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Fundamental Evangelistic Association

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[This resource has been made available for your use in reaching lost souls with the one pure, true and precious Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. All scriptural references and quotes are based on the King James Version. The materials provided are copyrighted and are so indicated; however, you have permission to make copies for your personal use provided proper reference to the author is maintained and the content is not changed. You have permission to link to these materials; however we ask that you do not post these materials on your website or BBS.  We encourage you to reach out to all who haven't heard the Gospel, that precious lost souls will be saved for Christ and for His glory! ]

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Fundamental Evangelistic Association
1476 W. Herndon, Suite 104
Fresno, California 93711 U.S.A.
Telephone 559-438-0080, Fax 559-438-0089

Fundamental Evangelistic Association

selected articles from:
^©FOUNDATION
A MAGAZINE OF BIBLICAL FUNDAMENTALISM
Dennis W. Costella, Editor; Karel Beyer, Production Manager; Matt Costella, Copy Editor
M.H. Reynolds, Jr. (1919-1997), Founding Editor

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Modern Jeroboams

The Attempts to Popularize Religion and Make It Easier and Pleasanter for the People

by Rev. C.H. Fountain - London, England
The Kings Business - March 1922

LEADERS AMONG MEN in religion, as in every other sphere of life-and every preacher is to some extent a leader-are too often estimated by the worldly, and those who are unlearned and unstable in the Scriptures, with an utter disregard to their real value in the sight of God.

Learning, eloquence, asceticism and a name among men who earnestly contend, not for the faith, but for social and political betterment, are looked upon as the highest credentials.  Soundness of doctrine and adherence to the Scripture are oftentimes the last consideration; from the worldly standpoint, indeed, they are a positive defect.

Yet many who have given themselves over to the preaching of every kind of spurious doctrine, carry everything before them by the weight of their authority, their learning and their fascination; and men looking upon the height of their stature and the piety of their countenance say, like Samuel, "Surely the Lord's anointed is before Him." But that is not God's judgment.

"Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature, for I have refused him." "For man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart." The heart always has been, and always will be, the standard, and it seems inconceivable that men who have really been "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever," can utter such emphatic contradictions of that Word as we hear all around us today.

If they believed that Word, as they must have done for their own salvation, how can they preach something diametrically opposed to it for the salvation of others?

And if they have not believed it, and will not, how can God do other than refuse them as His messengers?  For the Word, says Peter, is the very Seed from which springs that new birth, without which all the acquirements and graces, the "outward appearance," so highly esteemed among men, are as nothing in the sight of Him before whom all things are naked and open and who looks only on the heart.

They may be, and no doubt many are, filled with a desire to make the world a better place; but if they do not begin at the heart, and are trying to bring it about simply by better social, moral and political conditions, their work, however apparently successful for the moment, is, in the ultimate, worthless.  It is the simply making clean the outside of the cup and platter.

Any departure from God's Word and from His plan of salvation, and any attempt to popularize religion and make it easier and pleasanter for the people by pandering to the demands of the worldly, are not only predestined to failure but are in the sight of God of all things most reprehensible.

In reading through the book of Kings, one is struck by the frequent repetition of a phrase used of one king after another who slept with his fathers.  It becomes almost monotonous.  Yet it is a sad refrain: "He departed not from the sins of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin."

One is naturally curious to know wherein Jeroboam so exceeded the wickedness of other kings that he has thus been pilloried for all times in the sacred page. There were many wicked kings before and after him: Ahab, of whom it is said, "There was none like Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness.  And he did very abominably"; or Manasseh, who filled Jerusalem with innocent blood, "which the Lord would not pardon" and had "done wickedly above all that the Amorites did."

Why not Ahab?  Why not Manasseh?  Why not many others who also committed gross abominations in sight of the Lord God?

There must have been something peculiarly evil about Jeroboam's sin for the Spirit of God to single him out as the progenitor in wickedness of all these evil and idolatrous kings.

There is no gross crime laid to his charge.  On the contrary, we read that he was a mighty man of valor and industrious and that the wisest of men, Solomon, made him ruler over the house of Joseph.  His kingdom was, moreover, given him by God.  I will give it to thee-even ten tribes-and if thou wilt hearken unto all that I command thee, and walk in My ways, I will be with thee." Moreover, he did much for religion and was no doubt immensely popular. "He made an house of high places, and made priests ... and ordained a feast ... and offered upon the. altar."

Yet this man stands out preeminently above all others as the man who made Israel to sin.  Curiosity alone might cause us to ask why this should be so. For we may be sure that meaningless redundancy has no place in the Scriptures, and the very frequency of the phrase suggests that for some reason the Holy Spirit regarded the sin of this man as being of a worse character than that of such evildoers as Ahab and Manasseh.  And the reason is that his was a religious sin, a sin against the Holy Spirit.  As a leader of the people and a master in Israel, he, for worldly ends, debased the worship of God and substituted for the ordinances of the Most High an easier and pleasanter, man-made religion, acceptable to all classes.

With the eye of a politician and statesman, Jeroboam saw that if the people continued to worship God in the right way, his hold on them would be weakened and his power and position seriously jeopardized.  "Now shall the kingdom return to the house of David if this people go up to sacrifice at Jerusalem, and they shall kill me." Jeroboam has had multitudes of successors.  It has always been the way of crafty politicians, subtle statesmen and men of the world to make religion serve their own ends.  "So Jeroboam took counsel ... and made two calves of gold, and said, It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem-behold thy gods, O Israel.  And this thing became a sin."

"Moreover, he made priests-which were not of the sons of Levi-and sacrificed unto the calves which he had made, on the altar which he had made, even in the month which he had devised of his own heart."

There is in this old-world story a marvelous and striking analogy to much of the religion of today: man-made, State-controlled, devised and regulated oftentimes by men of the world without the slightest pretension to spiritual knowledge.

Religion must be made easier for the people.  The Bible lays upon them burdens too grievous to be borne.  The stern Puritanism of our forefathers, their rigid adherence to the letter of Scripture, their searching cross-examination of all who wished to become members of their churches and all the narrowness and intolerance of a too strict religious code- all these must be swept aside by the advancing spirit of the age.  The basis of religion must now be widened, its borders extended, its barriers pulled down, and instead of the "little gardens walled around," the world must be invited to enter freely and give its advice and assistance.  "It is too much for you to go up to Jerusalem." Of course it is.  God's appointed order of true worship is always "too much" for the ungodly.  They want a religion of their own choosing; they prefer priests after their own hearts-not of the sons of Levi-and high days and holy days of their own devising.

"These be thy gods, O Israel."  Their yoke is easy, and their burden light.  The worn-out creeds of the Bible, the demands for repentance and the impossible doctrine of regeneration need not trouble you.  A pinch or two of incense offered to the calves of gold, the gods of morality and respectability, is quite sufficient.  There is not the slightest doubt that this was the sin of Jeroboam, the sin which is so frequently referred to in connection with other wicked kings.  For the Holy Spirit has expressly declared it to be so.

Seventeen times, with slight variation, we have in the sacred page this mournful refrain: "Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who made Israel to sin." And God Himself declared it to be a worse sin than any other: "Thou has done evil above all that were before thee, for thou hast made other gods, and hast cast Me behind thy back." So do all who dethrone the God of the Bible and proclaim ways of salvation which He has never sanctioned.

Those who lead others astray are worse in His sight than those who sin against the moral code. For the criminal, the vicious and the profligate do not after all exert a very wide influence.

Their operations are necessarily restricted, and by general consent they are held in reprobation.  But those who lead others astray in religion sin against the soul, and though they may do it in ignorance, the result is nonetheless the same.  Many who might have been roused to listen to the warnings of the Bible are, by their soothsaying, confirmed in their adherence to the broad way that leadeth to destruction.  And as Jeroboam, who may perhaps have been held in high esteem by the people, sinned in this sense even more than the evil, depraved Ahab, so his end was especially significant.

Of all others we read that they died, either from natural causes or by violence; they "slept with their fathers." But of Jeroboam we are told, "The Lord struck him and he died." From all this we learn that God especially abhors anything that perverts His Word and changes the truth of God into a lie.

That was the sin of Jeroboam, a great man, a king and a leader in religion.  And because a man's responsibility must be measured by his position and influence, so his punishment, as the author and propagator of a religion false and dishonoring to God, more drastic and condemning.

"The Lord struck him and he died." So it will be with many who imagine themselves ardent workers in every good cause because, instead of that strict adherence to Scripture which God demands, their chief text has been, "Yea, hath God said?" Instead of warning the wicked to forsake his way that he may live, they have proclaimed, "Ye shall not surely die."

Instead of regeneration, they have been zealous advocates of the "way of Cain"; and in order to win the favor of the worldly and the irreligious, they have sought to make religion easier by nullifying the solemn words of the Bible and brushing aside Its demands.  And in the day when all things are made manifest, they will stand forth, like Jeroboam, not as co-workers with God, but as "workers of iniquity."