Controversy...but NEEDED!

So I'm sitting with a dear friend recently, a good pastor, with my heart breaking as he told me of a massive exodus in his church by women, who according to him, "Took their husbands and left."  My friend was hurting.  Badly.  I so get that, because I've been there.

His crime?  Seeking to teach and apply God's directions for the order of home and church.

Scripture lays out CLEARLY the distinct and complementary roles of men and women in the home and church.  CLEARLY.  Think about the number of clear precepts: 1 Tim 2, 1 Tim 3, Titus 1, Titus 2, 1 Cor 11, 1 Cor 14, Eph 5, Col 3, 1 Pet 3, etc. 

What else would Christ have to say to convince us?

Yet we have a better plan.  And our plan is terrible.  People are getting hurt.  Churches are getting hurt.  Marriages are getting hurt.  Culture has lost the light of the church.  We have blatanly disobeyed God's order for HIS church and we are paying a terrible price.

Below is the most controversial sermon I've ever preached in my nearly 20 years of pastoring our church, and the most watched.  It cost me members and friends (literally), but also gained me some as well, by the mercy of God.  People are still calling, emailing, and even visiting our church from other states (two years later!) because we were bold enough to actually preach this sermon.  Just yesterday, I met another brother in Christ from another state, who found this sermon, and now gets his family up early every Sunday to watch what God is doing in our church before he goes to his.  I'm amazed because this just keeps happening.  God has sense of humor! :)

In it, some of these issues are touched upon.  May the Lord give us the strength to obey His Holy Word.

A Road Rejected

A Road Rejected

Is it me or is everything good crumbling?

I know my blog posts can be sort of gloomy.  That isn’t my intent.  But if you are like me and Jesus is everything to you and His Name being reviled (blasphemed) makes you weep…then you’ll understand my motive.

What gets me though is this: Why?  There are so many churches. There are so many believers reading Scripture.  So many sermons are being preached.  Why are things deteriorating so badly and so rapidly?

Yesterday I read about the SCOTUS striking down part of a Texas law that protected women and babies…a massive victory for abortion rights.  Today, I read another article about single-gender restrooms being eliminated in National parks so the transgendered can use the one they identify with.  This follows a recent decision by the Obama administration to attempt to force public schools to do the same.

Don’t get me wrong.  Transgendered folks need the Gospel.  So do government officials.  So does everyone else!  Our job is to preach and live out that Gospel.  So there’s that.

But with so many Christians…how can we explain the widespread loss of everything moral and pure?  What in the world?

I can only come up with two reasons:

1. God’s judgment on our Nation for our National sins
2. Our unwillingness to obey His Commands

Maybe both.  Maybe the second has caused the first!

I do believe we are under divine wrath at the moment.  As a Nation, we talk a good God game, but practically (education, politics, modesty and holiness, family, precepts for the church, etc.) we reject Him.  Think about it…

• Christians look and sound like the world, consume the same entertainment, and for the most part, spend our money the same way
• Christians have become quite comfortable disobeying clear precepts as to church order and worship
• Christians, by and large, have given our children to the world to educate/disciple for 100 years
• Christians actually get angry at the mention of sin, judgment, and hell and instead prefer talk of blessings and love, no matter how unlawful the love is

I believe the road to revival is rejected because it winds through hostile territory: Scriptures we don’t like, the call to repentance, and all the reforming of home and church that needs to be done.  Satan therefore has an easy path against a weakened church and weakened homes.

I do not think more pragmatic preaching filled with catchy sayings, preacher gimmicks, and talk of breakthrough will produce revival.  We've done that for 40 years!  

We really need to pray…to get on our knees and cry out in contriteness and humility for boldly breaking God’s Commandments.  Then we need a fresh determination to do what “thus saith the LORD.”  We need to actually manifest the Gospel…to live like our hearts have been changed by Christ and filled with the Spirit of God.  In short, we must be willing to be the “called out ones….” the Church of Jesus Christ that looks and lives differently, even if that results in ridicule.

Now, there have been prayer movements and “repent America” movements.  But there is always a stopping short before obedience…especially in the critical areas.  For some reason, our weeping leads to….well…nothing really. 

We don’t change on a large scale.  We don’t really want to.  And if there isn't change, did we really repent?  

Until we do, things will get worse.

The Most Dangerous Attitude I've Ever Seen

During family worship this morning, my wife and I discussed an attitude all too prevalent in the church.  A dangerous attitude.  In fact, I’m struggling to think of a MORE dangerous attitude.

Studying the shorter catechism, our family was working through this question and answer about the Lord’s Prayer:

Q.103 - For what do we pray in the third request?

A. In the third request (your will be done on earth as it is in heaven) we pray that by His grace God would make us have the capability and the will to know, obey, and submit to His will in everything, as the angels do in heaven.

My wife brought up the subject and described the attitude.  This attitude says:

“Yes, that is God’s Word.  Yes, I acknowledge that His Word is true.  I simply choose not to obey it.”

When she brought this up, I trembled.  I immediately began searching my own heart for such rebellion, as she did.  Then I thought about the many times I’ve seen this.  I said to her, “I cannot think of a more dangerous attitude than this.”

Why?

• Because it is normally expressed by a professing believer. (An atheist etc. would not acknowledge God’s Word.)
• Because to have such an attitude as a follower of Christ reflects an almost total lack of the fear of the LORD.
• Because this is the exact same attitude that brought the wrath of God upon Israel over and over again, and upon Jerusalem prophesied by Christ in the New Testament. (Fulfilled in 70AD)
• Because if a professing believer can acknowledge the Truth, but refuse it, where does he/she go from there?

For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, but a fearful expectation of judgment, and a fury of fire that will consume the adversaries. Anyone who has set aside the law of Moses dies without mercy on the evidence of two or three witnesses. How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? For we know him who said, "Vengeance is mine; I will repay." And again, "The Lord will judge his people.” It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. (Heb 10:26-31)

Oh friends, the LORD declares in so many places, this heart:

2 Chr 30:8  Do not now be stiff-necked as your fathers were, but yield yourselves to the LORD and come to his sanctuary, which he has consecrated forever, and serve the LORD your God, that his fierce anger may turn away from you.

Acts 7:51  "You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.

Essentially, this attitude blatantly resists the Holy Spirit.  It grieves Him (Eph 4:30).  It makes a mockery of His convicting work (John 16:8) and places the professing believer in the untenable place of boldly acting like an enemy of God.

May I encourage you: Love God through your Obedience (John 14:15).  Realize that such an attitude is not only blasphemous, but DANGEROUS.  Dangerous for you.  Dangerous for your family.  Dangerous for your children. Dangerous for your church.

Forgive me LORD, for surely I’ve had this same attitude many times before.  

We beg your mercy and deliverance from such.

Amen.

What Will it Take?

What Will it Take?

Do not be deceived: "Bad company ruins good morals.” Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame. (1 Cor 15:33-34)

So, here’s a question: What will it take?

• What will it take for Christians to wake up from our "drunken stupor?"
• What will it take for us to see that Satan, or at a minimum, satanic thought, controls the major centers and institutions of power and influence in the West (education, entertainment and arts, government, economic policy, etc.)?
• What will it take for us to love Christ more than the world and what it offers?
• What will it take for believers to see that Scripture is Sufficient, that its patterns reflect the heart of God, and that the further away from them we move, the worse things get?
• What will it take to see that becoming like the culture doesn’t enable us to win the culture?
• What will it take for us to stop playing church and see that we have moved into a more New Testament environment (i.e., rising persecution against the Church)?
• What will it take for us to work to build biblical families and churches and to become less dependent upon the world?
• What will it take for us to make the substantive adjustments needed to raise up a godly and holy generation, in the hopes that one day, God might grant us revival?

I’m not sure.  If the things we’ve seen in the last few years don’t do it, I’m not sure what will.  A major economic collapse maybe, but I’m not sure.

Oh LORD, please forgive us.  Forgive us for promoting ungodliness.  Forgive us for thinking we are smarter than You.  Forgive us for turning our backs on Your precepts while we shout and dance about breakthrough.  Forgive us for giving our children to unbelievers.  Forgive us for destroying millions of babies.  Oh LORD, we are in the midst of thy righteous judgment, with the sins of Sodom legislated and celebrated, and darkness being framed as light and love.  Oh LORD, we see even greater calamities ahead unless You help us.

LORD, show us our national sins. 

LORD, humble us that we might repent.

LORD, strengthen your church, for she is afraid.

LORD, strengthen families that we might live differently.

LORD, silence demonic voices long enough that many more might hear Truth.

LORD, help us…we faint because of our sins and our arrogance...

In Jesus’ Name.