Many will say in that final hour: "Lord, Lord, have we not preached
in your name? " and He will reply to these Bible thumpers: "Depart from
me for I know you not!" Others will say: "Lord, Lord, have we not cast
out demons in your name?" And He will say to these Pentecostalists:
"Depart from me. I know you not!. Yes, and many Anglicans and Romans
will say: "Lord, have we not eaten and drunk in your prescence? " and He
will say to those who make so much of Mass and the Lord's Supper:
"Depart from me ye hypocrites"; and such as these 'will go in to
everlasting punishment'.
Sobering thoughts! So what do I intend to do for Jesus this
Christmastide? God forbid that 'having preached to others I myself, at
the last, should end up a castaway!’ Reader, there is no doctrine of
eternal security in the Gospel; because along with every assurance there
is a condition. The 'ifs' of the New Testament are as numerous as the 'verilies'.
"Self assurance", as dear old G.K.Chesterton used to say, "is no
assurance". Our psychiatric hospitals are full of those who believe they
are kings and queens. They are there because no one else believes them
to be!" Jesus said: "By their deeds you will know them!“
Indeed, how uplifting to have learned about a delightful young lady -
once my church organist – who had spent her Sunday mornings, as a
youngster in Scarborough, canvassing with her Dad. He was not a
churchgoer, but when not amusing himself as a member of a band, both
father and daughter had covered almost every house in Scarborough
telling folk of the appalling animal cruelty that went on. And at each
door he asked the occupants to sign a petition form. That delightful
gentleman - unlike his deeply religious daughter - may not have been 'a
believer'. But never tell me for one moment that he wasn't doing the
work of Christ. For as the philosopher Maritain so aptly remarked
‘wherever there Is genuine goodness, there Is Christ, whether we know
Him by name or not!’
Such a man's actions - along with his lovely daughter’s – reminded me
of my own mother’s words: “James, don’t just dream about good deeds; go
out and do them!” Yes, how wise such words were! Yet there was a time
when I told her that she would never go to Heaven because she hadn’t
been ‘born again’ in my interpretation of the phrase. Indeed, whereas my
teenage life had been spent going around the various evangelical
missions and rival gospel halls, testifying and praying, Mother had
spent her teenage life distributing pork pies to the starving urchins of
Newcastle’s slums. Indeed, whereas I was told on receiving my wage on a
Friday: that a tenth of this must go to the church, Mother had spent
almost the last penny of her pay-packet procuring pork pies at a shop
along Scotswood Road. As a twenty year old, I spouted on the street
corners of Glasgow’s notorious Gorbals; but my Mother as a twenty year
old had fed the bare footed bairns on the street corners of Newcastle’s
Edwardian slums!
Animal Padre's
