Cultural revolutions have been great and accelerating influences upon humanity especially in the last one hundred years. What is a cultural revolution? How does it sweep over a society, nationally and internationally? Unfolding the breadth of this term will help to understand its far-reaching magnitude upon global societies. A cultural revolution often embodies the desires and ambitions of what a man or group of men see for the future of humanity.
Articles 1–20 of 390 for All Records
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In God’s providence, the Protestant Reformation was the movement that brought the public message of the church back to the soundness and absoluteness of the Scriptures. This important belief reestablished that the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith are based upon supremacy of the Word of God alone. Through the centuries leading up to the Reformation, Roman Catholicism’s apostasy had destroyed the Scriptures’ public effectualness.
Coming to the end of the nineteenth century, mankind began to anticipate that the twentieth century would be the century of hope for which man for thousands of years had been looking. In fact, the 1800s eagerly predicted that the twentieth century was almost guaranteed to be the century to usher in peace; it was prophetically called the “Christian Century.” This optimism was soon shattered by the ominous tensions that led to World War I. This bloodbath event brought a rude awakening to the continued reality of the true sinful nature of humanity.
Having entered into the twenty-fourth year of this new millennium, we never expected that the rapture for God’s saints would be delayed this long. We have experienced the powers of providence pressing us onward in our walk with God while the powers of darkness have taken us increasingly into the vestibule of the coming of Antichrist. These present articles of Straightway will introduce six areas of present history that consider “how should we then live?” in the light of the present distress rapidly enveloping the world. This first article sets forth the question in the light of “the days of the demise of public Christianity.”
One of the crucial keys in the unfolding of this burden is that the world has come to a different mindset than that which existed in previous centuries. For nearly two thousand years, the global thinking (at least in Western civilization) has been the logic of reason, particularly linear logic that is based on absolutes of the thesis and antithesis. Linear logic was grandly explored by the metaphysical Greek philosophers. This logic was built upon the premise of law, order, design, purpose, and beauty, as well as the reality of right and wrong, truth and error, and both the distinction and the separation of a thesis and antithesis. It was also based on absolutes and the fact that opposites in logic cannot be blended together.
There are several approaches that could be taken concerning the demise of morality, but we want to carefully and honorably approach this burden from the standpoint of its effect on manhood. America has been tampering with the biblical governing ethics of morality for such a long time that we have descended into an estate filled with debauchery and “strange flesh.” America’s moral legacy is bankrupt. The moral chart and compass has been destroyed, and we are found drifting from one fleshly novelty to another, taking us deeper and deeper into a cesspool of filth and stench.
The Lord called through His prophet, yea, His watchman Jeremiah, to stand by the roads and “ask for the old paths.” The strong Hebrew word ask means “to demand, to require, to interrogate.” Jeremiah calls for them to ask in order to find the old paths and walk in them. Regretfully, the people’s emphatic response was “we will not walk therein.” To compound the sad reality of stubbornness and rebellion, they no longer desired a watchman to sound the trumpet from his tower on the wall. Although the prophet warned them, they would not hearken to him.
Over the years of my earthly father’s ministry, a variety of observations have been made about his preaching. About thirty years ago, while preaching in a Bible Conference, he poured out his heart as he always did in preaching. After a particular service a young boy came up to him and asked, “Why do you preach so loud?” My father knelt down by him and in a gentle voice stated, “Well, young man, I am a bell, and in my preaching I am ringing out warnings to the people about this world, and sin, and the need of living for God. I preach loud and strong, for this is the purpose of a bell. Do you understand?” The young boy responded that he did. About that time his mother came up, and the boy immediately introduced my father to her by stating, “Mom, this preacher is a bell.” Of course, my father had to explain the situation to the mother. The young boy throughout the rest of the Bible Conference continued to address my father by saying, “Hello, Preacher Bell.”
Among the twenty-seven precious books that comprise the eternal canon of the New Testament, there stands the epistle Jude next to the end. Although brief, its approximately six hundred words are of profound importance for the days in which we live. Of the New Testament’s four short epistles (Philemon, II and III John, Jude), Jude is the fullest in burden. Its providential placement in the biblical canon honorably makes it a “preface to the book of Revelation.” Appropriately, the message of this little book concerns the falling away of the institutional church on earth before the Second Coming of the Lord. It is the epistle that contrasts the Beloved of God and the Behated of God in history.
The previous article noted the Holy Spirit’s providential appointment of the epistle of Jude as a preface to the book of Revelation. Jude is the crucial book prophetically dealing with the falling away of the institutional church on earth throughout its history. By A.D. 45 this falling away had already commenced in the Church. Another Gospel, another Spirit, and another Jesus were being proclaimed by false Christs and false teachers already coming like wolves into the fold to spoil the flock.
Many heart-rending stories have arisen from the tragedy of the USS Indianapolis on its fatal voyage after leaving the little island of Tinian near Guam in the South Pacific. It was an overcast night, July 30, 1945, when a Japanese submarine took advantage of a momentary break in the clouds to locate and torpedo the Indianapolis. The ship was on its way to the Philippines when the fatal blow was struck. This was the last U.S. Naval vessel to be lost in World War II. Of the 1,198 crew members, including 39 marines, 317, including 9 marines, survived 5 days in shark-infested waters before finally being rescued; only 129 of the crew, as of August 1, 1995, are alive.
On August 16th through the 19th of this year, I was honored by invitation to be a part of the 12th reunion of the survivors of the USS Indianapolis, which also was the 56th Anniversary of the sinking of that same ship. This momentous occasion took place in Indianapolis, Indiana, with some 86 or 87 of the still living 110 survivors being present. Nearly 1,000 additional individuals attended who made up the survivors’ families and friends.
Tuesday morning, September 11th, our nation both heard and saw the staggering reality of the capabilities and powers of terrorism upon our country. A terrorist's purpose is to instill terror, to intensify fear upon a people. Terrorism is the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce submission to a political belief or ideology. It is the hope to fill or overcome a people with terror, thus causing them to yield in absolute submission to the desire of the one who terrorized. It is built upon disruption and disintegration of life, to alter the life of a people by producing widespread fear through shocking acts of violence.
Although historians are still debating whether this country was truly "Christian" from its inception, America definitely was a righteous nation in its beginning. Proverbs 14:34 states that "Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people." This righteousness is not in reference to the righteousness found in Christ for salvation; rather, a natural righteousness to be found in a nation's morals and leadership. Because of America's respect for righteousness in its early years, God honored and exalted this nation.
Throughout the recent decades of American Christianity, there has been a growing trend of what has come to be known as the crossover. Not exclusive to our generation, this subtle tactic of the crossover has appeared at critical seasons throughout history. However, it has been the contemporary crossover that has grown into a subtle yet powerful trend seeking to pull down the public testimony of true Christianity.
How often we read in the Old Testament of God’s sending a prophet to a man or a woman. Examples include such cases as Nathan to David (II Samuel 11), an unnamed prophet to Jeroboam (I Kings 13), Elijah and Elisha to Ahab (I and II Kings), or Jehu the son of Hanani the seer to Jehoshaphat (II Chronicles 19). These men were God’s men, anointed men, the appointed mouthpiece of God to the people.
All over the world there is the problem of sin; and all over the Christian world there is the problem of love. We are beginning to see a breakdown between truth and love in our own relationships as Christians. In the midst of an erroneous claim of Neo-Ecumenicity and union, there is almost constant division among the true witness of Old Friends and unity. What is happening among the Neo-Friends does not at all surprise us. However, what is happening among the former Old Friends who were identified with the conservative, evangelical, and fundamental believers is really shocking and disappointing, to say the least.
Fundamentalism is now entering its fourth generation. The fourth generation in Church history has often been the generation to finalize the apostasy of a movement or organization. The first generation has been viewed as the Bible-based generation; the second generation tends towards neutrality; the third generation has strong tendencies towards compromise; and the fourth generation becomes the generation to produce the movement’s apostasy. This does not mean that every individual within that particular generation will be characterized by its master principle, but the generation itself will be so.
Fifty years ago, an unpretentious meeting took place on the outskirts of Dunn, North Carolina, in the home of Dr. O. Talmadge Spence. This meeting proved to have far-reaching importance for Dr. Spence, his family, and a remnant of individuals. The birth of the “Christian Purities Fellowship” was Dr. Spence’s last major attempt to call his fallen, spiritual mother denomination back to her legacy of the Fundamentals and separatist living.
Back in 1973 my dear father, Dr. O. Talmadge Spence (who went to be with the Lord in July 2000), began a publication entitled Straightway. He took this word from Mark 1:18 that reads, “And straightway they forsook their nets, and followed him.” In this context Mark’s commentary on two of the Lord’s disciples depicts the tonal quality of his book as a part of the harmonious quartet of the Gospels. Mark’s Gospel portrays Christ as “the Mighty Worker,” rather than “the Teacher” as depicted in the book of Matthew. Mark wrote his Gospel to the Romans, a busy people, always in a hurry, working for the cause of the Empire.
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