27 Wednesday Jun 2012
Posted in Ecclesiology, Preaching
≈ Comments Off on Finding a Biblical Church – Resolved 2012
This was preached at Resolved 2012 this week. Resolved is a conference for college students.
Steve Lawson talks about finding a good church. This is very important and helpful, not only for college students.
Unfortunately, embedding has since been disabled for this video. The link below still works.
27 Wednesday Jun 2012
Posted in Ecclesiology, Seeker Sensitivity
Tags
Calvinism Rant, Ed Young, entertaining churches, Fellowship church, Pelagianism, sinner's prayer
Ed Young Junior performs the “Baby Shark song” at Fellowship Church
Ed Young Junior of Fellowship Church made news this Sunday for his absurd rant against Calvinism that he gave as his “sermon” this week. His argument is a total strawman, and even then I think it got a few hits in on him before he took it down.
His rant lead to a lot of discussion about his theology he holds to and the effects of it.
Calvinists believe that “salvation is of the Lord.” That is, that God does all the work in regards to a person coming to repentance and faith for the forgiveness of their sins. God the Father sent His Son to die in our place, God elects who will be saved, and the Holy Spirit carries out the work of regenerating the heart of the sinner and giving them faith so they will repent and trust in Christ the Savior.
The Arminian view differs somewhat in that they believe that at the regeneration stage the sinner is restored to the point that they can choose whether to repent and trust in Christ. Thus, ultimately the sinner can still choose to defy God and not be saved.
The Arminian view still credits God with most of the work in salvation, but tries to maintain a semblance of man’s free will.
When the Arminian view isn’t taught correctly, or more commonly, isn’t really taught at all in churches that hold to it. People tend to start believing in something different, that is Pelagianism. This heretical view believes that man, by his own volition, can choose to repent and trust Christ on his own at any time, or rather can choose to obey God at any time.
In evangelism Pelagians and many Arminians tend to try to do the work of the Holy Spirit themselves, believing that it is their job to convince a man to repent and trust the Savior. Victory for them tends to end in convincing someone to repeat an unbiblical “sinner’s prayer” to “ask Jesus into their hearts” and then they are affirmed in their salvation by the pastor who lead them in this prayer. Where is the Holy Spirit in this? Hopefully he convicted their hearts and regenerated them that they may repent and believe. But, typically there is little concern for true contrition.
When this is combined with a misunderstanding of the purpose of the church service, the church service becomes a time of evangelism rather than a time of feeding and equipping the saints.
This leads to what is known as the “seeker driven church.” Ed Young’s church is a fine example of what a seeker driven church is. It is a church for the unchurched, that is, a church for the purpose of evangelism to the unconverted and not for the saints.
Unfortunately, unbelievers don’t tend to have the desire to sit under solid biblical preaching. You know, because they haven’t been regenerated and all that. They are by nature haters of God, so hearing Christ preached to them just doesn’t really fit with their desires.
Ed Young Junior uses his Ferrari as a sermon illustration
To combat this the seeker driven churches tend to stop preaching Christ, ignore the proper use of the Law (that is, to show our guilt and need for the Savior), and replace the Gospel with a system of works. To attract the unbelievers they try to be relevant and cool. For example, Ed Young believes that the way he dresses and the car he drives can influence who will come to his church. So, he wears a girdle and got Botox to make him more attractive, drove a Ferrari on the stage at his church to show how cool Jesus is, brought wild animals into the church as gimmicks for his sermons about the traits of these animals, does the “Baby Shark song” with his congregation as part of the sermon, and spends a night on the church roof with his wife to show people that they need to have more sex in their marriages. The typical seeker driven sermon allegorizes the biblical text to make it about the hearer, and gives practical life tips to make your life better.
The idea then is that if he can get people into the church with these gimmicks he can keep them there by entertaining them and get them to “follow Jesus” by being obedient. There is no need for the Holy Spirit in this work, because there is no Gospel, and no forgiveness of sins, just the command to obey a watered down version of the law and God will make your life better.
25 Monday Jun 2012
Posted in Funny
The classic 5 point TULIP.
You’ve probably heard of the 5 Points of Calvinism. Maybe you’ve even memorized them using the TULIP acronym, but now there is a new expression of those 5 points. This one should be a bit more appetizing and palatable to those who are offended by flowers or by the big theological words used in the typical TULIP.
Unfortunately, some people hate flowers, or are otherwise offended by the TULIP illustration. Okay, so, yes they are more likely offended by the Doctrines of Grace that the TULIP represents, but play along, please. In order to be a little less offensive, and a little more tasteful, things had to change.
Without any further adieu, I bring you the new acronym. From the folks who probably didn’t bring you TULIP, I bring you the new, more appetizing, more palatable, and slightly less kosher, acronym BACON.
Unfortunately, the new illustration, while piggybacking on the former TULIP illustration, lacks a little bit of the theological accuracy of TULIP, which wasn’t all that accurate to Calvinism anyway. But, it does seem to whet the appetite a bit more.
I didn’t come up with the new acronym, but I thought it was rather clever and somewhat amusing. I hope you got at least a chuckle out of it.
God Bless, and enjoy the BACON!
19 Tuesday Jun 2012
THIRTY-FIFTH EVENING LECTURE
September 18, 1885
Jesus says regarding Himself in John 14:6, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Peter confirms this statement in Acts 4:12 when he declares before the Jewish Sanhedrin, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” Paul adds his testimony by telling his Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2:2, “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” Truly, then, it is a great and awful sin not to draw any soul that has been entrusted to us for instruction to Jesus and not to tell that soul again and again what a treasure it has in the Lord Jesus, its Savior. To keep someone from believing in Christ is such an awful sin that words cannot express it. A preacher who restrains a soul from confidently laying hold of Christ, whether he does it consciously or unconsciously, purposely or from blindness, through malice or as the result of a perverted zeal for the salvation of souls, deprives that soul, as far as he is concerned, of everlasting life. Instead of being a shepherd to that soul, he becomes a ravening wolf to it. Instead of being its physician, he becomes its murderer. Instead of being an angel of God, he becomes a devil to that person. Alas, so many preachers have not realized until their dying day how many souls they have kept away from Christ by their unevangelical preaching and by their own fault have caused the souls entrusted to them to die of spiritual starvation. The result was that these unhappy preachers shortly before their death have had a severe soul battle to fight with self-accusations and despair, and not a few of them have departed this life without consolation, in anguish, misery, and despair.
The worst offenders in this respect are the so-called Rationalistic preachers, who with devilish audacity mount Christian pulpits and instead of preaching Christ, the Savior, to all sinners, recite their miserable moral precepts for a virtuous life and fill the ears of the people with their empty blather. To these Rationalistic mercenaries, “Whose God is their belly” as it says in Philippians 3:19, the terrible woe is addressed, even in our day, which the Lord denounced in Matthew 23:13 saying, “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” What terror shall seize these preachers who used to call themselves friends and adorers of Jesus Christ when they must appear before His judgement seat and hear Him address them in words of flaming anger, “And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.” Matthew 7:23
– C. F. W. Walther
In two paragraphs Walther explains why I left my church. If a pastor isn’t preaching the Gospel, but instead replaces it with life tips for living well, how to have a better sex life, how to make every day a Friday, etc., he is leading people to hell rather than leading them to Christ who is offering far better than any of these things. Not only is this pastor a distraction, but he is a hindrance, opposing people who would look to Christ.
18 Monday Jun 2012
Posted in Uncategorized
Tags
On what seems like a daily basis, I don’t get asked what podcasts I listen to. With that in mind, I thought I would share, so if someone were to ask me, I could point them to this post.
Wretched Radio – A radio show that broadcasts for two hours a day, Monday through Friday, that focuses on discernment, the Gospel, how to share the Gospel, reasons for sharing the Gospel, why we should share the Gospel, … I think you get the point. They also touch on some political issues, and largely on stupidity being done in the name of relevancy.
Fighting for the Faith – Chris Rosebrough broadcasts for a couple hours, or more, Monday through Friday. His focus is on the Gospel, teaching, and discernment. He has an almost daily sermon review hour (or more) where he dissects sermons to show what makes them tick, and often times, how they went off the deep end. Once a week you’ll get a guest lecture from an expert theologian or historian. Give him a few weeks, and you’ll learn a ton.
The Briefing – Dr. Albert Mohler, President of Southern Seminary, spends 15 minutes a day sharing news stories that are likely to be of importance to Christians, and gives his thoughts on our response to them and how they will effect us. Dr. Mohler has another podcast, Thinking In Public, where he discusses books with their authors, it is worth the listen.
White Horse Inn – What could be better than four seminary professors and pastors getting together to discuss theological issues of our day and cooperatively exegete Scripture? My only issue with these guys is that they only put out one episode per week.
Voddie Baucham – I started listening to his sermons years ago. He has a lot to say, and he says it well. He definitely has a focus on family issues, and more importantly, he doesn’t let presuppositions effect his exegesis of the text.
Matt Chandler – He has a way of yelling “you’re stupid” at you that just really comes across loving. He definitely isn’t shy about calling people to repentance and faith for the forgiveness of their sins. I think all Christian men would do well to be influenced by this man. (Women too, of course, but men in particular.)
Steve Lawson – The Firebrand, or at least, I assume that is his nickname. Obsessed with Spurgeon, in a good way, and preaches just like him. He faithfully exegetes Scripture, and has a passion for the Gospel. He also gave this speech at the Shepherd’s Conference a few years ago.
Ron Hodel and Jeremy Rhode – These Lutheran pastors from Faith Lutheran Church preach short and to the point sermons that are theologically deep and faithfully proclaim the Law and Gospel. They also tend to post lectures from nearby Concordia Seminary. (Their Vimeo may post those more often than the podcast.)
John MacArthur – It’s John MacArthur, the Protestant Pope! How could you go wrong? This man has preached through the entire New Testament in his career. He has written more commentaries than most of us have ever read. He knows his stuff.
No Compromise Radio – Mike Abendroth does an excellent job of teaching theology and tackling issues he sees in the Church and in the news. “Always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.”
Tullian Tchividjian – He preaches in hymns, it seems. Tullian’s focus recently has been fighting against legalism, showing the fullness of the Gospel. We all need the Gospel, and the Gospel is everything. (I’m also currently reading his book, “Jesus + Nothing = Everything.”)
The Dividing Line – Dr. James White, author, apologist, theologian, debater. He spends a lot of time dissecting arguments from debates, and arguing for the faith. You’ll learn a lot.
Renewing Your Mind – Dr. R.C. Sproul teaches theology and church history on this podcast. On occasion you’ll get one of his sermons as well. I just recently heard of a few of his Holy week sermons. I learned a lot, and I love Jesus more for it. I hope your experience is similar.
John Piper – Johnathon Edwards revisited? A firey preacher, he boldly proclaims the Gospel, and that our greatest desires are fulfilled in Jesus. He is very lively, very interesting, and very thoughtful.
Southern Seminary Chapel Lectures – Lectures from the chapel service of one of the top seminaries around. I don’t think there is much more to be said. Seminarians are hearing these hand picked preachers, it has to be worthwhile for us as well.
David Platt – He faithfully and boldly proclaims the Gospel, isn’t afraid to oppose the American dream, and has a focus on evangelism to the needy.
This isn’t all that I listen to, but the ones I listen to most anyway.