02.27. The Blight of Irreverence

Chapter 27 THE BLIGHT OF IRREVERENCE.

According to the dictionaries, reverence is made up of fear and awe, mingled with respect and esteem. In public worship it is this spirit which secures that "decency and order" contended for by the apostle in one of his epistles. As a Christian grace and excellence it is simply essential to the character and life of the child of God. In studying the realm in which reverence should have sway, we see at once that it lays claim upon the human body.

It is not a matter of indifference to God as to how men approach his presence and deport themselves before him. The Scripture is careful to note the profound humbling, the solemn waiting, the actual position in prayer, and the spirit which must reign within us if we would hear from Heaven.

Reverence also necessarily lays its hand upon our speech, in view of the Infinite and Almighty Being whom we address. And here again on account of the ignorance and presumption of human nature, God has seen fit to lay down in his Word the forms of language with which we should come to him in prayer and at the hour of public worship. At these two points mentioned above, speech and conduct, we have noticed that Irreverence breaks in to the injury and grief of earth and heaven.

Let any one study the Saviour’s tender, reverent prayer to his Father in the seventeenth chapter of John, and read Paul’s solemn supplications in his epistles, and then tell us where do people of today get their authority and example for the shocking familiarity with which they handle the divine name, and address the Holy Eternal One in public service.

We have heard men say not only "Dear Jesus," but "Dear God!" in public prayer. In the same solemn hour we have heard men indulge in witticisms, make puns, and crack jokes! In letters written to us by good people, we have been many times distressed with an expression they used--"Father told me to do so and so." If we had not read some preceding sentences we would naturally have supposed that they were speaking of an earthly parent. In private prayer we may use terms in speaking with the Lord, that we cannot employ in public worship or in a letter to another.

Then Christ can say "Father" as none of us can; and we should remember that he told us to say "Our Father." The expression then in the letter, or spoken in the testimony meeting, that "Father told me," etc., is not only a selfish, monopolizing claim, but a speech of wretched taste, and full of ignorance and irreverence. In a town in the State of Washington, a preacher told us that a founder of one of the recent ecclesiasticisms, laid a dime upon the altar rail, and actually commanded God to make it a thousand dollars! This shocking scene was witnessed by several hundred people. Here was the violation of veneration in the double sense--of speech and action; and in that two-fold violation of word and conduct we see Irreverence sweeping over the land today.

Strange to say that much of this unholy familiarity we see in the ranks of God" people, is a rebound from the formality and deadness of certain frozen churches. As we study the matter in history and life, we see that if a proper homage and awe is not preserved by the presence of the Holy Ghost, then Ceremonialism, and a freezing Formalism takes its place. Then should there come a sweeping revival on full salvation lines, the people delivered from an actual thralldom, and made consciously free, are in peril of swinging to an opposite extreme. The congregation is in danger of acting like a mob, and the services take on the racket and chatter of a business exchange, and at times remind one of pandemonium. This was the "confusion" which Paul declared that God was not the author of. And this was why he plead for "decency and order."

We have nothing to say against the stir, noise, outcries and shouts about the altar, where Christians are laboring with penitents and seekers, and getting them with glad hallelujahs into the Fountain of Cleansing. We refer to the regular worship where in the use of appointed means of grace we are seeking to have audience with a Holy God, and bring his Spirit down upon the people. We are pleading for the respect and adoration that we owe to our great Creator and Redeemer, and to the place and house of worship where he has promised to reveal himself to those who humble themselves and tremble at his Word.

There is nothing in Christianity to injure so beautiful a grace as reverence, but Christians may have manners and methods that will surely work its harm and destruction. There is nothing about Holiness to destroy such a lovely, adorning virtue, but we have seen here and there in the Holiness movement, things that will certainly wound it to death.

We have heard God’s name handled so familiarly and irreverently in some of our meetings as to border on profanity and sacrilege. Here was irreverence in speech. As to conduct, we know but few meetings in the field of active work where we do not see scores of people whispering and talking during the singing of the hymns, and even during the season of prayer. This is never beheld in the Churches which some people are so fond of abusing. In a town in one of the Middle States, as we drew near one morning to the hall where our gospel services were being held, we heard a perfect babel of tongues before entering the door. As we entered, instead of finding the people silent, meditative and prayerful before the opening of a meeting on which much depended, we were almost deafened with the clatter of gossipy speech.

Dozens of women were talking loudly, several groups were indulging in bursts of laughter, and it was not the religious laugh, while a lad of eight years of age seated at the open piano, was banging on the keys with might and main.

One of the prominent workers in this hall had expressed regret to me in a previous conversation that the church as a body had held aloof from this work. As we surveyed the sickening scene just described we felt we could understand in a great measure why and where the aloofness came in.

We cannot count the meetings where we have known people claiming the highest experience of grace keep up a constant buzz and whisper while others were pleading with God for the outpouring of his Spirit. It is certainly a spectacle never to be forgotten to see the singers on their knees, and at the same time running through the hymn book, looking for the next selection.

Sometimes they have condescended to give various little grunts and groans to let the prayers and pleaders around know that they had an ear open to what was transpiring; but this simply added hypocrisy to irreverence and filled observant sinners with amusement, and many of God’s people with pain and grief. A few months since the writer had called the people to their knees to implore the divine blessing and favor on the service of the hour. Fancying that we heard various disturbing sounds, we looked up, and saw about half the people were on their knees, and the other part of the congregation was sitting bolt upright and gazing around. Five or six couples among the kneelers were whispering to each other while simulating the attitude of prayer. Several were examining the pages of their hymn books. One brother seemed to be counting some money that had been contributed, a second was reading a letter, and a third was adding up some figures with a lead pencil on a piece of crackling white paper. All of these three were on their knees. And all this was going on in a Full Salvation meeting.

Now does any one believe that such dishonor of the Divine One can be practiced without results of the gravest and most lamentable character taking place? We barely mention two.

One is a certain injury and blight upon our own souls. We may think we are proving our liberty and are free, but we are surely losing more than we gain. Some of the tenderest and most sacred sensibilities of the soul are certain to perish if we thus treat God, and thus carelessly and familiarly handle the precious, holy things of Heaven.

We believe that the devil tempts the people of God as much to be irreverent as he does sinners to be profane. He knows the blunting, deadening and hardening of the soul which is certain to ensue, and so urges Christians on in this direction. Who with any experience at all has not felt repeatedly and violently moved within to extravagance of speech and conduct, and even farther, to this dreadful familiarity of speech and manner towards God.

Some yield to the temptation, and think they are free in the Gospel, when they have swung clear away and out of a proper Christian liberty and entered the realm of irreverence. Would they declare the exact truth after one of these displays of apparent liberty, they would confess to a strange sense of emptiness and deadness that came upon the soul the instant they took their seat, and before the echo of their words had died away upon the ears of a remarkably silent congregation. A second injury will be wrought on the Holy Cause itself which we profess and love.

People will judge the tree by its fruits. And when they notice disregard for certain spiritual decencies and proprieties, and a kind of pandemonium, instead of that godly fear, holy awe, and reverent waiting upon God as commanded in the Scripture, and which characterizes true worship, they are going to be properly offended and will undoubtedly have nothing to do with us. Holiness with them will stand for racket, uproar, disorder and lack of veneration and godly fear.

We repeat that not a word is here said against that necessary confusion about the altar, where we are praying, pleading, shouting and helping souls through into pardon and holiness. Not a word is uttered against the manifestations and commotions which are certain to come from the anointings and outpourings of the Holy Ghost upon the worshipping assembly. We do not, and would not lay the weight of a feather upon true spiritual freedom. It is the working of the "flesh" that we deplore. It is the spirit and practice of irreverence that is steadily gaining ground in our midst against which we lift up our voice in lamentation and in condemnation.

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