It is no secret that I have many grievances with the institutional church. I have few reservations in saying that I think it barely breaks even in doing good, versus doing harm to its own and the world who needs to hear the Gospel.

As I read in Romans 15 tonight, Paul talks about his freedom to now come and visit the church in Rome since his doors for service in his own region were coming to a close. So, to better understand the passage, I read from Matthew-Henry’s classic commentary on the text. And one short phrase stood out and left a very bitter taste in my mouth.

It is justly expected from all Christians, that they should promote every good work, especially that blessed work, the conversion of souls. Christian society is a heaven upon earth, an earnest of our gathering together unto Christ at the great day.

Christian society is a ‘heaven upon earth’. In other words, the corporate church is a heaven upon earth.

Well, yes, perhaps in isolated places. Perhaps even in Matthew-Henry’s time this was true. It’s hard to say, really. But for me, in my experience and the experience of many others, this sentiment does not resonate whatsoever. There is little more charity in the institutional church than in the world at large. But, in the church, there is far less acceptance or ‘love’—even patience or forgiveness.

But I do notice that Matthew-Henry deliberately uses the word ‘a’ in order to describe this present ‘heaven’. Of course we cannot attain here what we will truly have with Christ, there.

Nonetheless, the church ought to be something like a heaven on earth, in certain respects. And while the institution will never be perfect, we cannot accept the flaws by that virtue. Much like our own personal pursuits of Christ, we have to continue to tear down the flawed structures and at least attempt to rebuild stronger, more effective ones—regardless of the ‘cost’.

“Those who will never enter the water but with flags or bladders under them will scarce ever learn to swim; and it cannot be denied but that the constant and unvaried use of set forms of prayer may become a great occasion of quenching the Spirit, and hindering all progress or growth of gifts or graces.“

John Owen, famed puritan author and preacher, seems to think that getting stuck in one style of worship or prayer will go a long way in hindering our growth. I agree. I know that absolute repetition, while good in some things, makes us stale in other things.

I think we would do very well to seek out variety in our prayer and worship.

Has anyone delivered a compliment to you which you accepted and felt good about, yet simultaneously knew was simply inaccurate? I know that I have.

Matthew-Henry’s father, Philip (also a Puraitan) said this:

“Be as much troubled by unjust praises, as by unjust slanders.”

This is apt. When someone with a distaste for our personality speaks ill of us for no notable reason, we’re usually at least frustrated. But more likely angry. But, few people have such qualms about someone speaking highly of them when it’s undeserved. This is a real problem.

When someone slanders us without cause, we are broken down and our person is hurt. But, when someone builds us up with false information, God’s person is hurt. We accept praise on false grounds to bolster our pride, which inevitably robs God of glory which is due to him. This is much worse.

I try to correct people when they offer compliments on false pretenses. But I am guilty as well. I just wish I could be half as worked up about it as I am when I’m unfairly criticized.

Jesus teaches that our sins are our own, and the guilt belongs to no one else. It’s hard to accept. Even after Eve ate the apple in the Garden, she told God that the serpent had tricked her into doing it. And perhaps that was a unique event in history, but it didn’t exonerate her guilt.

Matthew 15:19:

…out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.

When a man and woman who are courting each other fall into sexual sin together, it was not the situation that created the sin, it only afforded the opportunity for the sinful nature to exercise itself. The things and situations around us are not to blame for our sinful failures, those failures reside in the heart already.

Matthew-Henry puts it this way:

It is the heart that is desperately wicked, Jer 17:9, for there is no sin in word or deed, which was not first in the heart. They all come out of the man, and are fruits of that wickedness which is in the heart, and is wrought there.

A mere disciplining of our situations is a dire insufficiency in our fight against sin. To block our chances to sin does very little but paste a pleasing veneer over the surface. The only real solution is to appeal to the grace of God in Jesus Christ to actually change our hearts, so that we might desire different things completely.

At the end of the twelfth chapter of Charles Spurgeon’s All of Grace, he has already given his plea to the unbeliever to believe. He has spent a great deal of time presenting methods by which an unbeliever might find himself believing. But at the end of it all, he shares the solemn, perhaps harsh, words which anyone refusing to believe must eventually hear:

“If none of these things avail, then there is something wrong about you altogether, and my last word is, submit yourself to God! Prejudice or pride is at the bottom of this unbelief. May the Spirit of God take away your enmity and make you yield. You are a rebel, a proud rebel, and that is why you do not believe your God. Give up your rebellion; throw down your weapons; yield at discretion, surrender to your King. I believe that never did a soul throw up its hands in self-despair, and cry, "Lord, I yield, " but what faith became easy to it before long. It is because you still have a quarrel with God, and resolve to have your own will and your own way, that therefore you cannot believe. "How can ye believe," said Christ, "that have honor one of another?" Proud self creates unbelief. Submit, O man. Yield to your God, and then shall you sweetly believe in your Saviour. May the Holy Ghost now work secretly but effectually with you, and bring you at this very moment to believe in the Lord Jesus! Amen.”

A friend brought this passage of Spurgeon’s book to mind and I thought it worth sharing, not only for the unbeliever but for the church as well. “Throw down your rebellion” and cry “Lord, I yield!” and before long, faith will come easily.

You can pick up All of Grace in print from Amazon or some other online retailer. But it’s a short book and can be read online for free here.

One of my favorite Puritan authors, Ralph Venning (author of the classic The Sinfulness of Sin) shares a little saying with gigantic meaning.

“To this we must say that He who promised forgiveness to them that repent has not promised repentance to them that sin.”

I had to read it a couple times to get what he was saying.

In our sinful nature, we’re wont to take God’s grace for granted. To even try and use it to give ourselves permission to venture (however temporarily) into some sin.

Yet, while we may lean on God’s grace as free and unconditional, the conscious choice to venture into sin on the back of that grace may be evidence that we’re not the recipients of the grace we dare to use licentiously. God has promised forgiveness to everyone who repents. But, to those who see it as an opportunity to sin, perhaps God has not promised repentance.

Sin is a dangerous, dangerous thing.

Puritan author Daniel Cawdray says it better than I ever could. A classic thought to appreciate from a wise mind and heart:

As a heap of wheat, though it have chaff in it, is yet called wheat; or as a tun of wine, though it have lees in it, is yet called wine; or as a field where tares appear with the wheat is a cornfield; even so the visible Church is the Church. Though it consisteth of good and bad, and be mixed of the elect and reprobate, yet are they called God’s Church for the elect’s sake, and have their denomination from the better, not the bigger part.