Crisis in the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />American Church – Part Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
 
by Dr. Walter Martin
 
 
One of the main problems today, and one of the reasons the Church is in crisis is that a large segment of the Christian faith will not come into conflict with the world.  That is one of our greatest drawbacks.  There are so many Christians waiting for a convenient time that the gospel never gets preached.  There are so many Christians who say (as people have said to me on numerous occasions), "I don't talk about my faith, I live it.  People can see my faith in what I do, but I never talk about it too much.  I'm a silent witness."
You bet you are-you're so silent nobody knows you are a witness.  I can introduce you to numerous Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Christian Scientists, Atheists, and Skeptics who are just as much silent witnesses from the standpoint of ethics, morality, and living as a great many Christians-and they're lost.  The New Testament doesn't know anything about a silent witness.  The word witness is derived from the concept of martyr.  You wouldn't be a martyr if you kept your mouth shut.  The Christian Church is studded throughout history with martyrs for the purpose of proclaiming the truth as it is in Christ.
Now, I recognize that I may irritate a few people by saying things as bluntly as this, but the ministry is not a place for a popularity contest.  The ministry is a place to tell it like it is because we are in mortal danger today-the danger of not communicating because we think that in one way or another people are not going to like us.  Whoever told Christians the world was going to like us or the world was going to love us?  We are so preoccupied with whether or not the Masons, the Elks and everyone's Uncle Harry is going to look upon us askance if we take a firm stand for Jesus Christ, that we are soft-peddling the gospel up and down this nation and all over the world.
Let me illustrate what I mean:  There are people who will go out and talk about the love of Jesus.  They will talk about the fact that He died on the cross for our sins, that He rose from the dead, and that He is the Savior of lost men.  They'll talk about that and about the love of Christ, and the need to be reborn spiritually; all well and good.  But they will never, ever tell people what it's going to cost them if they don't believe the gospel.  That's the other side of the coin.
Now, if you simply go out and tell people about the love of Jesus, and how Jesus Christ died for our sins, and how He has given us the task of bringing the world to salvation people will say, "What very devoted, dedicated religious people they are."  But if you go out and tell them that Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life no one comes to the father but by me" (John 14:6); if you tell them that the same Jesus who kissed the babies said, "Depart from me cursed ones to eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels since the foundation of the ages" (Matthew 25:41); if you tell people what it's going to cost them to reject Jesus Christ, instantly you become an arrogant, ignorant, dangerous fundamentalist-and a fanatic.  As long as we do not tell the whole story the world will tolerate us.  But if we tell the world the whole truth, the world will hate us as it hated him.  He told them the truth.
Controversy is part and parcel of the Christian heritage.  You cannot escape it if you really want to serve Jesus Christ.  The only way you can avoid controversy as a Christian is never to say anything except that which people want to hear.  No one wants to hear they're lost.  No one wants to hear there is eternal judgment.  No one wants to hear about meeting Christ as the Judge instead of the Savior; yet this is precisely what the Church is committed to preaching.
The work of Christian Apologetics is not to apologize for Christianity, nor is it to attempt to destroy other people.  We are summoned by God, not only to preach Jesus Christ as the Redeemer of mankind, but also to be prepared to give answers.
One of the reasons why the Christian Church is weak and impotent today; one of the reasons why the Kingdom of the Cults and the Occult is growing is because Christians think that all they have to do is tell people Jesus loves them, hand out a tract, do some normal personal work, and that's the end of our responsibility.  This is not the truth, nor is it biblical.
We are told by the apostle Paul to be set for the defense of the gospel.  This means that the gospel must be defended by the Church.  I was once told by someone when I was discussing the subject, "Well, you know, the gospel is like a lion.  All you have to do is turn it loose and it will defend itself."  People are always using these illustrations and forgetting that Scripture says, "Contend for the faith" (Jude 1:3).
Paul was absorbed with the idea of being a soldier of the cross, a follower of the Lamb.  God requires that we become absorbed in exactly the same way.  We must sanctify the Lord God in our hearts and be ready always to give to every man an answer.  If we do this, we'll get the same effects the apostles got; we'll see the same results the Church Fathers saw-the great apologists of the first five centuries.
But we must do it.
We can't pass the buck anywhere else.  In the words of that immortal Baptist theologian, Harry Truman, "The buck stops here!"  We must shoulder the responsibility and we must be bold. 
Today, we've lapsed into the error of believing that somehow or other it is negative to defend the gospel.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  It is the most positive thing in the world to stand for Jesus Christ.