13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.
Sermon on the Mount
In the Lewis Carroll classic, Alice in Wonderland, "It makes no difference what road you take, if you do not know where you are going."
This convicted-convinced Christian writer discovered long ago that more people are kept from the Kingdom by hypocrites-pretenders (those we find in air conditioned church pews which should be fox holes, places for doing battle for our Lord) than are led to the saving grace of Jesus through example and testimony. Christian faith is a verb, action based on belief, sustained by confidence. The saints described in Hebrews 10* were the pacemakers. For God to be God, he does not need anything, but before the foundation of the world he chose many of us to need him. AND, in a time of leisure-technology why does the church member find discipleship so difficult?
Again, this writer, born on a dirt road without power, phone, waterlines, knew from an ancestry seeped in a faith of dependence on God (dry years and wet years), that our Christian faith went unchallenged by education. We knew the wisdom of God was all sufficient. I still have, here in my house, the cast iron chimney-fireplace, cooking pot, brought over from England by my ancestors. Imagine, landing on shore in 1677 without anything. The first thing was to build a fireplace for warmth and cooking with shelter around it. They had a faith not only to die with, but live for. Their hands and feet were on this earth with all its problems but their hearts were in heaven. They relied on the promises of God, their citizenship was in heaven, they were just passing through (Philippians 3:20). I was raised with the values of God, family, country, graduating from a small country school, thirteen in my graduating class. God blessed me through eight years of University education which I paid for through my own hard work. God sent me to a war and I came back totally blind, but he wanted me to sense the world... it's sounds and smells (Dr. Morris is a totally blind, medical officer veteran of the Korean War era, has made eight around the world trips, passport stamped in 157 countries). I attended services in a brush-arbor under a church where the roof was being replaced, Africa, a catholic shelter on Easter Island, christian services in a cave in India. I knew the thrill of southern baptists' services at First Baptist Chapel Hill, Bellevue Baptist Memphis. God was, then and now, in all places, all times, my constant companion. I have known for a very long time that there is much wrong in a world of religiosity-false religions-lukewarm belief systems, for one who has seen the pornography of Hindu temples, the religiosity of European cathedrals, I just want the old hymns, the old messages of sins ruin and Christ's redemption. I just want God's message of redemption preached to the world, the only hope of the world.
For many years, I lived at my beach house (Wrightsville Beach, NC, five miles from Wilmington, NC) attending a church pastored by Ben Lacey Rose. Then I started living in my townhouse. First Baptist, Wilmington, was close enough for me to walk (five blocks). I will not go into details, but it was so obvious that this was a modernist Baptist charade. I was a member there for 25 years, never knew the Baptistry to be used once. One morning, God said to me as plain as anything, "Why do you keep going there?" I never went back into the building, not even for the funeral of a friend. The pastor I had known there for so long, had left town with a girl about the age of his daughter.
Recently, my only child, my son, a Ph. D seminary professor, his family former SBC missionaries, sent me a write up from the present day pastor (the article titled, "Real or imagined, persecution appears to part of Christian DNA" can be found on my facebook page). I do not know Dr. Cook, the current pastor, personally (there are twenty ministerial and support staff members at FBC-Wilmington according to their web page). Dr. Cook, VP of CBF, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, closed the article with the following statements:
"Cook, currently moderator-elect of the CBF, said he can identify with that after growing up amid the denominational battles that led to the migration of liberals and moderates from the SBC. He watched his father, then an official with the Baptist Sunday School Board (now LifeWay Christian Resources), go through the roller coaster of job insecurity for years. This along with political upheaval at seminaries predisposed him toward a conflict-driven spirituality. “I would say I spent the better part of my last years in college and first years in seminary looking for that controversy — going and looking for that fight — because I wanted to be in it,” Cook said. But seeing how toxic that was for him, spiritually, led him to turn away from those battles. As he moved into a calmer faith, Cook said he saw how damaging his prior persecution complex had been to his relationship with God. One result was to notice the genuine suffering of others, he said. “Finally, I got to see how foolish it was to see myself as persecuted compared to other Christians globally,” Cook said.
I hope church members at FBC-Wilmington have learned the necessity of keeping as many people out of hell as possible. The futility of pretending, the false thrill of the counterfeit.
Only those who have never known warfare enjoy fireworks. Only those who have never known real taste appreciate the fakery of flavorings. Only those who have never known the despair-discouragement of sin can know the joy of redemption... salvation by faith through grace, the free gift of God.
Hebrews 11:25
25 Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;
Nothing makes Satan happier than to sabotage real Christianity, to sell make-believe, to turn reality into perception. It is not the denomination, the building, any of the things that Madison Avenue has convinced the world is important. Christianity is not complicated, just tough.
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