All That Dwell Upon the Earth Shall Worhsip Him

N the religious world, the ecumenical movement is gaining great momentum. Emphasis is placed upon both organic union and spiritual union. An organic union is the physical union of two or more churches into a single church body. Many such unions have already been formed, including the United Methodist Church of America, the United Church of Canada, the Uniting Church of Australia, and the Church of South India. Well-known church leaders indicate that they will not be satisfied until all Christian churches are united into one body.

Of course, this goal has many impelling aspects. The United Christian Church, it is believed, will present a wonderful power to modern Christianity and the non-Christian world in the most persuasive manner; however, an examination of almost all uniting churches reveals signs of impotence, membership loss, and stagnation.

It is not hard to understand the reason for the failure of the architects of these united churches to fulfill their expectations. In 1986, Colin attended the sixth International Congress for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Drug Dependencies held in Nice, France. At the banquet at the conclusion of the congress, he was seated next to a minister of the Uniting Church of Australia. During their conversation, Colin inquired concerning the nature of the doctrinal agreements that the Methodists, Presbyterians, and Congregationalists (who formed the Uniting Church) had made. The clergyman asserted that they united on New Testament Christianity, not on doctrine. Pressing the issue a little further, Colin asked, "What common basis did the freewill Methodists find for unity with the predestinarian Presbyterians?" The minister admitted that he had never given thought to the issue, although he had been a Methodist minister before this union took place. Later, he sent Colin a copy of the articles of Uniting. A review of these articles did not reveal one single belief upon which the consolidated church had been established.

In 1977 Russell had a similar experience. As Deputy Medical Superintendent of the Austin Hospital in Melbourne, he supervised the chaplaincy. Graham Gibbens, a Presbyterian minister, was the senior chaplain. When asked concerning the major doctrinal difference between Presbyterians and Methodists, in relation to their proposed union that year, Graham replied, "You know, I’ve never given it any thought." One wonders how John Knox (founder of the Presbyterian Church), John Wesley (founder of the Methodist Church), and the nonconformists of England (who established the Congregationalist Church) would have reacted to this careless attitude toward biblical doctrine.

The ecumenical movement and the World Council of Churches have determined to de-emphasize doctrine. Many have naively accepted the proposition that "It is not doctrine we need, but Christ," without realizing that every doctrine of the Scriptures is a dynamic revelation of Christ. How can one preach the doctrine of the Incarnation without including the Babe of Bethlehem who became man’s Redeemer? How can one preach concerning the fate of man in death without preaching of the One who is the Resurrection and the Life? How can one preach baptism outside the context of the One who renews His life to us? How can one preach about the heavenly high priestly ministry of Christ without preaching about the One who is our Sacrifice, Judge, High Priest, Mediator, Advocate, and Intercessor? How can one preach the law of God without revealing the One of whose character it is the very transcript? When truth and doctrine are excluded, our faith is empty; and our knowledge of Christ is minimal. A new non-doctrinal approach to religion leaves the adherents weak, ignorant, uncertain, and an easy prey for the archdeceiver.

Surely, the ecumenical movement is a device of the enemy of souls to prepare a people to be partners in the eternal, destructive "game" of Satan instead of rising to shine for Christ. In the year 1989, leading Christian representatives made some remarkable pronouncements. After his visit with the pope, Robert Runcie, archbishop of Canterbury and primate in the Anglican Church in Great Britain, on October 2 1989, urged all Christians to recognize the pope as the leader of all Christians.

This call was not given without protest from a small vocal group of determined Protestants.

Many are confidently predicting the reunification of the two largest churches in the world, the Church of England and the Church of Rome, by the year 2000. If this union takes place, the Reformation will have come a full circle. The Anglo-Catholic movement within the Church of England, which began in the 1820s at Oxford University, will finally have triumphed.

This development is significant because Bible prophecy predicted that at the end-time almost everyone in the world will give allegiance to the Papacy. John referred to the Papacy using the symbol of the beast.

Mainline Protestantism in the United States, including Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, is the controlling backbone of American society and politics, and has experienced strong reversal in the last 30 years. Time magazine, May 22 1989, reported that since 1965, the United Church of Christ (Congregationalists) had shrunk 20 percent; Presbyterians 25 percent; the Episcopal Church 28 percent; Methodists 18 percent; and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) 43 percent. Together, they had a net loss of 5.2 million members. The growth of American Roman Catholics, 16 percent in the same period, is quite significant.

Time magazine also reports that Sunday School participation in the mainline churches has dropped 55 percent in the past two decades. This woeful omen is most frightening for these mainline Protestant churches who were once the powerful standard makers of American society. The quotation from Professor Richard Mouw, of the nondenominational Fuller Theological Seminary in California, is the most striking statement from the article: "If there is an establishment voice today, it is that of Roman Catholicism. The Catholics are the calm, dignified, authoritative voices." Richard John Neuhaus supports this view in his book which claims that the present is the Catholic moment in America.

The report of the ten-year dialogue between Roman Catholic theologians and theologians who represent the Southern Baptist Conference (the two largest churches in the United States) is even more significant than reports of the events within the Church of England and mainline Protestant churches in the United States. The Associated Press reported what the joint communiqué stated.

It is impossible to imagine how Southern Baptist theologians could experience one Lord with a church that claims that the pope is another God on earth. It is certainly impossible to understand how a church which has so strongly proclaimed salvation by faith can confess to have spiritual union in faith with a church that has steadfastly adhered to salvation by faith and works (the keeping of the seven sacred Sacraments). Finally, we are puzzled about how a church which practices adult baptism by immersion could compromise this one baptism with Roman Catholics who practice infant sprinkling, because the sprinkling of infants is a satanic counterfeit of true baptism. How could Southern Baptist theologians so pervert the faith of their Fathers?

The newspaper further reported that "the Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics . . . generally have been regarded as doctrinally far apart, but their scholars find that they basically agree" (ibid.). Here we can discern the peril of entrusting doctrinal decisions to a few theologians or scholars. Every conceivable perversion of truth has found support, in some way or another, from the scholars. There is hardly a theological training school throughout the world that is committed to the teaching of the pure faith of Jesus. As in Jesus’ day, it is the common people who value pure biblical truth; and the oracles of God have been entrusted to them.

The missionary endeavors of the future will be quite significantly hindered if the report’s following statement is accepted.

Undoubtedly, many sincere Southern Baptists will be alarmed by this report. Evangelical Anglicans are also deeply concerned by the plea of Archbishop Runcie for closer ties with the Papacy. But, in these actions, the discerning Christian will see that the time has come when all Christians who do not give supreme homage to Christ and the Bible will eventually give their allegiance to the Papacy; thus this report fulfills the unerring prophecy that all the world will wonder after the beast. (Revelation 13:3) While to a casual perusal, this joint declaration may seem good in many ways, it will basically lead the Southern Baptists to diminish and ultimately eliminate all work for the salvation of Catholic Church members; thus Southern Baptists cannot give that final call, by God’s elect, to His precious saints who are still members of the Roman Catholic Church.

This thrust toward one world religion envisages the encompassment of far more sects than Christendom. In 1988, Dr. Robert Runcie gave a Sir Francis Younghusband Memorial Lecture at Lambeth Palace (home of the Archbishop of Canterbury) for the fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of the World Congress of Faiths. He ominously quoted the words of the late Sir Francis: "All the centuries that the Spirit of God has been working in Christians, He must also have been working in Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, and others." Dr. Runcie then commented that dialogue enabled people of various religions "to share the sustaining insights and transforming treasures of their faith, and to recognize an affinity of the human heart in the fellowship of the Spirit." The archbishop’s reflection on a visit to India was even more disconcerting.

Those who do not accept God’s commission to urge Christians to forsake apostate religions will themselves be found among that huge ecumenical group who receive the seven last plagues cited in Revelation 16. Myriads of formal Christians will be lost in spiritual Babylon. But God will have a remnant who will give God’s final invitation to the world.