Old Time Religion
By Bill Jacobs
This Article is take from a transcript of an audio presentation given on June 23, 2005
Follow this link to access the audio or transcript.
1951. That would be antiquity for some who are younger, and for some of us who are older, probably childhood. The exact date is lost in time, but little Billy was walking home from kindergarten. He was preoccupied that day. His new shoes were hurting his feet! So he was diligently dragging his toes and scuffing his shoes with every step trying to wear out those new shoes as fast as possible so he could get a new pair that would feel better and not cause blisters. He had no idea that in a few minutes he was about to be seized by a life-changing event. When he got home he opened the front door and there it was in the living room! It took him completely by surprise. There sitting in the Jacobs' living room was a brand new Philco radio/phonograph. It was in a large mahogany cabinet. It had two big doors on the front. Behind one was a space for records and behind the other there was a radio with a lighted dial and a bank of large knobs about the size of walnuts. Below the radio there was a phonograph. It had knobs, levers, lights and buttons. It had a spindle and a turntable. It was love at first sight! Little Billy was all over that record player in an instant. At least that's how he remembers it after fifty years.
Soon after that my mother began buying me some new-style LP records. There was Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Peter Pan, Long John Silver narrated by the renown Basil Rathbone – how I remember that after all these years I don't know – and there were many more. And I loved to listen to these records over and over. And it still astounds me that my parents taught me how to use that thing at five and six years old and let me do it myself. But they did.
There was one set of records that my mother would not let me play. She would play them for me, but she watched over them carefully, because she prized them deeply and didn't want to see them damaged by five-year-old hands. This set of records was in a book-like album with sleeved pages. It would hold five records. They were a bit smaller than LPs. My mother called them 78s – something from the distant past. On these records were songs sung, my mother informed me, by a lady named Dorothy Minor. She told me that the songs were religious songs and that some of them were over a hundred years old. And after all this time, I remember only a very few titles. I remember one was called Go Tell It On the Mountain. Some of the words were “Go tell it on the mountain that Jesus Christ is born.” Another song was Deep River . And it was about crossing Jordan , but it was a metaphor about crossing into eternal life – very clever metaphor right out of the Bible.
Now this lady – this Dorothy Minor – she could sing! I mean, she had a powerful voice. And in my five-year-old way, I thought she was the very best singer in the whole world. And I can remember sitting listening to those songs with my mother and being transported by the timeless beauty of the words and the richness of her extraordinary voice.
Well, as you can tell, that music made a life-long impression on me. There was one song, however, that stood out to me more than all the rest of them. One verse went like this: “Give me that old time religion. It was good for the Hebrew children; it's good enough for me.” Now it loses something without the music and it would lose even more if I tried to sing it, but another verse went like this: “Give me that old time religion. It was good for the prophet Daniel; it's good enough for me.” Another one said, “Give me that old time religion. It was good for Paul and Silas; it's good enough for me.” And I can still remember that fifty-four years ago.
Have you ever wondered how God first began to call you? I know everybody here has a story to tell. I know that for some of you who are younger, the story is still being written in your life of your calling. And that's exciting and sometimes mysterious for you. But I think this song, Old Time Religion , may have been God's very, very first spiritual overture to me. And the reason I say that is, because I remember when I was in the sixth grade I went to confirmation classes in the Episcopal Church. I remember the minister was teaching us about our denomination's beliefs. I went home and I asked my parents why we went to church on Sunday when in the old days they went on Saturday? See, without realizing it, God had planted a little laser-guided, heat-seeking missile in my brain that was honing in on the original religion of Jesus Christ – old time religion – the way they did back then. And He put that in me, I think, before I ever knew what the true religion was.
When I was thirteen I happened to hear a man on the radio who was talking about the very things that I thought were important. When people ask me when God called me, I usually start by telling them I heard a guy on the radio when I was thirteen years old. But it seems obvious to me that God really laid the groundwork for my calling in my heart long before I ever heard that radio program. So through this song, God had focused by attention on the importance on religion lived by the apostles in the New Testament church. So that's a little bit about how God called me. I mention it to you so you can understand where I'm coming from and what's important to me as you listen to this sermon.
All my life, since my conversion, I have come to the church with that concept in my mind – old time religion. The original way is not only the best way, it's the only way. Now, over the years God had impressed on me some lessons and some valuable uses for this concept of old time religion and I'd like to share those with you today.
The first point I want to make is this: The original religion that Jesus Christ brought to earth is like a great spiritual anchor for us. We all know many people who have forsaken the truth of God. And we know that the Christianity we see in the New Testament can save our eternal life. It can stabilize our faith if we follow it faithfully. So let's look at three scriptures that are pivotal to our understanding here.
The first one is in II Peter 2:15. And here Peter's talking about some people who have left the true and pure religion of Jesus. And he says:
II Pet. 2:15 – They have forsaken the right way and have gone astray following the way of Balaam, the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness. So the first point I want to make for you here is that there is a right way to do church – not four hundred and seventy-five, but one right way. That was the way they did it back then.
The second scripture is in Jude 1, verse 3.
Jude 1:3 – He said, Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you, exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith – which faith? – which was once for all delivered to the saints. So Jude calls that right way the pure religion delivered by Jesus to the apostles in the New Testament church. And he says it was delivered once for all – complete and perfect. No need to embellish. No need to take away anything. No need to add anything to it.
II Timothy 2 – for our third scripture – verse 1:
II Tim. 2: 1 – You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Jesus Christ, and the things that you have heard from me, among many witnesses, commit these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So this model was to be passed along a human chain through time. That's why we had a youth Bible study today – so that we can pass these things on to people who are younger than we are. So it's not only something we learn, it's something that we transmit . We're not the first to follow it and we're not the last. We're all links in a chain that extends through time.
I said it's an anchor. I'm still a Sabbatarian today. I observe the seventh day, because when the storms of heresy assailed me, I knew, number one, that there was a right way. I knew the right way was found in the original, pure and old time religion found in the New Testament. And I knew that I am responsible to pass it on, so I can't give it up or let go of it. So that's why I say it's an anchor.
So, to wrap up this point, if we know the right way, we have an anchor to keep us in the right place no matter what kinds of troubles come along later. “If it was good for Paul and Silas, it's good enough for me.”
Second point. The model of Christianity that we find in the New Testament is not only an anchor for our faith, which was our first point, but it's also a model for our practice, which is our second point. It defines what Christianity is . The people who follow the model Jesus gave are His followers. That's kind of a “duh,” isn't it? The people that follow the model He gave are His followers. They're Christians. Of course, we're talking about all the usual things, you know. We're talking about salvation. We're talking about the Sabbath and the holy days and the great plan that they picture. We're talking about knowledge of the thousand-year reign of Christ on earth – the millennium. We're talking about the resurrection from the dead. We're talking about the truth about heaven and hell, the truth about holidays, the truth about the Law of God, the truth about dietary things – all of those things. They're all a part of the model that we see in the New Testament.
We want to maintain all of these things. However, if we merely review the things we already know, we won't learn much. So what I'd like to do is examine something in the New Testament that has not been emphasized much in our version of the original faith.
When I was a student at college, I was told that if I tried to talk to other people about my religion I would only turn them off. After all, I was just a lowly freshman and I'd botch it up. And I should leave off talking to people outside the church and let the spiritual giants do that. Well, that was okay with me, because I felt uncomfortable about talking to people about my religion anyway. I would rather just slip by and be anonymous. So I paid my tithes with the comforting expectation that they would be used to preach the gospel electronically, and in that way, I was meeting my responsibility to God. So I was a happy guy! I could pay and hire somebody else to do the work. And it felt good to think that way, because it was so easy. However, as I got older – after I got out of college – I started reading the New Testament again and I see that I've had to make some drastic changes in my personal faith and practice. Because remember, I'm one of those people that wants to follow the way they did back then more than I want to follow what people think is the way it was done back then.
So let me show you what I found. In the Gospels, I learned that Jesus sent the disciples out on their own to plant seeds for the gospel. He didn't go with them. He sent them out on their own almost immediately after He called them. Then I saw that He sent out seventy men in teams of two, trained but unsupervised to learn how to spread the Word on their own . That's called learning by doing, by the way. It's the most effective way to learn anything. And that's what Jesus…that was the way He taught people. He caused them to learn by doing.
Well then I read this scripture in Acts 8, verse 27.
Acts 8:27 – So he arose and went and, behold, a man of Ethiopia , a eunuch of great authority under Candace, the queen of the Ethiopians, who had charge of all her treasury, and had come to Jerusalem to worship, was returning. And sitting in his chariot, he was reading Isaiah the prophet. Then the Spirit said to Philip, Go near and overtake this chariot. So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading the prophet Isaiah, and he said, Do you understand what you are reading. And he said, How can I unless someone guides me? And he asked Philip to come and sit with him. Well, who was Philip? Well, Philip was a deacon. So here's a man who's not a minister engaging somebody outside the church in a discussion of religion. Philip, obviously, had not been taught he ought to leave the seed sowing to other people. He wasn't disengaged from the Work. He was engaged in it. He knew he was supposed to get involved. In fact, the Bible tells us he was told to do so by Christ Himself, through the Holy Spirit.
Well, then I read another scripture that smacked me between the eyes. It is in Acts 8, verse 3.
Acts 8:3 – As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. Therefore, those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word. So, who do you think was scattered? Well, it was the whole church – lay people, ordained people, everybody. They were scattered and they preached the gospel to the Samaritans. So rather than sneaking off in fear, they went all over the place spreading the Word of God. They engaged people everywhere they went. Wow! Lay people preaching to Gentile people who are not even on the approved list to preach to, so to speak – they weren't Jews.
Well, as I continued reading through the New Testament, where the model for old time religion can be found, I read where the ministry was to equip the members to do God's work. And I saw where everyone was supposed to study so they could give good answers to the questions people would ask them. I saw that it was the expectation of the ministry that the members could and would do this. I saw that this expectation is woven into the very fabric of the New Testament.
Did you know that God gave lay people the gift of speaking in tongues? And they would participate in reaching out to new people? That's interesting, isn't it, that He would give lay people a capability to engage people, who couldn't speak their own language, in spiritual discussion. It's in there!
And then the worst news of all came when I found Mark 8:38.
Mk. 8:38 – For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man will also be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. Wow! That was the tough one! As I read the New Testament it became very obvious that each person believed that he was to carry the message.
A few years ago I was talking to an Orthodox monk that I know, and I asked him how it was that the Orthodox Church sprang back to life immediately after seventy years of communism in the Soviet Union . And he said it was because the church there was an organic organization. Each one of them contained the model of the church, which is the Holy Spirit. That's not wrong, is it? That's true. He said it was kind of like DNA. So to wipe out the church the Communists would had to have killed every last one. And that is what we see in the New Testament, isn't it? That God has created the church…it's not like an animal; it's like a plant. It's like a lot of plants with seeds and they get spread everywhere. You can't really wipe it out. They have this stuff called cheat grass. Didn't that come from Russia ? Now it's taken over the West. They can't get rid of it. There isn't any way to get rid of it, because it has just proliferated itself. That's the kind of organism that God designed the church to be.
Eventually the persecutors killed off all the apostles, but since Christ lived in all the people, the message still went out. And the more they persecuted it, the more it chased them around and caused them to spread it even more.
I asked an acquaintance of mine, who has had contact with the Ukrainian Sabbatarians, how they did evangelism without money. He told me the way they think about it is completely different from the way we think about it in the US . He said, “Each Ukrainian Sabbath keeper believes he's commissioned to spread the Word himself – that he's a carrier. He is the church.” He said, “A young couple, when they have a baby, see that as a way of extending the faith – they're raising another Christian. They see that as a vital part of their calling.”
Well, all of these insights I was having took me into a personal mini-crisis, or so I told myself. All my life I'd tried to follow old time religion, but I saw, as I read the New Testament, I really wasn't all the things that it said to do. So now I was seeing that I ought to be doing differently than I'd done in the past, and it was something I really didn't want to do. I was afraid of it. So I had to decide: Was I going to continue on with my past experience – just comfortably believing it was the true religion? Or was I really going to follow the New Testament – uncomfortable as that might be? Well, if I chose that latter choice I was going to have to change my behavior and my thinking, and that would be quite a terrifying thing. I was going to have to learn how to talk to people about the hope that lies within me. Isn't there a scripture about that somewhere – that says we should be prepared to give an answer for the hope that lies within us? That's part of old time religion, too, isn't it?
So, it's an anchor. It's a model to follow. Sometimes we follow it and sometimes we don't. If we don't study our Bible with an open mind, we don't know what the model is. But the original religion of Jesus is also a message . And that's our third point. It's an anchor. It's a model. It's a message.
When I started trying to change the way I did my church – my Christianity – I was afraid of being obnoxious to people. And I know that many of you people with me have that same fear. You don't want to be pushy about your religion, because you know how it turns you off when other people are pushy to you.
Now I want to ask you this question. Has anyone ever converted you to their way of thinking on any subject by being overbearing, pushy or obnoxious? Well, no! All that does is make us close our mind and go the other way, doesn't it? So that, obviously, is not the way to do it! You know, going door to door, and harassing people, and walking up to people downtown and asking them if they know Jesus – that doesn't work! So relax about that. No door to door for us. No overtly religious tone or manner. No super-sentimentality. And no signs that say, “Repent!” None of the things that I was afraid of – that I was going to have to do – are effective evangelism. They just don't work.
Now the second fear that I had to face was the fear of being seen as weird or strange by other people. Well, let me set your mind at ease on this one, too. If you keep the Sabbath, if you keep the holy days and if you eat only clean meats, they already think you're weird! There's no need to worry about it! On the contrary, though, the process of talking to people about our faith is one of helping people understand that we are not weird. That's what it's all about. They won't accept it unless they see purpose for it. So it's really a process of helping people understand that we're not as strange as they first thought.
Here's what happens as I've observed it. If you're a good Christian – and I say, here's what happens – here's what happens when evangelism is done properly. If you're a good Christian, you're casting a favorable light on the people you meet. “A city set on a hill cannot be hid.” Right? And those people see that you're different. You're kind. You're fair. You're hardworking. You're honest. Or whatever you happen to be that's good. They tend to like us because we try to be humble and considerate of them and other people. So these traits draw people to us – if we're living that life of faith. As they get to know us, they see that what we do appears to be weird. Because they see something good about us, they are curious about the strange things that we do. And they start to wonder if the weird stuff that we do has a connection with the good things that they see in each of us. Sometimes they ask us questions.
So here is where the concept of the New Testament model comes in. Let me show you how this works. I have this friend – and since this is going out for public consumption on a Website – we'll call him Tom. We became friends a few years ago through work and he learned that I kept the Sabbath. He commented once that it must require quite a great commitment to observe the Sabbath as I observe it, because I can't even go to the psychological meetings that he attends because they're on Saturday. I can't go flying with him on Saturdays, which is mainly when he flies. But I told him that I do it for reasons that I consider extremely important. I was explaining that and, after that statement, and he said, “What reasons?” You see, that's the question you want people to ask. So here's what I said. I said, “I believe that if one is going to worship we must assume that He is greater than we are.” He understood that. He started nodding his head. Why else would one worship someone if you didn't think they were greater than you? I then said, “So when He tells us how He wants us to worship Him, it would make sense that we ought to follow His instructions, and that the pure religion that Jesus delivered to the church is that model for worship that He wants followed by us. We're going to follow because He knows more about how He should be worshipped than we do.” I brought out that they all observed the seventh day and so do I. So, you see, I had given him a logical reason why I do that. That is, by the way, the same reason he heard when he was kid growing up in church. They're doing what Jesus taught them to do. He thought his church followed the original model. So now he's really curious.
We were at lunch one day and I was admiring a leather jacket that his wife had given him for Christmas. And after a bit, he said, “What did Santa bring you?” And I said, “Well, Tom, Santa didn't stop at my place this year.” He said, “He didn't? Don't tell me you don't celebrate Christmas.” I said, “Afraid not, Tom.” “Why?” “Well, you remember that I told you that I was intent on following the New Testament model?” He said, “Yeah.” “That's why.” He said, “What about the Magi?' He's smart. He's studied the Bible. I said, “Well, they came. They saw. And they left. And then through the following sixty years of recorded church history, there's not another mention made of them or Jesus' birthday – we don't even know when it is. So I'm just trying to do it the way they did it back then. And we're very serious about that because that's our anchor.” That's logical, isn't it? It is ! The fact that he was taught the same approach with different results is what causes people to really stop and think.
Now I took Tom on a backpacking trip with some college-aged people and that's when he learned that we didn't eat pork. That happened when we went to a pizza place and this giant pizza – it had to be at least three or four feet – came out with pepperoni all over it. Nobody ordered it. It just came that way. I think they were trying to be nice to us – give us an extra freebee. He noticed he was the only one eating these big 18” long pieces of pizza with pepperoni on them, and he wanted to know why. One of the college-aged people there said, “We don't eat pork.” “Why don't you?” “Well, God promises to keep us healthy if we obey His laws, and that's one of them.” Then somebody else jumped in there and explained that keeping these laws is also our way of showing our commitment to God. “It's an identifier,” he was told. And quick as a wink, he said, “So it's another symbol.” And I said, “Yeah, it's kind of like people wearing a team logo.” And he said, “Or like a crucifix.” So he's understanding that what we're doing here is something physical and visible. It identifies us and identifies God to us. And I mentioned, “Yeah, kind of like that. And it's also a practice that was followed in both the Old and the New Testaments by Christians.”
Isn't that interesting? It's been a very interesting experience for us. Kind of scary at first. A lot of us are really afraid to engage people. It kind of reminds me of that movie, Top Gun . Did you ever see that? Is there anybody here's that's not seen the move, Top Gun ? Nah, everybody's seen that, right? “Maverick, engage, engage, engage!” He just wouldn't do it. And some of us are just like that. Or have you seen the movie, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Remember when he comes up out of the water, he says, “Come on in, boys, the water is fine .” Well, some of us just won't come in the water. We're just too afraid to talk to people. But you know, the fact is, in America , that people are fed up with church. Most of the people I encounter in my dealings in society consider themselves Christians, but they don't go to church. And I've asked dozens of them, “Why?” “Too much church politics.” “Too much form without substance.” “Way off from spirituality.” “Just a fashion parade.” “People just go there to clique up.” Blah, blah, blah – all the reasons that we're all so familiar with. If they know the reason we go to church is to follow the original model for worship, and that we're very serious about it, we're really talking to them right where they live, because that's what they want, too.
One Saturday, one person called me up on the phone, and he commented that it seemed to him that not many churches were really willing to truly follow Christ. There had been a thing in the news recently, and I said, “Did you see the news the other day where that druggist was watering down the cancer patient's chemo drugs and they caught him?” He said, “Yeah.” I said, “Christianity practiced in the world today is simply a watered-down version of Christianity that Jesus brought. We're trying to do it with all our might to follow the original, pure, full-strength religion that came in the New Testament.” And he said, “That sounds good to me.” That's what they're looking for.
The concept of old time religion is an anchor for our faith. It's a pattern for our behavior. And it's a message that can be delivered – powerful way to talk to those around us. And it's one more thing. It's a link. Let's look in Hebrews 11, verse 32. The model of pure religion is a link from the past, through the present, to the future. Paul has been preaching about the faith of the patriarchs here in this chapter 11 – the faith chapter – and here he begins to generalize about all the people in the Old Testament who are faithful to God's right way. And he says in verse 32:
Heb. 11:32 – What more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, and also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trials of mockings and sourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise. And now, in one sentence, Paul does something quite extraordinary.V-40 – God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. Brethren in the church – that Paul was writing to – were quite discouraged. Heretics had drawn off large numbers of the original church with doctrinal novelties and unsupportable, odd-ball ideas. Many of their leaders had been imprisoned. The faith of some was starting to crumble as the congregations grew smaller. At the time of this writing Paul also knows that his time is coming to an end. He's not a young man anymore. And he knows that the Roman system is closing in on him. He knows that, if the truth is going to go forward, it's going to be carried forward by other people besides him and the other apostles – by a faithful few who remain. So he's getting them ready to step up to their calling – to carry the truth to all the world. He takes some effort to build a large cloud of faces and names in the minds of these people he's writing to. And he calls to their mind God's heroes out of the Bible. Then, in one sentence, he binds the church of his day with all of these great Biblical heroes, and moves the people of the past and the people of his day into the future to that time when they will all be resurrected and rewarded together. What he's telling them is, if they will hold fast to that pure religion that was delivered to them, that they're going to be God's heroes, too.
Do you know who else is going to be there on that great day beside all those prophets and Biblical heroes – the famous people of the Bible – and besides the people of Paul's day? Do you know who else is bound inexorably to the heroes of the Old and the New Testaments? Well, all of us. We are. All of those of our age, who follow that old time religion and don't water it down and don't give up on it. We will be observing the same religion they observed. And we will step up to our calling and be a part of that as well. The question is, will we fulfill our calling and engage people with the truth as God provides us the opportunity? Will we fulfill the role of the church? If we do that, then we will be following our brethren in the New Testament church and we will be able to take our place in history as God's heroes.
The old time religion of God is an anchor . It warns us off of additions and changes, and keeps us moving in the right direction doctrinally in faith and practice. It's a pattern that shows us a model to follow so we can be close to God. We have to live by faith. We learned that today. It's a message in that it's a way to fulfill our responsibility to do the awesome work of God in our personal lives together. It's a message that makes sense to people, because it ties them right back to the Bible and what it says. And it's a link, in that by following the model, we're connected to the roots of the very church Jesus Himself founded. And it's a link, in that by following the model, we're connected to the church of the future, which will be established over all the earth in the world to come.
There are many advances humanity has produced. When it comes to cars, the good old days are now . The technological advances that have been made in all areas is amazing. CD players make a lot better music than my old Philco phonograph did. A trip to the dentist these days is a lot less painful than years ago – at least, for some of us. But when it comes to church, don't show me Trinitarian theology. Don't show me holidays that are not in the Bible. Don't show me a day of worship that was implemented hundreds of years after Christ died. Give me that old time religion. If it was good for Paul and Silas, then it's good enough for me.Access the audio or download this article.
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