Jesus commanded his disciples to go and preach the gospel. He makes me a messenger and an ambassador. He tells me, “A trusted envoy brings healing, a wicked messenger falls into trouble.”
I have started to read again the booklet “The Plight of Man and the Power of God” by Martyn Lloyed-Jones. The book is five messages he delivered in Edinburgh in March 1941. World War II had begun. The world was in shock for their generation had just gone thru World War I (1914-1918). Mr. Martyn addresses the church, Jesus’ messengers.
Message one. “We must rouse ourselves and realize afresh that though our gospel is timeless and changeless, it nevertheless is always contemporary. We must meet the present situation and we must speak a word to the world that none else can speak.” He continues, “I would say again that her (the church’s) failure, in general, to deal vitally and realistically with the situation during the last war is one of the saddest chapters in the history of the Christian Church… Surely it must be obvious by now that that whole view of life was entirely wrong and false.”
Mr. Martyn said that they were wrong in their message and refused to accept any belief that they were wrong, “…in spite of dwindling Church membership and attendance, and in spite of the obvious deterioration in the general tone of life…” Are Jesus’ followers, my generation making the same mistake? Have we fallen into trouble?
