Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow
In reading D'Aubigny's History of the Reformation — a most
interesting and rewarding book — one is struck by the spontaneity with which reaction
to Romish superstition broke out over all Europe at the same time. It becomes
very clear that although God had chosen Luther to lead, it was God and not Luther
who awakened the people from their medieval slumbers.
A century before, Huss had preached the gospel and a few
people responded; but there was no wide-spread enthusiasm, and Huss was treacherously
executed. Fifty years before Huss, Wycliffe in England preached the gospel and met
with some evident success; but opposition increased as he grew old, and when he
died, his movement collapsed.
In contrast with these somewhat localized efforts
largely under the stimulus of one man, when Luther sounded the trumpet of justification
by faith, he found that nearly everywhere people had been thinking the same thoughts.
Zwingli was beginning to preach in Zurich; the sister of the King of France had
learned of grace; there were stirrings again in England - no thanks to Henry VIII;
the memory of Huss still lingered in Bohemia; somebody in Hungary had read the Scriptures;
and even in Italy, in addition to the Waldensians, there were now longings and aspirations.
This does not detract from Luther's greatness; he was the leader; but the Reformation
was the work of God, not of Luther.
Will God do anything like this for us today? May we hope
for a great outpouring of grace? At various times faithful servants of the Lord
have arisen to call men to repentance. Their work has not been in vain, for some
people have always responded. Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, to mention
evangelists of an earlier day, saw the results of their labors. But the results
did not outlast their own lives. There was no widespread, spontaneous outbreak
of true religion. Are today's efforts also locally restricted to the efforts of
one man, or is there evidence of God's working independently in many hearts?
Sober judgment forces us to admit that there is little
evidence of any great reformation; and yet on a smaller scale and within a narrower
area there seem to be independent effects of God's power. Two instances, in fact.
First, the Southern Presbyterian Church decisively
defeated a merger that would have
greatly diminished its testimony to the gospel. This was
not the work of any one man or any small group. To be sure, there was a small group
opposed to union from the beginning; but their highest expectations were to carry
one fourth of the Presbyteries. When to the amazement of everyone, union was defeated
by a majority vote, when ministers and elders who had no connection with the smaller
group voted against union, the hand of God was discernible above the hands of men.
It was a spontaneous and independent awakening.
Now, second, the proposal to ordain women has been defeated.
This action was even more spontaneous and independent. No group was organized to
defeat it. Possibly a group should have been so organized, but it was not. The result
was produced by the desire of widely scattered individuals to obey the commands
of God. The Scriptures plainly forbid the ordination of women, and the majority
decided that the church should obey.
This action may be thought to be inconsequential; this
does not have the conventional trappings of a revival; but obedience to God is never
a trivial matter. On the contrary, this spontaneous resolve to conduct ecclesiastical
affairs in accordance with God's explicit commands may be the herald of greater
obedience to come. And if so, one may in faith expect, perhaps not a world-wide
or even a nation-wide reformation, but one may in faith expect God's rich blessing
to be poured out on the Southern Presbyterian Church in the days to come.
— G.H.C.
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