Chapter 68

HALF-AND-HALF CHURCHES.

There is a verse in Revelation that presents a nauseated Christ: "Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth."

After we have been taking a long walk on a summer day, or been on a hunting chase, a draught of cold water exhilarates. On the other hand, after standing or walking in the cold air and being chilled, hot water, mingled with some beverage, brings life and comfort to the whole body; but tepid water, neither hot nor cold, is nauseating.

Now, Christ says that a church of that temperature acts on him as an emetic: I will spew thee out of my mouth.

The church that is red hot with religious emotion, praying, singing, working, Christ having taken full possession of the membership, must be to God satisfactory.

On the other hand, a frozen church may have its uses. The minister reads elegant essays, and improves the session or the vestry in rhetorical composition. The music is artistic and improves the ear of the people, so that they can better appreciate concert and opera.

The position of such a church is profitable to the book-binder who furnishes the covers to the liturgy, and the dry-goods merchants who supply the silks, and the clothiers who furnish the broadcloth. Such a church is good for the business world, makes trade lively and increases the demand for fineries of all sorts, for a luxurious religion demands furs and coats, and gaiters to match. Christ says he gets along with a church, cold or hot.

But an unmitigated nuisance to God and man is a half-and-half church, with piety tepid. The pulpit in such a church makes more of orthodoxy than it does of Christ. It is immense on definitions. It treats of justification and sanctification as though they were two corpses to be dissected. Its sermons all have a black morocco cover, which some affectionate sister gave the pastor before he was married, to wrap his discourse in, lest it get mussed in the dust of the pulpit. Its gestures are methodical, as though the man were ever conscious that they had been decreed from all eternity, and he were afraid of interfering with the decree by his own free agency.

Such a pulpit never startles the people with the horrors of an undone eternity. No strong meat, but only pap, flour and water, mostly water. The church prayer-meeting is attended only by a few gray heads who have been in the habit of going there for twenty years, not because they expect any arousing time or rapturous experiences, but because they feel only a few will be there, and they ought to go.

The minister is sound. The membership sound. The music sound. If, standing in a city of a hundred thousand people, there are five or ten conversions in a year, everything is thought to be "encouraging." But Christ says that such a church is an emetic. "Because thou art neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth."

My friends, you had better warm up or freeze over. Better set the kettle outside in the atmosphere at zero, or put it on the altar of God and stir up the coals into a blaze. If we do not, God will remove us.

Christian men are not always taken to heaven as a reward, but sometimes to get them out of the way on earth. They go to join the tenth-rate saints in glory; for if such persons think they will stand with Paul, and Harlan Page, and Charlotte Elizabeth, they are much mistaken.

When God takes them up, the church here is better off. We mourn slightly to have them go, because we have got used to having them around, and at the funeral the minister says all the good things about the man that can well be thought of, because we want to make the funeral as respectable as possible. I never feel so much tempted to lie as when an inconsistent and useless Christian has died, and I want in my final remarks to make a good case out for the poor fellow. Still, it is an advantage to have such a man get out of the way. He is opposed to all new enterprises. He puts back everything he tries to help. His digestion of religious things is impaired, and his circulation is so poor that no amount of friction can arouse him.

Now, it is dangerous for any of you to stay in that condition. If you cannot be moved, God will kill you, and He will put in your place those who will do the work you are neglecting.

My friends, let all arouse! The nearness of our last account, the greatness of the work to be done, and the calls of God's word and providence, ought to stir our souls. After having been in the harvest field so long it would be a shame in the nightfall of death to go home empty-handed. Gather up a few gleanings from the field, and beat them out, that it may be found that Ruth had at least "one ephah of barley."