SOURCE: http://www.gty.org/Broadcast/transcripts/52-32.htm
GC
52-32
"A Call for Discernment"
1 Thessalonians 5:21-22
We return in our study of God's Word this morning to 1
Thessalonians chapter 5. As we are fast coming to the conclusion of this
wonderful epistle, we find ourselves this morning looking at the text of
verses 21 and 22...1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verses 21 and 22. The
Apostle Paul writes, "But examine everything carefully, hold fast
to that which is good, abstain from every form of evil."
A couple of months ago I had the opportunity, as you know, to drive
across America to deliver my son's car to him. And in the process we
were driving through the back roads of Arkansas and rolling along the
gentle road that we happened to be on, just a two-lane road through a
kind of a misty rain, we were watching the little farm houses go by
along the way and all of a sudden after we came over one little hill
there was a big sign that said, "Quilts." Well I had for a
number of years been nosing around looking for a quilt I might buy for
my wife Patricia and so I thought, "Well, I'll stop there and see
what the quilts look like." And so I pulled in to the little dirt
area in front of this tiny little house and I knocked on the door and a
little old lady came to the door. And I said, "I was just wondering
about your quilts." And she said, "Oh, please come in."
And I walked in and there were several quilts hanging on some little
pieces of wood and draped over them and off to the left was her husband
sitting in a big easy chair with stacks of literature by him and a TV
control switch. I don't know that he had moved in decades. And I walked
in to this kind of musty old house and she...I said, "I'm just kind
of interested in quilts." And she said, "Well let me show you
one." And she pulled out a quilt that, first of all, had no rhyme
or reason, it was a quilt full of bits and scraps of everything
imaginable all sewn together. And I said, "No, that's really not
what I'm looking for." And I described the kind of quilt I was
looking for, which interestingly enough she had and which I bought and
my wife now possesses. But as I...I had to go down to a little bank in
the town to get some cash to come back and pay. And when I came back and
walked in we noticed that there was a lot of literature
everywhere...literature from professors at Dallas Seminary, literature
from Jehovah's Witnesses, literature from The Unity Unitarian
Fellowship, all kinds of literature and some video cassettes of varying
kind of Charismatic ministries. And by then I knew the husband's name
was Johnny, which was an interesting coincidence.
And I said to him, "Johnny," I said, "you have an
awful lot of information here." He said, "Well, there's good
in all of it." And I realized that not only did his wife make
quilts but he had a quilted theology...bits and pieces and scraps of
everything all sewn together.
That's very typical...very typical. People reading, listening to
television, radio, tapes with little or no discernment, just kind of
quilt patching the whole thing together in to some amorphous kind of
thing that really has little rhyme or reason. The Apostle Paul in this
text is saying you better examine everything and you better examine it
carefully and you better find out what it is good and hold on to it and
what is not and let go of it. That's one of those components in the
basics of spiritual living. Unfortunately the church today has boundless
credulity, anything and everything is accepted. It seems to me that if
any one problem out strips all the others in the church, it is the utter
lack of spiritual discrimination that characterizes Christianity. Bad
decisions, faulty reasoning, superficial understanding, shallow
knowledge, wide-spread ignorance have contributed more anguish to the
church throughout her history than all the persecutions combined.
Persecutions have taken their toll, but it is the inside chaos and the
inside confusion over doctrine that has left the most scars on the
church. And this is not only the result of human weakness in discerning
truth, but it is the work of Satan who disguised as an angel of light
wants to confuse us as much is as possible.
As a result most, it seems, today have a patchwork quilt theology
that is a mix and match of all kinds of things. Error is not only
visible at the basic primitive levels of theology but at the deeper and
more complex levels as well. Now this should not happen because we have
been duly warned. Scripture warns us of doctrines of demons, destructive
heresies, myths, perverse teachings, commandments of men, speculations,
controversial issues, deceitful spirits, worldly fables, false
knowledge, empty philosophy, traditions of men, worldly wisdom and it
says they are all pit falls for Christians. Jesus said that wolves would
come in sheep's clothing. Paul said grievous wolves will enter in not
sparing the flock. Paul wrote to Timothy and said, "And as the age
goes on, evil men will get worse and worse and deception will
increase." Paul again said there will be doctrines of demons that
will lead people astray.
To put it mildly, there is a world of chaos and confusion in the
church. No one who understands Scripture and is aware of its warnings
about error should ever be so gullible as to say a statement like that
man said that day, "Well there's good in all of it." We cannot
for a moment believe that every one who claims to be in Christ and to
speak on behalf of Christ is speaking the truth. But people seem to be
so gullible.
In many cases the church, I think, is like the Pharisees of Jesus'
day. In Matthew chapter 16, a couple of verses of interest that you
might want to note. Matthew 16 verse 1, "And the Pharisees and
Sadducees came up and testing Him asked Him to show them a sign from
heaven. But He answered and said to them, When it is evening you say it
will be fair weather for the sky is red. And in the morning there will
be a storm today for the sky is red and threatening. Do you know how to
discern the appearance of the sky but cannot discern the signs of the
times? An evil and adulterous generation seeks after a sign, and a sign
will not be given it except the sign of Jonah and He left them and went
away." He said your problem is simple, your limited primitive
non-scientific knowledge of how to tell the weather exceeds your
spiritual discernment. What an unbelievable put down. You don't know
much about the weather and your way of assessing the weather is very
primitive but as little as you know about weather, you know more about
that than you do theology. They had no ability to distinguish between
the false and the true. And Jesus condemned them for it. And in effect
said, "I have nothing to offer you." Distinguishing between
truth and error is essential in Christian life. That is why Paul says
this in this text.
Now remember, starting with verse 16, Paul has been listing the
basics of Christian living...rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in
everything give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus,
do not quench the Spirit, do not despise Scripture or the revelation of
God. And now he comes to this one, examine everything. This is a
masterful summation of all the components in basic Christian living. We
are to have constant joy. We are to be in unceasing prayer. We are to be
thankful no matter what happens. We are never to quench the working of
the Spirit of God. We are never to look down on the revelation of God
but to exalt it and obey it. And we are to examine everything carefully
so that we can discern what is good and what is evil.
Now let me have you look at the text for just a few moments because
it's fairly easy to interpret. But examine everything, the Greek text
says, "carefully" as you'll note in the New American Standard
is in italics meaning it was added. The text actually says, "But
examine everything." The word "examine" is dokimazo,
that's a familiar word to New Testament students because it is often
used to refer to something being tested to reveal its genuineness. It is
sometimes used of testing metals. Test everything to see that it is
genuine, to distinguish between what is true and false, what is right
and wrong, what is good and bad, separate the wheat from the chaff. This
process, by the way, to borrow Paul's words to the Ephesians, is an
effort to learn what is pleasing to the Lord...to distinguish. The word
could be to judge, judge everything, evaluate everything, distinguish
everything and everything means everything, all things. We are to be
like King David who was able to discern, says 2 Samuel 14:17, good from
evil.
Now once you have discerned that, what does he say? Verse 21,
"Hold fast to that which is good." Hold fast means to embrace,
to embrace wholeheartedly, to take possession of. The word
"good," that familiar word kalos means what is in itself good,
genuine, true, not just fair to look at, not just lovely and beautiful
appearing but what is inherently genuine true noble right and good. When
you find that, embrace it, hold on to it. Verse 22 says, "Abstain
from every form of evil." And the word abstain is a very strong
word, it means to hold oneself away from. The preposition apa(?), it
means to shun. And it emphasizes the complete separation of the believer
from what is deemed evil in teaching and behavior. When you see
something that is evil, not true, false, shun it. There never is in the
Scripture given any latitude for us to expose ourselves to what is not
true. We are to shun it. We are to run from it. It emphasizes then the
complete separation of the believer from what is deemed evil. Evil here
is evil in the active sense, as something malignant, harmful, working
injury and disaster to everyone who touches it. It is poisonous, it is
deadly, stay away from it like you would stay away from a plague. Lenski
was correct when he wrote, "The worst forms of wickedness consist
of perversions of the truth, spiritual lies, although today many look
upon these forms with indifference and regard them rather
harmless." The fact that moral perversions are included is self-
evident, these also work to destroy the spiritual life and appear in
many forms. Yes in the word evil is moral perversion, but he's right,
the worse form of it is the perversion of the truth.
Now notice again verse 22, he says you are to shun every form...every
form. The word form there, it's just a simple word, it means kind, sort,
species, or shape. He is saying evil in any form, evil at any shape,
evil of any sort, evil of any kind. Once you have discerned it, shun it.
And yes that encompasses moral conduct, moral perversion. But the heart
of what he is saying here has to do with the perversion of truth. This
then becomes primarily for us a call for discernment...a call for
discernment.
This is not something that is unfamiliar to the student of the New
Testament. There are other places in the text where such discernment is
called for. In fact, many such statements come from the pen of the
Apostle Paul. He is concerned that we be discerning, that we separate.
Now having just given you that glimpse at the text, and that's
enough, I want to launch off this morning and I'm going to begin what
will end up being a couple of weeks series. And I want to talk about
this matter of discernment because I'm very concerned about it. There is
a great lack of discernment in the church, as I have been saying to you,
and it shows up in so many ways. The undiscerning contemporary church,
for example, has often rejected Darwin and Huxley but accepted Freud.
Has often rejected doctrine and favored and embraced relationships as if
they were the priority. Has become fascinated with entertainment and
bored with exposition. Has been enamored with feelings and lowered the
value of thinking clearly. As a result, evangelical Christianity, listen
to this, is fighting for its very life. I'll say that again, evangelical
Christianity, in my view, is fighting for its very life. And our time
cries out for people with discernment.
Now the culture around us doesn't help because we live in a very
non-discriminating culture. We live in a culture, in fact, that has put
a new and unacceptable definition and value on discernment. For example,
it can be simply noted that it used to be that when someone was a person
of discrimination, that was an indication of their nobility, an
indication of their wisdom, an indication that they were to be honored
and respected, they were desirable. That was a person of discrimination,
one who could discriminate between good and evil, true and false, what
is best. Now a person who discriminates is somebody who is going to get
sued by the ACLU. The word has taken on a completely different meaning.
It isn't even allowable in our vocabulary. This is a day that will not
tolerate absolutes. This is a day that will not tolerate discrimination
of any kind. And I'm not talking about racial discrimination which is
intolerable to God, I'm talking about discrimination of any kind. This
is not a time that will tolerate convictions. This is not a time that
will tolerate dogma. You're seeing that right now as you read the
newspapers about Bob Vernon, one of our elders, who is Assistant Chief
of Police in Los Angeles, it is intolerable to this culture that this
man believes the Bible, which affirms the submission of women, the sin
of homosexuality and the need to spank your children. That is
intolerable in this culture...along with, for all intents and purposes,
any other view because it's a time when you don't discriminate about
anything. And so the church is living in a milieu of non-discriminating
kind of thought. And we find that that only accelerates our own problem.
The church cannot fall prey to the spirit of this age.
Now I want to answer three questions in this series about this matter
of discernment, and this morning I'm going to begin with question number
one. Question number one is...why is there such a lack of discernment? I
just told you the culture is in to that but why is there such a lack of
discernment in the church? Why? And I'm going to try to give you some
answers. It's not going to be like a normal sermon because I'm going to
be talking in some theological terms and assessing the scenario as I see
it in the church. So listen carefully.
There are, I believe, some identifiable causes as to why there is
such a terrible lack of discernment in the church today. The main one
I'll give you first, the weakening of doctrinal clarity and
conviction...the weakening of doctrinal clarity and conviction. That's
number one. There were much better times in the history of the church
when Christians were encouraged to think biblically, to think
theologically, to test everything, to search the scriptures thoroughly,
to distinguish carefully its truths. And when discovering what was true,
to take a stand and be immovable. Today, those who take firm stands on
biblical doctrine are very frequently criticized for splitting hairs and
being unloving because the norm today is to gaze lazily at the surface
of scriptural truth and then even justify such cavalier shallowness as
the desirable generosity of spirit toward those who differ. This is
rampant in the church. You sort of just scan Scripture and you don't
want to be too dogmatic because if you're dogmatic that's unloving to
someone else who has a different opinion. And after all, we certainly
don't want to split hairs. Jay Adams writes, "Nowhere is this
tendency more apparent than in Christian counseling." He also
writes, quote: "Self-styled experts in psychology, sociology and
education who hold Ph.Ds in their fields and Sunday-school degrees in
Bible pontificate on Christian teaching and life setting themselves up
as spokesmen for God."
What he is basically saying...end quote...what he is saying is that
the matter of biblical interpretation has been invaded by people who are
ill-equipped to do that work. There is a lack of discernment, however,
not only in the arena of counseling but there is a lack of doctrine and
conviction in the ministry in general, it seems to me. Sharing has
replaced preaching.
The other day I was doing a radio interview and a fellow called and
he said, "I've been listening to you for a while, and I just want
you to know you're a lot nicer person on the radio today than I thought
you were by listening to your sermons." Well, when I preach my
sermons I don't think I say things that aren't nice because if I did
they would edit them out before the thing ever got on the radio. And I
don't know how he could find out whether I was a nicer person by just
listening to me. But what he was really saying was I was in a
conversation with a lady and there was a great measure of disagreement
and I was trying to be gracious as I could and gentle and not strive in
handling that situation and it was much more tolerable to see that than
it was to listen to someone articulate with conviction doctrine. And it
was much easier for him to handle me having a conversation gently with
someone who disagreed than to preach doctrine. That's the mood of our
time. As I said, there is a cultural wave behind this. It is not an
accident that the church in the name of unity, love and relationships
has moved away from clarity and conviction and doctrine and has begun to
favor openness, rejecting narrowness and dogmatism. This has been the
prevailing climate in the culture around us. In fact, there's a war on
standards. The war on standards is wholesale, isn't it? I mean, if you
had a conviction about something it would have to be utterly arbitrary
because there isn't any standard.
There's been so much antagonism against convictions just in general
in our culture. I don't know if you realize it, but everything is up for
grabs. I'm talking about history. Revisionist history has now questioned
everything that historians have believed. Science, even in the field of
science they're questioning things that for years have been believed.
All beliefs have become only relatively true and only relatively
valuable, whether you're talking about sociology, psychology,
philosophy, economics, education or whatever you're talking about. And,
of course, to the world, religion is the most subjective of all because
they believe it's just some personalized experience, not a divine
revelation. And so the culture is becoming more and more relativistic
and the church is catching the disease.
This trend was visible, by the way, in the church years ago. Last
Sunday when I was home with this neck problem and couldn't be with you,
I finished reading Volume II of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' biography. I enjoyed
every moment of it and commend all 777 pages to you. But as I was
reading the last section of that book, it was interesting for him to say
the things that were directly related to this very issue of discernment
that were recorded there. He saw the trend coming, the trend of
relativism in the church and the death of doctrinal clarity back in
1971, twenty years ago. And this is what he said, "There's a very
obvious reaction at the present time against intellectualism. This is
found among the students in America and increasingly in this country.
Reason is being distrusted and set on one side. Following D.H. Lawrence,
many are saying that our troubles are due to the fact that we have over
developed our cerebrum. We must listen more to our blood and go back to
nature. And so turning against intellectualism and deliberately
espousing the creed of irrationality, they yield themselves to the
desire for experience and place sensation above understanding. What
matters is feeling and enjoyment, not thought, pure thought leads
nowhere," end quote. Twenty years ago Martyn Lloyd-Jones saw the
movement of relativism coming into the church.
Instead of seeing the danger of the trend, and heeding his words,
evangelicals accommodated themselves to the trend as if it was some kind
of boon to their cause. And in England a man rose to prominence by the
name of David Watson and he led the charge of relativism into the Church
of England. This is what he said, "The reason I...here's one quote
from him...the reason I travel with a team gifted as they are in the
performing arts is that they are able to communicate the gospel much
more effectively than I could with mere words," end quote. That is
an astounding statement. That is an abandonment of the biblical pattern
for the proclamation of the truth through words. And it was reflective
of the mood of the time. David Watson then became the partner of John
Wimber(?) and the Vineyard Movement which we'll say a lot more about in
a few weeks, in which doctrine is not even an issue. In fact, John
Wimber has said, "We are in the process of cataloging our
experience so we can come up with a theology." Pure experience.
David Watson says "I don't want to preach because the truth can be
better communicated through the performing arts." May I remind
somebody that Jesus was not a singer, He was a preacher. And John the
Baptist was not a singer, he was a preacher. And the Apostles were not
actors, they were preachers. David Watson went on to criticize the
Christian church for concentrating exclusively on the mind. This is what
Watson said, "Most churches rely heavily on the spoken or written
Word and then wonder why so few people find the Christian faith to be
relevant." He is saying the written Word and the spoken Word make
the Christian faith irrelevant, irrelevant Christianity is not mental,
irrelevant Christianity is not rational, it is not doctrinal, it is
emotional, it is experiential, it is mystical. This movement has come
like a flood. The emphasis in the church has gone from preaching
doctrine to the mind to give people a greater knowledge of divine truth
to doing little more than inducing feelings, inducing emotions, focusing
on needs. Coupling that relativistic approach with the Charismatic
Movement and with those psychologists who come in to the church with
their relational stuff and preaching becomes mystical, relational and
relativistic. Worship began to descend. And you can see it in many ways,
just see it in the music, would be one way. Worship began to descend
from singing great truths about God, lyric-centered music, to music
where sound, rhythm and harmony dominate to induce warm and fuzzy
feelings. Music style moved from that which was classically accompanying
the hymns, the great lyrics, to sounds that are more similar and
familiar to the pop music world.
If I can kind of give you a perspective on all of this, I'm sure
Satan knew we Christian evangelicals would not buy the theology of
liberalism so he sold us the hermeneutics. What do you mean by that?
Satan knew we wouldn't buy their theology so he sold us their principles
of interpretation so sooner or later we would arrive at their
theology...a kind of Christianity where doctrine and conviction are
scorned. You go into the typical town, find the pulpit where the man of
God clearly and deeply and profoundly and faithfully articulates
doctrine and I'll show you a small group of faithful folk. You find the
church where they're hooping and hollering, dive and dancing and jumping
and I'll show you a major crowd, in most cases. God's Word will never
pass away but sadly it has been bypassed to allow for the new
evangelical relativism. Preachers are comedians, story tellers and
counselors but not powerful theological heralds and proclaimers of
divine truth.
In fact, this is so serious it's gotten to the place where even at
the basic issue of the gospel there's no conviction.
END OF SIDE ONE
SIDE TWO
In a book called Power Evangelism by John Wimber, and I mention him
because he's so popular around the world. In that book called Power
Evangelism in which he instructs the church on how to evangelize, there
is no discussion of the gospel. It isn't in the book. The gospel isn't
in the book. Yet they give accounts of people getting saved and becoming
Christians on the basis of supposed miracles they saw with no gospel
preached to them. Peter Wagner says, professor over at Fuller Seminary,
that Argentine evangelist Omar Cabrara(?) has people saved before he
starts preaching. They're not concerned with doctrine, apparently. I
remember speaking at the Full Gospel Businessmen's Committee luncheon
which was one of the most novel experiences of my life, that's a
Charismatic group and somebody in the group had mistakenly thought that
I had received the baptism of the Spirit and spoken in tongues and so
they invited me to come and give my testimony about tongues. What they
didn't realize was that, of course, I had not received the baptism of
the Holy Spirit and spoken in tongues and I thought they wanted me to
come and simply give the biblical view because they were interested in
hearing what we believe. So I went in there, they were already to hear
this great testimony about how I got transformed into being a
Charismatic and I was assuming they wanted the straight stuff out of the
Word of God on the truth and so I started to preach. It was the only
time in my life that I was actually literally physically pulled out of
the pulpit bodily after about 20 minutes, a man grabbed my coat and
pulled me down. We went..and then got in the pulpit and began to say we
have to pray, let's pray and he prayed that some time in the middle of
the night God would zap me and I would burst forth in tongues and he
tried to apologize to the crowd and this went on for a while. After it
was over, I'll never forget, a man came up to me afterwards and he said,
"Well that was very interesting," and he carried on this
little conversation, and it was a pretty volatile moment. By the way, I
went back again, I said I wasn't finished, I do need to finish a few
things and I said some more things, but it shook them to the core,
believe me. But afterwards this man said to me, I said, "You know,
my concern is that people who are just in to this experiential thing
aren't even Christians." This is what the man said, he said,
"Well, I've been in this nine years in this group." And he
said, "This is what I believe, I believe there's this big long
staircase and you get to the top of the stairs some day and you knock on
the door and this guy named Jesus comes and you just hope He lets you
in." Nine years and doesn't understand the gospel...nine years and
has no sense of clarity about doctrine.
The other day I was doing a radio interview, a two-hour interview and
the host of the program said to me, this is on a Christian station, the
host of the program said to me, "Well how does a person become a
Christian?" I said, "First of all to recognize your
sinfulness, it is necessary to recognize that I am a sinner and to be
willing to turn and repent from my sin and then to recognize that I
cannot save myself, that I have no resources within me to redeem myself
and cast myself on the mercy of God and to believe in Jesus Christ as
God's Son who came into the world and died and paid the price for my sin
and rose again for my justification." The host said, "You
don't believe that everyone who gets saved has to believe all that, do
you?" I said, "YES...yes." That host said to me, "I
certainly didn't...didn't deal with any of my sins when I got
saved." I said, "How did you get saved?" This was the
reply, "I was in drugs, alcohol, living with my boyfriend in
Science of Mind for six years and one day I just got Jesus' phone
number." I said, "You just got Jesus' phone number?"
"I just got Jesus' phone number and I just knew where He was."
What in the world are these people experiencing? When you don't even
lay down clear doctrine at the level of the gospel, where you going to
go from there? And the cry is, as one man said to me when my book on The
Gospel According to Jesus came out, he said, "Your book is
divisive. Your book is divisive." You want to know something? He's
right. He's right. What to know something else? Doctrine divides. People
say, "Oh doctrine divides...doctrine divides." I say,
"Amen, preach it, doctrine divides." You know what it does? It
confronts error. It separates true from false. It makes judgments.
Today's climate, however, of unity in the priority of relationships,
that's not tolerable.
You know, I believe...I believe that when evangelicals are willing to
depreciate doctrine and when they're willing to set aside unpopular
convictions, and when they're willing to stay silent on biblical
teaching that offends people in error and sin, opposition will disappear
and we could all get together. I believe that. I could start a unity
movement...eliminate doctrine, set aside unpopular convictions, don't
say anything that offends and we'll all get together. That isn't any
surprise. But you know some other things are going to disappear too
along with doctrine, like truth, conviction, discernment, righteousness,
holiness, discipline, true love and spiritual maturity. They're all gone
too and then God will disappear, Ichabod. That price is too high. That
will produce a church victimized by hell's deceptions.
What do you think Paul had in mind when he said, "Study to show
yourself approved unto God, a workman that needs not to be ashamed,
rightly dividing the Word of truth?" It is a shame not to rightly
divide the truth from error.
So the main contributor to this lack of discernment has been the
weakening of doctrinal clarity and conviction in the name of unity, in
the name of mystical experience, and so forth. And as I said, the
liberals couldn't sell us their theology so they sold us their
hermeneutics, relationships, love, unity, mystical experience and we buy
in to that and we'll end up with the same chaos. Everybody talking about
heaven ain't going there. And everybody talking about Jesus,
Charismatics, neo-orthodox, Roman Catholics and everybody else, don't
necessarily know Him.
There's a second contributor, and I at least have to get two of these
this morning. And this builds on it, and I want you to follow this. I
don't want to get too philosophical for you here. The second is this, a
failure to be antithetical, a failure to be antithetical. You say,
"What do you mean by that?" I mean to be black and white. In
debate, in argument, in theology, we talk about thesis and antithesis, a
thesis is some truth that's laid down or some idea that's laid down or
some concept that's laid down, and here is the opposing concept...black
and white, thesis, antithesis. We have to think antithetically. We live
in a culture that some say thinks on what you could call a continuum. In
other words, there's no black/white. There's no right/ wrong,
true/false, good/bad, there's just this long continuum of relative
shades of gray. And everybody sort of is on their on there somewhere.
Religion is subjective, spiritual experience is subjective. But listen,
biblical preaching is not relative, it is not subjective, it is
absolute, it is sharply black and white, it is pointedly antithetical to
error. And I'm not trying to defend myself, I'm just dealing with the
text here. But I tell you, the criticism that comes back to me all the
time is, "You are so strong on doctrine." I don't know what
else to be because that is the nature of truth, the truth divides and
sets itself against error. We must think antithetically. You hear a
thesis, and you must look at an antithesis, the opposite and test it.
And it's absolute, truth is absolute, therefore it rubs people the wrong
way. It hits them with conviction.
Since worldly thinking pollutes the minds of most church goers, and
worldly thinking is this big gray area, nothing is really black and
white, nothing is really right and wrong...I was listening the other day
to a guy, driving in the car, to Barbara DeAngelis on talk radio. And
this lady was calling in and she was telling about a relationship she's
having with a man whom she wasn't married to and she was living and
she...and this counselor said, "Well, it's got to be right for you,
it's got to be right for you, there's really nothing that's right or
wrong, it just has to be right for you." That's the continuum. And
that's the kind of stuff that we're continually being sold. So we have a
culture growing up with continuum kind of thinking, that things are not
black and white they're just different shades of gray. Black and white
preaching, teaching from Scripture is seen as offensive and fanatical.
But in the Bible, antithesis is crucial, discernment is essential. And
the Bible just lays things down black and white. I mean, just follow
this thought. From the Garden of Eden with its two trees, one allowed
and one forbidden, to the eternal destiny of the human being, in heaven
or hell, the Bible sets forth two and only two ways, God's way and all
other ways. People are said to be saved or lost. They belong to God's
people or Satan's people. There is the mount of blessing and the mount
of cursing. There is the narrow way and the broad way. There is eternal
life and eternal destruction. There are those who are against us and
those who are with us. There are those within the Kingdom, those without
the Kingdom. There is life and death, truth and falsehood, good and bad,
light and darkness, kingdom of God, kingdom of Satan, love, hatred,
spiritual wisdom, wisdom of the world. Christ is said to be the way, the
truth and the life, no one comes to the Father but by Him, He is the
only name under the sky by which one may be saved. Everything in
Scripture is absolute. It is basic to divine revelation.
Jay Adams, who is a very well-known preacher and seminary professor,
writes what I think is an excellent section in one of his books, listen
to this. "Not only will you find such antithetical teaching and
much more on nearly every page of the Bible but even the construction of
the Hebrew language itself seems designed to teach antithesis. Much
scriptural poetry, many proverbs and even some narrative is antithetical
in structure. Perhaps you have wondered about the principle underlying
the clean and unclean distinctions of the Old Testament." This is
very interesting. "Various relationships or rationals have been
given for some of these distinctions yet many seem to be purely
arbitrary." You know, why clean and unclean animals and all of that
in the laws that God gave Israel, this is what he suggests. "May I
suggest that all problems of arbitrariness are resolved when you see the
clean/unclean system as a means of alerting the Jew to the fact that all
day long every day in whatever he does he must consciously choose God's
way. Choices about food, clothing, farming techniques, justice, health
care, holidays and methods of worship were made either God's way or some
other way. In other words, the clean/unclean system was designed to
develop in God's people an antithetical mentality. Forbidding the mixing
of materials in clothing, for example, doesn't seem to arbitrary after
all when considered in the light of the biblical concern to create a
antithetical posture toward life. But with pastors and people alike
growing up in an environment that stresses continual thinking,
antithesis is dulled as more and more people attempt to integrate
sociology, psychology, business management principles with the
Scripture. Teachers in Christian colleges now consider it one of the key
tasks of Christian higher education to seek to integrate the professor's
faith with his learning. The key task, you see, is no longer to
distinguish God's ways from others, but to find places of
agreement."
That's a dangerous thing. The psalmist, listen to this, Psalm 1,
"How blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the council of the
wicked, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of
scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he
meditates day and night." There's a clear line drawn. They're over
here, we're over here. But this kind of continuum thinking has
contributed to the climate where discernment is unnecessary, unthinkable
and to pursue it is foolish, to pursue it is divisive...are you ready
for this?...to pursue it is evil. You're an evil person if you draw
lines. You're an evil person if you think in absolutes. You're an evil
person if you have convictions. Discernment can only thrive in an
environment of doctrinal absolutes.
Listen to Titus 1:9, "Holding fast...there's that same term
about holding to what is good...holding fast the faithful word which is
in accordance with the teaching, the doctrine, holding fast your
doctrine so that you can exhort with sound doctrine and refute those who
contradict." We're in the refutation business as well as the
affirmation business. When elders were to be selected, they were to have
the ability to refute error.
So, the second cause, I think, is this...this failure to be
antithetical, this rejection of absolutes which ties in to the first one. Let me give you a third and we'll probably stop with this one. This
is very important. Another contributor to this lack of discernment, and
I'm going to follow this through, and when we're done I'm going to teach
you how to be a discerning person. The third one, the third cause in
this lack of discernment is a preoccupation, listen carefully, a
preoccupation with image and influence as the key to evangelization. A
preoccupation with image and influence as the key to evangelization.
In other words, you hear this all the time, that if we are going to
win the world we have to win their favor. The church has got to become a
beloved agency. They've got to like us. So we don't want to fight for
truth. We don't want to be too doctrinal. We don't want to offend
anybody because image and influence is the key to evangelization.
I recently saw a brand new book in a bookstore, in fact this week,
called User Friendly Churches. Big selling book. Now what we're supposed
to do is market ourselves so that we become a friendly place. Well, we
certainly want to be loving and gracious but one sermon would convince
most people that we're not all about just being friendly, we're all
about preaching truth. The man who once took his stand for truth and
preached it is now asked to take his seat. He's a problem. We don't
fight for truth, we don't boldly proclaim truth because we're afraid we
might offend an unbeliever. And after all, if anybody is going to get
evangelized, it's going to be because they find us a friendly place, a
nice place. We want to be popular with the world because we believe
that's the key to evangelization. Imagine that. We are in to this whole
deal that the image of the church and its non-threatening structure is
the key to evangelization. This kind of movement believes that the
church will offend unbelievers if it preaches sin or hell or repentance
or the cross and it will lose its prestige. So the new trend is for the
church to build an image of love and care and being very nice and make
everybody comfortable and make everybody happy and entertain the
unbeliever and make sure they're never offended and make sure they are
very very comfortable. And the bottom line is, if they like us they'll
like Jesus. That's the bottom line.
Influence and image is much more important than Scripture. I don't
believe the church gathers for any other reason than to be edified. We
come together to worship God as believers and for you to be edified. And
we scatter to evangelize. We go out to evangelize. And you want to be as
loving and kind and gracious as you can be in presenting the truth but
you don't mitigate the truth because you believe influence and image is
going to evangelize anybody.
This kind of trend, by the way, beloved, and I'm going to be pretty
pointed in a minute, has been coming for a long time...a long time. I
remember as a college student hearing about the Billy Graham Crusade in
the city of New York. And there was a tremendous cry among evangelicals
across this country that something...something new had happened because
for the first time in evangelistic history in America, liberals, people
who were not evangelical fundamental Christians were invited to
cooperate in that meeting in 1955. An ecumenical evangelism was born,
that is the kind of evangelism that says we want everybody to come so
we'll get the Catholics and we'll get the liberals and we'll get the
neo-orthodox and the people who don't believe the Bible and we'll get
them all together and we'll get them all involved. Carl Henry who has
been a tremendous contributor to assessing the church says if you look
at the early years of the Billy Graham organization, you will find that
its overall policy was to attain prestige and influence for
evangelicals. To do this there had to be a successful image and that
would not be possible, they believed, unless every effort was made to
avoid any division with those who didn't believe the Bible. That was a
new day...1955, brand new day. The Graham organization, wrote Henry, was
not ready to forfeit dialogue with the ecumenical leaders and churches
because it feared a loss of influence. That showed up in Fuller
Seminary. Edward John Carnell who was on the faculty at Fuller said,
"We...and I'm quoting him...we need prestige desperately," end
quote. And they went after it. And they wanted faculty members who got
their degrees from the elite eastern liberal institutions. I remember
one faculty member saying in a meeting when I was over there at Fuller
Seminary, "If I have to publicly and outwardly identify with
evangelicals, forget it." They desperately wanted the prestige.
They desperately wanted the association with the influential eastern
elite, and even the dead Germans who spawned liberalism.
And when the church began to say we're going to have to have
influence, and we're going to have to have prestige, and we're going to
have to have popularity, we're going to have to be intellectually
accepted, and we're going to have to embrace these people and show that
we really like them and they're going to have to like us a lot if
they're ever going to like our Jesus, it made a major turn...a major
turn. Paul the Apostle said we are the scum, we are the dregs, we are
the off-scouring of the world. Jesus said they hated Me, they'll hate
you. But we've gotten sophisticated. This view believes that our
prestige, our influence and our popularity is what gets people to the
place where they'll believe the gospel. How absolutely wrong that is.
How absolutely wrong. Real spiritual men fight and real spiritual men
pay the price for bold clear loving proclamation of the truth. What I'm
seeing happen I could call the feminization of the church...so soft.
Returning to Martyn Lloyd-Jones biography for a moment and thinking
about it. I spent a day with his family last summer, Patricia and I did.
His grandson, Christopher Catherwood(?) has written much about him that
is very helpful to me. One perspective of this godliest of men was the
sad fact that he was perceived in a negative way. It's amazing in the
light of his life, J.I. Packer said he was the godliest man he ever met,
but he was perceived in a negative way even though he was a virtuous
man. And the reason he was perceived negatively was because he was so
theological, he was so antithetical and he believed that evangelization
occurred under the powerful preaching of the truth, not by establishing
prestige and image. And I want to share an excerpt from the book again
that talks about this issue. Christopher Catherwood wrote, "As
years went by, Martyn Lloyd- Jones acquired an unfortunate negative
image in the eyes of many. The explanation of this is bound to be one of
the main areas of controversy in any interpretation of his life. In his
own mind the issue came down to differing attitudes to Scripture. He saw
that the elements of warning and of opposition to error were essential
parts of any true commitment to the Bible and therefore believed that
the disapproval of polemics, debate, in the Christian church is a very
serious matter. Accordingly he expected no approval from those who
accepted the prevailing attitude which put love first and treated
arguments over doctrine as unChristian. It was that very attitude he
believed which was responsible for the removal of the note of authority
from the pulpit. The charge of dogmatism and the dislike of reproof and
correction were criticisms of Scripture itself. One of the main
characteristics of Martyn Lloyd-Jones' ministry was thus both an offense
to those who were supporters of the spirit of the modern pulpit and an
inspiration to those who believed that a return to authority in
preaching was a great need. The latter were profoundly thankful for the
very thing which the first group had found faulty. Dr.
Lloyd-Jones...listen to this...had a penetrating and courageous
diagnosis of the present situation. This is an age of appeasement, not
in the political and international sense, but in the realm of Christian
affairs and of the church. Winston Churchill is now acclaimed and almost
idolized. In the thirties he was severely criticized as an impossible
person because he knew what he believed, he believed it and he caused
disturbance by criticizing the policy of appeasement...so it is today.
Strong men who stand by their principles are today regarded as being
difficult, self-assertive and non-cooperative," end quote.
How is it that the church can ever come to the point where it
succumbs to that? Where it believes that influence, prestige and image
are more effective, more effective in fulfilling the calling to preach
the gospel than the preaching of God's truth? I tell you, it shocks me
to find how there's an increasing number of people who believe that
faithfulness to the church by the Word of God, in other words, building
the church according to Scripture, it seems to me there's an increasing
number of people who don't see that as an issue. That's not how to get
the job done. They don't believe anymore that if you're faithful to the
truth the Holy Spirit will bless you and honor you however small and
despised your work might be. You've got to become marketed in an image
that is acceptable. Beloved, we're an offense, we know that. We are an
offense. We are an offense. Every time we get in the newspapers again,
I'm reminded, we are an offense, we're a lot more offensive than they
know, they're just not around here enough. If they came every week they
could write an article on how offensive we are. We are an offense to all
in error. We are an offense to all in rejection of the truth. We are an
offense to all those who refuse Jesus Christ. We are an offense to all
those who live in sin and to mitigate that offense is ridiculous because
it is precisely what the Holy Spirit is intending to produce. He wants
to convict because conviction and confrontation in conviction leads to
salvation. Those offended should be offended.
Well, we have a lack of discernment in the church in spite of what
Paul told us in this text because of our weak theology, our failure to
be antithetical and a preoccupation with the worldly image. This is how
it is out there and you can thank the Lord that God by His Spirit and
His grace alone has led this church down a path where we want to have a
strong theology, we want to be antithetical and be black and white and
absolute about truth and we're not preoccupied with our worldly image,
not at all. We're preoccupied with speaking the truth in love. We'll be
as gracious and loving and gentle as we can be, but we will not mitigate
on the message.
Well, I have a few more for next time. Let's bow in prayer.
Father, we hear the simple straight-forward words of Paul but examine
everything...everything. Hold fast to what is good, abstain from every
form of evil. Lord, make us discerning people. We want always to speak
the truth in love. We want to have the gentleness and compassion of
Christ. But we must speak the truth. We must have convictions, clear
theology. We must be antithetical to error and sin. And we must never
believe that the church's power is in its image rather than in its
message. We must never believe that we could accomplish with the
performing arts what can only be accomplished with the spoken proclaimed
and written Word. Father, help us to be discerning and if in a fog
indeed, to look back and see the causes of that fog and ask that Your
Spirit would give us the capability to make choices that we might true
what is true and right, that we know your blessing and give You glory.
These things we ask humbly in Christ's name. Amen.