Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 8)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the book here

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DID ADAM NEED THE SABBATH?

Outside the tradition of the great Protestant confessions, teachers who regard the sabbath as an entirely Jewish affair, beginning and ending with the Mosaic covenant, [see endnote] say that there is no mention of Adam having to rest in the Garden of Eden, and no rules banning any specific activity there. They also say that the special regulations given to Moses would not have been relevant to Eden, because Adam would not have needed to light a fire, cook food, bear a burden, or buy and sell. Furthermore, as Adam had constant access to God in that perfect place, there would have been no practical difference between the sabbath and the other six days.

With such reasoning as this, the existence of a sabbath before Moses is rejected. But of course, no one has suggested that the extra rules for the sabbath given through Moses as a sign of the covenant, were in force in the Garden of Eden. This is a rather flippant way of trying to prove that God instituted no sabbath for the Garden. We have already noted that the day was blessed and made holy and distinctive by God, and this is an inescapable fact.

Then how exactly would Adam have kept that special day in the Garden, supposing he had not sinned? The answer is provided in Genesis 2.3. The first purpose of the day was to commemorate creation, and so if Adam had continued in paradise, every seventh day he and Eve would have laid aside the delightful task of dressing and keeping the Garden in order to reflect on the history of that place, and the order and wonder of God’s work. During unfolding centuries of bliss, all the glory for creation would have been the Lord's. Our first parents were, after all, dwellers in time, and time itself would have been harnessed by the sabbath, and subordinated to the worship of the Creator. The Garden of Eden would have been a perpetual sabbath, but still there would have been a special, weekly, creation commemoration day.

The Lord who knows all things, however, anticipated the Fall and the subsequent needs of fallen mankind by giving the creation decree that one day in seven would be a day of commemoration and worship.

It is obvious that the inauguration of a day of rest in the Garden also looked beyond the Fall, because it ‘contained’ a type of Christ and salvation, as taught inHebrews 3-4, and this may well have been perceived by Adam (in the light of God’s promise of Genesis 3.15) after paradise had been lost, and served as a great comfort to him and his family.

The blessing and sanctifying of one day in seven in the Garden of Eden was an immense and monumental act of God which should never be underestimated, or minimised out of its full significance. Endnote: These include Schofield-type dispensationalists.

Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 7)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the bookhere

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IS IT IN THE CONSCIENCE?

Some modern teachers use another argument to remove the fourth commandment from its place in the ten. They say that if it were an ongoing moral commandment, it would be written in the heart or conscience of everyone, like the others, but it is not, and is therefore non-moral. This is a very shaky way of deciding whether a commandment has moral standing, elevating human endorsement above the Word of God. Since when was it a valid principle of interpretation to make our subjective feelings a judge over Scripture?

The reality is that moral commandments are frequently dulled and blotted out of the conscience by habitual disobedience, and especially by a culture of disobedience. Paul tells us in Romans 7 that he would not have known he was a sinner except by hearing the law, adding specifically: ‘I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.’ He speaks of how he lived seemingly undisturbed by his covetousness until ‘the commandment came, sin revived, and I died,’ meaning that the commandment revived his conscience and his awareness of the sin, and he felt condemned.

This reflects the experience of countless people who have never experienced a single pang of conscience while happily feathering their nests with this world’s goods. It never occurred to them that they were victims of the lust of greed, until they came under the sound of the Word.

The same is true of so many young people today, who are taught that sexual activity is an essential human right, and who are brainwashed by television soaps and films propounding the same ideas. Many young people are ‘sexually active’ from an early age, and we encounter those who feel no natural inhibitions or subsequent shame whatsoever in connection with such sexual activity, because their young consciences have been ‘seared with a hot iron’, and rendered insensitive (1 Timothy 4.2).

How much more will the conscience be desensitised to the obligation to allocate to God a regular portion of one’s life to worship, in an atheistic society where people have only ever known Sunday as a leisure day, and virtually everyone sees it that way!

The greatest tragedy of all in this matter, is that some Christian preachers are among those who are busy desensitising consciences by teaching that the fourth commandment is entirely ceremonial and of no moral or spiritual standing. It is surely awful that representatives of the Lord should set themselves against one of God’s abiding commandments, and encourage Christian people to spiritual compromise.

A well-known Puritan response to the claim that the fourth commandment is non-moral because it is not engraved in the conscience, points out that Adam, who doubtless possessed a well-primed moral consciousness, nevertheless had to be told about the law of the sabbath. In other words, it is an exceptional moral law in that it must be introduced into the conscience by announcement. It is certainly very agreeable to the consciences of Christians (except the worldly kind) who generally respond to it with a strong, natural inner sense of keen obligation.

Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 6)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the book here

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JOHN CALVIN’S COUNSEL FOR THE LORD'S DAY

Calvin gave these clear and beautiful exhortations in the course of his sermons on the fourth commandment, from Deuteronomy 5:–

‘What has been commanded concerning the sabbath should apply to all. For if we take the law of God in itself, we shall have a perpetual form of justice. And certainly under the ten commandments God willed to give us a norm that would abide for ever. Therefore we must not imagine that what Moses has recorded concerning the sabbath day is superfluous to us.’

‘When I said that the ordinance of rest was a type of a spiritual and far higher mystery, and hence that this commandment must be accounted ceremonial, I must not be thought to mean that it had no further objects also. And certainly God took the seventh day for his own, and hallowed it...that he might keep his servants altogether free from every care, for the consideration of the beauty, excellence and fitness of his works.

‘There is indeed no moment which should be allowed to pass in which we are not attentive to the wisdom, power, goodness, and justice of God ...but since our minds are fickle and apt to be forgetful or distracted, God, in his indulgence, separates one day from the rest and commands that it should be free from all earthly business and cares, so that nothing may stand in the way of holy occupation.

‘On this ground he did not merely wish that his people should rest at home, but that they should meet in the sanctuary ...In this respect we have an equal necessity for the sabbath as the ancient people, so that on one day we may be free, and thus the better prepared to learn and to testify our faith.’

In his Sermons on the Ten Commandments (Deuteronomy 5.12-14) Calvin shows his firmness in urging a truly devoted Lord's Day:–

‘If we turn Sunday into a day for living it up, for our sport and pleasure, indeed how will God be honoured in that? Is it not a mockery and even a profanation of his Name? But when shops are closed on Sunday, when people do not travel in the usual way, its purpose is to provide more leisure and liberty for attending to what God commands us.’

‘We no longer have this figure and shadow [the Jewish sabbath] for the purpose of keeping a ceremony as rigid as it was under the bondage of the law. Rather its purpose is to gather us in order that...we might be trained to devote ourselves better to the service of God, that we might have this day fully dedicated to him, to the end that we might be withdrawn from the world.’

‘We do not keep the day which was commanded to the Jews. For that was Saturday. But in order to demonstrate the liberty of Christians [from the Jewish order] the day has been changed, seeing that Jesus Christ in his resurrection has delivered us from all bondage to the law.’

The Lord's Day – ‘exists for the purpose of enabling us to set aside our affairs and earthly business in order that, abstaining from everything else, we might meditate on the works of God, and be trained to recognise the favours which God bestows on us...And when we have spent Sunday in praising and glorifying the Name of God and in meditating on his works, then, throughout the rest of the week, we should show that we have benefited from it.’

(Quotations from John Calvin’s Sermons on the Ten Commandments, translated by Benjamin W Farley, Baker Book House, 1980, selected from a sermon onDeuteronomy 5.12-14, pp 97-113.)

Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 5)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the book here

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CALVIN AND THE PURITANS

Some preachers today, in an effort to liberalise the Lord's Day, and pandering to the worldliness of many believers, have attempted to drive a wedge between Calvin and the Puritans, claiming that Calvin had an anti-sabbatarian view, while later Reformers together with the Puritans virtually went back to the Jewish sabbath. These preachers complain that it is the legalistic Puritan view we are burdened with in the 17th-century confessions (the Westminster, Baptist and Savoy). However, this claim is greatly mistaken because both Calvin and the Puritans, by varying routes, came to insist that believers should devote themselves entirely to God on the Lord's Day.

Any attempt to portray Calvin as anti-sabbatarian shows that his sermons on the fourth commandment have not been studied, for he urged upon Christians the complete death of self on Sunday, along with the putting aside of all distracting activities, in order to be ‘filled’ by God. Certainly he would have been appalled by the slackness that has developed in much of the evangelical world in the last forty years.

Later Reformers and Puritans laid greater emphasis on the abiding authority of the fourth commandment than Calvin, but all came to similar conclusions about the way the special day should be kept. We know that a few Puritan writers went to extremes over the Christian sabbath, prompting John Owen to remark, ‘A man can scarcely in six days read over all the duties that are proposed to be observed on the seventh.’ But extremism was not the general position. Exceptions to this consensus were kings, bishops and clergy who were anti-Puritan and largely anti-evangelical (especially in the reigns of James I and Charles I. It was James I who permitted Sunday recreations including dancing, archery, leaping and vaulting, and church beer parties. Charles I stipulated two hours in the morning for worship and the rest of the day for ease and recreation – rather like some evangelicals today.) It is tragic that some of their arguments are nowadays advanced by some preachers in reformed evangelical ranks.

Calvin stressed that, since Christ’s coming, the lives of believers should be a constant sabbath, every day of the year being given up to God. However, because this is not possible on earth, and there is need for a day when congregations can meet together, God gave the Lord's Day to continue regular worship, devotion, and teaching, along with the provision of a day of rest for workers, in the spirit of the old sabbath.

There are, Calvin taught, differences between the old sabbath and the Lord's Day, for the latter is not a ‘sacred’ day in the same way, so that if we had opportunity we could have seven Lord's Days each week, or if compelled, could move it to another day of the week. However, the Lord's Day, in Calvin’s view, perpetuates all the worship, sanctification and teaching features of the sabbath as well as the principle of total devotion. (Calvin’s words are quoted on page 29 opposite.)

While the inflexible regulations added by Moses have passed away, along with the insistence on the seventh day, Calvin held that the principle and spirit of the fourth commandment continues.

Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 4)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the book here

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SPURGEON AND SUNDAY EMPLOYEES

In Spurgeon’s day many members of his congregation worked as servants in large Victorian households, and could worship only at one service each week and often less frequently. To leave their work would have left them without references to other employers (a necessity in those days) and destitute. Many of the 600 young women in Mrs Bartlett’s famous Bible Class were maids who could attend only once in every two or three weeks. Today we know of men who are working long shifts in security jobs, and we know how much they would love to be free throughout the Lord's Day, but cannot be. The churches of Jesus Christ support rather than alienate those whose faith must be lived out in difficult circumstances.

Once in a while a person in normal weekday employment is required to work on Sunday, such as for annual stock taking or audit preparation, and there is no way out. We understand that, especially if that person would be fired if not at work.

What about students completing assignments or revising for examinations? Is it a necessity for them to work on the Lord's Day, or is it a self-inflicted burden because they did not cover enough ground on other days, and now find themselves in a tight corner, with assignments due, or an examination in a day or so? Is it really a necessity, or has it become a necessity because they never had in mind the importance of the Lord's Day, and never planned to preserve it by bringing forward their work? The Lord's Day will yield to necessity, but we should not allow its hours to be swept away by self-induced problems of indiscipline, poor organisation, or excessive recreation on weekdays.

As the Metropolitan Tabernacle has its bookshop, we must make mention of this. Is it a ‘necessity’ for this to be open on the Lord's Day? Actually, it is open only following the evening service, and that is for ministry. Lord's Day opening is a not-for-profit activity, staffed by volunteers, to make printed ministry available chiefly to visitors, and giving them an opportunity to procure audio-video materials and literature to which they would not normally have access. Audio-video materials at no profit are sold after all services, because they are a clear extension of the preaching ministry, and would come under the next paragraph.

We note again the sabbath rule for the Lord's service in Matthew 12.5: ‘Or have ye not read in the law, how that on the sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are blameless?’ The priests worked as today’s preachers work. We are not disregarding the Lord's Day when we are engaging in the service of the Lord.

In Matthew 12.11 there is also the category of permitted work, already referred to, that we call ‘works of mercy’. We have various acts of necessity also in connection with the service of the Lord, such as visiting the sick and helping others in emergencies. If the old sabbath allowed for such things, so will the gentler standards for the Lord's Day.

There is also the question of using public transport to travel to church on the Lord's Day. Even in these days of saturation car ownership, it may be a necessity for some to catch a bus or to take the tube. Is this not endorsing and supporting Sunday industry? Not necessarily, because local public transport is not quite like holiday air travel. It could be argued that some degree of public transport is an essential arterial system of modern society, and needs to be maintained. Certainly, it is used by worldlings for purely recreational travel and shopping, but it is bound to be operated to some extent.

The days have long gone when you could walk everywhere you needed to go. Society is now largely organised into city-sized communities, and these cities grow ever larger. Often we live where we are compelled to live, through house prices or social housing placement, and cannot buy or rent where we want to be. We cannot simply re-establish ourselves nearer to our churches, and are therefore compelled to travel. With so few sound churches, and such distances to be covered in both town and country, and with the dangers of violent crime in town centres to be considered, people are obliged to use public transport, and it may therefore be argued that the liberty of necessity applies in this matter. If, however, we choose to board a bus or train on Sunday because a special excursion fare is offered for recreational travel, this would certainly not fall into the category of necessity.

THE CHANGE TO SUNDAY

Proceeding to John 20.1 we find guidance on whether the Christian sabbath should be the seventh day or the first day of the week. The answer of all but a very small minority of Christians down the centuries has been – the first day. The authority for this is the example of the church of the New Testament, which was no doubt commanded by God, through the apostles. The special day for Christians was distinguished from the Jewish sabbath, and set on the day of Christ’s resurrection.

The Lord rose from the dead on the first day of the week, and in John 20.19 and 26we observe that other appearances of the resurrected Lord were also on subsequent first days. Verse 19 reads – ‘Then the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews, came Jesus and stood in the midst.’ He stands amidst his people, and pronounces his peace upon them, on what came to be called, ‘the Lord's Day’.

Verse 26 reads: ‘And after eight days again . . . then came Jesus.’ We would say after seven days, but the Jews started counting on the first day and finished counting on the last day and so they made seven, eight. The text intends to tell us that the Lord appeared the very next Sunday. We believe this was to show the disciples that this day would be the commemoration day of the resurrection. While the Jewish sabbath remembered the deliverance from Egypt (Deuteronomy 5.15), the Christian sabbath would focus on the day of resurrection, which was the proof of Calvary’s victory and success.

In Acts 20.7, as we observed previously, we learn a little more about this special day of resurrection. ‘And upon the first day of the week, when the disciples came together to break bread, Paul preached unto them, ready to -depart on the morrow; and continued his speech until midnight.’

This was obviously the Christian version of the sabbath, and it is no longer on the seventh day of the week, but the first. Luke is an eyewitness here, and this is the first reference in the New Testament to a distinctive Christian worship service, incorporating the Lord's Supper.

Further evidence for a Christian ‘sabbath’ on the first day of the week has also been cited already, namely 1 Corinthians 16.1-2, where Paul notes that not only Corinth but all the churches of Galatia met upon the first day of the week. The well-known words of the apostle John in Revelation 1.10 further imply a distinctive ‘sabbath’ for Christians on the Lord's Day, undoubtedly the day of the Lord's resurrection, the first day of the week. There are no pointless statements in the Scriptures, and we are especially told that it was on this day that John was taught great things.

The martyr Ignatius, who lived AD 30-107, the third minister of the church at Antioch and probably a student of John, wrote: ‘Let every friend of Christ keep the Lord's Day as a festival, the resurrection day, the queen and chief of all the days of the week.’

The term ‘the Lord's Day’ powerfully indicates the way in which the day should be spent. It is for him, and it centres on him. It is not for us, for our earthly pleasures, our self-indulgence or our fun and games. It is for spiritual joys, learning and service, and for fellowship in him.

WARNINGS ABOUT SABBATH NEGLECT

We have said many times in this booklet that the observance of the extra rules of the ceremonial law attached to the Old Testament sabbath after Moses is not prescribed for the Christian era, but the core duty of Exodus 20.9-11 remains – the laying aside, wherever possible, of work, to dedicate the day to the Lord. In this context the Old Testament warnings about sabbath-breaking still carry great weight for believers.

Says Jeremiah – ‘But if ye will not hearken unto me to hallow the sabbath day, and not to bear a burden [do your trading], even entering in at the gates of Jerusalem on the sabbath day [to trade]; then will I kindle a fire in the gates thereof, and it shall devour the palaces of Jerusalem, and it shall not be quenched’ (Jeremiah 17.27).

Do we think such scriptures as these are purely historical, having no relevance whatever for the Christian era? The words of Paul should correct us: ‘They are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come’ (1 Corinthians 10.11). Some form of chastisement is bound to follow when believers persistently and wilfully disregard all ‘sabbath’ obligations, rejecting their sanctifying and shaping influence. We believe there will be discipline also for the secular state that neglects and destroys Lord's Day opportunities, but judgement begins at the household of faith.

Numerous Bible-believing churches no longer take seriously the Lord's Day, organising shows and recreational activities, cancelling evening services, and allowing Sunday Schools to wither and close because they interfere with leisure. Members do as they please, and wherever this laxity prevails, extreme spiritual superficiality and worldliness will ultimately follow, and this is already happening before our eyes.

Another warning is found in Ezekiel 20.13: ‘But the house of Israel rebelled against me in the wilderness: they walked not in my statutes, and they despised my judgments, which if a man do, he shall even live in them; and my sabbaths they greatly polluted.’ For all these things a generation was not allowed to enter into the promised land. Will we not be subject to some form of discipline from the Lord if we regard the Lord's Day lightly?

The details of sabbath-keeping in Old Testament times are no longer in force, but the spirit of the honouring of a special day continues, with leisure pursuits and unnecessary work being set aside for the Lord's Day of worship and proclamation. The warnings of the prophets still reflect the Lord's disapproval at the abuse of this day.

Nehemiah 13.17-18 reads – ‘Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the sabbath.’ These are solemn texts and we should not think they represent an attitude and tastes on God’s part which he has now abandoned. The types and ceremonies of the law are no more, but the principle of commitment to a day of worship and proclamation remains most important for us today.

PROMISES ABOUT SABBATH-KEEPING

On a more positive note we refer to Isaiah 56.2 – ‘Blessed is the man that doeth this, and the son of man that layeth hold on it; that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and keepeth his hand from doing any evil.’ The subsequent verses say that non-Jews and outcasts will also be blessed for keeping the sabbath, because – ‘Even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off.’

Isaiah 58.13-14 reinforces the promise: ‘If thou turn away thy foot from [work on]the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words: then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth . . . ’

The promise is that we will know communion with God in a special way on his day and spread the Gospel far and wide like triumphant conquerors in the quest for souls. How much hinges on the sincere honouring of the Lord's Day!

The whole of Isaiah 58 is both a reproof to the Jews, and a prophecy for the future church of Christ. It focuses on the annual Day of Atonement, the only specified time in the Old Testament for fasting. This day was always to be treated just as if it were a sabbath day, and Isaiah shows how they should have kept this ‘sabbath’. At the same time, the evangelical prophet shows what the New Testament sabbath will be like, a day of unloosing spiritual burdens (verse 6), giving spiritual bread to the starving and the garments of righteousness to the naked (verse 7), shedding light and spiritual glory (verse 8), interceding for the lost (verse 9), reaching out to afflicted souls (verse 10), seeking guidance from on high and building up the church (verses 11-12).

‘If ye keep my commandments,’ said the Lord, ‘ye shall abide in my love.’ And the disciple whom Jesus loved said, ‘For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.’ These commandments are the enduring moral law of the ten commandments, loved and appointed by God, never to be cancelled by us, and perfectly obeyed by Christ for our justification. The fourth of these moral commandments is especially designed for our blessing and enrichment, and we must honour it with great desire and anticipation all the days of our life, and out of love for our Saviour. It is his day.

THE VITAL ESSENCE OF THE FOURTH COMMANDMENT

1. God’s reserving of one day out of every seven is a creation decree, and also one of the ten commandments, which are abiding moral law, written by the finger of God.

2. There must, therefore, always be a day of commemoration of creation.

3. There must continue to be a day for worship and instruction.

4. There must continue to be a day for remembering and proclaiming redemption in Christ. Proclamation is a particular element of the day, for Christ displayed and explained the works of God on sabbaths, and so must we by the evangelisation of adults and children. (John 5.1-18; Luke 4.31; 6.6-11; 13.10-17; 14.1-5.)

5. There must continue to be a day of rest for all workers, so that they also may benefit from (1) to (4). This aspect of the fourth commandment naturally precludes the unnecessary use by Christians of Sunday trading industries, whether shops, restaurants, filling stations or recreational facilities. In Deuteronomy 5.14 this principle is expressly stated in the sabbath commandment: ‘That thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou’.

6. Just as sabbath observance was a witness to the world, so is the honouring of the Lord's Day.

7. It is a shaping, sanctifying practice, ordering the priorities of God’s people.

Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 3)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the book here

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CHRIST NOW RULES THE SABBATH

If the Lord's Day is to reflect the spirit and standards of the old sabbath, what latitude, flexibility and exceptions are possible, and by what authority? The answer lies in the teaching of our Saviour, and we turn to the pivotal text, Mark 2.27-28: ‘He said unto them, The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath: therefore the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath.’

This last statement (also in Matthew 12.8) is the key to the sabbath today. Christ rules the sabbath, because by his coming he fulfilled the symbolism of the Jewish sabbath, purchased our salvation, then took over the day, filling it with greater meaning.

Christ, being the one through whom all benefits to the human race are given, is the original designer of the sabbath, and he possessed the right to interpret it. The Jews had added considerably to the Old Testament rules for the sabbath, making it severe and burdensome, and these were reproved by the Lord. In Matthew 12 we have the record of how he was passing through a cornfield on the sabbath day, when his disciples began to pluck and eat the corn. The watching Pharisees complained that they were breaking the law of the sabbath, but Christ said to them – ‘Have ye not read what David did, when he was an hungred, and they that were with him; how he entered into the house of God, and did eat the shewbread, which was not lawful for him to eat…?’

The Lord told the Pharisees they were wrong, pointing to the example of David who fed his men from that which was exclusively provided for the priests. It was legitimate for them to be fed in an emergency, because the sabbath rules should yield to necessity. It was always the case that things which are essential could be done on the sabbath. In extenuating circumstances, in emergency, David was in order to do what he did even in the Jewish era.

The Old Testament forbade taking in the harvest on the sabbath, but even this rule would have yielded to absolute necessity. The great 16th-century Swiss Reformer Henry Bullinger, referring to examples of sabbath emergencies, wrote the following: ‘If, then, on the sabbath day it be lawful to draw out of a pit a sheep, or an ox in danger of drowning, why should it not be lawful likewise to gather in and keep from spoiling the hay or the corn which by reason of unseasonable weather has lain too long and likely to be worse if it stay any longer? Liberty is granted in cases of necessity.’

In Matthew 12.5 the Lord also pointed to the requirement of the law of Moses that priests should work on the sabbath in connection with worship, technically desecrating the sabbath, but their holy work was exempted from the sabbath rule. The sabbath, despite its apparent inflexibility and prohibitions, always did yield, said the Lord, to special duty or necessity, and to works of mercy. This is obviously the case today, but necessity should not become a word so elastic that it stretches to cover anything we want to do, so that wholehearted dedication of the day to God is ruined. It has to be a real necessity. People must have it in their hearts and minds to honour the Lord's Day, but sometimes there are exceptional circumstances.

WHAT SHOULD NOT BE DONE

The standard for the Lord's Day is spelled out succinctly in the great Protestant confessions. People should ‘rest all day from their own work, words and thoughts about their worldly employment, and recreations,’ and be ‘taken up the whole time in the public and private exercises of his worship.’ What, then, are the possible exceptions?

Let us be practical. You might run out of petrol on the Lord's Day, and you are at fault, because you should have taken care to fill up the day before, and for four reasons: (1) to avoid worldly distraction; (2) to avoid setting a bad example to others; (3) to avoid supporting unnecessary employment on the day of rest and worship; (4) to honour and obey the sabbath principle. However, if you are in a tight corner, and it is a matter of necessity, and you would be marooned by not doing so, then you may have to turn into the filling station on the Lord's Day, but you should not make a habit of it. You will not have committed a moral sin, but you should never allow yourself to slide into disregard for God’s day.

In the case of the Jews, disregard for the sabbath incurred a terrible punishment, because the sabbath was the sign of the covenant, and breaking it constituted repudiation of that covenant. The Lord's Day, by contrast, is not the sign of that Jewish covenant, and breaking it does not amount to rejection of our relationship with God. However, to wilfully disregard the Lord's Day is an infringement of the fourth commandment, which Christians should gladly and willingly embrace as part of the perfect law of liberty.

If somehow a person or a family has no food, and there is no one to whom they may turn for help, they may have to go to a shop on the Lord's Day. They may be prepared to fast, although little children should not be subjected to that, but such measures should be the last thing we want to do. We should never plan to shop on the Lord's Day, but the sabbath does yield to genuine necessities.

If you are going on holiday you should not plan to board a train or an aircraft on the Lord's Day, for that is not a necessity, and is certainly outside the spirit of keeping a day for the Lord. It is therefore an act of disobedience, and of indifference to God’s requirement. Such an act would also support the indifference of the travel industry to God’s day. The Lord Jesus Christ showed that the sabbath can yield to necessity, but in good conscience it must be a necessity.

Is it a necessity for believing young people to become entangled with school journeys, camps and sports days, which will eliminate their Lord's Day? Should birthday parties be accommodated on the Lord's Day? Of course not, because one of the great purposes of the Christian sabbath is to place decisions before God’s people, so that they may choose him, and thereby witness to all around them. Thomas Watson aptly said of the Jewish sabbath that it was ‘a great badge of their religion to observe this day’, and the same goes for today.

RESTAURANTS ON SUNDAY

Many Christian people, far more in the United States than in Britain, go to restaurants for dinner on Sunday, but how can this be a necessity? Furthermore, it supports an unnecessary catering industry which sneers at the Lord's Day, and compels staff to work contrary to the creation decree and fourth commandment. The Puritans allowed home cooking, pointing to Simon Peter’s mother-in-law caring for the Saviour on the sabbath (but not feasting, or very elaborate dining).

We know of pastors in the USA who would not dream of hiring workers on the Lord's Day, but on that day they go to restaurants which do. Is not this inconsistent thinking? The practice of eating out on Sunday was definitely not approved of by evangelicals in the past. It is something which has become widely acceptable only since the 1960s, and has more recently spread to engulf Christians in other parts of the world.

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle a large number of people bring their lunch on Sunday to the lower halls so that they can proceed afterwards to children’s Sunday School ministry, and we are by no means the only church where this occurs. If we seek to bring the lost into God’s house on the Lord's Day, and to proclaim him to all, it is not right to encourage unnecessary industry and employment on that day. The same thinking would apply to buying Sunday newspapers. We should be conscientious about such matters, and yet the Lord's Day, as the old saying goes, ‘is to be observed not in the spirit of the law, but in the free spirit of the Gospel’.

What about turning on the television on a Sunday? Well unless you are going to listen to a few lines of news or something of that kind, it is surely totally unnecessary for a believer to turn on an instrument of public entertainment on a Sunday. I would strongly urge everyone who names the name of Christ, to keep the television off on the Lord's Day, for although it may sound legalistic to some, to have a no-television rule on Sunday will enable you to honour and hallow the Lord's Day with Christian thinking and fellowship. Surely, it is a clear breach of the perpetual sabbath principle to switch on secular entertainment on the Lord's Day.

Concerts (including so-called Christian cantatas) are surely out of place, and how tragic it is that many services of worship today are designed to be entertainment shows!

Some people have to work on the Lord's Day, and we are not talking here about easy cases, such as works of mercy by doctors or nurses, but of other occupations. There are many believers who are compelled to work on the Lord's Day or they would not be able to work at all, and who greatly wish they did not have to. Is it wrong? Not if it is an unavoidable necessity. If they really cannot obtain any other work to keep their families, we cannot judge them, for they are in a very similar situation to that of countless converted slaves in New Testament times and subsequently.

Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 2)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the book here

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A WITNESS AND A SHAPING ORDINANCE

One of the effects of the Jewish sabbath was its witness to the pagan world. We may imagine how the nations surrounding Israel reacted on seeing them observe the sabbath. In an age when most people were farmers, they knew the difficulties of organising routines so that all work could be stopped for one day every week. They would no doubt have said to themselves, ‘How do those Jews manage?’ Those pagan nations saw an entire culture organised around one day in seven, to worship the one true God, and this was a powerful testimony.

It is the same for us today in this present age when society at large has no sabbath. ‘Who are these Christians,’ people may wonder, ‘who abstain from work and entertainments on Sunday so that they may worship? We see the churches open, and these people commemorating their Creator and worshipping together.’ The impact of such a testimony on families, colleagues and society at large cannot be overstated. The Lord's Day is partly designed by God for this very purpose, that the reality of our faith may be evident to all.

The Lord's Day is also deeply influential in the believer’s personal sanctification, a fact which should not be overlooked. One day every week we must carefully order our priorities to honour the Lord, and this trains us to do the same in every area of life. A church that treats the Lord's Day lightly (and this is typical of some of the so-called ‘mega churches’ of the USA and Britain, including some claiming to be ‘reformed’), not minding that worshippers go from the morning service to the restaurant, and then proceed to fun and leisure, playing golf outdoors, pool indoors and indulging in numerous other recreations, is a church that denies its members an immensely profound ordinance that shapes and moulds their Christian character. If we submit our personal plans to God for his day, we will subsequently order our lives and priorities for Christ more diligently and conscientiously on all other days.

We should note the words of Exodus 16.4, spoken by God to Moses in connection with manna (even before the giving of the commandments). God said that the sabbath arrangement for the collection of manna was given – ‘that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.’ The Lord's Day is a test of obedience, challenging us every week of our lives to willingly and gladly obey the Lord's will. Disregard it, and we collapse into a self-centred, self-serving, self-indulgent Christian lifestyle, as many have already done. The Lord's Day is both a day of spiritual opportunity, and a spiritual safeguard for all of life.

WRONG TEACHING TODAY

Before we look at the flexibility of the Lord's Day by comparison with the Jewish sabbath, we must reply to teachers who turn away from the Reformers, the Puritans, historic confessions and the overwhelming majority of Christians in past generations, to claim that the fourth commandment is not in force today, and was never repeated in the New Testament.

(1) First, we observe that the fourth commandment is certainly not abrogated (cancelled) anywhere in the New Testament. The three texts often claimed as a cancellation are nothing of the kind. In vital passages (such asJohn 14.15, 21; 15.10; 1 John 5.2-3) that speak of obedience to the commandments, their entire, undiminished, unamended authority is always taken for granted. The fourth is never retracted. The claims that the fourth commandment is purely ceremonial is refuted by simply noting that it was announced in the Garden of Eden, long before ceremonies began.

It is also worth noting that the downgrading of the fourth commandment to non-perpetual status began in medieval Catholic doctrine, and is expressed in the Council of Trent 1545-1563.

(2) Secondly, we are also told in the letter of James that the ten commandments are an indivisible unit. You cannot take them apart at whim, and dispose of one. InJames 2.8-12 the commandments are referred to as ‘the law’, two of them being specifically quoted. James then declares: ‘For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.’ It is clear that the ten commandments are an unassailable unit, an integrated expression of God’s holy standards, from which no man should presume to sever and extract a single component.

(3) Thirdly, the Lord explicitly said that, ‘the sabbath was made for man’ (Mark 2.27) and was not therefore solely for Israel. Those who say the fourth commandment is not mentioned in the New Testament fail to consider the universal scale and scope of Christ’s words, when they relegate the sabbath to the scrapheap of Jewish ceremonial.

(4) Fourthly, and perhaps this is the overtowering point, the Saviour announced that ‘the Son of man is Lord also of the sabbath’ (Mark 2.28). If the eternal Son of God claimed it as his own, and pronounced his lordship over it, how can anyone possibly say this principle of one-day-in-seven for God is finished, and not in the New Testament? Can we imagine that the Lord would make this magnificent announcement over something he was about to relegate to the level of discarded ceremonies? Those who do not see a sabbath day principle in the New Testament follow a strange method of interpretation in ignoring such a colossal, primary and pivotal statement by the Lord of glory.

Christ’s lordship over the sabbath means nothing less than the following:–

– He owns the sabbath.

– He is to be the focus of its worship.

– He is its rightful interpreter (to change the day of the week, and shape its characteristics).

– He is its custodian and perpetuator.

(5) Fifthly, we must notice how the apostle John in Revelation 1.10 took up the statement of Christ that he is Lord of the sabbath, when he wrote the famous words, ‘I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day . . . ’

The first Christians indisputably had a special day, as we learn from other texts also, the day of Christ’s resurrection, the first day of the week, which was their day to implement the moral and spiritual principles of the creation ordinance and the fourth commandment.

(6) Sixthly, we note the New Testament texts which specifically identify the first day of the week as the day for Christian worship:–

(a) Acts 20.7, referring to the church at Troas.

(b) 1 Corinthians 16.1-2, which mentions how Corinth and all the churches of Galatia had precisely the same practice. We know from Acts that the churches of Galatia included such as Pisidian Antioch, Iconium, Lystra and Derbe, and there were no doubt others. Furthermore, if the Galatian churches worshipped on Sunday, then surely all the others founded by Paul did the same. It is simply not correct to say that a specific day for worship and proclamation – continuing the principle of the fourth commandment – is not present in the New Testament.

(7) A seventh wrong teaching asserting the non-permanent nature of the fourth commandment is the claim that it is not written in everyone’s conscience (like murder) and cannot therefore be a moral matter. We reply to this erroneous approach in appendix 3, ‘Is it in the conscience?’

(8) An eighth wrong teaching heard today is the idea that ‘Christian liberty’ releases us from adherence to the rule of the fourth commandment, and to insist on it is therefore legalism. But the doctrine of Christian liberty does not include liberty to ignore God’s will and commandments. Believers are not free to say, ‘I claim my Christian liberty to excuse myself from witness, or prayer.’ People often misunderstand what Christian liberty is, and so we provide a definition as a footnote, but it is not freedom from obedience to the Word.

Remember the Lord's Day - Is there a ‘Christian sabbath’? (Part 1)

The following is from "Remember the Lord's Day" by Dr. Peter Masters. You can purchase the book here

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And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made (Genesis 2.2-3).

Why was the sabbath day instituted by the Lord, and does it continue now as the Lord's Day? If so, in what way has it changed with the coming of Christ? How should it be kept? Is it true there was a conflict of views about the continuation of the sabbath between the early and later Reformers? This booklet responds to these and other questions, showing that the sabbath principle is still God’s will for believers today, and listing its purposes and blessings.

We begin at the obvious place – Genesis 2.2-3 – where we are told that God ended his creative work, then blessed the seventh day and sanctified it. This became a very special day by divine decree from the beginning, elevated to a unique place three millennia before the time of Moses. It was given to the human race at creation, firstly to commemorate God’s creative work, secondly to establish a day of rest and worship, and thirdly to provide (in future years) a picture of the eternal rest to be entered by all who ‘rest’ from their own works and trust in Christ. (This third purpose of the sabbath is taught in Hebrews 3 and 4.)

A UNIQUE DAY

Some take the view that the fourth commandment of Exodus 20.8-11 (‘Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy...’) no longer applies, having been intended for the Jewish period only. However, it is clearly far greater than this as it was started by God at creation. It is a ‘creation ordinance’, and the people who lived between Adam and Moses would have known about it, and been required to keep it.

Some people, however, teach that sabbath-keeping started only at the time of Moses and the giving of the law. They think that although God provided the model of a sabbath day at creation, the people were not told to observe it. This viewpoint is based on the absence of any mention of the sabbath between Genesis 2 andExodus 16, but it does not explain the powerful statement of Genesis 2 that God very specifically blessed the seventh day and sanctified (or hallowed) it. These words can only refer to something truly momentous that God did for the obedience and benefit of the human race, and communicated to Adam and Eve, because God himself lives above time and days. The words mean that God gave to the human race a distinctive, special place to one day out of every seven, which was to be elevated above all other days, and reserved for spiritual pursuits.

Consider carefully that a day was blessed, whereas usually in the Bible it is peoplewho are blessed. Also, a day was distinguished above others and sanctified (which means declared holy), whereas usually it is people or places or objects which are sanctified. God’s sanctifying of a day means that he claimed one out of seven for spiritual purposes. The obvious message of God’s great act was that there would be blessing attached to the keeping of this day, which was to be set aside as a day for him, and for rest from work (the principle for this being that if God ‘rested’ on this day, so should man, who is made in his image).

Adam was given the task of dressing and keeping the land, and although he most probably rebelled well before the second sabbath, the knowledge of this special day and its obligations would continue with him after the Fall.

Those who deny that the sabbath day began in the Garden of Eden have no explanation for what God did when he blessed and sanctified this day. For them the Lord's immensely significant act becomes a mysterious irrelevance for many centuries, until the fourth commandment was given through Moses. Nor do they have any explanation for the words that introduce the fourth commandment – ‘remember the sabbath day’ (Exodus 20.8). The word ‘remember’ looks back to the sabbath inaugurated in the Garden of Eden, showing that they knew about it. This is clear because the fourth commandment says so, including these words: ‘For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it’(Exodus 20.11).

Having failed to explain these monumental texts, those who want to confine the sabbath to the covenant of Moses simply sweep it away, saying it was not previously there. However, God’s act in inaugurating the sabbath at creation was undoubtedly for the whole human race, and after the Fall it continued as a call to engage in worship, spiritual pleasure, and the proclamation of the Creator.

Interestingly, it has often been pointed out that sabbath observance is hinted at in the account of Noah’s Flood, where several events occurred at seven-day intervals, as though each new action in the ark waited until after a sabbath. The seven-day weekly cycle inaugurated in Eden is seen in Genesis 7.4 and 10; 8.10and 12. In Genesis 8.10 for example we read of Noah: ‘And he stayed yet other seven days,’ repeated in verse 12. The seven-day week given to Adam in the Garden certainly became a standard throughout the ancient world.

The record of Exodus 16 is of special importance in proving that the sabbath was in force from Adam to Moses (whether faithfully observed or not), because it is here mentioned before the giving of the commandments. We read about the giving of manna, and how the rules for collecting it involved the honouring of the sabbath. The people had to bring in a double portion of manna on the sixth day because the seventh was the sabbath of the Lord. Verse 23 reads – ‘This is that which the Lord hath said, To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord.’

We may well assume that the ‘godly seed’ of Adam and of Abraham had remembered the sabbath right up to this point, although it may well have needed reviving after the years of captivity and forced labour in Egypt. In Exodus 16 Moses certainly assumed the people already knew what the sabbath was.

PURPOSES OF THE SABBATH

John Flavel, an outstanding Puritan, notes several special marks of honour which God placed on the fourth commandment, and we have to ask – are these the marks of an ‘inferior’ commandment which may be treated lightly today?

(1) It is the longest of all the commandments.

(2) It has a solemn reminder and warning prefixed to it.

(3) It is delivered both positively and negatively, which the other commandments are not.

(4) It is enforced with more arguments to strengthen the command than any other.

To see the purposes we must note the words of introduction to the commandments in Exodus 20.2: ‘I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.’ The commandments were given in the context of deliverance. We have already seen that the sabbath was inaugurated at creation to be (i) a memorial to creation, (ii) a day of rest and worship, and (iii) a symbol of eternal rest. But with the commandments came another purpose, namely, to honour God for deliverance. This is said specifically about the sabbath inDeuteronomy 5.15: ‘And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day.’

Old Testament Jews were intended to add this dimension to the sabbath, and to commemorate and proclaim their redemption from Egypt. Since Christ, we obviously focus on the much greater deliverance of which theirs was a type – the deliverance secured by Christ on Calvary. The ‘Christian sabbath’, therefore, also has this purpose: it is a day for the worship and proclamation of Christ the Deliverer.

Returning to Exodus 20.8 we read: ‘Remember the sabbath day,’ indicating that the sabbath already existed, and was well known to them. That word ‘remember’ picks up the past, but it is also an ongoing command for God’s people in the future.

We naturally want to know how much of the sabbath commandment is binding for today: all or some of it? Under the law of Moses additional rules came in (for that covenant) that were extremely strict. For example, no food was to be prepared on the sabbath, no fire kindled, no sticks gathered, and there were ceremonial rules for shewbread and special sacrifices, with the severest of penalties for profaning the day. During the period from Moses to Christ, the sabbath acquired these ceremonial commitments because it also served as a sign of the special covenant that God had with the Jews (Exodus 31.12-17). The reason sabbath-breaking was severely punished was because it showed contempt for the special covenant relationship God had with that people. But when Christ came, that temporary covenant with the Jews came to an end, and the strict, inflexible extra regulations given to Moses for sabbath-keeping also ended. Also, once Christ came, all symbols that pointed to him were fulfilled, becoming obsolete. Not surprisingly the ‘sabbath’ was moved by God to the first day of the week, the day of Christ’s resurrection, which signalled the success of his work on Calvary. This was obviously implemented by the apostles, who would have been moved by the Holy Spirit to do so, perhaps from the fact that Christ appeared to them on successive first days of the week, and also by revelation.

In Colossians 2.16-17, Paul tells Gentile converts that they must not let any Judaizer entice them back into cancelled Jewish ritual, or condemn them for ignoring it, including the keeping of the Jewish sabbath, for these were merely ‘a shadow of things to come’. Colossian believers had been taught to keep the new sabbath, the Lord's Day, just as churches at Corinth and Galatia did (according to 1 Corinthians 16.1-2). The new Lord's Day did not continue the extra duties and symbolic rites of worship given to Moses, but it preserved the vital essence of the fourth commandment, which included the following reasons and purposes:

(1) God’s reserving of one day out of every seven is a creation decree, and also one of the ten commandments, which are abiding moral law, written by the finger of God.

(2) There must, therefore, always be a day of commemoration of creation.

(3) There must continue to be a day for worship and instruction.

(4) There must continue to be a day for remembering and proclaiming redemption, now in Christ. Proclamation is a particular element of the day, for Christ displayedand explained the works of God on sabbaths, and so must we by the evangelisation of adults and children. One of the reasons that churches find it so hard to restart Sunday Schools for the young is that ease and recreation has invaded the Sundays of many believers.

(5) There must continue to be a day of rest for all workers, so that they also may benefit from (1) to (4). This precludes the -unnecessary use by Christians of Sunday trading industries, whether shops, restaurants, filling stations or recreational facilities. (Deuteronomy 5.14: ‘That thy manservant and thy maidservant may rest as well as thou’.)

Two other purposes of the Lord's Day must be added to our list, these being of tremendous importance. They are:

(6) Like the sabbath, observance of the Lord's Day is a witness to the world.

(7) It is also a shaping, sanctifying practice, ordering the priorities of God’s people.

Sabbath Sermon - The New Evangelical Downgrade - A Betrayal of Truth

It kind of goes without saying, but there is much to be worried about in the modern evangelical church. Each week the level of worldliness seems to increase, and every day brings about a new low in reverence for God. This week we have a Christian Sabbath sermon from Dr. Peter Masters on this new evangelical downgrade. Please take the time to listen to this great message.

"The Holy War - Do we dodge enlistment?" by Peter Masters

‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places’ (Ephesians 6.12).

The devil’s self-assumed task is to bring down the human race in order to prove that God has failed in its design and creation. He has brought about the Fall by his lies, and if he can keep all people in rebellion against God’s standards and desires, then the Lord will appear to have failed. Of course this is impossible, but Satan, in blind hatred, seeks to score over God and wreck his handiwork.

However, Christ has come, taking the punishment of sin for his people, so that they cannot be condemned. The human race will survive eternally in Christ’s people, and the devil is therefore thwarted. But doubly enraged, and determined not to accept that he is defeated, Satan aims particularly to bring down Christ’s people so that he can accuse them before God, and claim them for destruction. He denies their sincerity and salvation, and schemes their backsliding and apostasy.

No wonder Paul is inspired to use the terminology of combat, saying – ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities.’ There is no hiding from this battle.

We read that in World War II, among the courageous band of first volunteers, there were some self-interested people who thought that if they offered themselves early as cooks and accountants, they would not find themselves in the front line facing death. Whether true or not, astute people can find ways out of most predicaments, but there is no way out of the spiritual battle against the devil and his hosts.

Sadly, some Christians think that they can shrink away from battle and live calm, peaceful lives. They do not want to think about the hard aspects of the Christian faith, and they willingly become weak, compromising Christians who will contribute nothing to the Lord’s service, and lead many others down their chosen pathway.

Writes Paul: ‘We wrestle not against flesh and blood’ – not against feeble people like ourselves, with all our limitations. We fight against a vast number of demons (fallen angels), under the orchestration of Satan. They are called principalities, powers, and the rulers of the darkness of this world. These bring massively intelligent power against us, augmented by centuries of experience in tempting men and women. No Geneva Convention applies in this battle, and there are no holds barred. There is no mercy or compassion with the hosts of Satan, just hate, venom and malice, threatening to consume us.

What, precisely, are Satan’s aims? We know that as far as believers are concerned, he aims to lure us into personal sin and faithlessness, so that our walk with God is broken and we are no use to him. At the same time he seeks to ruin churches, making them powerless in winning souls.

In attacking churches, Satan aims at perverting the Truth, bringing in what Paul calls ‘doctrines of demons’, and taking churches off the foundation of sound teaching and practice. We observe in our day how he is deflecting churches away from sound, biblical worship, doubtless as a preparation for taking them from sound doctrine in time. How he labours to bring the church into backsliding, and to hinder and handicap the mission for souls!

Many Christians, however, do not realise that another of Satan’s objectives is to bring society away from decency and dignity, plunging it into turmoil, degradation, filth and outright rebellion against the standards of God. In this he thinks he strikes a horrendous blow at Almighty God, defiling further the human race and offending its Creator.

It is sobering for us to learn from Paul about the command structure of the devil’s army, because this information impresses upon us the power that confronts us, and our need of divine help. Paul mentions principalities, powers and rulers, at the heart of whom is Satan as commander-in-chief.

His highest subordinates are ‘principalities’, which means – the first in line, or archdemons. This term suggests that these (under Satan) design the strategies and their implementation. In earthly terms, we may imagine senior generals gathered round charts, deciding which will be the most effective policies to achieve their ends in region upon region, and in age after age, of the world. They plot how they will move their despicable campaign forward.

They orchestrate it worldwide, deciding that in some regions they will employ scientific humanism, while in others they will promote Islam or some other false and soul-destroying religion. Every strategy is conceived with immense cunning, nothing being haphazard.

The second rank in the command structure is called ‘powers’, meaning rulers of particular jurisdictions. It follows that these are not so much the planners but the regional enforcers of the policy. If high command determines that Islam will seize minds in one land, while Catholicism will consume souls in another, and atheism in yet another, then ‘powers’ will apply this policy with devilish ferocity and cunning.

‘Powers’ implement ‘locally’ the details of how people will be tempted to personal sin, and how society will be dragged down into an increasingly debased condition.

After ‘powers’ we learn of ‘the rulers of the darkness of this world’, evidently a level of command whose specific duty is to keep the people in spiritual blindness, and dazzled by alternative things. If people should be inclined to be religious, so that scientific humanism will not succeed with them, then ‘powers’ will implement a works religion, or some sophisticated religious superstition. The rulers of the darkness arrange the darkness that will descend upon minds and confuse people utterly.

The apostle also uses a term which would seem to sum up all the hosts of Satan, speaking of ‘spiritual wickedness in high places’. ‘High places’ in the original Greek means ‘above the sky’ – in other words the realm of spirits, in this case fallen angels, or demons.

There are vast numbers of these ‘footsoldiers’ in Satan’s army, constantly tempting, and implementing the policies of their superiors, and they are intensely cruel. They have been humiliated by the victory of Christ on Calvary, but they will not accept that humiliation. In their fury and jealousy they are desperately determined to bring down the church, and also society in general. They have been doing it for centuries, organising the infiltration of sound churches by weak or corrupt influences, and persuading the unsaved world to reject God’s revealed morality.

How many times in church history has the cycle of corruption and decay been used effectively in groups of churches! We see it happening yet again before our eyes at the present time.

With all this in mind Paul gives his great appeal: ‘Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day.’ In a sense, every age is an evil day, but Paul probably refers to times when Satan’s officers launch a special and particularly vehement assault on either church or state. How will churches stand? Only by preparing for war.

We are reminded of Britain in the 1930s, when most political leaders turned a blind eye to the gathering storm-clouds of war, and failed to prepare. Some Christians are like this with the spiritual warfare. They do not want to think of such things, and fail to grasp the power of the enemy, and how seriously they should take matters.

In the 1980s there was a very prominent and famous figure in the charismatic world, now deceased, who promoted charismatic practices so vigorously that very many churches still follow his ideas. More than anyone else he popularised the idea of casting out demons, demonstrating how easily it could be done. He would stroll into a room, confront the supposedly demonised person, and dismiss the demons. It seemed to be so easy for him as he sent them packing with a casual, drawled dismissal.

But his approach absurdly underestimated the powers of darkness. You cannot play pantomime tricks with the devil and his hosts, approaching them nonchalantly, and telling them what to do. And while the super-exorcist behaved in this way, the demons made a fool of him, filling his head with unbiblical teachings and methods. The devils had their way in the end. They did not mind him underestimating them, for by this they achieved their objectives.

We need to be very cautious with the powers of darkness. We do not have to be terrified of them, because Christ will protect us, and so our work cannot be stopped. But we have to be careful of them, vicious and hateful as they are, praying for help and deliverance, and not attempting face-to-face confrontation. We combat the demons of hell not by speaking to them, or even shouting at them, but through Christ, who alone has the power to reprove them. We withstand them by praying for strength to resist personal temptation; by teaching the Word as clearly as we possibly can; and by exhorting and admonishing one another with love and patience.

We must especially warn God’s people about the sinfulness of the world, so that they are not drawn into it, because the devil will strive to mix the church with the world, so that there is scarcely any distinction between them.

Satan aims to bring to a stop our mission for souls, and therefore we must constantly emphasise the necessity of evangelism and service for the Lord, especially the persuasive preaching of the Gospel.

Great care is required when we take people into church membership to ensure that they have a real testimony of conversion and love the Lord. Too often slackness in this matter has filled fellowships with wood, hay and stubble, and these merely nominal Christians have brought with them their worldly tastes and preferences.

The hosts of darkness watch us closely, and we must be aware of this. We are watched as individuals, and some monitoring demon soon notes if we skip private devotions, and classifies us as vulnerable. Soon we will be manoeuvred into some inappropriate, sinful pursuit, until eventually it takes hold of us and rules our life.

Demons soon note if a church dabbles in worldly entertainment and methods. They then move the style very slowly but inevitably to the point of full-scale sinful compromise. Usually, or so it seems today, satanic policy leaves in place for the time being the sound preaching of a church so that the pollution of worship is less offensive to the people. They continue to think they belong to a sound church while the methodology is taken over by worldliness and the devil.

Sometimes the tastes of the pastor are corrupted first, and I have been amazed to see some weblogs of reformed pastors openly trumpeting their favourite ‘tracks’ of secular groups, and their favourite worldly films.

It is unquestionably a ‘perilous time’ when the devil’s strategies easily capture pastors, who fall so far that they do not mind publicising their worldliness. Do they not know about the warfare? Do they not realise what has happened to them? And these things can happen to us also if we do not keep in mind the enemy’s wiles.

To young people reading this article I would like to give some direct advice. Never forget that your distinctive Christian character is immensely precious. Don’t sell it for a ‘mess of pottage’. In some Christian circles young adults may be heard talking together about their favourite groups, having defected back to worldly culture almost immediately after their conversion. You have left the world. Destroy those things that belong to your past; get rid of them. There is now a mighty chasm between you and the world. How can we walk with one foot in the world, and the other in the kingdom of Christ? Do we think that we are strong enough to compromise with worldly things and be unaffected?

Your old, pre-conversion tastes and ways will soon ruin your spiritual walk, and make you a weak believer who makes no real progress, and who cannot be used by the Lord. Christ wants you completely out of the world, and every minute of compromise gives him great offence.

You remember what happened to the Israelites of old when, after their deliverance, they sought after the pleasures of Egypt, disdaining the miraculous manna that God gave them? They were punished, but chiefly to warn subsequent generations how greatly God hates compromise.

If we do not come completely out of the culture of godlessness we are being astonishingly foolish, and walking straight into a snare. If we do not distinguish between the sin-saturated culture of the world, and the standards that God wants in his people, we will definitely suffer great spiritual loss.

Even some nationwide groups of churches have allowed their annual assemblies or conventions to be dominated by the musical styles of this world’s anti-moral, anti-God culture. By doing this they allow the contaminating strategy of principalities, powers and rulers of darkness to succeed to an horrific extent.

Down the ages, the commanders of Satan’s army have tended to use the same methods repeatedly. Always they have engineered infiltration by those who are the carriers of contamination, both of doctrine and methods, the latter being frequently the first in line for corruption. It is no use being ‘reformed’ in doctrine, and at the same time offensive to God in practice.

In Britain evangelical churches are falling at an unprecedented rate into spiritual compromise and worldliness. Who will stand for the Lord in the defence, maintenance and building up of congregations which are truly loyal to Christ, and proving his power?

"Exercising a True Deliverance Ministry" by Peter Masters

The title of this article is obviously not meant in a charismatic sense. We offer no advice on how to cast out demons, rather on how to help true believers who have been heavily influenced by charismatic ideas, and who have come to see them as wrong. They have come away from the world of tongues, visions, prophecies, ecstasies, dancing, falling down slain, and all associated activities, and have sought fellowship among ‘traditional’ Bible-believing Christians.

These friends often have many problems, and pastors and church officers must be ready to help. Some former charismatics have made the transition so well and so speedily that one can scarcely believe they once thought and acted very differently. We readily acknowledge that some need little or no help in adapting to conservative, biblical Christianity.

Many, however, find that their time in the charismatic movement has left them troubled, unsure, and perhaps even scarred spiritually. They have wrested themselves away from a host of emotional props, and severed connections with numerous dear friends, and this has cost them much pain.

Doctrine, worship, fellowship and service now take a vastly different form. Their new environment has a way of thinking and looking at matters utterly unlike that of charismatic circles. Furthermore, in the back of the mind lies the nagging fear that these ‘traditionalists’ are indeed the cold, lifeless formalists they have been long warned about – people who have never tasted the Spirit, and who wilfully oppose his liberating power.

Broadly speaking, there are three causes for people leaving the charismatic move-ment. The first one mentioned here is the best, and most often leads to them adjusting wholly to orthodox evangelical teaching. The last two give rise to the least stable ‘converts’.

A first cause of leaving occurs when people experience some serious disappointment or disillusionment with the charismatic movement, and begin to evaluate its claims more carefully. Perhaps a relative or close friend has died and they have seen at close quarters the false promises and the failure of -healing prophecies. It may be that they have seen through some of the dishonesty and pride which stalks the citadels of charismatic activity, and have recoiled with shock.

Some years ago, for example, charismatics all over the world were shaken by the wild phenomena of the Toronto Blessing, and they turned to God’s Word in a new spirit of enquiry. Objective Bible study then caused the entire edifice of charismatic practice to crumble and fall before them.

A second cause of departure from charismatic activity is personal disaffection. While this may lead to people’s eyes being opened, it often does not. In charismatic house groups and cells an artificially high degree of emotional interdependence is fostered, and in such a climate offences can occur which drive people out. These may come over to the derided traditionalists almost as an act of protest. The real issue is one of personal disaffection, not doctrinal unease, and while these émigrés may criticise everything they have left, it may only be the outworking of hurt feelings.

Sometimes people leave because their ‘gifts’ have not been sufficiently recognised, or their own leadership hopes have been thwarted. Such leavers will probably return, if not to the same group, to another section of the charismatic camp. We may almost say that the more heated the invective, the sooner a person will go back. We certainly have an opportunity to help such disgruntled people see the real issues, and we pray that the Lord will open their eyes, but our efforts may well be in vain.

A third cause of departure which usually leads to people returning is that of agenerally unstable temperament. This is not a comment on the mental stability of peo-ple, but on their inability to think clearly and to recognise foundational principles of biblical conduct. Because charismatic teaching is so subjective, experience-based, emotional and speculative, it produces this instability in certain people.

They take on a great mass of ideas and anecdotes, but possess no reliable way of verifying them. The mind trades so much in disconnected fragments, that it loses its capacity to get things in order of importance, and to judge clearly.

Helping friends in this state is almost impossible. As fast as you try to explain one matter, another dozen ideas leap into their minds. For such people, whether something is right or wrong is determined by the quantity of supporting claims which can be thrown into the discussion, not by the biblical validity of the claims. Unstable thinkers are likely to re-settle in the comfortable confusion of a charismatic group.

It is necessary to mention these last two categories because we must be ready for disap-pointment. However, the Lord is at work. Many of God’s children are being led out for wholesome and biblical reasons, and we trust that many more will be. We would like to rescue as many people as possible from the mass of mistakes that make up the charismatic movement, and from their exploitation by insincere and dishonest ‘top’ leaders.

Another caution is necessary. We should not assume that all who leave the charismatic fold are truly converted. We say this with care, for many are, but we remember that numerous people have been lured in by promises of healing, and even prosperity, rather than by the challenge to repent and yield to Christ. Once there, they have been sustained, not by doctrine, but by a diet of emotional thrills. In many charismatic meetings life is all about the feel-good-factor of entertainment and personal happiness, and the real issues of the Faith are obscured. When the Gospel is presented, it is often no more than a shallow form of ‘easy-believism’. Friendship and phenomena take the place of a real spiritual life. There will, therefore, be many who are not truly saved, and if they should leave and find their way to sound evangelical churches, their greatest need will be to hear the Gospel.

This caution must be balanced by a plea for respect for ex-charismatic people who most certainly are earnest believers. Some of these may even have been driven into the charismatic movement years ago by the lifelessness of a traditional evangelical church. There are numerous Bible-believing churches where so little is done for the Lord that one sympathises with members who defect to charismatic fellowships. They may be mistaken, but what an ordeal they have endured to keep their faith and love alive in an unenthusiastic ‘sound’ church! They have felt forced to leave that sound, but sound asleep, church. It has often been a hunger and thirst to please God which has led people (however mistakenly) into more lively charismatic churches. Their new teachers persuaded them that God wanted them to seek tongues and other phenomena, and their desire to obey God caused them to open their minds to these new experiences.

They were misled, but they were earnest, and this we must respect. They may have been more earnest than the sound fellowship they left behind.

We say this to inspire a due measure of respect for those who come back to us from charismatic groups. We, as traditional evangelicals, may have wronged them in the past through spiritual lethargy and coldness.

What are the problems or scars which continue to affect believers who have left the charismatic movement? The following pages review some of the difficulties encountered and highlight the areas of biblical teaching to be stressed by way of remedy.

TEN LINGERING PROBLEMS

1 Lordship of imagination

The first problem which may continue to trouble charismatic leavers arises from the lordship of imagination. For so many, imagination has worked overtime to create an artificial spiritual life in which God has spoken hour by hour through direct guidance and impressions. People have felt led to do this and that, and been ‘given’ knowledge of this and that. In many cases they have attributed every feeling to the direct impulse of the Spirit. They have been taught a religion very different from that of biblical Christianity, but they do not realise this.

They have been taught a system of thinking in which basic Christian beliefs are grafted on to a form of mysticism in which one may ‘know’ the touch of God, and receive in a direct, paranormal way knowledge unknowable by others. If someone is interpreting a tongue, whatever pops into the mind must be the correct meaning. For many, ordinary ideas and impressions must be elevated to ‘words of knowledge’. The list of imagined inspirations is long.

It comes as a shock to many ex-charismatic friends to learn the true biblical teaching about union with God, and the way this works. Without grasping this, they will be confused, dependent upon their feelings, and dependent upon imagined impressions sent from God.

We will need to explain, both by way of preaching and personal ministry, the ‘by faith’ passages of the New Testament, not only to explain the way of salvation, but to explain the ‘mechanics’ of our continuing union with God. We will need to explain that we do not know the Lord by any physical kind of sense or feeling, or by any other direct or ‘clairvoyant’ type of link. Human feelings are a response to what weunderstand. We know God by what is revealed in his Word. We believe all that it teaches of him, and we trust, and enjoy him. All our precious views of Christ and of his ways, come from the Word into our understanding, and there they are met and embraced by faith. God primarily links himself to us via our understanding and trusting response. Of course, we have much evidence, such as answered prayer, and we have assurance also, but the key link is by receiving the Word.

What about feelings? We will need to explain that in genuine spiritual experience they are stirred by way of response to what is seen by the mind. God hardly ever goes directly to our feelings. Whether the feeling is one of love, gratitude, assurance or shame and conviction, it wells up within us as the result of what is grasped by the mind.

Everything in the Christian life comes ‘by faith’, and this, of necessity, means by the understanding. If we do not think about something, we cannot believe it.

What is the role of the Holy Spirit in this? We will need to teach and explain that the Holy Spirit illuminates the mind, enabling the understanding to grasp the truths of God’s Word. He never imparts to the minds of believers spiritual truths which are not disclosed in the Bible. Rather, he sharpens our minds to see the things that are scripturally revealed.

Then, when we grasp these things and receive them by faith, the Spirit frequently touches our minds in such a way that we see them with even greater clarity, and then we are lifted up in great joy and love. An old Puritan phrase calls this ‘the embrace of the Spirit’. How kind the Spirit of God is!

The key point is that all true spiritual experience must be routed through the conscious mind, and received by faith. As soon as we are able to convey this fundamental fact of the Christian faith to former charismatics, the scales fall from their eyes and they see how they have been misled by a distorted form of Christianity. They are then no longer at the mercy of imagination.

Of course we will need to assure these friends that there is much tangible evidenceof God’s work in our lives. We see it in the new nature we receive at conversion, and in the countless answers to prayer which follow. We have so often been strengthened for our duties, enabled to witness, and delivered from trials in answer to prayer. We have repeatedly seen our circumstances changed by the clear intervention of the Lord. In these things we see the Lord’s hand, but only in the Word do we hear, as it were, his authoritative voice, revealing doctrine and commands.

In summary, we know the Lord by what he has said (in the Word), and this is supplemented by what he does in answer to prayer. We do not have direct com-munication from God on authoritative matters.

How different this historic, biblical teaching is from the mystical and occultist ideas which have swept into modern charismatic teaching! ‘Switch off the mind,’ they say, ‘it is an obstruction and a nuisance. Raise your hands, close your eyes, sway to and fro, launch out into the deep, let your emotions go free, let your spirit take over, repeat the name of the Saviour, speak in a tongue, and as you do so, your direct, mystical link with God will be effected, and you will feel and see according to the movement of the Spirit.’

We repeat, God speaks from the Word to the mind, which is the organ of under-standing and the palace of faith. Here are some of the great passages we will refer to as we stress the pre-eminence of faith (which naturally presupposes understanding).

‘So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God’ (Romans 10.17).

‘That their hearts might be comforted . . . unto all riches of the full assurance of UNDERSTANDING’ (Colossians 2.2). ‘BY FAITH ye stand’ (2 Corinthians 1.24).

‘For we walk BY FAITH, not by sight’ (2 Corinthians 5.7).

‘Above all, taking the SHIELD OF FAITH, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked’ (Ephesians 6.16).

‘BY FAITH he [Moses] forsook Egypt . . . for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible’ (Hebrews 11.27). ‘That Christ may dwell in your hearts BY FAITH; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; and to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God’(Ephesians 3.17-19).

2 Anecdotes & revelations

A second problem which afflicts many friends who leave charismatic circles is their past trust in non-biblical sources of doctrine and comfort, such as anecdotal experiences and new revelations. Most charismatics theoretically believe that anecdotes, visions and words of knowledge should be submitted to Scripture for verification, but in most circles this hardly ever happens. (When charismatic leaders do attempt to justify their visions by Scripture, these attempts range from the superficial to the absurd.)

The problem is that former charismatics often feel a great void once they leave behind the flow of anecdotal teaching and prophetic words. Some continue to be vulnerable and ready to believe anything and everything that they read in lightweight, anecdotal items of Christian literature.

We often refer to how the charismatic movement lowers the credulity threshold of people, and so it does. The welter of anecdotes of healings, extraordinary expe-riences and revelations must, in general, be believed, or the Christian life would be a nightmare of suspicion. Some solve the problem by believing everything (however unbiblical), and others by believing everything ‘slightly’. (See problem number 10 for further comment on this.)

It is not enough, however, only to direct to Scripture, because charismatic friends have had Scripture quoted to them to justify the most bizarre things. By their indifference to any rules of interpretation, charismatic teachers have robbed Scripture of its clarity, consistency and authority. We will need to encourage a new respect and a deeper reverence and love for Scripture, introducing friends to the Bible’s own interpretative rules. They must come to take the context seriously, and to compare scripture with scripture. They must learn about the ‘analogy of faith’ concept of the Reformers, which calls us to equip ourselves with a clear mental picture of all the major doctrines so prominent in the Bible, and then to test all our ideas about the meaning of any particular passage against these.

This article is not the place to rehearse the basic rules of interpretation, but ex-charismatics need the liberating experience of serious, logical Bible study. They need to see what they have been deprived of. Then they will rejoice in a Bible that really guides – not a chaotic mystery-book which depends upon the whims of personal revelation before one may know what it really says. We must therefore give time in our teaching programme for the subject of ‘Bible interpretation for all’.

We need to point friends to books such as Thomas Watson’s Body of Divinity, where they will rejoice to find the wonderful system of doctrinal Truth which has been kept from them. This will help them to have the anchor of sound doctrine, without which they will remain at the mercy of unbiblical, human ideas.

3 Reverent worship

A third problem troubling many former charismatics is that of adjusting to a reverent form of worship. In most charismatic communities worship is primarily designed to be subjective and arousing only at a human level. To achieve this, instrumental music and rhythm are used as major ingredients. Also, worship is usually informal in character, thus sacrificing awe and reverence. It has more to do with the feelings and the body than with the mind and the soul.

Those who leave charismatic groups will find themselves either in a Bible-believing church which holds to conservative wor-ship, or one that compromises by using charismatic songs. This second kind of church will obviously not be able to teach former charismatics the glories of true worship, for it has violated them.

Hopefully, former charismatics will find themselves in sounder places where the biblical objectives of worship can be explained. We will need to point out the most fundamental of all principles, that worship is to be ‘in spirit and in truth’. This includes the idea that it is to be intelligent, and in accordance with God’s revealed Truth.

It is crucial for believers to realise that worship must be capable of being put into words (whether thought, said or sung). Nothing else is true worship.

Worship is to be objective as well as subjective; and to be rich with praise and adoration of God and his attributes and works. It is to be humble and reverent. It is to include repentance (so often absent from charismatic songs). It is not to be subjected to the competition of elaborate music and instrumentalism, so that this is enjoyed more than the spiritual worship, and people show off their skills.

Worship must never borrow the rhythms and chord-forms associated with the secular entertainment industry, and its anti-God, anti-moral campaigns. The Word of God demands an unbridgeable gulf between sacred and profane.

These are the kind of principles we must present from such Bible passages as John 4 and Revelation 4-5. Former charismatics need to see that they have had foisted upon them a fleshly, worldly, self-centred form of worship, grievous to the Spirit. Human pleasure, derived from debased worldly styles, has eclipsed true spiritual activity, and all this must now be rejected as illegitimate and harmful. Only then will they be free to enter wholeheartedly and feelingfully into genuine, respectful, thoughtful worship, with true spiritual rejoicing.

4 Visible phenomena

A fourth problem troubling many former charismatics is a continuing thirst for phenomena such as healings and prophecies. If denied these things they often feel unstirred and unassured. Such supposed proofs of the Holy Spirit’s presence have long served as a substitute for faith, and now that they have been left behind, leavers may find it difficult to live by faith.

As Christians, however, we are not bereft of evidences of God’s work within us, and it is good to help troubled friends look at these evidences. Conversion, sanctification and preservation are the greatest evidences of all.

It is even more important to train friends to put their faith in what God says in his Word. Faith grows most of all when it is exercised, first by receiving and believing the teaching of the Word, and secondly by coming to the Lord in prayer in response to all the problems and needs of life.

Former charismatics need to be encouraged to exercise sober discernment, trusting only the Word, and assigning no significance to charismatic explanations of strange experiences. It may be helpful for them to learn that the very phenomena and ‘wonders’ they once relied on occur equally outside Christian circles. They are common even among pagan cults, and are not evidences or proofs of the work of the Spirit. Even within the charismatic movement many godless (even immoral and criminal) leaders have been able to produce all these so-called signs of God’s approval and power.

Former charismatics also need to appreciate that unrecognised hypnosis and psychological influences play a great part in producing surprising experiences. In summary, we must help these friends to embrace ‘Scripture alone’ as the rule of their Christian walk, and to get great pleasure out of the wonders of the Word. As for encouragement, are not the unmistakable evidences of God’s power in sustaining and blessing our witness enough?

For the strengthening of faith, it is vital that we show ex-charismatics how to lay hold on the promises rather than to look for earthly wonders which, in the event, are a mixture of theatrical tricks and psychological effects. An excellent book to ‘prescribe’ is Thomas Watson’s little volume A Divine Cordial, also published under the title All Things for Good. Equally superb is A W Pink’s Comfort for Christians. Such works show believers how to view trials of all kinds. The Christian life is a life of faith, not a life of sight, and to walk this road must be the new aim of former charismatic believers.

5 Lack of service

A fifth problem troubling some former charismatics arises from a lack of applica-tion and commitment to genuine service for the Lord. We are saved to serve the Lord and to be at his disposal. We are intended to pull together as congregations in the work of evangelism. The charismatic scene, however, is predominantly self-serving. Certainly there are exceptions, and some charismatics engage in strenuous activity for the Lord, including compassionate ministries. But generally the situation is quite different.

You do not often find charismatic fellowships toiling in evangelistic Sunday Schools and similar activities operated for the spiritual good of the community. You find considerable activity going on, but most of it is for the benefit of believers and for their excitement and fulfilment.

Charismatic church activities are labour-intensive in terms of instrumentalism, singing and all the practice involved. Giftedness, body-ministry, personal empowerment and so on are the all-important matters. ‘My walk…my health…my experience’ is the chief focus of life. House groups frequently constitute ‘love-ins’ where mutual coddling and sympathy are the order of the day. The ethos is thatwe are to be cared for. We are so important. All our energy is for us.

A believer who forsakes the atmosphere of charismatic Christianity is likely to feel painfully abandoned in a traditional fellowship. It is important that the real cause of this vacuum is understood, and we must show how life should be filled with a new kind of activity – unselfish, overflowing spiritual service for Christ.

We are forced to admit that some traditional Bible-believing churches now-adays are as bad as charismatic churches for self-serving, self-interested church programmes. Hopefully, however, ex-charismatics will find churches where the fun and pleasure of believers is not the primary objective, but rather the work of taking the Gospel to lost souls.

In these days so many labourers are needed. A new perspective and a new commitment will be the greatest help to the ex-charismatic, who will find true spiritual blessedness in this context. (The author’s booklet on the working church –Your Reasonable Service in the Lord’s Work – may help in this matter.)

6 Cessation of sign-gifts

A sixth problem troubling former charismatics is whether the gifts of the Spirit have or have not ceased. How could they possibly have ceased as the Scripture does not specifically say so? Lingering and recurring anxiety about the gifts can only be relieved when former charismatics gain a clear view of the reasons why cessationism was the view of the overwhelming majority of Christians until as recently as the 1960s. In this connection, beware of literature which warns against charismatic practices while at the same time refusing to teach the cessation of the sign and revelatory gifts.

Some writers have adopted the view that cessationism is not valid, and that instead we should judge the validity of every charismatic claim on its merits. The idea is a nightmare. From a practical point of view alone, it would take a thousand tribunals of seasoned judges sitting in permanent session to merely scratch the surface of the present scene. Claims to gifts and phenomena are to be numbered in their millions.

The truth is that the Bible is clear on this matter, and most former charismatics are very ready to examine the texts. Of course, we must help friends to see that only two kinds of gift are at issue: the revelatory gifts and the sign-gifts. All others, such as gifts of ministry and government, remain.

The writer has set out the texts teaching the cessation of the revelatory and sign-gifts in The Healing Epidemic, chapter 7 – ‘Proving the Gifts Have Ceased’. Without repeating all these texts and arguments here, it should be obvious that the sign-gifts were not intended to be permanent. They were specifically described as signsor pointers. The apostolic miracles pointed to the apostles, saying to the world, ‘these are the true witnesses and apostles of Christ, and the inspired channels of Holy Scripture.’ But now that their witness has been incorporated into the Bible, we possess the substance. The signs fell away once the substance to which they pointed was given to the Church.

It was the same with tongues-speaking. The miraculous tongues were a sign or pointer. God had said through Isaiah that the age of the Messiah would be validated by the phenomenon of gentiles preaching the Word of God to Jews. However, at the time of Pentecost, and for a short while afterward, there were no converted gentiles, and so God at first employed gentile tongues miraculously spoken by Jews. This was one of the signs that the new age, the Gospel Age, had dawned, when the Gospel would be preached in every language throughout the world. But soon the reality took over and real gentile converts were preaching the Gospel to both Jews and gentiles. Once this occurred the sign had fulfilled its duty. The reality to which the sign pointed had itself arrived, and the ‘shadow’ had given way to the substance.

This writer has found that most charismatics have been given the impression that in New Testament times healings were accomplished constantly by all believers. They are usually very surprised to hear that this is utterly contrary to the record, which shows only one case of a healing by someone not in the apostolic band – and that was the singular case of Paul healed by Ananias (at the Lord’s command).

We constantly need to make clear to ex-charismatic friends that we believe in miracles today, including healing. God can do anything, and he has promised to heal. What we reject is the notion that he channels his power through gifted miracle workers and healers. Apostles, with ‘signs of apostles’, have long since ceased, but the Lord continues to heal directly in answer to prayer (and according to his sovereign will). These are some of the issues which we need to make clear to former charismatics.

7 Prevailing worldliness

A seventh problem which frequently troubles those who leave charismatic circles stems from the degree of worldliness so often encouraged, and sometimes the level of lawlessness. Throughout the world the majority of charismatics have an approach to holiness that is quite different from anything previously seen in the history of the Christian Church. Separation from the world has little or no part in their holiness scenario. Nor (in most circles) does resistance to earthly wealth and comforts.

Affluence and pleasure are legitimate objectives. Fashion, self-expression, and close familiarity with the current pop and movie scenes are acceptable interests. Charismatic song performers look and sound just like worldly performers. The likeness is even deliberately cultivated.

Believers who leave the charismatic world will have to adapt to entirely different standards. They will have to appreciate that the Lord commands different attitudes in his people, and that the ethos of the world is offensive to him. For some, the doctrine of sanctification will sometimes need to be explained almost from scratch. A new commitment of life and stewardship will need to be embraced.

We referred to lawlessness in the introduction to this seventh point, because it is an undeniable truth that among professing Christians, charismatics are known to have by far the most cases of unacceptable behaviour. They experience the most occurrences of immorality, divorce, criminal fraud, and other serious misdemeanours.

This observation is not intended to taint thousands of more serious-minded charismatics who mortify the deeds of the body, and strive to lead lives pleasing to God. But the charismatic environment as a whole is not conducive to conscientious holiness, and that is painfully apparent.

Lawlessness may well be encouraged by the lack of repentance in the style of worship found in many charismatic churches. Services characterised by dancing, swaying, clapping, the singing of repetitive phrases to deafening rhythmic music, and working up the emotions are not occasions for genuine repentance and dedication to holiness.

There is no quietness before God; no sense of – ‘The Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.’ In some charismatic circles the spiritual warfare is defined entirely in terms of challenging demons, rather than in fighting against personal sin and temptation. It is no great wonder that we have read of so many leading charismatic evan-gelists falling into immorality, and being brought before the courts for a variety of criminal offences.

It is important that we communicate to believers who come to us from charismatic fellowships that we act in all matters out of obedience to the Word, and not just from personal choice. We must show chapter and verse for every facet of our personal and church lifestyles. Christians are those who willingly conform to all the rules of the New Testament, including separation from worldliness. Only as the Spirit shows these friends the true nature of the Christian walk, will they be at peace. Many have been deprived by their former teach-ers of vast areas of Truth. These must now be embraced.

8 A Superior experience

An eighth problem likely to trouble former charismatics is a sensitive and dif-ficult one, but it must be mentioned. This will not necessarily apply to all such friends, but it will afflict some. It is the problem of pride. Charismatic teachers have probably convinced them that they have superior light and experience, while traditional Bible believers are spiritually ignorant, cold and unblessed. Many charismatic teachers adopt a boastful, triumphalistic style, encouraging a sense of spiritual superiority.

The lack of truly objective worship (which is humbling in its effect) may also contribute to pride. So also may the sense of specialness derived from the sup-posed possession of spiritual gifts. Even after leaving charismatic circles, some of this pride may stick.

All this puts one in mind of the many Exclusive Brethren who left their movement in the 1960s. They had seen that much was wrong, but unfortunately many of those who left took with them an unshakable belief that they were infinitely better taught than those in the traditional evangelical churches. Clothed with such confidence, what could they really learn? Some (but certainly not all) became misfits and serious thorns in the flesh to the churches they joined.

We shall need great grace as we try to help ex-charismatics realise that they do not tower above traditional Bible believers in spiritual understanding. We will need the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, and the gentleness of Barnabas as we show them that their former camp represents a radical departure from Scripture and its doctrine in many ways, and that they have much to re-learn.

It will be no use correcting just a few wrong notions. Charismatic pride rests on a dozen foundations. It is only as we knock all these away (but carefully) that the delusion of grandeur will fall, and the mind will open fully to the Word. The kindest way to do this is often by prescribing books, so that friends can think through the issues in privacy, checking the texts as they go, and calling upon the Lord for help.

9 Emphasis on fellowship

A ninth problem sometimes troubling the peace of former charismatics has to do with relationships. We have already referred to the artificially close fellowship fostered in house groups or cells. Charismatics usually excel at organising friendship-promoting activities, and this will inevitably lead to pain and loneliness when people leave.

Most traditional Bible-believing churches do not have this forced, hot-house approach to promoting friendship. They depend more on the natural process of ties forming as members worship and serve the Lord together.

Hopefully, former charismatics will find their way to churches where people are outgoing and welcoming. But it will be over time, and usually while working in some aspect of Christian service, that deeper ties will form. Real friendship is not usually manipulated into being.

We will need to extend a degree of special understanding and fellowship to those who come out of a system excessively dependent on friendship, remembering that they have probably left behind something that cannot be quickly replaced in their lives.

Another relationship difficulty may arise from the dominating, authoritarian leadership practised in many charismatic churches. If people have experienced a high degree of directive interference in their lives, some may feel lost without it. However much they may have resented it, they may still miss it. For some, this may reach ‘dependence’ proportions.

Pastors must be careful never to tell these friends what to do in personal decisions, however much they may ask for definitive direction. Always we must limit ourselves to counselling the biblical principles, and honour the individual’s responsibility to apply those principles carefully and prayerfully to the decision in hand.

10 Uncertain belief

A final problem sometimes encountered by former charismatics is that of weak and doubting belief, leading either to shallowness or cynicism. This is a product of their former intense loyalty to healings and other phenomena. The trouble arises from the simple fact that they never saw these wonderful things really happening in a certain, verifiable way. Even the miraculous signs have had to be taken on faith!

If we ask charismatic friends why the weekly run of healings never includes clear-cut, medically verifiable miracles, involving the cure of serious physical illnesses, they immediately talk about cases they know of from other churches, and which probably took place months or years ago. They seldom make any attempt to defend the regular healings of their own fellowship. This shows that within themselves they realise that these healings are more to do with charismatic culture than with reality.

A charismatic author (a doctor) once set out to validate charismatic healing in a book, and his book revealed the same tendency. To prove his case he wrote about healings that occurred years before, and in other countries. Inadvertently, he was admitting that he placed no credence on the regular healings that surrounded him week after week in his own charismatic assembly. He believed in them in a way, but not enough to use them as examples, preferring to draw his ‘proof’ from afar.

This writer has asked charismatic believers in five continents why their own local healings were either unsuccessful, or short-term, or minor, and why they could not perform healing of verifiable, major illnesses. Always their response has been to draw their confidence from healings reported from somewhere else.

The point is that charismatic friends must adopt either a stoical, unquestioning form of belief in these phenomena, or a vague, general belief. Either attitude is harmful to real Christian faith. In the case of the first, the mind closes to any new biblical and doctrinal challenge. The person says, ‘I know what I think, and am not open to further consideration.’ Such a friend must be helped to see that all our opinions must be verifiable from the Word of God. We must always be open to correction.

In the case of vague belief, the whole of our Christian walk may be damaged if we allow ourselves to believe vaguely and lightly in things we do not really see happen, and cannot be certain of. This kind of belief will infect our whole outlook. We may well develop a shallow view of many other aspects of the faith.

This undoubtedly happens to many Christians. They believe they should go to worship regularly and serve the Lord. But at the same time, like the healing miracles, the standards of God need not be taken too seriously. They are real, but they are not real. They are important, but not important.

Vague belief or light belief produces uncommitted and semi-sincere Christians, and even lawless Christians. The antidote and corrective is to help people to see that in God’s true plan for the Christian life everything is true and reliable; everythingworks just as it should.

The charismatic culture of working up miracles and signs which cannot be validated is harmful to true faith, producing either gullibility on the one hand, or submerged cynicism on the other.

God and his Word are to be taken very seriously, and believed with the whole heart. All his commands are to be obeyed; all his standards are to be diligently honoured.

These are the issues which trouble or handicap those who leave charismatic circles, and which pastors and spiritual shepherds will need to address, with gentleness, patience and understanding. They are all critical, key matters which, if ignored, will surface later, possibly with unhappy results.