Thursday, June 21, 2018

Stand Firm!

After nine years of church revitalization work in a previous ministry context I can personally affirm the points Charles Spurgeon drives home in his short address on "Standing Firm."

As was noted in a previous article the three major Trojan Horses that are sneaking into the Bible-believing Church right now are: 1) Thin Complementarianism ("Christian feminism" is en vogue again); 2) A modified view of sexuality (note Same Sex Attraction teaching), 3) A left leaning understanding of racial justice (i.e. a Christianized version of critical race theory/cultural Marxism).  Because conservative evangelicals have been swept away in the "Celebrity Culture" the Church today as at risk of making subtle compromises.  Have you noticed how if well known church leaders ("experts") from the Gospel Coalition or _____ promotes something how the masses seem to almost blindly follow?  Sola Scriptura is affirmed on paper but is often not fleshed out in daily life and in church ministry.  Now more than ever, do we need courageous believers who are willing to flesh out the implications of 1 Corinthians 16:13 and to stand firm (regardless of the cost)! 

Spurgeon notes- "We admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago...but such a man today is a nuisance, and must be put down. Call him a narrow-minded bigot, or give him a worse name if you can think of one. Yet imagine that in those ages past, Luther, Zwingle, Calvin, and their compeers had said, "The world is out of order; but if we try to set it right we shall only make a great row, and get ourselves into disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night-caps, and sleep over the bad times, and perhaps when we wake up things will have grown better." Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and the pestiferous gobs of error would have swallowed all. These men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on...

It is today as it was in the Reformer's days. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitor, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it...Look you, sirs, there are ages yet to come. If the Lord does not speedily appear, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today. We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and our children's children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word."

1 Corinthians 16:13, Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

Joshua 1:8-9- "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success.  Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go."