The devil and the Church # 1

The devil and the Church

The devil is too wise, too large in mental grasp, too lordly in ambition, to confine his aims to the individual. He seeks to direct the policy and sway the scepter of nations. In his largest freedom, and in his delirium of passion and success, "he goes out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth." He is an adept in deception, an expert in all cunning arts. An archangel in execution, he often succeeds in seducing the nations most loyal to Christ, leading them into plans and principles which pervert and render baneful [beneficial, constructive] all Christly principles. The Church itself, the bride of Christ, when seduced from her purity, degenerates into a worldly ecclesiasticism.

The "gates of hell shall not prevail" against the Church. This promise of our Lord stands against every satanic device and assault. But this immutable word as to the glorious outcome, does not protect the Church from the devil's stratagems which may, and often do, pervert the aims of the Church and postpone the day of its final triumph.

The devil is a hydra-headed monster. He is hydra-headed in plans and wisdom - as well as in monstrosities. His master and supreme effort is to get control of the Church, not to destroy its organization, but to abate and pervert its Divine ends. This he does in the most insidious way, seemingly innocent, no startling change, nothing to shock nor to alarm. Sometimes the destructive change is introduced under the disguise of a greater zeal for Christ's glory. Introduced by someone high in church honor, often it occurs that the advocate of these measures is totally ignorant of the fact that the tendency is subversive.

One of the schemes of satan to debase and pervert, is to establish a wrong estimate of church strength. If he can raise false measurements of church power; if he can press the material to the front; if he can tabulate these forces so as to make them imposing and aggregating in commands, influence, and demand - he has secured his end.

In the Mosaic economy, the subversion of the ends of the Church and the substitution of material forces was guarded against. Their kings were warned against the accumulation, parade, and reliance on material forces. It was in the violation of this law, that David sinned when he yielded to the temptation of satan to number the people.

To this, the third temptation of our Lord was directed to measure, such temptation by which the devil tried Jesus was intended to subvert the ends of His kingdom by substituting material elements of strength, for the spiritual.

This is one of the devil's most insidious and successful methods to deceive, divert and deprave. He marshals and parades the most engaging material results, lauds the power of civilizing forces and makes its glories and power pass its review - until church leaders are dazzled,and ensnared, and the Church becomes thoroughly worldly while boasting of her spirituality.

No deceiver is so artful in the diabolical trade of deception, as satan. As an angel of light, he leads a soul to death. To mistake the elements of church strength, is to mistake the character of the Church, and also to change its character all its efforts and aims.

The strength of the Church lies in its "piety". All else is incidental. But in worldly, popular language of this day, a church is called strong when its membership is large, when it has social position and large financial resources. The church is thought successful when ability, learning, and eloquence fill the pulpit, and when the pews are filled by fashion, intelligence, money and influence. An estimate of this kind, is worldly to the fullest extent.

The church that thus defines its strength, is on the highway to apostasy. The strength of the Church does not consist of any or all of these things. The "faith", holiness and zeal of the Church are the elements of its power. Church strength does not consist in its numbers and its money - but in the holiness of its members. Church strength is not found in these worldly attachments or endowments - but in the endowment of the Holy Spirit on its members. No more fatal or deadly symptom can be seen in a church, than this transference of its strength from spiritual to material forces, from the Holy Spirit to the world. The power of God in the Church is the measure of its strength, and is the estimate which God puts on it, and not the estimate the world puts on it. Here is the measure of its ability to meet the ends of its being.

On the contrary, show us a church, poor, illiterate, obscure and unknown, but composed of praying people. They may be men of neither worldly ability nor wealth nor influence. They may be families that do not know one week where they are to get their bread for the next. But with them is "the hiding of God's power," and their influence will be felt for eternity, and their light shines, and they are watched. Wherever they go, there is a fountain of light, and Christ in them is glorified and His kingdom advanced. They are His chosen vessels of salvation and His luminaries to reflect His light.

There are signs everywhere unmistakable and of dire import that Protestantism  has been blinded and caught by satan's dazzling glare!

We are being seriously affected by the material progress of the age. We have heard so much of it, and gazed on it so long - that spiritual things are tame to us. Spiritual views have no form nor loveliness to us. Everything must take on the rich colorings, luxuriant growth and magnificent appearance of the material - or else it is beggarly. This is the most perilous condition the Church has to meet, when the meek and lowly fruits of piety - are to be discounted by the showy and worldly things with which material success crowds the Church.

We must not yield to the flood. We must not for a moment, not the hundredth part of an inch, give place to the world. Piety must be stressed in every way and at every point. The Church must be made to see and feel this delusion and share, this transference to her strength from God to the world, this rejection of the Holy Spirit by the endowment of "might and power," and this yielding to satan. The Church more and more is inclined not only to disregard, but to despise, the elements of spiritual strength and set them aside - for the more impressive worldly ones.

We have been and are schooling ourselves into regarding as elements of church prosperity - only those items which make showings in a statistical column, and which impress an age given up to worldly facts and figures. And as the most vital spiritual conditions and gains cannot be reduced to figures, they are left out of the column and its aggregates, and after a while they will neither be noted nor estimated. If we do not call a halt and change our methods, the whole estimate of the  strength of a church will be supremely worldly. However imposing our material results may be, however magnificent and prosperous the secular arm of the Church appears - we must go deeper than these for its strength. We must proclaim it, and iterate and reiterate it with increased emphasis, that the strength of the Church does not lie in these things.

These may be but the gilded delusions, which we mistake for the true riches, and while we are vainly saying, "We are rich and increased in goods," God has written of us that we are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked!" They will be, if we are not sleeplessly vigilant - but the costly spices and splendid decoration which embalm our spirituality. True strength lies in the vital godliness of the people. The aggregate of the personal holiness of the members of each church - is the only true measure of strength. Any other test offends God, dishonors Christ, grieves the Holy Spirit, and degrades religion.

A church can often make the fairest and best showing of material strength when death in its deadliest form on its vitals. There can scarcely be a more damaging delusion that to judge of the conditions of the Church by its material exhibits or churchly activity. Spiritual barrenness and rottenness in the Church are generally hidden by a fair exterior and an obtrusive parade of leaves and an exotic growth. A  spiritual church converts souls from sin soundly, clearly and fully.

~E. M. Bounds~

(continued with # 2)