Can-do crowd takes up temple-cleansing
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, November 7, 2006
GREENVILLE, S.C. – Howard Edington began his address to the Constitutional Presbyterians with a prayer – “Give me Jesus, Lord, give me Jesus, You can have all the rest” – and ended it with participants responding “can do” to a litany of challenges.
The major challenge by the senior minister of Providence Presbyterian Church in Hilton Head, S.C., was, metaphorically, to cleanse the “temple” of “bickering and dickering, bargaining and immorality” and to send “the hucksters fleeing like a flushed covey of quail.”
Jesus cleansed the temple, Edington added, to restore it to its original purpose. “When he saw what was wrong, he could not stand idly by. He had to hit it, and hit it hard. In the midst of this present profound crisis in the PCUSA today, this story packs a message that is a whopper.”
He urged his listeners not to be “lukewarm or spectators rather than participants in the fight against sin and evil, both in the church and in the world … Moral laryngitis is a sin. Just like Jesus, we are to be willing to strive to build purity, holiness and righteousness, not only into our own lives but also into the church of which we are a part.”
“There are plenty of people who say the church is a bunch of hypocrites. Absolutely true. 100 percent. We admit it. We are in no illusion about who we are. However, we believe that we who are imperfect ought not to be encouraged to be more imperfect. It is in the striving that we are made better and stronger people.”
Edington challenged Presbyterians who say, “‘I can’t change. You have to accept me.’ My dear friend, have you ever heard of the doctrine of human sin. No human behavior is beyond the transforming power of Jesus Christ. Jesus changes us. That is what true Presbyterians have always believed. The great confessions of our Presbyterian Church make those crystal clear.”
“The authority of Jesus Christ must become absolute or it will become obsolete,” he said. “We cannot commend the faith to the world unless we are consistently striving to bring our faith into unity. Make no mistake, that is a costly thing to do. But by the power of Jesus Christ, we can do it. Yes, we can. When we strive to make our lives holy, we are defending the church from the world.”
“The original purpose of the temple was to stand against the intrusion of the world,” he said. “The only time when Jesus used force was not to drive sinful people into the temple but to drive profane people out of it.”
Edington said 2,200 years of Biblical witness and 500 years of Presbyterian beliefs “are in danger of being tossed away. I publicly want to say to those leaders of our denomination who dare to suggest the PCUSA is the true church. The PCUSA is but a tiny sliver. Furthermore, I wish to suggest that those in our denomination seeking to undo our rock-solid Biblical beliefs are not even true Presbyterians.”
“The steep, deep decline” of the PCUSA “is incontrovertible proof of the judgment of God upon us,” he said. “If we repent, turn around, like the phoenix, we shall rise.”
He called on Presbyterians to “join me in defending this church we love from the creeping cultural intrusions,” and invited participants to stand for the can-do litany.
“I am here enlisting recruits for the Presbyterian can-do army of the Lord,” he said. “I ask you to be willing to sign up. If you are able and if you’re willing, I’m going to ask you to stand up.”
Almost all stood. “Look around you. Here is the Presbyterian can-do army. What’s our motto? We can do. Yes we can.”