Christ finished salvation. He died for the sins of the whole world. Eternal life is a gift… The gift is free; all we have to do is accept it or reject it, take it or ignore it. We must be like one or the other of the thieves on the cross: either believe that Jesus is God and can save a sinner who acknowledges his sinful condition, and spend eternity with Christ in paradise, or be like the other thief and disbelieve that Jesus is God, and die in our unrepented and unforgiven sins, away from God.
Compromise
Jeremy Riddle
I have begun to wonder if the gross empowerment and elevation of personal opinion on social media has really deluded us into thinking that our opinions hold any weight against the Word of God. I wonder if we have been so trained by a democratic, consumer-driven society that we have forgotten that the kingdom of God is not a democracy, but a theocracy. A government in which His Word and His Word alone stands. We must return to our senses and know this: when it comes to the Word of God, the online uproar and outcry of seething, opinionated objections and dissenting votes, has absolutely zero weight. It doesn’t matter. I’m not saying our voice doesn’t matter to God. I’m simply reminding us: Dissenting against His voice is absolute folly.
A.W. Tozer
Sins such as pride, vanity, self-centeredness, levity, worldliness, gluttony, the telling of “white” lies, borderline dishonesty, lack of compassion for the unfortunate, complacency, absorption in the affairs of this life, love of pleasure, the holding of grudges, stinginess, gossiping… are so common that they have been accepted as normal by the average church and are either not mentioned at all or referred to in smiling half-humor by the clergy. While not as spectacular as a roaring weekend drunk or as dramatic as a violent explosion of temper, they are in the long run more deadly than either, for they are seldom recognized as sin and are practically never repented of. They remain year after year to grieve the Spirit and sap the life of the church, while everyone continues to speak the words of the true faith and go through the motions of perfunctory godliness, not knowing that there is anything wrong.
Priscilla Shirer
Impure living, impure thinking, impure relationships, impure affections—upside-down living—creates the perfect environment and breeding ground for demonic activity. It invites him in and then fosters the perfect place for his turmoil and trouble to thrive. Unrighteousness disrupts our peace. It scares away any lasting sense of rest and contentment. It spoils what could otherwise be enjoyable. It complicates experiences that were meant to be nothing but pleasures and blessings. We can’t knowingly create this kind of an environment—the kind that invites the devil to make himself at home—and then blame God for whatever sense of distance we may feel.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
A chasm is opening between the men who believe their Bibles and the men who are prepared for an advance upon Scripture. Inspiration and speculation cannot long abide in peace. Compromise there can be none. We cannot hold the inspiration of the Word, and yet reject it; we cannot believe in the atonement and deny it; we cannot hold the doctrine of the fall and yet talk of the evolution of spiritual life from human nature; we cannot recognize the punishment of the impenitent and yet indulge the “larger hope.” One way or the other we must go. Decision is the virtue of the hour.
Robby Dawkins
We should never sacrifice Biblical truth on the altar of cultural relevance.
A.W. Tozer
Something less is among us, nevertheless, and we do well to identify it so that we may repudiate it. That something is a poetic fiction, a product of the romantic imagination and maudlin religious fancy. It is a Jesus, gentle, dreamy, shy, sweet and feminine, almost effeminate, and marvelously adaptable to whatever society He may find Himself in. He is cooed over by women disappointed in love, patronized by celebrities and recommended by psychiatrists as a model of a well-integrated personality. He is used as a means to almost any carnal end, but he is never acknowledged as Lord. These quasi Christians follow a quasi Christ. They want his help but not his interference. They will flatter him but never obey him.
Ed Stetzer
Love is sacrificial in its actions and intents. It stands up to injustice, unrighteousness, and oppression regardless of the personal or professional costs to us. I would argue that sacrifice is the most difficult facet of winsome love. Silence is often a tempting alternative to engagement in this age, when the slightest misstep can unleash a disproportionate quality and quantity of outrage. But when we choose sacrificial love, we move from nice words to concrete actions. Sometimes, as we will see, such love requires that we pay a heavy price.
Sean Smith
Daniel the prophet, who was abruptly dropped off in Babylon, consented to learn the language and culture of Babylon. He refused to drink the wine of the culture, demonstrating the balance needed to be a reformer. Daniel spoke the language of Babylon, but didn’t sip of the spirit (or wine) of Babylon. Having a command of the culture and sensitivity to the new wine (the Holy Spirit) allows one to interpret the dreams of the culture.
Francis A. Schaeffer
The Bible is the weapon which enables us to join with our Lord on the offensive in defeating the spiritual hosts of wickedness. But is must be the Bible as the Word of God in everything it teaches- in matters if salvation, but just as much where it speaks of history and science and morality. If we compromise in any if these areas…we destroy the power of the Word and ourselves in the hands of the enemy.