“No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.” (Luke 16:13)

The Spirit Of Compromise

James Lowell said, “Compromise makes a good umbrella but a poor roof; it is a temporary expedient.” The spirit of compromise is to deny what one believes in in the face of an opportunity to show loyalty. It happens to everyone. In a moment of weakness, peer pressure afflicts the soul, and rather than standing for what one believes to be right, the heart caves in to allow what at one time was wrong. Moral standards change due to compromise. Societal norms established certain principles of right and wrong, which, over time, eroded because of the spirit of compromise. What was once held as a lofty example of morality has quickly turned into accepting the moral opposite.

Compromise is not new to the modern man. It has been the cornerstone of the deception since man was removed from the garden. There was a time in America when the Bible was respected, revered, and read for its message of divine truth. Through the influences of society, the Bible is viewed less as an authority than just a message out of date with the modern mind. The world has gone from the shame of sexual immorality to the acceptance and propaganda of transgenderism, homosexuality, and pornography. There is no shame anymore. The spirit of compromise is alive and well in the human mind.

Marriage used to be viewed as an institution of sanctity where the bed was undefiled. Through the dogma of compromise, divorce is common, living together is expected, and having a child out of wedlock is considered normal. Compromise has allowed ideals once held as a part of the fabric of society to become a byproduct of an out-of-date morality.

James Lowell correctly understands how the compromise of morality is a temporary expedient. It cannot last. When society begins to follow the path of conceding the truth of God’s word for the carnal desires of the flesh, the only end is chaos and ruin. It never has worked. The greatest failure of the human experience is the continued failure to learn from past mistakes. There is an advantage for modern man to peer back in time through numerous centuries and see the successes and failures. Everything presented as a new morality is nothing more than an old sin wrapped in shiny paper with a bow. Man never learns from his mistakes.

The Greeks and the Romans thought they had all the answers. Compromise destroyed them. The revolution of the 1960s was to enlighten the world. Instead, it turned the world dark. Truth compromised is where man becomes his own worst enemy. The only answer is found in the truth – the uncompromised word of God. There is only one truth: the word that comes from God. The Bible is the divine word of God that remains unchanged. When a man compromises the word of God, he invites the judgment of God. It makes a difference in what we believe.