Christian Maturity and Witness

Not often do we get to see a true mature Christian on national telvision. For such a young man to believe so strongly is truly a blessing.

Who among us would tell the world God is in charge in loss of pride and in loss of physical prowess? This young man is a true Christian!

I can't be a Catholic

CANON IV. If any one shall affirm, that man’s freewill, moved and excited by God, does not, by consenting, cooperate with God, the mover and exciter, so as to prepare and dispose itself for the attainment of justification; if moreover, anyone shall say, that the human will cannot refuse complying, if it pleases, but that it is inactive, and merely passive; let such an one be accursed"!

CANON V.- If anyone shall affirm, that since the fall of Adam, man’s freewill is lost and extinguished; or, that it is a thing titular, yea a name, without a thing, and a fiction introduced by Satan into the Church; let such an one be accursed"!

I guess I'll never be a Catholic. I happen to believe what Scripture actually says about the ability of men to "accept Christ" as Savior. In a nut-shell it says we are dead in the water, and cannot assist in our recovery. There are too many verses affirming this to list, so, I won't try. Having said that,  I "...affirm, that since the fall of Adam, man's freewill is lost and extinguished...." therefore, whatever I am today is a direct result of a rebirth by the Holy Spirit on my being. I had nothing to do with it. That makes me "anathema" according to the Council of Trent and the Catholic Church.

I have another problem now however, it is that my Baptist church teaches the same thing. so now I'm beginning to wonder what I am. I'm probably just a Christian, since I really didn't choose to be what I am. God did it to me and that's all there is to it. [note: The technical terminology for this is monergism].

I read this analogy about the idea that "all" men are fully capable as fallen humans, to "choose to accept Christ as savior." [note: The technical word for this is synergism; it is the doctrine that man must cooperate with God through his "free will" to attain salvation].

Let us consider the following analogy to illustrate synergism. Developers purchase some undeveloped land to create a new housing subdivision. They hire contractors to build houses on the land. The contractors hire electricians to wire each house for electricity. The power company is hired to bring electric power to the subdivision and hook each house up to the power. The houses are sold and occupied. If one drove through the subdivision at 11:30 p.m., and noticed that the lights were on in some houses but not others, who would they consider responsible for that fact? Since every house was equally wired with power and occupied by a person capable of turning on a switch, the only reason the lights would be on in some houses but not others is that in some cases the occupants turned them on. The occupants are the responsible parties.

That is what Catholicism teaches and what my Baptist church teaches regarding the salvation of the lost. One man told me, "I knew I was lost and needed Jesus, and that's all I know: So, I chose to accept Christ as my personal savior." In other words this man tells everyone HE turned on the "light switch." Why? Because he "felt" the need to do so.

I wouldn't be writing about this if wasn't for the fact that our Pastor is very disturbed that the "synergists" (those who have free-will) don't participate in church stuff very well and he can't figure out why? Maybe it's because they either can't find the light switch, or they really do enjoy sitting in the dark. I read on Al Mohler's blog this morning that one of these kinds of people defined herself this way:

(I am) "culturally, though not theologically" Christian

I think that phrase pretty well defines too many "Christians" in America today.

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.

Worship or Paganism

Our church, not long ago,  gave in to secular ideology by instituting what it calls "blended worship." The intent was, I think, to somehow use catchy, rythym-based choruses with words and images digitally presented on two large screens in the mistaken belief the "young people" will somehow become more involved in "church stuff." They haven't, and there is a consequence in using worldly ideology in an attempt to promote God. (There is no other way to describe what we are doing).

I have always believed Worship should be about God not about what "young people," or old people, for that matter, wanted. We have had a couple of people leave us to go elsewhere over this issue. They wanted a different style of music. Music style should never be a reason for contention and if music were properly used it wouldn't be. If we sang scripture as instructed in the Bible there would be no room for argument, people would define their loyalties when they quit.

Scripture read at length, taught in depth, sung in congregation and prayed at length is not popular so we don't do that in our Church. We pay lip-service to those things, but that's about all. We are, I suppose, a typical American congregation. Few of us read books, let alone the Bible, and our attention spans are getting shorter by the day. We have become so immersed in the idea that digital technology is a gift from God, we sometimes forget to turn off our cell phones for the Sunday morning "Worship" service.

Worship should be about "renewing our minds" but there are so few people who actually think anymore I'm not sure they are aware that concept is a command of God. (Rom. 12:2) We are so far gone now that one of the "choruses" we sing has images that are idolatrous, if not blasphemous. It is a repetitious ditty which show some of the national flags of the world. One of those flags is the Iranian.

The Iranian flag has script on it and symbolism. Here is a description of the flag:

(The flag is made up of) three equal horizontal bands of green (top), white, and red; the national emblem (a stylized representation of the word Allah in the shape of a tulip, a symbol of martyrdom) in red is centered in the white band; ALLAH AKBAR (God is Great) in white Arabic script is repeated 11 times along the bottom edge of the green band and 11 times along the top edge of the red band.

So, by dumbing ourselves down to be historically, intellectually, spiritually, vacuous we have inadvertently changed our "worship" into an idolatrous perveyor of foreign gods. The only word in English to describe this is: Pagan.

Here is what one article at the Banner of Truth has to say about this:

Pagan worship is non-cognitive, but we are called to worship God with our minds, and that which we are supposed to have fill our minds is scripture. The language of Christian worship is scripture. We are either reading it or expanding upon it through exposition, singing it, or praying it. We do this because faith comes by hearing the word of God; it is the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation.

The article ends with this:

"People are coming to church and just hearing a bunch of talk and singing a bunch of songs," says the preacher. But faith comes by hearing the word of God, and if it's not being preached, sung, read, and prayed, and if the content of our services are decreasingly Biblical, it is an ominous thing that is happening - a tragedy unfolding before us of monumental proportions.

God help us! (Hosea 7:2)

Mass. Message to Democrats

Last night the Democrats lost one of their most hallowed seats in the Senate. That of the late Ted Kennedy. The man, who never held a real job, is supposedly the icon for all that is American. It is amazing what money will buy: Power, prestige, and propaganda. Finally, however, God awakened a self-centered, sleeping public and sent a message to Washington through the democratic process.

In thinking about that, I wondered if there might some image to represent what the voters in Mass. did. Here's what I think best represents the message they sent:

I leave it to your imagination to assign identity to the person, group, institution, or whatever that is being decapitated. Personally I like the idea of the Arrogant Party being the recipient. In this case that would be the Obamacrats. In my imagination that would be Sen. Brown raising the axe.