Life On the Highest Plane
Today many religious leaders in all parts of Christendom have departed from the faith and are openly in revolt against truth. They will not endure sound doctrine but are actively declaring war upon the foundational truths of Christianity. Just last week a minister, still occupying an evangelical pulpit, was assisting in the ordination of a minister. On that occasion he made this pronouncement, "The Church is in revolt against Fundamentalism and Puritianism," which means that he is openly in favor of Liberalism and License. Such men are at heart unitarian because they deny every truth of the Word which makes the Lord Jesus Christ the unique Son of God. Their place is entirely outside the evangelical Church and, if they practiced even the most elementary principles o the ethical gospel which they preach, they would pack up their ecclesiastical belongings, depart from the evangelical pulpit, and establish themselves either with their unitarian breathren or seek virgin soil in which to plant their tares.
But they have no intention whatever of leaving the evangelical pulpit, rather they purpose deliberately to stretch forth their hands and stealthily lay hold upon the entire machinery of the Church both at home and upon the mission field and secure its control. They usually are such adepts in he manipulation of language that through the use of "good words and fair speeches" (Romans 16:18) they deceive even the true people of God. They preach sermons filled with the rankest poison but sugar-coated with sweet words and eloquent phrases, patronizing the Jesus of history. Only those who have the discernment which the Holy Spirit alone gives detect the deception. And, when the men and women who love their Lord better than they love this own lives cry out in protest against such high-handed dishonesty, they have the blatant effrontery to charge them with bringing division into the Church and to accuse them with a lack of love.
The conflict between Fundamentalism and Modernism is dividing organized Christianity in twain. There are some who live near the border line of both camps who earnestly desire neutrality between these opposing forces. They plead for unity; they plan for union; they pray for unanimity. But those who live at the headquarters of both camps know that this can never be. The only unity which the Bible enjoins is "the unity of the Spirit" which is based on "one body, one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God."
Such unity is not something which we attempt to "make" but rather is something already created by the Holy Spirit which we "keep." Such unity does not "become" for it "is" wherever there is oneness in Christ Jesus. This and only this is the unity for which our Lord prayed and which He expects of His children.
Ephesians 4:3-6, "Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace ... There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all."
Such unity can never exist between Fundamentalism and Modernism or they are as far apart as darkness and light, as death and life. Let me quote from an editorial of "The Christian Century": "The God of the Fundamentalist is one God; the God of the Modernist is another. The Christ of the Fundamentalist is one Christ; the Christ of the Modernist is another. The Bible of Fundamentalism is one Bible; the Bible of Modernism is another. The Church, the kingdom, the salvation, the consummation of all things - these are one thing to the Fundamentalist and anther thing to the Modernist. Which God is the Christian God, which Christ is the Christian Christ, which Bible is the Christian Bible, which church, which kingdom, which salvation, which consummation? The future will tell. You may sing "Blest be the tie" till doomsday, but it cannot bind these worlds together."
Thus according to the testimony of Modernism itself we see that between Fundamentalism and Modernism a great gulf is fixed which nothing or no one can bridge. The issue admits of no neutrality.Loyalty to the Lord Jesus Christ demands that every Christian study to know and declare himself either for or against the Christ of the Fundamentalist or the Christ of the Modernist. In such a conflict as this silence is cowardice, nay, it may even be construed to the desertion and treachery. Loyalty to God in these difficult days of deepening apostasy calls every Christian to three things: discernment, devotion and division.
Christians should be able to discern between false and true teaching even when the former is given in its most subtle form, so that there shall not be the slightest deviation from the truth of God's Word. It is not enough to believe God's truth, we are to "walk" in it.
Discernment requires watchfulness; it required a continuous prayerful study under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit of God's Word and a careful comparison of what one hears and reads with what one studies. Paul told the Ephesian elders that from among themselves men would arise speaking perverse things to draw men away after them and cautioned them to watch and to remember his warnings.
Acts 20:31, 32, "Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears ... And now, brethren, I commend you to God and to the Word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified."
He warned Timothy to be on his guard continuously against false teaching and unsound doctrine.
2 Timothy 4:3, 5, "For the time will come when thy will not endure sound doctrine: but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; ... And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry."
~Ruth Paxson~
(continued with # 5)
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