65. Following Is Upholding the Standard
Following Is Upholding the Standard
Let me remind you of another crisis in the life of our Lord, Matthew 22:15. You remember they came to Him with kindly words, one day—the Pharisees—words that were couched in flattering terms, but they were all a trap. They asked Him whether they should pay the tribute to Caesar or not, and He said, “Show Me a penny. Whose image and superscription hath it? …” (Luke 20:24). You know the story. What was the crisis there in Christ’s life? What was the temptation our Lord had before Him? Just to lower the standard and assent to something that was not right, in order that He might please some other one. They would have said, perhaps, “If He is a true patriot now, He will say: You should not pay tribute to Caesar.” There was the temptation to lower His standard and assent to what was wrong in order to gain the good opinion of those men. Is not that a temptation today? I believe that it is a very sharp temptation in business circles.
I was speaking at a convention in England, and while walking with my host, a keen Christian business man, he said, “Do you know, things are becoming so acute in business circles that it will soon be impossible for a Christian man to continue in business and follow the Lamb.” I believe it is a real temptation in the way of business men to lower the standard a little bit. I believe it is a tremendous temptation in the way of the churches, and they are yielding to it. How the churches are lowering the standards today! What extraordinary methods some of the churches are taking to raise money, proving to the world that they have no God. What awful means the churches are using to attract people into the empty pews! And what has the Church of God to do with the passing program of a world that hates the Christ? By taking up the world’s program the church is proving to the world that she has no God.
I know that it is a tremendous temptation to the preacher to lower the standard because of that man who sits in the back seat, or who sits in the front seat in the gallery—to lower the standard in order to please him, in order to get his check, and so on. It is a tremendous temptation in the way of the preacher to tone down his message. Some of you ought to be preachers just to have a little bit of sympathy with us preachers. If you had six months in a minister’s study and in a minister’s church you would never criticize him again.
It is not an easy thing to see people going away from your church because you are true to the cross. In my first church I had nothing to preach (and I have never had anything to preach) except the cross, and I saw pews getting empty and emptier, and people going away, and it was a hard thing for a young fellow just beginning his ministry to stand true; but this is what I found, and it may be an encouragement to some ministerial brother. I began to take notice that whenever a pew in the church was left vacant by unconverted people leaving it, it was very soon filled with converted people and people who would go out to the street with me, and people who supported me, and people who gave money. You know you cannot lose if you are true to the Lord Jesus Christ—you cannot lose in the long run.
If you are going back to a place that is awfully difficult, take stock of God before you go back; and if you will get what I got in my early ministry, this fact burned in your soul, it will help you. I got this from God: “God is faithful,” and I stood on that; and in the midst of very severe tests I stood on that, “God is faithful;” and He proved Himself to be so.
How did Christ meet this crisis in His life—this temptation to lower the standard? In this way: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s” (Matthew 22:21). He said that the honest demands of the state are as holy as the requirements of the church. The Bible, remember, has only one word about a thing—it is either right or wrong, and if it is right, then we want today the spirit of the old Puritans, who used to say, “Let us do right, though the heavens fall.”
Young man and young woman, it is better for you to go down with your flag flying, than to yield to the temptation to lower your standard in the hope that you will please somebody. But you won’t go down. Jesus is stronger than Satan and sin, and Satan to Jesus must bow. You will not go down. To follow the Lamb means rigid adherence to what is right, but it means victory.