I thank God I’m saved! I thank God I’m going to Heaven when I die! And, I thank God I’m an Independent, Fundamental, Bible-thumping, Baptist preacher! I thank God for a fundamental Baptist church. The Bible is the Word of God. That’s what we preach. We use the KJV by conviction and without apology. Now, what is a fundamentalist? A fundamentalist is somebody who not only embraces the fundamental doctrines of God and is saved, but he opposes that which is evil and wrong and separates from those who are liberals and modernists, who do not hold the fundamentals of the faith. Now a modernist is one who believes in man’s wisdom instead of God’s wisdom. He rejects revealed truth. A liberal is a person who is in step with the world’s views, it’s philosophies of man, who holds man’s views and not God’s views. A liberal is opposite of being a conservative. A liberal Christian is one who won’t stand on much and condemns those who do. And our churches are filled with them. The greatest church movement that has ever hit North America has been the Independent Baptist movement. I don’t know of any movement in history past or history present that has ever done what the Independent Baptist movement has done. There has never been a time in history where there has been more gigantic churches built for the glory of God, on Biblical principles of soul winning and separation, as there has been since the Independent Baptist movement hit the North American continent. What about today? We are beginning to rot from within. Many of the good churches that I once knew are not good churches anymore, although they still carry the name fundamental on their signs. 40 years ago, about everywhere when one would visit an independent Baptist church they would hear straight, fiery preaching in which they would always emphasize soul winning and Biblical separation—both personal and Ecclesiastical. Not so today! Dr. J. Frank Norris led the fight against the liberals and the modernists in the Southern Baptist Convention. He pulled out of the convention and others followed. Though we were all still called Baptist, some great men of God saw some compromising going on and those Baptists said, “NO, we are not changing! We are going to continue using the KJV Bible as our rule of faith and practice!” Thus the birth of the Independent Baptist movement. That’s what the Southern Baptists have forgotten. They were called Baptist conservatives—fundamental in their beliefs. After the turn of the century, Norris and others took a stand and started the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement. Now, years later, we have pastor schools, our National sword conferences and now we are on ‘main street’ instead of ‘Deer Creek Road.’ We are in the higher echelon subdivisions instead of being behind the tracks with the poor. Now we find contemporary music instead of gospel hymns. We have carpet instead of saw-dust floors. We have chandeliers instead of oil lanterns. Our outreach is now to society instead of to sinners. Our burden is for a big offering instead of sinners being snatched from a burning hell. And God is sick of this so-called Progressive Baptist movement – Rev. 3:14-16. I thank God that in my early Christian life I had the opportunity to be taught by some of the best Baptist preachers and eventually ran around with them. But, what saddens my heart is that those churches that once stood, that these men helped pastor and taught—I have watched them deteriorate. I have watched them compromise. How do you know if you have compromised? It’s when you tolerate sin in your church! I have seen some things that are not right and God is sick of this progression and believe me, He is about to take their candlestick away! Our churches once were soul winning stations. But, we got proud and got a little education behind us and now we think we are something—God says you’re not!! You are naked and blind – Rev. 3:17!! The greatest days of fundamentalism are yet to be seen. Now if we are not careful, we can get comfortable in our preaching and instead of being in growth mode we are in survival mode—May God forgive us!
