It was officially known as Scopes v. State, but history remembers it as The Scopes Monkey Trial. For two weeks in the summer of 1925, in a crowded courtroom in little Dayton, Tennessee, religion squared off against science, and two sides struggled for the right to influence the minds of America’s youth. In reality the entire situation was one that had been setup by factions that were anti-Bible and anti-God. John Scopes was merely a pawn in their perverted agenda.
The event happened almost 90 years ago, in the great state of Tennessee, John Scopes, a school teacher was arrested and put on trial. His crime? He was teaching Darwin’s theory of evolution (a theory of satanic origin) in public school classrooms. At that time the biblical account of creation was taught in classrooms as fact as to the origin of all living things.
Today, over 80 years later, the tides of fickle society have so changed, that that which was once called wrong is now widely accepted as right, and vice versa. Now a teacher can be arrested and put on trial for teaching creationism in a public school classroom!
Is the same thing happening in the church today concerning standards of holiness? Is what was once accepted without question by the church now being doubted and labeled as “outdated?” There are apparently factions that are so carnal and worldly minded that they seize every opportunity to intimidate any and all proponents of Biblical holiness.
Indeed, there have been so many arguments for or against standards in this day, and yet the issue still seems to be unresolved in minds of some. Why? The biggest argument against the standards is that they are man-made, extra-biblical requirements. Claims have been made that the standards are the leading cause of keeping new people from coming in to the Apostolic church because they are such a turn-off. There are claims that they keep the church from being able to relate to the lost at their level because we are perceived as too stringent, too different, too “holier-than-thou.”
Allegations have also been made that the standards are the leading cause of people, especially young people, leaving the Apostolic ranks. Another charge that has been brought against the standards is that they cause people to trust in their own righteousness, and not in the life-changing power of the Holy Ghost.
Those that have leveled these charges against standards claim that true holiness minded men are unable to produce one shred of biblical evidence in favor of the standards. They claim that they are able to produce substantial biblical and historical evidence against the practices of dress and appearance that the Apostolic church as a whole adheres to. They claim that when the “unenlightened” are backed into a corner they are unable to produce satisfactory biblical proof for “standards”.
These intimidating factions claim that modern church leadership does not have the power and authority vested in them to impose any extra-biblical rules or regulations on the saints. They claim the only authority we should listen to is the verbatim written Word of God–meaning that the standard must be in actual print–never mind the principles of holiness. Anything else would be cultic, basically it comes down to this; “if you can’t show it to me in the bible, and the Holy Ghost doesn’t convict me of it, I ain’t doin’ it!”
And here, sirs, we have the rub, because I submit to you that it is not the standards themselves that are on trial today, but rather the power and authority that is vested in modern-day church leadership.
To say that the standards are keeping people out of the church, and causing others to leave the church is a very broad, generalized statement. It is also a statement that is not in and of itself entirely true. If the leadership of the church were to remove every “extra-biblical, man-made” thing from the church which has supposedly either kept people out or caused people to leave, things would quickly become chaotic. What if one removed the stripes from parking lots, or the designated handicapped spots, or the directional arrows, and just let people park “as the Spirit led them?” What if one removed the signs from restroom doors indicating which one was for men and which one was for women, and just let people go the bathroom “as the Spirit led them?” Why is there not a problem with going to a secular workplace that is full of “extra-biblical, man-made” rules and regulations set by ungodly men and women, and yet rules and regulations in the church can’t be tolerated? Why can uniforms be worn and dress codes be adhered to in the workplace, but when it comes to God-ordained leadership telling a person how a Christian should dress, that’s just plain cultic and dictatorial and tyrannical! Is it because, as the old expression goes, “we’ll do for gold what we won’t do for God?”
In a little over eighty years from the famous Scopes Monkey Trial secular society has witnessed a overwhelming deluge that has swept millions into the ditch of apostasy wherein they have drowned. Let us beware that the true Church of Jesus Christ does not become overtaken with a flood of worldliness that is even now sweeping through the corridors and pulpits of more than one apostolic assembly! Do not allow the end time spirit of compromise to make a monkey out of you!
-jlg-