IN the noble answer given to this question in one of the finest documents drawn up by uninspired men, the Westminster Divines reply “Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.” The natural inference from these words is that true enjoyment and happiness is to be found in glorifying God. Happiness is not to be sought after as a means in itself but it will follow as a result of glorifying God. Needless to say this cuts right across man’s thoughts. He, in his fallen state, is seeking happiness as a means in itself from a thousand different sources but never from the source from which all true and lasting happiness and enjoyment flows. Man is seeking this enjoyment and happiness with all eagerness from the cradle to the grave. God did not create man to live a miserable life; He created him to glorify Him and to enjoy Him forever. But something has happened and man has set out on a quest of his own. The Bible explanation of what happened is that man has sinned, and in so doing he has perverted his ways and that he is engaged in a vain search for what he has lost where it can never be found. But this does not make him give up his vain search. He imagines that a life of pleasure in which his vain mind is entertained by the inane frivolities of the world is real happiness and that all those who do not find happiness in such emptiness are to be pitied or derided, according to the vagrant mood in which he is, because such entertainments afford them no pleasure. He never stops to think that the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot—making a great noise when the fire is burning but leaving only ashes behind. The world’s answer to what is man’s chief end is that he be entertained and in that entertainment it never asks the question whether it is beneficial for the mind or body—as for the soul’s needs they never come within its purview.
As the World invades the Church it inoculates the Church with its view of things and by and by the Church, so inoculated sets out to entertain. Worldly minded office-bearers—ministers and elders—get busy in the entertainment business and soothe any qualms of conscience they may have to begin with by adopting the Jesuitic principle—the end justifies the means. The Church, however, cannot compete with the World in this line and instead of the pews being filled they are becoming emptier and emptier. This line of action by the Church has created a depraved appetite which has no desire for the bread of life—an appetite which longs after the husks upon which the minds of the world’s votaries within the professing Church elects to feed. Whenever the Church gives place to the idea that her mission is to entertain the people instead of presenting the gospel she has failed to realise the end for which she exists. When one looks abroad to-day how patent it is that the professing Church in general has wandered far from the King’s highway. It is such a condition of things that accounts for the rampant Sabbath breaking of our time. Much has been said about the gloom of the Scottish Sabbath and a dead set has been made to clear away this so-called gloom by worldly minded men. It appears to us on a careful review of matters, that the gloom is in the mind of the Anti-Sabbatarian himself. Recently in reading a book we were confronted with such a distorted and false view of Scottish life that we felt pity for the benighted writer who saw life in Scotland through such eyes. He must have had a miserable and a most discontented life. God’s Day may be gloomy to the worldling, it is not so to those who love their Lord. It is like His salvation full of joy—a day in which they joy triumphantly.
Sometime ago a paragraph appeared in the press announcing that a suggestion had been made to the Cinematograph Exhibitors that cinemas should be opened on the Lord’s Day for the Forces in the first instance and also for the public. At the time of writing we do not know what effect this suggestion has had but it occurred to us to look up the programme provided by the B.B.C. on Sabbath for the Forces. Here it is as given in a recent issue of the Radio Times (25th September): 7.15—Gramophone Records; 7.30—Popular Artists and Bands parade for your entertainment; 8.0—Jack Wilson and his versatile five; 8.30—Tommy Handley in Itma; 9.0 Interlude: Records; 9.30—Sunday Serenade: Scottish Variety Orchestra; 10.0—Creswell Colliery Band; 10.25—For the Indian Forces; 11.0—Short Morning Service; 11.15—Swing Guitars; 11.30—Workers’ Playtime; 12.0—Geraldo and His Orchestra; 12.35—The Jack Benny Programme; 1.0—News; 1.15—Music Hall; 2.15—Maple Leaf Matinee: Weekly Entertainment presented by the Canadian Forces; 2.50—Christian Behaviour; 3.0—Music While you work; 3.30—Grand Concert; 4.15—The Brains Trust; 5.0—Jack Payne and his Orchestra; 5.30—March of the Movies; 6.0—Records; 6.30—Charles B. Cochran Birthday Concert; 7.0—American Sports Bulletin; 7.10—Weekly News Letter; 7.20—The Week’s Films; 7.30—Community Hymn Singing; 8.0—Band of H.M. Royal Marines; 8.30—Songs for Everybody; 9.0—News and Poscript; 9.30—Symphony Orchestra; 10.30—Music While you Work; 11.0—Close Down. Not before time we take liberty of adding.
Such is the kind of entertainment meted out to our troops many of whom will be in eternity before this war is over. Surely things have reached a daring pitch when a Government institution such as the B.B.C. takes command of the Lord’s Day and prostitutes it with such entertainment for the Forces of the Crown. Satan himself could scarcely excel the B.B.C. organisers in drawing up a programme more in the interests of his kingdom. We had purposely omitted giving the programme for the Home Service on the same Sabbath but as our readers have, we are sure, got more than they care for we will forbear except to say it is on the same lines. God’s Day was never meant to be so cavalierly treated as the B.B.C. are treating it. May not the Roman Catholic influence in the B.B.C. have something to do with this order of things?
Before leaving this subject we revert again to the answer to the question What is Man’s Chief End?—To glorify God and enjoy Him for ever. Man in his fallen state cannot glorify God by anything he does but through grace in believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, he is glorifying God and all who glorify God after this manner will enjoy Him forever and ever. The world does not understand the joy that is in God’s salvation; it cannot enter into the secret of that joy which is full of glory. One moment of that joy is more by far than all the joy the world ever experienced since man sinned and became an outcast from the true and lasting joys of heaven.