The Christian Gospel goes against all that the world is familiar with; bringing mercy and Justice through one God Man at one moment in history, ratifying Gods name and saving his people. We have a world changing message, bringing peace, hope, love, joy and purpose into this decaying world and it is just upsetting how often the message that sets us apart from every other religion and philosophy is neglected.
D.A. Carson said “One generation of Mennonites believed the gospel and held as well that there were certain social, economic, and political entailments.
The next generation assumed the gospel, but identified with the entailments.
The following generation denied the gospel: the “entailments” became everything.”
Believed, Assumed, denied; its a terrible pattern of even the church and at each stage the Gospel should be remembered and proclaimed with clarity no matter how “basic” one may think it is.
But when the Gospel is proclaimed it seems to miss the entire point by making its entire focus on us e.g. Man.
Today we have a man centred Gospel, it begins with us and ends with us, promising us a good life, full of love, success and blessings, a Gospel that rings the liberty bell and gives us exactly what our hearts desire. This I believe is one of the biggest blunders and blind spots of the western church today. We are competing the Gospel of Jesus Christ against everything else that gives us happiness as if its something else that we just add to our life to give us good blessing and tidings.
The
quotes give us some contrast from the past.
"Preach 90 percent Law and 10 percent grace." John Wesley
"They will never accept grace until they tremble before a just and holy Law."
Charles Spurgeon
"The only way we can know we are sinning is by knowing His moral Law."
Jonathan Edwards
Martin Luther warns, "Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily newsects and last of all, which of all other I should never have forseen or once suspected, he hath raised up a sect such as teach....that men should not be terrified by the Law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ."
Now is a crucial time as ever to come back to the “basic” Gospel, the message that transforms all lives and unites all Christians. Everywhere we turn we are sidetracked from the truth, on the one side, the media is singing and proclaiming a highly spiritual life full of “love” and Coexistence, and on the other side universities are building schools based on “faith” that God does not exist. And we are caught in the middle in both extremes looking for meaning.
It's mind blowing how super spiritual occultism has influenced many mainstream singers; filling youth today with mindless singing and flashing occult signs, many having no idea what they are getting themselves into or opening themselves up to. Singers like Jay z having people in his concerts “worship” him calling him Jehovah, or how Beyonce talks about another spirit named Sasha that takes over when she is on the stage. Or how Kesha blatantly floods her videos with Satanism and occultism. It's just crazy!
Then the other extreme, the leading atheists, calling themselves the Four Horsemen, are fighting hard for the freedom from God and religion in there Billy Graham like crusades going from city to city teaching that there is no God. It was one known leading atheist I read about that lamented on the idea that so many people are just “going with the flow” and are not really taking the time to think for themselves. What a message we have in contrast to these extremes leading to emptyness.
Lastly we are hit with this statement from the archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams declaring England has now entered into a post Christian era.
Now I'm sure I'm the only one that is overwhelmed with the attacks on the church many even coming from within but I believe we should really choose our attacks wisely. Observing many Christians there is a tendency to start with defence and end up with some sort of offensive extremism.
With over 40,000 denominations there are over 40,000 arguments. I believe Mr. Verwer has the perfect word for this (messyology) wherever two or more Christians come together there will be a mess! God definitely works in and through messy situations but how many of these 40 plus thousand were really necessary?
One thing about the early church that was fascinating by many around was the fact that people that have absolutely nothing in common, people that you would never expect to breath the same air are worshipping and working together!
For example Matthew the tax collector and Simon the zealot where two of the twelve disciples of Jesus and in two major camps in their day; the tax collector working with Rome, further exploiting the Jews through heavy taxes and second, the zealot who would probably have taken violent action against the Romans and anyone who worked for them are now together with Jesus their common place.
"We don't need more superstars we just need more gospel centered church's"- The Beautiful eulogy.
We can never have enough Gospel centered churches; churches that hear all that the world says and does everything opposite. Churches that assemble week after week proclaiming Gods justice, our fall, His mercy and Justification, and our call to repentance.
All in all, in the end, God wrote the Book and we can't give or take anything away from that but remain faithful and dependent on him saying no to anything else that may hinder that dependency
"Preach 90 percent Law and 10 percent grace." John Wesley
"They will never accept grace until they tremble before a just and holy Law."
Charles Spurgeon
"The only way we can know we are sinning is by knowing His moral Law."
Jonathan Edwards
Martin Luther warns, "Satan, the god of all dissension, stirreth up daily newsects and last of all, which of all other I should never have forseen or once suspected, he hath raised up a sect such as teach....that men should not be terrified by the Law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ."
Now is a crucial time as ever to come back to the “basic” Gospel, the message that transforms all lives and unites all Christians. Everywhere we turn we are sidetracked from the truth, on the one side, the media is singing and proclaiming a highly spiritual life full of “love” and Coexistence, and on the other side universities are building schools based on “faith” that God does not exist. And we are caught in the middle in both extremes looking for meaning.
It's mind blowing how super spiritual occultism has influenced many mainstream singers; filling youth today with mindless singing and flashing occult signs, many having no idea what they are getting themselves into or opening themselves up to. Singers like Jay z having people in his concerts “worship” him calling him Jehovah, or how Beyonce talks about another spirit named Sasha that takes over when she is on the stage. Or how Kesha blatantly floods her videos with Satanism and occultism. It's just crazy!
Then the other extreme, the leading atheists, calling themselves the Four Horsemen, are fighting hard for the freedom from God and religion in there Billy Graham like crusades going from city to city teaching that there is no God. It was one known leading atheist I read about that lamented on the idea that so many people are just “going with the flow” and are not really taking the time to think for themselves. What a message we have in contrast to these extremes leading to emptyness.
Lastly we are hit with this statement from the archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Williams declaring England has now entered into a post Christian era.
Now I'm sure I'm the only one that is overwhelmed with the attacks on the church many even coming from within but I believe we should really choose our attacks wisely. Observing many Christians there is a tendency to start with defence and end up with some sort of offensive extremism.
With over 40,000 denominations there are over 40,000 arguments. I believe Mr. Verwer has the perfect word for this (messyology) wherever two or more Christians come together there will be a mess! God definitely works in and through messy situations but how many of these 40 plus thousand were really necessary?
One thing about the early church that was fascinating by many around was the fact that people that have absolutely nothing in common, people that you would never expect to breath the same air are worshipping and working together!
For example Matthew the tax collector and Simon the zealot where two of the twelve disciples of Jesus and in two major camps in their day; the tax collector working with Rome, further exploiting the Jews through heavy taxes and second, the zealot who would probably have taken violent action against the Romans and anyone who worked for them are now together with Jesus their common place.
"We don't need more superstars we just need more gospel centered church's"- The Beautiful eulogy.
We can never have enough Gospel centered churches; churches that hear all that the world says and does everything opposite. Churches that assemble week after week proclaiming Gods justice, our fall, His mercy and Justification, and our call to repentance.
All in all, in the end, God wrote the Book and we can't give or take anything away from that but remain faithful and dependent on him saying no to anything else that may hinder that dependency
