Thank you very much.
I suppose that some of you have heard
that I have been critical of some things
done by Christ, but I want to tell
you that I'm critical of my own church,
my own denomination too, that everything that I
think doesn't fit quite in with the will
of the Lord.
So I'm among you as your friend, and
I believe that I'm among friends.
And if some of the things I say
go in accordance with what you already believe,
it could be I'm wrong, but it also
could be that you are.
And so what we want to do is
get together.
When our friend Hedley called me and asked
me to come, I said, Well, Brother Hedley,
you know that I don't agree with everything.
He said, Well, that's why we want you.
Well, that's all right.
Now, I'll tell you what I want to
do, and I'm not singling out the Youth
for Christ organization.
I'm thinking broadly.
I never think of my own church or
my own denomination, the Alliance, or any particular
group.
I think of the whole Church of Christ.
I try to cultivate a Catholicity approach, the
true ecumenicity.
The whole Church of Christ is before me,
the whole evangelical church.
And I'll tell you what I'm going to
begin with.
I'm going to begin with a conclusion.
I want to watch out that I don't,
after the conclusion, sit down and forget, because
conclusions usually come last.
But I begin with this conclusion, an assumption,
and one that I'm increasingly convinced is in
accord with the facts, and one shared by
growing numbers of serious-minded Christians everywhere.
This is the basic thought that I'll have
for you, and if you don't agree with
it, I might as well have stood in
bed, because everything I say is going to
be based on this.
It is that the evangelical church or evangelical
Christianity has gone far from the New Testament
and is in Babylonian captivity today, and needs
a restoration and a reformation.
Now, you remember that when Israel was in
Babylonian captivity, she was still God's people, and
she still had his promises and his covenant
and all the blessings that had been given
to the fathers.
But she was out of the land and
she was in captivity, and she needed an
Ezra and Nehemiah and a few others to
bring her out of the captivity and into
the land again.
Now, to clear myself, allow me to assure
you that I don't visualize myself as the
reformer to do this job.
I have no messianic complex.
On these times, I'm going to die and
go to heaven and leave the work to
others.
I hope maybe to some of you.
But now, 450 years ago, the church was
in a similar situation.
She was in Babylonian captivity, and a man
arose, and he diagnosed her disease, and he
analyzed her trouble, and then he published his
findings.
That man, of course, was Martin Luther, and
he nailed on the door of the castle
church at Wittenberg his 95 theses, which he
was prepared to defend by public debate or
by writing anyway.
October 31, 1517, he nailed his 95 theses
on the door of the castle church at
Wittenberg, and the great reformation resulted.
I believe that we need not only the
evangelical trust which you for Christ supremely embody,
but I believe that we need to have
and are in critical need of a reformer
to diagnose our difficulties, find out what's wrong
with us, analyze us, and then find the
cure, and then publish it abroad so that
we can relocate ourselves, not lose any of
our evangelistic zeal, but direct it into a
more perfect way.
So, I have for you here now, and
I'll be very cautious, and I'm going to
quit when the time comes because I've seen
that WMBI sign there so long that I
never run over, not even one second.
But I want to present to you 13
theses for the door of the evangelical church.
I want you to take these down.
These are theses which I am prepared to
defend from the scriptures any warm day or
cold one.
The first one I quote from Martin Luther
himself.
It's his first thesis.
He said, "...our Lord and Master Jesus Christ,
in saying, Repent ye, meant the whole life
of the faithful to be an act of
repentance."
Now, that was his first thesis, and we're
in need of having this repeated in our
day, that when the Lord says, Repent, he
meant that the whole life of the faithful
should be an act of repentance.
We are, in our day, I am afraid.
Certainly I'm not saying this is true of
you for Christ everywhere.
I'm saying it's wrong.
It's true in my denomination, it's true among
evangelicals, and I feel that it needs to
be corrected if we're to have the revival
we want and escape our Babylonian captivity.
We are forgetting that the whole life of
the faithful ought to be an act of
repentance, and we're making Christians neither without repentance,
or with inadequate repentance, or with superficial repentance.
And you can be absolutely sure that your
Christianity will be just what your repentance has
been, no more, no less.
You dare go high in your building only
when you've gone deep in your foundation, and
repentance is the foundation, and the rest is
the superstructure raised on the foundation.
And unless we go to bedrock with our
repentance, we're doomed to have our building tumble
down later on.
Now, that's thesis number one, that our Lord
means that the whole life of the faithful
should be an act of repentance, not simply
a statement, but of the whole life.
Second one, and I borrow this from Luther,
is that when Christ does not mean interior
repentance only, nay, interior repentance is void if
it does not externally produce different kinds of
mortification of the flesh.
Now, he defended that, and I'm prepared to,
that it isn't enough to say, well, I
have changed my mind.
They tell us, you know, that repentance is
a change of mind, and it is.
But it is more than a change of
mind, it must eventuate in external conduct.
But the acceptance of Christ without cross-tearing
and without self-denial is a snare and
a delusion.
And to present Christ to be accepted, either
not mentioning or denying that there's anything of
cross-tearing and self-denial, as we sing,
much self-denial, as the old colored brother
wrote into his song, Nothing Between My Soul
and My Saviour, he said, much self-denial.
Well, we're living in an age when the
spirit of self-denial has gone from the
earth.
But into this snare the evangelical church has
fallen, so that now we're preaching acceptance of
Christ and not telling our new converts that
they're going to have to take up a
cross and follow him, our Lord, and denying
themselves.
And we're not telling them, and thus we
are betraying them.
Third thesis is, and now we depart from
Luther, is that there is no salvation apart
from discipleship.
Take that down if you wish.
In our days now, we make a distinction,
and I hear it in my denomination as
well as in whatever denomination you are in,
we make a distinction between the believer and
the disciple.
I will give any man ten dollars right
out of my own little wallet if you'll
find me anything in the New Testament which
properly understood allows a distinction between a believer
and a disciple.
The New Testament knows no such distinction.
We believe on Christ unto discipleship.
We go to the school of Christ by
believing on Christ.
Believing on Christ is the open door, the
act, the way in, but it's unto discipleship.
Now, until we change this, we'll stay in
Babylon.
And then the fourth thesis is that the
way of the cross is hard.
Now, we have no authority from the Bible,
old or new, we have no authority to
make the way of the cross easy.
Yet we have done, or tried to do,
just that thing.
We have made salvation ridiculously easy when Christ
made it extremely hard.
I would suggest that all of you dear
friends listening to me re-read the Gospels,
re-read the Gospels.
Now, don't fall victim to the man who
puts the Gospels in another dispensation.
Believe as our fathers believed from Paul on
down, and take the Gospels and read them
and see what Jesus says about the difficulty
of becoming a disciple, and the way of
the cross, how difficult the way of the
cross is.
But we've made salvation ridiculously easy with the
result that we have a cheap grace and
a superficial Christianity.
My brethren, I believe that what we need
more than we need evangelism now is a
reformation that will purify and elevate the evangelical
church so that her evangelistic thrust may bring
people to her up onto a higher level
than we are now bringing them.
The sixth thesis is that there is no
saviorhood without lordship.
I have been taught, and even I admit
been taught in my own denomination, I have
been taught that you can accept Christ as
Savior now, and so have eternal life, and
then later on decide whether you want to
have him as lord or not.
You know, nobody ever thought of a more
vicious heresy than that, and yet good men
teach that.
They invite me, I get invitations from all
denominations almost, asking me to come and put
on Deeper Life conferences.
Well, you see the trouble is, the only
reason we needed Deeper Life conferences is that
we didn't start right in the first place.
If we had taught the truth when we
made our convert, he'd move right along nicely
and grow like a little weed or flower.
But the difficulty is, we have said, believe
in Jesus Christ as Savior and you're saved,
and then later on discuss this matter of
his lordship and your surrender to him.
Now, if you have accepted him without knowing
that he was to be your lord, then
of course the only thing to do is
to back up and accept him as lord.
But you can't take Christ, one of Christ's
offices, and neglect the other.
He is Lord in Christ, and the scripture
does not say, believe in Jesus and thou
shalt be saved.
It says, believe in the Lord, Jesus Christ,
and thou shalt be saved.
So, when you preach, accept Christ, and believe
on Christ to a sinner, you'll include the
lordship of Christ, and the right and authority
of Christ to be the Lord and boss
of that convert's life all during the days
of his pilgrimage.
Seventh is that the methods of the Holy
Ghost and those of men are diametrically opposed
one to the other.
Many evangelical leaders, and I certainly find it
among my friends in Youth for Christ, and
I find it among my friends in the
Alliance, many evangelical leaders lack historic perspective, and
thus do not know how the Holy Spirit
has worked, and how he works.
We lack knowledge of God's ways, and so
we substitute our own.
Now, there are three methods that are being
introduced in our time which are contrary to,
and diametrically opposed to, the methods of the
New Testament.
One, the methods of big business, the second
the methods of show business, and the third
the method of the Madison Avenue Advertiser.
And Bible methods are supplemented, and the Holy
Spirit is grieved and withdraws himself, and we,
because we're young, and I'm not, but some
of you are, because we're young and have
a lot of animal spirits, we make up
by sheer enthusiasm what we lack in the
power of the Spirit, and because we lack
historic perspective and spiritual discernment, we don't know
one from the other.
So, Bible methods are supplanted.
Gentlemen, you can be sure of this, that
to attempt to carry on as sacred holy
works, such as the work of the Church
of Christ, and of evangelism, and of the
missionary activities around the world, after the methods
of big business, and show business, and the
Madison Avenue Advertiser, is to grieve the Holy
Ghost and remain in Babylonian captivity.
Eighth is that Christ needs no sponsors.
Now, this particularly irks me.
I hope it doesn't irk me in a
carnal way.
I try to be sanctified and keep spiritual
with all my criticisms, and sometimes I fail
and have to apologize.
But I do want to be right about
this.
But you know the Wheaties approach?
It's this.
This ballplayer likes Wheaties, therefore Wheaties must be
good.
This ballplayer likes Wheaties, that boxer likes Wheaties,
this movie actor likes Wheaties, this big politician,
the chairman of the board of this so
-and-so company eats Wheaties, therefore Wheaties must
be good.
Now, that's the Wheaties approach, and we have
blossomed out in our day, and it's in
our magazines, our religious magazines, and the philosophy
is that this entertainer believes in Jesus Christ,
therefore Jesus Christ must be all right.
This politician believes in Jesus Christ, why don't
you accept him?
This movie actor prays to Jesus Christ, why
don't you pray to him?
This playboy, this politician, this athlete, they've accepted
Christ.
Prayer goes, why don't you accept Christ?
Now, that's the Wheaties approach.
You know what that does?
That makes Jesus Christ to ride in on
the sponsorship of some big shot.
That big shot isn't brethren, and I am
against it 100 percent, and it's your business
to preach Jesus Christ as the sky-tall
Savior, and never make him to depend upon
the sponsorship of any man.
For Paul said, you see your calling brethren,
not many great men believe in Christ.
Jesus said, he hides these things from the
wise and the prudent, and reveals them unto
babes.
And I have seen humble ladies, little old
ladies who read little and know nothing except
their Bible, that were greater examples and demonstrators
of true Christianity than a lot of these
who were supposed to be big shots.
Now, this is an affront to the Lord
of Glory.
We're guilty of majesty, sinning against the majesty
of the great God when we make him
to be sponsored by somebody.
Then, nine, Christ saves us to make us
worshippers and workers.
For me, evangelicals, ignore the first altogether.
Worshippers, so that we're not producing worshippers in
our day.
Workers, yes, we're producing workers.
Founders, yes, there's I'm a dozen.
Promoters, producers, artists, entertainers, religious DJs.
We got them, we got them, but the
thousand beats of motion, there'll be two artists
hop out and a DJ.
They'll have a Schofield Bible under their arm,
but they'd be far too far from the
Schofield Bible.
We are to be worshippers, brethren.
Tear ye until ye be endued with power
from on high.
Why?
Because God wants worshippers first.
Jesus did not redeem us to make us
workers.
He then redeemed us to make us worshippers,
and then out of the blazing worship of
our hearts springs our worship.
Thirteenth of Acts, it was when they were
met together worshiping the Lord that the Holy
Ghost said, "'Separate me, bondless and soft, from
the work board until I have called them.'
And I challenge you that every great spiritual
work from Paul to this hour has sprung
out of spiritual experience that made worshippers.
Unless we're worshippers, we are simply religious Japanese
dancing mice moving around in a circle getting
nowhere."
Now, tenth, I'm trying desperately to crowd these
in.
The tenth is that the spirit of modern
evangelicalism seems to me to be foreign to
that of the New Testament.
There was an old fellow by the name
of Democritus, or that's the way he pronounced
his name.
He was an old Greek philosopher, and George
Santayana has written about him.
And in the shade somewhere, philosophers were gathering
in, he said, and Democritus began to sniff,
and he said, "'I smell a false philosophy,'
and the young fellow said, "'Not just a
minute there, Grandpa.
You don't mean you can smell philosophy?' He
said, "'I can.' He said, "'Whenever an idea
emanates from a human mind, it gives off
an odor,' and he said, "'I can tell
whether it's good and sound and fragrant, or
whether it's crooked.' He said, "'I smell a
crooked philosophy here someplace.'" Well, I only read
that recently, but I've been saying for years
that God gives us a sense of discernment,
and enables us so that we can smell
and know when things are right or when
they're wrong.
For instance, if an unprejudiced observer who had
spent, say, ten years in the book of
Acts and in the epistles, if he should
come from another planet or run away spooky
or something, he'd come back down.
He'd never been among us evangelicals at all.
He'd never attended a youth for Christ meeting
or been in a land's missionary meeting.
He just came from another world down, and
his nostrils were all tuned to the sweet
fragrance that he had got in the book
of Acts and the gospels and the epistles.
And then he sniffed around, and I'm perfectly
certain that he'd say, "'They don't smell the
same.
They say the same words, they talk about
the same Lord, but there's a difference of
spirit here.
I recognize the difference of flavor.
So do I.
I recognize that among us evangelicals that we
don't smell like those Christians who came out
of the ivory palaces along with their Lord,
smelling of myrrh and aloes and cash out
of the ivory palaces.'" Now, the eleventh is
that evangelical Christians every day violate the scriptures
without compunction and without rebuke from their leaders.
Such scriptures as, "'Be ye not unequally yoked
together with unbelievers?
What fellowship have righteousness with unrighteousness?
What communion have light and darkness and you
know the rest?
And this?
Love not the world, neither the things that
are in the world.
If any man love the world, the love
of the Father is not in him.
For all that is in the world, the
lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life is not
with the Father, but is in the world.
And the world passeth away, and the lusts
thereof, that he that doeth the will of
God abideth forever.
The church of Christ that changed the figure
is like the ark of Noah that sprung
a leak.
If the ark of Noah sprung a leak,
you wouldn't be here, because they would all
have drowned, and there would be no human
race.
But the church has sprung a leak, and
the world is leaking into the church."
Then the twelfth is, "'Meekness, modesty, and humility
make a man dear to God.
The Old Testament, the New Testament, Proverbs, Psalms,
Prophets, Gospels, Epistles, Revelation, all the New Testament
teaches, I'm all the old, that meekness, and
modesty, and humility are dear to God, and
the man who is meek, and modest, and
humble, God will honor.
But we evangelical Christians have geared our philosophy
to the exact contrary.
Instead of meekness, it's show-offs.
Instead of modesty, it's arrogance.
Instead of humility, it's ambition."
Well, the thirteenth.
Thank the Lord we've arrived.
Thirteenth.
The thirteenth thesis is, we seek revival, but
we don't know what we mean when we
use the word revival.
Because we interpret the word revival, or the
concept which the word covers, to mean a
big, enthusiastic increase of what we now have.
Whereas revival must be preceded by a mighty
change from what we now have.
If what we now have was all right,
why don't we have that revival?
The simple fact is, it is not all
right, and must be corrected, and changed, and
edited, and purified, and elevated.
We must have self-knowledge which we don't
have.
We must have a changing, a giving up,
a dying.
Did anybody ever preach about dying to self
among your brethren?
It's in the book, all right.
Dying to self, dying to that snappy, vibrant
you, dying to that, and living in Christ
Jesus.
A mighty confession of carnality, and pride, and
ambition, and self-confidence, and timidity, and all
these things.
Now, there is no escape from our Babylonian
captivity.
We've had a generation born in Babylon, and
there'll be another generation born in Babylon unless
we brethren who are in places of leadership,
and undoubtedly you, most of you are, unless
we see these things and make some specific
changes.
When Luther nailed his 95 theses, there was
a reformation.
But I've nailed my 13, and I don't
suppose there'll be anything but a song and
a prayer.
But I do pray that we may do
something about this.
Like it or not, brethren, the youth for
Christ is in a place of leadership, and
you're the guy that's stamping out thousands of
other Christians.
And the terrible thing is, they're going to
be just like you.
And what you want to do, dear friends,
is to pray that God will help you
to be the kind of Christian so that
when he makes other Christians in your image,
somewhat, they follow you innocently, they will be
following the Lord at the same time.
Don't you want that?
I think you do.
Now I'll turn it over to the Chairman.
Thank you, Brother Tozer.
Some things have been said this morning that
we need to heed, not just the voice
of man, but I believe to us as
an organization, to us as members, leaders in
this organization, to me, need to be said
and received by us.
We're grateful to God for this this morning.
Thank you, Brother Tozer.