The BBC News website has reported that “Scotland’s religious leaders” attended a Rangers-Celtic football match on the afternoon of Sabbath, March 11, in an effort “to banish sectarianism from football”. The leaders in question were Cardinal Keith O’Brien of the Church of Rome, and Rt Rev Alan McDonald, Moderator of the Church of Scotland. Sport is essentially an activity for children, and the absorbed attention bestowed on professional sport is one of the evils of present-day society. “When I became a man”, said
the Apostle Paul, “I put away childish things” (1 Cor 13:11), and we believe that faithful religious leaders would have been warning the players and crowds on both sides to prepare for eternity, rather than sharing with them in their childish vanities.
But professional football matches are also notorious for wickedness. The filthy singing alone should be enough to deter any true Christian from attending, unless duty required him, and much of the crowd behaviour is obscene and brutal beyond description. The writer was told recently of British Red Cross workers helping a stroke victim (who subsequently died) at a football match and being sworn at by spectators whose view was obstructed. At Rangers-Celtic matches the Red Cross workers have to wear helmets for their protection. True Christians should be praying for the end of such events, rather than taking part in them. “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them” (Eph 5:11).
But on top of all this, it was the Sabbath day. Did these religious leaders never read the Fourth Commandment, “Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy”? Did they never hear that the Lord’s people are to “call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord” (Is 58:13)? Had they no religious needs of their own to attend to on the Lord’s Day, or no preaching of the gospel that evening requiring their preparation and prayer? It is by the preaching of the gospel that the kingdom of Satan is to be brought down, not by attending football matches.
Alas, these men are indeed Scotland’s religious leaders at present. Making empty, symbolic gestures to rectify a secular evil, and breaking the Sabbath in the process, is all the religion that many Scots have. “If the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch” (Matt 15:14). The root of the problem is not “sectarianism” at all, but the irreligion and wickedness of the human heart and the rejection of Jesus Christ; and the only cure for this is the preaching of the true gospel with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. “The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds” (2 Cor 10:4).
DWBS