The Devil and the Church # 4

The Devil and the Church # 4

There are two ways of directing the Church - God's way and the devil's way. God's way and man's way of running the Church are entirely opposite. Man's wise plans, happy expedients and easy solutions, are satan's devices. The Cross is retired - and the world comes in. Self-denial is eliminated - and all seems bright, cheerful and prosperous. But satan's hand is on the ark, men's schemes prevail, the Church fails under these attractive devices of men, and the church's spiritual bankruptcy is complete.

All God's plans have the mark of the Cross on them, and all His plans have death to self in them. All God's plans have crucifixion to the world in them. But men's plans ignore the offense of the Cross - or despise it. Men's plans have no profound, stern or self-immolating denial in them. Their gain is of the world. How much of these destructive elements, esteemed by men, does the devil bring into the Church, until all the high, unworldly and holy aims, and heavenly objects of the church are retired and forgotten?

One of these attractive, man-savoring, satanic devices - is to pervert the aims of the Church so that the main object of the Church is not so much to save individuals out of society - as to save society; not to save souls - so much as to save the community. The world, not the individual, is the subject of redemption.

This popular, seductive and deadly fallacy, entirely subverts the very foundation of Christ's Church. Its materializing trend is so strong that it will sweep away every vestige of the spiritual and eternal - if we do not watch, work and speak with sleepless vigilance, tireless energy, and fearless boldness. The attitude and open declaration of much of the religious teaching we now hear, is in the same strain and spirit which characterized Unitarian, Jewish, or rationalistic, utterances half a century ago.

To save society is a kind of religious fad to which much enterprising lauded church work is committed. Advanced thinkers and discoverers have elaborated the same idea. They entomb religion in the grave where Judaism has been buried all these centuries.

The phrase "to save the world," has a pompous sounding; and it is appealing to flesh and blood, for the Church to apply itself to bettering the temporal surroundings of the individual, and improve his sanitary conditions; to lessen the bad smells that greet his nose, to diminish the bacteria in his water, and to put granite in the pavement for him to walk on instead of wood or brick.

All this sounds finely, and agrees well with a material age, and becomes practical in operation, and evident and imposing in results.

But does this agree with the sublime dignity and essential aim of the Church? Do we need any Church to secure these ends? Councilmen of common talent, an efficient street commissioner, and the ordinary vigilance of the average policeman, will secure these results in their best way.

It needs no Church, no Bible, no Christ, no personal holiness, to secure these ends - and this is the point to which all this vaunted advance tends. If the ends of the Church are directed to those results which can be as well or better secured by other agencies - then the Church will soon be regarded as a nuisance, a thing to be abated by the most summary process.

The purposes of the Church of God rise in sublime grandeur above these childish dreams and decadent philosophies. Its purpose is to regenerate and sanctify the individual, to make him holy and prepare him by a course of purifying and training, for the high pursuits of an eternal life. The Church is like the net cast into the sea. The purpose is not to change the sea - so much as to catch the fishes out of the sea. Let the sea roll on in its essential nature, but the net catches its fishes.

No bigger fools would ever be found then fishermen who were spending all their force trying by some chemical process to change the essential elements of the sea, vainly hoping thereby to improve the stock of the fish that they had not and never could catch. By this method, personal holiness, the great desideratum for church operation and ends, would be impossible, and Heaven would be stricken from creed and life and hope.

To save the world and ignore the individual, is not only foolishly utopian, but every way damaging. It is the process, fair and laudable in name, to save the world, but in results it is to lose the Church, or, which amounts to the same, making the Church worldly - and thereby unfitting her for her holy and sublime mission. Christ said that gaining the world and saving man, are antagonistic ends. Christ teaches Peter that his satanic device would gain the world to and for the Church - but would lose the soul. Everything would seem thrifty to the worldly cause - when in reality all was death.

~E. M. Bounds~

(continued with # 5)