MINISTERING TO THE REMNANT CHURCH

Every good minister needs constant encouragement, and by minister I refer to all those who endeavor to build God’s kingdom in this world, to alleviate human suffering, and to educate both head and heart of human kind. Encouragement is vital since such tasks often appear hopeless. We are sometimes tempted to conclude that we have to go it alone or almost alone. It is common for people to write to this journal, and say, “I am pleased to learn that there are others who believe like I do.” I always take delight in assuring them that they have far more on their side than they realize.

It is understandable that one who would like to effect change concludes that she is standing alone, for from the narrow confines of her own situation it appears that way. She may be the only one in her church that believes as she does, or so it seems. Such an existence can be both lonely and discouraging.

You may be assured that you are not alone, for wherever you are there is a remnant that has not bowed the knee to Baal. That story of Elijah supposing he was the only one left who had not bowed to Baal points up the thesis of this essay: Whatever your cause, if it be right and good and just, there is a remnant that will join you in the struggle. And you don’t have to find them; they will find you!

It is a beautiful story of how Elijah discovered a wonderfully encouraging truth, that he had far more on his side that he could ever have imagined. It is one story that makes its way into both the Old and New Testaments. As Paul tells it in Rom. 11, drawing upon 1 Kings 19, Elijah assured God that all the faithful prophets had been killed except him. “I alone am left, and they seek my life,” he complained.

I am alone! It is understandable that Elijah felt that way, and it is understandable when any of us feels that way, for the evidence appears to support such a conclusion. Elijah was no cry baby but a brave prophet. It was simply that he didn’t know the great truth that I am talking about in this article. God always has his remnant! We had better believe it. It is the one great truth that will keep us going. The remnant is out there; we might not know where, but they are there. And we don’t have to go searching for them. We only need to do what God has called us to do, faithfully and with perseverance, and the remnant will start showing up, one by one perhaps, but they will be there.

We can imagine how stunned Elijah was when God told him, “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” Seven thousand! He thought he was all alone. He probably wondered where they all were. But he got the point. He was not to take refuge under a juniper tree or hide in a cave but to get to work doing what faithful prophets are supposed to do. The remnant would turn up in God’s own way and in His own time.

Another great prophet was later to learn the truth about the remnant, and it made all the difference in his ministry. When God called Isaiah it was with such divine drama (“I saw the Lord sitting on a throne”) that he cried out, “I am undone! I am a man of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” When God asked, “Whom shall I send?,” Isaiah responded with, “Here am I! Send me.”

But it turned out to be a strange mission for Isaiah. He was to prophesy to people who had ears but they would not hear, they had eyes but they would not see, they had minds but they would not understand. Isaiah’s problem was different from Elijah’s in that he was sent on a mission that seemed meaningless. He was to preach to people that would ignore him. Why?, he asked, and for how long? God at last pointed to the faithful remnant who would be ready when he was, likening them to a giant oak fallen in the forest, whose stump remains (Isa. 6:13). The prophet would not have the oak to work with, but only its stump, but that would be sufficient.

The remnant thus became a basic principle of Isaiah’s ministry. In Isa. 1:13 he said, “Unless the Lord of hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.” He even named his firstborn son Shearjashub, which meant “a remnant shall return.”

But it is in Zeph. 3:13 that we have something of a characterization of the remnant: “The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness and speak no lies, nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth; for they shall feed their flocks and lie down, and no one shall make them afraid.” This is the theme that runs throughout Scripture: The remnant are the faithful ones who are not afraid; they are the ones God uses to carry out His purposes through all the ages.

This is not to say that the remnant are the only ones who will be redeemed, for God always has mercy on whom He will have mercy. The remnant are rather the ones that hang in, those that are willing to get their noses bloodied, those that are not afraid of what the power structures might do. They are the ones who knock, ask, and seek. They are the ones that will listen to the truth, that will change, that will forge new frontiers. They are the avant garde. And they are always out there. You can count on it. That is encouraging!

All through Scripture it is the remnant that keeps the faith alive. When the flood came and destroyed the world, Noah was spared. When the Pharaoh of Egypt murdered all the male children among the Hebrews, Moses was delivered. When the Hebrews that came out of Egyptian slavery all died in the wilderness because of their faithlessness, Caleb and Joshua were spared. And when at last God’s people were taken as captives to faraway Babylon for seventy long years, a remnant returned.

It is also the case in the New Testament. When Paul drew upon the story of Elijah for the concept of the remnant, he said, “Even so then, at the present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace” (Rom. 11:5). One might speak of “the remnant church,” as Rev. 3:1-6 would suggest. The church at Sardis was dead even when it had the reputation of being alive. But it had its remnant: “You have a few names even in Sardis who have not defiled their garments; and they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy.”

Jesus thus believed in the remnant church, for even in a “dead” church (his own description) he had “a few” that walked with him in white. And I believe in the remnant church. I have visited many churches of all denominations that appear to be much like Sardis, but it always encourages me to be able to say, “Even here there are a few. . .” The remnant church is in every church!

We don’t have to hunt them down, or buttonhole them, or bang on their front door. We only need to allow the light of the glorious Christ to shine in our own lives. Like insects in the night, those who are searching will find their way to the light. Our task as ministers to the remnant church is not to reform others but ourselves. An old Chinese Christian had the right idea when he prayed, “Renew your church, O Lord, beginning with me.” We can’t change people anyway. God has to do it, and He can do it through us only when we ourselves are changed. It has been a great liberating truth for me to learn that I must stay busy working on myself, not others. That happens to be the only way we can really help others.

Our job is not to reach the masses, contrary to all the presumptions of hi-tech TV evangelism. The masses will not listen. They never have and never will. Those who are successful with the masses have to compromise the message. What is happening is that the masses are using them, conforming them to their own image and calling it religion—a religion of their own making, full of ease and comfort. When it comes to the truth they most need to hear, the masses have ears but they will not hear, they have eyes but will not see. Not only in Isaiah’s time but in our day as well. Only the remnant will listen.

We see it in the ministry of Jesus who came to gather God’s remnant church. He came unto his own (the masses of the Jews), but his own received him not, but to those who did receive him (the remnant), he gave them the power to become children of God (Jn. 1:11-12). He did not have to seek out the remnant, for they found him once he was on the scene. His was a quiet ministry. He did not “raise His voice, nor cause His voice to be heard in the street” (Isa. 42:2). He did not go hi-tech; he sent no advance team with Madison Ave. advertising techniques.

Rather than appoint a professional staff as his assistants, Jesus gathered a rag-tag gang from the rank and file. He placed no ads in the Galilean Gazette. In fact, he tried to keep secret a lot of what he did. The remnant found him anyway, and he knew they would. In the light of all this Malcolm Muggeridge, the British journalist who came to Jesus from atheism, insisted that Jesus would not have used TV even if it were available. I agree, but this is not to say the church should not be on TV.

Those who minister to the remnant may not have great crowds, nor are they likely to be popular or purse-wise. But their work will be interesting, exciting, and rewarding. The future is theirs, for they are on the winning side. They are always optimists who believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things. They are confident without being arrogant.

This journal is a modest example of ministering to the remnant, the remnant church among Churches of Christ/Christian Churches. We do no advertising; we have no gimmicks; we never ask for money; we have no institutional support. The power structures have always opposed us, but it doesn’t matter. We have a message to the remnant, those who long to be free in Christ, and they always find us. I don’t know how they find us, but for 39 years they have been finding us, seven thousand and then some who have not bowed the knee to the Baals of obscurantism, sectarianism, and prideful legalism. Letters from new readers often say, “I just now found out about you. Where have you been all my life?” We must remember that in ministering to the remnant the Holy Spirit makes the arrangement only when both sides are ready!

The remnant always returns. Shearjashub is our name!—the Editor