There are good people who preach the truth, who are very watchful of the doctrines, and very defensive of the doctrines; but for some extraordinary reason they are not watching the practices and defending them. That is why all the rock has come in and the pop and the decadent worship and worldliness into the churches, because some people have been expertly watching the doctrines but not the practices. Things that are fundamentally contrary to the Christian faith and contrary to separation from the world have come wholesale into the churches. It is not just the doctrines; it is the practices too that we have to watch out for. So watch what the devil is seeking to bring in among us – some practice, some music, some method. Everything has to be carefully weighed in the light of Scripture. Is it biblical? Is it of the flesh and the world? Who started it – the Charismatics, or somebody like that, and now it has come into Reformed circles? Who initiated all this? Biblical minds or fleshly minds?’ We have to be constantly watchful, as a church and as individuals.
What a tragedy if the Sunday School began to run down! It is the second law of thermodynamics: things tend to fade, and drop, and perhaps none of us has the initiative and the courage to say, come on, we’ve got to renew more visiting. We have got to get behind the children. We've got to bring up the numbers, maintain the figures. What a tragedy if we were spent at work, and had no initiative, and no drive, and no courage to face situations when we came to church.
Or in the family. Somebody said to me a few years ago, a lady, she’d ended her courtship with a young man, and she said, ‘Well I had a very high regard him, but he had no “go”.’ That’s sad, isn’t it? Never lose that energy, that ‘go’, initiative; don't let it all be spent in one department of life, so that you slacken off in the most important of all: the Lord's work, the worship of the Lord, the family circle, pulling your weight and so on. That’s what the apostle means.