Mysterious Ways

Recently, I had a long conversation with a friend who is a Pastor in a local church. This man and I were talking about the ways in which the Holy Spirit works. One of the points made was that His providential control of everything is astonishing if one is looking for it and aknowledges it.

For example, my post yesterday was about subtle changes in church structure that effect, often harmfully,  what we are trying to achieve as we reach out to the world with the gospel. After posting that, I spent a long time wondering about my own thoughts if they were appropriate or just nit-picking. I do that a lot.

This morning, as I was reading through some of my favorite blogs I read at Pyromaniacs (The Lie of Liberal Theology):

"...the worst blows to the advancement of the gospel always come from people within the visible church—usually leaders and influential teachers.

They'll insist they believe in evangelical principles, but they won't actually preach the gospel without abridging or modifying it somehow. They're just trying to keep up to date, they assure us—even as they undermine the very foundations of faith.

Abridging or modifying the gospel happens in small ways in attempts to somehow not antagonize those hearing it. For instance, because of perceived time constraints, there are times when only a portion of the actual gospel message is preached. Seldom do we hear the demand from Christ for repentance as the initial opening of the Spirit's work in the lost. Jesus opened with "repent" (Mat 4:17) when he preached, we generally open with "God loves you," or some other form of sentiment meant to sooth the "felt needs" of those we are trying to reach.

Christ's preaching was generally antagonistic. He knew to whom he was speaking and he knew that without a direct confrontation with the problem of "self-interest" (pride) there could be no change and no salvation.

When Christian doctrine is subjected to liberalizing influences, the inevitable result is a profoundly destructive drift that weakens churches, breeds skepticism, and quickly trades away the gospel for a differently-nuanced message. The long view of church history provides ample proof of that.

As if reading the article at Pyromaniacs wasn't enough to convince me to leave my post from yesterday as is, the Pyro team insisted I read this month's 9Marks Ejournal. The first paragraph seemed to provide further assurance that the Holy Spirit does indeed control everything. I read:

In general, the danger of liberalism, which we define broadly as gospel-denial within the church, occurs when we allow the world's demands to ring a little too loudly in our ears. It occurs when we let the world dictate the terms of our beliefs or practices. Or when we let the world determine, "These things are good and worthy, not those things," or, "This is the salvation we are looking for." As soon as we let the world influence the terms of the church's life and mission, we have let another authority enter the house and tie up the king of the church, Christ.

When I wrote my post I was totally unaware of these others. One was just posted today, and the Journal I did not know was on line. The Holy Spirit does work in mysterious ways.