From a site called myfakeposters.blogspot.com. I couldn’t resist.

“I’m a provider for my workers, i.e., family.  I give them money… I give them food – not directly, mostly through money.  And I heal them.  I’m in charge of picking a great new health care plan… Does that make me their doctor?  In a way.  Like a specialist.”

- Michael

The boys at The White Horse Inn are starting a new series for 2008 on “Christless Christianity”.

Recently on the program, Ken Jones said the following:

“[preachers] are in the awkward position of saying that the truth claims that we hold to are exclusive. And while certainly I think our personal testimonies have been problematic, I think the thing that’s most offensive is not our testimonies (because as long as I’m telling about what happened to me, and how I overcame this and how I overcame that, at that point I sound like a testimonial for any other product that could clear up your skin or that could help you in a particular way).

But the thing that is offensive is the idea of exclusive truth claims.”

I listened to a recent sermon in which a woman’s testimony was used to ostensibly illustrate the church’s program’s effectiveness in her life. She described a time of hardship in her life and how much it meant to her to be in church and how good it felt. The problem was, she could have just as easily been talking about being in a Buddhist temple, a mosque, or in Joel Osteen’s arena in Houston. There was nothing distinctly Christian about her experience – the testimony was inserted in a Sabbath sermon as a tool for “reaching” the audience emotionally, to say, “See, we comforted her and she felt good here”.

The practice of preaching propositionally and making exclusive truth claims that offend the goats is being lost and forgotten in most evangelical churches in America.

From an interview of John MacArthur by Pat Abendroth, Omaha Bible Church.  John is discussing his role as a defender of God’s truth against attacks over the years.

“I  never believed that I would spend most of my ministry trying to defend the Gospel from so-called evangelicals.  There’s a massive shift – as evangelicalism began to expand and lose its boundaries and its borders and its theology, it began itself to attack the Gospel.  It’s done it a number of ways and it keeps doing it even now.

“Every time I’m writing a book trying to defend the Gospel, there’s another little nuance, and I’m about to write another one, because you just have to keep up with the deviations.  They come, not from liberals, from confessed liberals, but from confessed evangelicals, who may in fact not be entitled to that term, but they use it.”

From the “Together for the Gospel” blog, a post by Mark Dever:

Bertrand Russell, the late, well-known, British philosopher wrote in 1950 that “The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment. This is the way opinions are held in science, as opposed to the way in which they are held in theology,” (in “Philosophy and Politics,” in Unpopular Essays, [1950] p. 15). These days, I guess many are holding theological conclusions in such a “scientific” manner. But such hestitancy is not humility. The humility we want in our churches is to read the Bible and believe it–everything God has said, dogmatically, and humbly! It is not humble to be hesitant where God has been clear and plain.

This is a hymn posted on the Slice of Laodicea site today.

1. Salvation unto us has come
By God’s free grace and favor;
Good works cannot avert our doom,
They help and save us never.
Faith looks to Jesus Christ alone,
Who did for all the world atone;
He is our one Redeemer.

2. What God did in His Law demand
And none to Him could render
Caused wrath and woe on every hand
For man, the vile offender.
Our flesh has not those pure desires
The spirit of the Law requires,
And lost is our condition.

3. It was a false, misleading dream
That God His Law had given
That sinners should themselves redeem
And by their works gain heaven.
The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light
That lurks within our nature.

4. From sin our flesh could not abstain,
Sin held its sway unceasing;
The task was useless and in vain,
Our gilt was e’er increasing.
None can remove sin’s poisoned dart
Or purify our guileful heart,
So deep is our corruption.

5. Yet as the Law must be fulfilled
Or we must die despairing,
Christ came and hath God’s anger stilled,
Our human nature sharing.
He hath for us the Law obeyed
And thus the Father’s vengeance stayed
Which over us impended.

6. Since Christ hath full atonement made
And brought to us salvation,
Each Christian therefore may be glad
And build on this foundation.
Thy grace alone, dear Lord, I plead,
Thy death is now my life indeed,
For Thou hast paid my ransom.

7. Let me not doubt, but trust in Thee,
Thy Word cannot be broken;
Thy call rings out, “Come unto Me!”
No falsehood hast Thou spoken.
Baptized into Thy precious name,
My faith cannot be put to shame,
And I shall never perish.

8. The Law reveals the guilt of sin
And makes men conscience-stricken;
The Gospel then doth enter in
The sinful soul to quicken.
Come to the cross, trust Christ, and live;
The Law no peace can ever give,
No comfort and no blessing.

9. Faith clings to Jesus’ cross alone
And rests in Him unceasing;
And by its fruits true faith is known,
With love and hope increasing.
Yet faith alone doth justify,
Works serve thy neighbor and supply
The proof that faith is living.

10. All blessing, honor, thanks, and praise
To Father, Son, and Spirit,
The God that saved us by His grace,
All glory to His merit!
O Triune God in heaven above,
Who hast revealed Thy saving love,
Thy blessed name be hallowed.

Notes:
Hymn 377 from The Lutheran Hymnal
Text: Rom. 3: 5
Author: Paul Speratus, 1523, cento
Translated by: composite
Titled: “Es ist das Heil uns kommen her”
Tune: “Es ist das Heil”
German melody, c. 1400

On July 31st, Todd Wilken over at Issues, Etc. interviewed an Orthodox priest (Father John Parker) on the subject of the market-driven church. Here are some paraphrases and quotes I thought were poignant.

• The motivation for pastors in American Evangelicalism to give church members a choice of worship styles/options on Sunday morning stems from 1) the noble goal of fulfilling the Great Commission and bringing/attracting as many people as possible to church and 2) out of a fear of being exclusive and saying there is one way of worshipping that is biblical.
• The essence of Christianity is the laying aside of my wants, preferences, desires, my wants, and being conformed to the image of God. If we are demanding choice, we have not yet laid our will aside.
  The church is not capitalistic, the church is not democratic; the church is Christ.
• The time and place for being “relevant to the people” is not at the chief worship service for Christians. That’s perfect for Wednesday night, for Tuesday morning Bible study, for an all-day Saturday program. Christians for centuries have gathered on Sunday morning to celebrate the resurrection of Christ, not to be convinced that He is Lord.
• As a Christian, I have to compare myself, so to speak, to Jesus Christ and the Word of God, which is the mirror into which I’m to look. And where I don’t match, I have to change.
• The more choice you give people, the more choice they demand. Our sinful nature almost obliges us to desire to do it my way.

The following quote from Parker’s recent article in Touchstone magazine summarizes what the market-drivin church looks like:

The marketed church offers just what everyone wants: the music I want (or don’t), the time I want, the length of service I want, the type of language I want, the style of music I want, the amount of intimacy and responsibility I want, and in some cases, even the pastor I want. But is the gospel a message about the satisfaction of wants?

O Lord,

Thou knowest my great unfitness for service,

my present deadness,

my inability to do anything for thy glory,

my distressing coldness of heart.

I am weak, ignorant, unprofitable,

and loathe and abhor myself.

I am at a loss to know what thou wouldest

have me do,

for I feel amazingly deserted by thee,

and sense thy presence so little;

Thou makest me possess the sins of my youth,

and the dreadful sin of my nature,

so that I feel all sin,

I cannot think or act but every motion is sin.

Return again with showers of converting grace

to a poor gospel-abusing sinner.

Help my soul to breathe after holiness,

after a constant devotedness to thee,

after growth in grace more abundantly every day.

O Lord, I am lost in the pursuit of this blessedness,

And am ready to sink because I fall short

of my desire;

Help me to hold out a little longer,

until the happy hour of deliverance comes,

for I cannot lift my soul to thee

if thou of thy goodness bring me not nigh.

Help me to be diffident, watchful, tender,

lest I offend my blessed Friend

in thought and behaviour;

I confide in thee and lean upon thee,

and need thee at all times to assist and lead me.

O that all my distresses and apprehensions

might prove but Christ’s school

to make me fit for greater service

by teaching me the great lesson of humility.

- from Valley of Vision, a collection of Puritan prayers

This was posted at www.sliceoflaodicea.com over the weekend. A great hymn that I’ve missed and forgotten about.

Come, Thou Almighty King,
Help us Thy name to sing,
Help us to praise:
Father, all glorious,
O’er all victorious,
Come, and reign over us,
Ancient of days.

Come, Thou Incarnate Word,
Gird on Thy mighty sword,
Our prayer attend:
Come, and thy people bless,
And give Thy word success,
Spirit of holiness,
On us descend.

Come, Holy Comforter,
Thy sacred witness bear,
In this glad hour:
Thou who almighty art,
now rule in ev’ry heart,
And ne’er from us depart,
Spirit of pow’r.

To the great One in Three,
Eternal praises be,
Hence evermore,
His sov’reign majesty,
May we in glory see,
And to eternity,
Love and adore.

Text unknown 1757
Music Felice de Giardini 1769

Todd Wilken (issues, etc) recently took up this topic with Dr. Michael Horton (Westminster Seminary, California and The White Horse Inn). They addressed several primary themes including preaching, music, and the pastor’s role as coach, counselor and CEO. The air date is 7/9/06. You can find Todd’s shows archived at the Issues, Etc. website.

Mike: “When the church begins to assume we know all this stuff [theology, the renewing of our minds per romans 12] and thinks what we really need is practical stuff, then we just start going with the flow; even if we’re not explicit about it, we become secularized while we think that we are morally superior.

Todd: “Why don’t evangelicals notice that their own pulpits/Sunday mornings are being secularized?”

Mike: “There’s this huge assumption that the culture is neutral…

What we can’t spot is the decadence, not only in our own hearts, but the decadence that is part and parcel of putting the Christian faith in such a fragile knapsack as popular culture that cannot hold that
treasure, or pass it down to future generations.

…What we really need is not only the content of the gospel, but the forms that Christ has given the church for carrying it.”

Another of Mike’s comments (paraphrased):

…the gospel of assumption is preached today: assuming Christ has done all of that, and you already know that. Now I’m going to talk about the practical side of life. And that is always to talk about law rather than gospel. What we really need is to learn how to raise positive kids in a negative world and how to clean up our marriages, how to be nicer to each other and so forth, instead of seeing Christ presented to us in His saving office Sunday after Sunday.