HOW WE USED TO DO THINGS
Pastor Jack Seaton reviews the standards almost universally adopted by
Christians in the past, revealing a great chasm between then and now. FROM
SWORD & TROWEL 2003 No 3
How did the Lord’s people of former days think and act in the outworking of
their Christian lives, by contrast with the ways that many Christians have adopted in the
present age? ‘How we used to do things’ is a subject of great value to us. Now this does not
for one minute mean that everything that was done in former days was well done or wisely
done. But in the light of the circumstances that surround us now, it would appear to be a
good thing if some of the past practices were returned to, or at least reinforced in the hearts
and minds of God’s people.
One of the differences between the present and the past is the emphasis
placed on the things of time rather than the things of eternity. The things of this life
preoccupy even believers today; the things that will bring satisfaction and enjoyment now,
such as health and wealth and happiness. Even the presentation of the Gospel so often
majors on supposed benefits in this life, rather than on the things of eternity.
Now, do not get me wrong. The Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ has to do
with this life also. But its primary concern is with eternal life, and it calls men and women
to see the issue of their eternal life as being far more important than the issues of this
present life. The heart and soul of the Gospel preached in past days was - Where will you
spend eternity? It did not ask - How is it with your body? It asked - How is it with your
never-dying soul? There was a Heaven to gain, and an eternal hell to be avoided.
Ask any evangelical believer of past ages what the Gospel of Christ was
about, and he would tell you that it was all about Heaven and hell, about time and eternity,
about this life, and about the life that will never end. It declared that Christ had come into
the world to save sinners from a dreadful eternity, and take them to Heaven and glory at
last. That is not how it appears to be today. The appeal of the Gospel today is all about how
to have peace from the things that overtake us in this present life; how to escape the rigours
and the pressures of this present life.
When it comes to setting forth the Gospel to the hearts of men and women,
the Lord has not left us without lessons. In the Gospel of John, chapter 4, we
are given a record of the encounter between our Lord Jesus Christ and that woman of
Samaria who had gone out to Sychar’s well to draw water at the evening hour.
Our Lord asks her to draw water for Him, and the woman replies, ‘How is it
that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews
have no dealings with the Samaritans.’ The Lord replied, ‘If thou knewest the gift of God,
and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he
would have given thee living water.’
Then the woman says, ‘Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is
deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?’ The Lord then uttered the emphatic
words - ‘Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in
him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’
Now listen to the woman’s response. ‘Sir, give me this water, that I thirst
not, neither come hither to draw.’ She thought that Christ was setting before her some kind
of magical water that was going to take away the irksome task of tripping out there every
night, with her water jar on her head, to draw water out of the well. She thought that Christ
was speaking about something that would relieve her of the rigours of life. It is at this point
that Christ begins to create soul-thirst in the woman, confronting her with her circumstances
and sinfulness.
Do we see the ever-abiding lesson in that encounter? The woman thought the
living water was help for the present time, to help her through. But it was not that. Christ
had said, ‘Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the
water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.’
The Gospel proclaims everlasting life, and just as our Lord did not leave that
woman with her wrong thinking, we must not leave our generation with misconceptions.
When anyone preaches a Gospel that majors on this life and leaves out the issues of eternal
life, he is not following the evangelistic method of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord draws the contrast between those who
are His, and the Gentiles who seek after earthly things. If Christian people lose hold of the
overriding thought of eternity in Heaven for evermore, they will no longer live in a right
relationship with the present world as they are called to do.
Perhaps you have read the account of an old Australian believer by the name
of Arthur Stace. Born toward the end of the nineteenth century, his father was an alcoholic,
and his mother ran a brothel. He had two brothers who died of alcoholism, and his two
sisters followed in the steps of his mother. He himself became a hopeless drunk, and for the
best part of his life he was in and out of prison for one reason and another.
Arthur Stace never learned to read or write, except that he had learned to
write one word, and that was the word ‘eternity’. After having done so, for the remainder of
his days, he went about writing the word ‘eternity’, chalking it on the pavements of Sydney
and Melbourne and many other places. He would stoop down and write with lovely
copperplate characters the word, ‘eternity’. He became known as ‘Mr Eternity’.
For many years nobody knew who Mr Eternity was. But when the City
Fathers of Sydney began looking for symbols for the Millennium celebrations, they took
this up and created a massive neon sign to hang from Sydney Bridge bearing the word
‘ETERNITY’. Mr Eternity, only 5ft 3in tall, and now in glory for forty years, had made his
mark for all the world to see.
What happened was this. Arthur Stace had listened to an old Gospel preacher
unfolding the words of Isaiah the prophet - ‘Thus saith the high and lofty One
that inhabiteth eternity’ - and stressing the word ‘eternity’. The preacher cried, ‘Eternity,
eternity. I wish I could sound or shout that word to everyone in the streets of Sydney.
Eternity - where will you spend eternity?’
Arthur Stace left that meeting with the word ‘eternity’ ringing in his brain,
and he learned to write the word. As I said, he wrote the word thousands of times, spreading
the great Gospel word, the central matter of the Gospel, that we must be saved from eternal
damnation, for an eternal Heaven and glory.
In former times the people of God lived their lives in the world in the light of
eternity (by contrast to the way that many seem to live today). They knew that the Gospel
they had come to believe in and preached to others was a Gospel that had eternity as its
goal, and their unworldly lives showed they were pressing on to that goal.
An aspect of eternity that seems to have fallen by the wayside, yet which was
of paramount importance in earlier days, is the fact of the coming again of our Lord Jesus
Christ - the expectation of every believing soul. Generations of God’s people have held this
blessed hope close to their hearts and their souls, and lived out their lives in the light of it.
They have lived in the light of eternity, and on the brink of eternity, singing,
I know not when my Lord may come;
I know not how, nor where;
If I shall pass the vale of death,
Or ‘meet Him in the air’.
They said to themselves, ‘Either He will come to receive me, or He
will call me to stand before Him in judgement.’ That realisation and hope had tremendous
influence on the lives that God’s people lived.
You know the case of Demas, in Paul’s second letter to
Timothy. Paul says, ‘For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world,
and is departed unto Thessalonica.’ Demas had loved this present world, or more precisely,
he had fallen in love with this present world. Paul had just written - ‘For I am now ready to
be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight, I have
finished my course, I have kept the faith: henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day: and not to me
only, but unto all them also that love his appearing.’
What a contrast is here! Was it not the case that Demas had fallen
out of love with the appearing of Christ and in love with this present
evil world? Not so many years ago we were constantly exhorted to keep the glorious
appearing of our great God and Saviour fresh in our hearts and our minds.
You may remember that man in John Bunyan’s House of the Interpreter,
who could look no way but downwards. He had a muck-rake in his hand, and was
scrabbling about on the floor, and raking to himself the straws and the small sticks and the
dust of the floor. Yet all the time there stood over his head One with a celestial crown in
His hand, proffering him that crown in exchange for his muck-rake. Said Christian, this is a
figure of a man of this world.
Demas had lost sight of the crown of righteousness that is to be given at the
appearing of our great God, and had become a man of this world, rather than a
man of that world that is yet to be.
It is interesting that we are never told in the Word of God whether Demas
was an old man or a young man. We normally assume that he was a young man or a
younger man, but we have no real grounds for this. We do not know how long he had been
on the road of faith, or engaged in the things of the Lord, before he finally fell in love with
the world.
You can see something of the genius of John Bunyan, because when he gives
us one of the pictures of the believer’s conflict with the world, he sets it towards the end of
the believer’s pilgrimage.
Bunyan refers to the world under the title of ‘Madam Bubble’. It is an
inspired title, is it not, for the world? The encounter involves three pilgrims - Standfast,
Valiant-For-Truth and Mr Honest. Standfast describes Madam Bubble to his comrades -
‘She was one,’ he says, ‘who was dressed in very pleasant attire but old, who presented
herself to me, and offered me three things, to wit, her body, her purse and her bed.’ Then
the description gets enlarged on by Valiant-For-Truth and Mr Honest, and it is inspired! ‘Is
she not a tall, comely dame,’ says Honest, ‘somewhat of a swarthy complexion? Does she
not speak very smoothly, and give you a smile at the end of each sentence? Does she not
wear a great purse by her side, and is her hand not often in it, fingering her money, as if it
were her heart’s delight?’ The world!
And as I have said, Bunyan places that encounter towards the end of the
pilgrimage, on a patch of ground that he calls the Enchanted Ground, because the air tended
to make one drowsy. This does not mean, of course, that the world will only accost us
towards the end of our pilgrimage, but it means it will never leave off accosting us right
until the end of our pilgrimage.
In the light of this we need all the help we can get with regards to the world,
the flesh, and the devil. And we rob ourselves of one of the greatest means of withstanding
the world, the flesh and the devil, when we are no longer stirred by the glorious appearing
of our great God and our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Paul constantly points to the Lord’s coming as the climax of life. Taking
just one epistle - Philippians - he repeatedly keeps that great day in view. He
says:
‘And this I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in
knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that
ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ’ [ie: until the day of the
coming of Christ] (Philippians 1.9-10).
‘Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that ye may be
blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked
and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; holding forth the
word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain,
neither laboured in vain’ (Philippians 2.14-16).
‘For our conversation [citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look
for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may
be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is
able even to subdue all things unto himself’ (Philippians 3.20-21).
‘Rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice. Let your moderation
be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand’ (Philippians 4.4-5).
All these references to the return of Christ have a great bearing on how we
live our lives at the present time. We are to be pursuing spiritual knowledge, holding forth
the word of life, living as citizens of Heaven, and rejoicing in the Lord (not the things of
earth) as those whose interests are fixed on eternity, and as if on the brink of it.
In the light of this, let me now turn to some of the matters that were set
before young believers a generation ago - matters which have fallen out of fashion. When I
was brought to Christ, there was a whole set of ‘one-liners’ that were given to us as young
believers. These were then considered absolutely vital, and of immense value. They were
intended to be fastened in our hearts and in our minds.
For example, we were to read the Word of God with all diligence and we
were told, ‘Sin will keep you from this Book; this Book will keep you from sin.’
Regarding dubious decisions and doubtful courses of action, we were told,
‘When in doubt, don’t.’ That was profound advice.
As far as temptation was concerned we were told, ‘You can’t stop the birds
flying over your head, but you can stop them from building a nest in your hair.’ I am
reminded by this of how someone complained to Mr Spurgeon, saying, ‘I am just a cage of
unclean birds.’ ‘Well,’ Spurgeon replied, ‘you had better wring the necks of a few of them.’
In connection with prayer there was a saying, ‘The Christian’s armour will
rust unless it be furbished with the oil of prayer.’
Other sayings went like this: ‘Do not build with mixed materials in spiritual
things.’ ‘Christianity is not a way of doing certain things, but a certain way of doing all
things.’ ‘Conscience can be our compass so long as the Word of God is our chart.’
If you like, we were ‘catechised’ in very vital, important things, with phrases
we could hide in our hearts.
Something else that was said stamped a message in our minds. We were told,
‘Now that you have become a Christian, you must be sure to slay the kings of the
Amorites.’ You remember that when the children of Israel were to enter the land of Canaan,
and their possessions, they were to slay the kings of the Amorites.
Who are the kings of the Amorites today? Two of them that you had to slay
were - SMOKING and DRINKING. It may sound quaint in our day, but when you begin to
view the biblical reasoning behind that quip-like directive you realise it is easier to laugh at
than it is to answer. Does not the Word of God tell us that our body is the temple of the
Holy Ghost and not to be abused?
A report came out just a couple of months ago including the warning that the
whole of the Health Service in this country is in danger of sliding into bankruptcy due to the
cost of dealing with alcohol-related problems. Despite all the arguments for social drinking,
no believer should yield to the power of temptation, or neglect to abstain from that which
has now become a social evil.
I remember some years ago being invited out, along with the Rev W J Grier,
for an evening meal by two dear American brethren (though the fact they were American is
not relevant). We sat down at the table in a fine hotel and the wine waiter brought round the
wine list. When we saw what it was, Mr Grier and I just folded it and set it down.
Our two hosts asked, ‘What are you going to have to drink with your meal?’
We both politely declined, and they asked, ‘Do you mind if we have something?’ I said,
‘No, to your own master you stand or fall.’ So they ordered. Then one of them said, ‘Well,
as Paul said to Timothy - a little wine for thy stomach’s sake.’ Mr Grier turned to me and
said, ‘You know brother, the drink industry has been built on Timothy’s stomach.’ In the
Christian life, it is not always a matter of what we may do, but often it is what
we should do.
Much prayer is made for revival today, and rightly so. But almost invariably
in revival accounts you read that the pubs and bars all closed, and they rolled out the beer
barrels, and put their axes through them, sending the beer swilling down to where it
belonged - the gutter. How about smashing a few beer barrels in your own life?
The Word of God makes it abundantly clear, as I have said, that we have
liberty and we have freedom, but we also have responsibility. It is high time today’s
Christians began to think of their responsibility in many areas towards the world in which
we live. Believers in the past saw their responsibilities far more clearly.
It used to be taken for granted that when you came to salvation in Christ, this
involved separation from the world, in accordance with the great biblical guidelines that we
have. The apostle Peter, in his first epistle, says:
‘Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves
likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from
sin; that he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men,
but to the will of God. For the time past of our life may suffice us to have wrought
the will of the Gentiles, when we walked in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine,
revellings, banquetings, and abominable idolatries: wherein they think it strange that
ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you.’ That last sentence is so significant! ‘They think it strange,’ says Peter. What
has happened to you?
Spurgeon, in his unique style, has a lovely sermon on Peter’s release from
prison. Peter, you will remember, had been imprisoned by Herod, and was due to be taken
out and executed the next morning, but the angel of the Lord came and struck off the chains
and led him out.
Spurgeon takes up the words where the soldiers find that Peter has gone.
‘Now as soon as it was day, there was no small stir among the soldiers, what was become of
Peter.’ ‘Where is Peter?’ asks Spurgeon. ‘Where has he gone to?’
Spurgeon’s applications are made to those who receive the Gospel. Their
friends say, ‘What has become of our Peter? I thought he would have met us tonight at our
drinking bout. We intended to have a great time at the races. What has become of our
Peter?’ There is ‘no small stir’ on account of any converted person.
In the case of the apostle Peter, we are told what had become of him - he had
immediately found his way to the prayer meeting. The essence of the Gospel is - ‘Old
things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.’ Yet it seems to be the great
desire of many Christians today to be no different from the world.
We may think of the well-known words of the Saviour on the Sermon on the
Mount: ‘Ye are the salt of the earth.’ The one dominating fact about salt is this - it is
different. It is so very different from whatever it is put into. The Lord, in calling us the salt
of the earth, is saying that we are different, and that we are to be different. It is a terrible
thing when Christian men and women can happily accept worship that is indistinguishable
from a concert, a disco, or a circus. Where is Christian distinctiveness?
‘Ye are the light of the world,’ said the Lord, ‘A city that is set on an hill
cannot be hid.’ The world is in darkness, and we are not to be part of that darkness. We are
to be as lights shining in the midst of the darkness. If the Gospel of past days made one
thing clear, it was that new converts turned their backs on this present evil world, regardless
of the stigma or the ridicule.
Some simple words express the Christian attitude to this world:
They say I am not with it;
My friends, I do not doubt it;
But when I see what I’m not with,
I’m glad to be without it.’
Allow me to conclude with a personal anecdote. The elderly pastor
through whom I was converted, by the grace of God, was an Irish Baptist whose initials
were H H Orr. People used to say those initials stood for Heaven or hell, because that is
how he preached. And when some of the worldliness that has now become current in
churches was beginning to creep in, Pastor H H Orr was told that he was like something that
had come out of the ark. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘I would rather be something that came out of the
ark, than something that never got into it.’
Peter said to converts in Pontus and elsewhere, ‘They think it strange that ye
run not with them.’ Of course they do. But when the church has become virtually
indistinguishable from the world, there is something very wrong with the church. May the
Lord give us grace to go back to past standards in those areas where we need to do so, in
order that we might go forward for His glory and praise.
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