Truth Magazine

By Tom Moody

In the Firm Foundation, April 9, 1974, an editorial appeared entitled, “The Church In Alabama.” Reading the article might lead one to believe that the “church in Alabama” is centered on the campus- of Alabama Christian College, since it is that human institution with which the article is really interested and the Lord’s body in Alabama is scarcely mentioned.

There is more said about the “church in Alabama” in the third paragraph than anywhere else in the article. It is here that the statement is made: “It is really hard to grasp the change in the church in Alabama in the last decade.” To this statement, those who have been familiar with the changes in the church in Alabama (and elsewhere) would give a hearty “Amen!”

Within the last decade:

1. We have seen changes in the attitudes of those with whom we once had fellowship. Where there was once peace and unity, there is now bitterness and division because those who insisted on their pet projects and institutions were willing to divide the body of Christ over what they termed “incidentals” and “expediencies.”

2. We have seen brethren who once insisted on a “thus saith the Lord” and demanded “book, chapter, and verse” change to the persuasion that “there is no pattern” and “we do many things for which we have no authority.”

3. We have seen those who ten years ago, or even five years ago, preached that the Lord’s church raised funds only by a first day of the week contribution (I Cor. 16:1-2) and criticized the denominations for their bazaars and pie suppers. Now, some of these brethren have opened their kindergartens, day nurseries, and week-end resorts, selling such services to those interested in buying them.

4. Many who at one time insisted that Ephesians 5:19 and Colossians 3:16 authorized only congregational singing have changed. Many Alabama churches (and churches elsewhere), as the denominations round about them, have their choirs (or “choruses” as some prefer to call them).

The list could go on we are sure, but these are examples of the truthfulness of the statement quoted, that some Alabama churches have changed, a change which the editor accurately characterizes as being “…really hard to grasp ……

But what is the great change that Brother Lemmons has so elatedly noted within Alabama churches? Our brother says: “It ‘is really hard to grasp the change in the church in Alabama in the last decade. There are some 500 churches in the state, and where they once were almost totally anti-Christian education (Emph. mine, CTM), today Christians are supporting such schools as Mars Hill and Alabama Christian well.”

What awful ogres those people in Alabama must have been until recently! Imagine – being “anti-Christian education”! What is the evidence of the change to being for “Christian education”? According to Brother Lemmonsi it is that “. . .today Christians are supporting such schools as Mars Hill and Alabama Christian well.” That seems to imply that if you ‘do not support these two man-made organizations, you are anti-Christian education! It makes no difference if you cannot see what English, math, science, or physical education have to do with “Christian education.. A congregation of humble Christians might be hard working and dedicated in the task of “edifying itself in love” (Eph. 4:16). It may have the most thorough system of educating every age group within the church in the ways of righteousness. Yet if it refuses to turn over a part of its work and funds to a school by men, it is “anti-Christian education.”

While the sweeping statement that churches in Alabama were once almost “totally anti-Christian education” is an unfounded misrepresentation, it is true that there has been a great change in the beliefs of many of the digressive brethren, in Alabama in regard to church support of colleges. Just a few years ago, when promoters of brotherhood children’s homes were asked why the church could support such benevolent institutions but not the colleges, the answer given was that the church is its own missionary and edification society, but not its own benevolent society. “It is really hard to grasp the change. . .” Since many of those who made such a contention now have changed, does that mean that the church is no longer capable of functioning in edification? Of course the church is still its own “edification society” just as it always has been. I suspect that the change came when those who had been prejudicially calling others “anti-orphan” began to be called “anti-Christian education” and found it more pleasant to switch than fight.

Later in the article, the editor states, “As one learns new truth, and as times change, it is not ‘liberal’ in a bad sense to stay up with the times and honest to whatever new truth we learn along the way.”

Perhaps church support of schools and colleges is found within this “new truth” our brother seems to have come across. It certainly is not found in the truth of God’s word which is not new but was revealed and recorded several centuries ayo. it has everything we need “pertaining to life and, godliness” and leaves us “throughly furnished unto every good work” (2 Peter 1:3; 2 Timothy 3:16-17).

Surely, all of us can agree that “It is really hard to grasp the change in the church in Alabama (and throughout the nation) in the last decade.” We can commend the honesty of at least one of the brethren for admitting that such a change has taken place. If more of our erring brethren would recognize this, perhaps it would be a beginning for their return to the “old paths.”

Truth Magazine, XVIII:37, p. 7-8
July 25, 1974

By Dale Smelser

There is cause for concern in some current ideas premised upon the grace of God. What persons with such ideas are saying of grace per se is often fine, but their projected applications are unjustified, especially when they suppose that the fellowship of false teachers and errant brethren is necessitated because such by grace still possess righteousness in Christ. As we examine the subject of grace relative to these problems, we are not alluding to any one person’s conclusions, to our knowledge, but considering numerous ideas drifting about in various quarters that do appear to our understanding to be ultimately of one fabric.

The fact of God’s favor extended out of love and for his own glory to undeserving sinners is exceedingly precious, and one can only thrill at its exposition in Paul’s treatise on justification by faith, the epistle to Rome. The Jew gloried in the law, circumcision, and his Abrahamic parentage. To show that none of these established righteousness, Paul argued that to sinners, which all are, the law is an instrument of condemnation rather than justification. He argued that God’s real concern is the cutting away of sin from the heart rather then flesh from the body, and that instead of lineal descendants he wanted spiritual sons of Abraham who imitate his faith.

Instead of futilely glorying in a legalism that could never save because of man’s inability to perfectly keep law, Paul declares that we are justified by faith (Rom. 5: 1). A synonym for faith in this sense is trust. We place our trust in God and rely upon his scheme in Christ. It is a scheme relying not merely on conduct, but having the provision of perfect atonement for imperfect conduct, if we qualify.

An atonement is necessary because we have not merited salvation by perfectly keeping the commandments of God’s law. And we have not, nor can we, do enough good acts to eliminate the guilt of our disobedience through which we are consequently lost. (Isa. 64:6). Thus justification, if any at all, must be by grace (Rom. 11:6), a gift undeserved (Rom. 6:23).

But God has made the reception of this grace conditional upon our faith. We are saved by grace through faith (Eph. 2:8-9). God of his own love has freely provided the basis upon which he can justly pardon our iniquities, having satisfaction made for them in the suffering of Jesus (2 Cor. 5:21; 1 Pet. 2:24). But we must trust, or have faith in, the divine provisions and conditions in order to appropriate that atonement. One’s keeping the conditions by which he is accounted righteous through Christ, rather than by which he actually is righteous, is thus not being saved by his unblemished works, but by faith, or trust in something apart from himself. He is trusting God’s arrangement to effect what he has not and cannot. One rejecting or perverting these conditions, which both appropriate and retain God’s grace, rejects salvation thereby. And God’s grace is something that must be retained, else there is no such thing as falling therefrom.

The implications of this last point, especially, are given inadequate attention in the theology of brethren who continue to impute righteousness through Christ to many who have come to prefer innovation and perversion to the revealed pattern, or plan, of service. We are made just through what Christ has done, not by what we do, we are reminded. This application is only a restatement of the “man and not the plan” concept. Imputing righteousness to the continuing disobedient ignores the fact that God has required certain things of us if we are to be justified by what Christ has done.

Our salvation being, not of our doing, but trust in God’s, has often tempted man to minimize, or even eliminate, human responsibility. Even in the apostolic age it was necessary to guard against perverting grace, using it as an excuse to overlook sin (Rom. 6:1-2). It is today being misused to diminish the significance of error in those of the disparate segments of the Restoration Movement. In the past, a similar attitude taken to extreme has occasionally culminated in antinomianism. The true antinomian holds that since we are under grace, submission to a structured system of service and ethics is unnecessary. He is unable to make the distinction between meriting salvation through legal impeccability, and faithfulness to a Savior, which involves devotion to that Savior’s desires. And mark this, anyone mitigating the necessity of complying with those desires, and the pattern constituted thereby, is unfaithful to that Savior! But to the antinomian, studied faithfulness is only legalism. Once he is in Christ, he is free from any strict requirement of conduct, and any sinful action and indiscretion is tolerable. He is saved by Christ, not by merit, he says. Some contemporary harangues in the name of grace, ridiculing faithfulness as “commandment keeping,” thus sound ominous.

It is in the end a de-emphasis of human responsibility to suppose that in the Restoration Movement the purveyors of doctrinal error such as institutionalism and instrumental music remain justified by grace. Those errors are not merely ideas of personal imprudence, but ideas corruptive of the collective service and worship of God. The feeling of humanity experienced in tolerating the practitioners of such is deluding, and occurs because it is rooted in short-sighted humanism. One is ignoring God’s arrangement in deference to men. Actually, the possibly current controversy is not so much, grace versus legalism, as it is, humanism versus the sovereignty of God; the former concerned more with the cordial rapproachement of diverse human elements than with unity in obedience to God.

This fawning humanistic tolerance implies that while God is quite particular as to what conditions appropriate the benefit of grace (faith, repentance, baptism), he is really not too particular about what he has said as to how his children are to serve him, that is, how grace (favor) is retained, and that after all, their right to their inclinations as free men and continuance to embrace one another in fellowship, regardless, is more important than his desires.

Just as tragically, such permissiveness is often called love. And those being tolerated can be especially sweet-spirited. But neither permissiveness nor pragmatic sweet-spiritedness is evidential of the kind of love for the brethren required by God: “Hereby we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and do his commandments” (I Jn. 5:2). If we are the children of God those who do not obey God do not really love us! They use us. One proves his love for the children of God, and for God, in sharing obedience with them. When those with supposedly new enlightenment glory rather in an expanded fellowship, beyond those who prove their love for God by faithfulness to his order, while in tending to tell us something about their gracious love for man, they tell us rather that they have more regard and love for man than for God. Such expanded fellowship is not an application of the doctrine of grace. It is grace perverted. It is humanism. And, oh so very, very contemporary. Humanism pervades our society and our young are inundated by it in secular education. That is one reason why some of them are so susceptible to any premise for overlooking significant differences among brethren.

In a nutshell, while grace implies lack of human ability, it does not imply lack of responsibility. The philosophy of permissiveness does.

Truth Magazine, XVIII:37, p. 6-7
July 25, 1974

By Cecil Willis

In 1970, Roy Cogdill and I made a visit to the Philippine Islands, at the request of brethren there. As the result of teaching done by Romulo Agduma on Mindanao, and by Victorio Tibayan on Luzon (both assisted in teaching the truth by a host of other good men), quite a number of preachers had begun to protest against the sponsoring church arrangement by which support had been supplied to native preachers, and to the high-handed and autocratic domination of both preachers and churches by liberal American “missionaries” connected with the Philippine Bible College located at Baguio on Luzon. Futhermore, some legal problems regarding ownership of property by autonomous congregations had arisen that posed difficulty, and of which problems the Filipino brethren thought Brother Cogdill could be some help in solving, due to his background as a lawyer. Brother Cogdill, at my insistence, agreed to visit the Philippines, but then he insisted that I go with him. Thus the first American brethren who opposed institutionalism and sponsoring-church-ism visited among brethren in numerous places in the Philippines.

The Philippine brethren thought our coming was of great help to them, and thus asked that other American brethren try to arrange to come to visit them, and to study with them, and teach them in future years. Larry Hafley and Earl Robertson have just returned from, an extended preaching tour among the brethren there. In 1971, Connie W. Adams, who now edits Searching the Scriptures, and J. T. Smith spent a month or so in the Philippines, during which time Brother Smith conducted a debate with a liberal Filipino preacher named Lacuata, which debate later was printed by the Cogdill Foundation and widely distributed among the brethren there. Much additional good resulted from the visit and preaching of these two brethren.

In 1972 James P. Needham and Dudley Ross Spears visited the Philippines and also conducted extensive teaching efforts while there. In 1973, Wallace Little, Frank Butler, and Jady Copeland made a similar teaching trip to the Philippines. Jady Copeland had been in contact with Romulo B. Agduma for more than ten years. During this time, Agduma had learned and was teaching the truth on the institutional issues which have torn asunder churches around the world. Wallace Little and Frank Butler both had spent considerable time in the Philippines during military careers. Wallace Little had spent about two years at Clark Air Base, near Angeles City, just prior to the visit in 1970 by Brother Cogdill and me. Due to his teaching among the Filipino brethren, and to his extensive correspondence, it is probable that Wallace Little knows more about the work being done in the Philippines than any other faithful American. The recently completed trip made by Larry Hafley and Earl Robertson thus makes five consecutive years that the Philippines have been visited by American preachers who have not joined up with the liberal, institutional digression.

During the past year, several prominent Filipino preachers have written to various American brethren who have visited among them, and have suggested that it was their opinion that more good would be accomplished if some of the preachers who already have been there and who therefore have at least some acquaintance with the work there, would return for other visits, rather than for new men to come each year. Among others, I have been asked by several brethren to return. Connie Adams and James Needham have received similar requests repeatedly. Many have expressed a desire for Brother Cogdill to return for another visit among the brethren there, but the precarious nature of his health at this time precludes the possibility of him going. Such a trip is very tiring, as I think every American brother who has been there will verify. Brother Cogdill is now 67 years old and that, coupled with his sickness, makes it impossible for him even to consider making such a return trip. I might just add here, for the benefit of brethren in the Philippines and elsewhere, that Brother Cogdill’s sickness since June, 1973 has made it impossible for him to reply to all the mail sent to him.

James Needham and Billy K. Farris are planning on returning to the Philippines, perhaps in 1976. Of course, of those two brethren, only Brother Needham has been there previously. But brethren Needham and Farris are working closely together and will team-up to make a trip to the Philippines, very likely in 1976.

Several months ago, Connie Adams and I agreed that we would try to clear our 1975 preaching commitment schedules so as to permit us to spend at least a month in the Philippines. Though I have kept no records regarding such matters, I suspect that I have exchanged a thousand letters with Filipino brethren in the eight or ten years with which I have had contact with preachers there. Brother Adams has carried on extensive correspondence with brethren there. He is about as well informed regarding the Cause of Christ in the Philippines as any American preacher could be, in view of the limited time during which we have been in contact with brethren there.

It will be a pleasure to have Connie Adams as a co-worker in such a preaching trip. Connie and I were in college together, and have been close friends ever since our college years. Even when our work separated us by hundreds of miles, we have corresponded regularly. We worked together in a two-preacher arrangement with the Brown Street congregation in Akron, Ohio. For nearly ten years, Connie served as an Associate Editor of Truth Magazine, and would be doing so yet, were it not for the fact that Brother H. E. Phillips had to relinquish the editorship of Searching the Scriptures as the result of several heart attacks, and Connie Adams was asked to take over that demanding work. Connie and I therefore know each other about as well as any two brethren can know each other, and have worked closely together for more than twenty years. Futhermore, both of us have been very closely associated with the work being done in the Philippines.

Once American brethren were informed of the faithful and courageous stand being taken for the truth by some of the Filipino preachers, they readily began to support some of the preachers there. These native Filipino preachers, and other brethren there, who have had the courage to oppose the ecclesiasticism with its hierarchy located at the Philippine Bible College in Baguio, have withstood the most vicious and dirty assaults that the liberals have dished out anywhere in the world. At least, I have not seen meaner or dirtier tactics employed either by sectarians or by liberal brethren anywhere else. Deliberate lies have been fabricated, one after another, to try to destroy the confidence in the men being supported by American brethren. The tactics employed by the liberals in the Philippines, led by the American so-called “missionaries” stationed at Baguio, would make the political scandals connected with the “Watergate Incident” in this country look like antics one might expect to find at a girl-scout picnic. And before some of you brethren out there jump on my back about my strong language, do your own investigation before you write me. You will be appalled at what you find. Scores of Filipino preachers and thousands of brethren have withstood the dirtiest barrages that the liberals can dish out. The manner in which these brethren have stood up to, and stood up under, the bitterest of tirades has only increased my confidence in them. Scores of them have demonstrated that they simply will not be intimidated!

Presently about 80 Filipino preachers are being supported by faithful brethren in this country. I remember well the crowing the liberals did about the fact that support from faithful American brethren would “dry-up” in a year or two, and they then could proceed on their merry, liberal way. But, five years later, about 80 gospel preachers are still being supported in that country. It has long been my judgment that Filipinos more effectively could preach the gospel to their fellow-Filipinos. Some of the brethren who now are preaching there became Christians before World War IL Brother Menor on the island of Mindoro began preaching the year I was born . . . .1932. Several others have preached for 25 years. In my judgment, I see no reason to import an American family there to stay indefinitely, when there are plenty of Filipino preachers already there to evangelize the islands.

Some may wonder, “Then why should American brethren make these annual trips there?” There are several reasons why these trips have been useful. Unless brethren in this country get some fresh reports regarding the work there from men whom they personally know and in whom they have confidence, it is probable that indeed the support for men there would “dry-up” in a few years. The Filipinos have had their share of “bad apples” who posed as faithful gospel preachers, and these men must be exposed when the evidence proves their guilt. However, do not get the impression that the Philippines have any monopoly on “bad apple” preachers. And the liberals dare not assert that the tried and true brethren have a monopoly on deceiving and untrustworthy preachers. I personally know of enough instances of immorality and irregularity among liberal preachers to snow them under with evidence, if they even act like they want to deny they have such men among them. And if that will not suffice to convince them that they had better not make such a charge, I will send them Ira Rice’s Contender For the Faith in which Rice, in issue-afterissue, exposes the modernism, chicanery, and out-right lies used by some of his fellow-liberal brethren to promote their own pet projects, such as the Herald of Truth and the Philippine Bible College at Baguio.

The supporting of one unfaithful preacher is one too many! His unfaithfulness may consist of unfaithful living or unfaithful teaching. Visiting among the Filipino brethren and meeting face-to-face those against whom charges have been made and sent to this country in order to try to get their support stopped also has proved very beneficial. In some instances, documents that appeared to be formal legal documents making valid charges against faithful gospel preachers turned out to be complete fabrications, and those whose names were affixed to the documents gave affidavits stating that their names had been forged to the illegal and libelous documents.

Furthermore, the Filipino brethren, nearly without exception, have profusely and repeatedly written regarding how much assistance and encouragement and learning they received by the coming of these American brethren over the past five years. Quite frankly, I also do not like to see as much money spent in sending two or three men over there each year as it costs, but the cost of these annual trips would be only a drop-in-the-bucket when compared to what it would cost to send and then to sustain just one American family in the Philippines. But the fruits borne by these trips have shown them to be worth every dollar they have cost.

It appears to me that the Philippines are among the ripest nations in the world for the reception of the gospel. Nigeria and India also appear to be fertile fields where so little expenditure of effort and money can accomplish so much. Our liberal brethren have remarked that the only areas in which the “Antis” have made any significant progress (outside America) have been in those countries that were very poor. So what? Is that any reason why we should not continue to go to preach to poor people? In fact, Paul said that such people are the ones most receptive to the gospel (I Cor. 1:26-31). But it might also be said that such povertystricken countries are the only areas in which the liberals have made any significant progress in converting people. If any should be disposed to deny this charge, let them name off the wealthy countries in which they have had significant and lasting success in converting the masses of people. Even in their “show-case” countries, they began their work when the nations were prostrate as the result of wars which they lost, and started with their bread-lines and soup-kitchens. Whether poor or wealthy, our appeal must ever be that of the gospel (Jno. 6:26), and we must not appeal with fleshly lures.

So, the good Lord permitting, Brother Connie Adams and I are planning on spending some time early next year in the Philippines. A few brethren have made snide remarks, such as “I wish I could afford to take a vacation like that!” And to which I respond, “Yes, and I wish I could borrow $500 to contribute toward the cost of your trip, and let you go in my place!” These extended and concerted foreign preaching trips are no picnics. They are hard work, and plenty hard at that. But they have proved to be fruitful. So with the invitation from the Philippine brethren, and with the support of brethren in this country, and by the kind providence of God Almighty, the next few months will find Brother Connie Adams and me preparing to return for another visit with our brethren in the Philippine Islands. Begin now to pray that this effort might come to fruition, and that it might be successful to God’s glory, to the edification of the saints in that land, and hopefully to enlisting new soldiers in the army of him who bore the cross in our stead.

Truth Magazine, XVIII:37, p. 3-5
July 25, 1974

By Leslie Diestelkamp

Every real Christian must indeed be tired of the constant conflict to which we are continually committed. War is always a grueling experience, but this is especially so in case of civil war-war between people of the same citizenship. And the same is true spiritually. Doctrinal conflict with denominational forces may become frustrating but when that same kind of struggle is with our own brethren in the Lord it is significantly more demoralizing.

Perhaps 99% of God’s faithful people have a burning desire for peace and unity and an overwhelming yearning for an end of internal conflict among brethren. Oh how we wish we could awake some morning soon and find that divisive issues have disappeared and that total love and harmony prevails! “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity” (Ps. 133:1). How wonderful it would be if we would all be “endeavoring to keep the, unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3).

But real peace has never been the lot of faithful Christians. We were made to be soldiers (Eph. 6:10;17), not just nurse-maids. We are ordered to contend (Jude 3), not to compromise. We are built up as living stones (I Pet. 2:5), not as soft modeling clay. Our greatest mission is not peace, but purity (Jas. 3:17). And so, without malice for people, indeed with sincere love and good will for -all, especially for brethren, we must relentlessly wage a good warfare (I Tim. 1:18; 6:12), not only upholding truth, but also opposing error.

Some brethren who actually believe truth, and who desire no departure, have apparently become so battle-weary that they have become obsessed with peace, even peace at any price. This is a destructive and deadly attitude and will, if pursued by many, bring great havoc to the Lord’s church. But some of these are now so determined to have fellowship with all brethren that they even refuse to recognize the line that others have drawn-they are trying to ignore a division others produced and force a unity others neither desire nor allow.

Most of the advocates of church support of human institutions and of sponsoring churches today obviously do not want fellowship with opponents of such programs. They have drawn a line of demarcation so sharply that it cannot be crossed by me, regardless of how much I might desire, without a complete surrender of my conscience that would render me a spineless, milque toast, unworthy of respect by God or man!

We must not allow battle-fatigue to hinder our over-riding objective-to seek peace with purity. So we must fight on, for this warfare is not really ours but, “the battle is the Lord’s” (1Sam. 17:47).

Truth Magazine, XVIII:37, p. 2
July 25, 1974