We recently came across two individual statements from two very individual men of the past history of the church in the world.
Both were very dissimilar in many of their views and backgrounds, but each spoke a word that it would do us all good to weigh at the present time. The first statement comes from General Booth, founder of the Salvation Army; the second is from B. B. Warfield, the great theologian of the Reformed Faith in America.
General Booth, said – “I consider the chief dangers that confront the coming century will be Religion without the Holy Ghost; Christianity without Christ; forgiveness without God; and heaven without hell.”
B. B. Warfield’s words – “No one will doubt that Christians of today must state their Christian belief in terms of modern thought. Every age has a language of its own and can speak no other. Mischief comes only when, instead of stating Christian belief in terms of modern thought, an effort is made, rather, to state modern thought, in terms of Christian belief.”
Perhaps a third word, from another saint now gone to glory, Gresham Machen, might round the whole thing off: “At the very root of the modern liberal movement is the loss of the consciousness of sin.”