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We must clearly decide whom we will serve. Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold to one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon” (Mat. 6:24). So many have just enough religion to make them miserable. A spiritual struggle is going on inside them constantly. They have some spiritual inclinations and desires, but they want to remain attached to carnal pursuits. They know better but will not do better. Every week they have to decide afresh whether to get up and come to Bible school and worship Sunday morning or do something they would like better. They don’t even struggle over other meetings of the church.
The Laodiceans did not want to totally abandon Christ, but neither were they ready to serve Him. They dwelt in that muddy, shallow religious swamp of sickening “lukewarmness” (Rev. 3:15–16). The Lord set it out plainly to them: “Get in or get out; get on or get off; get hot or get cold. Cease your hypocrisy. Quit trying to be religious without being spiritual.” Jesus has more respect for the sincere atheist than for the half-hearted, hypocritical disciple. Tragically, both are lost.
Some of the leaders among God’s people need to decide who they serve. Some preachers who will preach a strong sermon in a lectureship far from home may preach weak generalities at home. They want to be thought of as “conservative” by conservative brethren, but they continue to lend their encouragement to questionable practices at home. They condemn fellowship compromises and then extend fellowship to men and congregations involved in error. They announce activities of apostate churches and encourage people to attend them. They print articles in their bulletins and otherwise use unsound men when they should be marking and avoiding them (Rom. 16:17–18).
Some colleges are now advertising their “conservatism” while continuing to showcase false teachers. A school that is conservative does not need to advertise its “conservatism.” If it is not conservative, a million-dollar advertising program will not make it so. Its doctrinal status may be most clearly perceived (whether conservative or liberal) through the product it produces in the classroom and the speakers in its lectureship and other training programs through the year.
One reason there is so much confusion in the pew nowadays is because of the vacillation seen in elders, preachers, editors, and “our” school boards and administrators. We all need to hear the challenge of old: “Who is on the Lord’s side?” (Exo. 32:26). We are either for the Lord or we are against Him (Mat. 12:30).
[Note: I wrote this article for and it was published in The Lighthouse, weekly bulletin of Northpoint Church of Christ, Denton, TX, June 27, 2010, of which I was editor.]
Attribution: From thescripturecache.com; Dub McClish, owner and administrator.
