Jeremiah said to the rebellious, idolatrous people in Judah, “Thus says the LORD: ‘Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.’ But they said, ‘We will not walk in it’” (6:16).
The late Martin Luther King, Jr. made this statement in one of his earliest recorded sermons, “If we are to go forward today, we’ve got to go back and rediscover some mighty precious values that we’ve left behind.” King’s statement did not have in mind some idealistic remembrance of the past. He knew very well many of the failures of the past. Rather, like the biblical prophets of old, King recognized that human hope rests not on future discovery or technological advances, but on that which God revealed long ago.
The appeal of the Restoration Movement is much the same. A simple reading of the Old and New Testaments reveals the natural tendency of human beings: we drift away from God and His standards. Taking the mantle of restoration, we intend to return to God, trusting in His authority to order our lives.
As we look at the makeup of our society today, we have to wonder if the restoration plea, “Back to the Bible,” has lost its relevance. How can we call people back to the Bible when they no longer believe in God and His Word? The further we drift from God, the more we need to call people back to Him.
In laying the groundwork for this plea, we must endeavor to show the nature of the world. In Dr. King’s sermon, he contended “all reality hinges on moral foundations.” If we show that this world exists solely within a moral framework, then we will have begun to lay the foundation for a discussion of the appropriate source of morality: the perfectly moral God who founded this world.
Second of all, nearly all people believe this world is not all that it should be; to change it for the better would be progress. Yet, we do not all agree about what should change or how we should change it. In calling people back to God, we call them to the truest form of progress. C. S. Lewis wrote, “If you are on the wrong road progress means doing an about-turn and walking back to the right road and in that case the man who turns back soonest is the most progressive man.”
With Jeremiah we cry out, “Ask for the ancients paths,” knowing that in returning to God we acknowledge the world as it is and we hope for all that it can be.
Clay Leonard
