699
November 1927
T h e
K i n g ' s
B u s i n e s s
loss of reality in fellowship in the Church. The Church was once regarded as the home of the family of God. It was a place where His people came together at stated times for testimony, prayer, spiritual food and mutual helpfulness. Today it is becoming more and more a big enterprise in which much work is turned put by machinery, and in which the majority of members have no part. In many cases, the spiritual atmosphere is not what it used to be, due to the Word of God, prayer and testimony not being given their proper places. In other cases, the Church has languished because so many of its members have forgotten the vital law that the blessed life cannot be lived in sep aration from those who know God. Many young people today are left to imagine that acceptance of Christ or church membership is all that is needed to create spiritual satisfaction. They soon drift into coldness, finding no joy in the Christian life compar able to the world’s pleasures. Home is not more essen tial to the nurture and protection of a new-born child than is the fellowship of the Christian church to the babe in Christ. Our Lord has promised in a special way to manifest His presence where “two or three are met together” in His Name. Fulness of joy cannot be found in. isolation. We feel it a part of our task to call upon pastors to give back to the Church the old-time fellowship meetings, and to plead with Christian;people to make their regular appointments with the Christ who has promised to be the central figure of every meeting where believers gather sin cerely in His Name. . The P sych iatrists Are After U s ! E VANGELISM in the Light of Psychiatry” was the heading of an article in a religious journal published in Chicago. These are the days of “specialists,” and it seems to fall within the scope of Psychiatry to analyze religious experiences and explain them on the purely psychical basis. A Psychiatrist is one who makes a special study of mental disorders. As might be expected, the Psychiatrist is charging that the Church requires of the “human an imal” impossibly high standards, and that in its evangeh istic efforts it works on the fears of men, stirs them up emotionally and thus produces difficulties which have to be cured by the Psychiatrist. In other words Christianity upsets people and produces mental disorders. We are told that liberal Christianity has reacted against this old type and that Modernists are lining up with the Psychiatrists to get rid of the hell-fire religion and everything that works upon the emotions. The so-called scientific religion will not define its task in terms of saving souls. It will have nothing to say about sin as intolerable to a holy God, about repentance, about the shed blood of Jesus Christ, about future retribution for the lost. Its program is one of social reform and religious education. There is undoubtedly much justification for the crit ical attitude of some toward that type of evangelism which almost altogether plays upon the emotions. Some evan gelists may have prided themselves upon their ability to put their audiences through all the stages of grief from the snuffles to the snorts, and on the tide of emotion to get a large number to shake hands and sign on the dotted line. Others, familiar with the workings of mass psychology, have tricked people into shouting and jumping and clap-
He proceeded : “I ’ll tell you,” he said. “There were two reasons. The priesthood had made a failure. They were no longer doing things as God had directed them, and God was not blessing them. They had ceased to lay hands upon the head of thé scapegoat as they confessed the sins of themselves and the people—-the type of identification with the Lamb of God, the sin-Bearer.. They had gotten beyond God’s way of doing things, and the people realized that they had lost all spiritual power. “Furthermore,” he continued, “the prophets had failed. Even Samuel without authority had appointed his two ungodly sons to succeed him in judging Israel. They were grafters, took bribes and perverted judgment. The people saw that they were not getting anywhere. They were sick and tired of it all and wanted a kingdom like the nations around them, so that they might be able to compete fairly and squarely.with the ways of the world.” As the dentist began unmercifully to grind away with his electric drill, he added, “And history repeats itself. Many of the churches today are calling for the ways of the world and trying to compete with the glitter of the world, for the sanie old reasons. Many of God’s undershepherds have failed. They have lost communion with their Lord. They have new ideas about Calvary. They no longer identify themselves with Christ, crucified, the all-suf ficient Sacrifice. They are trying to improve upon God’s ways of !doing things. Furthermore, the prophets have failed. They are giving us plenty of teaching, but often their actions belie their instructions. “Many people are confused,” he continued; “they see nothing of the supernatural. It is only empty form. Therefore, they are turning the church into a club-house and public forum like unto the institutions of the world. How far will they get with it ? What happened to Israel ? What?” Still we could not make a reply; but we had been doing some thinking anyway. We pass it along. Think this over, brethren ! How far 'will they get with it ? m The Call To th e House o f God “These things write we unto you, that your joy may be full" (1 Jno. 1 :4). T HERE is a great truth missed by taking the above statement: away fr.om the preceding verse, with which it is connected. What are “these things” ? The Apostle John has just written of the benefits of “fellowship” with God’s people (v. 3), whose fellowship, hè declares, is with the Father and with the Son. Is the note of religious joy absent in the Church today ? May it not be because there are too many isolated, soli tary Christians who do not attend the prayer and fellow ship services of the Church? It is certain that joy depends largely upon realization of our common fellowship in the Lord. All are ready to admit that fellowship with God is essential, for when one is out of touch with Him, the deeper sources of joy dry up. But there are far too' many who have not felt that fellowship with their brothers and sisters in Christ was of any importance. Too often we hear it said : “I can worship God better at home or out in the open,” and the exhortation that we should “forsake not the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is,” is not recog nized as one of the laws of spiritual growth and abiding joy. Without a doubt, one reason for the marked absence of exulting joy, such as there used to be in the Church, is
Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker