Truth Magazine

By Roy E. Cogdill

In todays society there are any number of things that are tolerated and excused and which some even seek to justify that have always been recognized by decent and honorable people as productive of evil and no good at all. This is evident in the language that is commonly used everywhere.

You can read filthy, vulgar, vile language in the magazines and newspapers. The picture shows, television shows, and even some of the literature that is required reading in our schools is full of it. There seems to be nowhere you can avoid it today. We are living in a “four letter society” and the righteous are raising mighty little protest but seem to take the attitude that there is nothing that can be done about it. Gods name is profaned upon many lips with almost every breath and in every place. You cannot go into a public gathering of any kind, listen to the news, or read the paper without your senses being violated with vulgarity, profanity, and filthy communications. Why?

Have all our laws against such indecent language been repealed? No! Many of them are still on the statute books but they are not being respected or enforced. Does the principle of free speech guarantee the right to say anything, anywhere, any time in the presence of anybody? Does not a man have the right to take his wife and children out into the public places today without their having to be subjected to a lot of profanity and vulgar filth in what they are forced to see and hear? Does not the hearer have some rights as well as the speaker?

Is this change brought about by our being better enlightened and becoming better educated and more cultured? There are those who so contend. This is just not so. Profanity and vulgarity along with all crudeness in speech is the result of a lack of education and refinement. It shows a lack of real culture and wisdom. When one can adequately express himself, he needs no filthy words or vulgarity to do so (Pro. 8:1-8).

1. We have witnessed a breaking down of law and order. We have seen the greatest increase in crime this country has ever known. Respect for authority in general and government in particular is at the lowest ebb. All over the world there seems to be general rebellion against the established order of things.

2. Respect for others and their rights is almost non-existent. Men are selfishly concerned with their own rights regardless of the rights of others. The whole basis of “civil disobedience” is a lack of regard for either God or man.

3. Atheism is a basic factor. The increase of unbelief has been tremendous. It has infiltrated our literature, education, politics, and even religion until it threatens the very existence of this nation. Unless it can be halted and the righteous people of this nation become militant in their opposition to it, Communism will take this country without firing a shot. They will do it through atheism. Atheism is the religion of Communism. Our Supreme Court supports it when they rule that to teach the Bible account of creation is religion and in violation of the constitution, but to teach creation by chance, through the theory of evolution, is not religion. If one is religions the other must be. Yet, they say the Bible account of creation cannot be taught in our schools at all and the theory of evolution can be taught as fact and not violate the constitution. There is not a scientist on earth that can establish or prove evolution to be fact.

Atheism is not wisdom. It has never done anything constructive or worthwhile for mankind. It offers no incentive and gives no hope. It does not even have a plausible explanation for the existence of life. It is pagan and heathen. When people are taught that they are mere animals instead of created in the image and likeness of God, they will live and eat like animals and that is the kind of society we are becoming. The vulgarity and profanity to which we are being subjected is but a symptom of the real disease.

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 45, p. 5
September 21, 1972

By Cecil Willis

Many special privileges belong to us because we are Christians. No greater opportunity is ours than the opportunity to talk with the Creator of heaven and earth. Men cherish the few times in their fives when they are permitted to talk with great men. But through Christ Jesus, we can have conversation with God as often as we wish. His ear is always open to the supplications of His children.

Christ is our perfect example in all things. He is a most wonderful example in prayer. About fifteen separate prayers of Christ are recorded in [fie New Testament. If the Son of God felt the need of communing with His Father, bow much greater must be the need of those of us who are fallible sons and daughters.

The apostle Paul was one who practiced the habit of prayer. In Romans 1:8 he said “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all.” Paul was thankful for his brethren. Let us try praying one for another. When we are concerned enough to pray about one another we will certainly seek not to do harm either in word or deed to those for whom we are praying. Prayer for one another will bind us together with that blessed tie that ought to bind brethren in the Lord.

Paul commands that we pray without ceasing (1 Thess. 5: 1-4). This does not mean that every moment of my life must be spent in prayer. However, it does mean that Christians should talk with God often. No day should be spent in the Lords service without prayer. Most of us pause to thank God for His blessings before each meal, but we should devote other portions of the day to fervent prayer.

James says the “effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (Jas. 5:171. There is power in prayer! By the privilege of prayer I can ask God to perform things that I cannot do by myself. Alone man is very weak, but in prayer man becomes as strong as God Himself. Man does not become God, but he can have the power of God working in his behalf.

Man also becomes stronger as a result of prayer. The lusts of the flesh will be less attractive. Gods power exerted in answer to Prayers will keep us from sin. Pray without ceasing!

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 45, p. 3
September 21, 1972

By Raymond E. Harris

The way some churches work at making the Church of Christ “just another denomination,” we wonder why they dont just change the sign on the building and join hands with the Methodists, Presbyterians or some other like group.

The latest effort to organize and denominationalize the Church came recently from Vancouver, Wash. The liberal church there bills itself as “a concerned congregation” that “is willing to serve as the single coordinating congregation for the whole nation.” They have already presumptuously enlisted the services of various congregations over the country to be “relay stations.”

This latest brain storm has to do with moving church members. They lament the fact that many members move into a new area and do not look up the church. They do not attend worship services and so, dry up spiritually and die.

It cannot be denied that such a problem exists, but, what is their solution? They magnanimously have offered to serve as the one national coordinating church. In other words, they suggest that if a member and his family moved from Plainfield to St. Louis, Mo., we should send this mans name and address to the coordinating church at Vancouver, Wash. They would in turn send the information back to some congregation known as a regional relay station and then the regional relay station congregation would send the mans name and address to the nearest “faithful” congregation and send the man, the address of the nearest “faithful” church.

Hows that for wild man-made church bureaucracy? Instead of local elders helping moving members with such matters, they suggest we become dependent upon two of three other congregations. Whats more, we can see this lame-brain plan would mean doubling the time, the postage and the effort involved.

We cant help but feel that this is just a feeble scheme to propel an obscure church in Washington State into national prominence. But, whatever their motive the plan is unscriptural, sinful, impractical and downright silly!!

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, p. 13
September 14, 1972

By Larry Ray Halley

Some men make a career out of cowardice. Nowhere is this profession more pronounced than in politics and religion. John F. Kennedys Profiles in Courage is a monument to bravery of conviction in earthly spaces, while Noah, Jeremiah, and Paul are profiles in courage in heavenly places. But these are the extraordinary, the exceptions. Cowards lie in the dust of ignominious oblivion or in the yellowed pages of ignoble infamy, whereas the heroes of character and courage are forever enshrined and entombed in the bosom, of their countrymen.

Moral timidity is the worst form of cowardice. Fear on the battlefield is forgivable. Fainting and quaking before a physical enemy is understandable, but spiritual fear is without defense or excuse. Issues are knives that may lay bare a mans quivering heart. What a man is can be seen by his reaction to challenges of the precepts and principles he advocates. It matters not how lofty his rhetoric, how scornful his countenance, or how clenched his fist, a man is not a man who will not lay down his life, his fortune and his sacred honor for the cause in which he believes.

Therefore, many men are not men. They forsake the truth, and they forsake integrity. They forsake right, and they forsake the only true might. They forsake themselves who deny the position they believe to be just and pure and good. To refuse to contend and defend ones conscience is to impose self exile. There is neither greater dishonor nor more despicable shame than one who will not “earnestly contend” for the light be sees and the faith he believes.

Christians have no right to be afraid. Numbers and odds are not to be considered in the warfare of Christ. Goliath fell before David, and Midian fled before Gideon, “for there is no restraint to the Lord to save by many or by few” (I Sam. 14:6).

Still, we find careening career cowards in Christ. They “stand” for modesty, but they will not name the “mini.” They loathe lasciviousness, but they will not reprove, rebuke, and exhort brethren who allow their children to dance. They are “for” worship in the Lords way on the Lords Day, but they will not cite, indict and convict those who pervert the pattern of sound words. They are for controversy and discussion, but they will bad mouth anyone who engages in debate where points are pressed and truth is preached to triumph in Christ. More and more we need less and less of such men.

Diplomacy and the mutual interchange of ideas and the exchange of philosophies have its place but only around a pence table. No such peace forum or conference table, however, should exist for the faithful soldiers of King Jesus. God has not called us to haggling, bargaining, or dickering, but to striving, warring, and wrestling. One does not “Beware of dogs, beware of evil workers” by consorting with them in areas and avenues of agreement. Sheathing the sword is not the way to true unity or liberty. It is the path of least resistance to bondage and apostasy.

The career coward smiles much and bids God speed to error on every hand and front. His “love everyone” approach is a reproach and serves to make him the worst enemy a man in error could have. His so called love will leave the lost in error, lost in error. The best friend a man in error has is a man who takes the word of the Lord and corrects him with it (Jas. 5:19, 20).

Career cowards remain aloof from real fights and conflicts. They will jab from the third row and throw in thrusts that keep them respectable, but when the issues are on the firing line, these men are on the side line writing general agreement articles of confederation for enemy papers. In Athens, while Paul faced and fought the mockers and scoffers, the career coward brethren were writing historical treatises on idolatrys modes and forms for the Unknown God magazine.

Courage comes through Christ and the word of his power. In that word and by that power we take our stand, “and having done all,” we shall stand. The purity and peace of the church demands a militant offence and an adamant defense. Wavering compromise on the part of cowards will not deter us — let them be warned. The faith and our faith are fixed and anything contrary to sound doctrine will be shot on sight.

TRUTH MAGAZINE, XVI: 44, pp. 12-13
September 14, 1972