We want to read the word of God this evening from the little book of Jude. We'll read from the opening verse. Jude, the servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, to them that are sanctified by God the Father and preserved in Jesus Christ and called, mercy unto you and peace and love be multiplied. Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. For there are certain men crept in unawares, who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Lord God, and our Lord Jesus Christ. I will therefore put you in remembrance, though ye once knew this, how that the Lord, having saved the people out of the land of Egypt, afterward destroyed them that believed not. and the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved an everlasting chains on their darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Even as Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire. Likewise also these filthy dreamers the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities. Yet Michael the archangel, when contending with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, first not bring against him a railing accusation, but said, The Lord rebuke thee. But these speak evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally as brute beasts. In those things they corrupt themselves. Woe unto them, for they have gone in the way of Cain, and ran greedily after the air of Galen for reward, and perished in the game-saying of Coe. These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear. Clouds, they are without water, carried about of winds. Trees, whose fruit withereth without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots. Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame. Wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, to execute judgment upon all, to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their harsh speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him. These are murmurers, complainers, walking after their own lusts, and their mouth speaketh great swelling words, having named persons in admiration because of advantage. But, beloved, remember ye the words which were spoken before of the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ, how that they told you there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they, to separate themselves, sensual, having not the spirit. But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And as some have compassion, making a difference, and others see it with fear, pulling them out of the fire, hating even the garments spotted by the flesh. Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory, with exceeding joy, to the only wise God our Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power, both now and ever. Amen. Amen. We know the Lord will add his blessing to the reading of his word to all of our hearts. In verse 3 we come across those well-known words, words of exhortation that we should earnestly contend for the faith. Just read the whole verse, verse 3, Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. Let's take a moment and seek the Lord in prayer as we come around the Word of God. Our God and Father, we realise there is a need to fight the good fight. The gospel must be descended as well as being preached and expounded. We pray Lord that thou would help us by thy grace to do both. To declare Christ as the only way of redemption for sinners. Neglect Christ's rejected and we're lost forever. Believe on him and our souls will be saved. Lord we realize there is but one gospel. There is but one way of salvation. There are not many ways and we pray that Even as we come to deal with this topic and subject tonight, that will help us to understand that. We pray that we might be those who contend earnestly for the faith, that faith once delivered unto the saints. For there is but one way down through all of history, down through all of Bible times, there is but one way of redemption, it's through the blood of the Lamb. We read that, O God, at the very beginning, where the animal was slain and the covering provided. For our First Parents, we think of Abel's Lamb and Abraham's sacrifice as that whole system of worship that's centred around the sacrifice in the tabernacle and the temple, all pointing forward to Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, who would die shedding his own blood there to take away sin. And Lord, we pray that we might have a saving interest in him and have the blood applied to our own hearts and lives. We pray that tonight they will come. Bless us now and be with us as we dwell upon these things. We ask in Jesus' name. Amen. As part of this series we want tonight to deal with the subject neo-evangelicalism. Now that term neo-evangelicalism came into existence in the United States of America back in around 1948. And it came into existence to identify a new movement that was taking shape at that time within what we might call wider Christian fundamentalism. It was coined by a congregational minister in Boston, Massachusetts. His name was Harold Okina, and as I say, he is acknowledged to be the individual who originated this term, neo-evangelicalism, or new neo-evangelicalism. New Evangelicalism. Up until that time, up until 1948, for more than thirty-five years really, the term Fundamentalist had been in existence. The term Fundamentalist itself had come from a set of twelve booklets that had been published a hundred years ago from now, back in 1910, 1912. There were these little booklets, twelve of them that were produced, they were entitled to fundamentals. And there was this great controversy going on at that time between liberalism and modernism, as we were thinking about last Lord's Day evening, and those who wanted to hold to old-fashioned, orthodox, biblical Christianity. And in many of the mainline denominations in North America, as was the case over here as well, there was this great battle that was raging between the modernists and the liberals, and those that wanted to hold the old line. And those that were wanting to hold the old line were publishing and writing and seeking to defend the truth of God, and as I say, this little set of twelve booklets were produced and they were entitled The Fundamentals. And from that title there developed this term Fundamentalist, and then further on Fundamentalism. a term fundamentalist over succeeding years, became the popular name attributed to various individuals within Protestant mainline evangelical denominations who were opposed to liberalism and to modernism that was sadly taking over these major Protestant denominations in America. And that's really where the term fundamentalist came out of and as we know it has developed over time, fundamentalism. Sadly today the term, if you use that term, people are more aware today of, for example, of Islamic fundamentalism, of extreme Islamic views. That's how people associate the term today if you were to mention it. But that's where it originally came from. back then at that time. So it was used to define those who were seeking to defend the truth of God, who were seeking to earnestly contend for the faith, to use the language of this text that we've drawn to your attention this evening, against the modernistic liberal attacks that were being directed against the faith once revealed to the saints. Now, I mention those terms and their origin because of an important connection that there is between Fundamentalism and Neo-Evangelicalism. You see, Neo-Evangelicalism came into existence as a reaction to Christian Fundamentalism. That's how it originated, that's where the term came from. There were men who were initially within the Fundamentalist camp in North America, but they began to compromise and they no longer believed in the militant forthright stand for truth and righteousness that had been carried on for a number of years within the fundamentalist tradition. One man, that man that mentioned his name, the Congregational Minister, Harold Ockenna, he who coined the phrase, he was originally one, along with a number of classmates, but he originally had withdrawn from Princeton Seminary. in 1929. There was a change that took place in Princeton in 1929 as to the board of, well really we would call it the Board of Governors, and the Presbyterians, the Assembly, voted through a change where they would alter the composition of the board because they wanted a new direction in Princeton Seminary. Up until that time, it had held the old It had stood against modernism and liberalism, and many are the great men who were lecturers down through the years in Princeton Seminary up until that time. But in 1929 it took a new direction and there was a number of men who left, lecturers left, and set up the Westminster Seminary in Philadelphia. They wanted to take on, carry on where Princeton had been. But this man, this Congregational Minister who coined this phrase, he was one of the students in Princeton at that time, and he along with a number of others, classmates, they withdrew from Princeton and they started going to Westminster Seminary. Even though he had that heritage and those beliefs within himself, as time went past, a number of men, him and a number of others, by the mid-1940s, by 1947-48, they no longer believed in that approach of militantly contending for the faith and standing for the Lord outside the camp, practising separation, and they decided a new approach was needed. An alternative approach was needed. And they set out to make accommodation with the spirit of unbelief that was abroad in that day. Because there were these contentions, you see, that were continuing on, the liberal modernistic wing, and the wing that was wanting to hold to the truth of God, and there were these contentions, and these men who said, well, we're going to step into the middle ground, and we're going to try and bring them together. And therefore, when you think about the term neo-evangelicalism, and when you hear it used That's the connection you need to make, that this term and those who were originally given this name back in the late 1940s, that it was a reaction to fundamentalism, it was a reaction to standing up for the truth. They did not want to do that any longer. They wished to abandon that old spirit of contending that had been so characteristic the past. They had no stomach for a fight against departure from God's truth. They no longer wanted contention. In fact, they saw this militancy and the contending for the faith, they said that that was akin to having a judgmental One promoter of this new line of reasoning, a man called E.J. Carnell, and this certainly gives you a little insight into the type of beliefs that he's going to promote, but he wrote accusing fundamentalists of having shifted doctrine into the place that love should occupy. It was more important, according to him, to love everyone than to love the truth. This spirit of ecumenism was getting in among And instead of being divisive about what they're preaching and what they're contending for, no, we need to bring people together. We've heard it all before. We've heard those type of things. terms and that line of reasoning. We've been listening to it in Ulster for donkeys as well. That same line of argument, that instead of being divisive, we need to be bringing people together. Well, that was the idea back then as well. And as I say, they accused those that were contending for the faith and standing up for the old ways, that they had shifted doctrine into the place that love should occupy. Now how you would do that is hard to imagine, but anyway, that's what they accused. So, really, that's what lies at the back of neo-evangelicalism, a reaction to fundamentalism, a desire to accommodate, the old spirit of compromise, accommodation, let's accommodate these individuals with these other views. And we have a definition. of Neo-Evangelicalism from Neo-Evangelicals themselves. It comes in the foreword of a book written by another man, written by this man, Harald Ochten, he didn't make the book, he just wrote the foreword, but here's what he had to say, and I quote, Neo-Evangelicalism was born in 1948 in connection with the convocation address which I gave in the Civic Auditorium of Pasadena, which is in California. While reaffirming the theological views of fundamentalism, this address repudiated its ecclesiology, doctrine of the church, and its social theory. So there's the two things he says. Neo-evangelicalism repudiates the views on the church and the social theory of fundamentalism. The ringing call for a repudiation of separation and a summons to social involvement received a hearty response from many evangelicals." He went on to say, "...it differed from fundamentalism in its repudiation of separation and its determination to engage itself in the theological dialogue of the day. It had a new emphasis upon the application of the gospel to the sociological, political and economic areas of life." So they have their own words. We're not trying to put words in their mouth and accuse them of things that they haven't said. These are the things that they have said. They speak there about repudiating separation and wanting a new social theory. And we dealt a little bit with that last Thursday evening when we were talking about social gossip. That's what they've got in mind when they're talking here about a new social theory. So instead of fighting the good fight, Neo-Evangelicals want dialogue with modernists and liberals. They want to hold seminars for discussion with these apostates, where they're going to seek to explore the truth and come to a better understanding of the truth, instead of repeating it in them and denouncing them and rejecting them as wolves in sheep's clothing that the Scripture commands us to do. No, they're going to accommodate them. They want to meet with them. They don't want this old contend these for that characterised fundamentalism. No, we want to meet with them, we want to have discussions with them, we want to talk about these things. So instead of non-judgmentalism, they were going to, for sake, contend. And over the years, they would cooperate and have fellowship with modernists and liberals, hosting seminars as we've mentioned, hosting evangelistic crusades and missions, we're going to mention some of these things in a little moment or two, engaging in humanitarian ventures. They're all for accommodation, all for involving everybody. If somebody wants to buy into it, it doesn't matter what their theological views are, it doesn't matter what they believe in the great fundamentals of the faith, we're all going to welcome them in, and we're going to go along with it. That's the spirit that lies in neo-evangelicalism. And those fundamental doctrines of separation and contending for the faith are going to be reputed. And that's a little bit about the origin of neo-evangelicalism and its essential principles. And I want us to think a little bit more about that, as to where exactly this spirit of violence sits. And there are some things that I want specifically to draws your attention because they make specific emphasis on these points. First of all, neo-evangelicalism wanted to embrace modern scholarship. Neo-evangelicals wanted to be considered as being intellectual. They no longer wanted to contend against that which was viewed as modern thinking, modern learning, moving with the times. And that's what they charged fundamentalism with. Well, you're holding to the past. You're just living in the past and you're lacking intellectualism and you're lacking scholarship. It isn't scholarly to hold to these old things, those old views that you have about the Bible and so on. No, you don't want to hold to them. That's not being intellectual. That's not being learned. That's not what the modern colleges are following. And the seminaries, that's not what they're teaching at the present time. As I mentioned, Princeton Seminary up until 1929 was really a beacon, holding out against the spirit that was abroad even then in the Presbyterian Church in North America, but many other seminalists that had already gone the way of modernism and liberalism. And at that time, up until 1929, Princeton was holding its own and seeking to take a stand for the old ways of doing things, but even they were being despised. Because it wasn't looked at as the modern way of doing things. It wasn't looked upon as being modern with regard to learning and scholarship to hold to these old views. Harold O'Connor is quoted as saying, the New Evangelical believes that Christianity is intellectually defensible, that the Christian cannot be of scurrience. in scientific questions pertaining to creation, the age of man, the universality of the flood, and debatable biblical questions. The New Evangelical is willing to face the intellectual problems and meet them in the framework of modern learning. So here's a particular area where they were changing They wanted accommodation with modern scholarship. They wanted to be looked upon as being learned individuals, not holding to these old views that modern learning had rejected. And in particular, this modern scholarship is not going to be dogmatic about what they describe as debatable biblical questions, such as creation, the age of the earth, the universality of the flood, other moral issues. And that has been the spirit of neo-evangelicalism right down to present times. Just to give you an up-to-date example, you take Rick Warren, well-known, best-selling author of that book, The Purpose-Driven Life, a neo-evangelical, pastor of what's called a megachurch in California. I don't know how many thousands and thousands of people supposedly attend that church in Saddleback in California, but just this last week, when he was asked about the question of sodomy, he said it only might be sinful. It only might be sinful. It's not that it is sinful. The Bible says it's sinful. No, he said it just might be sinful. He was also questioned as to whether he believed that a sodomite could go to heaven, and he said they could. And in response to another question that he was asked as to whether or not a person is born a sodomite, he says, I think the jury is still out on that. It wouldn't bother me if there was a gay gene. That's a repudiation of the Bible. That's a repudiation of simple, historic, biblical teaching on the matter, on no matter of morals, but it just gives you a flavour of the spirit that there is among the so-called neo-evangelicals, where they want to distance themselves from those old-fashioned views that once were held, and they want to be modern, and they want to seem to be up with the times. They don't want to be holding views that are not current. And according to them, this new way of thinking means that it's no longer possible and no longer acceptable to say the Bible says it. Oh no, you can't take the Bible at face value. Do you not know that? Do you not know it's not scholarly to take the Bible at face value? It has to be interpreted. It has to be interpreted as a book of its time, as writers who were writing in their time. It's not scholarly just to say we believe the Bible. That's old-fashioned. That's silly. That's not being intellectual. That's being irrational and naive. We have moved on from such follies in the past. And they interpret the Bible according to modern theory. And we pointed out last Thursday what modern theory is. Higher criticism. Pulling the Bible apart. Not believing that it is the infallible, inerrant, inspiring Word of God. That it's just a book written by men. subject to their times, with all their prejudices that they had, and their lack of understanding that they had of their times, and certainly of the future. That's the spirit that is abroad in neo-evangelicalism, and there is this idea that we want to accommodate this modern theory, modern learning. We want to be scholarly. We want modern colleges to recognize us, and to look upon us as being theologians and writers of esteem. We want to be accepted by modern scholars. And where you find that spirit, that's the spirit of neo-evangelicalism. And we need to be on our guard against that. Modern learning is not going to accept the Bible. Learning has always rejected the Bible. Now that's not to say that the Bible can't be defended, and that you shouldn't be knowledgeable about the scriptures and be a student of the word of God. But modern learning is never going to accept the Bible. And it's like to ever will have ever accepted the Bible. But there's this spirit in neo-evangelical that says, well, we'll give up things. These things that people laugh at. The idea of the supernatural and the Bible and so on. The idea of morals of the Bible. We'll give all of that up. We'll move ground. We'll get closer to the intellectuals and the doctors and the professors and all the rest of it who think it's modern to believe these things. That's one of the things that neo-evangelicalism specifically wants to follow, modern learning. That brings us on to a second point about them as well. Neo-evangelicalism sides with modern science and theory. And as you can see, that'll throw out of what we've already been saying. If they want modern learning, if they want to be looked upon as being scholarly and accepted by the colleges and the seminaries of the day, well you know rightly what specifically they're going to have to give up. They're going to have to give up the fact that the opening chapters of Genesis are little. And many, most, if not all, of neo-evangelicals will repudiate creation. a literal six-day creation. The opening chapters of Genesis are to be taken literally. They're not going to believe that. To them, a person can be both an evangelical and an evolutionist. There are neo-evangelicals who will accept progressive creationism and theistic evolution, alternatives to taking the opening chapters of Genesis literally. The bottom line in those We're not going to go into them tonight, but just to say that progressive creationism and theistic evolution, they're just forms of ways of trying to explain away the opening chapters of Genesis and not take them literally. But the bottom line is, they're not going to take the opening chapters of Genesis literally. They're not going to take the six days of being literal, 24-hour days. They're not going to say that it was a creation week, that God actively created them six days. that man we've already mentioned, E. J. Carnal, this is what he had to say, since orthodoxy has given up the literal day theory, so the days in Genesis 1 aren't literal days, so since orthodoxy has given up the literal day theory, out of respect for geology, see there's the idea of this accepting of modern learning. modern views about the world, modern teaching from geologists who say, no, the Bible's not right, the Earth's not a matter of thousand years old, it's millions of years, billions of years old. Well, he says, since we've already given up the literal day theory out of respect for geology, it would forfeit no principle if it gave up the immediate creation theory out of respect for paleontology. Now, paleontology is the study of fossils. And what he's saying is there that In his view, it wouldn't be forfeiting any principle if we forget this idea that God actually created the different canes, to use the language of Genesis, that God actually created the different canes and put them in the world, as you read there in the opening chapters of Genesis. And he's accepting the argument of the evolutionists that man evolved, that the species evolved, that there weren't created kinds, different kinds, as the scriptures teach. No, that they came into existence over millions and billions of years and evolved to where they are now. And he says he does it out of respect for paleontology. Well, the fossils don't support evolution. Even to this very day, the fossils do not support evolution. If you ever look up, maybe some of you have the book, but I can't remember whether it's Answers in Genesis or the other creation organisation, but one of them has published a book and it's entitled The Fossils Still Say No. You see, that was Darwin's great argument, or at least one of Darwin's great arguments, that while he said and he acknowledged that there wasn't intermediate fossils found in his time, but he believed that as time went by and people did more study and more discoveries were made, he believed that there would be umpteen supporting examples of fossils that would prove evolution. And it's never happened. There's those things, and you'll hear them often times on the news, some new discovery of some particular fossil, and the announcement on the news is it proves that the world was evolved so many billions of years ago. But as time goes by, they never broadcast it to the same extent when they proved that that was a load of nonsense. And it proved, and it was found out, that it wasn't some intermediate fossil at all. It might have been some creature that is now extinct, but it is not some intermediate creature, some intermediate fossil that has the link between some other, two other created, or two other beings that has, that is marking out this long evolutionary path that all living beings are supposed to have followed. They never tell you that. But you can go and look it up yourself. and read the works, as I say, of that book that's published by one of those creation organisations, and it's entitled The Fossils Still Say No. There are no intermediate fossils, and yet this idea of modern learning, oh we want to be accepted by modern learning, and modern learning believes in evolution. And therefore there's this idea among people who claim to be followers of the Lord, that who profess to believe the Bible in other respects, who profess to believe in Jesus Christ, and yet they deny the opening chapters of Genesis that they're literal. That's neo-evangelicalism. Now you talk to any of those men involved in the creation organizations, that's what they're contending with in churches. Churches where there's ministers and And maybe office bearers and people in the pool who believe in evolution, who do not believe the Bible, and you take it literally in the opening chapters of Genesis. That is neo-evangelicalism. That's where it stems from. This idea that you can accommodate modern learning, and here's one particular area where you can accommodate them, where we must accommodate them, scientific theory, as to how the world came into existence. You see, there's this idea within them. that you've got to make the Gospel acceptable to society. You've got to get people to be willing to embrace it. You can't hold these old views that are just going to put people off. No, you must make it more acceptable. You must make it more accommodating. And therefore there's this attempt to take out the supernatural out of the Bible. We mentioned that last Lord's Day with liberals and modernists. They don't want to believe in a supernatural God that intervenes in the world. miracles as there's been down through Bible history and so on. But neo-evangelicals want to accommodate that spirit. And they don't want to be holding on to things that they think, that hinders people embracing the gospel. That hinders the world looking on and believing you're rational in preaching the gospel. They want to make it more acceptable to wider society. The Gospel will never, as we know, the Gospel will never be acceptable to society. Not the Gospel of this book. It'll never be acceptable to society. We're never to think that somehow ungodly men are going to get to the place where they're going to accommodate the teaching of the Scriptures. The natural heart does not receive the things of God, the Bible tells us. They're not going to believe these things. And the more evangelicals compromise neo-evangelicals compromise and shift ground to try and make it more accommodating. All they bring down is a scorn of the world. They have a gospel without power. I think I did say it last Thursday. If the first Adam is not a literal man, then you destroy the gospel. It's as simple as that. You destroy the whole gospel if Adam was not a literal man. Because the gospel is built... Let's go back over to 1 Corinthians 15. And just to draw your attention to these words, they're very important in this whole matter of the debate between evolution and what the Bible has to say about creation. And we're thinking here about Christians who believe in evolution. There's the secularists and the humanists, and they're going to reject the Bible everywhere. But we're thinking here about these Christians that will tell you, no, you've got to accommodate. Sure, geology has proved the Bible to be wrong in these matters. That's their argument. And they won't accept Genesis, the opening chapters, as being lip of wealth. If you look here at these verses, in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, we'll read from verse 45. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 45. It says, And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul, the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first, which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth earthly, the second man is the Lord from heaven." Now, it's drawing a contrast between Adam and Jesus Christ. Adam is the first man, there spoken of, or the first Adam, as he's spoken of in verse 45. The first man, he's called in verse 47. Let's let that stand for a moment as it is. But let's take Jesus Christ. In verse 45 he's called the last man, and in verse 47 he's called the second man. The second man is the Lord from heaven. Now we're not talking about every individual man born into the world here. Because there's many men born between Adam and the appearing of Jesus Christ, so why is Christ called the second man? Again, there's many individuals born into the world after Christ, so why would he be called the last Adam? But those terms stand up when we understand that what the Lord is here speaking about is Adam, the first Adam, as a representative man, and Jesus Christ as a representative man. Adam in the garden, representing all humanity. The Lord said, Adam, you live, you obey the precept that I gave you, do not eat of the tree of life, and you'll live forever. And we know what Adam did, he failed, and he brought sin upon all humanity. And as Paul argues in Romans 5, death is passed upon all men because all have sinned. Why? Because we were all in Adam. Adam was representing us. He was a representative man there. We were in his loins. Every human being descending from Adam is partaker of Adam's sin and the guilt of it. That's why we die. That's why we're born mortal creatures. But, there's a second Adam, or a second man. There's the last Adam. Another representative man who comes along. This time, a God man. Jesus Christ, the Lord from glory, or the Lord from heaven, as verse 47 points out. He's a representative man. He's going to do what the first Adam could not do. He's going to perfectly obey. He's going to keep the law. As he lives on earth under the law, we're told that he was made, he's going to keep the law, he's going to do what the first Adam could not do. He's going to represent his people. And we look upon Jesus Christ as the representative of his people. That's the whole work of redemption, that a representative man would come forward and he would do what we could not do. He would perfectly keep the law. and obtain eternal life for us. He would die and suffer the penalty of the broken law, eternal death. And then he would rise from the dead so that we might live. Christ is a representative man. But 1 Corinthians 15 and the argument that Paul is making here on the gospel stands upon the truth that the first Adam was literal. And so is the second Adam. It requires a literal Adam. The gospel requires a literal Adam. And if you start to undermine that aspect of the Gospel, and these Christians, so-called, that come along and say, no, we don't believe the opening chapters of Genesis are literal, we just believe it's a story to illustrate these things. And they deny that Adam is literal. You have undermined the Gospel. You've destroyed the Gospel, really. It's built upon the truth of two representative men. One failing, bringing sin into the world. succeeding, not failing, bringing redemption to sinners who were given to Christ as his people. And yet neo-evangelicals want to deny this and want to be acceptable. They want the gospel to be acceptable to wider society. And all the time they're just destroying it. They're just destroying the gospel. That's no gospel at all. If the first Adam did not come and that we are sinners. See, how do you construct the sinnership of any individual? How do you argue then that somebody is a sinner if we weren't an Adam? How do you argue the point that you're guilty of Adam's first sin? You see, that's where death comes from. Death comes from the guilt of Adam's first sin. The Lord told Adam, if you eat of the tree of good and knowledge, you'll die. Death comes because of the guilt of Adam's first sin. But if you destroy Adam as a literal person, then that never happened. We never were in Adam. We never committed the guilt. We never committed that sin with Adam. Adam never committed the sin, never made anybody in the lines of Adam committing that sin. So you've no sinnership then. You've destroyed the need of the Gospel. if you do not take Genesis literally, and the fact that there was a first man, a first represented man then. But neo-evangelicalism wants to side with modern scientific theory. And again, young people, where you come up against people who profess to follow Christ and they deny Genesis, the literal aspect of it, they do not accept creation, they do not accept literal days, 24-hour days in Genesis, they do not believe it was a literal week in Genesis, you can mark them down and say, this is neo-evangelicalism and it's compromise. It's compromise, and we're called upon to reject it. Let's go on a step further. Neo-evangelicalism engages in on-scriptural cooperation. We've mentioned, we've quoted some of their statements, where they wanted to repudiate separatism. This old idea that was current among the fundamentalists, that you separate it from apostasy and depart it from the faith, they repudiate it. That's the language that they use. They said, we repudiate this separatism. And they wanted to go on a new line. You see, they put more emphasis upon the unity of professing Christendom than the purity of it. They change the emphasis. And it's more important that we're all together. It doesn't matter if some man believes and disbelieves some particular fundamental in the faith. No, it's better that we're together. They put the emphasis on unity. And we know that's the spirit of ecumenism, always has been. Whereas the Bible puts the emphasis upon purity. The purity of the Gospel. That's where the Bible emphasises. It certainly argues for the unity of the people of God and the importance of keeping it, but the Bible puts the emphasis upon the purity of the gospel. That's what has to come first. When it's a choice between unity and purity, purity must win every time. Every time. The Church of Jesus Christ, a believer, is to stand for the purity of the gospel, and if that means they stand apart, so be it. That's what the Lord calls upon us to do. Two areas where this spirit of co-operation, unscriptural co-operation, was seen. Social activism. We dealt with it a little bit last Lord's Day, the social gospel. We're not going to go over that ground today. But modern day neo-evangelicals, if you listen or read anything about them, they'll talk today about redeeming the culture. That's a phrase, at least as a modern day phrase. And what they're trying to do is to put Christianity into society. And many of them, on the distinctives that we would have marked down as worthiness in the past, they see nothing wrong with these things. All the Christians should be involved in. Christians should go to the cinema, Christians should drink, there's nothing wrong with those things. And they talk about redeeming the culture. Now it's not changing men and women's hearts, as we pointed out last Lord's Day, that needs to be done. No, they want to Christianize that which is already there. Not separate from it, not change it. They want to Christianize it and make it acceptable for Christians to do these things and to be involved in these things. That's just plain worldliness. Let's call it for what it is. That's just plain worldliness. That's a lack of separation from the world, to go down that line. God calls his people to be a separated people from the world. We'll get on to ecclesiastical separation in a minute, but let's just think about separation from the Lord. God calls upon his people to be a separated people from the world. We're to stand apart from the world. We're the Lord's people. We're not of the world that I said. We might be in the world. We have to live in the world, function in the world, work in the world, live in the world. But we're not of the world. We're not of his spirit. And that means we're going to be different, or at least we ought to be different. We must separate from the world. And young people, let me emphasise that to you, you must live, if you want to be the Lord, if you want to obey the word of God, you must live a life of separation from the word. You can't run with the world and with Christ. It just does not work. And yet there are those today who try to accommodate that and they'll come along and they'll say, it's nothing wrong doing these things. It's nothing wrong for young people to do these things. That's worldliness. And that's the death to any church and to any Christian if they go down that line. not lead them on with God, they'll just lead them away from the Lord. Social activism, redeeming the culture. They want to cooperate with anybody that wants to help them and be engaged in evangelism, even to the extent of aligning themselves with groups that are obvious that they disagree with the Bible and reject the Word of God. I suppose the most obvious example has been Billy Green. Can you think of what happened to Billy Green? A man who started out preaching the truth, of that there is no doubt. A man who started out with a desire to hold fast to the old ways. He's on record as writing to Bob Jones Senior, pleading with him that if he ever stepped out of life, that Dr. Bob Jones Senior would tell him that he's departed from the ways and he's forsaken the old paths. And that's the very thing Billy Green did. As time went by, he changed and he started to involve others who were deniers of fundamentals of the faith, cooperate with them, have them on his platform, wherever he went to hold great conventions or crusades or whatever you want to call them, he would involve these people. Then he took another step where he started to involve Romanists, priests. And now, well I suppose he's not doing much preaching at the minute for he's an old man, but up until the end, the last year of his crusades, he had Roman Catholics involved. And he's on record as saying that he would send them back to the chapel, send them back to the Church of Rome if they came and made a profession in any of his crusades, he'd send them back to Rome. He wouldn't tell them to separate and leave Rome, tell them to get out, there's no gospel preached there. It's dishonouring to Christ and his sacrifice. Oh, he sends them back. And again, oh, it's many years ago now, I remember being interviewed on British television and he was asked, is there fire in hell? And they said, no, there's no literal fire in hell. That wouldn't make the gospel acceptable, to preach literal fire in hell. But there's a man who manifests just the whole spirit of neo-evangelicalism. This idea that he'll cooperate with anybody that comes along. Well, that's not the Bible's way. The Bible says separation comes first. The purity of the gospel comes first. You cooperate with those who maintain the purity of the gospel and those who reject some of these fundamentals. I know there's things, minor things that we can agree to disagree on. On the fundamentals of the faith, if there's people come along and they disagree and deny some of these fundamentals of the faith, we have to say, we're having no fellowship with you. That's what the Lord commands in His Word. But this neo-evangelical approach is, we don't cooperate with anybody. And we see it, we see it all around. The Alpha Course is an example of it, a modern day example of it. Get everybody involved in it. Get everybody involved. It doesn't matter what their views are, just get them involved in it. And there's a whole lot of other examples as well. But that's the idea of neo-evangelicalism. And it has certainly developed and mushroomed and increased and infected many good evangelical churches. were once evangelical but now there's this new spirit coming in among them and these things are being accommodated. But it's neo-evangelicalism and we need to be able to recognise it. And as I say, this is really the reasoning why I preach to them, particularly for you young people. You've got to be able to recognise this. The Lord expects you to discern these things. The Lord doesn't expect you somehow to park your brain outside the church door just to be blunt about it. The Lord doesn't expect that with any Christian. You're not to do things without thinking. The Lord requires the Christian to discern. And that means you have to observe what is going on. That means you have to measure them up against what the Word of God says, and then you have to decide, what am I doing? Is this the right thing to be involved in? Is this the right thing to believe? Is this the right thing to practice in my life? Does this agree with the Bible? And sometimes, I'm not saying that it happens, I'm not saying we are, but are young people blind, I'm just saying generally there can be that spirit where people just drift along and they never engage their brains to think, is this something I should be doing or not? Is this something I should be engaged in or not? Now you're, to talk to the young people, you're intelligent enough. And the older you get, the Lord requires you to discern. You might need help, you might have to go and ask somebody, ask your parents or ask office bearers in the church or myself. You might have to come and say, well what about something? But do not just drift along, do not just go along with something and never think, never stop and think, is this the thing to do? Is this the thing the Bible warns me to do? The Lord requires every Christian to be a discerning individual. Let's just take one example. I do personally believe this is very important. 1 John 4 verse 1. And I think this is even more significant when it comes from the Apostle of Love, as we know John is often called. John was no meaty-mouthed echinus that was involved with everybody and running after everybody. 1 John chapter 4 and verse 1, Beloved, believe not every spirit. Don't believe everybody that comes along claiming to be a follower of Christ. No! What does he say? Try the spirits. Weigh them up. When somebody comes along claiming to be of the Lord, preaching the truth of God, supposedly following the Bible, just don't believe them. Don't take them at face value. No, because there's deceit in the world. The devil is busy in the world. John says, try them. And we're given the reason there, because many false prophets are going out into the world. You've got to try them. You've got to examine them in Christ. And I say that particularly to you young people. Grow up in life with that attitude, where you're going to try this person. Where people come along proposing to be followers of the Lord, or preaching something, and you say, well is that in the Bible? Is that something that I ought to be believing and accepting? Or am I to repudiate that and separate from it? How is this? And that's true for us all. And I suppose that's what brought many of you into the Free Church in the first place. You tried the Spirits, you measured them up and you realised, this is not right and it's time to get out. And that's why you're here tonight, and some of you have been in the Free Church for longer years than I have, but I'm born, and you've tried the Spirits, but young people, try the Spirits. And when these things come along, be able to discern, be able to measure them up. Be aware, because as 1 John 4 emphasizes, there's false prophets in the world, and there's false prophets in neo-evangelicalism. Now there might be people who are genuinely saved in it, I don't deny that, but there are false prophets in it. There are men who are not saved. If we look there at Jude, where Jude tells us here about earnestly contending for the faith, why is this necessary? Verse 4, there are certain men trapped in unawares who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men, turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness and denying the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. There's men and they're not saved at all. That can happen in any organization, any church that professes to follow the Lord. It happened among the apostolic band, twelve men, one of them was an apostate, Judas Iscariot. But in these outfits that come along professing some new thing, let's remember, more than likely there's ungodly men creeping in unawares. The gospel is not a gospel of compromise. The gospel is to be preached fearlessly and forthrightly. As it tells us there in Jude verse 3, we're to earnestly contend for the faith. We're to preach the gospel expoundedly, evangelistically, but we've got also to defend the gospel. Because you see, Christian, if we don't defend the gospel, there'll come a day when we've no gospel to preach. The gospel will be withered away and there's nothing left of it, just bland platitudes. If we want a gospel to preach that saves sinners, saves our offspring, our children or our grandchildren, we've got to defend the gospel, defend its purity. So there's a gospel to preach to our rising generation, a gospel that does save and does change men and women. Neo-evangelicalism, it's marked by compromise, it was born out of compromise. and has continued in the same vein to this very day. May the Lord bless those things to our hearts tonight.