CONTEND FOR THE FAITH

Ephesians 1:15-22; 3:9-10,21

Introduction:
One of the saddest things about our generation is that Baptists are quitting being Baptists. They
are becoming too inter-denominational. I believe we should treasure our Baptist heritage. Few
preachers today mention anything about the church. It is almost unheard of. They may preach on
being faithful to church and attending church, but not the doctrines of the church. I am going to
preach on some things that I believe should be taught in every Baptist Christian.

I am a Baptist. I have no animosity towards anybody else. There are saved people in many
different groups. I have dear friends who are fine Christian people, yet are not members of
Baptist churches. But, I do thank God that I am a Baptist, and I love my Baptist heritage.

The Substitutes for the Church

Isaiah 14:12-16

1. Satan wanted to become king. Satan was one of the three archangels, along with Michael and
Gabriel. Satan even had authority and rank over the other two. The Bible calls him the anointed
cherub. Lucifer was perhaps God's deputy. Nobody knew God like Lucifer did.
However, he decided that he wanted to become king. He wanted to be equal with God and take
over God's throne.

2. He fought to be king. The angels were divided into three groups. Michael had his group,
Lucifer had his group, and Gabriel had his group. Lucifer took his group of angels and rebelled
against God and fought a war in Heaven, trying to take over Heaven.

3. He was defeated and cast out of Heaven.

4. He then wanted to hurt God. Nobody has ever wanted to hurt God like the Devil. He decided
to find God's most vulnerable spot to do so. What is it that would hurt God the most?

5. He knew that the best way to hurt God was through His children. If you really want to hurt
somebody, hurt them through their children. You will not find a more painful way to hurt a
person than that. Satan knew he was defeated, and that he was consigned to Hell: Matthew
25:41 says that he and his angels will be in the lake of fire forever, so he decided to do as much
destruction as he could by striking at God where it would hurt him the most.

6. Satan does not have a way for you to go. Satan has no plan for your life. He has no alternative
plan that he has devised for your life.

7. He wants you to go any way but God's way. Satan knows that we will not consciously do what
he tells us. The Devil is not concerned about which way we go as long as it is not God's way. He
is not dedicated to making us do what he wants us to do; he is dedicated to making us do
anything but what God wants us to do. God has a purpose for our lives. Satan has set out to keep
us from fulfilling that purpose. For example, God has a person he wants an individual to marry.
The Devil is not concerned about his marrying a prostitute or a harlot, as long as he does not
marry the person God has chosen.

8. His best shot is to get you to go your own way. Isaiah 53:6a We go astray when we go our own
way. The Devil does not want us to follow his path. He wants us to follow our own path. He
wants us to do our own thing. He wants us to choose the profession we want, or go to the college
of our own choice. That is the devil's plan. He knows that we are more likely to satisfy our
desires than we are to satisfy his, so he tries to keep us away from God's plan.
A man came to me and said, "Brother Hyles, I have four children. I am proud of them. All of my
children have turned out good. My son is a coach in a Christian high school. He always liked
sports, so he chose to be a Christian coach. My daughter always liked music, so she chose to go
to college to study music and is an organist in a church. Another son always enjoyed working
with cars, so he chose to go to mechanics school and become a mechanic. I am proud of my
children."
In each case, his children had chosen to do what they wanted to do. In that case they did not turn
out right. In fact, they turned out for the Devil because they turned each to his own way. That is
exactly what the Devil wants us to do.
The devil's way is not what most Christians think is. The devil's way is our own way. The Devil
does not care what we do as long as we do not do what God wants us to do. His best shot is to
get us to go our own way. We are not a success in life unless we find what God wants us to do
and do it.
9. In every area of the Christian life, he makes a counterfeit that we can choose without having to
yield to God's plan. The devil's counterfeits are not bad. They look good. But, each of them is
designed to get us to do something other that what God wants us to do.

Let consider some examples.

1. Baptism. Baptism is to be by immersion after salvation, so the Devil gives us a counterfeit
baptism. It looks sweet. The grandparents are there, and the godfather and godmother are there.
Little Johnny is going to get baptized or confirmed. That looks and sounds good because church
is considered to be good. But, it is the devil's counterfeit. Satan does not offer a wicked
alternative. He offers an alternative that looks like the real thing.
2. Lord's Supper. God gave the Lord's Supper to the local church. It was to be a time to
remember that Jesus died for us. The Devil made a counterfeit called the Sacrament.
3. Spirit fullness. God wants us to be filled with the Spirit so we can be witnesses unto Him. God
has given us a power to be soul winners. That power is called the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The
devil's counterfeit is the charismatic nonsense, where people babble in some unknown tongue
and nobody gets saved. That is the devil's counterfeit. God gives His power in order to keep
people out of hell, not to give us some type of emotional high.
4. Tongues. God gave a wonderful thing to the church in Jerusalem. Peter preached at Pentecost
to people from every nation under Heaven. Many people could not understand the language in
which Peter was preaching, so God miraculously gave these people the ability to hear the Gospel
in their own languages making it possible for more people to hear the Gospel and be saved. That
is the purpose of it. Christ Jesus came in the world to save sinners. The Son of Man came to seek
and to save that which was lost. The purpose of tongues is to get people saved. Satan has
produced a counterfeit in the charismatic movement.
5. Bibles. The Devil has a lot of Bibles which are counterfeits.
6. Love. Lust is Satan's counterfeit for love.
7. The church. In order for something to be Satan's counterfeit, it must have several qualities.
(1) It must be something close to the real thing.
(2) It must be something we can choose.
(3) It must not in itself be bad.
The Devil knows that most Christians will not leave a fundamental Baptist church and go to a
Buddhist church. He knows that he must have something as near to a fundamental Baptist church
as possible in order to get us to leave a New Testament church and go our own way.
How does he accomplish that?
I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, (but thou art rich) and I know the blasphemy of
them which say they are Jews, and are not, but are the synagogue of Satan. Revelation 2:9
Notice the words synagogue of Satan. That word synagogue is not capitalized, so it is not talking
about a particular synagogue of Satan.
Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan.
Revelation 3:9a
The word synagogue means assembly. The word church means a called-out assembly. If God's
people belong to an institution that is not out of the world, it is not a church. To be a church it has
to be a called-out assembly. A group of people who are religious and assemble, but are not called
out of the world, are a synagogue. There are two types of groups that call themselves churches,
an assembly and a called-out assembly. An assembly of people calling itself a church, but is
living like the world, is not a church. It is a synagogue or assembly. No group has a right to call
themselves a church, if it is not separated from the world. It is merely an assembly. The
synagogue of Satan is a religious assembly other than the church. The Devil is not proud of his
worshippers who are killing little babies on altars. The Devil is trying to make us believe that it
does not matter where we go to church, as long as we go somewhere. He will really try to get us
to go to a church which is not a church at all. The Devil will try to get us to join something that
accomplishes some good in order to get us out of the local church. These institutions are
sometimes good institutions, but they are not local New Testament churches. I am not implying
that these institutions are of the Devil, but the Devil uses these institutions to get us away from
the church.

Let me give you some facts about Baptist churches.

1. Baptist churches existed before the Reformation.
We were not always called Baptists. We did not name ourselves. Our enemies named us. We
were originally called Anabaptists which means rebaptizers. One of the three great doctrines
which caused us to be persecuted is that we do not believe in infant baptism. When these
baptizers got people saved they baptized their converts again, even though they had been
baptized as babies, so their enemies called them re-baptizers. There were Baptist churches before
the Reformation. The Reformation was the time when Martin Luther pulled out of the Catholic
church and decided that the just shall live by faith. At that time the Protestant movement was
started. I am not a Protestant. Protestants are those who came out of Catholicism. Baptists did not
come out of Catholicism. When Martin Luther decided the just shall live by faith and started the
Reformation, Baptist people were in hiding.
2. At the Reformation the Baptists had hope and decided that it was safe to come out of hiding.
Martin Luther began preaching salvation like they had always been preaching it. They were in
for a surprise. Even though the Catholics and Protestants were fighting each other, they were
together on one issue, and one issue only. They hated the Baptists. The Baptists thought that
Martin Luther's Reformation would bring them out of hiding, but it did not, because Martin
Luther persecuted Baptists just like the Catholics persecuted Baptists. John Calvin persecuted
Baptists just like the Catholics persecuted Baptists. I believe that Martin Luther was a great man
like Henry Ford was a great man, but he was not a great Christian, or a great preacher. He was a
great leader. Martin Luther would have put preachers like me in jail.
3. The Catholics and the Protestants united to exterminate the Baptists.
4. Henry the VIII banished Baptists and gave them twelve days to leave or die.
5. Baptists were slaughtered in the Netherlands just for being Baptists.
6. Baptists were banned in Germany.
7. Much of the blood shed by Bloody Mary came from Baptist veins.
8. Queen Elizabeth gave Baptists twenty days to leave the country.
9. Switzerland killed Baptists by drowning and burning them at the stake.
In our country we have the idea that the Pilgrims came to the new land looking for religious
freedom. They came looking for it, but they also came denying it. They came looking for their
religious freedom while at the same time choking Baptists' religious freedom.
* In 1669 William Wickendon preached the first Baptist sermon in New York state. He was jailed
for 3 months.
* In North Carolina they passed a law prohibiting the building of Baptist church buildings.
* In 1676 the first Baptist church building was built in Boston,
Massachusetts. It was confiscated, and the doors were nailed shut.
* In the colonies, Baptists were jailed and whipped.

Who is preaching on standards today? Nazarenes? No. Church of God? No. Southern Baptists?
No. Who is preaching against mixed swimming? Who is preaching on men getting haircuts?
Who is preaching that women ought to wear modest clothing? Who is taking a stand against
social drinking? Who still takes a stand on standards? A few independent Baptists and that is just
about all.
Who is left that believes this Bible? Who is left that believes the King James Bible has been
preserved word for word? Who is left? The Church of God? No. Nazarenes? No. Children of
God? No. American Baptists? No. Southern Baptists? No. Inter-denominational Bible
Institutes? No. Inter-denominational Bible colleges? No. Who is left?
A few independent Baptists. That is all.
It is not getting very popular to be an independent Baptist. It was not very popular in the seventh
century either when they fled to the valley.
Who is still for soul winning? A few independent Baptists. Who still believes in the doctrine of
the local church and not in the doctrine of the universal church? A few independent Baptist
people. That is all. We do not have a mother or grandmother to go back to. We have a Saviour
Who started our church. We can trace our history very quickly. It is the New Testament church
which was started by Jesus in the book of Matthew.