Our Greatest Need Ron Spear - The Eternal Gospel Church

1888 REVISITED135The heavenly Teacher inquired: “What stronger delusioncan beguile the mind than the pretense that you are buildingon the right foundation and that God accepts your works,when in reality you are working out many things according toworldly policy and are sinning against Jehovah? Oh, it is agreat deception, a fascinating delusion, that takes possessionof minds when men who have once known the truth, mistakethe form of godliness for the spirit and power thereof; whenthey suppose that they are rich and increased with goodsand in need of nothing, while in reality they are in need ofeverything.” Ibid., 249–250.When we are living like the world and adopting the methods andstandards of the world for our institutions and ministry, our pretendedgarments of righteousness are spotted with stains of the world and weare spiritual harlots:Who can truthfully say: “Our gold is tried in the fire; ourgarments are unspotted by the world”? I saw our Instructorpointing to the garments of so-called righteousness. Strippingthem off, He laid bare the defilement beneath. Then Hesaid to me: “Can you not see how they have pretentiouslycovered up their defilement and rottenness of character?‘How is the faithful city become an harlot!’ My Father’s houseis made a house of merchandise, a place whence the divinepresence and glory have departed! For this cause there isweakness, and strength is lacking.” Ibid., 250.A century ago, fifteen years after we rejected the message of righteousnessby faith, the messenger of the Lord closed the above rebukeand warning to us with a call to revival and reformation. If we persist inrefusing that call to live and work in the manner Christ has instructedus—according to His will— we do so at our eternal peril:Unless the church, which is now being leavened with herown backsliding, shall repent and be converted, she will eatof the fruit of her own doing, until she shall abhor herself.When she resists the evil and chooses the good, when sheseeks God with all humility and reaches her high calling inChrist, standing on the platform of eternal truth and by faith