ECUMENICAL LEADERS WARN OF DANGER OF "

ECUMENISTS AND RELIGIONISTS ATTEMPT TO QUENCH THE LIBERTY OF BIBLE BELIEVERS

[Distributed by Way of Life Literature's Fundamental Baptist News Service. These articles cannot be stored on BBS or Internet sites without permission from the author. Any articles which are redistributed by e-mail must be left intact and nothing must be removed or changed, including these informational headers. This is a listing for Fundamental Baptists and other fundamentalist, Bible-believing Christians. Our primary purpose is to provide information to assist preachers in the protection of the churches in this apostate hour. If you desire to receive this type of material on a regular basis, e-mail us, tell us who you are and where you are located, and request to be placed on the list. Also include your postal address and the name of the church of which you are a member. Please note that we take up a quarterly offering to fund this ministry. Some of these articles are from the "Digging in the Walls" section of O Timothy magazine. David W. Cloud, Editor. O Timothy is a monthly magazine in its 14th year of publication. Subscription is $20/yr. The Way of Life web site is http://www.wayoflife.org. The End Times Apostasy Online Database is located at this web site.]

October 3, 1997 (David W. Cloud, Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - In late September, 80 representatives of Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant denominations from 16 countries met to discuss possible action against "sects" and "new religious movements." The five-day "Conference on Religious Freedom and New Religious Movements" was held in Budapest, Hungary. The gathering was co-hosted by Hungary's Ecumenical Council and the country's Roman Catholic Bishops' Conference (Ecumenical Press International, Sept. 26, 1997).

The conference attempted to draw up definitions of a "sect" and a "new religious movement" to submit as recommendations to governments. Participants from various Orthodox denominations from Russia, Romania, Ukraine, and other countries stressed the problems caused by "proselytism"--which they define as "seeking to win adherents from among members of established religious communities." Those who preach the new birth through faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ and who call upon "religious" people like Nicodemus (John 3) to turn away from the vanity of a manmade works religion, are condemned as dangerous proselytizers by these groups.

We have witnessed this type of thing in Russia during the last few days, with the Russian Orthodox Church urging the secular government to restrict the liberty of alleged "sects" and "new religious movements" in that land. When the Russian parliament approved the new law severely restricting "new religions," Patriarch Alexei II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said: "I'm convinced that sects and pseudo-missionaries are driven by the wish to sow the seeds of religious enmity in Russia, rather than to educate people. This is a source of danger not only for the church, but also for the state, for state unity is the guarantee of the future" (September 23, Interfax news agency).

These pressures are going to increase throughout the world as the ecumenical monster grows in power and yokes more closely with secular government. The World Council of Churches, which represents 330 "Protestant" denominations and which also works closely with the Roman Catholic Church, recently drew up a statement called "Towards Common Witness" to define and discourage "proselytizing" from one church or denomination to another. The statement calls "those involved in proselytism to recognise its disastrous effects on church unity, relationships among Christians and the credibility of the Gospel, and therefore to renounce it" (Ecumenical News International, Sept. 19, 1997). The following are three of the "characteristics of proselytism" which are listed in the document:

** "Unfair criticism or caricaturing of the doctrines, beliefs and practices of another church without attempting to understand or enter into dialogue on those issues. [For example] some who venerate icons are accused of worshipping idols;

** "Presenting one's church or confession as 'the true church' and its teachings as 'the right faith';"

** "Portraying one's own church as having high moral and spiritual status over against the perceived weaknesses and problems of other churches."

My friends, all of these things are required in preaching the Word of God and contending for the faith once delivered to the saints (Jude 3). Every true Bible-believing preacher is defined as a proselytizer by this perverted definition. The Apostle John said, "And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness" (1 John 5:19). That is a very narrow, exclusive statement, and that is precisely how the faith is delivered to us. Timothy was instructed not to allow any man to teach ANY OTHER DOCTRINE that that which had been delivered to him by the Apostle Paul (1 Timothy 1:3; 2 Timothy 2:2). That is very, very exclusive and intolerant. The church at Rome was instructed to mark and avoid any teacher who promoted doctrine contrary to that which they had received from the Apostles (Rom. 16:17). The Apostle Paul told the churches at Galatia that any man who preaches any gospel other than the exact one preached by him is cursed of God (Gal. 1:8,9). We would multiply these examples exceedingly. The Bible presents one truth faith, and it forbids us to be so broadminded and tolerant that we allow anything contrary to that one faith (Jude 3).

In these attempts by ecumenical groups to quench the liberty of separatist Bible believers and to lump them together with weird cults, we are harking back to the days in which the Roman Catholic Church (and later, some Protestant denominations such as Lutheran and Anglican) yoked together with secular governments to control and persecute the "sects" which refused to submit to Rome's heresies. In more recent days, the Russian Orthodox Church in the old Soviet Union worked hand in hand with the communist regime to run roughshod over non-affiliated Baptists and others who refused to submit to unscriptural regulations.

Throughout church history, the apostate branches of Christianity have willfully confused separated Bible believers with heretical sects. The old Waldensians were confounded with gnosticism and other, even stranger, errors. The 16th and 17th century Baptists were perpetually confounded with strange cults such as the violent revolutionaries who attempted to overthrow the government of Munster, Germany, in the 1520s and 30s. It mattered not that the Baptist leaders denounced such men as heretics and distanced themselves from them. The Baptist martyr Dryzinger, examined in 1538 as to whether he and his brethren approved of those proceedings, said that they would not be Christians if they did. Persecuting religionists will not be "confused by the facts." It plays to their advantage to mark the independent Bible believers as monsters.

This same thing is happening today. Bible-believing separatists who go about their Lord's business of preaching the Gospel and building autonomous New Testament churches, are confounded with mind-control cults and heretical Christ-denying sects. Because they refuse to accept the unscriptural sacramental gospel and "baptism" of the Catholic and Protestant denominations, they are labeled as proselytizers. Because they refuse to join hands with the ecumenical agenda, they are labeled hatemongering Pharisees. They are lumped together with every injurious sect.

This problem is going to get worse as the hours of this wicked generation draw shorter. God has not promised freedom from persecution. Just the opposite. "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution" (2 Timothy 3:12).

Let us be found faithful regardless of the trials which come our way for the truth's sake. I would rather be persecuted at the hands of the ecumenical crowd and this present unjust government system than suffer judgment with them at Christ's coming.

I know a little about persecution and loss of religious liberty, more than most Americans, at least. For ten years we preached Christ and did church planting in a land in which Gospel work was strictly illegal. For at least two years there was a warrant out for my arrest. Our correspondence course ministry was shut down and incoming mail from interested readers was confiscated. Some of the national men in our church were arrested and spent time in jail. We lived in perpetual uncertainty. There were nagging fears. From day to day we did not know if our work would continue or whether I would be arrested, evicted from the country, and our ministry permanently shut down. It was not easy. We found, though, that in every trial "God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it" (1 Corinthians 10:13).

We also learned the marvelous power of prayer. In 2 Corinthians chapter one the Apostle Paul described the persecution which he endured in Asia, and he attributed his deliverance, in part, to the prayers of the God's people. "Ye also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf" (2 Cor. 1:11). Persecution should not drive us to despair; it should drive us to our knees; for our God is in control of every detail of our lives. No authority exists without His permission. He has said that He has numbered the very hairs of our head, so we know He is intimately concerned for and involved with every detail of the lives of His people.