The following is an excerpt from the 'Root of Righteousness', Chapter 12; and is entitled: "Faith Is a Perturbing Thing."
Here, once again the prophetic warning sounds loud and clear ... and very much needs to be heeded in today's post-modern Christian maze.
It laid hold on the life and brought it under obedience to Christ. It took up its cross and followed along after Jesus with no intention of going back. It said goodbye to its old friends... It had a finality about it... It captured the man and made him from that moment forward a happy love-servant of his Lord.
It realigned all life’s actions and brought them into accord with the will of God... It made him little and God big and Christ unspeakably dear. All this and more happened to a man when he received the faith that justifies.
Came the revolution, quietly, certainly, and put another construction upon the word ”faith.” Little by little the whole meaning of the word shifted from what it had been to what it is now. And so insidious was the change that hardly a voice has been raised to warn against it. But the tragic consequences are all around us.
Faith now means no more than passive moral acquiescence in the Word of God and the cross of Jesus. To exercise it we have only to rest on one knee and nod our heads in agreement with the instructions of a personal worker intent upon saving our soul.
The general effect is much the same as that which men feel after a visit to a good and wise doctor. They come back from such a visit feeling extra good, withal smiling just a little sheepishly to think how many fears they had entertained about their health when actually there was nothing wrong with them.
Such a faith as this does not perturb people. It comforts them. The face of their ego is washed and their self-confidence is rescued from discouragement. All this they gain, but they do not get a new name as Jacob did.
This generation of Christians must hear again the doctrine of the perturbing quality of faith. People must be told that the Christian religion is not something they can trifle with.
The faith of Christ will command or it will have nothing to do with a man. It will not yield to experimentation. Its power cannot reach any man who is secretly keeping an escape route open in case things get too tough for him.
The only man who can be sure he has true Bible faith is the one who has put himself in a position where he cannot go back. His faith has resulted in an everlasting and irrevocable committal, and however strongly he may be tempted he always replies:
Here, once again the prophetic warning sounds loud and clear ... and very much needs to be heeded in today's post-modern Christian maze.
"... something has happened to the doctrine of justification by faith as Luther taught it. What has happened is not so easily discovered. It is not a matter of simple fact... It is more elusive than that, and very much more difficult to come at; but what has happened is so serious and so vital that it has changed or is in the process of changing the whole evangelical outlook.The faith of Paul and Luther was a revolutionizing thing. It upset the whole life of the individual and made him into another person altogether.
If it continues it may well turn Christianity inside out and put for the faith of our fathers something else entirely. And the whole spiritual revolution will be so gradual and so innocent appearing that it will hardly be noticed. Anyone who fights it will be accused of jousting against windmills like Don Quixote".
It laid hold on the life and brought it under obedience to Christ. It took up its cross and followed along after Jesus with no intention of going back. It said goodbye to its old friends... It had a finality about it... It captured the man and made him from that moment forward a happy love-servant of his Lord.
It realigned all life’s actions and brought them into accord with the will of God... It made him little and God big and Christ unspeakably dear. All this and more happened to a man when he received the faith that justifies.
Came the revolution, quietly, certainly, and put another construction upon the word ”faith.” Little by little the whole meaning of the word shifted from what it had been to what it is now. And so insidious was the change that hardly a voice has been raised to warn against it. But the tragic consequences are all around us.
Faith now means no more than passive moral acquiescence in the Word of God and the cross of Jesus. To exercise it we have only to rest on one knee and nod our heads in agreement with the instructions of a personal worker intent upon saving our soul.
The general effect is much the same as that which men feel after a visit to a good and wise doctor. They come back from such a visit feeling extra good, withal smiling just a little sheepishly to think how many fears they had entertained about their health when actually there was nothing wrong with them.
Such a faith as this does not perturb people. It comforts them. The face of their ego is washed and their self-confidence is rescued from discouragement. All this they gain, but they do not get a new name as Jacob did.
This generation of Christians must hear again the doctrine of the perturbing quality of faith. People must be told that the Christian religion is not something they can trifle with.
The faith of Christ will command or it will have nothing to do with a man. It will not yield to experimentation. Its power cannot reach any man who is secretly keeping an escape route open in case things get too tough for him.
The only man who can be sure he has true Bible faith is the one who has put himself in a position where he cannot go back. His faith has resulted in an everlasting and irrevocable committal, and however strongly he may be tempted he always replies:
”Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.”
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