Balance and Mystery

There is much talk in today’s Church about being balanced. While this is a healthy idea, there are many ways to understand balance. Do we mean balance in terms of giving room to both sides of Biblical teachings, or are we recommending some idea of doctrinal agnosticism?

It’s nearly impossible to get into any kind of meaningful conversation about doctrine today without hearing something like, “People have been arguing about these things for centuries. Who are we to think we’ve figured it out.”. Is God mysterious?

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever…” -Deuteronomy 29:29

While appealing to mystery is necessary when we talk about God and His ways (The secret things belong to God.), we have to be careful not to pull the mystery card prematurely. We have to look at all that the Bible tells us about a topic, so we’re sure we understand what’s being said (The things that are reveled belong to us). Then, where the Bible stops, we stop and worship the God who is beyond our comprehension.

Human Responsibility and God’s Sovereignty – the Seeming Paradox

The issue at hand is the idea that while God is sovereign, meaning that he orchestrates all events in time for His purposes, man is also held accountable for what he does or doesn’t do. This should strike us as paradoxical.

If God is making everything happen, how are we still doing anything? Or conversely, if our choices are real, and subject to God’s judgement, how can God be orchestrating those choices and events? The Bible seems to simply present both of these ideas, says they’re true, but doesn’t tell us how exactly they work together. So we’re left with an appeal to the mysterious power of God.

Human Responsibility and God’s Sovereignty in Salvation – The Misunderstanding

This correct doctrinal paradox of responsibility and sovereignty seems to have flowed over into categories today, that it was never intended for. And it appears, for the sake of political correctness, mystery is being appealed to in areas that the Bible is not mysterious.

Today’s ‘autonomous free will’ oriented Church has taken historic orthodox language and misused it to help it’s own faulty theology. A misrepresentation of the conversation is the result.

Today we find preachers teaching that since the Bible teaches that we have to come to Christ to be saved, this means that man has a free will, but the Bible also teaches that God is in control… and this is mysterious. They’ll produce verses that indicate a universal gospel call, commanding all men to come, using them as proof texts to demonstrate free will.

“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” -Matthew 11:28

“And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve…” -Joshua 24:15

“…And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price.” -Revelation 22:17

So, there is undoubtedly a free offer to all men to come to Christ. And they go on to demonstrate that God is also in control of these things:

“…having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.” -Ephesians 1:11

“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” -Romans 8:29

Some will rest here, simply saying “Man has free will, and God is sovereign… we just have to deal with it.”(which is admirable, especially when we consider the more common alternative).

Usually at this point the ‘free will’ preacher will redefine predestination and election, and teach that God simply foreknew who would believe, and elected them based on their choice. Sadly, they don’t realize that they’ve actually left their original argument at this point, they’ve rejected mystery, removed God’s choice and set up man’s choice as the sole deciding factor. No more paradox… just an unbiblical doctrine of foreknown decisional salvation.

Human Responsibility and God’s Sovereignty in Salvation – All the Biblical Data

We’ve already established the parts that modern free will Christianity has right:

1. Christ has made a free offer to all men to be saved, and man must come to be saved.

2. God is in control (to varying degrees, depending on tradition), and he is working all things to the council of his will.

But we can’t simply rest here and attribute to point 1 the idea that man is free to choose, until we’ve weighed all the data. Is man free to accept or reject this offer? Jesus says no.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day.” -John 6:44

“…no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” -Matthew 11:27

Paul supports this idea of man’s inability to obey God and come to Christ:

“For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” -Romans 8:7-8

“…no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.” -1 Corinthians 12:3

The Bible’s ACTUAL teaching is that yes, a free offer is made, but no one CAN come unless they’re first chosen, enabled, drawn, and enlightened to truth of the gospel. An inward change, by God, is necessary. And until that change occurs man is unable to come.

Is man responsible for the choice he makes concerning Jesus? Yes.

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” -John 3:18

Is man able to actually choose Christ, apart from the electing, regenerating grace of God? No.

“This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” -John 6:65

“…but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.” -John 10:26

Conclusion

We need to clarify terms that seem to have been cross. Human responsibility to believe (clearly taught in scripture) is not the same as human ABILITY to believe (strictly taught negatively in scripture). So as far as free will… we have none. We make choices, but our will is bound to our sinful nature.

The question of how God and man work together in salvation is not a paradox. ALL of salvation is God’s doing, as man is incapable of contributing. Every part of our responsibility being fulfilled is a gift from God to His people. Man and God DO NOT work together in salvation. Man is a passive recipient of God’s free gift, then man exercises the faith he’s been gifted.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” -Ephesians 2:8-9

The paradoxical discussion of mans’ responsibility and God’s sovereignty was never about ‘free-will’. it’s about how we can keep from being puppets, when God is the orchestrator of everything. How are we accountable, when God makes everything happen? When we correctly understand the argument we ask the obvious (Biblical) question:

“You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” -Romans 9:19

The question is profound… but the answer is heavy and glorious, and should press the unbiblical concept of free will in salvation out of us, as we’re humbled like the creatures we are.

“But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” -Romans 9:20-21

Here, my friends, is where we rest. In God’s right to do what He wants with what’s His. Mysterious as it all may be.

The Politically “Correct” Church

It seems every time you walk into a Christian bookstore or even watch a Christian TV station you’ll probably run across an energetic, and articulate woman preaching the Word of God or promoting her book.  Women like Juanita Bynum, Paula White, and Joyce Meyers are just a few of the popular women pastors who have crept into the church to stake their claim on the title of pastor or preacher in congregations all across this nation.  But we do need to ask ourselves, “Is this biblical?” and use the Word of God as our final authority and not be swayed by our emotions or the feminist movement.  Which by the way is not biblical as well.  What does the bible say on this matter?  Well there are no scriptures that tell us that women can be pastors or elders, but we do have scriptures that tell us the very opposite.

Let a woman learn quietly with all submissiveness. I do… not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet. -1 Timothy 2:11-12

The Biblically Correct Church

Priscilla and Aquila brought Apollos into their home and they both discipled him, explaining the Word of God to him more accurately (Acts 18:26).That is biblical for discipleship but not for being a woman elder in the church.  In Romans 16:1, even if Phoebe is considered a “deaconess” instead of a “servant,” that does not indicate that Phoebe was a teacher in the church. “Able to teach” is given as a qualification for elders, but not deacons (1 Timothy 3:1-13; Titus 1:6-9). Elders/bishops/deacons are described as the “husband of one wife,” “a man whose children believe,” and “men worthy of respect.” Clearly the indication is that these qualifications refer to men. In addition, in 1 Timothy 3:1-13 and Titus 1:6-9, masculine pronouns are used exclusively to refer to elders/bishops/deacons.  If men are to be the heads of their homes as said in Ephesians 5:23 why would he make her head of the church? God is a God of order and in Him there is no confusion.

But all things should be done decently and in order.  -1 Corinthians 14:40

Biblical Womanhood

Now of course scripture is very clear that older women should teach and train the younger women (Titus 2:3-4) who in turn should teach their own children at home.  Timothy was raised by his mother and grandmother who taught him the scriptures from very early in his life. And that’s not to say in a church setting a woman can’t disciple, answer questions or encourage a brother in Christ (who her husband knows or having her husband’s permission). Those things in parenthesis are my own personal convictions.  But this idea that men aren’t stepping up to the plate to preach so women have to take on those roles is ridiculous.  God is sovereign over all things and the bible does warn us that not all should be quick to teach because of the greater judgment.  In many weak and shallow churches in America all you need is charisma and the willingness to step up to the pulpit to preach the word of God whether you are male or female.  But to be a pastor, preacher or teacher is a gift, a calling that must be tested and proven so that those who should not be teaching can be weeded out.  Women are to be keepers of their homes and their primary ministry is their children.  That is not a lesser calling or something to be shunned at, but a blessing that the Lord has given to us.  Just because we see many popular and successful women pastors in the world doesn’t mean it is right. It is only success based on the values of this fleeting world and not according to scripture. We want to be biblical, not popular.

For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, -2 Timothy 4:3

I. Introduction

Slowly but surely, in this day and age we are losing touch with the importance of true theology and true doctrine. Everyday the church moves closer and closer to a negative outlook on the Christian knowing God. Those who put an emphasis on the  importance of right doctrine and right theology are seen as divisive, big headed, academic, argumentative, etc. The church seems to be completely comfortable with saying humility and love is being tolerant of many different ideas and perspectives of scripture.

When Jesus was asked what was the greatest commandment he replied:

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” -Mark 12:30

The Post-Modern church replies:

“And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and check your  mind at the door”

II. What is Post-Modernism

When we talk about post-modernism we are talking about how our society has come to understand and explain truth. Society as a whole has gone through many stages of understanding truth. We went through an era where what we understood of truth relied on explaining things with the supernatural, the Egyptians had a god for just about everything just as did the Greeks, and the Romans and a number of other societies. In the turn of 19th century there was an emergence of something called The Enlightenment, where things were explained with science and philosophy. Scientist, sociologist, psychologist, etc. said that this movement would end religion because they now knew that there was an exact explanation for everything. Come to find out, to explain everything is to explain away explanation itself.

This brings us to the current movement, post-modernism, or there is no absolute truth, it’s all true. Shirley MacLaine is a guru in this new age movement and she explains post-modernism well when she says, “It’s true if you believe it and that goes for anything.”

III. God Disagrees With Post-Modernism

Because we have the Word, we know that God does not agree with the post-modern movement and that Scripture is absolute truth.

1. What We Do Not Know About God

“My thoughts are not your thoughts nor my ways your ways.” -Isaiah 55

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! -Romans 11:33

God has not revealed everything to us. We do not know God quantitatively and exhaustively. He tells us through Moses that if we did understand him in this way that it would KILL US! This is in regards to his externalities and his glory. We also do not understand him and see him the way that he sees himself. This is in regards to how he exists in three persons all at the same time in the trinity. This and among an infinite number of other things God is incomprehensible for sure.

2. What We Do Know About God

Romans 1 says that God has made himself clearly known. He has done this through the general revelation of creation and that he has also done this through the special revelation of his scripture. Because of this, we know that God is sovereign. We know that all things are created by him, through him and for him. Everything that is in the bible is God revealing truths about himself to us so this list is obviously not exhaustive for the sake of time and the fact that we can open the bible and answer this question.

IV. How the Post-Modern Church Has Perverted God’s Incomprehensibility

The post-modern church is not wrong in saying that there are things about God that we cannot be certain on, what they are wrong about is allowing that statement to persuade them to say there is no absolute truth about God.

1. Taking It To The Extreme

We all know that naturally in our flesh we are inclined to take things to the extreme. I truly believe that post-modernism in the church is simply that, an extremism of truth that there are things about God that are incomprehensible and a direct response to the extremism of knowing God. On one side you have a church that says there is no absolute truth. They say that because learning, studying, and knowing doctrine can create pride that it’s an act of humility to not involve themselves with these things.

2. A Shroud Called Humility

This abandonment of theology and doctrine and masking it with humility is defined by John MacArthur as “The Hermeneutics of Humility”. And this “humility” sounds like this:

“Well, I am much too humble to say that my interpretation of scripture is right, and I am way to humble to say that your interpretation of the scripture is wrong.”

Do you see how damaging this can be to a church? With this perspective, no one holds another accountable. Iron does not sharpen iron. Whatever the preacher says is truth to him so “let’s not call him out” even if it does not agree with scripture, because “we don’t want to be prideful”. It makes me sick to my stomach to even admit that this is actually happening in our churches right now as I type this.

The truth of this perspective is that these churches are covering up their unrighteousness; laziness and pride, with a word associated with righteousness; humility. They are lazy because instead of battling their prideful, divisive flesh with unceasing  prayer that God might reveal himself to them in humility, they abandon a pursuit to know him altogether, it’s a cop out. It’s hard to know God and pursue humility at the same time, but that does not give us an excuse to abandon knowing the doctrines.

V. How God Intends For Us To Handle His Revelation

The truth is there is a right interpretation of scripture and a wrong interpretation of scripture

1. God Intends For Us to Take Ownership Of What He Has Revealed

I believe that Deuteronomy 29:29 defines how we are to understand the incomprehensibility and the comprehensibility of God all at once.

“The secret things belong to the Lord our God, But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” -Deuteronomy 29:29

This beautiful piece of scripture tells us that there are secrets of God, there is a mystery, and they belong to Him. It also tells us though, that what he has revealed to us is given to us, that it is ours, we have ownership of his revelation. Isn’t that amazing? Praise God for the knowledge of Him that he has entrusted to us, that he says we have ownership of!

2. God Intends For Us to Proclaim Him Unapologetically

In Romans, Paul provides preaches truths about God without regard to the worldly consequence. Paul understands that God is absolutely knowable, but that what we know is minute compared to all that there is to know about Him. He glorifies God for the revelation that He provides and marvels at what is not revealed. Paul spends an immense amount of time in Romans 1-10 proclaiming some hard to swallow truths about our God. These things are still, to this day, hard to swallow. He challenges the world view with verses like:

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek” -Romans 1:16

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” Romans 3:23

“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. -Romans 5:6

“For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.” -Romans 6:14

“For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So then it depends not on human will or exertion but on God, who has mercy.” -Romans 9:15-16

WOW! That’s truth being preached unapologetically.

3. God Intends For Us to Have a Reverence for What We Do Not Understand

Paul does not just close the book here though, he does not say “OK that is all there is to know about God, thank you for your attention”. No, we reach Romans 11 and Paul says this:

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” -Romans 11:33-35

Paul reaches the end of himself and simply worships God for the truth of his incomprehensibility. Do you see that this is how we should be. We don’t close the book because he is incomprehensible but we also do not close the book because we think we know it all.

4. God Intends Us to Know Him with Humility

If humility is problem, saying there is no absolute truth is not the answer. We get into the Word and we learn about our God. We understand what Christ has done for us. If pride rears its ugly head in all of this, we fall prostrate in front of the throne of grace and plead with God in prayer that He would humble us. We do this because we know that every bit of knowledge that we do have has been granted to us graciously by God. Our knowledge is limited because it is subject to God’s control. He is sovereign over all things and we are not. We have nothing to be prideful in or to boast about. Do not abandon doctrine, instead battle your prideful flesh with prayer. So, we are not talking about the kind of knowledge that puffs up, or is divisive, or hardheaded, but a knowledge that is loving.

“If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or [whether] I speak of myself.” -John 7:17

VI. Conclusion

So God is knowable. Scripture tells us a vast amount of things about him. There’s no slight agnosticism in the Bible. He did not create us and go hide out somewhere waiting for us to discover Him. He has given us creation. He has given us the Bible. So we need not apologize for daring to say things about, if God has revealed it, then we can say it and say it with certainty and assurance. Whatever he hasn’t revealed we do not know, and what we do know he has graciously revealed to us.

Tom Ascol of Founders Ministries received a memo. It’s a little hard to believe, but, it is real.

It’s a ‘memo’ designed to reveal Calvinists pastors in your midst. Wouldn’t that be a tragedy? All joking aside, this really is sad. Those proclaiming to be promoting the Gospel are looking to ‘snuff’ those who actually are!

Some of the signs to look for include:

Focused on creating the ‘true’ church.
Use of the ESV Bible
Using as a statement of belief confessions like the 1689 London Baptist Confession
A move toward elder rule
A member of the Founders movement and attends meetings

“Yesterday I was sent the following 3 documents that have been circulating in Western Tennessee among some Southern Baptist Churches. It seems that they were distributed at seminars being held for churches to teach “how to find out if any of your staff are Calvinists and how to get rid of them.” Since receiving them I have communicated with others who have verified that they are being made available to Southern Baptist churches in Tennessee, not by any official denominational worker, but by zealous people who view the doctrines of grace as heresy. I am trying to contact one or more of those persons in hopes of better understanding what has provoked this mission.

The first document is in the form of a memo and is entitled, “Reformed Red Flags.” It contains a list of 16 “behaviors” to look for when seeking to smoke out Calvinistic pastors. Number 3 on the list is “use of the ESV Study Bible.” Someone should alert Crossway immediately. Founders made the list, as did John Piper, Jonathan Edwards, RC Sproul, James White and the first Southern Baptist confession of faith (which is still used at Southern and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminaries, and which even the famous non-Calvinist Paige Patterson has signed), the Abstract of Principles.”

Source: The above is sourced from 5ptsalt.com

There is a gap that exist between us and the Father. It is something that everyone feels and everyone knows is there. This gap didn’t always exist. In the garden man was in communion with God, he walked with God, and constantly worshiped God. This is what the Father designed us perfectly to do, this is what he pronounced as “very good” (Genesis 1:31).

Now because of the fall we are separated from this communion. Our rebellion has built a canyon that we can’t cross alone, although we try exhaustively. The gap is essentially our rebellion that keeps us from God and his glory.

Building a Bridge With OUR Hands

If we can see the gap as a canyon then we can see our attempts at crossing it as building bridges. Mankind has been trying to reach the supernatural since the fall.

In ancient times temples were built in attempt to converge the natural and the supernatural. It wasn’t just the Jews that did this. Everyone was trying to meet with their God(s) and they were trying to do so with temples. All cultures had felt such a strong void with the supernatural that their whole society encircled these places of worship.

The temple was a crossroads of the temporal and the eternal, the natural and the supernatural, and heaven and earth. Offerings would be brought to the temple as a payment to get to the eternal, the supernatural, to heaven. If the temple was the bridge, the offerings were the bridge toll.

Today, temples are seen as prehistoric. We no longer build societies around a PLACE that gets us to God but an ATTITUDE of MORALITY that gets us to God. So many truly believe that they are building a bridge to heaven with their works and that because others see them as a “good person” they will be acceptable to God.

The bloody knuckles that come from community service and ministry work are seen much like the blood shed from lambs and goats on the Jewish temple steps. Just like the blood of the animals though, our bloody knuckles of works righteousness are our sacrifices to God in order that you might obtain access to the impenetrable. We keep striving for more and more because it never feels like we are doing enough works. The temple is never big enough, the lamb is never fat enough, the church numbers are never growing enough, the technology in the youth room is never new enough, etc etc… A bridge built with these methods are made with toothpicks and glue.

Building a Bridge With HIS Hands

We can never build a bridge long enough or strong enough, but there is one who did.

It is not the temple nor the works that is the problem, it is the ideology behind them that is our failure. An attitude that a temple, an offering, or a work alone will make you acceptable to a holy God is absolutely false. For without Christ these things are worthless and unacceptable at the throne of God. Christ said that, “You can do nothing without me” (John 15:5).

A gospel that preaches that you should try harder to serve more, preach more, feed more, clothe more, etc. without faith in Christ alone is a FALSE GOSPEL. Christ did not come as just a moral example of what we should do on our OWN in order to obtain access to the Father. Christ came to DIE as an offering for sinners in order to DELIVER them as justified and acceptable to the Father (Titus 3:5), because in our own flesh even with works we are trash in the garbage shoot headed straight for hell (Isaiah 64:6). Christ lived the perfect life that we cannot not live. Christ did the works that we cannot do. Christ had the faith that we do not have. That is why his death is an acceptable sacrifice, because it’s the only death that was unmerited. He was the only man that lived who was perfectly pleasing to the Father and therefore the shedding of HIS blood from HIS hands is the ONLY acceptable offering.

This is why Christ said that He is the Temple.

Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, “It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?” But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken. -John 2:19-22

He is our only access to the supernatural. He bridges the gap. Without him we continue to strive and fail and strive and fail over and over again in our works. We are trying in our works righteousness to reach the throne so that we may worship God, but never get there because our works never feel quite good enough, and rightfully so, they are not.

Worship On The Other Side

If we have faith in Christ and the Gospel that justifies by grace alone, through faith alone, and lay prostrate at the throne that is of grace with Christ as our representative then and only then can we truly worship God. It is this reconciliation, the rejoining of creator and creation that causes us to worship. It is what we were created to do.

Christ lifts us up to the Father and says, “You can now walk again together in the Garden because I have paid the penalty for what originally separated you”, and we immediately worship Christ for his representation.

Without Christ we never reach the throne of grace, and if we never reach the throne of grace, Christ cannot deem us blameless and if we cannot be deemed blameless we can never truly worship God (John 14:6).

What happens when the importance of numbers outweighs the importance of truth?

More money? More power? Becoming famous? Whatever the reason, some Church leaders decide to pull the punches and turn their Church into a comfortable atmosphere for unbelievers. This is a dangerously slippery slope. I will attempt to make the case that once you begin down the road of growth for the sake of growth, there is no turning back.

The Scenario

Your average, well meaning Church gains some popularity. The leadership might start looking for patterns for what works and doesn’t. What makes people come and what doesn’t. They might even start reading leadership books or studying marketing strategies. No doubt, in the beginning it feels innocent. When confronted with questions of their motives they are likely to answer, “We just want to reach this community for Christ. Let’s reach as many of the lost as possible.”

Soon, the call to make disciples through the body preaching the gospel, is replaced with a call from the pulpit to bring your unbelieving friends to Church. The focus begins to shift from feeding the flock to luring in new people. The purpose of the Church gathering gets redefined somewhere along the way. It is no longer a gathering of believers, but a repository for the lost to get saved. It may seem subtle, but the organization is no longer concerned with building up existing believers, but all the focus is on making new ones.

Either through trial and error, or through deliberate marketing, the language of the sermons begins to change. Talk of blood, sin, death, wrath, and repentance begins to fade away. The messages take on a flavor of advice. How to be a better husband, mother, employee or citizen are the topics that face the culture, and decidedly the issues the organization takes on. Some of the responsibilities of those serving begin to look like the tasks of a marketing team in a corporation. The original faithful flock begins to look around and notice something. The people that are filling the seats in are not Christians by any measure besides possibly claiming the name.

From pulpit to pews to outside Bible studies, doctrine and deep study are frowned upon. Jokes about going deep and talk of ‘dangerous doctrines’ begin to abound. The shallow teaching of the pulpit becomes the expected norm, anything outside it is labeled divisive. The organization takes a stand of neutrality on most topics to keep the numbers as high as possible, and to keep from offending the target market: unbelievers.

Before too long the subtle changes turn to blatant shifts. The management begins asking for money for future needs as they look forward to bigger buildings and bigger staff. In reality, they have no choice. The people who understand what it means to give money to the Kingdom are leaving. The growing audience of unbelievers doesn’t know what sacrificial giving means, so they must be convinced to donate. Promises of prosperity, through twisted Scripture, are the obvious next step. The poor donations of the ‘new converts’ and unbelievers just compounds the need for an even bigger audience to ask for contributions from.

The management and employees become committed to the growth, like stock holders in a corporation. The mentality becomes, ‘If the Church isn’t growing, it isn’t successful.’. At this point, there is no turning back.

Even if the higher ups planned to temporarily stave off the deep teaching until they had a large congregation, they’ll never be able to now. The true gospel hasn’t been preached in months or years, so the whole audience is unsaved and Biblical truth is alien to them. If the Pastor begins preaching the foolishness of Christ crucified at this point, the unsaved masses will turn away. They are trapped, unable to do the very thing that the unbelievers loved them for leaving out. The organization is big BECAUSE it wasn’t preaching the offense of the gospel, and now it never can.

Eventually the organization as a whole is entirely bankrupt of any meaningful truth about God. The audience has full bellies of entertainment and a sentimental God, and the sheep are starving to death. As uncompromising believers leave, they’re mocked on the way out. The mentality becomes unashamedly ‘us against them’.

The future of this “church” is inevitable. The purpose and direction will continue to conform to the unbelieving majority, because any real truth will push the audience away. The organization got what it wanted: numbers -a huge mass of nominal Christians.

Some leadership in churches like this may very well desire to turn things around, but against the overbearing stream, their concerns fall on deaf ears. (Note: If anyone thinks that ‘teaching through the Bible’ somehow intrinsically avoids this trend, don’t be fooled. Like anyone else, an expository teacher can teach whatever he wants. Biblical truths can be avoided, twisted, and mocked verse-by-verse, just as easily as by never opening the Bible at all.)

What Do We Do?

If you are in a Church like this, or you know of one that is falling into this hopeless pattern, pray to God for restoration. He is the only hope. The flesh will never repent of this greed, only through the Spirit can God wake this kind of Church up.

Let’s love our brothers who may have made mistakes. Let’s sympathize with their good intentions. Let’s point out their error in love, and call them to repentance in gentleness. With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Those who are familiar with my ministry know that I am committed to expository preaching. It is my unshakable conviction that the proclamation of God’s Word should always be the heart and the focus of the church’s ministry (2 Tim. 4:2). And proper biblical preaching should be systematic, expositional, theological, and God-centered.

Such preaching is in short supply these days. There are plenty of gifted communicators in the modern evangelical movement, but today’s sermons tend to be short, shallow, topical homilies that massage people’s egos and focus on fairly insipid subjects like human relationships, “successful” living, emotional issues, and other practical but worldly—and not definitively biblical—themes. These messages are lightweight and without substance, cheap and synthetic, leaving little more than an ephemeral impression on the minds of the hearers.

Some time ago I hosted a discussion at the Expositors’ Institute, an annual small-group colloquium on preaching held at our church. In preparation for that seminar, I took a yellow legal pad and a pen and began listing the negative effects of the superficial brand of preaching that is so rife in modern evangelicalism.

I initially thought I might be able to identify about ten, but in the end I had jotted down a list of sixty-one devastating consequences. I’ve distilled them to fifteen by combining and eliminating all but the most crucial ones. I offer them as a warning against superficial, marginally biblical preaching—both to those who stand behind the pulpit and to those who sit in the pew.

1. It usurps the authority of God over the soul. Whether a preacher boldly proclaims the Word of God or not is ultimately a question of authority. Who has the right to speak to the church? The preacher or God? Whenever anything is substituted for the preaching of the Word, God’s authority is usurped. What a prideful thing to do! In fact, it is hard to conceive of anything more insolent that could be done by a man who is called by God to preach.

2. It removes the lordship of Christ from His church. Who is the Head of the church? Is Christ really the dominant teaching authority in the church? If so, then why are there so many churches where His Word is not being faithfully proclaimed? When we look at contemporary ministry, we see programs and methods that are the fruit of human invention, the offspring of opinion polls and neighborhood surveys, and other pragmatic artifices. Church-growth experts have in essence wrested control of the church’s agenda from her true Head, the Lord Jesus Christ. Our Puritan forefathers resisted the imposition of government-imposed liturgies for precisely this reason: They saw it as a direct attack on the headship of Christ over His own church. Modern preachers who neglect the Word of God have yielded the ground those men fought and sometimes died for. When Jesus Christ is exalted among His people, His power is manifest in the church. When the church is commandeered by compromisers who want to appease the culture, the gospel is minimized, true power is lost, artificial energy must be manufactured, and superficiality takes the place of truth.

3. It hinders the work of the Holy Spirit. What is the instrument the Spirit uses to do His work? The Word of God. He uses the Word as the instrument of regeneration (1 Pet. 1:23; Jas. 1:18). He also uses it as the means of sanctification (John 17:17). In fact, it is the only tool He uses (Eph. 6:17). So when preachers neglect God’s Word, they undermine the work of the Holy Spirit, producing shallow conversions and spiritually lame Christians—if not utterly spurious ones.

4. It demonstrates appalling pride and a lack of submission. In the modern approach to “ministry,” the Word of God is deliberately downplayed, the reproach of Christ is quietly repudiated, the offense of the gospel is carefully eliminated, and “worship” is purposely tailored to fit the preferences of unbelievers. That is nothing but a refusal to submit to the biblical mandate for the church. The effrontery of ministers who pursue such a course is, to me, frightening.

5. It severs the preacher personally from the regular sanctifying grace of Scripture. The greatest personal benefit that I get from preaching is the work that the Spirit of God does on my own soul as I study and prepare for two expository messages each Lord’s Day. Week by week the duty of careful exposition keeps my own heart focused and fixed on the Scriptures, and the Word of God nourishes me while I prepare to feed my flock. So I am personally blessed and spiritually strengthened through the enterprise. If for no other reason, I would never abandon biblical preaching. The enemy of our souls is after preachers in particular, and the sanctifying grace of the Word of God is critical to our protection.

6. It clouds the true depth and transcendence of our message and therefore cripples both corporate and personal worship. What passes for preaching in some churches today is literally no more profound than what preachers in our fathers’ generation were teaching in the five-minute children’s sermon they gave before dismissing the kids. That’s no exaggeration. It is often that simplistic, if not utterly inane. There is nothing deep about it. Such an approach makes it impossible for true worship to take place, because worship is a transcendent experience. Worship should take us above the mundane and simplistic. So the only way true worship can occur is if we first come to grips with the depth of spiritual truth. Our people can only rise high in worship in the same proportion to which we have taken them deep into the profound truths of the Word. There is no way they can have lofty thoughts of God unless we have plunged them into the depths of God’s self-revelation. But preaching today is neither profound nor transcendent. It doesn’t go down, and it doesn’t go up. It merely aims to entertain.

By the way, true worship is not something that can be stimulated artificially. A bigger, louder band and more sentimental music might do more to stir people’s emotions. But that is not genuine worship. True worship is a response from the heart to God’s truth (John 4:23). You can actually worship without music if you have seen the glories and the depth of what the Bible teaches.

7. It prevents the preacher from fully developing the mind of Christ. Pastors are supposed to be under-shepherds of Christ. Too many modern preachers are so bent on understanding the culture that they develop the mind of the culture and not the mind of Christ. They start to think like the world, and not like the Savior. Frankly, the nuances of worldly culture are virtually irrelevant to me. I want to know the mind of Christ and bring that to bear on the culture, no matter what culture I may be ministering to. If I’m going to stand up in a pulpit and be a representative of Jesus Christ, I want to know how He thinks—and that must be my message to His people too. The only way to know and proclaim the mind of Christ is by being faithful to study and preach His Word. What happens to preachers who obsess about cultural “relevancy” is that they become worldly, not godly.

8. It depreciates by example the spiritual duty and priority of personal Bible study. Is personal Bible study important? Of course. But what example does the preacher set when he neglects the Bible in his own preaching? Why would people think they need to study the Bible if the preacher doesn’t do serious study himself in the preparation of his sermons? There is now a movement among some in ministry to trim, as much as possible, all explicit references to the Bible from the sermon—and above all, don’t ever ask your people to turn to a specific Bible passage because that kind of thing makes “seekers” uncomfortable. Some churches actively discourage their people from bringing Bibles to church lest the sight of so many Bibles intimidate the “seekers.” As if it were dangerous to give your people the impression that the Bible might be important!

9. It prevents the preacher from being the voice of God on every issue of his time. Jeremiah 8:9 says, “The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken. Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord; so what wisdom do they have?” When I speak, I want to be God’s messenger. I’m not interested in exegeting what some psychologist or business guru or college professor has to say about an issue. My people don’t need my opinion; they need to hear what God has to say. If we preach as Scripture commands us, there should be no ambiguity about whose message is coming from the pulpit.

10. It breeds a congregation that is as weak and indifferent to the glory of God as their pastor is. Such preaching fosters people who are consumed with their own well-being. When you tell people that the church’s primary ministry is to fix for them whatever is wrong in this life—to meet their needs, to help them cope with their worldly disappointments, and so on—the message you are sending is that their mundane problems are more important than the glory of God and the majesty of Christ. Again, that sabotages true worship.

11. It robs people of their only true source of help. People who sit under superficial preaching become dependent on the cleverness and the creativity of the speaker. When preachers punctuate their sermons with laser lights and smoke, video clips and live drama, the message they send is that there isn’t a prayer the people in the pew could ever extract such profound material on their own. Such gimmicks create a kind of dispensing mechanism that people can’t use to serve themselves. So they become spiritual couch potatoes who just come in to be entertained, and whatever superficial spiritual content they get from the preacher’s weekly performance is all they will get. They have no particular interest in the Bible because the sermons they hear don’t cultivate that. They are wowed by the preacher’s creativity and manipulated by the music, and that becomes their whole perspective on spirituality.

12. It encourages people to become indifferent to the Word of God and divine authority. Predictably, in a church where the preaching of Scripture is neglected, it becomes impossible to get people to submit to the authority of Scripture. The preacher who always aims at meeting felt needs and strokes the conceit of worldly people has no platform from which to confront the man who wants to divorce his wife without cause. The man will say, “You don’t understand what I feel. I came here because you promised to meet my felt needs. And I’m telling you, I don’t feel like I want to live with this woman anymore.” You can’t inject biblical authority into that. You certainly wouldn’t have an easy time pursuing church discipline. That is the monster that superficial preaching creates. But if you are going to try to deal with sin and apply any kind of authoritative principle to keep the church pure, you must be preaching the Word.

13. It lies to people about what they really need. In Jeremiah 8:11, God condemns the prophets who treated people’s wounds superficially. That verse applies powerfully to the preachers who populate so many prominent evangelical pulpits today. They omit the hard truths about sin and judgment. They tone down the offensive parts of Christ’s message. They lie to people about what they really need, promising them “fulfillment” and earthly well-being when what people really need is an exalted vision of Christ and a true understanding of the splendor of God’s holiness.

14. It strips the pulpit of power. “The word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword” (Heb. 4:12). Everything else is impotent, giving merely an illusion of power. Human strategy is not more important than Scripture. The showman’s ability to lure people in should not impress us more than the Bible’s ability to transform lives.

15. It puts the responsibility on the preacher to change people with his cleverness. Preachers who pursue the modern approach to ministry must think they have the power to change people. That, too, is a frightening expression of pride. We preachers can’t save people, and we can’t sanctify them. We can’t change people with our insights, our cleverness, by entertaining them or by appealing to their human whims and wishes and ambitions. There’s only One who can change sinners. That’s God, and He does it by His Spirit through the Word.

So pastors must preach the Word, even though it is currently out of fashion to do so (2 Tim. 4:2). That is the only way their ministry can ever truly be fruitful. Moreover, it assures that they will be fruitful in ministry, because God’s Word never returns to Him void; it always accomplishes that for which He sends it and prospers in what He sends it to do (Isa. 55:11).

-Online Source-

Visit “Transformed By Grace”