As we enter the nineteen-eighties it might be profitable to cast our eyes backward to the period that is gone and also look forward to the days that lie ahead. In this way it may be possible to discern some pattern which will give an indication of what may be before us as a nation during the decade that has just begun.
When we look back especially to the two preceding decades we are confronted with an era of continuous and almost unprecedented backsliding from God. This has continued up to the present moment and shows little sign of change. Such a situation must fill us with foreboding as to the future, and we do not feel that we are being alarmist in suggesting that there are dark, dark days ahead. We think that this is confirmed by the Scripture: “Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord: shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
The religious declension of our nation has continued over a long period of time — in fact from the second half of last century when the authority of God’s Word was undermined by the higher critical attacks on the inspiration, infallibility and inerrancy of the Bible. This bore its own fruit in gross declension from the doctrines of God’s Word. A gospel began to be preached in which man was his own saviour. The ultimate effect of this was that people forsook the Churches, as the Churches, by and large, had nothing to offer them. A social “gospel” was no substitute for the glorious gospel of the blessed God, and men saw the emptiness of it and abandoned the Churches where such a “gospel” was preached. It could never satisfy the needs of lost man.
Inevitably religious declension was followed by moral declension. The two world wars precipitated this. Instead of learning righteousness through the hand of God laid in judgment upon the nations, men became harden in their iniquity and a rising flood of wickedness and evil began to flow over the land. Yet it was not until the nineteen-sixties that the flood broke loose and all restraints appeared to be abandoned. Men now sought legal sanction for the evils they wished to perpetrate and facile and amoral legislators were waiting to accommodate their wishes until the land was turned into a veritable Sodom. Evil is now called good, and good evil, and those that depart from iniquity make themselves a prey, as the Word of God foretold. The nineteen-seventies showed no diminishing of the flood of ungodliness so that the nation is ready to be drowned in the cess-pool of its own iniquity. Few voices are heard in opposition to the prevailing climate of opinion throughout the land, and is it any wonder that the Lord should say: “Shall I not visit for these things? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?”
It is not therefore with a hopeful outlook we enter upon a new decade and look forward to the years which lie ahead. We think that those who will be spared to see the end of this decade will have much to tell of the Lord’s sore visitations upon His Cause and kingdom in this land of ours. It would be a sad, sad outlook and one of unrelieved gloom to which we would be closed in were it not for the many promises which God has given to His own people and Church. Whatever dark days may lie ahead in the immediate future, whatever trials the Lord may bring His Church through, yet we know that He will not forsake her. Also when he has brought her through the fiery trial she will come forth purified and will shine brighter than she ever did before in Scotland.
Our message then to the Church of God in Scotland and throughout the whole land at the beginning of this decade must be: “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: but rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” 1 Peter 4:12, 13.