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"...The church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth."
I Timothy 3:15
Why I Cannot Join the Moral Majority
Dr. Charles E. Mainous
Available in Tract Form. Contact the Editor.
INTRODUCTION
I wish I had three hours to preach this sermon today, but I don't have that long a time so I will do the best I can in the allotted time that I have. For about two years the Lord has laid this message on my heart, so it has been "on the burners" for quite a while, and it is kind of hot! Many times God woke me up at night and laid these verses upon my heart for our preacher brethren in our churches across the land. This has been a great burden upon my heart because there are some things that are going on that are wrong and I feel obligated not to let them go unchallenged;
I feel obligated to share the Word of God and to preach the truth of God's Word so that everybody will know what God says. It is similar to the time a year or so ago when we had a preacher come to our church with a message on his heart. He said he was going across the world to preach that message, and he did! He took a year's leave of absence from his church, and his home, and he went everywhere across the United States and preached the message that God laid on his heart.
Well, I may feel like I ought to do this! It is such an important message. People have been brainwashed and deceived by this thing, and I want to share with you what God says about it. I am not setting myself up as some big shot, or one that is greater, or bigger and mightier than anybody else, or any other preacher, but I want to tell you what God has said through His Word and how He challenged my heart. I want you to see what the Bible says about these issues.
I have been fellowshipping with the Baptist Bible Fellowship for some 17 years and I don't believe that I have ever heard a Baptist Bible Fellowship preacher preach on the subject of separation. They simply don't preach it. They ignore much of the Bible when it comes down to separation, and this has bothered me greatly.
I told God when He called me to preach that I was going to preach what He said for me to preach, whether my wife liked it or not, whether my kids liked it or not, whether my family liked it or not, whether the church liked it or not, or whether my preacher friends liked it or not; no matter who liked it or not. God said to preach it, and I am obligated to obey God, not man. I must do that. I have preached many things that folks didn't like.
One thing I know, God liked it because He told me to do it. In Ezekiel 3:11, God said to Ezekiel, "And, go, get thee to them of the captivity, unto the children of thy people, and speak unto them, and tell them, Thus saith the Lord God: whether they will hear or whether they will forbear." It wasn't a pretty picture for Ezekiel, Jeremiah, or Isaiah and the prophets to go in to God's people and say, "You've sinned. You've done wrong. Now let's straighten up." He told Isaiah in 58:1, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins."
You say, "I have joined up with this crowd." Well, if you have joined up with them you had better "unjoin." The Bible says in II Timothy 4:2, "Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine."
There are many things going on today among so called "fundamental preachers" that are totally contrary to the Word of God and totally contrary to the true biblical interpretation of Scripture that simply cannot go unchallenged. II Corinthians 4:2 says, "But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the Word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God."
My friends, if we don't get back to the Word of God, the preaching of God's Word and believing this Old Book, we are sunk as a church, as a preacher's fellowship or as a Christian organization in this country. We have to get back to this Old Book. We have to get back to the old ways, the old paths, and the "old time religion" that God called us to, if you please.
II Corinthians 3:12 says, "Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech." I don't want anyone to take my message and make it mean something that I and the Lord didn't mean for it to mean, so I want to use plainness of speech. Paul, when he wrote the Book of I and H Corinthians to the Church at Corinth, said, "I am going to use plainness of speech." They knew exactly what he was saying. I think it is a sin for preachers to get up and preach in circles so nobody knows what they are talking about. I want to be just like Paul; I just want to use plainness of speech so that everybody will know exactly what I am talking about. That is how I am going to talk in my sermon "Why I Cannot Join the Moral Majority."
I love every one of the preachers in the Moral Majority. I think that most of them are good, sound men who love the Lord. Here in the state of Ohio we have Tom Trammel, Joe Lewis, Marty Lewis, George Crawford, Gene Milliano, Bill Temple, Levi Whisner, and many others who are connected, or were connected, with the Moral Majority. Nationally, there are figures that you recognize with Moral Majority, such as, Jerry Falwell, etc. These men are preaching the gospel and getting folks saved, and like Paul, I rejoice in every soul that comes to Christ through these men. I believe that they preach the gospel and souls are saved, just like when Billy Graham preaches and souls are saved. When he preaches the gospel and somebody gets saved, we ought to rejoice! Amen?
Dear friends, I want to tell you something. For 15 to 18 years now, I have been fellowshipping with these men and others who have laughed at me because I have taken a stand for God on the very same things they take a stand for today, but 15 to 18 years ago they laughed at me because I took a stand on Communism, the devil's crowd, the pornography crowd, and I put advertisements in the newspapers saying we were not going to go along with this. Because I won't join up with their crowd, they are doing the same thing. They are still laughing. Something has changed somewhere. My philosophy has not changed. I am the same as I used to be. The Bible says that "Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever." I don't believe that Christians ought to change just because a crowd changes. I believe we ought to be consistent for God. How many say "Amen?"
Let me share with you some of these things as I go through them as briefly as I possibly can. Seventeen years ago I helped form an anti-pornography rally here, and our church was the only church in the city of Columbus, by the way, that had anything to do with it. I called some of these other churches that claim to be Fundamental and I asked them to come and help us, but they laughed at me and said "No, we won't do that, we are not going to be involved in `knit-picking' and calling out any particular sins. We are just going to preach the Gospel." So, we went to the State Capitol and I stood up there on a cold day with a microphone and preached across the Capitol lawn to hundreds of folks that were gathered there. I took 30 minutes to tell them what the Bible says is wrong with pornography and the wicked, evil devices that the devil is throwing at us today. That was some years ago.
On several occasions we have taken busses of people to march against the smut-peddlers, and we have carried signs and placards against the bookstores and the movie houses of ill repute in the city of Columbus, Ohio. When the filthy play "Hair" came to the movie house on State Street, we loaded up our folks in busses and took them down there with placards we had made saying "It is wrong. It is sinful. It is evil." We also took our Bibles and gospel tracts and told folks, "If you go in there to watch that filthy thing, it will damn your soul."
When "Superstar" came to town, on a Sunday afternoon, we had printed up 4,000 gospel tracts ahead of time condemning it. Instead of going home for dinner, we took busses of our folks to the Vet's Memorial Auditorium to march up and down Broad Street, passing out those tracts about "Superstar." Some folks would go in, read the tract, come back out and say, "Thank you for telling us the truth about this wicked play." Thank God for those that stand.
I have spoken in a number of churches and for different organizations in the city of Columbus during the last 15 years (Parents Without Partners, the John Birch Society, some of the Undercover FBI Programs, and many others), condemning the wickedness of our nation, our cities, and our country.
I have even been run out of churches. I remember one church I preached in, I got half way through my sermon and some old Jezebel got up and said, "You are not going to preach anymore like that. I am the head of this meeting" and they all rose up and ran us out! Can you imagine that? After they had asked us to come in and preach, they ran us out, but not before God had spoken to some hearts. Two or three folks came up and said "Preacher, I'm so glad you came. I know this organization is wicked. I'm leaving it tonight and not coming back." I said "Praise God!" We also had a chance to witness and pass out tracts.
I have had the opportunity to debate a homo-sexual and a trans-sexual on the TV and radio in Columbus. I have opposed those people. Some members of our church got mad and left and went over to another Baptist Bible Fellowship Church because I spoke against the homo-sexual and lesbian crowd, and the church they went to doesn't believe anything - all because I took a stand for God Almighty and the Word of God.
I printed up 70,000 pamphlets for the Mayor of the city of Cleveland against abortion when he was running for office a few years ago.
In 1974 I ran for the office of the State Board of Education, here in the State of Ohio, to stand against Secular Humanism in our public schools, and to give our Christian Schools some liberty and freedom to preach and teach the Word of God.
On several occasions down through the years, I have had to leave a Wednesday night prayer meeting to go to the State House when they have had hearings. Have you ever noticed that they always have them on Wednesday night when they know that good, sound Bible preaching folks are in the house of God? We have gone down there on many occasions to stand against the ERA and the devil's crowd, and we have gotten up and spoken our voice. God help us to stand on these issues.
Since 1972, I have had the privilege, by God's grace, to stand and give the Word of God out against Secular Humanism in the public schools and colleges. I have gone on a regular basis to Ohio State University campus, as a guest lecturing professor, to take the Word of God and to say "Here is what the Bible says about human sexuality."
I start out with "Do you know what the definition of adultery is?" I take the entire class for two hours and preach the Word of God, telling them that the ERA is wrong, homosexuals are wrong, and the devil's crowd is wrong. We have condemned free love, the new morality, and all the rest of it. We have also taken a stand against the Communists in our nation. Through the preaching of God's Word we have seen souls saved at the University.
A few years ago we spent $250.00 to buy a film on the tricks of the devil in Communism and showed it to our churches across Columbus and around the state of Ohio. We spent much money trying to withstand the evil in our day in the city of Columbus.
If time would permit me, I could tell a lot more. It would be just like the Apostle Paul in II Corinthians 6:3-10:
"Giving no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed: But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, in much patience, in afflictions, in necessities, in distresses, in stripes, in imprisonments, in tumults, in labours, in watchings, in fastings; by pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned. By the word of truth, by the power of God, by the armour of righteousness on the right hand and on the left. By honour and dishonour, by evil report and good report: as deceivers, and yet true; as unknown, and yet well known; as dying, and, behold, we live; as chastened, and not killed; as sorrowful, yet a1way rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing and yet possessing all things."
Let me say that I am against everything that the Moral Majority is against. I am for everything the Moral Majority is for, but I cannot join the Moral Majority, "because it is unscriptural."
I. MORAL MAJORITY MAGAZINE
I want to share with you a pamphlet by Moral Majority. Most of you have probably gotten a copy of it. "What is the Moral Majority?" It says, "The answer is simple. Moral Majority, Inc. is made up of millions of Americans, including 72,000 ministers, priests and rabbis, who are deeply concerned about the moral decline of our nation, and who are sick and tired of the way many moral and secular humanists and other liberals are destroying the traditional family and moral values on which our nation was built." Now, there is nothing wrong in taking a stand against those wicked devices.
Here is the Moral Majority Report, Volume 2, No. 3, dated March 16, 1981. On page 22 and 23 is a full double page spread of "What is the Moral Majority?" Besides what I have already read, I want to read this to you, and may I quote, "We are Catholics." Now get that, "We are Catholics. We are Jews. We are Protestants." Now hold on to your hats! "We are Mormons." Lastly, "We are Fundamentalists. Blacks and whites - fanners, house wives, businessmen. We are Americans from all walks of life, "united" by one central concern - to serve as a special interest group providing a voice for a return to moral sanity in these United States of America."
Now you say, "Preacher, that sounds pretty good. What's so wrong with that?" There is a whole lot wrong with that. 1. I am not a Catholic. 2. I am not a "Moron," I mean a Mormon. 3. I am not a Jew. I happen to be a Fundamentalist, and how, in the world, somebody can hook up a fundamental, Bible-believing Christian in the camp of the Catholics, the Jews and the "Morons," I will never know. It is an unscriptural and unholy alliance. Let me explain it.
II. UNITED — WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
They say we are united. If you will look up the word "united" in Webster's Dictionary, you will understand that the word means "to combine; to coalesce; to join; to group together for a common cause." Now God's Word says plainly in II Corinthians 6:14, "Be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers." How clear can it be? God's Word was so important to those early Christians in Corinth and so clear through the Apostle Paul that a child of God ought never to be yoked up and united with any lost person. It makes no difference who it is. The word “unequal” means, "Not the same; uneven; erratic; not competent."
If you look in the Greek, as I am sure that some preachers will want to, you will find that it is even stronger in the Greek. Paul says that we are restrained from joining up with anyone except true believers in Jesus Christ. The word "unbeliever" means anyone who has never been saved or born-again by the Spirit of God. An unbeliever is not one that is not a member of our church, or it is not one that is not a member of another church. It is a person who has never opened their heart and received Jesus to be their Lord and Saviour. That is an unbeliever.
III. CATHOLICS
It is very clear in Biblical terminology that Catholics are not born-again. I don't care what these people say. It is impossible for a Catholic to be saved and born-again, or they won't stay a Catholic very long, I don't believe. We just baptized one. Matter of fact, yesterday we had a Roman Catholic saved simply because in I Timothy 2:5 the Bible says "For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus." When Catholics teach that you have to go through Mary, there is no way under Heaven they can be saved. Mary was never given to save anybody. They pray to Mary, but Mary cannot answer any prayers. Mary has no deity. Mary has no salvation in her. Only Jesus can save. When a Catholic believes that they have to go through Mary to get to heaven, they are unbelievers.
IV. JEWS
Secondly, Jews aren't believers. They are still looking for the Messiah to come, even though Jesus came almost 2,000 years ago and bled, died, and rose again. Jesus has already come to pay the penalty of our sins on the Cross of Calvary and the Jews are still looking for Him. They are not saved.
V. MORMONS
The Mormons are not born-again Christians. They are a false cult. The director of Moral Majority has had board members from the "Freeman Institute," which is Mormon throughout, to speak in his church and he has been there to promote their program. The fact is, the entire board is Mormon, and the Mormons do not believe in the Word of God. They believe that baptism and good works can provide salvation. Mormons aren't saved! The Bible says, "For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." It is by grace, not works. Works can't save any man.
VI. PROTESTANTS
It says Protestants. Protestants, what does that mean? That means Lutheran, Methodist, Baptist, Church of Christ, Episcopalian, Eastern Orthodox, Friends, Brethrens, Presbyterians, Reforms. You name it. Today they say there are over 1,000 different denominations in the United States. They are called Protestants. It used to be years ago they protested something, but they don't protest anything today. That is where the word "Protestant" comes from. They protested the Catholic Church. They are not saved when they generally believe that in order for them to get to Heaven, it is not necessary, that they believe in the virgin-birth of Jesus.
Most Protestants, and I came out of a Protestant Church (the Methodist Church), don't believe that the blood had to be shed on the Cross of Calvary. They took the word "blood" out of all their hymn books. They said, "You have got a bloody religion and we don't want to believe in that bloody religion." The Bible says, "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin." Without the blood of Jesus Christ there is no salvation. The Protestants are members of the National Council of Churches and members of the World Council of Churches. When you study the Scriptures, in the book of Revelation especially, you will find that the Anti-Christ is going to come out of that group. (Real Independent Fundamental Baptists are not Protestants and have no part in this. Editor)
VII. FUNDAMENTALISTS
How can a Fundamentalist be a part of such a conglomeration? I will never know. They say, "Now preacher, you are all worked up over nothing." They say the Moral Majority is not a religious organization. Instead, it is a secular and political organization and they can join it if they want to. Now hang on to your hats folks, because here is where it gets rough! I put a challenge to every preacher, or every person that sits in the pew, to show me in your Bible where God makes a distinction to the child of God between a religious organization and a political organization. I challenge you to prove it to me. Come on, show me.
God said to the Christians, "be ye not unequally yoked together with unbelievers," politically, religiously, or any other way. There is no other plan of God. I know it is not what you want to hear. That is why God said "Preacher, cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their sin." Folks, I am going to tell you something. When you join up with an unholy union, even if it is marriage, it is a sin.
We teach our boys and girls not to go out and marry a lost person. That is an unholy union. They are united together as one common cause. We tell them it is wrong to do that, and then we go and join up with the Catholics, the Jews, the Mormons, and the Protestants for all of their programs. No wonder our kids are going to the dogs; because of inconsistency. If we are going to be right today, let's be right tomorrow. God help us. Romans 3:8 says, "And not rather, (as we be slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say,) let us do evil, that good may come? whose damnation is just." It has been said that it is never right to do wrong, in order to get a chance to do right.
Now, where in the Bible does God put a difference to the child of God in these organizations? II Corinthians 6:14 says plainly any union, any organization. Be ye not unequally yoked together with them. Do you let unbelievers into your church? "Absurd," you say, "they have got to be saved before they can join the church. They have got to be baptized before they can join the church." Naturally that is joining the church. That is a scriptural mandate from God. But where does it say it is all right to join a political organization or a political party just because it is politics with the lost, the unbelievers, and the devil's crowd? There is not one iota of thought in God's Word approving of this. It is the same thing.
Hang on to your hats again, Christians. It is a sin for you to join a union. I don't care what kind of a union it is. I always get some folks mad when I say that, but if it is wrong for me to join up with the Moral Majority because there are lost people in it; if it is wrong for me to join up with the Masons, the Eastern Star and all the other crowd; then it is wrong for you to join a union with lost people in it. Now, if we had a union and every one of the people were saved, go ahead and join up. It is all right because you are with brothers and sisters. When there are lost people in it, you ought not to have any part of it. That is a command of God to individuals.
Ephesians 5:11 says, "And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them." Tell me what the unfruitful works of darkness are: the Mormons, the Jehovah Witnesses, the Seventh Day Adventists, the Catholics, the Jews, the Protestants, etc. How can you reprove, and obey God in this one area? I know that most preachers in the B.B.F., and most Christians, disapprove of the Roman Catholics. They disapprove of the Mormons. How can you disapprove of them on one hand and join in with them on the other hand? It is wrong! It is wrong! It is wrong!
WHAT IS THE HISTORICAL POSITION OF FUNDAMENTALISTS?
The historical position of the true Fundamentalist, the true Bible-believing Christian, has always been separated from the evil crowd. You go back in Bible history to the book of Genesis, and you will find out that one reason God destroyed His people was because they went out as a mixed multitude when they left Egypt (Ex. 12:38). You go ahead and mix with them and God is going to destroy the Church; God is going to destroy the wicked organization.
It is an unholy, unscriptural union in the eyes of God. Any person that is a member of the true church and a born-again Christian, you know what the true church is? Most people believe that it is a local, New Testament assembly; that is the church. But the definition of the word "ekklesia" (church) means "a called-out of this world assembly for Jesus Christ." If you are called out of this world, how do you get called out of one evil world into another evil world? I don't understand that. It is confusion to the Christian, to the child of God. God makes it clear we ought not join any organization unless it is a Christian organization.
James 4:4 says, "Ye adulterers and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God." I believe that joining up in this group is the enemy of God. Galatians 4:16 says, "Am I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?" Many of you won't like that. Many of you may have sent money to the Moral Majority. God help you. It is unholy! It is unscriptural! It is unbiblical!
Yes, they do good deeds. They do good things. You say, "Well, why can't I support them?" It is wrong to do so. If you want to be against the homo-sexuals, then be against them, and I think you ought to. If you want to be against the devil's crowd over here, then be against them, and I think you ought to. But don't join up just because the devil's crowd says "I want you to come and join with me so we can have a bigger organization." That is wrong. That is the problem today.
Turn with me to the book of Philippians, - Philippians 3:17-21 says, "Brethren, be followers together of me, and mark them which walk so as ye have us for an ensample. (For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ: whose end is destruction, whose God is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things.) For our conversation is in Heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself "
II Corinthians 6:17-18 tells us what to do about it. It says, "Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty." Look at Revelation, chapter 18, please. Here God is unveiling His story concerning the end time scene, concerning the tribulation time and the coming again of the Messiah to the earth. He is saying that the Anti-Christ, the False Prophet and the Devil himself are going to come down, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.
He is saying to the unholy union crowd in Revelation 18:4, "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her, my people." The "her" goes back to chapter 17, "MYSTERY BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH" (verse 5). In case you don't know, you can turn in the Roman Catholic Bible to this Scripture and the footnote says, "Mystery Babylon is the Catholic Church." God says, "Come out of her my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues." God help us today to stand on the Word of God.
It is not pleasant, my friends, to be as a prophet and to proclaim the Acceptable Year of God, to cry aloud and spare not, and lift up the voice like a trumpet. It is not easy, but it is necessary. God help us to stand on His Precious Word, and come out of her "The Moral Majority." Shall we pray.