Reformation: decision

[AI translation] Dear Brothers and Sisters!It is tempting to compare in this Reformation service the robust figure of Elijah with the great figure of the Reformers, Calvin, Luther and others, and the work of the prophet Elijah with the work of the Reformers, and so to look at the significance of the Reformation through the window of the personal eulogy of the Reformers. They were as heroes, as outstanding personalities, as prophets and apostles. But it is the Reformers themselves who would most object to placing their person at the forefront of commemoration. They knew very well that to regard the Reformation as the work of Luther or Calvin would be as foolish as to regard Christianity as the work of the Apostle Paul. They themselves objected to their followers calling themselves Lutherans or Calvinists, and they did not even want their graves to be marked for posterity, lest they should cover up even with their dead bodies the Christ whom they wished to serve! So what is important for us now is not who was John Calvin, or Martin Luther, or Matthias Bíró Dévai, or Stephen Little of Szeged, or even their great predecessor, the prophet Elijah, who still rests in an unmarked grave, but what the Lord God is saying to us today through them!
And I see the significance of the Reformation, which began four hundred years ago, for us now, through the Word that has been read out, in the fact that the Reformation was a firm stand, a conscious decision in favour of the Triune God and His revelation, the Holy Scriptures. From a human perspective, the Reformation was as unheard of audaciousness as the action of the prophet Elijah on Mount Carmel thousands of years ago. When Martin Luther publicly burnt the bull that excommunicated him, and thus openly broke with the old church, in order to place the church and man wholly and exclusively under the authority of the sovereign God; when John Calvin turned his back on the church doctrines that had been established and hardened over 1,500 years, and wrote his system of Christian religion on the basis of Scripture alone: then, in fact, nothing more than an open and decisive decision in favour of the one true God was made! And if these reformers were to send a message to us, the heirs of the Reformation today, four hundred years later, they would say, in the words of the prophet Elijah: "How long will you limp on? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal, follow him" (1 Kings 18:21). Decide at last where you belong and draw the consequences of that decision!
This is the firm decision we lack today! We all know that certain "happy medium". It means never going too far in anything. Let us try to reconcile rather than to antagonise, let us try to compromise rather than to clash. If one wants peace and tranquillity for oneself, one should act in this way: one should not take things to the breaking of bread, because it always involves some kind of danger, some kind of risk, if one takes a strong stand for or against something or someone without compromise. This is indeed wise advice in many cases, this calm reflection. And if there were no greater thing in the world than undisturbed tranquillity at all costs: then there is indeed no better than the golden mean. But there are things in life of greater importance than this tranquillity, for which even undisturbed tranquillity is worth sacrificing! The trouble is, then, that the golden mean is not only the place of calm deliberation, but also of cowardly deliberation, of betrayal, and it is sometimes difficult to know where faith ends and cowardly retreat begins. Many a salutary thing has failed because it has been led down the happy medium. The indifferent man, neither cold nor warm, can never be counted on. And that's the trouble, these indifferent, untrusting people like to walk the middle road that is most comfortable for them!
There may be, and indeed there most certainly are, circumstances in life when the happy medium is the best, when the wisest thing is not to break bread, but to settle and reconcile. In one case, however, there is not, and cannot be, a happy medium: between God and the world, between Christ and the Antichrist, or, according to the Scriptures, between the Lord and Baal, that is, between the one true God and the pagan idol-god. God did not give Himself only half for our redemption, but all of Himself! Not only was there something divine in the earthly person of Jesus, but the Word says of Him that in Him dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily! And this Jesus, who had the whole fullness of divinity in Himself, was not a side issue of redemption, but the only issue, which He was all for, which He died for, body and soul, because redemption was such a great issue that it required the whole of Jesus Christ.
Yes, your redemption required the whole of Jesus Christ. That holy Majesty in Whom the whole fullness of the Godhead dwelt bodily. In the same way, the redemption by Christ requires the whole of you, that is, it is not only fragments, not only parts of you that the Lord wants to redeem from death, but the whole of you, the whole of you. What would it be worth if only the head or the feet of a man could be saved from a burning house? Saving lives is only true if the whole person can be brought to safety from their distress while still alive. God needs the whole of "you", not just your head, or not just your money, or some other fragment of you, because then salvation is worth nothing to you. To cut a heart in two is death spiritually, just as to cut a living man in two is death physically. If you give yourself only half and half to God, you will not profit much, for he who is half of God is half of the devil.
It is not selfishness or caprice on God's part when He requires one for Himself, when He demands complete devotion on my part, but He knows that without it I am missing out on the joy of salvation. So you cannot have one half of your soul for God and the other half for the world. It cannot be that fifty per cent of your speech glorifies God and fifty per cent blasphemes Him. It cannot be that one lives half by faith and half by something else, something more tangible, more material. There is no happy medium here, because there is no happy medium in reality! Just as there is no middle way between forgiveness and damnation, between grace and the wrath of God, just as there is no middle way between heaven and hell!
"How long will you limp in two directions?" asks the prophet. So pitiful is the sight of a man limping on both feet, so unsteady, stumbling in his walk! So with difficulty does he drag his wounded leg along the ground! He can't run away from someone, or hurry after someone, jump a ditch, climb a steep slope, or descend a slope! Do you feel how faithfully this picture expresses our pitiful, limping, stumbling Christian life? Because that is the miserable life of the man who cares about Jesus only as long as he is in church, as long as he prays, as long as he leans over his Bible, or as long as it is about salvation. But after that, you don't let Him into your business, into your office, sit Him down at the white table, invite Him to your entertainments, seek His advice and opinion on political matters! There is another word in Scripture to express these two kinds of limping: it calls such a man lukewarm. This means neither cold nor hot. Not even indifferent, but we are talking about average Christians who live in the same heat as the masses. They are always calm, terribly sober, insufferably deliberate, never on fire for the cause of Christ, no zest in their "Christianity". This kind of Christian is the most useless for the kingdom of God. Just as elsewhere, there is no use for such here. What good, for example, is a store manager in a department store who is neither cold nor warm, indifferent to business, and a dullard? In politics, what would be the point of a party leader who does not care whether he rallies people for or against him? Not even a lukewarm Christian life, a Christian man limping in two directions, is worth that much. Is it possible to imagine that if Calvin or Luther had been such a lukewarm, spineless man in Hungarian, they could have been the means in God's hands to start the Reformation? Well then, if it took burning faith to reform the church, it must be needed to keep it! That is why the memory of the Reformation tells us today that each one of us must decide for himself where he belongs: to Christ or not to Christ? Let us be open and honest about whom we want to follow, but then let us follow whom we choose!
I know a serious believer, an older pastor, who has recently moved to a new church. He told me this. If someone answered yes, I believed him, but I also drew the conclusion of his statement, i.e., I treated him as one who already belonged to Christ. So I set him to such work, such service, as a man who has made up his mind for Christ not only ought to do, but naturally is happy to undertake. And so I found out whether he really was Christ's already, or whether he was just saying it!
My dear Brother, perhaps you too will now answer this question by saying that you have already made up your mind, and that you have decided for Christ. I believe that you have indeed decided, since you have already experienced that the Lord is God, or conversely, that the one true God is Lord of this world, both in the visible and invisible parts of it. There is no doubt in your mind that He is the only Lord of both the earthly and the unearthly, of your physical and spiritual life, of your salvation and of your everyday life beginning tomorrow. For we have heard so many times, and especially in last week's evangelisation, this Lord was so real to us that on the last night, by standing up from their seats, some fifty or sixty people openly confessed that they had accepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Now then, take this decision seriously and draw the consequences!
Communion is about to be served. Do you know what it means to get up from your seat, come to the Lord's table, stretch out your hand, receive and eat what the Lord Jesus is offering you here? It means that you say yes to His call in a visible and audible way. It is to openly reaffirm your decision for Christ in front of us all. But also draw the consequences of that decision! "If the Lord is God, follow him," says the prophet Elijah in our Word. So if your decision was not just a passing fancy, a sham, or an outward habit, but if your communion means that you are truly choosing Him, then now truly follow Him! To follow is, after all, the one who goes before me. Well, is Jesus going before me?" you ask. Yes, if you let Him, there is no corner of life on earth, no circumstance, no situation, no development, where Jesus will not go before you, if you let Him. So don't you go before Jesus, but ask Him to go before you, let Him go first! Then you can go boldly even to death if you go after Him!
A few days ago, I went to a place where I knew I would not be welcomed. An opponent awaits, preparing for battle. When I put my hand on the door handle, I cried out, "You go first, Lord! And I opened the door by literally letting Jesus go first! When I opened my mouth to speak, I again let Jesus go first, and only then did I speak. The results were wonderful for me and for him. Try it, let Jesus go first! From here on out, let Him go before you, and you always go after Him! Don't mind if the world thinks you're too much! It takes some heroic audacity to follow Christ in the ordinary life! This is heroic determination, holy boldness: this is the Reformation! Stop limping back and forth, for you already know that Christ is Lord! Follow in His footsteps!
Amen.
Date: 31 October 1948 (Reformation).