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A Minister’s Evaluation

Written by Rick Shrader

A Minister’s Evaluation

by Rick Shrader

With a little time to reflect on my pastoral ministry of eighteen years, I find myself doing constant self-evaluation. I think I am pretty hard on myself, though I cannot accept the common evaluations of many pundits. Theirs seems to be a typical crying of “so many are struggling emotionally in the ministry. . . so many get discouraged and quit.” But I have no such feelings or regrets. The ministry is and has been to me a divine privilege. Most of the problems I have had have been caused, quite frankly, by failing to pray that morning.

I hope that I have learned to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit teaching me through the reading of His Word. We are told in school and Scripture, but somewhere have to learn on our own, that we serve God, not man. I don’t know who of us would say he is serving man, but it is obvious (to ourselves and probably many others) that we are far too concerned about our own image and success even in the ministry! Sadly, many of the pastoral decisions that hurt our congregations are made in order to please our peers or other people whom we want to impress. There is no doubt that our definitions of success have been woefully lacking in Biblical flavor.

George Whitefield once said, “As God can send a nation or people no greater blessing than to give them faithful, sincere, and upright ministers, so the greatest curse that God can possibly send upon a people in this world is to give them over to blind, unregenerate, carnal, lukewarm, and unskillful guides.”1 Though not unregenerate, such a curse ought to be dreaded by every preacher of the gospel and pastor of God’s people. What minister does not want to have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming? (1 John 2:28). And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and sinner appear? (1 Peter 4:18). I think, therefore, that it is time to judge ourselves, even in ministry, so that we don’t become condemned with the world.

Is my ministry of God or man?

The Apostle Paul wrote, For do I now persuade men, or God? Or, do I seek to please men? For if I pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). In the face of persecution the Apostles answered, We ought to obey God rather than man (Acts 5:29). Few of us ministers could not quote those verses, yet how many of us follow them fervently? There is something about our fallen human nature that causes us to gravitate toward the applause and accolades of other humans whom we can see, rather than toward God whom we cannot see. Many of us are far more concerned with what will be reported about us at the next pastors’ meeting than we are with what our own congregation already knows about us! And there are enough reports of ministers who have led a devious secret life while portraying godliness to their congregation. May the Lord deliver us from it all!

Most ministers, however, are honest and moral men. Ministers often disagree with one another and continue to do what they feel convicted about doing. But we can be satisfied with being upright in our position, correct in our hermeneutics, efficient in our administration, and yet not desire the intimate fellowship with our Lord that would often take us out of the ministerial loop. As a pastor, I have been as susceptible to that as anyone.

The Corinthian church suffered from this kind of human approval ministry. Their love of men’s approval had divided them into factions where they could be controlled by the strongest personalities. Paul wrote, For ye suffer fools gladly, seeing ye yourselves are wise. For ye suffer, if a man bring you into bondage, if a man devour you, if a man take of you, if a man exalt himself, if a man smite you on the face (2 Cor 11:19-20). Imagine, a Christian leader more willing to have another slap him on the face, than to disrupt the status quo! No wonder Paul also warned, For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves; but they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise. . . . For not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth (2 Cor 10:12, 18). Sadly, this trap is as open and inviting today as at any time in history.

Is my subject the Bible or literature?

With equal enthusiasm as regarding the first question, the minister today would never admit that he spends more time presenting literature about the Bible than he does explaining the Bible. But this is a real danger in this day of information and technology. The need to read books is overwhelming enough, but with the addition of internet research, scores of religious magazines, as well as radio, TV and recorded material, the minister can spend hours a day in religious activity without ever opening his Bible and actually reading it. Pulpit sermons can easily reflect this imbalance. A Gallup poll noted, “Americans revere the Bible — but, by and large, they don’t read it. And because they don’t read it, they have become a nation of biblical illiterates.”2 We preachers do not always help this situation. Calvin Linton wrote, “Happily, when we weary of the tons of marvelous but irrelevant information that are the pride of our age, we can still turn to the Bible and there come to know the essential things.”3 Oswald Chambers said, “How one wishes that people who read books about the Bible would read the Bible itself!”4

Equally deceptive and even more destructive to the preacher’s ministry is the tendency to follow the best (or often the last) author we have read. It’s as if we trust a certain author so much that whatever he says must be right, or at least more right than I could come up with myself. But who wants to listen to such a preacher? “He has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced it.”5 The temptation, however, is to continue to give people shovel loads of information, fulfilling the undiscerning ears of today’s listeners.

Is my church for the lost or the saved?

It is a sign of the times that this question is not answered quickly for the latter. The church is made up of regenerate members who are called “the body of Christ” (1 Cor 12:13). There are no lost people in the church. They may attend, and they may participate in some token way, but they have no connection to what is going on. We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle (Heb 13:10). The church is a holy priesthood (1 Pet 2:9); it is the house of God (1 Tim 3:15); it is the habitation of God through the Spirit (Eph 2:22); it is the assembly of the saints (Heb 10:25). J.D. Murphy said simply, “You have believers, baptized, joined, and hence, ‘church’.”6

The church meets to do things that lost people can only observe. We baptize; observe the Lord’s Table; pray through the mediation of Christ with the groaning of the Holy Spirit; discipline believers only; and instruct those who have a true desire for the milk of the Word. The local church is not seen as the place of evangelism in the New Testament. Evangelism takes place in the field which is the world. Even at Pentecost, somewhere between Acts 2:1 in the upper room and 2:4, the disciples had gone to the temple steps to preach their message to unbelievers from eighteen different regions. We do find occasionally that unbelievers came to the church services. In 1 Corinthians 14:24-25, Paul explains how the unbeliever may see you worshiping and conclude that this is of God. James 3:1 shows that unbelievers might come in and we are not to show preference for their social status (a current sin in our churches).

It is easy for the minister to want the church to be for the lost people. He wants to preach to lost people; he wants the church to be full of people; he wants to think his people have tried to evangelize their friends and neighbors (an invitation to church is often as bold as Christians get in their witnessing). Don’t get me wrong! Having lost people in the church services is great. It is the best place they can be. But here is where the temptation comes: that is, to change what the church does for what the world does. Then the minister becomes a barterer, begging by hook or crook for those void of any spiritual sense, to be pleased to come, and usually with as little discomfort as possible.

This is where churches talk about “confronting the culture” and really miss the best opportunity to “confront the culture.” Let the lost person come if he will, but let him see what Christians do in church! Let him be convicted of his godless state and be confronted in his soul by the holy life of believers! How more effective can we get? Paul wished for Philemon, that the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus (Phile 4). We need to stop being embarrassed and afraid before a lost world of our own worship, and start being true in spirit before a holy God.

It may be that if churches would return to worship and quit the performances, that true evangelism would again begin to take place. Church historian Bruce Shelley wrote, “Whatever else we may say about the New Testament teaching on the nature and mission of the church, this truth is fundamental: When persons receive Christ as Savior and Lord, they turn their backs on the world (or ”repent”) and they enter a new distinctive community called ‘the church.’ There they are expected to join in the Christian mission and return to that world in service and witness.”7

Is my result divine or human?

In the end, little matters if the results are not of God. I hope there is not this single test question for pastors at the Bema Seat of Christ: “Exactly how many people you ministered to were truly born again?” I know we cannot look into people’s hearts and know what God knows. But should there not be some definite evidence of genuine conversion in those who profess Christ? I once asked my people, “If you walked away from your faith today, what would really change in your life? Or, in other words, how is your life different because you are a Christian?” I would think, for the sake of his own conscience, the minister wants to actually see the work of the Holy Spirit in his “converts” lives.

Today’s minister fights much opposition to this question. We are in the business of human organization and success syndromes. We know how to “build a church.” But testing the results of human methodology is quite different from testing the results of the Holy Spirit’s work. The applause for success from the world’s hands may be totally disconnected from the blessings of God. As Os Guinness has said, “In fact, there is no need for God at all in order to achieve extraordinary measurable success.”8 Faithful pastors of local congregations are being made to feel inferior if they have not attained to certain human expectations and pressures. This can easily cause even God’s pastors to depart from their own faithfulness to the Word and Spirit of God.

The Apostle John, who often reminds us of the requirement of Jesus being lifted up before the whole world, says of those false spirits who gauge their results by the world’s standards, They are of the world, therefore speak they of the world, and the world heareth them (1 Jn 4:5a). No doubt, speaking to the world’s expectations will bring results. Jesus said, he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth (Jn 3:31). But the beloved disciple reminds us quickly, We are of God: he that knoweth God heareth us; he that is not of God heareth not us (1 Jn 4:6a). We cannot get olives from a grape vine, nor can we get sweet water from a bitter fountain (Jas 3:11-12) and we should not pretend that we do.

And so . . . .

The ministry of the gospel and the service of God’s people is a privilege. Paul thanked God that he was counted worthy to be put in the ministry. But only by serving God, not man, can our ministers be faithful, for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief, for that is unprofitable for you (Heb 13:17).

Notes:
1. George Whitefield, “On The Method Of Grace,” Orations from Homer to McKinley, V, Mayo Hazeltine, ed. (New York: Collier and Son, 1902 ) 1975.
2. Quoted by George Barna, Index Of Leading Spiritual Indicators (Dallas: Word Pub., 1996) 55.
3. Calvin Linton, “Man’s Difficulty, Ignorance or Evil?” Readings in Theology II, Millard Erickson, ed. (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1976) 129.
4.Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1998) 134.
5. C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (New York: H,B & W, 1955) 199.
6. Quoted by R.V. Clearwaters, The Local Church of the New Testament (Chicago: CBA of A, 1954) 6.
7. Bruce Shelley, The Consumer Church (Downer’s Grove: IVP, 1992) 48.
8. Os Guinness, Dining With The Devil (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993) 35.

 

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When Disciples Are Above Their Master

Written by Rick Shrader

When Disciples Are Above Their Master

by Rick Shrader

“Paul’s word about being all things to all men and our Lord’s eating with publicans and sinners have been worked overtime to justify unwise sociability.”1 How true!  Anyone who is concerned at all about worldliness in the church has had to listen to the proposition that Jesus  was accepted and loved by sinners and they were accepted without condemnation by Him.  But what Havner  feared would justify “unwise sociability” has now gone far beyond that to a more calculated carnality.

This is a typical (postmodern) verbal bait and switch.  We rightly receive the initial message that, as a sinner we come to Jesus for salvation: “Just as I am without one plea but that thy blood was shed for me.”  We mean that the sinner cannot come to Jesus with his own merit for salvation.  That is true.  But we cannot jump from there to what cannot be true: namely, that Jesus accepts our sin.

With a little reflection we can realize that the sinner does not come to God with his sin but without it.  If he could come with his sin, he would not need a Savior who washes it away!  Praise God that we can come before Him justified in Christ!  Also, we should realize that the believer, though remaining in his flesh, does not remain in neutral concerning his flesh.  He is either in forward or reverse.  Either sin is controlling him and he is carnal and powerless before God (and then under chastening for sin), or he is growing in grace, mortifying sin in his life and is continually becoming conformed to the image of Christ.  Either way, God does not accept our sin, and therefore does not “accept us” as we are.  He always demands a conforming to His holy standard.

Matthew 10 is one of the most difficult chapters for the follower of Christ to read.  Jesus said, The disciple is not above his master, nor the servant above his lord.  It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant that he be as his lord.  If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? (10:24-25). Jesus was asked to depart (9:34) from the coasts of the Gergesenes; He was   laughed to scorn (9:24) by the people in Capernaum and He offended (13:57) his own family in Nazareth.

The difficulty with this passage is that the follower of Jesus is called on to endure hardship for his faith.  Spurgeon said, “True fidelity can endure rough usage.”2 But many have convinced themselves that Jesus never endured rough usage and neither should we unless we are some kind of legalists who purposely antagonize people.  If we can convince ourselves that Jesus accepted people without judging their spiritual condition, then we can do the same and can also shun any uncomfortable confrontation with them.  But this is exactly what Jesus means in Matthew 10 for a disciple to be above his Master.

Are we more savvy than Jesus?

Do we think we know better how to avoid criticism?  They were calling Jesus Beelzebub, the prince of the devils (25, see also 12:24).  Was Jesus here telling the disciples to avoid such criticisms at all costs?  No!  He was telling them to expect it!  Hubert Brooke said, “It becomes a mere matter of honesty, that that which belongs to the Lord by right of purchase, should be yielded up to Him by the willing choice and deliberate surrender of the purchased possession.”3

It is enough, Jesus explained, for the disciple that he be as his master (25).  Why?  Because the believer walks by faith, not by sight.  He endures the ridicule here, in order to hear the “well done” up there.  Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known (26).  Do we have that kind of faith?  I think we fear the presence of gossip more than we fear the presence of God.  Asaph wrote, Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors: and our enemies laugh among themselves.  Turn us again, O God of hosts, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved (Psa 80:6-7).  It is not the smile of their faces he wanted, but only the smile of the God of heaven.

Are we more wise than Jesus?

Do we think we know better how to avoid harm?  Jesus continued, And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell (28).  He followed that by speaking of God’s care for a sparrow’s fall, and His knowledge of the very hairs of our head.  In our avoiding of persecutions, have we become better judges of life’s circumstances than God who knows how many hairs are on our head?

In the three and a half years that these disciples walked with Jesus, never did anyone lay a hand on them to harm them.  Through the early chapter of Acts, they were thrown in jail but they were not beaten.  Not until Acts 5, against the advice of Gamaliel, did the disciples ever have their bodies abused for their faith.  And what was their reaction?  Did they sue their assailants? Did they protest on the Sanhedrin steps?  Did they boycott the fish gate?  No!  They departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name (Acts 5:41).

The writer of Hebrews directed his readers to consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds (Heb 12:3). Then he added, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin (4).   Wimps!  How could they be so fearful in the presence of a great cloud of martyred witnesses?  Of whom the world was not worthy (11:38).  John Calvin wrote, “Let men do their utmost, they cannot do worse than murder us!  And will not the heavenly life compensate for this?”4 Wasn’t this the joy that was set before him (Heb 12:2)?  Are the servants above the Lord in this matter of those who can harm our bodies?

Are we more peaceful than Jesus?

Do we think we know better how to avoid controversy?  Today’s evangelism mostly consists of how not to speak to people!  That is, how to avoid any conversation that might invoke controversy.  But in this context Jesus warned, Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.  But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven (32-33).  This is followed by stern language that Jesus came to send a sword, not peace; and that households would be torn apart due to a person’s confession of Jesus.  And, He warned, he that loves even family more than He is not worthy of Him.  And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me (38).

Are we avoiding controversy that Jesus has designed, or are we truly being salt and light to our generation?  Oswald Chambers wrote,    “Then comes the glorious necessity of militant holiness. Beware of the teaching that allows you to sink back on your oars and drift; the Bible is full of pulsating, strenuous energy. From the moment a person is readjusted to God, then begins the running, being careful that ‘the sin which so easily ensnares us’ (Hebrews 12:1) does not clog our feet.”5

Are we more valuable than Jesus?

Do we think we know better how to avoid death?  We have either become too attached to this world or too afraid of death for we have totally turned the next verses on their head.  He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it (39). Many today think this means that Christians find such a wonderful life on this earth that they “lose their life” for Christ’s sake!  And not only that, but when we “lose our life” for Christ’s sake, we find the abundant life for which we have been looking.  Evidently our lives are always more valuable than those of the apostles or of Christ Himself.

But what did our Lord mean?  He meant that if we are so afraid of the “sword” (34), or of those of our own “household” (36), or of a “cross” (38), that we would rather choose to “find our life” now, then we will “lose it” in eternity.  But if we are willing to “lose” our life now for His sake and the gospel’s, then we will “find it” in eternity.  In the parallel passage in 16:24-28, He added, For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? (16:26).

In a more noble day, an older writer said of this passage, “They are best prepared for the life to come, that sit most loose to this present life.”6 J. Sidlow Baxter wrote, “The Christian belongs to what he is to become; not to what he has left behind.”7 That is why these words of Jesus are a call to the walk of faith!  Otherwise, what right would one have to ask another to die, unless the end result is far greater in value than the sacrifice?

I am glad that the great majority of Christians do not have to be killed for their faith.  But unless we would rather avoid denial than death, we will not convince any others of the truth we preach.

And So . . . .

Are we striving to place ourselves above our Lord?  Or is it enough for us that we endure as He did?  The current infatuation with success and church growth is dictating the answer!  They will not come unless they are happy with us, and they will not be happy with us unless we accept them as they are.  The trade off is that we do not suffer their reproach, and they will bless our services with their presence.  The deal that is struck places us in an exalted position among them—above even where our Lord placed Himself.

Notes:
1. Vance Havner, Threescore and Ten (Old Tappan:  Fleming H. Revell, 1973) 107.
2. Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, vol 2 (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1978) 339.
3. Quoted by G. Christian Weiss, The Perfect Will of God (Chicago:  Moody , 1950) 38.
4. John Calvin, “On Enduring Persecution,” Orations (New York: Collier, 1902) 1374.
5. Oswald Chambers, Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Discovery House, 1998) 135.
6. Matthew Henry, St. Matthew (Old Tappan: Revell, nd) 145.
7. J. Sidlow Baxter, Christian Holiness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 39.

 

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Why Did I Write It?

Written by Rick Shrader

Why Did I Write It?

by Rick Shrader

In January and February I wrote a two-part article titled, “Generic Church:  The New Formalism.”  In it I listed a number of reasons why I am not an advocate of the “contemporary” or “progressive” church movement.  I received as many positive responses to that article as I have ever received for an article.  I am sure that there were an equal number of (and perhaps many more) negative responses among the readers, but I understand that often we decline giving those.  I do not write to solicit either.  I have made an honest attempt to understand the New Testament church as well as the contemporary church scene, and I do not believe that what is normally called “contemporary” or “progressive” is what I see in the New Testament.

It is typical of our day and age to see whatever or whoever objects as negative.  Few ask why the new thing isn’t negative—the thing that is a departure from the norm.  But that merely shows our bias to if not our conditioning from the age in which we live.  It has become my conviction (whether to my detriment or otherwise) that the church of Jesus Christ, made up of millions of normal, biblical believers is purposely being made to feel failure and remorse for being what biblical Christians have always been, and ought to continue to be!

I also believe that what our biblical forefathers of a century ago saw coming is now upon us and that those who once said amen to their warnings are now embarrassed by their historical link to them.  It is not just the terminology that has changed (from such “negative and divisive” terms as separation, fundamentalism, dispensationalism, compromise) but both the denotation and connotation of terms have been changed to suit the user and fit whatever he has already decided to do.

If this sounds more like what the postmodernists would do, you are right!  Consider what a secular writer said:

“Postmodernism exercises such a fascination over the evangelical mind, I believe, because of the never-ending legacy of fundamentalism.  In one sense evangelical scholars have moved away from Billy Sunday and in the direction of French poststructuralism: they cast their lot with those who question any truths rather than those who insist on the literal truth of God’s word.”1

Out of sheer embarrassment some will denounce their own heritage and walk with liberals.  John Owen once wrote,

“Religion in a state of prosperity is like a colony that is long settled in a strange country.  It is gradually assimilated in features, demeanor, and language to the native inhabitants, until at length every vestige of its distinctiveness has died away.”2

Why did I write the article?  I am about to give a number of reasons.  But if for no other reason, I wanted to give normal Christianity equal time.  I wanted to defend those who are being told to give it up or become irrelevant.  No such thing is necessary or true.  And time will prove just the opposite.

I object to fear and intimidation being used toward the church

With all due respect, such quips as “grow or die” and “organisms always go through four-fold cycles” cannot be supported from Scripture.  One may illustrate these to death from nature or man’s business dealings (and could also find contrary illustrations in those areas—Jesus willingly died so maybe churches ought to do the same), but the New Testament still is the instruction for the church.  If any group of God’s people are living the way God wants and faithfully giving out the gospel, why should they think they are losers because of their numeric size?

When Barna writes, “If the Church of tomorrow is going to be healthy and growing, rather than confused and in retreat, we must question all assumptions,”3 the implications are clear.  Who wants to be “confused” and “in retreat?”  Brian McLaren says churches that are unprepared for the new age, “drift and descend relentlessly toward plodding, gerontocracy, nostalgia, irrelevance, arthritic inflexibility, senility, and death.”4 I think such philippics are at the least unfair if not unchristian.

I see an approval to take over churches that resist the change

I have never thought it was right for a pastor (or pastoral candidate) to tell a church one thing while working toward another.  Some men will say whatever it takes to be accepted as pastor and then begin the transition once he is voted in.  McLaren says that if traditional churches are surviving it is for one of two reasons:

“Either they are creating time warps where the past will be preserved so reactionary folk can flock there for a safe—temporary—old familiar haven, or they are among the learners at the top who are surfing change into the new world and transitioning old churches of yesterday into the new churches of the other side.”5

Or again, Barna advocates, “Congregations are currently our best organizational resource.  As we develop the Church of the future, our best strategy will be to grow the new formations from the resources and assistance provided by these present hubs of strength.”6 In other words, older style churches are good resources for newer style churches.  The only kind that will thrive any way are those who are being changed from within.  It is a kind of “situational ethic” that justifies the stealth approach to changing the church.

One letter I received after I wrote the January article was from a lay person whose church was in this transition.  She wrote,

“I guess the one thing I struggle with, do we stay and just put up with this nonsense, it does no good to complain, as we as well as others have done so.  Many have left.  It does no good to say anything to the board or the pastor, the attitude is, this is the way it is going to be, like it or lump it.”

What a sad situation for a church to be in.  A few years ago our youth pastor showed me emails from a nationally organized youth pastors’ email list where youth pastors were told how to slowly change their youth departments  without their pastor or church realizing what was happening.

I read a lot of postmodernism in the anti-postmodernism talk

It seems that everyone is an expert on postmodernism these days, and yet a lot of the “new generation” language sounds like the old postmodern language.  Henry Blackaby writes, “But only the Holy Spirit of God can reveal to you which truth of Scripture is a word from God in a particular circumstance.  Even if the circumstance is similar to yours, only God can reveal His word for your circumstance.”7 Chuck Colson asserts that since you can find five fundamental beliefs in “Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Brethren, Methodist, Episcopal” denominations, therefore “in short, every Christian is a fundamentalist.”8 McLaren writes,

“In the new church, if we read just our expectations and allow theology, like science and art, to continue in an unending exploration and eternal search for the truth, goodness, and beauty of God and his relation to our universe and all it contains—then theology will be wonderfully resurrected for us . . . . Old systematic theologies are fading.  They are not surviving the transition time well.”9

My point is that we spent the 1990s defining postmodernism and we are spending the 2000s practicing it.  Change has become the mantra for church growth philosophy but we put no limits on what may change.  Words have become as flexible as Silly Putty; we bring them out when we need them, twist them into whatever shape we desire, and put them away when we’re tired of them.

I am concerned that we really are the frog in the kettle

It is because we have this postmodern ability to say whatever we need to be saying, and yet do whatever we want to be doing, that places us in a vulnerable, even dangerous, position.  We still want to be called Fundamentalists but we no longer want the ridicule that goes with it.  We reduce it to five or ten or twenty fundamental beliefs, but then (unlike our forefathers) nothing else seems to matter to us or even be important enough to have a strong opinion about.  We use terminology such as culture, methods, convictions, conveniences, contextualization, even postmodernism itself to fit and describe us in the best of lights.  No one is ever completely wrong and no one is ever completely right.  There is now room for everyone under our bigger and better tent.

We like the thesis, we like the antithesis, we like the synthesis.  The only thing that would be wrong is to have a definite opinion about any of them.  We like the synthesis mostly because, as long as we can see enough people to the right of us to call them right-wing extremists, and as long as we can see enough people to the left of us to call them left-wing radicals, we actually feel comfortable.  But we have forgotten that this is the philosophical basis for the destruction of the fundamentals.

We have picked up on C.S. Lewis’ (and others) observation that all beliefs have some element of truth in them and some are nearer THE truth than others.  But that observation has now become the basis for a new ecumenicalism (which presents the same “common denominator” element of the old ecumenicalism) which asks us to “celebrate” even a lost man’s small element of truth while avoiding pointing out his large element of sinfulness and rebellion toward God.  And of course, this is all done in the name of a loving evangelism.  Vance Havner said, “Paul’s word about being all things to all men and our Lord’s eating with publicans and sinners have been worked overtime to justify unwise sociability.”12

I am concerned that this “synthesis” position is a shifting sand, a floating island without an anchor to the mainland.  Are we not doing things that our fundamentalist fathers warned us about?  Are we not participating in some questionable things and participating with some people that our fundamental fathers would not have?  But would we ever dream of cutting the umbilical cord with our fundamental fathers and just admitting we are not what they used to be?  Heavens no!  How would we fill our churches and schools?  How would we keep the support from those avenues coming in? How would we “build churches?”  How would we “win the world?”

My concern is that these things win people to ourselves, not necessarily to God.  Time will certainly tell, but when time has passed and a generation has grown and gone, opportunity will be history.  But in the mean time, the frog in the kettle is happy with the warm water.

And So . . .

The danger in writing the articles I have written is that perception becomes reality to a postmodern generation.  Therefore, these things are perceived as the irritating negative elements.  But I am appealing to those who want to be different than the homogenous mass of fundamentalists and evangelicals today.  Cut across the grain!  It is my opinion that you will find yourself squarely in the company of generations of past believers who have loved God more than the world.  You will end up doing more for the world than anyone else.

Notes:
 
1. Alan Wolfe, “The Opening of the Evangelical Mind,”  The Atlantic Monthly, October, 2000, p. 73.
 
2. Quoted by William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (Minneapolis:  Bethany House, 1997) 99.]
 
3. George Barna, The Second Coming of the Church (Nashville:  Word, 1998) 28.
 
4. Brian McLaren, The Church on the Other Side (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000) 103.
 
5. McLaren, 15.
 
6. Barna, 176.
 
7. Henry Blackaby & Claude King, Experiencing God (Nashville: Broadman, 1998) 139.
 
8. Charles Colson, The Body (Dallas:  Word, 1990) 180.
 
9. McLaren, 66-67.
 
10. Francis Schaeffer, True Spirituality (Wheaton:  Tyndale House, 1971) 145.
 
11. William Kelly, The Minor Prophets (London: Hammond Trust, nd) 453.
12. Vance Havner, Threescore and Ten (Old Tappan: Revell, 1973) 107-108.
 
 
 
 

 

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The Sin of This Generation

Written by Admin

The Sin of This Generation

by Admin

By Joe Shrader, PhD

East Carolina University

Note:  Dr. Joe Shrader is the editor’s brother.  He received his Ph.D from Michigan State University and is an associate professor at ECU in Greenville, North Carolina.

The sin of this generation is selfishness.    It manifests itself by the disrespect shown the church elders.  The arrogance of this generation in ignoring the elders of the church is not only wrong, it is sin.  God commands us to listen and show respect for the elders of the church.

The leaders in today’s church, in many cases, are young, ignorant of experience and scripture, and in the “warrior” stage of life. They are not elders.  They disrespect the real elders in the church.  They make decisions for the church based on business models, books written by “successful” Christian leaders, but not on THE book.  The elderly are systematically  excluded from the planning and decision making process.  They can be outvoted, even shouted down at business meetings. The elderly know it is wrong to act that way and so they refuse to participate in the fighting. They believe it is better to be wronged than to offend their younger brothers.  So the young get their way.

God commands us to listen to our elders. He commands us to seek wise (Godly) counsel from them.  These men and women have experiences that this generation has never even thought about much less had to deal with.  They have been to war and watched their buddies die.  They have killed men in defense of their country.  Even worse, they have sent their sons to die.  They have watched and helped as illness and disease have taken their brethren and family members.  They have taken second mortgages to help a struggling church get started or get through tough times.  They have dealt with church discipline and sin in the church.  They have put their faith in God in difficult times.  This is the group who mowed the lawn, trimmed the bushes, even cleaned the church as a part of their ministry.

This selfish generation thinks that difficult times is building their new $400,000 house.  “All those decisions to make, it just wears a person out.”

This generation knows nothing of sacrifice.  In or out of the church.  They have money, though they usually spend themselves into oblivion on things). Instead of getting involved in the ministry of helps, they hire someone to do all these things for them.  They hire associate pastors for youth to teach their children, associate pastors of music to entertain them, and seniors pastors so they don’t have to get too involved with the old people, and even more pastors for anything else that the church might want.  Heaven forbid that they would get involved in a ministry or the life of some needy family that might need for them to give up something in their busy schedule.  This is the generation that puts their children in daycare and their parents and grandparents into nursing homes.  (OK, assisted living.) They hire someone to do it so they can spend Saturday at the river without feeling guilty.  After all, someone is taking care of it. This generation is too busy working to pay for all the toys and their place at the river or lake.  Oh, the impatience of youth.  “Got to have it all now.”

This generation uses the current business models to grow the church.  Target audiences become the rich young couples with children.  They will grow the church and pay for all the associate pastors.  They will attract even more young, upwardly mobile, couples so we can pay for more associate pastors to do their ministry for them.  They don’t go to the highways and hedges, they go to the upscale neighborhoods.

This generation spends much more money on buildings, entertainment and programs, than on sending missionaries to a lost world.  They misunderstand the whole Christian culture of sacrifice and helping others fulfill the Great Commission though their parents still understand it well.  How many of these young people would encourage THEIR children to go to China, Africa or some other country as a missionary?  Or would let their daughters marry some young preacher boy. “What kind of a choice is that? I know it has to be done, but . . .  just not my child.”

Can you imagine this generation recruiting seniors to their church?  Seniors are far too high maintenance:  they need time, companionship, even transportation to church, the doctor’s office or grocery store.  We can hire a seniors pastor for that.  Old people are on fixed incomes, they may even have trouble paying their heat and electricity bills. How much can they give to help the church build that new playground?  We might even have to help them pay their bills!  You can’t build a church on the elderly.

This generation has replaced spirituality with sincerity.  “We really believe this is best for the church so it must be what God wants.  Why would we all agree if it isn’t God’s leading?”  All of this while ignoring the clear teachings of scripture because “it feels right”. Selfishness!

This generation has no concept of the Christian church family (I Cor. 12, Acts 2).  “If the old people don’t like it, they can just leave,”  I have been told. “We need to purge the church of the  negative people” (i.e. those who disagree with them). “For every family that leaves, there will be others to replace them.”  With young wage-earners no doubt. Sorrow is not in this generation’s paradigm.  People leaving is just part of the business of the church.

So this generation goes on its merry way, sincere in their ignorance, making the same mistakes their elders may have made.  They ignore the wise voices available to them that would help them avoid making the same mistakes. They are too busy recruiting more young, arrogant sheep who will perpetuate their sin, all the while assuming success and God’s blessing because they have more people attending, and more staff, and a new Family Life Center . . .God help us!

Daniel wouldn’t eat the meat.   Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood their ground.  Paul told Peter he was wrong “to the face”.   Popular is not always right.  Our fathers did not decline to disagree with church leaders when they are demonstrating this selfishness.

It is not too late.  Commit to spending some time with your elders.  Find an elderly saint, sit down and shut up!  Listen to what God has done for them for 70 to 80 years.  You might be amazed what God might teach you about faith, ministry and perseverance.

 

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Generic Church: The New Formalism (part ...

Written by Rick Shrader

Generic Church: The New Formalism (part 2)

by Rick Shrader

Note:  The first half of this article is in the January 2003 issue of Aletheia.  Although I give space to expand the introduction, the main points are a continuation of the first three points which appear in the first issue.

I have proposed that the description “contemporary church” in the sense of “new,” “fresh” or “cutting edge” would be a misnomer.  The churches who use this style are no longer new, but are rather generic.  They all look the same, do the same and even say the same things as every other “contemporary” church.  Whatever “new” was, has now become common and tedious. Rather than being unique in form or doctrine, they have become like the old Mother Hubbard dresses:  covering everything and touching nothing!

Contemporary churches, therefore, have also become a new formalism.  This is what is expected if a church is to be accepted as viable or effective.  We are already seeing that the trappings of the generic churches (the same stage, music, lights, sounds, casualness, storytelling, etc) are the images used by every other generic church.  And just as in the cathedrals of old, the images will quickly turn to icons, and the icons will eventually become idols.  The brazen serpent will inevitably become Nehushtan.

We have been working on this mindset for a while.  This is what Neil Postman, in his 1985 book Amusing Ourselves To Death, called the “Sesame Street” mentality.1 What began in 1969 to be teaching disguised as entertainment, quickly became entertainment disguised as teaching with the attitude, “entertain me and I’ll learn.”  Of course, the deal was made, but the promise was never kept.

When we spend the life-time of a child in church teaching him to expect entertainment and reward in order to become spiritual, we should not be surprised when, as an adult, he expects the same thing.  We preach against the world’s method of “dumbing down” the maturity process but continue to use it slavishly in our churches.  Sadly our youth departments, rather than preparing for adulthood, raise the “entertain me and I’ll learn” mentality to a fever pitch.  Again, the bargain is struck, but the promise is seldom kept—a fact that even our Bible colleges are having to admit.

In a 2002 book, compiled by well-known men from Reformed circles, R.C. Sproul wrote,

It is interesting to me that we have a crisis in the church in our day.  We’ve seen a revolution in worship which, in many ways, is being driven by an attempt to be winsome to the people in our age.  As our society becomes more and more secular, there is an attempt to rethink church, to remove all of the artifacts of “churchiness”: get rid of pulpits, get rid of pews, turn the church building into what looks like a concert hall, and turn worship into an outreach ministry that comes across as exciting, interesting, and “entertaining.”  It’s almost like we’re saying to our congregations today, “Let me entertain you.”  The number one hymn today may be, “There’s no business like show business.”2

Many would see the contemporary church as a revival. I don’t believe so.  My spirit is grieved by the tenor of the services and my reading of the Scripture contradicts what I see and feel there.  The reasons I have been listing are my conclusions, but they are resonating with many who also feel spiritually empty with the contemporary church movement.

It is popular, not theological

I do not think that even contemporary churches admit that they ignore their own doctrine, except some circles of Charismatics who openly admit so.3 I do think, however, that in order to have a popular, growing church many have put the application of their own theological beliefs in the background and have placed the popular things, even when contradictory to their doctrine, in the foreground or on the platform.

I read, for example, that the New Testament believers met on Sunday to worship because it is the day of our Lord’s resurrection (Acts 20:7, 1 Cor 16:2).  Why do some offer Saturday night as an alternative to Sunday worship?  (not in addition to, as Wednesday night) I read that women are not to have authority over men in the worship service (1 Cor 14:34, 1 Tim 2:12).  Why do we often find women leading men in our churches?  My theology tells me that I am not to be led around by so-called visions and revelations, but by the Word of God (1 Cor 13:8; Jude 3).  Why do I always hear of God having shown or told someone (in a miraculous way!) something that now becomes directive for the church?  (twice now I have been in a contemporary service led by a follower of Jack Hayford who literally told of directing his ministry by visions from God). We could add to this list the neglect of things like church membership; church discipline; gospel invitations; and more.

Paul told Timothy, Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee (1 Tim 4:16).  Departing from our doctrine and its application is not a way to save those that hear us.  Paul was constantly admonishing his readers to pay attention to “order” (Col 2:5; Tit 1:5; 1Cor 14:40) as well as to “doctrine” (Rom 16:17; Tit 1:9).

Being careful to follow our doctrine in both faith and practice is not a detriment to the gospel but a blessing.  Charles Ryrie wrote, “All doctrine is practical, and all practice must be based on sound doctrine.  Doctrine that is not practical is not healthy doctrine, and practice that is not doctrinal is not rightly based.”4 Spurgeon wrote, “At the back of doctrinal falsehood comes a natural decline of spiritual life, evidenced by a taste for questionable amusements, and a weariness of devotional meetings.”5 I think that the present day disdain for doctrinal specifics, and the quest for entertainment, is not a help, but a detriment to the gospel.

It is eclectic, not separatistic

Even the mention of separation as a biblical doctrine and principle immediately raises eyebrows and causes antipathy.  Jerry Solomon, of Dallas Bible Church writes, “Should we become separatists? No, the answer to the challenge of entertainment is not to become secluded in ‘holy huddles’ of legalism and cultural isolation.”6 Notwithstanding the innuendoes and caricatures of a biblical doctrine, Solomon and many others today either do not understand this doctrine or are not of the same heart as the Church of Jesus Christ throughout history.  Charles Ryrie has written, “Separation from the world, or nonconformity, is being unfashionable, and this is a necessary characteristic of the dedicated life.”7 J.I. Packer says, “we have become licentious and self-indulgent, unable to see that the summons to separation and cross-bearing has anything to say to us at all.”8 Spurgeon wrote, “Fellowship with known and vital error is participation in sin.”9 Even Athanasius replied, “The whole world is against you? Then I am against the whole world!”10

Someone who accepts everything cannot claim to be tolerant.  His conscience is not able to be bothered.  Only one who disagrees can be tolerant of that with which he disagrees.  What the world has never been able to understand is that believers are necessarily tolerant of living on this globe where we have no choice, but only tolerant to a certain limit of dwelling in the presence of sin where we do have a choice.  And when we decide to separate ourselves from such situations, we are being neither hateful nor harmful, but rather a) obedient to God’s command, b) protective of our hearts and minds and those of our family and people and c) taking the high road of non-violence rather than remaining and trying to pull tares from wheat, which is impossible in the age of grace.

It is interesting that contemporary Christians who disdain separation from the world will defend their methodologies by crying, “I don’t have to show you chapter and verse for doing it,” and yet when confronted with their worldliness will cry, “show me a chapter and verse that prohibits it.”  The real problem here is with the heart.

In the sixteenth century, Jean Baptiste Massillon wrote a rebuke to the ministers of his day:

That taste which leads us to seek the world is already but a secret desire to imitate it; we are already disposed to live like the world when we cannot refrain from it; it is conformity of inclinations which generally forms intimacies; and people do not connect themselves with the world, but because they have the same taste with the world.1

It is social, not prophetic

In the older days we might have been able to say that we are acting more like postmillennialists than premillennialists.  Our minds are more on the social improvement of this world than on the imminent return of Christ.  James said, Be patient; stablish your hearts: for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh (Jas 5:8).  Peter said, But the end of all things is at hand: be ye therefore sober, and watch unto prayer (1 Pet 4:7).  John said, And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure (1 John 3:3).

It is not that a premillennialist is unconcerned about his neighbor’s needs, or that he refuses to help him.  But he will not allow his neighbor to assume that the gospel is first for the physical and only then for the spiritual.  Saving faith is first for the soul, whether the body finds comfort in this life or not.  There are more social programs for the body going on in some churches today than spiritual food for the soul.  Even our government seeks to reward the churches for what it sees as its primary task—taking care of the physical needs of a community.

J. Gresham Machen (a Presbyterian!) in 1923 connected the social gospel with the ineffectiveness of Liberalism:

Christianity will combat Bolshevism; but if it is accepted in order to combat Bolshevism, it is not Christianity; Christianity will produce a unified nation; but if it is accepted in order to produce a unified nation, it is not Christianity.  Christianity will produce a healthy community; but if it is accepted in order to produce a healthy community, it is not Christianity.  Our Lord said, ‘Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.’ But if you seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness in order that all those things may be added unto you, you will miss both those things and the Kingdom of God as well.12

If Machen is right, we may be building more walls than bridges to the gospel by luring people into our churches with social incentives.

And so . . . .

Is it all criticism and no constructive alternative?  It is both.  Let me invite you to read my February ‘02 article “A Case For The Traditional Church.”  But let me also make three closing comments:

1) Even if we had no alternative, it doesn’t make these criticisms wrong!  Only politicians discard criticisms for lack of alternatives.  2) It is the contemporary that has left the traditional, not vice versa.  The burden of proof is on them to show that the new is better, a proposition for which I see little proof.  3) Death is better than compromise and worldliness.  That is the spirit of the church through the centuries.  Faithfulness doesn’t need an alternative.

Notes:
1. Neil  Postman, Amusing Ourselves To Death (New York: Penguin Books, 1985) 142.
2. R.C. Sproul, “The Teaching Preacher,” in Feed My Sheep (Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications, 2002) 143.
3. John Wimber, founder of the Vineyard Movement sees theology and doctrine as a hindrance to piety.  See Power Evangelism (New York: Harper/Collins, 1992) pp. 191-193.
4. Charles Ryrie, Balancing The Christian Life (Chicago: Moody Press, 1994) 69.
5. Quoted in, This Day In Baptist History, Thompson & Cummins, eds (Greenville: BJU, 1993) 447.
6. Jerry Solomon, Arts, Entertainment, & Christian Values (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2000) 141.
7. Charles Ryrie, Balancing The Christian Life, 83.
8. J.I. Packer, Truth & Power (Wheaton: Harold Shaw, 1996) 145.
9. Quoted by Ernest Pickering, Biblical Separation (Schaumburg: RBP, 1979) 84.
10. Quoted by Ernest Pickering, The Tragedy of Compromise (Greenville: BJU, 1994. vii.
11. Jean Baptiste Massillon, “On The Spirit of the Ministry,” Orations From Homer To McKinley, vol 4, Mayo Hazeltine, ed. (New York: Collier, 1902) 1712.
12. J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977) 157.

 

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Generic Church: The New Formalism (part...

Written by Rick Shrader

Generic Church: The New Formalism (part 1)

by Rick Shrader

Note:  I have been intending to write the following article for a few months.  It will probably take two issues to finish.  It describes my disagreement with the contemporary church movement and what I believe to be unbiblical trends among our conservative churches.  I have no antipathy toward individual people or churches.  I do have a great love for the local church and a deep desire for its purity and its priorities.

Solomon said, Meddle not with them that are given to change: For their calamity shall rise suddenly (Proverbs 24:21-22).  It is my opinion that we are seeing a blind allegiance to change for change’s sake, not because the Scriptures ask that of us, but because the world does. That kind of change is the most rigid formalism of all and in the end becomes the most useless.  Chesterton said the same when he wrote, “The modern young man will never change his environment; for he will always change his mind.”1 When the church is constantly asking the world what it wants, the world will never ask the church what it needs.  This is true whether it involves the incidentals or the fundamentals.  Constant change, even in the incidentals, sends the message to a postmodern culture that nothing is important enough to be believed absolutely and permanently.

Our fundamental and evangelical churches have played with this fire long enough to think they cannot be burned.  We have sold our soul to a pragmatic approach to church growth for the past fifty years.  Now, when someone appeals to what our “fathers” in the ministry used to do, they have their own “historical” examples of the same pragmatism.

Today, however, the methodology isn’t even unique (at least our “forefathers” were more original thinkers).  Everyone is different together!  Every church is on the cutting edge, every church has a part of the vision, every church does the same innovative things!  But when all have changed, who is different?  When everyone is on the cutting edge, who is not?  The fact is, for all their “innovativeness,” all the “contemporary” churches are alike!  And they are the same regardless of creed or doctrine.  The instruments, the stage, the volume, the screens, the dramas, et al.  It is all generic.  You will find the same thing in almost any contemporary service you choose.  In my city, you will find it in the Unity church as well as the Evangelical church, and even in the contemporary Catholic church.

Now if the change were for the better, we might be glad for them all.  But if the change is inferior, then all will be inferior.  If God cannot bless opposite doctrine, why are all of these contemporary-style churches experiencing the same results?  It is because the results have little to do with God’s blessing but everything to do with a common methodology—a methodology demanded by the world if we are to be blessed by their presence in our services.  But then once we have acquiesced to the demands for their presence, we must continue to acquiesce if we are to be blessed with such success.

It is my contention that the new formalism is not better in form or methodology, but is inferior in almost every way to what our independent Baptist churches knew and practiced for many years before the current pragmatism.  The very reason why lost people are more comfortable in the new formalism is an obvious reason why it is inferior.  They love the confession before the conversion; the worship before the wonder; the participation before the partaking.  We have forgotten that we are there to worship the immutable God, not to please His whimsical creatures.

Our normal Baptist churches are not without their problems.  Many in our congregations have lost their zeal and warmth.  Many have fallen prey to the thinking that we come together to worship, rather than being worshipers who come together.  Hence, they bring nothing in their heart or head to offer to God.  They are bored with the whole arrangement.  They have lost their love for the brethren (the church!) and begin to fall away in spirit as well as body.  But this is an individual heart problem, not a problem with the church.  And it cannot be solved by the world’s alternative, nor by the contemporary alternative.

In the new generic churches you will find modern characteristics that are assumed to be better than the normal church service.  With a little reflection one will realize they are not.

It is juvenile, not mature

Whereas the normal church service has been led by elder believers, the new formalism is led by novices.  Sadly, their parents and elders seem to be held hostage by the threat of desertion if they do not get their way, which usually means control.  Why should we be surprised?  Our homes, our schools, and our nation are being held hostage by the same threat.  And all of those institutions are dutifully handing over the reins.

It is often retorted, “The youth are the future of the church!”  But that is an obvious misnomer as well as a formula for disaster—not to mention just plain unbiblical!  Rather, it is the belief, maturity and direction of the elders that is the future of the church.  And it is the biblical duty of young people to respect and obey this direction.  Paul plainly gave instruction for leadership:  Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially they who labor in word and doctrine (1 Timothy 5:17).  Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil (1 Timothy 3:6).

I have received letters and emails from all across the country of older saints who feel their church has gone through a hostile takeover!  Many older saints have shown amazing resiliency in putting up with this immaturity (even to the point of walking away and leaving their life’s investment to these who are now occupying the facilities).  The younger saints are not hesitant to seize that for which they did not pay.

But there is a fine line between patience and permission.  The elders in our churches must not fear their God-given authority, even if the threat of desertion is followed through by one’s own children or others.  When it comes to eternal things, (baptismal) water must be thicker than blood.  Is this not what our Lord said would be the case in the latter days?  I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother . . . . And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household (Matthew 10:35-36).

It is profane, not reverent

Profane means to be unworthy of the sacred place.  It describes that which is out of place where the holy and reverent are called for.  Language can be profane as well as action and deportment.  The Bible admonishes us to let our moderation be known unto all men [for] the Lord is at hand (Philippians 4:5).  We are not to be a profane person, as Esau (Hebrews 12:16) but rather we are to make straight paths for your feet. . . . Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: looking diligently lest any man fail of the grace of God (Hebrews 12:13-15).

As the world has become more profane in their dress, their language, their casualness, their arrogance, it is not fitting before an unchangeable God to don what is unworthy of our worship services.  G. Campbell Morgan wrote, “There has been much quenching of the Holy Spirit by service that does not wait but rushes, and by the burning of false fires upon the altars of God.  The attempt to carry on the work of the kingdom of God by worldly means, the perpetual desecration of holy things by alliance with things that are unholy, the pressing of Mammon into the service of God, have meant the quenching of the Spirit;  for God will never allow the Fire of the Holy Spirit to be mingled with strange fires upon His altars.”2

Christians ought to prefer quietness over loudness, deportment over casualness, an attitude that asks the head to bow and the hands to fold rather than the proud and unyielding posture of so many today.  “Breeziness and singiness are no compensation for lack of depth and dignity.”3 Being in a contemporary church’s “worship” service is like Vance Havner’s description:  “They say the words and sing the songs, but they are like fountains in public squares where water gushes out of lips that never taste it.”4

Ezekiel mourned the priests of his day who have profaned mine holy things: they have put no difference between the holy and profane, neither have they shown difference between the unclean and clean (Ezekiel 22:26).  But when Ezekiel prophesied of the Lord’s return and the building of the millennial temple, he recorded, And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and profane, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean (Ezekiel 44:23).  The writer of Hebrews, anticipating these coming things, admonished, Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: for our God is a consuming fire (Hebrews 12:28-29).

It is worldly, not heavenly

In the contemporary services in which I have attended, I almost have to chuckle at the invitation to stand and begin “our worship time.”  What follows is more like a rock concert than a church service.  One would have to spend the entire week before, immersing himself in the world’s noise, music and bodily actions in order to feel comfortable in such an atmosphere.  And I fear that is why the average lost person feels very comfortable there.

But the church has never measured herself by applause or approval of the world.  Today we have become acute technicians, measuring up to the world’s standards, winning ourselves to them, but not winning them to a different life.  The apostle wrote, Seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.  Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth (Colossians 3:1-2).  Many believers have prepared themselves to live in the world, but are, I am afraid, totally unprepared to enter heaven.  The glory of God will be a total surprise to them.  Paul’s desire was to attain unto the resurrection from the dead, not to attain unto the fellowship with the dead.  It is a good thing that one day our sanctification will match our justification, and not the other way around, or we would be hopeless.

Our churches ought to be places where we escape the world’s clatter and enjoy the blessed quietness and fellowship of heaven.  We come to church to let our guard down, not have to defend ourselves from the world.  It seems the contemporary church minister spends more time defending David’s naked dancing than preaching against the world’s sins.  As Havner wrote, “He mistakes the stretching of his conscience for the broadening of his mind.  He renounces what he calls the ‘Pharisaism’ and ‘puritanism’ of earlier days with a good word for dancing, smoking, and even cocktails now and then.  Instead of passing up Vanity Fair, he spends his vacations there.”5

The generic contemporary church is busy trying to prove that the world’s culture is neutral.  We read it in almost every publication.  It would be a comfort to them to think that lost man’s actions come from an amoral basis.  Then we would be free to use any of it that we like.  But this is like hitting one’s head against the wall, it feels so good when you quit!  Culture, as T.S. Eliot once wrote, is the incarnation of a man’s religion.6 It is the “world” man has created in his lost condition.  The church must confront it, not cater to it!

To be continued in the next issue.

Notes:
1. G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, 1994) 115.
2. G. Campbell Morgan, Understanding The Holy Spirit (AMG, 1995) 166.
3. J.S. Baxter, Christian Holiness (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1977) 24.
4. Vance Havner, Why Not Just Be Christian (Westwood, NJ:  Revell, 1964) 38.
5. Vance Havner, Ibid, 21.
6. T.S. Eliot, Christianity and Culture (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1949) 101.

 

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We Beheld His Glory

Written by Rick Shrader

We Beheld His Glory

by Rick Shrader

John the Apostle always brings us close to heaven, especially as he reveals to us the glory that was in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Both in his gospel and his first epistle he graphical portrays what it was like to behold the Son of God in the flesh.  In two short parentheses, he lets us behold Him:  (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) John 1:14; and (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us), 1 John 1:2.

Christ, by highest heav’n adored

Christ, the everlasting Lord:

Late in time behold Him come,

Offspring of a virgin’s womb.

Veiled in flesh the God-head see,

Hail th’ incarnate Deity!

Pleased as man with men to dwell,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

Hark the herald angels sing,

“Glory to the new-born King!”

John boldly tells us that when he looked at Christ, he was seeing the Father’s glory.  A.T. Robertson, in commenting on Colossians 1:15, Who is the image of the invisible God, wrote, “God is invisible to man, as even Moses learned when he asked to see the glory of God pass by.  God dwells in light unapproachable, whom no one has seen or can see (1 Tim 6:16).  But we see God in Christ. ‘He that has seen me has seen the Father’ (Jn 14:9).  God is like Christ.  In the face of Jesus Christ God has given the light of the knowledge of his glory (2 Cor 4:6).  Jesus is the Shekinah glory of God for those who have eyes to see.”1

We should not be surprised at the absence of holy things in the Christmas of the commercial world.  The real glory of the Son of God always causes the darkness to flee.  People would rather spend their time and thoughts on the temporal glories of Christmas tree lights, silver tinsel and brightly decorated packages than on even the veiled glory of the God of heaven.

I have wondered when our culture might do away with the word “Christmas” altogether.  After all, it is a constant reminder of the Person who brings the real meaning to this season.  Even the word “holiday” reminds us that the day of our Savior’s birth is “holy” and that our commercialization of God’s incarnation is a desecration to His personification.  Christian hymn writers help us see this better.

There’s a tumult of joy

O’er the wonderful birth,

For the Virgin’s sweet Boy

Is the Lord of the earth!

Ay! The star rains its fire while the beautiful sing, For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!

We rejoice in the light,

And we echo the song

That comes down thru the night

From the heavenly throng.

Ay! We shout to the lovely evangel they bring, And we greet in His  cradle our Savior and King!

Wise men, whether pious or mildly religious, have recognized the awesome truth of the identity of Jesus of Nazareth.  C.S. Lewis, in a famous statement, says:

A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell.  You must make your choice.  Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God.  But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us.  He did not intend to.2

Similarly, and a half century earlier, G.K. Chesterton wrote concerning the identity of the Jesus Christ:

It can be found, not among prophets and sages and founders of religions, but only among a low set of lunatics.  But this is exactly where the argument becomes intensely interesting;  because the argument proves too much.  For nobody supposes that Jesus of Nazareth was that sort of person.  No modern critic in his five wits thinks that the preacher of the Sermon on the Mount was a horrible half-witted imbecile that might be scrawling stars on the walls of a cell.  No atheist or blasphemer believes that the author of the Parable of the Prodigal Son was a monster with one mad idea like a cyclops with one eye.  Upon any possible historical criticism, he must be put higher in the scale of human beings than that.  Yet by all analogy we have really to put him there or else in the highest place of all.2

John says he beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father. He says he saw that glory in Jesus.  His eyes looked upon it, his hands handled it, his ears heard it.  He beheld His glory!

Come to Bethlehem and see, Him whose birth the angels sing;

Come, adore on bended knee, Christ the Lord, the new-born King.

See Him in a manger laid, Jesus, Lord of heav’n and earth;

Mary, Joseph, lend your aid, With us sing our Savior’s birth.

Gloria, in excelsis Deo!  Gloria, in excelsis Deo!

At this season of our Lord’s birth, let us also behold Him who is the glory of God and of Heaven!  For he received from God the Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him from the excellent glory, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased (2 Peter 1:17).

Notes:
1. A.T. Robertson, Paul and the Intellectuals (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1959) 41.
2. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York: Collier Books, 1984) 56.
3. G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993) 203.

 

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Giving Thanks: For the Church of the Chr...

Written by Rick Shrader

Giving Thanks: For the Church of the Christ of Revelation

by Rick Shrader

I look forward to my regular reading of Revelation 1-3 as much as any portion of Scripture.  The description of The Lord Jesus Christ in chapter one ought to become familiar to any believer who is waiting for His return—for that is how He will appear when we see Him.  And we ought to desire to become like Him because, as John wrote earlier, when he shall appear, we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is (1 John 3:2).  We will not see Him as He was in His earthly flesh, for Paul has written, yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now henceforth know we him no more (2 Cor 5:16).  We will see Him as John saw Him on the isle of Patmos, in all of His eternal glory and splendor.

The purpose for Christ’s appearance to John was that His manifest presence would be the gauge by which the local churches would measure themselves.  Each letter to the churches begins with a selected characteristic of Christ’s eternal appearance which is applied to the condition of that church.  Each letter ends with an admonition to overcome the problem by striving for eternal rewards awaiting the believers in heaven.

The local churches at the end of the age, existing at the time Christ returns, are going to be fraught with the problems of these seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3.  They will not be expecting the Lord’s countenance to be as He pictures it in these chapters, as He takes the pastors in His hand and searches the works of each congregation. They will not be expecting to see those eyes that appear as flames of fire!

We need churches today that want to convey the character of Christ to the world, not amalgamate with the world.  We need churches today that offer the lost a place of change.  I agree with A.W. Tozer when he wrote, “Our meetings are characterized by cordiality, humor, affability, zeal and high animal spirits; but hardly anywhere do we find gatherings marked by the overshadowing presence of God.”1

I am thankful for the local New Testament Church.  I think the Christ of Revelation 1 would be pleased with the church that strives to be like Him and is uncomfortable when the likes of Balaam, Jezebel and the Nicolaitans feast with them, feeding themselves without fear, teaching unsuspecting believers to sacrifice unto idols and commit spiritual fornication. Such churches have left their first love and are in need of renewing the first works of ministry.  The churches of Christ can be salt and light in their generation, they don’t have to become sand and glitter.

The Christ of Revelation 1 is seeking local churches that will reflect His own attributes.  His words to the churches of Revelation 2 and 3 are sometimes loving and sometimes harsh but His instruction to them is left without recourse.  They are overcomers or they are not.  I find at least seven characteristics of this heavenly Christ which He expects to find in each church that calls itself by His name.

A church of modesty and propriety

And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle (Rev 1:13). Both the churches of Pergamos and Thyatira allowed believers to be drawn into fornication.  Familiarity and nakedness is opposite to the fully clothed Christ.  Spiritually the church at Laodicea was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (3:17).  They were to buy of their Lord pure raiment that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear (3:18).

It is because physical nakedness and immodesty is sin that it is a fitting analogy for spiritual nakedness (see Rev 16:15).  Today’s church sanctuaries are filled with uncomely parts which have need of more abundant comeliness (1 Cor 12:23).  We spend more time defending David’s naked dancing than we do condemning our own shamefulness!  In a day when nakedness is becoming a national sin,2 I would think that believers would want to be even more modest than we are.  Cyprian once wrote, “It is evident that there true patience cannot be, where there is found the insolent daring of a claim of liberty and the immodest forwardness of an exposed and uncovered [believer].”3

The overcomers in the church of modesty and propriety will sit with the Christ of Revelation 1 in the holy place of the Father’s throne (3:21).

A church of conviction and judgment

His eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass (1:14-15).  When Jesus addressed the worldly church at Thyatira He used these symbols of His character to point out, I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel (2:20).  This false doctrine was led by false women prophets who seduced the people of the church.  The Lord’s righteous anger and judgment are evident from His words, And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts (2:23).

Though the Lord will do the ultimate judging, it is the church’s responsibility to judge sin and false doctrine in their midst.  When the Corinthian church failed in this, thinking their slackness was actually a loving spirit, Paul wrote, ye are puffed up, and have not rather mourned . . . . Your glorying is not good (1 Cor 5:2, 6).  True love builds the erring brother, pride of knowledge puffs up the church (1 Cor 8:1).

A church of pastoral leadership

And he had in his right hand seven stars . . . . The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches (1:16, 20).  In Ephesus they had fallen prey to the Nicolaitans, Pergamos to Balaam and the Nicolaitans, Thyatira to Jezebel.  Sardis sought a name for themselves and Laodicea trusted in their riches alone.  The Lord addresses the “angel” of each church with these problems of leadership, and the Spirit witnessed to whoever had ears to hear.

Paul reminded the Galatians that they had received him as an angel of God (Gal 4:14), but he scolded the Corinthians for allowing false teachers who appeared as angels of light (2 Cor 11:14-15).  The climate at the end of the age will require ministers of unusual insight and courage.  Vance Havner wrote, “Any preacher who shows signs of being original in this assembly-line age will be frowned upon and viewed with suspicion by all operators of ecclesiastical armories.  ‘Ready-made clothes are for those of average size.’”4

A church of Biblical priority

And out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword (1:16).  Pergamos was a church with serious doctrinal error and Christ addresses them as he which hath the sharp sword with two edges (2:12).  They had allowed some to come in and do as Balaam had done, who taught Balak to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel (2:14).  That is, this church had allowed teachers from outside to teach the church to sin by idolatry and fornication.  They also allowed the Nicolaitans to spread their doctrine, God says, which thing I hate (2:15).

Last Sunday morning a generic-named evangelistic team I did not know at all, walked into my church and asked if they could teach my people that night in the evening service!  The air is thick with pestilences that spread biblical error.  Not long ago I heard a man from a well-known organization recommend to pastors a writer who has taught many wild and unbiblical things.  Such “Balaamizing” can come from any direction.

The book of Hebrews says the Word of God is like a two-edged sword that pierces the heart, and neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do (Heb 4:13).  The Christ of Revelation 1 sees these doctrinal errors and will fight against them with the sword of [his] mouth (2:16).

A church of heavenly and worldly contrast

And his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.  And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead (1:16-17).  Even though the Lord assured John he did not need to fear Him, it would be better for our churches today to begin with holy fear and find assurance, than to begin with self-confidence and find

holy displeasure.  J.S. Whale said, “Instead of putting off our shoes from our feet because the place we stand is holy ground, we are taking nice photographs of the burning bush from suitable angles.”5 C.S. Lewis wrote, “The man who has never even wanted to kneel or to bow, is a prosaic barbarian.”6

In too many ways the new Post-Modernism is actually a Neo-Paganism.  There ought to be a definite heavenly/worldly contrast about the church as there is about the Christ of Revelation 1.  It ought to draw us to bowed heads and bended knees.  Let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:28-29).

A church of eternal perspective

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending (1:8).  Fear not; I am the first and the last (1:17).  The book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ is all about perspective!  John, like apostles and prophets before him, is allowed to see the bigger picture.  He can see the throne of God as well as the altar of the local church.  He can see the unholy trinity of the dragon, the beast and false prophet and well as persecuted believers whom the devil will cast into prison and unto death.

The Laodicean church had lost its perspective.  It boasted, I am rich and increased with goods, and have need of nothing (3:17).  But the Lord said, thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (3:17).  Like many churches today, they needed trial (gold tried in the fire), purity (white raiment) and eternal wisdom (eye salve, that thou mayest see).  To poor, despised Smyrna the Lord said, I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty, but thou art rich (2:9).  Indeed, through His poverty, the church has been made rich!

A church of baptismal identification

I am he that liveth and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death (1:18).  Local church congregations consist of saved, baptized believers.  They have identified with their crucified, buried and risen Lord in the watery grave of baptism.  It has buried  their attachment to this world and has raised them to walk in newness of life.  This picture of the crucified and risen Lord is given to the church of Smyrna who will have to face death for their faith.  The Lord said, fear none of those things . . . Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life (2:10).

It will be said of future Tribulation saints, And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death (12:11).  The Lord said to Smyrna, He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death (2:11).  Believers baptized in water have also committed to a baptism of blood (see Matt 20:22-23).  So now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death (Phil 1:20).

And So . . . .

The Christ of Revelation 1 says, I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.  I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright and morning star.

And the Spirit and the bride say, Come (22:16-17).

Notes:
1. A.W. Tozer, Worship and Entertainment (Camp Hill:  Christian Pub., 1997) 30.
2. For example, the American Association of Nude Recreation claims 50,000 members.
3. Saint Cyprian, “On the Benefit of Patience,” Orations from Homer to McKinley, M. Hazeltine, ed (NY: Collier, 1902) 1115.
4. Vance Havner, In Times Like These (Old Tappan: Revell, 1969) 40.
5. Quoted by Robert Wenz, Room For God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994) 195.
6. C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns (New York: HBJ, 1986) 18.

 

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Why Bad Things Happen In God’s World

Written by Rick Shrader

Why Bad Things Happen In God’s World

by Rick Shrader

September 11 will long be the signal date for remembering that tragedy can happen, even in America—one nation under God.  The following has been my response, which I shared with my own church the Sunday before 9-11.  I find the Christian’s response to the presence of evil a mirror response to the question of atheism:  “If God exists, why does He allow bad things to happen to innocent people?”

Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote that the atheist “does not want to believe in his mind what something within him keeps asserting.”1 Therefore the atheist continually either looks for logical arguments against God, or dismisses the whole thought, as Isaac Isimov once admitted, “Emotionally, I am an atheist, I don’t have the evidence to prove that God doesn’t exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn’t that I don’t want to waste my time.”2

The perplexing dilemma for those who see evil as inconsistent with the idea of a good God, generally think in the following way.

If God exists, He would do good.

Bad things happen in this world.

Therefore, God doesn’t exist or is not good.

In his landmark book, The Problem Of Pain, C.S. Lewis recalls his own struggle when he was an atheist:  “If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty, He would be able to do what He wished.  But the creatures are not happy.  Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.”3 In other writings Lewis (agreeing with Lloyd-Jones) would say that the danger of such a hollow belief was always evident: “A young man who wishes to remain a sound Atheist cannot be too careful of his reading.  There are traps everywhere—‘Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,’ as Herbert says, ‘fine nets and stratagems.’  God is, if I may say it, very unscrupulous.”4

In my own state of Colorado, we have heard it said, “I don’t see how God could allow such a thing as Columbine.”  For the last year we have heard the same searching question regarding the tragic loss of innocent lives during 9-11.  But can we honestly think that our dilemma would be clearer if God did not exist?  Do we really think the world would be a better place?  The Psalmist insists that only a fool would say so (Psalm 14:1, 53:1).  Unbelieving people have not replaced God with a more satisfying alternative nor a more moral control.  To believe that there is no Ultimate Moral Being against which we measure right and wrong, usually brings people to moral degradation and despair.  Malcolm Muggeridge said, “If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place.  It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, Hitler or Hugh Heffner.”5

Christianity offers the way out of such a dilemma.  God is indeed in control and there is a reason for all things that happen.  Such confidence in God has always been a guiding light for Christian individuals, families, churches and nations.  This positive response can be set forth as follows.

Evil does indeed exist

We have no argument here with the atheist or the moralist.  Solomon plainly exclaims, The eyes of the LORD are in every place, beholding the evil and the good (Prov 15:3).  There are natural evils in the world such as earthquakes, floods, droughts and things that take people’s lives  [I ought to note that Christianity knows that the earth itself is not evil and that these things, being themselves consequences of an Adamic fall, are the absence of good].  There are also moral evils such as murder, hatred, stealing and things that proceed from the fallen nature of mankind.

The atheist is forced to define evil in terms of Relativism.  To him, evil or wrong exist only because people decide to call such things evil or wrong.  If society decides that killing is wrong, it is wrong for that society.  Still today, some will not admit that 9-11 was morally wrong, PERIOD.  To them a thing is only morally wrong if our culture says it is.  Francis Schaeffer wrote, “The problem of our generation is a feeling of cosmic alienation, including the area of morals.  Man has a feeling of moral motions, yet in the universe as it is, it is completely out of line with what is there.”6

To the believer however, all things are measured against a universal Moral Law.  Adam first violated that law, and his descendents still do to this day.  We also know the whole earth has been affected by those wrong decisions.  To think that evil does not exist is like hitting one’s head against a wall—if feels so good when you quit!

If evil exists, then good must also exist

Paul’s argument is, When the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves (Rom 2:14).  As soon as we say that 9-11 is bad, we have compared it to something that is good.  Again, C.S. Lewis writes, “The moment you say that one set of moral ideas can be better than another, you are, in fact, measuring them both by a standard, saying that one of them conforms to that standard more nearly than the other.  But the standard that measures two things is something different from either.  You are, in fact, comparing them both with some Real Morality.”7

At this point atheists have tried to deny God exists by denying that there is such a “Good.”  Nietzsche wrote, “Once the sin against God was the greatest sin; but God died, and these sinners died with him.  To sin against the earth is now the most dreadful thing, and to esteem the entrails of the unknowable higher than the meaning of the earth.”8 But, as Geisler has written, “Hegel wrote that God is dead and Nietzsche took it seriously.”9 And so did Hitler, and every other mass murderer who, for at least a brief moment, believed that what he was doing is actually a service to the world.

Good is not incompatible with evil

How else could Job say, Shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? (Job 2:10).  This is where the real disagreement with the atheist or agnostic lies.  The thought that Columbine or 9-11 or the Holocaust could happen on “God’s watch” seems so inconsistent with God’s nature that it drives some people to despair or even unbelief.  Francis Schaeffer has shown how this happened with famous atheists:  Charles Baudelaire said, “If there is a God, he is the Devil.”10 And Albert Camus said, “If there is a God, we cannot fight social evil, for He made it.”11 But to think like that is to make certain assumptions about God that are not so.

The first is to assume that God can do anything!  That is, that God acts without limitations for purposes of this world.  When God made a time-and-space world, He set Himself to certain boundaries.  There are physical limitations.  God does not make a square peg fit a round hole, nor make a valley without two mountains.  [Christians know that at certain times God can intervene, and we call those miracles.  But, by definition, they are intrusions from outside this world.  That is why we do not call all wonderful things within time and space “miracles.”  If everything were a miracle, nothing would be a miracle]  There are also moral limitations.  God cannot lie or bare false witness against Himself.  God also cannot make a free moral creature and then not allow him to choose the evil.

The second assumption is that God always acts immediately when the evil occurs.  He does not and this is not inconsistent with all we know about God’s nature.  God knew that the bad choice would have to be made (by Adam first of all) in order for free creatures to also make the right choice.  This is why we have time and space.  God is longsuffering so that we have time to repent (2 Peter 3:9).

Every parent deals this way with his child.  When a child misbehaves badly at a friend’s house, he may wait until he gets home to mete out the punishment.  If the misbehavior is small, he may correct it immediately.  Sometimes he lets the natural consequences happen, as when the host corrects the child.  In such cases, the child gets the punishment from the host, and also from the parent when he gets home. God does the same thing.  The sinner suffers the natural consequences of a sinful world now, and also later, where he suffers eternally for his sin.  Maybe the older disciplinarians understood this more than we, when kids got spanked at school and at home.

Good is greater than evil

When Abraham discoursed with God over the destruction of Sodom, for his nephew Lot’s sake, he finally rested on the thought: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? (Gen 18:25).  He knew that God existed and therefore that God (being the ultimate Good) would ultimately win out over evil.

The war between good and evil is not a civil war between equals, it is a revolutionary war between One who has the right to rule and a usurper.  We do not live in a dualistic world of positive—negative, yin—yang, eternal evil—eternal good.  We live in a good world that has been spoiled by the entrance of sin and that God will eventually gain back.  He will eternally punish the usurpers, reward the faithful, and return His creation to its original purpose.

God is what we call a “necessary” Being.  He is not contingent on anything but Himself.  All else is contingent on Him.  Aquinas said, “Therefore, we cannot but admit the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it from another, but rather causing in others their necessity.  This all men speak of as God.”12

It would be practically impossible to talk at all if we could not compare good and evil, right and wrong.  Our minds are made to think in terms of non-contradiction, seeking the good above the evil.

God is Good

Jesus reminded His hearers that There is none good but one, that is, God (Matt 19:17).  Francis Schaeffer, during the unsettled atheism of the ‘60s, wrote, “It is not that this is the best answer to existence; it is the only answer.  That is why we may hold our Christianity with intellectual integrity.  The only answer for what exists is that He, the infinite-personal God, really is there.”13

If evil exists in this world, then good must also exist so that we may call evil bad.  Since that is so, good is the better thing and evil is the bad thing.  And if there is any good at all in the universe, it is given by God who is the Ultimate Standard for all good and evil.

And So . . . .

In order for God to have a heaven populated by free-will beings, it was necessary to have this world first and to let us make our choice.  Having fallen into sin, our only choice now can be imputed righteousness through Jesus Christ.  If we choose Him, we will still endure the “light affliction” of this life, but live forever in heaven, not in hell.  I choose to think that God is working all these things together for good for those who believe.

Truth forever on the scaffold,

Wrong forever on the throne;

Yet that scaffold sways the future,

And behind the dim unknown,

Standeth God within the shadows,

Keeping watch above His own.14

Notes:
1. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, quoted in a biography by Tony Sargent, The Sacred Anointing (Wheaton:  Crossway Books, 1994) 136.
2. Quoted by Henry and John Morris, The Modern Creation Trilogy.  A CD book from Institute for Creation Research, El Cajon, CA.
3. C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain (New York: Macmillan, 1962) 26.
4. C.S. Lewis, Surprised By Joy (New York:  HBJ, 1988) 191.
5. Quoted by Ravi Zacharias, A Shattered Visage (Brentwood, TN: Wogemuth & Hyatt, 1990) 25.
6. Francis Schaeffer, He Is There And He Is Not Silent (Wheaton:  Tyndale, 1972) 23.
7. C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (New York:  Macmillan, 1960) 25.
8. Nietzsche, Friedrich.  Thus Spoke Zarathustra (New York: Penguin Books, 1978) 13.
9. Norman Geisler, Philosophy of Religion, (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1974) 52.
10. Francis Schaeffer,  27.
11. Ibid, 28.
12. Aquinas, Summa Theologica Q3, Art 3 (Chicago:  U. of Chicago, 1952) 13.
13. Francis Schaeffer, 15.
14.  James Russell Lowell, in The Present Crisis, written during the Civil War.

 

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To Him That Overcometh

Written by Rick Shrader

To Him That Overcometh

by Rick Shrader

In 1858 Rev. George Dufield received these words from a minister friend, whispered while dying from a tragic accident, “Let us all stand up for Jesus.”1 For the next Sunday’s sermon, Dufield wrote a poem from those words in memory of his friend titled, “Stand Up, Stand Up For Jesus.”  The final stanza of the poem reads,

Stand up, stand up for Jesus, The strife will not be long;

This day the noise of battle—The next the victor’s song.

To him that overcometh A crown of life shall be;

He with the King of glory Shall reign eternally.

The crown of life for the overcomer was promised by our Lord to the church at Sardis during their time of testing, and to all Christians, as James tells us: which the Lord hath promised to them that love him (Jas 1:12).  The admonition to all seven churches of Revelation 2 and 3 is, to him that overcometh, which is always preceded by the inclusive words, he that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches (Rev 2:7, 11, 17, 29; 3:6, 13, 22).

The piercing words of Jesus, that the overcomer of this world is the one who will finally inherit heaven, have encouraged believers of this age of grace to verbalize this perseverance of the saints in their various confessions.  Perhaps the most common statement is in the New Hampshire Confession of 1833.

We believe that such only are real believers as endure unto the end; that their persevering attachment to Christ is the grand mark which distinguishes them from mere professors; that a special Providence watches over their welfare; and that they are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.2

Perseverance of the saints is, in a way, a two-edged sword.  On the one hand, it affirms that the believers’ salvation is “kept by the power of God” through Christ’s finished work on their behalf; yet on the other hand, it affirms that a “mere profession” of salvation is inadequate for eternal life without the reality of faith which always shows itself in the life of the believer.  This doctrine is plainly seen in the letters to the seven churches (Revelation 2-3) as Jesus separates believers in the churches from mere professors in the churches by the description He that overcometh.

In the coming Tribulation, the entire Church will be a professing Church only, containing no true believers at all (Rev 13:8) because, of course, all true believers will have been removed at the Rapture.  At the end of the Age of Grace, however, the Church will be a mixed multitude of true believers and professing believers (1 Tim 4:1-3; 2 Tim 3:1-7).  We are surely in the last days and are experiencing the phenomenon of this mixed multitude!  Wheat and tares, sheep and goats, clean garments and spotted, seem to be harder to distinguish than many have thought.  And while the Church enjoys the sunshine of success, many are indifferent to the Lord’s warnings.

Overcomers are believers and all believers are overcomers

This language is similar to John’s first epistle where believers are put in broad categories:  Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him (1 John 3:6).  In Revelation he writes, To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life (2:7); He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life (3:5).  All of the “overcomer” statements are true of any believer who will one day be in heaven.

The apostle Paul has this kind of broad language in Romans:  To them who by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory and honor and immortality, [they will have] eternal life: But unto them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, [they will have] indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish (Rom 2:7-9).  The point is, true believers, though they may struggle in this life, will persevere and overcome to where their life is one that reflects Christ and His redemption.

There were true believers in each of these seven churches.  Antipas was a faithful martyr (2:13) in Pergamos though many followed the doctrine of Balaam.  Most in Thyatira had followed Jezebel, but the rest had not known the depths of Satan (2:24).  Sardis was dead spiritually, but there were still a few names (3:4) that had not defiled their garments.  Though most in Laodicea were miserable before God, if any man (3:20) would open his own door to Christ, He would come in. These were the overcomers!  The rest, and in many cases the majority, are not included in the promise of heavenly rewards.

Non-overcomers are unbelievers and no unbeliever overcomes the world

This only follows if the first assertion is true.  False professors of the faith may be in the church, they may do the things believers do for a while (perhaps for quite a while, years in fact), but they will not persevere to the end and overcome the things of the world that attract them.  Again, in John’s first epistle, he describes these as those who do not love the brethren.  They cannot abide to stay around and do the things true believers do.  So they went out from us, but they were not of us (1 John 2:19).

In Ephesus, some had left the initial love that had drawn them to the Christian faith.  They needed to repent (2:5) in order to be one that overcometh and who will eat of the tree of life (2:7).  In Pergamos, many were sacrificing to idols and committing fornication (2:14).  They needed to repent and be overcomers or find themselves to fight against God and the sword of his mouth (2:16).  In Thyatira, many were also worshiping idols and committing fornication (2:20).  God was ready to cast them into a bed of adultery (even great tribulation) unless they repented and became overcomers who will one day rule in the kingdom of God (2:26).  In Sardis, many had a famous name but were dead spiritually (3:1).  Their works were not perfect (3:2) before God as the true believers who were worthy (3:4) of the white garments of heaven.  In Laodicea, most thought that their prosperity was a sign of their fellowship with God, when in fact God saw them as wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (3:17).

False believers within the church do not overcome.  John Owen once said, “Religion in a state of prosperity is like a colony that is long settled in a strange country.  It is gradually assimilated in features, demeanor, and language to the native inhabitants, until at length every vestige of its distinctiveness has died away.”3 Similarly, R.A. Torrey wrote, “Hand in hand with this widespread infidelity [which means non-faith] goes gross immorality, as has always been the case.  Infidelity and immorality are Siamese twins.  They always exist and always grow and always fatten together.”4

It is possible for true believers to backslide into this condition for a time.  But the test that they are true will be their loathing of such things (Lot was “vexed” by the life-style of Sodom) and their turning back to God.  Nonbelievers will feel no such loathing and will be more than content to stay in the world and in the church.

True repentance is never late and late repentance is never true

Though some would say “seldom true,” in this case we are following John’s (though we should say the Lord’s) thought of true believers overcoming.  Any sinner may repent of his sins and come to Christ at any time.  That kind of repentance is never too late.  To the Philadelphians God promised removal from the tribulation period (3:10) for those who have kept the word of my patience.  All who will leave the false synagogue of Satan (3:9) and come to the true faith can also overcome these things.  To the Laodiceans God promised communion to any man that would hear His voice and open the door to Him (3:20).  This would all be true repentance and, if done in this life, would not be too late.

Late repentance is of two types.  a) Late repentance in this life is a sop.  It is insincere.  Many unbelievers go through this life feeling sorry that their sin is seen and disliked by God.  Repentance becomes a way to relieve the pressure for a while and appease God’s displeasure.  This kind of “late” repentance is never true repentance.  b) Late repentance in the next life will be forced from the lips of unbelievers as every knee will bow and every tongue will confess (Phil 2:10-11) but it will be too late for it to be true, volitional repentance.

What the Spirit has written to the churches, the Son has commissioned to the angels

These letters are the Spirit’s inspired words to the churches of Asia.  In each case the letter ends with the words, He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches.  In each case also, the letter begins with Christ addressing the angel of the particular church.  This is the pastor or messenger of the church (see Gal 4:14; 2 Cor 12:7; Jas 2:25).  The Greeks used this description (aggelos, angel) of the official herald who was commissioned by the king to publicly address the people and be careful not to soften, change or negotiate with the words.5 George Whitefield once prayed to God, “O, grant I may, like a pure crystal, transmit all the light Thou pourest over me, and never claim as my own what is thy sole property”6

And so . . . .

The angels, the pastor-heralders of God’s message, must never negotiate with the message in order to better appeal  to the hearers.  The sinner cannot overcome the world by retaining his own prerogatives.  And “messengers” do not help them by allowing them to think they can!  “The entrance to heaven is low, and we must be no taller than children in order to get in.”7 It is that which we, the herald-angels, sing!

Notes:
1.  Quoted by Kenneth Osbeck, 101 Hymn Stories (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1982) 237.
2. William Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions Of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1980) 365.
3. Quoted by William Wilberforce, Real Christianity (Minneapolis:  Bethany House, 1997) 99.
4. R.A. Torrey, How To Pray (Chicago: Moody Press, nd) 105.
5. See knrux in Kittel;s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. III (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1965) 688.
6. In Harry Stout’s The Divine Dramatist (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1994) 58.
7. C.S. Lewis, Reflections on the Psalms (New York:  HB & W, 1964) 88.

 

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