An elder and pastor once struggled with a faction within a local church over an important doctrinal issue. A believer from out of state, who presented himself as being a leader, inserted himself, further inflaming the controversy. When the elder and pastor explained their biblical position, he said: “I know that is what Scripture says, but that is not what the people want. You have to give the people what they want. I’m siding with them.”

When the saints in Galatia were being swept away with a false gospel, it may have been easier for the Apostle Paul to simply go with the flow. But instead, the Apostle Paul took a firm stand against this unsound gospel. He did so not because he was just being stubborn or hard to get along with, or wanted to exert his power as a Christian leader. He did so based on two primary principles. First, any gospel message proclaiming salvation through anything other than pure grace apart from all individual human works, is one that leads to eternal punishment. This is so important, there is simply no room for error or compromise. So appropriately, Paul denounced this error in the strongest terms while urging believers to stand with him. Second, Paul would not compromise on key doctrines, because true servants of God don’t cooperate with error. His explanation was: “For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ” (Galatians 1:10). Paul warned that in the last days before the Rapture, many “will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers” (II Timothy 4:3) who will only tell them want they want to hear instead of what God wants them to embrace. But those who compromise like this are not God’s true servants. Paul explained that his standard was: “we labour, that…we may be accepted of Him [the Lord Jesus Christ] (II Corinthians 5:9). He refused to adulterate biblical truth to be accepted by man. If that meant others would not approve, he could say: “with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you …He that judgeth me is the Lord” (I Corinthians 4:3-4).

Dear believer, don’t stand on the sinking sand of current popular opinions. Choose to be a true servant of God, who stands unwaveringly on the truth found in God’s Word.