GOD’S REVIVALIST and BIBLE ADVOCATE
June 1987
RED ROVER
Edgar A. Bryan
You remember it well, don’t you – that old schoolhouse where you attended grade school? The teacher’s face stands out in your memory, and the classroom(s) where you learned, and your paddlings, and recess times. Ah, recess! I believe the smartest kids liked it. Eh? It was out the door and down the hall as fast as you dared go, a clatter down a set of concrete steps, and then the crash bar. Boom, the bar and door swung open, and Hurrah! it was recess – all 15 minutes of it. There was a place for “Mother-May-I” and a place to play with home toys to school; there were swings and the great merry-go-round; and there was Red Rover.
Forgive me, please, I don’t remember exactly how we chose up sides. But sides we had. Sometimes the sides were so chos~n (Yes, they were sides chosen by a leader weren’t they?) that it seemed that you could not but win. Other times you knew that they had you out -weighed and maybe even out-numbered. At the given time, one side challenged the other, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send Clara (or Bill) right over!” Across yards of worn grass came their man and either met the challenge and conquered one of us or lost that challenge and became one of us … Wait! … Did you hear that? … or BECAME ONE OF US! It was a win or lose situation. And so is Christianity.
All of us are playing Red Rover today, in a real, live world. We are on one side or the other. Our sides are headed either by the devil or by Jesus Christ. Some times it may seem that Christ’s side is the smallest. The enemy has some pretty big fellows, and he even has some that used to be on our side, but, Praise God, we can and must win!
In order to win at Red Rover, as I remember, we faced the enemy. Right? We didn’t trip Mark, fight with Vicky, or pick on Dale’s ugly old brogues. We faced THEM and
held tightly onto our friend’s hands.
There. There is a good point. We not only did not pick on him, we actually held on to him. In the time of “attack,” he would help hold us up, or we could be a hero and hold him or her up, and we didn’t even have to be in the same grade to do it either. Doesn’t Paul say something about, “Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?” There IS a unity that His Spirit gives. Would that our team had more of it!
Let’s see, we faced the enemy, we held on to each other, and … oh, yes, we CHALLENGED them. If you are going to play Red Rover, you must challenge them; that’s the name of the game. Funny, isn’t it (No, it isn’t funny.) how the Christians today do not want to challenge the world. In the 60’s we heard dialogue. Dialogue? You don’t win Red Rover by talking. You win by challenging and being challenged. You win by running and not being run over. In fact, the holiness movement, before my time, had an expression like that – “Get in, get out, or get run over.” What has happened to our challenge? When is the last time that you heard one of our team yell, “Red Rover, Red Rover, send the bartender right over?” When is the last time you yelled something like that? When is my last time to do it? God help us!
Why have we shied away from the challenge? It is work to run against the enemy. It is tough barreling down those last few feet seeing their tightened grips (they do stick together) and knowing the jolt you are going to receive in just a second. The devil always makes it his business to scream doubts at us; and, factually, there is a danger that we may fail. (Note: As Bro. Stepp used to point out, illustrations are not quadrupeds – we do not lose our soul in every challenge with the devil, but a soul may be lost.) We don’t like to fail or to even appear to fail, although following Christ has its paradoxes; and so it is easier to do nothing. We can really look religious doing nothing – not looking like failures.
Why are we not challenging the forces of evil? We are afraid we might lose some members; and as his side grows, ours gets smaller. Back to Red Rover, please. If the side you were on got smaller and smaller, didn’t it drive your determination higher and higher? Maybe there was even a day that it was down to you and your buddy. Some of us would have turned to our friend and said, “Hold on Nicky, with all you’ve got!” And we would have begun to win back team mates. Christ said, “If two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.” Glory to God! We can challenge and we can win over the enemy, if, IF we will work.
Too many holiness church members have read the signs of the times and said, “These are the last days, we won’t see an awakening now.” I would agree that these are the last days, but then so would have the first century disciples. They thought they were in the last days. Christ told us to occupy till He came. Till means just that. So the sides are tough, and the hour is late. Should we quit? NO! If one of your friends had a watch and said, “Recess is about over,” did you quit playing Red Rover? No you surely didn’t You played until, did you see that word UNTIL, the bell (trumpet) sounded, and you played all the harder knowing that your time was short.
We will call for the enemy’s men and women, or they will be lost. Lost. Team, whatever grade you are in, whatever clodhoppers you wear, whatever grades you may receive after the game of life is over, you are my team mates now; and we MUST challenge the devil for those people on his side. God wills it, love requires it, and time demands it.
“Red Rover, Red Rover, send the bartender right over!”
S S S S S S S S S S
GOD’S REVIVALIST and BIBLE ADVOCATE GOD’S REVIVALIST and BIBLE ADVOCATE
August 1988
LOVING AND PICKING FRUIT
Edgar A. Bryan
Along the recurved roads of Southwest Indiana, my girls and I have picked many gallons of raspberries, black raspberries. The vines grow wild there, some places in large numbers, on the banked “right-a-ways.” Several summer mornings found us parting leaves in search of these delectable cereal toppers and/or double-crusted pie fillers.
The raspberry has its teachings.
Never, not even once, did a gallon of raspberries walk up to the parsonage door. Every time we had to go looking for them. The church should not be surprised when sinners do not come to us. We must live, minister and member, so that we see and use the opportunities to pick fruits where they are. The “meeting house” is home for the saints. Sinners and backsliders are more than welcome to walk in, but the church should not depend on that method. Christ, Peter, Paul, John, and others picked kingdom fruit where they found them.
There is each early summer a time in which white, green, and red raspberries all stand on the vine. The white ones are very small, the green ones are larger but still small, the red ones are almost as large as they are going to be; but, since these are black raspberries, the red ones are still unripe. Gradually (please note that word), the white berries turn green, the green ones turn red, and oh, anticipation, the red ones darken toward black. Excepting times of mighty Holy Ghost visitation, kingdom fruits also ripen in differing stages. Christian fruit gatherers must be sensitive to the timings of the Lord.
Raspberries ripen from red to darker red to almost black. When fully ripe, however, an almost indescribable appearance is theirs. Maybe one should say it is black with frosting on it. In between each little bulb (which makes up one berry), a grayish, yet clear-like, covering occurs. This, if it is rubbed, will come off; but if left alone it gives the fruit a maroon/black and silver picture-book quality. The experienced picker knows that this almost indescribable appearance is THE time to settle Mr. Berry into the container for home canning/freezing plans. It is ‘the time to take him to the “meeting house.”
The girls have been mentioned, but to give credit (both positive and negative) their older brothers helped pick in a previous pastorate. One or more of these young pickers have brought home berries all red and/or red and black. Most of the time, if not every time, such accidents occurred in haste or because of not seeing the whole berry.
How often has the church been cursed with men and women who could not tell unripe fruit from that which was ripe. It is even sadder to think that some men may have even tried to pick God’s fruit, though unripe, in order to “fill up the gallon” – that is look good during a revival
or other nose-counting time. Heaven help such miserable, injurious workers.
Since I’ve confessed for the four Bryan offspring, let me confess for myself. On more than one occasion I have thought the berry looked ripe. I have pulled (even a blind person could pick berries once he has learned the right “feel” of a ripe one) and when it didn’t come, I have pulled harder. Two reasons have generally excused such actions; either I was just SURE it was ripe or I wasn’t going to get back to the patch for some days and thought it better to have it partially ripe than not to have it at all. God’s fruit is not to be picked because of some expert’s SURE ideas, nor are they to be brought in at the convenience of man’s schedules. In my sureness and· or schedule pressures, I have pulled a few berries completely in two.
The time arrives in late season, if rain and sun have been mixed just right, that one could say “Look on the patch for it is black unto harvest.” There are times berries and men can be picked by handfuls: four, five, and six at a time. God gives, in His natural harvest and in His kingdom harvest, times of real ingatherings. He needs laborers for the fields when His time of true revival is right.
Allow a couple more comparisons, please. Somewhere between the extremes of not picking at all and picking everything (green, red, and black) we need members and ministers who are very sensitive to waiting for His time. Our churches
have, right now, too many who “LOOK ripe” but aren’t. They were picked in haste and are not really being a blessing at alL
When unripe berries, no matter how much they are sugared, top the cereal bowl, the eater soon knows it. They are bitter and hard. Unripe men and berries are not sweet, they are not juicy; and, perhaps saddest of all, man can not put them back on the vine to ripen. God can, but He depended on human pickers and they failed Him.
Our sons and daughters have helped picked tens of thousands of berries across the years. Generally, these harvests were possible because dad drove some back roads or walked pasture fields months before blossom time and mentally noted locations. The church of Jesus Christ needs fathers and mothers in Israel who will stake out claims for revivals. We need Christian leaders who will properly train workers for the next great waves of harvest. We need visionaries and praying planners. In short, we need men who love fruit and love it enough to marshal pickers for the sensitive, timely harvest of ripened Kingdom Fruit.
S S S S S S S S S S
December 1992
FEAR NOT FOR BEHOLD
Edgar A. Bryan
“Fear not for behold”
The shepherd were told
The night when Christ was a Boy
“I bring you good tidings of great joy
Which shall be to all people”
The well, as well as the feeble.
“For unto you is born this day
In the city of David” not far away
“A Savior which is Christ the Lord”
Ah, Precious Gift heaven could afford.
“And suddenly there was with the angel
A multitude of heavenly host
Praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest'”
Father, Son and Holy Ghost
“And on earth peace good will toward men”
Then they were free to heavenward wend
Those shepherds “came with haste” from the field
To receive far more than wool could yield
And remember their decision to their dying day
And “go even unto Bethlehem”
After “the angels were gone away.
S S S S S S S S S S
GOD’S REVIVALIST and BIBLE ADVOCATE
March 1993
WHICH WAY HOLINESS CHURCH
Edgar A. Bryan
My dad was taking the family for a drive in our old Chevy. When we approached a certain country intersection, Dad asked, “Which way shall we go?” As a pre-schooler I piped up and said, “Go straight.” He did – for a few yards. But it wasn’t a crossroads, it was a “T” a T with a grass triangle between its three joining roads. The story is too old for me to recall now which way he actually turned, but I well remember enjoying him acting as if he would go straight (driving across the grass until he came to the other side of the triangle).
My suggestion is worth repeating again; this time not to Dad, but to the holiness church, “Go straight.” Unlike our auto trip of yesteryear, true holiness today is not facing a T; nor a recognizable crossroads. Our intersection has more resemblance to a three pronged pitchfork: one right road leading almost parallel to the center and one left road also almost parallel to the center. But only the center one is truly straight.
The left prong road has a sign “New Liberty.” Its travelers are Wesleyan Arminians. Their doctrine is ALMOST like the straight road. They sing a number of the same songs and read some of the same holiness authors. Their dads and granddads attended and taught at conservative holiness schools. Their old family photos reveal grandmas and mothers in modest dresses, uncluttered by flashing stones, and graced with natural-length hair. New Liberty Road is full of moral people who accept ALMOST all of the Bible. They believe that lying, stealing, and cursing are wrong. They do not accept sex outside of marriage, abortion, or suicide. But they have trouble with certain Scriptures. They have convinced themselves that Peter and Paul meant those writings only for the first-century church. Corinthians thirteen is not cultural to them, but the specifics of chapter eleven are.
In 1988 I was taking my family traveling. We had visited Capitol Reef National Park and planned to spend the night near Bryce Canyon. Being a lover of the country, Utah‘s route 12 was chosen as not only the closest way between two parks, but also for its chance to “see the country.” And we did.
That blacktop road traveled through beautiful, lonely areas of high country. Then it began to center on a ridge, and that ridge began to narrow. It was not snowing and it was not raining, but as the drop-offs on both sides came more clearly into view, I could imagine the road under less-than-best conditions. There would only have been one place to have been then: the c-e-n-t-e-r.
The holiness road is narrow. It goes through the most beautiful high country. But the ridge on which it is centered is not wide; never has been, never will be! There have been times, maybe, in which (to follow the analogy) road conditions have been safer. Today the holiness road is perhaps as dangerous as it has ever been. There is only one place to travel: the center.
To the left is a canyon, steep and deep. To take a slight angle to the left will mean death, though the angle might give you a few minutes. To purposely turn left would bring almost instant soul death. The left is the side of the liberal (as the term is understood today) – the one who takes things OUT of God’s Word.
What is over there (left of the holiness way) that is so attractive? Scores and scores of people who used to be holy have turned left or are turning slightly that way. Is it thought to be easier off the holy road? Is there less reproach off the narrow way? Have people gotten so engrossed in the scenery that their wheels pull in that direction? (Generally speaking, the driver tends to drift the direction he is looking.)
How can you tell if you are moving left? There is a tendency to say certain parts of the New Testament were written for only that day. It becomes easier to assume that such-n-such is not to be taken literally. Loving God is replaced with loving man (self) and his achievements.
The drop-off on the right side of the Highway of Holiness is just as dangerous. Rock-lined walls and a deadly bottom await the right-hand drifter, just as surely as the left one. To move off the road to the right will eventually kill spiritual life; to jerk the wheel right would be to commit spiritual suicide. The right is the side of the arch-conservative (as the term is understood today), the one who puts things INTO God’s Word.
What is over there (right, of the holiness way) that is so attractive? Some people who used to be holy have turned right or are now turning that way. Is it thought to be easier off the holy road? Is it safer than the way God planned? Have people gotten so engrossed in the scenery that their wheels pull in that direction? Is the driver drifting the direction he is looking?
How can you tell if you are moving right? There is a tendency to say that the New Testament is not detailed enough; it needs man’s rules. It becomes easier to assume that such-n-such is REALLY what the writer meant instead of the literal. Loving God is replaced with loving man (self) and his achievements.
But, you say, the arguments are almost alike! Correct. There was a lot of similarity in the canyons along Utah number 12. To have missed the road and landed in the bottom of either side would have meant death. And the same is true on the holiness way.
The death of the soul is what the devil seeks. The glorifying of God is what he delights to diminish. It does not matter to the enemy if we drift right or drift left; just as long as we quit giving God the glory. Dress wild or dress like you fell off the back-end of a covered wagon – if you are more concerned about your dress than His glory, you have missed it. Break the Lord’s Day or become so much of a Pharisee that you would condemn what Christ did on the Sabbath, and you have played into satan’s hand again. And the list of similar acts between the liberals and the legalists could continue.
God does not, DOES NOT, want His Word touched; He wants it obeyed. We mere mortals are not to add to, NOR take away from the Book.
S S S S S S S S S S
GOD’S REVIVALIST and BIBLE ADVOCATE
February 1994
SHOPPING CHURCHES
Edgar A. Bryan
Sale papers, radio, and newspaper ads seek to get you to buy from this store or that. Specials or everyday low prices” appeal to our budget. This is a very consumer conscious age. And if one can buy the same “product” for a few dollars less, why not? Americans can buy their medicines, appliances and food at bargain prices by shopping around. Why – we even shop around NOW for the right church.
Is the building air conditioned? Does the parking lot have enough room? Is the sanctuary decorated in good taste? Are the Sunday school rooms the right colors? Are the rest rooms up to date?
Of greater importance perhaps are the questions about pastor and program. Is he an interesting preacher? Does he speak too long? What about his personality; is he friendly, too friendly, or just right? Did he go to the right college? Is he good looking? (If not, is his wife pretty enough to make up for him?) Does he visit the parishioners? Does he drive a car that suites the church? Is he funny enough to hold the youth’s attention?
And the church “Program”: does it include a class for each age? Are there young people and children in the church? Does the youth group “do this” and then “do that” every month or so? Is the church expanding its program to include more action and more culture? Do they sing the new choruses? Are the specials sung to “sound tracks”? Does the pianist sound professional enough?
Consumer church hunting – What can this church offer ME?
The writer knows that some of the above questions are not wrong in and of themselves. He is also very aware that there comes a time (job transfer, death in family, or decaying church conditions) in most of our lives when we must change churches. But he is concerned with some other reasons for changing.
This is the ME age! “If the pastor and/or the program doesn’t meet MY needs (ALL of them) then I will switch churches.” Is there more here than we realize?
Where would you go to church if you had to walk there? How many churches, with almost an identical doctrine, do you drive by on your way to your new church? If you didn’t have a car would you have stayed at the “old church” and prayed more for it?
Then there is “personal taste.” You like one personality more than another. But have we carried this too far? How would you have gotten along with John the Baptist? Would Paul have suited your “taste”? If Martin Luther or Charles Finney had pastored the old church I wonder how long you would have stayed? Some of the Old Testament men were rough! Characters from the New Testament and since might seem crude or even rude were they to appear in our pulpits this week. Oh, surely, we would respect them and tell others (for years to come) about how “great it was to have had them in our church.” But would we also have breathed a sigh of relief when the Wesleys or Jeremiah moved on?
Why DO you go to the church you now attend? Be honest. Why? Is it the most spiritual church within your area? Is the pastor a man in whom you have confidence? One hundred percent? If you or a near
relative were dying and you could only call one soul, is YOUR pastor the man on whom you would call? Does his Scriptural preaching dig around your old dry roots and make you squirm or is he “one of the greatest minds” you ever heard? Have we reached the place of “itching ears” about which the Bible warns?
Did you change churches (or are you presently considering changing) in order to get the souls of your family under the best Gospel preaching around? Did you consider the godly persons in the church and move so that you child would know some saints? (The huge growth of, and success in, the Home Schooling Movement should lay to rest arguments that children must always be around other children.) Just why DID you change churches? Would it be embarrassing to admit to the truth?
The writer is not, and I repeat, NOT saying that well-supervised, clean activities for youth are wrong; nor that a church should not be the center of some social functions among its attenders. But allow a moment of personal reflection. The writer attended a church as a youth that never had a youth activity (that I recall). There were no get togethers for us, nor the adults, except a once-a-year picnic when we had “All Day Meeting.” Today there are AT LEAST two pastor’s wives, an evangelist’s wife, two other wives of Christian workers, two pastors, and an evangelist in the fields from that church. May God help the churches that have activities to have such a track record.
If you have already changed churches and are having second thoughts about how spiritual it is, consider doing three things: 1. Pray for the pastor – like you should have prayed for the last one. 2. Form a prayer group – if the pastor has any spiritual interest it should encourage him. 3. Be man or woman enough to ask the pastor and deacons about activities that ARE questionable. Take your stand!
If you have not changed churches but are thinking about it, consider these three: 1. Pray for the pastor. What if nobody prayed for him any more than you do? 2. Form a prayer group. A godly pastor will really appreciate that. 3. Be man or woman enough to ask the pastor and deacons about making some program improvements that you see the church needs.
It is easier to change churches than it is to stay and “pray the glory down” on the old one. It is easy to seek a ME church; it is harder to pray until the Spirit visits your present sanctuary.
S S S S S S S S S S
GOD’S REVIVALIST and BIBLE ADVOCATE
March 1994
OUR AGE
Edgar A. Bryan
If I profess with the loudest voice and the clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God, except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.” -Martin Luther
Ministers and professors wrote and argued about the Deity of Christ, His humanity, and the Spirit’s place in the Trinity. These were the contests of centuries. Men lived and died not knowing how some ideas would be settled, but truth prevailed.
Luther and like-minded men stood unflinchingly against corruption in what had been their church, the religious and political center of their world for many years. Sinfulness in high places was decried, positions were taken, and lives were lost, but the reformation continued and prevailed.
Freedom to worship God as the Bible teaches and to join a fellowship different from the “official denomination” cost men fortunes, reputations and lives. Preachers prayed, spoke, and wrote about the conscience. Freedom in worship prevailed.
The world of religion and politics needed reformers years later when the subject of slavery came into contrast with Gospel light. Men on both sides of the Atlantic and on both sides of the issue searched Scriptures. Christ prevailed.
These were spiritual battles against corruption and sin that were, in some cases, nearly as old as the civilizations in which they festered. Ancient evil was being fought. Bible light prevailed against the old order of darkness.
The battles of the last few decades are different. Sin has a more bold face. (Granted, it has always been bold, but now, if anything, it is worse). Today’s battles have put RIGHT on the offensive.
If the church of Jesus Christ is to prevail today we must mark Luther’s statement – we must address the “little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking.” What is that (not-so-little) point? The home! Nearly every sinful, current battle that is out there is really a war on the home – God’s first institution.
The home came under attack in the forties when “Mom” went to work. The Scripture states, “Young women … (are) to be keepers at home” (Titus 2:5). We got our eyes off of the eternal value of our children (We can take them to Heaven!) and were fooled into accepting “things” as valuable.
The home was attacked in the fifties by television. No one “appliance” has caused more families to be divided at supper time, to miss their family devotions, or to have a greater craving for possessions. No one instrument has placed more lust in a living room, polluted more family air with filthy words, or exposed more children to murder and violence.
The home was attacked in the sixties by Dr. Spock (lack of discipline) in the nursery, the “Great Society” (welfare give-away) in politics, and by tearing prayer and God out of the fabric of lower education, while communist professors taught in higher education. In addition to this the marriage killer, divorce, went on the war path.
The home was brutalized (as-never-before in human history) by the legal murder of babies in the seventies. Babies, the very center of a young couple’s home, could now be killed in the womb and disposed of like so much garbage! Abortion became a type of birth control, a way out of responsibility for a moment of sin, and a release from the financial burden of “another mouth to feed.”
In the eighties it was radical feminism. Christianity had given women an equality unequaled in any other religion. The extreme women of the women’s movements didn’t want to be equal to men. They didn’t want to be responsible to men. Woman, whose very existence in Eden was as a helper to her husband, rejected God’s plan and the home suffered.
Now, the nineties are here. Moms continue to short-change homes by working, TV continues to pipe the sewer into the home (worse than ever), the welfare state has grown, and prayer and God are still expelled from school. Legalized abortion, the unthinkable murder of innocent babies, has reached nearly 30 million (almost five times the number that Hitler is accused of killing) and radical feminists occupy powerful positions.
Can things get worse? Yes! The home is under attack from two old opponents, but now they are much more vocal; sodomy and the murder of parents (and other relatives) under such names as “mercy killing” or euthanasia. Murder is murder, whether the man has an M.D. or a criminal record. Men who kill others do not deserve to be free or given medical news coverage. Today, it is supposedly the very sick. Tomorrow?
Never, a few years ago, could it have been imagined that the President of the United States would favor sodomite groups! (The idea of groups themselves could not have been imagined.) Sodomy was (many places still is) against the law of the land. It has always been against God’s law of nature and it certainly is against His law of righteousness. America cannot be far from Rome, or from Sodom itself!
We must join Luther. We must stand against the forces of wickedness.”
S S S S S S S S S S
GOD’S REVIVALIST and BIBLE ADVOCATE
November 1994
HIGH AND DANGEROUSLY SITUATED
Edgar A. Bryan
One does more in the deer woods than hunt. The quiet of a southern forest permitted me to reflect on some parallels between spiritual and physical alertness.
Because rising time had been 3:45 A.M., some afternoons I became drowsy. However, I wasn’t sleepy all the time; on one or two days a strong wind blew, helping me to stay awake. On the first day a mosquito had bothered me, and on the last mornings biting cold helped ward off sleepiness. The Lord was allowing OUTSIDE forces to keep me awake.
The church has had strong outside forces which have kept her awake. Everything from winds of persecution, to cold, formal opposition, to aggravating little pests, have plagued her flanks across centuries. She has been her strongest when thus opposed. And we who make up her number are also made better by the trials that come our way.
What about the absence of problems? That, my friend, is a problem.
In Matthew chapters 24-26, Christ used the Greek word “gregoreo” six times. This term comes from “egeiro,” and though translated “watch,” more literally means “to be or keep awake,” “be on the alert,” “be watchful.” In verses 1-12 of the middle chapter, Jesus gave the parable of the ten virgins. In our sleepy church age some may try to glean a perverted comfort from a line in this parable: ” … they all slumbered and slept” (v. 5b).
There is no indication that winds were blowing or mosquitoes were biting; they slept. However, if one holds that being spiritually sleepy is justified, he will, very likely, fall asleep. God forbid that we should justify soul drowsiness! The most wideawake person in our midst is, with little doubt, more sleepy than he realizes.
The account of the ten virgins ends with verse 12, and Christ starts dealing with talents in verse 14. What is the 13th verse then? It is not a part of the story, but an admonition; an admonition based on the story. Our Lord wants us to WATCH, be awake, be alert.
If wind, cold, or insect did not bother me, drowsiness would come over me in the hunting woods. Although sleepiness certainly will not help one to drop a deer, I had another reason to stay awake; my portable stand was located between two tulip poplars about 17 feet above the sloping hillside. Staying awake might not only help me kill a deer, it could keep me from killing myself!
The church is up high. From this height she has a view of things the world doesn’t have, but that very position is dangerous! The church must stay awake to win the world, and she must stay awake to keep from falling to her own death.
This is a dangerous age. The lack of persecution (in portions of the world) means that we must keep ourselves awake. Drowsiness is upon us. Could it be that three things that help deer hunters stay awake could also help the church?
There were some things that I could do, in those Tennessee woods, when I realized that I was in danger of falling asleep. I could stand up, or allow some of the cold air to reach me, or even touch my skin with a sharp (or cold) object. All of these were capable of puncturing my comfort zone.
The church has insulated itself from the cold, sharp world. The pointed needs of sinners should help keep us awake. The cold-hearted and selfish world should increase our prayer burden. And standing FOR some things (and AGAINST others) should keep the church from falling to her death.
This article is NOT suggesting flagellation. Whipping the body will not save the soul. On the other hand, sleep is not always facilitated by physical comforts. Some people are able to sleep in the most uncomfortable of situations, as proven by a missionary friend in Columbia who slept on bags of coffee. Others are sleepless on king-size beds.
What this article IS saying, is that the age in which we the church are “increased with goods, and have need of nothing” (Rev. 3:17) is upon us. Comforts abound. Some of these comforts are legitimate, but they can still put us to sleep. The choice is ours, and, simply put, it is this;
We can allow ourselves to be comfortable and fall to our death, or we can realize that the comforts of our age are our greatest danger and refuse to be slain by them
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