Do We Rush On?

Do We Rush On?

Hundreds of millions of people pray each week, "Lead me not into temptation." But there are many Christians who pray this prayer, either intelligently or unintelligently, and immediately rush into temptation and force themselves to live and act in its shadow.

I was once taking a walk at sunset in a North India hill station. My host led me on a path that followed the flank of the mountain, and to one side was a vast panorama of beauty. Here and there smaller, private paths led from this main path to the homes that were dotted over the hillside. At one of these junctions was an odd sight. The owner had planted a post on either side of his private path and between these posts had placed a gate. The posts were strong, the gate was heavy, a chain held it shut, and a padlock secured the chain, but the posts were not connected to any fence. Within a step of one of the posts was a well- worn path that led around the gate, and anyone who wished could have walked on the path and gone his way as readily as if the postholes had never been dug or the gate planted across the path.

Is this not a picture of much of Christian effort toward a life of victory? The forms of religion are well-planted; ideas of sanctification may be securely locked into the framework of proper doctrine, but these are not joined up to life, and are not living. Too often we make provision for the flesh, in direct disobedience to God's command (Rom. 13:14).

The heart that has accepted God's verdict concerning the old nature and the weakness of the flesh will ever be ready to cry, "Lead me not into temptation; do not put me to the test." But what is more, this believer will constantly realize that the fence is there, that the old nature has been crucified with Christ and will always be on the far side of the main path. The believer will keep the Lord between him and the temptation, and will put his eyes on the view whose beauties the Lord is so eager to point out to him.

The dust of the dead in the catacombs of Rome has a greater influence in the world today than the bodies of many Christians who are still warm with life. It is not enough to be physically alive; there must be a positive witness in life. When this witness has been lived, death cannot end it. Abel "being dead yet speaketh" (Heb. 11:4).

There is a great difference between believing with the mind and believing with the heart. Psychologists may laugh at this, but the Scripture and experience will tell us that there is a difference. "If people see a lion, they run away," says Stevenson in one of his essays. "If they only apprehend a deduction, they keep wandering around in an experimental humor." He goes on to show that a good writer must convince like nature and not like books. The mind of a man walking down a railroad track may become mentally convinced that a train is coming. Faith with the heart moves him to get off the track. It is "with the heart man believeth unto righteousness" (Rom. 10:10).

There is a great deal of difference between oratory and evangelical preaching. Beecher and Moody were contemporaries, and both moved their generation. A few years after the end of Beecher's ministry, unbelief had settled down in his pulpit, with death following in its train. Moody had done his main work in a mean part of his city, yet his work has grown with the passing years. The one had made an irruption like the Parthian hordes who dashed away again, shooting while they retreated; the other had conquered like a Roman and had settled colonies.

So frequently we hear Christians, speaking of those who hold false doctrine, say that they are such great personalities, apparently believing that personal charm excuses error. Charles of Orleans clashed frequently with his cousin, King Louis XI, over the discipline of enemies of the state when these enemies were his personal acquaintances. "No matter what treason he may have made or meddled with," says a historian, "an Alencon or an Armagnac was sure to find Charles reappear from private life, and do his best to get him pardoned. He knew them quite well. He had made rondels with them. They were charming people in every way. There must certainly be some mistake." But Louis XI cut their heads off and saved France from civil war. He could see treason through charm.

God tells us that every mouth will be stopped and that all the world will be brought guilty before Him (Rom. 3:19). Mrs. Samuel Pepys wrote out a list of her just complaints against her husband, recounting in plain English his infidelities. Mr. Pepys, in an agony lest the world should come to see it, brutally snatched and destroyed the telltale document. Then, strange to say, he immediately went to his diary and wrote out a full account of all her charges, admitting their truth, so that the world knows him for what he was, but in his own handwriting. Thus the conscience and memory of man will war against him when he comes to face his Judge. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can take away the burden of sin and remove it even from the memory of God.

William Penn and Samuel Pepys were near neighbors, and Pepys was much disturbed when the Quaker wrote his "Sandy Foundation Shaken." Stevenson says of the incident, "Pepys had his own foundation, sandy enough, but dear to him from practical considerations, and he would read the book with true uneasiness of spirit; for conceive the blow if, by some plaguey accident, this pen were to convert him! It was a different kind of doctrine that he judged profitable for himself and others. He writes in his diary, 'A good sermon of Mr. Gifford's at our church on "Seek ye first the kingdom of Heaven," a very excellent and persuasive, good and moral sermon. He showed like a wise man, that righteousness is a surer moral way of being rich than sin and villainy.' It is thus that respectable people desire to have their Greathearts address them, telling, in mild accents, how you may make the best of both worlds, and be a moral hero without courage, kindness, or troublesome reflection; and thus the Gospel cleared of Eastern metaphor becomes a manual of worldly prudence, and a handybook for Pepys and the successful merchant."

Ruskin points out that we posses a fatal power of equivocation through the fact that we possess words from Greek and Latin sources on the one hand and from Saxon on the other. He uses as an example the word "bible" which comes from the Saxon. We use the Greek word with a capital letter when we want to dignify one book, and translate it into English in the common instances. He says, "How wholesome it would be for many simple persons if, in such places as Acts 19:19, we retained the Greek expression instead of translating it, and they had to read - `many of them also which used curious arts, brought their bibles together, and burnt them before all men; and they counted the price of them and found it fifty thousand pieces of silver!' Or if, on the other hand, we translated where we retain it, and always spoke of The Holy Book,' instead of 'Holy Bible.' It might come into more heads than it does at present, that the Word of God by which the heavens were, of old, and by which they are now kept in store (2 Peter 3:5-7), cannot be made a present of to anybody in Morocco binding; nor sown on any wayside by help either of steam plow or steam press; but is nevertheless being offered to us daily, and by us with contumely refused; and sown in us daily, and by us, as instantly as may be, choked."

1. When we talk about false teachers, how should we rebuke them?
2. How should we try to minister to those who sit under their false teachings?
3. How do we identify these false teachers? Can you think of some that Dr. Barnhouse has described? What about their teaching is false?