This post will end my series on what it means to be a Christian, and I want to finish this by coming back to the very simple. In all that I have covered in this series, in all the doctrines that are involved with it, and all that I didn’t cover, I can summarize ALL of it with two simple commands: trust and obey. One of the classic hymns is “Trust and Obey” (or it’s alternate first-line title: “When We Walk with the Lord”), and it would be good to listen to it before moving on in this post.
I can argue technical details with anyone, but it really boils down to this question: “Do you believe God or not?” I am not asking you to believe my interpretation. I am not asking you about your opinions on the matter. I am asking if you believe what God said or not. After a recent sermon, my pastor and I got to share about how simple the faith is. While having greater knowledge of the faith is great and awesome, it boils down to the simple childlike faith that isn’t childish.
Faith, in its simplest and least-theologically defined form is trust. When we look at all of Jesus’ rebukes of His disciples, He frequently says, “You of little faith,” or “Why did you doubt?” Jesus is asking: “Don’t you believe me? Don’t you trust me?” And how are we any different? How many times have we failed to trust God even on the simplest of things? We so readily trust Him for our salvation (so we claim), but we panic over our finances when the economy tanks or when a very minor virus passes through. It’s one thing to not be presumptuous and to presume God will do something we call for, but on things that God promised to take care of, why do we struggle with this? God says, “Trust me.” We have all sorts of theological books about the faithfulness of God. We have many biographies showcasing how God delivers time and time again for those who believe Him, yet someone our generation has believed that lies that “That was for yesteryear.” “That was for them.” “They were special.” “That was just a one-time thing.” What happened to believing God?
George Mueller is a good example of this. He saw the churches and ministers going around from church to church to raise money for what they were doing. He didn’t like these models because in reality, they were not trusting God for their finances. They were trusting men and other churches. They would say that they are trusting God to provide what they needed and to prompt their givers to give what they needed to, but was that really trusting God? I can’t say it is. In his prayer time, Mueller asked God for a current, physical, visible, tangible demonstration of what truly trusting God looked like. He started an orphanage, and he absolutely refused to tell a single person about the needs of the orphanage. Only the staff knew at best. He brought every need before the Lord. One time, they were out of food entirely, so they still set the table and prayed for God to provide. A milk truck broke down right at their gates and donated milk and cheese. Mueller not only raised 1000+ orphans but was able to sponsor numerous foreign missionaries including Hudson Taylor. It was said that $1-2 million passed through Mueller (in the 1800s) over the years. Mueller only saw himself as a channel for God’s provision. That is a prime example of what it means to trust God.
Another analogy given by my pastor is like sailing on a boat. The moment of conversion is getting on the boat and departing from the dock. The sanctification process is when we are sailing across the ocean. Glorification is when we arrive on the other side. But the whole time, it is Jesus piloting the boat, not us. If we trust Jesus, we won’t be complaining about where He guides us, where He leads us, which route He takes, etc. When things don’t make sense, we simply trust that God knows what He is doing.
But trust by itself is meaningless. Trust calls for action. Jesus didn’t settle with merely intellectual belief. In every call for belief and trust, He tied it together with obedience and action. Jesus said multiple times that those who are His are those who obey Him. In our culture where “experts” are treated like gods, if your doctor says something is wrong with you and to take such and such medicine, if you believe him you will take the medicine. If you have a financial advisor and he suggests certain things, if you believe that advisor you will do what he suggests. Why is it not the same thing with the very God whom we declare to be both Lord and Savior? It’s because we do not see Jesus as Lord. We do not recognize His position as the ruler and master of the universe. We only see Him as a good luck charm, a genie who is all-powerful to get us what we want but not sovereign to determine what happens and how. Jesus’ commands are not heavy. They are not brutal. They are only difficult when we kick against them. But if we trust Jesus and then submit to His commands, while there will be challenges and difficulties, life will be much easier to process and handle. Why? Because no matter how hard it gets, all our circumstances are dependent upon Christ, not ourselves.
There is a huge benefit to trusting in God. We aren’t responsible for how things turn out. All we have to worry about is trusting God and being obedient to the best of our abilities. We don’t have to worry about the outcome. You may say, “I have no confidence in myself to obey God.” Guess what? God has no confidence in you either. He has taken your inability and your stupidity into the equation long before asking you to join in with Him. It’s not even about you anyway. It’s about God and His agenda. We simply get the privilege of going along for the ride.
For me, it’s been a very fun ride. For about 20 years of my life, I have known virtually nothing about the future. All I have known is what I am doing now and where my general direction is going. I have never tried to plan out what I will be doing 5 or 10 years from now. I know better than to try. Why? Because God has always redirected my steps. I teach physics and advanced physics at a local high school, and I will stay there until God moves me on. That could be in two years, or it could be in 20 years; I don’t know. I just know that God has me where I am, and I am not to move until He gives me another assignment. This is what I know about trusting and obeying God. I have no regrets in doing so.
I do hope this blog post series has encouraged you, strengthened your faith, and helped you understand what comes with the faith. It is so much more than just a set of creeds; it is a total lifestyle. It’s a very simple faith, too – just trust and obey.
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The very term “Christian” has all but lost its meaning in our culture today. When someone says, “I am a Christian,” that can mean all sorts of things, most of which have nothing to do with Christianity. When we look at the polls about what people believe about certain core doctrines, we are currently seeing upwards of 60% of proclaimed Christians who no longer believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, just for example. That is not a negotiable. We have lost the authority of Scripture, and as a result, we have lost the ability to test what we are hearing with whether it belongs in the church or not.
We have many different denominations out there. Catholic, Baptist, Methodist, Lutheran, Assemblies of God, Pentecostal, etc. I wrote about these “divisions” in the church a few years back, and just a quick reminder: there are NOT 33,000 denominations out there, and the bulk of those denominations are separated by geography and formal governing bodies, not teachings. But there is something else we have going on today: we have “movements.” These are not new. Some are legitimate, and some are totally fake. The Great Awakening was one such movement. That is what brought the colonial U.S. to God and prepared them for the American Revolution. We have many movements going on in recent days. There was the “Jesus Movement” of the 1960s-70s. My former church was a product of those days. There was the “Laughing Revival” of Toronto, Canada. There was Billy Graham and his crusades.
There are also major teaching shifts as well. We have Old Earth Creation, Young Earth Creation, the Charismatic Movement/Word of Faith Movement, Critical Race Theory, Emergent Church/ Progressive Christianity, seeker-sensitive movement, movements launched from books like “The Prayer of Jabez,” “The Circle Maker,” or “The Genesis Flood,” and there is/was a Reformed Theology revival in recent days, too. These are BIG major teachings that aren’t just affecting a city or region, but millions upon millions of people. The Word of Faith movement has about 500 million followers, comparable to the Roman Catholic Church alone. These are HUGE movements. But which ones of them are Christian? Which of these should be associated with the faith? How can we know?
John MacArthur was one of the first major voices to speak out against the Charismatic Movement/Word of Faith Movement. His infamous Strange Fire conference was to expose those teachings as not fitting with true Christian teachings. I am not going to repeat his sermon here, however he gives some very good tests that we should use to test ANY movement or teaching. Some of what I will share here come from him and some I piggy-backed off of those. These tests are not whether they agree with creedal statements of the faith. Many false teachings and false churches put such “statements of faith” on their websites that are copy and pasted but don’t actually reflect what they actually teach. These tests go deeper than mere intellectual agreement. I have put various teachings to said tests, but I’m only going to address them in principle here, rather than go through each teaching and put them through the test.
• Does following this movement/teaching add any clarity to the text of Scripture, or does it make Scripture less clear? Does it seek to understand the original and intended meaning to Scripture, or does it seek to simply make room for ideas that are not explicitly taught in Scripture? Does the teaching/movement base itself on the clear exposition of Scripture in context, or does it rely on technicalities and “dictionary roulette” as I call it (looking for any definition of a term that can justify the position)?
• What does this teaching/movement bring to Christianity that helps believers in this day and age live out the Christian life? Or is it completely extraneous?
• How does the movement/teaching direct the worship of God? Is the worship of God taught as God wants to be worshipped, or is the worship however man wishes to worship (see my post on Worshipping God’s Way)?
• Does the teaching/movement point to and yield to holiness and the separation from the world and the world’s system and the world’s way of thinking? Does it stand out from the world? Or does it seek to incorporate teachings and ideas from the world and other pagan religious teachings?
• Is the teaching/movement God-centered, where it is about God and what He wants and about His glory? Or is it about man, what man wants, and what man gets out of it, where God is merely a means of getting man what man wants? Does God get the glory at the expense of man? Does our sacrifice cost us something? Or does man get to share the glory with God?
• Does the teaching/movement support and uphold the doctrine that Scripture is the first, final, and ultimate authority on every subject it touches on? Or does Scripture have to share its authority with another field of study (science, history, psychology, etc.)? Does it, not theoretically but practically, teach the sufficiency of Scripture?
• Are you able to find scoffers and mockers who utterly hate truth, God, and Scripture within the ranks of that movement? I’m not talking about mere tares among wheat here. Does the teaching/movement enable and allow such people to identify with such a movement without question?
• Is the teaching/movement only concerned about the opinion of God? Or is it concerned about how others will receive it? Whose opinion is the teaching/movement most concerned about?
• What makes such teachings/movements “Christian” teachings? Where, when, and how is it “Christian”? Does the movement/teaching come as an outflow of the foundations of the apostles and prophets of the Bible with Christ as the cornerstone? Or is the movement/teaching mere cosmetic and completely irrelevant to the foundation?
• Does the teaching/movement promote humility or arrogance? Does it require “high level education” to understand it? Or is it accessible to the simpleton with no academic inklings?
• How has church history taught on this subject throughout the ages? There is nothing new under the sun, so every movement/teaching we have today has been taught before. What has been the church’s position overall through the ages? How has the church faced those teachings?
• What is the history of the teaching/movement? What is its spiritual heritage? Where does it originate? What foundation does it have?
There are more tests we could come up with, but these should give us a good starting point. Because the church in general has so lost Biblical authority, I have to argue that the extreme majority of the movements we have today are not merely extra-Biblical but mostly anti-Biblical. While no movement truly has 100% correct doctrine (because only Jesus ever had that), a very big clue on the legitimacy of a movement is when the goal is to get back toward sound doctrine and to return to what has been taught throughout the ages. But take notice that the real tests of a Christian teaching or movement are not merely agreement to core doctrines as given by the creeds (and that is also a necessary test on top of all these), but to showcase overall submission to Christ and Scripture, as opposed to submission to the ideals of sinful men.
There are so many counterfeits today that it is getting harder and harder for the genuine to be visible. Many unbelievers are frustrated with us as a Church, especially in America, because we refuse to be united on the basics. God said the genuine would be separated from the counterfeit. How can you tell what is what? These tests will help clear the confusion and make things much easier to discern. Apply these tests to any teaching, any movement, and any ministry. Yes, even apply these tests to Worldview Warriors and me; if I am not passing these tests, I need to know that so that I may repent and adjust accordingly.
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“Deconstruction” is an increasingly seen observation among the Christian community. It is when someone who once believed in the faith suddenly has their faith shattered and eventually departs the faith. This is one of the reasons why I felt compelled to open 2022 with this series on what being a Christian means and what it entails. The list of popular musicians, authors, and others leaving the faith is ever growing. It has grieved many pastors. Names whom they loved and trusted, producing works they used, and those whom no one would think would depart the faith are suddenly leaving the faith. The youth are leaving the church in an extreme mass exodus. The stats for the last ten years have indicated 90% +/- of youth raised in the church are not coming back as adults. This is alarming, and churches are looking at every possible answer they can to keep the youth in the church, except for addressing their most basic need: proclamation of the true Gospel and equipping them to handle the objections they face. Most youth get no more than mere “Bible stories” essentially taught as myths and fables with no grounding for reality. As a result, most youth are leaving the church because the church has not offered them anything real or tangible for dealing with life.
I want this blog post to stand as a warning so we can see the signs of what happens when a supposed Christian begins to deconstruct in their faith. One of the motivations for writing this article was a post I saw on Facebook of an ex-Young Earth Creationist citing her reasons why she left the faith. Her reasons were 1) proper science education, 2) evidence, and 3) YEC “liars.” I could spend a post on each of these to show it is not YEC who lied to her but pagan priests of Evolution pretending to be scientists. But a comment to this post really caught my attention. A responder said he was raised in the church that taught YEC, and basically it was what his mother taught him. I hear this line of thinking often, and I think it’s part of the severe problem we are experiencing with “church raised” kids.
It is really interesting how many atheists and current “Progressive Christians” are “ex-Christians.” You know what I don’t see? I don’t see these people being ex-Muslim or ex-Hindu or ex-Buddhist. Most of these people were raised in the church and then left it. So, what’s going on? There is another interesting detail that I have noticed in all these ex-Christian testimonies: the extreme majority of them virtually know very little about the faith they left. If you listen to them talk about their problems with the Bible, I get the impression they have never opened up a Bible and got their information from other unbelievers who also have never opened up a Bible. Yet they boast that they were “just like us.” When I talk with ex-atheists, ex-evolutionists, ex-Muslims, ex-Buddhists, ex-New Agers, etc., they know exactly what it was they used to believe. But ex-Christians (and ex-YEC believers) tend to hardly know a thing about what they left. They know the Sunday school stories they heard growing up and that’s about it.
I will blame two people for this. First, I blame the individual who left the faith because they did not do their homework and investigate before things came crashing down. The individual is still responsible for what he believes and what he rejects. But even more so than this, secondly I blame the pastor, the Sunday School teacher, the youth pastor, and all those church leaders who have not only enabled but aided in causing doubt and confusion and refusing to give answers, especially if they are “divisive.”
As origins is often at the top for reasons why people depart the faith, it is absolutely amazing to me how few pastors and church leaders refuse to do anything about this issue because they say it’s too divisive. If 90% of churches, denominations, and seminaries are teaching Old Earth models, and 90% of the youth are leaving the church citing origins as the prime reason for leaving, then OEC teachers and promoters get the blame. Instead, they try to blame us Young Earthers for believing the Bible and giving the answers that they won’t. Many people have left the faith because their church leaders would not or could not give answers or didn’t even believe what they proclaimed to believe. And it gets worse. When a former musician and friend of our president Jason DeZurik left the faith and decided to divorce and abandon his wife and kids to go live in a homosexual lifestyle, the two pastors who counseled him encouraged him to commit this grievous adulterous act. I’m not being judgmental here, but that’s the kind of thing Jesus said would make millstones around your neck be the merciful way to deal with the judgment.
In the desperate attempt to get people into the church via pragmatic and crowd-pleasing ways, pastors and church leaders abandoned their callings. When people found such antics to be devoid of anything real, they left the church. Good luck bringing them back; when they were lied to once by professing Christians, they aren’t going to easily hear another one. The most these people are hearing about Christianity are the doctrines of the faith found in the creeds, but their faith has no depth nor weight beyond that. Anyone can say, “I believe in the Virgin Birth,” and that is as far as that statement goes. We must have sound and correct theology; however, this faith calls for it to be much more than just intellectual knowledge about statements of doctrine. It requires those doctrines to guide and direct our lives.
Those who have left the faith show evidence it never was their personal faith. It may have been their parents’ faith, it may have been their culture, or they may have been given false promises regarding the teaching that suggests that Jesus will give everyone love, joy, and happiness here in this life with no suffering at all. They weren’t told the truth about what it means or what being a Christian truly entails. While some people’s lives did get better after coming to Christ by abandoning the sin that brought them so low, it has made others’ lives much more miserable. Why? Before Christ, they were comfortable in their life of sin; Satan left them alone, and sin’s bite hadn’t hit yet. After Christ, suddenly they became targets for the enemy. I will simply say that as long as the church continues to give these half-hearted, half-truth, pampered and watered-down messages, it will continue to produce false converts day in and day out. If we instead preach the full truth from the full counsel of Scripture, we will lose the false converts right away, but the ones who remain will be bolder, stronger, and the church will truly be more vibrant. We need to get back to preaching the true Gospel and ALL that comes with it.
I will do two more posts with this series. I’ll address how to test a teaching and movement, and then I’ll conclude this series with the only commands that Jesus truly asks of us: to trust Him and obey Him.
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We live in a day and age and culture where it is easier to be a fake Christian than it is to be a genuine Christian. Those days are ending. Growing up, one of my favorite Christian musical artists was David Meece. In one of his albums, he takes a moment to step aside and tell a story of his childhood. He and his older brother had one of those southern mothers who you did not dare cross if you wanted to live to adulthood. In his home, only classic music was allowed – no rock, rap, or even contemporary Gospel music, only classic. His other brother sneaked a Beatles record into the house, but they only played it when their mom was out. Fortunately for them, they always knew when she was out because her car has such a bad muffler that you could hear her going and coming miles away. So, when she was leaving, they’d play their classic music on the piano, but the moment she was out of range, they blasted the Beatles. And when they heard her coming back, it was back to classic. David then went on to talk about how so many people live one life when around certain people, and then with another crowd they become someone else. He even went as far as calling it Schizophrenic Christianity. He concludes by saying that people who do this could fool every person around them or even themselves, but they aren’t fooling God.
Jesus had a scathing report to a church who lived this way. Of all the seven churches Jesus wrote to in Revelation 2-3, the one to Laodicea was the most scathing. There was nothing Jesus found pleasing in that church. There were two churches who had no sin marked against them, and four of the others had positive reports and one particular sin that was soon to break them. Laodicea didn’t have a single positive aspect they were doing right. They were lukewarm. Even the good they were doing was tainted by sin. They weren’t hot for Christ, and they weren’t cold against Him either.
I see this play out heavily in the origins debate, but I have seen this issue all over the academic world. In the documentary “Patterns of Evidence: Exodus” (the other three Patterns of Evidence films are good, but this was the best and this issue stands out here the most), Tim Mahoney interviews numerous scholars about evidence for the Exodus and surrounding events. Two scholars stood out to me in regard to this topic, and both were Jewish by religion and ethnicity. They celebrated Passover every year as though it were real, but then academically, they said they cannot accept that the Passover and the Exodus actually happened in history. How could they say that? The answer is simple: they have compartmentalized their academia and their religion to the point where they see no connection; as a result, they cannot see when there is a conflict. For these guys, it was their religion and their history that were separated. If the history is not accurate, then the ritual it is based on is meaningless. People don’t see it.
For origins, in Old Earth Creation ideals, there is a separation of science and theology to the point where when I bring up how the science they support and the theology they proclaim are conflicting, they don’t know what to do. They adamantly believe both are possible, yet they are in direct contradiction. Some Old Earth Creationists will admit that it was Adam’s sin who brings death to all men according to Romans 5:12. So I bring up the dating methods that put human fossils and human DNA long before Adam ever could have existed in their model, and I have received all sorts of dancing and ignoring, questioning everything from the definition of a human and life/death. But not once have they let their theology force them to question a dating method that violates their doctrine. And they expect us to believe that they believe in Adam or the doctrine of original sin, the very reason that Jesus had to come to begin with, when they do that.
What you believe is not found in your creed; it’s found by what you stand on, what you don’t let be questioned, and what you will die for. That’s what you believe. Anyone can cite a creed, but it has no weight until it costs you something. Last week I wrote about what it costs to be a Christian. The Christian faith will require you to go against mainstream academia, both historically and scientifically because both industries have bene hijacked by secularists and re-written to intentionally defy the Bible. You cannot walk two opposing sides with any sort of consistency.
What we are seeing here is the desire to serve two masters. You cannot serve both Christ and the experts of the world. You will not please both Christ and the world’s “experts” at the same time. Paul warned Timothy against such experts, against any teacher who does not adhere to sound doctrines, especially the words of Jesus, because they do not know ANYTHING and teach that living for self is justifiable for the Christian. Paul was the most learned man there was, and he had no respect for any academic scholar or institution that taught anything apart from the knowledge of Christ. I am a physics teacher. I teach science for a living. There have been a lot of great benefits we have from understanding physics. All our technology, transportation, weapons, etc. are a result of studying physics and the sciences. But if that knowledge is not rooted in God’s word and reveals God, it is useless knowledge. There is so much wrong with the scientific community these days that 50%+ of science papers today are totally false. Why? Because the scientific community as a whole has rejected God and are trying to come up with something to explain everything without Him. It’s foolishness and they don’t know God, nor reality, nor anything that has any validity or truth. I’m not saying it; Paul did, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. Take it up with Him.
What happened to being consistent? Christianity is not a religious lifestyle that applies only on Sundays. It is a lifestyle that is to guide and direct every aspect of our lives: family, job, science, history, religion, theology, entertainment, sports, reading, everything. Does this faith we claim influence any of these areas of our lives, or just the theological side of things? Is Jesus truly the Lord of our life where we submit to His rule, or is Jesus just an accessory we wear? Is He just a toy we put on a shelf to play with when we want to and put Him back on the shelf when we want to focus on other things? Jesus is not a toy, not a casual acquaintance, but the Lord of all glory.
Jesus will work with those who long for Him and desire Him but constantly fail, but He will not tolerate those who say “great things” about Him and then completely disregard Him in other areas of their lives. The lukewarm person, the schizophrenic Christian, is going to end up in the same place as the total unbeliever. Why? Because they refuse to commit and go the distance. When the ship goes sailing, the person who has one foot on the boat and one foot on the dock will only get wet and end up in the same place as those who never tried to get on the boat. In this country, the ship for Christianity has raised the sails. It’s about to depart. The day of the casual Christian, the schizophrenic Christian, is ending, because soon no one will want to be one because we’ll be marked as enemies of the state. You can’t please both. As far as I’m concerned, those who try to please both will be marked as one with the world. I’ll leave their status to God, but for the sake of the health of the church, those who live double lives will only bring reproach to the church. There are times where removal is necessary; Paul did it. Let us deal with our hypocrisy and our double mindedness before God deals with it by publicly exposing it.
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Christianity comes with a cost. This is a message that so few hear today. Let me make this crystal clear: this message will drive many away from the faith. I, personally, would rather chase someone away from the faith, having them knowing what it comes with, than welcome them into a faith that is superfluous and based on false pretexts. The Western church today has nearly all but lost the point or purpose of what it means to be a Christian because we have embraced pragmatic methods instead of God’s way of doing things. Instead of proclaiming God’s message as God gave it, with the focus being on worshiping God and holiness, they focused on “getting people into the church.” So as a result, the premise became to make people as comfortable as possible and don’t dare speak against their sins, and especially don’t make it personal. In all this, a key aspect of Christianity that is all but missing is that to claim the name of Christ and to live accordingly comes with a cost, and that cost is steep.
“But… I thought the gift of God was free.” “Isn’t our salvation by grace, not works?” “Does that cost mean I have to earn my salvation?” These are valid objections, but if we are going to be followers of Jesus, let’s let Jesus Himself describe what it means to be His followers.
To be a Christian, Jesus is to be your very life and source for sustenance. This is the whole message of John 6. Jesus fed the 5000, He crossed the lake, and the crowds followed Him, expecting more food. Jesus didn’t give them another bite and instead declared that to follow Him, you need to eat His flesh and drink His blood. There is a big debate as to whether Jesus was talking literal cannibalism or not, but we need to understand the culture. Drinking blood was completely taboo, and one reason is because Leviticus declares that the life is in the blood. Jesus is saying that the only true life is found in His blood, which would be shed at the crucifixion and would be something we do on a regular basis at the Lord’s Supper. The point I’ll emphasize here is that to be a Christian, Jesus Himself must be our sustenance, not even physical food or water. Jesus Himself said this. Do we believe Him?
To be a Christian means to give up your previous life. Jesus even said that our previous life was to be given a criminal’s death and we are to give it up as such: “Take up your cross daily and follow me.” Paul followed suit when he said, “I am crucified with Christ. Not I but Christ who lives within me.” Crucifixion was a Roman invention for the execution of the worst of criminals. It was so bad that they said they would not carry it out on Roman citizens. This is why Paul never was crucified but rather beheaded; Paul was a Roman citizen by birth.
This teaching about giving up your life is a key one that I find lost today, and don’t think I’m being all pious here. This is something every believer struggles with. A man I admire is Paul Washer, and he admitted that he regularly lives for self and not for the purposes and glory of Christ. It’s not something to be proud of. I do not condemn those who know this truth and so weakly attempt to carry it out, but I am challenging those who make excuses for their discrepancy and use the grace of God as a cover for it. Jesus did indeed die for these shortcomings because we’ll never make it on our own. But He died so we would no longer make that our lifestyle. Jesus asked, “Why do you call me Lord if you do not do as I say?” If Jesus is not acting as Lord over your life, then He is not your Savior either. Or rather, if you are not submitted to Jesus being Lord over your life (because He is Lord whether we acknowledge it or not), then why should He acknowledge you when you call upon His name to get into heaven?
What we have lost is a result of being “church raised.” I am a product of being raised in the church, so I can speak of the dangers involved in being church raised. It is so easy to be a false convert when being raised in the church. There are great blessings to being church raised, but there are grave dangers to it, too. In the 1st century, there were no people raised in the church. When you became a Christian, your life changed. You ceased your former lifestyles, running with the old crowds, going to the old businesses, etc. It was such a thing in Ephesus that the business owners who made their lifestyle on the idolatry of the city were running out of customers and their income went to nothing. That’s why they instigated the riot against Paul. It came with a cost to be a Christian because you were then seen as the troublemaker. Guess what? In every generation since Christ, the ones who preached the true Gospel and where the Gospel transformed society were all seen as troublemakers because they disrupted the sinful status quo. It came with a cost – it would cost them jobs, family members would turn against them, mobs would drive them out of the city if not “lynch” them as they did Paul at Lystra by stoning him, and the list goes on.
But we don’t live in a culture where true persecution happens and people are literally losing their lives for their faith yet. Even in this setting, to be a true Christian and to preach a true message comes with a cost. Ray Comfort is a very zealous evangelist, and he has made some grave blunders in his ministry career which resulted in him becoming known as the Banana Man. He is among the most ridiculed evangelists by the atheist community, and he greatly struggled with it. Yet as a result of that high level of stigma, he got to witness to atheists and high-level professors like Lawrence Krauss and Penn Jillette, just so they could have the privilege of having to talk with the very man they’ve ridiculed for so long. Comfort has gotten to witness to so many people who wouldn’t hear the Gospel from anyone, because he paid the price of his reputation among unbelievers and even other believers.
Paul Washer and Leonard Ravenhill have paid the price for preaching unpopular messages. Ravenhill was often scathing in his sermons, and Washer became known as American’s “blast the church” pastor after his Shocking Youth Message. Both often only got to preach one time at places because the church would not want them back. Many churches want these celebrity preachers to come support them, and they would not give a blessing message but rather a lashing message that the church needed.
Finally for this post, David Wilkerson had to pay the price, too. He had a burden for the gangs of New York City after seeing an article about seven gang members severely wounding a disabled teen. In his desire to help these criminals, he approached the judge during the trial and the media branded him as a Bible-thumping preacher. He was given a black eye for that, but when the street kids recognized him, they thought he was cool, because they both had the police and “proper citizens” against them. Before Wilkerson could gain the respect of the gangs, he had to be viewed as someone who was not prim and proper by media and police, and he did so without sinning himself. Revival took place among the gangs as a result. Wilkerson paid the price so he could fulfill God’s calling on his life.
Christianity comes with a cost. Your life will not be as it was. Jesus is not an accessory that you add to your life to “complete” it. Christianity is not a set of doctrines that you believe, and you can still go about thinking and living as you would if you didn’t have Christ. If you are going to follow Christ, your life is no longer your own, and you no longer have the freedom to simply do what you want to do. You are freed from sin and your rebellion against God, but you are freed also to servitude to Christ. True conversion simply exchanges one master (the indulgence of self) for another Master (the perfect God-man Christ Jesus).
If your faith doesn’t cost you anything, is it real? A faith that costs nothing is worth nothing. We can tell how real your faith is when the cost comes, and it will come. Your faith will be proved by whether you stand by it no matter the cost, or whether you cave to the pressure to give it up. Most do the latter; few do the former. Jesus warned us of the types of costs we will pay to be a believer. Very few of us have any clue what that means until it happens. Have you counted the cost?
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Throughout church history, for the most part it was clear in society that when trouble came, the church was where you would find the answers for hope. When 9/11/2001 hit, the nation’s response was to get to church and to cry for help. But that repentance was short lived. The organized, visible church has been made nearly completely irrelevant to the culture of our nation today. There are two main reasons for this that I can think of. 1) The American church has, as a whole, so embraced teaching that is comfortable and seeking prosperity that whether it comes in the form of Prosperity Gospel or “Christian Nationalism,” the purpose of faith is not seeking what God wants but seeking what makes life easier. 2) The apologists of our faith have become so academic and intellectual that we chase away those who need truth and light because they were consumed by the lies of the world. I’ll be up front that I am just as guilty on these issues as anyone else, especially on the 2nd problem. So, I’m pointing to myself here too.
I ended last year on a 20-post series on apologetics and how/why we should be defending the faith. We absolutely must defend the faith. It’s a command, not a suggestion. We must bring the light to a world that knows nothing but darkness. In the Bible, light is a symbol of truth. It even describes God. As physical light enables us to see around us and what is going on, it is the truth that enables us to understand the times, the circumstances, and the arguments that we face. And much to the dismay of many, truth is exclusive. In a world that hates absolute truth, you will not make many friends by proclaiming the unadulterated truth.
Jesus said that we are the light of the world. Paul said the Church’s role is to be a pillar of truth. We are to stand out, be unique, and give answers to a world lost in darkness. Yes, we have answers, and we need not be ashamed of them. Yet, the intellectual world has given us post-modernism that denies any truth and any single source from having the final say about reality. Many have so embraced post-modernism that to break free of it and rebuke it will turn many who claim to be Christians against you. It’s like in Hezekiah’s day or Jeremiah’s day when Hezekiah and Josiah cleaned out all the idols from the land. The people were so entrenched in idolatry, thinking they were worshiping God that they thought Hezekiah went apostate. They ultimately rejected Jeremiah’s advice proudly declaring they would go back to worshiping their idols because when they worshiped their idols, they thought they had success. Yet the judgment that came upon them was due to their idolatry, not due to their abandoning their idols.
In 2018, my last of six times at the Colorado Christian Writers Conference, Tim Shoemaker made the closing keynote titled “Shooting Higher.” The context was for Christian writers to shoot higher with their writing. Go for the best standards, go proclaim the truth, and don’t hold back. He made this very quotable remark: “Where do we get the idea that we can reach darkness with more darkness?” How is it possible that we, who have the light, have been duped into thinking that in order to reach the world, we have to look like the world, sound like the world, and act like the world? This is how seeker-sensitive churches operate. In order to attract those in the world, we offer what the world wants, and the world does not want to hear sin-piercing, soul-penetrating, soul-saving truth of the gospel. Instead, they want to hear what makes them feel good and makes them acceptable in their sin. As a result, churches who do this cease being a church and become nothing more than a Sunday Social Club for the heathen. And that’s putting it nicely. This argument is what I have heard MANY Old Earth Creationists use, too. One even said, “You won’t reach the scientific community with these arguments.” My response was that if you are seeking their approval, you aren’t getting God’s approval. Since when did the church ever have to cater to the opinions of the lost?
We are to be light, and darkness hates light. We have to understand this. If we are going to present the unadulterated truth, those who are of the world will hate us. They will strive to silence us, mock us, or even kill us. Why? Because our message convicts them of their sin and reminds them of the judgment that is due to them unless they repent. But how can people be saved unless they see the light? Christianity is not meant to be a place where you learn your doctrines and your catechisms and then just sit comfortably in the pews. The church is meant to arm and equip the saints for going out there and being the light to people who have no light otherwise. At my job as a public school teacher, I may be the only Christian influence the students get. I’m not “allowed” to share my faith as part of my lectures in the classroom, and while it is an extreme battle to get kids to do it, I seek to teach my kids how to think independently of what they are being fed. I am also working on getting involved with Fellowship of Christian Athletes now that we are back on campus.
The underground church understands what it means to be the light, but they also know what happens when they do so. Light is not just visible to those who want to be able to see and to get answers.; it’s also visible to those who hate the light and don’t want anyone else to receive it either. There is a cost to being a Christian and especially to being a light in this world. I’ll save that in more detail for my next post, but today’s youth raised in church seems to think that all you need is to wear a Christian T-shirt or wear a cross on a necklace and that’s all you need to showcase your faith. You can certainly use those as witnessing tools, but if you are going to be the light in this world, expect to be ostracized and singled out. You will be the “weird one.” But those who count the cost, and have paid the cost, have reaped countless benefits and rewards.
Do you want to be the light of the world? You should, but you need to know what it comes with. Jesus was up front about what it meant to be His follower. Most walked away, unwilling to pay the price to get there. There is a cost to being a Christian. We’ll see what that is next week.
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One of the great tragedies of our modern American Christian culture is we have totally lost the sight of God in regard to worship. We no longer do things the way God wants them to be done but rather how we’d prefer to have them. In a way, we have turned our Sunday services into something little different than the pagan rituals of the Ancient Near East, where we seek to “appease a god” with our works, our singing, and our words (messages). We seek church congregations that offer what we are looking for and for what will satisfy our wishes and desires. Then if the church no longer provides that, we leave and move on.
I was raised in a home that taught loyalty. When you went to a church or a job or a ministry, you stuck with it until it was clear you were to move on. I have been part of 4 churches in my life now and don’t even know the beginning of how to go about church hunting. I’ve been at my current church for about a year now, and I love it. We are called “The Old Paths Christian Church.” This church, after seeing all the modernized attempts to be “seeker-friendly,” decided to go back to the old ways of doing things and get back to being what God wants us to do.
Now, God is not so specific that you have to do absolutely everything the exact same way in a legalistic manner no matter the time, culture, or language, but at the same time He does have guidelines on what genuine faith, genuine worship, and genuine religion are to look like. When Jesus spoke with the woman at the well, she complained that everyone had to go to Jerusalem to worship whereas she, as a Samaritan, had been raised that you could worship God on the mountains (the high places where the golden calves of Jeroboam were placed). Jesus said the day would come where both Jew and Samaritan could worship in spirit and truth. The problem today is that we have taken the first part of this teaching (worshiping in spirit) but we often ignore the truth part.
When I was on the mission field, we had a team from Houston, TX that was from a very legalistic church. Every boy wore a tie, and every girl wore a dress, regardless of the circumstance. As a staff, we debated if we would do the same just so we would not offend them. They were offended by the training videos we used because they had a guitar for background music. They wanted only organs for music. We actually thought they would not come, but they did. When they came out of that week, they learned that it was possible to worship God in a different way than they were used to and even if it wasn’t their preference, that it was okay to not do things exactly that way. It turned out, many from that team soon left that church.
Legalism is definitely not the way to go regarding living the Christian life, but neither is its equal and opposite twin: antinomianism. While legalism would say, “You have to absolutely everything exactly my way,” antinomianism would say, “You can do whatever you want to do.” Both extremes are very dangerous. When a man began doing ministry using Jesus’ name, the disciples wanted him to stop because he wasn’t “one of them.” Jesus said, “This guy is acting in faith and believes Me. Don’t stop him. He’s on our side.” The disciples were an example of legalism. We often think of the Pharisees for their legalistic approach, however Jesus rarely chided them for legalism. Rather, He chided them for hypocrisy. In their attempt to over-control things so people would not sin, they themselves frequently did not do the very things they preached.
But the Bible lists the problems with antinomianism even more than it does legalism. We have to worship God the way God wants to be worshiped, and we cannot do things our own way and think God will approve of them. The first time man sought to do his own thing was in the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve made their own clothes, covering themselves with fig leaves. Not long after, after God showed them the correct way for a sinful person to worship, their sons made their first sacrifices. Abel brough the best of his flock, a blood sacrifice, and Cain brought fruit of his own labor. It wasn’t merely the heart attitude that made God reject Cain but also the type of sacrifice. It wasn’t what God wanted and how God wanted it. God wasn’t being picky; He was making a point. You can’t worship God just however you want.
Nadab and Abihu, the eldest sons of Moses’ brother Aaron, had been commissioned as priests. As the first born, Nadab was in line to take Aaron’s place as High Priest. They did not follow God’s instructions and offered strange fire before the Lord. God burned them to death and did not allow Aaron to even mourn for them.
King Saul saw the worship of God just as the pagans around him did – a means of appeasing the gods, which is why he felt he could justify offering the sacrifice when Samuel tarried. This cost him his throne. David, the man who sought after the things of God and the heart of God, knew God’s heart regarding sacrifice and refused to offer that which cost him nothing. However, when bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, in his excitement, David did not obey the Lord in how the Ark was to be carried. He put it on a cart rather than on the shoulders of Levites, and when the oxen stumbled and the cart was about to tip over, Uzzah, in his zeal to protect the Ark, touched it and God smote him on the spot.
If you think this is just for Old Testament times, read the book of Acts. Ananias and Sapphira thought they could worship God by joining in the giving to the pot by selling their own property. But they kept some of it and declared they gave everything. They lied to God and to the church, and God smote them for it. Simon the sorcerer saw what God was doing and asked for the Holy Spirit’s baptism so he could have this power, too. Peter pronounced a curse on him, too, but Simon at least somewhat repented of that.
Today, worship is often no longer worship as God defined it. The singing is more of a concert than it is actual worship. The sermon is not about proclaiming God’s word but rather about giving a motivational speech. And the church is seeking to draw people in instead of seeking the worship of God. If we believe Christ is the head of the church, then He should operate as the head of the church, meaning Jesus should dictate what our worship should look like. It’s not about appeasing what each of us wants; our opinions have no weight here whatsoever. But when was the last time that your church actually sought the will and mind of Christ in how the congregation is to worship God? Or did they rather seek what the congregation wanted or what church leaders wanted?
Church is to be done God’s way and not based on our preferences. My church does its singing differently than what I am used to and even different from my general preferences in terms of style. If I had my way, I’d prefer the modern contemporary style, but fit with better doctrine. But my former church and current church don’t do that. And guess what? That’s fine. Because they aren’t worshiping me in either case.
But where is God in our worship? What role does He play? How have we consulted Him in what He wants? Few churches are asking these questions. My current church has, and they are going after what they believe should be the best for their congregation. Is it perfect? Of course not. But at least we are pointing the right direction. Worship is to be done God’s way. He has told us how He prefers to be worshipped, and we need to be obedient to those principles.
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Growing up, one of my favorite songs was by Michael W. Smith titled “Cross of Gold.” I mostly enjoyed the beat then. When I heard it again now as an adult, I see the song in a totally new light, and I see how important that message is today. The gist of the song is addressing the person who wears a cross on a necklace and is asked why they are wearing it. Is it just a symbol? A piece of jewelry? A fashion thing? A charm? Or is there something much more to it?
I have asked multiple times: “Why do we call ourselves Christians?” The ones who are truly born again and regenerated with the new nature know why. Those who are fakers will not be able to answer that question correctly. Why do we wear Christian T-shirts? Why do we have a cross as a piece of jewelry? Why do we even carry that Bible around? American Christians have turned our symbolism into superstition, and we aren’t the only ones.
What do I mean by turning the very symbols of our faith into superstitious items? It’s not anything new. We see a clear example of this in the history of Israel. Israel sinned in the wilderness and God sent fiery serpents to kill people. He then had Moses forge a bronze serpent and hang it up on a pole so that anyone who looked upon it would be healed and saved. This would be a picture or an image of Jesus on the cross. Several hundred years later, king Hezekiah began to do some reforms and he sought to clean out the nation from all its idols (and they were many). One of the idols he had to destroy was this very same bronze serpent. Why? Because Israel had turned it into an idol, a superstitious symbol and image that they turned to for hope and help and healing instead of God.
When God showed Himself at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, He came in thunder and smoke and fire, but He did not take any physical form. Why? In Deuteronomy 4, He said He would not take any physical form because Israel would take that form and create an idol out of it, turning to the idol instead of Him. God knows the tendencies of mankind.
Israel didn’t just fail in this regard. They turned even the Law into religious superstition. They turned the sacrificial system into a superstition. The purpose of the sacrificial system was to constantly remind Israel of the severity of their sin and to look forward to the eventual Savior who would do it once for all. Yet, it did not take long for the sacrifices to be nothing more than ritualistic rites and essentially superstitious means of getting God’s favor. That was king Saul’s excuse for disobeying God twice. He offered a sacrifice, something only a priest/prophet could do, not the king. Then he used sacrifice as a cop-out for being caught in disobedience. Saul never saw the weight of the system. David, on the other hand, did. When he sinned by taking the census, he went to make his sacrifice and he made sure it cost him something. He understood the mercy of God, but he also took the wrath and high standards of God seriously.
Today, we fall into the same traps. We turn to physical images to give us hope and encouragement. We go to church as routine and as religious rite, but how often do we actually go to church to meet God with other believers? Why are we even going to church to begin with? The majority of Christians today no longer believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven, and they believe that you can get to heaven by doing good deeds (recent polls put these figures at 60+%). They think that by going to church, they will please God and He will let them in to heaven. It’s the same religious superstition of the Ancient Near East. They sought to win the gods’ favor by sacrifices, prayers, praises, and good deeds. Ultimately, their idea is to use their good deeds to strongarm the gods into granting their favor. Today, it’s no different. We have this thing called “The Law of Attraction,” which essentially is a way to attempt to make the world’s energies come give you want you want. It’s half pantheism, half demon worship. And yet our most popular preacher in this country, among others, openly teaches this. It’s superstition, religious rite, and completely devoid of their purpose.
A friend of mine, Jody Ayers, made a very interesting comment on this issue. She pointed out that all these rituals, talismans, symbols, idols, and even things like circumcision, the sinner’s prayer, or whatever are all cheap replacements for genuine repentance. We seek these things to ‘protect ourselves’ instead of seeking God with a broken heart and calling upon His grace and mercy to save us.
Christianity is NOT one of these other religions. It tells us explicitly to never place trust in an icon or a picture or image. Those are idols. It also tells us to avoid any religious rite that is done by routine. There are religious rites that we Christians have: we have the Lord’s Supper and baptism. Each of these have instructions on how they are to be taken and carried out. Sure, each local church congregation has its own methods, procedures, etc., but so many of these things are done because “we’ve always done it that way,” not because “we want to follow what God wants us to do.” That’s one thing I like about my current church. We definitely do some things that other people will find weird. We have an elder ring a bell (a triangle) to signal the start of the service and to prepare our hearts for worshiping God and hearing the sermon. We then have someone bring the Bible up down the aisle up to the pulpit for the “call to worship.” I often feel like it’s marching the U.S. flag to the stage for an event. We do things with purpose, and we have Scripture to support why we do what we do (for these two cases it is to treat the gathering of believers seriously and the Word of God with reverence). But we do not do these things as though they give us any special standing with God, nor to garner nor earn His favor. We do it as a means of setting our hearts right to do things God’s way, not our own.
Why are you a Christian? Why do you look to that cross? Why do you look at a picture of Jesus? Why do you take Communion? Why do you go to church? Is it because you actually are a Christian, because you love Christ and seek to do things God’s way? Or have you simply created your own superstitious religion in hope to “get in,” seeking God’s blessing but not seeking God’s face? I know I’ve done church too many times by rote. God will not be pleased with mere religious ritual. He wants a heart that longs for Him. Calling upon some kind of talisman will do you no good. Only the true God can save you. This sounds so basic, yet most of our churches today are not teaching this stuff. I’m going to continue exploring this as I continue this series.
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“I don’t have a religion. I have a relationship.”
How many of you have heard this tag line to distinguish themselves from other religions? I hear it all the time, and I’ve even used it a number of times. But it’s not true. No one who has thought this through can claim this. Everyone has a religion. Everyone has some deity they worship whether it be Jehovah, Allah, an idol, nature, or themselves. Everyone worships something. And everyone has a “code of ethics” that comes with their religion, God or no god. So, sorry, everyone has a religion.
But Christianity is unique. The religion is rooted in both a relationship and a creed. No other religion actually proclaims a personal, intimate relationship between the deity and the people. God repeatedly proclaimed His relationship with Israel as being unique and not like those of the other nations. This is not a mere acquaintance nor a friendship. It is described as a marriage. Some theologians have suggested that the Ten Commandments could actually be the wedding vows between God and the nation of Israel. Then due to Israel’s repeated unfaithfulness, Scripture even declares that God divorced Israel. The Christian’s relationship with Christ is also compared to that of marriage. Paul spends a fair amount of time of Ephesians 5 making this connection.
The Christian faith has both relationship and religion. There is the personal connection with God, which only happens via the supernatural regenerating work of the Holy Spirit, and there is the religious aspect, which calls for moral adherence and obedience to God’s commands. There must be both parts to it, and they work holistically. Paul makes it absolutely clear that our salvation is by grace through faith in Ephesians 2:8. But James said that faith without works is dead. Jesus Himself said that those who are His family are those who obey His commands. Then there is the other aspect: all law and no relationship becomes legalism. In studying church history, there is always the pendulum swing between legalism and antinomianism (a moral free-for-all). Church generations tend to swing back and forth between one extreme and the other. In the 90s, there was the sexual purity movement. Today, it’s a free-for-all, and the “New Reformation” teachings are back to stoicism, with pure theology and no emotion. The same is true about the relationship and religion aspects as well. When the church sees something wrong between the religious aspects, they overreact and focus on just relationships. That’s where we are right now. But we are also seeing that the relationship aspect is devoid of moral stability, and we are moving to come back to center, at least for a moment.
You cannot have a relationship with someone you don’t know. The Bible does not deal with acquaintances when it comes to how God relates to His people; it deals with the deepest kind of intimacy. Marriage is the closest relationship a man can have with a woman, and the epitome of this relationship is in sexual relations. The Bible often uses the term “to know” to describe this. I want to be careful how I say this, but it is absolutely necessary for the image I am trying to give here. When a husband has sex with his wife, he puts his seed into her, and she conceives. Nine months later, a child is born. In Christianity, Christ, the husband, puts His seed into us, and that seed produces salvation (among many other things). When Jesus told the many who call Him “Lord, Lord” “I never knew you,” Jesus was saying, “I have had no intimate relationship with you. My seed is not within you.” You will not get into heaven by proclaiming yourself to be a Christian, nor by simply saying you have a relationship with Christ. You only get in by Jesus saying, “I know YOU.”
Isaiah warns about our day in Isaiah 4:1. Before that in chapter 3, Isaiah describes the sinful state of Judah and then describes how God takes away 11 positions of strength of a nation, from military strength to leadership, to quality speakers, to food and water supplies, to the economy, etc. With these 11 strengths gone, a nation is devastated. Side note: look at today – most of these strengths are gone from the U.S. too. In that day of destruction, in that day of judgment, seven women will go out to one man to make a marriage of convenience. They will do their own thing and they will stay out of the man’s way; they just want the name of the husband so they could take away their reproach, so they would look good before man. David Wilkerson taught that this was a picture of Jesus, when numerous people would come to Him, proclaim His name, but never have any real intimate relationship with Him. This is the kind of relationship that is nominal at best and again, there is no seed of growth. It’s all a work of self and the flesh. It’s a man-made religion with no relationship. Let me make something clear here: the majority of those who say they have a relationship, not a religion, very likely are in this boat. Why? Because they boast of a relationship with Christ but show they have no interest in what Christ actually wants: obedience.
I am going to dig into this issue as I go through this series. Christianity is a faith in which salvation is by the grace of God, but there much more involved than just a casual belief on our part. It is not enough to say you know Christ. It is not enough to just say a prayer and be saved. There must be life being produced within us. It takes the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit to make that seed of Christ grow within our “womb” so that it bears life. That which does not produce fruit will be cut off and cast out. Read the Parable of the Sower. Read John 15. That which bears no fruit will be cut off. What kind of fruit are we bearing? Is the seed of Christ within us? How can we know? I will be answering these questions as I continue this series.
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My church takes membership seriously. We ask people who wish to be members to take the classes so they would know how our local congregation does things, and the elders also do interviews with each person who fills out an application to be a member. In the application, we do not merely ask for personal information, but we ask if applicants have read the by-laws, the specific church doctrines, and to list any disagreements they have with certain doctrines that are taught. We have had members apply and upon realizing that the church’s direction and their direction aren’t aligned, they have walked away peacefully. But another part of the application is to give our testimony of how we became believers.
I don’t have a “gutter to glory” testimony of living a lifestyle of sin and being delivered from it. I grew up in the church and on the mission field. I am the “poster-child” of what it looks like to be a sound Christian by appearance. I know the language, I know the morality, I know the doctrine, and I made my profession of faith when I was seven. But as I was filling out my application, I began to think about my testimony.
A few years ago, I went through a period in which I examined myself to see if I was saved. Why would I do that? Not only is that a command to the church (we are to examine ourselves to see if we are in the faith rather than assume we are saved), but I was going through a transition period. For most of my life, if I were to be asked why I was a Christian, I could give a variety of reasons, but ultimately it would boil down to “I was raised that way.” This is a critical issue I wrote about several years ago in a post titled “Don’t Ride Your Parent’s Faith.”
For so much of my Christian life, I rode my parent’s faith. I went to the same church with them until earlier in 2021. I have lived with them my entire life until literally right about when this is being posted with the only exception being when I lived at my college apartment (and still went to church with them every week). I am now at my own apartment (or about to be) as my parents are moving from Texas to Michigan. This transition began about 8 ½ years ago when I did my fencing spiritual warfare presentation for my former church and was baptized as an adult. A few months later, I began the Cadre program at the Creation Truth Foundation, and I started my time here with Worldview Warriors.
In those years, I began to transition from sharing the faith of my parents to having and claiming my own faith. It didn’t happen in an instant. Not everyone’s moment of salvation is really an instant event. Sometimes it happens over a sequence of time or is recognized in that time frame. Today, if asked why I am a Christian my answer still includes, “I was raised that way,” but it is much deeper than that now. Today, I can say, “I have studied the Bible and the claims both for and against it, and I have found that Biblical Christianity is indeed the only true religion.” That’s the one-sentence intellectual side of things. However, just knowing the intellectual side of the faith is not enough.
It is absolutely vital to have correct doctrine. If you know anything about me, I am a staunch defender of the doctrines of the faith and the integrity of Scripture. But one thing I am learning is that it is fully possible to have 100% correct doctrine and still go to Hell. When I look at what Jesus said about true and false believers, there was always something more than having sound doctrine. You still have to have sound doctrine; the Apostles would actively remove people from the church for teaching error. But having truth by itself as mere intellectual statements is nothing more than dead faith.
Richard Wurmbrand, a Romanian pastor who was tortured for 14 years in Communist prison said this: “A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.” Anyone can state a doctrinal statement; that’s how so many false teachers got into the church. They proclaim to believe whatever they needed to believe to get in. But a false convert/teacher would not defend those teachings, especially when presented with evidence or a claim that seems to contradict it. They will readily question those teachings in light of what they truly believe. They will not question the false teaching for favor of the doctrines they proclaim.
One example I’ve seen recently is when I dealt with someone who proclaimed to believe all the core doctrines of Christianity including that it was Adam who brought sin and death to mankind. But he also believes that the earth is billions of years old. When I asked him how he handled human fossils dating to hundreds of thousands of years old, he danced all over the place questioning everything from the definition of a human to the definition of death, but he never once questioned the dating methods. That’s what he really believes – not so much the doctrines of Christianity, because he let his doctrine be challenged by the dating method, not the dating method that challenged his doctrine. What you believe is what you will defend. If you don’t give it much weight and if you really think they are secondary issues, you won’t take a defensive position when someone challenges said teachings.
What you believe requires action. Faith demands action. If you are going to proclaim faith in Christianity, it calls for action. Jesus repeatedly told His followers that those who belong to Him are those who obey His commands. You can’t obey commands if you have wrong doctrine. So, you must have correct doctrine so you can obey it. One of the commands Jesus gave is to count the cost. While salvation is indeed a free gift and while we cannot work to deserve it, do not think that living this life is going to come without a cost. To follow Christ means to abandon and surrender your old life to get the new life. This is not being taught in most churches today. What is instead being taught is to add “Jesus” as a final accessory to your current life. This is not Christianity. The Gospel instead teaches that to receive Jesus, we must put to death our old way of living so that we can embrace the new life.
This is an introductory post in a series I will do about what it means to be a Christian. In no particular order, I will address that the Christian is meant to be the light of the world and to be a holy people. This means we are to be unique and separate from this world. We need to stop being schizophrenic Christians – people who talk theology before Christian friends and act like secular people in front of unbelievers. I’ll look in detail about the characteristics of the “ex-Christian” based on proclamations I have heard such people give. I’ll address compromise and how to test a movement or teaching. While sound doctrine will be a key structure to what I’ll be addressing, I am going to go over much more than just sound doctrine – how we are to live out in practice these truths. As I go through this series, I want to first examine myself, then I will examine my audience, and finally, I want to examine how the Gospel addresses the issues. I don’t want this series to simply challenge you or me; I want it to change us. Will we let the truth change us?
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