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Dear BPCWAians, Over the last 2 weeks, we looked at God’s purposes for a church. Why has He established BPCWA here? We saw that amongst the reasons that He has done so was for the salvation of souls, and for the edification of His children. Today, we will look at a 3rd reason for establishing BPCWA as God’s visible witness locally here.

(3) The defence of “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints”(Jude3). Edification of saints also often involves defence. Saints can only be edified by God’s Truth. That is why Satan will always attack the Truth. Hence, God’s Truth must be defended whenever and wherever such an attack occurs. We are in a spiritual warfare, and whatever advances the true church will be angrily watched by the enemies of the Church. The very fact that the Bible speaks of a Christian Armour (Eph 6:11-18) tells us that fighting and defence is a necessary and expected responsibility of the saints in His Church. The armour has both offensive and defensive components. Throughout history, the devil is always seeking to undermine God’s witness by introducing heresies and errors into the church. When he succeeds to do that in a church, the building up of the saints at that church would be adversely affected. The only way that a church can defend her doctrines and her teaching is not by tradition, but by faithfully and courageously proclaiming “thus saith the Lord” without apology or pleasing man. Without the solid foundation of the Word of God, the church loses her defence. It becomes “my opinion” against “your opinion”. So, BPCWA has a twofold defence responsibility: (a) to defend the true Gospel, and (b) to uphold and defend the Word of God. In defending the true Gospel, we must be against and expose those who preach “another gospel” (Gal 1:6) that does not save. Famous Megachurches today preach “another gospel” of “Hyper-grace”. They may believe in unconditional election and that God’s grace is undeserved. But their gospel teaches that God’s grace frees believers from any requirement to obey God since we have been forgiven of past, present, and future sins. They scorn obedience to God’s law as Pharisaical legalism. Such a false gospel hardly (if ever) preaches on discipleship, in taking up the cross to follow Christ. It de-emphasizes repentance from sin and worldliness. This unbiblical hyper-grace is “turning the grace of our God into lasciviousness” (Jude 1:4). BPCWA must defend itself against such teachings creeping into our pulpits, Bible Studies, Fellowships, and reading material. Every member must help to watch against such false gospels and erroneous practices from coming in. This includes the need for all to be watchful against the dangers and gradual inroads of Contemporary Christian Music.

To promote and defend God’s Truth, BPCWA inevitably has to take sides when any battle arises on any aspect of Truth. In order to do this, the church must practice Biblical Separation. This is the distinctive of any sound church. Biblical Separation is not “a BP thing”. . It is a Biblical distinctive. Any church that professes to uphold God’s Truth must practice what is professed in God’s doctrines. We must lock arms in the fight against anyone that seeks to bring in doctrines contrary to the truth of the Bible. We must be against those who undermine the authority, inerrancy, and perfection of the Bible, God’s preserved Word. Like the serpent, some churches may say that the Bible is perfect, “but…” Without the Bible, we have no reference standard to distinguish truth from error. Many churches and Bible colleges which were once sound in faith have fallen. They may still have the same names – names which were once famous for defending the faith – but today are adding to the deceit. To defend the true faith, it means that BPCWA will not work with, nor have spiritual fellowship with, nor serve with groups that will not separate from false teachings and teachers. These certainly include Roman Catholicism, Charismatism, Ecumenism, New Evangelicalism, Modernism and Liberalism. Even in the name of evangelism and mission work, we cannot work together with such “Christian” groups because the gospel they preach is not the true gospel. Their false doctrines will not edify the saints. And co-operating with these groups also means that the church will be neglecting her duty to defend the most holy faith.

The defence of the faith remains even more important today than ever. We live in an age when the Bible says “evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived” (2 Tim 3:13). If the church is negligent in this purpose, we will be overcome by falsehood. Those who do gardening will know that it doesn’t take a long time of neglect before weeds overgrow the gardens. You can’t sit back and say “I wish my garden had no weeds.” You must get down and pluck them out early before it overgrows the whole garden irreparably. Spiritually, a much worse thing will happen if false teachings come into the church. Souls are involved. More importantly, the Glory of God is at stake. Without rigorous defence of the truth, the church cannot preach the true gospel for salvation of souls. The church cannot edify believers. As a result, God is not glorified. The church will no longer be the pillar and ground of the truth. If it is not careful, a once sound church does not even need to wait for one generation to pass before falsehood overtakes and fills it. It takes generations to build a strong church, but it can fall to compromise in mere months. A church that fails to protect its sheep from the ravening wolves of false teachers, from within and without, does not love God’s sheep.

So, every BPCWAian has a duty to be vigilant to prevent this from happening to BPCWA. It is not enough to just know and to teach the right thing to do. Individually and as a church, we must be ready to personally “earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3), and practice Biblical Separation where needed. It may come as a cost. If we fail in God’s duty for us to defend His truth, even you may not have a sound church to worship in, in years to come. But if we faithfully do so, God will dwell among us, use us, and keep us till He comes for His Bride.

Yours in our Lord’s service

Pastor