THE DANGER OF TOLERANCE
by Gwen Hanssen
“What one generation tolerates the next will embrace.”
John Wesley
When John Wesley penned those words, he would have most likely been shocked to look into the future and see the condition of our present-day culture, not to mention church culture. He was absolutely spot on when he wrote those words. Thank you for the warning, Mr. John Wesley, turns out that you were exactly right. We have tolerated and tolerated, meaning we have allowed/permitted, until we are sitting in an absolute cesspool of moral degradation. What used to be right is now deemed wrong and what used to be wrong is now embraced as ‘right’. (Isaiah 5:20)
We are finding ourselves more and more a part of a generation that deems a person with standards, outward and inward, as now frowned upon. Those who practice God’s standards of moral integrity and separation are now considered as ‘judgmental, religious, hateful, not having any love’, and the list goes on and on. Those who choose to guard themselves, their souls, spirits and bodies, with any sort of a guardrail of protection against the onslaught of the ‘anything goes’ ideology that has flooded our present generation are even called “religious” and “fanatical”.
I am amazed at the lack of shame for sin in this generation. Things that were once unspeakable are now paraded around as normal and acceptable. And not only that, our generation is now proud about their sin and view those who are doing their dead level best to hold to a standard of Godliness as old-fashioned and outdated. I see Christians making decisions about their bodies, themselves, their relationships, and their surroundings by using what present-day culture deems as acceptable.
I am not foolish enough to think that any of this will change. It is written in God’s Word that these things must be before Jesus comes to rapture those away from this wicked world who are overcoming. As God’s remnant people, we must face this onslaught. We will be looked on as backward, needing to ‘get with the times’, uneducated, terribly unenlightened, having no fashion sense, and the list goes on and on. We WILL look like fools for standing for the principles of Truth in God’s Word. It is time, people of God, to draw a line in the sand and choose your side, because without doing so the Church will continue to slide down this slippery slope with the norms of present-day culture.
Today, I see a generation of church goers who have a ‘standard’, but that standard is measured against the culture of this world rather than God’s Word and His unchanging principles of Truth. His Word is timeless, eternal, and does not change with culture, fashion or man’s desire. Peer into the mirror of God’s Word, and while you are at it, remember the saints of old who have gone before who possessed a true fire of the Holy Ghost. Remember their set-apartness, and the glory of God that they carried because of their consecration unto Him. It is there that you will find direction in how ‘to be’ and how ‘to do’ as God’s remnant people in this present day and age. Time is too short to have come this far to compromise for the sake of fitting in. If you want to fit with “HIM”, you will not fit with ‘them’. God’s Word is full of principles of drawing His people out to be separated unto Him. Since this be so, then surely it must be of utmost importance to Him.
“Choose you this day whom you will serve” (Joshua 24:15)
“Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein. Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.” (Jeremiah 6:16-17)
What a day to be alive, but OH, THE JOY that will be found when we see Him face to face! Everything that we have endured as “good soldiers” will be worth it ALL!! (2 Timothy 2:3-4)
-Gwen D Hanssen
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