Church History Conference Part 2 – Early Church vs Modern Christianity: The Constantine Turning Point

I want you to listen. Here I am, Gene Edwards, an East Texas pastor. I have to marry young people. You show me that in the Bible, and I’ll eat it without salt. I have to preach the funerals of the people. You show me that in the Bible, and I’ll eat it all. It’s not there, is it? It is a Roman-Greek custom. By the way, I can quote that Greek orator. Do you want to hear him? “Our dear departed friend will look down upon our sad eyes today, and I will weep tears and say, oh, I’ve gone to a better place, and even now our friend may be looking down upon us from heaven, saying weep, weep, not.” Yeah, clap.

The first reference I ever found in so-called Christian literature to the word “heaven” is from an orator preaching a funeral oration. I’m not going to get into that one. That’s dynamite. Brothers and sisters, I had to go to the little old ladies, and I had to pat their hands and be nice and sweet to them. I’ll tell you why I did, because if I didn’t, the church would throw me out. I had to, at 11:30, perfunctorily, to deliver a message, whether or not my wife and I just had a screaming fight with one another or not, regardless of the condition of the church. There were many times I could not go to the back and shake hands with everybody because I was in danger of bodily injury, that’s why.

I cannot think of anything, other than the sermon and the Sunday morning church service, that has ever been so untenable and unworkable as the modern-day concept of the pastor, who has to stand up there in the bleachers and breathe a prayer over the football team. “God bless these young men who are about to try to kill themselves.” Men who have to preach sermons over people going to hell. Have to go out and pat ladies on the head or on the hand. I have to go out to social functions and bless them. Have to always be dressed up in a coat and tie. Have to forever be preaching a sermon. Brother, if you are a pastor, I would recommend that next Easter season you give it up for Lent. And for those of you who are elders outside the religious system, you may sometimes be a semi-pseudo pastor. Give it up. Preachers, stop sermonizing and start building so the church can function without you.

It’s been such a joy, such an honor to be with you here today, but listen, you didn’t know this until you walked in this room. Now you know it. I don’t care what kind of excuse you give when you walk out that door. You know now, and these things have affected our minds. They have affected the way we read the Scripture; they have profoundly affected the way we do things. You can walk out, and you can open a trap door and say, “I don’t agree with everything Gene said.” Gene didn’t say anything. Gene just presented historical facts to you.

Brother and sister, you have got a rendezvous with God, with your conscience, with a basic thing of honesty. These are not things we always knew. They are not things we always talked about. They’re not things we always considered. We often like the heel of the shoe, the tie around our necks, and the sleeve on our shirt. They were there, and we did not think about them, but now you know. We have prayed much for this conference. We have prayed that the Lord would have his way. Brother, that prayer is now toward you: that God would have His way with you. There needs to come a deep, profound shaking, not in our practices but in our minds, that we begin to see again what those people in the first century had. For they were the first and the world’s only religion that this world has ever known that had no clergy, had no temples, had no hierarchy, and were virtually, if not totally, without ritual. The world had never seen it before, and in all the religions born since, the world has never seen it again.

There is something about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, something about the liveliness of the headship of Jesus Christ, that the church of the Lord Jesus Christ ought to be able to live and function without leaders, at least for a little time, until elders come. Elders ought to stay out of the way in the functioning of the body of Christ. You have the right to be a part of the gathering of God.

Let’s pray. Lord Jesus, enough said. Now, for every part to deal with the Spirit speaks to each of us, where we are, and tells us where we ought to be. One thing, Lord, make yourself central again in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. Deepen our experience with You, our encounters with You, our sight of Your purpose, in other realms and on the earth this day, Lord by Spirit, talk to us about these things. Amen.