Problems Confronting The Church - No. IV
Phil. 1.27 "that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel; and in nothing affrighted by the adversaries: which is for them an evident token of perdition, but of your salvation, and that from God; because to you it hath been granted in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer in his behalf: having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me,"
That passage expresses in the spirit of it some of the very fundamentals of true religion—fidelity to God, loyalty to his truth, a manner of life which means action in harmony with a conviction worthy of the high character of the gospel. I have been impressed by the fact that one of the very many problems the church faces is the lack of understanding, on the part of members of the church, of what Christianity really is. We judge at by the wrong standards. When Samuel went down to anoint one of the sons of Jesse to be king over Israel, he was so impressed by the outward appearance of Eliab that he said, "Surely, the Lord's anointed is before me." But God said, "Look not on his countenance, or the height of his stature; because I have refused him: for the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart."
The thing that leads us astray in many religious matters, that is really the basis of departures from the divine order, is the fact that God's plan measured by human wisdom doesn't look impressive enough. We are not willing to abide by it. A lot of people are not impressed by religion unless it is put in statistics, or in the form that makes a big impression. I hear people, sometimes good people, zealous people, say we are not doing anything, that we ought to "do" something. Well, of course, people ought to do, but there is something that is more important than doing, and that is being. You've got to be something before you can do something. And what you are is not always manifest at first glance.
I think I can illustrate that point. In one of the larger cities here was an elder, a very able man, very devout and understanding elder in the church. One man came to this elder and said, "I don't want to be a hypocrite, and I am not getting anything out of the church, it doesn't mean much to me, I don't feel it, I am discouraged, and I am just going to quit." This elder, a man of very great discernment, said, "Well, we're mighty sorry about that, but he said if that's the way you feel we wouldn't request you to continue as a member of this congregation—but first, will you do me a favor? There's a family down on a certain street, at a certain number, that I have been rather quietly looking after, I haven't brought it before the church; but the man there is sick and out of work; he has a family, a wife and some children, and they are always in need; I have been supplying, as a sort of personal matter, some of their needs; I haven't seen them in several days; take this money, find out what they need, and get it." The brother went down there, walked in, looked the situation over, asked a few questions, sat down and talked and observed the conditions, went off, took the money the elder had given him, added about twice that much of his own, supplied the needs of that family, and came back to the elder and said: "I get the point, I have the lesson; don't take my name off the church book; I think I have found out exactly what's the matter with me."
Things like that don't look big enough to some people. Names that never go into statistics, that never go into the reports in the paper, work that's done that nobody knows about but the individual himself, make up most of the power of Christianity and its influence over the lives of men.
I recall some months ago that the congregation where I lived mailed a check, I believe for $300.00, to an orphan's home. It was proudly announced, "Why the contribution to that was $300.00" A short time after that one of the women of the church came to the house and knocked, and said, "Bro. Wallace, I want to talk to you." I said, "All right, what about—money?" "Well," she said, "you know about the woman way down there in a certain section with all of those children." Well, I knew this woman; performed her wedding ceremony in Weatherford a way back in 1918, and they've been having children ever since, there have been about 13 in all. The man is a veteran of World War I, and he had a stroke here some three or four years ago, and is in the Veteran's Hospital. I had observed that woman; she was always at the meetings of the church, and I wondered how in the world she got along. She had six or seven children right there at home; she was working to make a living, but she just couldn't make the grade, and had become ill. I said, "I'll go down and see her" I walked in and I said, "How are you getting along?" "Not doing so well." I said, "What's the matter with you, what did the doctor say?" She was rather vague, and I said, "To tell the truth about it, I don't think you're much sick. I think you're worried to death. How much grocery bill do you owe, that you can't pay?" She said there was about eighty or ninety dollars in all, and they were pressing her for the money and she didn't have it. I said, "How much have you got here in the house to eat?" She broke down and went to crying, no food, no milk, not anything. I said, "You get me those grocery bills." The treasurer of the church wrote a check to pay those bills, and sent her a check in addition to that. And I came back to her and said, "Now, quit worrying, get well, go on doing the best you can, and when you need help, let us know about it."
We need to know that real religion consists of a lot of little things, little from the standpoint of the world, that do not make as good reading as some big institutional report does. God intended that his work should be done for the individual through the local church and not through some human institution. In other words, God thinks more of a half dozen people that love him and serve him by carrying on his work in a scriptural way than he does some great big outfit, regardless of how big a temple they own, or how much resources they have accumulated, and how much worldly impression they are able to make.
But that is not really what I intended to talk about tonight, so I'll get to it.
The Problem Of Division
That problem of division. I don't know how many places I have been called where the church was divided. Much of the teaching of the New Testament on the unity question is directed to the local congregation. In the Philippian letter the apostle said: "If there is therefore any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassions, make full my joy, that ye be of the same mind, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind; doing nothing through faction or through vainglory, but in lowliness of mind, each counting other better than himself." Divisions in the church, cleavages and schisms in a congregation can do a lot to neutralize God's plan. Paul said, as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of the body being many, are one body; so also is Christ," and, "Now hath God set the members each one of them in the body, even as it pleased him;" and, "there should be no schism," no torn or rent places in the body; no divisions among you, but be "joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment."
One time I was called to Dallas, over there at Sears and Summit, for a meeting. I got off the train on Sunday morning. The first thing I knew about it, Clarence Cockrell broke the news gently to me that the church had split wide open the Sunday before. They hadn't told anybody, but the preacher and about a hundred members had pulled off, and everybody was mad enough to kill everybody else. I felt a whole lot like the Southern gentleman did that went to the bank to cash a check when he passed his check in. the teller said, "This bank is insolvent; the last check has been paid." He said, "You means to tell me that this here bank is busted?" The teller said, "That's what we mean—it's closed." The gentleman man said, "Well, that's the fust time I'se ever had a bank to bust right in my face!" Now that church had busted right in my face. Well, of course, we spent all the time in that meeting talking about personal matters and wrestling with problems that ought never have existed. We ought to have been free, with the church behind the work, to try to convert others and make Christians out of somebody else. Time after time we find those problems of divisions. What's the cause of them? They are problems—personalities, divisions, parties, factional spirit, and all that.
The Leadership Problem
Many times I find that "referendum and a recall" problem, somebody in the church dissatisfied with the leadership, dissatisfied with the elders—especially if the elders won't go off into some sort of a scheme they have concocted and consider very important—and there will be insurgency in a spirit of rebellion, an appeal to the majority rule, the mob spirit, and manifestations of the wildest sort of democracy. We've seen that. I don't suppose that any big problems have arisen that caused a lot of divisions, such as digression and things like that, that weren't accompanied by an appeal to the majority rule ignoring the fact that the New (Testament teaches that a church should be under the elders, under the oversight of men of age, experience and wisdom, and scriptural qualifications, the work to The directed by them. The younger should submit to the older, but its got to where the elders submit to the young people, in a good many instances, or will engage a preacher they hear about without too much regard for his qualifications, his background, or his reputation. They call him in and turn their work over to him. Then the first thing they know he has taken their work away and when they try to get it back, they see the mistake they have made, try to right it, and they've got trouble. An appeal is then made to the inexperienced and the thoughtless, and a faction built up in a party spirit around the preacher, is the result—a situation that will always bring many years of trouble.
Sometimes you will find a church that has reached a point of saturation in a community. It looks like they have baptized about all the people they can (baptize, they've reached the static stage; and then they get into a rut, the spirit of restlessness and of dissatisfaction arises, and you have a perfect set-up for division. Then sometimes we'll find that an old church will begin to disintegrate and show signs of senility; they begin to die instead of constantly being rejuvenated and built up in their spiritual life. All these matters will result in the evil that we now as division, and these are all problems that, enter in leadership.
The Problem Of Undercover Activities
A good many divisions are caused by men slipping in, or sneaking in, or acting along lines of sabotage, stirring up a rebellion in favor of false principles and false doctrines. There is the doctrine that we know as premillennialism. You know its got to where in a good many places people don't want to hear that name. Any system of religion that has to have a name that long to describe, I can't get much enthused over it, to say the least of it. But premillennialism is not dead. I think I made the remark in an article here awhile back, a sort of a wisecrack, that you couldn't find the track of one that wasn't too cold for a hound to smell, but the truth of the matter is they have just gone under cover. You know a movement sometimes can just go underground. You can think you have it whipped out, but premillennialism is a peculiar thing. I remember being called for a meeting over at a certain town, I could tell you where it was, and I could tell you who had been holding their meetings, for that was what was the matter with them, but I won't do that—it isn't nice to call names anyhow—but they called me over there for a meeting. A truck driver (I like truck drivers, but sometimes when they are elders of the church and think they are too smart, they can do some mighty silly things) wrote me that he wanted to request me to say nothing about premillennialism. I knew, of course, exactly what they needed. On Sunday morning I said, "We're going to have a special service tonight, and I want to give you fair warning. I'm going to preach on premillennialism. I am going to preach an hour and a half, and it is going to be just as hot as—well, it's going to be hotter and if you don't feel like you can stand it, stay away." One of the elders said to another, "I knew he'd do it. I knew he'd do it. I tried to tell you not to write him that letter." Well, the biggest crowd they had during the week was there, and the weather was hot, and the sermon was hotter. Everybody was interested in it. I didn't go back there for another meeting, and as far as that's concerned, I didn't want to, and didn't mean to because I said everything I knew in that meeting.
But uninformed people say, "Well, what's the need of bringing up these old dead Issues?" Do you know what premillennialism is? Now, I am not going to discuss that tonight, because I am talking to people who are well informed and well warned on the matter, but premillennialism is a system of such character that a man who knows what it is, and believes it, cannot believe the gospel. A premillennialist does not believe that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God. When I make a statement of that sort somebody says, "Why, that is one of the wildest, most radical statements I ever heard—why, all of them believe that." Ask a premillennialist if he believes that Jesus is the Christ the Son of God, and he will say, of course, that he does, that we all believe that. But they don't do anything of the kind. I can take their books, take their theory, take their teaching, and prove that they believe in a composite Christ, that the Christ is "Jesus and the church", a composite Christ. Well, that's just one point. The system denies that the kingdom of Daniel 2:44 has been set up. Jesus Christ preached its near approach and said the time was fulfilled; John the baptizer, and the disciples, during the personal ministry, preached that the kingdom was at hand; and Jesus even went so far as to say that it would be set up while some of them lived, but millennialists say the kingdom was postponed; that it was not set up, that God defaulted on his promises; that Jesus went to heaven and instead of being crowned as king in heaven, he is king by right only, not in act, fact, or might; not exercising authority as king at all, and will not until he comes again; that the Roman Empire, old pagan Rome, must arise again, be re-established, before the kingdom can be set up. Furthermore, Solomon's temple must be rebuilt, Judaism restored, requiring an interchange of shadow and type. In other words Christianity is the antitype and Judaism was the type, but Judaism, the type, is coming back, the Jews will be converted and restored to Palestine, their old worship re-established, With all the nationalism they ever had—all of which is an integral part of the premillennial system. Yet the comparatively few brethren who embraced that materialistic idea a good many years ago, just keep hammering away on it, refusing to renounce their materialism or abandon their divisive work. Yet at the same time, they conceal their activities in various places, and do a work of sabotage, creeping in unawares, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples, rising right up in our own midst at every opportunity, and all that sort of thing. Well, that is a congregational issue—a real problem of under-cover agents in the churches.
The trademarks of the system are to be seen in its fruits. They will invariably evade the issue by their stock remark: "Oh, I don't believe the theory but"—but they do all they can to help the party!
But they want us to refrain from mentioning premillennialism, and exposing its character and consequences. Suppose Adventism is running rampant through a community, and the brethren tell me not to say anything about the Adventists, or Jehovah's Witnesses, if they happen to be overrunning a section of the country, just don't mention them. That is out of harmony with the entire spirit of the New Testament. It is just plain pitiful to think about how many deviations from the principles of New Testament teaching there are in the system, and instead of brethren hush-hushing the proposition, they ought to cry out against it and spare none of its teaching or its teachers. A system that has so many doctrinal deviations from fundamentals, accompanied by a softness and an attitude that is contrary to the spirit of New Testament constitutes a doctrinal problem. It still is and we ought to be alert regarding those things.
Paul said to the elders of the church, "Take heed unto yourselves, and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit hath made you bishops, to feed the church of the Lord which he purchased with his own blood. I know that after my departing grievous wolves shall enter in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them." Regarding these false teachers, Paul called them grievous wolves, and they were members of the church. Every so often we read an article from some brother who says we should never speak unkindly of any member of the church, always treat him as a brother. Well, I don't go around indiscriminately calling the brethren wolves, but you know, Paul called certain men in the Ephesian church wolves, and he called some of them in the Philippian church dogs. Was he unkind? You know, he was mighty good to the folks that needed kindness; he was protecting the flock against the inroads of the wolves—destructive men who were seducers. Was Jesus unkind? He said, "Beware of false prophets that come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly are ravening wolves;" and "by their fruits ye shall know them." I ought not to call a man a wolf unless he is, and you ought not to refer to anybody as a dog unless he is, and then only when it is necessary. But to say that under no circumstances shall any language of that sort be used toward anybody, and take a passage of scripture and apply it to a situation that was never intended to forbid it—well, Paul did things like that, and Christ did things like that, "Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ," and "stand fast in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the gospel."
The faith of the gospel is a system, once for all delivered, not to be changed modified or altered. It is not to be trimmed and remodeled to meet the changing conditions of any age. The gospel is a static proposition, its facts are unchangeable, its commands are dogmatic and its promises are definite and sure.
The Problems Of The Secular Age
The church has always been influenced by environment, always. It was so in New Testament times, the environment of the Roman Empire had a lot to do with the final apostasy; the problems of the early church in matters of doctrine came from environment, many of them—Judaism on one hand and paganism on the other. The heresies that plagued the church during the first century came out of Judaism and paganism, Catholicism itself is a strange mixture of Judaism and paganism with a little bit of Christianity. Today the church is influenced a lot by environment and the secular spirit of the age, in economic and social matters.
The secular spirit can be illustrated even from the New Testament. Paul told Timothy to "charge them that are rich in this world that they be not high-minded, nor have their hope set on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy; that they do good, that they be ready to distribute, willing to communicate, laying up for themselves a good foundation against the time to come, and may lay hold on the life to come." Jesus struck right at the heart of it when a young man came to him and wanted to be his disciple, asking what he must do to inherit eternal life. Jesus looked at him and saw something that the young man didn't even know he had, and his friends perhaps were not aware of it-an inordinate love for money. Paul said, "They that are minded to be rich fall into the temptation and snares and many foolish and hurtful lusts, such as drown men in destruction and perdition," Jesus told the young man if he would be perfect, to sell what he had, give it to the poor and "come and follow me." When the choice was put up to him, he found out that he loved what he had more than he loved the Lord and his cause. That ended that.
The secular spirit of the age—a man had a piece of ground that brought forth plentifully, and had nowhere to bestow his grain and his goods. He said he would pull down his barns and build greater barns, and with the produce of the soil, he said, "'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry." The man made three mistakes. He thought he could feed his soul on corn: Well, you can't do that. "Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God." He thought he had an unlimited time to live. God said, "Thou fool, this night is thy soul required of thee; the things which thou hast prepared, whose shall they be?
So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God." You remember that Jesus said that the cares of the world, the deceitfulness of riches and the lusts of other things choke out the word and it becomes unfruitful. Well, look at the church, in any community where you go—the condition is more pronounced in some places than others—we have to make a living, we have to eat, we have to wear clothes, we have to pay bills, and all. That's legitimate, a man is to look after his affairs and all that, but are we putting the things of the kingdom first? After a man gets through with his business and his social engagements, and attends to the things that have to do with the material, with the secular, he doesn't have any time for meeting, doesn't have any time to attend to the Lord's business, doesn't have any money left for the church. That's what I mean by the secular spirit of the age, allowing these other matters to crowd out. You can't serve God and mammon. I can give you names and post office addresses of some people who spend more money for baby sitters so they can go to bridge games and social affairs than they give to the church.
The Problem Of Giving
Secular things are legitimate in their own place and a properly circumscribed zone, but the things of the kingdom come first. What we do for the church in money and time, is just "tipping" the Lord a little on the side.
Talking on the matter of giving, Paul said it should be by equality. I take it that that would mean time, and mean money, and things of that sort, that all cannot do the same thing, because all do not have the same ability. You know equality doesn't mean the same amount. I heard that illustrated one time, but I won't vouch for this story; there is a little element of the story that I have always doubted, but I'm going to tell it. A man was making a very fervent appeal for a worthy cause, and it touched the hearts of the people. They passed around the hat, and there were two fellows sitting back side by side, one was a millionaire and the other was a day laborer. The day laborer put in ten dollars, and the millionaire put in ten dollars, but they didn't give equally at all. Now here is the part of the story I'm not so sure about, as the story went, the next day the poor man got a telegram that a rich uncle had died and left him a million dollars. The millionaire got a telegram from his mother-in-law that she was coming to stay with him for six months. And the moral was, Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Too much ambition to accumulate things for our own use and for our own selfish interests, and all that, interferes with the work of the church. You know, sacrifice means something, and the secular spirit will cancel out in too many instances the spirit of sacrifice.
The Preacher's And Elder's Problems
You know, there is a difference in the preaching problem and the problem of the preacher. You take a preacher's problem, any conscientious preacher has his problems, and that doesn't mean he is trying to run things, but a lot of members of the church make themselves a problem for the preacher. Nobody should want to be a problem to the church. But I find members of the church who have the wrong attitude. They think it is the preacher's business to look after them. The church will turn a lot of work over to the preacher that the members ought to do, and there are some people in the church with so sensitive a make-up that the preacher has to give them special attention to keep them in a good humor. One woman said to me the other day, "Brother Wallace, you never have come to see me." I said, "Well, if I come around, it will be because I think there is something the matter with you." People should take it as a compliment when the preacher lets them alone, he thinks they do not need him. Sometimes people want to sit around and be receiving attention all the time from somebody. That is not the idea in the church. It is not what I can get out of it; it is what I can put into it, what I can be doing, instead of being a problem, or care. Contribute something yourself in interest and in money, and it will cure your complaints against the preacher's visiting schedule.
I find the elders have problems. I really have sympathy for conscientious, qualified elders of a congregation. They have more responsibility, more cares, more obligations; they do more with less reward in the way of praise, than any other group of men in the church. But there is always some preacher or some member of the church picking on some good man who is an elder of a congregation, talking about his boys or his wife, or another member of his family, if not about him. Good elders in a church certainly have their problems and cares, on the other hand, the church may have an elder problem. Maybe he is not qualified, maybe he is not conscientious, maybe he is stubborn, insistent on having his own way, maybe he is self-willed, maybe he is quick-tempered and gets angry. A careless fellow went into a powder mill, where powder magazines were built and stacked up in a pile; and he lighted a match, pitched it over in a pile of powder, and it burned up a lot of valuable stuff before they could put it out. You know a lot of times one man can set more on fire in a few words than all the rest of us can put out in years. Take a man who is a preacher, leader or an elder in the church, who can't be reasoned with, who has his own ideas about things, is self-willed, contentious, well, he is a problem. Some elders become problems, which congregations have to face in many instances.
The "Young People" Problem
In recent years everywhere I go, I hear about a young people's problem, but I have never felt that we had a young people's problem at all. I think it is somewhere else. I know in nearly every congregation where I have stayed any length of time, somebody who doesn't !know too much about it, becomes suddenly concerned about our young people, and they begin to plan and they begin to talk and they begin to agitate, that something must be done for our young people; and they finally manage to stir up something to be done for our young people that the young people themselves never did think of and never did want, and won't support by their attendance when the thing is started. Well, what about young people? They are members of the church. What about them, don't they need training? Certainly they need training; they need the kind of Christian education that the church offers, and anything, whether it is a meeting, regular or otherwise for them, or for them and somebody else, that will contribute to their increased knowledge and their increase of ability to work, is well and good. But to create in a church a young people's consciousness, that something special has to be done for them; and if we are going to hold the young people we must do this, and we must do that, is nothing in the world but just pure bunk. You know I have resented it on behalf of the young people, and I think they have resented too, being made the goat for somebody else's subversive schemes. Way back yonder when somebody wanted to put an organ in the church, wanted to have societies, and wanted to imitate and ape everything that the sectarians did, they made the young people the goat, used them for an excuse, and said: "We've got to have an organ to hold the young people." Well that wasn't so; it wasn't the young people who were crying for it, unless somebody else had put them up to it, and they never would have thought about it. Now our sectarian neighbors have got this, and they've got that, and if we hold our young people, we must have something like it. I've got enough confidence in the integrity and the honesty and the good sense of my young people to believe that it doesn't take anything but the gospel and its spiritual program to hold them. You know, the gospel won't hold some people. There is something wrong with people when you've got to offer something besides the gospel to get them, keep offering them something besides the gospel to keep them. The church may fail to give its young people the spiritual help they need, and seeing their young people losing interest in church activities, determine to provide a social or recreational program that is planned to attract and hold young people. Picture shows, parties, ball teams, banquets and numerous other devices may be used. These activities may all be good in their place, for Christian parents who feel responsible for the recreation of their children, but they have no place in the program or work of the church. In other words, a lot of parents want to turn their responsibilities over to the church.
Now, you know, we have raised a good many children at our house. Brother W. A. Schultz went out into the country for dinner over in Arkansas; looked around and saw the yard full of children, and he said to the woman, "Sister, how many children have you got anyhow?" She said, "Eleven," He said, "Well, that's better than having so many ain't it?" We haven't had quite that many, but we have a pretty good bunch of children at my house, and I've never felt it the duty of the church to provide recreation for them. If I did, I wouldn't confess it. I've never felt that I had to turn them over to the church to be entertained, I have a responsibility as a parent, and you have a responsibility as a parent. They are activities that pertain to the home, and you can't turn your children over to the church, or anybody else, to furnish the entertainment and things like that, that they need.
The church has its mission to perform, and has its teaching to do, but a man, even in his youth, has spiritual needs. The church is uniquely designed to satisfy these special needs. If the church does not have a program, a worship and service program, a spiritual program, that satisfies its youth, let it never deceive itself in thinking it can hold them with entertainment and pleasure. You know that spiritual service; consists in preaching and worship and work, but the church cannot compete with other organizations of a community on a social entertainment basis.
Modern youth is starved spiritually. That hunger will not be satisfied with socials, camping trips, or athletic activities, as wholesome as all these things are in their proper place; the church must give the bread of life, and when it does it will draw young and old. Now that is so.
Take our young people's meetings. Well, they are creating a class consciousness, you know, that idea of doing something for "our young people" as a special class in the church. In sectarian churches they have a young people's church—the junior church—they have their own organization, their own elders, and when they get through with their work, they go home or somewhere else.
Young peoples consciousness—we don't need that in the church. There is one of our problems, and it is a problem that has arisen because of a false emphasis. You know, a lot of church troubles over the country come from young peoples' meetings and women's meetings. I want to be understood here; I would not discourage a young peoples' meeting for any proper purpose, or a women's meeting for any proper purpose, but I wonder, I get to thinking about it sometimes, people come to meeting on Sunday morning at ten o'clock, and stay there until twelve, in Bible classes, preaching and worship, and then they are asked to come back again in the evening, and spend another hour or hour and a half, in Bible classes, which is "the Sunday School all over again," as one expressed preliminary to the evening preaching. Well, about four hours of it in all—and I wonder if it is practical, Some good things can be overdone.
The Women's Problems
Then there is the problem of women's meetings. They meet to study the Bible, that's fine. And it may be that there is some work among the poor, and it may be that they will do some sewing, making clothes, quilts and things of that sort to be distributed among the poor, and that's fine. But, you know, women everywhere are not like they are here. Somewhere there will be a women's meeting that doesn't have much oversight, it is not "watched, and there will be one or two women of the kind they ought not to be who start talking, and they will pick the elders to pieces, and somebody else to pieces, and the first thing you know it turns into a gossip session. A lot of dissatisfaction is stirred up in the church. I can give you a case in point, but had better not call any names in this connection. I went to a place to preach, moved there, in fact it is where I am now, A man and his wife came there, good people, and she was a delightful little woman, and looked all right, but she talked! The fact is she talked, talked, talked. She had come from some wild place in California with wild ideas, and she felt like we ought to do things just exactly like they do them out there. She went to the elders, and she'd tell them, they ought to do this, and she thought they ought to do that. Well she came down to see me about the church, "Now, Bro. Wallace, here's what I think the elders ought to do; here's what I think everybody else ought to do." She had the whole thing mapped out, and I listened for about an hour. My wife sat there as she talked and talked, and finally she turned to me and said, "Bro. Wallace, what do you think about that?" I said, "All right, you've asked me what I think, and I'm going to tell you. The first thing I think is that you talk too much. And it isn't your business to come here and run this church. The elders of this church were here long before you came and my advice to you is to keep quiet and let them run this church like it was intended they do. You may give them whatever womanly counsel you can in a womanly way; that will be fine; but you are out of your place." Well, the Sister blew up and said, "I'll never speak to you again."
There are some things that need to be said and have to be said when somebody starts talking too much, or somebody goes acting out of turn, and it is one of those problems that come up all along in the work of the church. I am going to leave until tomorrow evening, a few definite things that I want to say about a few more problems on some fundamental issues. The preachers should be learning what the gospel is, and learn what an issue is, and learn what the Lord's plan is, and bear down and bear down hard on fundamentals, keeping before the people the demands of God, and the loyalty that ought to always move human hearts in obeying the will of the Lord.