The Word of God is more than just theology; to the world, it is the voice of judgement sounding out the mournful tones of the doomsday bell – “Send not to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee!” (John Donne). To the prodigal seeking to find his way back to the Father from the entanglements and entrapments of sin in which he finds himself coiled by Satan, the Word is the voice of God calling him home and a road map showing him the way.
In the case of the world, they do not hear the voice because they are not listening; they are content in the pleasures of their carnality. Sadly, though, many who do desire to return home cannot hear the Voice either; the cacophony of religious bleatings clutter up the atmosphere and stand between God and the one seeking Him; but it is God we must hear, not men.
Many there are of God’s people who have doubts that they should be expected to hear the voice of God; that such a thing is not only impossible, but wrong! This is to make a liar of Jesus who said; “My sheep hear My voice and I know them and they follow Me” (John 10:27). Compare this with His other prophetic words in which those claiming heavenly citizenship on the basis of mighty works that they had done, and which are not denied it must be said, are told; “Begone! I never knew you” (Matthew 7:23).
The man who would hear God’s voice must be prepared to give time to the task; this is a sacrifice that few are prepared to make, which explains why so many are content to rely on the doctrines of men, televangelists and popular religious literature. But no amount of time spent in pursuing God can be counted as wasted; the Divine acquaintance needs careful cultivation through prayer, meditation on the scriptures and, inevitably, just plain adoration and worship. Unless He is our all in all, we are deluding ourselves; faith must be continuous in its conscious reaching out to the presence of God.
Whenever faith has done great things, whenever it has changed the course of events in the world, whenever it has triumphed victoriously over Satan, it has invariably had upon it a sense of the God who is present. Christianity looks back and sees the river of life flowing from the throne in ages past; it looks forward and sees that river flowing ever onward into the future; but the now is empty and Christians are alone, in a faith without power.
What needs to be recaptured, what is missing today, is the reality of God’s presence in the lives of His people; we fit Him into Church services, prayer meetings, Bible studies and other scheduled events; but Christ does not occupy places or events; His only dwelling place is in the hearts of men; and it is in the hearts of men that the sickness has taken root.
How can we insist and teach that Jesus Christ can be our Saviour without being our Lord? How can we hold to a view that we can be saved without any thought of obedience to the Saviour? How can we justify a practice that allows sinners to make of Jesus a Saviour in time of need without owing Him obedience as Lord? Yet these are common practices of modern religious Christianity; Jesus has become an object of utilitarianism; we can pick Him up and put Him down as we please and as our need dictates, but He must keep to the place we have given Him!
This is the consequence of adapting Christian faith to the modern world and its values; but when you lay aside the “otherworldliness” of the true faith, you lay aside its divine power, the “power of God unto salvation”. This we see all about us today.
It is all a deception of course; Christianity is what Christ says it is, not men; faith in Him, trust in His promises and obedience to His commands; anything else is not faith in Christ. The true faith rests upon who He is, what He has done and what He is doing!
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