WHAT testimony has the religious world to offer as to the times in which we are living? What witness has the Church of Jesus Christ to bear in response to the "more sure word of prophecy"? What has she to say as to the proximity of her Lord's return? These are vital questions, and there are clear answers.
The Great Religious World in General.
First of all, there is general expectation thruout the great religious world, not in Christianity alone but among the devotees of the great historic religions, that some great change is impending, some great disclosure of divine light and truth is imminent. Buddhism, Brahmanism, Mohammedanism, are all looking for the advent of great teachers, great light, greater power. True, the devil has deceived them, but the counterfeit demonstrates the true.
Modern Spiritism, Christian Science, New Thought, Religious Magnetism, and Hypnotism are all various forms of counterfeits of Christ's coming. Satan takes advantage of the general expectations of mankind, who are ignorant of, or are unwilling to follow, the simple word of God, and deludes them in various ways, but always with more or less of the exaltation of the human, the giving of glory to man.
The Professed Christian Church.
That church is divided as never before in all her history. She swings from the strongest, most tyrannical traditionalism to the loosest liberalism; from the strong centralized power of the Vatican and pope at Rome to the utter unbelief of higher criticism, represented in the latest results in the teaching of R. J. Campbell of the City Temple, London, and echoed loudly and oftentimes anonymously from thousands of voices in pulpit and press among the teachers of so-called Protestantism. On the one end of the line God's word is made void by the tradition of men, as verily as it was by the strict Pharisees of old; on the other end it is utterly set aside as a book of myths and fables and allegories, a mere expression of the religious thought of the times in which its various parts were written. The one extreme holds to the inspiration of the Scriptures, but, by its system of traditional interpretation and infallible assumptions, separates it from the people and makes void its clearest utterances. The other leaves the people without any standard of revelation from God, to be blown about by every wind of doctrine, holding to beliefs
"Wavering, doubtful, undefined,
Never shapen nor outlined."
Between these extremes stand the great mass of professed Christians, the most of them dividing between the extreme standards. There is another class, still holding for the faith "once delivered to the saints," loyal to the Bible, but more or less ignorant of its teachings.
This condition of things God has designated by the term "Babylon." The Scriptures do not do this by way of condemnation. Rather, it expresses the true condition of Christendom. Babylon means "confusion," and surely "confusion worse confounded" reigns in Christendom to-day. The Roman Catholic Church has her standard of tradition which holds by human "authority" her flock if they do not independently and in God-given freedom read the Bible. But the fact that Rome professes to believe the Bible and still utterly ignores it in all tests between that word and her tradition, creates confusion.
The Protestant churches have professedly Biblical standards, which in times of test yield either to the liberalism of "Higher Criticism" or to the traditions of Romanism; and consequently she who ought to be a guide to clear, definite, saving faith, envelopes the world in fog and doubt. There is another class, also divided and scattered in great Babylon, but who believe the Bible and are seeking to know its truth and practise its precepts. Of this class more hereafter.
The chief point in all this to which I wish to call the reader's attention is that this very condition is foretold in God's word, that this Babylon of religion will fill the world, and eventually, if not "healed" (which is the desire of God's heart, Jer. 51:9), will, in her various divisions, come into judgment before God. Read Revelation, chapters 14 to 18.
The Results.
The results of these departures from God, the following of different standards, has been to the highest degree demoralizing. There has been the thrusting out of the great moral standard of God. While outward conventionalities are observed, real inward moral worth, tender conscience, and clear convictions of duty are wanting. Evil and selfish men unite with the church with unchanged hearts, become standards of conduct because of wealth and influence, debauch Christian business men with worldly, oftentimes dishonest, methods, till the true standard of morality drags in the dust and there is not vital godliness and strength of conviction enough in the church to withdraw fellowship with such men, or to decidedly and specifically rebuke the wrong. Of this time the apostle to the Gentiles prophetically speaks:
"This know also, that IN THE LAST DAYS perilous times shall come. For men shall be4lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; HAVING A FORM OF GODLINESS, BUT DENYING THE POWER THEREOF; from such turn away." 2 Tim. 3: 1-5.
Here are eighteen different sins, or rather eighteen different manifestations of sin, held among those who have a "form of godliness." More than this, it is a form of godliness which in itself possesses power, a true godliness, having the power of God in it to change hearts, to regenerate men. But the class mentioned above deny this power by godless lives, by doing just what the heathen world do; just what we may expect from the natural, unregenerate heart. See Rom. 1: 28-32; Mark 7: 21-23.
When the spirit of the world reigns in the church, the church is no longer the salt of the earth, religion becomes a dead form, and profession, hypocrisy. We need not affirm that the eighteen sins above named are in the church to-day. We know that they are there. Godly men and papers in every church cry out against the worldliness. Yet the selfishness, the coveting, the boasting, the pride, the blasphemy, the growing disregard for parental authority, the unnatural estrangement, alienation, and strange lack of affection between blood relations, the bargain-breaking, faithlessness in contracts, fierceness, false criticism, incontinence and licentiousness, the despising of those who are truly devout, false-heartedness, stubborn, obstinate haughtiness, pleasure-loving more than God-loving, exist and increase; and because of this in the church the words of Christ regarding this time are demonstrated to be true, "And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold." Matt. 24: 12. This—the evil in the church—makes the times peculiarly perilous. Let the world be evil; if the church be pure, we need not be alarmed; but if the church lose her power and yield to the world, the moral restraining power is gone.
Out of such conditions are arising the wide-spread erroneous doctrines with which the church and world are filling. There is a notable lack of faith in Biblical Christianity and its Book. Higher Criticism is gaining ground, and souls are doubting to destruction. Man is glorified; God is forgotten. And this, too, fulfils the word of Jesus, "When the Son of Man cometh, shall He find the faith on the earth?" Luke 18: 8, A.R.V. And the form of the question implies its almost utter absence. All this declares that Christ's coming is nigh.
On the other hand, there are a few souls who are following their Master. Out of the fog of tradition, out of the mazes of error, out of the darkness of unbelief, they are seeking God, coming back to His word, and finding "the old paths, where is the good way." To them, Christ Jesus says, "Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." The very spiritual darkness brooding over the world is, in the light of the prophetic word, an omen of His coming, a herald of the dawn.
