It is a tragedy that a whole generation of professing Christians is being led astray by the modern tendency to accept doctrinal positions that derive, not from the whole counsel of God’s word, but from selected extracts, inexpertly presented and imperfectly understood. Sound Bible teaching rests on exegesis, the extraction from the whole of scripture of the mind of God. The promoters of “cheap grace”, on the other hand, makes use of eisegesis, that is, reading into scripture the mind of man.
The consequence of this is plain for all to see, and the world has seen it! Powerless Christianity, moral standards that mirror those of the world, stunted faith and retarded spiritual development. Because there is no fear of God in the churches, there is no knowledge of God in the land.
This, of course, has always been the case and the epistles of Paul and John and Jude and Peter bear witness to the fact that, as Paul wrote, “the mystery of lawlessness already works” (2 Thessalonians 2:7).
Christians are called to be saints, not saintlets, but the church has grown accustomed to measuring sainthood by its own standards, not those of the Word. We no longer produce saints; indeed, we no longer talk of sainthood as being the call of Jesus Christ to everyone He calls. Instead, we have an effete form of Christianity that, rather than being a light to the world, is a mirror of the world.
God’s people must answer the call to Biblical sainthood; the fire must be set alight in the dead hearts of God’s people so that they can offer them a living sacrifice to the Lord Jesus. Purity of heart, separation from the world, poured out devotion to Christ; these are the things we are called to.
Happily, we can put religion’s parody of sainthood behind us, answering the call to embrace the struggle at any time in our life. But answer it we must; and while we have life in this world!
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