Imagine you’re sitting in church this coming Sunday morning. Your pastor steps up to deliver his sermon and begins speaking in a language almost entirely foreign to you. You recognize a few words, but most of it sounds like gibberish. There are no Bibles in the pews, and you don’t own one yourself; this is your only spiritual intake for the entire week.
Such was the reality for most Christians during the Middle Ages under the Roman Catholic Church.
Do we have anything like this today? In some parts of the world, believers still lack access to the Scriptures. But for most of us, the situation is completely different. We have multiple Bible translations in our own language, Bible dictionaries, commentaries, good books, and technology that puts the whole Word of God at our fingertips.
How did we receive such abundant access? It was purchased with blood. Men and women — the Reformers and martyrs who suffered, bled, and died defying popes and earthly powers so that we could have the Bible in our hands.
Charles Spurgeon rightly said:
“The blood of martyrs is on the Bible, the blood of translators and confessors. The doctrines we preach to you are doctrines that have been baptized in blood.”
Apathy Over the Sacred
Yet despite this great heritage and abundant access to biblical resources, religious freedom, and sound preaching in our own language, the church today has become complacent. We have taken it all for granted. Many in our generation have either never learned or have already forgotten the costly price that was paid for us to hold the Scriptures.
We have become cold and careless toward what the Bible actually says. We rarely speak of its sufficiency and authority, let alone conform our lives to it or be willing to suffer for it.
I have often felt a righteous indignation toward false teachers and prosperity preachers, especially in places like Haiti, who cheapen God’s grace, mix witchcraft with the name of Christ, preach worldly fables, and turn evangelism into mere decisionism…
But we must be honest: there is a far more subtle and dangerous disease spreading even among those who hold to sound doctrine. It is the cancer of spiritual apathy.
The devil does not mind if we attend church, proudly claim to be Reformed, or listen to excellent preaching, as long as we never apply what we hear and never proclaim it to the lost.
Now are we doers of the Word, or only hearers who deceive ourselves? God’s purpose in giving us His Word is our sanctification and His glory. Are we pursuing that? Do we long to see the lost come to the knowledge of the truth? Do we actually live out what we profess to believe?
James warns us strongly: “But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves…” (James 1:22-24)
Thomas Brooks also wrote with sobering clarity:
“If it is not strong upon your heart to practice what you read, to what end do you read?… therefore read, and labor to know that you may do — or else you are undone forever.”
To Whom Much Is Given
Jesus Himself warned us with a solemn parable:
“For everyone to whom much is given, from him much will be required; and to whom much has been committed, of him they will ask the more.” (Luke 12:48)
We have been given much, very much. The question is: what are we doing with it?
A new reformation is not only desirable but urgently necessary. May the Lord awaken us from our apathy, stir us to gratitude for His Word, and make us faithful doers who tremble at His truth.
