Warnings to the Church Universal # 2

Beware of Compromise

Yet another clear message we receive is that Christ will NOT tolerate any teaching or doctrine that leads to compromise with regard to His standard of holiness.

God is holy and has purposed before the foundation of the world that "we would be holy and blameless before Him" (Ephesians 1:4). Once again we need to see that this is both a universal and eternal truth and so applies to the universal Church and also the twentieth-century Church.

The very thought of harboring a Jezebel or Balaam in our midst would cause most believers to recoil. And yet their teachings continue unabated in our midst today. The same spirit of compromise pervades. Christians get drunk, get high, and get divorced, as they freely mingle with the world and adopt its attitudes and its ways. Mass culture has gradually dulled our sensitivity to God's standards of morality and purity. Many Christians know far more about Hollywood personalities than they do of biblical ones. They stumble to recite the Books of the Bible but have no problems naming the various teams in the NFL or NBA.

The love of the world is deeply rooted in the Western Church, and attempts to challenge it are most often met with cries of legalism.

As we noted earlier, we have replaced God so as to make Him "user friendly." The God who is jealous for His holiness has been elbowed aside by the new happy face model and always smiles approvingly at whatever we say or do. Here again these teachings don't appear overnight but gradually. Peter warns us that false teachers will creep in secretly, the end result being that they deny the Master who bought them (see 2 Peter 2:1) and replace Him with other things.

Beware the Downward Spiral

In several letters to the churches, we saw what might be termed "the downward spiral."

First comes the failure to acknowledge some aspect of His lordship over our lives. We compromise our standard of holiness. Other priorities and values, and love for the world itself, replaces Him. This then leads to everyone doing what is right in his own eyes. God's call to "separate" ourselves unto Him is denied. We then fall prey to the world's pressure towards "toleration." To be tolerant is defined: "to recognize and respect the rights, opinions, and practices of others." This sounds good, but as time passes we progress from toleration to cooperation, freely working together toward a common goal.

The final stage of this downward spiral is that of "adoption," which the dictionary defines as "to take and follow as course of action, to take on or assume, to choose as a standard."

From our position in Christ - where we were adopted into God's own family - the Church has slidden downward. Today the message of holiness falls on deaf ears. We no longer pride ourselves as a "peculiar people." but desire rather to be a "popular people." The call to come out from among them and be separate is met with stiff resistance from God's people. Little do we realize how we have become conformed to this world. Our whole lives have absorbed the world's influence, with its philosophy, practices, and policies. At the bottom of the spiral, we find ourselves adopting the ways of the world.

Beware Lest Your Light Go Out

If you recall, you will remember what Christ was doing as His Spirit walked among the seven lamps. He was trimming the wicks, refilling them with oil, lest their lights go out, rendering His churches useless and plunging the world into spiritual darkness.

Today, the world takes little notice of us - except to point out our gross compromises, failures, and the quirkiness of our little subculture. We fail to present them with a radically different choice, because we have desired to be just like them. Yes, Balaam and Jezebel are alive and well and flourishing among us!

Brothers and sisters in Christ, today the Spirit is calling u once again to "come out from their midst and be separate" (2 Corinthians 6:17).

~David Ravenhill~

(the end)