Saturday, January 9, 2010

Does Anyone Respect a Compromiser?

Decades ago, Robert Jordan started a church the hard way, literally going door-to-door. He told me that when he was starting out, he talked to a strongly fundamentalist Christian who taught a large men's Sunday School class in a large compromising church.

Jordan asked the man to quit his class and teach a small class in Jordan's church instead. The man politely refused, stating that he could do more good where he was. Over the years, the compromising church repeatedly split the man's classes, until he had a handful of men left, while Jordan's group had grown into a mega-church.

Modernists tolerate Christians as long as they have to, but they undermine their work for God as soon as they are able. And Christians who think they are respected by modernists are sadly mistaken.

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Even Modernists Despise Compromisers

In the 1970's, Evangelist Bill Rice told of being brought in for a week's preaching at a Godly, fundamental church. The man who was paying a large share of the expenses met Bill at the airport.

To Bill's surprise, the man did not attend the church, but was the Sunday School superintendent of a modernist church that had rejected the Word of God. The fellow explained that God had called him to stay there and be a good influence. Every Sunday, he gave a brief message from God's Word before dismissing everyone to their classes.

Rice told the fellow that he wasn't the good influence that he thought that he was, and Rice could prove it. He advised the man, the next Sunday morning, to talk about the virgin birth in his brief message, and to explain that a person who does not believe in the virgin birth was not a born-again Christina. The man agreed, and after dropping Rice off at the church where he was preaching the superintendent went to his own church.

Later that day, the superintendent picked Rice up. Badly shaken, he told Rice that the church had fired him immediately after Sunday School, citing the "extremist evangelist" who was staying at his house.

Brethren, Satan will tolerate Christian leaders in his churches, because they are an influence for keeping other Christians there, instead of in the house of God where they belong. But modernists only pretend to respect them.