Dear John,
I don't know why I am writing this to you, because I know it won't reach you. Since it is your birthday, I felt I had to do something to honor you. Five hundred years ago today, on July 10, 1509, the Lord blessed your parents with a little boy who was destined by God to become a great champion of the faith. Your legacy lives on today, although I am sad to report, many would deny your contributions, and others would love to rid your name altogether from the annals of history.
Much has changed since you walked on God's green earth. Sometimes I wish you were still around, but then again I am happy for you considering where you are. Then again, according to Methusaleh's calculations, if you were still alive today, you would have only reached mid-life by now.
I live in a new country that was not even born when you died. Our first President was a man by the name of George, and he is affectionately called the Father of our Country. While that is true, in reality you, John, deserve that title. Our country was birthed out of Europe, and in particular, the Protestant Reformation. Even many historians today see the direct link to what you espoused in your lifetime, such as a representative form of republic, free market capitalism, individual entrepreneurial spirit, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, among other things, and what we have enjoyed in our nation now for over two hundred years. (I must confess, though, that many of those cherished traditions are under attack from many corners.)
I read a book once on our nation's constitution, and the respected author freely admits that he was not a follower of all your ideas. In a footnote, though, he honestly acknowledges that most of what we find in our founding documents are borrowed from your understanding of Scripture. Of course, that understanding was not yours alone, but was shared by countless number of peoples who initially came to our country, namely the Pilgrims, Puritans, and Separatists, and other like-minded groups. For example, the biblical teaching on the total depravity of man had a huge role in our country's founding fathers when they drew up three branches of government with all the checks and balances that were needed to protect us against man's despotic sinful nature.
Sadly, our country went through a big cultural shift in the first half of the 1800s, and we have not recovered from it. Early in our nation's history we had two great awakenings from God, heaven-sent revivals with thousands of conversions that swept across our land and preserved it from internal spiritual and moral collapse. While there were many men who God used in those two great movements from God, the two most prominent men were Jonathan Edwards and George Whitefield, great preachers of the gospel that followed in your theological footsteps. Since our country has turned away from our doctrinal heritage as a nation, we have not seen a genuine mass movement of God in our country for over two hundred years now. What was generally held to be true by many at one time in our nation's history has been either swept under the rug or given the boot out the back door in most places of worship today.
What pains me more than anything is that those who profess the name of Christ do not know who you are, or what you stood for, or they don't care. We have moved on, and we are more into other things now. We have lots of religion, just like in your day, but as you wrote and preached about on so many occasions, many can have a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. Tares grow up with wheat. Wolves don sheep's clothing. An outward profession does not mean an inward possession.
As you taught so well and so consistently, God truly is sovereign in everything in the universe, and that includes the salvation of man. Today, we may give lip service to your sovereignty, so long your sovereignty does not interfere with man's sovereignty over some things. Today man must increase, even if it causes God to decrease some.
There are many today who go way beyond of just ignoring you and your contributions. There are those who revile you, who will curl up their nose and upper lip at the mention of your name, who accuse you of the most vilest things imaginable. Some will say that you were harsh, stern, unloving, judgmental, overly strict, Pharisaical, unevangelistic, and other things I dare not mention. After all, it is supposed to be your birthday. Those who knew you best and up close know those things were simply untrue. You were a loving family man and a gentle humble shepherd of God's flock under your care. You had an enduring and endearing passion for souls, for the Word of God, and for God's glory.
We have a leader in our country whom some think would make a great leader over all our country. She was a governor of one of our fifty states, and many believe she has been unfairly targeted with the most baseless attacks on her character. Whether she would be a great national leader or not is debatable, and that is beside the point. I just wish that those who criticize you most will step back and see that they are doing the same things against you that many say are being done against this governor, or anybody else who is being slandered and falsely attacked.
I have heard in my lifetime that people don't want to be associated with you in any way, because "we should not follow any one man, and that we should only follow the Lord." You would be the first one to agree with that statement. I guess people are really scared or irked when they hear people who basically agree with you as being called by your last name with an -ist tucked on at the end. Knowing your high commitment to the name of Christ you would be horrified and disgusted yourself if you knew that people are identified by your last name. You would do your best to put a stop to it, but with that being said, in our day we don't follow one man; we follow many men, we adore many men, we worship many men, and those men sometimes have very little in common with the biblical gospel.
The nature of Christianity today in our country is that we will identify ourselves with the latest anything that comes along. Several days ago we saw a very popular man by the name of Michael die. I can't go over all his life story, John, because you wouldn't understand it, and you especially couldn't understand how millions of people could watch his funeral service all over the world. A lot has changed, John, like I said. But after hearing with my own ears and after seeing things with my own eyes what has said and done at this man's funeral, I almost became convinced that they needed to keep his dead body under heavy guard where they had his funeral service for at least three days, lest his followers come steal his body. And then on the third day, everyone could come back to the same place and watch this Michael guy dance his way out of his coffin. It is ironic and contradictory, to say the least, when people accuse us of following you, just because we believe you on some key doctrinal points, when today there are people who fall down and worship all sorts of individuals all the time. That is done all the time in religious circles too.
John, I don't agree with you on every single point you taught, and I don't follow you in the sense I should follow Christ and Him alone. At the same time, the Bible says we ought to obey our leaders who spoke the Word of God to us, submit to them, consider the outcome of their lives, and imitate their faith. So, John, while others may spurn you, deny you, ignore you, ridicule you, and attack you, I want to thank you on your birthday, or more especially I want to thank the good Lord for giving you to us. Even though you are dead, you still speak. I have many of your writings in my personal library. That's not a bad legacy for someone who was born 500 years ago.
I must end this "Dear John" letter on an encouraging note. Maybe we are seeing a reversal of trends in our country. Due to whole host of factors working together, more and more people are coming around to see and accept what you taught, preached and wrote during your lifetime. How shall I word it? There are many alternative ways of educating our young people today, and because of that, so many people are learning for the first time the glories of Reformation history. While at one time old books by these great saints of the past like the Puritans were buried under layers of dust in some remote library archives, they are now being printed and published the world over. People are reading what they have to say, and people's minds are being opened up to truths forgotten or buried under layers of dust in near and faraway pulpits.
Added to all that, numerous bold preachers have stepped forward to herald these great truths, and two of the most notable men carry your first name. One preacher John is from a state called California, and the other preacher John is from a state called Minnesota. Because we have ways of communication that are far numerous and superior than what you had in your day, John, these preachers, and others just like them, are getting the Word out to a massive worldwide audience. (You would be pleased to know a long time after you God raised up another John, this time in England, who wrote a book called Pilgrim's Progress. It is the most read and published religious book in the world, second only to the Bible.)
So maybe, just maybe, things are looking up, John, in our day. That is where we should be looking any way, since He is the author and finisher of our faith.
Happy birthday, John. I will see you one day in glory. I will know where to find you then. You will be at the feet of One who saved you by His grace, and that is where we all will be. Some or many may fight it now, but then at that time all must and will acknowledge that salvation was and is entirely from God. May that recognition come sooner, though, and not later. Thank you, dear Lord, for using your servant John for many to come to that recognition sooner, and may many more follow in those same paths.
Yours by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone for God's glory alone,
Chris
