We shall continue with our fifth message in this camp, and we shall be in Joshua chapter 24. We shall consider this morning verse 14 and later on verse 15. So let me, or let us, read in unison verse 14 of Joshua 24. Joshua 24, and verse 14:
"Now therefore fear the Lord, and serve Him in sincerity and in truth, and put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, and in Egypt, and serve ye the Lord." Amen. The Lord add His blessings upon the reading of His precious and holy word.
We have gone through some of the topics that we want to highlight in this theme, Serving God as a Family. And we have started with the prescription, the nucleus of serving, and that is on the basics. We have the foundation, we have the platform by which we can set on our service, and that is the word of God. We should not forget this because it is the scripture that is the only basis by which we are instructed, we are given the information, the Lord revealed to us how we can serve Him.
And then by that prescription, we know there is a pattern, and we talked of how we Christians, us believers, must understand who God is and who we are before Him. We are sinners, saved by God's grace, and then we also understand how we must love Him because He first loved us. And God will show us, even lead us to the way by which He wanted us to serve Him.
Then there were prerequisites that we considered, and those are the practical things that we have to consider in serving the Lord. We have to find the place. I mean, God prepared for us this place. He provides for us. We have to seek in prayer, and the Lord will lead us to the right place where we can serve Him. And we have understood that there is a place that God has instituted, established, and that is the local church by which we can be a member of that body, so that we can fully serve the Lord together with the Brethren, together with the leaders, elders, and pastors that God has put in that place, in that church.
And there were promises that we have to give. We understand how we should be a member, a part of this church. We cannot just be there and not be involved. There must be accountability so that we can be given also some responsibilities and duties in the church. And that's why we want our whole family to be part of the church. We know of the baptism, how we can also transfer our membership if we have been in a different church before, so that we can be part of that body and function as one in that church.
We also have to remember what God has done for us regularly as we commune, we partake of the Lord's Supper. This is a good reminder for us. I believe most of the BP churches do this once a month, in order for us to remember Jesus. The Lord Himself says, "Do this in remembrance of me," and to remember what He has done, His life, His perfect life on earth, His perfect sacrifice on the cross of Calvary, as we recall or remember this week, in this Passion Week, and then also to remember how He rose again, as we want to commemorate that in the coming Lord's Day, and how He promised also that He will come again. He will come to bring us up with Him.
And with that, we are told here in the scriptures we want to also understand why there is a need for us to serve. And we understand that this is highlighted by Joshua before he challenged the people. He did not just immediately ask them to serve the Lord. He laid down, in fact, a historical recollection, a background of how they came to arrive in the land of promise, in the promised land. And it began in the recollection of how Abram was called by God. And it was a call that was granted to Abraham in a way where he was not even looking forward to it. He was not desiring for it. He did not know. He didn’t deserve to be called, and yet God, in His mercy and His grace and His divine appointment, called Abram. And that's why their descendants came to arrive in that promised land, in Canaan.
So we know that they were not a people who were worthy of God's favour. God chose them. And so we are in the church, we as individuals, we as a family, we became believers, we trust and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, not because of what we have done and who we are, yet because of what God has done unto us.
A while ago, we had some conversation about why there are some churches. As I was before in a Baptist church or a Baptist movement in the Philippines, I thank the Lord that the Baptist missionary who shared with me was reformed. He called himself a reformed Baptist, one who believes totally in the reformed doctrines started by Calvin. In fact, he was so close to the Reformed, the only difference with them was their form of baptism. So he taught me Calvin's Institutes when I was still under his tutelage, so he was fully in the reformed teaching, especially on the five points of Calvinism: total depravity, the unconditional election, the limited atonement, the irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints, or the preservation of the saints.
So this were taught to me, although I was in the Baptist church or a Baptist movement. It was totally under the reformed covenant Calvinistic teaching. And we were talking a while ago while there were people who believe in or don't believe in the doctrine of election. And so they taught that there is this ability of men to choose God. It's that God choose us. Yes, he has given granted us the grace, and he laid upon us the work of Christ, and then it is for man to decide whether he accepted it or not. That was the teaching of some Baptists in the Philippines, or generally those dispensational Baptists who do not believe in the doctrine of the Calvinistic doctrine on total depravity.
So we understand here it is not because of anything that they have done. It was not because of the choice. It was God who called them, even brought them, even helped them, preserved them, protected them in marvellous ways, in wonderful ways, in ways unimaginable to men. And now that they are in the promised land, in the land of Canaan, in verses 14 and 15, we have here the call for them to serve. And in this call, we have first in verse 14, this call to serve in a way, wherein it is based purely in the teachings of God's word. He says here, we have to have reverential fear, a reverential service. That means it must be service with sincerity and in truth, and it must be a righteous service by which you have to fully submit to God. You have to put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side. You don't have to compromise, you don't have to have some reservations or doubts or some kind of back-up that in case I will fail, I have still other gods to lean on. It was wholly, totally submissive to the Lord.
And then we have this call to serve because it is what is reasonable, as was given to us or laid down to us from verses 1 to 13. That is the only response, the reasonable worship, the reasonable service that we can render unto the Lord. So in this notification, we call it notification yet, it's more on the practice, how we will do it, how should service to God as a family be done? And first, Joshua here describes this as a fear of the Lord. There must be reverential service, a service that is mindful of who God is. We know in the pattern that we have to remember who He is, and who we are. But in the actual service, that is also to be continued. That was given to us a while ago in how we helped to think and understand the word of God, the law of God.
It is not that because we are saying this already taken out, is abolished, it is already not applicable, and that is what is preached in many churches today, because we are already saved and we are saved by the grace of God, and it is God who is now leading us, endowed by the Spirit of God. So no more law, no more ten commandments, no more Old Testament. We just have to be dictated by the Spirit of God. So in the morning, you should pray, and you should meditate as God to help you, lead you without even considering, without meditating the word of God. You don't have to go back into the Bible. These words here, not that important. We are already in 12, better spirit of God. That's some teachings in other churches. But He is clear in here. We have to have fear, and that we can only have fear in the Lord, if we know Him. And that's His way of describing that His service is in sincerity.
The word sincerity has the idea of a sound service, a healthy service, a service that is always aligned with God's word. In fact, it is also a word for complete. That's why we cannot serve the Lord if our prescription is not complete. If it is lacking, if it has addition, if it has some things that are deleted, it is diminished, we cannot have a complete service to the Lord. It is the concern of many, in fact, it has affected many, many BP churches when the problem on the verbal plenary preservation came into the Bible Presbyterian movement, and that split so many churches, and some churches are now against some BP, other BP churches because of this.
But it's very clear the Bible tells us that if we serve the Lord, we have to completely submit unto Him, and how can we completely submit unto Him? When we don't know His complete prescription? That's why when He told the disciples or the apostles to go and teach to make disciples, of course, and to baptise. He says, and teach all things, all things that I have commanded you, all things that I have given you. Is that some things? It's not few things, it's not the significant things, it's not the important things, but all things. And that's why we need all of God's word to lead us. These are words: sincerity, complete, sound, aligned to what God has given. And that is fear of the Lord. We have to go back to the Bible again. And, of course, in truth.
And when we say in truth, that would again refer to God's word, that would refer to the scriptures. The word truth here can also be in a meaning by which we have to do our service faithfully in the firm foundation that God has given us. We have to fully submit. It is not that we submit to some parts of the New Testament, but the Old Testament was already not relevant. For example, in the Book of Proverbs are ways by which we have to take care and admonish and raise up our children according to the nurture that God has given us. And He says, "Oh, these are all ways of the past. This was their culture. This was their way of disciplining children. Today, we have now findings from sociology, from psychology, that this is now how we approach children. We have to develop your self-esteem, to trust in themselves, to have faith in their faith, to know that they can and they are able."
So all these teachings in the Book of Proverbs, in how to discipline children, and how we use the rod, and how we have to tell them to correct them, "Oh, these are some things that are just in the past. We don't have to follow them." We have to faithfully follow in our service to the Lord. For example, there are many Christians today who don't accept the first 11 chapters of the Bible.
You will consider that as myth, something that they don't believe, how can? Because we know, especially for our uni students, you are taught that this world, this Earth, the universe was created, or it happened, or it came about millions, even billions of years ago. And if the Bible says, well, it was done in six days and we believe in the 24 literal 24-hour days, that would be something that is contrary to what is taught to us. And so, you may say, "Well, we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we believe in the Bible, but not in the first 11 chapters of Genesis, that is copied from Near Eastern literature, that is myth, that is just the imagination of man, how can Moses know that it was done when he was not even born at that time?" So, they don’t believe.
But when we serve, we fully understand that the complete canon, the 66 books of the Bible, are all inspired of God, and it is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction. For it is by these words that the man is fully equipped, able to serve the Lord in the most perfect way. That is why we go back to the Bible, and that is the fearful, reverential service unto the Lord, when we follow the scriptures.
So, there are many additions and suggestions in the world today, but we, in serving the Lord, must go back to the scriptures. I just talked to one pastor. When I went back to the Philippines last month, he says, "I am a Presbyterian minister, and I want to associate with you. Your Bible, Presbyterians, we are Presbyterians." I was so surprised that there are Presbyterian churches on our island, in Boal. And it happens so that there was a Korean Presbyterian who went there and started that church.
So, I asked about the doctrines. "Are there similar doctrines?" But later, he says, "But now we are changing the way we worship. You know, because the young people, you, to attract them, you’re gonna invite them, you’re gonna get them involved in the church, you cannot bring them into the church if you remain singing these hymns. So boring. So, you know, we feel sleepy when we sing these hymns." He said, "These are hymns that will not attract our young people today. So, we have to change our way of worship."
And so, he started, he said, "We bought electric guitars, drums, and now we are worshipping in this way." I told him, "That makes a big difference, a great difference, because we follow the way we worship the Lord in God’s way, where we honour Him, reverence Him, come to Him as King of Kings, Lord of Lords. We don’t use the worldly way; we don’t pattern our ways according to the world. We follow God’s ways."
And after that, we parted. So, these are the things that come into the churches today, and somehow, some leaders would compromise because, you know, to increase the number, we are particular now on the numbers, particular now on the account of the church. And so, if we don’t go with the flow of the world, we are lagging behind. No young people will come, no more. Parents also will not come. And so, the bank account will be depleted. Pastors will be afraid. "What will be my salary next year? What will be my provision next year?" So, we better have to accommodate them. This is what is happening, but we have to, again, be reminded of what the Word of God tells us. We have to serve Him in sincerity and in truth.
And there is only one truth. You cannot say, "This is true in your life, but there is truth to us, and both of us are true, even though we are at an opposing end." That is what you do, that is what we do. We are opposite, contradictory to one another, but that is true to you, and that is true to us. And that is what is in the world today—no absolutes. But it’s clear—God’s Word is true. We have to serve Him in sincerity and in truth. There is only one way, as we see here, according to the prescription.
I remember the time when I was at FEBC and the late Mrs. Stow would always ask us, "Okay, you, you from the Philippines?" "Yes." "Okay, you boy, you have this pineapple, you have to prepare this." And we, I came from what we call a pineapple country, known as a pineapple country. It’s mostly, if you look at a field, it’s mostly pineapple, and there were times that we just go in, eat as much as we can, and then leave. We cannot take some, but we can eat as much as we can when we are in the field. So, we know how to peel and prepare pineapple as fast as we can.
So, I trusted that I could do it because I knew and had done it before. But when I did it, I was scolded. I was scolded, she shouted at me, because that is not the way to prepare the pineapple. "To do this, you have to take the eyes," she said. And I explained to her, "No," but of course, you cannot argue with Mrs. Stow. So, you just have to follow. That is what she said, and that is how it should be done. Although you know you have your own technique, you know it is faster, you know it is cleaner, you know it is the way by which you can readily bring the pineapple to the other students, but you have to follow what she says. You have to go her way, because anything that is not according to her way is wrong.
So, also in the Bible, anything that is not according to the Scripture is wrong. We may think, "You know, it’s so cumbersome to do this. It is so burdensome to follow this. This is the way in the past." But that is what the Scripture says. So, we have to serve the Lord in sincerity and in truth.
The second thing that we have to take note of here is to be righteous in our service. "Put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood." Put away. The idea of putting away is total—to discard everything, to throw away, not even to hide it in your cupboard, where sometimes you can take it back, or put it away in the garage so that sometime later you can also look at it. No, it is the idea of throwing, casting, leaving it behind. You don’t have to have things with that; you don’t have to have any plan even to look at it again. Cast it away, throw it away, put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood.
So, apparently, some of them were probably hiding some idols. Some, maybe, we call them talismans or whatever—things that they brought in order to look at their gods, or from the previous places that they went. But God says here, through Joshua, "You have to throw it away. Put it away, cast it away." You don’t have to have any relationship with those things. You don’t have any kind of service to other gods. You have to focus yourself on the Lord. Things that you have done in the past, you should leave them behind.
I remember when we came to know the Lord Jesus Christ after our baptism, my wife and I, we cast away all things—the rosaries, pictures of the images, guides for our rosary, novenas, and other things. These things we threw away. Because we wanted to burn them, but in that place, we were not allowed to burn, so we had to throw them away.
There were times also that Dr. K asked me to join with him to remove some idols in places where some of our brethren, he said, "Oh, my mother passed away and I am now to live in this place, and they have this altar. We have to take it out." There's a problem among Japanese Christians, because they cannot take away their altars. That is probably one reason why Christianity in Japan is very, very low, because they cannot fully submit to God. They cannot put away the gods which their fathers served. Even though they claim to be Christians, because they are worshippers of ancestors, they still have their altars in there. And they still have to do, every morning, some kind of respect. "This is our culture." But it's idolatry, and that is how we practice.
I remember the time when I was working in the laboratory, when I came, I was still a Roman Catholic, so I kind of respected them. Before they killed the mice and rats, they had to pray. They had to pray to say sorry to the rats and mice. "We will kill you today. Sorry." They would also bow down. But when I became a Christian, I said, "That is foolish." So, even if they were praying, already killing many of them, I said, "What is this man?"
But then, every semester, all students were called to come down from our building, from our college. There was a big stone out there, and we had to bow down there. We had to ask to the supposed representation of the rats, the cows, sheep, dogs, cats, that we had to say sorry and worship there. When I was still a Roman Catholic, I went there. There was no problem because we did that also; we go to the cemetery to bow to our dead parents. But when I became a Christian, I was convicted, I should not do this. It's idolatry. But it was difficult for me to ask permission that I should not do it, because, you know, in that land, professors, "Sensei," are considered as gods, small gods. You cannot disobey whatever he says; that will be done. So, I was so scared, and in a few semesters, I lied. I lied. I tried to say, "Oh, I have stomach pain," or "I have a headache, I cannot go." But later, I realised I was escaping this idolatrous practice, but I was also lying. I sinned before God. I thank God that He gave me the courage to really tell him.
And when you pray and ask the Lord for you to stand on the truth, and you want to discard and take away all the evil practices that you have done in the past, God will help you. When I told him, he was not angry. He just said, "Okay, now you are a Christian. Even when you came, I thought you were already a Christian, but now you are a Christian, you don’t do that. Okay." And from that time on, we became even so close that one time I invited him to one of our gospel meetings, and he came. Thank the Lord that he heard the message.
In fact, in 2007, he accompanied me to come to Melbourne because we had a conference here for vets, and one Sunday, I also had difficulty leaving him because I used to prepare some meals for us, and he reminded me, "Today is Sunday. Are you not going to church?" So immediately, I dressed up and went to Bethel. In 2007, that time, it was Pastor Re Stone preaching. It was the first time that I went to Bethel in 2007. I thank God.
So, with that courage, God will also be with us. We ask the Lord to help us. The Lord will allow us and enable us to do it when we desire that our worship, that our service, is truly righteous in the eyes of God. And our fears that we are to be discriminated against, or that our bosses or our managers will put us in a difficult situation, when God will help us, there will even be understanding and friendship when we want to stay right with God, when we want to serve the Lord in His ways.
So, it’s clear—put away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood. You cannot serve God and then serve the gods of your forefathers, the idols. Even in Egypt, probably some of them still believed in the sun and some natural things like stones or trees or whatever. And God says, "You have to leave these things away. You don't have to continue worshipping them. You have to stick yourself to the Lord. You have to cast away the gods which your fathers served on the other side of the flood, the Amorites, the Moabites, the Egyptians, the Egyptian gods. You had to leave them."
And then He says, "And serve ye the Lord." Serve ye the Lord.
Now, let me bring you to Romans chapter 12 to understand this in our own, in the New Testament context. And Romans chapter 12 is in line with what Joshua said. We know the book of Romans. It is a wonderful epistle of Paul.
Of course, everything in the Bible is wonderful, but this is systematic in the way by which, from Romans chapters 1 to 11, he laid down the doctrines, and from chapters 12 onwards to 16, he gave us the practice, or to jump onto this. But this is to bring us to our own context today, because we may think the God of the Amorites, the God of the other side of the flood, of the Egyptians, we don't think of that as part of our worship today. Nobody here, with us, has this idea of worshipping idols from that land.
And we have to take ourselves to the New Testament context, by which Paul, here now, after the 11 chapters of doctrinal teaching—from chapters 1 to 8, of course, 1, 2, and 3 for both the Gentiles and the Jews, 4 to 8 for the Gentiles, and 9 to 11, of course, focusing on the Israelites. But here in chapter 12, verses 1 and 2, he says, "I beseech you therefore..." just like how Joshua introduced that command in Joshua 24:14, "I beseech you therefore, now therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, you have heard how God saved you, how God justified you, how God sanctified you, how God promised glorification for you. Now that you have learned this and obtained this from the Lord, ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world..."
This is the casting away of the gods of the other side of the flood. "Be not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." By the mercies of God, present your bodies a living sacrifice. In the past, the offerings were animals that they had to offer, to be burnt. But now, here, our bodies are living sacrifices—holy and blemish-free, clean, washed, sanctified by God, now acceptable by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, acceptable unto God. And this is our reasonable service.
The word "service" here also can be translated as "worship." This is our reasonable worship, a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God. And how could we do it? He says here, "Be not conformed to this world. Be not conformed to this world." This is our reasonable worship, and this is done by not conforming to this world, but by being transformed by the renewing of your mind. The word "conform" is to be under the scheme, like you are moulded by the world. You are dictated by the world; whatever the world will say, you follow it because it is now the trend, because this is now what is practised by the world. This is now what the world teaches. So, we have to follow it. But Paul says, "Be not conformed." Don’t follow their schemes, their practices. But be transformed.
And the word "transformed" is a very meaningful word. This is the idea of a metamorphosis—from an ugly caterpillar to a beautiful butterfly. This is the metamorphosis that he speaks of. You were once this very ugly, unappealing creature—something that people don’t want to look at, don’t want to imagine, don’t want to touch. It’s such a creepy thing, we don’t even want to think about it. But now you are transformed, metamorphosed into a very beautiful butterfly, colourful, able to fly from one flower to another, useful. That is what Paul brings to mind for the Christians in Rome.
"Be not conformed." Leave all things—the things that you have done in the past, the gods, the world, the things of the world. But now be transformed by the renewing of your mind. "That ye may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." That’s the only way by which we can conform to the image of God, conform to the plan of God, conform to the perfect will of God. Leave all things.
And it is a sad thing that we have today in most churches—many churches, all for the sake of unity, all for the sake of oneness, all for the sake that we may be seen as brethren, as loving, because we have redefined love today. Love that is under the context and pretext of the world, not the love that is described in the Scriptures. Love that understands even the sinful ways of men, love that allows and condones sin. That is the love of the world. But the love of the Bible describes for us that there is righteousness and holiness of God.
And there are many so-called evangelicals today that try to compromise and join hands with other groups, even religions or denominations, which are totally opposed to God. I told you that it took me a while also to leave the Roman Catholic Church when I got saved. One reason was that I was trying to help my wife. She was pregnant then. Another cause was when I went into a paper document that I found. And somehow, it was a document that was so hot, during those days in 1997, 1998. It was the "Evangelicals and Catholics Together." And one of the signers was J.I. Packer. I was even reading one of his books, because, of course, some of you have probably read J.I. Packer's book—it’s simple, it’s engaging. I mean, in those days, I found it very encouraging and equipping, giving me so many things because I was new in the faith. It encouraged me to continue, to move on, and to trust in the Lord.
And then suddenly, I saw a document that he signed with the Roman Catholic Church. So I said, "Why should I live? This man, who taught me many things about Christianity, is signing a document with the Roman Catholic Church. I, who am from the Roman Catholic Church, wanted to leave the Church. Why should I live?"
This man, who is more knowledgeable than me, who knows more of the Scriptures than me, who knows and understands what the will of God is, because he has been in the faith for so long, has now gone back and joined with the Roman Catholics. So, why should I live? I stopped, and it took me a while, maybe another six months before I was convinced by the Scripture and the Word of God that I have to come out from among them, as was described in 2 Corinthians 6:17.
So, we see that it is not just the people; it will affect others when we serve the Lord not in sincerity and truth, not in the righteous way, not in reasonable worship, not in reasonable service. We need to stand. That’s the kind of service that we are in. We are told that we are already, somehow, a minority in the evangelical community. We can only count the churches supporting VPP or supporting this kind of doctrine or believing in the Bible as God’s Word, because the church now is wholesale toward the world, wholesale accepting the teachings of liberals and modernists. That’s why many would think maybe they are right, because there are many. Even these great minds of Christian leaders tend to catapult in favour, inclined toward this doctrine. And so we probably are seen as so narrow-minded, old-fashioned, maybe we just don’t know what the trend is today. But that’s why we stick to what we have learned in the past.
I pray we will move on to serve the Lord in the way He wants us to serve Him. Joshua says, we have to serve the Lord with fear, and the way we serve with fear must be in sincerity, complete. It is sound doctrine that must be taught. The truth must be given. We have to be faithful to God’s Word, and we have to separate ourselves from the worldly ways, from the ways of darkness, from the ways of the evil ones, from the ways of the world, from the gods of the other nations and tribes, from the gods of Egypt.
And it’s hard for many Christians today to do this because you will be labelled as… you know, "by-gods," you are people who don’t understand modern teaching. But we have to stick to what God has told us. So, I pray in our service as a family, we have to inculcate, and we have to teach our children: "This is the way we worship." You don’t have to bring in the world in order that we can be lively, and we can be meaningful, and we can have growth that will cause a church to be bigger, and we can compromise and have some associations and fellowship with other churches so that we can join and encourage one another and show to the world that we are one, that we are children of God because we love one another. There is this Scripture that tells us what to do; we have to follow it.
"Be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:2). And that is always based on what He tells, what He writes for us in the Scripture. We cannot compromise. We cannot join hands with the unbelievers. We cannot join hands with those who are against our doctrine.
Let me just remind us: You may ask, "Why are you so against this 'Evangelicals and Catholics Together'? Is it not a possibility, a way by which we can bring them to the faith, because we can tell them now of the truth?" That is false, because it’s always part of the Council of Trent, and the document still says, until today, it is not erased, it is not taken out, it is not deleted. It is not even taken out from that document. And it says to those who believe that salvation is by faith alone, and nothing matters to them, "There is nothing more for you and for me who believe that it is only by faith that we can be saved." And how is it possible to hold hands with people who curse you? You know, what’s the meaning of "anathema"? "Go to hell," to him who believes that you are saved by faith alone.
Now, please understand, I don’t hate Roman Catholics. My own brothers are Roman Catholics, and I cannot prevent myself from saying that because that was my background. But to join hands with them and with the false doctrine and with the false teaching that we can earn salvation by works, you cannot join hands with them and continue on serving the Lord. You have to separate. Biblical separation is a biblical doctrine. It is not a distinctive of the BP; it is never a distinctive of a certain denomination. It is a teaching of the Bible. It is a biblical doctrine. And that’s why we have to maintain it. We cannot serve the Lord if we are serving also the gods of other nations and tribes across the river and Egypt. We have to maintain, and that’s what Joshua calls for the people: We have to focus our service unto the Lord alone.
And in our context today, we don’t worship; nobody is holding hands with those Roman Catholics, I believe. No man is joining with those other false religions. But what he said today is we are holding hands with the world. We are holding hands with the teachings of the world, with the materialistic, evolutionary teachings of the world. And especially our young people, who are so much influenced by this, because they are indoctrinated, they’re immersed in it day to day in their university studies. It’s always being brought forth, and sometimes many of us would be easily persuaded because they sound logical. They sound to have a good reason to believe.
I am leading a Bible study in one of the universities in Singapore, at SMU. We have this fundamental Christian ministry, FCM.
And there was one member of the Bible study, who is from the BP Church, who befriended a guy who is fully committed to the teachings of evolution. I warned her, "Don’t go along, don’t talk to him on these things, because you will be taken in by his lies. He is very convincing in the way he will tell you, and he has some so-called proofs from experiments, from scientific books. You will be deceived, and you are not well acquainted with the Bible. Please keep yourself away from this man." But she continued on, so I challenged her, "Please allow me, if you want, we can have time with him. I want to talk to this man," because he seemed to… I don’t know if they had that relationship, but just to save this Christian girl, I wanted to talk to this man. And I tried to recall what I learned in the past. I thought I still had my knowledge about all this because I tried to experiment on these things before. So I thought I could debate with him. I was preparing myself.
And when the time came for us to meet and talk, somehow along the way, I stumbled. I didn’t have more arguments. He had all his own proofs, and I could no longer argue with him. So I realised I failed. And somehow that girl was looking at me, like, "Okay, you don’t have any answers anymore." I thank the Lord that God, through the Spirit, guided me and led me. This is not my purpose for coming here. It is not my purpose to debate with him about evolution. And it’s not even my purpose to argue that I win and I have knowledge and I have more proof that evolution is wrong. I am here to share the gospel. I am here to tell this person, "If you die today, you don’t have any other place to go except Hell."
I thank God for that illumination and so I started to share the gospel. There’s a way, of course, he may say, "Well, because you don’t have any answers anymore, that’s why you come back to the Bible." But that’s the way. Anyway, whatever he says, I wanted to share the Scriptures. And I thank God that because of that, he left and didn’t even want to see that Christian girl, because of our… I told him, "She is a Christian. She believes in the Lord Jesus Christ. She accepted Jesus as her Saviour and Lord. She cannot deny it, she cannot also say that, 'I am not a Christian.'" So I thank God that boy left. And the other girl is now, thankfully, married to a Christian man. But that is what the temptation is, because they seem to be wise, smart, intelligent, they know much, and our young people here, they are easily… this man is really, you know, great. So they are attracted to them. They come to them, but with their teachings, we have to be careful.
And if you want to serve the Lord, want to give yourself to the service of God, please remember, we have this warning from the Bible, not just from Joshua, but also from Paul in Romans. We have to separate ourselves. We may be called, as some people would label us, as isolationists. "We are so isolated." Never mind, as long as we are in the Lord, we follow the ways of God, we follow what the Lord wants us to do. We have to serve Him. We fear insincerity and falsehood. We have to serve Him, casting out, throwing out, leaving out all the gods of this world and even the philosophies and ideas of this world. We move on to follow and conform to the image of God, being transformed by the renewing of your mind. And it’s only possible when we are in the Word of God. I pray we have this conviction.
Especially in churches like here in Australia, where we are so few and just one church in Melbourne, we may think, "Oh, so lonely. I don’t have anyone. There are other Christians." This liberal ecumenical movement started with this idea of missionaries who went to some mission field, and though they started as fundamentalists, conservative Bible-believing missionaries, they felt so lonely there. And when they heard some Christians somewhere nearby, although they were liberals, modernists, but anyway, because they didn’t have anyone to be with them, to talk to, they just went to them for fellowship. And then later, they were one, and so that’s the start of this coming together, both fundamentalists and liberals, modernists and Bible-believing Christians, mixing. And when you mix, that’s it. Mostly, it is the fundamental, biblical, conservative doctrines that are cast away. It is the modernists who are so influential, so convincing, that they hold and control. And that’s the reason that those who are on the Bible-believing side would compromise, would change their views, and no longer follow what is given in the Bible.
It’s hard, I know. It’s difficult for us, because people will leave us, calling us narrow-minded. But we have the mind of Christ. We have to follow what He says in His Word. Let us pray.
Our Father in heaven, we thank You for this precious reminder, and though, Lord, we know that the world is increasingly influencing many churches today, help us to remain in Thee. Help us to stick to what Thou hast told us to do. Help us to follow Thee. Help us to submit unto Thee. And we pray that You will strengthen us, O Lord, knowing that Thou hast separated us from darkness, from the ways of the evil ones. We should not go back into this kind of fold. We pray that we will remain in Thee, follow Thee, and give ourselves unto Thee. We pray and ask all this with thanksgiving in Jesus’ name. Amen.