…to the Church of Jesus Christ
To the divine purpose, of bringing glory to God alone, the church has been called, yet we are concerned, that in the fulfilling of it she is missing the mark. The church today is modeling her predecessor the people of Israel, in alarming ways. In the church today, as in the nation of Israel, it is “like people, like priest” (Hos 4:9). The leadership of Israel had taken the nation down a slippery slope of steady decline. As the prophet noted “(the) people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water” (Jer 2:12 13). Here we see man first abandoning true religion, and then seeking to establish his own system that holds no water of refreshment. What man struggles to create, is never as substantial as what God has made and freely offers being completely finished. Today, the body of Christ finds herself having committed these same evils. She finds herself running more like a secular business than a spiritual body, being led more by marketing strategists than by the master’s shepherds, and putting forth a perverted gospel of self esteem and self fulfillment over self denial. One recent document states…”evangelical churches today are increasingly dominated by the spirit of this age rather than by the spirit of Christ.” The question has been asked: “What is wrong with the church?” The answer: “We have become worldly.” David Wells has aptly stated that
where Christian faith is offered as a means of finding personal wholeness rather than holiness, the church has become worldly. Where it substitutes intuition and feelings for Biblical truth, it is being worldly. Where its appetite for the Word has been lost in favor of light discourses and entertainment, it is being worldly. Where it has restructured what it is and what it offers around the rhythms of consumption, it is being worldly, for customers are actually sinners whose place in the church is not to be explained by a quest for self-satisfaction but by a need for repentance. Where it cares more about success than about faithfulness, more about size than spiritual health, it is being worldly. Where the centrality of God to worship is lost amidst the need to be distracted and to have fun, the church is being worldly because it is simply accommodating itself to the preeminent entertainment culture in the world.
The church is in desperate need of correction. She needs to return, to be reformed in accord with the will and word of God. She needs to heed the word of the prophet uttered thousands of years ago…”to the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because they have no dawn” (Isa 8:20). She is in need of leaders who take more joy in speaking God’s word than their own (cf. Jer 23) and she herself must long for the pure milk of the word knowing that by it alone will she grow to maturity as the bride of her Lord (cf. 1Pet 2:2). As the world around us grows more and more ungodly and hardened to the gospel, the church must not surrender to the temptation to capitulate to the desires of the age, softening the unchanging message, or catering to the selfish desires of man to draw his attention to a gospel of self denial. She must continue to preach the word both when men want it and when they do not (cf. 2Tim 4:2)! The church of today, stands at a critical juncture. She will either be squeezed into the mold of the world or she will faithfully call it to repentance with the transforming message of truth. She has been called to be “A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God’s OWN POSSESSION, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light” (1Pet 2:9).
Many will misunderstand our message and therefore it will not be received by all. Others will find our note of warning extreme and therefore dismiss us as radicals that have deviated from a true Christianity. Others will be offended by this word, though we pray we are not offensive in ourselves. The sin of cultural conformity before which the church has frequently prostrated herself, has dulled her sense of discernment in seeking the mind of her Master. In the words of David Wells again,
The sin that alienates God often disguises its nature and buys legitimacy off the surrounding culture. . .Indeed, in every age where a mass departure from God and His truth has happened, the reasons for it seem entirely normal and self-evident. That is why the ebbing of spiritual life appears to be so innocent. Indeed, it is hardly even noticed. And the telltale sign that it is happening is that the enemies of faith disappear from sight. People settle into doing what is culturally conventional at a spiritual level. This is why, in the Old Testament, the prophetic calling was such a painful and lonely thing. To those far from God, the prophet always seemed so strong-headed, so lacking in grace, so pessimistic. Since then, nothing really had changed. In and age such as ours, when evangelicalism is mistaking its outward prosperity for inward riches and confusing truth with cultural habit and desire, even the most ordinary of people who know that something is amiss have to wonder how well their perceptions will be received.
We hope and pray this word may be used of God to be in the line of those prophetic voices. We desire to come along beside God’s church and encourage it to Abe steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that her toil is not in vain in the Lord” (1Cor 15:58).
Soli Deo Gloria
Glory Be to God Alone
