"that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one
soul striving for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing affrighted by
the adversaries: which is for them an evident token of perdition, but of
your salvation, and that from God; because to you it hath been granted
in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer
in his behalf: having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear
to be in me," (Phil. 1.27)
That passage expresses in the spirit of it
some of the very fundamentals of true religion—fidelity to God, loyalty
to his truth, a manner of life which means action in harmony with a
conviction worthy of the high character of the gospel. I have been
impressed by the fact that one of the very many problems the church
faces is the lack of understanding, on the part of members of the
church, of what Christianity really is. We judge at by the wrong
standards. When Samuel went down to anoint one of the sons of Jesse to
be king over Israel, he was so impressed by the outward appearance of Eliab that he said,
"Surely, the Lord's anointed is before me." But God said, "Look not on
his countenance, or the height of his stature; because I have refused
him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward
appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." (1 Sam 16:7-8)
The thing that leads us astray in many
religious matters, that is really the basis of departures from the
divine order, is the fact that God's plan measured by human wisdom
doesn't look impressive enough. We are not willing to abide by it. A lot
of people are not impressed by religion unless it is put in statistics,
or in the form that makes a big impression. I hear people, sometimes
good people, zealous people, say we are not doing anything, that we
ought to "do" something. Well, of course, people ought to do, but there
is something that is more important than doing, and that is being.
You've got to be something before you can do something. And what you are
is not always manifest at first glance.
I think I can illustrate that point. In one
of the larger cities here was an elder, a very able man, very devout and
understanding elder in the church. One man came to this elder and said,
"I don't want to be a hypocrite, and I am not getting anything out of
the church, it doesn't mean much to me, I don't feel it, I am
discouraged, and I am just going to quit." This elder, a man of very
great discernment, said, "Well, we're mighty sorry about that, but he
said if that's the way you feel we wouldn't request you to continue as a
member of this congregation—but first, will you do me a favor? There's a
family down on a certain street, at a certain number, that I have been
rather quietly looking after, I haven't brought it before the church;
but the man there is sick and out of work; he has a family, a wife and
some children, and they are always in need; I have been supplying, as a
sort of personal matter, some of their needs; I haven't seen them in
several days; take this money, find out what they need, and get it." The
brother went down there, walked in, looked the situation over, asked a
few questions, sat down and talked and observed the conditions, went
off, took the money the elder had given him, added about twice that much
of his own, supplied the needs of that family, and came back to the
elder and said: "I get the point, I have the lesson; don't take my name
off the church book; I think I have found out exactly what's the matter
with me."
Things like that don't look big enough to
some people. Names that never go into statistics, that never go into the
reports in the paper, work that's done that nobody knows about but the
individual himself, make up most of the power of Christianity and its
influence over the lives of men.
I recall some months ago that the
congregation where I lived mailed a check, I believe for $300.00, to an
orphan's home. It was proudly announced, "Why the contribution to that
was $300.00" A short time after that one of the women of the church came
to the house and knocked, and said, "Bro. Wallace, I want to talk to
you." I said, "All right, what about—money?" "Well," she said, "you know
about the woman way down there in a certain section with all of those
children." Well, I knew this woman; performed her wedding ceremony in
Weatherford a way back in 1918, and they've been having children ever
since, there have been about 13 in all. The man is a veteran of World
War I, and he had a stroke here some three or four years ago, and is in
the Veteran's Hospital. I had observed that woman; she was always at the
meetings of the church, and I wondered how in the world she got along.
She had six or seven children right there at home; she was working to
make a living, but she just couldn't make the grade, and had become ill.
I said, "I'll go down and see her" I walked in and I said, "How are you
getting along?" "Not doing so well." I said, "What's the matter with
you, what did the doctor say?" She was rather vague, and I said, "To
tell the truth about it, I don't think you're much sick. I think you're
worried to death. How much grocery bill do you owe, that you can't pay?"
She said there was about eighty or ninety dollars in all, and they were
pressing her for the money and she didn't have it. I said, "How much
have you got here in the house to eat?" She broke down and went to
crying, no food, no milk, not anything. I said, "You get me those
grocery bills." The treasurer of the church wrote a check to pay those
bills, and sent her a check in addition to that. And I came back to her
and said, "Now, quit worrying, get well, go on doing the best you can,
and when you need help, let us know about it."
We need to know that real religion consists
of a lot of little things, little from the standpoint of the world, that
do not make as good reading as some big institutional report does. God
intended that his work should be done for the individual through the
local church and not through some human institution. In other words, God
thinks more of a half dozen people that love him and serve him by
carrying on his work in a scriptural way than he does some great big
outfit, regardless of how big a temple they own, or how much resources
they have accumulated, and how much worldly impression they are able to
make.
But that is not really what I intended to
talk about tonight, so I'll get to it.
The Problem of
Division
That problem of division. I don't know how
many places I have been called where the church was divided. Much of the
teaching of the New Testament on the unity question is directed to the
local congregation. In the Philippian letter the apostle said: "If there
is therefore any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if
any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions,
make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love,
being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing through faction or
through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting other better
than himself." (Phil 2:1-3) Divisions in the church, cleavages
and schisms in a congregation can do a lot to neutralize God's plan.
Paul said, as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the
members of the body being many, are one body; so also is Christ," and,
"Now hath God set the members each one of them in the body, even as it
pleased him;" and, "there should be no schism," (1 Cor 1:18, 25)
no torn or rent places in the body; no divisions among you, but be
"joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment." (1 Cor
1:10)
One time I was called to Dallas, over there
at Sears and Summit, for a meeting. I got off the train on Sunday
morning. The first thing I knew about it, Clarence Cockrell broke the
news gently to me that the church had split wide open the Sunday before.
They hadn't told anybody, but the preacher and about a hundred members
had pulled off, and everybody was mad enough to kill everybody else. I
felt a whole lot like the Southern gentleman did that went to the bank
to cash a check when he passed his check in. the teller said, "This bank
is insolvent; the last check has been paid." He said, "You means to tell
me that this here bank is busted?" The teller said, "That's what we
mean—it's closed." The gentleman man said, "Well, that's the fust time
I'se ever had a bank to bust right in my face!" Now that church had
busted right in my face. Well, of course, we spent all the time in that
meeting talking about personal matters and wrestling with problems that
ought never have existed. We ought to have been free, with the church
behind the work, to try to convert others and make Christians out of
somebody else. Time after time we find those problems of divisions.
What's the cause of them? They are problems—personalities, divisions,
parties, factional spirit, and all that.
The Leadership
Problem
Many times I find that "referendum and a
recall" problem, somebody in the church dissatisfied with the
leadership, dissatisfied with the elders—especially if the elders won't
go off into some sort of a scheme they have concocted and consider very
important—and there will be insurgency in a spirit of rebellion, an
appeal to the majority rule, the mob spirit, and manifestations of the
wildest sort of democracy. We've seen that. I don't suppose that any big
problems have arisen that caused a lot of divisions, such as digression
and things like that, that weren't accompanied by an appeal to the
majority rule ignoring the fact that the New (Testament teaches that a
church should be under the elders, under the oversight of men of age,
experience and wisdom, and scriptural qualifications, the work to The
directed by them. The younger should submit to the older, but its got to
where the elders submit to the young people, in a good many instances,
or will engage a preacher they hear about without too much regard for
his qualifications, his background, or his reputation. They call him in
and turn their work over to him. Then the first thing they know he has
taken their work away and when they try to get it back, they see the
mistake they have made, try to right it, and they've got trouble. An
appeal is then made to the inexperienced and the thoughtless, and a
faction built up in a party spirit around the preacher, is the result—a
situation that will always bring many years of trouble.
Sometimes you will find a church that has
reached a point of saturation in a community. It looks like they have
baptized about all the people they can (baptize, they've reached the
static stage; and then they get into a rut, the spirit of restlessness
and of dissatisfaction arises, and you have a perfect set-up for
division. Then sometimes we'll find that an old church will begin to
disintegrate and show signs of senility; they begin to die instead of
constantly being rejuvenated and built up in their spiritual life. All
these matters will result in the evil that we now as division, and these
are all problems that, enter in leadership.
The Problem of
Undercover Activities
A good many divisions are caused by men
slipping in, or sneaking in, or acting along lines of sabotage, stirring
up a rebellion in favor of false principles and false doctrines. There
is the doctrine that we know as premillennialism. You know it’s got to
where in a good many places people don't want to hear that name. Any
system of religion that has to have a name that long to describe, I
can't get much enthused over it, to say the least of it. But
premillennialism is not dead. I think I made the remark in an article
here awhile back, a sort of a wisecrack, that you couldn't find the
track of one that wasn't too cold for a hound to smell, but the truth of
the matter is they have just gone under cover. You know a movement
sometimes can just go underground. You can think you have it whipped
out, but premillennialism is a peculiar thing. I remember being called
for a meeting over at a certain town, I could tell you where it was, and
I could tell you who had been holding their meetings, for that was what
was the matter with them, but I won't do that—it isn't nice to call
names anyhow—but they called me over there for a meeting. A truck driver
(I like truck drivers, but sometimes when they are elders of the church
and think they are too smart, they can do some mighty silly things)
wrote me that he wanted to request me to say nothing about
premillennialism. I knew, of course, exactly what they needed. On Sunday
morning I said, "We're going to have a special service tonight, and I
want to give you fair warning. I'm going to preach on premillennialism.
I am going to preach an hour and a half, and it is going to be just as
hot as—well, it's going to be hotter and if you don't feel like you can
stand it, stay away." One of the elders said to another, "I knew he'd do
it. I knew he'd do it. I tried to tell you not to write him that
letter." Well, the biggest crowd they had during the week was there, and
the weather was hot, and the sermon was hotter. Everybody was interested
in it. I didn't go back there for another meeting, and as far as that's
concerned, I didn't want to, and didn't mean to because I said
everything I knew in that meeting.
But uninformed people say, "Well, what's
the need of bringing up these old dead Issues?" Do you know what
premillennialism is? Now, I am not going to discuss that tonight,
because I am talking to people who are well informed and well warned on
the matter, but premillennialism is a system of such character that a
man who knows what it is, and believes it, cannot believe the gospel. A
premillennialist does not believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of
God. When I make a statement of that sort somebody says, "Why, that is
one of the wildest, most radical statements I ever heard—why, all of
them believe that." Ask a premillennialist if he believes that Jesus is
the Christ the Son of God, and he will say, of course, that he does,
that we all believe that. But they don't do anything of the kind. I can
take their books, take their theory, take their teaching, and prove that
they believe in a composite Christ, that the Christ is "Jesus and the
church", a composite Christ. Well, that's just one point. The system
denies that the kingdom of Daniel
2:44 has been set up. Jesus Christ preached its near approach and said the
time was fulfilled; John the baptizer, and the disciples, during the
personal ministry, preached that the kingdom was at hand; and Jesus even
went so far as to say that it would be set up while some of them lived,
but millennialists say the kingdom was postponed; that it was not set
up, that God defaulted on his promises; that Jesus went to heaven and
instead of being crowned as king in heaven, he is king by right only,
not in act, fact, or might; not exercising authority as king at all, and
will not until he comes again; that the Roman Empire, old pagan Rome,
must arise again, be re-established, before the kingdom can be set up.
Furthermore, Solomon's temple must be rebuilt, Judaism restored,
requiring an interchange of shadow and type. In other words Christianity
is the antitype and Judaism was the type, but Judaism, the type, is
coming back, the Jews will be converted and restored to Palestine, their
old worship re-established, With all the nationalism they ever had—all
of which is an integral part of the premillennial system. Yet the
comparatively few brethren who embraced that materialistic idea a good
many years ago, just keep hammering away on it, refusing to renounce
their materialism or abandon their divisive work. Yet at the same time,
they conceal their activities in various places, and do a work of
sabotage, creeping in unawares, speaking perverse things to draw away
disciples, rising right up in our own midst at every opportunity, and
all that sort of thing. Well, that is a congregational issue—a real
problem of under-cover agents in the churches.
The trademarks of the system are to be seen
in its fruits. They will invariably evade the issue by their stock
remark: "Oh, I don't believe the theory but"—but they do all they can to
help the party!
But they want us to refrain from mentioning
premillennialism, and exposing its character and consequences. Suppose
Adventism is running rampant through a community, and the brethren tell
me not to say anything about the Adventists, or Jehovah's Witnesses, if
they happen to be overrunning a section of the country, just don't
mention them. That is out of harmony with the entire spirit of the New
Testament. It is just plain pitiful to think about how many deviations
from the principles of New Testament teaching there are in the system,
and instead of brethren hush-hushing the proposition, they ought to cry
out against it and spare none of its teaching or its teachers. A system
that has so many doctrinal deviations from fundamentals, accompanied by
a softness and an attitude that is contrary to the spirit of New
Testament constitutes a doctrinal problem. It still is and we ought to
be alert regarding those things.
Paul said to the elders of the church,
"Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy
Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord which he
purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departing grievous
wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among
your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away
disciples after them." (Acts 20:28-30) Regarding these false
teachers, Paul called them grievous wolves, and they were members of the
church. Every so often we read an article from some brother who says we
should never speak unkindly of any member of the church, always treat
him as a brother. Well, I don't go around indiscriminately calling the
brethren wolves, but you know, Paul called certain men in the Ephesian
church wolves, and he called some of them in the Philippian church dogs.
Was he unkind? You know, he was mighty good to the folks that needed
kindness; he was protecting the flock against the inroads of the
wolves—destructive men who were seducers. Was Jesus unkind? He said,
"Beware of false prophets that come to you in sheep's clothing, but
inwardly are ravening wolves;" and "by their fruits ye shall know them."
(Mt 7:15-16) I ought not to call a man a wolf unless he is, and
you ought not to refer to anybody as a dog unless he is, and then only
when it is necessary. But to say that under no circumstances shall any
language of that sort be used toward anybody, and take a passage of
scripture and apply it to a situation that was never intended to forbid
it—well, Paul did things like that, and Christ did things like that,
"Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ," and "stand
fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel."
(Phil 1:27)
The faith of the gospel is a system, once
for all delivered, not to be changed modified or altered. It is not to
be trimmed and remodeled to meet the changing conditions of any age. The
gospel is a static proposition, its facts are unchangeable, its commands
are dogmatic and its promises are definite and sure.
The Problems of
the Secular Age
The church has always been influenced by
environment, always. It was so in New Testament times, the environment
of the Roman Empire had a lot to do with the final apostasy; the
problems of the early church in matters of doctrine came from
environment, many of them—Judaism on one hand and paganism on the other.
The heresies that plagued the church during the first century came out
of Judaism and paganism, Catholicism itself is a strange mixture of
Judaism and paganism with a little bit of Christianity. Today the church
is influenced a lot by environment and the secular spirit of the age, in
economic and social matters.
The secular spirit can be illustrated even
from the New Testament. Paul told Timothy to "charge them that are rich
in this world that they be not high-minded, nor have their hope set on
the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who gives us richly all things to
enjoy; that they do good, that they be ready to distribute, willing to
communicate, laying up for themselves a good foundation against the time
to come, and may lay hold on the life to come." (1 Tim 6:17-19)
Jesus struck right at the heart of it when a young man came to him and
wanted to be his disciple, asking what he must do to inherit eternal
life. Jesus looked at him and saw something that the young man didn't
even know he had, and his friends perhaps were not aware of it-an
inordinate love for money. Paul said, "They that are minded to be rich
fall into the temptation and snares and many foolish and hurtful lusts,
such as drown men in destruction and perdition," (1 Tim 6:9)
Jesus told the young man if he would be perfect, to sell what he had,
give it to the poor and "come and follow me." (Mt 19:21) When the
choice was put up to him, he found out that he loved what he had more
than he loved the Lord and his cause. That ended that.
The secular spirit of the age—a man had a
piece of ground that brought forth plentifully, and had nowhere to
bestow his grain and his goods. He said he would pull down his barns and
build greater barns, and with the produce of the soil, he said, "'Soul,
thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink
and be merry." (Lk 12:16-20) The man made three mistakes. He
thought he could feed his soul on corn: Well, you can't do that. "Man
shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of
the mouth of God." (Mt 4:4) He thought he had an unlimited time
to live. God said, "Thou fool, this night is thy soul required of thee;
the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?” So is he that
layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." (Lk
12:20-21)
You remember that Jesus said that the cares
of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things
choke out the word and it becomes unfruitful. (Mt 13:22) Well,
look at the church, in any community where you go—the condition is more
pronounced in some places than others—we have to make a living, we have
to eat, we have to wear clothes, we have to pay bills, and all. That's
legitimate, a man is to look after his affairs and all that, but are we
putting the things of the kingdom first? After a man gets through with
his business and his social engagements, and attends to the things that
have to do with the material, with the secular, he doesn't have any time
for meeting, doesn't have any time to attend to the Lord's business,
doesn't have any money left for the church. That's what I mean by the
secular spirit of the age, allowing these other matters to crowd out.
You can't serve God and mammon. I can give you names and post office
addresses of some people who spend more money for baby sitters so they
can go to bridge games and social affairs than they give to the church.
The Problem of
Giving
Secular things are legitimate in their own
place and a properly circumscribed zone, but the things of the kingdom
come first. What we do for the church in money and time, is just
"tipping" the Lord a little on the side.
Talking on the matter of giving, Paul said
it should be by equality. I take it that that would mean time, and mean
money, and things of that sort, that all cannot do the same thing,
because all do not have the same ability. You know equality doesn't mean
the same amount. I heard that illustrated one time, but I won't vouch
for this story; there is a little element of the story that I have
always doubted, but I'm going to tell it. A man was making a very
fervent appeal for a worthy cause, and it touched the hearts of the
people. They passed around the hat, and there were two fellows sitting
back side by side, one was a millionaire and the other was a day
laborer. The day laborer put in ten dollars, and the millionaire put in
ten dollars, but they didn't give equally at all. Now here is the part
of the story I'm not so sure about, as the story went, the next day the
poor man got a telegram that a rich uncle had died and left him a
million dollars. The millionaire got a telegram from his mother-in-law
that she was coming to stay with him for six months. And the moral was,
“Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." (Gal 6:7)
Too much ambition to accumulate things for
our own use and for our own selfish interests, and all that, interferes
with the work of the church. You know, sacrifice means something, and
the secular spirit will cancel out in too many instances the spirit of
sacrifice.
The Preacher's
and Elder's Problems
You know, there is a difference in the
preaching problem and the problem of the preacher. You take a preacher's
problem, any conscientious preacher has his problems, and that doesn't
mean he is trying to run things, but a lot of members of the church make
themselves a problem for the preacher. Nobody should want to be a
problem to the church. But I find members of the church who have the
wrong attitude. They think it is the preacher's business to look after
them. The church will turn a lot of work over to the preacher that the
members ought to do, and there are some people in the church with so
sensitive a make-up that the preacher has to give them special attention
to keep them in a good humor. One woman said to me the other day,
"Brother Wallace, you never have come to see me." I said, "Well, if I
come around, it will be because I think there is something the matter
with you." People should take it as a compliment when the preacher lets
them alone, he thinks they do not need him. Sometimes people want to sit
around and be receiving attention all the time from somebody. That is
not the idea in the church. It is not what I can get out of it; it is
what I can put into it, what I can be doing, instead of being a problem,
or care. Contribute something yourself in interest and in money, and it
will cure your complaints against the preacher's visiting schedule.
I find the elders have problems. I really
have sympathy for conscientious, qualified elders of a congregation.
They have more responsibility, more cares, more obligations; they do
more with less reward in the way of praise, than any other group of men
in the church. But there is always some preacher or some member of the
church picking on some good man who is an elder of a congregation,
talking about his boys or his wife, or another member of his family, if
not about him. Good elders in a church certainly have their problems and
cares, on the other hand, the church may have an elder problem. Maybe he
is not qualified, maybe he is not conscientious, maybe he is stubborn,
insistent on having his own way, maybe he is self-willed, maybe he is
quick-tempered and gets angry. A careless fellow went into a powder
mill, where powder magazines were built and stacked up in a pile; and he
lighted a match, pitched it over in a pile of powder, and it burned up a
lot of valuable stuff before they could put it out. You know a lot of
times one man can set more on fire in a few words than all the rest of
us can put out in years. Take a man who is a preacher, leader or an
elder in the church, who can't be reasoned with, who has his own ideas
about things, is self-willed, contentious, well, he is a problem. Some
elders become problems, which congregations have to face in many
instances.
The "Young
People" Problem
In recent years everywhere I go, I hear
about a young people's problem, but I have never felt that we had a
young people's problem at all. I think it is somewhere else. I know in
nearly every congregation where I have stayed any length of time,
somebody who doesn't know too much about it, becomes suddenly concerned
about our young people, and they begin to plan and they begin to talk
and they begin to agitate, that something must be done for our young
people; and they finally manage to stir up something to be done for our
young people that the young people themselves never did think of and
never did want, and won't support by their attendance when the thing is
started. Well, what about young people? They are members of the church.
What about them, don't they need training? Certainly they need training;
they need the kind of Christian education that the church offers, and
anything, whether it is a meeting, regular or otherwise for them, or for
them and somebody else, that will contribute to their increased
knowledge and their increase of ability to work, is well and good. But
to create in a church a young people's consciousness, that something
special has to be done for them; and if we are going to hold the young
people we must do this, and we must do that, is nothing in the world but
just pure bunk. You know I have resented it on behalf of the young
people, and I think they have resented too, being made the goat for
somebody else's subversive schemes. Way back yonder when somebody wanted
to put an organ in the church, wanted to have societies, and wanted to
imitate and ape everything that the sectarians did, they made the young
people the goat, used them for an excuse, and said: "We've got to have
an organ to hold the young people." Well that wasn't so; it wasn't the
young people who were crying for it, unless somebody else had put them
up to it, and they never would have thought about it. Now our sectarian
neighbors have got this, and they've got that, and if we hold our young
people, we must have something like it. I've got enough confidence in
the integrity and the honesty and the good sense of my young people to
believe that it doesn't take anything but the gospel and its spiritual
program to hold them. You know, the gospel won't hold some people. There
is something wrong with people when you've got to offer something
besides the gospel to get them, keep offering them something besides the
gospel to keep them. The church may fail to give its young people the
spiritual help they need, and seeing their young people losing interest
in church activities, determine to provide a social or recreational
program that is planned to attract and hold young people. Picture shows,
parties, ball teams, banquets and numerous other devices may be used.
These activities may all be good in their place, for Christian parents
who feel responsible for the recreation of their children, but they have
no place in the program or work of the church. In other words, a lot of
parents want to turn their responsibilities over to the church.
Now, you know, we have raised a good many
children at our house. Brother W. A. Schultz went out into the country
for dinner over in Arkansas; looked around and saw the yard full of
children, and he said to the woman, "Sister, how many children have you
got anyhow?" She said, "Eleven," He said, "Well, that's better than
having so many ain't it?" We haven't had quite that many, but we have a
pretty good bunch of children at my house, and I've never felt it the
duty of the church to provide recreation for them. If I did, I wouldn't
confess it. I've never felt that I had to turn them over to the church
to be entertained, I have a responsibility as a parent, and you have a
responsibility as a parent. They are activities that pertain to the
home, and you can't turn your children over to the church, or anybody
else, to furnish the entertainment and things like that, that they need.
The church has its mission to perform, and
has its teaching to do, but a man, even in his youth, has spiritual
needs. The church is uniquely designed to satisfy these special needs.
If the church does not have a program, a worship and service program, a
spiritual program, that satisfies its youth, let it never deceive itself
in thinking it can hold them with entertainment and pleasure. You know
that spiritual service; consists in preaching and worship and work, but
the church cannot compete with other organizations of a community on a
social entertainment basis.
Modern youth is starved spiritually. That
hunger will not be satisfied with socials, camping trips, or athletic
activities, as wholesome as all these things are in their proper place;
the church must give the bread of life, and when it does it will draw
young and old. Now that is so.
Take our young people's meetings. Well,
they are creating a class consciousness, you know, that idea of doing
something for "our young people" as a special class in the church. In
sectarian churches they have a young people's church—the junior
church—they have their own organization, their own elders, and when they
get through with their work, they go home or somewhere else.
Young people’s consciousness—we don't need
that in the church. There is one of our problems, and it is a problem
that has arisen because of a false emphasis. You know, a lot of church
troubles over the country come from young peoples' meetings and women's
meetings. I want to be understood here; I would not discourage a young
peoples' meeting for any proper purpose, or a women's meeting for any
proper purpose, but I wonder, I get to thinking about it sometimes,
people come to meeting on Sunday morning at ten o'clock, and stay there
until twelve, in Bible classes, preaching and worship, and then they are
asked to come back again in the evening, and spend another hour or hour
and a half, in Bible classes, which is "the Sunday School all over
again," as one expressed preliminary to the evening preaching. Well,
about four hours of it in all—and I wonder if it is practical, Some good
things can be overdone.
The Women's
Problems
Then there is the problem of women's
meetings. They meet to study the Bible, that's fine. And it may be that
there is some work among the poor, and it may be that they will do some
sewing, making clothes, quilts and things of that sort to be distributed
among the poor, and that's fine. But, you know, women everywhere are not
like they are here. Somewhere there will be a women's meeting that
doesn't have much oversight, it is not "watched, and there will be one
or two women of the kind they ought not to be who start talking, and
they will pick the elders to pieces, and somebody else to pieces, and
the first thing you know it turns into a gossip session. A lot of
dissatisfaction is stirred up in the church. I can give you a case in
point, but had better not call any names in this connection. I went to a
place to preach, moved there, in fact it is where I am now, A man and
his wife came there, good people, and she was a delightful little woman,
and looked all right, but she talked! The fact is she talked, talked,
talked. She had come from some wild place in California with wild ideas,
and she felt like we ought to do things just exactly like they do them
out there. She went to the elders, and she'd tell them, they ought to do
this, and she thought they ought to do that. Well she came down to see
me about the church, "Now, Bro. Wallace, here's what I think the elders
ought to do; here's what I think everybody else ought to do." She had
the whole thing mapped out, and I listened for about an hour. My wife
sat there as she talked and talked, and finally she turned to me and
said, "Bro. Wallace, what do you think about that?" I said, "All right,
you've asked me what I think, and I'm going to tell you. The first thing
I think is that you talk too much. And it isn't your business to come
here and run this church. The elders of this church were here long
before you came and my advice to you is to keep quiet and let them run
this church like it was intended they do. You may give them whatever
womanly counsel you can in a womanly way; that will be fine; but you are
out of your place." Well, the Sister blew up and said, "I'll never speak
to you again."
There are some things that need to be said
and have to be said when somebody starts talking too much, or somebody
goes acting out of turn, and it is one of those problems that come up
all along in the work of the church. I am going to leave until tomorrow
evening, a few definite things that I want to say about a few more
problems on some fundamental issues. The preachers should be learning
what the gospel is, and learn what an issue is, and learn what the
Lord's plan is, and bear down and bear down hard on fundamentals,
keeping before the people the demands of God, and the loyalty that ought
to always move human hearts in obeying the will of the Lord.
Bible Banner – Nov 1948
Other Articles by Cled Wallace
Put Up Thy Fist Brother