05/09/2025
We extracted this write up from the February/March 2006
Volume 38. No. 2
NRB Magazine.
FINDING WATER
BY DR. FRANK WRIGHT
President & CEO of NRB (at the time of publication)
Almost 95 years ago, President Woodrow Wilson considered the fabric of American society and said this:"A nation that does not remember what it was yesterday does not know what it is today, nor what it is trying to do. We are trying to do a futile thing if we do not know where we came from or what we have been about. Ours is a rich legacy. Rich but lost.
As a nation, ours is indeed a great and godly heritage. Yet if we fail to remember that heritage, we eventually fail to comprehend its purpose. And where does that lead us? Karl Marx said it well: "A people without a heritage are easily persuaded."
This is no less true of the Church of Jesus Christ.
Ours is an incomparably rich and godly heritage.
*Yet, if we too fail to remember it, we eventually fail to comprehend its purpose. And without an unobstructed view of the purpose of the church, we cannot clearly see our own.
THIS IS A WEAKNESS WE DARE NOT NEGLECT.
We see a marvelous picture of our need in the life of Isaac, recorded in Genesis Chapter 26.
Isaac has been so blessed by The Lord and become so prosperous that he and all his people are driven out by Abimelech, the King of the Philistines.
Then Abimelech said to Isaac, 'Move away from us; you have become too powerful for us. So Isaac moved away from there and encamped in the Valley of Gerar and settled there. Isaac reopened the wells that had been dug in the time of his father Abraham, which the Philistines had stopped up after Abraham died, and he gave them the same names his father had given them.'
In this account we see several things clearly. First, we know that when Isaac and his people were driven out, they needed water probably desperately. Second, we note that Isaac did not look for new sources of water first. Instead he dug for water where his father had found water before him.
This passage has application to the Church down through the ages and certainly in our day as well. Without fear of contradiction, I think we can say that the Church today *is desperately in need of renewal maybe even reformation.
It is not too much to say that the Church in our time faces a great crisis. That crisis can be seen in three dimensions:
1) Truth
2) Virtue and
3) Meaning.
In our culture, the validity of truth is questioned, and the church too often has no answer.
Yet without objective truth, the call to live a virtuous life lacks a proper foundation.
Furthermore, assertions of meaning and personal purpose are mere speculation in a world without truth.
The church must, therefore, defend truth or risk losing its prophetic voice in the culture.
But in the midst of its crisis, many in the Church are casting about for man-centered solutions.
In the realm of truth, new translations of the Scriptures are endorsed and marketed because they are considered more inclusive, irrespective of their lack of faithfulness to the original texts.
In the realm of virtue, personal holiness is no longer rooted in the commands of Scripture but carefully tailored to fit the inclinations of sinful men and women, so that they feel accepted.
In the realm of meaning, the church remains too often ensconced in its stained glass ghetto, isolated from a world perishing apart from Christ.
Yet there is water to be found.
WE WILL FIND IT IN THE SAME PLACE OUR FATHERS FOUND WATER IN THE LIVING WATER OFFERED BY JESUS CHRIST TO ALL WHO ARE THIRSTY!
As Christian broadcasters we must continue to draw water from that spring which is fed by the River of Life. We must proclaim truth as truth, calling men and women, boys and girls to personal holiness.
We must exhort believers to bring the mind of Christ to the culture around them. And above all, we must continue to proclaim the transforming power of the Gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Only by faithfulness to the heritage entrusted to us can we see Christ exalted and see the world changed around us.
Posted by:
A DAY SHALL COME MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL - CHRISTIAN LIBRARY
