Conservative Post

“There’s a huge difference between building a church and building a crowd,” he said. “There’s a huge difference between having a movement with results and having a movement with eternal results.”?~ Dr. Ergun Caner

No words said have ever been more true. Dr.David Allen once spoke similar words at one of the pastors conferences in Jacksonville Fl, “Heaven help us to know the difference between a crowd and a church”. The ABP recently reported on the debate over the use of the Camel Method in reaching Islamic people. My concern does not just end with the heretical method but the attitude toward scripture by the person who developed it. Kevin Greeson a Southern Baptist Missionary is the developer of this heresy and what is more alarming is his lack of faith in the word of God and his failure to rely on the Holy Ghost in evangelism.

The use of contextualization has lead to serious theological error and the setting aside of God’s word.  “Culture” and “contextualization” are fast becoming a religion in and of themselves and an excuse to give credibility to everything under the sun. Recently Greeson said “They didn’t believe in Jesus as the Son of God or in His resurrection. They did not acknowledge the authority of the Bible, so quoting scripture was useless.” Mr. Greeson that is the way of all the lost. Lost people always reject God, His Son, and His word. Paul made this clear in 1 Cor 1:18 when he said that the preaching of the cross is foolishness to the lost and he goes on to say that God chose preaching to win the lost. What God did not say was to build bridges by using their false religions. God did not say use any method under the sun outside of scripture under the guise of contextualization. And God did not say that using scripture is ever “useless” in presenting the gospel. In fact God did say that when His word is spoken it goes out and accomplishes all that He intended.

But now some in the convention would ignore scripture and turn to the wisdom of men rather than the “foolishness of preaching” which is the only prescribed method given by God in His word. I am concerned that the reason for the need of the conservative resurgence is alive and well in our convention. When our pastors and or missionaries hold the view that scripture is ever useless then they should, everyone of them, be pulled from their position. We need men of God who are convinced that the word of God is the only standard for faith and practice and it is completely reliable at all times and there is no other method or bridge that should replace it for reaching the lost.  Kevin Greeson needs to have his commission pulled.

There is always within the culture and even in our churches the conflict between older and younger generations. The younger are always looking for the newer, faster, and the better. There can be no doubt that they are, in so many cases, discontent with methods and ways of doing things they saw growing up. The older generation often is working to maintain what they have known for many years, and have seen work hundreds of times over. I have a concern that in so many cases where this conflict of generation’s pops up the older congregants get the short end of the stick, and often without legitimate cause. The fact that the older generations have been serving God faithfully for many years, and have spent more time in scripture than far too many pastors is overlooked.

Just because differences arise between the generations does not mean the core problem or conflict is a “generational gap”. It just may in fact, at times, be that the new thing being presented is in error and needs to be carefully looked at with older eyes and wisdom. Attaching catch words to new ideas, such as “cultural context”, “progress”, or any number of other words should not immediately give the idea credibility as the right thing to do. I am greatly disturbed at the growing disrespect to our older generation. As of late it seems the younger generations cannot wait for them to go home to heaven so as not to be hindered by them.

When the church loses its respect for our older members because we cannot get our agenda through then we have lost sight of what a church is as a whole and the church is now a reproach. We need to remember that the word of God speaks favorably of our older generations (Pro 16:31). Maybe we need to spend as much time if not more trying to understand the older generation as we do running out and trying to understand the lost culture. If nowhere else, understanding ought to begin in the church first and foremost even if we “think” the older generation is not trying to understand anyone else.

We need to recognize that there is a vast difference between a generational gap and carnal minded Christians. The latter come in all sorts of stripes and colors and it is in error to assume the older generation is being carnal minded just because they do not immediately buy into what is new and presented as “culturally relevant”. This “cultural relevance” does more to divide people in our churches than anything else these days. We need to honor our older congregants just as much if not more than the world’s culture. Let’s get back to treating our older congregants with the love and respect they deserve.

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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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