Covenanter Witness Vol. 86 - Rparchives.org

Faith In ActionWhen moderns speak about faith they rarely speakabout it in theological terms.People speak about faith in our country, the future,our fellow men, and, in the most un-Christian context ofall, men are exhorted to have faith in themselves.But when the writer to the Hebrews says that"without faith it is impossible to please God" he meansfaith in God.As we walk through the eleventh chapter ofHebrews, which has been called the Westminster Abbeyof the Bible, we are very blind if we do not note the type offaith which enabled the men and women, whose namesare recorded, to endure what they did endure.The faith they had was faith in the living God and itwas that faith that enabled them to endure in the face ofcruelty and death.In both the Old and the New Testaments we arereminded that the just live by faith, and as we journey onin the Christian life there is need to have that faithstrengthened within us.In our daily life we are called upon time and again tomake choices between right and wrong. The wrongaction is often the action which seems expedient andwhich has the world's approval, whereas -the encouragementto take the right action comes solely fromthe Word of God and from the still small voice of conscience.Speaking on this very subject some years ago, thepresent minister of the Free Presbyterian Church in Taree,New South Wales, the Rev. Edwin Lee, said that everytime we choose to make a decision in obedience to God'sWord we exercise faith.We live in troubled days and they are days whichhave witnessed the removal of many of the ancient landmarks.But God's people still have the infallible guide ofGod's Word, and, just as navigators can plot a right coursein the darkest and stormiest night with the aid of radar, soGod's people, when they are overwhelmed with trouble,have the assurance that God knows their path.W. E. Vine, in his commentary on Hebrews, says:"All that is God-pleasing in (the) life is a matter of faith."In these days of depreciated values it is well toremember Vine's comment and to recognize that withoutfaith our religion, our professional and business life,become an arid waste of self-centered activity. True, ouractivity may please the world, but that is not the test whichGod's Word applies.Scripture's criterion is whether our lives and ouractivity please God. If our life is a life of faith then theBible assures us that we will please God.Finally, and by way of a footnote, true faithproduces humility. Self righteousness is the very antithesisof true faith.Evangelical ActionSabotage. . from page 7is the crudest caricature. Such an analysis bespeaks anignorance of the total thrust of Christian missionary involvementin scores of nations. Vanguard's people thusset up a straw man and with great heroics knock it flat.The practice of the comprehensive approach,however, does not imply that missions today suppose thatan outright call for the conversion of the soul has to waitfor some restructuration of society. We have no intentionof postponing evangelism as though time were endless andconversion some secondary goal. But Vanguard thinksdifferently about soul-saving. "We forget that the Word ofGod is one. We forget that the 'Great Commission' is notan entirely new mandate. Then we do the unforgiveable.We jam our Lord's words into our 'soul-saving' straightjacket."Soul-saving straight jacket, is it? Well, I happen tohave lived in Nigeria for nine years, and I beg to differ. Isaw new Christians come free from the dread of witchcraftand fetishism to the joy of life in Christ. Unfortunately,their society was not yet completelyrestructured and so they had no new economicsystem, political party, or journalistic enterprise tonurture them. It would undoubtedly have been valuableto have these at hand, but of all this they had insufficientknowledge as yet. At this point they knew only Christcrucified, they knew only that they had come from nightto day, and their shouts made my heart sing. They, atleast, would not have wanted to wait with evangelism untilsociety was restructured.So if Vanguard wants to address man as a totality tocall him to a reformational and radically Christian lifestyle,that is a laudable ideal. I would like to take part inworking out such a magnificent vision. But men can'twait until we get the new society all sorted out and set upbefore we call them to conversion. And I can't wait,either, because I happen to live now, and this is the onlychance I have to call the dying. There is an infinite graceof God that must be told, a message that turns a man's lifearound, that must be sent around the world, and we can'twait.Vanguard's people delight in the use of inflammatory,gut-level talk and anti-establishment rhetoric.This is sometimes a very effective device to call youngpeople up into their world. But it is a dream world, asimplistic world really, where everything gets laid out instep-by-step progression. The real world, though, isn'tthat way, and such rhetoric deceives. Thus Vanguard,while terming contemporary missiology and practicenaive, itself substitutes a missiology for a world that doesnot exist. I greatly fear that instead of liberating thechurch, such talk will only confuse and delay it. That, atleast, was the net result at Urbana. Liberation issomewhat more complicated than Vanguard supposes.The Reformed JournalEugene Rubingh is Recruitment Secretary of theBoard of Foreign Missions of theChristian Reformed Church.APRIL 21, 1971 3