By REV. JOHN COLQUHOUN, Glendale.
WE live in an age when a great many never enter a church from the beginning of the year to its end, but if those who do go were asked their reason for doing so, and if they were to answer honestly, it would be seen how varied were the motives people had for going to church. Without taking into account what may be true of Roman Catholics relative to priestly fear and a false sense of devotion, we shall confine our attention to the question as it relates to professed Protestants. Broadly speaking, there are two classes of people among church-goers; there are natural men who have never yet known what it is to be born again, and the Lord’s people who have passed from death unto life. It is unspeakably solemn to think that these two classes are sitting side by side in the same building, hearing the same gospel, singing the same psalms, professing to worship the same God, and yet their reasons for coming together are as far apart as the North and South Poles.
The worldly man could give many a reason for coming to church. One may be that otherwise the Sabbath would be intolerable to him. This is true where outward order is observed on the Sabbath, and where people have been taught from their childhood to abstain on that day from works that are lawful and necessary on other days. Where people realise that this is God’s command, and believe that to act otherwise would be sinful, their natural consciences keep a check on them, but the period of inactivity which this entails causes them to feel the day long. In their experience the longest day of the week is the Sabbath, and they must do something to make it seem shorter. To walk to church and back will pass the time, and then, if they can get sleeping in their pew, they seem to count it less sinful than sleeping at home on that day. If they are not allowed to sleep in church they will spend the time of the services day-dreaming, or thinking of everything but the sermon to which they are professing to listen.
Others go to church in order to be counted respectable. They have neighbours who never go and they look upon them as heathen who are sure to be lost. While they are quite correct in judging that all who will continue to the end to neglect the means of grace will be lost, yet they forget that nowhere in the Bible is it said that the mere attendance on the means of grace will save a person. The Apostle James describes the mere hearer of the Word thus: “For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass; for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was,” (James i, 23, 24). Thus we see that the outward respectability of attending church will not profit one in any way.
Some go to church merely in order to see friends and acquaintances. Christ has said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them,” (Matt. xviii, 20), and it should be the desire of all who go to His house to get His presence there. He is the Friend of sinners and He is the “Friend that sticketh closer than a brother,” but alas! some who go to His house are more desirous of seeing frail, sinful mortals than they are of seeing Christ and holding converse with Him. What, it may be asked, have they to say to these friends and acquaintances? Do they ask them the searching and all-important question: What think ye of Christ? No, their talk will be of the world and of things that perish.
Again, there is a section who go to church out of curiosity. Their ear is open to catch some strange or unusual expression that may fall from the preacher’s lips, and when they get any such thing it will amuse them and they make use of it among their fellow creatures as a matter to laugh at. While this ought to be a warning to preachers of the gospel to be so circumspect in their language that neither the Lord’s people would be justly offended, nor the godless world get a handle against religion, yet such as go to church for the purpose of getting something to laugh at have already begun to sit in the seat of the scoffer which has been aptly described as “the lowest stair to hell.” Such will not scruple to criticise the preacher, forgetting that they are thus shutting the door of their hearts against Christ.
The whisperings of the natural conscience will, at times, make a sinner go to church. When he neglects the house of God there is something that tells him that he is not doing right, and he finds this “something” very troublesome. At his work during the week it follows him; at his own fireside in the evening it whispers, “You should have been in church last Sabbath,” or, on his bed on Sabbath morning it tells him that he is not in the path of duty. This causes the careless sinner to look about for means of silencing conscience, but nothing will silence the natural conscience but to do that, however imperfectly, the neglect of which he is accused of. Where, however, these strivings and warnings are not accompanied by the power of the Holy Spirit, the person who is the subject of them will be satisfied when he performs his duty, and prides himself on how punctiliously he performs his “good works,” utterly forgetful that the Scriptures tell us that “by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified,” (Gal. ii, 16).
It is refreshing to turn from these sinful motives for going to church and consider the motives which the Lord’s people have for going. The Psalmist says, “One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple,” (Psalm xxvii, 4). We see here that he had a twofold end in view in going to God’s house. He desired to behold the beauty of the Lord, and he also went in order to inquire. He desired to see the beauty of the Lord in His Word. Many think it not worth their while to go to God’s house unless there is someone there who can preach, but the true child of God loves to go there in order to hear the Word read publicly, because he knows by experience that he may meet with Christ in the public reading of the Word, for Christ showed Himself to him in that way before. To the objection that he can read the Word for himself at home he replies that the promise is that where two or three are gathered together in His name He is there. The presence of Christ, therefore, does not depend on the presence of one who can preach, though preaching as a means of salvation is in no way to be despised. Often has the mere reading of God’s Word in His own house been the means of awakening the careless and indifferent, releasing those who were under the spirit of bondage and giving them the spirit of adoption by which they were enabled to cry, Abba, Father, confirming the weak and causing the lame man to leap as an hart.
While the true Christian values the public reading of God’s Word, he by no means despises the public preaching of the gospel. The Westminster Divines, who certainly valued the reading of God’s Word, laid special emphasis in the Shorter Catechism on the preaching of that Word. In the preaching of the Word there is, broadly speaking, a declaration of man’s lost and ruined condition by the Fall, Redemption through Christ, and Sanctification by the Holy Spirit. Here the beauty of the Lord is to be seen in looking upon sinners in their low estate, making provision to meet with their lost condition, and through that provision, causing them to appear before Himself at last without spot or wrinkle or any such thing. Neither do they despise the other parts of public worship, such as prayer and the singing of God’s praise. They are not uninterested in these exercises, and do not act as if they had nothing to do with them. The unregenerate may stare and look about them during prayer and have a closed mouth during the singing of God’s praise, as if prayer and praise were merely the duties of those taking the lead in those exercises, but the case is different with the child of God. Every petition put up finds a response in his soul, re-echoing the desire from which the petition arose. In the praises of the sanctuary when he is able to join skilfully in the singing, his mind is not so occupied with the music as to give a subordinate place to the exercise of soul which one should have in the singing of God’s praise, and where the gift of joining skilfully is denied that part of worship is not lost, for it gives an uplift of soul which fits one better for the other parts of worship, and is therefore an aid to seeing the beauty of the Lord.
It has been noticed that the worldling goes to church in order to see friends and acquaintances, but that will not benefit him any. The child of God sees brethren and sisters in Christ when he goes to church, and can enter into Paul’s experience at Appii Forum when he met the brethren, “he thanked God, and took courage.” When the true Christian looks on a brother or sister in Christ, he can say that here is so much of Christ dwelling in this world; he can see in that person one for whom Christ died, and to whom the Holy Spirit applied the efficacy of Christ’s finished work, and who thus has been made a new creature. Also he can see in him one who has the same faith, hope and love that he has himself, and who is a fellow-sufferer with him in his trials, temptations and fears, conquering these trials, temptations and fears only through Christ. In short, when he has grounds for looking upon a fellow-mortal as a true Christian he sees in him the beauty of the Lord, and this causes a union to which the world is a stranger. “Thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God,” (Ruth i, 16).
The second motive that the Christian has in going to church is to inquire. In the Old Testament the expression, “to inquire of the Lord,” is used in connection with seeking the mind of the Lord in any particular matter, and thus we see that the Psalmist in inquiring in the Lord’s house, indicates that he was conscious of his needs. The Lord’s people are a needy people and they come to Himself with their needs. They need light on the path of duty, for they know that “it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps,” (Jer. x, 23). They have problems to solve which no human being can solve for them; they have doubts and fears which clutch at their hearts and make them desolate; they have temptations and trials and other experiences which they cannot tell to their nearest and dearest, and these bring them at times to the verge of despair, but in God’s house they often get all their difficulties met with and they leave in a happier frame of mind that when they went. In this, their experiences are similar to that of godly Asaph. “When I thought to know this, it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end,” (Psalm lxxiii, 16, 17).
Those who inquire in God’s house inquire for marks of grace on themselves. They see no marks on themselves; they mourn over a desperately wicked heart, they find within themselves a nature that hates God and holiness, and at their elbow they find a tempting devil. The question with them often is, “How can I be right for eternity and these things true of me?” In that condition they go to inquire in God’s house and are brought to see in the reading and preaching of the Word the case of others who had similar experiences. It is made clear to them that the people who had these experiences are now on Mount Zion above, and that these very experiences showed them to be the Lord’s people. Not only is the similarity between the trials of these people and their own trials giving them hope, but the hatred of sin and everything connected with it manifested by the Lord’s people, gives them hope for they have that hatred of sin themselves, though not to the extent which they would wish.
In their inquiring in God’s house they are seeking fellowship with Christ. They cannot hold fellowship with the world for they and the world are diametrically opposed. Two cannot walk together unless they are agreed, and, therefore, because they and the world are not agreed they cannot have fellowship, but they and Christ are agreed. They agree with Him that they cannot do anything to save themselves, and they agree with Him that all the glory of their salvation belongs to Him. “Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name give glory, for thy mercy, and for thy truth’s sake,” (Psalm cxv, 1).
It is well for all who go to God’s house with this twofold end in view. They show that a change has come over them, which has made a difference between them and the world. With the world it is a case of approaching God with flattering lips, but with the child of God there is sincerity, and he is bound to Christ, His Cause and means as he is bound to no one else. He is his all for time and eternity.