How many times have you sat in a meeting of some sort where the preacher repeats the same words over and over again and you end up repeating them, and by the end everyone is in a frenzy and all fired up? You walk out and think, oh what a move of God that was, and 2 hours later you are in the same sinful state as you were before the meeting. Was it a move of God? Can you encounter God personally and remain unchanged? I have been to baseball, and football games and seen frenzies induced from words on a scoreboard, "Clap clap clap... Louder Louder Louder... Charge..." and so on. Was that a move of God? Of course not, it was manipulation, and most of our preaching is much the same.
Churches are built upon this principle, create an event, stir some emotions, and then convince the people that because it happened in a church setting it is somehow a move of God. Many movement have sprung from this. Look at the promise keepers, I am not calling that group heretical, but they are deeply steeped in this psychological manipulation method. I have heard so many men come back and talk about what a move of God it was, and how they encountered God in that stadium and yet that deep passion and zeal dies a week or so later. Did God move? Was their a real encounter with God? When these men come down from that mountain top experience do they enter the congregation blazing with the holiness of God? When Moses came down from Sinai the congregation could not even look at him, he had to veil his face.
I will continue later...
2.06.2007
10.21.2006
Analysis of American Christianity - Television
“Be ye holy therefore as I am holy.” “Be ye perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.” “Woe unto them that call good evil and evil good.” “Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.” I was dropping my cousin off at his house and I walked inside and sat down, they were watching TV. What I saw terrified me. There was a divorced couple lying on a hospital bed together stuck in the act of intercourse and unable to separate themselves. The doctors were instructing them to gyrate in a certain manner in order to separate themselves, and the man appeared to be at the point of orgasm. At this point I had seen enough and had to get up and leave. The only reason I mention this is because this occurred on what could be the most popular show on television right now, ‘Gray’s Anatomy’. This was my first encounter with this show, but I imagine that this is fairly normal, and it will hopefully be my last encounter with it. This does not make me all that angry, but it breaks my heart into a million pieces. So many of us in the Church do not live in the fullness of Christ because we are not strangers in this land, we are not pilgrims heading to a heavenly country. We have full citizenship here on earth, and we only hope to transfer that citizenship at death. Let this no longer be, let our citizenship be in heaven, and let us find no pleasure in the things of this world. The ‘church’ in America today is so blind to holiness and the righteousness of God that even shows like ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ are consumed by her without thought. Even worse than the fact the church can watch this, is the fact that I am sure that some publisher is most likely developing some sort of Sunday school curriculum that is based off of this show. Come on, the only attraction to these shows is the immorality which they contain. I have heard so many professing Christians discussing Gray’s Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, and every other vile show, when I think the show that most suits them might very well be ‘Lost’ (note sarcasm). Have we no concept of the righteousness of God? Do we even know Him? If the Holy Spirit actually dwelt in us would we not be grieved by these shows, would we not be convicted by the Spirit and have our consciences smitten when we watched them? We the church take a different approach, instead of saying ‘touch not the unclean thing’, we consume iniquity like it is water and then turn around and say ‘We are engaging the culture’. I think if we actually obeyed Christ we would be ‘enraging the culture’. Note the fate of all but one of the first apostles. We are so hypocritical, all of us, I certainly am not exempt. We say things like ‘We need the Ten Commandments back in government and the schools.” We do not even have them in our own house. We say keep the commandments, and then we watch ‘Gray’s Anatomy’ and take pleasure in adultery. We watch sports and participate in idol worship. We watch CSI and take pleasure in Murder. We watch MTV and take pleasure in the dishonoring of parents, we take pleasure in the NFL’s Sabbath breaking, come on! We break every commandment just with our television, let alone the rest of our lives. I hear a lot of arguments saying that TV is just recreation and diversion. Why would we want to have a diversion from Holiness, from Christ? I do not understand, diversion is what we are striving to eliminate in our lives… right? We have a God that is love; we should turn our TVs off and revel in His amazing love. We are polluting our souls with filth, and we do not even know it! Sports, TV, Radio, all these things are killing us, and putting spots on the bride. I will stop for now. We must be broken over this, let us pray for revival, our God is so ready to grant righteousness unto us, let us long for that and not bask in the iniquity the world is feeding us through our television set. |
10.16.2006
Analysis of American Christianity Intro
The next twelve posts will be a criticism of modern American Christendom. This is born out of prayer and out of genuine concern which was born out of that prayer and will be presented, Lord willing, in a very matter of fact way. This should come as a warning, an encouragement, a wake up call, and a humbling acknowledgement of the truth about the professing church today. What these posts will not be is some angry tirade or rant born out of the flesh; instead it will be an honest and open evaluation of where we are at as the church in America. I will warn this; I do not think there will be that many good things to say about professing Christendom as a whole, if you are browsing for something fuzzy to make you feel good you may not want to continue on. On the other hand there are certainly many individuals, and congregations that are healthy and are abiding in Christ, these posts are not intending to say that everything is amiss. The individual can discern whether or not these posts are talk about them and their church. My only request is that everyone, including myself, be honest and introspective about this, before they jump on the ‘your right modern Christendom is so wrong’ bandwagon. I say this; each one of us in someway or another represents some part of the problem, and we must not exclude ourselves from the criticism that will be made here.
Hopefully the Lord will be pleased and we will be blessed by these posts over the next few months.
I hope to finish this before the year is out, but it is tough to tell whether or not that will happen.
Hopefully the Lord will be pleased and we will be blessed by these posts over the next few months.
I hope to finish this before the year is out, but it is tough to tell whether or not that will happen.
10.14.2006
Repentance Series (9 of 9) Concluding Remarks
Repentance is nearly lost in the professing church today, there are certain pockets of repentant believers who are the true Church, but by and large we live in a pagan America that has labeled herself Christian. Our churches are full of social ‘Christians’ who have no desire for repentance, no desire to die to themselves and rise with Christ, and no passion for our Lord. We have gotten to the point where patriotism is considered synonymous with Christianity and faith is defined by one’s stand on certain social issues. We live with a ‘church’ that has no definition of the term ‘Christian’ or ‘unity’, yet we preach nothing but ‘Christian unity’. The problem is not the ‘liberals’, it is not the ‘fundamentalists’, the problem is neither Calvinism nor Arminianism, the problem is you and me. We have had countless opportunities to call people to repentance, to plead with them to divorce the world and be married to Christ, yet we have let innumerable opportunities pass. We have desired to move up in the ‘church’ world, when our message of repentance would make us outcasts in Christendom. We, yes even we, fundamentalists who know God have gotten drunk on numbers, and have let pragmatism creep into our conscience. I personally have sat back after a youth event and believed it was successful based on the turnout; yet in hindsight realize that it was likely void of God’s power. I have been discouraged by meetings of various groups that were smaller than expected even though God moved powerfully in them. This type of attitude is pragmatism, and needs to be repented of, and despised by us. We must never find satisfaction in ‘playing church’!!! We must find no solace in numbers. We must find no pleasure in public perception. We must only find peace in our Triune God, and His work alone. We can have no satisfaction until He has worked repentance in us, and is working repentance in those around us. Without repentance the professing church is dead! It is nothing more than another sect of people marching to eternal destruction. Oh, that we would just be the salt of the earth, that we would not lose our savor. That we would be Holy and all together different from the world around us, that we would be a strange group of people that others look onto with wonder. Repent! Repent! Repent! Come on! Let us be wholly dissatisfied with the state of the professing church today, let us first ourselves repent, and then let us care for the professing church, let us urge and prod and plead repentance, let us preach His words that Christendom may be cleansed, and that the bride may be spotless. REPENT!!! |
10.12.2006
Repentance Series (8 of 9) Preaching Repentance
Mark 6:12 And they went out, and preached that men should repent.
Act 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Rev 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Mar 2:17 When Jesus heard [it], he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
The command of Christ is repent! In the book of revelation He tells His Church to repent! (Notice that His final words are not go make disciples!) We are to go make disciples, but before we will ever accomplish anything for the kingdom we must repent. Moreover before we can expect anyone else to accomplish something for the kingdom they must repent. All great revival preaching has always centered around repentance! Repentance is one of those words that we are afraid to use around the “un-churched” (I despise that word), however no matter how you cut it, repentance is the first thing we are called to preach to them. We have come to a point in modern Christendom where people are saying that everyone is somewhere along some spiritual journey and maybe someday they will mature unto repentance. Nonsense! If there is no repentance then what they are on is an unspiritual journey into eternal death yet they will go there pretending to be Christians. Come on, do we not know that we are the bride of Christ! That we have our backs to the world! Or are we united to the world in some social club we call Christendom?
We must preach repentance. If we do not our congregations will continue to look more and more like the world around them. Look at the ‘Purpose Driven Life’ gospel, notice that all the churches that have used it ‘successfully’ look more like the world then when they started. They now have huge buildings packed with all the latest amenities from flat panel TVs, to coffee bars, even hair salons. What is going on? Is this bad or good? Well the logic is to make ‘church’ appealing to the world, and preaching repentance certainly does not fit that goal. Have you noticed how corporations have used ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ everyone uses it, tons of people have read it, or are reading it, and you never hear anything bad about it. The world loves it!! Do you know why? It is because never once in its whole explanation of Christianity, and its whole model for Christian community does it ever mention repentance. So long as you leave repentance out of the picture the worldly ‘church’ will thrive. Yet include in every message for one year at least something about repentance and most churches built on these new models would be about half the size or less than they are now. On the bright side there would be more Christians in them. We have tied our hands, our congregations are going through what is about the same as the dot-com craze on the stock market, the congregation has become much larger than the Church. None of these modern congregations have the unction to begin to preach hard on repentance because the numbers would certainly drop and this would be considered failure. In truth we keep inflating our churches with worldly business models that produce apparent numerical success, while the Church of Jesus Christ dwindles away. Eventually God will burst this bubble and those who are His will recognize it as revival, and the rest will bemoan the dwindling sizes of their congregations.
Jesus preached Repent, Peter preached repent, John the Baptist preached repent, all the great preachers of our past, Edwards, Wesley, Spurgeon, Brainerd, Whitfield, and so on all preached repent. We preach make disciples to people who have never embraced the cost of discipleship, which is repentance.
Leonard Ravenhill said, “The world does not need a new definition of Christianity, it needs a new demonstration of Christianity.”
Well that was a rant, more than an explanation or teaching, and I apologize for not really developing any points. Pages and pages could be written on this but I will stop here. I already have my next series in mind so hopefully tomorrow I will conclude this one.
Act 2:38 Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Rev 3:19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.
Mar 2:17 When Jesus heard [it], he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
The command of Christ is repent! In the book of revelation He tells His Church to repent! (Notice that His final words are not go make disciples!) We are to go make disciples, but before we will ever accomplish anything for the kingdom we must repent. Moreover before we can expect anyone else to accomplish something for the kingdom they must repent. All great revival preaching has always centered around repentance! Repentance is one of those words that we are afraid to use around the “un-churched” (I despise that word), however no matter how you cut it, repentance is the first thing we are called to preach to them. We have come to a point in modern Christendom where people are saying that everyone is somewhere along some spiritual journey and maybe someday they will mature unto repentance. Nonsense! If there is no repentance then what they are on is an unspiritual journey into eternal death yet they will go there pretending to be Christians. Come on, do we not know that we are the bride of Christ! That we have our backs to the world! Or are we united to the world in some social club we call Christendom?
We must preach repentance. If we do not our congregations will continue to look more and more like the world around them. Look at the ‘Purpose Driven Life’ gospel, notice that all the churches that have used it ‘successfully’ look more like the world then when they started. They now have huge buildings packed with all the latest amenities from flat panel TVs, to coffee bars, even hair salons. What is going on? Is this bad or good? Well the logic is to make ‘church’ appealing to the world, and preaching repentance certainly does not fit that goal. Have you noticed how corporations have used ‘The Purpose Driven Life’ everyone uses it, tons of people have read it, or are reading it, and you never hear anything bad about it. The world loves it!! Do you know why? It is because never once in its whole explanation of Christianity, and its whole model for Christian community does it ever mention repentance. So long as you leave repentance out of the picture the worldly ‘church’ will thrive. Yet include in every message for one year at least something about repentance and most churches built on these new models would be about half the size or less than they are now. On the bright side there would be more Christians in them. We have tied our hands, our congregations are going through what is about the same as the dot-com craze on the stock market, the congregation has become much larger than the Church. None of these modern congregations have the unction to begin to preach hard on repentance because the numbers would certainly drop and this would be considered failure. In truth we keep inflating our churches with worldly business models that produce apparent numerical success, while the Church of Jesus Christ dwindles away. Eventually God will burst this bubble and those who are His will recognize it as revival, and the rest will bemoan the dwindling sizes of their congregations.
Jesus preached Repent, Peter preached repent, John the Baptist preached repent, all the great preachers of our past, Edwards, Wesley, Spurgeon, Brainerd, Whitfield, and so on all preached repent. We preach make disciples to people who have never embraced the cost of discipleship, which is repentance.
Leonard Ravenhill said, “The world does not need a new definition of Christianity, it needs a new demonstration of Christianity.”
Well that was a rant, more than an explanation or teaching, and I apologize for not really developing any points. Pages and pages could be written on this but I will stop here. I already have my next series in mind so hopefully tomorrow I will conclude this one.
9.23.2006
Repentance Series (7 of 9) God's Pleasure in Repentance
God’s Pleasure in Repentance (7 of 9)
Galatians 1:10 -- For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
In repentance we please God, and ultimately this is the objective of the Christian’s life. I have been saying over and over that we serve God for Him and not for us, we repent for Him not us, we are even saved for Him and not us, and ultimately our highest point of joy and satisfaction is to know that we are pleasing to Him. This post excites me more than any of the prior because it forces me into thinking about God’s pleasure in me.
Through continual repentance God sanctifies a believer and sets them apart, He makes them altogether different than the rest of the world. The repentant believer has been marked by God, and God looks at His believer with joy. The Father made it very clear at Jesus’ baptism and at the transfiguration that He was well pleased with His only begotten Son. The Son pleased the father more than anything else, and it is to the Son that we look in hopes of bringing that same pleasure to God. It is only by repentance that we become like the Son, and thus please God. When we turn away from our own way and towards the way of the Son God is well pleased. Does that bring you joy? Do you revel in that fact that little sinful you by repentance can bring pleasure to The Almighty? If the fact that you can bring God joy does not thrill you then you need to seek Him, and plead for Him to give you the desire to please Him. It is the ultimate satisfaction to know that you are pleasing to God. Repentance is all about God’s pleasure. Forget for a moment about pleasing your pastor, teacher, friends, and even your spouse, and ask yourself what you can do to please God. You will find that repentance from your ways unto His ways is all you can do. Pleasing your spouse, parents, etc… in a Godly manner certainly would be repentance for most of us, and we should do that, but ultimately to please God.
Seek to repent and to give God pleasure, even right now.
This post has left me feeling inclined to remark briefly again about God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign. Most people would be horrified if they realized how sovereign God really is. We must, however, never let this thought of sovereignty over shadow the pleasure and displeasure which we may bring to God. If pondering the doctrine of God’s sovereignty does not drive you into closer fellowship with Him and a greater desire to serve Him, but instead makes you feel more like a helpless pawn simply being manipulated by the will of God, then you have a very wrong idea of God’s sovereignty. Again, God is not callous, and we do bring Him pleasure, and displeasure.
Galatians 1:10 -- For do I now persuade men, or God? or do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ.
In repentance we please God, and ultimately this is the objective of the Christian’s life. I have been saying over and over that we serve God for Him and not for us, we repent for Him not us, we are even saved for Him and not us, and ultimately our highest point of joy and satisfaction is to know that we are pleasing to Him. This post excites me more than any of the prior because it forces me into thinking about God’s pleasure in me.
Through continual repentance God sanctifies a believer and sets them apart, He makes them altogether different than the rest of the world. The repentant believer has been marked by God, and God looks at His believer with joy. The Father made it very clear at Jesus’ baptism and at the transfiguration that He was well pleased with His only begotten Son. The Son pleased the father more than anything else, and it is to the Son that we look in hopes of bringing that same pleasure to God. It is only by repentance that we become like the Son, and thus please God. When we turn away from our own way and towards the way of the Son God is well pleased. Does that bring you joy? Do you revel in that fact that little sinful you by repentance can bring pleasure to The Almighty? If the fact that you can bring God joy does not thrill you then you need to seek Him, and plead for Him to give you the desire to please Him. It is the ultimate satisfaction to know that you are pleasing to God. Repentance is all about God’s pleasure. Forget for a moment about pleasing your pastor, teacher, friends, and even your spouse, and ask yourself what you can do to please God. You will find that repentance from your ways unto His ways is all you can do. Pleasing your spouse, parents, etc… in a Godly manner certainly would be repentance for most of us, and we should do that, but ultimately to please God.
Seek to repent and to give God pleasure, even right now.
This post has left me feeling inclined to remark briefly again about God’s sovereignty. God is sovereign. Most people would be horrified if they realized how sovereign God really is. We must, however, never let this thought of sovereignty over shadow the pleasure and displeasure which we may bring to God. If pondering the doctrine of God’s sovereignty does not drive you into closer fellowship with Him and a greater desire to serve Him, but instead makes you feel more like a helpless pawn simply being manipulated by the will of God, then you have a very wrong idea of God’s sovereignty. Again, God is not callous, and we do bring Him pleasure, and displeasure.
9.21.2006
Repentance Series (6 of 9) The Rewards of Repentance
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9.18.2006
Repentance Series (5 of 9) Continuing in Repentance
Continuing in Repentance (5 of 9)
Sanctification occurs in every true believer, and sanctification is only brought about by continual repentance. It is true that there is a point at which the unbeliever initially repents from his or her unbelief and becomes a real Christian, we cannot deny that. That is repentance unto salvation, and that repentance and salvation will never be lost. However, we must realize that true repentance continues indefinitely in a Christian’s life, else there never was repentance initially. Continual repentance is the only evidence that the initial repentance was a real act of God’s grace and not the personal act of someone selfishly seeking heaven. Repentance is more than a series of actions; it is a state of being which all believers are in.
Modern “Christianity” is very quick to embrace this ‘repent once and it and it last forever’ doctrine, yet there is a failure to validate this initial repentance with its continuation. In other words when there is apparent conversion it is almost always just accepted regardless of whether or not the supposed convert has continued in repentance. The reason most people do not have the expectation of continual repentance is because they simply feel better about themselves and their ministries if they can claim that they have seen many conversions, or even worse that they have brought about many conversions. When their supposed convert lives a life that is not marked by some sort of continual repentance they will still call them a believer, but claim they merely backslidden and never question their conversion. To increase the number of alleged converts they simply attempt lower the standard of salvation.
The lack of understanding of continual repentance has lead to a myriad of heresy in the fundamentalist church, and it is sickening. For instance the sinner’s prayer has become the climax of many church services. Everything in the service is planned with the intent getting people to say this prayer, and the very gospel itself is tossed to the side in favor of a psychological ploy. We have altar calls after moments of high emotion in order to cause some sort of response to an experience the worship planners manufactured. If we understood continual repentance we would put no stock in these methods. We would preach the clear gospel and let God bring them to repentance. If they desire counsel we must make it available to them; however our goal is to drive the gospel home so that they will approach our Lord and not our Roman road, spiritual laws, or sinner’s prayer. When God converts a person with His gospel it will take no gimmicks, He will grant repentance and it will continue unto life everlasting.
You need to ask yourself “Was my salvation a result of some emotionally manufactured experience that has led to no power over sin, or was it the power of God that drove me to a continual repentance and victory over sin?” Please do not mistake what I am saying; salvation can be a very emotional experience, yet that emotion must be generated from salvation, not to bring you to salvation.
We will talk later about preaching repentance, and it should certainly be preached with emotion, however our emotion in preaching anything must come from the subject whom we preach about not for the intent of manipulating an audience.
(--below was added 9/23/2006--)
Scripture references
Matthew 3:8
Mark 1:4
Luke 3:8
Acts 26:20
Sanctification occurs in every true believer, and sanctification is only brought about by continual repentance. It is true that there is a point at which the unbeliever initially repents from his or her unbelief and becomes a real Christian, we cannot deny that. That is repentance unto salvation, and that repentance and salvation will never be lost. However, we must realize that true repentance continues indefinitely in a Christian’s life, else there never was repentance initially. Continual repentance is the only evidence that the initial repentance was a real act of God’s grace and not the personal act of someone selfishly seeking heaven. Repentance is more than a series of actions; it is a state of being which all believers are in.
Modern “Christianity” is very quick to embrace this ‘repent once and it and it last forever’ doctrine, yet there is a failure to validate this initial repentance with its continuation. In other words when there is apparent conversion it is almost always just accepted regardless of whether or not the supposed convert has continued in repentance. The reason most people do not have the expectation of continual repentance is because they simply feel better about themselves and their ministries if they can claim that they have seen many conversions, or even worse that they have brought about many conversions. When their supposed convert lives a life that is not marked by some sort of continual repentance they will still call them a believer, but claim they merely backslidden and never question their conversion. To increase the number of alleged converts they simply attempt lower the standard of salvation.
The lack of understanding of continual repentance has lead to a myriad of heresy in the fundamentalist church, and it is sickening. For instance the sinner’s prayer has become the climax of many church services. Everything in the service is planned with the intent getting people to say this prayer, and the very gospel itself is tossed to the side in favor of a psychological ploy. We have altar calls after moments of high emotion in order to cause some sort of response to an experience the worship planners manufactured. If we understood continual repentance we would put no stock in these methods. We would preach the clear gospel and let God bring them to repentance. If they desire counsel we must make it available to them; however our goal is to drive the gospel home so that they will approach our Lord and not our Roman road, spiritual laws, or sinner’s prayer. When God converts a person with His gospel it will take no gimmicks, He will grant repentance and it will continue unto life everlasting.
You need to ask yourself “Was my salvation a result of some emotionally manufactured experience that has led to no power over sin, or was it the power of God that drove me to a continual repentance and victory over sin?” Please do not mistake what I am saying; salvation can be a very emotional experience, yet that emotion must be generated from salvation, not to bring you to salvation.
We will talk later about preaching repentance, and it should certainly be preached with emotion, however our emotion in preaching anything must come from the subject whom we preach about not for the intent of manipulating an audience.
(--below was added 9/23/2006--)
Scripture references
Matthew 3:8
Mark 1:4
Luke 3:8
Acts 26:20
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