I've been skimming lately through the classical works of our Christian forefathers. I have grown to love contemporary books and yet, seeing the classical works, for instance of Jonathan Edwards, filled my heart with joy and grief. Joy because such forgotten works that are often labeled as "old-fashioned" when they are not really, are so full of truth! This brings me to the reason of my grief. What has happened to our age? How the flesh and the demands of the world have corrupted our writings!? How I wish most contemporary writings would be as the writings of old: unusually strong, true and totally grounded in Scripture.Reading the majority of modern day Christian books right after spending some time in the libraries of Pink and Tozer would deeply grieve a regenerate heart. How did it ever come that the truth was replaced with half-cooked, flesh-pleasing, crowd-sensitive conjectures? What have we done? What have we become? Should false fire ever be in place of the Spirit in the Lord's altar? Or could true fire from heaven fall on His people, amidst all the noise and clamor the world has generated?
The undying classics that we label as "old" and "inapplicable" are the most essential ones. I can go as far and say that such writings are the true ones and the last bastion of the Gospel here on earth. They have survived the mockeries of our wicked generation, have been tested by time and they have been blessed by the Lord as an act of mercy to His people. If He did not freely act to preserve His absolute truth, th
e world, in all its hatred for Christ, would eliminate or worse, pervert His Gospel in no time, leaving His elect wandering in the darkness forever.These "old" books written by godly men such as Edwards and Spurgeon, who have long passed to the next life, should be redeemed and reincorporated in our Church if the glories of salvation is to be understood and witnessed. Such fundamental, hard and Scripturally grounded truths are so rich that a hungry believer would wish he had lived in such classical times when the true Gospel was still abound, when preachers still swept the land with much plowing and sowing, when virtue still dominated sensuality and the words "repent and believe the Good News!" (Mark 1:14) were graciously heard.
Let me close in the words of Theoden of Rohan, a heathen king in the book the Lord of the Rings, "How did it come to this??"
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Here is a great archive for your study:
http://www.davidcox.com.mx/library/mobile/Authors.htm
Its all free and I encourage you to contribute or donate to this awesome e-book site.
1 comment:
Another question to be asked is, "why would the church, in the turn of a century, turn it's back to the beauty of the truth of Scripture, and substitute it with psychological feel good blabber?"
Why??
The beauty so great! The scripture so full of wonder---But still, men over the century saw it fit to think of something else.
How futile is the mind of men.
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