If truth cannot be fearlessly proclaimed in the church, what place is there for truth at all? How can we build a generation of discerning Christians if we are terror-struck at the thought that non-Christians might not like hearing the universal truth? And since when has it been legitimate for the church to woo the world? Didn’t the apostle John write, “Do not marvel, my brethren, if the world hates you” (1 John 3:13)? And did not Jesus say, “The world . . . hates Me because I testify of it that its works are evil” (John 7:7)? Biblical Christians have always understood that they must shun the world. . . . The apostle Paul frankly would have had no patience for such tactics. He never sought to win the world through intellectual acceptance, personal popularity, image, status, reputation, or things of that sort. He wrote, “We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things” (1 Corinthians 4:13). Is the contemporary church right to attempt a “more sophisticated” approach? Dare we set ourselves apart from the godly men of the past, all of whom had to fight for the truth?
Wow! Praise the Lord.
John MacArthur is such a blessing.
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