EVANGELICAL VINDICTIVENESS

You must be joking!  No, I’m quite serious.  For many a long year, I would not have believed that such a quality remained within evangelicalism.  Not until a friend told me of a man who now holds high public office in Northern Ireland and who would have preached for me at my invitation in my churches many years ago, and who is known for his vindictiveness.  I was appalled.  A well-known evangelical man being a vindictive person. 

Then very recently I was in touch with a former ministerial colleague about a matter, believing him to be a friend.  Again, I was appalled at the unadulterated and undisguised vindictiveness of this Christian brother. 

I thought, ‘I must have missed something somewhere.  I did not realise that this was, or had become, an acceptable evangelical way of behaviour towards a Christian brother.”  But I was wrong again.  This appears to be the way you do it within the churches.  In order to protect your patch you hold grudges. 

What is most ironic is that this man and I would have held the same theological ground.  Perhaps he has ‘matured’ or ‘mellowed,’ as they put it. Which is another way of saying that he ‘compromised’ for an easy life. 

As a young minister, I remember hearing Rev. R. C. (Dick) Lucas, senior minister of St Helens, Bishopgate, London, saying that we must maintain an “eschatological perspective” on and throughout our ministries.  That means that we must conduct our ministries with a view to the last Day, the final judgement.  On that dread Day, we will have to stand before the holy Judge and give a strict account of our stewardship.  That fearful thought has tended to keep me steady, despite some stumbles and tumbles on the way.  I don’t want to live as a vindictive person; in fact, nothing could be further from my mind. 

But that is a reality within Ulster evangelicalism in the 21^st century.  Vindictiveness is a strategy for defending your church and your patch against Gospel intrusion.  The last thing that many churches want today, even those with evangelical ministers and backgrounds, is the Gospel, the truth.  Keep these from your people and you’ll have a nice comfortable ministry.

But when you stand before that awesomely holy Judge on that last Day, how will you answer for your unfaithfulness?  What will you say when asked about the exercise of your ministry?  Why have you tolerated so much wrong and falsehood within your church?  Why have you lived comfortably with open disobedience to the authority of Scripture?  Why has your total heart and life submission to the authority of Scripture not been a reality for you?  Why did you replace your own fallen human wisdom for the wisdom of My Word?  Why did you operate your ministry on a purely pragmatic mode rather than be principle-driven?  Why did you have no fear of standing before Me on the last Day?  Why were you so vindictive towards other Christians who sought only to proclaim Christ and Him crucified?  Why did you not work as a better physician of souls? 

These are just some of the momentous questions you and I will have to answer when we stand before the righteous Judge.  There will be more, many more.

That Day is coming.  How will it be for you?