It is sometimes hard for younger Christians to follow more mature Christians in their lead on a difficult issue. But it is far harder for them to see that those leaders they trust and respect, going astray, and that those who should be older and wiser have gone the wrong way, so that their example must be ignored and even opposed.
God has been pleased to give the same burden to others down the course of history, and it is essential that all of us are ready to defend the truth for there will be attacks on the gospel in every age. Although it is the Lord’s cause for which we fight, and he is sufficient to defend his own without us, it is our privilege to share in the battle. God makes fallible men and women to stand with him in the breach and to defend his truth. At times it even appears that we are alone in making this stand. This should make us fall before the Lord as we sense our inadequacy for such a great responsibility and to ask with Moses, ‘Why me?’
God at times has even allowed his cause to suffer setbacks through failures of the church, and at times the unwise and uninformed response of God’s people has brought in a period of weakness and confusion in the church; the Lord does not always step in to prevent bad things affecting his church when its leaders have failed to act.