Conservative Post

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I was recently disturbed to come across a blog post that spoke of the “insufficiency of scripture”.  The key idea was that scripture needs to be filtered through the current cultural trends and that it just cannot address everything in life. Culture and personal experience has become the god of this age. It is held up in “Christian” circles as equal to or higher than scripture. Such statements as “We need to present the gospel with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in the other” is the new clarion call for evangelism.

Further  1 Corinthians 9:22 is touted and misused to pull much of the culture into our churches to the point that we do not any longer recognize where the world ends and the church begins. Love is lifted up as the one and only difference between the Christian world and the lost world but none of this is true. While love for the lost and really any other people is a very important practice of the Christian faith it is not to be held up in a way that other things are forsaken. The Christian church has lost its practice of reverence for God. Godly fear is no longer being preached from out pulpits. And when it comes right down to it the Word of God is God’s revelation of Himself to man not Superbowl parties, newspapers, or the current trends in the culture.

Paul spoke to sacrificing himself and his personal desires to keep from offending if it was necessary to share the gospel effectively. He never intended his words to be applied to worldly cultural trends. Paul could have included these trends when he spoke in Romans chapter 10:

Rom 10:14  How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?
Rom 10:15  And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”
Rom 10:16  But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, “Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?”
Rom 10:17  So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Faith is not built on the Word of God plus something. It is not dependent on the Word of God plus culture, or the newspaper, or canceling services to bring in a secular endeavor like a Superbowl Party. And the thing that is missing most in all of the conversations is the role of the Holy Ghost on all of these conversations. So we use a little scripture, apparently very little, we throw in a party, a fellowship of some kind, a particular kind of dress style, a particular kind of music or whatever fits in with the culture and completely set aside the Holy Ghost.

Well, it is my job as a God called preacher of the gospel to tell you that the Holy Ghost cannot be replaced. Ever! It has been told that a Chinese Pastor visited America to see what church was like here. When he went back his people were excited and waiting with great anticipation to here of his report about American churches. His report was that he was surprised at the great things they could accomplish without God.

Do we really want to accomplish anything without God? We can you know. We can build buildings and call it a church building, we can gather great and large crowds and call them the church, we can establish a great many programs, we can have alter calls and baptisms and we can do all of that without God being involved for one instance. It does not take God to gather a crowd and we should heed the words of Dr. David Allen ” Heaven help us to know the difference between a church and a crowd.”

Quite frankly this minimizing of scripture, ignoring the Holy Ghost, and the elevating of culture makes me sick. It is a clear perversion of the gospel, a distortion of the truth, and it hides the One, True, and living God. It is a fulfillment of scripture when Paul wrote:

2Ti 4:1  I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom;
2Ti 4:2  Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
2Ti 4:3  For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
2Ti 4:4  And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

The church has removed itself from the old time gospel so far that the reality of hell, the role of the Holy Ghost, and the fear of God are no longer proclaimed form our pulpits. And as one great old time preacher said not so very long ago if Jesus were to come back to His church today he would not cleans the church he would cleans the pulpits! Hell is real and eternal, The Holy Ghost is essential to the gospel, reverence of God is not only needed it is commanded and the church needs a return to preaching on the cross, the judgment of God, the tortures of hell and the whole counsel of God. The grace of God has been cheapened because it has been reduced to simply following Jesus. Well you cannot get to Jesus unless you fall on your face at the cross first. Until there is an acknowledgment of your sin problem that caused the very need for the cross in the first place there is no salvation.

Unless you are willing to say God is King, He is Lord, He is my salvation, He is my redeemer, He is the cure for my sin, rebellion, my evil choices, my selfishness, my love of myself over all other things, unless God is Lord of all He is not Lord of anything. We are to go to the cross and leave it all there, the sin and corruption becoming a new man in the likeness of Him.

You cannot get to the cross through the culture. It is by the Word of God being preached the the power of the Holy Ghost that one understands our need for the cross. The culture cannot point you to the cross, the newspaper cannot point you to the cross only God and His word.

1Co 2:1  And I, brethren, when I came to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God.
1Co 2:2  For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.
1Co 2:3  And I was with you in weakness, and in fear, and in much trembling.
1Co 2:4  And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man’s wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power:
1Co 2:5  That your faith should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

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There is growing concern among Christians about the removal of “Christ” from the word Christmas which is often replaced with the “X”. There is also a growing concern for the removal of the word Christmas altogether from personal greetings to customers in retail stores and in titles of events, during Christmas time, like parades.  It is clear that there are those who are intentionally working to remove Christ from the public square. But we want to be careful not to see boogy men under every nook and cranny. Even the use of the word Christmas means nothing more to many Americans than just a title only connected to a holiday that gives one an opportunity to give and get presents and have a day or two off of work.

While it is important to remember the reason for the season we want to be sure that we handle concerns with all credibility. If we see every instance of the lack of Christ in our greetings ad titles during this season as an attempt to pull Christ from the season itself then we will lack credibility. We need to be measured in our response to this and not easily offended in every instance. Often we cannot know the intent or motivation behind the lack of using Christ. But what we can do is make His message plain and abundant. As Ecclesiastes tells us there is a time for everything under the sun. And there is a time for offense but not in every instance.