1 Timothy 4: 1,6 “But the Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons…… In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, {constantly} nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.”
Entertainment, Amusement, Accommodation in the Church Feeding Sheep or Amusing Goats? AN EVIL IS IN THE PROFESSED CAMP of the Lord, so gross in its impudence, that the most short-sighted can hardly fail to notice it. During the past few years it has developed at an abnormal rate, even for the evil. It has worked like leaven until the whole lump ferments. The devil has seldom done a cleverer thing than hinting to the Church that part of her mission is to provide entertainment for the people, with a view to winning them. From speaking out as the Puritans did, the Church has gradually toned down her testimony, then winked at and excused the frivolities of the day. Then she tolerated them in her borders. Now she has adopted them under the plea of reaching the masses. My first contention is that providing amusement for the people is nowhere spoken of in the Scriptures as a function of the Church. If it is a Christian work, why did not Christ speak of it? "Go ye..." into all the world and speak the Gospel to every creature. That is clear enough. So it would have been if He had added, "and provide amusement for those who do not relish the Gospel." No such words, however, are to be found. It did not seem to occur to Him. Then again, "He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers ... for the work of the ministry." Where do entertainers come in? The Holy Spirit is silent concerning them. Were the prophets persecuted because they amused the people or because they refused? The concert has no honor roll. Again, providing amusement is in direct antagonism to the teaching and life of Christ and all His apostles. What was the attitude of the Church to the world? "Ye are the salt," not the sugar candy something the world will spit out, not swallow. Short and sharp was the utterance: "Let the dead bury the dead." He was in awful earnestness! Had Christ introduced more of the bright and pleasant elements into His mission, He would have been more popular when He and His disciples went back, because of the searching nature of His teaching. I do not hear Him say, "Run after these people, Peter, and tell them we will have a new kind of service tomorrow, something short and attractive with little preaching. We will have a pleasant evening for the people. Tell them they will be sure to enjoy it. Be quick, Peter; we must get the people somehow!" Jesus pitied sinners, sighed and wept over them, but never sought to amuse them. In vain will the epistles be searched to find any trace of the gospel of amusement. Their message is, "Come out, keep out, keep clean out!" Anything approaching fooling is conspicuous of its absence. They had boundless confidence in the Gospel and employed no other weapon. After Peter and John were locked up for preaching, the Church had a prayer meeting, but they did not pray, "Lord, grant unto Thy servants that by a wise and discriminating use of innocent recreation we may show these people how happy we are." If they had ceased not for preaching Christ, they had not time for arranging entertainments. Scattered by persecution, they went everywhere preaching the Gospel. They "turned the world upside down." That is the only difference! Lord, clear the Church of all the rot and rubbish the devil has imposed on her, and bring us back to apostolic methods. Lastly, the mission of amusement fails to effect the end desired. It works havoc among young converts. Let the careless and scoffers, who thank God because the Church met them halfway, speak and testify. Let the heavy-laden who found peace through the concert not keep silent! Let the drunkard to whom the dramatic entertainment had been God's link in the chain of his conversation, stand up! There are none to answer. The mission of amusement produces no converts. The need of the hour for today's ministry is believing scholarship joined with earnest spirituality, the one springing from the other as fruit from the root. The need is Biblical doctrine, so understood and felt that it sets men on fire. -C. H. Spurgeon October 5, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - People, in the name of "freedom," frequently leave good fundamental Bible-believing churches to join one of the looser, easy-going congregations which abound in these apostate end times. Commonly, they are lackadaisical about church attendance, putting more emphasis upon personal and family relaxation and recreation, upon sports and the great outdoors and an endless variety of activities unconnected with God's service. They exchange their feminine dresses for pants and shorts and other immodest attire, even joining the half-naked crowd at the beaches. They trade the old hymns of the faith for the jazzy charismatic "praise" music and Christian rock. They develop a careless attitude toward doctrine, emphasizing, instead, "love" and "unity," fellowshipping with anyone who "loves Jesus" regardless of whether or not they are committed to sound doctrine. Their ecumenical sympathies increase dramatically, as does their aversion to biblical separation. When asked about the change, they testify: "I feel more liberty now, more love; I am having fun; I am glad to be free of legalism; I don't hear criticism at my church; no one judges what others do." Through the years I have witnessed with sorrow a number of Christian friends who were captured in this fleshly trap. These are confused about the nature of Bible Christianity. Consider the following Bible preachers. Would a person who focuses on liberty and fun be comfortable under such preaching? JAMES JOHN THE DISCIPLE JOHN THE BAPTIST PETER PAUL "For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world; Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works" (Titus 2:11-14). These men do not sound like modern liberty-fun sort of guys, to me. Liberty from eternal destruction through the blood of Christ, yes. Liberty to live as one pleases, no. The term "liberty" is used in these two different ways in the book of Galatians. Paul refers to the believer's liberty from a works gospel (Gal. 2:4), but he warns of using Christian liberty as an "occasion for the flesh." "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; ONLY USE NOT LIBERTY FOR AN OCCASION TO THE FLESH, but by love serve one another" (Gal. 5:13). The Christian has no liberty to walk in any type of unholiness, no liberty for moral looseness, no liberty to serve the world. To the liberty-fun Christian, his personal freedom is the chief issue in the decisions he makes about daily living. To the Bible-believing Christian, God's pleasure and the edification of God's people and the salvation of the unsaved is the chief issue. There is no emphasis upon "fun" in the Bible. The emphasis is upon obedience, extreme spiritual caution, and spotless separation from the world. The previously quoted Bible preachers sound like the old-fashioned Bible-believing men of God of past generations who railed against sin and called God's people to holiness and separation from this wicked world. The average worldly Christian today would not be comfortable under this type of preaching. If these holy men of old were to stand before them and preach what we have recorded in our Bibles, no doubt they would be labeled judgmental fun-hating legalists. Sadly, those who are crying for liberty and fun are described in 2 Timothy 4:3-4. "For the time will come when they 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." They search out teachers who will preach a positive Christianity, who will encourage them in their idolatry of "fun" and their yearnings for carnal "liberty." 1 CORINTHIANS 6:12 AND 10:23 1 CORINTHIANS 6:12-13 -- "All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any. Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body." 1 CORINTHIANS 10:23-24 -- "All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not. Let no man seek his own, but every man another's wealth." These verses are frequently misused today by those who desire liberty to fulfill their carnal desires. These would have us believe that the Apostle Paul is saying the Christian has liberty to wear immodest clothing and watch indecent movies and go to the beach half naked and listen to wicked rock music, to fellowship with anyone who says he "loves Jesus" regardless of his doctrinal beliefs, etc. Is that what the Holy Spirit through Paul meant by the statement "all things are lawful unto me"? By no means! Obviously there are limitations on the Christian's liberty. The New Testament Scriptures, in fact, put great limits upon our "liberty." We are not free to commit fornication (1 Cor. 6:16-18; 1 Thess. 4:3-6), nor to be involved in any sort of uncleanness (1 Thess. 4:7), nor to fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness (Eph. 5:11), nor to be drunk with wine (Eph. 5:18), nor to allow any corrupt communication to proceed out of our mouths (Eph. 4:29), nor to allow any filthiness of the flesh or spirit (2 Cor. 7:1), nor to be involved in anything which has even the appearance of evil (1 Thess. 5:22), nor to love the things that are in the world (1 John 2:15-17), nor to befriend the world (James 4:4), nor to dress immodestly (1 Tim. 2:9), etc. What, then, did the Apostle mean? He meant that the Christian has been set free by the blood of Christ, free from the wages of sin, free from the condemnation of the law, free from the ceremonies of the Mosaic covenant, but not free to sin, and not free to do anything which is not expedient or edifying. He explains himself perfectly in both passages. In 1 Corinthians 6:12-13, he uses the example of eating meat. In 1 Corinthians 8:1-13 and 10:23-28 he uses the example of eating things which have been offered to idols. In all such things like that, the Christian is free. There are no dietary restrictions for the New Testament Christian as there were under the Mosaic law. We do not have to fear idols; we know they are nothing. This is the type of thing Paul is referring to in 1 Corinthians, if we allow him to explain himself in the very context of the statements, rather than attempt to put some strange meaning upon his words which would fill the Bible with contradiction. He addresses exactly the same thing in Romans chapter 14. The Christian is free from laws about eating and keeping holy days (Rom. 14:2-6). We are not to judge one another in these matters. This does not mean we are not to judge anything and that we are free to do whatever we please. Such a philosophy is obviously contrary to the entire tenor of the New Testament writings and is an appalling perversion of these passages. FOUR TESTS FOR CHRISTIAN ACTIVITIES The Bible says we have liberty in Christ, liberty from eternal condemnation, liberty to serve Christ and to enjoy our unspeakably wonderful salvation in Christ, but not liberty to sin, not liberty to do whatever we please with our lives, not liberty to do anything which is not expedient or edifying. The Apostle Paul had such a low view of "personal liberty" that he was willing to forego the eating of meat for the rest of his life if he thought that such eating would offend his brother or cause his brother to stumble in any way (1 Cor. 8:13). He did not have the idea that he was in this world to live as he pleased. Contrast this view of Christian liberty with that which is so popular today. Those who are consumed with their "liberty" will not forego even highly questionable things for the sake of glorifying Christ and edifying their fellow man. When confronted with such things, they become puffed up and lash out against a straw man they call "legalism." A SLIPPERY SLOPE You do not lose anything whatsoever by holding the strictest line of Christian standards in this present evil world, but you have much to lose if you loosen those standards. One thing those who let down their standards often lose is their children, to the world. "For, brethren, ye have been called unto liberty; ONLY USE NOT LIBERTY FOR AN OCCASION TO THE FLESH, but by love serve one another" (Galatians 5:13). "As free, and NOT USING YOUR LIBERTY FOR A CLOAK OF MALICIOUSNESS, but as the servants of God" (1 Peter 2:16). "While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought in bondage" (2 Peter 2:19)
The Dangers of the Gospel of Accommodation I am not coming to you as a pastor but with a prophetic word. God so shook me recently with this message that I should bring it somewhere, sometime in Springfield. This morning the Lord, by His Spirit, spoke to my heart that this is the time. He has called me to be one of His watchmen, and I have wept over this and prayed that He will help me deliver the message in a spirit of love. This is not a chastisement but a warning for the Assemblies of God. A NEW GOSPEL
Accommodate means to adapt, to make suitable and acceptable, to make convenient. A gospel of accommodation is creeping into the United States. It's an American cultural invention to appease the lifestyle of luxury and pleasure. Primarily a Caucasian, suburban gospel, it's also in our major cities and is sweeping the nation, influencing ministers of every denomination, and giving birth to megachurches with thousands who come to hear a nonconfronting message. It's an adaptable gospel that is spoon-fed through humorous skits, drama, and short, nonabrasive sermonettes on how to cope-called a seeker-friendly or sinner-friendly gospel. To begin with, those terms are unscriptural. The gospel of Jesus Christ has always been confronting-there is no such thing as a friendly gospel but a friendly grace. This new gospel is being propagated by bright, young, talented ministers. They have come upon a formula which states you can go into any town or city; and if you have the right formula, within a short time you can raise a megachurch. If you are a young man and have certain skills, you find those skills and a part of the city that would best suit you. You move into that area, poll it, and find out what the nonchurchgoers want: "You don't like choirs. Well, would you go to a church that didn't have a choir?" Yes. "You don't like to wear suits. Would you go where it's informal?" Yes. Then you go to your computer and design a gospel that will not confront but will shoot out the desires and the needs of the people. After you have gathered a handful of people, you keep interviewing them to find out what they want; then you design your message to help people cope with their needs. The program you design is intended to make the church comfortable and friendly for all sinners who wish to attend. This gospel is fast becoming the most prosperous and flourishing of all religious movements. Thousands attend these churches. The pastor is the CEO, and it becomes a business. They make no bones about it: They are following Madison Avenue tactics and can make a success of it. Their formula for quick church growth is cleverly packaged and is being sold especially to young ministers-those who want to be a part of the big boys and what's happening on a fast track. They want it to happen quickly. Paul's Warning Paul warned of the coming of another gospel and another Jesus (2 Corinthians 11:4). He warned the church that it's really not another gospel but a perversion of the true gospel of Jesus Christ. If you hear any other gospel, he said, let that preacher be accursed. In other words, no matter how pleasant, how pious, or how sincere, if the message is not the death of sin through the cross of Jesus Christ, let it be accursed. I tremble when I read in the Scriptures that in the last days Satan is going to come right into the church posing as an angel of light. He's going to take ministers who, at one time, had the touch of God, and he's going to transform them into angels of light to become his tool of deception. That's frightening. It causes me to fall on my face before God for such false, deceitful workers transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ. No marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. Therefore, it's no great thing if ministers also are transformed as the ministers of righteousness whose end shall be according to their works. Paul said they are going to glory in the flesh, in their bigness, their numbers, their influence, and their contemporariness. They will boast they are contemporary, that there is a gospel that is out of style that doesn't reach human need anymore. They will glory in the world's acceptance. Jesus warned, "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matthew 7:15). The context of that warning was: "Straight is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth to life, and few there be that find it" (verse 14). His warning was to beware of the wolves who are going to say it's really not that narrow and straight-they are going to come posing as submissive sheep. Jesus put His finger on the cause: ambition-ambitious ravening wolves. In the Greek it means "starved for recognition and quick gratification, quick growth." Jesus left no doubt about His meaning. For example, He was addressing a struggling pastor who has worked for years and hasn't seen the kind of growth he wants to see. A young man with an accommodating gospel moves into town and and within a very short time has a megachurch. People are flocking there because there is entertainment; it's a gospel of fun. I've been in some of them. It's the gospel of entertainment that has no conviction whatsoever. There is very little in their gospel that speaks to sinners of repentance, brokenness, and cross-bearing. A Christ is preached, Jesus' name is mentioned, but Paul said their's is another gospel, another Jesus. Paul warned that if you are caught in this trap, if you want that hook of entertainment, that hook of sudden growth, this is the hook: The enemy will put in your path a teaching. I have two preacher sons. One of them confessed to me, "Dad, I was that close to being sucked in because I fasted and prayed and didn't see the growth I wanted to see, and I saw these others grow. That hook was there, and I almost bought it." That is something this Movement and every movement is going to have to look at and deal with: It is possible, through unholy ambition, to be transformed from a man of God, who has been seeking God and getting a word from heaven, to an unholy ambition and a tool of Satan. Let every pastor heed this warning: The moment you begin to consider the "competition," seeds of accommodation will be planted in your heart. Suddenly, Satan will put in your path a wolf in sheep's clothing-a man who will try to seduce you into ungodly ambition and achieving church growth at any cost. Yet the truth is, it could cost you your soul. The Right Formula 1. The hero is an expert. John Baldwin had the formula but no story, so he read of research by John Marr who was studying the epidemiological causes of the 10 plagues, hoping to explain their causes scientifically. The two men formed a partnership, and using Baldwin's 10-step formula, together wrote a 640 page manuscript called The Eleventh Plague. Harper Collins bought it for almost $2 million. Baldwin, who has no passion for writing, said, "If I get the formula, I'm going to be a multimillionaire and famous." Well, he's going to make another $3 million on the movie rights, and he's laughing all the way to the bank. His philosophy: "If you have the right formula, you can be a success at anything." You see, this is the gospel of accommodation-the formula. You get the formula, you get what people want, and you can be a success. I am here to tell you that a formula-based, accommodating gospel is contrary to everything in the Scriptures. God's Method 1. They ministered to the Lord and fasted. This was their planning session-worshiping, fasting, waiting on the Lord, and calling for direction from the Holy Ghost. They did not move until the Holy Ghost spoke. There were no formulas, no surveys, no door-to-door asking people what they wanted and then serving it to them. 2. They prayed-no strategizing, no network, and not one step until the Holy Ghost spoke His mind. Then and only then did they lay hands upon them, anoint them, and send them out in the power and demonstration of the Holy Ghost. Paul lived his whole religious life on religious formulas, and he said they didn't work. He gave up on formulas and said, "I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified" (1 Corinthians 2:2). Paul boasted unashamedly, "We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness" (1 Corinthians 1:23). He was saying, "Gentlemen (he was talking to his peers), they want us to accommodate. The Jews are looking for signs in our gospel. The Greeks want the wisdom. They want to know how to cope, but I'm not compromising. There's only one message. Our gospel has been and will be the Cross and its demands as well as its victories. As for me, I'm determined to preach nothing among you but Christ and Him crucified." What the Gospel of Accommodation Does (1) I see three things in the gospel of accommodation:
1. It is the accommodation of man's love for pleasure. In disbelief I watched a televised Sunday night service of a seeker-friendly church-seeker-friendly by its own admission. To a packed church where thousands attend, the pastor said, "This is fun night, a David Letterman night." The youth pastor came out and did his monologue as David Letterman. Then they showed 10 of the most boring things teenagers do during preaching. Three of the 10 were throwing spitballs, yawning, and picking their noses. The crowd went crazy. After the service, the pastor brazenly announced, "We're not here to offend people, but to make church comfortable for everyone." I wept. I ask you, how long do you think that audience would stay in church if the pastor was gripped by the Holy Ghost, convicted for "entertaining" people toward hell, and suddenly preached a message entitled, "Be sure your sins will find you out"? How long would people keep coming back if a gospel of holy living and separation from the world was preached? Two things would happen: (1) Those who are misguided, hungry, and didn't know any better would weep and run to the altar. (2) Those who are judiciously blinded by their pleasures in madness would flee from the church and never come again. The church doors would close. I keep this foremost in my mind and before my eyes, because every minister of the gospel one day has to face it when he stands before the Lord. He will say, "Son of man, I made thee a watchman. You were to hear the words of My mouth and give them warnings from Me. You were to tell the wicked, 'Thou shalt surely die.' And you gave them no warning nor spoke to warn the wicked to turn from their wicked ways to save their lives. These same wicked men died in their sins, but their blood I'll require at your hands." What the Gospel of Accommodation Does (2) 2. This gospel of accommodation accommodates all man's aversion to self-denial. The gospel of Jesus Christ is one of self-denial. Jesus said, "If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me" (Matthew 16:24). Self-denial is not something you give. It's someone you give up-the giving up of yourself, giving up everything you are. It's a living sacrifice to the Lord Jesus Christ to present your body a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. God has every right to say to His church, "If you expect to give Me your body, your resurrected body, all through eternity, I have every right-it's only reasonable of Me and your reasonable service-to ask your body why you're here on earth. I want every part of you. I want you to be spiritually minded. I want to possess you." The gospel we preach must bring people under the total possession of the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, it's a gospel of accommodation. The seeker-friendly gospel accommodates the body. The human body belongs to Him. What we see in America is a neognosticism where you take your physical body on one side and do as you please as long as your spirit is right with God. This is coming even out of the White House, this dividing of personality. No, we are one personality, and it all belongs to Jesus Christ. This neognosticism is destroying the faith of many throughout the nation. What the Gospel of Accommodation Does (3) 3. There is an accommodation of man's offense to the gospel. The Scriptures state, "Behold, I lay in Zion a stumblingstone and rock of offense." Paul spoke of the offense of the Cross. This is the heart of God's anger. We're not called to the Cross but to go through the Cross-to experience the same thing Jesus did, not only coming to the Cross but dying and going into the grave with Jesus Christ and then being raised from the dead to a newness of life. It's cruel, pastor, to lead sinners to the Cross, tell them they are forgiven by faith, and then allow them to go back to their habits and lusts of the flesh, unchanged and still in the devil's shackles. If the preaching of grace doesn't have as its goal the producing of a walk of righteousness, then it's another gospel, another Jesus. I listened in horror to a man, who attended one of the largest seeker-friendly churches, being interviewed by CBS. He said, "I come to this church because I'm comfortable. I'm never made to feel uneasy. I bring my Jewish friends and my business friends, and I know nothing will ever be said that will offend them. The best part of it is, the whole thing only lasts an hour." Take it from me: You can get your big church and be one of the big boys, but it's going to cost you your soul if you preach with a focus only on earthly things, rather than on the things of God. I've lived in New York City 35 years. We have 103 nationalities from all walks of life-from the poorest to the richest. Probably 300 or more from the United Nations live there. But I look over a congregation (so does my dear friend, Jim Cymbala, in Brooklyn) and see men who have just walked in from the porno shops and are wild animals. I see a businessman friend who was CEO of a multimillion-dollar company, but he started snorting coke, lost everything, and is now a bum on the street. He sits in the congregation. A little 14-year-old girl with AIDS is up on 8th Avenue performing lewd acts before dirty old men. She comes to church and keeps saying, "Pastor Dave, I've got to get out. I've got to get help." I'm not about to put up a silly skit and preach a 15-minute message on how to cope to a multitude of people who are dying and going to hell. I tremble at the thought. People don't like to hear this, but we're headed for perilous times-just a few years away from a collapse like the world has never known. When that happens, all who preached prosperity are going to disappear because the people will say, "Your gospel has failed me." When that time comes, I want to grasp onto Jesus, and I want everyone I've preached to to have faith in the keeping power of Jesus Christ. I want them to know Him in His fullness. I want to know that I've done it in love, in grace, that they would know the difference between the holy and the profane. May God, in Jesus' name, spare the Assemblies of God forever. If I have ever given a prophetic message in my lifetime that God intended for a purpose, it is now. Many are being deceived. If they are not awakened, what I warn you about will happen. I pray that God will keep the Assemblies of God in its original purposes. In New York City, He has proved that the people come to hear a straight gospel, and thousands will come where the Word of God is being preached without compromise and yet with grace. May the young men who are discouraged in the Movement not try for a shortcut but be broken and on their faces before the Lord. May we get our eyes off growth and onto a new revelation of who Jesus is. STANDARDS In most spheres of life, we welcome standards. They provide safety, uniform levels of acceptable performance and guidelines for behavior. Take, for example, the manufacturer who is interested in selling a product on a long-term basis. Such an entrepreneur must maintain rigid quality controls to secure and keep long term satisfaction with his product. Should he let down his standards in production or in handling consumer concerns, it would mean ultimate loss of business and profitability or, to put it another way, the success or failure of his venture. The "World" Uses Standards Though many consumer products are shoddily made and with a philosophy of "planned obsolescence," they do not survive in a market place of fair competition. Purchasers with discernment look for quality, value and service and thus impose certain "standards" on that which is acceptable to the market at large. Manufacturers who ignore these consumer-mandated "standards" do so at their own peril and will not survive. In the medical community, professional health providers must meet exacting standards of education, peer review, on-the-job performance and licensure. Though these various standards do not guarantee quality health care, the public and our governmental agencies use them to weed out quacks, incompetants and charlatans. Who would desire to have brain or heart surgery performed on them by a health care provider who never mastered or understood anatomy, or came to the procedure with no prior skills or experience? Picture the sports enthusiast watching professional baseball, basketball, football, hockey, etc. when suddenly all rules (standards) were eliminated. He would be amazed at the poor batter who insisted on six strikes instead of three, the football team that played with twenty players instead of eleven, or the basketball player who used a stepladder to facilitate his "slam dunks"! Standards provide the parameters necessary for uniformity, fair competition and predictability. Without the "rules of the game" anarchy would reign, and no game would be like another. The World's Standards Change Culturally or socially mandated standards, however useful and necessary for various spheres of life, are fickle and transient. Whereas our God is holy and immutable (changeless), the standards of men seemingly change with the winds. Clothing styles acceptable to society are in a constant state of flux. The punk rocker of this generation would laugh hysterically at the attire of the "flapper" of the roaring twenties. The "evangelical" believer of today may look on the dress of the pre-World War II believers with a condescending amusement, and conclude they were unnecessarily austere. Various forms of soical behavior also seem to undergo changes in standards, or acceptable norms. Strictly observed "courtship" of the past which was guided by parental rules and guidelines seems "old-fashioned" to today's youth who often choose serial dating, unfettered petting, and brazen fornication. Physicians and nurses who would have been arrested and incarcerated forty years ago for the same procedure, are now enriching themselves through socially acceptable abortion of preborn children. Divorce, which was unheard of among believers 50 years ago, or at least was discussed in hushed tones, is now becoming prevalent in our circles. A believer of Fanny Crosby's day would be horrified to hear the average Christian teenager's tape and CD collection of today. The sensual performers, driving beat and worldly music styles would have been rejected by those God-fearing folk of yesteryear, but such musical tastes are common and acceptable to contemporary professors. What the average American believer now watches on his TV set during the course of an average week would have been grounds for church discipline several generations ago. Whereas society at large can be expected to follow the dictates of the flesh and depraved human natures, believers must march to the beat of a different drum. Our contemporary culture looks with a patronizing disdain on our Godly American forbearers, considering themselves enlightened and freed from the shackles of Judeo-Christian ethics. It reminds one of Paul's conclusion: "... but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Profession themselves to be wise, they became fools" (Romans 1:21b-22). Christians' Standards Should Never Change What is the lesson in all of this? Man left to himself will "do that which is right in his own eyes" (Judges 21:25). His "standards" will be flexible and of a temporary nature. They will change with the whims and ways of each generation and, over a period of time, will even be contradictory of preceding cultures! Christian friend, the question is not how you and your manner of life are acceptable to your mutable generation, but to your immutable God! We can find small comfort in the fact we "fit-in" with the mainstream of professing Christendom: "Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you!" (Luke 6:26). Standards of dress, behavior, etc., will always be followed. The question is, whose standards do you observe? Because our inborn, fleshly temptation is to follow the standards of the world around us, God warns us repeatedly to resist these inclinations: "Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil..." (Exodus 23:2); "for thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself, above all the nations that are upon the earth." (Deuteronomy 14:2) Israel failed to heed God's warnings about standards that would effectively separate them from Canaanites and Philistines if they were observed. Israel's desire was such that they wanted to be like all the other nations of the earth (Judges 8:20). The pressure to conform is as old as human history. Godly Standards Set Christians Apart Standards observed for their own sake become legalistic and Pharisaical. However, Godly standards of dress, behavior, music, church order, separation, etc., observed to please the Lord, and, formulated on the basis of scriptural principle, effectively set us apart as a peculiar people that live lives considered inscrutable by our peers. Do not pride yourself my friend on your liberality or your broad-mindedness. We must concern ourselves with obtaining God's approval, and not that of society, on our standards. Godless Israel persecuted and stoned the prophets who tried to call them back to standards of decency, morality and God's order. Most will be irritated with prophetic calls for repentance and a return to the ancient landmarks established by our fathers; only a few tremble at God's Word and will pay the price of ostracism, rejection, scorn and ridicule heaped on them for following standards considered old-fashioned and out-of-date. Popularity and social acceptance by their very nature cannot be the criteria of the right or wrong standards, but rather; what saith the scriptures? ... what will please the Lord; not, what will please the world around me? Those who fear God and eschew evil will seem eccentric to their contemporaries. Their standards of life, because they conflict in so many ways with their world, make them objects of curiosity, defamation and misunderstanding. They become a spectacle (1 Corinthians 4:9) to a laughing society. We would all do well to take personal inventory on our manner of life. We all live by standards of some kind, formulated after some criteria discerned or not. Personal holiness, denial of flesh, scriptural principle, separation from sin and the world, and pleasing God have got to be our motivations for establishing standards of life. If they are not, you will look like, thing like and act like the God-rejecting world whose standards you have unwittingly followed. by Pastor Ronald E. Williams. by Pastor Ronald E. Williams. |