Three Enemies of Truth

 

1. Appeasement   To conciliate or pacify by making a sacrifice of a moral or spiritual principle.

 * The world made this mistake with Hitler. Chamberlain announced, “Peace in our time” and then Germany attacked. The same mistake was made with Communist Russia, and others since then. Israel has not achieved peace with Arab nations by making concessions to them – land for peace. Appeasement in the churches only allows the leaven of evil or rebellion the time it needs to put down roots, and spread and affect more people, making more difficult and painful the work of cleansing, discipline and correction that must inevitably be done anyway. Nothing is gained by appeasement, and in the long run more is lost.

 

2. Compromise      To come to an agreement by concession or       consensus; yielding; or conceding.

 

* This is the idea of democracy, the will of the majority, but it is not set forth in the Bible as a Scriptural pattern to follow. Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22) was a democratic church. However, among faithful saints of every age there was no voting or ceding to the consensus, but rather an earnest seeking of the will of God, which must be done even though all are not in agreement. The Scriptures teach us to be of one mind, but not to give in to a majority vote. The majority does not have a good track record in the Bible, yet man often finds comfort in the fact that others are of the same opinion as him, rather than being strong enough to stand for what the Bible says even if no one else agrees. In Scripture the faithful have often stood alone or been ostracized. God’s prophets never compromised. Jeremiah was commanded: “...let them return unto thee; but return not thou unto them” (Jer. 15:19).  Likewise, the apostle Paul warned Timothy that the time would come when professing Christians would not endure sound doctrine. He instructed him: “Preach the Word...reprove, rebuke, exhort...” (See 2 Tim. 4:1-5).

 

3. Expediency  Subordination of a moral or spiritual principle, for the sake of facilitating an end.

 *  Epitomized in the worldly wisdom that says, “Times change and we have to change with them,” or, “The end justifies the means”, or “For the greater good.”  The implication is, whatever makes the church grow in numbers must be good, and therefore we should accept it. Overlooking, “modernizing” or overemphasis on context to limit or circumvent the teachings of Scriptures is responsible for departure from the form of sound words which the Apostles charged us to hold fast (2 Tim. 1:13). Today’s contemporary evangelical churches are guilty of this. 

Jude wrote under inspiration: “...it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (v. 3). That faith once delivered so long ago, is not to be altered or abandoned, but obeyed, propagated and defended (cf. Rom. 1:5; Phil. 1:27). Paul kept the faith to the end (2 Tim. 4:7). What about us?

from an old issue of Milk & Honey, by Steve Hulshizer