It’s been a while since I’ve posted to my newsletter/blog. After coming home from Uganda, I have been going through a period of still waters while waiting for the next call. During that time, I’ve listened to of the many streams of Christian dialogue that run in every direction. Some are focused on the threat of Islam and Sharia Law to our American way of life, others warn of impending end-time cataclysmic judgments, and still others of promises of revival and coming blessings to the Church. A lot of them talk about how dead the churches are (the OTHER churches, that is). And of course, there are the innumerous conspiracy issues to expose to the world. We postulate and pontificate, we predict and prophesy, we rant and rave while we argue and debate. Some of us sound like rabble rousers whose main mission in life is to illuminate the unenlightened, while others sound like naïve throwbacks to the hippie generation with their prophetic words of peace, love and blessings. We’re all supposed to believe the same thing, but it sure looks like we are viewing at it from very different looking glasses.
After a while, it all begins to sound like just so much noise. This is all the same stuff that I’ve heard for years.
Maybe I’m not seeing this any better than anyone else, but it sure seems that the distilled end of all of this only ends up in the same thing: lots of talk, plenty of noise, clouds of dust in the air … but little substance. We are a generation that talks ourselves to death. Email, Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, SMS, cell phones, (did I miss anything?) Our kids are addicted to texting … and we old folks are catching the disease. We pass on conspiracy emails that we have never bothered to verify to all our Outlook contacts and Facebook friends, and then spend our time berating anyone who objects. Some of us rise to a frenzy over purported issues that some celebrity sensationalist has convinced us is falling upon us and raise the cry that civilization as we know it is about to collapse. Others call upon their “prophetic spirit” to speak into the wind with promises of “peace and safety” and ethereal claims that God is going to send revival to us here in . Oh, and by the way, God is going to prosper you and use you in some great supernatural way. Just so you know.
But do we ever DO anything?
Where are we all going with all this? What is it that each of us wants to see done? Is there a point? Or are we running around in circles proclaiming our own particular “inside knowledge” while the issues that God is really concerned about are passing by us? The Bible says that without a vision, my people perish. What is the goal that we are working toward? Or is it just to hear ourselves talk? Are we just clouds without rain and wells without water? Sometimes I wonder.
An empty drum makes the most noise, as the saying goes. Even the Bible says that talk is cheap. Sorry, but after a while, all that noise — the proclaimings and prophesyings, the rantings and warnings, and theological pontificating — begins to sound like an empty wind rustling through the leaves of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It sounds good, looks good, tastes good, and it is desired to make one wise. But does it DO anything?
Now you may say, “But these things are really true!” Well maybe they are and maybe they aren’t, but until we get past words alone, they remain, as Paul puts it in 1st Corinthians 13, nothing more than a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t make a noise and shout about issues that are important to us, but there comes a point where we have to be converted into action, or we are left with nothing but noise. It is not the hearers that are just before God, but the doers. (James 1:22)
We are saved by faith, but faith without works is dead. Left to itself, it is nothing more than presumption. Hope is the anchor of our soul (Heb. 6:19), but hope by itself is nothing more than wishful thinking. Neither Faith nor Hope are important as Charity. Charity is the very essence of the Cross. It is the purpose to which we have been called. It is the one thing Jesus asked us to do before He left us.
His last request had nothing to do with building your ministry, your spiritual position, your church, your theological wisdom, or how much stuff you know. He asked us to do one thing, and we have gone about doing everything else but.
His last words to us were, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.”
Simple. Go win souls.
“…I know thy works, and thy labor, and thy patience, … nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.
(Revelations 2:4,5)
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