By Olumide Goodness Adeyinka
Trust is the fulcrum on which the import of the faith of Christ is built, so it becomes a major anchor of the practice and devotion of the Christian faith. A critical look at the teachings of the Bible will compel anyone to accept the intrinsic veracity of trust as an indispensable article of the faith and creed; and the inherency of obedience in its teachings is another way to define its required contrition.
That is all the faith of Christ teaches us as followers. That is what is bequeathed to us by the frontrunners of the faith. Even the article of faith with which God is pleased with anyone requires the umbrage of absolute trust. Trust can be said to be our “indoctrination”.
I remember a hymnal song from Ancient and Modern Hymn in my secondary school days that goes “trust and obey, for there is no other way, to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey …” The emphasis on that song identifies to whom our trust should be built – Christ; however since the pietistic devotion of Christianity also accommodates trust within the fold of followership it then becomes indissociable not to trust brethren especially those that have profound influence in our Christian experience. Again, the pedagogical strategy or mannerism by which the Christian faith is being taught by certain chosen vessels imposes a specter of respect and regards to such people. This is clearly stated in the book of Ephesians in chapter four from verse eleven, where certain men were ordained of God by His Spirit to equip, edify and mature the church of Christ. Such persons were to be accorded double honor because of the peculiar task divinely imposed on them. I believe this as a core element of my faith.
The problem I have, and which is the direction of this article, is the acerbity with which the honor is being demanded and the obsequiousness of the servile followers both of which exhibit distortive understanding of God’s word excessively.
Trust is an assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone or something according to Merriam-Webster Dictionary. The word “assured” is the pivot holding trust, but it is also the item lacking in our commitment to trust people. We blithely entrust our confidence in the arms of flesh and then get feasted on like a Cheese hamburger by men who lack self-control and moderation. Trust is NOT synonymous to stupidity or folly. Trust should be earned after a moment of internal quietness and several questions asked with satisfying answers within and without. Walter Anderson said “We are never so vulnerable than when we trust someone – but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love and joy” We must learn how and who to trust after being fully assured, but we must also learn to know when our trust is abused on the cloak of disparate interest. We must be overtly sensitive to the laceration of our mind with gashes so deep that spiritual and physical emergency care becomes inevitable as a result of the violation of the allegiance of our confidence.
Treachery is perfidy, falsidy, treason, faithlessness, and willful betrayal of our trust by people who acquired it. When our trust is violated, it should not be seen as a mistake, but an opportunity to re-evaluate our assurance and prioritize our submission. Treachery is deception with a grand roguish agenda to it. Treachery is a contagion spreading faster than the faith of contrition. Treachery is venomous with a traitorous motive to obfuscate the truth and present falsity as facts. The flagrant evil and the perfidious subterfuge of treachery as documented in the Bible make it one of the oldest
sin of man to his neighbor. The portentous effect of treachery is grave. Treachery is evil and never a virtue.
What I see in most churches today is so much noise being made about Christ and less of His life, so much choruses are raised but less emphasis on the lyrics, so much dancing and jumping around but little of inner recess and beauty of the Spirit, so much words are spoken and preached but only with exhibitionist emptiness. We have big houses called church buildings but small hearts of men. Big cars but very little move of the Spirit of God because of the evil on the pulpit. It is all treachery and more treachery each day. Prophet Isaiah spoke about it in chapter twenty-four verse sixteen;
“From the ends of the earth we have heard songs: “Glory to the righteous!” But I said, “I am ruined, ruined! Woe to me! The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously, Indeed, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously”
Men that are to be respected and honored have sold their birthright for a swallow of bread. The cost of honor had become so expensive to them that it is cheaper to ride on lies and deceit all to get to where their bellies direct them. We now have deliberate lies told so boldly that conscience too had been bought with the price of lusts and greed.
A lot of people in the church today simply grovel in servitude of the Pastor or overseer or Daddy or Spiritual father, which is a personal decision based on ignorance; but even if the sheep is stupid should the “shepherd” be desperate to plunder him/her more in subjection to unholy but sweet messages of enticement and inducement? That is what is going on in so many places designated as church. The trust of the pew on the pulpit is long exploited on the platform of belly desire and throat lust. Not only financially, but a lot of spiritual and intelligent abuse goes with it.
I got to a point in my meditation on this writing where issue of who really should be blamed for the whole charade comes up. I am short of breath in saying it is entirely on the pulpit. I know some people will disagree with my exempting the pews. Questions like, couldn’t they read their Bible? Or can’t they reason with their head? The problem is we should not forget the import of our tutelage and pedagogy of our spiritual teachings that lays emphasis on TRUST. As long as we are followers of Christ, we will continually trust because severing that essentiality from our doctrine of brotherhood will automatically distort the fundamental meaning of the greatest article of our faith called LOVE.
Since we must love then we must trust!
I will therefore blame the pulpit just like God blamed the shepherds for the insolence in Israel in the days of Ezekiel saying “And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy and say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God to the shepherds: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks? You eat the fat and clothe yourselves with the wool; you slaughter the fatlings, but you do not feed the flock” Ez.34: 1-3.
Why should anybody blame the children of bad conduct when they are still under the tutelage of their parents?
The trust placed on the pulpit by the pews have long been abused and trampled on the ground by mere men who were mostly chosen by grace but now have a penchant to abuse the same grace for gluttony. What a sacred trust so endowed, full of nobility and empowered by grace, made strong enough in His words to pull the chords of love together against the arrows and darts of selfishness, against the fortress of vanity and aggrandizement, and prodigiously great to enthrone accountability, but wasted on threshold of despicable theology of extrinsic materialism. What a shame! What a disgust that those who are honored and knows it not are perishing like the vegetable! Atrocious!!!
Playing with figures here, I can tell that in about a congregation of 5000 church attendants, 3000 are still babes even in the tenth year of their faith experience, 1500 are caught up in the euphoria of excitement and are not ready to learn anything new. 300 are struggling with certain errors not acceptable to them but never strong enough to publicly denounce it, and then you have this other 150 people who are protesting silently but never reneging on the truth. Finally you have the last 50 people who are thorns in the flesh of the Plunderer because they speak out and are very vocal about it. They are not so loved but then cannot be excommunicated; they are the remnants of the truth of God. God will sustain them in the struggle for the cause of raising the church from the ruins of apostasy.
Finally, Malachi 2: 10-12; “Have we not all one Father? Has not one God created us? Why do we deal treacherously with one another By profaning the covenant of the fathers? Judah has dealt treacherously. And an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem, For Judah has profaned The Lord’s holy institution which He loves: He has married the daughter of a foreign god. May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob The man who does this, being awake and aware, Yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!” NKJV
My confidence is God is able, and will, raise the church from the ruins of perversion soon. We shall not be prevailed upon.
Olumide Goodness Adeyinka can be reached at nigardgroup@yahoo.com