Pastor John,
Tonight, you emphasized the importance, the value, the absolute necessity of a pure heart and a clear conscience before God. You said, “That is Paul’s Gospel!”
That sentence rocked me. I think I paused and caught my breath. That statement felt so big to me, so encompassing and so full of truth; It shook me. I felt like a door had just swung open in our midst, to a more perfect understanding of Jesus. I couldn’t leave that place for a while.
The thought that I had next was, “That pure heart and clear conscience is the ‘liberty’ that the apostle Paul was speaking of.” Liberty from everything except that purity and clear conscience. Liberated to pursue it, without giving mind to anything else. And liberty to stay there, blameless before God.
Paul knew that every other way, except that way of liberty, was of such little significance and consequence that he was at liberty, at will, to put those things on or cast them off as needed. They meant nothing – whether for Paul or against him. And for that reason he was free to use them : 1 Corinthians 9:20
And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law.
Paul was at complete liberty to use every earthly tool for the furthering of the Gospel, for God’s people.
I can appreciate what your father, Preacher Clark, said to brother Murray, many years ago. When brother Murray wrote your father and explained to him that the people he was worshipping with in Florida were deeply troubled about brother Murray never being water baptized. Brother Murray had received the baptism that counts in Heaven, and was living full of that holy Ghost, but those Oneness people could hardly bear the fact that brother Murray had never been baptized in water. When Preacher Clark saw the Uncle Joe was getting a wrong attitude toward them, because of the arguments they all kept having, he told him, “Just go ahead and get water baptized, to give them some relief.”
Just like the apostle Paul, your father was demonstrating his freedom in Christ, His liberty from everything but Christ. He knew water baptism amounted to nothing, and it had no place in Preacher Clark’s heart, either to hurt or to help a soul, so he was free to use it. With that, Preacher Clark advised brother Murray to use that same godly liberty to relieve those other people’s burden. What spiritual wisdom and maturity!
God is not afraid of nor superstitious about Christianity. And He loves folk that are tangled up in it. I sure can too.
Jerry