THERE are many branches of the visible Church of Christ in our land to-day, each testifying publicly to adherence to the Christian faith as revealed in the Bible. No doubt there are throughout the various denominations, as before God who knoweth them that are His, some who fear God; nevertheless our opinion is, however much we may be criticised for it, that in the searching light of the Word of God the most of Churches are far from what they profess to be in many respects. And the fact is that more or less the visible Christian Church in this nation to-day is in a deplorable state of backsliding from God, from the Lord Jesus, and the Scriptures of truth. So in considering of this at present we would just indicate what in our view reveals a general state of backsliding within the Churches to-day. The view is indeed dark but we believe it to be quite authentic and not without manifold evidences.
There is, to begin with, a widespread falling away from belief in the Inspiration, by the Holy Spirit, of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments. It is averred that the Word of God is to be discovered within the Bible, here and there. And as to verbal Inspiration, which we hold to be a vital tenet of the faith, it is just not accepted to-day by the greater part of Church leaders and teachers.
And when we scrutinise the beliefs and practices of many who have assumed the office of the ministry of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, it becomes obvious that an unconverted ministry prevails and is a plague upon the Church and the world. Some of these men are more worldly than the world who make no profession of religion. Christ’s true servants are converted men with a divine commission. Denial of fundamental truths of the Bible coincides with an unconverted ministry. There inevitably accompanies and follows upon an unconverted ministry the absence of the preaching and expounding of a pure and whole gospel according to the Scriptures; and there comes in its place unsound and worldly-wise teaching regarding God and man, sin and salvation. Even some Free Church of Scotland ministers are charged, in a recent booklet, with more than a tendency to Arminian doctrine in their preaching. Another gospel which is not another, with carnal and evil variations, strides through the land; and sin-benighted sinners are established and bolstered up in their spiritual ignorance and influenced to “put darkness for light and light for darkness” (Isa. v. 20) to the eternal loss of many souls, we are afraid.
As to members in full communion within Churches and the appointment of men as office-bearers to govern in Christ’s name, such are enrolled and ordained respectively in their hundreds and thousands; and with all the good will in the world it cannot be said of thousands of these that they ever came to know by experience what it means to be effectually called by the Holy Spirit and “born again” into the Kingdom of God. Truly it is made to appear that the visible Church to-day is full of spiritually dead members and office-bearers —yea! who can concern themselves with the solemnities of the Lord’s Supper one day and the next day give themselves over to all manner of evil, worldliness and actual sin, and belie their profession throughout their daily lives and activities. The living Christian is a man, or a woman, who fears God and hates sin and loves Christ Jesus, and lives by divine grace accordingly.
Then there was a recent complaint made publicly by an Ayrshire minister of the Church of Scotland, that members and office-bearers were not attending the services for the public worship of God as they ought. Such a stricture has been made occasionally before, but is indeed needed now. In any Church where members in full communion and men holding office do not regularly attend all the services for divine worship (except when lawfully hindered), such expose themselves to severe criticism even from non-professing persons. Their lack of desire for and attendance upon what are called “the means of grace,” reveals the absence of the life of grace in their hearts or that grace is in a low state. But it is a publicly known fact that many Churches are crowded at the stated times for the administration of the Lord’s Supper by the hundreds of members on Congregational Rolls, and that a great many of these same members are not seen at public worship again until the next time the Lord’s Supper is administered. And nothing is done about this. Of course, all kinds and classes of persons who have had some connection or other with the Christian Church are sadly lacking to-day in the matter of attendance upon the public worship of God. But it is another matter when members and office-bearers are remiss in this duty.
Again, there is the open and increasing falling away from a right observance of God’s Holy Day, the Sabbath, and that within the professed Christian Church in this land. In some cases even clergymen declare unashamedly their modern views as to attending divine worship in the morning and taking to the cricket field, for example, on the Sabbath afternoon, and so on. The “Sunday” papers are purchased by ministers and people before and after attending Church. And many such practices there be, including unnecessary work on the Lord’s Day, by those who call themselves Christians, which conduct is condoned by most of the Churches. Then some who pay lip service to the law of the Sabbath engage in travelling on trains and buses on that Day, which are run for monetary purposes, and in systematic disregard of the Fourth Commandment. And ministers and members are permitted so to do. And so the Church has its own heavy responsibility regarding the disappearance of Sabbath-keeping.
How many households to-day, which number among their circle such as are Church communicants, have family worship day by day? Very few comparatively. Even many so-called ministers of the Gospel know not this blessed and profitable practice. Indeed, there are many such homes connected with the Christian Church where not even a blessing is asked upon the daily food provided by a bountiful Giver. Like heathen, they partake of God’s mercies. As to true religion, they have none.
Church discipline is conspicuous by its absence in the activities of Church Courts throughout the land. Let us have discipline in the home, the school, the factory, in the trade unions, in the Armed Services of Her Majesty as vital and essential, but “let us be careful about the administration of discipline in the Church,” seems to be the considered view of ecclesiastics high and low, in nearly all the denominations. The Church policy appears to be based on a spurious charity, and more especially upon the fleshly fear of losing the personal support of such as obviously ought to be disciplined in a Scriptural manner because of unChristian and, in cases, scandalous conduct. This feature of the Church’s obligations to Christ, the King and Head of the Church, is neglected with woeful results. Christ will have those who govern His Church in the fear of God to seek to conserve purity of doctrine and practice therein.
And any resolve to resist the inroads of worldly practices into the Churches in our land seems to be sadly lacking also. The concert, the dance, the whist drive, the films, etc., have long ere now entered the realm of what is called “Church life and activities.” And no outstanding witness has been raised against these instruments of the devil to completely nullify and undermine the influence of the Word of God, where maybe the only ray of pure Apostolic Christian practice in a congregation is the reading of the pure Word of God. When unconverted and worldly persons who are obviously so, as measured by sound doctrine, are encouraged and welcomed to participation in the sacraments of the Church and in its government, then no wonder they bring with them into the activities of the visible Church the whole round of vain frivolities and practices which are of the world, the flesh and the devil. Yet “Holiness becometh thine house, O Lord, for ever” (Ps. xciii. 5).
On the part of some Churches to-day there is great apathy toward, and a lack of appreciation of, the menace of Vatican propaganda and activities, not only throughout the Western World but in the British Isles. Although, especially in England and in Ulster, there are vigorous Protestant Societies, the larger Churches, such as the Church of Scotland and the Church of England, do not officially and publicly give any proper lead at all to the nation in exposing and combating the dangers to this Protestant Realm by reason of Roman Catholic activities both subtle and open. As to the Church of England, it is honeycombed with Anglo-Catholic clergy permitted to carry on Romish practices at will. And the Church of Scotland is carrying on negotiations for closer fellowship with the Anglican Communion. The reason for times of Reformation in both England and Scotland in the past have seemingly been largely forgotten by those who have official and influential status in these Churches. Much ignorant charity is exercised toward Rome in our midst, and masses of the people, supposedly Protestant, are not enlightened nor warned against the menace of Priest and Mass. So that the order of the day in many minds is toleration for the R.C. Church; whereas this organisation does not itself believe in toleration for Protestant minorities where it has the majority and the power, such as in Spain.
And finally, there is a nation-wide and a Church-wide lack of vital godliness. As the Lord said long ago regarding Israel, “I have nourished and brought up children and they have rebelled against me” (Isa. i. 2). And further, “From the sole of the foot even unto the head there is no soundness in it . . .” (Isa. i. 6). Yet there was a remnant in Israel, as we believe there to be in Britain to-day, for “Except the Lord of hosts had left with us a very small remnant we should have been as Sodom, and we should have been like unto Gomorrah” (Isa. i. 9).
Those Churches who profess Christianity and manifestly are backsliding from the faith once delivered to the saints, and all branches of the visible Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, need now and urgently a day of the power of the Holy Spirit, godly penitence over sins, and much of the spirit of prayer to turn to the Lord Most High, who alone can recall our captivity, spiritually and morally, to the building up of His Zion and to the praise of His glory. “And it shall come to pass that he that is left in Zion, and he that remaineth in Jerusalem, shall be called holy, even everyone that is written among the living in Jerusalem: When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of judgment and by the spirit of burning” (Isa. iv. 3 and 4).