When the World Is On Fire # 4

When the World Is On Fire # 4

III. The Continuance of Christians

Continue in Holiness

Peter beseeches us to do three things in 2 Peter chapter 3. First, we must continue in holiness. God help us, God help me, God help all Bible believing Christians in America, to repent of our sins, to confess them humbly, pleadingly, without hiding a single one of them, to God. God help us to come again and again under the Blood. God help us to live victoriously over sin, to eschew even the appearance of evil.

You remember the records of the early Christians. How the Romans hated them! How the Jews despised them! How the Greeks laughed at them! How they were crucified, imprisoned, scourged, their property confiscated, their women and children ravaged! Oh, the fearful terror that was the lot of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the long ago! But when they were sawn asunder, when they were thrown to the lions, when they were burned at stakes, when they were crucified, when the Roman world ran with their blood like a mighty river, people had to say about them, "See how these Christians live, and see how they die."

What is it I am talking about? The biggest argument against fundamentalism is the lack of love, the lack of real faith, the lack of real loyalty among us. The biggest argument against fundamentalism is that we fundamental people are living as though we did not know the first thing about faith, about love, about the precepts of our adorable Redeemer. There is just one hope for us. We must outlive, outlove, outgive, outshine, outscarifice all the liberals, as well as all the worldlings!

Continue In Hopefulness

Second, not only must there be a continuance of holiness, but there must also be a continuance in hopefulness. I have made up my mind, after some trying days in a revival when the Lord showed me again and again how little faith I really had, when He gave mighty victories in spite of my benumbing fears, that I was never again going to sound a sour note. God helping me, I am not going to do it any more.

Guarhardt Oncken came to Europe to preach the Gospel. He was arrested and imprisoned and fined times without number. Every time he was freed he preached again. The magistrate before whom he was brought time after time finally lost patience. Standing up, leaning over the bench, shaking his finger in the face of the preacher, he said, "Mr. Oncken, you are not going to preach." The preacher straightened up, smiled softly, and looked directly into the face of his tormentor. "Your honor, as long as I can see God above your finger, I will keep on preaching." God is not dead. We have plenty of hope in God. Let us show that hope to a world. Let us exercise that hope. Let us practice that hope. Let us pray for each other that our ministries, our lives, will be filled with hope.

I shall never forget some of the incidents during the first year of my ministry. When I started out to preach, I would go somewhere for a revival. Big crowds would come. There would be few conversions, little power. People would not pray. I would become glum, blue, discouraged, heartsick, unhappy. The Lord would send some old deacon who did not know very much except that he loved God and a had a lot of faith. That old deacon would come up to me and say, "Brother Appleman, don't get discouraged. Just keep on preaching. Just keep right on pouring water into that hole. Pretty soon the rats are going to start coming up!"

Lo and behold, they did run out after a while, the rats of hell. They ran from the presence of Christ! There is a bare, black, bleak world against us. It is getting worse. It will keep on getting worse. But there is still a God in the heavens. His promises are still in the Bible. We are still His children. If we sow in accordance with His promise, in due season we shall reap if we faint not. The promise still is, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom" (Luke 12:32).

Continually Make Haste

Peter calls to our minds a third thing. There must not only be holiness, not only hopefulness, but also haste. We dare not play. The hour is late. Men are dying. We are racing against sin, against satan, against death, against every trick and trap that hell can suggest. We are racing for souls, the prize. Men, women, children, all about us will either be welcomed by Christ in Heaven or be forever tormented by the devil in hell. The times call for haste. We must not dill-dally around. We dare not be "at ease in Zion."

We must not just sit around in church and Bible conferences, drinking in until our souls are fat and sleek. We must not sit there and hear lovely choirs sing until it seems that we can hear the angels echo their voices. It is not enough to let the tears run down our cheeks when one of God's servants sings about the love of God. It is ours to be inspired, then go back home, and say to the devil, "I will give you neither rest nor peace until God calls me home. I will keep on thanking. I will keep on praising. I will keep on preaching. I will keep on giving. I will keep on living. I will keep on sacrificing. devil, I am going to give you a run for your money!"

We are fighting a bitter fight. We are fighting a more bitter fight than our soldiers in recent wars. We are fighting principalities and powers. We are fighting the devil and all the hosts of hell. The prize is not the freedom of our lives here for a few years upon this earth; the prize is immortal souls to reign and rejoice with Jesus Christ in Heaven or to be ruined forever in a devil's hell. The cry of God to every one of us is to drink, drink, drink deep; to eat, to eat much; to fill our souls, to fill our hearts, to fill our minds, to fill our lives, then to go out and win as many souls as we can, bringing them to the feet of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here, then, is the call to holiness, to hopefulness, to haste.

May the Holy Spirit of God use us to start the conflagration we have been talking about, praying about, longing for, in the very depths of our hearts.

~Hyman Appleman~

(The End)