view encompassed the unfolding centuries, and the rising and falling of empires and armies. We need a sense of God’s supreme


knowledge also. We read the his- tory of God’s work in our land, of the Reformation, and of times of awakening and revival, and in some respects we find it deeply depress- ing. In a city like London we see no end of buildings that were obviously once churches, chapels and missions, but have been converted into offices or shops. We walk down some major high streets and see many buildings that were ragged schools or Sunday Schools in former days. We know it from the ‘churchy’ win- dows rising above the store fronts. We think of the nineteenth century and how C H Spurgeon lamented how bad things were in his view even then. There were thousands of people in churches, and God’s peo- ple thought the situation was bad! What would they make of things today?


The task we have been given As God’s people we need to have


a strong sense that God knows exactly what he is doing. He knows when he is going to bring everything to an end, and whether he will send a last revival before the final mo- ment dawns. If we have received a keen sense of the infallible knowledge and sovereignty of God, we do not try to improve on the task we have been given to simply preach repentance and remission of sin, and to pray for the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon our labours.


Sword & Trowel 2016: Issue 1 In the 1970s the seeker-sensitive


church movement began in the USA when a pastor decided to ask un- churched people what they wanted in a church. A questionnaire went out, then research was thoroughly done, and the answers came back saying that people did not want a church that sang stuffy old hymns, or just preached at you and told you that you were a sinner, but one that entertained you, and did not upset you, and did not oblige you to participate in religious activities. So a church was created that would suit the tastes of the unconverted mind. It became, in earthly terms, a great success, and began to publish widely its blueprint for success. Many churches followed suit, becoming mega-churches where sin was lit- tle mentioned and every comfort, recreation and entertainment was available to attract crowds of super- ficial ‘worshippers’. Since then other innovations and experiments have joined the fashionable campaign to ‘rewrite church’ to look less like the church of the New Testament and to be more amenable to the un- converted nature, or ‘the flesh’. An Ezekiel-like commission, a powerful sense of the knowledge and infal- libility of God, a realisation that he knows why he has allowed a time of decline, and he knows exactly what he is going to do, and how he will vindicate his Word, would have prevented the hushing-up of the challenge of the Gospel, and the trivialisation and ‘worldlification’ of the church. We need this realisa- tion of the omniscience of God. It is essential.


When God Commissions


 page 33


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