"A man planted a vineyard, dressing it with a fence and a place for the wine - press as well as a tower. Having so established the lot, he hired those who would work the lot to provide the results of the crop, and left for another district. When the time arrived for him to claim the due results of his investment, he sent one of his servants to collect these from the tenets, but instead of paying what was due, they took this servant and mistreated him, and sent him away empty handed" (Mark 12:1-4).
How do we take Jesus words here in the light of the current state of Christianity?
How would we apply them to the present?
THE ESTATE.
Condition 1 - The “immersed”
Entirely submersed by the prompts of the culture. See no need pragmatically, to be anything else than what the current culture requires of you. In effect, hoarding the actual calling we have, to produce fruit worthy of our calling, and adulterating this into something entirely self-serving. We become those who dress the vineyard only to aggrandise ourselves.
Condition 2 - The Partially aware.
Beginning to emerge - aware of at least some of what actually counts and beginning to be altered by that awareness.
Such life in a troubled state. They know more is required - that the cost may be high, now they must chose which direction they will take - who they will truly serve.
Condition 3 - Those made genuinely free by truth, who are in the midst of the fray.
Like those 'helpers' Christian met on the road in Pilgrim's Progress, they are commonly berated and abused by those who use the Lord's instruments only to ingratiate themselves or taint good means and ends.
The 'down curve' of the spiritual condition of the message and estate of the church was noted by C H Spurgeon in the the 'downgrade' controversy of the 1900's, but Martin Luther informed his associates that the rich, untainted strength and significance of the Gospel of justification would be lost 'within a generation' of its re-discovery, simply because men would arise quickly who would proclaim themselves of the same cloth as those who had re-discovered the truth, but in their aims and intentions, their essential message, would be very different to the vital truth He proclaimed concerning the work and means of Christ.
The consequences of these troubles became crucially apparent during the 17th century and the feeding of the West upon the nursing milk of the Enlightenment and its accompanying 'liberating' revolutions of human ascendance against the vital role of genuine Christ-centred truth, leading in its wake the bloody confusion that has come to dominate human existence for over a century.
The church has proved to be the hireling, either miss-managing the owners interests, or having no real means to supply to the Lord what is rightfully due when sent to provide and facilitate this, and the reason is simple. Since at least the middle of the 20th century (as noted in the work, 'Letter to the American Church'), the modern church has relented to laws and associated requirements that have effectively silenced his speaking to the wilder sections of the contemporary society, which has introduced such legislation as the means to silence the voice of the faith amongst the world - to make faith merely a 'private' matter, with no capacity to impact upon the behaviour or thinking of the contemporary closure of the message which calls us to the vital reckoning before God.
The belief is that such an estate brings escape from the day of consequence (it does not), but what of those 'servants' who chose to live "passive" through this day, who in effect entirely fail in their true service and perhaps even seek to use such an estate purely for their own ends?
If the last few years have surely taught us anything, it is that such duplicitous living cannot continue, and we must detach ourselves from this, or all indeed will be lost for good.
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