THAT there is something seriously wrong with the world is acknowledged even by men who have no sympathy with Bible teaching. The facts which meet us wherever we go are too numerous and too patent to be overlooked even by those who take a very superficial view of their surroundings. The Word of God leaves us in no doubt as to the cause of this moral chaos and the unhappiness and sorrow that are its attendant results. Sin is the cause of it all. It is from this source all the sorrows of the nations and all the ills of the world’s inhabitants flow. Men have attempted to put matters right but the task is too formidable even for the best and sincerest reformers who, oppressed with a sense of their fellowmen’s heavy burdens, have endeavoured by one means or another to lighten them. Too often they have only been dealing with the symptoms of the trouble without going to the real root of it and even when they may have been quick enough to discover the root cause they were helpless because they had not a suitable and adequate remedy to deal with the disease. The Bible not only tells us that sin is the root cause of all the trouble but it makes known that God has a remedy which is suitable and adequate to deal with the case. Sin has blinded the eyes of men and darkened their understanding so that God’s remedy has become to them weakness and foolishness. It is true to-day as it was of old that “when Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah
saw his wound, then went Ephraim to the Assyrian, and sent to King Jareb” yet he could not cure him or heal him of his wound (Hos. v. 13). In their own wisdom they have set aside the divine remedy and substituted their own remedies with the result that the cause from which the trouble flows is as potent as ever. These remedies may be compared to those of an unskilled physician who healed wounds without ever getting at the cause; the result being that the poison soon showed itself either at the place where the wound had healed or broken out more virulently at another place. There can be little doubt that the cleverest brains in the world have tackled the problems that brought distress and suffering to mankind but they have only succeeded in healing some of the outward sores — the strong poison of sin is working mightily in the hearts of men, in the minds of those who control the affairs of nations and those who lead in the councils of the professing Church. What distress, discontent, and suffering the nations are passing through since 1914 and yet they have not betaken themselves to Him who alone has a sure cure for all their distresses! The hectic rush of the leading statesmen of this country and other countries to human devised remedies is pitiable in the extreme. Men who were in the iron furnace of the Great War said there must be a stop put forever to the mad, insensate plans that brought men as sheep to the slaughter to face the dread instruments of death on the battlefield. They decided to make a covenant and enter into a league of the nations that there should be war no more. What has been the result of all this planning — a planning that ignored God and Him to whom all power in heaven and earth has been committed? What has the League of Nations been able to do? Has it fulfilled the high aims of the statesmen who fondly dreamed that this was a remedy to settle the disputes of nations? Has it won the respect and honour of the nations? Let the facts of recent times speak and they will tell us that the statesmen of the nations are dreading another mighty contest. Our prayer is that God may avert it and if He does our statesmen can take
no credit. Our own nation has entered into covenants with godless nations and we may rest assured that this is the high road to bring us into as great trouble as we were dragged into by France in 1914. And what gratitude has France shown to Britain for all she suffered on her behalf? The same utter helplessness of statesmen was seen when the economic conditions of the world loomed up before them as a dark threatening cloud. It occurred to some clever men that representatives of the nations should meet in London. The extraordinary nature of this gathering and the importance attached to it was heralded by a blaze of trumpets in the country. We were told that tremendous issues hung on the Congress’s decisions and that failure to come to definite decisions would be disastrous. Well, the Congress did miserably fail and we were left in the old situation. Throughout the terrible years that are past the cleverest brains in this country had been working, formulating schemes, and planning the financial rehabilitation of the country but have their thoughts turned to the Scriptural decree that righteousness exalteth a nation. Material progress is one thing — moral prosperity is another. A nation may reach the unparalleled financial prosperity attained by the U.S.A. a few years ago and suffer a crash that will resound throughout the civilized world. God will not lightly overlook the conduct of nations which pay no attention to the decree appointing His Son to be King in Sion and the distressful troubles of the nations may be His judgments upon them — “I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they walked in their own counsels” (Ps. lxxxi. 12).
It is in the professing Church, however, that the experiment of setting aside God’s remedy and substituting another is seen in its most daring form. That there is something seriously wrong with men’s attitude to religion is manifest on every hand. The cold, dead indifference that prompts neglect of God’s house and worship is not confined to one corner of the land. It is affecting even those whom one would never suspect of coming under its chilling influence. Real concern has been awakened in certain quarters
and resort has been made to remedies that have as their aim an effective counteractive but unfortunately too often these remedies are human devices that ignore the divine remedy. There can be no doubt of the excessive activity that is rampant in certain religious circles. Ecclesiastical machinery has reached a high stage of development and multitudes of well meaning men and women are busying themselves incessantly in all kinds of social activities. The World and the Church in these well meant efforts unfortunately are getting into a tangle which is weakening the Church and not benefiting the world. Men have become so absorbed in their own activities that in most cases God is not taken into account and His Spirit ignored or if He is recognised at all, in too many cases, it is only lip service that is paid to Him. The Church has been lowering her high profession to meet the world. The remedy that is to replace the God-announced one is to lower the high standards of heaven to make it easier for the world to be religious. This is the principle that is operating behind every movement which is calling for the opening of the Church’s door for the entrance of the world and all the evil that follows in its train. The worldly-wise advocates of this spiritually ruinous policy have forgotten the Master’s solemn words: — “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is henceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Matt. v. 13). An examination into the motive power behind much of these ceaseless religious activities will reveal that it is the unscriptural idea that there is some good in man and that a careful encouragement will develop it until it becomes a power for good. But man, according to Scripture, is spiritually dead and no human effort can give life to the dead. The natural man can be as religious as even Saul of Tarsus was, as sincere and as earnest and yet not have the slightest understanding that it is God who alone can give life to the spiritually dead. What are acting and dancing in connection with churches, bazaars, whist drives, church socials and the many other
worldly devices resorted to in our day but useless human substitutes for the divine remedy? During the Great War it will be remembered that there was a resort to many substitutes in food and clothing owing to the extremities to which the nation was reduced. Was the health of the people improved by the substitutes offered them as food? Were they so enamoured of the substitutes in the materials for clothing that they clung to them when better times came? Was there not a desire to go back to the better food of pre-War days and to make use again of the genuine clothing material they were accustomed to in better days? When the Spirit is poured out from on High the human substitutes will be cast aside and the God ordained remedies will get their place. Men are experimenting with a thousand substitutes to-day and they are making no progress. The Enemy as an angel of light has the ear of many in the high places of the Church and State and he is working havoc in both. As in the days of Jeremiah it is true about many of our leaders in Church and State that every one has turned to his course, as the horse rusheth into the battle (Jer. viii. 6). As a generation we have forsaken the fountain of living waters and we have hewn out to ourselves broken cisterns. All man-devised schemes, which set aside the divine plans, however well they may promise at the beginning, are doomed to certain failure. We are turning back faint-hearted before the powerful onset of the advancing hosts of the Enemy and alas! how few are listening to Him who said:
“O that my people had me heard,
Isr’el my ways had chose!
I had their en’mies soon subdu’d,
My hand turn’d on their foes.”
(Metrical Psalms cx. 13, 14).
The Assyrian did a divine work against Jerusalem, but not with a divine end.—Stephen Charnock.