A Pilgrim's Journal

This is an extra-biblical story about the Apostle John, as told by Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 to 215 A.D.) in his article "Who is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved?."

This is the last section of the piece, and I find it so powerful that I'm moved to tears almost every time I read it.

And that you may be still more confident, that repenting thus truly there remains for you a sure hope of salvation, listen to a tale, which is not a tale but a narrative, handed down and committed to the custody of memory, about the Apostle John. For when, on the tyrant's death, he returned to Ephesus from the isle of Patmos, he went away, being invited, to the contiguous territories of the nations, here to appoint bishops, there to set in order whole Churches, there to ordain such as were marked out by the Spirit.

Having come to one of the cities not far off (the name of which some give ), and having put the brethren to rest in other matters, at last, looking to the bishop appointed, and seeing a youth, powerful in body, comely in appearance, and ardent, said, "This (youth) I commit to you in all earnestness, in the presence of the Church, and with Christ as witness." And on his accepting and promising all, he gave the same injunction and testimony. And he set out for Ephesus. And the presbyter taking home the youth committed to him, reared, kept, cherished, and finally baptized him. After this he relaxed his stricter care and guardianship, under the idea that the seal of the Lord he had set on him was a complete protection to him. But on his obtaining premature freedom, some youths of his age, idle, dissolute, and adepts in evil courses, corrupt him. First they entice him by many costly entertainments; then afterwards by night issuing forth for highway robbery, they take him along with them. Then they dared to execute together something greater. And he by degrees got accustomed; and from greatness of nature, when he had gone aside from the right path, and like a hard-mouthed and powerful horse, had taken the bit between his teeth, rushed with all the more force down into the depths. And having entirely despaired of salvation in God, he no longer meditated what was insignificant, but having perpetrated some great exploit, now that he was once lost, he made up his mind to a like fate with the rest. Taking them and forming a band of robbers, he was the prompt captain of the bandits, the fiercest, the bloodiest, the cruelest.

Time passed, and some necessity having emerged, they send again for John. He, when he had settled the other matters on account of which he came, said, "Come now, O bishop, restore to us the deposit which I and the Saviour committed to you in the face of the Church over which you preside, as witness." The other was at first confounded, thinking that it was a false charge about money which he did not get; and he could neither believe the allegation regarding what he had not, nor disbelieve John. But when he said "I demand the young man, and the soul of the brother," the old man, groaning deeply, and bursting into tears, said, "He is dead."

"How and what kind of death?"

"He is dead," he said, "to God. For he turned wicked and abandoned, and at last a robber; and now he has taken possession of the mountain in front of the church, along with a band like him."

Rending, therefore, his clothes, and striking his head with great lamentation, the apostle said, "It was a fine guard of a brother's soul I left! But let a horse be brought me, and let some one be my guide on the way." He rode away, just as he was, straight from the church.

On coming to the place, he is arrested by the robbers' outpost; neither fleeing nor entreating, but crying, "It was for this I came. Lead me to your captain;" who meanwhile was waiting, all armed as he was. But when he recognized John as he advanced, he turned, ashamed, to flight. The other followed with all his might, forgetting his age, crying, "Why, my son, do you flee from me, your father, unarmed, old? Son, pity me. Fear not; you have still hope of life. I will give account to Christ for you. If need be, I will willingly endure your death, as the Lord did death for us. For you I will surrender my life. Stand, believe; Christ has sent me."

And he, when he heard, first stood, looking down; then threw down his arms, then trembled and wept bitterly. And on the old man approaching, he embraced him, speaking for himself with lamentations as he could, and baptized a second time with tears, concealing only his right hand. The other pledging, and assuring him on oath that he would find forgiveness for himself from the Saviour, beseeching and falling on his knees, and kissing his right hand itself, as now purified by repentance, led him back to the church. Then by supplicating with copious prayers, and striving along with him in continual fastings, and subduing his mind by various utterances of words, did not depart, as they say, till he restored him to the Church, presenting in him a great example of true repentance and a great token of regeneration, a trophy of the resurrection for which we hope; when at the end of the world, the angels, radiant with joy, hymning and opening the heavens, shall receive into the celestial abodes those who truly repent; and before all, the Saviour Himself goes to meet them, welcoming them; holding forth the shadowless, ceaseless light; conducting them, to the Father's bosom, to eternal life, to the kingdom of heaven.

Let one believe these things, and the disciples of God, and God, who is surety, the Prophecies, the Gospels, the Apostolic words; living in accordance with them, and lending his ears, and practising the deeds, he shall at his decease see the end and demonstration of the truths taught. For he who in this world welcomes the angel of penitence will not repent at the time that he leaves the body, nor be ashamed when he sees the Saviour approaching in His glory and with His army. He fears not the fire.

But if one chooses to continue and to sin perpetually in pleasures, and values indulgence here above eternal life, and turns away from the Saviour, who gives forgiveness; let him no more blame either God, or riches, or his having fallen, but his own soul, which voluntarily perishes. But to him who directs his eye to salvation and desires it, and asks with boldness and vehemence for its bestowal, the good Father who is in heaven will give the true purification and the changeless life. To whom, by His Son Jesus Christ, the Lord of the living and dead, and by the Holy Spirit, be glory, honour, power, eternal majesty, both now and ever, from generation to generation, and from eternity to eternity. Amen.

That sounds like the love of God in action to me: chasing down a robber, unarmed, to bring him to repentance. And the timing of God. God knew that the youth's heart was ready, and sent the right messenger at the right time with the right words and the right heart.

I'm going to tell you a story I've told before from this platform. So some of you have heard it. Some of you will not have heard it. Some of you who were here when I told it before have forgotten it. And for those of you who do remember it, you'll benefit from hearing it again. But it's a story that challenged me tremendously.

I was invited some years ago now to speak at a conference of pastors in the city of Boston in the United States. It was organized by the New England Association of Evangelicals. New England, of course, is the six states in the north eastern part of the United States. And they came together for this conference and there were several speakers, and one of them was a man called Juan Carlos Ortiz. He was a pastor of a church in Buenos Aires in Argentina. And he... gave us a message... one day that challenged me thoroughly.

He told us that he had gone to Buenos Aires to pastor a church of 300 people, and it had begun to grow very quickly, and it soon became 1000 people, and he said, he became known as the pastor of the fastest growing church in Buenos Aires. And he was delighted with the reputation that gave him, he said.

He said one Sunday morning he had planned to preach a message on love. During the week, he prepared his message, and he came to the church that morning, very confident of what he wanted to say. And he sat on the platform during the time of worship and music, and during that time he felt a very strong impulse that he should not preach his message. But he had nothing else to say.

When the time came for his sermon, the worship leader said, "And now brother Juan Carlos will bring us his message," and he said, "I came to the platform, I opened my Bible, and I said, 'Brothers and sisters, my text this morning is, "Love one another."'" Then he stopped, closed his Bible, and he went back to his seat.

And there was silence.

And with the silence, there was confusion. The worship leader leaned across and said, "Are we supposed to sing another song?" But he sat their quietly, and after about two minutes, which is a long time when you don't know what is happening, he told us that he got up, came back to the pulpit and he said, "Brothers and sisters, my text this morning is 'Love one another.'" And he went back to his seat.

He said his wife was sitting in the balcony and she thought, "He's flipped! I knew it would come one day." After a couple of minutes of silence again, he got up a third time, came to the pulpit, said, "Brothers and sisters, my text this morning is 'Love one another!'"

And I think it was after the third time, and he went back to his seat, that somebody sitting somewhere in the congregation turned to the person next to them and said, "Excuse me. I don't know you. Is there any way I can love you?"

Somebody else turned to somebody else somewhere else in the congregation and said, "Excuse me. Is there something I could do for you?"

And within a few minutes, the whole church was alive with people talking to each other. He said, "We had 28 people in the church that morning who were unemployed. Every single one went home with a job." And he began to give other statistics, and I was writing fast, and I haven't got the figures exactly, but he said there were single mothers with children in the congregation that morning who were struggling alone, and every one of them went home with a family committed to help them and share with them, [and] help take some of the burden with them.

He listed other things. He said, "That Sunday morning changed our church." He said, "If I had preached my message on love, people would have come to me, shaken my hand and said, 'Brother, Pastor Ortiz, that was a good message. I really enjoyed that. Especially liked the differences you explained between the different kinds of love.'" They would have said all that, but he said, 28 people would have gone home unemployed, and to be utterly honest, he said, most of the church couldn't have cared less.

But something happened that day. He said, "The next Sunday, I got up for the message, and I said, 'Brothers and sisters, my text this morning is the same as last week: "Love one another!"'" Went and sat down, and people said, "Well, who can I help this week?"

He said, "I didn't have any liberty to preach for three months. I just said, 'Here's my text, "Love one another." Go to it.'" He said, 300 people left the church. They said, "We don't employ you to stand up and say, 'Love one another.' We want you to teach us the Word!" But he said, for those who stayed, who really didn't want just to know the Word, they wanted to obey the Word, and they were discovering that it was obeyable, (If there is such a word as that) their lives, their relationships, began to change.

He said, "After three months, I got up and I said, 'Brothers and sisters, the Lord has given me a new text this morning.'" And they broke out in applause. He said, "My text this morning is, 'Love your neighbour as yourself.'" And he stopped, and their was a silence. He went back to his seat again.

Somebody got up here and began to go to the door. Somebody else got up, began to go to the door. Somebody else went to the other door. And before long, in 10 minutes, the whole church was empty, the parking lot was empty, there was a line of people at the bus stop. And they went home, went next door, knocked on the door, and said, "Excuse me, I'm a Christian. Is there anything I can do for you?" He said, it was the worst time to do it, because it was just before Christmas. He said, "My wife and I, and I have two daughters, had presents that we'd bought for each other, to give them at Christmas. And we discovered need in our street that we had no idea about, and we took our unopened Christmas presents and we gave them away to other people."

He said, "If that first Sunday, and the three months after that, changed our church, this changed our community, because, I tell you what began to happen," he said. "We had tried to reach our community in all kinds of ways. We had all kinds of methods. We adopted all kinds of programs. And some of them worked okay, many of them didn't work at all." But he said, what began to happen was the telephone began to ring at the church, and people would say, "Is that the church that helps people? My son is on drugs. My daughter is pregnant and unmarried. My wife has been diagnosed with cancer this week. Could you come and help?"

And he said, instead of saying, "How in the world are we going to reach our community?" the community began to come to us and say, "Would you help us?"

Now let me say this. I'm not going to do that, because that was a divine moment in that particular time. But I do want to ask you the question. Did you come here this morning expecting to bless somebody? To minister to somebody? Did you come here this morning, and when this service is over in a few minutes, are you going to look for people to talk to? Are you going to be bold enough, if they tell you something's wrong, to say, "Can I help you?" Because they might say yes. Were you going to talk to the person next to you, who you don't know? Or just get up and go? Have you thought you might invite some stranger home for lunch? Or out to a restaurant with you for lunch?

I'm only asking you the question. Because when a church begins to live, not just in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, but in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, the life and character of God begins to flow into the community. Because God is love.

And I want to ask you this morning, is this the kind of church we want to be, or do we want to be a safe, easy, be-as-comfortable-as-you-want-to-be, kind of church? [With the attitude of] "But please don't expect me to take these things seriously."

How is the Christ Life in you? For as we have seen, Christ is the Head of the body, His Spirit is its life. And the life of Jesus, endwelling us by the Holy Spirit, is totally committed to loving, through you and through me.

If this isn't the kind of Christian we want to be, if this isn't the kind of church we want to be, and recognize we need to be, and recognize we are instructed to be, and recognize we have the resources to be, we're better shutting up shop. Because if you have the tongues of men and of angels, if you engage in all kinds of activities that other people applaud from a distance, but you do not have love, and you're not kind, and patient, and long-suffering, and trusting, and all the other qualities that are there, then you're just a noise, and all the neighbours ever think of us is, "We're glad when the service is over on Sunday, because then they can park their cars outside their houses." There is no sense, "Here are people that actually care."

And I'm preaching to myself. And I've preached to myself all week, and not just that, but I have brought my own heart once again to the cross of Jesus Christ where all this is made possible.

But it's not lots of individuals Paul is talking about, he's talking about the church in this chapter. This is how the church, made up of individuals, is going to function if we're going to please God.

He describes the spiritual battle and work that Christians need to be engaged in. Not a physical battle, but a spiritual one, putting forth truth and casting down lies.

The title of this blog post comes from his summary of how this work is to be done: by hard blows and hard prayers. The example he uses is the battle between Israel and Amalek, where Joshua was fighting in the valley and Moses was lifting his arms on the mountain. Both were needed for victory: Joshua and the men to deliver the hard blows, and Moses and Aaron and Hur to deliver the hard prayers. One by itself is not enough. Both are needed.

This is very important to remember. It's very easy to get caught up in the work, and struggle so hard to accomplish something good, and forget to pray. When, if we had prayed, the work would have been half as hard.

But it is also easy to only pray, and forget that there is real work to be done. It is easier to pray from a distance than to both pray and get down in the trenches, getting our hands dirty.

Here are some quotes from the sermon that I found noteworthy:

Christian men are not at war with any man that walks the earth. We are at war with infidelity, but the persons of infidels we love and pray for; we are at warfare with any heresy, but we have no enmity against heretics; we are opposed to, and cry war to the knife with everything that opposes God and his truth: but towards every man we would still endeavour to carry out the holy maxim, "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you."

...

Have you never noticed in religious controversies how men will fall foul of each other, and make personal remarks and abuse each other? What is that but forgetting what Christ's war is? We are not fighting against men; we are fighting for men rather than against them

...

In that day when the Gospel shall be silenced, when our ministers shall cease to preach; when the Bible shall be chained; in that day -- God forbid it should ever come to pass -- in that day, England may write herself among the dead, for she hath fallen, since God hath forsaken her, seeing she hath cast off her allegiance to him. Christian men, in this fight for right, ye are fighting for your nation, for your liberties, your happiness and your peace; for unless religion, the religion of heaven be maintained, these will most certainly be destroyed.

...

We have to deal with a spirit, I know not how to denominate it, unless I call it a spirit of moderatism in the pulpits of protestant churches. Men have begun to rub off the rough edges of truth, to give up the doctrines of Luther and Zwingle, and Calvin, and to endeavour to accommodate them to polished tastes.

...

There is creeping into the pulpits of Baptists and every other denomination, a lethargy and coldness, and with that a sort of nullification of all truth. While they for the most part preach but little notable error, yet the truth itself is uttered in so minute a form that no one detects it, and in so ambiguous a style, that no one is struck with it.

...

But let us all do something for Christ. I will never believe there is a Christian in the world who cannot do something. There is not a spider hanging on the king's wall but hath its errand; there is not a nettle that groweth in the corner of the churchyard but hath its purpose; there is not a single insect fluttering in the breeze but accomplisheth some divine decree; and I will never have it that God created any man, especially any Christian man, to be a blank, and to be a nothing. He made you for an end. Find out what that end is; find out your niche, and fill it. If it be ever so little, if it is only to be a hewer of wood and drawer of water, do something in this great battle for God and truth.

...

If you do not know how to wrestle with God on your knees, you will find it hard work to wrestle with men on your feet in the pulpit.

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You are not so likely to fail in your efforts as in your prayers. We never read that Joshua's hand was weary with wielding the sword, but Moses' hand was weary with holding the rod. The more spiritual the duty, the more apt we are to tire of it. We could stand and preach all day, but we could not be in our closets all day one-half so easily. To spend a night with God in prayer would be far more difficult than to spend a night with men in preaching. Oh! take care, take care, church of Christ, that thou dost not cease thy prayers!

...

I can no longer address you, but must finish up by repeating the words with which I always like to conclude my sermons: "He that believeth on the Lord Jesus and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned!" Oh! that ye would believe in Christ; oh! that God would give you faith to put your trust in him; this is the only way of salvation. "Believe on the Lord Jesus, and thou shalt be saved."

• Always pray and do NOT lose heart!
• Giving Our Testimony