Franklin Camp
A Change in the Public Schools of Today
One of the basic problems of our present day society is our public school system. Instead of teaching our children how to read and write, and emphasis also on moral values, God has been completely kicked out of our schools. Our present day educational system is more interested in educating children away from God than they are in instilling in them the moral values that one must have to live a successful life. How sad it is for the tax money of God-fearing people. to be used to teach their children to deny God; to reject God. Many who are in the classrooms of children five days a week and eight hours a day are atheistic in their attitude, God defying in their lives, and repudiate the Bible as an inspired revelation from God. Unless there is a change in what is taking place in our public schools, we will continue to educate our children away from God and the moral decline that has almost turned this nation into another Sodom and Gomorrah will continue. Surely we cannot expect to avoid the judgment of God unless there is a return to God.
A Change in the Distinctive Preaching
That Characterized the Church in the Past
All one needs to do to sense the difference between the preaching that is being done today and that of the past is to read some of the books of sermons or the writings of the pioneers of the Restoration Movement. Their preaching was Bible based, distinctive in its message, simple in its appeal to people to lay aside the doctrines and the commandments of men and return to the truth of the gospel of Christ. This distinctive message that characterized the church in the past is almost an unheard of thing today. Instead of being distinctive, it seems that the philosophy of our day is to see how near we can ape the sectarians and denominational people in their rejection of the Bible. Many sermons that are preached today could be preached in any denominational building without upsetting anyone. I cannot think of anything more tragic than for a sermon that pretends to be the gospel of Christ to be such as could be preached in the hot bed of error without upsetting anyone.
The emphasis that has been given to positive preaching, while repudiating anything negative, has also contributed to the lack’ of a distinctive message. If preaching is to have any effect in the lives of people, it must be the gospel of Christ itself. For here alone can preaching be authoritative, and second, it must be preached with conviction to enable people to understand what sin is and what sin does. Let us realize that the changes that have taken place in the last twenty-five years has carried the church down the road toward the very verge of apostasy. We need to remember that in the changing world in which we live, there are some things that are unchangeable. When we attempt to change the unchangeable, we are fighting God and it can only lead to our own ruin and condemnation. May we give careful and prayerful consideration to a re-study of the things that cannot be changed and let us hold to them with all the fervor and all the zeal that we can command.
