PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: A VITAL VISION FOR THE CHURCH-ONE NEEDED FOR REVIVAL?

By:  Ron Woodrum

     A.W. Tozer wrote several years ago “If we, (who belong to the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ), are ever going to bring back spiritual power to our lives-we must SEE God and Jesus AS THEY REALLY ARE!”.    We are told in First Peter that “having not seen Jesus, we love Him”. (I Peter 1:8).  We are also told that we serve a God who is invisible and “dwells in unapproachable light” (I Tim. 6:16). In Colossians 1:15 we are told that “Jesus Christ is the express image of that invisible God”.  We are also told in Hebrews 11:27 Moses “endured as seeing Him who is invisible”.  The question to be answered is then “how do we see Jesus Christ AS HE REALLY IS?”  One the very early reformers, Desiderius Erasmus, wrote a very interesting preface to his Greek New Testament.  He wrote, “The Bible will give you Christ…in an intimacy so close that He would be less visible if he stood before your eyes”. I believe that is true.  But I think that we have lost clear perception of the Christ that is revealed in Scripture.  Dr. Peter Kuzmic, President of the Evangelical Seminary in Osijek, Yugoslavia speaks to this issue.  He tells his students, “We must renew the credibility of the Christian Mission.  Missions and Evangelism are not primarily a question of Methodology, Money, and Management…but a question of authenticity, credibility, and spiritual power.  In going out to evangelize in Yugoslavia I frequently tell our seminary students that our main task may be to simply ‘wash the face of Jesus’ for it has been dirtied and distorted by the compromises of the institutional Christianity through the centuries and the angagonistic propaganda of athiestic communism in recent decades”.  That is not only true of Europe.  Even in America our perspective of the Jesus of Scripture has been dirtied and distorted by our failure to preach and teach the “truth about Him as presented in the Bible!”  Someone has written, “More than 1900 years ago there was a man born contrary to the laws of nature.  He lived in poverty and raised in obscurity.  He did not travel exclusively.  The only time He crossed the borders of His country was when He ventured into Egypt-as a child-fleeing Herod the Great.  His relatives were inconspicuous.  He had neither training nor formal education.  Yet in His Infancy-He startled a King.  in His childhood-He confused the Scholars; In His manhood He ruled the course of nature; He walked on the billows of the sea as if it was paved sidewalk; He put the raging sea to sleep by His own lullabies; He healed the multitudes and did not charge them for His services; He never wrote a book, yet all the libraries in this country could not hold the volumes written about Him.  He never wrote a song-yet He has inspired more songs than anyone in history.  He never founded a college-yet all the schools of all time, cannot boast of more students than the multitudes that have been discipled at His feet.  He never marshalled an army, nor drafted a soldier, nor fired a gun, yet no leader has ever had that many followers follow Him, and been under His marching orders, then all the armies of the world, and men and women have surrendered to Him without Him firing a shot.  He never practiced psychiatry-yet He has brought healing and stability to more people than all the counselors in the world combined!  He stands on the highest pinnacle of Heaven’s glory. Proclaimed by God-Acknowledged by Angels-Adored by Saints-Feared by Demons!  The Living Lord Jesus Christ-Lord and Savior!”

     H.G. Wells, the great historian, and not a Christian historian I might add, said that “historians give a test of greatness to men of history.  The big question is-what did they leave behind?  Did he start men to thinking in fresh lines?  Stimulate new vigor-followed after him? You judge the size of the ship by the size of the wake it leaves behind”.  What kind of wake did Jesus leave behind?  Bishop Stephen Neill, in his Interpretation of the New Testament, writes, “What kind of stone could it be that, once thrown into the pool of human existence could set in motion ripples that would go on spreading until the utmost rim of the world had been reached?” (p.19).   That is what Jesus did!  But have we lost that vision?  Do we still feel the awe and impact after these centuries? William Blake in his poem on The Vision of Christ doesn’t think so.

He wrote:  “The Vision of Christ that thou dost see

                                               Is my vision’s worst enemy.

                                               Thine has a great hooked nose like thine

                                               Mine a snubbed nose like mine!

                                               Both of us read the Bible day and night-

                                               You read it black, I read it white!”

Dorothy Sayers agrees with our distortion.  She says that the Church today has tamed the Biblical Christ.  She wrote:  “The Church has very efficiently clipped the claws of the Lion of the Tribe of Judah…and certified Him as a safe household pet for pale curates and old ladies!”  H.A. Ironside said that it is dangerous for Christians to traffic in unfelt truth.  In other words, we may know Jesus…without really KNOWING the Jesus of the New Testament in the fulness that we need!  IN OTHER WORDS, THERE MAY BE A GAP BETWEEN OUR VISION AND OUR VENTURE-BETWEEN OUR DOCTRINE AND OUR DUTY-BETWEEN OUR POSITION AND OUR PRACTICE-BETWEEN OUR PERSPECTIVE AND OUR PERFORMANCE!  When the Apostle John, banished to the Isle of Patmos, saw a vision of Christ, he was so awe-struck that he shared a transforming message to the Churches.  Perhaps we need to get a glimpse of that glory again.  Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade of Christ had such a life transforming vision.  He visited Scotland in 1947.  He spent time with the great N.T. scholar James Stewart.  Stewart told him-“Bill if we can show the world that being committed to Jesus Christ is not tame, humdrum, sheltered monotony-but instead the most exciting thrilling adventure a human spirit can ever know.  Those standing outside the Church looking in-wondering who Jesus is-will instead come in-crown Him King-pay allegiance to Him-and we will see the greatest revival THIS SIDE OF PENTECOST!”    That can still be true for us today.  We need a renewed and refreshed vision of Our Lord.

PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE:  “THE CROSS OF CHRIST STILL TOWERS OVER THE WRECKS OF TIME!”

By:  Ron Woodrum

     The year was 1970, the tail end of the wild ’60’s in American history.  Dr. E. Stanley Jones, the famous Methodist missionary/author/evangelist was asked to name the number one problem of the Church.  He replied quickly, without hesitation-“the number one problem of the Church today is irrelevance!”  He went on to say that most of the opposition to the Church today stems from disappointment.  We promise to make men different-but somehow leave them indifferent!  The promise goes largely unfulfilled.  Dr. Jones went on to tell the story of a millionaire who said, “If Brother Stanley cannot convert me, I will sue him!” half in jest, and half seriously.  Dr. Jones explained, “What the world is saying is that if the Church cannot deliver on the message it preaches, we will sue you for breach of promise.  You promised this, now deliver.  Show us you can convert us, there is no other hope any other direction”.  A fairly recent Gallup poll reports that 77% of those surveyed feel that the Church is losing its influence in America.  George Barna puts it very bluntly: “Let’s cut to the chase.  After two decades of studying the Church in America, I am convinced that the typical Church as we know it has a rapidly expiring shelf-life!”  In 1998 he predicted that the Church would experience a massive revival or major ruin!   Nearly twenty years later you be the judge!  Have we seen a massive revival?  Or a melt-down of ruin?  Have we seen penetration or metrification?  Explosion or Implosion?  The Church in America has lost its influence.  As the world has grown darker we have neglected to fan the flame, and reflect the Light of our Glorious Lord into that darkness.  G. Campbell Morgan remarked, “The Church did the most for the world when it was least like the world”.

Ephesians is the N.T. parallel of the O.T. book of Joshua.  In Joshua, as he began to lead the People of God, into the darkness of the Idolatry of the Land of Canaan, God told him, “Every place your foot shall tread on that land have I given you, as I told Moses” (Joshua 1:3).  Joshua and the people of God, in the Old Testament were commanded to walk in the land and every step would be a conquering step by the power of God, dispelling the darkness of the Land with the Glorious presence of the LORD.  Today as Paul tells Christians to Walk in Life, in Liberty, in Light, and in Love that is more than verbiage and imagery.  It is the power of God, sending us out into the kingdom of darkness.  Each step replaces death with life; each step replaces defeat with liberty; each step replaces darkness with light; each step replaces despair with love!  In Philippians Paul told the Philippians to rejoice because all of his seemingly adverse circumstances had “fallen out unto the furtherance of the Gospel!” (Phil. 1:12).  The word “furtherance” is the word-prokope-which means “advance forward”.

Instead of retreating in our influence, God wants us to have a walk that will take us forward into the world.  One that is anointed with His power.  One that will conquer with each step!    We can see this happen as a slow but saturating sunrise, or a slow but systematic shining.  David told his son Solomon that God can penetrate darkness in the way he does it every twenty four hours!  In Proverbs 4:18 David said, “The steps of the righteous are like the rising sunlight, which shines a little, and a little more, until the day dawns, and the full day arises and shines in its fullness!”  Or we can do what Jesus said, “Let your light so shine among men that they will see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matt. 5:16).  Or what Paul wrote in Philippians 2:15-16 “be harmless and blameless Children of God…shining as lights in a crooked and perverse world, holding forth the Word of Life”. 

At one of the darkest times in his life, one filled with anxiety, depression, and drugs, Hank Williams captured this truth in his familiar Gospel Song-” I wandered so aimless, life filled with sin; I wouldn’t let my dear Savior in; Then Jesus came like a stranger in the night; Praise the Lord-I saw the Light!”     That same light, emanating from our Glorious Savior, reflecting off the faces of His dear children, who make up His Church, still has the power to light up the darkness!  Don’t ever doubt that.   C.S. Lewis said, “I believe in Christianity like I believe in the Sun.  Not just because I see it, but by it I see clearly everything else!”  God’s light has a way of doing that still today.

When Robert Louis Stevenson was a young child he was sick a lot.  He couldn’t go out and play with the other children much.  He spent a lot of time watching at the window.  One evening he sat there while the sun was going down, and darkness was setting on the town.  He watched as a man, the lamplighter came down the street lighting the gas lamps.  His nurse came upon him and asked what he was watching.  He said, “I am watching the man punch holes in the darkness!”  It must have seemed like that.  Each newly lit lamp dispelled the area darkness until soon the entire town was aglow with the warm light of the lamps.  Our nation, our state, our city, our neighborhoods could use a little “punching of holes in the darkness”.  We can do it one step at a time, while we wait for the sunrise!  Amen?

On the south coast of China, on a hill overlooking the harbor of Macao, Portuguese settlers once built a massive cathedral.  But a typhoon proved stronger than the work of man’s hands, and some centuries ago the building fell in ruins, except for the front wall.  High upon that jutting wall, challenging the elements down through the years, is a great bronze cross.  In 1825 Sir John Bowring was shipwrecked near there.  Clinging to the wreckage of his ship, at long last he caught sight of that great cross; it showed him the path of deliverance, safety, and salvation.  After his dramatic rescue he was moved to write those familiar words, that later became his hymn that has blessed millions:

     “In the cross of Christ I glory,

      Towering over the wrecks of time;     

      All the light of the sacred story,    

      Gathers round its head sublime”.

That is why the Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthians-“I am determined not know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him Crucified” (I Cor. 2:2).  Helmut Thielicke wrote about the secret of the greatest preacher the world has ever seen-Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  He wrote, “In the midst of the theologically discredited nineteenth century there was s preacher who had at least six thousand people in his congregation every Sunday, whose sermons for many years were cabled to New York every Monday and reprinted in the leading newspapers of the country, and who occupied the same pulpit for almost forty years with any diminishment in the flowing abundance of his preaching and without ever repeating himself or preaching himself dry.  The fire he thus kindled, and turned into a beacon that shone across the seas and down through the generations, was no mere brush fire of sensationalism, but an inexhaustible blaze that glowed and burned on solid hearths…fed by the eternal Word.  Here was the miracle of a bush that burned with fire and yet was not consumed”.  When asked the key to his powerful preaching Spurgeon said, “I announce my text…and make a bee-line for the cross!”  THAT CROSS TOWERS OVER THE WRECKS OF TIME-AND BRINGS RESCUE AND RESTORATION OUT OF THOSE WRECKS!  LIFT IT UP HIGH…THE WAY OF THE CROSS LEADS HOME!

PASTOR’S PERSPECTIVE: “Mankind has it again…the unyielding despair of death!” 

By:  Ron Woodrum

     Several years ago, a young medical student graduated and moved to a small town to begin his practice.  He so wanted to be a success in helping people with their multi-faceted maladies.  He had dedicated his life to this very cause.  An old man was his very first patient.  The young doctor wanted so to make a very good first impression.  The old man listed all of his ailments and waited for the Dr. to give him his diagnosis.  After a long examination the young doctor had no clue what was wrong with his patient.  The doctor asked him, “have you ever had this before?”  The old man replied, “yes many times!”  The doctor said, “well…it looks like you have it again!”  When the world tries to figure out what in the world is wrong with mankind…we have to come to the conclusion that we definitely have the malady again.  Every person…every generation…we all have the same disease that brings about the same result…death.  God warned man to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  God warned the first couple do not eat of that tree…for the day you eat thereof…”in dying you shall die!”  (the Hebrew is quite expressive-“you will die that moment spiritually…a process of dying physically will set in, and if not cured the end result will be eternal death!”).  Redemption in Jesus Christ is the only answer to this malady.  But keep in mind that the devil denied that sin would bring forth death.  He told Eve, “You shall not surely die!”  But every since that first eventful encounter-as the Book of Romans tells us “death has reigned over mankind“.

Man has written much about this enemy that has us in its grip.  “April is the cruelest month” begins the first line of T.S. Eliot’s poem Wasteland.  His poem is thought to be a portrayal of universal despair, where we lie in wait between the unrelenting force of spring and the dead of coming constant contrast of winter!  In the bold display of life’s unending circles, one can only be left to wonder at the point of it all!  Does everything simply fade into a Wasteland of Death?  Is death the last desperate word?  Perhaps this is the very thing that Isaiah had in mind when he protested...”In the prime of life must I go through the gates of death and be robbed of the rest of my years?  For the grave cannot praise you, death cannot sing your praise.  The living, the living —they praise you as I am doing today” (Isaiah 38:18-19b).  Though to a differing degree and conclusions much of our literature is unapologetically full of a sense of deep irony expressed at times in the fullness of futility.  Euripides, a writer in the fifth century B.C., expressed this futility to his generation.

He wrote, ” and so we are sick for life, and cling

                        On earth to this nameless thing.

                        For other life is a fountain sealed

                        And the deeps below us are unrevealed

                        And we drift on legends forever”

(Euripides, Hippolytus, Lines 195-199)

Shakespeare, with the lips of McBeth writes…

“tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow.

                        creeps in this petty pace from day to day.

                        To the last syllable of recorded time;

                        And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

                        The way to dusty death; Out, out brief candle!

                        Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player,

                        That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

                        And is heard from no more.  It is a tale,

                        Told by an Idiot, full of sound and fury,

                        Signifying nothing!” (McBeth. Act 5. Scene 5, 19-28).

The philosopher Nietzsche called mankind “species of the dead…a very rare species”.  Bertrand Russell said that mankind has no choice to “build their lives on the firm foundation of unyielding despair”.  Referring to the fact that death hangs over our heads like a sword of Damocles.  The world has no hope to offer us.  Atheists tell us that we evolved from death, lifeless matter, we experience life briefly, then we return to the nothingness of death!  in other words, life is an unnecessary chance interruption in the midst of cosmic death.  No wonder atheist Albert Camus maintained that in light of that kind of meaningless of life the only serious philosophical question is whether or not to commit suicide!  That has caused comedians to make light of this human dilemma.  Woody Allen said, “I am not afraid of death, I just don’t want to be there when it happens!”  George Burns said, “If you live to be 100, you have got it made.  Very few people die past that age!”  (He lived to be 100 and did just that…”he died!”).  Steven Wright said, “I intend to live forever…so far so good!”  But though these comments make us laugh…they really are no comfort for our dilemma!  Even Oscar Wilde wrote the book the Picture of Dorian Gray, the story of a man who sells his soul for ceaseless youth.  Old man wrinkle cannot touch him.  Everyone marvels at his eternal youthfulness.  But his beauty hides a soul marked with greed, lust and betrayal.  A painting of him shows the condition of his inner life.  Initially the face in the painting is as handsome as he is in real life.  But his sin begins to be reflected on the canvas.  Every act of deceit, betrayal, and greed becomes another wrinkle or pockmark or twisted feature until at last the face in the painting is too hideous to bear.  He hides it in the attic.  And in the end, when death comes for him, the painting is who he becomes!

In the movie Shadowlands, it is shown that one of the reasons why Joy Davidman fell in love with Lewis is because of his theology of heaven and also his beautiful depictions of how Christ was an answer to man’s dilemma of sin and death.  He not only taught it in his theology, but illustrated it in his Chronicles of Narnia.  In his book the Silver Chair King Caspian lay under a clear stream.  (Dead).  The children weep.  Even Aslan weeps.  Aslan tells Eustace to get a thorn and push it into his paw.  As a result, a drop of blood falls into the stream and King Caspian leaps up, no longer old, but a young man.  He rushes to Aslan…and flung his arms as far around him as far as they would reach.  He gives Aslan kisses as a King, and Aslan gives him kisses from a Lion.  Eustace says, (concerning Caspian), “hasn’t he…died?”  “Yes”, says Aslan.  “He has died.  Most people have you know.  Even I have.  There are very few who haven’t!”  Lewis was trying to get us to focus on the eternal dimension of the present.  Many more people have died, and due to the blood of Christ, they have entered into eternal life.  Many more people have died and now live than are present on the earth currently.  Knowing that should change our perspective.  In the Last Battle, the final chapter is ‘Farewell to the Shadowlands”.  Aslan tells the children what has happened to them.  He tells them that there has been an accident.  He then tells them the truth…”Your father and mother and all of you are-as you used to call it in the Shadowlands-dead!  The term is over.  The holidays have begun.  The dream is ended.  This is the morning…the things that begin to happen to them after that are so great and beautiful that I cannot write them…we can most truly say they lived happily ever after.  For them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in this world, and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read:  which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before!”  In other words, the Christian view is that we were created to live, death is a temporary interruption in this life, only to be followed by eternal life that can never be taken away- for it is the gift of life from the Christ of Calvary.  Fyodor Dostoyevsky saw this when he said, “One day man’s wisdom will not come out of books, but from the presence of the Living God, and our Earth will glow brighter than the sun, and there will be no more sadness!”  The devil moved us into the realm of death…and shouted “checkmate”.  But our King had one more move…and shouted “Life…Eternal…for all who Know Me!  I am the LORD OF LIFE AND DEATH”.