HOW GOD’S WORK TRIUMPHS TODAY
EVEN IN AN APPARENT REJECTION AND FAILURE
by Peter MastersFROM SWORD & TROWEL 2000 No
4
Upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not
prevail against it (Matthew 16.18).
IN A DAY of small things can it really be said that God’s work is
triumphant? When most sound evangelical congregations are small, and when worldliness
and false doctrine overwhelm even many of these, can it be said that the gates of hell shall
never prevail against the church?
Yes, it may be said, because no matter how bleak the situation may seem, the
Lord is always triumphant, in every age, against the enemies of Truth, and this may be seen
in a number of ways. This article is about the triumphs and accomplishments of the Gospel
even in the darkest times.
The ‘rock’, in the text, we take to be Peter’s great confession of faith,
because this is the only interpretation which makes sense. Peter personally was certainly not
the rock or the foundation of the church. We read elsewhere that all the apostles were the
foundation, in the sense that they, along with certain prophets, were channels for the New
Testament Word. In Acts and Galatians, in places
where significant leaders are named, James is actually mentioned before Peter, and we
cannot forget that Paul had to rebuke Peter for a very great error. The Church of Rome has
no ground for the claim that Peter was the first pope, as there was no pope in New
Testament churches, for each church was autonomous, and Christ was the Head of each
one.
Supremely, the rock on which the church is built is Jesus Christ,
and faith in Him as Redeemer and Lord. Profession of Him is the entrance to life, and the
basis of church membership, and congregations of Christian people will only survive if
sound professions of faith are required for membership. Wherever these become minimal,
nominal and shallow (usually the case in today’s seeker-sensitive churches) a congregation
has no adequate or lasting foundation.
The high point of evangelical purity seen in Nonconformist denominations in
the middle of the nineteenth century, ended when sound professions ceased to be the
foundation of their congregations. Slowly at first, but with quickening pace into the
twentieth century, people entered into church membership with shallow or unsound
professions. Local churches accepted members by transfer from other congregations without
examination. Mass evangelism pumped in thousands of new members who often had no
real idea what they were professing. Second and third-generation ‘Christians’ with only
nominal religion gained membership too easily, and a new kind of minister came on the
scene who asked for nothing more than vague affirmation.
The collapse of these once-sound denominations came about because the all-
important foundational profession of Christ was disregarded. Christ’s promise that the gates
of hell would not prevail over the church was clearly subject to this vital condition - that
the rock of a sound profession must ever be maintained.
The ‘gates of hell’ portray thick, impregnable fortress-gates, standing as a
symbol of hostility and death. A vicious war is waged against true churches by the enemy of
souls. This may take the form of physical persecution, or of the intellectual attack of
atheism and biblical criticism, or of the cunning infiltration of error, or of pollution by
affluence and worldliness (modern idolatry). These gates, however, shall never prevail over
well-grounded churches.
We look back across the centuries of church history and see times of great
spiritual victory, such as mighty seasons of reformation and revival. But what about today?
In an age when ignorance and depravity reign, where is the victory of the Lord’s churches?
We could reply that one must look not just at the British Isles, but at the
worldwide situation, for in some places great advances are being made by the Gospel. This
would be a reasonably valid response to our question, but should not the victory be seen in
every region, and in every theatre of war?
We could also reply that seemingly barren times often lead to a season of
great blessing, and for all we know this may take place in the British Isles, so that it could
be said of us, ‘The God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.’ We would then
say that ‘the day of small things’ was intended to provide a contrast, so that the scope and
scale of God’s work would be gloriously magnificent. However, this is a hoped-for triumph,
not one at present possessed.
Here we shall look at some of the victories of the Gospel that are particularly
noticeable or significant in times of apparent decline and godlessness.
TRIUMPH 1
First, God’s power and grace are especially manifested in ‘the day of small
things’ because every individual believer represents a most astonishing victory
over the ‘gates of hell’. Anyone rescued from drowning is a life saved, but much more
honour surrounds a victim snatched from ferocious rapids, than one lifted from calm
shallows.
Every convert at a time like the present is a most amazing trophy of grace
because all cultural and educational programming is bitterly against the faith. The natural
instincts, tastes and desires of people have been inflamed against conversion to God. The
unsaved person is surrounded by friends, neighbours, colleagues, and possibly even
relations, who laugh faith to scorn.
In past ages the Gospel had to contend with Rome, but even that empire
was somewhat religious and moral. And in the nominally Christian climate of
the pre-1950s, most people had respect for God and His laws. In today’s society, however,
only a fool would believe in God, repent of sin, and join that peculiar, tiny minority of
people called evangelical Christians.
In a ‘moral’ or ‘Christian’ time every conversion is wonderful, but in a
godless time we witness people snatched from the stranglehold of unparalleled hedonism,
entertainment-lust and affluent covetousness.
What is true of the converting power of God is also true of His keeping
power. To be preserved in the faith in a Puritan village is a wonderful blessing, but to be
held in spiritual safety in today’s hostile surroundings is a spectacular triumph.
When the great ‘Victory-Day’ parade of the redeemed takes place in glory,
the massed troops of reformation and revival will march past in triumphant columns. But
also in the procession will march the little companies of those who came through gloriously
in times and places of ferocious opposition. To them attaches a very distinctive display of
the victory, power and glory of God in redemption.
TRIUMPH 2
Secondly, the Gospel triumphs in an age of unbelief because the graces
of trust and obedience are refined and exercised in a special way. It is in such times
that Zion’s ‘stock’ of faith is replenished and strengthened, in order to sustain her testimony
in times of spiritual plenty. Equally it is a time when these graces are stretched to the limit,
and exercised to the glory of God.
Let us in imagination project ourselves into a small town in a time of
blessing, when people hear the Gospel readily, and souls are saved every Lord’s Day.
Imagine also that every week a witnessing Christian has the joy of seeing a lost soul melt
under the sound of his testimony. As time goes on, conversions seem as natural to believers
as night following day, and their faith walks blithely along a kind of airport moving-
pavement. Their trust is genuine, but easy and light.
Obedience to the biblical methods prescribed by the Lord is no burden either,
because these are vindicated and honoured daily in their midst. As God’s people, they may
even come to believe that much of the skill in soul-winning is their own. Surely their faith
and obedience will become rather formal, so that the fire will have to die, and the embers be
raked, before roaring flames are seen again.
In this day of serious decline we see more clearly how impossible it is for a
camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Hearts are rock hard. It seems that no one will be
saved. Only the Lord can melt the adamantine will, and seeing this, we are brought to trust
wholly and entirely in Him and in His mighty power.
And as for our obedience - this is stretched as at no other time, because our
biblical methods barely seem to work at all. Will we devise alternatives? Will we adopt
worldly music and gimmicks? Will we merge ourselves with compromised groups for
comfort and security?
‘Take away Job’s comforts,’ said Satan, ‘and it will be seen that he worships
only for them.’ ‘Take away the flow of blessing from the church, and the people will turn to
other things.’ So the spiritual famine descends, and, yet, to the glory of God, a remnant
stands faithfully and obediently, and this is a triumph of the Gospel. In this way, in a season
of conspicuous godlessness, Satan is proved wrong, and defeated, and the gates of hell do
not prevail over the true church.
TRIUMPH 3
A third way in which the Gospel triumphs in a day of small things is in
the purifying of true churches. A season of great blessing - or even ‘medium’
blessing - inevitably leads to the accumulation of many formal or nominal believers in the
churches, but when the Gospel encounters deep unpopularity this element is very greatly
reduced. Just as persecution purifies a body of believers, so does a time of intellectual and
cultural hostility to the Gospel.
A wonderful period of fervent life and growth needs the casting away of
slough from time to time, partly for the maintenance of the Truth, and partly in preparation
for a new season of blessing.
This process is also noticeable in the ministry. Repeatedly in church history
we see the tide go out after years of great spiritual fervour, so that godlessness gains the
ascendancy. As this occurs, many supposedly evangelical pastors abandon their original
profession and move into theological liberalism, which they find more compatible with the
new mood of society. Even this is a kindness as far as the church is concerned, preserving a
remnant in both doctrinal and experiential purity. It may seem to be a decline, but it is a
process of preservation, so that the gates of hell shall not prevail.
Today, as circumstances grow worse in society, and as self-indulgence and
earthly pleasure grip the minds of the people, we see a new wave of evangelical ministers
spurning traditional values to bring a worldly-entertainment ethos into their churches. A
division of loyalties is becoming increasingly apparent among evangelical churches, as they
either remain with biblical values or lean to worldly culture. Perhaps this is part of the
purifying process we should expect. We are forced to reflect on whether the more
determined compromisers are really unsaved worldlings at heart, or whether they are simply
weak and undiscerning. We cannot easily tell, but it is revealed that they lack solid loyalty
to the Word, and, though this is deeply saddening, it serves the ultimate security of the
Gospel that reality should be seen. Once again, the Gospel and true churches are secured,
even in the midst of decline.
TRIUMPH 4
Fourthly, the Gospel triumphs in a conspicuously godless age because
its abiding, unchanging perfection is clearly seen. Or we may put it this way: the
true church triumphs because her message is seen as never needing supplementation or
change.
The writer has been at his present ministry for thirty years, during which
time Britain has had seven prime ministers, representing immensely different policies. Both
our main political parties have changed tremendously over these years, new situations
constantly bringing about shifts and U-turns in policy. Today, many of the big political
ideas of the 1970s are seen as failures, and treated with scorn.
If we looked back as far as the Victorian period, we would be staggered by
the changes in the political landscape, both for better and for worse. Adaptation and
revision on a considerable scale is man’s unspoken admission of fallibility and inadequacy.
Every new situation exposes gigantic flaws in the prevailing political philosophy, and
upheavals proceed.
But here is a dramatic contrast. As believers, we still love C H Spurgeon’s
works, and no matter what is happening in our world, we find that we can endorse virtually
every line. And we still cleave to our 1689 Confession of Faith. Best of all, we have our
unaltered and unaltering Bible extending back across the millennia, and still perfect in
season and out of season in all its doctrines, remedies and promises.
In an age of moral and spiritual collapse, with society resembling a truck
hurtling down a mountain out of control, and with remedial policies changing almost by the
hour, we find the ancient Gospel alone accounts for the situation, lifting individuals out of
it. It has been proved perfect in good times and in bad, with no adjustment whatsoever.
Indeed, in bad times we come to discover new, rich seams of helpfulness, tailor-made for
our situation.
No one, besides the believer with a Bible in his hand, understands the
present age. Times of decline therefore supply yet another victory for the Lord, because the
Gospel is vindicated as the only perfect, unchanging, and all-sufficient source of Truth and
life.
TRIUMPH 5
Fifthly, the Gospel triumphs in this present age of apostasy and immorality,
because its truthfulness about human depravity is verified beyond question.
The Gospel speaks of men being dead in trespasses and sins, and filled with all
unrighteousness. Only by God’s restraining hand is the world prevented from boiling over
into perpetual and extreme violence, extortion and sensuality. Furthermore, man is
inadequate and unable to succeed in his world, without the help of the Lord. But can this be
right? Is mankind really so bad? Is the Bible credible?
In the past in this land we have seen a better society, when Christian teaching
has imparted even to unsaved people a respect for moral values, and a respect for
gentlemanly behaviour. In those days the Bible’s severe view of mankind may sometimes
have seemed unreasonable. People were not so bad after all. Many had noble intentions and
did good things, and the land seemed reasonably well-regulated and fair. Perhaps human
beings were capable of salvation by good works, and eternal hellfire was too
harsh a punishment for them. The Gospel, it seemed, took a jaundiced view.
However, in a time of unusual godlessness, when people have scope to
express their worst behaviour, reality is ruthlessly exposed, and the Gospel is seen to be
right. This is certainly a tragedy, but at the same time it is a vindication of the authenticity
of the Gospel, and God is thereby glorified.
Many people in Victorian society beguiled themselves into believing in the
inherent goodness of man, and rejected the Gospel. People began to write about man’s
upward ‘fall’, evolving from amorality to immorality, and ultimately to morality.
The present godlessness will vindicate God in the last day, when the
panorama of world history is rolled out before the eyes of all. It takes an age like the present
to demonstrate the truthfulness of man’s condition as portrayed in the Gospel.
God has repeatedly cautioned mankind that, without Him, it cannot succeed
and those warnings are spurned. But when man is at his most arrogant and self-
sufficient, his failure and inadequacy is most clearly seen, and the Gospel is established as
irrefutable in the eyes of believers - and everyone else too on the day of judgement.
In this age of heightened godlessness so many of the schemes of secular men
fail, and ‘Titanics’ sink on a regular basis. Governments and people have demanded that the
‘nanny State’ be swept away, and moral abandon and sexual liberty have been authorised.
But their schemes have reaped the whirlwind, and the worst is yet to come.
World leaders - rejecting the biblical view of man - think they can make
peace without justice, sweeping guilt and deep-seated belligerence under the carpet, setting
up ‘Dayton Agreements’ everywhere, and ignoring the values of former ages. But the result
is usually the perpetuation of simmering hostility, which eventually erupts like a volcano.
The inability of man to even understand himself is laid bare.
How many times have we heard of a war to end wars? Communism has
fallen. Militarism has crumbled. Liberalism has failed. Nuclear technology, originally
intended to supply energy, mainly supplied fear, and even the original goal is now being
abandoned.
Some thought that a barely regulated ‘market’ would bring universal
prosperity. This is now seen as naïve, yet not before it gave birth to the Russian and Chinese
Mafias, and a vast host of extortions and frauds. Rejecting the notion of human depravity,
man again showed his ignorance of himself.
Countless schemes of social and moral engineering share the fate of the
Millennium Dome and Bridge. The further people move away from Christian concepts of
society and morality in this godless age, the more they demonstrate the insufficiency of the
human race without God, and so the Gospel is authenticated and vindicated.
TRIUMPH 6
A sixth way in which the Gospel undoubtedly triumphs in an age of unbelief
and rejection is by the invisible operation of the justice of God. We are taught
that acceptance or rejection of the message of God’s church determines the future of every
soul. As the Lord’s messengers we are not spurned without consequences, and in this sense
we can never be prevailed over, for we hold the keys of the kingdom whether unbelievers
know it or not. Our very existence bears on their eternal destiny, and the Judge of all the
earth marks their every step.
The following illustration was conceived only weeks before it was closely
‘fulfilled’ in an attempted robbery of the world’s most precious diamond at the Millennium
Dome. It was tempting to employ the reality in this article, but the fiction serves our
purpose slightly better.
We imagine an arch-criminal, revered in the underworld because he has
amassed a great fortune from the theft of priceless jewels, and has never once been arrested.
He is contemptuous of the police and proud beyond words. He plans to steal the world’s
most valuable gemstone, displayed behind bullet-proof glass in a secure museum. With
crack henchmen he opens steel doors, evades and disables alarm systems, and works his
way to his objective.
What he does not know is that someone in his organisation has informed the
police about his entire plan, and they have positioned hundreds of armed officers in the
premises, and many video cameras, so that his every step is watched and recorded. He has
no idea that the doors through which he entered have been barred behind him, and that he is
trapped. His superior air is misplaced, for he is virtually arrested already, but he is allowed
to proceed to the point of working on the glass case containing the gemstone, so that the
filmed evidence put before the court will be conclusive. He seems to be
victorious up to the very moment of theft, but in reality, he has no hope. He will inevitably
be overwhelmed, humbled and convicted.
A certain famous Professor of Atheistic Evolution may at this very moment
be captivating a vulnerable student audience somewhere, heavily distorting scientific
information to rid them of their Creator, and the audience will applaud with all the euphoria
of duped youngsters set free from any obligation to God. So, atheism will win, and the
Gospel and the Truth and the church of Jesus Christ will lose. But the cameras of Heaven
have recorded it all. The crime is condemned already. The gates of hell can never prevail.
Returning to the diamond thief - unwittingly, he carried out the work of the
police for them, by leading into the net a whole band of accomplices. And so any champion
of atheistic distortion performs an unwitting service to divine justice, because among his
hearers there are those whose rejection of the Lord has already brought them to the point
where ‘God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie’ . . . ‘to fill up
their sins alway.’
The Lord cannot be fooled! The grace of God triumphs
constantly, and the justice of God triumphs constantly also. As the Lord’s
servants we are involved in both a ministration of salvation and a ministration of justice, so
that even our rejection serves the will and the ultimate glory of God. The gates of hell will
never prevail against us.
When the last moment of this present age arrives, and the spiritual warfare is
over, not one true believer will have been lost, and not one will have turned against the
Lord. The final victory of the church of Christ will not be like any victory secured in human
warfare, for in earthly conflict there are always war dead on each side. Many victories are
only very narrowly won, but the victory of the church will be absolute, and without a single
eternal casualty.
Here is the ultimate humiliation of Satan, with all his pride, because he will
be seen not to have inflicted a single fatal casualty. He will not have succeeded in
destroying a single believer who stands wholly upon the foundation of Peter’s confession.
What a mismatch - the devil against the Lord of the church! What a failure is Satan! The
Saviour’s heel was bruised on Calvary’s cross, but never again.
The doctrine of the perseverance of the saints places all believers on the
victorious side. Empires and earthly ideologies rise and fall, together with all human
organisations, but the foundation rock of faith in Christ will stand to the last day.
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