The Church in Babylon Quotes

“Although the US State Department has not officially designated the MB [Muslin Brotherhood] as a terrorist organization, Egypt did so in 2013; and in 2015, a British government review “concluded that membership of or links to it should be considered a possible indicator of extremism.” However, in 2003 the FBI uncovered the MB’s multifaceted plan to dominate America through immigration, intimidation, education, community centers, mosques, political legitimacy, and establishing ‘interfaith dialogue’ centers in our universities and colleges. A document confiscated by the FBI outlines a twelve-point strategy to establish an Islamic government on earth that is brought about by a flexible, long-term ‘cultural invasion’ of the West. Their own plans teach us that ‘the intrusion of Islam will erupt in multiple locations using mulciple means’. But near the top of this strategy is immigration. To be more specific, the first major point in their strategy states; ‘To expand the Muslin presence by birth rate, immigration and refusal to assimilate.’ This strategy transformed Indonesia from a Buddhist and Hindu country to the largest Muslin-dominated country in the world. As Europe has discovered, open borders for refugees may be viewed as a compassionate response to a catastrophic humanitarian crisis, but it has long-term risks and consequences.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“Contrary to popular culture, love can say no. What we cannot do is let the world tell us [followers of Christ] where we should draw the line; the world should not tell us what we can do and can’t. Our cultural elites tell us that if we were ‘loving’ we would do what they think we should. But we derive our definition of love from God’s Word, not from the vicissitudes of the cultural currents.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“Christians today are faced with at least three ways to respond: (1) assimilate the secular culture, (2) isolate from the secular culture, or (3) engage the secular culture. In light of the gospel, the only choice for the Christ follower is to engage.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“church that has assimilated the world cannot be a vibrant witness to that world. To adopt prevailing cultural values hardly gives the world a reason to believe that we are a viable alternative to lives of brokenness, greed, and addiction. To quote Sider once more, “We divorce, though doing so is contrary to his commands. We are the richest people in human history and know that tens of millions of brothers and sisters in Christ live in grinding poverty, and we give only a pittance, and almost all of that goes to our local congregation. Only a tiny fraction of what we do give ever reaches poor Christians in other places. Christ died to create one new multicultural body of believers, yet we display more racism than liberal Christians who doubt his deity.”4”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“Many within the younger generation simply do not feel at home in our churches. They long to have honest sharing within a community of authentic believers who are realistic about their walk with God. They see many of our churches as being too formal, too rigid, and prepackaged.”
― Erwin W Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“It is not possible to have a heart for God without having a heart for people and their deep abiding needs.”
― Erwin W Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“The surviving church is one that has a holistic view of the scriptures and doesn’t simply cherry-pick themes and teachings that are more to individual likings and aptitude’s. It is a church that preaches to felt needs, to be sure, but emphasizes that when we stand in the presence of a holy God, our greatest felt need will be for the righteousness of Christ. It is a church that teaches us how to live on earth but with the greater purpose of preparing for the life to come. It is a church that is not afraid of talking about hell.”
― Erwin W Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“But by no means should we think that terroism is radical Islam’s most useful weapon. Indeed, many of these Islamic leaders decry terrorism in an effort to take the focus off of a more effective and insidious strategy, namely to subdue the West by civilizational jihad.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“We will not impact the cities and towns of our world unless we live among those who need to hear the gospel through an authentic witness. It is not only church gathered that will win the world, but the church scattered that will show the beauty of Jesus to a world that is short on hope. Our impact will be marginal as long as we play safe; Jesus didn’t and neither can we.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“We are pilgrims out of step with the ever-changing culture - yet we are sent by Christ, the Head of the church. The church is the last barrier between the present moral breakdown and total chaos.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“Yes, we might have ‘righteous anger’ as we see our culture destroyed, but if our anger spills over into our Christian witness, it only fuels the stereotype that the world already has of us. Yes, we are called to expose the sins of the world, but to do so with redemption, in humility and compassion. And, yes, with courage. And tears. Anger and rebuke change nothing. In fact, they cause our leftist friends to entrench themselves every deeper into their hatred of Christians. Moreover, these actions don’t represent our Master who ‘when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly’ (1 peter 2:23). Anger, vengeance and a spirit of retaliation are not the ways of the Master. But as we shall see later in this book, neither is silence nor cowardice.”
― Erwin W Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“Let those of us in our churches not sit in judgment of the world, however, for all too often, we are the world, sharing in our culture’s since and failures. Remember, it was because of Jonah and not the pagan sailors that the storm blew on the sea! Too often we are blind to our own darkness. We criticize the world for calling darkness, but perhaps we do the same.”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness

“I see a church that desperately needs to learn the lessons that the people of God have to RELEARN in each generation: We have to be a church that is, in some ways, repulsive to the world because of our authentic holiness and yet very attractive to the world because of our love & care. We need to be a courageous church at the time of weak knees and carnal living. In short, we have to live lives that are a credit to the gospel we preach and the Savior we worship. God has humbled us, and we must enter into our cultural decline not with a swagger but with humility and brokenness. And transparency”
― Erwin W. Lutzer, The Church in Babylon: Heeding the Call to Be a Light in the Darkness