Crying in the Wilderness #1

Preachers vs. Messengers of God #1

I am going to be quite casual in the way I present what comes to mind in these posts. I remember very well having to use formal writing when writing seminary papers and my dissertation. But my only reason for writing now is to put forward aspects of Truth that could be helpful in the days ahead, even long after I am with the Lord. I am aware that speaking in this casual manner, and using first-person pronouns [I me, my, etc.] I risk sounding like I am the judge of all such things that I am led to discuss. Every reader is invited to decide for himself/herself whether or not what I say is genuinely a matter of concern, or bears further scrutiny. We can only speak for ourselves in all such things as this.

I have been disturbed for years about the state of the churches. While I would never compare myself to Paul, his Lord is also my Lord, and what troubled him [and his Lord] has also troubled me. One such area of concern, as he himself voiced it, was “the care of the churches.”[1] These posts will all be related to that area of concern. As the days wear on to the coming of the Lord, things are going to change radically. All of us have seen glimmerings of this reality. I am conscious that I will not be in this world when the worst of this deterioration transpires. But there will be believers here, perhaps even some of my own family. I am more deeply troubled than ever before about the state of the churches and the resulting ‘unreadiness’ of the saints for all that is coming.

I am not sure about all that might show up in these posts because there is so much that needs further consideration on the part of saints and messengers. We will have to wait and see. Since I really do not know all that may arise in these “talks,”[2] I will just push on into them and see if there is any need to arrange them in any particular manner later. For now I will number them. I want to consider those things that are contributing to this downgrade in the churches.[3] These things matter, and they are not going to ‘heal themselves.’

The first thing on my mind right now is the difference between ‘preachers’ and ‘messengers of God.’[4] For a long time, I have sincerely felt that there is a real difference between these two things. I have said, while preaching or teaching, that I believe that we have more than enough ‘preachers,’ but very few ‘messengers of God.’ I still feel that this is true. But as I come toward the conclusion of my own work in this world, the significance of this dichotomy weighs more heavily on me.

My work has been exclusively wrought out in the conservative end of the Christian spectrum. I have never worked in the liberal end of that spectrum, nor have I ever wanted such work. For many years I worked in what has been called ‘Fundamentalism,’ though I never considered myself to be a ‘fundamentalist.’ While laboring within this camp, I encountered many men that seemed to me to be self-called ‘preachers.’ In fact, this seemed to me to be the norm among them. Such men generally have their supporting schools behind them, along with a broad network of ‘brethren’ that operate in exactly the same way and with the exact same goals. Listening to them chatter in ‘preacher’s fellowships’ and preach themselves, I have rarely ever had a sense that I was hearing from God. I realize how stark that sounds, but it is true.

One of the leading elements of difference between ‘preachers’ and genuine messengers of God is in the ‘message’ being conveyed. As I suggested earlier, many of these ‘preachers’ are a product of the schools they attended. Some of them are almost rabid in their loyalty to their school, and it skews their message enormously. They must at all costs guard against preaching or teaching anything that might deviate from what their school teaches.

When I taught in one of these seminaries in a local church, I was stunned at one point when the president of the seminary [the pastor of the church] called a special meeting of the faculty. His purpose was to make it clear to us that we were never to teach anything in our classes that would in any way call into question his ‘birthing’[5] university. He had been made aware of such “seditious” teaching in his own local church school via several programmed loyal students in the seminary and Bible college in the local church. The ‘disloyal’ teaching was never questioned regarding whether or not it was biblical. That was not an issue. Its offense was simply that it was different from the positions held by the “Mother School” in another state.

There is no way of determining just how damaging such ‘filtered’ training has been in putting thousands[6] of such programmed disciples of men into pastoral and missionary positions over many years. One of the gravest realities associated with such shrouded ‘denominationalism’ is the stifling of genuine Bible study that seeks to truly ‘get at’ the fullness of biblical Truth. Men surrender Truth to the ‘party line.’ Eventually the ‘party line’ becomes the standard by which Truth is measured, rather than the other way around. Because we have, for generations, had thousands of pastoral and missionary positions in conservative churches filled with such sycophants, the Truth has suffered deeply. It has gradually been redefined and then the resultant mixture held to rigidly as though it had been the Truth all along.

How can such a state of things ever be ‘fixed?’ How can such extensive damage be undone? Even more, for those of us that gravitate toward the conservative end of the spectrum, how can we have any hope that our grandchildren will ever be able to dig their way out of the mountains of rubbish?[7] The only hope we have is the only hope we need. Their hope was in the restoring LORD. Our hope lies in Him as well.

[1] 2 Corinthians 11:28. [2] Kind of like Martin Luther’s “Table Talks” with his students. [3] Those messengers that read these posts may recall the great “Downgrade Controversy” that ultimately drove Spurgeon out of the work and to an early grave. [4] I am currently writing a great deal on the book of Revelation. The first chapter reveals the Glorified Lord holding stars in His right hand, which are the ‘messengers’ of the churches. Not preachers; messengers [ἄγγελοί]. [5] Where he was trained and whose protocols entirely dominate his work. [6] No exaggeration at all. [7] Nehemiah encountered a similar situation when the Lord took him back to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls. Nehemiah 4:10- “And Judah said, The strength of the bearers of burdens is decayed, and there is much rubbish; so that we are not able to build the wall.”