Originally posted by enda:
Spurgeon on separation :
Separation from the world will endear you to the Savior, and bring you into conscious enjoyment of his presence; but, of opportunities to return there is no lack. READ MORE
The passage in question, in the context of Hebrews, is talking about returning to a non-saved state. Just as Abraham did not even think about what life was like back in Ur, CHristians should not think about what life was like without their salvation. We have been called from that. Spurgeon, for the most part, talks about specific sin - how Christians shouldn't return to sin and carnality (There are two or three paragraphs in which he advocates complete separation, but offers no Scriptural support thereof). Is music a sin? WHere is your Biblical proof for this?
The heart which ought to be given to Christ and purity must not wander forth wantonly to woo the defiled and polluted things of this present evil world. Separation from the world is Christ's prayer for us. READ MORE
I found this very interesting. I wonder how much his view of the doctrines of grace affects his belief that Christians should separate completely from the world. What I understand from his view of separation is that a Christian should continue to live further and further away from sin. We should be on a pursuit of holiness. With this I agree.
However, Spurgeon says that separation is the "crux and burden" of Christians. I would vehemently disagree. I would say that the "crux and burden" of Christians is to love God and love our neighbor. Sanctification is, indeed, a pursuit of holiness. However, nothing in the passage that he uses indicates that we should not try to influence the world showing them the culture of Christ, and nothing in the passage indicates that music is somehow sinful. The burden of proof still rests upon enda here.
Brethren, the use of the Church in the world is that it should be like salt in the midst of putrefaction; but if the salt has lost its savour, what is the good of it? If it were possible for salt itself to putrefy, it could but be an increase and a heightening of the general putridity. The worst day the world ever saw was when the sons of God were joined with the daughters of men. Then came the flood; for the only barrier against a flood of vengeance on this world is the separation of the saint from the sinner. Your duty as a Christian is to stand fast in your own place, and to stand out for God, hating even the garment spotted by the flesh, resolving like one of old that, let others do as they will, as for you and your house, you will serve the Lord. READ MORE
A couple of paragraphs before, Spurgeon states, "We cannot be fishers of men if we remain among men in the same element with them. Fish will not be fishers. The sinner will not convert the sinner. The ungodly man will not convert the ungodly man!" That's exactly right. We cannot win souls to Christ if we are sinning right along with them. I think this speaks toward McManus' second point. Later on, Spurgeon says, "If we desire, as fishers of men, to be largely used of God, we must copy our Lord Jesus in everything, and obey Him in every point." If that means attending parties with alcohol (John 2) in order to show them the power of God, so be it. If that means that we should eat lunch with prostitutes and tax collectors, so be it. If that means we sit on a well and have a conversation with the town laughingstock, so be it. I am willing to interact in the world and show them the culture of Christ. I am willing to judge what they do last, instead loving first. I am willing to reach out to a lost and dying world using the tools that GOd has given us. I am not willing to sin to do so. In this way, I am copying Jesus Christ.
Do not many of God's people also need to bemoan their worldliness? Once Christ was all with you, brethren; is it so now? Once you despised the world, and contemned alike its pleasures and its frowns; but now, my brethren, are not the chains of worldly custom upon you? Are you not many of you enslaved by fashion, and eaten up with frivolity? Do you not, some of you, run as greedily as worldlings after the questionable enjoyments of this present life? Ought these things to be so? Can they remain so and your souls enjoy the Lord's smile? "Ye cannot serve God and mammon." "If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." You cannot be Christ's disciples, and be in fellowship with the ungodly. Come ye out from among them; be ye separate; touch not the unclean thing; then shall ye know right joyfully that the Lord is a Father to you, and that you are his sons and daughters. But, brethren, have ye gone unto Jesus without the camp, and do ye abide there with him? Is the line of your separation visible—ay, is it existing? Is there any separation at all? Is it not often the case that the professed people of God are mixed up with the sons of men so that you cannot discern the one from the other? If it be so with anyone of us, let him humble himself, and let him cry in bitterness, "Oh that I were as in months past." READ MORE
"Is it not often the case that the professed people of God are mixed up with the sons of men so that you cannot discern the one from the other?" If this is the case, then we have lost our effectiveness as Christians. SPurgeon then adds, appropriately enough, "How is it with your love to the souls of sinners? There was a time when you would have done anything to bring a man to Christ, when any exertion you could have put forth would have been made spontaneously, without the need of incessant exhortations; are you as ready to speak for Jesus now as you once were?" Spurgeon is not talking about the same separation we see anti-CCM people espouse. He's talking about making a difference in people's lives.
Only in separation is salvation. READ MORE
This passage comes from a paragraph that is parenthetical to his sermon. In this passage, he talks about the kind of separation that you refer to - this is the kind of separation we see in point one of McManus'. "Had Mrs. Noah been like some of you she would have said, 'The girls cannot go out to any more parties, and our sons are shut out from all society. We are out of the world, and shall soon be forgotten.' Yes, yes, and Noah was glad of it, since it was the Lord that shut him in. When the Lord shuts you off from the world, you are best alone." Interestingly enough, he provides no real support for this, especially in light of those followers of God who did not separate themselves from the world. Why, if we were to follow what Spurgeon says in this passage, we would expect all of us to live in communes away from the world completely. He says we should have "faith enough to dwell alone."
but this is the real meaning of the present-day religion; this is the drift of the times. I can justify the broadest statement I have made by the action or by the speech of certain ministers, who are treacherously betraying our holy religion under pretence of adapting it to this progressive age. The new plan is to assimilate the church to the world, and so include a larger area within its bounds. By semi-dramatic performances they make houses of prayer to approximate to the theatre; they turn their services into musical displays, and their sermons into political harangues or philosophical essays—in fact, they exchange the temple for the theatre, and turn the ministers of God into actors, whose business it is to amuse men. Is it not so, that the Lord's-day is becoming more and more a day of recreation or of idleness, and the Lord's house either a joss-house full of idols, or a political club, where there is more enthusiasm for a party than zeal for God? Ah me! the hedges are broken down, the walls are levelled, and to many there is henceforth, no church except as a portion of the world, no God except as an unknowable force by which the laws of nature work. READ MORE
And this, as you can imagine, is the sermon I find the most contention with.He starts off well, talking about how our doctrine should not give in to what "modern thought" tells us, saying that man is basically good and a person need only act as best as he can to make it into heaven. He then commits an egregrious error. He lumps all these things into one - in other words, if a church tries to widen its boundaries to include (or attract) more people, then that church is becoming a house full of idols. There must be more enthusiasm for the party than for God, otherwise, why would a church do such a thing?
What Spurgeon does not understand, possibly because many churches have changed, is that this is not necessarily the case. Who here can say that churches such as Saddleback Community Church or Northpoint Community Church, (which use praise and worship music, offer free coffee and cappocinos in their lobby, and has many of their congregants wearing jeans), is a house of idols, with more enthusiasm for a party than for God, when their conversions far, far exceed many other churches in the world? Spurgeon commits a logical fallacy called a false generalization. Not all churches who use certain types of music or who are committed to expand their audience to reach out to a lost and dying world are doing the things that Spurgeon says will happen. Some are, but in the Baptist world, the majority who do such things are not houses of idol or recreation.
It is my hope that the church can adapt to this progressive age. In that stance, I take a position opposite to Spurgeon.
