“It was given up, handed over, bit by bit until there was nothing left.”

The serpent, like this one at the Garden of Eden truckstop in Eden Idaho, is still tempting us to trade truth for error.

“How much of God’s Word can you deliberately reject and still be a believer?” The majority of people in heaven will know very little of the Bible. There are thousands, perhaps millions of people in communist countries who were gunned down the moment they personally accepted Christ as their savior. They are in the same category as the thief on the cross. No one has complete knowledge. All of us are imperfect sinners.

Yet there is a line. I am not saying that I know exactly where it is. But someone who rejects part of God’s Word, not through ignorance or lack of opportunity — Is that person truly born again?

This comes down to “What is Fundamentalism?” There are many beliefs we can agree to disagree about. Should baptism be sprinkling, pouring or immersion? Is footwashing an ordinance given by God? Should we offer communion every week? But there are other issues which classify someone as an unbeliever. How far do you go? Day-Age for the first week of Genesis? The flood of Noah was not world wide, but local? The entire book of Genesis is an allegory? The entire Torah is an allegory? Job is an allegory? The JEDP (Wellhausen) theory? At what point is a person a liberal? The entire Old Testament is an allegory? The entire Old Testament was pieced together by redactors?

No one has to concern themselves about my judgment. I am just a weak sinner. But the Word of God cannot be deliberately rejected, even in part, just to please men (Scientists believe this way). “Secret knowledge” (if you were as educated as I am) is the heresy of Gnosticism and pride.

“Every time we give up a part of our faith to try to fit into the ways of the world, we lose it forever. We lose a precious part of God’s promise, sacrificed to the world – and the world will never give it back.

“And someday when the world tells us we can no longer have our religion, except where they say, and God is driven from our schools and our government and our homes, then God’s people can look back and know that our religion was not taken from us. It was given up, handed over, bit by bit until there was nothing left.”

From the movie “Sheffey”