Sermon Illustrations on Compromise — page 2

Marking the Watershed

US Hwy. 287 comes up from Beaumont through Groveton, Dallas, Amarillo,

Denver and then to Yellowstone National Park.. Just before you get to

Yellowstone Park, Hwy. 287 crosses the Continental Divide. Snow covers

those mountains during the winter in seeming unity. But this an

illusion, because the it lies along a great divide, a watershed. When

snow melts in spring, water on the western slopes flow into the Snake

River, then into the Columbia River which empties into the Pacific along

the Oregon & Washington border. The snow that melts along the eastern

slope flows into the Wind River, then into the Bighorn, then into the

Yellowstone river, then into the Missouri river and finally into the

Mississippi river which empties into the Gulf of Mexico near New

Orleans.

The American Heritage Dictionary says that a watershed is "a ridge of

high land dividing two areas that are drained by different river

systems." In a secondary, symbolic sense, a watershed refers to "a

critical point that marks a division or a change of course; a turning

point." A watershed marks a dividing line. At first, two things may

superficially appear to be close together, but if they lie on the

opposite sides of a watershed, they will end up far apart. Snow lies

along a watershed in apparent, unbroken unity. But when it melts, the

runoff ends up a thousand miles apart.

What does this have to do with religion? Christians today are facing a

variety of watershed issues. We are often tempted to yield ground on

matters of religious principle. We are often tempted to make concessions

to accommodate the prevailing culture. This happens in many subtle ways.

Yet, compromise is a watershed issue! At first glance, it might seem

that we have not moved very far in the wrong direction. But, like the

snow lying side-by-side along a ridge of the Great Divide, when these

new views are followed consistently, lead us a thousand miles away from

others who did not so compromise. What seems like a minor difference at

first ends up making all the difference in the world.

During the Vietnam War, American pilot Lance Sijan was flying his F4 Phantom fighter-bomber on his fifty-third combat mission. Suddenly a faulty fuse triggered an explosion in his aircraft, and he crashed on the border of Laos. He could have been rescued as his comrades flew near, looking for him. But Sijan lay low and did not draw them to his spot because the enemy was too close and he did not want his compatriots to risk their lives. Over the next forty-six days, he crawled three miles. He tried to survive on leaves and the bark of trees. Finally caught and put into solitary confinement, he was tortured to extract secrets.

Those who could overhear what was happening ached for him deeply but were proud beyond measure at his unbreakable will and his determination not to betray his trust. There was nothing his tormentors could do to dent his courage and his commitment to his country. We are rightly proud of such heroism.

Isn’t it astounding how a man could endure such torture, sacrificing himself for his fellow soldiers, while many of us find it seemingly "impossible" to withstand lesser pressures for even lesser causes.

Many have so surrendered their wills to such a state of weaknesses that they have lost sight of their capacity for strength. It is far better, goes the old adage, to shun the bait than to struggle in the snare. To some things we must learn to say "no" and to mean it. Not just for the sake of saying no, but because life must be lived in terms of higher purpose. Is there not more than the immediate impulse for indulgence? If we do not resist and go the easy way there will be a price to be paid someday.

An essential principle in a philosophy of pleasure arises here: all pleasure must be bought at a price. The difference between illegitimate and legitimate pleasure is this: For legitimate pleasure, the price is paid before it is enjoyed. For illegitimate pleasure, the price is paid after it is enjoyed. Turning aside from instant gratification is one of the most difficult things to do. But this is where the battle is often won or lost.

The strength of our will - and this is crucial - surrendered either to God or ourselves - reveals the character we possess, and the strength of our will determines when the price is paid. It is the submission of our will to God that protects us from illicit pleasure, so that we may fully enjoy those which are legitimate. When that distinction is made and honored, life becomes a delight.

_________________________

Wicca Infiltrates the Churches

Psalms 121

Feminist proponents of Wicca, or modern-day witchcraft, now can be found within the clergy promoting the cult of the Goddess in many mainline Christian denominations.

When Kathleen Ward Atchason left Wicca, or witchcraft, to join the Roman Catholic Church she never dreamed she would encounter witchcraft within the walls of Christendom. Atchason lives in Salem, Mass., and still encounters practicing Wiccans in the community and on the street -- but in the church?

In fact, Atchason positively identified for Insight a Wiccan practice gaining currency in many churches. It is documented in two articles in Wellsprings, a defunct journal for Methodist clergywomen. The articles, “A Croning Ritual” and “Reflections from a New Crone,” were written by the Rev. Nancy Webb, minister of education and children’s education at Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington -- which the Clintons attend -- and by the Rev. Mary Kraus of Dumbarton United Methodist Church in Washington. Webb and Kraus provide details of the Wiccan croning ritual in the articles from their own eyewitness accounts.

“I am surprised that they are doing that,” Atchason tells Insight. “A croning ritual is a Wiccan rite of passage.” According to Atchason, “the Goddess” worshipped by Wiccans takes on three forms: maiden, representing sexual ripeness; mother, representing birth; and crone, representing old age.

As recently noted by Insight, Wicca is becoming increasingly popular in the culture (see “Wicca Casts Spell on Teen-Age Girls,” Oct. 25). Although Wiccans differ over semantics, most agree that Wicca is a pagan, nature-focused mystery religion. Most Wiccans worship a feminine deity called “the Goddess” and her consort, “the horned God.” According to Wiccan high priestess Phyllis Currott, the goddess takes on many forms such as the mythological Greek deities Artemis, Gaia and Sophia as well as Roman, Celtic and Norse goddesses. Some Wiccans meet in groups called covens or circles, while others prefer to practice Wiccan rituals and cast spells alone.

As the millennium approaches and Christians around the world prepare to celebrate 2,000 years since Christ’s birth, some in the church are concerned that the Christmas message is being distorted by pagan influences. As Wicca and goddess worship grow in popularity in the culture, elements of the practice also are appearing in Christian churches.

Connie Alt, a former Methodist cleric, is one of those concerned. Alt left her church partly because of what she perceived to be a lack of discernment in the matter of witchcraft by the church’s leadership.

When Alt read the Wellsprings article she telephoned Foundry Methodist to speak with Webb. Alt tells Insight that Webb informed her that she found Northern European practices of Wicca very helpful. She then recommended that Alt read a book called The Spiral Dance, by a Wiccan high priestess who calls herself Starhawk.

Disturbed that a professing Christian and Methodist minister would admit to any relationship with witchcraft, Alt called her friend Karen Booth, pastor at Long Neck United Methodist Church in Delaware. They had reason to believe that their bishop, Susan Morrison, herself had taken part in the croning ritual. When questioned, however, Booth tells Insight that Morrison said she could “neither confirm nor deny having taken part in the croning ritual, but that she had witnessed many croning rituals.”

Although disturbed by this response, Booth did not bring up the matter for several years until last fall when she found out that one of her parishioners’ daughters was reading Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation, by a Wiccan high priestess called Silver Ravenwolf. Alarmed that Wicca was influencing young women in her own congregation, Booth, along with Long Neck’s lay leader, Elaine Wood, reluctantly filed charges against Webb and Kraus for practicing a spirituality contrary to the teaching of the Methodist church.

In the spring of this year, Bishop Felton May of the Baltimore-Washington conference acknowledged the charges in accordance with the Methodist Book of Discipline and presided over two meetings between the women and appropriate witnesses. Booth and Wood tell Insight that Webb claimed that the croning ritual was just a birthday party but grounded in paganism and Wiccan belief and practice.

Of particular concern to Booth was a blessing mentioned by Webb at the end of the Wellsprings article which she noted bears a striking resemblance to a blessing mentioned in Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance, except that Webb’s blessing omits a line about “the Goddess.” When May asked Webb why she left this line out, says Booth, Webb told him she had said the blessing from memory and she would have inserted the line about the goddess had she remembered it.

In the meetings Webb and Kraus maintained that the croning ritual had been a private party and therefore should not be subject to public scrutiny. Kraus told Booth and Wood that she should be free to choose which ritual activities are meaningful to her.

Troubled by this line of reasoning, Booth expressed her concern in a letter to May. “The same argument could be made that private sexual conduct does not matter,” she wrote, “or that one could be a member of the Ku Klux Klan on private time as long as it does not impinge on public religious life.”

“I understand we have freedom of religion in this country,” Booth tells Insight, “but this is different. This woman is Methodist clergy and she also is in charge of children’s ministry at Foundry Methodist. I don’t believe that her private acts don’t influence her public life.”

In June of this year, before leaving the country on sabbatical, May did not take disciplinary action, as hoped by Booth and Wood, but instead recommended a mediator to assist the parties in reaching a settlement. Both Webb and Kraus remain at their jobs.

May was out of the country and unavailable for comment, and Kraus did not respond to Insight’s requests for an interview. Webb tells Insight that she would rather not comment on the situation, but maintains that she did not take part in Wiccan rituals as a practice.

Much of the media attention about goddess worship in churches first focused on an event held in Minneapolis in 1993 called the Reimagining Conference, but more-isolated incidents such as the “croning ritual” have not received a great deal of coverage. Most mainline denominations sponsored the Reimagining Conference, at which a group of Methodist clergy, among others, encouraged participants to reject traditional notions of Christ’s death to atone for sin because “in light of women’s experience, such as slavery and female sexual abuse, understandings of sacrifice, atonement and martyrdom are being re-examined.”

According to a report by Methodist clergy who attended, as many as 2,200 conference participants shared in a communion of milk and honey and recited a feminist liturgy: “To our maker Sophia, we are women in your image, with nectar between our thighs we invite a lover, we birth a child, with our warm body fluids we remind the world of its pleasures and sensations.” Sophia was honored at the conference as “our creator Sophia.” “Sophia” is the Greek translation of the Old Testament word for wisdom. Some feminist philosophers claim that wisdom is portrayed as a woman in the book of Proverbs.

Most churches, except the United Church of Christ, have withdrawn their funding of the continuing Reimagining conferences, but many women from mainline denominations still attend. The next conference is scheduled for October 2000. The conference coordinator, Joan Regal, is Lutheran, and one member of the coordinating committee is a retired Methodist pastor, Jeanne Audrey Powers. But neither denomination is officially participating.

And these are not the only ones to reimagine God as female. In late October, a conference titled “Jesus: A Feminist, Womanist Perspective” was held in Hendersonville, N.C., at Kanuga, a retreat center affiliated with the Episcopal Church since 1928. The noonday order of service was Psalm 121 rewritten as “Godde, the Lady and Mother.” Speakers at the conference included Carter Heyward, a professor at Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Mass., and author of Saving Jesus From Those Who Are Right, and Delores Williams, a professor at Union Theological Seminary who has cited other feminist scholars in her work who call the crucifixion of Christ “divine child abuse.” Recommended reading for participants included She Who Is, by a Catholic nun, Elizabeth Johnson, and books by radical Catholic scholar Rosemary Radford Reuther, author of Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology Healing.

Abigail Noll of the Washington-based Institute on Religion and Democracy, an organization that seeks to monitor and reform mainline-church denominations, attended the conference. She observed that all the participants appeared sincere. Noll tells Insight, however, that she was surprised by a song sung by conference coordinator Rosemary Crow, called “You Can Be a Heretic, Too.” Crow views herself as a heretic because she promotes feminist theology, standing against the structure of the church.

So why do observers say feminism and goddess worship is growing in popularity in the church?

“Women are looking for empowerment and a safe place to explore these things and a place to rebel against God,” explains Donna Hailson, author of the Goddess Revival and visiting professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in Hamilton, Mass., and Eastern Baptist Seminary in Philadelphia. Hailson tells Insight she does not believe that God is female, but beyond gender. Hailson does acknowledge that the church has not always behaved in ways that are honoring to women. “But that does not mean that we should reimagine God!” she says.

“Many feminists claim that men have interpreted Scripture throughout the centuries in a way that subordinates women and that women should have the chance to change things to better suit their experience. Sadly, this plays into the myth that women are feeling creatures and not thinking creatures,” Hailson tells Insight.

Much of the feminist literature focuses on the environment, the arts and new spiritual practices such as goddess worship. “This should all serve as a wake-up call to the church to reclaim the arts, to care about the environment and to show that church is not just a Sunday-morning thing.”

Evidence of this can be found in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), or PCUSA, which also has sponsored goddess worship. At the PCUSA-owned Ghost Ranch retreat center in New Mexico last fall, women were invited to “celebrate the sacred feminine goddess in the land of enchantment with art, movement, ritual and song. Honor the goddess within each woman. Tell your Herstory with art, voice, dance ritual. Walk a Hopi labyrinth. Create art with your symbolic Goddess language. Dance at the temple of the Living Goddess. Connect us with a sacred circle with very special women for mutual transformation. Share the Magic!”

Concerned that such programs encouraging goddess worship were incompatible with the Bible, Sylvia Dooling, wife of a Presbyterian pastor, founded Voices for Orthodox Women, or VOW.

Its goal is to try and influence the Presbyterian Church to be more orthodox through the proper channels of the church. “We have grown from twelve members two years ago to 1,000 members today,” Dooling tells Insight. “Presbyterian women are concerned about this.”

Mary Hunt is a feminist who does not share Dooling’s concern and is pleased with the growth of feminist philosophy in the Christian church. Hunt is a Roman Catholic and codirector of the Women’s Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual, or WATER. An editorial on the front page of Waterwheel, WATER’s quarterly newsletter, reads, “Starhawk gets it right in her new introduction to the twentieth-anniversary edition of The Spiral Dance, the book that launched Goddess religion into the contemporary mainstream. ‘How do I learn this ... how do I pass this on?’ “

Hunt tells Insight that while her newsletter quotes Starhawk, a Wiccan high priestess, that she and codirector Diann Neu consider themselves to be Catholic, although WATER is not affiliated officially with the Roman Catholic Church. “We seek to influence it however and receive funding from some Catholic bishops,” she says.

One issue of the newsletter features a liturgy for All Saint’s Day, honoring the gracious Mother Goddess, “Wisdom -- Sophia,” written by Neu. Participation of a young woman, a middle-aged woman and a crone are required.

“This liturgy is a resource for others to use on their own or in their denomination. We are not promoting Wicca,” says Hunt, “but it is certainly something that is a help.”

Hunt and Neu hope to transform the church by inducing it to have a more feminist agenda. They hold workshops and sponsor events on such issues as spirituality, sexuality and anti-racism.

Yet the church to which they profess to belong does not agree. “The Catholic catechism forbids divination, sorcery and magic as a mortal sin against the first commandment -- and that includes Wicca,” explains the Rev. Mitch Pacwa, a Roman Catholic professor at the University of Dallas and author of Catholics and the New Age.

Atchason says that she fears that women who practice goddess worship and Wicca in church are uninformed and don’t know what they are doing. “They think they are celebrating their womanhood, but there are darker associations and they should understand what they are dealing with.” Atchason tells Insight that there are some pagans and Wiccans who practice with similar naïveté and are what she terms “nominal witches.” She and another ex-witch in Salem, Mass., Paula Keene, aver that witchcraft is dangerous and real. Keene left Wicca in favor of Catholicism in the 1980s and warns, “Magic is real and it works.”

Keene tells Insight she left Wicca because of negative experiences too frightening to describe over the phone. But Atchason and Keene maintain friendships with Wiccans and now share the truth of their own passage with all who will listen.

“These women in the church do not have the discernment we do from the experiences we had,” warns Atchason. “They must be informed. It’s like the warning on a pack of cigarettes. Wicca is dangerous and could be hazardous to your health.”

Making Godly Choices

Daniel 1:8

Sermon on developing moral convictions. Daniel 1:8-16

MAKING GODLY CHOICES

====================

I. We need convictions.

A. President Bush's firm moral vision.

B. Wheaton College's new moral code.

II. Gray in a black-and-white world.

A. The pressure to conform.

B. We must draw the line somewhere.

III. Making lifestyle choices where the Bible is silent.

A. Know where you stand with God.

B. Obey what you know.

C. Dig in the Bible.

D. Ask yourself seven questions:

1) Will it hurt me? 1 Cor 6:19-20

2) Will it enslave me? 1 Cor 6:12

3) Is it good stewardship? 1 Cor 4:2

4) Is it worth repeating? Phil 4:9

5) Will it hinder God's ministry through me? 1 Cor 10:33

6) Will it cause others to stumble? Rom 14:21

7) Will it glorify God? 1 Cor 10:31

IV. Seek wise counsel.

A. Mature Christians can give wisdom.

B. Bible studies offer many opportunities to "compare notes."

V. Just do it.

A. Know your weaknesses and prepare in advance.

B. Be prepared to swim against the current.

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #16768]

The Worst Trade In the World

Genesis 25

I've got a friend who has a lot more beautiful jewelry than her income can afford. She's just really good at getting terrific deals in pawn shops. She only goes to the reputable ones and over the years, she's managed to keep trading up. My friend has an unbelievable instinct for a good deal and she's got the savvy to land that deal. The other day I saw her with this beautiful full-carat diamond ring on. The store price was $2,000 - which there was no way she had. But she had her little bag of trading treasures with her. She traded items that didn't really matter much to her - and she ended up getting that ring for $200.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Worst Trade in the World."

OK, now, good traders try to end up getting something better than what they gave away. It doesn't always happen. In our word for today from the Word of God, Esau made what was arguably the worst trade anyone has ever made. He traded a priceless treasure for a relatively worthless trinket. Tragically, someone reading today may be making a trade like that right now.

Esau is the older brother in his Jewish family, which gives him automatically the birthright - which means double inheritance upon Dad's death, authority over the family and its assets. His younger brother Jacob wants that birthright as we enter this scene in Genesis 25, beginning with verse 29.

"Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. He said to Jacob, 'Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!' ... Jacob replied, 'First sell me your birthright.' 'Look, I am about to die,' Esau said. 'What good is the birthright to me?' But Jacob said, 'Swear to me first.' So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob." Man, you just feel like yelling at the Bible, "Don't do it Esau!" "Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left."

Now, Hebrews 12 says that Esau "for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. Afterward ... when he wanted to inherit this blessing, he was rejected. He could bring about no change of mind, though he sought the blessing with tears." So here was the trade that Esau regretted the rest of his life - give up something precious to meet an immediate need.

Do you know how many people have made that same kind of tragic trade? You're trying to meet what seems like a huge need right now - for money, for love, for acceptance, for getting ahead, for getting out of a jam. But to get it, you give up something you'll need and want for the rest of your life - maybe your integrity, your virginity, your reputation, a close relationship, your ministry, your self-respect, even the favor of God.

You could be on the edge of a terrible trade right now. And God is sending you this loving warning - don't give up that lifetime treasure to meet that immediate need. It's a trade you'll regret for the rest of your life.

________________

*

Mo. speaker says Old Testament stories can't be taken literally

Some Old Testament Bible stories, including the account of Jonah, cannot be taken literally, said a Southwest Baptist University Bible professor who led weekend Bible studies for the new Baptist General Convention of Missouri.

Scott Langston, an associate dean and professor of biblical studies at Southwest Baptist University, shared his views following an April 19 meeting of moderate Missouri Baptists who are forming a new convention.

In a letter that appeared on the BGCM's website, Langston noted in a "testimony" that he has reservations about continuing to support the Southern Baptist Convention and the Missouri Baptist Convention.

"Fundamentally, I disagree with the Christianity that is espoused and acted out by those in the leadership of these organizations [SBC and MBC]," Langston wrote, suggesting that the new convention take on the role of a "social agency or a think-tank."

When asked to explain his comments, Langston told Baptist Press that he was referring to what he called slanderous statements labeling some moderates as individuals who don't believe the Bible.

"It makes my blood boil because of how people have been treated," he said.

Langston said he does not use the idea of inerrancy to describe his interpretation of Scripture.

"I don't like to use that term," Langston told Baptist Press. "I prefer to use the term totally trusting."

While Langston said he believes in the virgin birth and the resurrection, there are some accounts in the Bible that he said should not be taken at face value.

"When you say you want to believe everything in the Bible, you have to ask if we are applying a modern standard of literature to an ancient text," Langston said. "To me, part of a literal interpretation is to take seriously the ancient context."

For example, does Langston believe the account of Jonah and the fish really happened? No, he replied.

"I think there is a possibility that it didn't happen," he said.

"If it could be proven that it never happened, my faith is still strong," Langston noted.

Langston, who was only identified as a Bible professor at a Missouri college, noted that he attended the meeting as an individual, not as a representative of Southwest Baptist University.

"The university is neutral in this and I am only here to represent myself," he said.

--30-

No Longer Left Behind

Excerpt concluding a lengthy article on Christian publishing. (Ferré is John P. Ferré, professor of communication at the University of Louisville.)

Ferré cautions that as Christian authors become brands and Christian books become commodities, there is a risk that Christian readers will become jaded.

"The risk," Ferré says, "is that as Christian books penetrate the broader marketplace, they'll be seen as makers of money and celebrity rather than as means for reflection, enlightenment, challenge-even repentance."

April 22, 2002, Vol. 46, No. 5, Page 26

*

The spirit of Ann Landers

Error is always more dangerous when it comes from a casual and unsuspecting source than when it shows up hand-delivered by the Devil himself.

Jerry Falwell "Anoints" Benny Hinn

Benny Hinn is a hyper-charismatic false teacher famous for his blasphemous Healing Crusades. He regularly appears on the heretical Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), hyping upcoming crusades and airing video of previous crusades. On TBN last October, Hinn said people are going to be raised from the dead watching TBN. He said, "People are going to be canceling funeral services and bringing their dead in their caskets, placing them before a TV set, waiting for God's power to touch them." He said they would be raised from the dead by the thousands.

This is the kind of nonsense that regularly comes from the mouth of Benny Hinn, yet professing evangelicals rarely speak out against his teachings. Now we have "evangelicals" endorsing Benny Hinn.

On the "This is Your Day" program with Benny Hinn on December 28, 1999, Hinn featured clips from his 25th ministry anniversary celebration, highlighting several "Christian" leaders who came to pay tribute to him. Hinn's regular admirers appeared singing Hinn's praises, such as Rex Humbard, Paul Crouch (TBN's founder), and Oral Roberts. But one surprise guest was Liberty University's founder and political activist, Jerry Falwell, clad in his finest tuxedo, who gave his own personal endorsement of Benny Hinn. Here is the transcript of Falwell's tribute from the clip that was aired:

Pastor Benny and I are friends and I'm glad for every soul that comes and has come to Christ through your ministry over the past 25 years. A few weeks ago Pastor Hinn called, and one of his staff members, and said, "Benny wants to come to Lynchburg and he wants your undivided attention for a day." ... he came and we had a wonderful day together. He met the 6,000 students on the campus of Liberty University as we walked from building to building; most of them knew him. Many of them were your partners (applause). We spent a lot of time and conversation about what God is doing.

Perhaps Jerry Falwell has anointed Benny Hinn because he is afraid Hinn will place a curse on him. On a 9/13/99 TBN program, Hinn appealed to Kathryn Kuhlman for his "cursing and blessing" pronouncements at a recently held Healing Crusade in Denver. He said:

I place a curse on every man and woman that will stretch his hand against this anointing. I curse that man who dares to speak a word against this ministry. But any man, any woman that raises his or her hand in blessing toward this ministry, I bless that man. ...

Falwell has a habit of looking in all the wrong places for what God is doing. In the past, he has even aligned himself with self-proclaimed messiah, Sun Myung Moon, to further his own political agenda. Falwell is a role-model to church leaders who can look to him and know how NOT to be, if one wants to know how to be pleasing to the Lord.

[This article has been adapted and/or excerpted from an article in the The Alnor Report, (originally titled: "Jerry Falwell Holds Hands With Benny Hinn.")]

[Editor's Note: Hinn has unveiled plans for a $30-35 million spiritual healing park on a 50-acre site near his new Dallas headquarters (a "fulfillment of a vision God gave me many years ago," says Hinn), which will operate 24 hours a day when opening in 2001. The proposed complex will include life-size bronze statues of "healers" from the past -- Oral Roberts, Kathryn Kuhlman, Aimee Semple McPhearson, A.A. Allen, Jack Coe, Lester Sumrall, etc., and live re-creations of services by some of these healers, as well as films of actual healing services. Contributors to the project can have their names recognized on plaques in various sections of the theme park, such as at the Healing Hall of Faith, in the Healing Garden, the Fountain of Healing, the Healing Stream, or at the Eternal Flame of Healing. (Source: 1/00, Charisma.)]

Evangelical Theological Society Rejects 'Open Theism,' Affirms God's Foreknowledge

Acts 5:33

After three days of heated debate, the Evangelical Theological Society (ETS) voted Nov. 16 overwhelmingly to affirm what almost every Christian in the history of the church has always believed -- that God knows everything, including the future decisions of his creatures.

The organization, a professional society of biblical scholars and theologians who affirm the inerrancy of Scripture, brought the issue to the floor after a group of ETS charter members charged that the "openness of God" view being articulated by some society members is outside the boundaries of evangelical conviction.

The non-binding resolution stated that the society believes "the Bible clearly teaches that God has complete, accurate and infallible knowledge of all events past, present and future including all future decisions and actions of free moral agents." The resolution passed on a vote of 253 in favor to 66 opposed with 41 abstentions after a debate that lasted until well after midnight the night before.

The resolution takes issue with the concept of "open theism" held by evangelical scholars such as Clark Pinnock, Gregory Boyd and John Sanders. God cannot know what will happen in the future, these scholars argue, since future human decisions have not yet been made and thus do not exist to be known. Sanders, a professor of religion at Huntington College in Indiana, presented the open theist case before the society, arguing that an attempt to rule the idea out of bounds could result in an evangelical "Taliban," enforcing doctrinal orthodoxy within the society.

Sanders' view was opposed by a competing presentation by Bruce Ware, associate dean and professor of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kentucky. Ware pleaded with ETS members to recognize that the denial of God's complete knowledge is a dangerous doctrine that will damage the churches. Ware pointed to a host of Scriptures in which God declares himself to know the future, including passages in which God contrasts his knowledge of the future with the idols that have no such knowledge of future events.

"By its denying of God's foreknowledge of future free creaturely choices and actions, open theism is vulnerable to the charge of commending as God one whom the true God declares is false and worthless," Ware said.

The ramifications of open theism include the undermining of the gospel itself, Ware said, since God could not have kept with certainty the prophetic promises of the Old Testament, up to and including the crucifixion of Jesus. Nor, Ware said, can a God ignorant of the future guarantee the future success of his purposes. Ware took issue with statements by open theists who argue that God has made mistakes, including statements by Pinnock that even Jesus was mistaken at least once on a matter of predictive prophecy.

"The cost to doctrine and faith by open theism's denial of exhaustive divine foreknowledge is too great to be accepted within evangelicalism," Ware said. "Thoughtful Christians, particularly Christian leaders, must speak out on the openness proposal to say what the glory of God, the truthfulness of Scripture and our own consciences require."

Before the debate on the resolution, Ware pleaded with open theists to repent of their teachings and reconsider the biblical portrayal of a God who knows the end from the beginning.

"You don't have to go this way!" Ware said. "I won't say, 'I told you so.' I will praise God! Come back to the fold."

The vote was preceded by one charter member, theologian Roger Nicole, arguing that the founders of the organization would have been horrified to know that the issue of God's knowledge would ever be up for debate among evangelicals, or that anyone who held such a view would even seek membership. Nicole argued that the society should vote to uphold foreknowledge, thereby signaling to open theists that they should "exercise their precious free will and resign." If the open theists refuse to voluntarily leave the organization, Nicole said, the ETS should then move to expel them through its constitutional process.

"Open theism is a cancer on the Evangelical Theological Society," Nicole said. "That cancer has not been resolved by chemotherapy or radiation. The only remaining option is surgery."

Ware and Nicole, a member of a Florida Baptist congregation, were joined by other Southern Baptists in opposing the open theist position. Charlie Draper, professor of New Testament at Southern Seminary's Boyce College, and Russ Bush, academic dean at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in North Carolina, both argued that a denial of God's foreknowledge is a denial of the inerrancy of Scripture, since a God who cannot know the future cannot guarantee the truth of a Bible that speaks to future events. Draper said the debate might well be "the issue of the century" for American evangelicals.

"If this line cannot be drawn, no line can be drawn," Draper said. "If this view cannot be said to be a denial of inerrancy, then no view can be said to be a denial of inerrancy."

The resolution was opposed by Clark Pinnock, who as a faculty member at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in the 1960s, once championed a very conservative vision of historic Christian orthodoxy, but who has now significantly altered his convictions not only about the foreknowledge of God, but also about the meaning of inerrancy and the necessity of conscious faith in Christ for salvation. Pinnock argued that the ETS should not condemn open theism, but instead should recognize that "the best advice about a new religious movement" comes from the Pharisee Gamaliel in Acts 5:33-39. If open theism is not of God, it will come to nothing, Pinnock suggested.

The Southern Baptist Convention has addressed the question of open theism, first in a resolution offered by Southern Seminary President R. Albert Mohler Jr. at the 1999 SBC annual meeting in Atlanta. The resolution passed by the convention affirmed that God knows all things, including the future. The SBC then addressed the issue in the 2000 Baptist Faith and Message statement of beliefs, revising the article on God to affirm that God's "perfect knowledge extends to all things, past, present, and future, including the future decisions of His free creatures."

The ETS debate was preceded by a flurry of papers presented on both sides of the issue, and by an address by ETS President Darrell Bock, a New Testament scholar at Dallas Theological Seminary, who argued that sharp boundaries should not be drawn for the evangelical movement. Instead, he argued, evangelicalism may be likened to a "village green," which is defined more by the center than by the boundaries. After the vote, ETS program chair Millard Erickson, a longtime opponent of open theism, predicted that the resolution would not end the debate over these issues within American evangelicalism.

--30-

Immovable Boundaries

Job 24:2

The men in our family are avid football fans. It is not an uncommon malady in the American male. And no matter how many games you’ve watched, there is one highlight that never ceases to be exciting – when the quarterback lofts a long pass downfield to a receiver who leaps into the air to catch it. Unfortunately, as dramatic as those catches are, they don’t all count. Because sometimes the pass receiver steps out of bounds in the process of bringing in that pass. That’s why those players try every kind of twisting and turning imaginable to stay in bounds. Because it doesn’t matter how impressive the play is – if you’re out of bounds, it just doesn’t count.

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about “Immovable Boundaries”.

Staying “in bounds” at all costs – that’s not just good football ... that’s integrity – refusing to go out of bounds morally, no matter what. Because as far as God is concerned, it doesn’t matter how impressive the play is – if you go out of His bounds, it just doesn’t count.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave recently, you’re probably faced with temptations to compromise your integrity over and over again. To tell something less than the truth ... to cut corners ethically ... to do something financially that is less than honest ... to compromise your purity for someone you care about ... or to watch or listen to or laugh at things Jesus would never be a part of. For all of us who feel that pull to make the play by going out of bounds, there is some powerful encouragement in the life of Nehemiah, the man God chose to lead His people in the amazing rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls and gates.

In our word for today from the Word of God, Nehemiah is now the governor of the city. He has an opportunity to use his position to his own advantage, but against a background of people who are exploiting their own people, Nehemiah is a glowing model of integrity. In Nehemiah 5:14, he says, “Neither I nor my brothers ate the food allotted to the governor. But the earlier governors – those preceding me – placed a heavy burden on the people and took forty shekels of silver from them in addition to food and wine. Their assistants lorded it over the people. But out of reverence for God, I did not act like that. Instead, I devoted myself to the work on this wall ... we did not acquire any land.”

Nehemiah’s predecessors had done it ... many of the people he governed had done it ... but Nehemiah refused to exploit his position. He had immovable boundaries, even when it would have benefited him greatly to compromise them just a little.

On the job application of one of our new Team members, I was impressed with three little words that described his “reason for leaving” his last job. His department insisted on continuing some unethical practices to which he had objected – but, in his character-revealing words, “I could not." While this man has an impressive resume and some great abilities, that integrity was what impressed me most. It’s what impresses God the most – and qualifies you for His greatest blessings.

Compromise may be the order of the day around you – but, “in reverence for God”, will you say, “I cannot." Compromise might get you ahead, maybe give you something you really want – will you, for God’s sake, say, “But I cannot.”

Immovable boundaries – the heart of a man or woman God can trust, God can bless. As far as your Lord is concerned, if it isn’t inside His boundaries, it just doesn’t count.

________________

*

GRAHAM BELIEVES MEN CAN BE SAVED APART FROM NAME OF CHRIST

By Robert E. Kofahl, Ph.D.

TELEVISION INTERVIEW OF BILLY GRAHAM BY ROBERT SCHULLER. PART 1, AN APPROXIMATELY 7-MINUTE-LONG BROADCAST IN SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ON SATURDAY, MAY 31, 1997. THE FOLLOWING IS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT* OF AN EXCERPT CLOSE TO THE END OF THIS BROADCAST.

SCHULLER: Tell me, what do you think is the future of Christianity?

GRAHAM: Well, Christianity and being a true believer--you know, I think there's the Body of Christ. This comes from all the Christian groups around the world, outside the Christian groups. I think everybody that loves Christ, or knows Christ, whether they're conscious of it or not, they're members of the Body of Christ. And I don't think that we're going to see a great sweeping revival, that will turn the whole world to Christ at any time. I think James answered that, the Apostle James in the first council in Jerusalem, when he said that God's purpose for this age is to call out a people for His name. And that's what God is doing today, He's calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ because they've been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don't have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think that they are saved, and that they're going to be with us in heaven.

SCHULLER: What, what I hear you saying that it's possible for Jesus Christ to come into human hearts and soul and life, even if they've been born in darkness and have never had exposure to the Bible. Is that a correct interpretation of what you're saying?

GRAHAM: Yes, it is, because I believe that. I've met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they've believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they've tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.

SCHULLER: [R. S. trips over his tongue for a moment, his face beaming, then says I'm so thrilled to hear you say this. There's a wideness in God's mercy.

GRAHAM: There is. There definitely is.

TELEVISION INTERVIEW OF DR. GRAHAM BY DR. SCHULLER CONTINUED:

PART II WAS BROADCAST ON SUNDAY, JUNE 8.

THE FOLLOWING IS AN ACCURATE TRANSCRIPTION OF A SEGMENT.*

SCHULLER: You knew ... Fulton Sheen. You knew these men. Your comments on both of these men [Fulton Sheen and Norman V. Peale].

GRAHAM: The primary way of communicating is to live the life, let people see that you're living what you proclaim.... [comments on his friendship and conversations with Fulton Sheen] I lost a very dear friend, and since that time, the whole relationship between me and my work, and you and your work, and the Roman Catholic Church has changed. They open their arms to welcome us and we have the support of the Catholic Church almost everywhere we go. And I think that we must come to the place where we keep our eyes on Jesus Christ, not on what denomination or what church or what group we belong to.

SOME HISTORICAL BACKGROUND FOR UNDERSTANDING BILLY GRAHAM'S SHOCKING PROFESSION OF ROMAN CATHOLIC STYLE UNIVERSALISM IN 1997:

Billy Graham's first great city-wide evangelistic campaign was held in Los Angeles in 1949. At that time he made a public promise that he would never have any theological modernists (theological liberals) on his platform. Dr. Graham's first evangelistic campaign in England was held in the summer of 1954. On that tour he was accompanied by Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell, the pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in New York City. Dr. Bonnell was also the president of the Ministerial Association of New York City, which was dominated by modernist ministers and churches. On Dr. Graham's British tour Bonnell was working to persuade him to hold a campaign in New York in 1956 under the auspices of the liberal Ministerial Association. During that time a group of Bible-believing pastors and laymen sent Dr. Graham in England a telegram asking him to hold an evangelistic series in New York City sponsored by "a committee of twice-born men."

On his return to the States Dr. Graham announced that he would come to New York in 1956 sponsored by the Ministerial Association of New York City. The committee of Bible-believing men sent a delegation to Dr. Graham begging him not to confuse the line between the gospel of grace and the false gospel of the modernist churches represented in the Ministerial Association. Graham turned a deaf ear to them, and came to New York with the requirement that all churches should be invited to participate in the campaign. In that campaign, the Billy Graham Association trained counselors sent from all sorts of churches, including the Roman Catholic Church. The policy was established of directing each inquirer during the campaign to his or her home church. Some Protestants were sent to modernist churches. Roman Catholics were directed back to the priest of the Roman church nearest to their home address. This policy of cooperation with the Roman Church continues to this day.

Dr. Graham has received honors from Roman Catholic circles, including an honorary degree from a Catholic college. In his last campaign in the British Isles, two leading prelates in the Roman Catholic Church in England sent out pastoral letters encouraging Catholics to attend the Graham meetings. One of these prelates explained to his parishioners that "Billy Graham knows our limits." That is, the Roman Church can count on him not to touch on any theological doctrines that contradict official Romanist teachings. Thus Dr. Graham will not explain that a sinner trusting in the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins and eternal life must give up any trust he might have in any other object of faith; that he or she must trust in the Person, Jesus Christ, and Him alone, not trusting in Mary or saints, rejecting any trust in the sinner's good works or religious observances, relying totally on His perfect work of redemption, a substitutionary atonement on the cross, taking the sinner's place under the judgment of God and receiving in His body the total punishment for sin that the sinner deserves, and through repentance and faith receive the perfect righteousness of Christ, imputed by God to the believer, that makes the sinner forever acceptable to a holy God, and immediately a possessor of the gift of eternal life that cannot be forfeited or lost, kept by the power of God throughout all eternity. If Billy Graham were to preach this biblical and complete doctrine of salvation, he would at once lose the support of the Roman Catholic leaders. Multitudes of Roman Catholics would be warned and frightened from attending Billy Graham meetings.

The doctrine that Dr. Graham expressed to Dr. Schuller is exactly what the Pope and the Ecumenical Institute in Rome have been teaching for years. This is the idea that any pagan, practicing idolatrous worship, having no slightest knowledge of the Bible, the gospel of grace, or the Person and name and redeeming work of Jesus Christ-if he is a "good person" and if he is sincere in whatever he may believe-is automatically "redeemed by the blood of Christ." This false doctrine of salvation was clearly and explicitly asserted and defended in debate about four years ago on radio stations KABC and KBRT by Father Vivian Benlima, then Director of the Office for Ecumenical and Interdenominational Affairs of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, who just returned from a year's study at the Ecumenical Institute. It is the official teaching of the Roman Church.

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was the primary force for the founding of the Lausanne World Evangelism Conferences back in the 1980s. Especially in recent years these conferences have called on all churches, including the modernist ecumenical churches of the World Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church to cooperate with the evangelical churches in evangelizing the world for Christ. At Amsterdam '86, billed as a "school for evangelists" and sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, Graham revealed his ecumenical, inclusivist approach to worldwide evangelism. In the final press conference, Dr. Graham was asked by Dennis Costella, a news correspondent for Foundation magazine, how he could justify this melding together of such a disparate crowd of theologically disunited religious groups. Dr. Graham responded, "Evangelism is about the only word we can unite on. ... Our methods would be different and there would be debates over even the message sometimes, but there is no debate over the fact that we need to evangelize. ... I think there is an ecumenicity here that cannot [be gotten] under any other umbrella." Therefore, he averred, all the churches must be willing to disagree even on the question of what the Christian message to the world is.

More recently, in the spring of 1994, a group of both evangelical and Roman Catholic leaders signed a document called "Evangelicals and Catholics Together" (ECT). This document asserts that there is one Church (including both Protestant and Roman churches), that, therefore, they must work together in evangelizing the world for Christ, and agree that there will be no sheep-stealing, that is, proselytizing of members of one church to depart and join another church. ECT dismayed multitudes of Christians and elicited vigorous criticism from many Christian circles.

There can be little question that Dr. Billy Graham during almost forty years laid the major foundation for ECT. Where will the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association go in the future? Will the leadership that succeeds the founder continue down the same perilous path of compromising and diluting biblical truth until we arrive at total syncretism and universalism? May God forbid and warn His people!

_____________________________________

* Robert E. Kofahl, Ph.D., and the Rev. Harold L. Webb certify the accuracy of the transcripts from Parts I and II, respectively, of the televised interview of Dr. Billy Graham by Dr. Robert Schuller.

Christian Unity & the Divisions We Must Sustain A Gathering of Traditional Christians II

November 8 - 10, 2001

University of St. Mary of the Lake Mundelein, Illinois

In the spirit of our first "Gathering of Traditional Christians" at Rose Hill in South Carolina in 1995, Touchstone is pleased to announce a meeting of Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox Christians for the purposes of exploring together the issues that are both uniting and dividing Christians in the 21st century.

A great realignment of Christians is underway as many are rediscovering the resources of the Great Tradition while others are rejecting it wholesale. At the same time, Christians are facing difficult challenges from an increasingly secularized culture.

Meeting on the lovely grounds of the University of St. Mary of the Lake in north suburban Chicago, this conference will explore the possibilities for greater Christian unity and our responsibility for drawing all the lines -- theological and moral -- in the right places. Housing on the campus is limited on a first-come first-served basis. Look for additional information in future issues of Touchstone and at our website: www.touchstonemag.com

Confirmed speakers include:

Metropolitan Maximos, Bishop of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North & South America.

Richard J. Neuhaus, Director of the Institute on Religion & Public Life, New York, Editor-in-Chief, First Things.

Timothy George, Dean of Beeson Divinity School, Birmingham, Alabama.

Robert P. George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, New Jersey.

R. Albert Mohler, Jr., President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky.

Patrick Henry Reardon, Priest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, Touchstone Senior Editor.

James Hitchcock, Professor of History, St. Louis University, Touchstone Senior Editor.

A brochure containing registration, lodging, and scheduling information will be available the first week of June. For information on the conference, or to be added to the conference mailing list, please e- mail Geoff Battersby (battersby@touchstonemag.com).

Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity P. O. Box 410788 Chicago, IL 60641 PHONE: (773) 481-1090 FAX: (773) 481-1095 WEBSITE: http://www.touchstonemag.com

Samson - the Cost of Compromise

Judges 14:1

Sermon on Samson Judges 14:1-4; 16:18-30

THE COST OF COMPROMISE

======================

I. The comic book ad that gripped a nation.

II. Samson led a compromised nation.

A. The local Israelites made peace with the Philistines.

B. The Israelites did not support Samson.

C. Low morality - each did as he saw fit. Judges 17:6

III. Samson was a compromised leader.

A. Set apart from birth for special spiritual role.

B. He was a strong man marked by weaknesses.

C. He ended his life with a desperate act.

IV. Application for Christians.

A. With God, we can do anything. Philippians 4:13

B. One person can make a difference.

C. God can work around weaknesses to bring about good. Isaiah 10

D. Compromise, and it will catch up with you.

E. Your relationships matter.

V. Society needs our consistent testimony.

So what is wrong with the Modern Gospel?

Matthew 25:30

So what is wrong with the Modern Gospel?

It misses out the fact that people need to be made aware that they are sinners, totally unworthy of God's great love and mercy. It lacks essential Biblical truths such as the awfulness and the reality of hell. (Matthew 25:30,41,46, Revelation 20:10-15, 2 Thessalonians 1:8-9) I once heard a preacher say that if he had a dollar for every time someone tried to talk him out of mentioning the dreaded word `hell' in his sermons, he would be a very rich man. I admire this man. He unashamedly spoke about the reality of hell. What a brave man. Such men of God are few and far between.

In these days the popular gospel message consists mainly of words like, love and grace. Besides, one wouldn't want to scare away potential church members by preaching hell, fire and brimstone. The preaching of the cross is no longer central to the gospel message.

Words like justification, sanctification, redemption etc, are almost unheard nowadays. The emphasis of the Salvation message has shifted from `what God has done for you' to `what can I get out of this for myself'. I see very little remorse for sin. (See Psalm 51).

There is no `forsaking all to follow Christ'. Matthew 16:24-25. There is no longer any encouragement to be separate from the world. I see very little difference between people in the church and people in the world. We should stand out like lights. (Matthew 5:13-14) We are the salt of the earth, but tragically the salt has lost its savour. The modern church has merged with the world. The way people dress, the emphasis on material possessions and the lack of true commitment to Christ are just a few signs of how far away the church is removed from genuine Biblical Christianity. 2 Corinthians 6:14-17.

Lordship is almost unheard of these days. "If Jesus isn't Lord of all - He isn't Lord at all". One of the greatest insults to the gospel is the fact that the ministers are neglecting to preach holiness. What about the importance of obedience in the life of a believer? These are essential aspects of Christianity, almost unheard of these days. The modern gospel is just far too comfortable, far too easily obtained, and far too appealing. Why? Because Satan's most effective tool is to present only half the truth. He delights in seeing people play `Christian' games. As long as he can keep the churches full of unconverted people who think they are saved, he has achieved his purpose.

Only God's wonderful grace and mercy poured out upon a repentant heart will ensure a true `born again' experience. Unless a person is a `brand new creation in Christ Jesus' where `old things have passed away and all things have been made new' there is a strong possibility that they are not even saved. It's the sincere, pure, Biblical gospel which results in true repentance in the hearts of remorseful sinners. (Delwyn, Griffith, NZ)

One sinner at A time: Canada's first Southern Baptist director retires with a warning for relativists

With 15 million members, the Southern Baptist Convention is now the largest and most assertive Christian denomination in the United States. It founded its first Canadian congregation in 1953, and since the Canadian Convention of Southern Baptists (CCSB) was formed in 1985, it has doubled from 63 to 130 congregations, with a membership edging toward 10,000 adults. This, says the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, makes it this country's "fastest-growing mid-sized denomination." Its first executive director, Allen Schmidt, is now stepping down after 13 years at the helm; he will next be posted to Calgary's Richmond Hill Baptist. He leaves the CCSB's national office in Cochrane, Alta., with a warning, for his own denomination and others.

"The tragedy of this nation is that there is so little difference between the lives of the people inside the churches and those outside," says Mr. Schmidt. "In terms of divorce rates, abortion rates, charitable giving, Canada's Christians are not living witnesses to the faith.

No wonder the unchurched don't take us seriously. You can only evangelize a country one person at a time, but if every Christian brought in one new convert a year, in a single generation, Canada would be Christian."

A native of the Kamloops-area town of Barriere, Mr. Schmidt graduated from California's Golden Gate Seminary in 1961, and was then called to pastor Pike Road Baptist in Delta. Three years later, still in Delta, he planted what is now the CCSB's flagship, Royal Heights Baptist. He left it 20 years later for the head office.

Royal Heights is still the CCSB's largest "Anglo" church; however, belying the denomination's "redneck" image, its largest church overall is Vancouver's 1,200-strong Chinese Baptist. Indeed, roughly half of the CCSB's congregations are "ethnic"- Haitian, Arabic, Korean, Filipino and more. "Multiculturalism's a nice political slogan," says Mr. Schmidt. "But the largest proportion of our immigrants are Christian, so we're really the ethnic pluralists. Church planting is our number one priority. We have to run a lean operation in our office, so 48% of our resources go to our missions."

Mr. Schmidt attributes the ongoing collapse of Canada's mainstream liberal Protestant churches to a growing chasm between the academics in their seminaries and hierarchies, and their common pastors and laymen. "When academic theologians don't have pastoral responsibilities, they tend to build their own little worlds from each other's books," he says.

At the same time, he adds, when pastors in the pulpits are cut off from systematic theology, they tend to degenerate into therapists. "The pastor has to be both counsellor and prophet," he says. "He has to come to a hurting sinner where he's at; but next Sunday, from the pulpit, he has to risk offending the brother he's just counselled by preaching the whole of Christ's truth."

Although Canada's evangelical churches are growing, Mr. Schmidt worries that they are sinking only shallow roots because of a widespread neglect of Christian doctrine. "We have to beware taking a marketing approach to evangelization, trying to make the Gospel palatable to modem man," he warns. "When we do that, we forget uncomfortable topics like sin, repentance and sacrifice, and we end up talking only about things like getting along with mothers-in-law."

In reality, Mr. Schmidt says, people are hungering for the word of God, and that word is uncompromising. "Jesus says, `If any man wants to be my disciple, he must deny himself, take up his cross and follow me,"' the pastor observes. "We have to meet people where they're at, but bring them to the word that is absolute. The young people of today especially are ready for that, because they're learning that the promises of the world are false. But they aren't going to hear the word, unless our people now in the pews get out there and bring them in."

-Joe Woodard

p. 37-38 March 18, 1998 British Columbia Report

The Uncertain Soldier

Genesis 13:12

Paul Harvey tells the story of the uncertain soldier in our Civil War who, figuring to play it safe, dressed himself in a blue coat and gray pants and tiptoed out onto the field of battle. He got shot from both directions!

The Bible is full of examples of individuals who compromised in one form or another and their ensuing losses. Lot who separated from Abram and moved as far as Sodom (Genesis 13:12-13; Genesis 19:1-29); Samson who compromised with Delilah (Judges 16:1-2); and Solomon who loved many foreign women (1 Kings 11:1-4) are but a few examples.

What about times when we are tempted to compromise our faith or beliefs? Will we stay strong or try and wear the blue and gray? Think about it! "Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).

The Slippery Slope

It is common for people to justify small sins because they are not serious like large sins. C.S. Lewis anticipated just such an argument in his book, "The Screwtape Letters," where he has Wormwood, the devil, say to his supporters:

"You will say that these are very small sins; and

doubtless, like all young tempters, you are anxious

to be able to report spectacular wickedness. But

do remember, the only thing that matters is the

extent to which you separate man and the Enemy. It

does not matter how small the sins are, provided

that their cumulative effect is to edge the man

away from the Light and out into the Nothing.

Murder is no better than cards if cards can do the

trick. Indeed the safest road to Hell is the

gradual one -- the gentle slope, soft underfoot,

without sudden turnings, without milestones,

without signposts."

Death Before Compromise

In the early centuries of the Church, a Christian man who faced terrible pressure to compromise with his business came to Tertullian and explained, "Whatever shall I do - I must live."

To which Tertullian simply replied, "Must you?"

_________

[another version is found in William Barclay's commentary on 2 Corinthians]

*

[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #12613]

Messed-up Messengers

Genesis 19:14

Celebrity spokespersons. That's been the way many an advertiser has tried to sell their product to us. Until, for some reason, that person suddenly wasn't who you wanted representing you. There was this famous athlete, you may remember, who ended up doing some fairly memorable commercials for a rental car company. Then he was accused of a horrendous crime, which became the subject of one of the trials of the century. Suddenly, he wasn't advertising rental cars anymore! He probably would not have helped people believe in the company he was representing.

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Messed-Up Messengers.”

Whether or not people are interested in a product may well depend on the credibility of the messenger representing it. Not too big a deal if it's cars or Coke or clothes they're representing. It's a very big deal if it's Jesus they're representing, because accepting His offer is a matter of life or death. Forever.

I'm sobered by the example of a compromised messenger that I read in our word for today from the Word of God in Genesis 19:14. Abraham's nephew, Lot, has moved into the debauched city of Sodom. And God has revealed to Lot that His cumulative judgment on their cumulative rebellion against Him is about to fall. Sodom will be destroyed within hours.

The Bible says, “So Lot went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were pledged to marry his daughters. He said, 'Hurry, get out of this place because the Lord is about to destroy the city!’ But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.” In the sobering words of the King James Version, “He seemed as one that mocked.” They didn't believe the message because the messenger wasn't believable. And they died under God's judgment because of it.

It's a tragic equation that has been repeated over and over again - a discredited messenger, thus, a disregarded message, and then, disastrous results. People paying the awful death penalty for their sin when they could have been saved. Except the one who represented the Lord to them had lost his credibility. How often have people without Christ rejected the life-saving message of Christ because of the inconsistencies in an ambassador of Christ?

What an awful prospect - that someone close to you or me would end up in hell because our life contradicted our message. In a sense, you may be the only Jesus they can see. But is there some hypocrisy, some glaring inconsistency that blocks their view of the Man who died for them? Maybe they see a lack of integrity, an uncontrolled temper, unbridled mouth, moodiness, sarcasm, flirtation, a lack of concern or compassion, an arrogance, a critical spirit. Can you see what's at stake here? It could be the never-dying soul of someone who is judging Jesus by the kind of person you are. By far, the single greatest reason people don't want Christ is because of another Christian.

But this could be the crossroads in your life when you fall on your knees in front of your Savior and say, “Jesus, I can't continue to be this way. I'm hurting you, I'm hurting me, I may be keeping someone from heaven. I can't change me, but You can. Here's this dark part of me. I want to be like You, Jesus!” If you could go to people you may have confused with the contradictions in your life and say “I'm sorry. I've asked the One who died for my sin to help me with this sin.” That could be a breakthrough moment for that spiritually dying person you know. If they get a better friend, a better sibling, a better son or daughter, a better spouse or employee - and Jesus is the reason - it's going to be a magnet to draw them to Jesus.

You are His personal representative, personal messenger in their life. Don't turn them away from Jesus because of something you wouldn't turn over to Jesus. The cost of your compromises could be deadly.

________________

*

The Mayonnaise War

Back when I was a new Christian, I used to brag that the divorce rate among active Christians was only one out of a thousand marriages.

Sadly, that argument bit the dust long ago.

In fact, as a bookseller and book reviewer, I’m noticing more and more titles on marital problems among Christians. After all, the vow was “for better or for worse,” and as I look back on my own marriage, I see how many pitfalls have come from mistaken expectations.

My wife thought she was marrying Ward Cleaver, and I assumed every new wife stepped out of a Good Housekeeping advertisement, a can of Pledge in one hand, the other busily stirring the stroganoff and a seal of approval on her forehead.

Surprise — we were both wrong. I made that discovery the first night I opened the fridge to fix a sandwich.

“Hey, Honey… where’s the Best Foods Mayonnaise?”

Silence. And then, “Darling… I don’t use Best Foods, I use Kraft Miracle Whip.”

Silence again.

Over the next several days, we discovered she liked Crest, I brushed with whatever was on sale. I liked green olives, she hated them and would only eat black ones. When I, shivering, turned up the furnace and the electric blanket, she was right behind me turning them down. Remembering her childhood, she liked to take Sunday afternoon drives — to which I would respond, “Yes, but that was when gas was twenty-nine cents a gallon. Let’s watch an old movie instead.”

The worst discovery of all was that she was a morning person, popping out of bed like a piece of toast, while I awoke with pajamas nailed to the mattress. “If God meant man to see the sunrise,” I explained, “he’d have scheduled it for much later in the day.”

The night we realized we both liked Ivory soap, we celebrated.

I guess that we discovered no disagreement is so small it can’t evolve into a major problem, and that two monologues do not equal a dialogue. But most of all, we learned we no longer belonged to the separate universes we once did as singles. Our task was now to forge a new universe, one in which we would inhabit together.

After all these years, I’m still a night person, and my wife is still a morning glory. As for Ward Clever, she simply has to face it. I’m probably always going to be more like the Beav. And I’ve come to realize she’s more likely to step out of the pages of the National Enquirer than Good Housekeeping.

But we love each other — and as a result, she’s come to like grits for breakfast (or any other time), while I finally understand that the garbage does not take itself out.

We now have separate controls for the electric blanket. I put on a sweater when I’m cold. And in the refrigerator, side by side like a pair of contented lovebirds, sits a jar each of Best Foods Mayonnaise and Kraft Miracle Whip.

Creeping Christianity

In his letter to the Galatians, Paul excludes his characteristic thanksgiving and commendation for the community of believers and instead begins abruptly with his shock and displeasure at their behavior. The Galatians were not struggling with the divisive bickering like the Corinthian church nor were they unjustly living off the generosity of others like those in Thessalonica who decided to quit working because of Christ's imminent return. And yet Paul writes firmly, “You foolish Galatians!” One wonders what they did to deserve the harsh reprimand.

In the third chapter Paul asks, “Does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law, or because you believe what you heard?” The Galatian church had fallen prey to the infinitely dangerous attitude that salvation was found in Christ AND observance of the law.

Yet, couldn't this just as easily be said of you and me? How often do we find hope in Christ and yet slip in something else? Christ AND success in my career. Christ AND financial security. Christ AND that certain relationship. Or Christ AND my guilt, or my shame. Paul calls this state of existence mere foolishness, accepting a perversion of the Gospel, clothing ourselves in dirty rags, when He has offered only the finest robes.

Author George MacDonald calls this impotent state of believing in Christ, “creeping” Christianity. Writes MacDonald,

We are and remain such creeping Christians, because we look at

ourselves and not at Christ; because we gaze at the marks of our

own soiled feet, and the trail of our own defiled garments...

Each, putting his foot in the footprint of the Master, and so

defacing it, turns to examine how far his neighbor's footprint

corresponds... We mourn over the defilement to ourselves, and the

shame of it before [others] instead of hastening to make the due

confession and amends to our fellow, and then, forgetting our own

paltry self with its well-earned disgrace, lift up our eyes to

the glory which alone will quicken the true man in us, and kill

the peddling creature we so wrongly call our self. [1]

The Galatians had begun in the Spirit, but now they were seeking to be made perfect by the flesh. They had embraced the doctrine of the Gospel, and then foolishly sought to improve upon it by adding to it. This is easy to do, out of fear, out of pride, out of expectation and assumptions. But as Paul communicates with his harsh language, it is a gravely dangerous outlook, for it is thoroughly misunderstanding the person and perfectness of Christ. Where they believed they were becoming perfect Christians, they were in danger of becoming something other than Christian altogether.

Let us not be creeping Christians. To add to our hope in Christ something else — something we think we need in order to have abundant life — will only lead us to disappointment, to something other than life as it was intended. His grace is sufficient!

The famous Easter sermon of St. John of Chrysostom reminds us where our gaze must lie, “Let know one mourn that he has fallen again and again for forgiveness has risen from the grave.” Christ's blood is enough to cover your shame; His death is the harbinger of your freedom. And His living is the promise of eternal life, the certainty of the truth of His word, the reason for our hope within.

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1. George MacDonald: An Anthology, (San Francisco: Harper, 1973), p. 19.

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It May Sound Reasonable, But...

Proverbs 23

In the flurry of recent discussion on gays in the Anglican/Episcopal Church, I've passed by a statement several times. Now I'd like to stop and look it over. It's simply the claim that the church is open to homosexual clergy so long as they agree to be celibate -- it's the behavior and not the orientation that counts.

It can sound reasonable, since all ministers surely struggle with sin and sins.

We all have unholy impulses of which we are not proud and which we are determined, with God's help, to conquer. And how can we say that one unholy drive is worse than another? How are ours any less scandalous than those of the homosexual? So we're in no position to exclude them on grounds of desire, so long as they don't act on those desires. If we excluded pastors for their desires alone, there would be none left.

Or so the argument goes.

But something's wrong with this line of reasoning, for it collapses into absurdity.

Let's imagine two pastoral candidates meeting in turn with a pulpit committee. Each is asked about his weaknesses. The first says he has a tendency toward gluttony, but that he doesn't give in to it. The second says he has a tendency toward bestiality, but that he doesn't give in to it. I'm thinking it's pretty much a wrap for that second candidate. But how is that fair? Unholy tendencies are unholy tendencies, right? Not so fast.

I think two things are at work here. One is a challenge for both men; the other is particularly troublesome for the second.

First, the dichotomy between the inner man and the outer man is hard to sustain -- “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7a). A righteous- because-celibate homosexual is a fiction, the same as a righteous-because- celibate philanderer. You don't just want a well-behaved minister; you want one whose heart is in it, whose ascendant appetites are those of a regenerate man.

To put it another way, if we speak comfortably of homosexual Christians (albeit well-behaved ones), we should feel free to speak comfortably of well-behaved pyromaniacal Christians, kleptomaniacal Christians, homicidal Christians and pedophilic Christians -- or, for that matter, well-behaved gluttonous Christians and hypochondriac Christians. It doesn't work because it signals a certain resignation, even satisfaction, with an ungodly but defining condition of the soul. Thus described, these “Christians” don't simply suffer from sinful tendencies; they identify themselves with them.

Second, some sins are sins because they take good things to excess; others begin with bad things. For example, food is good; too much food is bad (gluttony). Spending is good; too much spending is bad (prodigality). You can even go the other direction: Too little food is bad (starvation); too little spending is bad (miserliness).

But it's different when we come to bestiality, for example. There's no such thing as too little or too much bestiality; any of it is too much, and you can never have too little. It's wrong from the get-go.

To press on, I would suggest Christians can better understand adultery, racism, theft and lying because they degenerate from normal heterosexual, tribal, acquisitive and self-protective tendencies. When, however, one expresses an interest in sex with animals, he departs the realm of the deplorable for the land of the unthinkable.

I maintain that homosexuality falls more in the category of the unthinkable than the deplorable. It is not the corruption of a natural tendency but the affirmation of an unnatural tendency. The same goes for animal abuse. Imagine a candidate's assuring the committee that, though he does have a persistent desire to pull the wings off live parakeets, he never acts on them. Goodbye.

Am I saying that homosexuals might as well be animal torturers? No, I'm faulting the facile logic that inner life, of any sort, does not matter so long as outer life is decorous.

Of course, Christians have episodes of lust and hatred and such, but they must never succumb to the impression that they may be chronic haters and lusters, so long as they keep things bottled up inside. (See the Sermon on the Mount.)

And to those who say that all sinful thoughts are equally horrifying, I challenge them to welcome a new son-in-law who struggles with necrophilia just as they would one who struggled with jealousy. Both are damnable offenses in God's eyes, but the Bible shows that, in earthly terms, God counts some offenses (maternal incest: Leviticus 20:11, 1 Corinthians 5:1-2) more dire than others (bickering: Genesis 13:7-9; Philippians 4:2).

A denomination doesn't arrive at an outrageous vote in support of actively homosexual clergy in a day. It's a matter of steps through the years, and I submit that one of those Episcopal steps came when they accepted priestly ordination for avowed, but celibate, homosexuals. This policy implied that homosexual orientation per se was innocuous and that the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit was insufficient for a “new creation.”

From there, it's not so long a journey to where they are today.

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The Leaven of Culture

Mark 8:15

By virtue of Christian charity, one is loath to criticize another denomination in the midnight of its prophetic demise, but the recent action by the Episcopal Church in America to install a homosexual bishop cannot escape the sternest words of intemperate reproof.

I have listened carefully in recent days to the justification offered by those who have endorsed and supported the Episcopalian departure from a biblical ethic of sexuality. The new bishop of New Hampshire, for example, has exclaimed in interviews that “God is doing a new thing.” I have winced when he suggested that “the church needs to see what God is doing in our generation, and get in on it.” And I am left wondering what precisely he thinks is so new about sexual perversion and the attempt to rationalize it.

As I have listened, I have realized that the arguments in favor of installing homosexuals in clergy roles are grounded in a more fundamental and dangerous assertion, namely that the church must modernize if it is not to be marginalized. The leading advocates for this “new work of God” express heartfelt disdain for the historic values of Christianity and esteem the shifting sands of cultural peculiarity as a more solid ground for building the house of God than the firm rock of Christ and His unchanging Word.

So what are we to make of this assertion that the church must strip itself of archaic doctrinal formulations, adapt its ethical standards to reflect the culture, and modernize its traditions and liturgy? We need not be surprised, in fact, that Southern Baptists are just as susceptible to this line of reasoning. The same forces of cultural relevance that drive the Episcopalians to embrace homosexuality are chipping at the base of our own ecclesiological foundation.

To offer just one example, have you noticed the hermeneutic consistency between the argument to install homosexual clergymen in New Hampshire and the move to ordain women pastors? While ordaining homosexuals may reveal a more shocking rejection of biblical proscriptions, the shared pattern of culturally guided interpretation of the sacred text is unmistakable. The same argument is being used: The Bible is a culturally bound collection of prehistoric doctrines that any reasonable person would reject. Simply put, believe the Bible and kill the church, or at best render it irrelevant.

There are numerous reasons for caution over the effects of a little cultural leaven within our own denomination -- and why Southern Baptists had better not look down our noses too quickly at the identity crisis in the Episcopalian Church. When church buildings look more like shopping centers designed to woo consumers, when pastors talk more like self-help gurus and mental-health therapists, when choral anthems sound more like Broadway musicals and marketing jingles, and when the greatest indictment of a church is that it is not contemporary, casual or creative, then be assured that we are not far from abdicating the biblical identity and moral ascendancy that Southern Baptists have forged through years of controversy and strife. We must never forget that the Bible we so ardently defend as inerrant is likewise infallible to define the worship and mission of the church in every generation.

So while the Episcopalians flounder in the tempestuous seas of a culture gone awry, Southern Baptists ought to be all the more vigilant that our prophetic salt does not become unsavory either by moral indifference or ecclesiological uncertainty.

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Benjamin S. Cole is a master of theology student at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas.

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Baylor's Disgraced Coach A Tragic Slave To Victory

It's hard to believe anyone could be as low as former Baylor University basketball coach Dave Bliss.

Following the murder of Patrick Dennehy in late July, Bliss was under scrutiny for alleged NCAA violations that included the illegal paying of tuition for Dennehy and another player.

Bliss was proud of his squeaky-clean reputation at Baylor, and he wanted to keep it that way. So, rather than fess up to the infractions, Bliss concocted a story that Dennehy got his money from selling drugs, rather than from Bliss himself. The coach even tried to get his players and coaches to go along with the tale.

But the Fort Worth Star-Telegram uncovered the plot, thanks to one of Bliss's assistants who taped several conversations. Bliss resigned before the tapes were made public, after a Baylor committee had discovered the wrongdoings anyway.

“I think the thing we want to do -- and you think about this -- if there's a way we can create the perception that Pat may have been a dealer,” Bliss told one of his players. “Even if we had to kind of make some things look a little better than they are, that can save us.”

Bliss told his players that they could pin the deed on Dennehy because he was dead and couldn't set the record straight.

Talk about disgusting. Coaches are entrusted with a great responsibility to instruct, discipline and care for the players under their charge. But encouraging his players to lie and besmirch Dennehy's character after his death is a blatant shirking of that responsibility.

If Bliss was simply guilty of violating NCAA rules, as bad as that is, he probably could have salvaged his career and found another position before too long. Other coaches have done the same. But by attempting to cover up the infractions in such a heartless way, Bliss has sacrificed everything.

No other school should ever give Bliss any consideration for a coaching job. His career is essentially over, and his reputation is shot. Everything Bliss has worked to achieve over so many years -- gone in an instant because of his willingness to sacrifice good judgment for self-preservation.

Of course, if Bliss hadn't broken the rules to begin with, he never would have gotten this deep.

Bliss's stomach-churning behavior shows just how enslaving the pursuit of victory can be. He probably didn't set out to make a fool of himself and earn the disdain of his players, assistant coaches and thousands of fans.

But somewhere along the line Bliss sold his soul, and winning became all that mattered. Thus, fabricating a story about the character of one of his deceased players became acceptable behavior to Bliss, who was interested only in saving his basketball program.

It's proof of how intoxicating winning can be, and how important it is never to put victory ahead of doing what's right.

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Soft Sell Or Sold Out?

The rock band struts the stage, ear-piercing notes throbbing from electric guitars. Teenagers and generation X-ers, dressed in jeans and skate shoes, lurch to the songs and mouth the words. But this is not a rock concert and these music fans are not in a stadium mosh pit. This is a religious service and the band is part of a contemporary worship style favoured by a new wave of churches.

PowerPoint presentations, self-improvement seminars and coffee bar Christianity are just some of the things offered by alternative churches around Melbourne... And worshippers are impressed. While mainstream churches have suffered a drop in support over the past decade, there has been an overwhelming increase in the number of Australians turning to alternative Christian denominations. Figures show New Age churches (Ed’s note: interesting term!), united under the banner of the Australian Christian Churches, have grown 167 per cent in the past 10 years compared to minuscule increases in the number of followers for the three major churches. The 1996 census showed the percentage of the population who identified themselves as Catholic increased by only 0.3 per cent from 1991. The percentage of Anglican followers increased by 1.9 per cent, while the Uniting Church saw a rise of 0.7 per cent over the five years.

The national director of the ACC, Pat Mesiti, said increasing numbers were turning to new wave churches because they offered spiritual teachings people could relate to and short, relevant services they enjoyed. “Unfortunately the mainstream churches are more interested in maintaining old religious traditions than they are in making the Gospels relevant to people's lives now,” Mr Mesiti said. “With things like PowerPoint presentations, seminars and current music, we are contemporary and different.”

Rob Buckingham, pastor at Bayside Community Church, agreed many Australians were disillusioned with traditional churches and were looking for a more relevant and fun way to worship. “They are facing big problems with losing their congregation because most of their followers are quite old,” Mr Buckingham said. “The churches that are going to make it into the next generation are the ones which recognise the times in which we live and adjust their style.” And his cosy Cheltenham house of worship, in a converted printing factory, certainly does Christianity 2001-style. Last week's Good Friday ceremony featured a rock band, acapella gospel choir, short religious message and a relaxed atmosphere, with followers sitting around tables rather than in uncomfortable pews. The 300-strong congregation, which ranged in age from newborns to those in their 80s, were served cafe lattes and cappuccinos, along with a catered buffet of felafels and souvlakis.

________

Peta Hellard, reporter, Sun Herald, 16 April 2001

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The King's Good Servant, But God's First

Job 2:3

Frustrated by Catherine of Aragon's inability to produce a male heir, King Henry divorced her and married Anne Boleyn. The church opposed the divorce and delayed approving the new marriage. The king put pressure on Parliament to pass the Act of Succession, which would transfer the royal lineage from Catherine's children to Anne's. The members of Parliament, with various degrees of enthusiasm, ultimately went along - all except Sir Thomas More.

More paid a high price for his faithfulness to principle. One by one the members of Parliament agreed, the will of the king being more important than their own principles. King Henry watched the signatures on the document, hoping to see Thomas More's consent; Mores reputation for integrity was well known. On the other hand, his colleagues were known for compromise. King Henry was not always intent on doing right, but he always wanted to be declared right.

More's approval would have helped to silence the king's conscience. Instead, More's silence pricked the king's comfort and disturbed his peace. The king confined More in a filthy dungeon. His income was cut off. His family were reduced to a mean existence. While the king waited for More's signature to approve the Act of Succession, England watched.

More held out for two years, and his wife lost all patience with his unyielding principles. Finally the duke of Norfolk, knowing that More's days were numbered, tried to save his life.

Norfolk enters the bitter, filthy cell where, surrounded by vagabonds, brigands, thieves, and killers, sits the gentle scholar Thomas More. He is emaciated, clad in rags, shivering from the cold. Norfolk has brought the list of Parliament's signatures, all from friends and companions from law and life. He begs More to sign it to save his life.

“But Thomas, look at these names,” says Norfolk. “You know these men. Can't you do what I did, and come with us, for fellowship?”

More simply responds, “And when we stand before God, and you are sent to heaven for doing according to your conscience, and I am sent to hell for not doing according to mine, will you come with me, for fellowship?”

More was found guilty of treason and was beheaded on July 6, 1535. His final words on the scaffold were: “The King's good servant, but God's first.”

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Adapted from “A Man for All Seasons”, by Robert Bolt, http://isbn.nu/0413703800; by J. Jerry Davis; source: Adventist Review, ISSN 0161-1119, (c) August 21, 2003, http://www.adventistreview.org/; submitted by Mary Thayne

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Slowly - But Surely - Submerged

Judges 16:16

There's this one restaurant in our area that offers more than food - it offers some unique live entertainment. At least at this one table. See, it's pretty much in the center of the restaurant where everyone can see. Several unsuspecting diners are sitting at this round table, just minding their own business, eating their meal - as the table starts to rise very, very slowly. So slowly that no one seems to even notice that their food is getting closer to their mouth and that their fork is making a shorter and shorter trip each time. The last time we were there, the diners were chattering and eating away as the table rose nearly to eye level. And then, and only then, did someone begin to realize that they were having to lower their fork to get the food in their mouth!

Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Slowly - But Surely - Submerged.”

It's amazing but true - when a change is gradual, you hardly even notice. Until it's up to your eyes! Satan, God's enemy and your enemy, is counting on that being true in your life. He knows you won't fall for a blatant temptation to do something obviously sinful. Well, that's OK. For now, he'll settle for just a small, seemingly harmless step in that direction. Because he knows that step will lead to another, and another - and ultimately to spiritual disaster you can't even imagine now. He'll destroy you by erosion, not explosion.

I love the way the Bible includes real-life stories that help us picture a concept we might otherwise miss. When it comes to the slow but sure takeover of sin and its consequences, the story of Samson just about says it all. Here is a man specially called and gifted by God with personal magnetism, supernatural strength, and spiritual leadership. This man feared by the Jews' bitter enemies, the Philistines, ends up as their blind and helpless slave, pushing a grinding wheel in prison. Did it happen suddenly? Well, of course not. Samson wouldn't have fallen for that. It happened one little compromise at a time. Just like the devil is planning to have it happen to you.

According to the Book of Judges, Samson's weakness was women. So, he sees a pagan Philistine woman who looks good to him and he proceeds to marry her - out of God's bounds. When the Philistines want information from Samson, they convince his wife to coax him into telling. The Bible says, “She threw herself on him, sobbing” - and he “finally told her.” Well, Samson's next woman is a prostitute, and he's almost trapped by the Philistines while he's with her. Then along comes another Philistine woman named Delilah. They bribe her to find out what the secret of Samson's strength is - which is his hair. Three attempts fail, but the Bible says, “With such nagging she prodded him day after day until he was tired to death” (Judges 16:16). He tells her his secret, he loses his source of strength, and the Philistines have him.

Now, our word for today from the Word of God in James 1:15. “After desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.” Sin will always kill, so stop when it's small. Maybe you've been falling for Satan's slow but sure seduction. “Just a little” ... “oh, just this once” ... “everybody else is” ... “it's not that bad” ... “you deserve it” ... “you need it” ... “no one will know.” One little compromise - to start taking you where you think you will never end up.

You've got to stop that killer strategy with the first look, the first date, the first lie, the first flirtation, the first thoughts of divorce, the first detour from God's Word. This is going to take you where you don't want to go - unless you stop it now. Before today's compromise gives birth to tomorrow's tragedy, run from it.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate in KeruxID 25837-26027]

As Long As We All Get Along: Selling Truth For Unity

Peter James Lee was one of the sixty Episcopal bishops who voted to approve the appointment of Gene Robinson, an openly gay man, as bishop of New Hampshire. Since the vote, Lee has faced stiff opposition from conservative evangelical churches in his diocese.

In his speech to the annual meeting of his diocese, Bishop Lee said this, “If you must make a choice between heresy and schism, always choose heresy.”

I can think of nothing more dangerous. What Lee is basically saying is that we can tolerate anything within the Church just to keep the Church together.

What would cause someone to think this way? In part there is much at stake economically in keeping things the way they are. Schism is the enemy because pastors' retirements and church properties get threatened if you break away from a denomination — as do bishops' reputations. But putting personal interest ahead of truth, sacrificing truth on the altar of what we call UNITY? No. And it's not real unity; it's expediency.

The second reason for putting unity over truth is that American Christians of all stripes—evangelical, as well as liberal—no longer take truth seriously. David Brooks in a recent NEW YORK TIMES column made the point that Americans believe that, “In the final days, the distinctions will fade away, and we will all be united in God's embrace. This happy assumption has meant that millions feel free to try on different denominations at different points in their lives, and many Americans have had trouble taking religious doctrines altogether seriously.”

As a result, says Brooks, we tend to think that all people of good will are “basically on the same side,” we practice religion that is easygoing and experiential rather than rigorous and intellectual, and we “have trouble sustaining culture wars.”

The result is that, like Bishop Lee, we've fallen into this mushy ecumenism, believing that doctrines and distinctions make little or no difference. But our forebears, particularly in the Reformation tradition, didn't shed their blood for retirement plans, for buildings, or for a cozy sense that everybody is okay. They shed their blood for truth.

All other considerations, whether we're seeker-sensitive or liturgical, whether we're taking care of our retirement plans or building new additions, everything is secondary to the preservation and defense of truth.

This applies to every church, not just the Episcopal church. In my experience, Bible-believing churches can sometimes be as unwilling to apply church discipline over matters of truth and morality as Bishop Lee. One politician I know boasts about his faith while voting for gay rights and against the partial-birth abortion ban. Not only is he not disciplined by his church in the name of truth, but he gets time and again to speak in the pulpit. Anything else, of course, might cause disunity.

As Pogo said, “We have just met the enemy, and he is us.” It's all well and good for evangelicals to sit around and say “those crazy Episcopalians.” But they're just reflecting what all of us do in lesser degrees. And Lee's words ought to be a sobering wake-up call to us all.

FOR FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION:

• Faith McDonnell, “Primate of Sudan Expresses Grief over Situation in the Anglican Communion,” Institute on Religion and Democracy, 2 February 2004.

• Caryle Murphy, “Virginia Episcopalians Avert Split over Gay Bishop,” Washington Post, 1 February 2004, C07.

• “Diocese Says Gay Bishop Should Not Be Cause of Split,” New York Times, 2 February 2004.

• Julia Duin, “Heresy better idea than schism?“ Washington Times, 31 January 2004.

• Ross Mackenzie, “Reason vs. openness and the impending Episcopal schism,” Townhall.com, 23 October 2003.

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 040116, “Say It Ain't So, Dave: Evangelicals and the Cultural Mainstream.”

• BreakPoint Commentary No. 011218, “Mushy Ecumenism: Incoherent Civil Religion.” (Archived commentary; free registration required.)

• Matthew Spalding and Joe Loconte, “In Defense of Marriage,” Heritage Foundation, 19 November 2003.

• “Trouble in the Church“—In this interview with “BreakPoint” Managing Editor Jim Tonkowich, Dr. John Yates II, senior minister of the Falls Church in Falls Church, VA, discusses the current crisis in the Episcopal Church: the election of Gene Robinson, a practicing homosexual, to be bishop of New Hampshire. They discuss how the Church should approach the issue of homosexuality. This CD also includes a lecture by Dr. J. Budziszewski in which he discusses homosexuality and same-sex “marriage” from a Christian perspective.

• “Mass. Court: Gay Civil Unions Not Enough,” FOX News, 4 February 2004.

• Sign BreakPoint's online petition in support of the Federal Marriage Amendment.

• Rev. John C. Rankin, “A Conversation with Homosexual Advocates,” BreakPoint Online, 27 October 2003.

• Call 1-877-3-CALLBP to request the complimentary Marriage Amendment information packet, which includes articles on marriage and family by William Bennett and Stanley Kurtz, the Evangelicals and Catholics Together statement on marriage, the text of the Federal Marriage Amendment, and a chart from the Alliance for Marriage outlining the legal impact of the amendment.

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The Pressing Question and How To Deal With It

John 5:23

What is the pressing theological question for this generation? And how are preachers supposed to deal with it?

Such questions were at the forefront of the 2004 Pastor's Conference hosted by the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida. O.S. Hawkins, president of the Annuity Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, was among the speakers who focused on the first question, while Jerry Vines, pastor of the Jacksonville church, examined the second.

Jesus posed many questions during His earthly ministry -- questions designed to reveal something about the person being asked, Hawkins said. Jesus' questions have continued to convict hearts and minds of His followers over the centuries, Hawkins said. “Each generation throughout church history,” he said, “had a question of their time.”

The great question for Christians in the early 21st century, Hawkins said, is found in Matthew 16:15, “Who do you say that I am?”

“The exclusivity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is the issue of our time in a culture of inclusivism and pluralism,” with Christians today in no less a struggle to answer that question than previous generations struggled to answer questions about the divine nature of Jesus or salvation by grace through faith alone, Hawkins said.

Pastors must take the lead in answering the question of the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way for salvation, Hawkins said, pointing out that there are two kinds of leaders: those who lead by public consensus and those who lead by personal conviction.

Those who lead by public consensus consult polls before they take a stand, Hawkins said; they pander to people and avoid confronting culture or challenging public opinion. Their leadership fosters pluralistic compromise, the attitude that Jesus is just one of many paths to salvation.

Leadership by public consensus, Hawkins said, also leads to politically correct inclusivism -- the idea that although Christ died for our sins, He automatically saved every human being so there is no need for a conversion experience.

“Pluralism affects our doctrine and message,” Hawkins said. “Inclusivism affects our duty, mission and methods. Have you ever noticed that churches that become liberal stop sending out missionaries?”

Vines, addressing the question of how pastors are to respond to the pressing issues of our generation, turned to the Apostle Paul's second letter to Timothy, particularly in 2 Timothy 4:1-8. Interspersing his sermon with video clips of the late R.G. Lee, Homer Lindsay Jr. and W.A. Criswell, Vines encouraged conference attendees with the message that “old preachers never die, they just preach away.”

Paul warned Timothy about apostasy, people falling away from the faith, which Vines said is the same problem pastors face today. “People have no stomach for the sound doctrine which is supposed to promote spiritual health,” he said. “They have an appetite instead for their own lusts, pleasantries and entertainment. We are living in a day of itching ears.”

Vines warned against falling into the trap of catering to people's shallowness. “The practical result is the same for the liberal preacher who does not believe in the inerrant Bible as it is for the conservative preacher who does not preach the inerrant Word,” he said.

“Here was Paul, close to death, in prison, beaten and old,” Vines said. “These are his farewell words as he passed the torch of ministry to Timothy.” Yet Paul did not complain but instead told Timothy that the preaching ministry is like being both a shepherd and a soldier, Vines recounted.

“As shepherds, we must preach the Gospel to our flock regardless of size,” Vines said. “We must feed and guard the sheep.”

As soldiers, pastors are called to endure hardship; they live in difficult quarters, get shot at and encounter affliction, Vines said. “I know about those poison letters preachers get, I know about being stabbed in the back by the ones you think you can trust,” he said. Paul had experienced all that and worse as he sat writing this letter in a stinking, dark, infested prison cell, Vines said. Yet Paul instructed Timothy to “endure hardness like a good soldier.”

The apostle also told Timothy to “do the work of an evangelist,” Vines said, “to bring people to Christ and get the church red-hot to also do so. The most important thing is to get people out of hell and into heaven.”

To the wives of preachers, Vines directed special encouragement. After acknowledging the ministry of his own wife, Vines asked all wives of preachers to stand. He led in a round of applause of appreciation which quickly turned into a sustained standing ovation.

After the ovation, Vines read Matthew 10:41, “Whoever receives a righteous man in the name of a righteous man shall receive a righteous man's reward.” To the preacher's wives, he then said, “For all those white shirts you ironed, for all those lonely nights while he was out ministering somewhere, Jesus promised you will be rewarded.”

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Be Relevant Without Being Trivial

Christians try hard to be relevant. Yet, despite our best efforts, we can often end up seeming irrelevant to seekers in today’s world. Why?

Whenever we focus more on fitting into our culture than on faithfully representing God, we lose the significance we so desperately want to communicate to others. There is a better way to pursue relevance than simply being trendy. With courage and creativity, you can become a “resistance thinker” who genuinely connects with seekers around you in relevant, meaningful ways. Here’s how:

Recognize the universal relevance of the pure gospel message. Understand that God has designed the gospel to relate naturally to every person in every situation. Remember that the gospel has transformed the lives of people with many different personalities, in different generations, and in different cultures. Know that the gospel should be relevant to every person’s life. Ask God to give you the wisdom to know how to best present the gospel to each person you encounter.

Respect the authority of Scripture — not the culture. When considering how to “do church,” look to Christ, the head of the church, for guidance, rather than the shifting whims of your surrounding culture. Remember why God set up the church on Earth, and use His Word as your guidebook as you worship together.

Resist the pull of conformity. Don’t allow your opinions and ethics to be shaped simply by the awareness of what others think. While polls, media articles, demographics, focus groups, and other types of information are interesting, don’t formulate your views just on the basis of them. Rely instead on your own God-given convictions, even when they don’t agree with what the majority of the people around you think.

Resist the pull of popularity. Rather than seeking approval from other people, see it from the only One who ultimately matters – God alone.

Resist the pull of fashionability. Don’t strive to be trendy, or to make decisions based on pressure from our modern, hectic pace of life. Instead, pursue values that are timeless and have eternal significance.

Count the cost of faithfulness. Realize that you will not fit into society comfortably if you’re truly living by faith. Expect to feel maladjusted. Ask God for the courage you need to make unpopular stands and speak uncomfortable words when He calls you to do so. Expect to feel frustrated when God’s purposes are delayed or obstructed in our fallen world. Ask Him to give you patience. Trust that the results of your faithful work for Him are in His hands, not yours. Ask Him to give you perseverance, especially in the midst of failure. Know that what the world considers a failure may in fact be a success in God’s eyes, because He has different purposes He wants you to fulfill.

Don’t compromise the truth. When you present the gospel message, don’t avoid its hard or unpopular aspects. Present the message in its entirety, knowing that only the whole message has the power to bring about reform and revival.

Respect history. Take the time to study history so you can broaden your perspective on the world. Know that truth is much bigger than the circumstances of the time and place in which you happen to live. Learn from the mistakes of others who lived before you so you can be wiser in your own day.

Pay attention to the eternal. Understand that nothing can ultimately be relevant except in relation to what is eternal. Read and meditate on the eternal truths of Scripture often. Meet regularly with God through prayer. Rely on God to help you avoid wasted effort and achieve true relevance as you strive to reach others for Him.

Sharing Truth With An Ever-Emerging Culture

1 Corinthians 9

In ministry, some things must never change but others must change constantly.

Clearly, God's five purposes for his church are non-negotiable. If a church fails to balance the five purposes of worship, fellowship, discipleship, ministry and evangelism, then it's no longer a healthy church, and it's in danger of becoming simply a social club.

On the other hand, the way or style in which we fulfill these eternal purposes must continually be adjusted and modified because human culture is always changing.

For instance, when I first started Saddleback Church, fresh out of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, personal computers were in their infancy, the Internet was just a crude academic network, and nobody had even heard of e-mail. Now I often sit in my pajamas and have e-mail conversations with people across the globe. The times, they are a-changing, and they'll keep right on a-changing whether we want them to or not.

Our culture has moved past the MTV generation into the Internet generation, and yet many of us are just now responding to the TV generation! Our message of transformation must never change, but our presentation should be continually transformed, adapting to the new languages of our culture. One of the strengths of Saddleback Church is that we're constantly adapting; we've changed styles of worship, programming, and outreach many, many times in the last 25 years, and we'll continue to do so because the world keeps changing.

The only way to stay relevant is to anchor your ministry to unchanging truths and eternal purposes but be willing to adapt continually how you communicate those truths and purposes.

As an example, let's look at evangelism, one of the five New Testament purposes of the church. In many traditional churches, evangelism remains confrontational rather than relational. There is planned visitation of this sort: “We'll all come Thursday night and go knock on doors.”

Would it surprise you to know that in 25 years at Saddleback, we've never had a planned, organized visitation program? Yet we've baptized more than 1,000 people a year for the last decade! We reach them through relationship evangelism. Our members are constantly on mission to bring their friends and neighbors to our weekend services, where we reach out to non-believers -- particularly those who have no real church background.

You might wonder if we attract these visitors by watering down the Gospel, but we don't. We simply communicate it in ways that non-believers understand. Jesus drew enormous crowds (called multitudes) without compromising the message. He was clear, practical and loving, and he presented his timeless message in a contemporary fashion.

Lost people have a need for meaning, a need for purpose, a need for forgiveness and a need for love. They want to know how to make right decisions, how to protect their family, how to handle suffering and how to have hope in our world. These are all issues we have answers for, yet millions are ignoring the message of Christ because we insist on communicating in ways that don't connect with people any more.

In a sense, we've made the Gospel too difficult for a changing culture to understand.

Imagine a missionary going overseas and saying, “I'm here to share the Good News, but first you have to learn to speak my language, learn my customs and sing my style of music.” You can immediately see why this strategy would fail. Yet we do that all the time in a culture that is in radical flux.

If we want to reach people in the 21st century, we must start thinking differently. Paul said, “I have become all things to all men so that by all possible means I might save some” (1 Corinthians 9:22b, NIV).

We Baby Boomers have tended to see the church as an organization, but the emerging generations are desperately looking for community (a major secret to Starbucks’ successful strategy: community in a coffee cup). We need to present the church as a place where you belong, a family where, as they sang on “Cheers,” everybody knows your name. Now, you and I may know that the church is a community, but emerging generations have never seen it that way. They've seen a list of rules, not a loving community. We need to restate the eternal truths of the Bible in a fresh, contemporary way.

Emerging generations also are focused on the experiential, and that means we have to adjust the way we teach and preach. Rather than preaching simply for information, we also should preach for action. Our message is not meant to just inform, but to transform the lives of those in our congregation. In almost every single sermon I preach every point has a verb in it -- something to do. What are you going to do now that you know this godly truth?

Why do I do it this way? Because God says, “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22, NKJV), and our entire purpose driven process at Saddleback is designed to move people not only into intimacy with God, but also into service for Him, where they'll experience a deep and broader faith in the midst of community and ministry.

I've never seen more people so hungry to discover and develop the spiritual dimension of their lives. They are hungry for symbols and metaphors and experiences and stories that reveal the greatness of God. Because seekers are constantly changing, we must be willing, like Jesus, to meet them on their own turf and speak to them in ways they understand.

Remember: the world changes but the Word doesn't. To be effective in ministry we must learn to live with the tension between those two.

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Sproul: Reformation and Revival Are Built Upon the Power of the Gospel

Martin Luther called them “jackanapes” and “wiseacres.” The father of the Protestant Reformation, in the final sermon of his life in 1546, used those terms to upbraid ministers in his day who proclaimed a weak, truncated and unbiblical gospel.

Reformed theologian R.C. Sproul says that many contemporary preachers proclaim a similar pseudo-gospel that would certainly draw the ire of the great reformer were he alive today. The message that is often preached is not the full-orbed biblical Gospel that God uses to bring about genuine revival and reformation. Authentic reformation and revival will come only when the Gospel is preached in its biblical purity and fullness, Sproul said.

Sproul said that true revival cannot be secured by human means. “A reformation is nothing we can generate on our own. We cannot manipulate it. We do not have the power at our disposal in ourselves to bring the life-transforming change that reformation yields.”

Throughout the history of the church, human ingenuity has exhibited a penchant for taming the offensive nature of the Gospel to fit contemporary sensibilities so that more people will embrace it, Sproul noted. When this has happened, many doctrines central to the Gospel have gone into eclipse, he said.

One such area that has fallen on hard times today is the complementarity of the law and the Gospel, he said. In many churches, preaching and teaching the law of God has gone into eclipse with the result that sin and human depravity are soft-pedaled or absent, Sproul said.

God uses His law as a light to shine forth His righteous character, the existence of sin in the human heart and the necessity of a redeemer, bringing sinners to the end of themselves and driving them to Christ, he said.

“Where there is no law, there is no forgiveness of sin. We're not talking to people today who are walking about with a sense of burden from their sin ... That's where we are today. We don't feel the weight of the reality of sin. Therefore, we're not excited about the Gospel. We are looking somewhere else for the right program to make our churches grow, to make our people happy.

“When the character of God is eclipsed, His law is eclipsed. And when the law is eclipsed, our awareness of sin is eclipsed. And when we have no awareness of sin, who needs the Gospel?”

Other areas in which the Gospel has been compromised is the Reformation principle of “sola fide” -- salvation by faith alone in Christ alone, Sproul said. Often, the modern Gospel is presented as meeting felt needs while faith in Christ alone is scuttled, he said.

“The Gospel is not about purpose for your life,” he said. “The Gospel is not about making you feel good. In the first instance, the Gospel is about who Jesus is and what He did. The Gospel also includes ... how the objective work of Christ is subjectively appropriated. We receive the benefits of Christ by faith and by faith alone. So without sola fide, you don't have the Gospel.”

Another non-negotiable aspect of the Gospel is often missing from contemporary preaching, Sproul said: the imputation of Christ's righteousness to the sinner. Imputation is the biblical teaching that God, in reconciling sinners to Himself, deposits the perfect righteousness of Christ into their accounts; because of Christ's righteousness, sinners are considered righteous in the eyes of God.

“I have no hope in heaven and earth except I receive somebody else's righteousness. The heart of the Gospel is the idea that the righteousness by which I am justified is an alien righteousness, a righteousness that is not my own.

“The only way I receive it is if it is imputed to me, if God counts me righteous which is accomplished if and when I put my trust in Christ alone and in Christ alone. It's really not that hard to understand.... It is elementary theology. To get it in the bloodstream is the toughest thing to do as a Christian ... because the devil comes and tells me I have to do something else [to be saved].”

Referencing Luther's sermon, Sproul reminded listeners that those who preached a false gospel that necessitated the Protestant Reformation did so because they were seeking power. It is not so different today with the popularity of watered-down gospels, Sproul said, and Christians must follow Luther's example and settle for nothing less than the uncompromised Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation.

“You can't improve upon the Gospel. You want a reformation, preach it. Don't hide it. Make it clear and let God work.”

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Sproul addressed more than 300 attendees of the annual Founders Ministries fellowship breakfast at the Southern Baptist Convention on June 21, 2005.

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The Personal Characteristics of A Leader

Ezra 6:21

The personal characteristics of a leader bear witness to the lasting influence of that leader. Throughout his extended ministry, C. H. Spurgeon exhibited steadfastly the highest moral conduct in his personal and public life. James Douglas wrote in his biography of Spurgeon, “He was great as a man ... great in private with God, and great in public with his fellow men.” The man had a life-long consistency, and his influence helped to lead thousands of people to follow the Christ he loved and served.

One example of Spurgeon’s high moral standards was the subsequent rift that occurred between him and Joseph Parker over an issue that Spurgeon believed to be a compromise of Christian conduct.

Parker was pastor of the City Temple, a large London church. Parker and Spurgeon were ministerial colleagues and friends who cooperated in various evangelistic and ministerial efforts in the city for several decades.

But in the latter years of Spurgeon’s ministry his amicable association with Parker came into question when he discovered that Parker frequented the secular theatres of London. Spurgeon believed the theatre to be a bastion of immorality that represented the evils of the world. He could not fathom Parker’s support for such worldly amusements.

Parker responded to Spurgeon’s criticism by writing him an open letter that was published in London newspapers. The rift was never mended before Spurgeon’s death. One wonders how many of our Christian leaders today, given the level of compromise that has become the norm regarding popular forms of entertainment, would give a second thought to Spurgeon’s challenge.

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Larry J. Michael, SPURGEON ON LEADERSHIP (Kregel Publications, 2003)

Sermon: You Are What You Eat

Daniel 1:1

Sermon in Daniel series, #1. Daniel 1:1-13

YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

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I. Maybe you don't need anything at all.

A. Special diets have a long heritage.

B. Jesus says food is not the key - your attitude is.

C. Daniel reveals his heart.

II. When your world ends.

A. Daniel begins with the trauma of the Exile.

B. The two stark choices of survivors. Jer 29:4-8

C. Daniel's choice.

III. Man proposes, but God disposes.

A. Jerusalem's disaster was God's idea. 1:2

B. Daniel takes his stand. 1:8

IV. Where should we take OUR stand?

A. Some Christians want to set up external standards.

B. Like Daniel, we have to pick our battles.

V. God's diet.

A. Something must make us different.

B. Our best food must come from God.

It's About Jesus, Not Frosty

On Christmas Eve, I attended a service at a Southern Baptist church that made me hope it was not representative of churches across our convention.

As the congregation sang “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” and images of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer appeared on the screens above, I began to be miffed that a perfectly good opportunity to celebrate Jesus was being used to mention the secular parts of Christmas that we’ve all come to know.

Then the pastor led us on what he called an investigative journey to determine the real meaning of Christmas. Out came people dressed in costume as a gingerbread man, a toy soldier, Frosty the Snowman, the Christmas Mouse and a candy cane.

As each character paraded across the platform, the pastor asked whether they were the real meaning of Christmas. After much focus on the characters themselves, each time the pastor would conclude something like, “Christmas is not about the gingerbread man. It’s about our Jesus.” Soon the congregation caught on and began to recite “our Jesus” along with the pastor.

Since the pastor had promised the Christmas Eve service would last no longer than 44 minutes, it was soon time to wrap up. He told the congregation that the sound crew had attempted a satellite hookup with Santa Claus, and soon the jolly man in a sleigh flashed on the screens. The pastor tried to ask him questions like when he would arrive in their town, but the supposed connection was lost and Santa didn’t talk back.

At that point I thought at least the pastor had a chance to say, “Santa may not have time for us, but Jesus always does. Let’s go to Him in prayer.” But that didn’t happen. Instead, the pastor announced that the gingerbread man, Frosty and the others would be in the lobby after the service so that children could have their pictures made with their favorite Christmas characters. The pictures then would be posted to the church website for downloading.

I left the service thinking that anyone who was not a solid Christian would be confused about the point of the service. The pastor several times repeated that “our Jesus” is the real meaning of Christmas, but the gingerbread man and his friends got much more attention.

If I were a child, I might have left thinking Jesus was the guy who didn’t show up. Besides, who is Jesus anyway and why is Christmas about Him? There wasn’t a single mention of why Jesus was born or any semblance of the Gospel message. All I knew when I left was it’s not about Frosty, the Christmas Mouse or the candy cane. Or is it?

What frustrates me about this particular Christmas Eve service is that I’m afraid it wasn’t the only one of its kind among evangelical churches in America. Certainly the church I attended that night isn’t the only one that jettisons the Gospel message in favor of appealing to people’s cultural interests. It happens Sunday after Sunday in more and more congregations.

As Christians, I know part of our calling is to push back the culture. It’s not to open the door and welcome Frosty and his secular Christmas buddies onto the stage for our Christmas Eve service. I don’t have much against such characters as long as we see them in their proper secular perspective, but I sure don’t want to see them in place of Jesus at church.

The Bible says God will not share His name or His glory with another, and that night He was not only sharing but was pushed off the stage by those who supposedly were not the true meaning of Christmas. It was the time and place for Him to be glorified, but I left missing Him completely and longing to praise Him.

Later, I heard of another church where the youth minister led the teenagers in constructing gingerbread houses from graham crackers and icing during Sunday School instead of leading in Bible study.

I’d like to believe this kind of laziness and twisted thinking isn’t spreading, but I’m afraid it is. As believers who have been entrusted with the Gospel message, we have got to get back on track. Too many church leaders have become distracted by a desire to integrate the culture into the church in order to fill the seats, and it has gotten out of hand.

There was little difference in the Christmas Eve service I attended and what I might have seen at a local public school Christmas play. That cannot be. There is one thing evangelical churches can do better than anyone else, and that is proclaim the Gospel. If our goal is to entertain, thousands of people can do it better than us. But no one can preach the Gospel better than us, and that must be our focus.

I made gingerbread cookies at Christmas and shared them with my family, but I did not want to see a life-size gingerbread man on the stage at church. That’s where Jesus belongs, and no other. After all, He’s not just “our Jesus.” He can stand on His own and He will not be made into a weak no-show overshadowed by Frosty’s belly.

Truth Decay

Amos 5:10

“Have you brushed your teeth?” You’ve heard that question since you were young.

Sometimes the answer was “Yes”; other times “No.” The truth would be somewhere in the middle -- as kids we had lots more important things to do, so 10 strokes back and forth on the front teeth and we’d think we were good to go.

TV commercials and our parents drilled into our minds that we didn’t want the dreaded tooth decay. Instead, our parents longed to hear, “Look, Mom, no cavities!” (And then they rewarded us with candy!)

Tooth decay is painful. When the dentist says, “You’ll only feel a slight pinch” -- buckle up. They also know it can be painful financially.

Today our society suffers from “truth decay.” Our courts require us to place our hands on a Bible and promise “to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help me God,” and yet the truth often eludes us in today’s legal system, in our legislative bodies and government entities.

“You can’t handle the truth!” is an often-quoted line in a popular movie from the 1990s but today the truth is that most people don’t want to hear the truth. Educators and scholars lecture that there’s no such thing as “absolute truth.” “You can’t handle the truth” has been replaced with “I don’t want to hear the truth” as we place our hands over our ears (and our hearts) and in effect say, “I’m not listening!”

During Jesus’ mock trial, Pilot asked Him, “What is truth?” An ad I saw in a major national newspaper/trade publication said in part:

The truth can’t be glossed over.

The truth has no agenda.

The truth can’t be manufactured.

The truth doesn’t take sides.

But the apostle Paul warned Timothy, “... there is going to come a time when people won’t listen to the truth but will go around looking for teachers who will tell them just what they want to hear” (2 Timothy 4:3, TLB).

That time has arrived.

Truth decay wreaks havoc in our culture, in our relationships and in our churches. It’s piped into our homes and devices through television, the internet and social media.

How do we combat “truth decay”?

The only remedy for “truth decay” is to return to the One who said, “I am the way, the truth and the life.” The implication of Jesus’ declaration confounds the culture, yet it remains the only hope for the world. This is the unaltered, unfiltered, unapologetic truth. Jesus declared God’s words are truth (John 17:17) -- words that need to be applied generously and frequently that will set a person free (John 8:32). Truth should be presented creatively and consistently using current communication platforms. Most importantly, the truth must be delivered with love (Ephesians 4:15).

Our entire country is desperately in need of a “truth infusion.” No legislation can stop the cultural decay. Only God’s truth can change a heart and correct the course of a nation.

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John Kyle is director of communications for the Louisiana Baptist Convention

You Go On, Then You Will See

John 3:20

What do Christians’ attitudes toward the culture and the Battle of the Little Bighorn have in common? Find out next.

As far as paying a price for your beliefs goes, the cost to New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez was pretty small. Her hairstylist, Antonio Darden, will no longer cut her hair because of her opposition to same-sex marriage.

Commentators quickly noted that little more than six months ago, the highest court in New Mexico ruled that a Christian photographer violated the law when she declined to photograph a “commitment ceremony” for a lesbian couple.

We were told that “[channeling our] conduct, not [our] beliefs, so as to leave space for other Americans who believe something different,” was the price of citizenship.

Ergo, Darden should be compelled to cut Governor Martinez’s hair or face sanction for refusing to do so. Right?

Don’t hold your breath.

At this point you may be expecting me to lament the obvious double standard and the unfairness of it all.

But not this time, I won’t. On the contrary, I want to explore why we should not complain about double standards or unfairness at all.

For starters, we were promised that double standards, misrepresentation of our views, and discriminatory treatment would be our lot. If you need to be reminded, read the Gospel of John and the Book of Acts.

What’s more, complaining about double standards reflects a failure to understand the witness of the Church to the larger, disbelieving culture.

My friend, theologian T.M. Moore, who served for many years as Chuck Colson’s advisor, uses a scene from the 1970 film, “Little Big Man,” to explain this witness.

In the film, which is one of my favorites, Jack Crabb, played by Dustin Hoffman, serves as mule-skinner to General Custer’s ill-fated Seventh Cavalry. Crabb, who was raised by the Cheyenne, tries to persuade Custer to get beyond his ego and see what common sense makes plain, that there are thousands of Indians out there hoping he’ll come out against them.

But Custer won’t have it. So Crabb says, “You go. You go on out there, general. And then you will know, then you will see.” Custer mocks him, and then of course rides out to his death.

According to Moore, our response toward a world which insists on dashing itself to pieces on the rocks of rebellion, unbelief, and sin perhaps should also be told “you go on and then you will see.”

But it’s a response neither born of anger nor of abandonment of the world to the consequences of its folly. Crabb followed Custer to the Little Bighorn to try and avert the disaster and was wounded in the process.

As Moore puts it, “we both can and cannot separate ourselves from the madness we see all around us. Like Daniel, we have to make our way amid an idolatrous generation with excellence and service, and by finding ways to keep our convictions without ruinous compromises.”

Still, we have to realize that the rot that threatens to destroy this generation “will not be stopped by editorials, apologetics, or politics, although we must make use of all these.” After all, the human heart set on sin is impervious to reason, never mind appeals to fairness.

In the end, Moore tells us, “Only grace can keep this generation from its own Little Bighorn.” And that grace comes to and through us, the “people of grace.”

Part of that grace is recalling that we are blessed when we are unjustly treated on account of the truth, and responding as if we believe it.

________

The original title of this commentary was "When Life Ain’t Fair: Christians, the Culture, and Grace"

Speak Truth, Show Compassion: Christians and Sexuality

Can you truly love the sinner if you ignore the sin? It’s an old question, but in today’s culture it’s more important than ever that we get the right answer. Stay tuned to BreakPoint.

An article in the latest issue of the Atlantic Monthly describes how churches affiliated with Unitarian/Universalist and Episcopal denominations have embraced same-sex relationships.

But the embrace isn’t limited to liberal churches. For many younger evangelicals, “you can believe homosexuality is a sin and still believe that same-sex marriage should be legal.” Others take it one step further and say things like “Is Homosexuality a sin? I. Do. Not. Care.”

As Erick Erickson of Red State.org put it, younger evangelicals “want the world to like them and to think them a part of the world.” For them, remaining silent about these issues is part of what it means to love your neighbor.

Well, Al Mohler begs to differ.

In a recent piece on his website, Mohler asked “can we count on evangelicals to remain steadfastly biblical on [the issue of homosexuality?” His reply: “Not hardly.” He noted survey data showing “a significant loss of conviction among youth and young adults” on the issue.

It’s hard not to understand what’s behind the loss of conviction. Outside of the church, the cultural signals all point in the same direction. Whether it’s schools, mass media or peers, the message is the same: “homosexuality [is] a fully valid lifestyle,” and anyone who insists otherwise is a bigot and not entitled to respectful consideration of their views.

Thus, says Mohler, it is imperative that churches “teach the basics of biblical morality to Christians who will otherwise never know that the Bible prescribes a model for sexual relationships.”

Doing this requires the courage to swim against a very strong and unjust cultural tide. As Mohler writes, “Christian leaders must set an agenda for biblical confrontation, and not shrink from dealing with the full range of issues related to homosexuality.”

I agree.

Of course, doing this will almost certainly result in being called out for lack of compassion. But as Mohler rightly points out, “true compassion demands speaking the truth in love.”

The problem is that just as those seeking to be compassionate often lack the courage to speak the truth, those willing to speak the truth often lack compassion. According to Mohler, we must reach out to [gay people] with “a sincerity that makes that love tangible.”

Well, what would such a sincerity look like? For starters, it would make it clear that same-sex attraction itself is not a sin — acting on that attraction is what is sin. By and large, we cannot help to whom we’re attracted, but we can help what we do about the attraction.

Which raises another point: We need to embrace, in both word and deed, the truth that all Christians, regardless of sexual orientation and regardless of marital status, are called to practice chastity.

Chastity is not the renunciation of sexuality but “the right or reasonable use of it.” It is just as possible for married people to be unchaste as for unmarried people. Think about divorce and remarriage, which Jesus called adultery, or about flirtatious behavior, or the use of pornography.

While our persistent failure with regard to chastity doesn’t give us license to ignore the issues of same-sex marriage and homosexuality, it helps explain why people think we’re motivated by something besides a love for the truth.

Of course, presenting the whole truth about unchastity, heterosexual or homosexual, requires even more courage than merely speaking out about homosexual behavior. But both are sins and we should care.

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Mainline Protestants Abandon Orthodoxy, Exhibit XXXVI [2 Articles]

Mark 10:45

What do hymn choices tell us about a denomination? A lot, it turns out.

First, forgive me for a bit of a personal reflection. When I was in Iraq — especially as casualties mounted, and the IED menace seemed overwhelming — I took great comfort in a contemporary hymn written by Keith Getty and Stuart Townend. Called “In Christ Alone,” it bucks the contemporary worship trend of shallow, emotional lyrics in favor of a theologically rich presentation of the Gospel. While the entire hymn is outstanding, the last verse was particularly meaningful:

This is the power of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath.

Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from His hand;

Till He returns or calls me home,

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.

It avoids shallow promises of earthly comfort in favor of the ultimate comfort — no matter our earthly destiny — found in Christ. And it’s a beautiful song, covered by countless Christian artists.

So it was with some sorrow that I read yesterday in First Things that the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted to exclude the song from the church hymnal. The reason? The PCUSA Committee on Congregational Song objected to the lyric that proclaims “Till on that cross as Jesus died/The wrath of God was satisfied.” The Committee proposed an alternative: “Till on that cross as Jesus died/the love of God was magnified.” Getty and Townend refused the change, and the Committee voted to exclude the song.

The core of the dispute is the mainline break with orthodoxy on the very nature of God and mission of Jesus. In orthodox Christianity, sin demands sacrifice. God’s wrath against sin — our sin — was atoned through Christ’s sacrifice. Or, as the Prophet Isaiah prophesied: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

This is the essence of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement, and mainline Protestantism is increasingly rejecting it in favor of a doctrine that places Jesus not as Savior in the orthodox sense but more as an example of love and nonviolent resistance, Gandhi on divine steroids.

The importance of rejecting substitutionary atonement is tough to overstate, with ramifications across the full spectrum of spiritual, social, and cultural engagement. In fact, it’s likely one of the key reasons for the steep decline in mainline churches. After all, when the purpose of Christ’s presence on earth is ripped from its eternal context and placed firmly within (and relegated to) the world of “social justice” and earthly systems of oppression, there’s little that church offers that, say, the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, Occupy Wall Street, or a subscription to Mother Jones can’t also supply.

If, on the other hand, Christ represents the sole source of our eternal hope, then church offers something that no political movement can replicate or replace. No amount of “social justice” or political liberation can save your soul.

As a postscript, I had the chance recently to meet Keith Getty and his wife Kristyn at a conference in Texas. They were lovely people, and I thanked them for providing me (and others) with hope in a dark and difficult time. Now, if I see them again, I can thank them for refusing to compromise.

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"Substitutionary atonement debate sparked by editorial on 'In Christ Alone' lyrics," by Erin Roach, Baptistpress.com, August 12, 2013.

The centrality of the doctrine of substitutionary atonement is being emphasized by Southern Baptist leaders after a state newspaper editor wrote that he does not sing certain words of a popular hymn due to its mention of God’s wrath.

Substitutionary atonement refers to the belief that Jesus died in the place of sinners, taking on Himself the wrath of God that they deserved.

Bob Terry, editor of The Alabama Baptist, in an Aug. 8 editorial, paralleled the angst expressed by a Presbyterian Church USA hymnal committee in rejecting the song “In Christ Alone” because of the line “Till on that cross as Jesus died/The wrath of God was satisfied.”

“Some popular theologies do hold that Jesus’ suffering appeased God’s wrath,” Terry wrote. “That is not how I understand the Bible and that is why I do not sing the phrase ‘the wrath of God was satisfied’ even though I love the song ‘In Christ Alone.’”

Terry’s editorial prompted numerous reactions on Twitter from concerned Southern Baptist leaders, including Daniel Akin, Hershael York, Chad Brand and Jason Duesing, as well as an official statement from Rick Lance, executive director of the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions, and a clarification by Terry.

A clarification by Terry was issued to the media Aug. 12 in which he wrote that some of the controversy could relate to “different meanings of the word ‘wrath.’”

In his editorial, Terry wrote that the Bible “speaks clearly about the wrath of God and warns that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God.”

“Yet there remains a question about whether God was an angry God at Golgotha whose wrath had to be appeased by the suffering of the innocent Jesus,” Terry wrote. “Sometimes Christians carelessly make God out to be some kind of ogre whose angry wrath overflowed until the innocent Jesus suffered enough to calm Him down.”

Terry concluded, “God is not the enemy. He is our seeking Friend (Luke 15). That is why I prefer to focus on His love evidenced at Calvary rather than on His wrath.”

In a clarification posted above the original column, Terry said the editorial was not about atonement but “about what has been called ‘the mindset of God’ at Calvary. Some emphasize God as angry and vengeful. To me this does not properly recognize God’s love expressed in the incarnation....”

Lance, along with Alabama State Board of Missions President John Killian, released a statement Aug. 9 in response to the editorial, noting, “We share the expressed concerns of many who have disagreed with the article.”

Lance and Killian, pastor of Maytown Baptist Church, affirmed the lyrics of the hymn In Christ Alone and wrote, “As Alabama Baptists seek to be true to Scripture, we affirm the essential and historic Christian doctrine of substitutionary atonement.” They offered their prayer support to Terry and the newspaper’s staff “and we call on all who have expressed concern to pray as well.”

In a tweet Aug. 9, Lance wrote, “I love the Gettys! I love ‘In Christ Alone.’ I believe in the substitutionary atonement of Christ!” and he linked to a video performance of the song. Keith Getty co-wrote the song, and his wife Kristyn sings it. In a second tweet, Lance wrote, “I especially love the lyrics affirming substitutionary atonement.”

Akin, president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeted a link to Terry’s column Aug. 8, adding, “Baptist[s] should be embarrassed by this!” In a subsequent tweet, Akin indicated that Terry was saying Jesus didn’t satisfy the wrath of God “after misrepresenting what is meant.”

“To deny the wrath of God was poured out on Jesus at the cross reveals a basic misunderstanding of God’s holiness/love & sin’s gravity/cost,” Akin tweeted.

For Akin and others, it’s not an either/or proposition; it’s that God’s love and His wrath both are vital elements of the cross.

York, professor of Christian preaching at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeted a link to the editorial and wrote, “I am stunned at this.” In subsequent tweets, York quoted Isaiah 53:10 and wrote, “To whom did He make an offering for guilt and why, if God were not angry at sin? Why was God pleased to crush Him if not for sin?”

York also tweeted, “Why did God forsake His own Son if not for the awfulness of my sin? ... God was always FOR me and always AGAINST my sin -- which is precisely why He sacrificed His own Son. ... Please @drbobterry, if you challenge satisfaction element of the atonement, have the intellectual honesty to not misrepresent it. An ogre?”

Chad Brand, professor of Christian theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in a comment posted below Terry’s editorial, said there are several flaws in the column, particularly, “that you leave out the entire issue of propitiation,” which is the doctrine that the wrath of God was satisfied by Christ on the cross.

Brand noted that although Terry cites the Holman Bible Dictionary, he cites the old edition no longer published by LifeWay Christian Resources.

“The article on expiation in the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary has a new article which specifically argues for a biblical understanding of propitiation,” wrote Brand, one of three general editors of the newer version.

Jason Duesing, vice president for strategic initiatives and assistant professor of historical theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, tweeted, “The substitution of Christ’s sacrifice is not the stuff of preference, but rather something vital to embrace.”

Duesing, in a blog post Aug. 9, said a believer’s hope is found in Christ’s sufficient sacrifice, “and about this hope we should sing as if our lives depended on it, for they do.”

In a post on the Baptist21 website Aug. 9, Nathan Akin, pastor for disciple-making at Imago Dei Church in Raleigh, N.C., wrote that when denominations that question the authority of Scripture reject In Christ Alone, “we should not be surprised.”

“However, when SBC Convention leaders question the content of that song and say they will not sing the line in question ... this should be alarming for Alabama and Southern Baptists,” Akin wrote.

Terry, Akin wrote, “seems to indicate we either need to emphasize [God’s] love or his wrath,” whereas both are on display at the cross and in the song. Akin added that Terry “seems to deny or at least minimize Penal Substitution,” and the editorial “is a stinging reminder that the Conservative Resurgence is not over.”

In his clarification, Terry referenced the line in his editorial which said, “ ... it is God’s grace that initiated the sacrifice of Jesus to provide covering and forgiveness for our sin and that His sacrifice satisfied the holy demands of God’s righteousness for sin to be punished.” Terry said that line in his editorial “is an affirmation of the penal substitutionary atonement understanding of salvation.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote in a blog post Aug. 12 that “the substitutionary nature of Christ’s death on the cross was a major issue in the Conservative Resurgence” within the SBC in the last quarter of the 20th century.

“In its earliest phase, modern theological liberalism developed an antipathy to the substitutionary nature of the atonement,” Mohler wrote at albertmohler.com.

Mohler recounted a debate in 1987 between Fisher Humphreys, a professor at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary at the time, and Paige Patterson, now president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. “The lengthy debate revealed a deeper divide over the nature of the atonement than many Southern Baptists had been prepared to acknowledge,” Mohler wrote.

The Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, Patterson said in the 1987 debate, reveals an atonement model that is central and essential, and that model was both penal and substitutionary.

“Looking at the debate, now more than a quarter century behind us, it appears that the main issue was the centrality of substitution and the fact, as Patterson rightly insisted, that all other understandings of the cross in the Bible are themselves dependent on penal substitution,” Mohler wrote.

In his statement to the media Aug. 12, Terry pointed to previous editorials he has written on the atonement for clarification of his views.

Regarding the word “wrath,” Terry wrote, “If the meaning is that on Calvary God’s punishment for our sins was poured out on Jesus, then that is certainly biblical and something I would never question. That is my understanding of penal substitutionary atonement and is what I have written through the years.

“If the meaning of ‘wrath’ is that God is vindictive and took joy in punishing His Son then that is not how I find God described in the Bible,” Terry wrote.

Do Evangelical Churches Have To Accept Gay Marriage To Attract Millennials?

Must Evangelical churches change or downplay their position on homosexuality to attract millennials?

Millennials, generally defined as those ages 18 to mid-30s, are the most supportive of redefining marriage to include same-sex couples, many polls show. A recent Public Religion Research Institute poll had their support at 69 percent, the highest of any age group.

Even among self-described Evangelicals, the millennials showed the highest level of support at 43 percent (though the poll only included white Evangelicals), compared to 33 percent for generation X, 22 percent for Baby Boomers and 19 percent for those 68 and older. The poll also found that 70 percent of millennials “believe that religious groups are alienating young adults by being too judgmental about gay and lesbian issues.”

Some Evangelicals have pointed to this and similar studies to argue that Evangelical churches need to end their opposition to same-sex marriage or they will die off.

The church’s “obsessions with opposing gay marriage,” Evangelical author Rachel Held Evans wrote in March for CNN as she pointed out the PRRI report, is one of the reasons “evangelicalism is losing a generation to the culture wars.”

Other media outlets appear eager to report that Evangelicals will end their opposition to same-sex marriage and stop teaching that homosexuality is a sin. “Evangelicals Are Changing Their Minds on Gay Marriage: And the Bible isn’t getting in their way,” religion reporter Jim Hinch wrote Monday for Politico.

For evidence that Evangelicals are changing their minds on gay marriage, Hinch points to Pew Research polling showing that support for same-sex marriage among white Evangelical Protestants jumped 10 percentage points, from 13 to 23 percent, from 2001 to 2014.

To further illustrate his point, Hinch told the story of Amy Tincher, who attended a Matthew Vines “boot camp.” Vines authored a recent book claiming that the Bible does not condemn homosexual behavior that is part of a committed relationship.

(Though Hinch describes Tincher as an Evangelical, at the end of the article he reveals that Tincher attended a United Methodist church, a mainline Protestant denomination, before switching to a United Church of Christ church, which is even more liberal than the UMC.)

In interviews with The Christian Post, two conservative Evangelicals, Dr. Russell Moore and Eric Teetsel, doubted that abandoning the biblical understanding of sexuality will help the church attract more millennials. Mainline Protestant churches have already done that, they point out, but they have not grown as a result.

“History has demonstrated time and time and time again that you don’t save Christianity by abandoning Christianity,” said Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, in a May 12 interview.

Moore compared the situation to the “modernist” controversies of the early 20th century. Some Evangelical theologians at the time argued that the Church needed to abandon its teachings on, for instance, miracles, the resurrection and the virgin birth, if it were to remain relevant. This led to some of the mainline/Evangelical denominational splits. After those splits, though, the Evangelical denominations that stayed true to traditional Church teaching grew while the mainline denominations that rejected those doctrines declined.

Teetsel, executive director of the Manhattan Declaration and a millennial Evangelical, agreed in his June 12 interview: “There are many churches that embrace homosexuality. ... Many have gone down that road years ago and there’s no evidence that they’re attracting young people.”

Moore also pointed to some survey data presented by sociologist Mark Regnerus at a recent ERLC conference. When looking at millennial Evangelicals who actually attend church, not just identify as Evangelical, there is no erosion of support for the biblical teachings on sexuality, Moore said. (Moore recently co-authored an article about that data for National Review.)

Teetsel acknowledged that some Evangelical leaders have spoken about homosexuality in an uncompassionate tone, and that has done great damage. More often, though, he sees Evangelical pastors avoiding the issue altogether, which is also problematic.

“Doing better requires actually doing it,” he said. “Silence is really a failure. We need to preach the Gospel in wholeness, and of course the Gospel touches on sexuality.”

Both Moore and Teetsel were also quick to say, without prompting from the questioner, that even if it were true that the Church could attract millennials by changing its teaching on homosexuality, it should not do so.

For churches that believe in remaining true to the Gospel, Teetsel explained, “we don’t get to pick and choose the elements of our faith that we like or don’t like. It’s a packaged deal.”

“If we have to choose between millennials and Jesus, we choose Jesus,” Moore said. “Fidelity to the Gospel means we cannot revise a Christian sexual ethic, regardless of what that would do to the membership of our churches because Jesus gave that to us with his own authority.”

Six Signs of A Spiritually Divided Heart

Psalms 119

A cursory glance through Psalm 119 reveals the heart of an author wholly enveloped in the words of God. It is blatantly obvious the Psalmist not only read the word of God on a regular basis, but lived its truth in his every-day life. Psalm 119 provides all the answers we could ever hope for in regards to approaching the Bible with an undivided heart.

So how do I know if I’m seeking God with all my heart? How do I know if I love God with all my heart? How do I know if I believe God with all my heart? How do I determine if my heart is divided or united to fear God’s name in truth (Psalm 86:11)?

1. A spiritually divided heart is emotionally unstable.

“Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart.” (Psalm 119:2) The Hebrew word for “blessed” in this passage is ‘esher (eh’-sher) which translates “happy”. Blessed does not mean wealthy, successful, powerful, popular, or prominent though it may certainly be a blessing to have those statuses. A divided heart is revealed in a saddened or discouraged countenance. Is my life characterized by happiness and peace or worry and confusion? Am I tossed into the depths of despair through every undesirable circumstance or have I entrusted my innermost source of happiness to God’s word? The only way I can have lasting happiness is to walk by and believe God’s word of truth.

2. A spiritually divided heart is wandering.

“I seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.” (Psalm 119:10) God’s word is not a list of rules keeping me boxed in under the heavy thumb of dictatorship. God’s word was inspired and written for my greatest good. The Bible clearly outlines and defines what path to travel, what attitude is appropriate, and what ministries to pursue. When I start to rely on my own reasoning, logic, and understanding, I stray from God’s perfect knowledge of His creation — me. My heart is divided when I fight against the truth of God’s revealed word and willfully or ignorantly choose my own path.

3. A spiritually divided heart is selfish.

“Turn my heart towards your statutes and not toward selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word.” (Psalm 119:36-37) Left to my own devices I am bent towards selfishness. When I argue with my spouse over where to eat dinner I put my needs in front of his. When I am offended by the opinions of others, threatened by the status of a peer, or hesitant to give of my abundance to someone in need, I am selfish. I have strayed from God’s word and will and allowed my flesh to take over. My heart has been divided. I have failed to esteem others as better than myself (Philippians 2:3).

4. A spiritually divided heart is inconsistent.

“This has been my practice: I obey your precepts.” (Psalm 119:56) Can I truthfully proclaim that I obey God’s word without falter every second of every day? Not a chance. However, the undivided heart, or the heart walking through life believing God’s word, will be swayed towards obedience. Willful rebellion will be the exception, not the rule. When my daily practice is devoted to knowing and following God’s word, my heart is united in truth.

5. A spiritually divided heart is malnourished.

“How sweet are your words to my taste; sweeter than honey to my mouth!” (Psalm 119:103) When I am hurt, angry, confused, or otherwise afflicted, where do I turn for guidance and comfort? Do I seek the opinions of friends, family, pastors, and teachers first or do I seek the counsel of God? The more of his words I consume, the more nourished I will be. When I neglect his guidance and first seek help from human sources I am left hungry and malnourished. If I don’t know the word of God, how will I know if the advice I’m given is biblical? Like the prophet Isaiah so eloquently stated: “Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.” (Isaiah 55:2)

6. A spiritually divided heart is fearful.

“I will speak of your statutes before kings and will not be put to shame, for I delight in your commands because I love them.” (Psalm 119:46-47) If my Monday through Saturday life does not line up with my Sunday life, I should be afraid to speak of my faith. Without a living, active gospel displayed through my life, I will be put to shame when I witness to others. How can I preach to someone when my life is the opposite of my message? When I hear of terminally-ill loved ones, if unsure about their eternal destiny, I am motivated to witness to them before it’s too late. But was I motivated to witness before I knew they were sick? Shouldn’t every day be an opportunity to love God, live God, and display God in everything I do? If I am not displaying the love of God by witnessing to my lost friends and neighbors, I am living in fear. I want my life to always back up my message and never distract from the wonderful, freeing truth of the Gospel of Christ.

Every time I read Psalm 119 I am reminded to check my heart-status. Am I whole-heartedly seeking God and his word or am I offering up only the pieces I prefer? Can I stand beside the Psalmist and before God, unashamed and fully exposed and still declare, “My soul is consumed with longing for your laws at all times. Your statutes are my delight and I have chosen the way of truth.” (Psalm 119:20, 24, 30) That is my desire; to live with an undivided heart wholly united with God’s word.

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Originally Published on Encourage 365, October 1, 2012.

The Top 10 Reasons Why I Don't Celebrate Christmas

Luke 2:1

Christmas is a hugely popular holiday celebrated by some 2 billion people worldwide. It’s become such an ingrained part of modern culture that even people in nations with little or no Christian history or tradition are celebrating it in increasing numbers.

Christmas is so big that it plays a key role in the economies of many nations. In the U.S. retail industry, the day after the Thanksgiving holiday is commonly known as “Black Friday” — not because it’s bad, but because this marks the beginning of the Christmas shopping season and stores that have been “in the red” — operating at a loss all year — suddenly see their sales shoot up so fast that they are now operating in the black (at a profit) the rest of the year. “Black Friday” is the biggest shopping day of the year due to its Christmas sales.

Christmas is big — very big. Schools and colleges commonly take a week or longer break at this time, some businesses shut down to give their employees time off, many families plan trips and get-togethers, and some people darken the door of a church for perhaps the first time all year.

So it’s not surprising that I get some pretty shocked looks when I tell people I don’t celebrate Christmas. That’s pretty unusual for anyone, much less someone who’s been an ordained minister for 15 years and edits a Christian magazine.

So what’s up with this? Why would anyone not want to celebrate Christmas like nearly everybody else? Are there valid reasons for not participating in all the holiday hoopla?

American Late Show television program host David Letterman is famous for his “top 10” lists in which he offers pointed commentary about popular culture and current events. So here I offer my top 10 reasons for not celebrating Christmas!

1. Christmas is driven by commercialism.

It’s not that difficult to recognize what really drives the holiday in our age. Cal Thomas, an American syndicated columnist who often writes from a Christian perspective, acknowledged uncomfortable truths about Christmas in a December 2003 column.

“I’m not sure it’s worth keeping Christmas anymore,” he began, lamenting that the holiday has become a “road show of reindeer, winter scenes, elves and the God substitute, Santa Claus, who serves as a front for merchants seeking to play on the guilt some parents bear for ignoring their kids the rest of the year.”

He asks a great question: “Why participate any longer in this charade where the focal point of worship has shifted from a babe in a manger to a babe in the Victoria’s Secret window? ... No room in the inn has been replaced by no room in the mall parking lot.”

But perhaps his most insightful statement is this: “It’s instructive how just one season away from lusting after material things can break the habit. It’s something like liberation from an addiction or lifestyle choice. Being away from it can cause one to realize the behavior is neither missed nor needed for fulfillment and enjoyment.”

Having said good-bye to the Christmas habit several decades ago, I couldn’t have said it better myself!

2. Christmas is nowhere mentioned in the Bible.

This is rather obvious, but most people never give it a second thought. The books of the New Testament cover 30+ years of Jesus Christ’s life, then another 30+ years of the early Church following His death and resurrection, but nowhere do we find any hint of a Christmas celebration or anything remotely like it.

Yes, the Bible does give us quite a few details of His birth — the angelic appearance to Mary and then Joseph, the conditions surrounding His birth in Bethlehem, the heavenly choir’s performance for the shepherds in the fields outside the town. But nowhere in the Bible is there any record of anyone observing Christmas or any hint that God the Father or Jesus Christ expects us to do so.

3. Jesus wasn’t born on or near December 25.

Surprising but true! Remember those shepherds who were “living out in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night”? (Luke 2:8). December weather around Bethlehem is often miserably cold, wet and rainy. No shepherd in his right mind would have kept his flocks outside at night at that time of year!

The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary says this passage argues “against the birth [of Christ] occurring on Dec. 25 since the weather would not have permitted” shepherds to be out in the fields with their flocks then.

And Celebrations: The Complete Book of American Holidays tells us that Luke’s account of Christ’s birth “suggests that Jesus may have been born in summer or early fall. Since December is cold and rainy in Judea, it is likely the shepherds would have sought shelter for their flocks at night” (p. 309) rather than keeping them outdoors.

Also, Luke 2:1-4 tells us that Jesus was born in Bethlehem because his parents came to that town to register in a Roman census. The Romans were well known as highly efficient administrators. It would have made no sense to have conducted a census in the dead of winter, when temperatures often dropped below freezing and traveling was difficult due to poor road conditions. Taking a census under such conditions would have been self-defeating!

4. The Christmas holiday is largely a recycled pagan celebration.

Again, surprising but true! Read it for yourself in just about any encyclopedia.

Consider the customs associated with Christmas. What do decorated evergreen trees, holly, mistletoe, yule logs, a jolly plump man in a fur-lined red suit, sleighs and flying reindeer have to do with the birth of Jesus Christ?

None of these things have anything to do with Him, but they have a lot to do with ancient pagan festivals. (Read the eye-opening details in our free booklet Holidays or Holy Days: Does It Matter Which Days We Keep? )

And what about the date of Dec. 25? How did it come to be assigned as the supposed date of Jesus Christ’s birth? Historians Gerard and Patricia Del Re explain:

“The tradition of celebrating December 25 as Christ’s birthday came to the Romans from Persia. Mithra, the Persian god of light and sacred contracts, was born out of a rock on December 25. Rome was famous for its flirtations with strange gods and cults, and in the third century the unchristian emperor Aurelian established the festival of Dies Invicti Solis, the Day of the Invincible Sun, on December 25.

“Mithra was an embodiment of the sun, so this period of its rebirth was a major day in Mithraism, which had become Rome’s latest official religion ... It is believed that the emperor Constantine adhered to Mithraism up to the time of his conversion to Christianity. He was probably instrumental in seeing that the major feast of his old religion was carried over to his new faith” ( The Christmas Almanac, 1979, p. 17).

It’s difficult to determine the first time anyone celebrated Dec. 25 as Christmas, but historians generally agree that it was sometime during the fourth century — some 300 years after Christ’s death. And then a contrived date was chosen because it was already a popular pagan holiday celebrating the birth of the sun god!

Similarly, virtually all of the customs associated with Christmas are recycled from ancient pagan festivals honoring other gods.

5. God condemns using pagan customs to worship Him.

Since Christmas is supposedly a day to worship and celebrate God the Father and Jesus Christ, wouldn’t it be a good idea to look into the Bible to see what it says about how we should worship God?

The answer is quite clear. God gives specific instruction about using pagan practices to worship Him — the exact thing Christmas does! Notice what He says in Deuteronomy 12:30-32: “ ... Do not inquire after their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? I also will do likewise.’ You shall not worship the LORD your God in that way ... Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (emphasis added throughout).

And lest some think this is simply an Old Testament command that no longer applies, the apostle Paul makes the same point in 2 Corinthians 6, where he addresses whether unbiblical religious customs and practices have any place in the worship of God’s people:

“What fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness? And what communion has light with darkness? And what accord has Christ with Belial [the devil and/or demons]? Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever? And what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For you are the temple of the living God . . .

“Therefore ‘Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord. Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.’ ‘I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.’ Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 6:14-18; 2 Corinthians 7:1).

Rather than relabeling pagan customs as Christian, or allowing members of the Church to continue their old pagan practices, the apostle Paul told them in no uncertain terms to leave behind all these forms of worship and worship God in true holiness as He commands. Jesus likewise says His true followers “must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24) — not revel in recycled pagan customs and symbolism.

6. Christmas is worshipping God in vain.

Since Christmas is a jumble of ancient pagan customs invented by men, and a holiday found nowhere in the Bible, does God honor or accept such worship?

Jesus provides the answer in His stern rebuke of the religious teachers of His day, men who had substituted human traditions and teachings for God’s divine truths and commands: “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites ... ‘in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ... All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition” (Mark 7:6-9).

In the 17th century Christmas was actually outlawed in England and some parts of the American colonies because of its unbiblical and pagan origins. They knew something most people today have forgotten or have never known!

7. You can’t put Christ back into something He was never in.

Some people admit the many problems with Christmas. But rather than face up to those problems, some assert that we should “put Christ back in Christmas.”

However, it’s impossible to “put Christ back in Christmas” since He never was in Christmas in the first place! He never so much as heard the word “Christmas” during His lifetime on earth, nor did His apostles after Him. You can search the Bible cover to cover but you won’t find the words “Christmas,” “Christmas tree,” “mistletoe,” “holly,” “Santa Claus” or “flying reindeer.”

Putting Christ back in Christmas may sound like a nice sentiment, but it’s really only a misguided effort to try to justify a long-standing human tradition rather than what the Bible tells us we should do.

8. The Bible nowhere tells us to observe a holiday celebrating Jesus Christ’s birth — but it clearly does tell us to commemorate His death.

As noted earlier, the Bible nowhere mentions Christmas or tells us to celebrate Christ’s birth.

This is not to say that the Bible doesn’t tell us to commemorate a highly significant event in Jesus Christ’s life on earth. It does — but that event is His death, not His birth.

Notice what the apostle Paul, conveying the instructions of Jesus Himself, tells Christians: “For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’

“In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.’ For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes ... Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Corinthians 11:23-28).

And yes, many believers do what they consider a form of this today in taking communion or “the Lord’s supper.” They fail to realize, however, the full significance of these acts, or that what Paul is actually describing here is the Passover — which is what Jesus Himself called this observance (Matthew 26:18-19; Mark 14:14-16; Luke 22:8-13, 15).

And many have no idea of the real date of Christ’s death and the annual Passover observance, but that’s an issue for another time. (Hint: It isn’t “Good Friday” prior to Easter as so many mistakenly believe.) The point is: Jesus clearly expects His true followers to commemorate His death — not His birth — by observing the Passover.

9. Christmas obscures God’s plan for mankind.

Passover, mentioned above, has enormous significance in God’s plan for humanity. The Old Testament Passover, described in Exodus 12, was symbolic of Jesus Christ’s future role and sacrifice. As the blood of the slain Passover lambs on the Israelites’ houses spared them while the firstborn of the Egyptians were slain, so does Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf spare us from death — eternal death.

Paul alluded to this great truth when he wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:7 that “Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.” Similarly John the Baptist, speaking under divine inspiration, said of Jesus, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).

Peter wrote that we are redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19) — a clear reference to the Passover lambs (Exodus 12:5).

A central key to God’s plan for humanity is Jesus Christ’s sacrificial death on our behalf. He is “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8) — meaning His death for our sins was planned before the first human beings were ever created (1 Peter 1:18-20). Only through His death to pay the penalty for our sins can human beings receive God’s gift of eternal life (John 3:14-17; Acts 4:12; 1 Corinthians 15:20-22).

Christmas, in contrast, teaches us none of this. Regrettably, because it is a hodgepodge of unbiblical customs and beliefs thrown together with a few elements of biblical truth, it only obscures the incredible purpose of Jesus Christ’s coming — as well as why He must return to earth a second time! (For more details, request our free booklets Jesus Christ: The Real Story and The Gospel of the Kingdom . )

10. I’d rather celebrate the Holy Days Jesus Christ and the apostles observed.

God in His Word sets out many choices for us. Will we do things His way or our own? Will we worship Him as He tells us to, or expect Him to honor whatever religious practices we choose regardless of what His Word says?

It’s always good to ask the question, What would Jesus do? The answer, from the Scriptures, is quite clear as to what Jesus did. Jesus didn’t allow His followers the option of adopting pagan practices in their worship. He and the apostles plainly kept God’s Holy Days and festivals that we find recorded in Leviticus 23.

As noted above, they kept the Passover (1 Corinthians 11:23-26). Scripture shows they also observed the Days of Unleavened Bread (Acts 20:6; 1 Corinthians 5:7-8). The New Testament Church itself was founded on the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2:1), another biblical festival they clearly observed (Acts 20:16). They likewise kept the Day of Atonement (called “the Fast” in Acts 27:9) and the Feast of Tabernacles (John 7:2; John 7:10).

Christmas, meanwhile, is totally missing from the biblical record.

Most people don’t know that the Bible includes a whole list of festivals that God commanded, that Jesus Himself observed and that the apostles and early Church were still keeping decades after Christ’s death and resurrection. And unlike Christmas, these reveal a great deal about Jesus Christ’s role and mission.

Each one teaches us a vital lesson in what Jesus has done, is doing and will yet do in carrying out God’s great plan for humankind. The differences between these and the tired old paganism and crass commercialism of Christmas is truly like the difference between day and night. Why not look into them for yourself?

I’ve given you my top 10 reasons for not celebrating Christmas. What do you suppose God thinks of your reasons for continuing to observe it?

Amid Scandinavians, Believers Look For 'Bridges'

Job 35:9

What’s the most embarrassing thing you can talk about in your city? Discussions that include God, said a Scandinavian pastor.

The pastor in Denmark told this to sociologist Phil Zuckerman, who spent 14 months interviewing nearly 150 Scandinavians, according to The New York Times.

This can pose a dilemma for Christian workers trying to evangelize and plant churches in countries like Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. The key, however, is not leaving God out of spiritual discussions, but knowing how to have an appropriate spiritual conversation with Scandinavians, said International Mission Board strategy leader David Moench.

Moench said sharing one’s faith in a postmodern culture must be done in ways that are genuine, not prepackaged. Rational approaches just don’t work. Stories are the key.

“You ask a lot of questions and you listen, then you look for bridges,” Moench said. “What are bridges from their story to my story? My story, because I’m a believer, involves my faith in Christ, my community that I live in, the church that we’re part of planting. Then I can begin to share God’s story, and that’s where it might be alright.”

Talking about God throughout Scandinavia can be tough because people are not interested. It could easily be believed that religion is a personal issue, thus not discussed. Zuckerman’s research states, however, that it is actually a non-issue.

“Interviewees just didn’t care about it,” he says in his book “Society Without God,” cited in The New York Times article in 2009. He uses phrases like “benign indifference” and “utter obliviousness” to describe most Scandinavians’ ideas about religion. For them, religion and Jesus are both “nice.”

Sweden is the least religious nation in the Western world, according to a WIN/Gallup International poll, conducted at the end of 2014. Eight out of 10 Swedes are either “not religious” or “convinced atheists,” the poll shows.

“It’s a little bit surprising because we have a lot of [church] members,” said Gunnar Sjöberg, head of communication for the Swedish Church. The poll shows that 63 percent of Sweden’s population is comprised of members of the once official state church.

“The presence of religion and the church in many Swedes’ lives is most visible when traditional rituals or ceremonies are performed,” Sweden Sverige, the official website of the Swedish government, reports. “Chief among these are christenings, marriages and funerals.” The site points out that “secular” ceremonies are now becoming more and more common, however.

The Church of Sweden has often accompanied liberal social change rather than obstructing it, the site notes.

“Christianity and the church may have maintained ritual and cultural importance in Sweden, but this has not prevented the country from becoming one of the world’s most liberal societies,” the site says.

“In some areas where religious and social conservatism often prevail, such as the right to abortion, no serious debate exists in Sweden. Living together and having children without being married is also socially acceptable, and recent statistics suggest more than 40 percent of first-time parents in Sweden have children before getting married.”

The Church of Sweden has performed legal same-sex marriages since 2009.

Moench said postmodernism is not a culture one is born into or that one acquires. “It’s actually a filter on how [to] look at everything,” he said. “So postmodernity exists within the church. Therefore, it’s not something to be challenged, to be confronted; it’s actually a way that we should communicate the Gospel cross-culturally.”

He warns that what is happening in Scandinavia now is a good indication of what is to come in the United States. “...You’re not fighting against necessarily a cultural view of Christianity. You’re actually fighting the ignorance of the fact that they’ve never met anybody who genuinely believed and acted upon the words of Jesus, lived in community, and carried out those truths.”

Don't Water It Down

John 12:48

"Our danger is to water down God’s word to suit ourselves. God never fits His word to suit me; He fits me to suit His word."

-- Oswald Chambers

He Wouldn't Repeat the Prayer

Mark 12:14

In his autobiography, "Donahue," Phil Donahue, shares an experience from Holden, West Virginia. He and a CBS television crew had gone to this Appalachian community to cover rescue attempts of thirty-eight miners. They had planned to be there one night but stayed three, eating doughnuts and drinking Red Cross coffee in bitterly cold weather.

At last the rescue teams emerged, covered with soot and grime, weary beyond words. Relatives of the miners were waiting in the snow. Gathered around a smudge pot, a preacher said, "Dear God, let us pray." They joined hands and sang, "What a Friend We Have In Jesus." Donahue says it gave him goose bumps. It was beautiful! He knew it would make a great film for CBS, but the camera was frozen; by the time it was warmed up, the service was over. At 2:30 in the morning, Donahue approached the pastor with a request.

"Reverend, I am from CBS News. Would you please go back through your prayer again? We have 206 television stations across the country who will hear you pray for these miners."

The humble minister looked at him and said, "Son, I just couldn't do it. I have already prayed to my God, and any further praying at this time would be wrong. No sir, I just can't do it."

Donahue was shocked that anyone would turn down a chance to be on CBS News. At last he made his way to a pay telephone to report to New York: "The _____ won't pray!"

Donahue claims that the preacher's stand was the greatest demonstration of moral courage he has ever encountered. The man would not "show biz" for Jesus. He would not sell his soul - not even to CBS. Donahue says he often thinks of that preacher and than night. "I don't know where he is now, but if he isn't going to Heaven, no one is."

-- Phil Donahue & Co., "Donahue" (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979) 66-67