Showing Your Faith in the Plan of God

Living in a World Gone Mad as An Ordinary Christian

Good Morning,

A forefather of the faith that I think it would be good for most American Presbyterians to know more about is a fellow by the name of Thomas Chalmers. He was a man of no uncommon intelligence who at the same time never paraded his abilities over those under his care. He is most well-known as a Nineteenth-century Presbyterian minister in Scotland who defended the gospel of grace against moderates and liberals who wanted to change the church to follow the culture. Chalmers is also remembered fondly by the poor and those in need for doing much good work to cleanse what today we would call “the projects” in the smog-choked cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh. He witnessed what was possible when the people of God remember that the Lord would have them do more than just exist and half-heartedly notice their callings.

Over the last couple of months for our Tuesday prayer and worship help we’ve been talking about religion, politics, and a right way for Christians to think about how their faith interacts with both church and state. As you might imagine we are not the first people to ask questions about it. Going back to Lamech and his sons abandoning the blessings of God to the way the apostle John writes of the kings of the Earth aligning themselves with the Beast to persecute the saints in the book of Revelation there are a lot of places we could go in the Bible to see where men and women struggle in how to deal with living in a world crestfallen with sin and misery.

A way that Thomas Chalmers can help us think through how to exist when we don’t really know what to do is think through what we are here to do and to be. If I asked any Presbyterian what God made them for it would be “To Glorify God and Enjoy Him Forever”, and they would be right. Often our first reaction to trouble is to run, abandon what we know, and then try to reinvent the wheel. While Chalmers was not an Associate Reformed Presbyterian (since he wasn’t from South Carolina) he experienced something similar to what our ancestors did in the days of Ebenezer and Ralph Erskine. The Church of Scotland in the 1830s and 1840s had begun to embrace teachings that were against what ordinary Bible believers would recognize as Christianity. Barely a hundred years after the Seceders fled over men denying the power of the cross and the preaching of the gospel, here Chalmers and others found themselves in similar waters. Now, if you know the story of our denomination it seems like it would be kind of weird for me to say we shouldn’t run away when that’s seemingly what the Erskine’s and Chalmers did, but I am here to tell that they didn’t really do that. In both their cases they sought refuge outside the established church in order that they might witness to its need for reformation.

That is an important idea to consider when we look at the world around us. Not all of us grew up in what we would call confessionally Reformed denominations. What I mean by that in my own story is while you could call the PCUSA a church which at one time held to a system of doctrine that was Reformed and Presbyterian it was merely symbolic when I came around. It’s kind of like when you hear certain people talk about the Constitution. They might be referring to the same thing James Madison wrote, but they don’t really believe what he said in there. That kind of politician is merely interested in using familiar words and phrases rather than putting into practice what it teaches. The same can be said of many who may be a part of a historic and older congregation. There is the form there, but not the life.

The point being made here is that merely because so much of the church around us may be giving up on the truths of the Reformation and those things which our ancestors held dear in order to find a way forward does not then mean we should. I tell a story of our own history that is somewhat a humorous tale about how Bethany first got an organ. In the late 1800s Bethany was one of the few Presbyterian churches in our area which still sang the psalms without the aid of a musical instrument. A perennial issue that always has been with us is the question as to what to do to keep the young people in worship. Our elders struggled with it as well. In their day the First Presbyterian Church of York was one of the “cool” churches, and one of the largest in our area. They had recently purchased and installed an expensive organ and hired a quite well-qualified man to play it, to such an extent that youth would flock to special services down there just to hear him tickle the ivories and press the pedals. The decision was made that the solution to keep our teenagers engaged would be to buy and install our own organ, going away from what had been a confessional practice.

Whether that is right or wrong not is not really the point, but it was how that change took place which speaks to what we are talking about today. Back to Thomas Chalmers for a second. When the decision was made in 1843 to “quit” the Church of Scotland and set-up the Free Church there was a lot that went into it that is helpful for us as we look at the world around us and wonder what we as the people of God gathered together in Christ are to do. In the coming weeks we are going to bring forward particular examples from Chalmers experience that can make a lot of sense for those of us dealing with stuff in 2024.

In closing, the foundational truth which keeps us together as we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, and as so much of what we used to be able to trust lets us down, is the simple reality that our Heavenly Father, our Redeemer Jesus Christ, and the blessed Holy Spirit are the same yesterday, today, and forever. We are called to rest in His ways and His structures because they are perfectly designed for the blessing of His covenant people, and through them all the world. It is very important that we not lose hope in what God would have us to do, for to think ourselves wiser than Him is a recipe for trouble, as contemporary historic denominations witness to us every day as they crumble and close at an alarming rate.

Here’s a word more:

https://www.reformedclassicalist.com/home/a-brief-defense-of-confessions

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church