Routine -
The Church's Greatest Enemy
What is the worst enemy the church faces today?
This is where a lot of unreality and unconscious hypocrisy
enters. Many are ready to say, "The liberals are our worst
enemy." But the simple fact is that the average evangelical
church does not have too much trouble with liberalism. Nobody
gets up in our churches and claims that the first five books of
Moses are just myths. Nobody says that the story of creation is
simply religious mythology. Nobody denies that Christ walked on
the water or that He rose from the grave. Nobody gets up in our
churches and claims that Jesus Christ is not the Son of God or
that He isn't coming back again. Nobody denies the validity of
the Scriptures. We just cannot hide behind liberalism and say
that it is our worst enemy. We believe that evangelical
Christians are trying to hold on to the truth given to us, the
faith of our fathers, so the liberals are not our worst enemy.
Neither do we have a problem with the government. People in our
country can do just about whatever they please and the
government pays no attention. We can hold prayer meetings all
night if we want, and the government would never bother us or
question us. There is no secret police breathing down our backs
watching our every move. We live in a free land, and we ought to
thank God every day for that privilege.
The treacherous enemy facing the church of Jesus Christ today is
the dictatorship of the routine, when the routine becomes "lord"
in the life of the church. Programs are organized and the
prevailing conditions are accepted as normal. Anyone can
predict next Sunday's service and what will happen. This seems
to be the most deadly threat in the church today. When we come
to the place where everything can be predicted and nobody
expects anything unusual from God, we are in a rut.
The routine dictates, and we can
tell not only what will happen next Sunday, but what will occur
next month and, if things do not improve, what will take place
next year. Then we have reached the place where what has been
determines what is, and what is determines what will be.
- A. W. Tozer
