Sunday Morning at the Movies | Part 1

Peace, Love, & Understanding

What if our Sunday morning services were a movie that we think is based the book we claim is the fullest revelation of God's design for our faith, life and works? Would we consider it a faithful adaptation of what we read about church gatherings in the New Testament? Would we care?

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Here is the Spurgeon quote in full and in context, from a sermon given February 17, 1884 on 1 Chronicles 12:16-18 (Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Volume 30):
"Then David puts the question, “If ye be come peaceably unto me,” and this was needful, for some are captious and quarrelsome. Some profess to come to Christ, but they quarrel with Christ at the very first. They would make terms with him, and they come intending to dispute with his people. From the first they are discontented and fault-finding, rather patronizing Christ and his cause than humbly uniting with him and his people. They do not think half as much of God’s people as God thinks of them. When I hear people say, “Oh, there is So-and-So, who is not what he ought to be, and he is a member of the church,” and then they begin finding fault with this and with that, I say to myself, “That critic is no true friend.” The church is not perfect, but woe to the man who finds pleasure in pointing out her imperfections. Christ loved his church, and let us do the same. I have no doubt that the Lord can see more fault in his church than I can; and I have equal confidence that he sees no fault at all, because he covers her faults with his own love— that love which hides a multitude of sins; and he removes all her defilement with that precious blood which washes away all the transgressions of his people. I dare not find fault with those whom the Lord has loved from before the foundation of the world; more especially since I find that I need all my time to find out my own faults and to get rid of them. If you are a faultless man I do not ask you to join the Christian Church, because I am sure that you would not find anybody else there like yourself. It is true that if you do not join a church till you find a perfect one you will not be a church-member this side heaven; but I may add, that if there were such a church, the moment your name was written in the list it would leave off being a perfect church, for your presence would have destroyed its perfection. If you are coming to pick holes, and quiz, and question, and find fault, and talk about inconsistencies and so forth, then you may pass on and join some other army; but if you be come peaceably to our Lord and to us, then I offer you a hearty welcome. We are not anxious to enlist men who love to have the pre-eminence, nor men of fierce temper, nor unforgiving spirits, nor proud, envious, lovers of strife: we want only those who have the mind of Christ. Come peaceably, or come not at all."

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