Christianity is always on its way out.  According to the social pundits, Christianity is always “yesterdays” religion. Voltaire, the noted French infidel, prophesied the demise of the Christian faith circa 1778.  He was convinced that in 100 years the Bible, and the faith it undergirded, would both be swept into either ignominy or extinction.  And yet, only fifty years after Voltaire’s death, the Geneva Bible Society used his very printing press and his very house to produce stacks of Bibles. 

The term is “going the way of the Dodo.”  The Dodo bird is the infamous symbol of extinction.  And according to history, Christianity has been going the way of the Dodo long before the Dodo ever went that way. 

But there is something about Christianity that separates it from the Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Sea Cow, the Cave Lion, the Tasmanian Tiger, and the legendary Dodo bird (all of which have “gone the way of the Dodo”).  And that is 1st John chapter four verse four, which proclaims that there is a power even greater than all the earthly and unearthly powers of extinction (as I will explain below).

T-Rex and the Sea Cow had nothing to preserve them when climates changed, floods occurred, hunters loaded their bows, and fishermen their harpoons. 

But Christianity is different. 

The Cave Lion, the Tasmanian Tiger, and the Dodo had no one to feed them when the rivers ran dry, the skies held back their rain, and the green of the earth faded. 

But Christianity does. 

Christianity cannot be stopped because God is its advocate. 

As the old saying goes, “The Church of GOD is an anvil that has worn out many hammers.” And as H.L. Hastings quips, “So the hammers of infidels have been pecking away for ages, but the hammers are worn out, and the anvil still endures.”

Or as Bernard Ramm says, “A thousand times over, the death knell . . . has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and committal read. But somehow the corpse never stays put.”

Christianity cannot die because God is it’s Benefactor, Father, Helper, and Healer.

Attempt to starve it out and God feeds His people. Attempt to imprison it, and God opens the prison doors. Attempt to embarrass it and God’s men and women rejoice in the ridicule.  And attempt to murder it and the blood of the martyrs becomes the seed of the Church.

According to all honest reflection, true Christianity appears to once again be on the ropes.  And the enemy is boasting that the knockout punch is just in another round or two.  The pundits proclaim that soon it will be too embarrassing to identify yourself any longer as a Christian.  Soon the “debilitating curse of faith” will be no more. 

Add to that the fact that many Biblical conservatives have bemoaned that the post-modern influence upon the doctrine and theology has sucked the remaining life straight out the Church, and that the horrifying effects of the Emergent poison injected straight into congregational bloodstream has created a spiritual paralysis within the Body.  So, is it now time to administer last rites?

The Church of Jesus Christ, even in it’s weakest state has a secret.  And even if it still must grow worse before the proverbial corner is turned.  The corner WILL be turned.  For the testimony and truth packaged triumphantly into 1st John 4:4 is eternal, and its message is still as sharp as a double-edged sword.  For, dear Church, “greater is HE that is in you, than he that is in the world.” 

The Church of Jesus Christ WILL rise again.  Purity will return.  The Church will, once more, be marked by love, strength, courage, faith, daring, mercy, audacity, and triumph. 

The Church may be nothing more than a flock of little helpless sheep.  And in our own DNA, we are as defenseless as the Dodo bird.  And, yes, it is true, that the many antagonists who have vowed to sweep us “sheep” from off the earth are many.  And it is also true that these “antagonists” outman us and outgun us in every way. But unlike the Dodo bird, we the sheep are not left to the defenses of our own DNA.  We, the sheep, have a Mighty Shepherd. 

So, instead of “going the way of the Dodo,” we the Church, proudly “go the way of Lamb.” And where the Dodo bird is no more, the Lamb “ever liveth.”