This is the third and final address in this series on Paul’s doctrine. In the first address we traced Paul’s doctrine historically. We found he was a special witness for the unfolding of those wonderful revelations. We outlined the main points of it in our second address. We spoke of some of the things that corrupt that doctrine: the influence of ritualism and the influence of rationalism, either of which can rob us of what Paul gave us by the Spirit.
Tonight one desires to speak of the problems that face the church of God and render the observance of Paul’s doctrine a far more difficult path than in Paul’s days. Confessedly we are living in the last days.
When man launches a new enterprise of any kind, perhaps a stock company, he gets out a prospectus, perhaps a very lovely brochure, and tells the investors what a wonderful success it is going to be, how they can buy this stock at $10 a share, and how, in a short time, perhaps, it will jump to $100 a share. They demonstrate by figures and arguments and statistics that it cannot possibly fail. It is going to be what they call a success. When we come to the introduction of Christianity into the world, we have the promise of the church, the promise of the reception it was to have in this world, the promise of the progress that the truth was to make, and then the promise of the final consummation of all at the end of the age. We find that exactly the opposite kind of prophecy is made. As we trace the history of the church — as we follow it in the seven churches of Revelation 23 — we find the downgrade, with rare exceptions, the thing ending in that which is so nauseous to Christ that it has to be spewed out of the mouth as a thing hateful to Him. The Apostle’s writings abound with warnings that in the last days things are going to be bad, that it is going to be a difficult time. We learn that toward the end it is going to be hard to find real, genuine faith on the earth. We find that the love of many is going to wax cold, truth is going to be surrendered, people are going to refuse to have ears to hear the Word of God — especially those lines of truth peculiar to Paul. How different from what man desires!
We find ourselves in the end of the Christian dispensation, if we can call it a dispensation. We are faced with the problem of finding a clean path through the confusion Satan has brought in. Who can look out over Christendom today and not recognize what a babel it is? We cannot wonder that people stumble about hopelessly, something like in the days when Israel was without a king and every man did what was right in his own eyes. Men have come to the cynical conclusion that all that is left to do is to do the best they can and go with the confusion. In the case of Israel, there was no king, and everyone did that which was right in his own eyes. You and I cannot say that in reference to the church of God. No! We cannot rob Him of His headship of the church. He did not jeopardize that headship by making it dependent upon the faithfulness of man. He did not put the keeping of the body of Christ in the hands of man and make it man’s responsibility. No, it is in His keeping: “I will build My church; and the gates of hell [hades] shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:1818And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. (Matthew 16:18)).
When the day comes for Christ to claim His church, He is going to present it to Himself perfect, without spot and without blemish. It is going to answer perfectly to all that He has planned and purposed — not a blemish. Glorious! It is going to be in company with Himself — His work. That is His responsibility. That is going to be His glory. That is His workmanship.
Now, we are not going to talk much about that side of it tonight. Our problem is to find our way through the difficulties besetting us as to human responsibility in connection with the truth entrusted to us, and that especially in connection with the church of God. When our Lord Jesus gave His farewell address to His disciples, He held out a very dark picture as to how their testimony was to be received in this world. Perhaps we might trace this in John 15:18-1918If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you. 19If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. (John 15:18‑19): “If the world hate you, ye know that it hated Me before it hated you. If ye were of the world, the world would love his own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you.” Next chapter and the last verse: “These things I have spoken unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (ch. 16:33). The next chapter, verse 14: “I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world” (ch. 17:14).
One ventures to say that it is a safe conclusion from the sentiments expressed there that it was never our Lord’s intention that the church was to be an accepted institution in the world. In other words, the program that is outlined by the Lord as He takes His departure from His disciples — as He takes them, so to speak, into the holy of holies in chapters 14-17 of John’s Gospel — the burden of what He has to say is this: “I am leaving you in a hostile world, and the testimony that you have to bear in that world will never be accepted.” Christianity was never intended to be a popular affair in the world. And I would say I believe I speak the truth that Bible Christianity has never been popular in the world. Oh, I know we have a situation today where the church boasts of the power it has succeeded in grasping in worldly affairs, and the world boasts of the presence of the church. The world feels that it needs the church, and the church has certainly aligned itself with the world in many ways. It has become increasingly so, but the path we find marked out in the Word of God is the church passing through this scene and finding everything hostile to it. Paul took up this testimony in his writings, he bore it out personally in his own life and doctrine, and he pressed it upon the disciples.