A Compromise: "The Church Must Change"

By A. W. Tozer

For the time will come when they will not
endure sound doctrine . . . and they shall
turn away their ears  from the truth . . . .
2 Timothy 4:3, 4

    Any evangelism which by appeal to common interests
and chatter about current events seeks to establish a
common ground where the sinner can feel at home is as
false as the altars of Baal ever were.

    Every effort to smooth out the road for men and to
take away the guilt and the embarrassment is worse
than wasted: it is evil and dangerous to the souls of men!

    One of the most popular of current errors, and the
one out of which springs most of the noisy, blustering
religious activity in evangelical circles, is the notion that
as times change the church must change with them.

    Christians must adapt their methods by the demands of
the people. If they want ten-minute sermons, give them
ten-minute sermons! If they want truth in capsule form,
give it to them! If they want pictures, give them plenty
of pictures! If they like stories, tell them stories!

    Meanwhile, the advocates of compromise insist that
"The message is the same, only the method changes."

    "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad,'
the old Greeks said, and they were wiser than they knew.
That mentality which mistakes Sodom for  Jerusalem and
Hollywood for the Holy City is too gravely  astray to be
explained otherwise than as a judicial madness  visited
upon professed Christians for affronts committed
against the Spirit of God!

Yours in Christ,
Paul N. F.