By Kelton Whale
A wealthy man who was high bidder for a slave said to him, “I have paid $300.00 for you in order to set you free. You have been redeemed.” The grateful slave fell at the feet of his redeemer and declared, “I will serve you faithfully the rest of my life.” This story vividly portrays what redemption from the slavery of sin should mean to a redeemed child of God.
In Tit. 2:14, we read that Christ “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.” This verse points out beautifully the obligation of the redeemed, and should inspire each of us to sing truthfully and with genuine joy, “I want to be a worker for the Lord.”
The greatest need of Americans and the world today is to be made to realize that they are in. bondage to sin (1 John 5:19). Our own America has become a vast moral disaster area. The greatest opportunity in the world today is that of making known by the church God’s wonderful plan of salvation from sin. So, the best thing the church can do today is stop trying to “improve” on God’s plan and “get in” on it. We do not need “better plans on file,” we need “better Christians on fire.”
We are living in a shallow society where “country club Christianity” makes it extremely difficult to establish (even sometimes, renew) true faith, worship and godly living. It appears that the devil is no longer persecuting Christianity in America, he is “professing” it. He is not fighting us, he is j6ining us in his deceitful work (2 Cor. 2:11; Revelation 20:23). This serves to magnify the obligation of the redeemed.
What can the redeemed do when almost everyone we meet claims some sort of church connection? To meet the great challenge some of our brethren have come up with the idea that if we have enough members, money, methods and means we can win the world. Massive, globe-circling campaigns and other such tactics have started a more devastating fire in the Lord’s church than Samson’s three hundred foxes started among the Philistines (Judges 15:4,5).
God does not work that way. He is in the “remnant business” and always has been. It has always been the “few” that God could depend upon to do his will. Therefore, the obligation of the redeemed becomes a personal obligation for each child of God redeemed from sin as well as a collective one for the church (Mt. 25:21, 23, 31-46).
We who are redeemed from sin have the greatest message to tell that will ever be heard by the world. Let there be kindled within our hearts a bright, new flame of sacred love for the lost, and let us tune our lips to sing of His saving grace. The gospel of Christ is still the “power of God” to save the lost (Rom. 1:16).
Truth Magazine XXII: 27, p. 437
July 13, 1978