrived. The Allies pushed back Hitler to ultimate defeat. God was the winning margin! Joshua and the people of Israel stood on the border of the Promised Land. Their future, though promised to be one blessed by God, had been one marked by failure, defeat, wandering, and reproach. They were at a historical crossroad. Their future was clearly filled with the "unknown". Many, some of them in Joshua's own ranks, were writing the nation's obituary! At that moment, the night before their first major battle and test, something happened that 'told a different story". We too, as individual Christians, and as the Church collectively, stand at a crossroad. There is unknown elements about our future too. Not due to any lack on the Lord's part. He has a clear design that we experience nothing short of total victory, and possess all that He has ordained. The unknown element resides in our willingness to let Him empower us to reach our full potential. What happened to Joshua, and the people of God, needs to be experienced by the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ today. Without such intervention, those reports...our obituary...may well just be accurate? |
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