When young converts begin to “damp off,” forsake the gatherings for prayer, and grow worldly, I almost always find that worldly Christianity is responsible for the first downward step. The mission of amusements is the devil’s half-way house to the world. It is because of what I have seen that I feel deeply, and would fain write strongly.

This thing is working rottenness in the Church of God, and blasting her service for the King. In the guise of Christianity, it is accomplishing the devil’s own work. Under the pretense of going out to reach the world, it is carrying our sons and daughters into the world; with the plea of “Do not alienate the masses with your strictness,” it is seducing the young disciples from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ. Professing to win the world, it is turning the garden of the Lord into a public recreation ground; and to fill the temple with those who see no beauty in Christ, a grinning Dragon is put over the doorway.

It will be no wonder if the Holy Ghost, grieved and insulted, withdraws His presence; for “what concord hath Christ with Belial, and what agreement hath the temple of God with idols?” (2 Corinthians 6:15).

“Come out!” is the call for today (Isaiah 49:9). Sanctify yourselves. Put away the evil from among you. Cast down the world’s altars and cut down her groves. Spurn her offered assistance. Decline her help, as your Master did with the testimony of devils, for “He suffered them not to speak, because they knew Him” (Mark 1:34).

Renounce all the policy of the age. Trample upon Saul’s armour. Grasp the Book of God. Trust the Spirit who wrote its pages. Fight with this weapon only and always; cease to amuse and seek to arouse. Shun the clap of a delighted audience, and listen for the sobs of a convicted one. Give up trying to “please” men who have only the thickness of the ribs between their souls and hell; and warn, and plead, and entreat, as those who feel the waters of eternity creeping upon them.

Let the Church again confront the world; testify against it; meet it only behind the cross; and, like her Lord, she shall overcome, and with Him share the victory.

— Excerpt from “The Devil’s Mission of Amusement” by Archibald Brown

 

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