THE SLEEPY FOG THAT DRIFTED ONTO OUR SCENE

When church leadership valiantly assailed every whimper of a false doctrine in the early to mid 20th Century, it inadvertently opened a window for a heavy fog to drift in causing the very body it was trying to spare to fall asleep. While strong voices went to great lengths to eliminate any “adding to or taking away” regarding scriptures, something strange (unnamed and unnoticed) slipped by the guards. Man became confident in himself to carry out religion. Such leadership ignorantly handed Peter’s keys back to the enemy forces. A remnant has fought its captivity ever since.

What is that unnamed and unnoticed fog? Naturalism. Some of the most vocal of yesteryear declawed the Bible by removing the Spirit of God and turned the New Testament into Newer-than-the-old Law. Apparently such began when someone concluded “the perfect has come” of First Corinthians 13 referred to “miracles have ceased”. It seems it was necessary to those making such determination that “the perfect has come” meant the arrival of the completed Bible. I believe at the very least, such a conclusion is shaky.

But the fog….the fog that began to drift was when students began to associate “miracles have ceased” with “supernatural has ceased”. God was barred at His own door. "Holy Spirit, Go Back Where You Belong" was the song before communion. Believers began to unbelieve. Since there was a disconnect with the Living God and one was urged to go by the New Law, man was now out on a huge limb with saw in tow. Everywhere this naturalistic doctrine (which possesses no odor for detection) is accepted, men and women have lost sight of the activity of God in their walk. It’s all up to them: from being good enough to be saved to producing some sort of Holy Moly fruit in the name of religious activity.

Francis Schaeffer wrote thirty-seven years ago, The supernatural does not touch the Christian only at the new birth and then at his death, or at the second coming of Christ, leaving the believer on his own in a naturalistic world during all the time in between. Nothing could be further from the biblical view. Being a biblical Christian means living in the supernatural now, not only theoretically but in practice.

We must remove the fog; not by yelling or swatting at it but by continually, persistently, passionately leading the flock to open its eyes to the activity (the direct connecting activity) of God in the very mysterious midst of our daily grind.