HOW LATE IS IT?

 

CORNERSTONE BAPTIST CHURCH

54 BRIGHTON STREET

 

The answer to the above question is, It is very late!  Dr. J.H. Brookes was a strong Fundamentalist who preached about one hundred years ago.  He was a man of great perception and penned the following around 1900.

“It seems more and more evident that truth is not to win the field in our day; it will have a tremendous fight to hold its own against the ever-increasing odds with which it has to contend.  If the battle were only with the world and the devil, there would be nothing to fear; but, unhappily, the fight must be carried on principally against professed friends.  Insurrection rages with the citadel, and a man’s foes are those of his own household.  The church itself is traitorous and the worst enemy we have to dread.  Annihilation, restoration, evolution, a mixture of Herbert Spencer, Darwin, and Jesus Christ – such is the stuff certain popular preachers are giving their hearers . . . Alas!  Nothing is more apparent to me than that the professing body, with its false doctrines, its worldliness, its scarcely concealed iniquities, is on the rapids just above the Falls of Niagara, and the awful abyss is just below.”

Writing some years later, Dr. Brookes said: “The conflict between truth and error is waxing hotter on this side of the sea (in America) as it is in the mother country.  High criticism (fountain of all modern Bible versions), a denial of the inspiration of the Scriptures, future probationism, annihilationism, contempt for the atonement, ridicule of our Lord’s Second Coming, (even in so called evangelical churches), are pushing forward with a bolder front every day and those who are contending earnestly for the faith once delivered unto the saints are few and disheartened.  But why should we be surprised?  We are plainly told by our Lord and the Holy Spirit in the inspired writings that in the last days there shall be difficult times, and we ought to know that just what we see around us must be witnessed before the end shall come.”

That dear man of God certainly had his hand on the pulse of the times, but what would he say if he were living today?  Never mind the liberals, the cults, the Catholics, etc.  Look at what is going on among professing Fundamental Bible believers!  Many, if not a majority of Fundamentalists, do not believe they can hold the inspired Word of God in their hands – they assure us with great haughtiness that “only the originals are inspired.”

Worldliness is rampant among those who profess faith in the crucified Son of God.  Carnal and even ungodly dress is tolerated.  Many fundamental churches have dropped the Sunday evening service or the Wednesday prayer meeting and in some cases, both.

Then, rare indeed is the Fundamental church that has a door-to-door visitation ministry or preaches on the streets.  While hell is still believed, it has been somewhat softened; it really doesn’t matter, for it is seldom if ever preached.

When one looks at the world and the professing church, he sees exactly what the Word of God predicts for the last days.  Read II Timothy 3:1-5, etc.  However, it is not the time to give up, but to stand up and be counted for Christ.  Let’s “Fight the good fight of faith . . .!”  Let us stand on and for the Word of God (there’s only one, and you know what it is).