0946. The Mission of the Church

The Mission of the Church

"Simeon hath declared how God at the first did visit the Gentiles, to take out of them a people for His name.

"And to this agree the words of the Prophets" (Act_15:14-15).

We are now about to enter the ground of the Church's greatest controversy. It is here more than anywhere else that pre- and postmillennialism lock horns.

Postmillennialism utterly repudiates the time boundary of the Church as set forth by our previous leader; it concedes the task of the Church is to bring about a world-wide acceptance of the Gospel and a subsequent reign of millennial righteousness.

Premillennialism accepts the age boundary of the Church; it concedes that the mission of the Church is elective; that the Church is to do no more than to take out of the nations a people for His name, and that then Christ will come and inaugurate the millennium.

In the contentions above noted, there are distinctions which are vital and of far-reaching magnitude.

1. Let us spend a few moments seeing the outworkings of the postmillennial idea of the Church's mission. Postmillennialism in its conception of the conquest of the Church has turned the Church away from its God-given task of soul-winning and soul-training unto a task of social and economic service. The great hue and cry today is that the Church should enter the realm of the state and create among men a spirit and passion like unto that of the Master.

Postmillennialism in leading the Church into a union with the state, has brought disaster to the Church's welfare. Years ago the Church tried to put over this same feat and the result was what is commonly known as the Dark Ages. Rev. W. S. Bradshaw has well said:

"It took centuries to work out from the interlocking conditions of this union of Church and state. It was a long, biter trail, a period of blood and tears and sorrows. One of the best known periods of church history is the period of the Reformation. The Church that once followed the meek and lowly Nazarene, and still professed to do so, had become rich and powerful and heartless. Those Who dared to disobey her cruel decrees found their death warrants were already signed. Great numbers of humble followers of Christ traveled the bloody way to martyrs' graves, their blood being shed in the name of Christ Who gave His Blood on Calvary to save men. The Church became so besotted in sin as to become a murderess, and many were her crimes. She began by attempting to reform the state and ended by being dragged down into the deeps of iniquity, bestiality, crime. The way out was a way of blood and tears. Those who came out in the Reformation paid a great price for their purity of faith."

The Church should have learned her lesson; but postmillennialism, with eyes blinded to past experiences, is heading the Church once again into a union of the Church and state which will end up in a collusion with the antichrist and in another dark age of tribulation and sorrow, unequaled in the world's history. Mr. Bradshaw states further:

"Reform movements have become a sort of profession, likewise they have become epidemic. Some one sees an ill that ought to be cured. He announces a plan, calls together a few people, an organization is effected, and the churches are duly notified that they are a part of another new reform organization.

"The churches are losing their place of separation. They are losing their sense of God. They are losing their estimation of the Son of God. They are losing their belief in the power of the Cross to save men. They are losing their spiritual life and power. They are departing from the method of service that their Lord gave for their guidance. The people are losing their respect for the church and their reverence for God."

2. Let us spend just a moment in observing the outworkings of premillennialism. Premillennialism in its final analysis presents one long and loud call to the Church to stand aloof from all world entanglements. It concedes the mission of the Church to be strictly twofold: First, the salvation of the lost; and, secondly, the instruction and upbuilding of the saved.

Premillennialism has no place for the social gospel, it gives itself wholly to Scriptural evangelism. The result is that in the midst of a Church which has drifted from its Divine message and mission, premillennialism has given birth to a body of Spirit-filled and Scripturally-taught evangelists, pastors and missionaries, who are spreading the Gospel message to the uttermost part of the earth. May God bless their labors.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR