William Booth, the Victorian revivalist and founder of the Salvation Army, wrote about 'Darkest England and the Way Out' in 1890.
This quote has endured:
'The chief danger that confronts the coming century will be:
religion without the Holy Ghost,
Christianity without Christ,
forgiveness without repentance,
salvation without regeneration,
politics without God,
heaven without hell.'
In other words, a society that believes in half truths believes a lie. Indeed the most credible lies have a lot of truth with either a little error added or a complementary truth removed.
It is sad to see an injured runner limping to the edge of the track because one leg is not working properly. The other one is fine but cannot carry the athlete successfully. Unless both limbs work together, the sprint or marathon is over.
We should understand truth in the same way. Every doctrine has two 'legs' which are both necessary for running the Christian race.
For example, God's love and God's wrath come from the same person and have the same purpose. His love is designed to draw us to Him, and understanding His wrath drives us to Him.
If we believe in God's love but reject His wrath, we may comfort ourselves but do not have Christian faith. Indeed, if God is not full of wrath against sin, we have no need for salvation ... no suffering Christ to take away the sins of the world ... nor any motivation to repent and be forgiven.
To hold a doctrine of heaven without a doctrine of hell appeases the sentimental, but it replaces the spiritual dynamic of all things leading to Christ - by the narcissism of an imaginary universe in which everything rotates around 'me'.
To exclude what God thinks from the way we govern society, educate our children, and care for people at the extremes of life, is as dangerously misguided as removing one wheel from a cyclist or one shoe from a sprinter.
When a church falls into line with a world which will not tolerate anything negative, from which we must flee with Christ's help, or believes that this world (and the world to come) is all about 'me', there is no reason for the gospel.
Then the pastors will teach but not rebuke, they will train but not correct. And so the Scripture is skewed, truth is cut in half, its tension is lost, the saved have no message to proclaim, and the lost remain lost.
It is as great a challenge as in William Booth's day ...
Please pray that all who work with BeaconLight, in the UK and around the world, will stay true to the whole truth which is focussed on Christ.
Pray that we will not minimise the dynamic tension of what God has written - so that people will come to Christ honestly and then run the Christian race wholeheartedly.