May 31, 1999 (Fundamental Baptist Information Service, P.O. Box 610368, Port Huron, MI 48061-0368, fbns@wayoflife.org) - The following article by Dr. Ron Comfort, founder and president of Ambassador Baptist College (Box 158, Lattimore, NC 28089), is from The Ambassador, Spring 1999 --

"I am the Lord: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another…" (Isaiah 42:6).

Several years ago, I was in a church for a revival meeting, and upon entering the church vestibule I saw an extremely large and costly portrait of a Baptist preacher who was not, nor had he ever been, the pastor of the church. Had I walked into the vestibule of a Roman Catholic Church and seen a picture of Mary, I would have concluded, "This is idolatry." However, as I compared the two scenes in my mind, I concluded that basically there is no difference in the worship of the Virgin Mary and the worship of a Baptist preacher. Both are idolatry.

Upon my return to the college campus, which was then on South Post Road in Shelby, North Carolina, I instructed a local sign painter to place on the wall in our entry hall a plaque stating, "Sirs, we would see Jesus." My desire is that Ambassador Baptist College be a God-centered institution, never a man-centered institution.

Any segment of fundamentalism that exalts man rather than Christ is doomed to judgment. Recently an Ambassador professor was reading a sermon by a contemporary fundamentalist leader. As he progressed through the reading, it became quite obvious that the sermon was totally self-centered. The professor returned to the beginning of the sermon, did some highlighting and calculating of the personal pronouns and references to God, and discovered these astounding statistics from this one printed sermon. Four hundred personal pronouns were used referring to the speaker. Four references were made to God and one reference to Jesus Christ.

Although I am shocked at the ego of this fundamental preacher, I am more astounded that multitudes of people, including pastors and evangelists, will blindly follow this type of egocentric leadership.

Some time ago I received a questionnaire from a local church. The form covered a broad range of topics, but many questions involved terms that are common to Calvinistic theology. I will admit that my patience wore thin as I plowed through the questionnaire in an effort to accurately put my beliefs on paper.

Perhaps my patience wore thin because first of all, I do not find the name of John Calvin in either my Old or my New Testament. My theological positions are not based upon a system invented by a man. I have little patience with unbiblical terms that supposedly define a theological position. I find it much better to be known as a Biblicist than as a Calvinist.

One foundation problem in the church at Corinth was that people had become men-followers. The church body included followers of Paul, Peter, and Apollos. Paul wisely asked, "Was Paul crucified for you?" "Were you baptized in the name of Paul?" He indicts these believers as being carnal.

In 1 Corinthians 3:6, Paul says, "I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase." In verse seven, Paul states, "So then neither is he that planteth anything; neither he that watereth…" He essentially is saying that zero plus zero equals zero; however, in verse eight there is a different equation. "Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one." The zero that plants and the zero that waters equal one; God gave the increase. At our best we are simply a zero, but God gives the increase. The late Dr. M.R. DeHaan terms this as divine mathematics. A zero before a one decreases the value of the one; a zero after a one increases the value of the one. Christ is the preeminent ONE.

A grave problem in fundamentalism is that zeros are placed before the ONE. John the Baptist said, "He must increase; but I must decrease" (John 3:30). It is my desire that the students, faculty and staff of Ambassador Baptist College be Christ-centered and Bible-centered both in their personal lives and in their ministries.