They won't disappear

Not all that long ago I had someone ask me what happened to the reformed belief before Calvin turned it into what is known as Calvinists. This person told me it didn’t exist before Calvin shared his ideas and gained followers.

Recently I received a book in the mail that talks about the true church. I vaguely remember ordering it some time back but had long since forgotten what the author’s beliefs were by the time the book arrived. I took the time to look the author up and discovered that I don’t share his beliefs but by the time I did so I had already read a very small bit of the first couple of pages in the book.

Regardless of the fact that I don’t agree with the author’s beliefs I did find something in the book that I very much agree with. In the first paragraph of the introduction the author talks about how the true church, as he calls it, will never be extinguished. He speaks of how it is foretold to always exist.

I don’t share the author’s beliefs but I do know that he is right in that. Christ’s church is the true Church, it is the church spoken of in Scripture and it will always exist. In fact that Church is the very reason for all of existence.

The purpose for mankind and all of creation…from before the Lord created the earth until long past Christ’s return…the purpose is the salvation of God’s chosen people.

This author, in the first pages of that book, went on to speak of how Christ’s church hasn’t always been visible, how sometimes it has been but a very few people. Scripture tells us that there are few.

As I read those few paragraphs in that book…written by someone whose beliefs I don’t hold…I couldn’t help but think of the person that asked me where the reformed people were in history.

Historically speaking there have been many times when the world wasn’t a safe place for God’s people. Going all the way back to the Old Testament we can see in men like Daniel that believing in God hasn’t always been safe. How many people throughout time have tried to keep themselves from being detected because their faith would cost them their freedom…or their life.

I recently wrote a post titled persecution. In it I spoke of some of the people that have experienced persecution for their faith. The time in which the person questioned me about people that hold the reformed belief was a time of great persecution for the ‘true’ Church. It was a time when people were killed for believing in the true Christ. It was a time when people were told by rulers who they could and could not worship.

In times of great persecution the ‘true’ church would have had to hide from their persecutors. There are places, even today, where those that have faith in Christ must keep their faith mostly to themselves. They may share it quietly but in those places they can’t share it in a way that would make the news, or be recorded in the history books. They are there but not seen. They believe and worship but must disappear in the eyes of their country. They must be like the Jews when Hitler reigned…hiding their very existence. Some may go about their daily lives appearing to be what they are not.

The ‘true’ church as that author put it has never disappeared. It will never disappear. The Lord has His people here for a purpose and He has a plan that He works out through and for them.

But they may not always be within sight of the world.

As I think of that, I think of America and how there are many professing ‘Christians’ but few Christians that uphold the Truth of the Bible.

Right here, right now, in America it’s hard to find the Church that is spoken of in Scripture. A child of Christ knows that that church is the body of believers…the elect. They also know that the church consists of even one such believer. But try and find those believers in any city.

It’s not that easy.

And today we have all of the internet at our fingertips. We can search for groups or ‘churches’ of people that hold the reformed belief. We can look for others that share our faith. But finding them, even with all our technology, is much like finding the needle in a haystack.

How much harder might it be to find them in a given time period in history?

As fascinating as the history of God’s people is…I don’t need to know where they were at every time in history to know they were there. Scripture shows me that the Lord’s people will always be there, that they won’t disappear.

They may not always be visible but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t there.