real giving, which is heroic giving, is giving
outside of yourself, where there is no
possibility of receiving something in return.
This happens with missions giving, with
inner-city giving, with evangelism. This is
rather rare.
9. New Cross versus the Old Cross.
It was A. W. Tozer who commented on
the old and the new. He commented, “The new
cross does not slay the sinner; it redirects
him. It gears him up into a cleaner and jollier
way of living and saves his self-respect. To the
self-assertive, it says, 'Come and assert
yourself in Christ.' To the egoist it says, 'Come
and do your boasting in the Lord.'To the thrill
seeker it says, 'Come and enjoy the thrill of
Christian fellowship....'
“But the old cross is a symbol of death. It
stands for the abrupt, violent end of the
human being. The man in Roman times who
took up his cross and started down the road
had already said goodby to his friends. He was
not coming back. He was not going to have his
life redirected; he was going out to have it
ended. The cross made no compromise,
modified nothing, spared nothing; it slew all
the man, completely and for good....”
We are getting the people these days to a
cross that's been sanitized and polished and
is a cross which does not deal with self, like
the “old rugged cross.” We all know that the
cross is the major stumbling point. It's hard
to be “user friendly” and have a religion with a
cross in it. But we're trying desperately to do
that, and quite unsuccessfully.
10. Worshiping Worship versus
Worshiping God.
We go round and round about worship
and what kind of worship makes sense to us.
We even argue about it. We forget that
worship is for God and not for ourselves.
We're Not Getting By With
Substitutes
How long will the evangelical church
continue to get by with substitutes? The truth
of the matter is, we are not getting by! In the
beginning God spoke very clearly about
substitutes. He rejected Cain's offering as
being unacceptable and He received the
offering of Abel. In the Second
Commandment, God reinforced that: “Thou
shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or
any likeness of any thing...” (Exodus 20:4). In
Acts 8:18-24 we read that Simon, the former
sorcerer, was severely rebuked because he
“thought that the gift of God [the Holy Ghost]
may be purchased with money.” In
Revelation, chapters 2 and 3, God reminds us
of the early churches that were trying to get by
on substitutes after only 35 or 40 years, and
five of them were called to “Repent!”
We must understand that through
substitutes we are robbing God of His glory.
He has said, “I the Lord thy God am a jealous
God...” (Exodus 20:5). “I will not give My glory
to another” (Isaiah 42:8). We are robbing Him
of His glory with our efforts with substitutes.
We are misleading our people with these
substitutes. We're giving the impression that
all is well. All is not well. We're trying to get by
with broken cisterns.
We must realize we are paying a very
high price for substitutes--a high price with
our children, in terms of losing them because
they have never seen the supernatural in the
lives of their parents. That will not carry
Christianity into their generation.
Christianity is always only one generation
from extinction. Take the land of Turkey, the
great Bible land of the New Testament. Today
there are five or six hundred Christians
among 60 million people in Turkey.
Christianity can become extinct. We can not
get by with substitutes.
At my stage in life, I am making much of
Psalm 71:17,18: “O God, Thou hast taught me
from my youth: and hitherto have I declared
Thy wondrous works. Now also when I am old
and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I
have showed Thy strength unto this
generation and Thy power to every one that is
to come.” I used to think that we were
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