RENEWAL THROUGH RECOVERY (2)
W. Carl Ketcherside

I think all of us know what we mean by renewal. It does not mean to create, to invent, or promote something new. It assumes the previous existence of the thing to be renewed. It also predicates the departure from the state which should be maintained, and the recovery or restoration of that condition. I have a friend who owns a grandfather’s clock. It is an antique of many years. When he first inherited it, it would not run. The case was marred in several spots. But he renewed it. Once again it ticks until it disrupts your reading by day and disturbs your sleep at night.

The body of Christ has begun to show its age. That is peculiar because it is both ageless and timeless. It is the very embodiment of those who have eternal life. Unfortunately, those who have pledged themselves to be true to its head, have been seduced into taking their eyes off eternal life and to look at this world with more than a coy glance. They have been enticed to use the methods of the world. They have been lured into striving for success by the motif which animates so many. As a result they have erected rival buildings in choice spots, lavishing millions of dollars upon their own comfort which might have been used in better things. Caught up in the “cathedral-complex” they have pridefully sought to outdo one another and their rival steeples rise in every wealthy suburb as an indication of their “love for Jesus.”

And the lives of many who perform what they call “acts of worship” at such places are as empty and devoid of consecration as the aisles and halls of the structures when the custodian turns out the lights and locks the heavy doors with their dead-bolts. It is essential that such lives be rescued from the useless round of making pilgrimages to holy places and engaging in vain and repetitious prayers. Singing four or five songs per week, and listening to a harangue about some theme will no longer pass for the Christian life. Our spirits have to be rekindled. Our hearts have to burn within us. We have to remove the bushel baskets from our lights. We have to long for good as a deer longs for a stream of cool water.

Now this transformation can only be wrought in us by the Holy Spirit. To be controlled by the Spirit results in life and peace. Where there is no Spirit there is no life. We have been betrayed by our mentors. They have convinced us that the only Spirit available for us today is the word. The more of the Bible we know the more the Spirit dwells in us. He who cannot read or write cannot have the Spirit. He who carries the Bible in his pocket has the Spirit in his jacket. It is time we put an end to this falsehood. It is just not true. It never was true. It has resulted in joyless, complaining, griping, unhappy and dissatisfied lives. It has also resulted in “double lives” as men have tried to live above themselves, and have always fallen victims of their own pretensions, landing on what the Word calls “the dunghill” of life.

We have also been flim-flammed into believing that the Spirit worked among the primitive saints, and later deserted them and left them to go it alone. So we have been condemned to go stumbling along, devoid of the Spirit and still trying to grasp and keep the peace that only the Spirit can produce and confer. There has never been a time when the family of God existed anywhere on this earth that the Spirit was absent from it. Each of us must possess the Spirit, live by the Spirit, and be guided by the Spirit, or we have had it. If we would be renewed we must begin by asking God to fill us with the Spirit. There is no other way. It is either this or spiritual death --- a slow, lingering, tortuous death from which there is no hope.

It is not enough for renewal that you have the Spirit, but the Spirit must have you! There is a difference. You must recognize that you are “sold out” to God. All you have, all you are, all you ever hope to be, are His. As the divine potter He can mould you at will. You have died and your life is hid with Christ in God. Your real life is Christ. You began all this with God’s Spirit. And you cannot complete it with the flesh. You cannot finish under your own power. You cannot wait for others. You have no right to expect of them what you are unwilling to risk yourself.

Renewal through recovery! Recovery has to do with that which has become lost. We recover a body from a stream, or a document from the files, or a diamond ring from the garbage can in which it was inadvertently dumped. One who is sick recovers his lost health. One who lost in a poor investment recovers the money which had “gone down the drain.” We must admit that we have lost some values of the faith or we will never reclaim them. So long as we mislead ourselves into believing that we have it made, that all who will be saved must come to us, we will continue our downward path to the end.

The fact is we have lost a great deal. And there is a lot we never had to start with. We are “seekers” and not squatters. We are explorers. We are pioneers. Our problem has been that what was recaptured in the past looked good to us. We thought it was all there was. So we bailed out and became settlers. We never should have done that. We are destined to be strangers and pilgrims. At the point where we settled is the place where our sectarianism began. We are only blazing the trail. We are clearing the way. We are running a race and not indulging our ease in a sedentary lifestyle. The word sedentary means “to sit.” We will have time for that when we reach heaven.

I do not want to take the time to detail all that we have lost or misplaced. It might surprise you if I did. But in subsequent articles I want to deal with matters of grave importance, the things that really make a difference. But right now let me mention that one of the most important things we have lost is a sense of the nature of the community of the saved ones. From the magnificent and splendid view given of it by inspiration we have reduced it to a minute clan.

Listen to this: “After this I looked and there was an enormous crowd --- no one could count the people! They were from every race, tribe, nation and language, and they stood in front of the throne and of the Lamb, dressed in white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.” Whew! Isn’t that something? A multitude in which racial and ethnic overtones have all disappeared. Compare that with our puny little sects on earth composed of a few million at most. We can tell how many of each of them there are. Surely we shall need to enlarge our vision. The way the Lord counts people and the way we count them are two different things. Maybe we are looking at two different kingdoms.

All of our sects are man-made! Every one of them! That includes the one to which we belong also. God did not create a single one of them. He built no walls, erected no dams, put up no barriers to separate and segregate them. All of them began as “movements.” And all of the arguments over names are human arguments. Not a one of them is divine. They were all contrived. They grew out of the pressure of debate and human striving. The keen distinctions, the sharp arguments, the clever distinctions, all originated in the minds of theologians, men who were schooled to be lawyers for the defense instead of lovers of the defenseless.

And all of these obstructions are mere fantasies. They exist only in the minds of men. Faced up to realistically they dissolve into thin air. Only those who are sectarian can be barred by them. One who is not sectarian goes through them as if they were mist. One who can see brethren on both sides of the fence is not inhibited by them. To him, “neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.” One who is an inspector of circumcision can tell you how many are circumcised and how many are not. But one who is a new creation can tell you only how many were fashioned by God’s hand. We see what we are looking for!