Pastor D. W. Noyes
It may be difficult to absorb the purpose of the paper with a quick read over. Please take the time to read the following carefully. Most of what is written are from articles that have been published and circulated for over 100 years. These works are attributed to J. R. Graves, and J. M. Pendleton. I am not trying to be unkind towards anyone; I was what I considered a “Fundamental Baptist” for over 25 years. It has only been during the last 10 years through an intense study of the Word of God and our Baptist heritage that I have come to realize that my position was completely wrong and I had the responsibility to come out from the Fundamentalist movement, take a stand, and proclaim the truth boldly (II Corinthians 6:14-18, Revelation 2:18-24, Jude 3, Ezekiel 3:17-21).
It is my earnest belief that this subject must be addressed and revisited again, for this has been repeated throughout the ages of Christ’s church. The apostolic churches were persecuted because they were separated from the error of the false institutions, or else they embraced the false teachings that were being introduced into the church and thereby became corrupt (Revelation 2:12-24). This corruption has continued in every century as error attempts to adhere to truth to obtain creditability.
According to Matthew 16:18, Christ while on earth “set up a kingdom” and “built a church,” unlike any institution that had ever been or ever will be seen on earth. Question: Where is that church?
Christ only “set up” one kingdom and built but one house, which He designed to be called, in all after ages, “the House of God,” the “Church of the living God,” and to be “the Pillar and the Ground of the Truth.” Question: Which house is it?
Christ did not found His kingdom in parts and in deadly antagonism to each other and all in open rebellion to His own authority, laws and government as set forth in the Bible (Luke 11:17-18). Questions: Can a kingdom divided against itself stand? Do sheep bite?
Things equal to or like the same thing are equal to or like each other. If different and conflicting religious institutions claiming to be churches are each evangelical and Scriptural, they must be like each other in doctrine and organization. Protestants are fundamentally opposed doctrinally to each other and all are against the Baptists. Questions: Are they the same? Which is correct (Hint: Read your Bible!)
Two truths or a thousand truths will never antagonize one another more than two or a thousand parallel lines can cross each other. Direct inference; that which is scriptural will always be in agreement with that which is spiritual. True churches can not antagonize one another but must be essentially one in fundamental doctrines and principles having “one Lord, one faith, and one baptism.” Questions: Where are you to find the Scriptural church? Why would you embrace that which embraces error in opposition to the Word of God?
Christianity is defined as being a system of divinely revealed truths and principles to be held and proclaimed in their entirety and therefore admitting no increase or diminution, can neither be conceded nor modified. Therefore, between Christianity – the gospel of Christ – and system of religion that are not Christianity, between the gospel and “a gospel which is another gospel,” there can be no compromise or affiliation.
By withholding any doctrines of Christianity in our preaching, we can no more preach the gospel of Christ than we can spell the English language without the consonants; and to agree to withhold any part of the gospel, for any length of time, to affect a compromise with those who do not hold it, is manifest treason.
Compromise is based upon mutual concessions. When affected between truth and error (Fundamentalist Movement), truth must always suffer, since error has nothing of truth to surrender. Unscriptural systems of religion and churches are counterfeits of Christianity and counterfeit churches. To associate with the teachers of these systems is to recognize them as the accredited ministers of God’s truth; we encourage them in their work and thus “bid them Godspeed” and make ourselves accessories to and partakers of their sins. This is thus performed by relationships, readings and promoting as great men of the faith.
To establish clearly the fact in the minds of all that Baptist churches are the churches of Christ, and that they alone hold, and have alone ever held, and preserved the doctrine of the gospel in all ages since the ascension of Christ.
The Tennessee Baptists met in conference at the Cotton Grove Baptist Church in June 24, 1851. A series of five questions were presented at that time. These queries were unanimously answered in the negative and Baptists in general indorsed the decision that resulted in the non-recognition of non-Baptist congregations (I have posted these questions in an earlier post, but we as Baptists must start to think and honestly consider these questions and ones like them).
1. Can Baptists, with their principles on the Scriptures, consistently recognize those societies not organized according to the Jerusalem church, but possessing different government, different officers, a different class of members, different ordinances, doctrines and practices as churches of Christ?
2. Ought they to be called gospel churches or churches in a religious sense?
3. Can we consistently recognize the ministers of such irregular and unscriptural bodies as gospel ministers?
4. Is it not virtually recognizing them as official ministers to invite them into our pulpits or by any other act that would or could be construed as such recognition?
5. Can we consistently address as brethren those professing Christianity who not only have not the doctrine of Christ and walk not according to his commandments, but are arrayed in direct and bitter opposition to them?
How do Baptists (BINO’s) answer these questions today?
1. They uphold as great preachers of yesterday Methodists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians and the likes while the Baptists fall on the wayside. Most Baptists know more about Protestants then they do about our Baptist forefathers.
2. They fill their pulpits with those that have compromised and sold out the doctrines of the faith that our forefathers shed their blood for.
3. They accept alien baptisms willingly into their assemblies, for numbers are more important than purity.
4. They conduct an open undisciplined Lord’s Table and call it “close” while maintaining no control.
5. They lose their membership (that they really never had) to more loving “evangelical assemblies” in droves; and it is no wonder because they have promoted these counterfeit churches as true churches with “minor differences.”
By the way, BINO is “Baptist in name only” – their doctrine and their practices do not support their name.
An honest and an earnest desire to know the truth should gain ascendancy of the heart; for then there will be a willingness to adopt the conclusions to which the truth leads. “Buy the truth and sell it not,” is the language of reason as well as revelation. There is no advantage in error. So far from it, it is mischievous, hurtful, and pernicious. A false principle in science operates injuriously until its unsoundness is detected. An error committed in laying the foundation of a government diffuses its influence throughout the superstructure reared on that foundation. Error can never be harmless, and even should it be apparently so, it is owing to the counteracting presence and operation of truth. There is no truth as important as that which God has revealed in his word. All other truth yields to the superior value of truth divine. The injunction—”Buy the truth and sell it not”—is eminently wise. The truth is a jewel of such transcendent worth that it ought to be bought at any price and sold at no price. Let him who secures this jewel retain it. Let him not consider its alienation from him a possible thing. Let life be surrendered rather.
