RENEWAL THROUGH RECOVERY (6)
W. Carl Ketcherside

The word “purpose” is from pro, before; and ponero, to place. It refers to that which one places before himself as a goal to be reached, or an aim to be accomplished. It represents his plan, his design, his intention for life. Without it he may spend years of erratic wandering, attempting everything and accomplishing little, if anything. There is an old saying that “He who follows two hares is sure to catch neither.” There is another proverb from other days, which goes, “The master of one trade will support a wife and seven children; the master of seven will not support himself.” One of the most heartbroken, disappointed kings the world has known was Joseph II of Austria. Chiseled on his tomb are the words: “Here lies a monarch who, with the best of intentions, never carried out a single plan.”

We decry the lack of artistry exhibited in many products today. One reason is that they are machine-made. But a machine has no mind. It cannot reason. It has no pride. It cannot stand back and admire what it has done. In olden times individuals inherited from father and grandfather the skills they employed. From earliest childhood they had worked at the shoemaker’s last, the pottery wheel, or the blacksmith’s forge. Their sweat, and sometimes their blood, went into the product. It was meticulously shaped and crafted, because not only the item, but the family was judged by it.

And that is one thing wrong with the community of the saved ones in our day. They have turned things over to the machine to run. They have little, if any personal interest in what happens. They are spectators, on-lookers, bystanders. More and more the manipulators turn the meetings into spectacles, going all out to present a highly organized, cleverly arranged performance with the preacher as ring-master, the conductor, the impresario. The Establishment takes care of everything. It hires, fires and regulates. All the members are expected to do is to show up for the exhibition, contribute as directed, and not rock the boat, or make waves by criticism.

Time was when honest tears flowed freely down furrowed cheeks when one was immersed into Jesus. Sometimes the entire audience was shaking with sobs of unrestrained joy. But no more. One does not weep when a new cog is fitted into a wheel, or a stray bolt is used as a replacement. It is not manly to cry in our culture. It is not womanly either. Paul, who warned the Ephesians three years, day and night with tears, would be dismissed today as a “sentimental old kook.” What is our problem? We have forfeited our purpose. We are letting empty buckets down into empty wells.

If we would seek renewal, and we had better seek it, if we expect to survive, we must recover what we have lost — our purpose, the apostolic purpose. Voltaire called the Frenchman La Harpe “an oven which was always heating, but never cooked anything.” We run frantically here and there, looking for this program or that, borrowing schemes, stealing ideas, appropriating methods, but never fitting them into a definite purpose. We must develop a strategy for the faith which is adapted to succeed. We are not playing around. God has not called us to a picnic.

What should our purpose be? Whatever it is, it must become an obsession, an overwhelming, breath-taking, life-shaking, way of life dedicated to the pursuit of the Holy Grail, the search for the Golden Fleece, the hunt for the river of golden sands. Every other thing must somehow be fitted into it, every other feature must be related to it. The apostolic purpose was the divine one. It was the God-purpose. The Father made everything one in the cosmic creation. But Satan fragmented and splintered it, like a madman hurling a rock through a lovely mirror. God is not to be deterred from his place. Everything must again become a unit. He must be all in all.

In one paragraph in the “letter of the mystery” Paul defines his purpose in an outpouring of words which remind one of a dam bursting and releasing the pent-up waters. Listen! “For he has made known to us in all wisdom and insight the mystery of his will, according to the purpose which he set forth in Christ, as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.” Have you ever heard a more all-embracing statement? Consider the words will, purpose and plan, and ponder their implications for the called-out of God. What is his will? What is his purpose? What is his plan? Will has to do with determination, purpose has to do with declaration, plan has to do with design. All three of them are directed toward the unity of all things.

This is not a human dream. It is not a fantasy. It did not come by rationalization but by revelation. He made it known. It originated in heaven and not on earth. It came from God and not from man. And it was made known in all wisdom and insight. It was not to be a noble experiment or a test tube case. It is not the result of a trial in a great laboratory. He is the only-wise God and his wisdom is behind it. He is insightful and all of his pragmatism is poured into it. That which was a mystery, unheard of, undreamed of yesterday, is a reality today. The mystery is made known.

That mystery made known has to do with his purpose. It is set forth in Christ. Until Jesus came and died the mystery was hidden and concealed. It could not be declared. Now it is seen to be a plan for the fulness of time. Time is not eternity which never fills. It is a measure of life on earth. And when time reaches a certain point all things will be united.

How this will be brought about we do not know. What we do know is our part in it, and that part constitutes our purpose, as it did the purpose of the apostles. In the midst of a world set at odds by Satan we have lost that purpose. We no longer think of the “one body concept” except in conjunction with our specific sects.

No sect is the one body, and the one body is not a sect. The body is not a conglomerate of sects and all of the sects together do not constitute the body. The body is composed of individuals, working together, sharing in unison, functioning as a unit. And the achieving of that unanimity of purpose must be our purpose. If we can see each other as fraternal helpers through the eyes of love, rather than as rivals through the eyes of envy, we will set the stage for the unfolding of the drama of the ages. No one who truly believes that Jesus is the Son of God is an enemy of any other person who truly believes that. No such one is an enemy of God.

In the past we have been unable to sort our foes from our friends. The reason is because of our early training, environment and discipline. We have been taught to think sectarian. And one who thinks sectarian will be sectarian. Our exclusiveness, forced upon us, kept us from association with others on the spiritual level, and we have never been able to properly evaluate them upon that level. Because of our rural and small town heritage we were thrown together in school, in our home life, and in business. We came to appreciate the honesty, the sincerity, the uprightness of others. But they were members of “another church” and we did not associate with them on the level of the Spirit. We were aloof, isolated, and even sometimes downright rude. All of us recall relatives who put us to shame when it came to good works, but they were Baptists, Methodists, or members of the Assembly of God. We cooly ignored them.

It will create a trauma for some of us to move toward the one body, composed of every saved person on earth. Fear will grip us. We will stand in dread of God’s avenging wrath. That is because of the thorough “brain-washing” to which we have been subjected by Satan. He is afraid we will make it work. And I think we have him nervous now because of talking about it. Nothing else is quite as dangerous to the kingdom of darkness as the unity of the children of light. Satan will employ preachers to act as a “fifth column.” They will use the age-old weapons of threat, boycott, pressure, and excommunication. But God’s purpose, will, plan and pleasure will and must be accomplished. The eternal years of God are with us. Let us move out. Let us go forward!

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

— Anatole France