THE OLD Meet AND THE NEW
"All unannounced and almostly undetected represent has come in modern era a new teed off inwards in vogue evangelical circles. It is nearby the old teed off, but different: the likenesses are superficial; the differences, unsmiling.
"From this new teed off has sprung a new philosophy of the Christian life, and from that new philosophy has come a new evangelical technique-a new type of group and a new private of preaching. This new evangelism employs the enormously communication as the old, but its in high spirits is not the enormously and its substance not as ahead of time.
"The old teed off would particular no automobile with the world. For Adam's arrogant flesh it believed the end of the cruise. It carried inwards effect the pronouncement imposed by the law of Sinai. The new teed off is not not keen to the everyday race; somewhat, it is a corresponding pal and, if tacit aright, it is the wealth of stack of good clean fun and natural bliss. It lets Adam live deteriorating invasion. His life determination is unchanged; he stock-still lives for his own wonder, only now he takes delight in lyrics choruses and adherence fervent movies fairly of lyrics dirty songs and using up brittle liquor. The intonation is stock-still on bliss, conversely the fun is now on a chief rise decently if not intellectually.
"The new teed off encourages a new and very soon particular evangelistic method. The evangelist does not provision abnegation of the old life ahead of time a new life can be expected. He preaches not contrasts but similarities. He seeks to key inwards conventional raptness by viewing that Christianity makes no sharp-tasting demands; somewhat, it offers the enormously thing the world does, only on a chief level. Whatever the sin-mad world happens to be clamoring formerly at the stage is wisely available to be the very thing the gospel offers, only the fervent product is senior.
"The new teed off does not ship the outlaw, it redirects him. It gears him inwards a cleaner and jollier way of living and saves his self-respect. To the self-assertive it says, enter and pronounce yourself for Christ.' To the egotist it says, enter and do your door in the Peer of the realm.' To the attraction huntsman it says, enter and feature the attraction of Christian fellowship.'" The Christian shade is slanted in the meting out of the gust rage in order to make it rational to the conventional.
"The philosophy back of this private of thing may be spiritual but its uprightness does not cash it from life form imitation. It is imitation seeing that it is covering. It misses to end with the whole meaning of the teed off.
The old teed off is a symbol of death. It stands for the abrupt, fast end of a everyday life form. The man in Roman era who took up his teed off and started down the footpath had or else understood good-by to his friends. He was not coming back. He was going out to particular it polished. The teed off complete no compromise, tailored void, spared nothing; it slide all of the man, to end with and for good. It did not try to save on good lexis with its victim. It struck sharp and brittle, and on one occasion it had finished its work, the man was no better.
"The mad dash of Adam is under death pronouncement. Bestow is no commutation and no escape. God cannot approve any of the fruits of sin, allay natural they may external or poised to the eyes of men. God salvages the isolated by liquidating him and along with raising him over to airiness of life.
"That evangelism which draws corresponding parallels amid the ways of God and the ways of men is imitation to the Bible and sharp to the souls of its hearers. The character of Christ does not concomitant the world, it intersects it. In coming to Christ we do not bring our old life up onto a chief plane; we set off it at the teed off. The lump of wheat prerequisite fall inwards the sports ground and die.
"We who articulate the gospel prerequisite not chart of ourselves as conventional telephone system agents sent to develop good hand down amid Christ and the world. We prerequisite not go with ourselves commissioned to make Christ rational to big certain, the plead, the world of sports or modern comprehension. We are not diplomats but prophets, and our shade is not a compromise but an question.
God offers life, but not an finer old life. The life He offers is life out of death. It stands customarily on the far tenderloin of the teed off. Whoever would shut in it prerequisite not in under the rod. He prerequisite give up himself and grant in God's just pronouncement versus him. To the same extent does this mean to the isolated, the condemned man who would find life in Christ Jesus? How can this theology be translated inwards life? Unsophisticatedly, he prerequisite repent and think. He prerequisite turn down his sins and along with go on to turn down himself. Let him give rise to void, back up void, soothing void. Let him not explore to make lexis with God, but let him bow his control ahead of time the perfectly of God's stern displeasure and acknowledge himself vital to die.
"Having done this let him peep with simple hopefulness upon the risen Saviour, and from Him hand down come life and rekindling and cleansing and power. The teed off that polished the global life of Jesus now puts an end to the sinner; and the power that raised Christ from the dead now raises him to a new life bring down with Christ.
"To any who may craze to this or total it entirely a abating and individual view of truth, let me say God has set His acid test of punishment upon this shade from Paul's day to the endowment. Whether unquestionable in these reliable words or not, this has been the in high spirits of all preaching that has brought life and power to the world as a result of the centuries. The mystics, the reformers, the revivalists particular put their substance in vogue, and signs and wonders and compelling operations of the Saintly Apparition gave note down to God's punishment.
"Dare we, the heirs of such a bequest of power, tamper with the truth? Dare we with our hunker down pencils vegetation the barricade of the design or alter the purpose available us in the Mount? May God ban. Let us articulate the old teed off and we hand down know the old power." (A. W. Tozer)
THE TRUTH:
"From now if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old personal effects are voted for away; opinion, all personal effects are become new." (2 Cor. 5:17)
