What It Means To Be A Fundamentalist

First Timothy chapter 3, I always wear a suit coat on

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

Sunday on Wednesday nights but I don't usually wear a suit.

I'm very dressed up for something for Wednesday night.

And but I was Henrico actually Appointed hired.

I don't know what to do with the exact, right word is but a new

fire chief and he asked me to come and do the invocation for

his swearing-in Ceremony this afternoon.

I was very privileged to be able to do that and God's given us

really some good opportunities with the chaplain chaplain.

See the chaplain program and being able to Branch out and do

some other things as well because of it.

And so looking forward to that I'm actually going to a Fort Lee

army base tomorrow. They're doing a prayer breakfast

down there and they invited me to come and be a part of that as

well. And so we'll be doing that first

thing tomorrow morning for a few hours.

And again just just great opportunities and not not out

there trying to make a name for myself or anything like that.

But obviously the this is a little bit loud, turn it down.

Thank you. But the just just the more

opportunities got gives us the more opportunities.

We have to get the gospel out. So we'll take them and we'll use

them and I'll just trust that God knows.

What's best? And so I want to what I want to

talk about tonight and I usually have a lot of Bible verses that

we turn to and I'm not going to do that tonight.

I really want to kind of set the stage for what we're going to be

talking about over the next couple weeks.

But really what I want to talk about.

This is this is right along with the whole idea of what it means

to be a Baptist and we just went through that entire thing.

We use that acrostic what you know, what are the Baptist

distinctives. And we're not going to we're not

going to review those tonight just for the sake of time but I

want to talk about the meaning of biblical fundamentalism and

it's very misunderstood. It's very, it's being distorted.

You have Neo Independent Baptist, you have new

Independent Baptist, a lot of things that are changing and and

really there's a lot of I don't know if hesitancy is the right

word, but really, it's just, it's just a round, the word

fundamentalist. I considered myself to be an

independent fundamental Baptist, and, of course, now that's being

defined as ifb, you know, and people are, people are using

that as a disparaging term, you know, you're an ifb and, and,

you know, in there are certain there are certain just like

there is within any dump denomination.

That gives it a bad name for certain for certain reasons and

because of certain things, Is but the whole movement if and I

don't even really like using that word movement, but the

whole, the whole idea of being an independent fundamental

Baptist is being distorted. And so I want to, I want to

really kind of set the record straight talk about what it is

and so because again, we live in a day when fundamental or

fundamentalist have been misused, it's been abused.

It's been misapplied, both in our secular end is as well as

within Christianity, but the Word, fundamental, simply means

of central importance, or affecting the underlying

principles. And structure of something that

word fundamental has been used for years and years and years to

mean the exact same thing. Right?

When we hear the news media talks about Islamic

fundamentalist we automatically think of terrorists, right?

Because they are holding true. When we hear of radical

fundamentalist, we think of people who are off base in some

extreme or or harmful way, but the connotation that has led a

lot of Americans to fear that. Fundamental or two to question

those who claim to be fundamental when it pertains to

their belief in the Bible. But think about it, this way.

If you were to take the example of a basketball coach, who

believes in the fundamentals of basketball, you would not have

any hesitancy to applaud that coach.

Right to say, man, there's a coach who sticks with the

fundamentals of basketball. And what does that mean?

It means he's teaching, he's teaching them how to pass, how

to shoot, how to play defense, how to play all Offense and and

doing that in a fundamental way. And you might imagine someone is

focusing on those things that those are the fundamentals of

basketball. They are of central importance.

If you're not teaching somebody how to do that in basketball,

you're not teaching them the fundamentals and they're not

going to learn how to play basketball very well.

So in fact, those skills are so important when it comes to the

structure of that sport that if you compromise or if you change

that or if you forget that, you're not going to have the

sport of basketball, you might have some other Name that

similar to the sport of basketball.

You might have another game. That is an offshoot of the game

of basketball, but you don't have the game of basketball

anymore when you get away from the fundamentals of what

basketball is. And so the what the original

sport of basketball was intended to be.

And again, that's exactly what we're talking about when we're

talking about a fundamentalist or somebody who is a fundamental

Christian. We are literally just focusing

around the central importance of the word of God, the doctrines

of the word of God. So we're going to discuss this

idea really for three primary reasons, and I want to give you

those tonight, as we as we head into this and really before we

get into the lesson tonight, but the first reason, why is for

those Christians that are seeking to understand more

clearly, what Biblical fundamentalism truly is.

And again, there's a lot of, there's a lot of misconception

around that idea of being a Biblical fundamentalist.

There's a lot of confusion today on Bible versions.

A lot of confusion on Bible interpretation.

There's a lot of confusion. On ecumenical relationships.

And there's a, there's a vast movement out there.

That's trying to water down the truth.

And, you know, to blend all of the religions together for the

sake of unity, and for the sake of Tolerance, and that is not

Christianity. We're moving away.

When you move away from the fundamentals, you are moving

away from what it actually is, you're moving away from the

things that are of central importance.

And the more you move away from those things, it's a dangerous

course. It's quickly going to take us

away from what Biblical Christianity is all about.

Not all roads, lead to the same place, not all religions are

teaching the truth, not and and I'm going to try not to get

sidetracked on some of these things.

But there's so many of these things that are out there in our

culture today, you know. Well you just need to find your

truth. No, you didn't need to find your

truth. You need to find the truth.

Doesn't matter what you think the truth is, it matters what

the Bible says. The truth is and whatever you

think, doesn't matter when it comes to comparing it to the

word of God. If it lines up with the word of

God, then you're right. If it Line up with the word of

God, then you're wrong and it doesn't matter what your truth

happens to be. So hopefully that will clarify

for us. What?

A fundamental bible-believing, Christian really is, that's the

first reason. The second reason is that there

are those that are outside of biblical fundamentalism

attempting to redefine who we are.

And again, the secular media, the liberal Elite of our culture

are trying to redefine those, who believe the Bible literally.

And they say that we're extreme, or they say that we're even

dangerous, right? Again, it's the ones who are who

are preaching, what has been preached for hundreds and

hundreds of years from the Bible, but because culture has

changed in the last 25 years and the mindset around.

A lot of these things that the Bible preaches and teaches

against or for that matter. Even the things that the Bible

preaches and teaches in favor of it has changed culturally and so

religion has changed along with it but the Bible didn't change.

So when we continue to preach, the things that are in the Bible

that have been preached for hundreds and Thousands of years,

all the sudden were extreme and we're dangerous.

And that's not the case. We're just trying to stick to

the fundamentals of the word of God.

That's going to hopefully help us to see through the smoke and

mirrors of the secular world and help us to truly understand that

the ideas that bible-believing Christians hold to.

And we've already talked about some of that when it comes to

the Baptist distinctive. So we're not going to spend a

lot of time necessarily speaking directly to those but biblical

fundamentalists are no more dangerous or extreme than a

Basketball coach that's holding to the fundamentals of

basketball. So, regardless of how they look

at us from the outside, or what they perceive us to be from the

outside, or however, they are trying to redefine us from the

outside, it's no different than what we've always been.

We simply believe the basic doctrines and the values of the

Bible, and that's what we're going to explore as we as we get

through these lessons over the next few weeks.

So, the third reason, then why it's necessary to help us

understand these things. And why we're going to discuss

these is because there are those within the Fundamentalism who

are trying to redefine who we are.

And as we as we get into it, I'm going to give you some names of

some people who are kind of leading that charge and leading

the charge away from what the Bible is teaching and what we

have always stood for. So, there are those who are

polarizing around personalities and polarizing around

methodologies or institutions. And again, it's a lot of times

in its, it's It's an attempt to build a greater constituency

around themselves and and try to gather more people to to

themselves or, you know, gain more popularity or whatever

else. There's a lot of different

reasons why people do that. But we're hearing the word

fundamental applied to personal preferences or matters of taste

rather than to the unchanging truth of the word of God and we

have to protect that at all costs.

So the truth is that we're going to look at over the next few

weeks or just just as much a fundamental part of our American

history as they are a part of our Jannetty.

And again, it's not that we're coming up with something new.

It's not that we're trying to redefine who we are.

It's not that we're that we've gone more extreme.

It's just that we feel like this is what the Bible says.

This is what we've always stood for.

This is what we've always believed and as the world and

Christianity changes were not changing and so that gives us a

bad perception in a lot of ways. But this this is what has always

been taught and preached. And so tonight, I really want to

give you the First in this little say series it's really

more of a miniseries. That's kind of a part of this

series and what it means to be a Baptist.

But it's the topic that we're going to look at tonight and

it's really kind of the the overall theme of the entire

thing, which is the meaning of biblical fundamentals.

I want to give you a little bit of history with that tonight.

But in first Timothy chapter 3 there, I want to kind of set the

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

table, or give you a little bit of a background into exactly

what we're talking about here. In 1st, Timothy Chapter 3, and

verse number 15, Who wrote the book of 1st Timothy?

Say it Paul, right, right. And who was he writing to

Timothy, right? Timothy was a young preacher

boy. If you will, under Paul's

Ministry, Paul was helping to train Timothy.

And so a lot of first and second, Timothy and Titus are

considered to be the Pastoral Epistles.

He was essentially training. Timothy, how to be a pastor and

of course, then Paul did leave him in different places and he

was able to continue on that work, but that will give you a

little bit of context and what we're talking about here, Now,

does anybody else? And you can probably look at

this in your Bible and see this, but what else do we see in first

1 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

Timothy chapter 3? What do we see in first?

Timothy chapter 3 qualifications for a pastor and the

qualifications for a deacon, right?

So that's that's the context of the chapter verse number 15,

says this. But if I tarry long that thou

mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house of

God, which is the Church of the Living, God, the pillar and the

ground of Truth. And without controversy, great

is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest In the Flesh.

Justified in the spirit seen of angels preached unto the

Gentiles believed on, in the world received up into Glory.

Now that thou mayest know how thou oughtest to behave thyself

in the house of God, he was not yelling at Timothy for running

around in the auditorium and jumping on the chairs.

That's not what he was saying. You better behave yourself.

He wasn't telling him, he wasn't talking to him.

That way, he was saying and talking about the idea of what a

church ought to be. And the way a church out a

function in the way of church ought to run.

So in our text here in 1st Timothy Chapter 3, The Apostle

Paul is writing to Timothy with respect to the church and he's

reminding Timothy that the church is to be the pillar and

the ground of truth. If the church is not doing that,

then what else do you have that? You can fall back on if the

church is not the pillar in the ground of truth.

Then where can you turn right now?

Obviously, we always have the word of God.

We have the Bible and that is our that is are Our ultimate

truth. And there are plenty of churches

out there who are not standing on the truth of the word of God.

And so they're, they're ultimately not the pillar in the

ground of truth. But that's what the church is

intended to be. And that's what it's supposed to

be. And I believe that without

bible-believing churches, America would collapse.

And that's why we're seeing America collapsing.

Now, because we're moving away from this bible-believing, and

we're moving more into preferences and more into

seeker-friendly things, where we'll do whatever we have to do,

to get people to come in and as long as people.

Pilar coming in, then. We're successful.

And that's not the case. Yes, we want people to come in.

Absolutely. We want people to come in and we

should be doing everything we can to try to get them to come

in. But it's not, it's not the

pragmatism idea where the ends justify the means.

And if that means that we gotta get up and dance around on the

stage and have all this contemporary Christian music,

then we'll do it. If it's going to bring people in

or you know, if we just do this or do that, or whatever else, it

is that they're doing in these new modern churches, today to

try to get people in and it's working.

They're getting people in but they're not.

Giving them the truth and that church is not the pillar in the

ground of truth. It's a country club with a with

the Christian name on it. Well, if you can call it that

you know, the rock or the bridge I mean that's a that's a generic

name for a country club, you know?

I mean even country clubs are more specific about what they

are. Then a lot of these churches

nowadays. But in 1st Timothy Chapter 3,

and verse number 16 Paul is elaborating on the truth.

He says, and without controversy great is the mystery of

godliness God was manifest In the Flesh.

Justified in the spirit, seen of angels preached unto the

Gentiles believed on in the world received up into Glory.

So in this, in this verse here, Paul is Paul is giving a

first-century statement of faith.

If you will we have a statement of faith for our church.

But he's claiming the fundamentals of the faith that

God became a man, right? And that Christ Jesus, as the

God man was crucified. He rose again?

The third day, I mean Paul is laying down some fundamentals

here and he Was telling Timothy, these are the things that you

need to be standing on, right? So he's reminding Timothy that

the church is supposed to be the pillar in the ground of truth.

But in our day, what's happening is these truths are being

tested, their being there being questioned everywhere.

And it's vital that we know what the truth is our that we know

what we believe and we know why we believe those things, right?

We've been doing a series for a long time and there's a lot of

different off shoots going, a lot of different directions.

But what, what I believe and why it's important to Why we say, we

believe the things that we believe and well that's just

what my church teaches is not a good enough answer.

Well, it's somewhere in the Bible that's not a good enough

answer. You need to know why you believe

the things that you believe otherwise you're going to get

somebody to come in here and start teaching things that are

moving away from those fundamentals and you're just

going to follow them because you don't even know why you believe

what you believe in the first place.

So Christians have to not only attend biblically fundamental

churches but they have to adhere to the fundamental truths and

the the doctrines of the Bible, if we want to truly stand for

our faith and where they start, moving away from those

fundamentals, we either need to do everything.

We can to try to bring them back to that, or we need to leave

because if it's if we're not preaching the fundamentals of

the faith, if we're not preaching those true.

So the word of God, then we shouldn't be there, something

has to change and of course if our Christian Life is Let me say

it this way. Thank God for the exterior

manifestations of an inward change right when God changes

our heart. It ought to change the way we

look on the outside too. But if your Christian Life is is

just about an exterior look and you don't know the scriptures,

you don't know. You know, the, the Bible and the

verse is that form your beliefs, then you're a very, very shallow

Christian. And we need a clear

understanding of the basic doctrines of the word of God.

But then number, Read the the primary question about

fundamental, mm, is this, what is your Authority?

What is your Authority? And of course, the very, very

first thing that we talked about when it came to, what it means

to be a Baptist, is what Biblical Authority, right?

The Bible ought to be our Authority.

But what's happening so many times is that it's the Bible

plus tradition or it's the Bible plus preferences or it's the

Bible, plus, whatever else that happens to be.

And if your final Authority is the Bible, then you're going to

believe in. You're going to follow the truth

that are Central and foundational in the Bible.

Well, Or not the media or the intellectual Elite or the

so-called, you know, theologians and and they're the ones

honestly, that drive a lot of this fundamentalism away from

the Bible or if I should even say fundamentals and they're not

driving fundamentals and they're driving Christians away from

fundamentalism because of the things that they're teaching and

preaching and writing books about everything else.

But you know, whatever they say about it, there's nothing to

fear about a fundamental bible-believing Christian

because we are And show to the foundation of Christianity,

adhering, to the fundamental teaching of the word of God is

what made America great. Now, let me give you some

examples here. And again, I'm being very

practical tonight, but I say spiritual at the same time, I'm

not using a lot of bible verses to talk about these things and I

because we're kind of giving you a broad view of it but there's

not only a lot of different isms in the world.

There's a, there's also a lot of fundamentalisms in the world and

if you think about it for a for just a few, Few seconds to try

to think of some other fundamentalist that, you know,

that that would be different from Baptist Independent Baptist

fundamentalist whatever. Obviously I mentioned one a

little bit earlier, but we've all been awakened to the idea of

Islamic fundamentalist, right? And Islamic fundamentalist is

somebody who takes particular portions of the Quran and you

know portions from clerics to a literal extreme that leads them

to go on these jihadist missions.

And you know, that's what Honestly, that's what led to

911. That's what has led to a lot of

these terrorist attacks in a lot of these other places as well,

right? It's Islamic fundamentalism but

they are going back to the fundamentals of their faith.

There's Mormon fundamentalist, right.

Those Mormon fundamentalist would take the Book of Mormon

and claimed it to be equal with the Bible.

The Mormon fundamentalist would believe the book doctrines and

Covenants. And in section of 132 verse 61,

it says, you may have spouse as many virgins as you like,

without committing adultery. Well, that's where they get the

idea of polygamy. Right?

And now there are a lot of them are trying to distance

themselves from that because well we you know, things have

changed, you know, we don't believe that anymore, but if you

are a Mormon fundamentalist, then you will believe that

because it's there and it's in their book and they haven't, it

can't be changed a fundamentalist.

Mormon would have believed the Journal of discourses volume 1

page. 121 says, remember that God, our heavenly father was

once a child and mortal Like we are and rose step by step in the

scale of progress, right? That's what a Mormon

fundamentalist is going to believe fundamentalist.

Mormon would say, they believe the Journal of discourses that

was written by Brigham Young volume 10 page. 223 says the

Lord created you and me for the purpose of becoming Gods like

himself. Now we've gone all the way

through the Book of Mormon and and talked a lot about the

different ideas of Mormonism and everything else, I'm not trying

to do that tonight. But what I'm saying is there's

fundamentalist Mormons and those fundamentalist Mormons are going

to get tin and get into their books and their doctrines and

everything else. And they're going to hold to

those things. But there's there's examples of

groups that believe the basic Central teachings of their

religions. And we have examples of that all

over the place there, examples of how following a like, and

laid down a very dangerous in a very destructive path.

I mean, honestly, you have you have Cults that get started and

books that are written within those Cults.

And those people follow those things and they are, they're

making their way down a very dangerous path.

But, and I think in the same way a fundamentalist Christian, Is

somebody who believes the central basic truths of the

Bible? Somebody who has chosen to make

the Bible, his final Authority for life.

We're not using the Bible, plus some traditions that the church

has done for years. We're not using the Bible plus,

some confessions we're not using the Bible plus like what the

Jews do, the Bible's, the the Jews use the Old Testament and

the talmud and the tell mood is a commentary of the Old

Testament. And what's happened is you've

got commentary on the Commentary on the commentary of the Old

Testament. What they say is that the

average Christian knows more of the Old Testament than the Jews

do because they know so. Well, the tell mood which is all

the commentary on the Old Testament that they don't even

know the Old Testament, right? But that's that's what we're

talking about. We're just getting back to the

basic fundamental Central truths of the Bible.

Biblical fundamentalism has everything to do with.

What somebody believes about the word of God.

Biblical fundamentalism is what? Going to be is what separates

those who believe God's word is infallible from those who

question, the word of God. We're going to talk a little bit

about the history here in just a second or the birth of

fundamentalism in America and we're going to see that there

are a lot of people who have questioned the legitimacy of the

Bible, but it separates that biblical fundamentalism is going

to be what separates those who believe the Bible is the final

Authority from those who accept some other authority, like

papal, Authority, or No experience or any of these other

things. So, how did fundamentalism in

America come around? Well, over 100 years ago?

And here's a name that you'll recognize Charles Spurgeon

battled for Bible beliefs in London.

It's it became known as the downgrade controversy.

What was happening, there was a lot of things that were

happening in in the world at that time and in and I say in

the world, but really in Christianity, in general around

that time, but He stood against the theologians and Pastors in

the Baptist Union, who began to accept evolution as a way of

creation. Now, I know that sounds to be

completely opposite of each other.

How do you accept evolution as a way of creation?

Well, what they what happened was and we're going to talk

about this in just a little bit, but the idea of evolution was

introduced as a scientific fact and because Evolution was an

alternative to Creation which is what the Bible.

Very plainly says in the very first verse in the Bible, in the

beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth.

If you believe in evolution, then you have already distanced

yourself from the word of God based on the very first verse

that we find in the Bible. But what happened is the idea of

evolution came about and all of these not just feel logical

liberals. But anybody who wanted to try

to, in any way. Oppose this the Bible jumped on

this idea of evolution. Well then it kind of made the

Christians look like they were a little, you know, Awkward.

They were a little bit out of touch with what was going on in

the scientific world. So they started trying to marry

the idea of Evolution To Creation and believe it or not.

Scofield is one of the ones who jumped on that and and and

introduced what was what is known as the day age Theory.

We're basically one day was not a 24-hour period, like we know

it to be and like, what we believe in the Bible, but one

day was an Age. So God created the plants and

then allowed them to evolve in this age and then he went on to

the next thing and and created the animals and they were able

to evolve through that whole process and it wasn't just a

24-hour period. It was an age, it was an ERA and

so they believe that God created those things.

But then they then they tried to marry that with the idea of

evolution. Well, that just really started

making everybody question everything that they knew about

the Bible and so Charles, Urgent preached against that false

teachings and ultimately led a great number of people out of

the Baptist Union when the members of the Baptist Union

would not sign a statement of faith.

Declaring that the theory of evolution was against the Bible

on, this was this was Baptist. This was back in the 1800's so

that encroachment of theological liberalism was not limited to

England. It found its way to America and

Fundamental Bible Doctrine was generally.

Well known it was for the most part believed in America.

You didn't need fundamentalism because everything was

fundamentalism. It was just Christianity.

It's just what it was. There was no such thing as

fundamental Christians, and then liberal Christians, or whatever

else, because it was just, that's what if you are a

Christian, this is what you believed, right?

But, you know, it doesn't doesn't take long for you to go

to Washington DC and start walking around.

A lot of those monuments, in a lot of the Bible verses that are

found. Channel 2, our Christianity are

edged, all over the place inside the capitol.

Inside the, you know, inside the White House on the Supreme

Court, building mean all over the place.

You see Bible verses etched on those buildings and it just you

know just again just proves that that Fundamental Bible Doctrine

was generally well known and believed in early America but

fundamentalism as a movement really didn't gain any any steam

or any momentum until after the Civil War.

Because after the Civil War, a great theological compromise,

also started to take hold in our country and German rationalism

began to find its way into the American pulpits.

If there's anything that has been a huge detriment to

Christianity, it's this German theological mindset and I'm not

blaming the Germans. I'm just saying that that was

really kind of where the birth of a lot of this theological

liberalism was, that's where a lot of it started and American

started going. Were there to these German

universities and coming back with a huge skepticism of the

Bible and of the doctrines of the faith.

And then those are the ones who started getting into these

institutions of Higher Learning where, you know, you had places

like Harvard, that was, you know, started to train preachers

and now all the sudden Harvard is not even, it's not even

doesn't have anything to do with Christianity at all.

How does that happen that happens?

Because you allow this theological liberalism to get

in. Everybody starts questioning

everything about the The Bible instead of just believing it by

faith. Which by the way the Bible has

never been disproven ever not in one area of science.

Not in one area of archaeology, not in one area of anything.

Has the Bible been disproven? There's been many times when

they thought they've disproven the Bible but then it always

turns out that the that whoever it was, that was disproving.

The Bible ended up getting proven wrong later on.

Bubble has never been proven wrong.

And so this German rationalism Movement that began in the 1700s

with these German Scholars and religious leaders.

And they were trying to marry secular thought with Biblical

teaching. And the intention was to bring

secular reason to Biblical teaching and essentially to

remove the Divine to remove the miraculous from the word of God.

And when you follow that, course, the scripture became

subject to human reasoning, and when you, when you subjected to

human reasoning, now it's you know, it's it makes the mind,

the final Authority rather than the truth of the word of God.

And that movement was nothing less than a direct spiritual

attack on the Christian faith, but it was, it was around that

time. The, the late 1800s, when a lot

of these, theologically liberal ideas began to swirl, in Europe,

in Germany and made their way to America.

Well, a lot of German Scholars, of that day were prejudiced

against the scriptures, and I'll read you a few quotes.

I'll give you a picture of this guy because he was one that was

very well known as name was Immanuel Kant, but he wrote in

the late 1700s that Quote, a man's conscience was equal to

the word of God. A man's conscience is equal to

the world of to the word of God. He questioned the the atonement

of Jesus Christ. He questioned a lot of other

things that got people thinking in that direction.

But other theological theologians in the school of

so-called higher criticism, began to question all the rest

of the foundational doctrines of God's word, 11 of those guys was

a was a guy by the name of Frederick shrill mom.

Ochre. That's not a German name.

I don't know what it is, but he said Doctrine is only the

expression of feeling the Bible is not our final Authority.

When you start making statements like that, you are treading on

very, very dangerous ground. The Bible is not our final

Authority, it's your mind. It's what you think.

Well, that's what, that's why do you think there's people running

around saying find your truth? You know, Live Your Truth.

It started in there. Another one his name was Ernst

trost but he said The early 1900's quote that Evolution was

the unfolding of the new out of the old and that Jesus Christ

was merely a symbol of the highest truth.

Someone can know in essence there were not only questioning

but they were beginning to literally tear apart.

The word of God in their seminaries and in their

conferences, all over Europe and eventually it made its way to

America. And again, that movement,

questioned every literal detail of the Bible, the Bible said it.

Well, now we need to question it and see if we can prove whether

it's right or not. And if we can't Prove it, then

it's wrong. And that I mean if you're if you

could if you can take any part of the Bible and say that you

don't believe it for this reason or that reason or whatever, then

you can do that with the entire rest of the Bible or at the very

least you can't tell somebody else that they can't do that

with the entire rest of the Bible because that's exactly

what you've just done. But then in nineteen are, sorry,

1859 Charles Darwin, published the book called the origin of

the species by the way. Charles Darwin was not the first

one to come up with the theory of evolution, Charles Darwin was

the one who popularized the theory of evolution in his book,

the origin of the species and a lot of people as I kind of

mentioned already including so-called clergy began to hold

to the concept of evolution. One of those men of out of many

who started to propagate. This liberalism was a guy by the

name of William, Rainey Harper. It was the founder of Chicago

University and there's actually a university that's named after

him now. But he said, this, we need to

recognize the humanity of Jesus and the mistakes of Jesus, and

we need to stress the dignity and the Divinity of man.

If that is not taking everything that the Bible teaches and

everything that is the fundamentals of the faith and

taking Jesus, who is God and trying to bring him down to

human level, and taking man, who is human and bring him up to the

god level, then you've turned everything in the word of God on

its head, and then nothing is sacred.

Nothing is truth. Nothing is fundamental anymore.

But I think it's pretty interesting to note too that

these same liberal themes in the same Rationalism is still being

taught in seminary, still being preached in pulpits.

All the way across America to this day.

But a lot of those main Mainline denominations could never be

classified as fundamental because they, you know, their

preachers are denying the fundamental truth of the word of

God. But in the face of compromising,

the late 1800s, and the early 1900's came, the rise of what

became known as biblical fundamentalism and biblical

fundamentalists. Because when all of this was

going on, you had a whole group of people who are starting to

say On why are we questioning the Bible through a secular

lens? Why are we trying to prove the

Bible through secular theology or secular secular terminology?

Why do we have to prove the Bible in this way?

The Bible stands on its own two feet.

The Bible stands for itself, we don't need other people doing

that. So God's stirred the hearts of

men who are Faithfully serving him turn over to Jude and

there's only one chapter in Jude.

But these men took a stand on the word of God and they

followed the teaching that we find in Jude verse 13.

Jude 13. Beloved.

When I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common

salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you

that ye should earnestly contend for the faith, which was once

delivered unto the Saints. What happened was they began to

earnestly contend for the faith again where before they didn't

really have to. Because everybody who was a

Christian believed, essentially the same thing, they believed

those fundamentals, they believe that Jesus was God, they

believe. He died on the cross, they

believe that he rose from the dead, they believed in the

Virgin birth. They believe that the Bible was

the final Authority. Now, you would all this

theological liberalism that was swirling all over the place and

it became necessary for them to take a final stand if you will

against all of those things. And so they began to they

started to earnestly contend for the truth, through preaching, in

their own pulpits. But they started to host Bible

conferences and they started to publish books and they started

newspapers that were crying out. Against this rationalism and

this theological liberalism and not all.

But a lot of the things that we still see in existence today

when it comes to Publications and everything else, got its got

their start back then because there was such a necessity

necessity to stand up against those things beginning in the in

1878. And I know this goes a ways

back, but the premillennial Bible Conference and also what

became known as the Niagara Niagara Bible conferences and

maybe some of these are names. That you'll recognize, but you

had a Jay Gordon. He was a, he was a pastor from

Boston. You had John Duffield.

He was a, he was from Princeton College Hudson Taylor, he

founded, the China, inland mission.

We Blackstone he was a Methodist preacher who wrote the book

Jesus is coming. It was a best-seller in that

area. A lot of others that were around

their two names that you would recognize and names that you

would at least know whether or not you know who they were.

But there's dozens and dozens and dozens of these men who Came

out in strong, stand of the fundamental doctrines of

Christianity, and especially the word of God, they were all men

who rejected this allegorical, allegorical rationalism.

And this rationalistic approach to the Bible.

They believe the word of God to be the truth, as it was the

literal word of God. And so during those conferences,

do a lot of these fundamentalist leaders created, Statement of

faith statements of faith. I guess it's probably the best

way to do it, but that affirm their belief in everything that

I just mentioned, when it comes to the authority of the word of

God. The the literal return of Jesus

Christ. And, and the, you know, the duty

of Christians everywhere to preach the message of the gospel

and they laid down those fundamentals.

And so the impact of those conferences was was very

profound was a great book. If you, if you, it's pretty

thick and I think I think I had to read it when I was in.

College but I referenced it again and found a lot of great

information in it but it's called in pursuit of Purity and

David Beale was the guy that wrote that but but this is what

he said, was a result of the Niagara Bible Conference.

There was five major outcomes and I'm just going to read them

to you because this is what he said.

But number one, the conference spawned new missionary activity

and evangelism number to the conference, contributed to the

rise and spread of large Bible Conference movements, The number

three, the conference had a significant impact on the rise

of the Bible Institute and Bible College movement number for the

conference, gave early expression to fundamentalisms

emphasis on concentrated, Bible study and he says number five

that the conference. Precipitated a vast amount of

fundamentalist literature especially on the subject of

Prophecy, the person and work of Christ, the Holy Spirit and

missions, but a great emphasis and honestly, where before there

was no need for that, there was no necessity of that.

Now, Was because of this theological liberalism and

honestly, it's just as much of a need for that today as there

ever has been because it's only getting worse, where, you know,

where before all of those ideas had been introduced and

everything else. Now they're here and they're

here to stay because of so many different institutions that are

doing that. Let me let me share with you

one, quote and will be closing up here very quickly.

But he said this, this is an account from somebody who had

tended, this Niagara Bible. Conference.

And he said this those were the days of Brooks and West and

Parsons and Erdman and Moorhead, and Nicholson, and Needham and

Gordon. Oh, what discussions were held

in those dates, how? The Lord Jesus Christ was

exalted, how the Holy Spirit was honored and how the Bible was

expounded, the bread of life, broken and distributed at the

Niagara Bible Conference is feeding the children of God and

this land to this day, there have been Bible conferences

since all stimulated by this one but they have been like so many

steeping zuv the same tea. So, after the turn of the

century, you had a lot of these men that began to emphasize the

fundamentals as they were called.

And this is, so you can see where the ideal fundamentalism

is starting to get its rise, but are a Tory, that's a name,

you'll recognize row. Lot of books, about the person,

and the work of the Holy Spirit TT Shields J, Frank Norris lot

of these men and men that that, hopefully, at least a little

bit. You recognize their names, but

when they stood up reach, I'm on the fundamentals.

Nobody questioned. What they were saying about the

word of God because it was just, it was the word of God.

And that's what they were teaching and preaching.

And so, those in a lot of others, took a strong stand

against liberalism took a law, strong stand against rationalism

and they earnestly contend for the faith and defended, the

fundamental doctrines of God's word.

But the thing is, most of those men died before 1950.

This happened in the late 1800s, early to Middle 1907 by 1950.

A lot of these men who were the first in the, Only

fundamentalist died by 1950 since the 1950s a lot of

different Baptist groups have come into existence but most of

those Baptist groups came out of other Baptist groups that were

turning away from fundamental doctrines and becoming

increasingly allegorical or rationalistic in their approach

to the Bible. And so, what's happened is

though, as a result of these men standing for the fundamentals

are over 13,000, independent fundamental Baptist churches in

the United States. And that number is dwindling

because a lot of them are changing from what they used to

be. Sadly even those that would be

what we would consider in our circle of influence.

In our circle of friends that are changing from become from

being independent, fundamental Baptist to taking that name off

or you know we're still Baptist but we're not independent

fundamental Baptist because we don't like the connotation that

comes along with that. We don't want people to get the

wrong idea of who we are or whatever else.

And you know a lot of those things are Aging and moving, but

what a rich history we have is bible-believing Christians.

That's, you know, the fight that they had to go through in the

things that these men had to stand for what a great heritage

of Faith that's been handed down to us.

So, what was it that they were contending for?

Was it was it the architectural style of a church building?

Was it, the color of the pews was that the, you know, the

color of the walls, you know, their favorite personalities,

our institutions, where they were they contending for?

Reference or taste know they were, you know they were

fighting for what they believed and they were fighting a greater

enemy for a greater truth. They were trying to take back

what was trying to be, what had been changed.

And that was the the great fundamental doctrines that we

find in the word of God. And maybe, for somebody who is a

non-Christian looking at it from the outside.

You know where they were? They I guess the question would

be where they contending for something dangerous, right?

Because now if you're a fundamental is if you're a

Christian fundamentalist, your extreme, you're dangerous.

You're you know you're one of these Bible Thumpers or whatever

else they want to say about it. You you're the ones that need to

be eliminated, your the far-right conspiracy.

And it's I mean we're not we're not even political right?

But but you're dangerous, if you believe the fundamentals of the

Bible. During today's misuse of that

word fundamental and secular media.

What were these men fighting for.

They were literally fighting for the fundamentals of the truth of

the word of God, that's not dangerous.

That's necessary. Because the more, it moves away

from that the farther you get away from that, the less you

have Christianity, and the more Christianity dies, the less you

have to pass on to the next generation and eventually there

will be no Christianity at all. We have got to stand for the

fundamentals of the faith. It's not just about preference,

it's not just about, you know, We need to do it because of this

or that we've got to do it. Because if we don't there will

be no Christianity to pass on to the next Generation.

The more you water down, I mean, it's like it's like if you take

if you were to take a glass of Kool-Aid let's say and you take

a An Empty Glass and you dump half of the glass of Kool-Aid in

it and half a glass of water in it.

You still have Kool-Aid but it's very very watered-down right

now, you take that one and mix that with another half glass of

water. And is still Kool-Aid, but now

it's watered down even more. And now you take that glass and

you dump it in there with and eventually you really can't even

taste the Kool-Aid in it at all and they still call it Kool-Aid,

but it's not right. And that's exactly what's

happening. When we're passing these things

down to the Next Generation. If we don't take a stand on the

fundamentals of the faith and stand for those things that we

find in the word of God and hold those standards high in every

aspect of what we're doing. Then eventually it gets so

watered down that what you have is not even Gianna T anymore.

And now you have a whole group of people who are still

Gathering or still getting together for church, they're

still doing all these things but what their but what they're

doing is not Christianity, it's just a country club, it's just a

gathering and so it's not that it's not that we are dangerous

or that we're trying to stand up because we love controversy or

because we like to be in the minority or any of those things.

It's because if we don't do it then who's going to and if you

don't hold that line and you start letting that line, Of the

next generation is going to let it go even more and the next

generation is going to let it go even more and eventually you

don't have anything that resembles what we find in the

word of God is Christianity. So that's what we're going to

discuss over the next few weeks. We're going to find out that

quite the opposite of. What the perception of

independent fundamental Baptists is is actually the opposite of

what a lot of people think these.

These men were fighting for the very truth that makes us free,

right? You shall know the truth and the

truth shall set you free. And that's exactly what they

were fighting for, and that's exactly what we need to continue

fighting for today. Let's talk some more about this

as we get into it over the next couple weeks, but let's pray.

And then will be dismissed. Father, we love you again, we

thank you for what these men that went on before us, stood

for what they were willing to fight for what they were willing

to lose in order to preserve the truth that we find in the word

of God. I pray that you would help us to

stand strong on those truths, but it should help us to never

let Let them bend, never let them slip and God that we'd hold

the standards high in every aspect of Christianity that been

handed to us. God, I pray that you'd help us

to pass on to the next generation of strong firm,

foundation in the word of God, a strong Authority in the word of

God and God that we would continue to stay in for the

fundamentals of the faith. Thank you for all that you do

for us in Jesus name. Amen.