as in it. Others have adjusted the standard of their lives to the level o f the age in which they live because they are ashamed of Jesus and are not willing to go to Him without the camp bearing His reproach. It costs to be a real Christian and the degree to which this world accepts you as one of its crowd, the degree to which it enjoys your company and you enjoy its fellowship, to that degree you are unlike Jesus Christ. If you can move comfort ably in the life o f this age without being called a fool or a heretic, you have hidden your light under a bushel or bed, if you ever had a light. Mr. Moody said, “You are not good for anything until the world considers you a fanatic.” “ But,” you say, “we are living now in a more enlightened age and a Christian does not stand out in as bold contrast as in the days o f heathenism.” This is the most anti-God, anti-Christian pagan era in history, but the darker the night, the more brightly a real Christian will shine. God’s man will always be this world’s fool. But I am thinking of a still sadder situation today. A true New Testament Christian is not only a fool in the eyes of the world; he is a heretic in the eyes of most o f the professing church. It was religious Jews who called Paul a sectarian and most church-members will so label any man who follows “ the Way which they call a sect.” Thank God, although iniquity abounds today and the love of the majority has grown cold, there is a minority o f THE WAY. It is not a Baptist way or a Meth odist way or a Presbyterian way, because some who are of that Way do not belong to the great church bodies. On the other hand, you do not find that Way by leaving this denomination or that for then you only get into another denomination after all and there are many of that Way in each of the great denominations. I do not call it the funda mentalist or the conservative way for that is not necessary. It is the New Testament Way, Christ Himself, and all who belong are just Christians and they do not need any other name to prop them up. But just try being a New Testament Christian today and you will be called a heretic by the here tics and a sectarian by the sectarians! Certainly the liberal branch o f the present-day church will call it heresy. Dr. G. Ernest Wright, reporting on pre-Amsterdam conferences of a study committee considering the authority and interpretation of the Scriptures, says: “ There is no question but that the vast majority of the non-Catholic Christians rep resented in the World Council of Churches, at least so far as they have been vocal, tend to consider Fundamentalism as a serious Christian heresy.” Well, if by Fundamentalism we mean the original New Testament position—and that is true Funda mentalism — certainly that is rankest heresy to liberalism. Yet it is liberalism that is heretical.
a great commotion in Ephesus “ about that Way” (Acts 16:9, 23). We read that Felix had “more perfect knowledge of that Way” (Acts 24:22). Paul did not say, “ You take your way and I will take my way and I am sure that if we are sincere, we will all arrive at the same destination.” We are hearing a lot of that nowadays and some dear peo ple think they are very tolerant and broad-minded when they speak like that. Actually they are pain fully ignorant of the Truth. Our Lord said, “ I am the Way, the truth and the life: NO MAN COM ETH UNTO THE FATHER BUT BY ME” (John 14:6). “There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved” (Acts 4:12). The Gospel way is not only the good way and the old way; it is a narrow way and the ONLY WAY. You would think, from what some of our tolerant, “broad-minded” friends say, that Jesus told the woman at Jacob’s well, “ It does not matter which religion you profess. You go right on with your Samaritan religion and you will get to heaven just as surely as the Jews.” What He did say was, “ Ye worship ye know not what: we know what we worship: for salvation is o f the Jews.” That is intolerant and narrow but it is what He said. If you say today that there is only one way, most people will say you are sectarian for the sim ple reason that this is “ THE WAY WHICH THEY CALL A SECT.” Now, just as these Jews called Paul a heretic when they themselves were the heretics, so has it been down through the course of church history. Christianity continually gets so far away from what it started out to be that when a real New Testament Christian comes along he is branded a sectarian whereas it is his accusers who have de parted from the faith. Most professing Christians are so subnormal that a normal Christian looks abnormal! Martin Luther was called a heretic but he had really discovered original New Testament justification by faith, “ the Way which they called a sect.” John Wesley was called a sectarian because he experienced New Testament conversion which seemed radical to so many of his contemporaries who had never had such an experience. They were in heresy, not Wesley, because he was simply a normal New Testament Christian. He found “ the Way which they call a sect.” We are witnessing this state of affairs today. Of course a real Christian is always a fool in the eyes of this world. If the preaching of the cross is to the world foolishness, how can we expect to be rated anything but fools if we believe and declare it? However, there are thousands of professing Christians who live on good terms with this age and are accepted in all its circles. Many of them have never been saved; they have only become church-members, and are still of the world as well
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JUNE, 1966
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