[Faith-talk] Article from Grace Gems Dot Org

[Linda Mentink]

Everybody is going to be saved--and nobody is going to be lost! 
(J.C.  Ryle <http://gracegems.org/23/ryle_sermons.htm>, 1884)

One great danger of the church today, consists in the rise and 
progress of a "spirit of indifference" to all doctrines and 
opinions in religion.  A wave of latitudinarianism about 
theology, appears to be passing over the land.  The minds of many 
seem utterly incapable of discerning any difference between . . .  
one belief--and another belief, one creed--and another creed, one 
tenet--and another tenet, one opinion--and another opinion, one 
thought--and another thought, however diverse and mutually 
contrary they may be! Everything is true--and nothing is false.  
Everything is right--and nothing is wrong.  Everything is 
good--and nothing is bad--if only it comes to us under the garb 
and name of religion.  Most think that it is kind and liberal, to 
maintain that we have no right to think that anyone is wrong, who 
is in earnest about his creed.  We are not allowed to ask what is 
"God's truth"--but what is liberal, and generous, and charitable.

Most professing Christians make cleverness and earnestness the 
only tests of orthodoxy in religion.  Thousands nowadays seem 
utterly unable to distinguish things that differ.  If a preacher 
is only clever and eloquent and earnest--they think that he is 
all right, however strange and heterodox his sermons may be.  
Popery--or Protestantism, an atonement--or no atonement, a 
personal Holy Spirit--or no Holy Spirit, future punishment--or no 
future punishment--they swallow all! Carried away by an imagined 
liberality and charity, they seem to regard doctrine as a matter 
of no importance, and to think that *everybody is going to be 
saved--and nobody is going to be lost!* They dislike 
distinctness, and think that all decided views are very wrong!

These people live in a kind of mist or fog! They see nothing 
clearly, and do not know what they believe.  They have not made 
up their minds about any great point in the Gospel, and seem 
content to be honorary members of all schools of thought.  For 
their lives--they could not tell you what they think is truth 
about . . .  forgiveness of sins, or justification, or 
regeneration, or sanctification, or saving faith, or conversion, 
or inspiration, or the future state.

They are eaten up with a morbid dread of doctrine.  And so they 
live on undecided, and too often undecided they drift down to the 
grave, on the broad way which leads to eternal destruction.

They are content to shovel aside all "disputed points" as 
rubbish, and will tell you, "I do not pretend to understand 
doctrine.  I daresay that it is all the same in the long run." 
They are for a general policy of universal toleration and 
forbearance of every doctrine.  Every school of false teaching, 
however extreme, is to be tolerated.  They desire the Church to 
be a kind of "Noah's Ark," within which every kind of opinion and 
creed shall dwell safely and undisturbed, and the only terms of 
admittance are a willingness to come inside, and let your 
neighbor alone.  Nothing is too absurd to concede and allow into 
the church, in the present mania for complete freedom of thought, 
and absolute liberty of opinion.

The explanation of this boneless, nerveless condition of soul, is 
perhaps not difficult to find.  The heart of man is naturally in 
the dark about religion--has no intuitive sense of truth--and 
really needs divine instruction and illumination.  Besides this, 
the natural heart in most men hates exertion in religion.  Above 
all, the natural heart generally likes the praise of others, 
shrinks from collision, and loves to be thought charitable and 
liberal.  The whole result is that a kind of "broad religious 
anythingism" just suits an immense number of professors.

Ignorance, I am compelled to say, is one of the grand dangers of 
professors of religion in the present day.

Who does not know that such people swarm and abound everywhere? 
And who does not know that anyone who denounces this state of 
things, and insists that we should be loyal to Scripture 
truth--is regarded as a narrow, bigoted, intolerant person, quite 
unsuited to our times?

When there is no creed or standard of doctrine, there can be no 
church, but a Babel.  Let me venture to advise all true 
Christians to never to be ashamed of holding Evangelical views.  
Those views, I am quite aware, are not fashionable nowadays.  
They are ridiculed as old-fashioned, narrow, defective, and out 
of date--and those who hold them, are regarded as "illiberal, 
impracticable old fossils!"

What the final result of the present state of things will be, I 
do not pretend to predict.

"Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; 
correct, rebuke and encourage--with great patience and careful 
instruction.  For the time will come when men will not put up 
with sound doctrine.  Instead, to suit their own desires, they 
will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what 
their itching ears want to hear.  They will turn their ears away 
from the truth and turn aside to myths!" 2 Timothy 4:2-4