Scriptural Gospel and Biblical Worship

What I am suggesting here is that, in the current era of widespread apostasy, serious Christians need to think differently than they presently do about how the professing church is to be reformed and restored to Biblical order. Some of the traditional paradigms, which wait for reform and support to originate from within stagnant denominations, rest upon naïve and unrealistic expectations. Therefore, people with Reformed convictions must be willing to rise above the provincial thinking of our time and culture in order to assess the current ecclesiastical landscape from a more radical, Biblical perspective. In most cases, we must come to grips with the reality of just how far most institutional “churches” have degenerated from being true Gospel churches, and how outrageous it is, in such circumstances, for ecclesiastical leaders to demand the blind loyalty and submission of church members.

To alter our thinking in this manner may require a paradigm shift similar to that which occurred during the Protestant Reformation. Imagine the consternation, if you will, of the average person at the time of the Reformation, when he discovered that virtually everything he had been taught about the institutional church was wrong and required immediate amendment. One contemporary historian has rightly spoken of the shock or “alienation” experienced by members of sixteenth-century society, when everything familiar to them instantly became unfamiliar: “suddenly finding the pope to be the devil’s agent and the miracle of the Mass the most evil moment in their earthly experience.”

My friends, would it shock you to contemplate that our society is in a spiritual condition as destitute as
medieval Europe, before the Reformation took root? Are you prepared to evaluate whether “Reformed”
or “evangelical” churches truly hold to the Scriptural Gospel and Biblical worship? And if the existing
leaders in your church are tolerating corruptions of the Gospel and worship, and are abusing their position as “rulers,” are you willing to oppose them as usurpers, much as our Reformed forefathers resisted the pretentious claims of the papal priesthood?

To those who are elders: I entreat you to consider the true nature of a ministerial calling. If you genuinely desire the work of a bishop, then you have noble aspirations (1 Timothy 3:1). I implore you: Give heed to the admonition of the Lord, who charged the Apostle Peter,“Do you love me? …Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). Be not among the shepherds of Israel who “feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed the flocks?” (Ezekiel 34:1). Follow the example of the Great Shepherd who, when he saw the multitudes, “was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36).

Presently, great harm is being done to individual church members (and to the health of the church generally), because of the reckless behavior of church leaders. Consider the plight of the sheep who are being mistreated by those claiming to be leaders of the flock. If you desire to be a faithful church officer, is it not your duty to confront your peers, if they offend in this manner? Remember the example of the Apostle Paul, who withstood Peter “to his face, because he was to be blamed” (Galatians 2:11). Is it too much, then, to expect elders to rein in their erring brethren?

Finally, may we all labor to see the church restored as a harmonious community, where the Gospel, true worship, and charity are preeminent. To that end, we are reminded in the
Larger Catechism (#191), to pray“ that the church [be] furnished with all Gospel-officers and ordinances”; for the Lord himself instructs us: “The harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few; pray therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth laborers into his harvest” (Matthew 9:37-38).