The Sorrow of Covenant Infidelity

FORGET NONE OF HIS BENEFITS
volume 23, number 26, June 27, 2024

How lonely sits the city, Lamentations 1:1

The longer I live as a Christian the more I marvel at God’s covenant of grace with His people. One could summarize the entire Bible’s teaching with this—“I will be your God and you will be My people.” To make it more personal, God is saying to you who are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, “I will be your God and you will be My son, My daughter.” The more we see our own sin and the continual battle we have to live in joyful obedience to the lover of our souls, and how often we fail to do so, the more we marvel at His grace and patience with us. 

Having said this, however, it is still very true that God will chastise His people and often bring hardship upon them for covenant infidelity (Deut. 28, Heb.12:7-11, Rev. 3:19). Just as a husband’s unfaithfulness to his wife will bring all manner of destruction and hardship to his family, so covenant unfaithfulness to God will bring hardship on us. Surely we can see this playing out in our day in the western church. Our inner cities are consumed with corruption, violence, and poverty. We throw millions of dollars annually at the problems there but nothing seems to change. Our churches are losing members and influence in the world. We have some wonderful exceptions but generally the God-centered preaching that exalts Christ and debases man is losing ground. Christians are regularly excluded from the convocation of ideas. We are chastised for entering the public arena and we are so wimpy that being faithful until death (Rev. 2:10) rings hollow. It seems that many of us cannot be faithful even to ridicule. We are continuing to move rapidly from freedom to servitude at the hands of our federal government. Finally some in our government and media world are acknowledging the mass manipulation of power in the Covid pandemic with mask mandates, shutdowns of churches and other public places, and heavy pressure to take the Covid vaccine. Those of you over the age of sixty—did you ever think you would live to see such vast government encroachment? Once a government seizes power they do not give it up easily. The enemies of Christ and His cross seem to be overtaking us. If Christ has such power to transform people, families, and nations, then why are militant atheists winning a hearing? Why do Americans seem to have this strange death wish to get in bed with Islam, seeking appeasement like Europe with Hitler in the 1930’s? Why all of a sudden is there a worldwide push toward embracing transgenderism? This is insanity, madness. This wisdom is not from above but is earthly, natural, demonic (James 3:15). The church has become largely irrelevant in our society. As long as we “stay on the reservation” and sing our praise songs and preach our nice, little sermons the world does not mind. The moment, however, that we enter the public square and speak out against our diminishing freedom introduced by mask mandates and mandatory vaccines, or stand against homosexual “marriage”, or unrestrained immigration then we are told to get back where we belong, the reservation. Why is this happening in the western church?

The Apostle John’s vision of the glorified Christ reveals the Son of Man’s zeal for His glory and the work of His church. He is clothed with a robe, reaching to His feet, girded across His breast with a golden girdle. His head and His hair are white, like wool, like snow—thus proclaiming His righteousness and holiness. His voice is like the sound of many waters, portraying the mighty power of His gospel to be preached to all the nations. The sharp two-edged sword is the word of God that defends against ungodly accusation and destroys His enemies with gospel power. The seven stars in His right hand are the messengers of the seven churches, sent by Christ to make disciples, a multitude which no one can number, from every tongue, tribe, and nation. The Shekinah glory is on His face, the glory of the Spirit that fell at Pentecost. Following this revelation of King Jesus, we find that Jesus gives letters to the seven churches in Asia Minor. Only two received a clean bill of health in His examination. Ephesus was charged with leaving their first love and threatened with losing the lampstand (the church); and Laodicea was accused of being lukewarm and in danger of being violently rejected by Jesus. Bottom line—any church’s failure to carry out Christ’s two-fold mission—to save the lost and to sanctify or make holy the believer—will lose Jesus’ presence and power. Oh sure, the people can go through the motions and continue their programs and perhaps even draw large crowds with much activity, but the real party in over. We repeatedly see God’s rejection of His covenant people in the history of redemption. In Moses’ day, God gave His people over to the wilderness because of their unbelief (Numb. 14:22-23). In the day of the Judges, He raised up wicked kings because His people forgot Him (Judges 2:11-15). He brought the Assyrians and Babylonians due to Israel’s idolatry (2 Kings 17:6, 25:1ff). God brings judgment on His covenant people’s rebellion and unbelief. We see the same thing throughout church history. The strong vibrant church in North Africa in the pre and post Nicene period[1] was overrun by Muslims by the end of the first millennium. The same happened in Palestine and Jerusalem. Western Europe is becoming more and more Muslim, and the United States may not be far behind either. Churches that fail to evangelize and grow in holiness are good for nothing except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men (Mt. 5:13).

Jeremiah wrote Lamentations, a series of five Hebrew poems, to express his profound sorrow at the invasion of the Babylonians, the promised judgment of God upon their failure to carry out His marching orders (1 Kings 9:6-9). One cannot miss the profound grief and sorrow in his poetry. In Lamentations 1:1-5 we find Jeremiah lamenting the loss of Judah’s privilege (verse one) . . . He cries out at their loss of peace (verse two) . . . He grieves their loss of freedom (verse three) . . . He weeps over the loss of worshippers (verse four) . . . And he woefully acknowledges their loss of God’s glory (verse five). Indeed, how dark the gold has become (Lam. 4:1)! The former glory has been tarnished by the idols of pleasure, materialism, and selfish preoccupation. The beautiful city of Zion lay in ruins at the hands of godless and impetuous people (Habakkuk 1:1-11).

The church of Jesus in the western world must wake up before it is too late. What must we do? Briefly, I mention three things. First, we must see our own guilt. John Murray said that while Pentecost is never repeated, it is also never retracted.[2] The book of Acts is normative for the church. What goes on there ought to go on today in our churches—things like mighty prayer, mighty preaching, mighty conversions, mighty assemblies, mighty holiness, mighty grass roots evangelism, mighty compassion, mighty societal impact, mighty leadership, and mighty combat. If we see a mighty work of God in our day then He is the author of it. The first, fundamental issue is our guilty silence and unbelief. Second, we must gain an intolerable burden for the glory of God. Isaiah had it (Isaiah 64:1ff). So did Moses (Ex. 34:29ff), David (Ps. 2), and Paul (2 Cor. 4:6). When John Hyde came to India in 1892 he saw very little happening with the Hindu populace. His sense of desperation for the glory of God to be made known to the people was so overwhelming that he began to pray all night several times a year. Finally others joined him and mighty conversions followed, as many as twelve hundred per year—converted, baptized, and admitted to local churches. And third, we must acquire an indomitable hunger for the salvation of souls. Jeremiah had it (Jere. 15:16) and Jesus expected it of His disciples (Mt. 28:18-20, John 10:14-18). Howell Harris was converted in 1735 at the age of twenty-one and began immediately to preach the gospel in one-on-one venues, as well as in the open air, first before hundreds and then before thousands. His life was marked by a profound zeal for the salvation of sinners.

However, there is always hope in Jesus. There is only hope in Jesus. I will have more to say next week on what God will do through His covenant people. 

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1. The Nicene Creed was written in 325 A.D. to clarify the Bible’s teaching on the Trinity and the two nature’s of Jesus Christ. 
2.  The Collected Writings of John Murray, volume 3, page 311, Banner of Truth.