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Transcript 341A
Should Churches Join Together to Combat Sin?
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: Mr. Camping, I was reading today in the newspaper about two policemen who are now spreading the Gospel. And I go along with the way they're thinking.
HC: It's marvelous, you know, when God lays His hand on people. They become saved, and they find an earnest desire to share the Gospel with others. Each of us as born again believers is called upon by God to be a witness.
CALLER: And they go on to say that Satan is in charge of pornography, homosexuality, drug addiction, alcoholism, suicide and venereal disease. And I think that about sums it up in a nutshell. However, they're talking about born again Christians, and prayer meetings, and everything. Is it possible for all churches to join together and go to our politicians, and tell them that we don't want this anymore for our children? Because I am a parent myself, and I think that if all the churches joined together in the city, maybe with all of us, in all the congregations, it's possible for our politicians to see that we don't want this.
HC: It is true that we see sin around us, and some of our cities are more sinful than others, although we're living in a day when hardly a city does not have its place of grievous sin.
The question is: What is the role of the church in the world? Is it to put down sin? Actually, we could really believe that this would be a marvelous, marvelous activity of the church, to expose sin and to create crusades to put it down
If we follow the Bible, however, we're going to find that such a procedure would be a losing battle. The Bible teaches that as we approach the end, sin will magnify. Secondly, the role of the church is not to put down sin. The role of the church is to faithfully present the Gospel. If the churches of our cities would decide, each one of them, "We're going to be absolutely faithful to the Bible; we're going to preach the whole counsel of God; we're going to proclaim the Gospel of grace; we're also going to proclaim the fact of judgment and hell, even as the Bible presents it," then you would find that the churches would really make an impact on the cities.
Now you say, "How would that be possible? The only people who would listen would be the ones who are in the congregations." The difference would be this, that God honors His Word. When the church is faithful to the Gospel, it's not just a horizontal activity, where the preacher is proclaiming the Gospel to a group of believers. But there is also a vertical dynamic to that church, where God can use that church in the city in a much more powerful way than what appears on the surface. God Himself will bless His Gospel. And this is really where changes will be made.
The problem, however, is that many many churches are not faithful to the Word of God. Praise God, there still are those that are faithful. But many are not. Many do not present the whole counsel of God. They present only those verses and those passages that are nice, that make people feel good, that win friends and influence people, so to speak. They're hesitant to present those passages that talk about judgment and damnation.
They very frequently do not believe that the Bible is the divine Word. They simply believe that the Bible contains some of the divine Word.
Now when a church is not faithful to the Word, then the Word has no power. God does not bless His Word, and so the church is very ineffective, not only in its own congregation but also in the city.
I really believe that the answer to this world is in the Gospel itself. But the churches must be faithful in presenting the Gospel.
CALLER: If just one church would join up with the other church, you don't think that with such a large body of people, that we could go to our politicians and persuade them to wipe out pornography, and all of these evils in our city?
HC: I'll tell you what would happen, in all likelihood. And I don't say this just out of my mind. I say this because of what I read in the Bible. You might temporarily win a skirmish now and then. You might be able to shut up some of the houses of prostitution, or you might be able to clean this little area up, or that little area. But it would only be a temporary kind of a thing. You wouldn't win the battle. You wouldn't win the war, because sin is very insistent; mankind wants to sin.
It is not the officials that are allowing sin to come here. It's the fact that mankind wants sin. Prostitutes can't work successfully unless there are men who want to go to them. It takes the citizenry of a city to make sure that prostitutes will abound. Alcoholism and drunkenness are not the sins of just a few. It's an all-pervading sin, that enters into every part of society. Drug addiction, and all of these other things, are found everywhere, because mankind is sinful. The Bible teaches that the heart of man is sinful.
That's why the church's solution, or God's solution, to this whole mess is the Gospel. When we present the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and present the fact that there is a Judgment Day, that the wrath of God is coming upon mankind because of their sins, there will be those who will be exercised, and who will repent, who will cry out to God for mercy.
Now when someone does cry out for mercy, someone does come to the Lord Jesus Christ, regardless of how deep in sin that poor soul may have been, she may have been a prostitute for years and years. He may have been in the depths of drunkenness or drug addiction, or whatever. If they turn to the Lord Jesus Christ, and they become born again, they become new creatures. They become people who are not only citizens of Christ's Kingdom, with eternal life, but also they become effective citizens in this world.
That's really where the solution lies, you see.
CALLER: As I say, I'm a parent myself. And I have both a daughter and a son. And they see all of this in the city. And I just believe in the girl being at home, and the man going out and being the breadwinner. And I don't think they should be subjected to this pornography, and so on, that is on our city streets.
HC: I empathize with you. I, too, am a parent. It's very difficult to bring up young people today, because sin abounds. However, we can bring our children up in the fear and the nurture of the Lord. We can find a school yet where the Gospel is emphasized. We can guide our children in their choice of TV programs, or in the choice of their fun times at home. We can spend time with them in the Word. We can make sure that our home is a place where the Kingdom of Christ is really manifested, by virtue of the fact that we are talking and thinking in terms of the things of the Bible.
Thus our children will not be isolated from the world. But they will be insulated from the world. As they are more and more involved in the Word of God, as we pray for them, and as we train them in the way that they should go, then they can face a world that is grievously sinful. And they won't necessarily be taken in by it.
Now of course if our children are not born again (and in many instances this is the case), then the world is very very attractive to them, because both in body and soul they lust after this kind of sin.
Realizing that pornography is everywhere, realizing that most of the novels that are being written, at least a great many of them, are pornographic in nature, in that certain chapters emphasize illicit lust, and so on, and our children are subjected to this, I can empathize with you. It's very very difficult to bring children up today.
CALLER: Because a lot of children are good when they're children, but they go with their peer groups into these things.
HC: Many parents have lost the battle with their children when their children were very small. When a child is two or three or four years of age, frequently this is the time when the battle is won or lost. If a child is taught by firm discipline, loving but nevertheless firm discipline, to respect his parents, to be obedient to his parents, this will carry him through all his lifetime.
But on the other hand, if at that very young age, he already is allowed to have his own way, he is already being brought up permissively, where discipline is hardly ever experienced by him, then as long as he's still a youngster, before he becomes a teenager, he will seem to be a reasonably decent child.
But then he comes into his teenage years. And because he has not been taught to respect his parents, because he has been taught to be allowed to do almost anything he wants to do on a permissive basis, because he doesn't really know the meaning of discipline, then the parents will really begin to tear their hair out, because they'll wonder what happened to their son or their daughter, as they want to follow their peer groups rather than be obedient to the parents.
The training of children begins in the home, and it begins at the age of one and a half or two. This is the time when very firm discipline ought to be administered This is what the Bible teaches. The Bible teaches, "Train up your children in the fear and the nurture of the Lord."
CALLER: Quite a while back, too, Mr. Camping, there was a certain Dr. Spock said that this type of discipline wasn't good for children.
HC: All kinds of people with PhD's, or lots of letters after their name, have come out with pronouncements on the rearing of children. But if you really want to find the Biblical basis, remember God is infinitely wise. He created man. He knows exactly what is good for man. And God has decreed that discipline is altogether God's will. Discipline is altogether God's will.
We read in Proverbs 22:15: "Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. But the rod of correction shall drive it far from him." You see, that's the way God speaks of it.
Or again, He speaks in another place in Proverbs, that the rod of discipline, when we administer it to the child in the loving sense of wanting to correct him, will save his soul from hell. Discipline is something that God has given us. And we can trust God. He knows what is best for us.
CALLER: All right. Thank you, Mr. Camping.
HC: Thank you for calling. Good night.