AP news just reported that Jerry Falwell passed away at 73. And while I doctrinally and philosophically have disagreed with Falwell on his tactics in confronting an increasingly paganizing post-modern culture with the Gospel, I do believe he loved Christ, preached the Gospel, and that many were saved through his ministry by the Grace of God in the cross of Christ. As the body of Christ, we should mourn the loss of someone I consider to be a brother, who though he had many strong arguments with Calvinists and unbelievers to the point of being unloving and unmerciful (haven’t we all?), he was indeed a soldier of the Lord and is now with Him (based upon his profession of faith). I agreed with most of his assessments about culture and can stand with him on about 90% to 95% of theological issues concerning Christianity, but disagreed strongly with his application of grace to an unbelieving world, seeing him as coming off arrogant, self-righteous, and unkind (this is what unbelievers have told me frequently of Falwell and what I have observed). However, I glorify God that he confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and that He is with Him.
Category: Christian Culture
http://www.alliancenet.org/partner/Arti … 64,00.html
In the modern church in the West, there has been a large shift away from believing core, essential, orthodox truths and a turn to adopt the methods of the culture to try and reach the culture for Christ. In the process, Scripture and its divine authority gets put on the shelf, collecting dust. While this may seem wise on the face to try to reach the culture with modern cultural ideologies and techniques, what ends up happening is that the church becomes so indistinguishable from the world that it no longer possesses the doctrinal distinctiveness it needs to spread the Gospel with clarity that people may be saved. This is very dangerous, 1) because you begin coddling people into the church that may never be converted (because of the indistinguishable, worldly message being preached), all the while assuming they are converted because they take the name “Christian,” and 2) the light of the Gospel gets snuffed out because of worldly doctrine being taught, and 3) ultimately God’s glory is suppressed as a result (Romans 1:18-19).
The Cambridge Declaration is simply a modern reassertion of core, essential doctrines that must be affirmed by every believer. In fact, they are really not speaking of anything new, but reasserting the very doctrines the Reformers themselves recovered from the dead Roman Catholic church. This statement basically goes through the Five Solas of the Reformation, explains them, and then applies them to the modern crisis the evangelical church in the West is facing. And the crisis is that we are on the verge of becoming totally irrelevant to our culture (just as it has already happened in Europe to a great degree, what is it now, 2% confessing Christianity?)
Some of it can be quite cynical, but nevertheless, it hits the nail on the head concerning much of the rubbish that goes as authentic Christianity in this culture … it’s kind of like the Onion, but nails the Christian Culture, that is slowly (or quickly) becoming non-Christian …
http://www.sacredsandwich.com/
Excerpt taken from A Simple Explanation of Monergism by John Hendryx @ www.monergism.com
“Monergism strips us of all hope to ourselves, reveals our spiritual bankruptcy, apart from Christ, and thus leads us to give all glory to God for our salvation. As long as we think we contributed something, even a little bit (like good intentions) then we still think God saves us for something good he sees in us over our neighbor. But this is clearly not the case. We are all sinners and can boast in nothing before God, including the desire to have faith in Christ (Phil 1:29, Eph 2:8, 2 Tim 2:25). For why do we have faith and not our neighbor? Consider that. Did we make better use of God’s grace than he did? Were we smarter? More sensitive? Do some naturally love God? The answer is ‘no’ to all of the above. It is God’s grace that makes us to differ from our neighbor and God’s grace that gave rise to our faith, not because we were better or had more insight.
The fact is that when the Spirit enables us to see that we fail to live up to God’s holy law, man will utterly despair of himself. Then, as C.H. Spurgeon said:
‘… the Holy Spirit comes and shows the sinner the cross of Christ, gives him eyes anointed with heavenly eye-salve, and says, “Look to yonder cross. That Man died to save sinners; you feel you are a sinner; He died to save you.” And then the Holy Spirit enables the heart to believe, and come to Christ.’
To conclude, ‘…no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.’ (1 Corinthians 12:3) . …who is the deposit guaranteeing what is to come (2 Corinthians 5:5). Thus it should become plain to us that not everyone receives this redemptive blessing from Christ. God bestows it mercifully on whom He will according to His sovereign good pleasure (Rom 9:15-18; Eph 1:4, 5). The rest will continue in their willful rebellion, making choices according to their natural desires and thus receive the wrath of God’s justice. That is why it is called “mercy” – not getting what we deserve. If God were obligated to give it to all men then it would not longer be mercy by definition. This should not surprise us … what should surprise us is God’s amazing love, that He would save a sinner like me at all.”
http://www.reformation21.org/Reformatio … bId__4313/
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main … do0202.xml
For years and years now, the church in the West has enjoyed freedom from hostility. But if this pans out in Europe, eventually it will make it’s way here and as the link at the top states at the end, “And given the way evangelicalism has been going the last 50 years, we aren’t even remotely ready for it.”
In an article entitled Finding God at Work by Henry Cloud, Ph.D, on PurposeDrivenLife.com he states, “What stands out to me is the amazing delegation in it all. God really did give us the task of ‘subduing and ruling’ the earth (Gen. 1:28) and just like in the Parable of the Talents, he gives us the resources to do it and then gets out of the way to a large degree.” (Emphasis mine)
Ah, on the contrary, He gives us the resources and is intimately involved in all of it. That last italicized statement is a deistic statement, and deism is opposed to the scriptures that clearly show God is the sovereign King who rules over all things, that all of creation is held together by the power of His word. In an excerpt out of a book entitled The Reformation and its Aftermath (PDF) by Pastor Stanford E. Murrell, on page 127, he states,
“Deism argued that, like a well organized time clock, the universe is a mechanism that functions on its own. God had ‘wound it up’ and left it to run by itself. Therefore, logically, miracles are to be denied and theological concepts, like the atoning work of Christ and the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, are to be rejected. The Bible is not unique and the supernatural is silly superstition. All that is needed is for the lumen naturae, the light of nature, to function. The light of nature is reason. Man must rely solely upon his own reason!” (Emphasis mine)
Though Cloud more than likely doesn’t believe the logical outcome of Deism, people reading his article may not have any understanding of who God really is from the scriptures (our final infallible authority), and in reading a statement such as the one he made, the logical image portrayed within these people’s minds of who God is and how He works is that He is less than powerful, less than able to save, and that by their own sheer will and strength and power, they must attain to God themselves. It’s called human monergism, that man must morally improve himself and “rise to the occasion” in order to obtain salvation, or rather, to save himself. There is no in between. This is the anti-thesis to Christianity. True, Biblical, Historic Christianity says we are unable to do anything ourselves and that Christ came to do what we could never do and then offered Himself as a ransom for the souls of those who believe in Him. Oh the rush and infiltration of liberal theology into the church! What a tragedy.
Theism and liberalism simply do not work together. They cannot. They are like oil and vinegar, repelling each other. You will either eventually have one or you will have the other. Many within the church have attempted to intertwine the two world-views into one, but what eventually winds up happening is that it will slide toward one or the other (most of the time, it slides toward liberal theology). They will either become more liberal (which in this case the god of this world has blinded their minds), or they become more theistic and scriptural (which in that case, the Holy Spirit has opened their hearts to see the truths plainly taught in scripture). I like to call these concepts theoretical theism/practical atheism. In other words, although confessing to believe in God, their lives play out something that is more closely akin to the practical side of atheism, living as if there were no God at all. Full out liberalism stems from a world-view where there is no God, an atheistic world-view, where man rules himself and this simply cannot work with the theistic world-view underpinnings of Christianity (one of the big problems I have with the emerging church adopting post-modern thought into the church).
Cloud, an obviously learned man with a Ph.D, though he isn’t a full out liberal teacher, and probably doesn’t exhibit much of the practical atheism I’m speaking of above, seems to have adopted some of these deistic, liberal notions (based on his statement), and he seems to ignore all of the other scriptures that make reference to God’s sovereign rule over all things, including evil itself. This is what the entire book of Job is about! That’s one of the main points of the story in the end! In addition to God’s sovereign rule over evil, if God is sovereign in the large things, how much must he be involved in the smaller things that make up those larger things? Are not large things made up of smaller things? Therefore, He is in control of every atom, every molecule, every particle, of absolutely every thing, including all of the large things that happen in the universe. Nothing in all of creation happens apart from His good pleasure and will. This is our hope in Christ. Kingdoms rise and fall, they are given authority and it is taken away according to His good pleasure and counsel that He takes with no one but Himself. And from this we take great comfort, because every act of men in all of history is designed for His glory and the good of those who love Him. For the wicked, their ultimate end is eternal destruction under the fury and wrath of an almighty and holy God. For the righteous, those called by God through faith in Christ to inherit salvation, it is for their ultimate good.
If we believe He is all-powerful, all-knowing, then it must follow (as it does from Scripture) that he is indeed intimately involved in all that occurs within the world, even evil acts, that all things may bring about the most glory for Himself. He is sovereign over every breath we take. He is indeed intimately involved in everything we do personally. God cannot be blamed for evil though. This is where the wit and reason of man fail. If God is not sovereign over all things, even evil itself, then we should have reason to fear, and I certainly would. You think there is chaos now? How much moreso if God lifted His hand of restraint on the wicked acts of men? If God did not have the ultimate sovereign rule over 9/11, I would indeed fear, as I should. Nothing happens apart from His will, even the most heinous of things. And yet He is indeed without sin, without unrighteousness. I have not the slightest idea how it all works, but I know what Scripture says. God is love, God is righteous, He is just, He is kind, He is patient, He is wrathful against sinners, and He is sovereign over all of His creation. And this is why I take comfort in His sovereignty, because all things work for the good of those who love Him, for those who are called according to His purpose, and ultimately, the most important reason, all things work for His glory, displaying the panorama of all His attributes.
But the ultimate picture of God’s sovereignty is seen in the most wicked act to ever occur in all of history, the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ. I’ll just take one instance though leading up to this, specifically when Jesus rebukes Peter for cutting off the guards ear in the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26:53. “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” Here we see God’s total and complete sovereign rule over the delivering up of Christ to the cross. Yahweh, the great King pictured in Ezekial 1 and Isaiah 6, where at His throne are seen smoke and thick darkness, set aside His heavenly dwelling and sovereignly allowed sinful men to kill Him. And yet He was still in total control of the whole situation. But the ultimate reason Christ was killed, the ultimate cause was because of the sovereign, definite plan of the Father. The Father Himself had His own Son delivered up to the cross. Acts 2:23 states, “This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.”
This event, God’s “Big Day” of displaying His glory and justice, was totally in His control and sovereign plan. At any moment Jesus would have had at His disposal many thousands of angels to do wreckshop on all of the evil-doers delivering Him up to death, and yet in His sovereignty, He allowed them to do to Him what was purposed from eternity past, that the Lamb would be slained to purchase men for God from every tribe, tongue, language and nation. How much more sovereign can He be? And if He is sovereign over the worst act ever, howm much moreso is He sovereign over all other acts? God did not just sit back and see what would happen at Calvary, but the Father Himself was intimately involved in the delivering up of His own Son to the cross, pouring out His wrath on His own Son, intimately involved in every single action of every single person, even the wicked, even in Peter’s lying, to bring about His great glory on the cross, in His resurrection from the dead, and then to bring about the redemption of those who would believe in Him as a result of this magnificent work. He is the all-knowing, all-powerful sovereign God who from eternity past laid out every single act in history, every gust of wind, every storm, every earthquake, every evil act, and yet He is without sin in all these things. How can this be? We are to submit and bow our heads in awe. God is sovereign over all things, and yet man is responsible at the same time. How the two fit together, I do not know, but that’s what Scripture says. God has His design and good purpose in all of these things, that He may be glorified and that we as believers may partake of His majesty.
This picture that Henry Cloud has given us of God stepping back and letting man run the show is not only wrong, deistic and harmful to the cause of the kingdom, it is unscriptural, and scripture is where we must bow our heads in humble submission. Theologically, he has given us a picture of a God that is less than powerful, who doesn’t care for the daily needs of His people, but just sits back and lets them fend for themselves. Though he would not agree with that assessment (and I’m sure he doesn’t believe that, at least I sure hope he doesn’t), that is the end result of this type of theology and thinking. It results in a belief that God is just a helper or coach, instead of the sovereign almighty King that reigns in heaven. Scripture speaks differently though from what Cloud proposes. When we say God is sovereign over “all things” here is just an inkling of what is included in that statement, from Scripture:
“…The fall of sparrows (Matthew 10:29), the rolling of dice (Proverbs 16:33), the slaughter of his people (Psalm 44:11), the decisions of kings (Proverbs 21:1), the failing of sight (Exodus 4:11), the sickness of children (2 Samuel 12:15), the loss and gain of money (1 Samuel 2:7), the suffering of saints (1 Peter 4:19), the completion of travel plans (James 4:15), the persecution of Christians (Hebrews 12:4-7), the repentance of souls (2 Timothy 2:25), the gift of faith (Philippians 1:29), the pursuit of holiness (Philippians 3:12-13), the growth of believers (Hebrews 6:3), the giving of life and the taking in death (1 Samuel 2:6), and the crucifixion of his Son (Acts 4:27-28).” (Excerpted from Piper’s article entitled Why I Do Not Say, “God Did Not Cause the Calamity, but He Can Use It for Good”)
We delight in God as the ultimate cause for all things that occur and yet at the same time He cannot be blamed for evil. He is sinless, absolutely perfect. And so His plan for all of history, laid out from eternity past, is without error. What a mystery it is indeed (I’m not trying to solve the mystery, simply pointing out the depths of the mystery from scripture), and yet we bow our heads in submission to His sovereign rule and to what the Scriptures say concerning these things. Concerning fortune and trials that come upon us, both the good and the bad, as Job said in Job 1:21, “The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” We delight in God alone, we delight in the knowledge of who He is from how He has revealed Himself in Scripture, not from how man wants to view Him. We shape our will and picture of Him to who He is, not vice versa. Men are sinful and blind, naturally perceiving that God just let’s man run the show of history. But from Scripture, just as Job did, we take comfort in God’s design in the trials, in the fact that God has the sovereign rule over Satan, all his activity, over sickness, over death, hell, salvation, damnation, all things. This strips of us of all pride and wanting to take credit for any aspect of our salvation as well as our lives. There is nothing outside of His will and all things will work out for His glory. He is trustworthy and good and if evil should befall us, we are to know that God has His good design in the trial, though it seems, humanly speaking, that all hope is lost and that He is not in control. Know that He designs the blessings as well as the trials to bring about the most glory for Himself and to refine the souls of those who trust in Christ for salvation, sanctifying them by His blood. This truth is what sustains me day in and day out, that God has perfectly designed each and every day, that whatever comes my way has been designed by Him to glorify Himself and draw me to Himself. What a hope!
“What in the world could possibly be wrong with the Purpose-Driven movement’s approach to the Gospel?”
On the surface, Rick Warren’s approach seems so nice and palatable. I mean isn’t it a good thing that so many people are going to these really large churches by the thousands? So what could possibly be wrong with the Seeker-Sensitive approach and ministry philosophy of this movement? Well from a biblical standpoint, there is no true seeker of God and who He is.
This movement has been labeled “Seeker-Sensitive,” and yet there are no true seekers of God until we are regenerated to seek Him. No one wants to approach God on God’s terms, it’s always on their terms, unless God opens their hearts and minds to see Christ and His sufficiency. Otherwise, left to themselves, all men would continue in a state of rebellion straight to the eternal wrath of God.
What does Scripture say about man and his moral state? In Romans 3:10-18 it says of all men, both Jew and Gentile, “None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.” “Their throat is an open grave; they use their tongues to deceive.” “The venom of asps is under their lips.” “Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.” “Their feet are swift to shed blood; in their paths are ruin and misery, and the way of peace they have not known.” “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
What a radical indictment against man. Sounds harsh, but this is the reality of how bad we are, even if we don’t want to hear it. 1 Corinthians 1:18 states in no uncertain terms, “For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” In Ephesians 2:3, Paul clearly shows that our nature before regeneration and conversion was that we “were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.”
All men are by nature objects of wrath. God isn’t just hateful (in a wrathful way) toward the sin of the sinner, but outside of Christ, He hates those very people who do iniquity (Psalm 5:5). Yes He desires all men to repent. But He wants nothing to do with those who reject Him (which is exactly what Christ will say to many on the last day: “Away from Me, I never knew you”).
Warren and others like him will not use the type of language the Scriptures use because it is offensive to the world (i.e. it might make them hate us or offend them), which is why so many droves of people are going to seeker churches and others like his. I am always very leery of large movements within the church where thousands upon thousands, and millions upon millions go after a few people bringing up “new” language and ideas. The whole Purpose-Driven/Seeker-Sensitive movement seems to be a people-pleasing movement within the church that doesn’t want to “offend” and turn people away with such “harsh” words and phrases as wrath, sin, judgment, hell, lake of fire, and outer darkness because that would turn people away.
Where is the confidence in the message of the pure Gospel though? The courageness of speaking the truth in love without fear? Who is it that actually converts people? Who is it that convicts the sinner of their plight? Is it not God alone? And this is where we get down to what drives the Purpose-Driven movement theologically: synergism. At a fundamental level, they essentially believe that there is within man an island of righteousness left after the fall, left untouched by sin, where man still has the ability to turn to God without any prior regeneration by God’s Spirit. But this semi-pelagianism is error and was officially condemned by the church back in 529 AD at the Council of Orange.
We must recover monergistic, Biblical preaching and teaching of the Gospel (that it is God alone who first regenerates the sinner that gives rise to the sinners’ faith in Christ), with all its hard edges and difficult Biblical language, or else sacrifice the very thing that will actually save people from the wrath of God: the Gospel itself spoken through the Word of God.
If our preaching of the Gospel doesn’t make the world (i.e. unbelievers) uncomfortable and hate us even (as Jesus Himself said would happen to believers who preach His Gospel) then could there be something wrong with our preaching and teaching? If we’re not using Biblical language to describe the nature of God, man, sin, justice, wrath, the cross, atonement, resurrection, repentance, grace, mercy, salvation, then what other language can be used? Worldly language, language that is not of God, but is from man.
What is left of the Gospel if we strip these difficult truths down to where the unregenerate, unbelieving world can accept them without ever being converted? (The statistics nowadays concerning the evangelical church, her beliefs, and her morality, back all of this up too.) They are then not receiving the Biblical truth of man’s plight but a man-generated philosophy that exalts man’s condition to not be nearly as bad as the Bible speaks of it.
Is this movement not stripping the essential message of the Gospel of its power and content by making people feel good about themselves in their natural state of sin and wickedness toward God? Could it be they have fallen victim to the liberal’s worldview notion of political correctness to where it has now infiltrated the most essential, most important message in the history of man; the Gospel?
The Gospel is an offensive message to man, it is folly to the world, because it means we must admit our fallenness, our sinfulness, that the deserved punishment of that sin is eternal hell, but then believing ( and that itself by the power of God through the message of the Gospel) that Christ came, lived a perfect life, died on the cross, and rose from the grave, that anyone who believes in Him will have the wrath of God turned away, and that the righteousness Christ earned would be credited to their account. The Gospel is an offensive message to those who are perishing (and yet we still preach it to all), but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God unto salvation. And so we preach the Gospel, using Scripture itself as the thrust of our message.
Bob DeWaay, in this series of messages on the Purpose-Driven movement, does an excellent job of laying out how they are redefining Christianity from its historical, Biblical context to fit the needs of the modern cultural “seeker”.
http://cicministry.org/radio_series.php?series=redefining
READ THIS FIRST:
Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith
Monergism.com subsection on the Emerging Church:
Monergism.com – Emerging Church
I particularly like this quote on the site …
“Emerging Churches are those (1.) who take the life of Jesus as a model way to live, and
(2.) who transform the secular realm, (3.) as they live highly communal lives.
Because of these three activities, emerging churches
(4.) welcome those who are outside, (5.) share generously, (6.) participate, (7.) create, (8.) lead without control, and (9.) function together in spiritual activities.
Boiling it down to one sentence: Emerging Churches are …
communities who practice the way of Jesus within postmodern cultures.
But critics often find the following characteristics of emergents: no place for formal convention; indifferent to biblical truth, Spiritual but not confessional; a strong distaste for definitions, sound doctrine or confessional Christianity; constant state of rebellion; often argumentative and often finding things to disagree with other believers rather than looking for the good. Rarely genuinely repenting or saying sorry for their offending with those who differ but expect it and accuse their opponents of being unloving. Amazing that those who thrive in lacking certainty themselves are so certain about their uncertainty and judge harshly those who claim that God has actually revealed something we can apprehend. How is it that they claim to have such a birds’ eye view that all the rest of us are all so wrong when they already deny having this kind of authoritative knowledge. Many emergents are making authoritative announcements that there is no authority. These firm assertions themselves must derive their source and dogma from some authority. In other words, the movement is hopelessly self-contradictory, doing the very things it despises in its opponents. A blow that is certainly fatal.”
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I just thought this was funny, I know it’s a caricture, but it’s still funny, though not really beneficial as an argument against the movement …
Another good entry by Phil Johnson on the hopeless contradiction of the movement …
Excellent audio interview with Pastor Ron Gleason and Chris Pajack speaking on the Emergent church … EXCELLENT
The Emergent Church (Windows Media)
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Okay. So I’ve given several articles and discussions as an argument against the Emerging Church and their principles of adopting the culture in order to win the culture, bringing post-modern thinking into a divine, eternal, absolute context. So how exactly are we to preach the Gospel to the post-modern thinker? I believe this sums it up:
Keller on Preaching in a Post-Modern City – Tim Keller