Christ Wants His Church Back!

As a result of the Fall of mankind into sin (Gen.3), men have worked very hard to ruin, destroy and spoil Christ's church on earth, and make her their own.  You hear the cry from church Christians, "It's my church," or "It's our church."  When they say this very often they mean that they run and control it, and no one else.  Now Christ wants her back as His only Bride.

Sinners have reaped havoc on Christ's Bride, aided and abetted by Satan, the great adversary of the Church.  This unholy collaboration of man and Satan has left the church where she is today - loveless, unholy, powerless, unattractive, not useful or 'fit for purpose,' repellent, and almost dead spiritually.  Together man and Satan have made her into a disgraceful thing, a thing of reproach, and something God is ready to disown.  She has become self-willed, stubborn, rebellious, disobedient, and wayward.  She has committed spiritual adultery by running after other gods which are no gods, by cavorting with them and by submitting herself to them, and allowing them to do whatever they wanted to and with her.  She has no want of suiters and lovers.  She has gone after them shamelessly and has committed adultery with them in broad daylight.

Men like a church like that, do they not?  One they can control and run after for their own pleasure.  They have treated her as a man treats a prostitute - use her to get from her what fills their own lusts and inordinate desires.  But they do not love her as she deserves to be loved; nor do they cherish her or give themselves for her well-being.  They use her - for the baptism of children, to get their young people into full church membership and to come to the Lord's Table, to ensure that their children are married in church despite their having been living together for some time prior to the marriage, and have their deceased relatives given a proper burial.  So long as they get all these things and services, they are content.  They just use the church for their own ends.

But someone might object, "But Christ never lost His church!  She always belonged to Him.  Is that not what the word 'church' means - belonging to the Lord?" Fair point.  But what we must accept is that men, when they got their sinful hands on the church, wrested her from Him so far as the doing of His will is concerned.  Why have the churches of Asia Minor been put out of existence so soon after John wrote his letters to those seven churches?  Why is the true Christian church no longer visible and working in Rome, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessaloniki, Collossae, Phillippi, Galatia, etc?  Because men wrested her from her Lord and destroyed her.

What a warning this is to us today.  Oh, how careful we must be as to how we behave within the church of Jesus Christ.  How careful that we by our endeavours, push Christ off His rightful place within the church and replace Him with man-made institutions.

Christ wants His church back.  She does not belong to you.  She never belonged for you.  She belongs to Christ; He bought her with His own blood.  She is His prize possession.  Whatever possessed you to take her from Him?  He wants her back and He will get her back and woe betide the man who tries to hold on to what does not belong to him?