Let us suppose that an evangelist comes to our community to conduct a religious meeting and proceeds as follows:
At the first service, he preaches that salvation is by faith only; but at the next he contends that it is by faith exercised in obedience to the gospel, rather than by faith alone.
At the third service he tells people that they ought to baptize their babies; but at the fourth service, he says that penitent believers are the only scriptural subjects for baptism.
At the fifth service, he preaches once in grace, always in grace, but at the sixth, he tells the people it is possible for them to fall from grace, that some have fallen, and that the Bible tells them how to keep from falling.
At the seventh service he teaches it is all right to have human creeds; but at the eighth he declares that we should take the Bible as our only guide in religion.
No thoughtful person would continue to listen to one preacher preaching like that, but the majority of people are perfectly willing for eight different preachers to preach these conflicting ideas. They say that if one man should preach that way, he would contradict himself and be inconsistent. But what kind of God do they suppose we have if He endorses all these conflicting doctrines and has sent out these preachers to present them?
- by Leslie G. Thomas
_____________________________________________
