Dear Friends,
How often we find the church of Christ laying hold on some popular phrase in the vain belief that once having uttered the phrase our immediate problems are all dealt with. "This is a missionary situation today" seems to be the latest popular utterance, and although it may be perfectly true, I wonder have we ever considered the implications of what we are saying? If this is a "missionary situation" then there is a very straight and unbending finger of accusation pointing straight at every one of us who names the name of Christ.
Remember those awful seas that almost engulfed that little ship that the prophet Jonah was travelling in when he endeavoured to flee to the town of Tarshish? Both he and the pagan sailors were almost plunged to the bottom of the ocean. But Jonah wasn't in that terrible situation on account of the pagan sailors' paganism; they were in that terrible situation on account of Jonah's waywardness! So with our own present situation today, then it's not a case of the church being in such a state on account of the world, but it's a case of the world being in such a state on account of the church! How plainly our Lord expressed this very truth: "If the salt hath lost its saviour", He said, "wherewith all shall it (the world) be salted." "Ye are the salt of the earth." He said. And if this is a "godless" land today – a missionary situation, as we say, then it's because the salt has lost its savour - the light is under the bushel - the city is not built upon the hill.
Take the churches' attitude to prayer, first of all. How many really thriving prayer meetings are there in this land today? Some speak of "the winds of revival blowing through our denominational life," but where have these winds blown upon the prayer meetings? We can organise our simultaneous evangelism, café evangelism, agape evangelism, on step forward, or backward or sideward evangelism and what he you, but until the prayer meetings increase in volume – numerically and to the praise of the Lord – then the situation in this "mission field" will continue to downgrade. There is only one type of evangelism that has ever turned the world upside down, and this is "spontaneous" evangelism; the type that flows out of our prayer meetings.
Take our attitude to the Word of God. What an attitude it is in the church today. How telling that phrase is when we find the re-discovery of the Word of God in the temple of Hilkiah, the High Priest: "I have found the Book of the Law in the House of the Lord!" What a place to "find" the Bible! And it was "found", you remember, because it had been "lost"! Buried! Under a dozen-and-one piles of rubbish and years of dust it lay buried. Ah church of Christ! This is why we have a missionary situation today! Time we "found" the Word of God in the very House of God itself. It's lain too long - buried under those stupid guitars and banjos; hidden out of sight by musical scores and cantatas; pushed to the one side to make way for endless reels of sloppy, sentimental gospel films; lost in a cloud of chorus sheets and solo pieces. Do you see it, believer! This is what the great and glorious Reformation was all about - the message of the Bible: Justification by faith alone. Any wonder we are in such a situation today, if we have lost that message? Any wonder that the theme of Christendom is "Back to Rome", seeing that it was the re-discovery of the Bible that led us out of Rome?
Take our attitude to "mission" itself. We say we are in a missionary situation, but how many believers act like that? How much "gossiping" of the gospel do we do? How many "out-stations" does the average church have? Is it not the case that so long as we are secure in our own four walls the world outside can continue to degenerate? This is not biblical Christianity. "Go into all the world," remember. We are to "go and tell what great things the Lord has done for us." Tell it simply, sincerely, warmly. This is our Christian calling in the world. We have lost that calling today, and so find ourselves in our missionary situation today. We have made the situation; the Lord has given it into the hands of His people to work for the righting of the situation.
"This is a missionary situation today"? Who made it so? Where is the spirit of mission and reformation?
Sincerely, W.J. Seaton
