Compromising Compromise

The word is compromise. It can mean something good where two parties come together who were once at odds and reach a compromise that is acceptable to both. A parent goes car shopping with their child and he wants a high priced car but the parents want an inexpensive compact but they reach a compromise and purchase one in the middle. We all have compromise many times over our lifetime and probably should have done it more than we did. It can be a peace maker.

But then there is compromise as it pertains to Christianity which can be a bad thing. For instance, when a believer has been led of God to avoid certain activities but because of the influence of friends he compromises and indulges in the very activity that God has instructed him to avoid. That is sinful compromise. When a Christian is pressured to agree with something he knows is wrong and due to that pressure he acquiesces and agrees, that is compromise. It carries with it the diluting of something in our lives that should not have been diluted. Every one of us has compromised at some time in our Christian lives to our shame. And looking back we have repented and gone forward.

Probably the most tragic and destructive type of compromise is that which is public and done by someone of influence. When a Christian leader compromises in a public forum it can lead others to follow his example and be unaware that they are compromising God’s Word and will. When Billy Graham, whose preaching led me to Christ, speaks glowingly of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church he not only is compromising, he is leading others to do the same. So his compromise generates imitators of that same compromise. When Rob Bell goes to a conference held by the Dalai Lama, he is compromising and leading others to do the same.

That does not mean that their motives are impure, no, many times I have compromised while having good intentions only to later realize my motives did not sanctify my methods. Sometimes refusing to compromise is seen as harsh and inflexible, and sometimes it is painful ,because we feel we are hurting people. After I had been saved for about 2 years I went to Bible school near one of my aunts. She was not a believer but she loved me and I her. She was an avid fan of Florida dog racing, and since she lived alone she had no one to go ,with her. She asked me to go and with good intentions of spending witnessing time with her I went.

After several times going where she would bet on the horses, we started a conversation about being a Christian. During the conversation I mentioned that when a person comes to faith in Christ their lives are changed, they have hope, they have peace, and many times they don’t do the things they used to enjoy. I was referring to the life of drugs and debauchery I had once lived, but my aunt said quickly, “What about you? You go to the dog track.”. You see? I went to provide her with company and yet she saw that as a compromise as a Christian. I never went with her again. Good intentions are sometimes the conduit for compromise.

But we must be consistent in our discernment of compromise. It cannot just apply to those we have issues with such as Billy Graham or Rob Bell, it must be viewed with impartiality and sometimes must be judged with pain when it applies to someone with whom we agree on most issues. And so comes the reason for this post. I believe the health and wealth teaching, the prosperity gospel is heresy and not the gospel at all. Many if not most of the preachers that teach such nonsense are being made wealthy by the offerings of the gullible who have the love of money. The opulent lifestyles of many of those preachers are a disgrace to the Christian faith and they are without controversy false teachers. They receive messages from God that are at odds with written Scripture, and they wrest the Bible to make merchandise of their followers.

Along comes a conference called “Inspiring Excellence” which is hosted by a health and wealth preacher named Rob Thompson. The list of guest speakers is a virtual who’s who of the heath and wealth genre. As I watched a commercial for this conference I was absolutely floored when among all these heretics was also Ray Comfort, from The Way of the Master ministry. Below is the website for this conference.

http://www.inspiringexcellence.org/IE08Speakers.htm

Now here is my point. It goes without saying that when someone like Comfort participates in a conference like this he lends them and their false teachings some credibility. But here is my question, “Will the discernment ministries take Ray Comfort to task for this compromise with the same vigor and scorched earth method that they do with other preachers who are not of their camp?” I believe Mr. Comfort is a Calvinist of some sort, so will that temper the verbiage of some discernment blogs and in fact will some not even mention it? Many of these blogs have Ray Comfort’s ministry on their blog rolls, and yet here he is being advertised as a speaker in a conference that is sure to be a smorgasbord of heresy.

We will see if there is the same hue and cry about this that there was about Rob Bell at the Seeds Conference, or will they give him Piper’s Pass? What is Piper’s Pass? It is when John Piper invites Mark Driscoll to his Desiring God Conference but hardly anyone made mention of that obvious compromise.

My enemy compromises.

My friend has a mission from God.

Compromising compromise.