I think there is something more in Washer's preaching then a fitful mood or personality expression. Washer sounds like a man who has seen something real...
There is an ethos of false piety and decency in the American church that pacifies, quells, and deactivates the radical convert. The unsaved world may laugh and scoff and even hurt, imprison, or kill Christians. But modern American Christianity does something else to the heart of a Christian... by and large it denies the power of Godliness while claiming to possess the fullness of the Gospel.
I had mentioned earlier a sermon from Samuel Willard, a Boston puritan, who was crying out against the wickedness of the colonies circa 1700. In essence he said that a land is not wicked simply because wicked people live there. The wicked, he noted, have always been on the Earth, and the Godly have always had to coexist with them. No, instead, a land becomes wicked when those who are known to be righteous live as the wicked and do not suffer reproach for it. Furthermore, he noted that the damage done is that these “righteous” people are “indisputable denials of the power of Godliness.” Willard has described the American colonies circa 2007 perfectly.
I do not think it is too far to speculate that many sincere Christians, maybe even some right here at Sermon Index, are so grieved by the unreality that characterizes the American confession, that they secretly wonder if they are being prepared for real and outward persecution. They may fear open persecution, but they are weary of being lulled to sleep, and dissuaded of the truth by their lukewarm pastors and fellow congregants...I am not saying this interest in persecution is right, but the desire for reality instead of appearance is understandable.
Nothing is worse then false confession of true doctrine. When we claim that we grasp the doctrinal reality of Jesus' unimaginable condescension from glory to our disgraceful, state, and then respond with our own arrogant condescension to Him, we are denying what we claim to believe. Many who courteously oblige themselves to "accepting Jesus" may actually be moving further from the Kingdom of God, not closer. A lukewarm church member is at risk of becoming Gospel-proof…a smug condition worse off then that of the lowest rank sinner that the world would give up on. It would be better for everyone involved, from the true-hearted Christian who is controlled by the false-hearted pastor, to the black-hearted sinner who stumbles over hypocrasy, if false oaths were taken under some other banner then the Gospel of Jesus.
He said to the disciples, "It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come! It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.
MC
