"MUST YOU LIVE?"

"...Neither count I my life dear unto myself..." --Acts 20:24

In the days of the early church, Christians had to make a living even as you and I --some of them carved and gilded images for the pagans. They did not worship these images, of course, nor did they bow in their shrines, but they saw no harm in making and polishing images for sale. Their argument sounds familiar today: "After all, somebody will do it, anyway --and I have to live." Tertullian, one of the giants of that day, answered such an argument with one question: "Must you live?"

Tertullian held that a Christian has only one "must" --he must be faithful to Jesus Christ, come what may, live or die. There were no ifs and reservations and alibis. One did not have to live; he had only to be true to the Master. "We ought to obey God rather than men." -- Acts 5:29

A lot of water has run under the bridge since Tertullian. On Sunday morning multitudes of Church members sing:

Faith of our fathers, holy faith,

We will be true to thee till death.

Most of them are not true enough to get back to the evening service! Today the issues are about the same as in the early Church. If a Christian belonged to a trade guild, he was supposed to go to its orgies. If he did not participate, he might have lost his job. Today we

have the boss’ Christmas party of some other get-together. Some Christians defend the cocktail by saying, "I must live." Tertullian would ask, "Must you live?" But we are short of Tertullians.

There are clever ways and devious tricks by which modern church members would stay on good terms with both Christ and Belial. In the Roman Empire everybody was expected to put a pinch of incense on the altar and vow allegiance to Caesar. Plenty of Americans would see nothing wrong in that --"You see, I don’t really worship Caesar in my heart, but why get into trouble? I don’t mind going through the motions to placate the powers that be. Then I will go to Church and worship the way I really believe."

"The early Christians died rather than offer that incense. They had but one Lord and they loved Him more than life itself. They counted not their lives dear unto themselves. They did not have to live; they had only to be faithful. Tertullian would have a rough time getting

that across to the average American Christian. In this nuclear age, the all-important thing is to stay alive at any cost. Winston Churchill envisioned the day when "safety first would be the sturdy child of terror and survival the twin brother of annihilation."

Today we negotiate with Communist gangsters and compromise our national integrity and reverse the American policy of the past --all in an effort to stay alive. Everything is geared to biological survival, as though that were the chief end of life. A small boy was asked,

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" He answered, "Alive!"

We did not start out that way. Patrick Henry asked, "Is life so dear, and peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?" He chose liberty or death. Today we must live, liberty or no liberty. The fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence risked security for liberty. Today we risk Liberty for security and we may end up without either. We are ready to do anything but die. There was a time when some things were more precious than life. Theodore Roosevelt said that among those things that would destroy America was "Safety first instead of duty first."

Tertullian might well ask at a summit conference: "Must you live?" Peace at any price, they say, is better than no peace. Life at any price, they say, is better than not to live. We are obsessed with saving our hides at the cost of our honor, if need be, and we may save neither hides nor honor.

‘Tis man’s perdition to be safe,

When for the truth he ought to die.

At Munich, Neville Chamberlain learned that "You can’t do business with Hitler." The times called for a Churchill. The price for survival is too high to pay. It is better to die for a conviction than to live with a compromise. Self-preservation is a powerful instinct, but it is not the most important thing on earth.

Christians do not have to live; they have only to he faithful to Jesus Christ, not only until death but unto death if necessary. When a man becomes a Christian, he loses his right to his own life. He is not his own--he is bought with a price. He is the personal property of Jesus Christ, bought and paid for with the blood of Calvary. For him, living and dying are incidental. He is here to glorify Jesus Christ, whether by life or by death. Whether he lives, he lives unto the Lord, or whether he dies, he dies unto the Lord. Whether he lives or dies, he is the Lord’s. He counts not his life dear unto himself. To live is Christ and to die is gain. Anything that compromises that all-out devotion is to be refused at any cost. A pinch of incense to Caesar may look innocent enough to others, but to a Christian it is anathema, for he knows but one Lord and he will not, by life or by lip, pay even a gesture of allegiance to another. If a pagan guild would compromise his vows, he would lost, his job first, he doesn’t have to eat; he has only to be faithful to Jesus Christ.

There are many modem ways of offering incense to Caesar, and polishing idols is a flourishing business in America. The business, social, and entertainment worlds are under the god of this age and they are not friends of grace to help us on to God. To be sure, all of us cannot make a living in businesses operated by Christians. It is not obligatory that the top man in your line be a deacon or that the main office be staffed by Sunday-school teachers. We must work in a pagan world and let our light shine in a dark place. But when the setup demands that we carve images or burn incense to Caesar, then we have but one loyalty. If our living, or even our lives, be involved, Tertullian is still up to date. "Must you live?"

There are a thousand angles to this problem. Selling books in a store where filthy literature is part of the stock, waiting on tables in restaurants where liquor is served, playing for dances as a member of the school band—from these to major issues of principle in high position. Tertullian is still up to date. The old argument is still advanced: "After all I don’t run the place. I only work here and I have to live." But Tertullian would ask, "Must you live?"

There are no easy solutions. Sometimes we must cut knots instead of tying them. Radical? Yes, but the early Christians upset the world. Later, when Constantine joined the church and the world, there were no such scruples--and the glory departed.

We are not only to put on the Lord Jesus; we must make no provision for the flesh. Although the ideal is to be so much in love with Jesus Christ that the world presents no problem, most Christians are not that far along and we need to hear Tertullian thunder his question. The devil has cleverly set up this present age in such a way that what puts

butter on our bread too often determines our conduct. We have developed a pleasant, agreeable Christianity, an amiable neutralism that raises no eyebrows at gilding images and offering incense to Caesar. We are like the Church at Thyatira where, along with the agape of which we hear so much today, there existed a smiling "get-alongism" that allowed Jezebel to set up her altar, brining the reproof of the Lord.

Such a Christian has nothing, yet he possesses all things. Satan can give him nothing, for he possesses all things. Satan can take nothing from him, for he does not have anything. Satan may kill him, but to die is gain. I have read of a Coast Guard crew summoned on a stormy night to rescue survivors from a sinking vessel. One member of the crew was fearful: "Captain," he moaned, "we’ll never get back." "We don’t have to come back," was the reply; "we only have to go." That sounds like Tertullian again. It is true faith which is "not belief in spire of evidence but life in scorn of consequence."

Paul did not say, "I count not my life dear." Life is dear and precious in God’s sight. Paul said, "I count not my life dear unto myself." There are two ways of counting not life dear unto oneself. Every few days we read of a car full of teenagers at the end of a wild ride, a horribly scrambled mass of flesh and glass and steel. That is sin’s way—the devil’s way--of counting not life dear to oneself. That is "living dangerously"—the wrong way.

There is another way. The body of Jim Elliot in Ecuador was another mangled sight when the savages were through with him.

But his soul went marching home through gates of splendor. He counted not his life dear unto himself. That is Christ’s way, Paul’s way, the Christian way. That is "living dangerously"--for God. One need not be a

martyr at savage hands to do that. There are dangers aplenty around us every day, far more subtle and more devastating to the soul. Amidst them all, we have but one obligation--to magnify Jesus Christ, whether

by life or by death, for whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. We do not have to live; we have only to be faithful.

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This excellent article is reprinted from Temple Times, a ministry of Calvary Temple, East Point Ga.

Robert McCurry, pastor