The Present Crisis. A Voice from Scotland
out the Church is the true cause of the alarming diminution in the membership.
4” The measure of the surrender of Christ for us and our salvation, — the measure of our surrender to Him and His service.” If that is indeed to be regarded as the standard of membership, how much more ought it to be the standard of the life and the preaching of the minister. God has put an unspeakably solemn responsibility on the ministry. The whole tone of the Church, the whole thought of the membership, depends upon what rules the thought and heart and life of the minister. If the membership is to be lifted out of the worldly level, of which this decrease in the number of communicants is a token, who are to do it, if not the ministers? The God Who has entrusted to them “the ministry of reconciliation,” is the God Who by His Holy Spirit wrought in Christ the consecration that made Him give Him self a living sacrifice. That God will work a similar consecration in His servants when they fall before Him in the confession of their impotence and sin. It is for the ministry special prayer must be made, asking God to give them the vision of the great truth — one measure of devotion to the salvation of men in Christ and in His ministers. If once this vision comes to them they, as the appointed leaders of the Church, may be able to guide her in the way of repentance and restoration. The present crisis. — It is not only in Scotland but in more than one of the denominations in
England, that the same alarming disease has appeared. There is, indeed, a crisis throughout Christendom. The World Missionary Conference has brought matters to a head by the intensity with which it has announced its conviction that the Church in its present state is utterly unfit and unprepared for the great work that God has put before it, and expects it to undertake. Just listen to some of the voices that were heard there.
Professor Cairns asked: “Had the Church within itself at this moment the spiritual resources for so high and arduous calling? His profound conviction was that she had not. They were moving up to a situation which was too hard for them, and for which they were not yet ready. And so the matter of most urgent moment before the Church, which dwarfed all others, was how they could obtain from the Eternal God those spiritual reinforcements of His grace which would make them able to meet the coming hour.”
Professor Denney said: “I speak only of the Church to which I myself belong, but something similar I believe is true of almost every Church in Christendom. The United Free Church has 1700 congregations, and during the last five years the average increase in its membership has been about 850; that is to say, every second congregation in the Church has added one, and every other congregation has added none. The number of candidates for the ministry at the present time is less than it was a good many years ago; it is hardly a sufficient number to keep up the staff at home, to say nothing of supplying men for abroad. Men are not coming forward as ministers, nor coming forward as missionaries, because they are not coming forward into the membership of the Christian Church at all. Something must happen to the Church at home, if it is going even to look at the work that has been put upon it by this Conference.”
And among the very last words of Dr. Mott in closing the Conference were these: “I make bold to say that the Church has not yet seriously set itself to bring the living Christ to all living men!”
These statements are simply appalling. The Church of Christ not able to hold its own, — actually defeated and driven back by the enemy! Rich in the promise of the Father, she is nevertheless, in spite of her perfection of organisation, unable to gather in more than one soul to every two congregations.
Have we not reason to say with Joshua when he fell on his face before the ark of the Lord, “Alas, O Lord God! Lord, what shall I say, after that Israel hath turned their backs before the enemies?” The story of Joshua will give us the key to the question as to what is to be done to remove this terrible reproach on the Church of Christ. God’s answer was, “Israel hath sinned, therefore the children of Israel cannot stand [before their enemies. I will not be with you any more, except ye destroy the accursed thing from among you. Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to-morrow: for thus saith the Lord God of Israel, O Israel, thou canst not stand before thine enemies until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.”
Something must happen to the Church at home. What can it be but that God’s people must fall on their faces before the Lord to confess the defeat with shame and humiliation; to discover what it is that prevents God from giving that power and blessing with the word which would give us the victory over the world; and individually and unitedly to put away the accursed thing which makes it impossible for God to reveal His presence in power in the Church as He longs to do?
“Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to-morrow.” Israel was to be reminded that God is the Holy One, and that sin is the only thing that can rob us of His presence; that they are a holy people with whom holiness is the one secret of power and of blessing. Joshua had used the words when they were about to enter Jordan, “Sanctify yourselves against to-morrow.” God would again reveal His Divine power in teaching them to discover and to cast out the sin that had been the cause of defeat.
It is this that must happen to the Church if she is indeed to listen to the call for the army of God to move on to the great world conquest.
The more we study these extracts from the Conference Reports, the deeper comes the conviction that nothing less is needed than that we take our place with Joshua and the elders on our faces before God. There He will give us such a discovery of the state in which the Church is as shall bring us to the end of all our hopes and plans. There we shall be brought in utter impotence, and in humble, importunate prayer, to beseech Him to visit ministers and people with such a revelation of sin on the one hand, but on the other, of the all-sufficiency of His grace to cleanse us and to make us holy, as shall give Christ His place as the leader of the Lord’s hosts on the path of victory. Nothing will so teach a backsliding Church that comes to repentance, what the love of Christ is, as the exercise of His power in cleansing and delivering from sin. It is the experience of what He can do for ourselves that will rouse the true loyalty to follow Him as He leads us in the path of victory.