 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Frequently Asked Questions
Click on the Question to go to the Answer.
Q: What is the
Reformed or "Sovereign Grace" Baptist position?
Q: What is the London Baptist
Confession of Faith of 1689, and
why do you use it? Aren’t “confessions” ritualistic and
liturgical, and aren’t they merely the writings of men?
Q: Are Reformed
Baptists “Calvinists,” and if so, isn’t that an
extreme position? Why can’t we just call ourselves “Biblicists”
Q: Aren't you being
divisive by splitting hairs over
doctrine? Why can't all evangelical Christians just join together
and fight the real enemy, which is the devil?
Q: Isn't it true
that Calvinists don't believe in evangelism?
Q: What are the “Doctrines
of Grace,” “Effectual Calling,” and
“Perseverance of the Saints,” as used in your Mission Statement?
Q: Do you believe that a
Christian can't sin?
Q: Isn’t it an indication
of weak faith to doubt one’s salvation?
Q: Since even Christians
cannot be sinless, how can we ever know
whether or not we are truly saved? Your "hard believe" message
seems to be saying that people need to seek assurance of salvation in
their works.
Q: Isn't it wrong to judge
someone else's salvation?
Q: I didn’t know most of these
truths about God’s sovereignty,
election, effectual calling, perseverance of the saints, or even much
about repentance, when I was supposedly saved. Does this mean I
am not truly saved?
Q: What is your view of the end times?
Q: Do you consider yourselves "fundamentalists"?
Q: What do you do when your
church meets?
Q: Which Bible
translation do you use?
Q:
What is the reformed or "Sovereign Grace" Baptist position?
A: "Reformed Baptist," like
the similar term "Sovereign Grace Baptist," is merely a term of
convenience and not a denomination or even an organized group among
Baptists. "Reformed" refers to a recognition of the sovereignty
of God in all things including salvation, a view which is often
associated with the Reformation because it was during that time that
those doctrines were so thoroughly explained Scripturally by Reformers
such as Martin Luther, John Knox, John Tyndale, later the English Puritans. Their deep doctrinal writings, especially the second London
Baptist
Confession of
Faith (L.B.C.F.) of 1689, held not only to the Reformers' scriptural doctrines of sovereignty and salvation, but were thoroughly "Baptistic" regarding the independence of the local church, church polity and practice, and the baptism of believers only. The 1689 Baptist Confession also helped lay the foundation for the establishment of most early Baptist churches in colonial America (see next question), and remained strong in 1845, when all 293 members of the founding delegation of the Southern Baptist Convention came from a Baptist Church that held to the 1689 Confession. Thus, we believe the "Reformed Baptist" position is not only the most founded in Scriptural truth, but is most representative of the greatest of the historic Baptists.. and in that regard we are in good company with John Bunyan, Charles H. Spurgeon, A.W. Pink, and others whom God has greatly used. Top of Page
Q:
What is the London
Baptist Confession of Faith of 1689, and why do you
use it? Aren't "confessions" ritualistic and liturgical, and
aren't they merely the writings of men?
A: During the tumultuous time
in church history known as the Reformation, persecuted men of God, who
struggled to recover the biblical doctrine of salvation from its
association with the manmade additions of the established state
churches, formulated deep, biblical statements of faith known as
"confessions," which stood the test of time among God's people for
hundreds of years. Despite minor differences of opinion on
matters of church administration and ordinances such as baptism,
virtually all of these confessions held to the important biblical
doctrine that true salvation makes its possessor a new creation, with a
new mind, a new heart, and a new life, the absence of which brings the
authenticity of one's faith into question. These very biblical
concepts were carefully explained in the Westminster Confession of
1646, described by one Baptist historian as "the noblest of all
evangelical creeds," and were retained almost verbatim in the Second
London Baptist Confession of 1689, in C.H.
Spurgeon's update of
it in
1855, and, in America, in the Philadelphia Baptist Confession of
1742. Thus, though they are indeed the writings of men, they were carefully crafted by men selected to represent a broad consensus of conservative scholarship, and broadly received among the churches of their day. Because these salvation doctrines and other important
truths were later obscured by the man-centered teachings and practices of
many 20th century evangelists and preachers, some of whom openly
campaigned against the clear and careful doctrinal statements of
earlier times, too many Christians no longer have clear biblical
convictions about the sovereignty of God and the nature of genuine
salvation. (Please see Jay Rogers' preface to his
book, Why
Creeds and Confessions?) We find that the L.B.C.F., with
its many
biblical proofs, provides a challenge to study out these doctrines
carefully and systematically, something desperately needed in the
doctrinally careless times in which we live. Top of
Page
Q:
What are the "Doctrines of Grace," "Effectual Calling," and
"Perseverance of the Saints," as used in your Mission Statement?
A: The "Doctrines of Grace"
refers to the doctrinal exposition of God's total sovereignty.
The term "Doctrines
of Grace" has often been used, for example by
Spurgeon, as a synonym for the five points of Calvinism, but we use it
primarily in reference to man's total depravity and his complete
inability to seek God without being drawn by Him, and in reference to
salvation being a miraculous and powerful work of God. "Effectual
Calling" refers to the fact that when God calls or elects one to
salvation, His calling will do the work for which it was sent,
including, as stated in the L.B.C.F., "enlightening their minds
spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away
their heart of stone, and giving unto them a heart of flesh: renewing
their wills, and by His almighty power determining them to that which
is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ." The
related term "Perseverance
of the Saints" refers to the fact that God's
elect will persevere in the faith, not only by remaining steadfast in
the faith in this life, but by being eternally saved from damnation in
the life to come. Top of Page
Q:
Are Reformed Baptists "Calvinists," and if so, isn't that an extreme
position? Why can't we just call ourselves "biblicists"?
A: We also wish the term
"Biblicist" were sufficient, but using the Bible to deceive has been
one of the devil's favorite tactics -- thus, the Bible has been used to
justify everything from anarchy to socialism to white supremacy to
theological modernism. As one writer has said, "It is pointless to
claim to be merely Biblical when the whole question is, What do the
Scriptures actually teach on certain issues?" Most evangelical churches
today would proclaim that they hold to a "balanced view," somewhere
between extreme Calvinism and extreme Arminianism, and thus are more
"biblical" than those who would gravitate to one side or the
other. Although we understand the divisive nature of the labels,
we believe that the system of theology generally referred to as Calvinism,
though it may be offensive to many regardless of what it is called,
most accurately summarizes God's truth as presented in Scripture --
thus, it is not an extreme position at all.
To Spurgeon, "Calvinism is the gospel, and nothing else," and as J.I. Packer explains it, "Calvinism is a whole world-view, stemming from a clear vision of God as the whole world's Maker and King. Calvinism is the consistent endeavor to acknowledge the Creator as the Lord, working all things after the counsel of his will. Calvinism is a theocentric way of thinking about all life under the direction and control of God's own word. Calvinism, in other words, is the theology of the Bible viewed from the perspective of the Bible - the God-centered outlook which sees the Creator as the source, and means, and end, of everything that is, both in nature and in grace." He goes on to point out, "Contrary to being an argumentative position or a reaction to Arminianism, Calvinism in itself is essentially expository, pastoral and constructive. It can define its position in terms of Scripture without any reference to Arminianism, and it does not need to be forever fighting real or imaginary Arminians in order to keep itself alive."
Though we would unashamedly define ourselves as Calvinists, in the tradition of countless great preachers and evangelists of times past, we are not in any way hyper-Calvinists. The distinction between the two has nothing to do with how many of the "five points of T.U.L.I.P." one holds to. Spurgeon, who accepted all five and defined a Calvinist simply as "one who says Salvation is of the Lord," opposed the central error of hyper-Calvinism for his entire ministry, as did A.W. Pink. Briefly stated, Calvinism, hyper-Calvinism and Arminianism are three distinct responses to two clear but irreconcilable truths of Scripture: (1) that man is responsible to believe the Gospel, but (2) he is totally depraved and dead in trespasses and sin, and thus wholly unable to do so. Iain Murray, in his book The Forgotten Spurgeon, summarizes the three responses to those two truths as follows: "Arminians say that sinners are commanded, therefore they must be able; Hyper-Calvinists say they are not able, therefore they cannot be commanded.....[true Calvinists] assert, as Paul asserts in Romans 9, the inadmissibility of man's reasoning processes when they [apply] to subjects which God has chosen not to explain." (Read Murray's entire chapter, "Arminianism and Evangelism.") That said, once we accept the Biblical truths of God's sovereignty which true Calvinism refuses to sidestep, we also take God at His Word and accept their application to all aspects of man's relationship to God, preaching that sinners cannot come to Christ without being drawn, yet they are responsible to do so and we are responsible to tell them so. Top of Page
Q:
Aren't you being divisive by splitting hairs over doctrine? Why
can't all evangelical Christians just join together and fight the real
enemy, which is the devil?
A: We agree that doctrinal discussions often become unprofitable, and in that sense we agree with the words of John L. Dagg, Baptist pastor and author of the 19th century Manual of (Biblical) Theology: "The study of religious truth ought to be undertaken and prosecuted from a sense of duty, and with a view to the improvement of the heart. When learned, it ought not to be laid on the shelf, as an object of speculation; but it should be deposited deep in the heart, where its sanctifying power ought to be felt. To study theology, for the purpose of gratifying curiosity, or preparing for a profession, is an abuse and profanation of what ought to be regarded as most holy. To learn things pertaining to God, merely for the sake of amusement, or secular advantage, or to gratify the mere love of knowledge, is to treat the Most High with contempt." To those who not only love God but love God's truths (Ps. 119:165), the words of Puritan author William Ames, who wrote the first theology book used at Harvard College in 1636, are fitting: "theology is the science of living in the presence of God."
With that said, we also recognize that the devil does not confine his activities to people and places outside the church -- in fact, we would point out that perhaps his greatest deceptions take place within the so-called Christian institutions, especially churches and seminaries, and so we must be continually wary of the tendency of institutions to drift into error (See "What is the Gospel?" for more on this point). As to the charge that those who believe and preach as we do are "divisive" or "splitting hairs" over doctrine, Paul saw doctrine as very important and commanded Timothy to "speak the things that are fitting to sound doctrine." While it is true that the New Testament exhorts us to "endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3), nowhere is unity to be sought at the expense of truth, for "God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." It is truth, not unity, that dwells within the true believer (John 14:17); that makes him free (Joh 8:32); that sanctifies him (John 17:17-19); that enables him to hear the voice of God (18:37); that is a fruit of the Spirit (Eph. 5:9); and that he is to speak in love (Eph. 4:15); and truth cannot be or do any of these things unless it is studied, meditated upon, and applied to the heart by the Spirit of God. Regarding the charge of "divisiveness" over doctrine, it is significant in Scripture that God divides more than He unites: In Creation, He created light and divided it from the darkness; He made the firmament and divided the waters which were under it from those which were above it; He created lights in the heavens to divide the day from the night. At Babel, He divided the tongues and, ultimately, the nations of the world, then founded a nation that would be separate from the nations around it. Afterwards, He divided Israel itself, the Northern Kingdom from the Southern Kingdom, so that righteousness might be divided from unrighteoousness and thus survive. In no case has the majority ever been right, and this fact is also true in the Christian era, for it is evident that the truth has rarely been preserved in the large institutions of Christendom.
God has indeed allowed error to rule the masses for nearly all of church history. His true church has most often continued as a small remnant, either outside of or within the large institutions, and it seems He has always allowed the insincere to be deceived (see Matthew 13:13-15). It seems we now live at a time "when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth" (2 Tim. 4:3-4). In such an age, the words of Spurgeon once again may serve us well: "I am quite sure that the best way to promote union is to promote truth. It will not do for us to be all united together by yielding to one another's mistakes. We are to love each other in Christ; but we are not to be so united that we are not able to see each other's faults, and especially not able to see our own. No, purge the house of God, and then shall grand and blessed times dawn on us." Top of Page
Q:
Isn't it true that Calvinists don't believe in evangelism?
A: That is generally true of hyper-Calvinism (see above) but not of true Calvinism.
(For more
on this, see "Arminianism and
Evangelism" in Iain Murray's The
Forgotten Spurgeon.) In our age of rampant Arminianism and human
devices to bring sinners to God, we often define evangelism
incorrectly, but true Calvinists have a long history of evangelistic
and missionary endeavor. It should not be forgotten that the
Reformers themselves, including John Calvin and John Knox, were evangelists.
Many of the Puritans who colonized America had a great burden to
evangelize the native American peoples, as expressed in many of the
early colonial charters such as the Massachusetts Bay Charter of
1629: "Whereby our said people, inhabitants there, may be so
religiously, peaceable and civilly governed as their good life and
orderly conversation may win and incite the natives of the country to
their knowledge and obedience of the only true God and Savior of
mankind, and the Christian faith, which in our royal intention and the
adventurers free profession, is the principal end of this
plantation." In fact, most of the pioneers of modern Christian missionary endeavor, men such as David Brainerd, Andrew Fuller, William Carey, Adoniram Judson, and John G. Paton, were Calvinists. And we stand with the many evangelistic Calvinists of times past - John Bunyan, George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, Asahel Nettleton, C.H. Spurgeon and many others - who wept for sinners but told them the truth of their inability to respond without God's mercy and prompting.
With these men in mind, there is no justification for the charge that
"Calvinists are not evangelistic," unless we mean that they have never
carried out evangelism using the questionable methods of modern
evangelists. We highly recommend J.I. Packer's excellent article, "Puritan
Evangelism," which more clearly explains the
distinctions between the Puritan and the modern views. In another
article, Packer rightly points out that the charge against Calvinists
with regard to evangelism is simply uninformed: "It is a
very ill-informed supposition that evangelistic preaching which
proceeds on [Calvinist] principles must be anemic and halfhearted by
comparison with what Arminians can do. Those who study the printed
sermons of worthy expositors of the old gospel, such as Bunyan ..., or
Whitefieid, or Spurgeon, will find that in fact they hold forth the
Savior and summon sinners to him with a fullness, warmth, intensity and
moving force unmatched in Protestant pulpit literature. And it will be
found on analysis that the very thing which gave their preaching its
unique power to overwhelm their audiences with brokenhearted joy at the
riches of God's grace - and still gives it that power, let it be said,
even with hard-boiled modern readers - was their insistence on the fact
that grace is free. They knew that the dimensions of divine love are
not half understood till one realizes that God need not have chosen to
save nor given his Son to die; nor need Christ have taken upon him
vicarious damnation to redeem men, nor need he invite sinners
indiscriminately to himself as he does; but that all God's gracious
dealings spring entirely from his own free purpose. Knowing this, they
stressed it, and it is this stress that sets their evangelistic
preaching in a class by itself." With respect to our church, we consider evangelism to be more of an
individual than a corporate responsibility, and it is one that differs
from person to person: "And He
Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and
some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work
of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ" (Eph.
4:11-12). Though we believe it is the natural yearning of the individual Christian heart to see others come to know our Savior, and thus "do the work of an evangelist," we believe there is a particular gift or calling for large-scale "evangelism" (thus, Jesus spoke the Great Commission to the Apostles, who were "sent ones" for that particular task, but very little is said of such evangelism in the epistles); and that it is for the building up not of the local church as an institution, but of the body of Christ in general. Top of Page
Q:
Do you believe that a Christian can't sin?
A: Absolutely not. Sin
in the life of the Christian is an undeniable biblical truth. To
deny it would be both unreasonable and unbiblical: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 Jn. 1:8) We are
painfully aware of it as Christians, as Paul was when he admitted that "the good that I would I do not: but the
evil which I would not, that I do," and then cried out, "O wretched man that I am! who shall
deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:19, 24).
(See also the London Baptist Confession under "Perseverance
of
the Saints."
However, we do not believe, as is commonly held today, that the
Christian life can be characterized by long-term backsliding and
carnality, for the Bible makes a clear distinction between those who
truly know Him and those who merely profess: "Whoever abides in Him does not sin" [i.e., does not practice or continue in sin]. "Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor
known Him. Little children, let no one deceive you. He who
practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous. He
who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.
For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy
the works of the devil" (1 John 3:6-8). (For further explanation
of sin and the Christian, please see that section in our book, "What is
the Gospel.") Top of Page
Q:
Isn't it an indication of weak faith to doubt one's salvation?
A: No - that view is
relatively new on the theological landscape, and was not held by any of
the great Christian preachers or writers prior to the late
1800's. The Bible admonition is to "Examine yourselves as to whether you are
in the faith" (2 Cor. 13:5), and to "give diligence to make your
calling and election sure" (2 Peter 1:10), by measuring oneself against
the Biblical characteristics of a true Christian. Nearly all the
pastors, evangelists and missionaries of earlier times, including John
Bunyan, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and Charles
Spurgeon, greatly feared counterfeit conversions and made calls to
self-examination a regular part of their preaching, believing that it
was better for their hearers to be duly warned and lack assurance than
to be falsely assured and lack saving grace. Thomas Watson, one of the great Christian authors and theologians of the 18th century, said, "He that can believe without doubting, suspect his faith." Matthew Henry, one
of the most beloved commentators of all time and the one whom Spurgeon
advised that all Christians should read on their knees, wrote that it
is "the great duty of all who call themselves Christians to examine
themselves concerning their spiritual state. We should examine whether
we be in the faith, because it is a matter in which we may be easily
deceived, and wherein a deceit is highly dangerous: we are therefore
concerned to prove our own selves, to put the question to our own
souls, whether Christ be in us, or not." (Please see "What is the
Gospel?" for a further explanation of this truth, as well as "Of
the
Assurance of Grace and Salvation" in the
London Baptist Confession) Top of Page
Q:
Since even Christians cannot be sinless, how can we ever know whether
or not we are truly saved? Your "lordship" message seems to
be saying that people need to seek assurance of salvation in their
works.
A: This is a common question
in an age when preachers and evangelists have repeatedly told their
audiences, "You can leave this place tonight knowing you're on your way
to heaven." Nowhere is this idea taught in Scripture, least of
all in 1 John 5:13 which is often used as a proof-text for that view ("These things I have written to you...that
you may know that you have eternal life..."); for we cannot
build a doctrine on
that assurance verse while ignoring the "hard sayings" in the
same book, including 1 John 3:9, which says, "Whoever has been born of God does not
sin, for his seed remains in him; and he cannot sin, because he has
been born of God." The book of 1 John does indeed present evidences by which we may
examine our standing before God (many of which are presented in our
Gospel tract, "Test Yourselves!");
but assurance is a personal issue
that comes as we spend time with Him appeal to His mercy and
forgiveness. Salvation is not a "name it and claim
it" phenomenon, despite those who proclaim it to be such, and the
Christian church has never, until recent times, encouraged such bold
and reckless self confidence. NO PREACHER or any other human
being has the authority to pronounce assurance upon another person, for
no one can see into the heart of another; furthermore, because the
heart itself is "deceitful above all
things" (Jer. 17:9), we must humbly ask God
for the ability to judge even our own heart before
Him.
Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon "Pressing Into the Kingdom of God," points out that it is often those who come to assurance too quickly, without the self-examination necessary to discern spiritually whether they are truly saved or not, who settle into a trust in their own works: "There is ordinarily no kind of seekers that trust so much to what they do, as slack and dull seekers…. A dull seeker’s conscience will be in a great measure satisfied and quieted with his own works and performances; but one that is thoroughly awakened cannot be stilled or pacified with such things as these…. It is therefore quite a wrong notion that some entertain, that the more they do, the more they shall depend on it. Whereas the reverse is true; the more they do, or the more thorough they are in seeking, the less will they be likely to rest in their doings, and the sooner will they see the vanity of all that they do."
The progression from "seeking" to "salvation" to "assurance" is well summarized by J.I. Packer: "To the question; 'What must I do to be saved?', the old gospel replies: believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. To the further question; 'what does it mean to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ?', its reply is: it means knowing oneself to be a sinner, and Christ to have died for sinners; abandoning all self-righteousness and self-confidence, and casting oneself wholly upon him for pardon and peace; and exchanging one's natural enmity and rebellion against God for a spirit of grateful submission to the will of Christ through the renewing of one's heart by the Holy Ghost. And to the further question still, 'How am I to go about believing on Christ and repenting, if I have no natural ability to do these things?', it answers: look to Christ, speak to Christ, cry to Christ, just as you are; confess your sin, your impenitence, your unbelief, and cast yourself on his mercy; ask him to give you a new heart, working in you true repentance and firm faith; ask him to take away your evil heart of unbelief and to write his law within you, that you may never henceforth stray from him. Turn to him and trust him as best you can, and pray for grace to turn and trust more thoroughly; use the means of grace expectantly, looking to Christ to draw near to you as you seek to draw near to him; watch, pray, and read and hear God's word, worship and commune with God's people, and so continue till you know in yourself beyond doubt that you are indeed a changed being, a penitent believer, and the new heart which you desired has been put within you." Top of Page
Q: Isn't is wrong to judge someone else's salvation?
A: Many will make such a claim
by using, for example, Jesus' words in Luke 6:37: "Judge not, and you shall not be judged.
Condemn not, and you shall not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be
forgiven." (Other passages are also cited, such as Romans
14:4 or James 4:12.) However, the sin being most condemned here
is hypocrisy, as seen in Paul's warning to the Jews in Romans
2:1: "Therefore you are
inexcusable, O man, whoever you are who judge, for in whatever you
judge another you condemn yourself; for you who judge practice the same
things." But the fact is, the Scriptures often call on us to
make judgments, even of people. Jesus said, "by their fruits you shall know them" (Matt. 7:20). We are to judge matters between the brethren (1 Corinthians 6:5); sin in the church (1 Corinthians 5:3, 12); false prophets and false apostles (1 John 4:1; Revelation 2:2); and the works of darkness (Ephesians 5:11). In fact, as Christians we are called upon to judge ALL things (1 Corinthians 2:15-16) and by the divine standard
(1 Thessalonians 5:21) -- this is obviously what Jesus meant when He said in John 7:24, "Do not judge
according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
With all of that said, we as human beings are not capable of determining for certain the spiritual condition of another person. But it is a Scriptural principle that God's people are expected to make judgments concerning the people with whom they keep company. Malachi 3:16-18 describes the behavior of God's faithful remnant, people for whom "a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name," and who are described as begin those who will "discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not" (Malachi 3:16-18). Christians in the New Testament are commanded to separate even from those claiming to be brethren: "But now I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner..." (1 Cor. 5:11). Furthermore, we are told as Christians within the body of Christ to exhort and reprove one another, and sometimes we must make the difficult judgment that one who companies with us as a brother may not be so in truth: "Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called 'Today,' lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (Heb. 3:12-13). We do not claim to know with certainty the spiritual condition of another; but we certainly should not be judged as self-righteous when we occasionally need to ask a professing Christian to examine himself, for the Scripture says to all of us, "For if we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged" (1 Cor. 11:31). Top of Page
Q: I
didn't know most of these truths about God's sovereignty, election,
effectual calling, perseverance of the saints, or even much about
repentance, when I was supposedly saved. Does this mean I am not
truly saved?
A: No, it does not mean that.
Many of us, myself included, had little knowledge when we received the
gospel, beyond the fact that we knew we were a sinner, that Jesus died
for the ungodly, and that we were asking Him to save us. While
salvation requires repenting and believing the gospel (Mk. 1:15), God
is completely "the Author and
Finisher of our faith" (Heb. 12:2). He is sovereign, and can
provide salvation regardless of the failings of the one presenting the
gospel as well as those of the one receiving it. As the
London Baptist Confession says regarding "Divine
providence",
"God, in His ordinary
providence maketh use of means, yet is free to work without, above, and
against them at His pleasure." What we are saying is that no
professing Christian, especially in an age of shallow claims, should
ever rest on the memory of a profession, whether it was praying a
prayer, walking an aisle, or whatever the circumstances of their
supposed "conversion." In our day, when so much is made of those
external circumstances and so little is made of the internal evidences
of true faith, it behooves all of us to stop and consider whether our
salvation testimony measures up to the Scriptural
standard. Top of Page
Q:
What is your view of the end times?
A: We live in an age when the presentation of prophecy has been much abused, even to the point of being used to determine one's orthodoxy in the essential doctrines of the Faith. This was never the case until little more than a hundred years ago. Like great men who have preceded us, we seek to approach this subject with humility and reverent fear, knowing the certainty of God's power and judgment, and the necessity for us, in light of that reallity, "to live soberly and godly in this present age." As to
the almost reckless certainty that characterizes modern dispensational
views of prophecy (such as that found in the Left Behind series), we defer to a
comment made by A.W. Pink in his Studies
in the Scriptures magazine
later in his life, after having accepted and preached the entire
dispensational position in his early years: "We are now satisfied that
there has been a great deal of carnal speculation upon future
events. Pride, curiosity, love of the sensational, and fondness
of the limelight are native products of the flesh; but it requires
Divine grace to make us sober, humble, and frank to say, 'I don't
know.' The very fact that there was so much unfulilled prophecy
that was not rightly understood until after it was accomplished, should
check us from wild theorizings and dogmatic assertions in connection
with unfulfilled prophecy. Scripture affirms, 'The coming of the Lord draweth nigh' (James 5:8), i.e., is getting ever nearer; and with that we should be
content - no one is justified in saying, 'The coming of the Lord is
nigh.' Will friends kindly note that we are not prepared to enter into
any correspondence on the subject. If you think we err on this
point, pray for us; as it is possible you may be wrong, pray for
yourself." (as quoted in Iain Murray's The Life of A.W. Pink.) Top of Page
Q: Do you consider yourselves "fundamentalists"?
A: We are fundamentalists only in the broad sense, which means that we believe in the complete and verbal divine inspiration of the Bible, and the basic doctrines of historic, evangelical Christianity which the Bible teaches. In the narrower, historical sense, however, the term fundamentalist refers to those who, around the beginning of the 20th century, singled out certain great facts and doctrines – the "fundamentals" – that had come under particular attack, and sought to emphasize and defend them. As to their central purpose, fundamentalism's efforts in defending the integrity of Scripture against modern liberal theology were commendable. But fundamentalism as a movement was influenced by the trends of the times, times which were more favorable to the big preacher-personalities, salesmanship methods and dispensational theology popularized by mass evangelism, than to careful articulation of the great historic Christian doctrines of the Reformation. Reformed author J. Gresham Machen, who in opposing liberalism fought alongside the fundamentalists, summarized in the 1920's what he saw as their weaknesses, which included (1) the absence of a historical perspective; (2) the lack of appreciation for scholarship; (3) the substitution of brief, skeletal creeds for historic confessions; (4) the lack of concern for precise formulation of Christian doctrine. Machen's response to those, mostly opponents, who labeled him a fundamentalist (a label he considered too narrow) was as follows: "It seems strange to suggest that we are adherents to some strange new sect, whereas in point of fact we are conscious simply maintaining the historic Christian faith & of moving in the great central current of Christian life." Top of Page
Q:
What do you do when your church meets?
A: We believe in a simple
worship service primarily for believers, with singing, testimonies,
praying, a Bible message, and a time of spiritual fellowship. We believe our church practices are based on Scriptural example and principles, but we are not confrontational or divisive over minor differences. We
generally prefer traditional hymns over most contemporary ones because
of their
depth and timeless character, and we, like Spurgeon, avoid the
use of most "special
music" because of its focus on one individual over another and on
talent over spirituality. We believe that singers, choirs and
elaborate
ceremonies were part of the Old Testament Temple service, but
their complete absence in the New Testament leads us to a simpler form
of worship.
Though we acknowledge different offices, roles and responsibilities in the local
church, we do not use titles such as "reverend" or "pastor" but, like
the Apostles, address
each other merely as brothers and sisters in Christ (Matthew
23:8-11 with 1 Cor. 16:12, 2 Cor. 1:1, 2 Peter 3:15, etc.). Top of Page
Q:
Which Bible translation do you use?
A: We preach from the New King James Version, but we respect the King James Version and any conservative, literal translation such as the New King James, New American Standard, or English Standard Versions. We do not ascribe to KJV-only-ism,
which unnecessarily divides of the
body of Christ and was not held by any prominent saints prior to the
20th century. We find Spurgeon's words on the subject
helpful: "The divine preservation of the Scriptures through God's
singular care and providence does not consist in His miraculous
protection of the inspired originals from decay or harm, but rather in
their faithful and abundant reproduction by His people....
Nevertheless, the divine preservation of the Scriptures does not insure
either every single word of the originals can be ascertained with
certainty or that any one manuscript or set of manuscripts is the
infallible standard for all other manuscripts. The Scriptures
themselves are the only infallible rule for determining the inclusion
of any word or phrase in Scripture." (From Spurgeon's
revised London
Baptist Confession of Faith of 1855.) Top
of Page
