From the MLJ Archive

Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones: I'm tempted to say that while I agree that things are very bad and the times are difficult, they're not quite as bad as that. I'm referring to the singing. Now let me try to help you to understand this situation in which we do find ourselves and which led me to choose that particular hymn. It's a hymn that expresses the problem and the difficulty, but there is one to whom we can pray, and therefore we are not without hope and we're not cast down. But we must be alive and alert. We must quit ourselves as men, and we must in particular, as I'm going to try to show you, use our understanding.

Now then, I'm reading once more these verses which we've been examining for a number of Friday evenings in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, Chapter 11. Let me read again from verse 18 to the end of verse 22: "Boast not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, 'The branches were broken off, that I might be grafted in.' Well; because of unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by faith. Be not highminded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off."

Now, I've divided this statement which really begins at verse 16 under four main headings. We've already dealt with three of them. We've expanded it, explained the meaning of the terms and so on. We've also dealt with what is the specific teaching conveyed here. And in turn, in the third place, we dealt with a problem that arises in the minds of Christian people as they read this particular teaching. The problem which we dealt with last Friday night: how to reconcile what this passage seems to be saying on the surface with other statements already made by the great Apostle in this epistle and in other places and other teachings in the New Testament.

Very well, we come now to the fourth division, which I've described as general application of all this to us, to ourselves, and to our present situation. Now, as we come to deal with this, there are one or two preliminary remarks that I'm anxious to make and feel constrained to make. The first is that this, which we are now about to do, is something which we should always do. In other words, we should always apply the truth. The Bible and its teaching are never to be approached in a detached or in a theoretical manner.

Now that is, of course, the besetting sin of expositors. It is still more the besetting sin of historians. The danger always is to take a mechanical interest and to forget application. You'll find this in many expositors. They're interested in the words and meanings and shades of meanings and arguments and disputations, and they tend to leave it at that. I know there is a case which can be made for the expositor as such, that that is all that he is called upon to do and we don't look to him so much for application. But it is a danger, and one can become so involved in the mere mechanics that one entirely forgets and misses the object and the purpose of the whole statement.

And exactly the same is true about historians. I've often noticed this. It's a very interesting thing and a very peculiar thing, and a thing against which we should all guard ourselves. I've noticed throughout the years that generally speaking, historians seem to have a strange capacity or propensity almost of being entirely uninfluenced by the very history about which they write and to which they give their lives in study. I mean by that I've known many men, and some of them I've known very well indeed, who've been particularly interested in the 18th century. But I know some of these men and I can say about them quite truthfully that I've never known men who are further removed from the Methodist fathers of the 18th century in whom they're so interested.

It's purely a kind of antiquarian interest. Now that's a terrible thing, it seems to me, that we should approach truth either in the form of didactic teaching or in the form of history or any other form, without realizing that it is meant to speak to us, to do something for us. There is nothing against which we should guard ourselves so much as a mere detached, academic, and theoretical interest. It should always be a living interest, and that is why it is especially the part of the preacher always to be applying the truth. I've never called myself a Bible lecturer for that reason. The Bible is to be preached. It's always to be applied.

Now the Apostle, you see here, makes us say this very thing. He, as I've been showing, is dealing primarily with an actual fact of history which had taken place: that the Jews had rejected the gospel and are outside the church and outside the kingdom, whereas the Gentiles have come in. Now that's a pure fact of history. But the Apostle, you see, can't merely handle this as a fact of history. He's concerned with the meaning of this, with the relevance of this, what this has got to say to the church, to the Gentile Christians who are in the church. He applies the very fact of history which he is reminding these people of.

And that is the thing I say which we must always be careful to do. There's a great deal of history in the Bible. But the history that is in the Bible is not only history. That's the important point. Why not? Why is it that the history of the Bible must never be regarded merely as history? The answer is that the Bible history is merely illustrative of great spiritual principles. And that is undoubtedly why it has been given to us. The business of the history is to illustrate the great teaching, the great fundamental and eternal principles of God's plan and purpose of salvation.

It's not meant to be something in and of itself which you can therefore either take or leave. Now there are many people who do this. There are many Christian people who ignore the historical portions of the Bible and they don't see such much value in it. It's still worse when you get a Christian who dismisses the whole of the Old Testament and feels that it's no longer relevant to him. Now it's that very tendency I'm warning you against and trying to safeguard you against falling into.

We must remember, therefore, that history in the Bible is simply one of the ways in which the great principles are taught. That's one great lesson. But here's another. We must pay attention to the history in the Bible because these principles which are taught partly through history are always permanent and eternal principles. That is why, you see, the Bible never dates. That's why it's never out of date. Or putting it the other way around, that is why the Bible is always contemporary.

Now you can read here of what God did with the children of Israel thousands of years ago. But the fact that it happened so long ago doesn't mean that it's got nothing to say to us. It has for this reason: that it's the same God who dealt with them as who deals with us, and he doesn't change. So the principles which are taught in the history of things which happened so long ago are as applicable and as relevant and as true tonight as they have ever been.

Very well then, I say that we must always remember that past history and examples of what has happened to nations or to individuals, that these are but illustrations of these great eternal truths and principles that God is always teaching his people. So that then becomes the way in which we should always read the Bible. When you come to it, you don't say, "Oh well, in the Old Testament, of course, I've got the history of the Jews." Well, if one happens to be interested in history or interested in the Jews, it's profitable to read the history of the Jews, as you read the history of the Romans or as you read secular history. If you happen to have that sort of mind, well, it's quite an interesting and an entertaining thing to do to read history.

Now that's the way in which you must never approach the Bible. Or in the New Testament, you may feel, and people often have felt and have said this, they say, "I can't understand why we have all this in the Gospels about the wrangling that took place between the Pharisees and our Lord. What's that got to do with us? These miserable, wretched Pharisees and Scribes and Sadducees and doctors of the law who were always coming along and putting their questions and so on. What's all that got to do with me?"

Now this, you see, is quite a common attitude. People say what we want is the positive teaching of Jesus and they wish we hadn't got all this historical addition which, while it was quite true and it took place, of course, has got nothing to do with us because it happened nearly 2,000 years ago and that it's all, therefore, merely of some purely academic, historical, or even antiquarian interest. Now that, I say, is an attitude which we must avoid at all costs. And it all applies to this passage that is before us. You may say, "Why are you taking all this time over this? It was an immediate problem then, of course. Here were the Jews and here were the Gentiles. The whole thing was new. It was a live issue. What's it got to do with us? Why spend all this time in 1965 on something that was very relevant 1,900 years ago but surely is of no interest today?"

Now, I want to show you how terribly wrong that is. In other words, we read the Bible like this: when you read about the history of the Jews in the Old Testament, you should always read it in this way. You should say, "I am the Jews." When you read about the Pharisees and Scribes, you don't read it as if you're reading a book of history. You say, "But I am the Pharisees and the Scribes. This is speaking to me. What our Lord said to them, he is speaking to me." Now that's the only profitable way in which you read the Bible. If you once detach yourself and just regard it as purely academic, theoretical, external history, you're missing the whole point. You're turning the Bible into a textbook of history or into the account of some ancient philosophy and teaching out of which you can pick things up if you like now and again and try to apply them as best you can. But it's all wrong.

This is always contemporary because God remains the same and man remains the same, and the relationships between God and man remain the same. So the principles taught in terms of this old history are as relevant and as live and as up to date tonight as they have ever been. Now the scripture itself puts that in these words: "These things were written for our examples, upon whom the ends of the world have come." I think, if I remember rightly, I read that very statement to you last Friday night, and it is a most important one which we must never forget. It's in 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10:11. "Now all these things happened unto them for ensamples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come."

Very well, that is by way of introduction to the application of this extraordinary statement which the Apostle makes here to the Gentiles of his day and generation. The application of all that to us at this present time. What is it? Well, I'd like to approach it like this. First of all, let us look at the general principles which are laid down with respect to our situation today. There are certain general principles taught very clearly.

Here is the first. There seems to be always a tendency in the church, or if you like, in God's people, in the olive tree, there always seems to be a tendency to decline and to fall away from the truth. This, of course, is because we are not yet perfect, because sanctification is a process, and because we are dull and slow of hearing. The great principle that stands out here is that obviously there is this tendency in God's people to fall away from the truth. I'll show you the great illustrations of this in history in a moment, but here it is, of course, on the surface in the case of the Jews.

Now, I want to quote a sentence to you which I remember reading. It must be over 30 years ago. and it's I'm quoting a man who was about as far removed from being an evangelical Christian as a man could be, but he was a great thinker and an acute observer, the late Dean Inge. He produced a little book on Protestantism. It was one of a series. I'll never forget the first sentence in that book. It was so true. He put it all in one phrase. He said, "Every institution tends to produce its opposite."

Now that's a very profound remark. It's a very perfect summary of the very thing I'm trying to say here. Every institution tends to produce its opposite. Now, he was writing on Protestantism. And what he was able to show so cleverly and which I want to repeat tonight is this: that by today, Protestantism has become almost the exact opposite of what it was at its beginning in the 16th century. That's what he meant. Now, this is the trouble. Why does it arise? Well, it arises for this reason, and I know of no more fascinating subject than this apart from anything else for the mind and for our understandings.

One of the greatest fights and struggles that ever goes on is the struggle between the spirit and the form. The spirit and the form. Now, the spirit must have a form. That's why you have such a thing as the Christian church. An idea must always take form if it is to be of any value. Now that's quite right. You must have a form to the spirit. But there is always a tension between these two. There are always certain dangers that arise, and the biggest danger of all is that the form tends to cripple the spirit. Oh, what a fight there has been.

I don't think you can begin to understand church history, you can't understand the Bible, unless you've got clear in your mind this struggle and tension between form and spirit. You see, what happens is this: you've got to have, I say, a form. In other words, there must be a minimum of organization, otherwise you can't do anything. You can be a vague dreamer, but you won't influence, you won't help anybody. Every idea's got to take form in some sense or other. But the moment you give it a form, you've got an organization, you've started on your great problem. And the problem is how to prevent the organization from throttling and killing the spirit. That's the trouble.

Or if you like it in terms of the spirit and institutionalism. You remember that great phrase in the book of Ezekiel at the beginning about the spirit in the wheels. I'll never forget being in America in 1937 at the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. And a man gave an address, and he was going to tell us about some marvelous movement of the spirit which he said had been taking place. And he took as his text this term, the spirit in the wheels. And one was expecting something tremendous, but I'm not exaggerating, neither am I caricaturing what the man said. But what it really came to was this: he evidently had some idea, but all we were told about was how they'd taken an office and what they'd paid for the furniture in the office. Nothing but sheer organization.

In other words, it was all wheels and no spirit, and there was no movement and nothing had happened, and nothing has ever happened since in connection with what he was telling us about. Now that's the danger: the wheel and the spirit. You work that out, preachers, I give you that as a text. Work that out, the spirit, the relationship between the spirit and the wheels. You must have the wheels, but God forbid that the wheels should put an end to the spirit. Now this is the thing that is so clear.

The whole story of the children of Israel illustrates this. This hardening, this institutionalizing, this organization, which ultimately destroys the spirit altogether. Now it's a very subtle process this, and it is sometimes a very slow one. But the fact that it is slow doesn't mean that it doesn't take place. But it's subtle and slow. It's almost imperceptible. You can't see it happening. And that is why the tragedy takes place so often in the history of the church. People only wake up to the fact that it has happened when it's too late to do anything about it.

Of course, this happens in secular history as well. It happened in Germany just before the last war. There were many good things about Hitler. and that's why many Christian people were entirely persuaded by him. And they only realized what he was when it was too late. The thing is subtle. It's insinuating. Now, perhaps one of the clearest illustrations of all of this is the way in which the so-called higher critical movement came in last century. You see, here's the church. She was orthodox. Perhaps not as alive as she should be, but at any rate, she was fairly orthodox up until about 1830.

But this teaching gradually came in from Germany and it began to insinuate in various colleges and so on in this country. Well, people began to say, "Well, what's this that's happening?" Then they said, "But it's all right." Instead of recognizing it at once and dealing with it, they said, "Oh, it'll work itself off. This is just young people and you know they tend to do those sort of things when they get older, they'll shake it off," and so on. Well, it went on and on like that. There was nothing big, nothing great, nothing obvious. But by today, of course, it's become predominating and controlling, and the truth is having to fight for its life.

That's the sort of thing to which I am referring. All this tendency of the false and that which cripples the spirit to come in in a very subtle and often in a slow and imperceptible manner. Now our Lord himself, of course, has used this illustration. He's compared it to the action of a moth or the action of rust. Moth and rust don't act suddenly. It's a very slow process. That's why you used to have those disasters on railways in the last century. You've heard and read the accounts of an express train going over a bridge and suddenly the bridge collapses. They didn't know about these things then. Not only rust, but these stresses and so on. It happens imperceptibly. There's nothing to be seen, but it's taking place and suddenly, the first thing you know is the collapse of the bridge.

Now that's something that you see so clearly in the Bible and you see it, as I say, still more clearly perhaps in the subsequent history of the Christian church. There's the first principle then, this tendency that comes into declension, and all because of the conflict between form and spirit.

Secondly, the cause of this decline is always because we forget first and original principles. That's always the cause of the trouble. It is always the direct result of forgetting an original principle. What do I mean? Well, I mean this: the principle is, as the Epistle to the Romans shows more clearly perhaps than any other single epistle, is that you stand by faith and by faith alone. It's the great statement of this epistle. Justification is by faith only. And it has always been by faith only. It is all we are saved by grace through faith, that not of yourselves, or as I quoted you last Friday night in Romans 4:16, "It is by grace that it might be of faith; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed."

In other words, that's the fundamental, controlling principle. And when things went wrong with the Jews and when they go wrong in the church, it is always due to the forgetfulness of that first principle. This is an astounding thing, but it is nevertheless a fact that all the greatest problems in the world today are due to the forgetfulness of first principles. Not some complicated, involved outworking of the principle, it is always the first principles.

Isn't that the whole problem of humanity today? You get all these commissions of inquiries and this and that and proposals. But the whole trouble is due to certain first principles. Indeed, there's only one, and that is they don't realize that man is a sinner, and because he is a sinner, he will go on behaving as he does. They can bring in new institutions, they can do this and that, the problem will remain. They don't know their first principles.

Now, it's exactly the same for the church. All the troubles in the church ultimately are due to the fact that we fall away from justification by faith only. We begin to take pride in the fact that we are Jews, or pride in the fact that we are Gentiles, our good deeds and works and our church and this and that. We've lost it. It's all a question of losing a grip of the first principle.

And then the third general principle that I find here is this one: that those who do fall away in that way from the truth and from the first principle are always the ones who persecute most bitterly those who still hold to the truth and the first principle. It was the Jews who put the Messiah to death. It was the Pharisees who were the ringleaders in that with the Sadducees. It is always the men who have themselves lost sight of the first principle who are the most bitter and violent opponents of men who still see it and who hold to it or who've suddenly come to see it.

And so the history of the church shows a constant repetition of what you get in the New Testament itself: that it is those who belong to the visible, external olive tree, the external Israel, are always the most bitter persecutors of the true Israel. It's as true today as it has always been.

Very well, there I've put the principles which seem to me to be taught here and which are so relevant to our present situation. Let me go on then to my second big division: the lessons of history concerning these principles. In other words, the illustrations. See, that's what your Bible is. The Bible is a great book of doctrine and of truth. But it illustrates it in the case of individuals, in the case of nations, and so on. Now, the history is invaluable by way of illustration. And the supreme illustration of all is, as I'm saying, the nation of the Jews.

Oh, here it is, standing out before us. Surely it should be unmistakable, but alas, it isn't. You see, what we tend to do is we look at the Jews objectively. We don't see that it's applying to us. We condemn them, look back upon history and give our verdict. We can't see that we're guilty of exactly the same thing so often. But there it is. It is the supreme example and illustration. These are the people who crucified their own Messiah. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. There it is, once and for ever.

But unfortunately, it didn't stop there. This has been repeated many times in the history of the church. There was at one time, you can read about them in the New Testament, a number of great churches in Asia: church at Ephesus, Laodicea, and other churches. Where are they now? They've gone, they've disappeared. This very thing happened to them. These churches that were so privileged with the preaching of the great Apostle Paul and others, and John, they've disappeared, they've just vanished. It was the same principle. You get the warning concerning that in the first three chapters of the Book of Revelation.

Or take the case of North Africa. Oh, there were great and mighty churches at one time in North Africa. Never forget that the great Saint Augustine was the Bishop of Hippo in North Africa. And there were other great churches. Where are they now? They've vanished, they've gone. Same thing. They went down for the same reason ultimately. Or indeed, it would be very simple to show that this tended to happen to the whole of the Christian church. I've referred to this on other occasions, so I'm not going to go into it in detail tonight. I made references to it in my Campbell Morgan lecture back in last June.

But if you try to discover how and why it was that the Christian church that you read of in the New Testament ever became the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, you will find that it's just this very thing to which I'm referring. The way in which it happened may be of interest, but it really can be put like this in a nutshell. It happened solely because they forgot this first principle: that justification is by faith only. That a man is not saved by his intellect, his understanding anymore than by his works.

But because a number of Greeks became converted, men in the church at the instigation of the devil began to try to show that after all, the Christian teaching was very similar to Greek philosophy at its best. It wasn't so different. They were persecuted, you see, and they were attacked and they had to be apologists, and they tried to explain these things. And as they were doing it, they were leaving their great principle: not many wise, not many noble, not many mighty are called. They tried to show that they were noble and that they were intellectual. They were denying the first principle, and the church became in a sense a kind of philosophical institution.

I was reading strangely enough only yesterday an article by a modern scientist who's a Christian, in which he was saying exactly the same thing. That the tragedy was that those men of the second century, in trying to deal with the Greek humanists of those age, gave their whole case away by becoming humanists themselves. And so the process went on still more when Constantine brought the Roman Empire into the church. And the result is that you get something which, according to that phrase of Dean Inge, is the exact opposite almost of the New Testament church.

Think of the church of the New Testament. It hadn't got buildings even. Our Lord would sit down in a boat and teach or sit on the side of a mountain. Contrast all that with all the pomp and ceremony and the ornate buildings of great cathedrals, St. Peter's in Rome or St. Paul's Cathedral in London or places like that, and Westminster Chapel in a sense. You see, everybody was imitating all that last century and they've gone astray. It's not primitive Christianity. It's all a forgetting of this fundamental, original principle.

And it's happened almost in every conceivable section of the Christian church. Think of Anglicanism at its beginning in the 16th century, its clear view about Rome and so on. Look at the present Anglican Church and its tendency, going back on almost everything that was done then, but still claiming to be the same thing. And it happens very slowly and in a very subtle manner, as I say, throughout the centuries. It's equally true of Nonconformity. Take Congregationalism, Independency. It started on that great principle. Now they're proposing to do away with the Congregational Union and to form what will be called the Congregational Church of Great Britain. It's the exact opposite of what was started in the 17th century. Every institution tends to produce its opposite, and we are seeing it happening before our very eyes.

You can see it equally clearly in Methodism. One wonders what John Wesley would think and do if he could come back to modern Methodism. They're denying almost everything he stood for except the circuit system. Almost everything else they've thrown long since overboard. Now this, you see, is something therefore that you can see in all the great divisions. Every one of them turns itself or is turned unconsciously into the exact opposite of what it was at the beginning. And all this is but, I say, further illustration of what we see so clearly in the Bible. Look at the prophets, how they remind Israel of what she once was. "When you were young," says the prophet, "oh, how I led you with the cords of a man," and so on, "and how ready you were to be led. How you were a young virgin, as it were, but you've become just a prostitute." Isn't that what the prophets are saying? How beautiful Israel was, how wonderful at the beginning, but what she's become. That's the terrible thing, and it's happened to all these.

I've known this happen even in the case of places. Read of Geneva in the 16th century and go and visit Geneva today. You'll find it very difficult to get an evangelical sermon in Geneva today. Geneva! I could name you villages. Some of you read the early life of Howell Harris. Trevecca and Talgarth in the days of Howell Harris. Go there now. I don't know of any more derelict districts in a spiritual sense.

I lived and was brought up partly in a village called Llangeitho, where the great Daniel Rowlands preached for over 50 years. 55 years after his extraordinary conversion in 1735. But when I was brought up there, it was as dead spiritually as a place could be. I've no recollection of ever having heard the gospel truly preached there. We were religious, but we knew nothing about the fire and the life and the evangelism of that great and mighty man and all who worked with him. What happened? Well, it's the same thing, you see. It became the Mecca to which everybody went and it became proud, like the Jews, and it lost the spirit. It became a kind of show place, and the spirit had gone. A shell was left. The husk and the kernel had vanished.

And so it is with so many other places that I could mention to you. Well, now there are some of the great illustrations in history. I'm trying to show you that what the Apostle is saying here is a principle that has been operating throughout the centuries, Old Testament but ever since, and happening today before our very eyes. But the tragedy is that people don't see these things.

Then another thing which seems to me to be shown here very clearly by history is this: is what I would call the principle of delay. I emphasize this because failure to see this and to understand this has often confused people. We all seem to have a notion that the moment we do anything wrong or begin to go astray, that God will immediately deal with us. But he doesn't do that. There's a principle of delay.

Now, let me give you some examples of what I mean. God doesn't always act immediately. I read at the beginning of Luke 13 these words: "There were present at that season some that told him of the Galileans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And Jesus answering said unto them, 'Suppose ye that these Galileans were sinners above all the Galileans because they suffered such things? I tell you, nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish.'"

You see, they were citing a case to him. "What about these people?" His answer is, "What about you?" He always does that. Or those 18 upon whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, "Think ye that they were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem? I tell you, nay: but, except ye repent, ye shall all likewise perish." He spake also this parable: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came and sought fruit thereon and found none. Then said he unto the dresser of his vineyard, 'Behold, these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?' And he answering said unto him, 'Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it: and if it bear fruit, well: and if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down.'" And he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath.

Now there's the great principle. He doesn't cut it down at once. He gives it another trial, waits three years, is ready to listen to an argument brought forward, "Let me try this." That's God's way, the principle of delay. Or take it as it was shown, I should have thought very clearly in that portion which we read at the beginning at the end of Matthew 21. Another parable of our Lord about these wicked husbandmen. You notice the point of the parable is this: our Lord is there giving a complete summary of practically the whole of the Old Testament. The wicked husbandmen are the Jews. And they have God's vineyard. He's given it to them to look after for him. And then he sends his servants to get the fruit and they kill them and murder them. That's how they treated all the prophets. And he goes on sending more. He doesn't immediately destroy them. No, no, he sends more than he sent before. They do the same to them. All the patience of God all running through the Old Testament. He doesn't at once put an end to them. He's very patient. And at last, he sends his son. And they do the same to him. And it is then and only then that he takes it from them. And so our Lord sums it up by saying, "Therefore say I unto you, 'The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.'" That's the Christian church consisting mainly of Gentiles.

But then there is perhaps a still more striking statement of it at the end of Matthew 23. Our Lord's terrible denunciation of the Pharisees. Listen from verse 34 onwards: "Wherefore behold I send unto you prophets and wise men and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues and persecute them from city to city." Listen, "That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these things shall come upon this generation."

God has been patiently waiting for these people, sending his messengers, giving them opportunities. He doesn't strike at once. But at last he does, and all comes as it were upon one particular generation. That's it. Or if you like it in the case of an individual, look at our Lord's patient treatment of Judas. He knew all about it. But he addresses him as "friend" even to the very end. He keeps on waiting patiently in this way. And if you want something similar in the realm of history, is there anything more astonishing than God's patience with the Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages? How he tolerated it and allowed it to go on even for centuries. And it was only as it were at the Protestant Reformation that God acted, putting them on one side and producing again his own true church in a visible form in the Protestant Reformation.

It's the same principle. Well, now then, let me come to the particular application of all that to us at the present time. What is it? Well, it seems to me to be perfectly plain and clear. The whole trouble with the modern ecumenical movement, non-Roman and Roman, is precisely this thing and nothing else. It is entirely due to this very principle that the Apostle is putting here before us. What do I mean? Well, what I mean is this: what was the trouble with the Jews at our Lord's time? It was this, wasn't it? They said, "We are the people of God. We are the lineal descendants of Abraham. We are Abraham's seed. We are Abraham's children. We come down in an unbroken line from Abraham, to whom all the great promises were made. Therefore, we are saved, we are the people of God. We are all right as we are. Who is this fellow that seems to suggest there's anything wrong with us?" Wasn't that it?

And that is precisely the position today. What is called Christendom is assumed to be the Christian church. Why? It's assumed to be of necessity the church. Why? Well, simply because it is the lineal descendant. It's come down as an unbroken tradition. It's the same external organization. It has this long history coming down unbroken until tonight. It's true of Roman Catholicism, which traces itself back to the original Christian church. It's true of Protestantism, tracing itself back to the Reformers and so on. It's true of all the denominations. They are assuming that because they belong to this same organization, to this one unbroken tradition, that they are of necessity Christians.

The external organization is regarded as the church. The tradition is regarded as a guarantee that we're all right. There is no concern about the purity of the church. There seems to be no concern about the message of the church and the faith and the practice of the church. Because a man is a dignitary in the church, well, then it's assumed that he must be a Christian, though he tells you in his sermons and in his books quite plainly that he's not a Christian. It is still argued that he must be because he belongs to the church, and it's very terrible to say that he's not a Christian. In other words, what makes a man a Christian is that he belongs to the church. Not what he believes any longer.

You see, we've left the principle. It is no longer justification by faith only. You can deny the deity of Christ, you can deny the miracles, you can deny the atoning sacrifice, you can deny the literal resurrection, you can deny all these things and the rebirth and justification by faith only, but still you're regarded as a Christian. Why? Well, because you're a member of the church. And every member of the church is a Christian. Why is he a member of the church if he isn't a Christian? That's the argument. The organization has taken the place of the spirit. Tradition has taken the place of truth. Men are no longer concerned in the truth which is believed or in a corresponding life. The original basis of what makes a church a church is entirely forgotten.

And the assumption behind the ecumenical movement is that because of the historical and external continuity of the organization, that it is of necessity the church. I say that that was precisely the error and the sin of the nation of the Jews when they rejected their Messiah and which caused God to pluck them out of the olive tree. And of course, they're proving the analogy still further today by persecuting those who are still holding to the original principle. They say that those of us who say things like this are not Christians because we're lacking in a Christian spirit, which means that you allow anything to be said and that you never criticize, that you always praise everybody, that you're never negative. They are persecuting those who hold to the original principle, as an apostate church has ever done since the days when the nation of Israel herself became apostate.

The modern ecumenical movement is an exact reproduction of the very thing that the Apostle is dealing with in this section. Let me give you one other thought. I feel that here also the whole question of children brought up in the church is acutely involved. Because they, of all people, are encouraged to assume that they're Christians because they were sprinkled when they were a child or because they've always been brought to church and have always been in the atmosphere. They were never anything else. I'm not saying that they are not Christians. There are so many of them, thank God. All I'm saying is this: that this tendency is greater in them than in anybody else. The danger of assuming that because you belong to the organization, that you're of necessity a Christian. The danger of forgetting the vital principle, which is justification by faith only, individual experience of God and of the rebirth. Think that out for yourselves. It's not as acute a problem as the ecumenical one, but it's a very real problem.

Very well then, I say next, what is it that awaits us? And the answer is that no man can prophesy. Because of this principle of delay that I've been showing you. All I know is this: that there is a day coming when the apostate church, however big and powerful she may be, will be cast out, will be spewed out of the mouth of God. You get the account of that in Revelation Chapter 17 and 18. It is coming. The great world church that we're hearing so much about is going to be spewed out as the apostate, vile thing that it is. And the sons of God will stand out in the brightness of their glory. I don't know when. I can't prophesy what may happen. These tendencies may go on and on.

There is this comfort, there is this hope. Something great and tremendous is going to happen amongst the Jews before that happens. But that will happen. There is ultimately going to be not only a sifting, but this retribution. The principle at the end of Matthew 23 is still working.

Very well, my last word is this: what is the way of safety for us in the light of all these things? My first answer is never forget Romans 11:22. That's the best advice I can give. Keep Romans 11:22 before you. "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off." What's it mean? It means the need of constant self-examination. "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall." Don't rely upon the fact that you're sound in doctrine now. That's no guarantee that you'll be in a year's time. Be careful lest in your correctness of doctrine, you may become hard in your spirit and make your doctrine of no value to you. Thank God for any gifts he's given you. Don't begin to rely upon them. Because if you do, what applies to you is 1 Corinthians 13: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity. Though I have faith, so that I could remove mountains and so on. Though I understand all mysteries." It's no good. You're sounding brass, a tinkling cymbal. All your knowledge is of no value to you. You see how subtle this thing is? Self-examination, constant fear. "Be not highminded, but fear." Always realize this danger. Always check yourself by the original principle lest you should, in a very subtle and slow manner, be drifting away from it.

The next thing I say is this: you and I are responsible only for ourselves and for our age. We are responsible for this, but we cannot legislate for the future. When I say things like this to some people, they say, "All right, we agree with you. But if we do what you're saying, is it any guarantee that things'll be all right in a hundred years' time?" The answer is no. But I'm not responsible for what my grandchildren may do, neither are you. But you are responsible for what you do. Every man shall bear his own burdens. You cannot legislate for the future. But our business is to see always that the church is pure: pure in her doctrine, pure in her practice. Whatever the costs. But we can't guarantee that it's going to continue. The church has been so pure many times, but always this other principle seems to come in, they fall away from the original. But we are responsible for our own day and generation.

And lastly, it seems to me quite inevitable that our duty is clear. That we have nothing to do with a church which is guilty of repeating the fatal error and sin of the Jewish nation. We have nothing to do with a church that is apostate, with a church that puts organization before the truth, tradition before the truth, which has forgotten the very being and existence of itself, the principle that has ever brought into being and has made it what it is. A church which has departed from that is no longer a church. And for us to be associated with such a body is to partake of its sin and to be partly responsible for its apostasy.

Well, my dear friends, there are some of the things which seem to me to be spoken so plainly and so clearly to us at this very moment by this amazing statement of the great Apostle in Romans 11 verses 16 to 22. May God apply them to our minds and hearts and spirits and give us grace to be obedient. "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them."

Let us pray. Oh Lord, our God, we come back unto thee. We thank thee that we can do so. We are conscious of our own unworthiness. We see in ourselves these tendencies about which we have been speaking together. We know that we are what we are by thy grace and by that alone. Oh Lamb of God, still keep me close to thy pierced side. 'Tis only there in safety and peace I can abide. What snares and foes surround me! What fears and lusts within! The grace that sought and found me alone can keep me clean. Thou alone canst keep us clean in doctrine and in practice. Lord, bless thy word to us. Write it deeply, we pray thee, in our minds and hearts and consciences and wills. And oh, God, give us that spiritual courage to practice what we believe. To put into execution what we see in thy word. Oh Lord, look down upon us in pity and in compassion and lead us on by thy spirit. We thank thee that we know that the ultimate victory is certain and secure. Keep us faithful until that great and glorious and wonderful day shall dawn. And now, may the grace of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship and the communion of the Holy Spirit abide and continue with us now this night, throughout the remainder of this our short, uncertain, earthly life and pilgrimage, and until we shall be safely in the glory everlasting. Amen.