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IT HAPPENED - (1)
DELIVERANCE, PAST,
PRESENT AND TO COME; A DIVINE SPECIALTY FOR HIS CHILDREN
Again, we come to something that actually happened. Always it is fascinating, that IT HAPPENED!
You may think of Ministers of the faith as rather formal non-combatants in life. The truth is often far from this. We are invited to engage, all who are Christians (Ephesians 6) in what is no less than a spiritual warfare. In the heart is peace and love, but in the feet there may have to be agile movement, as the King commands His battalions, directed to enabling many to hear the Gospel and find a better life than that of turmoiled self-interest and international clash: more, to find God who made them, through Jesus Christ His express Saviour.
In 1966, one
Minister, a Presbyterian of Australian citizenship, was in
Time moved, as it has a habit of doing. Circumstances growled. A Professor in the Presbyterian Seminary had denied the power of God expressed categorically and essentially (I Corinthians 15, Luke 24), in the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ. With anyone, hoax or holy is always crucial. It is eminently so with Jesus the Christ.
The people split, the nation split, but most moved to be on the side decidedly not of the angels. The Assembly took note, and the Session where the Minister was occupied, took a stand: NOT this new philosophy, but the grand established creed of the church, of the Bible!
No! NOT what you think, NOT what the Bible has, retorted the mood of the Assembly, but what we say... and that! It is that it doesn't matter. Believe in this contest whichever way you like. That certainly made being eaten by lions seem a little unnecessary, for early Christians. It was indeed a new way!
However, amid a challenge 'Presbytery will deal with you!', which seemed to have rather a Mafia feeling at the time, the Minister refused to agree, and when the crucial vote on whether or no the bodily resurrection would be adhered to (as if any Church assembly could change that! you might as well legislate the sun out of existence, a verbal folly), he voted against the betrayal, and for the bodily resurrection. He gave an immediate, public, formal protest, duly registered by name in the Assembly; to which was to be added a 17000 odd word condemnation of the Assembly's betrayal of Jesus Christ, the Bible and the Church that is His. This was given to the powers that be, in the Church.
The newspapers could not be made to include this fact, that just one Minister had formally at this vote, opposed the Assembly, REGISTERING HIS DISSENT BY NAME! ONE HAD CERTIFIABLY CONDEMNED ON THE FLOOR OF THE ASSEMBLY, THE POSITION IT HAD TAKEN, THE DENIAL OF THE BODILY RESURRECTION AS INTEGRAL TO CHRISTIANITY.
That was real
action. It was as if the antichrist were here already; but in practice, it was
only a trial run for his best presentation. TRUTH in a 'Christian' country ! or
one of some Christian past, not even allowed to be printed in the papers! It
seemed at least like the worst of
The Presbytery DID indeed then come, and it DID seek to condemn and remove the Minister, but the elders who were still a majority, appealed to the 1967 Assembly (since they met in two halves, each annually), while the Minister warned the people of the appalling horror committed by their Assembly.
Then one elder, appalled at a Presbyter who indicated that they would run by the Rule Book, and not by the Bible, as he understood the claim, decided it was time to leave so antichristian a situation as he deemed it. Indeed, to say it was unBiblical would be British understatement. With his departure, there went the majority of elders. It was by this lost; so the Minister, having offered to the people a church without buildings, without success, was left to the operation of those gracious hands which were pierced by nails around A.D.30. Jesus Christ on whose name we call and have called, is not only alive but lively; and He acts for those who wait for Him. What then? He acted for this Minister.
THIS! This is
what happened. Within 3 days of departure, he was entered as an ordained
Minister in another Presbyterian denomination in the
It happened.
There was of course an irony in this as well as a grand deliverance. In my deliverance, 3 days figured. In Christ's resurrection, 3 days figured. In the assault on the New Testament, irrationally perpetrated (when challenged, no rational answer was received from the Professor responsible), the 3 days were philosophically dismissed. What God allegedly COULD not do, then, in the way of prediction - as if to mock the scornful and reject the rebellious, according to the unbelief pattern, He DID do now. I was delivered once again from an erring church body.
It was quite a feat in this instance, for the organised persecution of ecclesiastical wheels, which often run like tank tracks over those who dare to be both reasonable and Biblical, did not succeed. It did succeed only in being overthrown: and that ? In 3 days. Blessed be the name of the Lord who, as Paul puts it in terms of BIBLICAL BLESSING: "delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver us; in whom we trust the He will still deliver us..." (II Corinthians 1:10).
It reminds of an equally delightful blessing in II Timothy: " But the Lord stood with me, and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me, and that all the Gentiles might hear. Also I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion. And the Lord will deliver me form every evil work and preserve me for His heavenly kingdom. To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen!" - 3:17-18.
(Submitted by Robert Donaldson, who praises the Lord of all power and pity, as well mighty to save as able to hear, for his deliverance as described. Please let us hear of YOUR deliverances by the same hand, writing to us Email at team@webwitness.org.au .)