HE who teaches truth destroys error in the surest manner, the Holy Spirit being with him. To let in light is the simplest and most certain way of driving out darkness. We need not stand up and shout ourselves hoarse in order to expose a falsehood; let us go on quietly witnessing to the truth.
The Scriptural method of protesting against evil is to quit it yourself; and we may rest assured that the Scriptural rule has more wisdom in it than any form of carnal policy. “Come ye out from among diem, and be ye separate,” is the cored of the Lord; and if we reply, “We will stay among them, and make them better,” our wisdom is not of the Lord, and it will before long be seen to be folly. The way which pleases the flesh is not the way which pleases God. Great praise for charity and liberality is, in these days, a sure token of unfaithfulness to truth.
What is the value of the testimony of a man who remains in league with the evil he deplores? One hears an address against a certain laxity of conduct, and it is known to all that the speaker does the same himself — where is the force of the protest? To lament defection from the once-delivered faith, and then to be hand in glove with the ciders and abettors of such defection, is not altogether the manifest opposite of hypocrisy. The utmost charity of judgment is unable to put a high value upon testimonies against error, adduced by those who are in open and avowed union with those who love and spread that error.
To take up arms against insidious falsehood, and to give our mind to war against it, is one of the most effectual ways of keeping it out of one’s own soul. The Holy Spirit preserves the heart by the activity which He creates. In any case, sloth and false doctrine have an affinity; while zeal for the truth will burn like coal, of juniper, and consume the wood, hay, and stubble with which it comes in contact. Let there be something attempted, something done, as well as something unmasked and denounced. The honest man’s position “outside the camp” is his loudest and clearest protest; and his energetic spreading of the truth is the most powerful weapon of his holy warfare.
From C. H. Spurgeon.