The Church’s Distinct Mission What About This New Program of Social Service? Is Anything Wrong With the Program o f Christ? By DR. PAUL RILEY ALLEN, Chicago
did the only thing left— stopped wit nessing and took up the program of world betterment. Social service is al ways a convenient outlet for a form of religion when the Spirit of Christianity has left. But God’s program still stands, “ Ye shall be My witnesses.” Today there are nearly a billion people in the earth who have never heard the Gospel that Christ died according to the Scriptures, (1 Cor. 15:1-4). Oh, that we would get back to Calvary and stay there until we get the vision that Christ died to save men from the guilt and power of sin; that this is the Gospel, and that to tell the world this glorious news is all that the Lord called the church into being to do. There is not a line of Scripture that tells us or gives us any hope that the world will be redeemed in this age. Every dispensation preceding this one ended in failure; God tells us that this age of grace will end in failure. In Mat thew He tells us that there will be wars and rumors of wars on down to the end of this age of grace. Whatever results from the Disarmament Conference, let us not forget that it will neither pre vent nor stop war, God says so, and when God speaks we must know that it is the truth. 2 Tim. 3 tells us what the conditions will be at the end of this age of grace. Nowhere does God tell us to go out in this age of grace and convert the world. He tells us to go out and evangelize the world. He tells us plainly that we cannot convert the world. There has never been even a converted or reformed hamlet or vil lage or one single city, and there never
hf . gravest mistake that can possibly be made, but that is being made today, is that of Judaizing the C h r i s t i a n
Church; making it of this world; mak ing its program world betterment and social service; linking it with political and social organizations. Many have gotten this idea' of church work and church life because they have taken kingdom promises and kingdom proph ecies made to be fulfilled in another age, and to be .the program of that age, and adopted these as the program of the church. The church has a distinct mis sion and purpose. This mission is first, last, and all of the time to witness. “ Ye shall be my witnesses.” We are privi leged to see in the book of Acts a church that most.nearly approaches the ideal and purpose for which the Lord called the church into being. They did noth ing but witness while the “ Lord added to the church daily, such as were being saved.” That would have been the program, and daily conversions would have been the experience of the church, down .to this very day if the program had not been lost sight of. But, Con stantine professed Christianity (though it is a question whether he was ever actually converted in the New Testa ment sense of conversion,) then Chris tians consulted Constantine more than they talked with the Lord, and the thing happened which always does happen when Christians consult men more than they consult God,— divisions began to creep in, they quarreled over minor matters, they “ Strained at gnats while they swallowed camels” and bye-and- bye they had no testimony. Then they
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