Should churches be seeker-friendly?

It is plain, then, that the notion now of having a mixed worship of people, some converted and some not, is a direct contradiction of Christianity. It could not be otherwise before the cross. There was then no such thing as God separating His children from those that were not thus related to Him. It would have been a sin for a believing Israelite to have said to an unbeliever, I cannot worship with you, because you are not born of God. But now the sin is to join in God's worship with those who are not His children; and for this simple reason, that the Father is seeking true worshippers, and none but such, to worship Him. I do not mean that it is a sin for those not converted to be in the same place as spectators and hearers. But the attempt to join everybody in the worship of God is a fatal delusion, dishonouring to Himself and destructive to the souls of those that are not true worshippers. But people have not faith to stand separate from the world. They like to have the countenance of men; and, of course, it is trying to have to act decidedly. We are warned of God that, if we seek to please men, we should not be the servants of Christ. We must run the risk of paining them, but faithful are the wounds of a friend. Some confound hearing the gospel or other truth with worship. But they are totally different. In worshipping God, Christians offer up to God services of praise and thanksgiving. Worship is what goes from the believer to God; whereas, in the gospel or other ministry, it is a message coming down from God for the good of souls, for the instruction of believers, or for the conviction and salvation of unbelievers. But whether one or other be addressed, it is always that which comes from God to them, and not what goes from them to God; so that the confounding of these two things is a serious evil. Among many the thing which makes them attached to the old walls and routine is not the prayers, but because they hope to hear something good in the sermon. They entirely thus pass out of the condition of worshippers. Worship is the true expression of the heart's praise and thanks by the Holy Ghost, whether by an illiterate man or not. We know in the case of the apostles that they could not speak correctly (Acts 4); but, for all that, they were the chosen vessels of such a power of God as never visited this earth before or since, in men of like passions with ourselves. And I believe it is so still and always will be so. God chooses the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty. Although there may be a Paul brought in occasionally, this is the exception, and God never intends that the exceptions should become the role.

Let me press this also upon you, as self-evident, that if you are mingled, Christians and no Christians, men of the world and believers in Christ together, there cannot be worship in spirit and in truth. There never was, since the Lord announced its nature, real Christian worship where such mixture exists. The effect of the attempt is not that worldly persons are raised upward to the ground and power of worship in spirit and in truth, but that Christians must go down to the atmosphere of the worldly. That is to say, you abandon (and for what? or on whose authority?) all your own proper privileges. There are few things so dreadful as putting such language, the language of Christian nearness, into men's lips that are far from God. Among many, even among some called evangelicals, worship is in practice, as in principle, scarcely known. Persons who have outward forms do maintain it in name; but it is earthly and almost wholly false, being for the most part a kind of galvanic movement kept up among the dead; it is fatal for man, and profane in the sight of God. No, it is divine life and redemption that must be the basis of worship; and the Spirit of God alone is the power of carrying it on. As it is addressed to our God and Father in the name of the Lord Jesus, so is it offered on the principle of the unity of Christ's body. It is essentially above the pettiness of a sect, and its true character dies and vanishes before it can be made to express peculiar views. When God formed His church upon earth, there was no such thought as men making a draft of doctrine or a code of rules; neither should there be now. The church of God is the best school of doctrine: practically, we learn ourselves, and others, there as nowhere else; but it is God's doing while we are there, not before going in.

In Ezekiel 44:7, we come to another class of worldly fellowship, and that is in religion. One of the crying sins of Israel of old was that they brought in unbelievers in the temple worship, and the prophet is bid to “mark well the entering in of the house, with every going forth of the sanctuary”; and further, “No stranger, uncircumcised in heart, nor uncircumcised in flesh, shall enter into My sanctuary, of any stranger that is among the children of Israel.” Our sanctuary, we know, can only be entered by believers (Heb.10) in reality; but surely this plainly shows that in outward worship we cannot place believers and unbelievers together before God. It is not for us, of course, to try the hearts, and a hypocrite may creep in anywhere; but surely divine worship ought to be confined to the children of God. Indeed, none else can worship; and it is an awful mockery to see those who have no pretensions to be saved (not even the lip profession) joining with God's people in singing His praises. This is strangely like this very sin of Israel of old. We do not now speak of preaching the gospel. At all such services unbelievers have their right place; but these are surely perfectly distinct from the worship of believers, spiritually within the veil. In religion, therefore, we cannot place believers and unbelievers on a common footing.

What liberty of soul the knowledge of His being in the midst gives us, who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood! Those who look at such gatherings as a means of grace in order to obtain salvation, are wholly wide of the Lord's mind. Knowing that we have redemption in Christ and through His blood, we joyfully remember Him who redeemed us at such a cost; and being assured we are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus, and having received the Spirit of adoption, we "worship the Father in spirit and in truth." We remember that Jesus was for us on the cross, we see that He is for us in the glory, and we look for His coming again, when we shall be "for ever with the Lord." How is it possible that unbelievers could share in this, however amiable they may be? Scripture rather contemplates "an unbeliever" coming into such an assembly, and being so struck at what he saw and heard, as to "fall down and declare that God is in you of a truth." This we know has sometimes been the happy testimony of such.

If it be asked what is the character of the worship, we must refer to the preceding pages. It is Christian worship in its fullest sense — united, unhindered. If Church worship is of such a character, we need not say that only Christians can truly join in it. If otherwise, either the sinner would be elevated to a place he could not occupy, or the saint would be degraded to the level of a pleader for mercy. How unseemly for one who knows Christ and God's love to pray for deliverance from His "wrath and everlasting damnation." How unseemly, on the other hand, to put such words in the sinner's mouth as "We praise Thee, O God: we acknowledge Thee to be the Lord." And how utterly inconsistent and perplexing to make each utter both!

Now that chapter is specially concerned with the order to be observed by the saints in Corinth when they were gathered together as the assembly of God in that city. If they carried out the instructions given, things would be done "decently and in order," as the last verse of the chapter says. And not only so, but the church would be edified and God glorified; and this latter in such a powerful way that an unbeliever coming into their assembly would be greatly affected and constrained to confess that God was indeed amongst them.

In 1 Corinthians 14, the apostle Paul instructed the Christians at Corinth how they should behave when they came together in assembly. It was by the direction and inspiration of the Holy Spirit that he did it; and in verses 23-25 we learn that the same Holy Spirit was not indifferent to the “unlearned and unbeliever” that might come into their gathering, and Paul urges upon them that they should speak the word plainly and in the Spirit's power. The result of this would be that if “ there come in one that believeth not, or one unlearned , he is convinced of all, he is judged of all; and thus are the secrets of his heart made manifest: and so falling down on his face he will worship God, and report that God is in you of a truth.”

There must not only be a spiritual impulse, but that spiritual impulse must find expression according to the understanding under the direction of the Lord, and the spirits of the prophets must be subject to the prophets. A man ought to be able to control himself as being under the Lord's control in the assembly of the Lord. If he would be in an ecstasy, let it be in his own room and let him be beside himself to God alone, but in the assembly of God he must be sober, for in that assembly the Lord is the Administrator, and God is not the author of confusion but of peace. And in this connection the question arose as to speaking with tongues, and the apostle distinctly by the commandments of the Lord shows of what small value relatively this which these carnal Corinthians thought so much of was; he shows also into what contempt it might bring them, for he says, Suppose an unbeliever comes in, or an unlearned man, and you are all speaking with tongues, he will say you are mad; it will move his contempt. Display yourselves, and the only result will be the amusement of the onlooker. But, he says, if you prophesy, if you speak the word of God, and that can only be under the Lord's direction, his conscience will be searched, and he will fall down before you and confess that God is with you of a truth. I wonder, beloved Christians, how much of that there is in the gatherings with which we are acquainted. It seems to me that it brings out most wonderfully the character of the Lord's administration. Not only has He got edification for His own people in view, but He has got grace for the unbeliever coming in, He thinks of the outsider and His grace overflows to him, such is the blessedness of His administration.

The question is, Is it possible? It is here in the Word of God, and if we are prepared to walk according to the holiness of His Name and to feast upon the love of His heart, and to be enthusiastic and full of admiration for the wisdom of His mind, it seems to me that the Lord would manifest Himself in a gracious revival that would mean not only the gathering together and binding together and building up of the saints, but in blessing to the unbeliever who comes in by the way. And they would come, for grace would attract them, and they would not come in vain.

Moreover, the Church being thus assembled, the entire absence of any ritualistic system or order of "divine service" is made strikingly evident by the terms of the apostle's hypothesis. God's Spirit having His abode in the assembly, it is presumable that each of those present may have some sort of gift. Are they, then, to exercise them absolutely? or, are not a godly discrimination and discretion to be observed? This is plainly what is here implied. The effect of their all speaking with tongues would be to convey to an ungifted worshipper,9 and still more to an unbeliever, a suspicion of their madness. Ignorance would be stumbled, unbelief provoked to contempt. But if all prophesied, the effect would be an overwhelming conviction of the presence and power of God. The ignorant would find himself searched and enlightened; the unbeliever's proud indifference would be vanquished and shattered by the power of the truth, though not himself personally addressed; for when God speaks to men in their own language, there is a power in His words. The apostle does not mean to say that such are the ordinary effects of prophecy; he is purposely supposing a case, which, though possible, was not to be expected, and which is here stated solely for the purpose of manifesting more distinctly the essential difference existing between these contrasted forms of spiritual gift.

But allowing all this, as we do in the fullest possible manner, there is, as a rule, something lacking in connection with our public preachings. Is there not a want of that deep, personal, loving interest in souls which will express itself in a thousand ways that act powerfully on the heart? I confess that I have often been pained by what has come under my own notice in our preaching-rooms. Strangers come in and are left to find a seat wherever they can. No one seems to think of them. Christians are there, and they will hardly move to make room for them. No one offers them a Bible or hymn-book. And when the preaching is over, they are allowed to go as they came; not a loving word of inquiry as to whether they enjoyed the truth preached; not even a kindly look which might win confidence and invite conversation. On the contrary, there is a chilling reserve, amounting almost to repulsiveness.