By T. Austin-Sparks
In searching for a sentence that will serve as a window through which what we have in view can be seen the one that seems most potent is
The Curse of the Earth Touch.
To understand what is meant by those last three words is to have an explanation of an immense amount of history, spiritual and temporal.
We must begin by re-emphasizing the fact that this earth lies under a curse. This is emphatically stated both in Genesis 3:18,19, and Romans 8:20-23.
Although Christ effected redemption by His Cross, that is but potential as to the creation and only spiritual in the case of those who are "In Christ". Both the "creation itself" and "our body" await "the manifestation of the sons of God", the consummation of the redemptive work. Believers alone are delivered from the "curse". Meantime, the creation groans under it.
This earth is to be destroyed and purged by fire 2 Peter 3:7,10-13. These words of so many centuries ago are so much more easily understood now by all men than they were when written. The rapidity of progress toward this consummation in less than our lifetime surely cries "the day of the Lord is at hand". So, the curse is present; it is rapidly gathering momentum, and very few - if any - parts of the earth are escaping from its closing in for the final phase and climax.
The nature and features of the curse, as the Bible everywhere reveals, are frustration, thwarting, bafflement, discontent, abortion, confusion, travail, breakdown, and an ever-defeated struggle against despair and death.
There are three realms in which these elements are clearly discernible.
Firstly, these elements are plain to be seen in the world. Call it what you will; explain it as you may try to do; the fact remains that chaos deepens and extends so that the accumulated brains and highest training in national and international councils are out of their depth in the solution of the problems confronting them. This is so obvious that we need not use time and space to argue and prove it. We are no more pessimistic than the Bible is with regard to the later phases of this world's history, and never was there a time when its description of things at the end could be agreed with more than now - "Men fainting for fear, and for expectation of the things which are coming on the inhabited earth; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken" (Luke 21:26). We do not need this first aspect of the situation to be put into writing. We are reading it every day in our newspapers and in the happenings in all the nations.
The second realm is that of Christendom in general. Here again we are confronted with a situation which is extending all the 'World Councils' to their limits. It would be far from profitable to gather up the things being said and done in the realm of 'Christianity' which clearly indicate that 'Christianity' is in the casualty ward in a critical condition, needing every expedient, appliance, measure, mechanism, and recourse to justify its existence. Some 'Christian' leaders go as far as to speak of this as 'the post-Christian age'. This is all very horrible and terrible, but the common language of 'our unhappy divisions', 'our man-made divisions', etc., etc., and all the feverish efforts to patch up by compromise; the sacrifice of that which cost so much, and so forth, only evidence the fact that things are not all well in Christendom; far from it!
But, for us, the saddest and most grievous aspect of this situation is to be found in that realm which can be called 'Evangelical'. It is not too strong a thing to say that we have come to a time when the atmosphere is saturated with a spirit of suspicion, fear, skepticism, discrediting, distrust, misgiving, loss of confidence, etc. There is literally nothing which escapes the lash of criticism, the paralysing touch of reservation or question. It is positively amazing how quickly and easily good people will accept what Paul called (as to himself) "evil report", and in accepting it without investigating and "proving all things", repeat it and warn others of those concerned. A famous preacher once said to the writer about a certain Christian leader that 'the grapes of Eshcol would turn to raisins in his hands.' This spirit of suspicion and criticism withers the fairest blossoms and dries up the most beautiful fruit of the Spirit's producing. Many a ministry of Christ has been ruined by it, and the hand of the Lord withholds bread and wealth because of it, so that a characteristic of evangelicalism in our time is superficiality. There is "a famine of hearing the Word", and this is a judgment upon the spirit which treats the Word so cheaply as not to regard it as something worthy of the most jealous concern.
