God does not re-establish what man has ruined. The ruin of the church as a testimony, and looked at on the side of human responsibility, will continue to the end of its history. It has become unfaithful, till at last it has become established in the midst of the world, mixed up with iniquity of every kind which goes on to the close. God compares it to a great house with vessels to honor and dishonor (2 Tim. 2). And yet the moment will come, when the history of man’s responsibility being over, the Lord will present to Himself His Church, glorious, having neither spot, nor wrinkle, nor any such thing (Eph. 5). At that time it shall be said of her, as of Jacob, not “what hath man wrought,” but “what hath God wrought!” (Num. 23:23).
It is no longer a question of retracing the pathway; the edifice is in ruins: to replaster it, would be but to adorn its decay, which would be worse than the ruin itself.
The Lord abhors pretension to power in a day such as the present. Forfeited strength cannot be recovered. The display of human, fleshly power which we see on all sides, is utterly different from the power of the Spirit. Those who talk loudly about the power of God being with them, savor somewhat of the crowd who followed Simon Magus, saying: “This man is the great power of God” (Acts 8:10); and of Laodicea, who says, “I am rich,” not knowing that she is “wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked” (Rev. 3:17).
However, we must never forget that, although the church as a corporate witness has failed, God has preserved a testimony to Christ in the midst of the ruin, and those who seek to maintain it, acknowledge and weep over their common failure in the presence of God. We find something similar in Ezekiel 9:4. The men of Jerusalem who sigh and cry, are marked on their foreheads by the angel of the Lord; they are a humbled people, as in Malachi 3:13-18.
There are two classes in this chapter; those who say: “What profit is it that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?” (ver. 14); and the faithful ones, a feeble and afflicted remnant who speak one to another, acknowledging the ruin, but waiting for the Messiah Who alone can give them deliverance. These latter do not say: “What profit is it?” This humbling is for their profit, turning their eyes to Him who “raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes.” (1 Sam. 2:8).
God grant that this may also be our attitude, and that we may not be indifferent to the state of the church of God in this world, but rather weep at having contributed towards it. Let us, like Philadelphia, be content to have a little strength, and we shall hear the Lord say for our consolation: I have the key of David, power is Mine, fear not, I place it entirely at your disposal.
How touching is the grace which provides for worship in the midst of the ruin.