Don Wildmon
AFA/AFR founder
Originally published in AFA Journal, June, 1994
August 2004 – One of my favorite poems is this one written by Ella Wheeler Wilcox:
One ship drives east and another drives west
With the selfsame winds that blow.
’Tis the set of the sails
And not the gales
Which tells us the way to go.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through life:
’Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
I have often wondered why there are so many individuals who frequent our churches who are unconcerned about the spiritual and cultural war being waged in our society. With so much at stake, it should be that every person who calls himself a Christian should be active and involved in trying to turn back the tide of immorality which seeks to engulf us.
We leaders in the church are responsible for the apathy which exists in our midst. For years our emphasis has been nearly totally on trying to get people to come to church instead of be the Church. We have been more concerned with the building than with being. We have left the impression to those who come to our sanctuaries that if they will attend worship with some degree of regularity, give some part of their income, and assume some small role in keeping the institution (both locally and denominationally) going, then they have fulfilled their “requirements” of citizenship in the Kingdom.
Baptist preacher Vance Havner once said that the worst thing that happened to the Church was when Constantine made it the religion of the Roman empire. It gave Christianity respectability. And most of us want respectability more than we want responsibility. We don’t really expect our faith to require much of us, nor to cost us much of our comfort. We expect little or no sacrifice.
Like the winds of the sea are the ways of fate,
As we voyage along through life:
’Tis the set of a soul
That decides its goal,
And not the calm or the strife.
“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it,” said Jesus. “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
There are those who seek the comfort of the sanctuary, and there are those who seek the cause of the Savior. They are not the same.
Why? They differ because of the set of the soul. 
