From: Sermons on Important Subjects – 1836 by Charles G Finney
“Can
two walk together unless they agree?” (Amos 3:3)
The prophet is telling us
that two cannot walk together unless they agree.
For two to agree implies
something more than simply agreeing in theory, or in understanding. We often see people who agree in theory, but
who vastly differ in feeling and practice.
Their understandings may embrace the same truth, but that truth will
affect their hearts and lives differently.
Saints and sinners often embrace the same religious creed in theory,
while it is obvious that they differ widely in feeling and practice.
We have reason to believe
that holy angels and devils understand and intellectually embrace the same
truths, and yet these truths affect them very differently!
These different results,
produced in different minds by the same truths, are because their hearts are
different. The different results depend
on how the person receives these truths, or feels and acts in view of
them. It’s also true, that the same
things and truths will affect the same mind very differently at different
times. This is because, at different
times, we have different states of feelings, or this difference is because of
the different way that our minds act at different times. All pleasure and pain, all happiness and
misery, all sin and holiness, have their seat in and belong to our heart or
emotions. All our joy or sorrow, pain
or pleasure, depends entirely on our feelings at the time. If some thing or truth falls in with, and
excites, and feeds our pleasurable feelings, we are pleased because our
pleasure and happiness consists in these pleasurable feelings. Therefore, the higher these feelings are
elevated when we hear or receive some thing or truth, the greater our pleasure
will be. However, if that thing or
truth does not fall in line with our affections, it can’t please us. If it is different from how we currently
feel, and we refuse to change the course of our feelings, we will either view
it with indifference, or, if it pressures us, we will turn from it and resist
it. If that thing or truth is not only
different from the subject that we are currently interested in, but also
opposed to it, we will and must (since our feelings remain the same) resist and
oppose it.
We feel uninterested or
upset and disgusted when a subject that is different from one that we enjoy is
introduced and presented to us. But,
even if something we are interested in is presented to us, if it is far above
or below the way we feel, if our feelings remain the same and we refuse to
enter in and be brought to the place that the subject draws us to, we must feel
uninterested. Usually, we will feel
grieved and offended. If the subject is
presented to us in a light that is below our present emotional state, we can’t
be interested until it comes up to our feelings; and if this cold subject is
held up before our mind, we struggle to maintain our higher emotional
state. We become upset because, instead
of our affections being lifted, we become emotionally drained. If the subject is presented in such a way that
it is far above our emotional state, and our feelings grovel and refuse to
rise, that subject does not grab a hold of us and stimulate our
affections. Therefore, we cannot be
interested in that subject; it is to enthusiastic for us; we are unhappy with
its warmth. We will not choose to
become involved in that subject, and the higher it is above our emotional
temperature the more we are disgusted with that subject.
The experience of
everyone will testify to these truths.
This is true for every person, under every circumstance. These truths that I present to you today are
based on principles incorporated into the very nature of the human race. If you present to the ardent politician his
favorite subject in his favorite light, and when it has gotten a hold of his
affections then touch it with the fire of eloquence, cause it to burn and blaze
before his mind, and you will make him extremely happy and excited. But change your style and tone, turn down
your fire and feeling - take the subject and present it in a dry manner and,
immediately, he will lose nearly all of his interest, and become more and more
uneasy as your conversation becomes drier and drier. Now change the subject, introduce death and solemn judgment. Now he is shocked and stunned. Press him with the subject of death and
solemn judgment and he will become disgusted and offended.
Now, the reason he lost
interest in his favorite subject was because you took away from him that
burning view of it that poured fire through his affections. The disgust that he felt when the subject
was changed to death and solemn judgment is the natural result of presenting
something that was at the time directly opposed to the state of his
feelings. Unless he chooses to turn his
mind as you change the subject, he will not be pleased.
A refined musician is
listening, almost in rapture, to the skillful execution of a fine piece of
music. Throw in some discords and the
listener is in pain in a moment. Increase
and prolong the discords, and he leaves the room disgusted. Suppose you are fond of music. Let’s say that you are sad and depressed, so
you decide to listen to some soft soothing music. You feel like weeping.
The sorrowful tone of a Stradivarius violin softly caresses your ear,
and melts your heart. Your tears begin
to flow fast. But suddenly, there
erupts the sound of trumpets, drums, and cymbals, and the piercing trombones
played lovely and happily fills the air, and drowns the soft and soothing
sounds of the violin. You become distressed.
You turn away and plug your ears.
The sorrowful violin touched your tender heart, it fell in harmony with
your feelings, and therefore you were satisfied. Bit the sudden marching music opposed the state of feeling you
were in. You were too sad and depressed
to have your affections elevated and enlivened by trumpets and drums and so you
became angry and distressed.
Let’s say that your heart
is glowing with religious feelings. You
are not only opposed to the introduction of any other subject at this time, but
you aren’t interested in anything on the same subject that is far below the
tone of your affections. Suppose you
hear a cold, dry person preach or pray.
As long as he remains cold and dry, and you are warm with feeling you
are not interested, because your affections are not fed and cherished unless he
comes up to your emotional level. If
this does not happen you are distressed and perhaps disgusted with his
coldness. Suppose, like Paul, you have
a great heaviness and constant sorrow in your heart for dying sinners; that
“the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.
For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit
Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.” (Rom 8:26)
Let’s say that, in this state of mind, you listen to a person pray who
does not even mention sinners. You
listen to a minister preach who says very little to the sinners in his
congregation, and the few words he says is said in a heartless, unmeaning
manner. You are not interested in his sermon.
You can’t be, feeling the way you do.
Instead, you become grieved and distressed.
Suppose you are lukewarm,
and carnal, and earthly in your affections and you hear one exhort, pray, or
preach who is highly spiritual, fervent, and affectionate. If you cling to your sins, and you refuse to
allow your affections to rise; if through prejudice, or pride, or the earthly
and sensual state of your affections, you refuse to kindle and to grasp the
subject, although you agree with every word he says, you don’t like his message
or his prayers. He is above your
temperature. You are annoyed with his
manner, fire, and spirit. The higher he
rises, as long as your affections remain the same, the farther apart you become
and the more upset you become. As long as
your heart is wrong and the more he drives the truth deeper into your soul, the
more his message burns within you. If
your heart will not catch on fire, the more disgusted you will become.
Now, in both these
situations, those people, whose affections are at or near the same level with
the one who speaks or prays will not feel disturbed, but pleased. Those that are lukewarm will listen to a
lukewarm person and say, “That was a good prayer.” or “I really enjoyed his
message.” Their pleasure will be small
because their affections are low; but overall they are pleased. Those who have no affections at the time
will, of course, not feel anything at all.
All who have a lot of feeling will listen with grief and pain. They find the man dull and boring. However, these people will listen to an
impassioned and zealous man with great interest. Let him glow and blaze and they are in rapture. But the carnal and cold-hearted, as long as
they refuse to allow their feelings to rise, will be disturbed and offended with
his fire.
From what I have just
said we may learn,
People that differ in
theory on doctrinal issues and belong to different denominations will often,
for a while, walk together in great harmony and affection because emotionally
they feel alike. Their differences are
in a great measure lost or forgotten as long as they fall in with each other’s
state of feeling. They will walk
together as long as they agree in their hearts.
Do you see why young
converts love to associate with each other, and with those other older saints
who have the strongest religious feelings?
They walk together because they feel alike.
Do you see why professing
Christians and unrepentant sinners have the same difficulties with some of the
methods used today in certain services and in revivals? We often hear them complain about the manner
of preaching and praying that often takes place during a revival. Their objections are the same. They find fault with the same things, and
use the same arguments to support their objections. The reason is, that because their affections have not risen, it
is the fire and the spirit that disturbs their frosty hearts. But, for now, they walk together because
they agree in feeling.
Ministers and Christians, who
visit revivals, often, especially at first, object to the means that are used,
and they oppose, and sometimes take sides with the wicked. Coming from regions or churches where true
revivals don’t exist, they often feel reproved and annoyed by the warmth and
spirit that they witness. The
atmosphere of praying and preaching is above their present temperature. Many do not enter into the spirit of the
work because they are from a different denomination, or they are prejudiced
against the preacher or the people; or perhaps they don’t enter into the spirit
of the work because pride, envy, or worldliness holds down their
affections. As long as their hearts
remain wrong, they will oppose that revival.
The closer to the truth anything is, the more spiritual and holy the
atmosphere becomes, and the more it displeases them as long as their affections
grovel. (I do not intend to justify
anything that is wrong and unscriptural in many of the things that are done to
promote a revival. I am not going to
pretend that everything is right just because it may offend those at a
different emotional level. We know that
as long as we have a human nature, many things may be observed in revivals that
should grieve us, and should carefully and wisely be corrected. But I am certain that as long as one’s heart
is wrong, anything that falls in line with it and pleases it must also be
wrong, just as one false weight can be balanced only be another false
weight. And, as long as a heart is in
this state, the best things will most likely offend those at a different
emotional level. And if this heart that
remains wrong could be brought in view of a state of things as perfect as
heaven, it will curse, blaspheme, and be filled with the torments of hell. The only remedy is to call on him to repent
and allow God to create within him a new heart. (Psalm 51:10). Only when
he has done this, will right things please him, but not before.)
Do we see why Christians
at different spiritual levels differ about such things like how preachers should
deliver their messages, how services should be held, how people should worship,
and how revivals should be conducted?
The one, who sees and feels the infinitely solemn things of eternity,
will conduct a revival using totally different means than one whose spiritual
eye is almost closed. The man whose heart is breaking for perishing sinners
will, of course, consider it wise, right, and necessary, to get right to the
point, and deal with sinners very earnestly and affectionately. He would consider a different course
foolish, dangerous, and even criminal.
However, the one who has little feelings for sinners and sees little
danger of their damnation, will be quite happy using very different means, or
using those means very differently, and will, of course, have very different
ideas of what is wise. We also see that
the same person can have very different thoughts about what is wise, and as a
result, he does something different than he would have done earlier. Indeed, a man’s thoughts about what is wise
as to what should be done in services or in revivals will depend on the state
of his own affections, and on the state of the feelings that surround him. Listen; what would be wise under some
circumstances would be highly imprudent in other circumstances. What would be prudent for a man in a certain
state of his affections and under certain circumstances would be the height of
foolishness for the same person if he were in a different state of feeling and
under different circumstances. In most
situations, it is extremely difficult to form an opinion, and often very wrong
to publicly express an opinion condemning something that is done as imprudent,
(which is not condemned by God’s word) without being in a situation to enter
into the feelings and circumstances of the people at the time that they decided
to do that thing. If Christians and
ministers would keep these things in mind, a great many uncharitable and
censorious comments would be avoided, and a lot of injury to the cause of truth
and righteousness would be prevented.
We see why boring sermons
or prayers do not disturb lukewarm Christians and sinners. It does not affect their feelings at all,
and therefore boring sermons and prayers do not distress or offend them. As a result, we see that if, in a revival,
when cold and wicked hearts are disturbed with plain and pungent preaching, a
dull minister is suddenly called on to preach, the wicked and cold-hearted will
praise his preaching. This shows why,
in seasons of revival, we often hear sinners and lukewarm Christians wish that
their minister would preach like he used to; that he would be his old self
again. The reason for this is
clear. He never moved them, but now his
fire, spirit, and honesty annoys them, and disturbs their slumber.
How does such a person
approve of what the revived minister now says or does? What is his opinion as to the means and
measures that are used in Christian service?
The answer to questions like these does not depend on the state of that
person’s emotions at the time. If we
place confidence in our own opinions or in the opinions of others as to what
measures are prudent we are wrong. If
we have no evidence of the right state of our emotions, or their emotions, we
are wrong because it is almost certain that if our feelings change, we would
see things in a different light, and, as a result, our opinion will change.
In most churches
there are hypocrites who, when revivals are to some degree stripped of their
emotionalism and become highly spiritual, become disturbed by the fire and
spirit of them, and they inwardly and sometimes openly oppose them. When only a few of the real Christians in a
church awake from their slumber and become very spiritual and heavenly, while
the rest of the church remains carnal and earthly in their affections, the
church is in danger of being torn in two.
Those who are awake become more engaged, more spiritual and active,
while the others become jealous and offended.
They feel rebuked by the consecration of others. They become increasingly upset as those that
are more spiritual rise farther above them.
The closer to a right state of feeling those engaged Christians attain,
the farther apart they become. As these
newly awakened and revived Christians ascend higher on the scale of holy feeling,
if the others will not ascend with them, it is almost certain that those others
will descend, until they have little or nothing in common, and can no longer
walk together because they do not agree.
This state of feeling in a church calls for all its members to search
their hearts, and although it should be greatly dreaded and deeply lamented
when it happens, we can easily see why it happens once we understand these
plain principles of our nature. This is
what sometimes happens in spite of all the efforts of men or angels to prevent
it.
Sometimes, without any
imprudence on the part of the minister, many in his church and in his
congregation will not enter into the spirit of a great move of God or a
revival. If his own affections become
kindled, and he develops strong feelings for his flock and for the honor of his
Lord and Master, he will press his congregation with truth, and annoy them by
his spirit, and honesty, and fire, until he offends them. He irresistibly forces truth on those
already under conviction with increasing power and, unless their feelings
change, he will offend them, and in the end, perhaps, it will be necessary for
him to leave them. All this may happen,
and it may be as right and as necessary for the minister to leave as it was for
Paul to leave places and people when their hearts were hardened and they
contradicted, blasphemed, and spoke evil of God’s way before the multitude.
Another situation may
occur when the church and the people wake up but the shepherd sleeps and will
not wake up. This will inevitably
alienate their affections from him and destroy their confidence in him. In either of these cases, they may find
themselves unable to walk together because they don’t agree. In the first situation, the minister obeys
the command of Christ, and “shakes off the dust from his feet, as a testimony
against them.” (Acts 13:51) In the second situation, the church shakes
off their sleepy minister. They are
better off without him. “Son of man,
prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says
the Lord God to the shepherds: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed
themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you
slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock’. Therefore, O shepherds, hear the word of the
Lord! Thus says the Lord God: ‘Behold,
I am against the shepherds, and I will require My flock at their hand; I will
cause them to cease feeding the sheep, and the shepherds shall feed themselves
no more; for I will deliver My flock from their mouths, that they may no longer
be food for them.’” (Ezek. 34:2,3,9,10)
Surprisingly, carnal
professing Christians and sinners have little difficulty with
emotionalism. Let me explain. It is not uncommon in revival services to
hear a great deal of opposition made to emotionalism. This kind of feeling is sometimes produced in revivals. It is impossible that real religious
feelings should be excited to any considerable degree without exciting our
emotions and stimulating our senses.
But to question this, or to object to a revival because of this, is
absurd. Usually, it’s not the
emotionalism that’s offensive, because saints and sinners, and carnal and
spiritual Christians are basically feeling the same things. Sinners have as much emotionalism as
saints. Just attend a horse race. Cold
professing Christians can be just as emotional as warm and spiritual
Christians. So as far as emotionalism
goes, everyone can sympathize, and indeed we often see that they do. If your preaching is designed to just stir
up sympathy and emotionalism, you will soon see that there is a perfect
community of feeling between cold-hearted and unbelievers; they will all weep
and appear to melt, and neither will be offended, and I may add, nobody will be
convicted or converted. But change your
style, and become more spiritual and holy in your preaching, and pour your
heart out in an impassioned and powerful manner, directly appealing to their
conscience and their heart, their tears will soon dry up, their carnal and cold
hearted hearts will become uneasy, and they will soon find themselves
offended. As far as emotionalism goes,
they walk together, because they agree; but as soon as the feeling becomes
spiritual and holy, they can no longer walk together, because they are not
spiritual and holy. And as long as
sinners remain impenitent and their hearts remain cold, they cannot agree.
Unrepentant sinners don’t
like pure revivals of religion because God is in them. They hate God. This is the reason why God commands them to make to themselves a
new heart. This is the reason why
sinners need a new heart. Now, as long
as they are under the influence of a carnal mind, which is enmity against God,
(see Rom 8:7) they hate everything that’s like God. The more a revival is stripped of emotionalism and of everything
that is wrong, the more it will offend wrong hearts. The more of God, and the less human imperfection there is to be
seen in the godly, the more the godly will stir up resistance in carnal hearts.
If people, who are
dominated by a carnal mind, do not oppose a revival, it must be because of one
of three causes. 1) Either they are so
convicted that they dare not openly oppose that revival (and even then they are
opposed in their hearts). 2) The
presence of the Holy Spirit, who convicts one of sin, is not in that
revival. 3) The work of the Holy Spirit
is kept out of the sinner’s view and buried in the rubbish of
emotionalism. This often happens when
too much time is spent appealing to the sympathies of the multitude. Anything that keeps out of the sinner’s view
the work of the Holy Spirit tends to prevent opposition. And everything that exposes to the sinner’s
view the hand of God will certainly excite the opposition of his unregenerate
heart. Any excitement, therefore,
which does not call out the opposition of the wicked and wrong hearted, is
either not true revival, or the revival is so conducted that sinners do not see
the hand of God in it.
The purer and holier the
means are that are used to promote a revival of religion, the more like God it
becomes, and the more it will excite the opposition of all wrong hearts. As long as a person’s heart
is wrong on any subject, he can’t heartily approve of what is right on that
subject; because he cannot contradict himself.
It would be the same as saying that he could feel both right and wrong
at the same time.
And so it appears that
those means of preaching which pierces the heart like a two-edged sword, and
speaks against wrong hearts, are closest to the truth (Note: we do not advocate
or recommend preaching, or any other means used for the purpose of
offending. Nor do we advocate preaching
the gospel, or doing anything in a wrong spirit, and in a way that is highly objectionable. All such things should be condemned. However, we do insist that holy things are
offensive to unholy hearts, and as long as hearts remain unholy, they can only
be satisfied with unholy things. One’s understanding may approve, one’s
conscience may approve, but one’s heart will not approve, and, as long as that
person’s heart remains unholy, he cannot approve of that which is holy. Therefore, if a sinner who is under the
dominion of a “carnal mind,” which is “enmity against God,” is pleased with
preaching, it must be because, either the character of God is not faithfully
exhibited, or the sinner is prevented from understanding what is preached in
its true light, by inattention, or he is so occupied with the style and manner
of the preacher that he overlooks the offensiveness of the message. Therefore, if the preaching is right, and
the sinner is pleased, there is something defective in the way that message was
preached. Either a lack of earnestness,
or holy unction, or something else prevented the sinner from seeing what that
preaching was supposed show him: that he hates God and His truth.)
And so, we see how
foolish it is to labor to please people whose affections are in a wrong state
on religious subjects. We cannot please them with anything right and holy while
their hearts are in this wrong state, for this would be a contradiction.
That is why so much wrong feeling is stirred
up in revivals.
It is the natural effect of pure revivals to
stir up wrong feeling in wrong hearts.
Revivals of religion on earth stir up wrong feelings in hell. They will disturb the same spirit and stir
up the same feelings whenever they come in contact with rebellious hearts,
whether in the church or out of it.
Whenever the Holy Spirit comes, or operates publicly, the opposite
spirit will be disturbed. A lot of
right and holy feeling among saints will naturally stir up a lot of unholy and
wicked feeling in all those hearts that are stubbornly wrong. The more right and holy feeling there is,
the more wrong and unholy feeling there will be of course, unless sinners and
carnal professors bow and submit to the truth.
They cannot walk together, because they do not agree; and the holier and
heavenlier the saints become in their affections and in their conduct, the farther
apart the two will be, until the light of eternity will place them, in feeling
and affections, as far apart as heaven and hell.
Speaking of one’s moral
character, this shows that the difference between heaven and hell, and
happiness and misery, depends on the condition of that person’s heart or
affections.
This demonstrates beyond
all doubt, that sinners cannot be saved unless they are born again. In other words, it is impossible for sinners
to walk and be happy with saints and holy angels without a complete change of
heart. Sinners cannot walk with
saints. As soon as the saints stop
walking “after the course of this world,” (Eph 2:2) sinners think that it is
strange that they no longer want to walk with them down the path of works and
self-centered goodness, and so sinners begin “speaking evil of them.” (I Peter 4:4) As soon as Christians awake and become spiritual and active, holy
and heavenly, and cut off their vain and wicked associations with the world,
sinners become distressed and offended.
They try to imagine that there is something wrong in the saints and in
revivals, and that is why they are offended.
But the truth is; there is something right in the saints, and when the
presence of God is the strongest they are offended the most. And if the saints were as holy as angels
are, or as holy as they will be in heaven, sinners would be even farther from
having any community of feeling with them.
And as saints rise in holiness, and sinners sink in sin, they will grow
farther and farther apart forever and ever.
This is why the lives and
preaching of the prophets, of Christ and His apostles, and the revivals of the
early Church met with so much more violent opposition from carnal professing
Christians and from ungodly sinners than preachers and revivals experience
today.
The saints in those days
had times when they were cruelly mocked and scourged. There were times when they were bound and imprisoned. They were tempted. Many were stoned, sawn in two, or slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and
goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, and tormented. They wandered in deserts, in mountains, and in dens and caves of
the earth. The world did not consider
them worthy to live. (Heb
11:36-38)
The preaching of the
prophets, of Christ and His apostles, and of the early Church, was opposed with
great bitterness by many people who claimed to be saints, and by multitudes of
ungodly sinners. They endured more
opposition than preachers endure today.
Professors of religion were often the leaders in this opposition. They stirred up the Romans to crucify Jesus,
and afterwards persecuted and destroyed His saints, and crucified His
apostles. Even the religious leaders,
and learned doctors of the law, tried to prejudice the multitude against our
Savior, and to prevent them from listening to what Jesus had to say. “He has a devil and is mad,” they claimed,
“why listen to Him?” (Luke 11:14-20) They led the way in
opposing the apostles as revival fire spread out from Jerusalem. We must also admit that those revivals made
a lot of noise in the world. It created
such a stir that the apostles were accused of “turning the world upside down:”
(Acts 17:6) and sinners, who were greatly hardened by the preaching of Christ
and His apostles; “were filled with great wrath,” (Luke 4:28) and opposed with
such bitterness that Christ told His apostles to “let them alone.” (Matt
15:14) In some places where the
apostles preached, “some were” so “hardened,” that they “did not believe, but
spoke evil of the Way before the multitude.”
(Acts 19:9) In some places the
apostles were forced to leave and go to other places, and sometimes they had to
leave under very humiliating circumstances, barely escaping with their lives.
Now we can easily account
for these facts from the principle contained in today’s scripture and
illustrated in today’s message. There
is no evidence that the prophets, and Christ and His apostles, were foolish and
unholy men; that their preaching was too overbearing and
severe; or that there was something wrong in the management of revivals in
those days. The fact is, the prophets
were so much holier in their lives, and so much bolder, and more faithful in
delivering their messages. Christ was
so much more searching, plain, and to the point, and personal in His preaching,
and so entirely “separate from sinners” in His life. The apostles were so honest, so straightforward and plain in
their dealing with sinners and those who claimed to be saints, and so
self-denying and holy in their lives that carnal professing Christians and
ungodly sinners could not walk with them.
The means that were used back then to promote revivals were holier and
more free from corruption than they are today.
There was less sympathy with the sinner and fewer of those hypocritical
manners and fancy discourses that are calculated and designed to cater to the
applause of the ungodly. But the
apostles went forward, having renounced the hidden things of shame, not walking
in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully. And they preached, “not with persuasive
words of human wisdom,” but “in demonstration of the Spirit and of power” so
that the ungodly in the church and out of it, were filled with wrath. (I Cor. 4:2; 2:4)
Stephen was so holy and
searching in his preaching, that the elders of Israel “cried out with a loud
voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord; and they cast him
out of the city and stoned him.” (Acts
7:57:58) However, there is no evidence
that Stephen was foolish. The fact is,
revivals are so much quieter and more gradual in their progress today than they
were on the day of Pentecost and during the early days of the Church. Today, the fact that revivals create much
less noise and opposition among cold professing Christians and ungodly sinners
does not prove that we know more about revivals now than they did then, nor
that ministers and Christians who are engaged in revivals today are wiser than
the apostles and the early Christians.
To claim such a thing would only reveal spiritual pride within us. Nor can we say that the human heart is
different today, or that the character of God is less offensive to the carnal
mind. No! The fact is that the prophets, Christ, His apostles, and the
early saints were holier, bolder, more active, more direct and to the point in
their preaching and less conformed to this crazy world. In one word, they were wiser and Godlier
than we are today. These are the reasons why they were hated more than we are,
and why their preaching and praying was so much more offensive than ours.
Those carnal policies and
practices that tend to keep the hand of God hidden from the sinner’s view did
not bog down revivals in those days.
These are reasons why the world made so much more noise in the early New
Testament period than it does in the revivals that we witness today. Back then, people stirred up so much of
earth and hell to oppose the early Christians, that they convulsed and turned
the world upside down. The early
Christians knew, that “men could not serve God and mammon.” (Matt 6:24)
The early Christians knew that “all who desire to live godly in Christ
Jesus will suffer persecution.” (II
Tim. 3:12) These early Christians
understood that if ministers pleased men, they were not the servants of Christ. (Eph 6:6)
The church and world could not walk together, for back then they could
not agree. Let us not be puffed up, and
imagine that we are prudent and wise, and that we have learned how to manage
carnal professing Christians and sinners, whose “carnal mind is enmity against
God,” (Rom 8:7) by not pointing out their opposition to truth and holiness as
Christ and His apostles did. But let us
know that if they have fewer problems with us, our lives, and our preaching
today than they had with those in the early church, it is because we are less
holy, less heavenly, and less like God than they were. If we walk with the lukewarm and ungodly, or
they walk with us, it is because we agree.
For two cannot walk together except they agree.