Are You Part of The Majority or the Remnant? <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Brannon Howse
 
Do you ever need to be encouraged to continue to speak the truth? Do you sometimes grow weary in defending truth? Do your friends and even some family members think you are just too negative or judgmental when you stick to your Biblical convictions? Under the burden of all the pressure to conform do you find yourself wondering if you should just learn to be more tolerant, more politically correct, and not so opinionated?
 
I think every Biblically minded Christian that desires to not go with the flow can answer in the affirmative to most, if not all, of the above questions.  
 
Over the past few months the lines have been clearly drawn in the world and within evangelicalism. In other words, we really don't live in a world where one can sit on the fence any longer. The choices a Biblically minded Christian must make are clear. I can be part of the majority or part of the remnant. God has always moved through a remnant and not the masses. Since the remnant is the minority, its members can often feel alone, outnumbered, overwhelmed and misunderstood. I confess I have felt all these emotions at one time or another in the past few months. I have received e-mails from other members of the remnant that have expressed these very same feelings.
 
I believe that one reason this website has experienced such tremendous growth in its first eighteen months of conception is because members of the remnant are hungry to find one another, learn from one another, be encouraged by one another and challenge one another. The countless amount of feedback that is offered each week on this site confirms this statement.
 
I know that not everyone that visits this site and offers feedback wishes us well but that is the entire point of my article today. Don't let the non-remnant members get you down or discourage you from doing the important work to which God has called you.
 
Don't let the non-remnant members convince you to put on the rose-colored glasses of today's Christian-happy-talk compromisers. Looking at what is going on in the world through the clear and accurate lens of a Biblical worldview requires that we publicly acknowledge that certain ideas, beliefs and behaviors are unbiblical no matter how unpopular our pronouncement.
 
Sadly, many self-professing Christians believe that an individual can not proclaim Biblical truth unless one is completely perfect. Non-remnant members want you to believe that since none of us are perfect no one has the right to judge what anyone says, does or believes.   
 
Many self-professing Christians have bought the lie of tolerance, non-judgmentalism and postmodernism. Therefore, they believe the members of the remnant are the source of many of our problems. Thus, non-remnant members seek to drive remnant members out of their churches, groups and associations.
 
Recently, I shared with a friend of mine some e-mails I had received from non-remnant members. Understanding how I felt led my friend, and fellow remnant member, to send me a little encouragement. I pray this encourages you and all other members of the remnant that read these words.
 
The following is a quote from Scottish pastor Horatius Bonar from the 19th century. He is writing about those who speak the truth even when it is not popular or comfortable:
 
Some one, then, must undertake the ungracious task of probing and laying bare the evils of the age; for men must not be allowed to congratulate themselves that all is well. If others will not, he will. If others shrink from the obloquy of such a work, he will not. He loves the age too well; he loves his nation too well; he loves his fellow-men too well. They may upbraid him; they may call him a misanthropist, or a prophet of evil; they may ascribe his warnings to the worst of motives, such as pride, or arrogance, or self-esteem, or malice, or envy; but he will give no heed to these unjust insinuations. He will prefer being thus misunderstood and maligned, to allowing men to precipitate themselves upon a ruin which they see not.  
 
Rather than that they should perish, he will allow his own good name to be spoken against. He will risk every thing, even the hatred of brethren, rather than withhold the warning. If they give no heed to it, he has, at least, saved his own soul. If they do, he has saved both his own soul and theirs. He would rather take up the glad tidings of peace, and tell men of Him who came the first time for shame and death, and who is coming the second time for glory and dominion; but he feels as one who has a special and personal message to deliver, which cannot be postponed. He must remember that he is a watchman; and, having seen danger pressing on, he must not hesitate to make it known. He must speak his message of forewarning and rebuke, sparing no arrows, and neither smoothing down nor hiding any form of sin, but laying his finger upon every sore, and beseeching men to turn from their ungodliness.
 
The evils around him press upon him sadly; the coming evils are foreshadowed upon his spirit, and, therefore, he lifts up his voice like a trumpet. Satan has many snares which need to be detected; the world has many spells and lures which must be disenchanted; religion has many guises which must be unmasked, many devious paths of inconsistency which must be pointed out, many cherished errors which must be condemned, many carnal taints which must be abhorred and shunned. All these he must protest against without fear or favour.
--Horatius Bonar
 
 
Don't shrink, go forth and defend and proclaim truth for that is your calling as a member of God's remnant.