‘The No-Compromise Man And the No-Compromise Church’
Sermon Preached by Rev. Bill Hill at the May 1973 Convocation of Sessions

In May, 1973, ministers and elders representing 260 PCUS churches met at Atlanta in a convocation called by the Steering Committee for the purpose of deciding whether conservatives should establish a Presbyterian denomination independent of [the] PCUS.

At that meeting, Bill Hill delivered the opening message… He had titled his talk “The No-Compromise Man And the No-Compromise Church.” As the following excerpts show, it was not only a subject fitting that occasion, but also one even more appropriate, even priceless, today and in the days still ahead.

Explaining that the Word of God abounds with illustrations of both [the] no-compromise man and the no-compromise church, he expounded on these in reverse order:

“Our Lord in the Revelation writes to each of the seven churches of Asia Minor. Out of the seven there are only two for which He has no word of rebuke. To the other five He says many things by way of commendation but always comes around to a solemn warning about ways in which they have compromised.

“The two no-compromise churches stand out as shining lights. One was the church at Smyrna… He commends them for their steadfastness under trouble and poverty, assures them that they have vast spiritual riches, comforts them with the fact that He knows they have resisted, and have exposed and cast out infiltrators of the ‘synagogue of Satan.’ He tells them of things they must yet suffer, saying ‘Fear none of these things… The devil shall cast some of you into prison that ye may be tried and ye shall have tribulation ten days.’ Then comes the great challenge: ‘Be thou faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life.’

“The other church honored is that at Philadelphia. He assures them that He knows their work, challenges them by saying, ‘I have set before you an open door, which no man can shut.’ He knows that despite their small size and weakness they have kept His Word and have not denied His name. He assures them that at the Judgment Seat all will know that He looks with a special favor upon this no-compromise church… that He also will keep them in the ‘hour of temptation which is coming upon the whole world to try them that crawl upon the earth’…

“As we read these letters our hearts thrill with admiration and joy for the two no-compromise churches. They have been unwilling to compromise in faith and in morals. They have been quick to detect hypocrisy and to turn from it. As we come to these days when God seems to be setting before us ‘an open door,’ surely we should listen to His words and hear the ring of His challenge, ‘Hold fast that which thou has. Let no man take away thy crown — be faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life.’

“Two no-compromise churches. There was something good in all of the other churches, but that good was spoiled by compromise. Now, let’s turn our attention more specifically to the no-compromise man, because no-compromise churches must be made up of no-compromise men.

“There are three things about a no-compromise man: 1) He refuses to compromise in small things and as a result, he does not fail when the big test comes. 2) He refuses to make his decisions on the basis of possible harmful consequences to himself. 3) He is obedient to the Word of God and separates himself from unbelief and immorality…

“This is a hard lesson to learn. It is particularly hard in these soft, easy-going days of permissiveness. It’s easy to compromise today. It’s easy to rationalize and say, ‘Well, under the circumstances there doesn’t seem to be any harm, and who knows, maybe some good will come if I go ahead and conform.’ Oh, sure, we know at the time that we are compromising in a sense and that we are going along with unbelief and apostasy and immorality, but it’s easy to think that ‘in these modern times’ maybe that’s the best thing to do.

“And then we rationalize that if we take a stand it will divide some churches, divide the denomination, and cause untold bitterness and ill will, so maybe we better go along and live in peace. We are too concerned with saving our own necks, saving our property, saving our ecclesiastical reputation. We don’t want to make fools of ourselves, so what’s the harm in just going along, when maybe some good will come out of it? And it’s so easy just to compromise and save our own necks. Lots of people fall for this line. Lots of good people. Lots of judicious people. Lots of sincere people. Lots of godly people.

“But not the no-compromise man. If it is the fiery furnace that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego preferred to compromise, so be it. If it means the loss of church property, so be it. If it means the loss of face and reputation, so be it. God helping us, we will stand in the face of laughter, in the face of misunderstanding, in the face of bitterness and persecution. No matter what the cost, we will stand and we will not make our decision on the basis of what happens to us as a result.

“Our Lord faced this same crisis as He set His face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem. He knew what awaited Him there. He could have turned back, gone out into the Gentile world, and done much good. But He knew God’s will, so He set His face steadfastly toward Jerusalem. Then that lonely night in Gethsemane when He struggled… praying that the cup might pass from Him, that He might not have to drink its bitter potion… He could easily have slipped away that night and eluded the enemy. He could have done much good. He could have lived out His life in peace. Except for one thing: He refused to compromise, even to save Himself from His enemies…

“All through life we face dreaded decisions. I am thinking now of a group of men who were deliberating and wrestling in prayer and conference about a decision for the future. They said, ‘What if it means the end of our organization? What if it means that our friends will leave us?’ But they made their decision deliberately; regardless of what the consequences might be, regardless of what the power structure might do, regardless of threats from presbyteries and General Assembly, without compromise they decided to go forward and not turn back.

“Hardly ever does any man face a decision quite as momentous as we are facing today. There are those who say, this movement might fail. It might fragment. We might lose our church property. We might be branded as schismatics. Bitterness and recrimination might follow our decision. What will we do? Considering the possible tragic consequences but despite such possibilities, leaving everything in God’s hands, we must make a clear and unfaltering decision that we will not compromise with unbelief and immorality in high places in the Church.

“The no-compromise man never in such decisions takes into consideration possible evil consequences to himself. He is bound by the Word of God, as he sees it. He must obey God, not men…

“Does the Word of God preach separation from unbelief and apostasy? Separation from immorality?… Is our task that of preaching the Gospel to the ends of the earth? Can we do it best in a reborn church, faithful to the Scripture and to the Reformed faith and obedient to the last command?

“A successful army must have an impregnable beachhead, a fortress from which to move out and conquer. Can we move out and witness from a corrupt, tottering ecclesiastical power structure controlled by men whose testimony is not clear and who compromise and distort the Gospel? What will we do? I cannot say for you, my brothers, but I can say for myself. I will not go on in compromise. I am ashamed that I have gone along as long as I have. The time has come to obey God and not compromise.

“In closing, may I… give you a word of personal testimony?… God gave me a burning passion to be used by Him to bring men to Christ. But at Seminary I got a mixture of truth and unbelief. I had sown in my mind the seeds of doubt about certain parts of the Word of God. I wasn’t greatly bothered by it. I was all for seeing people changed and not too particular about the authority of God’s Word. I remember how I sneered at fundamentalists. I participated with the liberal leadership of my presbytery, seconded motions for overtures from Hanover Presbytery to the General Assembly, motions which laid the foundation for the liberal takeover. How blind I was… how ashamed I am now…

“But some six or seven years after I entered the ministry God began to show me — particularly through a godly retired missionary who worked in our midst in Hopewell — that I was a ship without an anchor. The missionary had seen what I was, and out of her meager pension, offered to pay my way to Moody Bible Institute for a week-long program commemorating its one-hundredth anniversary.

“I went, didn’t like what I heard, thought all the speakers were too critical and narrow-minded… And yet, God was dealing with me… before very long He opened my eyes to the total and absolute authority of the Word of God… my ministry began to change. I began to see… that there were strong forces in the wrong direction in the church… in most all Protestant denominations… I didn’t say much about it. Didn’t tell my people about it. I said that it was enough just to preach the truth and not worry them with a lot of stuff that didn’t really concern them. After a while God showed me what a mistake I was making.

“I began to warn my people, as God taught me, about the dangers of liberal tendencies in the church. In the ’Fifties God called me away from my pastorate to full-time evangelism and as I visited in hundreds of churches across the Southland, I began to see how deep the inroads of unbelief and apostasy were, how they reached down even to the smaller churches…

“This is an awesome hour. For myself, I must say that there can be no turning back, regardless of the cost. I know from personal experience — having participated in it for a time — what goes on in the liberal establishment. I want no part of it. No matter how painful or humbling the future may be, God helping me I can no longer compromise the Gospel or disobey my Lord.

“Some may disagree, and I respect their sincerity. But for me, any turning back would be a sinful violation of my conscience and disobedience to Almighty God. I know the reborn church will not be a perfect church. I do not know whether or not it will fragment. I do not know the future — but I do know the decision I must make; to decide otherwise would be to compromise.

“It’s said back in the [early 1900s], Dr. Warfield, a professor at Princeton, was out for an afternoon walk on the eve of a General Assembly meeting which was held at the very height of the controversy between liberalism and orthodoxy in the Northern Church. As he strolled along, he met a lady of the neighborhood who said to him, ‘Oh, Dr. Warfield, I do hope and pray that we’re going to have peace at this General Assembly!’

“‘Yes, madam,’ that stalwart defender of the faith replied, ‘I, too, hope and pray that there will be peace — but never peace at the expense of truth.’

“Like Dr. Warfield, we’d like to see peace, but we cannot, dare not, compromise truth for the sake of peace. I think I can hear the Lord saying to us, ‘Behold, I set before you an open door. Fear not the tribulation which will come upon you… be faithful unto death and I will give you a crown of life.’”

Almost unanimously, the ministers and elders attending that meeting in May, 1973, voted to establish a Presbyterian denomination independent of [the] PCUS. After a second organizational meeting in August, the first General Assembly of that denomination was held in December at Briarwood Presbyterian Church in Birmingham, Alabama. There 382 commissioners representing 260 congregations adopted the Westminster Confession of Faith and other historic Presbyterian standards and appointed committees to administer home missions, world missions, Christian education, and business affairs, with that the “re-birth” of the continuing church — the Presbyterian Church in America[1] — was complete and official.

[1] The name first chosen for the denomination was National Presbyterian Church, but that choice was protested by a UPCUSA church in Washington, D.C., which bore the same name. Although it probably could have defeated threatened legal action, the new denomination quietly deferred and adopted Presbyterian Church in America.

The foregoing is excerpted from Watchman, tell it true: The life and Here-I-Am-Lord times of Bill Hill — pastor, evangelist, and one-time liberal who came back to every jot and tittle of the inerrant Word of God by Otto Whittaker (Manassas, VA: Reformation Educational Foundation, 1981), pp. 444-451.

Rev. William “Bill” Hill, Jr. (1880-1983) pastored West End Presbyterian Church (PCUS – now, PCA) in Hopewell, VA for nearly 30 years, and was the founder and first executive director of Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship (PEF – now, REF). He served as a key leader on the Steering Committee for a Continuing Presbyterian Church that resulted in the formation of the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA).