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If the preacher warns about the Pope or Robert Schuller or Rick Warren, the response typically is something like this: “Right, we must warn about them. The warnings protect the people who might be influenced by these men. The warnings glorify God’s truth. The warnings please the Christ who instructed us to judge righteous judgment.”
In this realm they understand that the preacher has a responsibility to expose error, to reprove sin, to earnestly contend for the faith. They understand that this is not contrary to Christian love, that, in fact, to reprove sin and error is a compassionate thing. They understand that this is not what Jesus forbade in Matthew 7:1.
But as soon as the reproof is aimed toward an influential IFB preacher or church or school that the particular individual admires, this biblical understanding flies out the window and the fundamental Baptist schizophrenia exhibits itself.
If the preacher warns about something pertaining to Paul Chappell or Clarence Sexton or Jack Hyles or Maranatha Baptist Bible College or Bob Jones University or whoever, the response is 180 degrees contrary to the aforementioned response, even though the biblical principles are exactly the same.
Now they say, “Who are you to judge? Have you talked to them? Don’t you have any Christian love? Are you jealous or mean-spirited or something? Don’t you have anything better to do? Why don’t you just go soul winning? Did your father mistreat you?”
This is inconsistent and unwise.
The Word of God requires that we preach and minister without partiality.
If you are afflicted with fundamental Baptist schizophrenia, I recommend that you spend some time on the couch of Dr. Paul and Dr. Moses, two of the greatest of God’s soul-probing psychoanalysts.
“I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality” (1 Timothy 5:21).
“Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment: thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honour the person of the mighty: but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbour” (Leviticus 19:15).
“Ye shall not respect persons in judgment; but ye shall hear the small as well as the great; ye shall not be afraid of the face of man; for the judgment is God's: and the cause that is too hard for you, bring it unto me, and I will hear it” (Deuteronomy 1:17).
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