This World Needs the Church. What Does the Church Need?

This World Needs the Church.

What Does the Church Need?
R. O. Covey
White Wing Messenger, January 25, 1975

WHEN A MAN’S MIND AND HEART are full of one particular thing or type of thing, he has no capacity for other concerns. This is just as true in the Church as elsewhere.

While any condition seldom applies to every member, still the Church is one Body. In the natural body, one diseased member can cause suffering throughout the body; one afflicted part can impede the movement of the entire body. But it does not follow that only one or two sound members can give health to all the body.

The Body of Christ suffers throughout when even a small minority of its members are “diseased” by sin and the world which is at enmity with God. Also, the self-will of the minority can impede the progress of the whole Body.

Society has always been able to survive the occasional sickness of its people, but when certain diseases have reached “epidemic” proportions, all-out efforts have often had to be expanded —smallpox and polio, by way of examples. Nations ranking as world leaders have survived limited corruption for many years, only to fall and become a reproach when that corruption became the prevailing thing.

LET US NOT FORGET that Christianity is a “kingdom” or “society,” and the Church is a “nation” under government. No society has ever been so stable that it could not be debauched when it lowered its morals. No nation has been so strong that it could not fall when its subjects lost their patriotism or its government became corrupt. And the Church of God is no exception to the rule, as was clearly shown in the 4th Century!

“Oh, it can’t happen again!” some may protest. And the protest often comes from those who are “glorifying in the flesh” but camouflaging their glory by a prolific use of the name of the Lord. They may wallow in the world and defy the Church’s authority while they shout the name of Jesus and laud the Church of God. This is no help to the Church, much less to the world we were sent to help!

THESE PEOPLE REMIND ME of an article written by A. J. Tomlinson entitled, “SOME PEOPLE CAN’T HELP.” His subtitle was, “What’s the Use to Try to Get People To Help When They Have Proved Unworthy?” We keep trying to help our erring people by warning them that they are inviting the judgments of God, even though they know that the Church must reach perfection. But they refuse to be admonished. Eventually they will get beyond our help, and beyond being helped. Their hearts are full of the world and their minds are full of themselves. They have no capacity left to be of any help to anybody.

It is the opinion of many that worldliness has already reached “epidemic” proportions among us. If the Church is full of the world, how can it be full of the Spirit and power of God? Without the Spirit and power, we cannot help the world. Like Samson, we have said a lot about our power, but if we continue laying our head in the lap of sin, “shaking ourselves” will suddenly fail to produce results, and the Philistines (the world) will see our helplessness!

THE WORLD KEEPS DYING and going to hell. They need help—but so do we! They admit that they have no solutions to their problems. We can tell them that Jesus is the answer—that Jesus is the way, for He is. We can tell it in “shouting volume” that Jesus is a Healer and Miracle Worker, for He is. But when we have come to the place where the world must say to us, “Physician, heal thyself,” what do we say then? When we tell them about the One Fold, and read them the Church teachings, what do we answer when they can say, “I hear you, but I see nothing in you that I cannot see in a hundred other places”? We can preach about the world-shaking power of the Holy Ghost until the rafters ring, but the dialogue will end if our hearers can say, “We see you quake, but we feel no conviction—we hear your whistle, but your train seems stalled on the up-grade.”

IF THIS WORLD WANTS HELP, it is the help of deliverance from its own sin. Oh yes, there is an element in the world that will settle for happiness without holiness, but the soberminded ones want holiness, so far as “religion” goes, it is nothing more than another episode in a long line of experiments; it too will soon be cast aside. But true holiness is the result of the death-pangs of sanctifying crucifixion. It is a sobering, settling experience, and the joy and happiness comes only after the suffering.

In religion, happiness without holiness is the devil’s counterfeit for the real manifestation of the Holy Ghost. The devil never objects to halfway change. In fact, he encourages it, because it is even more damning than outright iniquity. As “the prince of this world,” he loves for professing Christians to cling to the things of the world. He is glad to see us “shouting happy” as long as our behavior and appearance compliments his evil kingdom!

A CHURCH CAN BECOME so full of the world that it doesn’t know its own condition, for there is so little remaining in contrast to show up the difference. Its members can hardly do anything at all unless the world first sets a pattern. In this condition, most of its “gains” will be of the same worldly sort. This kind of church cannot help the world. But, O that the world might help that church to see its own lost estate!

We speak quite freely of the uniqueness of God’s Church; but we stand in danger of losing that distinguishing mark unless we stick to God’s pattern. We may not “ask for a king,” as did “the church in the wilderness,” but we seem to be “looking around!” Every “religious fad” that springs up finds some of our people sitting on its doorstep for a “briefing” on its philosophy. “Old Mother World” seems able to “sell” every new pattern in large quantities to the Church of God—whether it be a style, fashion, or some religious gimmick (often falsely spoken of as “a new method”).

IF WE WILL LEND THE LORD AN EAR, He will help us so that we can help this world. And probably His first word of admonition will be, as it so often has been—“HUMBLE YOURSELVES!” Think about it!