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SBC Life Articles

New Light from Old Lanterns


Dangerous Men

In November of 1947, missionary martyr Jim Eliot said,

"We are so utterly ordinary, so commonplace, while we profess to know a Power the Twentieth Century does not reckon with. But we are 'harmless,' and therefore unharmed. We are spiritual pacifists, non-militants, conscientious objectors in this battle-to-the-death with principalities and powers in high places. Meekness must be had for contact with men, but brass, outspoken boldness is required to take part in the comradeship of the Cross. We are 'sideliners' — coaching and criticizing the real wrestlers while content to sit by and leave the enemies of God unchallenged. The world cannot hate us, we are too much like its own. Oh that God would make us dangerous!" ~ Shadow of the Almighty by Elizabeth Eliot, p. 79

Men of Firm Faith

"We admire a man who was firm in the faith, say four hundred years ago … but such a man today is a nuisance, and must be put down. Call him a narrow-minded bigot, or give him a worse name if you can think of one. Yet imagine that in those ages past, Luther Zwingle (sic), Calvin, and their compeers had said, 'The world is out of order; but if we try to set it right we shall only make a great row, and get ourselves into disgrace. Let us go to our chambers, put on our night-caps and sleep over the bad times, and perhaps when we wake up things will have grown better.' Such conduct on their part would have entailed upon us a heritage of error. Age after age would have gone down into the infernal deeps, and the pestiferous bogs of error would have swallowed all. Those men loved the faith and the name of Jesus too well to see them trampled on … .

It is today as it was in the Reformers' day. Decision is needed. Here is the day for the man, where is the man for the day? We who have had the gospel passed to us by martyr hands dare not trifle with it, nor sit by and hear it denied by traitors, who pretend to love it, but inwardly abhor every line of it … . Look you, sirs, there will come another generation, and another, and all these generations will be tainted and injured if we are not faithful to God and to His truth today. We have come to a turning-point in the road. If we turn to the right, mayhap our children and our children's children will go that way; but if we turn to the left, generations yet unborn will curse our names for having been unfaithful to God and to His Word." ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, Pilgrim Publications, Vol. 34, pp. 83-84

Backsliders

"Backsliders begin with dusty Bibles and end up with filthy garments." ~ Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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