MANHANDLING THE DOCTRINE OF GOD.

Richard Baxter, Christian, Puritan, said "The Word of God is our doctrine, but our mode of dispensing it is human; and there is scarcely anything we have the handling of, but we leave on it the prints of our fingers."

Crystal glass is smudged the moment we pick it up in our bare hands and so it is that the Word of God can be smudged in human hands.

There are those who take the Word of God and handle it in a way they think is pure, palatable and all part of the masterpiece to be dispensed to the masses. They are dumb to the smudges they have applied to work of the Divine Artist and ignorant of the damage they do to the advancement of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I was reminded of this when reading of the revival blessing from God in America involving Asahel Nettleton in the early part of the 19th Century. A ministry reliant on devoted prayer to God, faithful and short preaching of the Word of God and simple despatching of the audience with a request for them to go quietly and retire to their home and pray to God was the means for so many conversions it has been seen as a revival. Yet, as with other like revivals of times past, Satan works through the weaknesses of men. There arose in Charles Finney and his supporters a "New Measure", a means of working up revival and urging of hearers to respond to the preaching by identification and immediate reception into the Kingdom.

The work wrought at Finney's hands was seen to be damaging to the existing revival and believed to produce stony ground within which 'conversions' wilted overnight. Asahel Nettleton, at the urging of others in America, England and Scotland, attempted to convince Finney and his supporters of the errors of their way. It fell on deaf ears.

The 20th and 21st Century each bear testimony of the smudging of the pure Word of God in Genesis as so called evangelicals handle and present it in a manner which grubbily negates the simplicity and truth contained therein. Just as Finney worked on the worldly senses of his audience to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ the so called evangelical today seeks to appease the worldly senses of the audience to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Today's world view on Origins is allowed to smudge the reading of Genesis 1.

In both Finney and so called evangelicals of today the Holy Spirit of God is quenched of Divine will to work a conviction in the heart of man to trust with simplicity and sincerity the Word of God to salvation in Jesus Christ.

Sam Drucker