Church in a Bush — E.A. Johnston

The Church Hiding From God

In Genesis chapter 3 we read,. And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord amongst the trees of the garden.

And the Lord God called unto Adam and said unto him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard the voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. I will stop there, friends. Because of her multiplied sins the church in America sits in a bush, hiding from her duties to warn men to flee from the wrath to come.

The Church's Fig Leaves and Spiritual Blindness

As she hides from her testimony to a lost world, she covers herself with her own fig leaves of institutionalism and does not see her own condition of being wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.

Political Correctness, Worldliness, and Self-Preservation

Today the church in America lies hidden in a bush of political correctness, afraid to denounce sin. She is hidden in a bush of worldliness, joined to her idols. She is hidden in a bush of doctrine, refusing to go out and witness to a lost world.

She is hidden in a bush of self-preservation, unwilling to go out on a limb for God. But the underground church in China, as it meets in barns and homes, thrives in the face of hot communist persecution, risking imprisonments and beatings.

Persecuted Churches Witnessing Boldly

The church in Africa meets in the rubble of a burned down building, as she faces persecution from Islamic extremists and, although she lives in the bush, she does not hide in one. The church in Iraq and Iran and Afghanistan suffers in filthy prisons from her arrests of spreading the gospel in the face of a death sentence.

Christians in other countries face beatings, torture, imprisonments and death for the sake of Christ and the gospel. But the American church, fascinated by the bigness of her buildings, has found herself a big bush to hide in.

God's Call to the Hidden American Church

And there she sits in the cool of the day as God walks by and says, Oh where art thou?