Missionary Refuses Further Support from Baptist Group

Good for you! We left ARBCA several years ago due to how the divine impassibility issue was handled. So glad we did. This issue is much, much worse and ARBCA is handling it very poorly.

 

I found that report utterly heartbreaking. I think his father, Walt Chantry is still living, though he must be very elderly now. He was a fine Pastor and a great preacher. How devastated he must be over this!

There may be a tendency among some for a degree of schadenfreude here, but rather, we should fear. John Rogers was one of the early English Reformers. One day he saw a man being taken out of prison for public execution. Rogers exclaimed, "There but for the grace of God goes John Rogers." None of us may be more than one sin away from public disgrace.

I think it is we conservative, Bible-believing folk who are most at risk of becoming hypocrites. Paul writes about the Jews of his day who 'rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those in darkness......etc.' (Romans 2:17-20).

But immediately (v.21), Paul asks,
You therefore, who teach another, do you teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal?' Not putting a stocking over your face and robbing a bank, of course, but how about your tax return?

'You who say, "Do not commit adultery," do you commit adultery?' Three years or so ago, I went to a Christian conference and heard a man speak. He was very good; Biblical and passionate; I was very impressed. It never occurred to me that anything might be amiss. Less than a year later, his wife confronted him with a whole series of affairs he had had with women in his congregation. Rather than face the shame of exposure, he committed suicide.

I was speaking to a friend who is in the ministry recently and he said, "Martin, my greatest prayer these days is, "God, keep me from becoming a dirty old man!" When we were thirty, we may have supposed that people of sixty had pretty much finished with sexual desires, but those who have reached that age know it isn't so. How easy it is to get addicted to internet pornography! How difficult to get away from it! Brothers, pray for your Pastors and church leaders that God will give them that all-important ninth Fruit of the Spirit: self-control.

'.........For the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you, as it is written.' This is the most wretched part of this sorry business. People see these paedophile priests, and men like Tom Chantry, and they think, "These Christians are all hypocrites and their religion doesn't impress me one bit."