After the assassination of Martin Luther King, at a meeting while the people were still in shock, a chap gave a speech where he first stated that ‘our leader is not dead’ and then that ‘Martin Luther King was not the leader of the civil rights movement’. The crowd groaned thinking it would become a leadership struggle amongst opportunists and the whole thing would fall apart.
Then he went on to say ‘Our leader is the one who parted the Red Sea, who led the people out of slavery, who was born in a stable, who was crucified, died and rose from the dead.’ He is our leader.
In times of crisis, as our church is now facing a global flood of sex scandals and abuse cases and a revelation of the growing extent of homosexual paedophile predators within our church and seminaries which is utterly bewildering to the faithful; we need to focus on the one who is in overall control, rather than those whose past negligence, complacency and evil deeds have brought the church to this point.
Our prayers are needed to purge the church of this great evil that has taken root and even become a dominant subculture in some places. Anyone who has had an enema knows it is an unpleasant necessity.
Whilst the obscene actions of so many must fill us with disgust I believe the Lord is relentless in bringing about the transformation of His church, ‘to be without spot or stain’ and so will continue to send His church messengers to lift the lid on what is inside, until there is a change of heart and a return to holiness.
We can remain confident that whatever enemies the church has (even within its ranks) that ‘the gates of the underworld will never hold out against it’.
