Early one morning this week, as I was headed to the church, I stepped out my front door and felt something that I hadn’t felt in a while. A chill in the air.
A harbinger of the winter to come. It was quite refreshing and somewhat comforting as my mind wandered over the past months of hot and humid weather. But the weather isn’t the only thing that can give us a chill. Sometimes people describe getting “chilled” by a movie scene, a news story, or a book.
Well, I had this experience the other day. But it was from a most unlikely source … a devotional book. There I was happily reading a devotion based on Luke 18:8, part of which says:
“When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?”
And then the writer shared this quote from William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army:
“The chief danger of the 20th Century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and Heaven without Hell.”
And there was the chill…
The chill that came when I considered how, in many ways, Mr. Booth’s words have come true. For they are now being played out in the sanctuaries of many places that call themselves churches. For, in such meeting halls, man-made religions are thriving that have no initiation or leading by the Holy Ghost. Jesus may be mentioned, but only as a “good man” or “wise teacher”. Hundreds may walk down the aisles of these gathering places proclaiming God’s forgiveness, without a shred of repentance in their hearts. And the leaders of these churches proclaim salvation, but without even a mention of sin, the cross, or the salvation that comes only through Jesus.
Brothers and Sisters do not despair. Because there are many good God-glorifying churches that still exist. But Booth’s words (and much more so, God’s Word) call us to be on guard against heretical teaching, divisive language, and subtle falsities that can permeate a church if those who lead it, and those who attend it, do not hold to the truth of God’s Word.
So, how do we keep out the chill of cold, barren, powerless teaching that deceives many and leaves them further from God than when they first heard it? By holding fast to the truth of God’s Word and carrying it wherever we go. That we may bring it out into the light when the darkness of false teaching appears.
Can you hear the call, believer? You carry the truth of God in your heart. And you are called to preserve it. Cherish it. And to keep its fire burning, so that you may keep out the chill.
In Christ’s Love,
Pastor Rob