Romans 13:4 tells us the government is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.
Hebrews 10:25 Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.
Acts 5:27-29 And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them,28 Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name? and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
Canadian Pastor ‘Phil, his associate pastor Cody Butler, and their church, His Tabernacle Community Church in Saint John, New Brunswick have been at the centre of a fight for religious freedom during the pandemic lockdown on society. The church and pastoral duo have been under constant surveillance by law enforcement and health authorities after refusing to police their congregation for COVID restriction compliance from the pulpit.
Restrictions when His Tabernacle Church first came on the radar of the province required places of worship to encourage vaccination, contract-trace congregations right down to the pew church goers sit in, force worshippers to mask and social distance, enforce arbitrary capacity limits, and ban singing.
‘GREENVILLE, S.C. (November 19, 2021) – BJU Seminary is expanding its corps of “pastor-professors” with the appointment of Dr. Billy Gotcher, renowned for revitalizing churches and Christian institutions, and the return of Dr. Sam Horn, senior pastor of Palmetto Baptist Church and former Bob Jones University executive vice president and BJU Seminary dean.
Their addition further builds on the “people” plank of BJU Seminary’s 5P Plan to achieve its 500 x 5 x 5 strategic vision of putting 500 pastors in the pulpit in the next five years—and every five years after that. Gotcher and Horn join more than 10 faculty members currently engaged in full-time pastoral ministry or key church leadership positions.
When the government tells pastors what they can and cannot preach there is no stopping what the government will do! Thankfully, ‘Pastor and theologian John MacArthur of Grace Community Church in Los Angeles is calling on pastors to preach about the “biblical view of sexual morality” on Jan. 16 in opposition to a Canadian law banning therapy for unwanted sexual attractions and gender confusion — what is often derisively referred to as conversion therapy — set to take effect next month.
MacArthur, known for his syndicated broadcast program “Grace to You,” published an open letter on the Grace Community Church website Tuesday calling on “ministers of the Gospel” to join him on the third Sunday of the new year in preaching about “a biblical view of sexual morality.”
MacArthur stated that he received a letter from Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church in Edmonton, Alberta, a graduate of the MacArthur-led The Master’s Seminary who made headlines when he was imprisoned for hosting in-person services in defiance of government lockdown orders.
Coates alleged that Bill C-4, which passed by the Canadian House and Senate earlier this month, “directly comes against parents and counselors who would seek to offer biblical counsel with respect to sexual immorality and gender.”
The law amends the criminal code to make illegal so-called conversion therapy, removing a child from Canada to undergo conversion therapy, advertising or promoting conversion therapy and receiving a material benefit for providing conversion therapy.
Specifically, the law slated to go into effect on Jan. 8 describes the belief that “heterosexuality, cisgender gender identity, and gender expression that conforms to the sex assigned to a person at birth are to be preferred over other sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions” as a “myth.”
Critics describe conversion therapy as counseling or efforts to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity through religious-based counseling or more controversial treatments like electric shock therapy.
However, some counselors and Christian ministries have warned that their counseling for people experiencing unwanted same-sex attraction is misunderstood and that “conversion therapy” is a politically charged term designed to mislead the public about the work they do.
Critics of such bills contend that the propagation of the narrative of conversion therapy being similar to electric shock therapy has become a “straw man” to promote “one-sided and biased counseling methods,” considering those types of treatments are already considered in the medical world to be “barbaric and unethical.”
C-4’s opponents claim that the language is too broad and could essentially ban religious leaders from preaching the teachings on sexual ethics and marriage found in the Bible or counseling a person with unwanted attractions or saying that homosexuality is sinful.
Andrew DeBartolo, the teaching elder at Encounter Church in Kingston, Ontario, told MacArthur in a letter that “the belief in God’s design for marriage and sexuality will now be seen as a myth” beginning on Jan. 8.
“Since this law takes effect on January 8, 2022, faithful Canadian pastors are going to preach on the issue, calling for a biblical understanding of sexual sin, the eternal judgment that falls on the unrepentant and gospel-rejecting sinners, and the grace of God in the gospel which offers forgiveness to those who repent and believe in Christ,” MacArthur wrote. “In 1 Corinthians 6:9–11, Paul clearly articulates why we must speak the truth.”
“Our calling as gospel ministers is to preach the truth, confront sin, and call all men to repentance and obedience to the gospel—the good news that achieves soul conversion and saves sinners from eternal wrath,” he added.
Several states in the U.S. have passed bans on conversion therapy, including MacArthur’s home state of California. MacArthur claims the California government “sought to prohibit any correction of an unbiblical view of sexual identity.”
A Christian therapist filed a lawsuit earlier this year in Washington state, alleging that the state’s 2018 ban on conversion therapy was a political attempt to silence dissent and “impose its own new orthodoxy concerning sexual morality.” However, his claim was rejected by a federal judge in September.
In 2019, a federal judge dismissed an ex-gay psychotherapists lawsuit against Maryland’s ban on mental health professionals providing conversion therapy.
‘In June 2020, as the country attempted to recover from deadly and destructive riots after the death of George Floyd, a man from Wisconsin hosted a national conference of self-styled “militia” members in a suburban Columbus, Ohio hotel. Stephen Robeson, founder of the Wisconsin chapter of the Three Percenters, an alleged militia group on the FBI’s naughty list, pestered his contacts across the country to participate in the gathering.
People who attended the conference, including two men later charged with federal crimes related to a plot to abduct Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation cottage in 2020, observed that the hotel was crawling with federal agents.
One of the feds at the conference was none other than Stephen Robeson himself.
Without Robeson’s deep involvement as an FBI informant, the Whitmer kidnapping caper never would have made national headlines a few weeks before Election Day; in fact, the whole pre-election drama wouldn’t have materialized at all. A longtime FBI asset, Robeson was one of at least 12 confidential human sources embedded in the failed plot, which concluded when several men were arrested attempting to buy explosives from an undercover FBI agent in October 2020.
Defense attorneys are building a convincing case that the FBI entrapped their clients, who stand accused of perpetrating an act of domestic terror; a motion to dismiss the federal kidnapping count was filed on Christmas Day. “[The] evidence here demonstrates egregious overreaching by the government’s agents, and by the informants those agents handled,” five defense attorneys wrote to a Michigan judge on December 25. FBI agents and informants, according to the filing, “concocted, hatched, and pushed this ‘kidnapping plan’ from the beginning, doing so against defendants who explicitly repudiated the plan.”
Stephen Robeson played as instrumental a role as any other FBI informant or agent. In addition to organizing the June militia conference, Robeson arranged a military-style training exercise in Wisconsin in July; another gathering in Ohio a week later; a meeting in Delaware in late summer; and a night time surveillance mission outside Whitmer’s vacation home in September. “He also urged people to plan violent actions against elected officials and to acquire weapons and bomb-making materials,” anonymous attendees toldBuzzFeed News reporters in July. “Some of those contacts say he called them nearly every day.”
But Robeson had another secret he withheld from the group of would-be kidnappers whom he coaxed into an FBI trap; Robeson is a convicted felon several times over with “a rap sheet stretching back to the early 1980s that includes fraud, assault, and sex with a minor,” BuzzFeed Newsconfirmed.
And Robeson didn’t suspend his criminal ways while working on behalf of the federal government. At the same time Robeson was producing all the optics later used as evidence against the Whitmer “kidnappers,” he committed at least two other crimes.
In September 2020, Robeson purchased a firearm—a no-no as a convicted felon—just a few weeks after he conducted the reconnaissance trip near Whitmer’s cottage. He sold the gun several months later.
In October 2021, Robeson pleaded guilty to one count of illegally possessing a firearm. But rather than recommend the stiffest sentence for the felony charge, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison, prosecutors offered Robeson a sweetheart deal with only two years supervised release and a $100 fine. He will be officially sentenced in February.
And Robeson’s legal woes are mounting. He and his wife were charged this month with fraud for convincing a Wisconsin couple to purchase and donate a vehicle to a non-existent charity Robeson claimed to operate. The couple bought a used Chevy Tahoe for $3,500 and signed over the title to Robeson on September 3, 2020, the same month he illegally purchased the firearm and was working undercover for the FBI.
In the criminal complaint filed on December 20, 2021 against Robeson and his wife, the couple who bought the vehicle said Robeson became “verbally aggressive” when they confronted him about the legitimacy of the nonprofit. “They started to realize the potential that Robeson’s non-profit was not real, as he talked about things such as performing raids with law enforcement and being a part of the ‘three percenters,’” a local prosecutor wrote. Robeson faces up to three years in prison if convicted.
It’s unclear how much Robeson was paid for his stint in the Whitmer kidnapping ruse. According to court testimony, the top informant known as “Dan” received more than $50,000 in compensation—including cash, a new car, and reimbursement for taking a loss after selling his home—for six months’ work on the Whitmer case. It’s also unclear if Robeson drove the unlawfully obtained vehicle while working as an FBI informant, particularly whether he used the truck to transport the suspects to any of his planned events.
Robeson isn’t the only government asset tied to the Whitmer case accused of criminal misconduct. Richard Trask, the FBI special agent who signed the criminal complaint against the six federal defendants, was arrested over the summer and charged with domestic battery for assaulting his wife in a drunken rage following a swingers party at a hotel near their Kalamazoo home. Trask was fired by the FBI and recently pleaded no contest to the charge. (Local reporters also unearthed Trask’s social media account that contained vile remarks about Donald Trump.)
Neither Trask, nor the FBI’s other top agents who handled the numerous informants in the Whitmer case, will testify for the government during the trial scheduled to begin March 8.
So, to summarize: A convicted felon with a lengthy rap sheet marketed himself as a leader of one of the FBI’s most wanted “militia” groups to lure people angry about lockdown policies into an FBI trap that acted as another example of FBI election interference while at the same time committing other crimes. Robeson wasn’t an informant—he was an agitator and an instigator.
And he got paid an unknown amount by U.S. taxpayers.
Unfortunately for the American people, lowlifes like Stephen Robeson and Richard Trask represent the current state of the Federal Bureau of Investigation—a morally bankrupt, politically weaponized agency doing the dirty work of the Democratic Party. It’s only a matter of time before we learn how many Stephen Robesons and Richard Trasks were involved in the events of January 6.’https://amgreatness.com/2021/12/30/the-fbis-criminal-lead-informant-in-whitmer-kidnapping-caper/
“I am calling for a global code of conduct that promotes integrity in public information,” writes UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
This sounds noble since everyone wants integrity. However, in such a fractured world, you have to ask, whose “integrity” are we going to use as the standard?
Guterres further explains:
“The war on science must end. All policy and budget decisions should be backed by science and expertise.”
Is he talking about the “science” that gave us the theory of evolution, which gave us humanism, which gave us atheism, which led to the elimination of the Bible from our school systems?
Is he talking about the “experts” who tell us that atheistic socialism can be made to work even though it has a zero historical batting average? Or the “experts” who tell us that homosexuals are born that way? Or the “experts” that tell us that the Bible is just a book of old legends?
Everybody agrees that the world is broken. But they have tossed aside the operation manual and are scrambling around looking for “science” to repair it. Well did the apostle Paul warn us about “science falsely so called” in 1 Timothy 6:20-21: “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith.”
We also have our share of “profane and vain babblings” that are most difficult to avoid these days. But those “babblings” are lies of Satan created to bring on the darkness of the last days that is prophesied in scripture. And the UN Big Brother wants to shut down every opportunity to get the truth out against those lies.
Jesus said that a darkness will come when no man can work, but we have enjoyed a few hundred years of broad daylight for the gospel. Nevertheless, the warning still stands as an urgent reminder to redouble our efforts to fulfill the Great Commission and go and preach the gospel while we still can.
Chick tracts are designed as little preachers. They begin with an engaging story and end with the challenge of the gospel. They are a short sermon so as not to bore the reader, but they place a vital decision squarely on the heart: choose eternal life in Christ, or suffer the punishment of hell for rebellion against your Creator.
‘A French commission estimates that more than 200,000 children have been abused by French clergy since 1950. Pope Francis claimed to have “learned with sorrow” about the report. This is just the latest exposure of the deep rot in the Roman Catholic hierarchy. Over the last few years, similar reports have surfaced in other parts of the globe.
There is so much wrong with this picture. This counterfeit church labels itself “Christian,” but ignores the Bible in so many ways. In fact, it claims authority above the scriptures.
A major deviancy is in the area of sexuality. By mandating celibacy for their priestcraft members, they’re sitting ducks for temptation. Then, by grouping them by gender in the hierarchy and in the convents, there is nothing but unnatural sex available to that powerful drive.
Even the media gets it wrong, reporting this as child abuse rather than homosexual predation. The perpetrators are characterized as pedophiles. But the underage victims are primarily prepubescent or adolescent boys, the most desirable target for the homosexual predator.
Although reports such as the 200,000 in France includes many decades, there is ample evidence that the problem has not gone away. Many hoped, when Pope Francis was installed, that some reform would occur. But a recent book, “The Dictator Pope”, by H.J.A Sire (pen name Marcantonio Colonna), casts a modern perspective.
Sire describes a “homosexual lobby” operating inside the membership of the Curia, the central body through which the affairs of the Catholic Church are conducted. Orgies and drugs are also reported. When Pope Francis was questioned about this in 2013 he responded: “If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?”
Sire also reports homosexual activities and illegitimate children at the parish level. Ex-Jesuit Alberto Rivera wrote about finding a mass grave of babies near a convent.
For its priests and nuns, Roman Catholicism has completely upended God’s plan of covenant marriage between a man and a woman. By preventing its leadership from this normal outlet, hundreds of thousands of youngsters have been damaged for life.
This prostitute church works very hard at legitimacy. But as long as it denies the scriptural guidelines, we cannot neglect to present the true gospel of salvation by faith alone to the precious Roman Catholic people. Satan would like nothing better than for us to leave them alone in their false peace so he can keep them out of the Kingdom of God.’https://www.chick.com/battle-cry/article?id=Pope-Sorrowful-But-Little-Changes
“Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.” (Psalm 71:18)
‘One tends to grow resentful against the limitations and increasing infirmities associated with aging, even complaining to God and others about growing old—at least until one considers the alternative! We need to remember that as long as the Lord preserves our lives, He has some ministry for us to perform for “this generation” and “to every one that is to come.”
The Scriptures abound with promises of blessing in old age, so growing old should be an occasion for rejoicing and deepened commitment to whatever the Lord enables one to do. “The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree:…Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God. They shall still bring forth fruit in old age” (Psalm 92:12-14). But if there develops a tendency to grow spiritually cold with age, the admonition of Paul is appropriate. “Aged men [should] be sober, grave, temperate, sound in faith, in charity, in patience. The aged women likewise, that they be in behaviour as becometh holiness,…teachers of good things” (Titus 2:2-3).
Thus, the heartfelt prayer of the psalmist in our text is still appropriate today, for all who will, sooner than they think, enter the time of old age. Note also the following prayer: “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth” (Psalm 71:9). That God will answer such a prayer, offered in faith and sincerity, was affirmed by David when he said: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread” (Psalm 37:25). The time of old age can be a time of happy harvest if we have sowed the seeds of good fruit.’ https://www.icr.org/article/13129/?utm_source=phplist9748&utm_medium=email&utm_content=HTML&utm_campaign=December+28+-+The+Time+of+Old+Age
‘Earlier we documented Bob Jones University (BJU) stepping into ecumenical compromise with Franklin Graham. See BJU Embraces Franklin Graham’s Ecumenical Movement. That was the latest among many excursions, engineered by BJU president Steve Pettit, into non-separatist evangelicallism and the ecumenical movement. From Dr. David Beale’s new book Christian Fundamentalism in America I included a brief excerpt in the BJU/Graham article above and in the BJU: Compromised Spiritual Sanctification for Secular Pragmatism article. Dr. David Beale has written an article to expand on and bolster his argument. That article follows.
“After being the premier fundamentalist academic institution for eighty-seven years, BJU elected Dr. Steve Pettit in 2014, as the president who steered the University out of separatist Fundamentalism into the inclusive, Broad Evangelical movement,” David Beale, Christian Fundamentalism in America (Maitland, FL: Xulon, 2021), 179, 530.
• Dr. Andy Naselli, in his 2006 BJU dissertation, scorns independent, Fundamental Baptists for giving invitations to “surrender oneself to God.” Naselli criticizes the practice and calls it a “second blessing.” Naselli unsuccessfully tried to identify the Fundamentalist movement with Keswick extremes on the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Naselli then identified with Broad Evangelicalism. He now serves on the faculty of John Piper’s College and Seminary, which are Reformed Charismatic schools urging every Christian to seek all NT gifts, including tongues and healing. Piper claims that “Signs and wonders” and all spiritual gifts of 1 Corinthians 12:8-10 are valid for today and must be “earnestly desired.” Piper says, “Prophecy and tongues will continue until Jesus comes.”1 Naselli is a pastor of Piper’s Bethlehem Baptist Church.
Naselli seeks to transform Fundamentalists into Evangelicalism. In 2019, Dr. Pettit brought Naselli back to BJU to present the lectures for the annual Steward Custer Lecture Series. Naselli’s books were promoted. The late Dr. Custer all his life had been a stalwart Fundamentalist. Naselli represents Broad Evangelicalism. The bond between BJU and Evangelicalism has been clear since the beginning of Pettit’s administration.
• Dr. Sam Horn was executive vice president for enrollment and ministerial advancement at Bob Jones University when, on 2-7-2020, Dr. Pettit announced to all, “Dr. Horn is greatly honored today, and BJU is honored to have one of its own become the next president of The Master’s University and Seminary.” Horn succeeded Dr. John Stead. Dr. John MacArthur, a leading Evangelical, had led The Master’s University and Seminary as president from 1984 to 2018. Dr. Pettit preached for John MacArthur in a conference that year (2020). John Street, Chair of Biblical Counseling at The Master’s University, spoke at BJU’s CoRE Conference March 9–10, 2020. Street is an adjunct professor at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. By claiming that the word Fundamentalism can have no single definition,2 BJU leaders claim the label separatist but practice non-separatism (inclusivism). With such a notion, BJU attempts to sit on both sides of the fence—Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism—at the same time.
• Under Dr. Pettit’s administration, BJU students are permitted to bond with churches of denominations harboring apostasy.3 The following churches (underscored below) are among those approved for BJU students to attend.
• Covenant Community (Taylors, SC): An Orthodox Presbyterian Church (OPC). On one of their website videos, the pastor poured water on a little child’s head and said, “This is like Abraham’s ‘baptizing his whole house’” (Genesis 17). The pastor substituted the word baptism for the word circumcision and called it regeneration. Augustine and Roman Catholicism devised and standardized this doctrine, which assumes an OT circumcisional regeneration for Jewish males.4 Romanism transformed that doctrine into NT water baptismal regeneration to elect infants. Forms of that doctrine passed into Reformed theology. John Calvin insisted that OT circumcision engrafted the Jewish infant into the covenant [elect] family of God; thus, NT baptism engrafts a newborn child into the body of Christ.5 Reformed doctrine leads many to believe the seed of regeneration is implanted at infant baptism, though salvation might occur later.6
• Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church (Simpsonville, SC), PCA church.
• Second Presbyterian Church (Greenville, SC): A Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). This church’s senior pastor is Dr. Richard Phillips, adjunct professor and member of the Board of Trustees at Westminster Theological Seminary, which enforces no dress codes and allows the use of alcoholic beverages.7
➢ Richard Phillips is also on the Board of Directors of (1) the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals; (2) the Council of The Gospel Coalition, and (3) the Council of the Gospel Reformation Network.8
➢ On October 12, 2019, at Phillips’ Second Presbyterian Church, Dr. Pettit participated in a Conference on Reformed Theology.
• To begin chapel on February 5, 2018, Dr. Pettit announced, “We are honored this morning to have as our guest Dr. Gene Fant,” president of North Greenville University, a Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) school. Prior to preaching the chapel message, Fant was welcomed with a standing ovation.9 The so-called “SBC Conservative Resurgence” has now spiraled into a deadening mix.10
• Calvary First Baptist Church (Greenville, SC): SBC church.
• Roper Mountain Baptist Church (Greenville): SBC church.
• Rock Springs Baptist Church (Easley, SC): SBC church. Dr. Pettit, BJU President, spoke here October 6, 2019.
• White Oak Baptist Church (Greenville, SC): Affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention, the South Carolina Baptist Convention, and the Greenville Baptist Association. Their lead pastor is Lonnie Polson, BJU Division Chair of Communication of the School of Fine Arts. Their music director is Jeff Stegall, BJU Associate Professor in the Theatre Arts Department.
• For the article, “Bob Jones University Embraces Franklin Graham’s Ecumenical Movement: HaveYou Finally Seen Enough?” click the following link: BJU Embraces Franklin Graham….
• Dr. Steve Pettit permits dress style, music, and entertainment of the world’s style. For the Artist Series of January 27, 2015, he brought in the music group, “Cantus,” which includes beer drinkers and known homosexuals.11
• The following letter was sent to me on 10-14-2021 from a concerned grandfather who has grandchildren at BJU:
In 2021, at Bob Jones University, the first of the fall semester’s artist series was conducted on October 7 in the FMA. The program was titled “Symphonic Hollywood: Featuring the Music of Lee Holdridge.” The guest conductor was Richard Kaufman. The featured selections were beautifully done, and each was announced by Kaufman, interspersed with lavish praise on BJU and its leadership. Kaufman mentioned his background which included his participation with a Los Angeles orchestra in which he played violin for the recording of music for “Animal House,” a raunchy R-rated movie. He expressed no regret for its production. On the contrary, he mentioned that his contribution helped launch his career as a conductor. Not once did he mention any conflict between Christian beliefs and the moral cesspool of Hollywood. Nor did he give any confirmation of Christian belief. Yet he gave the impression that a believer could function contentedly in such an environment. Toward the end of the program, Jay Matthews and another representative, on behalf of the University, awarded Kaufman with a certificate and plaque granting him lifetime membership as an honorary alumnus of BJU. In the program notes on Kaufman, the bio states that “his wife Gayle is a former dancer and actress in film, television, and on Broadway, and his daughter, Whitney, is a highly successful singer and actress.”
All of this conveys to BJU students that a vocation in the worldly Hollywood scene is perfectly acceptable and, indeed highly commendable. The artist series productions have in recent years included more Broadway-type productions, mingled with the brilliant work of such Christian artists as Dan Forrest. “Broadway” sums up the philosophy of the new Bob Jones University— broad and inclusive.
Students are not learning to distinguish the true from the false kinds of entertainment, evangelicalism, and life-styes. This is lamentable and tragic. There was a day when Bob Jones University could be trusted to instill in its students the virtues of a separated godly lifestyle. Now the University simply wants to “fit into” the culture, to accommodate and even imitate its behavior.
Conclusion
Believers identified with the SBC, PCA, OPC, etc. are lending credibility to false teachers and false gospels. The believer who willingly does such is living in sin. People all over the country know that BJU is Evangelical. It is old news. Evangelicals often say, “Identification is a non-essential.” That mindset constitutes the difference between Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism! Indifference is dangerous! It is a path God forbids! “For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John verse 11). One’s personal relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ determines his church identification! “Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward” (2 John vs. 8). We must never entangle the message of the gospel with man-made organizations and institutions that harbor false gospels.
“Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers…. After my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. Also, of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them” (Acts 20:28–30).
Every moment of our lives, we are building our ministries upon either the foundation of gold, silver, and precious stones, or upon a foundation of wood, hay, and stubble. “Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is” (1 Corinthians 3:11–13). “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad. Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Corinthians 5:10–11a). “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming.” (First John 2:28). In Romans 1:1, Paul introduces himself as “a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated unto the gospel of God.”
Charles H. Spurgeon promised his church, “That I might not stultify [invalidate] my testimony, I have cut myself clear of those who err from the faith, and even from those who associate with them. What more can I do to be honest with you?”12
Dr. Bob Jones Sr. so often cried, “Earnestly contend for the faith. Stand up and fight.”
David Beale (Enlarged 12-8-21)
David Beale taught courses on Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism for some thirty years at Bob Jones University and Seminary. He is a prolific writer and historian. Since Dr. Beale retired in 2010 he has taught and preached in schools and churches.
4) Augustine, City of God, 6.26–27; Enchiridion: On Faith, Hope, and Love 43; cf. 93; Sermon 294; and On Forgiveness of Sins, and Baptism 1.27.
5) John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (4.15.1—22).
6) L. Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1939), 632–42.
7) Letters from a recent graduate to David Beale (2021); see Paul M. Elliott, Christianity and Neo-Liberalism: The Spiritual Crisis in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church and Beyond (Unicoi, TN: Trinity Foundation, 2005).
10) George Houghton, “Are Conservative Southern Baptists Fundamentalists?” Faith Pulpit, January/February 2004 at: https://faith.edu/faith-news/are-conservative-southern-baptists fundamentalists/; J. Gerald Harris, The Rise and Fall of the Conservative Resurgence: The Southern Baptist Convention: 1979-2021 (Taos, NM: Trust House, 2021); and David Beale, “SBC Today,” in Baptist History in England and America: Personalities, Positions, and Practices (Maitland, FL: Xulon Press, 2018), 581–83.
