Concern for the Church

I visited Australia a couple of years ago. Other than the obvious difference in landscape one of the major differences I noticed was the apparent lack of churches. I didn't survey for numbers, but here in the states we seem to have as many churches as we do gas stations. It feels like there is one on every corner, not so in Australia. In fact, I noticed the difference in church numbers more readily there because there appeared to be so few in comparison.

Pastor, teacher, Rowland Croucher who is Australian, has written a good article (here) about the apparent demise of churches in Australia by beginning with some statistics from the states.

According to the latest set of figures for Baptists in the Garden State, not everything is rosy:

* Two thirds of our churches are plateaued
* Just nineteen churches accounted for more than half the baptisms last year “Six churches accounted for just on one third of the total baptisms
* More than 40% of our churches baptised no one
* We are more adept at roll revisions than roll additions

My own church seems to be in a unique situation considering the numbers above. We baptize new believers regularly, but our actual growth seems to be stagnating. For each new believer we loose one or two for various reasons. Part of this is due to economic conditions as folks must move for employment reasons, but I sense a larger part of the stagnation is due to "church-hopping." I know of several young families who have moved to nearby churches for no other reason than someone hurt their feelings. When that happens I wonder why it is we seem unable to bring these folks to Christian maturity. Life happens, people are people, feelings get hurt - get over it.

I'm beginning to wonder if there are not a lot more "goats" among the "sheep" than we care to admit. We don't like to think along these lines because we have so much invested in convincing new converts and older members as well, that all they have to do is believe without teaching them that that belief carries with it certain obligations to the One we believe in.

Croucher's article does not have the sense I have just given but I think in the back of his mind he might agree. He goes on to say;

What is even more concerning is the growing trend reported in many churches: as much as one third of the regulars will be absent on any given Sunday making communication difficult and continuity in preaching and teaching almost impossible. The point is that the local congregation is not seen as the place to be. Worship simply does not belong as a priority activity.

If "worship is not a priority" among a given congregation there is obviously something drastically wrong with our labeling as saved those who are really just looking for temporary relief from some immediate personal problem.

Perhaps we need to seriously consider actually reading what Scripture says about salvation and forget all the gimmicks that have been passed down to us the way "to win the lost."

Who Chooses Whom?

Who Chooses Whom in Salvation (from Mike Ratliff)

God wills                      John 1:12,13; Eph 1:5, Eph 1:11  

God draws                   John 6:44          

God grants                  John 6:55             

God calls                      1Thes 2:12; 2Thes 2:14; 2Tim 1:9; 1Pet 2:9 

God appoints               Acts 13:48; 1Thes 5:9            

God predestines           Rom 8:29; Eph 1:5, 11           

God prepares               Rom 9:23                          

God causes                  1Cor 1:30                             

God chooses                1Thes 1:4; 2Thes 2:13; Eph 1:4    

God purposes               Eph 1:11                          

God delivers and 
transfers                      Col 1:13               

God saves                    2Tim 1:9: Titus 3:5                            

God makes us alive        Eph 2:5                  

God pours out 
His Spirit                       Titus 3:6                  

God brings us forth        James 1:18


God justifies                  Rom 8:30; Titus 3:7                       

God sanctifies                1Thes 5:23                        

God glorifies                  Rom 8:3                        

The passages above summarize what Sacred Scripture teaches about God’s role in salvation. If you have taken an honest look at these passages then you have seen that God is the ‘first cause’ or initiator of a believer’s salvation. 

Another Book to Read

Readers of this blog know I have been having problems with certain things I hear presented as the "gospel." I think the major problem with much of what I hear is that the speaker(s) assume our culture still shares an inherited belief in there being a god. Sadly to say, this is not so.

American schools have spent the better part of half a century "educating" their charges that the very idea of god is an illusion perpetrated by some men who have an agenda to control the masses of men. So some preachers pretend to preach "the Gospel" by beginning in the middle of the story, Christ died for sinners, with the assumption that the listeners have built-in knowledge to confirm what they are saying. It is a tragedy in the Americanized church and a slap in the face to the God of the Bible.

There is a new book out that I ordering, today, which, according to reviews is one that should be read by all preachers and everyone claiming to be a Christian. It is "What is the Gospel, by Greg Gilbert. You can read about it here.

Here are the main points:

• Who made us, and to whom are we accountable
• What is our problem? In other words, are we in trouble and why.
• What is God's solution to that problem? How has He acted to save us from it?
• How do I - myself, right here, right now - how do I come to be included in that salvation? What makes this good news for me and not just for someone else?

I'm going to order the book right now. I may give my copy to someone I know who needs it badly.

Divine Transcendence

Reading A.W. Tozer's Knowledge of the Holy, I came across this:

"Once in conversation with his friend Eckermann, the poet Goethe turned to thoughts of religion and spoke of the abuse of the divine name. ”People treat it,” he said, ”as if that incomprehensible and most high Being, who is even beyond the reach of thought, were only their equal. Otherwise they would not say ‘the Lord God, the dear God, the good God.’ This expression becomes to them, especially to the clergy, who have it daily in their mouths, a mere phrase, a barren name, to which no thought whatever is attached. If they were impressed by His greatness they would be dumb, and through veneration unwilling to name Him."

I couldn't help but think of some the conversations and sermons I've heard in which God was made to sound like a "buddy" not the Entity whom I can't begin to understand or comprehend. He is not my "pal" He is my God. I'm afraid to think less of Him than his Being calls for.

In conversation the other day, a friend mentioned "assurance of salvation." I told him I was like Paul working out my salvation in "fear and trembling." The more I try to understand God the more afraid (awe struck is probably better phrasology) I become. Anyway I told my friend, I will be fully assured of my salvation when I am in Heaven. Until then I trust Christ, attempt to worship the Father and hope I am one of His elect.

Law and Order

Tonight I was watching an episode of Law and Order when a thought stuck me. Before I get into the thought, however, let me set the scene a little.

First of all, I believe Law and Order to be the last TV series written for those of us older than 10. It is about the only series which actually requires more than 3 seconds of thought to even attempt a solution to the crime. And it is one of the last "gory" kinds of shows that does not believe it necessary to show guts oozing, blood spurting, and heads being blown-apart with slow motion bullets. Law and Order leaves some things to that old-fashioned thing ... what was it called ... I remember ... the imagination.

What I saw tonight was an episode in which a deranged young man had taken a hostage and was holding her at knife point in a store. A police negotiator was unable to gain any headway with him so he exited the scene informing the Detectives in charge the criminal wanted a lawyer immediately or he would kill the hostage.

There were no defense lawyers on scene so the police asked if the Assistant District Attorney on scene would try to talk him into surrendering. She agreed. In gaining his surrender she failed to notify him she was in fact an Assistant District Attorney. He eventually surrendered after confessing, but his real defense attorney tried to get dismissal of the charges claiming the D.A. had mislead the poor boy by not informing him she was not his lawyer and that she was in fact a prosecutor.

She did commit an ethical violation and a violation of the commandment which says, "thou shalt not bear false witness." In the process of investigation charges were brought against the A.D.A., for violation of the ethical code of the State Bar of New York. She was found guilty on these charges. It appears that civil courts still maintain that withholding the whole truth, telling half-truths, intentionally misleading our "neighbor" - in this case a criminal - is in fact an ethical violation and a crime punishable under the law.

O.K., back to my thought. American Law is enmeshed with the Biblical law given to Moses known as the Ten Commandments.  In those commandments are such things as don't murder, don't commit adultery, (still valid in some states) but more pertinent to my story, "Thou shalt not bear false witness against they neighbor." People sometimes still have to say "so help me God," when they testify in court. And right here is where my thought blossomed. Lying in an American Court is an accountable ethical violation designed to insure the integrity of our system of Justice.

Isn't it so that the system of worship espoused in the Bible is also based on an accountable system of ethical standards designed to insure the integrity of our contact with God? Jesus said "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil." (Mat 5:17)

My question, then, is this: How it is that so many preachers believe the "ends justify the means" when it comes to supposedly "winning lost souls" for Christ? Osteen tells his audience they can be saved by repeating a prayer at the end of his "motivational speech" in his "Church." Schuller has convinced thousands they are saved all the while hiding from them the fact that hell does exist, thereby hiding the possibility of spending eternity there is real. These kinds of people believe nothing is achieved by telling people the whole story of the Gospel. Couldn't it be said that even what we consider inconsequential little things, which may mislead the lost into something about which they do not know the whole truth,  are ethical violations of God's law? I think so.

But, hey what do I know. I'm not a lawyer nor a preacher. I just think it wrong to tell someone they can be assured of their salvation and know they are on their way to heaven because they repeated a prayer sometime, somewhere, without informing them that scripture says insurance of salvation is evident through a changed life, not just saying they "accept Christ as savior." (Is 43:11) Moreover, whatever happened to telling the lost about the concept of "repentance." (Mk 2:17)

Maybe those who withhold vital information don't understand God's ethical  law. They should watch Law and Order.  They might actually learn something.

Calvin Defines Us

I haven't read Calvin's Intsitutes of the Christian Religion but some of the blogs I read occasionally quote them. Often the quotes remind me I need to read them, below is one such quote. I took this one from the blog Wittenberg Door and I thank them for it:

"For what is more consonant with faith than to recognize that we are naked of all virtue, in order to be clothed by God? That we are empty of all good, to be filled by him? Blind, to be illuminated by him? Lame, to be made straight by him? Weak, to be sustained by him? To take away from us all occasion for glorying, that he alone may stand forth gloriously and we glory in him? When we say these and like things our adversaries interrupt and complain that in this way we shall subvert some blind light of nature, imaginary preparations, free will, and works that merit eternal salvation . . . For they cannot bear that the whole praise and glory of all goodness, virtue, righteousness, and wisdom should rest with God. But we do not read of anyone being blamed for drinking too deeply of the fountain of living water. The Institutes of the Christian Religion, 1559"

Clearly, without Christ man has no hope through anything he thinks he can do to be saved. Without Christ's illumination prior to our participation in salvation we are hopeless. We can walk all the altar call aisles, say all the prayers, freely choose to accept Christ (in our dead natural condition), remember the times we did those things, but unless Christ through his Holy Spirit has first pulled us from our grave wherein we are "dead in trespasses and sins" (Col 2:13) we are lost without hope. We can't even assist in this renewing - it is all of Grace.

I think many who believe they are saved, mistakenly believe human temporal abilities to "choose" are co-equal with spiritual abilitites. They are not. We can choose a hamburger or a taco, but until God acts upon us spiritually we cannot choose eternal life with Christ. That life is given to us, whether we like it or not, by God's Grace alone. (Oops! Did I really say that?)  Only after we have been "quickened" spiritually can we or do we want to repent and obey. (2 Cor. 4:2,3,4)

My concern is that when we witness to others of Christ's saving power we often leave out the fact that only He can effectually change us. As lost humans our only hope is to be on our knees begging to be "chosen" by God not the other way around.

Regeneration Thoughts

The Exiled Preacher (link in quote below) has posted some thoughts on "mediated" regeneration. I've not read much about the issue so I'm not at all familiar with the concept. However, having said that, the ideas the Preacher posted are just in line with my thinking on what we call salvation.

Exiled Preacher: "'Since the Spirit's work in regeneration involves the transformation of the whole man, including his cognitive and affective powers, the accompanying of the internal illumination of the Spirit by the external revelation of the word (and vice versa) is altogether appropriate. Since faith involves knowledge, it ordinarily emerges in relationship to the teaching of the gospel found in Scripture. Regeneration and the faith to which it gives birth are seen as taking place not by revalationless divine sovereignty, but within the matrix of the preaching of the word and the witness of the people of God (cf. Rom. 10:1-15). Their instrumentality in regeneration does not impinge upon the sovereign activity of the Spirit. Word and Spirit belong together.' (Contours of Christian Theology: The Holy Spirit, Sinclair B. Ferguson, IVP, 1996, p. 125-126)."

I'm now viewed in my "easy believism" church as "one of those." By that is meant a Calvinist. The phrase is used as a pejorative by many who will not sit down to discuss or attempt to find out what it is I have come to truly believe. That's OK! I don't mind. What I mind is that those who dismiss me so lightly as a kind of kook, are, generally, those who also refuse to study their Bibles. I know this because of the "deer in the headlights" look many of them exhibit when they hear Biblical principles which do not fall in line with "all you have to do is believe." Were that a lone Christian principle there will be a whole bunch of demons in heaven because scripture teaches they also believe. (James 2:19)

J.I. Packer in his small book, Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God, says "...to indulge in long drawn out wheedling for decisions and the deliberate us of lucious music to stir sentiment, tends to produce 'conversions' which are simply psychologicl and emotional upheaval, and not the fruit of spiritual conviction are renewal at all....that appeals for decision will often be made on the basis of inadequate instruction as to what the decision involves and will cost  (emphasis added) and such appeals are no better than a confidence trick.

I'm nowhere near where I would like to be in my studies, but I know this: Once the journey begins, of trying to learn all that is possible for a human to know about God and His Word, it becomes an all enveloping journey. There is nothing I would rather do than try to "renew my mind," and that includes baby-sitting the kids in the picture in my header. Oh! Oh! That reminds me, I have to go pick them up so Mom-to-be can get some rest.

Reformation Theology

Why is the following so hard for so many to understand? Salvation is "easy" but it isn't up to us. If God doesn't save us - we are not saved. One can walk all the aisles, pray all the sinner's prayers, get baptized thousands of times, but if God has not united us to Christ we are not saved.


Reformation Theology: "If someone borrowed $100 million to fund a company and then immediately went and spent it all in a week of wild living in Las Vegas, his inability to repay the debt does not alleviate him of the responsibility to do so. So there is no contradiction between his responsibility and his inability. He created his own inability so he is responsible. Likewise Adam, our federal head, who represents the entire human race, fell and plunged all of us into a condition of debt which we cannot repay. Take note: this does not alleviate us of the responsibility to do so. We owe a debt we cannot repay. We are spiritually bankrupt and our heart needs to be renewed in the Holy Spirit who unites us the Christ. Only then do we have the mind and heart of Christ. ( See 1 Cor 2 ) Without the Spirit we are dead (even hostile) to spiritual things. But when the Spirit comes with the grace of regeneration, renewing our heart after the image of God, we both can and will come to Christ."