a word on worldliness from the UK

Peter Masters, the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, publishes the Sword & Trowel, a revival of Spurgeon’s magazine. I have subscribed for the last year and found spiritual benefit from every issue.

Just yesterday, I received the #3 issue for 2007 (I think Canada Post stores them for me). In an article entitled “The Holy War: Do we dodge enlistment?”, Masters says we are in a battle with demonic forces for the soul of the church. He echoes the concerns I regularly express concerning worldliness.

I’d like to share a couple of pertinent quotations for your consideration. They may not set well within certain circles.

Demons soon note if a church dabbles in worldly entertainment and methods. They then move the style very slowly but inevitably to the point of full-scale sinful compromise. Usually, or so it seems today, satanic policy leaves in place for the time being the sound preaching of a church so that the pollution of worship is less offensive to the people. They continue to think they belong to a sound church while the methodology is taken over by worldliness and the devil.

Sometimes the tastes of the pastor are corrupted first, and I have been amazed to see some weblogs of reformed pastors openly trumpeting their favourite ‘tracks’ of secular groups, and their favourite worldly films.

It is unquestionably a ‘perilous time’ when the devil’s strategies easily capture pastors, who fall so far that they do not mind publicising their worldliness. Do they not know about the warfare? Do they not realise what has happened to them? And these things can happen to us also if we do not keep in mind the enemy’s wiles. [p. 23]

Near the close of the article comes this point:

Down the ages, the commanders of Satan’s army have tended to use the same methods repeatedly. Always they have engineered infiltration by those who are the carriers of contamination, both of doctrine and methods, the latter being frequently the first in line for corruption. It is no use being ‘reformed’ in doctrine, and at the same time offensive to God in practice. [p. 24]

[Emphasis mine.]

For some, it seems that if you can pass the ‘reformed doctrine’ test, just about everything else is acceptable.

These things ought not so to be. We need a ‘holistic’ approach to doctrine and practice.