Setting The Church Back

Author: Michael Gott

Once Billy Graham was accused by a minister of a rather liberal leaning denomination, after a crusade, of being “guilty of setting the church back from 50 to 100 years!”  When Graham heard the comment, he replied, “Then I failed.  I wanted to set it back 2,000 years!”

Yes, indeed, setting the church back—you hear that cry and learn of that desire by God himself throughout the Bible.  The Old Testament records that almost every prophet embraced that theme in some variety.

“Return, and walk therein . . .” the prophets so often said.  Hear Jeremiah, “The Lord says to his people, ‘Stand at the crossroads and look.  Ask for the ancient paths and where the best road is.  Walk in it, and you will live in peace.’  But they said, ‘No, we will not!’” (Jeremiah 6:16, TEV)  Yes, “the ancient paths” he said were God’s choice and “the best road . . .”  Go back to “the ancient paths” God says.

And in the New Testament Revelation comes to mind quickly.  “. . . this is what I have against you:  you do not love me now as you did at first.  Think how far you have fallen!  Turn from your sins and do what you did at first . . .” (Revelation 2:4-5, TEV)  Repent and return to what once was alive within you.  “Christ and we will never be one until we and our sins are two!” said the beloved Spurgeon. Return to what once was and “do what you did at first.”

So, imagine today’s church returning to the Christianity of the early church.  What an incredible thought!

Because I read constantly, sometimes I find bits of paper with something I wrote years ago.  I did not give a source, but I fear to claim it as an original thought.  For example, something dated 1962, written in my hand says:  "To our knees, then, we must bow to Him who walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks.  Back must we go until the glorious Lord stands among us in all the majesty of His holy person, until the church which is His by gift of the Father and by His own purchase comes under His complete control.  For too long our ways have shut the gates against the heavenly breathing of His Holy Spirit."

We must go back until the Lord Jesus is gloriously unveiled so that His holy presence becomes again the reality of Christianity.  It is only our full and wholehearted return to the first state and to the first love which will once again make our faith strong and dynamic, active and confident, and fearless and forceful.  It is our return to what the early church was which will once more give us the impact in our world that they had in their world.

Back to heart-cries, back to passionate praying, back to wet eyes, and back to prophetic preaching!  It will be only then that the mighty acts wrought by the apostles are possible again.  Purity is always the path to power, and holiness is the route to usefulness.
 
Therefore, Christ cries in the power of His authority, “Do the first works,” or, “Repent and do the things you did at first” (Revelation 2:5, NIV).  God says, “Go back!”  So, God himself wants to set the church back 2,000 years.

“The burden of the Lord” is the statement often chosen to be used in the Old Testament by the prophets because they were men of God who knew the heart of God and were aware of the spirit of the age.  As a result they were profoundly burdened.  The Spirit of God put those words on their lips.  “The burden of the Lord was my burden,” they were constrained to cry out and to tell their generation to turn and return.

By what twist of teaching can we claim we are following the legacy of the prophets or the methods of the early church if we do not call for a return?

The great early Methodist John Fletcher of Shropshire, England, who once had a school for young preachers, would stop suddenly in his lectures and say, “As many of you as are athirst for the fulness of the Spirit, follow me to my room.”  It is said that two or three hours later they emerged from that study because they could no longer bear to kneel!  Fletcher was said to be “the most holy man who ever has been upon the earth since the apostolic age.”  If that to any degree is true, it is no wonder he took his students back to the examples of early Christianity.

This God known for times of refreshing is our God.  He is the God who heard the heart-cries of those in the church in every age who insist the way forward is to go back.  “‘But even now,’ says the Lord, ‘repent sincerely and return to me . . . come back to the Lord your God” (Joel 2:12-13, TEV).
 
I would have to say anyone not committed to taking the church back is inadvertently involved in helping to take the church down!

Dr. W. E. Sangster will now speak for me, for he captures my heart and mind before the words can come from my lips.  “May I not hope that the God who comes in power to eleven defeated men on the day of Pentecost, and by their means turned the world upside down, will come in power in this dark generation and do again His mighty works?”

I love the promise, “The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come . . .”

Let me finish where I started:  Are we not serious in saying that we want to take the people of God back?

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