Saturday, December 04, 2010

POT POURRI EVANGELISM

BY JAMES A. STEWART


We must be more afraid of flattery from the camp of the enemy than persecution. Read the pages of Church history. Persecution never did the Church of God any harm, but compromise with the world has always robbed it of the power of its purity. ... Potpourri Evangelism consists of two features: mixed evangelistic campaigns and mixed Christianity. By mixed evangelistic campaigns I mean the alliance of Modernistic and Evangelical churches together in an evangelistic effort.

When religion gets up a revival, it must have from five to twenty churches of heterogeneous creeds and sectarian bodies to go into a great union effort; it must have a mammoth choir with great musical instruments, and many preachers and multiplied committees, and each committee headed by some banker, judge, mayor, or millionaire’s wife. It signs cards as a substitute for the broken-hearted cry of scriptural repentance. It must count its converts by the hundreds in a few days’ meeting. It must apologize for natural depravity.

Human religion’s enterprises have an atmosphere of earthliness about them. It despises the day of small things and scorns little humble people and lonely ways. It is eager to jump to the height of prosperity. Its music has no pathos in it, its laughter lacks divine cheerfulness, its worship lacks supernatural love, its prayers bring down no huge answers, it works no miracles, calls forth no criticism from the world, and has no light of eternity in its eyes. It is a poor, sickly thing, born of the union of the heart of the world with the head of Christian theology--a mongrel, bastard thing with a backslidden church for its mother and the world for its father. Oh, my dear brother and sister, never forget that this unnatural monster will be destroyed at the coming-again of our Blessed Lord Jesus Christ.

(Excerpted from Evangelism, James A. Stewart, Asheville, NC: Revival Literature, pp. 25-28).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, this was a sobering message filled with truth. How pitiful but right on is the statement that:

"Persecution never did the Church of God any harm, but compromise with the world has always robbed it of the power of its purity".

We are living in a time when the truth of Jesus Christ has indeed been compromised to be seeker-friendly. This is done so that congregations will increase while a watered down message is sending people to hell everyday! So sad!

charles said...

Thanks mblordi,
I see that you"got it". Remarkably the church was nowhere near where it is now when Dr. Stewart wrote those words. He was a man of God with great insight. The Lord mightily used him in real revival in Europe around World War Two (before and after).This gifted Scot later settled in Asheville, NC, USA. Hear some of his sermons with that wonderful Scots brogue at: http://oldpathsermons.com/allspeakers.php?spid=42