Emergent Church

Moral Relevance – The Rabbit Trail to Dissipation

September 14, 2017 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires; and will turn away their ears from the truth, and will turn aside to myths.” (2 Timothy 4:3-4)

“The great business of Satan at the present time is to seek to deceive the people of God with things that seem to be in accordance with His mind, but which are really deceitful imitations…Let the precious truth of the indwelling and gifts of the Holy Spirit be declared, and Satan will follow with false gifts and another spirit, leading even earnest souls into the wildest fanaticism. Let the truth of the new birth be insisted upon, and the devil will raise up teachers after his own heart to tell men that being born again means simply ‘rising out of the self-life into the spiritual, reaching out after the higher ideals, seeking to make that which is highest, noblest and best of ourselves; thus saving ourselves by character.’ This is a sample of the teaching heard in many a supposedly orthodox pulpits at the present time.” (H. A. Ironside, Lectures on Daniel the Prophet, p. 182, 187, 1920)

In a promotional statement from the pastor of Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas, we are told, “In his new book, The Power of I Am, Joel Osteen shares the secret to changing your future. Osteen encourages readers to think positively and improve their lives by speaking the promises of God. Filled with practical advice and encouragement, The Power of I Am shows readers how they can redirect the course of their lives through the words they say. When you speak the right ‘I am’s,’ you’re inviting the goodness of God. I am victorious. I am blessed. I am talented. I am anointed. Your words have creative power. With your words you can bless your future!”

The greatest myth ever propagated by religionists of any flavor for centuries has been the simple statement that one can get to God for success and blessing by lifting themselves up by their own bootstraps and endeavoring to live a good life in relation to others.

You might ask, “What is moral relativism? Well, it’s a mindset and lifestyle that says, “My sense of morality is whatever I think it to be according to whatever is happening around me. My morality depends on my present circumstances in relation to everything and everyone around me. It may change from time to time, depending on how our culture changes.”

At one time in America, morality was based on the Ten Commandments found in the Judeo-Christian religion. Those commandments express the moral character of the God of Jews and Christians. Devout Jews are rigid in their efforts to keep the Law God has placed upon them in Scripture. Christians are faced with the words of Jesus Christ, who said, “If you love me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). Christ’s commandments expanded the Ten Commandments to a deeper moral responsibility, imposed upon those who would profess belief in Him. Added to the moral degradation observed in our current culture, we now have a form of moral relativism that insists on tolerance and inclusivism. To be considered acceptable we must abandon the exclusivism of Biblical morality.

It really doesn’t matter what you think as an autonomous individual. Believe whatever you want. One is a bigot who says a candidate for high federal office should have to refrain from using what was once termed “filthy language” and boasts of a lifestyle based on the moral depravity embraced by many starting in the 60s and 70s. And what’s worse is that many in the Evangelical World care not what a presidential candidate’s lifestyle and past are. Isn’t morality relative to the times in which we live? Is there really anything wrong with wanting to have our ears tickled, accumulating for ourselves teachers in accordance with our own desires; and what’s wrong with turning away our ears from the truth, and turning aside to myths? Isn’t this the way we should all do things in this age of myths?

We American evangelicals and biblical fundamentalists had better wake up and smell the roses. I fear we are satisfied in smelling what is normally put under the roses and are willing to accept the judgment God is sending us through our devolving culture and ungodly leaders.

The time has come for believers to get into their closets and onto their knees. It’s time we believers speak out, lifting the Biblical standard of righteousness. Our nation is sliding into dissipation and ruin.

The Missing Element

February 21, 2017 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5)

The Old Testament is old. It was not written to us in the 21^st Century. It is not relevant to our culture and time. The person who says that is ignorant of what the Old Testament Scriptures reveal about the depravity of man and the holiness and eternal purposes of the God of the Universe.

To say that the laws, principles, moral and spiritual standards God gave the Jewish people have no relevance to our time and culture is to exhibit gross ignorance of both Judaism and Christianity. It is an absurdity. God said to Jeremiah,

“Behold, I put my words in your mouth. See, I have appointed you this day over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant…You have seen well, for I am watching over My word to perform it.” (Jeremiah 1:9b-12)

Jeremiah, like other select individuals, was called by God to deliver His message to His people – both those of faith and those of unbelief. Enlightened by the Holy Spirit, they were rendered infallible in speaking and writing. Evangelicalism in America today appears to have lost its prophetic voice. The New Testament declares to the Church,

“Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy…one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation…One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but one who prophesies edifies the church…therefore, my brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy.” (I Corinthians 14:1, 3-4, 39)

Today, as never before, the Church needs those who have been called by God to prophesy to the Church. I’m not talking about professed biblical scholars who foolishly set dates for the rapture of the Invisible Church. The gift of prophecy, as Paul stated, is for the “edification, exhortation and consolation” of the Church – the body of Christ. It is not a ministry to unbelievers. Its focus should be to call the people of God back to God and away from its absorption of our pop culture in worship and practice.

The Old Testament Prophets didn’t simply speak God’s opinion on the nation of Israel. They spoke God’s revealed word of discernment and judgment. They boldly proclaimed,

“My people have committed two evils; they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water…My people are foolish, they know Me not. They are stupid children. And they have no understanding. They are shrewd to do evil, but to do good they do not know.” (Jeremiah 2:13, 4:22)

How long do you think an emergent church leader would last if he preached like that? The Old Testament Prophets spoke God’s judgment upon His people, the Jews. And in doing so they condemned the heathen around them with whom they had compromised and made alliances. They even prophesied that God would use those pagan nations to punish His chosen people.

Ancient Israel and Judah had forsaken the authoritative rule of the God of their fathers. They had amalgamated themselves with the worship of pagan deities and had sunk to the immoral practices of their heathen neighbors. Today’s emergent church, in many ways, has been invaded by the American pop culture. Emergent churches sought “new measures” for attracting the unsaved and opened their arms to our culture’s ways of marketing. In making alliances with the practices and psychology of our pop culture, the Evangelical Church has become as popular as any social organization. In doing so the traditions, creeds, theology of our Protestant forbearers have been abandoned for a message suited to satisfy the “tickling ears” of the masses. Traditional forms of worship were cast aside for new, emergent forms of liturgy. What’s missing in our Starbuck generation of relationship-building evangelical churches? What’s conspicuously absent is intestinal fortitude for pastors to preach the whole counsel of God. The gift of prophecy both in the Old Testament and the New Testament Church was and is to boldly proclaim the valid implications and applications of authoritative Scripture, whether church attendees like it or not. Until we see that on a broad scale our nation will continue to devolve in ways never resembling the greater generations of our past.

The Old Testament scriptures contain vital history, theological wisdom, divine promises, and unchanging judgments of God upon the sin of His people and those who know Him not. To ignore its truthful teachings is to incur the judgments the Prophets proclaimed. They are as relevant and applicable today as when they were first spoken. Not written to us, they are for our generation and generations to come. And what’s more,

“When He ascended on high, he led captive a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men…He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:8-12)

Where do you hear the voice of God’s prophets for this era of doom and death?

Another Look at the Emergent Church

December 10, 2014 by Beryl Smith 1 Comment

“Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize that about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you – unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5).

Self-examination is usually a positive thing. I am Type 2 diabetic. I frequently check my blood glucose level to assure that I am in a healthy range. I go to my cardiologist to get a checkup on how my ticker is doing. Are the particular blood tests within a healthy range? Do I need a medication change? It’s always nice when I can walk out of his office, having heard him say, “Your cholesterol is looking good and I see you’ve lost some weight.” Wow, having reached three-quarters of a century in age, that’s enough to make me sing, walking back out to my car.

Then it always makes me wonder, “How is the Evangelical Church doing in our nation? A nation which appears to be declining morally, spiritually, economically, politically and culturally.” My opinion of the status of the Evangelical Church has been declining for almost four decades.

The visible Evangelical Church in America moved through several transitional periods: the invasive liberalism of the 20’s and 30’s, the increasing separatism of the 40’s and 50’s, the cultural isolation of the 60’s and 70’s, the political joy of the 80’s, the thrill of the mega growth of the 90’s, and the emergent mish-mash of 2000 and beyond. What are some of the current characteristics of the Church, now somewhat embedded in its “emergent” state of affairs? I see several. And they continue to disturb me.

First: A continuing abandonment of the teaching of theology. Liberalism scared us with its quest for higher scholasticism, so we decided to simplify the doctrinal aspects of our teachings. The Gospel became watered down to where the average church deacon could not define for you what the Word teaches about justification.

Second: The almost total lack of catechism – teaching what we, as Protestants, believe. Pastors avoid catechesis, and most parents don’t even press their children to memorize Bible verses, let alone memorize a catechism and understand the fundamentals of Protestant belief. “After all, we’ve got so many other projects and activities demanding the kid’s time; and we can’t seem to get their hand-held communication and entertainment devices out of their hands.”

Third: The continued embrace of the methods of secular marketing to try to get people into church. Our culture’s emphasis is youth driven. Hype up the advertisement, jazz up the music, provide some pastry and coffee, and try to talk folks into considering the Christian faith as though it was an insurance policy for heaven, without any payment of repentance. Besides, that’s a sticky theological word and we avoid those today. Let’s all just be happy.

Fourth: Mediocrity in the Pulpit. Jack Van Impe, with whom I served as an Associate Evangelist in the early 70’s, used to grieve over the ministerial mediocrity he saw in his nation-wide ministry. So it’s said today, whatever you do, don’t say anything that might offend someone. Don’t preach on hell. Goodness, that might make you have to explain why most folks are going there – and already have the sentence of eternal death on them. So what if Jesus preached on hell more than anyone else recorded in Scripture. Do we have to, also?

Fifth: Identity Avoidance. What’s the name of your church? “The Gathering,” “Celebration,” Freedom Church,” “Ocean View,” “Real Life,” “The Crossing,” “Bayside,” “The House,” “Cornerstone,” “Elevation,” “Friends,” etc., etc. Emergent churches often avoid any identification with a particular denomination. Quite often the church is either “independent” or built around a charismatic man. Some emergent churches are quick to avoid describing the sheep and the goats in the audience. After all, we have turned the sheepfold into a zoo. We’ve got to make folks go home feeling good about themselves, not that they are sinners needing a savior. Don’t all churches desire to make people more morally upright and helpful to the community?

Sixth: The lack of Biblical teaching and preaching on evangelism. Have you heard a sermon on soul winning lately? What is it, anyway? Is Proverbs 11:30 applicable to our day? What is a “tree of life,” anyway? Isn’t that why we hire a professionally trained pastoral staff? Is it really true that less than 5% of professing Christians feel it is their personal responsibility to share the Gospel with those with whom they come in contact?

Seventh: The increase of Christian Theft. Less than 6% of professing Christians observe the Biblical requirement to tithe ten percent of their income. Today is the day of the “tipper” not the tither. Did Jesus really say that tithing is the responsibility of a believer? (Matthew 23:23). Did God really say that His people are robbers? (Malachi 3:8-11). No wonder we resort to building warehouses for churches instead of cathedrals. No wonder we can’t afford to tithe. We don’t believe in it. Our churches are filled with thieves! Or perhaps you don’t think it matters to God any more.

Eighth: The abandonment of prayer. As a youth and up to the 70’s, it was a common practice to go to prayer meeting at church on Wednesday nights. No longer. Prayer meetings are a thing of the “traditional” past. Today, pastors are too busy performing their duties as “life coach,” and promoting “recovery” as opposed to prayer for spiritual revival. They may suggest that people pray; but they don’t command it. Should the imperative statement of I Thessalonians 5:17 be changed to a suggestion? It’s only my opinion; but the Evangelical Church in America has abandoned personal and corporate prayer for God to revive His people from their lukewarm, apathetic state.

Ninth: Forsaking any concept of traditional liturgy. Our good old American sense of individualism and entrepreneurship has led some pastors to throw out any type of traditional liturgy (like praying the Lord’s Prayer). Liturgy is simply defined as “a rite prescribed for public worship.” Many of today’s church leaders say, “Let’s do it my way. It will help bring in the un-churched.” So they prescribe their own order of service, establishing their own liturgy. After all, if it’s new, it must be true. But it’s only the liturgy of the contemporary. Nothing unique. Only a parody of the inferiority of a devolving, dying race, in some cases, a ridiculous imitation of something that had more beautiful, theological substance.

Tenth: Surrendering to our culture’s passion for youth dominance. It has been wisely said that our culture, including the church, has been juvenilized. We’re just a big bunch of kids trying to get by, having a good time. Let the old folks step aside and the young and the restless lead the way. And juvenilization leads to a failure of transmuting the wisdom of older, mature believers to the current crisis.

“Dwarfed by the vast complexity of the universe, towered over by technology and its environment, people see themselves reduced to insignificance and their initiative is drained…people lose their sense of individuality. Inaction becomes elevated into a principle. The result is a generation suffering from cultural failure of nerve.” [1].

In his remarkable book, The Dust of Death, published twenty years ago, Oz Guinness spoke pointedly about the state of the church:

“The Christian community needs first to put its own house in order and regain its integrity and clarity from its compromise with the present confusion…Christians face a subtle danger of creating a new Christian subculture, long-haired instead of short, but equally narcissistic and self-contained…What is needed is nothing short of reformation and revival in the church, a rediscovery of the truth of God by his people and a renewal of the life of God within his people. This is our crying need individually and corporately. Needles to say, both are the prerogative of God, so the probability of revival is beyond the scenarios of futurology. But it is exactly I these nonhumanist hands that the future of Western civilization lies.”[2]

With the decline in our nation in so many ways, one wonders just how long the Ship of State can stay afloat. And what has happened to the faith that once turned the world upside-down with the preaching of Christ by Christian converts? But for any true believer there is always hope.

Things that encourage me: 1.) A return on the part of some preachers to preaching the whole counsel of God and a return to a renewed emphasis on the five Solas of the Protestant Reformation. 2.) An awareness that abandoning theology has sprung open the door to all kinds of doctrinal aberrations and wholesale ignorance on the part of the laity as to what we should believe and why we should believe it. 3.) A realization that God is still on His Throne and that Jesus Christ is still building His church. 4.) Another look at the concept of liturgy. Some are realizing that abandoning traditional liturgy and replacing it with a more “modern” or culturally acceptable liturgy has forced older generations of believers to flee the church or surrender to the dominance of today’s youth culture.

So, we ask the question, “Is there any hope”? I can only answer with the Word:

“Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within s, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen” (Ephesians 3:20-21).

Foundation Stones – God’s Sovereignty

March 5, 2013 by Beryl Smith Leave a Comment

“His dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom endures from generation to generation, and all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, but He does according to His will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and no one can ward off His hand and say to Him, ‘What hast Thou done?’ ”

(Daniel 4:34-35)

I sat with two friends for breakfast not long ago and the subject of God’s providence was brought up. The individual who was a church elder and adult teacher commented, “I’ve searched my concordance from one end to the other and have never found the word ‘sovereignty.’”

Coming from a Pentecostal background, he bristled at the idea that God should have the audacity to infringe on man’s free will to assume some sovereign authority over the affairs of men, let alone the decision of an individual to decide for himself whether or not to accept Jesus as Savior. Needless to say, I was grieved and astounded that this individual had been a professing believer for over 60 years and had somehow missed learning about one of the cardinal teachings found in the Holy Scripture. I almost sensed it a waste of time to confront him with the words of King David, the “man after God’s own heart:”

“The Lord has established His throne in the heavens and His sovereignty rules over all” (Psalm 103:19).

Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, had a different opinion from my friend at the breakfast table. God spoke to the King through His prophet Daniel. Because of his stubbornness and pride the King would be divested of his kingship, driven from mankind to become like a beast, eating grass and having the appearance of a beast. Why? Because he boasted in his ability to rule by his personal greatness. While he looked over his kingdom,

“A voice came from heaven, saying, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is declared: sovereignty has been removed from you. You will be driven away from mankind, and your dwelling place will be with the beasts of the field. You will be given grass to eat like cattle, until you recognize that the Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind, and bestows it upon whom He wishes’” (Daniel 4:31-32).

Would to God that my proud friend would recognize that God is sovereign in all of human history. God decrees all things that come to pass, whereby, as the Westminster Confession states regarding God’s Eternal Decrees,

“God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of His own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass; yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established” (Chapter III).

Granted, it will take a lifetime to absorb and understand that statement. But one approaching the Bible with “plain sense” cannot help but find historical, grammatical evidence that the truth of God’s sovereignty weaves its way through all the pages of Holy Scripture. It is only a distorted view of God’s rule in human history that denies that it is God who takes the initiative in fulfilling His purposes in human history. Think of this:

Jesus – “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Paul – quoting God’s word to Moses – “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but God who has mercy” (Romans 9:15-16).

James – “In the exercise of His own will He brought us forth by the Word of truth, so that we might be, as it were, the first fruits among His creatures” (James 1:18).

Peter – “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope” (I Peter 1:3).

Paul – to his son in the faith, Timothy – “Do not be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, or of me His prisoner; but join with me in suffering for the gospel according to the power of God, who has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (II Timothy 1:8-9).

One of the characteristics of the emerging church movement in American Evangelicalism is to approach the Scriptures with the assumption that what the Bible says is open to each individual’s private interpretation. If one doesn’t like the idea of God’s sovereignty over human destiny, simply skip over those passages of scripture that appear to teach it.

Nebuchadnezzar found out differently. Jonah, spewed from the mouth of a great fish, found out differently. Paul, struck to his knees on the Damascus road, found out differently. Would to God that those who boast in their self-determination will submit to God’s sovereign rule before God judges them for their pride.

I sought the Lord, and afterward I knew

He moved my soul to seek Him, seeking me;

It was not I that found, O Savior true;

no, I was found of Thee.

Thou didst reach forth Thy hand and mine enfold;

I walked and sank not on the storm-vexed sea –

’twas not so much that I on Thee took hold,

as Thou, dear Lord, on me.

I find, I walk, I love, but O the whole

of love is but my answer, Lord, to Thee;

for Thou wert long beforehand with my soul,

always Thou lovedst me.

By George W. Chadwick, 1893