A Pilgrim's Progress

        I wrote what follows in January of 1999. Back then I had to rely on a word processor, copier, envelopes and stamps to get my message out. Reading this old A Pilgrim's Progress showed me that the message hasn't changed. The great books that came out during this time period lit a fire under the church that has expanded in many areas. I'd like to recommend one area here. It is 24/7 sound biblical radio/internet teaching from many teachers that you probably already have heard of and can easily be accessed at www.refnet.fm.
        We are indeed a "destitute nation" as I concluded the following writing with but I could not have imagined back in 1999 that we would elect a communist as our president and that the elites of the Republican Party, the Guardians of our intellect and decisions if you will, would turn their wrath, not on the enemy within but on those trying to salvage a national defense, an economy and our very heritage. But I was aware then and know very well today that politics could never save us. Yes we have to be involved but if that involvement impinges upon the realization that there never was, is not and never will be any glory for America or its heritage unless that glory is gratefully thrown at the feet of Jesus Christ to whom it belongs, then all of our efforts will be in vain!

A Pilgrim's Progress.....January, 1999

         A few years ago David Wells wrote a book called No Place For Truth, Whatever Happened To Evangelical Theology. Although this was not the first book on the topic, it proved to be a catalyst to a movement attempting to call the church back to its theological moorings that had been weakened after decades of sectarianism that quite naturally evolved when creeds, confessions and catechisms of the historic church were devalued and even ignored. Os Guinness wrote a small book, Fit Bodies, Fat Minds, that accused evangelicals of not thinking and even mapped out the peculiarly American characteristics such as "pluralism, pragmatism" and five other "isms" that quite naturally influenced our evangelical church. Mark Noll's Scandal Of The Evangelical Mind was given the Book Of The Year award. Gene Edward Veith did the best work on postmodernism in Postmodern Times.  Michael Horton has repeatedly addressed these issues, his latest effort being a call to return to the Apostles Creed in We Believe.  John Armstrong, Iain Murray, R. C. Sproul, John MacArthur, John Piper, Alistair Begg, James M. Boice,  D. A. Carson, Hank Hannegraaff, Don Matzat and many others have taken turns trumpeting the dire need of a Reformation today.
         What was it that they wrote of that all of a sudden made me realize that I was treading on holy ground? Maybe it was the Puritan William Gurnall's great work Christian In Complete Armour  that made me realize that my understanding of spiritual warfare was dangerously in error? Maybe it was Sproul's Knowing Scripture that caused me to use proper hermeneutical tools in studying Scripture? Maybe it was Horton's Putting The Amazing Back Into Grace that made me understand that I did not choose Christ, that if He did not choose to have mercy on this poor miserable soul that I would never have seen the glory of Christ? Maybe it was the incomparable John Bunyan, the tinker whose Pilgrim's Progress, written from prison, that states so poignantly and profoundly that we truly are pilgrims on a journey, people of The Book on our way to the Celestial Kingdom? Maybe it was Arthur Bennett's compilation of Puritan prayers, Valley Of Vision, that sits worn on my dining room table that every dinner time lays me low in my wretchedness only to enable me to more clearly see and feel God's grace? Please forgive my rambling like this, for I look lovingly at these men but fully realize that it is Christ who redeemed me, it is the Father who chose the weakest, unsightliest jar of clay and it is the Holy Spirit who dragged me to belief, opened my eyes and gave me faith. And it is Christ again who keeps me, who keeps all of us, though we let Him down time after time.
         The modern church bears scant witness to the glories that underlie the gospel. Its doctrines permit man to credit His own choosing of Christ as evidence of his salvation. Christ is less than sufficient, the Bible is less than adequate and the Holy Spirit hastens to our beckon call. Large churches legitimize us, oblivious of the warnings to the Laodiceans. Reformed churches sit on the laurels of sound doctrine forgetting the command to the Ephesian church to return to their first love. Evangelicals pass out 'four spiritual laws' booklets with a place for a signature for salvation as if they were handling out coupons for a free Big Mac. Pray for a Reformation, that we return to the cross of Christ, that pastors would preach His glories, that fathers would teach His truths and that we would be salt and light to a destitute nation.