Deuteronomy 12:3-5 We are making the gospel filthy!
Why is it that the amount of people being saved in your church are few and far between, or out of those who do get 'saved' even fewer actually become strong followers of Christ? There is a significant problem in the church today, a lack of real growth. In the first century church thousands of people were being saved every day. Acts 2:47 "... and the Lord added to the church daily...".
In the West today this is unheard of. Some people say that is because the first century church were special and the radical explosion in the number of newly born again Christians was an act of God that was necessary to ensure that the church could survive those early days. How convenient that this opinion allows people to continue to live without accepting that they have a problem. Is this opinion not based on the fact that the results we see today are not in line with what the Bible says happened back then, so instead of admitting that we have a problem we prefer to put the reason down to something else. People are unwilling to accept that maybe the problem lies with them.
After all radical church growth today is not unheard of. In China the churches are overflowing and the number of Christians are multiplying daily, many in underground churches.
The Lord is as powerful today as He was during the first century, therefore why do we not see growth on the scale that was witnessed by the early church?
The reason the West is experiencing such a lull in the number of those being saved is because the gospel has been made filthy! How God must weep at the 'naffness' of modern day evangelism!
Before revival will truly come to the West the gospel that is being preached must be cleaned up. A major problem is that Christians are preaching the gospel through ungodly sources. Christians are using rap music, rock music, street slang, hip hop culture, spiky hair and worldly clothing, cool and contemporary methods to preach the gospel. If revival was ever to come to the West it would not come through these sources. These people are not doing anything but causing people to develop a weak and shallow faith that falters and does not take root. It causes false converts and the converts themselves don't even know it.
'I've heard all this before' you may say. 'You are old fashioned and not with the times' you say, but this is more of a problem than you might realise. You must open your eyes to it. I am not an old codger, I am barely out of my teenage years. This is nothing to do with 'getting with the times', it is more serious than that. The Devil is subtle. Be wise to him. Not only does it filthy the gospel but it also reveals a serious problem with the preachers themselves and their faith in the Lord. Taking these two points in turn:
1. How it makes filthy the gospel:
Read the following two passages:
Deuteronomy 7:5-6 "But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire. “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth."
The message of the gospel and all of these 'cool' contemporary methods of preaching are in direct contrast to each other. Using these methods will never produce fruit in our churches. Why can we not see this? The gospel is attractive to a sinner because it is different from the world. Why then do we think it necessary to wrap up the greatest message that can make us free from sin in things that represent bondage to sin themselves. By preaching the gospel using worldly things we are hiding God's message in sin. We are somehow taking a sheep and putting it in wolves clothing.
Now you may not think there is anything wrong with speaking as the kids on the streets speak when giving a sermon. But this brings me onto the second point, which is about these modern preachers and evangelists themselves.
2. The people who present the gospel using worldly things are insecure in their faith:
This is quite a claim. But it is true. The people today who are preaching the Word of God using cool and contemporary methods such as rap music or speaking slang like the kids on the street are quite simply hiding like cowards behind a wall of worldly culture because they are too scared to stand up against the world and present the gospel truth.
These preachers and evangelists have a vested interest in themselves. They want the world to accept them and they want God to accept them. They boast about the importance of being tough for Christ and standing up for God, but they are too scared to actually do it themselves and take a stand against the world and all it stands for. The message they preach and the methods they use are full of the world.
They are insecure in their faith in that they are unwilling to preach something that is completely against this world. They cannot trust fully in God therefore they compromise and bring the world into the gospel. They use the excuse that this can make it relevant to those who are lost. Of course implementing things of the world into the message will make it relevant to those who are in the world... this is because they have made the message worldly!
It is as though they are scared that people in the world will not accept the gospel so they change the message of the gospel to appeal to them. They are trying their up most to persuade the sinner to become a Christian, in a way that makes it sound like by becoming a Christian the sinner will be doing God a favour, somehow. It makes the gospel man-centred. It is idolatry. You cannot entice the sinner to become a Christian by appealing to the sin in his life. Such a conversion will never be true.
Read the passage below. Paul was not scared to speak up for something completely different to what the world believed. He was not scared to seperate himself from the world. He did not care how he appeared to the world. All he cared about was that the Lord was properly presented to them. Paul tells us that He didn't claim to be anything except a Christian. He didn't give anything except the story of Christ Jesus. He did not attempt to persuade people into making a decision for Christ, for He had the faith that the Gospel, without the frills was powerful enough to save the lost. Romans 1:16 tells us that the gospel is the power of God!
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Those Christians today who are using worldy things to portray the gospel are insecure in their faith in Christ and lack faith that the gospel has the power to save. By wrapping the gospel up in the world they are removing it's power.
If we want to save the lost then we must preach the Bible, God's way, not how the world wants it. God does not want us to use things of the world to entice people to Him. We must have faith in God that His Word is enough and put ourselves after the Lord. We must not care about what we look like and we must not wrap the holy Word of God up in unholy things.
Until this is done, the West will never reap much fruit. Our churches are and will continue to be filled with clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13).
We are currently residing in both camps; the world and God; sin and holiness. It does not work. Luke 9:62 "But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”"
-BACChristian
In the West today this is unheard of. Some people say that is because the first century church were special and the radical explosion in the number of newly born again Christians was an act of God that was necessary to ensure that the church could survive those early days. How convenient that this opinion allows people to continue to live without accepting that they have a problem. Is this opinion not based on the fact that the results we see today are not in line with what the Bible says happened back then, so instead of admitting that we have a problem we prefer to put the reason down to something else. People are unwilling to accept that maybe the problem lies with them.
After all radical church growth today is not unheard of. In China the churches are overflowing and the number of Christians are multiplying daily, many in underground churches.
The Lord is as powerful today as He was during the first century, therefore why do we not see growth on the scale that was witnessed by the early church?
The reason the West is experiencing such a lull in the number of those being saved is because the gospel has been made filthy! How God must weep at the 'naffness' of modern day evangelism!
Before revival will truly come to the West the gospel that is being preached must be cleaned up. A major problem is that Christians are preaching the gospel through ungodly sources. Christians are using rap music, rock music, street slang, hip hop culture, spiky hair and worldly clothing, cool and contemporary methods to preach the gospel. If revival was ever to come to the West it would not come through these sources. These people are not doing anything but causing people to develop a weak and shallow faith that falters and does not take root. It causes false converts and the converts themselves don't even know it.
'I've heard all this before' you may say. 'You are old fashioned and not with the times' you say, but this is more of a problem than you might realise. You must open your eyes to it. I am not an old codger, I am barely out of my teenage years. This is nothing to do with 'getting with the times', it is more serious than that. The Devil is subtle. Be wise to him. Not only does it filthy the gospel but it also reveals a serious problem with the preachers themselves and their faith in the Lord. Taking these two points in turn:
1. How it makes filthy the gospel:
Read the following two passages:
Deuteronomy 7:5-6 "But thus you shall deal with them: you shall destroy their altars, and break down their sacred pillars, and cut down their wooden images and burn their carved images with fire. “For you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth."
Deuteronomy 12:3-5 "And you shall destroy their altars, break their sacred pillars, and burn their wooden images with fire; you shall cut down the carved images of their gods and destroy their names from that place. You shall not worship the Lord your God with such things. But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go."
God hates the things of this world. They are a complete contrast to Him and completely against Him. God tells us as Christians to be Holy and be in the world but certainly not of the world and its practices!
In the underlined part in Deut. 12, God instructs us not to use these worldy things to worship God with. But, this is exactly what these modern evangelists are doing. They are taking cultures and practices that are completely ungodly and worldy and using them to try and worship God with; whether it is dressing as the world dresses, speaking as the world speaks, or using things that the world loves. God doesn't want it! These people's hearts may be well-intentioned. In Deut. 12 when the Israelites tried to use the Canaanite idols to worship God, they were after all trying to worship God, but their well-intentioned hearts didn't change the fact that God didn't want this kind of worship! For it is impossible to be made clean by something that is naturally unclean (Go and read Haggai 2:12-14). You cannot clean a window with a dirty cloth.
The message of the gospel conflicts with the method that it is given by. All power is taken out of the gospel because it is being made filthy before it has the chance to take root in the listener's heart. Mark 3:25 states, "If a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand." There is enmity between God and the world. As Christians we are told to set our mind on things above and leave the things of the world behind (Collossians 3). For we cannot serve two masters. As stated in Luke 9:62 "But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”"
The message of the gospel and all of these 'cool' contemporary methods of preaching are in direct contrast to each other. Using these methods will never produce fruit in our churches. Why can we not see this? The gospel is attractive to a sinner because it is different from the world. Why then do we think it necessary to wrap up the greatest message that can make us free from sin in things that represent bondage to sin themselves. By preaching the gospel using worldly things we are hiding God's message in sin. We are somehow taking a sheep and putting it in wolves clothing.
Now you may not think there is anything wrong with speaking as the kids on the streets speak when giving a sermon. But this brings me onto the second point, which is about these modern preachers and evangelists themselves.
2. The people who present the gospel using worldly things are insecure in their faith:
This is quite a claim. But it is true. The people today who are preaching the Word of God using cool and contemporary methods such as rap music or speaking slang like the kids on the street are quite simply hiding like cowards behind a wall of worldly culture because they are too scared to stand up against the world and present the gospel truth.
These preachers and evangelists have a vested interest in themselves. They want the world to accept them and they want God to accept them. They boast about the importance of being tough for Christ and standing up for God, but they are too scared to actually do it themselves and take a stand against the world and all it stands for. The message they preach and the methods they use are full of the world.
They are insecure in their faith in that they are unwilling to preach something that is completely against this world. They cannot trust fully in God therefore they compromise and bring the world into the gospel. They use the excuse that this can make it relevant to those who are lost. Of course implementing things of the world into the message will make it relevant to those who are in the world... this is because they have made the message worldly!
It is as though they are scared that people in the world will not accept the gospel so they change the message of the gospel to appeal to them. They are trying their up most to persuade the sinner to become a Christian, in a way that makes it sound like by becoming a Christian the sinner will be doing God a favour, somehow. It makes the gospel man-centred. It is idolatry. You cannot entice the sinner to become a Christian by appealing to the sin in his life. Such a conversion will never be true.
Read the passage below. Paul was not scared to speak up for something completely different to what the world believed. He was not scared to seperate himself from the world. He did not care how he appeared to the world. All he cared about was that the Lord was properly presented to them. Paul tells us that He didn't claim to be anything except a Christian. He didn't give anything except the story of Christ Jesus. He did not attempt to persuade people into making a decision for Christ, for He had the faith that the Gospel, without the frills was powerful enough to save the lost. Romans 1:16 tells us that the gospel is the power of God!
1 Corinthians 2:1-5 “And I, brethren, when I came to you, did not come with excellence of speech or of wisdom declaring to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”
Those Christians today who are using worldy things to portray the gospel are insecure in their faith in Christ and lack faith that the gospel has the power to save. By wrapping the gospel up in the world they are removing it's power.
If we want to save the lost then we must preach the Bible, God's way, not how the world wants it. God does not want us to use things of the world to entice people to Him. We must have faith in God that His Word is enough and put ourselves after the Lord. We must not care about what we look like and we must not wrap the holy Word of God up in unholy things.
Until this is done, the West will never reap much fruit. Our churches are and will continue to be filled with clanging cymbals (1 Corinthians 13).
We are currently residing in both camps; the world and God; sin and holiness. It does not work. Luke 9:62 "But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”"
-BACChristian
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