Restoration of the Church : Why Christ—not the Bible—Must Be the Center (Part 2)

It is this torch that we reach for. It is this torch we take to join that long train of those whose paramount witness is to Christ. This is that torch. This is that testimony. It is Christ. It is Christ. The Priscillians no longer exist. The Celtic church no longer exists. The Bogomils, the Cathars, the Paulicians; all of these no longer exist, but there must be men who will at least for one day touch the Waldensians, the Moravians, the United Brethren, the Anabaptists. There’s much to learn from them, not for what they are today, but what they used to be, and what they ought not to be this day. It is quite awful to discover that all of these groups that do exist have yielded to the pulpit, yielded to the pastor, yielded to the sermon, yielded to the pew, and yielded to an absolutely mute laity.

Such is the legacy, the traditions, that prevail in the world as a result of what we picked up during the reformation. I repeat, it is imperative that we reach back to learn of those who no longer exist and to look at those who came from hundreds of years ago. It has been my privilege to just about meet every one of those groups somewhere on this earth and then come to work among the people closest to T. Austin Sparks, the very, very closest friends of Watchmen Nee, that of Prem Pradhan’s, and to associate as closely as I can with the Bakht Singh movement.

God, give us a few men born with the passion to see, know, hear, and learn so that we can go on where they left off. Yes, and to understand their weaknesses, their blind spots and their unique contributions and to warm our hands at the fire, the fading fire of those people, and meet and speak with those whose lives, even in this modern age, are willing to lay down all, not only for Christ, the church, but to endure the sufferings, the trials, the dangers and yes, the divisions of which all of them pass through.

There is no group, there will be no groups that will seize that torch in the future, but what these things that we have looked upon in these last few minutes, those are the things which will befall them and us. Yet knowing that for the sake of His bride and for the knowledge of knowing Him, and failing both, to know that we have given our all in the highest understanding and vision and practice of which the Lord has revealed to us.

Won’t you come and join us? Won’t you join in our crusade? Won’t you be strong and stand with us? Beyond this veil of flesh, beyond this body of ours, this flesh of ours, there is a realm, a world for us to discover and explore.