PRACTICE, Faithfulness in,
Mark Green,
The question that is before us in this generation, brethren, is this: are we going to be Primitive Baptists, or are we not? Surely the name “Primitive” Baptist means something. Surely it must stand for some sort of beliefs and practices that are distinct from other religions.
If it does, then it is those distinctives which define the Primitive Baptist people. Those distinctives are either proper, or they are not. We need to decide if they are proper, and if they are, to hold to them with all our might; if they are not proper, then we need to drop them and cease being a separate people.
A man could easily write a fairly complete history of the church of God in America by touching on nothing but how she dealt with the various deviations in practice and order that have afflicted her. It seems that in every generation, somewhere in the bounds of the United States, someone has tried to modernize the church by making her resemble the popular religions which we do not fellowship.
So consistent have been the attacks of Satan upon the practices of the church that we seemingly never have had respite from them, but they have been a unceasing barrage from one hand or the other.
After long and careful consideration of the subject, I have become strongly convinced that we need to keep our attention focused in the coming days upon the purity of the practice of the church. I fear that we have become so fixated on certain doctrinal problems that we have neglected to check what will in the final analysis prove to have been the more destructive threat – errors in practice.
These are not easy times. I have some recollection of matters concerning the church going back almost a half-century, and I can never recall things being as unstable within her borders as they are today. May we pray that God will give us the wisdom to know how to be bold, and when to show restraint. It will take more wisdom than I currently feel to have. – Editor