Preface: One of my aims in these posts has been to shake pillars....even in my own denomination. I don't want pastors to be mad at me....but I want them to be shook up enough to think of things and meditate upon things that they have long since chalked up as knowledge complete. Jonathan Edwards preached Sinners In The Hands of an Angry God at a church in Enfield, Connecticut to shake the pillars of that church....for it had not responded....until that day....to the great awakening that God was already bringing to New England. Indeed he preached that sermon first in Northampton, Massachusetts to shake the pillars of his congregation's complacency.
If an unbelieving friend....out of nowhere....had asked you what book of the Bible they should read first....you might answer with the Gospel of John....or you might say Romans....or you might recommend that they start with Matthew. I've heard ministers offer various ideas....and I would probably have to go with John....but what if it wasn't that they were asking you but that you took the initiative with them? They might really have no interest and therefore John or Romans might not register at all. I've never really thought about this before but I have been slowly reading the Acts of the Apostles over the past three or four days....and it is just so amazing to read this book....much of it a first hand account....with all the minute details on Paul's journeys. Surely even the most atheist historian of antiquity would have to be interested in the travels of Paul and his companions....and the new reader might wind up thinking....'Wow. This stuff really happened!'
So that friend of yours....or mine....they would read of Paul going into this city or that city....going right to the local synagogue....where at first the hearers would show interest....but then Paul would say something that really challenges their whole life....and the next thing you know he is being dragged somewhere....maybe beaten....or the disciples are whisking him away to another city?I would also ask you to consider what was happening....and compare it to evangelicalism today. Essentially Paul would walk into that synagogue and start shaking the pillars. Later he would have patience to teach....at times over long periods....to the local church....but the first thing that had to be done was that the Jews had to be told of God's salvation.
This....in my opinion....is what we need so drastically today in our churches! The status quo has to be challenged. We desperately need self-examination in whether we have stayed the course or been driven off it in the storms or drifted off in the doldrums. Is this gospel that we are presenting biblically correct or have we modified it beyond recognition? Are we offering practical biblical truths when the essence of the gospel of salvation has been bypassed for expediency in growing the church? I say yes to all of this.
The glory has departed from our churches because we no longer preach or speak of it. We are not fanatics for our Lord because we were not told the cost of discipleship to begin with or fed weekly on the glories of Christ. Being born again was skipped over! R. C. Sproul would not let this happen....nor would Piper or Macarthur or many others but their combined influence in the church was and is limited. Our pulpits are not storming any gates of hell....nor are they going to shake pillars in their own church....unless they come to realize that they may be like Samson....who had wasted his gifts....and now chained to the pillars of an outwardly successful but inwardly dying church....they begin to ask God for the strength to pull against those pillars....enough only to startle and awaken those in the pews....and to see this world crumbling around us....and to call out to God....Maranatha...Come Lord Jesus!
