RADICAL CHRISTIANITY

“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!” (Luke 12:49-50).

The traditional interpretation of these verses is that the word fire Jesus was speaking of means judgment. But the word fire is also used to refer to the Holy Spirit. In Acts 2:3 at the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we read, “And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.”

It is my opinion that in Luke 12 Jesus was speaking of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. The fire of the Holy Spirit would set hungry hearts ablaze and those “baptized in the fire of the Holy Spirit” disciples would become “radical.”

A short time after Pentecost, Peter and John were arrested and taken before the high priest and the rulers (Acts 4:1-6). Read what happened when the religious rulers encountered “the radicals” and wanted to condemn them for preaching about Christ and healing the sick in His name.

“When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition” (Acts 4:13-14).

These radicals were among the recipients of the fire the Lord cast on the earth and the baptism that He promised. The absolute beauty of what Jesus was saying in Luke 12 is that He is still “casting fire and still baptizing” and His fire-filled followers are still becoming “radicals.”

Before going further, let’s make sure we have a good definition of the word radical. When we use the term, people often think of someone or something weird . . . such as a person wearing a signboard and yelling, “The end of the world is coming!” That’s not really radical, it’s just weird. The word radical means to get back to the fundamentals, to get back to the root or source of something. Radical Christianity is actually normal Christianity. 

My first boss (if I can call him that) in the ministry was truly a radical Christian. David Wilkerson was a small-town country preacher whom God called to begin a ministry in New York City. In 1958 Wilkerson went to New York and the Teen Challenge ministry was begun.

In 1967 David Wilkerson asked Carol and me to move to New York and help him build a crusade ministry to reach young people all across America and Canada. What God led us to build was not the traditional crusade ministry of the time. We never had big budgets, we didn’t do high-priced advertising campaigns, and we never imported celebrities to draw crowds. What we did, instead, was pray and then go where the Lord sent us. And we believed Him for a harvest of souls.

I worked with and traveled with David Wilkerson for eight years. I could have stayed much longer but I’m kind of a radical too — a radical when it comes to doing what the Lord tells me to. And when He gives direction to me . . . I follow Him!

But let me share with you a few personal insights into the radicalization of David Wilkerson.

1.    He had an all-consuming passion for the Lord; he loved the Lord and passionately wanted to please Him!

2.    He had a powerful prayer life. He was not a five-minute pray-er.

Our first apartment in New York was right over his personal office. Often late at night we would hear him in his office and while we couldn’t make out his exact words, we could tell from the cadence of his speech that he was praying.

3.    He had a consuming hunger for the Word of God.

One day I was in David’s office and I saw his Bible lying open on his desk. I asked him if I could look at it and he nodded yes. As I thumbed through it, one thing struck me. Every page from Genesis 1 to Revelation 21 was covered with his personal notes in the margins, across the top and bottom, everywhere. He was a man who consumed the Word.

4.    David was not a highly educated man by the world’s standards.

He graduated from high school and had one semester of college. But what he did have was an education orchestrated from heaven, and he was filled with the Word of God and the Holy Spirit. Jesus had cast His fire and a heart had been set ablaze, the recipient of the baptism that Jesus spoke of. This is more valuable than a Ph.D.

5.    A willingness to step out in faith and do exploits for God.

When David Wilkerson died in 2011, his act of obedience of “foolishly” going to New York to witness to gang members in 1958 had opened the door to over fifty years of exploits for God (with over 1100 Teen Challenge Centers around the world; many best-selling books; a feature-length Hollywood movie; and a megachurch in New York City).

Sometimes the willingness to step out in faith brings criticism from the church world. Why? Because that willingness exposes their lack of faith, and the traditional church world is empty of faith and full of man-devised plans!

6.    A generous spirit—an almost overwhelming generosity.

When we moved the crusade office from New York, David gave me enough money to make a deposit on a home. We had been living in an apartment but now we had our first child and he wanted us to have a house. Sometime later we were again moving the crusade office and I sold our home and made a very nice profit. David took me aside and in a fatherly, mentoring moment, said, “Dallas and Linda Holm (Dallas was the soloist in our crusades) don’t have a home and I’d like you to give them enough out of the profit you made so they can buy.” He was teaching me one of the key elements of being a radical: Radicals are givers, they are generous!

We need more radicals!

PREPARING AN INSTRUMENT FOR HARVEST

“When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest’” (Matthew 9:36-38, NKJV).

We are the laborers—the instruments of harvest the Lord is sending into His harvest!

Two thousand years ago, at the time of the birth of the Church, the primary instrument used in harvest was the sickle, a curved, single-edged blade with a long handle. The sickle was a one-person harvesting tool and is still in use in many parts of the world.

Cutting tools such as the sickle were hand-forged by a blacksmith who selected a piece of metal and heated it directly in the fire. Using a hammer and an anvil, he then pounded and bent the hot metal into the required shape. Over and over the blacksmith repeated the process of heating and pounding until the metal reached its final shape and sharpness.

Whether we are willing to recognize it or not, God is forging laborers for His harvest. His testing of us through the pressures of life and His dealing with us about sin are not just His trying to make us look good; He is forging us into effective instruments of harvest.

You may be thinking, “No, I don’t think so. I don’t think God would do that.” But what I am saying is exactly what the Apostle Paul taught as being fundamental to growth in the life of grace.

In Romans 5:1-5, Paul lays out the process the Lord uses to bring us to the shape and sharpness necessary to be effective harvesting instruments.

Verses 1 and 2 contain Paul’s declaration that we have been justified by faith, that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ, and that through Christ and by faith we have been brought into the life of grace.

In Verse 3 Paul begins to speak of the process that works in us, that has a divine purpose. And he tells us that because of this divine purpose, even though it is sometimes painful to go through the pain, we rejoice, not for the process but because of our understanding of what is being worked in us.

Paul then lays out the four steps he perceives as God’s forging process in preparing us to be effective instruments of harvest.

1.    Tribulation

“Tribulation” (verse 3). In the process of fashioning an instrument that is useful in God’s harvest, tribulation is the beginning of the shaping. Tribulation is brought to bear through the use of pressure, affliction or hardship. This part of the preparation is not meant to be mean and harsh but is an essential part of the shaping process. This is the blacksmith pounding on the heated metal, and through that he begins to shape the metal for effective use.

2.    Patience

“Tribulation produces patience.” Patience is endurance that is unswerving/focused. God is never in the kind of hurry we are and He is committed to tempering the metal so that it is shaped and hardened with just the right sharpness to it—to be most effective—and that doesn’t happen overnight. Tribulation and our handling of it teaches us how to have patience, how to endure.

“For you have need of endurance (patience), so that when you have done the will of God, you may receive what is promised” (Hebrews 10:36).

3.    Character

“Tribulation produces perseverance (patience/endurance) and perseverance, character.” A man with character is a man with faith that has been tested and who has integrity that is evident to everyone.

Luke 15:11-32 is the story of two sons. The younger took his inheritance because he had the faith to ask for it but he wasted it because he did not have the integrity or the knowledge to properly handle what he had received. The older brother didn’t ask the father for anything. He was righteous and had integrity but he lacked faith so he never asked. God wants us to embrace both the elements of character—faith and integrity combined—and when we couple these two characteristics with experience, then we are showing forth true character.

4.    Hope

“Tribulation produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.” Hope is a very misunderstood term in our world, where it has little meaning. Biblical hope is “confident expectation that is founded on God’s Word.” Hope as it is used here in Romans 5 is not inferior to faith but is an extension of faith—putting the sharp edge of faith on the instrument of harvest.

These are the four elements that go into the making of an instrument of harvest. I wish I could say truthfully that we would go through this process only once but that’s never been God’s way. God’s way is for us to be refined continually; continually having our effectiveness improved; continually growing; continually learning. We will go through the process of refining, shaping, and sharpening over and over so that we can be the most effective instrument of harvest possible.

“When the grain is ripe, immediately he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come” (Mark 4:29).

SLACKENED BOWSTRINGS

During the “Cold War” a word became very familiar to those aware of the rising and falling tensions between the two world superpowers, the United States and Russia. The Cold War lasted from the late 1940’s to the end of 1991 when communism finally collapsed in Russia. A word that was heard frequently during this time was “détente,” which is a French word meaning “relaxation of tension.” Reaching back even farther in history, it means “to slacken the bowstrings.”

In ancient times when bows and arrows were primary instruments of warfare, in order to preserve the strength of their bows, archers slackened their bowstrings when they were traveling or not fighting. Also, as a sign of the cessation of hostilities, the archers on opposing sides would slacken their bowstrings to indicate that the fighting was over. This is “détente.”

I believe that as we draw closer to the end of time, there will be more frequent calls for peace and harmony between the various religious communities of the world. We will be assaulted with statements such as, “Can’t we all just get along? After all, there are many roads to God, and Christianity is just one of them.” The call will be for followers of Jesus Christ to stop asserting, “He is the only way to God,” and it will be phrased in the terminology of détente. In the call for harmony, followers of Christ will be told to not say anything about practices they consider wrong—e.g., same sex marriage, homosexuality, or immorality of any kind. Christians will be told to “chill, relax and get along with the world.”

Some Christians will be seduced by this kind of talk and will unwittingly join forces with the wrong people. Already in parts of the Church, we see the spirit of compromise and complacency taking root. There are many churches where sin is never talked about, ever! There is no talk of the devil or his ferocious appetite to destroy people; there is no talk of eternal damnation; there is no talk about the right and wrong way to live (what used to be referred to as holiness). There is little or no talk about the way evil (sin) ravages a life and leaves it broken and sick. Instead, all the talk tends to be self-centered, about me, about how I can improve myself, how I can make myself into a better person. 

When there are slackened bowstrings in the Church, no standards are being held up that assist people in making good decisions to live by. We don’t talk much about living righteously any more. One of the weaknesses of over-emphasizing the grace message is that the responsibility for righteous living has been undermined and responsibility is not being taught.

We are never to extend détente to the devil and his forces!

Why am I so adamant about this? Because the devil never has and never will extend détente to you! It doesn’t matter what the devil or the world system says about their desire to be at peace with the Church (and all of us who are His followers); everything they say about this is nothing but a lie!

John 8:44 is a very revealing description of the devil’s tactic of never telling the truth. Jesus said to a group of people He was teaching: “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (NIV).

The devil’s first language, his native tongue, is lying; he is a liar from start to finish. Therefore, we are never to extend détente to the devil; we must never slacken our bowstrings!

Writing to the church in Asia Minor that was in a time of heavy persecution, the apostle Peter challenges them, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith” (1 Peter 5:8-9, NKJV).

The picture presented in these verses is very clear, I think.

The words “be sober” present the idea of “being under control mentally and not panicking.”

To “be vigilant” means we are to “be awake and watchful.” No slackened bowstrings here!

“Your adversary” means the devil is like a hostile opponent in a lawsuit, one who will not play by the rules but will use slander, accusations, lies, and dirty tricks to achieve what he wants.

“Resist him, steadfast in the faith.” We are to be very alert but we also are to use the weapons of our warfare (Ephesians 6:10-18). We are to aggressively oppose our adversary!

Peter is saying, “Heads up! No need to panic but a great need to be alert and aware. We cannot afford to let down our guard and become complacent.”

No slackened bowstrings!

Not now, not ever!

THE CHURCH OF JONAH

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah . . . saying, “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out [preach] against it, for their evil has come up before me” (Jonah 1:1-2, ESV).

Jonah’s response to the word of direction from the Lord was, “[He] rose to flee . . . from the presence of the Lord” (1:3). Jonah ran away and his flight took him in the exact opposite direction from where the Lord had instructed him to go. This is called backsliding!

Some critics dismiss the book of Jonah as a myth or an allegory and suggest that it not be taken seriously. They suggest that it’s a nice fun story for children but the rest of us are too smart to take the story of a man and a whale seriously. Their dismissal does not take into account the fact that the Lord Jesus referred to Jonah as a real person and as a prophet (see Matthew 12:39).

The book of Jonah tells of Jonah’s struggle to fulfill his calling as a prophet. The book also is a prophetic picture of the church of the last days and its struggle, and sometimes its failure to fulfill its calling.

I call the contemporary church in America the “Church of Jonah.”

Jesus gave His followers a very clear mandate before He ascended into heaven. “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15, NKJV).

We do a lot of things in the church world that He never told us to. We own buildings, we have choirs, we have schools, etc. Now, most of these things are not bad but He never left them as instructions, such as He did when He gave us the “Great Commission.”

I was brought up in a large church in Vancouver, Canada. Evangelistic Tabernacle was a megachurch long before that term was invented. At a time when most evangelical churches were small in attendance, our church was running 1200-1500. It was a church full of life in every area. One of the things that made “The Tab” the great church that it was is that it took seriously the “Great Commission.” This was a church that gave up to fifty percent of its annual income to missions.

Do you know the percentage of missions-giving right now among evangelical churches in North America? Perhaps you had better sit down before I tell you. Current statistics show that the average evangelical church gives between two and three percent of their income to missions. I find that both revealing and appalling!

Is it any wonder that the American church, as a whole, is in serious decline? That the blessing of God is off the church in North America? All the latest statistics show a decline in the percentage of evangelical Christians in the nation while at the same time there is a rapid growth, especially among young people, of those who are atheists or agnostics or have no interest in any type of religious faith. More churches are closing than opening and the number of people who actually profess Christ as Savior in America is in a downward spiral. The percentage of evangelicals who believe that the Bible is inerrant is now well under fifty percent.

It’s my personal opinion that the life of the Lord began to vacate the American church as it moved away from a firm stance on the fundamentals of the faith—and one of the predominant failures has been reneging on its mandate from the Lord on missions and evangelism. As the church left the fundamentals (in hunger for acceptance by the culture), it began to adopt the business models and marketing strategies of corporate America. There is nothing wrong with a well-run church or an aggressive advertising campaign, but when we water down the primary reasons for our existence and then attempt to replace the “presence of the Lord” with man-generated excitement and questionable doctrine, we are well on our way to becoming the Church of Jonah.

The Church of Jonah is a church in disobedience, a church that is attempting to replace God’s direction with man’s thinking. The Church of Jonah is a church with a disastrous end in sight.

But it doesn’t have to end in disaster and death. Jonah came to his senses and repented, and when he called out to God, God put him back on His path, and a tremendous spiritual awakening took place. It can be the same in America if the church awakens to its spiritual needs and repents.

I’m happy to say that not every church in America is a type of the Church of Jonah. Many fine churches are following the Lord’s instructions and are heavily involved in reaching the lost, both here and all over the globe. I’m also happy to say that as the decline in the American church has intensified, the commitment to world evangelization has picked up in the church all over the world—in Asia, in Africa, in South America. These Christians are successfully doing the work the American church has dropped.

Don’t be a part of the Church of Jonah! Find a church that is committed to being faithful to the Lord and is committed to reaching the lost, both here and overseas. In so doing, you will experience the life of the Lord flowing in you as never before.