The Church and the World
The August 1922 issue of The Free Presbyterian Magazine contained comments on an article entitled, “Has the World conquered the Church?” that had appeared in a secular American magazine. The writer of the original article, commenting on the situation in the USA, concluded that it had. “Time was”, he wrote, “when the relations between the world and the Church were, to say the least of it, strained. His [the world’s] associations were bad, the flesh and the devil. Her [the Church’s] companionship was of another sort. She walked by faith in God. She was guided by the Holy Spirit. She not only renounced the world, the flesh and the devil, and especially all the latter’s works, she denounced them. Now things are different. Figuratively speaking, it is not going too far to say that the Church has been wedded to the World and that the World is now her married name.”
“This union”, continued the writer, “has completely changed her nature, character and motives. It has revised her convictions and conditioned her very pieties. She is now as truly the Church of the world as formerly she was the Church of the living God.” He also mentions the Church raising funds not, as formerly, from her own church collections, but from her husband, the World at large. He speaks of intelligent, entertaining preachers who have “no convincing sense of the gospel they preach”.
Sadly, in the last 100 years, the greater part of the visible Church has plunged so deeply into the world that the writer would be astounded at what he would see today. Many churches have set aside the Word of God to accommodate modern liberal, non-judgemental views and practices; practising homosexuals are in pulpits and at the Lord’s table. Churches condone the evolutionary hypothesis and set aside the biblical account of creation and the Fall. Preaching concentrates on morality while sin and its consequences are ignored. A God of love is proclaimed, but the fact that He is also holy and just is overlooked. The virgin birth of Christ is denied; His miracles are explained away and the resurrection disbelieved. Having turned her back on the truths of the Bible, the Church is all the more ready to engage with the world in vain attempts to draw people, using music, drama, Halloween, sports clubs, the blessing of pet animals and so on.
An editorial in the same volume of The Free Presbyterian Magazine quotes these words of the Saviour, “Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and Him only shalt thou serve”. True worshippers must “worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship Him”. Paul wrote, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified”. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” With truths like these in Scripture, how sad it is that churches should continue throughout the decades to conform their doctrine and practice to the world. “The prophets prophesy falsely . . . and My people love to have it so.” How thankful we should be to have law and gospel faithfully declared from our pulpits; but “unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required: and to whom men have committed much, of him they will ask the more”.
FRD
Going on Holiday
With the Covid lockdown, there are probably many people in Britain who feel “cheated” and “hard done by”. They were looking forward to their holidays, perhaps in some interesting part of the world, but their plans have come to nothing. Others, perhaps, feel sorry for their children, whose exciting school and sports events have been cancelled, and who have, in a sense, “missed a year of childhood”.
In thinking along these lines, however, one soon remembers the Second World War and the disruption to travel and family life that it caused. Not a few in Britain were absent in the Far East for several years and never saw their families in all that time; while some children in Europe spent part of their childhood hiding from the Nazis, and perhaps lost their entire families. This was the case with many Jewish children who survived the war. How many children there are now in the Middle East and in parts of Africa whose lives have been little different. It is painful to reflect on how comfortable we are by comparison, even under the restraints imposed by Covid.
It is a painful reflection for several reasons. One is that it shows how much worse things could be. There is no reason, other than the goodness of Divine providence, why Britain is not in a long-term war zone, with all the sorrow, suffering and deprivation that that would bring. The assumption that “things will soon return to normal” has no adequate foundation. Certainly the national reaction to the chastening hand of the Lord in Covid has shown no acknowledgment of God, no repentance, and no reason why the chastisement should be lifted. “For all this His anger is not turned away, but His hand is stretched out still” (Is 9:12,17,21).
The reflection is painful too, because it is a reminder of the fruit of the godliness that should have resulted from our national affluence. “The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance” (Rom 2:4). “For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (Lk 12:48). Our nation has brought forth nothing of this fruit of repentance and godliness, and a bitter judgement is in store. This may not wholly be reserved to eternity but may begin in time, and soon. What fruit have we brought forth ourselves?
A third reason is that it is a reminder of the reality of human and Christian life. Life is seldom without trouble, particularly for Christians, to whom it is said: “We must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22). Pleasant holidays and easy childhoods are by no means to be taken for granted, but should be matters of continual and heartfelt thankfulness when they are granted. When they are withheld, partly or wholly, that too is to be a matter, not of murmuring, but of acknowledgment and thankfulness: “Thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve” (Ezra 9:13). Too much affluence is not good for sinful man: “Give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food convenient for me” (Prov 30:8). May the relatively light affliction of Covid yet have a blessed effect on Britain. “At the first He lightly afflicted the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, and afterward did more grievously afflict her by the way of the sea” (Is 9:1).
DWBS
In His death [Christ] hangs like a malefactor upon the cross, but as Jehovah He bestows paradise upon the dying robber.
Robert Haldane