The Devil and the Church # 2

The Devil and the Church # 2

There are signs everywhere unmistakable and of dire import that Protestantism has been blinded and caught by satan's dazzling glare!

We are being seriously affected by the material progress of the age. We have heard so much of it, and gazed on it so long - that spiritual things are tame to us.  Spiritual views have no form nor loveliness to us. Everything must take on the rich colorings, luxuriant growth and magnificent appearance of the material - or else it is beggarly. This is the most perilous condition the Church has to meet, when the meek and lowly fruits of piety - are to be discounted by the showy and worldly things with which material success crowds the Church.

We must not yield to the flood. We must not for a moment, not the hundredth part of an inch, give place to the world. Piety must be stressed in every way and at every point. The Church must be made to see and feel this delusion and snare, this transference of her strength from God to the world, this rejection of the Holy Spirit by the endowment of "might and power," and this yielding to satan. The Church more and more is inclined not only to disregard, but to despise the elements of spiritual strength and set them aside - for the more impressive worldly ones.

We have been and are schooling ourselves into regarding as elements of church prosperity - only those items which make showings in a statistical column, and which impress an age given up to worldly facts and figures. And as the most vital spiritual conditions and gains cannot be reduced to figures, they are left out of the column and its aggregates, and after a while they will neither be noted nor estimate of the strength of a church will be supremely worldly. However imposing our material results may be, however magnificent and prosperous the secular arm of the Church appears - we must go deeper than these for its strength. We must proclaim it, and iterate and reiterate it with increased emphasis, that the strength of the Church does not lie in these things.

These may be but the gilded delusions which we mistake for the true riches, and while we are vainly saying, "We are rich and increased in goods," God has written of us that we are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked!" They will be, if we are not sleeplessly vigilant - but the costly spices and splendid decoration which embalm and entomb our spirituality. True strength lies in the vital godliness of the people. The aggregate of the personal holiness of the members of each church - is the only true measure of strength. Any other test offends God, dishonors Christ, grieves the Holy Spirit, and degrades religion.

A church can often make the fairest and best showing of material strength when death in its deadliest form is feeding on its vitals. There can scarcely be a more damaging delusion than to judge of the conditions of the Church by its material exhibits or churchly activity. Spiritual barrenness and rottenness in the Church are generally hidden by a fair exterior and an obtrusive parade of leaves and an exotic growth. A spiritual church converts souls from sin soundly, clearly, and fully.

This spirituality is not a by-play; not to be kept in a corner of the Church, not its dress for holiday or parade days, but it is its chief and only business. If God's Church is not doing this work of converting sinners to holiness and perfecting saints in holiness, wherever and whenever this work becomes secondary, or other interests are held to be its equivalent - then the Church has become worldly! Wherever and whenever the material interests are emphasized until they come into prominence, then the world comes to the throne and sways the scepter of satan.

There is no readier and surer way to make the Church worldly - than to put its material prosperity to the forefront; and no surer, readier way to put satan in charge. It is an easy matter for worldly assessments to become of first importance, by emphasizing them until a sentiment is created that these are paramount. When collecting money, building churches, and statistical columns are to stand as evidences of real church prosperity - then the world has a strong lodgment, and satan has gained his end.

Another scheme of satan is to eliminate from the Church all the lowly self-denying ordinances which are offensive to unsanctified tastes and unregenerate hearts, and reduce the Church to a more human institution - popular, natural, fleshly and pleasing.

satan has no scheme more fearfully destructive and which can more thoroughly thwart God's high and holy purposes - than to transform God's Church and make it a human institution according to man's views. God's right arm is thereby paralyzed, the body of Christ has become the body of satan, light turned into darkness, and life into death.

~E. M. Bounds~

(continued with # 3)