Is There Not A Cause?

What is lacking in the world today is a real committal to a cause. People are without direction. Like ships without rudders, tossed to and fro upon the restless waves by every wind of teaching or philosophy. Apathy permeates every echelon of man’s mundane and material existence. Nothing appears worth living or dying for. The question that leapt to the lips of the shepherd boy, David, needs to once more echo among God’s people in our land and in every land upon God’s good earth. The shepherd boy who became the man after God’s own heart cried out, "Is there not a cause?" He then proceeded to do mighty battle in the power of God for the noble cause of the destruction of evil and the preservation of God’s chosen people.  

We seem to once again live in a day similar to the catastrophic day following the era of the Judges of Israel. Anarchy prevails and everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes. Which is normally what is wrong in the eyes of an eternally righteous Almighty God. All seek to be captains of their own souls, masters of their own fates, sailing their own ships and rowing their own canoes down the river of life, with no worthwhile spiritual destination or safe harbour in sight.  

Even Christians seem to be afflicted with the same deadly malady, as they allow this world and it’s god to establish their standards, select their priorities and set their agenda. The failure of Christians to fully commit to Christ and present themselves as living, dedicated sacrifices to His cause, has led to great confusion in the world. 

We are overwhelmed by the moral and ethical crisis threatening to destroy our nation and other nations with cultures previously called Christian. We are confused by the popular philosophies of secular humanism, relativism, situational ethics and post-modernism that have captured the hearts and minds of the masses. We are now seeing a deadly so-called emerging church movement  threatening even evangelical Christianity.  

We are puzzled by the prevailing promiscuity of our society. We are perplexed when the culture cries, "Assert your rights. If it feels good, do it!"

But God is calling for committal today. He is looking for those who will stand up, speak up and won’t be shut up, no matter how powerful the pressure or painful or embarrassing the world’s rejection. Those who will not cave in or succumb to the ridicule or scorn of their peers, the press or politicians. Those who will not be overly concerned about what the mainline or mainstream will think or say about them.  

Those who are more concerned about God’s approval than the acceptance and applause of all the world around them. Yes, God is seeking those who care more about the future of their family, than financial success or failure. Those whose principles are not for purchase at any price. Those who do not mind the world knowing who they are and where they stand. Those who will hold the line against accommodation and compromise whatever the cost. 

Those who take seriously the words of Christ who said, "No man can serve two masters." Because truly, as has been said, "Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, in the strife "twixt truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side." 

Only as people are truly converted and accept the challenge of true discipleship and the calling to commit their life and living to Christ, will the tides of evil that threaten to inundate and overwhelm our world be effectively countered.

Walking As He Walked

Have you ever noticed how people walk? It is said that the seasoned and salty sailor who has spent his life at sea, walks at a rollicking and rolling gait, reflecting the conditioning of rolling decks under his feet. In bygone days, those who had spent their life on a farm, following a team of beasts and ploughing furrows in the soft earth, walked with a pace peculiar to their particular vocation. A man who has spent his life under marching orders strides out with a martial air and at a military pace.

Some walk with a spring in their step, others swagger arrogantly along and some merely shuffle through the world. Some tiptoe haughtily down the corridors of life, others display all the poise and confidence of a well-adjusted personality.

Have you ever noticed how children often seem to imitate the walk of adults? Especially those they admire and who might be considered their potential role models? They are great little imitators, both physically and spiritually. Little girls can't wait to put on high heeled shoes and walk just like mom walks. Little boys sometimes adopt the exact same gait as their dad.

One Sunday morning I noticed a little fellow coming down the church aisle before the service with a considerable limp. I approached him and sympathetically inquired about his injury. His mom told me he was perfectly well, but his father had injured his leg during the week and was limping severely. The small lad was simply walking like the dad he so greatly admired!

I am sure you may have heard the old story about the ungodly father who was walking through the snow, as was his custom, on his way to the local pub. Upon hearing the noise of crunching snow behind him, he turned and saw his small son jumping along, matching his strides and placing his small feet in the father's footsteps. From that moment on he allowed Christ into his life and his walk took a different direction.

It might be good to ask ourselves where we are placing our feet each day. Are we treading the high or low road? Do our steps lead others in the way of God or along the way of the world? Are we walking the broad or narrow way? Are we going the way leading to destruction or to life everlasting? Are we walking the way that seems right unto man? Or the way that is well pleasing unto God? Do our footsteps shuffle down the sorry side roads of sin or do our foot prints point people to the place God has prepared for His peculiar people?

Are we treading the path our Saviour trod? Trudging down the byways, highways and hedges of life, compelling others to come to Him? Do our tracks lead to the wells of this world, or are we trekking to springs of living water; showing others the way to the water of life? Are our feet shod with the gospel of peace? Are we wearing out our gospel shoes telling others of His good news?

Is There Not A Cause?

What is lacking in the world today is a real committal to a cause. People are without direction. Like ships without rudders, tossed to and fro upon the restless waves by every wind of teaching or philosophy. Apathy permeates every echelon of man’s mundane and material existence. Nothing appears worth living or dying for. The question that leapt to the lips of the shepherd boy, David when he faced Goliath, needs to once more echo among God’s people in our land and in every land upon God’s good earth. The shepherd boy who became the man after God’s own heart cried out, "Is there not a cause?" He then proceeded to do mighty battle in the power of God for the noble cause of the destruction of evil and the preservation of God’s chosen people.

We seem to once again live in a day similar to the catastrophic day following the era of the Judges of Israel. Anarchy prevails and everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes. Which is normally what is wrong in the eyes of an eternally righteous Almighty God. All seek to be captains of their own souls, masters of their own fates, sailing their own ships and rowing their own canoes down the river of life, with no worthwhile spiritual destination or safe harbour in sight.

Even Christians seem to be afflicted with the same deadly malady, as they allow this world and it’s god to establish their standards, select their priorities and set their agenda. The failure of Christians to fully commit to Christ and present themselves as living, dedicated sacrifices to His cause, has led to great confusion in the world.

We are overwhelmed by the moral and ethical crisis threatening to destroy our nation and other nations with cultures previously called Christian. We are confused by the popular philosophies of secular humanism, relativism, situational ethics and post-modernism that have captured the hearts and minds of the masses. We are now seeing a deadly so-called emerging church movement threatening even evangelical Christianity.

We are puzzled by the prevailing promiscuity of our society. We are perplexed when the culture cries, "Assert your rights. If it feels good, do it!"

But God is calling for committal today on the part of His people. He is looking for those who will stand up, speak up and won’t be shut up, no matter how powerful the pressure or painful or embarrassing the world’s rejection. Those who will not cave in or succumb to the ridicule or scorn of their peers, the press or politicians. Those who will not be overly concerned about what the mainline or mainstream will think or say about them.

Those who are more concerned about God’s approval than the acceptance and applause of all the world around them. Yes, God is seeking those who care more about the future of their family, than financial success or failure. Those whose principles are not for purchase at any price. Those who do not mind the world knowing who they are and where they stand. Those will hold the line against accommodation and compromise whatever the cost.

Those who take seriously the words of Christ who said, "No man can serve two masters." Because truly, as has been said, "Once to every man and nation, comes the moment to decide, in the strife "twixt truth and falsehood, for the good or evil side."

Only as people are truly converted and accept the challenge of true discipleship and the calling to commit their life and living to Christ, will the tides of evil that threaten to inundate and overwhelm our world be effectively countered.

Living Sacrifices

Romans 12:1-2 "1 beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, [which is] your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind,....'

A number of years ago I ran across this snippet of history about "Ivan the Terrible.” Ivan was one of the great rulers of Russia. He was so busy trying to annex territory to his country that he had no time for social life. His advisers become worried because he had not married. Ivan suggested that they  find him a wife and he would accept their recommendation.

They searched far and wide for a girl who was beautiful, intelligent and a king's daughter. They found her in Athens, Greece. Her name was Sophia, the daughter of the King of Greece. Ivan asked the King for his daughter's hand. The King demanded that Ivan join the Greek Orthodox Church. This he did. He had gone to Greece with , five hundred of his best soldiers and when Ivan joined the church they desired to join also. A catechizer outlined the articles of the Orthodox Church creed to every one of them. They gave ready assent to every article except one. One of the articles stated that if they joined the Orthodox Church they could not be professional soldiers.

They asked the catechizer to give them time to think the matter over. They pondered the problem, "How can we join the Church and remain in the army at the same tine? They concocted a plan. When they were to be baptised they marched into the water. The five hundred soldiers were accompanied by five hundred priests. (They were to be baptised by immersion. How else could a Greek Church baptise them, since they know the true and only meaning of their word, "baptizo"?)

Shortly before each priest plunged his candidate under, each solder grabbed for his sword and lifted it up in air. Each one was baptised; except for his fighting arm and a gleaming sword that jutted out of the water. Those who witnessed the mass baptism spectacle said they saw five hundred dry arms and five hundred glittering swords sticking out of the water. It seems the he soldiers had come up with a compromise. 'We will join the church with our bodies, but we will allow our fighting arm to remain in the possession of the state."

The application of this little historical episode is self-evident. In his Roman letter Paul gives a clear call for a complete committal to Christ by all who call themselves brothers in Christ. But it seems that in our day many are not willing to yield themselves completely to Christ.

Writing fifty years ago, evangelist, Angel Martinez, had this to say about conditions existing in his day, "The curse of the hour is the curse of partial surrender. We can never have power with God or with men until we have given ourselves wholly to God. God does not want scraps or leftovers. God doesn't need much of a man, but needs all there is of him. The price of spiritual power is complete surrender.”   What would he say about the great falling away that has occurred in the meantime.

The Power Of One

Have you considered how our lives influence and effect the lives of others? Not only our family, friends and the contemporary world around us, but should the Lord delay His coming, our offspring and their future world for generations to come. It can be easily calculated that if a set of parents and their descendents average four children, twenty-thousand descendents could easily exist within one hundred years of the death of the first parents.  

Numerous anthropological and sociological studies irrefutably confirm the Biblical principle that a single set of criminal parents often beget generations of criminals and a single set of Christian parents very often beget generations of decent and law-abiding citizens. Christian parents should be encouraged in their well doing by the evidence that the power of God in even one life can bring a good harvest in due season.  

Our living and dying is given added dimension and meaning by the power and influence our lives can have upon our present and future world. A poet once said, "No man is an island." But God really said it first when He had Paul to say, "For no man lives to himself, and no man dies to himself." (Ro. 14:7) He concludes our life either counts for or against God and His eternal purpose.  It is in this context that he indicates that the basic criteria for judging the Christian’s life at the Judgment Seat of Christ will be whether it has been positive and spiritually productive or negative and spiritually fruitless. If for no other reason, this fact should inspire one to keep on keeping and finish the Christian race well. Thus, I continue trying to share articles and messages that might be helpful to others. In our marvellous day of mass worldwide communication I can do no less!  

The prideful propensity for one man to strive to attain influence and power over others has its most cruel confirmation in the lives of such men as the Caesars, Khans, Alexanders, Napoleons, Hitlers, Stalins and Maos. Who can come close to estimating the destructive power the lives of these individuals, who were directly responsible for the murder and misery of many millions, have had upon the generations of mankind? 

To be honest, this is one of the factors involved in my efforts to warn against selecting a man as leader of the free world who openly and unashamedly displays the power hungry self-seeking characteristics of arrogance, narcissism and egotism But if we are seeking to identify the person whose lives have had the most powerful negative impact upon our world, we must look even further back. Paul’s simple statement, "Wherefore as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned," (Ro. 5:120 leaves no doubt about the matter. This has to be the ultimate example of the decisive power of one solitary act in one solitary life bringing great harm to future generations.  But thanks be unto God that this is not the end of the story. The familiar poem, "One Solitary Life," tells of the powerful influence for eternal good of the simple life of One who Paul describes as the Second Adam. As the verses of this poem assert, His power and influence upon man and his history is unique and beyond quantifying.  But the power of this One finds its greatest and most gracious expression in the eternal salvation and justification of those who truly trust Him.

 It is truly as one theologian said, "Just as the race was condemned on the ground of the imputation of Adam’s one sin, even so the race of believers are justified upon the ground of the imputation of one man’s righteousness - Jesus Christ" .   What an impact! This the basis of such inspiring statements as: "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." (Ro. 5:1) And again, "He has made Him to be sin for us, He Who knew no sin, that we might we might be made the righteousness of God in Him!" (II Cor. 5:21)

Oh, the power of One! - Pastor John White