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Amos 3:3 Can two walk together, except they be agreed?
When I find a preacher who is playing games with Biblical separation and who is showing signs of rejecting it, I refuse to have anything to do with him as far as ministry goes. I am not going to join his church. I’m not going to preach in his church. I am not going to preach with him on the same platform in meetings. And I am not going to preach in churches that would have him!
Yea, that is narrow and strict and I sincerely and earnestly wish it weren’t necessary, but I believe it is necessary to cut off the effect of compromise.
Compromise is a communicable disease!
The old backslidden prophet in 1 Kings 13 taught the young prophet to disobey God by taking His commandments lightly. God told the young prophet to preach against the idolatrous altar at Bethel and then to leave and not even to eat there. The prophet obeyed for awhile. He ran a good race for a distance. He proclaimed God’s message against the altar boldly, refusing the king’s offer of a reward, and headed away from Bethel. But instead of getting away from there as fast as his donkey could carry him, he decided to take a rest under an oak tree. There an old compromised prophet, who had become comfortable in Bethel, met him and encouraged him that he didn’t need to take God’s commandments so strictly, that he could come to his house, relax and enjoy a meal before leaving the idolatrous city.
That sounded reasonable, didn’t it? Surely God would understand. Surely God is not so strict as to forbid a man to relax for a few minutes after he has preached a great, uncompromising sermon?
The “little bit” of compromise didn’t work out for the young preacher, though. As a result of his association with an old backslidden prophet, the foolish young man was killed.
By the way, we see in this account that backslidden preachers lie!
There are a lot of compromised preachers in Independent Baptist churches who are saying it is OK to lighten up on separation. They say that music is largely an issue of taste, that teaching the biblical principles of modest dress is legalism, that it is fine to take the youth group to Dollywood and initiate them into Hollywood.
Their theme song is “lighten up, don’t be so strict, so narrow. Let’s be separatists but let’s not go overboard with it. Let’s not be fanatics. Surely, it can’t hurt to read the ‘conservative’ evangelicals and use their materials and follow their blogs. Do you want us to be ignorant? And if we don’t lighten up, we’ll lose the kids.”
I don’t want anything to do with that crowd! I believe that if you “lighten up” on biblical separation you will definitely lose the kids. You will lose them to the world and to the contemporary emerging philosophy.
I am convinced this thinking is wrong, that it is compromise, and I don’t want to be affected by it.
Even if I could associate with such men without being personally affected, which is probably not possible, what about those who are observing my example? I don’t want to risk having our church members influenced by my association with compromising preachers and churches.
Biblical separation cannot be maintained without a real campaign. A separatist stance will only be maintained on purpose and at a cost, but it is worth it.
Separation is not the gospel and it is not the work of the ministry, but it is a divinely-ordained wall of spiritual protection against apostasy and the world. To reject “separatism” is to tear down this wall so that God’s people are no longer kept from the “good words and fair speeches” whereby heretics deceive the hearts of the simple (Romans 16:17-18) and no longer distanced from the siren call of the world (2 Timothy 2:22).
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