How to Respond to Decline in the Church
John Owen (1616-1683) was an English scholar, theologian, chaplain, tutor, pastor, vicar, dean of Christ Church College, and author.
In Searching Our Hearts in Difficult Times, Owen exhorts his readers to live by faith in times when the church at large is in a season of decline. Owen’s words are certainly timely for the western church today.
notwithstanding all circumstances, Christ has built his church upon the rock, so that nothing shall prevail against it.
I have now arrived at my last point… How we are to live by faith under an apprehension of a great and sad decline in churches, in church membership, and in believers, and in the gradual withdrawal of God’s glory from among us because of this… What is the work of faith appropriate to this state? If things are as described, and our souls are burdened by our awareness of it, then what will faith do to ensure that we pass through this trial to live unto God?
Faith will remind the soul that, notwithstanding all circumstances, Christ has built his church upon the rock, so that nothing shall prevail against it. ‘The promise,’ says faith, ‘extends also to the internal enemies of our souls—unbelief, deadness, and all other things—just as much as to our outward enemies.’ Though we are all dead, helpless, lifeless creatures; though we have preserved almost nothing but our outward order and have lost all our vigor and life of faith and obedience; yet Christ’s church will abide and stand, and those that belong to him will be kept…
Faith will also remind the soul that God still has the fullness and portion of the Spirit, and can pour it forth when he pleases, to recover us from this sad state, and renew us to holy obedience to himself… He is able, by one act of his power, to destroy all his enemies and make them the footstool of Christ, when he pleases. Live in the faith of this…
God has some great purpose to fulfill in it, and afterwards all will be well.
3. When your souls are perplexed over these things, your faith will say to you, ‘Why are you cast down, O my soul?’ Were not all these things foretold to you? ‘In later times some will depart from the faith’ (1 Tim. 4:1); ‘In the last days there will come times of difficulty,’ because there will be men ‘having the form of godliness, but denying its power (2 Tim. 3:1–5). It has been foretold to you that churches will decay and lose their first faith and love… As it was foretold that this is how it should be, ‘let us live by faith.’ God has some great purpose to fulfill in it, and afterwards all will be well. ‘When the Lord has finished all his work on Mount Zion and on Jerusalem,’ then ‘he will punish the speech of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria’ (Isa. 10:12).
faith, if it is exercised, will stir up every soul that possesses it to attend particularly to those duties that God requires at such a time.
4. Lastly, faith, if it is exercised, will stir up every soul that possesses it to attend particularly to those duties that God requires at such a time. This will then fulfill and complete our living by faith under such a trial. If we have faith, and exercise it, it will move us:
To examine ourselves as to how far we have been caught up in these decays and have contracted their guilt;
To mourn greatly, because of God’s departure from us;
To watch ourselves, and one another, carefully that we should not be taken over by the causes and attitudes of this decay;
To zeal for God and for the honor of his gospel, that they might not suffer because of our mistakes.
…This is what we are called to, what is required of us: to have faith in the faithfulness of Christ who has built his church upon the rock so that however bad things may be, nothing will prevail against it; to have faith in the fullness of the Spirit and Christ’s promise to send him to renew the face of the church; to have faith in apprehending the truth of God, who has foretold these things; and to have a faith that stirs us up to attend to those special duties that God requires at our hands at such a time.