Suppose a modern popular revivalist such as Mr. Moody, in one of his
great meetings should tell his audience that he would read the great
commission of our Lord to his apostles, and proceed to read as follows:
“Go you, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them into the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit; teaching them to
observe all things whatever I have commanded you.”
“Go you into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He
that believes and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believes not
shall be damned?”
Then, suppose he should follow this up with the words of Peter, in
reply to the three thousand on Pentecost, when they inquired, “What
shall we do?” when he said, “Repent, and be baptized every one of
you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit,” or that he should also
quote the instructions of Ananias to Saul: “Why do you tarry? Arise,
and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on the name of the
Lord;” what think you would become of the great union meeting and the
wonderful co-operation of so many parties? They would disperse almost
as rapidly as the Jews did from our Lord when he overthrew the tables
of the money changers and drove them out of the temple. They would hear
him no more.
These great union meetings, in which many of different parties unite
and co-operate, put a part of the word of God—the language of the
Spirit of God—on the same level with their partisan peculiarities and
opinions, and ignore all together, the human and the divine! They make
no difference between the human and divine, in ignoring, but simply
ignore the matters in which they do not agree, no matter whether human
or divine. We make this difference; _we ignore all that is human_, and
_recognize all that is divine_. The true union ground is _the divine_.
We are not to unite simply on what we agree about. We may agree in
the wrong—the erroneous—the false. The true ground is to ignore
everything that did not come from God, and recognize everything that
did come from God. The entire revelation from God to man is that on
which to unite. All included in that is of supreme authority, and all
not included in that is of no authority at all.
Men may join in union meetings, co-operate in them or unite permanently
in them, but so long as they are alliances, leagues or confederations,
in an understood, settled and persistent ignoring of clear instructions
from the Lord in reference to the way of salvation, the approbation of
the Lord will not be there. It matters nothing about the number that
unite in these meetings, nor the variety of different parties, nor how
many conversions may be claimed, the approbation of the Lord is not
there so long as his authority is ignored in deference to people that
do not receive it.
These meetings, the different parties pushing into them, and the
various preachers participating in them, are simply demonstrations of
the confused state of the public mind. Neither the preachers nor the
people are settled. They are out at sea and ready for anything new, or
anything better, but know not where to find it. They have become so
bewildered that they can trust in almost anything, except the clear
revelation of God. Whatever a man thinks is right, that is right to
him, unless he thinks _the law of God is right_. They can not admit
that that is right if a man _does think it is right_! But _it is
right_, whether they think it is right or not, and will be right for
ever and ever.