By Pastor Butch Paugh, PPP
April 23, 2015
NewsWithViews.com
A great man once said, “That which we tolerate today we will embrace tomorrow”. G. K. Chesterton once said, “Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” I would add that tolerance and compromise is the creed of a coward. There seems to be very little most will not endure (tolerate and compromise with) to preserve their paycheck or keep “peace” in their lives. To tolerate evil is to compromise with evil and it makes you a partaker of that evil. Death, hell and damnation soon follow!
No deadlier a delusion or sin has ever infected a society than that of tolerance. Which always leads to compromise. An individual with sincere convictions can not and will not tolerate evil and will not compromise simply to maintain a temporal lifestyle or peace. Tolerance/compromise has destroyed many a society and nation. America is not an exception!
This deadly cancer of society and souls starts as all cancers. Very slowly and unrecognized as a real danger. How you might, did it start? Let’s examine a few subtle (subtil found in Gen. 3:1) methods that the enemy has used to deceive us. Because of spiritual blindness and ignorance of God’s Word, we have been slowly eaten alive by this cancer.
Let’s start with Alexander Tyler’s “Birds-eye View of the Evolution of Nations.”
1. From bondage to spiritual faith
2. From spiritual faith to great courage
3. From courage to liberty
4. From liberty to abundance
5. From abundance to selfishness.
6. From selfishness to complacency
7. From complacency to apathy
8. From apathy to dependence
9. From dependence back to bondage or as Hosea said in Chapter 4 verse 7, “As they were increased (prospered), so they sinned against me: Therefore I will change their glory to shame.”
America had a “boom” in the 1920’s. Then a “manmade” depression in the 1930’s. Instead of turning to God, they turned to man for their help and started a process warned against, many places in God’s Holy Word. Daniel 1:8 and Proverbs 23:2 are a couple. With this subtle trick of the serpent and his servants, i.e. Roosevelt and money powers, started the tolerance and compromise cancer! Exodus 20:1-3, Exodus 34:14, Matthew 6:24-27 & 33-34, Philippians 4:19. Because we are afraid to offend those that provide for us, we will tolerate and compromise with evil! We don’t want to bite the hand that feeds, so for the sake of “mammon” we have denied God and His Word! Damnation of this kind of people then becomes a certainty! Their society is damned and their children’s’ futures have been destroyed. Hos. 4:6, Ex. 20:5
Because we have broken the first Commandment, the rest follow quite easily don’t they? Adultery, now called a “one night fling” or an “extra-marital affair”. “Sounds” better that way doesn’t it? Kill i.e. murder. Abortion doesn’t sound as bad. Euthanasia sounds so much better than kill or murder. Fornication, God’s word sounds so harsh. Pre-marital affair, co-habitation or even “shacking up” sounds so much more “kind”. The tolerance and compromise began in the church from behind lukewarm and cowardly pulpits! If the preacher preached the unabashed total word of God, he would lose his congregation and therefore his “prestige” and paycheck. The church no longer wants to be a “peculiar people” but rather a “popular people”.
Now we are even learning to tolerate and compromise with sexual perversion! What was once condemned by all but a few, is now becoming common place. “Accepted” by the masses because of “damned” tolerances and compromise! We are told to hate the evil if we truly love God! Psalm 97:10, Amos 5:15, Romans 12:9, Psalm 139:22
To those that are willing to stand on God’s Word and proclaim His righteousness against all sin let us now accept II Corinthians 6:16-18 and let us stop tolerating and compromising with evil/unrighteousness beginning in our own lives, our own families and then throughout all of society! Let’s once again begin to speak Christ’s final instructions to us, His “church” in Matthew 28:20 to teach all nations to observe His commandments! John 14:15
It’s time to quit trying to be a “nice” person and a “friend” to the ungodly. We are to have no fellowship with them. Ephesians 5:15, James 4:4. Their souls depend on your faithfulness to Christ, His Word and your reproving them for their evil before it’s too late!
No more tolerance! No more compromise!
In Christ’s service,
Pastor Butch Paugh P.P.P.