Truth Magazine

By Doug Matlock

One of the problems we face today is permitting ourselves to become too busy. The problem is not that we are too busy working for God, but we are too busy with life, making a living, recreation, family and friends to serve God. We crowd out the real and lasting things from our lives for that which is temporal, transient and fleeting. If a person in torment could relive his life on earth, he would be far more concerned with saving his soul than with pleasing others and simply enjoying himself.

When we become too busy let us see the effect it will have in our lives.

I lose my sense of true values: I emphasize the material rather than the spiritual. In Matthew 16:26 we see that nothing is more important than the soul. Youth and beauty fade into wrinkles and frailties of old age. Worldly wisdom is of no profit when we leave this life. Fortunes can be lost overnight. Friends can become enemies, but through it all the soul lives on.

My children grew up as unbelievers. We not only hurt ourselves when we are disobedient but we to us for examples and direction. In torment you will realize you neglected them, failed to teach them about God and his will. Because we were too busy our children are headed for the same place.

The Lord’s church suffered. I lost my influence for good in the community among the lost. I he church was not helped by my efforts in teaching, working and serving God. I remember one that was too busy with his job to attend services for about six months. How can one claim to put the kingdom of God first and allow himself to be hindered like that?

My soul was lost. Since I lost my sense of values, it was just not important enough for me to give my time and attention to. I was just too busy to go to heaven. Thus my sentence is Matthew 25:41 “Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Do you want this to be the story of your life? This may have been your story also. But you are more fortunate than those already in torment. You can change all that by becoming a Christian if you are not one already and by being faithful to God also starve spiritually and deprive those looking by putting him first in every phrase of your life.

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 17, p. 513
September 3, 1992

By Steve Wolfgang

Footnote: Richard John Neuhaus, ed. Theological Education and Moral Formation (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Ferdmans Publishing Company, 1992), pp. 211-213.

Richard John Neuhaus, editor of the conservative journal First Things, also edits the Encounter Series of volumes published by Eerdmans, of which this is volume 15. Readers of this journal might also be interested in other volumes in the series, particularly volume 2 (Unsecular America) and volume 5 (The Bible, Politics, and Democracy).

Typically, each volume reports a conference in which four to six featured speakers delivered prepared addresses, following which those speakers and perhaps a dozen others join in a panel discussion of the issues raised in the prepared speeches.

This particular volume reports a conference at Duke University and offers some rare insight into the state of the denominational mentality in America, and I offer excerpts from three different sections of the round-table discussion for your amazement.

George Marsden, Professor of the History of Christianity in America at Duke University Divinity School and author of Fundamentalism in American Culture and Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism in America, speaking of the crisis of authority in many American seminaries today:

George Marsden: “What we need to do,” he said, “is to go back to Christianity. We should start talking about God and the authority of the Bible. We should pray and teach the liturgy. But in most Protestant seminaries, if we went back to that kind of Christianity and came out with it as authoritative, we’d get kicked out. You might be able to get away with it at Duke because of its traditionalist ethos.”

“Is Duke really that different than, say, Union in New York?” Neuhaus asked the group.

Geoffrey Wainwright took up the question: “While teaching at Union in New York, I always felt that the assumption was that Christianity was wrong unless it could be shown to be right. At Duke the assumption is that, on the whole, Christianity is the agreed-upon basic, though there are problems here and there that can be debated.”

“At what point would you get kicked out of the University of Chicago Divinity School for authoritatively teaching orthodox Christianity?” Neuhaus asked.

“When you offended the feminists or the relativists or the gay caucus,” Marsden answered.

“How might you offend the relativists at Chicago?” Neuhaus probed.

Marsden replied, “By implying that Christianity is a religion that has some exclusivism. By implying that relativists weren’t Christians. After all, if you’re talking about traditional Christianity, you’re going to have to isolate and argue against ways of believing that are different from traditional Christianity.”

“George, you’re saying that there is a normative Christianity,” Neuhaus observed. “For example, if someone doesn’t believe in the resurrection of Christ, then he or she isn’t a classical Christian.”

“Yes, and if you say certain people aren’t Christians, you’ll get booted out,” Marsden responded.

“Do you really mean you’d get fired from the faculty?” Richard Hays asked with a note of disbelief.

“Well, you’d get hooted down and eventually called a crank,” guessed Marsden.

“I question that,” said Hays. “I think we’ve allowed ourselves to get buffaloed, to be intimidated into thinking that we could never say anything like that.”

Then Neuhaus continued his line of questioning. “How much could be changed if seminary professors taught more confessionally?”

Marsden attempted an answer. “In today’s seminaries you have pluralistic institutions, and you have to be careful about whom you offend. if you go into a seminary classroom and say, ‘Your problem is that you need to be converted,’ what you’re saying is that some people there aren’t Christians. That might not be an appropriate thing to say in a school that isn’t restricted to one denomination.”

Neuhaus wasn’t so sure. “In a theological faculty,” he said, “it should be inescapable that at some point you’re going to be teaching about the idea of conversion. If you make it clear that your understanding of conversion is that it is constitutive of being a Christian, you’re not browbeating the class. You’re simply making clear what your understanding of the Christian life is. And that includes conversion, in the born-again sense and/or in the baptismal-renewal sense. You wouldn’t be a good teacher of the church if you didn’t teach that.”

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 17, p. 522
September 3, 1992

By Burl Young

Some months ago our President said that he was “drawing the line in the sand” as pertains to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and possible invasion of Saudi Arabia. Since the President was speaking metaphorically, we realize that he meant that no more aggression would be tolerated. Likewise, it is time that we who are endeavoring to continue in God’s word, also draw a line. It will be the purpose of this article to show that the continuing ingress of liberalism will not be tolerated. Many reasons could be given, but we shall limit our thoughts to the line that God has drawn between truth and error.

For some time now it has been evident that a great difference exists between brethren in the Lord’s church. Some wish to become more and more tolerant of denominationalism, institutionalism, and worldliness. On the other hand, those who are standing for truth can and will not tolerate such wavering. If this tolerance continues, it will allow the social drinker, adulterous person and denominational errorist to feel at ease in Zion. Let us examine the above errors and what our actions should be toward them.

Where Has God Drawn The Line?

This question is not a hard one to answer if we will only look to God’s word. For instance, where did God draw the line concerning denominationalism? Did God through the Holy Spirit vacillate saying it makes no difference how we worship, or did he give a specific way? God is very specific in the condemnation of denominationalism.

In 1 Corinthians, Paul says, “Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you, or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Cor. 1:13)

The above passage should put to rest forever the idea that just any way is acceptable unto God. It does not prove that your are or I am right, but it proves that both cannot be right at the same time if we teach different and conflicting doctrines. So, as for the idea of denominationalism, God has drawn the line, I don’t have to draw one, but merely accept the one he has drawn.

Institutionalism has been, is, and will continue to be a thorn in the side of Christ’s precious church. Where has God drawn the line concerning institutionalism? Has he taught that both ways are correct? Has he taught that it can not be discerned, or that it doesn’t really matter? The answer to all these questions can be answered very easily. God has drawn the line. The line of demarcation is the plain teaching of the Bible concerning the sufficiency of the church. Since God has told us that he purposed the church before the foundation of the world, we surely do not think that we mere mortals can improve upon it (Eph. 3:9-11). Since God has given us all things that pertain to life and godliness, it seems plausible that we should be able to teach his word and understand what he wishes us to do in these matters. For instance there are differences between brethren about the support of human institutions. Since they cannot be found in the Scriptures by direct command, necessary inference or apostolic example, it is easy to see that God has drawn the line forbidding us to participate in such schemes of men. God has drawn the line in the sand concerning these matters.

The final matter we shall examine in this area, is worldliness. It would take more space and time that I have in this article to say much about such a damnable doctrine, but I will say a few things and then show where God has drawn the line.

God has drawn the line against social drinking. Some are teaching that we may drink a little, as long as we don’t get drunk. How much is that? Is it one drink? Two? How many? God has commanded us to abstain from evil (1 Thess. 5:22). Can we not be content to leave such an evil alone? God has drawn the line, we dare not pass.

God has drawn the line against adultery. Contrary to what the modern prophets proclaim, the Son of God declared, “Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery.” Is this not plain? God has drawn a line.

Finally, and most importantly, is the line of fellowship. After all, if the above teachings of the Bible are true and understandable (and they are), shall we continue to fellowship, endorse and hold in repute those who preach and teach things contrary to sound doctrine? The answer is an obvious and resounding no! God has drawn a line in his word, just as our President drew in the desert sands of the Mideast.

If brethren continue to demand respect for denominationalism, institutionalism, and worldliness, there will be another split in the Lord’s church. Let us pray that those who are advocating the placing of error under the guise of opinion, look once again to the line that God has drawn between truth and error and respect that line.

“Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you'” (2 Cor. 6:17).

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 17, p. 523
September 3, 1992

By Robert Wayne La Coste

Remember your teenage years? Now, come on, it wasn’t that long ago. I was still a teen twenty-four years ago, yet it seems like yesterday. Now, I’m living those years again through my own teenage children. No doubt, most if not all of us have “paid for our raising” in more ways than we might like to talk about. In conversation with other parents who have teens, we all agree that it is harder being a teenager today than back even in those “terrible” sixties. The sixties had its problems, but nothing like today. In the sixties, drugs, premarital relations and thusly sexual diseases were prevalent, but today they are an epidemic! As a result of this epidemic, abortion remains America’s holocaust while in the sixties it virtually was unheard of.

Though these matters have changed (and regretably not for the better), still there are some things which have not changed. I can remember teens in my youth wanting parents to know certain feelings we had and it is interesting to note that teens still want parents to listen and to know their true feelings today.

At the Guelph Correctional Center in Guelph, Ontario (Canada), Charles Galea, who works with troubled youth in that facility, asked hundreds of teens what they would say to their parents, if they could talk to them right now. These answers helped the facility and their staff in dealing with teens, but equally important, in helping men and women to be better parents.

“Don’t Lose Your Temper”

Or as one teen put it, “keep your cool.” In difficult times kids need reassurance.

I go to thinking about this statement and surely God’s word supports the principle of self-control; especially of one’s temper. The word temper is the root of another word, temperance. Self-control, or temperance is one of the keys in maintaining any relationship. Uncontrolled anger leads to other unrighteous acts, or as James put it, “. . . for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (Jas. 1:20). You noticed however, I said “uncontrolled anger.” Surely, there is a righteous indignation or anger that may well need to exist against certain evil, but to this anger the apostle Paul gives a warning, “Be ye angry and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath” (Eph. 4:26). To fathers in particular, the apostle Paul wrote, “Fathers, provoke not your children to anger, lest they be discouraged” (Col. 3:21). Uncontrolled anger only begets more uncontrolled anger. Parents, let’s get hold of ourselves before we get hold of our kids and with calmness we will find our discipline will not only be more effective, but received in a lot different manner, than if we do otherwise.

Show Us Who’s Boss

Does it surprise you that many teens in these interviews said this? It shouldn’t. Most teenagers are young people who know their limitations and realize they need guidance and direction. Others said, “We just wanted our parents to show they cared about us. One way was to set rules, which they didn’t do.”

Children without guidance and rules to restrain them are going to turn out like the sons of the priest Eli. The Scripture reveals, “. . . because his sons made themselves vile, and he restained them not” (1 Sam. 3:13).

Children don’t want cruelty, but they do want discipline. I remember a friend from my high school days having no rules or regulations. He thought it absolutely preposterous that my parents should have an I I o’clock curfew for a senior in high school. My dad however felt that “anyone out past midnight was up to no good.” We weren’t exactly crazy about the rule, but we indeed followed it. Teens, respect and obey the rules of your mom and dad. Someday you too will have teenagers and you’ll be glad you did! Anyway, this friend later got into some trouble and remarked, “If I would have had some guidance and been restrained, I might have learned restraint. My folks didn’t care about me or they would have had rules.” No, he didn’t think this as a teenager, but in his early twenties when his life was messed up, he wished then someone would have cared enough to help him control his earlier life as a teenager.

God loves mankind and has rules for men. If we love our children, can we do less? Set rules, enforce curfews. Stick to them parents. Your teenagers might not think much about them or thank you now, but they surely shall someday!

Remember Who You Are

“Kids want someone they can look up to. Parents need to act their age. Be a parent, not a pal.”

This comment did surprise me somewhat. I didn’t think most teens wanted anyone but a pal. Of a truth, they want a parent. They want someone who is a role model for them to imitate. Because parents are older, I really think most teenagers respect that and look to the older for advice and help, particularly in tough situations.

This is a tough chore for me as a parent, for I’m close to my children, as I think most parents are. Because of that closeness, there comes times when I must say no, even though I might like to say yes. It boils down to this, Fathers must take the lead in “bringing them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). My brothers in Christ who have children: We are first fathers! Everything else is secondary.

My wife has taught high school for nearly twenty years. She sees this problem all the time. Men who want to be “pals and buddies,” rather than fathers. So what do they do? They give in when they shouldn’t, they compromise and spoil, for they don’t want their Johnny or Janie unhappy. Little do they realize, that in their quest to keep their teenager happy, and seemingly at all cost, they sell their soul to the devil. Parents: Remember who you are. You are the one God has given into your hands a precious soul for a brief time. This will mean standing for the right, as a parent should. Our children will have pals come and go. They only have one father and mother. Teens, you should surely, “hear the instruction of thy father, and forsake not the law of thy mother; for they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head, and chains about thy neck” (Prov. 1:8-9). Teenagers: Peers are like the weather. They come and go and are often unpredictable and often unreliable. Lean to your folks and strive to build a lasting relationship. You can depend on them and they should be able to depend upon you.

Talk About God

This response may surprise you, but it didn’t me. It made me think of the several times I have talked with troubled teens and each time, they wanted to talk about someone or something bigger than they are. They want to believe in that someone. They want to know if there is a God and if he or anyone else really cares about them. When you are a teenager in trouble, you look for answers. Some find the answer in drugs, but that’s not a solution, that’s a problem. When all seems lost and they think no one cares, some commit suicide. Teenage suicides remain at an all time high.

Long ago, realizing that in each generation, children would need guidance and direction, God spoke and said, “And these words which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up” (Deut. 6:6-7).

It is not enough brethren to “take our children to church. ” We should have God and his law ever before them, both in our teaching and especially in our manner of living.

Call Our Bluff

“My parents always took me too seriously. Kids don’t mean everything they say,” another teenager remarked. “I only said a lot of things to get their attention.”

Young people are not the only ones who often need their bluff called. I’ve seen Christians threaten to leave the congregation like the young person threatening to leave home if they don’t get their way. Such a bluff needs to be called. At one time or another, both of my children have threatened to leave home. When asked if I could pack their bag, they immediagely dropped the subject. In fact, once with my pre-teen son, his mother did pack his bag. He immediately apologized and in another few minutes was hugging his mother and saying he was sorry. Children don’t really want to leave home, but if they can get you to thinking they just might leave, they feel they have won at least a mental victory. Truly, “foolishness is bound in the heart of a child, but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him” (Prov. 22:15).

Be Honest

“We just want to be told the truth.” Well, who really doesn’t’? The teenager who said this, needs to be commended, for truth is indispensable to any proper relationship. Honesty may well be however, a forgotten virtue. Yet the Scripture remains steadfast and sure, “Putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbor” (Eph. 4:25).

When parents lie or deceive their children, why does it surprise them when their children also turn to lying and deception of some sort?

Honesty is not only a “good policy,” but it is the will of God. It was demanded of the special men who worked for the church in Jerusalem to deal with the needs of the Grecian widows (Acts 6:3). All Christians are to “provide things honest in the sight of God and all of men” (Rom. 12:17; 2 Cor. 8:21). Honesty is a surely a matter to be praised and constantly thought on and practiced (Phil. 4:8). Parents, to rear honest children, let’s be honest!

Conclusion

Most parents don’t have delinquent children to deal with, at least not like those interviewed at the Ontario correctional institute. We have teenagers who simply want and need firm, caring parents. Young people want to be treated with an equal balance of love and discipline, told the truth, and have a source of guidance in their lives. Parents are we doing what we can in these all so important areas? The thought of being lost from the Lord eternally is too horrible to even contemplate, but the thought of our children being lost because we weren’t parents as we could and should have been well that’s a nightmare!

Guardian of Truth XXXVI: 16, pp. 488-489
August 20, 1992