Point of View

Don Walton is founder of Time for Truth Ministries and a full-time evangelist and conference speaker. For more information visit www.timefortruth.org.

Jude, the half-brother of our Lord, exhorted us to “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 3). If we fail to defend the Christian faith and to preserve the purity of the Gospel message, then the truth of Christ will be lost to the next generation. As it has been astutely observed, “Christianity is only one generation away from extinction.”

It is imperative for us to pass the Christian torch to our posterity; however, the torch we pass must be the same one that was passed to us. From generation to generation the Gospel message must be preserved from corruption and handed down uncompromised. Only by receiving from the previous generation and passing off to the next generation an unadulterated Gospel can the hope of salvation in Christ be propitiated in this world from generation to generation.

Any corrupting of the truth of the Gospel, no matter how seemingly minute or insignificant, can result in the preaching of a false gospel and the forfeiture of the next generation’s immortal souls. We must therefore be resolute in our defense of the faith, not allowing for one moment the least little modification of the Gospel message. While there are many nonessentials that we may agree to disagree on, Christ’s claim ”I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man comes to the Father, but by me” is not one of them (John 14:6).

Make no mistake about it; anyone preaching another way to God besides faith in Christ is guilty of committing the greatest of crimes against lost humanity. Like the Pharisees of old, they “shut the kingdom of heaven in men’s faces” (Matthew 23:13). Not only do they themselves refuse to step foot on the path to heaven that God has graciously prepared for all men through the atoning work of His Son, but they keep others from coming to Christ and going to heaven as well.

I, for one, have no tolerance of anyone preaching another gospel; that is, of anyone preaching another way to God besides faith in Christ alone. I am especially intolerant of those who do so under the guise of Christianity. No one is more spiritually underhanded than those who simultaneously propose the possibility of other ways to God while personally professing Christ themselves. Such spiritual deceivers are not only phony professors of Christ, but also false prophets who should be roundly condemned by all true Christians. Only by collectively and completely condemning them can we clearly caution the world about the danger these spiritual charlatans pose to men’s immortal souls.

Many in these politically correct times protest such a hard-line against all false preachers, insisting that many of them are exemplary in their charitable activities and that such harsh condemnation of them only proves the uncharitableness of their hardhearted condemners. Yet, the Bible clearly teaches us that false prophets are never to be judged by their works alone, but also by their words (Deuteronomy 13:1-5). Regardless of how commendable people’s works may be, if their words turn men away from the one and only true God, they should be readily and roundly condemned by the people of God. Interestingly, the Scripture insists that we be no less hesitant in our condemnation of someone sending out spiritual mixed signals from own households (Deuteronomy 13:6-11).

When one awakens to the fact that the immortal souls of lost humanity are at stake, it becomes easy to understand why nothing, not even charity or family, trumps the preservation and proclamation of the unadulterated Gospel of Jesus Christ from one generation to the next. This is, after all, in complete accord with our Lord’s own teaching: “For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?”

Don Walton is founder of Time for Truth Ministries and a full-time evangelist and conference speaker. For more information visit www.timefortruth.org.