07.02 Conventional Christianity

II. CONVENTIONAL CHRISTIANITY But notice again, the barren fig-tree cumbers the ground. This lifeless, unprogressive, conventional Christianity into which we are all so apt to slip, it also cumbers the ground. To give the force of the word in the parable, it does mischief to the ground; it is a waste of grace, a restraint upon the Spirit of God. It checks the enthusiasm of others, it tempts men to doubt whether there is any reality in our religion at all. Can we exaggerate the effect of the inconsistencies of Christians upon the minds of honest men, who are standing critical and suspicious without? Certainly we can never measure the damage which Christianity suffers in the eyes of the heathen when they take the average Englishman abroad as the type of his religion. But let us remember that just in proportion as we allow our Christian life to become dim, our will feeble, and our spirit listless, so we are contributing to this mass, this dead-weight, of staleness which lies so heavy upon the Christian Church, and buries the tokens of the living Christ through Whose presence it was meant to arise and shine. Truly, shall we exaggerate if we say that if God were merely just when He came and visited our life, He would say, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?”

TAGS: [Parables]