Covenanter Witness Vol. 54 - Rparchives.org

covenants."
words."
word."
We
away."
you."
'
nant renewal, it is indication that our eyes are blind
ed to God, and our very act is hypocrisy.
So in humility we make our confession. We con
fess "that we have transgressed the Law of God." It
has always been God's prerogative to command, be
cause He is Lord, and man's duty to obey, because
he is God's servant. Oscar Cullman, in his study of
"The Earliest Christian Confessions" states that one
of the very earliest statements of faith used among
Christian people was this: "Jesus Christ is Lord." It
was this very confession which brought the Chris
tians under the persecution of the Romans. For the
Roman State demanded of its Christian subjects the
civic cpnfession : "Kurios Kaisar"
"Caesar is Lord."
But Christians young and old were willing rather
to, be fired, as torches in the garden of Nero's palace
or torn apart by wild beasts in the arena, than to
deny that there is but one Lord, and that is Christ.
Jesus Christ is Lord. That has been virtually the
watchword of our Church. To our Nation we bear
testimony to that truth.
How inconsistent, then, that we should bear wit
ness to the Kingship of Christ with our lips, and deny
it with our lives. If Christ is Lord we owe Him noth
ing less, in our personal walk day by day,
than abso
lute obedience. He Himself said, "If a man love Me,
he will keep my And yet, which of His com
mandments have we not broken
We confess "that we have come short of per
forming our duty." One aspect of our Christian duty
is witnessing for Christ. That was Jesus' last great
command to His followers before ascending into
Heaven. "Ye shall be witnesses unto Me." It was with
that command ringing in their ears that the early
Christians set out to serve their Lord. Consequently,
within one generation the Gospel had spread with
amazing rapidity.
Take the Thessalonians for example. In the first
letter which Paul wrote back to them after being
away for a comparatively short time he writes, "For
from you sounded out the Word of the Lord not only
in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place
your faith to God-ward is spread abroad ; so that we
need not to speak any thing." What a noble example
to follow! But how short we have fallen from per
forming our duty!
Recently a fellow Covenanter pastor told me that
one of his fairly new converts came to him after a
congregational meeting, confused and troubled. He
had been a growing Christian for almost a year. Wit
nessing was a regular part of his life in Christ. He
had joined the Covenanter Church. But after attend
ing his first congregational meeting he came to his
pastor bewildered. "We talked for three hours," he
said, "about money. In the whole meeting there was
not one word said about reaching men for Jesus
Christ not one
have come short of per
forming our duty.
We confess "that we have not measured up to
our
In our Covenant of 1871 we make
some solemn promises to God.
"Aiming to live for the glory of God as our chief
end, we will, in reliance upon God's grace, and feeling
our inability to perform any spiritual duty in our own
strength, diligently
attend to searching the Scrip-
"Hi r*pQ
Have you kept that covenant promise to God
Many of us do not even read the Bible faithfully each
day. Much less do we diligently
attend to searching
182\
the Scriptures. And yet God's promise is to the one
who searches as for hid treasures.
In that same paragraph of the Covenant we
promise that we will diligently attend to religious
conversation. But our conversation is not normally
religious. Most of us are not living in obedience to
God's command that we should talk of His Words
when we sit in our houses, when we walk by the way,
when we lie down and when we rise up.
And is this not because we have lost intimate fel
lowship with Christ Is it not because we do not
meditate on His Word We are accustomed to talk
about the things which are in our hearts, and about
the people with whom we have intimate fellowship.
If, then, we sincerely love Jesus Christ, if we fellow
ship with Him, if we have Him in our hearts, his
Name, and the things which pertain unto Him, will
certainly be mentioned often in our conversation. But
they are not. We have broken this promise.
The Bible says, "When thou shalt vow a vow un
to the Lord thy God thou shalt not slack to pay it;
for the Lord thy God shall surely require it of thee,
and it would be sin in thee." We confess that we have
not measured up to our covenants.
We confess "that too often our faith has been
weak."
Jesus said, "If ye have faith as a grain of
mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Re
move hence to yonder place ; and it shall remove ; and
nothing shall be impossible unto Nothing shall
be impossible Yes, those are the words of Jesus
Christ. And we want to have an alive and growing
church Yes, so we say. Then, can we not combine
these two Nothing which would be for the glory of
God as would an alive and growing church is impos
sible to us IF we have faith.
We confess "that our works have been ineffec
tual."
At one time in the history of Christianity the
building of the Church of Christ rested on the shoul
ders of a few hundred disciples. After the Holy Spirit
had come upon them that same Spirit whom Christ
has given to us they, in their generation,
carried
the Gospel to almost every part of the known world.
And with tremendous results! They reproduced
themselves hundreds of times ! .If the building of the
Church of Christ rested upon the shoulders of the
90 some ministers, several hundred elders and several
thousand members of the Covenanter Church, what
would become of the Christian Church
Jesus told what happens when men are unfruit
ful for Him. "Every branch in Me that beareth not
fruit He (God) taketh And that is what is
happening to our Church. Little by little, year by
year, it is being taken away by God. BUT THIS CAN
ALL BE CHANGED, IF WE WILL TRULY PRE
PARE OUR HEARTS TO KEEP THE COVENANT
WHICH WE ARE GOING TO RENEW.
Our loyalty, we confess, has been wavering.
Paul wrote to Timothy, "Endure hardness as a
good soldier of Jesus Christ. No man that warreth
entangleth himself with the affairs of this life ; that
he may please him who hath chosen him to be a sol
dier."
But we poor soldiers that we are are con
tinually entangling ourselves with the affairs of this
life. We have been lacking in that singleness of heart,
and steadfastness of spirit which would enable Christ
to use us to accomplish great things for Him. Re
cently my attention was called to a verse in the
prophecy of Daniel which says, "And such as do wick
edly against the covenant shall he corrupt by flat-
COVENANTE2. WITNESS