Page 157 - Jesus is coming - Class version

154 JESUS IS OOMING.

Here then we 'are most emphatically taught not only that
the world is growing no better, but that the professing
Church itself will lose its saltness, becoming nominal and
lukewarm, fit only to be spued out of the Master's mouth. 116
The entire teaching of the Word of God, we believe, agrees
with this.
And we have but to take an unprejudiced survey of the
Church even now, to see the truth of it. The loss of spiri-
tual power in the different branches of the great nominal
Church has not resulted from the casting out of truth,
but from the imbibing and internal workings of false doc-
trine, which, like leaven, has fermented the mass. Little
by little the ordinary bishop of Rome has developd into an
infallible Pope. Image worship, the confessional, world
conformity and post-millennialism have all worked out their
enormous growth like the little leaven in the meal.
How do the great Papal and Greek churches, in their
stateliness, formality, popularity and spiritual weakness of
to-day, compare with the despised Nazarene and his follow-
116
ers, or with the persecuted, consecrated and godly con-
gregations (ekkleesias) of the first two centuries?
And are not the present evangelical denominations, by
worldly conformity and increeping doubts regarding the
inspiration of the Word, etc., dangerously tending in the
same direction? How very few of the members in them are
to-day crying out for separation and holiness. Surely, no
one can fail to see the corrupting influences of the leaven
permeating them.
We realize that this is an awful fact. It is not even
pleasant to state it. But, while Noah's preaching was not
pleasant to them that heard it, still it was true and the
leavened bread of sincerity and (115) Rev. 3:16. So then be-
truth. cause thou art lukewarm, and
Gal. 5 :7. Ye did run well neither cold nor hot, I will spew
;
who did hinder you that ye thee out of my mouth,
should not obey the truth? (116) 1 John 4:17. Herein Is
8. This persuasion cometh not our love made perfect, that we
of him that calleth you. may have boldness in the day of
9. A little leaven leaveneth judgment: because as be is, so
the whole lump. are we in this world.