As in every other field, there are some misfits in the ministry. There are wolves in sheep’s clothing (Matthew 7:15). A wolf is doubly dangerous wearing a sheepskin and a preacher who makes a living in the church whose faith he denies is the worst of hypocrites. At least Bob Ingersoll stayed out of the pulpit! Then there are Davids in Saul’s armor, loaded down with paraphernalia from a conventional arsenal when God meant for them to use sling and stone. There are servants upon horses and princes on foot (Ecclesiastes 10:7). Preachers who can’t preach sometimes occupy chief seats in the synagogue while truly great preachers often minister in Podunk. We shall be surprised both ways at the judgment and will need to revise Who’s Who in the Ministry. If it were a matter of merit, some now on horseback would be hitchhiking. But whether one’s travel be equestrian or pedestrian, his one responsibility is to be faithful. If time fails to recognize the truly great, eternity will reveal them.
Devotion of the Day
Living A Double Life
They feared the Lord, and served their own Gods.
II Kings 17:33
The Lord was the God of their lips but not of their lives. And their number is legion today who give God the allegiance of lip but not life. Our Lord described them, quoting from Isaiah: “The people draweth nigh me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.” He asked, “Why call ye me Lord, Lord, and do not the things which I say?” Paul writes of those “who profess that they know God; but in works they deny him.”
It is an awful hypocrisy that declares with the lips what it denies with the life. We lie when we profess to fear the Lord at 11 A. M. on Sunday after we have served our own gods all week. “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve.” Worship and work must bear the same witness. It is what we serve that tells the tale. The shame of too many church members is that they lead a double life; they fear the Lord and serve their own gods.