Our Compromise, part 3: Clarifications

A number of men have expressed concerns about my previous post, the follow up on our compromise in the face of Covid-19.  After giving it consideration I have decided to offer some clarifications

A. First, I freely admit that there are godly men on the other side of this issue who have arrived at their conclusions through thoughtful study of Scripture.  I believe they are wrong, but I don’t doubt their sincerity.  Nor do I believe that everyone on the other side is reasoning pragmatically.  There is no doubt in my mind that many men who heartily disagree with me are further along in their walk with the Lord.  For that reason I have found myself often hesitating to write or say anything at all.  I know what I am; and I remain painfully aware of the fact that there are numbers of men with whom I strongly differ who are more godly than I.   But I have not written for myself.  I have written (and I still write) for Christ and for truth.  

Having said that I would like to pose some questions.  Is it possible that many (if not most) of the men who believe they are acting on first principles are actually being moved more by second principles?  I think it is.  Is it possible that the thinking of many very godly men has been infected to a degree by worldliness.  I believe so.  

When I wrote previously I spoke of my own experience.  I said that I had been appalled at how often I had heard men reason pragmatically, and then I shared actual quotes I had heard from leaders in the Church.  I don’t think any of these men mean (or meant) to be pragmatic, but (in spite of themselves) their arguments have often been pragmatic.  They speak of consequences rather than duty.  But what about the men whose arguments have been from first principles?  There are a number of men arguing from Romans 13 that we must obey the magistrate.  That is not a pragmatic argument.  Still, I can’t help but wonder how many of them have arrived at their use of Romans 13 to justify closed churches by thinking about consequences and reasoning from a philosophy more humanist than Christian.  

Let me explain.  I have heard some of these same men justify other kinds of illegal activity by arguing that our current magistrates aren’t ministers for good (Romans 13) and so - they reason - Romans 13 doesn’t apply.  So why does it apply now?  They aren’t now suddenly ministers for good.  I can’t help but wonder, then, if fines and popular opinion are figuring into their calculations more than they admit (or realize).  Similarly, for years I have heard church leaders argue in the words of Scripture that we must “obey God rather than man.”  In our case it has always been hypothetical.  We have always talked about what we would do in such and such a case, but now that the government requires something from us other than what God requires I am hearing men borrowing from the Bible to justify going along.  God has commanded us to worship.  In fact, the current legislation prevents us from keeping the first four commandments as God intended them to be kept.    Is it possible that good men are being influenced by humanistic concerns rather than kingdom priorities?  I think it is!  We are dealing with a disease which we are told has a mortality rate of 0.004 (CDC, May 20th).  That's 4 in 1000 of those who get the disease.  And so influenced by an ungodly society’s visceral fear of death we have justified obedience to the magistrate on the basis of the 6th commandment.  We are speaking now in language that would have been alien to the ears of the early church.  In those days everything about being Christian was dangerous and much of it illegal, but that didn’t deter them.  Why does it deter us?  We say that we are concerned about principles like those found in Romans 13 and the 6th commandment.  But would we allow the magistrate to vaccinate our children on the same basis?  Would we allow the magistrate to dictate what goes on in the home for the safety of our children?  Would we allow them to tell us what to teach our children?  Shall we simply allow the magistrate to take whatever it wants from us so long as it can invoke health and safety as its reason? The 6th commandment could be used in all those cases and a host of others.  So why in this instance is it different?  I think we are more affected by worldliness than we realize.   I am watching people break the rules to visit family because family is very important to them. I am seeing people ‘take risks’ to keep their businesses alive and further risks to purchase both necessities as well as nonessential items.  So why are we willing to so easily let go of worship?  Isn’t it possible that we have imbibed the wisdom of the world and perhaps even allowed our love to wax cold (Matthew 24)?   

B. I have also been told that it was unjust on my part to invoke Daniel and use his story as an analogy to our own situation.  I freely admit that there are differences.  But I used the example because I believe there are important similarities.  First, the law wasn’t targeted at believers.  It was a law that was for everyone.  It affected believers in a particular way (as does the current legislation) but it wasn’t picking on them (at least as far as King Darius was concerned).  Second, it was only temporary.  In the same way the current arrangement - we are told - is only temporary.  Third, Daniel was simply being asked not to do what he had been doing previously.  The same is true here.  We were gathering for worship and now we are told not to.  Fourth, Daniel could have justified safer ‘more obedient’ alternatives.  He could have prayed discreetly, walking about his house with his eyes closed.  But he didn’t.  Sadly we have justified safer more obedient alternatives, which we didn’t justify before the pandemic.  Fifth, Daniel could have first written letters of appeal to the government, but he didn’t.  He simply disobeyed.  Sadly we are now being told to patiently write letters of appeal before eventually disobeying and only as a last resort.   

C. It has been further suggested that it was unfair of me to represent men on the other side as cowards.  I am happy to clarify that I don’t believe that men on the other side are all cowards.  However, I do believe that the fear of man and the fear of consequences has affected many otherwise brave men more than they realize.  I find it worrying, for example, that the same men who do not strictly obey the speed limits (put there by the magistrate in keeping with the 6th commandment) are now strictly obeying rules that prevent believers from gathering for prayer or worship.  As far as I can tell the only real difference are the consequences.

D. Also, when I spoke of those of us who have tasted the heavenly gift I was referring to Hebrews 6 and assuming every believer would include themselves in that number.  The “us” was not meant to represent a small superior few but all of us who have experienced the blessing of gathering for worship.

E. Fifth, men have expressed concern about the division being sown.  In my writing I have been strong and some say I have been inappropriately severe.  I am told I have written as if the matter were black and white when it isn’t.  I want to stress, here, that I have no wish to see the church divided, and I do love the men in my circle who differ with me.  But the responsibility for division lies with those who err from the truth not with those who speak and/or write against error.  My writing has been strong because I believe strong writing is what is needed.  I have written not as a scholar but as a preacher.  I believe what is needed in this dark and confused hour is a prophetic word rather than a scholarly one.  And I remain convinced that the present issue is not so grey as I am being told it is.  It is one thing to debate baptism for example or even to preach on baptism.  But when it comes to compromise on this scale, what is needed are men (however frail and weak) willing to stand up with holy boldness and urgently sound the alarm.  

For some my style of writing on this subject has been hard to take.  They have found it far too strong.  I expect that is partly cultural and partly philosophical.  The puritans did not apologize half as much as we do.  They wrote strongly not because they were unkind but because there was a fire burning in their bones; they had a zeal for God and a burden for His people that compelled them to speak with an urgency and force that made sense only in light of eternity.  They weren’t first scholars or teachers. They were preachers and they were prophets.

I want to offer some words from Leonard Ravenhill on prophets.  What he said I hope will shed light on why I wrote as I did.  There ought to be the prophetic element in every sermon and every preacher.  When contrasting preachers and prophets he said “Preachers usually ‘make’ sermons; prophets bring a message from the Lord.  The prophet has no meticulous care about a sermon of homiletical perfection or of exegetical exactitude.  His soul is aflame.   He usually carries a death sentence and as such is a solemn soul.  He does not scratch itching ears.  He is out of step with the current preaching style.  He usually shocks (italics are mine).”  Later he said, “The true prophet of God is not concerned first of all about the nation, or even about the Church.  He is concerned that God is insulted openly; that God’s laws are broken; that God’s Son is rejected, and this in a land that is seemingly saturated with the gospel.” 

John the Baptist, he said, “was not troubled...with a people who were hurt, but with a God who was suffering that His laws were broken, His Sabbath defiled, His house made desolate (italics are mine).”

F.  I will close with an excerpt from a letter to a friend, which I believe (more than anything else I have written expresses my heart on the matter:

“So much emphasis in your email (and in the correspondence I receive from others) is on the 6th commandment and the need to protect life.  Brother, what has happened to us?  Seriously.  Have we become so academic and scholarly that we can't see our way clearly anymore?  Is there not something more important than life?  Where is the stress on preserving life in the gospels and writings of Paul?  Isn't it the opposite?  We're to take up our cross, we're not to try to preserve our lives or else we're told we will lose them, we're told to hate mothers and fathers and brothers, we're told over and again to partake of the sufferings of Christ, we're called to follow men who poured out their lives as drink offerings, who regarded not their lives, who counted death as gain - and yet here we are justifying obedience to a wicked murderous idolatrous government by pointing to the importance of preserving life.  This sounds more like the world than it does Christianity.  I was told from the beginning to be careful because I have a compromised immune system, but - brother - I long for heaven. I am not afraid of dying.   And I can't understand this carnal logic which says that I must cease gathering for worship and prayer because it might put the lives of others in jeopardy.  I said this before but I believe God has done this to see what is in us and what is in us has come out.  We are covetous, we are proud and we are far more materialistic and worldly in our philosophy than we realize.  This week a group from our church will gather at the church to clean it.  That's okay because the government says its okay - because essential.  But those same people can't gather to worship King Jesus.  The Church can use Romans 13 to justify that all it likes, but that isn't what what Paul meant; and anyone who thinks it is is drinking too much from the well of worldly wisdom.   Look at the golf courses.  Look at the peaceful protests in the US which are allowed and sanctioned (even by many in the Church) because for a good cause.  Look at all that goes on because really important, and yet we can't gather to worship God because the government has said it is not essential?  No way.

Brother, as Ravenhill put it, the world is in darkness and we can't help because we're asleep in the light.  How many in the NA Church are asleep?  How many of us must admit we're not where we once were?  We have at least partly lost our first love... our love as Jesus put it has waxed cold.  There aren't nearly so many sobs in the place of prayer as there once were, we don't relish the prayer closet like we did, we haven't the stamina to pray like we did, we haven't the longing for God and the eagerness for heaven that we once had, and in the meantime we have grown more and more fond of the things of the world... is it any wonder we speak about preserving life the way we do?”  

It is high time for the Church to awake and put on strength and become a shining light in this dark hour.

For an update go here.