In recent days the shout has gone out for change. It doesn’t seem to matter what change will produce just as long as it is change. As a consequence our world seems to be adrift without a pilot or compass on uncharted seas. Change has produced grave uncertainty and the world is as restless as the sea when its tides ebb and flow.
I’m concerned that this same restless spirit has pervaded the church until, like the Athenians of Acts 17 we are spending our money, effort and “time in nothing else, but either to tell or to hear some new thing.” Many are trying to re-define, re-write, and re-vise God’s Word. Many of the old truths are being treated with suspect and modern thinkers are restating the doctrines of historic Christianity. We must ever remember that reality can be lost when reason and language is violated. Many have surrendered their fiber and are content to live merely with the finish. Everything is veneer and when it starts to show through we just put more and more varnish over it to hide its true material.
We need to be reminded that “man by searching cannot find God.” (Job 11:7). When will we learn that God is not a discovery (‘Eureka’ I have found Him), but He is rather a Divine revelation. It is not through learning and culture and the arts that we find the rest of the soul, as the Athenians believed, but through repentance and faith. Jesus said, “Except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.” In Acts 17 the Apostle warns us that “God has commanded all men everywhere to repent.”
When one truly repents it will be evidenced in every day life. John the Baptist demanded that those who would be recipients of his baptism must first “bring forth fruits meet for repentance.” Until and unless repentance is reflected in the every day attitude and actions of the life, all is empty and vain. No amount of culture, social reform, education, seminars, study groups, leadership conferences, and such like can be a substitute for the rugged preaching of the Gospel which demands “repentance towards God, and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.”
We need a change and that is exactly what true repentance is. It is a change in mind, direction, and attitude. Dr. Paul Rees said that “repentance is true when it turns from grief to God, sorrow to surrender, and from failure to faith.”
“Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you: whom the heavens must receive until the times of restitution of all things, which God hath spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began.” (Acts 3:19-21). It is not a ‘New Thing’ (as the Athenians stated concerning the resurrection of Christ) but an Old Truth that needs refreshed and when appropriated it will make us New Creatures. The real change needs to occur within man and when it happens it is amazing how everything else will appear different. This is the real change that the world needs!
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