O you who love the Lord, hate evil! – Psalm 97:10 ~ There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. – Proverbs 14:12
George Gillespie, one of the Scottish Commissioners to the Westminster Assembly, and one of the greatest theologians since the days of the Apostles, writes,
“By communicating with idolaters in their rites and ceremonies, we ourselves become guilty of idolatry; even as Ahaz, 2 Kings 16:10, was an idolater, eo ipso, that he took the pattern of an altar from idolaters. Forasmuch, then, as kneeling before the consecrated bread, the sign of the cross, surplice, festival days (like Christmas-ed.), bishopping, bowing down to the altar, administration of the sacraments in private places, etc., are the wares of Rome, the baggage of Babylon, the trinkets of the whore, the badges of Popery, the ensigns of Christ’s enemies, and the very trophies of antichrist, — we cannot conform, communicate and symbolise with the idolatrous Papists in the use of the same, without making ourselves idolaters by participation.
Shall the chaste spouse of Christ take upon her the ornaments of the whore? Shall the Israel of God symbolise with her who is spiritually called Sodom and Egypt? Shall the Lord’s redeemed people wear the ensigns of their captivity? Shall the saints be seen with the mark of the beast? Shall the Christian church be like the antichristian, the holy like the profane, religion like superstition, the temple of God like the synagogue of Satan?” (A Dispute Against English Popish Ceremonies, in Gillespie’s Works volume one, p. 80, SWRB reprint, or as free MP3s at A Dispute Against the English Popish Ceremonies emphases added).
Listen to the teaching here: http://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=715111534397
Leviticus 10:10 “You must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the unclean and the clean.”
In a world still swirling in sin thousands of years after its catastrophic collision with evil, the need for discernment is critical, and God has assigned to His followers the task of knowing the difference between good and evil. What seperates God’s people from everyone else is the wisdom He gives that enables them to discern holy from common, sacred from profane, clean from unclean, good from evil. ~Julie Ackerman Link from her booklet, Loving God With All My Mind
Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”
He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’
“Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’
“But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’
“There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke.13.22-Luke.13.30
“Fight the Lord’s battles.” 1 Samuel 18:17
Suggested Further Reading: James 3:13-18
It is the Christian’s duty always to have war with war. To have bitterness in our hearts against any man that lives is to serve Satan. We must speak very strongly and sternly against error, and against sin; but against men we have not a word to say, though it were the Pope himself. I have no enmity in my heart against him as a man, but as anti-Christ. With men the Christian is one. Are we not every man’s brother? “God hath made of one flesh all people that dwell upon the face of the earth.” The cause of Christ is the cause of humanity. We are friends to all, and are enemies to none. We do not speak evil, even of the false prophet himself, as a man; but, as a false prophet, we are his sworn opponents. Now, Christians, you have a difficult battle to fight, because you fight with all evil and hostility between man and man: you are to be peacemakers. Go wherever you may, if you see a quarrel you are to abate it. You are to pluck firebrands out of the fire, and strive to quench them in the waters of lovingkindness. It is your mission to bring the nations together, and weld them into one. It is yours to make man love man, to make him no more the devourer of his kind. This you can only do by being the friends of purity. Smite error, smite sin, and you have done your best to promote happiness and union among mankind. Oh, go, Christian, in the Spirit’s strength, and smite your own anger—put that to the death; smite your own pride—level that; and then smite every other man’s anger. Make peace wherever you can, scatter peace with both your hands.
For meditation: “Blessed are the peacemakers.” (Matthew 5:9) Men need to hear of the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6) who alone can give them peace with God and, as a result, peace with man (Ephesians 2:14-17).
~ C.H. Spurgeon
Source:
The X Mass Blog 