Text: "If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ and to the doctrine that is according to godliness; he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, SUPPOSING THAT GAIN IS GODLINESS: from such withdraw thyself." (I Tim. 6:3-5)

How many there are among us who be41eve that gain is godliness! How many there are who equate church growth with the blessing of God! It is the sort of thinking that has resulted in setting up churches as corporations, and in training pastors, not as servants or "ministers," but as corporate executives.

The demand for growth has necessitated the replacing of preaching with programs and the substituting of convictions with enthusiasm. But "God is not in all their thoughts" (Ps. 10:4), so while they say, with goods, and have need of nothing," they do not know that they are "wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." (Rev. 3:17)

Does the work of God prosper in days of apostasy? When evil men and seducers wax worse and worse; when iniquity abounds, and the religious affections of good men wax cold—in such times do churches grow?

Did the work of God prosper in Israel or in Judah during such days? Consider the life and ministries of the prophets. For many years Jeremiah wept and pleaded with the people to turn from their sins. When God finally gave up the people to the sword, and enemy soldier were in their streets, Jeremiah was yet begging "Is there not one who will repent?"

Noah preached before the people for 120 years, yet none but his own family heeded his preaching and boarded the ark. Jesus said, "As the days of Noe were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be." (Matt. 24:37) And Ezekiel preached "Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job were in (the land) they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD." (EZ. 14:14) The people would not repent.

I am aware how many expositors treat the text. In The Expositor’s Bible, Alfred Plummer said of this passage, "It is well known that the scholars whose labors during the 16^th and 17^th centuries produced at last the Authorized Version, were not masters of the force of the Greek article. Its uses had not yet been analysed in the thorough way in which they have been analysed in the present century. Perhaps the text before us is the most remarkable among the numerous errors which are the result of this imperfect knowledge. It seems so strange that those who perpetrated it were not puzzled by their own mistake, and that their perplexity did not put them right." (P. 189)

Plummer translated the verse, "...supposing that godliness is a way of gain." Jamieson, Fausset and Brown concur by translating the verse, "Supposing that piety (godliness) is a means of gain." But the impugning of the scholarship of the translators of the Authorized Version (King James Version) is pure arrogance. The translators certainly know that half a century before, Calvin himself had translated the verse, "supposing that godliness is a way of gain." Nevertheless, the Holy Ghost led the translators to write the words, "supposing that gain is godliness," as He had led the translators of the Geneva Bible.

Plummer asks, "What kind of people could they have been who ‘supposed that gain was godliness’? Did such an idea ever before enter into the head of any person? And if it did, could he have retained it?" He then conjectures, "People have devoted their whole souls to gain, and have worshipped it as if it were Divine. But no man ever yet believed, or acted as if he believed that gain was godliness. To make money-getting a substitute religion, in allowing it to become the one absorbing occupation of mind and body, is one thing: to believe it to be religion is quite another." (Pp. 189-190)

Certainly this is just such a day, for Truth is measured by the gain it brings. It is carnal men who walk by sight and not by faith. They suppose that "gain is godliness" who emulate a preacher who sports diamonds and gold and the richest finery, but who regards neither his conduct, nor the Scriptural accuracy of his message.

The Apostle Paul identifies such people with those who are proud-who know nothing-who gender envy, strife, railings and evil surmisings-who are perverse, being corrupt in principle-men who are destitute of truth, who neither consent to truth, nor have the ability to appreciate it.

"From such withdraw thyself." The servants of Christ are forbidden to have any dealings with such people. They are not to come near them. They are not to lay hands upon them, or to admit them into the gospel ministry. They are not to allow them to preach, or to encourage them by listening to them.

If such a one is in the church, he is to be cast out. There is to be no communication with them either in a civil or in a religious way. All conversation with them is to be avoided.

Jesus said, "Fear not little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom." (Lk 12:32) Here is a double diminutive: "Fear not little, little flock." The people of God have always been few in number. They are as despised today by the world as they have been in every age. True saints of God are still assessed by the world to be "pocos y locos" -"few and foolish;" but eternal love encircles them, everlasting arms undergird them, and a great inheritance awaits them-and God will never leave them or forsake them.

Chuck Colson, the novice who was catapulted into fame and who became an instant celebrity on account of his part in the Watergate Break-in, has written another book. It is entitled The Body. In Welch, It would be called "Y Corff."

In his magazine "Focus On The Family" for January, 1993, Dr. James describes Colson’s book as "dramatic stories about the heroes of the faith..." (underlining ours), and includes from the book the moving account of Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, a Roman Catholic priest, who in 1941 while a prisoner of the Nazis in Auschwitz, volunteered to die in the place of another prisoner. Dr. Dobson describes Fr. Kolbe as "a hero of the church."

Just a minute! There are some gravely serious questions that every conscious reader must ask. First of all, there was no indication in the article that Fr. Kolbe was a Christian at all while we are not in the place of God to say he was not a true Christian, we nevertheless read no indication that he was.

The fact that a man lays down his life for another does not make him a son of God. Do Chuck Colson and Dr. Dobson believe it does? It would certainly seem so.

Fr. Kolbe had been severely beaten. Did he volunteer to take the place of another because he had given up hope, and in effect, committed suicide by the hands of his captors? Did he think that if he made the supreme sacrifice of giving his life that another might live that he would be assured of going to Heaven? We do not know. We hope he found the blood of Christ alone sufficient for the forgiveness of his sins, and for his right to enter into the joys of the Lord. If he lay down his life for any reason other than for the love of Jesus, he is no hero of the faith, or member of the Church, or "The Body."

Chuck Colson is quoted in the same article as saying, "There is a timeless quality about heroes of the faith of any generation. Just read the ‘Hall of Fame’ line-up in Hebrews 11, or take a look at modern-day heroes like William Wilberforce, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Mother Theresa, and Hudson Taylor..."

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn! Mother Theresa! In her book A Planned Deception, Constance Cumbey quotes Desmond Dolg who spent much time with Mother Theresa writing her biography. On page 136, in his work entitled, Mother Theresa: Her People and Her Work, Dolg quotes Mother Theresa’s beliefs concerning conversion.

"What we are all trying to do by our work, by serving people, is to come closer to God. If in coming face to face with God we accept Him in our lives, then we are converting. We become a better Hindu, a better Muslim, a better Catholic, a better whatever we are, and then by being better we come closer and closer to Him. If we accept Him fully in our lives, then that is conversion. What approach would I use? For me, naturally, It would be a Catholic one, for you it may be Hindu, for someone else, Buddhist, according to one’s conscience. What God is in your mind you must accept."

It is apparent that both Chuck Colson and Dr. James Dobson understand salvation to be attainable by good works. The aim of their ministries is apparently ecumenical. This is the price of Fame.

Text: "...to give unto them beauty for ashes..." (Is. 61:3b)

Throughout history, the fine arts have flourished most during times of moral decline. Music, painting, sculpture and the like are sensuous; i.e. they appeal to the senses. Beauty of form, color, and of sound cannot make a society noble when its people are vile and vicious. A painting or a piece of music may be pleasurable, but it is incapable of elevating or ennobling the character of man. Although our appreciation and taste in the fine arts can be cultivated, yet a word or an act of kindness can do more to influence men than an entire museum of art.

The fine arts do, however, have the potential for contributing to the decay of society. Artistry more often ministers to pride than to humility. It most often leads to effeminacy by laying temptation before the senses. This is the reason exquisite art flourishes in times of moral degradation.

Phidias and Iktinos had just completed the Parthenon when the glory of Athens departed; and in ancient Rome, art was at its zenith when the people were most base, barbarous and cruel. Nero himself was a noted musician. Indeed, how often in nature does beauty cloak danger!

Modem Roman art reached its zenith during the reign of Pope Leo X, when it is said profligacy and licentiousness controlled the people. Yes, it was during this era when Lucas Cranach sculptured the "Praying Hands," and when Bramante, da Vinci, Titian and Michelangelo lived and labored.

When Michelangelo was commissioned to paint St. Peter’s cathedral, he agreed on the condition he receive no salary. He wanted to labor "for the love of God alone." Pope Julius III made him sit beside him while a dozen cardinals were standing. Francis de Medici never spoke to him without uncovering his head.

One day, when Titian dropped his brush, Emperor Charles V stooped to pick it up, and said, "You deserve to be served by an Emperor." Yet, Charles was perhaps one of the three greatest persecutors of the people of God.

In the Netherlands, art reached its zenith during the period that followed the destruction of civil and religious liberty by the despots of Spain.

It was during the time of persecution of the Huguenots, the Lutherans, the Anglicans, the Presbyterians, the Baptists and the Quakers that Rubens, and Rembrandt painted; and when Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven composed their music. Scarlatti followed Handel all over Italy, and when someone was heard to mention Handel’s name, he would cross himself out of respect.

It was during the reign of rationalism in France, then in England and in her colonies and later in Germany that Haydn, Schubert, Mendelssohn and Chopin composed their music. It was also during these years that Robert Burns wrote his filthy songs, and when Keats wrote his poetry. It was the testimony of one who visited Keats on his deathbed, that it was "the blackness of midnight, unmitigated by one ray of light."

Art is designed for the glory of God. In no way do we wish to speak disparagingly of those who have used their God-given talents for the glory of God. The Apostle Paul declared, "Whatsoever things are...lovely, ...think on these things." (See: Philip. 4:8) However, when art becomes the vehicle to glorify the artist, it becomes bad art.

Neither do we wish to imply that Rationalism has produced beautiful art, or wholesome music. It does not lie in the ability of infidelity to produce beauty. There is only debauched art in unbelief. Yet, amid the ashes of persecution and unbelief, it is God who gives beauty.

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24, 1664 -England. On March 24, 1860 a book appeared entitled Essays and Reviews which espoused liberal views denying the doctrines of the inspiration of Scripture, eternal suffering of the damned, while accepting heretical views of the doctrines of propitiation and Justification. Samuel Wilberforce, bishop of Oxford, has accused the seven essayists of "neology, rationalism and skepticism" and has denounced them for their dishonesty in holding such views while remaining in the church. --

On February 16, 1861, the Episcopal Manifesto was issued in the form of a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was signed by 25 bishops who have joined the Archbishop "In expressing the pain it has given them that any clergyman should have published such opinions."

Today, at the Instigation of E. B. Pusey, the Oxford Declaration on the doctrines of inspiration and of eternal punishment is sent to every minister in the Church of England in Wales, Ireland and in England urging them to sign it. Eleven thousand clergymen will do so in the next few weeks.

On June 24, 1861, the Upper House of Convocation voted 8 to 2 to condemn the book. Today, the Lower House concurs by a vote of 39 to 19, with A. P. Stanley opposing the condemnation.